The Sunday Times is today reporting that:-

“Police sniffer dogs will have to wear bootees when searching the homes of Muslims so as not to cause offence.”

We all know that “causing offense” is one of the most vicious hate crimes that can be perpetrated today so I suppose there is much to be said for this but surely at the same time police have a duty not to offend other religions; after all, showing favour to just one religion would surely be a hate crime in itself?

Well, as a Pastafarian and as a true believer in the rule of law and supporter of British fair-mindedness I will now be able sleep at night knowing that if my own home were to be searched, perhaps as a result of my straying from the Noodly Path, members of our great British police force would have the decency and sensitivity to dress in full Pirate garb (including black eye patches) so as not to offend The Flying Spaghetti Monster thus forcing Him to disintegrate their mortal souls with His Noodly Appendage.

In addition, I’m sure that if police wanted to search my home on September 19th (which is a very special day to us Pastafarians) then they would respectfully wait until September 20th to do it.

The term “Operation Mindfuck” was first coined in a series of books known as “The Illuminatus Trilogy” by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. A fictional plot contrived by a nevertheless genuine cult, “The Discordians“, it aimed to create chaos in order to increase the rate of social change and thus create a new world from the ashes of the destruction.

When I read “The Illuminati Trilogy” I thought that it was a far fetched story and never imagined that twenty years later its ideas would really be helping to mold the reality in which I would be living.

The present government policy on sex education is dictated to teachers in a 2000 document called “Sex and Relationship Education Guidance” and it can be downloaded in PDF format from the website of The Department for Children, Schools and Families, a government department set up in 2007. Although the word “Guidance” is in the title as well as at the top right of the cover (presumably for emphasis) it is a document that sets out the framework for a legal requirement. This is therefore a new definition of the the word “guidance” of which I was not previously aware (see Newspeak).

The BBC News reports this morning that “Sex and Relationship Education” is being proposed by two leading charities for children as young as four years old as part of PSHE (AKA: Personal, Social and Health Education). PSHE is a “subject” being taught to our school children as a part of a curriculum that would be unrecognisable to anyone over the age of 35.

Along with PSHE kids are now being taught the following subjects:-

• Gender Awareness
• Global Environmental Studies
• Other cultures and Anti-Racism
• Scientific Literacy

The last subject shows that sciences have been merged into one subject that teaches mostly about environmental issues but other traditional subjects are virtually unrecognisable because they have been hijacked by Cultural Marxists to promote their own “politically correct” causes. The children of today are steered towards learning with particular vocational paths in mind; they are “nurtured” (AKA: brainwashed) by the State so that they will conform and so that the State’s collective power increases from the grass roots up.

[For an outline of the subjects taught in Britain's schools today, CLICK HERE]

Languages do still form a part of the curriculum but increasingly fewer students are managing to complete language studies. Why?

“Part of the reason that so many young people decide to drop languages is that they are presented as a functional skill with the assumed practical purpose of getting a job.”
(CIVITAS - The Institute for the Study of Civil Society)

So what is the main mechanism responsible for the change? It is something called “Outcome-Based Learning” and at its core is the promotion of collectivism and denial of individualism.

A Traditional Education was one where time was pre-determined and achievement varied. Kids would spend so long in school, were tested at various stages throughout their education and a varying level of achievement was reached by each individual. Under this system children were taught things by adults who had in turn been taught things themselves. It was the teaching of a cumulative knowledge enhanced, revised and passed on from generation to generation.

Outcome-Based Learning is entirely different. With Outcome-Based Learning achievement is pre-determined and time is variable. Kids do not “learn” from teachers but instead the teachers are there merely a “guides” to steer children towards “learning” from themselves. All the children eventually get “A” grades (because any other outcome would be “unfair”) but the time taken to achieve an “A” grade changes with each pupil. In other words each pupil’s “progress” is tracked and either they make the grade or they don’t. If they don’t make the grade then they are remediated (i.e. they start again) and they keep on going round in circles until they do. The whole concept of Outcome-Based Learning ensures that everybody makes the grade and that the education of each child eventually has the same outcome.

One could be forgiven for saying “So what?” but the sinister nature of Outcome-Based Education only becomes clear when we examine the goals that are being met. So what are the goals expected to be met by our children today?

The first thing to realise is that these goals are populist and as such they are in a constant state of flux. Today’s goals will always be different from tomorrow’s since they are being set by leaders of commerce and industry rather than members of academia. Teachers must work hand in hand with government to achieve social goals rather than academic ones. This mechanism doesn’t just change what children learn in maths and the sciences. It has an effect on social subjects too and subjects that traditionally stimulated creativity now have another purpose.

“A pupil can go through the school system and get the top marks in English and English Literature without knowing that Spenser, Milton or Pope ever existed, but having studied Carol Ann Duffy twice, both at GCSE and A-level. With all due respect to Carol Ann Duffy, she is on the syllabus, not because she is a greater poet than Milton, but because she is more “relevant”, dealing as she does with very contemporary issues such as disaffected learners.”
(CIVITAS - The Institute for the Study of Civil Society)

Teaching kids about seeing things from others’ points of view is important but removing the creative process altogether and denying them the chance to formulate their own opinions is tantamount to brainwashing. In combination with the “remedial” system whereby a pupil just goes round in circles until he or she does understand for example the “reasons” for the existence of “disaffected learners” is just the wrong way to go about educating. Often there is no right or wrong answer but if a child gives what the State considers to be the “wrong” answer then the pupil is forced to slide back down a snake and roll the dice again. Only when the pupil gives the “right” answer does he have permission to climb up the ladder.

It is easy to see the attraction of Outcome-Based Learning for the State. It means that with the help of government statisticians and forecasters the educational system becomes as streamlined as possible so that tomorrow’s workforce will make efficient provisions for the Mother State and hence the whole Collective.

Surely an education should be about more than creating a society that functions as a giant mass production system. How can there be room in such a world for the innovations that come with lateral thinking and where will tomorrow’s Einsteins come from if future generations are all “manufactured” to the same specifications?

There has been much said recently about information retained by the government and large corporations being used in ways that were never originally intended. Some call it “data slide” and it is surely quite right that we should be concerned about this happening. How would you feel for example if you were denied an anti-cholesterol drug based on an examination of your weekly food shop or if something as simple as ordering a pizza became this complicated?

Would you be worried if you knew that the government was actively seeking out ways to simplify “data slide” or make its implementation more efficient? Well it seems that is exactly what they in the process of doing. With assurances that “no personal data will be used” (where have we heard that one before) and in true New Labour style the government has even announced a competition to find the best way of doing it.

From a story from the 2nd of July 2008 on the BBC News website we are told:

“The UK government has launched a competition to find innovative ways of using the masses of data it collects.
It is hoping to find new uses for public information in the areas of criminal justice, health and education. The Power of Information Taskforce - headed by cabinet office minister Tom Watson - is offering a £20,000 prize fund for the best ideas.
To help with the task, the government is opening up gigabytes of information from a variety of sources.
This includes mapping information from the Ordnance Survey, medical information from the NHS , neighbourhood statistics from the Office for National Statistics and a carbon calculator from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).”

Now I don’t know about you but I find this quite alarming.

OK - now this is getting ridiculous!

After my post a few days ago on “The War on Photography” I was motivated to go out and take a few shots of my local area in North London and so yesterday I took my camera into work with me and took shots along the way. Perspective shots of avenues with lovely bushy trees going off into the distance and some general “street photography”.

I was tempted to take shots from the top of the W7 bus especially after going over the brow of Muswell Hill; there is a fantastic view of East London from there. I didn’t take any shots from the bus however as I was sure that if I was stopped by the authorities I would want to be 100% legal to have confidence on my side, even if it is taking pics of the outside of the bus. I wasn’t going to have some prat telling me that I was actually photographing the glass in the bus window! (technically to take shots of any public transport vehicle one has to have permission from the transport company).

I snapped off a few shots of people walking around in the high street when I arrived and actually got quite into trying to capture the spirit of Crouch End. As I started taking pictures of the bottom end of the high street however I noticed a PP (AKA “Plastic Plod”, AKA Community Support Officer) taking an interest in me. I felt stupid however and thought that paranoia must have set in, so I moved further up the high street towards the top end, nearer the Clock Tower.

As I started shooting the Clock Tower the PP positioned herself behind a wall behind me. I was only vaguely aware of her having followed me as I was trying to stay relaxed and wanted to appear not to have noticed her. She was watching me alright though and I waited for the traffic to move off from the lights in order to include a good perspective view of Tottenham Lane. When the traffic started off from the lights I moved back “to get a wider shot” although actually to include her in the picture and as I snapped my shutter she started to move off to the left and stopped talking into her radio.

“Had she really been talking into that radio?” I asked myself as I arrived home from work that evening, too tired to upload the photos from my camera to one of my desktop PCs. I would have to wait until the evening of the next day to find out. What do you think?

I then totally forgot about her. She hadn’t approached me (although now I think that if she had been with a colleague she might very well have done so). I was hungry at that point and nipped into the Tesco Express to pick up some dry bits of chicken tika for my lunch.

It must be said at this point that I was wearing an M&S bright yellow polo shirt so I stood out.

When I left the Tesco I had little time for my lunch and so headed back to the GPs practice in which I work for some lunch. It was only when I got to the Clock Tower and was crossing the road that I noticed a helicopter right above me; it was flying from side to side but it’s median point seemed to be right overhead. I tried to see the markings on it but couldn’t. It was too high.

I started walking the 200 yards or so back to the practice and as it seemed to stay with me all the way, I put down by camera bag and yummy tika on the side of the pavement and started taking shots of the helicopter.

As anyone knows who has tried to take pictures of a small flying object at relatively high altitude, it is difficult to get a good shot. All one usually ends up with is a lot of sky and a small bee. But…

I have a 10.9 optical zoom on my camera and I used the full extent of it to get the shots. It was still a small bee but I knew that I was shooting RAW and that when I got home I would be able to do something about that.

Above is 10.9x optical zoom (with part of a building in shot to give an idea of distance).

Below is the blow-up from a similar RAW picture.

OK - please remember that the original was originally a RAW shot at 10.9x zoom and that the picture above has been cropped in Lightroom and that it is a low-res version for the net (the definition on the hi-res tiff is much sharper). Imagine how that helicopter would have looked if I had shot it with a small compact camera with no optical zoom. It says something for my camera doesn’t it. But it also shows a giant police-cam pointed right in my direction. Why?

As the Flying Spaghetti Monster is my witness, that thing followed me right back to the surgery in which I work. I could hear it up there even after I had gone in and was eating my lunch.

OK. There are a number of “realities” here. Maybe the whole thing was a coincidence but I really don’t think so. I have never seen such a helicopter above Crouch End, let alone above me and seeming to take an interest in me. I go out for lunch three times a week in Crouch End and have never noticed anything like it.Is it really a coincidence that on the day I am taking pictures (which I’ve never done before) and on the day a PP took such an interest in me this helicopter manifests itself into my universe? Maybe the PP fancied me. Maybe the helicoper was there for some other reason. I don’t know.

You decide.

Watching “Question Time” this week I heard one of the panelists say the following in regards to MPs’ abuse of expense allowances:-

“… they [MPs] are increasingly making laws which are making illegal things that should just be governed by decent behaviour and this is a case of something that should just be about decent behaviour and if they are abusing the system then I think that they should pay it back because we live in a ducking and diving society quite often and it makes me very ill that people don’t have a very clear idea about what is “decent behaviour”…”

OK - fair enough, but who made this comment?

It was Grayson Perry who is thought by some to be a great artist (although others believe him to be just a mediocre potter).

Where’s the catch? Well, Mr Perry made this statement dressed as his alter-ego “Claire”.

According to Wikipedia:-

“In 2005 Perry starred in an hour-long television documentary produced by Twofour shown on Channel 4 called Why Men Wear Frocks in which he examines transvestism and masculinity at the start of the 21st century. Perry talks about his own life as a transvestite and the effect it has had on him and his family.”

My flabber couldn’t have been more ghasted! Not because of the “life-style choices” (AKA: Perversions) that Mr Perry exhibits but because a serious political debating programme such as “Question Time” should have invited him onto the show in the first place.

Leaving aside the question of whether bunging bits of clay onto a wheel is a suitable qualification for being able to provide what should be specialist comment on the leading mainstream political programme of the week, by inviting him in a capacity that has nothing to do with his cross-dressing or artworks and by allowing him to appear in a puffy-sleeved “Dorothy” dress with a wig and full make-up, the BBC is normalising what the majority consider to be indecent behaviour.

To add insult to injury we are forced to listen to Mr Perry talking about “Decent Behaviour”. We must be grateful that at least he himself is facing up to reality as is made evident by his own admission within his statement, that he considers himself to be “very ill”. The World is certainly getting curiouser and curiouser.

Has it really come to this?

An eight year old in a Swedish school has sparked controversy by failing to give invites for his birthday party to two of his classmates.

His teacher apparently spotted that two pupils had not been included and promptly confiscated all the invites from those who had been invited. Now the school claims that it had a right to do so because he “violated the childrens’ rights. It has since complained to the Swedish Parliament about the boy.

You couldn’t find a better example of Cultural Marxism if you tried. The founders of The Frankfurt School must be laughing in their graves right now.

The following video is told from the American perspective but its premise applies equally if not more to the UK. Watching it will eat up 22 minutes of your life but if you really want to know where all the “political correctness” we live with today came from, the “red pill” option is worth it.

.

So now you know.

So here I am, sitting in my own back garden in North London. It is a beautiful sunny evening and all was quiet and peaceful until I heard a helicopter a few minutes ago. Never mind, I thought, such is the price one pays for living in the modern world. The constant aircraft noise is something I’ve got used to in the 40 years that I’ve lived in London and unless one happens to be flying particularly low I’ve learned to de-select the drone.

The noise that I heard a few minutes ago however was much louder than normal. Then I saw it, a helicopter travelling very slowly and pulling a huge advertising flag after it. What the hell was this monstrosity doing flying over my back garden?

I tried to see what the flag said but it was wafting about in the wind so much that I couldn’t. This was insult to injury! I couldn’t even see what was being advertised and so I’m now not even able to complain to the company doing the advertising.

Police and air-ambulances are at least flying about for good reasons. This thing wasn’t. There really is no need for it and considering that helicopters are amongst the most dangerous and high maintenance vehicles around, I don’t see advertising as being important enough to warrant their use. This particular one was making its way over Cherry Tree Woods where dozens of parents would be sitting out with their picnic hampers enjoying the early evening breeze after a tough day with kids who will have “wound down” enough by now to be manageable.

Firstly there is the unnecessary noise. We are subjected to so much advertising today that I would have thought that the corporations would have had the decency to have left the skies alone. Then again, maybe this betrays my naivety because now that I come to think of it the bastards would charge us for the air we breathe if they could.

Secondly there is the unnecessary risk to people on the ground. Big objects flying about in the sky have been known to come down after all.

Aerial advertising is wholly uncalled for but I’m sure that those corporate bitches will keep doing it until someone gets killed. There are many people out there complaining about it like I am at the moment. No one has listened to them so why should anyone listen to me?

First, a little light-hearted look at Community Support (although I’m sure there’s a serious message somewhere).

Now for the scary bits.

This poor bloke seems to have been given a rough time from a couple of CSPOs in a car. (I didn’t know that they went around in cars). It seems that the vehicle was unmarked and so I’m wondering if it was privately owned. Maybe the two plastic plods had just come off-duty after a particularly dull day and wanted to get their kicks by intimidating someone - so still in uniform they decided to abuse their authority. If the motorist had been guilty of and dangerous driving then surely that would have been a job for the traffic police.

Old news to many but blogable nevertheless is the story of the two American evangelists who were just trying to spread “the gospel” on the streets of Manchester. Now I’m no fan of any false religion that denies the omnipotence of The Flying Spaghetti Monster but surely they have a right to their own opinion without being told to go away or face a beating by CSPOs who were supposed to have been working for the benefit of the public. For these PPs to have spouted off at them for committing the “crime” of being the same nationality as George Bush is appalling. To abuse their authority by having cited their own personal point of view seems to me to have been wholly unprofessional and inappropriate.

It is worth asking this question:- When such over zealous behaviour is encountered and reported by members of the public, does it get documented, are those responsible reprimanded and is there a mechanism to report the outcome to the public? If any or none of these are the case then will we not see increasing resentment from the public of the type seen by some civilians towards the Home Guard? In World War II estimates of the number of civilians killed mistakenly by the LDV (Local Defense Volunteers) and later by the Home Guard vary but are estimated to be at least 2,000. We do know that 1,600 members of both these forces were killed in training by “friendly fire”.

Ha ha ha ha.

I’m laughing into my coffee this morning.

Listening to the BBC News I hear that there are still tickets left for Glastonbury! Maybe people are starting to realise what a complete rip-off the whole thing has become. It’s also possible that some of the smaller and friendlier festivals have been noticed.

I made the yearly pilgrimage religiously up until about fifteen years ago and then left the flock because I started to feel that I was being manipulated. The atmosphere had changed and the last straw was when a friend tried to persuade me to go and said “…don’t worry, we will be in the ’secure’ area”. It turned out that this is an area reserved for the traders which is situated a behind razor-wire fence. I promptly thought “bugger that” and left.

A few years later the festival found its way to national TV coverage and then when news readers started trying to portray themselves as “hip” by wading around the festival in their Barbour wellies with microphones in their hands I knew that I had made the right decision.

So Babylon is beginning to bite back now Michael. Loads of your outrageously priced tickets have remained unsold and you are set to lose money. Good. Serves you bloody well right for becoming such a big head.

Since 9/11 (and even from before that time) people in the UK have seen a steady growth of harassment by the authorities towards amateur photographers legitimately and legally going about their business and it is obvious that a number of factors have combined to create what we now have; a climate of misunderstanding.

There are no laws that expressly forbid photography in a public place and yet we have seen an increasing number of incidents where individuals with authority membership have taken it upon themselves to stop amateur photographers from taking photographs. We have also seen special laws designed to combat terrorism being used in ways that were never intended when those laws were made.

Just over a year ago I had an unsettling experience when I was taking photographs of my local area. I knew that speed bumps were soon to be placed on the road that I live on and was taking photos of it so that I could have a personal record of the “before and after” effect. There is a railway bridge at the top of my road with a side track leading down to a place where underground trains are parked for the night. It is gated and at that time one security guard watched over the entrance from inside a small sentry-type box at the side of the track; his wages have since been saved and he has been replaced with a CCTV camera.

After taking half a dozen or so shots, I went to pick up some milk from my local shop and upon my return I saw three security guards running around at the top of my road with walkie-talkies in their hands. As I crossed over the main road and started walking back down the hill towards my house I was stopped by two of them; the third was soon to join us. They were polite but a bit out of breath and looked very concerned. One of them asked me if I would mind telling them what I had been doing. I replied politely that I had been taking photos and then they asked me my reasons for doing so. I told them my reasons but politely refused to give them my name and address when their questioning continued. I said that I had not committed any crime and that I didn’t believe that they had the authority to question me further. At this point one of them moved away and started talking on his walkie-talkie. Still talking with the two others, I was unable to hear what he was saying.

Having been politely helpful throughout the confrontation but still refusing to give my name and address, I then started walking away and back towards my house. It was not until I had returned home however that I noticed that I had been followed by two other security guards in an unmarked car as well as another on a motorcycle. They remained parked outside my house chatting with each other for a few minutes and then departed leaving me with the unsettling feeling that a record had been made somewhere of my interest in amateur photography.

I later asked myself if I was still living in a free country or whether the land that I loved so much was turning into the likes of the old East Germany. My interrogators were just security guards after all; not Police or Community Support Officers. Had their interest in me been justified? As far as I know there are no state secrets at the top of my road; just some railway sidings.

Since that time I’ve certainly felt more inhibited as an amateur photographer. The experience was food for thought and it opened my eyes to a certain amount of self-censorship that I had already begun to practice. Ten years ago I would load up two SLR bodies with film and specifically go out to get candid shots of two main subjects. I photographed old people sitting on park benches and attempted to capture the sense of reflection on lives that had been lived. I’d attempt to get pictures of wrinkled faces looking into empty space, perhaps remembering more active times in their lives. I’d also try to capture the innocence of childhood and the magical imagination of children by taking pictures of kids playing with ordinary things in commonplace settings; perhaps using the trees to take refuge from make-believe gunfire or firing off bows and arrows at each other. Would I or more importantly could I go out now to try and capture images like these?

I think that several factors have combined to make today’s amateur photographers more suspect. In 1997 Princess Diana was killed while being pursued by photographers. At about the same time we were all becoming more aware of the reality of those “dirty old men” our parents’ had warned us about; pedophiles. Then of course came 9/11 followed by Madrid and then 7/7. All of these things have combined to make a climate of fear that is disproportionate to the reality. Yes, there are real dangers but as someone who lived trough the weekly IRA bombings of the 1970s (and as someone who witnessed the news of two of my school mates’ fathers being killed (at prep and public school) by terrorists (1 & 2) - some of whom are now free men  I’m amazed by the freedoms that have steadily been eroded in the last ten years. We now seem to be living in an Orwellian society where anything that isn’t expressly permitted is automatically forbidden and what bothers me more than anything is that even when something is not forbidden by law, it is effectively prohibited by what we used to call “jumped up little Hitlers in uniform”, Policemen, Community Support Officers and security guards who don’t even seem to know what the laws are but take it upon themselves to abuse their authority and/or inflate their own egos in misguided attempts or deliberate power-displays in order to “protect the public interest”.

It is shocking to see an increasing number of innocent people being harassed by these figures of authority and being stopped from going about their legitimate business. Some of the concern about pictures of children being taken in undoubtedly justified but I suspect that most of it isn’t. When schools ban parents from taking pictures and videos of their own children performing in school plays then we ought to be worried.

Taking pictures of certain airbases and other “sensitive” government installations has always been forbidden but under the new terrorism laws there seems to be no definition of what sensitive buildings may be. Is Brent Cross Shopping Centre a “sensitive” place? It could certainly be considered a potential terrorist target but surely any public place where people congregate could also be considered “sensitive” and having airbases with signs up forbidding photography is different from allowing minor officials to define sensitive areas. After all, some CPSOs might decide that a town’s high street is “sensitive”…

Even shop security guards could take it upon themselves to “protect the public”…

and where is the line to be drawn? Is one’s own back garden “sensitive”?

As a country we need to stop and take stock of the situation before it is too late. Detention without trial, surveillance of innocent people and  the abolition of Magna Carta are all things we should be very worried about. The government has been careless with peoples’ personal information and sensitive security information vital to the defence of the nation has been left on trains by absent minded ministers and security “experts”. The most worrying thing is that our Orwellian database state has no brakes. With technological progress we have seen things once considered impossible in a free country become commonplace. ID cards, CCTV wired for two-way sound and biometric fingerprinting for all. Where will it all end? Swedish authorities passed laws last week to enable their authorities to listen-in on all forms of communications between its peoples regardless of whether or not any crimes have been committed and without applying to any judges for permission. How long will it be before we see the same thing happening here.

I have a great deal of respect for the police who do an amazingly difficult job. I have less respect for CPSOs who are cheap alternatives given almost enough training to boil a kettle. My respect dwindles however when I see real policemen behaving like their TV (”The Bill”) counterparts. We are seeing increasing numbers of our police force abusing their position and it turns my stomach whenever I see it. Every abuse of authority (whether it be an off-duty constable trying to see how fast his Porsche will go or some trigger-happy Dirty Harry fan pulling his trigger too soon and too much) damages the reputation of thousands of others who do uphold the laws of the land.

Undoubtedly laws have to exist to combat terrorism but it seems that whenever “specific” laws have been made they have been abused. Witness the extradition of the Natwest Three or the shooting of an innocent Brazilian man on the London Underground, not to mention quashing of protest in the “square mile” of the City of London. Surely any responsible government would take stock of the situation and make absolutely sure that those laws were used responsibly. If this is not done then people will come to resent the authority that constantly cries “wolf” whenever a pussy cat walks by.