Perhaps this one will be different. Perhaps it’ll find a new niche that doesn’t fit this blog, and therefore doesn’t just fracture my content over multiple sites needlessly. I have in mind at the moment to simply use it as a showcase for my photography. Old snaps and new. With a brief summary or comment, not a long rambling essay. It’ll be simple, quick and easy to update.

I really like the theme I found. It’s clean, shows off full screen images on the homepage, has a neat sidebar, social network icons at the bottom and even has my latest Flickr and Instagram photos in galleries on the top menu. I really, really like the theme. If I were going to self host this blog, this is the theme I’d use. All it’s lacking at the moment are some posts to fill the blog section out a bit. And some comments to get the Comments widget in the sidebar showing some activity. I’ll add the content, you come and say hi…

A few days ago a friend emailed me a link to an old London video that’s somewhat unique. It’s old. Real old. As the title of the post suggests, it’s 1927 old. But it is colour film. All of the most famous sites are covered. It’s an awesome video. Fancy a trip back to 1927? Here we go then. Check out just how filthy all those monuments and buildings are though!

But as team builder and motivator, he’s one of the finest. No doubts. He’s had some great players come and go under him. But he’s had a few fairly average (for the top echelons of the Premier League) teams as well, and gotten a lot more out of the team than the sum of the parts would suggest is possible. His ability to nurture talent and get the most out of it is second to none.

There’s a lot to dislike about him too. His manner can be brusque. To say the least. His ability to throw a childish tantrum and bear a grudge is lamentable. Most of all though, I resent what he did to the national team. He created and fostered the practice of withholding players from international games, under the pretense of injury. Other managers joined in, but it was something Ferguson started. The harm done to our national team was immeasurable. We had a genuine golden generation from 1996 to 2006. There was a trophy to be won. And we failed. Not least, because England fielded their finest eleven for a full ninety minutes so rarely.

He’s won 38 trophies in those 26 years though. So maybe some of those negatives are forgivable. Personally, I’m glad he’s gone. Delighted. Overjoyed. I’m a Liverpool fan. My glee at seeing him depart is, perhaps, the biggest compliment. His replacement will probably be David Moyes. I’m equally delighted. He’s done wonders at a small club. But is he a big club man? I don’t think he is. I’ll explain. When does the Alex Ferguson story start? Man Utd fans will often tell you 1986.

Actually it was before then. Fergie managed a small club, just like Moyes has. But Fergie won things. Titles and a European trophy. Man Utd bought in a winner. Moyes, despite ‘working wonders’, has won nowt. Ever. Some people just are winners. Other aren’t. Moyes, probably, isn’t. We’ll find out in the years to come. Incidentally, Ferguson should probably have quit a couple of years ago, when he won his second European Cup. Only two European Cups, though. As a Liverpool fan, that also delights me, and in true form I’ll depart this post by falling back in traditional Scouse fashion. Ferguson was good, but he wasn’t ‘three European Cups’ good. He wasn’t ‘Bob Paisley’ good.

April came and April went, in much the same way as March. But in the final days of April, the sun did put in an appearance. The mercury rose and spring, ever so belatedly, arrived. It’s amazing how quickly the landscape can change in this country with the arrival of spring. Damn, foreboding greys and sodden greens disappear to be replaced with blue skies and splashed of every colour imaginably shooting from every crevice of soil.

We went to Exbury Gardens, one of the most famous gardens in the country. It’s renowned for it’s spring blooms of rhododendrons and azaleas. We were a bit early, truth be told. In another week or two, it’ll be a complete riot of colour and the manicured lawns will disappear beneath a carpet of blossom. The photos on Flickr are here (just the blooms) and here (blooms and Mrs P). Or you can just have a brief glimpse by clicking on one of the photos below to see a quickie twelve shot slideshow. Happy spring to you all!

1. WordsAds. I opted into Wordads when it launched. It was an opportunity to monetise my blog and get a little cash out of it. There’s just one issue. The implementation is hideous. Absolutely hideous. The extra money I could earn doesn’t make up for the uglification of my site. The answer is simple. Create banners and squares that fit flush with differing theme widths. Offer more flexibility is what ads go where. For example, I’d be happy with a 230×230 box in my sidebar, and that’s it.
2. Advertising. As standard, WordPress runs adverts on blogs at the bottom of posts. They’re not too intrusive. But I’d rather they’re not there. Given that WordPress.com is free to use, one can’t grumble at a few ads. You can pay to have them removed if you want. But $30?! Seriously. Not cool. A fair price would be nearer the $10 mark. I think. What I don’t know, and would need to know, is how much WordPress make off the ads they run on my site. 
3. Store. I could have included this in the grumble above. There’s extra features you can buy for WordPress, but everything is so overpriced. How overpriced? It’s $79 for the Pro pack – domain mapping, no ads, 10gb space, Videopress etc. You could go and buy web hosting and do it all yourself for the same money or less. And you’d get a lot more features through WordPress.org and the hosting service. A fair price? As in, what I would be prepared to pay? $50 absolute tops. But perhaps something closer to $30. I’d definitely pay $30. I definitely won’t pay $79.
4. Media Integration. I reckon most WordPress.com bloggers embed their photos and videos into posts. Photos and videos that they host on Flickr, YouTube, Picasa, Vimeo, SmugMug etc. There are existing tools to add media, but it could be done in a much better way. How about, instead of making users play with slightly awkward shortcode, WordPress integrates the major media hosts into the platform. Users could sign into the services within WordPress, and then when adding media, they could select the images and videos directly from their third party accounts.
5. Sidebar Widgets. I do wish that some of these widgets would get updated. The Flickr widget is hideous. I hate the way that the RSS widget shows the RSS icon at the top. Most of them are looking really, really dated now. Where are Instagram and Foursquare widgets? There’s so much work to be done there.

But I can’t lie. These are not deal breaking complaints. Some might even call them trivial. It just irks me that a product can get so close to perfection, but screw up on a few small issues.

Did you read The Kite Runner? Or Khaled Hosseini’s second book, A Thousand Splendid Suns? They were both masterpieces. The latter was the last book my dad read. I can’t think of a better last book to read. The stories were so beautifully told, you’d believe they were true. So tragic, you’d sincerely hope they weren’t. They both gave such a bitter sweet account of Afghanistan, a land that’s so far away and yet so often in the news. Of how things used to be in that distant country, and of how they are today. The books are both eye openers and I can’t recommend either of them highly enough.

The quote below is one I remember most, from the Kite Runner. It’s so brutally simplistic. Yet so very true. How did we make everything in the world so complicated? And The Mountains echoed is, as you’ve probably gathered by now, Khaled Hosseini’s third book. It’s been five long years since the last one. I can’t wait.

There is only one sin, only one. And that is the sin of theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. Do you understand that? … When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. … There is no act more wretched than stealing.

I took the photo below, and shared it on Flickr. Now I’m sharing it on my blog. Want to use it? Fine. I’m pretty easy going. All my photos are licensed on Creative Commons, and anyone can use my photos for non-commercial purposes for free. Want to use it for a commercial purpose? I’ll probably be ok with that. Get in touch, and we’ll agree a price, providing I’m happy with who is using it and how. Actually, the image above perhaps isn’t the best example, because it’s a photo of artwork by Damian Hirst, and he might have copyright issues if I sold it commercially!

What if someone uses my image for commercial purposes without telling me? Well, that’s called theft and I will seek recompense, and plenty of it. Far more recompense than had they just asked in the first place. But here’s the problem. There’s every chance that in future I might find myself unable to negotiate or demand a fee or damages. I may not even be able to get them to stop using the image. Why? Because, under the UK Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act, they may well be using the image legally. Yes, it is still my image, yes it is still in copyright. But no, copyright doesn’t actually mean anything.

Here’s the issue*. Random people out there in the world do have a habit of using images that don’t belong to them. Let’s say a chap called John Doe decides to start a blog. He writes a half dozen posts, and then gives up. In one of those posts he used your photo. Can John Doe be contacted? Nope, he used a pseudonym and never did get round to putting contact info on his blog. Anyway, along comes some ad company, and they see that photo on his blog. They like it. They try to contact him and, of course, fail. At that point, the photo is considered ‘orphaned’. And now that it’s orphaned, the ad company can use it. They have to pay a fee to a Collective Licensing Organisation. But you, the owner of the photo, get nothing.

Your photos can become orphaned almost instantly. The moment you upload them to the internet, they are exposed. If one is used under the new Act, then it’s your job to find that out and to claim a fee from the Collective Licensing body. And as I understand it,  they’ll tell you what you get paid. And if you don’t like it, then tough. And if you don’t want it used in the way it is being used, there’s a big question mark over whether you can put a stop to it. This is a genuine and serious issue. I know for a fact that dozens of my images have been used across dozens of sites on the internet. These are just the ones I’ve found or come across and therefore know about. Some of them credit me, many don’t. Some asked my permission (technically unnecessary), many didn’t.

As a photographer, this irks me, to put it mildly, on three main counts. Firstly, as a point of principal. If the photo isn’t yours and can’t be purchased from the owner, then don’t use it. If it’s a digital image, then it’s clearly been taken after 1978 and is therefore still in copyright – fact. Secondly, I may well not want a particular organisation to use any of my photos. For example, if the English Defence League, or other extremist group, found a photo of a flag that I’ve taken and decided they liked it, I would reject their offer. Thirdly, every time an orphaned photo is bought through Collective Licensing, potentially two photographers are robbed of their rightful dues. The guy or gal who took the photo. And the photographer of an alternative image that would otherwise have been purchased.

*There are actually many issues. I’m not going to pretend I’ve gone into all of them, let alone understand all of them. I still have many unanswered questions myself. Many of those questions, it appears, currently have no answers. Some parts of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act are poorly defined, and we will have to wait and see how it works. How will this work internationally? If an orphaned image belongs to an American, for example? How on earth would any one know the nationality of a photographer? There are positive benefits to the bill too, though,  in that cultural entities such as museums and libraries need legislation in order to allow them to preserve important photos.

But it seems to me to be another shoddy piece of legislation, part of the Digital Economy Act, that’s been rashly thought up by people with little concern for their constituents and maximum concern for big business. It’s been rushed through parliament without proper debate and it’s just yet another sorry chapter of government and business not understanding what the digital age is or means. There’s plenty of research you can do if you’re interested. There is an organised protest group called Stop 43 (Clause 43 is the relevant part of the Act), and articles on the BBC and New Statesman. The Act has been referred to as the Instagram Act.

I do wonder how the photo above stands in copyright law. Of course, I did not take it. That’s me in the photo. It was taken prior to 1978. But I scanned it, with permission, and processed it through Photoshop, creating a new and discernibly different image.

I have fond memories of the school, although I was not a model pupil. School bored me. To tears. Education should have an entertainment factor to it. To keep one interested. Unfortunately, I can count on my fingers the number of teachers who kept my attention. Most of them were from St Johns. It was an excellent school, and I hope it still is. I can still smell the freshly cut grass of the cricket fields. I can still remember the pain of returning from ninety minutes of rugby on soggy pitches in sub zero temperatures. I distinctly remember the agony of trying to warm my frozen hands up by placing them on the radiators in the changing rooms.

Summers were the best. If the sun was warm enough, shirt sleeve order was allowed. Off came ties and jackets, and our sleeves could be rolled up. We might, on occasion, be allowed to wander through the woods down to the bottom fields at lunch time to play. Id’ play football. Every break, every lunch hour. On the fields in summer, but usually in the car park with a plastic airflow ball. I loved football, and was ever resentful that the official school game was rugby.

I’m there in the photo above. Twelve years old? About that. It was posted on the old schools website, now only available on the Web Archive. This photo sums up my school life. Everyone has their books open, hard at work. I have an empty desk, scratching my head as I probably think up that day’s unlikely explanation as to why I’ve done sod all work. You can also tell that my mum scrimped on the cost of a barbers – a classic bowl cut. The boy to my right was my best friend at school. He lived just up the road from me, and we spent many days playing in the woods that sat between our houses. We got up to plenty of mischief. We don’t keep in touch, although we’re Facebook friends. He got married, had kids and seems to be doing very well. The boy in front was also a good friend. I spent a fair amount of time round his house playing console games and football. He was sentenced to double life for murder in the early 90s, and I have no idea what he’s doing these days.

At St Johns we were split into four Houses. We were allocated a place in a house on our first days. There was Lawrence, presumably the one of Arabic fame. Oates, of Antarctic fame. Lincoln, the token American. I can imagine our old headmaster, Mr Norman, being the embodiment of our ‘special relationship’. My house was far more British. My house was Churchill. Although pedants might want to bring up his US ancestry. But in every sense, he was very British. He was a war hero. A national hero. A global hero. Also an irascible racist, fan of eugenics and colonizer.  He was a product of his age, and a good example of the complexities of humanity.

He was also a big influence in my life, in many ways. Introduced to him at school, I was always bound to look up to him, take an interest in him and his story. On that first day of school, he’d only been dead 14 years, The war had ended just 34 years earlier. He does embody everything good about Britain in the popular narrative and represents a largely rewritten account of what it means to be British.

He also represents much of what was wrong about Britain in the less popularized accounts of his life. He’s been in the news lately. His face is going to bless the reverse of the five pound note in a few years time. As per the photo above.  His funeral has also been news in light of the ceremonial departure of Margaret Thatcher. There have been the predictable comparisons. But in truth, there was no comparison. Of the many positive influencers from my school days, Winston Churchill was most certainly amongst them.

The Union Flag (it’s only the Union Jack at sea) is unique, classy and instantly recognizable. I also love the fact that people make so many abstract and imaginative variations upon it. You can mess around with the colours and add lacy edges if you wish to create something even more unique. Mexico could learn a lesson or two from the Union Flag. It is possible to go over the top when ‘protecting‘ your flag…

But alas, the Union Flag is an endangered species. In little over a year Scotland will hold a referendum to determine whether or not to break away from the United Kingdom and form their own country. I am personally against such a breakaway but I will not have a say in this referendum. That, quite rightly, is an issue for the Scots themselves. I don’t believe that the nationalists will succeed. I don’t believe it would be good for Scotland. It probably wouldn’t have much impact for England. We’d be a little better off, but not so much so that anyone notices. The Scottish Nationalist Party have a real wishy washy view on independence, where they seem to be  wanting to cherry pick the bits of the Union they like, and ditch the bad bits. If it’s an independence vote, then it should be a case of in or out.

I am trying to find out what sort of turnout they need for the vote to be enforceable. I thought it scandalous that the Scots and Welsh were awarded self governments during Tony Blair’s tenure based on a handful of people turning up to vote. The previous referendum to that, in the 70s, required a turnout of at least 40%. Personally, I would insert a requirement for 50% of the registered electorate, regardless of how many turn up, to vote ‘Yes’ for the referendum to be valid. The default vote should always be for the status quo.

The consequences of Scottish independence are massive. For a start, the United Kingdom will cease to exist. After all, we will be left with England, Northern Ireland and Wales. Northern Ireland is a province and Wales a quasi form of principality. Only England and Scotland are/were kingdoms, and if one of them does the off….well there’s no ‘united’ to that, is there. Great Britain will also cease to have any political meaning to it and will once again solely become a geographical term. Northern Ireland, of course, has never actually been part of Great Britain.

Back to the point at hand though. The flag. The Union Flag is a combination of the flags of Ireland, Scotland and England. It’s actually been around since before the union of England and Scotland. If there’s no Scotland what happens to the flag. This is an as yet unanswered question. It doesn’t just affect the UK. There’s a whole bunch of countries using the Union Flag in their flag, including Australia and New Zealand. Some Canadian states also use it, and one state of the USA has a Union Flag in the corner. That state being Hawaii. Ironic really, seeing as Hawaiian born Obama was accused of being ‘too British’ to be president.

Perhaps these countries will see this as the right time to ditch the Union Flag. Maybe those who are still technically ‘attached’ to the UK will see this as the right time to declare themselves full republics too. I’m thinking of Australia, Canada and New Zealand in particular. They could join other former colonies who have in the last couple of decades ditched the Union Flag – South Africa and Hong King. The repercussions of Scottish independence could be quite far reaching.

The Union Flag looks a bit bare in the image above, with the Scottish blue removed. Perhaps this would be the right moment to include a bit of Welsh in the flag. See the image below. I think adding the Welsh Dragon would be a bit tacky (see my comments from the first paragraph!) but why not add a bit of their green. We could market it as a promotion to the Welsh! Of course, another option, is to simply ignore the fact Scotland has gone it’s own way and just carry on with the Union Flag as it is.