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Fair trade starts at home

Today @hangbitch posted Fair trade starts at home:

Last week, 35 deluded business leaders wrote to the Telegraph to praise George Osborne’s cruel spending review.

I’m joining those who have decide to boycott every single company that those business leaders represent.

Rather than paraphrase, read the article & comments and return…

What has this got to do with photography?

For me, two of these companies are relevant to my work. Microsoft UK & Expansys.

Modern photography needs infrastructure, particularly computers and operating systems.

I’ve written before about Microsoft. Personally I’ve tried to be Microsoft free since the late 1980s. I used Linux from when it was only available of 17 floppy disks if you didn’t have a SCSI CDROM (Slackware anyone? Still around. SCSI less so thankfully). OS/2 too, even though at that time, IBM (or ‘Big Blue’) was the de jour personification of evil. Well, we all know what happened to OS/2, but Linux continues to grow. The installation of Ubuntu is arguably easier and quicker that Windows 7.

Currently I’m a bit lazy & use Photoshop & Lightroom inside a virtual machine running Windows 7. From now on I’ll try a little harder to use native Linux tools such as The Gimp and Raw Therapee and dump the vestiges of Microsoft. The (long) list of reasons not to use Microsoft just got a +1 (like it needed any more!)

But Expansys… They sell phones and computers and I have spent money with them in the past. As recently as last month. Most notably phones, but laptops too. Previously I’ve recommended them to clients. I will no longer be doing so. It will be a drop in the ocean, but if more people do so the same at least that droplet will get bigger. That is what this is all about. I will tell my clients why I won’t recommend them too.

I will also email Expansys to tell them that they would have had mine and my clients’ money but for the contempt their CEO is showing for their customer base (me).

On the one hand, publicly supporting the coalition’s CSR via the letter in the Telegraph, while behind the scenes, they are among those 35 companies laying thousands of people off and/or telling grim tales about the realities of lie of the fiscal land.

I’m guessing that Harvey Nichols may be safe from my boycott (I have been known to stroke the clothes), but Boots? Boots is a good target for me. ASDA & M&S I refuse to use anyway.

Vodafone

And let us not forget Vodafone, not on the list, but sliding out of paying £6bn (yes 6 billion) of unpaid taxes by doing a deal with HMRC. Likewise in India too, trying to wriggle out of a $2.5bn tax bill. One thing is for sure, I’ll never use Vodafone. What a bunch of fuckers. How far would that £6bn go? (Clue, the answer is that the CSR identifies ITRO of £7bn saving to be found from the public sector). How dare they?

Take direct action against Vodfone

Double Irish & Dutch Sandwich

While on the subject of tax ‘avoidance’, ok, let us not beat about the bush, tax evasion,  take a look at how Google & others (Microsoft, Facebook, Apple etc) wriggle out of it by moving profits through Ireland and the Netherlands (Bloomberg). $60 billion lost in the US. Eye-watering sums indeed. A simpler version is at The Register.

But lets us all remember: We. Are. In. This. Together. Repeat.

What utter bollocks

Do Your Bit

Join in the boycott. Visit http://boycott35.com. Re-tweet this article, re-tweet @hangbitch‘s article, follow @boycott35 on twitter, blog about it etc etc. Don’t buy from these companies. Get angry.

The brands:

• Next
• ASDA
• Microsoft UK
• Mothercare
• Carphone Warehouse Group
• TalkTalk Telecom Group
• Alliance Boots
• Marks & Spencer
• Ocado
• Dunelm Group
• L.K. Bennett
• Kingfisher
• SSL International
• moneysupermarket.com
• Britvic
• Towergate
• Dhillon Group
• Arup
• ARM Holdings
• GlaxoSmithKline
• Reed Elsevier
• Tullow Oil
• UMECO
• Prestbury Group
• BT Group
• MITIE Group
• Lovefilms.com
• The Betting Group
• Hammerson
• AVEVA
• ASOS
• Inmarsat
• Fuller
• Smith and Turner
• Veetee
• Sage
• Diageo
• Robert Walters
• Harvey Nichols
• Expansys
• Stonehaven Associates
• Yell Group

The names:

• Will Adderley, CEO, Dunelm Group
• Robert Bensoussan, Chairman, L.K. Bennett
• Andy Bond, Chairman, ASDA
• Ian Cheshire, Chief Executive, Kingfisher
• Gerald Corbett, Chairman, SSL International, moneysupermarket.com, Britvic
• Peter Cullum, Executive Chairman, Towergate
• Tej Dhillon, Chairman and CEO, Dhillon Group
• Philip Dilley, Chairman, Arup
• Charles Dunstone, Chairman, Carphone Warehouse Group, Chairman, TalkTalk Telecom Group
• Warren East, CEO, ARM Holdings
• Gordon Frazer, Managing Director, Microsoft UK
• Sir Christopher Gent, Non-Executive Chairman, GlaxoSmithKline
• Ben Gordon, Chief Executive, Mothercare
• Anthony Habgood, Chairman, Whitbread, Chairman, Reed Elsevier
• Aidan Heavey, Chief Executive, Tullow Oil
• Neil Johnson, Chairman, UMECO
• Nick Leslau, Chairman, Prestbury Group
• Ian Livingston, CEO, BT Group
• Ruby McGregor-Smith, CEO, MITIE Group
• Rick Medlock, CFO, Inmarsat; Non-Executive Director lovefilms.com, The Betting Group
• John Nelson, Chairman, Hammerson
• Stefano Pessina, Executive Chairman, Alliance Boots
• Nick Prest, Chairman, AVEVA
• Nick Robertson, CEO, ASOS
• Sir Stuart Rose, Chairman, Marks & Spencer
• Tim Steiner, CEO, Ocado
• Andrew Sukawaty, Chairman and CEO, Inmarsat
• Michael Turner, Executive Chairman, Fuller, Smith and Turner
• Moni Varma, Chairman, Veetee
• Paul Walker, Chief Executive, Sage
• Paul Walsh, Chief Executive, Diageo
• Robert Walters, CEO, Robert Walters
• Joseph Wan, Chief Executive, Harvey Nichols
• Bob Wigley, Chairman, Expansys, Stonehaven Associates, Yell Group
• Simon Wolfson, Chief Executive, Next

Email addresses for the above welcomed

British Museum 09/11/2008

The adventure with film and the site is now over one year old, so it was about time.

The photo above was one of the ones that started this project off – Leica IIf RD, Summitar 50 f/2, Delta 100, DD-X 12mins. Obviously in the days when I could afford Ilford DD-X and Ilford Delta! I also rapidly lost interest in both that particular developer and film. I was going for something bombproof at the time and the combo looked good. I now prefer the older emulsions and developers, particularly when using old lenses (The Summitar on the Leica is about 60 years old, the Leica itself a mere 53 years).

Courtesy of jezebel.com… gotta laugh