Brazil family in the news

Subject: Brazil family in the news
From: the button
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 02:53 PM

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article952861.ece

Those of you who don't read the British gutter press may have missed this -- I only saw it because of another internet forum I post on.

It seems that members of the Brazil family (one of the great traditional song-carrying families of these Islands) have bought a field near NuLabour's Tessa Jowell.

As the story says: -

'Tom Brazil, a 30-year-old father of three, said: "This has been a big rush job and we purposely chose the Easter holiday weekend so that we could get more done before anybody tried to stop us.

"There are 16 families here, each with up to three caravans, and we banded together to buy the land 12 months ago.

"We didn't let on that we were gipsies – nobody would have sold it to us if they'd known.

"I can understand that people living nearby will be upset, but they have got to appreciate that we have got children who need to go to school to get on in life.

"We are part of one big family who have been evicted thousands of times while on the road together over the past seven years.

"We just want a permanent home and have been looking for the right place to buy – and this is it.

"We did not know that an MP lives next door, but I would like her and her husband to come down and have a chat.

"Nobody here has a criminal conviction and 90 per cent of us are Christians. We just want to be good neighbours."'

Good on 'em, I say.

Those of you unfamiliar with the singing of the Brazil family could do worse than have a hunt around on the MT Records website, read the reviews and the booklet notes, and invest some of your hard-earned.

Lovely stuff.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: the button
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 02:55 PM

Hats off to me for managing my first blue clicky, by the way.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 03:09 PM

Quite prejudiced bit of writing there. Curious if this gets written up in any other papers, perhaps in a more level way.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: the button
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 03:14 PM

You're not wrong, kat. I was quite surprised the Sun journo bothered interviewing someone from the family, to be honest. Interestingly, if you look at the comments on the story at the bottom (and at The Sun's discussion forums) opinion is quite evenly divided between pro- and anti-, with a fair few gypsies posting on their themselves.

Be warned though, there are some fairly disgusting opinions expressed on there.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: The Vulgar Boatman
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 04:31 PM

The only reason the press will give it any room, or any appearance of balance, is because any adverse reaction gives them the chance to stuff Tessa Jowell.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 05:18 PM

That'll be the Tessa Jowell, who was Secretary of State for Culture when the Licensing Act was passed....?

Kitty

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 05:22 PM

I wish they'd bought the field across the road from where I live.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Vic Smith
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 06:43 AM

This is just appalling! Can you imagine the political fallout if the headline in 'The Sun' had been
Black families hell for minister Tessa
or
Muslim families hell for minister Tessa

but because this is a really downtrodden underclass, they can somehow get away with it. What is the CRE's position on this?

What needs to be realised - by the folk music community as well as the public at large - is just how important The Brazil Family are to the folk culture of England. The recent triple CD release by Rod Stradling's Musical Traditions label of the Brazils is quite scintillating and the single most important release of traditional English singing this century.

Show your outrage at this by emailing the The Equality and Human Rights Commission by clicking here

Read on-line the fascinating booklet that accompanies the release by clicking here and show your support for the Brazils (and give yourself a mighty treat) by ordering the albums by clicking here
Vic

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: the button
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 07:10 AM

The CRE has now been subsumed into the Equality & Human Rights Commission that you mention.

By the way, gypsies are classed as an "ethnic group," for the purposes of the Race Relations Act.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: the button
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 07:17 AM

I'd echo what Vic says about the Brazil family CDs from Musical Traditions, too -- wonderful stuff.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Vic Smith
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 10:02 AM

As you would expect, this story gets a much more balanced telling in the pages of today's The Guardian, page 7, than it ever would in The Sun

You can read the article on-line by clicking here though to see the informative picture that goes with the article, you will have to buy the newspaper.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: jacqui.c
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 10:26 AM

In the UK I lived in an area that had a permanent site for travelers and, from my own experience, they were helpful and just as law abiding as the general population.

The bad reputation seems to come from the itinerant bands of so called travelers who have a habit of descending on a local area, staying for a short while and then moving on, leaving the area a total mess for the local authorities to clean up. Generally that mess included human and animal waste as well as articles of junk that could not be used. I used to travel past a site abandoned in that way and it took the local authorities about a week using front loaders and trucks to clear the detritus.

A police acquaintance of mine commented that, when a group like that came into the area, the crime rate went up considerably, particularly for break-ins and car theft. These are the people who give all other travelers a bad reputation since no-one seems to want to differentiate between those who just wish to lead their traditional lives and those who are basically looking for pickings.

From looking at the photo in the Sun this site looks no worse than a regular building site and I wonder just how much dismay there would be if the site had been sold for a new housing development with all the mess and disruption that could cause. I have every sympathy with the Brazils if they have been ignored by local authorities when trying to solve their housing problem and, given the prejudice here, can quite believe that this would be the case.

As with all communities it is the small group of wrongdoers that get the publicity and so people start to believe that all of the community are alike. The media, on the whole, do not help either.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 10:33 AM

"The bad reputation seems to come from the itinerant bands of so called travelers who have a habit of descending on a local area, staying for a short while and then moving on"

ummm...isn't that what travellers do?

What is a "so-called" traveller? I only ask because the concept of "real" travellers (salt-of-the-earth types) and "false" travellers (itinerants and thieves bent on mischief) goes back to the Victorian period, and has been used as an excuse for the persecution of traveller communities for generations.

There's good and bad in all communities, but I don't think romanticised stereotypes are particularly helpful in addressing genuine social problems.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: the button
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 10:34 AM

Anyone wishing to complain to the Press Complaints Commission about The Sun's coverage (or that of any other newspaper) can do so here: -

http://www.pcc.org.uk/index2.html

The online form asks which bit of the Code of Practice you think is being breached -- I put article 12, which deals with discrimination.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: jacqui.c
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 10:42 AM

Ruth - paraphrase the whole paragraph, not just the first bit. there is a difference. I have experienced, in my local area, both of these examples and there is a major difference in the way in which they affect the local community. I suppose it comes down to respect for the land and their neighbours on the whole.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,Black Hawk
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 10:51 AM

The amount of building work they got through in a short period puts the 'normal' construction contractors to shame.
Belies the perception of travellers as a lazy, shiftless lot.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: jacqui.c
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 05:42 PM

Exactly Black Hawk. That's what is so bad about lumping all traveling people together.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: The Vulgar Boatman
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 07:11 PM

OK Ruth - let's do away with romanticised stereotypes, but we still need definitions. As a number of my travelling relatives live just down the way from the Brazils, I guess I know the first definition. As to the rest, how does "band of itinerant criminals" grab you? 'Cos I for one am sick of them and the harm they do to the travelling community. I know of unofficial travellers' camps in Kent, established for years, where the police call regularly - for a cup of tea. I have friends and family who are storytellers, musicians, showmen, horse traders, used car dealers and in all probability the biggest rogues unhung, all making a living without much harm to their fellow man. I also know of falsely registered motor vehicles, theft, intimidation and communities feeling threatened by mobile criminals. One size of persecuted minority does not fit all. The real crime is that things like planning permission seem to be automatically denied to the likes of the Brazils, principally because we still haven't learned that housing of whatever description should be about people's needs rather than investment and speculation. Oh, and prejudice.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,Sapper on UTU4 in Paisley Loop
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 07:37 PM

Nicely put Vulgar.
I used to wonder what the fuss was about "gypsies," until '85 when I regularly had to walk pass a "tarmac gang" encampment near Eastleigh Airport station. I then saw the amount of crap, real and figurativly, they left behind them.
Not only that, but when the council did provide a couple of skips for them to place their rubbish into, the skips vanished after less than a day.
I do realise that a lot of the Travelling Community do not cause problems and do not deserve the victimisation they receive. But if ever a section of a victimised community could be claimed to justify that victimisation, regrettably, some groups of Travellers do just that.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 05:35 AM

Some Travellers make a mess. So do the rest of us when we leave Football Stadiums, Folk Festivals and Glyndebourne. Not to mention plastic bags in the Ocean

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: jacqui.c
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 07:57 AM

Les - not to the degree that some unofficial sites are left in when they leave, and the site owner then has to pay the cost of removing that mess from his land. I doubt that any of the events you mention result in human and animal faeces being left in large quantities as well as all the detritus of human occupation and useless scrap that can't be sold. I know, from living in such an area, that it can take months, if not years, to bring a site back up to pre-occupancy safety.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 07:59 AM

"The real crime is that things like planning permission seem to be automatically denied to the likes of the Brazils, principally because we still haven't learned that housing of whatever description should be about people's needs rather than investment and speculation."

Amen to that! The planning laws in this country are a disgrace! Anti-democratic and loaded in favour of greedy developers.

And as for litter. Perhaps the middle class joggers who cover my local nature reserve with their empty plastic mineral water bottles should be held accountable for a change.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 08:13 AM

There is a car boot sale on the council car park in Halifax town center every Sunday morning, LOTS of large litter bins provided, most of the car booters leave their litter where their car was parked, on the ground, it's a bloody disgrace, and these are mainly Halifax residents, no gypsies at all.

eric

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Folkiedave
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 10:26 AM

I was at the Bottle Kicking and Hare Pie at Hallaton on Easter Monday. Those who were there left enormous amounts of litter over fields and roads, pavements and gardens. A lot of it empty beer cans and bottles.

These weren't travellers - just ordinary people. Had they been travellers just think of the uproar that would have been caused.

http://tiny.cc/yheeY

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 11:06 AM

Les, LOTS of plastic bags in the ocean! I was listening to a piece on NPR, yesterday, which said the big garbage dump floating in the Pacific Ocean, mostly ALL plastic, is larger in mass than the United States and all came from humankind.

A little off the subject, but one thing we have done is switched to a water bottle made entirely of corn with its own built in filter for chlorine, good for up to 90 uses. Plus, the bottle biodegrades, harmlessly, within 80 days.

Thanks Vic, for the music links!

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 11:51 AM

Good point Kat,

I think those of us who voice support for groups who suffer prejudice and discrimination have to recognise genuine problems generated by the traveling life. But we who live in one place, and some who live in two, contribute to habitat destruction and climate change on a much greater scale but it is taken away into some other backyard.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 03:53 AM

Ruth Archer hits it right on the button.
There is a danger of raising your voice because the people concerned happen to be singers or musicians - this is happening to ALL TRAVELLERS.
Here in Ireland the persecution of itinerants has reached 'ethnic cleansing' proportions and those who are not supporting this are ignoring it.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: the button
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 04:18 AM

You're dead right, Jim. This is an issue I feel strongly about, and I wanted to raise it on these boards in such a way that it wouldn't end up in "BS."

I've had an acknowledgement of my complaint to the Press Complaints Commission, by the way. Doubt if anything will come of it, but we'll see.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 02:03 PM

Typically what happens with travellers is that they get moved on, which doesn't make it practical to tidy up before going, and must remove any motivation to try to do so.

Where approved stopping places are provided and provided with services they are typically looked after well by people who intend to come back again in the future.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: irishenglish
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 02:43 PM

I'm in the US, so a lot of the finer points of this are probably lost on me. It does bear to mind, the lyrics of a song off Oysterband's recent Meet You There, Bury Me Standing.

"Another home we could have made
Another home we have to leave
I'm tired of their permissions
To use what should be free
Tired of heavy voices
Telling me what I should be."

I'm just curious because I read the Guardian article linked above, what is the actual size of this property? And forgive me for not knowing this, but short of wanting to build a 30 story building on this site, once you own property, aren't you allowed to do whatever you want within reason? A family member of mine has owned a decent plot of land in Donegal for 25 years, but has never done anything with it, she just owns the land. If she wanted to set up a tent on her own property, and have a fire pit to cook on, isn't she entitled to do so? Again within reason, aren't these gypsies entitled to the same rights since they own the property?

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 03:10 PM

'As you would expect, this story gets a much more balanced telling in the pages of today's The Guardian, page 7, than it ever would in The Sun'

the definition of balanced would probably depend on your political leanings me thinks.

Charlotte (the view from Ma and Pa's piano stool)

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 03:25 PM

Where would the Daily Mail or Express lie?

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 04:00 PM

"Where would the Daily Mail or Express lie?"
Page one, two, three. four, five six, seven....... how long is a piece of string?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 04:38 PM

Thanks Jim.

I used to buy a pint of milk for work in a paper shop in Wythenshaw. Everyday I would read the headlines of those bastions(?) of truth. The Express did about 14 days against Asylum Seekers including the front page headline:

"Asylum Seekers ate my Donkey"

Oh Joy

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 04:45 PM

I personally don't read either of the aforementioned papers, I was simply making a logical statement with no politcal bias one way or the other.

Charlotte (the view from Ma and Pa's piano stool)

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 04:46 PM

Not a matter of politics. The Guardian is a newspaper. The Daily Telegraph is a newspaper too, with very different politics - here is its version

The Sun is a waste of newsprint and a waste of rime.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 06:05 PM

Lets not muck about here, the Sun, the Mail and the Express and a number of others are evil.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Thompson
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 06:40 PM

Curiosity: are these Irish(-origin) Brazils (pronounced BRAZZle) or otherwise?

We humans are really good at walling ourselves off from each other. I wonder whether it comes from some useful genetic tendency.

A friend found a baby magpie being beaten to death by three other magpies the other day. Presumably an orphan who'd strayed into their territory. Perhaps the human anti-other tendency is from the same kind of background.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 04:55 AM

Les,
I'm from Liverpool and I will never forget how 'The Sun' metaphorically urinated on the dead of Hillsborough.
Wythenshawe - I lived there once and helped re-wire part of the Council estate (no major fires I hope)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 06:23 AM

They still speak of you Jim. I trust the paternity claims have ceased now

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 07:02 AM

Ah - good days!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 01:16 PM

"Lets not muck about here, the Sun, the Mail and the Express and a number of others are evil"

and there are those who would say the exact opposite...either which way it's a personal opinion and a personal preference in newspapers. After all isn't the way the news stories are presented all about who can get the largest readership base, regardless of how "classy", or not, a newspaper is perceived to be?

Charlotte (the view from Ma and Pa's piano stool)

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: bubblyrat
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 01:45 PM

Is that the Brazil family as in Lemmy (Lementina ? ) Brazil, composer of eponymous melodeon tunes ??

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 01:48 PM

"and there are those who would say the exact opposite...either which way it's a personal opinion and a personal preference in newspapers. After all isn't the way the news stories are presented all about who can get the largest readership base, regardless of how "classy", or not, a newspaper is perceived to be?"

errrm...no. Happily, other priorities do prevail. Otherwise we wouldn't even have broadsheets in this country - just red-top comics laughingly referring to themselves as newspapers.

I know people who still won't buy The Sun because of Hillsborough.

From what I remember you're in Canada, Charlotte. I think you have to live in the UK to understand that one's "personal preference" in newspapers is a more significant political signifier in the UK than it is in North America. And that the political slant provided by respective newspapers about things like travellers, and immigration, and a host of other contentious issues, tends to be drawn on quite clear and specific political lines.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 01:51 PM

Bubblyrat: yes.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 01:55 PM

Just find front pages to The Mail and The Sun etc.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 05:18 PM

This isn't the BBC so let's stop being so 'even-handed' - the Sun, the Mail and the Express ARE evil!! After all didn't one of these filthy rags engage in the the public humiliation and mental 'torture' of the parents of a missing child and have to publicly apologise for it?

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 05:15 AM

Spot on Shim.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 07:11 AM

The Observer, in a reasoned article, points out that the 1968 Act that obliged local authorities to provide spaces was repealed in 1994. I guess the then government thought the "Market" would solve the problem. And in a way it might?

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Thompson
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 07:47 AM

What did the Sun have to say about Hillsborough?

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 08:03 AM

Completely off-topic, but here's the entry from Wikipedia:

"On the Wednesday following the disaster, Kelvin MacKenzie, then editor of The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper with national distribution owned by Rupert Murdoch, used the front page headline 'THE TRUTH', with three sub-headlines: 'Some fans picked pockets of victims'; 'Some fans urinated on the brave cops'; 'Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life'.

The story accompanying these headlines claimed that 'drunken Liverpool fans viciously attacked rescue workers as they tried to revive victims' and 'police officers, firemen and ambulance crew were punched, kicked and urinated upon'. A quote, attributed to an unnamed policeman, claimed that a dead girl had been abused and that Liverpool fans 'were openly urinating on us and the bodies of the dead'. These allegations openly contradicted the reported behaviour of many Liverpool fans, who actively helped the security personnel to stretcher away a large number of victims and gave first aid to many injured.

In their history of The Sun, Peter Chippendale and Chris Horrie wrote:

As MacKenzie's layout was seen by more and more people, a collective shudder ran through the office [but] MacKenzie's dominance was so total there was nobody left in the organisation who could rein him in except Murdoch. [Everyone] seemed paralysed, "looking like rabbits in the headlights", as one hack described them. The error staring them in the face was too glaring. It obviously wasn't a silly mistake; nor was it a simple oversight. Nobody really had any comment on it—they just took one look and went away shaking their heads in wonder at the enormity of it. It was a "classic smear".
Following The Sun's report, the newspaper was boycotted by most newsagents in Liverpool, with many refusing to stock the tabloid and large numbers of readers cancelling orders and refusing to buy from shops which did stock the newspaper. The Hillsborough Justice Campaign also organised a less-successful national boycott that still impacted the paper's sales, which some commentators[13] have given as a cause for a constant drop in price, introduction of free magazines, videos and free soft porn DVDs offers.[14]

MacKenzie explained his reporting in 1993. Talking to a House of Commons National Heritage Select Committee, he said "I regret Hillsborough. It was a fundamental mistake. The mistake was I believed what an MP said. It was a Tory MP. If he had not said it and the chief superintendent [David Duckenfield] had not agreed with it, we would not have gone with it." MacKenzie would repudiate this apology in November 2006, saying that he only apologised because the newspaper's owner Rupert Murdoch ordered him to do so. He said, "I was not sorry then and I'm not sorry now" for the paper's coverage.[15] MacKenzie refused again to apologise when appearing on the BBC's topical Question Time on 11 January 2007.[16]

The Sun itself issued an apology "without reservation" in a full page opinion piece on 7 July 2004, saying that it had "committed the most terrible mistake in its history." The Sun was responding to the intense criticism of Wayne Rooney, a Liverpool-born football star still playing in the city (for Everton) who had sold his life story to the newspaper. Rooney's actions had incensed Liverpudlians still angry at The Sun. The Sun's apology was somewhat bullish, saying that the "campaign of hate" against Rooney was organised in part by the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo, owned by Trinity Mirror, who also own the Daily Mirror, arch-rivals of The Sun. Thus the apology actually served to anger some Liverpudlians further. The Liverpool Echo itself did not accept the apology, calling it "shabby" and "an attempt, once again, to exploit the Hillsborough dead."

Some other newspapers also detailed the same allegations on the same day, which apparently originated from a source within South Yorkshire Police attempting to divert blame, but The Sun attracted particular opprobrium for its use of the huge "THE TRUTH" headline and its subsequent refusal to issue an apology, something the other newspapers were quick to do.

On 6 January 2007, during their team's FA Cup defeat to Arsenal at Anfield, Liverpool fans in The Kop held up coloured cards spelling out "The Truth" and chanted "Justice for the 96" for six minutes at the start of the game. The protest was directed at both Kelvin MacKenzie and the The Sun, as well as the BBC for employing MacKenzie as a presenter.

To this day, many people in the Liverpool area refuse to buy The Sun as a matter of principle, and the paper's sales figures within Merseyside have been very poor since the day the original story was printed. As of 2004, the average circulation in Liverpool was still just 12,000 copies a day, 200,000 fewer than before the controversial article was published."

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 12:10 PM

I think a lot of people would be offended by articles that appear in The Sun, The Mail and so on. It's not a matter of political bias, although their is plenty of that. In many cases we simply don't know the fine detail of the stories. Many people have found that when they do know a lot about a topic, the papers often get all kinds of things wrong.

If you doubt this point, think about any articles about folk music and related issues - they usually get all sorts of things wrong. Imagine how much worse that gets when they have axes to grind.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: kendall
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 12:35 PM

Stereotypes afford us the luxury of not thinking, but eventually, they will extract the PRICE of not thinking. (Jean Harris, author of Stranger in two worlds.)

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Marje
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 12:59 PM

In response to irishenglish: no, you can't just do what you like with a piece of land in the UK. If you want to camp on it temporarily, you can do so, but there's a limit to the number of days per year you can do this.

If you want to inhabit the site permanently, and lay down drains etc, as seems to be the case here, you need planning permission. This applies to settled people, developers and gypsies alike. Some parts of this island are very crowded, and permission to develop greenfield sites for residential use is often tightly controlled. Once a site has such permission, the value of the land goes up enormously, so you're very unlikely to be able to buy land at agricultural value and then get permission to build or live on it. What normally happens is that whoever wants to develop the land (and this use counts as "development" in UK law) applies for permission before buying the land, rather than buy it and then complain they can't use it as they intended.

None of this excuses the disgraceful and biased reporting in the newspaper article quoted above, but it's not a case of gypsies being denied rights that would be given to others - they seem to be behaving in a way that suggests they don't think the law applies to them. Anyone who wants to change the use of a piece of land in this way needs to apply for permission from the local authority , no matter who they are.

Marje

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 01:10 PM

Their are thousands of caravan sites in this country. Most will not have Travelers and most are probably inappropriate for Traveler's needs.

What are we to do use all means to exterminate them or come to some kind of arrangement?

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Marje
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 01:38 PM

I don't think anyone has suggested extermination or anything like it, Les. Of course we need to come to some arrangement - local authorities are failing in their duty to provide temporary sites, although they are sometimes hampered in their efforts by the behaviour of some (not all) travellers.

I have stayed on a public camping/caravan site where some travellers were also staying, so it does happen. If they keep to the same rules as other campers, there's no reason why they shouldn't use holiday sites. But it's an expensive way to live and I doubt if they'd be prepared to pay maybe £15 a night in high season.

It sounds as if in this case, however, they want to settle permanently and give up travelling, in which case neither temporary nor holiday sites would be no use to them anyway. They're in a similar position to that of the thousands of other families in need of affordable housing, and maybe that's the need that should be addressed most urgently.

Marje

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 01:41 PM

I think I agree with what you say Marje. As I understand it, and others can clarify this, the obligation on local authorities to provide sites (The 1968 Act) was repealed in 1994.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 01:48 PM

"It sounds as if in this case, however, they want to settle permanently and give up travelling, in which case neither temporary nor holiday sites would be no use to them anyway."

Not necessarily. Many Travellers travel during spring and summer, settling in autumn/winter. The Brazils may well intend to travel for part of the year, while retaining a non-hostile and reliable base they can return to when they want/need to. Community elders may well stay on the site all year round, while younger people continue to travel.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 02:10 PM

This isn't the BBC so let's stop being so 'even-handed'

It's my right to be as 'even handed' as I choose to be (and yes I've sampled the aforementioned, online, editions of the papers)..and is the BBC so even handed? I think not.

Charlotte (the view from Ma and Pa's piano stool)

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 02:24 PM

"It's my right to be as 'even handed' as I choose to be"

and also to have an opinion; whether or not you have enough knowledge for it to be an informed one is another matter.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 02:29 PM

Ok..I'll make it simple...I'm not taking sides.

Charlotte (the view from Ma and Pa's piano stool)

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 02:34 PM

Surely enough evidence has been posted above, The Sun's treatment of Hillsborough and the Express treatment of the McCanns? These papers do this everyday.

If you want a shorthand view of them, check them out for the treatment of some group of which you are a member, women, teachers, social workers, notherners,morris dancers, vegetarians ................... and see how accuarte they are, and just trust that they never report anything you have done personally.

Best wishes

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 02:39 PM

No one asked you to, Charlotte. And as you're several thousand miles away, no one would really expect you to have an opinion on the likely veracity of the newspapers in question. So perhaps it's best not to be dictating to people (who probably actually come into contact with these papers every day) that they ought to be responding to typical smear stories in the gutter press with "even-handedness."

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 05:26 PM

The Sun, in particular, is a wicked piece of shit. It is run by an unaccountable Australian tycoon, who seems to have a terrifying amount of influence over the politics of this country, and has made himself very, very rich by scraping the barrel and appealing to the lowest common denominator. In my opinion the Sun's only achievement has been to coarsen, cheapen and corrupt the quality of our national life.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: The Mole Catcher's Apprentice (inactive)
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 05:36 PM

'It is run by an unaccountable Australian tycoon'

Rupert Murdoch, through his company News International Ltd. North America is most familiar with him through his ownership of The Fox Broadcasting Company,and its various subsidiaries.

Charlotte (the view from Ma and Pa's piano stool)

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 06:32 PM

"The Sun, in particular, is a wicked piece of shit. It is run by an unaccountable Australian tycoon, who seems to have a terrifying amount of influence over the politics of this country, and has made himself"

Shim says it all

Les

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 03:44 AM

"The Sun's only achievement has been to coarsen, cheapen and corrupt the quality of our national life."
Or as Goebells (or was it Goering) nearly said:
"when I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my Sun."
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: irishenglish
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 10:48 AM

Marje-thanks for the answer to my questions!

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 02:20 PM

"Rupert Murdoch, through his company News International Ltd. North America is most familiar with him through his ownership of The Fox Broadcasting Company,and its various subsidiaries."

So the evil git pursues similar activities in North America as well.

Your point is?

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 04:26 PM

"So the evil git pursues similar activities in North America as well."

Myspace is, of course, part of the MurDarkEmpire as is venerable Wall Street Journal, and he is an American citizen these days. No point really, merely an illustration of how wide the man's reach is on worldwide media.

Charlotte (the view from Ma and Pa's piano stool)

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,BorisforMayor
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 12:12 PM

Those of you who are sympathetic to gypsies have obvously never had gypsies live close to you. If you had, your attitudes would be quite different.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: irishenglish
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 12:18 PM

Who else shouldn't you live next to Boris-Gays/Lesbians? Indians? Blacks? Latinos? Irish? Muslims? That's crap.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: irishenglish
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 12:19 PM

Or is that Boris the troll?

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,Samba
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 12:27 PM

Only thing worse than living next door to a gypsy is to live next to a caterwauling folkie.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Thompson
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 01:09 PM

Thanks, Ruth Archer. Was that the disaster where fans trying to get out of the stadium were crushed to death when police blocked exits, or something like that?

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 01:22 PM

Those of you who are sympathetic to gypsies have obviously never had gypsies live close to you. If you had, your attitudes would be quite different. A totally false assumption in my case.

And it's the same kind of crap that you hear about black people or Poles or whoever is flavour of the month for the racists.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: sapper82
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 01:30 PM

No Thompson. It's where a large number of Liverpool fans, without tickets, tried to force the gates of Hilsborough Stadium to get in free.
Because of the risk of people being crushed to death outside the field, the authorities opened the gates in an attempt to aleviate the problem. Unfortunately, the crush of fans barging their way into the ground triggered a crowd movement towards the pitch that crushed large number of other fans, ones with tickets, against the fencing, leading to the death of many of them.
In the subsequent inquiry the Police and football officials in charge of the match were strongly critisised for their actions with very little criticism being directed towards the ticketless fans who actually caused the problem.
This of course was the 2nd time that Liverpool fans had been instrumental in football disasters, after the Heysel Stadium tragedy when a charge by Liverpool fans caused the deaths of several Juventus fans in a similar situation of crowd crushing.

The day after the Hillsborough tragedy the Sun headlined on the alledged behaviour of some Liverpool fans where it was claimed a small minority of the fans both robbed and urinated on the victims of the tragedy.
The facts of those headlines, whilst disowned by the Sun, have never been satisfactorally proved or disproved.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: sapper82
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 01:32 PM

Who the hell is Borisformayor?
Obviously not a real Boris Johnson supporter!

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: the button
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 01:36 PM

That's true. Boris would never say anything so crass. Hoho.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,ruth sans biscuit
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 01:55 PM

Thompson, the fans were trying to get in. Because of the inadequate turnstiles, it's been proven that there is no way all of the fans with tickets could have got in to the stadium, so something had to be done in order to get them all in. The senior officer in charge on the day later lied and said that the fans had forced a gate open to get in. It was proven that he had himself given the order to open the gate. The police were also not positioned at the entries to the full pens as they should have been, in order to let the fans still entering know that they were full and direct them elsewhere. Consequently, the fans coming in had no idea that they were contributing to the crushing which was happening at the front.

There has never been ANY EVIDENCE produced for the Sun's allegations.


Hillsborough was a tragedy which was brought about by police negligence and incompetence. The people who survived had their lives changed forever.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 02:46 PM

"Those of you who are sympathetic to gypsies have obviously never had gypsies live close to you. If you had, your attitudes would be quite different."
We have spent more than thirty years recording Travellers; we've eaten with them, drunk with them, been to their christenings, weddings, and funerals, have visited their homes and had them in ours; have even been given a bed for the night by them on occasion.
If I had to choose a neigbour from among the vast majority of Travellers we have met, or a redneck who makes such crass statements as this one - sorry - no competition.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 02:59 PM

There's a permanent Gypsy settlement on the outskirts of Grantham - I've actually asked around to find out if there is any trouble between them and the people in town - I haven't discovered any yet. They appear to keep themselves to themselves.

There were about 5 caravans just outside my village till recently, and they'd been there for several months. The chaps used to come down into the village for a pint from time to time - we had a great sing one evening. One of them, Joe, was telling me he doesn't like his two small children mixing with townie kids, as the townies are cheeky and rude and have no respect. He's right, you know.

When they left, you'd never know they'd been - the verge was immaculate.

Like I said before - there's good and bad everywhere.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 03:11 PM

Well said Ruth.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: jacqui.c
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 03:23 PM

I agree.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: the button
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 04:29 PM

Ever since I sent in my complaint to the Press Complaints Commission about The Sun story I linked to in the OP, I've been getting abusive text messages.

Now -- who has my mobile number who didn't have it before I put the complaint in? Since my mobile is the only phone I have, I put it down as my contact number on my PCC form. Who have now passed my complaint to The Sun newspaper.

Makes you think, eh?

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: the button
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 09:54 AM

Did they pick on you when you were little, Boris?

I do hope so, you racist piece of shit.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: irishenglish
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 10:58 AM

Ignore the troll-bye bye Boris

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 12:10 PM

'They were banned from most pubs after they caused violence and indulged in intimidation'

This particular line says more about you, Boris, than it does about anything or anyone else. People in glass houses etc..etc...

Charlotte (the view from Ma and Pa's piano stool)