Tag: britain

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The British are …

Earlier this summer Britain announced the online pornography would be blocked from people’s home unless requested by internet subscribers. Now another story has surfaced, as reported today by the BBC:

“More than 300,000 attempts were made to access pornographic websites at the Houses of Parliament in the past year, official records suggest. It is unclear whether MPs, peers or other staff are responsible, House of Commons officials said.

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“The figures were not all “purposeful requests” and may have been exaggerated by third-party software and websites that reload themselves, they added. About 5,000 people work on the parliamentary estate. The data was released following a Freedom of Information request by Huffington Post UK, which published the story under the headline “Oh Yes, Minister!” on its homepage. However, the figures vary wildly: in November, there were 114,844 attempts to access websites classed as pornographic, but just 15 in February.

“A Commons spokeswoman said: “We do not consider the data to provide an accurate representation of the number of purposeful requests made by network users.” This was because there was a “variety of ways in which websites can be designed to act, react and interact and due to the potential operation of third party software,” she said. Some of the hits may have been registered by websites that generate a number of views during a single visit, or those that automatically link to other sites via pop-ups, she explained.”

 

More at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23954447

 

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Nations of addicts

Watch out America, a new study suggest that Great Britain is a society of addicts.

The Guardian reports it thus: images-1

“Othello, act 2, scene 3. As part of his evil plan, Iago, you will remember, is trying to get Cassio drunk, singing a song to get him rowdy. “I learned it in England,” he says, “where, indeed, they are most potent in potting: your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander – Drink, ho! – are nothing to your English.” Ever the entertainer, Shakespeare knew that you could always get a cheer from a crowd in this country by complimenting them on their drinking.

“But why is it a compliment? The crippling intensity of one’s hangover the morning after, the unwiseness of one’s antics the night before, what makes these things that Britons boast about? The Centre for Social Justice, founded by Iain Duncan Smith, has just released a report that argues for it to be a matter of shame. “Britain is the addicted man of Europe,” the authors say. “Growing sections of society are dependent upon mind-altering substances.”

“The report itself is a muddled, shrill and selective document, determined to bring together issues such as binge drinking, heroin addiction, legal highs, cannabis smoking and alcoholism, which have different levels of seriousness, patterns of use and potential for harm. Yet at the heart of it lies a truth: Britain is a nation addicted, not necessarily to drugs oralcohol per se, but to excess itself.

“Here the facts are not in question. Although rates of drug use are broadly stable or falling, rates of opiate addiction are high in European terms, and in its penchant for party drugs Britain leads the world. Last year’s World Drugs report, which ranked countries on the prevalence of different drugs, put the Isle of Man and Scotland at numbers one and two for cocaine use, with England fourth and Wales sixth. All four figured in the top 10 for ecstasy use as well. Britain also appears to be a hub for the development of new synthetic drugs, often known as “legal highs”, because our laws take a while to ban them. Continue reading “Nations of addicts”

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Class more than upstairs/downstairs

Class in Britain used to be a relatively simple matter, or at least it used to be treated that way. It came in three flavors — upper, middle and working — and people supposedly knew by some mysterious native sixth sense exactly where they stood, reports today’s New York Times “As the very tall John Cleese declared to the less-tall Ronnie Corbett in the famous 1966 satirical television sketch meant to illustrate class attitudes in Britain — or, possibly, attitudes toward class attitudes — “I look down on him, because I am upper class. images-2

“It is not as easy as all that, obviously. The 2010 election was enlivened at one point by a perfectly serious discussion of whether David Cameron, now the prime minister, counted as upper upper-middle class, or lower upper-middle class. But on Wednesday, along came the BBC, muddying the waters with a whole new set of definitions.

“Having commissioned what it called The Great British Class Survey, an online questionnaire filled out by more than 161,000 people, the BBC concluded that in today’s complicated world, there are now seven different social classes. (“As if three weren’t annoying enough,” a woman named Laura Phelps said on Twitter.) These range from the “elite” at the top, distinguished by money, connections and rarefied cultural interests, to the “precariat” at the bottom, characterized by lack of money, lack of connections and unrarefied cultural interests. Continue reading “Class more than upstairs/downstairs”

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British stage huge virtual war

Virtual wars are getting more and more commonplace. Kids play soldiers in “Call of Duty” and actual soldiers pilot lethal drones from remote trailers in the U.S.

Now the British are taking virtual warfare to a larger scale, with its army staging the largest virtual battle simulation yet, involving 220 soldiers. The BBC reports thatimgres-2

“The experiment was carried out at the Army’s Land Warfare Centre in Warminster, Wiltshire. The two-hour scenario saw soldiers on computers completing virtual missions in a fictional French town. The Army says the simulation will help it to find out which resources it needs to invest in, once it takes control of its own budget in April 2013.

“’The aim is to understand how various changes have an impact on the speed at which command can respond,’ Continue reading “British stage huge virtual war”

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Self-help books seem to work for depression

Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) today announced research findings showing the usefulness of self-help books for the treatment of mental health conditions like depression.

“Patients offered books, plus sessions guiding them in how to use them, had lower levels of depression a year later than those offered usual GP care,” reports the BBC.

“The effect was seen in addition to the benefits of other treatments such as antidepressants, Scottish researchers report in the journal Plos One. Such an approach may help the NHS tackle demand for therapy, they said.

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“More than 200 patients who had been diagnosed with depression by their GP took part in the study, half of whom were also on antidepressant drugs. Some were provided with a self-help guide dealing with different aspects of depression, such as being assertive or overcoming sleep problems.Patients also had three sessions with an adviser who helped them get the most out of the books and plan what changes to make. After four months those who had been prescribed the self-help books had significantly lower levels of depression than those who received usual GP care. Continue reading “Self-help books seem to work for depression”

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British Now Fear Immigration

One in three people in Great Britain sees immigration as the nation’s biggest problem.

We’re not talking illegal immigration of the kind that worries many in the U.S. The Brits simply think that newcomers are getting out of control in general.imgres-2

Britons believe that “tension between immigrants and people born in the UK is the major cause of division, while well over half regard it as one of the top three causes,” reports today’s edition of The Guardian.

“Over the past two decades, both immigration and emigration have increased to historically high levels, with those entering the country exceeding those leaving by more than 100,000 in every year since 1998. Yet the survey in a report by the thinktank British Future, entitled “State of the Nation: Where is Bittersweet Britain Heading?”, also suggests the country is, at heart, tolerant of those who come to its shores.” Continue reading “British Now Fear Immigration”

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Even worse than hating your body

It’s not great secret that fashion ads portray women and men unrealistically, promoting unachievable standards of beauty and reinforcing stereotypical codes of gender identity. This week one story is getting a fair amount of play, as a Christian Dior ad featuring Black Swan actor Natalie Portman has been banned in Great Britain for being airbrushed. At first it seemed that the British Advertising Standards Authority was irked at the ad featuring Portman promoting a mascara, accompanied by the boast that the product delivers a “spectacular volume-multiplying effect, lash by lash.” But it turns out that rival L’Oreal cosmetics first noticed the ad and filed a complaint. As The Guardian reports, ironically L’Oreal has been one of the biggest offenders in controversies over airbrushed and exaggerated beauty ads in recent years, with ads Continue reading “Even worse than hating your body”