Geeks and Internet industry types like to say that Andy Burnham, our Minister for Culture, doesn’t get the Internet. They’re wrong. He gets the Internet all right. He just doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like its pretensions to autonomy and ungovernability and in particular he doesn’t like its inability to protect kids from stuff they… Continue reading Filter it or lose it: free speech on the net depends on good filters.
Tag: uk
Building Magazine on why construction needs migrant workers
Gordon Brown’s announcement of a larger quota for desperately needed overseas construction workers is cue for a good piece from Building magazine about migrant workers on UK sites. The article focuses on the experience of workers on the huge Paternoster Square development, next door to St Paul’s Cathedral in The City – from Italy, Hungary,… Continue reading Building Magazine on why construction needs migrant workers
Blue collar thrills
There’s a village in the flatlands of South Northamptonshire called Podington. Nearby is what used to be a US Airbase. In 1966, some locals decided to introduce the frankly weird and unsuitable US sport of drag racing to the abandoned runway and, in honour of its American roots, they called the track Santa Pod Raceway… Continue reading Blue collar thrills
Radio stars
To unlovely Shoreditch via lovely Liverpool Street Station with its disfiguring retail warts (the station concourse and train shed remain beautiful but only if you hold up your hand to block out the ghastly sediment of Sock Shops and Soup Shacks up to about first floor level) to meet Matt Hall (pictured), head of radio… Continue reading Radio stars
Beeb to Charter renewal opponents: ‘give up now’
According to Dan Milmo and Maggie Brown in The Guardian: “The BBC has begun a three-year battle to secure its future and retain the ?2.5bn licence fee by appointing a team of 50 to work on a new royal charter.” Most UK businesses and many of the corporation’s most important competitors, especially online, employ fewer… Continue reading Beeb to Charter renewal opponents: ‘give up now’
Churchillian in more ways than one
Ed Richards, principle advisor on Telecoms and new media to the Prime Minister until he took a job at Ofcom last week, reveals Tony Blair’s decisiveness on Broadband Britain: “First, I want you to tell me what this broadband thing is. Second, I want you to tell me why it’s in crisis, and third, I… Continue reading Churchillian in more ways than one
Journos
To Blacks for lunch with Mike Nutley, editor of New Media Age (forgot to take his picture!). We talked about blogging (what else?). I don’t know how he does it exactly, but he’s been in charge at New Media Age through both boom and bust and managed to keep the magazine healthy and interesting throughout.… Continue reading Journos
Tangled web
Andy Rowell and Jonathan Matthews in The Ecologist have done some forensic Googling to uncover an unsavoury and potentially deceptive (but not surprising) pact between the former Living Marxism entryists at Spiked, the three hundred and fifty year-old Royal Society and the agri-business lobby to promote GM agriculture. The unlikely co-conspirators have set up a… Continue reading Tangled web