So this is Great Britain
The welfare state, & NHS
Great British Institutions?
Some think they're in a mess

So this Is Great Britain
That once ruled the waves
An Empire and a Commonwealth?
Now issues ASBO's if one misbehaves

So this is Great Britain
The Mother of Democracy?
The House of Commons and Lords
Ensuring justice & liberty?

So this is Great Britain
Where God saves the Queen
A land of hope & glory?
You can vote at age eighteen

So this is Great Britain
Are the pensioners in poverty?
They've never had it so good?
They're all having a nice cup of tea

So this is Great Britain
A class system breeding inequality
Education, Education, Education?
Needing a dose of political honesty

So this is Great Britain
Still the mother of the free?
The police, council, & MI5
Are watching you or watching me

Anyway, in this new book (actually published last December), barrister Horace Rumpole is retained once again by his most faithful clients, the Timson family. This time, an “Anti-Social Behaviour Order” is being sought against twelve-year-old Pete Timson for chasing a ball into an upscale neighborhood and annoying one of its residents. Rumpole takes on the defense.

Despite my modest familiarity with legal terminology, I had never heard of an “Anti-Social Behaviour Order.” (Neither had Rumpole.) In Rumpole Misbehaves, Mortimer describes it as a new procedure under English law that lets a magistrate issue an order against someone who may be accused of nothing more than bothering someone. Then, if the person violates the order, he's committed a crime and can go to jail.

And so, in Mortimer's story, a woman has accused young Timson of disturbing her peace and tranquility merely by playing football in her street. (The author apparently means “soccer.”)  Rumpole tries to to defend the boy in Magistrate's Court with a speech extolling the ancient liberties of the English people, but his words fall on deaf bureaucratic ears.

At first I assumed that Mortimer was making this up. Surely an English magistrate could not simply order you not to do something – in essence, make up a new law that applies only to you – and then give you a criminal record if you do it anyway!

Even less could I believe that an “Anti-Social Behaviour Order” could be issued, as happens in Mortimer's story, on hearsay evidence, without the complainer’s even coming into the magistrate’s court.

But I had never before detected elements of Orwellian fantasy in Mortimer's writing, so I did a little research and was alarmed to find that “Anti-Social Behaviour Orders" are all too real. They are already so well known in England that the acronym (asbo) is usually written in lower case.

I found that it doesn’t take much for someone to be given an asbo. A person can get one for nothing more than – here’s what the statute says – “conduct which caused or was likely to cause alarm, harassment, distress, or harm” to someone outside your own home.

So proceedings like the one against Rumpole’s client are entirely possible, and not uncommon. A person really can go to jail – for up to five years, two if he's a minor – for violating an asbo. And a magistrate really can issue an asbo on nothing more than hearsay.

Don’t think this can be blamed on Margaret Thatcher. This law seems to have been one of the first measures the Labour Party passed in 1998 after it took power. ASBOs seem to be a bit controversial in Britain, but they are apparently around to stay, and old-fashioned ideas of due process aren't allowed to interfere.

In the United States, surely, such a law would surely not stand. Our courts would strike down a statute like this as unconstitutionally vague, and our Bill of Rights gives people accused of crimes the right to be confronted by our accusers, not convicted on hearsay.

But the Brits seem to be systematically untethering themselves from their heritage of individual liberty. "ASBOs" are just one of a number of sobering legal "innovations" in the UK. Unfortunately, they coincide with an internationalist trend in American jurisprudence in which some Supreme Court judges look at what the Europeans are doing to help them interpret our own Constitution.

Sadly, England can no longer be relied on as a fellow keeper of the Anglo-American tradition of personal liberty. We're on our own now.

Having given up on broadcast telly a few years back, I completely missed The Ghost Squad, but thanks to the power of thee t*r*e*t, it's fair impressed me.

It's about a secretive anti-corruption unit within the police (based on the one which earned investigative journalists Laurie Flynn and Michael Gillard their marching orders from The Grauniad courtesy of that prissy prick Alan Rusbridger, you may recall), into which young copper Amy Harris (Elaine Cassidy) is recruited. It's not the usual few-bad-apples hypothesis; pretty much every jack is shown as bent, just to different degrees and towards different ends. There are no happy endings. And whilst counter-intuition sometimes helps direct the viewer to whodunnit, invariably it doesn't really matter, because the point seems to be in highlighting the dysfunction of organisations such as the police, where personal qualities and discretion rub uncomfortably with corporate goals and discipline.

In episode four, the from-the-headlines hook revolves around anti-social behaviour, sink estates and girl gangs. Peeler-haters may revel in the beating an off-duty constable takes off a posse of feral minxes, one of whom takes the time to squat over their unconscious prey in order to piss her primacy into his bloodsoaked body.

Lazy shorthand: Between The Lines meets The Cops by way of (GF Newman's) Law And Order.

We received an official letter this morning telling us to "take steps to ensure our cockerels do not cause noise nuisance to our neighbours".

The letter went on to warn us that "the Local Authority is obliged to investigate complaints of noise and to take action if they consider it to be a nuisance".

After reading the letter, I contacted the Environmental Health section and spoke to an officer who told me we had to stop the cockerels crowing or face court action.

It's irrelevant that we live more than two miles from a built-up area, that this is a working croft in the country, and that the "anonymous" informer's house is at least 50 metres from the nearest cockerel box with stone walls, a tree, a road and a garage in between. (Yes, we know very well who the informer is, but we all have to pretend we don't.)

It's also irrelevant that our other neighbours, who live much closer to the chicken area, have no problems with them crowing.

It's also irrelevant that our "anonymous" informer told us five years ago that he had no problems with our plans to breed poultry as "cockerels crowing are a noise of the country" and even gave us the 50-bird house.

And it's also irrelevant that our "anonymous" informer has complained about us to numerous other government departments, both local and Scottish for various perceived offences, or that he used noise complaints to harass previous owners of the croft, or that he's fallen out without everyone on every farm near him.

No, as far as the law is concerned, noise becomes a nuisance when a "sensitive receptor" feels it is a nuisance—a nicely loose and all encompassing definition. (Just as the UK government defines anti-social behavour as "any activity that impacts on other people in a negative way".)

The onus is on us to prove that any noise from our cockerels is not a nuisance to our informing neighbour. And how do we do that?

But all of this is merely irritating.

What makes me really, really angry is that the British system has become increasingly like the old DDR regime with apparatchiks deploying the might of the state to squash people who allegedly step out of line—based entirely on the word of secret informers.

When I pointed this out to the officer I spoke with, she was at a loss and had no understanding of what I was saying.

I explained that our "anonymous" informant likes to report us to all matter of officials, who then swing the might of the law into action without questioning the informant's motivation, without considering why they like to be anonymous, and without giving the accused the opportunity to know who their accuser is or the alleged evidence against them.

All that matters is that "you" have been accused and now "we" will investigate, demand compliance and prosecute. All without knowing who made the accusations in the first place.

I said it reminded me of the Dreyfuss affair—except we are accused because we are "farmers" and not Jewish, and our informant makes no secret of his hatred for farmers, their handouts and their easy life.

The poor environmental health officer was even more lost, especially when I asked who was going to write a J'accuse letter on our behalf.

She fell back on example, telling me about the person at Kemnay who'd had a crowing cockerel (well, don't they all?) until the council had acted on behalf of neighbours and sought a court order. The result—no more cockerel.

Needless to say, I wasn't surprised that the Government tonight won the vote to extend detention without trial or charge to 42 days.

As a society, we're monitored by CCTV and computers, spied on by our anonymous neighbours, spied on by any number of official agencies (including councils checking that your children are going to the right school), denied the right to know our accuser and the evidence against us, and now if we are suspected of being involved in certain offences we can be banged up without trial or charge.

How long will it be before imprisonment without trial or charge will be extended to other "offences"?

And don't laugh—legal "creep" has already seen a Scottish cockerel threatened with an anti-social behaviour order while in England an attempt was made to serve an ASBO on farmer to stop his pigs escaping.

I'm now awaiting a visit from an environmental health officer next week to inspect the croft, and wondering what our anonymous informant will tip the authorities off to next.

We've already had the animal welfare complaints, so what's left?

Pigs shagging perhaps? Encouraging noisy wildlife? Loudly swishing my scythe? Croft not tidy enough?Or just hanging our washing out on the Sabbath?

I was on the train from St. Pancras to Sheffield earlier today and couldn't concentrate on my revision or reading because two guys behind were to busy talking loudly to some 16 year old girl (who was the other side of me). She was talking about herself being a mother, her having an ASBO and breaking it by being on the train, and that her boyfriend is in prison for brandishing a firearm. Obviously she didn't word it like that, I think she said 'my fella got nicked and locked up for showing his shooter to someone". Oooh, bet he did.

I honestly couldn't have cared less.

People like this make me realise the youth of today are actually doomed. More than anything they were are damn loud. And before you ask, yes I did ask them to shut up, but that didn't do anything.

KURT COBAIN'S ASHES STOLEN

Courtney Love is said to be suicidal" after a teddy bear shaped bag containing the ashes of her late husband, grunge rock legend Kurt Cobain, was stolen from her Los Angeles home, according to reports. "I can't believe anyone would take Kurt's ashes from me." Love says "I find it disgusting and right now I'm suicidal." No surprise there. Courtney makes Keith Richards look like a temperance advocate. Love said the ashes-filled bag, along with thousands of dollars worth of jewelry and clothes, were taken from her home sometime in May. Why was there, expensive jewery in there? And clothes? You're wearing Kurt ash covered clothes? "If I don't get them back I don't know what I'll do," she said. Knowing her, she was probably passed out on the bathroom floor while they were stealing them. After Cobain's death in 1994, portions of his ashes were scattered at a Buddhist temple in New York and in the Wishkah River near his birth home of Aberdeen, Wash. The rest of his remains stayed with his widow, who said she "used to take them everywhere with me just so I could feel Kurt was still with me. Now it feels like I have lost him all over again." You're the idiot that stored jewelry in there. Right now Kurt's ashes are probably being twisted up in a doobie somewhere. You know ashes to bong ashes.

MAN GETS WASHERS STUCK ON PENIS

I'm not sure how this happened. Actually I'm not sure I want to know how this happened, but a man in Hornsby, Australia underwent surgery to have 16 washers removed from his penis. He had first called the local firemen to come and help get them off, but when they were unsuccessful after trying for over an hour. He was transported to the local hospital. What I want to know is did these professionals maintain a professional attitude throughout or did they, as I would have, burst out in a fit of laughter at the absudity of this yo-yo's plight. At the hospital he underwent three hours of surgery to extricate the trapped appendage. The origin of this had to be some drunken bet. I know don't ask, don't tell. It's reported that he won't undergo any lasting permanent effects from the mishap. No one knows how this happened and his name has not been released. I wouldn't want my name released either.

ELVIS TERRORIZES SMALL TOWN IN ENGLAND

For those of you that are still out looking for Elvis, we've found him in England. He's been harrassing the residents of Wilsden, West Yorkshire and they are about to slap him with an anti social behavior citation. Yes, Elvis is creating a public nuisance of himself. Elvis, has been accused of dive-bombing people and wrecking street lights when owner Edward Pikul lets him out. Dive-bombing, owner letting him out? Oh that's right, this Elvis is a parrot. He also acts like a juvenile delinquent. 'He is a lovely pet and would never harm anybody. If I had to imprison him in his cage, I would rather get rid of him,' said 49-year-old Mr Pikul. 'It's true Elvis has a mischievous streak, he knows a few swear words and his shriek is quite loud but he's an ­abs­olute joy to have.' But one resident complained: "The bird is a nuisance. Just because he likes the parrot doesn't mean he should terrorise the whole village with it. Elvis is just a mad old thing, he follows me when I go to work. He clings on to the van roof and holds on for dear life, then flies around until he feels like coming home." I'm picturing this and I keep coming up with a Benny Hill skit. Not everyone is against Elvis. He has local fans. Pikul and his daughter Melissa, pictured below with Elvis, are receiving calls and emails supporting Elvis and his wayward lifestyle. "He is gorgeous and to see him flying around is magnificent,' said Helen Smith, anti-social behaviour officer for Bradford Council. 'But he has a dark side." Stay away from the dark side Elvis.

Ha-ha! ...and it REALLY gets wild when the preach IS the worship leader! LOL!

ht ASBOJesus

Or at least, Jacqui Smith has¹, with the latest call to exercise playground tactics on "problem" youths:

Youths who persistently misbehave and intimidate others in their communities should be "harassed themselves", Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has said.

She said she wanted police in England and Wales to "turn the tables" on those who would not "live by the rules".

This could include repeated home visits and checks to identify benefit fraud or council and road tax non-payment.

Ummm. What? What?! WHAT?!

This is possibly the stupidest idea that I've heard come out of the government in ages, and I've been paying close attention for a long time. It ranks up there with Blair's plan to march yobs to cashpoints to pay on-the-spot fines to avoid "clogging" the court system and the Cones Hotline.

This is further evidence, were it needed, of the degenerating state of the government, although it has to be said that announcing meaningless soundbite policies as a means to distract the public in times of political crisis is not something new, either for Labour or anyone else.

The actual plan itself seems curiously devoid of even the slightest connection to reality, though, even for a Punch and Judy policy like this one. While it's obvious that the policy is itself nothing more than a distraction from recent problems, like the credit crunch, local council election defeats and the rising backbench rebellion against the changes in the tax rates, it seems a spectacularly inept one, if only because it is so easy to dismiss as having even the slightest credibility.

The principle idea is absurd – it makes a mockery of the law and greater society by turning the reduction of youth crime and social problems into a playground activity. It becomes a push-me-pull-you situation, a Stooges model of politics. That is enough to condemn it, in my opinion; the law should not be getting into slap fights.

There are other reasons, though, to oppose the very idea – a very clear and obvious one being that it is a reactive policy. It addresses the symptom —youth crime and social ills—rather than its causes, and does so badly. It's a sticking plaster on a decapitation. If we want to be reducing antisocial behaviour, we need to be looking to the root causes, like poverty, insufficient education and lumpenproletarian attitudes². These three are all issues which the present government and its predecessor under Blair have failed to address: poverty and income inequality are on the rise; the education system is a confused and tangled mess, and getting worse with every misguided and ridiculous new scheme foisted on schools; and for some people, it pays more to be on the dole than in work, fostering an intergenerational ladder of the unwilling to be employed.

Policies by slogan like "harass the harassers" won't do anything to fix the problem, and will simply create more problems in their turn – by forcing police and other public servants to engage in harassment tactics, the policy would put unnecessary strains on an already overburdened system and prevent them from effectively working in areas which actually need their presence. In essence, what it would be doing would be exacerbating the problems it would supposedly be fixing.

This strategy is ridiculous on its face; it won't work and would in fact worsen the problem, which seems to be an ongoing theme with the present administration.

We need real policies which address the real causes of problems, not these preposterous feel-good schemes. We need options for change, rather than soundbites dressed up as strategies.

Some Labour ministers have tried to spin the reduction in the numbers issued to show that they work as crime is on the decrease. That highlights why Labour got hammered in the recent local elections. People know that there are more out-of-control teenagers on the loose across the land; why don’t the politicians?

Sorry if you're offened by this. But it was just a thought XD

Admittedly, most of us wouldn't be this honest. But if we were.... well...

I believe the guy on the right represents a LOT of the people we encounter every day.

What do you think?

The number of ASBOs issued in England and Wales has fallen by a third, according to Home Office figures. In all 2,706 orders were granted in 2006, the most recent period for which statistics are available, compared to 4,123 in 2005. The number of breaches of ASBOs is also increasing and has reached a staggering 49% suggesting the perpetrators do not perceive an ASBO as an effective deterrent.

So what does an unpopular government do for its next big idea to curb anti social behaviour?

Youths who persistently misbehave and intimidate others in their communities should be "harassed themselves", Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said today. She said she wanted police to "turn the tables" on those who were violent and disruptive and who would not "live by the rules that the rest of us do". This could include repeated home visits and checks to identify benefit fraud or council and road tax non-payment.

So we have a government which wants the police to actively "harass" a section of the community. This sound like the old SUS Law, which was abolished after the Bristol race riots in the early '80's but, without any legal framework". This law was abolished because it gave police unfettered power to harass one section of the community (young black males).

I'm not a lawyer but, it seems to me our Home Secretary has given individuals, who may be subject to the  harassment, a perfectly legal defence under the Human Rights Act:

Article 7: No punishment without law

1. No one shall be held guilty of any criminal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offence under national or international law at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the criminal offence was committed.

2. This Article shall not prejudice the trial and punishment of any person for any act or omission which, at the time it was committed, was criminal according to the general principles of law recognised by civilised nations.

Instructing the police to harass citizens is not law. So what we have is another stunt by a tired government. Talking tough gets a cheap headline but, this proposal will do nothing to curb anti social behaviour. Notice there is no mention of a much more effective deterrent.....temporarily depriving them of their state benefits. This latest gimmick may have something to do with countering a proposal by David Cameron earlier this year. He wants to introduce a law which would enable the police to stop & question  a citizen but, without having to fill in the subsequent 20 page monitoring report introduced by New Labour.

Read more at BBC NEWS | Politics | Harass young thugs, police urged

From the EDP:

Teenage Norwich City striker Chris Martin has been banned from nearly every pub in Waveney after complaints about his behaviour.

The 19-year-old is not allowed to enter any of the 68 pubs in Beccles, Bungay, Halesworth and Southwold after being barred from one in his home town of Beccles. The EDP understands that the ban relates to a fight outside the White Horse pub in New Market, Beccles, earlier this year, although the footballer may not have been directly involved.

Under the town's Nightsafe pub watch scheme, being banned from one means being banned from all those who are members of the scheme. A ban is in place for 12 months and leads to a picture and description of the person being circulated around the pubs.

Paul Burch, from the White Horse, said: "He used to drink in here and now he is on Pub Watch."

He said that the incident in question "allegedly" happened outside the pub.

Norwich City said it was investigating the matter and would not comment until this had happened.

Suffolk police were unable to comment but said that Mr Martin had not been arrested.

The 5ft 10in striker became a fans' favourite towards the end of the 2006/07 season, scoring five goals in 20 games. He also scored on his debut for the England under-19s, when he came on as a late substitute in a 1-0 victory against Turkey in March 2007.

However he has found it much harder this season and has only started three league games - two since Glenn Roeder took over as Norwich manager - and has not scored. In March Mr Roeder said that Mr Martin and fellow former youth team player Michael Spillane had "had it too easy."

"They have been told too many good things about themselves and it's done them no good at all.They need to be a bit more hungry."

Makes you proud doesn't it?

I've learned something new about myself today. When I seriously deprive myself of sleep, then have one half-decent night's kip, I am gonna feel HIDEOUS as the day goes on. Oh well. Self-awareness is always worth the effort!

Something else that's good is ASBO. And today it's especially good. Not only is it a competition, always fun if you're into that kind of thing, but it's an opportunity, nay an invitation, to RANT! And it's specific: Church. What gets your goat about christians when you stick us together in groups? How cool is that? I've been and had my say (not saying I won't go back and have another little vent later) and my load feels somewhat lighter.

I went to church this morning and there were a few conversations about Todd Bentley.  It looks like God's might be doing something there. But, ever the cynic, I asked if there was any evidence. If someone dies and then gets raised from dead, I always wonder, was there a death certificate? If someone's broken arm gets mended, can anyone verify that it was actually broken? Actually, I'm not a cynic. I just think about things. The person I was talking to, lovely as she is, looked at me as though I'd just broken wind (I may well have done actually, my tummy's not right today, but that's besides the point)! She clearly felt a little offended. These situations often leave me with a mix of thoughts and emotions. I wonder if people sometimes value these signs and wonders over arguably more important expressions of Christianity like people being nice to each other (yes I know that's a little oversimplistic). And I often feel a bit of an imposter, slightly defective as a Christian.

Anyway, ASBO's little rant sesh, to coin a phrase, 'killed two birds with one stone'. I got to rant about said incident and I don't feel like so much like an imposter anymore! They've all got bees in their bonnet over there. I like it. I feel normal. Thank you ASBO/Jon.

The sad thing is that even before you begin to read the story, you know it's nothing but rubbish of the same class as the mechanically re-combined muck that they serve to the mindless masses, who the change is aimed at.

If they wanted to care, then they'd just up the wages and working condition (and not give free 'meals'). Instead, rather than merely provide adequate clothing and personal protective equipment to their staff - or are the 'friend', or 'associates', or similar patronising term? - the employ a massively overpriced waster like Bruce Oldfield to 'design' new designer uniforms, in a "mark of respect" for its staff. Oldfield knows nothing about design, but is an expert in using his position to decide what is 'kewl' and so determine what the brain-dead will want to be seen in, because a 'celebrity' wears it.

You can tell the quality of Oldfield's so-called 'design' ability when there is special mention made of the fact that the uniform includes a Baseball Cap... well known in the UK as a sign of trouble, and almost standard issue uniform for teenage troublemakers who wander the streets in search of new and innovative ways to have themselves served with ASBOs. That's Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, issued by the police when they can't quite make the real offence stick and convict the little scumbags because there's some technicality that prevents them from being held fully responsible for their criminal behaviour. hypocritic

Paint a pretty piggy

The City of Bath is welcoming a herd of pigs to decorate its street and celebrate regional heritage:A herd of more than 60 pig sculptures arrived in a city today as part of a public art project.  The King Bladud's Pigs in Bath art initiative will eventually see 100 of the animals scattered across the historic city.  The plain white life-sized sculptures will be painted and decorated on behalf of different communities and businesses across the region.

Local residents hope the project will boost awareness of a 3,000-year-old legend, which tells how King Bladud founded Bath after discovering the healing powers of its hot spring waters while walking with his swine.

Gaol bird?

In less welcome livestock news, a council has issued an ASBO to a man whose cockerel crowed uncontrollably.   The avian owner was dismissive:

Mr Stoodley said: "It's absolute rubbish in my eyes - they should have better things to do with taxpayers money than trying to get rid of a few chickens."

But I'm not so sure:

The court heard that residents in Wyndham street next to the premises could no longer tolerate the screeching and smell of the fowl.  The original order was brought after an independent environmental health officer measured 800 crowings between 5am and 7am during a test visit in August 2006.

Neighbours living near to [Stoodley's business] told officers the crowing started as early as 2.30am in summer and could be heard through closed windows.

Mr Stoodley has been ordered to get rid of the birds and pay a fine and costs.  Looks like those chickens have finally come home to roost.

The cleanest mounts in Texas

The City of Houston is in the market for citronella shampoo for horses.  How do I know?  Because they've opened up their procurement catalogue to reveal a whole range of purchases.  It might seem frivolous, but it's a serious issue with potentials for serious savings:

The digital disclosure follows a trend of governments using technology to open their books to Web visitors. Transparency advocates say that can save agencies money by automating requests for information from the public 

Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunshine Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based group that advocates for transparency, praised the city's new site.

"We do see popping up around the country examples where municipalities or individual elected officials are using the Internet in various ways to create better disclosure," she said. "Transparency on the Internet means that citizens can be engaged in a dialogue with officials in a way that improves democracy."

...snip...

[Houston Mayor Bill] White, who has bragged about being "cheap," said he hoped the new site will not only increase transparency in city contracting, but also bring efficiencies by making it easier for departments to interact with their vendors. He also is taking challenges from other suppliers who think they can beat the competitors' prices.

"We want to be open and transparent," he said. "We hope that citizens will use their eyes and knowledge to help us spot places where we could save money."

And who knows if such transparency might have avoided recent problems like these.

Photo credit: Painting a Stained-Glass Pig Originally uploaded by deanbkrafft used under a Creative Commons license.

What this means is looking at statistics and choosing what students the teachers dislike, and as a student I can tell you that this will be everyone in the class apart from Miss Laura Lovedogood and Charlie Algebralover.
I recall a film that did something very similar to this, apart from thier methods were a lot more effective, and even that ended up in tears and failing with the murder happening and Tom Cruise getting his name on yet another film.
I think that statistics are a good way to see what is happening and what has happened, but they tend to be a rough guideline.
For example when smoking began getting big in the UK, people started asking questions and eventually they found a correlation between smoking and lung disease, but due to the unreliability of correlation the cigarette companies went in search of some kind of statistic to show just how reliable statistics were, and they found it. They claimed that there was a stronger correlation between the number of bananas arriving into Bristol docks and Lung disease than there was between people who smoked and getting lung cancer - this obviously proved that smoking was okay and we now have a massive contributor to breathing difficulties and premature death.

So hopefully you can see my reservations about statistics and using them as labels to hang over young people and try to enforce the Blair "no accidents are allowed unless they are performed by a politician" climate, I also think that this is contributing to the so-called "Big Brother" state where we can't go anywhere without being watched and eventually will have to ask permission to think and eventually breathing out of sync will result in an ASBO and a HSDO (Health and Safety Death Order).
These bonkers and uncalled for plans also seem to me to be a back door for the much hated ID cards, which even though is facing 99.3% of the population wanting to burn Tony's ears off for even mentioning this plastic menace, is apparently a good idea, despite doing the same job as a passport and driving license but being easier to steal. As soon as you have every persons fingerprint on a database all you need is a private contract and a big pile of plastic and then you have Terrorists on your doorstep, police in your son's school, your daughter courting some bloke called Brian who thinks Algebra is a country and Gordon Brown watching your every step to make sure you never make a mistake EVER again.
Looks like another victory for our government and a kick in the knackers for common sense.

There are situations however, when the whole idea of Ass Bow's becomes utterly ridiculous. Take for example the attempt by police to assign an ASBO to a man in Herefordshire, England who liked to perform sex acts at his window whilst rubbing baby oil all over himself. What would you do in such a situation? Would you simply look away? Close your blinds? Knock on his door and tell him he's a fucking arsehole? Would you call the police and complain? I remember a certain episode of Friend's with Big Naked Guy. Did they call the police? NO! They made a long pole for which to poke him with should Big Naked Guy be dead. They cared for him! In this circumstance however, poor Baby Oil Naked Guy was fined £100 for his actions, and a court stated that he was at "the bottom end of the scale of an anti-social behavioral order". He wasn't worthy of the pleasure, in other words.

More recently, another fellow came across the same consequence, although it was £50.00 more expensive for him. A Scottish man was fined £150.00 for wearing a thong, backwards, outside whilst feeding some pigeons. He avoided an ASBO though because he was drunk...it didn't matter that his incident occurred whilst school was letting out!

Where I live now there are few parks that are fully accessible public spaces. One park is really small, with the town museum at one end and a kids playground at the other. It's pleasant enough, with a fairly average cafe, but you couldn't have many people in it. At the other end of town there's a bigger park, but this has no facilities except kids playgrounds, and is used by dog walkers and teenagers. Families do go to the playgrounds, but you wouldn't picnic there. In order to stop ASB, the second park is subject to an alcohol ban, so if you did you couldn't drink.

Where I used to live in Hackney, there was little fear of the two parks I lived between (Finsbury and Clissold). In both a real mix of classes and ethnicities use the space: lots of people picnic, play football, sunbathe, drink and sometimes smoke cannabis, take kids to the playground, and use the cafes. In Finsbury Park there seemed to be a small street population smoking dope and drinking special brew, but this didn't seem to put off the middle-class parents, and this low-level disorder sits side-by-side with a playgroup and an art space. I don't think there would be any support for alcohol bans, and at times this would kill the parks' atmospheres.

This seems counter-intuitive: of these, the parks with the most alcohol/drug taking are far more popular. My feeling is that the London experience is caused by the sheer force of numbers. Given that the parks are extremely busy/popular, it's hard to feel unsafe, even if there are differences in norms of behaviour. Furthermore, this force of numbers self-polices so that anti-social behaviour doesn't happen.

Where I live now the middle-classes are conspicuous by their absence. There's a private park in the area, that's been developed on an estate (as in landed property, not housing estate) with formal gardens. People can get an affordable season ticket so they can have their picnics / playground time in a non-public space, and if you want to take a bottle of wine that's fine.
There's obviously something different between these places. I'd suggest that there is a difference in the history of how spaces are used (in Hackney some parks are like those described, and some aren't), that may be caused by the population around them. However, there's also a difference in how cultural divides work. I don't think the white middle-classes in London, for example, have any more friends out of their 'group', than they do anywhere else. However, there is more 'recognition' of others, if that's the right word. It's harder for people to avoid the crowd if they've got to get the tube to work instead of driving to work. Familiarity may breed contempt, but it also reduces fear.

Just look at it. It shouts "cheap" "strong" lager. The blue background colour is attractive enough. And the circular Tennent's logo isn't bad, if simplistic.

But just look below. Near the terse "Brewed in the United Kingdom". And the to-the-point "9.0% Alc. Vol." is a statement that says everything you need to know about this type of drink. "Please Drink Responsibly". Only this can has it written in the biggest, capital lettering of any drink I've ever seen. Tennent's seem to have, unlike their competitors, woken up to the all the bad publicity surrounding super-mega-high-strength but cheap lagers. Personally, I think the entire can could be covered in warning messages, but that it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference.

What do you think? Does this can get the prominence of the "responsibility" message right? Comments at the end of this post please.

Oh, and it also says "Serve Ice Cold". So you might want to put this in the freezer compartment for a few minutes first. Just don't forget about it and end up leaving it in there overnight. Like I did once.

Tennent's keep all the information neatly contained on a small ‘side' of the can. It truly is a narrow strip of small print. And it reveals some sad information. Tennent's is not, as I had hoped, the product of generations of Scottish brewing. It is, instead a brand owned by Inbev UK and brewed in Luton. Oh dear.

Also on there are a tiny sub-set of the ingredients. Malted barley. That's all we're told that's in there. It's also a 500 millilitre can with the usual 4.5 UK units of alcohol. So you know you're getting hammered with minimal effort or outlay. Important if you're propped up next to a wall hassling passers by the change.

How good is it to drink? How bad will it be? Is it easy to drink or as rough as I'm half expecting it to be. Let's find out.

The first thing that strikes me is the head. There's much less of it the compared to it's competitors. Other than that, everything looks normal. It's gold in colour and there are bubbles briskly rising to the surface.

The smell is nothing to write home about either. It smells almost exactly like every other strong lager I've tried. And very similar to every weak lager too. In case you've never before had a lager, it smells faintly of barley.

It maybe because I left this can in the freezer for a few minutes before doing this test, but the first thing you notice is how refreshing it is. But, moments later, the aftertaste hits you. Just like all the other strong lagers, it's ruined by a strong bitter and sour aftertaste. And one that stays around at the back of your tongue for a surprisingly long time.

A few gulps in, and this is looking as average as every other strong lager I've tested so far. A taste that's fine, followed by a ghastly aftertaste. It is however, cheap and potent. So whether you're a teenager or a homeless alcoholic, you'll probably not have a problem with the pitfalls of Tennent's Super.

Carlsberg Special Brew comes out on top of the lagers compared to Skol Super, Kestrel Super and Tennent's Super. Most of which are as drinkable as the unusual Gold Label.

Rating: 2.5 plus 3 ASBO points and 1.5 homeless alcoholic marks.

High-strength cider such as K was the surprise of the test, being affordable, drinkable and potent. And Duvel, a high-volume Belgian beer ale was delicious and strong, but expensive.

Finally, at the climax of this series looking into super-high-strength drinks, what have we proven? Pretty much exactly what I expected. Most were horrible. Some were better than expected or good, but at a price. Those that were cheap and nasty are arguably less irresponsible than those that were cheap and easily drinkable. The reasoning being, that you'd need to be fairly determined, if you were willing to put up with the taste of the stuff to begin with. The expensive drinks are out of trouble because, they're expensive or not available everywhere. Which leaves me wandering, is part of the problem of alcohol in this country to do with price after all? I'd always presumed it wasn't, and just a Government scheme to raise duty on drinks. But if prices were raised, teenagers and alcoholics would start walking around with bottles of Duvel instead of Tennent's Super. And beggars in the street would become even more aggressive.

So what can we conclude? And what can be done about the problems that the press has decided is the fault of alcoholic drinks such as these? Firstly, the problem isn't the drinks but the drinkers. That making strong drinks harder to get, or afford won't actually help. And to solve the problem, all the drinks should be sold in bottles. But that only bloggers can own bottle openers.

Thoughts, opinions, insults, and comments below please. There's a lot of people reading this blog so share your thoughts with them.