I’m stuck in the middle of everything.

I’m not a parasitic downloader/filesharer who amasses stuff for free just because I can. I’m not an iTunes/Apple slave. I don’t have a Spotify account. I am familiar with The Pirate Bay. I appreciate excellent audio quality. DRM offends me. I don’t buy CDs anymore (I’d just rip ‘em and sling ‘em). I do have a high-end hard-disk music system (squeezebox) with all my old CDs rippled to FLAC format. I do not listen to compressed crap, mp3 AAC et al. I want to download top quality music on my terms.

and,

I want to support musicians.

So here’s the deal: I want a lossless audio format that I can download.  And I want to pay for it. I better repeat that, I WANT TO PAY FOR IT! But I can’t because the only option available to me is to download crappy mp3 format or give my first born to Apple. No thanks.

Here’s how it works: I often have Radio Paradise playing around my house through 3 squeezebox players, and whenever I hear a tune that I really like I jump on the artist’s website and check to see if I can buy their offerings in FLAC format. 99.99% of the time the answer is no. The 0.01% was today when I checkout out Blackstratblues. Clicked on Download, selected FLAC format – followed a link sent via email – downloaded their entire album (which is excellent) in 10 mins, then followed up their invitation to make a contribution to the band and fired off £5. Now that’s how it should work – the artists being rewarded directly for making great music. Nice.

I’d do this far more often if only it were possible. But it’s not. Apple have a lossless format for iTunes calles ALAC. Why have you done this Apple, why? You’ve done it again – tried to castrate an existing technology for your own market greed (just as Microsoft did with all those internet standards and protocols – note to Mr S. Jobs: Microsoft lost those battles and so shall you). Why not just use FLAC and not reinvent something that’s not quite as good just to include evil DRM?

My money is ready to be spent but nobody’s listening.

On Wednesday I went to an interesting discussion “Is the Internet Safe for Free Speech“, in which Richard Allan, Facebook’s Director of EU Policy, defended their recent controversial policy changes. He didn’t get it either.

When geeks create virtual shiny new toys for people to play with, there is a sense of altruistic satisfaction which often serves as sufficient reward alone. That’s why I create shiny new toys at work and at home – because I love making them. But this is also an engineering task in which the toy’s environment is a vital consideration. At work it’s called professionalism, at home social responsibility.

Allan argued that Facebook’s engineers we so passionate and so enthusiastic that sometimes they forgot to engineer a remove button into their toy. Either that’s utter rubbish or just plain terrifying, you decide.

But here’s the key – people will only engage with you and your ‘product’ as long as the net benefit is in their favour. Yes, they will accept some monetisation (toll), but principally the user is in charge – they hold the trust. Or to borrow the maxim from an ancient world, “the customer is king”. Yes Mark, even when the toys can’t be bought.

The trust model is simple: the company must act in the best interest of its customers, and not for itself.

Over time, Facebook has eroded this trust to breaking point. And now the trust is gone. Boof! The perception that Facebook is a friendly shiny toy for us all to enjoy has evaporated. We all loved Facebook because it empowered us. We now see Facebook as nothing more than a shiny honey pot to trade our digital existence.

Next chapter, enter diaspora, a bunch of enthusiastic kids who want to create what we all thought Facebook was. They may not have the perfect shiny toy just yet, but one thing’s apparent – they do get it, and for that I wish them well.

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.

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

I slap my scandal ridden paper on the counter and offer some trite comment about the latest headline. But I’m greeted with an impassive face, staring at me for just a moment too long.

“I’m sorry”, he offered, “my thoughts are elsewhere. At home, in Sri Lanka”.

His kind face belied his apparent agony and explained, “It’s genocide in my home town. I am so worried – the government are killing my people.”

I stood there not knowing what to say, so said nothing.

“They killed my father in front of me. That is why I am here. Soon they will kill them all and there will be no Tamils left”.

My thoughts turned to the current protests in parliament square and the contemptible apathy shown by the stack of pages in front of me.

“If you asked me many years ago, I would say I was Sri Lankan. But I am not. I am Tamil”. For a moment, so was I.

The queue behind me stirred with impatience, arms laden with trivialities. So I quickly paid, offered my sympathies and left, thoroughly ashamed that I had just contributed to – and help sustain – this media freak-show that was depriving us from important news.

The MP’s scandal has been going on for too long now, the media basking in sanctimonious hypocrisy, and fuelling public anger to sell yet more papers. Yes, they’ve been caught with their snouts in the trough – sack the offenders and lets move on. Quickly. Please.

There’s real news out there, but none I expect to find in the newspaper that lies unread on the kitchen table.

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.

]]> http://blog.innerhippy.com/?feed=rss2&p=141 0 http://blog.innerhippy.com/?p=113 http://blog.innerhippy.com/?p=113#comments Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:42:38 +0000 innerhippy http://blog.innerhippy.com/?p=113 Boris Johnson
Mayor of London
Greater London Authority
City Hall
The Queen’s Walk
More London
London SE1 2AA

8th April 2009

An Invitation to Breakfast

Dear Boris,

Firstly, I’d like to congratulate you on your first year in office. Even your most fervent of critics must be dining out on a large portion of humble pie. And it is on the subject of dining that I am writing, in particular breakfast. I invite you to join me for breakfast at my home in Hammersmith, where we can feast upon delicious home made pancakes, with fresh fruit and lashings of authentic Canadian maple syrup. All washed down with Borough Market’s finest fresh coffee.

After breakfast, I would then like you to join me on my regular commute by bicycle to my workplace in Wells Street, just off Oxford Street. This journey will, I sincerely hope, demonstrate the absolutely woeful provisions for cyclists in West London. The highlights of the journey I shall now tempt you with.

How To Survive Shepherd’s Bush Roundabout

The coffee earlier consumed is of paramount importance at the start of the journey. You’ll need to be awake. We will cycle past the monolithic Westfield Centre with its three lanes of traffic and join the fearful Shepherd’s Bush roundabout. When the Westfield developers planned the new traffic routes, there was an attempt by local residents to get a cycle path installed across the middle on the roundabout, in order to provide them with a safe route across one of the busiest and most dangerous junctions in London. Sadly, the land belongs to Thames Water, and they just weren’t interested in lending this redundant land to the community. So, around the roundabout we’d go, dodging the myriad of cars, buses and lorries as they scream up towards the M41 motorway.

The Ascent of Notting Hill

Having successfully navigated the roundabout, we’d crawl up Holland Park Avenue and gingerly thread ourselves around the tightly packed traffic. This road is often blocked, so unless you want to fill up your lungs with the effluent of large diesel engines, we’d have to overtake and take our chances with the oncoming traffic.

By the time we reach Notting Hill you’ll have worked up a good sweat – and the next part down Bayswater Road provides a welcome respite from gravity.

Lancaster Gate – London’s Peripherique

And then the real fun starts: Lancaster Gate. This junction is a 4 lane semi-orbital in which you have to cross all lanes not just once, but twice before rejoining the road going East. In fact, this part of the journey is so dangerous that almost all cyclists use the pavement on the westbound part of the Bayswater Road, just north of Hyde Park.

Now obviously I would never do something as evil as cycling on a pavement, so we’d dismount and walk the 200 metres to Victoria Gate where we can join the North Carriage Drive, just inside the park. There’s always plenty of Community Support Officers lying in wait with their charge sheets, should anyone attempt otherwise.

Hyde one-doesn’t-do-bikes Park

At this part of the journey it would be apparent to you that we are not using Hyde Park. The entire stretch up Bayswater Road, including the aforementioned peripherique-from-hell, could be bypassed by using the park. Alas, the reason for this apparent anomaly is because cycles have been banned. Yes, astonishing but sadly true. I have had numerous “conversations” with the friendly park’s constabulary about this, but they insist that cycling around Buckhill Lodge contravenes Health and Safety on grounds that it is too steep. The Queen also, apparently, frowns upon all things 2-wheeled (a bit like Westminster Council),
and I guess she knows best about these matters. Just imagine the lure to even the most dedicated of tube users of commuting in this idyllic environment.

Regents Street Obstacle Course

So, finally, we enjoy the delights of Hyde Park itself, safe from congested traffic, fumes and over-exuberant special constables gathering £30 from all unsuspecting cyclists. Past Speaker’s Corner and over Park Lane, past the American Embassy surrounded by legions of machine-gun toting policemen, and onto Regents Street. The utopia of relative carefree cycling ends as we’d again muscle ourselves in between the buses and taxis. Here we’d play a great game called “avoid being squashed by the bendy-bus”. The incredulity you’d experience at their apparent willingness to overtake and immediately stop will by surpassed by their ability to block every lane of the carriageway, at the slightest hint of a corner or parked vehicle.

We’d part company towards Wells Street, which would be my destination and I would thank you for enduring this ordeal with me. Or perhaps you would stay to watch my futile attempts to find somewhere to lock the bike, which you’d likely find highly amusing. You’d then have the unenviable prospect of navigating your way down to City Hall to your own workplace. Perhaps one day I will join you, just to see how I could get myself killed in a different part of London.

In case you don’t have time to join me for breakfast and the subsequent adventure, I sincerely hope that you will appreciate that the provisions for cycling in London are embarrassing at best, and lethal at worst.

Personally, I would hope that the Mayor of London would have it in his or her power to finally get to grips with this situation and actually get some decent cycle lanes built. Paris managed it along with their wonderful Velib system, so why in heaven’s name can’t London? When the Olympics come in 2012, all visitors would clearly understand why we have a world class cycling team – because the only place we can safely cycle is within the confines of a velodrome.

I very much look forward to you joining me for breakfast.

Yours sincerely,

RSVP.

She is claiming that the house in which her husband and children live is not her main home, and so has pocketed £116,000 in expenses. She claims that her main residence is a flat in London. But along come her London neighbours, Dominic and Jessica Taplin, who know exactly how often she stays there because of the platoon of security personnel that accompany her.

Mrs Taplin said: “When I read that she says she spends most of the week here, I thought, ‘That is a fabrication’.” ie bollocks.

The parliamentary Standards Commissioner, John Lyon, has now accepted this complaint and will investigate the matter fully.  JS contests that she has done nothing wrong.

Well, we’ll see about that shall we. With all these snooping powers that she and her crooked predecessors have introduced, it should be very easy to establish the truth. There must be mountains of CCTV footage recording her movements,  mobile phone records and an email trail that will prove exactly where she was and when. Ha ha! She could be trapped by her own snooping laws! Let’s get all that information into the public domain and we’ll see how she likes her privacy being wrenched into the open.

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.

Our "Al-Quaeda" chums are sworn enemies of our western culture, citing capitalist greed as being the root of all evil (well, they've got a point there). They've tried chucking bombs, crashed a few planes, ranted on websites – all with little effect. So why not trash our system from the inside and play the western world at its own game: financial trading.

Derivatives exchanges have "market makers" – a bunch of traders paid by the exchanges to inject liquidity into the market. They flood the market with orders that will never quite trade to give the illusion to other traders of a healthy market. Where are these people trading from? Which country would be awash with cash from recent high oil prices…Saudi Arabia? Am sure that equity markets have similar systems – all these complex financial products that are available to affluent, anonymous global traders.

All they would have to do is buoy up the markets, pull the plug and watch it all come crashing down. Sound familiar?