Ok, so this is a little teaser for all of those interested in the Sari-Inspired wedding dress I am currently making. I can't show you too much, as I think it is only fair that the wedding guests see the final dress before the rest of the world!, but I wanted to show you the work involved in this design and all the handmade touches that go with it!
This dress is for a lady I have known ever since I started selling at Paddington Markets- over four years ago! Kiran, the bride, is one of my best customers, and I don't usually make wedding dresses, but for her, I was happy to do it. She always asks for something special and different, and through out the years we have grown to understand each others aesthetic, and more importantly, have become friends. I knew that she was going to want something completely different, and I couldn't wait to get started!
As Kiran is Indian-Australian, the first thing I said to her is that we should include the cultural influence. The above drawings is a rough idea of what the design has started out as. As the title of this posting implies, we wanted to keep an even mix of Eastern and Western cultures alive in this design; so we have a western-style corset dress, and as she walks down the aisle, we will have a gorgeous train/overskirt made from the Sari (pictured below).
After a while of searching for the perfect fabric, Kiran showed me this beautiful Sari that her Mum and herself had picked out. I was thrilled straight away! Anyone who knows me, knows that I love over-the-top decadence, so it was really exciting to be able to work with something such as this!
We decided that the plain bright pink silk dupion would be used for the corset dress, as this colour ties in with the beading, and really highlights Kiran's complexion. The navy blue silk chiffon sari will be used in making the over-skirt. The leftover beading/pieces of the sari will be used for decoration.
I generally get images/visions in my mind when I am really into a particular design (it sounds weird, I know, but I have no idea how else to describe it). Every time I envisaged this design, I could see the pink silk added to the over-skirt hem, and constructed into really interesting shapes that would add detail and interest to the back. As we had discussed, most guests would have a view of the back of her dress throughout the whole ceremony, so we wanted to make the back a feature.
The above and below photos show the toile (or prototype) of the dress, with the over skirt attached. Imagine wherever the white fabric is, that is where bright pink silk will be; wherever the black is, that represents the sari.
As you can see, there is a lot more to go on this design. I will be updating this design as I proceed further, in the next few months- so stay tuned!
Attention train-wreck observers: I will be on BBC Radio Wales at 1.30 today, talking about beauty, body image, Britain's got talent, and why it's so disgusting that we're all congratulating ourselves so much over letting a less-than-attractive woman acheive something meaningful.
In the blue corner will be Sarah Burge, AKA Real Life Barbie, former playboy bunny and the woman with the world record for spending the most on cosmetic surgery. Other yet-to-be-confirmed guests include a former editor of FHM.
However, I was pleased she got a chance to sing in front of such a big audience (and even bigger on telly), which she probably hadn't had before, even if that reason came about so the show could congratulate itself.
Yeah, the whole thing's left me with a rather unpleasant taste in my mouth. I never watch stuff like that if it's on TV, so I watched it on YouTube.
It was all very 'choreographed'. Just before she sang, the camera cut to an attractive young woman in the audience with an expression that seemed to say, 'OMG! You look unnattractive and now you're going to show us you have an unnattractive voice and make an idiot of yourself'.
Quite what message all of this was meant to convey I don't really know - there are several I can think of and they all reek of prejudice of some sort or another.
Plugging my own blog here - I've covered the Guido/Smeargate affair from an angle I think is important.
My political viewpoint on it isn't important, what is is how we can muddy any sort of reasoning with irrelevant concerns about someone's appearance.
It matters not one iota what Suaan Boyle looks like and it's a poor look out when you assume so much about someone from their outward appearance.
No-one comes out of it with any merit - even Susan Boyle herself if she cashes in on it, although who could blame her?
I've never really looked at my own feminist beliefs - I prefer to look on women as 'other people' and give them the requisite respect which I expect in return.
".... letting a less-than-attractive woman achieve something meaningful."This is shameful errant sexist crap. And what's with all the comments here by "feminists" urging Penny Red to attack and "trounce" another woman just because she decided to undergo a lot of elective surgery for whatever reasons? I thought the "sisterhood" - which sounds like the title of one of Dan Brown's crappy novels to me - was supposed to be more tolerant, welcoming, enfolding and inclusive than that to every human being sans testicles!
Besides wasn't last year's "Britain's Got Talent" winner, Paul Potts, a less-than-attractive man who achieved something meaningful? Paul was overweight, plain as a pikestaff and couldn't really sing very well at all (compare his voice with that of another other self-taught tenor, Andrea Bocelli, for example) but made a mint out of the nation's surprise that he could sing as well as he could when he performed and released his albums. I don't remember any fuss being made about his looks or lack of them by anyone, male or female. Double standards, indeed.
It's worth saying that there was prejudice in the Paul Potts case - it was class prejudice rather than sexism, though. People were surprised he could sing because of his occupational background.
All the chomping, snapping, sniping and snarling directed at Sarah Burge, a fifty year old woman who I am sure none of you have met or know much about, by commentators on this post is as dispiriting as it is revealing. All that bile directed towards an innocent citizen based on her apperence alone. Talk about shallow! I had no idea that feminists had an unwritten code in respect to regulating the possibilities viz human form and feature; I thought you were all about liberation not about bullying, finger pointing and condemnation.
just because she decided to undergo a lot of elective surgery for whatever reasons? I'm fairly sure that the reason people find her objectionable is that, a: she didn't do it for whatever reason, she did it to look like one of the most ugly and physically harmful tropes of female beauty to be perpetrated on the 20th century Western public, the Barbie Doll. She encourages women to have elective surgery to 'improve' things that are fine. By doing so, she contributes to a culture of undermining self-esteem (in men and women, though in the realms of looks it's much worse for women) and sets a bloody awful example. A certain amount of political ire is justified.
Besides wasn't last year's "Britain's Got Talent" winner, Paul Potts, a less-than-attractive man who achieved something meaningful?Yes: the difference being that in a man this is not comment-worthy. George W. Bush and Rupert Murdoch are both unattractive men who achieved quite a lot.
JQP - I agree that in acting as she is, she's contributing to the culture you identify. But she's not the cause of it, she's arguably a victim of it, she doesn't contribute to it as much as many men who don't get criticised because they're not as visible and in order to benefit in any sense from it she has to make incredibly restrictive choices. I don't see any point in judging her, and the danger is criticisms easily morph from the critique of her contributing to a damaging culture to just criticising her looks.
JQP - Your attitude is very chauvinistic. You seem to think that people are either with you, i.e., share your views, or against you and are therefore worthy of attack. As far as I am concerned everybody has a right to do as they please, within the law. Some men and women like the "Barbie" look. A lot of men and women would find Pamela Anderson and Sara Budge attractive and a lot of others wouldn't. I don't personally adulate this idea of Californian beauty, which I saw a lot of when I lived in the USA, but don't consider that I have the right to dictate how anyone should look or judge a person based on how they choose to look. One of my ex-girlfriends was Finnish and looked just like Barbie and most people thought she was absolutely beautiful. Are you saying that it is OK to look like Barbie if your physical appearance is determined naturally, by pegigree and genetics, but not when achieved through artificial means like surgery, hair dye and cosmetics? This seems illogical to me. What right do you have to some kind of divine arbiter in respect to human beauty?
JQP: Sarah Burge is HOT! And Barbie isn't (being only 6 inches tall and made of plastic). I don't see the resemblance, even if Burge makes money off it.
Whilst Susan Boyle is predictably getting all the media attention, I think it's Fabia Cerra that is getting the far worse treatment - not only from complaints made to Ofcom but also reports of her getting hate mail, and even a tasteless Facebook group set up against her.
Of course, we all know the reason why? Typical sizeist attitudes and once again, mysogyny that exists in society - after all, if Cerra was a size 10 and looked like a page 3 model, she'd be receiving a completely different reaction from the media and public.
Are all feminists recruited from the ranks of plain bespeckled students, unpopular at school and sometimes teased or bullied by their blond, leggy, bosomy, sexy, curvaceous and more beautiful contemporaries? Does all this anger and bitterness originate from diverse inferiority complexes, suppressed anger and a desire to even the score with the rest of the world in adulthood? Not depilitating your arms, legs and armpits doesn't make you better than Sarah Budge, ladies, it only makes you hairy. With the world convulsed by disease, poverty, war and starvation this kind of punctilious small mindedness makes feminists look even more ridiculous than normal.
Only spoilt, idle or privileged individuals, isolated and buffered from the realities of daily existence, could waste such a lot of time nurturing such pointless introverted snobbery. With the world going to hell in a handbasket and dozens of living species becoming extinct on a daily basis surely Penny Red and small band of vocal cheerleaders could occupy themselves with something more significant and meaningful.
Save the rainforest! Save the ocean! Save the whale! Save the polar bear! Save the environment! Save the human race from its misdeeds!
You haven't got a very attractive voice, Laurie. You also sound like an immature person who's had no real experience outside middleclassdom. Plus you stole most of your talking points from Tanya Gold's article.
Armed with a tube of KY jelly I'd definitely do Sarah Burge if she gave me the green light! She's smokin' hot for a mature chick! And at least I can get it up unlike most of these these gender-traitorous castrado-like she-male feminists who back up Penny Red! Thank God for real men and real women!
Genuine question - amongst some of the trolling - how different is what Sarah Burge does to any other sort of 'body modification'?
After all, it's your body, so why is what she does to hers any different to any other things people want to do to their bodies?
Personally, her looks do nothing for me and I find her a bit scary but not as much as someone with tattoos all over and a face full of metal.
When those things are on a person that I find unattractive, they serve to draw my attention to their unattractiveness.
Indeed, although I don't find Burge attractive, I find her more attractive than someone overweight and heavily tattood or ugly and with a face full of piercings.
Steve, surely it's different because her modification is reinforcing rather than challenging social norms, whereas covering your body in tattoos or having multiple piercings is an expression of alternative culture (albeit in an arguably cliched way, and in a way ripe to sexist eploitation too, as suicide girls et al shows).
I don't think she deserves abuse, but I also doubt she's doing it purely as a feminist declaration that her body is her own and she can do what she wants with it.
I'm with SteveShark. I also dislike tattoos and body piercings. I don't like plaid or tweed suits either or women who wear tights. If the feminists are gunning for attractive blonds... or.. well... judging by the content of this blog... gunning for attractive women generally can I make an appeal to the Womens Institute or Mothers Union to mount a similar informal and sneaky offensive against Goth and Emo counter-culture clones? At the very least can we ban snakebite from all hostelries serving alcoholic beverages throughout the UK? You know it makes sense! Loose lips sink ships! Better dead than red! Hard working families! Patriarchy! Patriarchal Your country needs you!
I recently purchased Lady Gaga's debut album The Fame. I very much enjoyed the Lady Gaga's music and also watching her do her retro-dance routines in spangled Wonder Woman pants. Then, suddenly, out of the blue, I was hit by a tsunami of guilt and remorse.
As a feminist I now feel anxious about this forbidden fruit, as it were, since Lady Gaga wears a long blond wig and displays her trim and ultra-femme body in a provocative and shameless manner clearly designed to excite heterosexual boys and men of all ages. Although I am a woman myself seeing her performing in almost pornographic costumes often makes me feel "gooey" and "funny" in the "downstairs department" if you know what I mean.
On reflection I feel I may be letting the side down becuase of this vice. What is the official feminist position vis-a-vis Lady Gaga? Am I allowed to like her and enjoy her performances and music? Or not?
what a load of weird little wankers commenting, it's almost as good as CiF on the guardian website. bla bla bla feminithsths awe howwible, boo hoo. go and have a wank, if you can get it up. go laurie! x
Having scanned the posting and comments I have to say that despite myself I couldn't help but chuckle. It's all a bit weird I have to say but kind of funny too. Very Eddie Izzard-like. More please.
When it comes to Sarah Burge, i think the thing that is objectionable to feminists is not that she's had the cosmetic surgery, but more this (from her webpage): "Just like Barbie she can be anything you want her to be!" and "She has given herself a new lease of life and now she’s ready for some serious action and being Sooo Naughty!!!".
I Can't seem to find the show on Listen Again :( Am I just totally incompetent or is it not on iPlayer?
QP - Your attitude is very chauvinistic. You seem to think that people are either with you, i.e., share your views, or against you and are therefore worthy of attack.Good lord, not only do you not know me, but also that word doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.
I was very specific; I said that this woman has made an informed political choice (read up on why she's a barbie doll) which she has then actively self-promoted as a spokesperson for. She chose to politicise her surgery: she can't at that point play the 'private life' card when it comes to that same surgery. She politicised it, which opens her to political criticism.
Some men and women like the "Barbie" look.I'm not sure that should be my problem? My comment was that it's unhealthy: I consider it politically ugly because it is so closely tied up with the psychology of eating disorders. My comment wasn't about the woman herself in any way, it was about the politics of her (self-politicised) example; re-read my statement.
One of my ex-girlfriends was Finnish and looked just like BarbieNo, she didn't. It's been commonly known for years that anyone who actually looked like Barbie [1] would be dead. Even with extensive medical attention and modification, the imitations of Barbie are only partial.
A healthy, athletic blond woman who happens to have big tits does not look like Barbie. Trying to pretend she does is part of the problem.
Are you saying that it is OK to look like Barbie if your physical appearance is determined naturally, by pegigree and genetics, but not when achieved through artificial means like surgery, hair dye and cosmetics? This seems illogical to me.Actually, that wasn't what I was saying at all, but now you mention it; elective surgery is a complex ethical issue that I do my level best not to generalise about, because while I have a personal distaste for the popular press' attitude, I also know people with good reasons for such operations. I commented on this one woman: and I commented not on her choices for herself, but on the fact that she holds her choices up as an example to young girls. As such, she opens herself to political criticism.
Genuine question - amongst some of the trolling - how different is what Sarah Burge does to any other sort of 'body modification'?Not at all, provided it stays personal.
Burge invites critique because she has set herself up as a political spokesperson. It is her opinion that proselytising for spectacular elective surgery designed to make one look like a toy, and the subsumation of female identity into the male gaze from 1959, are things other girls should do.
It is legitimate to disagree with that viewpoint, which I do. In fact, I disagree strongly: what Ms. Burge has done to herself is her own problem, but she expects teenaged girls to buy into an image of feminine beauty that pre-dates the sexual revolution. It's an image which they could only actually have if they spent vast sums of money cutting their body apart, and even then they still wouldn't look like that for long. I don't really care about Sara Burge's body: it's somebody else's problem, but I do object to her politics.
[1] Also, last I looked, Barbie does not have sexual equipment other than breasts and a mouth. Apart from what that says about the psychology of the men who designed the toy and put it into little girls' hands, it means that to 'look just like Barbie' involves making a girl completely asexual.
Man. Initially I thought your didactic and punctilious dissection of a casual, extemporaneous posting on my part was possibly one of the most anal things I had read in a long time. Is this man actually serious? I asked myself. Or playfully enjoying some kind of private joke at my expense? He couldn't actually be suggesting that we physically, quantitatively measure the dimensions of an actual Barbie doll, scale them up to human size and conclude pseudo-scientifically that, "No woman could look like this in reality unless her breasts were bigger than her head." JQP must have realised, I thought to myself, that when I said that my Finnish ex-girlfriend, Liselotte, looked like Barbie I meant that she had very long platinum blond hair, big blue eyes, a pale complexion, very large breasts, a slim waist, flaring hips and very long shapely legs. (She was also one of the most clever women I ever met and was studying for a Masters in civil engineering at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge when I knew her.) JQP must have realised that I didn't literally mean that Lotte's vital statistics were proportionately equivalent to those of a life-size Barbie, I thought to myself, or that she was asexual and had no genitals!
So I have decided to regard your answer, JQP, as quixotic and mischievous rather than literal and serious (in which case you would be a fully paid up, card carrying, pseudo-feminist wingnut in my opinion). If you want to tweak a few noses try taking a pop or ten at some of the feminist commentators on this blog, most of whom seem to have minds that run unimaginatively and linearly along well frequented trammel lines and possess no sense of humor whatsoever.
Well, you missed a gag there. You could have implied that men attracted to Barbie looky-likeys, like men with a fetish for Mermaids, were probably obsessed with oral sex this being the only penetrative act of love such a creature was capable of performing. You make several leaps and jumps to conclusions like that several times in your answer, although I have to admit that such discontinuities can be highly amusing, sometimes, in context.
None of you people seem to see what's going on with Sarah Burge. What this woman actually did was to voluntarily alter her appearance in an attempt to make herself some money by exhibiting herself as a living breathing Barbie. The woman is hence kind of a cross between a performance artist and a character in a freak show, like a bearded or a tattooed lady for example. If she politicised her endeavours it was only to generate publicity for herself in the media. How many women could emulate her anyway and spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on creating and maintaining so artificial an image?
Yet, all in all, this blog has made me smile. And that cannot be a bad thing from my point of view although you people, most of you, seem so very dour so very often.
It makes a good talking point so will gain listeners, viewers and readers and also raise Ms Burge's profile.
Another case of the MSM shaping public opinion. Wouldn't discussing abusive relationships help more people and do more good?
I'd never heard of Sarah Burge before I read Penny's blog...and my life wasn't any the poorer for it...
The Danish pop group Aqua's hit "Barbie Girl" sold over 8 million copies worldwide - Yes! 8,000,000 copies! - mostly to young girls hardly any of which grew up to look anything like the famous Mattel doll. Penny Red does women no favours by insinuating that we are so easily led or influenced when young, older or even elderly. The "sexy blond thing" goes way back beyond Barbie's invention anyway to actresses like Marilyn Munroe, Lana Turner, Jean Harlow etc., etc. Good luck to Sarah Burge I say. I hope she makes a lot of money and has a lot of orgasms along the way because I don't think she's going to make any breakthroughs in superstring theory or quantum mechanics.
Leni: it also didn't include explicit exhortations to any of those girls to hack themselves about to attain an unhealthy image of 'beauty'. It was a bit offensively happy, but that's the worst I can say about it. Dr. Jones, by the same band, was actually quite funny.
For months, my head has been jammed with anger and ideas about the Digital Economy Bill that's in the last stages of being rushed through parliament. I keep meaning to discuss it on this blog, and I haven't. Not because I don't care - actually, this piece of legislation offends me personally and politically more than anything Labour have done since they took us into Iraq - but because I care so profoundly that I don't think anything I can say can really do it justice. Pathetically, I'm also a bit intimidated by the volume of clever stuff that's been already been said about corporate copyright protection, and I'm scared that if I try to express how I feel I'll reveal myself as a Stupid Shouty Girl who Doesn't Understand. But I've got to at least acknowledge that this matters to me. It matters because the Digital Economy Bill is one of the most significant assaults on human rights that Labour has managed to execute in its twelve-year trigger-happy showdown with British civil liberties.
Today's open letter from a group of MPs, bloggers, musicians and members of the Featured Artists association [including Anthony Barnett of Open Democracy, Billy Bragg and The Indelicates] is a reserved shot of the sheer indignance that many internet users are feeling this week:
Many of us believe that the Digital Economy Bill threatens to severely infringe fundamental human rights, by allowing the disconnection of internet accounts for alleged copyright infringement, and also by new 'website blocking' laws that could result in new ways to suppress free speech and legitimate activity...Last week, Harriet Harman MP failed to give the commons any reassurances that this important, complex and controversial Bill will be properly scrutinised by our elected MPs. Democracy and accountability will be sidestepped if this bill is rushed through and amended without debate during the so-called 'wash-up' process.
The best blog analysis on the Bill that I've read recently has been helen's post at Police State UK, 'The Chilling Effect', explaining the recent amendments and why the actual sanctions proposed against people sharing files for free online are only part of the problem. Suppression of free speech isn't just about direct censorship - it's about creating a climate of cultural orthodoxy in which certain ways of behaving and sharing information are suspect, and then putting power in the hands of intermediary regulating authorities [ISPs, for example] to enforce that suspicion.
The Digital Economy Bill is altogether a larger and more dangerous assault on liberty than its individual clauses would suggest. What really frightens me about the government's corporate copyright protection movement is the casual, sneering manipulation of neoliberal dialectic: talking about 'safeguarding businesses', when clamping down on personal internet freedoms will endanger small entrepreneurial partnerships and cottage creative industries. Talking about 'protecting creative industries', when it's clear, as Bragg told Panorama last night, that "the music industry is thriving. It's the record industry that's in trouble."
This is a vile, vituperative piece of legislation, driven by corporate lobbyists and blithely ignoring public interest. It's a Faustian pact between a dying government and antique, anti-innovatory music and publishing industries who are as terrified now as manufacturers of illuminated manuscripts were in 1455 when they got their hands on the Gutenberg Bible and saw the page turning on a world of easily-exchanged ideas that they could not monetise or control. And just like today, the backlash was vicious, because of easy deal-brokering between communications merchants keen to control how people spent their money and state authorities keen to control people's access to ideas and information.
It's not just the fact that the Digital Economy Bill will criminalise young people, that this law has been written by people who mistrust and misunderstand the internet in order to punish those whose economic and cultural world has been formed by it. It's not just about the collision between information that wants to be free and information that others want to be expensive. It's about a cold and calculated assault on the forming paradigms of my generation, a final statement by a crippled and expiring Labour government that big business being free to make money at the expense of everyone else is the only thing that matters - more than the lives and livelihoods of individuals, more than artistic expression, more than the long-term socio-economic future of this or any other nation.
Because much as the Digital Economy Bill is Mandelson's terrible lovechild, collusion by frontbench Tories and Lib Dem Peers gives the lie to the idea that this is simply a Wicked Labour Scheme. It's not even a trend that's unique to Britain. Across the West, governments are moving to restrict the access of their citizens to unpaid content on the web, creating blacklists and gifting themselves with the power to cut people off from the syncretic world of high-speed information exchange at the slightest provocation. Future generations will look at campaigns like these in the same way that we think about fascist book-burning parades.
On Wednesday, there's going to be a demo in Westminster. Hope to see some of you London-centric folks there.
The problem, in general, with Acts of Parliament that get rushed through before a general election is that they are usually poorly drafted and thus they hit too little of the target, too much of the target, or the wrong target entirely. The DEB is no exception.
There is undoubtedly a problem with copyright in the digital era. Some people make a living by producing 'Intellectual Property' and we need a debate about whether that needs to carry on. If it does we do need to stop those people being ripped off. Some of those people will be rich, some will be poor, some will be corporate bodies.
Copyright is an odd concept in many ways, for instance why should I be able to get fee if my words are used but not my equations. To see how this works in practice consider Sir Andrew Wiles. Sir Andrew in famous for proving Fermats Last Theorem. Simon Singh wrote a very accessible book about Sir Andrew's work, he did not have to pay Sir Andrew for the right to do so, but if someone wanted to use Simon's words in any substantial way they would have to pay Simon. This is when you think about it distinctly odd.
But back to the bill. This bill goes too far in punishing those who infringe its provisions Importantly it allows punishment without trial. I would feel much happier with it if it involved the courts, with proper appeals processes in punishment.
As it stands I have doubts as to whether these provisions can withstand a challenge in the Human Rights Court. The problem with that is the by the time that Court has pronounced much damage will have been done.
For the record, I don't think the 'manufacturers of illuminated manuscripts' spearheaded a 'vicious backlash' against the Gutenberg Bible, but it's a nice idea -- I like to imagine them stabbing Gutenberg with their little pointy quill pens, or maybe sprinkling gold leaf in his beer.
Seriously, though, I think you need to come up with a better argument against the Bill than simply repeating the old mantra 'information wants to be free'. As a socialist, I support copyright (the individual ownership of creative power) in the same way as I support the individual ownership of labour power. There is a socialist case to be made for copyright and against piracy (particularly when you have large corporations like Google trampling on the rights of individual copyright-holders). I'd like to support the campaign against the Digital Economy Bill, but it seems to be driven by a utopian anti-copyright libertarianism with which I have no sympathy. And comparing the Bill to 'fascist book-burning parades' is, frankly, not the way to get people to take you seriously.
Here is a speech Lawrence Lessig gave to the Italian Parliament. He may be American, but much of what he says also applies to UK.
Getting us all online, getting us all an individual web-page, not allowing anonymous surfing with open wifi. All are current policies that are ostensibly passing independent of each other. But this is truly joined-up 1984 control-freakery.
@anonymous: manufacturers of illuminated manuscripts' may not have spearheaded a 'vicious backlash' against the Gutenberg Bible, but the Catholic church most certainly did - for the first time in history, information could be reproduced quickly, cheaply and outside the control of those who wanted to control the orthodoxy of ideas.
Fast forward 700 years or so, and history is repeating itself. Big Content is having the crap scared out of it, because they no longer have a monopoly on the creation and distribution of content. Governments are having the crap scared out of them because they no long have monopoly control over the dissemination channels. And both (because they're virtually impossible to distinguish between) are lashing out in a desperate attempt to turn back the tide.
50 years ago, one of the most powerful tools of opposition that you could possess behind the Iron Curtain was a duplicating machine - because that was how you could disseminate your ideas. The internet is our duplicating machine.
Concerns about copyright are at best proxy issues - what's at stake here is the ability to create and disseminate information without the say-so of entrenched vested interests, whether they're commercial or governmental.
@penny_red, apologies for hijacking your comment thread with that response to your anonymous socialist, but their position simply can't go unchallenged - this debate is too important for that.
@Anonymous, who said, "I'd like to support the campaign against the Digital Economy Bill, but it seems to be driven by a utopian anti-copyright libertarianism with which I have no sympathy."
This isn't about copyright maximalists versus Internet freeloaders. It's about corporate control versus human rights.
Calling this the Digital Economy Bill is ironic. It neither addresses the issue of monopoly reproduction rights in an age of zero-cost copying, nor promotes creative business in the digital era, which is a shame because there's a desperate need to do both those things.
The debate left the economic axis when the Government decided to threaten families, businesses and places of education with disconnection from the Internet as punishment for the copyright transgressions of a few users of their connections; when Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers proposed censorship as the solution to websites hosting unlicensed files alongside legal ones; and when Lord Mandelson tried to grant himself powers to change copyright law without Parliamentary debate.
I would have thought these were the sort of bad ideas against which a socialist could see themselves campaigning.
And +1 apologies to Penny_red for causing a scene in your comments thread. If you're wondering where all these randoms came from, blame Twitter!
I think that in many ways the taming and regulation of the internet is something of an inevitability - it's simply too powerful a force in practically every area of life to avoid reactionary policies attempting to limit that power. It doesn't help that, for the most part, the people whose power it threatens are exactly the ones who don't really understand it. The internet of today is an electronic wild west and, much as the idea saddens me, it's going to end up getting "civilised" in one way or another. I have a nasty suspicion we're currently living in the "good old days" of the web.
That said, this bill is pretty much the worst way such regulation could come about. The legislation seems to simply want to stop the areas or activities that alarm the policy-makers, whereas if they insist on curtailing online freedoms (and they will), they're going to have to work with the internet rather than against it.
Those of us who've grown up with our entire outlook and mindset shaped by the internet and its incredible nature have got to do everything and anything we can to stop this.
I'm glad to see you weighing in on this. The damage that could be done by this bill if it isn't at the very least subjected to intense scrutiny and debate is difficult to overstate.
It's absurdly short-sighted of the Government to try to rush this one through, even by the standards they've shown.
Thanks for posting. This is the global civil rights issue of our generation. We stand on the edge of a new frontier. How we choose to settle it will define the future of our society. Progressives of all kinds should speak out now, lest that future be chained by reactionary and shortsighted lawmaking.
Well, this is all par for the course as far as New Labour are concerned. It wasn't long ago they wanted to monitor ALL internet traffic in real time... erm... to protect us from terrorist attacks apparently by placing all internet users under surveillance. I expect that the ISPs will legally challenge the Digital Economy Bill in the courts, as they did in Australia vis-a-vis similar legislation where they won.
This bill if it becomes an act won't prevent file sharing or much else as intended. Bittorent clients can now encrypt the protocol they use, dynamically change ports and do other things to make file sharing difficult to spot as far as ISPs are concerned. File sharers can also use proxy servers or VPNs to overcome pretty much every kind of block and restriction to surf or download from the web anonymously and securely. Most of these services involve paying a small monthly fee, but here's one interested parties can check out that will give you 20 minutes access to their VPN between disconnections for FREE; pay a small fee and use this VPN unconditionally, otherwise simply reconnect three times an hour and use it for NOTHING. Bit torrent to your heart's content and visited any website you want, blocked by your ISP or not.
Fuck Peter Mandelson! Fucking little Red Queen that he is. And fuck the New Labour party that gave us lie detectors in benefit agencies, workfare for the unemployed and more attempts to curb and control us than any other government in living memory. Fuck them if they think they can commercialise and police the internet!
So what specifically is the government trying to stop people doing? I think I've missed this debate.
Why then am I not? It’s a shameful thing to say but ultimately I think it’s just bloody-minded bitterness at the rest of the world. More specifically, I have a profound distrust and dislike of some of the factions that are involved in the campaign. The militant anti-copyright mob who want to see a lot of people lose their rights.
Those folk aside, what I don’t see are suggestions for what to replace it with or enough public recognition of the harm done to musicians.
That’s not a criticism of your post in particular, but the way the debate’s been going more generally…
@inskauldrak I'll freely admit that I'm a member of the "The militant anti-copyright mob" however you shouldn't let your disagreements with the way the debate has been framed prevent you from seeing and speaking out against the injustice of the digital economy bill.
Blocking websites at the ISP level that host or link to copyrighted material. Kicking entire IP addresses off the net. Punishment before fair hearings. It's being rushed through before an election so neither party has to shoulder all the blame for it. These are the hallmarks of a bad law.
This is without need to resort to talking about how filesharing doesn't *necessarily* cost artists anything and that disconnection from the internet will obviously reduce the total amount of money spent on digital content (pirates buy more content)
If you're not going to protest the Bill because some other people who are protesting it in a way you don't like then you're completely buying into the logic of the distribution industries - who want to frame all opposition to heavy-handed copyright policing as 'a bunch of freeloaders'
On the cost to artists front there’s a fair bit of competing evidence on that one. There are a substantial portion of pirates who never pay for any music content – I think research shows this increases the younger the demographic.
It’s just difficult for people like me who spend their working life struggling to try and get musicians paid at all. The pressure on wages in all areas of recording is immense and real terms comparisons with the rates of pay of yesteryear make for grim reading. That’s not to say it’s all the fault of piracy or a reason to support specific legislation, just an idea of why it makes it an emotive issue for me.
Another factor to consider is that the Bill means that there will be some legislation rather than none since the arts tend to be at the back of the legislative queue.
As an example, take the (imho) much less contentious issue of Performers’ Right to Equitable Remuneration. This was agreed by treaty in about 1961. It took the UK until 1996 to introduce it and even then it was because of an EU directive on rental and lending.
I don’t necessarily think that this counts as a compelling argument by any means, but it is a perspective worth considering and engaging with.
@inskauldrak I certainly do concede that thought needs to be given to where we are going and where we are coming from on this issue. Artists have always struggled to get paid & I think any society is going to have people like you struggling to get some musicians paid - no?
The Pirate movement has arisen as a reaction to the one-sidedness of mainstream political discourse on the issue as a result of pressure from the copyright lobby who insist on framing the issue in terms of criminality and spurious lost revenues (as if reduced profits was a reasonable excuse to open the door to censorship, disproportionate and collective punishment). If the Pirates seem extreme then it is a reaction to the opposing discourse that would criminalise over 10% of the population.
The question is, how to reward creativity in a world where the marginal distribution costs of culture is essentially 0? It is a difficult question - The Pirate movement is a long way from all the answers but feel that it's approach is more clear-headed than most - who see the solution in intrusive yet ineffective protectionism for ostensibly obsolete industries (that have historically abused the legal protections we have granted them - "I view litigation as a key profit centre")
So to borrow you're own point- I see the pirate movement as doing something in the right direction; by challenging the orthodoxy that copyright is essential for a creative society.
Although it shouldn't have any bearing on the logic of my points I will state for the record that I pirate a reasonable amount but I have, since becoming a wage-earner spent a good deal of money donating to film projects(e.g. http://www.bornofhope.com/), support as many indie games as I can find (e.g. http://thelettervsixtim.es/), buy from artists (e.g. http://www.scarygoround.com/)who share their work online. I also pay a monthly subscription to the local cinema for unlimited films. So on a personal level as a consumer of culture, I resent any suggestions that all pirates are cheapskates and freeloaders or thieves(not that they have come from anyone here) - I contribute as much as I can afford to the 'culture'; I just get much more bang for my buck and can spend my bucks in a more targeted manner.
Ironically, after consuming the media, I buy discs and books - why? I buy them in physical form for the sole reason that I can *share them* more easily by putting them in my friends hands than I can by saying 'oh, check out x'
I once had someone who was obsessed with trying to make out I was stupid. I admit that some of my replies to her posts were done in haste, but she took it to another level. In the end, she hated me so much that she started making up stuff and pretending I had said it.
I hope PR doesn't mind me wandering off-topic but it's good to be able to have polite and reasoned discussion on this kind of thing.
Just as you would object to classing all 'pirates' as all of the one type it's important to remember that the copyright lobby is made up of various elements who are often at loggerheads.
As an example, the people I often struggle to make pay up are probably the same corporate interests that you object to on the other side of the debate.
You raise a good point about distribution costs but it's worth considering production costs. The up front investment can be quite considerable let alone an artist feeding themself during the creative process. I think some people (not saying you do) fail to recognise that.
Coming back to being pro musicians' rights as opposed to corporate rights, surely the person that makes something should have some say over its use by others?
"the Digital Economy Bill is one of the most significant assaults on human rights that Labour has managed to execute in its twelve-year trigger-happy showdown with British civil liberties."
Because much as the Digital Economy Bill is Mandelson's terrible lovechild, collusion by frontbench Tories and Lib Dem Peers gives the lie to the idea that this is simply a Wicked Labour Scheme.
Lord Mandelson and Lib Dem Lord Clement-Jones have colluded with the BPI to write this bill. These "noble" lords think that big business should write our laws. It's a shame the British people won't get a chance to vote them out.
Jonny: The internet of today is an electronic wild west and, much as the idea saddens me, it's going to end up getting "civilised" in one way or another. I have a nasty suspicion we're currently living in the "good old days" of the web.
Corporate control of the net will only happen if people are lazy and apathetic and do nothing about it. If we fight them we will win; for example there are about 7 million people who illegally download copyright material, and they and their families all risk being disconnected from the net without presumption of innocence or a fair trial. That number of people is far too big for politicians to ignore.
Positive engagement with the digital generation interests the political classes only when they want something from us. - read the whole thing at the Staggers.
Off topic, but I'm sorry to see your latest in the Guardian didn't sit well with the commenters there. I agreed with what you said, but a lot of comments seemed to be of the form "SEVEN LOLZOROZ!!!1111eleventy". "Sexualization" is surely in the eye of the beholder, and the idea that a child wearing a padded bra has suddenly become sexualized is stupid. And parents still have some sort of veto over what their kids wear anyway.
This padded bra thing emphasizes that breasts are seen as sexual objects by society. Yes, they're secondary sexual characteristics, but so is the male chest, and the same argument would not be had about a young boy wearing no shirt.
And it all comes down to the idea that a woman in a short skirt is seen as a "slut", while if she wore jeans, she's not. Yes, such a woman can look attractive, but people should be able to wear what they want without people making a moral judgement.
Finally, I see arguments about "innocence" to be absurd. Has a girl who wears a padded bra really lost her innocence? Surely the very idea of innocence is that you do things without realizing how society judges you. If a girl is innocent and puts on a padded bra, why would she suddenly become aware of society's obsession with breasts? If she's innocent, then the idea of breasts shouldn't hold such power as the Middle Englanders think it does.
First Quantum Minerals to Acquire Antares Minerals Inc.; Cash and Share Transaction Valued at Approximately C$460 Million; Conference Calls and Webcast on Monday, October 18, 2010
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA –(Marketwire – Oct. 18, 2010 ) – First Quantum Minerals Ltd. (“First Quantum” or the “Company”) (TSX:FM)(LSE:FQM) and Antares Minerals Inc. (“Antares”) (TSX VENTURE:ANM) announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement pursuant to which a wholly-owned subsidiary of First Quantum will acquire, by way of a court-approved plan of arrangement (the “Arrangement”), all of the outstanding securities of Antares. The total consideration for the purchase of 100% of the fully diluted shares of Antares is approximately C$460 million .
Antares’ principal asset is the 100% owned Haquira project located in southern Peru adjacent to Xstrata Copper’s Las Bambas copper-gold project. It is one of the world’s major undeveloped copper deposits with excellent potential for the development of a large scale copper mine with production from both near-surface secondary copper mineralization amenable to SX-EW leaching and from a larger, underlying body of higher grade primary porphyry copper-molybdenum-gold-silver mineralization to be processed by a conventional mill/concentrator operation. Haquira currently has reported measured and indicated resources of 3.7 million tonnes of contained copper equivalent and inferred resources of 2.4 million tonnes of contained copper equivalent.
Under the Arrangement, each common share of Antares will be exchanged for (i) 0.07619 of a common share of First Quantum (the “Share Consideration”) or (ii) a cash payment in the amount of C$6.35 , subject to an aggregate maximum cash consideration of C$250 million . Antares shareholders will have the option to elect to receive cash or shares or any combination of cash and shares, subject to the aggregate cash limitation. Any Antares shareholder who does not elect either option shall be deemed to have elected to receive First Quantum shares in respect of all of its Antares shares. If the Antares shareholders in the aggregate elect to receive more than C$250 million in cash consideration, the aggregate cash consideration will be prorated among the Antares shareholders who elected to receive cash and the balance will be paid in First Quantum shares.
The implied value of the Share Consideration is C$6.35 per Antares share (based on the volume-weighted average trading price of the First Quantum shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange of C$83.34 for the 3 trading days ended October 15, 2010 ), representing a 41% premium to the closing price of Antares shares on the TSX Venture Exchange of C$4.49 on October 15, 2010 and a 46% premium to the volume-weighted average trading price of the Antares shares on the TSX Venture Exchange of C$4.36 for the 20 trading days ended October 15, 2010 .
As part of the transaction, Antares’ 50% interest in the Rio Grande project located in Salta Province , northwestern Argentina , will be spun out into a new exploration company, Regulus Resources Inc. (“Spinco”), together with C$5 million in cash. Antares shareholders will receive their pro-rata share of Spinco, which will be owned 90.1% by existing Antares shareholders in aggregate and 9.9% by First Quantum .
The Board of Directors of Antares has unanimously approved the transaction and resolved to recommend to the holders of Antares securities that they vote in favour of the transaction. In determining to recommend the transaction to the shareholders of Antares, the Board of Directors considered a number of factors and relied, in part, on an opinion from Dundee Securities , financial advisors to Antares, to the effect that, subject to the assumptions and conditions set forth in such opinion, the consideration to be received by the holders of Antares securities pursuant to the transaction is fair, from a financial point of view, to such holders.
In addition, the directors and senior officers of Antares, Farallon Capital Institutional Partners II, L.P. , Farallon Capital Institutional Partners III, L.P. and Kalouga Holdings Limited , holding in aggregate approximately 42% of the fully diluted share capital of Antares have entered into voting agreements with First Quantum , pursuant to which they have agreed to vote their shares (including any shares issuable upon the exercise of options) in favour of the Arrangement subject to certain exceptions.
Commenting on the transaction, Mr. John Black , President and Chief Executive Officer of Antares said, “When we formed Antares in 2004 our objective was to discover a significant mineral deposit and develop it to the stage where it would be of interest to a major mining company. The proposed transaction with First Quantum represents the culmination of our efforts over the past six years and the successful achievement of our goal. As we have stated before, the Haquira deposit represents one of the most attractive undeveloped copper projects in the world owned 100% by a junior explorer. We believe that First Quantum has the experience, track record and financial capacity to develop Haquira into a world-class mine. We have deliberately structured the proposed transaction so that our shareholders can elect to exchange their Antares shares for First Quantum shares, thereby providing the opportunity to continue to share in the success of Haquira through an entity that has far greater capacity to fully develop the Haquira project. The proposed transaction also creates an excellent opportunity for the shareholders of Antares to realize immediate and substantial value for their Antares shares either in cash or in the shares of First Quantum , or a combination thereof. Shareholders will also be able to participate in any future upside from our 50% interest in the Rio Grande project through the distribution of shares in a new company formed to acquire that interest from Antares as part of this transaction. In summary, we are very pleased and proud to be able to offer this value-enhancing opportunity to our shareholders.”
Mr. Philip Pascall , Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of First Quantum said, “The acquisition of Antares is another step in First Quantum’s stated strategy of geographical diversification. Haquira is a project which we consider that, with our experience, we can add material value to during the process of bringing it to commercial production and then subsequently through cost effective operation. Haquira is a world class copper project and has the potential to significantly increase First Quantum’s copper production profile.”
The transaction will be carried out by way of a statutory plan of arrangement pursuant to the Business Corporations Act ( Alberta ) and must be approved by the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta and the affirmative vote of 66 (2)/3% of Antares’ shareholders at a special meeting of shareholders to be called and held to consider the transaction.
The proposed transaction is expected to close in December 2010 , shortly after receipt of shareholder and court approvals.
The completion of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of any required regulatory approvals.
In the event that the transaction is not completed, Antares has agreed to pay First Quantum a termination fee of C$13.5 million , under certain circumstances. Antares has also provided First Quantum with certain other customary rights, including a right to match any competing offers.
First Quantum intends to fund the cash portion of the transaction from its existing cash resources. The transaction is not contingent on any financing condition.
Details regarding these and other terms of the transaction are set out in the arrangement agreement, which will be filed by Antares on the Canadian SEDAR website at www.sedar.com.
Further information regarding the transaction will be contained in an information and proxy circular that Antares will prepare and mail to all holders of Antares securities in connection with the special meeting of shareholders to be held to approve the transaction. It is expected that these materials will be mailed in November 2010 for a meeting to be held in December 2010 . Once mailed, the information and proxy circular will also be available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. All shareholders are urged to read the proxy circular once it becomes available as it will contain additional important information concerning the transaction.
BMO Capital Markets is the financial advisor to First Quantum and its legal advisor is Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP . Dundee Securities is the financial advisor to Antares and its legal advisor is Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer LLP .
First Quantum and Antares will hold the following conference calls and webcast to discuss the transaction: