The wrong cure - an apt phrase for the cuts being imposed on the UK National Health Service.
As Kezia was diagnosed with leukaemia at Rochdale's general infirmary and received her treatment at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital for three long years, I here present some of the cuts in the northwest of England as presented by False Economy. These are pretty typical throughout the country.
UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL OF SOUTH MANCHESTER
"On 20th August 2010, University Hospital of South Manchester (UHSM) NHS Foundation Trust has issued notification for possible redundancies for the equivalent of 27.6 full-time clerical posts and 11 managerial posts.
UHSM is a major acute teaching hospital trust providing services for adults and children at Wythenshawe Hospital and Withington Community Hospital."
ROYAL BOLTON HOSPITAL
"Royal Bolton Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is set to cut the equivalent of 257 full-time staff posts between 2010 and 2013.
The Trust is cutting 70 posts through natural turnover during 2010/11, which is just over two percent of total staffing. The expected breakdown of this reduction is as follows:
Management - 1 FTE (full-time equivalent staff) Nursing and midwifery - 48 FTE Admin and clerical - 15 FTE Associated health professions - 3 FTE Ancillary staff - 3 FTE
The Trust expects to cut a further 92 posts during 2011/12 and 95 in 2012/13, although both these figures reflect overall savings as applied to pay budgets, and could reduce if extra non-pay savings are found, as they were in 2010/11.
The Trust offers a wide range of services based at the Royal Bolton Hospital in Farnworth, as well as some in community settings."
TRAFFORD HEALTHCARE NHS TRUST
"Trafford Healthcare NHS Trust expects to cut the equivalent of 50-70 non-clinical full-time posts through natural wastage following changes to services.
The Trust provides services at Trafford General and Stretford Memorial Hospitals in Manchester, Altrincham General Hospital, and in the community."
BURNLEY GENERAL HOSPITAL
"From 11th October 2010, Burnley General Hospital’s casualty department is no longer being staffed by a specialist Accident & Emergency doctor between 2am and 8am each night.
Instead, the department - known as the Urgent Care Centre - is being run by nurses with access to an on-site family doctor, who local trade union officials say has not worked in an A&E environment for 15 years.
Previously, the department was staffed by nurses with support from a registrar who would normally have around five years’ experience of working in an A&E department.
A recent independent review recommended the Urgent Care Centre be upgraded."
UNIVERSITY HOSPITALS OF MORECAMBE BAY NHS FOUNDATION TRUST
"University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust plans to cut staffing levels by the equivalent of 705 full-time posts between 2010 and 2015 - a 16.25 percent cut in total staffing levels.
Around 60 percent of the reduction will fall in clinical posts.
The Trust provides services from five hospitals - Furness General Hospital, Royal Lancaster Infirmary, Westmorland General Hospital, Queen Victoria Hospital, and Ulverston Community Health Centre."
And so on and so on and so on ...
The cuts had already begun under Blair and Brown´s Labour governments. The new UK government, under Conservative Cameron and Liberal Clegg, are continuing with the same policies. So following on from cuts in maternity and A & E services in Rochdale under the former, further cuts will continue under the latter.
Drs Rant and Crippen, so critical of Labour's NHS policies must be content with the cuts in NHS management and even the reduction in "nurse specialists". I would like to read their reactions to the end of PCTs etc and the extra work load put on them through "GP commissioning".
So much for the NHS ...
Let us move on.
When I was last in Rochdale, Woolworths was closing its nortwest regional depot, the town's largest employer. as well as many of its stores (including the one in Rochdale).
ROCHDALE LAW CENTRE
"Rochdale Law Centre, a charity law centre serving Rochdale—one of the most deprived areas of the country—has already had its immigration and asylum funding cut by 75%. Further cuts from the public sector threaten to decimate the remaining services, including community care, employment, housing, and discrimination. This means that the most vulnerable and marginalised people in our community won’t have access to justice when their rights are threatened."
This is the one I like most ...
MANCHESTER PUBLIC TOILETS
"Manchester City Council plans to close all its public toilets except those on Mount Street, which will be subject to a small charge."
I told my boss and he delighted me with his "let them eat cake" solution - "let them piss in the street"!
I revisited Ushahidi and discovered how far this web-based mapping tool has come now with associated applications Crowdmap and SwiftRiver. Most recently it is being used to map the events in Egypt.
Now I discover Sukey, a web-based mobile phone application to keep you informed of police "kettling" strategies whilst you attend your latest demo against the cuts. Objectives:
"To keep peaceful protesters informed with live protest information that will assist them in avoiding injury, in keeping clear of trouble spots and in avoiding unnecessary detention.
The application suite gives maximum information to those participating in a demonstration so that they can make informed decisions, as well as to those following externally who may be concerned about friends and family.
It should make full use of the crowd in gathering information which is then analysed and handed back to the crowd."
I just love the web-based tools being developed to assist activism worldwide.
Sukey recalls the protests against SUS in the early eighties:
"a stop and search law that permitted a police officer to act on suspicion, or 'sus', alone.
It was based upon Sections 4 and 6 of the Vagrancy Act 1824 which made it "illegal for a suspected person or reputed thief to frequent or loiter in a public place with intent to commit an arrestable offence" and effectively permitted the police to stop and search and even arrest suspicious persons, purely to prevent crime.
The law caused much discontent among certain sections of the population, particularly black and ethnic minority communities, against whom the police use of the law was particularly targeted—see racial profiling. The sus law was abolished following race riots in St Pauls, Bristol, in 1980, and in Brixton, London, Toxteth, Liverpool, Handsworth, Birmingham and Chapeltown, Leeds in 1981, because its alleged abuse was believed to be a contributory factor to these events. The sus law was repealed on the 27 July 1981, on the advice of the 1979 Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure, when the 1981 Criminal Attempts Act received the Royal Assent."
It seems David Cameron, the UK Prime Minister wants to reintroduce SUS:
"In January 2008 David Cameron, Leader of the Conservative Party, announced that he would, if elected, seek to return similar powers to the police. Under Conservative proposals, police sergeants would be able to authorise the use of stop and search of pedestrians and vehicles in a specific area for up to six hours ...".
Its about time that the cuts - whether public libraries, health services, municipal councils etc - are mapped using the likes of Ushahidi or Crowdmap.
Leave the libraries alone. You don’t understand their value.
Best-selling author Philip Pullman spoke to a packed meeting on 20 January 2011, called to defend Oxfordshire libraries. He gave this inspirational speech, which we are very pleased to co-publish with openDemocracy.
You don’t need me to give you the facts. Everyone here is aware of the situation. The government, in the Dickensian person of Mr Eric Pickles, has cut the money it gives to local government, and passed on the responsibility for making the savings to local authorities. Some of them have responded enthusiastically, some less so; some have decided to protect their library service, others have hacked into theirs like the fanatical Bishop Theophilus in the year 391 laying waste to the Library of Alexandria and its hundreds of thousands of books of learning and scholarship.
Here in Oxfordshire we are threatened with the closure of 20 out of our 43 public libraries. Mr Keith Mitchell, the leader of the county council, said in the Oxford Times last week that the cuts are inevitable, and invites us to suggest what we would do instead. What would we cut? Would we sacrifice care for the elderly? Or would youth services feel the axe?
I don’t think we should accept his invitation. It’s not our job to cut services. It’s his job to protect them.
Nor do I think we should respond to the fatuous idea that libraries can stay open if they’re staffed by volunteers. What patronising nonsense. Does he think the job of a librarian is so simple, so empty of content, that anyone can step up and do it for a thank-you and a cup of tea? Does he think that all a librarian does is to tidy the shelves? And who are these volunteers? Who are these people whose lives are so empty, whose time spreads out in front of them like the limitless steppes of central Asia, who have no families to look after, no jobs to do, no responsibilities of any sort, and yet are so wealthy that they can commit hours of their time every week to working for nothing? Who are these volunteers? Do you know anyone who could volunteer their time in this way? If there’s anyone who has the time and the energy to work for nothing in a good cause, they are probably already working for one of the voluntary sector day centres or running a local football team or helping out with the league of friends in a hospital. What’s going to make them stop doing that and start working in a library instead?
“The council is hoping that the youth service, which is also going to lose 20 centres, will be staffed by volunteers. Are these the same volunteers, or a different lot of volunteers?”
Especially since the council is hoping that the youth service, which by a strange coincidence is also going to lose 20 centres, will be staffed by – guess what – volunteers. Are these the same volunteers, or a different lot of volunteers?
This is the Big Society, you see. It must be big, to contain so many volunteers.
But there’s a prize being dangled in front of these imaginary volunteers. People who want to save their library, we’re told, are going to be “allowed to bid” for some money from a central pot. We must sit up and beg for it, like little dogs, and wag our tails when we get a bit.
The sum first mentioned was £200,000. Divide that between the 20 libraries due for closure and it comes to £10,000 each, which doesn’t seem like very much to me. But of course it’s not going to be equally divided. Some bids will be preferred, others rejected. And then comes the trick: they “generously” increase the amount to be bid for. It’s not £200,000. It’s £600,000. It’s a victory for the volunteers. Hoorah for the Big Society! We’ve “won” some more money!
Oh, but wait a minute. This isn’t £600,000 for the libraries. It turns out that that sum is to be bid for by everyone who runs anything at all. All those volunteers bidding like mad will soon chip away at the £600,000. A day care centre here, a special transport service there, an adult learning course somewhere else, all full of keen-eyed volunteers bidding away like mad, and before you know it the amount available to libraries has suddenly shrunk. Why should libraries have a whole third of all the Big Society money?
But just for the sake of simplicity let’s imagine it’s only libraries. Imagine two communities that have been told their local library is going to be closed. One of them is full of people with generous pension arrangements, plenty of time on their hands, lots of experience of negotiating planning applications and that sort of thing, broadband connections to every household, two cars in every drive, neighbourhood watch schemes in every road, all organised and ready to go. Now I like people like that. They are the backbone of many communities. I approve of them and of their desire to do something for their villages or towns. I’m not knocking them.
But they do have certain advantages that the other community, the second one I’m talking about, does not. There people are out of work, there are a lot of single parent households, young mothers struggling to look after their toddlers, and as for broadband and two cars, they might have a slow old computer if they’re lucky and a beaten-up old van and they dread the MOT test – people for whom a trip to the centre of Oxford takes a lot of time to organise, a lot of energy to negotiate, getting the children into something warm, getting the buggy set up and the baby stuff all organised, and the bus isn’t free, either – you can imagine it. Which of those two communities will get a bid organised to fund their local library?
But one of the few things that make life bearable for the young mother in the second community at the moment is a weekly story session in the local library, the one just down the road. She can go there with the toddler and the baby and sit in the warmth, in a place that’s clean and safe and friendly, a place that makes her and the children welcome. But has she, have any of the mothers or the older people who use the library got all that hinterland of wealth and social confidence and political connections and administrative experience and spare time and energy to enable them to be volunteers on the same basis as the people in the first community? And how many people can volunteer to do this, when they’re already doing so much else?
“What I personally hate about this bidding culture is that it sets one community, one group, one school, against another”
What I personally hate about this bidding culture is that it sets one community, one group, one school, against another. If one wins, the other loses. I’ve always hated it. It started coming in when I left the teaching profession 25 years ago, and I could see the way things were going then. In a way it’s an abdication of responsibility. We elect people to decide things, and they don’t really want to decide, so they set up this bidding nonsense and then they aren’t really responsible for the outcome. “Well, if the community really wanted it, they would have put in a better bid … Nothing I can do about it … My hands are tied …”
And it always results in victory for one side and defeat for the other. It’s set up to do that. It’s imported the worst excesses of market fundamentalism into the one arena that used to be safe from them, the one part of our public and social life that used to be free of the commercial pressure to win or to lose, to survive or to die, which is the very essence of the religion of the market. Like all fundamentalists who get their clammy hands on the levers of political power, the market fanatics are going to kill off every humane, life-enhancing, generous, imaginative and decent corner of our public life. I think that little by little we’re waking up to the truth about the market fanatics and their creed. We’re coming to see that old Karl Marx had his finger on the heart of the matter when he pointed out that the market in the end will destroy everything we know, everything we thought was safe and solid. It is the most powerful solvent known to history. “Everything solid melts into air,” he said. “All that is holy is profaned.”
Market fundamentalism, this madness that’s infected the human race, is like a greedy ghost that haunts the boardrooms and council chambers and committee rooms from which the world is run these days.
In the world I know about, the world of books and publishing and bookselling, it used to be the case that a publisher would read a book and like it and publish it. They’d back their judgement on the quality of the book and their feeling about whether the author had more books in him or in her, and sometimes the book would sell lots of copies and sometimes it wouldn’t, but that didn’t much matter because they knew it took three or four books before an author really found his or her voice and got the attention of the public. And there were several successful publishers who knew that some of their authors would never sell a lot of copies, but they kept publishing them because they liked their work. It was a human occupation run by human beings. It was about books, and people were in publishing or bookselling because they believed that books were the expression of the human spirit, vessels of delight or of consolation or enlightenment.
Not any more, because the greedy ghost of market madness has got into the controlling heights of publishing. Publishers are run by money people now, not book people. The greedy ghost whispers into their ears: Why are you publishing that man? He doesn’t sell enough. Stop publishing him. Look at this list of last year’s books: over half of them weren’t bestsellers. This year you must only publish bestsellers. Why are you publishing this woman? She’ll only appeal to a small minority. Minorities are no good to us. We want to double the return we get on each book we publish.
So decisions are made for the wrong reasons. The human joy and pleasure goes out of it; books are published not because they’re good books but because they’re just like the books that are in the bestseller lists now, because the only measure is profit.
The greedy ghost is everywhere. That office block isn’t making enough money: tear it down and put up a block of flats. The flats aren’t making enough money: rip them apart and put up a hotel. The hotel isn’t making enough money: smash it to the ground and put up a multiplex cinema. The cinema isn’t making enough money: demolish it and put up a shopping mall.
“The greedy ghost understands profit all right. But that’s all he understands... He doesn’t understand libraries at all. That branch – how much money did it make last year? Why aren’t you charging higher fines? Why don’t you charge for library cards?”
The greedy ghost understands profit all right. But that’s all he understands. What he doesn’t understand is enterprises that don’t make a profit, because they’re not set up to do that but to do something different. He doesn’t understand libraries at all, for instance. That branch – how much money did it make last year? Why aren’t you charging higher fines? Why don’t you charge for library cards? Why don’t you charge for every catalogue search? Reserving books – you should charge a lot more for that. Those bookshelves over there – what’s on them? Philosophy? And how many people looked at them last week? Three? Empty those shelves and fill them up with celebrity memoirs.
That’s all the greedy ghost thinks libraries are for.
Now of course I’m not blaming Oxfordshire County Council for the entire collapse of social decency throughout the western world. Its powers are large, its authority is awe-inspiring, but not that awe-inspiring. The blame for our current situation goes further back and higher up even than the majestic office currently held by Mr Keith Mitchell. It even goes higher up and further back than the substantial, not to say monumental, figure of Eric Pickles. To find the true origin you’d have to go on a long journey back in time, and you might do worse than to make your first stop in Chicago, the home of the famous Chicago School of Economics, which argued for the unfettered freedom of the market and as little government as possible.
And you could go a little further back to the end of the nineteenth century and look at the ideas of “scientific management”, as it was called, the idea of Frederick Taylor that you could get more work out of an employee by splitting up his job into tiny parts and timing how long it took to do each one, and so on – the transformation of human craftsmanship into mechanical mass production.
And you could go on, further back in time, way back before recorded history. The ultimate source is probably the tendency in some of us, part of our psychological inheritance from our far-distant ancestors, the tendency to look for extreme solutions, absolute truths, abstract answers. All fanatics and fundamentalists share this tendency, which is so alien and unpleasing to the rest of us. The theory says they must do such-and-such, so they do it, never mind the human consequences, never mind the social cost, never mind the terrible damage to the fabric of everything decent and humane.
I’m afraid these fundamentalists of one sort or another will always be with us. We just have to keep them as far away as possible from the levers of power.
But I’ll finish by coming back to libraries. I want to say something about my own relationship with libraries. Apparently Mr Mitchell thinks that we authors who defend libraries are only doing it because we have a vested interest – because we’re in it for the money. I thought the general custom of public discourse was to go through the substantial arguments before descending to personal abuse. If he’s doing it so early in the discussion, it’s a sure sign he hasn’t got much faith in the rest of his case.
No, Mr Mitchell, it isn’t for the money. I’m doing it for love.
I still remember the first library ticket I ever had. It must have been about 1957. My mother took me to the public library just off Battersea Park Road and enrolled me. I was thrilled. All those books, and I was allowed to borrow whichever I wanted! And I remember some of the first books I borrowed and fell in love with: the Moomin books by Tove Jansson; a French novel for children called A Hundred Million Francs; why did I like that? Why did I read it over and over again, and borrow it many times? I don’t know. But what a gift to give a child, this chance to discover that you can love a book and the characters in it, you can become their friend and share their adventures in your own imagination.
And the secrecy of it! The blessed privacy! No-one else can get in the way, no-one else can invade it, no-one else even knows what’s going on in that wonderful space that opens up between the reader and the book. That open democratic space full of thrills, full of excitement and fear, full of astonishment, where your own emotions and ideas are given back to you clarified, magnified, purified, valued. You’re a citizen of that great democratic space that opens up between you and the book. And the body that gave it to you is the public library. Can I possibly convey the magnitude of that gift?
Somewhere in Blackbird Leys, somewhere in Berinsfield, somewhere in Botley, somewhere in Benson or in Bampton, to name only the communities beginning with B whose libraries are going to be abolished, somewhere in each of them there is a child right now, there are children, just like me at that age in Battersea, children who only need to make that discovery to learn that they too are citizens of the republic of reading. Only the public library can give them that gift.
A little later, when we were living in north Wales, there was a mobile library that used to travel around the villages and came to us once a fortnight. I suppose I would have been about sixteen. One day I saw a novel whose cover intrigued me, so I took it out, knowing nothing of the author. It was called Balthazar, by Lawrence Durrell. The Alexandria Quartet – we’re back to Alexandria again – was very big at that time; highly praised, made much fuss of. It’s less highly regarded now, but I’m not in the habit of dissing what I once loved, and I fell for this book and the others, Justine, Mountolive, Clea, which I hastened to read after it. I adored these stories of wealthy cosmopolitan bohemian people having affairs and talking about life and art and things in that beautiful city. Another great gift from the public library.
“Then I came to Oxford as an undergraduate, and all the riches of the Bodleian Library were open to me. I didn’t dare go in. The library I used as a student was the old public library, round the back of this very building.”
Then I came to Oxford as an undergraduate, and all the riches of the Bodleian Library, one of the greatest libraries in the world, were open to me – theoretically. In practice I didn’t dare go in. I was intimidated by all that grandeur. I didn’t learn the ropes of the Bodleian till much later, when I was grown up. The library I used as a student was the old public library, round the back of this very building. If there’s anyone as old as I am here, you might remember it. One day I saw a book by someone I’d never heard of, Frances Yates, called Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. I read it enthralled and amazed.It changed my life, or at least the intellectual direction in which I was going. It certainly changed the novel, my first, that I was tinkering with instead of studying for my final exams. Again, a life-changing discover, only possible because there was a big room with a lot of books and I was allowed to range wherever I liked and borrow any of them.
One final memory, this time from just a couple of years ago: I was trying to find out where all the rivers and streams ran in Oxford, for a book I’m writing called The Book of Dust. I went to the Central Library and there, with the help of a clever member of staff, I managed to find some old maps that showed me exactly what I wanted to know, and I photocopied them, and now they are pinned to my wall where I can see exactly what I want to know.
The public library, again. Yes, I’m writing a book, Mr Mitchell, and yes, I hope it’ll make some money. But I’m not praising the public library service for money. I love the public library service for what it did for me as a child and as a student and as an adult. I love it because its presence in a town or a city reminds us that there are things above profit, things that profit knows nothing about, things that have the power to baffle the greedy ghost of market fundamentalism, things that stand for civic decency and public respect for imagination and knowledge and the value of simple delight.
I love it for that, and so do the citizens of Summertown, Headington, Littlemore, Old Marston, Blackbird Leys, Neithrop, Adderbury, Bampton, Benson, Berinsfield, Botley, Charlbury, Chinnor, Deddington, Grove, Kennington, North Leigh, Sonning Common, Stonesfield, Woodcote.
And Battersea.
And Alexandria.
Leave the libraries alone. You don’t know the value of what you’re looking after. It is too precious to destroy.
Tolstoy wrote these rules on how to be happy when he was eighteen years old:
Get up early (five o’clock) Go to bed early (nine to ten o’clock) Eat little and avoid sweets Try to do everything by yourself Have a goal for your whole life, a goal for one section of your life, a goal for a shorter period and a goal for the year; a goal for every month, a goal for every week, a goal for every day, a goal for every hour and for evry minute, and sacrifice the lesser goal to the greater Keep away from women Kill desire by work Be good, but try to let no one know it Always live less expensively than you might Change nothing in your style of living even if you become ten times richer
Me and the boss are trying to tie up the local names of our freshwater shrimps with their scientific names and along the way are in contact with Alex, a shrimp expert at Harvard who, after examining the photo below, told us the following:
"These are definitely Atya -- the specimen at top in the first photo is a male (the robust pereiopods with peglike protrusions are a giveaway), while the second appears to be a female, perhaps of the very same species."
What the hell are PEREIOPODS we asked ourselves and duly found out on Wikipedia.
Ok, "So what?" you say.
But did you know this ...
"The pereiopods bear the sexual organs, which are the third pereiopod in the female and the fifth pereiopod in the male."
Well, well ... live and learn! Decapod sex must be a wondrous thing!
... and for that matter does the public need this?
Our new government is to do away with Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities. "Government to press ahead with radical NHS reform plans". More bureaucratic upset and confusion in the NHS. Haven't we had enough of "radical NHS reform plans"?
And who is going to replace the PCTs and the SHAs?
Don Van Vliet, known under his musical pseudonym as "Captain Beefheart", has been a hero of mine, (along with Frank Zappa - a close friend and collabarator), since the tender age of 14 years. Just as Punk was emerging, with the Damned, the Sex Pistols, the Buzzcocks, the Clash, Siousie and the Banshees etc, my school colleagues were into Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Genesis, Yes, Jethro Tull etc etc. In 1976-77 only a very few of us turned on to punk. But even then I couldn't turn them on to Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa. The few obituaries I have seen (Rolling Stone, Guardian) emphasise his music and not his visual art.
His drawings and paintings, many done after his "retirement" from music, are as significant as the music. And the words to the music are poetry.
I was fortunate to see him perform at Wakefield Town Hall (of all places!) on his last UK tour in the early '80s (around the time of the "Doc at the Radar Station" album). I am fortunate to have three original paintings.
I am listening to Trout Mask Replica now. My children, my neighbours' children dance to Bat Chain Puller ... and I look at the paintings on my wall.
What should I quote?
The poet Ian McKellen recently chose "Moonlight in Vermont" on the BBC's eternal Desert Island Disks.
Obviously I cannot choose an instrumental ... I could give you Ant Man Bee, Ella Guru, Bat Chain Puller but I'll give you two less famous ditties ...
PARACHOKE STARE
I walk, I talk but nobody cares
I walk, I talk but nobody hears
I walk, I talk but nobody's there
And if they are they give me the parachoke stare
I walk I don't know where
Everywhere I go I get the parachoke stare
APES MA
Apes Ma, Apes Ma
Your cage's too dirty Apes Ma
Remember when you were young Apes Ma You used to break out of your cage You know you're not strong enough to do that anymore
And Apes Ma The little girl that named you years ago has died now And you're older Apes Ma
Remember when your name was in the paper Apes Ma
Apes Ma, Apes Ma You're eating too much You're going to the bathroom too much, Apes Ma
And Apes Ma Your cage isn't getting any bigger, Apes Ma
A long time since I blogged anything about leukaemia and medicine.
However, I have been pointed (thanks Andy - didn't realise until today you had commented way back when!) to this report on the Beeb about research just published in The Lancet regarding the highly successful use of Mitoxantrone in the treatment of relapsed childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. So successful in fact that the trial abandoned use of the traditional medication, Idarubicin - "Randomisation was stopped in December, 2007 because of differences in progression-free and overall survival between the two groups".
My friend and erstwhile employer, Morais, took me for a business lunch with a client last week to the end of the road at the fishing village of Sta Catarina. We were both on the look out for fresh fish and, in my case, fresh tuna (I had been eyeing not so fresh albacore on the city market for a week!). And I found one!
Why was I looking for fresh tuna? Because I had come across this simple but fascinating recipe from Vietnam in Alan Davidson’s Seafood of South-East Asia:
“This dish is best made with tunny, but other fish with a relatively high fat content, for example Spanish mackerel, may be used. One effect of the tea is to balance the fat. The tea itself may be ordinary black tea if lotus tea (that is to say, tea containing the little white glands from lotus flowers) is not available.
800 grams tunny, in steaks
cooking oil
lotus tea
100 grams pork, diced (optional)
1 small onion, sliced
1 ½ soupspoonfuls nuoc nam (fish sauce)
½ teaspoonful black pepper
1 ½ soupspoonfuls sugar
Heat the oil and cook the tunny steaks in it until they are beginning to turn brown. Reserve them. Meanwhile make a pot of quite strong tea.
Put the fish and pork in a roomy casserole, pour the tea over them, add all the other ingredients and let the whole mixture simmer over a low flame for 40 minutes (or longer if the steaks are very thick).”
I used one tuna steak of perhaps 1 ½ cm thick and black tea – other ingredients as above.The Nuoc Nam is I think essential. If you’ve gone to the expense of buying good tuna, buy good rice to accompany.
Delicious!
Morais asked me for the recipe today so here it is!
A long time since I posted an aphorism - I'm not changing the header but here's a good one from an 1897 letter by perhaps the Master of Aphorisms, Oscar Wilde.
“I would sooner have fifty unnatural vices than one unnatural virtue. It is unnatural virtue that makes the world, for those who suffer, such a premature hell.”
Seemingly Bahnhof as yet has received no threats of legal action - a bit of a surprise given Sweden's efforts to "get" Julian Assange of Wikileaks over previously dismissed sex offence accusations and Sweden's equivalent of the MPAA's former efforts to "sting" Bahnhof over file-sharing (see previous posts). The Swiss Internet company Switch is also resisting pressure ...
From the Guardian:
"WikiLeaks site's Swiss registrar dismisses pressure to take it offline
Swiss registrar Switch says there is 'no reason' why WikiLeaks should be forced off internet, despite French and US demands
WikiLeaks has been fighting to stay online since releasing a cache of sensitive diplomatic cables to five international media organisations.
WikiLeaks received a boost tonight when Switzerland rejected growing international calls to force the site off the internet.
The whistleblowers site, which has been publishing leaked US embassy cables, was forced to switch domain names to WikiLeaks.ch yesterday after the US host of its main website, WikiLeaks.org, pulled the plug following mounting political pressure.
The site's new Swiss registrar, Switch, today said there was "no reason" why it should be forced offline, despite demands from France and the US. Switch is a non-profit registrar set up by the Swiss government for all 1.5 million Swiss .ch domain names.
The reassurances come just hours after eBay-owned PayPal, the primary donation channel to WikiLeaks, terminated its links with the site, citing "illegal activity". France yesterday added to US calls for all companies and organisations to terminate their relationship with WikiLeaks following the release of 250,000 secret US diplomatic cables.
The Swiss Pirate Party, which registered the WikiLeaks.ch domain name earlier this year on behalf of the site, said Switch had reassured the party that it would not block the site.
An email sent by Denis Simonet, president of the Swiss Pirate Party, to international members of the liberal political group said: "Some minutes ago I got good news: Switch, the registrar for .ch domains, told us that there is no reason to block wikileaks.ch."
Laurence Kaye, leader of the UK-based Pirate Party, tonight told the Guardian: "International Pirate Parties now have an integral role in allowing access to WikiLeaks. I wish some of our other politicians had the same guts.
"We support the WikiLeaks project as access to information is the prerequisite for an informed and engaged democracy."
Julian Assange handed himself in to London police at 0930 this morning and is expected to appear in a magistrate's court later.
Meanwhile hackers (Operation Payback) brought down the website of PostFinance on Monday night and are threatening to the same to PayPal - what about Mastercard? However, as I write the PostFinance website is back up.
Yesterday I wondered on how Wikileaks would continue to receive donations since PayPal shut its account down (and now its Swiss bank Post Finance and Mastercard - see here).
Here's how. In other news it seems that Julian Assange is going to turn himself in today, will appear in court and apply for bail.
"The Obama administration is forbidding government employees to call up the wikileaks documents on government computers, including those at the Library of Congress and on military bases. That policy is just plain stupid, and unworthy of Obama’s renowned intellect. I don’t want my intelligence analysts not knowing about the fall-out from the wikileaks cables!"
I confirmed this with a US government source in the International Broadcasting Bureau (the USG's media bureau - Voice of America, Radio Marti etc etc) this morning:
"I believe there is an Executive Order prohibiting any unauthorized USG computer from accessing Wikileaks. That would cover VOA reporters too."
The weekend seems to have been relatively quiet on the Wikileaks front.
Only two real breaking stories but some interesting commentary and background.
The breaking stories are that the latest release of US State Dept. cables includes one requesting an inventory of strategic points of interest to the US in each country where it is represented.
In this story the lawyers of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange claim they are being hassled by the security services.
Then we have Marc Ambinder in the US National Journal questioning the IT systems that allowed how US military private Bradley Manning had access (in Iraq at the time) to so much classified material.
You can no longer donate to Wikileaks using Paypal.
Finally, extremely well-argued commentary from Juan Cole (which I don't entirely agree with) on Informed Comment.
The Beeb has picked up on the story of Wikileaks being thrown off the EveryDNS service. So Wikileaks relocated to a server at IP address http://213.251.145.96/ or http:/www.wikileaks.ch (in Switzerland). Meanwhile a whole bunch of Wikileak mirrors have cropped up - list available at http://wikileaks.info.
Ironically, and to quote from the BBC,
"One web expert explained that Wikileaks had managed to re-establish web access via a different address,
"Users visiting the www.wikileaks.ch website appear to be directed via a Swedish website on to a server in France which is now hosting their main website," explained Sebastien Lahtinen, director of web hosting firm NetConnex.
In a surprising twist, the .ch address is also hosted by EveryDNS.
"It seems a strange choice given that they pulled the plug on the .org address just a few hours ago," said Paul Mutton, a security analyst at internet services firm Netcraft. "It could be that Wikileaks is quite happy to play a cat and mouse game with them," he added."
So here is the EveryDNS press release on its suspension of Wikileaks ...
"All systems are functioning normally.
EveryDNS.net provided domain name system (DNS) services to the wikileaks.org domain name until 10PM EST, December 2, 2010, when such services were terminated. As with other users of the EveryDNS.net network, this service was provided for free. The termination of services was effected pursuant to, and in accordance with, the EveryDNS.net Acceptable Use Policy.
More specifically, the services were terminated for violation of the provision which states that "Member shall not interfere with another Member's use and enjoyment of the Service or another entity's use and enjoyment of similar services." The interference at issues arises from the fact that wikileaks.org has become the target of multiple distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks. These attacks have, and future attacks would, threaten the stability of the EveryDNS.net infrastructure, which enables access to almost 500,000 other websites.
Thus, last night, at approximately 10PM EST, December 1, 2010 a 24 hour termination notification email was sent to the email address associated with the wikileaks.org account. In addition to this email, notices were sent to Wikileaks via Twitter and the chat function available through the wikileaks.org website. Any downtime of the wikileaks.org website has resulted from its failure to use another hosted DNS service provider."
I am in formed that everydns has stopped providing DNS services for them early Friday morning due to Denial-of-Service attacks and hence Wikileaks is offline.
I also noted this morning that the UK Guardian newspaper's Wikileaks blog was offline but seems to be back up now ...
Reading the heavily technical Symantec report on Stuxnet. It gets stranger and stranger ...
From what I understand first the Siemens PLC needs to be infected via Siemens proprietary Step 7 Windows-based software. Then the PLC needs to connect to "Command and Control" servers via an Internet link. Only then can a programmer change the code in the PLC. Symantec has monitored infections through connections to these Command and Control servers.
The apparent sudden cessation of Iranian infections in August is probably due, according to Symantec, to the Iranians shutting down Internet connections between PLCs and the C & C servers, rather than a real end to infections.
What I haven't fathomed yet is why/how come Iran bought so heavily into Siemens PLC and Step 7 technology and why other countries with the same Siemens PLCs have not been so affected ... is Siemens marketshare so much smaller? ... surely other countries are just as prone to IT security lapses as Iran? ... was Siemens part of the story? ... is there something in Symantec's technical discussion missing e.g. deliberate geographical targetting? More as I read more ...
As we said yesterday, Iran claims this is CIA disinformation:
See paragraphs 10 and 11:
VZCZCXRO2648 OO RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHDIR RUEHIHL RUEHKUK RUEHLH RUEHPW RUEHROV DE RUEHRH #0649/01 1110847 ZNY SSSSS ZZH O 200847Z APR 08 FM AMEMBASSY RIYADH TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 8227 INFO RUEHZM/GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE RUCNIRA/IRAN COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE RUCNISL/ISLAMIC COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE RUEHGB/AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD IMMEDIATE 0650 RHEHAAA/WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC IMMEDIATE
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 RIYADH 000649
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
WHITE HOUSE FOR OVP, DEPARTMENT FOR NEA/ARP AND S/I SATTERFIELD
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/19/2018 TAGS: EAIDECONEFINIZPGOVPRELMOPSSAIR SUBJECT: SAUDI KING ABDULLAH AND SENIOR PRINCES ON SAUDI POLICY TOWARD IRAQ
Classified By: CDA Michael Gfoeller, Reasons 1.4 (b,d)
¶1. (S) Summary: US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus met with Saudi King Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz, Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, General Presidency of Intelligence Chief Prince Muqrin bin Abd al-Aziz, and Interior Minister Nayif bin Abd al-Aziz during their April 14-15 visit to Riyadh. The Saudi King and senior Princes reviewed Saudi policy toward Iraq in detail, all making essentially the same points. They said that the Kingdom will not send an ambassador to Baghdad or open an embassy until the King and senior Saudi officials are satisfied that the security situation has improved and the Iraqi government has implemented policies that benefit all Iraqis, reinforce Iraq's Arab identity, and resist Iranian influence. The Saudis evinced somewhat greater flexibility regarding the issues of economic and humanitarian assistance for Iraq and debt forgiveness. In a conversation with the Charge' on April 17, Saudi Ambassador to the US Adel al-Jubeir indicated that the King had been very impressed by the visit of Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus, and al-Jubeir hinted that the Saudi government might announce changes to its Iraq policy before the President's visit to Riyadh in mid-May. End Summary.
Positive Signs in Iraq
¶2. (S) In all their meetings with the Saudi royals, both Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus conveyed the progress in Iraq and confirmed the negative role Iran is playing in Iraq. They characterized the recent ISF-led operations in Basra and Baghdad as having a striking effect against the Shia militias, most importantly turning Iraqi public opinion away from the militias. While Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's decision to take action against the militias was described as hasty and not well-planned, Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus emphasized that any tactical shortfalls were overshadowed by the greater positive effect of unifying Iraq and demonstrating the GOI's, and most specifically al-Maliki's, determined resolve to take on the Shia militias, especially Jaysh al-Madhi. Concurrently, these operations unequivocally demonstrated Iran's subversive activities in Iraq and its broader regional ambitions. Throughout all their discussions, Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus stressed the importance and urgent need for the Saudis to join us in supporting Iraq.
The Saudi Embassy Issue
¶3. (S) King Abdullah, the Foreign Minister, and Prince Muqrin all stated that the Saudi government would not send an ambassador to Baghdad or open an embassy there in the near future, citing both security and political grounds in support of this position. The Foreign Minister stated that he had considered dispatching an ambassador and had sent Saudi diplomats to Baghdad to identify a site for the Saudi embassy. However, he said. "the King simply forbade us to go any farther." King Abdullah confirmed this account in a separate meeting with Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus. The King asserted that the security situation in Baghdad was too dangerous for him to risk sending a Saudi ambassador there. "He would immediately become a target for the terrorists and the militias," he said.
¶4. (S) The King also rejected the suggestion that by sending a Saudi ambassador to Baghdad he could give essential political support to the Iraqi government as it struggles to resist Iranian influence and subversion. He expressed lingering doubt on the Iraqi government's willingness to resist Iran. He also repeated his frequently voiced doubts about Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki himself by alluding to his "Iranian connections." The Saudi monarch stated that he does not trust al-Maliki because the Iraqi Prime Minister had "lied" to him in the past by promising to take certain actions and then failing to do so. The King did not say precisely what these allegedly broken promises might have been. He repeated his oft heard view that al-Maliki rules Iraq on behalf of his Shiite sect instead of all Iraqis.
¶5. (S) However, in a potentially significant move, the King did not reject the idea of dispatching a Saudi ambassador to Baghdad completely. Instead, he said that he would consider
RIYADH 00000649 002 OF 003
doing so after the Iraqi provincial elections are held in the autumn. The conduct of these elections would indicate whether or not the Iraqi government is truly interested in ruling on behalf of all Iraqis or merely in support of the Shia, King Abdullah asserted.
Grudging Acknowledgment of Change in Iraq
¶6. (S) The Foreign Minister signaled another potential softening in Saudi policy by saying that the Kingdom's problem was not with al-Maliki as a person but rather with the conduct of the Iraqi government. The King himself admitted that the Iraqi government's performance has improved in recent months and grudgingly accepted the point that al-Maliki and his security forces have indeed been fighting extremists, specifically Shia extremists in both Basra and Baghdad and Sunni extremists and Al Qaeda in Mosul. However, the King and the senior Princes argued that more time would be required to judge whether the recent change in Iraqi behavior was lasting and sincere. The King suggested that much of the Iraqi government's improved performance is attributable to US prodding rather than change in Iraqi attitudes.
¶7. (S) The Foreign Minister also suggested that the USG should prod Ayatollah Sistani to speak out in favor of a unified Iraq and national reconciliation among different Iraqi sects and groups. "You have paid a heavy price in blood and treasure, and Sistani and his people have benefited directly. You have every right to ask this of him," Prince Saud al-Faisal said.
Possible Saudi Economic Assistance
¶8. (S) The King, Prince Muqrin, and the Foreign Minister all suggested that the Saudi government might be willing to consider the provision of economic and humanitarian assistance to Iraq. Prince Muqrin asked Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus to send him a list of the kinds of assistance that the US government would like to see the Kingdom provide Iraq. Al-Jubeir later told the Charge' that this assistance would be separate from the USD 1 billion in aid that the Saudi government had promised at the Madrid Conference but still not delivered due to security worries. He said that the Madrid commitment consisted of $500 million in trade credits and $500 million in project assistance with strict conditionally, along the lines of what the World Bank would require. Al-Jubeir added that the assistance the Saudi government might provide via Prince Muqrin would initially be in the range of $75-$300 million.
Possible Debt Relief
¶9. (S) The King noted that Saudi debt relief for Iraq "will come at some point," although he did not say when. Al-Jubeir told the Charge' that debt relief is a real possibility. He also noted that the Saudi government might make changes to its Iraq policy, perhaps including both assistance and debt relief, prior to the President's visit to Riyadh.
The Need to Resist Iran
¶10. (S) The King, Foreign Minister, Prince Muqrin, and Prince Nayif all agreed that the Kingdom needs to cooperate with the US on resisting and rolling back Iranian influence and subversion in Iraq. The King was particularly adamant on this point, and it was echoed by the senior princes as well. Al-Jubeir recalled the King's frequent exhortations to the US to attack Iran and so put an end to its nuclear weapons program. "He told you to cut off the head of the snake," he recalled to the Charge', adding that working with the US to roll back Iranian influence in Iraq is a strategic priority for the King and his government.
¶11. (S) The Foreign Minister, on the other hand, called instead for much more severe US and international sanctions on Iran, including a travel ban and further restrictions on bank lending. Prince Muqrin echoed these views, emphasizing that some sanctions could be implemented without UN approval. The Foreign Minister also stated that the use of military pressure against Iran should not be ruled out.
RIYADH 00000649 003 OF 003
¶12. (S) Comment: Saudi attitudes toward Iraq, from the King on down, remain marked by skepticism and suspicion. That said, the Saudis have noticed recent events in Iraq and are eager to work with the US to resist and reverse Iranian encroachment in Iraq. The King was impressed by Ambassador Crocker's and General Petraeus' visit, as were the Foreign Minister, GPI Chief, and Interior Minister. Cautious as ever, the Saudis may nevertheless be willing to consider new measures in the areas of assistance and debt relief, although further discussions will be required to make these ideas a reality. End Comment. ¶13. (U) This cable was reviewed and cleared by Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus. GFOELLER
So Iran denied that Stuxnet affected its nuclear power plants ... and now President Ahmadinejad says it did. According to the Symantec report about Stuxnet I cited yesterday, most of the Stuxnet attacks were targetted at Iran but abruptly ceased in August ... but Stuxnet infections continued in other parts of the world principally the US.
Now Iran is claiming that the Wikileak US State Department cables claiming that Arab states wanted the US to finish off Iran's nuclear capabilities are in fact CIA fabrications!
Meanwhile an Iranian physicist is assasinated and another wounded in separate attacks in Tehran.
So get your fill of conspiracies ... I'm sure there are more to come!
Amidst all the news of Wikileak exposure of US government documents (and I'd be much interested how all this data was obtained - the Guardian says it comes down to one lowly US army private - I cannot believe one lowly private leaked so many documents! ), much has been made in the last couple of weeks of the Stuxnet v¡rus which targets industrial control systems through Siemens Programmable Logic Controllers and its Windows Step 7 control software.
Conspiracy theories abound.The principal one being that the virus is an attempt by an unnamed government to subvert Iran's nuclear program which has backfired to lead other governments to get worried about their own industrial control systems - anything from power stations, electrical grids, water purification and distribution, factory automation etc etc.
I am sceptical but also surprised for a variety of reasons:
1. News of the Stuxnet virus has been around several months. Only now is the press picking up on it saying it is an attempt to subvert the timing on Iran's nuclear centrifuges.
2. It is only aimed at Siemens PLCs.
3. What the hell is Siemens doing exporting PLCs for use in Iranian nuclear centrifuges? I will admit that a bog standard PLC is hardly rocket science and could control the timing of many industrial processes. However, I thought there were export limitations on technologies that could be used in "rogue" nuclear states such as Iran and North Korea.
4. The Iranians deny that any of their nuclear powerplants have been infected by Stuxnet. So would the USA.
5. PLC software from my limited experience would seem to be very easy to hack. I have only very limited experience but in a previous job a one megawatt powerplant was controlled by simple GEFanuc PLC hard and software, the latter written in a generic form of Basic called MegaBasic.
6. Why would you use a Windows-based program to control your nuclear powerplant?
7. And leading on from 5) and 6) why hasn't PLC software been targeted before? I cannot quite believe that Stuxnet is the first given the importance of PLCs in the functioning of the modern world.
To quote the Beeb (ok I don't have too much faith there ...) "If granted, the trademark will only apply to online sites and services used to exchange messages. It could limit the use of the word in other social networks and services, such as Apple's Facetime, lawyers said."
What about that trendy magazine "The Face"?
Should I rename this blog? My Face, Kezia's Face, The Face of My Family?
I read today that John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten of Sex Pistols fame, and a key role model of my formative years, came down with meningitis at the age of seven and endured many months of agonising treatment - agonising both for himself and his parents. And later to have a deep impact on his personal development!
Viktor Bout, an infamous reputed (until found guilty) international arms-trader, reportedly selling to everyone from the Taleban to the Americans, was arrested in Thailand last year in a sting operation set up by the FBI to supply arms to the Colombian FARC rebel movement.
However, his extradition from Thailand to the US proved problematic ... until this.
Good to see this story where the music label The Ministry of Sound has backed down from prosecuting filesharers after ISP British Telcomm had deleted 80% of the data that The Ministry of Sound was seeking to obtain. BT says it held onto the data for 90 days according to policy before deletion. This follows upon a massive data leak at The Ministry of Sound's lawyers ACS: Law that saw the confidential details of ISP customers, previously released to the legal firm by court order, published online after a denial of service attack on the firm's website.
Alex, the Yorkshire Ranter (see link right), wrote back to me regarding the MS Public Records Tracker software and I rather enjoyed this part of his response ...
"Obviously it would be better if it was an open-source project written in Python by Brazilian anarchist orphans, providing an extensive Web service API so you could hook WhatDoTheyKnow directly up to it. And a pony. But then you'd need to beat most of the organisations involved out flat with a 2x4 cluebat to get them to install it."
“is built on the proven, reliable Microsoft technology foundation of Dynamics CRM. Public Records Tracker powered by Dynamics CRM is the first SaaS (Software as a Service) solution which is specifically designed to help enable a government agency, (federal, state or local) to manage citizen requests for records from start to finish.”
“This product can really help government organizations at the state, local, and federal levels manage, track, and respond to Public Records Act and Freedom of Information Act requests in a timely and responsive manner.”
- Curt Kolcun, Vice President Microsoft US Public Sector
“Key Features:
• Track all communication and activities between agency and requestor • Audit capabilities to track dates of correspondence • Prioritize and/or escalate a request based on predefined criteria • Connect all relevant emails and documents associated with a records request • Provide standard responses to common PRA requests automatically • Auto alerts to notify when a records request is approaching the mandatory due date • Workflow that will allow requests to be automatically routed to the appropriate staff • Estimate and track fees associated with fulfilling a records request • Key word search to find information quickly and easily • Ability to receive and respond to requests using email, fax, mail and the web • Ability to view all records requests and the status from a single application • Provide key FOIA compliance reports” USD 125.00 per month.
Oh ... almost forgot! Look at the security guarantees!
We are not medically trained. While we will endeavour to be as accurate as possible with medical information, we cannot accept responsibility for any errors. Medical details given apply only to our daughter, the form of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia she has and the treatment she is receiving. Please consult your doctor if you have questions or doubts of any kind
Our daughter, Kezia, came down with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia at the age of two years in 2006 and was evacuated to the UK for treatment. Mum, Nanda, accompanied her and later Nanda's son Jaime went to the UK. Dad, Angus, stayed in Africa earning to support them and periodically visited them. Kezia finished treatment in 2008 and the family returned to Sao Tome e Principe mid-2009. Kezia is doing fine and hasn't relapsed but won'nt be considered "clear" until 2013. Meanwhile Dad was made redundant - at the best of times he's a consultant, sometimes a teacher and often unemployed. Poor White Trash.
We reserve the right to go off topic and talk about anything we damn well like.
Ok, "So what?" you say.
