Anti-Homeless spikes in Central London

Rolls  of steel studs have recently been placed at the Picadilly Circus Branch in Central London of Tesco and  outside a block of luxury flats in to try to prevent homeless people sleeping out.What kind of country are we living in.

Let us remember that until a couple of  hundred years ago four fifths of this country ( and even a larger proportion elsewhere) was common land to be used by everyone as they saw fit. Now there's   hardly a square  inch of horizontal surface  that doesn't seem to have been  taken by some greedy so and so's. When some people say property is theft, this is  literally what they mean.
Because of the Tory Governments policies rough sleepers have risen sharply across the country  with a massive 75% rise in London. People are daily struggling due to a lack  of housing, cuts to benefits and cuts to homeless services, that are  supposed to be their to help  people rebuild their lives,  and the government  continues to spend billions of pounds on  war and spying, while the vulnerable  are hidden out of sight. People at the end of the day being treated less than vermin.
We are daily systematically being  robbed blind by ...and the worst is yet to  come. It should be enough to shame us all.

Denise Levertov (24/10/23 -20/12/97) - Writing in the Dark

 

 

It's not difficult
Anway it's necessary.
Wait till morning, and you'll forget.
And who knows if morning will come.

Fumble for the light, and you'll be
stark awake, but the vision
will be fading, slipping
out of reach.

You must have paper at hand,
a felt-tip pen - ballpoints don't always flow,
pencil points tend to break. There's nothing
shameful in that much prudence: those are your tools.

Never mind about crossing your t's, dotting your i's -
but take care not to cover
one word with the next. Practice will reveal
how one hand instinctively comes to the aid of the other
to keep each line
clear of the next.

Keep writing in the dark:
a record of the night, or
words that pulled you from depths of unknowing,
worrds that flew through your mind, strange birds
crying their urgency with human voices.

or opened
as flowers of a tree that blooms
only once in a lifetime:

words that may have the power
to make the sun rise again.

Denise Levertov was born in Illford, Essex, England. Her father, raised a Hassidic Jew, had converted to Christianity while attending University in Germany. Her mother was Welsh, and read aloud such authors as Charles Dickens, Joseph Corad and Leo Tolstoy. Denise Levertov was educated completely at home and she claimed to have decided write at the age of five.She was to become a committed protestor too, an anti-war activist, feminist and anarchist fellow travellor, following her own passionate  impulses. After settling in America in 1948, she was also to become known as one of America's foremost contemporary poets.

Protest G4S AGM London 5 Jun 2014

Protests to shareholders at the G4S AGM held yesterday at the Excel Centre in London aganst this companies complicity in Israel's war crimes and against the  British Governments  continued use of G4S domestically in Britain in spite  of its corrupt and incompetent record here at home and  in addition  notwithstanding its illegal collaboration in war crimes. Protesters were violently removed  as they defended human rights against this immoral company..

25th Anniversary of Tiananmen Square Massacre

25 years ago in 1989, a mass of  students and workers occupied Bejings Tiananmen Square, and began the largest political protest in the history of Communist China. Driven  by  the hope for a better future, they were simply  calling for freedom of the press and for some government accountability, and the imminent problems of corruption,  among other goals. Six weeks of demonstrations ended  with a night of bloodshed on  June 3rd. Resulting on this day with over 2,000 of protestors being killed, Brave, innocent, individual souls, shotdown and massacred. It also resulted in 10's of thousands being arrested.The Chinese Government acting under martial law, deployed 200,000 troops to brutally supress this movement. Long prison sentences were given out, one  of which was for 17 years for throwing paint at a portrait of Mao Zedong. There has been talk  of students  gathering on the ground today but tanks are already on the streets. We should take a minute and think about those sacrifices and all those who died,  so that their actions  have not been in vain. Sadly brutal suppression and censorship has continued to this day, that  condemns the Chinese nation and its people to a future without freedom.
And today many activists are still being  ruthlessly persecuted by the Chinese Authorities, and the climate of free expression remains stifling,  with scores of writers still being silenced, also many social media sites are still banned.
We must continue to support all those that fight  against state  oppression and censorship and never forget the tragic  legacy of Tinanamen Square that continues to haunt us.

David R Edwards Desert Island Discs

Seminal Welsh Band Datblygu (regulars to this blog will know that I regard them as the greatest band to have emerged from my country) have a new mini album Erbyn Hyn  coming out on June 7th, it will be launched at Tangled Parrot Records in Carmarthen next Saturday.
In anticipation of this, here is David Rupert Edwards Desert Island Discs, that me old mucker lovingly compiled for me recently. I need to give him a call, hopefully he will pick up my telepathic communication, and realise that my bloody mobile phone has broken.
The following worked its magic for me, hope it does the same for anyone passing through.

1 Associates - kitchen Person

2 Bob Dylan - Simple Twist of Fate

3 Happy Mondays - Stinkin' Thinkin'

4 Frank Sinatra - I Get a kick Out Of You

5 Scott Walker - Amsterdam

6 The Fall - Blindness

7Leonard Cohen - The Partisan

8 Tom Waits- Nirvana

Luxury item:- Unlimited Tobacco

Book:- 'Factotum' -  Charles Bukowski

Song that Dave would save if a wave came:-
#8 (written by Bukowki)

Dave will be in conversation with the DJ Huw Stephens at Dinefwr Literature Festival
in Llandeilo June 20 -June 22

http://www.dinefwrliteraturefestival.co.uk/

Nice interview here:-

http://louderthanwar.com/louder-than-war-interview-datblygu/

Datblygu's website is here

http://ankst.co.uk/

Not all those who wander are lost.

                                    
                                        ( After, hay-on-wye and the golden valley)
                                        .
Everything can be suddenly changed
the crazy doodles of the heart,
among valleys, under trees
find smooth tempered words,
make up for the lengths, that we take
to hide ourselves, from minds archive,
with  distracted voices of calmness
we can leave a trail of thought,
follow the untethered leaf
and later make a poem,
under the muttering sky
catch the stars falling,
being grateful that
we can still breathe.

Chumbawamba - Liberation

In the Presence of the Holy See

So the Pope is visiting Palestine today. Above are a wonderful set of collages to remind  him - or inform him, if he doesn't yet know - of how the Israeli  occupation daily commits  crimes against the Palestinian people.
The Palestinian  Museum has launched  this project  in honour of his visit. Banners  combining recent media photographs of the Palestinian landscape and its people with Western baroque  paintings of biblical scenes will decorate Manger square in Bethlehem, highlighting the tension between the popular image of the Holy Land and Palestine's ongoing history of suffering under occupation  and oppression.
My hope is that he uses his visit to speak out against the injustices inflicted on the Palestinian people.

More details here:-

http://www.palmuseum.org/exhibition-news/news/in-the-presences-of-the-holy-see-project

Why not to vote - Shane Jansen-bowen

 

Some valid, coherent, thoughts from guest contributor in anticipation of tomorrows European election or any other in fact.

Don't vote, don't even think about voting. Don't  worry that not  voting is a wasted opportunity.
Don't reach for the people died so that you can vote justification. Don't believe that there is hope from NEW government. Just think  for a moment. Politicians ARE dishonest. A broad generalisation I know, but a stereotype that has been proven  in its rigorous Westminster playground over and over.
Have you noticed in the past that laws that have been passed have improved things.
What do politicians actually do? How much do they really get paid when you add up all the benefits they receive? How does your income  reflect their income? Well  there is plenty of info on all that crap out there so I will assume you know this shit.
Why are some people poor? That's a valid question. Farmers, factories, mass production techniques mean that one man can provide for 1000's so why is everyone poor?
Housing:
A builder will make 100's of houses in his lifetime, why  is anyone without a roof? A person goes down to the stream to drink. Someone else brings a bucket so many can drink. A well, a dam, a desalination plant. You get my flow.
No one should ever be thirsty. Why are we? Because we have the same system of governance that we have had for millennia. It's called a hierarchy. This system is holding humanity in stasis, preventing the next evolutionary step. A step for both the freedom of the individual and the chance at global community.
You generally make a choice between the red and the blue, why? It would be easy to show with 'prove anything' statistics that for the majority, party X was more favourable than party Y but you are missing the point. We say 'the lesser of two evils'., we joke about it. It's not very bloody funny. Any vote is going to result in a negative outcome, so don't.
I do propose anarchy, the type where you sit on your but and ignore the powerful, just like you would with a child that was having a tantrum. Politicians allow people to die, they cause wars, they sponsor greed and they do this in your name because you voted for that. You paid for children to die. The action of your representative, in your name, with your signature have caused untold misery. These people are insane and you allow this insanity to grow and fester into depravity.
Name me a good man, one that never got angry, never did anything wrong, compassionate one with no flies. All those names you're thinking, are you sure they were never a soldier, are you sure they were not misogynistic, held views that were popular but not bigoted against some faction.
We are not perfect and voting for someone to be in charge is crazy, we don't need managing, we don't need direction. We just need compassion and a willingness to help each other. Most of us already have that. So ask yourself just what does the government do for you or anyone you know? Do they really help you?
What does that friend of yours do for you? ..... Yeah! They do make a difference.
We have civil servants, we don't need government.
Don't vote.
 

Max Ernst (2/4/1891- 1/4/76) - Profanation of Spring

Even today Surrealism captures the imagination, with surprising force. Max Ernst, German painter, artist and poet was one of its primary forces. I am a great admirer of his work. In his painting Profanation of Spring painted in 1945 with its rich, bizarre portrayal he displays his fascination with the natural environment. Bulging-eyed insects. larval forms and subterranean anthropods, lurking in a dense web of decaying vegetation and murky humus.
Unlike Rousseau's jungle -like charm though  it had far more deeper, sinister implications, as Jon Russell  described  his paintings  of the 1940's (in Max Ernst: Life and Work, New York , 1967) it was to become one of his 'portraits of dissolution, panoramas of a world gone soft,'
Events of the day also weighed heavily on Ernst's thoughts, during this period. Nazi Germany had surrendered unconditionally to the allies on 8 May 1945. One might optimistically think that this  springtime victory over the forces of darkness as the auspicious beginning for a season of rebirth and renewal in devastated Europe. During the final weeks of the war, however, and following its conclusion, with the horrors of the death camps, and the sheer magnitude of Nazi genocide that became apparent to all, this may be the desecration of the life-affirming symbolism of spring to which Ernst alludes to in his title.
As the spectre of fascism lurks over Europe again, Ernst reminds me not to forget, as Spring smiles and awakes, the sense of foreboding menace and its jackboots are still stamping their feet, and raising their ugly voices. Deep in the undergrowth, sadly visible again.