Comic Artist Refused Permission to Attend own Book Launch

Comic artist Nikhil Singh, illustrator of the acclaimed Salem Brownstone: All Along the Watchtowers recently published by Walker Books, has now been held in South Africa for five months, unable to return to the UK even to attend his own book launch, due to being 'underqualified'.

Although Singh, who was born in South Africa, has been a resident of Hampstead, London for three years, the British Home Office has made the decision not to renew any Artists’ Visas. This means that international artists whose visas have expired must now reapply for a Tier One Highly Skilled Worker Visa, which cannot be obtained without a degree or similar proof of tertiary education.

Singh is just one of many victims of insane regulations brought in by the government which are restricting artistic expression and visiting artists to the UK. As we've previously reported, they are being vigorously challenged by the Manifesto Club who have launched a petition protesting at the regulations.

Despite being a published illustrator of a novel which has been acclaimed by the likes of titles such as Metro, the Financial Times and Sunday Express as well as comic legend Alan Moore, Singh was informed that, as he does not have a degree, he does not qualify for this ‘highly skilled’ visa. He was also made to take an English language test, despite having worked in the UK as a journalist for many years.

“This new legislature speaks poorly of a country previously renowned as an international nexus of arts and culture," argues Nikhil Singh. "The fact that so many academics and artists are being refused entry for such petty reasons only weakens England's cultural backbone.

"The new immigration laws have insinuated an atmosphere of creative policing that is entirely out of character with the various professions it has effected; trades whose universal spirit of free thinking, regardless of nationality, have now been subtly degraded by the very powers which should be nurturing it.”

Paul Gravett, Director of Comica Festival and author of Graphic Novels: Stories to Change Your Life, is infuriated by the Home Office action.

“The refusal of Nikhil Singh's application for a Highly Skilled Worker Visa, resulting in his being unable to attend his own book launch at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, is short-sighted and prejudiced towards the graphic novel medium, and plainly ignores his exceptional merits," he says. "One look at the extraordinary craftsmanship of his illustrative contributions to the acclaimed graphic novel Salem Brownstone: All Along the Watchtowers would convince anyone that Nikhil is not only "highly skilled" but a truly visionary artist of international standing.”

Salem Brownstone: All Along the Watchtowers launched in a sell-out Salem Spooktacular event at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London on Saturday 24th October. Singh, who has now lost his London apartment and who has not seen his girlfriend of seven years for the past five months, is still unable to leave South Africa. He has currently spent over £2,000 appealing this process, and on subsequent reapplications which have all, to date, been refused.

• If you think the government is wrong, join the Manifesto Club's campaign in support of visiting artists at: www.manifestoclub.com/visitingartists

Related Stories


• Artist Visa System Protest Launched

• Visiting Artist Expelled from UK

GhostNet Comment

Obama Wins

Even before the US election was over comics fans had cast their vote, with sales of IDW’s Barack Obama biography comic beating those of the John McCain by a 59% to 41% margin, according to an IDW spokesperson.

icv2.com reports the numbers are based on sell-in to direct market comic retailers, which can serve as a close proxy for actual sales to consumers.

That margin appears to be wider than the popular vote percentages, which may reflect a different political composition for comic fans than for the American population, or just the desire of comic fans to collect the comic biography of the presumptive winner.

The comics were serious biographies of the candidates, and shared trade dress and cover design. The Obama comic also seems to have been the one most widely pirated...

• More info at: www.presidentialcomics.com

Beano, Dandy Too PC?

Euan Kerr, former editor of The Beano, has hit out at the current content of the comic and the Dandy arguing they have become too politically correct.

In an article in the Telegraph, picking up on a report in Scotland on Sunday, Kerr, who edited the Beano for 22 years, says key characters such as Dennis the Menace and Desperate Dan in the Dandy had to be "toned down" during his tenure.

He stopped Dennis menacing the character Walter the Softy in the 1980s to avoid claims that the comic may have encouraged "gay bashing, and points to how cow-pie eating cowboy Desperate Dan was forced to go on a diet have his revolver was replaced by a water pisto.

Dennis routinely tormented soppy Walter, a bespectacled boy who spent his days sewing, picking flowers and holding tea parties for his teddy bear.

"The evidence is that the kids understand a comic is a comic and that it isn't anything like real life," he told the paper. "But the relationship between Dennis and Walter was always one that worried me.

"There were accusations from certain quarters that it was a little like gay-bashing. This obviously wasn't the way we intended it to be perceived.

"We decided the best way to approach it was to make sure that even though he and Dennis didn't get along, Walter was completely happy about who he was and a confident, likeable character in his own right."

Speaking to Scotland on Sunday, Kerr conceded that other aspects of the Beano had been softened to avoid falling foul of liberal critics.

"The comic has certainly changed over the years to come in line with political correctness," he said. "For example, every strip used to end with the rogue of the piece being punished in some way – usually a smack across the head or a slipper across the bottom.

"This sort of corporal punishment became outdated and eventually it was phased out."

Now, Kerr argues the pendulum had now swung too far and he would welcome a return to the comic's anti-establishment roots and there are already signs that the balance is slowly turning against PC culture in strips such as The Neds, which chronicled the misadventures of work-shy, Scottish ne'er-do-wells.

Kerr's concerns about the comic are supported by the Campaign Against Political Correctness, publishers of The Politically Correct Scrapbooks.

"For 70 years the Beano has been read by children and they do not look at comics through politically correct eyes," commented John Midgeley. "It's a great shame that in recent years this national institution has been watered down to placate a tiny minority of humourless, do-gooding adults."

DC Thomson has so far declined to comment.

• Read the full article on the Daily Telegraph web site
• Click here for the story in the Scotland on Sunday newspaper and here for the story in The Times.

Bell Defends New Yorker Obama cover

Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell has sprung to the defence of the New Yorker magazine, currently embroiled in controversy for its latest cover depicting US presidential candidate Barrack Obama and his wife Michelle.

Barack Obama supporters are said to be furious that the cartoon depicts him and his wife as Muslim terrorists. In response, the magazine has insisted that the cartoon is meant to satirize opposition slurs on Mr Obama, and is not itself an attack.

On Tuesday, Obama told CNN's Larry King. that the satirical cover, depicting him and his wife as flag-burning, fist-bumping radicals, doesn't bother him but that it was an insult to Muslim-Americans.

Reaction to the cartoon has been mixed, earning the New Yorker support from unusual sources. Right-leaning news channel Fox News' Greg Gutfeld immediately spotted the cartoon wasn't meant to bash Barack, "rather it was an attack on his critics — a commentary on those who sensationalize Obama's perceived flaws.

"Basically The New Yorker cover suggests that anyone who finds Obama to be less than a cross between Jesus Christ and gorgeous unicorn, to be a racist creep."

USA Today's Chuck Raasch noted the cartoon "offended many, including John McCain. But as crude and offensive as it was, the cover was tame next to other Internet rot, not all of it aimed at Obama. The ageism directed at John McCain is prevalent, too."

Steve Bell, no stranger to controversy about his own work, feels the New Yorker cover falls into the category of cartoonists going too far -- which is exactly what they should do. "Having seen the full image (along with unimaginable numbers of idiots and psycho-paths worldwide), I can say that I rather warm to it," says Bell. "I look at it, and it works, for me anyway."

Often attacked for his portrayal of some British politicians, Bell argues cartoons -- many drawn by some of the most paintstaking, shyest and most timid people on Earth - need to be disturbing, and they should also dare to ask questions.

"People in the US aren't generally fools (even though the fools have been over-represented of late, particularly in the current administration), though some may be a little over-literal, and these are not always the psychos... But whether a cartoon is funny or not is one judgment that is always going to remain subjective."

Writing for the Daily Telegraph, cartoonist Christian Adams felt the cover missed its mark. "All cartoonists have one simple task. To get their message over visually in roughly three seconds. This is how long a reader will take to glance at their work. That's it. It has to be bold, then intriguing, then acute, and then, hopefully, funny. In three seconds.

"The New Yorker Obama cover may well be all of these, but unfortunately, thanks to the world wide web, it has been a victim of its own wit... taken out of context, [the cartoon] can mean whatever you want it to. And here we come to the internet. Seen on its own, scattered randomly over the internet, with no knowledge of what the New Yorker's mindset is, this cartoon can be interpreted however you wish."

Meanwhile, a New York Times article on how difficult it is to make jokes about Obama quotes comedian Bill Maher made a good point: "If you can't do irony on the cover of The New Yorker, where can you do it?"

Saint Johns Church Edinburgh Easter Sign

Saint Johns church Edinburgh Easter sign - China and Olympics
Originally uploaded by byronv2

Following up on our earlier post about Chinese piracy, Forbidden Planet's Joe Gordon recently published this photograph of a thought-provoking poster outside Saint John's church on the corner of Princes Street and Lothian Road in Edinburgh, right in the shadow of the castle. He reports the picture has been vandalised at least twice with the monk defaced, and it's been the subject of a complaint from the Chinese consulate to the church.

The protest actually created more press attention than the original poster's appearance did, so this protest seems to have backfired somewhat!

The World Needs More Teddies

At this festive time for many religions, perhaps it's time to start spreading some love so I've gone all fuzzy and am proposing a Send a Teddy Campaign.

So, if you're concerned by religious intolerance (Catholic groups bemoaning The Golden Compass? Governments enforcing laws on people making an innocent error of judgment?), worried by bigotry (forced to listen to Talksport, for example?) or race hate - send the 'offender' a teddy!

We simply can't have teddies becoming a symbol of intolerance.

This week's person in desperate need of more teddies:

The Sudanese Ambassador, the Embassy of the Republic of the Sudan, 3 Cleveland Row, St. James’s London SW1A 1DD

Don't be abusive when you send your teddy. Send it with a polite message asking for a change of heart where anger and unpleasantness is evident.

I have no idea if this is one of those things that might spread like wildfire or not, it's just a crazy idea I had. I get those. Happy holidays, all.

You can buy teddy bears online: http://uk.shopping.com/xFS?KW=teddy+bear&CLT=SAS

Update: We don't think this kind of teddy is the sort you should be sending

American extremists seek history re-write

Who would have thought it? Web search engine giant Google rightly marked 50 years of spaceflight with a terrific Sputnik-decorated version of their logo last week, but now it seems right wing commentators in the US feel this is the start of a slippery descent into Communist takeover for the successful company.

In an article picked up by the Los Angeles Times, WorldNetDaily described the re-design as "celebrating communism", blithely ignoring the fact that it was the 'Communists' who were the first into space and the Americans a measly second.

If America had got a satellite into orbit first, I'm sure Google would have put that on the logo, and I bet that come 21 July 2009 they may well do something to mark the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing (that was by Americans, in case anyone from WorldNetDaily ever reads this).

Sadly, it seems the criticism is simply part of a much wider agenda on the part of some narrow minded factions within the US who seem hell-bent on trying to ensure Americans only think about certain things and return to the kind of blinkered isolationism it revelled in before the First World War. It was a naive view then, and highly dangerous now.

Save Kids TV campaign - Petition the PM!

Pact has set up a petition on the Number 10 website to highlight the plight UK kids TV is under, highlighted by the Save Kids TV campaign who have a comic about the issue on ROK Comics, republished below. To add your voice to the petition click here.



Ofcom this week reported on the issue of kids TV, and its findings essentially support the SKTV position that something needs to be done to replace the loss of UK-commissioned output.

"In the end it’s our kids who will suffer, from lack of choice, lack of their own stories on TV, lack of their own voices and lack of a perspective which helps them understand the society in which they live," argues SKTV. "For the past year we’ve been saying that a country which fails to tell its own stories is a country which could just quietly fade away. Our kids deserve the best TV – from everywhere – and that includes from the UK too."

Ofcom’s report backs up this concern with real figures. For the full detail you can download the short version of the report here: www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/kidstv/

George Bush Speaks his Mind

Deviant Thinkers

Over at Dave Langford's wonderful SF news site Ansible, he reported last week that Greg Bear and other sf authors -- Arlan Andrews, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Sage Walker -- were asked to a US Homeland Security conference to provide anti-terrorism advice as "deviant thinkers".

Together, the group makes up a group called Sigma, whose motto is "Science Fiction in the National Interest was formed 15 years ago by to advise government officials. The last time the group gathered was in the late 1990s, when members met with government scientists to discuss what a post-nuclear age might look like.

To join the group, you have to have at least one technical doctorate degree.

"Fifty years ago, science-fiction writers told us about flying cars and a wireless handheld communicator," Christopher Kelly, spokesman for Homeland Security's Science and Technology division told USA Today. "Although flying cars haven't evolved, cellphones today are a way of life. We need to look everywhere for ideas, and science-fiction writers clearly inform the debate."

Andrews says America's anti-terorists "need people to think of crazy ideas," while Pournelle admits "We're well-qualified nuts."

"We talk to a lot of strange people and read a lot of weird things," Bear says. That research prompts all sorts of ideas the group would rather offer the government as a public service rather than work for some private think tank.

Dave Langford points out that once again sf proves eerily prophetic: wasn't there just such an ego-boosting think tank in the Niven/Pournelle novel Footfall?

Lessons in Modern Policing

Heh. Somneone's been reading the indy reports on the G8. I liked this one.

Yes to the Olympics - No to Arts cuts

Please forgive me. I'm having a rant.

On the Number 10 Downing Street website there's a petition up and running right now, which aims to stop the Chancellor using Arts and Heritage Lottery money to plug the funding gap in the 2012 Olympics.

The Chancellor proposes to plug the funding gap with a 35% reduction in Grants in Arts funding and reallocating the money - some £675 million - to the Olympics. Please submit your name to the petition and oppose the cuts to Arts Grants (Here's a link about recent developments as reported by The Guardian).

Any way, the petition is at: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/lotteryolympics

It has already gathered over 18,000 signatures – If it gets to 40,000, it would make it into the top five most popular petitions on the site.

I've no objection to the Olympics and Paralympics themselves. It's great that it's coming to Britain. But I take exception to arts and heritage groups losing out because of it. And I'm not alone: the National Council for Voluntary Organisations has spoken out and remains unsatisfied by the Government's response to the concerns they've raised. The Stage reported just this week that leaders of Britain’s largest performing arts unions, trade associations and lobby groups have taken the unprecedented step of drawing up a joint letter to chancellor Gordon Brown warning of the dire consequences of the Olympics Lottery raid for the cultural sector.

If you're as annoyed about this as I was, and I hope you are, I hope you'll sign the petition... and maybe you'll consider adding this banner I knocked up to your web site or blog:

Update: Whew! The power of the web. I e-mailed this out late on a Friday evening and within an hour, Liam Sharp had the item up as a news story on MySpace, Tim Perkins had re-blogged my message and the likes of David Baillie, John McCrea, Hunt Emerson, Simon Fraser and Sean Phillips had all signed the petition. Smart.

Buffy creator calls for equality

An author friend of mine sent me this moving piece by Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly creator Joss Whedon, who is clearly appalled not just by real world tragedy but by a new film in distribution called Captivity.

Joss' comments speak for themselves, but deserve the widest exposure possible, hence this forwarding.

It might also be cause to alert people to a wider concerns about Captivity, a film Lionsgate describes as in the vein of the Saw and Hostel franchises in which people find themselves trapped and terrified by abductors, now due for US release 22 June.

Back in March, an initial billboard ad campaign for the film in the US drew huge protest, even from diehard free speech supporters, and the Motion Picture Association of America responded to the complaints by slapping producers Dark Films with an unprecedented sanction for posting the explicit ads, which the MPAA had previously ruled as inappropriate (as you can see from these news stories from Variety and Hollywood Reporter - subscription may be required).

After the storm of protest After Dark CEO Courtney Solomon said the wrong files were sent to the printer, who then passed them on to the billboard company without approval from any executives at After Dark. (Of course, that someone at After Dark clearly thought the campaign was a good idea and created the ads in the first place...)

A second PR campaign, this time approved by the Motion Picture Association of America, which has drawn similar protests.

Solomon told Hollywood Reporter the movie is certainly a horror movie and it's about abduction, "but it's also about female empowerment.

"We re-shot the ending so the main character ends up in as much of a positive situation as the situation could allow," he claims. "There is no rape or nudity in it, though it should be an R-rated movie. For the audience it's made for, it's satisfying to that audience. I'm sure that's not the same audience that's complaining about the billboards."

Oh, so that makes everything all right then?

The original post on 20 May 2007 by Joss Whedon, and the many responses can be found at: whedonesque.com/comments/13271

Let's Watch A Girl Get Beaten To Death. This is not my blog, but I don’t have a blog, or a space, and I’d like to be heard for a bit.

Last month seventeen year old Dua Khalil was pulled into a crowd of young men, some of them (the instigators) family, who then kicked and stoned her to death. This is an example of the breath-taking oxymoron “honor killing”, in which a family member (almost always female) is murdered for some religious or ethical transgression. Dua Khalil, who was of the Yazidi faith, had been seen in the company of a Sunni Muslim, and possibly suspected of having married him or converted. That she was torturously murdered for this is not, in fact, a particularly uncommon story. But now you can watch the action up close on CNN. Because as the girl was on the ground trying to get up, her face nothing but red, the few in the group of more than twenty men who were not busy kicking her and hurling stones at her were filming the event with their camera-phones.

There were security officers standing outside the area doing nothing, but the footage of the murder was taken – by more than one phone – from the front row. Which means whoever shot it did so not to record the horror of the event, but to commemorate it. To share it. Because it was cool.

I could start a rant about the level to which we have become desensitized to violence, about the evils of the voyeuristic digital world in which everything is shown and everything is game, but honestly, it’s been said. And I certainly have no jingoistic cultural agenda. I like to think that in America this would be considered unbearably appalling, that Kitty Genovese is still remembered, that we are more evolved. But coincidentally, right before I stumbled on this vid I watched the trailer for “Captivity”.

A few of you may know that I took public exception to the billboard campaign for this film, which showed a concise narrative of the kidnapping, torture and murder of a sexy young woman. I wanted to see if the film was perhaps more substantial (especially given the fact that it was directed by “The Killing Fields” Roland Joffe) than the exploitive ad campaign had painted it. The trailer resembles nothing so much as the CNN story on Dua Khalil. Pretty much all you learn is that Elisha Cuthbert is beautiful, then kidnapped, inventively, repeatedly and horrifically tortured, and that the first thing she screams is “I’m sorry”.

“I’m sorry.”

What is wrong with women?

I mean wrong. Physically. Spiritually. Something unnatural, something destructive, something that needs to be corrected.

How did more than half the people in the world come out incorrectly? I have spent a good part of my life trying to do that math, and I’m no closer to a viable equation. And I have yet to find a culture that doesn’t buy into it. Women’s inferiority – in fact, their malevolence -- is as ingrained in American popular culture as it is anywhere they’re sporting burkhas. I find it in movies, I hear it in the jokes of colleagues, I see it plastered on billboards, and not just the ones for horror movies. Women are weak. Women are manipulative. Women are somehow morally unfinished. (Objectification: another tangential rant avoided.) And the logical extension of this line of thinking is that women are, at the very least, expendable.

I try to think how we got here. The theory I developed in college (shared by many I’m sure) is one I have yet to beat: Womb Envy. Biology: women are generally smaller and weaker than men. But they’re also much tougher. Put simply, men are strong enough to overpower a woman and propagate. Women are tough enough to have and nurture children, with or without the aid of a man. Oh, and they’ve also got the equipment to do that, to be part of the life cycle, to create and bond in a way no man ever really will. Somewhere a long time ago a bunch of men got together and said, “If all we do is hunt and gather, let’s make hunting and gathering the awesomest achievement, and let’s make childbirth kinda weak and shameful.” It’s a rather silly simplification, but I believe on a mass, unconscious level, it’s entirely true. How else to explain the fact that cultures who would die to eradicate each other have always agreed on one issue? That every popular religion puts restrictions on women’s behavior that are practically untenable? That the act of being a free, attractive, self-assertive woman is punishable by torture and death? In the case of this upcoming torture-porn, fictional. In the case of Dua Khalil, mundanely, unthinkably real. And both available for your viewing pleasure.

It’s safe to say that I’ve snapped. That something broke, like one of those robots you can conquer with a logical conundrum. All my life I’ve looked at this faulty equation, trying to understand, and I’ve shorted out. I don’t pretend to be a great guy; I know really really well about objectification, trust me. And I’m not for a second going down the “women are saints” route – that just leads to more stone-throwing (and occasional Joan-burning). I just think there is the staggering imbalance in the world that we all just take for granted. If we were all told the sky was evil, or at best a little embarrassing, and we ought not look at it, wouldn’t that tradition eventually fall apart? (I was going to use ‘trees’ as my example, but at the rate we’re getting rid of them I’m pretty sure we really do think they’re evil. See how all rants become one?)

Now those of you who frequent this site are, in my wildly biased opinion, fairly evolved. You may hear nothing new here. You may be way ahead of me. But I can’t contain my despair, for Dua Khalil, for humanity, for the world we’re shaping. Those of you who have followed the link I set up know that it doesn’t bring you to a video of a murder. It brings you to a place of sanity, of people who have never stopped asking the question of what is wrong with this world and have set about trying to change the answer. Because it’s no longer enough to be a decent person. It’s no longer enough to shake our heads and make concerned grimaces at the news. True enlightened activism is the only thing that can save humanity from itself. I’ve always had a bent towards apocalyptic fiction, and I’m beginning to understand why. I look and I see the earth in flames. Her face was nothing but red.

All I ask is this: Do something. Try something. Speaking out, showing up, writing a letter, a check, a strongly worded e-mail. Pick a cause – there are few unworthy ones. And nudge yourself past the brink of tacit support to action. Once a month, once a year, or just once. If you can’t think of what to do, there is this handy link. Even just learning enough about a subject so you can speak against an opponent eloquently makes you an unusual personage. Start with that. Any one of you would have cried out, would have intervened, had you been in that crowd in Bashiqa. Well thanks to digital technology, you’re all in it now.

I have never had any faith in humanity. But I will give us props on this: if we can evolve, invent and theorize our way into the technologically magical, culturally diverse and artistically magnificent race we are and still get people to buy the idiotic idea that half of us are inferior, we’re pretty amazing. Let our next sleight of hand be to make that myth disappear.

The sky isn’t evil. Try looking up.

The Prying Eyes of Britain

Since I'm in a ranty and probably overly paranoid mood, did you know that here in Britain, government agents still have the right to enter your house to enter your house and search for materials used to produce "horror comics"?

The powers are just part of a much wider law first introduced in 1955 to combat the perceived menace of horror comics imported into the UK from America, and is, according to CBS reporter Larry Miller, one of more than 250 reasons the state can use to enter your house.

Combined with other laws, it means the British have become one of the world's most officially spied upon people, and what the record number of closed circuit TV cameras don't catch outside, the house invading inspectors will inside...

Terrorism

Is it just me, or does anyone else think it's odd that the secret services can tell us there are some 1200 people engaged in acts of terrorism at home and abroad , but no government agency can tell us exactly how many illegal immigrants there are in the country?

Darfur is Dying Game

US MTV Networks' mtvU college TV network has launched Darfur is Dying, a Web-based game created by students at the University of Southern California. It rapidly brings home the hopelessness of Dargur's refugees without outside help, offering users real world ways to fight the genocide in Darfur. The second stage of the game doesn't seem to work on a Mac (perhaps that's the point). There are links to real world action you can take to help.

Update 12/6/07: mtvU has announced that Darfur is Dying (www.DarfurisDying.com) is being translated into Chinese, Arabic and Spanish and will soon re-launch globally. It is a student-developed online viral video game . The game has been played 2.5 million times by more than 1.2 million people since its launch and the website is an extension of mtvU's Sudan resource centre on mtvU.com, which offers news updates, facts, background info, student activist profiles, and more.

Shooting themselves in the foot

A warning to all freelance writers out there planning a trip to the US -- get a visa! And you might want to think about praying, too, as it's no guarantee of entry.

I had a call from BlackRat yesterday with news of recent US chicanery when it comes to dealing with people they might not like. Check out this story he's posted about a freelance reporter being arrested at US airports and sent packing if they didn't have a visa. More reports below from both sides of the Atlantic.

Basically, you could be arrested, thrown in a cell, body searched and deported if you don't have the visa journalists must have if they travel to the US. Since the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) took over the duties of the immigration and naturalization service, their officials decided to revive a visa requirement, dormant since 1952, that required journalists to apply for a special visa, known as an I-visa, when visiting the United States for professional reasons. This visa requirement also applied to so-called "friendly nations" – 27 countries whose citizens do not have to apply for a visa in order to visit the US for personal reasons.

The Guardian reports the decision to restart the visa requirement is so little known that most foreign (and American) journalists have no idea it even exists. As a result, last year 15 journalists from "friendly nations" (Britian, Australia and others) were deported from the US. 12 of those deportations occurred at Los Angeles International Airport.

The American embassy in London has a slew of visa information on its web site but to be honest, you might be better off phoning them to get more information if you have the occupation "Writer" on your passport.

Oh, I've also discovered that US officials read these blogs and can take umbrage at what they see as the merest slight on Their Way of Doing Things. We must behave!

More on Journalist Arrests and Prohibitions:
• Matt Welch in the National Post
Published 6 December 2003
• Welcome to America
The Guardian, 5 June 2003 (registration required). When writer Elena Lappin flew to LA, she dreamed of a sunkissed, laid-back city. But that was before airport officials decided to detain her as a threat to security ...
• Foreign Reporters cry Foul
The Christian Science Monitor 8 June. An American take on the situation by Tom Regan. He reveals "In each of these cases [of arrest and deportation], the journalists had no right to see a lawyer, no right to call their local consulate, and no right to appeal (these rules come courtesy of antiterrorism measures passed in 1996 and 2001). And the growing international outcry seems only to embolden the Immigration and Customs agents who are keeping the United States safe from celebrity hacks and technology journalists. 'A customs officer ... chose to make me sweat and to threaten me with deportation, even though I have a valid journalist's visa that does not expire for another two years,' wrote Andrew Gumbel, a correspondent of The Independent [who works for the paper in Los Angeles], in late July [of 2003]. 'A visa is not a guarantee of entry,' he told me. 'We've been deporting quite a few British journalists recently.'
• Los Angeles: Allegations of Foreign Reporter Harassment at Los Angeles Airport
From the Progressive Community web site

RAF Magazine and other things

Today has been a busy day. I'm working on a new RAF Magazine for Titan which feels strange because a) I'm not a member of the RAF and b) given my past membership of various 'leftie' organisations and opposition to war in Iraq I have to wonder if because no-one approving the title seems to care about things like that, what does this say about anyone with a different view to the Establishment's in the UK?

Never mind. Grin and bear it, hmm? Just leave enough time to add a few more Greatcoat cartoons to dowthetubes while earning some pence. Got to do some things that you enjoy...

Outside the office there's a woman calling for her cats. She's called them Mulder and Scully. Mulder is always missing. She should have known better...