HARD.

The Day Flies Off Without Me

The planes bound for all points everywhere
etch lines on my office window. From the top floor
London recedes in all directions, and beyond:
the world with its teeming hearts.

I am still, you move, I am a point of reference on a map;
I am at zero meridian as you consume the longitudes.
The pact we made to read our farewells exactly
at two in the afternoon with you in the air
holds me like a heavy winter coat.

Your unopened letter is in my pocket, beating.

By John Stammers

Thanks The Clinic

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised - Gil Scott-Heron

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised......(Thank God)

Gil Scott Heron, despite all his faults he's gleaming in the black community, but his literature, simply does not correlate with a young black readership. The novel, "The Nigger Factory" is about, young black men, in a black American university being oppressed by the underfunding and lack of progressive teaching the school can provide. These issues are difficult for a black British student to relate to .

Firstly, the passion not longer exists so explicitly in our community. We had the Toxteth and the various Brixton and Tottenham riots, the passion for extreme change seems a remnant of the past.

Secondly We never had black universities, and any form overt socialisation, and that of which did occur, is seen to be of a more subtle nature, than that of segregated America.

Thirdly the novel is very slow paced, and the underlying factor is the revolution never occurred in reality, the uprising some dreamed of, was meant by a peaceful and docile occurred instead, a of which we now called multiculturalism (Well kind of).

I have been unfairly harsh, but a man like Gil Scott Heron has a lot to live up to.

Cool, 4 Real

"The best lack conviction, yet the worst have all the passionate intensity" W.B Yeats

"He's so cool, prick!" Is the usual rhetoric of a day to day discussion of mine. This constant to and froing of what is cool, and entered and stayed into the lexis since the generation x and the beatnik movement, but what is the obsession? Also why all the different view of coolness, and why to we ( or maybe I) create personas to be socially, accepted or to be seen a cool, aloof. Maybe its Narcism, but whatever the case, it's been something resonant since childhood, and something that must be addressed.

Perception:

Nathan Barley

This man is they epitome of all that is not cool, for his incessant attempts to be so, and yet, if you scour Shoreditch, for all of five minutes, you will find eons of his modern day clones. Now what does this tell you, it informs me that coolness is all about perception , and completely depends on the relative audience as to whether something is deemed cool, or not.

Maybe.........

ENGERRLAAANNDDD (not only for the peasantry)

Falling prey to the bastions of the media, must be an English tradition. The frequent recalls of the "spirit of 66" and the return of football, sear though the heart of every Englishmen deluding them , once again that they can reach the pinnacle of footballing glory, and actually win something. I can give you three reasons, why this temporary cause of overt nationalism, is simply misplaced simply due to the fact, that we are not that good.

1. Its BEEN 55 YEARS!

2. We lost to NAZI's apparently..........

3. The Scottish are always right, when it comes to football.

Lilya 4 EVER

This dark brooding docu-drama easily equates to the best work, of the understated director Lukas Moodysson. Soviet bloc russia, in all its post- apocalyptic horror, homes a land bereft of hope, opportunity and overall love. Encased in this is the lead character of Lilya. A child born of a prostitute, her beginning is bleak, with her mother abandoning her for America, leaving her alone and destitute. In comes her saviour 11 year old Volodya, a rejected child who acts a shining light in this, soviet hell hole.

There is no remitting from the bleak world view, as Lilya who is 16 turns to prostitution to keep her and Volodya alive, only as we are lead to watch her slowly be drawn into sex trafficking, and when it didn't seem possible, she falls further down the slipperly slope, and slides into despair.

There is no redemption, which is a shockingly accurate, yet understated crtique on the East European sex trade.