The Horror Of Gentrification..

Gail's has confirmed the opening date of its new Brixton branch, which is taking over a former takeaway unit next to the Tube station.

'Hurrah!', said most people? No? No, Reader, you're forgetting....  

Earlier this summer, a petition opposing the plans was launched on Change.org and amassed 1,312 signatures. The petition set out several key demands, including recognising the potential impact that Gail's could have on small independent traders and businesses, which are already facing financial issues.

The petition stated: "The proposed development of a Gail's Bakery branch in Brixton is causing genuine concern among residents and local business owners.

Why? Brixton is full of millennials and hipsters now, surely they aren’t fickle folk who love to get in on the latest trend and so will abandon their local artisan bakeries for a taste of the new one? 😏

The chain has been accused by some of being "insanely overpriced" and has become synonymous in London with gentrification though others point out it's a successful business people are clearly using.

Fast forward and the protests became violent, because of course they did:

Cash4Commons – the activists who were behind a series of posters highlighting the growing commodification of public green space in Lambeth – have struck again, attacking Brixton’s new Gail’s Bakery which is scheduled to open today. A few days ago they put up anti-Gail’s billboards outside Brixton Market, as well as a series of posters on the soon to be opened Gail’s premises.

They told Brixton Buzz: We want to draw attention to the damage being caused by Gail’s bakeries across London through a capital-driven ownership which prioritises aggressive corporate expansion into our local communities, whilst also maintaining significant ties to the genocidal State of Israel through investments into Israeli cybersecurity & defence firms. We’re aware that the displacement of local communities across London is nothing new, but we believe Gail’s embodies the current wave of what can only be described as late-stage gentrification in Brixton. Continuing on from our last project ‘Cash4Commons’, our broader focus is on the relentless prioritisation of capital over people, and how Lambeth council continues to allow corporate developers to eat up what little space we have left in the name of ‘development’.

So you’ll smash it up to prevent it being eaten up? Surely both result in no progress at all for the ‘local people’ you claim to care about? 

Oh God, Just Give Us All A Break!

'Woke' scientists claim that female animals, monsters, robots and magical creatures are 'underrepresented' in children's cartoons. From Frozen's Olaf to Mike Wazowski in Monsters, Inc, many of the most loveable characters in children's cartoons are non-human. But experts from UC Berkeley point out that the majority of these characters are portrayed as male.

Ah, Berzerkley, no wonder! 

In fact, in some popular movies, such as Disney's Moana, female non-human characters have no screen time at all.

Well, why should that matter when the movie’s main character is a YOUNG GIRL!? 

Dr David Bamman, who led the study, said: 'I think our research is so important because it exposes the gender disparity that exists not only within movies broadly, but even within animation. 

'It shapes the ways children get acclimated to what's considered the norm.'

I wonder if the young David Bamman ever dreamed of being the first person to invent a world-changing device, or cure cancer, instead of wasting his career whinging about ‘representation’.

I'm No Longer Capable Of Surprise...

 

…or so I thought! 

Sunday Funnies...

 Hmmm, not convinced myself, but 'tis the season.... and the whole world can take part! Don't have nightmares :)

The New Luddites

When Dan had had enough of his television, he threw a rock straight through the screen. The offence? His smart TV was downloading its third update in three days. “It drove me crazy with what seemed like daily software updates that never fixed anything and ‘features’ that never seemed to work,” says the 71-year-old from Illinois.

Is Dan a Luddite? Why, no Reader, or rather, he shouldn't be, by rights. 

Some may accuse Dan of being a luddite, but his master’s degree in computer science and decades of experience in telecommunications would suggest otherwise.

So what's his issue then?  

The first smart TVs entered the market in the late 2000s, when companies introduced operating systems, media players and apps to screens that were becoming wider and thinner. In recent years, the luxury status of smart TVs has waned and increasingly affordable options are widely available.

Tom Parsons, TV and audiovisual editor at the electronics magazine What Hi-Fi?, explains that these cheaper models can struggle under more advanced features. “They’re not necessarily super-fast and responsive out of the box,” he says. “And then two, three, four years down the line, they can end up slowing down quite a lot under the weight of all that processing.”

Something they share with all modern tech, I think you'd agree.  So what does Dan do, I wonder, when he has issues with his laptop? Hopefully not tip a cup of tea all over it, as I’ve just done with mine while writing this post!

Dan is just one of a growing number of tech-savvy watchers wishing their TVs weren’t so smart. Erin McQuiston and Matthew Schroyer, a couple from Connecticut, share his smart-screen scepticism.

“I don’t think we’ve ever used [our TV] as anything other than just a giant display,” says McQuiston. “There was a period where we were running it through an Xbox. And that was a constant battle because that was constantly being updated and patched and then you’d have to redownload all the apps for it.” Meanwhile, Schroyer says his job as a software engineer has influenced his decision to “intentionally keep it very dumb” by keeping their TV disconnected from the internet.

That certainly seems dumb to me- now you wont get security updates! 

Instead, the 41-year-old connects his screen to an Apple TV box as a streaming workaround, and cites privacy as well as “highly invasive” advertisements for doing so. “Our living room is not a billboard for sale,” he says.

I don’t get peoples aversion to adverts - yes, some are irritating (more so in the modern era), but not so much that I’d willingly forgo convenience to avoid them. 

For Helen Northmore, a 51-year-old from Wales who works in AI delivery for the UK Health Security Agency, privacy is also a worry. Her grudge against smart screens began four years ago, when her faithful dumb TV broke without warning and she had to quickly find a replacement. “We had already decided that we didn’t want the smart functionality, but it became really clear that it was very hard to find one that didn’t have any,” she says.

Did she try alternatives to Currys? Vinted eBay and the like? I have an old non-smart tv thats going unused, and I bet others are the same. 

More consumers are becoming worried about how their information is being used by manufacturers. “There are increasing privacy concerns around to what degree TVs are essentially scraping your data,” says Parsons. “TVs these days are full of sensors, including microphones, and that can make people nervous.”

In September, the YouTube channel Gamers Nexus released a two-hour investigation into LG Electronics’ smart televisions, saying that the devices record audio – even when they are offline or powered down.

Disclaimer; I have an LG smart TV, and who cares if it's listening in, all it's going to hear is me swearing as I once again hit the wrong button on its absurdly small and cramped remote! 

It Doesn't Require 'Peace And Safety' Any More...

“We have cordoned off the area to leave this creature in peace and safe from the attention of people,” Randwick Council mayor, Dr Clare Willington, told reporters.

... beacuse it is a dead whale!

Willington said there were no plans to remove the whale and that staff were working with Gamay Rangers about a culturally and environmentally sensitive approach to take.

Well, I wouldn't suggest blowing it up, that usually doesn't go well…

But why the emphasis on cultural aspects, and why prioritise them over health and safety or hygiene concerns.

The Gamay Rangers are an Indigenous ranger team who undertake natural and cultural resource management activities like protection work, conservation, and threatened species management in the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council area.The whale is an important totem animal to the local Bidjigal people, and Gamay Rangers manager Robert Cooley said previous instances where beached animal carcasses were taken to landfill had distressed his community.

Ridiculous pandering to the ‘culture’ of primitive folk who never invented the wheel! 

Consequences...

Sally Rooney has said she is being forced to withdraw her books from sale in the UK because of her support for the banned organisation Palestine Action.

Her financial support, to be perfectly clear. 

After Palestine Action was banned last year, Rooney said she would use proceeds from her sales to support Palestine Action. Supporting organisations banned under the Terrorism Act is an offence and she subsequently cancelled a trip to the UK to pick up an award, for fear of arrest.

In a high court statement in support of the legal challenge to proscription, warning against its impact on freedom of expression, Rooney said her books could disappear from UK stores and the publication of new works in the UK could be prevented.

Oh, well, people will just have to download it on Kindle then, because the 'ban' is so easily thwarted it might as well not exist. But that won't stop the left screeching about it. 

Her books have been critically acclaimed – she has been described as the voice of a generation – and hugely commercially successful in the UK.

Who by? Her Mum? The books are perile rubbinsh, I know, I sampled a chaper on Kindle to see what all the fuss was about. 

Normal People has sold more than 1m copies, while Conversations With Friends and Beautiful World, Where Are You have each sold more than 500,000. Normal People and Conversations With Friends were adapted by the BBC, and the former racked up 62.7m views, becoming the broadcaster’s most-streamed series of 2020.

In a world where rubbish like 'A Court Of Thorns And Roses' becomes a bestseller, that really doesn't say much. Still the royalties from tv adaptations will keep her from having to live on ramen for a while, eh? 

Rooney said last year that she had been advised by the independent producer of the TV dramatisations that any payment to her for those series, both broadcast before the ban, would be a breach of terrorism laws if it knew or suspected that she was using the royalties to fund Palestine Action.

Ha Ha Ha Ha!  

Her UK and Ireland publisher, Faber, said: “Current legislation in the UK has led to circumstances where Faber cannot pass on UK earnings to Sally Rooney for her work. To sell a writer’s work and not be able to pass on earnings is an unconscionable situation for a publisher. “As such, and in full agreement with Sally, we have taken the decision that we can no longer supply her works in the UK in any format. We remain the proud publisher of her remarkable body of work, which we will continue to sell in other territories.”

I woulsn't be too proud of it if I were you, it's beginning to look a lot like a publishing gimmick to shift mote copies every day. 

Sabotaging The Justice System From Within....

Court hearing transcripts now show how judges ignored pleas from the families of Dogan's victims, prosecutors and the Met Police to remand him in custody. One judge said she had 'every sympathy' for the families involved, but said the legal bar for remanding someone in custody meant the prosecution had to prove he may abscond, commit further offences or interfere with witnesses. 

'He has not done any of those things,' Judge Barbara Mensah said.

Well, not yet, but thanks to you he has the chance to now! Which shouldn't surprise anyone, since like the guilty party she's black. But she's not the only one determined to grant leniency to the underservibg:

At an initial hearing there, prosecutors said Dogan should be remanded, while his defence lawyer said he could be tagged and subjected to a curfew. Judge Daniel Fugallo declined to take either option.

Couln't find a picture of him, but the surname is of Italian origin, so I have my suspicions.

Hoplophobia

How else to describe the furore over this?

Extraordinary video footage of HS2 night-shift workers firing a powerful air rifle inside a workshop led to a police investigation, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. Five workers were sacked from the £100billion rail project after a whistleblower came forward with allegations concerning the 'dangerous and unethical' behaviour of his colleagues.

No one likes a Karen (though as this is a bloke, perhaps a Kevin?): 

Footage captured by Aminadab Enos de Souza Dias, 42, showed mechanics at HS2's construction site in West Ruislip, London, whiling away the early hours blasting targets with an air rifle while listening to heavy metal music.

Clearly determined to ruin their hearing! 

Mr Dias, a fitter's mate from Brazil, also submitted a dossier of maintenance and safety concerns, including photographs of his colleagues asleep on the job, and alleged he was subjected to 'verbal abuse, xenophobic comments and intimidation'.

🙄 

The Government ordered an investigation after Mr Dias emailed the then Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to warn him that the gun had been smuggled into the West Ruislip site, where an 8.4-mile tunnel is being dug.

Bet his SPADs loved that! 

Mr Dias claims the air rifle – owned by mechanic Keith Mewes – was kept at the site for more than two months in the spring of 2025. He said the gun was 'frequently' used on site, adding: 'I left Brazil looking for a safer and better life. Ironically, I was forced to return.'

You were forced to return to a country where street gangs rule the streets because some people were whiling away their spare time with some target practice after hours? 

Well, She Wasn't...

A posthumous note written by Dame Esther Rantzen said she was "deprived of any choice over my own death".She said she had become "too physically frail to take the flight" to an assisted dying clinic in Switzerland.

But if you really believe this, it makes you wonder what the objection really was; that she might die in transit? And if so, well, that’s pretty much the desired outcome, isn’t it? 

The farewell message was released as the 86-year-old broadcaster and campaigner's family confirmed she had been laid to rest in an "incredibly beautiful" private funeral last week.

She made her desire to change the law so very public, the old hypocrite! 

Rantzen's daughter Rebecca Wilcox said the family had been inundated with messages since her death. "It's been hugely comforting to know that people around the world felt the same way about her as we did," she said.

They don’t.