Ulla’s Amazing Wee Blog

I am a bit ill this week with a weird type of summer flu. The Filmhouse sent Indymedia 10 tickets for free for the community festival experience, for the film: “Who needs sleep?” which is about labour rights and trade unions (or their absence) in the film and movie industry.
The Russian language student will leave tonight and the French has first moved away into student accomodation and then got rapidly sent back home today as she went a bit overboard with her teenage freedom. We even got paid the telephone bill in total, which we did not really expect anymore, but her dad stepped in and sorted finally the stuff out.
I met two IMC volunteers from NYC Indymedia yesterday, they mainly work on the Indykids newspaper. It was interesting to hear a little bit about what projects they are doing and how they are structured in NYC IMC.

I would have so much to do and would want to do, but it seems I need to go back to bed to get better. Yesterday I had about 4 lemsip max, and on wednesday at least one.

This week has been very exciting. I had an interview yesterday for a part time job. The fun thing about it was that they used an electronic pre-screening test via an interactive website, and I was second best.

The French language student has run up a phone bill of about £80 in the last 2 weeks, dialing premium call numbers for example for about 2-3 hours in the middle of the night at about 2am to a french mobile. This call alone cost £15!
We tried to get BT blocking the numbers, but BT was pretty crap, always saying that it would take 7 days for the service to work, and then not even starting it untill you put in the code number they gave me. I even needed to hide the phone and take it always with me so to monitor her phone addiction better.
But now the language student wanted to move accomodation closer to where her friends stay, and could not pay the telephone bill. The language school actually gave us ground rules at the start, including “Do not let your student use your phone.”, which we as liberals and libertarians of course ignored, especially as the French language student had quite some difficulties at the start. So, now we know why we should have stuck to the rules.
The Russian language student also has a blog under the name Positronchick. However, she does blog in Russian, obviously.

More about telephone companies and their rates under Micah’s Blog.

I also watched Syriana and Munich start of the week, got them from the A&C Video library. Syriana has just been released, Both films are brilliant. I also got some real Haggis for the students from the best butcher of Edinburgh. They do Haggis in 1 person portions, which looks like a sausage. the French language student refused to eat it, because it looked like a sausage, and she doesn’t eat sausages. Micah ate the Haggis, I ate the vegetarian Haggis.

We also needed to do a big washing with all the bed sheets and similar. Lots of ironing, too. Also Micah brought me some sweeties – and my tooth filling fell out, so i tried to get a dental appointment, as well as reviewing the world cup football exhibition in the North Edinburgh Arts Centre, which is organised in cooperation with the Magnum Photoagency and the Goethe Institute.

On Thursday I tried to get clothes, shoes and make-up for the Interview. Unfortunately most of the clothes at Matalan did not fit, and the Sales started in Marks & Spencer. It was incredibly hot and so many people were crammed in the shop that it felt pretty suffocating. I went well over the budget, especially with the make-up and as I hate make-up I am not very experienced with it, I went to the Interview looking like my face fell into some yellowish cake icing.
I am unsure about getting the job. It seemed my make-up blew it.

My allotment is producing courgettes in extreme sizes. According to Micah, the largest courgette “could feed a family of 12 for a week.”

The Filmhouse published in its last programme its intentions of offering free tickets for community groups at the EIFF. the tickets get sponsored partly by Standard Life and a Business & Arts link up group.
Yesterday the meeting of all community groups interested in taking part in the free ticket scheme happened at the Filmhouse. There seemed to be about 20-30 different groups present, and the Filmhouse crew mentioned they had to turn many more away.

Unfortunately they only have 100 free tickets in total.

They also did not say how they would select the groups, and I exploded a little bit with my hungarian side going up the roof, which wasn’t particularly helpful, but made them probably realise the extend of the problem, and they seem to have shifted their focus slightly from selecting groups to giving all groups some, but fewer tickets.
Anyways, as blogged before I critisised the Filmhouse for the EIFF being pretty exclusive to the majority of the Edinburgh population, as many can not afford the ticket entry prices. It seems to be a bit better this year, I hardly found any tickets costing the £10 I saw last year, but still, most of the documentaries are only screened once, and they are an excellent tool for education and building global awareness and empathy for other people and situations.
I also claimed that it builds an atmosphere of playing groups of against each other, and that the criteria for selection would be unclear.

On a more informal note, I put the list of my prefered films to them and they recommended “Who needs sleep” and “The Refugee All Stars”. I also asked them about the “My country, my country” and they stated it would more about the general situation in Iraq rather than a profile of the politicians.
They seemed to be pretty passionate about the film.

Also the Al Gore film was recommended by a film critic, too; maybe I have been a bit too harsh in trying to select my prefered screenings. But then, I usually obnly can afford one EIFF experience a year!

I had hectic past weeks. The shower finally got electrified last tuesday and it is so brilliant being able to take a shower every day. I also got a goldfish today. He is still pretty shy and hides behind the plants. The pH is pretty low in the water. i wonder how it could be increased.
Fluffy made an escape into the kitchen and it was difficult to get him back out from under the shelf.

I have got two language students here to stay at the moment, one from France and one from Russia, and it is good fun and very exciting to have them around. The local newspapers reported one other language student from the same school had run away with her Scottish penpal after meeting him in Princes Street Gardens where Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare were played at the same time. The two teenagers – 14 and 15 years old, later tried to get on a ferry to Ireland. After 4 days they were busted in the Aberdeen Youth Hostel.
So the theme of Romeo and Juliet is highly popular as ever. Apart from being dropped onto the Titanic, our local Pilton Video even tried to set it in North Edinburgh’s Old Peoples Home Silverlea, with the families having a deep-rooted historical and geographical feud as being from Pilton and Muirhouse. Unfortunately the film was never finished, only the trailer, but the old female actor was fantastic. I think one of the main actors died before the film was made.

The Edinburgh Film Festival published his programme on Wednesday. It has its 60th anniversary this year. I didn’t know that it originally started of as a documentary film festival. I went through the list of films and here are the ones which politically look interesting at first sight:

- 5 Days
- A crude awakening – The Oil Crash
- Al Franken – God spoke
- KZ
- The Empire in Africa
- The Railroad All Stars
- Who needs Sleep
- The Refugee All Stars

- East of Havana

- Birds Of Heaven
- Madeinusa
- Interkosmos

- Cargo
- Labour equals Freedom
- The Right of the Weakest

However, I am not sure about “My country, my country”, a documentary which seems to be praised and recommended by the Film Festival management about the Iraq war and an Iraqi running for elections. The last bit bothers me a bit and probably makes the take or break of the film and the election is revealed to be the farce that it was, then it could be a good film – but most likely it is not a truthful account, but a misleading hope fresh out of Pandora’s box, and then the film would be crap.
Easy as that to classify, even without watching it.

There is also a documentary on Al Gore and portraits into the life of call centre workers in India and about globalisation. But I am a bit doubtful of both, as they seem to individualise the topic too much. There is also a documentary about film censorship. But it isn’t censorship of political films or economic censorship we as activists suffer from, but more censorship of sex and similar. Seems to have a lot of talking heads speaking, too. So I will give it a miss.

Dear Big Issue Vendors, Readers, Writers and Friends

Thanks very much for putting together the Big Issue every week. I love the magazine and in particular the news information and updates about campaigns, especially grassroots groups. I like the diversity of issues tackled and the urge to improve the world. The Big Issue has been such a great reliable supportive voice before and during the G8 protests last year when many other media outlets seemed to focus more on scaring the local population. I like the Big issue’s editorial focus on community issues and the Vox pops. I also appreciate the interviews with homeless Big Issue vendors from all over Scotland and also the ethical classified.

The content of the Big Issue often seems so much more relevant to my daily life than that of other magazines. The article about phone mast radiation is very relevant in our area in North Edinburgh where a further 10 mobile phone masts are planned on top of the neighbouring hirise. The article in the Refugee Week’s special edition about the community allotment group raising £600 000 to outsmart big developers in the bid for a green space, raises memories of the two Edinburgh allotment sites which, according to Fedega, the Federation of Edinburgh and District Allotments and Gardens Associations, were transformed into building sites in the last five years.
It is scary to read that of 100 000 allotment plots in Scotland after the Second World War only 4000 are left and most of them are situated actually away from the multi-resident houses without gardens. Indeed many new buildings disregard any space for gardens totally in benefit for parking spaces.
They forget the benefits gardens and allotments bring to our quality of life.
Allotments help foster biodiversity and wildlife. Many gardeners grow ad eat organic healthy fruit and vegetables and enjoy a satisfying and active hobby, too. The planted trees improve the air and many plot holders receycle rainwater, compost their biological rubbish and rotate seeds and plants annually. The new NHS allotment in Bridgend has just today been launched and it also includes raised plant beds for disabled gardeners and 4 plots which are reserved for patients being prescribed gardening for their mental and physical wellbeing.

According to Fedega, the waiting list in Edinburgh for a whole or half an allotment plot is about 900 people.
Legal protection for allotment sites in Scotland is urgently needed; it is already existing in England. The current consultation of citizens on the Draft Edinburgh City Local Plan by City of Edinburgh Council mentions allotment sites and sets out the policy for the next ten years on open spaces. There is still a chance to make your voice heard till 30th of June.
Above everything else, the public should at least be aware that the green lungs of the city are becoming more and more endangered, like our mental, physical and social well being and healthy diet.

Comments on the Draft can be sent by 30th June 2006 by mail or email to FAO ECLP Team, Head of Planning & Strategy, City of Edinburgh Council, PO Box 12473, 1 Cockburn Street, Edinburgh.