Archive for the ‘london’ Category.
I Hate Rinse FM
Actually I don’t, but was interested to see these comments from the ever-readable Paul Stott:
I Intend To Escape ………………….And Come Back : I Hate Rinse FM.
Reminds me of my pirates, politics, parochialism post from a few years back. (We got round the pirates interfering with Radio 4 by getting digital radio in the end…)
Lost In The Cracks of Croydon
I was pretty excited about visiting Croydon last week for the private view of Georgina Cook’s degree show.
As many of you will know I’ve been a great admirer of her photos for many years and was thrilled when she agreed to let us use her images for the first two issues of Woofah (including the front covers).
Recently G’s work has veered away from documenting club culture and concentrated more on abstract images – a display of her psychogeographical love affair with South London.
Indeed her degree show marks a surprising acceleration into an entirely new, more conceptual, area. “Lost In The Cracks” raises many questions regarding place and surveillance society in the early 21st Century. It is apt that the playfully Kafka-esque installation took place in Croydon, which as well as being the birthplace of dubstep (via the Big Apple record shop) was also where Jamie Reid and the Suburban Press collective vigorously attacked the very nature of post-war “new towns” as sites of grim alienation rather than suburban paradises.
Cook’s installation covers a wide area and I was impressed by the dispersed nature of the work. For example I was greeted at East Croydon station by a friendly bureaucrat who informed me that, despite Croydon technically being in Zone 5 of London’s travelcard system, my Oystercard was not valid there and that I would have to pay a twenty quid penalty fare.
Obviously this raises many questions about what (and where) London actually is, as a “place”. The London of our imaginations is many things, far beyond the representation of the railway map or travelcard zones.
So, as Iain Sinclair has pointed out recently, Stoke Newington has an entirely different character to the rest of the London Borough of Hackney. Similarly Croydon exists in some kind of hinterland, both in London and Surrey, but not really characteristic of either. Whilst dubstep is seen by many as originating in London, it is also suburban in character (cf. comments by Simon Reynolds about dubstep precursors ‘ardkore and Jungle having key participants based in the home counties – most relevantly Essex’s Suburban Base label and shop).
Cook’s secondary point is that the very nature of “place” is formed by social processes. These processes include state and corporate interventions both at “national” and “local” levels. East Croydon station is one of the busiest outside of Zone 1, so perhaps the town itself will be forever associated with the railway and its operating company, Southern.
But Cook also reminds us that these interpretations are always subject to negotiation. The smiling bureaucrat was only too eager to inform me that there was a chance that my twenty quid penalty fare would be refunded to me if I appealed. The message I took away from this is that we must resist the imposition of bureaucratic “place” and formulate our own relationships with Croydon, by wandering about ourselves. This is reminiscent of the work done by the Equi Phallic Alliance to undermine notions of “Wessex” generated by reactionary poets.
Indeed, the latter part of Cook’s installation is composed of a semi-guided derive of the area around the station. My invite directed me to College Road, but on entering the college building there I was informed by a second bureaucrat that I was in the wrong place and needed to head to the H.E. College instead. I continued to wander, enjoying the sunshine, ruminating on the role of educational establishments in confining thought. The almost deserted H.E. College provided even less answers. I drifted happily through its corridors, viewing some of the more conventional work by other students.
There was no trace of Georgina Cook, her invisibility only serving to highlight her presence.
shopping list
1) crowbar, small metal cosh, whip handle, whip, brass handle.
2) US type truncheon, two knives.
3) wooden truncheon.
4) bayonets, swords, a cosh and Nazi memorabilia*.
OK, so that isn’t my shopping list. It is a list of items which were found during a search of the lockers (*and home) of four police officers of the Special Patrol Group who were named in connection with the killing of Blair Peach. None of them were ever charged or (as far as we know) reprimanded. Calls for a public enquiry at the time were rejected.
The investigation into the killing has never been released in full. 30 years later, The Friends of Blair Peach are still demanding that it be released.
The Institute of Race Relations has posted two very interesting articles during the anniversary:
The Political Legacy of Blair Peach
- on the ensuing political struggles, memorials and calls to disband the SPG. Also the setting up of INQUEST, a group dedicated to “helping families get justice through the coroner’s courts – especially when someone has died in custody or at the hands of the police”
Remembering Blair Peach 30 Years On
- about Blair Peach the man, which I think is an important way of rehumanising him, if that makes sense? All the column inches and lyrics tend to obscure the fact that he was a bloke, a teacher, someone’s friend, someone’s neighbour.
I’ve also been reading Tony Ward’s Death and Disorder, which was published by INQUEST in 1985. The pamphlet deals with the deaths of Blair Peach, Kevin Gately (who was killed during a demonstration against an NF meeting in Conway Hall in 1974) and Cynthia Jarrett (who was killed during a police raid on her home in Tottenham in 1985 – one of the contributory factors to the riots in Broadwater Farm). Death and Disorder is still available from INQUEST for two quid + p&p.
All this has reminded me that 20 years ago me and my friend Gerry trogged off to Southall for the 10 year anniversary march of Blair Peach’s death. I can’t remember much about the day, but I guess it shows I’m consistent.
tougher yet
8:30am, City of London.
The suits are back on, but the shops are still boarded up.
Commuters emerge blinking from Bank tube station, greeted by the smell of hardening horse manure. And graffitti:
“Freedom”
“All Cops Are Cunts”
Circled A’s, Hearts, slogans of varying triteness.
There are police standing where the private security guards were yesterday morning.
I can’t stop a big smile spreading across my face.
rougher yet
5:30pm, City of London.
Quiet. No traffic, no noise. There is your actual reduction of carbon emissions.
Leave your car and suit at home, maybe stay there yourself. It could be like a little holiday.
Two blokes with plummy voices discuss capitalism on the way home, no way of knowing if they are dressed down bankers or protestors.
Gresham Street is streaked with horse manure, just like old times.
The police have blocked off the roads to Bank. Small groups of workers and punks hang about, waiting for something to happen. One guy just stands up and walks determinedly towards the police line and is arrested. Sits down in the road and is dragged off.
I head down the labyrinth of back alleys.
Laughing: “They were the worst kind of social reprobates, the dregs”
Angry: “They were just thugs basically, I hope they…”
They’ll be talking about this day for years.
render your hearts and not your garments
8:30am, City of London.
Lots of blue denim on show, but nobody seems particularly relaxed.
The shops are boarded up, the offices have extra security guards outside – telling people off with video cameras.
There is a 10 foot of layer of metal barriers around the Royal Exchange.
“The truth is there, for those with eyes to see.”
I walk away from The City, along the river to work. I haven’t “dressed down”.
