Friday 24th April

[LadyCentauria]

N'night cJA and Ohso – sweet dreams, m'dears x

[adam]

Por Favor - I have a song for you.

"Comma comma comma comma comma commeleeeon, you come and go, you come and go-oh-oh-oh......"

I like this so much I might use "comma" for my meditation mantra........

I have one too

[youtube]Sdiy8lmmZx4[/youtube]

[Tizme1]

Hello all,

I've logged in [probably foolishly] to catch up and there are various things from the last couple of days I would like to comment on. But I still feel that it's probably a waste of my time. Apologies for not replying to each post individually but frankly, I don't think you want to 'hear' anyway.

So;

Copyright laws - nothing in the manifesto as such on this but the idea is to find ways to support artists rather than corporations. The 14 years is a suggestion for end of copyright after an artist has died, as opposed to the current 70 years. The suggestion is also to work with artists/writers etc to thrash out the best deal. Not to mention the additional support we would like to offer.

The letter supporting Caroline by various 'famous bods' - why try and make something out of this? A number of 'well known' people have said that they are not all Green Party supporters and mostly they aren't involved in party politics at all, but they all agree Caroline is a good MP. Why not take it on face value? I can assure you Natalie will be.

Which reminds me of a question raised a few days ago. Why did we choose Natalie as leader? Because she was the best choice. At the time, we had little media coverage. Natalie's pitch was that she would increase membership, diversify membership, and improve our MEP standing. She's done all three. At the time, media presentation really wasn't a concern. I despair when I think of how often you complained regarding Ed's media coverage and how often many of you said it shouldn't matter, but now he has improved his presentation, you use the equivalent arguments against Natalie.

On the subject of the media - I watched Ed's LBC interview and thought he did really well. He was relaxed, attuned, and focussed. I particularly liked the fact that for once in my hearing, he dealt with the woman complaining about the way the NHS dealt with her mother, by saying he wanted to know more and wanted to speak to her personally after the show. There's been a couple of occasions in the past when I have felt that was the way he should dealt with certain questions so was pleased to see/hear it.

As for the BBC interview, he was given every bit as hard a time as Cameron. Not more. Not less. Quite right too. The difference imo is he tried to actually engage more, and remained calmer.

Finally @Ernst - I fucking love you too. I struggle with this place though because.......... well maybe I'll pm you about that.

[Hobiejoe]

Wotcher. Night off from the pub tonight, so spent the evening watching the second new Star Trek movie with sprog No.1. She had to tell me to stop with the running commentary about who was who, although she thought the tribble was cute.

Waiting for the missus to get home from my idea of hell - a gala dinner for West Country accountants and chums, with dancing afterwards. And an after-dinner speech by (the horror, the horror) Digby Jones.

But the good news is I'm sat here with a glass of wine, watching the New York Jets on a compilation of Old Grey Whistle Tests on BBC4

Politically? I had a wobble, but confidence is returning. So much so that I'm going to be taking advantage of my locals' knowledge of the online turf accountants to place a wager. Saw 66-1 on a Labour majority from someone....

Ah. Conflicted now, TOGWT are playing Roxy Music, Do The Strand.

[Hobiejoe]

Oooh, Capt. Beefheart now!


*edit* And Patti Smith....

Damnit, Tom Petty as well. I really need to go to bed.

[Hobiejoe]

Oh this is ridiculous. Talking Heads then The Jam.

[Tizme1]

Oh this is ridiculous. Talking Heads then The Jam.

My apologies. I thought this was a broadly political/current affairs site. Thanks for hiding my mistake. I'll endeavour not to disturb proceedings again.

[LadyCentauria]

Hi @Tizme1

Thanks so much for clarifying the stance on copyright – I should have gone and checked on the website about that, myself, but failed there. It'll take a lot of consultation since there's been something of a trend towards standardising copyright length throughout the different world territories and although for books, films, dramatic, artistic, and musical works, in the UK (and many other countries) it's 70 years after death of the last surviving author, composer, writer – partly to do with inheritance, that the fruits of your labours should benefit the author and the first two generations of descendant, and partly due to life-expectancies – discussion is going on to extend it to 95 years after last death. But throughout the world, that varies from death+0 years to death+100 years. Copyright in recordings of music (and thus performance, arrangement, and production royalties) expire after 50 years in the UK and many other countries – but, these days, that's not going to support a musician into great age. Again, it's shorter in some regions but rarely longer. Copyright is about protecting the creators of work (or the person/organisation they choose to assign/sell their copyright to) and, as far as possible, protecting the vulnerable from exploitation – although there are a couple of countries where once the original copyright expires the work becomes the property of the State rather than public property, per se. But here, and in most of the 'western' countries you can always publish under a Creative Commons licence (varying from anyone can reproduce/perform/adapt with permission and/or credit, to time-limited 'free' use, or certain groups - Godspell, The Daniel Jazz, and some other works, can be performed without royalties required but only by schools. There were around 25 different types of Creative Commons Licences, last time I checked, but the original author still retains the original Copyright unless they assign or sell it. With both the current protections and freedoms, anyone who wanted to give up their copyright 14 years after their death could probably do that under existing practises and rights. But, in a competitive, developing world I'd be surprised if this plan could meet the agreement of all UK-based creators, publishers, and producers. (Gosh, that went on a bit, but I'll leave it as is.)

You're right about Caroline Lucas' supporters – they have an absolute right to support who they want to and she is a good MP, I don't really want her to lose her seat. I'd like to see more Green MPs; I think that Chris, who's standing in this Constituency for the Greens, would make a good MP. You'll not blame me for hoping that Sheila, our Labour PPC, could knock Justine Greening out of Parliament - unlikely, I know, but she is the closest rival for this year – and that Labour will get enough seats, overall, to be clearly ahead of the Tories, even if some sort of grouping is still necessary for Ed to lead the next Government! And I take your points about Natalie Bennett - the party has certainly grown at all levels under her leadership but, if anything, the criticism and pigeon-holing of the female leaders is harsher than on the men. It's ramped up now because the press are getting harder on everyone, as the election veers ever closer, and the 'traditional' party machines are now treating/targetting the Greens, SNP, and Plaid Cymru, as serious threats rather than as a sort of entertaining side-show to the main event. It's easy for us all to get caught up in that rather than seeking common ground and saving the arguments heated-debates for actions planned or taken, rather than the perceived characteristics of individuals.

I haven't seen those interviews of Ed's, from Friday. Watched the Chatham House speech, and some other political bits and pieces through the day but had some Executor's duties to deal with, in bursts, interspersed with escaping here into The Haven for a mixture of relative light relief/different-sort-of-serious.

I'm glad we're seeing more of you and hope we will see more of you. Pull me up if I get carried away or out of order, eh? As my late father always said, "The important thing is love."

[LadyCentauria]

Oh this is ridiculous. Talking Heads then The Jam.

My apologies. I thought this was a broadly political/current affairs site. Thanks for hiding my mistake. I'll endeavour not to disturb proceedings again.

We nearly turned into a football site, the other weekend. Apparently there were some important competitions going on which were life-or-death matters for some contributors. I think we can class the editorial choices of artists to play in an historical compilation from the Old Grey Whistle Test's archive generally under 'current affairs'. And 'Talking Heads' could be a comment on political geeks, bloggers, campaigners, etc., aka 'us' We should probably really head over to the pub for the general socialising but poor Hobiejoe probably doesn't fancy a busman's holiday and it's rare we get breaking political news overnight, so things relax. A sort of static in-page chatroom might be handy, though, while the main page scrolls above it – I could draw what I mean but would be lost if it came to programming one. Hmm.