Brennig Jones (and friends)

We have pulled out the stops to bring you four cross-genre works of musical art wrapped up in this week’s This Reality Podcast:

• The power-chord driven Paramore-esque goodness of The Hype Theory
• The indie/retro flavours of Little Room
• The smokey, seductive, after-dinner qualities of Hollie Sheard and Friends
• The Edinburgh-based collective of excellence known as Night Noise Team

As well as the musical brilliance we also bring you just a flavour of life-inspired ranting, brought to  you courtesy of the kind of week that the two presenters of the show have had.

You can subscribe and listen for free via iTunes http://bit.ly/25zMa8, or pick this episode up from the podcast website at http://bit.ly/cGFKOU

is not necessarily a straight line…

A little later than planned, we set off from the stables at 7am, Tom and Twiglet noshing on their haynets in the back of the lorry, Hayley and me up front.

We were following Sammi/Ellen’s lorry because they knew the way to Boomerang, having been there before.

The route that our guides took us, from our corner of Oxfordshire to Hungerford(ish) led us down the A361 through Burford, Lechlade, Highworth, Swindon and then on to the M4, off again at Hungerford and, via a tortuously twisty and perversely back-tracking route, to our destination.

Total travel time: 1.5 hours.

Hayley and I decided that there had to be a more direct route and decided to head back, after schooling, via Lambourn, Farringdon, Lechlade and Burford which, it seemed to us, would be a much shorter route.

Aye. It might well be a shorter, more direct route, but the total travel time for the return leg?

1.5 hours.

And that’s the dichotomy of driving, when one has two ‘precious cargo’ passengers standing around, chomping on haynets in the back of the lorry.

The most direct route may involve travelling on roads that are totally unsuited to a 10-ton lorry with a ton of horse standing in the back!

And that was the case with the return route.

Lambourn is a revelation. If you haven’t been, you must, must, must go. It’s completely pretty and everyone in the village seems to be part of the racing industry – to the point where some folk are stabling horses in their garages.

But, pretty as Lambourn is, the roads in that area are totally dire. The very best speed I could get the lorry up to, without bouncing the horses out of their stalls and on to our laps, was 20mph – and that was the very best. On most of the route back we had to be content with 15mph.

However, being considerate, I pulled over whenever a tail of traffic built up behind us, to allow those behind to pass.

Yes, I really am that much of a sanctimonious git. But I look at it this way; I would not want to be stuck behind a horsebox doing 15mph!

Anyway, as mentioned, despite being a much shorter route home – in terms of road miles – the return leg took exactly the same amount of time as the outward leg.

I think the laws of physics in respect of travelling horses on Britain’s crumbling road system need to be rewritten.

The schooling?

The ground was so wet and muddy that despite the all-weather take-offs and landings we cut the session to the absolute minimum, in the name of safety.

But Tom jumped brilliantly over all of the fences that I put him to and *fanfare!* we now have brakes too! The nathe French Gag seems to have done the trick which is stupendous.

Unfortunately, the downside to our schooling session is that the washing machine has been put on danger money; it is fully employed with trying to deal with the mountain of filthy things I’ve returned home with.

And every single item of tack is plastered with muddy gunge too.

So tomorrow I shall be cleaning tack. And refuelling the lorry. And grooming.

We are watching the final episode in season 2 of the BBC’s newest comedy series ‘Survivors’.

I haven’t laughed so much since the first time I watched Men Behaving Badly.

Survivors wins the comedy gold medal on so many different fronts:

• Believable characters
• Sustainable plot
• Plausibility
• Accuracy
• Attention to detail
• Scientific fact

Oh yes, Survivors has none of these things

Not one.

It really is appallingly awful.

I was trying to explain, to a person whose knowledge of horses is limited to ‘big, bites and kicks’, what is involved in learning and riding a dressage test.

I failed in my attempted explanation.

This evening I’m sitting on the couch trying to familiarise myself with the dressage that will be the first phase of Tom’s and my first one-day-event in four weeks time.

So bearing in mind I couldn’t describe what’s involved to someone in person earlier, how do I write down here what’s involved?

Hmmm.

Here are the primary components:

• The test (BE 90 Dressage Test 91) takes part in a 20 x 40m arena
• The test should take approximately 6 minutes
• The test comprises 15 ridden movements that are marked, and four non-ridden marks
• Each movement will be marked out of a maximum of 10 points, to a total of 200
• The layout and markings of the 20×40 arena look like this:

And if you’re interested in the exact movements, they’re here:

BE90_-_DRESSAGE_TEST_91_(2009)(1)

So, we’re clear now?

Worried of Oxfordshire has found this piece in The Guardian.

Source:

Police questioned an amateur photographer under anti-terrorist legislation and later arrested him, claiming pictures he was taking in a Lancashire town were “suspicious” and constituted “antisocial behaviour”.

Footage recorded on a video camera by Bob Patefield, a former paramedic, shows how police approached him and a fellow photography enthusiast in Accrington town centre. They were told they were being questioned under the Terrorism Act.

Senior police officers last year promised to scale back the use of anti-terrorist legislation such as Section 44 of the act, which deals with photographers, after a series of high-profile cases in which photographers said they had been harassed by police for taking innocuous images in the street.

Patefield and his friend declined to give their details, as they are entitled to under the act. The police then appeared to change tack, saying the way the men were taking images constituted “antisocial behaviour”. Patefield, who is in his 40s, was stopped three times before finally being arrested.

He and his friend were taking photographs of Christmas festivities on 19 December, after attending a photography exhibition. The last images on his camera before he was stopped show a picture of a Santa Claus, people in fancy dress and a pipe band marching through the town.

He turned on his video camera the moment he was approached by a police community support officer (PCSO). In the footage, she said: “Because of the Terrorism Act and everything in the country, we need to get everyone’s details who is taking pictures of the town.”

Patefield declined to give his details and, after asking if he was free to go, walked away. However the PCSO and a police officer stopped the men in another part of the town. This time, the police officer repeatedly asked him to stop filming her and said his photography was “suspicious” and “possibly antisocial”.

Patefield asked if the officer had any “reasonable, articulable suspicion” to justify him giving his details.

She replied: “I believe your behaviour was quite suspicious in the manner in which you were taking photographs in the town centre … I’m suspicious in why you were taking those pictures.

“I’m an officer of the law, and I’m requiring you, because I believe your behaviour to be of a suspicious nature, and of possibly antisocial [nature] … I can take your details just to ascertain that everything is OK.”

Patefield and his friend maintained that they did not want to disclose their details. They were stopped a third and final time when returning to their car. This time the officer was accompanied by an acting sergeant. “Under law, fine, we can ask for your details – we’ve got no powers,” he said. “However, due to the fact that we believe you were involved in antisocial behaviour, ie taking photographs … then we do have a power under [the Police Reform Act] to ask for your name and address, and for you to provide it. If you don’t, then you may be arrested.”

There is a section of that act that compels a member of the public to give their details if a police officer suspects them of antisocial activity.

The sergeant also alluded to complaints from the public and, turning to Patefield, added: “I’m led to believe you’ve got a bit of insight into the law. Do you work in the field?”

Patefield was arrested for refusing to give his details, while his friend, who gave in, walked free. Patefield was held for eight hours and released without charge.

In a statement, Lancashire police said they and members of the public were “concerned about the way in which [Patefield] was using his camera”. It said police felt they had “no choice” but to arrest him because he was refusing to co-operate.

Does anyone else think that this has ludicrously spurious mechanism for controlling the population has over-reached itself?

I feel an email to the Chief Constable of the Lancashire Constabulary coming on, because this has got me incensed.

However, before I fire up the email, I thought I’d check on what the Home Office guidance to all Constabularies actually is.

In August 2009 the Home Office’s security and counter-terrorism section sent out advice to all chief police officers in the UK to clarify counter-terrorism legislation in relation to photography in a public place. It said:

Powers under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 enable uniformed police officers to stop and search anyone within an authorised area for the purposes of searching for articles of a kind which could be used in connection with terrorism. The powers do not require a reasonable suspicion that such articles will be found.

Police officers can stop and search someone taking photographs within an authorised area just as they can stop and search any other member of the public in the proper exercise of their discretion, but the powers should be used proportionally and not specifically target photographers.

Section 44 does not prohibit the taking of photographs, film or digital images in an authorised area and members of the public and the press should not be prevented from doing so.

[my emphasis]

How on earth does one misinterpret that, please?

I have just finished *pouring* my soul in to a shortish, emotional but (even if I say it myself) pretty bloody well-written piece about ‘health’.

I was half-way through proofing the completed piece, prior to hitting that little blue ‘publish’ button, when the phone rang.

I had to get up to answer it because my phone was over there in my jacket pocket and I… well, I was not over there in my jacket pocket, obv.

No, I was sitting over here on this chair at this desk.

I took the call – it was Vodafone asking how well the account handler dealt with my query earlier – which lasted about 25 seconds.

But as I sat back down in this chair to finish proofing that wonderful piece of (dare I say it? Dare I?) particularly painfully produced, yet pointedly pithy prose (alliteration is me!), the IT pixies (who we all know to be mean-minded little shits) made the work…

Disappear.

Vanish.

Gone – quicker than a cat-burglar in the night who has just discovered that the thing he is up to his elbows in, is Anne Widdicombe’s underwear drawer.

Bloody pixies.

Not to be confused with The Pixies, the Boston-formed alt-rock band who started up in, erm, 1986.

No, The Pixies were bloody excellent.

IT pixies are scum and should be destroyed. Painfully destroyed. At least twice a day.

* Pandora is, I’m sure you’re aware, the alien planet in the film Avatar. I feel sure that IT pixies do not live on Pandora.

Dear BT Broadband,

1. When I called you last week and said I wanted to switch from BT to VirginMedia you asked why I was considering this change.

2. I replied that VirginMedia are offering a similar TV package and the same Broadband speed that you say you are delivering, for less money than you are charging me. I went on to say that BT has never come close to achieving the speed you actually say you are giving me.

3. Your customer service operator asked what kind of speed I was getting and when I replied 3Mb on a good day and 500Kb on a bad day, he actually sounded shocked.

4. Your customer service operator gave me a URI for BT’s own speed checker and suggested that I run it once a day for a few days and then call the 24 hour technical department with my results.

5. This evening, after running the speed checker for the fourth time this week I called your 24 hour technical department.

6. The engineer listened to the results, said he would run some tests and would call me back.

7. Within a few minutes he called back to say that he had tested the line, that he found no faults and that I should be getting between 8Mb – 10Mb.

8. I said that there clearly *was* a problem, because not only was I getting significantly less than either of those speeds, on the very best day of the week just elapsed, BT could not deliver even *half* of the lower figure that BT said I should be getting and, on the worst day of the week, BT could only manage a pathetic 518Kb.

9. Your engineer was adamant there was nothing wrong. He then had the sheer effrontery to suggest that the problem lay with my laptop.

10. I questioned this. Your engineer went on to blame my antivirus software.

11. When I replied that the laptop I was using for the speed test was a brand new installation and was only running a browser and had no antivirus software, your engineer then switched to blaming the distance from the WiFi hub.

12. I explained that the WiFi hub is 1.8m away from the laptop and in clear line of sight with no obstructing obstacles.

13. Your engineer then changed course again, but this time to a dead end by saying that as there was no problem he was unable to help further.

14. I explained, as patiently as I could, that there obviously *was* a problem because he had said I should be receiving 8Mb – 10Mb and I was actually getting less than 4Mb. Therefore there was a problem, QED.

15. I also explained that as he – as part of BT – was saying I should be getting 8Mb – 10Mb and yet BT’s own speed test was telling me I was getting less than 4Mb, there was also an internal problem – when two components in BTs technical infrastructure (him and the BT speed test) were reporting such conflicting results.

16. I explained that I wanted to escalate the issue.

17. Your engineer said the only way of escalating the issue was of BT sending an engineer out to test the line, but that would be chargeable to me.

18. I refused to accept that idea and said that I wanted to escalate the issue here and now and wanted to know what your technician was going to do about my request.

19. He said he would have a word with his supervisor and would put me on hold for a couple of minutes.

20. Less than 60 seconds later I was cut off.

21. Given paragraphs 1. 2. 8. 9. 15 and 20, please explain why I should stay with BT and continue to receive a second-rate service which is costing more money than VirginMedia, and why should I accept being treated as if I am either a child or an idiot?

22. So here, below, is a screenshot of just one of the Broadband speedcheckers, the results, I feel, are very clearly displayed:

I didn’t go back to bed.

I stayed downstairs, got side-tracked by an episode of Top Gear and then switched off the TV and worked on a couple of projects, I can only talk about one at the moment.

The Sitcom.

I’ve finished writing the draft of Season 1.

It needs heavy editing and I recognise that a couple of parts need a rewrite (or two!) before I would feel comfortable about putting a late draft version out to readers, but the bottom line is it’s passed a significant milestone.

However, I’m not sure about the title.

‘Shelved’ and ‘On The Shelf’ are my 1st and 2nd choice.

I quite like ‘Backed’ and ‘Covered’ as potential names too, but they’re a little too obscure, a step too far from the subject.

Sitcom names should be related to the subject and, preferably, comprised of mono- or duo-syllabic words.

‘Black Books’, ‘Red Dwarf’, ‘Father Ted’, ‘Coupling’ and ‘The Young Ones’ as examples.

I wish I could come up with what I need, but sometimes my brain just won’t oblige.

I wonder if going to bed for a couple of hours would help?

Today’s planned trip up to Swalcliffe Park for cross-country schooling has been cancelled: Snow stopped play.

The roads were extremely dangerous when I left home at 08.15 and our cross-country course has plenty of snow on it.

Swalcliffe’s cross-country course is even higher and more exposed than ours.

So I am back home – having broken down, cleaned, oiled and reassembled two bridles and three saddles (and feeling slightly virtuous).

A mug of tea and bed with The Observer and a good book beckons.

Woo, rock’n'roll!

Phil Hammond MP, the Shadow Chief Secretary to The Treasury has just put forward the most bizarre idea on television.

So bizarre that he must surely have been partaking of some very serious chemicals.

His idea?

That the British banks – which the Government bailed out with Billions of taxpayers money – should be offered for private sale via the stock-market to, erm, the taxpayer.

Staggering.

Does he not appreciate that the taxpayer already owns these dubious financial institutions?

Is he not able to see that being asked to pay for something that the taxpayer already owns is completely fucking stupid?

Sadly, Phil Hammond’s delusions of adequacy didn’t end with this rather bizarre display of unlogic.

When one of the television presenters put to Mr Hammond that the value of shares could go down as well as up, and that he was actually inviting the taxpayer to invest in a risky commodity (no shit, Sherlock!), do you know what Phil Hammond’s cunning plan was?

He suggested that HM Treasury could back the share issue to the public by the creation and sale of a government bond.

So, stripped down in to the simplest terms, this would mean that the taxpayer would actually end up paying for the banks THREE TIMES.

If you need a case not to vote for the Conservatives, I give it to you that Phil Hammond and his half-cocked, ill-conceived ideas is it.