g7uk » profit

Activists invade Manchester Pride 2007 parade in protest at Pride commercialisation

GS — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 19:15:11 +0000

25 August 2007, Manchester, England. Activists invaded the annual Manchester Pride parade today in a protest against the commercialisation of this one-time community and fundraising event.

Manchester’s Odeon cinema subjected to a damaging ‘systematic and methodical’ assault to prevent preservation

GS — Sat, 19 May 2007 16:18:37 +0000

Manchester’s former Odeon cinema, on Oxford Street, has been subjected to a ‘systematic and methodical’ assault to prevent it being preserved, according to the man who tried to save it.

Bye bye Operation Fundraiser

GS — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 18:38:27 +0000

The Manchester Pride website reports that Operation Fundraiser will be ‘will be hanging up its buckets’ this year.

Low-paying employers

GS — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 05:09:51 +0000

The unemployed are a favourite target for government ministers and tabloid headline-writers. But, strangely, unscrupulous business-owners rarely get a mention.

Liberation 91 protest, Manchester, UK 1991 (video)

GS — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 13:15:56 +0000

Don’t believe the big fibs that are put around by commercial vested interests today. They make out that Manchester was some kind of gay wasteland before Canal Street took off in the early 1990′s.

Here Come the Double Deckers

GS — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 23:02:43 +0000

One of my favourite TV programmes as a kid.

As far as I can make out, this series has never been released on video or DVD in the UK (and probably not in the US either). The last time I remember it being on terrestrial TV here was in the Granada ITV region in 1990.

This is one of a vast number of British television programmes and films that remain unseen, languishing in a vault somewhere. There are British films that I’ve never been able to watch and there is no way to see them because they are not available anywhere.

As a content producer myself I understand the need for copyright. But, is it right that companies can deny us access to our cultural heritage and prevent us from viewing these for decades? Simply because they can’t be bothered, or can’t make a profit by releasing them.

There should be some way for people to see these. Either require the companies to make a copy available that people can borrow from a local library. Or make it legal to share non-profit copies of commercially unavailable material.

There’s a £50 fee to be in the Manchester Pride parade this year

GS — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 00:08:46 +0000

If you want to take part in Manchester’s annual gay pride parade this year you will have to pay £50 + VAT. No, this isn’t a fee for businesses — they already pay more than £1000 to be in the parade.

It is a charge for every non-profit group and individual. Whether you are unemployed, disabled, poor, retired, have HIV, you will have to cough up more than fifty quid to walk through the streets of Manchester and celebrate being lesbian or gay.

When I saw the report in this morning’s Independent newspaper, it took my breath away.

It is bad enough that the cynical, money-focused people who run this event these days, fenced off the gay village and introduced an entrance fee back in 2003. In 2006 that entry charge is up 50% for many people, from £10 to £15.

But this latest stunt has to be the final straw. The signs are that they are selling fewer tickets each year. Money raised for charity in 2005 was the lowest figure since 2002. They seek to mislead the public over their costs.

It’s time for everyone to boycott Manchester Pride and force a change and go back to the roots of this event.

I believe that the biggest threat the gay community in Britain faces now, comes from the people who dream up schemes like this. Those who seek to make money from us at every opportunity. They are only interested in people who can pay.

The current organisers have completely lost sight of what Pride means.

How is it that other sections of the community in Manchester can hold parades and events that are free? But when it comes to the gay community we are told we must pay tens of thousands of Pounds in costs for security, street cleaning etc.?

Why is it that the gay village has to be fenced off with a high entry charge because it is serving alcohol, when alcohol can be served at other outdoor events in the city centre which are not fenced off?

If the City Council can tweak the byelaws to block off public roads in the gay village for a whole weekend, how come it can’t tweak the laws that relate to alcohol?

This is discrimination 2006 style. The gay community can be beaten and threatened into paying this money by businesses, the Police and Manchester City Council — all of whom say Pride won’t go ahead unless we agree to their terms (just look back to what happened in 2002 when the event was almost cancelled).

No other section of the community in Manchester is being hit in this way.

British soldiers to face life imprisonment for desertion

GS — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 09:01:04 +0000

So many soldiers are absconding from the British Army due to the war in Iraq that the Government is planning to change the definition of ‘desertion’.

Under The Armed Forces Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, ‘soldiers could now face life imprisonment if they refuse to take part in the occupation of a foreign country’.

As usual with Tony Blair, the answer is not to tackle the root of the problem — which is that he lied, the invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law and has been a total disaster. Not to mention that moral has been low because soldiers have sometimes lacked essential equipment such as body armour.

No, instead, Blair punishes the soldiers. Like so many other people, they see through him and have no faith in his leadship. So the only way to stop them running away is to theaten them with life in jail!

If I was in the armed forces I would be looking to get out as soon as possible, one way or another.

This is the twenty-first century and, when a soldier is being asked to put his or her life on the line, they should be confident that it is for a cause that is just and legal (and not just inside Tony Blair’s twisted head).

POST-WAR PROFITEERING BY US COMPANIES IN IRAQ

BBC Newsnight has a must-see report on how billions of dollars of Iraq’s money was directed to American companies to rebuild the country and much of it is now unaccounted for. Download it here while you can.

Profits fall in Manchester’s gay village

GS — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 09:25:04 +0000

This morning, both The Independent and The Times have stories about profits being down in Manchester’s gay village. Income has fallen by 20-25% they say.

This is not a surprise to me. Recently I found figures that suggest, since they began charging for entry, attendance at Manchester Pride has fallen to one quarter of what it was in 2002. And contrary to the ‘best-ever event’ hype that we see in the media each year afterwards.

Aw what a shame. Now, after ten years during which time the businesses abandoned their traditional loyal customer base in search of the biggest possible profits, finally the chickens are coming home to roost.

Neither article mentions that gay bars and clubs used to be a safe space that could be enjoyed by gay men and women of all ages. The pubs may have had curtains at the windows but, once inside, they were friendly and rather civilised. You never saw a fight and it was rare to see anyone really drunk and misbehaving.

Anyway, the ‘gay village’ has always been a commercial manufactured thing. Years ago, the bars and clubs were spread across the city centre — from Deansgate and Spring Gardens to Sackville Street. Despite what it says in The Independent, there were no gay bars actually on Canal Street until the early 1990′s (the entrance to the Rembrandt is on Sackville Street and the New Union is on Princess Street).

These days the area is threatening, unpleasant, cynical and aimed exclusively at the 18-30 age group who have a high disposable income and drink a lot. Everyone else has been driven out. There is no ‘community’ anymore and they should stop pretending this now-awful area is anything of the sort.

Even the bricks and mortar have been destroyed in the quest for profit. Old shop fronts have been ripped out to make way for takeaways or bigger bars, stonework has been removed from the front of the old warehouse buildings and the original cobbles are long gone. Controversial and tacky waste-of-money memorials have been put up in Sackville Park, when the cost could have been better spent actually helping people.

It’s not just the fact that we are now more-accepted at other places around Manchester and have other ways to meet people — such as the Internet. It is that we don’t like what the so-called gay village has been turned into by money-grabbing businesses and Manchester City Council.

Now The Rembrandt (which used to be a men-only bar) is to take the drastic step of banning hen parties. Unfortunately, the time to do that was ten years ago. Not now, just because your profits are down.

So what is the future? I think the outlook is bleak for the businesses down there. Gay men and women are going to continue voting with their feet and the over-30′s who, in the past, would have been customers for life, won’t ever return. As the area becomes increasingly ‘less gay’, there won’t be the novelty value, so the ‘non-gay’ customers won’t bother with that part of town anymore.