Psyk's Popcorn Jungle

2012-01-08T15:17:00.003+02:00

Hi gang. Well, it's been almost a year since my last post, so you might have guessed that I've got a bit lazy with my postings. My numerous trips around Europe and the UK have gone completely undocumented, and frankly I can't see myself putting them on here any time soon. I thought I'd come back for a totally unrelated purpose, however, as I've got a strange interest in the smaller parts of European football... and I'll also be back for Euro 2012, with my stats and predictions for the coming tournament, as I did on another blog for the World Cup.

But first to the club competitions. I post stuff here for my own benefit (like the stuff about the Digital Economy Act) but anyone else is welcome to read. The group stage of the two UEFA competitions are done and dusted for this season, but already I'm looking ahead to next season, and what the minnows are doing. A few leagues operate in the summer, you see, so we already have some qualifiers for next season's competitions. A quick note: with the exception of countries ranked 15th and above, every Champions League entrant is the champion of their league; everyone else goes to the Europa League. I may mention that certain champions will contend for the Europa League, but that's just because I don't fancy their chances in the Champions League (as, of course, losers from Q3, Q4 and the group stage of the CL go to the EL). Just making it clear for those who aren't paying attention.

Let's start in Belarus (ranked 23rd), where BATE, as usual, triumphed with a five-point cushion for their sixth consecutive championship. Clearly there are no other comparable teams in Europe's last dictatorship, though Shakhtyor Soligorsk and Gomel will be off to the Europa League anyhow, along with whoever wins the cup (for some reason, it doesn't run in tandem with the league, so we won't find out the winner until May-ish).

BATE will be joined in CL Q2 by none other than Molde, who pulled off a bit of a shock to clinch their first ever league championship in Norway (26th). Rosenborg, who won 14 league titles in 15 years up to 2004, will have to be content with the Europa League, after winning back-to-back championships. They'll be joined by Tromsø (who finished above them) and Aalesund (who won the cup). Expect all of them to collapse in Europe as usual (no Norwegian teams made it to the group stage of either competition this season).

You may sense a pattern as most of the Scandinavian countries play summer football. Sweden (28th) saw Helsingborgs as champions, after over a decade of mediocrity. They also did the league-cup double, meaning 8th-placed Kalmar took the EL Q1 place as runners-up. They have previous in that competition, as they made it through Q1 and Q2 before being beaten by Levski Sofia in 2010-11. Meanwhile for Helsingborgs, it's their first time in the CL since their stint in the group stage in 2000-01 against Bayern Munch, Paris Saint-Germain and, er, Rosenborg. Malmö followed up their terrible performance in this season's EL group stage with 4th place, missing out on Europe altogether. IF Elfsborg and AIK will go into the EL instead.

Staying in Scandinavia, Finland (30th) saw HJK win their third title in a row. They've been regulars in Europe for a long time, but the last time they made any significant impact was way back in 1998-99, when they joined PSV Eindhoven, Kaiserslautern and Benfica in the CL group stage. In the last two seasons they've fallen at the final hurdle of getting to the EL group stage, so getting there would be some kind of achievement. Although they have little hope in the CL, they'll start there in Q2, while FC Inter, JJK and cup runners-up KuPS will slug it out in the EL, hoping to improve on this season where nobody got to either group stage.

The same can't be said for Ireland (31st), who saw champions Shamrock Rovers make the EL group stage, a significant achievement for Irish football, and I don't think anyone minds too much that they lost all six games. Shamrock are champions once more, so they'll get another crack at EL glory (assuming they don't make the CL group stage, of course). Ireland will also be represented by cup winners Sligo Rovers, along with Derry City and St Patrick's Athletic. Sligo and St Pat's both came a cropper against Ukrainian sides this season, so they'll do well to get anything out of next season's competitions.

Also finishing their league in 2011 is Lithuania (34th) and Latvia (35th). The former currently has, like other countries in Eastern Europe, one all-conquering team in Ekranas, who have now won four titles in a row, along with two cups (and two super cups). Despite recent local domination, they've never even come close to the group stages. Zalgiris and Suduva will go into the EL, plus whoever loses to Ekranas in the cup come May.

Latvia used to have an all-conquering team in Skonto, who amazingly were founded in 1991, in time for the first independent Latvian football league, and proceeded to win the first 13 championships (including seven cups and three undefeated league campaigns). Since their fall from grace in 2004, they've only managed one, and Ventspils have taken up the mantel, winning four titles since 2006, including this year. Skonto, meanwhile, haven't even qualified for the EL. They still have hope in the form of the cup, which, like other countries around there, doesn't take place in a calendar year for some reason, but as they're without a cup win since 2002, I wouldn't count on it. Liepajas Metalurgs (the first team to knock Skonto off their perch by winning a league title in 2005) and Daugava Daugavpils are the league entrants to the EL.

Iceland (40th), as with every Scandinavian country bar Denmark, have also finished, and KR won their 25th championship, though it's only their fifth since 1999, and they didn't win a single one for 31 years prior to that, so not as mighty as it first appears. FH and ÍBV take the EL spots (why do all these teams use initials? Because there's no way you can pronounce their full names), but the most notable thing from this season in Iceland is that Þór Akureyri (that's 'Thor', by the way) have qualified as cup runners-up.

Why notable? Well, Þór had got promotion to the top flight only the previous season (on goal difference, too), and so it was amazing that they managed to make it to the cup final anyhow. But the really amazing part is that, like Birmingham in the Premier League, they also got relegated. So they'll be fighting in the EL while also scrapping it out in the second tier of Icelandic football. Though I doubt they'll be playing in the group stage like Birmingham, but one can hope.

I know this post has gone on for a bit, but don't worry, there's not long to go. Kazakhstan (41st) have an interesting manager by the name of John Gregory. Yes, the former Villa, Derby and QPR manager. I noticed that he joined Israeli club Maccabi Ahi Nazareth halfway through the season, getting a rather limp 20 points from 17 games and failing to avoid relegation, moved on to Ashdod (also Israeli) where he almost guided them to relegation too, and so here we are in Kazakhstan with Kairat Almaty. Guess what? Relegated. Keep on trying, John.

Anyway, enough waffling, Shakhtyor Karagandy have won their first ever league title, and will hope to do better than losing to St Pat's in the EL like they did this season. Aktobe are the powerhouse, having won four titles in five seasons recently, but they could only manage third, so the EL will have to do. Zhetysu and cup winners Ordabasy will join them.

The most interesting thing about this season in Estonia (45th) is that champions Flora scored 100 goals in the 36 game league, but Trans, who scored 107, could only manage third. These wacky goal tallies could be a result of bottom club Lasnamäe Ajax, who, while getting four draws and no wins, somehow managed to let in an astonishing 192 goals - an average of 5.3 a game. Predictably, their worst results came at the hands of Flora (13-1) and Trans (14-0). Thank heavens for relegation. I should point out that they've been relegated before, in 2007, when they managed five points and conceded 153 goals. After that effort, I bet they never thought their next trip to Estonia's top flight would be quite as bad. Oh, how wrong they were. At the top, meanwhile, while we're yet to find out who'll win the cup and grab an EL spot, Kalju join Trans in the EL, with Flora hoping they'll draw a CL opponent as weak as Ajax (not the ones from Amsterdam, hopefully).

Armenia (47th) also don't finish their cup until May, but we'll be seeing Ulisses in the CL draw as they won their first title. Pyunik won ten consecutive titles up to 2010, but could only finish third this season, so the EL is unfamiliar territory for them: they usually go into the CL every year (and lose). Gandzasar beat them into 2nd place on goal difference, so they'll be joining them. Finally, the Faroe Islands (50th) will have B36 challenging the other three lowest-ranked champions of Europe in the CL, while Víkingur, NSÍ Runavík and cup-winners EB/Streymur go for glory in the EL.

Phew. And to think, the league in most of Europe is only half way through. Well, there'll be plenty more where this came from, so stay tuned!

2011-01-16T14:07:00.011+02:00

Day two of our weekend in Odessa. We decided that, since we spent the previous day in the town centre and on the northern coastal area, we should explore the beaches in the eastern part of town. So, around midday, we caught the tram to the south-eastern starting point of all this.

I caught sight of a big obelisk, rather like the one in Kyiv's Ploscha Peremohy.

Anyway, we arrived shortly in the fun park that accompanies the beaches of Odessa.

It was only April, and although the weather was reasonable, there were still few tourists around, so there wasn't much life in this place.

But you can just see all the fun you could have! I guess a '4D Cinema' is one of those simulator rides, though I could be wrong. We never tried them (the place was probably closed).

Boo.

Being a big kid, I enjoyed walking around this place, and just wished that we were in the height of summer, when there would be a bit more action around. The red sign above the cowboy's head says 'film attraction'. You can see some of the 'attractions' on posters next to it.

Naturally, these beaches are very popular in summer, and this enormous hotel next to the beach is designed just for that.

There were several very closed-looking places around here.

Like this nightclub, 'Ibiza'.

I'm sure at peak times it'd be a real happening place.

But at the moment, it didn't really feel like Ibiza.

The beach, as you can see, was almost deserted.

Certainly, it wasn't bikini weather, but it was pleasant enough.

The beaches were covered in rocks (and after this woman got some bread out, pigeons).

Looking back from the pier, with that Tower of Babel-esque hotel looming over things, it actually looks rather nice.

Just a shame that we went when nobody else did. We got some good peace and quiet though, I suppose.

As before, there were loads of themed places.

It was all like a big fairground or something.

And this is just scary. On the left you can see 'tir', or 'shooting gallery'. These things are popular anywhere there are tourists - in Hidropark in Kyiv, most places in Crimea, and here of course.

Beaches, restaurants, bars... fun stuff.

You can see the themes being played around with.

Just walking around in the April daytime, it felt like something was really missing.

Not quite the same as winter - when it would obviously be dead - but it just seemed like the weather was here, but the people weren't, so places like this looked like empty shells.

It all looked a little sad, really. I'm sure it's buzzing in summer, though.

We'll have to come back, I suppose.

Our walk continued for some time (in total we walked 8.5km from the tram stop to the pizzaria where we had dinner) but there was plenty to see.

I saw this on a Panoramio photo on Google Earth, so I was delighted when I found it. Shame someone had to deface it.

There are quite a few beaches on the coast of Odessa.

And hills beside them.

It's all rather interesting.

There's even somewhere to practise your climbing.

It's at this point when you realise how big the Odessa coastline really is.

Some guys were riding their BMXs around here, which seemed like the perfect place to do it.

These Soviet-era lifts could take you from the town to the beach.

But I wouldn't risk them, really: they don't look all that safe.

On our travels we found a monument. Not sure what it's for, as usual.

There were some dilapidated buildings over the edge from it, too.

We continued through the big park, where you could also find the stadium, and these huge blocks of flats.

I believe this is to honour the Soviet war in Afghanistan (apologies for the awful focus, I should've taken another).

Given the years there, I can only guess Afghanistan.

Upon leaving the park, we were greeted by the familiar face of Taras Shevchenko. This, of course, is the entrance to the park from the city.

We were pretty tired by this point, but we soldiered on.

I think we'd seen all we wanted, though.

At a crossroads between Polish Street and Greek Street, I believe. Shortly after, we stepped in an Italian restaurant and had a good dinner.

We didn't have to catch our train until near midnight, so we had a few drinks in different places (like the Irish pub in town). We couldn't get in here, as much as we wanted to. It's called 'London', in case you couldn't read it.

Though I think this is pretty much self-explanatory.

After having a couple more drinks in another place, we ran off to the train station to grab our ride home. The train was far more modern than our previous ones, but was impossibly hot, with no ventilation. When we finally got out the following morning at Kyiv station, it was an enourmous relief. Think I prefer the old trains myself.

So there you have it. Join me next time for our next big trip: around the UK. It's a big one, so it'll have to be split up into eight (!) parts.

2011-01-07T15:08:00.009+02:00

I'm taking too long with this, really... no good excuses. New Year holidays and the repairs in my flat are not sufficient, really. Anyway, let's get on with it. Here's the second part of my first day in Odessa - the second day will be in the next update.

We were nearing the Black Sea, and this is the City Hall, I believe.

Walking north-west towards the famous steps.

A famous hotel, though I can't remember the name.

And now, the famous steps - with a missing person in the middle.

From the bottom. They are rather large. Those of you who remember my Eurotour posts will remember me on the Spanish Steps in Rome, and I mentioned going to Odessa one day. Well...

Next to the steps: trains.

We're now going onto the pier sticking out of the north-eastern part of Odessa, and you can see the steps in the distance (and a bird in the foreground).

Here we have the seaport - or 'morskiy vokzal' ('sea station') - and that helpful information board can tell you what is around here.

Woo, strong baby! I'm sure there's some deep meaning behind this sculpture, but it just freaked us out.

The Hotel Odessa. In case the photo doesn't make it clear, this thing is big.

A rather fuzzy photo looking out into the port.

There are loads of boats, big and small.

All over the place.

Unsurprisingly, there are also pigeons.

There's a little chapel here, too.

And some big cranes for getting stuff onto (and off) ships.

"Bye, daddy!"

Yes, it's a nice statue, remembering all the people setting sail from Odessa.

The hotel again.

Back on terra firma, somewhat. This is the statue of Duc de Richelieu, who is very important to Odessa. Thing he may have founded it or something. I'm probably way off there, but still...

A very military-looking truck nearby, saying something like 'victory will be for us!' on the side. Weird.

Vorontsov's Palace, I believe.

And there's this load of columns next to it.

A closer look. Popular with skater boys, obviously.

Continuing our walk north-west, this is the Teschin Bridge, which is notable for one thing...

...loads of locks on the side. Apparently it's to symbolise the long-lasting relationships between couples.

'Sasha + Yulia = Love'! It's worth pointing out that Sasha is both a boy's and girl's name.

Impressive... wish I knew what it was.

We went back towards town to get something to eat.

On the way we saw some rather elaborate building decorations.

And this made me laugh.

Everybody wanted their picture taken next to this monument. I think it had something to do with Russia.

Alas, night drew in, and the lights came on. It wasn't Christmas - it was April, actually - but the trees were covered with lights all the same.

Lovely.

And so to bed. You'll find out about the next day very soon.

2010-11-05T23:49:00.010+02:00

On 10th April this year, I went to Odessa with my girlfriend. It was a bit of a last-minute thing: I decided we should go, we went to the train station and got tickets, and a day or two later we took the 7-8hr night train to Odessa.

As I stepped onto the platform at just before 9am, this was the sight I met.

We walked out the front of the station, and this is what it looks like. A lovely building, very classical design (I know nothing about building styles, by the way).

Turn to the right, and there are a ton of taxis waiting to take you anywhere. That won't be necessary: the train station in Odessa is pretty close to town, so we can walk it.

We went to McDonald's, right next to the station (mainly for coffee, I think I'd already eaten a sandwich on the train). This is the station again, from further away.

Heading towards our hotel, I could see that trams were a common form of transport here.

There were lots of buildings to look at on the way...

...including a lovely church...

...and even a fast-food place called Mister Sandwich (in Kyiv there is a chain called Mister Snack, so maybe this is similar).

We went to the market before our hotel. The big red letters mean "furniture" and the little kiosk says "fresh bread".

Privoz Market is rather large, and includes many things, including this.

These crappy-looking buildings, however...

...are on the other side of the road.

The meat market is a bit smelly.

The archway says "Fruit Passage". The market used to be divided up thus. Things have changed a bit, though.

Everything's a bit mixed now.

My camera doesn't really have flash, so these pics will have to do.

My girlfriend was having a look at the shoes.

And I had a look at the buildings around the market.

No idea what's up with this thing.

In case you needed telling, this sign says "Privoz Market".

Enough of the market: let's go for a walk.

This monument is to Chernobyl.

There's a park with this statue of Ataman Antin Holovaty. I would've got a better shot up close but, as you can see, he was having problems with kids at the time.

Ivan Franko. Quite a famous man, I think.

This isn't a statue, though.

It's been a while since the trip, and I can't remember what this is, or why I thought it worth taking a picture. I think you'll see a few of those.

So we checked into our (tiny!) hotel and made our way towards town.

It was an ensuite room, but the shower, sink and toilet practically overlapped, it was so small.

And naturally the bed took up almost the entire room. Still, it was pretty cheap, and not too far from town.

Anyway, enough about our hotel, let's go into the centre of Odessa.

The centre has a few strange monuments, and lots of people. I think the ones in centre frame are American.

This chair is based around a book. I don't know the book.

Not sure about this guy (apologies for the focus).

I think this was outside a place connected with movies.

We went to a fantastic steak restaurant on Odessa's main street, and the toilets were pretty weird.

This is the floor.

Back on the street.

This tree looks weird.

One of the big attractions in Odessa is the opera theatre.

It's quite nice in the sunshine.

The whole area's quite nice, really.

There's a fountain next to the theatre.

Everybody likes it. You can see someone posing on the left.

I've decided to split this Odessa update into three parts. Next time I'll show you the second part of our Saturday in Odessa, and the final part will clear up the Sunday.

2010-10-26T13:03:00.011+03:00

It's time to start ploughing through all the stuff I haven't mentioned this year. Given the amount of stuff I'd like to show, I think I'll just do a big dumping update, with a whole load of pics of random crap that I never got round to talking about during the year. The pics are in chronological order, for what it's worth. Let's get started!

I made a surprising (but not exactly thrilling) discovery in my local supermarket. Yes, that's right: it's a fag end in a pack of rice.

In Russian, the word for 'photocopier' is 'ксерокс' ('kseroks', or a mispronunciation of Xerox, a bit like how we call vacuum cleaners 'Hoovers'). I saw this sign in a couple of places, which appears to be mixing Cyrillic and Latin characters for humorous effect. Made me laugh, anyway.

As you know, this update stretches back through the whole of 2010. This was taken in mid-February, and give you a clear idea of what Kyiv is like in the winter. Those days are coming again soon, looking forward to it!

Around the same time, me and the missus went looking for a shop, and ended up here. So I took some pics.

Looks pretty nasty. I'm pretty sure it wasn't like this before.

Quite a contrast: this pic was taken 90 degrees to the left of the previous one.

Just made me chuckle: 'CRISP NEW BANKNOTES!' Um, okay. I guess that's important to some people.

If you can't read the label, it says 'Car Shower'. Yes, this is how Russians advertise car showers (it's Russian, not Ukrainian). I just now noticed the 2nd pic down on the left.

30th March, and the winter is fully behind us. This is a shot of the hustle and bustle surrounding Livoberezhna Metro, on the left bank of the Dnieper. The photo was taken from the window of McFoxy, a KFC-like Ukrainian chain which has opened relatively recently.

And so, onto April, and Easter. This holiday is somewhat different to what you may be used to in Britain. I went to my missus's parents' house to celebrate. First, they hard-boiled some eggs with some dye to make them red, like this. Then we put stickers on them. This one says 'Христос воскрес!', or 'Christ has risen!'

It's common to greet people on Easter by saying that phrase, and they reply with 'He is truly risen!' The religious aspect of Easter is far more apparent in Ukraine.

Unlike in Britain, you can get fireworks all the time. Here's a nice selection of the ones we would use that night.

That's a big one.

This is 'paska', a type of bread that you eat on Easter. You can buy them in the shops around that time. It's pretty dry, but nice the following morning with a cup of tea.

Here's our meal for Easter. Ukrainian meals usually consist of a wide variety of dishes in a buffet style, even ones that are no special occasion.

The tradition with those painted (or be-stickered) eggs is to hold them in your hand and smash them into someone else's. If yours survives, you try with someone else. It's like a combination of Christmas crackers and playing conkers.

And this is the result. You eat all the eggs regardless.

There were even some egg decorations on the lampshade. Lovely.

Right, back to random stuff. Walking home one night I spotted this dude in the doorway of a building. Scary.

There's a TV show where schoolkids from all over Ukraine and the CIS pit their wits against each other. This is a boy who looks like a girl.

It's a toilet with a face! He looks a bit shocked, really.

I went to a wedding, my first Ukrainian one at the time. It's very different to British weddings in many ways. This is a bread thing that is offered as a gift (then eaten by the guests).

Here's another bread thing, with salt on the top. I can't remember the significance of bread and salt, but there's something symbolic about it.

A nice little wedding cake, none of the extravagant stacked ones here.

This is where all the guests sat. You see the food is similar to what you saw at Easter. We'd stay in that room for the whole evening, with a master of ceremonies officiating games for people to play. I was roped into dressing up as a Cossack and dancing like a fool. No, you can't see pictures.

They put special candles in the wedding cake and... well, it's self explanatory.

Back at my flat, I was just surprised at the amount of head in my glass, so I took a pic.

We went down the riverside one day, and saw these guys rapping, but it was the rather silly dancing girls that caught my eye. The guys were using some fruity language in their raps, also, which surprised me as this was in public.

Typical Ukraine: an entire block of flats loses power (I think ours did too), but the advertising board stays on throughout. Well, it is more important. In fairness, that's attached to a different building, but still...

I believe this is an anti-abortion monument. The anti-abortion movement seems more clear in Ukraine than Britain, though perhaps not as clear as in the States.

All change at Zoloti Vorota Metro. Often I like running ahead of the crowd and looking back at the hundreds ambling towards me. Shame about the focus.

I found some Chinese knock-off Lego toys that made me chuckle.

Here's the reason this one made me chuckle. The Balkans are on fire! OMG!

This is a great collection of Engrish. I don't think I even have to copy what it says, you just read it.

Ahh... I love sunsets.

I went in a Metro station I hadn't been in before, and noticed the Olympic rings. Not sure which Olympics this could be connected with: I don't know about Olympics being held in Kyiv. Then again, the main stadium is called the Olympic Stadium.

This monument is sitting on the bank of the Dnieper. Not sure what it means, though.

We went for a day on the beach. This is the end of June, and you can see that it's pretty damn hot. It's on Trukhaniv Island (which technically isn't really an island, but who cares...).

And this was about the time we decided to go home.

I think you can figure this out by yourself, but there was a fan park in Kyiv for the World Cup. No beer in public anymore, though, which sucks big time.

Germany vs Argentina certainly attracted a big crowd.

Shame about the exposure on this shot, but you get the idea. You can also see where it was.

There's a weird towel in my flat.

This penguin is lovery.

And this penguin wants to fight, for some reason.

As the World Cup was coming to a close, I noticed this in the window of the adidas shop on Khreschatik. He's wearing a German football shirt, and his right arm is raised... I think the shop staff were having a laugh. Not sure any passing Germans would appreciate the joke, though.

In the Globus shopping centre, they're selling different kinds of funky chairs that do things. This gaming chair is one of them. No idea how it works: I imagine you plug it in your USB and it vibrates while you play or something.

Anyway, that's your lot. It was a big update, and a bit random in places, but I'm glad I've got it out of the way. All I need now is to update you on a few of my trips that I've had this year. See you then.

2010-10-16T17:49:00.001+03:00

This is ridiculous. I haven't even written anything about my life in the whole of 2010, and I haven't written anything at all since June. Well, I'd better get back to it, then. I've got a ridiculous amount of personal stuff to update on, but this first update will be a little different.

In September, the new US television season began. I've never really understood the whole TV season thing: Britain (or any other country) doesn't seem to have such an organised system of new shows at a certain time. All the brand new stuff starts now, and all the old shows begin again at this time, too. The worst part, however, is that unless the ratings are decent, some of them can get pulled off the air extremely quickly, as you'll see. I took the liberty of checking out every new show, just out of curiosity. I figured there's so much TV out there, so I should check out the very first of everything at least, and then know in the future what to expect.

Here they all are, in the order in which I watched them (most were shown the same week, and in general I only watched the first episode):

Hawaii Five-0: Dumb action show, bit like Knight Rider but not so explicitly aimed at 14-year-old boys (well, a bit). Ratings have been through the roof, so this one'll be back next season for sure. I'll stick with it for a bit.

Detroit 1-8-7: Good looking police procedural drama, NYPD Blue-esque. I liked it, more seasoned critics seem to suggest it's been done before, but I wouldn't know about that. Ratings have been seriously dropping, so it may be lucky to make it to the end of the season... I'll follow it while it lasts.

Mike & Molly: I know US sitcom pilots are usually shit, but this is just "fat people" jokes for 21 minutes. Sigh. As with most sitcoms, may be worth waiting till season 3 or 4 to see if people like it (it'll probably reach that far as ratings have been fantastic - which says something about the American public).

Hellcats: Finally, someone made a TV show version of Bring It On. Not that I was waiting for one. It's a cheerleader show. As enjoyable as that is, I'm not sure I'll be hanging onto this one. It's on The CW, the least-watched of the five major networks in the US, so even though the ratings have been average, it'll probably be around for a while.

Lone Star: Best show I've seen thus far. Don't wanna spoil it, just watch it. Staggeringly, it was cancelled after only two episodes, after the first show got epically awful ratings. All the critics loved it, so it was a big surprise to see it bomb so spectacularly.

Undercovers: Married couple as secret agents. Doesn't take itself seriously. I'm sure it'll do well as it'll grab both gender demographics. I thought it was okay.

Chase: US Marshals chasing baddies. Meh, not very interesting, seen it all before.

Better With You: Decent-looking comedy following three couples who've been together for different periods (7wks, 9yrs, 35yrs) in one family. I thought it was okay for a pilot comedy show. It's certainly got legs, as the premise is good and the writing is smart.

Nikita: Intriguing action series about woman who was pissed off with government agency and is now going around messing everything up for them. It looks interesting enough, and since it's on The CW it'll probably last with an average amount of viewers.

Outsourced: Comedy, guy is sent to India to be manager of callcentre selling novelties to Americans. I've been following this for a few eps and it's quite fun. Don't listen to anyone online who says it's racist: only white Americans say that, and they're all morons.

My Generation: Mockumentary following a group of people 10 years after graduating high school (when they last interviewed them). Basically aimed at me, then, as I'm the same age. It had promise, but the mockumentary approach made some of the 'shocking' revelations etc a bit meh, because it's not real. Clearly the public didn't like it much either, as the ratings were disastrous, and, like Lone Star, it was cancelled after a mere two episodes. Never mind.

Blue Bloods: Cop show with the twist being that a bunch of them are in the same family. Other than that it's pretty standard stuff. Ratings are good, though, so expect to see it around for a while.

Running Wilde: The second coming of Arrested Development! My new favourite show (though the ratings are falling rapidly, so this one could be over before long, sadly). Will Arnett (GOB in A.D.) and Peter Serafinowicz are extremely rich idiots. Recommended viewing, quite simply.

Shit My Dad Says: William Shatner is a grumpy dad. That's pretty much it. It was okay for a comedy pilot, but as with most comedies, might be worth seeing how it pans out. The writing seems to be pretty good for the first few eps (it has to be, as the premise is exactly how I just described it).

The Event: Odd action drama, a bit like Lost but doesn't look quite as intriguing or well put together. No idea where it's gonna go from here. Ratings are average, people have called it 'the new Lost', but it'll need a few more viewers for that.

The Whole Truth: Legal drama following two lawyers - a miserable cow and a dickhead. Interesting enough. Could be fun, but I've got enough to watch at the mo.

Outlaw: Jimmy Smits with a silly voice is a judge-type bloke who quits to go it alone (with his mates). At least, I assume his normal voice isn't like that. It's a somewhat unique show, so could be interesting. There seem to be a lot of legal dramas though, so getting tired of them. The ratings were terrible for this, so it's been cancelled after four episodes, and the other four already in the can have been dumped on Saturday evenings. See you, Jimmy.

Raising Hope: Guy lives with stupid white-trash family and has to raise a kid on his own (hence the title). Features Cromartie from Terminator: Sarah Connor. A bit like a gross-out comedy at times, could be lots of fun. I'm tuning in weekly for it, and so are many Americans, it would seem.

The Defenders: Jerry O'Connell and James Belushi are a team of Las Vegas lawyers. Light-hearted drama, quite entertaining, looks like it could be pretty good. Still, it is another legal show...

No Ordinary Family: Superhero family drama. Wait, maybe that's a spoiler... ah, what the hell. It's at least rather original. I'd recommend giving it a shot.

Law & Order Los Angeles: Erm... it's Law & Order. In Los Angeles. There's really nothing new here.

School Pride: Reality show (the first one this season) where schoolkids renovate their schools. Sounds pretty dull, I know. It's nice to see dilapidated American schools getting a makeover, though - courtesy of corporate sponsors, of course. It's the American way!

So, that's all of them - for now. Body Of Proof was originally going to be a slightly late starter, but has now been put back for even longer. In mid-season there'll be a whole host of new shows hitting the air, so I'll check out those in due course, and post my feelings on here.

2010-06-01T19:07:00.000+03:00

3rd Reading began, on 15th March, with a strange request from Baroness Royall of Blaisdon that two amendments shouldn't be moved. Lord Whitty, thus, moved Amendment 2, which "I am allowed to move". In general, though, he couldn't stand the majority of the Bill, the part concerning online copyright infringement. It seems that he's not alone, as most people who know about the Digital Economy Bill seem to only know about its effects on online copyright infringement, while anyone who's read my blog religiously will know that it's about much more than that. However, this is clearly the most divisive part of it.

Lord Whitty, surprisingly, thought that the replacement for the dreaded Clause 17 was actually "more draconian" than the original. The Bill, as it stood at 3rd Reading, was "still a bad Bill", and it would've benefited from pre-legislative scrutiny, which Lord Puttnam had already suggested. He argued that it will seem to subscribers that the new system involves people being guilty until proven innocent - which would appear to be the case if people get sent letters telling them of their guilt, and they have to prove otherwise. Lord Razzall came out fighting at accusations thrown at the Lib Dems (regarding their Clause 17 replacement), saying that they had "spent many years trying to wrestle with this problem. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has obviously come to it relatively late". Lord Puttnam piped up complaining about the ISPs claiming to not be involved with the unlawful file-sharing, comparing them to chemists. Funny, the ISPs compare themselves to the Royal Mail (Lord Razzall brought this up later on). Which analogy works best?

The Earl of Erroll was quite harsh on the passage of the Bill, highlighting the fact that it was not going to get amended in the Commons. He called this "dangerous" and "unethical", and "if we were directors of a company we would probably be locked up for failing to undertake proper governance. Parliament should not behave in this way". Lord Young of Norwood Green disagreed with this, of course, suggesting that "a 48-clause Bill that has had about 430 amendments tabled to it seems to me a fair amount of scrutiny". Lord Whitty was still unhappy with the result, and even "angry". He predicted that we'd have to come back in a few years to correct the mistakes brought about by this thing.

A whole chunk of amendments were readily accepted from the government, before Lord Clement-Jones popped up to give his opinion. For some extra fun, however, take a look at Lord Razzall (bottom-left) having a bit of a coughing problem during Lord Clement-Jones' contribution. It make me chuckle, so hopefully it'll do the same for you. Anyway, he obviously fought back at Lord Whitty's assessment that they'd been wasting their time for the preceding three months and the Clause 17 replacement was worse than the original. Lord Lucas made one of his welcome (for me) appearances to point out that what they should be trying to do is not penalise everybody, but to inconvenience the hardcore guys who'll always try to get stuff illegally, and to convince the rest of us that legal services are the right way to go.

The Earl of Erroll, who's involved in a business search engine, brought up the interesting question of whether search engines will get caught up in the file-sharing mess. As it stands, it seems like a rather pertinent question. Lord Lucas did point out, though, that "Google is very good at blocking access to sites; it just relegates them to page 256". He still mentioned that we "must be careful not to start acting like the Chinese Government". There was a bit of debate about the 'wash-up' in the other place, and the Earl of Erroll, as a Crossbencher (not party affiliated), was particularly bothered by the idea that the Commons could undo all their hard work in a heartbeat. He, half-jokingly, said that when he sees "two Front Benches colluding, I usually think that we are in trouble".

With all of Lord Clement-Jones's worries about the wash-up, Lord Davies of Oldham finally cracked and argued in favour of the wash-up process. He said "to the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, he might not like it but the alternative is that every Bill that has not completed all its processes would utterly and totally fall. I am quite sure he would regard that alternative as even more unacceptable than the concept of wash-up". Perhaps, but why didn't the government start the Bill a year earlier, when these laws are long overdue?

Nevertheless, after a whole bunch of other amendments, the Bill was finally passed in the Lords, to be sent to the Commons. We're all very much aware that it didn't get any meaningful scrutiny in the Commons, but having watched every second of debate in the Lords, I'm inclined to agree with the Labour front bench that it's had a satisfactory amount of scrutiny in the Lords alone. However, of course, there is the constitutional principle here, that a Bill without proper scrutiny in both Houses shouldn't become an Act, but that's something we'll all have to live with. We can always go through this dance one more time under the coalition government to get it right. Not ideal, but that's life.

2010-05-28T14:12:00.001+03:00

So, after a productive day's debating, things continued on the final day of Report, on 8 March. There was a little more on Clause 30, then nothing on Clauses 31 to 34.

Clause 35 : Local radio multiplex services: frequency and licensed area. There were a few government amendments (namely 140 to 143), but no debate.

No debate on Clauses 36 and 37, but after Clause 37, there was a bit of bother with Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury's new clause to tackle a procedure that protected advertisers from the ITV monopoly - or, at least, the one that more-or-less existed in 2002 when Granada and Carlton merged to become ITV plc. Apparently, a system called CRR (contract rights renewal) was designed to protect advertisers, but after 8 years, the commercial TV picture has changed somewhat, so ITV are losing out, apparently. I don't really understand the technicalities of this, but she seemed to think it was worth looking into, and so did a lot of other Lords. Lord Fowler explained CRR as relating to "the conditions that were adopted to deal with any adverse market effects resulting from the merger of Granada and Carlton, which formed ITV. However, that was in a different age when ITV was a major player in this area. It still is, but it is not as major as it was then". Thus, advertisers no longer need this protection, and ITV are being hindered by it - apparently.

I suppose one could argue that the decline in quality on ITV is a result of falling ad revenues and such - something that the BBC and, to some extent, Sky, don't have to worry so much about - and a strong ITV contributes to better TV in general. Even big BBC fans like myself don't want BBC & Sky to be the only viable options to turn to. Unsurprisingly, the government didn't think the clause was the best way of getting rid of the system, but that the government were taking the issue "with great seriousness". Lord Davies of Oldham suggested that the proposed new clause only dealt with one issue, when there are many other issues to solve.

Clause 38 : Payment for licences. This had a lot more debate in Committee, so there wasn't so much debate in Report. Lord Clement-Jones had a bit to say, but it was a little technical in nature so I didn't quite understand the specifics. Nobody else jumped into the debate, so we'll leave it there.

Nothing on Clause 39.

Clause 40 : Classification of video games etc. Ah, we've got to protect the kids, haven't we? That's the basic message here. Baroness Howe of Idlicote (the Mary Whitehouse of the Lords) went on about protecting kids from hardcore porn, and Lord Alton of Liverpool unsurprisingly brought up the old 'video nasties' chestnut, given the James Bulger killing prompted him to produce an amendment at that time. He states that, looking at the violent society we live in today (because violence didn't exist in his day, oh no), there is "no doubt that the desensitisation of children and young people is a major factor, and that it has been promoted as a result of the violent culture that we have created in the United Kingdom".

Lord Davies of Oldham won me over in a flash when commenting on Lord Alton's 'video nasty' outburst that "at times he presents as known facts that which other reputable authorities would regard as somewhat contentious. I am not sure that violence among young people in this country is down to television, films and broadcasting. It seems to me that it is likely that, in historical terms, there was a considerable amount of violence among young people in society well in advance of anything being depicted on our screens, either large or small, and therefore we should not draw too ready an issue of cause and effect". Hear fucking hear. Now, I'm all for parents being able to stop their kids from seeing things they don't want them to see, and for the government to help them in that, but let's be clear that the responsibility ultimately lies with the parents, and unless we have state censorship for all - something that I don't think anyone wants - then so it shall remain. Oh, and Amendment 145 was agreed to.

Clause 41 : Designated authority for video games etc. Mary Whitehouse of Idlicote returned on her crusade against porn in this clause, trying to establish clear dividing lines between the authority for video works (BBFC) and the authority for video games (VSC). She was hoping that "if products come on the market that are essentially film-type material but are marketed as games, these would be allocated to the BBFC". I'm still not convinced that hardcore video games - or products that have a little game in them but consist almost entirely of a porn film - are a big problem that is threatening society. I can't actually think of any off-hand, and I happen to know about these things - at least more than Baroness Howe does, I'll bet. Perhaps this is a potential problem in the future, who knows.

Regardless, the amendment still speaks to an important issue, that is: who's in charge? At what point does a video game have to be classified by the BBFC instead of the authority designated to deal with games? I think the government answers one of Baroness Howe's questions, saying that the BBFC is always in charge when there is "non-integral film material contained within a game". So, that solves the 'porn with a little game' problem that Baroness Howe thinks is terribly important. Of course, "we are talking about boxed video games here", so if your kids are downloading porn off the net, there ain't much that these provisions can do.

Speaking of getting things online, Baroness Howe suggested a new clause after Clause 41, to improve filtering software for when kids go online via computers or mobile phones. We all know that everyone wants to stamp out 'illegal' content, such as child porn, but not so much is being done to stop other stuff. Lord Young of Norwood Green emphasised that government campaigns should be more about educating parents rather than forced filtering.

Schedule 1 : Classification of video games etc: supplementary provision. Before a grammatical amendment was agreed to, Lord De Mauley put forward a requirement for consumer advice on video products, not just the certificate. To be honest, most DVDs already put the consumer advice on the box, as Lord Davies of Oldham said himself. I myself think consumer advice - is there any sex, bad language, violence or other stuff in the film - is far more useful than a simple age rating, and I have used content advice (from the IMDB) before showing films to kids before, because you don't want to have a bit of a shock. The government's position was that they don't need legislation because of good practice. The amendment was withdrawn, but I kind of agreed with this one.

Clause 42 : Extension and regulation of licensing of copyright and performers' rights. Here we have the 'orphan works' clause, a very contentious piece of legislation. There was a big debate on this, of course, but most people seemed relatively satisfied with the government's amendments to the original draft. Lord Puttnam went so far as to say the government had done a "remarkable job in finding a way through a very complicated area", and their amendments were "a very good compromise". There had been some discussion on the merits of the Bill asking for either a "reasonable" or "diligent" search for copyright owners before declaring something an orphan work. This was a semantic sticking point, as we don't want companies to do a quick Google and say 'can't find them: it must be orphaned'. In the end, "diligent" was preferred.

Before passing the first amendment, Lord Puttnam wanted clarification that public bodies "would not find the hurdle created by the word "diligent" so high that they were in effect not able to clear material. It would be quite absurd if public money was used to clear material for public purposes and for the hurdle to become so high that it becomes unaffordable". Lord Young said that, yes, that would be the case, so that's alright then.

Lord Clement-Jones, despite insisting that the amendments from the government were very welcome, he was still not satisfied with Clause 42 as a whole, and called for the entire clause to be removed from the Bill. It wasn't going to happen, of course, but he made a long and very detailed plea for it. Lord Howarth of Newport was puzzled that Lord Clement-Jones had "resorted to the nuclear option. This seems to be a strange resort for a Liberal Democrat". Ba-doom, tsch. One point that Lord Clement-Jones made was that metadata in photos and the like can be stripped easily, which would perhaps make the copyright holder unknown and thus an orphan work. However, Lord Young stressed very clearly that "the removal of metadata does not render a work orphan". Lord Clement-Jones seemed to be the one man so opposed to Clause 42, so this obviously didn't go any further, but it will be interesting to see how things go in this regard.

After Clause 42, Lord Lucas popped up again to propose a new clause to tackle copyright holders' insistence that 'fair use' on search engines, for example, isn't fair. He explained it by saying that Google images, for example, shows you "a small thumbnail of a picture so that you can flip through many pages while looking for a picture of Lord Lucas, or whatever catches your fancy - I am sure the Minister would never do such a thing - until you find one which is of the right Lord Lucas or is sufficiently horrible to suit your purposes". Oh, you. Lord Young agreed that this was a situation to resolve, but that this amendment wasn't it.

Schedule 2 : Licensing of copyright and performers' property rights. A bunch of amendments with no debate.

Clauses 43 to 47 and Schedule 3 were ignored.

Clause 48 : Commencement. The final amendment was agreed to.

And there you have it, Report Stage done. All that was left was 3rd Reading, before the Commons rushed through it before the end of Parliament.

2010-05-19T16:48:00.002+03:00

It's been a while since I last posted anything, and frankly, since the election and the Royal Assent of the DEB, it seems a little pointless talking about it. But, I started, so I'll finish. I still think it's useful to look back on, especially if it proves to be as important a piece of legislation as I think it will be.

Clause 15 : Sharing of costs. Baroness Howe of Idlicote had some words to say regarding costs for copyright holders. As before, it was made clear that copyright holders will pay most of the costs, but ISPs will pay some of them, which will inevitably result in consumers paying a higher price for their internet connection. Oh well.

Clause 16 : Interpretation and consequential provision. One amendment for this, defining "subscriber appeal", that's all. It's for that new clause I mentioned before.

Clause 17 : Power to amend copyright provisions. Yes, the dreaded Clause 17 was debated earlier, and since the government lost the division before, they didn't contest it here. Therefore, Clause 17 changed from "Power to amend copyright provisions" into "Preventing access to specified online locations for the prevention of online copyright infringement". Basically, stopping you getting to illegal websites, rather than changing copyright law. Still a bit controversial, but only for illegal downloaders. You have been warned. Does this mark the end of one-click hosting services? I hope not.

Clause 18 : Powers in relation to internet domain registries. A bit of discussion here, but mainly asking about the definition of words in a legal context. Nothing of note.

Clause 19 : Appointment of manager of internet domain registry. The first amendment, 126, was received warmly as it showed that the government were actually listening to concerns expressed in Committee stage. The other amendment was passed without comment, so obviously received well, too.

Clause 20 : Application to court to alter constitution of internet domain registry. Two drafting amendments agreed.

Clause 21 : Functions of C4C in relation to media content. Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury jumped out to say that it would be bad for Channel 4 to make things in-house. As it stands, they commission programmes from 3rd party production companies (if you've ever watched anything on the channel, you may have noticed different companies listed on the end credits). She thought that, as the Bill stood, it allowed C4C to produce things in-house, provided they're not for the main channel. C4C don't just have one channel anymore, of course, so I guess her concern that there needs to be a revision of their remit is correct. In-house production, she said, "goes against its whole ethos".

Other Lords disagreed: they suggested that, since the world has changed so much, and TV ad revenues are dwindling, restricting the channel with the Baroness' amendment would not be a good idea. Lord Davies of Oldham said the company "needs to maintain in-house production capability, even though the great majority of content is commissioned externally". So, just because C4C are allowed to make certain things in-house, that shouldn't change things too much. I'm sure if it ever became a big problem, we could pass another Act, so I think it's safe to leave it there.

Clauses 22 to 25 weren't mentioned, so we'll skip them.

Clause 26 : Report by OFCOM on public teletext service. Just one amendment, with no debate.

Clause 27 wasn't mentioned either, so we'll skip that one too.

Clause 28 : Appointed providers of regional or local news. Baroness Bonham-Carter did well in this clause, as she had five amendments agreed to - well done to the Lib Dems. Lord Puttnam tried to get in with his appeal to stop Fox News-esque programming, saying "megaphone propaganda damages democracy". Several Lords agreed, and Lord Fowler provided his own personal story: he "used to be chairman of the Yorkshire Post. We were called Yorkshire Conservative Newspapers but had to change the name when the Queen came to open the building because it was not regarded as satisfactory. By the time I became chairman, it was called Regional Independent Media and everything was left to the editors, as I think is right and proper". Lord Davies accepted it, since he had "just accepted amendments from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench and I am not sure that my noble friend Lord Puttnam would take too kindly to me being resistant to his". Lord Puttnam is Labour, so you see his little joke there.

In getting her fifth amendment agreed to, Baroness Bonham-Carter jokingly stated that she'd "trumped the noble Lord, Lord Howard, in accepted amendments". Nice one. The Tories went on yet again about their opposition to public subsidy for local news consortia. They went over the same spiel at Committee. Lord Gordon of Strathblane accepted Lord De Mauley's concern over this, but said that he must "reflect on the fact that ITV has more or less said in terms that it cannot continue to provide regional news". What's to be done? If ITV aren't going to do it, it's clearly not that profitable, so public subsidy is pretty much necessary. It's not the best idea ever, but "it is the least bad one", he said. Lord De Mauley won't listen to that, of course.

Lord Puttnam quite rightly made the point that he wasn't in favour of local news being permanently "in the quasi-public sector", but "the idea of getting a new shape, a new player, into the marketplace and then finding a mechanism whereby it can move off into private hands" was a good one, which is what the government was suggesting. Lord Fowler, for the Tories, interestingly supported the government's amendment, against his party's wishes. Although he went on again about how it "takes us back to the 1950s, but it is worse than that because in the 1950s, at least we had strong regional newspapers" and so on, he still thought the government idea was sound.

On seeing this, Lord Davies jokingly, and rhetorically, asked "what is the role of a Minister when friends fall out in the Opposition?" He understood people's concern about "the ogre that can be created. It is that this will be subject to the Orwellian monstrosity of Ofcom control of news: a deep-laid government plot to ensure that there is a monopoly controller who will eye us all from the television set, which will be the only provision we will get. No; that particular ogre will not materialise. Editorial judgment and control will remain precisely where they should be - with the news providers, who will need support in the early stages". And that's enough of that.

No mention of Clause 29.

Clause 30 : Digital switchover. There was the debate about switching FM off, as before, but Lord Davies of Oldham pointed out that "the idea that the Government are about to alienate 20 million car owners by telling them that their radios are defunct, out of date and will not work is somewhat unrealistic". He made it very clear that, although they're aiming to switch to digital by 2015, they have no intention of switching FM off for a long, long time. Meanwhile, Lord Howard of Rising, who'd brought up the discussion, was "delighted to hear some support from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, after the sandbagging that I received from the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter", referring to her "trumping" him in amendments.

I'll finish report stage in the next post. Still working on the last bit.

2010-04-23T14:33:00.001+03:00

Clause 9 : Progress reports. Government Amendment 67 was popular, as it reduced the amount of reports that Ofcom needed to produce, thus reducing wasted money and such. There was more discussion on Lord Lucas's amendment to make sure the government is keeping the industry moving by encouraging legal forms of access to music and the like. After all, this Bill should be about helping the industry move people to legal downloading, not punishing those who don't do it. Lord Young of Norwood Green insisted, as usual, that the amendment wasn't necessary because the clause is fine as it stands.

Clause 10 : Obligations to limit internet access: assessment and preparation. Finally, success for the Tories, as Lord Howard of Rising had an amendment accepted. When it comes to 'technical measures' - limiting or cutting off your internet - the government wants to make sure it's only used with regard to online infringement of copyright. Lord Howard's amendment made this crystal clear on the face of the Bill, so the government was happy to accept it. Another amendment was agreed to from the government, regarding copyright owners also being involved in the actions of this clause, not just service providers.

Clause 11 : Obligations to limit internet access. So, after the 'assessment and preparation' for the technical measures, we get the actual thing. This, as has been mentioned previously, is one of the most controversial parts of the Bill - if you remember my Panorama critique, it was the line they led the program with. Lord Young made it clear that "the initial obligations will have a minimum of 12 months to work" before even thinking about technical measures - so, you won't get your internet cut off tomorrow, they'll spend a year sending out letters to see if they can change people's behaviour, and only if that doesn't achieve much will they consider cutting you off or reducing your speed.

Lord Howard wasn't 100% convinced by the assurances, as he wanted it to be a little clearer by using his amendment, however having an amendment "accepted in the past quarter of an hour is a cause for happiness and I must not complain if the Minister does not accept this amendment, but should regard my glass as half full". Charming. The discussion moved on to one which sounded rather similar to the amendment accepted from Lord Howard, and the Minister said as such, but it was debated anyhow. The problem concerned limiting the powers of these regulations. Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer said that "the internet is seen by many people as being on a par with access to other services such as electricity or water", so we shouldn't be cutting people off so easily as we wouldn't do the same for the other services.

The Earl of Erroll pointed out that "quite a number of internet subscribers have voice-over IP telephones - in other words, internet telephones; and they no longer have a landline, because it saves them a lot of money", and so access is essential in case of emergency. Lord Young dismissed this particular concern saying there "may be such people, but I suggest that they would more than likely possess a mobile telephone. I see the noble Earl nodding. I do not think that we are casting them into the outer darkness of being unable to communicate". As for Baroness Miller's suggestion, the Minister reassured her that using technical measures would be "at the end of a long process", and the government had no intention of "removing people's internet access on a whim".

Clause 12 : Code by OFCOM about obligations to limit internet access. Just a grammatical amendment, nothing more.

Clause 13 : Contents of code about obligations to limit internet access. Amendments 88 to 98 (not including 95) were moved very quickly, and were generally grammatical amendments. Amendment 100 was a monster of an amendment from the government, inserting a new clause entitled 'Subscriber appeals'. It had a few amendments to it from other Lords, including Lord Whitty, who got a bit confused over the grouping of these amendments. He didn't like that the new clause establishes a new appeals body, instead of letting the courts deal with the copyright issue. The government disagrees, naturally. They "do not want to apply technical measures to anyone. We want them to stop infringing copyright. We also do not want to drag people before the courts, which is always a stressful experience for anyone, unless there is a genuine need to do so".

Lord Whitty was still "most disappointed with that response". He wanted convincing that this system could actually work outside the courts, and was "deeply worried about these provisions as they stand". It seems unusual that he was alone about this, really.

Clause 14 : Enforcement of obligations. Three amendments linked to the previous amendment about copyright owners and providers were passed.

2010-04-21T14:50:00.001+03:00

Clause 5 : Obligation to provide infringement lists to copyright owners. Just one amendment here, from the government, which stipulates that subscribers won't suffer a copyright infringement report (CIR) until they've actually reached an infringement 'threshold'. If everyone got a report on them, it'd probably result in a lot of wasted money, as they only really want to target the serious offenders. A good amendment.

After Clause 5, Lord Lucas suggested including consumer advice in the Bill, as the government hopes to educate people in how to stop people hacking their routers, for example. He said that his was, apparently, insecure, despite the fact that he bought it "at PC World, as it was one of the nicest looking ones around and did everything that was required of it". Lord Howard of Rising resisted "asking [the Minister] what a good-looking router looks like". Chortle. Although it's a nice idea, I agree with Lord Young of Norwood Green's insistence that this isn't Ofcom's job, as ISPs and organisations such as Which? are much better at doing this.

Clause 6 : Approval of code about the initial obligations. The questions here were chiefly on the subject of public internet providers, such as web-cafés, "libraries and educational establishments", and how the regulations would affect them. The Earl of Erroll has "a vision of the future where we can roam around the place, connecting freely wherever you are and working from wherever you need to work. If for some reason-such as transport difficulties, heavy snow or a terrorist threat-you cannot get into work, you can work from some other access point that you happen to get to. You may get halfway there and then log in". He said it would be rather sad if the government stopped this brave new world at the whim of copyright holders.

The government's response was that these providers already try to stop stuff like P2P file sharing, and as long as they carry on doing so, everything will be fine. Other than that, government Amendments 38 and 39 were agreed, and Lord Howard of Rising got a bit mixed up.

Clause 7 : Initial obligations code by OFCOM in the absence of an approved code. Lord Clement-Jones was curious about Ofcom being given a bit of time to get a code together, but the government reassured him that it's not that big a deal. They passed their Amendment 47 also.

Clause 8 : Contents of initial obligations code. Amendments 49 and 50 were agreed to immediately. They passed their Amendment 51 too, but Lord Whitty wasn't too happy with it. The idea of an appeals body imposing sanctions on people instead of a court rankles with the Lord, and he was unhappy with the very idea of this. Lord Lucas suggested he take out his frustrations with the latest advice, that being to "stab the upholstery with a felt-tip pen. I do not know how well that would go down here, but there is a lot of good upholstery". I have no idea what he's referring to, but it doesn't surprise me from Lord Lucas.

After agreeing to Amendment 52 in Clause 8, debates continued on 3 March, two days later.

This was the big one: the moment I'd been waiting for since Committee began. Lord Clement-Jones tabled an amendment to Clause 8 which paved the way for killing off the dreaded Clause 17. This amendment, number 54A, was designed primarily to "ensure a proper debate in prime time in this House of the merits of Clause 17 and our proposed substitute for it", as this was only the second amendment debated on that day.

Lord Clement-Jones came out in force with a lengthy speech on why Clause 17 should be removed, and it was clear from Committee that the Lib Dems, Tories and also Crossbenchers (people like the Earl of Erroll and Baroness Howe of Idlicote who are not linked to a party) wanted to remove it. Lord Clement-Jones's speech started by saying that it's "clear that infringement is taking place in both peer-to-peer and non-peer-to-peer environments", referring to "cyberblockers" - I think he means 'cyberlockers', like Rapidshare and Megaupload. The Bill has focused on P2P - or, Bittorrent, in other words, since that's by far the most common - and the 'future-proofing' that the government is trying to get by allowing the Secretary of State to simply change copyright law on a whim is what everyone is opposed to. Rather than future-proofing, Lord Clement-Jones thinks we need "present-proofing" first. A large amount of copyright infringement takes place in non-P2P environments, so why not try to tackle it? File-sharing is "only one part of the problem".

The main thrust of the amendment was to block websites, which Lord Clement-Jones thought would be easier and less risky than allowing changes to copyright law. This could prove controversial still, of course, but probably less controversial than Clause 17 would be. Lord Young of Norwood Green came out fighting - though not too hard as he had "problems with my hip". Lord Clement-Jones had compared this plan to the actions of blocking websites that have child abuse images, but Lord Young dismissed this analogy, given the tiny amount of websites with child abuse images. He said that "as many as 6 million or 7 million people may be infringing copyright online, and probably thousands of sites are involved... we should make sure that if we are going to make analogies, they can stand examination and scrutiny. With due respect, I do not believe that the analogy quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, can stand that scrutiny". Ouch.

The Minister strongly rejected the proposals by Lord Clement-Jones and insisted that the government's proposal was the right one. He said that after taking notice of the concerns expressed in Committee, their new amendment "provides accountability in both Houses, and it gives both Houses the right to reject if they do not believe that a government proposal is appropriate", so it wouldn't be right to replace it with something completely different. The Earl of Erroll agreed with the Minister, but he still wanted to get rid of Clause 17. He understood why Amendment 120A (the proposed replacement for Clause 17) was being proposed, but "this is too late a stage to insert it. This needs to go out to the whole industry for discussion first, so that we can find all the pitfalls. I have described the pitfalls that I spotted in 10 minutes of reading on this Bench. If I can do that, what could the whole industry do?" What, indeed.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer was of the opinion that "such changes to the way that the internet is used in terms of filtering and blocking should not be undertaken without the other place having full opportunity to scrutinise them, which they will not have". Lord Puttnam, who is in favour of Clause 17, argued that, whether or not the 'super-affirmative' procedure advocated in Clause 17 is the best way of getting legislation, "we have to find a better, more effective, more efficient and speedier way of dealing with the kind of problem that the Bill overall is attempting to address". Nevertheless, Lord Clement-Jones tested the opinion of the House in a division, and the result was probably the most interesting thing that's happening in the whole process of the Bill: 165 Contents beat 140 Not-Contents to include this in the Bill, which obviously meant that when it came to removing Clause 17, it would be done without argument. Well, there you have it.

Amendments 55 to 66 (not including 57) were passed quickly from the government, but the damage had been done.

2010-04-17T00:19:00.002+03:00

Before Clause 4, Lord Lucas brought in Amendment 15 to deal with ACS:Law and Davenport Lyons - and Tilly Bailey & Irvine, apparently - who are law firms that... you know what, I'll just let Lord Lucas explain it:

"The game works roughly like this. You find an owner of an obscure bit of copyright that is available on the internet, preferably something pornographic and extremely nasty. You then employ a piece of software whose innards have never been exposed to the public, or tested in a court, to produce allegations that a particular set of IP addresses have made that copyright material available for upload over the internet. You then take tens of thousand of these cases to court and, using a Norwich Pharmacal order, obtain the details of the relevant subscribers from their internet service providers. You then write them a letter, which has basically three elements to it. First, it says: "You have committed this transgression of copyright". Secondly, it says: "If you force us to take you to court, we will pursue you for a very large sum of money". Thirdly, it says: "But we offer you this opportunity to settle for a mere £500 or £800" - or whatever the figure is - "and we will forget all about the perils of court and the vast sums for which you might otherwise be liable, because basically we are very good people, and all that we are seeking to do is to protect our copyright"". I couldn't put it better myself.

We saw about this in Committee, but here is a concrete solution to the problem. Baroness Howe of Idlicote described them as "so-called solicitors", and said that it "has to be dealt with and is disgraceful". Lord Whitty made a good point that the public's acceptance "of the future system proposed in the Bill would be aided if these abuses were cleared out of the existing system".

Lord Howard of Rising made sure he got a word in before Lord Young of Norwood Green made his response. He was more cautious, and hoped that "nothing that is put in the Bill prevents rights holders from using civil proceedings". From the government side, Lord Young said "there is nothing between us on the problem" (a diplomatic way of saying he agrees with everyone, though he won't explicitly use the same kind of language as Baroness Howe). He compared the firms to "rogue wheel-clampers, if I can use that analogy". Lord Lucas sees the connection with the analogy: these law firms practise "an abuse that has some justification in fundamental law. Rogue wheel-clampers are merely enforcing their rights of private property. I suppose that bailiffs are doing an excellent job in retrieving lots of money for the public purse and for creditors". The government insisted that the Solicitors Regulation Authority should take care of this instead of the government (though they've not done much about it so far).

There were a funny couple of gaffes amongst all this: Lord Young (Labour) described Lord Howard (Tory) as "my noble - I nearly said friend - the noble Lord, Lord Howard". For those who don't know, the convention in the Lords is to refer to others in your party as 'my noble friend' and those from other parties as 'the noble Lord'. This happened again later, but I've forgotten who said it and when. Sorry.

Lord Puttnam voiced his displeasure at the entire Bill, given the way it's been debated. He said that the worst part was "how much of the time was spent arguing over and discussing things that could so easily have been dealt with by a small group of peers from all parts of the House. If there is one great lesson to take away, it is that the House should not accept Bills like this without provision for pre-legislative scrutiny". The final Bill that would leave the Lords "is a Bill that none of us is particularly proud of. It will be a spatchcock [rush job] that does part of the work it was intended to do but not all of it. I am absolutely convinced that, within the next two or three years, there will be another Bill before this House which will be created to deal with the deficiencies of the present Bill". In other words, the Bill sucks. Strong words indeed.

Lord Puttnam was talking about an amendment by Lord Whitty that suggested the purpose of the Bill is to encourage legal activity, not simply to punish unlawful activity. This idea had been mentioned by Lord Lucas at Committee. Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer agreed that the government's education process should've got underway a long time ago - indeed, this Bill should've been done a long time ago. Lord Maxton mentioned "a company called 3B Software which offers for a small annual sum of about £30 unlimited access to television stations round the world and to as many films as I want to watch. If I am paying, is it legal? I do not know". He again made the megabytes/megabits mistake, which someone really ought to mention, though I'm sure (or I hope) anyone drafting the Bill will not be confused by it.

The Earl of Erroll tore into proceedings by asking, "What message are we are trying to get out?" He said we might as well just do things the ACS:Law way - since both front benches want to keep that possibility - but take serious offenders to court. Otherwise, the Bill is just "frighten[ing] minor offenders". Since the amendment specifies the whole reason of doing this, the Earl said that it was an essential amendment, and without it, "this Bill, to be honest, will be ridiculed".

Amidst Lord Young's insistence that the Bill is educational, Lord Whitty (also Labour) didn't agree. He said that the "first letter a subscriber gets is, "It appears that an infringement has taken place". That is not education. It may turn out that he will learn something from it, but it is not education. It is a threat. The problem with this approach is that it is a serious threat". He went on later to point out that "if a policeman knocks on my door and says, "It looks as if you've got some dodgy gear in your shed", I consider that is an implication of guilt". For all the sweetness and light that the government is projecting, he has a point - and he's on the same bloody side.

Clause 4 : Obligation to notify subscribers of reported infringements. Several amendments were agreed to from the government, Amendments 19 to 21, 23 to 25, 27 and 29 specifically, all relating to the issuing of copyright infringement reports (CIRs). There were a couple of other amendments tabled, one of which suggested action to take if there were "financial gain" to be had from the copyright infringement. Lord Young felt this was unnecessary as it's "easier and simpler when there is money involved since, if somebody is making money from copyright infringement, it becomes a criminal offence" - so the 'softly, softly' approach in the Bill isn't necessary.

2010-04-15T17:46:00.000+03:00

So after the epic journey of the Committee Stage, the Digital Economy Bill moved into Report Stage on 1 March. This is pretty much the same, but generally much shorter, since most of the probing and amending has already been done, but any remaining issues can be dealt with. Another difference I've noticed: clauses don't have to be agreed to - unlike in Committee - only amendments, so I won't write every clause getting passed this time.

Clause 1 : General Duties of OFCOM. The Tories were still not happy at all with Clause 1, and particularly the point making Ofcom "promote appropriate levels of investment in electronic communications networks". The Tories 'cleared the bar' and put their amendment to remove that bit to a vote. They lost, of course, but the government then put forth their own amendment removing the words "appropriate levels of". That made the Tories a bit happier.

In debating this point, Lord Mitchell popped up with this odd contribution: "I learnt something new this weekend. I came across a new word: exabyte. I have never heard that before. An exabyte is a billion gigabytes, or a billion billion bytes - it is a pretty big number. In 2005, mankind created 150 exabytes; in 2010, 1,200 were created. So, over five years the total amount of data created on earth went up by a factor of 10, and I suspect the rate of increase is going to continue on an exponential basis. If we were standing here in two or three years perhaps we would need another word for a thousand exabytes. I do not know whether there is such a word; maybe there is". Mercy me. Oh, and there is a word: zettabyte.

A few amendments from the government were accepted, and Baroness Buscombe aired a concern regarding impartiality on newspaper websites (though she's the chair of the useless PCC, so I'm not sure if it matters), before the Earl of Erroll came out with a wonderful technical piece about BT.

"Let us say that you have got a fault on a line which has not been unbundled: in other words, it is still in BT's ownership. You are paying BT Retail for the line, and you are paying an ISP to provide you with broadband over that line. It gets a service from BT Wholesale, which runs what is called the backhaul from the exchange onto the main internet. Openreach is responsible for maintaining and fixing any faults on the line. There are four service entities involved, and there may be more. There are Chinese walls between these, and there is a lot of buck-passing. Let us say that your broadband is not working. You are meant to ring up your ISP, and tell it so. It is then allowed to test the line, and it may well use BT Retail stuff to do that, or it may be Openreach. Do not hold me to the exact detail of who owns which bit. BT Retail's universal service obligation only covers voice over copper, not the maintenance of broadband connections. So it will probably pass that test, but it is still not adequate for broadband, so it comes back and reports that the line is not faulty, but you know, empirically, that it is.

"What do you do next? This is a challenge, because you cannot talk to BT Wholesale. The other thing that could be happening is that either BT Wholesale, or your ISP, could be throttling back your internet connection and reducing the speed on it because it has a lot of traffic, or they could be doing what they call traffic shaping, which is allowing only certain types of traffic through at full speed. This is done through a digital line management unit, which is connected to your digital subscriber line access management unit in the exchange. These are technical things, but they will not tell you if they are doing them. There is no way of finding out, so you are stuck. I have discovered, because my line fell to under half its speed over a four-year period, that, when this sort of thing happens, if you can pester people persistently over a six-month period, and you know something about it, and eventually your line fails completely, there are some excellent engineers at Openreach who can and will come and sort it out. My line is now nearly treble the speed it was a couple of months ago, so they can do it. There is not a real problem with the lines. The trouble is the underinvestment".

He makes a good case. Sadly, the government thought that consumers were covered fine. The Earl of Erroll still disagreed. Although "you can complain to Otelo or CISAS about BT Retail or your ISP, who are your communication service providers, but the challenge is that you cannot talk to the very people who are responsible for doing something about it, who are Openreach or BT Wholesale". An outsider is needed to get this working properly, and "Ofcom is the only organisation that can do this".

Clause 2 : OFCOM reports on infrastructure, internet domain names etc. There was a lot of confusion here. After Lord Howard of Rising introduced an amendment, Lord Young of Norwood Green immediately started on it. This caused Lord Clement-Jones to intervene and ask if he's responding to the amendment, or speaking about a new amendment. On hearing that he planned both, Lord Clement-Jones reminded the House that "it is not possible on Report for other speakers to take part in the debate on an amendment after the Minister has responded". Well, there's another technical point that I (and I assume others) didn't know. So, Lord Clement-Jones gave his response, Lord Howard came up to withdraw, and was told that Lord Young hadn't actually responded. Eventually, Lord Howard meekly asked "I hope I am allowed to speak now. This nice piece of paper says a Member can speak when the Minister speaks early in order to assist the House in debate - that is obviously what he was doing". All's well that ends well.

Lord Whitty came out to suggest an amendment to encourage helping people in rural areas with their communications networks (specifically internet). It was very popular: Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer hoped the government could "rural-proof" the Bill, and said that with banks and post offices closing, the internet is increasingly vital; the Earl of Erroll suggested "trying strategically to repopulate the Highlands" by improving infrastructure there; Lord Puttnam, speaking about his current home of Ireland, said that there, "counterintuitively, it was more important to have good, high-speed broadband access in rural areas than in city centres".

Did the government take it? Of course not: the clause is good enough already. Lord Whitty was disappointed, and I'm sure others were, too.

Baroness Young of Old Scone popped up with her one and only appearance to talk at length about climate change. The subject was already covered by the Climate Change Bill, but communications networks were clearly not mentioned, which is why they've been brought up here. The government assured the Baroness that they were thinking about this, but not just with climate change - there are many dangers to worry about with communications networks, and climate change is but one. She was "pleased that the Minister is saying that the triennial reports on resilience that Ofcom must provide will include the future long-term impacts of climate change, not just the immediate short-term definition of what an emergency is", and I suppose climate change is not the same as preparing for earthquakes or what have you.

Clause 3 : OFCOM reports on media content wasn't even mentioned. Blimey.

2010-04-14T15:44:00.001+03:00

Tenth section, "Copyright and performers’ property rights: licensing and penalties", Clauses 42 and 43 here.

Clause 42 : Extension and regulation of licensing of copyright and performers' rights. Big debate. Orphan works is a very contentious topic, especially in the case of photographs. What's an orphan work? It's a work (photograph, film, video, book, whatever) that doesn't have an author, because nobody can figure out who made it. Therefore, it's an 'orphan'. Why is this an issue? Because works that have no known author, but are not designated as 'orphans', cannot be released to the public because of current copyright laws. The basic statistics, provided by Lord Howarth of Newport, are staggering: "over 40 per cent of [the British Library's] archive collections may be orphan works" and a study found that "up to 50 per cent of works in large archives were orphan works and, indeed, that in excess of 50 million orphan works were held in somewhat more than 500 organisations which were surveyed". All of this valuable material is completely off-limits to the public, ridiculously, because of current copyright law.

Lord Howarth also gave the example of "a series of unpublished interviews held in the 1960s and 1970s at St-Mary-le-Bow church in the City of London, 302 hours were recorded as being spent by British Library staff and their paid contractors in looking for 259 rights holders". How many did they find? Fourteen. Given that the original project wasn't done for a commercial purpose, wasting so much time on "fruitless searches for rights holders is really not a sensible or, I would suggest, a proper use of public resources" - indeed, "much of the cultural sector is agreed on wanting an exception in copyright law for orphan works", so something clearly needs to be done. The Tories, although pleased with the principle, were not convinced with the drafting of the clause. Lord Howard of Rising said that the "desire to use genuine orphan works must not lead to any weakening of legitimate copyrights". The problem lies in determining what is and isn't orphaned, via a search. How detailed the search must be is unclear, however, and this could cause problems.

Lord Young of Norwood Green tried to relax the Tories by insisting that the bodies searching for rights holders must be "authorised and regulated and will have to carry out a diligent search". He later gave us another amazing statistic: apparently, "the BBC has roughly 1 million hours of [orphaned] programming". My word. People were still worried that the clause could be exploited - people such as "freelance photographers" and "the Royal Photographic Society". I suppose it's easy to pretend you don't know who took a picture and use it for free. Lord Clement-Jones was convinced that we would have "what is traditionally called the wash-up at the other end" (meaning the Commons), and boy was he right.

The government moved a large group of amendments, introduced by Lord Young in typical fashion: "The amendments require that the first regulations made under this power-that is, the creation of the first orphan works regulations, the first extended collective licensing regulations and the first exercise of the powers to introduce codes of practice and enforcement provisions for these codes and for the regulation of licensing of orphan works and extended licensing-are subject to the affirmative procedure. That was a long sentence and will need careful reading in Hansard". There was plenty of discussion about licensing and the like. The main gist is this: we want to let these orphaned works be made public, but we don't want legitimate copyright holders to have their work released for free if they don't want it to (especially freelance photographers and the like). Much of the debate was very technical, but it all came back to that basic point. Lord Clement-Jones even had an amendment (283) agreed to.

Lord Clement-Jones was still not 100% convinced, of course, and after Lord Young defined 'orphan works' as "works protected by copyright but for which the copyright owner cannot be identified or traced even after a diligent search", which he called a "succinct definition", Lord Clement-Jones wanted to know if that definition is in the Bill, and if now, should it be? It looks like we'll see at Report.

Clause 42 passed - Amendment 265A, 268A, 277A, 282AZA, 282ZE, 283, 283ZA, 283B, 283C, 284ZA, 284B agreed

After Clause 42, Lord Lucas, in an effort to save time in light of the late hour (and after seven days of Committee), decided that, "unless the Committee objects, I will telescope proceedings by speaking also to all my remaining amendments. I hear no objections: this is good". His first point was 'format shifting': in other words, when you buy a CD, you rip it to MP3 to stick it on your media player of choice. This is a fuzzy area of copyright, but Lord Lucas thinks it should be fine, since everyone does it anyway. Lord Davies of Oldham said it was too complicated to just get a UK solution, so not now.

Schedule 2 : Licensing of copyright and performers' property rights. A big chunk of amendments from the government, but no debate.

Schedule 2 passed - Amendments 299A to 299L agreed

Clause 43 : Increase of penalties relating to infringing articles or illicit recordings had no amendments tabled.

Clause 43 passed - no amendments

Eleventh section, "Public lending right", just Clause 44.

Clause 44 : Public lending right. The final amendment was Amendment 300, a simple probing amendment from Lord Clement-Jones - or, in his words, "it is with enormous pleasure that I rise at 10 minutes before 11 pm to move this final probing amendment in Committee". Lord Young agreed: "finally, unlike in Arthurian legend, we have reached our version of the holy grail - the final amendment". Lord Clement-Jones hoped that "the holy grail we are talking about is not the Monty Python version. That is all I can say at the end of seven days in Committee". If you remember the ending from the Monty Python film, you can see why.

Clause 44 passed - no amendments

Now the twelfth and final section, "General". Clauses 45 to 49. Nothing to see here.

Clause 45 : Power to make consequential provision etc, Clause 46 : Repeals, Schedule 3 : Repeals, Clause 47 : Extent, Clause 48 : Commencement and Clause 49 : Short title had no debate at all, so the final section of the Bill was cleared up almost instantly.

Clauses 45 to 49 & Schedule 3 passed - no amendments

And, that's it for Committee Stage, at last. Phew. It's been a real slog, I must say, but the hard part of this Bill is over with now. We have Report Stage next, which is much shorter than this, I can assure you. I'd better get on with it, though: the Bill's already become an Act, thanks to the upcoming election. Still think it's worth chronicling the debates, though.

2010-04-13T13:37:00.000+03:00

The sections get a bit small now, so I'll just tell you when they appear. This next one is the seventh section, entitled "Regulation of television and radio services". It had only Clause 37, a tiny clause.

Clause 37 : Application of regulatory regimes to broadcasters. It's a tiny clause, and had no amendments (and I doubt it ever will).

Clause 37 passed - no amendments

Another section, the eighth, entitled "Access to electromagnetic spectrum". Clause 38 and 39 were in this one.

Clause 38 : Payment for licences. Lord Clement-Jones had a lot of concern about competition between mobile phone operators. He was worried about how the spectrum would be divvied up between all parties, including emergency services and the like. He wasn't very satisfied with Lord Young of Norwood Green's responses, but he was the only one raising any objections, so the debate didn't continue for long.

Clause 38 passed - no amendments

Clause 39 : Enforcement of licence terms etc. There was one amendment from the government, which corrects a mistake in the Bill regarding financial penalties. Obviously no argument there.

Clause 39 passed - Amendment 242 agreed

After the last clause, there was a confusing situation where Lord Lucas tabled an amendment to add a new clause, but Lord Clement-Jones tabled an amendment to amend his amendment. Very odd. It was related to making sure that there was spectrum left over for the European emergency services, which the government understands and may return to.

Ninth section, "Video recordings" (which is also related to video games). Clauses 40 and 41.

Clause 40 : Classification of video games etc. The first amendment dealt with being more specific about what shouldn't be allowed in an 'exempted' work. For those who don't know, you have to submit a video to the BBFC to get an age rating, but if the general theme of the video is music, sport or religion, you don't have to submit it at all - it's exempt. This was started with the Video Recordings Act 1984 (which we're not going to get into here) and times have, obviously, changed. UFC is a sport which can be pretty damn violent, and more and more music artists are being allowed by their record company to do more and more risqué things. So, there is a need to update this for the 21st century.

There was actually a Bill introduced to do just this, the Video Recordings (Exemption From Classification) Bill, which was one of the Bills left on the scrapheap when the election was called, so it's dealt with in this enormous Bill. Amendment 246 also included a mention of "racist, homophobic or other discriminatory language", which Lord Monson (in his only contribution to the entire Bill) took issue with. He insisted that the word 'homophobia' "does not mean a dislike of homosexuals. If it means anything at all, it means an aversion to one's own kind". He accepts that it is in common usage, but disagrees that it should be in an Act of Parliament. Lord Addington (stepping in for Lord Clement-Jones) thought this was a rather silly comment, since if you start going back to the original Greek for meanings of words, "that way madness lies".

Nevertheless, everyone seemed to agree with the principle, though the Lord Bishop of Manchester warned that the prohibition of discriminatory language could affect comedy performances, and also religious sermons where, for example, "theological views that were critical of other religions were expressed". Lord Davies of Oldham assured Lord De Mauley (who tabled the amendment) that the government are thinking about it.

Clause 40 passed - no amendments

Clause 41 : Designated authority for video games etc. Lord De Mauley returned, asking how the video games authority can be sure that a video game should be given to the BBFC if it should receive an R18 rating - that is, if it's pornographic. It's not explicitly mentioned in the Bill that the BBFC should be in charge of porn, not video games regulators. I wasn't aware that hard-core video games was a big problem at the moment (I'd like someone to show me more than five, not including the wacky Japanese stuff that would never be released in the UK anyway). The government insisted that everything would be okay, and the right body would be judging the right material.

Lord Howard of Rising pointed out with his amendment that there is a disparity between the BBFC ratings and PEGI (Pan-European Games Information) ratings, so a "game based on a film that was classified as a 15 by the BBFC could be turned into a work with a minor amount of interactivity, which would suddenly move it to a 16 under games classification". The chief point he was making, however, was concerning 'hybrid' products - that is, media which has interactive and linear content. Who rates the product? Baroness Howe of Idlicote chipped in with an example that we could have a situation where "a video game contains a series of films and yet the disc has a PEGI classification, which, according to the Bill, could bear no relation to the BBFC classification". Clearly this idea of hybrid products produces a very confusing situation. If the BBFC governed all types of video works it would be much simpler, but what can you do. Clearly we don't want a situation where we have "a product that is primarily linear being repackaged as a game to avoid robust BBFC classification".

You may remember from Second Reading that I told you the Lord Bishop of Manchester complained about the use of Manchester Cathedral in 'Resistance: Fall of Man'. Well, he brought it up again: "a games manufacturer created visual footage of the inside of Manchester Cathedral, without permission, as the setting for a very violent fantasy fighting scene, including all sorts of nasty creatures, none of which I recognised as regular worshippers," - this got a big laugh, ho ho ho - "using futuristic weapons. The episode showed me how much we have moved on from the days of pixelated Pac-Men wobbling across the screen". I'm pretty sure it wasn't video footage, but a level in the game that you could run around, so not quite relevant to this amendment. Never mind.

Lord Davies said that they wanted the VSC to become "a clear authority for games", like the BBFC is for video works. The government doesn't want the BBFC to be in charge of everything.

Clause 41 passed - no amendments

After Clause 41, there was an interesting debate on a new clause concerned with protecting kids online. She said that the "incongruity between what happens online and what happens offline makes a mockery of our law and creates a dangerous division between the real and the virtual world which we really should not continue to tolerate". She mentioned that Quake Live is based on an offline game (presumably Quake III Arena) which received an 18 certificate. So, she thinks that being able to log on to Quake Live and just play isn't right, given that it's for over 18s. Worryingly, she said that the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society claims "pornography has negative effects on individuals and communities. This is something which we all know but which we need to bear in mind when framing new legislation". Wait, "something which we all know"? What?

Regardless of the details, she's right that there is an incongruity between the real and virtual worlds when it comes to age restriction, but what can be done? Lord Mackay of Clashfern brought out statistics from Dr Tanya Byron, such as "63 per cent of children had lied to their parents about their online behaviour", "44 per cent boasted that they could hide unsuitable internet activity from their parents" and "53 per cent had deleted their browser history". Okay, so kids are liars, true, but that hasn't changed since the dawn of time. Baroness Buscombe highlighted the age divide with her kids "accessing all kinds of stuff on the screen without my knowledge and without my understanding". To be fair, home computers have been popular in Britain since around 1982, so anyone who was about 10-12 years old then (in other words, born in 1970) should be quite comfortable with computers, and those people will keep getting older and older. Of course, the Lords are all over 40 (as far as I know), so being comfortable with computers is the exception here (the Earl of Erroll is the only one who clearly knows his apples).

All this talk of protecting the kids is fine, but can it work? Lord Howard isn't sure: "Listening to the statistics... makes one wonder, laudable though the intentions behind these amendments may be, how they can possibly be made to be effective". Lord Davies insists that they can do something, though. He mentioned the amusing-sounding Click Clever, Click Safe campaign, with the 'Green Cross Code'-style slogan, "Zip It, Block It, Flag It". Whether this will help parents to protect their kids I don't know. As for selling stuff to under-age people online, the government's position is clear: "what is illegal offline is also illegal online. There is no distinction between the two".

Schedule 1 : Classification of video games etc: supplementary provision. Lord Howard was concerned with charging a fee for different formats of the same game. If a game is released on PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii, it gets three separate rating fees. PEGI apparently does this already - "and very lucrative it must be, with so many different ways of playing video games" - but he asked if this is really the right thing to do. The BBFC doesn't do it, so why should anyone else? Well, Lord Davies made the point that "a change in format can lead to a different perception and impact of the game" - and I guess there's a big difference between releasing a film on Blu-Ray and DVD, and releasing a game on PSP and PS3. He also made the point that, as it is, "publishers will not be able to take several already classified works, cut them and repackage them in a new way and then seek to rely on the previous classification certificate for the work in question". Lord Howard bowed to Lord Davies' "much greater knowledge of video games than mine. I do not know when he finds time to play them".

Schedule 1 passed - no amendments

2010-04-07T14:05:00.002+03:00

This is just a quick update to tell everyone that, while I'm still working through the final part of Lords Committee Stage on the Digital Economy Bill, the announcement of the general election for 6 May has given the DEB a kick up the arse, and they plan to go through all the stages for it in the Commons today.

Yes, this thing that took several months in the Lords is being rushed through like crazy in the Commons to get it done before Parliament is dissolved. I half expected this to happen, but it's a real shame that they had to start this Bill so late. If they'd started it a year earlier, they'd have had an entire Parliamentary session to do it. Instead, the carefully thought-through process done by the Lords is going to be practically ignored by the Commons and the Bill will become an Act before I can finish coverage of it. Such a shame, after spending so many hours covering it.

At least this blog remains as a record of what has been discussed for you to look at for the future. I'll still finish up my coverage of the Lords' debates on the Bill as soon as I can.

2010-04-05T17:50:00.001+03:00

Enough about TV, it's radio's turn. This is the sixth section of the Bill, entitled "Independent radio services".

Clause 30 : Digital switchover. The digital switchover of radio is clearly an important issue, because the majority of people still use analogue radios, for a number of reasons. Also, the digital TV switchover is far easier, as you just need a new box to stick under your current set and you're away, whereas radios clearly don't work like that. Thus, there will be a shedload of FM radios going on the scrapheap, and the Tories "remain unconvinced that the Government's plans to switchover in 2015 are realistic". Indeed, the government made it clear that the 2015 date suggested was "a target that we have set, not a precise date". So, don't worry, basically.

In all fairness, there is a good argument to be had to not turn off FM radio at all. It has uses besides your favourite music mix, such as radios for emergency services and the like. I'm sure that, eventually, we'll have to do away with FM, but I really don't think it's worth thinking about it until it's well and truly dead. As it stands, its use is alive and well, unlike with analogue TV. Anyway, I'm blabbing, instead of telling you what everyone said. Lord Young of Norwood Green insisted that the government had no intention to turn off FM and switch to DAB until the vast majority of people used DAB. Lord Clement-Jones wasn't thoroughly convinced, as he made it clear that "ultra-local radio" covered such small areas that FM would continue to be sensible for them, but DAB would make it more difficult for them.

The point of ultra-local radio was also brought up by the Lord Bishop of Manchester, who pointed out that moving to DAB could widen the range of these stations, having the knock-on effect of receiving phone-ins from people beyond the local area and, more importantly, putting off local advertisers who don't want to pay higher ad costs for such a wide range. He used the BBC's failed attempt to turn off Radio 4's LW service, which prompted "purposeful if well-mannered resistance, as one might expect from Radio 4 listeners. In fact, I am told that the sight of 200 protestors [sic] in tweed and twinsets marching down Upper Regent Street was enough to help the BBC to see the error of its ways". Lord Young tried his best to allay concerns, included the mention of a proposed system to select stations by name rather than by band, thus allowing FM and DAB to run side-by-side. Promising, indeed.

Lord Low of Dalston made his first appearance, and got off to a shaky start, though when I saw the video (I usually just listen to the debates rather than watch them) I realised why - he's blind. Well, he's the right man to comment on the problems faced by blind people with digital switchover. According to him, "more than 91 per cent regularly [listen] to the radio and more than 80 per cent [own] a radio set themselves", quite amazing statistics, though why pay for a TV licence if you can't see the damn thing? Thus, blind people rely on radio for all their news, sport and entertainment needs. The problem is in the design: old radios "use buttons and tactile dials for tuning. New DAB radios rely on touch screens or inset buttons that can pose real difficulties for visually impaired users". He wants the government to insist on manufacturers designing radios with this in mind. He also pointed out that with the screen of the radio providing information about the shows, presenters will be less inclined to give this info out. All in all, a good set of points.

Lord Young did make it clear that iVOX technology makes things a lot easier for blind people (I assume a robot voice tells you the information on the screen for you, which is a good idea). Lord Low knows about these things, but reminded Lord Young that the manufacturers might not consider some of them commercially viable, as has apparently happened in the past. He made some very important points (that I'm sure many people didn't even realise before), so I hope to hear more of this.

Clause 30 passed - no amendments

The debates came together for the final day of Committee on the 8th February.

Clause 31 : Renewal of national radio licences. This had no amendments, but Lord Clement-Jones argued that it should not be in the Bill - and, surprisingly, nobody agreed with him. Lord Howard of Rising said that the clause "enables the move to switchover at a later date, and it does not set in stone when the switchover will take place or indeed that it must happen", which he thought was very useful. The Lord Bishop of Manchester also supported the clause, saying that "not one digital radio station has yet posted a profit", so blocking an attempt to renew analogue radio wouldn't be a good idea. Lord Eatwell made his first appearance in the chamber as part of the consumer panel of Classic FM, and claimed that if the clause was removed, "the future of Classic FM will be severely compromised because it is a requirement of existing law that the analogue licences are auctioned" and that Classic FM has a 'non-speech' licence, which it might not get if and when it has to go digital.

Lord Clement-Jones was still not convinced, however. He insisted that they've missed the point, which is: "What is it about these extensions that will make those radio stations invest more when they migrate to digital? That is what it is all about".

Clause 31 passed - no amendments

Clause 32 : Renewal and variation of local radio licences, Clause 33 : Variation of licence period following renewal and Clause 34 : Content and character of local sound broadcasting services had no amendments, and thus, no debate.

Clause 32, 33, 34 passed - no amendments

Clause 35 : Local radio multiplex services: frequency and licensed area. Baroness Howe of Idlicote had a point to make regarding Northern Ireland not receiving commercial radio stations for some reason involving the Republic of Ireland. Lord Young insisted that the government sympathise with her concerns, but that the amendment she proposed wouldn't do the trick, so they'll go away and think about it.

Clause 35 passed - no amendments

Clause 36 : Renewal of radio multiplex licences. There was a very brief (and somewhat confusing) question on the clause, and neither I nor Lord Clement-Jones fully understood the government's response as to why the clause is necessary. Oh well.

Clause 36 passed - no amendments

2010-04-03T23:34:00.000+03:00

After the section regarding Channel 4, we move onto the fifth section, entitled "Independent television services". So, that's ITV, then, amongst others.

Clause 23 : Determination of Channel 3 licence areas, Clause 24 : Initial expiry date for Channel 3 and 5 and public teletext licences and Clause 25 : Initial expiry date: consequential provision were not debated at all, as there were no amendments, so they were passed in an instant. Clearly they must've been a bit boring.

Clauses 23, 24, 25 passed - no amendments

Clause 26 : Report by OFCOM on public teletext service. Lord Howard of Rising just had a quick query regarding subtitles provided via teletext - he was concerned that turning off analogue teletext would also turn off the ability to get subtitles. Lord Young of Norwood Green made it very clear that "because subtitles are provided on the same platform as teletext on analogue, the public may assume that the existence of analogue subtitles relies on the continuing provision of teletext", but that the subtitles are provided by the channels themselves, not the teletext provider. So, even if there is no teletext, the channels must still provide subtitles. So, that answers that question, then.

Clause 26 passed - no amendments

Clause 27 : Power to remove OFCOM’s duty to secure provision of public teletext service was also not discussed at all. Jesus, we're rattling through this section. The government must've got something right, at last.

Clause 27 passed - no amendments

Clause 28 : Appointed providers of regional or local news. Well, this was where the big debate came. The first debate came from the fact that money not used from the BBC's licence fee would be used to fund the digital switchover, and money not used from that would be used to fund the new local news consortia. The Tories don't like the idea of public subsidy for any kind of news, partly because they think that it will affect impartiality, and partly because the news consortia should be able to stand on their own two feet, rather than being able to defeat rivals thanks to a government hand-out. My personal view on this is that local news needs this subsidy because the traditional profit-driven model isn't working now. Come to think of it, why should there be any local news if there is clearly no market for it?

Nevertheless, Lord Davies of Oldham reassured the Tories that there would be no "top-slicing" of the licence fee, first and foremost, though he's not sure exactly where the money will come from. He picked up on Lord Howard of Rising's suggestion that "we might be inhibiting radical new news concepts. I have an awful feeling that by radical we mean a British version of Fox". (Lord Howard came back with "I must say that [Lord Davies] loves to chase that fox"). On the subject of Fox, he made clear that the government's position is that "the independence of news broadcasters should be maintained, and public resources have a role to play in that". Having seen ITV and Sky's news output, I think there is no doubt in that for me.

Lord Lucas tabled an amendment which was accepted by the government. It was to prevent someone disqualified in the Broadcasting Act 1990 cannot be appointed a news provider under this clause. The government agreed with this, of course.

There was a bit of a probe regarding some ambiguity around Ofcom specifying the "form" and "character" of news content. Lord Howard's reason for concern was that "allowing the regulator to set the character and form of any news that the appointed person produces sounds rather Orwellian. Are we to be treated to Ofcom's version of events? Will the character of such news be slanted to look favourably on regulators, governments or anything else that the appointed person cares to think about?" Lord Davies agreed that Lord Howard's suggestion was "something sounding like "Ofcom news" - if ever I heard of something out of George Orwell, that would be it. But that is not our intention". He made it clear that "Ofcom is not to be involved in editorial decisions", and such a thing would not be allowed to happen.

Lord Puttnam and Lord Bragg came out in support of impartiality in news. Lord Puttnam quoted James Murdoch (son of Rupert), and Lord Bragg quoted a few other people. The general tone of their combined speech was that plurality of news output shouldn't occur at the expense of impartiality. Fox News was brought up again, and the suggestion that it is the most trusted name in American news is extremely worrying, and something that the UK wants to stay away from as much as possible. Lord Davies broadly agreed, remarking that "we all spend a great deal of time berating the weaknesses that are identified from time to time in our democratic practices... it is necessary to step back and recognise those things that we do well that are important in sustaining our democratic traditions". It seems to be agreed that TV news' impartiality must be maintained since "newspapers spend an awful lot of their time on comment", so they're pretty much a lost cause. If there is a suggestion that "television news is considered to be the most trusted of news sources by audiences, there is little doubt that it is thanks to the impartiality rule, which is why the Government are eager that that should continue".

Lord Howard once again complained about how public money (aimed at local TV news) could be used to fund newspapers, as that would be unfair to local rivals. Lord Davies reminded the House that since they're using public subsidy to support local news in the first place, then "the issue is not the plurality of newspapers but whether there is one there at all". He insisted that Lord Howard's amendment would limit the funding to television, which would be a step backwards as times change. Lord Howard, again, insisted that his question wasn't answered properly, but this time I think it was: the government's position is that funding will go to local news consortia, whether it includes newspapers, television or whatever. Limiting it to just TV would not help. Lord Howard was still not happy, but never mind.

Clause 28 passed - Amendment 233ZF agreed

Clause 29 : Broadcasting of programmes in Gaelic was a tiny clause which just removed a few bits from the Broadcasting Act 1990 relating to showing Gaelic language programmes in Scotland. Obviously, not a big debate, then.

Clause 29 passed - no amendments

2010-04-02T20:07:00.001+03:00

We're now onto the fourth part of the Bill, simply titled "Channel Four Television Corporation". Clauses 21 and 22 were to update Channel 4's remit.

Clause 21 : Functions of C4C in relation to media content. There was plenty to talk about when it came to the issue of Channel 4, which is, like the BBC, a public service broadcaster but, unlike the BBC, is commercially funded, not by the taxpayer. Lord Howard of Rising was worried that the new remit might downgrade the quality of C4C's output, because they're moving into areas beyond their single terrestrial channel. Lord Puttnam, deputy chairman of Channel 4, assured everyone that the clause is fine as it is with regards to C4C's output, giving the moving of educational output online as an example.

Lord Howard raised another question which, puzzlingly, didn't get a satisfactory answer. It may be normal for politicians to not answer questions directly in interviews, but this was very unusual to see it in the Lords. The question was very simple: the Bill, as drafted, says C4C must participate in "distribution [of films] by means of electronic communications networks". Lord Howard simply wanted to know if this meant it was "compulsory for Channel 4 to invest in streaming films over the internet", rather than being just an option. He was worried that they would be forced to stream other people's films over the internet, which might be bad for their budget. Lord Davies of Oldham replied that the section in question merely ensures that C4C "includes in its services films that reflect UK culture". He pointed to the "sheer weight of the economic, financial and, to a degree, cultural domination of the American industries. If I were addressing a French audience about the necessity of advancing French interests with regard to films, I would have nothing but universal applause".

Lord Howard (and myself) was not convinced by this. Lord Davies had made a nice reassurance, but it didn't answer the question: do they have to stream films online? He probed again. Lord Davies still repeated the same answer. Lord Howard became a little frustrated, and suggested he read Hansard afterwards. A very odd exchange. Perhaps Lord Howard should've been more direct? The Lords are often too wishy-washy in their questions, so they get wishy-washy answers.

Surprisingly, we had an amendment agreed to, and not from the government. Baroness Howe of Idlicote, while pronouncing 'genres' in an unusual way (I think she's forgetting it's an English word now), she suggested an amendment to ensure that C4C's output remains international in flavour, when it comes to things like Channel 4 News "widening the international news agenda". The BBC's charter apparently has the explicit aim to "bring the world to the UK", so she wanted the same from C4C. The government were happy with that, C4C were happy with it, so it passed.

Clause 21 passed - Amendment 231A agreed

Clause 22 : Monitoring and enforcing C4C’s media content duties. This clause wasn't actually debated, but after Clause 21, Lord De Mauley really wanted a new clause to limit the regulation of C4C by making them produce a report, instead of "yet another inexorable layer of bureaucracy" imposed by Clause 22. Nobody else seemed to agree with him and his party, but he tested the opinion of the Committee anyway, and lost by 143 to 65. The Tories' hopes dashed again.

Clause 22 passed - no amendments

2010-04-01T12:11:00.000+03:00

We now move onto the third part of the Bill, entitled "Powers in relation to internet domain registries". There were three clauses in this section, 18 to 20.

Clause 18 : Powers in relation to internet domain registries. Quite a bit of discussion on this one, and lots of amendments agreed to, all of which came from the government. The first amendment was connected with domain names, specifically giving the Secretary of State powers to stop the misuse of them, but only over ones that appear to be connected to the UK, such as .uk and .gb, but also potential future ones, "such as ".london", or even ".britfishshops". I am sure noble Lords will well appreciate that the Government will certainly be concerned about any phishing activities, if you will pardon the pun, associated with this domain. I see that joke went down really well. You can't win them all, as someone once said". His attempt at a joke wasn't entirely lost, however, as the Earl of Erroll pointed out that there was some merit in what he said: "Would "sh" appear twice in the middle, or not? There is a phishing opportunity there".

Interesting amendment from the government: they removed lines 37 to 39 from page 19, which gives the definition of "internet domain" as "an internet domain indicated by the last element of an internet domain name or by that element together with one or more of the preceding elements of the name". This is obviously related to the flurry of amendments which make the type of domain names affected by the legislation much more specific. That definition was replaced by a much more in-depth one in Amendment 225B.

Clause 18 passed - Amendment 214A, 215A, 221A, 221B, 223A, 223B, 223C, 225A, 225B agreed

Discussion resumed on the 3rd February.

Clause 19 : Appointment of manager of internet domain registry. Things got off to an interesting start as Lord Howard of Rising tested the opinion of the Committee on his Amendment 226A. The amendment was designed to "limit the authority of the appointed manager to deal with the rectification of a specific problem or problems", but both Lord Young of Norwood Green and Lord Clement-Jones though that such limiting of power was already included. Lord Howard disagreed. After the order to 'clear the bar', the result was victory for the Not-Contents, scoring 146 to 79 (I do wonder where all these people come from, as I generally see less than 10 people actually debating the issues). Lord Howard didn't get his way.

Surprisingly, the Earl of Erroll's amendment was agreed to by the government, one of the few times that an amendment not tabled by the government has been accepted. It was a very simple one, just giving more flexibility, as the original wording made things a bit tight.

Clause 19 passed - Amendment 225C & 227 agreed

Clause 20 : Application to court to alter constitution of internet domain registry. The exact same amendment as in the other clauses (changing "an" to "a qualifying") was done here, too. No other amendments discussed.

Clause 20 passed - Amendment 229A agreed

2010-03-31T12:44:00.002+03:00

Before I bring you my round-up of Clause 17, you'll have noticed a change around the blog. I've been fiddling with the settings a bit, but the main point is the labels on the right, to make it easier for you to focus just on a particular bit - or to find something from the past that you want to see. It's for my benefit as well, of course. Anyway, there you go.

Clause 17: Power to amend copyright provisions. Well, I knew from 2nd Reading that there would be a lot debated on "the eagerly anticipated" Clause 17, and I was right. Lord Young of Norwood Green got things underway by trying to make clear what the clause was for, but Lord Howard of Rising on the Tory bench was having none of it. He said that the clause - which allows the Secretary of State to alter copyright law through secondary legislation, thereby ignoring Parliamentary scrutiny - shows "a contempt for Parliament which has been demonstrated all too often by this Government". He goes on to point out that with the 'super-affirmative process' (the form of secondary legislation that the government insists will still retain some parliamentary scrutiny), there is "no chance to insist on amendments", and although it's possible for either House to throw out a resolution, in practice, this almost never happens. Despite Lord Puttnam's protestations, he insisted that "the supremacy of Parliament is more important" than protecting intellectual copyright - this is obviously as much an issue of principle as anything else.

Labour's Lord Whitty was obviously more favourable, but he did agree that the clause is too wide-ranging, and unlike Clauses 4 to 16 might not only be used to combat unlawful peer-to-peer file sharing. There was an allusion to Henry VIII, as is expected of such a clause, though Lord Whitty's view was that if the clause "were used for all sorts of copyright protection in that context, it would undoubtedly be a Henry VIII use of powers". Thus, it should be more narrow. Lord Puttnam dug his heels in and declared that "it is foolish to pretend that, somehow or other, primary legislation is the way through. It is not".

The ever-present Lord Lucas piped up with "we know what steps people will take if they wish to continue to file-share illegally. They will use cyberlockers, encryption and proxy, and the Government, as my noble friend on the Front Bench has said, have no clue what to do about these things. Nor do I; these are very hard things to deal with". The response from Lord Young was that he was "not sure that we have not been focusing on it, but he is right to say that that will present another challenge". As usual, he made some good points, though, such as that rights holders should "give customers what they want, charge them for it, and get tough if they do not pay", rather than simply "stick with legislation and be tough with customers who misbehave". He insists that the industry needs to give customers "what they want, how they want it, and when they want it. Then we will reduce this problem substantially. That is the right way in which to protect our copyright" (he says 'our' as he is a copyright holder himself, which of course makes his remarks even more refreshing).

Lord Howard returned to his point that "the Executive [Labour, in other words] take more and more power away from Parliament, which as a point of principle should be opposed at all times, if it is not a matter of national survival". He was surprised that nobody picked him up on his comments regarding the unlikelihood of houses throwing out resolutions. "Eight times since the war in the House of Commons and three times in this House does not seem to be a very effective brake on anyone or anything. But if I was on the other side and wanting to do things, it would be a very effective way of getting absolute power while pretending not to have it." This last comment received a few 'hear, hear's from the chamber.

Lord Young came back with a lengthy reply, which he apologised in advance for. He said he would "try to keep it short, but if I do not cover the waterfront, I will not have been a contender-if noble Lords will pardon the pun, which those in the cinematic area will recognise". Groan. Anyway, Amendments 211A and 211B from the government were agreed to, but that was secondary to the idea that Clause 17 should even be in the Bill at all. Lord Clement-Jones began the broadside with a rather long speech, the gist of which I'm sure you can guess. Lord Triesman of Labour (and chairman of the Football Association) completely disagreed with Lord Clement-Jones's remarks. He used BT and Napster as two examples where things happened so quickly that bad things were tough to stop.

The Earl of Erroll was clear on his view that the law shouldn't just be about sending a message and educating people. "Laws have to be effective or they are pointless. Sending messages that do not work merely debases the law in the public's eyes, because then they just ignore it." He made a curious point about 'mashups', saying that the clause could be used to "loosen copyright, which might be a good idea, so that mashups, for instance, were no longer a grey area. I could take a short clip from one of the films of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, overlay it with a bit of music by one of the noble Lords here, put my own content underneath it and put it on YouTube, at which point I would have breached maybe three copyrights. This is going on the whole time". There are millions of such things on YouTube, it's true, so something could be done.

Lord Howard did a bit of name-dropping, on an interesting point: "I said to the managing director of Nintendo, which after all is one of the biggest games things in the world, "What are your views on illegal activities?" I was privileged - I got number one interpreter, I could have had number one, two, three or five but I got number one for this important question. He said, "Could you do something about Spain and China?" I did not like to tell him that my influence in the United Kingdom is pretty abysmal, but when you get to China it is absolutely sub-zero. However, they said that because it is illegal in these countries and we are putting in provisions like these, they sell enough to make the whole thing work. Therefore, from his point of view - I am not saying whether he was right or wrong - he was not worried". Anyone who has followed Nintendo since the 80s like I have, you'll know that Nintendo have always been very draconian when it comes to using their stuff. Interesting anecdote, though.

Lord Razzall made a good point about the clause, given that it's essentially a clause to say that the government may get it wrong, and would like to change it in the future. He said that the "Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill has been going on for years and years. Why do the Government not put a clause in the Bill that says, "Oh, by the way, we are going to amend the constitution, but we might get it wrong so let us put in the power to amend it again by the affirmative resolution process?". Why do the Government not do that?" A good question.

Lord Young joked that the Earl of Erroll "took chunks out of the wonderful work of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. "Chariots of Erroll" is a frightening concept". He also gave an example of Samuel Johnson's Journey to the Western Isles being "pirated almost immediately in Ireland, so plus ça change in this matter". Lord Clement-Jones appreciated the reference, quipping that when "a man is tired of the Digital Economy Bill he is tired of life. I am sure that this show will run and run". He pointed out that the fast track process was used for the Video Recordings Bill (re-enacting the 1984 Act because it wasn't reported to the European Commission) and I agree that that Bill went through very quickly indeed, so this new "constitutionally inappropriate way of changing the law" shouldn't be used. The clause was agreed to, but clearly we'll get back to this another time. In his final word on the subject, Lord Clement-Jones brought out a chuckle by saying that if the clause wants to send a message to people, "I think the Post Office is a much better way of doing it.".

Clause 17 passed - Amendment 211A & 211B agreed

2010-03-24T14:07:00.001+02:00

After the big discussion on Clause 10, things got much easier. There was a flurry of relatively quick clauses passed through, with six clauses agreed to in the space of a hour and 40 minutes - which, by the standards of this Bill, is very quick indeed. Of course, it was all leading up to the eagerly-anticipated Clause 17 (the one about changing copyright law without Parliament's approval). Let's power through these simple-looking clauses, and I'll leave Clause 17 to another day.

Clause 11 : Obligations to limit internet access. The major discussions were made in the previous clause, which was about preparations for this stage. There wasn't all that much discussion about the actual obligations. There was an amendment agreed to from the government, which added that technical measures cannot be taken without a resolution from both Houses, which is a very sensible point, as everyone ought to agree before Ofcom start cutting people's internet off.

Clause 11 passed - Amendment 177B agreed

Clause 12 : Code by OFCOM about obligations to limit internet access. No debate. No amendments. No problem.

Clause 12 passed - no amendments

Clause 13 : Contents of code about obligations to limit internet access. An important initial debate ensued about whether people would have technical measures imposed on them before or after an appeal is put forth. There has been a lot of debate about appeals against being wrongfully accused of illegal file-sharing. Various ideas have been bandied about, such as paying a refundable fee to deter "frivolous appeals". On this particular question, Lord Young of Norwood Green made it very clear that "the full appeals process should be completed before any technical measure is imposed". So that's alright, then.

Lord Clement-Jones brought up the point about public internet in universities, libraries and so on. Members from all sides - bar the government - agreed that this could be a problem, as it would be very difficult to monitor public systems like this. For example, Swindon had plans to make the town a wi-fi hot-spot, so how you could monitor the whole city is a cause for concern. The argument against, by Lord Young, is that bandwidth, especially in the case of Swindon, would make file-sharing unrealistic, which I agree with - I can get free wi-fi at McDonald's, but I'm not going to download torrents from there as it would take hours, and frankly I don't want to spend all day in McDonald's. The other point about policing it was addressed by saying that there are "reasonable steps" to stop people accessing certain sites and using P2P programs, though the government "do not pretend that such measures are 100 per cent effective and we do not require this". They just want to make sure that would-be infringers have to "make a conscious decision and some effort to continue to infringe".

Related to the appeals process, Lord Whitty returned to the point about how alleged infringers can defend themselves, as the current balance "is almost entirely on the side of the copyright holder". He insisted that this was a very important point, since "in the Swedish elections after the piracy case nearly a quarter of all voters under 25 voted for the Pirate Party. Their votes were completely wasted, but the mainstream parties had alienated those voters. There are bigger social and political issues involved in this than the Government are facing up to".

Clause 13 passed - no amendments

Clause 14 : Enforcement of obligations. The first question was concerned with the maximum penalty on ISPs to be £250,000, should they be guilty of allowing illegal stuff to be done on their watch. Several members around the chamber agreed that this is an enormous sum of money, and the argument that ISPs are mere conduits - and thus can't be responsible for the content that they serve, just like the Post Office can't be responsible for delivering illegal material - has already been debated. The Earl of Erroll warned that although it is a maximum, it will be "misused" (he tries to be as pessimistic as possible on the whole Bill). Lord Faulkner of Worcester insisted that the text of the Bill "makes it clear that this has to be both appropriate and proportionate to the contravention", so it is simply a maximum, and we have to trust Ofcom to do the right thing. Lord Clement-Jones slyly quipped that "we had his velvet glove when he talked of a graded response, but now we get the mailed fist of the £250,000 maximum penalty".

Clause 14 passed - no amendments

Clause 15 : Sharing of costs. This has been discussed at length already, with the consensus being that ISPs shouldn't shoulder legal costs that rights holders induce, such as the cost of sending letters to subscribers. The Earl of Erroll argued that if ISPs have an extra cost of sending letters to accused illegal file-sharers, eventually the costs will be shifted to subscribers. In his words, "we will see the monthly cost of internet service provision going up. That will be broadcast in bright lights to subscribers. If the Opposition hope to come to power, they do not want this happening on their watch". Lord Young responded that it's "not appropriate for the Government to dictate how any of the industry parties should cover their costs or to prohibit any particular route". Well, that answers that, then. Lord Howard of Rising was "not sure that we would have demonstrations in Trafalgar Square about this, with people being thrown into fountains, but who can tell?"

Clause 15 passed - Amendment 200A & 206A agreed

Clause 16 : Interpretation and consequential provision. There were a couple of quick questions, but nothing really major. It's just about interpretation of terms used in the Bill.

Clause 16 passed - no amendments

2010-03-23T16:12:00.001+02:00

Clause 10 : Obligations to limit internet access: assessment and preparation. Well, this was a major stumbling block. One of the most controversial aspects of this Bill has undoubtedly been the idea of restricting people's internet access. Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of spirited debate as a result.

Everybody chipped in, pretty much. Amendment 140, which kicked off the debate, was to make Ofcom wait two whole years before deciding if they should use 'technical obligations' - the euphemism for restricting or cutting off people's internet. The basic government position, made clear by Lord Faulkner of Worcester, is that if war on file-sharers breaks out, Ofcom will be ready (I'm paraphrasing, naturally, but that's the gist). Their reasoning is that, if they do need to bring in technical measures, they'll need "a good deal of work, analysis, consultation and a three-month notification with the European Commission" - by which point, of course, much time may have been wasted. I suppose you have to prepare your army in case you need to go to war: if Britain had to wait until the Nazis invaded Poland before training their army, we know what would've happened.

The others around the chamber were dismayed at this announcement. The Earl of Erroll pointed out that, amidst the government's talk of the 'softly, softly' approach, it "was implied that we were suggesting Armageddon in our amendments by saying that they would be introduced immediately. I think that the Minister has just told us that Armageddon is going to happen almost on day one". Lord Clement-Jones found the new revelation "breathtaking". He said he could compare it to "preparing for war in 2002 without any UN resolutions, but that may be a slightly extreme example". Lord Lucas disagreed: "I think that the Government have learnt their lesson, which is why they want to prepare for the occupation before they declare any public intention of a war".

In the ensuing debate, Lord Howard of Rising reminded Lord Young of Norwood Green that, despite all the assurances by Lord Faulkner, this would be "abused sooner or later by somebody". He echoed the arrest of "old ladies who get up and read out lists of the Iraqi dead in front of the Cenotaph". Lord Young of Norwood Green insisted that the government didn't want to "rush into technical measures". However, no amount of reassurance would satisfy the chamber, and we won't hear the last of this, I'm sure.

On a lighter note, Lord Mandelson tabled several amendments, which pleased Lord Clement-Jones: he thought that "for a brief moment, the Minister [was] dispensing sweetness and light". On the subject of limiting speed, Lord Young pointed out that "the subscriber would still be able to operate e-mails and various other features", which reminds me of the Panorama documentary's suggestion that using email would be affected. Hmm.

Lord Lucas also made such a simple observation: if your ISP limits your connection, why not just subscribe to another one? Yeah, it's a pain, but how can the government stop it? Well, Lord Young agreed that "changing an ISP is an option. We have no intention of creating a blacklist, but it is inconvenient, especially if they change too often". That sounds a bit crap, really, as it does make the whole idea of speed restriction sound pointless, but he did insist that they'd get back with a better answer in the future. Lord Clement-Jones echoed the thoughts of Lord De Mauley, who believes that "the primary reason [for these measures] is to prevent ongoing copyright infringement, not to act as a punishment". I hope that remains the intention.

Still, this debate rolled on. Lord Lucas was dead against 'reconstructing traffic', or basically spying on people's internet activity. The ability for the government to read your emails and see what you're looking at can be done through surveillance which "is available, under particular circumstances, to the security services, but should not be there to protect EMI". It's one thing keeping an eye on terrorists, quite another assisting a record company in their pursuit of profit. I was a little confused with the Earl of Erroll's assertion that "if you are trying to restrict access to a website, it is not your ISP that would do it, but the host of the website". Really? Can't an ISP block access? I'll bow to the Earl's knowledge on this, as he's proved that he knows his stuff.

Lord Young made it very clear, however, that they were talking about "the possibility of blocking access to particular types of traffic. I stress that it is certainly not to look at the contents of any of the subscriber's traffic or to change the contents in any way". So, peer-to-peer stuff, then. Lord Maxton wanted to know the technical details about this from Lord Young, but the Minister had difficulty in finding out the answer he was supposed to give. The simple answer was, "we'll get back to you".

As usual, the Earl of Erroll came back for the techie stuff. It seems that the government, as I said, is more interested in stopping unlawful peer-to-peer activity, rather than websites, but the Earl pointed out that Skype is also peer-to-peer. He hoped that the government wouldn't attack people's Skype usage because they thought it was file-sharing (which, of course, they couldn't find out without reconstructing traffic, which is what everyone is against). Lord Lucas, mischievously, ended the debate after the mention of Skype by saying that "more and more people are using image over IP, so you can no longer answer your telephone in your bathrobe or less. You have to be very careful and rush for the make-up before you pick up Skype. With that horrible thought, I am very grateful for what the Minister has said". Cheeky.

As the day's debate drew to a close, Lord Faulkner insisted that suspending a subscriber's service was a measure "which we hope will never need to be employed". On Lord Lucas' amendment about paying rights owners compensation to get your internet working again, the Earl of Erroll made the important point that "lawyers tell me it's not illegal downloading, it's unlawful downloading" (I'm, for once, not quoting Hansard, as their transcript of what he said actually seems wrong). This is "a civil breach of copyright, which is a civil offence and not a criminal one", so paying compensation makes more sense than slapping people in prison. Of course, it ends up being very similar to the actions of Davenport Lyons and ACS:Law, but at least the government would be controlling. Lord Young, obviously, thought this idea was crazy, as the Bill intends to change the whole culture of illegal downloading by switching to legal services, not just pay a fine and carry on doing it illegally. There was a minor amendment passed without debate right at the end of the night, also.

Debate continued for a while on 26th January. Very quickly, debate resumed on ACS:Law and Davenport Lyons, about whom "there has been a torrent of complaints to the [Solicitors Regulation Authority]", according to Lord Clement-Jones. Baroness Howe of Idlicote described their actions as "pretty disturbing". Lord Howard chipped in, describing their behaviour as "appalling". Lord Young would go on to say he was "glad that it has at least been reported to the SRA but regret that no action seems to have been taken to date". Given the venom from other members on all sides, he obviously remained diplomatic as he represents the government.

The Earl of Erroll, on the other hand, made the technical points that most copyright "is owned by six large rights holders - copyright holding companies - because they have the originators under contract from day one. Only a very small amount of money filters out to the creators the work. Most of it is rental on the back catalogue owned by large rights holders. We have to keep that in the back of our minds when we are told that this will kill creativity - it is not necessarily so". I refer to my point during my blog post about the Panorama documentary. Lord Puttnam came in, however, to suggest that the creative process would dry up, because investment will withdraw. I still don't agree with that in the case of music, of course, though in Lord Puttnam's area of the film industry, it's a valid point.

The old chestnut of Avatar popped up again. Lord Young said that we "should not kid ourselves that these are just minor downloads of the odd piece of music" when Avatar was downloaded 300,000 times on the first day of cinema release. The Earl of Erroll was having none of it: he said that, in the case of Avatar, "a few downloads has hardly affected it", given its enormous gross receipts. Lord Lucas (who I think is now my favourite Tory) weighed in with a contribution that is worth quoting in full:

"I suspect that we are not going to agree on "Avatar". It seems to me that the industry is being peculiarly stupid about it - it got 300,000 free advertisements. "Avatar" is something that you cannot consume sensibly on a small screen: you need the big-screen experience to appreciate all the work that they have put into it. The immediate consumption of it created an enormous demand for going to the cinema, which has benefited the film enormously. That is the fundament of this - we must get the industry to see this as an opportunity and not as a threat.

We must get the industry to be in there selling these downloads. If the industry had been in there selling at a dollar a time, it would be better off for it and it would still get the advertising. Its refusal to deal with the way that the world has moved on and with what technology makes possible, and its attempt to stick to old ways of doing things and to the idea that you can release a film in the United States today and wait six months to release it in the UK, is a looking-backwards attitude which we should not support through legislation. Yes, we should support copyright, but we should direct ourselves at real losses and not imagined losses. I do not believe that the makers of "Avatar" have lost a dollar; in fact, I think that they have gained a great deal from the piracy. We should not seek to punish people for losses that have not occurred."

Back on topic. He described the actions of people like ACS:Law as "straightforward legal blackmail". I'm sure we'll come back to this at another time, but they dropped it at this point. Lord Lucas' arguments against protecting the copyright holders "puzzled" Lord Young, and he didn't "understand why we should be happy for people to go into cinemas with camcorders and illicitly download material". Er, I think he means 'camcorders, as well as downloading'. It just sounded like you download films with camcorders. Never mind. Lord Lucas made it clear that nobody in the chamber was "defending illegal downloading", however the technical measures discussed will drive users to file-sharing methods that can only be stopped by spying on people's traffic - something that is unacceptable, "particularly as a measure just to protect copyright". He blasted the industry's backward-looking approach, since "we are in a new century and that there are new ways of doing things and making money out of copyright". Lord Clement-Jones, in closing the argument, half-joked that Lord Young's words "will be read with enormous care in years to come when people see the Secretary of State, by edict, imposing technical measures".

Clause 10 passed - Amendment 148A & 155A agreed

2010-03-20T11:46:00.003+02:00

Before Clause 9, Lord Lucas introduced an amendment to tackle insidious law firms such as ACS:Law and Davenport Lyons. These two firms are responsible for getting flimsy evidence of someone's guilt in sharing a copyrighted title, and harassing them for several hundred pounds. Lord Clement-Jones, a (former?) lawyer himself, was happy to join in the kicking of these guys, claiming they've even asked someone "how old their daughter is and what games console she has, when they have only a Nintendo DS", insisting that this "intrusion is unacceptable", which, of course, it is. There are no words to describe these law firms, but clearly they must be stopped, and it was nice to hear most people denounce them (as Lord Young of Norwood Green seemed to agree with the opinion of their behaviour during the following session, after receiving information about them - though being in government, he was not so explicit). In the midst of all this, Tory Lord Howard of Rising revealed, surprisingly, that he knows that BBC licence fee letters are very unfriendly, as he has "rather a good collection of them, actually".

Clause 9 : Progress reports. This was a relatively short debate. There were some good points, however.

During a debate on Ofcom reviewing its plans for the future based on whether the new regulations are encouraging people to download legally, Lord Lucas, a very liberal Tory as far as I can see, made a wonderful plea. He said that "reducing the level of illegal downloading is not in itself an absolute good. If we reduce the level of illegal downloading, all we will do is to reduce a lot of people's enjoyment of music and films. If we do not at the same time increase the level of revenue to the copyright owners, we will do nothing for them. We will produce a widespread bad, but no good. Just depriving people of something is not a good thing to do. It is good only if we can get more revenue for the copyright holders". He made it clear that the position on this Bill should not be of punishing file-sharers, but of benefiting the copyright holders. The Earl of Erroll agreed in a later debate, saying that unless the regulations help the rights holders, the law will be "acting like the traditional puritan who has a haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be enjoying himself".

There were a couple more tiny discussions before passing the clause unamended.

Clause 9 passed - no amendments

I'll leave Clause 10 till tomorrow. I've already written my post, but it's very long, so I'll add it to the site tomorrow. Incidentally, the Bill has currently passed to the House of Commons, so I still have a lot of catching up to do.

2010-03-18T16:31:00.001+02:00

Clause 8 : Contents of initial obligations code. There was a ton of debate on this subject precisely because we don't yet know what this new code will contain. Anything that is outside the complete control of Parliament, in the form of Primary Legislation (like this Bill), is not going to be met with much approval. There has been much insistence on certain things being 'on the face of the Bill', rather than letting Ofcom or some other body decide things for themselves. The consternation is, I think, understandable.

Lord Clement-Jones suggested a time limit between somebody transferring a copyright-holder's file, and that person receiving a copyright infringement report (CIR). His suggestion was three months, arguing that if there is "some sort of Sword of Damocles hanging over a subscriber", then subscribers shouldn't have to respond to allegations beyond their memory, as it's unfair. The argument against this by Lord Young of Norwood Green was that people will take this as a default - that is, 'oh, we don't have to do anything for three months, then we'll get them'. He insisted that everyone should simply trust the code to get this right. Lord Clement-Jones retorted that Lord Young is "optimistic about the way the code will operate, but he is probably surrounded by rather more pessimism than he would like. "Trust the code" was his watchword, but the fact is that if the code is going to be created by different stakeholders, it will be like having a bunch of ferrets in a sack". Not quite sure I understand the last bit, but I think I know what he's driving at.

So, that's pretty much where it ended on 18th January. The House came together just two days later, on 20th January, to continue debating Clause 8. It got off to a shaky start, however - it seems as though the woman here didn't really know what to say. Christ, I'm a bystander and I think I could reel off the required words after all these debates. Maybe she was just confused by all the comings and goings.

Both Lib Dems and Tories were very concerned about the formation of another body to assist Ofcom in their activities, who may or may not be independent. In fact, the latter point was strongly debated, with Lord Clement-Jones wondering if they would need "the old test of the length of the Minister's thumb to decide whether independence is sufficient". The government assured everyone that this would be fine, but I'm sure this will rear its head in the future.

There was also some important (in my opinion) debate about the 'burden of proof' being on the copyright owners, not subscribers, when it comes to a case being brought against someone. The debates have made it very clear that 'innocent until proven guilty' is the default stance we should be taking (as I said in a previous post, I've heard nothing but support for subscribers against copyright owners throughout the debates), but the opposite stance appears to be the case here.

This discussion was linked to the contentious subject of costs. The government suggested a 75/25 split - 75% of legal costs paid by copyright owners, 25% by ISPs. Lord Howard of Rising stated that "copyright owners want a 50/50 split while the internet service providers want none of the costs. The Government seem to have made a final decision just to split the difference and have an easy life". Lord Clement-Jones chimed in that Lord Young "would not be taking the Digital Economy Bill through the House if he was really after an easy life". Lord Young made it quite clear that the 75/25 number is not set in stone, so no need to get hot and bothered about it now.

There was a bit of confusion at one point, as Lord Clement-Jones said he was going to give a speech if Lord Young was to speak about both Amendments 120 and 124, but he wouldn't if he did them separately. Lord Young seemed to get a bit confused by this. The fallout from this resulted in Lord Clement-Jones joking that he was "slightly hurt" by Lord Young's admonishment of his amendment grouping.

Lord Lucas made the pertinent point of asking how a subscriber can defend himself from accusations of illegal file-sharing, "other than by saying, "I didn't do it, guv"". His suggestion of a technical solution - like a program that will "inspect [your computer] and say, "Yes, you have taken the measures necessary and yes, there is no trace of unlicensed copyright material on this machine", sign it off and thereby provide sufficient proof that he is innocent" - may be difficult in practice. Nevertheless, what other options are there? Other than having to "surrender my laptop for three months or, as has happened in other civil cases, more than a year", there doesn't seem to be much choice. Lord Lucas was not satisfied with Lord Young's response, so he pledged to return to this at Report.

He made another interesting, though brief, amendment, suggesting that if there are millions of illegal file-sharers, and a fraction get accused of doing it, that's still hundreds of thousands of cases clogging up the civil courts. This was a point I mentioned in an earlier post. His suggestion was a simple fine, which would essentially make it like it is now, but government authorised and without all the bullying tactics. It makes sense: if you're going to go after people, you might as well save a lot of trouble. Lord Young insisted that the potential levels of damage are so wide-ranging that it wouldn't be practicable. Lord Lucas accepted that, but warned that the government will have "failed in their duty to their citizens if they do not keep to themselves a mechanism for making sure that at least the initial fine or punishment is within bounds". He referred to the astronomical amounts of damage demanded by companies in the USA.

Lord Howard was very keen to know if "no technical measure will be imposed until the appeal process has been completed". He, thankfully, received that assurance. I don't think anyone would like to lose their internet because of a false claim by a copyright holder.

There was a little more debate before, finally, Clause 8 was agreed, unamended.

Clause 8 passed - no amendments

2010-03-17T12:07:00.002+02:00

Clause 8 is rather long - well, the debate on it is, anyway - so I'll focus solely on Panorama: Are the Net Police Coming for You, the BBC programme shown on Monday night. I've watched it, and since I've been reviewing all the debates, I figured it'd make sense to do the same to this.

I wasn't 100% convinced by their ham-fisted method of explaining the finer points of the Digital Economy Bill. It began in pretty bullish fashion, claiming that "if you're a persistent downloader, the government is threatening to cut you off", which is the same as saying "if you commit a crime, the government is threatening to put you in prison for life". From what I've gathered from listening to the discussions in the Lords, the emphasis has been overwhelmingly on protecting people's rights, not "threatening" anything. I don't think they're giving the government enough credit here. Besides, as they mention later, the Bill has "cross-party support", so it's not just the Labour government who want to see this Bill through.

Anyway, let's move on. The focus in this show is purely on file-sharing of music - and only music. Nothing else is covered. Naturally, they got Radio 1's Jo Whiley to do the 'investigation', if you can call it that, since I imagine she holds currency with the 13-25 year-old demographic who like music. As usual, though, the descriptions of anything remotely technical come off sounding even more clueless than the 50 year-old men I've been listening to in the Lords.

At the very least, they pushed all points of view, from musicians and industry people, as well as the great unwashed. For the latter, they decided to watch an "ordinary household" - that is, a middle-class family with ridiculous names for their children (Posey? Seriously?). Anyway, the kids are big downloaders, of course, and the adults have no idea about computers, so at least that part sounds accurate. Thus, they employ the services of an IT sleuth, who can find out what you're doing online. Now, I thought "IT sleuth" meant that he would use special programs to monitor what you do, and tear through the hard drive's sectors for deleted stuff, but no.

In fact, this guy just had a look around someone's hard drive, and says he's got films, TV shows and so on. Did you really need to be a super sleuth to click 'Start', 'Search', and '.avi'? Seriously? You needed a "Forensic Computer Investigator" to do that? Just to rub it in, they ask him where he gets his stuff, and he replies with, surprise surprise, The Pirate Bay, arguably the most well-known Bittorrent tracker in the world. So, helpfully, the cameraman gets a close-up on the URL for... piratebay.com. Which, in case you don't know, is a different site. Still, this internet's all the same, innit?

After a silly rapper raps about how it's terrible to download, Stephen Timms MP comes on to explain the Bill, but, struggling for an analogy, he says that "just as if you're using electricity you need to use it in lawful means, so with broadband". Could someone explain an 'unlawful' use of electricity? If you electrocute your parents, I guess that's 'unlawful'. There then follows a little animation for the thickies out there.

But after getting the differing opinions of musical talking heads, our super sleuth Keith has "found something interesting on the family computers". Hands up if the first word that came to mind was 'PORN'. Well, you're wrong. There's "a piece of software called Bittorrent" on the computer. How'd you find that, super sleuth? Did you go in their 'Program Files' folder and look for the most common method of sharing files? Or typed 'torrent' in the aforementioned search box? Seriously? Forensic expert Keith? Sigh. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but it seems like we need an 'expert' in every documentary, even if they're nothing of the sort, just so we have someone to trust with these matters. When quizzed on the existence of uTorr... sorry, 'Bittorrent' - better keep it generic here - the mother comes out with the classic line: "They're not downloading porn or anything, so it's just music, so it seems to be okay". Finally, someone mentioned the p-word.

They bring up the dreaded 'throttling', a term which I find unsavoury given the proximity to 'strangling'. The mum of the family thinks she'd be affected "massively" by this, because she needs to get email at home. Yes, because cutting you down to 50kb/s would stop your email from coming through. Something tells me the purpose of throttling your connection is to stop the big transfers of films and music, not a sodding Word document. But I digress. Throttling or cutting off your internets is "controversial", which it should be, of course. I like the revelations by Ms Whiley that people do banking, shopping and "even socialising" via the web. Yes, even socialising. It's not as if social networking sites are a cultural phenomenon at the moment or anything.

I think I'm getting a little petty, so I'll thunder on and get this over with. I really like TalkTalk's mischievous video mocking the music industry's attempts at stopping this sort of thing, and go to YouTube if you want to see the whole video. I like Billy Bragg's simple equation for how artists can make money with file-sharing going on: "If you can find 5,000 people anywhere in the world (because of the internet) who are willing to spend a tenner on you in the space of a year, you've got the basis of a career". It's a great point, as £50,000 a year would be a great salary for most of us, and any argument that losing money through file-sharing "stifles creativity" is bollocks, frankly. Thing is, when musicians are used to the high life, they'll be damned if they should give it up.

Another rapper comes along and says that the Featured Artists Coalition is a bunch of rich musicians who've already made it, so they should be ignored. Pop twat Louis Walsh says that, whatever your genre, "you need the big machine behind you". Thanks, but no thanks. They then made the valid point that people who download a lot also spend a lot too, so the industry probably makes more money from the evil pirates than from your average Joe.

Back to the techie stuff, though, as our man Keith sits in a car outside the house and 'hacks' their wi-fi. This is a concern, of course, but the debates on the Bill have made this point clear, that it's more about educating people on how to keep their wi-fi secure, as guys sitting in cars using wi-fi is hardly a huge problem at the moment. A couple of people then complain that lawyers representing companies have accused them of downloading and demanded money - something that was also debated and the consensus is obviously that this is an awful thing to do. So, how do you find the evil pirates? IP address. Can you fake your IP address? Of course you can. They don't use the word 'proxy', even though that word isn't a purely techie one as it's used for other things - they simply say 'anonymity system'. Jo Whiley also points out that websites to get stuff from include "the Pirate Bay, Bittorrent and LimeWire". Well, despite the fact that Bittorrent is a protocol, and LimeWire is a program that uses that protocol, you're nearly right. I know I'm getting petty again, but it's like saying "some different travel companies are EasyJet, petrol and motorcycles" - it sounds silly.

Finally, our Jo's "astonished" at the stuff the kids have been downloading, including some new bands, "the kind of stuff that I'm really into". Okay, Jo, we know you're 'down with the kids, innit', but you don't have to sound desperate.

In summary, it had a sprinkling of good points mixed in with a lot of stupid. Never was it mentioned that the Bill actually has nothing to do with DOWNloading files, but is specifically concerned with making files available for UPload. This is why, thoughout the debate (and on this blog) there have been mentions of 'illegal file-sharers', not 'downloaders'. Companies don't like downloading, of course, but the Bill is concerned with uploading to others, via Bittorrent for example. If someone stuck an album, film or whatever onto one of the many file-hosting websites, it's impossible for anyone to know that you got the files from there. So, you could stop the Bittorrent uploaders, one by one, but file-hosting sites continue to thrive.

I hope you enjoyed my review, and as a result of it I hope you stick with me for news on this Bill, because documentary makers clearly don't have a clue what they're talking about.

2010-03-16T12:20:00.002+02:00

Before we begin today's look at the Digital Economy Bill (I've still got a lot of catching up to do, but I hope I'm up to date before it becomes an Act, otherwise I'll look silly), I'd like to draw your attention to BBC's Panorama, available here on the iPlayer. I haven't seen it yet, but Pete informed me via the comments that it's concerned with the exact thing that I've been poring over for the last month or so. This'll probably be the first that most British people have heard of this, which shows somewhat how little interest everyday people have in the drafting of laws that could put them in big trouble. Anyway, give it a watch. In case you don't, then, just like the umpteen hours of debates, I'll give you a review, maybe tomorrow.

Clause 7 : Initial obligations code by OFCOM in the absence of an approved code. The theme at the beginning of the debate on this one was that of haste. The Bill obviously needs to get passed pretty quickly, as an election's coming soon, so we have even less time than normal to get through it. Lord Howard of Rising warned, however, that "too much haste can lead to mistakes and, indeed, some would argue that this Bill is an example of that".

Nevertheless, Amendment 84 was proposed by the government and, of course, agreed to. This dealt with notifying the European Commission, which takes time - something the government clearly doesn't have, as they want to get this thing on the road as soon as possible.

This is related to the re-enacting of the Video Recordings Act, which was necessary as the European Commission was not informed way back in 1984, and so anyone who was prosecuted for selling adult videos to kids had no right to be, as the VRA was not enforceable. They obviously want to make sure that this doesn't happen with this Bill. The amendment gives Ofcom an extension to coming up with their new code, in order to make sure that the EC can receive it. They still want it done quick, mind, but they have to cover all the bases. The Tories and Lib Dems (via Lord Howard of Rising and Lord Clement-Jones respectively) weren't thoroughly convinced, but they let it through.

Something to point out before I move on. I'm learning things all the time throughout this process - that's mainly why I'm reviewing it on this blog, for my own benefit - and one thing that is very clear is that the Committee Stage may involve people proposing amendments, but that doesn't mean they actually want the amendment to succeed. They just want an opportunity to speak on a matter of concern. Of course, they obviously want the Bill to be changed somehow, but not necessarily with the words they suggest: perhaps they want the government (in this case) to go away and think about it, and maybe come up with their own amendment. A phrase
that's popped up frequently is that of a "probing amendment" - an amendment that just wishes to ask questions, not change anything. The amendment is just an excuse to speak. Just some info for those out there who aren't aware of it.

There was a bit of concern about whether all these new powers will be taken up by Ofcom, or if a new body will be created. As Lord Howard of Rising put it, the "material that we have recently been given appears to confirm that the new body is still unconfirmed - if my English is not too upside down". The Tories hate 'quangos' - quasi non-governmental organisation, or a body that has some power but is not necessarily connected to the government - and the Lord continued that Labour "have a record of creating quangos and a seemingly unabated appetite for more". Lord Young of Norwood Green described that as a "harsh accusation". Baroness Buscombe retorted that, with the Labour Lord not wanting more powers for Ofcom but also not wanting a quango, he has "almost lost the will to live". Joining in with this joking around, Lord Young insisted that "I have not lost the will to live. Fancy being deprived of the sheer pleasure of listening to the noble Baroness enunciating my poor performance in these areas, or the ineffectiveness of the superb briefing notes supplied by my superb Bill team".

All of this fun was rounded off by Lord Howard of Rising as he withdrew his amendment, by saying that he was "rather worried about [Lord Young of Norwood Green]'s health. He seems to be looking all right; I just hope he will make it through the rest of this evening - perhaps even for the rest of the debate. It looks as if we have a long hard road ahead in this Committee, and I would hate to think that he would not make it".

Clause 7 passed - Amendment 98 agreed

2010-03-12T14:13:00.000+02:00

Clause 5 : Obligation to provide infringement lists to copyright owners. There was an amendment before Clause 5, dealing with ISPs blocking websites (an attempt to tackle infringement via websites rather than P2P, which is clearly where the Bill has focussed most of its attention). It wasn't agreed to, of course, but I'm sure we'll hear more of it in the future.

The first discussions centred on a 'threshold' again, and wondering whether a fixed number should be put in the Bill. For example, as suggested by the Lib Dems, when someone has 50 copyright infringement reports (CIRs) against their name, then they get their asses kicked. The only conclusion drawn from this was that it's going to be a little more complicated than just downloading 50 things. We'll get back to this another time.

Wow, an amendment was agreed to! Amendment 84 was simply removing the words "(if any)" when describing a threshold. Clearly the debates that have ensued have suggested that the Bill needs to make it clear that there is a threshold of some sort, whether it be a simple number or something more complicated. The government agreed to the amendment, and with that, the Clause.

Clause 5 passed - Amendment 84 agreed

Clause 6 : Approval of code about the initial obligations. Straight away we have another amendment agreed to. Amendment 85A was put forth by the government, so no surprise that it was agreed to (any amendments from the government will likely be passed, as they're promoting the Bill). It simply changes Ofcom's agreement to a 'code' from being a choice to not being one. It's nothing worth worrying about.

There was a lot of debate on the subject of libraries and universities being considered as different to normal subscribers at home, since they can't be expected to police their own networks. Lord Young of Norwood Green's viewpoint was that you can't just give carte blanche to these kinds of places, but I think the intention of the amendments discussed were more to do with treating educational establishments differently, not simply ignoring any file-sharing that goes on there.

Amendments 95A and 95B were simple drafting amendments put forward by the government, so naturally they were accepted without question. 96A was a substantial re-wording of what was already in the Bill, but didn't make any significant changes (and was also tabled by the government). Up to this point, the government has stuck to its guns and turned down virtually all amendments, with the only opposition coming in Clause 1.

Clause 6 passed - Amendment 85A, 95A, 95B, 96A agreed

2010-03-11T14:58:00.002+02:00

Clause 3 : OFCOM reports on media content. Clause 3 wasn't even discussed at all, as there was only one amendment, which was not moved. That was easy.

Clause 3 passed - no amendments

So, now we move to the second part, Online Infringement of Copyright, by far the biggest part of the Bill, and the most controversial. It was discussed at length on 12th, 18th, 20th and 26th January.

There was a bit of discussion on inserting a new clause before Clause 4. Amendment 33 dealt with insisting that copyright holders must use the new laws instead of simply harassing people with lawyers for money. Lord Mitchell pointed out that, on the subject of illegal downloading, it's something that "every single child in this country is doing - you would be hard pressed to find any person under the age of 25 who is not illegally downloading". Thus, the recurring theme from these debates resurfaced: that it's "dangerous for us to be putting into effect legislation that puts a whole lot of people in a criminal situation when they do not think that they are committing a crime".

Having said that, Football Association Chairman Lord Triesman pointed out that "not everybody who steals a file on their computer is a 16 year-old who wants one song", but also that "car boot sales and market stalls" have tons of downloaded stuff to buy, and it's "frequently associated with illegal immigrants". Not sure exactly what he's saying about immigrants there, but his main point is that it's "a very significant criminal activity", not just kids having fun. Nevertheless, he'd like to get the kids "into a sport and off the couch and away from the television - and occasionally, one hopes, away from their computers and stealing files", so he's showing his other interests there.

Lord Davies of Oldham, who is Labour's main spokesman for the Bill, made it clear that "peer-to-peer file-sharing... is a civil infringement, not a criminal one". The Earl of Erroll pointed out that "peer-to-peer" is just one technology used for file-sharing, and is not, by nature, unlawful. A good technical point. After a lot more debate, the amendment was withdrawn.

One more amendment was tabled before Clause 4, and Lord Lucas made his feelings known: "Copyright at its heart is not a right, it is a compromise... [it] is merely what we do - the tough, difficult, bad things we do in order to enable the good thing, which is creativity, to flourish". The issue in question was making sure people accused of downloading still had their human rights intact. He said that people should expect a "reasonable and rational level of cost" for admitting to illegal file-sharing, "rather than leaving him at the mercy of the courts and of solicitors who push on the fear factor".

Clause 4 : Obligation to notify subscribers of reported infringements. Watching all of this debate, it occurred to me that, although it's terrible that companies are getting law firms to attack people with threats of legal action, what will happen if every company that wants to get file-sharers has to go through the civil courts? So many people are doing it - and the evidence, in my mind, is often difficult to prove - that the courts could get clogged up with people, and some may not get convicted for years. Some things about this Bill just make me think the horse has not only bolted but is making its way over the hill.

Anyway, a couple of interesting points came up quickly: first of all, we can identify people uploading (sort of), but what about streaming and downloading? That's almost impossible. It's made clear that the provisions in the second part of the Bill deal only with P2P, not any other things like Rapidshare and so on. Lord Young of Norwood Green makes it clear that, while there may be lots of illegal downloading going on, "these provisions have been written with peer-to-peer networks in mind. That has been the trouble causing so much damage to the creative industries and is certainly the primary problem we set out to address in this part of the Bill". Second point, made by Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer, was related to communal networks (cafés, libraries, universities etc). If people do something illegal there, the institution would get in trouble. The response was that these places can take measures to stop people doing it, which is true: porn sites can be filtered out, and the speed can be reduced to make P2P pointless.

Lord Whitty was hoping that "peer-to-peer was too techie for the parliamentary draftsman and therefore he reverted to "old speak" in terms of copyright violation" with his amendment to make the P2P aspect explicit, but now he's not so sure.

At last, an excellent point, made by Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer, in support of her Amendment 43. She asks "why is simply allowing others to use the connection different from, for example, allowing someone to use your car if they were insured to do so, and they were caught speeding? In those circumstances you are asked if you were using the car, to which the response is, "No, it was X who used the car". If X was speeding, X is liable for the fine and the points on their licence. But in this case, as the Bill is written, it is still the person who provides the internet connection who is liable for disconnection, throttling or any of the other sanctions provided, not the person who was actually using the internet connection". Related to this, Lord Howard of Rising joked that there "is a railway line on which you can plug in and get an internet connection. At the moment, the ultimate person there is the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who described himself the other day as the Thin Controller. I would hate this to be another example of the Government not listening to the Opposition when making legislation and ending up with one of their Ministers falling foul". There was debate surrounding the legal definition of 'allowed' (either 'gave permission' or 'failed to stop').

The amendment had wide support around the House, but it was ultimately withdrawn. Lord Davies of Oldham strongly argued that the Bill is not so tough that "a constable and the heavy hand of the law will arrive at a house with an arrest warrant for a signal charge, with a penalty of at least 25 years hard labour" after just one incident. Instead, subscribers will receive notice that it's happened, with a polite request to stop it. If it was somebody else who did it, then no matter: you'll only get into trouble if you keep doing it consistently. Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer was having none of it, however, and expressed how strongly she feels about it.

Lord Lucas began his Amendment 52 by noticing that the two Labour men in charge weren't listening to him. It was concerned with a 'threshold' that decides when to take action against someone who's file-sharing. With an estimated 7 million people doing it, cutting a million off from the internet is not desirable (Lord Young of Norwood Green insisted they had no intention of doing that except as a last resort). The Earl of Erroll - obviously the most technically-minded person in attendance, and a frequent contributor to the debates - went even further to suggest that the public will ignore this "because there are so many holes in [the Bill]".

I'm going to print a large quote from The Earl of Erroll in full, as it's worth it: "I am not reassured by the lack of technical precision in the Bill team's briefing. You do not upload when you file-share peer to peer. The whole point about peer-to-peer file-sharing is that there is no central server on which to upload files. They are downloaded directly from the other person; no uploading is involved. If the Minister's Bill team does not understand even that amount of technology, I have very little faith that it can answer any of the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, either. Neither he nor I believe half the things that the Minister says so airily, including that it is easy to say who is doing what on your personal network at home. If you can show me technically how I can do that and if a program is recommended to me that I can use, I will gladly and happily buy it and publicise it when I next talk to PC Pro and others." Bang bang. He later apologised for his "aspersions" as he was "getting slightly frustrated".

Lord Razzall's amendment - changing "the" to "a" - was obviously minor, but it gave him the opportunity to poke fun at the Tories' relationship with BSkyB.

Debate on Clause 4 was concluded on 18th January. There were a few more interesting things discussed, but not enough to warrant any more coverage. Only highlight was Lord Davies of Oldham insisting that his nodding is as good as his words. Other than that, another clause bites the dust.

Clause 4 passed - no amendments

2010-03-08T19:45:00.002+02:00

Well, looks like I was wrong about Avatar. It didn't win after all, and six wins for The Hurt Locker, too. Crazy.

Maybe I just thought this was the Oscars of the old days, when the best overall production, or a big achievement, merited the Best Picture award. From Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth in 1952, to Around The World In 80 Days in 1956, to Ben Hur in 1959, all the way forward to Titanic. These were all great productions that merited an award for their technical achievement - as well as being decent movies. Obviously the message from The Hurt Locker seems to have gone a little further than the spectacle of Avatar.

Oh well, it'll be interesting to see which films from this year get the nod. Roll on 2011.

2010-03-07T20:13:00.002+02:00

Oscar time! Yes, time to take a breather from the politics for a second, as we take a good look at what I think about the Academy Awards' Best Picture hopefuls. Yes, I've now seen almost all ten (why'd they have to increase it to ten?) nominations, and so I'd like to briefly sum up the films that will lose out to Avatar on Sunday.

But first: Avatar - Yes, the story is incredibly cliché but it gave everyone a reason to go to the cinema again thanks to its wonderful 3D visuals. Cinema is facing its biggest ever challenge from the home: from TV in the 50s to video in the 80s, the quality of home entertainment (and the undoubtable effect of piracy) has hit box office receipts badly. To say that this isn't true because Avatar has taken $2bn (and is still on release) is like saying global warming is a myth because it's been a bit cold this winter. Which, sadly, people have suggested. Anyway, this'll obviously get Best Picture, so there's no real debate. But what about the others?

The Blind Side - Ticks all the Oscar boxes: race, inspirational story and so on. In the end it's the (true) story of a big black kid who's looked after by rich, smug white folk. Meh. I think Sandra Bullock's nomination for Best Actress is a little excessive, as the role's hardly an emotional stretch (incidentally, she just picked up a Razzie Award for Worst Actress, though it was for a different film). This is pretty much Precious for a family audience. The nomination surprises me.

District 9 - Only got half-way through this one, I'll watch the other half when I get chance. Looks good so far, though, very original. [EDIT: finished it now. It's great. Don't think it'd have won, but a great sci-fi type movie]

An Education - A British film, it got loads of Bafta noms but only won one (for the leading actress). The critical acclaim for this one is a little lost on me. It's certainly a nice film, but it was really quite pedestrian: there was no twist, I could see most of it coming a mile away. I understand it's based on an "autobiographical memoir", so maybe I shouldn't be insisting on the embellishment with falsehoods (I remember The Boat That Rocked not so long ago, which decided to fictionalise real events, with poor results). Nevertheless, there are no real surprises in this: it's a nice period piece, with a gentle story bobbing along, but no real tension to speak of. Meh.

The Hurt Locker - Iraq War movie. It's good, but I'm a little taken aback by all the coverage, awards and nominations. I'm not sure it's all that fantastic. It's a good film, sure, but that's all. I've seen similar war films before, and I wouldn't say it's a very new approach. It sounds like I'm being negative, but I must say I enjoyed it. I just think that cleaning up the Baftas and now getting nine Oscar noms is a tad too much.

Inglourious Basterds - Er, not seen this one at all. I'm sure it's great, as it's Tarantino, but I'll find out in the next day or so. [EDIT: seen now. Good, but very slow and long. Could do with a little bit of editing, Quentin]

Precious - No real surprise this was nominated: the Academy has a weakness for stories concerning people with disadvantages, be they disability, illness, poverty, or, in this case, being stuck in a nightmarish cycle of misery. I won't go into too many details, but this is really a rather depressing watch. I wouldn't call it 'uplifting' at all, as films of this ilk often are. There are some good performances, including from a rather famous singer who I completely didn't recognise until right near the end. That surprised me. In summary, it is a good film, and the nomination is, as I said, quite understandable.

A Serious Man - It seems to me that the Coen Brothers get nominations simply because they're the Coen Brothers. I'm not saying this is a bad film - the Coens find it hard to make 'bad' films - but it's far from their best. Following a man for whom nothing seems to go right, it's enjoyable in its bleak yet bright tone. On the whole, though... I don't know, it's the kind that'll get a nomination to fill out the ten, without much chance of winning.

Up - A charming and colourful family romp. After WALL-E, these guys have clearly got good at getting emotion from the audience without any words. The opening ten minutes showing the main character's journey from child to grumpy old man is very emotional, and it's hard to believe they achieve that in such a short timeframe. The rest of the film is a lot of fun, but the emotional heart is what keeps it alive. Not quite as good as WALL-E for me, but still a charming film.

And, last but not least, Up in the Air - A highly enjoyable comedy-drama. Good performances and an Oscar-type message. I liked it. Still won't win, mind.

So, there you have it. There's less than seven hours to go until the fun begins, but I won't be watching live, as it'll be the middle of the night for me.

2010-03-03T15:09:00.003+02:00

Clause 2: OFCOM reports on infrastructure, internet domain names etc. There were a few amendments agreed in this one, so let's just go through them.

Amendments 10 and 13 were rather simple ones, just changing a bit of wording to remove ambiguity and make it read better. Nothing serious.

At the beginning of the second sitting on 12th January, Lord Clement-Jones made the point that, as there were over a hundred Lords suddenly making their way out due to the resumption of the Bill debate, it's never a good time to say anything important: "It is always useful to have a few general words to say at the beginning of any amendment when the Chamber is clearing. I shall try to do a "David Coleman" for a certain period of time until I know that the Minister is able to hear what I have to say".

I managed to learn a little about GPS and Galileo (which is another satellite system) as Earl Attlee confidently explained the details about those two and e-Loran, yet another system, but this time a terrestrial one rather than a satellite one. The point he was making was that e-Loran would be much more useful as it would be harder to jam in difficult times. He didn't get anywhere, though, but we may hear about this in the future.

No real controversies about Clause 2 (it's a boring clause) so it was passed with just the two simple amendments.

Clause 2 passed - Amendments 10 & 13 agreed

2010-02-28T13:32:00.001+02:00

A quick note for everyone: I've just gone through every post and put tags on them. It'll make it easier to search through them all (though there aren't that many at this point, really). I'll continue to put tags on every post, as it's a good idea. Should've done it before, really.

Now for the Committee Stage of the Digital Economy Bill. A quick explanation: the Committee Stage for this Bill had seven sittings, and many, many amendments discussed. To make things nice and simple, I'm going to organise my posts by grouping the amendments together as each clause, rather than each amendment. That way I can just ignore any debate that doesn't get anything done.

We begin with the first section, General Duties of OFCOM, which was debated on the 6th and 12th January 2010. It has three clauses, and today, I'll just cover Clause 1.

Clause 1: General duties of OFCOM. The Tories kicked up a fuss about Clause 1, which baffled several members of other parties. The debate kicked off with an ultimately fruitless exchange that went on for over an hour. The main point of the argument was to say that Ofcom shouldn't be both a helper and a regulator, which is what the Clause seems to do. A second important point suggests that if blogs and other web-based content isn't governed by Ofcom, most of this is meaningless. Highlights included Baroness Howe making a rather odd statement: "Enough gigabytes need to be available so that the level is acceptable right across the country. I fear that we did not have enough gigabytes in the first place so that we could compete with countries such as Japan and so on". Erm, what? Besides that, we had Lord Lucas waxing lyrical on how great Apple are, insisting that it's "becoming impossible to see how, if I had the choice, I would wish to buy a Windows computer again". Baroness Buscombe used the word "otiose" to describe the Clause, which I had to look up (she means that the Clause will have no real effect on anything, I think). In the end, Amendment 1 was withdrawn, as it was obviously only suggested to provoke debate rather than to get anything changed.

Amendment 3 was the Tories' attempt to attack public service broadcasting, and, by extension, Ofcom. Lord Razzall (for the Lib Dems) said that "all Whitehall departments must accept a very serious haircut if the Tories get into power" (according to David Cameron), and Ofcom is on a list of 'quangos' for the potential Tory government to have a look at. He also made a reference to the Communications Act which made somebody giggle (not sure who it is).

More highlights: when you're not really listening to what people are saying, just watch the guys in the background, like this guy who has a finger problem. Funnyman Lord Lucas insisted that he doesn't necessarily agree with his Tory companions, and that "the Stalinist discipline that the Liberals apply to their Back-Benchers" is the explanation for this confusion. Lord Howard of Rising also noted his pleasure at listening to Lord Davies of Oldham, "especially when he is not being horrid to me".

In the end, no amendments were accepted, but a good few people voiced concern over the exact wording of the clause, debating the meaning of words like 'efficient' and 'wherever possible'. Nevertheless, the question of whether Clause 1 should stand part of the Bill, unchanged, went to a vote. There was a lot of opposition (presumably from mainly Tories, but there's no way I'm checking all the names), but the Clause passed with 106 'contents' to 55 'not contents'. All that talk for nothing...

Clause 1 passed - no amendments

Next time, I'll deal with Clause 2. See you then.

2010-02-21T19:04:00.004+02:00

Okay, for those who are interested, my continued coverage of the Digital Economy Bill. Warning: this post is very long, and took me a long time to compile. The Committee Stage will be much simpler, I promise.

The Second Reading took place on 2 December 2009. This, as I explained before, is pretty much just a variety of different members putting forth their opinion on the Bill, without any back-and-forth debate. That is more likely at the next stage. I'll list all the people involved in the 'debate', in the order in which they spoke. Click on their name to go to their Wikipedia page, and click on the sentence after their name to go to that point in Hansard, the recording of the proceedings. I could've included a link to the pertinent part of the BBC's Democracy Now video recordings of the proceedings, but Hansard covers what they say pretty well, insofar as it's not really worth seeing the action live. If there is a moment that may be worth seeing, however, I'll provide a link.

Labour First Secretary of State Lord [Peter] Mandelson introduced the Bill. The Labour government introduced this Bill, after their Digital Britain white paper made the reasons for the Bill clear. They do this, of course, with full knowledge that they may not be the government to see this Bill through, as a general election must be held before next November. It should be interesting to see how things progress. Anywho, Mandy explained the proposals pretty plainly, and made it clear that this kind of thing is long overdue, and there are an enormous amount of things that this Bill promises to do.

For me, the speech seemed to be surprisingly level-headed and forward-thinking: I've always had this feeling that the government - any government - are always behind the times with technology, but the speech made a refreshing change. From giving the Lords a dig by joking that "this House is probably the one place in Britain where peer-to-peer file-sharing is associated more with passing notes in the Lords' tea room than with piracy", to something that I've insisted on before, that "copyright infringement is the market's way of telling us that we need to develop new business models that make digital content legally available at reasonable prices". Later on, someone mentions Premiership football streaming in this regard, and I would echo Mandy's statement right there for that.

Equally encouraging, was the Labour government's clear, explicit denouncement of Murdoch's masterplan for destroying the BBC and, as he says, filling "British airwaves with more Fox-style news". He insisted that "Ofcom should be strengthened, not emasculated as some Conservative spokesmen have suggested". Sadly, as Britain moves ever closer to a Conservative government, I'm very worried about the BBC's future, since Labour are clearly more favourable to public service broadcasting, including Channel 4 (I'm sure many people are not even aware that C4 is a public service broadcaster, through all the repeats of US TV shows).

Of all the things mentioned, however, the most interesting, and perhaps controversial, was that of ISPs' jobs regarding stopping file sharers. This includes giving ISPs the power to suspend accounts, but "only against the most serious infringers". To my mind, proper government intervention in this is the most sensible option, as currently people downloading certain games or porn movies will be harassed by lawyers, instead of being given a fair trial with legal representation. As it stands, it's either pay up, or you're in big trouble. Alas, he mentions Ofcom creating a code to regulate this, and other members lament the current lack of such a code.

His opposite number for the Tories, Lord Fowler put forward his own views. He insisted at the beginning that his views were his own, not those of his party. He even decided to make a joke about Mandy's "comebacks", as well as a humorous complaint about a BBC commentator's (supposed) description of him. In general he seems to support the principles of the Bill, as do most people in the Lords. Notable points include his mention of the workprint leak of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which (according to Fox), "probably knocked $20 million to $30 million off the box office" - a purely hypothetical number, of course, as another member insists later in the debate.

He also mentions the argument that "file-sharers are those who spend most in the legitimate commercial market and that the industries would help themselves by making more material available legally and legitimately". Whether this is true is debatable, but it's nice that he brought it up. On the subject of TV, the ongoing argument about the death of regional news gets a mention. I'm sure there'll be a lot more talk of that in Committee. Also, he's not too happy about the Royal Charter that the BBC is governed by, with changes every ten years. This is probably how the Tories generally feel about the BBC, which is another reason I'm a bit worried about the Tory government, as I cherish the BBC.

Lib Dem spokesman Lord Razzall showed his party's "gentle welcome" to the Bill (he actually says 'general' but Hansard records it differently, one reason I listen to the debates first). His main focus was on online copyright infringement. This, clearly, is one of the biggest issues that the Bill focuses on, and he provides a few largely hypothetical numbers to put the case across. Apparently, around a tenth of the UK population "share copyrighted files regularly", 95% of music downloads are "illegal", and a quarter of "the world's online television piracy takes place in the United Kingdom", the latter not exactly a surprise as most pirated TV shows are American, and we'll download raw US TV more than any other country outside the US. Nevertheless, even if "we may all take [the statistics] with a pinch of salt", he makes the not unreasonable suggestion that curbing, but not exterminating, online piracy would still be "a very significant step".

There were a few problems he saw with the Bill, however. He didn't like the Bill's suggestion to punish people who did illegal downloading in the past, and he didn't like the lack of clear details about who's going to pay for all of it. Most of all, the Bill's most controversial part, Clause 17 (which allows the government to alter copyright law without the checks and balances of primary legislation - in other words, if the Tories were pals with Murdoch, they could give him a hand without other parties intervening), is rejected outright by the Lib Dems. Interestingly, he also makes the point that 'format shifting' (downloading a movie or song and converting it to use on another device) is today, technically, a copyright breach, so the Bill should insist that this "does not constitute a breach of copyright if done for personal use". Sensible, I'd say: I have to convert videos for my iPod all the time, so it'd be prudent to get this put in the Bill.

The BBC's former Director-General Lord [John] Birt was next to voice his opinion. Being an ex-BBC boss, you'd think he'd talk about them for a while, but most of his concern was with copyright infringement. Now, I'm familiar with attempts by unscrupulous law firms to prosecute downloaders, but often it's impossible to verify if somebody actually downloaded the files they're alleged to have downloaded. Thus, Birt's support of the Bill's response to offenders being "an absolutely identifiable account which is used at a precise moment in time, measured to the second, by someone who admits to possessing specific named content and then transmits that content online to a third party in breach of copyright" is interesting in theory, though may be difficult in practice. Obviously, the most serious offenders may be pretty easy to catch, but someone who downloads something once or twice is unlikely to be caught, as far as I can see.

Most of his debate centred on the internet, with a lament to the lack of "virtual bobbies on the digital beat" to stop paedos and fraudsters (which, frankly, is a pretty solid point, given the clear risks). He closes on this point, insisting that the Digital Economy is a "lawless, unpoliced and unregulated place", and something must be done about it. From my experience, these words and possible measures are certainly noble and justified, but, as I've said before, may be a little tricky to implement in practice. After all, if somebody frauds away your credit card details, couldn't they just hide in a more lawless country (like the one I'm in now, for that matter)?

The Lord Bishop of Manchester [Nigel McCulloch] addressed interesting concerns for church radio microphones, amongst other things. I'm not all that surprised that he mentioned video games, as he was the one who kicked up a fuss about 'Resistance: Fall of Man' featuring Manchester Cathedral. Nevertheless, the most unusual point he mentioned was, as I said, about churches using the analogue spectrum to "use space creatively" (with radio mikes). Selling off the analogue spectrum as Britain switches to DAB radio is certainly a cause for concern, and the Bishop says as much.

Labour's Lord [David] Puttnam didn't stay for long. He just wanted to let everyone know that he, and apparently Melvyn Bragg, would be taking part in future, but he was a bit busy today. Thanks for that.
Tory Lord Lucas agreed with Lord Birt, saying that the internet is like "the wild west out there", and "if the streets were like the internet we would want to know what was being done about it". Fair point. He also talks a great deal on his belief that the spectrum plans should include future provisions for emergency services, as things are a bit old-fashioned now, apparently. Also, he pointed out that "people have got used to a reasonable level of sharing of copyrighted material between friends and within small communities" when it comes to newspapers, books and the like, so it's "not at all certain how many [illegally downloaded] songs or films would actually have been purchased if people had had to pay for them".

This may be common sense, but he also warned about the industry insisting that copyright theft harms only the "small, creative individual", when big, nasty corporations are mostly bothered by this, so we run the risk of "putting a lot of people into the hands of pornographers and their lawyers" (for example) if the Bill isn't done properly. This goes back to what I said earlier about a fair trial for sharers, rather than legal bullying. Most satisfyingly of all, he insisted that people pirating music and streaming football matches comes down to the companies treating their customers with utter disdain. He's very much on the consumers' side, suggesting that the ISPs should try to wean sharers off illegal downloads "without making them feel like criminals". Last but not least, he insisted that Clause 17 should be removed completely.

Lib Dem Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (and yes, she is related to the other one) focused most of her attention on Channel 4. In general, she (though she says "we", referring I assume to the Lib Dems) is very much in favour of commercial public service broadcasting, such as Channel 4, and is glad that the Bill corrects the current remit, which "relates only to linear TV and ignores the growth of digital media". One problem she saw, however, was that the Bill must insist on more public service content being produced for the main, terrestrial Channel 4 station, not "relegated to digital channels with small, niche audiences" (is she referring to More4, perhaps?). She also turned her attention to the proposed local news consortia, that intend to provide independent TV local news. At the moment, ITV say they can't do it, so there will apparently be some pilots "next April". The Lib Dems welcome the idea as they believe that "the BBC must not become a monopoly supplier". Finally, she wonders if having no mention of the BBC in the Bill at all is a "lost opportunity".

Labour minister Lord Carter of Barnes talked a lot while saying little. He was one of the architects of the Digital Britain White Paper that inspired this Bill, so it's probably not all that surprising that he had no concerns to voice, just clarifications. He spent time emphasising the importance of funding the improvement of Britain's communication infrastructure, but most of what he said was unremarkable. As I said, not surprising.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote seemed to support Clause 17, surprisingly. Her argument was that the speed of change since the Communications Act 2003 has been such that "powers for the Secretary of State to make regulatory changes through secondary legislation" was a logical idea to speed things up. The 77-year-old showed her age occasionally, especially with this little gem: "I spend a lot of time in cars and have had hearing difficulties since the arrival of my first child, so it is a real pleasure to enjoy the quality and clarity of digital sound, especially when listening to music - whether it is Radio 3 or Classic FM, both of which are excellent stations." Thanks for that. By the way, I believe her first child was born when she was in her twenties, so don't worry.

She briefly mentions her support for the Bill's illegal downloading provisions, including the limiting of offenders' internet access ("my imagination somewhat boggles at how this is to be achieved," she wondered). Her main concern was with the exemption of music videos and sports from classification under the BBFC. While it's amusing to hear her talk about Mötley Crüe and Slipknot, the actual changes for this are now being addressed in another Bill, the Video Recordings (Exemption from Classification) Bill, which at time of writing is yet to get through 2nd Reading in the Commons. Her closing comments on "hard-core sex games" are also, um, interesting. (I didn't know this was a big problem...)

Labour's Baroness Morris of Yardley stuck to commenting on Clauses 4 to 17. She made the fair accusation that this kind of legislation should've been put in place a long time ago. She said that "when I was 17 or 18, I am not sure that I thought much about copyright when, in those days, I taped something from a record that was playing", so this idea that this generation is different to others is nonsense: other generations had little care for copyright, too, but now we have "the first generation that can do it at such high quality". Her basic point was that, as much as we need a revolution in the law to reflect the revolution in the industry, we need some things to stay the same, such as copyright. She concedes that the horse has bolted somewhat, saying that attempting "to persuade people to pay for something that was once free is far more difficult than doing it the other way round". Still, the Bill's principles of getting the big baddies of online distribution while helping the content providers to flourish should "move us towards a fully functioning online market for the creative industries", in her eyes.

Tory Baroness Buscombe talked for a bit about the news. This isn't surprising as she is chair(man) of the Press Complaints Commission. Her worry that some aspects may affect "self-regulation for the press" is obvious from her, though given what I've read about the PCC's 'regulation', I'd very much welcome the government giving the British press a kick up the arse. Incidentally, here's a fun Flash video explaining why the PCC needs reforming. Give it a look.

Anyway, back on topic. She made a point that nobody else seems to have mentioned, that of copyright for photography. In her words, "in a digital age, information about copyright and the creator supplied with the digital image is stripped away, often automatically, so that in a matter of moments the world is awash with so-called orphan images". So, somebody takes a pic, it ends up on the net, it's copied and Photoshopped, and nobody knows who the hell took it in the first place. Perhaps she has a point there. One of her main concerns, unsurprisingly, was the strengthening of Ofcom into areas outside TV, which may have an impact on freedom of expression. She's worried about the balance "between the rights of the individual and copyright protection". She does have a significant outside interest in this regard, of course.

Lib Dem Lord Roberts of Llandudno brought his Welsh perspective into things, as a lot of Wales obviously has serious broadband problems. It's certainly something worth mentioning: as the government pledges to get everyone up to a certain broadband speed, Lord Roberts reminds us all that a significant chunk of the UK can't get broadband at all, let alone fast broadband. In moving the country forward, it's obviously important not to leave some behind.

Unfortunately, there was the predictable confusion over 'megabits' and 'megabytes'. The Digital Britain report clearly states "2 megabits" per second, but people like Lord Roberts clearly don't know the difference. For the layman, 1 megabyte roughly equals 8 megabits (there's actually a difference between the way they're counted, but I won't explain that), and connection speed is only measured in bits, not bytes. People may say this doesn't matter, but it clearly does: there's a world of difference between getting everyone 2 megabits and 2 megabytes per second. It's like pledging 100 million pounds to help schools, then saying "oh, sorry, it was PENCE, not pounds. Still, no big difference, eh?". Still, the confusion has given people problems for years, since many think that their broadband should be faster than it currently is. Just for the record, where I live (outside the UK), I am getting 2 megabytes per second. Unlucky, fellas.

Labour's Lord Maxton also doesn't know the difference between bits and bytes, but still claims that he's an "early adopter" of technology, since he bought a mobile phone for £2,500 and his first computer for a similar price, though "it was a BBC computer and it had 400 kilobytes, not megabytes". Would it be pedantic to ask a) kilobytes of what? b) £2,500 for a BBC Micro is daylight robbery, are you sure you had a BBC? I guess it would be a little bit.

Anyway, he pointed out his own feelings on the subject of Premiership football online, saying "Manchester United will not continue to have 10 matches a season on Sky when it can have every one of its matches live on the internet throughout the world and collect a fee for it. The fee might be quite small - it might be only £1 a time - but if millions of people are watching it, that is an awful lot of money every week". Which is something I've been thinking about for a while now. Compared to the services offered by sports in the USA, this ridiculous and expensive service in the UK is simply criminal. At any rate, even if megabits and megabytes are the same to him, his views regarding the internet are particularly fresh - for a Lord, that is. While most people are fretting over the prospect of ITV not providing local news, he "will not be worried if the BBC becomes the sole provider of news in a particular area", because the internet does an excellent job right now. Hell, if I want to know what's happening in my town, I can use the web, and I don't even live in England. The man's got a point. Finally, he's also such a nethead that he opposes the idea to cut people's internet off, as "broadband will become as important to our households as our gas, electricity and water supplies".

Tory Viscount Bridgeman was concerned with the previously-mentioned 'orphan works', relating to photographs. As a non-executive director of a photographic archive, it was obvious that he was going to bring this issue up. In his short speech, he also talked a lot about licensing related to copyright infringement.

Lib Dem Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer had numerous concerns with the Bill. One of her most interesting points (to me) was related to the crackdown on the usage of wi-fi networks by people other than those that pay for it - for example, the old defence that 'I didn't download the copyrighted material, someone must've hacked my wi-fi'. Well, she thinks that the Bill "will make life very difficult for the future of internet cafes" and others that offer free wi-fi. If I walk into McDonald's, download an album and walk out, can I be caught? Will McDonald's get a fine? This idea that "Swindon is planning to become the first wi-fi town in Britain" could be scuppered by the news that a town in Ohio tried the same thing, but "the Motion Picture Association of America managed to shut down its municipal wi-fi network after a single download". Something worth considering, I'd say.

Labour's Lord Whitty is the chair of Consumer Focus, and as a result looks at things from a consumer point of view. He quite rightly points out that many people "now expect a free service and will be resentful of and resistant to attempts to curb that". If anyone thinks that those in Parliament merely look down on copyright thieves, many of the statements in these debates suggest otherwise: most seem to agree that artists deserve compensation for their efforts, but are aware that most people are used to getting stuff for free.

He refers to the background of the Bill mentioning that there are 6.5 million downloaders in the UK (though his "rather limited understanding of the teenage world suggests larger numbers than that"), and of the insistence that downloading equals theft. He makes a nice point on this: that "even if we accept that it is theft, the shoplifters who steal the actual DVD, which is worth a lot more than the rights of an individual download to the rights holders, have a fair trial and are subject to due process. They do not receive a letter, but, at the first attempt of enforcement, they are subject to due process". Legally, as it stands, downloading is not theft, as it is a civil matter, not a criminal matter (an argument I've always made).

Lib Dem Culture, Media and Sport spokesman Lord Clement-Jones remarked, bafflingly, on the "skeletal" nature of the Bill by saying that there isn't "even a pig in the poke; the pig has not even arrived, in some cases". He tried to be even-handed between rights holders and consumers, but once again the point was raised regarding how "we have seen a proliferation of lawyers' letters, acting for the pornography industry... often against innocent people asserting copyright claims and threatening court action... I hope that the provisions of the new code will obviate the need for this heavy-handed type of action".

Clause 17 reared its ugly head again, described as a "Henry VIII clause" (meaning it gives powers to individuals in Parliament, instead of letting the whole of Parliament decide on things). Obviously the clause is intended to help changes in copyright law be implemented swiftly, but many people, including members of the House and other companies, are not happy with the idea. He went on to talk in detail about the division of the electromagnetic spectrum as Britain moves to DAB radio and for the mobile phone operators. His concerns were mainly about the way that it will be carved up for all concerned, and whether there can be some improvements for the government in relation to this.

Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Minister Lord Howard of Rising poured scorn on the Labour government's efforts in the digital economy, as apparently "Britain is only 31st out of 66 countries in broadband speed". He, along with others, didn't want to see the Secretary of State given "comprehensive and unchallengeable powers", referring to Clauses 11 and 17. He urged the government to be careful with the digital radio switchover, offering up as an example that old people "may have had a wireless for many years which has become almost a companion", and that blind people "will not be able to work the digital radio because the instructions are on a screen that they will not be able to see".

Labour's Lord Davies of Oldham reminded us all that the team writing the Bill "are only in the foothills - we are nowhere near the Himalayas yet". He responded to all of the concerns directed towards him throughout the debate. He confirmed that the government's position for punishing file sharers was to focus on those whose offences are "obvious, repeated and serious". He also made it clear that the government insists that "Clause 17 is a very important part of the Bill", despite the amount of opposition to it.

Phew. That's all. All three major parties were very keen on moving to Committee to resolve the many problems with the Bill, so I'll go through that next. I'll certainly abbreviate it much more than Second Reading, though.

2010-01-27T13:34:00.002+02:00

I have a few questions. Do you live in the UK? Do you use the internet? Do you watch TV? Do you play video games? Do you listen to the radio? If you've answered 'yes' to any of these questions (and I'll be very surprised if anybody doesn't), then something very important is being discussed in the UK Parliament that affects you.

It's called the Digital Economy Bill, and I've suddenly become very interested in the workings of Parliament, that I've started following all of the debates and such that relate to several Bills. I get the feeling that most of you are bored stiff by such things, so I thought I'd use my blog for something useful for once, and explain, in simple abbreviated terms, what is happening with the Bill, and allow you to make your own mind up about it. It's as much for my own benefit as yours, as I'd like to get things in perspective as I follow my first Bill through Parliament.

First of all, what's a Bill? Well, a Bill is a law that isn't law yet. A proposed law, if you like. This particular Bill started out as a very long White Paper (a document detailing what the government will do in future, usually used as the basis for writing a new Bill) entitles 'Digital Britain: Final Report'. I can't be bothered to read this document, as it's over 200 pages long and is merely hypothetical. The real deal is the Bill that came out from it, and I will definitely be giving that a thorough viewing.

I will also be listening to every word said in Parliament on this Bill, and because I'm sure you guys are too busy (or lazy) to do the same, I'll summarise everything on this blog. To use a bit of internet slang, tl;dr. I'll hopefully be able to educate you on the process of getting it through Parliament, just in case you don't understand the devilry taking place within the Houses. I think, therefore, I should begin my coverage with a simple explanation of the passage of a Bill.

Once a Bill has been written, it gets a First Reading in either House (the Commons or the Lords) by a member of the House. This is just a formality: there's no debate, as, generally, nobody actually knows what's in the Bill, because it hasn't been printed. You can't read some Bills until a while after, once they've been printed. Sometimes at this stage the member will give an explanation of the Bill to anyone listening, but often they just read the title and it goes off to be printed, which gives members time to read it and come up with ideas.

Second Reading takes place a bit afterwards, and is the first debate of the Bill. It generally involves numerous members giving pre-prepared speeches on their opinions of the Bill, expressing support or concern over some or all of it. It usually doesn't take too long, unless it's a large Bill which provokes a lot of debate, and the member who introduced the Bill will wrap things up by addressing the issues brought forth by the other members. Nothing happens to the Bill, yet. That comes next.

The Committee Stage is a much more involved process, since now members have the opportunity to amend the Bill. It will probably be clear from Second Reading that several members have problems with parts of the Bill, and so they suggest changes. All of the changes are discussed by members, and this can take a very long time, obviously. Each amendment is either not moved (perhaps they changed their mind, or another amendment has made it unworkable), withdrawn, or agreed. From what I can see of the first sitting of the Committee Stage on this Bill, agreements on amendments are not that common, which I suppose is understandable.

Once everybody can agree on the amendments, it's time to move to the next stage, the Report Stage. This is pretty similar to the Committee stage, and just gives members another chance to debate the Bill and propose amendments, but only to those parts that have already been amended. If you want to debate the original content of the Bill, you had your chance in the last two stages, basically. As far as I can see, this is generally a much quicker stage than the Committee Stage.

The Third Reading is the final part before being sent to the other House. In the Commons, there are no amendments allowed by now, but in the Lords amendments are still possible. Regardless, the Bill has been debated and fiddled with so much that there's little argument by this point, so it generally gets put to a vote and either agreed to or not.

As I said, the Bill gets sent to the other House (the Houses don't refer to each other by name, incidentally: they simply refer to them as "another place") and the whole process begins afresh. One assumes that if it went through the whole process with one House, the process through the other should be relatively simple, though you never know.

Once the second House approves it, any new amendments (if there are any) get considered by the other House, and a Bill can "ping-pong" between the Houses until both agree on a final form of the Bill, which then goes off to the Queen for Royal Assent. Thus, it becomes an Act. Phew.

Okay, after all that explanation, I won't be giving you an awful lot of actual info, yet. I'll just tell you that I'll be referring to a few things for you to check out yourself. The BBC's excellent Democracy Live site puts all of their BBC Parliament programming in easy-to-reference videos on the web. The only real issue is that they divide the footage from the day into lots of little pieces, so unless the thing you want is a big, significant thing, it's hard to find. Still, you can search for stuff that people say in the videos, which is pretty cool.

Also, Hansard is the not-quite-verbatim-but-close-enough record of everything said and done in Parliament, and so that's also a nice reference work, as they cut out all the guff and just leave the important bits, with good grammar and the like. I'll reference both of them, just so you can have a look for yourself at what people said. I'll probably find the members' pages on Wikipedia, in case you want to find out about somebody.

So, I hope that gives you some background, before I delve into the Bill properly and give you a good summary of debates around the Bill. This could be a long process, but it's worth remembering that Parliament opens and closes every November, so if this Bill isn't passed by this November, it may have to begin again. Which would be fun...

The First Reading took place on 19 November 2009, shortly after the opening of Parliament. A lot of Bills were introduced that day, to give enough time for passage. No debate, of course, but the incredibly complicated title gives a hint of things to come. I'll be back to summarise the Second Reading, which took place on 2 December 2009. At the moment, we're well into the Committee Stage, and it plans to continue for a little while yet. So, no rush, then.

2010-01-16T22:31:00.003+02:00

Long time no see. If you are a regular blog follower, you probably know me in real life. Thus, you'll know that I'm back in Ukraine, doing the same old thing, after a busy Xmas/New Year period which included a lot of British sightseeing and my sister's wedding. Altogether, busy times. Still, better give the rest of you a bit of insight.

After I gave my last update, I flew home on the 23rd, which gave me time to show my girlfriend around a rather bleak and quiet Burton the following day. Obviously, the 25th was spent inside with the family, and a good time was had by all. On Boxing Day (though not 'technically' Boxing Day, as it was a weekend), we had a good look around Repton, the little village next to Burton. Then we met up with the relatives down in Northamptonshire the following day, before me and the girlfriend went our separate ways on the 28th: me to the football, her to Derby for shopping.

29th was London day, as I dashed down early to put in my visa application. The weather was horrible all sodding day, rainy and cold. My feet got very bloody wet. Still we saw a few things, and my girlfriend bought a soft toy raven, which she was very happy with. 30th was me and me lass seeing the sights in Derby, New Year's Eve was spent mostly in Nottingham, before heading back to Derby for a relatively sedate party to see the new decade in.

New Year's Day was pretty quiet: we went to Barton Marina, which would've been lovely if everything wasn't shut. Still, we had a drink or two before heading off to a pub/restaurant combo. The 2nd was a little busier: we headed off early to Oxford for a very enjoyable day trip. As I used to live there, it wasn't so difficult to guide my girlfriend round.

3rd was also pretty quiet, and we didn't do much at all, other than, at the last minute, deciding to visit the National Memorial Arboretum, an impressive new place nearby to honour Britain's war dead. The following day was more interesting: York. I'd been there before, also, so once again looking around was not too taxing, though I visited York Minster for the first time and was mightily impressed.

The 5th was my second trip to London, ostensibly to pick up my new visa, but we had an excellent day out too, as the weather was much more favourable this time round. The overpriced London Eye was on our to-do list amongst other things, and all in all it was a good trip. All this travelling between towns was tiring - and my girlfriend had picked up a nasty cold - so the 6th was a total rest day. We found the time to wander to the shops and back before dark, but not much more taxing than that.

After that rest, I promised we'd go somewhere far the following day. We decided on Chester, which I knew nothing about, other than it being the setting for Hollyoaks. It turns out it's quite an historical city, with walls you can walk along, and a church which we didn't fully explore (money) but which was rather nice. With the light fading, we jumped in the car and headed off to Llandudno, of all places, before nightfall. Out of season, and in the late afternoon, it was obviously deserted, and all of the things which would attract people to it normally were closed. Nevertheless, it was lovely to look out into the sea, with Blackpool Tower invisible 75km in the distance. We also had a lovely meal at the nicest restaurant in town, so it was all good.

Obviously, we rested after that mammoth journey the next day, but the 9th was mainly devoted to packing our bags, then having separate male and female parties, as the wedding was the following day. And so it passed: 10th January, my sister's wedding, and we flew out rather early the next day. It was a bit tricky, as we had to run and thus miss out on Duty Free, but we caught the plane alright and were back home very soon, to a lovely welcome from my girlfriend's family. Much drink and food was consumed. Incidentally, I had another big meal today at another family member's house, in a small village north of Kyiv. We introduced them to crackers - you know: pull, bang, hat and crap present - and they were all rather amused by the idea.

So, anyway, a wonderful time in Britain, I'd say. It just made me want to stay there, with my girlfriend... ho hum. Back to the old grind. Ah, and I forgot to mention: it's Ukrainian elections tomorrow. So, I'll probably be updating rather soon.

Oh, you were wondering about pictures, weren't you? Well, I took virtually none, and my girlfriend took about 5,000. So, if you want some, I'll have to be very selective, won't I? Maybe next time.

2009-12-17T16:48:00.006+02:00

To quote the title of a level from Cannon Fodder, "Bugger Me It's Cold". In little more than a week or so, the temperature has dropped from quite a bit above zero to -13. This dramatic fall is something that I'm just not used to in the UK, and even though I was in Kyiv last winter, it NEVER felt as bad as this. My fingers seem to be going numb after just 5-10 minutes outside, even WITH gloves on. It's inexplicable. Why I never got numb fingers last winter, when it was supposedly colder, I'll never know, but it's almost unbearable now.

Anyway, let's not complain too much about all this bad weather. I have pictures to show you from the past three weeks. Not too many, mind, but I've not been too keen to leave the flat in the last week given the sudden drop in temperature.

We begin with a somewhat childish photograph: yes, someone has indeed drawn a toilet on this bench in a building. Kids today.

Er, this little statue is in the north of the city, near Artema Road. The sign reads "Loshadka", which appears to mean "horse". What that has to do with a hedgehog, I don't know.

Here is the thing that gives the Metro station 'Teatralna' its name: the Theatre. Very grand.

This guy was Ukraine's first proper president, before the Soviets came along.

Ah, beautiful Kyiv... yes, there are a lot of cars here, at Ploscha Peremohy.

This photo was taken on 10th December, just to show the first snow that arrived. It's been falling sporadically since.

In other news, I went shopping in a relatively-new shopping centre in Obolon, with the catchy name of Dream Town. It certainly lives up to its moniker. There are several themed places in the centre: this one is Hollywood. Apologies for the bad focus, but see if you can spot everyone. King Kong is obvious, but Spiderman and Batman are there, too.

Below is an equally interesting spectacle. Old American-style cars, very nice.

And a piano! Notice the man with an old hand-cranked camera on the left.

Elsewhere we have some bizarre stuff. Next to a Western saloon, there's a Crazy Golf course.

This is a fake waterfall in the jungle section.

There's also an Oriental section.

This is the wonderful ice rink, for those who fancy a bit of skating. There's a rollerskating area, too, if you prefer.

For no reason, there's a model of the world here, with some crazy signifiers of different countries. Big Ben can be seen on the UK towards the left. All in all, it's a wonderful shopping centre, well worth a visit. Kyiv's certainly improving its shopping experience with places like this, out of the centre of town.

Here's another example of bonkers advertising inside Metro stations: all the walls are covered with ads for one of those bio-yoghurt-type things. So, they thought it'd be fun to put a load of balloons on the ceiling to demonstrate the point.

And a photo from a few days ago to illustrate the inclement weather.

That's yer lot for now. Maybe you'll see another update around Christmas. Or, maybe not. It's not long to go now.

2009-12-02T14:18:00.003+02:00

Election Special!

On 17th January, Ukrainians will elect a new president. I say "new" because although the incumbent, Victor Yuschenko, is legally allowed to run for office again, he's so deeply unpopular that he clearly has no chance of victory. Will a new president solve the country's many problems, and do the people of the country really think that anything will change with a new leader in charge? Probably not. Still, I find it lots of fun, so I thought I'd educate you guys on the front-runners, so you'll know what's going on when international news outlets inevitably cover it come January.

Viktor Yanukovych - The front-runner. The big man. Two-time former Prime Minister, and (this is important, I think) lost the 2004 presidential election because he cheated, and massive protests (the Orange Revolution) resulted in a re-run, which Yuschenko won. Yes, that's right: Ukraine's the kind of country where a president who was proven to cheat his way to an election victory is now the front-runner to be president. He's very much pro-Russia, pro-East Ukraine, and thus he's very unpopular elsewhere, including Kyiv. His ads are everywhere here, but I doubt he'll get many votes in the capital.

Here you can see his rather plain ad campaign: "Ukraine For The People". Not particularly inspiring, but at least it has his face. So you have something to throw tomatoes at.

Yulia Tymoshenko - The challenger. The iron lady. Current Prime Minister (which gives her something of an advantage in campaigning). She paints herself as a woman of the people: very popular in the West, as well as pro-EU and pro-NATO, as the current regime is. She and Yanukovych seem such perfect opponents: East v West, EU v Russia... er, Man v Woman.

Her campaign has been rather interesting. It began with different phrases such as "They Betray - SHE WORKS". I guess there was no doubt who 'she' was, in a campaign with just one woman. Then, they changed tack: now, the catchphrase was "SHE WORKS - 'SHE' IS UKRAINE!" - which works in Ukrainian because they have grammatical gender which English doesn't, so both Yulia and Ukraine are 'she'. Smart.

In this photo, the phrase has changed from "SHE WORKS" to "SHE WINS". A bold statement. Oh, wait: 'she' is Ukraine. Of course. Not Yulia.

Serhiy Tihipko - The upstart. The strong man. Former Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, and a bit of a banker in general. Not a huge amount of experience in politics, but he's gaining huge support at the moment, as Ukrainians become disillusioned with Ukrainian politicians: Tihipko seems like a breath of fresh air. One of his early slogans was "Strong President, Strong Country". He emphasised his 'strong' credentials by appearing on the front cover of Men's Health magazine. I'm not making this up.

His campaign has been a little cryptic. He's not been slagging off opponents, but not really been making his agenda clear. This ad says, "28th October: Ukraine's Day of Liberation and Unity, 1944-2009". Um, okay. I'm not aware of anything significant on that day, but anyway...

Arseniy Yatsenyuk - The new moderate. The young pretender. Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, and also served under Serhiy Tihipko in the National Bank. He's 35, the minimum age for presidential candidates, and he's certainly brought out the big guns for his campaign.

He's had by far the most striking and radical ad campaign (he even uses his first name on ads, without his surname). There's a real style to his ads. This one says, "Save The Country: New Industrialisation". It's one of a range of different ads with the 'Save The Country' theme. He's got a wonderful new one, actually: "Save The Country From The Corruption Virus: YU1YA1" - a play on the H1N1 virus attacking Ukraine, but 'Yu' makes people think of Yuschenko and Yulia, and 'Ya' reminds you of Yanukovych. Very smart.

Interestingly, he also has a load of little tents dotted around major cities, with people handing out 'newspapers' (propaganda leaflets).

Viktor Yuschenko - The boss. The dying swan. Former Prime Minister and, of course, current President. Given that Yuschenko was poisoned by forces unknown (resulting in a permanently disfigured face), and successfully led the country to rise up and put him in power, you can't help but feel a teeny bit sorry for this guy, as his people have completely turned on him. Perhaps their incredible belief in him has been let down, and they feel disappointed. Whatever it is, he's not going to win, but he's still running anyway. Two of his election pledges are visa-free travel with the EU, and kicking Russia's Black Sea fleet out of Crimea, so that should indicate to you his feelings on the EU and Russia (who, incidentally, he wants to have a more physical border with).

The poor sod's ad campaign is so insecure, they won't even put his face on it. Instead, they get a bunch of other guys to come on and say "I'm For Yuschenko!". Like this bird. (Actually, since taking this picture, he's started a round of ads with his face on, so it's not quite true.)

Volodymyr Lytvyn - The outsider. The mystery man. Lytvyn's campaign started very late compared to the others, but his ads and Arseniy-style tents are now popping up around Kyiv. He's a little mysterious, I don't really know that much about him. All I know is he likes football and looks like Terence Stamp.

His ads are pretty basic.

And he's nicked the tent idea from Arseniy. I wouldn't worry too much about him.

So, there's your round up of the major candidates, but the only two to really consider (given the latest polls) are Yanukovych and Tymoshenko. The elections have a two-round system: anyone with money can register as a candidate, but the two that get the most votes in the first round contest a run-off. According to polls, the YU1YA1 combo are easily going to the run-off, but it's super tight in the run-off polls, with Yanukovych having a slight lead at the moment. Of course, it's too tight to call for him just yet, so I'm looking forward to the new year to see who'll get it. I hope you are too, now.

2009-11-21T13:13:00.013+02:00

Just want to mention first that, concerned about privacy and the like, I've decided to go back through the entire blog and remove any names of people I know (except Pete, as he comments on every post so it'd be pointless). I don't want to mention the names of anybody on the blog, as I prefer to keep things as anonymous as possible. That includes taking pictures of people, too - though anyone who's seen my pics from holidays with my girlfriend will notice this already. If you know me, you'll know who I'm referring to anyway. If you don't... well, none of your business. I hope nobody minds this 'censorship' of my early blog posts, before I got some good sense.

Anyway, enough of the guff. I've FINALLY got through all the crap that I've been building up, now it's time to tell you what's really been happening since August.

I got back to Ukraine on Sunday 23rd August, and finally met up again with my girlfriend after two months apart. It was a happy occasion, of course. It was also Flag Day in Ukraine, and the following day was Independence Day, celebrating 18 years of independence from the Soviet Union. Obviously, there was gonna be a bit of a party.

So we went down to Maidan Nezalezhnosti to see what was happening. Before we got there, I saw this statue, which I'd not seen before. So I took a picture. It's Mykhailo Drahomanov, a well-known public figure in Kyiv. Look him up.

This was the scene at Maidan (without my girlfriend).

"Ukraine, 18 Years of Independence: Our Victory". I think there were tanks and things for kids to climb on and take pictures, so it was a busy day.

So, I rested in the flat, waiting to see what would happen with teaching and that. My girlfriend has a tortoise. Here he is. We haven't seen him (or her, nobody's sure) for a while. Hopefully he's not crawled away to die somewhere.

On one of my journeys around Kyiv trying to get interest in teaching, I stumbled across something that I should've seen before.

It's a monument to the Holodomor (the famine which killed millions in Ukraine in the 30s - now recognised by the Ukrainian government as an act of genocide by the Soviet regime).

It's very large and impressive.

And its position give you a great view of the left bank.

There are some nice steps here too.

Underneath the monument is a small museum about the Holodomor.

It's all in Ukrainian so not much for me to see - plus I don't really know any family here that might be affected, so these books of remembrance are of little use to me right now.

It's visually impressive, though. Certainly worth a look if you're ever down this way (near the Lavra).

Some poignant statues around here too.

And angels.

This, on the other hand, is, I think, dedicated to the Unknown Soldier. So, a war memorial.

Very tall.

There are some things here honouring the heroes of the war.

You can clearly see the other monument from here, and, in the distance, the Lavra.

This is Glory Square, next to the monuments. There is the Hotel Salut in front (the big circular building), and under the road is a little shopping centre. Good for a quick bite to eat, as they have a mini food court.

This is unrelated: it's the following day as we were just walking around Kyiv. Beautiful, isn't it?

I was twiddling my thumbs, waiting around to find something to occupy my time. So I watched a bit of TV and went shopping a lot. This woman's unusual attire on Megasport confused me a little.

I found this CD in Megamarket. One of the most bizarre metal CD covers I've seen. I like the guy on the right: get that hand away!

I had lunch at McDonald's near the train station (which is now closed for refurbishment, damn), so I thought I'd take a nice pic of the station on a sunny day.

The following day (5th September) Ukraine played Andorra in the football World Cup qualifiers, so me and the missus went down. Tickets were outrageously cheap, and it was a nice sunny day out. She'd never been to Dynamo's stadium before, so it was a nice occasion for all.

A day later and I went to her friend's christening (their kid was christened, not the friend). This was the grand cathedral where it took place: St Pantheleymon's Cathedral. The actual ceremony was in a small room, though, not the main hall.

This building was next to the cathedral. Don't know what it is.

Here's the cathedral again.

Near the cathedral is a nice park, Feofania. It's a lovely place for a walk on a summer's day.

You can still see the cathedral from the park.

I was enjoying my shopping back in Kyiv, as you can see. Who needs to live in England when you can buy all these beers here? Admittedly, they're about six times the price of local beer, but that's about in line with their price in England. And yes, I know Asahi is Japanese, but it illustrates the point about foreign beer.

I was starting to see some of the stuff I'd missed in Kyiv previously, like this church, St Nicolas (I think).

Not been in here, but I'd certainly like to soon. A British pub? Makes a change from Irish ones.

This is Palats Ukrayina (or Palace "Ukraine", if you like), where all the big concerts are held (well, here and the Palace of Sports). Yes, that IS Engelbert Humperdinck playing soon.

Next to Pechersk metro station, there is this statue of, unless I'm mistaken, Lesya Ukrainka, the famed writer.

And now, to round off my summer update, a load of old people were having a march on 13th September. Why? No idea.

Summer turned to autumn, and things started to settle down a little bit. I had my birthday with my girlfriend's family, having a nice meal. I'm starting to settle down, and teach a bit, too.

Meanwhile, we move on to October, and this kid's playground made me chuckle. Why? The childish graffiti. For those who can't read, the elephant has the words "Я лох" ("I'm a cock") written on him, and if you look carefully, the slide has, in large letters, "ПИЗДА", scrawled all down it. This latter word refers to a certain part of female genitalia, and has since been removed. The other word is apparently not that serious, so it is still there.

This is the side of the Verkhovna Rada (Supreme Council) building, where parliament resides.

And here's the front.

Meanwhile, I was watching BBC World News' story about Windows 7 coming out, and do you think they could've picked a geekier-looking guy to be their expert on the issue? He's a walking stereotype, for Christ's sake.

Interestingly, it seems that Sega still produce consoles over here. Yes, that's a NES in an N64 box with a 'Mega Drive III' title. Not to mention the NES in a Playstation box with a 'Sega 2000' title. This shop had a few of these phoney consoles. I'd buy one, but what's the point?

Walking the streets of Kyiv, I happened upon a coach which looked a bit old school.

I think you'll agree that you just don't see this kind of thing in the UK anymore.

Next to Pechersk metro station (again), I encountered a large group of people staging a political rally of some sort. All I can guess is that, with the orange flags, it's in support of (still) President Viktor Yuschenko's party, but as I'll explain in my upcoming Election Special, he doesn't have all that many fans right now.

Well, these guys look all fine and WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? Looks like Ukraine's finest is going to the Winter Olympics. I shouldn't make jokes about the 'woman' in the background, but the fact that I took this picture at all must say something.

One of these is a Kyiv Cake (Kyivskiy Tort/Tort Kyivskiy) made by a famous Ukrainian chocolate maker, the other is a supermarket own-brand copy. See if you can guess which is the real deal and which is the fake!

I never saw this building before. It's a government building, and it's quite impressive. No, I don't know what it is.

Finally, it appears that a cinema in Kyiv will host a day (or season, maybe) of 'New British Cinema', illustrated wonderfully by Queen Elizabeth I face-painted with the cross of St George. Whether this is 'British' or 'English' is a debate that I can't be arsed to enter into in Ukraine, as most people don't know the difference - and why should they? After all, most English people think Chernobyl is in Russia.

So, that brings me up to the present day. I haven't taken any newer pictures than that, and I haven't done any really interesting things either. All I can say is that living in Ukraine with a Ukrainian girl gives me a real perspective on Ukrainian life, even if my language abilities are not improving much.

My girlfriend can't get enough of two particular shows on TV - "танцюють всі" ("Everybody Dance"), and "Фабрика Зірок" ("Factory of Stars"). The problem with them, aside from the fact that they suck (the former is a dancing competition, the latter a 'singing' competition) is that one a week they last virtually an entire evening. At least The X Factor only lasts an hour or so: these things go on forever, just like one of the most popular shows, Shuster Live, a current affairs talk show. A whole evening is lost to these stupid shows. But I digress.

I'll sign off for now, but I'll be back soon with my Election Special, where I explain to the layman exactly how the 'system' works in this country, and who you have to look out for before the election in January. Hey, it makes a change, doesn't it? You might even learn something. Ta ra.

2009-11-15T14:09:00.011+02:00

Part 2 of my trip to Chisinau.

In my last instalment, I took you through the heart of the city, culminating in reaching the Triumphal Arch. Now I'll continue exactly where I left off.

This charming building is the bell tower next to the cathedral. The cathedral's behind it.

It's quite nice, isn't it?

This is in front of it. It looks like a fountain but it also looks a bit weird.

A nice two-shot of the cathedral and this... thing.

Woo, classy shot.

Pigeons!

I came, I saw, I took a picture.

After that, I happened across a shopping centre, so I went inside. Not much of interest, mainly clothes, but I took the lift to the top floor and took a pic. Then I realised that there were no stairs to the top floor. So if the lift broke, you were stuck. Genius. Maybe there was an emergency stairway...

I left the shopping centre, only to find a large religious group doing something in the street. Don't know what, but I took a pic anyway.

I kept on walking around and noticed what looks like a fancy hotel.

This is the shopping centre I was in earlier. Sun City. It looks so... lovely.

I dunno what this is but it looks COOL. Probably police or something, looking at the logo.

Back onto the main street. Busy.

Now what's this? Hmm... Interestingly, the toilets have a keycode which you get when you buy something. Toilets in Ukraine and the like cost money so McD's toilets are even more common to nip in for free than in England.

This just illustrates how easy it is to change currency on the main street of Chisinau. 'No commission'? That's normal, here and in Kyiv.

National Theatre, I guess. That's what it says.

Next to the theatre is a park with this weird statue, and people were selling paintings and stuff too.

I'm guessing this is a musical theatre place. Inside is a small café, where the girl serving me spoke Romanian, so when she said 'eight lei', I asked her to use English or Russian, and she used both with a bit of thought. Sweet.

City hall. Another EU flag. Funny: the ruling party is communist, but there's now a coalition for EU integration, so maybe that has something to do with it. Don't fully understand, though.

As I was walking, I turned round and thought, 'what the hell is that?'

It's SKYTOWER! A big office block, though apparently there's 'shopping', as the sign says, but I couldn't find any.

Next to the tower, I'll let you figure that one out.

Well, everything seems to be in ord... wait a minute! Lira? Deutschmarks?! Get a new sign, mate, it's a bit old.

Central Piazza, I presume. Well, it's actually a BIG market, rivalling Petrivka in Kyiv. There's all sorts of crap to be found here, though it's a bit harder to navigate than Petrivka because of many people in a small space.

The smell of this indoor cheese market hit me when I entered. The photo's blurry because I didn't want anyone to see me. Coward, I know.

Meanwhile, outdoors, it's just as busy. And this was on a Wednesday afternoon!

Imagine how busy it'd be on a Saturday lunchtime! Jesus.

Anyway, I like crowded markets, but time was getting on and that one's pretty damn crowded. Outside the market was this big department store. I didn't explore too much, didn't see much point.

Opposite that building, another bloody big one. Weird how you can see the lights through the windows...

Jesus, how many big buildings?! Yes, this was in the same square I was standing in.

This globe, attached to the big glass building two pics ago, turns. I thought of a video, but I think you can imagine it yourself, so a photo will suffice.

This building, with mobile phone and electronic shops inside, has some nice statues attached.

In the distance is a nice statue. Shame I didn't get closer.

Ciuflea church complex. Looks nice from the outside, but sadly didn't go in...

...because there was a big gate with a man in uniform in front, and I'm too much of a pussy to go and ask if I can get in.

I walked back to the hostel over a bridge, and looking over the side I realised that there's some crazy shite down there.

This is the bridge, with Mall Dova in the background (apologies for awful photo).

It's like another world under the bridge.

After getting home, I went for a meal with a guy from the hostel, then onto a bar called the Rock 'n' Roll Café (I think) and met another hostel guy, plus a local. As we were thinking of moving on, a guy walked in and announced that he was staying in the same hostel, so we had a new member of our team.

After finding that most of town was closed on a Wednesday night, we walked to Club City, or the City Club, or whatever. This was obviously where most people were that night, as it was a busy nightclub. I hate nightclubs and I made that clear, but we went anyway. After a while of watching two go-go dancers, I grabbed a taxi with another in my group, and went to bed.

The following day I did very little as I'd already seen about as much of the town as I wanted, and the weather wasn't so good. I eventually went for a meal with the three others from the hostel in Mall Dova. The top floor has a range of different restaurants, and we decided on one with typical food of the region (I think... it's hard to classify, but it was lovely, and cheap).

I just hung around at the hostel, and eventually grabbed a taxi to the station and jumped on the train. My kupe was empty, which was interesting. I got the chance to watch a movie on my laptop as a result.

I also thought I'd take some pics of the train for those who are curious. This is my kupe, my bed on the bottom left.

View from the top bunk, towards the (closed) door.

Looking up from the top bunk, towards the other bunk.

My bed again, a more direct view. It's rather comfy, actually, as the train is so damn slow that it's easy to sleep on, and I traditionally have immense trouble sleeping on the move.,

Er, the toilets are not so comfy. This is a bad shot, but you get the idea. Don't sit down. Though hovering is hard with the train shaking. There's a hole in the floor for water to leak out, and when you push the flush, the water (or whatever else) simply drops out of the train. This means you can't use the toilet either at a station or when you're near a station/town. Can be frustrating, that.

And this is the corridor, with windows on the right and kupes on the left. I didn't use the flash as there were guys there and didn't want to attract attention (I like to go unnoticed on my travels).

A guy got in my kupe at Ungen and I talked to him in my basic Russian for a few hours, enjoying a drink of brandy and some chocolate until it was time to sleep, then had to get up super early for the border crossing. Everything went smoothly, thankfully.

So, that was my trip. Hope you enjoyed it, and if you happen to go to Chisinau for any reason, just take some Euros or dollars and you'll find it easy to change them into the local currency. Other than that, it's a small city, not much to see. I'm kicking myself that I didn't plan on a trip to Tiraspol (in autonomous province Transnistria, essentially a separate country but a corrupt Soviet-style one) but this was a last-minute plan and I didn't really find out about it until I got there. Maybe some day...