Without the state

Guest Blogging

I have a guest post over at Ronni Bennett's blog, Time Goes By with a more personal piece than usual, a reflection on my approach to 60.

The Band plays on

I liked the lines in this article from Leonard Cohen. I know how he feels...

Now my friends have gone, and my hair is grey
  I ache in the places where I used to play

Anger

I have been infected ‑
infected by a dark and bitter mood.
I don't know where it came from
but it's here.

Black, bitter bile is rising,
rising on the flood.
It's overwhelming my defences,
it's destroying my foundations,
it's exposing unseen urges
that were hidden in my heart.

Then finally I crumble
into incoherent rages
and I hurl abuse at strangers
as they pass.

A situation I often feel in after reading blogs these days

People watching 2

National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks, Dublin, originally uploaded by ibanda.

Waiting for the LUAS outside the National Museum of Ireland, are an old man and his young grandson. The grandson is small and delicate. In the old man's coat pocket is a soft toy, the eyes and nose peering out. They get on to the tram, which is very crowded. The young boy is frightened of the crowds, whimpering, until his grandfather manoeuvres him to the door where he can see out. He stands close, his hand on the boy's shoulder reassuring him.

...

In a scene that would be dismissed as too blatantly set up if it were in a film, an aged old woman sits in a shop doorway on O'Connell Street, selling copies of the Big Issue as a 'designer' type walks past clutching a vase with a single flower.

...

Around the corner another younger woman sits cross legged on a coat in another shop doorway, baby in her lap. The baby cries distractedly in the cold, but the mother stares into space ignoring it. Meanwhile crowds of drunken scotsman surge past, dressed only in kilts and t-shirts.

People watching

Wherever I go, I will almost always have a notebook with me. I always have several on the go, some for particular areas of work, others personal. When travelling I usually have a small A5 or A6 hardback that sips into my coat pocket. I prefer plain paper so that I can mix drawings with notes.

I say this simply to put the next couple of posts in context, which are more or less straight transcriptions from my notebook of various street vignettes observed on a recent trip to Dublin.

"Sir - the prison will not have him back"

From The Magistrates Blog (formerly "The Law West of Ealing Broadway")

Eventually Probation Service are instructed to refer him back to court. I pause to observe that there is no provision in the 2003 Act for breach proceedings - the relevant application is for a variation of the sentence so that any outstanding time (in our case 6 days) be implemented and served continuously. I am asked to represent our man who duly turns up to court with his plastic bag full of essential grooming items for a short holiday. He is content to go back in - the hearing is on Friday and he would have had to make his own way to Kirkham today anyway - now he will get a lift. He knows he will be out next Wednesday, which to him beats the drudge of repeating the dose next weekend as he is - by now - fed up with being a political experiment. My instructions are not to oppose the application.

That would have been that were it not for the somewhat earnest probation officer whose presentation of facts to the DJ concluded with the immortal words: "Sir - the prison will not have him back."

As one of the comments puts it - Fred Karno, all is forgiven!

Invoice Past Due

A wonderful set of letters to various big corporates.

Grannies for Peace

Last October, 18 “Grannies For Peace” were arrested for disorderly conduct when, as an anti-war demonstration, they tried to enlist in the Army at a recruiting station in Times Square. On 20 April, these dangerous criminals will be brought to trial by the Manhattan district attorney.

[via Ronni Bennett at Time Goes By]

Recycled plastic can be stylish

I'm desparately trying to think of some uses for these materials - I love the stuff made from children's wellies.

(No connection with the company - found via BoingBoing)

Liberty

A government cannot have too much of the kind of activity which does not impede, but aids and stimulates, individual exertion and development. The mischief begins when, instead of calling forth the activity and powers of individuals and bodies, it substitutes its own activity for theirs; when, instead of informing, advising, and, upon occasion, denouncing, it makes them work in fetters, or bids them stand aside and does their work instead of them. The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it; and a State which postpones the interests of their mental expansion and elevation, to a little more of administrative skill, or that semblance of it which practice gives, in the details of business; a State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes—will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything, will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has preferred to banish.

The concluding words of John Stuart Mill's Essay 'On Liberty', which might usefully be read by Messrs Blair, Cameron and Bush.