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Courage, Constancy, Success

Wednesday 19th March, cold and luminous grey sky, chill breeze. There's very little bird action in my garden this season, owing to loss of neigbour trees, safe places to nest, congregate and watch out for cats (the big cypress from 3 doors down, the acacia from two doors up & the sycamore, all gone since this time last year). But the wren sings valiantly every morning, still. Tadpoles are doing fine.

Small Beginnings on My Day Out

Up to London, to assist at handing in a petition to Amazon, about the dreadful working conditions in their warehouses. As I had surmised, it wasn't much, and "meat in the room" badly needed. A few organisers in hi-vis vests with logos, a banner, a photo opportuinity of thirty or so interested citizens; a symbolic box of signatures. Interested citizens attempted to hand out info to passers-by and to exiters from the huge splendid blockhouse of wobbly glass spaghetti, on Holborn Viaduct. The exiters dodged, hands in their pockets and heads down: understandably. Amazon employees are told at interview that they will be fired if they join a union. They can be and will be fired without notice, for any reason, and they are always under surveillance. I'm an Amazon associate myself. I've given up buying the physical products, until they get the living wage thing sorted out: but they sell my ebooks, and I take the money. They sell my physical publishers books, and I take a cut; and I can't quit this association. Best I can do is come along to this here, and encourage people to register their disgust. Photos were taken, the box was delivered, but did not get further than about 2 metres inside the revolving doors. Oh well, you've got to start somewhere.

Then I walked up the river to Tate Britain, a place I really like. It's so far away from anywhere, it's so quiet. On my first visit, long ago, a little girl in a huge black jumble sale coat, I saw the Rothkos here, and sat looking at them, bowled over, thinking, this is where I'll stop & despite the huge refit, it feels the same. I visited the original of Misha Connelly in Phoenix Cafe, and the inspiration for the Inundation Festival in Spirit, among many. Nothing calms me like looking at pictures in a gallery. A quiet gallery.

The Sylvia Pankhurst exhibition was very touching, the Angel of Freedom on her tiptoes, apparently smoking a long churchwarden pipe, the fine pastel sketches of girls and women at the pit head, in the potteries; factory and craft work. Sylvia's account of Holloway, published in the Pall Mall Magazine, a different kind of grim from her later account of force-feeding, a far cry from women's prisons in the UK of today: these helpless, humble souls, obediently scrubbing their bedboards, shedding tears at prayers.

This is a major, global industrial revolution, I was thinking (amazon's de facto slave labour; the absolutely staggering degree of surveillance, and data mining, and government corruption, that we now accept, the world over; and the rape of the commons; the death of policing by consent, the gagging of civil society). It's happened before, it'll happen again. Like every industrial revolution back to agriculture, globalisation enslaves: turns people into cattle, monetises and destroys the living world, and creates wealth. Can't live with it, can't live without it.

Can resist. Can tame it, if we put in the effort. Possibly.

But never say die. If you give up, you get nothing. If you go on insisting on making your point, you get somewhere. Or someone does, further down the line. I do actually have the vote.

My Fracking Round Up

Dear Mr Cameron, are you sure the voters are ready for the degree of police brutality we're getting now? Are you sure this is going to work out for you? Won't the kind of people who dismiss brutality against law abiding legitimate protectors as no more than they deserve going to vote for that cheery chappie anyhow?

"Shocking GMP brutality on the walk in today! Numerous people assaulted, grabbed, pushed, kicked, punched in the face and ribs, slammed against trees, thrown to the ground in the worst police violence we have seen so far. Sit down protests were attempted to stop the TAU brutality but we were moved on. Officers were even told to walk into people lying on the ground! One disabled man was pounced on by 8 officers who dragged him around on the ground and then arrested him. Several protectors and locals are injured. 4 confirmed arrests not counting the two in the lock on but there is more awaiting confirmation."

"The policing at Barton Moss this morning was the worst, most brutal assault on the protectors yet. One man, after being pushed so hard fell over, the police just went straight over the top of him, trampling him.

There were at least 2 arrests, both good, peaceful and caring people. One was arrested with an arm around his neck. We were treated like animals.

When the police look at us, what do they see. Do they look at us and see criminals? Animals? Scum? Because this is how we are being treated, this morning, more so than ever before. How do they look at us and see these things. Don't they have a shred of respect? A remote care about the future of their drinking water, their environment? What happened to make them act in this way. Because for the life of me, I wouldn't and couldn't treat other human beings with such little respect and dignity as we have been shown this morning."


http://www.frackingdigest.co.uk/

Mancs don't want fracking (73% said no, in a Manchester Evening News poll). The Fracking Conference scheduled in Manchester for April has decided not to risk it, and gone to Birmingham instead. Meanwhile, down here, Celtique Energie has been given another extension to fix its planning application for Wisborough Green; decision now delayed until June. Nobody is optimistic about these delays, but why should that make us change our minds? It won't.

So, any way

At least I understand what's happening in the Crimea now, having checked out the Ukraine to integrate with NATO strand. . . For heaven's sake, you USians and your nutcase foreign policy bright ideas. Were the Russians going to stand for that? The Black Sea fleet! That's just mental. Still, however, do not understand why Putin gets called Hitler, instead of the obvious historical monicker, on the grounds that "Hitler annexed stuff". Huh? Wasn't there a sovereign nation called Poland (1945) And a few others, if I recall.

Foregoing the Tuesday riches of The Mentalist, Shetland and Silent Witness, we went to see Under The Skin at the Duke's last night. It was nice, arthouse scifi, somebody had a lovely time with those soundscapes, and Scarlett Johannson, doing a good line in blurred confusion throughout, possibly wondering what season it was, and how to fill up with petrol. She so has that bruised, slightly fleshy Monroe look down. You feel like your fingers would sink into her. A bit slight, though, in the end. More I cannot say, although given the advertising I would hardly be guilty of spoilers. I think I'll read The Crimson Petal And The White now.

And the clear night sky was brilliant. As starry as is humanly possible, given our location, and that livid red-orange pinprick to the left of the moon, that's Mars all right, I checked.

Reading: Andre Gide, Les Faux Monnayeurs, a book about writing a book. Loving it. Everything a French novel ought to be. & my father's marginal notes, like the sound of his voice.


This is called Repose on the Flight to Eygpt, Glyn Warren Philpot. I want to have it for a Christmas card, wonder if the Tate would agree. I love that cheerful black sphinx.



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