I’ve nicked this photo from Bigmouth Strikes Again’s comments. (Sorry - I had to download the photo, my Wordpress wasn’t happy with linking to imageshack - and I’m not sure to whom I should give due credit).
Someone please tell me it’s not real, or at the very least just an advert aboout visiting The Orwell Museum or something. Please. It’s a joke, right? Someone in the graphics department is taking the piss? It’s actually promoting a film about a dystopian future that doesn’t star us?
Sodding hell. Not only that someone produced such a thing and released it for public consumption (surely it was portfolio sampler done to show skills not an actual message? Or at least a joke to see how stupid the rubberstamping heads of department were?), but somehow I’ve managed to miss it. The first Google result puts it at 2002. I wonder if they still use it.
It has to be someone in the graphics department who wanted to see how far they’d go. Hasn’t it? Nothing that a spot of re-education wouldn’t cure.
I presume Mayor of LondON is looking for an up and coming film maker to do some arty, black and white movies of fields of athletic young citizens performing gymnastics in formation for the 2012 Olympics?
Mr. Fact,
Have a look at “Die Zeit”, 03/2007. Long-time foreign correspondent Reiner Luyken, who has been living in Scotland for probably two decades, wrote the dossier “Big Brother ist wirklich ein Brite” (”Big Brother is really a Briton”). The subtitle reads “Das Mutterland der Demokratie verwandelt sich in den rabiatesten Überwachungsstaat der westlichen Welt. Die Regierung Blair ist stolz darauf.” (”The cradle of democracy is turning into the most vigorous surveillance state in the western world. The government of [Tony] Blair is proud of it.”)
Has the British press discussed this issue at length? When I want to get to the bottom of certain things here in Germany, especially regarding the economic situation, I often have to pick up the Economist or the NY Times. I wonder whether the UK is any different. It seems that the truth is often better seen from a distance.
Here’s the link for the full article: http://www.zeit.de/2007/03/Big-Brother
JCS: I’m not sure I’m the right person to ask. I found the difference after being away for a decade shocking, although I’m sure it’s been an incremental process.
Does the press discuss the issue? Jein. There are thoughtful, intelligent articles in both the left and right of centre press, but infrequently. I’m not sure whether the accepted opinion of “if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear” is weakening - it’s a phrase I hear across the political spectrum up to and including otherwise small-government conservatives.
Incidentally, every time I moan about ID cards it’s linked to this whole issue. It’s not just about the cards themselves, it’s they’re linked to a massive, whole, encompassing, recording surveillance system (as well as being about the basic relationship between citizen and state).
P.S. Thanks for the link - and the German economy looks better from a distance…..
Hihihi!
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=blogorrhea&defid=1072873
Fortunately for Germany memories of the Stasi and other totalitarian pasts are still strong. Unfortunately the more conservative section of the political spectrum likes the whole law’n'order’n'anti-terrorism thing; only recently Federal interior minister Wolfgang Schäuble suggested, in all seriousness, that it might be a nice idea if the authorities were able to remotely scan the contents of private computers via the internet should they need to (link).
I saw this poster a few years ago, when I was back for a few days to have every moment I spent there recorded on video (or possibly not, as in most cases actually the tapes are so old that nothing can be seen, a bus is parked oppposite one of the cameras so BNP bombers cannot be seen coming out of the station, or the recordings mysteriously vanish when they show Metropolitan Police shoot, many times, an Al-Qaida operative, I mean south American electrician on a victoria line train).
Anyway, it is a bit scary. But “postmodern ironic” too, which probably, on reflection, makes it more scary than it otherwise would have been. Flying London Transport roundels as eyes representing cameras. Fucking hell. I believe there was an entire series on the theme. Probably available to buy at the London Transport Museum (I mean, 1984-stylee rebrand: “London’s Transport Museum”).
Or maybe not (yet). But there is a nice one of passengers infront of a Telescreen getting the latest Travel information and Jamcams from Someone Marie-Ashe from LondON Tonight http://www.ltmuseumshop.co.uk/Catalogue/Images/Large/00000060.jpg , as well as a hint of Livingstone’s plans for his own red branded version of Star Wars to counter both the US and Chinese efforts: http://www.ltmuseumshop.co.uk/Catalogue/Images/Large/00000204.jpg , and http://www.ltmuseumshop.co.uk/Catalogue/Images/xl/00000349.jpg .
Makes you think. Possibly.
But even more scary is this:
http://stroppyblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/x-ray-cameras-on-lampposts.html
Aren’t x-rays unsafe? Will pregnant women now be banned from going outside, incase the unborn child gets a unexpected dose of radiation?
Mr. Penguin: What? That nice Mr Schäuble coming up with an idea like that? But he looks so harmless.
Daggi: I hope you’re not suggesting that some members of the police might be sympathetic towards the BNP and wouldn’t want them to get into trouble? As for the tragic shooting of Brazilian electricians, I think one has to take into account the heightened tensions that everyone was under working under at the time, and that as well as looking a bit foreign, Mr deMenezes was deliberately trying to avert suspicion from himself by not wearing a thick, bulky coat on a hot day, nor jumping over ticket barriers, nor running away from anyone…
And surely they won’t really be using x-rays. “X-Rays” is just a tabloid euphemism for “See-through-stuff-killer-death-beams” or something.
Streets: Yes, I know, it’s (and has been for a while) complete and utter shit. I’ll try and do better / give up completely soon.
By the way, your message was tagged as spam, so wouldn’t show up until I’d actually rescued it from the spam bin. Sorry.
I hope you’re not suggesting that some members of the police might be sympathetic towards the BNP and wouldn’t want them to get into trouble?
Quite the opposite. Busdrivers are surely the guilty ones, for deliberately getting themselves stuck in traffic outside said Brixton tube station exit when fascist bomb-carriers are hanging around, thereby blocking the probably broken (or fake) camera anyway.
Daggi: It was probably just coincidence with the bus drivers too. Thankfully, they’ve always been able to track down those awful Anti Nazi League people. At least so far. That doesn’t mean we have to drop our guard though, who knows what evil plans they have for the future.
It is real - more at http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/002285.html
poons: Now I know. I was naive to think that “they” wouldn’t go for something like that, but….