2010-08-09
The International Committee Against Execution | Not One More Execution
URGENT ACTION
Action day to support political prisoners in Iran
demonstrtions in 13 cities
Saturday 7 August 2010 at 2:00
Tens of political prisoners are in danger of execution
Jafar Kazemi, 46: a textbook lithographer at Amir Kabir University in Tehran, in emminent danger of being executed.
· Mohamad Ali Saremi, Mohamad Ali Hajaghaee, Abdolreza Ghanbari, Mohsen and Ahmad Daneshpour, Javad Lari: sentenced to death by execution.
· Ms Zainab Jalalizade: in prison awaiting execution.
· Borzoo Nozari, 17: student, arrested in a protest in 2009, serving a 2 years sentence.
· Behnam Ibrahimzadeh: children’s and workers’ rights activist, brutally beaten and arrested in 12 June 2010, his condition and whereabouts
is unknown.
· Jailed workers, Mansour Osanloo, Ibrahim Madadi, Mehdi Shandiz, Reza Shahabian:
in prison and tortured on a daily basis.
· Jailed students Majid Tavakoli: was arrested in 2009, still in prison.
· Behrooz Javid Tehrani: was arrested in 1999, still in prison.
· Ms Bita Samimizadeh: a university student, sentenced to 5 years in prison.
The list continues…………..
Hundreds of political prisoners are being tortured every day and their lives are in a grave danger.
Political prisoners and their families need your support.
We call on all human rights organisations and concerned individuals to take and action.
Join our action day in support of political prisoners in Iran. Together we can make a difference.
**for more information please contact Shiva Mahbobi ( CFPPI spokesperson) +44 (0) 7984445278)
UK – LONDON: Saturday August 7, 2 PM , in Trafalgar Sq. (contact : Shiva Mahbobi +44 (0) 7984445278)
CANADA -Ottawa: Saturday August 7, 12pm, in front of Parliament ; organized by Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI)
CANADA -Toronto: Saturday August 7, 2-4pm at the intersection of Dandus and Yonge Street in Toronto; organized by Forogh Arghavan on behalf of Iran Solidarity and the International Committee against Stoning.
SWEDEN -Borås: Saturday August 7 at 2pm, Stortorget; organized by Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI)
SWEDEN – Gotenburg: Tuesday August 10 at 5pm, Bronzenpark; organized by Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI)
SWEDEN- Helsingborg: Saturday August 7 at 2pm, Stortorget; organized by Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI)
SWEDEN- Malmo: Saturday August 7 at 2pm, at Davidshalls Bron between Triangeln and Gustav Adolfs Torg; organized by Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI)
SWEDEN -Stockholm: Saturday August 7 at 2pm, (Contact:Tel:0737 80 15 10)Sergelstorg; organized by Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI)
Norway- Oslo Saturday August 7 at 2:00 PM in front of Parliament- (Contact:Tel:+4741333268)- organized by Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI)
USA-Washington DC : Sunday August 8 at 12pm in front of the Islamic Republic Interests Section of the Pakistani Embassy – 2209 Wisconsin Ave NW . organized by Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI) (contact: salehinia@aol.com)
Germany- Cologne Saturday August 7 2:00 PM- 4:00 Makan DOM -(Contact:Tel:0177 4844495) organized by Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI)
Germany- Hambourg Saturday August 7 3:00 PM Mönckebergstrasse St organized by International Committee against Execution and Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI)
AUSTRALIA- Sydney: Saturday August 7, 3pm at the QVB, under the statue, Town Hall end (contact:katgaf1@gmail.com); organized by Kat Gaffney
2010-08-08
Iran set to execute 18-year-old on false charge of sodomy | World news | The Observer
Lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei fled into exile after his wife was arrested in Iran two weeks ago.
An 18-year-old Iranian is facing imminent execution on charges of homosexuality, even though he has no legal representation. Ebrahim Hamidi, who is not gay, was sentenced to death for lavat, or sodomy, on the basis of "judge's knowledge", a legal loophole that allows for subjective judicial rulings where there is no conclusive evidence.
Hamidi had been represented by human rights lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei, who has since been forced to flee Iran after bringing to international attention the case of another of his clients, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old Iranian mother of two who has been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. Mostafaei was due to arrive in Norway yesterday to begin a life in exile while continuing his campaigns on behalf of his clients, including Hamidi.
At the same time, human rights activist Peter Tatchell has written to the foreign secretary, William Hague, urging him to contact the chief justice of Iran and ask that the execution be halted.
"Ebrahim's case is evidence that innocent heterosexual people can be sentenced to death on false charges of homosexuality [in Iran]," said Tatchell, co-founder of the London-based gay rights group OutRage.
Hamidi was arrested two years ago in the suburbs of the western city of Tabriz in the East Azerbaijan province after a fight with members of another family. Three of his friends were also involved in the incident and were subsequently arrested. Later, the four were accused of homosexual assault on a man and of attempting to abuse him sexually.
A person convicted of homosexuality in Iran can be lashed, hanged or stoned to death. The law includes a variety of penalties for different acts: 99 lashes if two unrelated males sleep "unnecessarily" under the same blanket – even without any sexual contact. A boy raped by an adult man would also be lashed if the court decided that he had "enjoyed" the experience.
After three days in detention, Hamidi confessed to the crime, allegedly under torture. The other three were cleared of all charges when promised by officials that they would be freed if they testified against Hamidi.
However, last month Hamidi's alleged victim admitted that he had been under pressure from his parents to make false accusations. Nevertheless the local judiciary has insisted that Hamidi should be executed.
Mostafaei initially wrote an open letter about Hamidi's case to highlight the execution of juvenile offenders. But two weeks ago Mostafaei's wife, Fereshteh Halimi, was arrested and had been kept in solitary confinement in Tehran's notorious Evin prison without charge until late last night, when the Observer understood that she was released.
Mostafaei fled to Turkey, where he was promptly arrested for entering the country illegally. On Friday, however, the Turkish authorities released him after EU diplomats intervened on his behalf. As he left, Mostafaei had repeated his fears for his wife's safety. "They've taken her in as a hostage; it's kidnapping," he told the Observer. "Just look at what is happening to my wife and realise the flaws and failings of the Iranian legal system, especially towards Ebrahim Hamidi and Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who are awaiting execution on basis of false accusations," he added.
Mostafaei, whose office in Tehran is now sealed off, is credited with saving at least 50 people from execution during his career, among them many juvenile offenders. A recent client, Ali Mahin-Torabi, 21, was released in July after Mostafaei's efforts commuted his death sentence. With Mostafaei exiled, activists are worried for Hamidi. "It's shocking that although Hamidi's accuser admitted in a recorded testimony that he had lied, he is still facing execution," Mostafaei said.
Summer Cottage | Guest House | Blakeney | Norfolk
Facilities
Garden
Private parking
Central heating
Dogs/pets accepted by arrangement
WiFi or internet access
Totally non-smoking
Children welcome
Tea/coffee making in bedrooms
Colour television
Children welcome from any age.
Tattooed Cat Thinks He's Cooler Than You | The Frisky
Tattooed Cat Thinks He’s Cooler Than You
Posted by: Susannah Breslin Filed in: news
11:10AM, Wednesday August 4th 2010
Is this tattooed cat for real? At first glance, you might think it’s a product of cat Photoshop. But, as it turns out, there is a trend in Russia where people are having their hairless Sphynx cats tattooed. If this is for real? Gross. If this is Photoshopped? Thank the feline gods for that. [Sang Bleu]
Tags: weird news, tattoos, cats
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Russian dentist turns pulled teeth into art - RT
Russian dentist turns pulled teeth into art
Published 30 June, 2009, 09:22
There aren't many people who enjoy being in the dentist's chair. But a Siberian clinician has found an artistic way of making his surgery friendlier by making sculptures from his patients' teeth.
His day starts pretty much like most dentists, with drilling and sealing canals. But pulling teeth is Igor Tsarik’s favorite part.
He's a rare kind of dentist. One who likes working with gnashers when they’re no longer attached to a patient.
In his small workshop, with several delicate touches, a drill, a bit of heat and a drop of lacquer, Igor Tsarik turns teeth into miniature sculptures known as ‘netsuke’.
“Once, a client came over from New York. He brought the tooth of his mother and asked me to do something with it. I turned the tooth into an image of the Virgin Mary. The guy was happy,” Igor recalls.
In 18 years of pulling teeth, his collection has grown to over 300 pieces, though not all are on show.
Igor worries some of his clients won’t appreciate his particular kind of artistic interpretation. One woman fainted when she saw her tooth turned into an African figurine.
But Igor has no plans of giving up his weird, life-long obsession.
The dentist's wife – Anna Tsarik – treats her husband's craft with a pinch of salt.
“Some people yell – Wow! How interesting! Others wince, ‘Oh! It's so nasty! Human teeth’. Then I have to explain that they're very well sanitized teeth,” Anna says.
Children tend to be the biggest fans of Igor’s kooky creations
Masha, at a dentist’s for the first time, is now convinced all of them will turn her old teeth into dolls. But for Igor, Masha’s munchers are of little interest: he says milk teeth are too fragile for his needs.
Down-in-the-mouth adult patients with unwanted wisdom teeth are his favorites. Igor welcomes the discarded dentine with open arms.
So every time a patient comes to his surgery, Igor faces quite a challenge. As an artist he eagerly accepts every new item to his collection, but he’s first and foremost a dentist, and he says that his main task is to keep every tooth safe and in place as long as he can.
discuss it
Converseon: News & Press - Report Inquiry
Report Cites Highly Effective Data Quality
July 14, 2010 Business Wire – New York, NY — Converseon, the award-winning, full-service social media consultancy, today announced that it had been recognized as a leader in a recent independent report: "The Forrester Wave™: Listening Platforms, Q3 2010," Forrester Research, Inc., July 2010. In this evaluation, Converseon's suite of social listening tools (Conversation Miner™, Conversation Monitor™ and Conversation Manager™) was cited as a leader in listening platforms in the emerging social media intelligence industry.
For the Wave report on Listening Platforms, Forrester evaluated offerings from nine companies and scored them according to 76 criteria, including data sources, textual analysis, functionality, consulting and analysis services, strength of management team and corporate and product strategy. Based on performance across these dimensions, the companies were grouped in four categories: Leaders, Strong Performers, Contenders and Risky Bets. Converseon was recognized in the Leaders category as one of three vendors that "combine the best offering and go-to-market strategy." Also, Converseon scored highest for text analysis and the second highest for its consulting and analysis services, strength of management team and corporate strategy.
According to Forrester, "Converseon offers a leading product with its "customized for your needs" mentality. There is no standard Converseon installation, (Converseon) builds a tailored dashboard for its enterprise installation and offers professional services around every step of the Social Intelligence process. Converseon's model of starting with technology and adding human analysis makes for highly effective data quality, leading custom reports and strong functionality."
Converseon's service offerings are designed to help infuse listening across organizations for multiple use cases and help large enterprises redesign business processes to make the intelligence actionable. This includes governance, policy, infrastructure, training and more.
"We're very pleased that Converseon's enterprise listening solutions have been recognized as a leader by Forrester," said Rob Key, Founder and CEO of Converseon. "Social media listening is the first step in effective business redesign. We recognize the need for technology to scale human intelligence and capture the critical insights that can help brands meet business objectives across multiple use cases. This requires strong management consulting and services capabilities to help brands become 'listening organizations' and fully harness the power of social across the organization. We believe enterprises are now only scratching the surface of the potential of these solutions and we look forward to continued rapid growth as adopting grows. We're very proud of Forrester's recognition based on their thorough review and analysis of the category."
Converseon's Conversation Miner™ provides the deepest mining and most accurate multi-level sentiment analysis along with deepest insights on topic, trends, influence, voices and more. Experienced human analysis helps turn data into action. Conversation Monitor™ provides real time listening into conversations for customer service, PR, campaign engagement, reputation management and more. Extensive cleansing technologies help ensure highest relevancy. Conversation Manager™ provides customized workflow, permission levels and more configured for specific organizational requirements to ensure relevant listening is seamlessly and effectively distributed, acted on and engaged with across organizations.
The Forrester report will be available for download from Converseon's web site (www.converseon.com) beginning July 14, 2010.
About Converseon
Founded in 2001, Converseon is a multiple-award winning full service social consultancy that helps leading brands "join the conversation" to meet business objectives. Converseon provides the listening/engagement technologies (Conversation Miner™), organizational consulting and engagement/activation services to provide a unique "end to end" social solution for leading enterprises. Among its recognitions is the 2009 SAMMY Award for "Best Social Media Agency," a WOMMIE (for Best Word of Mouth Program), an OMMA Award among many others. Headquartered in New York, Converseon's team extends to Detroit, San Francisco, London, Switzerland, Denmark and Australia. For additional information please contact Converseon at info(at)converseon(dot)com or learn more about Converseon at www.converseon.com, www.twitter.com/converseon or blog.converseon.com
Forrester Listening Platform Leaders - Download Report
Converseon was among the select companies that Forrester invited to participate in its recent independent report, "The Forrester Wave™: Listening Platforms, Q3 2010", Forrester Research, Inc., July 2010. In this evaluation, Converseon's suite of social listening tools (Conversation Miner™, Conversation Monitor™ and Conversation Manager™) was cited as a leader among listening platforms in the emerging social media intelligence industry.
The findings were based on a variety of criteria including data sources, textual analysis, functionality, consulting and analysis services, strength of management team and corporate and product strategy.
The Forrester Wave is copyrighted by Forrester Research, Inc. Forrester and Forrester Wave are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. The Forrester Wave is a graphical representation of Forrester's call on a market and is plotted using a detailed spreadsheet with exposed scores, weightings, and comments. Forrester does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in the Forrester Wave. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change.
2010-08-07
2010-08-06
BBC World Service - News - Is it possible to teach a computer to be human
Every day computers are getting faster and faster, but are they ever going to get smarter?
Some say computers have reached the intelligence level of sea slugs
Autonomy is a search engine company which focuses on these questions.
They have had commercial success with their computers, which learn and give the impression of thinking in the same ways that people do.
So how do you teach a computer?
Mike Lynch is the company's CEO.
To play this content JavaScript must be turned on and the latest Flash player installed.
First broadcast 28 July 2010
(-:
Irish soldier saved Adolf Hitler's life - Republic of Ireland, Local & National - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk
The long-lost memoirs of an Irish soldier who saved a young Adolf Hitler and fought on both sides during World War I have been published after being missing for over 40 years.
The amazing wartime tale of Dubliner Michael Keogh began when he joined the British Army in 1914 and won the George's Cross for bravery before being captured by the Germans in 1916.
While in captivity he was persuaded by members of the Roger Casement Brigade, a group formed to recruit Irish soldiers to fight against the British as a display of Irish republicanism, to join them.
The detailed accounts of Mr Keogh's life, written after his experiences, mysteriously disappeared while he was on his deathbed in James Connolly Memorial Hospital in Blanchardstown in 1964.
According to his son Kevin (84), who lives in Swords, north Co Dublin, a man "dressed as a priest" took them from under his pillow two days before he died. The files were eventually found in the UCD archives and given back to the family in 2004.
The memoirs report a chance encounter with a young Adolf Hitler that changed the course of history.
Shortly after the Great War, while Mr Keogh was staying in Munich to fight against the Communist rulers who had declared a short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic in April 1919, he recalls how he led a military operation to save the life of the future German tyrant.
He had earlier met Hitler in September 1918 near Ligny on the French Border, where the pair were in the same Bavarian Regiment.
In his memoirs he describes how, as the officer on duty during the anti-Communist revolution, he received an urgent call about a riot involving 200 men and two "political agents", one of them being Hitler, in a nearby gym.
"I ordered out a sergeant and six men and, with fixed bayonets, led them off on the double."
Mr Keogh explained that two political agents, who had been lecturing from a table top, had been dragged to the floor and were being beaten.
"The two on the floor were in danger of being kicked to death. I ordered the guard to fire one round over the heads of the rioters. It stopped the commotion."
The group of soldiers managed to haul out the two injured politicians.
"The crowd around muttered and growled, boiling for blood," he added.
"The fellow with the moustache gave his name promptly: Adolf Hitler."
"They had come to the barracks as political agents for the new National Socialist German Workers' Party."
-
Irish Independent
BBC World Service - News - Is it possible to teach a computer to be human
Every day computers are getting faster and faster, but are they ever going to get smarter?
Some say computers have reached the intelligence level of sea slugs
Autonomy is a search engine company which focuses on these questions.
They have had commercial success with their computers, which learn and give the impression of thinking in the same ways that people do.
So how do you teach a computer?
Mike Lynch is the company's CEO.
To play this content JavaScript must be turned on and the latest Flash player installed.
First broadcast 28 July 2010
BBC News - Can technology be more inclusive for the elderly
To the tech savvy generation technology appears almost instinctive - they tend to just 'know' that the power button which turns a mobile off quite probably also turns it on if you hold it down for a few seconds, or how to navigate a phone's menu.
But for much of the older generation, menus are things you find in restaurants, and they face certain challenges when it comes to modern technology.
So, how should the fast-moving technology industry adapt its devices to make them more inclusive?
Richard Taylor spoke to motor racing legend Sir Stirling Moss, about his experience with today's technology.
BBC News - Police probed after pensioner;s car smashed
Two police officers have been taken off operational duty while the Independent Police Complaints Commission investigates how they dealt with a pensioner who was stopped for not wearing his seat belt.
The 70-year-old complained they smashed his car and kicked his windscreen.
Earlier the motorist had driven away after being pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt.
A spokesman for Gwent Police said the matter would be thoroughly investigated.
not poetry... but where? - alt.arts.poetry.urban | Google Groups
GOD. ALLAH. WAR. Whatever.
Mankind's awakening from animal to man swept panic through each who found
the inner mind. A new world disported itself for all to see and, suddenly,
to try to understand. Such complexity. So many hidden cross references.
A 'not so simple as it first appears' sort of world. From the avalanche
and death to the reasoning behind the avalanche and death. Why?
'Intelligence'
created this seemingly clean cut thought process and found harmonics and
rational inter-relationships where only rocks, sea and sky had once been.
The Why became a new-found maze, a head-space filling new-found maze of
eternal puzzling. Every generation passed this puzzle to their kin. Each
social cluster, each tribe, held answers to their breast and lorded this
'god' acquired knowing over those who had lesser knowings. The 'animal'
was abruptly found to be anything that was not of this 'knowing' band of
'fellow' man.
Neanderthal. Homo Erectus. Homo Sapiens. As the thinking non-animals changed
their ways, as millennia passed with differences shaping habits, skulls,
stances, teeth, weapons, dwellings, clothing, dreams. So it was that man
became this complexity of gods and rules, laws and emotions, professions
and institutions, countries, cabbages and kings.
J. Edgar Hoover once said " If I wasn't a man who loved men more than gals
I might have run for President ". This one, fabricated, distorted, half
truth- all garbage, sentence should show how far Modern Man has come from
such simple beginnings. From the first 'why' - Why does my food always run
faster than I do?- to a statement that contains personal comments about
a private life of a dead man on a different continent which might be true
but is false because there is no record, that is known, of him ever saying
those exact words. Less than a tadger's worth of wordage and New Man shows
the space that is wasted, the space that is free for fantasy and creative
illusion, that is there in each thinker of now.
What space? There is no physical embodiment of this 'space'. Nowhere in
the human body is there physical room for such realities. It is the mind
and its synaptic flashings that can create so many differing 'truths'. The
mind, the brain, grey matter weighing pounds that is accountable for the
civilisations, the knowledge, the scientific foundations, society.
But. And, as they say, it's a big but. But what about modern man who is
frightened of the actualities of being awake in this life? No simple journey
from start to finish, no more the herd animal but a chooser of what's true.
How frightened is the person who sees their own death, who wonders at the
after death- is it a nothing? Is it harps and clouds? Is it going to be
fire and Sulphur? The expanse of life between then and the present must
be filled with many happenings, some good, some strange, some awful. How
is the empty space to be filled? Luckily there is an answer. It is the
answer
of the one before and the one before that. Passed down by generations the
gods, the traditions, the reactions to events are all presented in a user
friendly package for those that need the filler to block the possibles and
allow the 'realities' to remain.
As each of the awakened ones choose the truths of one society or another
then the limitations of the 'possibles' occurs. Each clique faces its own
realities with its own stock answers to those realities. For each tolerance
that is built in there are many intolerances that must be obeyed in order
that the mind-stage remains untrammelled by the potential confusions of
conflicts. However, the mind is a major playground and new thoughts, new
indecisions will happen. It is now that the side-slip into creative
construction
begins. Creative construction. The ability to make up reasons for the
intolerances
of the structured surround. Black people are made slaves because they are
dirty, because they are dark like monkeys and must be as stupid. Alchohol
is legal because it only damages already sick people. Capitalism is right
because rich people are rich and happy- if a man is poor it is because he
is not a good capitalist. God is real because it must have taken some form
of thinking being to create a world such as this. Women are the lesser sex
because they can't beat up their husbands. Good people can't be wrong or
they would be in prison. Think of any option and there is a group who
believes
that this is so because of .... then think of any possible rationalism for
this 'truth' and it is locked in place.
Aldous Huxley wrote of 'horizontal self-transcendence', Humanities need
to be seen to grow as life goes on. The inability of the majority to reach
upwards with their locked thoughts and patterns, the seeming uselessness
of such a pathway in the face of daily bread gathering, leads to the
possession
of the inner space by any hobby, work, emotion, desire, creative activity-
particularly if it means a fulfilment of earthly wants. The space must be
part of a structured totality, after all, isn't it 'true' that Anarchy has
to be equal to Nihilism? Co-operative structure must only be possible if
blood is spilled and tracts of humanity are put to the saw? The tree of
knowledge must be chopped to kindling and each new man must burn his bundle
in his politically allotted grate? Destruction of all that is held dear
must happen in order that this world eventually works as it is deemed right
for it to do so?
Surely the space must be emptied of all that is within in order that the
new 'true' reality can be inculcated?
As man-'Kinder' has fabricated the empires of this planet so it is that
the best sites have been built upon with towering multi-aeon castles
dedicated
to the proof of each reality. No man of sane mind walks into the desert
in search of water when the oasis is brimming. No intelligence wantonly
destroys the perfected edifice in order to use its rubble for the
foundations
of another. Unless the new machination is merely a new-faced replacement
sameness for the gap in the space of the man. Nature abhors a vacuum. Isn't
it more likely to be that mankind is frightened of the empty chasm and
thus we have to see a possible justification for the negative realities
of today's structured whole? The opacity of the senses can be lessened,
clarity of vision, of hearing, of speech can be attained- but at what cost?
That fear we once felt as we staggered into the realities of the new mind
and found the unfilled space? The terror of standing alone without the
answers
for comfort? It must be better to remain as we are than go through all that
again.
So society moves in eddies. Any precipitous falls are filled with old
reason.
Any upward visions are collapsed by the downward drag of social inequality.
This new man has been waiting to move forwards into a better future for
decades now. And still we wait. As space-fillers fight space-fillers for
precedence over the mass reality. When will we ever learn?
He wrote.
Side slipping with the best of them.
Hey ho! Back to the justified war!
2010-08-05
Rothley Court Hotel, Rothley, Leicestershire - Functions & Conferences
Functions & Conferences
With four fabulous function rooms including the unique 11th century Chapel and extensive gardens suitable for marquee events, Rothley Court is the perfect for setting for picture perfect weddings, family celebrations, parties, private dining, business entertaining, meetings, conferences and events. The hotel is licensed to perform civil weddings and we would be delighted to host your entire day, from the ceremony through to the wedding breakfast and evening reception.
The elegant Templar Suite on the first floor of the hotel can cater up to 85 guests, for a formal wedding breakfast.
The historic oak panelled Wilberforce Suite has access to the patio and garden, has been registered for the solemnisation of marriages. This can accommodate 85 guests for an evening reception. For larger parties a marquee attachment onto the patio is available which can accommodate a further 55 guests. 140 guests in total.
Free standing marquee - we are happy to discuss the possibility of organising a free standing marquee wedding reception, for guest numbers of 85 and over.Weddings
We absolutely love weddings - there's nothing better than having your family and friends together all in one place to celebrate your special day and our hotel is perfectly suited to wedding and civil partnership celebrations. We are here to make the day just what you want it to be - whether you are looking to celebrate in style with a lavish party or a more intimate affair with just a few friends. At Old English Inns no detail is too small, no special request too much trouble. Also with our great food, and attentive service, all you need to do is relax and our exceptional hospitality will delight your guests.
- We can seat up to 85 people for an evening buffet.
Business Meetings
We can offer rooms for business meetings as follows:
- 10 places
- 20 places
- 35 places
Conferences
Planning a conference, launching a new product or looking for a small interview room, you'll find we are the perfect location. We will provide the facilities and attentive service needed to ensure that your meeting or conference runs as smoothly as possible from start to finish. To help make business even more of a pleasure, you can relax and enjoy delicious food and a choice of fine wines and traditional ales in our traditional bar and restaurant.
- 20 delegates
- 60 delegates
- 100 delegates
Meals
We can offer rooms for sit-down meals as follows:
- 10 places
- 45 places
- 85 places
Buffets
We can offer rooms for buffets as follows:
- 10 places
- 85 places
- 85 places
Book your Conference now
Download Conference Pack (PDF)
BFI | Film & TV Database | VIOLENT SUMMER (1975
VIOLENT SUMMER
(1975)
- Copyright date
- Not available
- Production start date
- Not available
- Production end date
- Not available
Production countries
- Great Britain
- Notes
- Not available
Library Synopsis
Set in the near future, an extreme Government, the New British Party, has taken control of the united Kingdon. The relationship between a young designer and his girl-friend is destroyed in their attempts to avoid the Party.
Top five credits
- Director
- CHAPMAN, Matthew
- Production Company
- Matthew Chapman Productions
- Production Company
- Simon Clarke Productions
- Executive Producer
- CLARKE, Simon
- Producer
- CHAPMAN, Matthew
Top five cast
Deep Inside Xbox 360 Kinect and Why It's the Future of Microsoft
Deep Inside Xbox 360 Kinect and Why It's the Future of Microsoft
Kinect is more than an Xbox 360 peripheral, it's the future of Microsoft, or at least a very possible one. It's the beginning of Microsoft's plans for natural user interfaces, the step beyond the thing you're staring at right now.
The Mystery of Project Natal Revealed
The Mystery of Project Natal Revealed
The secret technology that powers Xbox 360's Project Natal lollipop-free motion controls actually isn't leprechauns, as we initially suspected. The guts are made by a little company called PrimeSense.
Microsoft built Project Natal around a reference design made by PrimeSense, called PrimeSensor. It's essentially three components: a CMOS image sensor, an infrared light source, and PrimeSense's PS1080 system-on-a-chip.
The PS1080 SoC is the brains of the operation, controlling the IR projector that blankets the room with an IR Light Coding image. The CMOS image sensor picks up the projected IR light, and passes the IR image to the PS1080 chip, where it's processed so Project Natal sees the room in 3D (it can see depth, that is—that yellow picture up top is a depth map). Microsoft adds a second, optional color camera, which PrimeSense's chip matches up with pixel by pixel to the depth image the infrared camera sees. And then everything is pushed to the Xbox via USB 2.0.
True, we learned when we first saw Project Natal it could see in the dark by using IR, but now all the magic is really gone. No more secrets. It's sad, because I kind of like secrets. Usually. [PrimeSense via BusinessWire]
Send an email to matt buchanan, the author of this post, at matt@gizmodo.com.
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2010-08-03
Vodafone Turkey Unveils Voice Identification Service Powered by PerSay VocalPassword
» More IVR / VoiceXML Feature Articles
IVR / VoiceXML Featured Article
June 24, 2009Vodafone Turkey Unveils Voice Identification Service Powered by PerSay VocalPassword
By Nathesh, TMCnet Contributor
Vodafone (News - Alert) Turkey has become the first telecommunications company in that country to install Voice Biometrics through its newly launched Voice Identification Service.
The service will be powered by PerSay (News - Alert) VocalPassword, a biometric speaker verification system that verifies a speaker during an interaction with an IVR or a voice application.
The company claims to have automated contact center interactions which will offer customers even better experience while safeguarding their privacy.
Vodafone Turkey is a mobile communications provider delivering mobile services to residential and business customers in Turkey. PerSay Ltd is a provider of advanced biometric speaker verification products.
PerSay said the companies are finding it hard to protect their data amidst escalating identity theft, fraud and social engineering attacks. Conventional single-factor authentication approaches including passwords and challenge questions no longer provide the necessary safeguards for secure remote services. But biometric speaker verification technologies like VocalPassword provide the critical component in an effective multi-factor authentication solution.
Large-scale customer-facing implementations such as Vodafone’s Voice Identification Service can make use of biometrics-based authentication techniques effectively to improve customer service and operational efficiency. Customers can avoid having to remember multiple PINs or undergo a cumbersome and costly manual authentication process using Vodafone’s new service. It is estimated that as much of 12 percent of the call duration is used up by the contact center to confirm customer identification and Vodafone’s new service drastically reduces this time.
According to PerSay, VocalPassword is easy to deploy, seamlessly integrating with existing IVR and VoiceXML (News - Alert) platforms. The system is designed to meet strict global security standards and is used to secure access to remote services, telephony and Web applications, effectively combating identity fraud and enhancing the customer experience.
PerSay claims that its unmatched experience in deploying large scale voice biometric products as well as its superior technology were some of the many factors that persuaded Vodafone to select their voice authentication solution.
Vodafone Egypt had recently deployed the ATG Commerce Suite and Bytemobile (News - Alert), Inc deployed integrated Web and multimedia content adoption solution for Vodafone Hungary.
Nathesh is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Nathesh's articles, please visit his columnist page.Edited by Tim Gray
» More IVR / VoiceXML Feature Articles
2010-08-02
NHS trusts bid to attract more private patients | Politics | The Guardian
Andrew Lansley, health secretary. Critics say he is encouraging private care. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
Elite NHS foundation trusts are gearing up to lure private patients from home and abroad as health budgets are squeezed – a decision made possible after health secretary Andrew Lansley said he would abolish the cap limiting the proportion of total income hospitals can earn from the paying sick, research by the Guardian has shown.
With a £20bn black hole opening up in NHS budgets, a group of top performing trusts are seeking to profit from paying patients and use the money to fund public healthcare in Britain. The Guardian contacted the top 10 NHS trusts in terms of private income after the health secretary proposed new freedoms and discovered proposals to build new wings and wards to cater for private patients, set up hospitals abroad and entice medical tourists with airport-to-hospital bed services.
Critics say that because Lansley has abolished targets to reduce waiting times and is encouraging private care, patients will be back to a system where those with cash can jump ahead of those in need. The chief executive of one of the largest NHS hospitals, speaking anonymously, said chasing new markets might also see management spread "too thinly and lose clinical oversight". "Look at Great Ormond Street. They expanded up the road to Haringey Council and the Baby P tragedy happened on their watch," said the chief executive. The hospital in London provided paediatric staff to hospitals where Baby Peter was taken with fatal injuries that are now known to have been deliberately inflicted.
Labour says the policies give "a green light to let market forces run riot through the NHS". Andrew Burnham, the shadow health secretary, said there was "a dangerous combination of lifting the cap on treating private patients and scrapping national waiting time standards," adding: "With no limit on the amount hospitals can earn from seeing private patients, NHS patients can be made to wait. And as waits grow, people will be forced to consider paying for their care. It's the same old Tory NHS choice – wait longer or pay to go private."
But despite concerns that the NHS will wither as private medicine booms, Caroline Shaw, of Manchester's Christie hospital, Europe's largest cancer centre, said it would treble its private income from £10m to £30m within a decade after making a deal last month with the biggest private hospital group in the world, HCA. The deal will see the US-based HCA – which owns six private hospitals in London – pay £14m for a new private cancer centre at Christie. Shaw said staff voiced doubts until they realised half the income went back into the NHS. "We are full of top academics and researchers, so we had to explain we are not losing our values or morals. But we are getting new facilities and it's a 50:50 split of income. I am only half joking when I say we are the new Robin Hoods, taking from the rich to pay for the poor."
Others have gone shopping across the world for rich patients. The Royal Brompton and Harefield, the UK's largest cardio-respiratory centre, devotes an entire section on its website to marketing its "personalised, world-class service" offering patients a city guide and suggesting trips to the "high-end shopping facilities" of nearby Sloane Street and Harrods.
It has emerged that removing the limit on private patients, put in place by Labour, is central to Lansley's reforms. Last week the department of health put out a consultation paper calling for the lifting of the "arbitrary, ill-thought-through cap on [hospitals'] private income ... [to let] the NHS to take proper advantage, for the benefit of this country, of the power of its brand abroad".
Many have taken the health secretary at his word and are targeting the rich in Russia and the Middle East. Moorfields, the eye hospital, opened for business in Dubai and in three years has seen patient numbers jump five-fold to 9,700, and private income there tops £13m. It is now planning another hospital in oil-rich Abu Dhabi.
John Pelly, Moorfields's chief executive, said: "Without profits [from our commercial business] our ability to invest in our clinical services would be seriously constrained ... Particularly at a time when the financial constraints facing the NHS are going to be as severe as they are in the next three or four years, it's going to be really important to the NHS that we can take advantage of the abolishing of the cap."
Labour's cap had meant most hospitals were unable to generate more than 2% from private income. The exception is the Royal Marsden, a leading cancer hospital which, thanks to history, has a cap of 31% – and a private income of more than £40m a year. The Marsden, Lansley says, is the "model" in his new-look NHS.
The policy shift has led to smaller trusts thinking big. Papworth Hospital, home to the first successful heart transplant in the UK, will soon be submerged into the new 135-acre Cambridge Biomedical Campus. Some of its operations are so complex – with costs running into £25,000 for 10 hours of surgery – that the NHS can only afford to pay for 80 a year. "I think Andrew Lansley has really thrown down the gauntlet to us. In the next five years we aim to triple private income from 5% today to 15%. There are plans for a completely new private hospital on the campus," said Stephen Bridges, the hospital's chief executive, who has been advised by private healthcare company Spire.
However, academics caution that the rush to the market could lead not to NHS trusts profiting, but to them being undercut by ruthless foreign competitors or losing patients abroad. "What's to stop US healthcare companies coming over here to poach patients. Or GPs sending patients to India for cheap operations? Or English hospitals raiding Scotland for sick people?" said Alan Maynard, professor of health economics at the University of York. "It could be a real mess."
Some are concerned that despite the push the NHS has "missed the boat" when it comes to competing in global private healthcare. Jane Collins, chief executive of Great Ormond Street, which raises £23m from private patients and has just signed a contract in Kuwait to bring back seriously ill children back to Britain, warned: "In terms of UK plc, we are way behind the US, the Germans, Indian companies and Malaysian hospitals."
2010-08-01
Article: Court secrecy « Heather Brooke
The courts are open but justice is a closed book
The Times, 28 July 2010
By Heather BrookeWe are denied even the barest details of what goes on in supposedly public legal proceedings
Last week I had an encounter with open justice. I was attending the Information Tribunal hearing of a friend who is trying to peel back layers of secrecy surrounding allegations that the Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust had a history of silencing whistleblowing staff by offering them public money to sign confidentiality or ‘gagging’ contracts.
I’ve been to the Tribunal before when I was fighting for the release of MPs’ expenses and that’s when I discovered the only record of proceedings of this so-called “open” people’s court (the Tribunals are meant to be a less formal, more accessible form of justice) were my scribbled notes. When it came time to write a script for a dramatised version of the hearing my notes and those of other reporters were all we had to go on. I’d asked at the time if I could tape record the hearing and was told “no”.
This time I decided to press harder. The rhetoric of the English legal system is that justice must be seen to be done so why are the public forbidden – under threat of jail – from recording a verbatim account of proceedings? Not only that, rules are so opaque and obscure that court reporters struggle to report cases with any degree of accuracy or depth. And that is when there is a reporter in court, which these days is a rarity – there used to be 25 reporters covering national courts for the Press Association; by 2009 there were only four.
We are paying nearly £1.5 billion for the court service plus £2.1billion for legal aid and the salaries of nearly 1000 senior judicial officers. It’s a high price, but to be honest not enough to adequately fund the system. However, if we’re going to invest in the judiciary it’s vital we understand where our money is going and receive some benefit for our considerable contribution. The least we might have is an account of proceedings held in open court.
Anisa Dhanji, the judge, said she was concerned with the hearing being recorded. ‘Usually such requests are made in advance so the tribunal can maintain the necessary degree of control over the transcript.’
“Control” is exactly what a court shouldn’t be exerting. Once it is decided that it is open, there should be no restriction on how that open hearing is processed. She went on to say that she’d allow me to record now but I’d have to wait for a future ruling before I could “use” the recording.
The next day in court the Judge announced she’d made her ruling.
“Please turn your tape recorder off,” she said, looking sternly at me over her glasses. I did so.
‘I have made my ruling. As you will no doubt be aware it is a Contempt of Court under section 9 to make any kind of recording for any purpose including with a view to publication or transcription. It is for the court alone to decide if a recording takes place and the court must have control of the recording. To do otherwise is fraught with difficulty. Firstly there is a risk of manipulation. Secondly it puts at a disadvantage other parties. Any recording you have made thus far must be deleted and cannot be used in any way including transcription.’At least that’s the gist of what she said because here’s the final irony: When I asked if I could have a copy of her ruling she said there was no written record of it.
To close a court, effectively, from public scrutiny in a ruling of which there is no record strikes me as something straight out of Kafka.
The simple answer is to allow tape recorders for all: no party is disadvantaged and an ‘official’ recording is there for checking. This is how it works in other countries. But this is to ignore the root objection of the courts: that they are losing control of how court proceedings are presented to the public.
The courts’ refusal to allow people to tape-record benefit a few private companies whom the court approves in cosy deals. These people have exclusive right to tape record or listen to official recordings. The cost to the individual of hiring them is about £150– 250 per hour of typing and even before the transcription process begins, you must sign a form stating you will pay whatever amount the company decides. You could be out tens of thousand of pounds and there’s no way to challenge the bill as only the company is allowed access to the raw tapes.
Many trials in the upper courts are now officially recorded (and in the case of the new UK Supreme Court, filmed) yet these records are not accessible to the public. All High Court hearings have been digitally recorded since February 2010 and sit in a basement in the Royal Courts of Justice. When I spoke to the court’s governance officer he told me there were no plans to make these accessible directly to the public. Why not?
I could go on. You might like to know whether the builder you’re going to give your keys to has any convictions for theft or if the company you’re about to do business with has a report for fraud. Tough. This information is not a click of a button away. Instead you’ll have to know the details of the case before you can call up any records – even though it’s the existence of cases that you’re trying to find in the first place. It’s Catch-22. If you do know the details of the case you’re then forced to undergo a tortuous and tedious process which involves battling a raft of petty officials across a number of court offices all for the simple purpose of accessing information that is supposedly public.
There are three main things that would make the courts useful to the
general public: (a) knowing by name who is using them (the court list); (b) why (the particulars of claim);(c) the result (the verdict, sentence or settlement). Yet trying to get any, let alone all, of these is fraught with difficulty.We have a justice system paid for by the common people but whose proceedings are available only to the rich, powerful, or privileged. Let’s not pretend this is justice for all.
This is a longer version of an article in today’s Times.This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 at 8:09 am and is filed under Articles, Crime & Justice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Why do we so wilfully cover up the failure of the war on drugs? | Angus Macqueen | Comment is free | The Observer
Asuccess rate of 1%. In what area of public life would we accept that? Last year, Professor Neil McKeganey of the University of Glasgow, one of the most respected academics in Britain, established that the authorities seize just 1% of the heroin that enters Scotland in any one year. He sees no reason to think this would be any different for the nation as a whole.
Where were the headlines? Surely the press, obsessed by crime and drug-fuelled violence, would have it splashed across the front page. Not a peep. Why not?
If heroin gets in, we can only suppose cocaine and other drugs are smuggled in equally successfully. Gordon Meldrum, of the Scottish branch of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, tasked with coordinating our battle against drugs smuggling, shrugs: "1% or 10% – it is not good enough." He claims that a breakthrough in targeting top smugglers is around the corner, but when asked if there is any chance of achieving the 60-70% target the United Nations estimates would be required to change fundamentally the market in illegal drugs, he simply shakes his head.
I have been making a documentary series, Our Drugs War. They are not my first films on drugs. But even I was stunned by McKeganey's 1% figure – and the lack of response. I quoted it in interviews with senior police officers, drugs advisers and politicians; few expressed surprise, few felt that current policies were remotely adequate. Most questioned whether the Home Office was the best place to make drugs policy; surely it is an issue for health. But these public figures would only express their worries away from the camera.
I would ask why they were so concerned about opening up the debate. The response was almost comic in its predictability: "The Daily Mail." Anyone who steps out of line on policy gets shot down fast. Just ask Professor David Nutt, one of the world leaders on the effects of drugs on the brain and the now ex-chairman of the government's advisory committee on the misuse of drugs. The home secretary summarily sacked him for stepping out of line.
Drugs policies have little to do with science, health risk or harm. They have been hijacked by the emotive rhetoric of moralists.
This fear of the Daily Mail is a dishonest excuse – the truth is that there is a collective lack of will to address one of our major social problems. We bury our heads and pretend that banning drugs equals regulation. Quite the reverse; driving drugs underground leaves them unregulated and consumers unprotected. Just what is in the drugs they buy, what dose is safe, what are the side effects? And not just "old" drugs such as cocaine. There's the astonishing market in synthetic drugs which has grown up largely since the banning of ecstasy – operating in grey areas of legality and fuelling weekend parties up and down the country.
As Nutt's replacement as government advisor, Les Iversen, has found, ban one and another appears. Last year mephedrone was the craze, got banned and has been replaced by naphyrone. Ban… ban… ban… As John Arthur, head of the Edinburgh drugs charity Crew, says: "It seems to make sense to ban, but it does not work. It makes things worse. It criminalises everything."
This summer the nation's kids are out on the round of music festivals where alcohol is sold more cheaply than water and tobacco companies can be sponsors. Yet to get their fix they will either end up breaking the law, buying dodgy stuff from dealers in toilets, or they will swallow many pills before the festival to avoid security checks.
The only way to control and channel this demand is to tell the truth. If a drug really kills, tell us. If it is really dangerous, tell us. But equally, be honest when it is not. Regulate supply via prescription or chemists.
Look at the impact of tobacco education. In my lifetime we have moved away from a society where we smoked in trains, planes and pubs. We have easily accepted that we cannot smoke in any of them. We have been persuaded that tobacco really kills. Yet those who choose to go on smoking are free to do so. Because they want to.
Why should other drugs be so different? Some poor souls will end up as addicts – that is inevitable. But it should be treated as an illness, not a crime. Addictions of all types are usually a product of self-medication to avoid facing the world and we should do everything to help.
Treatment is much, much cheaper than putting people through the justice system and maybe locking them up in prison – where they will come across more drugs, of course. In this age of cuts, huge savings could be made at every stage of the drugs story.
Then there is the wider context and cost – be it in Latin America, Mexico or now Afghanistan. I went to Kabul, where the west finances both sides of the conflict. On one side, soldiers die and our tax money is spent to uphold a government riddled with drug-related corruption. On the other, the huge profits from an illegal heroin trade supply over 60% of the Taliban's finance.
Drugs money in one form or another makes up almost half of Afghanistan's GDP. These vast sums are generated solely because heroin is illegal.
On the frontline our policy has been equally confused. Some years British troops in Afghanistan are ordered to eliminate poppy production; other years eradication is deemed counterproductive because it will alienate the farmers we need on our side.
General Stanley McChrystal, before he was replaced, was for leaving most farmers in peace, while the Kabul government, presumably operating on last year's plans, sent teams down to Helmand on a determined drive to eradicate.
The counter-narcotics minister in Kabul shrewdly observes that if we ever stop it here, heroin will simply be grown somewhere else – the profits are too attractive.
Regulating drugs sensibly is not a magic solution. I make no bones about the dangers of drugs, be they heroin or the industrial cleaner, GBL [gamma butyrolactone]. People will continue to die each year.
I do not wish to undervalue the real emotion of each family, but we have to start being brave enough to acknowledge the level of failure of present strategies. Drugs are not a problem of morality and crime but of health.
One per cent. As a New York congressman said to me: "The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and get the same results. It's true for the addict, it's true for the addicted society, it's true for our using a criminal justice model to solve a medical problem."
Angus Macqueen is a film-maker. His three-part Our Drugs War starts tomorrow at 8pm on Channel 4