tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58934612024-03-14T17:54:46.062+00:00London Minkgrey skies and contemplationsminkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.comBlogger399125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-2869359338021404902011-10-20T13:39:00.002+01:002011-10-20T13:39:54.881+01:00Surplus Citymy new bloghttp://surpluscity.wordpress.com/minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-15744743837669380072010-06-22T23:09:00.004+01:002010-06-22T23:18:05.768+01:00LSE normalI arranged to meet with a friend to hear a lecture in the LSE titled "Beirut Normal" by architect and scholar Hashim Sarkis. Approaching the LSE I was surprised by the large number of well-dressed people in front of the doors, chattering happily in Arabic. Are they all Arab architects and town planners, the Zaha Hadid aspirationals?As I was locking my bike, to my surprise I saw the well-dressed minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-12238910873877706712010-02-06T15:54:00.005+00:002010-02-06T16:02:52.151+00:00Categories of beingYesterday in the Somerford grove clinic, a woman was trying to get an apointment for her baby. The clinic secretary was going through the registration procedure with her. She asked the woman for her race. The mother was surprised: European, I am European (she looked Mediterranean, dark, I thought she was Turkish)."There's no European, there's "white british" "white irish" and "white other". minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-8259103330316667522009-05-03T19:52:00.003+01:002009-05-03T20:07:40.442+01:00Pirates at LambethI have been researching Somali piracy for the last few days (as part of my paid work). As usual, my commissioners are keen to learn the numbers. Not for them, long descriptions of knife held between the teeth, and jumps onto ships; or alternatively, the plight of Somali fishermen, who, when seeing their seas plundered by international fishing boats, decided to jump the fishing boat, and board theminkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-44842051621688596782009-03-23T11:09:00.003+00:002009-03-23T12:03:52.639+00:00Collapsing demandThe current global recession is manifested, we are told, by a collapse in "demand". That is to say: less products and services are being sold; business is slowing down; less profit is made, and therefore less is spent. Companies go bankrupt; and people are laid off. Economic hardship takes on different forms: for the few, it means less champagne and oysters; for the many, it means real suffering.minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-66986255984173577942009-03-09T16:07:00.005+00:002009-03-09T16:13:14.399+00:00British Library encountersThe British Library is a good place to do lots of things. One if them is meeting crazy people.Encounter (1) I go up to the coffee machine. An elderly woman seeks my assistance in operating the machine. Or rather, she commands my assistance, and from her demeanour and accent I assume she was, once upon a time, the product of the public school system. After I get her a cup of coffee, she asks whereminkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-34155677226645010912009-03-06T22:22:00.007+00:002009-03-07T10:07:13.945+00:00A trip down southGoing South There was a food order waiting for me in South London, at the Food Co-op. I usually go there - when I go, every month or two - on Thursdays, so I can chat with C, who has his usual shift then. But yesterday I was in the Library and Friday is my designated running-around sorting-things out day (I'm trying to be a good Jew, finish the chores before the Sabbath).I decided not to cycle minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-67891044722511358592009-03-05T21:55:00.004+00:002009-03-05T22:14:28.891+00:00Culinary HackneyWhere: "Tina we Salute You Cafe"What: Latte, small glassHow much: £2More: No doubt the best Latte in London, in a dodgy corner of Dalston. It is of the same quality you find in Melbourne and Tel Aviv, both Latte capitals. I could speak critically of the ironic decor and the designer chairs, and pay lip service to the sturggle against gentrification, but when it's class struggle or good coffee, I minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-1925683270300806162009-03-02T14:55:00.005+00:002009-03-02T15:08:19.324+00:00To the losers who will not give upThese men had as if casually been imprinted with the same expression, the expressions of the losers who do not give up, who know: they will lose again and again, and again and again till not give up, and that is no accident, no mistake or mishap, but it is meant to be that way .... yes, the most dreadful shame, the real crying shame, the greatest delight.* * *I am reading Christa Wolf on the bus minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-59688132846608672462009-02-20T01:23:00.004+00:002009-02-20T01:28:29.825+00:00about snow and sexCycling on snow sounds like a Yoguslav brass band under your pedals* * *The man in the Cafe yesterday talked about "tantrum sex". Everybody liked the ideaminkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-51246877540346659272009-02-16T15:53:00.003+00:002009-02-16T16:31:34.481+00:00The market diaries: monetising tomatoesI am drawn back to the wholesale market, the one I've been visiting for six years now, on the south bank of the river. It is not a short cycle for me, perhaps even an hour. I wonder if it is nostalgia that draws me back there; or the search for continuity, while my life is changing.But there are simpler reasons, as my fridge is empty of vegetables, and the distance is hardly an excuse - what is minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-4910029820398091282009-02-03T16:38:00.006+00:002009-02-03T17:06:57.248+00:00Olympic MarketThe usual wholesale market to which I've been going for five years and more is far from Hackney, which has meant that I've been there only a few times in the last year. Last week I decided to try another wholesale market not far from my house.I went on a Saturday because I know Saturdays are slow. Markets work for half days and there's less traffic of traders and buyers and vehicles. It also minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-22100241396662708322009-01-26T19:04:00.005+00:002009-01-26T19:17:16.494+00:00What's in a nameGod this blog is becoming Nostalgia central.No, it's just that I'm sorting my papers. After two years of mayhem. I want to claim some tax back, and I need the receipts. So I go through my stuff. And I found exam candidates name cards.When I supervise exames, I am bored, so I look for funny names, as I tick the students' attendance list. Sometimes the name really suit the person. For example, Mr. minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-9726941842178761262009-01-25T18:30:00.003+00:002009-01-25T18:43:44.285+00:00I just found my notes from the Gleneagles, the G8 summit three years ago. In the same folder with my NHS cards and emmigration stuff, for some reason.Tuesday, walking on the highway, not sure where. The hotel should be nearby. Nick is talking about the midges, Scotland's menace, little flies that never leave you alone. We are overheard by two robocops. One of them trying to be friendly, says, minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-66657754294341588152009-01-18T11:33:00.004+00:002009-01-18T12:38:51.745+00:00Gaza as entertainmentIn watching UK responses to the Gaza war, I find myself in a by-now familiar predicament. I am resolutely against this pointless carnage. And I do think there is room for action here in the UK: Britain and Europe is supportive of Israel in a range of ways, which make them in my view involved, partisans. Yet at the same time I dislike much of what I hear on British and European anti-war rhetoric. minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-35067501424804987622008-12-05T01:01:00.002+00:002008-12-05T01:03:42.357+00:00Waltz with BashirI wrote a review on Waltz with Bashir on my Jerusalem Blog, for those interested.minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-83034729205010132142008-12-04T11:44:00.003+00:002008-12-04T16:34:41.519+00:00Marx on the 73An idea for a short story/film:Karl Marx is sitting on the 73 bus, on his way to the British Library. He is deep in thoughts when a group of gorgeous 17-year old Somali girls board the bus and take every seat possible around him (some of them sit on top of each other). They're wearing veils and make-up, and constantly play on their mobile phones, and shouting in an East London accent.He is minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-29060596826366002622008-12-04T00:30:00.001+00:002008-12-04T00:34:02.107+00:00another obscure visual signOnly Goths (or rollerbladers) can put their feet on the seats.minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-77006122132751267502008-11-18T20:07:00.008+00:002008-11-18T23:38:29.602+00:00Thinking about the financial crisisI am taking this opportunity to think out loud. I don't know much about finance: what I know I learnt mostly in the past month. Beyond the prospects of a recession or even depression, there are questions of history and politics that I am thinking about.In the last fifteen years' debates on globalisation and its discontents, I can't remember anyone mentioning finance as a serious issue. The evils minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-76339999811810103412008-11-04T18:05:00.005+00:002008-11-04T18:34:15.978+00:00Two days ago I saw a couple shoplifting. I used to have this somewhat-glorified image of the professional shoplifter as cool and nonchalant, like magicians, with a sleight of hand, expensive merchandise ending up in their bags. Poof! Now you see it, now you don't. But whenever I saw shoplifters in shops they didn't look anything like that. They were nervous and hysterical, their movements obviousminkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-3229350197813033612008-11-01T22:48:00.003+00:002008-11-01T23:02:35.049+00:00For the past week, the British mainstream media has been busy discussing a story of foul-language prank played by two BBC radio broadcasters. I don't buy the newspapers but I see them lying on the streets, and read the headlines as I cycle passed shop fronts. So these are the front pages: Will the broadcasters they be suspended? will they resign? will they... whatever? I don't even know what the minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-49379329448411787272008-10-30T16:40:00.005+00:002008-10-30T16:52:54.176+00:00Some more obscure signsAs you know poverty is verbotten on Swiss trams, as is spraying shaving foam on the person next to youminkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-84644944710391993232008-10-27T15:04:00.002+00:002008-10-27T15:07:17.849+00:00obscure visual signs: do not chop off the tram seat you're sitting onZurich provided me with some very interesting signs, more to followminkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-58179923612572315382008-10-27T14:25:00.008+00:002008-10-27T17:22:10.083+00:00Notes from ZurichIt wasn’t a good start. I was late for a job interview and we were still circling above the airport. “There has been an… incident in Zurich airport ” said the captain, clearing his throat “we will be landing 40 minutes late”. Later as we approached I could see the crashed aircraft on the ground, a few metres from the runway, and the emergency vehicles parked around it, but no special motion: the minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893461.post-89301210731666177332008-10-22T22:27:00.003+01:002008-10-22T22:43:43.898+01:00In ZurichEarlier this evening I watched people in the Supermarket. They were making choices, silently, observing their options, contemplating slowly, comparing prices and packaging. But this was the wine section, or the meat. It was the chocoloate section.I brought dahl and rice with me on the plane and cooked dinner in the guesthouse: a pete-style dahl, with tomatoes and coconut cream, and then I added minkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11494109557449444993noreply@blogger.com2