To the latest blog posts
 

You take a couple of weeks off and it's amazing how long it takes you to get back to it. I've been full of lethargy this week - but my get up and go is just about coming back. The great thing about being on holiday is having time, just time to do the things you want to do. The new format Guardian, called the Berliner!, came out on the first Monday of our holiday and I have to say I read it everyday from then on. Congratulations to our friends at the Guardian for a really good move.

A couple of websites I'd like to draw your attention to:

Road Block - Road Block is an alliance of groups and individuals campaigning against road-building.

Road Block has launched in response to a roads programme of around 200 proposed or planned schemes throughout the UK: a scale of road building not seen since the infamous 1990s road building programme, which led to unprecedented community-based protest. Many schemes were cancelled and the new Labour government made a manifesto pledge to cut road building and traffic growth.
 

and Car Busters - Car Busters Magazine is published four times a year by the World Carfree Network and produced by an international activist team in Prague, Czech Republic. It is a 32-page print magazine critiquing our society's car culture and exploring positive alternatives.

OK now I'm getting there, have a great weekend - Wildberry
 

 I hope you're all well - Wildberry

 

Yes it's true as you can see from the certificate number 383793 Wildberry is going to Pluto! Well in reality not actually me but my name. If you go to the NASA's Pluto-Kuiper Belt Mission website, you can add your name which will be burnt on to a CD and be sent with the probe. But don't waste any time entries close on the 15 September.

In answer to the understandable question - Why go to Pluto? NASA answer as follows.

'Planetary exploration is a historic endeavour and a major focus of NASA. New Horizons is designed to help us understand worlds at the edge of our solar system by making the first reconnaissance of Pluto and Charon - a "double planet" and the last planet in our solar system to be visited by spacecraft. Then, as part of an extended mission, New Horizons would visit one or more objects in the Kuiper Belt region beyond Neptune.'




See you on Pluto. Have a great weekend - Wildberry

 

A group of seventeen diverse groups have joined together to form Stop Climate Chaos. Groups from the Women's Institute to Greenpeace think the only way to bring climate change to the top of the political agenda in the UK is to form together and speak with a single voice.

They say, 'We believe that civil society organisations - environment and development groups, faith groups, humanitarian organisations, women’s groups, trade unions and many others - are in a unique position to mobilise public concern, and through this the necessary political action, to stop climate chaos. By working together in a diverse, broad-based coalition we believe we can deliver results that none of us can achieve alone. Nothing on this scale has been attempted before on climate change, but anything less is unlikely to be successful.'

You can get a list of the participating groups on the website here.

The majority of us still seem to sailing along thinking that either climate change isn't going to happen or that it's someone else's problem! No one is accepting responsibility - unless we all take responsibility as individuals nothing will change. I'm not just talking about turning the odd light off and turning the central heating thermostat down. We are now at the stage where we need to change the way we live. We need to drastically reduce our carbon emissions, take public transport, avoid flying, buy home produced goods. Supermarkets full of apples flown half way around the world is just ridiculous. If we don't change now it will be too late!

Right I've got that off my chest - Wildberry
 

I hope this doesn't sound too much like navel gazing. The site has got to the size now where often I'm writing about something and would like to refer to a previous entry but don't want to spend half-an-hour looking for it. Hence the search facility and hopefully it will help you as much as me. There are all the usual search rules based on 'Boolean Expressions' (I checked Wikipedia for a definition of Boolean and came away more confused than I started). But basically you can add 'or', 'and' & 'not' between words to help filter the results. I've added a bit of a help page here, but if your anything like me you might just want to dive straight into the search here.

Please let me know if you have any problems nigel@wildberrys.org.uk.

If you're wondering about the relevance of the picture above I searched Google for a picture to illustrate help and this came up and it's just too good not to show.

Enjoying the summer - Wildberry

I mentioned some time ago about the honorary degree Oxford Brookes University planned to give Jeremy Clarkson. There was an online petition launched, you can still add your name here, when I looked this morning there were 2,942 signatories. Well it seems contrary to common sense, but the award is due to go ahead on Monday 12 September. A number of groups including Transport 2000 are calling for a protest outside the university. I can imagine that some might argue 'what does it matter if Clarkson gets this award' it doesn't really affect anyone else. But it does it shows that the aggressive 'speed rules' mentality promoted by Clarkson and his colleagues is acceptable and even to be rewarded by an otherwise very respectable university.

If you're interested in making a protest and petitioning Oxford Brookes to take back the honour then the arrangements are as follows:

Meet at 08h45 on 12th September at the top of South Parks (by the playground at the top of Morrell Avenue ) on bike or on foot .

Bring bells, whistles, placards, banners and your friends .

Dress as yourself or as Jeremy: lovely tight jeans, denim shirt, cowboy boots, black curly wig, steering wheel…

On a serious note:  The parents of an engineering student, Howard Hillsdon, will be attending this ceremony to receive his posthumous award . Howard Hillsdon was tragically killed in a car accident which was not his fault . Please be sensitive to the feelings of his friends and family on the morning of the ceremony, and avoid references to car accidents on placards, etc .

Have a good day - Wildberry

 

(picture courtesy of Google Earth)

This the second in what is becoming an erratic series of Great Websites you may never of heard of! This series comprises ... Mmm ... two so far, but give it time (see the 10th August for no.1). Anyway back to Google Earth. I'm always a little suspicious of websites that require you to download software from the get go. But I'd heard such good things about Google Earth I gave it a go and boy am I pleased I did! I have described Google Earth as the best website in-the-world-ever! and yes maybe that was exaggerating a little, but it is good.

So how to describe it - well basically you start off with a view of the earth from the moon. You can then tap into the search engine your town or place of interest and the imagine zooms-in in what can be a slightly nausea inducing way until you're looking at a satellite photo of that town. Now as I describe it it doesn't sound that great but I assure you it is. The resolution of the images varies; big cities in the USA, predictably, are the best giving you resolutions sufficient pick out individual vehicles on the roads.

(picture courtesy of Google Earth)

Interestingly Baghdad also has some of the best images! The programme also gives you the option of highlighting roads, coffee shops, gas stations, whatever you want.

There is also what is rather grandly called the Google Earth Community, which is basically a message board discussing updates, focusing on current events etc. But it is interesting to see what others all over the world are focusing on.

The whole thing is excellent - certainly worth trying.

Be careful out there - Wildberry