Portents and omens

I was at St Silas' Church in Lozell's Road for our ward committee meeting last night. I raised the matter of the Victoria Jubilee Allotments S106A. 'We all know what this is about. So when?" The best I could get was an assurance that the Constituency Planning Officer would report to the next meeting on 21 January. I'm thinking. This evening, after I'd sent an e-mail to Kay Alexander about 'the flytipping menace', Ashley Blake of Midlands Today came round to do a one minute live slot (on YouTube) about the photos I've attracted to Flickr. On the OB camera was Ellen who remembered me from editing the film Nick Booth conceived and directed in 2000 on The Victoria Jubilee Allotments - Losing the Plot. She was interested in the waiting land. Adrian Goldberg has done a piece in The Stirrer and promises to stay on the case. Cllr Kim Brom (link no longer active) said after the meeting she'd press Alan Orr for news about the S106A over the next few days. Note: Alan Orr's letter of 30 April '08 :

The Agreement relates to the Heads of Terms as approved by the Development Control Committee on 13th May 2004 re application: N/01514/03/FUL . The main Heads were:

a). Provision of 80 allotments on site and their transfer to the City Council. b). Provision of a tertiary (toddlers) play area and associated open space (on site), and the payment of £25,000 in lieu of the provision of a secondary ( for older children) play area. c). A financial contribution of £150,800 towards open space improvements off-site. d). The provision of two playing pitches and a cricket square, a pavilion changing room facility and car parking, and their transfer to the City Council. e). The provision of 24 affordable housing units on site. The S106 Agreement was completed on 23rd August, 2004, executing the above Heads of Terms. To date, no changes to the Agreement have been made. In respect of its implementation, in terms of the affordable housing units, to my knowledge these have been provided. Indeed, I understand that as the developer (initially Westbury Homes, and now Charles Church) entered into a partnership with more than one Registered Social Landlord, the provision of affordable housing on the site is in excess of that required under the S106 Agreement which will have been to the benefit of meeting local need for such housing. In respect of the other provisions of the Agreement, as is the common practice their delivery is related to a number of 'triggers' depending on the stage of the overall development or the housing element of the development. Thus, the provision of the allotments and the sports pitches is related to the occupation of 40 open market dwellings on the new housing development (the 40 dwellings does not include the 24 affordable housing units). Currently, the sports pitches have been laid out but their transfer to the City awaits the completion of the changing room pavilion and associated car park.

* * * * Had my third lesson at Apple in the Bullring this morning with a different Ash. This time I was introduced to MPEG Streamclip, free software to convert a variety of video files and learn about the H264 codec. My grasp with these ways of making films is steadily increasing. We even discussed the idea of a website with text and streamed videos to help explore dynamic at the political-management interface. I haven't got a graphics chip on my MacBook so I need to do film processing - except for tiny clips on the big computer at home. * * * * Karen Van Hoff and her daughters came for the weekend and we talked, looked over Richard's website (see also) for her, played karaoke via the laptop, sang along with Leonard Cohen, especially Democracy, over and over went in and out of town and laughed a lot and got the good news that my brother George's first pub stand-up routine in London had gone really well and he'll send me a film of the evening. * * * * A flower delivery came yesterday for Linda from Saga's Customer Services thanking her for pointing out an error in the pensions advice from Paul Lewis on page 174 of their November Issue

'If you delay claiming your pension, either to get increments or the lump sum, there is a risk you may never live to enjoy it. If you die before you claim your pension, no-one can claim the lump sum.'

We rechecked it with the Pensions Service - phone answered quickly and explanations given clearly. Yes, that advice is incorrect. Sighs of relief, but Lin took the extra trouble of phoning Saga. They too were good on phone answering and I thought the flowers, a few days later, a really nice gesture for Lin taking the trouble to suggest others might be confused - especially as Lewis is so good on money advice - self described as a capitalist-socialist. * * * * Watching the 44th creating his government is just fascinating - for an academic to watch the process of government formation in a democracy; for any citizens anywhere, including me, to learn what follows the vote, especially with this US transition phenomenon of two months between election and inauguration. Who will be Obama's Treasury Secretary? Who determines the terms of any GM bail-out - the incumbent or the elect? Has it ever been possible for so many outside the Beltway to watch this process in a time so freighted with portents and omens. * * * * The news from north Corfu involving famous names is eclipsing a more significant and dramatic sequence of events further south in Corfu's village of Lefkimi - a series of escalating confrontations between riot police and villagers protesting against a large landfill site of dubious legality. Today's Kathimerini reports a repeat - yesterday morning - of protests at Lefkimi against the landfill being built there. Police and locals fought earlier in the year; in January, May (see also) and June. This week a police car was burned and village protestors injured in dawn encounters with the police. There were barricades, fireworks and stones and over forty arrested. News is sporadic. This is Brabant for the BBC in October 08. This is an angry Brit in June 08 on a Greek blog continuing to the present and this is from Earth First - an international environmental group supporting direct actions. The online Greek-English newspaper, Corfu Today, 22 November 08, posted on HolidayCorfu:

In Prosecutor, led the noon march in which 46 people were arrested in yesterday's incidents in Lefkimmi. Among the categories are facing serious injury when police, insulting and threatening a continuation. Trial date was set for Monday but is expected to set new trial date because of the planned mobilization of lawyers and occupy the courts. The incidents yesterday in Lefkimmi resulted in burning of a patrol car, and rolled, but many arrest and outbursts are the result of tension once again created yesterday outside the site of the landfill. About 150 residents of the area react to the creation of the landfill, by decision of the Steering Committee set up yesterday morning proceeded to capture the road leading to the creation of installation. The tension culminated on 3 after noon when, during the shift change of SWAT men to supervise the area since early last summer, created incidents which culminated when some of pooled burned down the police jeep. A few minutes later, the arrested 46 were brought in. Safety for participating in the episodes, episodes from the slightly injured one of the demonstrators, who moved to the Center for Health Lefkimi to him first aid. The seizure of the road ended late last night.

* * * At Frederick Adam's beautifully restored neo-classical house at Kanoni (the one with the silly name 'Mon Repos') there's an exhibition of old black and white photos of Corfu by John Davenport Shakespear, an army officer, living with his family before its union with Greece in 1862. Wounded in the Crimean War, he returned to England, married Louisa Caroline Sayer, They moved to Corfu where their daughter was born and met Edward Lear, from whom Shakespear bought the photographic equipment he used to make this permanent exhibition.

Watching PMQ and George Soros

"...if we do the wrong things, it will be more painful; if we do the right things, it will be less painful."

Government and the crisis - a sober American discussion between Bill Moyers and George Soros (transcript extract):

BILL MOYERS:So let's think about those people down at Neely's Barbecue going home tonight having heard you. What they've heard you say is the system is really disfunctioning right now. It's out of control. Nobody's in charge. They've heard you express your own worry that in the next three months it could get much, much worse. And they've heard you say that you don't see much good news immediately on the horizon. So let's leave them something to think about as they go home. Let them go home and say, "Mr. Soros said here are three things we can do, simply." One?

GEORGE SOROS:Well, deal with the mortgage problem. Reduce foreclosures. Recapitalize the banks. And then work on a better world order where we work together to resolve problems that confront humanity like global warming. And I think that dealing with global warming will require a lot of investment. You see, for the last 25 years the world economy, the motor of the world economy that has been driving it was consumption by the American consumer who has been spending more than he has been saving, all right? Than he's been producing. So that motor is now switched off. It's finished. It's run out of — can't continue. You need a new motor. And we have a big problem. Global warming. It requires big investment. And that could be the motor of the world economy in the years to come.

BILL MOYERS:Putting more money in, building infrastructure, converting to green technology.

GEORGE SOROS:Instead of consuming, building an electricity grid, saving on energy, rewiring the houses, adjusting your lifestyle where energy has got to cost more until it you introduce those new things. So it will be painful. But at least we will survive and not cook.

* * * [Back to the future - Obama's 'rescue plan' 13 Oct '08] * * * We've switched - from lecture and discussion at Hornton Grange at the University Conference Park with my Japanese students and friend and colleague Chris Game - to watching the BBC live feed from the House of Commons - a wide screen image, with good sound, of PMQ - Prime Minister's Questions. (YouTube extract) It's an especially useful example of being able to watching significant political moments, as the House considers the government's decision to spend even more money than was approved by Congress on Friday, in the form of a 'rescue package' - £250 billion in the hope of improving the 'general liquidity' - about £4000 per person across the UK - to give a feel for scale. In the States it was $70 billion (£394 billion) for a population of 301 million. Technology having become more versatile in the last year, we watched the Diet of Japan and other political forums - as three years ago I sat at the kitchen table in Birmingham watching Katrina - in repetitive stills - hitting the coast of New Orleans, ravaging the city and the lives of those unable to drive to safety, marking the start of European familiarity with the phrase 'sub-prime lending'. [Back to the future 2/11/08: on this matter of using WiFi in the classroom I know it's only the start of something quite different whose form is still unclear 'where the teacher can respond quickly and flexibly to students by tapping into a rich repository of learning gadgets relevant to the class and the syllabus to build a classroom experience that changes as fast as the students inquisitive minds.'] * * * Last night I had supper at Henry's in St.Pauls Square with my old friends, Kim and Tanya. It was so good to be together again after so long a break in our 8 or 9 month reunions. This time it was over a year so we had lots of chat about families, friends and the state of the world as it seemed from our homes and our different institutions, Birmingham University, Cranfield University Business School and private consultancy. "This is such a mess. It's so depressing. People are getting hurt or expecting to be. I cheered myself" said K " by thinking this may at least kick us into saving the globe" "And it may stop banks forcing loans down my kids' eager throats and then short-selling their debt to your eager kids as real money" I said. Didn't someone say "We're leaving Planet Finance: returning to Planet Earth; Wall Street becoming like Venice from the 19th century on - primarily for tourists...." * * * A rather astonishing and quite pleasing thing has happened. Out of the blue someone I've not met for half a century has e-mailed me suggesting a visit next month to the grounds of Ashfold School - where I was between 1949 and 1954, from age 7 to 12. Shortly after I left, the school moved to a place near Aylesbury. The old school was demolished. I've not been much interested in school reunions, but I know I'm not gold glazing my childhood in affirming that Ashfold was a happy place - liberal without ideology. I'm sneezing from dust raised sifting through unvisited files, digging out black and white images long unseen. The astonishing thing about the part of my brain that stores my past is that so much has lain there, as untapped as my old school photos. Unlike ones of me as a baby or toddler - in the secret garden of infancy - these photos record a time when I was poised between haloed clouds and common day. While the photos are faded, memories surface with astounding freshness, in colour with echoes; faces, words including school slang, (a sacred stubby - a pencil sharpened, at both ends, to the last syllable of available lead, respecting habits of scarcity from the war) events, personalities and now, in a trickle, stories of long ago - as others begin to chat via e-mail with images shared on the web about our forthcoming get-together. In the school photo from 1953 I'm eighth from the right, third row up. * * * Pushbikes arranged a public meeting with Birmingham City Council on 9th October at the Birmingham and Midland Institute to discuss cycling issues. I couldn't go. The photo shows the start of what became a standing room only event. Centre foreground is Howard Boyd, who's quietly done more for cycling in this city than anyone, and whose research - 12 years ago - into the health benefits of cycling got me taking up cycle commuting, and - last October - to divorcing my car. * * * The court case over the deaths in October 2006 of two children at the Louis Corcyra Hotel is due in November on the island. There's another worrying piece of news from the 'freelance one man band' Brabant on local concern about the EU subsidised landfill at Lefkimi - in this case a film on YouTube about its effect on the local water table.

From Corfu Malcolm Brabant reports: Environmental campaigners -Spiros Pantis, taverna owner, Dimitris Fanariotis, Eco Corfu and Stephanos Kouris, Environmentalist - on Corfu accuse the EU of wasting subsidies on a new rubbish dump that, they allege, fails to meet waste disposal standards laid down by Brussels. The campaigners claim the landfill site, near one of Corfu's most popular tourist beaches, is going to cause serious pollution because Brussels does not monitor how its money is spent.