Alone

August 17, 2013 Rob in Japan Leave a comment

Harry walked in to the bar in and asked for a drink. The day was hot and he was glad to be in here rather than out there. It was a small, empty town on the border of the Czech republic that Harry had found himself in. God knows how he had ended up there or what he was going to do. He had been trying to cross the border in to Poland the next day but the bus he had been travelling had broken down.

Well, so what if I don’tr make it? he thought. He had been travelling on strict deadlines for the last two weeks – keeping track of train and bus times to various towns in Eastern Europe. He wanted to see the real life out here, not the cities of Prague or Kracow, although he had enjoyed those very much.

There was tall young woman working on the bar and Harry recognised her dark features as Slavic immediately.

Vot would you like?

Harry looked around the bar. There were various beers of Eastern European origin that Harry had never heard of, with hard to pronounce names such as Okocim and Zubr.

‘One of these please,’ asked Harry, pointing at a gleaming beer tap. The woman took a glass off the shelf and fixed her eyes on the pump, tilting her head so that the beer poured right up to the brim.

Harry took the glass up to his lips and took a big sip.

he smiled at her but she was too shy to return it.

‘How much?’

Er, twenty-five crowns.

Here, said Harry, pulling out a note which was in one of several currencies he carried with him.

She put the note into an old register and took out some gleaming coins which she emptied into his palm.

Harry decided she probably wouldn’t have much to talk about so he went and sat down in the corner. He took out a pack of cigarettes that he’d bought in Prague and lit one with his metal lighter. He was thirsty and he’d almost drunk his beer. He put his cigarette out in a long wooden ashtray, crushing the cigarette and laying it down like a body in a coffin.

Harry thought about all the places he’d visited on his travels. He had shot machine guns in an army field in Slovakia, drunk vintage wines on the hills of Buda in Hungary and kayaked outside Prague.

All the time he’d had people around him. Harry met other travelers and they’d share their stories and experiences. He enjoyed listening to them talk even if he didn’t find what they had to say particularly interesting.

The woman came out from the counter and picked up his empty glass.

She pointed to it and Harry nodded. Another one, why not? Harry was finally completely alone.

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The right to privacy: an introduction

August 5, 2013 Rob in Japan 1 Comment

The right to privacy and to be protected from commercial exploitation has a precedent in Prosser, who saw it as a right to value, which the claimant could exploit by selling licenses. Evidence of its proprietary nature could be seen from the exclusive licensee had a right of publicity which entitled him to prevent the the use of the name or likeness by a third person.Most right to privacy cases deal with the economic aspects and do not cover the mental stress aspect. Other tort specialists such as Harper and James were more aware of the distinction, and recognised that the two unrelated ideas of emotional stress and purely financial loss produced a legal grey area which did not make for clarity of thought.

In most cases the issue of financial loss is not separate but is related to the emotional stress of the exploitation of personality.

According to Bloustein the name or likeness which was used had no commercial value, which could not justify legal action. The only way a right to privacy could exist was if society placed a value on the image itself and on the idea of a right to privacy. ‘every man had a right to privacy not because of its commercial worth but because it would be demeaning to human dignity to fail to enforce such a right.

The core of the right to privacy protects against: peeping toms, the collection and dissemination of personal data, watching and photographing individuals, intruding into public places, eavesdropping and wiretapping. It does not include harassment, unsolicited mail, nuisance phone calls, neither does it include commercial exploitation.

When applied to celebrity the law does not deny the celebrity in question the right to privacy, rather it prevents the unlicensed use of their image. Their celebrity is not inconsistent with their right to privacy. If a famous athlete finds his image is used without his permission, he is entitled to compensation, but the concern is with his public reputation rather than his private life.

If a non-celebrity has their image widely used in an advertisement, the claimant’s anonymity would not be an issue since they would be subject to unwanted attention, unless there was damage to their dignitary interests, which might be protected at law either as part of a general right to privacy or by a tort of appropriation of personality which might provide redress for either or both economic or dignitary interests.

The principle of privacy

English courts see privacy as a value that underlies the existence of a rule of law, but this does not define the specific rules to be deduced and applied. In America where celebrities have complained over invasion of privacy over unauthorised use of images, the courts refused to accept they had suffered loss of dignity since they were willingly licensing their images to advertise or endorse products. By virtue of their celebrity, some claimants were considered to have waived their right to privacy.

Separate but related is the right to publicity. The first case was Halean Laboratories v. Topps Chewing gum Inc, the parties were rival chewing gum makers. With knowledge of the claimant’s contracts with particular baseball players the defendant deliberately induced the players to enter into a contracts authorising the defendant to use their image with their own chewing gum. The right of privacy was a personal and non-assignable right and the contracts did not give the claimant any property right or other legal interest to sue. The court rejected the claimant’s defense that the contracts created no more than a release of liability and that a claimant would have no other interest in the publication of his picture. Independently of the right to privacy, a person had a right in the publicity value of his photograph and the right to grant the exclusive right to publication of his photograph. If they suffered no moral damage, they felt the loss of financial reward keenly.The right of privacy was born and with it the right to grant exclusive rights of exploitation, which could potentially be enforced by a licensee.

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my life in smoking

August 4, 2013 Rob in Japan Leave a comment

The first cigarettes I smoked were Dunhill King Size. They came in a dark red box with gold edges. They were strong, at least 10mg of tar. I liked the fact that they had the signature of Alfred Dunhill on the back, the same Dunhill who founded the Dunhill fashion brand. a pack of twenty retailed at £4.89. That was usually enough for a week’s worth.

Occasionally I went for a box of Dunhill lights. Funnily enough they were cheaper as they were so unpopular they never put the price up. The box was beautifully designed, with clean white packaging and bevelled sides. I used to love holding the box whilst smoking or leaving the box on pub tables next to my glasses of beer. I think they had a kind of crest on the front which always made the cigarette I was smoking an extra special kind of event.

Finally I sometimes opted for Dunhill Internationals, the same as the ones Robert De Niro smokes in Casino.

Even though I was loyal to Dunhills, I made my way through pretty much every brand of tobacco I could find. Between 2001 and 2005, the years of my heaviest smoking I smoked:

Peter Stuyvescent 100s (as advertised in old magazines I looked at from the seventies showing people sailing or lounging by the pool)

Camel lights and camel regulars (I always felt that the packaging of these was cheap and somewhat shoddy. The box never stood up well and got misshapen in the pocket. These cigarettes are mentioned by Bukowski in Ham on Rye, so I guess they will always have some cultish appeal.

Park Drive – these came in an art deco box with stylish old fashioned logo. I only ever bought one pack of these.

Gitanes: smoked a few of these. i learnt that they were made with dark Turkish tobacco, which explained why they tasted like petrol.

Gauloises: with an Asterisk helmet. popular all over the continent. Again, the packaging was too flimsy for me.

Lucky Strike: these were advertised with the meaningless but effective slogan ‘its toasted’, seen on Mad Men.

Benson and Hedges Special: these have always been smoked by a particular kind of smoker. I still remember the advertising of these on giant billboards.

Lambert & Butler: horrible packaging, ok fags.

Marlboro reds/ Marlboro lights: according to someone in the pub, these are the most popular cigarettes. Or at least they were when it was still legal to smoke in pubs. I once bought a pack of Marlboro Reds in the Almeida restaurant. They were presented on a saucer by the waiter. What glorious times!

Petra/Sparta: I smoked these in Prague, 2004. They were at least 10 krowns cheaper than more famous brands.

Drum tobacco; when I couldn’t afford tabs, I opted for tobacco. I rolled Drum consistently through my second year at uni.

Golden Virginia: what everybody else smoked at the student union.

Craven A: another old cigarette brand, smoked a lot in France but oddly not in England where they originated from.

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After daring heist, art masterpieces go up in flames

August 3, 2013 Rob in Japan Leave a comment

Take a look at these pictures. It may be the last time you ever see them.

After the theft of several priceless artworks from the Kunsthal museum, investigators have announced that the paintings may have been burnt by the suspect’s mother to prevent her son being found with the paintings in his possession. From the International Herald Tribune: forensic scientists at Romania’s National History museum appeared on the verge of confirming the art world’s worst fears: that Ms Daguru’s tale may be true.

Here are the seven paintings which were stolen and are feared destroyed:

Monet: Waterloo Bridge, London, 1901