April | 2015 | Steve Woods

Ashton Gate station petition

14/04/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

One transport project which is moving closer to realisation in the Bristol area – and is popular with locals too – is the reopening to passenger traffic of the railway line to Portishead (which is currently only used by freight trains to and from Portbury Dock. Ed.).

The project will entail building a new station at Portishead and reopening Pill station.

However, there’s also a petition to rally support for the building of a new station at Ashton Gate to replace the now-vanished original Ashton Gate station.

The site of the original Ashton Gate station. Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The petition reads as follows.

We are local residents and organisations (big and small) in BS3 campaigning for a new railway station in Ashton Gate on the Portishead branch line.

We want a new station opening in 2019 with two trains an hour in both directions – towards Portishead and Temple Meads.

In 2019 the Portishead rail line will be upgraded for new passenger services linking Bristol, Bath, Avonmouth and Portishead. New stations are being built at Pill and Portishead. Four trains an hour will pass through Ashton Gate.

A station linked into the local bus network would encourage visits to the area and promote the local economy. We believe trains must stop at Ashton Gate to allow residents, workers and visitors to come and go easily and comfortably whilst decreasing the strain on the heavily-used local road network.

A new station would bring substantial, long-term benefits to South West Bristol. Local people are increasingly turning to public transport and more rail services help to promote the city as a European Green Capital.

Sign the petition.
There, their, they’re Bristol Post

12/04/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

The minions of the Bristol Post, possibly under strain from toiling away at the Temple Way Ministry of Truth looking for the city’s blandest news content, seem to have particular difficulty with homophones, i.e. words that are pronounced the same as another word but differ in meaning and may differ in spelling.

This was amply illustrated below by a photo gallery posted this morning on the local organ’s website.

Should the Post’s ‘journalists’ wish to cure themselves of acute homophonia, help is at hand up at Bristol University.

Its website has a handy grammar tutorial page for the illiterati on the simple differences between there, their and they’re.

To quote from that page

There is the place, i.e. not here.

Their is the possessive form indicating belonging to them.

They’re is the contracted form of “they are”.

Have you got that, Bristol Post, if so Bristol University’s site also has a useful exercise to check whether the lesson has sunk in.
Lampeter: fears of council divide over language

09/04/2015 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

Lampeter Town Council could have translation at its council meetings to allow more Welsh to be spoken after the mayor said she felt “guilty” that the council doesn’t use enough Welsh, according to a report in Cambrian News Online.

Mayor Cllr. Elsie Dafis is reported as saying that her term in that office had brought home to her the fact that the council could do more to promote the Welsh language and stated that the town council must do more, starting by enabling more Welsh to be spoken at council meetings.

Nevertheless, Cllr. Ellis’ idea did not find favour with a colleague – Cllr. Kistiah Ramaya. The latter had concerns that the move could divide the council and was concerned that having translation could sideline councillors who didn’t speak Welsh and might even dissuade non-Welsh speakers from joining the council.

Cllr. Ellis informed her colleagues that council could have a translator and equipment at their meetings for under £1,000 a year. However, Cllr. Ramaya said that while he supported the Welsh language, he felt that discussions could move on before non-Welsh speakers had received the translation of comments made.

Lampeter is the smallest university town in the UK, with a population including the university of some 4,000 people.

According to Wikipedia, Welsh is no longer taught at undergraduate level at the University of Wales in Lampeter.

Hat tip: Yelena McCafferty.
LibreOffice native language projects

08/04/2015 Steve WoodsLanguage, Open Source, Open Standards, Tech

Although the majority of the development for LibreOffice, the world’s most popular free and open source office productivity suite, takes place in English, this doesn’t preclude non-English speakers from being involved.

There’s always help needed on the localisation project, which relies on the work of the Native Language projects.

Native Language projects are worldwide communities of LibreOffice volunteers contributing to the project in their own, native language. The Native Language projects contribute everything from localisation, testing of the localised versions of LibreOffice, users support, local promotion, documentation and much more.

A list of available Native Language projects is posted on the Native Language projects home page and visitors are also encouraged to establish new Native Language communities.
The birds are nesting; time to fell more trees

08/04/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities, Politics

The weather is warming up, summer migrant birds are returning to the UK to breed in the trees, shrubs and other traditional nesting sites; and as regular as clockwork, Bristol City Council sends workmen out to destroy those same traditional nesting sites, as witnessed this morning at the junction of Lawrence Hill and Croydon Street.

During the few minutes it took me to buy a tin of coffee up the road, the two trunks seen standing in the photo had been felled, joining a previously felled companion. All three felled were – as far as I could see – healthy specimens.

As regards protecting breeding birds and mitigating harm during the breeding season, Natural England’s advice (PDF, p. 4) is as follows:

The main mitigation route to reduce the likelihood of harm to breeding birds is to undertake clearance or destruction of any vegetation or structure which may be used as a breeding site outside the bird breeding season when breeding birds are unlikely to be present (based upon habitat features) or where survey work has confirmed their absence. Avoidance of such features is best achieved through timing of work (see below) but may also be possible by temporarily preventing birds from using these features, before they start doing so. Examples include physical exclusion (preventing access to potential nest sites) or use of visual or audible deterrents. Such measures should only be undertaken following the advice of a suitably experienced ecologist, taking account of relevant legislation and welfare considerations.

The bird breeding season will be dependent upon weather conditions and will vary from year to year, but in general is the period between early March and late August.

Natural England acts as an adviser to central government on the natural environment, providing practical science-based advice on how best to safeguard England’s natural wealth for the benefit of all.

By carrying out such works at this time of year, Bristol City Council is not only disregarding the advice given by Natural England, but also its own advice which it gives to community groups (PDF) carrying out conservation works involving trees. Page 2 of this document clearly states in relation to coppicing that this should be carried out between October and February. In the exact words of the guidance (page 2), this

Should be done during the dormant season and outside the bird nesting season.

In another city council document (PDF) entitled Tree Management Standards, page 4 clearly states:

Nesting birds are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act (and other related wildlife law).

All this is happening in the year when Bristol is allegedly European Green Capital. However, the city council seems more interested in press stunts than in sound environmental practice that protects the environment and wildlife.

Readers with long-term memories may remember that scrub clearance took place last year nearby at Lawrence Hill roundabout (posts passim).
Has Mammon discovered irony?

06/04/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Media, Oddities

Spotted this morning in the bowels of Bristol’s tawdry temple to consumerism, Cabot Circus.

In the words – and with the intonation – of the former editor of the Daily Telegraph, Bill Deedes: “Shome mishtake shurely?”

No further comment is necessary.
Courts interpreting fiasco rumbles on… expensively

05/04/2015 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

Although it may not be hitting the headlines in the way it was a couple of years ago, Capita Translation & Interpreting’s cack-handed execution of its interpreting contract for courts and tribunals with the Ministry of Justice continues to waste public money, as well as delay and deny justice (contrary to one of the few clauses of Magna Carta still in effect. Ed.), as evidenced by this cutting from the latest edition of Private Eye.

Hat tip: Sarrf London.
Calibre 2.23 released

05/04/2015 Steve WoodsLanguage, Open Source, Tech
Softpedia reports that the Calibre eBook reader, editor and library management package has been updated to version 2.23.

The full list of changes since the last release can be seen in the changelog.

One of the major changes is the updating of the Qt cross-platform application framework bundled with Calibre to 5.4.1. This fixes various minor bugs, most notably improving text rendering on machines running Linux.

Furthermore, the new release of Calibre now allows users to add an empty ebook in various formats to existing book records. What is more, the ability to create additional empty formats to the ‘Add empty book’ command has been implemented.

Calibre 2.23 is available for download for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.

If you’re on a Linux machine like me, your easiest way to update Calibre to the latest version is via the command line by running the following command as root:
```
wget -nv -O- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kovidgoyal/calibre/master/setup/linux-installer.py | sudo python -c "import sys; main=lambda:sys.stderr.write('Download failed\n'); exec(sys.stdin.read()); main()"
```
This sets the process in motion and you’ll have the new Calibre installed in no time.
Plastic peregrine

05/04/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities, Social Media, Tech

Peregrine falcon
Yesterday it was a joy to discover that the peregrine falcons which nested on the old generator house by St Philip’s Bridge were nesting there again (posts passim). Talking to a gentleman on the bridge who’d been watching them through binoculars, it would appear our urban peregrines are also adapting to our urban environment and are also learning to hunt after sunset using the city’s streetlighting.

A couple of weeks ago, my attention was caught by peregrine calls when walking down Redcliff Street. They weren’t emanating from a falcon at all, but it’s taken your correspondent until now to track down their source. Looking up at the roof of the old, soon to be redeveloped Patterson’s building, I saw the sight below.

Note the electric wire and turntable. It’s a plastic peregrine which looks very realistic to the local gull population. It rotates on its turntable, flaps its wings and also calls like a real falcon from time to time. It won’t fool me again.

Update 09/04/15: Today I discovered the Redcliff Street plastic peregrine has a brother not far away in the city. He’s called Brian, lives on the roof of At-Bristol and has a Twitter account.
Non-English and non-Welsh speakers to be charged premium rate by DVLA

04/04/2015 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

In what appears to be a last-ditch swipe against foreigners, motorists who don’t speak either English or Welsh and want to use DVLA’s translation service will pick up the costs under changes announced on 25th March 2015 (the day before Parliament was prorogued. Ed.) by Transport Minister Baroness Kramer.

Picture courtesy of Holger Ellgaard and Wikimedia Commons
The changes, which take effect from 29th April 2015, mean callers who request a translation service will now pay for the cost of the call. Currently, the cost of providing a translation service is covered by DVLA.

Transport Minister Baroness Kramer said: “The vast majority of calls to DVLA are either free or charged at local rate. However, it is only right that the cost of using translation services is paid for by those who use them. The change will help encourage individuals who don’t speak English very well to learn the language and also help when accessing government services.”

Under the changes, those who need a translation service will need to call the premium rate numbers, which will be publicised by DVLA closer to the implementation date of 29th April.

The numbers will be available from 8am to 7pm Monday to Friday and from 8am to 2pm on Saturday. Calling these telephone numbers will cost £1.03 per minute from a landline and may cost considerably more from a mobile.

All other public calls to DVLA contact centre are either free or charged at local rate.

Hat tip: Yelena McCafferty.

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