Alternative statements and commentary from Boston, Lincolnshire, UK

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Is This Still Life?

29 November, 2006


The year is 1826...
The place is Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France and Joseph Nicéphore Niépce is busy polishing a simple 16 x 20cm plate of pewter. The ingenious Frenchman paws a mysterious jar and speaks excitedly to himself - strangely in perfect English:

"Aha! yes! my work here is nearly done! Some day in England, my magical invention will be used to document the true banalities of life! AHA!".

Monsieur Niépce swiftly coats the shimmering surface of the plate with Bitumen of Judea and positions it carefully inside his camera obscura. Hours and days of burning sunlight fall upon the plate and weave a solar replication. The surface is cleansed with oil of lavender and white petroleum until an image of reality gleams from the mirror. On this day, the product of this alchemy enters the archives of human history. This is the development of the worlds first photograph.

The year is 2006...
The place is Boston, Lincolnshire and in a darkened pub an experienced photographer strokes the lens of his modern SLR camera. He is a professional; he does this for money - and for no other reason than this. Through the viewfinder the grinning faces of the local darts team swell into focus; their stiff organised posture composed with textbook perfection. Our hero fingers the focus ring, releases the shutter... and with a tiny snap another piece of his soul is flushed away.

Later...
In a darkened room the photographer washes a solution from his hands and looks down at what he has done. The image is sharp, well lit with accurate composition. All life and chaos are diffused; balance and order are maintained - just like last week, just like yesterday.. just like death.

The time is now...
The place is Boston, and Sheena rests her eyes on scenes beyond the newspaper office window. The ugly and retarded corpses of men shuffle by like the cadaverous puppets of a re-animation show. The outside door opens with an apology and the dragging steps of a photographers shoes walk their way into her solemn gaze.

The celluloid slut excuses himself and lays six inches of glossy print in front of her face. She takes it, as she always does and examines the offering for blemishes and imperfections. The item is exposed to perfection; the sharpness, the skin tones, the arrangement of faultless equilibrium - everything as it should be, and as it always is. She looks at the arms; held in the customary hand-shake pose and recalls events of a night in memory.

She remembers the hands; touching her, gripping her, hurting her. She re-lives the taste of his cock in her mouth, his over enthusiasm, her feelings of fright, her gag reflex and the unique flavour of acid.

She looks back at the picture, the same as yesterday's, the same as last week's and notices it is shit. For all of it's technical perfection, staring at is makes her feel dead inside. Here is no 'slice of life' no 'moment in time', but a cold and manufactured exercise in visual mathematics. The longer she looks at it, the more she feels her eyes being violated by its existence. She takes the exposure in her hand and pulls it into a gaping drawer. She accepts it, she always accepts it. It's just easier to say 'yes' and endure the sickness. The photographer will get his money; just like last week, just like yesterday. One day he will die... but not today.

Boston Council to 'Kill Off' CCTV

15 November, 2006


I can imagine now the thankless and downhearted life of a Boston Borough Council CCTV worker. Not only do they witness disorder, violence and depravity night after night, day after day but have to contend with their employer's attempts to steal money from their pockets and make them redundant.

This week in the Boston Standard, tucked away on the bottom of page three, we read about the council's plans to move monitoring out of town to a neighbouring authority. The diminutive article states "Boston Borough Council is considering paying surveillance units in Grantham or Lincoln to keep an eye on Boston's streets in an effort to save money". It also suggests that these plans are in direct response to an industrial tribunal from February 2006 in which council workers received years of backdated unpaid overtime; "The council recently had to pay its CCTV workers hundreds of thousands of pounds in backpay following a dispute about overtime rates"

Further study into the tribunal shows that instead of 'overtime' the payments are in fact unpaid 'unsocial hours' payments. These unsocial hours payments are higher rates of pay for council employees working at night and weekends. The council had previously attempted to unfairly swindle its own workers by not paying CCTV workers and swimming pool staff these higher rates of pay when other council employees WERE receiving them. CCTV staff had, until recently, been paid the same flat hourly rate even if they were working at night and at the weekend. The "hundreds of thousands of pounds" was actually £130,000 as pointed out in THIS Borough Council Document.

As punishment for getting what was owed to them, it seems that the council is now threatening to put CCTV workers on the dole line - with complete disregard for the safety of the public. Councillor Sandra Bakewell said "This review is part of an ongoing programme within the council to ensure we provide the best service possible" however, it remains to be seen how cutting essential services can indeed "provide the best service possible". In the Boston Target Julie Alderson, strategic finance adviser said: "Inevitably we will face some very tough decisions in the future about the whole way in which services are delivered to the public and indeed whether some services need to be provided at all."

Also this week, the Council has decided to give 2.5 million pounds from its budget to fund projects that it is not responsible for. In this article the council have outlined £2.5m to fund unnamed and unknown projects to ease traffic congestion: the responsibility of Lincolnshire County Council. Councillor Peter Bedford said "Transport is the responsibility of Lincolnshire County Council, but we are responsible for regeneration – the borough is showing its commitment to the cause by earmarking this money for projects that will support Boston's regeneration by improving the flow of traffic."

The council has, as yet: no idea how, when and what the money will be spent on. We thank you, our democratically elected council, for prioritising the use of OUR money so wisely. Should I get stabbed in the throat by a drunken council estate loser mistaking me for a Polish immigrant worker, I will feel safe in the knowledge that the ambulance driver will have a clear and signposted route to my inanimate corpse.

Picture Exclusive: Town Centre Violence Shocker

03 November, 2006

Under the mask of a free, fair and tolerant society, courts and judges have been replaced by commercial organisations. No this is not the plot of Robocop 4 but actual fact... well according to the local press anyway. It appears that virtually the entire legal system has now been farmed out to local newspapers, who now have the 'powers' to pass judgement upon serious crimes.

This week's Boston Standard invades your eyes with the words "Attempted Murder", relating to a story of a supposed attack on the junction of St Nicholas Road and Mill Road, Boston. The article states: "Police are appealing for witnesses after an attempted murder in Boston", however no trial or convictions have as yet taken place. The piece goes on to inform us "Police exclusively told The Standard they were treating the incident as an attempted murder", but the article fails to point out whether The Standard have been given the 'exclusive' right to try and influence a courts decision.

In ancient times, a court would decide the guilt of accused persons after hearing substantial evidence and legal arguments. Today in modern Britain, justice can be served through a 'trial by press'; where the public 'jury' can be influenced to believe the publishers pre-determined verdict on nothing more than hearsay and conjecture.

The crime of Attempted Murder is committed when a person performs an act with a specific intent to kill. A person's intentions can be difficult to ascertain with the current lack of mind-reading technology. For instance: If I were to try and kill a person by drilling a hole in their head - this would be considered to be attempted murder. However, if my intention was to relieve the persons headache by a process of Trepanation, this would not constitute attempted murder even though the act is still the same. In short, only the offenders themselves are fully aware of their own intentions.

Without access to evidence, interviews or intentions of those accused, the Boston Standard considered it somehow wise to brand an act as 'attempted murder' before any legal court had the chance to do so. It is true that the police are 'treating the incident as attempted murder', but this 'treating' is only to allow the police to decide on the style and scale of investigations. The police will be fully aware that it is not their responsibility to 'judge' but to bring the results of their investigations to court. Unfortunately the local newspapers seem unaware of their own responsibilities.

The purpose of local media is surely to inform the public of local issues, stories and events; to present this information to citizens wanting greater awareness of there surroundings. This service could have been performed better with the insertion of the word 'alleged' in the article, as this would provide a more valid indication of the known truth. However, papers do not sell themselves and a sensationalist headline will always take preference to the dissemination of facts.

Printed next to this article is a small box containing a scant text of limited scope and information. Entitled "Scuffles in the town centre" this piece 'documents' the shocking revelation that... er.... some fights occurred in town on Saturday night! Yes, unlikely as it sounds (?) several drunken revellers took it upon themselves to trade abuse and punches in Boston's market place. For some unexplained reason, this one Saturday night of many has been singled out by the paper to discover a problem that occurs in every town centre, every weekend. An 'eyewitness' states "there was what looked like a serious fight at about 3am on Saturday near The Prospect". However 'The Standard' contacted the manager of The Prospect who informed them that he "was not aware of any trouble then". What The Standard failed to understand is that the manager of The Prospect would not be 'aware' of any fighting in the market place at 3am, because The Prospect is not open at 3am!

Luckily for The Standard, the Police confirmed "there were a series of scuffles on these nights, but they were not serious". As always, the police are prone to downplay town centre disorder to prevent the spread of an already inflated fear of crime. However, further clues to the seriousness of these 'scuffles' COULD have been gained by talking to staff and citizens in Pilgrim Hospital's Accident and Emergency department (suggestion for next week) but this appears not to have been followed up.

Luckily I have a picture exclusive showing the brawling Bostonians in action, but beware, this image could be disturbing for those sensitive to such things (like local newspaper reporters).

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