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
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