London National Park: Going Further

I've put a couple of quid into: Greater London National Park because it's 'quite' a good idea. However, here's a few things that I believe need to go into it:

• Governance and steering. It's not clear how the project will be governed, so that the 'great unwashed' provide some input, rather than being 'patronised to death' by the middle classes. It needs a clear governance structure rather than being a 'campaign', anyway.
• Since, it's currently a middle class thing, the narrative seems to be 'culture', 'tourism', 'culinary delights' etc. etc. This is not bad in itself, but it would be better if it moved away from [especially] monetary value towards mental and physical health and ecological value. Of course, monetary value is probably the only way to 'sell' it to the current assembly.
• I'm against the production of glossy tracts telling us how wonderful it is. Especially as the main narrative seems to be descriptive and reactive 'wow Martha, it's really biodiverse'. The best way to proceed is probably, discussion, white paper, green paper. Those ancient white men in their little castle have a few things that work.
• I'm in favour of trying to make it, where feasible, into an actual, single park by constructing 'connectors' of various shapes and sizes, for people, bicycles at the largest and butterflies, hedgehogs etc. at the smallest. It would be great if people, especially children could navigate large swathes without dealing with busy roads.
• I'm also in favour of 'augmented free food', we start planting more fruit trees, fruit bushes, we tend the blackberries [great fruit, £2 in the supermarkets] and start to research other things that will grow to be foraged. The park provides some input to food security and food poverty, apart from the reconnection to nature.
• Also, multiple outreach projects, the momentum could be used to start to persuade people and boroughs to depave and to plant wild areas rather than grass that they pay to move and clean. Monbiot is talking a lot about rewilding recently, we need to see more of that within the city.

There's probably plenty more, but that's all I have time for before the meeting this evening. We'll see whether I'm still a supporter at the end of it.

Dumbing Down Newham Libraries

Actually, I've found that my borough, Newham, is doing its level best to dumb-down libraries. Certainly our Dear Leader [Sir Robin Wales] wouldn't want a lot of 'independent thought' going on here, who knows what might happen? So I discovered, when I offered to donate some expensive but still serviceable technical books, that the contents of the libraries are indexed and supplied by a third party. So nothing controversial can be donated, phew!

Also, looking through the 'philosophy' and 'politics' section, there's no evidence of either Marx, Hitler, Bertrand Russell or anyone who would fit the subject category. There's probably Marxism for Dummies somewhere though?

This is pretty much Fahrenheit 451 'lite'. That's not on the shelves either, the sci-fi category is a load of anodyne Star Trek and space opera books, no Sladek, no Henlein  etc. etc. Nothing but the most superficial for us, hurrah!

Newham Council and Forest Gate Crossrail

As usual, Newham council always ready with a picture of the mayor, has been pretty reticent about the plan for the centre of Forest Gate using Crossrail [nearly wrote Crossfail, I hope not] and Tfl etc. cash.

Here's the list of requests: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/user/hugh_barnard/requests the current one, made nearly a week ago hasn't been acknowledged. In this respect they are actually 'worse' than old-regime Tower Hamlets, quite an 'achievement'.

I'm also being told that there's 'no need' for FOIs but that 'they can't stop me' [true]. To which I reply, they are a gold standard in that statutory apparatus obliges them to produce something that they have to stand by. The usual way around is to put the answer through the Sir Humphreyiser and say as little as possible, for example:

Full consideration of the methods of informal engagement with the
community will begin at project start in April

This, after being told, 'informally' that there would be stalls, workshops etc. but 'we are not sure when'.

Also, on a side issue, we are 'encouraged' to put requests in via 'the default request form'. Of course, that means that they are not shared with other interested non-council parties and are buried in the pretty-much non-searchable FOI log: http://www.newham.gov.uk/Pages/ServiceChild/Freedom-of-Information-disclosure-log.aspx   I may do something about that, if I feel annoyed enough and have enough time to do so.

I'm aware, on the matter itself, that there have been about five internal [not in front of the children] meetings, with luck my current FOI 'may' shed some light on these. In a Benthamite world, the council should welcome this, I'm being 'engaged' and compensating for the huge, looming democratic deficit in the borough [about 60% and up do not vote for the council or current mayor, yet, there they are]. However, in spite of the immoderate upbeat Campbell-spin-language suggestive of pink unicorns and candy-mountain [this in a land of the Quakers], something I'll write about 'soon', though I dislike blogging, spoonfed is the order of the day.

If you've read this to the end, congratulations, here's the reward [thanks to Rachel T. for unearthing these]:  Crossrail Slides
They're on my personal website because they're too big for Facebook and I don't use it anyway, it only encourages it.





 

Don't use Three

I have a PAYG [I don't like the deeply loaded contract terms, apart from not liking mobile phones in general] HTC Desire 500 [stupid name too] from Three.

The main camera is blurry and this is a known problem with HTC: http://forums.androidcentral.com/htc-one/280536-htc-one-camera-consistently-blurry.html and I'm assuming it's carried over to the newer cheaper model.

Anyway, I took it into the Three store in Stratford E20, crime centre of the known universe where some unlabelled oik said that 'there was water in the lens' and 'why had I waited so long to complain' [without knowing how long I'd had it, too].

Well, my message to Three and anyone thinking about them as hardware or network supplier is 'fuck you Three'. There I feel [slightly] better now.

LSE Newham Puff Piece

I had my attention drawn to  this article about 'economic resilience' in Newham last week. There's so much wrong here including:

• No supporting sample size figures
• No mention of methodology, looks like 'I just asked the council'
• The 'vast majority' consists of?

Then we conclude [from no discernible argument] that Newham is a 'good place to live' and is 'changing for the better' pretty much the Sir Robin slogan word-for-word.  Again no supporting facts for this 'trend'. That's why I call it a puff-piece. Declaration of interest, I live in Sir Robin land, a place without any talent for self-criticism, everything is just perfect here!

So I dared put a comment, that covered pretty much the same points on the LSE website. Of course, after a short period of 'moderation' it was immediately suppressed. The LSE used to be a well-respected institution for clarity of [often radical] thought when I was younger and a defender of free speech.  How times have changed!