August 2005 Archives

So said senior conservative councillor Keith Myers-Hewitt to a librarian upon entering a library in Stowmarket in August 2004. The librarian in question said he knew it was a reference to race "because as he spoke, Cllr Myers-Hewitt glanced at two black gentleman sitting near an oriental couple who were using the library's computer.

This all went to a tribunal recently, and although they ruled that Keith Myers-Hewitt did in fact make an offensive remark about 'darkies', he did not bring his office into disrepute. One presumes this is because it isn't considered disreputable for his office to be racist.

Of course, he trots out the usual excuses, for example:

1) He claimed he did not speak to [the librarian] but said he had made a remark to his wife which could have been mistaken for the alleged comments. (I welcome examples of possible remarks which could have misconstrued, e.g. it's dark in this library, looks like they have a couple of chinks in the electrical wiring", -Ed)

2) He was ill at the time, and has just been released from hospital. Of course, I sympathise entirely with this, I often find after an extended illness I go round being offensive to coloured gentlemen.

3) The remarks were out of character.

4) He claimed he was a sci-fi fan, and that the words "people from the dark side" were not a racial slur, but a reference to the evil side of the 'force' famous for turning Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader. Quite, and I'm sure he thought we were all born yesterday. Fortunately the tribunal investigating the claims said the evidence of Keith Myers-Hewitt and his wife had been implausible. That's "bullshit" in laymans terms.

Sadly, this kind of behaviour from conservative councillors is not a one off. Two of the editors on this site were most suprised to hear a conservative councillor from Cambridgeshire tell us once that he was applying to become a Justice of the Peace, and I quote "God help any women and niggers that come up before me". Fortunately he didn't get selected for the post. There are plenty of other examples of such comments.

Anyway, these people do nothing for the cause of the conservative party in this country, and as a member of the conservatives since my youth, this kind of behaviour really irks me, and is obviously one of the reasons why the tory's have such a poor reputation amongst an extended part of this countries population.

Still, we can hope that as bigoted racist dinosaurs like this die out, these kinds of attitudes will die with them.

References:

http://www.buryfreepress.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=843&ArticleID=1064832 - 'Racist' remark was sci-fi quote
http://www.buryfreepress.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=843&ArticleID=1127711 - No action over 'Darkie' remark

Upon realising that "3 Iron" was by the same director who made the enchanting "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring!" I decided that it was excuse enough to see Ki-duk Kim's most recent international offering.

Based in what I presume is Seoul, South Korea, a young man rides around on a surprisingly new BMW motorbike. Not surprising in itself until you swiftly discover that he does not seem to have a home to go to. By using the age old "leaving fliers on peoples' front door" trick he establishes which houses are unoccupied and then enters, staying in each place for as long as he is able. This dubious practice is moralised by his lack of theft from the homes he stays in, not only that he makes repairs and only eats scraps from the fridge.

Such is his life until one day he breaks into a house, seemingly devoid of life, only to later discover a traumatised wife hiding there - awaiting her cruel husbands return. He rescues her and eventually she willingly partakes of his unconventional lifestyle.

This is a slow moving but involving film, in much the same way as Kim's previously mentioned work is. Essentially investigating the relationship between only two people. This time in a modern setting rather than a floating temple! Kim, who also wrote the screenplay for this film, saved himself rather a lot of time by making the two main characters silent, despite the best efforts of the supporting characters to attempt to make them talk!

Simply shot and with a elements of the supernatural creeping in (as in SSAWS) this is an intriguing little film at less than 90 minutes long. I shall endeavor to watch Hwal when it is released in this country.

**** (out of 5)

After hours of stife, hunting cyberspace for the origins of the infamous "LemonParty", we at nofear now can provide you with the original video, or film, of the scene. Click the link to see LemonParty in all its glory. Beware the footage is of an extremely fruity nature!

In a curious twist the rapper/producer Puff Daddy Combs, has announced his latest name change. Our spies on the entertainment circuits told us that Puffy said in a press conference:

I've changed my name several times now, a bit like Coca Cola tried to become Coke for a while and Prince became squiggle when he became upset with his recording contract. I'm changing my name in support of the growing number of travellers in Europe, people without borders, who deserve the same protection as any other minority group should in a civilised and equal society. From now all references to me either verbal or printed should call me "Diddy".

The announcement was greeted with rapturous applause from the press, later Diddy announced that his right hand men would also be changing their names to Pikey and Gypo respectively.

It irks me everytime I hear Brazilians whining about how trigger-happy, corrupt and incompetent our police force is, in the continuing aftermath of the Jean Charles de Menezes shooting.

Perhaps this vocal section of Brazilian society is too young to remember the three convictions of police officers in Rio de Janeiro in 1996 for the shooting dead of 8 street children (although they were aiming at about 70) outside a church in the city. Unlike our armed police officers, who thought they were dealing with a suspected suicide bomber, these noble policemen thought that the gunning down of children was suitable retribution for having kids throw stones at a police car.

Furthermore, those engaged in premature speculation should await the report of the IPCC before making any further claims. The case is presently 'sub judice' and we should all wait for a verdict before deciding whether certain police officers should be arrested for murder, the police commissioner was trying to bury the investigation (hardly by writing an open letter to the home secretary and permanent secretary to the home office), or the survellance tapes were wiped.

Sadly I feel that rather than involving some kind of coverup, this shooting is simply another example of what Dennis Norden would succintly refer to as 'cockup before conspiracy'.

It is being widely reported today that Robert Moog, inventor of the Moog Synthesiser has died of brain cancer. I'm quite at suprised at the coverage this news has been getting, given that it was over 40 years that he created the electronic synthesiser.

What I suspect is not as well know is that Moog is pronounced Moe-guh, not moog. I'm sure the constant mispronunciation of his name must have grated somewhat. Still, the price of fame.

Secondly, I very much doubt many people have even heard of the theremin, let alone known that this is what Bob Moog was cutting his teeth on in the early 60's before moving onto the keyboard synth. The theremin, as those who know, will be aware is a 'hands free' musical instrument with two antenna which is based on the principle of heterodyning oscillators (of course i skip over the technicalities, do a google search if you're interested). Incidently, if you like theremin music, or are interested in learning more, there is a wonderful podcast available at spellbound.purplenote.com. This week's podcast has a splendid rendition of Ave Maria. Well worth a listen.

I suspect most people of my age (30ish) are only familiar with the name moog from the early 80's television series of Willo the Wisp. Older people may recall Wendy Carlos' lively synth renditions of various classical pieces for the film Clockwork Orange.

Still, enjoy your time up there in Moog Heaven Bob, and don't let Evil Edna take advantage of you.

[Update 24-Aug-2005 - I was confused after writing this article to read in the Daily Telegraph obituary column for Robert Moog that they referred to Wendy Carlos as Walter Carlos. It would appear she had a sex change in the early 1970's. So there you go, another moog (musician) related fact ]

More chavvy behaviour to warn you regular readers of Nofear. Recently on a late night train from London to Cambridge a few cracks were heard from the outside of the train. I happened to notice that we had just passed Meldreth station, close to the "chav village" of Melbourn.

Some sticky stuff was sliding down the side of the train, so after unboarding I examined the exterior surfaces. As expected the livery of the train was covered in raw egg, presumably thrown by the idiotic chavvy layabouts who lurk at the station later on at night. Our advice on the railway is shut the nearside windows of your carriage lest you be pelted by the lower class scum who cannot cope with people having lives of their own!

As a celebration of Cambridge being named the region's "gay capital" our artistic consultant, Mr Ongar, has kindly drawn up the special 2005 pink picnic edition of the Cambridge Pub Map.

This Saturday, on August the 20th, all Cambridge pubs will change their names for one day to reflect the pink diversity that is Cambridge. To help you find your way on the "Big Gay Pub Crawl", meet at the Jesus Green toilets at 6.30pm, we've posted the map under the thumbnail above. Think PINK!

Our foreign Correspondent, Chenapan, recounts his Expedia nightmare as a warning to any would-be traveller.

I booked a flight through Expedia.cunts.uk last month to attend a conference in Washington in November. Little did I know that their website interface sucks if you are running Internet Explorer on a MacIntosh computer. The calendor box for the month of November opened up, I clicked the "11th" and lo-and-behold, their ning-nong Java applet records it as a "18th". Same story for the return flight. Of course, it appears in tiny letters at the time and I did not notice.
Only after a colleague booked his flight for the same conference did I realise my mistake. All my flight details were off by a week. You'd think a reputable company such as Expedia would be willing to amend my flight details? Not so, after several calls to their (delocalised) Indian call-centre, speaking to a robot-sounding woman reciting the rules and regulations attached to my "restricted fare ticket", and a vehement email complaint to their customer service department, this is the reply I got today:

>Thank you for your recent email regarding the change of your booking.

>The rules and restrictions of your booking are as follow:

>Outbound changes Not Permitted.
>Inbound changes permitted at a charge of £125.00 per person per change.
>Ticket is Non Refundable.

>The customer care desk are aware that you are wanting to change the dates but >due to the restrictive rules and restrictions of the ticket purchased,
>Expedia.co.uk cannot amend the outbound flight.

>The customer care desk apologise if this is not the response you were looking
>for.

So the flight that I booked with these retards was a total waste of over 300 pounds. They don't even address the issue of their defective website interface. Pass the word around.

The flyer says:

Fat Tire Bike Tours
See More. Less Effort. More Fun.

So behold my first sight of the revolutionary Segway Scooter, the device that was going to transform the streets of large cities into rapidly moving blocks of people whizzing hither and thither.

The social implications of the Segway were going to be far reaching. No longer would city transport be slow and encroaching, getting about on two wheels was to no longer be confined to those willing - or able - to cycle. I vaguely remember the same being said about the Sinclair C5.

So, click to see the Segway Scooter in action!