The weekly column from the world of Geoff Clams

Given the media tumult surrounding the Iranian presidential elections, accusations of stolen votes and an inflammatory cultural split, one might be tempted to say that, by comparison, political passions in Britain are either dying, dead or extinct.

Contrast how tepid and lazy we look next to these guys. They don’t feel that the winning ticket is representative, and so they invest their hearts and risk their lives by taking to the streets in their thousands to say so. By comparison, and after decades of being ideologically shunted between the centre and the far-right by two illusory red and blue factions, we just roll over and present our behinds and our livelihoods to whomever is brandishing the lube tube.

Granted, this wasn’t a general election and most are turned-off by Europe because, in all honesty, too few of us are truly informed enough to understand the real implications of the Lisbon Treaty as it stands. What’s more, can an economic bureaucracy like the European Parliament ever look like an arousing or alluring phenomenon? Isn’t there something else on? Can’t we all gawk at some terminally-ill celebrity undergoing chemotherapy instead?

Europe aside, this creeping voter apathy will probably gain momentum, as more and more of us resign ourselves to abject powerlessness and/or misguided protest votes. The recent MPs’ expenses debacle has certainly tickled our anger buds (evidently, it seems that the British are more prone to hate a scrounger than a war criminal/torture apologist/authoritarian creep) but the consensus is, that our ruling elite will soon roll out some new, corrective legislation and the nation’s boiling blood will inevitably cool. What a shame that would be. If we do get the election the majority of us so vehemently demand, can we even trust it to be free and fair? Will we all go back to sleep after the dust has settled and give the Tories a blank cheque mandate?

It is worth taking a retrospective look at our recent elections, now that we have the distance of hindsight. Not just for what the results tell us about the perceived rise in fascism or the death of the New Labour project or whatever else, but to examine the conduct of the polling itself. As more and more political bloggers seem to be invoking the term “Dark Arts” in their analyses of June 4, it seems that a disconcerting picture could still be emerging. Therefore, I would like to relay what happened to me the week I went to the polls.

I live in a very quiet road in Preston (Paignton), tucked away behind the Shorton Valley within a friendly and supportive community. We have many neighbors who are elderly and, who by-and-large, are passionately-engaged voters who still cling to the lifeboat ideal of democracy. It was, after all, their generation’s young men who truly fought and died for this abstract concept. Since polling day, my partner and I have had many over-the-fence conversations with our neighbours and we’ve been able to compare our recent experiences with them. If what we seem to be uncovering is a country-wide phenomenon, then ‘We The People’ are indeed entering the realms of the truly fantastical.

On Monday the 1st, I was returning from a meeting with Project Duvall out in Buckfastleigh. As I mentioned last week, they are a Devon-wide arts committee who meet every fortnight to discuss cultural projects and to lobby for potential funding. Overall, it had been a productive meeting up until my being very publicly sick again. Hence, I was feeling a bit jittery after an unpleasant and introspective drive back to Torbay.

As I pulled into my road, which is a cul-de-sac that branches off from a deathly steep hill, I forgot to drop gears and the car stalled. While fumbling with my keys in the bluish nine o’ clock twilight, I noticed an intense buzzing noise in the near distance. I couldn’t ascertain at first whether it was a far-off lawnmower or a close-by hornet, but it was indescribably high-pitched. Looking up the hill, where the local polling booth had just been erected, I noticed something no larger than a small suitcase suspended in the air and silhouetted against the bruising sky. It promptly zipped out of view with a weird serpentine confidence before I had any chance to get a lingering look. Dismissing the object as either another hallucination or an oddly-shaped night bird, I restarted my car and trundled to my driveway. As the night got thicker and followed me to bed, so too a sense of malicious, creeping dread.

In the earliest hours of the following morning, whilst I was shifting and turning in the throes of sleeplessness, the noise reappeared. Much, much louder this time. Opening my eyes, I watched a singular red dot of light centering itself on the bedroom curtains. It turned green momentarily and then back to red. I leaped from the bed and hurtled towards the window, yet, again it hurried off and the buzzing soon became distant. Elusive. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep a further wink and decided to get up at around seven.

On my way back from the newsagents that very same morning, I was invited to share a cider (Al fresco) with my good, kindly neighbour Hugh, who lives at number four. Hugh is a pensioner, originally from Rotherham, who served in the RAF for thirty or so years. When he retired from the ranks, he went into local-level politics as a Conservative councillor and spent four years there before leaving to work on his garden. A great conversationalist who never beats about the proverbial bush, Hugh managed to surprise even me when, after a short, comforting summer silence and a sup of cold apple gold, he asked: “So, have you seen The Drone yet?”

“Drone?” I replied, unnerved. “What’s that then?”

“Noisy bloody camera that’s been buzzing around the streets at night,” he wheezed with the corners of his mouth downturned. “Whatever next, eh?”

“I saw it last night. Twice. It’s a camera?”

“A floating, talking camera, aye. Did you not get the leaflet? The local Police are doing a trial with it.”

“Why here? Unless of course they finally caught up with you nicking cuttings from Mrs. Frattelli’s Lobelia every summer.”

Hugh gave me the leaflet to study at home, which I did. The Drone is an unmanned CCTV camera with inbuilt facial recognition technology and sonar-based capabilities. Remarkably lightweight and agile, it is remotely accessed and controlled by the Police themselves and employs a series of tiny propulsive fans to hover about six feet from the ground. The Drone has been designed to combat anti-social behaviour, and is being trialed in six other counties up and down the land. Tossing the leaflet aside I went to my computer to write an email to the Devon and Cornwall Police Constabulary to air my concerns. I have since received a reply, effectively referring me to the IPCC. What’s the point?

Judith and I saw The Drone again that night. This time it was scanning the opposite side of the valley, hovering busily past a succession of living room windows, doing it’s red light/green light thing. Looking through walls no doubt. Perhaps not surprisingly, we both dreamed about the floating camera that night. I was so tired I slept right through.

Come Wednesday o’clock, and with the heady buzz of intimidating synthetic Police fading in our minds, we awoke to a loud and forceful knocking at the front door.

To be continued next week…

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You know how it is when all the cupboards are bare, and you’ve got so many projects you want to pursue but for a little lolly (that’s money to you). We know that feeling only too well. Well, here’s some funding opportunities that have come across our desk

Funding Stuff
Global Music Company supporting music education and encouragement
The aim of this foundation, set up by EMI records, is to support projects that encourage education, in particular for young people, in all aspects of music. Bursary (£5000) and general awards up to £2,500. www.musicsoundfoundation.com

Heritage Lottery funds: Young Roots; Townscape Heritage initiative; Your Heritage. www.hlf.org.uk

Arts Council – Grants for Arts. Activities that benefit people or that help artists and art organisations to carry out their own work. Minimum grant is likely to be £200 and the largest in the region £200,000. www.artscouncil.org.uk

Funding for skate park projects
Gravity Engineering Ltd, a manufacturer of concrete and steel skate parks, is looking to sponsor new skate park projects with donations towards funding of up to £5,000 per project: http://www.gravityparks.co.uk/

Free Website Offer for Your Partnership or Community Group
The Devon Towns Forum is offering all of Devon’s Community Partnerships and Community Groups the chance to apply for a free Website and Training Package worth over £600: info@devontownsforum.org.uk

The Co-operative Community Fund
Community groups, voluntary groups, self-help groups, community charities or local branches of national charities are eligible to apply for grants of between £100 and £2,000. www.co-operative.coop/membership/Community-Fund/

South West Loans Fund
The South West Regional Development Agency (RDA) has announced the launch of a new £10m South West Loans Fund which is now available to help growth-oriented business with viable business plans, as part of the drive for economic recovery. www.businesslink.gov.uk/southwest

Greater Dartmoor LEAF
Greater Dartmoor LEAF is a new publicly funded organisation which has been set up to identify and fund environmental and innovative projects and businesses which will increase the future prosperity of the wider community, within the Greater Dartmoor area of Devon. www.greaterdartmoorLEAF.org.uk

The Future Jobs Fund
The Future Jobs Fund is a new initiative, which will help to generate jobs for those in greatest need, particularly young people, and also in areas of high unemployment. This aims to create 150,000 jobs providing real help for young people and who face significant disadvantages in the labour market. http://www.dwp.gov.uk/futurejobsfund

The Big Lottery Fund and Channel 4s’ The Secret Millionaire have teamed up to give viewers a chance to access funding worth £1 million in grants of between £300 and £10,000. http://secretmillionaire.channel4.com/fund_info.shtml

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Totnes, you know the constituency of everyone’s favourite mansion-owning MP, Anthony Steen, will be the setting a protest against the BNP’s Euro Election gains today (June 13).

There is no rise in the BNP, they have the same share of the bigoted and ignorant vote they have ever had.

Doesn’t mean we should ever be complacent in exposing and opposing the ‘BNP or any organisation which promotes racial, sexual orientation or religious intolerance’, as they say in the letter they want people to sign.

The problem is the rise of antipathy towards politicians – the active opting out and not voting that took place during the elections.

The Totnes MP was a big part of that pre-election atmosphere of political dislocation with his expenses claims, his offer to pay back 10 per cent and his assertion that the way he spent public money was nothing to do with anyone but him, what with us all being jealous of his lifestyle.

Sure, poor old Anthony Steen wasn’t the only MP caught out, and at least he wasn’t ‘flipping’ – the act of switching a nominated second home to maximise financial benefits. Steeny-boy was just chancing his arm when he supposed protecting his trees from rabbits in Totnes was fundamental in his representing the Totnes people in Parliament.

Totnes town councillor and former Totnes mayor David Horsburgh, told thisissouthdevon: “We must take a stand against the BNP and any form of racism.

“If not, we could sleepwalk into a Nazi-style state, as happened in Germany in the 1930s. We must take action, and take it now.”

We would add to ensure people are engaged in the political process, at least the letter they are sending to the ‘local press and media’ and all the councils will urge support of more affordable housing, improvements to schools, employment initiatives, ‘all of which reduce the climate that breeds ugly, divided communities and which give a security instead,’

Let’s wait and see what’s in store from the new Conservative-led county council on June 25 when they officially announce what they’ll be up to.

Meanwhile, the town council has a vacancy.

The protest takes place in the town between 10am and noon.

posted by Cptn

• We’re pulling together some questions for new Totnes Rural County Councillor Paula Black from the Green Party. If you’d like to join in, pop on over the People’s Republic of South Devon crowd sourcing site to offer your views.

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It was the Laser Poetry that caught our eye from an immensely eye catching, not to say tongue twisting, ecopoetics event called Skylines that’s taking place at the CCANW until the end of the month, with a big festival day on June 20.

Organiser Elizabeth-Jane Burnett told arts+culture: “The type of poetry I write and read falls largely into the ‘contemporary experimentalist/linguistically innovative’ bracket, so while I’ve always written in response to the landscape in this part of Devon, I’ve not used very traditional methods to do so.”

The whole event is set to engage people in the poetry and the environment, with innovated workshops, like the laser tag games out in the forest which apparently encourages young people to think about, and respond to their environment and language in new and exciting ways.

There’s a Primitive Hut installation and on June 20 poets will be coming from the US, France, and across the UK, to participate in an academic forum in the morning, workshops and a multimedia screening in the afternoon, and poetry readings in the evening.

“There will be something for all the family, with a kite making workshop for children, and music from local band The Chill Acoustic,” said Elizabeth-Jane.

Read the full story on arts+culture

• Skylines is taking place at the CCANW until June 28, with the festival day on June 20

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The Teign Reach branch of Plough & Share Credit Union is looking to gain more members and has improved its accessibility with the addition of Teignbridge Council’s Forde House headquarters as place to make payments to savings and loans accounts.

The new service at the council offices was launched this month, but the facility doesn’t include withdrawals.

Teign Reach has been operating for two years, offering people living or working in Teignbridge the opportunity to access low cost savings and loans at local venues, such as libraries, community groups and doctors surgeries, even if they’ve had financial difficulties in the past.

It has a 12 per cent interest rate for loans, and it’s fully regulated, supported by the Teignbridge Council and other local organisations.

Teignbridge Council is planning a £5,000 grant to the credit union, following recommendations made by the council’s independent Credit Crunch Commission last year, and approved during the 2009 budget process.

Teign Reach is now hoping to raise awareness of the credit union and encourage more local people to join.

posted by Cptn

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Devon County Council is up to win £30,000 for its Renewable Energy for Devon scheme in the local authority section of the famed Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy 2009, which take place in London on Thursday, June 11.

The RE4D scheme (the catchy little monica for Renewable Energy for Devon) muscled its way into the finalist position with the claims of an impressive 109 renewable energy installations in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and community organisations, and a further 18 in domestic properties.

With the creation of 55 jobs, and a further 16 safeguarded through the scheme, you’d think there’d be more crowing about the scheme, which has provided £0.25m in grants and helped secure £0.81m of other funding.

RE4D was launched in 2006 to create jobs and reduce the county’s carbon footprint, and it aims to stimulate demand and build up capacity. It seems to have gone some way with that – to date the figures show a total of installed capacity of over 2 MW, avoiding around 1,300 tonnes/year of CO2 emissions.

Other finalist in the local authority category is Kirklees Council, Huddersfield, for its free-for-all insulation programme.

posted by Cptn

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“The voters have spoken quite convincingly!” says Anne Marie Morris, the Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Newton Abbot on her blog. “Devon was a landslide in favour of the Conservative Party – and locally there was a strong vote for change. Across the country as a whole the Conservative vote share was 15 percentage points higher than Labour – a nine per cent swing.”

And as the dust settled, leading Tory South West Euro MP was also magnanimous in victory.

“I’m delighted to have seen the Conservatives do better than five years ago, gaining an additional seat, and look forward to welcoming both Julie Girling and Ashley Fox to the European Parliament,” Giles Chichester told the PRSD.

“I would also like to offer my congratulations to UKIP on retaining their two seats and I would have liked to congratulate Graham Watson on retaining his Lib Dem seat, had he been present at the declaration in Poole. It is clear that an overwhelming majority of people in the South West support parties that demand a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty so Gordon Brown must be rueing the day he decided to renege on his manifesto pledge. What we want now is for him to make up for it by holding a General Election immediately.”

posted by Cptn

• Labour in turmoil and Conservative gains, but with the county turning to Tory control and still just the one MEP returned, what of the Lib Dems? Comment below

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•This is a new regular column on the adventures of Geoff Clams

On an impossibly sunny and happily recent Thursday, it so happened that I caught the local premiere of John Tomkins’ new feature-length movie, Like an Angel, at Torre Abbey’s Spanish barn.

John is a multi-skilled composer, singer and film-maker from Torquay who, along with his partner Kirsty Symonds, was hosting this special World First screening in aid of Leukemia research. After collaborating on a slew of online videos John and Kirsty (also a singer/songwriter) offer up this, their latest collaboration; a swashbuckling love story that was filmed in and around Torbay and which spans 500 years. The screenplay was written by John himself, who also filmed, edited, produced, funded and scored the picture.

It had been a day of trials. Earlier that afternoon I lost a shoe and some money in the sea and threw up my lunch, all in the space of an hour. In the morning I had left the house early, but had since forgotten all of my Paignton-based life chores and I soon found myself drifting alongside the baked shores.

I was slowly walking to Torquay but had no idea why. Like an Angel is why. An admittedly rough diamond, this film is both a love letter from its director to its leading lady and a barnstorming adventure with inventive special effects and lovable characters to boot.

John’s irrepressible energy frames nearly every shot and for the duration of the film, I was completely entertained. Here is a filmmaker who calls to one’s mind the Renaissance painters of old. A passionate artist who lives by his brush, painting in broad strokes that span the very fabric of time in this bold and beautiful tapestry of love across the ages.

Needless to say, I whistled off into the summer night with my faith in the local arts mostly restored, the film’s big questions still lingering in my mind. If I travelled into the future would my future self be able to see me? What if my future self left the future and went back into the past to see some stuff?

What if when my future self wanted to travel back to the future from the past after seeing some stuff, it arrived in the future too early? What if the other future self was still there, having not yet travelled to the past to see stuff? Would we cancel each other out or would we create two separate time lines in simultaneous, parallel realities? Could these realities exist now? Will we ever unlock them? John Tomkins is a great leading man for local film and the wider creative community should feel extremely proud to have him as their front-runner. Catch Like an Angel when it screens again. You won’t soon forget it.

Anyhow, on that very enchanting evening, I somehow managed to wrangle this here column. I’ll be here every week, spouting. My name is Geoff Clams and I live in Preston on the Torbay Coast. My day job involves designing cultural adventures for a new Buckfastleigh-based steering committee called Project Duvall. I have sat in on two meetings so far and some of the ideas that people are circulating are certainly encouraging. I also enjoy animals, films, books and some television.

Next week, I want to tell you all about some things that happened to me when I went to vote a few nights ago. It’s pretty scandalous stuff.

posted by Geoff Clams

(image: a still from Like and Angel)

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This performance made me feel cooler just watching it.

Let me set the scene… imagine a harsh world where the Hoodies rule and ASBOs are rife. There is only one man who can save us… The Pied Piper.

The choreography was devised by Kenrick ‘H20′ Sandy. It was a smooth mixture of Hip Hop/ Breakdancing and Martial Arts, using animal styles for each of the gangs.

The five gangs were all diverse, not only with their different fights/dances, but their costumes were simple and evoked the spirit of each gang. For example the Cobras swaying and rocking, ready to pounce were scantily clad women.

Another fantastic device was found in the Mosquito gang, all of them were wearing black but they were also wearing white gloves which are the only thing that could be seen in the dim light mimicking these flying insects

My favourite characters were The Man – four performers dressed in suits with oversized paper mache heads on (a permanent shocked expression on their faces), symbiotic in their movements, sometimes moving in canon.

These characters were so emotive with their movements, I found myself booing loudly at the stage, much to the bewilderment of the surrounding audience members (although it was the matinee so it wasn’t too bad).

The simplistic and up-to-date reworking of a classic tale is breathtaking. Ultz (the director) focuses on the beauty and strength of the dancing rather than bombarding us with extraneous speech and information to get the message across, and it works fabulously.

The cherry on this calorie-laden sundae, the piece de resistance was a snippet of community theatre. A number of local children, who had been working with the company came on in the final scene as the children saved from the oppression of the ASBO gang and they werent bad, in fact i was a tad jealous, I wished I was there layin’ down my moves!

posted by Ems

• Ems reviewed, Blue Boy Ents presents The Pied Piper – A Hip Hop Dance Revolution, at the Northcott Theatre, Exeter. She went to the matinee performance on Saturday, June 6.

To become part of our reviewing team, email info@peoplesrepublicofsouthdevon.co.uk with your details

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With the recession and the drop in housing prices can people afford to get on the property ladder in Devon? Er, no.

Even with an 18 per cent fall in house prices in the region since last April, the average house price in the South West at £159,704 is still 4.5 per cent more expensive than the national average.

What it means for people like shipwright John McShea, who lives in Totnes with his wife and two young children, is that you can’t save enough for a deposit.

He told the BBC: “We would love to have a house, it’s something that just passes beyond us.

“The amount [house prices] are coming down is nothing like the amount that would make a difference to a working person down here.”

But what about second home owners, who make up the bulk of John’s clientele?

According to one-time Lid Dem candidate and spokesperson for the National Association of Estate Agents, Devon estate agent Richard Copus said even though some houses are being going to locals, the second home owners are starting to re-enter the market, because the low interest rates makes property a better investment.

Read the full story.

posted by Cptn

• are homes to live in or invest in? Comments below

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Disabled Kevin asks do we know or care about local politics

Despite being a semi-professional politician, I have still not become aware of any local issues which may influence my decision of which party to vote for on June 4. Living in Plymouth I can only vote in the European elections, but still do not know what each candidate are hoping to achieve should they be elected.

Having run as a city councillor I always make sure I am on the electoral roll and this should mean I should receive at least one piece of mail detailing each parties policies, but I have only received two colourful leaflets from the BNP and UKIP, shouting about how corrupt Westminster is.

Not wanting to vote for the three main parties to register my own protest about the political strain of swine flu that some MPs currently have, who should I vote for?

Apparently, as I understand it (but I’m still not sure), UKIP want to withdraw from Europe, despite the economic cost; the BNP will deport every foreigner and so I imagine that they are going to introduce compulsory national service where everyone has to be a carer for a year; the Green Party will stop me flying to Brighton; the Socialist parties, I gather, want to go back to the ’70s; the Christian parties believe their god can save the economy; and Katie Hopkins still wants a job!

So I am gravitating towards voting for Mebyon Kernow, the party of Cornwall, because their aims seem small, Cornwall does have a unique heritage and culture which should be preserved and I want to learn An Tavas Kernewek.

posted by Disabled Kevin

When I ran for MEP, Plymouth’s Evening Herald referred to me as Disabledkevin! I loved this label; I’m clearly disabled and called Kevin.

Got an opinion? Twitter #devonelection #swelection #euelection, or comment below

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If you want to take part in protecting the coastline, you can have your say at consultation events about how to manage parts of the South Coast.

The first of these consultations in the South Devon takes place at the Teign Corinthian Yacht Club, Teignmouth, on June 4, followed by one in Harbour House, Kingsbridge, on Friday, June 5. With the final Devon consultation taking place at the Roland Levinsky Building, Plymouth University on Monday, June 8.

They all take place between 2pm and 6pm and function on a drop-in basis.

A group of statutory agencies have got together to work out how to manage a 400km section of South Devon and Dorset. They call themselves the Coastal Group and they have to produce a Shoreline Management Plan, which they can’t resist calling the SMP because it sounds so much cooler.

Graeme Smith, Chair of the South Devon and Dorset Coastal Authorities Group told the PRSD: “This consultation is the principal way for individuals, organisations and businesses to contribute their views on how and where we should defend the South Devon and Dorset coastline.

“People will have a say in how the local coastline is managed and defended for the next 100 years.

“There are many complex areas within the region where local residents’ views are crucial in the development of appropriate policies which will result in coastal defence schemes on the ground and the creation of a strong Coastal Strategy.”

posted by Cptn

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