War – Commodity Fetishism

Anti-War

On the road that runs along the sea front a large Range Rover is motionless while the engine continues to run. The driver is staring out to sea. Dreaming of concentration camps for refugees and law and order for the people who shuffle through the streets, plastic shoes, thin coats, huddled up, it’s cold. JustContinue reading “Anti-War”

An Object from a War

A festival in a local park. A Ukrainian flag flying next to a collecting tin with ‘For the Ukrainian Army’ written on it. The war feels real, here in the town, a few streets away. A woman in her early thirties and a small boy with black rimmed glasses and gappy tumbledown teeth. They bothContinue reading “An Object from a War”

The Progressive Office Tower

I was thinking of a reference for Guy Debord in Paris in, I think 1957. It runs along the lines of ‘he tried to organise a walk, it rained, no-one turned up, he left, and didn’t try to do this again for perhaps a decade’. Where had I read this? I was thinking of itContinue reading “The Progressive Office Tower”

Buying Books, Strikes, Anti-War

The train comes up from the tunnel under the Thames. The Dartford Bridge, a couple of car carrier ships at Purfleet. A Norman church in the distance. An untidy pile of colour clashing blue and green containers. Abandoned here in the Thames estuary, last years trinkets, food that cannot be sold, shoes that the shoelessContinue reading “Buying Books, Strikes, Anti-War”

Nevzdáváme se – We Don’t Give in

I first met K – in the street. We would say hello as we passed each other with bags of shopping. She walks with a stick and often wears a red hat. And for about a year she always got my name wrong. ‘Are you Steve?’, she would say. I would laugh and explain thatContinue reading “Nevzdáváme se – We Don’t Give in”

The train from Dresden to Berlin, Monday 9th May

The German railway system is resting on a reputation which was tarnished long ago. It is a terrible service. Long delays, cancellations, unexplained stops in the middle of nowhere. It has been like this for years. One never looks forward to travelling by train in this country. There is always a sense of gloom andContinue reading “The train from Dresden to Berlin, Monday 9th May”

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”