I Intend To Escape ......................And Come Back

Companies To Avoid Like The Plague: Heart Internet

If anyone out there is looking for an Internet service provider, I really do urge you to steer as far as possible from Heart Internet.

They ignore basic instructions, threaten customers with bailiffs over sums as low as £10, and carry on ignoring instructions even when they have been clearly expressed in writing. They are scum. If you are using them - I suggest you switch to another provider. If you are going through a list of potential suppliers - cross them off it.

 

Comments Policy?

I have never developed a formal comments policy for this site.

Comments that have been deliberately inaccurate or threatening to individuals have at times been removed - at other times they have not, as they sometimes tell you more about the author than anything else. I will continue to look at comments on an ad-hoc basis.

One of the downsides of blogging is that whilst the blogger goes on the record, as a named individual accountable for their own actions, those who comment are usually anonymous and frequently unknown to anyone else. Their motivations may range from the desire for an exchange of views, through to doing maximum political and personal damage to another individual or group. The distance and anonymity of the Internet can also encourage a combativity that would be unlikely in a face to face setting - an issue well known to anyone who crossed swords on the Libcom forums a few years back.

Over time I have grown more sympathetic to Ian Bone's view of 'never complain, never explain'. In Class War I was for many years a fanatical corrector of slurs and snidey comments against the Federation, but as Ian correctly points out, once you start doing that, you will never do anything else. It is interesting that the Stalinist school of falsification has prospered long after Stalinism itself. Reading certain posts and comments on Socialist Unity about Anarchists or at its worst Libcom on Class War or Libcom on Larry O'Hara, such method can be adopted by those who would normally run a mile from old school Stalinist political currents.

What I would encourage those who comment on this blog is to:

1. Keep the threats and abuse to a minimum
2. Try to make your comments shorter than the piece you are commenting upon
3. Avoid posting up scores of links to youtube clips and Google vids. It is one of the traits of the 9/11 truth movement - a link is believed to trump a concise argument. It does not.
4. Remember this blog is paid for and run by Mossad/New Labour/Zionist-Rothschildism/Me, and that all posts should be viewed in that light.

Orwell Prize For Blogging 2011

As no one else would nominate me, I have put this blog forward in the competition for the 2011 Orwell Prize. 

Last year Ray Hulm's The Bad Old Days Will End made the shortlist, the only Anarchist blog I think ever to do so. If you run a blog, you have until January 19th to throw your hat in the ring. Below are the ten articles I submitted in support of my candidacy: 

Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam

The Ex-Cops Standing For The BNP

Would You Invite Your MP To Your Wedding?

Love Football, Love England, Love Debt

Derelict Hackney

John Sankey: A Belated Tribute

CLR James: Not Wanted In The New Hackney?

On Meeting Audley Harrison

Bringing Good From The Mole Man

Five Days As A Free Man

To Follow On Twitter

You can follow me, this blog and the 9/11 Cultwatch blog on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/MrPaulStott

Time To Twitter

Those of you who use Twitter as one of your many work avoidance strategies can now follow me - and by definition this blog - on Twitter. 

As my name, and various permutations were already taken, I am recorded rather pompously as http://twitter.com/#!/MrPaulStott

A Return To Blogging

There have been no posts on here for a week or so as I have been in Northern Ireland conducting some PhD research, as well as having a family holiday in the process.

All this means I have not been able to reply to comments (an hour in a Belfast internet cafe costs £2.60!) or to edit some of he spammers who like to visit this site advertising viagra and cheap loans. Normal service has now been resumed.

Oh and I believe the anti-Pope march in London was both well attended and had an excellent crowd in terms of composition. I am sorry to have missed it.  

New Photographs Added

I have placed some new pictures on the Flatlands and On The Road sections of this blog. 

Pictures range from Protestant memorials in Norfolk to Blackpool trams....... 

Where Have You Been?

No posts on here for a few days, as I have been away with my family in the north west. 

I managed to squeeze in day trips to Southport and Blackpool, and a second trip to Colwyn Bay Cricket Club, this time to see Lancashire defeat the Unicorns on the last ball in a 40 over match. 

For any men in middle age, I would thoroughly recommend a trip to Blackpool. Firstly there is the outside chance that Ian Holloway will offer you a professional football contract. Yes, he is that desperate. Secondly, the place is an amazing boost to your ego. There I was feeling rather overweight, lazy, worried about my diet and that I don't do enough exercise. Five minutes strolling along the sea front and looking at some of the other guys my age walking (I say walking, but some were on sticks and even mobility scooters, despite being barely in their 40s or 50s) -  I felt like the world triathlon champion compared to many of my peers. 

If only the vendors had a shirt "I went to Blackpool and realised I was not a fat bastard after all" they would make a fortune!

A Short Back and Sides

I have trimmed a few of the links on this site to reflect the ever changing world of on-line politics. 

Several good websites have fallen by the wayside over the past few months. Firstly Sugarbeet Bhoy in Norwich has gone on to bigger and better things as one of the contributors to the Norfolk Community Action Group.  Snook Cocker appears to have recognised that a blog centered on the moans and gripes of a Yorkshireman was too crowded a market and has upped stumps, whilst Duncan Money is too young to be spending all his time blogging and has also hung up his boots. 

On the more political front I have deleted the Save the Swan website - for the very simple reason that we did not save the pub and the campaign was lost, whilst for the opposite reason I am happy to delete the link to the No2ID site - as the new government has rightly binned the whole ID cards plan. A shame we cannot get the millions of pounds back wasted on the project by the likes of Hackney South and Shoreditch MP Meg Hillier when she was in office. Her justifications for the project now ring exceptionally hollow, although seeing such a project described as progressive is at least a reminder of how deluded the world of New Labour is (I hesitate to write was). 

One sad loss is the Meanwhile At The Bar forum, and accompanying blog, which has packed up its bags this month. MATB reflected a particular demographic on the left, comprising mostly experienced and rather battle weary activists in their 30s and 40s, many disillusioned by the last century left's focus on multi-culturalism, Iraq and its inability to relate to the wider working class. Quite a few had stormed off from the Urban 75 forum, both for the above reasons and because of a series of disputes with the moderators and owner of that forum. 
It is probably fair to say that those on MATB knew far more confidently what they were against than for, but the experiences related on that forum were often both incisive and amusing. Will we never hear from Cheadle High Street again? 

If there are any suggestions for websites I should be linking to on here, or need to promote more - do let me know. 

Happy Birthday

During the World Cup, this blog became four years old. 

I started it back in 2006 because I wanted the opportunity to promote both my own writing and some of the issues and causes I feel deserve support.  The discipline of writing pretty much every day has actually proved more important than I expected, whilst the introduction of Google Ads has ensured that the blog now breaks even over the course of a year. 

I make no pretence that I Intend To Escape is anything other than a modest operation. Most days it receives about 100 hits and a handful of comments, with 300+ visits on a very good day. It has however served as an opportunity to present a perspective on some local issues here in Hackney - from the collapse of the credit union to the scandal of the Metropolitan Police foisting a gay hating evangelical christian organisation onto Hackney Council and their work with young people in the borough. It has reflected some of the weaknesses and strengths of the UK Anarchist movement, and has occasionally had some recognition in the process, plus brickbats.  Finally the blog has allowed me to put into the public domain my rather limited photography skills, from the charms of ladyboys in Koh Samui to the charms of the Manchester Ship Canal. 

Best of all the blog has brought me into contact with people I would not have met, spoken to or corresponded with otherwise. Any blogger who says they do not enjoy someone saying out of the blue "oh I read your blog" is of course a liar, whilst invitations to write for other websites are rare but welcome. As for the future, I shall continue juggling shift work with teaching, a PhD and trying to keep fit. I have another web project bubbling under that will appear in full later this year - but more of that later. 

I still intend to escape - and come back. 

 

Orwell Prize Nominations

The Orwell Prize is a competition for bloggers, run by the Orwell Trust, Political Quarterly and the Media Standards Trust. 

I'm pleased to say it is self nominating (so no need for false modesty!) and bloggers can nominate up to ten of their own articles. Here's the 10 I have put forward, which I hope indicate the range of issues covered here, and over at the 9/11 Cultwatch blog. 

Radio 4, ACPO and the English Defence League. 

Rugby, Class and Bookshops. 

Big Brother Is Watching You In The Bedroom. 

How To Solve The India v Pakistan Crisis

Michael X: A Life In Black and White 

White Bicycles Over Hackney.  

New Queen Mum Statue A Towering Success. 

A Giant Leap Sideways (From the 9/11 Cultwatch blog, on whether the moon landings were faked).  

Do You Have The Same Job As Your Uncle? 

Anarchists: Don't Trip Over Any Journalists Today. Or - how Emma Simpson broke my heart.