clair056

Doing some research/recollecting the movement against what became the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 with its notorious police 'powers in relation to raves'. There were three large demonstrations against the Criminal Justice Bill/Act in London - on May Day 1994, 24th July  1994 and 9th October 1994. This leaflet is for the second demonstration, from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square on Sunday 24 July. Estimates of the numbers attending ranged from 20,000 (police) to 50,000 (organisers). 'Supported by Bernie Grant MP, Tony Benn MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Paul Foot, Arthur Scargill (NUM President), Brenda Nixon (Women Against Pit Closures), Winston Silcott Campaign, Justice, Advance Party, Socialist Workers Party, No M11 Campaign, Hunt Saboteurs Association, Forgive us our Trespasses, Mike Mansfield QC, Squall' Politically there were a number of tensions - the established Left, the SWP in particular, had woken up to the emerging movement. Their organisational skills ma...

This is one of my favourite headlines for a while, from  Slate.Com : 'Bodybuilder Sneaks Aboard German Leader’s Jet, Stages One Man Rave' Der Spiegel (20 August 2013) has the full story:  'On the night of July 25, a 24-year-old man clutching a bag full of marijuana and ecstasy pills managed with relative ease to get on board an empty government jet used frequently by Chancellor Angela Merkel, while it was parked at a closed military section of the Cologne airport. The man, a bodybuilder of Turkish descent named as Volkan T., proceeded to stage a raucous, one-man party. Reports said he stripped down to his underpants, sprayed fire extinguisher foam around the elegant cream and beige interior, pushed buttons in the cockpit, released an inflatable emergency slide and danced on the wing of the Airbus 319... ... he drove from his home in Cologne to the airport and got past a guard post by saying he had been invited to a wedding reception being held in the nearby officers' q...

So there I was talking to a neighbour and the Situationists came up in the conversation, and he says to me I think I've got some of their stuff up in the attic that I got when I was doing house clearance (he being somebody who over the years has dipped in an out of the world of art/labour.) Not going to tell you where he lives because he'll be getting a load of radical theory pimps breaking into his house and flogging his worldly goods for ludicrous prices online. Next day he comes round and lends me this, Pour la Forme by Asger Jorn, published by  the Situationist International in 1958. A signed copy no less: Complete with Guy Debord and Jorn's famous detourned map of Paris, The Naked City: Asger Jorn (1914-1973) was a Danish radical artist and founder member of the Situationist International. Some of the texts  from Pour La Forme have recently been translated into English by Ken Knabb: http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/asger-jorn/index.htm Automation and the Leisure Society J...

'Because all these serious faces’ll drive you mad, the only meaning is without meaning– Music blends with the heartbeat universe and we forget the brain beat' (Jack Kerouac, Desolation Angels, 1965)   Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) - photo from when he joined the Naval Reserve in 1943

Playwright and actor Steven Berkoff (b.1937) wrote an autobiography 'Free Association' in 1997. Born in a Jewish family in Stepney (his father was a tailor), he spent his teengage years on the Woodberry Down Estate and hanging out around Stamford Hill (he went to Hackney Downs School, as did Harold Pinter). The book includes some great descriptions of going out dancing in London in the early 1950s, in particular at the Tottenham Royal, the 51 Club in Soho and the Lyceum Ballroom. Tottenham Royal: The Mecca 'I recall in my youth the extreme beauty of some of the men and women, the sharply fierce eyes and beautiful peach-like skins and the men with their handsome Celtic faces. They would gather together like warring clans at the weekly stomp at the Tottenham Royal,which was run by Mecca. I was to write a short story about that  dance hall called Mecca - it was published in my collection Gross Intrusion. What an ironic title, Mecca Dance Halls, for it was indeed our Mecca and...

Struggling to remember the names of Cold War US presidents? Here's a handy South London mnemonic taught to my daughter by her history teacher! 'Ryan takes ecstasy. Kenny just nicks Ford cars really badly' = Roosevelt/Truman/Eisenhower/Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon/Ford/Carter/Reagan/Bush How about Russian leaders in the same period: 'Silly Kids Buy Guns. Yes' = Stalin/Khrushchev/Brezhnev/Gorbachev/Yeltsin

Protests are spreading across Turkey following the violent police assault on the Gezi park occupation on Taksim Square in Istanbul city centre. At least 100 people have been injured as gas and water cannon have been deployed against people protesting against the demolition of the park to build a shopping centre. Pictures from: http://occupygezipics.tumblr.com/ Earlier, occupiers had put up tents and had the usual occupy mix of meetings, discussions, music and hanging out. This video shows people singing Çav Bella - the Turkish translation of the Italian partisan song, Bella Ciao.