As an after-thought, it was interesting to us to find this poster on the streets of Amsterdam:

I really don’t think anything else needs to be said on this. Who cares if the tattoos are painted on. It’s just… gorgeous!

On our arrival at Cardiff airport earlier this week, we were suitably surprised to hear of the new guidelines being issued by the US Department of Homeland Security. Apparently, additional forms are now mandatory for anyone hoping to get into the US on any flight - and these have to be submitted one hour before the due departure of your flight. Government officials need to know not only your name, gender, D.O.B etc - but now they also need your hotel address. Incase, you know, they let you on and then realise at a later date that you are probably about to hijack the flight home. Think what you will, kids. Anyways, took a copy of said form and snapped a shot of it. The file is enormous when clicked, just to warn.

Lucky for us, we were headed to Amsterdam. It was absolutely as we expected - you can see some images on my photoblog if you’re interested.

This story struck me as slightly odd since the first coverage came in. For those who are unfamiliar with it, Todd was found dead in Snowdonia (by a path leading to the summit of Mount Snowdon) on March 11th.

One fact which has received very little media coverage, is that last year Todd ‘led an investigation into charges that Britain cooperated with secret CIA flights to transport terrorism suspects without formal proceedings’, that is ‘extraordinary rendition’. That snippet came from the Associated Press’ first release. Todd’s investigation concluded that there was no evidence to support that claim. However, in February 2008, only a few weeks before Todd’s death, the British and American governments admitted that two extraordinary rendition flights had refuelled on British territory, on the island of Diego Garcia. You might think then, that Todd’s investigation would be topical news, given the timing, at least sufficiently so for a brief mention of it in the news coverage of his death - especially since it was the headline bit of information from the AP newswire.

But no, we get this from the BBC , this from ITV , and so on. The BBC one in particular is interesting in that it gives a detailed chronology of almost the whole of Todd’s career, without mentioning the investigation. All we have are these intriguing paragraphs:

In 2006 he became the vice-chairman of the Association of Chief Police Officers, the politically powerful group of senior officers that help set policy across constabularies.

His interests in the body included counter-terrorism and media policy. Greater Manchester became the first area outside of London to launch a dedicated counter-terrorism unit with Mr Todd calling for close co-operation with MI5.

Counter-terrorism and media policy, with close co-operation with MI5? Well, that’s not relevant to the investigation then, eh?

Now, I’ll leave the CIA/MI5 thing there as clearly I have no idea whatsoever of the facts, and so it’s irresponsible to speculate…

But speculate the media did. The very next day, the BBC reported that his death may have been suicide. To me, this didn’t seem like news, I had countenanced the possibility myself - there’s only so many ways he could have died. Of particular interest was the line:

He is believed to have killed himself and sources said letters addressed to his family have been found.

Now, this isn’t Fox News, this is the BBC we’re talking about here. Is this the state of journalism these days? Sorry but, who believes that? The post-mortem wasn’t even finished at this point; the inquiry hadn’t started. Who are your sources? Where were the letters found? Not wanting to go all conspiratorial here but letters can be faked/planted, can we at least wait until there’s been some sort of judicial procedure before confirming the validity of these supposed suicide notes? Or the ‘worrying texts’ that the BBC claim to have been informed of? The Mirror went further and reported that suicide notes were actually found on Todd’s body. Bear in mind that Greater Manchester police have said no notes to his family have been found anywhere. (see bottom of article)

So, if there’s any of the Mirror’s target demographic reading this… you know… they’re making shit up. And well, I don’t know what to think about the BBC sometimes.

The next big wave of stories were basically defamatory, implying Todd had killed himself because of personal problems. These personal problems included an alleged affair with a co-worker. The Mirror cites unnamed sources who call Todd ‘a bit of a womaniser’ and claims he had a ’string of affairs’. Another unnamed source in the Mirror article claims Todd was ‘reeking of gin’ - not just defamation but wilfully misleading, since Todd was only 25mg over the legal driving limit - he’d had the equivalent of 2 and a half pints of beer.

And as all this is happening bear in mind that Todd is survived by a grieving widow and three children.

So how could the media compensate for all this speaking ill of the dead? Why not romanticise his tragic downfall?! Yeah! Todd was as a ‘family man’, a ‘copper’s copper’, ‘destined for the top’, but then he was found on ’storm-lashed slopes’ / ‘a wind-swept peak’ (actual quotes). It becomes kind of blatant when your tabloid papers actually start speaking in the language of 19th century Romantic poets, replete with imagery of tormented, starcrossed, solitary figures meeting their fate on dark forbidding mountains.

And this comes so soon after a moral panic in the media social networking sites like Bebo are romanticising suicide. But hey I guess its okay to criticise young Welsh people, grieving for their friends on the last free medium.

We need to be holding the media responsible for this sort of thing.

With widespread fear of US troops lashing out at civilians and an increased annual death toll in comparison to Saddam’s rule, it’s easy to see why the president simply has to soldier onwards. The gains they’ve made are very fragile. The terrorists could win at any moment.

George Bush marked the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by US-led troops with a speech at the Pentagon. As the world is now gearing up for the presidential election this year, it is clear that the republican agenda on Iraq is of sustained occupation. Reuters: Bearing Witness is an excellent commemorative resource which happens to feature an interesting chart documenting how oil revenues have sky-rocketed since the invasion. And there is absolutely no relationship between that and the administration’s foreign policy, obviously.

Aside from that, there is some simply stunning photography which really has the ability to bring home how civilian men, women and children have been ‘neutralised’ in the name of democracy. I would also like to applaud the decision to feature (somewhat muted, but nonetheless present) representations of dead and dying Western forces and journalists. That’s something you can’t get from Fox News. Please, before branding me a terrorist for that statement, you should know two things: firstly, I am Welsh… and secondly, a woman.

In all seriousness I believe the only way for both our countries to wake up to the reality of the ‘war on terror’ is to screen uncomfortable footage like this. To stop shunning soldier’s footage uploaded to YouTube in favour of an interview with the stars of Dancing On Ice. How unfortunate that everybody seems to be looking to O’Reilly and GMTV instead right now.

There was a word or somesuch. Something dramatic like that.

So, this is the first post at one more promethean. I’ll try and refrain from entering into a long-winded explication of who we are and what we’re about, since this post basically exists to commemorate the fact that it is the first post. It’s self-referential like that.

I’ve had this domain for a while now, using it as a portfolio for my poetry, but obviously I was never going to be prolific enough to justify regularly updating the site. And as we all know kids, websites are all about new content. So in one sense, this newborn blog exists purely as an exercise in shameless self-promotion (both for my own work and for Lucie’s photography).

In another sense, I think a blog is possibly the most good that a normal, literate person can do in this world. I’ve been thinking about the possibilities of social/political change lately, and have come to the conclusion that it all depends on the free dissemination of alternative ideas. Now I realise this is hardly a groundbreaking discovery, and yes maybe its been said before, but sometimes you realise things you’ve known all along and they suddenly make much more sense. We’re saturated in all this media all our lives, and yet it’s so much of a muchness. That may be because it’s all basically owned by fewer companies than you’ve got fingers… (Brits may be disturbed to know that ITV is 25% Disney; Americans should know that NBC is owned by General Electric - possible conflict of interests there when the news coverage of the Iraq war is made by the same people who sell weapons used in said war). But then at the same time, even the supposedly independent media (BBC etc) largely conforms to a certain worldview, where only certain things are sayable.

And as much as I think there may be elements of conspiracy/suppression in the media (heard about the BBC reporting the collapse of WTC tower 7 twenty minutes before it happened? With it actually standing there in the background as they announced it? Ha.)… as much as I think thats the case to an extent, its as much to do with the habits of normal people. Foucault called it capillary power - we sort of self-censor and regulate ourselves without the need for ‘The Man’ to do it for us. My point being that even when there is wilful suppression of viewpoints in the mass media, we often won’t recognise this lack.

And of course, thats where the net comes in. Its already a cliche that the internet is the last great bastion of free speech, but given the recent debates (if you can call them debates) about net neutrality it seems like the task of the internet generation is suddenly much more urgent. There’s an obligation, I think, to make the most of the net’s potential for communication, rather than just piss about on youtube watching people in retro 80’s leggings dance funny. You know there’s something wrong when the people talking the most about freedom are the Bush administration, and those talking most about real communication are Vodaphone and Orange. And well, realistically, I think the corporate powers that be would shut down the internet in some way or another given the chance. So that might be state-directed censorship a la China, or Federalisation a la the IDENT system in Southland Tales (which was a surprisingly bad film by the way), or more realistically just a commercialisation of it to the point where it becomes even more a passive shopping experience.

And don’t worry, if that makes you want to rage against the machine, there’s Avril Lavigne t-shirts that’ll sort you right out. The money will no doubt go to Avril-sponsored third-world children with big, sad eyes. Probably not to the ones who make her t-shirts though. Although, hey, she dresses herself (apparently), maybe she even makes her own t-shirts. On a loom. Hardcore. But I digress. This blog, thank fuck, is not about Avril.

The point is, this site in its current form grew out of a feeling that it was a necessary thing to do. And every time I watch the TV, that feeling is reiterated. I don’t know how many people will see this site (which reminds me I need a counter widget), but as the cliche goes, if we get through to just one person… it’ll all be worthwhile.

OK, so that’s bollocks and we need massive social change in the next few years or we’re all fucked. That’s obvious. But come on, its only the first post. Keep the dream alive.