innerhippy

By Tom, age 6.

Once upon a time there was a Dark Lord called Lord Mandleson. His boss was a man called Mr Brown who’s got his own kingdom. Mr Brown had a terribly difficult year looking after his kingdom and so in August 2009 he went on holiday and left the Dark Lord in charge.

The people in the kingdom didn’t choose Lord Mandleson, so they didn’t really like him being in charge. This kingdom must have been really hard to rule, because after just a few days he also went on holiday, to an sunny island called Corfu to stay with his friends the Rothschild family and a man called Mr Geffen. The Rothschild were very, very rich and had a yacht and everything. Mr Geffen is a really important person in the music and movie business – he  even made Shrek!

Very soon after Lord Mandleson returns from his holiday, he announces that pirates on the internet are a really really big problem and that the government needs to make new laws really quickly to stop them from killing all our musicians. We were all scared.

These bad pirates were stealing all sorts of music and movies which made a lot of people very upset, but in particular the big important companies that look after musicians. Some clever people in France said that pirates would soon cost these companies €240 billion and 1.2 million jobs.

So the government made a new law called the Digital Economy Bill, which (amongst other things too complicated for me to understand) was meant to stop these bad pirates by making their internet slower and slower and eventually just stop. They thought that if the pirates couldn’t share music, they’d pop to the shops and buy a CD instead, just like a good person would. My daddy told me a story – when he was about my age, some big important people said the same things about “cassettes” and that they were constantly being told that “home taping is killing music”. I don’t really know what a cassette is, but he said he often used one to copy the radio before deciding which his fav bands were. Daddy has lots and lots of big black discs called records which play music when scratched by a needle. I’m asking Santa for one next Christmas.

So this law was rushed before the important men and women who run the kingdom – who all sit in a big room under a loud clock called Ben. There are 646 of these important people – 187 liked this Bill, 47 didn’t, the rest were probably on holiday. 20 of them talked for many, many hours and had lots of arguments, the other 174 must have been very naughty because they were busy being whipped. Lots of people wrote letters to the important men and women (20,000 – gosh), and a gazillion people on twitter all had a jolly good shout – all asking them to stop what they were doing and talk to some smart wizards who know lots about computers and things. But Mr Brown’s people were in a big rush and had no time for more talking. Maybe they didn’t really understand much about computers. Maybe they were just in a hurry to do the dishes because they kept talking about doing the washing-up.

At first I was really happy because all those musicians had been saved from the nasty pirates. But being small and curious (and a bit precocious), I wondered what the pirates were doing that was so nasty and evil. But all they were doing is sharing music with lots of people so they can also dance and sing along to their fav music. If I played guitar a bit better I’d want everyone in the world to hear it. These pirates don’t sound very nasty to me – I was always told that stealing is bad but sharing is good.

And then I wondered how you catch a pirate. Apparently, you can listen to them talking and catch them giving music away. They do lots of listening in far away places like China and Iran. I think Mr Brown wants to listen in to us as well. The trouble is that pirates are smart and it’s really easy for them to talk to each other without being heard. I have a best friend at school and we often write notes to each other in special secret code so that the teacher won’t understand what we’re talking about – it’s really fun and dead easy to do.

My daddy says that now that we’ve all got computers, he doesn’t bother buying records any more. He sometimes listens to music on the internet which is really clever and he sometimes plays me music that nobody has ever heard before. Some of it I like, but some sounds a bit like a strangled cat. I think he calls this “jazz” music.

The only people who don’t like pirates are the big important people who still make the records. But if people don’t want records any more, they might have to ask the pirates how they share music. Only really old people like my dad still use  records and the people that make them are even older – the Dark Lord Mandleson‘s friend is apparently over 200 years old!

The people in Mr Brown’s kingdom are going to choose a new leader soon. Not sure why, maybe they don’t like him or perhaps he’s too tired and grumpy. One of the people who wants his job is a very rich man with a big forehead who waves his arms around a lot. He’s also got some friends who really, really hates pirates and has promised to banish them from the face of the earth. Eurgh.

But there’s also a man called Mr Nick who thinks that big companies are bullies and that pirates aren’t so bad. Maybe they’ll become best of friends? I hope so, because I quite like pirates and I think I want to be one when I grow up. Either that or play guitar in a rock band and tour places like Corfu so that the whole world can listen to my music.

I’d wish I could choose who was going to run our kingdom, but they don’t think 6 year olds are important or clever enough.

I just hope there are enough clever people in the kingdom to do it for me.

Authorities of all flavours are capturing our lives every day. Our esteemed government du jour, with its pathetic “OMG! Terrorists everywhere!!” mentality decided to try and outlaw photographing police. The police, naturally, have run around arresting every photographer who happen to train a lens on them – using (abusing) section 44 as the catch-all to subvert civil liberties. Had it not been for the plethora of mobile phone cameras at the G20 protests, the truth would have remained inside their dim helmets. Check out this as an classic example of small minded fools with too much authority.

It’s been well documented that London is the most surveyed city in the world – the ubiquity of CCTV cameras is astonishing and something that the vast majority of Londoners seem to accept.

Recently, I’ve noticed something quite disgusting prowling the streets of London, cutesy little smart cars with CTTV cameras strapped on top – filming us all going about our boring little lives. To what purpose? I’ve no idea and I don’t care. It’s bad enough having CCTV dripping from every lamppost – at least we know where they are, but it’s another to have these insidious things tracking our every move.

So, enough’s enough.

If they want to spy on us, I want to spy on them.

Every time I see one of these wretched contraptions, I’m gonna whip my camera out and shove it right in their face. Call it retribution, justice, whatever – it’s about time the tables were turned.

I encourage you to do the same. Send me photos of these twerps in their cars and I’ll bung them on this blog. photos@innerhippy.com

Just to remind you -

• it is NOT illegal to take photographs of the police
• police do NOT have the power to delete any images or destroy film

Hello!

My name is Animal and I’m a Muppet.

Most of you will remember me as the drummer on the  show a few years back. I’m not playing drums any more, but I am a full time terrorist. Sorry, I mean tourist – bah, silly me!

I heard that Klaus and Loris Matzka were having a few problems taking photographs in London, because a couple of over-zealous policemen decided that snapping the transport infrastucture was “strictly forbidden” and deleted their photos. So I decided to help them out, go for a walk around London and  take some pictures of my own.

So if Klaus and Loris really are terrorists from the radical Peoples Front Of Austria (not to be confused with the Austrian Peoples Front – wankers), then I hope these photos prove useful!

Outside MI6 building

Here you go Klaus & Loris - Vauxhall bus station (or perhaps nuclear bunker?)

Then I went to a demonstration in Parliament square. Lots of angry people.

Big Ben - it's really big!

Parliament - the home of the British politburo.

Apparently this building's full of Muppets!

This is where Gordon controls everything with his large, white, fluffy cat

And finally - after a long day sightseeing, I went to the pub.

I am struggling to find words that adequately describe my feelings of utter revulsion over what this wretched woman and her brain-dead cronies in the government have done. It seems that the position of Home Secretary brings with it a pathological contempt for what used to be Democracy UK. An endless precession of half-wits have held this position and have duly screwed things up.

First up, the brilliant David Blunket who decided that the £18 billion ID cards scheme would be a terrific way to loose all our personal data. Then we had Jack Straw’s murky dealings with Extraordinary Rendition (the gun’s is still smouldering), followed by a lifetime achievement award from Privacy International for introducing the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act that enforces widespread internet snooping powers. Then there was that buffoon, Charles Clarke who tried to get 90 day internment enshrined in law – thankfully booted out of parliament only to re-emerge as watered-down  “control orders”.   And as for SOCPA….don’t get me started.

Enter stage left, Jacqui Smith – the most miserable of them all. Not satisfied with control orders, she then pushes through for 42 day internment (down from 96) and a few weeks ago the Coroners and Justice Bill which permits the state to snoop on our emails.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, we have another gem from the Ministry of Control: Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act such that taking a photograph of a policeman may lead you to a 10 year stretch at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. Astonishing. Even the Metropolitan Police Federation are “concerned” with these new powers that have landed on their table, they must think it’s Christmas. Be in no doubt, the police will abuse these powers – just has they do with the rafter of existing anti-terrorism laws. This is no reflection upon the police force per se, but a police force as a bunch of average people with average intelligence. Does Jacqui Stasi-Smith think that driving another wedge between the police and the people is really going to help crime fighting? Doesn’t she get it? We’re supposed to be on the same side you moron!!

Adam Curtis in 2004 made a brilliant documentary series for BBC called The Power Of Nightmares which shows how politicians use fear to hoodwink the public in order to retain power. This is precisely what this government continues to do – so much knee-jerk policy can be distilled down to “fear-of-terrorism” that not only tramples on habeas corpus but also hands any Kalashnikov wielding shitheads a resounding victory. These fools in Whitehall have done more damage to our democracy in the past 6 years than the Nazis could every have done.

The former head of MI5, Dame Stella Rimington, has also broken ranks by writing  “It would be better that the government recognised that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism – that we live in fear and under a police state,”. Here bloody here.

I’m so bloody angry I’m going to go outside and shoot a policeman. With my potato gun, of course – a camera would be illegal.