A Healthy Interest

Time to take a break from the business of essay writing, and update the blog once more. I think you can tell when you have a fair amount of work on when you take a break from one assignment; to work on another...But there you go!

After last week at the Ham & High, there's a pretty juicy NHS story to upload, but before we move onto that, here's a 400 piece on campaigning Braintree MP Brooks Newmark. The conservative MP who has been representing my original home town since 2005. Since I have no images of Braintree to hand, I am going to attempt to blatantly steal them from the council / Brooks Newmark websites, but in my defence, being a child of the fine Essex market town, I believe I have every right to do as I please as far as Braintree is concerned!

I have a sheduled meeting next Friday with Karen Buck, my MP here in St Johns Wood, North London, which I'm very much looking forward to turning into a news worthy event, so speaking to Brooks was a good way to prepare.

I was also pleased to see Brooks make an appearance at PMQ's on Wednesday last week, to raise the hospital issues mentioned below. Was NOT so pleased with Gordon Brown's sarcastic response, however.

Incidentally, as mentioned previously on this blog, Latest Art magazine will be publishing the full version of the Amanda Sharp interview at the Frieze Art Fair, as they have been able to track down pictures. I'm looking forward to seeing it on Nov 21st. So...here's Brooks.

A Healthy Interest

Brooks Newmark, the Conservative Member of Parliament for the Braintree constituency, is a man with a lot on his plate. Representing the needs of over 100,000 people in central Essex is challenge enough. Doing this in a town which has seen its number of local hospitals slashed from three to zero, while the population has more than doubled, is quite another.

Now 39 years old, Brooks was born in the US, and moved to the UK at the age of nine. He succumbed to the attraction of politics in the 80’s, finding inspiration through Keith Joseph, then a member of Thatcher’s Cabinet. Brooks was elected by his constituency in 2005, succeeding Labour’s Alan Hurst.

As Brooks explains: “There are now two parts to my life. I spend half my time in my constituency, and the other half in Parliament. Every day I respond to around 50 forms of communication. Letters, phone calls, and emails.

“I also try to gain permission from the Speaker to speak in Parliament at least once a week. The conventional phrase is, in fact, “Mr Speaker. I am hoping to catch your eye…”

Though this has not always worked out for Brooks, who has sat through six hour debates awaiting his chance to speak.

Though this doesn’t stop him trying. Brooks is as passionate today about his work as he was the day he began campaigning. He expresses his sense of duty with much clarity.

“I wish to extend 90% of my energies to the 10% who most need my help. I aim to articulate the concerns of those who are less able to speak out.”

The issues currently facing the constituency are various, though Brooks isolates those which he feels most strongly about, in particular, the local hospital. Or lack of.

“A lot of my energy goes towards trying to secure funding from the government to ease the [healthcare] situation in Braintree.” Brooks was recently spotted, placard in hand, launching his campaign to petition for a new community hospital.

Brooks maintains his responsibility within his community. When asked, ‘If you could gain Royal Assent for any law, first thing tomorrow morning, what would it be?’

Salary increases for MPs? Complimentary weekly travel from deepest Essex to Westminster, perhaps? Brooks doesn’t hesitate.

“Women over 40 to receive free screening for breast cancer on an annual basis.” Brooks Newmark is one MP who knows his constituents well.

Friezeing in Regents Park...

And to follow, the Amanda Sharp feature interview, conducted during the Frieze Art Fair.

The fair, lasting 5 days, is ranked among the top three fairs in the world, so I was very happy to score an interview with the organiser at its height.

I have offered a longer feature article based around the interview to a few specialist art magazines, one of whom is hoping to publish later this month. We are, however, having problems with the pics. Still...fingers crossed!

So here is the original, as submitted to the Ham & High. A slighly shorter, sub edited version appeared as a centre spread in both the Wood and Vale and the Ham & High...so not bad for a first days work. The front page, and the centre spread.

A FAIR AFTERNOON, IF SLIGHTLY FRIEZEING

Strolling through the stalls, you are struck by the substantial sense of diversity. Passing the Marc Foxx gallery, Los Angeles, on your right, you continue into the huge space, littered with light and colour. You continue on past the Szwajcer gallery, Antwerp, before popping into the Sommer gallery, Tel Aviv.

80 days? The Frieze art fair takes you around the world in half an hour.

Within the world of contemporary art, the annual Frieze fair is regarded among the top three exhibitions in the world, playing host to 151 galleries from 28 countries over the course of five days every October in Regent’s Park. Many of the world’s foremost artists and collectors are attracted to our doorstep, not to mention around 70,000 visitors.

At the centre of the storm, we caught up with Amanda Sharp who, alongside Matthew Slotover, is joint organiser of the fair, and joint publishing director of Frieze, Europe’s leading magazine of contemporary art.

The fair sprung to life in Regent’s Park in 2003. “To start with, the purpose was pretty simple,” Amanda says. “To try and get the best galleries in the world under one roof. We wanted to make it a place in which you’d want to stay for a while.”

Due to the attraction to big money collectors, some have labelled the fair too commercial, attracting work from artists for the purpose of sale, rather than exhibition, but as Amanda says:

“If somebody actually bothered to come in here, I don’t think they’d feel the same. It’s a prejudice that I would love for someone to come and confound for themselves. If I felt that art was the prerogative of the rich…I would not be sitting here now.”

Amanda says that, since 2003, the purpose of the fair has remained much the same. “I’m very happy that it has the same energy today, that it had the day we opened. If we can keep that, I feel we’re doing well.”

Frieze is more than welcome to its annual space in Regent’s Park. Though who knows where Amanda will stand with her peers next year? Until recently, she was named the 8th most important person in art, but, as of Friday, has fallen to 17th.

Amanda appears somewhat amused: “I think if you’re silly enough to believe you’re the 8th most important person in art, then you’re silly enough to be upset about dropping down!”

The Front Page Splash...

Before I go any further, just a quick note to say, following on from Gordon Brown's election climb down, our national newspaper subs must have been thanking their lucky start that here we have a PM whose name is so transparently open to puns about brown stuff / underpants / etc. Still, on with the serious stuff...

A few people in my area, just north of central London, have remarked how lucky we are to have a series of 'quality' newspapers that cover the area. Namely, the Ham & High series.

So, a couple of weeks ago I put on my best shirt, which, being a student, is not actually a very nice shirt, but is still my best, and went along to see if I would be able to help out one day a week.

The staff were very welcoming, and were happy for me to begin going in every Friday, where I would be working on the Wood & Vale, the specific title for my area- St Johns Wood and Maida Vale. It has taken a couple of weeks for the stories to make the blog, because the paper comes out late every Thursday, so my first weeks work only appeared a few days ago.

So as it turns out...I got lucky. My first day, Maida Vale was flooded due to a burst pipe, and the editors were also happy for me to conduct an interview I had previously arranged with Amanda Sharp, the organiser of the Frieze Art Fair, held that same weekend in Regents Park.

What follows is my original copy. The flood story was the front page splash (excuse the pun). The version which went to press was brought up to date by Susannah Wilkey, the Wood & Vale's full time journalist, shortly before deadline.

FLOOD WATERS DEVASTATE MAIDA VALE

Around 50 properties were damaged and 400 homes were without drinking water in the Clifton Road area of Maida Vale on Friday, after an aging water pipe burst in the early hours of the morning, spilling millions of gallons of water onto surrounding streets.

Flood debris littered the area, and surrounding streets were cordoned off by the Fire Brigade as the road surface began to break up under the sheer volume of water.

Local businesses experienced huge damage to stock, and were forced to close their doors when power was cut to the area around 10am.

Six hours after the pipe burst, Thames Water were still seeking to pinpoint the source and cause of the damage. Spokesperson Nicola Savage said:

“We are having difficulty isolating the source. The Fire Brigade are diverting the flow of water away from local businesses, and we will look into whether the pipe can be fixed, or whether it needs to be replaced.

“We have had to cut off the supply to the pipe, and there is a possibility that these disturbances may continue into tomorrow.”
Warwick Avenue tube station was also forced to close following the power cut, bringing disruption to the Bakerloo Line.

Twelve elderly residents had to be evacuated from Melbourne Court, in the Little Venice area, after flood waters rose dramatically to around two metres in the buildings garage space. The garage, the lowest lying point in the area, stands directly above an electricity substation.

Fearing for the resulting mix of petrol from the parked cars, flood waters, and electricity in the substation, the Fire Brigade evacuated residents at 10am, who gathered at a nearby pub.
This is not the first time the area has experienced such problems, leaving residents less than impressed.
Melbourne Court Porter Broderick Mills said: “This is the fourth time we’ve had a pipe burst in the area. It’s no good replacing these pipes now. They should have been replaced 20 years ago.”

Residents were deeply concerned for their property in the worst affected areas. “I have two Ferraris, two BMWs, and a Ford Mustang, and they’re all under water,” one elderly lady complained.

Responding to the wave of criticism a Thames Water spokesperson said: “We are spending half a million pounds every day replacing pipes as and when required. Unfortunately, sometimes, pipes burst.”

(I'm stealing the title from Saatchi & Saatchi...but how can you not? It's pure gold!)- NOT FLASH, JUST GORDON. (Brilliant.)

I have been a little guilty of blog-neglect over the past week or so, due to the ever growing pile of tasks to get through. So to bring us up to date...here we go.

The following is a 400 wrd article on Gordon Brown's first 100 days in power. Do we have a Blairite presidential figure at the helm? Or a John Major-esqe, open, considerate leader? As it happens, the days immediately following Mr brown's 100 day milestone, were not at all good. He faced the most harsh criticism he has yet had to deal with as PM, due to his dithering over whether to call a November election, and eventual climb down.

The following article was written before all this came to light. It quickly became apparent, after a little research, that in Mr brown, we have a man who realises the importance of shedding the presidential skin, or, as some have been quoted, the Stalinist reputation. But it is too early to say for certain whether this realisation, and the actions performed in its light, represent an honest attempt at open leadership, or are merely further spin.


100 Days at the Top

After 10 years on the sidelines, patiently awaiting his tenure at the top, Gordon Brown accepted the Queens invitation to form a government on June 27th. Now that Mr Brown has reached the 100 day milestone, what of the man, and his leadership style? Is Prime Minister Brown a suitable term, or should we be raising our fists with passionate fervour and declaring “Vive el Presidente!”

It was a baptism of fire, to say the least. With terrorist car bombs, middle England under water, not to mention a timely stab in the back. As Mr Brown prepared to accede to the top job, his former colleague Lord Turnbull warned Britain that Mr Brown “had a very cynical view of mankind and his colleagues. He cannot allow them any discussion.”

Entering office on a wave of criticism from trusted quarters embarrassed Mr Brown, who was understandably keen to shed the spectre of spin and closed door, power monger politics left over from his predecessor Tony Blair.

Within days, reports surfaced in the Guardian concerning Mr Brown’s willingness to hand “power to the people,” via a new constitutional settlement, thus inhibiting his own powers on key issues, including the right to declare war. Now- what did we learn from Iraq…Gordon?

Mr Brown was also conspicuous in his efforts to invite leading Tory and Lib Dem politicians into his circle, to act as advisers in key areas such as security.

So, does this perceived willingness to unveil a new kind of politics, a democratic, classically British style of government, ring true within the corridors of power? Has the ideological circle been widened to allow influence from all sides?

The recent announcement that 1,000 British troops would be home from Iraq “by Christmas,” would seem to suggest otherwise, coming as a surprise not only to the Tories, whose wind was well and truly torn from their conference sails, but also to the Cabinet, who would have expected such an announcement this coming Monday, when Mr Brown makes a statement to parliament on Iraq.

A brief look at Mr Brown’s office confirms the presidential legacy of Mr Blair remains in place, with ‘Chiefs-of-staff’ here and ‘G8 Sherpas’ there.

And at the centre of it all, we have a man waging war against a ruthless Stalinist reputation which continues to preceed him. As he sits on the huge decision whether to call a snap November election, Gordon Brown, post 100 days, is a man whose bark is worse than his sound-bite.

An Inconvenient Youth

So, posting number three, and, you know sometimes, something happens, or a decision is made, that goes so far against everything that you believe in, that you simply have to argue the opposite point? Where, in fact, 'argue' is the wrong word, because it is not an argument at all. Far from it. To you, it is more a case of going some way to correcting something that you see as fundamentally wrong. Where you feel the need to say..."look...hang on just a second...".


Well, to follow on from my most recent posting, concerning face paint, balloons, and, I dare say, chocolate cake, here is something with a little more substance. It concerns the decision, about to be taken by a high court judge, to force teachers to place doubt in the mind of their pupils, before they are allowed to view Al Gore's climate change film, 'An Inconvenient Truth.'

You really can't blame the government for this one...they did their best. This one is in the hands of the judiciary, after prompting from that one true bastion of climate change science...the long distance lorry driver.

If the courts really need advice from somebody as to the most effective method of educating our kids on environmental matters, surely they could do better than that??? Does anyone have Jeremy Clarkson's number???


This article was published on the lifeatuni.com online news and current affairs site, at: http://www.lifeatuni.com/lifestyle/articles/200709_articles/lifestyle_articles_inconvenient_youth.php

An Inconvenient Youth

Earlier this week, a high court judge gave a very clear indication of how he plans to rule in a well publicised case, concerning the governments decision to screen Al Gore‘s award winning documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, in all secondary schools across England. And the decision? A very clear victory for the continuing voice of the climate change sceptic.

Mr Justice Burton, who is due to deliver a decision on the case next week, revealed that he would be ruling that teachers must warn pupils that there are other opinions on global warming, and that they should not necessarily accept the ‘opinions’ of the film.

The case follows the decision back in February, by the then education secretary Alan Johnson, that all secondary schools in England would be sent DVD’s of ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ for display to every child between the ages of 11 and 16. The decision paved the way for the raising of awareness among school age children of what Al Gore, the former vice-president of the United States, describes as “the single greatest threat to mankind.”

However, Dover lorry driver Stewart Dimmock took it upon himself to challenge the right of the government to broadcast the film in secondary schools, calling for an outright ban, on the grounds that the film is politically bias, contains serious scientific inaccuracies, and is ‘sentimental mush’.

The decision of Mr Justice Burton does not go so far as to issue an outright ban, as Mr Dimmock had hoped, but will still place great doubt within thousands of young, impressionable minds. Of course, there is value in encouraging independent thought among our youth. But- the scientific community has agreed on the causes behind global warming. To sow the seed of doubt in the mind is years behind the scientific consensus, echoing of the long running battle to place equal weight behind the teaching of creationism in American high schools, against Darwin’s theory of evolution. An argument that would be more at home in the dark ages.

Those who continue the fight against science in the climate change arena are motivated purely by financial issues. And we would do well to heed the warnings of scientists, ahead of the warnings of self preserving economists, with one finger on the economic pulse, and the other measuring the thickness of their wallets.


As far as the accusations of Mr Dimmock are concerned, beginning with political bias, Al Gore is a man who stood at the forefront of American politics for many years, ever since his 1984 election victory in the state of Tennessee. His democratic credentials are there for all to see. It was only the 2000 Florida voting scandal which impeded him from claiming what many saw at the time, and many still believe, to be his rightful tenure as President.

It was Al Gore’s political ambitions and successes which brought him in touch with the truth about climate change, via the warnings offered to American politicians by scientists. However ‘inconvenient’ they may have been at the time.

To suggest that the film should be banned from secondary schools on the grounds of political bias, is to discredit the source from which it originated. And how refreshing it was, to see a man such as Al Gore embrace a new challenge beyond the world of politics. One which he clearly saw, and still sees, as far more important, and far more fulfilling. Far from discrediting the film, it is the political background which provides the film its vital credibility.

As far as the science is concerned, as the world is surely aware, a consensus has been reached by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It is all but certain that human activity is responsible for the warming of global temperatures, via increased carbon output. You may find this hard to swallow, particularly if you make a living driving lorries, but there you go. Around 2000 of the worlds foremost climate experts agree, with no political agenda lurking in the background.

When considering the claim of ‘sentimental mush,’ the reasons behind Al Gore’s presentation must be considered. As a man who had front line access over a number of years to the overlapping fields of science and politics, Al Gore realised the importance of the information that he came into contact with.

He also realised the importance of communicating the message to every man, woman and child on the planet, in an effective, user friendly manner. Al Gore’s 2007 book ‘The Assault on Reason’, talks in detail of the destruction of ideas in discourse, which he puts down to the influence of electronic media, and in particular, television. Recalling the words of one Thomas Jefferson, Gore writes: “The ‘well-informed citizenry’ is in danger of becoming the ‘well-amused audience.’”

The fact that the film contains what some may cynically dismiss as ‘sentimental mush’, is indicative not of Al Gore, and not of an attempt to cover up any scientific shortcomings, but of our entertainment culture. It is indicative of the fact that in order for the message to hit home, the film makers realised the necessity of invoking the human interest angle. Without this, many viewers, raised on popular American primetime TV culture of action, emotion, and fifteen minutes of fame, would have simply lost interest, despite the underlying importance of the message.

For a lorry driver from Dover to call for the banning of the film on such grounds, is a gross misjudgement of the motives behind the film, and of the motives behind the governments decision to screen it within secondary schools. Those to whom global warming is an ‘inconvenient truth,’ should pay attention to the issues raised and widely embraced by the scientific community, as presented to the world in Al Gore’s film.

When all is said and done, do you really want to be around to witness the flooding of our towns and cities, the destruction of species, the loss of entire communities through starvation? Or would that simply be too much ‘sentimental mush…..?’