Emerging from Vauxhall station is to be switched rather rapidly from the modernism of electrical underground travel to…..what exactly? Wide six lane roads with cars moving in all directions. It is a giant conveyor belt of motorism and stretches all around the world. From the edge of the road it appears to be a swirlingContinue reading “The Hallucinatory Nature of the Expansion of Capital”
Author Archives: DannyB
An unexpected turn with rainstorm and rainbow
There was a tug on my left arm. I didn’t see who did it as they had quickly disappeared into the mass of people on the concourse of Liverpool Street Station. But I couldn’t go that way. Not enough time. It was there, an idea and it was fading as I stood on the escalatorContinue reading “An unexpected turn with rainstorm and rainbow”
Calais, Texas
On the beach at Calais I was thinking of something that was said when Solidarity started in Poland in 1980. Perhaps it was just a throw away remark. The sort of casual conversation that happens a million times a day but never crystallises into something more solid. It was just an observation along the linesContinue reading “Calais, Texas”
Memory of a Demonstration
The burly man in an orange high-vis jacket stepped back from the opening door of the train. He made a gesture for me to board.‘After you’, I said, moving back a foot on the platform, ‘you’re the driver’.‘Is this train going up to London?’‘Yes, but I’m only going as far as Ashford’, he looked atContinue reading “Memory of a Demonstration”
Fitzrovia, Friday evening
At some point there has been a break in the continuum. The early ages can be traced out in more linear fashion. The buildings of Fitzroy Square, designed by the architect Robert Adam in the 1790s are not that remote from the arts and crafts influenced buildings of Belmont House and Tower House in CandoverContinue reading “Fitzrovia, Friday evening”
Get off the bus
And so the spell is broken. Out into the early morning light of Offenbach. The streets are empty of people and has the quietness and silence where everyone is still asleep. A woman is sitting at a table outside one of the restaurants in the market square smoking a cigarette. She looks lost in thoughts,Continue reading “Get off the bus”
A Dream of the Republic on the Train to Kreuztal
Deutsche Bahn, the German state railway system provides a nerve-racking and disjointed service full of delays, cancellations and unexplained stops in the middle of nowhere. This is a real shame as travelling by train is easily the most enjoyable and pleasant way to go anywhere. There is none of the stress of driving or theContinue reading “A Dream of the Republic on the Train to Kreuztal”
An Artist’s Colony; imagine that
There are much better accounts of the Künstlerkolonie Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt than I could ever write. With maps, diagrams and professional photographs. There are people much better qualified to write about the architects and dates and styles and influences and influenced. I was just a bystander for the day, a casual observer, soaking up theContinue reading “An Artist’s Colony; imagine that”
The new ruins crush the soul of the possibilities of earlier revolutions
There is a great market in Offenbach-am-Main three times a week, including Saturday morning. It’s a good place to practice speaking English. The repetition of buying fruit and vegetables and bread and cheese and fish and meat helps to remember the words. One of the stalls sells nothing but potatoes. I explained to the womanContinue reading “The new ruins crush the soul of the possibilities of earlier revolutions”
Coming into Frankfurt-am-Main
There’s a mirage effect in the Channel. A ship appears to be hovering above the sea. It would make a good photograph. But I must hurry as I have a train to catch, and then a plane. I glance at the ship one more time and hasten to the railway station. The mean spirited andContinue reading “Coming into Frankfurt-am-Main”
Commodity Fetishism 