ShiftingGrounds

How do you feel when you are standing on a station platform and emblazoned across the wall in front of you is a picture of a semi-naked young woman suggestively posed and making eyes at you?
I feel it as an assault on my freedom.

Earlier this week Rupert Murdoch’s gave the most significant indication that he might replace the Sun’s Page Three with a half-way house of ‘glamorous fashionistas’.
Murdoch was responding on twitter to a tweet which said Page Three is so last century. Murdoch replied: “You may be right, don’t know but considering”.

Today Members of Parliament will vote on the matter of whether same sex couples should be able to marry.

At Sundog Pictures, we’re passionately committed to tackling big and controversial topics in an accessible way.  We want to see change.

When you think of Christmas songs, what comes to mind? Woolly-jumpered Cliff Richard with his Mistletoe and Wine? Noddy Holder bellowing: “So here it is…”? Sir Elton insisting that you “Step into Christmas” whether you want to or not?
The chances are that without even trying you’ve been hearing the same old dirge on repeat play in supermarkets, s

Feelings are mixed after the greatest party on earth.
Certainly over the last few months Newham has had a mother of a hangover. Compared to our Olympics filled summer it is now rainy and grey (who knew winter could descend on THE Park?!).

The jumper is back! Rejoice because knitwear-sporting Danish super-sleuth Sarah Lund (Sofie Gråbøl) is on our screens for a third and final time in The Killing.
We’re now two weeks and four episodes into Sarah’s adventures in the last part of her dark-skied triptych involving corrupt politicians, mutilated bodies and self-mending jumpers.

The Leveson Inquiry was launched a year ago following the scandalous revelations of industrial scale phone hacking by journalists and their agents. The Inquiry was charged with looking into the culture and practices of newsrooms, and the relationships between police, politicians and the media.

I had just finished my last (official) shift at the Paralympics. Sitting down alone with my last plate of food from the wonderful staff at the Copper Box canteen, I got talking to another volunteer who was at the same table.

Two years ago this month, the coalition announced 30% funding cuts to the Arts Council England (ACE). More recently, Maria Miller, the new Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport, stated that we now need to help organisations “get better at asking, not just receiving”.

There are plenty of reasons for those of us on the left to dislike the Daily Mail. Their tin-eared coverage of race and immigration issues and their columnists espousing hateful attitudes – from the mania of Liz Jones to just about everything ever written by Samantha Brick or Richard Littlejohn.

Post-Olympics reflections have been in full-flight. The games are one of the most international events the planet gets to see. Athletes of the world travel to a common place to compete. The competitors, media and watching public are exposed to the globality of the human race.

Like many people I woke up on Monday with very heavy withdrawal symptoms from a spectacular Olympic games. But it wasn’t just the sport I missed, it was the excellent BBC coverage that was critical to making London 2012 such a huge success for us as a nation.

The determination to secure a valuable and lasting ‘legacy’ was central to the success of these British Olympics.

By all reasonable estimations, the 2012 London Olympics has become an overwhelming success for Britain. Confounding all expectations, we have seized the Games as an rare opportunity to express our humanity, compassion, and good-will.

It’s taken years of debate, controversy, misunderstanding, the rise of the far right, and more debate, yet at last it feels as if there is a Britain and a Britishness in which we can all identify and feel comfortable with. Step forward London 2012, with surely the best answer yet in the “what it means to be British” saga.

Aidan Burley, the Conservative MP, caused a stir on Twitter when he referred to the Olympics opening ceremony, directed by Danny Boyle, as ‘leftie multicultural crap’ He also tweeted, ‘Bring back red arrows, Shakespeare and the Stones!’
Obviously the sight of the brave Doreen Lawrence who fought for years for her son’s justice in the face of instit

The Olympics are coming to town for the first time since 1948. And in 2012, as just in the aftermath of the second world war, a housing crisis has been brewing in Britain. In fact, it’s reaching boiling point.

Resigning, in the words of the world-wise spin-doctor Malcolm Tucker, does not always have to be an unpleasant affair. Sometimes, it can be for the best. But try telling that to Jeremy Hunt and his Bullingdon bosom buddies.

On the 20th of September 2011 Chris Grayling made the assertion that our benefits system was in such a state that it attracted ‘benefit tourists’, immigrants who come here in order to sponge off our welfare system.

On the morning of the 19 April 1989, the population of Liverpool woke up to a disturbing headline.
Only four days after the Hillsborough Disaster, The Sun newspaper, under the editorship of Kelvin Mackenzie, ran a story headlined ‘The Truth’.

In exactly three months from today, London (with the support of the rest of Britain) will welcome and host the 2012 Olympic Games. Many are excited by this prospect, while some are simply indifferent.

So, Cameron and co are incredibly cosy with a powerful agenda-setting elite. Big surprise.
More interesting is Alex Salmond’s part in the whole affair.

One of Blue Labour’s great gifts to its party has been to reignite its enthusiasm for hearing and telling proper stories.
Ed Miliband’s speech at Southampton yesterday – in which he spoke about his Dad’s little-known period of service in the navy – might not have made big headlines, but it struck a chord with me.

The announcement that James Murdoch is to step down as chairman of BSkyB will have provoked sighs of relief in offices all over Westminster.
His continued presence has lingered over British politics like a pungent cloud.

FC Barcelona, The Green Bay Packers, Bayern Munich, Saskatchewan Rough Riders, Harpoel Jerusalem, Galatasaray AS, The Memphis Redbirds, and Helsingborgs FC: just a selection of the growing number of professional, fan-owned sports clubs from around the world.