DannyB

Look both ways

The relations of production are invisible. People work hereDesk topslaptopsendless powerpoint presentationsof great corporationscultureof great corporationsambitionsaims and objectivesmission statementsA red angle poise lamp In offices, at workstations,in the streetrailway stationsunderground andconstruction What strange symmetryof these contradictions and tensions

The Revolution could be televised

Does there need to be an explanation? I’m not sure myself how I came to be in St Pancras Way. There are of course factors. I had been to the office, had a ticket for a train, wanted a change of scene. On 99 out of 100 occasions when I arrive at St Pancras stationContinue reading “The Revolution could be televised”

These rafts carried life across dangerous seas

Toil and work are two separate things. Toil is what one must. For money. This critical fact is badly neglected. Whole books are written, television programmes, films, myriad newspaper articles without acknowledging this basic necessity. And yet even with immense amounts of toil immense numbers of people never have enough. And other people who toilContinue reading “These rafts carried life across dangerous seas”

The bus to Swingfield Street

There can be a certain camaraderie on an early morning bus. Today it was the driver, myself, a large man with a walking stick, two women in their sixties or seventies and a younger man covered in tattoos who spent the whole journey ‘doing something’ on his phone. Buses take you on journeys through aContinue reading “The bus to Swingfield Street”

Southwark Industrial

It is imagined that the destruction of London was in the past. That now a benign power rules the city and that only rational decisions are made. Decisions which only critical critics can make. But the city isn’t ruled at all. It is out of control. The power that shapes everything – regardless of aestheticContinue reading “Southwark Industrial”

HG Wells in Sandgate

HG Wells lived in three houses in Sandgate between 1899 and 1909. He initially moved to the seaside because of poor health and rented houses in Castle Street and Granville Road. He clearly liked Sandgate and following his earlier literary success he commissioned the architect CFA Voysey to design a house for himself and hisContinue reading “HG Wells in Sandgate”

Marx & Engels at the Seaside – Ramsgate Part One

Karl Marx and his family – Jenny his wife, their children Jennychen, Laura and Tussy (Eleanor) and live-in help and long-term family friend, Helene Demuth (Lenchen), all spent time at the seaside. Friedrich Engels too, with his long term partner Lizzie Burns and her niece Mary Ellen, known as ‘Pumps’. Marx sometimes went alone toContinue reading “Marx & Engels at the Seaside – Ramsgate Part One”

On the river

I had a clear idea to go to Gravesend and take the ferry across the river, but only a vague notion of what to do after that. On the basis of a suggestion I walked east towards DP World London Gateway. Procter and Gamble factory at West Thurrock seen from Ebbsfleet station. It makes soapsContinue reading “On the river”

Sea level

Quite a lot going on for a short walk. The container ship Cap San Nicolas sailing from Antwerp to Algeciras. ITV news carried a story yesterday about how Amazon destroys thousands of items each week. Many of them never used. “Stuff that’s not even single use but not being used at all, straight off theContinue reading “Sea level”

The quality without a name

In his book, ‘The Timeless Way of Building’, Christopher Alexander introduces the idea of ‘the quality without a name’. “There is a central quality which is the root criterion of life and spirit in a person, a town, a building or a wilderness. This quality is objective and precise, but it cannot be named”. AlexanderContinue reading “The quality without a name”