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  • On the buses: greenwash

    Perhaps the most visible aspect of Bristol’s year as European Green Capital is the year’s sponsorship by local transport monopolists FirstGroup.

    As a result, there have been some strange coloured – one might almost say greenwashed – buses thundering through this proud and ancient city, as captured below.

    FirstGroup bus in full greenwash livery
    FirstGroup bus in full greenwash livery

    However, FirstBus has also been able to buy a ‘greenwash-lite‘ version for its sponsorship that consists of the Bristol Green Capital logo slapped on top of its usual ‘Barbie‘ livery.
    The flanks of the Barabie double-deckers now have the Bristol Green Capital logo splashed across their sides, whilst the single-deckers have a smaller version the logo above the driver’s cab.

    First bus double-decker featuring Bristol Green Capital logo
    Barbie meets greenwash

    Whilst public transport is a greener option than using a private motor car, emissions from the diesel fuel on which buses run.

    According to Wikipedia:

    It is reported that emissions from diesel vehicles are significantly more harmful than those from petrol ones.Diesel exhaust contains toxic air contaminants and is listed as carcinogen for humans by the IARC (part of the World Health Organization of the United Nations) in group 1. Diesel exhaust contains fine particles which are harmful. Diesel exhaust pollution was thought to account for around one quarter of the pollution in the air in previous decades, and a high share of sickness caused by automotive pollution.

    Any resemblance between the full greenwash livery and the British Racing Green livery of the old Bristol Omnibus Company is purely coincidental.

    Whatever would Blakey say? 😉

  • Bristol has a fly-tipping crisis, not a PR crisis

    Do you know how many press and PR officers are employed by Bristol City Council?

    Go on, have a guess!

    If you didn’t know, the latest available figure is 43, according to this Press Gazette article from April 2015 on its the Freedom of Information Act request which asked 435 city, borough and district councils across the UK how many people they employ in their communications departments.

    Bristol City Council actually has the equal third largest press and PR staff of all local authorities in the UK, a position it shares with Sheffield City Council:

    • Manchester City Council: 77
    • Leeds City Council: 47
    • Bristol City Council: 43
    • Sheffield City Council: 43
    • Glasgow City Council: 41

    Remember that figure of 43. Now try and guess how many ‘streetscene‘ (litter & fly-tipping) enforcement officers Bristol City Council employs. The people that deal with prosecuting the abuse of communal bins by traders (posts passim) and the like.

    Fly-tipped trade and other waste in Pennywell Road, Easton, earlier this week
    Fly-tipped trade and other waste in Pennywell Road, Easton, earlier this week

    The answer is 6. That’s equivalent to one council enforcement officer for over 71,600 residents.

    The answer was revealed in a FoI request I submitted back in November 2014, as per the transcript below.

    Kindly disclose the number of streetscene enforcement officers employed by Bristol City Council during all financial years since April 2010 to the present day.

    There were seven streetscene enforcement officer [sic] employed between April 2010 and March 2014. From April 2014 until present day there are six.

    That’s right! Six enforcement officers for the whole of Bristol. However, there’s enough grot and bad waste management behaviour just in Easton and Lawrence Hill wards alone to keep all 6 of those officers permanently occupied.

    Returning to the number of officers per head of population outlined above, Bristol City Council has one press/PR wonk per 1,000 inhabitants.

    Anyone would think the local authority was suffering a public relations crisis.

  • Coming soon: the Greenwash Capital Awards

    Awards recognising local people and businesses which support the environment have been launched by the Bristol Post, the rag of that name reports on its website today.

    The article continues that the Bristol Post Green Capital Awards will celebrate those people who are making our city a greener, healthier, happier place to live and work.

    The article does quote the chairman of Bristol 2015 – a company established by the city council to run this year-long green-tinged public relations exercise – admitting that Green Capital has not reached all parts of Bristol.

    That being so, I’d like to see an alternative set of awards that won’t go to the usual suspects amongst Bristol’s great and good and their pet vanity projects. Let’s call them the Greenwash Capital Awards.

    Some of these can be awarded already.

    For starters, there’s the Green Transport Award, for which there can only be one set of winners, namely the selfish individuals who all drive their vehicles containing just one person into the city from the surrounding areas of South Gloucestershire, North Somerset and Bath & North East Somerset, causing congestion, pollution and getting in the way of local bus services.

    Selfish commuters clogging Bristol's M32 inbound
    Selfish commuters clogging Bristol’s M32 inbound

    Then there’s the Green Waste Management Award. This prize should I believe be split between the citizens of Bristol who managed to generate 18% more waste for landfill last year, Bristol City Council, which seems to be labouring under the delusion that exporting what would go to landfill to Sweden for incineration in power stations is a good idea and finally the people – both traders and others – who think that the BS5 postcode area is the natural home for the city’s fly-tipping.

    fly-tipping on Stapleton Road
    One of the regular but ephemeral arts installations on Stapleton Road; is it critiquing the throwaway society?

    How about the Habitat and Biodiversity Destruction Award? There’s a clear winner for this one: the four councils making up the West of England Partnership and their ludicrous transport white elephant, the Metrobus scheme.

    Finally, for the time being there’s the Green Waste of Money Award. That goes to all the money wasted to date on so-called ‘arts’ projects as part of Green Capital.

    If you can think of any further worthy recipients of a Greenwash Capital Award, please add them in the comments below.

  • Don’t let the Snoopers’ Charter bounce back

    online spying imageIn the Queen’s Speech the Government announced it’s going to introduce an Investigatory Powers Bill (posts passim). This is the new Snoopers’ Charter and will more than likely comprise even greater powers for the police and GCHQ to spy on British citizens. (Will the Government’s longer term aim of a British Bill of Rights comprise the right to be spied upon by the State? Ed.)

    This is the fifth time a UK Government has tried to bring in a Snoopers’ Charter. The Home Office wants to give the police and intelligence services even more powers to look at what Brits do and who they talk to.

    Do Britons really want to live in a country where all their communications are monitored by the State?

    Precise details of the Home Office’s plans but there might be an attack on the encryption technology that helps keep our emails and online banking and shopping secure.

    The police and intelligence services should concentrate on targeting people suspected of crimes instead of collecting everyone’s data all of the time.

    It’s unclear whether the Home Office’s collect-it-all approach is effective or giving taxpayers value for money. The perpetrators of heinous crimes like the murder of Lee Rigby and the Charlie Hebdo attack were already known to the British and French intelligence services respectively, but those services decided to stop monitoring them due to lack of resources.

    ORG logoThe Open Rights Group (ORG) has set up a petition to campaign against the revived Snoopers’ Charter.

    The text of the petition reads:

    We demand an end to indiscriminate retention, collection and analysis of everyone’s Internet communications, regardless of whether they are suspected of a crime.

    We want the police and intelligence agencies to have powers that are effective and genuinely protect our privacy and freedom of speech.

    Sign the petition.

    The ORG will also be organising a lobby day soon so supporters can go to Parliament, get a briefing about the Bill and then talk to their MPs.

    Reposted from Bristol Wireless, with minor re-editing.

  • Staffordshire Sexagenarian Sibling Saunter

    It’s your ‘umble scribe’s 60th birthday this week and to mark this occasion, Hilary and Andrew, my siblings conspired to take me away from Bristol for the weekend. When we were sorting out our late mother’s estate, we all expressed a wish for a sibling saunter in Staffordshire and this proved the ideal excuse.

    Andrew and Hilary made the arrangements, whilst I researched walks and gave them 2 options – one involving a circular walk round the Head of Trent (the upper reaches of the Trent before it enters the city of Stoke on Trent. Ed.), the other a walk round the site of the Battle of Blore Heath, one of the first major battles of the Wars of the Roses, which was fought on 23rd September 1459.

    In the end the Blore Heath won and found the assembled siblings outside the Loggerheads Hotel in Loggerheads ready to start walking the excellent route provided by the Blore Heath website. The route comprises a circuit of the main battlefield down its eastern flank along what would have been the Lancastrian line, then down through the valley which saw the most fighting. There is then a walk through woodland and up towards the quiet village of Mucklestone, where it is said that Queen Margaret watched the battle unfold.

    Battle of Blore Heath – a summary

    The battle occurred when the Yorkist force based at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire (led by the Earl of Salisbury) needed to link up with the main Yorkist army at Ludlow Castle in Shropshire. As Salisbury marched south-west through the north Midlands, Queen Margaret ordered Lord Audley to intercept them.

    Audley chose the barren heathland of Blore Heath to set up an ambush. On the morning of 23rd September 1459 (Saint Thecla’s day), a force of some 10,000 men took up a defensive position behind a ‘great hedge’ on the south-western edge of Blore Heath facing the direction of Newcastle-under-Lyme to the north-east, the direction from which Salisbury was approaching.

    Yorkist scouts spotted Lancastrian banners over the top of the ‘great hedge’ and immediately warned Salisbury. As they emerged from the woodland, the Yorkist force of some 5,000 men realised that a much larger enemy force was awaiting their arrival. Salisbury, instead of disbanding or withdrawing his army, immediately arranged his troops into battle order, just out of range of the Lancastrian archers. To secure his right flank, he arranged the supply wagons in a defensive laager, a circular formation to provide cover to the men. Fearing a rout, Yorkist soldiers are reported to have kissed the ground beneath them, supposing that this would be the ground on which they would meet their deaths.

    The two armies were separated by about 300 metres of barren heathland. A steep-sided, wide and fast-flowing brook – the Wemberton or Hemp Mill Brook – ran between them. The brook made Audley’s position seemingly impenetrable.

    Initially, both leaders sought unsuccessfully to parley in an attempt to avoid bloodshed. In keeping with many late medieval battles, the conflict opened with an archery duel between the longbows of both armies. At Blore Heath this proved inconclusive due to the distance between the two sides.

    Salisbury, aware that any attack across the brook would be suicidal, employed a ruse to encourage the enemy to attack him. He withdrew some of his middle order just far enough that the Lancastrians believed them to be retreating. The Lancastrians launched a cavalry charge. After they had committed themselves, Salisbury ordered his men to turn back and catch the Lancastrians as they attempted to cross the brook. It is possible that the order for this Lancastrian charge was not given by Audley but it had the effect of turning the balance in favour of Salisbury. The charge resulted in heavy casualties for the Lancastrians.

    The Lancastrians withdrew, and then made a second assault, possibly attempting to rescue casualties. This second attack was more successful with many Lancastrians crossing the brook. This led to a period of intense fighting in which Audley himself was killed, possibly by Sir Roger Kynaston of Myddle and Hordley.

    The death of Audley meant that Lancastrian command fell to the second-in-command, Lord Dudley, who ordered an attack on foot with some 4,000 men. As this attack also failed, some 500 Lancastrians joined the enemy and began attacking their own side. At this point, all remaining Lancastrian resistance collapsed and the Yorkists had only to advance to complete the rout.

    The rout continued through the night, with the Yorkists pursuing the fleeing enemy for miles across the countryside. Salisbury employed a local friar to remain on Blore Heath throughout the night and to discharge a cannon periodically in order to deceive any Lancastrians nearby into believing that the fight was continuing.

    At least 2,000 Lancastrians were killed, with the Yorkists losing nearly 1,000.

    Plan of Battle of Blore Heath
    Ramsay’s map of the battlefield from 1889. Click on the image for the full-sized version

    The walk

    Starting from Loggerheads, we skirted the borders of Burnt Wood (called “Rounhay wood” at the time of the battle. Ed.). We were following the route that the Yorkist forces would have taken. This top end of the walk was quite boggy, so good waterproof boots are recommended. From this high point of the walk there are fantastic views across Shropshire to the mountains of North Wales, some forty miles away. The landmark of the Wrekin is clearly visible to the SW and is about 20 miles away, as is the tower of St Mary’s Church in Market Drayton, some 4 miles away.

    We continued downhill to the hamlet of Blore, where we turned onto a a lane and then from the edge of the hamlet followed the line of the ‘great hedge’ behind which the Lancastrian banners were seen. The hedge has been much reduced in stature by the invention of the flail mower, but experts believe it has been in situ for 1,000 years. Halfway along the hedge is a large horse chestnut tree from which Audley’s Cross – marking the spot where Lord Audley was slain – can be seen. We stopped for lunch near the end of the ‘great hedge’ roughly at the end of the Yorkists’ left flank.

    The brothers dine near the end of the Yorkist left flank
    The brothers dine near the end of the Lancastrian left flank. Picture courtesy of Hilary Midgley.

    From the lunch stop we proceeded downhill across the fields downhill and around the southern edge of the battlefield towards Hemp Mill Brook and a crossing of both it and the A53, the latter being particularly dangerous due to its narrowness, bends and the speed of the traffic. At this point we deviated from the route and went up the A53 for a better view of Audley’s Cross (a cross has stood on that spot since the day of the battle. Ed.) before returning to the actual route of the walk.

    Once over the A53 and back on the route, we followed a lane for a short while, then proceeded through Folly Wood to the outskirts of Mucklestone, entered the village and headed for the church.

    Folly Wood - signage in dire need of maintenance
    Folly Wood – signage in dire need of maintenance

    It was from the top of the Mucklestone church tower that Queen Margaret is said to have stood and watched her forces defeated. She is then supposed to have made good her escape in the direction of Eccleshall by forcing William Skelhorn, the village blacksmith, to reverse her horse’s shoes, thus confusing any pursuit. The anvil in the churchyard, which was retrieved from the smithy when the latter was demolished, commemorates this legend. The anvil is sited next to the grave of another, much later member of the Skelhorn family.

    Anvil in Mucklestone churchyard
    Anvil in Mucklestone churchyard. Picture courtesy of Hilary Midgley.

    From Mucklestone we proceeded up a rough track called Rock Lane to return to our starting point in Loggerheads.

    After the battle the victorious Lord Salisbury, anxious to press on towards Ludlow and the main Yorkist forces, moved south, camping on a hill on the outskirts of Market Drayton ever since known as Salisbury Hill. When we were children, this was the main hill in the town for sledging when it snowed. This delight is now out of bounds to today’s Drayton children, as the hill has been absorbed into the land occupied by the local golf club and the stile we used for access is no longer in situ.

    After a most satisfactory walk we all retired to Newcastle-under-Lyme for a night in a hotel, preceded by an excellent curry and a couple of beers in Audley.

    I’d like to thank my siblings, Andrew and Hilary, for making it a memorable weekend and suggest we plan other Staffordshire Saunter sometime soon. 🙂

  • The reunion

    It’s the first Monday of October 1973. With a sense of trepidation, an 18 year-old lad leaves home, a large proportion of his possessions and a heavy set of books in a rucksack on his back. He’s off to Wolverhampton in the Black Country to join the second ever intake on the BA Modern Languages (BAML) course being offered by Wolverhampton Polytechnic.

    Let’s fast forward to May 2015. With a sense of trepidation a 59 year-old man leaves his home in Bristol, a laptop in a rucksack on his back and a suit in a holdall in his hand. He’s off to Wolverhampton to reunite with the second ever intake on the BA Modern Languages course once offered by Wolverhampton Polytechnic.

    There have been lots of changes in the meantime. The polytechnic has transformed into the University of Wolverhampton. Wolverhampton itself has changed from a large industrial town with belching blast furnaces and gained city status. The Black Country either side of the railway between Birmingham and Wolverhampton – once a realistic implementation of a medieval painter’s vision of hell with flames, smoke and smut – is now de-industrialised with leafy areas interspersed with pleasant housing.

    Sticking with the leafy pleasantness, the reunion is being held at The Mount Hotel in the Tettenhall Wood area of Wolverhampton, not a frequent haunt of student days when town centre pubs and night clubs were preferred to comfortable, content suburbia.

    The Mount is a grade II listed manor house that was originally the home of Mander family of Wolverhampton (who made their money from paint and varnish. Ed.), which acquired the Mount in 1890 for £5,000 and refurbished it extensively. In 1929 the then master of the house Charles Tertius Mander was unfortunately killed in a hunting accident, leaving his wife Mary a widow. The Mount was far too large for post-war life without servants and the house was sold by Charles Marcus Mander at auction in 1952 after being in the family for just ninety years and started its new life as a hotel.

    Once settled in, the minor worries started: would I recognise anyone – and would they recognise me? The rest of the crew were veterans at reunions, having held a couple in the intervening years, whilst I was the novice tonight. Standing outside, I scrutinised the faces of those passing, trying to see if any matched features whose recollection was dimmed by nearly 4 decades, whilst that same amount of time had etched its effects on the faces of my contemporaries.

    At table: Jill, Steve and Stuart
    At table: Jill, Steve and Stuart. Photo courtesy of Jill Easton.
    In all honesty I shouldn’t have worried: as we assembled at 7.00 p.m. for pre-dinner drinks, the memory went into action and I readily recognised most of the faces familiar from of old, although most now came complete with a partner. There were even a few lecturers there. Apologies to those I miss, but these included course director Alan Dobson, French lecturer Stuart Williams and politics lecturer Harvey Wolf.

    The 3 courses of dinner were most pleasant: I was seated between Jill Easton (née Marshall) and Stuart Williams. The meal itself, with 3 choices for each course, was delicious and passed in leisurely fashion. Between the main course and dessert a hiatus occurred for the obligatory speeches.

    First on his feet was course director Alan Dobson. He passed on greetings from John White, the former head of the poly’s department of languages and praised him for his foresight in establishing the modern languages degree course; and once more trepidation intervened. Alan explained the sense of trepidation in establishing the course. At that time Wolverhampton didn’t exactly have a great reputation. It was the but of jokes. As an academic institution, the polytechnic didn’t exactly have the prestige of a traditional university, something not helped by the presence in those days of a sleazy massage parlour over the road from campus.

    The teaching accommodation often left something to be desired in those days. Alan reminded us of the long-vanished St. Peter’s Hall, whose top floor was leased to the polytechnic for teaching. It was invariably freezing cold in the autumn and winter and the landlord’s use of the building’s heating system was a juggling act: downstairs was leased as a potato store and the stock needed to be kept cool. As students we were probably regarded as cool enough in one sense, but fingers stiff with cold are not best suited to taking lecture notes.

    Alan was followed by Paul Sutton. Paul and his wife Gwenda had done most of the organisation of the event (and done it splendidly. Ed.). Of those in the 1973 course intake, most had been located and contacted: only 6 remain lost. One of our number, Viv Allum, sadly passed away a number of years ago. The development of the internet had been of great assistance in finding folk; Sheila Searle had done most of the detective work, I believe.

    Paul praised the quality of the education we’d received and the skills gained, which have seen many of the alumni employed in fields far removed from languages. The fact most of us have been continuously employed since graduation is ample evidence that the investment in human capital made in those years at Wolverhampton had been amply repaid many times over with interest.

    Paul recalled life in Wolverhampton in 1973 when we arrived: beer at 13p a pint in the Union bar, Derek Dougan taking to the field for Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. (his slipping into the Union Bar for a quick pint was not unknown either. Ed.), Queen supporting Mott the Hoople at Wolverhampton’s Civic Hall shortly after our arrival on campus.

    He also reminisced fondly of the polytechnic’s first halls of residence: Brinsford Lodge. These former munitions factory buildings helped accommodate students from 1964 to 1982. Others have started documenting student life at Brinsford, including Richard Elliott’s Brinsford pages and brinsfordlodge.co.uk.

    Brinsford in the 1970s
    Some of the luxurious student accommodation at Brinsford in the early 1970s. Photo courtesy of Tim Baker.

    Paul mentioned that there would be a further reunion in 2 years’ time to mark the 40th anniversary of our graduation. Responsibility for organising it would fall to the first member of the student body to head off to bed!

    With speeches, dessert and coffee out of the way, it was time for dancing and the old crew proved that time had not diminished their enthusiasm for partying. The inevitable group photographs were taken, like the example below.

    Class of 73
    Class of ’73. Well, a lot of them anyway! Course director Alan Dobson is on the far left of the picture. Photo courtesy of Wendy Jackson.

    Some group photos even took a sideways look.

    An alternative group shot
    An alternative group shot. Photo courtesy of Paddy Ring.

    The dancing continued till 1.00 a.m., after which the night owls chatted the darkness away until long after dawn peeped over the horizon. However, we weren’t just reminiscing but discussing contemporary matters and the future too.

    Breakfast on Sunday morning was a subdued affair for most.

    It was wonderful to meet the BAML crew again. My time spent on the course with you represents an important stage of making me the person I am today. I now realise what I missed by not attending previous reunions; I’ll definitely be at the 2017 one as long as there’s breath in my body.

    Thank you all for a brilliant weekend. 😀

    Update 13/05/17: The comment below arrived yesterday (well after the end of the period for submitting comments. Ed.) from Gary (Gaz) Peters, another of the class of ’73.

    Steve, just seen the blog on Wolves Poly 73. Really brought back memories and I wish that I had been found when you were trawling the net for BAML 73 alumni! I have sadly lost touch with everyone from those halcyon days and have regretted it for a long time. Do you know when the next reunion is? Would love to meet up with everyone. Very best wishes, Gary (Gaz) Peters

    Look forward to seeing you again as the next get-together, Gaz! 😀

  • Tidy BS5: plus ça change…

    Coming into the Bristol Wireless lab this afternoon,I found that the weekend spring clean by 2 of our volunteers had thrown up a copy of “renewal“, bylined “the newsletter of Easton and Lawrence Hill Neighbourhood Renewal” dated March 2006, over nine years ago.

    Turning to page 12, the subject matter seemed to have a familiar look to it, as per the scanned and cropped page below.

    article headline zero tolerance and featuring fly-tipping, litter, abandoned vehicles and the like

    Fly-tipping, litter, rubbish, graffiti: these all sound like themes currently receiving the attention of the Tidy BS5 campaign by local residents and councillors, ably assisted and supported by Up Our Street.

    The 2006 article then goes on to give telephone numbers for residents to call to deal with these matters. The telephone number for reporting street cleaning matters and abandoned cars, etc. has since changed to 0117 922 2100 and readers may find it more convenient to report these and other problems online.

    The fact that so little has changed, reminds of a quotation from the late Tony Benn.

    There is no final victory, as there is no final defeat. There is just the same battle. To be fought, over and over again. So toughen up, bloody toughen up.

  • Tidy BS5: reporting online

    Everywhere one travels in the United Kingdom, the common perception of residents is that their council is useless and costs too much.

    Bristol is no exception to this commonly accepted opinion of local authorities.

    In the past your correspondent has been no stranger to criticising Bristol City Council. However, there is one aspect of its operations where praise is due; and that’s its online presence. Compared with some local authority websites I have visited, Bristol City Council’s ranks amongst the best in my opinion. Indeed this blog has in the past praised Know Your Place, where one can get an intimate knowledge of the city and its long, proud history (posts passim). The open data section is worth a browse too.

    fly-posting on Easton Way Bristol
    Fly-posting: report it online

    This amazingly useful online presence is also apparent if one is concerned with street care and cleaning in Bristol. This is where one can report and obtain information on all kinds of problems encountered in urban steets.

    The following can all be reported online:

    graffiti on communal bin
    Graffiti or overflowing bin? Report it online

    Reporting road and cleaning problems online is by far the most convenient way of letting the council know of any problems encountered and as such can help to expedite their remedying, so get reporting. Most problems seem to be resolved within the promised 2 working days, although I must point out to any passing councillors and/or BCC officers that the system does occasionally break down.

  • Braking bad

    The Bristol Post, no stranger to the pages of this blog, has a sister paper, the Western Daily Press.

    Both used to be produced in Bristol and were printed at the – now vanished – print hall of the Temple Way Ministry of Truth.

    There used to be an old Bristol joke about the local press. It ran as follows: there are 2 newspapers in Bristol; there’s the Western Daily Press, which carries stories about far-flung corners of the West Country such as London, Manchester and Edinburgh (or any other 3 major UK cities of your choice. Ed.), and the Bristol Evening Post (as it was then called. Ed.), which carries stories about far-flung corners of the West Country such as London, Manchester and Edinburgh and 50 pages of classified advertising.

    However, both the Post and the Press have more in common than their heritage and ownership. They are both badly written.

    Thursday’s Press carried a piece which puts it firmly in homophone corner with a dunce’s hat on its head, as shown by the following screenshot.

    text reads Motorists reported the lorry broke hard as it approached a roundabout

    For the benefit of passing Press “journalists”, here’s where your anonymous colleague went wrong.

    You confused the heterographic verbs to break and to brake.

    The former, which you used, is a strong verb, also called an irregular verb; these verbs form the past tense or the past participle (or both) in various ways but most often by changing the vowel of the present tense form. In this instance, break (present tense), broke (past tense), broken (past participle).

    The latter, which you should have used in this case, is a weak verb. These (also called regular verbs) form the past tense by adding -ed, -d, or -t to the base form (or present tense form) of the verb (e.g. call, called).

    Got it now?

    Good! 🙂