Led by Donkeys Pop Up

Last weekend Bristol had a UK first - a pop up art exhibition by Led by Donkeys, the artivision group responsible for some of the country's most stunning political interventions in recent years, all aimed at calling government(s) to account. 

Think painting the road outside the Russian Embassy with the colours of the Ukrainian flag (right), or all those poster sized tweets throwing politicians quotes back at them, or the projections on the White Cliffs of Dover and so on. The most important of these in my view is the Covid Memorial Wall opposite the Houses of Parliament. 

In a tiny gallery at Midland Road and the rest of which building is usually an Airbnb, the three day event attracted quite a crowd. We queued for over an hour to get in, but it was a good natured wait and was worth it to see the huge Tufton Street plaque up close and personal. Photographs adorned the walls, along with the more recent Truss lettuce poster (left). In the basement the film of children' clothes on a beach (Gaza memorial) was hard to access, but very moving once down there. 

Art it probably isn't, but witty, whilst being clever and serious in intent is most certainly is. The recently published book of the same documents it all for posterity and now has pride of place on my coffee table. Thanks guys, it was an enjoyable afternoon laughing, once again, at the heinous politics of the last decade or so. 

Still I rise - London

Saturday, in my pussy hat, I marched with five women friends and more than a hundred thousand other women, men and children. From cities around the world our numbers were in their millions. 

Out from the social media echo chamber we came. Out onto the streets. The cry? There were many, but at their core: justice and equality. It was a celebration of diversity and the first mass resistance to the normalisation of the new world order, the new Nazism. Embarrassed Americans marched with us. We embraced them.

There are still so many issues, still so much to do as a second waver reminded us with her placard: I can't believe I am still protesting this fucking shit, and the same from the period dressed Suffragettes: same shit, different century.

Let me focus on just one issue that affects my country women in Northern Ireland and our sisters in the south. The whole island of Ireland is still an abortion free zone. The rosaries are still on their ovaries.

For me the most moving moment of the day was the vociferous reminder of this inequity. The Irish women shouting my body, my choice stopped the march. There was applause. There were tears and cheers.

If you want to do something real, practical and effective, go here. Help them have one thing we take for granted.

Then back to the streets. We are not going away anytime soon, and certainly not for the next four years.

Black Friday - Amercia loses the plot

Today in the winter light of Washington D.C. a billionaire septuagenarian woefully ill-equipped and ignorant is being inaugurated into the most important political office in the world.

This is not a joke.

This man, who claims to be successful in business and a great deal maker, yet has had many companies in bankruptcy and been sued for defrauding clients, thinks he knows what's best for America and thus the rest of us.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

He is dismantling healthcare from the most needy, denying climate change is even a thing, let alone the most pressing issue facing our planet, thinks NATO and the arts irrelevant, Brexit a good idea, and is rattling his sabres at China. He thinks he's smarter than the intelligence agencies, ignores security clearance processes, and is building a wall against Mexico.

Now he has the nuclear codes.

This man, who makes policy by tweet, knows not how to govern, the behaviours and protocols, nor the gravity of the role expected of him.

He is a self-confessed and accused sexual predator, and is on the record denigrating women, immigrants, Muslims, the LGBT community, gold star families, and the disabled. He is a sexist and a racist.

And, let's not pull our punches, he is a fascist, busy cozying up to Russia and trying to silence and control the free press. America is blessing its first dictator and that cannot bode well for the world.

The only ray of hope on this sad January day is that Congress moves to impeach him immediately. In the meantime we need to continue to call him out - this is not normal - and poke fun at him. He has such a thin skin and short temper that one Saturday night, perhaps tomorrow, he might actually explode.

Poem for 20 January 2017

The fake beetle

always flounders and, limbs akimbo
falls from his ball of dung.

At night he tries navigation by the stars
but, fixed in their firmament, they do not
stoop, or aid, or grace his stage.

The Women's March - Planning ahead

I am not American, so why am I bothering to go on the London sister march to the Washington one planned for 21 January? Good question. The answer is incredibly simple.

In the first place, solidarity and sorority. Shocking though this is in 2017, I find myself once again in my life needing to make my voice heard for women's rights in an apparently developed country, the USA.

Let that sink in for a moment. 2017. The USA. Incredible isn't it?

And I do so from a sense of unity, and more, because what happens in America, tends to find its way to Europe sooner or later.

I have been surprised and truly dismayed by the creeping sexism that I have observed on these shores in recent years. Let me give just one example for now. My daughter regularly comes home in shock, upset from random street harassment. She is in her late teens and quietly going about her lawful business. Why is she subjected to gross vulgarity, propositions and threats to her person by men of all ages?

I witnessed and was subjected to it myself one evening as we were making our way home from the theatre. A car pulled over and its occupants leaned out, banged on the car doors and shouted "You slags!" at us before driving off laughing. We had done precisely nothing, yet these young men felt entitled to abuse and frighten us for their perverse entertainment.

In this context it is not unreasonable for me to wonder how long it is before a British politician and his supporters think it is entirely acceptable to denigrate women, our bodies, and our rights. How long before our contraception and sexual health are curtailed, hidden in an NHS budget cut? How long before some man decides to tinker with the abortion laws?

It's been a while since I got off my sofa and took to the street to protest about anything. That's shameful, but this is the one. When the soon-to-be leader of the free world holds such odious and dangerous views about half the human race and is brazenly espousing them, how can any of us keep quiet?

I am doing what I am able to do: lending my voice, making it heard, using my pen, making art and above all standing with everyone of good conscience to say NO to bigotry of all kinds. NO to turning the clock back to the 1950s. NO. NO. NO.

I have knitted my pussy hat and will be wearing it with pride. And before anyone says its name is ironic, it isn't. Using the word pussy is to reclaim it from the mouths of those who seek to reduce us to our genitalia. Just ask those musicians in Russia. They'll tell you.

The Satsuma

Around mid-January, as the fruit bowl looks a little empty, you turn again to the over-sized string bag of satsumas you bought for Christmas, when you were full of enthusiasm for the excitements of the season to come. There are still half a dozen left after others have played their roles in stockings and for snacking. They look great, so you refill the bowl.

Picking one, almost at random, you turn it in your hand. It's skin has sunk and loosened a little, now you come to look at it closely. It's pock-marked. No matter. It'll be great. 

You pierce it with your thumbnail and start peeling until you have a neat sphere of pith-free segments, and are ready for them to live up to their early promise: a great taste, great juice, and greatest of all, no pips.

You pop the first one onto your tongue and bite, but instead of sweetness, your mouth is filled with cotton rags, and for a moment you can't speak.

You spit it out, disgusted and look again. Some of the pieces are very dry, as if they have run out of any idea or pretence of being a satsuma. Some are distinctly brown with the early stages of rot.

You throw the whole thing in the bin and think about trying another, which you know, deep in your heart, is utterly pointless.

White Riot

It's approaching summer in Paris. Of course, it's raining. It has, in fact, rained all week. Angry people have been kept indoors. When it stops raining and they're all been to see the flooded quais, as the Seine has burst its banks, they decide to do something else. In this case, demonstrate against, well, everything: the police, the state, the employment law changes, and anything else you care to think of. I inadvertently ran into the latest manifestation at the Canal St. Martin this afternoon.

The first thing I heard of it was the clump of the police down the street where I was window shopping in the rather chi-chi boutiques and ateliers of hand made goods. I'd just finished my yoga class, so I was feeling rather Zen. Surprised, I backed into the nearest doorway as the riot police passed me. They looked rather hot and fed up. It's quite hard running in all that gear. There was much panting. I asked their leader what was going on. He made a typically French sound that meant something like, "yet more bullshit".

I followed the squad up onto the canal street. They had taken position across the street, riot shields and batons in place, and tear gas at the ready. The reserves were on the bridge over the canal. Facing them were the black clad protestors: anarchists, communists, others. Mostly they were young men ski and gas masked, but there were young women in the crowd and older men. They were well prepared.

My attention was taken by a group kicking in a closed shop's window just yards from me. They easily broke the glass, kicked in more of it, entered the premises and started carrying out the contents. Not looting, just destroying. I saw a young woman smash a computer screen on the pavement, alongside her comrades busy breaking paving slabs into chunks of the right heft to hurl at the police. Rocks, cans, bottles, emergency flares, firecrackers and the like were raining down on the police as the protestors grew more and more defiant. They moved towards them for a face off, shouting slogans all the while.

Then the police opened fire with tear gas rounds. Half a dozen. More. Deafening. And the gas itself is stinging to the eyes and throat. I retreated to the street below the canal. The police advanced. The protesters legged it. Not all of them got away. Two were wrestled to the ground by the police and arrested. More tear gas was fired. The protesters regrouped and the whole thing started again.

I wasn't entirely sure what the tactics of either side were: the protesters wanted to march and have a fight, the police were determined to stop them. No announcements to disperse were made, but then, I didn't stick around long enough to find out how it all ended. After about twenty minutes of photographing the scene, I became concerned I might be caught up in it. I was, after all, dressed in my usual black (leather jacket, legging, t-shirt) and I was wearing my rather clumpy biker boots. An easy confusion might have been made.

Just a few streets away, Saturday afternoon continued as normal: Parisians went on shopping, eating and drinking, peacefully protesting against something in Place de la Republique - this week the vegans calling for the closure of abattoirs - while the Caribbean carnival made its way down Boulevard Beaumarchais. Such different sides of the city, it's hard to reconcile them.

Guns and preparedness, or how Cubans really live V

All Cuban men have to undertake two years (it used to be three) of National Service in the armed forces. For women, it’s voluntary for a year, but if you do it and otherwise qualify for University, you will pass straight to college. If not, or if you are a man, then going to University is a matter of the number of doctors, teachers, etc. that the government decides it needs to train every year.

Cuban children are encouraged to learn how to fire a rifle too. There are lots of cool looking gun shops to make this seem an attractive past-time. 

When I asked why, the answer was a very clear one – we have to be ready to fight a war against America at a moment’s notice. Fifty two years after the Bay of Pigs, you have to wonder. 

Checking, checking, checking, or how Cubans really live IV

Crimes against the government, which is how most law breaking is described, are constantly being checked for; things like transporting large quantities of food, as the assumption is it is to be sold. Cubans can’t move between provinces without their buses or cars being halted at checkpoints on the highway by the police.

Imagine being subjected to that level of stop and search at home. Tourist cars on the other hand sail blightly by.

Who do you work for? Or how Cubans really live III

The answer is the government, not as you might imagine, the community.

No-one I met described the work that they do as for the benefit of everyone. The notion of the commons seems to be absent from the vocabulary in Cuba. There is simply the separately thought of entity that runs and controls everything from the price of tobacco to how much sugar cane to grow to pay China. This applies whether you are a farmer working with a co-operative selling ninety per cent of your produce to the government, or a travel guide employed by the state tourist company.

Unless you are one of the recent breed of small entrepreneurs (see part II below), you work for the man. Not so very different from home then, except the matter of degree and the fact that he’s called Raul.

Why can’t I buy that? or how Cubans really live II

Firstly you need some convertible pesos (see part I below). Then you need to be allowed to buy whatever it is, then you need to find it.

If you browse the ordinary shops where Cubans make their purchases, there is not a great quantity of items on offer, or very much choice. I needed a toothbrush, being a numpty I forgot to pack one, and so the very first place I had to seek out was a pharmacy. Of course, as a visitor with the right kind of money in my pocket, this was an easy task.

The nearest pharmacy was an enormous old fashioned emporium with beautiful drug jars ranged on its dark wooden shelves, gleaming under crystal chandeliers; a museum in action, even if it had very little stock.  My communist toothbrush, as I have been calling it ever since, having the abrasiveness of a Brillo pad, has proved surprisingly effective. Three weeks’ later and I have been complimented on my whiter teeth. It seems decades of tea, coffee and red wine stains have been expunged by my new red friend. Viva la revolucion!

If only things were as simple for Cubans, where it has been just two or three years (the time varies depending on who you talk to) since it has been permissible to buy a car or buy and sell a house; and just four years to run one’s own business. Every small entrepreneur, running a restaurant (paladar) or renting a room, who we talked to thought this was the best thing since sliced bread. I remember having similar conversations with friends in Prague very soon after the Velvet Revolution.

Things have got to change, they say. After all you can’t tell a young person, who has some knowledge of the world via the, however limited, internet, why they can’t buy/have/do something these days. If you do, they’ll try to high tail it out of town sooner than you can say struggle. And that’s what I am told most people would do given the opportunity. Looks like the continual revolution is in its death throes. Raul Castro stands down as president in eight years’ time, then it’s game over for the last socialist experiment is my betting.

Ration Books, or how Cubans really live I

There are two currencies in Cuba – national money, which is how Cubans are paid and with which they can buy just the very essentials, like basic food; and convertible pesos, which they need to buy everything else like decent food, telephone bills, cars and, frankly, anything worth having that makes life bearable. How do you get convertible pesos? You may well ask.

Everyone wants them and will do almost anything to get them from begging, to posing in costume for you to take your photograph with them, to playing music with varying degrees of skill for tips, dressing as living sculptures, selling all manner of consumables on the street and providing good service – that includes everyone from the chamber maid to the hotel manager; all are trying to earn a little extra. And what they do get, I am told they most likely spend on food. This is no surprise, if you poke your head into one of the local distribution centres.

All Cubans have a monthly ration book which enables them to buy staple foods at subsidised prices. These are rice, beans, sugar and coffee, and a few other things like oil and soap. They are sold in bulk, a whole month’s worth at a time, so you have to be strong to haul this lot home. The centres are Spartan in the extreme. Ask your parents or grandparents about war time rationing and you’ll have some idea of what this means.

Ask a Cuban and they’ll tell you things are good now compared to the Special Period between 1989 and 1994 when the disintegration of Soviet Union and the withdrawal of support to Cuba put the country on the brink of a humanitarian crisis. Cubans ate a lot of rice and beans, started to suffer from malnutrition, and when the soap ran out, which it did, washed themselves with such appalling detergents that they developed horrible skin conditions. Not good.

No wonder the borders were opened in response for a second wave of emigration. Anyone with family in the US or elsewhere was whisked away by boat; those without risked life and limb on flimsy rafts to get away. Remember those news stories about Cubans drowning in the Gulf of Mexico?

It’s astonishing then that in the twenty intervening years, and despite the organic huerta (community garden) movement, Cuba is still not self-sufficient in food. There is plenty of fertile land to be cultivated and a year round growing climate. Yet, even having natural resources like oil and gas, there is not enough diesel for farmers to plough the land. This doesn’t make much sense and leaves Cuba still at the mercy of its trading partners. Thus, sadly, the wheel turns.