Check out Ed Strong’s track Free DPM at the end of the post

UPDATE - UPDATE

- Andrew Gillman, 25, from St John’s Hill, Battersea: 2 years custodial sentence.
- Ziggy Grudzinskas, 25, from Ulundi Road, Blackheath: 18 months custodial sentence.
- Slav Zinoviev, 25, from St John’s Hill, Battersea: 18 months custodial sentence.
- Paul Andrew Stewart, 26, from Manor Lane, Lewisham: 18 months custodial sentence.
- Matthew Pease, 24, from Manor Lane, Lewisham: 15 months custodial sentence

From Indymedia

As members of graffiti crew DPM start a prison sentence, pictures of their work are to be exhibited in a New York art gallery. So are they vandals or frustrated artists? KATE MEAD reports.

EIGHT men were sentenced on Friday (11) in what was one of the biggest prosecutions for graffiti the UK has ever seen.
All admitted conspiracy to cause criminal damage as part of a graffiti crew called DPM that tagged and painted trains and stations costing rail networks an estimated £1 million.
Detective Sergeant Michael Field, who led the inquiry described it as a “major crime on a vast scale”.
“Graffiti is an attack on the community and the environment,” he said. “It is anti-social and destructive and it’s a crime we take very seriously.”
Indeed, the courts took it just as seriously, with the two year investigation culminating in sentencing five members of the group to a total of eight years in prison.
On the day that the court opened its case against DPM, London’s Tate Modern was installing massive pieces of street art on the outside of their South Bank gallery to celebrate artists who made their names by ‘decorating’ streets and buildings in much the same kind of illegal activity.
Hundreds of thousands of visitors have already filed past the installations, admiring work by Blu, an Italian graffiti artist who uses buildings as “sheets of paper”, JR who illegally painted his initials around the streets of Paris and Brazilian Nunca who started tagging at the age of 12.
One member of the Tate’s audience was Ziggy Grudzinskas, a 25-year-old art student and member of DPM who alongside his friends admitted the conspiracy charge between 2004 and 2006.
“I stood there completely baffled for about an hour outside of the Tate to tell you the truth,” he said before he was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment at Southwark Crown Court.
“I quite like it but it really confused me a lot. I know that half, if not all of the graffiti that is on the Tate Modern building is done by people who do illegal graffiti or have done illegal graffiti and have made their name doing that.
“It is like they’re saying ‘yeah we’re on the edge of the law yet we’re being shown by one of the biggest galleries in London.’ And it’s sponsored by Nissan!”
According to Andrew Gillman, the 25-year-old so-called ‘main mover’ of DPM who was jailed for two years, the exhibition just highlights the mixed messages surrounding graffiti.
He said: “If you can make money from illegal graff or a gallery does it off your back, then it’s okay.
“It’s in advertising and fashion as well. There is graffiti on trainers, hoodies, hats, t-shirts, everything you can think of. People want to wear illegal graffiti that is on the trains and the street.
“How come you can wear it and buy it, use it in advertising, marketing, music and every album cover and as soon as you do it you’re f***ed, so where’s the message? If they don’t want people to be involved, don’t popularise it.”
Graffiti is so popular in fact that not only has it made its way onto the catwalk but it is now been propelled from the street into (or onto) galleries.
The Tate’s Street Art exhibition is the first major display of its kind and since its launch last month has been accompanied by street tours, workshops and even talks with professional street artists like Rough and Blek Le Rat.
One, on August 15, entitled Graffiti – Utopia or a bit boring? will see critics Ossian War and Ben Lewis debating whether graffiti is “glorified vandalism or a legitimate cultural movement”.
Curator of the Street Art exhibition, Cedar Lewinsohn said: “I hope that we are there to challenge what people think about street art.”
Despite the widening debate on the value of urban art, courts are still cracking down on the artists, branding them malicious vandals.
Just weeks before DPM was sentenced, Gary ‘Daze’ Shields was given leave to appeal after being sentenced to 28 months behind bars.
On his interim release, he told the Glasgow Evening Times: “I totally understand what I did was vandalism, but I like the artistic side of it.”
Lewinsohn said: “There may be some mixed messages in society. I think the main thing is that it’s a real culture difference. In some countries it is legal and street art is more accepted. Brazil for instance is more relaxed about it. But in parts of Australia, they are like the UK and people really hate graffiti and tags on vans and trains. But in Melbourne, van drivers compete with each other as to whose is more decorated.”
Lewinsohn’s book, Street Art – The Graffiti Revolution, that accompanies his exhibition, charts the history of urban art from New York subway graffiti in the 1980s to today’s mainstream artists like Banksy, whose work is now auctioned for thousands of pounds.
Lewisohn said: “Every artist in the Street Art exhibition has made that leap into galleries, but it’s not a big leap. Although their art is available to see in the street, they also do a lot of studio practise beforehand, that is one of the main differences between street art and graffiti. Most of the artists have a studio and have gone to art school and have had their work in an exhibition.”
DPM, it seems have already made that leap despite their conviction.
An exhibition is to be launched a week after their sentence on July 19 in Soho, New York hosted by artist Elura Emerald and Hip Hop promotional company End Of The Weak.
Called DPM – Exhibit A the exhibition in the loft space in 440 Broadway in Grand Street will display large photographs of their work plus copies of their charge sheets questioning whether the young men are criminals or, in fact, artists.
Emerald said: “The exhibition in NYC is to give the recognition to the artists that I believe they deserve and to accentuate the fact that they are not at all criminals, and do not at all deserve to be put in jail for their creative force.
“I want to give them a platform to exhibit their art on a “legal” basis, and to spread the message that artists who paint on the street are merely expressing themselves through an artistic channel, it is not hurting anyone.
“I do not believe the creators of art should be punished, but appreciated and celebrated.”
End of the Weak’s Padraic Mccroudi, who last summer hosted an event in association with the Tate Modern called the Art of Freestyle, said: “Jailing artists for criminal damage, although it may seem to be a deterrent, does in fact only serve to gain kudos and notoriety for the artist.
“This in turn means that the criminal justice system in this case is fundamentally flawed and counter productive.
“It’s important that the criminal justice system, the courts, the judges, the police and the greater community understand this and that if they ever really want address graffiti as an issue then we all need to explore avenues together, avenues other than jail time.”
Many local authorities are already exploring these avenues funding street art workshops to connect with young people.
In fact, Greenwich council and Tower Hamlets commissioned DPM’s Grudzinskas and Jack Binnie, who was handed a 12 month suspended sentence, to lead summer workshops as Street Art Tutors for young and vulnerable people.
According to the references each council sent to the court to support Binney and Grudzinskas, their work with young people was “positive” and “inspirational”.
A source at Greenwich council said: “They showed the young people who aren’t able to do reading or writing that they can use artistic ways to express themselves.
“Their skills are obviously needed, it doesn’t make sense to send him down, we should use it.”
Matthew Pease, 24, and Paul Stewart, 26, also of DPM who were sentenced to 18 months and 15 months respectively, took part in a five-day workshop in the Czech Republic to work with disadvantaged youths as part of an event organised by music and art organisation Community Music (CM).
Pease said: “For the first day we got them sketching to see what they could do and tried to teach them a few different things about how to go about building up a piece.
“Gradually, through the week, we were getting them painting. By the end of the week, every single person in the class had a quite sizeable piece and a finished product.”
One member of DPM in particular made the headlines when he was hired by the BBC to tag the set of the country’s best loved soap while he was on bail.
Gillman, who worked full-time at his family-run funeral service, was commissioned to tag Tanya Branning’s ‘Booty’ nail salon in EastEnders and other parts of Albert Square.
He said: “They knew I was a writer. I said to them, the tags I am putting up, are the tags I see in London so it’s realistic. And they said ‘great, realistic tags, just what we want.’
“And they said ‘maybe you could come up with three tags for EastEnders, you know, three writers that are just around the square, you could put up East 13 crew, one could be Rocky!’ They were getting really into it.”
But DPM have vowed never to pick up a spray can again since their conviction but their friendship will clearly remain.
“It was more about friendship than graffiti,” Gillman said. “We knew what we were doing was wrong but when you are painting a piece, all your worries just fall away.
“Trains were like a moving canvass, it goes underground it goes over bridges. And if you’re standing there amongst the crowd and you see everyone looking at it, it gives you a huge feeling of gratification.
“We tried to create something that was artistic, made people look, something that’s thought provoking, makes commuters look up from their paper.
“But I don’t think I could call myself an artist, I’m a vandal, I’ve admitted that.”
DPM’s “brains of the group”, Slav Zinoviev, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison had a different opinion.
The 25-year-old, who recently graduated with a Masters in Information Technology, said: “People are not really educated on the whole graffiti thing. But now that Banksy has come around, people see it as one of the purest art forms, which it essentially is. And so to that extent I would say that I was an artist.
“To train writers, tags are actually much more valuable to the graffiti community than a Banksy painting is.
“We were all brought together by some sort of passion and this is one of the things that has created stronger bonds between us, and perhaps given us richer memories than the average person possesses.”
Sentencing, Judge Christopher Hardy said he had to acknowledge that some of the graffiti written by DPM showed “considerable talent”.
He added: “It seems to be on the way to being recognised as a valued form of art.
“But in this case, it has been sprayed all over property without their permission, that’s simply vandalism.”
Gillman, 25, of St John’s Hill, Battersea was jailed for two years; Zinoviev, of the same address, Grudzinskas, 25, and Stewart of Manor Lane, Lewisham received 18 months in jail; Pease of Manor Lane, Lewisham was jailed for 15 months.
As they were led to the cells, members of a packed public gallery shouted, ‘We love you boys, stay strong’ and applauded them until they were out of sight.
Other members of DPM, Matthew Tanti, 23, of Holmsbury Court, Upper Tooting Road, SW11 and Jack Binnie, 26, of Adelaide Avenue, Ladywell, were each sentenced to 12 months suspended for 12 months.
Alex McClelland, 24, of Croxted Road, West Dulwich was sentenced to nine months suspended for 12 months.
Outside court, Ziggy’s father Professor Gedis Grudzinskas said: “Ziggy has been sent to prison for 18 months having pleaded guilty to a crime not involving violence, terrorism, knives or drugs but vandalising public property.
“British Transport Police declined to arrest him and others when they knew they were breaking the law, presumably to develop their case for this show trial costing the tax payer thousands and thousands of pounds unnecessarily.
“Now they have sent him to jail instead of getting him to do community service for example to clean and help restore the trains and stations.
“This is not justice is it?”

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The festival was revived in 1983 by the Mad Jacks Morris Dancers but has a history going back several hundred years.

The Jack In The Green is a result of a floral ‘arms race’ where various groups would compete with each other on May Day celebrations to make garlands that were bigger and more ornate until eventually they made ones that covered the whole body - Hence the leaf covered and flower crowned Jack In The Green.

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• Emptiness is sublime - There are no connections

On ebay they present a RARE opportunity to own 1 of 3 ROBERT RANKIN designed Brightonomicon posters (only 12 were ever printed!).

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But what makes this an even more exclusive opportunity is that each poster has been signed by members of the cast and crew of The Brightonomicon. The signatures you get are:

Robert Rankin
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Laurie Buckley (played the girl at the bar)
Elliott Stein (played the monk + co-wrote the script)
Tamsyn Challenger (played Janet Orion)
Neil Gardner (played Ahab the Space crab + co-wrote/produced/directed the series)
Graham Rogers (played the driver + was the announcer)
Jeremy Paul Carroll (wrote the wonderful music)
Danny Eastman (played Danbury Collins)
Ben Onwukwe (played Robert Johnson)

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Tha auction page is at RARE SIGNED Brightonomicon Posters (#7 of 12)

If you would like to learn more about the work of The Stroke Association please visit http://www.stroke.org.uk

For more about The Brightonomicon Audio Series please visit http://www.brightonomicon.com

For more about Robert Rankin why check out Sproutlore, the official fan club at http://www.sproutlore.com

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• Emptiness is sublime - There are no connections

New research conducted for Thread among 16 to 30-year-olds suggests that ethical fashion is no longer a fringe movement; almost one in three (31%) intends to buy more ethical fashion in the future. Young shoppers believe ethical fashion is a worthwhile cause, yet do not know where to turn for information on how to be sustainable and stylish.

The Thread research highlighted that young people are actively seeking information on ethical fashion and are keen to put pressure on fashion retailers to provide information on eco-credentials of the clothing they sell.

* Half (50%) want information on the working conditions of people manufacturing the items

* 43% would like to see organic labelling on clothes

* 41% are concerned about the use of pesticides and toxic chemicals which are currently not disclosed

* 36% want advice on how to dispose of used clothing and its packaging

* 31% would like “fashion miles” declared by retailers disclosing the distance and form of transport used to get the item to the shop floor

* 30% want information on the energy usage involved in production

Katherine Hamnett, designer and supporter of Thread, says: “Thread is great because ethical fashion promises to be the next big thing and not just a passing fad. Young people are really interested in these issues.”

Thread will cut to the heart of what “ethical fashion” means, covering a range of issues from the environmental footprint of clothing manufacture, to the impact of the fashion industry on human and animal rights and why the choices we make as clothes shoppers make a real difference.

First and foremost Thread (bbc.co.uk/thread) is dedicated to showcasing the latest in eco-fabulous style. The magazine shows you how to get the look you want in an eco-glam way through a unique mix of affordable fashion, exclusive celebrity videos and interviews, photo galleries and thought-provoking features.

It will also offer ideas and information on how to give your wardrobe an ethical makeover through a mix of shopping for new or vintage clothes, to swapping clothes with friends and customising existing clothes. Thread is proof that there are ethical options to suit your style, your budget and your views.

BBC Radio 1 DJ Nihal, a reporter for Thread magazine, said: “Organic cotton, fair trade, restyling, vintage wear … ethical fashion is this year’s carbon footprint in eco terms but it’s still a new concept that we’re all trying to get to grips with.

“The perception of ethical fashion as being ugly, expensive clothes for hippies is changing, it’s so much more than that – I can’t see myself in a hemp poncho any time soon! Ethical fashion is about affordable style, with substance.

“There are now loads of places, both online and on the high street, where you can find clothes that are produced in a way that looks after people and the environment as well as giving you the edge in the style stakes.

“Thread is the place to find them. It is a place where fashion conscious people can tap into the latest trends and get the low-down on how to adopt ethical fashion into their lives in a fun and stylish way. Go online and check it out.”

Thread magazine launches on 22 April 2008 in conjunction with Blood, Sweat And T-Shirts, a new four-part series on BBC Three in which six young fashion lovers will swap shopping for the factories and back streets of India to make clothes for the British High Street, offering a unique insight into how our clothes are made.

Over the next six months Thread will also be at the heart of further fashion events and programming across BBC television, radio and online.

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From that moment on they were friends and nothing was going to get in the way of that friendship. John being the slightly older one was in fact the emotionally weaker one though Ian never thought that. They bunked off school a lot, especially in 1955 when the tenth anniversary of the end of WWII was being celebrated. Hanging around bombsites and playing down by the docks amongst the remains of the war effort.

At the end of that school year they went too far and missed the last morning of school when the head mistress was giving her Foundation Day address, or rather one of the Old Boys was giving it, she was just sitting primly on the stage watching him do so with admiration since this particular old boy had been a sweet heart of hers until he’d gone off to North Africa to fight Rommel and come back with only one leg and a heavy dose of clap. When they finally get to school that afternoon the Head mistress gives them a real telling off and says that she is going to write to their parents about this.

Ian reacts by running away, he runs away down onto the Underground, a place the two boys use as their hideout. Down there he decides that he will remain there until he is old enough to join the army and then he will emerge and sign up. This is what he tells John when he comes looking for him. Ian’s love for the army has been instilled in him from his uncle, a man who never went to war himself since he had an inner ear problem that affected his balance and was partially deaf.

This didn’t stop him from making up stories to tell Ian about being in the trenches and going over the top ( something that they did in WWI not WWII but then the uncle had heard this from his own uncle as a child and persisted in thinking that that was the way that wars were still fought). John, being the weaker of the two, has no interest in fighting, he wants to gets out into the world, he too is waiting to grow up and leave home but for him he wants to be an accountant. This is what he has chosen after seeing his father working long hours in the factory and to John it is obvious that shifting large numbers from one column to the next is far more easier than shifting large crates of tool parts from one building to the next. When Ian finally emerges from the Underground he is given a good hiding from his dad and for the whole of the summer he thinks about nothing but getting out, growing older and leaving.

Throughput the summer the two boys use the underground as their base, having fights with other boys and talking about what they want to do. In this way we find out more about what makes them tick, what turns them on, what disgusts them.

As the years pass the tunnel that they used to hide away in becomes a second home to them. It is the place where Ian brings his first girlfriend for a heavy petting session and also where he brings his next girlfriend for his first sexual encounter. John starts to drift away from the tunnel as he gets older, partly because Ian seem to have made it his own but also because he has lost his father (the two are 16 and 17 at the time). Finally Ian invites John down there for the last time.

They are very different now, John has been working as a clerk at a local frim for four months and though he has been putting most of his money into the housekeeping to look after his mother he has airs and graces. He wears a new suit, made from pure wool. The revolution of the sixties is just getting under way but it is clear that John will probably miss most of it. All he can talk about is the money he is making and about how Mr. Fosdyke, his boss, is thinking of paying for his accountancy part I exams. He also sneers at the tunnel, it is a childish thing and should be consigned to the past as far as he is concerned. Ian however is bubbling with enthusiasm, he has asked John down there for one last time because he has just got his papers to join up in the army and he will be gone for maybe three years maybe longer.

The army seems to be a great choice for Ian at that time, Suez has passed, the Yanks are involved in Vietnam but not the Brits, Northern Ireland wont be an issue for another nine years and the Falklands are just a dot on a map. There is a Golden age dawning in the Britain, the Buy British campaign is under full swing, the Beatles have just released their first album and taken the country by storm and Dr. No has just come out to glamourise the work of the British Government. OK there have been riots in Notting Hill over the large numbers of Carribean immigrants, Enoch Powell’s been on the rampage and they’re burning Black churches in the deep south of America, sometimes with the congregation still inside. But then you never hear about this sort of stuff in programmes like Heartbeat (excuse the blasphemy) and that is for a good reason, we see these things when we look back through the telescope of hindsight, everything becomes compressed, at the time though…

Ian is overjoyed. He has a radio playing hit tunes, he’d installed that years earlier, and he has bottles of beer. Sneakily bought from an off licence in South London. He wants to celebrate and John, his oldest friend John, is the person he wants to celebrate with. They drink a toast to the future, John tries some of the strange tobacco that Ian’s been going on about for ages and they have a mellow evening deep in the bowels of the earth. They don’t see each other again for fifteen years.

Close up on the calendar, the pages rip off and flow towards the screen as the years pass. The clock whizzes round, threatening to take off as the hour hand becomes a blur, overhead the sun rises and sets in the blink of an eye. Kennedy is shot, John Glenn walks in space, Martin Luther King is shot, Neil Armstrong says his immortal words, Northern Ireland, Bloody Sunday, Yom Kippur, The Beatles split up, there is an oil crisis, then the Queens Silver Jubilee.

Ian comes out of the army in 1977.

Whilst in there he has changed in some ways, he doesn’t worry about death. He was involved in the Tet Offensive (though no one is supposed to know about that), he was one of the first troops sent into Northern Ireland by a powerless British Government trying in vain to prevent what subsequently happened. In Israel he was seconded to the Mossad’s own crack commando troops to help in logistical planning. And yet a look at his career record doesn’t show any of this. He seems to have served three five year terms with no great impact and finally he is discharged. He has a military cross and a half pension from the government to show for the blood he has spilled for the flag and the queen.

He is a changed man in many respects, he has had fellow soldiers bleed all over him in a ditch in Vietnam, in Northern Ireland he narrowly escaped being kneecapped by an IRA judicial squad because he popped out to go to the loo, his comrades didn’t though, in the desert he had had to throw himself from a burning tank, his flesh seared up his right arm, in this state he hurriedly hid himself in the sand whilst Lebanese soldiers shot the other tank crew members first in their genitals as a symbol that the Jews shouldn’t procreate then in the back of the head at point blank range. He wasn’t found otherwise he would have shared the same fate. He eventually got himself back to his base camp and spent three months recuperating.

Ian has seen death many times and to him it holds no greater fears than those he has seen before.

During this time John has also been busy, he has risen, more through natural wastage than any talent, to the position of partner in the firm of Fosdyke Wilkinson and Blane. At the top of the only tree he will ever climb John has settled now into the quiet sedentary life. He has a wife and two children, one boy and one girl. He hopes that he doesn’t treat them the way his father did him and then feels guilty at that thought. His mother passed away less than five years after his father and he and his family now live in the house he inherited.

One night he hears a knock on the door, his wife answers and he hears her talking to someone in the hall way. Then the living room door opens and in walks Ian. After fifteen years they have both done so much but they both have so little that they can sa to each other but they still have that friendship that tied them together all those years ago. Ian stays at John’s place for three months, his wife likes him, the children take to him and gradually they renew their friendship. Ian finally gets a job as a security consultant with a publishing company but then discovers his own ability to work with words.

Up to now he has only ever worked with men, moulding them to do what is required, using his own skills and qualities to get them to do the seemingly impossible. Now he sees that he can do the same with words. Within a year he is working as a copywriter in an ad company coming up with corporate straplines like ‘Partners in Time’ for a city bank, ‘Cruising for Compliments’ for a car company (These are rather crap, not a patch on ‘Watch out there’s a Humphrey about’ or ‘Let the train take the strain’ but something like these will come to me later).

Very soon Ian has set up his own Ad company and is being feted by customers the world over, he is the Norman Foster of Corporate Advertising at a time when the very concept of Corporate Advertising is still in it’s infancy. Thus he is in at the start and so very successful. His company is offered the initial utilities privatisations but he vetoes this as he doesn’t believe in the fragmentation of ‘His England’. This does not affect his company’s fortunes though, they go from strength to strength. He finds he has more time to live a little and so goes for the dangerous sport, bungee jumping from balloons, the Cresta run, the top ten peaks in the Himalayas, and of course the Mig 19 flight.

He meets Marriane at a big bash his company has organised for the launch of a new car and they hit it off immediately and within six months she has moved in with him. He refuses to marry her but assures her that as long as they are together he will make sure that she is well looked after in the event of his demise.

John has now become the chief partner of the firm and the firm is doing well mainly because it is getting all the business from Ian’s company.

Unfortunately John has started to cream off a little from the accounts and hiding the losses through creative methods, private school fees, his wife’s clothing bills, a few unfortunate investments have left him no other options.

Ian buys a set of lead soldiers at auction. They have a mysterious history, seemingly being cursed, the last owner of them disappeared and was never seen again and the pieces were donated to a small museum which is forced to sell them. Ian snaps them up, unheeding of the supposed curse on them.

As he looks at them, with John present ( complaining that he shouldn’t be frittering money on such trifles) he accidentally stabs himself with the bayonet of one of the soldiers. Over the next few days Ian becomes morose, he argues with Marriane and disappears off for long periods without telling the office where he is. He has been putting the company records onto a computer and has found some anomalies which he can’t explain but hopes John will be able to. But before he can tackle that he finds that his finger has developed a greenish hue where he pricked himself.

He thinks nothing of this until the next day he wakes to find that it has spread to other fingers and that his hand is now stiffening up. The curse is manifesting itself. He tries to find out about the previous owner but can find very little. Eventually he goes to the museum and there gets a chance to see some of the diaries of the benefactor. We don’t know if he finds anything about the curse or not but that night he is in his office writing his will and getting it witnessed and confirmed. He makes a call to Marriane that he might not be back that night and then turns out the lights in the office and leaves.

John looks for him, he has heard that Ian is acting a little strangely and fears that he may have found out about the money that is missing. John had always intended to return the money but had not been able to and still can’t. But he has a plan that would exonerate him of all guilt, unfortunately it will drop his old friend Ian right in it but it is only way.

All he needs is Ian’s signature on a vital document and then he can rest easy. He searches for him all through London but can’t find him. Eventually he goes to that one place they both shared, the one place they both felt was safe. The Underground.

Here he finally comes upon a disheveled figure huddled up in a blanket surrounded by vomit in a decaying tunnel damp with moisture and smelling of rust and rotten vegetables. He is surrounded by a time capsule of items, a rotten radio, old posters and pamphlets, cans and bottles and candle stumps, as well as the carved inscription ‘IT and JW 1956′ and below that ‘AND 1962′.

They talk about the things that I have mentioned. John needs the signature but Ian has already worked out that John has been stealing money and that the signiature is just to save John’s neck. Additionally we now find out that the curse is one which falls only on the owner of the soldiers and it will turn them into lead soldiers themselves (Ian demonstrates this by showing his body under the blanket, only his head and neck are still made of flesh the rest is pliable grey metal shaped like a soldiers uniform with hints of colour.

Ian then tells John that he has passed the curse on to him by having the soldier set left to John in Ian’s will. As Ian finally expires John hears the scraping of what could be a mouse but could also be a small lead soldier making it’s way towrds him through the tunnels, a shadow looms round the corner, a scream and then dark silence….

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• Emptiness is sublime - There are no connections

Sarah guest stars as Miss Foster, an enigmatic and powerful businesswoman, in episode one of series four of the BAFTA Award-winning drama.

The new series begins on Saturday 5 April 2008 at 6.20pm on BBC One.

The first episode of the eagerly awaited new series will witness Donna (Catherine Tate) determined to find The Doctor again – even if it means braving the villainous Miss Foster and her hordes of sinister Adipose.

But when the alien threat escalates out of control, can Donna find her Time Lord, before the march of the Adipose begins?
Sarah Lancashire says: “I’m absolutely thrilled to be in Doctor Who. It’s a brilliant episode and I’m looking forward to taking the Time Lord on.”

Award-winning actress Catherine Tate is reprising her role as Donna, the runaway bride, and will star as The Doctor’s companion throughout the new series alongside David Tennant as The Doctor.

The couple are destined to experience a series of wonderful adventures throughout the series including meeting one of Doctor Who’s most popular aliens, The Ood, in a brand new episode, Planet Of The Ood.

Donna and The Doctor will also be travelling through time for an encounter with the legendary murder mystery novelist, Agatha Christie, and taking a trip to Pompeii.

Further guest stars already confirmed to appear in the new series include Felicity Kendal, Lesley Sharp, Georgia Moffett, Lindsey Coulson, Fenella Woolgar, Tim McInnerny, Peter Capaldi, Phil Davis and Tracey Childs.

Freema Agyeman, who played Martha Jones, The Doctor’s companion throughout the critically acclaimed third series, will return to the show to join The Doctor and Donna mid-series.

The producer is Phil Collinson; Executive producers are Head of Drama, BBC Wales, Julie Gardner, and Russell T Davies.

Doctor Who is filmed in Cardiff.

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• August 10, 2007 — Doctor Who: Filming begins on series 4
• June 9, 2008 — Journalists’ deaths - BBC

Film-maker and writer Terry Jones is the latest star to feature in an ambitious marketing trail for BBC iPlayer.

The 90-second trail shows Terry following a unique colony of Adelie Penguins as they fly thousands of miles across the frozen wasteland of Antarctica to the Amazon Rainforest.

It was shown on air on April Fools’ Day in tandem with a viral campaign which was launched online.

David Bainbridge, BBC Head of Marketing Communications & Audiences for Future Media & Technology, said: “The purpose of the April Fool campaign is to continue to raise awareness of BBC iPlayer, and bring to life the benefits of the service in a unique way.

“It is also hoped that this creative device will not only celebrate what BBC iPlayer can deliver, but will also say something quite profound about the BBC’s overall appetite for creative risk-taking and innovation.

“The incredibly strong performance of iPlayer since launch is testament to the value of the editorial, technical development and marketing teams in a media organisation uniting behind a single vision and driving it through every aspect of the product experience.”

To complement the on-air activity and to reach the widest audience possible, a viral campaign online was also put in place by digital agency GT. This included seeding on sites such as boreme.com and Break.com.

The trail could also be viewed on the BBC’s Bebo, YouTube and Blinkx channels.

“Penguins” was the brainchild of advertising agency RKCRY&R. Mark Roalfe was the Executive Creative Director, Paul Silburn, Creative Director, and the Director was Vince Squibb at Gorgeous. Sarah Caddy at Red Bee Media was Producer.

Passion Pictures were responsible for the animation.

Director Darren Walsh, VFX supervisor Neil Riley and a team of animators and compositors studied BBC archive footage and numerous films of birds with similar shapes, in particular guillemots, taking off and flying, to ensure they could reproduce the movement of the penguins as realistically as possible.

The Mill were responsible for post-production, the edit was done at The Quarry and sound at Wave. Anne Dudley composed the music.

The trail was placed on the BBC iPlayer website homepage, which also featured – from midday – a three-minute film showing how it had been made, and setting it in the context of the BBC’s long tradition of April Fools.

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Piers was the producer of the multi-award winning Housewife, 49 with Victoria Wood and has just finished work on Ballet Shoes, Heidi Thomas’ adaptation of Noel Streatfeild’s classic novel to be shown on Boxing Day on BBC One.

He left his role as Head of Development at Granada Drama earlier in the year to help set up independent drama producer Mammoth Screen.

“I’m incredibly excited to be joining BBC Wales,” said Piers.

“The success of the drama team there has been extraordinary and I look forward to taking the team to even greater heights. Working with Julie Gardner on Doctor Who over the next year will provide an invaluable insight into the secrets and success of the series. I couldn’t have a more inspiring leader.”

Julie Gardner will continue as Executive Producer of the fourth Doctor Who series and the Doctor Who specials to be broadcast during 2009.

She will continue to executive produce Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures for BBC Wales.

In addition, Julie continues work on an impressive slate of independent dramas and will run the strategy and development of BBC Wales Drama with her handover to Piers.

BBC Wales Controller Menna Richards said: “I’m delighted Piers is joining the BBC Wales team, and I’m confident he can build on Julie’s huge successes. Julie has helped transform drama production – not only at BBC Wales but across the BBC.

“She is an extraordinarily creative and dynamic leader. I am full of gratitude and admiration for her achievements at BBC Wales which will of course continue over the coming months. We owe her a huge debt.”

In addition to her work with BBC Wales, Julie will continue to take the responsibility for the development and commissioning of new Saturday evening drama for BBC One, as well as working with Controller of BBC Fiction, Jane Tranter, on a wide and diverse range of special projects.

Jane Tranter comments: “Julie Gardner is one of the most impressive television executives in the UK.

“Her success over the past four years in BBC Wales drama has been unparalleled; her work on Doctor Who has earned her a place in TV history; and I’m delighted that she is committed to working across such a broad range of drama at the BBC for the next few years.

“She will provide a guiding light for Piers for the next 12 months and this creative collaboration will be an exciting time for BBC Wales drama.”

Julie Gardner comments: “I know that when I hand over my sonic screwdriver to Piers for season five of Doctor Who, it’ll be to someone who loves and understands the show.

“Doctor Who is the most precious TV drama in the galaxy and I’m leaving it in safe and brilliant hands.

“I’ve been on the trip of a lifetime in the last five years with the finest writers, actors and crew, and I’ve got another 18 months of time travel to enjoy.

“Just wait until you see what’s coming up on Christmas day and series four!”

Doctor Who – Voyage Of The Damned will transmit on Christmas Day on BBC One. Series four of Doctor Who will transmit in spring 2008.

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Computer graphics researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed systems for editing or altering photographs using segments of the millions of images available on the Web.

Whether adding people or objects to a photo, or filling holes in an edited photo, the systems automatically find images that match the context of the original photo so they blend realistically. Unlike traditional photo editing, these results can be achieved rapidly by users with minimal skills.

“We are able to leverage the huge amounts of visual information available on the Internet to find images that make the best fit,” said Alexei A. Efros, assistant professor of computer science and robotics. “It’s not applicable for all photo editing, such as when an image of a specific object or person is added to a photo. But it’s good enough in many cases,” he added. “Why Photoshop if you can ‘photoswap’ instead?”

Efros and his colleagues will present papers on two related systems at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH) annual conference Aug. 5–9 in San Diego.

One system, called Photo Clip Art (http://graphics.cs.cmu.edu/projects/photoclipart/), was developed with graduate students Jean-François Lalonde and Derek Hoiem, and with Carsten Rother, John Winn and Antonio Criminisi of Microsoft Research Cambridge. It uses thousands of labeled images from a Web site called LabelMe as clip art that can be added to photos. A photo showing a vacant street, for instance, might be populated with images of people, vehicles and even parking meters derived from the LabelMe database (http://labelme.csail.mit.edu/).

To make the resulting image appear as realistic as possible, the system analyzes the original photo to estimate the camera angle and lighting conditions, and then looks in the clip art library for an object — a car, for instance — that matches those criteria. The user need only identify the horizon in the original photo to orient the system. Using previously developed Carnegie Mellon technology for analyzing the geometric context of a photo, the system can then place the object within the scene, adjusting its size as necessary to put it in proportion to other objects of equal distance from the camera.

“Matching an object with the original photo and placing that object within the 3-D landscape of the photo is a complex problem,” said Lalonde, who led development of the system. “But with our approach, and a lot of clip art data, we can hide the complexity from the user and make the process simple and intuitive.”

The other system, called Scene Completion (http://graphics.cs.cmu.edu/projects/scene-completion/), was developed by graduate student James Hays, another member of Efros’ research team. It draws upon millions of photos from the Flickr Web site to fill in holes in photos. Some of the holes might be from damage to a physical photograph, but more often they are created when an editor cuts out part of an image to eliminate an unsightly truck from a picturesque street scene, or removing a passerby from a group shot of friends. Photo editors often try to fill in those holes with sections derived elsewhere in the same image, but Efros said that a better match can often be found in a different photo.

The system looks for image segments that match the colors and textures that surround the hole on the original photo. It also looks for image segments that make sense contextually — in other words, it wouldn’t put an elephant in a suburban backyard or a boat in a desert.

In the case of well-photographed cities or popular tourist attractions, Efros said, the system might get lucky and find a photo of the same scene on the Web. In other cases, it might offer a number of possible images that could fill in the hole. A retaining wall edited out of one photo, for instance, might be replaced by the image of a building, a grassy slope or a rock outcropping. The system typically gives the user 20 different choices for filling in the hole.

The success of this approach depends on the number of photos available to the system, Hays said. “We saw a dramatic improvement when we moved from a database of 10,000 images to two million images,” he noted. “And that is just a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions of images already available on sites like Picasa and Flickr. We have tons of photos from which to choose.”

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