BootsnAll Travel Network
Add this blog to: MyYahoo, Google, Bloglines, RSS


Archive for the 'Tadley Times' Category

« Previous Page — « Previous Entries
Next Entries » — Next Page »
« Home

Letter from the New Hood

Wednesday, August 10th, 2005

We now live in a Seventies-style house with a palatial open-plan lounge facing out over a two-tier garden through double glazed sliding doors. By rights, this would be a place for children. It is also the first place we inhabited that is ideal for pets—all that we have missed out on in life. Sadly we can’t get a cat because we’re only here for a year and a cat would get too attached to the place. A pet rabbit perhaps. It’s portable and can be left with friends or relatives or, if nobody wants it, eaten. It would also keep the lawn neatly trimmed…
[read on]

Posted in Tadley Times | Comments Off on Letter from the New Hood

Block the Builders — Hiroshima Anniversary

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005

Monday the 8th of August marks the 60th anniversary of the bombimg of Hiroshima.

This is also the week that planning permission has been sought by our Friendly Neighbourhood Atomic Weapons Establishment for further building work to enable the development of the next generation of nuclear weapons. Naturally, there will be a demonstration at the site.

As I’m off to Scotland, I can’t be there but I hope that many will attend.

That’s all for now folks, see you again after Worldcon.

Posted in events, Tadley Times | Comments Off on Block the Builders — Hiroshima Anniversary

How many designers does it take to change a lightbulb?

Sunday, July 31st, 2005

I mean this quite literally. Who hasn’t come across one of these modern ceiling lights where changing a lightbulb involves a major exercise in deconstruction?

It’s the same with windows. All windows appear to be designed by men who have never done an honest day’s work in their lives. Where they open at all (and by no means do they all open), they will open outwards and they will consist of many tiny squares just too small for the squeegee to fit. Even major contortions may not be enough to get at the outer squares and the only way to reach them is via a thirty foot ladder. I wonder how many people get maimed or killed each year while attempting to clean their windows.
[read on]

Posted in Tadley Times | Comments Off on How many designers does it take to change a lightbulb?

On the move again (1)

Tuesday, July 5th, 2005

Predictably, the time has come to move yet again and, predictably, it isn’t to sunny Brisbane or vibrant London. Our Landlady wants to put the house back on the market and I for one am not sorry to see it go—with the open views through the ground floor windows it felt at times like living in an aquarium.
[read on]

Posted in Tadley Times | Comments Off on On the move again (1)

English Summer (1)

Thursday, June 30th, 2005

Our six-day-summer came to an end with the deluge that flooded Glastonbury along with large parts of central England last Friday and cut power to 35000 homes in the Manchester area. Yesterday, between downpours and with the distant rumble of thunder still on the horizon, I walked to the newsagent to buy some milk and it was there that I saw the headline:

First hosepipe ban in a decade on the cards

This should tell you all you need to know about the English summer (Scotland does not tend to have hosepipe bans).

The sun peeked briefly through a rift in the blanket of clouds and the shopkeeper looked up at the sky. She was standing in the entrance with a cork noticeboard under her arm, wiping the sweat off her brow.

“Goodness me,” she sighed:” I won’t get this thing back up if I don’t close the door first. How silly—but how can anyone think in this heat?!” The temperature was in danger of nudging 20° C.

In the evening, the draught that has the country in its grip was headline news on the radio. Newsbeat commented that Londoners had been advised not to flush the toilet when not ‘strictly necessary’. Or, as one woman put it in an interview:

“If it’s yellow, let it mellow;
if it’s brown, flush it down.”

Quite.

Posted in Tadley Times | Comments Off on English Summer (1)

�Pasaron!

Friday, June 3rd, 2005

I have been feeling like shit for the last couple of days. On the day of the blockade, I peeled myself out of bed at 6 am with the intention to go straight back to sleep when it was over but never did. Then in the evening we met up with one of John’s colleagues who is leaving and of course ended up back in the flat with a stockpile of cider and real ale. Then I had to get up every morning… Honestly, I can’t take the lifestyle any more. My age shows. Sorry for the delay in writing up the day’s events.
trident1.jpg
[read on]

Posted in events, Tadley Times | Comments Off on �Pasaron!

�No pasar�n!

Sunday, May 29th, 2005

Yep, another blockade has been called for Tuesday.

Last Friday we spotted a small components convoy on their way to either Aldermaston or Burghfield and I emailed Nukewatch, a network of dedicated people who keep a constant outlook for nuclear arms convoys on British roads. I was asked whether I would keep a dedicated watch on Burghfield one day a week. I’m not sure. I feel a bit pressurized. If it weren’t for that damn nuclear arms base on our doorstep, I would have ignored the whole thing. —Maybe we’ll talk about it at the blockade.

Posted in events, Tadley Times | Comments Off on �No pasar�n!

Aftermath of the Blockade

Monday, May 16th, 2005

Just caught up with the Basingstoke Gazette that flutters through our letterbox twice a week. I was pleased that the recent blockade at AWE was mentioned, although the article was very succinct.

A journalist was present at the site for a considerable time, approaching both activists and the police, but her short account left the reader confused. It mentioned briefly that new building work under way at AWE is claimed by protesters to ‘lead to a new generation of nuclear weapons’ then went on to describe the arrests and alleged offenses at length. It finished with a quote from Thames Valley Police hailing the operation a success as everybody at AWE was able to get to work on time. I would not have thought otherwise with a scant dozen demonstrators sitting peacefully in front of the gate surrounded by three times the number of police. The point was to stage a perfunctory protest to raise public awareness about Britain’s involvement in the development of new nuclear weapons. It was all that we could do and a the time I thought that we had at least been partly successful in this. But if we were, the Basingstoke Gazette didn’t get it.

I might not have expected the paper to be sympathetic, but I had hoped for a more informative article when the BG bothered reporting the incident at all. It might well be that the journalist got out of bed too early and on the wrong foot but, needless to say, they didn’t print my letter either. —Again. Why all the secretiveness? The days of the Cold War are past and with this country’s recent involvement in an illegal war and the general election just over it is high time to call for an open debate. Even in a local free-sheet. The BG is proud of their worthy campaign to keep rural post offices open but blind to the more sinister goings-on on our very doorstep.

Posted in Tadley Times | Comments Off on Aftermath of the Blockade

They Shall Not Pass! (2)

Monday, May 9th, 2005

I know democracy is not just about voting. In fact most of it isn’t about voting. It is about engaging the government in dialogue, about debate, about protest.

This week, delegates from the 187 signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) meet in New York to discuss the future of nuclear disarmament. At the same time, the US intends to build a new generation of tactical ‘mini nukes’ for deployment in future conflicts such as the war in Iraq. They are, as ever, closely cooperating with their British counterparts. In some ways the Brits are even ahead. The planned Orion laser facility at our Friendly Neighbourhood Atomic Weapons Establishment, which could simulate test conditions to allow the design of such weapons without contravening the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, is more advanced than the facilities already in place in the States. In combination with the—likewise—proposed hydrodynamics and materials labs plus a new super computer it will be far in excess of what’s needed for maintenance or dismantling of the existing (tiny) arsenal. If I didn’t know better, I would almost think Britain is stepping back from it’s solemn promise to undertake to make progress towards disarmament.
[read on]

Posted in events, Tadley Times | Comments Off on They Shall Not Pass! (2)

They Shall Not Pass

Thursday, May 5th, 2005

There will be a blockade at our friendly neighbourhood Atomic Weapons Eastablishment on Monday 9th May and all I can think about is that I can’t go to jail because I have booked a ticket on the Wednesday ferry to Bilbao. I have to stop being so paranoid—I’m only going as a bystander for heaven’s sake. Mind last time I thought that, I ended up practising blockade techniques with the rest of the guys, so who knows.

Ah well, it is high time that I stood by my principles! Even if they start at 7 am (brrr).

Damn, this means I’ll have to fire off letters to the local papers again. Oh well, I just have to shuffle the words around a bit each time and if I keep doing it for long enough, a few of them may actually get published.

Posted in events, Tadley Times | Comments Off on They Shall Not Pass

« Previous Page — « Previous Entries
Next Entries » — Next Page »