Dracula bites back

Give us a villainous vampire we can get our teeth into, not one of these winsome wimps

The Independent on Sunday, April 22

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/dracula-bites-back-gothic-legacy-in-danger-from-touchyfeely-fictional-vampires-7668391.html

Calls to save John Bunyan memorial, as 84 bedroom hotel planned for Grade II-listed building

HE was imprisoned for his beliefs by a brutal autocracy and fought in a bloody civil war to rid his country of oppression, but the fate of John Bunyan – the 17th-century writer, who brought religion to the masses – is in doubt once again.

A Grade II-listed building in High Holborn which bears a memorial to the author of The Pilgrim’s Progress is in line to be converted into an 84-bedroom hotel.

The proposed site, on the corner of Southampton Row and Catton Street, is expected to be sold in the next few weeks to property developers.

It has raised questions over what will become of Bunyan’s life-size statue and whether it will be protected.

The unused building, which dates back to 1903 as the former Baptist Church headquarters, is currently owned by hotel magnate Bev King, who through his company Kingsgate London Properties secured planning permission in 2007 to convert it into a luxury hotel including a gym, spa, and conference rooms.

The statue of Bunyan, who wrote the famous Christian allegory from a gaol in Bedford, adorns the north-west corner of the building, which briefly served as a homeless shelter in the 1990s before it became derelict.

Dr David Walker, a John Bunyan expert from Northumbria University, said: “The statue should be preserved because he is one of the most important figures in English literary culture.”

Dr Walker said it was ironic that a writer of a poor and humble background such as Bunyan was being threatened by a luxury hotel.

“It just seems richly, richly ironic that a writer like Bunyan, who preached against luxury and was highly critical of that kind of ostentatious display, should be deposed to make place for a luxury hotel,” he said.

Metres away on the other side of Catton Street, The Ivy House pub, which closed in 2009, is boarded-up and backs on to a construction site which is part of the Crossrail development.

Kingsgate London Properties petitioned the House of Lords in 2008 asking for greater compensation, claiming the adjacent building works would lower the market value of the property.

When asked by the New Journal what was happening to the site, the company said shareholders had decided it was time to sell the property but refused to name the prospective buyers.

Dr Walker suggested the statue could be moved to an area with a closer connection to the life of Bunyan.

He added “The statue was put there for a particular purpose and that purpose no longer exists, so it would probably be a good idea to move it to somewhere in Bedfordshire where it would have an easier home, it doesn’t seem an appropriate symbol for a ­luxury hotel.”

 

http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2012/apr/calls-save-john-bunyan-memorial-84-bedroom-hotel-planned-grade-ii-listed-building

Academy school throws out National Curriculum

AN academy school says it will cut ties with the curriculum followed by all the other schools in Westminster in favour of a controversial teaching system pioneered in America.

Pimlico Academy, an independently-run secondary school set up in 2007, wants to open a primary school on its site in Lupus Street in September 2013.

Its principal designate told the West End Extra she will do away with the curriculum followed by all schools in Westminster in favour of a system based on ideas developed by American educationist, ED Hirsch.

Annaliese Briggs, 26, said: “We’re not going to be following the national curriculum, we’re going to be working with a curriculum that I’ve been developing for the past year with the school.”

Pimlico Academy, which is sponsored by Future, a charitable trust set up by venture capitalist and Tory party donor John Nash, will follow Hirsch’s plan for a “knowledge-rich” curriculum.

Hirsch’s ideas have been criticised as being too focused on facts.

The teaching approach has been adapted for this country by the independent think tank, Civitas.

Ms Briggs, a former Civitas employee, said Pimlico pupils aged four to 14 would follow a curriculum that focuses on giving children a grounding in factual knowledge and not only the skills to research. After Year 9, pupils would return to the national system of GCSE and then A-levels.

She added: “In the national curriculum they don’t specify what knowledge needs to be learnt and that leads to certain pitfalls. What’s prevalent is the idea that students can just Google it, so if they want to learn something they can just look it up, so it’s important to teach them how to look it up.

“What we understand is that it’s really important to know things.”

Ms Briggs was keen to emphasise that pupils will not merely be learning by rote.

She said: “We want pupils to be literate, to be able to problem-solve, to think critically and to reason, but we understand that those skills build on a very solid foundation on knowledge in different subject areas.”

Academy schools – a brainchild of New Labour – are government-funded but independently run.

They allow headteachers greater freedoms and can experiment with different styles of teaching.

Alasdair Smith, national secretary of the Anti Academies Alliance, said: “This is a very dangerous step. It’s a reactionary form of learning that says that content is more important than understanding themes. This should be negotiated by the local community and that’s what we’ve lost because academies can just do what they like.”

Mr Smith is concerned that allowing the academy to open a primary school
will increase social segregation.

He added: “The whole model of academies is not about school improvement but it’s about building businesses in education.

When you create a market in education you get winners and you get losers and you’ll get further polarisation in schools.

“The children of the rich and middle classes have been well educated for years, we have a state education system administered by local authorities to provide equality of opportunity for every child.”

 

http://www.westendextra.com/news/2012/apr/pimlico-academys-proposed-primary-plans-follow-ideas-developed-american-educationist

‘No weapon frightens me as much as the shell’ – Anthony Loyd

This is an extract from Anthony Loyd’s account of his time in the Balkans and Chechnya. I read this paragraph yesterday and was reminded of its pertinence while watching the Channel 4 doc Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields and as President Assad’s forces continue to shell civilians in Homs, Syria.

“No weapon frightens me as much as the shell. Bullets have a certain logic. Even when people around you are hit the wound seldom seems so bad…But shells? They can do things to the human body you never believed possible; turn it inside out like a steaming rose; bend it backwards and through itself; chop it up; shred it; pulp it: mutilations so base and vile they never stopped revolting me. And there is no real cover from shellfire. Shells can drop out of the sky to your feet, or smash their way through any piece of architecture to find you.”

“There is a philosophical element to it all too: a bullet may or may not have your number on it, but I am sure shells are merely engraved with ‘to whom it may concern’.”

This extract is from My War Gone By, I Miss it So, by Anthony Loyd. 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/My-War-Gone-Miss-So/dp/0140298541

Siegfried Sassoon’s Somme poems read to public for first time

Published: 17 November 2011

Unseen poems by Siegfried Sassoon were revealed to the public for the first time this week.

Several of the unpublished pieces, penned by iconic First World War poet Sassoon in 1916 from the trenches of the Somme, were read by Camden Town author Dr Jean Moorcroft Wilson at the Imperial War Museum as part of Remembrance ceremonies on Saturday.

Dr Moorcroft Wilson, Sassoon’s biographer, discovered the seven poems in a trench diary buried deep in the archives at Cambridge University.

She said: “I’d read a reference to them but I didn’t know where they were as they weren’t where they were supposed to be. So I searched and searched and finally tracked them down in the trench diary of 1916, it’s very exciting.”

The poems show a different side of Sassoon as his views fluctuates between believing that war is heroic and his famous critical view of conflict.

Dr Moorcroft Wilson said: “You would have expected him to be increasingly anti-war, instead of which you can see how reluctantly he gives up the idea of war being glorious.”

She said that the new poems were filled with the nobility of war and the “chivalric idea of Sir Galahad”.

“Sassoon gives up the idea that war is glorious very reluctantly and only after quite a number of poems that sound just like Rupert Brooke,” said Dr Moorcroft Wilson.

First World War poet’s verses from trenches discovered by Camden author Jean Moorcroft Wilson

The meeting, which included a rousing talk from the historian Max Arthur, was organised by the Siegfried Sassoon Society and plotted the change in Sassoon’s poetry as the realities of war became inescapable.

It focused on the Battle of Mametz Wood, a critical turning point in Sassoon’s poetry when he started to write satirical condemnations of conflict, such as The Redeemer and Suicide Soldier, for which he is so well-known.

“When he got to Mametz Wood and saw what slaughter there was, I think it really turned him,” said Dr Moorcroft Wilson.

Despite his opposition to war Sassoon continued to fight in the Battle of the Somme and his heroic actions won him the Military Cross.

Mr Arthur, author of Forgotten Voices, said that British soldiers were still fighting “hand to hand, night and day” experiencing similar challenges faced by Sassoon and his comrades 93 years ago, despite advances in technology and weaponry.

He added: “Literature can guide people to the horrors of war and the losses, in particular the significance of the loss to families and friends, to the individual.”

Dr Moorcroft Wilson added: “When people are encouraging this idea of going to war they should read Sassoon’s poetry first, as it appeals to the imagination in the way nothing else does.”

http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2011/nov/siegfried-sassoons-somme-poems-read-public-first-time

At 58, Gilbert Burke finds himself sleeping on a bench. Why?

Without an address or phone, he must stay in churchyard while charity searches for a bed

WHILE protesters have made their homes outside St Paul’s Cathedral the grounds of  St Magdalene Church in Holloway have their own night-time sleeper.

But Gilbert Burke, 58, isn’t a protester. He is an ordinary man who has fallen on hard times.

For five weeks Mr Burke has been sleeping on a bench in the grounds of the Holloway Road church, with his worldly possessions wrapped in a waterproof tarpaulin next to him.

Dog walkers in the park have befriended him and brought food and blankets, as well as trying to find him somewhere to live as the weather turns increasingly cold.

“This last week the frost has come down,” he said. “I’m well-insulated, I’ve been given gifts by the community. But I’m 58, I shouldn’t be out here doing this.”

He says that because the housing system is “blocked up” he faces a six-month wait for somewhere to live.

Mr Burke, who speaks with a soft American accent, says he is originally from New York. He moved to Islington in the early 1970s to escape being drafted to fight in the Vietnam war.

Since then, he has mostly lived in Holloway Road, working as a metal welder and bricklayer.

He found himself homeless last month when a relationship broke down. “I’ve had casual jobs and before that I was made redundant from my second trade, welding and shipbuilding,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to have a lot of different jobs. But now I can’t find a job. I have no address and that’s a stigma.”

Mr Burke now spends his days reading in the Central Library in Holloway Road and waiting in the nearby offices of housing charity the Pillion Trust, which is trying to find somewhere warm for him to sleep.

“It’s very demeaning,” he said. “I thought I’d just be out here for a couple of days. After three days I was told I was going to have a roof over my head soon.”

The search for a permanent home is made more difficult as Mr Burke does not have an address or telephone number.

“They asked me to remain where I am as that’s they only way they can communicate with me as I don’t have a phone,” he explained. “So I’m in the churchyard just reading and reading. I’d like to be independent, I don’t want to take too much from anyone else, being told to do this and do that. I’m 58, I can be responsible for myself.”

The Pillion Trust said a lack of housing means Mr Burke may have to wait up to six months before he comes in from the cold.

“Every day there is a two-hour fight on the phone to get Gilbert help,” said Savvas Panas, head of Pillion Trust.

“But the whole system has become blocked up. People in projects are waiting to move on and our clients are waiting to go in.”

He added that it has become increasingly difficult to help people like Mr Burke who do not need enough support to qualify for priority housing under the “tight definitions” of different housing categories.

“It’s the classic 1980s catch-22: if you don’t have a job you can’t get housing, and if you don’t have housing you can’t find a job,” he said.

“Pillion are trying to start a shelter to help people keep their dignity while they wait. If we can raise enough money we hope to open by December 1.”

http://www.islingtontribune.com/news/2011/oct/58-gilbert-burke-finds-himself-sleeping-bench-why

Cyclist deaths – The experts offer advice

 

LORRY drivers and cyclists have traded places in an effort to cut the number of serious accidents on Camden’s roads.

A heavy goods vehicle (HGV) was parked at Torrington Place on Friday, as part of a Camden Council road safety campaign to highlight the dangers posed to cyclists and demonstrate how to avoid accidents.

The move comes after another young woman was knocked from her bike in King’s Cross on Thursday on the same stretch of road where Deep Lee, a 24-year-old fashion student at Central St Martins, died earlier this month.

Building works in the area have led to a steady stream of construction vehicles crossing the junction at Euston Road, York Way and Gray’s Inn Road.

Cyclists were given the opportunity to sit in the driver’s seat of the lorry, part of the Murphy fleet based on Highgate Road, Kentish Town, and see first-hand the difficulties faced by HGV drivers.

Paul Davis, of Camden Council’s road safety team, said: “When the accident in King’s Cross happened we had the opportunity to react to it and bring in one of the [lorry] fleets from the borough.

We want people to be able to see and understand the blind spots around the truck so they know how to position themselves so they can be seen and avoid a collision.”

Cyclists were told of the dangers of overtaking HGVs and in particular passing on the left-hand side.

HGV drivers, who were on hand to help show cyclists the areas that cannot be seen from the lorry cab,  expressed their commitment to reducing the number of fatal accidents on London’s roads.

Brendan Sugrue, a manager for Murphy, said: “We want cyclists to see what our drivers see and the difficulties we have driving around London. Nobody wants to see cyclists or pedestrians killed or injured, but the sad fact is that there seems to be more and more at the moment.

“We don’t want our drivers to go through the ordeal of killing someone and we don’t want the cyclists and their families to go through it as well.”

 

http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2011/oct/cyclist-deaths-experts-offer-advice

‘A game of cat and mouse that would define the evening’s disturbances’

Eye witness: Mare Street 08/08/2011

Scenes of police officers fighting running battles with mobs of teenagers haunt the capital this week. But at 4pm on Monday afternoon a seemingly peaceful crowd gathered at the corner of Mare Street and Amhurst Road in Hackney, North London.

The small group — which surrounded 10 or 12 police officers who had attempted to search a young man — was made up of an unexpected cross section of the local community. While hooded youths were dispersed in the group there was also a large contingent of elder residence and onlookers.  Mothers with children in prams and community leaders, like the local vicar, were among those gathered as a third day of violence loomed over London.

It was ten minutes later as police reinforcements arrived through the grounds of the St Johns at Hackney church that temperatures began to rise among the crowd. Around 30 officers formed a cordon as they attempted to arrest one young man and move him to an awaiting police van.  In doing so they enraged some members of the growing crowd, still largely made up of spectators, who surrounded the police as they tried to move away from the church grounds.

The corner of Mare Street and Amhurst Road where a heavy police presence appeared to antagonise the crowd

Tensions increased and the tipping point between peace and disorder approached as a single brick thrown from the crowd made contact with a helmetless-officer.  The attack changed the atmosphere immediately. Within minutes riot police formed a cordon around the injured officer (pictured) as reinforcements and police dog units made their way to the scene.

Police make a protective cordon around an injured officer before moving rioters along Mare Steet

As one teenager, no older than 16, posed for photos in front of a police van, an officer, clad in riot gear, pushed him out of the way with his shield. A chorus of protest rang out from the crowd of spectators, many videoing the unfolding saga on smartphones.  The officer, struggling to supress his rage, told the teenager that his colleague had been injured and that it was no longer a joke.  Police officers now appeared agitated and angry, while eager to protect their fellow officers and prevent riots of the scale seen across London on Sunday night.

Police became increasingly agitated after an officer was injured

One onlooker, attempting to control his two dogs amid the panic, tried to justify the violence. “This has been coming for a long time. They asked for discussions with police and it didn’t happen, so now they’re doing this,” he shouted.

It soon became clear the police were waiting for reinforcements to amass before charging the crowd and as the police lines moved South on Mare Street the majority of the onlookers tried to move out of harm’s way but were hampered by gridlocked traffic in all directions.

The size of the crowd rapidly increased in the next few minutes, as hooded youths swarmed in from the South. Masked groups appeared from side streets to launch bricks and pieces of wood at police before disappearing down alleyways in a game of cat and mouse that would come to define the evening’s disturbances.

At 4.45pm a helicopter circled low overhead while police looked on helplessly as a patrol car was pelted with bricks before two rioters calmly walked forward and threw a dustbin through the shattered windscreen.

The lawlessness spread back from the police lines as groups of youths, some making vein attempts to obscure their faces and others wearing motorbike helmets, broke up curb stones to provide more ammunition, laughing joyfully as they launched rocks towards the police. Among the chaos on what is normally a busy shopping street an increasing number of onlookers, some clearly on their way home from work and others looking to grab a snapshot of the disturbance, became caught up in the violence.

As the number of rioters continued to swell, police charges succeeded in driving the rioters into side streets along Mare Street where the chaos began to fully unfold as youths torched cars, vandalised buses and looted shops into the early hours of Tuesday morning.

European airlines to start controversial biofuel-powered flights

The use of plant-based fuels for flights, backed by the EU, could contribute to higher food prices and increased greenhouse gas emissions

The airlines announced their plans to switch to biofuels at the Paris Air Show this week

Europe’s biggest airlines, including British Airways, Lufthansa and KLM have announced a major biofuels drive despite UN calls to limit biofuel growth.

A glitzy gathering of the elite of Europe’s airline industry in Paris this week saw the launch of a major PR offensive to highlight the move towards replacing fossil fuels with biofuels- liquid fuels made from crops plants such as oil palm and jatropha.

The EU has set targets for 10 per cent of transport fuels to come from renewable sources – as part of that it is now pushing for the aviation sector to use two million tonnes of biofuel, mostly oil palm, each year by 2020.

However, environmental groups believe aviation’s demand for biofuels will increase the expansion of oil palm in the tropics, leading to destruction of rainforest in countries like Indonesia and Cameroon. While the UN says paying for the production of crops like oil palm or jatropha for biofuels removes the availability of land for food crops and puts increasing pressure on food prices.

Airlines believe they can reduce their carbon footprint using biofuels but experts are unconvinced

Biofuel production will need to increase dramatically to meet the two million tonnes target, which is the equivalent of filling the petrol tanks of 40 million cars. Campaigners say an area the size of Belgium will be needed to grow enough plants to meet this demand.

 Read the full article at the Ecologist

Black carbon: how reducing it could slow global warming and lift the Asian smog

Emissions of short-lived pollutants like black carbon can be reduced and provide quick reductions in climate change and improvements in air quality. The Ecologist reports

Filters on diesel vehicles could reduce black carbon emissions and slow global warming

Black carbon – which gives soot its black colouring – is the result of incomplete fossil fuel and wood combustion and is emitted as particles into the atmosphere. The main sources being diesel vehicles and in less industrialised countries from the burning of biomass.

Up in the atmosphere it absorbs sunlight and increases air temperature, while on the ground it adds to air pollution, particularly in urban areas. It can also darken snow and ice, increasing absorption of sunlight and has been linked to accelerating melting of the Arctic.

The contribution of black carbon to warming is thought to be 100-2000 times greater than CO2. However, it has a much shorter lifetime, staying in the atmosphere for only a number of days or weeks compared to 100 years for carbon dioxide (CO2), meaning benefits from reducing emissions will be rapidly noticeable.

In a study this week, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) estimate we could quickly reduce ‘near-term’ global warming by 0.5 degrees Celsius by tackling black carbon emissions. Reduction measures would have an even greater benefit in the Arctic where it could reduce warming by 0.7 degrees.

This represents as much as two-thirds of change anticipated in sensitive Arctic regions and could help to stem irreversible changes including melting of ice and release of methane from permafrost.

A small number of measures to reduce emissions, including particle filters on diesel vehicles and methane capture from waste management, were identified that would produce immediate benefits.

The report was released at the latest UN climate change meeting in Bonn, Germany, where delegates met to discuss strategies for tackling climate change ahead of the next major UN climate conference (COP 17) in Durban, South Africa, this November.

A reduction of 0.5 degrees could prove vital for nations who agreed to limit global warming to two degrees at last years UN climate summit in Cancun, Mexico, and may lead nations to agree to a more ambitious 1.5 degree limit in the future.

Read the full story a the Ecologist