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Showing posts with label LONDON. Show all posts

Another Nickel In The Machine

Three rather wimpy 'Hells Angels' guarding 144 Piccadilly - 1969

Eel Pie Island, 31st August 1960

Adam Diment - the bang bang birds published in 1968

Another Nickel In The Machine is a blog about 20th century London (not particularly focused on the 60s), its history, its culture and its music. It is truly fascinating. Found thanks via Planetbarbarella.

UK Feminista Summer School - Amnesty International Human Rights Action Centre: London, England (7/31 - 8/1/2010)

Despite only existing since March 2010 and operating wholly through the work of volunteers, UK Feminista organized "two days of feminist training, explaining, and gaining," a free event on feminist activism in London. Held at Amnesty UK, it was overbooked and a visible ninety-nine percent of the 350 registered attendees came. The most amazing feature of the event was that it provided genuinely fun and interesting talks for activism beginners and veterans alike.

UK Feminista was started by Kat Banyard, the author of The Equality Illusion: The Truth About Men and Women Today, who gave a particularly inspiring speech during the first panel, "The Importance of Feminist Organising."

The enormous strength of the first day of summer school was its focus on practice. The afternoon was split into workshops on different levels of involvement: from how to organize a Ladyfest to running effective campaigns, organizing demonstrations, and planning direct action. All the materials from the workshops will be available at the UK Feminista website in the coming days.

Simultaneously to the events, UK Feminista volunteers were tweeting, providing quote selections and links so well that I didn't feel the need to take many notes. Instead, I have an online record of what was being said under the #femschool hashtag on Twitter. It is a goldmine of news, information, and people!

What struck me about the event, aside from supreme organization, was the enthusiasm of everyone involved, organisers and participants alike. People were chatting away and forming new alliances all the time. There's no better feedback for an event than when people just don't want it to end.

The second day was a lot more opinion- and discussion-based, but great training was still being given. We learned how to use media and influence politicians, how to fundraise and include disabled people in campaigning, the importance of promoting diversity within feminist groups, and why is climate change a feminist issue. The two arguably biggest events of the day, however, were the opening and closing panels. The first was with Jess McCabe of The F-Word, Hannah Pool, and Kira Cochrane. All three talked about their experiences with the media, and all agreed that to be a female journalist takes more effort and more talent, but their examples showed it was possible, and important.

The closing panel, "Feminist Question Time" with Bidisha, Dr. Aisha Gill, Sunder Katwala, Karon Monaghan QC, and Julie Bindel, provoked a lot more controversy. Bindel said there was a lot of terrible anthropological research concerning women in the sex industry, and that they should not be treated as an anthropological field research group; she went so far as to say that if she had one bullet in a gun, it would not go for the pimp, but for the academic who's all into the sex industry. Bindel also said, "we make a lot of excuses for men to the point where we praise them for not being fuckheads," which made everyone laugh, but later someone angrily said that the men in the audience must feel very excluded in the current talk, to which both Bindel and Bidisha reacted heatedly.

Overall I am inclined to say this was the best summer school I ever attended. It was a really inspiring, great opportunity to learn, meet people, and acquire skills and information to proceed with conviction and fury.

Review by Marta Lucy Summer

A longer, more in depth review can be found at Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things

Photo credit: Kirsty McCall-Thornley

The Bradshaw Variations

By Rachel Cusk
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

In earlier times, a set of variations on a theme in classic art music was a chance for a composer to play around with a melody, try it on in various guises, and allow the audience to hear possibilities. Each variation was minute, an aural petit four to be savored briefly while one contemplated on the sweet yet temporal nature of life. Cusk’s novel The Bradshaw Variations is indeed a set of variations, each chapter holding their own like variations on the theme, offering a brief but blinding insight into life.

Questions of meaning within family, vocation, and sexuality arise as Cusk introduces her reader to the lives of Thomas Bradshaw, his wife Tonie, his daughter Alex, and his two brothers and their families. Thomas, the main character through which most of the action is understood, is taking piano lessons during his interim as a stay-at-home dad. His experiences practicing and learning works by Beethoven and Bach ground the entire novel in a specifically artistic linguistic; Cusk deftly uses musical metaphors throughout the work to create a story that is aural as well as visual and emotional, without succumbing to cliché or cheesy, florid prose.

Thomas, formerly a professional who commuted to work in London like so many other suited desk jockeys, has left his job to stay at home, while his wife Tonie has accepted a position as head of department at a university. Their nontraditional role-switching carries with it consequences for how their family members react and how they negotiate disapproval. Cusk weaves a believable narrative of these very human actors, creating a counterpoint of voices. Both Thomas and Tonie’s parents see the occupational switch as irresponsible and somehow wrong, but are unable to voice the exact nature of their disapproval; furthermore, Thomas feels as if he is in some tired and ambiguous rivalry with both of his brothers, whose temperaments are like night and day. Regardless of the parental disapproval, Thomas finds fulfillment in his days at home, looking after Alexa, playing the piano, and cooking meals. Questions of masculinity are never approached; however, Tonie begins to recognize her own yearning sexuality, and the effects of marriage, age, and work on her own fulfillment. A Freudian theme permeates the novel, apparent in both Thomas’s relationship with his daughter and Tonie’s sense of abandonment, and with Tonie’s own relationship with her father, as viewed through her mother’s eyes. This novel questions what it means to be a family, laying bare the hearts of one in particular and allowing the reader to see their struggles and their moments of connection.

Cusk’s tactile engagement with the characters and their surroundings, coupled with her brilliant use of musical vernacular, create a community of very human characters that I could relate to, over boundaries of class, country, and gender. I read this novel twice, during my morning commutes to work and found myself captivated despite the rush hour bustle.

Review by Cristin Colvin

Reclaiming the F Word Book Launch - The University Women's Club: London, England (6/3/2010)

I went to the launch event for Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune's book Reclaiming the F Word at The University Women's Club. When I signed up to the event on Facebook, I just assumed from the name that this was perhaps a part of the University of London and was expecting to just wander down the road from where I work and into a student union building. On closer examination (i.e. after some Googling) I discovered it is a private members club in Mayfair, and perhaps an unusual place to host a gathering of rowdy young feminists! Slightly pleased I'd worn a nice frock for the occasion, I set off from work to catch the tube to Green Park and finally meet a woman I've admired for a long time.

When I first discovered The F Word website in 2001, it was quite a revelation. Full of articles by young women on a variety of subjects from a feminist perspective, it satisfied my need for something intelligent and 'bite-sized' to read and also inspired me to write. I wrote seventeen feature and review articles for the site over the next couple of years (you'll find me listed as Lorraine Smith on the contributors page) and every one was sent to Catherine Redfern before publication. We never met, as I lived in Manchester at the time, but we chatted a bit via email and so I was a little bit sad to see her step down as editor in 2007. However, this was because she wanted more time to devote to writing a book with Kristin Aune and so I was keen to see the results of all her hard work.

Last night I got my hands on a copy and Catherine kindly signed it for me. Everyone in that room was there to celebrate the work Catherine and Kristin had done, but also to celebrate feminism. The mood was one of excitement, hope and optimism. Now the book is out there, we can all help to promote it and get the message across that feminism is not dead or outdated. After finally getting to say hello to Catherine, I caught up with Helen and Hannah and then, surprisingly for someone who is usually extremely shy in many social situations, I chatted to a lot of new people. People I've encountered online but had never met in person. People I admire.

I met Sarah Barnes who is the brains behind the fantastic Uplift Magazine. I said hello to Holly Combe who has written an outrageous number of articles for The F Word site over the years. I chatted to Suraya Sidhu Singh, editor of Filament Magazine, about the magazine and the lack of decent 'boylesque'. I said hi to Jess McCabe and promised to write for The F Word again soon. I even approached Laurie Penny and told her how much I enjoy reading her blog. I'd been discussing with Hannah earlier in the evening about how it was Laurie who helped me understand my privilege, so it was wonderful to be able to say hello in person... although the wine seemed to help me forget all the eloquent things I wanted to say!

I started reading the book on the train home and I'm really impressed so far. However, as I'm a notoriously slow reader, please don't wait for a review from me before you buy yourself a copy. Come on, join the gang. Let's reclaim the f-word!

Review by Lori Smith

Cross-posted at Rarely Wears Lipstick