Obsolete

Cambridge, Gwydir Street

The Big Society 1838

Free meal for the poor on Parker's Piece, Cambridge, while the Cambridge elite admire their own generosity (at a safe distance)

Town Not Gown

We moved to Cambridge just over two months ago. Both myself and M had our reasons, not least among them being that it forced us to leave jobs neither of us could stomach anymore.

Cambridge is a place I know and I don't know. It was where I did my A-Levels and so it's the site of many formative experiences. When I was younger it was also a place that I would sometimes come to for the day with my parents. On some occasions, we would spend half a day or more in the Grafton Centre (pictured above). I'm sure I'm not alone in having parents (or even grandparents) who were in the habit of doing this (my Gran is always up for checking out a new branch of TK Maxx) and it usually left me feeling profoundly bored. Bribery with a CD or a magazine would help. The other members of the band are here too, so before the move I had been making the trip almost every Sunday from Peckham, frequently dealing with weekend delays, replacement bus services etc. So the main sites were already familiar, as was the Mill Road/Romsey area - the 'quartier populaire' as the French might call it - where we now live.

But I still feel very much an outsider (typical conversation: "Where's x?" "Just along from y" "Ah ok, where's y?" and so on) and that probably goes triple for M. One way in was to attend one of the famed walking tours conducted by Allan Bringham, which intrigued me as it was around the Grafton Centre a site which was, as I mentioned, one I associate with the boredom of a Saturday spent shopping. Around the Grafton is an area known as the Kite, simply because the original developments (which in the early 19th century were on the very fringe of town) formed a kite shape. The link there details some of the struggle over the fate of the area, and Bringham pointed out the way in which the victors appropriate and deploy the symbols of the defeated - the Grafton centre's logo is comprised of 'kites'.

One thing that emerged from the tour was the origins of Town v Gown animosity in Cambridge. This tension between students and locals is familiar to many towns, of course, but in Cambridge (as it possibly is in Oxford too) it is rooted in the great power that was wielded by the colleges, which not only owned a great deal of land but also had their own police force and had the power to lock up 'loose women' in the University jail. Then you can factor in the exploitation that occurred in conjunction with the population explosion in the early 19th century, the most obvious being the culture of undergrads paying regular visits to prostitutes in Barnwell, or simply availing themselves of their maids (many of whom would be young teenagers). Unlike the undergrads, the prostitutes might then have to face the prospect of being 'saved' ie effectively imprisoned in the Cambridge Female Refuge that stood just behind the site of the Grafton centre today.

I Was Re-reading Proust When...*

...I happened to notice a copy of the Evening Standard lying on a seat near me. Since I've moved out of London, that hasn't happened for a while. And yet the compulsion is still there to pick it up.

In the London of the Evening Standard, we have the pseudo event, the feigned amazement (and a po-mo labyrinth.)

"A hedge maze appeared in Trafalgar Square today to the astonishment of office workers and tourists."

Reviewed by a 12-year-old girl on a school trip. Or maybe a fully paid up Standard reporter, impossible to be sure which.

"I was staring at two of London's iconic landmarks feeling as if I was standing next to a woodland creek. Surreal."

Little blue plaques along the streets in the maze, informing visitors that "Carnaby Street is said to have inspired Ray Davies to write the Kinks' hit Dedicated Follower of Fashion".

Real antagonisms are either geographically distant, or supplanted by illusory ones: Milliband v Cameron. All's well with the banks (just keep up with the contrite expressions for a little while longer).

Most strikingly, the Big Society in all it's glory:

On pages 8 & 9, a spread on the working poor taking the night bus to work, part of the Standard's Dispossessed Fund, which aims to raise £1 million for charities from its readers, which will be matched by the government.

On the front page, David Milliband's revival of the Mansion Tax idea will 'hit £2M house owners to help the poor.'

As the leader reminds us:

"People living in, for example, Kensington and Chelsea, where it would be easy for their house to fall within the scope of a mansion tax, are not necessarily millionaires." (My italics)

* A French friend told me that she'd encountered this example of disavowal when a French public intellectual (of which they seem to have quite a few in France, the right-wing mob - Alain Finkelkraut and the like - dominate in terms of media presence) was on the radio discussing a reality show that he happened to have seen. "I was re-reading Proust," he said, "when I happened to look up at the TV.."

Spartacus: Class War

Is Spartacus: Blood and Sand the most class-conscious series on TV? The last, and extremely bloody, episode ‘Kill Them All’ sees class solidarity between slaves calling each other ‘brother’ and overcoming interpersonal enmity, and a brutal uprising against the masters and supposed betters who have treated their slaves as pawns in their power games throughout the series. It’s not just brothers either; as the makers of Spartacus have been even-handed in their portrayal of sexuality (little fuss is made about the presence of a homosexual gladiator – he meets a tragic end but then so do plenty of others and it in no way comes across like a punishment for his preferences) and the deployment of nudity (everyone gets their kit off), so the band of brothers standing at the end of the revolt also includes sisters who have played their part. Ok, so it’s mostly brothers who have done the fighting, but each one has done what they could given the weapons and opportunities at their disposal.

On the one hand, Spartacus’s story was all about personal revenge - he would, naturally, eventually discover that his wife’s death was ordered by his Batiatus (played with relish by John Hannah, an actor I’ve never previously enjoyed watching) and respond with force. What was interesting, though, was that the other tension in the narrative was the wait for the moment when characters who, previously blinded to the bigger picture by their loyalty to the house of Batiatus or the reality principle (this is your lot, get used to it), would realise together that they had been systematically screwed by their masters (literally, in the case of tender beast Crixus), when the individual grievances that had built up over the series would be recognised as having a common cause.

Of course, this could just be a Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves-style case of American self-identification with rebels who band together to overthrow a ruling order (for Roman read English) or perhaps it’s just a safe enough fantasy, enclosed as it is in a highly stylised, CGI-dominated world. But it has been an intriguing series (actually, there are still a couple of episodes to run on Bravo I think) which, even with some hammy acting and pseudo-Shakespearean dialogue, avoided post-modern reflexivity and took itself seriously. Also, I’m not averse to a bit of creative swearing, and “Jupiter’s cock!” will live in the memory for some time.

But first, the bad weather...

In anticipation of Cathal Coughlan's forthcoming album 'Rancho Tetrahedron', here's an interview about the last one, 'Foburg', that I did on Resonance FM in 2006. I think I did an ok job, although the nerves definitely show through in a couple of places where I can't really find my words.

Suprisingly, A Post About Football

This is one of the fastest-selling issues ever of French sporting gazette L'Equipe apparently. The intrigue has even juicier elements than Anelka being sent packing after insulting his coach - the confrontation is said to stem from the fact that Zidane had undermined Domenech's authority by contacting the players directly to suggest tactical changes. These changes were then presented to Domenech, who rejected them (apparently also knowing full well where they came from).

One of the first things to note about the French coverage of the debacle and the performances put in by Les Bleus is that it shows up the fallacy that it is specifically the British media that heaps undue pressure on the national team. If anything the French coverage, at least in this case, is even more scathing. While our papers still evince a certain perverse optimism, the attacks on the French side are absolutely withering. The Ribery scandal and the fact that France look almost certain to not make it out of the group stage (putting them in a worse position than England) might be contributing factors here, though.

But what has struck me particularly is a comment quoted in the Independent:

"By the end of the match, I was supporting Mexico," said Alain, 43, a chef in a Parisian cafe. "They at least looked as if they wanted to play and that football was still fun for them. Our guys - what do they earn? Millions? - looked bored, miserable and as if they didn't give a damn."

You can argue that the deep-seated psychological terror suffered by our players when they pull on the shirt is something specific to England, but this schadenfreude on the part of supporters/impartial observers is something that transcends national boundaries. And it suggests a deep frustration with meritocracy. On the English side too, the amount of money these players are making is freqently raised. And why not? If Richard Seymour is right in 'The Meaning of David Cameron' to say that

"Class is not a status, a culture or an ethnicity. By class, I simply mean the relationship between the minority who own the lion's share of wealth and capital, and the majority who sell their labour to get by"

then the working class-or-not backgrounds of the players are irrelevant. The hugely inflated salaries for those 'at the top of the game' are hardly unrelated to the fact of fans being milked for their loyalty via Sky subscriptions and higher gate/season ticket prices. It's not just in the emotional sense that people are (or have) invested in these players.

As with captains of finance, though, we hear that the players are worth their salaries as that's what's necessary to retain the services of these most talented people. The trouble for footballers, as opposed to bankers, is that we actually get to watch the players doing what they do - badly. There may be differences of opinion on what the causes are for their woes and what the corresponding solutions might be (sack the coach, bring on Joe Cole etc) but there's widespread agreement on the fact that what we've seen so far in this tournament is a malfunctioning team. There's that truism that everyone's an expert when it comes to football. Of course there are difference levels of analysis, more acute points of view, but I maintain that we can all watch the England team and see that they are not only playing badly, but not even enjoying playing. It might not be true that everyone's an expert, but everyone can see and judge what these players are doing to earn their money. And whatever the supposed merits are that make them worthy of their pay packages, the sentiment abounds that, frankly, me and my crippled friend and my blind grandma playing our hearts out against Algeria just because we're overjoyed to be in the World Cup would make for a more edifying spectacle than what was witnessed.

We mutter about bankers not being worth their bonuses and all politicians being corrupt but since we don't have first-hand, visual evidence that ties their actions to our woes (and could such evidence even exist..?), we can still be convinced that this is only cynicism, that it's a judgement that only really applies to a minority. When there's a political scandal, a newspaper sting or a Channel 4 documentary catches someone in the act of abusing their power and influence, the initial sense of righteous indignation felt is quickly followed by a weariness and resignation - having your most cynical, kneejerk opinions confirmed is pretty depressing and we gradually, happily, and perhaps with some relief, revert to a the mildly optimistic default position, while the revelation that our betters are nothing of the sort is re-relegated to the status of a niggling suspicion. That was why at the height of the expenses scandal, the papers rationed their revelations, maintaining the high as best they could, to gradually diminishing effect and to the point where the attempt to relive the excitement of those heady days through the David Laws 'saga' (whatever the rights and wrongs of his position) was a dry, weary clusterfuck that left everyone involved feeling soiled and sorry - the press for going through the motions of calling for one more head, the coalition for going through the motions of 'accepting his resignation', and from anyone else for summoning interest in the news.

Back to the football... and between international competitions, when we don't get to see England in action, we 'forget' that they are a mediocre side and are (cautiously) optimistic again by the time the next one comes around. But while we're watching, the World Cup, perhaps partly for its scale (this is supposed to be the best team our country can produce) brings the reality of meritocracy very close. And we don't appear to like it.