LEAKING BOG

I'm struggling with a leaking toilet at the moment. Not leaking in the sense of effluent on the floor, but a cistern that won't stop filling. It's pretty nightmarish- I will go up and adjust the gaffa tape on the ballcock or try and wedge something underneath it, and the next minute I'll hear a torrential outpouring that goes into the cistern and then down the back wall of the house. Just a minute ago, I thought that it had started to rain again, but then realised it was the bog.

There is something remorseless and inexorable about the power of water. We might think that we've domesticated it with pipes and sewers - to some extent we've treated it with contempt - but we're wrong. It's there right now, eating at the bricks of the house, and our neighbour's fence. It sounds like a small, localised rain shower.

This is my dad's bog. It has nothing to do with me. In my mother's lifetime it was secured with elastic bands, she didn't care too much about these things. To flush it one would fill the cistern with the jug on the side of the bath. It was always going to be fixed next year. Now it's not.

I can hear it now, turning the back garden into a swamp, and giving the neighbours a free new age -1990's- sound effect to assist them in their slumbers (unless it's deeply annoying, which is entirely possible) like a "rain forest waterfall".

I'm going to sort it tomorrow with a bent coathanger. That will make a cradle to hold the ballcock at the appropriate angle to shut off the valve that allows this miniature Niagara to persist. Obviously, a plumber is required at some later date - was always required.

But it is ultimately the noise of family. My dad has just got up for a slash, necessitating, I hope, flushing, which will give me a bit of respite from having to re-adjust the ballcock- for maybe half an hour.

As I was saying, anyway; it is the noise of family. As the Amazon ad for the the alarm clock that I linked above puts it: "filters out background noise as you read, work or study", family is the background noise. This is the noise of my particular place, where you fix the bog with elastic bands; my inheritance, where I must live - when I'm here- with the remorselessness of water, the sound of it, or I must get it fixed, because no-one else is going to.

TUITION FEES ETC.

It seems typical of the instrumental thinking on both sides of the divide, this. That students are getting their future stolen; that increasing of tuition fees and the cutting of teaching budgets will consign a huge number of young people to impoverishment. The logic is that increased tuition fees and cuts in money for teaching of the humanities will prevent a whole generation (or more) of graduates from getting the well paid jobs that will enable their children to go to university to get qualified for the the well paid jobs, so that their children will not go to university and get the well paid jobs etc. 

It seems to me that the problem is "well paid jobs". It is not outrageous that not everyone goes to university - it is outrageous that not all jobs pay a living wage. For all the talk of the older generation, who benefited from a free higher education pulling the ladder up after them (which is true), we are missing the  point that there should not be a "ladder" in the first fucking place. It's like talk of the "housing ladder", or "starter homes", implying that it is just a beginning and that one will move onwards and upwards. A human right (shelter) is not a stepping stone. A system that treats it as such will need fodder for the increasingly finely shod foot to step on, to keep it clear of the mire; the grateful backs of those who are touchingly grateful even to be allowed to breathe.

If we accept that the best (the best paying) jobs are only accessible via a degree (and, who knows, an MA or PhD next), then we are accepting that university is simply a training ground for young professionals who, in addition to their qualification, build up an address book of contacts to help them on their way. That is the way that the bourgeoisie have always worked. Then, of course, the university is seen as a panacea for social ills, lack of mobility etc. If, on the other hand, we maintain that all jobs should be decently paid and that decent public housing is a universal right,  then it might be reasonable to frame the debate in terms of education as a good in itself, which I believe it is.

IT'S NOT CALLED "WELFARE".

Quite apart from how despicable Duncan-Smith's proposed "reforms" are, the thing that is sticking in my throat most, and has been for a while, is when did the dole start to be called "welfare"? That's what they call it in the U.S.

Over here it was always called Social Security, which is what it is meant to be. As a claimant over many years, i can remember the names for the actual benefit changing - being variously Supplementary Benefit, Unemployment Benefit (maybe these names containing the word "benefit" were considered to sound to positive) Income Support, then Jobseekers' Allowance...The shift from "Benefit" - a right- to "Support" - assistance- to "Allowance" - something grudgingly given; speaks volumes. 

This present government has gone out of its way to demonise claimants  (contrary to the writer of the linked piece, I would support the workshy and fraudsters myself). They make a conveniently soft target for the ideologically driven cuts. They were never going to get much sympathy from sanctimonious middle-Englanders who seem to see wage slavery as a badge of honor.

But anyway, my issue is also with the word: "Welfare". I do not know when the term became detached from the noun it qualified - "state", in order to denote benefits specifically. The welfare state is (or maybe, more accurately, was) a good thing. I owe my education, my still functioning teeth, my late mother's successful treatment for breast cancer, and other things too numerous to mention, to it. And so do most of those, Lib-Dems, Tories and Labour too, who are now attacking it with such ghoulish relish - but they seem to have forgotten that. An attack on the benefits system is an attack on the welfare state. An attack on universal benefits is an attack on the universalism that was part of the founding of the welfare state. To make benefits that were initially conceived as a right belonging to citizens conditional, is to make citizenship conditional. 

This is typical of the drivel we are subjected to. The approach adopted in Wisconsin that the article lauds sounds repulsive. One has to prove one's bona fides before receiving any assistance. One has to prove oneself worthy. This utterly inverts the idea behind benefits that we had in the UK; a right conferred by citizenship. Citizenship being a universal value and, most importantly, content-neutral. You did not have to prove that you were the right kind of person in order to enjoy your rights.

"One of Wisconsin's biggest successes was diverting people from claiming benefits in the first place. If you try to claim benefits, the first thing they do is offer you a job – rather than start filling in forms to process your application. In fact, you have to demonstrate that you are searching hard for a job for several weeks before you can even start to make a benefits claim. In contrast, our depressing "Job Centres" are really more like benefits offices." (that's because they are benefits offices, you prick.)

The most telling part of the article, which I quote because it illuminates the kind of thinking behind this proposed butchery - it's not just an isolated right wing rant, someone who fancies themselves as a Jeremiah or Ezekiel, howling the unpalatable truth at the desert- are these sentences:

"Perhaps we have come to think that it is normal to have a large part of our population without work, and cut adrift from the rest of society."

People who are in receipt of benefits are somehow not part of society. So membership of society, enjoyment of its benefits, is dependent upon work, and, apparently, work alone.

It is not "Welfare" - they might have that in America (or, rather, they don't), but here it is the benefits system, or the welfare state, and it does what it is meant to do. It seems to me that the use of that word, by politicians and journalists, has imported with it some really unpleasant ideological baggage. It is also sad and pathetic to base a political program and it's rhetoric on the sense of sanctimonious alertness to the idea that someone, somewhere, is having a better time than you, and that you're paying for them to have it!

If this image of the polity as a load of paranoid, grudging curtain-twitchers is the best that we can do, we may as well give up now.

THE UPSTAIRS TWATS

The twats upstairs who frequently keep my missus awake with random banging (we often speculate about what they're doing up there, I have the theory that, Robert Crumb-like, he rides her around like a prize race horse whilst, from that vantage slamming doors and cupboards like anyone's business) have surpassed themselves tonight. They came in from the pub with some mates - so far so normal- and put on music - again, normal. This would not bother me as I can sleep through anything; but what they chose to play was, I assume, Now That's What I Call Music 2007  - the "indie" version thereof, if such a thing exists.

What, quite apart from their shit taste in music, that really pissed me off however, was their singing along to whatever moronic choruses from the Kaiser Chiefs et al. The exuberant howling was something that even I could not countenance. It reminded me of a pub about 1997, I think, full of rugby shirted morons drooling away, arms around each other, to the whole of "What's the story.." by Oasis. They were engaged in a circlejerk of laddish bonhomie, but also singing at the whole rest of the pub - as if to say "this is it. We're having a great time, look at us; this is what a Friday night is all about".

I have nothing whatsoever against drunkenness. I have nothing whatsoever against singing, inebriated or otherwise...But that kind of thing is so fucking high street. The togetherness of the singalong chorus so designed. Leisure for those who have to grab it roughly, allowing themselves so little...I don't know, this is not well expressed - but they were singing along to Paul Weller for fuck's sake - not The Jam, Paul Weller! Unforgiveable.

So I'm glad that I heard the muffled, angry buzz of their doorbell not so long ago. One of the other neighbours went to complain, and it didn't have to be me.

WALK AND PERFORMANCE TODAY

Today at 4:00pm. Meet outside Hanbury Hall. From there we shall have a look at some bits of Shoreditch and Hoxton, ending up in Shoreditch Park. The original idea was to circumnavigate Hackney's Alcohol Control Zones - but Hackney stole a march on me and have turned the whole borough into a zone, with very little fanfare - well, none at all, I completely missed that one.

So, I have had to re-think things a little. If the whole borough is a zone, but it is clearly not enforced, what is it?

Councillor Alan Laing says in the comments to the Hackney Post article linked above "...this is not a ban on public drinking. This point has been made throughout the process and through the consultation. The council and the local police have expressly stated that it is not a ban on public drinking..." If it is not that, what is it?

It seems to me like Zizek's description of totalitarian regimes as regimes of tolerance. In such a state the law, if stringently applied, would make anyone guilty of something. So the state benevolently does not enforce the whole of the law, or not all the time. They keep it there just in case. Remarkable generosity. it looks like an extension of the de-normalisation strategy that is used in public health campaigns, previously against smoking, now against alcohol use - also latterly against recieving state benefits or living in council housing.

The problem seems to be not so much with alcohol as the people who are percieved to be the users of it. Hence, alcohol control areas frequently contain licensed premises, often with tables outside, as well as benches, walls or whatever other accommodation that street drinkers might find conducive. However, the licensed premises and their clientel are unlikely to receive the attentions of the local constabulary. 

If alcohol is so dangerous and corrosive to manners, health and morals why not ban it altogether? There are already laws that have been on the books for some generations against assault, threatening behaviour and public urination. This measure looks excessive because it is aimed at prevention, a drastically illiberal aim. Despite the advertisements exhorting us to "Drink Responsibly", there is apparently a class of people who cannot be trusted to do so. For their own good, they must be discouraged from drinking at all. Incidentally, I have often wondered about "responsible" drinking - responsible to whom? Purely by coincidence, the irresponsible class against whom pre-emptive measures are to be taken are those who drink on the street because pubs are too expensive. The poor should not be on the street at all, let alone congregating in groups.

Ironically, the designation of an alcohol control zone is DPP, (discussed here in some council minutes) a "Designated Public Place". That these places were public beforehand - streets, parks, benches - is not the point. The were providing a space for the wrong sort of public. The tautological nomenclature is necessary, the capital p "Public" is not the same entity as that negative designation of small p public space ie. not privately owned, open to all without the specifying the characteristics of "all". The "Public" who will use these spaces is brought into being by that designation. The spaces that they will inhabit are already demarcated and shaped by the law, an un-enforced ban. This is a sober, law-abiding, hard-working polity, the "hard working, law-abiding Britons/families" who politicians and columnists never tire of conscripting into whatever illiberal fantasy they are flogging.

Anyway, time is getting away from me, I have to leave very soon. Suffice it to say that I have re-thought the walk as a whole in light of this development and have moved from physical to psycho-geography as an approach. This seems to make sense as we are looking at something without edges, an undefined space - the space of the ban. Because it is not necessarily enforced it has no specific content, so everything exists under the ban. What can be done is to look at some tropes that cut across this contentless authoritarianism.

So, I have come up with, liquids, sewers - the possible derivation of Shoreditch, "sewer-ditch" - and holy wells, Holywell street. Liquids flow, they reflect, and constantly leak from wherever they are meant to be. The other two sites are the Curtain Theatre and specifically the character of Falstaff, and John Frankland's boulder sculpture in Shoreditch Park. Anyway, will post more on this later.

 

THIS IS ENGLAND

I liked Shane Meadow's film largely for its performances - the kid was especially good - but was less convinced by the "period detail" (music, dad killed in Falklands) that quite a lot of the critics enthused about. I'm also more than a little ambivalent about skinheads, anyway; I know there were anti-racist skins around, but there weren't any where I grew up. What seemed to get a lot of people excited when the film came out was its apparently shocking premise that the working class were not all knuckle dragging xenophobes.

Anyway, to the series - which follows the characters from the film a few years on. I haven't yet watched the second part, so maybe what I'm going to say will be proved redundant. Brendan O'Neill in Spiked has already pointed out what is probably the most telling sequence of part one:

"One of the most striking things about the first episode is how people-free the settings were. This was most clear in the scenes in the hospital...Utterly bereft of other patients, doctors and nurses, the hospital becomes a playground for the good skins to muck about in...having a wheelchair race...or to resolve their personal differences in..."

There are no other people. The whole point about youth subcultures is that they were oppositional, you defined yourself by your tribe and your tribe was defined against not just other tribes but society in general. Meadow's skins exist in a bubble, they are not in opposition to anything. In this, it is absolutely unfaithful to the 1980's in particular and to the meaning of youth cults in general. However, in this it is faithful to the 21st century.

O'Neill makes the comparison to "Friends", which I think is pretty accurate. That enormously successful sitcom was a quintissential product of the "Happy '90's", its protagonists occupied a de-politicised (one assumed that they were vaguely liberal/left)and largely depopulated void. Their semi-incestuous inter-relationships were posited not just as a defense against the world, they were the world.

DOG/TROUSERS II

We came back from the pub by a different route that took us through the estate. The blocks looked unfamiliar from that vantage, as if the geometry was somehow wrong. Buildings that I'd gazed at from the oblique angle of the window where I smoke were raised in front of me. The space felt far bigger from down there - the view had suddenly developed depth. Two perceptions were abutting - the flattened window view of the disembodied eye and the somatic experience of being and moving in that space.

From that angle the dog trousers looked nothing like either dog or trousers. What I had taken to be a tangled set of legs or alternatively a tense, arched back were, in fact, sleeves. It was an apparently nearly new Nike hoodie, dark with three days' rain, appearing blackbrown under the sodium light. I picked it up, it was sodden and heavy, weighing about the same, I imagined, as the corpse of a small dog. We left it there, hung on some railings, somehow feeling it was ill omened - though in all probability it was simply accidentally dropped from a bag of stuff by someone moving out.

Later, I looked at it hanging there from the window, looking something like a shed skin. I still can't help thinking about it as dog skin. Still later, I went down to get it. I brought it indoors bundled into a plastic bag, and we washed it. It's a couple of sizes too big for either of us but we've kept it. it's cosy. But it's still not a top, it's various transformations have clung to it, for me. Dog-trousers-top. Dogskin.

DOG/TROUSERS

There's a pair of trousers lying abandoned on the grass outside the window, sprawled and twisted. Whenever I stick my head out there to smoke, I see them as a small black dog squatting to shit, it's tail waving like a cheerful flag; then it resolves itself back into lost trousers. Like the famed duck/rabbit of Wittgenstein, Gombrich et al, I can see either trousers/shitting dog - but not both at the same time.