Bath Bomb #33 Out Now!

THE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #33
free/donation
Sep­tem­ber 2010

“More rusty barbed wire than cut­ting edge”

*

The First Cut Is The Deep­est

Whilst we’ve nev­er claimed to be the cut­ting edge of jour­nal­ism, the Bath Bomb has become privy to a series of unpleas­ant plans from coun­cils in the south­west:

Somerset’s most ded­i­cat­ed N.H.S. pro­fes­sion­als are being “strong-armed and rail­road­ed” into defect­ing from the Pri­ma­ry Care Trust to join social enter­prise ven­tures, with­out the chance of a prop­er con­sul­ta­tion. But at a meet­ing filled with angry health vis­i­tors, school nurs­es, local hos­pi­tal and oth­er work­ers in Bridg­wa­ter on Wednes­day 1st Sep­tem­ber, they vot­ed “No!” to pri­vati­sa­tion. Their cam­paign is now seek­ing pub­lic sup­port for the P.C.T. meet­ing at Wyn­ford House, Lufton Way, in Yeovil on Wednes­day 15th Sep­tem­ber from 10am, where the deci­sion is expect­ed to be made.

Employ­ment Min­is­ter Chris Grayling has start­ed a cru­sade to force the 260 young Inca­pac­i­ty Ben­e­fit claimants in B.&N.E.S. (and a fur­ther 530 in Wilt­shire) into work – regard­less of whether they’re fit to or not. There are already wider moves to slash the Wel­fare Bill, and expand the con­tro­ver­sial Work Capa­bil­i­ty Assess­ment health test, but Grayling some­how seeks to frame this witch-hunt as a form of phil­an­thropy: “Thou­sands of young peo­ple with their lives ahead of them just parked on sick­ness ben­e­fits with no way out.” A big man with a big heart.

Three out of sev­en youth key work­ers in the Bath area are to be cut, along­side their youth cen­tres. Youth work­ers who have been col­leagues for years are now being turned against each oth­er, anx­ious­ly com­pet­ing to not put a foot wrong and lose their jobs, or be ‘matrix’ed. Whether crime rates will go up as deprived kids are alien­at­ed even fur­ther, is hard to say.

Waste man­age­ment ser­vices in the vil­lage of Old Wel­ton are to be cut and shipped out to Bath. As they share the Trans­fer Sta­tion site with oth­er pub­lic ser­vices, there is expect­ed to be a knock-on ‘tip­ping point’ effect where more ser­vices are sent off to the big city, even­tu­al­ly drain­ing the area of a large por­tion of its employ­ment, and its econ­o­my.

Mean­while G.M.B. union work­ers in Bris­tol are being ille­gal­ly threat­ened with dis­ci­pli­nary action for shar­ing news of intend­ed cuts with their unions.

But peo­ple aren’t just gonna sit and take it: a noisy 40-strong demo out­side Bris­tol City Coun­cil took place on Tues­day 7th Sep­tem­ber, with many a union ban­ner and speak­er. Sat­ur­day the 4th saw the Bath Stop The War Coali­tion find unan­i­mous con­sen­sus from the 90 bal­lot­ed on their reg­u­lar vig­il, who would rather cut Tri­dent than ser­vices. On Wednes­day 22nd Sep­tem­ber, from 7.30pm, a ‘Fight the Cuts’ pub­lic meet­ing will take place, down­stairs at Friends Meet­ing House on York Street. Though speak­ers will be present from the tra­di­tion­al unions – such as the N.U.T., G.M.B., Uni­son, U.C.U. and Bath Trades Coun­cil – we need a wider pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion from oth­er affect­ed peo­ple, so we can sort this crap out! You owe it to your­self to come along!

Who knows? Per­haps we might take a livre out of France’s book, where 2.5 mil­lion took to the streets on Tues­day the 7th, against Sarkozy’s aus­ter­i­ty plans. No to Job Cuts! No to Pen­sion Cuts! No to Ser­vice Cuts! Cut Tax Eva­sion! Cut I.D. Cards! Cut Tri­dent! Cut the Pay Gap! Cut a Tory! Vive La Strike!

http://bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com
http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/260–25s-sickness-benefit-B-NES/article-2602689-detail/article.html
http://bristol.indymedia.org.uk/article/693333

*

Tory Scum, Out Of Brum!

ACTION STATIONS! ACTION STATIONS! EVERYONE TO THE STREETS! Sun­day 3rd Octo­ber will be our first chance to show our anger at the Con-Dem cuts. As the Tories kick off their par­ty con­fer­ence in Birm­ing­ham, they will be met by thou­sands of angry pro­test­ers from the diverse sec­tions of soci­ety that are being forced to bear the brunt of the cuts onslaught. The mes­sage will be clear: this cri­sis was caused by the rich, and we refuse to pay for it with job loss­es, pay reduc­tions, ser­vice cuts and hiked V.A.T., while the toffs at the top con­tin­ue to line their pock­ets. Plans for the protest are shap­ing up nice­ly, with many unions, com­mu­ni­ty groups and oth­ers gear­ing up to make some noise. Those angry pranksters over at Class War have booked them­selves a team at the Tory Par­ty pub quiz, and are call­ing for as much help (with the ques­tions of course!) as pos­si­ble. There is also a ‘direct action’ bloc shap­ing up, which promis­es to dis­rupt pro­ceed­ings nice­ly. So, whether you want to peace­ful­ly protest, or have some­thing a bit more live­ly in mind, there will be some­thing for you on the day. This will be the start of a mas­sive cam­paign against the cuts and there will even be trans­port run­ning to the demo from Bath — leav­ing at 9am from Lau­ra Place foun­tain (though details may change), tick­ets are £10 waged or £5 unwaged, and to get yours, e‑mail either bathagainstcuts[at]yahoo.co.uk or tel 07908 355456.

*

Get Shorty

Kil­ter, Bath’s unique out­door the­atre com­pa­ny, plants the seeds of change with their play­ful, engag­ing ‘Roots Replant­ed’ show, inves­ti­gat­ing food-secu­ri­ty in the fast approach­ing post-oil world. Elope to the Hamp­ton Row Allot­ments from Fri­day 10th to Sun­day 12th of this month, down the bean-rows, for an inti­mate tale of love and veg­eta­bles. Times are 6.30pm Thurs­day to Sat­ur­day, and addi­tion­al show­ings at 2.30pm on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day. Or catch them lat­er at Pease­down St John Com­mu­ni­ty Farm or Bloom­field Allot­ments at Bear Flat. Book­ings can be made by ring­ing 01225 386777.

On invi­ta­tion from Frome Friends of Pales­tine, “Israel’s bravest, most prin­ci­pled” his­to­ri­an Ilan Pappe will be speak­ing at the Mason­ic Hall on North Parade on Fri­day 17th Sep­tem­ber at 8pm. His talk will exam­ine the ongo­ing his­to­ry of Zion­ism, from its roots in the racist soils of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry to the sit­u­a­tion today. His book The Eth­nic Cleans­ing of Pales­tine, effec­tive­ly cost him his job at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Haifa four years ago. Admis­sion is £5.

B.&N.E.S. Coun­cil seem to final­ly be doing some­thing right, as, from 4th Octo­ber, week­ly col­lec­tions of food waste will reach 72,000 house­holds, con­vert­ing the £48+ per tonne tax­pay­er bur­den to agri­cul­tur­al com­post in Glouces­ter­shire. With any luck, the £400,000 imple­men­ta­tion cost will come straight from John Everit­t’s pock­et? And maybe sort­ing out a por­tion of the annu­al 20 mil­lion tonnes of super­mar­ket and indus­try U.K. waste will be next, right?

A gang of racists attacked the Indi­an Cur­ry Nights restau­rant in Augus­ta Place, off Upper Bris­tol Road, on Tues­day 24th August. Two wait­ers were minor­ly hurt, and a win­dow was tar­get­ed by thrown rocks. Con­sid­er­ing attacks on take­aways and mosques in the city over the last cou­ple of years, per­haps it’s way past time that local anti-fas­cists stepped it up?

Police Sergeant Mark Andrews showed his true colours back in July ’08, when he smashed 59-year-old Pamela Somerville’s face against the cell floor at Col­erne cop­shop. Recent­ly sent down this week for six months for Actu­al Bod­i­ly Harm, for once a cop­per has paid a price for his actions. But can we all rest easy now that the friend­ly bob­bies have cleaned them­selves up once more? Or are cas­es like Andrews and (Ian Tom­lin­son’s killer) Simon Har­wood per­haps not just a cou­ple of bad eggs, but instead symp­to­matic of a wider insti­tu­tion­al vio­lence, and near-com­plete free­dom from con­se­quence, infect­ing the whole of the force?

Rad­i­cal cam­paign­ing groups such as Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide have called for an inter­na­tion­al day of action against the coal indus­try on Tues­day 12th Octo­ber; more details to fol­low

http://www.kiltertheatre.org
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5245/is_7840_231/ai_n29412429/
http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/Council-gears-food-waste-scheme/article-2604136-detail/article.html
http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/Police-appeal-waiters-attacked-Bath-park/article-2603995-detail/article.html
http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/Police-officer-faces-sack-cell-brutality-woman-59/article-2607007-detail/article.html

*

GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE? Con­tact us by e‑mailing bathbombpress[at]yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions avail­able on request. And for more info on any of our sto­ries, check out http://www.thebathbomb.blogspot.com

*

Fash In The Pan

The August bank hol­i­day week­end was due to be a big day for the British far-right, with two high-pro­file demos designed to put racist thug­gery firm­ly back on the map; but unfor­tu­nate­ly for them, it was­n’t to be.

The week­end start­ed off with media rev­e­la­tions that, far from being a grow­ing dynam­ic par­ty, as fuhrer Grif­fin would have us believe, the fas­cist B.N.P. is in fact falling apart. On the verge of bank­rupt­cy due to finan­cial mis­man­age­ment, lack of sup­port and a cost­ly law­suit (filed by Unilever when Grif­fin used the Mar­mite logo in a par­ty broad­cast), the rats are well and tru­ly flee­ing the ship. First to go was Richard Barn­brook, ama­teur gay porn direc­tor and the B.N.P.‘s sole mem­ber on the Greater Lon­don Assem­bly, who quit after call­ing for a “full inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion” into cor­rup­tion in the par­ty. He was fol­lowed short­ly by Lee Barnes, the par­ty legal offi­cer and ‘unsteady’ Eddy But­ler, for­mer Nation­al Front full-timer and B.N.P. press offi­cer, both of whom assert­ed that Grif­fin was exer­cis­ing a dic­ta­to­r­i­al stran­gle­hold over the par­ty. Just to prove them wrong, Grif­fin expelled a fur­ther 30 high-rank­ing par­ty mem­bers for chal­leng­ing his abil­i­ty to lead the par­ty. So, with the B.N.P. slid­ing off the scene, the stage was set for the thick-as-shit boot boys of the Eng­lish Defence League to take the far-right lime­light.

They intend­ed to do this with a mass march through Brad­ford on Sat­ur­day 28th, in the hope of ignit­ing fur­ther Asian riots to jus­ti­fy their anti-immi­grant agen­da. Deter­mined to cause a ruckus, the E.D.L. banned women from the demo, pre­dict­ed a turnout of 5,000, and dubbed the demo “the big one”. In the event, the ‘Bat­tle of Lit­tle Big One’ was a dis­ap­point­ing washout, with only 700 fas­cists being dwarfed by sev­er­al thou­sands of com­mu­ni­ty and anti-fas­cist activists, who told the E.D.L. in no uncer­tain terms that they would not be goad­ed into full-scale riot­ing. How­ev­er, that did­n’t stop a few naughty lads and ladies smash­ing up the E.D.L. coach­es as they fled the scene. The high point of the day came when a sym­pa­thet­ic cop­per forced a lone E.D.L. skin­head into a crowd of locals, despite his tear­ful protes­ta­tions. Appar­ent­ly no-one saw exact­ly what hap­pened, but an ambu­lance was observed speed­ing away from the scene short­ly after­wards!

So, on to bank hol­i­day Mon­day, and sun­ny Brighton, where fringe fas­cist group the ‘Eng­lish Nation­al Alliance’ had called a ‘March for Eng­land’ (their stat­ed tar­gets were mus­lims, immi­grants, stu­dents and paci­fists — nice!). They pre­dict­ed a turnout of over 300 patri­ot­ic war­riors, which turned out on the day to be around 50 jug-eared Burber­ry mod­els scream­ing racist slo­gans at any­one unfor­tu­nate enough to be in earshot. The turnout then pro­ceed­ed to get turned over by 300 assem­bled anti-fas­cists who dis­rupt­ed the march con­tin­u­ous­ly until the police called full-time and escort­ed the fas­cists home for their own safe­ty!

What was billed as being a week­end that would put racist pol­i­tics back on the map, end­ed in two woe­ful­ly under-attend­ed demos, vast­ly larg­er anti-fas­cist counter-events, unan­i­mous rejec­tion of the fas­cists by local com­mu­ni­ties and the vir­tu­al dis­in­te­gra­tion of the far-right’s bright­est star, the B.N.P. It may be too ear­ly to cheer, as a dying beast still has fangs, but the news is encour­ag­ing and sug­gests that a few hard shoves could boot these groups to where they belong — the dust­bin of his­to­ry.

*

Bath Activist Net­work are a local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce the Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to anar­chists, lib­er­als and greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter. For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, e‑mail bathactivistnet[at]yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: http://www.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com

*

UPCOMING EVENTS

 

draw­ing class­es: ‘Remem­ber­ing the Present’, Mon­days & Tues­days, Stokes Croft Muse­um, 81–83 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol, http://www.stokescroftmuseum.info

 

Lon­don Road Food Co-op, Wednes­days, 4–7pm, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Lon­don Road, http://www.londonroadfoodcoop.blogspot.com

 

exhi­bi­tion: ‘Remem­ber­ing the Present’, Wednes­days, Thurs­days & Fri­days, 11am-3pm, Stokes Croft Muse­um, 81–83 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol, http://www.stokescroftmuseum.info

 

Bathamp­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Grow­ers work­day, Thurs­days, 10am-dusk, Mill Lane, Bathamp­ton, e‑mail thelostplot[at]googlemail.com/ tel Chris 07792 444628

 

Bathamp­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port­ed Agri­cul­ture project: fruit pick­ing, Thurs­days and Sun­days, http://www.transitionbath.org/bathampton-csa-news

 

Bath Stop The War Coali­tion vig­il, Sat­ur­days, 11.30am-12.30, Bath Abbey Court­yard

 

Brad­ford-On-Avon peace vig­il, Sat­ur­days, 11.30am-12.30, by the peace stat­ue oppo­site West­bury Gar­dens by the Town Bridge, Brad­ford-On-Avon

 

exhi­bi­tion: ‘Remem­ber­ing the Present’, Sat­ur­days, 12–4pm, Stokes Croft Muse­um, 81–83 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol, http://www.stokescroftmuseum.info

 

Recy­cle Your Sun­days, Sun­days, 10.30am, starts Abbey Church­yard, the reg­u­lar series of socia­ble, easy-paced cycle rides, http://www.bathrys.org.uk/ tel Hazel 01225 469199

 

one year part-time ‘Prac­ti­cal Sus­tain­abil­i­ty’ course, starts Sep­tem­ber 2010, Bris­tol; explor­ing per­ma­cul­ture design, organ­ic hor­ti­cul­ture, wood­land man­age­ment, green build­ing, eco­log­i­cal inter­ac­tions, ener­gy, group dynam­ics, re-local­i­sa­tion, cre­at­ing change, com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment and more; http://www.shiftbristol.org.uk

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Fri­day 10th Sep­tem­ber, Hamp­ton Row Allot­ments, Bath­wick, 6.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

‘Bris­tol Green Doors’: 52 peo­ple will open their homes show­cas­ing ener­gy waste reduc­tion, Sat­ur­day 11th to Sun­day 12th Sep­tem­ber, http://www.bristolgreendoors.org

 

Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair, Sat­ur­day 11th Sep­tem­ber, 10.30–6pm, Hamil­ton House, 80 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol; e‑mail bristolanarchistbookfair[at]riseup.net; http://www.bristolanarchistbookfair.org

 

Stop Hink­ley ‘C’ talks and work­shops, Sat­ur­day 11th, 11–5pm, Trin­i­ty Hall, St Sav­iours Avenue, Bridg­wa­ter, http://www.stophinkley.org

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sat­ur­day 11th Sep­tem­ber, Hamp­ton Row Allot­ments, Bath­wick, 2.30pm & 6.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

Stop Hink­ley ‘C’ protest/guided tour, Sun­day 12th Sep­tem­ber, 12 mid­day, Hink­ley Point pow­er sta­tion, near Bridg­wa­ter, http://www.stophinkley.org

 

‘The Atmos­phere Of Heav­en’:  his­to­ry walk, Sun­day 12th Sep­tem­ber, 12 mid­day, walk begins 3 Rod­ney Place, off Cliftin Down Road, Bris­tol, http://www.brh.org.uk/misc/gas.html

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sun­day 12th Sep­tem­ber, Hamp­ton Row Allot­ments, Bath­wick, 2.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

film: ‘Grass’, Sun­day 12th Sep­tem­ber, 7.30pm, Pier­ian Cen­tre, 27 Port­land Square, St Pauls, Bris­tol, £5 entry, http://www.pieriancentre.com

 

Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, Mon­day 13th Sep­tem­ber, 8–9pm, The Bell, Wal­cot Street, e‑mail bathanimalaction[at]yahoo.co.uk; http://www.bathanimalaction.blogspot.com

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Thurs­day 16th to Fri­day 17th Sep­tem­ber, Pease­down St John Com­mu­ni­ty Farm, Dunker­ton Hill, BA2 8PJ, 6.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

Taunton Wom­ens Refuge punk ben­e­fit gig, Thurs­day 16th Sep­tem­ber, 7pm, Road­house, taunton, free entry, feat. Rat Attack, As We Sink!, Fights & Fires, Sub­gen­er­ates & Bats About Bats; http://www.tauntonwomensrefuge.org.uk

 

‘Wild Food in Autumn’ walk & for­ag­ing course, Fri­day 17th to Sun­day 19th Sep­tem­ber, Monk­ton Wyld Court, near Char­mouth, Brid­port, Dorset, £215 residential/£145 non-res­i­den­tial, http://www.monktonwyldcourt.co.uk/

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sat­ur­day 18th Sep­tem­ber, Pease­down St John Com­mu­ni­ty Farm, Dunker­ton Hill, BA2 8PJ, 2.30pm & 6.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

Bris­tol Free Veg­an Food Fair ben­e­fit gig, Sat­ur­day 18th Sep­tem­ber, 7.30pm, the Black Swan pub, 438 Sta­ple­ton Road, Bris­tol, feat Dad­dy Long Bones, Budd, Mol­ly Sam­son, Ren, D.J. Dub Simi­an & The Long Dead Beat, £3/£4 entry

 

Region­al South West Ani­mal Rights Coali­tion meet­ing, Sun­day 19th Sep­tem­ber, 12–5pm, Kebele Com­mu­ni­ty Co-op, 14 Robert­son Road, Eas­t­on, Bris­tol, e‑mail regionalarc[at]googlemail.com

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sun­day 19th Sep­tem­ber, Pease­down St John Com­mu­ni­ty Farm, Dunker­ton Hill, BA2 8PJ, 2.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

Seed Sav­ing work­shop, Sun­day 19th Sep­tem­ber, 2.30–5pm, put on by Bath Organ­ic Group, places are lim­it­ed, tel 01225 319117, £2.50 entry

 

‘The Glob­al Cir­cle of Peace’: mul­ti­me­dia work of art to cel­e­brate U.N. World Peace Day, Tues­day 21st Sep­tem­ber, 6.30–8.00pm, Kingston Parade Gar­dens, http://www.theglobalcircleofpeace.com

 

two-day work­shop: ‘Hold­ing the Vision’, Wednes­day 22nd to Thurs­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber, 10–4.30pm, Bris­tol, £45–75 entry, with Starhawk; e‑mail shiftbristol[at]yahoo.co.uk; http://www.starhawk.org

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Thurs­day 23rd to Fri­day 24th Sep­tem­ber, Bloom­field Allot­ments, Bear Flat, 6.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

‘An Old Home Fit for the Future’: vis­it to vic­to­ri­an eco-effi­cient house, Fri­day 24th Sep­tem­ber, 3–7pm, 16 Pul­teney Gar­dens, Wid­combe, Bath, BA2 4HG,  http://www.transitionbath.org/old-home-fit-for-the-future

 

Crit­i­cal Mass Bike Ride, Sat­ur­day 25th Sep­tem­ber, meet 1pm, Kingsmead Square, http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk

 

‘An Old Home Fit for the Future’: vis­it to vic­to­ri­an eco-effi­cient house, Fri­day 25th to Sun­day 26th Sep­tem­ber, 11–6pm, 16 Pul­teney Gar­dens, Wid­combe, Bath, BA2 4HG,  http://www.transitionbath.org/old-home-fit-for-the-future

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sat­ur­day 25th Sep­tem­ber, Bloom­field Allot­ments, Bear Flat, 2.30pm & 6.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

Bath Ani­mal Action info stall, Sun­day 26th Sep­tem­ber, 2–4pm, Stall Street, e‑mail bathanimalaction[at]yahoo.co.uk; http:///www.bathanimalaction.blogsppot.com

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sun­day 26th Sep­tem­ber, Bloom­field Allot­ments, Bear Flat, 2.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

Tran­si­tion Bath Social, Mon­day 27th Sep­tem­ber, 7.15pm, the Love Lounge/ back room of the Bell, Wal­cot Street; bring food to share; http://www.transitionbath.org

 

Bath Cycling Cam­paign meet­ing, Mon­day 27th Sep­tem­ber, 7.30pm, the Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street, http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk

 

Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs meet­ing, Mon­day 27th Sep­tem­ber, 8–9pm, The Bell, tel Justin 07854 062336

 

Bath Social­ist Forum meet­ing, Mon­day 27th Sep­tem­ber, 8pm, upstairs St James Wine Vaults, pre­sent­ed by Ken Loach

 

speak­ers & dis­cus­sion: ‘Cli­mate Jus­tice: Think Glob­al, Act Local’, Tues­day 28th Sep­tem­ber, 7–9pm, Uni­tar­i­an Meet­ing House, Brunswick Square, Bris­tol; F.F.I. e‑mail Katharine[at]wdm.org.uk / tel Katharine 020 7820 4900; http://groups.wdm.org.uk/bristol

 

No Bor­ders Camp Bel­gium, Wednes­day 29th Sep­tem­ber to Sun­day 3rd Octo­ber, Brus­sels, http://www.noborderbxl.eu.org/?lang=en

 

‘Low Car­bon Bath Con­sul­ta­tion’: Thurs­day 30th Sep­tem­ber, 6.30–8.30pm, Build­ing of Bath Col­lec­tion, The Count­ess of Huntington’s Chapel, The Vine­yards, Paragon, Bath, for a book­ing, e‑mail gkillick[at]bptrust.org.uk, or ring 01225 338727

 

Nation­al March for Farmed Ani­mals, Sat­ur­day 2nd Octo­ber, 12pm start, Cavendish Square, Lon­don

 

anti-Tory demon­stra­tion, Sun­day 3rd Octo­ber,  Tory Par­ty Con­fer­ence, Birm­ing­ham more details tbc

 

Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Thurs­day 7th Octo­ber, 7.30–9pm, down­stairs at the Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade, http://ww.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com

 

Legal fees ben­e­fit punk gig: ‘SUBVERT 2010 — A Fes­ti­val Of Resis­tance’, Fri­day 8th to Sun­day 10th Octo­ber, Bris­tol, feat Hel­lkrush­er, Rui­dosa Immu­ni­di­cia, War All The Time, Ignosy, The Wankys, The Extin­guish­ers & Bul­letrid­den, as well as veg­an cafés/ stalls/ films/ work­shops & pic­nic; more details tbc

 

Bath Green Drinks, Wednes­day 13th Octo­ber, 8pm, the Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street

 

Region­al day of action against the cuts, Sat­ur­day 23rd Octo­ber

 

Lon­don Anar­chist Book­fair, Sat­ur­day 23rd Octo­ber, 10am-7pm, Queen Mary’s, Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don, Mile End Road, Lon­don, http://www.anarchistbookfair.org.uk

 

Bris­tol Free Veg­an Food Fair, Sat­ur­day 30th Octo­ber, 12–5pm, Broad­mead Bap­tist Church, Union Street, Bris­tol, BS1 3HY, http://www.bristolanimalrights.org.uk/veganfoodfair

 

Coali­tion of the Resis­tance Con­fer­ence, Sat­ur­day 27th Novem­ber, Lon­don, more details tbc

 

Camp for Cli­mate Action Aus­tralia, Wednes­day 1st to Sun­day 5th Decem­ber, Bayswa­ter Pow­er Sta­tion, http://www.climatecamp.org.au

 

Cli­mate Camp Aotearoa, Thurs­day 16th to Tues­day 21st Decem­ber,  Welling­ton New Zealand, http://www.climatecamp.org.nz/node/51

 

*

‘Fat­cat Boss­es Get The Cream’ Shock­er!

Insult has been added to injury once again, as a G.M.B. union sur­vey scru­ti­nised 151 coun­cil and met­ro­pol­i­tan accounts and dis­cov­ered how 129 chief execs are paid more than £150,000 a year. It went on to note how two earned more than £300,000, and 76 earned between £200,000 and £300,000. In the south­west, B.&N.E.S. Coun­cil head hon­cho John Everitt net­ted a com­fy £211,859 this year, includ­ing pen­sion con­tri­bu­tions and expens­es; though his rivals at Corn­wall Coun­ty and Bris­tol City did bet­ter. Life’s hard, eh?

And this is at a time when coun­cils claim to be hard up, slash­ing jobs, ser­vices, and hand­ing out pay freezes like they were sweets to kids. Stand­ing there shiv­er­ing in the play­ground, in their plas­tic mac. Local gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Bob Neill makes an inter­est­ing point: “We need to stamp out a cul­ture of dupli­ca­tion, which is why, in many cas­es, coun­cils should be look­ing towards shar­ing chief exec­u­tives.” But actu­al­ly stamp­ing on the guy seems a bit harsh; instead of cut­ting the 300 out of 7,000 coun­cil jobs, sure­ly it would make more sense to cut just one… After all, the dole queue is nice this time of year, John.

*

Grub Street Mee­ja

Pity the shit-upon peo­ple of Bath, whose local lose-papers, the Bath Com­ic and the West­ern Dai­ly Piss, are two of the apolo­gies for jour­nal­ism in the city.

Time was when the Com­ic would give reg­u­lar and gen­er­ous cov­er­age to anti-war, anti-coun­cil and anti-devel­op­er stunts, but since the lat­est edi­tor took over, it looks as if any­thing like­ly to rock the boat gets packed off on an extend­ed Hol­l­i­day. The big trou­ble with the Com­ic is that it has its head well and tru­ly up the rec­tums of cor­po­rate crooks and shys­ters like B.&N.E.S., Bath Rug­by, First­Bus, Crest Nichol­son (West­ern River­side), Mor­ley Fund Man­age­ment (South­gate), and oth­ers. Proof that the Com­ic had aban­doned any pre­tence of seri­ous news report­ing and had achieved full Beano sta­tus, came with its hilar­i­ous but read­er­ship-insult­ing ‘Attack of the giant seag­ulls’ front-page last month.

The Piss, part of the same bar­rel-scrap­ing North­cliffe out­fit should, after the appoint­ment of ITS lat­est, yes-man edi­tor, be renamed the West­ern Mil­i­tary Gazette or West­ern Dai­ly War, as all this cur­rent bunch of r‑slickers do is pump out the same tired Cameron-lov­ing war­mon­ger­ing pro­pa­gan­da dri­v­el as their sta­ble­mate the Dai­ly Fail.

All the Com­ic and Piss are good for is wip­ing your arse on; the only fault there is that the print comes off on your bum.

The glossies are no bet­ter. Bath Life, a crim­i­nal waste of newsprint, is stuffed full of estate agent waf­fle and oth­er adver­tis­ing, and page after page of ‘Invi­ta­tion Only’ bash­es fea­tur­ing dozens of Bath Z‑z-z lis­ters grin­ning gorm­less­ly for the cam­eras in a pre­ten­tious par­o­dy of Coun­try Life’s soci­ety columns. Pub­lish­ers guilty of this rub­bish are Media Clash, the same bunch of brown-nosers who churn out the coun­cil’s spin-rag ‘Con­nect’. Some­one should tell them that con­nect­ing is not enough; they should try switch­ing on as well.

As for what lit­tle of inter­est the free­bies Bath Mag­a­zine and Folio con­tain, you’d be bet­ter off buy­ing Venue, which does arts and alter­na­tive far bet­ter. It is pub­lished by the Piss/Comic group, but, hey, nobody’s per­fect!

*

If I Had A Ham­mer…

Fol­low­ing the suc­cess­ful acquit­tal of the nine ‘Decom­mis­sion­er’ activists who smashed up Brighton-based bomb fac­to­ry E.D.O./I.T.T. (see B.B. #31), the Smash E.D.O. cam­paign is call­ing for one last shove to close the fac­to­ry all togeth­er. For six years, the com­pa­ny, which sup­plies bomb com­po­nents to Israel, Afghanistan, the U.S.A. and any­one else who has enough cash, has been under relent­less assault from activists, who have block­ad­ed, protest­ed, smashed and exposed the com­pa­ny’s dodgy deal­ings time and time again. The demo has been called for Wednes­day 13th Octo­ber, and promis­es to be a lit­tle on the tasty side, and as the name ‘I.T.T.‘s Ham­mer­time’ sug­gests, peo­ple may have more than wav­ing plac­ards in mind! Peo­ple have been request­ed to get down and stay at the con­ver­gence space from the night before, but also to help fli­er for the event in their home towns before­hand. For more infor­ma­tion on the cam­paign, check out http://www.smashedo.org.uk, or drop them an e‑mail at smashedo[at]riseup.net.

*

Cru­el­ty-Free: You Can’t Say Fayr­er Than That

The sec­ond annu­al Bath Veg­an Fayre 2010 filled a hole on Sat­ur­day 4th Sep­tem­ber, with over 150 pass­ing through the doors. Held at Man­vers Street Bap­tist Church in the cen­tre, free of entry fee and cru­el­ty, the event last­ed from 12 til 4pm. Oth­er­wise, the day stuck to much the same recipe as the pre­vi­ous year: with a tan­ta­liz­ing spread of steam­ing soups, nib­bles, cakes, sweets and savouries – some nut-free, some wheat-free, all meat and dairy-free – fill­ing the bowls and bel­lies of queues of hun­gry fayre-goers. The tea and fruit juices flowed like nev­er before, whilst the tables were filled with relaxed con­ver­sa­tion and ingest­ed edu­ca­tion. As well as the over-bur­dened info tables (with every­thing from nutri­tion, envi­ron­men­tal ethics, recipes, ani­mal rights, med­ical sci­ence and updates for cam­paigns against Noah’s Ark Zoo, hunts, foie gras out­lets and ani­mal labs), free sam­ples table, read­ing cor­ner and chil­dren’s area, there was also a prize raf­fle. Pun­ters includ­ed the usu­al sus­pects of dread­ied and alter­na­tive veg­gie types on the make for free pick­ings, for starters, but also a healthy flow of the unini­ti­at­ed from the street.

By the end of the day, many a hap­py scav­enger got their just desserts, and were heard utter­ing the immor­tal words: “I had no idea veg­an food could taste this good!” Hey, even veg­gies need more than a diet of inde­scrib­able slop every now and again. Next up is the Bris­tol Free Veg­an Fair at Broad­mead Bap­tist Church on Sat­ur­day 30th Octo­ber, from 12 til 5pm, and their ben­e­fit gig at the Black Swan on Sta­ple­ton Road, on the 18th of this month.

http://bathanimalaction.blogspot.com/p/today-uk-is-home-to-around-300000.html
http://www.vegansociety.com/home.php
http://www.bristolanimalrights.org.uk/

*

Cycle-logy 101

Ped­al­phile activists group Bicy­col­o­gy will be crank­ing things up a gear in Bris­tol next week­end, with a trio of car-free fun days for all the fam­i­ly. On Sat­ur­day 18th Sep­tem­ber, they’ll be ‘Doing it with­out a car’ at Mina Park in St Werburgh’s; go sam­ple their col­lec­tion of bike acces­sories, book your ride in with the women bike mechan­ics for free advice and safe­ty checks, or get down to some D.I.Y. cre­ative ses­sions — turn tyres into bike belts, bike chains into bracelets or cob­ble your­self togeth­er a last minute carnie cos­tume. All this just in time for the next day’s ‘Bris­tol Bike Car­ni­val’ — start­ing in the city cen­tre at 12 mid­day, expect day­g­lo, dinosaur skele­ton pup­pets and two-wheeled gonzo weird­ness. Then, after a day’s rest, Tues­day will be ‘Food is our Fuel — Cycle for your Sup­per!’ An explo­ration of mod­ern agri­cul­ture, its prob­lems and its solu­tions, this three-hour long gen­tle cycle starts at 6pm out­side Tesco Metro in Broad­mead, and heads out of the city for black­ber­ry and wild food pick­ing – hot food and drinks will be pro­vid­ed on dona­tion. Bring your bike, lights, ruck­sack or pan­nier, and accom­pa­nied chil­dren.

And in relat­ed Bath news, a bike refurbishment/homelessness fund-rais­ing project has recent­ly re-opened, called ‘ReCY­CLEd’, at 35 Corn Street. E‑mail bikes[at]julianhouse.org.uk, for details.

*

Toys Tory

While the resis­tance against the Con-Dem cuts is shap­ing up nice­ly, the same can­not be said for the cut-crazy coali­tion who have been hit in recent weeks by a string of embar­rass­ing fallings-out. Tories attack­ing Tories, Tories attack­ing Lib-Dems and Lib-Dems attack­ing both each oth­er and the Tories (although we don’t think any­one has noticed or cared). The first of the cracks began to show when odi­ous Osborne informed the press that nuke pro­gramme Tri­dent would have to be fund­ed by the defence bud­get, rather than the tra­di­tion­al fun­ders, the Trea­sury. It turns out Osborne had let every one know his plans – except the Min­is­ter for Defence, Liam Fox. This news came to the delight of T.V. jour­nal­ists as Fox brand­ed the propo­si­tion “ridicu­lous”, assert­ing that after a 20% bud­get cut, there was no way the M.o.D. could pay for Tri­dent. Osborne shot him down on live T.V. as a lit­tle bick­er­ing match erupt­ed before the very eyes of bor­der­line orgas­mic tel­ly journos. The spat has yet to be resolved.

This was quick­ly fol­lowed by bout #2, fea­tur­ing High­er Edu­ca­tion Min­is­ter David Wil­letts in the blue cor­ner vs. Devey boy him­self in the, umm­mm, oth­er blue cor­ner. This time the argu­ment was over milk. Now, some of you may remem­ber that one of Thatch­er’s less pop­u­lar deci­sions was the removal of free milk from schools; so what has Wil­letts done? In the image of the Tory God­moth­er, Wil­letts proud­ly told the assem­bled press pack that under-fives no longer deserved their free milk, and that it was to be cut. After a rapid apol­o­gy at the foot of this Thatch­er shrine, Cameron popped his head out of the door of Down­ing Street to con­tra­dict his edu­ca­tion min­is­ter, prompt­ing oppo­si­tion M.P.s to notice that “This is a coali­tion in chaos, mak­ing pol­i­cy on the hoof. The Gov­ern­ment does­n’t seem to have a clue.” As if Cameron did­n’t have enough trou­ble keep­ing his own house in order, the Lib-Dems have also start­ed hav­ing a pop, with many Lib-Dem M.P.s (in fact almost all of them that don’t have a cab­i­net seat) promis­ing a rebel­lion over Con-Dem V.A.T. increase plans, with promi­nent Lib-Dem­mers such as Charles ‘5 years on the wag­on’ Kennedy and Simon Hugh­es pub­licly crit­i­cis­ing Con-Dem pol­i­cy. To add anoth­er dol­lop of the stinky stuff on the smoul­der­ing feck pile that is the coali­tion, Clegg has crawled out of David’s cosy ori­fice to take the reigns while the Camerons sun them­selves. Like a naughty school­boy, Clegg took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tra­dict key Con-Dem poli­cies relat­ing to immi­gra­tion, Tri­dent and hous­ing ben­e­fits, some­thing that he has been warned about in the past. Looks like some young upstart will be get­ting an Eton-style bot­ty-thrash­ing when dad­dy Cameron rolls back into town!

*

The Filth And The Fur­ry

As men­tioned back in B.B. #30, the U.K. Gov­ern­ment has per­formed a spec­tac­u­lar U‑turn on its pol­i­cy regard­ing bovine tuber­cu­lo­sis, and has cho­sen to go ahead with a nation-wide bad­ger cull. Last week, Envi­ron­ment Sec­re­tary Car­o­line Spel­man approved the cull for T.B. hotspots, hand­ing the license to kill over to indi­vid­ual farm­ers’ dis­cre­tions.  These wannabe 007’s of the Nation­al Farm­ers Union lob­by will need to prove that a cull is nec­es­sary before being allowed to kill and/or vac­ci­nate (shoot and gas first, a spoon­ful of med­i­cine lat­er?) any­thing black and white in a 50 square mile zone; what sort of proof required is yet to be dis­closed, but a sham of a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion is expect­ed lat­er this month. At least this might stop farm­ers from rolling gunned down bad­gers onto high­ways in the mid­dle of the night, as imi­ta­tion road­kill.

The Welsh Assem­bly were pushed into a U‑turn of their own, of sorts, back in July, when the Bad­ger Trust and oth­er ani­mal ‘wel­fare’ activists won their legal chal­lenge on a tech­ni­cal­i­ty, push­ing kill-crazy plans back for months. These pro-culling deci­sions fly in the face of the ten-year Inde­pen­dent Sci­en­tif­ic Study Group on Cat­tle T.B., who con­clud­ed in 2007 that culling could­n’t mean­ing­ful­ly con­trol the dis­ease, and that car­ri­er bad­gers would dis­perse the dis­ease over a wider area. This posi­tion has been loose­ly cor­rob­o­rat­ed by Impe­r­i­al Col­lege Lon­don and the Zoo­log­i­cal Soci­ety of Lon­don. But screw all that, the Con-Dems say – let’s shoot us some varmints! Yee­haw! In a “care­ful­ly man­aged” and “sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly-led” man­ner, of course.

As ever, ani­mal right­sies are much-need­ed to save our fur­ry friends – check out http://www.badger-killers.co.uk, or con­tact bathanimalaction[at]yahoo.co.uk for ideas.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/7982848/Farmers-to-be-handed-powe
rs-to-cull-badgers.html
http://www.bathanimalaction.blogspot.com

*

First Class News!

In a heart­en­ing bit of news just in, a pub­lic sur­vey has found that sev­en out of every eight peo­ple oppose the pri­vati­sa­tion of the postal ser­vice (one of the Tories’ key poli­cies) and would pre­fer it to be kept pub­lic. Bil­ly Hayes, head of the posties’ union said “This poll reaf­firms what we already knew — the British pub­lic do not want their postal ser­vices sold off. The union and the com­pa­ny have worked hard to agree a ful­ly fund­ed mod­erni­sa­tion plan and that work needs sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment.” How­ev­er, the will of the pub­lic con­tra­dicts Tory plans to put a bill before Par­lia­ment demand­ing the pri­vati­sa­tion of the ser­vice. Will this be anoth­er case of the Tories ignor­ing the opin­ions of the aver­age per­son and try­ing to plough ahead with their agen­da of cuts and pri­va­ti­za­tion? We sus­pect so, so if you like your postal ser­vice pub­lic, lets get ready to fight for it!

*

And now, to the dis­claimer: as any­one is free to con­tribute, the opin­ions expressed in each arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflec­tive of all con­trib­u­tors. Nat­u­ral­ly, any right-wing or cor­po­rate bull­shit will be binned and spat upon. Need­less to say, the opin­ions of the author of this dis­claimer do not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflect the opin­ions of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor.