Whee!

Queen – Bicycle Race

11 months and 13 days after I last rode my bicycle, I picked it up yesterday from North London Auto Cycles yesterday and rode home. Plenty has happened since last I hopped on the oddly-narrow saddle (which is now replaced with a broader, ventilated model) and attempted to ride home. Including:

• Flying through the air from the handlebars of said bike immediately after last riding it.
• Landing with a thud on my hip
• Very first trip in an ambulance to the very pleasant Whittington A&E (subject of scurrilous and strongly-contested closure plans)
• Very first x-ray
• Very first operation (dynamic hip system, don’t you know)
• Very first overnight hospital stay
• 8 weeks off work!
• Quitting work!
• Commencement of MA at King’s College, London, and pretty much continuous study since then.
• First essays for about ten years.
• Good times in all things.

No more bicycle races though: no timing my journeys and mapping them on Tumblr, no more Blackstock Road. Instead, I spent lunchtime cycling like some sort of hippy around Tottenham Cemetery looking for the grave of John Eliot Howard. I found it!

Standing with me shouting “pull up your socks”

Plan B is a modern day contradiction, a paradox. I’ve only just got used to enjoying new music again (thankyou Mumfords) and along comes this dirty white boy from Forest Gate who raps first-person narratives like Dizzee Rascal reading Ian Rankin, writes like a YouTuber commenting on the finer points of happy slap technique, and looks like a young Shaun Ryder with Eminem’s fashion sense. I hate him because he brings out in me all my prejudices, my middle class repulsion of this shocking and crude young white man, or even some sort of twisted racism because I wince at the appropriation of black culture – it’s the same sort of prejudice that engendered the pejorative term ‘chav’, or perhaps its ‘wigger’ equivalent from the US. Any white rapper is always going to be subjected to the most rigorous of assessments: hip hop afficionados tend to have long memories, and for every half-credible Eminem there’s a massively successful Vanilla Ice, riding on the back of black culture. And now the UK has its own, credible and commercially successful hip hop scene, hangers-on are unlikely to be taken seriously.

The problem is that, whether or not Plan B is a good rapper, he’s got the voice of something approaching an angel – a genuine Northern Soul voice, drenched with heart and soaring higher than Justin Timberlake stubbing his toe. Though predominantly a rapper, Who Needs Actions When You Got Words nevertheless featured the odd clever vocal break, inserting Dub Be Good To Me, or even Young Girl into his sordid (or otherwise) tales. But on his latest album, which went to #1 yesterday, Ben Drew takes the step into full-on Wigan Casino arrangements, coming across like Mark Ronson but with the benefit of not having to deal with Mark Ronson at all. This is where he throws me, because these are classic-sounding, genuine soul articles, full to the brim with passion and feeling, and it screws my prejudices right up. I get my realities mixed up, between what I hear on the record, what I see in the pictures, what I felt for Noel Winters in Harry Brown.

Updates.

It’s been a while, because I’ve been on a national tour, taking in such glamorous highlights as the Bullring market, St Austell, Bournville, and the Hampshire countryside, so just a brief word to let you know that I am here, I am still doing bloggable stuff, I just don’t have much time to do the actual blogging. Maybe soon. Most of my time is at the allotment at the mo, or at least thinking about it/buying for it.

Chin chin!

Antagonism/agonism

It appears obligatory for newspapers to be ranting one way or the other about the budget today, and as always (apart from lone voices like the true-red Mirror and the ever-esoteric Independent) Alistair Darling is being slated. As was Gordon Brown before him of course, as was Ken Clarke, and Norman Lamont, and Nigel Lawson, no doubt right back to Hervey de Stanton. And it’s healthy politics to do so, because antagonism equals deliberation equals progress. Or does it?

Interviewed by Evan Davies this morning on the Today show, the ascendant George Osborne was revelling in the lack of spending cuts and the over-reliance on taxation, as though this was news from what is ostensibly a left-centre government. His argument was that (as per the OECD) the cuts:tax ratio should be 80:20, rather than the 66:33 of Darling’s budget. But where’s the actual difference there? 5 billion pounds is a lot to me, but in the grand scheme of things, that doesn’t mean a huge difference to the average punter. Would Osborne’s budget work better than AD’s? Will Labour save the day? Neither. Both are going to whinge and whine whatever the outcome, and once again leave the burden (fiscal or otherwise) on someone else. The ‘post-politics’ of Chantal Mouffe is ever more real – nothing gets done outside of an accepted consensus of things that can be done.

There is, now more than ever, I think little difference between the two major parties: the Conservatives advocate exactly the same things as Labour, just a bit nastier, and a bit worse for everyone except the really well-off (which is why you should never vote for them). Both parties (and the others as well) have framed it so that to criticise something old-fashioned called ‘capitalism’ marks you out as a bit of an eccentric, who doesn’t know his place in the modern world. Eccentric I may be then, but the eternal quest for cold, hard money, whoever has it, doesn’t earn my respect. I’m off to do some research as to who I might vote for that’s neither of them. Give me Tito any day.

Give it away, now.

An interesting concept today, via Shahryar Malek on OpenDemocracy: give your vote away. Not in terms of selling it, obviously, but more conceptually. The Ulrich Beck endorsed cosmopolitan world in which we live is a complex one, not the least of which is the odd, divisive globalisation of the world. For all the transnational multi-mil-lion-aires and the cheerleading of the global economy, it’s a dodgy subject to try and define.

Certainly globalisation is economics: the mobility of capital, interregional competition, yadda yadda yadda. But it’s also people, and so the idea that Malek is recommending is enticing: give your vote in the UK election to someone who it affects, just not someone here. More specifically, via Give Your Vote, to someone in Afghanistan (where UK defence policy is extremely relevant to the country), Ghana (where international economic policy is the cause of constant frustration for one of Africa’s few successful democracies) or Bangladesh (where global environmental policies find their shortest-term outcomes). I have yet to decide whether to go in for this or not, but it’s certainly a curious idea.

To what extent do I affect an election? What do I know about rising sea levels in Asia, or everyday poverty in West Africa? All too little – perhaps someone better informed than me would be able to make a decision about these; those without a say would find a voice. Certainly I’m of the view that whether I vote Green or LibDem (my main choices), not much is going to change for me, so why be selfish? I shall continue to ponder.

Mattock!

The allotment - the first 'before' picture.

As a good Marxist geographer, this last term has seen me take a step back from my consumption-driven lifestyle and thus the perpetuation of the economic and class elite that profits from the social construction that is the Saturday shopping outing. At any rate, if I’m asked, that’s the reason I’m sticking to. It probably has nothing to do with tight funds and a hectic schedule of coursework. The latest step in the war on consumption is our adoption of an allotment – something which not all lairy urban geographers would understand (although at least one anarchist-Quaker lecturer from last year would (see field trip)). Again, this probably has nothing to do with being persuaded by someone much smarter than me that it’s a good idea.

So it’s quite possible that this blog will from now on be featuring plenty of discussion of our allotment, and that’s all good. We spent our first morning there yesterday, suitably welly-booted due to the drizzle. A good job really: although thoughtfully (?) covered by some old carpet to prevent the weeds, the ground was well and truly waterlogged – the soil in Mill Hill seems to be 99% modelling clay in its consistency, and the ponds lay large on the ground. Yesterday was therefore more of an exploratory task – exploring how much junk there was, how much carpet had to be gotten rid of, how many brambles needed to be destroyed, how many trees needed uprooting, how many breeze blocks needed removing, and not least, how tough our arms are going to have to be. In that respect, success: although not close to the digging stage yet, we certainly made a visible impression. It’s going to be fun!

Allotment - before the work commenced

History is nothing but the actions of men in pursuit of their ends.

There’s lots of terms I’ve been cheerfully bandying about over the last few weeks: post-politics, the death of conflict in the political world; the new public management, or the corporatisation of public services; governmentality, a Foucauldian intervention, “the conduct of conduct” by government; elitism/pluralism, or how the world is governed; cosmopolitanism, the positive disconnectedness associated with our ‘second modernity’. I could go on. It’s been satisfying to go through a course at university and discover that, in doing the assessment, everything ties together.

I’ve been pursuing an elective course on the governance of the sustainable city, and it’s been by far the most organised thing I’ve studied so far. Everything in it’s place, discrete topics every week, and yet they come together really satisfyinglyin this assessment of the current position of the political state. So I’ve been off (as well as doing a million other things at once) arguing the case that the idea of government by consensus, partnership etc. is a sham and a front, and I find myself right in the middle of it on an internship. Government by general consent is an appealing concept on some levels: include as many as you can so you don’t exclude any opinion, consult consult consult… yet everything’s dictated from the top. It’s quite impressive. It’s been good to see this in practice, and it’s been firmly consolidating me in my political standpoint. Yes I’m still somewhat a Bevanite, but when it boils down to it I’m a reluctant, partial, neo/post/whatever Marxist. The old beardy man had some sensible things to say, and they’re a bit inescapable.

Avoision

My shoulder’s still not particularly 100% for some reason, but it’s good enough that I can head in to my class with a very Gallic political waffler today. I’ll continue with David Harvey on the way in, no doubt, but at the moment I’m juggling all sorts of philosophies and arguments in my head for a very busy March. 1) Prepare post-Marxist analytical framework to critique the World Bank in Croatia. 2) Sublimate Slavoj Zizek, Chantal Mouffe and Erik Swyngedouw into a coherent assessment of post-politicism. 3) Research the use of home energy assessments in meeting carbon reduction targets. All by yesterday pretty much.

So predictably I went looking for Street View instead, and found that 96% of the country is now covered. So, you can see where I grew up, and some of my favourite holiday destinations (we have here the west of Scotland, the Yorkshire Dales, the West Cornwall moors, the green lanes of the South Hams, and my ultimate childhood destination, Caswell Bay on the Gower, which still looks exactly as I remember it, twenty years ago.

Can I copy your notes?

I have a difficult time being a grown-up sometimes. I’m used to being the teachers pet kind of student (I managed to acquire the nickname ‘boff’ in secondary school which, if nothing else, attests to the lack of imagination in 12 year old boys), and have actually never bunked a lesson, of any sort. Mostly this just adds to the guilt when I do take a day off for sick. Sometimes, as with last summer’s broken hip, it’s justified; today, I have a stiff neck (since yesterday morning) which would be desperately uncomfortable to sit through a lecture with. It still takes someone sensible just to tell me to stay home though.

Hence I’m home, squished into bed amidst a tower of pillow upon which my tiny computer is propped, and I have no idea how I’ll be spending the rest of the day. Ah well. At the moment I’m listening to Radio 4 which has been firstly about Henry Ford’s modernist, high industrial utopianism in the Amazon jungle, then about Creswell model village, now the literary habits of Molotov (he and Stalin both loved Chekhov best). Good old Radio 4 – cutting 6Music starts a Facebook frenzy, cutting Radio 4 would cause national riots.

Boats

For various complicated reasons, I’ve chosen to summarise the whole of neoliberalism, the World Bank and Croatia into a 2800 word essay. This will require some attenuation. Nevertheless, I’ve had fun studying David Harvey’s A Brief History of Neoliberalism for an analytical framework, and will be applying this to the port in Rijeka post haste. David Harvey’s a fun one: as hardcore a Marxist as you’re likely to meet, and possessor of a fine beard (much more cultivated than Zizek’s), Harvey tends to somewhat shoehorn class conflict into any argument that he can, and as such I sometimes prefer the more nuanced take of post/neo/Marxists like Mouffe or Zizek in terms of actually practicability of application. However, Harvey makes some extremely well-argued points, and whether or not you agree with his hard line, it’s hard not to be a bit swayed by his ontology.

Fun times on the philosophico-politico-economic geography boat!