londoninflames

stones, sticks and bricks

2008-04-26T16:07:00.002+01:00

stones, sticks and bricks, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Another example of some wonderful propaganda from the Evading Standards. Scum, subhuman scum!

More shame

2008-02-13T19:12:00.000Z

The Divinyls - I Touch Myself

I know it's awful, I know... but it oozes the sort of obvious desperate sexuality that gets you when you're a teenage boy and after that, well, you kind of forgive...

C'mon, when you're 12 or 13 that's enough to make any song great :(

Moving on... Art Garfunkel - Bright Eyes
Goddam this is a great record, sappy, ridiculous, overblown, pompous to the point of cringeworthyness. How anyone could dislike it is beyond me.

What number are we up to now? Fuck knows, uh Aerosmith - Love In An Elevator
Why I can't bring myself to send this on its why I don't know. Many a time has it been slipped into a "to go" pile before being slipped back again. All I can say is that I'm sorry.

Another Music Post

2008-02-11T20:51:00.000Z

7. Barry Manilow - Bermuda Triangle.

Yeah yeah, Barry Manilow is shit. This tune involves the unironic use of a glockenspiel. On the front cover he looks like someone has used photoshop to make him look like a mutant and he's dressed like a pimp. All of those reasons are why this is very good. Included limited edition free poster too, bargain. Check out these lyrics...

Bermuda Triangle
Makes my woman disappear
Bermuda Triangle
Don't go too near
Looking At it from my angle
Do you see why I'm so sad
Bermuda Triangle
Very bad!

6.

This is actually going to get really tricky... what next, so much to choose from...

Transvision Vamp - Baby I Don't Care

Once upon a time, before the days of the internet, this sort of scenario used to happen now and again. You'd see a record in a charity shop and suddenly remember the excitement of the band from when you saw them on Top Of The Pops. Then you have a little snigger because you used to fancy the singer but actually she looks awful. So you buy it and take it home. You listen to it with this look on your face. You really cannot believe what it sounds like, it was rawk, it was sex, it was excitement. Then you play it to all your friends who all remembered it as being great. You all cackle like idiots. Then you pack it in your record bag in the hope that one day you can have that effect on an entire roomful of people. You never play it.

This is a music post

2008-02-10T20:25:00.000Z

Some of my favourite blogs have been falling victim to the latest meme challenge, and I want to play. So without further ado, here is a list of the 10 Records That I Like That I'm Most Ashamed Of. Please note, I'm only including music I've actually paid for!

10. Days Of The New - Touch Peel & Stand.
The grunge cash wagon is joined by tossers in designer facial hair strumming acoustic guitars in a way clearly designed to be reminiscent of Alice In Chains. It's toss, and the band disappear for ever. Trouble is I buy it. And it has this desperate charm to it, this sheer try-so-hard lack of skill, finesse, art, talent etc etc. Everyone else loathes it.

9. Marilyn Manson - Personal Jesus.
The absolute low point of Manson's career, unimaginative from start to finish. In my defence, I hadn't heard it when I bought it. The prosecution will note I still own it. Protip: Marilyn Manson is a fucking god. This record is fucking fail.

8. Ivor Biggun & The Red Nosed Burglars - The Winker's Song (Misprint)
No excuses, no justification, simply a complete sense of humour bypass. I convinced myself that it would be funny in a cringe inducing way to play this in fashionable Old Street venues. Really, it absolutely wasn't.

What a fucking cunt.

more shame tomorrow

Park Strife

2008-01-31T21:59:00.001Z

Park Strife, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Voices from the demonstration. Bad anarchists, no cookie. Jesus christ, this country is pathetic innit.

..Sent Cops Home

2008-01-27T23:06:00.001Z

activism etc6 042, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

If only they'd sent more cops home innit. Perhaps we'd have got something done that day!

I wish i hadn't...

2008-01-26T15:31:00.001Z

I wish i hadn't..., originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Heh, bad class war, bad SWP. Of course, CW and the SWP weren't actually heavily involved, CW never represented more than a couple of hundred and at this stage probably not three figures. The SWP never start it.It was people. Lots of angry people. Not evil terrorist organisations but unaligned people who showed up to have their say.

finished later...

Tonight: Charge Of the Blue Brigade

2008-01-18T19:09:00.001Z

Tonight: Charge Of the Blue Brigade, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

This one is great - finally a definitive source and date. So this would have been one of the Criminal Just Bill demos. I wasn't on this one I don't think so I'll let you enjoy the unbiased commentary.

what kind of justice is this?

2008-01-17T04:07:00.001Z

activism etc6 045, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Another article on the Criminal Justice Bill.

In the last couple of years I've heard a lot of complaints from liberals (and indeed rightists) often using the expression "sleepwalking into 1984" or similar. The claim that things like the smoking ban are "the thin end of the wedge". I have no sympathy for anyone who didn;t start protesting in 1993 if they were old enough. This is where the government made the first moves towards a nanny state, THIS WAS THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE. Trouble is, no-one cares. It's your own fault, don't come running to me.

M11 link protest confined to tower

2008-01-14T17:13:00.001Z

activism etc6 047, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

I think this was from the Indie. The chap in the tower survived on his own for at least 24 hours. No food or water. Every time he fell asleep they'd come for him and the crowds below would shout and scream until he woke up and scrambled to another corner of the tower. I think it was Thursday he finally came down, having been up there since Monday.

M11 campaigners in last refuge

2007-11-19T19:33:00.001Z

M11 campaigners in last refuge, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Another POV, this one I think is from The Times. Note that their story on the netting coming down is different to the one I remember - in this case the netting was cut by bailiffs. Either is fucking awful, but I wonder which version is true. To the best of my knowledge only one journo stayed with the protesters, so we both would have gotten our versions from the same source!

Bailiffs move in on M11 protest

2007-11-17T16:49:00.001Z

Bailiffs move in on M11 protest, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

This is a lovely piece from one of the local papers in Leytonstone - a much more neutral article in many ways, giving voices to some protesters without any condemnation.

Also good for the earliest reference to baby eating anarchists that I've yet found.

Another set of scenes

2007-11-14T11:41:00.001Z

Another set of scenes, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Apologies for the length of time between posts, I've been a bit depressed recently. Anyhoo, this is the final page of the Indie photo spread of the eviction day. The relevant pic here I think is the local First Aid volunteer being dragged away. It's never nice to see elderly people manhandled, let alone neutral ones who aren't asking very much at all except to be allowed to remain in the area to provide first aid.

More scenes from the papers - No M11

2007-10-18T19:43:00.001+01:00

More scenes from the papers - No M11, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Here you can see a poor photo of one of the most useful barricades - ropes stretched across the street from treetop to rooftop. Very hard to evict people from, and you can't cut the tree down or demolish the house until the occupants have been removed. Sadly the rules aren't always kept to. During the eviction a JCB was used to pull down one net resulting in the occupant falling to the ground from rooftop height and landing beneath the digger blade. Fortunately they only broke an arm, IIRC, but of course not health and safety or criminal charges were brought against the JCB driver who had deliberately set out to injure them.

The Battle for Claremont Road

2007-10-14T21:24:00.001+01:00

The Battle for Claremont Road, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

An eerie picture of a cop on the roofs. It took four days to shift the M11 Protesters from the roofs and towers.

...ors take to their bunkers

2007-10-01T00:14:00.001+01:00

ors take to their bunkers, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Once on the street the police were fairly quick about removing those of us who hadn't made it into the houses (or in our case, hadn't tried. Wish I had now, I really do). There were some surprises in store. Whilst most people who sat down were fairly easily moved, though one woman, an elderly local woman who had showed up to act as a first aid volunteer for the protesters was dragged away by two cops, weeping. Ugly shit, though at that time I'd already watched one of our brave boys in blue shove an elderly woman to the ground in the name of protecting democracy from those who wish to have a part of it. That shit stays with you.

We were pushed back slowly, there was no violent resistance, just the usual catcalls and jeers, and a few protesters who sat down or required being dragged away. A few surprised the police, who upon attempting to move protesters apparently lounging on mattresses turned out to be locked into pipes embedded in concrete. Specialist machinery would be required to shift them. Eventually the street was cleared, and the long process of clearing the houses could begin. This would take the best part of a week.

M11 road demonstrators take to...

2007-09-28T02:19:00.001+01:00

M11 road demonstrators take to..., originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Monday 28th November 1994. I'm in the first year of VI form. For some reason, probably related to lack of money, I've wandered home at lunchtime or during a morning free period, and discover on the news that protesters are massing at Claremont Road for the eviction. [It is worth pointing out here that a wise person might ask how come the protesters knew there was going to be an eviction - wouldn't it not be better for the eviction to be a surprise? The answer lies in police overtime payments, which are pretty generous, leading to tip offs - after all a well defended eviction means lots of overtime.] So i rinsed my mum for information as to why I didn't know about this beforehand and gained the admission I had expected. Yes, there had been a phone call last night but she had neglected to inform me. So what did I do. Well, here I made one of my more regular errors of judgement and went back to school to rustle up some numbers. After all, a lot of my fellow students had attended occupations and protests there in the past. But in the end, the sum total of people willing to join me was one. We headed for Leyton, disembarked, and along with a few hundred others, milled around.

It was an hour or two before the police and security really showed up. The first you heard was the howls and hoots from the rooftops as the protesters up there observed the dozens of police vans blocking off Grove Green Road. People on the streets were now scurrying up ladders into the upper windows or roofs of the houses, as the doors have long since been barricaded - generally hammered shut, then wooden or corrugated iron sheets nailed against the frame, then massive amounts of rubble and concrete behind them. Inside the houses a warren of lock-ons, security gates, barricades, false corridors, obstacles designed to slow the eviction. The first thing the cops have to do is clear the open end of Claremont Road, which they do with remarkable speed, removing the piles of rubble that block the street. Now people are in nets spread between trees and rooftops, like giant hammocks. Some are carabinad to aerial walkways. Hard to shift safely, yet possessed of an ease of movement....

http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/20070810_index.html

Background to the Bill

2007-09-23T19:48:00.001+01:00

Background to the Bill, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

It wasn't meant to be this way, apparently. Well, I guess it depends on what way it was meant to be. A thoroughly nasty bit of legislation.

NO POLICE STATE

2007-09-20T21:13:00.001+01:00

NO POLICE STATE, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

oh the irony.

we are, of course, not living in a police state yet. but it's on its way.

criminal justice bill, page two

2007-09-19T21:27:00.001+01:00

criminal justice bill, page two, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Another page from the same source., complete with ranks of riot police. It was against the CJB that I attended my first protest march. On my own, because no-one I knew cared about politics (or if they did, they didn't care about my idea of politics). It think it must have been 1993. I don't really remember much of it - this wasn't the protest that ended in mass violence, this was one that ended in dull speeches from newspaper-salesmen. But as we walked up Whitehall there was a bit of a crush, and some noise. I joined the throng, and watched as a couple of black-clad crusty types attempted to scale the gates of Downing Street (incidentally, until Thatcher was in power Downing Street was ungated. Until Churchill's time the phone number was listed in the phone book). The crowd were watching, mostly applauding though of course there were a fair few jeers. Then the crowd shifted and I went down as some old girl with a bike was pushed or fell on top of me. Her bike pedal ripped my trouser leg, but of more concern to me was the fact that as I pushed myself up I saw, rather than heard, the police horses. The hooves were a couple of metres away from my head. The charge had dispersed the crowd alright, and I don't think there were any injuries. But I never heard a warning if any was given. At the time i remember being somewhat shocked - like even though I was on the demo i was clearly participating in a democratic peaceful action, and I was merely observing the gate-climbing. Why should my health have been put on the line then? Of course, now I know better.

The Criminal Justice Bill...

2007-09-18T20:05:00.001+01:00

The Criminal Justice Bill..., originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Where's this from I wonder? Never mind, the underground press was full of this sort of stuff in 93 and 94, desperately trying to point out to as many people as possible what the CJA actually meant. In many ways it was the precursor of the erosion of civil rights that has gone on since then. In these less innocent days it seems bizarre to have the freedoms that we had before the CJB, and whenever I hear anyone carping about the smoking ban and the nanny state and the thin edge of the wedge whatnot, I find myself wondering where they were fifteen years ago when this all began. The thin edge of the wedge came when this bill was proposed (although some would say it began when Thatcher smashed the Unions), smoking is only somewhere in the middle. After all, you can't legitimately protest against the smoking ban any more innit!

Stonehenge 2000

2007-09-16T14:50:00.001+01:00

Stonehenge 2000, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Advert for Stonehenge solstice party 2000. Even though in 2000 you were still banned from the stones there was still an annual party there. In 1995 this fucked things up for the M11 protesters as a whole load of them went down to Stonehenge, leaving very few people guarding one of the camps, which was promptly taken by security (though if I recall correctly, one bloke managed to hold them off from his tree house for many hours single-handedly). Another case of hippy activism failing the non-hippy activists sadly - there were quite a few debates on this sort of thing.

Squall... ewoks?

2007-09-12T22:34:00.001+01:00

Squall... ewoks?, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

While unable to fit the whole of this magazine on the scanner, i think this covers everything. Crusties wrapped up like ewoks? check. The Secret Service? Check. Raving in war-torm climes? Check. Asylum, poverty, pirates? Everything changes, everything stays the same!

Festival Eye Summer 1996

2007-09-09T18:04:00.001+01:00

Festival Eye Summer 1996, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Festival Eye has been going for over 20 years now. http://www.festivaleye.com/ In the earlier days it was a bit more political, as we can see here!

Claremont Road, No M11 Campaign

2007-09-07T17:56:00.001+01:00

Claremont Road, No M11 Campaign, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Another one of those pics that isn't one of mine and that I can't remember where I got it from. An aerial view looking west down Claremont Road. I can remember fascinated by the squatter communities in the area for years. As the Central Line Train into London rose out of the tunnels at Leytonstone and shook their way towards Leyton you'd see the houses with the odd paintwork, the famous two houses that had 'why bother?' and 'why not?' painted on the side. Then as the protest took off, more and more garishly painted properties, more banners, the beginning of that wonderful tower. By that time I had discovered my own politics (or the beginnings thereof), and can still remember my first visit there, all alone, in the summer of 1994. A geeky shy 15 year old used to heirarchical structures and waiting to be told what to do. Instead I was invited to wander around and see if anyone needed any help, had my phone number taken to put on the phone tree, and told not to try and do anything on my own, but some of the crane sitters might fancy some relief. Off I wandered, in search of someone to help. I found building site and fence sitters, but also security guards in abundance. When I finally discovered a site I could reach, the crusties happily whiling the hours away up a crane were adamant that they didn't need any help. Satisfied the world was safe in my absense, I went home.

The Wanstead Chestnut Tree

2007-09-03T18:26:00.001+01:00

The Wanstead Chestnut Tree, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Firstly, this isn't my picture. I copied it from someone on the internets and forget where from. But it's a great picture and represents my earliest experience of activist politics. I grew up a couple of miles down the road and found myself captivated by what was going on here. So I asked questions, and the answers I got made me agree with the protesters. Some facts about the Chestnut Tree - it was legally recognised as a dwelling based on the fact that the local postman delivered letters there. It was subject to firebomb attacks by local nazis. The remains of it still lie on George Green in Wanstead, a sick memorial to a tree that had bee the focal point of a pretty suburban green. I wasn't there at the time it was evicted, it was before I had joined up, though I occupied the post-Chestnut Tree site plenty of times in the next couple of years. If you were there drop me an email with your memories.

What's next? Well, this is from London Student magazine. It is, as you can see, a minor analysis of the Criminal Justice Bill 1994 - a bill that basically outlawed a fuck of a lot of things that we took for granted back then - and most famously (though perhaps not most importantly) targeted repetitive beats - making the very playing of most music (though they aimed at techno) in public a potential criminal offence. Wikipedia covers it well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Justice_and_Public_Order_Act_1994, and my adotted online hometown www.urban75.com was set up partially as a response to the use of legislation to target gatherings of football fans.

I apologise for the missing words in this scan (and others to come) but this was all scanned very quickly to facilitate my return of the docs before the lovely boohoo moved.

Newbury flyer

2007-08-30T20:55:00.001+01:00

Where were you at the Third Battle? front, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

I like this one. A combination of environmental pleading and ego-massage. My experience at Newbury was very limited. I was there a week, in the freezing cold, totally unprepared for just how hard it was going to be, how exhausting running from one place to another on word of mouth (mobiles were rare and expensive) trying to eat the bulldozers and security. I wish I'd been older and better prepared for it. For a definitive story of the times I recommend Jim Hindle's Nine Miles - a fascinating read.

Were you there? Do you have any leaflets, flyers, stories etc. that you want to share? If so email them to me and I'll stick 'em up here - nineties.activist@googlemail.com

Earth First Action Update

2007-08-29T18:17:00.001+01:00

protest4, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

This is the first in a series of scans and cuttings that I'm going to be publishing over the next few months. As my handful of readers will have probably worked out, I was on the outskirts of some of the protest, activist, countercultural, or whatever you want to call them, movements in the UK in the 1990s. Since then I have been shocked at the lack of information online. So, working on the old saying "If not you, who; if not now, when?" I am going to try and create an online collection of these things. Firstly my housemate's collection has been scanned. Where possible I will tell stories attached to various flyer, pamphlets, news stories, cuttings etc. Otherwise they're simply here to peruse, argue with, agree with, quote for wikipedia articles or whatever use you want to get out of them.

The Earth First Action Update was published by a UK collection of activists. It is unlikely they had links with any the American Earth First - whoever acts under the banner of EA was a member. Here are a few pages of a 96 copy. This interests me especially because during my brief stay at Newbury (one week, half term, too fucking cold) I was at Snelsmore.

Flickr

2007-08-29T14:25:00.001+01:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Teh cutes!

2007-08-15T09:41:00.001+01:00

My mother is, of course, loving it!

Yay more puppies

2007-08-15T00:48:00.001+01:00

seriously,. they may still be wee but you got to love em

Fwd: pics

2007-08-15T00:31:00.001+01:00

it's about a fortnight now and thay're still needy fluffballs....

Puppies: A week old

2007-08-08T09:54:00.001+01:00

I love Esther's expression in the bottom one. So yeah, a week old and they're fat and odd looking, but you can tell the colours are gonna be lovely.

Fwd: Puppies

2007-08-03T09:34:00.000+01:00

The day after they were born. There's a bloody lot of them innit.

New puppies!

2007-08-03T09:31:00.000+01:00

You may recall that a couple of years ago the lovely Esther had her first litter of puppies. Well, we've done it again. Well, not her and I, think how ugly our offspring would be. Besides, I don't think of her like that... We as in "our family have chosed to have her mated and this mating has bourn furry fruit". Anyhoo, the first picture are the boys and the second two are the girls. I think. Just say AWWWWW.

weirdest drugs dream ever.

2007-06-28T01:28:00.000+01:00

... so i fell into a geeb coma earlier. normally that is null time... you switch off and switch on again when the dopamine bounce perks you. but tonight i fell into a bizarre dream about watching bjork at glastonbury whilst hanging out with the white stripes. we were larking and playing about and drinking and dancing and i was getting quite close to meg when gergl came in to nick another shot and woke me up. very odd.

you do the maths

2007-04-20T18:09:00.000+01:00

urban75 poster chegrimandi pointed out some figures the other day...

Benefit fraud = £700 million per year
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/campaigns/benefit-thieves/

Pensioners 'fail to claim' benefits worth £4.2 Billion per year
http://society.guardian.co.uk/socialexclusion/story/0,,2056810,00.html

Total unclaimed benefits = £7 billon per year
http://www.channel4.com/money/feature.jsp?id=416

Tax avoidance = between £82 - £150 Billion last year.
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_m_z/mark_steel/article2439509.ece

do i even need to add anything else?

no more posts from the call centre?

2007-03-30T18:11:00.000+01:00

yeah, i walked out. one day one of my co-workers was given an in-office talking to about his attitude. this is a guy who has worked for most local councils, he is a professional public sector benefits advisor. his crime was to point out that we'd been overlooked for a break.

i went home, filled my face with ket, and decided never to go back.

On Neil Gaiman - one of my university dissertation essays.

2007-03-18T16:04:00.000Z

Neil Gaiman: Dream and reality – notions of storytelling in The Sandman

Neil Gaiman’s work on The Sandman has been lauded as, amongst other things, “…among the most extraordinary [stories] of all time in any form.”^ⁱIt represents seven years of evolutionary storytelling, month in, month out, with a creative process that the likes of Dickens would be familiar with, for he too wrote in serial instalments. The Sandman was written between 1988 and 1995^ⁱⁱand represented a part of a new movement in comics writing. Comics developed a sense of social realism and consciousness. Whether dealing with characters with powers beyond the ken of normal humanity, or with characters that represented the reader and the reader’s world the new breed of comics stopped being children’s fiction and started questioning reality as we know it. Along with Alan Moore (Watchmen), Frank Miller, (The Dark Knight Returns – a reinvented Batman), and Jamie Delano’s Hellblazer, Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman represents a new artistic movement.

The Sandman is a story on many levels. It consists of a number of volumes of storytelling, each of which can be seen as being part of the whole The Sandman narrative but each of which can be read alone. However, unlike the so-called ‘Golden Age’ comics, those produced in the nineteen-fifties and sixties, The Sandman has to be considered as a whole. The actions that occur in issue one have relevance on the story throughout. Where once upon a time Superman could fight villains week-in-week-out, the events in The Sandman have the same effect upon the characters as events in our lives have upon us; they are not stand alone events, history is cumulative and as we learn from psychology and psychiatry, just because it happened a long time ago doesn’t mean that it doesn’t effect us.

There are many themes within The Sandman. Gaiman’s ideas present theories about reality, personality and storytelling. Ideas occur and re-occur, often quite conscious retellings. Some of the series can be seen as a retelling of past stories from various cultural sources, of reinterpretations of stories that have gone before. The series is littered with cultural references and minutiae allowing the reader to come back to the text a year later and a year wiser and feel the glow of having picked up further references in the meantime. Gaiman subverts previous ideas and utilizes characters that others have abandoned or forgotten. He appears acutely conscious of his role as storyteller, and by all accounts he revels in it. However, if it is about anything then The Sandman is about stories. Stories are the backbone of The Sandman, backbone, exoskeleton and internal organs. In this essay I seek to understand and present an account of Gaiman’s use of storytelling. I will study his narrative, his use of dreams, why we interpret his work in the way that we do, look at the relation of the art in The Sandman to the text, and look at ideas of Gaiman as a traditional storyteller.

Firstly it should be noted that dreams and stories are inextricably linked in The Sandman. Dream is referred to as ‘The Prince of Stories’. Stories, the text shows us, come solely from dreams. Therefore Dream’s story is also the story of stories. Dream controls human interaction as the history of human interaction is the history of stories. They cannot be separated.

Gaiman’s storytelling in The Sandman is, much like the events of the later texts, inextricably linked with what has gone before. A dissection of his characters reveals that many of them are, or are based around, previous comics characters. There once was another DC Comics character called ‘The Sandman’, who fought criminals by putting them to sleep with a gas-gun. Gaiman, hired to reinvent the character, based his recreation on the ‘real’ sandman of mythology. The recreation of the mythological into the modern is a major theme of the Sandman. Only after Preludes & Nocturnes was Gaiman able to start working to a more radical script, but he never shies away from making references to stories, be it classical mythology or to the modern mythologies of Superman and Batman^ⁱⁱⁱ.

One method of storytelling that Gaiman uses to show the importance of stories is reference and allusion. As I said, he refers both to the great stories and to more post-modern sources. For instance, he regularly refers to his favourite writers through books shown in the story. Unity Kincaid is reading Through The Looking Glass in Preludes & Nocturnes. Alex Burgess has a copy of The Doll’s House on his shelf, presumably as an allusion both to Ibsen’s work and to Gaiman’s own volume off the same title; also on the shelf is Good Omens, the comic fantasy written by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Whenever the Library of Dreams is shown one can look at the book titles and glean references to Gaiman’s influences as he invents titles for books the authors never wrote; JRR Tolkien’s The Lost Road and GK Chesterton’s The Man Who Was October amongst others in Season of Mists, John Webster’s A Banquet for the Wormes in The Kindly Ones or the ‘cryptogeographica’ section from Brief Lives. The point of these constant references is to reinforce a sense of ambition in the reader to go out and read these authors, as well as allowing us to see exactly where Gaiman’s influences and favourites are. The texts are also full of literary allusion too. Look, for instance, at The Kindly Ones, where Paul McGuire talks about looking for ‘Piglet’ in Ashdown Forest^{^iv}. Later we can see Piglet tucked up next to Alex. Maybe it suggests something about interpreting stories; McGuire tells Rose that his mother used to take him for walks and they’d look for Piglet. Rose says, “It doesn’t matter that you never find it. It’s the dreams that keep you going^{^v}.” McGuire didn’t say anything about not finding it, Rose’s mind filled in the blanks. Paul did find Piglet; he got his dream and yet still had to keep on going. Alex has got Piglet now, and it is his dreams that keep on going; one day he’ll wake up and find that he still has to find something to keep him going. This is a warning about taking stories the wrong way, as there is always something left unsaid. It is also a warning about dreams; dreams as unreliable things. There are other allusions too. Look at Dream speaking to Alex in Preludes & Nocturnes: he refers to Shakespeare – “Lord, what fools these mortals be.”^{^vi} Look also at Lucifer quoting Milton’s Paradise Lost to Cain in Season of Mists: ””Better to reign in Hell than serve in heaven”… Milton said it. And he was blind.”^{^vii} These are included to show that aspects of canonical literature can be questioned; and to show that there are some truths so universal that even anthropomorphic personifications of basic psychological elements can use them.

Gaiman utilises the notion of stories to represent show how societies work. If we look at Tales in the Sand from The Doll’s House we can see how the use of stories forms the basis of the clan’s society:

“Some tales you tell children, … Cautionary tales. There are the tales the women tell … and these tales are not told to men. There are the tales men tell each other… There are the tales the whole tribe tell each other… Low tales. High tales. Tales that are told and heard many, many times.”^{^viii}

It is not only Nada’s tribe that tells stories though; stories are the crux of all societies in the form of gossip, jokes, hearsay, and urban myth. As Nada’s tribe use stories so do our tribes. Among the listed forms of story in this tale is the ‘cautionary tale’. One of these is presented later in The Doll’s House. This occurs in the piece where Gilbert tells Rose an early version of the Red Riding Hood myth. This piece was before the story was cleaned up and turned into a morality play, but in the form that Gilbert presents it the story is a warning about the nature of the unknown, that ties in with the wolf-eared serial killer. In terms of storytelling, it provides us with a glimpse of the world in which our ancestors lived.

Of course, these ideas aren’t the only things Gaiman does with his stories. His writing, by its very nature, is descriptive without being flowery. The language has to rely on minimalism, and the artwork has to emphasise and advance the text. Gaiman is known for being very dominant in that he controls what goes into the art. Many writers will allow the artists to leave it to their imagination but Gaiman requires them to fulfil the criteria of a tight script.

The realm of The Sandman is the Dreaming. This ‘Dreaming’ is an accumulation of all the realms that creatures ‘visit’ when dreaming. Dreams, being a great mystery of medicine, have long been of interest to psychologists and therefore the views of the most important psychologists of recent history can be seen to be important to us in our reading of Gaiman’s work. The two most relevant of these psychologists are, of course, Freud and Jung. Each of them had a fair amount to say about dreams, although neither of them discussed the realm dreams.

Freud saw the dream as representing the values that would otherwise keep the mind awake. He suggests that a dream is made up of a number of aspects. These aspects are condensation – or the compression of the relevant parts into one dream (i.e. the room in which you were taught as a child, the desk from your grandfather’s bedroom and the frightening person sitting next to you who looks like the man who reads the news). The second aspect is displacement – the refusal to accept the real thought and so we displace the idea onto another, similar in some way, artefact. The third aspect is symbols – when complex ideas are converted into single images. Matthew cites Freud’s examples of “the concept of ‘possession’ (in German ‘besitzen’) being representing by sitting (‘sitzen’) on the object, or of the concept of ‘adultery’ (‘ehenbruch’) being represented by a broken leg (‘beinbruch’)”.^{^ix} So using the theory of displacement and symbols we can suggest that the frightening person from the news could represent a fear of new people (displaced from news symbolised by a presenter of news). The fourth aspect of the dream is reversal. Freud believed that the human brain treats opposites as the same thing. Therefore in a dream a large thing will appear small and a strong thing will appear weak.

The other major psychologist to look at dreams was Jung. Jung believed that

“The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the psyche, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego consciousness, and which will remain psyche no matter how far our ego consciousness may extend … All consciousness separates; but in dreams we put on the likeness of that more universal, truer, more eternal man dwelling in the darkness of primordial night. There he is still the whole, and the whole is in him, indistinguishable from nature and bare of all egohood. Out of these all-uniting depths arises the dream, be it never so infantile, never so grotesque, never so immoral.”^{^x}

Basically Jung believed that dreams contained reflections of absolute truths, reflections of our archetypal needs. He divided these archetypes into a number of characteristics that represented the basic human needs, for instance the ‘greybeard’, a representative of wisdom that could be seen in many forms aside from an old man, including negative forms and misleading forms. It seems Jung’s ideas of archetypes are similar to the forms of archetypes presented in the tarot. The book of the tarot relates to his theory of collective unconsciousness. Jungian dream interpretation is not as complex in many ways as Freudianism, because it suggests that when you dream of a Queen then you are actually dreaming a representation of creation rather than of your own mother, as suggested by Freud.

In relation to the Dreaming and The Sandman Jungian views tend to fit better that Freudianism. The Sandman seems far more full of archetypes than of Freudian dream aspects. Partly this is probably because, while the Dreaming can be seen in the view of cultural condensation – all the aspects of past, present, future and mythology rolled into one world – it is hard to utilise the notions of displacement and symbols within the text simply because it is hard to know what could be seen as symbol and displacement. Looking at Gaiman’s work it is possible to suggest that some of the repeating motifs could be symbols of some sort. Repetitions in text indicates some form of emphasis so we could look at Gaiman’s work and see some regular motifs; for instance, throughout the stories are images of injured eyes. A Freudian reading would see this as (possibly) presenting the fear of injury to I. It represents a fear of being hurt personally. A Jungian would see the eye as an eye, a primeval view representing (possibly) fear of the loss of sight, when sight = knowledge, and fear of the unrecognisable. Another recurring image is that of the king leaving his kingdom, as represented by Lucifer leaving Hell, Destruction abdicating his role, Augustus Caesar arranging the downfall of the Roman Empire, Haroun al-Raschid exchanging Baghdad for eternal remembrance and Dream committing suicide over his inability to live up to his own self-expectations. This is a lot harder to interpret as each can be seen as different interpretations. Looking at Lucifer leaving Hell we can use Freudian interpretation to suggest that (possibly) Lucifer is a reversal, an evil person representing a good person, and Hell could be symbol representing the notion of help, therefore Lucifer leaving Hell could be seen as a worry that a good person would refuse to help them, that maybe they would not be worthy of help perhaps. This could be seen therefore as some sort of guilt dream. In Jungian interpretation Lucifer could be seen as being the devil as represented in tarot, an archetype of the material world and the proscribed world of lust. Thus leaving its natural home this could be seen as a dream fearing the presence of hidden evil in the dreamer’s world; this is far closer to Gaiman’s version where Lucifer truly is at large in the world.

Gaiman himself seems to take a dim view of Freudian interpretation. The Sandman is full of archetypes and, in The Doll’s House Gaiman himself refutes Freud thus:

Rose Walker: “Do you know what Freud said about dreams of flying? It means you’re really dreaming about having sex.”

Dream: “Indeed? Tell me then, what does it mean when you dream about having sex?”^{^xi}

However, despite having populated the Dreaming with a staff of archetypes Gaiman presents dreams themselves in a non-Jungian manner. In The Doll’s House we are shown the dreams of a number of humans and these dreams could be interpreted better in a Freudian manner. For instance, the lines

“Chantel, dreaming intricate, self-referential loops, trying to reveal nothing of herself to herself. Zelda, still fighting old battles, the little girl lost in the woman whose heart she shares. Barbara’s rich dream-life, more valid and true than anything she feels when waking. Ken’s churning world of money, sex and power. Hal’s endless quest for identity and love.”^{^xii}

suggest that Freudian analysis would fit these dreams better than the search for a combined subconscious of anima mundi hidden within these dreams.

On the whole I believe that Gaiman is avoiding generic metaphor in his presentation of the dream world and its human interaction. The quote from The Doll’s House about Freud suggests that Gaiman is simply presenting the Dreaming as a place of stories, not of psychology. Maybe it is possible to transpose a quote from another Gaiman story, The Books of Magic, wherein John Constantine is talking about magic: “Now, he doesn’t believe in magic. And he’s right. Magic doesn’t exist, for him. You have to choose it, you see.”^{^xiii} It could be suggested that therefore dream metaphor is the same. You have to decide that you want to look for metaphors that relate to what you believe about the world. Therefore if you know about a person’s mental state and their life history you can look at their dreams and interpret them with that information in mind. If you believe that humanity is part of a fixed system of psychological absolutism, and that a person’s dreams reveal their mental issues through their reaction to psychological archetypes then you can also interpret dreams that way too. Gaiman hints at both and chooses neither. For him, dreams are what you make of them; be they metaphors for needs, fears and desires, or messages, or reflections, or just a mental screensaver, or more plausibly all of the above and more.

Storytelling, says Barthez, via Brooks, is contractual.^{^xiv} This means that it asks for something in return. Brooks suggests that the storytellers ask to be listened to in return for providing the story. Gaiman is asking us to react to his storytelling. But we need to see why we interpret The Sandman in the way that we do; are we being pushed towards conclusion or are we drawing our own in return?

Gaiman provides ideas of society and theology in many forms. For instance, he suggests that dreams can change reality; Dream Of A Thousand Cats from the Dream Country collection suggests that reality can be defined by dreams. The story revolves around a cat evangelist, preaching a gospel of revenge against humanity. The cat claims that once upon a time cats ruled the world and humans were their playthings, servants and meals, but a human persuaded enough other humans to dream the world as it is now that it became this way, and now it always had been this way. This then is a revision of history and an assertion of the power of dreams over the reality that we acknowledge. In the same volume A Midsummer Night’s Dream asserts the power of dreams again with the suggestion that a dream can rewrite history again, this time utilizing a version of history in which William Shakespeare had made a deal with Dream allowing his stories to live forever in exchange for writing two specifically for Dream. The first of these is the play Á Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Despite being a part of Gaelic mythology, very few people can remember anything about Titania except for the story in the play:

Oberon: “We thank you, Shaper. But this diversion, although pleasant, is not true.”

Dream: “Oh, but it IS true. Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.”^{^xv}

This theory is furthered in Brief Lives; where there is a whole speech stating that dreams and reality are inextricably linked. The prodigal, Destruction, who abandoned his realm in the 1600s, no longer wishing to be responsible for mankind’s acts of destruction, is speaking to Dream

Destruction: “Our sister defines life, just as Despair defines hope, or Desire defines hatred, or as Destiny defines freedom.”

Dream: “And what do I define, by this theory of yours.”

Destruction: “Reality, perhaps?”^{^xvi}

Without dream there could be no reality. All ideas are started in dreams; the possible is defined by the fantasy.

What leads us to these conclusions? Gaiman presents some of these ideas blatantly as above; it is hard not to come to the conclusions presented. But in other ways we are subtly drawn to a conclusion. In Season of Mists we are presented with a number of forms of deity – the Norse pantheon, the Egyptian pantheon, a Japanese god, representations of order and chaos and, of course, Christian angels. While it is not stated in the text Gaiman is bringing us to the conclusion that, like in his view of magic and of dream metaphor, what some people believe is only part of what is true. That it is possible for any and all belief systems to co-exist. The simple existence of these various gods and goddesses is presented as evidence without need to prove or preach; they simply are. Gaiman’s work facilitates a philosophical response in the reader without resort to complex theological argument, and thus the reader’s side of the contract is completed.

The question of why we respond to his work in the way that we do is inextricably linked to the illustrations. Comics writing, even that of Gaiman’s standard, cannot be removed from the necessity of the artwork. Gaiman, according to Bender, writes

“…very detailed scripts that described the arrangement of the panels on each page, the imagery in each panel, and subtleties such as the mood he was striving for. He also included all the title text, captions, dialogue, and other verbiage that would appear on the printed pages, along with occasional suggestions to the letterer and colourist.”^{^xvii}

So it can be seen that the images are essential to Gaiman’s vision and message. This means that no essay on The Sandman is complete without at least a slight look at the artwork and its effect on the storytelling.

The style and impact of the artwork varies greatly throughout the series. Preludes & Nocturnes features art that is very much related to traditional comics art, except that it is very dark. The drawings are simple and utilise a lot of shadows and half-light to show emphasis. I feel that, for instance, the boxes where Constantine is falling simply do not do the story justice. I imagine that the artist, Sam Kieth, was attempting to fulfil the minimum criteria for ‘man falling’ art in the hope that the reader would fill in the blanks. The artwork is not much more than a minor aid to the reader in Preludes & Nocturnes. It allows Gaiman to show some eerie or odd ideas that translate better in the visual medium. On page 17 of Imperfect Hosts where the background shows that the sun has delicately drawn eyebrows as it peeks over the horizon – an unnecessary addition but one that suggests the fantastical nature of the realm. In the next box the moon is high in the sky.^{^xviii} The artwork helps to emphasise the unreality of the Dreaming. The art in The Doll’s House ties into the storyline better. It helps to emphasise the confusion between reality as we know and the reality that is shared by Dream. For instance, the dream sequences towards the end become more abstract and graphic, with the usual art style of the series intermingled with the differing styles of the dreams. In addition, the sequence at the serial killer convention where the Corinthian is uncreated is a blatant change in style that allows the reader to understand that the events are not everyday, that they have to be presented differently from the lifelike drawings that represent everyday reality. The artwork in Dream Country is most notable in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The artwork here helps the story along, allowing the reader to see subtleties in the politics of the story that wouldn’t be subtleties of the story if they were written in prose. For instance, page 9 has a box with Auberon and the Puck, and the Puck is sitting between Auberon’s legs, and Auberon is stroking his head. This image allows a reading to suggest that there is more than a master/servant relationship here. The attention to detail allows the reader to understand that this is presented reality, like the Puck says about A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “It never happened; yet it is still true”^{^xix}, just the same happens here – the events Gaiman writes never happened but it is still true. Season of Mists, A Game of You, and Brief Lives follow the same system. Brief Lives is notable for the presentation of Delirium’s realm. Instead of trying to draw this realm of lunacy instead the artist, Jill Thompson, uses cut and paste techniques, including random oddities such as butterflies with human parts, a whelk, and blocks of colour. The most notable use of art comes in The Kindly Ones and The Wake. These two stories are linked by the fact that one follows the other and they use the greatest extremes of artistic detail. The Kindly Ones is extremely abstract for the greater part. The most detailed realism comes in the sequence representing the fairy tale told by one of the old women to Rose Walker in their retirement home. I believe that The Kindly Ones needed to be the most abstract of the series because it was the most detailed in terms of plot; it tied up what was begun in Preludes & Nocturnes. Therefore it was the most intricate, requires the most participation from the reader and therefore the reader needed the least distractions – the art is simply to emphasise the emotions. In addition The Kindly Ones uses realism to make suggestions about stories. The only time realism is used in The Kindly Ones is a story; leading the unconscious mind to the conclusion that fairy story is more real than the reality that is presented. To put it another way, while reality is made up of unlikely blocks and shadows, the real reality is in the rich depths of light and dark in the fiction. In this way we learn to declassify the fiction, accept the blurring of boundaries between truth and lies, between art and reality, we embrace stories as being another form of history. Then we move on to The Wake, which contains possibly the finest comics illustrations that I have ever seen. Michael Zulli’s work is intricate and photographic. The art lets the reader know many things; for instance on page 21 we see Death standing back from the process of creating an envoy. Without saying so, Gaiman has implied that Death cannot create; she can give life to another’s creation but she cannot create herself. Throughout the story there are beautifully drawn asides that allow the reader to link together the text. For instance, the appearance of a young oriental child in the box with Dream’s other lovers in; this is the re-incarnated form of Nada.

The art helps to emphasise parts of the text, and lends depth to much of it. The art helps to blur reader perceptions of fantasy and reality, or to give it definition. The art makes suggestions that the text does not, and allows the reader to pick up references that are unnecessary to the plot. It allows emotions to be displayed in ways that prose cannot always match; the pain Dream is feeling in The Kindly Ones is displayed in every box to great effect. In many of the drawings you can almost feel his misery steaming off him, and prose would be hard pushed to display this depth.

In some ways Gaiman’s work can be seen as a return to traditional storytelling. He is keen to emphasise the mythic and fairy tale aspects to his story by incorporating their style. He regularly reflects these traditional storytelling in The Sandman. For instance, Preludes & Nocturnes shows Dream playing word-games with a demon in order to gain back his helm. The idea of winning a mystical power or artefact from a demon is a traditional one that goes back a long way; Merlin was supposed to have inherited his powers as the half-son of a demon. Various kings and heroes have won their powers from supernatural beings, from Greek mythology through to the relatively modern myth of the blues-man beating the devil at duelling blues-guitars at a Mississippi crossroads. The Doll’s House begins with a traditional narrative handed down for generations, while Calliope fulfils the sort of requirements that Greek myth requires – the capture and binding of Calliope for instance. Dream of a Thousand Cats is an oral narrative, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream features the other form of traditional storytelling, the play. One of the most important parts of Brief Lives features Dream and Delirium listening to Destruction telling stories around a fire. Worlds’ End features a Canterbury Tales-esque series of traveller’s stories. Fables & Reflections features The Hunt, in which a man tells a skewed fairy tale to his granddaughter. The Song of Orpheus retells a Greek myth. The Parliament of Rooks includes storytellers sitting around telling their stories. Ramadan is reminiscent of the Arabian Nights, which is itself based on traditional oral storytelling.

Traditional oral storytelling tends to represent humanity’s questions about the nature of their universe. The answers to these questions are then tied up in a narrative starring a character that the questioner can appreciate, a popular hero for instance, such as Anansie in West African mythology. The Anansie stories answer questions about the world but are an unconnected series of narratives. The Sandman relies upon the events that have occurred before, and therefore cannot necessarily be seen as a traditional story. However, in that The Sandman uses archetypes to create answers it can be seen to be traditional. Characters such as Death and Dream occur in folk tales and fairy tales from around the globe. Barley records such stories, which tell of Death as someone who tricked humanity into dying, or of how humanity’s greed caused them to embrace death.^{^xx} Zipes views traditional European storytelling as a series of warnings handed down over the generations designed for children.^{^xxi} Gaiman readily admits that he adopts styles and utilises other writer’s themes and motifs^{^xxii}, and traditional storytelling is just part of this telling.

As I have shown, Gaiman presents a world in which each action and emotion is connected. He represents a post-modern theory that utilises all the texts that have gone before, included those that were never written. His storytelling is touched by his love of stories, and requires that the reader love stories too. The Sandman seeks to present a world in which the dream is regarded as a story in itself, not a psychoanalytical tool, but a blueprint for all that is to come in the future – what is the dream but an idea, and what do ideas lead to but the future? We interpret The Sandman in such a way because we can only react with wonder to a text that present characters from our collective psyches and seeks to show how these characters exist in our world; interpreted as comment and criticism on our view of existence. The art succeeds where prose fails to provoke because of its subtlety and because it allows transmission of latent emotion in ways unachievable by simple words. Finally, we find our view of the universe subtlety changed as a result of Gaiman’s work, simply by the process of absorbing his ideas. Gaiman’s work is a feast of literary and philosophical ideas that can only be seen to enhance to sum of human greatness.

i Gene Wolfe, in his introduction to Fables & Reflections.

ii In ten volumes, Preludes & Nocturnes (1991), The Doll’s House (1990), Dream Country (1990), Season of Mists (1992), A Game of You (1993), Fables & Reflections (1993), Brief Lives (1994), Worlds’ End (1995), The Kindly Ones (1996), The Wake (1997). In addition an illustrated prose The Sandman story was published in 1999; called The Dream Hunters, it is set at some point before Preludes & Nocturnes. Finally there is a one off The Sandman , written by Gaiman and Matt Wagner, starring both Dream and the golden age Sandman, Wesley Dodds, written in 1995 and published in 1999. It is set at a time when Dream is still imprisoned, and is called Sandman Midnight Theatre.

iii Gaiman found that, while using Superman in The Wake, he was prevented from exploring the character by DC editors who didn’t believe that Gaiman’s presentation of Superman – that his dreams reflected his fear of being discovered as Clark Kent – were compatible with their view of Superman.

iv The Kindly Ones, part 6, p.21.

v Ibid.

vi Preludes & Nocturnes, Sleep of the Just, p.36.

vii Season of Mists, Episode 1, p.20.

viii The Doll’s House, Tales in the Sand, p.1.

ix Matthew, Freud and The Interpretation of Dreams.

x Jung, The Essential Jung, p.417.

xi The Doll’s House, Into the Night, p.26.

xii Ibid, p.16.

xiii The Books of Magic, The Shadow World, p31.

xiv Brooks, Reading for the Plot, p216.

xv Dream Country, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, p21.

xvi Brief Lives, chapter 8, p16.

xvii Bender, The Sandman Companion, p7.

xviii Preludes & Nocturnes, Imperfect Hosts, p17.

xix Dream Country, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, pp13.

xx Barley, Dancing on the Grave, p69, 71, 219.

xxi Zipes, The Trials & Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood, p18.

xxii In The Sandman Companion Gaiman says “…the first issue was patterned after classical English horror stories like the ones written by Dennis Wheatley … I took the rhythm from a Henry Treece poem”(p32) “…Issue three was meant to be my Ramsey Campbell/Clive Barker British urban horror tale … Issue 4 was based on the work of fantasists such as John W Campbell” (p34) “… a direct steal from Robert Heinlein’s novel Magic Incorporated … inspired by Peter Greenaway’s 1988 film Drowning by Numbers “(p35)

Quoted Bibliography

Barley, Nigel, Dancing on the Grave – Encounters with Death, Abacus, London, 1997

Bender, Hy, The Sandman Companion, Titan Books, London, 1999

Brooks, Peter, Reading for the Plot, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1984

Gaiman, Neil, A Game of You, DC Comics, New York, 1993

Gaiman, Neil, Brief Lives, Titan Books, London, 1994

Gaiman, Neil, Dream Country, Titan Books, London, 1990

Gaiman, Neil, Fables & Reflections, DC Comics, New York, 1993

Gaiman, Neil, Preludes & Nocturnes, Titan Books, London, 1991

Gaiman, Neil, Season of Mists, DC Comics, New York, 1992

Gaiman, Neil, The Books of Magic, DC Comics, New York, 1990

Gaiman, Neil, The Doll’s House, Titan Books, London, 1990

Gaiman, Neil, The Kindly Ones, Titan Books, London, 1996

Gaiman, Neil, The Wake, Titan Books, London, 1996

Gaiman, Neil, Worlds’ End, Titan Books, London, 1995

Jung, Carl, The Essential Jung Selected Writings, Fontana, London, rev. 1993

Matthew, Freud and the Interpretation of Dreams, from http://ugrad.phys.unsw.edu.au/~mettw/edreams/articles/freud.html, last update unknown.

Zipes, Jack, The Trials & Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood, Routledge, New York & London, 1993

Associated Bibliography

Frazer, J G, The Golden Bough – Studies in Magic and Religion, Macmillan, London, rep. 1970

Gaiman, Neil, Death The High Cost of Living, Titan Books, London, 1994

Gaiman, Neil, Death The Time of Your Life, Titan Books, London, 1997

Gaiman, Neil, Neil Gaiman’s Midnight Days, Titan Books, London, 1999

Gaiman, Neil, Stardust, Headline Feature, London, 1999

Gaiman, Neil and Amano, Yoshitake, The Dream Hunters, DC Comics, New York, 1999

Lyle, Jane, The Key to the Tarot, Studio Editions, London, 1993

Pratchett, Terry and Gaiman, Neil, Good Omens, Corgi Books, London, 1991

Woodcock, George, Anarchism, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, rep. 1979

bailiffs

2007-03-07T16:15:00.001Z

i hate bailiffs, and i hate dealing with people that my employer has set the bailiffs on, but it's funny how the story is always the same. "i never got asked for the money". well, i say, did you receive the bill? "no". did you receive the first reminder? "no". did you receive the second reminder? "no". what about the final demand? "no". as sympathetic as i am to these people i wonder if they realise what a crock of shit it sounds like they're talking. person after person has honestly never received any bills whatsoever, or notices, or any of this stuff that is automatically generated and sent out de rigeur... someone somewhere must be stockpiling it.

human rights lol

2007-02-28T10:40:00.001Z

i've got here in front of me one of my favourite ones so far, one that represents everything i hate about people these days. a gentleman who works for the news of the world is accusing us of breaching the human rights act, article 8, respect for a private life, because the council is "insisting i spend my time and money contacting arsenal fc to check fixture lists". when dealing with the sort of jumped up tosser that believes his human rights are being breached because a council don't allow a parking free-for-all in the area around a sports arena there's really not a lot you can do. this type of person can't be spoken to. they are so entrenched in their own ego and paranoia that everyone is out to get them that even querying their motives is a breach of their human rights. this mistaken belief that the human rights act is there to protect people from the evils of parking fines rather than enforced state intrusion into their homes is actually undermining one of the few attempts in recent history to actually impose a law that protects rather than exploits people. i think that the only way to reason with these twats is to imprison them without trial in basements for months and pull their teeth and nails out with pliers. i think once they've got an understanding of what a breach of human rights actually is we might find they start trying to do something about the bad in this world rather than frothing at the mouth over bugger all.

how much?

2007-01-31T09:19:00.000Z

"i am on 90 pounds a week benefit. how can i afford to pay council tax?" he has a good point, but what can i do? fuming inside i transfer him to the benefit office. i hate council tax. i know i sound a bit daily mail here, but the only thing this country can afford is posh offices, swanky cars, payrises and foreign holidays for our politicians. oh, and wars. everything else is underfunded. but left, right and centre people who can't afford it are being squeezed to pay for these things. it's ridiculous is what it is.

fines

2007-01-31T09:17:00.000Z

why are the parking fines so much? well, because you keep getting caught on camera and then not paying them. surely it's obvious.

oops

2007-01-31T09:15:00.000Z

had a doh moment today. council tax enquiry. bloke wanted me to correct his moving out date. as it was we owed him about 25 quid. when i'd corrected it we owed him two and a half grand. apparantly i did something that the system technically isn't able to do. if he'd been a nice man i might not have told anyone!

observations

2007-01-25T19:30:00.000Z

some observations on people and parking tickets.

when i ask if the person paying has an email address to send a receipt to, roughly half of them have aol email addresses. now, given that an aol address is "the internet equivalent of writing your letters in green crayon" what does this say about people who are incapable of parking without getting tickets?

also, it is impossible to ask for reference numbers for parking tickets without someone asking "which number is that". you ask for the reference, and they say "is that the pcn number". you ask for the pcn number and they say "is that the ticket number". you ask for the ticket number and they say "is that the reference number". parking tickets are all about being obtuse, i think. make it as difficult as possible for people to understand, confuse them. rake in the money.

customer arrogance

2007-01-25T16:59:00.000Z

parking permits. she wants a parking permit. permits are only given to people whose cars are registered at islington addresses. her car is registered at her country address, for insurance purposes. but she is of course aggrieved that this means we're being "deliberately difficult". she's upset that she can't diddle both islington AND her insurance company. of course, we'll probably let her have a permit. cos, let's face it, we're nice like that and everyone deserves a chance to get stuff cheaper and easier, but what peeved me was the sheer weight of upper class annoyance that the rules applied to her. after all, as she pointed out, she's an honest taxpayer.

except of course, that she's not. the human capacity for not being able to see themselves as dishonest has always surprised me. people who are quite happy to justify their own wheeling and dealing as financial acumen, playing the system, or whatever, but are swift to avoid lumping themselves in with the dishonest. as far as i'm concerned the honest are those that accept that they're dishonest, who shrug their shoulders and hold their hands up. we're all out for what we can get in this life, whether that means we're muggers and thieves or law-abiding citizens, ungrateful or charitable. but at least we should try and admit it to ourselves. perhaps a greater honesty of self would make the world a better place.

persecution

2007-01-24T09:06:00.000Z

i'm being victimised, she says. i've had to sell my car because of all these parking tickets. i make sympathetic noises, because there are lots of tickets on there. i have a look. the parking tickets have been given to her because she has a persistant habit of leaving her car parked on yellow lines. aren't persecution complexes ugly?

release the hounds

2007-01-24T09:05:00.000Z

can i have parking control please? i live near janet street-porter and all the press are down here blocking the roads. can we slap some tickets on the parasites?

controlling your anger.

2007-01-11T18:12:00.000Z

amongst the things i was never much good at when i was a teacher was classroom management. i kind of liked the chaos, didn't expect the kids to pay any attention to me, and aren't very good at that authoritarian shite. never grew a thick enough skin. but that doesn't mean i didn't pay attention in classroom management classes. in fact, i'd go so far as to say that i found them very useful. not useful, in that i learnt skills for keeping a bunch of 14-year olds in line, but useful in that the same skills you use fruitlessly on kids work effortlessly on grown adults. one night in soma i singlehandly cleared out a group of abusive racist drunks whilst the barman hid, using the techniques i learnt at king's. i was expecting a kicking to be honest but the whole open-armed passive voiced demanding reasonableness thing actually worked. since then i've found that i'm quite good at dealing with adults throwing their toys out of the pram. i bring this up because today i had to deal with a lot of it. and it all comes down to parking tickets. parking tickets really make people angry. bureaucracy also makes people angry. and councils deal en masse with both of those things.

so today i got my first person threatening to have me arrested for my part in having a ticket put on their car. i am, apparently, a criminal. my inability to cancel the ticket will be answered for in court. i am likely to be fined, or possibly imprisoned. obviously i shit myself. as i did when the taxi driver later on pointed out that i was infringing his human rights, which was against the law. as i did later on when someone tried to bully me into retracting the ticket because it was all a terrible mistake. and of course, i quietly and calmly explained that i could do none of these things, the correct process for appeal, that I was more than happy to be taken to court, and of course that there are photographs on the system. and yeah, crazy lady, you can scream and shout and call me a fascist nazi bastard, but hey, i just take the money. someone asked me today how i sleep at night. next time i'm going to laugh and say "on a mattress stuffed with 50s". fuck sake, we live in an age of war, eroding civil rights, climate change, debt and poverty on a massive scale, and lots and lots of shite music, and the only thing that upsets you cunts is parking tickets.

Callcentre

2007-01-08T19:16:00.000Z

Urk. Believe me, urk. call centres are fucking dull. Not dull, quiet, tedium, normal office dull, but dull with the interminable dullness of never having a fucking minute's escape from the terminal dullness of everyday existence. Seriously, this isn't going to be much fun. Except for the bits where people are paying parking tickets and trying to lie their way out of them when I can see the photos or video on screen. That said, it's fucking grim that in this world of CCTV we only see grainy cheap footage on Crimewatch but revenue gathering operations are perfectly clear.

All Tomorrow's Parties, Pontins Camber Sands, 19-21st May 2006

2006-05-26T15:41:00.000+01:00

All Tomorrow's Parties, Pontins Camber Sands, 19-21st May 2006

Back again to ATP for another chalet based weekend of indie rock and fried brains. Not so much to do in the modern festival, given how few bands are on, so much time is spent getting drunk. This will be a major influence on the review, so bear with me.

The Lilys open Friday riding on the upsurge in interest following Nanny In Manhattan being used in an advert. They turn out to be not worth the interest, another generic college rock band surfing the nostalgia wave. More entertaining are Dead Meadow, with their stoner riffs and post-rock sensibilities. Solid waves of sound from their last two albums leave me grinning like an idiot. Another great gig from the DM boys. Back to the chalet for a spot of dinner, and for desert we get spangled... it's nearly too much, as we end up glued to Werner Herzog's 'Grizzly Man' documentary - OK, it's not bands but goddam it this is perfect fried-brain filming.... he got et, heh heh. Then off to catch Dinosaur Jr, and for the first time in years J Mascis and Lou Barlow are sharing a stage. The hypnotic drones and melodic swirls of Dinosaur Jr's high volume assault are perfect for finishing off the night. It's all early DJ this evening, and the crowd love it. From where I am, amongst the colours and shapes, there's something of the Californian beach here in this grimy dark venue... One word: Freakscene.

Saturday is a lost day... we eat, we play drinking games, we watch gratuitously odd TV. We walk up and down the beach in a freezing wind laughing at the ridiculousness of it all and watching the indie hordes do the same. Goddam it's, uh, bracing... Then to the pub for some people watching, then to the chalet for some cake, then staying in the chalet for six hours twitching and spazzing out. Oh yeah, indeed.... I only recovered in time for Joanna Newsome, who was quite frankly wonderful, although the attitudes of people in the crowd who talked all over the quiet girl with the harp have got to be wondered at. Upstairs next for the clean-cut punk-tinged Sleater-Kinney, whose recent albums have been stunning. One of these bands that are easy to like but almost never loved, it was great to see 'em live and hear what they could do.

Sunday sees us up early for Lightning Bolt, performing their third set of the weekend. Sadly the bouncers had decided that it would be a good idea if they played to an amost empty second room. So once again we missed 'em. An afternoon in the pub seemed appropriate, broken up by the uninspiring sounds of Destroyer. Slightly self-indulgent, and generally without appeal.

The Decemberists are superb, possibly the band of the weekend. New album Picaresque was one of my records of 2005, and with songs like "We Both Go Down Together" and "16 Military Wives" they show a wonderfully accessible brand of folk-pop intellectualism.

Downstairs again, for the end of Electralane. I've seen these lot a few times before, in their early days, and wasn't too impressed but here they show how well they've matured and what talented musicians they can be. I'm going to be tracking down some of their albums for a second chance.

Clinic are another of my favourite bands of the weekend. Eccentric and powerful, driving and deadpan they perform over an hour of great tunes - highlight is of course Walking With Thee, but the newer tracks from last year's album Cathedral stand up just as well. I'm sure there's only better on the way.

Finally the New Pornographers are headlining downstairs. Not a band I'm overly familiar with, but now I'm going to go back and review their past works. Typical american college rock, clever without being cerebral, jaunty without being cheerful, intelligent without being challenging. Well worth a listen, but never going to change the world.

Exeunt omnes into ATP's rain and drunkeness. Until next year....

--
occasion bouts of writing and poetry: www.londoninflames.blogspot.com

the immortal beyond fathomability soundsystem for hire: www.myspace.com/beyondfathomability

i spy with my only working eye: http://www.flickr.com/photos/londoninflames/

Green Mania, Leytonstone.

2006-03-21T20:48:00.000Z

When trying to compose this piece I found myself in a quandary. I spent a lot of time there, but I ahve almost no linear recollections - i.e. my memory of events is good but when they happened in the story I really can't remember. Instead I'll take the cowards way out, and give a briefest of overviews as to my experience, in the context of the M11 Protest history, before attempting to write thumbnail sketches of events that will perhaps go some way towards showing a little of what life was like on the camps, in all its sheer bloody random glory.

Read this for a bit of an overview: http://londoninflames.blogspot.com/2005/06/green-mania-leytonstone-again.html

Leylines:
There was a lot of hippy pseudo-mysticism going on there, and leyline hunting was one of them that passed the long summer afternoons. Wandering around with bits of wire trying to work out where the leylines were in the area. Of course, that there were leylines is disputable. Some may have taken it as an article of faith, others with a pinch of salt. But somehow or other, no matter who did it, the wires still led people down the same line through the camp and alongside the railway tracks towards Fillebrook Road. The etymology of the words Leyton and Leytonstone were debated too, the words ley and stone deemed the most interesting with all sorts of fanciful ideas thrown up around it. Of course, a brief wiki suggests that the stone was nothing to do with standing stones and the like, but there you go. Who knows what the old Essex witch cults and the like really got up to on Hollow Ponds!

Fashions:
In amongst the concerned locals, there were of course the eco-warriors, travellers, hippies, freaks and generally creative types. Dreads were naturally quite common, and hair weaving passed the time acceptably. The shaved head tufty quiff thing was common enough. Less common but perhaps more entertaining were the cross-dressing crusties. Not a movement as such, more a cheerful response to a bag of donated ladieswear. Stolen site clothing was de rigeur, so flourescent jackets, hard hats and boots were marks of cool. Dodgy hats were always fun, I myself owned the world's most battered straw hat through holes in which I hung dreads. There was one girl who always wore a top hat. Clothes were shredded by the site lifestyle, no point in worrying about them. Crow's boots were held together with gaffy tape, Richey had a knack for losing shoes like no-one I've met before or since. Home made facial piercings added septicemia to the general atmosphere. Even the dogs got into the act, albeit through the actions of the odd - one dog had the work cunt shaved into it's hair. Cheesy Keith decided one day to raise some money for the protest by acquiring a tattoo gun and doing some work for people. It is possibly a good thing that never happened, as I suspect that to this day I'd have some decidedly dodgy ink.

Parties:
It was at Green Mania I attended my first rave, a gabba do, from which I remember very little. Deciding that then was not the time to experiement with ecstacy, I can only recall getting really quite bored and falling asleep, despite the noise of the soundsystem which disturbed the rest of residents 50 metres away. I woke in the morning to an argument - we were alienating the normal locals by keeping them awake all night. In had nothing to show for it but a good night's kip and clothes covered in ash. Apparantly I had kept on rolling into the fire pit and every so often someone would fish me out before I set fire to myself.

Living:
We didn't have a kitchen, we had a fire. And if you've got a fire the rest will come. The fire pit was the central point of the camp, we had sofas and mattresses surrounding it tatted from local skips. We had a tatted cupboard that acted as kitchen and worktop, and we had pots and pans tatted or donated. Food was tatted or donated, and regular raids to local supermarkets took place just after closing time where perfectly edible stuff was yoinked box fresh from the skips. Occasionally people would eat at the local Christian Kitchen, exchanging stories with the area's homeless over soup and stew, although this was frowned upon as not really being in the spirit of things. I tend to agree, though I have to admit that I did it a few times. If you really needed to wash, the McDonald's in Leytonstone provided far better washing facilities than a bucket of warm water, although seeing as how a fair few of the eco-warriors thought nothing of trashing the facilities when they were done it was a fairly sneaky process. You'd be thrown out or have the police called on you if you were caught. Water came, somewhat ironically, from the petrol station across the road, who were quite happy to supply as much as we wanted in exchange for a quiet life and being the supplier of choice for tobacco, large rizlas and mars bars. I guess they figured as well, that given what was happening with McDonalds, being our friend was much better for business than being our enemy. Not of course, that there was any concensus. Plenty of protesters saw no wrong in eating McDonalds, using cars, or anything else that the modern world had to offer, they just didn't want that road there. Others involved in the protest were primitivists, and wanted nothing to do with the world outside nature. It was that wonderful mixture that I think made the M11 Protests so powerful.

Fire:
The fire pit, as I said, was the centre of the camp. And it was a bloody nightmare. Burnable wood as a rarity so we were mostly using tatted crates and old unpainted furniture. Although the area was wooded there wasn't that much decent dry stuff around and we weren't about to tear down trees for firewood. The fire would burn underground too, spreading out and letting smoke out of odd little vent holes in the top soil. Then frantic damping down would take place, as naturally we were desperate not to start some massive underground fire! At Newbury the Police has asked the Fire Brigade not to respond to treehouse fires - the Fire Brigade had told them to fuck off. Would it be the same here? Fire was also a problem for the area. it was a long dry summer, and the flats around Hollow Pond often suffer fires. This happened one day whilst we were there, and as one the protesters ran over to the flats and attacked the fire with feet and blankets. At least one hardcore type scaled the fence and crossed the railway tracks... not something I'd like to do at speed. I suspect we caused as much trouble for the fire crew when they got themselves there as they tried to drag a dozen amateur firefighters from the burning scrub whilst putting out the fire themselves. You can't fault their enthusiasm for doing the right thing though.

Not sure how to leave this now. We lost the site and I missed the eviction, showing up late to watch my treehouse trashed and the woodland ruined. Now there is nothing of interest there, it's partly sliproad, and partly been excavated to make part of the underpass for the enlarged Green Man roundabout. The protesters are well scattered, though I occasionally bump into Vic, who was nicknamed Daddy to my Mummy (because I took care of Richey and his foolhardy destructive schemes like I was his Mum). It was a great period in my life in many ways. Liberating, scary, depressing, joyful, isolating and yet bonding. I have no friends left over from those days, no photos, only memories, a few newspaper cuttings and a shredding Rage Against The Machine t-shirt that I always wore. But I'd do it again like a shot. If they touched Epping Forest I'd not hesitate to tree-sit, digger dive, pixie patrol and do wahtever it takes to protect those trees. It's a lot easier when it's your locale, I have the utmost respect for those protecting woodland and communities that aren't even theirs.

for now that is all,
p.

Paris in flames, London in flames.

2005-11-07T19:28:00.000Z

So as Paris burns we have to ask ourselves, why not London? On the face of it, perhaps we can, like many of the French, dismiss it as the actions of savages, a barbarism that the civilised British cannot and will not fall into. perhaps we can look at it as a mark of the failure of the French social model, proving that a dignified blanace of socialism and capitalism doesn't actually make for a better society - fuel for the modernisers and capitalists maybe, seeking to drive the British model towards the blatant ghettoisation of the poor as envisioned by the American privateer system.

It is not that London does not have its disaffected poor and minorities. It does. It is not that our system successfully keeps them happy. it does not. The European social model, in terms of education and welfare is for the most part to be lauded over and above our system. But where the French have gone wrong is that do something that we do not. They exclude their poor minorities from their system. Here in the UK the difference between immigrant poor and local poor is minimal. They are all poor and struggle for the same jobs, the same benefit pittances and the same opportunities. They are not foreign scum, they are just another strata of Britain's failing system. In France the foreign poor are still foreign two or three generations down the line. In the UK we have learnt from the riots of Brixton, Bradford, Moss Side and the rest. It is not that it couldn 't happen here - It has. It is just that we have successfully co-opted the anger for the time being.

If we continue along the path of social militancy - reduced civil liberties, low social mobility, the ostracisation of minorities etc - London will indeed burn. londoninflames loves London, but seeks the day when, to quote from our Parisian historical brothers, liberty, equality and fraternity are part of the daily social system. If riots and burnings are what it takes to force our leaders to allow their people enough opportunity and justice that they can achieve what they want to, despite race, country of origin or social background, then let the skies of London glow with the fires of anger. We all know that governments has failed and continues to fail those who seek a better life in the UK, whether British or not, and we seek to remind them that, as long as this Blairite descent into social control without freedom, wage slavery, and ghettoisation continues, beautiful shambolic wonderful London could join Paris as a city in flames.

Sit By The River Long Enough

2005-08-05T22:47:00.000+01:00

Sit By The River Long Enough

I used to envy those for whom

Youth was a gentle stroll

Through green and rolling foothills,

Punctuated by friendly country pubs;

Good ale, and nourishing food.

When for me it felt a nightmare climb,

Through freezing fog and valley banditry.

Gaol-term pauses, and prison bitch love.

Climbing jagged fucking cliffs naked and cold,

Eating shit, every meal.

I used to envy those for whom

Life seemed so secure. Cathedral strong,

Rooted in faith, history and strength,

Trustworthy, hallowed and adored.

Echoed prayers for millenia.

When for me it was a terror run through

Quicksand, thick mud, burning lime,

An atom in the vast, a tiny expression

Of hurt and fear. A jackboot on the

Human face for ever.

These days are gone. Envy seems so fragile.

Life is still a climb, but it needs no guile.

If it seems a risk, I say take a while.

(A seagull flys frantically against the wind,

rolls and drops. Alights the air, and calmly waits.)

Day 4

2005-07-26T16:07:00.000+01:00

Day 4

Electrical pulses in the brain. How do we feel them as bodies?

Implulse, desire. Love and pain. The first

Subjects of the poets' scripture.

But also as shock. In the bus where the travellers try not

To touch the surfaces. Where every shudder of

Engine and

pot-hole

Disorientates. On the battlements of a Tudor castle

Where the dizzyness envelopes me and the playingchildrens happycalling

Frights me. Small bodies, though safe

Fumble, tumble, keening to moat's depth.

Shakiness of nerves. Think of strobe lighting.

Dancers / flicker / robotic / here / now / here.

But / this / is / my / brain. This is real and physical.

Not an affectation but an effect.

As receptors re-uptake complex chemicals,

I feel it. Invisible and insidious.

Like a dull thudding of the psyche.

Like a swift kick to the neurons.

Like a tap dancer on my grave.

Troublemakers

2005-07-17T07:38:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since I returned to the theme of my road protesting days. I've not forgotten, I've just had so much going on that I'm many weeks, if not months behind my writing schedule. Believe it or not, I'm simply producing far more stuff than it makes sense to get out here. So to return roughly to a theme, this poem is simply called 'Troublemakers'.

Troublemakers.

They were labelled trouble-makers

though naturally they thought themselves heroes,

And the crueller newspapers named names;

Assigned monetary values to the blamed.

A decade might seem a long time; maybe yes, maybe no.

But it happened here and shaped lives.

Young Jason, paint splattered and awed, is adult now,

Carries still the flame, the power to say no.

And to act it: No. When patriarchal eyes return to abandoned communities,

Imposing change with a glace... we've learnt.

So the towers could still rise, banners and bunting

Could twist and turn and flash in suburban breeze.

Rubble-filled stairwells sleep now to wake in bailiffs' paths,

A future of bulldozers and bare boards holds no fear.

On Moving On Again.

2005-07-13T23:19:00.000+01:00

Could they call it dusty pink?

Edged with yellow, the curving pastel

velvet of sleeping

Tulips.

Tulips seem so out-of-place. The man,

I know, doesn't like cut flowers. He

doesn't approve.

Doesn't like pink, can't abide pastels;

Yet here are ten blooms reaching up

Amongst the spires of green,

Randomly dumped in a stolen pint glass

On a dark wood shelf, somewhere in the glare

Of a new beginning.

Thursday afternoon in London, July 7th 2005

2005-07-07T15:50:00.000+01:00

I don't know if I've got the right to write this so soon. But I need to say something, and this is what I can say right now. Perhaps it'll get a rewrite later, or thrown out completely.

All violence is terrorism. This dispicable act today is what those in Iraq go through daily, as well as what people put up with all over the world. It is a reminder that violence is never the solution. I personally am not chaning because of this. I am still an enemy of fundamentalism, capitalism, war and violence. I am not going to hide away because of this, and I am not going to turn against the weak of this world in an effort to save my own skin. Only when we eradicate exploitation and institutionalised greed will peace even become possible. As long as profits and personal security are more important than human rights and equality then the innocent will die. As soon as Britain joined America in the quest for cheap oil and global domination then we became a target, and it has happened. Britain should be a voice of justice and freedom in the world to reflect the spirit of tolerance and fair-play that her people believe in. But by siding with the rich and powerful against the powerless and calling it justice we have reneged against ourselves. This is the consequences that we have to live with. And to anyone who supports these murderous bastards, either those who attacked my city or those who seek to impose their will upon the world through force, fuck you. You're all the same really, jsut vicious bullies. I speak for millions when I say that your bombs will not stop our dissent. I will not turn to extremist Islam, I will not turn to neo-Conservatism. I support life; life is love, energy and fire and you are the enemies of life. Fuck you, trying to make us fear you with your bombs and propaganda, trying to make us cower away, retreat from what is good and right. It will not happen.

Thursday afternoon in London, July 7^th 2005

Ignorance.

Woke up late. Everything hurts. I'm shaking, twitching, ticticticing.

Must be another step on the drying out ladder.

Email work, return glitching to duvet.

Phone rings and rings and I hide.

Finally I hear the news, and I hurt more.

Shock.

We knew it was coming. How could it not.

But our streets, our friends...

Panicked families. Imagine the horror

Packed trains, glass, darkness and fire.

How could they, how dare they?

Community.

We draw together. On the internet,

In a friend's living room. Clutching at scraps,

Tracing our loved ones down intermittant phone lines.

One by one we're alive, well and safe.

Relief.

It could have been so much worse.

Tomorrow we'll be back to normal.

London can take it.

Glastonbury 2005 review

2005-07-01T20:01:00.000+01:00

Glastonbury Festival of Performing Arts 2005

Wednesday. One of the smoothest journeys yet. The air is baking by the time we get the all-comers scrum that is Pedestrian Gate A. The camp is pitched in the usual spot and relaxation begins. The Dance Village is a new addition to the festival and it has to be said that they've outdone themselves. Two dance tents, a roots tent, the G Stage (i.e. The Glade but with more space), a hut called the Pussy Parleur featuring wooden floors, diner seating, waitress service and mirrored walls, and an ambient area with glowing dome, as well as numerous installations and weird shit. In the evening the sacred space howls and screams in sheer joy. The ambient cafe is a pulsing womb of floaty joy. Being stop-and-searched by some cops isn't fun, considering that the s+s is illegally conducted in three different areas. But I ain't complaining because at one point the jobsworths pig actually has my drugs in his hand and doesn't realise what he's got. The Glastonbury Faerie smiles on me. The giant moon watches over me.

Thursday. Baking heat. Wandering, watching and relaxing. Getting a bit stoned, drinking cider, and watching the world go by. Falling in love every two minutes with beautiful girls. Where do they go when the festival isn't on? Maybe Michael Eavis ships them in especially. Does life really get any better than this? An organic breakfast listening to the Biggles Wartime Band, who are great. http://www.biggleswartimeband.co.uk/ Later we go raving outside the best chip van in the world, larging it to bass and breaks. Sitting in the jazz world stage in the early hours meeting people and talking shit. Distant thunder fills the night with noise and lightning puts the hills in beautiful silhouette. We sleep with static and the heavy thud of rain on canvas.

Friday is wet. You've seen it on the news. You know. There are literally rivers running across the site. In places near us it is calf-deep, and that's not the worst of it. Nevertheless, better wet at Glastonbury than dry at work. After the initial ickyness Mike and I enjoy breakfast and a quiz in a cafe somewhere that culminates in a Benny Hill conga line. We watched a bit of cabaret and circusing, and caught the Herbie Treehead Disaster Band. http://www.herbietreehead.com/ A fine performance of such classics as “The Happy Song” and “The Noisy Song”. The Zutons are a perfect festival band. They are energetic, enthusiastic, and get thousands of people splashing around in the mud. They are however surpassed by the sparsely attended Pronghorn. Www.pronghorn.co.uk Their set is amazing, combining folk, bluegrass, oompah and cossack music, and culminating with a cover of Ace Of Spades that gets the whole audience dancing. All manner of silliness and great stage banter. Bloc Party are damn good, but somewhat dwarfed by the vast bleakness of the mudplain that is the Other Stage, but nevertheless you know they're one of the best bands in the world right now.

Later on Willy Mason is a rare treat. Already he has a cult following, and makes the brave move out of throwing Oxygen out early. He is loved, and is a natural talent who will almost certainly go far. Kudos the boy. The White Stripes are a disappointment. A wilfully obtuse set of odd singing, bizarre drum solos and playfulness combined with muddy sound sends many running. I don't doubt their talent – they're one of my favourite bands in the universe ever, but tonight I am frustrated at them, and after an hour of hearing great songs lost to Jack's undecipherable howling or Meg's inaudibility I head off to the Pussy Parleur. It is here that the supreme randomness of People's Republic of Disco are holding suit. Www.peoplesrepublicofdis.co.uk It is, of course, excellent, demonstrating the great taste of Glastonbury punters! A shame that they couldn't display their useful revolutionary banners though. Discocracy is alive and well in Pilton.

Saturday. Begins with losing my phone somewhere between the cinema field toilets and the G Stage, and continues with the wonderful cut and paste genius that is Cassetteboy and DJ Rubbish. Last year there were maybe 20 of us checking this out in the Glade, this year there are hundreds. The boy has done well. The day continues in the same vein, with the nasty acidcore of Ceephax. During Ceephax a tank is being prepared. I'm desperate to find out who is playing on it, but I have to go and see The Beat, who are naturally splendid and produce a mass outbreak of skanking amongst an audience who were mostly too young to have been there the first time. Mike and I run off to see the Futureheads. They are every bit the band they promised to be. Tireless entertainers with great songs. Then it's cabaret time. The 2^nd Malcolm Hardee tribute is hilariously compered by Arthur Smith, and Stewart Lee is one hundred times funnier than yesterday. It ends with a shambolic version of the balloon dance. Perhaps that should be shambollock, as it ends with five naked men on stage, and Smith in his undercrackers. ***Stuff happened here, but the cider has made me forget**** In the evening Squarepusher plays jazzy breakcore splendidly, building towards his spazzier stuff to fry our pretty brains. Woo!

Sunday. Heatwave again. Lush as fuck. Wonderful breakfast served by beautiful hippy girls from a solar powered green bus. Chez, Mike and I enjoy the caberet tent for far too long, hynotised by the stream of magicians, jugglers, comics, troubadours, idiots and entertainers. We completely miss the fucking Dresden Dolls. This is a bit of a disappointment to say the least. The Jazz World stage seems the best bet at this point, and we drink cider in the sun listening to some phenomenal latin beats and drinking cider. We also bump into some acquaintances of mine randomly and share Glastonbury stories for a while. But all things must pass, and Brian Wilson is on the Pyramid Stage really soon...

Brian Wilson is a revelation. Thousands of happy sun-drenched people singing happy sun-drenched songs. He and his band are excellent, with classic moments including the surreal Merry Christmas, Baby and BF regular Heroes And Villains. More theatre and stuff followed this performance. Again I can't say for certain what actually went on here. I know that I watched Primal Scream, who were petulant and gobby but still ace, but everythig else is a cider haze. Finally 2manydjs were great, playing a mind-fucking set of techno rather than the boots and mashups they're better known for. The biggest problem was that it didn't go on long enough, leaving me aching for more. Then sunday night evaporated into shapes and colours for a few hours. Special props go to Rapunzel www.rapunzelmap.com for her late night set of beautiful acoustic tunes under the jenga cows. A great night.

Overview: possibly the best Glastonbury yet. The mud couldn't spoil it for us, and the sun was lovely. I spent all day every day looking at things and still missed far too much. All the problems are almost ironed out, except for drainage. But come on, you can't blame the festival for freak weather conditions. The sound is still occasionally a problem, and there are still crushes in certain places, but these aren't really worth complaining about. All in all a superb festival. Nice one Eavis!

These are the streets....

2005-06-18T23:49:00.000+01:00

These are the streets of forever
How could you not feel proud
Walking in teh footprints of the great.

This stonework is older than us;
Society; justice; and culture.
We live in its shadow.

I walk in the city: towers of money,
Glass, steel and dead concrete. Once the known
World was ruled from here.

I weave through the circuses. Still named
Well. Here a final drink was given
On a traveller's journey to Tyburn's drop.

The suburbs are studded with history, though
Today evolves around yesterday. 100 modern tongues
Incomprehensible as Chaucer bite and kiss.

Humans roll in waves. My grandfather lived here
Once. My father too. They fled in search of the old.
Now I flow in, washed again on the tide.

This renewal occurs from Kew to Epping,
The flippant new, the wizardly old, and the
Chatter will never end, from street to shining street.

Green Mania. Leytonstone again.

2005-06-10T23:03:00.000+01:00

Fuckin' cheeky it was. Course, you can't blame the bastards. But back then I still kind of believed the state played fair. But no, they know what they're about and react accordingly. I got miffed about the eviction date. They chose the first day that the local schools went back, figuring quite rightly that the teenager hordes wouldn't miss the first day of school so a tip-off free eviction would mean that half the tribe wouldn't be there. And so at four in the afternoon I was standing behind the police lines watching them evict the last few buggers from the place that I had come to love and hate.

Some of us moved straight in after Munstonia fell. Not many, mind. Loads of 'em buggered off for a while to recuperate. But there was work to be done. Green Mania was a patch of wooded land next to the Green Man roundabout in Leytonstone. Course, there hasn't been a Green Man roundabout there in a while, it's like the Charlie Brown roundabout down the road one way and Thatched House the other way... named after something that isn't there anymore. We don't seem to respect our history in East London, you know. We're too busy chasing a future that never arrives, to busy seeking salvation in change rather than renewal, if you hear what I'm saying. yeah, alright, I sound like a hippy but fuck, that's probably what I am.

So Green Mania, yes. It was bordered on the north side by the tube train tracks as they hurtled and rattled towards Snaresbrook and the Far East. To the east it tapered out as Hollybush Hill encrouched it and public tradition used it as a route to get to the edge of Snaresbrook courts. Did I ever tell you about the night I woke up in the grounds. I haven't a clue how I got there, but I did. Woke up on a patch of grass covered in sick. You know it is, I was woozy as fuck, it was around dawn. I wandered for a minute or so and couldn't work out where I was, but having never seen the front gates from the inside before how was I to know. Then the dogs started up, so I panicked and climbed those fucking huge gates in seconds. Heh, idiot boy. You know, I passed out later, by the side of the road, and got picked up by an ambulance. They took me home and woke my mum. Funny as fuck in retrospect, but... that night I'd been drinking shots in my ale. All paid for by the owners of the pub I washed dishes for - not that they knew their staff had had a party, cos they were on holiday. Fuckers.

Anyway, I get distracted by my own stupidity sometimes. To the south was Hollybush Hill, wich came out of the east and joined the Green Man in the west, and with Whipps Cross Road forming the westerly edge Green Mania was a small wedge of greenery that had once been part of the vast Leyton and Wanstead flats. Along the edge of the railway were trees, light cover for the first 20 metres then getting thicker. By the roundabout was a large patch of long grass, which were used for the natural toilet. This was a horrible thing, a pit surrounded by makeshift shields. After you take a shit you cover it with leaves and grasses. Then when it's nearly full it would be filled in and another hole dug. Vile thing. I don't thnk anyone liked it, but at least it added some authentic hippy kudos, you dig? And the flies, man they were thick and angry round that fuckin' hole. I hated it when the sacks were empty, cos it was a light job but dull as fuck, wandering around pulling up grass for the shitter. If you didn't get a full bag the old hands would get riled: fucking lunch outs, they'd say. Why is it no-one does any fucking work around here except me. Oh the arguments about work! It only got worse when a load of travellers showed up. We'd spent a couple of months getting this place beautiful. When we moved in the area had been used as a dumping ground for the local area for months. We cleared it up and piled all the rubbish by the road. Then of course the locals blamed us for dumping it. Can you believe? Of course you can. We just rolled our eyes. It was to be expected. There were bags of shit there. From Whipps Cross. Loads of bags of shit and bloody waste dumped there. But we were called the dirty ones. We made a children's playground out of all the planks of wood and tyres dumped there. Dozens of them. But we were the dirty ones. A few tents went up, though it didn't do much good at first. One night they were firebombed. Fortunately no-one was in them, everyone being round the fire. But firebombed, you know. Classy. If anyone had been in them they could have died. I guess if someone you don't know hates you so much that they'll kill you in your sleep you might well be doing something right somewhere.
And the travellers showed up. These weren't eco-warrior travellers, these were new age travellers. So out on our lawn ended up a big red bus, and loads of other run down vehicles. And these newcomers didn't make themselves welcome. I don;t know a lot of the politics, but it got nasty. A lot of the younger kids stopped coming along after a while, cos there were tantrums, threats and all sorts. Only the most dedicated locals stayed on site, and for a while it looked like a fucking dump. There was rubbish everywhere, beer cans and junk all over the place. As an anti roads protest it was a joke. No-one cleared up, no one went and blagged food. If you wanted something done you did it yourself. And everyone wanted what you had. You'd get on site and it would be, give us a fag. Give us some money. Lend us yer bike. But never any reciprocation. So I got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about certain areas of the traveller community. And when the eviction came where were they? Not there, I can tell you. They'd fucked off at the end of the summer, having made us look like a joke and a shambles and almost destroying our relationship with the local community. Not all of them are cunts, no way. Some did stay, but only really did anything when the main lot had fucked off. I tended not to get on with the crusty lot. I found them to be arrogant and rude. Again, not all of them. Some were salt of the earth. I still remember spending hours hanging in the cargo nets that Greenpeace gave us, arguing music and anarchism with a lass called Jelly. Those nets were the mutt's nuts. You climbed a tree and then hung fifteen feet off the ground in the sun all day. You could climb higher into the trees and throw yourself into the net. Three or four of you would do it at once and roll hooting and crying with laughter into a wrestling bundle in the middle. Then after a while one of the old buggers would come storming up... "are you cunts going to play about all day, you lunch out bastards". Which of course we were. A lot of them were exasperated at how useless we were. Didn't have a clue about building a tree house or tying ropes securely. No good for physical work of any sort. Many of the old boys were labourers or ex-army, hard bastards. We were soft as shite teenagers playing games. Not that we didn't believe, but jesus. Richey and I built a tree house. Ours was the first treehouse, and it was terrible. Little more than a mattress strung where the branches would support it, with a rudimentary roof to keep the rain off. The mattress sagged in the right places and Richey and I would sleep in sitting up positions. My foot would hang over the edge, and often visitors would climb up the tree a little and wake me by yanking on my foot. Good as an alarm bell it was said, and an interesting alternative to the normal practice of yipping.

The yip. A high noise in the back of your throat, yeeeeeipipip, yeeeeeeeeipyipyip. I can't really do it these days. But it was a shibboleth, you know. It marked you out as one of the tribe, and was a greeting, a term of approval, a warning. I wonder where it came from and why. Dongas probably, it sounds like the sort of thing those wonderful crazy bastards would come up with.

Knots though, not everyone was any cop at them, and the weirdest thing in my life happened there when some idiots lashings weren't as good as they should have been. A sky bridge had just been built between two treesand muggins here agreed to test it, being smaller and lighter than most. Halfway across the lashings slipped and monkeyboy went tumbling to the ground. I hurt my leg, though it could have been worse if the friction between the rope and the tree hadn't slowed the fall or I'd been stupid enough to let go and take a real fall. But instead I got a badly jarred leg and a massive friction burn across one palm. The chap who tied the rope got the tongue beating of his life, while another chap took my hand in his, forced it into a fist and concentrated hard, blowing on it and making odd noises. After a minute or two he let go of my hand and when I opened my fist there wasn't a mark on it, depsite it being in agony and with blood beading through a filthy red burn two hundred seconds before. To this day I can't explain it. If you can, let me know eh.

More later, I need a drink and my nap now.

Chalk

2005-06-05T01:19:00.000+01:00

The air on the hillside is summer soft.
I am heavy with the weight of years.
I exist for the wait of years.

Some say the Romans knew
The key to my gates.

Others say only I know
and I am not telling.

My turf is cool. Once sheep-cropped
now tended. Once free, now fenced.

They call them firles: the fields where
I lay. The chalky downs hum with a

Quiet life, though rabbits and hares
will not step within lance-reach.

And even the birds cannot fly too near.
But people have ever come. In their

Ones, twos and packs. I am still
Worshipped. Confusing me with another

I am a bed for the barren.

Or a symbol, of times gone; to be studied,

Cherished and preserved. Though in truth
My time is yet to come. Neil showed

That Shakespeare knew; and perhaps he did,
For the markets and fairs at my feet

Softened me. But still I lie, waiting
Watching, holding my secrets as firmly

As I hold my poles. Perhaps one day
You will learn. The loves and

Hates of the earth are older than your
Race, and the gods who could placate are dead.

This Would Make A Great Opera

2005-05-29T00:48:00.000+01:00

A note about this piece: It was written because I wanted to see if I could write a meaningful piece that could also be performed by the popular beat combo Shellac. http://www.southern.com/southern/band/SHLAC/ I'm a huge fan of their work, as you may have guessed by the fact that I go to All Tomorrow's Parties. Anyway, I'm no lyricist, as those readers who remember Haggadah, so if you think this is typical of my work then read some more of the poems and forget this. The verses are a bit At The Drive In too, I guess.

this would make a great opera
this would make a great opera

heartbreak like eagle talons wrapped around a moon
claw-tip dimples slowly piercing space-rock organ
dew-drops of blood trickle quickly into the sky

this would make a great opera
this would make a great opera

it's tragic and pointless and beautiful
just like the way i see you and you see me
it's overwrought and stupid and costs too much money
so you see, they could be twins

this would make a great opera
make a great performance piece
it would pick us up and elevate us and turn us back into stardust
it would carry us the edges of the universe, seal us our fate
it would soar and undulate and reverberate and glow

this would make a great opera
where everybody dies a stage death, wooden swords stuck under armpits
singing death songs on their knees for ever, just never stopping
carrying on when they should be dead, still dying, still singing, still going.

this would make a great opera
you and me
this would make a great opera
you and me

Leytonstone III

2005-05-19T22:03:00.000+01:00

It felt like a party. Only one lunch-out (nah, it wasn't me, that was a cliffhanger), and the music blaring in the sunshine high over Leytonstone. Dozens of us chained to the buidling, up the tower with its streamers and shiny things catching in the wind. Dozens more scampering over the roof like a load of baby squirrels or something. From below the sounds of demolition, from above the horns, catcalls, jeers and yips. And from the side, in the evil robot arm of the cherry-picker, come our bailiffs. Two get on the roof and escort you away, one is in the cage at all times. Despite the early removal of the journalists (by mutual agreement I reckon) it was very peaceful while I was up there. I guess the last thing you want is hassle when you're on a very high roof. I was one of the first ones off unfortunately, and went peacefully. Not that I got a lot of options about it really. Chucked out of the cage at the bottom I was briefly held and photographed by the police, then thrown out into the crowded street. East London has always loved a bit of street theatre, so there were a lot of people on the other side of the police cordon. Many were there to cheer either protesters or police, many more just to watch and stare. I was quickly grabbed for an interview by local cable news, though if it ever got shown I don't know. Like I said before I wasn't very media savvy at the time so it's probably best if it didn't. I wasn't the only one uncomfortable though, I watched John the Cook being interviewed and he ended up cutting it short, unhappy with the attention and his role of unwilling spokesman. One by one we were removed. Some came easier than others. There are classic photos of Roy hanging on the bottom of the cage, swinging his legs 30 or 40 feet up. Did he leap for it? was he trying to immobilise it? I really can't remember but it was a dramatic moment. Roy was your typical crusty. Early twenties, blond quiff and shaved head, chunky knit pullover and huge army boots. So it made the papers. Others weren't so easy to move. Nelly was a giant of a man, and he'd been locked on to an oildrum filled with concrete. That took 'em a few hours.

Meanwhile we made good photo opportunities. Rescuing an unrooted sapling and carrying it off down the road towards the Green Man camp, for example. Singing rousing choruses of various rebel songs. Cheering and booing every action on the roof. It was a long day. And when the final chap was removed (he hadn't even been locked on, merely had his arm down a hole in the chimney that they spent many hours excavating) we realised that this was the longest ever eviction of a single building in European history. Thats one for the Guinness Book of Obscure Records.

In short succession two things happened that summed up the day perfectly. As we crowded round the last bloke off, I was tapped on the shoulder by a young chap in a suit. "here you go mate, they'll probably need these", he said, giving me a back of assorted crisps, snacks, sandwiches and a couple of packs of cigarettes. A real surprise and piece of genuine kindness. Then the rubble started flying as the bulldozers moved in. For an hour or so the catcalls and jeers mixed with the brickdust in the air, and as the night cooled off so did the protest. Some slunk off the the Green Man camp, some to a squat party somewhere - perhaps where the 491 Gallery now is. I went home, and then I think I went clubbing or to a party in the same dirty dust-stained clothes to bask in the anti-glory of another glorious defeat. Or crushing victory - I never decided.

Post-script. A couple of weeks later a large section of the street around where Munstonia once stood collapsed into a hole. It turned out that no-one had bothered to switch off the tap that lead from the mains to the moat, and consequentially the continual flow of water had caused major subsidence. How we laughed.

The papers all billed this as 'The Last Stand', just as they had done with Claremont Road. It wasn't to be.

Next time: Green Mania

Ivy

2005-05-16T22:41:00.000+01:00

Ivy on the brickwork
- a green fascia.
holding fast.
You can

pull it away.
But...
Marks will always stay:

Scars of intrusion
show where the thousand fingers
gripped.

Solid-stuck cords, prison tight,
never to release their hold.

Visible damage too, chips and weakness.

Perhaps, on reflection, it could be better to remain
free;
than to give yourself to ivy.

don't miss me too much

2005-05-04T07:19:00.000+01:00

i might well be offline for up to a couple of weeks as I am moving. But rest assured, when I get back I've got a couple of new poems that i'd like to try out, plus the rest of Leytonstone. Where, incidentally, I am moving to.

Leytonstone II

2005-04-25T00:29:00.000+01:00

Munstonia was the perfect place for a young man to exist. It was summer, so sitting on top of the roof or tower for hours on end seemed wonderful. In the evening we'd sleep on bedrolls on the floor of what must once have been a master bedroom, where the smells of old wood, dust, sweat, incense and hashish mingled indelibly. Most nights John the Cook would make anyone there some sort of dinner, normally vegetable stews or soups cooked over an open fire. Most days we'd sit around the roof or garden passing the time with stories and chit-chat. I was always willing to listen, as in my short life I hadn't really done anything, whereas these people knew about the world. They'd done things, whether it was Cheesy Keith's swimming with dolphins, or new age traveller Roy pretending he had body lice in order to get an emergency payment out of the benefits people. Richie had been in the Army Cadets and had gone AWOL. Many of the others were travelling eco-warriors, some local, some from Europe or further. Locals would visit most evenings to spend a bit of time with us, or give food or money, or building supplies. These were most loved, as a supply of wood and nails resulted in a flurry of jury-rigging defences. I cleared out my Dad's shed of dozens of pots of half-used paint, and as a 'reward' I got to repaint the mural on one side of the house. While another protester held a rickety ladder balanced on wonky rubble, I climbed the fifteen or so feet and carefully painted a white outline around the vast letters that read 'it's no good: i will become more possible than you can powerfully imagine" this Star Wars paraphrase seemed particularly witty at the time, though somewhat rubbish now, and got into many photographs to my pride. It was even used as a subtitle in a textbook that covered the protest. Even today I am somewhat proud, even though I only painted the bloody outline!

I was also horrifically proud of myself when I found myself mentioned in the Independent. We got the Indy at home (bloody liberals) and to be mentioned in a feature (with photos) on the protest felt like vindication, and proof that I was doing something! The journalist was a woman in her late twenties who'd put on some flowing kaftan-style dress, probably specially for the occasion. She'd shown up hours late and there had only been a few of us there at the time. She was to come back later with a photographer. To this day I'm glad that I didn't talk to her for long. I had a nasty habit of putting my foot in it when I spoke to journalists back then. Many years later I decided I had finally laid that ghost to rest when a chap from the (hate) Mail interviewed me at May Day 2001 and was asking questions designed to get the answers he wanted. After a few years of undergrad level philosophy I was able to read the story the day after safe in knowledge that even though no Mail readers would ever be converted by my clever answers he hadn't been able to twist my words or make me look stupid. Anyway, I've still got that Independent Magazine somewhere, though I'm afraid that I'm not ready to go digging around at the moment. One important thing it gave me is a pseudonym for my fiction writing: J Fillebrook. Actually a psuedonym for anything really. She changed the names of the people she spoke to to. I became Jason. Is Jason a better name than Paul? Fuck knows. It was a good and sympathetic piece.
Of course, not all media was good. We learnt that the hard way. We received an invitation from Richard Littlejohn to come on his talkshow. So Cheesy Keith, as the best orator, a local, and the most disarmingly cheerful person I've ever met (the Cheesy refers to his grin) was chosen to go and tell our side of the story to one of the most vile right-wing racist homophobic cunts ever to grace British media. Keith and a handful of others went along, with a plan to pull a stunt of some sort. If I recall correctly I think the plan was, at a prearranged signal, to jump out of the audience and handcuff themselves to Littlejohn, or some shit. But Littlejohn was a step ahead. During the recording a load of people with nothing to do with the protest invaded the set and smashed everything up whilst shouting anarchy slogans. It was a clear set-up designed by that bigoted shitbag to undermine the movement. Instead of being wacky peaceful pranksters appealing to the sort of calm sane liberal who would never normally watch that shitbag's show except to see him look stupid we looked like violent idiotic scumbags and alienated the sort of people we needed to appeal to. Keith was heartbroken. None of us ever trusted a journalist again.

It had to go really wrong at some point though. One day Joel and I were pissing about on the roof and Joel was shining a piece of mirror at a nearby security guard. Joel was like that. The guard went mental, and started throwing bricks at the remaining windows. There was only a couple of people there, and Nelly, as the only adult male attempted to reason with the guy, nearly getting a half-brick to the face as punishment. We barricaded ourselves in for a couple of minutes, and while the security guard was getting a bollocking by his manager, Joel (and I) were getting a bollocking from Nelly. Eventually we were snuck out when a whole group of other protesters showed up, and high-tailed it across the waste ground. I didn't go back for a few weeks, and Joel didn't return until the eviction. I don't know now who I was more scared of, the violent tendancies of the guards or of Nelly, who was a huge bastard, though actually a big softy. His complaint about Joel was more than reasonable I think. Trouble did follow Joel around. Joel was a fellow who would deliberatly get his friends into trouble just to stand back with a big grin on his face and watch the shit-storm. These days he's well out of politics and no surprise. It was always a pose to him.

I popped in on the way home from a UCAS open day, and was met with a hive of activity. The tip off had come, the eviction was tomorrow. A note on this; most evictions began with tip-offs. Why? Because for most of them leave was cancelled and it worked as overtime, a nice little earner for the coppers and all the better if we've had plenty of time to rustle up support and defences to keep the overtime rates coming in. So eviction tomorrow then, my first.

It was an early rise, and I was in my best rags. The air was still morning cool even though it was June. There were more people at the house than I'd ever seen before, and there had been some serious building work done. The stoop had been demolished, and a moat dug in front of the house. The cellar had been excavated until the water main had been found and this had been rerouted to slowly fill this moat. Instead of stairs, entry to the house was now via drawbridge. There were strong doors that could be blocked on the other side, and where the staircase had been was now a reinforced tunnel. the ladders that led up could be pulled away and the tunnel filled with rubbel. Then anyone following would reach another reinforced door. Every doorframe in the house was now reinforced, and each would have to be smashed down before the room could be declared evicted. Everyone was on the roof or the tower though. Here was where the trouble would really start. The practice of locking-on was now well known, and the chimneys were a hive of lock-ons. Heavy metal boxes and oil-drums had been filled with concrete and turned into lock -ons. Heavy digging equipment would be needed to shift this lot safely. I was on the roof, nervous, ashamed of my fear, wondering what would happen. Glad that no-one had asked me to stick my arm down a piece of drainpipe embedded in concrete and handcuff myself to a bar in the bottom.

It was getting warmer, and it was busy on top. A few journalists were circulating, confident in the power of their notepad to protect them. In the front garden the pension posse sat around drinking tea. These locals, mostly old women, would provide the police and bailiffs with their first mindfuck. They were prepared to stand their ground, shame the evictors into asking what sort of world it was when they were required to push old ladies around so that people could get to work quicker. Someone handed me a piece of a Rubik's puzzle as a good luck token. Then the horns and the shouting began. The vans appeared at the bottom of the road. In a flurry of activity theose still in the ground floor rolled out everything we had left into the road to slow the cops down, including huge wooden cable reels and loads of timber. Then they ran back into the house, and prepared. This was it. The vans kept coming. I counted over twenty before I stopped. The noise was astounding, scream and shouts, jeers and yips, airhorns, whistles and a tape deck looping a track by the Prodigy and Pop Will Eat Itself... 'fuck them, and their law'.

It took the police twenty minutes or so to get themselves set up and organised. They parked the lead van in front of the roadblock and through a loadspeaker informed us to disperse. This was drowned out. The block was cleared and positions taken. The sinister evidence gatherers lined up, black jumpsuits, cameras and no numbers. There was no turning back now. The initial adrenaline rush abated for a while as the bailiffs sought for a way in. There was no getting past the stairs, but a cherry picker got them in the front window, for all the good it did them. The sounds of smashing came from downstairs as they systematically destroyed every room as they got to it. I remember the sight of a chair being flung out of a window. To this day I find myself wondering why they destroyed everything and threw it out of a window before doing anything else? Thoroughness? Convenience? Anger? They worked in teams, clearing and destroying their way through. I wonder how complete the search really was. There was going to be a team in the cellar at one point, digging a tunnel to hide in, but the work never got done. Did the bailiffs really check to make sure the cellar was clear, the every room and cupboard were empty. In Claremont Road elmost every room and cupboard had been a new defence, but here they were decoys to slow the bailiffs down. How many of these decoys did they tolerate? What if some hadn't been decoys? Would the boy have cried wolf too often I wonder?

The cherry picker was quickly deployed, and in teams of three the bailiffs were on the roof. Anyone willing to go were removed first. Only one protester took them up on the offer...

Leytonstone, 1994-6 I

2005-04-06T15:40:00.000+01:00

The eviction of Claremont Road was where I cut my activist teeth. It is where my story and the story of the M11 Link Road and by definition British popular protest become linked. The eviction of Claremont Road was where I learnt how the state works, and how it organises and deals with dissidents. It is also where I learnt to listen to people, and thank goodness I did. During the week long eviction of Claremont Road a squatted dairy in Leyton became home to many of the evictees, and here every evening I would settle down to listen to the stories told by the protesters and travellers who congregated in between vigils of chanting and trying to break back into the street. My memories of that time are disorganised, and out of time. I can remember meeting a guy who'd just served 11 years for possession of 10,000 tabs of acid. His prison stories made me determined to never go... I can remember a young guy stumbling around dazed. Two cops had met him in the street, recognised him, dragged him into a doorway and punched him in the face. He was shocked and bruised and his glasses had been broken. And I can remember one of the Claremont pensioner crew, an ancient and tiny woman, dressed in motorcycle leathers and with a fresh nose piercing. "I never wanted kids" she said, "but if I'd had them I'd have wanted them to be like you lot". A couple of the eco-warrior crew had adapted their old ambulance and used it to transport her place to place, where she'd be rolled out to berate the coppers with shouts of "shame". One night the police raided her ambulance, and dragged her and her belongings out into the street. She didn't have much, having refused to take the compulsary purchase order for her house, which was now rubble and dust. I remember hearing about her dying five or six years ago, and don't mind admitting I shed a tear. Now I can't even remember her name... Marion? I salute you anyway. Not all of the elderly residents did so well. The famous Dolly refused to give up her house. She was 93, and had lived all her life there, she'd been born in that house. Now the country she'd worked for all her life was throwing her into the street. "I don't want to go into a retirement home" she said, "all but two of the others they moved are dead." Is that true I wonder. It was often repeated around the campfire, that within three months most of the evicted pensioners had died. Another old lady had a heart attack when the bailiffs kicked in her door, and Dolly herself was evicted on an ambulance trolley, having taken a bad turn when the bully boys came for her.

After the Claremont eviction the M11 Link Road campaign was supposed to be buried. Everybody said that they had nowhere left to hide. But, of course they did. 135 Fillebrook Road was a huge, imposing and most importantly listed building standing in a sea of bulldozed rubble outside Leytonstone tube, roughly behind where the staff depot is now. It was a grand old house awaiting Home Office approval for its complete demolition. It was now guarded 24 hours a day, and had been gutted by govt. wrecking crews, who'd destroyed the gas and water supplies, pulled most of the roof off, and disconnected the leccy.

One afternoon, however, a group of eco-warriors noticed that a security guard, rather than being on guard, was actually asleep in his car. On the off-chance, the house was investigated and a note was discovered pinned to the door. "Guard number 9 has gone to make a phone call". The house was quickly reoccupied, a Section 6 was declared (http://www.squat.freeserve.co.uk/section6.htm) , and the game started all over again. Munstonia was born.

I have no recollection how Munstonia and I became acquainted, how I heard about it or summed up the courage to show up there and join in. My only recollection is being given the guided tour of the spooky shell (its spookiness is what gave it the name, an in-joke based around the Munsters), the ladders and reinforced doors where staircases and corridors should be, the numerous (often dangerous) methods of getting onto the roof. And the roof was where the action was. Four storeys of house and attic gave way to a mostly flat roof with a foot-wide ledge around the edge at attic window height. From the centre of a roof was a tower, a wooden frame stretching probably a further 10 metres into the air. A final hiding place from the bailiffs and security guards. That day I met Jon the Chef, a skinny softly-spoken hippy, with a scraggly beard and a few long thin plaits hanging down his back. I also met Richey, who was to become both a close friend and a nemesis.
As I entered an upstairs room this tubby teenager with a South Park vocabulary hopped out, having stepped in bare feet on an protruding nail. As he left he introduced himself and stole a cigarette. He returned an hour later with the gift of a whole pack.

More to come...

All Tomorrow's Parties

2005-03-30T05:00:00.000+01:00

All Tomorrow's Parties, Camber Sands 25-27th Feb.

Firstly allow me the briefest of apologies for running so far behind in my reviews....

A bit of background knowledge to my ATP review - I'm jet-lagged, tired, and my medication has run out. As a consequence I'm a shaking, twitching throbbing mess. And I fucking hate Pontins. I hate their freezing cold cold chalets (though ours had a broken electricity meter that never ran down so it nearly got warm). I hate their rubbish venue rooms which are difficult to get in and out of. I hate the fact that the shop is expensive by a third again (£32 for a crate of 1664? fuck off) and staffed by morons. And have I mentioned how cold it is?

Because the Rev overslept in Cardiff (blame MTV and their free bar) Chez and I were forced to sit in the pub for 3 hours. Factor in the beer we drank on the way down and suddenly you've got three very drunk idiots. Hence the fact that on the first night, when Deerhoof and the Melvins are playing, we're in the pub. Total recollections: wrestling Chez on the pub floor. Apparantly there was a good DJ that night but I can't remember. There were Yanks eating sandwiches in our chalet at some point. I can't remember why.

Day two was more successful. Spoon had their intelligent indie-pop thing down to a wiggle-inducing tee. The indie karaoke was ace. Need New Body were briefly my new favourite disco-punk-rap-shouting band. And Slint? Slint were tunefully noisy. They made me shiver, they made me feel like my chest was gonna collapse. They made my brain fade in and out of reality. Then I spent the rest of the gig talking to a girl about gabba. The pub afterwards was packed. There were DJs. A security guard threatened to make me sleep on the beach for jumping on a chair to AC/DC, the prick.

Day three and I'm in real pain now. Every loud noise hurts. Every footstep disorientates and depresses me. All I can do is sit and rck to myself and shovel more booze down my neck. White Magic were therefore perfect for a while. Piano, acousticness, lovely ethereal singing. Chez and the Rev got bored before I did. We watched someone else too. They were OK but I forget their name. King Kong were stunning. Rolling funky blues, songs about trees, turkeys and apes. Buy their records!

The rest of this review is unreadable gibberish.

Leyton, 1996

2005-03-27T05:10:00.000+01:00

So I moved into a flat with someone I barely knew. You must remember at this time I was very young and my brain had pretty much collapsed into itself. I was living in another reality, and so, somehow, when this bloke who was going out with a friend of mine invited me to move into his flat I jumped at the chance. The flat was pure squalor. He had only the bare bones, everything else had be sold, 'stolen or had gone away for repairs. My room was the living room, so I slept on the sofa and filled it up with my teenage junk. My broken telly, my fucked up stereo, my books. His was the bedroom. A double bed, slimy and dishevelled, and a broken wardrobe were the furniture. The room was calf deep in detritus, clothes, junk, rubbish. The hall was full of shit. There was an armchair irremovable jammed in the middle. The door to the understairs cupboard hung open revealing more junk. There were newspapers covering every available patch of floor that wasn't coated in anything else. The kitchen was squalid. Just an oven. The fridge didn't work anymore. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was the cat shit everywhere from the two skittish kittens that lived there. The bathroom was vile, falling apart and stinky.

But it was home. And for a few months it was fine. Darren and I got on alright, though it must be said that I was in lalaland for most of it. Cracked brain, you know. But so was he, and two fuckitall depressives living in a small area became chaos. His hero was Sid Vicious. Sid's face watched over everything in that house. His girlfriend was his Nancy. What the fuck was I? Johnny Rotten maybe? Darren was violent and brutal, and often alluded to his criminal past, and received mail in a number of different names. The rent was being paid, so we hid for most of the time. The locks had been changed. At first it was fun, parties and craziness. Hordes of Darren's friends, the random lunatics that he found all over the place. Anna's friends, civilised middle-class kids maybe, but with drugs and traumatic lives. And the friends that I made at that time, when I'd pushed aside the wankers and backstabbers I'd grown up with and developed a new collection of fellow fuckups. The house filled up with shit. We'd collect old furniture, chunks of factory refuse and the like. We'd break into building sites and wreck the place. We were two young punks who hated the world and wanted to laugh at it. Of course the money ran out. Darren seemed good at getting his chand on cash. He was charismatic and owed money everywhere. My poor old mother was putting money into my account and into my hands, but not much. Friends were bringing me food and booze. Most nights we lived on bread and beans and mad-dog 20/20 (a particularly potent brew that is well named). We often ran out of electricity. A favourite way of getting money was to block up all the phone boxes (except one, gotta be fair) and then go back at night with a fish knife to scrape out enough change for a packet of chips and a packet of cigarettes. The girl I was dating finished it with me, because she quite frankly had thought I was cool and rebellious. The fact that I couldn't be contacted cos I had no phone, would go round to hers to wash and couldn't afford to go out ever had somewhat queered it.

Then Anna went to uni and Darren changed. His depressions became stronger, nastier. Mine did too. We were both self-harmers, and in the end would sit around with a packet of razor blades carving chunks out of ourselves whilst making plans for world domination. He'd go and visit her for weeks at a time, and I'd wander the house slowly going madder and madder. I imagined there to be a ghost in the place. I would scrabble around in the rubble of the flat, wondering why there were so many knives hidden around the place, so many old wallets with different people's IDs in. I got paranoid and stared carrying a knife. I discovered a stash of clothes relating to Darren's nazi past. I discovered summonses in a number of different names. I discovered a stack of 2000ADs and Crisis comics, hundreds of them, and spent days reading them in random order by candlelight. It got colder, and I slept fully clothed for warmth, including my boots, so that when i got up at night to piss it didn;t matter if i stepped in the catshit that infested the kitchen. One night the back door got kicked while i was out, and though they clearly didn't go any further I created a weapon that has stayed by my bed ever since - an iron bar with a duster gaffa taped round the base as a handle.

I'd enrolled in college a couple of days a week and was trying to have a life, make new friends but it was crazy really - I surrounded myself with teenagers who weren't able to see me for the trouble that I was. Few people came to see me, and when they did they'd slip me a fiver here and there. The kitchen and bathroom was full of mould, piles of it. Every so often I'd open the backdoor and throw all the shit and filth out into the yard, but it kept coming back. My hair had shaved bits and dreaded bits, and I was wearing nails and pins jammed through my ears. My clothes never got washed. Some of my friends cut me out altogether for a while, unable to visit the wild-eyed loon with the bleeding arms sitting there reading comics and mumbling. I slipped down to about 8 stone.

Darren would come back now and again, in a rage. He'd been staying in Anna's halls of residence but this had got her into trouble. More than likely he'd been on the tealeaf, but when he got a rioutous rage on.... the inside doors and little remaining furniture got smashed in. He went away again, and I lost the doorkey. For weeks I had to get in and out through the front window slats, always petrified I'd be arrested for entering a flat that wasn't mine. To be honest, there was no way of proving whose it was. The name on the doorbell wasn't Darren's, nor were the names on any of the red bills that kept on coming. Darren came back and said that he and Anna were going to start preparing to move in together up there. He took most of his possessions leaving me with my shit in a flat with no electricity and with my braincells rotting out. It got colder, and I got lower, and money ran out. The sofa collapsed, though it never occured to me to sleep in the bedroom. The cats couldn't be fed, I couldn't be fed. One night I cracked. The pitiful mewing got to me. I burst into tears. I don't think I'd slept in two or three days. I got on my bike at 7 in the morning, and pedalled for home. On the way some silly cow on her morning commute pulled out of a side road and the only thing that stopped her hitting me was luck. I just screamed into her window, sobbing and incomprehensible. She drove off leaving me screaming and shouting in the middle of the road. A few miles later my mum opened the door and I fell through it to safety.

Postscript:
The flat was repossesed and I lost half of my possessions. I rescued the cats though. I saw Darren again once when he came back to get them. The collapse of Darren and Anna's relationship is not my story to tell here, but my name, and the names of some people close to me, have been added to the list of people who will kill him brutally if he ever shows up on their patch. Most of the names above me are people that you do not want to upset. He was last seen imprisoned, though for what I don't know. He was housebreaking, dealing heroin, and passing false money at the time. I slept on a mattress on the floor at my mother's house for six months, depressed but better off, squalid but prepared for the next place I lived. But perhaps before I tell that story I'll explain next time about the protest camps that gave me the first taste of communal living.

If I had the Choice

2005-03-22T21:02:00.000Z

If I had the choice
Then I guess perhaps
I'd do it all again, wouldn't you?

I'd walk the hard roads and the
Soft. Take the heart-warming
With the heart-breaking.

Because, at the end of it all
Every path has led to me.
Scruffy and scarred, alcohol tired.

And I know what I've got, and
What I haven't got. And I know
The value of choice. And at the

End of it all,
I'm still free.

Kimya Dawson

2005-03-16T00:30:00.000Z

Kimya Dawson / The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players / Langthorne Slim - Tonic NYC, Wed 9th Feb.

Langthorne Slim is a honky tonk troubadour hidden under a hipster trilby. Almost minimalist at times, and humourous without being comic we've got a a guitar, a kick-drum and a stand-up bass throwing out some weirdly high-pitched blues! Songs about girls and smalltowns. Like Bob Dylan taking on the Moldy Peaches. The sort of punk-folk-blues whimsy that leaves me grinning. Shakes his head like David fucking Gray on a cheap speed binge. Shout-a-lot bridges. Nice.

"You gotta do something in thie life" the sing in the 'Theme', "making mockery of family vacations" is their thing. Emily says its a hilarious terrible documentary and she's right as usual. If you don't know the TFSP then it's simple. They get old slides, splice them together, and write songs about it. And they're a family. The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players (featuring new bassist Rachel T.) have just become my new favourite band. Its kind of hard to review at times because you can't see the slides so you have to take my wrod for it. But Jason T. hollers and screams like the mutant offspring of Jacks Black AND White. I mean, it's a smartarse sneer-fest true, but in a lighthearted inoffensive way. Jason T. narrates every step of the way, explaining the non-stories. 'Untitled' is the Talking Heads but rawer. 'Don't You Know What I Mean' is song but the youngest member of the band, her child's voice cutesily high-pitched and wonderfully off key! 'Cultural Services in Fine Art' is apparantly obscure Trachtenburg, highlighted by them fucking up the intro to this honky-tonk shoutathon. 'Solo Trip To Japan 1959' sounds like a bar band in 1920s Mississippi falling down a hill, and 'Eggs' offers the simplicity of the rhetorical question "where else can you be in 1973 without eggs". Superb.

Kimya Dawson wanders on stage while most punters are distracted, and promptly greets her mum and dad before launching into a heartbreaking song that evaluates social responses towards tsunami victims against victims of America's actions in Iraq. The entire audience is silenced. In typical Dawson fashion the next song is her at her fastest, packing as many words into a verse as possible. Of course, when she forgets the words we're shown an obvious disadvantage to this method of delivery. Already though the crowd is thinning. It seems the hipsters were out for the Trachtenburgs, but that doesn't matter cos that means we get a greater share of Kimya to ourselves. Her performance is delicate, poetic and touching "it's been raining and I've been crying". Her voice occasionally cracks with anger or sadness. She is self-effacing and postmodern. Yeah, I'm a little in love with her! While the formula of the songs rarely changes her inventive metaphors raise smiles every verse. What more can you want from an artist? One song follows the Moldy Peaches' 'NYC is a Graveyard' and displays a sense of contentment with the world and a happy maturity that she never had before. She sings about birthdays and alcoholism and adulthood. There are songs with "doo-doo-doo"s and songs about wetting yourself. Songs about being too lazy for life. It's all true, dammit. When she gets some boys on stage to dance towards the end we can do nothing but laugh at the lark and smile at her sense of peace in the world as it is tangible and beautiful. "We won't stop until someone calls the cops, and even then we'll just start again" she sings softly, a self-deprecating love-in. "Send me and IM I'll be your friend" and hell, we can find her on livejournal any day we like. At the end of the gig she runs through the audience and stands by the back door waiting to hug everyone on the way out. Wonderful.

Sitting on the train....

2005-03-12T13:37:00.000Z

Sitting on the train back to Penn
I find myself thinking.

My father's work-bag. Square, heavy, mysterious.
The tools of his trade. A magic kit, weighty, worthy, unknown.

No childish hands could penetrate the buckles and straps.
I was too young for the hermetic secrets sealed within.

A few stray glimpses of the contents captivated me, fetishes held and
Worshipped and wondered over. Like the

Small green notebooks he always used. Hard-covered and
Lightly ruled, and filled with his tiny condensed hand.

And to this day I wonder what he wrote in this script of his.
Diaries or musings? Ideas or wordplay? Observations to pass the long dark hours.

As a child I wrote obsessively so I never thought it strage.
Indeed, I still find myself confused by adults who don't carry notebooks.

He had torches too. A green one and a red one. Square, functional and ancient.
Solid metal, with carrying handles. The magic of coloured lights.

Shining like love in the dirty tunnels.
A spark of life in the choking roaring gloaming.

Other things too. A small, slim old-fashioned flask.
It was smoky-blue and had a metal cap.

Portable radio, small for the time. His driver's hat,
Peaked and important. An enigmatic set

Of metal tools, like the magic keys from
My fantasy books. All strange shapes and unknown uses.

I now know them to be keys to tool-boxes and storage bins. But the mystery
Of keys endures. I cannot ignore a lost key in the street, or the bottom of drawers.

What else? Memory fails. I decode my life's intricacies through
One child's obsession with his father's roundeled bag.

A Dream of Earth

2005-03-06T19:28:00.000Z

I have a dream of earth
The force of will that shoves weeds
Through concrete.

Imagine the strength. A desire so
Strong that mere foliage achieves
What we cannot do with flesh.

No punch so powerful as vegetable effort,
A need for light and life that conquers
Human creation.

This is my dream. Gradual force like
The seasons changing. A hope so strong
That pavements crumble.

Imagine the things I could achieve
If I was dandelion strong. Imagine the
Future; foliage parting flagstones

Forever.

Me and Garf

2005-03-03T07:53:00.000Z

Garf said to me
That I only listen to hopeless music.
I said to Garf
'Do you only listen to music that gives you hope?'
(I'd hate to have his record collection)
But then I thought about it
And he's
"kind of"
right.

I guess that's the difference between us.
Not just me and Garf; me and us, you and yours. You lot have hope.

And I don't know why.... I mean,
I have *hope* too. Otherwise what's the point.
But I don't have £hope$.

Maybe it's just the apocolyspe of the soul,
But the future is now, and we lost.

Christo's Gates - review.

2005-03-02T02:48:00.000Z

15 / 02 / 05

Central Park; wow. Perched on a rock here in the heart of Manhattan I am impressed. Firstly, by Christo's 'Gates'. Not so much the individual pieces, but the concept. Up close they're just big orange portals. From afar they're a wall of hard corners and soft shimmer curving and rolling in and around the landscape. Both distincly underwhelming and impressively magnificent all at once. And it seems like all of New York has joined us on an idyllic spring day. Tourists and amateur photographers everywhere. A model teetering in biker chic and killer heels snapped by two overweight balding men. Skateboarders using their unique vision to reinterpret the urban environment. I love skateboarders sometimes.

The view is often magnificent. What we have here is some of the best buildings in the world. Gotham all right, for those spires and tovers, balconies, ramparts and crennellations. This is intensive landscaping.

Explanation

2005-02-07T07:17:00.000Z

There is a loose collective operating out of East London's wonderful Stepney Green. And I've taken it upon myself to do the promoting thereof. So this is going to be the best place to do it from, after all, there's nothing we like better than free and easy-to-use webspace.

Anyway, I'll introduce you to the collective and as and when new events happen I'll use this as the source.

Firstly we've got my own labour of love...
Beyond Fathomability. BF is a cartoon schizoid music affair. Hosted by DJ Fiddle and the Reverend M BF is a trawl through vinyl randomness covering the whole sheer scope of music history. This is a homage to John Peel, party music for music geeks with the aim of ensuring the casual listener has a ball too. The rules: the DJs play back to back so they never know what comes next; vinyl only; never play the same tune two events in a row. The guidelines: expect latest dnb rinsers, unknown german electro, unknown pop classics, mashups, rocknroll, unexpected cover versions, motown wonders, breakbeat oh yeah, charity shop finds, and tunes that you never knew you loved (as well as plenty that you never knew other people loved).

Umlaut: the regular all day session. DJ Fiddle starts off in the afternoon playing the best in hangover friendly tunes to get you feeling high and happy and in love with the world (and all the stuff too relaxed to play at BF). Then the evening kicks in with the improbably tall Jams playing some fine drum n bass for the kids, before the superbly talented and dapper Properdom plays possibly the greatest eclectica sets that you will ever hear. Expect mixing that makes you jump up, and plenty of gay music for straight people.

Also loosely affiliated are the Monkey Town Soundsystem, merchants of fine punkdiscoelectrosleaze. Then we have our resident nasty hiphopper, the flesh-tailor middle finger DJ also known as Spence. Don't forget regular contributor mr Zero Sneer, with his unusal love of all things wonky beat. Bring it on.

THE NEXT EVENT:

The next Beyond Fathomability is due to take place on Thursday 17th Feb, at Stepney Green's lounge of love, Soma (on the Mile End Road, opposite Stepney Green tube). However, with myself in New York at the time, and the Rev in Spain somewhere (sex tourism rules) we've handed the night over (for! one! night! only!) to longtime collaborators Zero Sneer and Spence. So fuck knows what they'll do with our baby.... but I trust 'em not to undo the last few months work in a single night cos you know what? While their music policy isn't ours both of them have fucking great taste, fantastic record collections and most importantly the abilities to surprise and entertain! Get in. Oh, and it's free too. And student night with all drinks at student prices. And late night drinking.