Gott im Himmel

This rather sinister looking Facebook page 
set up by a group of University researchers is 
designed to mimic the notorious Nazi 
propaganda newspaper  of the 1930s 
"Völkscher Beobachter" (People's Observer).

Here in the UK we have British Fake News Network (bit of a clue in the name there) whose outrageous stories turn up on my Facebook page with depressing regularity accompanied by hysterical comments from people who have been fooled by them.

We can take some comfort that it's not only British social media users that fall for obviously fake stories from satirical websites. 

Please ignore the "Fake News" headline,
everyone else did.

This BBC report describes how a group of researchers from Hohenheim University in Germany set up a fake Facebook account, "Der Völks Beobachter" in order to post inflammatory news reports, including the one shown on the right which said that asylum seekers were getting free sex with prostitutes, funded by the local authority.

It isn't clear what it was they were actually researching unless it was the seemingly bottomless pit of human stupidity but whatever it was, they had a huge success with it, with their stories being read and shared thousands of times.

Even having a banner across the top of the page reading "Fake News" in large red letters didn't seem to put anybody off. Not that it should.

Stop nicking my stories
you bastards.

There is currently a debate in Germany about a recently introduced law which could fine social networks if they don't remove illegal hate speech or fake news. The new legislation doesn't make it at all clear what they mean by "fake news" and at the moment it could include articles posted by satirical websites such as The Onion, The Daily Mash, Southend News Network and of course, the aforementioned BFNN.

To be honest, I rather think that my old mate Joshua Bonehill-Paine (who I haven't spoken about for a while, what with him being banged up in the clink and all that), might have a claim for plagiarism, given that the stories on Der Völks Beobachter could have been lifted verbatim from the pages of The Daily Bale although, with the Daily Bale, you are actually supposed to believe them; as of course; many people did.

JOSHUA BONEHILL-PAINE

Persecuted British Hero

"In Yeovil, we shall ignite the fire 

and then watch as it spreads across 
these lands 

in full and awesome glory" 

(J Bonehill-Paine 2016)

Following my report in the 19th August edition of my blog, my poor old chum Joshua Bonehill-Paine has been sentenced to two years in prison following an online campaign of racist abuse of MP Luciana Berger. He is already in prison after being sentenced to three years and four months for inciting racial hatred by promoting an anti-Semitic demonstration in Golders Green last year.

This is something of a departure from his usual tactic which was to publish fake inflammatory stories in his news blog and then just rely on the stupidity of others to spread it about on social media. This new strategy of taking direct action has landed him in jail.

I first reported the activities of Joshua Bonehill-Paine back in October 2013. I didn't mention him by name then, just the fake news site he ran. I was mostly critical of the people who copied articles from this site and published them on social media as if they were true.

This particular story was about the supposed kidnapping of a child from a shopping centre in Croydon by an Asian grooming gang. Despite the obvious fact that no such incident could have happened without it being reported extensively in the news, many people still fell for it and shared it, along with an assortment of racist comments.

I didn't mention him again till March 2014 when he had found himself in trouble with the law after posting a story about how a pub in Leicester had banned armed forces personnel in case it offended immigrants. Once again, the story was too absurd to be true yet once again, hundreds of people read the story and believed it. This resulted in the pub and it's staff receiving death threats from idiots too stupid to check the facts before reacting. His profound apology for the trouble he had caused didn't last long however.

In April 2014, I mentioned him again along with a similar Facebook story (don't know the author of this one) but closer to home where a mother was wanting information following the kidnapping of her child in Thamesmead. Shared by 1500 people was this one.

Since then, he has provided me with plenty of subject matter and I had to admit that since his eventual arrest and imprisonment, I have had a lot less to write about. The last time I had a lot to say about him was in August 2014, after that, most of it was repeating what I had already reported with a desperate appeal for people to please check whether a story is a hoax before sharing or commenting on it.

At some point, my fellow local blogger Hugh Neal picked up on the story and reported him on his much more widely read blog "Arthur Pewty's Maggot Sandwich". Unlike my not so well read blog, his efforts came to the attention of Bonehead himself who then sent Arthur Pewty a threatening email. I'm a bit peeved about this. I had been being extremely rude about him for some time but he didn't threaten me, even when I expressly asked him to. (That's Bonehill-Paine, not Arthur Pewty).

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that the people of Yeovil are going to have to wait even longer to elect him as their MP. The current incumbent, Marcus Fysh can breath a little easier today.

Godspeed, John Glenn! 

18 July 1921 - 8 December 2016

Nothing else to say really

STAYING SAFE

I've just received an interesting email from someone called Loris Ayoub. Loris is publicising a book, snappily entitled "How to protect Yourself from Identity Theft, Internet Scams & Phone Scams" written by Brett & Deborah Christensen who publish the "Hoax Slayer" web site.

She has identified this blog (don't ask me how) as listing the site as one of my favourites and is asking me to promote the book which I am very happy to do. I have used Hoax Slayer many times to debunk social media stories which to any normal person couldn't possibly be true but manage to fool people anyway.

The book covers the following subjects and offers advice on how to recognise and deal with each.

• Do you know the six essential strategies for safe computing?


• Do you know how poor smartphone security can lead to identity theft?


• Do you know how scammers target people looking for love or work online?


• Do you know how to protect your information while shopping or banking on the Internet?


• Do you know how to help your elderly parents stay safe from scammers?


• Do you know how to recognise and deal with phone fraudsters?

To learn more about it, click on this link to the review.

To download the book, click on this link not the one in the review as it takes you to the Australian site.

Brett & Deborah Christensen

While we are on the subject of online hoaxes, I thought I would repeat some of what I have written about before which is the nonsense story that appears on social media such as Facebook.

Anyone receiving a story of doubtful provenance can simply type a description of the story followed by the word "hoax" into a Google search and something is sure to come up. You might think that as it's so easy to do, most people would before sharing a fake story. Sadly, that is rarely the case and my inbox, along with many others will find themselves bombarded with tales of religious festivities, social events, presentations and the like being banned because they offend Muslims/refugees/immigrants etc., etc., etc.

While this sort of stuff is regularly the preserve of neo-Nazi tabloid rags like the Express and the Mail, it's the publishing of this inflammatory rhetoric on social media that can be the most damaging because of the way it can spread so rapidly.

One of the most successful exponents of the art (if you can call it that) of spreading malicious rumours is a fellow called Joshua Bonehill-Paine. Regular readers of this blog will have heard me mention him on a regular basis. He publishes his own blog, or actually several, but all of the same ilk which is to make up completely fake stories, mostly with a racist, misogynistic or otherwise discriminatory content. It is quite easy to see that all these stories are fake, but people are taken in by them all the time.

One of his stories was about a pub in Leicester that, he claimed, had banned armed forces personnel in case it offended immigrants. This resulted in thousands of people threatening to attack the pub and staff working there. The Judge at his subsequent trial on a charge of malicious communication described him as "Moronic". 

Joshua Bonehill-Paine is many things but moronic isn't one of them. The Judge had nothing to say about the real morons, that is, the ones taken in by the hoax and starting a hate fuelled campaign of terror against a completely innocent victim.

This book doesn't deal with the obvious social media scams designed solely to be malicious and instead gives advice on those designed to steal you money, your identity or both and covers all types of scam including the now popular phone scam which are used by criminals to create false identities or to convince you to part with your money.

You can obtain the whole book for free if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited or for a modest price if you don't. I thoroughly recommend it. 

IT'S A MYSTERY

I do enjoy looking at where referrals to my blog are coming from, both referring URLs and referring sites. I know I've covered this before but it's fascinating.

This weeks offerings include http://ashleydavidsonmarvellousevents.blogspot.co.uk/. This is a single issue page, written by a fellow called Barrie Trower, who is unhappy about a company called Ashley Davidson's Marvellous Events. This company, according to Barrie, booked him and his band for an even for which they have never been paid. Sorry to hear that Barrie, and for anyone wanting to read more, click on the link to the site.

I have no idea how someone went from that page to mine as there is no mention of it anywhere, but I get my hits where I can.

The next one is http://brainmaps.org/. BrainMaps.org is "an interactive, multiresolution next-generation brain atlas". I don't know how I've managed without one for so long. As with the last site, I have no idea how anyone would get from there to here.

http://jptrans.naver.net/ is just a blank page so again, I can't see how anyone could have been referred here from it.

Ditto this one http://com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox/

I'm also getting hits from various URLs which bounce me to a sex contact site. Very frustrating.

PEREGRINES OVER CROSSNESS

This is a picture I took a few days ago of one of a pair of Peregrine Falcons flying over Crossness Nature Reserve. You see them quite a lot.

THE RIDGEWAY

Along with what appears to be every other blogger in the area, I received an email from someone called Uy Hoang asking me to publicise his new Facebook page dedicated to a local feature called The Ridgeway. I'm always happy to support anyone who is as passionate about something as Uy obviously is, so, grabbing my trusty camera, I set of to take some pictures to accompany this article.

For anyone who doesn't know, the Ridgeway we are talking about is not the National Trail between Avebury, Wiltshire and Ivinghoe in Bucks. This Ridgeway is the footpath running along the top of the embankment covering the sewer built by Joseph Bazalgette which ends at the Crossness Pumping Station on the Erith marshes.

I was aware of it and even walked along it a couple of times a few years ago. Then it was something of a challenge as it was mostly overgrown; now it seems to have had something of a facelift. Greenwich Council have made a number of improvements to their side of the path and Bexley are promising to so something similar having been promised a large cash donation from Thames Water and Peabody.

The Ridgeway Path itself actually begins on the Thames Path and is entered through a gate between the Pumping Station and the old golf course. For a long time this was overgrown and virtually impassable but some improvement work has been done lately by Tilfen who own the land.

Entrance to the Ridgeway Path. The Crossness Pumping Station is on the left with the golf course on the right.

The narrow path down to the golf course. Up to a few months ago, you would be lucky to get through here as it was completely overgrown.

Further along the path.

Don't play in the water, Blue-Green Algae is highly toxic. Dogs should not be allowed into the water as it can make them very ill or even kill them. This is not just the case on the Ridgeway Path, there are reports of dogs becoming ill after going into the water on the Crossness Nature reserve.

The path finally opens up into the old abandoned golf course.

Looking back North across the golf course. There are provisional plans from Peabody to convert this area into a sports and leisure centre. If this is the case, they need to crack on soon. This is ideal nesting ground for Skylarks (I'm surprised they are not there already), if they do start nesting, Peabody will have a hard time getting permission to develop the site.

Once you are past the golf course, you are approaching the actual Ridgeway itself by passing under the Spine Road flyover.

Another entrance to the Ridgeway is via Crossway Park. This area is not at all inviting; strewn with uncollected litter, covered in graffiti and badly vandalised.

Once you are through the gate, or if you are coming from the golf course, this is not a pleasant place to be. Dark, dingy, covered in fly tipped litter and smelling of wee. An ideal place for some of that redevelopment money to be spent.

Fortunately, once through, you are finally walking up the ramp onto the path.

At the top you have the option of turning left or right. I wouldn't bother with the left hand option as this is what you will meet after about 50 yards. Okay for Limbo dancers I suppose. You could slide down the side of the embankment and up the other side if you feel so inclined but I wouldn't bother. The ridge only goes on for a few hundred yards before stopping at the gates of Crossness Sewage Treatment Works.

View looking West along the Ridgeway and down towards the Southmere Park entrance.

Entrance to the Ridgeway from the Northern end of Southmere Park in Belvedere Road. I'm not sure you would be able to get a wheelchair through that gate in case you were thinking of trying.

West along the Ridgeway Path.

A glimpse of Southmere Lake and beyond through the trees.

Some construction work going on.

Approaching the footbridge over the Spine Road. As we get nearer to areas used more by the public, it gets dirtier and more vandalised. Features here include discarded fast food containers and a soiled nappy.

Looking back East.

There is more room here than first appears. Even a tall person should be able to pass through without ducking.

Leaf sculpture.

Facing the Greenwich side of the path at the Southern end of the footbridge.

I'm not sure you would get a wheelchair through here either. People were struggling with their bikes and it would certainly stop anyone with a double buggy.

Once you are on the Greenwich side of the path, you can see where the improvements have been made. The path itself is much wider and has been given a hard surface. This is the bit which runs alongside Sewell Road in Abbey Wood.

Ramp down to Sewell Road on the left and Nathan Way on the right.

Looking East. The Plumstead transmitter on the right.

Passing under White Hart Avenue.

At this point, you can turn sharp left and use what looks like a little used path out to White Hart Avenue.

Entrance to the Ridgeway via White Hart Avenue. This entrance isn't signposted, you have to guess.

Back on the main path and heading towards Plumstead.

View out across Plumstead towards Shooters Hill.

Crossrail construction outside Plumstead railway Station.

Approaching the end of the path by the one way system at Plumstead Bus garage. As before, as we get closer to "civilisation" the vandalism gets worse.

Looking back East where the path runs down to the end of Nathan Way.

Nathan Way entrance to the Ridgeway. It is signposted but someone planted a tree in front of the sign.

There is some discussion about extending the footpath into Woolwich but I'm not sure how you would cross the main road. We shall see.

JUST THE TICKET

Pat Hickey, President of the Olympic Council of Ireland, has been arrested in Brazil where it is alleged that he was involved in a scheme to sell tickets for higher than their face value.

Erm..............................

This is the scene in the main stadium during the opening ceremony. Given that the Olympic organisers don't seem to be able to even give them away, you wonder why he would ever think he could sell them at higher than their face value.

I wonder if this is some sort of Irish joke, if it isn't, then it ought to be. "Have you heard the one about the Irishman and the Olympic tickets?"

BONEHEAD STRIKES AGAIN

What would I do without my old mate Joshua Bonehill-Paine? This blog wouldn't have anything like as many posts for a start. He does for me what Bexley Council does for Malcolm Knight although to be fair, not so often; but when he does, it's usually a corker.

The hero of the British people and "Rising star of the Right" is up before the beak again, this time charged with posting abusive articles about Liverpool Wavertree MP Luciana Berger. 

It's claimed that he used his news blog "The Daily Bale" to publish five racially aggravated articles about the MP between October 2014 and January 2015. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. 

The trial doesn't start until 5th December so we will have to wait till then to find out if he is either denying that he wrote the articles attributed to him or whether articles such as the one entitled "The Legacy of Operation Filthy Jew Bitch" don't constitute racial harassment. I can't wait.

POE'S LAW

I wrote an article about Poe's Law a few weeks ago. To refresh your memory, Poe's Law states that "without a clear indicator of the author's intent, parodies of extreme views, will, to some readers, be indistinguishable from sincere expressions of the parodied views."

Nathan Poe, the law's inventor, when taking part in a Christian internet forum, said that it was "impossible to parody a creationist view in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article."

Poe's Law, which originally referred to Creationism in particular, has now been expanded to refer to any form of extremism. 

Free the Bonehead one

A good example is the Daily Bale, a blog published by the country's leading champion of free expression, Joshua Bonehill-Paine. There is quite a discussion going on in chat room circles about whether his blog is actually a wind-up. As he is currently in prison on remand awaiting trial after one of his publications went wrong, he is either a genuine nut job or else he takes his entertainment very seriously indeed.

One of my favourite examples of the genre is the Landover Baptist Church which, among other things, has a lot to say about the sinfulness of being left handed and excuses it's poor spelling and grammar by explaining that the writer comes from Denmark and his first language is Denmarkian. It still didn't stop people posting comments about how he shouldn't pick on left handed people.

If you are interested in the subject and perhaps thinking of starting a web blog of your own, there is some further reading here that should give you some ideas.

THE TRADE IN LUNACY

Back in the old days, there was no TV and people had to make their own entertainment. One way of spending an otherwise dull day was to pay to be a spectator at the Bethlam Royal Hospital for the Insane, commonly referred to as Bedlam.

In 1598, the Governors of the hospital decided they could raise revenue by charging people to come and look at the loonies and poke fun at their antics. Later, the post of Physician at the hospital, which was an honorary and charitable one, meant that most of their income was obtained in what became known as "the trade in lunacy" where physicians would set up their own mad-house to make money.

Today, we do have TV and the "trade in lunacy" is carried out there. Channel 4 broadcasts a weekly programme called "Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners" where people with severe mental health problems are put on display so the audience can laugh at them.

In this programme, they take a person with an obsessive compulsive disorder which makes them obsessive cleaners and puts them with those whose disorders make them obsessive hoarders.

I do recall a film a few years ago called "See no Evil, Hear no Evil" where a deaf Gene Wilder and a blind Eddie Murphy find themselves caught up in various hilarious situations where neither understands, or is aware of, the other's condition. In the film, we are laughing with the characters as they blunder from one disaster to another.

In "Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners", we are not laughing with them, we are definitely laughing at them as they struggle to come to terms with what can be a crippling and life limiting condition.

Anyway, if you want to watch "Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners", or "Let's Laugh at the Loony Show", it's on Channel 4 at 8:00pm on Tuesdays.

THE LABOUR LEADERSHIP CONTEST

There now follows a statement about the Labour leadership contest on behalf of the Thamesmead Grump.

Firstly, I don't give a toss who wins it.

Secondly, why is the Labour Party having kittens over the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn winning it? They are all bleating on about how he is too left wing to appeal to voters.

Hello!! Didn't the Scottish Nationalist Party go into the last election with a manifesto that was even more left wing than Michael Foot's famous suicide note of 1983?

We had Moderate Labour candidates going head to head with the nuclear disarming, nationalise everything SNP. Which party's candidates got shown their arses?

Okay, so Scotland isn't England but it can't be that different.

Actually, I wouldn't mind Jeremy Corbyn winning. At least it would give me an alternative to the Torilabour party we have at present. I suppose I could always vote UKIP.

Check, underpants on head? - no.

Not UKIP then.

There are three other candidates for the post of Labour leader:-
Andy Burnham
Yvette Cooper
Liz Kendall

Bollock to all of them, too.

IT'S A VERY SILLY BEER

I do enjoy a visit to the Birchwood pub in Abbey Wood. They change their choice of beer on a regular basis so you never know quite what you are going to get.

Last week, this was one of the selection on offer. Produced by the Black Sheep Brewery and called Monty Python's Holy Grail, it is claimed on their website that it is a full flavoured golden ale with citrusy notes and a long crisp dry finish. Personally, I like my beer to be full of alcohol but each to his own I suppose.

The Black Sheep Brewery is one of the Theakston's family enterprises so you would expect them to produce a good quality beer.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to sample it as I was working my way down a barrel of  Doom Bar at the time and by the end of that, the Holy Grail had disappeared. Actually, I prefer a darker beer anyway so perhaps it's just as well.

poe's law

"Without a clear indication of the author's intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between an expression of sincere extremism and a parody of extremism."

Poe's Law started out describing the views of Creationist extremists, their detractors who would parody them with even more extreme views, and the impossibility of telling the two apart. The argument being that the views of these extremists are so totally bonkers that nothing any rational person could invent could seem more outrageous than the real thing.

It has since gone on to describe the parodying of extreme views of all kind, political, religious, you name it.

In the two examples shown above, you can see Poe's Law in action. On the left is a front page headline taken from a copy of the Daily Express; an extreme right wing newspaper which specialises in fake stories intended to stir up religious and ethnic hatred.

On the right is a story recently published in the satirical web based magazine British News BFNN. 

If you read any BFNN stories and scroll to the bottom of the page, you will see a disclaimer which reads "for the avoidance of doubt, all stories posted here are  works of fiction, and you would have to be a moron to believe them."

The Daily Express issues no such disclaimer and encourages their readers to carry on believing their stories. At least the Daily Mail retracted their story about how a restaurant in Nigeria was serving human heads.

Both of these stories have appeared on my Facebook timeline, accompanied by foul mouthed, half wit comments from people who believed them to be true.

In the two cases above and others like it, no real harm has been done as the morons who have been taken in by them are just that - morons. It's unlikely that stories will have changed their mind set in any way whatsoever. If only that were always the case.

Joshua Bonehill-Paine

Enter, my old chum Joshua Bonehill-Paine. he publishes a number of blogs including The Daily Bale, not to be confused with the Daily Mail. I have been told that I shouldn't be giving free publicity to his website, but come on, look at it for Christ's sake; definitely worth a read.

Interestingly enough, as an example of Poe's Law in action, there is quite an online debate about whether his website is meant to be taken seriously or is, itself, a parody.

Anyway, as you may have read in some of my earlier posts about this champion of free speech, he has published stories, believed by morons, that have resulted in consequences that were far from harmless. I'm thinking particularly about one of his posts, again copied onto Facebook about how a pub in Leicester had banned serving members of the armed forces in case it offended Muslims.

This resulted in some of the above mentioned morons who, believing the story was true, threatened the pub and staff with violence. Joshua, who was described by the judge at the subsequent court hearing as a moron, is in fact not a moron. He does probably need help of the psychiatric kind and what he does could be called moronic but the real morons are always going to be the ones who believe the adage, "it's on Facebook, how could it not be true?"

There are other examples of his work that you can read about if you click the link to his Wikipedia page.

Here is a little bit of advice for "would be" morons:-

1. Don't believe everything you read on Facebook.

2. If you see a story on Facebook that you feel the need to comment on, share, like, etc., then click on the story first to see what it's about. The BFNN story is a good example as you would have seen the disclaimer before commenting on how terrible it was.

3. Google the name of the author or a few words of the posts. You remember that story you all shared and commented on about how a Church in Wiltshire was going to be turned into a Mosque and all the bodies were going to be dug up and moved. Well, I Googled "Muslim Wiltshire Church" and it turned up this. Just think how much embarrassment you could have saved yourself if you did.

By the way, I have a bone to pick with Bonehill (gedditt). Last year my fellow (and more regular) blogger, Hugh Neal of Arthur Pewty's Maggot Sandwich fame, (Always a good read and published without fail every Sunday), commented on one of my stories about Joshua Bonehill-Paine. I think it was the fake "Amy Hamilton" one. Joshua seems to have taken exception to this and issued Hugh with a number of threats; you can read more about it on his blog.

He hasn't threatened me and I was the one with the original, and several later, posts. Shame on you Joshua. What is the point of me slaving over my keyboard, inventing witty and erudite prose designed to provoke a violent backlash from odious pieces of shit like you and you just go and ignore me. It's been ages since some loathsome toe rag has had a go at me so get to it or I will taunt you some more.

and now for something completely different

Here is a female Tufted Duck swimming around on the Belvedere marshes.

And here is a Common Tern fishing over the river. If you happen to be strolling beside the Thames and see a little white bird dipping in and out of the water, it will be one of these jobbies. They can't sit on the water and bob up and down like the gulls because their feathers aren't waterproof, they would get waterlogged and sink.