Just a selection of photographs from recent visits to educate ourselves that preconceptions are not always correct. We need to open our eyes and see maybe what else is around that we missed.
Birmingham Street Food
Pond at the NEC Birmingham
Birmingham Graffiti. The Best
A piece of graffiti seen on boxing day 2016 suggests that office workers may be trapped inside their office since Xmas. Their only hope was to paint graffiti on their windows and demand supplies. An insider however informs the blog that there was only enough paint to produce a single word. The word agreed upon was painted on the window. LAGER. Visitors to Brentford football club for their boxing day fixture against Brighton however seem not to have been in generous mood and no lager donations were spotted being provided. Little movement was seen in the offices as of late last night.
An excellent fast paced championship game on Boxing day 2015 surprisingly resulted in no goals. There are enough match reports to mean little point me adding to the details. It is the bigger picture though which is interesting , simply is this a prequel to the play off game with these two sides involved again?
Brighton were either average or Brentford made them look average. Nico Yennaris proved again that he is not a full-back but could be a decent midfielder. David Button had a day off. Philip Hoffman should have won the game for Brentford in the final minutes.
The game was played in good spirit with few fouls and none of note. Darren Deadman as referee was better than usual and actually not too terrible, but would either side clamour to have him back again, unlikely. A capacity 12,200 crowd gave an excellent atmosphere for a 1 pm kick off, which traditionally seem unable to provide the same atmosphere and noise as 3 pm kick offs.
The game was end to end and what was clear is that neither side had a potent striker who could have provided the goals that the game deserved. A 2-2 draw would have been a good pre-match bet and probably a reasonable score. Both sides are clearly good but maybe with Brentford improving and Brighton on the decline?
For me the best teams in the championship are Middlesborough and Hull City and these teams may get the automatic places. Perennial play off contenders Derby, Burnley, Ipswich may again make the play offs. Brentford and Brighton are also contenders with Sheffield Wednesday an outsider too.
The big surprise of the day however was being able to get an easy parking space in the Watermans Centre car park where the graffiti on a window of an office either suggested folks trapped inside demanding Xmas supplies or a prequel to a Lager advert. Great graffiti.
The general impression of arriving in New Zealand is positive from the moment that the immigration forms ask is one wants to stay and the immigration process is complete in maybe 5 minutes or less.
The general drive into auckland is unspectacular with normal housing and industrial developments lining regular dual carriageways. There is however an absence of the hideous traffic jams that line most of the UK motorways.
The centre of Auckland has the regular shops and hotels that one expects to see but the focus point is maybe the harbour filled with various yachts of immense expense, boats offering whale and dolphin trips and the edges lined with appealing bars and restaurants. An Italian restaurant Portofino can be recommended for basic but nice Italian fare and not too pricey.
As one walks around the people look happy. When I was there there was an international Karate tournament with most of the young teenage contestantants staying in the hotel. There was no arguing with these guys when they rushed up en-masse to get their breakfast items. The Austrian girls were particularly scary.
https://www.facebook.com/World-Goju-Ryu-Karate-Championships-New-Zealand-2015-638246422862804/
The city is also lined by a series of dormant, hopefully, volcanoes. Mount Wellington being one example giving great views of the city and worth a decent climb. At the moment cars are allowed to the top to a small car park but soon this will end and car passengers will have to take the same walking route as their coach passenger fellow tourists.
The food generally is interesting. Gorgeous slices of Mango at breakfast with fresh pears and apricots. Lebanese restaurants with very different menus to what might be expected in UK.
There is the usual selection of excellent graffiti and one piece of a guy trying to break into a locked garage caught my eye and was spectacular. A few curious signs too.
Firstly please share this post with friends and colleagues. What I am about to describe is a worrying trend and one that I would not like to see expanding. A kind of “legal ” vigilante going under the euphemism of ” Environmental Enforcement”. OK. Picture the scenario. A short one hour visit to Wimbledon and returning to the train station and about to enter. What did I visualise?
I am appalled. There are three I will call them officers with the gentle demeanour of harsh traffic wardens crossed with prison wardens who are ticketing folks under the name of environmental enforcement. Their crimes? Seems throwing cigarette ends anywhere than some specific receptacle. Fixed penalty fines of 75£ or 80£. Those being questioned had a poor grasp of the English language. Apparently this is a criminal offence to throw cigarette ends away like this as one officer explained.
My views on this were heavily influenced by recent reports that police no longer routinely investigate burglaries. And around 10 yards away a homeless man was prostrate and sleeping and would have been a better beneficiary of their wise input and assistance. One might also argue that folks needing help such as this man might be better recipients of environmental protection than inadvertent or even deliberate throwing of cigarette ends on the ground outside a station . Am I right to be angry about this?
After a little research tonight it seems Merton Council have a zero tolerance to littering, or so they say. The wording from their website tells us this
“Due to the high number of pedestrians visiting the town centre, Wimbledon has the highest rate of cigarette litter in Merton with over 1,500 FPNs being issued since June. As well as taking a zero-tolerance approach to enforcement, the council works to educate residents and visitors to the borough about environmental crime and the likelihood that they will be fined £75 for littering”
With their website explaining in graphic detail how to pay the £75 fine.
http://www.merton.gov.uk/environment/fixedpenaltynotices.htm
What however is worrying is that there is no right of appeal against a fixed penalty notice. So we all understand the situation that littering is not a good thing and the majority of us would agree that we should do it. However there are limits. And those limits to me are exceeded by seeing in practice that people who were it seems unaware of this draconian zero tolerance to cigarette ends, and we are not talking about littering huge amounts of kebab shop waste or newspapers on the streets, but cigarette ends, are being fined what seems an excessive amount. Furthermore to see a homeless man prostrate, rather curiously by a gritting bin, and these environmental enforcement officers take no action in the 15 minutes that I observed them was to say the least disheartening. That ” society” , well the council , cares more extracting punitive fines than humane care, speaks volumes.
The next aspect that we need to address is the actual environmental enforcement officers. Their attire of a kind of jump suit more often associated with prison, with their waists surrounded by more equipment than many would need to climb Mount Everest or contain a whole ward of rioting patients in Broadmoor, seems excessive to say the least. Together with mounted CCTV on their uniforms. I am sure Neil Armstrong had less equipment when he set foot on the moon with Apollo 11 in july 1969.
Many or even most of these officers it seems are supplied by a company called Kingdom. A press release from March 2014 stated that the council’s own enforcement officers will work alongside the Kingdom enforcement team from the end of April as they go out and about around Merton to make sure the borough is kept litter-free. Kingdom’s team is led by ” experts with an ex-military and police background”. Quite why this is so necessary to deal with ordinary folks who have thrown cigarette ends on the ground is not so clear. They issue these fixed penalty notices to those breaking the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
http://blog.kingdom.co.uk/2014/04/kingdom-part-of-merton-councils-zero.html
Where it however gets more interesting is that Merton Council has come under fire for reducing street cleaning in town centres on Sundays – while spending nearly £130,000 a year on four environment enforcement officers. So photographs published in March 2015 show far worse littering caused by the overflowing of these bins than I certainly visualised on the pavements of Wimbledon. In fact I saw nothing other than the poor homeless man. There is a lot of information provided by the government on how councils can issue FPNs and also how they should use the funds accrued.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/fixed-penalty-notices-issuing-and-enforcement-by-councils
The same site above lists the various offences for which FPNs can be given and it is immediately obvious that some of these are serious and should be punished in a punitive manner, however in the context cigarette ends must be at the lower if not lowest end of the spectrum.
graffiti
littering
fly-posting
nuisance parking (people selling or repairing cars on the road)
dog control offences
abandoned vehicles
leafleting without permission on land where leafleting is restricted (‘designated land’)
failing to nominate a key holder or give the council key holder details in an alarm notification area
failing to provide a waste carrier licence (for businesses transporting their own waste)
failing to provide a waste transfer note when moving non-hazardous waste
There is a world of difference between for example “littering” with an abandoned vehicle and a cigarette end. Yet the difference in fine amounts is surprisingly small. £200 for abandoning a car and £75 for abandoning a cigarette end. The money must also be put to specified uses.
Councils must use income from FPNs as set out :
Offence FPN money can be spent on functions relating to:
Litter – Litter, dog control, graffiti and fly-posting
Graffiti – Litter, dog control, graffiti and fly-posting
Dog control -Litter, dog control, graffiti and fly-posting
Fly-posting -Litter, dog control, graffiti and fly-posting
Unauthorised distribution of free printed material on designated land- Litter, dog control, graffiti and fly-posting
So what I am left wondering is what training is given to these officers, what degree of latitude do they have in not administering a FPN, if they have any targets, and of course how much money is raised and exactly to what purpose is it put. There is clear guidance on publishing not only the enforcement strategy but also to how the money will be used.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/fixed-penalty-notices-issuing-and-enforcement-by-councils
So in my world there would be some degree of spectrum here on exactly what constitutes a littering offence and throwing a single cigarette end does not equate to toxic pollution of the planet. Maybe also these officers can not only look at the bigger picture, but as today adopt a more humane approach. To have allowed that homeless man to remain on the ground lying prostrate would not be their greatest achievement in their day. Littering does have context and we need to be careful not to be too literal and punitive. If Merton Council want and feel they should adopt a zero tolerance approach, then this should be reflected in not only this aspect but all aspects of their work. Finally what exactly are they doing with the money, that was not happening before? I have developed a zero tolerance approach to not knowing the answers to these reasonable questions.
Brentford is a town in middlesex not really known for anything but over the last year became fairly well known in the media for their football related antics. The Warburton issue reached the media followed by the discussion over Matthew Benham and his vision of football being matched with mathematical modelling to replicate the success of his own company SmartOdds.
However what else is there in Brentford? Brentford might be regarded as the gateway to the M4 motorway, or local even to Kew Gardens. However not so many are aware that Brentford sits on the River Thames. Fewer will be aware that the Watermans Centre provides a venue for cinema and drama. Even fewer are aware that the graffiti that covers the walls of the car park in the Watermans Car Park must rate as some of the best in London.
Graffiti Brentford in the Watermans Car Park Brentford. Copyright Chris Bushe 2015
Graffiti Brentford in the Watermans Car Park Brentford. Copyright Chris Bushe 2015
Graffiti Brentford in the Watermans Car Park Brentford. Copyright Chris Bushe 2015
Graffiti Brentford in the Watermans Car Park Brentford. Copyright Chris Bushe 2015
Essen seems a pleasant enough town with a nice shopping centre and nice cafes. The striking thing about my visit related to the trains and the people on them. So maybe a photographic treatise here is better than so many words. But two questions. Firstly, how common is it to not wear any shoes on a train especially in the rain? Secondly, what wonderful graffiti both on the train and around the station. Far from imagining this as a negative thing I became convinced that it is a positive thing and added value to both the train and the station. Not everyone’s thoughts maybe.
Essen is the 9th largest city in Germany with a population just under 0.6 million. Although it is the (in total) most indebted city in Germany, Essen continues to pursue its redevelopment plans. Notable accomplishments in recent years include the title of European Capital of Culture on behalf of the whole Ruhr area in 2010 and the selection as the European Green Capital for 2017.
The train station is an important hub.Of the Rhein-Ruhr S-Bahn net’s 13 lines, 5 lines lead through Essen territory and meet at the Essen Hauptbahnhof main station, which also serves as the connection to the Regional-Express and Intercity-Express network of regional and nationwide high-speed trains.
Essen it can be said is not an obvious mecca for high quality football.The biggest association football clubs in Essen are Rot-Weiss Essen (Red-White Essen) and Schwarz-Weiß Essen (Black-White Essen). Rot-Weiss Essen is playing in the fourth tier of the German football league system, Regionalliga West, and Schwarz-Weiß Essen in the fifth tier, Oberliga Nordrhein-Westfalen. Other football clubs are BV Altenessen, TuS Helene Altenessen, SG Essen-Schönebeck.
Tourism is not such a large aspect to the city but commerce certainly is. At international trade fairs and public shows and exhibitions, Essen international trade Fairs welcomes over 14,000 exhibitors and up to 2 million visitors each year.
There are however some interesting things to see, presumably for those shoe wearing denizens of Essen. The Soul of Africa museum is one such place.
All the folks I met today were friendly decent folks however that will not stop me from making a few observations
Clacton is a place I visit once a year. Around 120 miles from 
London. 
If Iam lucky the sun shines, there is no rain and the few hours I am there I can spend walking the promenade and eating chips on the pier. Today I had maybe more than a few hours and the cracks are starting to show in this quintessential seaside town. Firstly there are few people around, secondly those people had a median age of maybe 70 years and lastly places are starting to close down. Gone is the Comfort hotel. Closed was the restaurant at the end of the pier ( it will open but last year was open this time). The wooden pier looked not only ramshackle but in parts unsafe. Some of the cracks between the wooden planks were maybe a touch too large, and should the planks have moved as much as they did?
For 5£ Sausages and chips were mine, although the interpretation of the server as to what constiuted a ” little milk” in my tea did not match my own view. The day was cold, sunny and hazy. The wind farms could not be seen out at sea. The shops all looked a little jaded. I enjoyed my day but would I go back in the summer? Probably not.
A few things did stand out though. The Graffiti was good!
chris1957
Arcticterntalk.org 