PATIENCE AGRABI (b.1965) - WHO'S WHO?

1.Beloved: Toni Harrison or Toni Morrison?
2. Famous Irish poet: Yeats or Keats?
3. Puppy Love: Donny Osmond or Ozzy Osbourne?
4. Blockbuster: Sweet  or the Beat?
5. Psycho : Anthony Perkins or Anthony Hopkins?
6. Passive resistance: Mahatma Gandhi or Muhammed Ali?
7. Playschool : Fenella Fielding or Floella Benjamin?
8. Space Shit : Chris Offili or Salvador Dali?
9. Some Llike it Hot : Marlon Brando or Marilyn Monroe?
10. She's Gotta have it : Mike Leigh or Spike Lee?
11. Pop art: Andy Warhol or Adam Chodzko?
12. Water Lilies : Monet or Manet?
13. Scary Spice: Mel B or Mel C?
14.Bohemian Rhapsody : Cream or Queen?
15. Split britches: PJ Harvey or PJ Proby?
16. Rowan Atkinson: Mr Benn or Mr Bean?
17. The Flea : Thom Gunn or John Donne?
18. Frankenstein : Mary Kenney or Mary Shelley?
19. Del Boy : James Mason or David Jason?
20. School Days : Nick Berry or Chuck Berry?
21. Rock dinosaur: Cliff Richard or Keith Richards?
22: Zorba the Greek : Anthony Quinn or Anthony Quayle?
23. Misunderstanding : Genesis or Oasis?
24.He's a Rebel : The Crystals or Crystal Gayle?
25. Rebel of the Underground: Tupak Shakur or Kula Shaker?
26. The Artist : CK Williams or William Carlos Williams? .
27. Other Lovers : Jackie Kay or Kathy Acker?
28. Prime Suspect : Helen Mirren or Karen Millen?
29. GBH: Robert Lindsay or Albert Finney?
30. Best of my Love : The Beatles or The Eagles?
31. Myra : Marcus Garvey or Marcus Harvey?
32. Composer: Engelbert Humperdinck or Engels?
33. To Celia : Ben Johnson or Dr Johnson?
34. How Deep is your Love? The Three Degrees or the Bee Gees?
35. Death Wish: Charles Bronson or Charles Manson?
36. Bring the Noize : Public Image or Public Enemy?
37. Call up the Groups : The Barron Knights or Barry White?
38. Red Light Spells Danger? Phil Oakley or Billy Ocean?
39. It's in his Kiss?: Cher or Shere Hite?
40. Poet Laureate : Andrew Marr or Andrew Motion?

FROM
TRANSFORMATRIX by Patience Agbabi
Payback Press 2000

TRUE POLITICS IS INCAPABLE OF REPETITION .

The old territories are shut off
tears are authentic, all politics is fiction.
Time and Space died yesterday
true politics is incapable of repetition
true politics is incapable of repetition
life and breath, effectively co-exist
true politics is incapable of repetition.
Total additions made, to clear space
the difference between nations
absence of logic, knowledge stolen
once recoveredusually reeling
the size and shape of an egg
can be divided by syncopated rythym
noises at dawn, will bring freedom.
" we are unidentified."
No value judgements here
" beyond the shadow of the night."
Madness makes storytellers of us all
when some prisoners escape
they head straight home.
Where will it end?this grinning circle
at the time this addition was made
true politics is incapable of repetition.
There are statements on the origins of nationality
that surreal enough often employ
elements for further discussion.
The State still has powers of Stalinist proportion
some things exploited for unique possibillity
the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.
True politics is incapable of repetition
true politics is incapable of repetition.

63 Years of Nakba / Day of the Catastrophe.

In  human terms, 1948 saw the mass deportation of a million Palestinians from their cities and villages, massacres of civilians, and the razing to the ground of hundreds of Palestinian villages.
Today some of us remember this.They still belong to this land, they were there for hundreds and thousands of years despite what some today are trying to change. They still remain, in their hearts and spirits, still holding and caring for the keys of their houses for the people who left, who managed to escape their occupiers crimes. Time drifts, but for many memory is never erased, still belonging to lands of ancestors, where hearts and minds can never leave.

Today, meanwhile almost 9,000 Palestinians are being held in Israel, in violation of International humanitarian law. In hundreds of cases, Israel forbids adult relatives to visit, so it is left to children under 16 to maintain the family contact.

Intifada means Revolution.
But Revolution does not mean violence.
Revolution means change.
A Jasmine Revolution is coming to Palestine
as it did in Tunisia and Egypt.
This Palestinian Revolution is near.
It is inevitable under oppression.

Lets not forget
in the meantime
free Palestine.

Atos: They simply don't care

A National  Protest Against Benefit Cuts is taking place throughout the week, with noisy protests expected up and down the country. Whether we see any reports of these events we will see.
Many protests are expected to take place both announced and unnanounced outside the offices and testing centres operated by Atos Origin.
Atos Origin have recently been granted, and have starrted a £300 million contract by the Con-dem Government to carry out 'work capability assessments' on all people currently on Incapacity Benefit.
It has been claimed that assessments will be used to test what people can do rather than what they can't. I feel the real purpose will be to strip vulnerable people from their benefits to pay for the bankers greed.
The testing system has already led to people with terminal illnesses and severe medical conditions being declared fit for work and having benefits cut. Our G.Ps are simply ignored in favour of decisions made by Atos's own accessors. I know of people with severe illnesses whose benefits have been stopped, pending an appeal, and many others who are scared witless.
Where  conditions have been stabilising over years and their have been intermittent periods of survival,  Atos is currently undertaking a process that robs people of their  dignity and have in many cases , made people more anxious than ever before. A lot of the examinations I have heard about seem to be based on simple trickery,the examinator  does not hold open the door for you or seek to help you in any way and simply ignores any signs of invisible illnesses, the internal unseen forces that cannot be detected by mere physical tests.
 It has been said in other parts that it is simply an excercise in robbing people of any dignity that remains. To date  however about 50% of appeals have been successful ,this proves that the means of testing cannot possibly be correct, yet this does not stop the worry or the fear. A lot of innocent people are clearly , but not plainly for the rest of the country to see, being treated unfairly.
Their have also been plans for the scrapping of Disability Living Allowance , and soon perhaps will be extended to everyone on some form of disability or health related benefit.

Meanwhile David Cameron is seen daily on the television and in the newspapers looking jolly and upbeat, ignoring the misery that he has inflicted on a few. A millionaire with no sense of what it it is to face invisible fears, and apprehensions, in a lot of cases, this is daily living, and the living is definitely not easy. He pays no heed  to people whoes experiences of life are mostly heart rendering. He parades his standards for all to see, and his friends the bankers, and those with corporate power idly get rewarded, as he divides the country into us and them. Poverty pimps is to nice a word.
Next after stealing peoples lifes , Cameron will turn to slice and carve up the N.H.S and other essential services.
It is always the same, I suppose , the rich get richer and those below the radar, are beaten down. The mainstream press collude with this and blame people on benefits, neighbours are turned against one another, the blame game spreads, whilst the real parasites grow stronger and stronger.
I confess I have personal bias,  personal experience, guess you know which side of the fence I'm on. Anyway this is not about me.
This is about the experiences of many other people up and down the country, who are being blamed for capitalisms worst excesses, who deserve respect and certainly some dignity.
Finally , when the legendary underground Edinburgh poet  Paul Reekie killed himself on June 10th, two letters were found on his table at the time - one informing him  his Incapacity Benefit  had been stopped, and the other that his Housing Benefit had been stopped.
I will let you judge for yourself. Atos abrilliant acronym by the way, simply don't care.
Show solidarity.
Fight the cuts.

 For more information see

  http://benefitclaimantsfightback.wordpress.com/

WE

ARE

NOT

WORTHLESS

WE

ARE FIGHTING

BACK

Hsu Ts'eshu ( chinaman, circa C16th) - Proper moments for drinking Tea.

When one's heart and hands are idle
Tired after reading poetry.
When ones thoughts are disturbed.
Listening to songs and ditties.
When a song is completed.
Shut up at one's home on a holiday.
Playing the ch'in and looking over paintings.
Rngaged in conversation deep at night.
Before a bright window and a clean desk.
With charming friends and slender concubines.
Returning from a visit with friends.
When the day is clear and the breeze is mild.
On a day of light showers.
In a painted boat near a small wooden bridge.
In a forest with tall baboons.
In a pavillion overloooking lotus flowers on a summer day.
Having lighted incense in a small studio.
After a feast is over and the guests are gone.
When children are at school.
In a quiet secluded temple.
Near famous springs and quaint rocks.

Terence McKenna (16/11/46 - 3/4/00) - On societies refusal to allow us to be idle.

" I  think the reason we don't organise society in that way can be summed up in the aphorism, ' idle hands are the devil's tool. In other words, institutions fear idle populations because an idler is a thinker and thinkers are not a welcome addition to most social situations. Thinkers become malcontents, that's almost a substitute word for idle, ' malcontent'. Essentially, we are all kept very busy... under no cicumstances are you to quietl inspect the contents of your own mind. Freud called introspection ' morbid' - unhealthy, introverted, anti-social, possibly neurotic, potentially pathological."

as transcribed to Tom Hodgkinson 1993.

as I've said before all life is work, in states of freedom we are released from the illusions of slavery.
Alternatively what was it that the great socialist William Morris say.

" A man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is excercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as his body. Memory and imagination help him as he works."

Ah, the dualities of life, for some a struggle every day. Some of us refuse to obey or conform, we can look at a meadow of beauty for hours without moving. For some however this could be hard work. But everyone of us twined together in our fragility, lifes rich differences, the shared humanity of us all.
It is our ideologies that actually divide,the  reality is the toiler or the idle share  exactly the same breath.
All of us skirting around the playgrounds of chance, perhaps.
Anyway,I for one in deep thought at moment, wondering how the dickens the tories have not been decimated, but that  is another tale, one I'd rather forget. The thought of them, makes me very tired.

"I didn't go to work today, I don't think I'll go tomorrow. Lets take control of our lives and live for pleasure not pain."

BUT WATCH OUT ATOS ARE ABOUT.