Sunday, December 11, 2005
Extracurricular Mink
(*) Eviction Party in Dalston, Friday night: most "normal" squat party I've ever been to, with
(*) UCL attractions: two years ago I heard the curator of the Petrie Museum, Dr. Quirke, give a mesmerising paper on ancient Egyptian cities, gender and power. It involved a poem about the King sneaking at night through a mudbrick town, to reach the house of his general lover. Been wanting to visit the museum ever since.
To get to the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaelogy, you need to jump the UCL library gates, go through three doors which seem to be leading nowhere; once you're there, you'll need a torch to see the exhibits (the museum staff will provide one) because it's so dark. The display is amassed in endless rows of glass cabinets, some of it leading into the blocked Fire Escape. They will modernize it in a few years and move it to a new building (to be called the UCL 'Panopticon' - milking on the Jeremy Bentham connection) - so go before it's normal and boring. It's free.
As for Jeremy Bentham, who Marx called "a genius by way of bourgeois stupidity" and a "purely English phenomenon" - yes, he's there, in his 'auto-icon', stuffed, or rather, preserved for posterity. My favourite bit is seeing the guard put him to sleep everyday on 5pm. I'm rarely there to see it though. The clothes and bones inside are his, the face not (unfortunately something went wrong and they have to use a wax mask).
- people arriving in black cabs
- girls with handbags
- only two people with dreadlocks
- posh cheese (stilton and goat) and chicken wings (!!?) as hors doeuvres
- good live music
(*) UCL attractions: two years ago I heard the curator of the Petrie Museum, Dr. Quirke, give a mesmerising paper on ancient Egyptian cities, gender and power. It involved a poem about the King sneaking at night through a mudbrick town, to reach the house of his general lover. Been wanting to visit the museum ever since.
To get to the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaelogy, you need to jump the UCL library gates, go through three doors which seem to be leading nowhere; once you're there, you'll need a torch to see the exhibits (the museum staff will provide one) because it's so dark. The display is amassed in endless rows of glass cabinets, some of it leading into the blocked Fire Escape. They will modernize it in a few years and move it to a new building (to be called the UCL 'Panopticon' - milking on the Jeremy Bentham connection) - so go before it's normal and boring. It's free.
As for Jeremy Bentham, who Marx called "a genius by way of bourgeois stupidity" and a "purely English phenomenon" - yes, he's there, in his 'auto-icon', stuffed, or rather, preserved for posterity. My favourite bit is seeing the guard put him to sleep everyday on 5pm. I'm rarely there to see it though. The clothes and bones inside are his, the face not (unfortunately something went wrong and they have to use a wax mask).
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Market Diaries
To get to the wholesale market I have to go through a big supermarket; the gate is at the end of the parking lot. As I cycle there, my panniers empty, I see people going into the supermarket; on the way back I see them coming out with plastic bags full with their shopping; it's usually around lunch time, quite a few people come from nearby offices.
Sometimes, on a good day - when my panniers are full with fruit and veg, and a box on top of that, of exotic fruits and organic produce - I feel like saying to people: look! You can get all this for free! There's no reason to go into the supermarket. No need to pay for anything. It's just five minutes walk from here, and (usually) no one will stop you! It's all getting thrown away!
But I don't say anything. Partly because in London, when strangers approach you on the street, they're almost always crazy/want money(that's my experience at least).
But also I know there's no point. People are shocked by the idea of taking food from the rubbish. Ostensibly, it's about hygiene and food safety. But the food is perfectly fine - really, it could be on the supermarket shelves (so why is it thrown away? Too much ordered, too close to use-by date...). It's as hygienic as the stuff you buy.
The real reason is shame - eating wasted food is something poor and desperate people do. Most people will agree that throwing good food away is criminal, but as for taking it themselves...
When I first started skipping I was over-self-conscious. Opening a bin-liner in a main street for the first time, in broad daylight, felt like transgressing some basic rule; 'thou shall not touch the rubbish for it is filthy'. And I was sure everybody were looking at me. At times I wondered: what if somebody from college sees me? Or a friend of my parents, visiting London? But I found that no-one cared, no-one was looking. And when they did, they would avert their eyes; it's unpleasant to see someone looking through the rubbish. Very quickly I lost my sense of shame.
The level of waste in London is astronomical - you could feed another huge city with it; the ones who should feel shame are the people who throw out this food, not the people who take it. But that's a bit hard to stomach I guess.
* * *
Yesterday in the Market, in season:
Tomato day (from Holland, Morocco, Canary Islands) - and tons of Iceberg lettuce (Spain)
As Blue once said on Iceberg: it has the nutritional value of cardboard, and the only good thing about it is that it can last for weeks. (Good for supermarkets, that is).
Also:
asparagus (Peru)
Pok Choi
Wild Mushrooms (fresh shitaki, great in an omelet)
Pears
Butternut Squash
Sometimes, on a good day - when my panniers are full with fruit and veg, and a box on top of that, of exotic fruits and organic produce - I feel like saying to people: look! You can get all this for free! There's no reason to go into the supermarket. No need to pay for anything. It's just five minutes walk from here, and (usually) no one will stop you! It's all getting thrown away!
But I don't say anything. Partly because in London, when strangers approach you on the street, they're almost always crazy/want money(that's my experience at least).
But also I know there's no point. People are shocked by the idea of taking food from the rubbish. Ostensibly, it's about hygiene and food safety. But the food is perfectly fine - really, it could be on the supermarket shelves (so why is it thrown away? Too much ordered, too close to use-by date...). It's as hygienic as the stuff you buy.
The real reason is shame - eating wasted food is something poor and desperate people do. Most people will agree that throwing good food away is criminal, but as for taking it themselves...
When I first started skipping I was over-self-conscious. Opening a bin-liner in a main street for the first time, in broad daylight, felt like transgressing some basic rule; 'thou shall not touch the rubbish for it is filthy'. And I was sure everybody were looking at me. At times I wondered: what if somebody from college sees me? Or a friend of my parents, visiting London? But I found that no-one cared, no-one was looking. And when they did, they would avert their eyes; it's unpleasant to see someone looking through the rubbish. Very quickly I lost my sense of shame.
The level of waste in London is astronomical - you could feed another huge city with it; the ones who should feel shame are the people who throw out this food, not the people who take it. But that's a bit hard to stomach I guess.
* * *
Yesterday in the Market, in season:
Tomato day (from Holland, Morocco, Canary Islands) - and tons of Iceberg lettuce (Spain)
As Blue once said on Iceberg: it has the nutritional value of cardboard, and the only good thing about it is that it can last for weeks. (Good for supermarkets, that is).
Also:
asparagus (Peru)
Pok Choi
Wild Mushrooms (fresh shitaki, great in an omelet)
Pears
Butternut Squash
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Lonely Gloves
When I see them around London, I think of Michael. Three years ago, in the first house we lived together (not far from Brockwell park: my first proper home in London), he often talked about starting a repisotary where people could find their lost glove. A Lonely Glove Club; perhaps with find-your-glove events. Rickshaw riding around Soho, he would see dozens of them everynight. Lying on the floor, lonely, miserable, their true partner somewhere on the tube going home.
Later it became an idea for a website. Find your perfect matching glove. It would have pictures of them all (like dating websites, or police criminal shoots). Like many of Michael's ideas - the robot-roller-blading disco benefit, or the special dish rack he was planning to build- this one didn't materialize. He just never got round to it. But he did collect the lonely gloves, and put them on his wall, above his desk.
Blu, on the other hand, collected them for more practical reasons. You always lose gloves, she said, so it's better to have some spare ones. So she picked this glove off the road, and when she ended up putting her hand into it (four months later), she found a hundred pounds note.
Funny, I just realized it's Michael's cycling winter-gloves I'm using. He left them behind in Honor Oak in one of the broken toilets. Someone was supposed to pick his stuff up, but it never happened, and when eviction came I appropriated them.
But then again, he doesn't really need them in Namibia.
Later it became an idea for a website. Find your perfect matching glove. It would have pictures of them all (like dating websites, or police criminal shoots). Like many of Michael's ideas - the robot-roller-blading disco benefit, or the special dish rack he was planning to build- this one didn't materialize. He just never got round to it. But he did collect the lonely gloves, and put them on his wall, above his desk.
Blu, on the other hand, collected them for more practical reasons. You always lose gloves, she said, so it's better to have some spare ones. So she picked this glove off the road, and when she ended up putting her hand into it (four months later), she found a hundred pounds note.
Funny, I just realized it's Michael's cycling winter-gloves I'm using. He left them behind in Honor Oak in one of the broken toilets. Someone was supposed to pick his stuff up, but it never happened, and when eviction came I appropriated them.
But then again, he doesn't really need them in Namibia.
Monday, December 05, 2005
Obscure visual sign of the week (9)
the text was too good to leave out, and I didn't think anyone would believe me.
I'm leaving London in less then two months. For a month, for the winter, perhaps. Plans are elusive, the future gets dark at four o'clock, and prospects twinkle, fade, and twinkle. Confusing moments.
To make sure I don't spend whatever time I have left in London at libraries and archives, I decided to make a list. Things to see. Places I've always planned to go but... places I always go to. a Provisional List.
1. Have lunch/dinner at the top floor at the Elephant and Castle.
2. Visit the Petrie Museum and photograph Jeremy Bentham
3. Climb the Monument
4. Go on the annual pilgramige to W.Martyn's Tea&Coffee shop, Moswell Hill (perhaps with a visit to the Highgate cemetry)
5. Go down to the river bank (just below MI6)
6. Walk round the Oval
7. visit Clifton Mansions (you can never tell if how long they'll be there)
8. Go to a squat party
9. Nunnhead cemetry
10. Walk the Chenyne Walk, Chelsea
To make sure I don't spend whatever time I have left in London at libraries and archives, I decided to make a list. Things to see. Places I've always planned to go but... places I always go to. a Provisional List.
1. Have lunch/dinner at the top floor at the Elephant and Castle.
2. Visit the Petrie Museum and photograph Jeremy Bentham
3. Climb the Monument
4. Go on the annual pilgramige to W.Martyn's Tea&Coffee shop, Moswell Hill (perhaps with a visit to the Highgate cemetry)
5. Go down to the river bank (just below MI6)
6. Walk round the Oval
7. visit Clifton Mansions (you can never tell if how long they'll be there)
8. Go to a squat party
9. Nunnhead cemetry
10. Walk the Chenyne Walk, Chelsea
Friday, December 02, 2005
the truth is out there, in Vauxhall
They appear without warning, and position themselves along South Lambeth Road and Vauxhall Cross. Mostly men, they have about them an air of anxiety and confusion, the kind typical of newcomers to London. The reports they send on their radios are difficult to understand, and the gadgets they use strange and unfamiliar. A sleek , smug and relaxed man goes between them and checks on them. S ventured to ask one of them what they were doing, and he said: Data collection.
I think it has something to do with the British Interplanetary Society. It seems that extra-gallactic contact has been established; for a brief moment, the back yard gates were open and I could see the Society members practicing something. I wonder if they might be coming soon.
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