Bloody EC!!!

4 July

The EC is on the march again; this time they want to stop all street photography. How? Simple, they are wanting to prevent all photos of public buildings unless and licence is obtain and royalties are paid to building owners. No more photos of the grandkids in front of the London Eye, or Blackpool Tower and so on. Think of a boat trip along the Thames or the Sein or through the canals of Venice; all photos taken during such trips will be banned.

As most of you will know, I love street photography, here’s one of my favourites … 

As you can see this mum and daughter had no objects to it being taken. But this new law will stop even shots like this. Not only will this law bring the photography to its knees, it is likely to cause tourism to become much more expensive and be beyond the reach of most working men and women. Flicker, Wikipedia, Instagram, Facebook Twitter and so many other websites are up in arms over it asking for support to stop this daft idea getting passed into law.

Estimates of how many photos taken every day vary from millions to billions. All those expensive smart phones and images produced by them are about to become unlawfully taken if published on social media. So there’s another industry that will be hit, smart phone cameras, the tool of so many happy snappers will not be worthwhile buying. And don’t forget IPads and all the other tablets out there. And what of news agencies and their camera crews; how will they be able to find and compensate the owners of buildings featuring in a news broadcast?     

If this new law gets passed, it will only cover the European countries. So Americans and other nationalities coming here as tourist will be covered by the law. How long before that law is turned on Europeans visiting other countries? And people wonder why I want us out of Europe! But I wonder folks, how is it going to be policed?       

It’s nice and quiet here in Jaronland right now. Being Saturday there’s no working going on outside. We like that, but there again, working Saturdays would get all finished quicker. I noticed yesterday that scaffolding is coming down on one of the other blogs, so we are getting closer to and end of it. I just hope that it’s all done with outside when they come to start on our new kitchen in August/September.

With today’s main issue, how could I post anything other than this …

A woman sat in front of the public bum washer in Dorktown centre. So who would I pay royalties to, the council who bought it, the person who made it?

Today’s funny …

Two well worn bills arrived at the Federal Reserve Bank to be retired - a twenty and a one. As they traveled down the conveyor belt, they struck up a conversation. The twenty reminisced about the interesting life he had, traveling all over the country. "I've been to the finest restaurants, Broadway shows, Las Vegas , Atlantic City ," he said. "I even want on a Caribbean cruise. Where have you been?"

"Oh," said the one dollar bill, "I've been to the Methodist church, the Episcopal church, the Lutheran church."

"What's a church?" asked the twenty.