Netrogressive

Squall surfs the net and recommends a few beaches to land on.

Squall 14, Autumn 1996, pg. 63.

[* Websites with red asterisks have been linked to Wayback Machine archived snapshots of the sites where available, so they can be viewed as they appeared in 1996, or thereabouts].

Festival web archives

Two web sites crammed with archive information on Travellers and festivals now exist on-line courtesy of the ineluctable Tash and Dice George.

Tash’s Festival and Travellin’ Archive (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tash_lodge *) is chock-a. As listed on site, the man’s diary of attended events is longer than most people’s history of hot dinners. Stretching from Cissbury Ring Festival 1978 through to Reclaim the Streets’ party in 1996, Tash and his camera have been to hundreds of festies, raves and demos. The fruits of his avid attendance record can now be found on his web-page.
[Tash current site (2024) https://alanlodge.co.uk]

Summaries of the CJA, and other relevant bits of law affecting community assemblies and parties, sit side by side with his One eye On The Road’ photographic exhibition, right to party information and the All Systems Go East-Midlands free party posse. The web-site hotlinks list is massive, all adding to the impression that by dialling up Tash’s web-page, you’re in a cyberspace all of its own.

Dice George is another well known nutter for the festival cause, with the love of his labour focussed specifically on the events surrounding a certain stone circle in Wiltshire. The Stonehenge Campaign site (http://www.kingsway.ac.uk/kiss/stonehenge/campaign.htm) [offline] is similarly crammed with info, pics, and diaries of occurrences at the Henge. Rewards-a-plenty for anyone remotely interested in the modern day cultural phenomenon of festivities and attempted festivities at the Stones.

New developments will be monitored and reported in Netrogressive: watch this space...

Other Top Sites

The McSpotlight web site (http://www.mcspotlight.org) must be one of the most on-the-case UK info sites in cyberspace. Regularly updated, it contains information on the mammoth McLibel trial, including weekly trial updates and the plethora of global anti-McDonald’s media coverage it has inspired. Stacks of info on the antics of the Burger giant are also to be found, as well as news of the far and wide activist opposition to its plans for global domination.

Master magicians of the street party, Reclaim the Streets’ (http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/campaigns/rts.html) [offline] website is also a click-on must. Their site has a new image library, as well as lyrics on the social ideology of the car’ and ‘Who needs the great car economy?’. There’s an RTS UK events diary, a report on the big M41 bash and a section on ‘How to make and use a scaffolding tripod”.
[RTS current site (2024) http://rts.gn.apc.org]

Other road protest websites include the A30 (Fairmile et al) site (http://www.inxpress.co.uk/exfoe/a30/a30.htm) [offline] with latest news and a guided tour round the three camps - Trollheim, Allercombe and Fairmile, and the Third Battle of Newbury site (http://www.gn.apc.org/newbury *) with pics and all the latest.

There’s also a web site for the Wandsworth land occupation for its latest news and statements of intent (http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/tlio/puregen.html) [offline].

The squatters in the monastery - stars of the ‘Monkey Business’ feature on page 22 - also have their own web-site packed with pics and aims (http://www.manchester.com/organisations/monastery/) [offline].

For the latest on Ecstasy, including tablet testing, scientific research, media coverage and associated cultural ramifications, click-on one matey to an informative and extensive site edited by author Nicholas Saunders (http://www.obsolete.com/ecstasy *).

Surfers Against Sewage, riding the crest of the cyber-wave with multiple on-site features including news of their environmental surf circuit 1996 (http://www.sas.org.uk *).

The Land is Ours’ polished web pages on land issues, latest actions and aims (http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/tlio/puregen.html). [offline]

The enduring SchNEWS posse with their own brand of political news and networking (http://www.cbuzz.co.uk/schNEWS *).
[SchNEWS archived site (2024) http://schnews.org]

Adbusters (http://www.adbusters.org *), [for current site (2024) see https://www.adbusters.org] is a hard copy magazine published in Canada by ‘professional’ art terrorists, the Media Foundation. Describing itself as a magazine of the mental environment, it celebrates creative ways of stealing back that environment from corporate image dictators like Ford, McDonald’s, Budweiser and Marlboro. For anyone interested in art activism, its web-site is well worth a click on.

“We will uncool their billion dollar images with uncommercials on TV, subvertisements in magazines and anti-ads right next to theirs in the urban landscape,” trumpets its media manifesto.

The site, like the mag, is full of well-made advertising spoofs, subverting and cocking snoops at multi-national marketing. “For every fear there is a product” is how they diagnose the mental malaise fostered and fed upon by commercials. Adbusters are the cavalry arriving just in time.

What’s Up Govt? the Government/Hansard on the Net

Acts of Parliament

There has been considerable pressure on the Tories to stop talking about “open Government” and actually put their money where their mouths are. From April 1st, 1996 all primary Acts of legislation are published on the Net (http://www.publications.hmso.gov.uk/hmso/document/Acts.html). [For current site (2019) see http://www.legislation.gov.uk/]

Although the Government will “retain copyright”, as a House of Lords written answer states (WA column 69-70, 13 March 1996), “no prior permission will be required for the use of the text of legislation”.

However, there are no plans to update texts as legislation is amended or to publish secondary legislation (such as statutory instruments or circulars). As secondary legislation compliments primary legislation, it can be impossible to comprehensively track the status of a piece of legislation if only certain parts of it are available on the Net. This of course seriously qualifies the usefulness of the information, leading to accusations that what is on offer, has only been made available to get the electronic access campaigners (including some MPs) off HMSO’s back. In the US, all government information is reproduced on the Net.

According to the House of Lords answer: “Public response to this initiative will be gauged before deciding whether and how the project should be extended.”

Hansard

The Commons Information Committee report: Electronic Publication of House of Commons Documents (27 March 1996) made several recommendations to the Board of Management of the House of Commons on publishing Hansard on the net.

The report of the Electronic Publishing Group (set up by the Board of Management) concluded that: “Parliament, as well as the public, has a substantial interest in making its papers available in electronic form... Parliament needs to ensure that those subject to its laws have easy access to them and the law-making process, and the group believes that there is a clear and public right to unfettered access to this material.” However, it is nearly two years since the Open Government Code of Practice was published (July 1994) and it has taken persistent pressure from campaign groups and concerned MPs, to make any change.

Hansard should be available on the Net after October 23rd: (http://www.parliament.uk). [For current site (2019) see https://hansard.parliament.uk]

Netrogressive - Top sites and shite sites - a guide to the internet by Ben Schneider - Squall 13, Summer 1996

* Wayback Machine link