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The Judean People's Front vs People's Front of Judea |
Andy B
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|  Posted 02-03-2005 at 14:22
Re: story in Yorkshire Post:
http://www.yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=1084&ArticleID=959398
Oh dear - I wasn't convinced another group name and split would be productive. TimeWatch eh? I'd firstly Watch your backs or you'll have the BBC lawyers after you - that's one of their best known history brands. You know how obsessed they are with impartiality!
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Thorgrim
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| Posted 02-03-2005 at 14:28
Andy - the heading you have given this thread is just asking for trouble.
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Anonymous
User not Registered | Posted 02-03-2005 at 14:54
"Splitter!"
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Andy B
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| Posted 02-03-2005 at 15:48
http://www.mwscomp.com/movies/brian/brian-07.htm (Warning - some adult humour and strong language down this link)
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Anonymous
User not Registered | Posted 02-03-2005 at 16:07
Hey Andy, why not get onto the Beeb and ask them?
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Thorgrim
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| Posted 02-03-2005 at 17:05
I thought we had enough nonsense on the Portal's forums with David Icke and spacemen - now this offensive Judae stuff appears on the front page. Why????????????
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Andy B
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| Posted 02-03-2005 at 20:31
I thought people got over being offended by Life of Brian 30 years ago. Hardly cutting edge humour but well remembered by many and very apt for the goings on at Thornborough. The daft dialogue I'm quoting is even set in ancient times for goodness sake!
Anyway please remember the front page seen by the outside world is http://www.megalithic.co.uk/index.php?tab=front so it's not on 'the Front Page' but on your chosen front page.
'You're only making it worse for yourself'
'Worse - how could it be worse?'
Never mind...
To get back to the subject in question, this was the Press Release that led to that useful bit of publicity for the campaign:
TimeWatch Media Release - 28.02.05
Powerful new challenge in Thornborough Henges fight.
TimeWatch group launches major attack on Tarmac plc
After six months of campaigning under the banner of Heritage Action, the Thornborough Campaign is now to be launched as a separate, independent campaign group, called Timewatch.
"When we first started campaigning about Thornborough, there was just a handful of us and we were extremely pleased to find a supportive home within Heritage Action" commented George Chaplin. "Now our campaign group has grown so large within Heritage Action that it made sense to launch an independent group in it's own right, with a wider remit and set of priorities".
"The new group will keep its focus on Thornborough's archaeology but will widen it's involvement into all other related issues. The impacts of quarrying will be felt far beyond the purely archaeological ones and we intend to ensure the public is fully informed of them.
Nigel Swift, Chairman of Heritage Action said: "This reflects well on all who have worked so hard on the Thornborough Campaign. It has grown to be one of the largest of its kind in Britain, reflecting the grave national concern that exists.
The two organisations can now take up parallel roles. Heritage Action will continue campaigning on threats to all ancient sites and supporting the campaigns of others. TimeWatch can concentrate on raising national awareness of individual sites under threat, starting with Thornborough. We wish them well and look forward to working closely with them in future."
For more information on TimeWatch and the Thornborough campaign, the public are urged to visit the TimeWatch website - http://www.timewatch.org
--
The moral of the story:
If you're going to send out a press release, make sure it's has some interesting information in it, otherwise you risk it a) going straight in the bin or b) a journalist making up for the lack of content by adding some of their own, in this case with unexpected consequences!
[ This message was edited by: Andy B on 2005-03-02 21:13 ]
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enkidu41
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| Posted 02-03-2005 at 21:22
Why on earth not?? It was only a few Christian "fundamentalists" who found it offensive when it came out. I doubt that the numbers have increased over the intervening years. I thought it was very funny then and I still think it is funny now although like a lot of Python humour it has dated. But lighten up Thorgrim!
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On 2005-03-02 17:05, Thorgrim wrote:
I thought we had enough nonsense on the Portal's forums with David Icke and spacemen - now this offensive Judae stuff appears on the front page. Why????????????
[quote]
On 2005-03-02 15:48, Andy B wrote:
http://www.mwscomp.com/movies/brian/brian-07.htm (Warning - some adult humour and strong language down this link)
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[/quote]
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Thorgrim
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| Posted 02-03-2005 at 21:27
Please yourself - I'm clearly in a minority. If you want to trivialise the Portal so be it.
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Andy B
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| Posted 03-03-2005 at 21:51
Strangely, I have been accused of not being on the side of the Thornborough Henges in this argument.
Rest assured that nothing could be further from the truth, indeed such is my commitment that I shall be forthwith setting up the Thornborough Popular Front as a moniker under which to carry on my campaigning activities. Who will join me?
Andy
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Anonymous
User not Registered | Posted 03-03-2005 at 22:23
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On 2005-03-03 21:51, Andy B wrote:
Strangely, I have been accused of not being on the side of the Thornborough Henges in this argument.
Rest assured that nothing could be further from the truth, indeed such is my commitment that I shall be forthwith setting up the Thornborough Popular Front as a moniker under which to carry on my campaigning activities. Who will join me?
Andy
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Andy - I'm Nigel Swift from Heritage Action. Couldn't register for some reason.
Anyway, forming TimeWatch as a separate organisation was a calculated tactical move that we all agreed and planned. George is still with us and as active as he ever was, being one of our Founder Members.
We're all pretty good at press releases, having issued lots, often to good effect. No-one can prevent the odd local journo trying to spin things for effect, it's the way it goes. But tell me, what's your motivation for this nonsense? Jumping on it for a cheap laugh or what?
HA has a load of people doing their very best for Heritage. George has built up a spectacular campaign to protect Thornboro and has a huge number of members. I guess between us we are a sizeable chunk of the people trying to protect heritage in Britain.
So how do you fit in? D'you support the two groups or not?
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Anonymous
User not Registered | Posted 04-03-2005 at 01:31
Quote:
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On 2005-03-03 21:51, Andy B wrote:
Strangely, I have been accused of not being on the side of the Thornborough Henges in this argument.
Rest assured that nothing could be further from the truth, indeed such is my commitment that I shall be forthwith setting up the Thornborough Popular Front as a moniker under which to carry on my campaigning activities. Who will join me?
Andy
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Only the loonies
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Anonymous
User not Registered | Posted 04-03-2005 at 09:43
This is Nigel again.
So the only reply I get is "Only the loonies" from someone anonymous. I wonder who that was?
Ah well.
I know of no looneys amongst us, only very dedicated hardworking people. But then, I know them so what do I know?
I don't think the Portal has covered itself in glory here, but we'll all just carry on with our efforts anyway. I'll leave it at that.
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Thorgrim
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| Posted 04-03-2005 at 11:46
Don't tar us all with the same brush, Nigel. Some of us care very much about Thornborough and all the other threatened places. Trouble is that humour does not travel well by email. I hate trivialisation of important issues, but genuinly believe that Andy cares about Thornborough too. Perhaps the name game struck him as comical and even some of your colleagues on TMA seem to find it an unfortunate developement. I don't know who "anonymous" is who mentioned loonies. I deplore any comment from people who haven't got the guts to leave a name
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TheCaptain
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| Posted 04-03-2005 at 16:13
I'll add my voice to Thorgrim's above in that surely one of the main functions of this portal is to help try and stop these ancient places becoming threatened. The more people who know of any threatened sites the better, surely, and as they say, any publicity is good publicity. The worst thing that could happen to many of these ancient sites is that they get forgotten and destroyed due to neglect.
But sometimes we've got to see the funny side also.
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baz
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| Posted 04-03-2005 at 19:11
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On 2005-03-04 16:13, TheCaptain wrote:
any publicity is good publicity.
But sometimes we've got to see the funny side also.
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I disagree. The sort of distorted publicity that Andy is giving can only be good for Tarmac.
Yes, see the funny side, but don't then share your cruel joke against hard-working campaigners with the rest of the world.
Baz
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Thorgrim
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| Posted 04-03-2005 at 19:42
I agree with Baz.
May I perhaps allow myself a small "I told you so" way back at the beginning of this thread. I wasn't offended by Judaic references and sad dated Pythonesque humour, but I just had that old "here we go again feeling". Sniping at each other when the real enemy laughs up its sleeve at us. Portal, TMA, Heritage Action, Timewatch and every other group who care about ancient sites should pull together and fight the Tarmacs, Stansteds and every other get rich quick and sod the environment bunch of greedy buggers who are out to ruin that which we love for GAIN - - and that just ain't funny.
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Anonymous
User not Registered | Posted 04-03-2005 at 20:30
"Portal, TMA, Heritage Action, Timewatch and every other group who care about ancient sites should pull together and fight the Tarmacs, Stansteds and every other get rich quick and sod the environment bunch of greedy buggers who are out to ruin that which we love for GAIN"
Nice wording, Thorgrim!
We should all put that as a banner on the fronts of all our sites!
Cheers,
Nigel
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Andy B
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| Posted 05-03-2005 at 22:40
Of course I care passionately about it you silly people. I think I was the first person to get people together on the web to campaign for ancient sites, still gathering dust here:
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~aburnham/charter.htm
and then http://www.stonehenge.ukf.net/
Nigel - I agree that a lot of your press releases have been extremely effective, which is why when I see a poor one with no useful content it niggles me. I am suprised you haven't been using the Portal more for your publicity, which I will be happy to do for you.
The point I'm trying to make with my humour, in case it's not obvious, is that I don't understand how made up group names help the campaigning situation. We got on perfectly well operating as concerned individuals. One name was OK, two was getting a bit thin, but three is - well...
Then a name appears that to me rings huge alarm bells yet my concern has been rubbished. I still predict you will have trouble with it. I think for the sake of the cost of a web address and some pride you should quietly abandon the name TimeWatch while you have the chance, unless upsetting the BBC is part of the idea for more publicity?!
These group names may sound impressive on the surface but I think people are starting to see through them. I can't help thinking of end of the film Wizard of Oz.
I appreciate you are too close to the internal politics of it all to see the funny side. It concerns me, that's all.
I'm not about to keep quiet and tow some 'party line' in case it gets exploited by the other side. I went through all that with ASLan who tried to do that. I was told off for publishing the fact that ASLan opposed the road plans for Stonehenge (which they did - but I wasn't allowed to tell anyone), or something.
Whatever happened to ASLan anyway - perhaps it ceased to be useful to the people running it? So I come with a long history of being jaded about such groups..
By the way - if someone can get me a photo of Neil Campling I will go off and be irritating to someone else... And where are the details of what he's been saying in Chester?
Thanks for writing, keep campaigning, and remember all publicity is good publicity...
Cheers,
Andy
[ This message was edited by: Andy B on 2005-03-06 03:14 ]
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baz
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| Posted 06-03-2005 at 11:54
>Of course I care passionately about it you silly people.
Who has said you don't care? Who are these 'silly people'?
>Nigel - I agree that a lot of your press releases have been extremely effective, which is why when I see a poor one with no useful content it niggles me.
Nigel has no connection (as far as I am aware) with the group who released the press release which you complain about. In my opinion, the press release does give out useful information. Anyway, further on, you say:' all publicity is good publicity...'. Make your mind up!
>The point I'm trying to make with my humour, in case it's not obvious, is that I don't understand how made up group names help the campaigning situation. We got on perfectly well operating as concerned individuals. One name was OK, two was getting a bit thin, but three is - well...
Groups are more effective than individual voices and the more the better. Did we really get on perfectly well as concerned individuals? Collectives have more clout.
>Then a name appears that to me rings huge alarm bells yet my concern has been rubbished.
There again, I seem to have missed where your 'concern has been rubbished'. It's you who is doing the rubbishing!
>I still predict you will have trouble with it.
Who are you talking to now? Nigel is not involved with Time Watch.
>These group names may sound impressive on the surface but I think people are starting to see through them. I can't help thinking of end of the film Wizard of Oz.
Eh? Please explain.
>I appreciate you are too close to the internal politics of it all to see the funny side. It concerns me, that's all.
I'd see the funny side if what you claim to be funny was actually true. No group concerned with the archaeology has complained about any other group. It's the Friends of Thornborough who have complained. They ousted their founder because he was too concerned about publicising the archaeology and now they are a NIMBY. Try and get any info out of FoT and I think you'll find out what I'm on about. In my opinion, all of those members of FoT who are primarily concerned with the henges and are not resident locally would do better to transfer their allegiance to Time Watch.
>I'm not about to keep quiet and tow some 'party line' in case it gets exploited by the other side.
Good for you. There is no 'party line'.
>all publicity is good publicity...
Then why complain about Time Watch's publicity? I repeat: The sort of publicity you are giving can only be good for Tarmac.
Regards,
Baz
[ This message was edited by: baz on 2005-03-06 14:24 ]
[ This message was edited by: baz on 2005-03-06 14:29 ]
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