Has Nick Hogan been released?

I used to be an underage drinker, fifteen years ago, tumbling around the mean streets of Bolton. I've lost count of the number of times I was found lovingly wrapped round a lamppost in a pool of my own vomit (it was either once or twice) or fingered a similarly drunk underager in the churchyard round the corner (twice, possibly three times)

The main school pubs for my lot were Ye Olde Man and Scythe and later The Malt and Hops. The Malt and Hops was a smaller ale bar attached to The Swan pub on the corner of Bradshawgate and Churchgate. I went in there three times, twice because Timbo said the girl who I fancied off of my school bus was in there (she was once) and once cos I was going to try to smoke.

Even to this day, the smell of cigarettes in pubs brings a smile to my face, it reminds me of being young. Some time in May 2007, I escaped from smoking ban Scotland to have a nervous breakdown, down a bottle of vodka, drove to London and went to a gig. The stench of Silk Cut was beautiful, at that moment I knew for sure my destiny lay in London.

Anyhoo, Last time I went to Bolton, The Swan was closed. It's former landlord is a chap called Nick Hogan. He's in a spot of bother at the moment, bankrupt and in prison for refusing to pay a fine. He was fined for allowing smoking on his premises.

Think about that for a moment. Not fined for smoking, but for allowing it. The smokers, they weren't fined, as they had been allowed to smoke, but allowing them to smoke in licensed premised was the illegal act, not the smoking itself. Punished for not joining the police.

The Bolton Evening News has a fine array of pieces about the Nick Hogan case

When Bolton Council brought the prosecution he pleaded not guilty to five counts of failing to prevent people from smoking in his pubs and four of obstructing council officers.

District Judge Timothy Devas (ah, the same Tim Devas from the Nottingham Police dog handler thing - I&A) found him guilty of four charges of allowing people to smoke.

He was cleared of one count because he was not on the premises at the time, and he was found not guilty of four obstruction charges.

If a fine is not paid, court enforcement officers follow it up, and if it remains outstanding the case will be brought back to court for magistrates to give an alternative sentence.

A Bolton Council spokesman said: “The court’s decision marks the end of a lengthy process and proves that, ultimately, flouting the law can have severe repercussions.

Bolton Council's political make up is thus:-

Lab (minority) - 27
Conservation - 23
LibDem - 9
Other - 1

Old Holborn and Anna Raccoon summoned up the massed ranks of the pro-choice blogsphere, a fund was set up and donations invited. Even mighty Guido waded in.

On Friday the target of £9712 was reached, but now things have taken a murky turn. Internet messageboard Freedom2Choose waded in, claimed they'd got Nick Hogan released and demanded Old Holborn handed the money over to them immediately. Then mysteriously their announcement on it was taken down. And as far as I can discern Nick Hogan is still in prison.

The money was raised four days ago, tied up in a crock on the internet. All ready to be transferred to where ever it need to go to secure the landlord's release.

Keeping someone in prison isn't a cheap thing, it costs money, about £106 per day. Those four days that Nick Hogan hasn't been released during have cost us, the taxpayer, £427. I guess its possible that someone somewhere said that the financials could wait until after the weekend, cos there's no one in the office who knows how to switch on the 'puter at weekends, but that's just not good enough.

I donated £1.50, I demand to see justice and see the release of a bankrupt landlord.

Villains of the piece

• District Judge Timothy Devas
• Bolton Council

**UPDATE**
Actually, I think I went to The Swan a fourth time, after I'd moved to Glasgow, it must have been around Christmas 1999 or 1998, I was 19, on a whistlestop trip back to the mothership. I was doing the rounds of Bolton, trying to go to as many of the old haunts as I could. I stopped off in The Swan, didn't see anyone I knew and was about to leave I heard a voice call my name, I turned to find a well fit sixteen year old addressing me. "Don't you recognise me?"

It too a few moments, but I finally twigged that this was Georgie Brennan's younger sister who I'd last seen as a woefully underage lass on a climbing course in the lake district some years before. My, she'd blossomed, and now she was on the correct side of the too young/too old equation ((your age/2)+7=youngest age you can pull without it being gross)

So of course instead of taking advantage of the situation and adding her notch to my tree in the churchyard round the corner, I ran off to The Spinning Mule on Nelson Square to tell my brother. I can be such a fuckwit sometimes.

Blogger Rights

Today an award winning blogger who blogged anonymously, had his identity outed by The Times newspaper and subsequently faced disciplinary action at his place of work.

Many quarters of the 'blogosphere' are, quite rightly, up in arms about this (
here, here, here, here and here. There are rants about blogger's rights to privacy/anonymity. I've written about my dislike of rights previously, I don't think this case is about rights though, its more a case of bad judgement by The Times. Their paper circulation, like most newspapers, has been falling, their website probably used to get a lot of traffic from blogs.

But now the blogosphere knows which way The Times's bread is buttered, and that they are not to be trusted.

You can't stop progress, you can only slow it a bit, and in time The Times with wither and fall.

London Blogger Rights

The one in which he talks about the Spring London Bloggers meetup in reverse order

I'd walked into a fence, drunk on the way to the station, I could almost feel blood trickling down my cheek from the wire. Aw well, I thought.

On the train, sat two seats to my left was a young lady knitting, it seemed to be a white scarf. English wasn't her first language, but I think we bonded over knitting as I pulled out my latest project.

Its a bit of a checked, weaved kind of thing. I was a little drunk on the train, so I think I mushed it up. As I said before, aw weel.

Earlier I was at the London Bloggers Meetup at Doggetts Coat and Badge in Blackfriars, towards the end of the evening I was sat at a table with my chum and recent boing-boing star Aref-Adib, Caroline of Caroline's Miscellany, Michald, and Alex4d who can be found by searching for his name. Interesting conversations about the nature of Twitter and the future and the internet and whether documents will exist in a hundred years and many many other things.

Do I actually have to apologise at these things if I roll my eyes when people say they do PR and Marketing. I accept that people who blog have the same skillset as people who do PR so there's huge overlap, but sometimes it feels like there are two types of people who go to #LBM, PR folk and everyone else in the room. It sometimes feels too much like a PR networking event, rather than a bloggers meetup.

To demonstrate a point that I struggle to verbalise, how come after the event my blog here doesn't get streams of traffic from the sites of professional PR and marketing people? I'd have to pay for that wouldn't I. There ought to be lots of blog posts like this one listing people who were there, rather than a brief flurry of tweets dropping off the bottom of the page. There ought to be a London Bloggers roundup post, like the Britblog Roundup or Sugasm.

Interesting folk I spoke to include:-

Julius
Alex4d
Michald
Aref-Adib
Ridiculant
Andy Bargery
Louis from Adcentered
A tall chap from teh Londonist
Caroline of Caroline's Miscellany
Meaghan from the Spoonfed event listings site

People I made brief eye-contact with include:-

Jaz Jazettera Jazeera Jazamatazz
The Londoneer
Andy Roberts
Fresh Plastic
Miss Geeky
Cristiano
Lolly
Mex

People who I didn't talk to or make eye contact with:-

Utku
Annie Mole
PR-otagonism
The Red Rocket
My London Diary
Fake Plastic Noodles
Stephen Waddington
Milo Yiannopoulos
Brian the Pigeon
We Are Social
Just Giving
Kai
(admittedly some of these aren't people as such, but are blogs written by people who I didn't talk to, make eye-contact with or otherwise recognise)
I've probably missed loads of people, if I have, leave a comment and I'll fix the world.

Photies here, featuring me second on the left

There was a speechy talk thing by a Miss @hel_razor from The Equality and Human Rights Commission. It was about how they're engaging with the blogosphere now, and are interested to here what we have to ask of them and the ways we can engage with them. There were writers from the Guardian and other dead trees covering the event (should I feel used?).

My opinion of human rights is documented elsewhere, and whilst its good that government agencies are engaging, or at least opening themselves up to the public, there are already plenty of debates about human rights going on out there on the internet all the time, rather than wanting people to come to them, the Equality and Human Rights Commission could go out and engage.

There are already debates about Human Rights out on the blogosphere, with any number of players engaged with them, the government, the media, charities, bloggers. If a QUANGO wants to join the debate, they should do so but not by sitting back and asking people to come to them.

What about civil liberties? Actually, with Chakrabarti's Liberty, do we need a Government sponsored Human Rights organisation too? Hmm, now I think about it, I've been a big fan of Human Rights Watch, they do some excellent work around the world, do we need a Government sponsored Human Rights organisation?

Blah blah blah, can we have our money back?

Instead of the taxpayer having to pay for this with the threat of going to prison, can't we just vote out any government or authority that tramples what we believe are our fundamental human rights and we keep more of our money ourselves?

Its a bit rich to take our money, then ask us how the resources are to be deployed.