The alarm is set but I wake up an hour before it rings. This gives more time for breakfast, double-checking that passport, tickets, euros, notebooks, pens, headphones, cameras are all in place. I might as well leave early rather than idle around at home. It will be interesting to see the port wake up; notContinue reading “Walking to France”
Category Archives: Narrow Seas
Gateways
A Bulgarian shopkeeper who gave me a box to recycle paper, a physiotherapist from Kerala who described the history of the Communist Party there, a Rumanian woman on the street who explained she has always worked and paid her taxes and doesn’t care much for the way some people go on about immigrants, an AfricanContinue reading “Gateways”
Engels in Eastbourne (Radio Ga Ga Reprise)
Eastbourne has a lovely sea front and some glorious sea. It’s easy to understand why Engels liked to spend his holidays here. When he died Eleanor Marx helped row a boat out into the channel to scatter his ashes upon the water. The town has some good architecture, varied and of a range of stylesContinue reading “Engels in Eastbourne (Radio Ga Ga Reprise)”
The Situationist City
London can be rather fabulous on a Wednesday lunchtime, especially when toil is abandoned for a couple of weeks. I take the Crossrail to Liverpool Street and walk through the station. Down to London Wall and past the mysterious All Hallows church. There’s a cut through at Throgmorton Street and then Copthall Avenue. Uncorked hasContinue reading “The Situationist City”
Notes for a War Diary
The word ‘agate’ had to be looked up because I realised I only had a vague notion of what ‘agate’ might be. It seemed a small, trifling thing, referenced in Franz Hessel’s lovely book Walking in Berlin. As he describes, ‘In the evening of that overfilled day, I was welcomed into the home of anContinue reading “Notes for a War Diary”
Seascapes
The beach was deserted. The sea scapes and the sky scapes and the sense of being alone were ideal. A perfect time and place to plan a revolution. The container ship Hong Kong Express sailing from Antwerp to Southampton. The coast of France. Earlier I met some French swimmers in the harbour who are trainingContinue reading “Seascapes”
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”
Spring light, and Varne lightvessel
The light was fantastic; like lucid dreaming. It was so clear the Varne LV (light vessel) could be seen. Samskip Endeavor – container ship – Rotterdam Waalhaven – Dublin. ….and the Varne LV (lightvessel). Varne LV warns shipping of the Varne bank – which is right in the middle of the busiest shipping lanes inContinue reading “Spring light, and Varne lightvessel”
To the Finland Station
I would love to visit Russia. Take the train from Helsinki to the Finland Station, St Petersburg. Spend days dreaming in the Hermitage and the museums of the Revolution. Edmund Wilson’s book To the Finland Station remains a favourite book. And then to Moscow, reading Gorky and Pushkin, Trotsky and Kropotkin. From there to theContinue reading “To the Finland Station”
Walking to Calais
The container ship Argolikos en route to Le Havre from Antwerp. Sailing west past the port and town of Calais. There are continual competitive power struggles between units of capital. And yet at the same time there exists cooperation at a global level., Telecommunications masts on the French coast. The internationalization of communications. Wind turbinesContinue reading “Walking to Calais”
Commodity Fetishism 