Life On The Road

Foley stated that: " ...[the] laptop was clearly marked as Government Property and was not protected by any form of password. I felt it was my duty as a British Citizen to thoroughly investigate the contents of the hard drive before I passed it on to every possible media outlet, and that was when I came across the document entitled 'Integration, Diversity, Language and Public Transport Safety: Final Bill (unredacted)'".

The gist of the document was that the Government was extremely concerned that for several years it had pressurised public transport operators nationwide into constantly playing recorded announcements to passengers customers essentially asking them to ".. be vigilant and report anything suspicious to a member of staff". However, due to an increasing number of the British population not only unable to understand English, let alone speak it, these messages were being ignored, contributing to the already ever-present threat of terrorism. The problem was further compounded by 99% of English-speaking citizens being unable to tell their Farsi from their Urdu and far as they were concerned, they would have no clue as to what the conversation was about: "..it could be last night's football results, a shopping list, or it could equally be about plans to blow up a train, plane or bus. We wouldn't have a clue". The Government planned to respond to this dilemma by forcing people to only speak the Queen's English on public transport, thus leaving no possible room for ambiguity and at the same time preserving public safety and assisting in the Fight Against Terror™.

This in itself introduces a new problem as non-indigenous British Citizens only able to speak their own language will not immediately understand the new requirement (which, incidentally carries a GBP 500 on-the-spot fine for non-compliance). In order to address what is seen as (in the words of the Home Office) "a minor sticking point", all transport operators will be required to print and affix copies of the new requirement to each vehicle door so that passengers customers will be able to read the new language requirement before they board. If necessary, Operators will have to fit modified doors to vehicles to accomodate the increasingly lengthy list of languages spoken in the UK.

Operators will also be required to play new recorded announcements in all languages currently spoken in the UK to include those passengers customers who were unable to read. A Home Office Spokesperson who asked not to be named stated in the document that ".. of course this would add a little to the journey time while all the announcements were played out, and annoy indigenous passengers customers, but it would be worth it in the long run. Anyway, the percentage of native English speakers using public transport is now so small as to make no real difference, and we expect the few remaining to be phased out over the next few years once Labour's Integrated Multicultural Policy (LIMP) is complete. We've been playing increasingly banal messages on trains for some time now, so a few more will make no difference.

Early trials in Japan (see pic) showed that regular passengers only read the poster once or twice, while other, less regular travellers dutifully queued up to read the Government-issued notice. On that basis we went ahead with a UK implementation as we knew that the average indigenous Briton would predictably follow like sheep".

An additional problem of regional dialects was also highlighted in the document, and Government experts are currently working with Integration and Diversity Executives at a number of County Councils in the North East. Unfortunately at this time, 'Geordie' is not a recognised language, merely a dialect, but the new Act requires English to be spoken, hence it will be necessary for the people of Newcastle and Sunderland not to speak at all on public transport, at least until we get the problem sorted out. Until that time we'll be asking operators in the North East to just print "S T F U" in very large letters on their warning posters".

As mentioned, Civil Rights groups have already lodged formal protests about the new Act with the Home Office. Allegedly it's not the fact that citizens will be faced with speaking one language; it's the fact that they'll be forced to speak English which is widely acknowledged as a dying language in many areas.

At the time of writing, no-one from the Home Office was available for comment but we'll publish updates as soon as we hear from them.

For additional information, please contact Peter Garner or visit the website at:
http://www.mhmediaonline.eu 

About MH Media and Online:
MH Media and Online is a freelance photojournalist based in Woking, UK, concentrating mainly on European issues but also having a global reach.

Contact:
Peter Garner, Proprietor
MH Media and Online
T: +44 7799 444799
E: mhmedia@instantemail.t-mobile.co.uk
W: http://www.mhmediaonline.eu

###

The new FRS substantially extrapolates the original Facial Recognition System to include other body parts, and uses a complex algorithm to determine whether a law-enforcement officer is present in the image. It actively looks for shoulder badges, helmets, handcuffs, batons, cool shades and rhythmic gum-chewing using a new laser-originated 144-point CopperDot™ system displayed in the viewfinder or viewing screen overlayed on the image. If such a person was detected, the PCU (the "Police Constable Unintelligibleiser" - a firmware add-on to the standard camera CPU) will automatically pixelate that officer to an unrecognisable state. PCSOs were found to be slower-moving than other officers and even baseline prosumer cameras were able, under certain circumstances, to `completely remove the offending officer from the image`. Consortium boffins had worked on the basis that ".. pretty much all British law-enforcement officers looked and acted the same, making a standard algorithm easy to create". When asked whether the new system would substantially slow down the process of picture-taking, Gadd stated that "the processing power needed to interpret the image had of course had a slight negative impact, but `they'd managed to introduce some technical beeping noises to tell the user that Something Important Was Happening`, and that psychologically this had distracted the user from noticing the extra time taken. "Of course, by simply upgrading to the new series of UK-specific lenses, this extra delay could be easily removed, and `would also make the photographer look pretty damn' cool on the street`".

Military personnel represented more of a challenge however, and although it was easy to recognise a wide variety of uniforms and behaviour patterns, the challenge of accurately recognising "a blind-drunk squaddie slumped in a back-street Aldershot gutter or a Catterick pub toilet".. represented a considerable technical problem, even in broad daylight with high ISOs and slow shutter speeds". In the event of a recognition failure event (RFE), the Consotium had mandated that the camera would lock the shutter completely, rendering picture-taking impossible. Gadd stated that ".. given the choice of a hefty fine or a prison sentence and taking an illegal photograph, most photographers would be thankful for this override option".

It's expected that Consortium, members will be making upgrades available via their web sites to registered equipment users from midnight Thursday 19th February.

For additional information, please contact Peter Garner or visit the website at:
http://www.mhmediaonline.eu 

About MH Media and Online:
MH Media and Online is a freelance photojournalist based in Woking, UK, concentrating mainly on European issues but also having a global reach.

Contact:
Peter Garner, Proprietor
MH Media and Online
T: +44 7799 444799
E: mhmedia@instantemail.t-mobile.co.uk
W: http://www.mhmediaonline.eu

###

For additional information, please contact Peter Garner or visit the website at:
http://www.mhmediaonline.eu 

About MH Media and Online:
MH Media and Online is a freelance photojournalist based in Woking, UK, concentrating mainly on European issues but also having a global reach.

Contact:
Peter Garner, Proprietor
MH Media and Online
T: +44 7799 444799
E: mhmedia@instantemail.t-mobile.co.uk
W: http://www.mhmediaonline.eu

###