A new edition of the first volume of Marx’s Capital, translated by Paul Reitter has arrived. It’s a handsome book made with good quality paper, hard cloth covers and a bold dust jacket. It’s been laying on top of a huge illustrated catalogue of the Louvre in Paris. Perhaps by some mystical osmosis the ghostContinue reading “Reading Capital in the London Road”
Category Archives: Shops
Capital, Consumerism & Christmas Lights
If we travelled sixty years back in time we would recognise that world. The fashions, music, films, motorism, typography and street life would be familiar to us. The surfaces of daily life would be familiar to us; even though within the capitalist mode of production there has been a great deal of change. Manufacturing hasContinue reading “Capital, Consumerism & Christmas Lights”
The last train to paradise
Waking up too early with the flickering remnants of a cinematic dream. A replication of an earlier version. Dreams become part of our memories and like all memories are deeply within our conscious and unconscious mind. I have experienced this particular dream many times before. It’s about loss. It always has the same ending. TheContinue reading “The last train to paradise”
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”
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”
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”
Buying Baklava
The woman in the shop turned to me while I was looking at the counter where the cakes are on display in a glass case. She was organising things on the shelves, I didn’t notice what. ‘Do you want something darling’, she asked demurely. She turned her head and looked at me with her blackContinue reading “Buying Baklava”
Let’s Change the Way We Shop
Immersed. Immersed in projects about radical histories, radical walks, radical talks. The term Radical has an interesting history, a keyword in the Raymond Williams sense. The projects all link together with the State of the World and How that Might be Changed. But I need a break, an interruption, an interregnum. Something connected but notContinue reading “Let’s Change the Way We Shop”
Commodity Fetishism 