Defying yesterday’s ’super injunction’ is a victory for the twittering classes

I’ve always thought that the libel lawyers Carter-Ruck sounded like a euphemism or, perhaps, a piece of forgotten cockney rhyming slang. Anyway, I’m delighted that they have dropped their attempt to prevent the British media from reporting on the proceedings of parliament. It is in part a victory for the chorus of twitterers that defied the ban yesterday, as only hours after the ruling was announced the full report as made available on Wiki leaks and transmitted across the internet by hundreds of users of the microblogging site Twitter. Carter-Ruck, acting on behalf of the oil firm Trafigura, were attempting to prevent the Guardian reporting on a question tabled on Monday by the Labour MP Paul Farrelly.

The rule of prior restraint has been gaining ground in recent years, despite misgivings from European Court of Human Rights, as judges seem more willing to allow last moment injunctions against the publication of exposes. But the kind of injunction used on Monday (a so-called super-injunction) not only prevents publication, but also makes the injunction itself secret. It is a type of censorship that recalls Apartheid-era South Africa, when newspaper editors were not allowed to leave pages blank or blacked-out when they had been censored by the government.

Interviewed in the Guardian, Ian Hislop, the editor of Private Eye, said:

“The injunction against the Guardian publishing questions to ministers tabled by the Labour MP Paul Farrelly is an example of a chill wind blowing more widely through the press. In increasing numbers, aggressive lawyers, who used to use libel law to protect their clients, are now using injunctions to secure privacy and confidentiality. They have found it is a legal technique which shuts stories down very quickly so that now it is not a question of publish and be damned, as it used to be: we are now finding that we can’t even publish at all.”

Harold Evans: On filleting the fishmongers

Nice to see Harold Evans back at it. The 81-year-old editor, who has a new book to promote (left), is interviewed into today’s Guardian. I’ve been re-reading his Newsman’s English recently, which includes this prize catch: “There is a joke about a fishmonger which makes the point [about the need for economy in writing]. It is an old joke, but perhaps we can regard it as sanctified by custom; and say it should be recited as initiation ceremony for text editors. The fishmonger had a sign which said:

FRESH FISH SOLD HERE

The fishmonger had a friend who persuaded him to rub out the word FRESH – because the naturally he wouldn’t expect to sell fish that wasn’t fresh; to rub out the word HERE – because naturally he’s selling it here, in the shop; to rub out the word SOLD – because he isn’t giving it away; and finally to rub out the word FISH – because you can smell it a mile off.

In remembrance of the great JG Ballard

Just want to pay my tributes to the great JG Ballard, who has died of prostate cancer. For me he was one of the most truly original thinkers around and one of our most gifted writers.

Some of the early coverage: The Times got hold of Iain Sinclair last night, which was the most appropriate thing to do, as well as pointing out that, if nothing else, he added at least one word to the English language.

Salon.com has put up a guide to his greatest work. The Guardian has put up an extract from Empire of the Sun, which seems a safe choice. Maybe they’ll put up the Atrocity Exhibition later. They’ll be much more up tomorrow morning, I’ll add to this list then.

AP have put out a story headlined “Empire of the Sun author dies” which is not on quite the same freeway as the Sun’s similarly reductive response to the death of Orson Wells (headline: Sherry Man Dies). Ballard was so much more than that. So much more of him to miss. His contribution to literature was just so immense, but I can’t yet fathom it.

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How Berlin will help you beat the recession blues

There’s an inspired post over at Berlin’s Click Opera about the “Berlinification” of cities around the world. The post cites the UK government’s emergency measures to distribute thousands of grants to people who find creative uses for vacant shops as evidence of this emerging trend. Such a move – if successful – they argue should create a creative flourishing or the arts and culture, as happened to Berlin after the fall of the wall:

“Since it’s a global recession, I also like to think Berlin has now become a sort of template for cities all over the world. Whereas we might once have looked like a museum of crusty subcultures past their sell-by date, this city now looks like the future of Tokyo, the future of London, and the future of New York. We’re your best-case scenario, guys, your optimal recessionary outcome. Everything else is dystopia, Escape-From-New-York stuff.”

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Bookmarks for April 13

Simon Callow laments the “bibliocide” of Charing Cross Road, London’s celebrated book village. Fastly becoming an extension of Chinatown or an annexe of Oxford Street. Regular readers of the blog will recall that we like a good bookshop at the Northern Light and we regret the street’s passing too.

+ The Guardian went to town with its analysis of the G20 riots, noting that the rise of the “citizen cameraman” is changing the relationship between protestor and police. Ian Jack offers some awesome analysis on how powerful the photograph has become, but warns that at best they only offer a half truth. Elsewhere, Paul Walker reports on how the shock of Ian Tomlinson’s death was felt around the world; while Martin Preston , a press photographer, gives a vivid account of what it feels like to be at the business end of a police baton.

+ The great Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm admits that socialism has failed and that capitalism is bankcrupt. He asks, what’s next?

+ Not a Neverland built on the never-never. Johann Hari on the dark side of Dubai: “a living metal metaphor for the neo-liberal globalised world that may be crashing into history”.

+ If Dubai’s vision of the future is now obsolete, what comes next? John Geraci, founder of DIY Cities thinks that open source applications could lead the way to a new kind of urban planning. “The conversation about the future of our cities should involve the people living in those cities … it should be about how to reinvent these services as modern, efficient things, how to make them work at a fraction of their current cost, and, while we’re at it, how to make them better than they are now.” My vote would be to work out a way that hisoric quarters selling, say, books, shouldn’t be left to fade away.

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Huddersfield’s Queensgate Market trades on its architectural heritage

I’m a couple of clicks late on this, but I’ve just noticed that the 20th Century Society recently named Huddersfield’s Queensgate Market (above) as its Building of the Month. The Society, a charity which lobbies to protect modernist architecture, describes the market as “one of the finest post-war buildings in the north of England”. And so it is.

For the last few years I’ve had an ongoing debate with my Father about the beauty of Queensgate Market. Growing up in the 1950s, Dad has always been a lover of the town’s old Market Hall, which was demolished in 1957. I never got to see the old building, but I’ve some splendid memories of the newer market thanks to my Grandmother taking me there on Saturdays. It’s still got this amazing roof, comprised of an asymmetric lattice of concrete shells, that floods the place with natural light even on the most cloudy days. Believe you me those Pennie skies can be very overcast indeed.

Despite its unique architectural heritage, it’s the only building of its type in the UK, the local council is threatening to demolish the market to make way for a new development, that will build a new market hall, while adding a number of residential units and a department store to the mix.

Luckily a campaign to save the building is underway, led in part by the 20th Century Society and local conservationists. Here’s how Jon Wright, the Society’s senior case worker, sees it: 

“It comes as a shock when a twentieth century building that is widely admired, not just by the Society or by architectural and design enthusiasts, but by the general public and its every day users, comes under threat. When the building in question is also listed, has a concrete roof structure unique in the country and contains extraordinary artwork, proposals for demolition seem outrageous.”

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Why the recession means boom time for free software

Forgive the self-linkage, but I want to direct you to my recent feature in this week’s Guardian Technology supplement. It examines the recent growth of free software around the world and wonders if the recession is the main reasons for its surge in popularity:

“Richard Stallman once wrote that the point about free software is it is “free as in freedom, not free as in beer”, meaning that people should be at liberty to do as they pleased with software, rather than subscribe to its restrictive licences. As the recession takes hold, the stress may be on the second half of his now-famous aphorism. To the millions downloading free software in a recession, the point is that it is free – as in free beer.”

Bloody hell, Bjork is now following me on Twitter.

(link)

Bookmarks for January 09

+ China: Largest importer of waste collapses | Environment | The Guardian

+ Shibuya style crossing for Oxford Circus

+ the New Sincerity | A Manifesto

+ the book cover archive (via kottke)

+ Florian Schneider quits Kraftwerk | The Independent | Andy Gill call laments the breaking of the “Lennon and McCartney of electro-pop

+ how to fix Microsoft’s spellchecker

Brighton’s Kiss Wall: the perfect spot for a seaside tryst

Brighton has more than its fair share of crap public art. One exception to its collection of rusting anchors and baffling marble monuments dedicated to commerce is the Kiss Wall by (above) local artist Bruce Williams.

Installed in 1992 on the promenade, Williams’ sculpture still manages to do what most public art should do. Attract people to it. Fabricated from a 4m-high sheet of aluminium and then punctured with holes so that, when the light catches it right, show six images of people kissing. It’s a great piece of work that one critic once described as a work of public art “as solid as a battleship [that] still manages to look light and dynamic”.

* The image above was captured by Neil Edwards and  credited to JPG Magazine.