Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

The Tories are lying, as usual.

But, never mind that; for the sake of argument, let's imagine it's all true.

The country is in loads of debt. So what?

As a fully functioning and useful member of society, a person is expected to saddle themselves with tens of thousands of pounds of student debt, on the gamble that, in the future; they will be earning enough to pay it all back.

After their (preposterously expensive) education, they'll probably need a car, so they take on more debt for this socially desirable item, that depreciates in value with every passing moment of its use.

After that, they might be lucky enough to be one of the tiny amount of people who can (sort of) afford to buy somewhere to live and therefore lock themselves into repaying hundreds of thousands of pounds, pretty much up until the point they keel over and die.

Done all that? Good. Well done. You made a 'success' of your life. Go you.

Every step of they way on this journey of 'achievement'; you were not only expected to get into debt; you were actively encouraged and celebrated for doing so.

You see; you were investing in yourself. You were making a pact with your future; that it would, one day, be 'better' than your present. You could afford to take on all this debt now, because then your investment would have paid off.

If an individual saddling themselves with all this (apparently) essential debt, is what is expected in order to be considered a 'success'; then why is the opposite true for the country?
Surely, we must be expecting our country's future to be better than our present?

If this is the case, then how is building hospitals, schools, houses and infrastructure in any way irresponsible? How is making sure that the most vulnerable in society are supported not an investment in that person's individual future, and so by extension, an investment in the country's future as a whole?

You've gotta speculate to accumulate, or is that only true of the spivs in the City? It's almost as though the Conservative party have no faith in the future of our country whatsoever.

For the love of anything sane, don't vote for the Tories.

And if they don't want to go quietly, we might need to see them off the premises.

Fuzzy Fiction On The Mail Rail

I was late.

By the time I had arrived at the British Postal Museum Archive, last Wednesday night, the inaugural event of Cityread 2015  had already begun.

This year's book is Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, which is the first in his series of novels, dealing with the unusual investigations of magic cop, PC Peter Grant. The event was an exclusive reading of a brand new Peter Grant short story, written by the series creator and performed in the Mail Rail tunnels, beneath Mount Pleasant.

Yes, that is a thing.

Being a fan of the books, I was very excited to have nabbed a seat for the reading. Unfortunately, the fates conspired to delay me (although, it may well have been irate river goddesses rather than fates on this occasion) and I was really very late indeed.

Thankfully, not too late.

I'd missed the drinks, but I was directed to the tunnels by a very nice lady, who eventually found the right door to the secret railway.

Inside, I attempted to descend the clangy, metal staircase as inconspicuously as possible (ie. not very inconspicuously).

Looking down, I saw a small cluster of seated people, facing a lectern.

Behind the lectern was Peter Grant.

It is quite a disconcerting thing to arrive, harassed and embarrassed, in the middle of someone's performance. It's quite another thing when that person is a fictional character, whose adventures in the tunnels beneath London, you were three quarters of the way through reading.

"Come down, we're just setting the scene," said PC Grant.

I swiftly clunked down the steps and found an empty seat.

It turned out that the walls between fiction and reality had not begun to blur and the Peter Grant-a-like was, in fact, the actor and MC, Doc Brown. He is the spit of Grant, though. Which is odd, as Grant is made of words on a page.

Doc Brown returned to his recitation.

Peter Grant (Doc Brown) makes his statement

In keeping with this unreal mood, the new story possessed a fuzzy resemblance to reality, being set in the location where we were all sat at that very moment.
There were added river spirits and rat-people to differentiate it from what was actually happening in front of us, but having said that, the tunnels were long, so you never know.

It was a great story, brilliantly performed. There were plenty of laugh out loud moments and ended with a wish that it could have gone on even longer.

After the reading, Ben Aaronovitch hosted a short Q and A, where he talked about his process and his plans for the future of the series. He was charming and funny and open to discuss anything anyone asked, for as long as the time allowed.

Explaining how he had deliberately created Grant to be much younger than himself, he thus ensured that there would never be any danger of him having to write about the character's retirement. The stories could keep on going for as long as Aaronovitch himself did the same.

The author will be visiting libraries in all the 33 London boroughs throughout April and you should really take the time to catch him if you can. Also, don't forget to get hold of a copy of Rivers of London and join in the Cityread mega-book group this April.

I'm fighting the urge to pile straight into Broken Homes, right now. It seems especially appealing as the story is set south of the river (my ends) this time.

Instead, I'm going to rewind and reread the first book, along with the rest of the population. Maybe I'll tease out some things I missed first time around, hidden within the twists of the city.

London is a real place, made of fiction.

Occasionally, if you're lucky, you get lost between the lines.

UPDATE - (17/04/15)

Cityread have uploaded a re-recording of the short story, King of the Rats to Soundcloud and can be heard below;

An Open Letter To Neil Lonsdale

Neil,

You're doing it wrong.

You've misunderstood the situation.

OK, you don't like Kanye West. That's is, of course, an entirely acceptable position to take. I can see why this might be.
West does seem to possess some sort of crippling inferiority complex that causes him behave badly in social situations.
There are some who have diagnosed this condition as that of 'being a dick.'

Now, I don't know him personally, but there would appear to be a fair amount of evidence to support this thesis.

However, in his capacity as headline act on the Pyramid Stage, Saturday night at Glastonbury, 2015; we should be less concerned about his questionable social skills, than about his ability as a performer of music.
You don't have to enjoy his particular sort of music (I can take it or leave it personally), but you would have to been living under a stone, or perhaps even King's Lynn, to be ignorant of Mr West's significance within the field of his chosen discipline.

So, why don't we examine the sort of thing we might get on the night...

That wasn't so bad, was it? There was even ballet dancers and shit.

I'll tell you what it really reminded me of; it's exactly like the sort of thing you would expect to see... on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury during some headliner slot or other!

Now, with one or two notable exceptions, I pretty much never go to see the headliners at the Pyramid, mainly because there's an almost infinite number of much better stuff happening elsewhere, on the really-quite-colossal site. I suspect this year will be much the same.
For example, Foo Fighters are that sort of magnolia, Fearne Cotton-friendly rock band that doesn't really do very much for me (Although Dave Grohl always seems like a really nice guy in interviews. Yep, I'll admit, he certainly seems nicer than Kanye West. I've never met either of them, so I don't really know)

But, rather than focus on my mild disinterest on that particular booking, I focused on the fact that it didn't matter one iota because there's an almost infinite number of much better stuff happening elsewhere on the really-quite-colossal site.

What you have seen on the telly, Neil? That stuff? It's largely irrelevant to the experience of being there. Forget what you think you know.

I have a very eclectic group of friends, all with an equally eclectic group of tastes and our beginnings at the festival are a little like this;

Friend 1: "I am going to see the Jangles in the John Peel tent in a bit"
Friend 2: "I was going to check out the Latvian Nose Flute Ensemble at Jazz World (I refuse to call it 'West Holts')"
Friend 3: "I'm going to head towards that 'Doof! Doof! Doof!" sound that's coming from over there"
Friend 4: "I'm going to have my chakras buffed in the Green fields and maybe buy a guinea pig and tahini baguette, if I can avoid all the Greenpeace chuggers pretending to be my best mate."
Friend 5: "I'm going for a pint."
Friend 6: "Et cetera..."
Me: "OK, shall we all meet at the Pyramid for about two, when Elaine Paige is on?"
Everyone: "Yes, fam! The Paige is sick! Love the Paige! See ya down there! Whoooo! We rule! Yaayy!"

And then we all leave.

And then, not one of those things actually happens.

But everyone still has a lovely time.

So, you see, you've piled in too soon, with your sense of entitlement and your petition. You don't need to go and watch Kanye West or Foo Fighters or anything you don't want to! There are going to be too many options available! None of what you think matters matters!

I am sure you are a nice guy, but you starting this petition has you coming across as a tad... I dunno...

It reminds me of someone...




I'm certain you will have a pleasant time at the festival, if you just allow yourself.

All the best,

b

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