All of sudden

10 minutes later . . .

Lewes against the Education Cuts

Lewes

Sat 11 Dec

Over 300 Lewesians turned out to protest against the Coalition Government's proposed Education Cuts, in particular the three-fold rise in university tuition fees, and the withdrawal of the Educational Maintenance Allowance available to over-16s who remain in full-time education.

As was to be expected, a special target of local anger is the local Liberal Democrat MP, and government minister, Norman Baker, who joined other LibDem ministers in voting for the cuts even though they had specifically signed a pledge before the election earlier this year to oppose any rise in fees, and indeed proposed they should be phased out.

The demonstration was called by local school pupils, at two days' notice - fantastic! Congratulations!!

There are some photos from the demo in the slideshow above, including some of the witty placards, and you can also hear some of the witty chants :-) :

Norman Baker - Shame on you - Shame on you for turning blue!
They say "cut back" - we say "fight back"
No ifs, no buts - no education cuts
Lib Dems, hear us say - "give us back our EMA"

Lewes going nowhere

Fri 3 December

Lewes

Lunchtime today. This is the main railway line between Lewes and London. There have been no trains on it since Wednesday at least.

Lewes isn't exactly cut off from the world, but with no roads in or out of town for 24 hours or more, few shops open until today and a run on bread and milk, with all schools closed and many local services suspended, with no trains and hardly any buses for 2 days, with Gatwick Airport closed, and with broadband erratic and, horror of horrors, no Guardian delivered, it has certainly felt like it at times.

The snow began on Monday, which was a bit odd, because as we know it never snows in southern England in November . . . I'd been to the University to do a lecture, got some shopping on the way home - and didn't leave the house again until this morning (Friday).

It snowed more on Tuesday, and folk had fun of various sorts: building snowmen, throwing snowballs, sledding, falling over, that sort of thing. In Brighton they're a bit more up front with their snow fun: they have adventures with a tea tray, and spend the morning on the beach; in Lewes we're more sophisticated: we have things like Wolfie's blog and Long Slow Distance's unexpected visitor, and we grow icicles and decorate the war memorial with snowballs. We dig up our old cartoons, and we paddle our own surfboard, and have a nice sit down when it all gets a bit much.

Then it came down long and hard on Wednesday evening, and everything ground to a halt. On Thursday it froze, hard; overnight temperatures were said to have gone down to -10ºC, which is the sort of cold we get once a decade here. 

Today it has hovered around zero. I ventured out to do my bit to keep the local economy going, and didn't slither once, which pleased me no end as I had a bottle of milk on my back, and I have a tendency to trip, slip and fall over things like paving stones, blades of grass, pockets of air, things like that.

Here's some of my photos from this week; I've seen plenty of superb and atmospheric shots from others, many of which I've lost track of, but here's a few to be going on with: evening walk, saunter past castle, Lewes FC football ground, street view, some of Viva Lewes' photos of the week, Railway Land, the Cliffe Christmas Tree, railway station, and a gorgeous set from Richard Gailey.

Throughout the week the Viva Lewes Twitter feed has been invaluable, retweeting information and comments from all around, and pointing towards much of the excellent photo and video material above. Great fun, and very useful, although I can't say it's as satisfying a read as The Guardian . . .

PS: plus some great pix from Kirstie Fuller

57 varieties of hypocrite

(from today's Guardian)

For those not familiar with UK politics:

- the Liberal Democrats have 57 MPs (members of parliament)

- they are propping up the Conservatives in a coalition government

- during the general election campaign earlier this year they promised to abolish students' tuition fees, if elected

- they won a number of university town seats on the back of this pledge

- the senior Liberal Democrat Vince Cable is the minister in charge of the government department which is currently introducing a huge rise in tuition fees, alongside a massive cut in the funding of university teaching

- a wave of student occupations and demonstrations is taking place all over the country against these cuts and charges

- one leading Liberal Democrat said the pledge was 'a legitimate position for an opposition party', but 'a very different position for a party with responsibility' (see dictionary definition of hypocrisy below)

- many Liberal Democrat MPs are getting cold feet over the parliamentary vote on this issue, due next week - should they vote for? against?? abstain??? individually???? all together?????

- the Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell does Cable as a baby elephant

- Heinz (of baked beanz fame) used to boast they sold 57 varieties of tinned food

- the Liberal Democrat logo is a bird with far too many wings - or is it a worm?

- the lobby is where MPs go to cast their votes in the House of Commons

- 'lobby fodder' is an expression used to refer to MPs who always vote the way their party tells them to

- hypocrite: when someone pretends to believe something that they do not really believe or that is the opposite of what they do or say at another time (Cambridge Dictionaries Online)

They say a picture is worth a thousand words - well I've used over 250 here but I'd far rather look at Steve Bell's cartoon . . .

Oh, and by the way, I - and I'm sure many others in Lewes - will be very interested to see how our own Liberal Democrat MP, Norman Baker, votes on this issue.

Big snow now!

Big snow in Lewes, 9pm. Well it is December. Do you think I've summoned it up by getting out those old cartoons (Snow Humour, First Aid Post, Who put that there)? Spooky!

Sasha's snowmen

Little Sasha from upstairs has made some snowmen.

November snow

With one day of November left, snow falls in Lewes - the earliest I can remember it in the 20 years I've been living here. We're probably the last part of the country to get it. A bit of a change from the 30ºC I left in Israel a week ago :-).

Toffs and Turncoats

The happy phrase is Nick Passmore's, not mine. Here they are, delivering what they patronisingly term their 'Comprehensive Spending Review'.

There are actually four Toffs in this picture, although we can only see three of them unless we really know where to look. And please don't strain your eyes trying, you'll only end up at the optician's, and it'll cost you a fortune, even more than a bus ride.

Two of them are also Turncoats. Turncoat No.1 can be identified by his subtle yellow tie; along with Toff No.1 he is attempting to nod sagely at what he wants us to think are the words of wisdom of Toff No.2. And Turncoat No.2? Well, he's hiding behind Toff 2; we surmise he's licking that part of 2's anatomy nearest to him, as he has been doing for the last 6 months.

Toff 2's speech can roughly be summarised thus: 

We and our kind got us into this mess, so you lot are going to have to get us out of it. We're all in this together, but we know our place, and we know yours as well. This is going to hurt you more than it hurts us. That's what we're here for. We're looking after our lot, you can look after yours.

Jobs, pay, pensions, welfare, transport, health, education, arts - even the police and the armed forces - all trashed in an orgy of smug, smarmy, hypocritical, prevaricating self-righteousness. And aimed disproportionately at those least able to withstand it; but they're not likely to vote Toff anyway, if they vote at all, so what do they matter?

Someone described it as a performance of smoke and mirrors - how apt. The Toffs manipulate the mirrors, trying to get us to believe that less is more, down is up, cut is paste; meanwhile the Turncoats pump away at the smoke machine, hoping to prevent us from seeing what's going on.

And on a personal note - Oi, Norman - were you listening to this garbage? Are you going to vote for it? Or are you going to use your loaf?

Paul Brady in Lewes

Sorry, that should read "The legendary" Paul Brady - Saturday 26 February at the Town Hall, Lewes. We get nothing but the best :-)

More info from SpyBoy. Music to our ears indeed!

Moving On

Fri 9 July

Lewes

Every year the children in the final year at local primary schools hold a procession through the streets, and a party in a park, to celebrate 'moving on' to secondary school. It's a sort of a rite of passage, except it's not obligatory - they can still move on, even if they don't take part. But it is a public recognition of one of the major points of change in children's lives, and they love it.

Lewes Local Food Market

Fri 9 July

Lewes

Local food for local people, every Friday morning, below the Market Tower. And local blues, played by Lou, who's also local (see him in this earlier post from two years ago - same shirt, different instrument). The market is an initiative of Transition Town Lewes (see the post on the inaugural meeting, 2007), and looks set to flourish - all the bread, and all the cherries, and a lot more besides, had gone by the time I got there!

Artists United

Thu 8 Jul

Lewes

A group of artists or a football club? Well, it's both. 40 local artists have got together to put on an exhibition in support of the community group which has taken over the running of the town's football club - Lewes FC, the Rooks. This year the club is celebrating 125 years of football, which makes it one of the oldest clubs in England. So, Artists United supporting Rooks 125, to help keep the Rooks flying.

The takeover comes after a period of several years in which the club's fortunes rose, rose, and rose again, only to fall back down with a thud. A couple of years ago Lewes FC had crowned a sequence of successful seasons by winning the Conference (Blue Square) South division. This gained them promotion to the Conference Premier League, which is one tier below League 2, the lowest of the fully professional leagues. Giddy heights for a small local club.

Unfortunately the club promptly got vertigo, sacked the manager who'd got them up there, lost most of the players, and crashed straight back down again. Last year they showed that it's almost as hard to stop losing as it is to keep winning, and only avoided further relegation on the last day of the season. At the same time they found themselves virtually insolvent, and subject to a winding up order which was also averted at the last moment.

Now a number of local organisations and individuals have formed Rooks 125, which has bought the club for a nominal sum, and hopes to be able to run it as a Community Benefit Society, with all profits being used to the benefit of the community, on a democratic one-person-one-vote basis. Just like FC Barcelona.

¡Olé!

The exhibition, by the way, was superb.

Oi, Norman, I want my vote back!

Apparently the Liberal Democrats couldn't see how to establish a progressive, reforming government with Labour. So they've turned to the Tories.

My Liberal Democrat MP, Norman Baker, stood for parliament claiming a vote for him was the only way to keep the Tories out. I voted for him on that basis, as I have done before. Now his party has put the Tories in power.

So I might as well have voted Labour, or Green.

Can I have my vote back?

A wasted vote or a nasty shock?

 

From Voter Power Index, Lewes Constituency

If 48.5% of Lewes voters didn't vote for the winning candidate in 2005, then 51.5% did. The Liberal Democrats won the seat with an overall majority of the votes, which sounds reasonable to me.

What statistical presentations like this leave out is the politics. Lewes was a 'safe' Tory seat until 1997. In that election many Labour and Green supporters took electoral reform into their own hands, and voted tactically for the Liberal Democrats. We've had a Lib Dem MP since then, he's been a good MP and he's maintained his seat. The same has happened in many constituencies around the UK - many voters have been able to use an 'alternative vote', even within the existing system, and have managed to influence the outcome.

If people think their vote is going to be 'wasted', they will be less likely to vote. If they don't vote, they're leaving the decision to those that do - and they may like the result even less.

Beware - don't take the politics out of politics - you might end up with a nasty shock.

Sun gets in your eyes

It was only 1:30 (yesterday - see original post Up on the Downs) but the sun was already low enough to come in above my glasses. It's a bit like water, it gets everywhere, you can't keep it out.

However, thanks to seriously reactive lenses, and a cap pulled down at a jaunty angle, I managed to keep going. It helped that for the home stretch I was pointing north.

Posted via email from micalet's posterous

Up on the Downs

Yesterday - a glorious sunny day, the first one of the year, too good to miss. Just me and the sheep. How very different from today :-( .

Posted via email from micalet's posterous

That's why they call them snowdrops

Mon 8 Feb

But it had all melted in a couple of hours.

Saskia and Yogi

Lewes Farmers' Market
Sat 6 Jun

Bottleneck in the Precinct

Lou's Blues in Lewes - again.
Sat 2 May

Knots of May

John Harvey Tavern
Sat 2 May

The Knots at Lewes Morris Day.


And here's the Band.