DannyB

The End of Capital

What I really wanted to do was to walk along the Kings Road. There are more immediate things that I ought to be doing and streets and buildings with more urgent research needs. But I want the luxury of freedom; to drift and float through the streets, to turn left here and right there withContinue reading “The End of Capital”

Love Each Other

We don’t really have a government in England. There is a small group of political millionaires who belch out their bigotry and prejudices. Many of them make a great deal of money through corruption and the high paid jobs that await them in the private sector. Earning dividends from the privatisation they push through whileContinue reading “Love Each Other”

Rich Mlk the Poor

There is a powerful memory of Lisson Grove in 1981. And walking along the Edgware Road having just bought the 12″ version of Joy Division’s Atmosphere. There was some inexplicable urge to repeat that walk this afternoon. Leaving work, travelling under London on Crossrail, immersed in the city, a mixture of cinematography, the inner lifeContinue reading “Rich Mlk the Poor”

Broadgate; or how I learned to love (some) postmodern architecture

The train fares have gone up again. These increases are accompanied by marketing campaigns with inane grins which smirk about cheap tickets. Capitalism in the twenty first century is all about facades. The Spectacle has a new coat of paint but the rot beneath produces a greater stink. The speed of this Spectacle is notContinue reading “Broadgate; or how I learned to love (some) postmodern architecture”

The Progressive Office Tower

I was thinking of a reference for Guy Debord in Paris in, I think 1957. It runs along the lines of ‘he tried to organise a walk, it rained, no-one turned up, he left, and didn’t try to do this again for perhaps a decade’. Where had I read this? I was thinking of itContinue reading “The Progressive Office Tower”

Buying Books, Strikes, Anti-War

The train comes up from the tunnel under the Thames. The Dartford Bridge, a couple of car carrier ships at Purfleet. A Norman church in the distance. An untidy pile of colour clashing blue and green containers. Abandoned here in the Thames estuary, last years trinkets, food that cannot be sold, shoes that the shoelessContinue reading “Buying Books, Strikes, Anti-War”

Coming Soon…Radical Folkestone Walk

It’s Friday morning and I’m buying a return ticket for the train. Yet again comparing notes with the woman in the ticket office about our hoped for retirement dates. It feels as if time is in limbo and we are both frozen for ever in a world of toil. Like billions of others. She asksContinue reading “Coming Soon…Radical Folkestone Walk”

Shopping Vignette with Hans Memling

Triptych of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist (detail), Hans Memling, 1479 “Could you help me?’ an elderly woman bent over a large trolley in Marks & Spencer asked. She was smartly dressed in a dark blue woollen jacket with a flowing red scarf and well cut black trousers and black boots.Continue reading “Shopping Vignette with Hans Memling”

Unconscious Collective

The train comes into Liverpool Street Station, platform 17 with a metal on metal sound of wheels on rails, the sound of bombs bursting, machine guns, rockets crashing through the glass canopy, people screaming, playgrounds, maternity hospitals and system-built housing estates collapsing in the explosions and fires. Soldiers, conscripts, mercenaries, cheap flop house petty thiefContinue reading “Unconscious Collective”

A Walk to the Shops

Money is integral to what we do and to some extent, who we are. Money determines where we live and how we live. But the psychology of money doesn’t get much attention. I’m going to return to reading the Grundrisse which attempts an explanation of money in great detail. It feels as if days haveContinue reading “A Walk to the Shops”