Does anyone know anything about or remember ZG magazine?
The issue i have is from 1981,and is in folded A3 format(approximately)
d1/09072013
Monday 8 July 2013
In Brief-Question?(1)
Does anyone know who was poetry editor of The Tablet,a catholic magazine between say 1977-1981?
i know his first name was John and his surname double-barrelled(had 2 parts)but for the life of me i cannot recall his name either by internet search or from my own clouded memory?
d1/09072013
i know his first name was John and his surname double-barrelled(had 2 parts)but for the life of me i cannot recall his name either by internet search or from my own clouded memory?
d1/09072013
Memories of Bears
Memory is very important,but its is not reliable.For some reason,i knew from being quite young that there is a connection between history and memory although that relationship will be complex and contested as history itself is and also so because memory is not reliable.
I suspect it is always selective.I note from even recent events that people who participate in something as simple as a meeting can come aware with radically different understandings of what has just happened. We forget,we mix,we muddle,we interpret and reinterpret and it will be affected by feelings and perspective.i used to think that until some time in the 1980s i had quite a strong hold on the detail and order of events that i myself had been involved in and that had occurred at varying distance from me.Since that time things have become much more foggy and unclear and i suspect more complex,as my head,like my house,fills with more stuff,and actually the stuff,some of which is kept as an aide memoire is nevertheless itself of limited value.
For the rest of this let me just try to focus on some observations about one thing.....bears.i will try to think chronologically,though i suspect my observations will probably appear somewhat random if not bizarre but never mind that.What provoked this line of thought,if it can be called that it that whilst making notes from my reading,i cam across a reference that pointed me in this direction,because i realise bears must be of some importance to me as they keep popping up,and sometimes indeed represent ideas and memories and perhaps other important things in my life.
One of the life-stories that my mother told me some years after the event was that i had taken over 53 hours to get born(she had been in labour all that time).This seems so much at variance with how things would be now that I'm not sure i believe it,but her point was something else:"slow then,and slow ever since!",although i am absolutely certain it was meant much more kindly than it reads now,or else why would i tell it!Eventually,this was one of the reasons i chose as a kind of nick name/nom de plume,"the bear"
Later i was given a"teddy bear",by my parents.i think before me it had been my mothers,so from the off,it was always battered and indeed bald-as the fur had been reduced back to the cloth,before e i ever got at it..i still have it,sitting in a bag hanging on a cupboard door.i don't actually remember what i ever called it,except in all my time as an adult-it has been and Edward.There seems to be a significance to this but i don't know what it is.
It does however remind me that there are psychological theories about this such bears in relation to child psychology and western culture,which partly involves that possessing and cuddling such a cuddly toy and perhaps bears or substitutes in particular is about how the toy substitutes for human contact,and might go some way to explain our"psychological"alienation and some of the oddities in"western"behaviours.This was highlighted for me,when i read a book by Morris Berman called "Coming to our Senses",which talks about a number of major shifts in attitudes to the human body at a number of key historical points.At some point the author observes that in some,indigenous/native cultures human contact is such that a child never touches the ground or leaves direct physical human contact until the child is at least 2 years old,and which has wider significance in creating a fully rounded human personality.
I was slow at picking the ability to read up too,i like to think because being introduced to reading via the Janet and John series of books,i was so bored,i wondered why i was bothering.Once i had"got it though"i remember reading every single Mary Plain book from the school library i could lay my hands on.Whilst i don't remember any of the actual stories what i do remember very strongly is that the main/leading character is(was?)a female,indeed mother bear.
I also remember from my childhood spending weekends with my grandmother,aunt and uncle.My aunt regularly played records on an old wind-up"gramophone"which included and introduction to Henry Halls "Teddy Bears Picnic".it remains imprinted on my memory,and brings tears of memory sometimes.Perhaps i would make it one of my 8 records to be taken to a desert island.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZANKFxrcKU
Many years on,in my teens,i discovered first of all the attractions of the hippies,counterculture and alternative lifestyle.Amongst other things we published a duplicated magazine.One of the best covers of one issue featured the character who came to be known as "HARP bear"modelled onn the bears in the song"Teddy Bears Picnic"and framed from combining the name of our organisation,somewhat pretentiously called HARP/Havering Arts Research Project,quickly and later shortened to Harp 70 with the image from the song.
Later i spent a number of years trying to conduct a life living between the UK and USA.I had hoped to live over there continuously but life rarely runs in a straight line for me.the bears are in here somewhere too,because whilst i never saw one,i developed this idea that somehow or other,at least in a place like California,i would blunder into a"scrubby little bear".It never happened.
Once i had settled back in the UK,i returned amongst other things to involvement in the TGWU,primarily active in the National Voluntary sector Combine,as its national secretary for approximately 5 years.Once a month,i produced a mailing that went to about 50-100 people in and around the voluntary sector/white collar branches of the union.In this i would include minutes of and follow up on combine business,campaign pcampsin material,linked together with a kind of commentary writing as"the bear"
Over the years i have taken part in a number of guided meditations on courses or retreats.i have also undertaken self guided meditation alongside study and reading.some of these have explored either finding my own"questing beast"or familial beast.Sometimes this has related to Celtic or Arthurian themes/meditation practises.
In seeking what i will call a totemic or familial animal,what comes up repeatedly for me is the bear.one of the emblems of Arthur and the Pendragon family line is not just the red dragon,but also the bear!
What has interested me in this imagery is that the bear is an animal which appears to be slow in its movements,although that is not the case,and appears both cuddly,especially in the domesticated,child's cuddly toy,or in "cozy"pictures.This is far from the truth.The bear is not a good enemy to make-there have indeed been several incidents over recent years where having drifted into"bears territory"the bear asserts itself very much to human detriment,although this is not from a determination to attack,for most animals unless domesticated to the contrary seek to avoid human contact not least because neither our motives nor our habits are trustworthy,and we are indeed the most destructive creature on the planet.it simply reflects animals like bears seeking to protect either their young or their space,on which we as a species increasingly encroach.
d3/08072013
I suspect it is always selective.I note from even recent events that people who participate in something as simple as a meeting can come aware with radically different understandings of what has just happened. We forget,we mix,we muddle,we interpret and reinterpret and it will be affected by feelings and perspective.i used to think that until some time in the 1980s i had quite a strong hold on the detail and order of events that i myself had been involved in and that had occurred at varying distance from me.Since that time things have become much more foggy and unclear and i suspect more complex,as my head,like my house,fills with more stuff,and actually the stuff,some of which is kept as an aide memoire is nevertheless itself of limited value.
For the rest of this let me just try to focus on some observations about one thing.....bears.i will try to think chronologically,though i suspect my observations will probably appear somewhat random if not bizarre but never mind that.What provoked this line of thought,if it can be called that it that whilst making notes from my reading,i cam across a reference that pointed me in this direction,because i realise bears must be of some importance to me as they keep popping up,and sometimes indeed represent ideas and memories and perhaps other important things in my life.
One of the life-stories that my mother told me some years after the event was that i had taken over 53 hours to get born(she had been in labour all that time).This seems so much at variance with how things would be now that I'm not sure i believe it,but her point was something else:"slow then,and slow ever since!",although i am absolutely certain it was meant much more kindly than it reads now,or else why would i tell it!Eventually,this was one of the reasons i chose as a kind of nick name/nom de plume,"the bear"
Later i was given a"teddy bear",by my parents.i think before me it had been my mothers,so from the off,it was always battered and indeed bald-as the fur had been reduced back to the cloth,before e i ever got at it..i still have it,sitting in a bag hanging on a cupboard door.i don't actually remember what i ever called it,except in all my time as an adult-it has been and Edward.There seems to be a significance to this but i don't know what it is.
It does however remind me that there are psychological theories about this such bears in relation to child psychology and western culture,which partly involves that possessing and cuddling such a cuddly toy and perhaps bears or substitutes in particular is about how the toy substitutes for human contact,and might go some way to explain our"psychological"alienation and some of the oddities in"western"behaviours.This was highlighted for me,when i read a book by Morris Berman called "Coming to our Senses",which talks about a number of major shifts in attitudes to the human body at a number of key historical points.At some point the author observes that in some,indigenous/native cultures human contact is such that a child never touches the ground or leaves direct physical human contact until the child is at least 2 years old,and which has wider significance in creating a fully rounded human personality.
I was slow at picking the ability to read up too,i like to think because being introduced to reading via the Janet and John series of books,i was so bored,i wondered why i was bothering.Once i had"got it though"i remember reading every single Mary Plain book from the school library i could lay my hands on.Whilst i don't remember any of the actual stories what i do remember very strongly is that the main/leading character is(was?)a female,indeed mother bear.
I also remember from my childhood spending weekends with my grandmother,aunt and uncle.My aunt regularly played records on an old wind-up"gramophone"which included and introduction to Henry Halls "Teddy Bears Picnic".it remains imprinted on my memory,and brings tears of memory sometimes.Perhaps i would make it one of my 8 records to be taken to a desert island.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZANKFxrcKU
Many years on,in my teens,i discovered first of all the attractions of the hippies,counterculture and alternative lifestyle.Amongst other things we published a duplicated magazine.One of the best covers of one issue featured the character who came to be known as "HARP bear"modelled onn the bears in the song"Teddy Bears Picnic"and framed from combining the name of our organisation,somewhat pretentiously called HARP/Havering Arts Research Project,quickly and later shortened to Harp 70 with the image from the song.
Later i spent a number of years trying to conduct a life living between the UK and USA.I had hoped to live over there continuously but life rarely runs in a straight line for me.the bears are in here somewhere too,because whilst i never saw one,i developed this idea that somehow or other,at least in a place like California,i would blunder into a"scrubby little bear".It never happened.
Once i had settled back in the UK,i returned amongst other things to involvement in the TGWU,primarily active in the National Voluntary sector Combine,as its national secretary for approximately 5 years.Once a month,i produced a mailing that went to about 50-100 people in and around the voluntary sector/white collar branches of the union.In this i would include minutes of and follow up on combine business,campaign pcampsin material,linked together with a kind of commentary writing as"the bear"
Over the years i have taken part in a number of guided meditations on courses or retreats.i have also undertaken self guided meditation alongside study and reading.some of these have explored either finding my own"questing beast"or familial beast.Sometimes this has related to Celtic or Arthurian themes/meditation practises.
In seeking what i will call a totemic or familial animal,what comes up repeatedly for me is the bear.one of the emblems of Arthur and the Pendragon family line is not just the red dragon,but also the bear!
What has interested me in this imagery is that the bear is an animal which appears to be slow in its movements,although that is not the case,and appears both cuddly,especially in the domesticated,child's cuddly toy,or in "cozy"pictures.This is far from the truth.The bear is not a good enemy to make-there have indeed been several incidents over recent years where having drifted into"bears territory"the bear asserts itself very much to human detriment,although this is not from a determination to attack,for most animals unless domesticated to the contrary seek to avoid human contact not least because neither our motives nor our habits are trustworthy,and we are indeed the most destructive creature on the planet.it simply reflects animals like bears seeking to protect either their young or their space,on which we as a species increasingly encroach.
d3/08072013
Books:About Henry Fuseli
I guess that in the scale of things,anything,Fuseli is,rationally a minor painter,a minor talent.I recently read,and enjoyed this,Myrone's book about him and enjoyed it.My interest is i admitit in the strangeness of his artistic interests,and pointedly in his connection with William Blake.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2684419-henry-fuseli
d1/08072013
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2684419-henry-fuseli
d1/08072013
Of Cottage Gardens-The Plum Tree
Whilst it may not seem that way,i do take some quiet pleasure in our garden.As well as its reality,it has several imaginary parallels inside my head.It is untidy and unruly at present,though that is not criticism intended especially as i do so little to tend it.Behind its overgrown untidiness,i like to think of it as a cottage garden,although the house it backs is simply a suburban house in one of the more prosperous neighbourhoods of this borough,not i think noted for the landfalls of the bourgeoisie.
One of the special places in our garden,is the plum tree.It is gnarled and twisted,not in the best of locations and not even particularly well looked after.It is pecial to me for several reasons.
Without meaning to be too mystical or otherworldly about it,it is for me a place of God.This may mean nothing to atheists or agnostics-i would not know,but i admit i still have a "foot"or something,in the spiritual and follow a spiritual path.As usual with me,it is an "odd" path.I say that simply because i can't help but see and experience myself as in some way at odds with,a misfit in the world.I often feel alien,alienated and like i'm essentially in the wrong place at probably the wrong time,and that i don't altogether belong here.
Anyone reading this might put that down to what i am about to say next,but i believe that it is deeper and reaches back further.I think i have carried a lot of these feelings most,if not all of my life.
When we moved here,some 22 years ago probably,the tree was in full fruit and it felt like a welcome to the house.It fruited richly without our bidding or participation.Large,sweet healthy food,produced by nature,almost without anyone's assistance.Yet it was 12 years later that it took on an even greater significance for me.It produced a rich harvest in the summer of 2002 as i was sent away from work,sick with my first episode of clinical depression,which was a frightening and further alienating experience as for a time i became increasingly disconnected from"the world",if not reality,and everything seemed like ash grey dust,seen through the strange brown red tints of a continuous dusk,that the song"At Night"by Shakedown highlights for me,and helped crystallise as an image,which gave me the insight.
So it must actually have been during the ensuing late winter or early spring that the tree took on anew significance>with no fruit,and only perhaps a few leaves,it showed itself more starkly.For some reason i would over a few days stand by it,probably briefly but for what felt like quite long periods.....
I do not and have never had aural hallucinations-i do not hear voices.If i hear anything it i the sounds of my own body or imagination,and i have always known that.On this occasion,a voice inside my head said quietly to me"i give you your life back".I am clear with myself that this was(is)the product of my own imagination,but that it was not,at the same time my own voice.At the same time i had a sensation of intense light under the tree,and an equally intense impression that i should not look up.This was not our of fear,though it may have been in awe or something similar,somehow knowing that to look on the face of God would take me somewhere else.Having with some sense of relief been given my life back,i was not about to give it up again quite yet.
I got better eventually,although getting better did not in any way it seems to me follow on directly from these moments,but i did get better,and it was as if it were part of the message as the result of my own efforts.This is not ingratitude,or a rejection of God but if you like a living out of the idea that"God helps those who help themselves",which it seems is an element that far too many believers leave out of the account or their story.If creation means anything,we are indeed co-creationists with that God.
I do something to tend the tree every year although probably not enough.I go to it frequently.It does not need to be transformed aesthetically or any other way.It seems to me it reflects what it is,something useful and productive in a little bit of the mess of the world,tucked into a space between fence and a room and a shed and at the edge where the earth/dirt meets concrete.it clings on,like much of life does,asserting itself until it does not assert itself.
And it is still the place of God for me.Nor some idyllic location but its just well here.or there.
Every July,like its never happened before it fruits.I always expect it at the wrong time and it always catches me out,like the God of surprises or a trickster God.The season is very short.From the faint turn from green to red,to fat rotting and fermenting fruit is probably just two weeks.Sometimes the fruit overflows and i can't keep up,sometimes sit is less so,but partly because it is all special to me,i always try to share the harvest.I am nothing special but somehow i have always believed in sharing what i can and i feel particularly obliged to do so,in celebration of two things-that the fruit is freely there for me,and in honour,if not exchange for having my life back.
So it is July now.The harvest will come this month sometime.When i was employed i often took bags of fruit to work with me to give away.Sometimes some came back to me again in fruits and pies.The last couple of years I have shared the crop with neighbours.This year i hope to share it with friends and and comrades and campaigners.whatever,it feels like it is important to pass the blessing and the spirit on.
So let me know,if you are in the neighbourhood and would like some,though as i write the fruit is still small and green so it won't be quite yet.Welcome.
d2/08072013
One of the special places in our garden,is the plum tree.It is gnarled and twisted,not in the best of locations and not even particularly well looked after.It is pecial to me for several reasons.
Without meaning to be too mystical or otherworldly about it,it is for me a place of God.This may mean nothing to atheists or agnostics-i would not know,but i admit i still have a "foot"or something,in the spiritual and follow a spiritual path.As usual with me,it is an "odd" path.I say that simply because i can't help but see and experience myself as in some way at odds with,a misfit in the world.I often feel alien,alienated and like i'm essentially in the wrong place at probably the wrong time,and that i don't altogether belong here.
Anyone reading this might put that down to what i am about to say next,but i believe that it is deeper and reaches back further.I think i have carried a lot of these feelings most,if not all of my life.
When we moved here,some 22 years ago probably,the tree was in full fruit and it felt like a welcome to the house.It fruited richly without our bidding or participation.Large,sweet healthy food,produced by nature,almost without anyone's assistance.Yet it was 12 years later that it took on an even greater significance for me.It produced a rich harvest in the summer of 2002 as i was sent away from work,sick with my first episode of clinical depression,which was a frightening and further alienating experience as for a time i became increasingly disconnected from"the world",if not reality,and everything seemed like ash grey dust,seen through the strange brown red tints of a continuous dusk,that the song"At Night"by Shakedown highlights for me,and helped crystallise as an image,which gave me the insight.
So it must actually have been during the ensuing late winter or early spring that the tree took on anew significance>with no fruit,and only perhaps a few leaves,it showed itself more starkly.For some reason i would over a few days stand by it,probably briefly but for what felt like quite long periods.....
I do not and have never had aural hallucinations-i do not hear voices.If i hear anything it i the sounds of my own body or imagination,and i have always known that.On this occasion,a voice inside my head said quietly to me"i give you your life back".I am clear with myself that this was(is)the product of my own imagination,but that it was not,at the same time my own voice.At the same time i had a sensation of intense light under the tree,and an equally intense impression that i should not look up.This was not our of fear,though it may have been in awe or something similar,somehow knowing that to look on the face of God would take me somewhere else.Having with some sense of relief been given my life back,i was not about to give it up again quite yet.
I got better eventually,although getting better did not in any way it seems to me follow on directly from these moments,but i did get better,and it was as if it were part of the message as the result of my own efforts.This is not ingratitude,or a rejection of God but if you like a living out of the idea that"God helps those who help themselves",which it seems is an element that far too many believers leave out of the account or their story.If creation means anything,we are indeed co-creationists with that God.
I do something to tend the tree every year although probably not enough.I go to it frequently.It does not need to be transformed aesthetically or any other way.It seems to me it reflects what it is,something useful and productive in a little bit of the mess of the world,tucked into a space between fence and a room and a shed and at the edge where the earth/dirt meets concrete.it clings on,like much of life does,asserting itself until it does not assert itself.
And it is still the place of God for me.Nor some idyllic location but its just well here.or there.
Every July,like its never happened before it fruits.I always expect it at the wrong time and it always catches me out,like the God of surprises or a trickster God.The season is very short.From the faint turn from green to red,to fat rotting and fermenting fruit is probably just two weeks.Sometimes the fruit overflows and i can't keep up,sometimes sit is less so,but partly because it is all special to me,i always try to share the harvest.I am nothing special but somehow i have always believed in sharing what i can and i feel particularly obliged to do so,in celebration of two things-that the fruit is freely there for me,and in honour,if not exchange for having my life back.
So it is July now.The harvest will come this month sometime.When i was employed i often took bags of fruit to work with me to give away.Sometimes some came back to me again in fruits and pies.The last couple of years I have shared the crop with neighbours.This year i hope to share it with friends and and comrades and campaigners.whatever,it feels like it is important to pass the blessing and the spirit on.
So let me know,if you are in the neighbourhood and would like some,though as i write the fruit is still small and green so it won't be quite yet.Welcome.
d2/08072013
Saturday 6 July 2013
Music-At Night/Shakedown
I have written about and linked this piece before.
Whilst i will repeat the link,i don't intend to repeat much of what i said before except to say that i had the same response to it today,as i have had in the past.
At its simplest,it relates directly to my own experience,especially on a day like today...
When i struggle out of bed at around midday still beset by both physical and mental discomfort,and at 8pm i'm still uncomfortable but perhaps approaching something more"normal"-although i hate even the word as i think it scrambles how both i and other people see the world:where normal is i suspect a kind of average that i equally believe is not reflected in the world.i fear that it also consigns the rest of us o some kind of lesser,inferior,struggling status.That said i would still rather associate with the rest than the normal.I guess that takes me full circle,and might partially explain my own alienation,feeling at odds with the world,and leaves me with the song....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkTDXabhp90
d1/06/07/2013
Whilst i will repeat the link,i don't intend to repeat much of what i said before except to say that i had the same response to it today,as i have had in the past.
At its simplest,it relates directly to my own experience,especially on a day like today...
When i struggle out of bed at around midday still beset by both physical and mental discomfort,and at 8pm i'm still uncomfortable but perhaps approaching something more"normal"-although i hate even the word as i think it scrambles how both i and other people see the world:where normal is i suspect a kind of average that i equally believe is not reflected in the world.i fear that it also consigns the rest of us o some kind of lesser,inferior,struggling status.That said i would still rather associate with the rest than the normal.I guess that takes me full circle,and might partially explain my own alienation,feeling at odds with the world,and leaves me with the song....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkTDXabhp90
d1/06/07/2013
Time Out on Time Out
I have found reading,buying,using,and indeed coming across Time Out and anything connected with it extremely disappointing over the last few years.Its more than that.
i suspect that my reaction is fed by at least two sources.One is a distrust of any enterprise that becomes so vast and indeed looks like or indeed is a corporation.The other is quite strong memories of how it used to be,although i of course recognise that memory is not always reliable.
Time Out is a vast enterprise founded in about 1968 by Tony Elliott and a group of countercultural/hippie/left activists producing initially i believe a duplicated magazine it now operates in at least 25 cities world wide.It certainly appears to behave like a corporation.
I recently contacted them on behalf of my partner to facilitate taking advantage of a particular offer.It may just be coincidence but ever since i've been receiving loads of other completely unwanted and inappropriate emails,including cake web/web cake(or whatever they call themselves)employment,gambling,casinos etc etc.I'm afraid that rightly or not the curmudgeon in me will blame them,unless they act pro-actively to prove something different.
This reminds me too that previous"prizes"from said source,have always turned out to be promotions.On at least 2 occasions the free holiday turned out to be a promotion routine of several hours duration for some time share scam,where the expectation is that participants get to cover cost/expenses for some holiday in obscure places at obscure times where"our choice"is very limited indeed.Last time each payment was followed by a shifting of the rules and a further request/demand for money.When i/we lost interest,it took some time to get them to let go....and of course,there are no refunds of anything.
This is very different to when in the 60s and 70s it was the London listings paper initially regarded as part of a left culture.In the days before the internet and all it has to offer it was THE place to look for what was going on amongst left groups,campaign and political and cultural meetings,literature,film,music,jazz,food,and lots else.That was until 1980 when it turned on its workforce,to develop a much harder capitalist line,which resulted in amass exodus to the foundation of a co-operative,collective which put out City Limits for some years,when people like myself transferred our allegiances.
But i guess for along time now,City Limits has gone and so has most of that all too vaguely though still positive left culture. i find looking at Time Out online an appalling experience,so i don't.It's a pity though because alongside the mushrooming growth of sites and information that goes with the internet,come also an increasing fragmentation.These listings magazines used to be a kind of"one-stop"before "one stops"for such information.that is gone.I find that there is always one more place to go on the internet to find our what i want,and its not always clear where to go,however well connected i think i am to such sources.Listings papers seemed,as it was their lifeblood to go out of their way to be accurate.i think,particularly on the left,we sometimes leave basic and important details out.
A look at an issue just a few weeks ago was extremely disappointing.in the"old days"each section was pages long.these days,the music section is 2-3,and jazz buried in just a coupe of columns devoted to several genres.There are no reviews of anything and its all gone up market.....
It takes me back...to days of living in Islington before and during its reputation for the living space of the upcoming new labour cohorts.A stroll from my home could take me to half a dozen major music venues,half a dozen radical bookshops,some cafes,meeting places,political campaigns and not least things like food coops.Times are very changed,and it is no good being nostalgic-but it does make me realise that so very much of that vaguely left,or left friendly culture has gone,just like whole sections of the welfare state have been eroded and corroded.
We had better do something about both.our society needs in my opinion,to defend the best of the welfare state as just one stepping stone to making a better,different society.The left itself,as well as developing urgently a new attitude to its own divisions and engagement with the working class we go on about so much,for our own survival and in order to build a better alternative to THIS barbarism.It seems to me that alongside the public services of the welfare state,we too need a new infrastructure within which to organsise.Such space cannot just be carreid in our own heads or imaginations.
d2/06072013
i suspect that my reaction is fed by at least two sources.One is a distrust of any enterprise that becomes so vast and indeed looks like or indeed is a corporation.The other is quite strong memories of how it used to be,although i of course recognise that memory is not always reliable.
Time Out is a vast enterprise founded in about 1968 by Tony Elliott and a group of countercultural/hippie/left activists producing initially i believe a duplicated magazine it now operates in at least 25 cities world wide.It certainly appears to behave like a corporation.
I recently contacted them on behalf of my partner to facilitate taking advantage of a particular offer.It may just be coincidence but ever since i've been receiving loads of other completely unwanted and inappropriate emails,including cake web/web cake(or whatever they call themselves)employment,gambling,casinos etc etc.I'm afraid that rightly or not the curmudgeon in me will blame them,unless they act pro-actively to prove something different.
This reminds me too that previous"prizes"from said source,have always turned out to be promotions.On at least 2 occasions the free holiday turned out to be a promotion routine of several hours duration for some time share scam,where the expectation is that participants get to cover cost/expenses for some holiday in obscure places at obscure times where"our choice"is very limited indeed.Last time each payment was followed by a shifting of the rules and a further request/demand for money.When i/we lost interest,it took some time to get them to let go....and of course,there are no refunds of anything.
This is very different to when in the 60s and 70s it was the London listings paper initially regarded as part of a left culture.In the days before the internet and all it has to offer it was THE place to look for what was going on amongst left groups,campaign and political and cultural meetings,literature,film,music,jazz,food,and lots else.That was until 1980 when it turned on its workforce,to develop a much harder capitalist line,which resulted in amass exodus to the foundation of a co-operative,collective which put out City Limits for some years,when people like myself transferred our allegiances.
But i guess for along time now,City Limits has gone and so has most of that all too vaguely though still positive left culture. i find looking at Time Out online an appalling experience,so i don't.It's a pity though because alongside the mushrooming growth of sites and information that goes with the internet,come also an increasing fragmentation.These listings magazines used to be a kind of"one-stop"before "one stops"for such information.that is gone.I find that there is always one more place to go on the internet to find our what i want,and its not always clear where to go,however well connected i think i am to such sources.Listings papers seemed,as it was their lifeblood to go out of their way to be accurate.i think,particularly on the left,we sometimes leave basic and important details out.
A look at an issue just a few weeks ago was extremely disappointing.in the"old days"each section was pages long.these days,the music section is 2-3,and jazz buried in just a coupe of columns devoted to several genres.There are no reviews of anything and its all gone up market.....
It takes me back...to days of living in Islington before and during its reputation for the living space of the upcoming new labour cohorts.A stroll from my home could take me to half a dozen major music venues,half a dozen radical bookshops,some cafes,meeting places,political campaigns and not least things like food coops.Times are very changed,and it is no good being nostalgic-but it does make me realise that so very much of that vaguely left,or left friendly culture has gone,just like whole sections of the welfare state have been eroded and corroded.
We had better do something about both.our society needs in my opinion,to defend the best of the welfare state as just one stepping stone to making a better,different society.The left itself,as well as developing urgently a new attitude to its own divisions and engagement with the working class we go on about so much,for our own survival and in order to build a better alternative to THIS barbarism.It seems to me that alongside the public services of the welfare state,we too need a new infrastructure within which to organsise.Such space cannot just be carreid in our own heads or imaginations.
d2/06072013
Friday 5 July 2013
A thought
There was a televisual advertisement some time ago,in which the voice stated as if it were a fact that we each had an average of a number of thousands of thoughts a day.
i suspect that is NOT fact and it would be difficult to demonstrate.It set me thinking,i suspect vainly,on what constitutes a thought.But never mind all that.All this time on,i thought i would simply try to record,one way or another more of my own thoughts and musing......
d1/05072013
i suspect that is NOT fact and it would be difficult to demonstrate.It set me thinking,i suspect vainly,on what constitutes a thought.But never mind all that.All this time on,i thought i would simply try to record,one way or another more of my own thoughts and musing......
d1/05072013
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)