adambowie.com

Category: Politics

  • Voyeur – Tracking You In London

    A nice piece of street art spotted in Soho. It links to www.neoexternalism.co.uk.

  • Alcohol And The Media

    There’s a widely reported story today about a report examining how alcohol is covered in the media. In particular the perceived glamourisation of excessive drinking by radio DJs such as Chris Moyles. You can read coverage at the BBC News site, and in all the papers (here are links to the story in The Guardian…

  • Gustav Coverage

    I don’t mean to underplay the potentially serious nature of Hurricane Gustav when it hits the US coastline, probably tomorrow. But Bush and Cheney not going to the Republican convention this week, answers a lot of the questions that Carl Hiaasen raises in his column this week. It’s a good get out. Bush gets criticised…

  • Convention Season

    In the US it’s convention season. That is to say that the Democrats and Republicans are holding their quadrennial events. In the UK we have party conferences, but really the two cannot be compared. In the UK we have access to all this malarkey on BBC Parliament which nightly shows two hours of live coverage…

  • Olympic Golds and Looking Forward To 2012

    This morning saw three more British golds, particularly a pair in the sprints at the Velodrome with Victoria Pendleton and Chris Hoy winning. But I’m now beginning to get concerned about the logisitics of 2012. No, I’m not thinking about how we can possibly top the Chinese opening ceremony, it’s more to do with the…

  • Copyright Again

    Now it seems that the EU has decided that artists and performers should get 95 years’ copyright on their performances following an enormous amount of lobbying on behalf of the record industry (which also does quite nicely out of this). This is a massive mistake, and let’s hope that the UK government doesn’t meekly fall…

  • I Think I’m Being Watched

    You’d think that this was an incredibly ironic statement on our society, but if it is, it must have passed TFL by. You can see the original work here – it’s part of an exhibition called About 60 Miles of Beautiful Views by Anna Barriball. The phrases in the series come from the back of…

  • Just Because I’m Taking Photos Does Not Make Me A Terrorist

    A good piece on the BBC News website regarding the “guilty until proven innocent” attitude that seems to be taken more and more with regard to taking photos in public. (Via Boing Boing) Austin Mitchell MP is also leading the charge against this nonsense. And obviously, those CCTV cameras are always on you!

  • The Free Tibet Protest (AKA The Olympic Torch Relay)

    So I thought that I’d head down to see the Olympic Torch Relay – the multi-country tour of the Olympic torch as it wends it way towards Beijing for this summer’s Olympic Games. It was obvious from the outset that following recent increased violence inside Tibet, that this was also going to be used to…

  • BBC iPlayer Now Streaming

    The Beeb has updated the iPlayer to incorporate Flash streaming versions of programmes as well as the Windows XP only downloads previously available. This makes programme watching available to Mac and Linux users which is good news. It also means that I can link to a programme like last nights Can Gerry Robinson Fix The…

  • The Perils of Email

    On his newsblog, Nick Robinson links to the emails and letters sent between the NAO and HMRC. As Robinson says: The key thing we learn comes not from the detail but the tone of all the exchanges. They demonstrate little concern from either the NAO or HMRC about data protection. The NAO wants, it would…

  • That Lost Database

    I must admit that to a certain extent, I’m revelling in the discomfort that Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling are currently experiencing in regard to the appalling loss of personal data that the HMRC has been responsible for. However, I’m still somewhat disappointed that the press and media in general are concentrating more on the…

  • Oop. Sorry. Lost It.

    I really shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. HM Revenue and Customs has lost 25m Child Benefit records. They were sent on CDs by unrecorded delivery. They didn’t reach their destination. This, don’t forget, is the government that wants to build a national ID database. They simply cannot be trusted with our data. Aside from…