DannyB

Cosmopolitics

Unsure of the atmosphere on the streets. Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square, Mortimer Street, Tottenham Court Road. Not sure what atmosphere I’m trying to find. The degradation of England is deliberate. The Tories have been in power for thirteen years. It would have been possible to have fixed poor housing, housing shortages, zero hours contracts, refugeeContinue reading “Cosmopolitics”

Flanders Light

Another time, these are different people, with lives we pass as our train slowly picks up speed. The Palais de Justice past Bruxelles Centraal, built on a hill top in the centre of the city to act as a physical reminder to the working class of the power of the state. The obligatory walls ofContinue reading “Flanders Light”

I Am, Your Image

I traced almost exactly the same steps as a week ago. So much has happened in those past seven days. So much should have happened and never did. A billion more car miles added to the death of planet earth, never ending smog, burning forests, dried up rivers, melting ice caps. Thousands more tonnes ofContinue reading “I Am, Your Image”

Memory of a London Radical Book Fair

Nature has had enough. There’s been plenty of warnings but the endless line of SUVs never stops, the dumping of waste in the sea, the smoke-stack chimney chemicals into the air, plastics everywhere, in the deepest parts of the oceans, in the highest part of the mountains, in the food, in the bodies of theContinue reading “Memory of a London Radical Book Fair”

The march to barbarism

No bombs have fallen yet on England. But the so-called political leadership of the Conservatives and Labour rush to take sides. An unwritten agreement as to who is right, and who is wrong, where death is always one sided, where only the children on one side of the conflict are ever killed. These are pre-crisesContinue reading “The march to barbarism”

Watching Vermeer

Compulsion is a curious force. It suddenly wells up inside and shoots us off in the opposite direction to that of expected travel. Compulsion arrived at around 8.30 this morning and kicked me out of bed with orders to be at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien by ten o’clock. It was important that I was theContinue reading “Watching Vermeer”

Serendipity in the Rabenhof

To walk around Rabenhof is to step into an imagined world of what London could have been. Instead, London has been taken over by big capital; capital from the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, the Kuwaiti Sovereign Wealth Fund, Chinese companies, and a whole layer of global criminals that use the London property market toContinue reading “Serendipity in the Rabenhof”

Solve the housing crisis? Tax the Rich

The mantra of the right wing press in Britain is low taxation. But in reality this low taxation only really applies to the rich. Global organisations investing in large developments in London are given tax exemptions. There are many companies which pay low or no tax by using shell companies, tax havens and expensive lawyers.Continue reading “Solve the housing crisis? Tax the Rich”

Garden Cities in Vienna

From as early as 1915 onwards the people of Vienna began to appropriate land to grow their own food. By the time the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed at the end of October 1918 it was estimated that there were over 100,000 people living in makeshift shelters and working towards being self-sufficient. The empire was bought downContinue reading “Garden Cities in Vienna”

HET BOЙHE, in Vienna

Vienna has become a three dimensional open university of the street and the people. Each daily interaction; shopping in the supermarket, a ride on the U-bahn, sitting in the park, buying a map, taking out the rubbish, has a cinematic quality, although its unclear who the director of this film might be. There are fourContinue reading “HET BOЙHE, in Vienna”