The well known nursery rhyme flashed into  my mind as I pitched forward onto the wet pavement, instinctively putting my right hand out to break my  fall. No it was’nt a serious as the  Black Death, but neither was the searing pain in my right shoulder a benign memento of a children’s counting out game,  to take the two dominant interpretations of  Ring a Ring of Roses nursery  rhyme.… Read the rest

Text of a talk given to the Michael Young Centenary Conference November 11 2015

Introduction

As this event is taking place , by no coincidence, on Remembrance Day , it might be appropriate to start with a personal reminiscence.  I first met Michael Young (hereinafter referred to as MY) in 1963 when he came to Cambridge to give a talk to the Heretics Society, of which I was a member .… Read the rest

Reflections on the labour leadership election

So, against all the odds, he did it. Jeremy  Corbyn’s victory is already being claimed as an     ‘insurgency’  on the scale of the SNP advance in Scotland, and driven by much the same popular discontent with  austerity economics and ‘business as usual ‘ neo-liberal politics. The campaign’s success is being widely interpreted as representing a shift to the Left, not only in the labour movement but in the country, in the wake of the election defeat and also due to the fact that Corbyn was the only candidate not tainted by association with the New Labour regimes of Blair and Brown.… Read the rest

Some reflections on choosing a leader

Like many of my friends and colleagues I am a fully paid up member of the Groucho  Marxist tendency. I would never join a political party  that would have me as a member. Until now. Because like tens of  thousands of others I  have now paid my three quid to register to vote in the election for a new labour leader, specifically because I did not want a New Labour  leader to be elected.… Read the rest

Introduction

This is a re-post as my webmaster has set up a system whereby these newsletters will be posted as blogs so everyone on my friends and colleagues list will automatically get  a notification. Apologies if you have read this before, although I have added a post script including some solutions that people  sent in to the little thought puzzle that gives the title of the piece.… Read the rest

In the wake of the election it is clear that political geography is shifting under our feet. Centrifugal forces in what we used to call ‘British’ society, hitherto held in check, have staked out new and uncommon ground. This moment of de-centering, whether represented by the SNP on the Left, or UKIP on the Right, offers both an opportunity and a risk to everyone who holds on to a more inclusive vision of what social justice means in the city.… Read the rest

This month, on September 12^th, is the anniversary our adopted son’s death. We still do not know the exact medical cause as the inquest has been repeatedly postponed; the pathologist’s diagnosis of Central Pontine Myelinolysis concerns a condition which is almost as mysterious as the circumstances of his death in hospital. CPM is definitely associated with chronic alcoholism, but also with AIDS and a number of other serious disorders which have neurological complications.… Read the rest

I recently had a dream in which I was lost in a city which was familiar- I recognised several landmarks – but also strange in that its buildings had all been painted in garish day-glo colours. Many had giant graffiti sprayed on them depicting grotesque characters and scenes from comic books. As I wandered around the streets, at once enchanted and bewildered, I came across an atlas housed in a specially constructed kiosk.… Read the rest

As Londoners we are used to buildings crowding out the sky, the constant friction of human traffic, the barrage of  audio-visual noise which cuts into our  thoughts and counterpoints our   conversations on the street.   And so we cocoon  ourselves  inside little immersive techno-bubbles which are just as invasive, but at least of our own choosing, and we seek out little niches of tranquillity amidst the urban buzz: churches,  squares, unfrequented places and of course parks, so many refuges from the oppressive circumstances of everyday city  life.… Read the rest

Introduction

Trespass is a very complicated, tricky, and sometimes dangerous concept. It occupies an ambiguous  semantic space somewhere  between a model and a metaphor, that is, it operates within both a normative and poetic  discourse of transgression.  For example a work  of graffiti sprayed on the side of a house can be treated as both an act of  cr5iminal damage or trespass, ‘the intermeddling  of the property of another’ as the legal statute puts  it, and as an act of creative vandalism,  one which, if it happens to be by Banksy,  may greatly enhance the value of the property in question.   … Read the rest