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Contains Comment on Rugby, Buses and Oxfords Blue Plaque Scheme
Editorial
Let the punishment fit the crime.
Confidence in rugby union today, appears to be at an all time low. This has been so graphically demonstrated by the proverbial slap on the wrists decision, which England’s Rugby Football Union (RFU) Captain Martin Johnson received by the Rugby Union Disciplinary Panel. The Panel despite finding Martin Johnson guilty of three incidents of fowl play including injuring Duncan McRae knee in an off the ball incident, deliberately stamping on the same player and punching Julian White, still managed despite the compelling video taped evidence to not suitably punish Martin Johnson to the full extent of the principals that true supporters of rugby would demand to be upheld.
Many would argue, that this so-called punishment metered out to Martin Johnson of only 35 days suspension by the RFU Panel, which coincidently happens to end the day before the Six Nations Championship opener against Wales in Cardiff. Would be regarded by those with an especially cynical viewpoint, as punishment in the form of a calculated blind to demonstrate that the disciplinary system works. When in fact the Panel’s decision is redolent of the indiscipline and macho sh-amateurism prevalent in much of Rugby Union’s heritage.
While others would argue that the Panel’s decision is what you would expect from an outdated unprofessional system of self-regulation no longer suitable to the needs of world-class rugby union today. What is needed is the present system to be replaced by a set of professional permanent sport citing commissioners that reach a just and crystal clear judgement within days rather than weeks. Hopefully when the current series of appeals are completed Rugby Union will have completed a series of reforms that enable UK rugby league with the ability to compete with the rest of the world on a level playing field, enabling such punishments to justly fit the crime.
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Sydney Celebrates Olympic Triumph
 | All over the country, people celebrated the well deserved achievements of both Britain’s Olympic sports team and the notable efforts that Australia made to provide the best Games ever. Australia should be given a gold medal for these Games, perhaps every Olympics from now on should be held there. Every aspect of the Games should make Australians proud to be Australian.
Both the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies and the facilities provided, demonstrate that Australian art, design and culture are distinctly world class and metropolitan, while the lamentable efforts of Britain’s arts and design establishment is manifestly provincial. Britain’s so-called arts, design and cultural establishment should hold their collective heads in shame.
Sydney showed what staging a world-class event really means. Britain has to learn it is not simply a matter of rolling out the barrel of tried and tested tradition for every event, but about evolving and developing new and imaginative design, cultural and art to meet the needs of society, and expressing youth and vitality, rather than the rather elitist and hidebound desires of Britain’s out of touch, heritage bound arts, design and cultural group, that has made every effort to resist change.
This selfish and incestuous establishment are the ones responsible for the failure of the Dome and other Lottery funded schemes and events. It is not the Government that should be pilloried in the media every day, but the so-called artists and designers responsible for sabotaging a good idea. It was this establishment that favoured its own untalented members, which resulted in the mess we have in Britain today. One wonders why the media is not ridiculing such people. Could it be that members of the national media are fellow members of the very same Hampstead Dinner Party Set, that share its tables with Britain’s arts, design and cultural establishment?
This may well explain why our so called national independent media is not doing its job, but is desperately running a campaign to spin blame away from fellow members of the Hampstead Dinner Party set that the very same journalists belong to.
Don’t despair. There is hope, We need to attract back our talented citizens, who were forced to work in countries that would appreciate their talents, by Britain’s so-called self appointed Cultural Guardians. Interestingly enough many of our talented citizens found work in Australia, in a country with a culture open to change and experiment, unlike Britain. It would appear that Australia got the best of the bargain and the world got in exchange the greatest Olympics ever.
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Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board
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At last someone has come up with a good idea, with the setting up of a voluntary organisation to commemorate Oxfordshire’s famous people and places. In order for the persons or event to be celebrated, the person must be of note in his or her field and made a significant contribution to the good of humanity. Also the person must have lived or worked for five years at least in the County, and been dead for twenty years.
As to an event’s location being recognised, it must have taken place over twenty years ago and the site must be remembered not only for its local, national and even European significance to be worthy of recognition. What’s even more important the Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board is made up of groups representing many aspects of County life, and welcomes suggestions from everyone who lives, works and plays in the County.
The Board is seeking resources from interested members of the public who may wish to make financial contributions to the costs of erecting the Blue Plaques, expected to cost around £350.
For further information contact The Secretary to the Board: Edwin Townsend-Coles, 24 Abberbury Road, Iffley, Oxford OX4 4ES, telephone 01865 779227. http://www.oxfordcivicsoc.org.uk/
Note: Headington Forum suggestions include:
The following Oxford scientists:
1. Dawkins, Richard (1941- ), evolutionary biologist and science commentator, unfortunately he fails the criteria in that he still lives, maybe we should also have a system set up to celebrate famous living people.
2. Moseley, Henry Gwyn Jeffreys (1887-1915), English experimental physicist who achieved the first experimental identification of the atomic number and nuclear charge of an element.
3. Wren, Sir Christopher (1632-1723), English architect, scientist, and mathematician.
As to a famous site:
Ditchley Park, north of Blenheim, used by Winston Churchill as a secret weekend World War Two headquarters, and as a location for founding the institutions that are now today’s European Union. |
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The Introduction of Real-time information displays
 | Headington Forum, fully supports the introduction of real time information displays at our bus stops, which update passengers minute-by-minute on arrival times, while at the same time informing the bus operators through GPS where buses are actually located to the nearest meter. If this means as in the case of Frankfurt or Singapore that the level of information available is of sufficient quality to be of benefit to the user, and not just for operational profit of the bus companies, then we at Headington Forum welcome it.
Hopefully, this will mean bus companies can adjust their services to respond to actual rather than anticipated needs of bus users in the County, as is currently the case in the City. If such flexibility is possible, then imagine a typical traffic problem that both bus commuter and operator face every day. Oxford’s High Street, being blocked by the inevitable road works that occur at predictable regularity, bus operators with such a system could adjust their routes to avoid such delays caused by such problems. So instead of the Headington to Kidlington bus services coming to a virtual stand still as is often the case, such buses could adjust there route to avoid the road works in High Street, by adopting some other route such as Broad Street or Marston Ferry Road to reach Oxford’s commercial heart the city center. Such information displays would immediately inform potential passengers of such real time developments to services.
However, as we know to our cost, things in Oxford are never so simple or as easy, as elsewhere in the world.
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