Robert Sharp

Pupil Barrister

Category: Diary (Page 78 of 300)

Things that happen to me, or things I do

Let's make art with GCHQ

25 February 2014 / / 0 Comments

Glen Greenwald has posted another dispatch on the Snowden files, presenting new revelations about GCHQ: False flag operations, spreading false information, and disrupting nascent political groups.  His report includes the tired, obtuse non-quote from GCHQ:

It is a longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters. Furthermore, all of GCHQ’s work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from the Secretary of State, the Interception and Intelligence Services Commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. All our operational processes rigorously support this position

It strikes me that this non-speak is ripe raw material for satire and art.  Continue reading

#Britawards vs #BBCFolkAwards

20 February 2014 / / 0 Comments

How to describe the particular type of nausea induced by last might’s Brit Awards? It was not so much the music itself – bands like Bastille and Rudimental are producing catchy, modern pop, and I loved the choreography in Bruno Mars’ performance of ‘Treasure’. Rather, it was everything else about the event itself: The arrogant, cursory acceptance speech by Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner; Harry Styles’ joke “what did we win” when he arrived late on stage to collect an award; and presenter James Corden’s constant references to people taking cocaine in the loos. The entire programme seemed to be channelling a drug bore, who thinks he is being the life of the party when in fact he is rambling and obnoxious.
Continue reading

Google's Sochi Rainbow Doodle is Not All That

7 February 2014 / / 3 Comments

My social media stream is full of people praising Google for taking a ‘brave’ stand against the Russian state.  Why?  Well, today’s Google Doodle is a rainbow themed Winter Olympics Graphic.
The Russian Government has recently passed blasphemy laws and other measures that restrict freedom of expression.  They have also passed a ‘gay propaganda’ law which bans discussion of homosexuality around minors – an attack on the already embattled homosexual community in Russia.
Continue reading

Is this the birth of the British Tea Party?

4 February 2014 / / 0 Comments

In recent years, America has been blighted by the rise of an extreme and uncompromising strain of political conservatism.  ‘Tea Party’ groups attack moderates within the Republican party, forcing primary challenges on incumbent senators and congressmen who either have liberal leanings, or who are otherwise willing to co-operate with Democrats in Congress and the White House.  The result has been a legislative impasse, with the Republicans disengaging from the process of government by consensus.  Earlier this year they almost broke the US economy (and by extension, the world economy) due to bloody minded intransigence.
Thank goodness we do not have that sort of nonsense happening over here, eh?
I worry that the deselection of Tim Yeo MP from his seat in South Suffolk might signal the beginnings of the ‘teapartification’ of British politics, too.  Yeo is a senior and respected Conservative MP, chair of the Energy and Climate Committee.  And yety his local Conservative Association has deselected him as their candidate for the next General Election.  Speaking to BBC Radio yesterday evening, Yeo pointed out that he was a strong believer in climate change and voted for the Same Sex Marriage laws, socially liberal positions that angered the few hundred members of the South Suffolk Conservative Association.  These opinions appear to have cost him his seat. Continue reading

Jail Verse: Poems from Kondengui Prison

31 January 2014 / / 1 Comment

The latest act of literary campaigning from English PEN is to publish Jail Verse: Poems from Kondengui Prison by Enoh Meyomesse.
Enoh has been an opposition activist in Cameroon for decades. In 2012 he stood in the presidential elections against authoritarian strong-man Paul Biya. Soon after he was arrested for apparently trying to organise a coup. The authorities later dropped that accusation, and instead manufactured trumped up charges of robbery.  There were no witnesses to this alleged crime, yet he was convicted anyway.  PEN International consider the conviction and imprisonment to be a violation of Enoh Meyomesse’s right to freedom of expression.
While in prison, Enoh was able to write and publish Poème Carcéral, a collection of poetry.  We at PEN put a call out to our members for volunteer translators, and managed to get the book translated into English.  This month I designed a cover graphic, and published the book as a print-on-demand paperback, available from Lulu.com.  E-book versions (both ePub and Kindle) are also available for download.
I am particularly pleased that we were able to publish the book under a creative commons licence.  Enoh Meyomesse is in prison and this publication is intended to give him a voice once more.  The creative commons licence encourages further translation, remixing and performance of the poems, amplifying what once was censored.

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