Posts by Conrad Heine
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Great to hear. Since being passed a copy (via my bro) after initial release, I've hosted several London festival screenings, including via the prestigious Walworth Road Annual International, which should achieve double figures in 2013. Here's to bigger and better...
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Muse: Postcard from London: Lines…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Ah. Didn't realise Tate had started using Ryanair opt-out tactics for walk-up customers. Sneaky.
Don't forget to visit the Soane (assuming you are still here).
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Bear in mind that the extortionate ticket prices for temporary exhibitions (and the ripoff restaurants etc) at the likes of Tate Modern, Tate Britain, National Gallery, V&A, British Museum etc etc, to a degree subsidise awesome and free permanent collections. You'd have trouble filling four weeks, let alone, four days. This year, I'm ignoring the temps.
And I concur: the Sir John Soane Museum is London's most fabulous hidden treasure. The Hogarth panels especially.
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Of course, when I saw Radiohead, in 1997 (at a very exclusive secret performance in a gymnasium on the outskirts of Reading) they were top of their game, at their peak, and far, far better than they are ever likely to be again, since, or ever. Did I mention how much better the restaurants are in London? That British food-as-punishment/surly-service thing just a myth.
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While Greeks (and Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese) have been let down by their political and business elites for decades, it must not be forgotten that the entry of these countries to the eurozone was desired by the leading economies, to ensure potential low-cost competitors were in the euro tent. Poland is in a similar position right now. And let's not forget that the early years of the eurozone saw constant breaches of the deficit levels of the Stability Pact by... France and Germany. Backward-looking I know, but let's forgive those Greeks on the street--taxpayers, on the whole, for like most of us, taxed at point of earning--their anger at "austerity" (such a bracing, wholesome-sounding, virtuous concept).
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When you do get there, there will be a there there, to paraphrase someone. Very best birthday wishes from London (where it is still the 21st) - I'm eating a Shrove pancake for you, and for Christchurch, and thinking of you all.
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Good to see you back, David. Your ability to share generously in the midst of adversity is truly humbling.
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An excellent post there, summing up my own feelings. Russell’s post is also thorough and accurate, from afar.
I’ve lived in Peckham for almost two decades now, and strolling along the high street this morning, coathangers crunching under my feet, I’m struck by the teenagers plastering “Why I love Peckham” post-it notes on the boarded-up frontage of the local Poundbusters. Life goes on, but it’s a febrile atmosphere, too quiet as shopkeepers shutter up as early as 2pm, each fearing that those who dare to remain open will be targeted as police are distracted elsewhere. No-one really knows what will happen next.
Much of what we are seeing is simply thuggish opportunism, born of a culture of violence, with the communities already vulnerable the victims. There are no excuses. It is not mindless. It’s symptomatic of the prizing of personal enrichment over social contract.
It’s also a product of a long-standing narrative in Britain which has seen elites across the political spectrum look the other way as many of a generation of urban youth, the stereotypical council-estate-dwellers, are excluded. The boom years camouflaged this. Much scorn has been poured on those who reach for the public-service cuts as shorthand for an explanation. But they are only the latest symptom of this state of mind. Like the riots, the speed with which they have affected neighbourhoods such as Peckham has to be seen to be believed.
Here we have a government which draws its power from demonising those at the bottom. Sadly, this strife provides the perfect excuse for such cynicism, as the political grandstanding already apparent in reaction indicates.