Ok, so luckily Xavia offerered me a lift to London with her the night before, which was really good as I didnt want to have to get the train home alone. (AND the show finished at 11.30 so I would have pretty much missed the last train anyway!)  we just had to drop Georgies stuff off at her new flat beforehand, which I was cool with. It was in Putney and there was a direct bus so I could of gone to meet Ian in central. Except they were and hour and a half late (!!!) so even when we got to Putney it was 6.30 and the doors to The Underworld opened 7pm. Their flat is lush though, it looks like its on some kind of nice council estate thing, inside its all whtie and really nicely set out, 4 bedrooms, little cute balcony! I really really wanted to move there. I was SO jealous and reminded me how much I wanted to be in Leeds! Xavia took ages to get ready and I was STARVING, I have these 2 for 1 at Wagamamas deals so we decided to go there. Me & Chloe were supposed to go but we got to Camden so late that I think she just wanted to go in plus I know shes not the biggest fan of Xavia. The food was so good, had the Yasai Yaki Soba mmmm. Xavia had this weird vegan dish which didnt taste nice to me lol. We got to the show and meet Sam and Xavias other friends outside. Didnt bother watching any of the other bands, I dont think Crime In Stereo played (ugh). We went out found a place to stand in the corner by the stairs whilst Shai Hulud were on so we could see without getting sweat forced in out eyes. The Underworld needs to sort the bloody air conditioning out. My tummy decided to start playing tricks on me and starting getting THE cough. I dont know if it was because I ate so much or because there were so many people around me. Usually at the Underworld I get that fucking cugh because theres always so many people near me. And I am gay and have personal space issues / gay anxiety. Luckily it went away, I hinted to Katie and she was like drink ure waterrr and it went away pretty soon. Comeback Kid were good, I put my glasses on so I could see everything perfectly. Something was missing though. I still love seeing them and enjoy their music...maybe it was the sweat...or my tummy........or just I dont enjoy shows much anymore. I feel like I've got this lack of appriecation for stuff like that now.

It was a bit weird though cos Alena turned up, shes this girl from Download we meet who wasreally friendly with Toby & Ben. She hugn about with us a bit but seemed really awakard and didnt talk much, I could tell Katie didnt want her there lol. She seems ok to me, i dont like judging people straight off, maybe shes just shy...who knows.

Its been fucking raining for hours straight at the moment.....its July. Whats going on,serious. Part of me wants to go to the gym but the other part is like fuck the rain it is so depressing. My mum picked up the book we ordered last week, which is 'Theology, A Very Short Introduction'. I can tell all of this is going to be a bit mind blowing at Uni. I love learning about it but put so much pressure on myself to learn about it that I cant concentrate. My memory is fucked at the moment and I cant remember anythign I've read of my 'Existenislism and Humanism' book. i love the fact I cant even spell half the things I'm reading. I know pretty much why I'm dyslexic, its weird as i was so good at reading and writing in school, I had a high reading age and then when I left, combined with all the fucking weird drugs the doctors gave me, it just went wrong. I have the knowledge in my head, just getting it out is the problem. Which is the problem for talking about my feelings too, it all ends up coming out wrong.

My new Primp top came through today though! YESSSS. Its white and has orange hearts with arrows through. I think its my 6th one? I REALLY want the steering wheel one but its £22 on ebay and I dont have much money to spend this week. I've made a good deal on ebay but thats for Paris. I can only order it and hope my dad will wait until I can pay him back. What is my deal with money, I dont have any mnoey yet I expect to have the things I like and want. I'm a dick?

My crush is literally taking over my mind. This is completely unlike me.

I might write later, thats if I actually get up to anything today. My mum handed in my repeat prescriptions for Lorazepam and Zopiclone yesterday. I have 2 days left of the Lorazepam, which I think I can ration effectivley. When I last wrote, I got proper touchy and zonked myself on Zopiclone, I was adament to forget the day I'd had. It did work in all honesty, I woke up feeling glued to the bed but I think my subconcious had sorted out some of the bad bits of the day. As for the Lorazepam, i'm worried my GP will one day just stop prescribing me it. Am I starting to sound like I'm addicted? I dont know if I buy into this whole drug addiction thing, WELL obviously addiction is prevelant nowadays but I think you have a choice, its not just like you take a pill and keep taking it and then you hit addiction. I dont NEED to take it everyday and I dont. It just makes day to day life easier, it is shit, but, I feel more myself. There arent many downsides to it, not many side effects, it perks me up when I'm a bit low. I have had a bit of withdrawl when I ran out, which I completely accept but I'm not willing to give up some easy days. I may be wrong in thinking that going to Uni will completely change me and my life, I dont expect it to change me into an all new fresh, positive, confident person. I can see that person in me anyway, without a doubt, there is that person in me already. Part of it is just stuck under something, for me, I think its routine. Its this fuckign boring, unfulfilling structure I'm sat in. This negative, dull environment. It could be said I should be pulling myself out from this, I can make my life however I want, I have to put the effort in to make my life good. Like my mum says though, I'm doing the best in the conditions I've got. I can see Uni giving me some independence. And I say giving, I mean, I'll be EARNING my independence, my self assurance and confidence. Nothing has come particulary easy for me, not saying I've had the worst life ever, shit shit things have happened but my life now IS GREAT. I have amazing friends, which I never though i would have, I am healthy (minus a few things but theyre not important in this positive spectrum PLUS I have a choice in how I responsibly manage the health conditions I do have), my family are not......I dont know how to put it....they are fine...rather destructive but nothing I cant get over.......I feel more as ease with the way I look, I have a passion in life, I feel I can accurately connect with people for the first time in my life, I am off any type of anti-depressant/mood stabiliser etc, I have pretty much eradicated most of the self destructive behaviours and realised that its ok to slip back into them at certain times but they are not worth risking what I have for ultimate misery, I am generally not upset or feeling terrible most of the time and when I am I can change my attitude to make things better, I need not rely on a guy or other people for my happiness, I'm going somewhere with my life.

This constant push pull may never be over with. Fuck it, come what may! X X X

INTRO TO STARGATE

Ancient Greek story tellers set the site of the lost city of Atlantis at the bottom of the sea, beyond the Straits of Gibraltar.

Today's spinner of tales suggests another theory.  

The makers behind the fourth season of popular Stargate Atlantis, itself a spin-off from a previous series Stargate-SG1, propose the theory that lost city of Atlantis was a giant space ship that left the Earth in ancient times, and flew three million light years to the Pegasus Galaxy. This giant city space ship was found thousands of years later by a team from earth, below the waters of a planet. to read more see http://www.oxfordprospect.co.uk/STARGATEATLATIS.htm

As part of that, they interviewed us. And you can read it here.

On Tuesday, bouquets of flowers lay behind police tape outside the brick townhouse where Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez, both 23, were killed.

One note expressed hope that they had not died in vain: "Maybe something will be done," it said.

Detectives were questioning a 33-year-old man who surrendered Monday after police released a description of a man seen running from the area on the day of the killings.

Still on the No 168 bus travelling north towards Hampstead.

Now that's a god idea, a cup of coffee.

Here are a couple of pictures, first one is the Amnesty International Float, bearing what I thought to be some good words of wisdom and an important message.

Next we have "Amy Winehouse", in fact there were several "Amy Winehouse's" I wonder if its because she's been in the news a 'little' bit? ;)

Environment Agency... Green's the theme.

I do not want to know how heavy those wigs must have been, nor how hot!

And finally, not only must that have been an uncomfortably hot and heavy costume, but it was also windy, not seconds after this photo the two people on either side had to help pull him forward because he couldn't move due to the gust of wind!

In fact the wind had fun with several peoples attempts at holding banners, sometimes they just couldn't move forward. It also made me laugh that the Police only brought a crappy white transit with just Police written on the front of it for their part in the parade, whereas the Fire brigade brought a fire truck. I think we know who wins there for coolness factor. :P It was also amusing that a part of the scenery for the Civil Service truck fell off, I'm sure it doesnt' represent anything.. not really. ;)

I had a good time at Pride, my one complaint however is that its just starting to get too long, it took an hour for the whole parade to go past. I'm pretty sure it wasn't that long a few years ago. Now don't' get me wrong, I'm glad that people/charities/companies want to take part in pride but at the same time, an hour's a long time.

Most crazes strike young people. There are times in a young persons life when having a skateboard, a Yo – Yo or a Barby is a drug like necessity, a pathway to acceptance, a passport to friends for an insecure mind.
Next time you cross the road – check out the vehicle of choice for London’s 20 to 30 something middle class, retro t-shirt wearing, technology imbued coolster.
It’s normally an old looking bicycle (nothing really new about that) except that it has no gears – often no breaks, and has its rear hub locked to its rear wheel. This is called a FIXED WHEEL BIKE.
Simplicity is it’s mantra. When the wheels go around the peddles go around. Forward or backward. Many bikes have not brakes (although apparently this is illegal) and stopping is achieved by skidding the rear wheel.
The popularity of these things is growing so fast that the piles of discarded cogs and de-railers are no doubt being sold back to china as scrap to make more bicycles.
I first heard the term Fixed Gear at the bike mechanics near the Castle Climbing Gym at the start of this year when a young woman was making the decision to “Fix” her bike. (sounds a bit like “fixing” a puppy)
“Wow! Fixed gear in London!” She said excitedly. “I can't believe I’m going fixed in London! I’m going to die!!”
I haven’t seen her since.
I should say that I haven’t ridden one. I will. I have a friend who is right into “the scene” and he’s offered to let me ride his. So far I’ve found excuses not to.
These bikes must work. Many bicycle couriers choose to ride them. There can be no better proof of their usefulness than that they are selected by people who are paid to ride quickly and safely around the centre of London.
I think fixed bikes demonstrate that most bicycles are unnecessarily complicated. You don’t really need 24 gears and the ability to ride over rocky trails if you only cycle around London.
Proponents of this style point out that riders of fixed bikes are more observant of the road as they are locked into a continuous state of flow with the traffic. They can’t “freewheel”. They make the argument that the increased danger of being forced into continual movement is mitigated by the increased concentration this necessitates. I’m not quite sure if this is true but I like the sound of it as an argument. I’ve done a lot of rollerblading through city streets in the past and that offers a similar experience of having to be aware – knowing that you can’t stop but can only change direction, jump or slowly reduce speed. I would have been much safer on a regular bicycle – but I would have had nowhere near as much fun.
“Fun” is probably the key here. People ride fixed bikes because they offer something exciting in an otherwise very boring environment – ie getting home from work though urban London.
“Go play in the traffic!” is a buzz phrase you hear bandied around the scene.
Like any trend I think that this one will burn out in a year or so and the cool kids will move on to something else. Bicycle riding is obviously only going to grow in popularity and the lesson demonstrated by these fixed wheel bikes, that simpler is better, will be headed by both riders and manufacturers. Like in Holland – we are heading for a city with more bikes, simpler bikes and a better environment because of it.

Check out my review of Fixed Wheel Bicycle Trend - I am gotiges7 - on Qype

I hate her movies, I hate her face and I hate her personality.

And jeez, wouldn't you just know it that she would raise brats.

Oh little miss muffet,

Sat on a tuffet,

Grrr........

That boy looks like he'll just be a dumb spoilt brat.

But the girl, shiver me timber, we'd fight if we were in the same class.

BIG TIME.

Images via Mr PAP

The PinBoard family rolled by Zavvi down Tottenham Court Road yesterday to watch the legend that is, Chaka Khan do her thang. She was in town promoting her new album "Funk This" and was doing a performance and signing in the massive London store.

She came on about 6.30ish and performed three songs (you can't be pissed, it's free and...it's CHAKA KHAN!). The first two tunes were from the new album and the last was a vintage classic.

It did seem like Ms Khan was attacking the old Crack Pipe again however. She seemed a bit confused to where exactly she was and what the title of her songs were! You'll see this in the video below. She made us laugh, but while the scary/dorky/weired fans were laughing WITH her, we couldn't help but laugh AT her! Don't get me wrong, we weren't like, heckling the legend, just found it funny how 'out of it' she was. HA!

Despite her apparent confusion, her voice was just TOO much! We all know Chaka brings it with her vocals, but God damn! Hearing her live is just a different thing all together. I really can't remember what the first song she performed was (if anyone was there, holla at us please!)...but I managed to record her second and final song on camera...

PinBoard Footage: "One For All Time"

^LOL. She. Was. Confused!*

PinBoard Footage: "I'm Every Woman"

^It was so funny watching big grown men singing "I'm Every Woman" HA! She brought it though, ya hear that voice?*

It was a cool [free] performance for sure. We had fun. Of course, she was there to sell albums and boi, did she plug it! But that didn't convince us to buy it/get it signed though. I'm all for  supporting music, but mayne, the family is too broke. After the free sh*t was over, we headed out...

Chaka Khan is legend. Very happy I got to see her.

Peace, Love & Chaka Khan

Speeakz & Crew

Where am I?

The junction of Euston Road and Worburn Place.

Where am I going?

Don't ask me, I'm lost!

Launched in June and printed on expensive paper, the new British monthly, Standpoint, is in the tradition of Encounter, the high-toned Anglo-American magazine of the last century that turned out to have been secretly bankrolled by the CIA. Like Encounter, Standpoint is a journal of conservative opinion, though whereas Encounter waged the war of ideas against Soviet communism, Standpoint is part of the intellectual “war on terror,” the struggle to save Western civilization from Islamism.

It follows that the magazine has not been slow to declare its support for Israel. Among the contributors to the second issue is the hard-line British neoconservative Zionist, Melanie Phillips. Written with the stridency which has long been her trademark, Phillips’ Standpoint article “Faking a Killing” (a synopsis of which has since been published by the Jewish Chronicle) maintains that the much-reproduced image of the September 2000 killing of the 12-year-old Palestinian boy, Muhammad Al-Durra, apparently by an Israeli marksman, at Gaza’s Netzarim Junction, told an outrageous lie.

Phillips describes how the footage of the boy screaming in terror before being killed became uniquely incendiary, portraying the Israelis as having gunned down a child in cold blood, even as he cowered for his life. Yet, she goes on, the murderous hatred and acts of Muslim violence inspired by the killing now transpire to have been based on a fabrication, one that amounted to a blood libel in the tradition of anti-Semitic defamation stretching back to the Middle Ages. The proof is that Charles Enderlin, the Jerusalem correspondent of France 2, the French TV station that first broadcast the film of the killing, has been judged by a Paris court to have perpetrated a fraud.

That Enderlin has been so judged came about because he and France 2 brought a libel action against the French media watchdog, Philippe Karsenty, for alleging that the “killing” was pure fiction and that Al-Durra was not dead at all. The original Paris court ruling in favor of the TV station was overturned this May, with the appeal court ruling that Karsenty had been vindicated in the light of evidence that the footage did not correspond to Enderlin’s commentary and that the testimony of his Palestinian cameraman could not be trusted.

According to Phillips, the Israeli physicist, Nahum Shahaf, who presided over the Israeli Army’s investigation of the incident, has demonstrated conclusively that Al-Durra’s lifeless body was brought to Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital before 1 p.m. — two hours before the incident at Netzarim took place. It is, she insists, no longer in doubt that the “whole thing was staged, an elaborate fabrication designed to blacken Israel’s name and incite the Arab and Muslim mobs to mass murder.”

For Phillips, the implications of this “scandal” are “enormous,” far transcending a disgraced French journalist and his TV station. In her mind it raises the century-old specter of the Dreyfus affair, the notorious episode of the French Army Capt. Alfred Dreyfus who, in a France rife with anti-Semitism, was convicted of espionage on the basis of trumped-up evidence. Phillips suggests that the Al-Durra libel is the new Dreyfus affair — with Israel now occupying the role of the victimized Jewish soldier. It is not just France, though, but much of the Western media which is impelling Phillips to cry j’accuse. She stresses that while Shahaf’s findings made their way into a handful of newspapers and television documentaries and onto the Internet, they were otherwise ignored by Western journalists. And this, she charges, represents merely the most egregious recent example of animosity toward Israel on the part of Western journalists driven by a mixture of anti-Semitism and professional self-preservation and all too ready to rely on Arab sources with Islamist agendas.

Such is Phillips’ Zionist zeal that she even indicts Israel itself for feebly acquiescing in the Al-Durra “fiction” in the belief that to challenge a story that had attained iconic global status would be counter-productive. She believes Israel’s political establishment handed the Palestinians and their sympathizers a major propaganda coup. It is almost as if she is attacking Israel for being a self-hating Jewish state.

If what happened at Nazarim Junction on Sept. 30, 2000, is a large knot to untie, it is nevertheless right that anomalies or outright falsehoods in the received version of the story be exposed. But Phillips’ clear implication that many of the reports of the brutalization of Palestinians at the hands of Israel are fictions designed to manipulate Western public opinion and rekindle Western anti-Semitism is itself a flagrant piece of rabble-rousing.

Fulminating about the emergence of “Pallywood,” a “grotesque new genre of terrortainment” that deliberately presents “theatrical fictions” as authentic Israeli atrocities, Phillips presents herself as wholly innocent of propagandist intent. Yet the endless writings on the Palestine-Israel conflict of this professed champion of the truth betray not the least sense that she has ever taken the trouble to acquaint herself with the daily agony of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. On the other hand, she does not hesitate to assert the historic right of the Jews to lay claim to Palestine as the “only people” entitled to regard it as their “national home.”

Quick to accuse others of propagating one-sided, manipulative views, Phillips, in short, is blind to the fact that many are bound to see her in identical terms, as a Jewish commentator so soaked in Zionist righteousness that she has no sympathy to spare for Zionism’s victims, nor any concern to understand the Palestinian point of view. On the most charitable interpretation, her journalism is rooted in denial, a pathological refusal to acknowledge that Israel could conceivably be guilty of committing gross violations of human rights. A Muslim who wrote in the same spirit of sectarian fury would be regarded as a rabid extremist and denied access to the mainstream Western media.

From the embattled stance she is apt to adopt, anybody would think that Melanie Phillips, too, is starved of opportunities to state her case. Yet Standpoint is just one of many media outlets where her extreme views routinely find favor. And what could be more extreme — at a time when the collective punishment being endured by the men, women and children of Gaza is evoking worldwide horror — than to publish an article which not only diverts attention from Israel’s thuggish behavior but insinuates that more often than not stories of barbarous Israeli treatment of Palestinians are cynical Palestinian PR exercises?

Whether Standpoint is going to provide a platform for perspectives on the Middle East conflict other than those of Melanie Phillips remains to be seen, but it seems a fair indication of its basic sympathies that the magazine is endorsing the outlook of a monomaniacal Zionist partisan. Indeed, for all its espousal, in an opening editorial, of the “noblest ideals to which humanity has aspired,” Standpoint appears to be a true heir to Encounter, a journal less committed to truth than ideology.

Getting dark, looks like rain.

If ever stopped by police at a train station as a suspected terrorist to lie face down while handcuffed, be sure to blog about it so that the almighty BBC will link to it, thus rendering one's Oxford degree futile as said blogger will surely be propelled into eternal micro-famedom!

Will Graham* (Clive Owen) is a former London gangster who has long since left the big city and the game. But a series of seemingly unconnected events - being sacked from his forestry job, a nighttime assault in the woods, and (unbeknown to Will) his brother dying suddenly, violently - conspires to draw him back.

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead sees director Mike Hodges team up with Owen again after the critical success of 1998's Croupier, and also revisits the core plot strand from Hodges' earlier gangster classic Get Carter - a brother's suspicious death brings a man of violence back to his home town.

It's refreshingly impressionistic in comparison, though. There are no internal monologues, no expositional dialogue explaining exactly why Will left London, why he broke up with Helen (Charlotte Rampling), or why Boad (Malcolm McDowell) doesn't like Will's brother Davey (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), and no hip soundtrack, just diegetic sound and atmospheric score.

Some of the tropes could be seen as a little clichéd - man seeks revenge for brother's death - but seeing as they are built on human impulses as old as humanity, and are never made too intricate, this works well. Whilst the viewer knows ahead of Will what has happened, it is not so complicated an affair for Will not to follow the blood trail. And there is no moral at the end of the story. Well, there's not really any ending to it, either. Just an arbitrary full stop hanging in time over a series of interconnected events and overlapping strands.

This HonkWatch sees Will throwing up once back within the city limits. He is a scruffy nomad at this point, not yet again preened and strutting like his former self, not yet purged of the simpler life he retreated into, not yet polluted with the filth of the city he hates. It is one stage of several throughout the film of him preparing to wreak lex talionis, a slow, extended tooling up sequence.

* Note that Will Graham is also the name of the FBI agent who specialises in getting himself into the mindsets of serial killers in Manhunter/Red Dragon

Our latest report

Kings Crescent estate

We expect to finally introduce the new development partnership – Lovells builders and Family Mosaic Housing Association - to residents at a meeting this Wednesday.

The refurbishment of the southern blocks is proceeding, funded directly by the council and government grant. There was a second open day for residents on Wednesday 14th May, and planning permission is now being sought. A programme of environmental “catch-up” and improvements works are underway.

The subsequent meeting of the steering group, which Brian chairs, is on 30th July.

Match-day parking scheme

The much-delayed scheme is now scheduled for introduction in August, ahead of the new season. It will cover the whole of our ward.

The response to the consultation showed 67% support overall, rising to 77% within a mile of the stadium.

The introduction of similar controls during special events, such as the recent Springsteen concerts, will not be implemented at this time. The situation will be reviewed after the scheme has been in operation for a year.

Council 25th June

We raised two issues. One was the recent situation when building works to a house at the corner of Princess Crescent and Gloucester Drive left it dangerous and eventually requiring demolition. The second was to clarify how we would continue to promote Fairtrade principles.

The Labour Group proposed a motion criticizing Boris Johnson’s intention to allow motorcycles to use bus lanes. We also introduced a deputation from the Hackney branch of the London Cycling Campaign, who were strongly against the proposal.

The debate exposed the usual pro-car, anti-pedestrian, anti-cyclist and anti-public transport views of the local Tories. Most notable were the constant outbursts of Tory councillor Maureen Middleton who shouted “I hate bikes” several times.

The Lib Dems supported us. The “Greens” didn’t turn up!

Woodberry Down

We reported in error last month that the Cabinet meeting at the end of April approved a package of measures to support those shopkeepers on the estate wishing to transfer into new units on the “old school site”. In fact the report was deferred as a few matters still need to be resolved.

The Estate Development Committee which has been main method of resident involvement in the regeneration plans, reconstituted itself as the Woodberry Down Community Organisation, with a wider remit at its most recent meeting.

The revised masterplan will be considered at a future planning committee.

The competitive process to select a RSL and a developer for the remaining sites is continuing.

We are hoping to have a stall at the funday this Saturday.

Blackstock Road

We had been hinting for some time at the major police operation planned against organised crime on Blackstock. It may be worth restating why this was necessary - figures from the police and phone companies show that well over half of all mobile phones stolen in London were later resold there. Increasingly laptops, PDAs and SatNavs also featured. Indeed it was the biggest single hotspot for such crime in the whole country.

With regard to the dispersal zone, the latest info is that the police do now intend to apply for it to continue for another three months. The imposition of the zone was something we strongly supported because as well as the actual crime, one of the main issues raised with us by residents was the intimidating feeling that just having so many people hanging about on the street caused. There were also many reports of actual harassment, particularly of women and girls.

There are also plans to set up a separate Safer Neighbourhoods Team for Blackstock. As far as we know this is the first such cross-boundary team in the Met. We have written to the Mayor pledging our support and requesting his.

At the same time as increasing enforcement activity, we have always emphasised the need to work with the residents and traders to promote the area positively. A new charter attempting to summarise the community’s aspirations for the area was launched on the 29th May.

A Blackstock Road Festival, which will include closing the northernmost part of the road, is scheduled for Sunday 10th August.

Portland Rise and Amwell Court

Feryat will be attending their next meeting on 17th July.

Alexandra National

We are currently looking for new development partners to help regenerate the site and provide rented, intermediate, private, and possibly retail, accommodation.

Myddleton Grange estate

We recently met with resident representatives, police and housing associations on the estate to discuss establishing a proper T&RA, and getting activities for young people during the summer. We will be following this up with further efforts.

Council Finances

We have been stressing how sound the council’s finances are under the current administration. The accounts for last year were successfully closed on 30th June, the earliest ever deadline. Amongst other things, they show –

§ Last year the council spent £929,508,000 providing services to residents, businesses and visitors
§ We had a surplus of £26,294,000, which has been rolled forward into this year’s budget (most of this was deliberate contingency funding)
§ The authority’s assets have a notional net value of £1,956,660,000
§ Our pension fund is worth £675,910,000

Trees killed off by dog attacks

nlnews@archant.co.uk
09 July 2008

TEETH, claw marks and torn bark on a tree which park users say has been used to train fighting dogs

FIGHTING dogs are being bated by "irresponsible" owners to attack trees in Finsbury Park, killing or damaging hundreds of them.

Haringey Council says at least 100 trees have been damaged and up to 20 will have to be removed from the park, with an avenue of recently planted poplars the scene of "particular devastation". The council says owners have been encouraging dogs to chew and scratch bark to strengthen their jaws and claws for fights.

New trees have been targeted by 'irresponsible' dog owners

The softball area of the park has also been used for dog fighting, according to reports.

Councillor Dhiren Basu, Haringey's cabinet member for leisure, culture and lifelong learning, said enormous time and effort had been spent on making the park one of the best in the country.

He said: "We can't allow all of this to be placed at risk by the actions of a few cruel and misguided individuals who want to train their dogs to fight.

"Not only is dog fighting a barbaric sport that belongs in the Dark Ages, the training methods involved are ruining the appearance of a beautiful park."

Dog walker Frances Blackburn, 60, of Ferme Park Road, Finsbury Park, said herself and many others who use the park are upset about the loss of older trees.

She said: "They cut the bark on the tree and then the dogs run up and peel it off, you can see the teeth marks." She added: "It's wicked because they've spent so much time and effort on the park. I don't know how much damage they've caused the trees but they won't survive."

The council has urged all dog owners to act responsibly.

Anyone who witnesses dog fighting or dogs chewing trees is asked to report it immediately and in confidence to the Parks Constabulary on 020 7272 5464.

Toilet art gallery made homeless

nlnews@archant.co.uk
09 July 2008

AN ART gallery created in an old toilet block in Finsbury Park has been left homeless after Haringey Council pulled the plug on its lease, it claims.

Fine arts graduate Shiri Shalmy, who runs gallery:space, has been forced to move the independent art centre out of its park home in McKenzie Pavilion.

She claims the council refused to renew her lease which expired at the end of June.

She said: "How do you justify shutting it down if you haven't got an alternative?"

But the council stressed "there is no leasing arrangement for the building".

The gallery had expected its rent-free tenancy would be renewed until the end of the year and had artists booked for exhibitions until then.

But the space will now be used by the council and the Friends of Finsbury Park as an information centre - with the council saying the gallery is welcome to apply to hold exhibitions there.

A spokesman for Haringey Council said: "It was always understood that Ms Shalmy could use the space while delivering the Friends' of Finsbury Park Lottery-funded Heritage Trail project, which ran until March. We have supported gallery:space by allowing Ms Shalmy to use the pavilion free of charge."

The council confirmed a condition of the grant awarded to restore the building was that it should be used as an "information resource" including community art projects.

A farewell picnic saw a swell of community support for the gallery which has seen 10,000 visitors throughout the year. "We've had 400 signatures on a petition and we've had letters from artists," said Ms Shalmy.

The gallery has been run mainly with Ms Shalmy's cash and the help of volunteers.

Jas. Jag är tillbaks från london, med massor av nya intryck och idéer. Bland annat måste jag sluta slänga tuggummi på marken, det som fick mig att inse det var att londons gator färgats vita av alla tuggummin, och att städare stod och försökte bränna bort alla spår av de tandnyttiga vännerna som ger en god andedräkt. Vilket i-landsproblem.

Annars rekommenderar jag alliansfritt sveriges dussintals artiklar om FRA lagen, bland annat ett inslag här om Fredrik Reinfeldt om FRA lagen. Annars en underbar plattityd och artikel om det upplåsta bidragsfusket av ilse-marie. Robin Enander vill se sänkt rösträttsålder, och det snart annars har JörgenL hittat en rolig film om FRA.

Läs även andra bloggares intressanta åsikter om Tuggummi, london, vatten, flaska, cola, coca cola, fanta, informationssamhället, världsfattigdom, miljön

Viewed from a No 168 bus travelling north to Hampstead. By the way that's a statue of Mahatma Gandhi

Wonder Woman, originally uploaded by richiesoft.

A participant dressed as wonder woman holding part of the pride rainbow flag.

via chestionabil.ro

www.blocparty.com

www.myspace.com/blocparty

Bloc Party are an English indie rock band, composed of Kele Okereke on vocals and rhythm guitar, Russell Lissack on lead guitar, Gordon Moakes on bass guitar and Matt Tong on the drums.