So, it is nearly autumn now, and the rain season has begun in Edinburgh. After my parents tidied up the allotment with me, it is now time to bring in the final harvest and prepare the plot for winter. As a nice finish to my first gardening year, I went to the 54th Annual Flower and Vegetable Show in Edinburgh. Our Ferry Road Site even won a first price – mainly because we were the only ones entering in that category of cross allotment site vegetables. It was quite a nice, amusing community event and good fun. For the kids, there were categories like vegetable monster, miniture gardens in seed trays, nicest decorated biscuit and statues out of receycled material.

“My country, my country” is a documentary film about the election process in Iraq. It was shown at the Edinburgh International Film Festival middle of August. It is a very good film. Partly because the canditate for the election, Dr.Riyadh, doesn’t get elected himself as his party withdraws from the election process. Also, the film maker ****Laura Poitras cuts the narrative down to let the people in the film and the events speak for itself. She spend 8 months alone in Iraq and documents the events and proceedings around the Election Day in Iraq in January 2005. The film starts in July 2004, 6 months before elections, with stunning pictures out of a low flying helicopter to dramatic music by Kadlum Al Sahir.

More and more alternative festival options are surrounding the Fringe and the Edinburgh International Festival: The People’s Festival, the Free Fringe, the Islam Festival, the Festival for Peace and Spirituality, The Internet Festival, The Politics Festival, the Annuale. But these festivals have different reasons for their existence: some were born out of criticism of the existing Fringe and the Festival, like the People’s Festival –_ by the people for the people_ or the Free Fringe, describing the Fringe as an open arts festival that anyone can take part in ‘as long as they can afford’, and The entire Fringe is financed by the personal losses made by artists.

On 16th of September, the use of free libre open software will be marked in over 150 countries, celebrating it as far away as Nepal, India and Africa. International Software Freedom Day was born in January 2004, when the initiator Matt Oquist drove past a retail store with piles of AOL CDs lying around and considered that a CD filled with free software such as Open Office, Firefox, and the GIMP would be of vastly greater value to the public. Matt concluded that “Free Software had improved to the point of being suitable for public use?”, and that “public ignorance would be one of the primary roadblocks to public acceptance?

5 Days –_“The Prisoners Dilemma”? _ is a documentary film by Yoav Shamir which chronicles the events during the 5 days withdrawal and forceful occupation of Israeli settlers from Gaza in August 2005. It is introduced with a strong narrative of the film-maker. The film shows the unique psychological and physical conflict of the Israeli Defense Force set against their own, deeply religious and conservative people; 40 000 soldiers evacuating 8000 settlers. “There is no glory here. There are no winners in this battle. There is no victory!”? says General Commander Dan Harel of the Southern Israeli Forces. The lack of policemen and the soft approach of the soldiers towards the Jewish settlers is startling compared with the usual repression of protesters.