Rupert

This is my blog. I'll be posting new music, writing and other happenings as and when I do them. Thanks You can find me at all the usual places: twitter: www.twitter.com/rupthebrer facebook: www.facebook.com/ruperttherapper soundcloud: soundcloud.com/rupertcnut

[rupertacton]

WOODS

Utility poles. Telephone wires. A corridor through bracken and trees. Day slowly becoming night. Sun held in the gap between the poles, the wires and the treetops. Sky in graded colours. An America from the films somewhere on the border between Kent and Sussex. Rushing. This place isn't a place at this specific moment. It's an idea I can move through. We can move through. There are still rules but they are less real here. Almost anything goes. Within reason. There is no reason. Most of the lads are now dads. Dads gone wild. A manageable wilderness. Short drive to supermarket for restocking. Copy of the Mail on every table. Bad coffee. A sugary bun. Civilisation. Flushable. Escaping Lewisham took an eternity. Creeping out through the deep blue borough. Lee Green. Initial supply pick up. Already surreal. Shop arranged to confuse. Shaving the edge of Greenwich. M25 calling. A familiar landscape. Hidden industry just off the junctions. Repurposed farms. Airstrips. Somewhere to fix the boat. Strip out the museum. Insurance money flooding into fields of wheat. Running off in summer rain. Out to sea. Offshore. Shell companies. Home counties. Away days. Executive motor full of tents. Last minute car hire. Tinted windows. Don't ding the car. That's a bag right there. The rest of our party are already at the pre-arranged location. I'm not raving. I'm drowning. This isn't the late 80's. Early 90's. Summer of love. Summer of Grenfell. Acid attacks. Moped gangs. Elections. Afrotrap. Cold lager. Sudden downpours. Clifftop walks. The week before walking from Dover to Deal. Mobile phone in France. Body in England. The white cliffs. Trite observations begging to be made. Brexcetera. Raptors circle. No bluebirds. Rumours of cliff mines supplying the whole of South and East London with dodgy hooter. Trafficked labour from Medway towns undercutting the commuters from Calais. Farage buzzes us menacingly in a Spitfire as we eat Waitrose sourced lunch looking over The Channel. Time to move on. The walk ends in the pub. As ever. Boy racers. Drift culture. House prices along the Kent coast. Arriving back into Stratford International. We had almost been to the Continent. Continental lager tops. Apt. We unload the car. Parked up just off the road. The lane. The sort of place where my imagination immediately goes to Range Rovers and bullet riddled windows. Real life Essex gangland cliches superimposed onto Sussex. MR James. A view from the hill. There is darkness everywhere. I have to put the binoculars down or I will see too much. Easier to write about occult meanings. Fascist undercurrents. Gothic ripples. A love of order. Harder to write about unbridled joy. Love. Embracing life. Arriving at camp. Fire already lit. Putting up tents. Not going to lie. Looks like there will be no shortage of drugs. Festival without the irritation of having to go to see music. There have been a few last minute dropouts. Solid group though. The missing will be missed. They will want us to have a good time. So we will. We do. I receive a text from my best friend deep into the night/morning. There is a new life. Fucking buzzing. Years are now death and life. More life. Hidden within banter weaved amongst the words are real conversations about actual things. We only really know each other as a group because of rap music. It's true. As good a reason as any. Possibly better than only really knowing each other because we work for the same hedge fund went to the same schools and share an interest in rugby and sniff. THE WOODS. THE WOODS. THE WOODS. Wallop wraps. Bags of brown crystals. Mellow little beans. Stinking bags of delicious pengy piff.  Etizolam tincture. Takes the edge off. Ready for some rudimentary sleep. Keys open doors. Degrees open doors. Apparently. University. Soon. WTF. Not sure if ready. I can only write like this. Do not footnote. Steal ideas but do not credit. The only honest way. Human Geography. Relevant. Too fucking relevant. 35. Open day fills me with fear. I have a human that I love to help me negotiate my own landscape of worry. I still worry. Can't quite get my head around the concept of attempting to apply scores to knowledge. It's how it works and I will have to just get on with that. Green. We cook food on an open fire. We eat well. Even out here we exercise privilege. To say I think about this when I'm out there doing it is probably false. Just exist. The second day and night are the ones. Magic. Everything set up. Nothing to worry about. A quick dip into the real world then back deep into the deep green. I started this with a description of a place and idea and non-place. This is where we are now. Little group broken off. Light playing tricks on everything. Gentle rushing. We move off the land we know. Along a footpath. Up a hill. This is ours. It's not. But really. It. Is. Ours. The entire Weald in the palm of our brains. At least in mine. Someone lies down on a small grassy slope beside the path and casually chops out a few lines. There is every chance that people will walk past but this is splendid isolation. Nobody walks past. Intruders do intrude sometimes. Dog walkers. Cyclists. They see us. I wonder if we are discussed over dinner. Or forgotten. Better to forget. Until next year. Unless this is the last time. This is discussed. There will be other times but possibly somewhere else. I am somewhere else already. I am somewhere else right now. I am back in London. Not adjusting to the pace. Currently in edgetime. Edgespace. I watch the trees in the wind from the window. Looking into the park across the road. I spend two days finishing off the weed bag. Small and pure. Walking through the park. Along the canals. The other river. Should people (me) even attempt to write about stuff like this? Overestimate the importance. Destroy the magic. Just a weekend camping. THE WOODS. The woods though. Time outside time. Book idea. Political party expands franchise to include small children. Stands on policy of nationalisation of Alton Towers. Thorpe Park. And so on. Landslide. Grip of power tightened through appealing to demographics. Eventual fascism. As always. This time created by my hypothetical fictional and your fictional actual children. Throw the idea into the fire. NATIONALISE THE THEME PARKS. Try not to talk about politics. Talk a bit about politics. Try not to talk about football. Talk a lot about football. LADS LADS LADS. It's emotional. I cannot write about nature in the way someone who really knows about nature can. I am not sure what that tree is. What that birdcall was. I experience nature as a mystery. An occult series of symbols to project fears and belief onto. Should the land be worshipped? There is too much blood and soil in paganism. I need more than science because I will never understand it all. I need more than religion because I will never understand it all. I do not need to understand any of it. I REFUSE TO UNDERSTAND. Each step along the path creates new worlds. New words. I wake up. Second time awakening here. Last breakfast at camp. Melancholy of taking down a camp. There is bound to be a word for this. Ask Macfarlane. Melancholy of the end of small scale anarcho-communist living experiment fueled by decent quality food and drink and other. Luxury. You all deserve this. Or your version of it. Personally I don't see why this can't be all the time but I guess it can't be for some reason or another. Work. Money. I would willingly tear down everything to replace it with this. Or a version of this. For everybody. UTOPIA IS BACK BABY AND THIS TIME IT'S NEAR CROWBOROUGH. I am William Morris. I am not William Morris. News from over there. Let's go over there. As a child the best days for me were the unsupervised days. Allowed to run wild. Playing out on estates in Bermondsey. Playing out in fields and woods near Higham. Smashing the fuck out of a caravan. Getting onto the construction site. I was not a fearless child. I am not a fearless adult. But I fear less because of those times when we were allowed to make mistakes. I still need space for my mistakes. Give me a life sized space for my mistakes. I don't climb trees. Under tree cover the light rain barely makes it to the forest floor. Benevolent nature. I assume we are all here for similar but different reasons. To see each other. To get away. To have a very good time. To think or not think as needed. To remember people who we have lost. When I got the news I was leaving the basement exhibition space I was working in. The cliché. Too young. We hadn't spoken for quite a long time. There is guilt about that. Defining moments of teenage life from parties and drugs to art and music. We sat in Spoons. Talking about the past. There was a photo album. We worked out some songs. GG Allin. I was trying to get some jungle in there. The funeral and the piss up were surreal. Wesley Willis soundtracking the last moments in the crem in Mortlake. Even in death there was that chaotic life grabbing death hungry energy. So much sadness yet I had a fucking great time. Honestly. Devastated at the same time. A complex legacy. I will treasure those years. The piss and the milk in the bottle. The time I had to punch you multiple times in the face then smash a lamp to stop you being a prick. The multiple times you backed me up in stupid situations. The multiple situations we found ourselves in. The arguments about politics religion philosophy that eventually made our friendship difficult to maintain over distance. There is a tree in the woods planted for someone else who is not here anymore. It is visited every time. I think about death. All the deaths. The lives. All the lives. The new ones. The old ones. The ones I've lived. The ones they live. I am grateful to have lived and to be living still. I am grateful to have people to share it with it. Utility poles. Telephone wires. A corridor through bracken and trees. Day slowly becoming night.

WOODS. DEDICATED TO ALL PEOPLE AND THINGS THAT MAKE LIFE WORTH LIVING.

[rupertacton]

RUOBAL ETOV

I'm in Baxter's Court on Mare Street. Day before Thursday the 8th of June. 2017. What am I doing? Not applying for jobs. Fuck it. Can't concentrate. Everything. Confused. Vote Labour sticker on the 2nd hand Ralph shirt. Shit coffee. Dreaming of a better future. Nightmare visions of division. We have always been divided. Us and them. Me and you. Here and there. Be here now. No. Not me. I'm voting. Don't know why. Always do. Everything changes but you. But nothing. Deep fucking state we're in. The Deep State in a deep state. Arm everyone. Radical deradicalisation. Totally fucking radical dude. Arsenal. Millwall. The classic dichotomy. It's not that. Never was. I've crossed London Bridge thousands of times. Troubled bridges. Turbulent waters. Pont de la Tour. What's the point? Intern me first. My turn. I do not share your shared values. Do not share that with me. Not interested. Fucking cops everywhere. Reading my emails. Tapping my dreams. I dream of Friday not being shit. Every simple question. The answers are complicated. Extreme rationalists. Silicon roundabout reactionary fuckheads. Neither Left nor Right. Always right. Without fail. They, hate, our, way, of, life. WAYS OF LIFE. RIGHTS OF WAY. Pluralism. Tolerance. Most people just want to live a peaceful life. MORE ARMED POLICE. No. I stand for law and order. As long as it doesn't apply to me. As long as I get to choose my transgressions without punishment. Vote tactically to stay in the EU. Vote tactically for more years of those cunts. They don't really like you. They wouldn't get a round in even if they had the fucking bunce. Which they do. Rolling in it. Coffee is cold. I drink it anyway. How can I escape? Escape the shit opinions. My own included. I AM ALWAYS WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING. Take. Take. Take. Hot takes. Cold coffee. Keep calm and drink tea. Run through fields of wheat. Fields of gold. Twee fucks on miniature railways taking us to model concentration camps. I LOVE EU. I don't. You value that over everything else? Reassess your fucking values. Old people are not the enemy. The North is not the enemy. Enemies within. Enemies of the state. The state can do better than paying private companies to do what the state did. It worked. It can be reformed. The state must be destroyed. Apart from the bits we need. The weak deserve protection. Anything else is fascism. Sorry if you don't class yourself as that. Sorry. Not sorry. LOL. Crypto-memetic-libertarian-neo-reaction-alt-Nick-Land-LD50-nihilist-ancap-manosphere-hipster-cunt-fuckwits. Not important. Not significant. But there. Right there. Right at the heart. The right at the heart. Analysing. Guilty feats of algorithms. Sorry. They will all jump in bed to defeat the common enemy. Us. I'm cynical. Sarcastic. I'm sincere. I sincerely love the young people who can tell what's up. Don't infect them with your cynicism. Your grown up opinions. They want housing. They want a country that gives a fuck about them. What is better about what you want? Is it that you already have it? Is that it? That's it. Ask yourself those hard questions. Don't shy away from the answers. Just because you liked some rap music in the 90's. You did pills. You went out and got shitfaced. You smoked some fucking spliffs. You listened to some dub. You like proper left wing politics. You are tired of identity politics. It has ruined your fun. Your right to free speech. Your right to pontificate on problems that aren't yours. You can't bring yourself to vote for THEM because of HIM. Because what? Because anti-semitism? Because Abbott? Because Brexit? Because you are definitely not a Tory? Because shambles? Because lack of talent? Because mediocrity? We would probably have a right laugh down the boozer. We would probably agree on a lot of things. SUCK IT UP. Ask yourself some very hard questions. And suck it up. Take it on the chin. HOPE. HOPE. HOPE. FUCKING HOPE. I can't stand it. I'm not a fucking doorstepper. Activist. But. Thank. Fuck. Some. People. Are. I can offer a kind of support. Support in kind. New Labour. Blue Labour. Dr. Who Labour. Harry fucking Potter Labour. Old Labour. Momentum Labour. Militant Tendency. Satire Labour. If you identify as left wing and you are going to vote Tory what the actual fuck are you playing at? Playing. You watch the fucking West Wing and think it's reality. House of Cards. It will come crashing down around everyones ears. LOL. People will die. I was working in Westminster last summer and I wish I'd punched Liam Fox in the face. Regrets. I've had a few. There is a clear choice. Terms that I don't really want to hear anymore. Echo chamber. Virtue signalling. Strong and stable. Coalition of chaos. Enough is enough. Enough is enough already. Y Tribe. Tribal politics. Bit heavy on the politics this. Sorry. Bit light on the psychedelic urban prose poetry. Not enough football. Not enough bants. Not sorry. I want it all to be over as much as you. By the time you read this it probably will be. I'm going to get pissed either way. Wondering whether to get lunch here. Private enterprise steps in where the state now fears to tread. If Wetherspoons did community centres. They do. This is one. Just across from the Town Hall. Local government. Labour Councils heavily involved in social cleansing. It's not going to change overnight. Fucking hope it changes though. Lambeth. Southwark. Hackney. Etc. Blood on your hands. Difficult choices. I wouldn't want to make the choices. Still dealing with legacy of that fucking woman. Just old enough to remember being dragged out on marches. The impotence of the campaigning left. She fucking hated London as well. Not just the industrial north. Just there were more rich people here. Not as simple as that. I know. But it is. Bunch of people just walked in. Tories Out t-shirts. Time to start MI5 files on all of them. You fling around the numbers. What does terrorist sympathiser actually mean anyway? Invasive species. I'm an invasive species sympathiser. Parakeets. Grey squirrels. You name it. Love them. Kill them all. Badgers as well. Foxes too. The bloodlust never ends. Blood me. Soak me in it. Initiate me into your rituals. Occult forces at work. Deep Patriotism. I have legitimate concerns. Not ordered lunch yet. Still mulling it over. Lost in a sea of joyless opinion. Genuinely wonder if they've ever felt anything close to actual joy in their sad lives. Can't even watch a fucking pop concert, a moving, beautiful, attempt to help actual children come to terms with the horrific nature of the world around them and give them some hope, without spewing out their bile. Then they can't take it when people, rightly, call them cunts. I don't even want to put their names. FUCK THEM. ALL OF THEM. They love terror. They love death. Just like the people they claim to hate. We need hope. We need a new approach. The ways that weren't working before are still NOT WORKING. This is a chance to change. The first time I've ever felt a genuine choice. This is what is going to hurt so much. But for now. I wasn't a supporter. Still have reservations. But for now. One hundred. From zero. Real quick. Too much at stake. VOTE LABOUR ON THE RALPH SHIRT. Real policies. Boringly real policies. That would make a difference. I don't think that would have happened under someone else. I was up for getting rid. I was wrong. I WAS WRONG. Whatever the result. This fucking election. I truly want it to blow up in her face. Already has. Blown up in all our faces. Literally can't talk to anyone. Shit campaigner. Very easy to say if she still wins it's because of the current opposition but doesn't really stand up to any serious analysis. Doubtless that will be said though. I respect that. Just wish that the last two years had been years of unity. Both sides haven't covered themselves in glory. One side is definitely worse though. Internal machinations. Coups. Apparently though it's the fault of the people who voted him in. TWICE. I've moaned about him. Called him and his people incompetent. Weak. I apologise. The shit they've had to take. SORRY THIS IS FUCKING BORING. I'm fucking sick of it all. I want to be out in the outskirts. Routes through fields. Allotments. Edibles in my blood. Alternate realities. Intrigue. Fictions. Borges. J Hus in the headphones. Lib Dem boi paigon. I can't stand them. Fuck the other side. It's on sight now. Sites. Not on the maps. Blank spaces. Parapolitics. Back to the planet. Undercovers. Under the covers. Deep cover. Twins. Giving birth. The children of people who stole the identity of dead children. This is what they do. Professional. Give them more powers. Shoot to kill. I'm losing it. Losing the thread. Threads. Nuclear war. Discharge. Truth theories. NWO. Same old shit. SOS. SAS. Dipset. Diplomatic Immunity. Diplomacy. Foreign policy. Arms. Armshouse. Almshouses. Housing. Social Care. Healthcare. Dignity. Hope. Youth. Age. Hard borders. Troubles. Troubling. The past lives on. History is back again. A man just sat down. Says loudly: ANOTHER DAY IN THIS FUCKING SHITHOLE. Starts talking to the girls at the table next to him. They are talking fucking politics. They are all voting. Voting Labour. Do what they are doing.

ENTHUSIASTICALLY VOTE LABOUR. GRUDGINGLY VOTE LABOUR.

HOLD YOUR NOSE AND VOTE LABOUR. DESPAIRINGLY VOTE LABOUR.

TRIBALLY VOTE LABOUR. FOR THE FIRST TIME VOTE LABOUR.

DON'T VOTE FOR THEM LOT.

VOTE FOR OTHER PEOPLE WHO AREN'T THEM LOT IF IT KEEPS THEM LOT OUT.

VOTE FOR ME TO SHUT THE FUCK UP.

[rupertacton]

The Oak Leaves and the Acorns

I'm currently somewhere on the southern side of the Thames Estuary. The pylons stretch for miles across the semi-marshland. I seem to be left alone here. My pursuers must have realised I have no intention of carrying on my campaign. I don't doubt that they will find me at some point but for now I am no longer a priority. This gives me a chance to think. I know there are other people resisting. Pockets of dissent. I am under no illusion though. We have lost. They have won. All I can do for now is try to explain to myself, and anyone that finds this, how we reached this point. Soon there will only be official accounts. Well presented lies on information boards. Something for The Members to file past with suitable reverence. Watched over by The Volunteers.

Like many people of my age my first encounters with The Trust were benign. Boring even. A long drive out of the city. A weekend away. My parents would exit the motorway, turn onto the A and B Roads and follow the familiar signs. A driveway, carpark, a formal garden, an impossibly huge house or castle. The sticker in the car window, the Oak Leaves and the Acorns, granted us access. A vision of how the other half used to live. An aristocracy before the democratisation of extreme wealth caused the cash poor and asset rich to gift their little slices of heaven to us mere mortals. Of course, as a child, I had very little grasp of how, and why, these buildings and their well maintained grounds became part of a very particular holiday for a very particular type of people. These endless houses, infinities of lawns, the never ending tours, were nothing but a preamble to the real action of the gift shop and cafe, an ice cream as a reward for good behaviour or to placate a tantrum. This was The Trust to me.  As well as the houses there were vast expanses of coastline, countryside, even whole villages, that we visited, the oak leaf and the acorns in the window bestowing it's privileges upon the Volvo and it's inhabitants.

At this time membership was voluntary of course. My parents were both left-leaning academics in London universities. They had a strong professional interest in the built and natural environment. As I moved into my early teens I developed similar interests but expressed in slightly different ways. Graffiti, skateboarding, breaking into the derelict social housing being decanted as London emptied itself of undesirable elements. Warehouse parties. I still sometimes had to go away with my parents.  We sometimes rented a cottage from The Trust, often out of season for the cheaper rates, I hated school so didn't mind being pulled out for a week or two. I was generally left to my own devices. Able to walk, listen to music, read, develop a deep relationship with super strong strains of marijuana. Although we were undeniably culturally middle class we were financially precarious. More like my friends whose parents worked at supermarkets and call centres than my friends whose parents worked for banks and advertising agencies. This was hidden from me but I understood. Academia was falling apart. Especially the serious, radical, unprofitable academic practice my parents were involved with. The initially stable professorships and lecturing positions they held were becoming increasingly unpredictable. The work was different. The students were now mainly extremely wealthy, often from the continent, or further afield, expecting a certain level of service for the huge fees paid by their parents. I only give this background information to contextualise what was happening before things got to where they are now. London had become a playground for the mega rich. Vast swathes of Not-London were post-industrial wasteland, stockbroker belt housing, big sheds, strip malls, badly managed farmland, grouse moors, sheep afflicted pseudo-wilderness, brick clad housing developments, dead shopping precincts, violent town centres.

I'm just old enough to remember pre-Separation Britain. The forces that shaped post-Separation Britain, or what remained, were already working their dark magic. The latent fascism, racism, xenophobia, hatred of difference, this was all here. Dormant but here. The force that really brought about what we have now, though, was the money. Large parts of the country relied on the money siphoned from The Continent, directly or indirectly. Whole counties became unsustainable. Services were slashed, central government had nothing to replace the subsidies, young and old were pitted against each other, the rural and urban, the poor and the rich. You could argue it was forever thus. You could. I'd probably agree. But there were moments of hope, consensus, belief in a better future for everyone. This was over. An almost endless wave of civil disorder, protests, street battles, increasingly violent terrorist incidents and heavy handed government clampdowns by an increasingly underfunded police force helped by an increasingly more influential military, was in motion. Life was still the same, but very different. I managed to finish school, my parents still just about scraped by on teaching jobs. I had become very active politically and had developed a taste for confrontation that would later serve me very well. Or very badly depending on your perspective.

The money ran out. Britain was broke. The government had nothing. Certain far sighted, or some would say complicit, businesses, corporations, NGO's, QUANGO's and other interested parties had seen this coming. There is circumstantial evidence that they had a lot of help from individuals within central and local government but the electronic paper trail for this is complicated and despite, or because of, numerous leaks, counter-leaks and counter-counter-leaks I doubt the full story will ever be told. From the convoluted and contradictory evidence on offer there has been some sort of narrative pieced together by people who are now dead, exiled or living like I am. I was never part of any organised resistance as such, I preferred leaderless cells, random actions, so I was never privy to the inner machinations of the various movements against The Trust but I can tell you what I think I know.

A few years before everything got very bad, when things were merely bad, The Trust appointed a new chairperson, and like most people in positions of power within The Trust, this person had a strong establishment background. As well as being a gifted academic who attended one of the ancient universities, becoming one of the foremost experts on antiquities and classical architecture and becoming something of a celebrity, they also had little side hobby. This side hobby was what the more paranoid among us called The Deep State. The Deep State, for the uninitiated, is the liminal space where the security services, the government, the Monarchy, the civil services, big business, the military and other good guys all meet. We could debate how much actual influence they really have and how much of what has happened is down to a carefully planned conspiracy and how much is down to luck and infighting but there seems to be little doubt about the fact this was key to The Trust becoming what it is today. This new chairperson realised the Trust was in a very strong position, it was financially secure, with donations rolling in from reactionary old people, progressive young people, entrance fees, holiday lets, memberships, grants from businesses, philanthropic donations, even the final dregs of pre-Separation Continental money. The upkeep of the land and buildings it owned was expensive but it's workforce was augmented by countless volunteers doing their duty to preserve the history and heritage of this great country. I can't say whether the chairperson was placed there by people who saw this, or whether it was pure coincidence, but there is strong evidence of a huge funding drive, and a massive program of extra land and property acquisition in the years leading up to the Government declaring bankruptcy and forfeiting all payments on the massive loans taken out from China, the USA, India and the World Bank. There are minutes of high level meetings between ministers, representatives of the Trust, high level military and civilian intelligence officers and various CEO's of banks and businesses, where the idea of The Trust taking over the day to day running of the country seem to be floated, with the strong backing of the Armed Forces.

Along with the extra land and property there had been a marked shift in the way The Trust was run, and the way it recruited and trained volunteers. They started to target serving soldiers, police officers, TA reservists, the Sealed Knot, various far-right affiliated groups, even football hooligans. There was still traditional volunteers, retired people, young people trying to get a foothold in the increasingly important heritage sector, history buffs etc. These two streams were kept separate. Whole portions of forest and uplands were given over to training camps for the new Volunteers. These were explained as survival courses, retraining, back to the land, outward bound, food foraging workshops. The close combat and weapons training were kept secret from the majority of Trust members at first. The recruitment drive at universities and colleges was upped, even primary and secondary schools. I was too stoned to join in with anything, and I had my own solitary wilderness pastimes that took up most of my time, but large numbers of former friends joined up. The Welfare State was falling apart, jobs were increasingly hard to come by, highly trained graduates were working nightshifts in petrol stations for minimum wage, I couldn't blame them for taking what must have seemed to them good opportunities for some kind of purpose in their lives.

As bankruptcy was declared the welfare, health and social care budgets were cut to beyond anything seen so far in the almost constant “austerity” which had been the norm since the Separation. Vast numbers of people who were already poor, hungry and angry became poorer, hungrier and angrier. Huge demonstrations were called all over the country. I went on what turned out to be the last one, in London, with my parents, countless friends, some who were Trust members, the feeling, at first, was amazing. So many people were united in anger at how things had been allowed to get to this state. People from all classes, races, backgrounds, professions, leftists, moderates, centrists, liberals, even old style conservatives, people with no political views, they were all out on the street. This lasted for most of the day, it was mainly peaceful, there were scuffles, bad policing, the treatment of protestors had got consistently worse but because of the make up of the crowd they had seemed to reign it in a bit, there were even police joining in as policing budgets had been cut and many hadn't been paid for months. This “carnival atmosphere” carried on throughout the night in cities and towns throughout the country. This was a mass shutdown, spontaneous, angry yet joyful. Some people thought that was it, the moment when “the people” were going to win. I'm a very cynical person but even I had a small amount of optimism that this had to make some kind of positive difference to the situation we were facing. I'd already been on countless demonstrations that achieved very little but this felt different.

Unfortunately for us some very important people in The Deep State thought it was very different as well. They viewed this as the start of something they couldn't tolerate. A loss of order. They had people in the crowds. In many ways they were right to be worried. A mass of people can do a lot of damage to the state, institutions that seem timeless can be torn down in hours to be replaced by who knows what. There were groups, and individuals, within the crowds who were really up for this. I'm not going to pretend I wasn't one of them. I must already have been on some files due to some actions at previous demos, even my, now elderly, parents were probably in some kind of dossier somewhere due to words they'd written. I'd not dismissed political violence, but I had also seen it's consequences, and it's not something to be entered into lightly. Some people do love any excuse for a fight, and doubtlessly there were people in the crowds who were there for that reason, and also, as an added bit of spice, the very people who so loved order had their own people there, ready to spread disorder for the greater cause of restoring it in a stronger form.

Which is what happened. There were a solid group of police and army personnel who hadn't joined in with the protests or been sympathetic in any way. There were some stand offs and violent incidents which were building in intensity as the protests lasted into a second and third day. Numbers of protestors were down but it was the dedicated and the dedicated provocateurs left. On the third day everything kicked off. A group of about 40 what I initially thought were plain clothes policeman stormed into the crowd in Parliament Square. I was there, my parents were still there. The sheer intensity of the violence was awesome. Then more and more of these people flooded the square. Armed with coshes and sticks, and obviously trained at fighting, they targeted people, some people from the crowd joined them, they were followed by the police, arresting the people who had been beaten up, subjecting to them to more brutality. I was running, confused, I lost my parents and the friends I'd spent three days with. All around me people were getting their heads cracked in. People were fighting back but the sheer speed of the attack had left everyone shocked. I got cornered and punched in the face, drawing blood, but I managed to run, and escape the square. I still feel guilty today but what could I have done then? I'd been in fights and confrontations but I wasn't used to this. These lot must have been military or something I thought. I kept running. Runners weren't pursued. The break up of the protest was the main aim. People who stayed and resisted, even peacefully, took the most punishment. Including my parents. I never saw them again. Officially, at the inquest, the verdict was open, but they were murdered. They were too old to handle that level of violence. Heart failure and a brain haemorrhage.

It was only when I'd managed to clear Parliament Square and sit down that I started to think. Every single one of the thugs that had stormed the crowd were wearing some version of the Oak Leaves and the Acorns on their clothes, whether it was a pin badge, or a knitted jumper, a scarf, they all carried that motif somewhere on them. I made some phone calls, trying to find my parents at first, then friends, then started calling people round the country, comrades on other protests, local organisers. The same thing had happened. I started asking about the Oak Leaves and the Acorns and they were everywhere. I had a sinking feeling. The rumours I'd heard, the vague murmuring on underground message boards, were they true? I thought it was the usual conspiracy bollocks at first. Deep State plans for a coup. This sort of stuff was always talked about and the wackiest one involved a well known heritage organisation, it's new Volunteers and an offer to bail out the country in return for absolute power and a return to order.

The wackjobs were right. I have a lot more respect for them now. The break up of the protests were the first in a string of favours that The Trust did for the government over the ensuing months. No one was really sure what was going on. Education workshops sprang up in every school, staffed by Volunteers, some of them clueless, teachers were happy to have the extra resources after years of being starved of funds. Outreach work was conducted, streets were cleaned, more and more people were recruited. Work was provided for the unemployed whether they wanted it or not. Groundskeeping, compulsory tea room volunteering, etc. The Trust were thanked for their benevolence by politicians who knew they were on borrowed time, who needed to make a good impression on their new masters. I was in mourning. I was now convinced The Trust murdered my parents, and now they were taking over the country. One year on from the last protest and parliament was dissolved for the last time. The Monarchy, of course, were fine with what was happening. They were to be kept on. Prime heritage assets. Everyone was issued with a membership card to The Trust. The Oak Leaves and the Acorns flag flew in every town and village. Tourists loved it. Finally the country they had seen for years on television was here. Everyone was assigned a position, from children, to adults, to the elderly. Everyone had something to do within the organisation. Everyone had to learn the official history. Heritage as a secular religion with the founders of The Trust as saints and the current board as a kind of Papal council. A Caliphate where we pray facing to the past. Of course, you probably know this already, you are probably a Member and you are probably happy. You have won. Bunting is hung from every tree and streetlight, and traitors are beheaded in the Tower Of London.

I was never happy with this and neither were a large minority of the population. We resisted. Some peacefully. Some not. Some tried to reform from within. Some people were just scared. I don't blame anyone. We all had to make our own choices. I chose to plant bombs in the same country houses I visited as a child. To wait overlooking volunteer outpost with a sniper rifle and murder Volunteers. To splatter brown signs with red blood. I'm not proud. I wanted revenge. I also wanted a country that looked to the future, that understood it's heritage, and could be honest about the good points and bad points, that wasn't perfect, but strived for something beyond conducting tours of a past that never really existed. I still hope for this but my hope is almost gone. So many of my comrades have been killed, or turned to betrayal after the worst torture, and are now guiding people around a theme park version of the country I used to love.

I'm here, out on the marshes, in a building of little architectural interest, hoping I won't be found, knowing I will be found. I know there are people sympathetic to the cause amongst this nation of Volunteers, and Members, and I hope you find this and carry on the fight to destroy Heritage, The Past, and The Trust, and avenge the blood of the fallen.

Anon, The Future, the Thames Estuary

[rupertacton]

FUCK MY LONDON

Hermit's Cave. Sniff in the bogs. Fucking stinks in here. Camberwell Road. Corrib Bar. Watching football. Landlady said we were welcome back but not to bring any black people with us. Not in those words. Never went back. Walking past venues I played in that are no longer there. Rhythm Factory. Whitechapel Road. Round the corner. Used to be able to buy hash. Private member's club. Pool table. Foreign students. Building gone. Pint in the Castle. One end of Brick Lane. £2 in my pocket. Other end. Got food. Zoot. Beer. Still had some change. In my day this was all fields. Stewart Home. This is my home. I want to leave. Leave home. Chemical Brothers. Prodigy. Brixton Academy. No drugs. 13. Wouldn't go to see either of them now. Fuck them. Tried to get into the 4 Aces. Dalston used to scare the shit out of me. Me and Andrew went to buy an ounce and got robbed. Clapton Square. Got away with the weed but Andrew got his phone and ring nicked. Andrew convinced it was a set up. I'm still not sure. Arrested for criminal damage and possession at Caledonian Road & Barnsbury Station. The free line. Graf everywhere. Me and Mark. He was already on doing more serious stuff. Getting banged up for writing would've been silly. Bumped into him on Cambridge Heath Road. Years later. He was in an X5. Little gaff out in Essex. Kid. Still moving food but not touching it if you get what I mean. Born in Walworth. First wave gentrification. Sitting out in the garden at 6am sharing a joint with one of the Birmingham Six. Reading Ballard. Under the Westway. Subterranea. Black Star and Company Flow. MCD and Scratch Perverts supporting. Mainly crushing fucking boredom though. Africa Centre. Hour of jungle at the end of Funkin' Pussy. Listening to Rudimentary Peni. Carcass. Blak Twang. Rodney P. Heartless Crew. Upfront FM. Fuck it. Listing stuff. I'm sitting in the Barbican. Working. Listening in to an American man having a conversation with an English woman. I sort of hate them. They are probably alright. Vacuous pricks. The lot of us. St James' C of E primary school. Bermondsey. Jamaica Road. Everyone white. Almost. Everyone racist. Almost. What the fuck happened there? Used to play out on the Arnold Estate near the community centre my mum helped found. Found a load of porn out back. Awakenings. You can get a St John Bakery custard donut there now. Arches used to be full of garages. Cut and shut. Dennis was a ticket tout. Got us tickets to the '93 Semi-Final. In the fucking Spurs end. I was in an Arsenal shellsuit. Scarf. Cap. Got let in the Arsenal end. Grew up watching Palace. Everyone at school was Millwall or Liverpool. Why the fuck do I support Arsenal? Questions. Didn't grow up but I got old. Long nightwalks. Getting robbed in broad daylight on my own street. Kids from Kid's Company. Wallet full of cash I couldn't really tell anyone about. My sister wanted to go down there with a kitchen knife. In the end they apologised. Sent a cheque. We all make mistakes. Always carry a glass Lucozade bottle. Middle class grunger to middle class wannabe badman but I never wanted to be anything. Books. So many books. Art was everywhere. Went to Sensation. Load of shit obviously but exciting. Southbank. Mid to late 90's. Never skated. Legendary names. Benjobe. Tom Penny. Hardcore. Hip-hop. Rapping. Kope was working at A1 Stores on Wooly. Bag full of spraypaint. I never painted. Different sort of writing. Exploration. I'm not an urban explorer. Follow the Thames. Richmond to Teddington. Tower Bridge to East India Dock. Trinity Buoy Wharf. Sitting in a lighthouse all day. Hungover. Got chased through Broadway Market. Years before the farmers showed up. London is tiny if your postcode limits your movement. Escape. Fiction is liberating. The truth won't set you free. George Davis is innocent. Frankie Fraser on the 12 bus with his little dog. Chatting to my mum. Richardson's club house and torture chamber on a quaint little square just off Camberwell Road. Pet shop that used to stink of skunk. Dangerous dogs out front. This is what you're moving into. The ghosts will catch up with you. The past is never really the past. I'm past it. Read too many conspiracy theories. Canary Wharf as a beacon of occult energy. Hawksmoor Churches. All mainstream. Pick up the info in Waterstones in the London section. Make up your own myths. Smoking DMT in Blythe Hill Fields. London breathing. Viewpoints. Greenwich Park. Primrose Hill. Parliament Hill. Lunchtime. Out of the stockroom. Packing records all day. Enough to make you hate music. Where's the glamour? Guestlist is standard. Why the fuck would you pay to watch music? I still love it. Astoria. Gone. Plastic People. Gone. We went downstairs and when we went back out everything was covered in snow. Walking back. D Double E and Footsie. Legends. Tubby on decks. I think. All blends into one. But the snow. That happened. Stayed in Hackney. Walked back along a white carpet. These moments we live for. Put up with all the shit. I never really took photos. Stopping traffic at Elephant & Castle roundabout after getting run over. Black cab driver wanting to make sure I was alright. Asked what football team I support. Told him. Said he'd leave me in the road if it was up to him. Banter. Fucked up my Helly Hansen. Driver had no insurance. I told him to drive off but everyone made him stay. Writing is alchemy. You don't have to believe me. Planning is alchemy. London is being remixed. New block of flats named after the pie and mash shop on Westmoreland Road. Some attempt at continuity. Don't worry about me. It's everyone else. The search for authenticity is futile. Tayyabs. Lahore. Needoo. The holy trinity. But don't kid yourself. You can't eat your way to an understanding of lived experience. I'm sitting across the road from Madame Tussauds. This is authentic London even if you think it isn't. Some of my best friends are northerners. GO HOME. Get out while you can. I grew out of the fear of other areas. I moved. I walk from Lesnes Abbey to Grove Park on the Green Chain with my uncle. I walk from Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace on the Parkland Walk with my girlfriend. I walk from Limehouse Basin to Island Gardens to Greenwich to Southwark Park with my mate. I walk from my flat to Walthamstow Marshes via the Olympic Park with myself. Memories shadowing every step. An egret and a heron near Stratford Westfield. I'm convinced we're all going to die in a shopping centre. Kingdom Come. Every witness appeal tells a story. Pain. Tragedy. I was watching Therapy? at Brixton Academy when the second riot happened. A venue full of pale faced teenagers insulated from an outpouring of justified anger. I performed with the guy who is supposed to have started the first Brixton riot. When the whole city rioted I walked up the back of Walworth Road watching kids hide stuff in bins. No one even noticed me. This is England. Wembley. Norway. Such a terrible match. The people behind me and my dad making monkey noises whenever Paul Ince touched the ball. Turned me off England for life. I couldn't even enjoy Euro '96. Arch contrarian. Of course I disagree. Got my bank account emptied and lost about £140 of other people's money getting robbed on Churchill Estate. Never trust someone who has just come out of prison for kidnap who says they can get some good food for a good price. Lesson learned. Two kids on the N68 tried to move me up. This was much later. I was wearing a Stone Island. I think they thought I was balling. I'd spent the night doing other people's sniff. I had a shit phone and an Ipod. I explained. We left on good terms. Lesson learned. Even where I used to sign on is gone. RIP Camberwell Job Centre. I fucking hated you but I miss you. Monday night football at the Petchey Academy saved my life. Made me a better person. The Shacklewell before it was cool. When it was cool. Saw Rodigan out back. Felt like a proper shubs. The Haggerston when it was Uncle Sam's. Live jazz. Terrible pints. Sitting in a Polo. UKG. Smoking draw. Just driving around. My room in the attic full of smoke. Entire house stinking. So many lost years. Round to Len's after a night out. Get the chop out. Staggering home. 8am. Mouth so dry. Lying in bed. Zoot in the ashtray. Bottle of water. Normal weekend. The Gramaphone. Commerical Street. Gone. Rushing. Hudson Mohawke and Rustie. Insanely strong pills. Up to the tubes for a weird after party. Everywhere will go soon. Corsica Studios. Summer of ket. Spangled in the smoking area. That rave in Hackney Wick. Bouncer wearing a bally. I was sick into a ballon. I was falling in love. Never wanted a relationship before that. Football. Drugs. Music. Books. Art. Masturbation. Very occasional sex. That was enough for me. I was kidding myself. Obviously. You pick and choose memories. You order the moments. You try to create a coherent picture. There is no coherent picture. Nothing to see here. Move along. First football match. Palace. Millwall. Punch ups in the family enclosure. Scary as fuck. LOVED IT. Grown men screaming cunt. Just got a text saying Whitechapel Bell Foundry is closing. My London is over. Fucked. Done. You can keep it. Do what you want with it. I don't care. If I don't care then why am I crying?

THE CUNTS, FREAKS, CRIMINALS, BOHEMIANS, NAZIS, NUTCASES, IMMIGRANTS, COMMIES, TRAMPS, ARTISTS, VANDALS, MUSICIANS, SHOTTERS, MIDDLE CLASSES, WHITES, BLACKS, WORKING CLASSES, TOFFS, GAYS, CHANCERS, BANKERS, BARROW BOYS, STALLHOLDERS, STAKEHOLDERS, LADS, CASUALS, RUDEBOYS, ANARCHISTS, BELL MAKERS, DRUGGIES, BARISTAS, RAVENS, BEEFEATERS, TOURISTS ETC. ARE ALL GONE. DONE. FUCK MY LONDON.

[rupertacton]

GET THE FUCK OUT OF LONDON

Having the dreams again. The city as a different city. Escape to the country. Relocation relocation. Seemingly endless city. Suburbia stretches out then coils back in on itself. Event horizon pierced. Escape velocity reached. I would move here. The pub is full of locals. Would I want to spend all my time with these people? Nothing to do but attach immense importance to small concerns. The travellers are back. You can't say anything these days. The council spent all the money on public art. It's not even art. Art to me is a painting on the wall. The sky is massive. Too big. Too much perspective. Waves crash on to the beach beneath the cottage. Clifftops. Rain hitting the windows. Step outside to look at the stars. Are they stars or the lights of ships on the horizon? Deep drag. Expel smoke. Riptides pull at the foundations of my brain. Bottles of local beer. Card games. I hate games. Unless I'm somewhere like this. Coastal path. Walking for the whole day. Freedom. People say hello to each other. Deeply unsettling. Bucolia. Unidentified birds of prey circle. Nature is brutal. We are nature. Sheep. Everywhere. I thought this was a National Park? Looks like a fucking farm to me. I've just read Feral. Will I give up this landscape for an Old Etonian's contentious vision of a future rewilded? Will I fuck. Maybe I will. It's persuasive. Snowdon. 2 hours sleep? At most. With the lads. LADS LADS LADS. Little dab of dizzle at the summit. As if this isn't exhilarating enough. Added spice though. Can't argue with that. Still haven't developed the disposable camera. Snowdon again. Just the two of us. Before. Pyg Track. We scramble up until we hit the snowline. Man at work. On lunch. Eating a sandwich. Looking at all of this. We trace the lines of distant roads as we loop back towards the car. My exploration depends on others abilities. I'm a good passenger. Paint testing station near Winchelsea. Almost magical in it's singular weirdness. Highly recommended. Trip Advisor. Bad trip advisor. Small towns on Friday nights. No one about. You could still get the shit kicked out of you if you're not careful. Guard down. Circling through cul-de-sacs to find the entrance to the woods. We walk to find a view of a water tower. Concrete outposts off A-roads. Motorway bridges. Sacred stones. Service stations as autonomous zones. Never just simply food. If it was up to me I would never leave. Everything is here. We leave. I bid a fond farewell. The break was welcome. 24 hours. 7 days a week. 365 days a year. Magical names. Taunton Deane. Leigh Delamere. Heston. Watford Gap. Pease Pottage. Incantations. The M5 just past Bristol. Terraced into the side of the hills. Views over Avonmouth. Car full of organic produce. 18 ounces in the boot. Secret location. Unassuming house. Daytrip. Cream tea. Wild mushroom risotto. Skin up if you want. Take some fudge. Made with Devon Cream. Journey back floating on a cloud. Journeys back from festivals. Stags. Keeping the driver awake. Haven't really slept all weekend. Woods near Crowborough. Back to nature. Tents pitched. Tarp shelter. DMT as the fire burns into the night. Group of kids on dirt bikes shocked by the sight of middle aged men living a post-apocalyptic dream amongst the ferns. Jake's tree. Emotions. These acres are infinite. Lundy Island. A point on the map. Wasn't sure it even existed outside of that. It does. Trust me. The journey back. Rough seas. Never been so aware of my own mortality. We survived. Just. Soaked. Friend tells us story in service station. Dark. Burger King. We console him. Rain pisses down. Islander visiting islands. Scilly. St Agnes. The Turk's Head. More than a holiday. A religious experience. We experience the sacred. One day the people will reclaim this magic from the Duchy Of Cornwall. This should belong to us all. THIS WHOLE ISLAND AND IT'S SURROUNDING ISLANDS SHOULD BE OURS. Can't ruin it anymore than these cunts with their grouse moors and shooting weekends and fox hunts and bad farming practices and subsidised lifestyles. But what do I know? Another know nothing city dweller. More islands. Hilbre. Ynys Mon. Foulness. Brownsea. Wight. Islands off islands off islands. Fractal shorelines. Retreat inland. Bad magic. Poundbury. I preferred Milton Keynes. This crowded island? Really? I walk for miles and see nobody. These people claim to love this country but I don't see them. They are in love with an idea. The actual thing scares them. It's not what they want. They want somewhere that doesn't exist. That never existed. One day I will stumble into a secret far right training camp and be used as target practice. Or some Jihadists will demonstrate some unarmed combat techniques on my person. I can't fucking wait. Deliverance. Who knows what darkness lurks just off the marked footpaths? Sacrificial altars just out of view of the picnic area. Orgies of copulation and fornication in AONB. Used condoms litter the SSSI. The Cerne Abbas giant touched inappropriately. Dorset Police are launching an investigation. Is there an equivalent of Orientalism when city dwellers exoticise the rural? I AM GUILTY. Cover me in tar. Black me up. Make me carry a burning barrel through your village. Cover me in burrs. Burn my effigy at your bonfire. TEACH ME YOUR WAYS. I'm willing to learn. Deep country. I can finally see the constellations as the sky clears. At dusk I see a barn owl silently flying across the flooded field. Reading as the sun falls into the sea. I will spare you a list of writers. I'm sure you can work it out. I won't insult your intelligence. That's about the only thing I won't insult. I've had a few at the village pub. Having a few more now we're back. Might even crack out that gear. The Rhosneigr night out. Hollyoaks in Anglesey. A snow machine. A fucking snow machine. To go with the Apres-ski theme. Men in fishing overalls dancing to Storm Queen drinking jugs of pink cocktails. The tiny village pub on the Llyn Peninsula. 18 of us. Most of us off our tits on coke. MDMA. Some of us on mushrooms. No one speaking English apart from us. 21st birthday in the function room. Banging out what sounds like gabber. In the bogs doing bumps. Pints and shots. Very accommodating. Back to the cottage to carry on. Cottages. Holiday homes. Good value if you go out of season. A base. Somewhere to cook. Hole up. Get away form it all. Decimating local communities. Pushing up prices. No wonder they used to burn them down in Wales. The way things are going it will probably start happening again. It's not tourism without a hefty degree of guilt and complicity in destruction. I am urban and English. I am scum. I love locally sourced food and drink. I will buy your chutneys and cheeses and beers. I will tell people about the wonderful little unspoiled beach and the amazingly shit but good local museum. The stunning walks. The wildlife. And then my friends will come. And their friends will come. And all will be lost. Have you been to the South Stack Cliffs bird reserve on Holy Island? Have you walked from Rye to Camber Castle? Have you walked the Broomway? What about the beach and derelict nightclub at Carlyon Bay? Have you heard seals sing on the sandbanks in the Dee Estuary off West Kirby? Have you been to the Eden Project? Reculver Castle? Taken the boat out from Poole to Brownsea Island to see Red Squirrels? Explored Canvey Island? Found fossils in Lyme Regis? The sand dunes at Climping? Walked from Deal to Sandwich? Don't miss the last train. Or it be cancelled. You might end up at Tonbridge at 2am waiting for a cab to take you back to London after being shunted around various stations in Kent for most of the night. A late train through the countryside. Only person in the carriage. You stop somewhere and a bunch of beered up locals get on. You are a target. If you can't handle the banter you're in trouble. Thank god I'm not a goth. Or black. Or in any way obviously different to them. I've got longish hair. But I'm wearing a shirt. A checked one. Like them. I say I'm on my way back to London. They all laugh. But it's good natured. Sort of. Still my palms sweat. Heart races. I'm allowed to read my book. They get off at the next station. I change at Ipswich. I read maps. Like novels. They are better than novels. The AA Great Britain Road Atlas. So many places I will never go. How do you find time to travel the world when there is so much in those pages? Essentially it will all be the same. I know this. I'm not bothered. It's the small things. The brown signs. FOLLOW THEM ALL. You will be disappointed but each disappointment will be unique. In it's own little way. Each boring museum. Each unwelcoming attraction. Each neglected Nature Reserve. I'm only half serious. As always. I've experienced such heart stopping beauty here. Beyond irony. Fuck irony. I don't leave London for a joke. The British seaside resort is amazing. Sad. Beautiful. The British countryside is awe inspiring. Wild. Managed. The interaction. Fascinating. The coast is unique. Variety of landscape. Wildlife. Treasure it. Care for it. I don't want to lose it. I want my hypothetical future children to experience at least this. At least. If not more. Rewild. Rewild your mind. It's good for you. It's good for us. Don't be afraid. It's worth it. If you live there please don't hate us. You need us. We need you. Don't lock us out. Trespassers should be welcomed with open arms. This belongs to us all.

KEEP BRITAIN INTERESTING. FOLLOW THE COUNTRYSIDE CODE. CLOSE ALL GATES. WATCH OUT FOR BULLS. WATCH OUT FOR TORIES. USE YOUR RIGHTS OF WAY. RESPECT THE LANDSCAPE. DON'T KEEP OFF OUR LAND. KEEP BRITAIN OPEN.   

[rupertacton]

FUCKING LONDON

The ever present threat of violence. Need to get to the station before the pubs close. Stopped and searched in Richmond. Driven around for 20 minutes in the van then told to get out. They kept the small amount of herbal cannabis they found. ACAB. We value your feedback. Feedback. White noise. Whitehouse. Power electronics. William Bennet. Dodgy. Your politics are dodgy. Cut Hands. Fetishisation of the other. NLP. Debunked psychological theories. My hands are bleeding. Bleeding heart. The Slaughtered Lamb. West Ham promoted. Denim party. Cotton Eye Joe. CD towers come crashing to the ground. Rack them out in the kitchen. My nose is bleeding. What's this been cut with? It's all shit. The £50. The £60. The £70. The £80. The £90. The £100. IT'S ALL THE FUCKING SAME. Shovel it up and shut up. Or talk louder. White wraps. Lottery tickets. Ford Focus pulls up. Blacked out windows. Back to the boozer. Is this all there is? 6AM. Pain. I'm scared. The future has been postponed. Service cancelled. Southern Rail. Southbound. You are at an anti-racism march in a Burzum t-shirt. You are at Gay Pride in a Buju Banton shirt. You are confused. We're all confused. I'm trying to think. Think big. The Big Issue. I only buy it from unregistered sellers. Don't read it. Throw it in the bin. Bin Laden. Watching the Arsenal. We're on the old North Bank together. North London derby. Him and Charlie Sargent. Cheeky fucking tear up after the game. He doesn't come to the pub. Finsbury Park Mosque. Radicalisation. Prevent. Prevent critical thought. The ones who scream the loudest are the most vulnerable. CRB check came back clean. Dolphin Square. THEY ARE ALL IN ON IT. Mark my words. I know someone who knows someone. Had to leave. They were after him. Who are they? You know. THEM. This is a march about housing. Someone is always talking about Palestine. They are playing UK hip-hop from a portable sound system. What have I signed up for? Unsubscribe. Rooftop. Pirates. Upfront. Deja. Ice. Raw Mission. Heritage. It's all on the internet now. The National Trust are a terrorist organisation. The past is the target. Preserve and destroy. Black and white unite to fight. Fight who? We chuck grenades at Scotland Yard. Uzi. Rifle. Everything there. Bow. E3. Pie and mash. Mash in the boot of the car. Tings in boots. Olympic Park. They are fucking with the leylines. Get Alan Moore down from Northampton. Open up a cunch spot in his house. Chaos magic. Duginists masquerading as leftists. Bunch of crypto-fascists writing encrypted emails. Burn after reading. DON'T READ IT. Got my burner. Only talk to me on there. Not even to my face. Keep it on the downlow. Lowdown. Skream. CRO. Everything is born in Croydon. Thornton Heath. The Gipset DSN fight in the Whitgift. Going to be a Westfield soon. EVERYWHERE IS A WESTFIELD NOW. Brewdog. Dangerous dogs. Boxpark. One day this will all be shipping containers and it will be your fault. You cunt. No one likes this. I don't care. In a flat in Peckham with a load of Millwall.  Pelican Estate. Pelicans in St James' Park. The royals are all occultists. Swear down. Fam. I beg you listen. There are these videos on the internet. Proof. Trust me. Trust nobody. You didn't sign the petition to keep the West African bar open. There was no petition. You didn't feel welcome there. It's not because you're racist. You're racist. You love Beyonce though. Don't you? You don't. Sweet dreams. Beautiful nightmares. They were sending for me on Twitter. You took it to the roads. They were dabbing with your chain on. Dabbing ass rappers. Innocent bystanders. Trident watching my moves. Trident. Freight trains full of nuclear waste snaking through outer London. Hackney is a nuclear free borough. CND. BTP. Chased along the tracks. Needless deaths. Stay out of custody if you know what's good for you. Deep corruption. Daniel Morgan. Stephen Lawrence. Cash in envelopes. Go to Spain. Open a little bar. Keep your fucking head down. Don't be flash. You mug. This isn't a Nick Love film. Love Actually. Notting Hill. Our eyes met at the anarchist bookshop just before it was petrol bombed. We are always under attack. 7/7. Canary Wharf. Brick Lane. Brixton Market. Old Compton Street. The secret service complicit. All double agents. The Secret Agent. Conrad. Heart Of Darkness. It's problematic. A deep personal relationship with colonialism. We build on blood. War criminals in the closet. Millions of skeletons. Turn it into art. I scratch poetry into bus windows with a sharp stone. They worship death. Thanatos. I'm not making a coherent argument. What do you expect? The state of me. The state of you more like. Torch the Youth Club. Paternalism. You're not my real dad. I can hear the rivers running under the street. Rivers of human shit. Walk the Greenway. Walk the Ridgeway. Brutalist tourism. Open House. People queueing to see where people used to live. Top 10 Places To Get Mugged In London. Moped gangs. Smash and grab. Grab and go. Crime used to be different. Only hurt our own. Loved our mums. Only tortured people who deserved it. Nonces and that. Not like now. No rules. It's disgusting. Fucking druggies. I've left you a line in the bogs. Prime South American hooter. Get that inside you. Councils are to be replaced by offshore shell companies. Shell Building. Urban Splash. Oil money. Blood money. Ken Saro-Wiwa. I plead guilty to it all. That band with the fascist logo. They sing songs about fascism. They have fascist fans. Apparently they aren't fascist. Just playing with the imagery. Don't be so politically correct. Read some Evola. Read some Guegnon. How can someone be fascist and be gay? They had a Jew in the band. Doesn't sound that fascist to me. Apart from all the fascism of course. But yeah. Fucking banging tunes. Safe. I'll have 3 for a fiver. Heading home with all the people going to work. Hands in the air. Wait for the drop. Double drop. Triple drop. Drop me out. EDM. EDL. ESP. I can feel the energy. Bad vibes. Nazi yoga nuts. Beware of esotericism. Theosophy. Open minds. Ready to be filled with excrement. Excrement through letterboxes. This is a tolerant city. We operate a no tolerance policy. Policy makers drunk in the Sports and Social. Drunk on power. And drink. This is who governs us. We get the governments we deserve. Son of a bus driver. Son of a multimillionaire eco-fascist. We decided. Didn't want to vote for either. One is better than the other though. READ SOME JOHN GRAY. I'm not a radical. I don't believe in progress. I'm a mass of contradictions. Peter and Christopher Hitchens. Heads or tails. Bruv. I've got an acappella about Tony Blair. Tony B Liar. SATIRE. Fucking hilarious. I've been offered a stand up spot on the Now Show. I'm going to beat the shit out of Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis. The Mary Whitehouse Experience. Newman and Baddiel. Skinner and Baddiel. Dennis Skinner. Scargill. I'm in his Barbican flat pissing off the balcony. History today. You see that. That's you that is. NOTHING IS FUNNY. Why are you laughing? This isn't Stewart Lee. David Mitchell is on holiday so we've got a picture of Giles Coren and Luke Haines kissing instead. It's not photoshopped. Give Charles Saatchi a column. Might as well. LABOUR ISN'T WORKING. DOUBLE WHAMMY. Full cavity search before entry. No fun allowed on the premises. Do not ask for fun or you will be banned for life. The future of nightlife. Best practice. Safety is our main priority. And money. Loads of fucking money. Harry Enfield. Paul Whitehouse. Phillip Best. Pint of best. Royal Oak. Gospel Oak. Warp Records. London is all northerners now. Fucking multiculturalism. Doesn't work. Blue Labour. I love a bit of blue. Down the Blue. Stand up geezers. Let 'em come. Pop down to Jose for some tapas. Naughty. Proper naughty. Danny Dyer. Football Factory. Secret Cinema screening on some wasteground near the Den. You will be able to take part in an authentic punch up. Dress casually. No Stoney no entry. Pie and mash and artisan chop washed down with authentic continental lager. Love it. Love London. So edgy. I moved to the area for the knife crime but I stayed for the flat whites. Let's make the flats white again. Flat white power. Doing the social media for a New Labour paramilitary group funded by Nick Cohen. We've run out of money. RESIST CORBYNISM. We're digging caves into the Hampstead hills. We've got enough wine and cheese to last us as long as the siege lasts. Box sets of the West Wing. Centrist survivalists. Moderately radical. Tora Boring. READ SOME FUCKING ORWELL. The Lion. The Unicorn. Progressive patriotism. Everyone is welcome. Apart from you. You can fuck off. Trot off. Jog on. Joggers. Everywhere. The future will be a running shoe stamping on a human face forever. Back to Asics. John Major. Edwina Curry. Gandhi's curry house. Kennington. Round the corner from where Richard & Judy used to be filmed. Iconic duos. There is nothing to decode here. Take this at surface value. Do not click on the hyperlinks. Not worth your sanity. Hasn't been worth mine. Come and talk to me at the bar. Buy me a pint. Don't mind if I do. I will lie to you. It will be moderately entertaining. It will be better than the football. It's an EFL Cup game. They're giving the kids a run round. Every single one of our institutions are crumbling. Literally. I'm where the free wi-fi is. Writing. While Babylon burns. Fuck it. Burn it. I don't care.

THIS UNSOLICITED MESSAGE HAS BEEN ENABLED BY THE BARBICAN CENTRE. SOME OF US NEVER LEAVE. WE ARE HERE. YOU WON'T SEE US. BUT WE ARE LEGION. HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT. UTOPIA. DYSTOPIA. HIGHWALKS. NEVER LOST. ALWAYS SEARCHING. SURVIVALISM. SURVIVORS. WE ARE ALL DEAD. THANK YOU.

[rupertacton]

Fuck Your London

Fuck your London. Eat food in the street but don't eat street food. Listen to road rap. Walk aimlessly. Suffer crippling anxiety and depression. Visit local museums. Talk to no one. Cry. Smoke extremely strong weed strains with stupid names. Appreciate tags. Use public transport. London is closed. Never go clubbing but sometimes do. Attend CBT sessions. Psychogeography is nostalgia masquerading as radical practice. You can't afford to watch football apart from shit games in meaningless cups. A pint is £4 at least. At a Wetherspoons it's cheaper to drink yourself stupid until you don't care about stuff. Worry about where the meat came from. Scores On The Doors is cultural imperialism masquerading as hygiene. Leave London as much as possible. Never leave London. Keep warm by burning copies of Evening Standard. Time Out is the mouthpiece of everything you hate. Love your borough. Litter as much as possible. Never pick up your dog's shit. Shut down all clubs. What's the point of non-league football anyway? Kiss your bae before she leaves for work. Don't engage with the police under any circumstances. Your Deliveroo is paid for with the blood of the workers. Your Uber driver doesn't like you. Never get caught slipping. That gig was rubbish. They get the pingers off the Dark Web. My Twitter feed is my greatest work but nobody reads it. Cyclists on the canal are worse than almost everything else. The local cafe should know exactly what you want when you walk in or it's not really your local cafe. An article in praise of gentrification. I don't know what anything means. Chemtrails target the poorest. Cancer is an urban disease. We are all dead anyway. When I die dump my body in Epping Forest to be found by dog walkers and joggers. Suicide Bridge. Jump from Number One Poultry and win the Turner Prize. Socially engaged practice. Secret Cinema are showing snuff films in ex-council properties. My post code is the only truth I know. This is my Westwood Crib Session. Vote Leave. Vote Remain. We are an equal opportunities employer. Your living wage is just enough to die for. You leave the gym and get hit by a bus. I'm the fittest I've ever been. Fight me. Film me fighting. Film London. Exposed as a snitch on social media. We only serve craft beer to people who pretend to like it. Dissent will be tolerated at pre-arranged times and in the correct format only. Fascism is back but this time it's marketing is much stronger. C18 were formed in a pub just across the park. MI5 are recruiting. I saw Iain Sinclair shooting a sub-machine gun into a crowd in Westfield Stratford. Will Self mugged me for drug money in an underpass somewhere in Stockwell. There is a bartender in the The Southampton Arms who wears shorts that are too short for him and nobody will tell him. Sam Kriss and Clive Martin are in a civil partnership. Paneer Tikka Jalfrezi from Lavang Spice. The waiter has got a Versace Belt. Your garms aren't wavey enough. Paul Mason head to toe in Moschino watching People Just Do Nothing in a glass box hanging over the Thames. I can't feel my face when I'm with you. Fascist bombers harboured in South Kensington sandwich shops. Italian connections. GLADIO. UK Funky revival nights. 90's R'nB DJ set curated by a Fine Art MA in the basement of a Turkish social club set up in the 90's with government grants and smack money. Debates in Parliament broadcast live on Boiler Room. Free Red Stripe. Guestlist only. Tiny lines of cocaine in Pat's basement from a lasagna dish. Trenton Oldfield. Laura Oldfield Ford. Old Ford Road. There are mice in the walls. THERE ARE MICE IN THE FUCKING WALLS. London Wall. London Fields. Myatts Fields. David Myatt. HOUSE EVERY WEEKEND. Herbals. Fabrics. Cargos. The old Dragon Bar. E20 is a post-postcode. Post London. A Dean Blunt exhibition. Some jeans. A kingfisher on the River Lea/Lee. Hackney Marshes. Kestrels. Peregrines at the Barking Flood Barrier. A green tide of Parakeets. The M25 cat murderer. Kenneth Noye. An alternative London where the Brink's Mat robbery never happened. All the Uber drivers are working for MI5. The police are called to an experimental music night near Brick Lane. Residents objected to the repeated screaming of the words fuck and cunt at ear splitting volume from the non-soundproofed pop up venue. Russell Haswell told us to smash the place up. There was no place to smash up. There is nowhere to smash up. Ritual sacrifices are already planned to be buried in the foundations of the Garden Bridge. It must be built to pacify the forces that London feeds on. Cities are parasites of humans. I am not a Londonist. A 93 year old woman surrounded by an audience of people having an art experience. She just wants her radio fixed and the community space in the flats opened again. She has yet to be informed that we cannot do this. Nausea. Burgess Park. Guy Burgess. FOI requests unanswered. Commercially sensitive. Peter John. Southwark Council. Lend Lease. This Antic Pub is situated in a former crackhouse. The Crackhouse serves a range of craft beers and a full food menu including Sunday Roast. Black Pudding Scotch Eggs. Film club on a Wednesday. Wooly Road. OTB. Buck. Fix Dot'm. Bagel King. Juju rituals on estates. Sneakbo turned into a black cat and calmly walked out of Brixton McDonalds. A plaque commemorating the location where Tim Westwood was shot in Kennington. Two shootings outside branches of Costcutter separated by a 15 minute stroll. Bermondsey was covered with NF posters and graffiti in the late 80's. People fled to Kent/London borders. Eltham. Welling. Bexley. Bromley. Orpington. Rochester. Grain. Beyond. I got you a voucher for the BNP Bookshop. Kids football out near Blackheath. Football dads. GBH convictions. Award ceremonies in pub function rooms just off A2 roundabouts. Lee. Joint enterprise. IPPs. Free the mandem. Every journey on public transport a litany of sacred names. FUME. TEACH. ZOMBY. Mindful vandalism. A walking tour of teen knife murder scenes led by David Cohen of the Evening Standard. I saw the image of Camilla Batmanghelidjh forming in the chemtrails over Peckham Rye. Look Up. KEEP CALM AND LOOK UP. Keep arms and carry bombs. You voted Leave for a joke. You voted for Boris Johnson to be Mayor of London for a joke. You own some vinyl records. You like bunting. You are doing balloons on London Fields. You can afford to live here. Fuck you. Read Private Eye. Everyone is moving to St Helena. Plumstead. Ascension Island. Enfield Island Village. Big sheds. Ready to burn down. Save PIAS. Save Fabric. Save ATP. Save Passing Clouds. Let them all die. Like Walthamstow Dogs. Put them out of our misery. Everything is an SWP front organisation. The RCP/LM axis run the media. We have won funniest team name at a pub quiz. The prize is lifetime Labour Party membership for all team members. We try to leave the pub without claiming the prize. The quizmaster was from a Radio 4 panel show and I saw him/her doing coke in the bogs with Mitch Benn. Nick Grimshaw and George Michael take it in turns to crash cars. They are both doing a Ballard unit at Alain de Botton's university. I watch two centre-left journalists fighting each other in a pub carpark in Loughton. Disguised in Stone Island coats. A small crowd throw money. Tyrells Crisps are buying up all available land that isn't already earmarked for shipping container villages. The Thames Barrier is going to be raised permanently and there are plans to extend it onto the land. Death to all outside. Tactical flooding. Collateral damage. I dream of Tilbury. A ferry to Gravesend. Graves. Burial. Untrue. In McDonalds. Trinity Road. Wandsworth Town. Cocaine deliveries to record labels on industrial estates. Crying. Thames Path. Battersea Park. Self sabotage. I didn't want the fucking job anyway. I need the fucking money. Helicopters take off. So Solid Crew. Winstanley. Surrey Lane. Channel U. Nikki S and Nyke. Southside. A verse literally listing places in South London. My main artistic influence. Streetz Selected DVD. GAS Gang. OC. Brooklyn. PYG. SI. OPB. ALC. PDC. CFR. 031. SUK. SMN. DSN. SN1. TN1. SMS. ABM. M16 building. Terry Farrell. A London masterplan. Madness. Acted out in the Far East. Banned from the ends. Abercrombie report. Abercrombie and Fitch. A Crombie coat and Doc Martins. Wayne Hemingway and Martin Freeman kicking the shit out of you outside a Northern Soul night. YOU LOVE IT. An authentic experience. Spare me reality. Spare me realities. The Freemasons invite you into their museum to find out about their secret brotherhood. A young man with mental health issues and sleeping in hostels approaches me in Westminster Hall. He wants the place burnt to the ground. Is this a direct threat? He asks if I would get rid of the foreigners or the super rich. Get rid. George Bernard Shaw. Fabian eugenics. Progressive politics. Best cheap breakfast in London. Terrace Cafeteria. Palace of Westminster. I don't trust any of you. The chippy. The cafe. Eastenders. Class War marching through Albert Square. Smash the system. Stop the city. Reclaim the streets. Reclaim fiction. Cable Street happening today would generate a million think pieces about freedom of speech from liberal journalists. Trigger warning. No trigger warning for Mark Duggan. The Olympics failed where the Riots succeeded. Unity. Legacy. A shared experience. I took part in none of it. You cleaned up. Problems solved. Crowd source it. Rohan Silva. Groovy capitalism. Code your way out. Tech city. The Silicon Roundabout. I saw three people pissing into the same bin there.

WE FUCKING HATE LONDON. WE ARE BEING MUGGED OFF. LEFT, RIGHT, CENTRE. FUCK YOUR LONDON. THERE IS NO LONDON. LONDON NEVER EXISTED. PSY-OPS. FALSE FLAG. MASS HALLUCINATION. FUCK YOUR LONDON.  

[rupertacton]

Countryside Alliance

23/09/2015

It was early 2003, I was 21, and I was working, in the loosest sense of the word, for a small online music magazine. We covered the more extreme and esoteric end of the electronic, industrial and metal scenes. You probably know what I mean, an unlistenable mix of Black Metal, Grindcore, Drone and a lot of other stuff that not many people actually listen to. I don't really know how I ended up working there, I was drinking a lot at the time and going to lots of gigs, but I think I met the editor/owner at an improv night that turned into a warehouse party somewhere in Shoreditch in 2001. We spent the night sniffing shit speedy coke and shouting at each other about bands we claimed to enjoy. I think I made a good impression because when I woke up on the floor of his room in a pub squat in Hackney Wick he offered me a job at his new venture.

Of course I said yes, I was broke, sleeping on friends sofas and the chance to get paid to go to gigs and write about horrible music was too good to pass up. Looking back I have no idea how the magazine was funded, there were 4 of us in the “office”, which was a shared studio space just off the Kingsland Road. I assume the owner/editor had some kind of family money because he paid us all, not much, but enough for me to get a room in a shared flat on an estate in Dalston, and we all had laptops provided, we even put on some nights that more than 10 people came to.

Having somewhere to live and some disposable income was brilliant, but in many ways having some money was a terrible thing. I could afford to buy drugs, and drink more, and whilst at the time I was having fun, I can see I wasn't happy at all. This might have something to do with the music I was getting further into. I was one of those tiresome people who said they listened to everything but I'd always liked the extreme ends of whatever genres I was into at the time. Death and black metal, gangsta rap, noise, free jazz, bubblegum pop, breakcore, you name it, if it was unlistenable or offensive I was into it. At the magazine I became the guy who wrote about Power Electronics.

This was because, even at a magazine that prided itself on being far out on the fringes of music, nobody else could be bothered with it. We all liked a bit of Whitehouse, Consumer Electronics and other stuff from the early 80's birth of the genre, but everyone else thought that was enough. Being a contrarian fuck I decided it was actually the future and spent ages writing to PO boxes to get sent tapes in the post. If you're unfamiliar with P.E. as a genre let's just say it's usually someone pushing some kind of synth to make very uncomfortable frequencies, often with someone screaming over the top and what they are screaming is usually about rape, submission, murder or genocide with artwork to match. Sometimes extreme right wing politics are thrown into the mix, sometimes it's just celebrating the work of serial killers. I was never into the politics, and didn't want to kill anyone apart from myself, but the nihilism appealed to me. I also used to justify it by saying it was the art I was interested in and the not the people behind it, and although the ideas were repulsive, it didn't take away from it's impact as art, and in many ways it helped show the hypocrisy of the increasingly decadent liberal society we were a part of. Sex, murder, death, all capitalist commodities, right? And fuck you, you like Burzum so don't be a hypocrite.

What can I say? I was drunk most of the time, high most of the time, and desperately unhappy when I wasn't one of those things. This shit worked for me. The Countryside Liberation Front tape threw me. A jiffy bag was thrown onto my desk with a “probably another shit awful Nazi power rape tape for you here” from one of my esteemed colleagues. The office banter was brilliant. I opened it and out dropped a tape, black and white photocopied cover, collage and block printed. Standard P.E. stuff. It was like the 80's never ended with these guys but when I looked a bit closer the name itself was enough for it to stand out.

The Countryside Alliance had just marched through London, they were opposed to what they saw as the anti-countryside urban political elite that were doing horrible things like attempting to ban fox hunting and other wholesome country activities. The march was huge, and was attended by Conservative politicians, landowners, farmers and other so-called custodians of this green and pleasant land. The tape was like a super militant version of this. The cover featured two balaclava clad men in full hunting gear holding shotguns and dead foxes, it folded out into an A4 collage, more images of hunting, hunt saboteurs in crosshairs, trespassers will be shot signs, images from the Countryside Alliance march, pro-hunting quotes from members of the Royal Family, and across the bottom of the page a large block printed phrase “Extreme Tory Noise”.

It looked exactly like the pamphlets which the Animal Liberation Front used to publish detailing it's actions liberating animals from testing labs and sabotaging hunts. It also shared the same aesthetic sensibilities of the pamphlets published by the far right and far left from the 60's onwards, which were a huge influence on a lot of the artwork from other Power Electronics releases. I was intrigued. The titles of the tracks were:

Side A

1.This Is Our Land

2.Blooding

3.Trespassers Will Be Shot

4.Rambler Scum

5.No Right Of Way

Side B

1.The Enclosures

2.Lynch Poachers

3.Commons And Commoners

4.Hunt Ball

5.Death Of A Sab

I had to wait to get home to listen to it. This was before the recent resurgence the cassette format for releasing music. P.E. seemed to be the only genre still actively releasing on tape and I was the only person I knew with a tape player. My walkman was out of commission after an incident with a platform and a train. I don't think anyone in the office would have appreciated me playing most of the stuff I covered anyway. I left the office in the afternoon and went home via the off licence, £6 for 5 cans of Stella, I got 10. Sorted.

For what it was, it was good stuff. It's hard now for me to work out how I could tell the difference between most of the stuff I was listening to. This tape though, it was suitably crusty, analogue, the vocals were angry, layered in feedback, and you could distinctly hear the classic British upper class accent delivering venomous missives against what they saw as their enemies, which basically seemed to be anyone from the city, anyone who opposed hunting, ramblers, left wingers, even the rural working class.  Hunt Ball and Blooding were both celebrations of post-hunt rituals but laden with a hatred of anyone who dared to oppose these rituals.

I worked my way through the beers, in my room, in a flat, in pre-gentrification Dalston, listening to what sounded like public school boys attacking my very existence, and needless to say, I fucking loved every minute of. I listened to the tape through about ten times, it was only 30 minutes long, and it chimed with my own sense of self-loathing. I was also 100% sure this was some kind of genius situationist prank, and I was going to track whoever made this down and write a feature.

The Grenadier, in the borderland between Belgravia and Knightsbridge, wasn't one of my regular pubs. I sometimes went to Hyde Park to walk around aimlessly smoking dope under the pretense of being a flaneur but missing the point entirely, and I trawled the Music & Video Exchange in Notting Hill at least once a week, but other than that West London was uncharted territory. I was sitting here waiting for the person who had answered the message I'd left on the answerphone of the contact number printed on the inside cover of the cassette. I got a call back from a private number saying I could meet a member of the “organisation” at The Grenadier. I almost laughed out loud at the tone of the call, it was perfect, it was like I was going to meet a representative of the paramilitary wing of the Countryside Alliance, hilarious.

Waiting in the pub I was feeling slightly apprehensive. It was busy, a midweek after work crowd, mixed but there was certainly more old money floating around than I was used to. A number of men were wearing penny loafers and red trousers non-ironically. In my mind I was more sartorially aware than most of the people I associated with but I was feeling a bit dressed down. West London can do this to a person. I was early, drinking nervously, which meant quickly. I was three pints in when my phone vibrated on the table, I'd been having a chat with a red faced man in a pink shirt about something, possibly football, he was getting me a drink, I had almost forgotten why I was there. I answered. Posh voice, commanding, loud:

Voice: Be a good chap, and come outside. We've got a vehicle waiting.

Me: What? One moment. (To pink shirt red face) A SHORT, WHISKY! (Phone)  

Voice: It won't hang around for long, make it a very short short.

Me: Jesus, ok, this is all very good stuff. A fucking car. What next?

The phone went dead. I downed the whisky and barged my way through the scrum. There were enough rugby shirts for me to imagine this is what an actual scrum would be like. I stumbled out of the door into the mews. I could see a green Land Rover Defender, bottom half mud caked, unusual in London, parked up, it's lights flashed at me. I composed myself and walked over. The passenger window opened, I could make out a baseball cap pulled low, Barbour coat pulled up, voice from the phone call, telling me to jump in the back.

Yes, I jumped in the back of the Land Rover. For someone who was very proud of his self-proclaimed cynicism about everything, I was pretty trusting. There was someone next to me, wearing a balaclava.

Me: This might be the best yet, this is why I love Power Electronics, which one of you is the guy?         Do you all make the music?

Balaclava: Come on old boy, let's get this on. (He had a canvas bag in his hand, he gestured towards me with it.)

Me: Oh fuck, (I was laughing), ok, ok, this is even better, I'm in, I'm in, secret location right? (I let Balaclava put the bag over my head.)

I don't know when I passed out, but I think we must have driven for about an hour. I heard someone say something about Reading Services, then someone else telling them to shut up, then I don't remember much. I had a banging headache, couldn't get word out of anyone, so I just closed my eyes. I could have taken the hood off but didn't want to ruin the mood, after all, this would make great copy for the 20 loyal readers I'd accrued. This was gonzo right? Foxhunter S. Thompson reporting for duty. I drifted off.

I woke up in a wood panelled room. I was tied to a chair. There were three men standing over me, wearing shooting gear, Hackett, Barbour jackets, colourful chinos tucked into Hunter wellington boots, all holding double barrelled shotguns, broken in the middle. To top it off they all had balaclavas on. Strong look, I thought.

Me: Why the fuck am I tied to a chair?

One of them stepped forward and ruffled my hair.

Him: Oh, just a little security precaution, we don't awfully like having the oiks visiting here, you never what they might steal.

Me: Yeah, this was funny when you picked me up, lets just do the interview, I'll write the feature, we can all part ways, 20 people will read it, they will all buy the tape, send me the next one?

Him: (laughing gently) Get him a scotch, not the best stuff.

Me: That's better.

Him: We thought you would enjoy our little tape. We saw how much you enjoyed all the others, all the terrible noises, horrible covers, shock tactics masquerading as political comment, that type of thing.

Me: And?

Him: We hoped you would contact us. We know you, we know about your trivial life, your sordid little dalliances. It amuses us greatly. Don't misunderstand us, we found you because we all share a love of loud noises, you've seen us at gigs, maybe we fund your life. Our families are very important people but they indulge us.

Me: (Despite the calming effects of the large scotch I was getting a bit impatient) This is all very good, very, very good, you guys are brilliant, but come on, get to the fucking point, I'm supposed to be reviewing an action at a gallery in Stepney or something, I think. (I was a bit confused)

Him: Well if you make it back of course.

Me: What the fuck do you mean?

Him: We've wanted to try something, put our more extreme ideas into action, hunt something a bit more interesting than a fox. You're going to be released soon enough, but you should run, very fast. (They all laughed, I'm still haunted by the sound of posh people laughing, I can't even go to pubs in East London anymore).

I woke up in a ditch, grey light, dawn, to the sound of a horn, and horses galloping. I ran. I jumped over fences, I ran through streams. I found a road, I followed it. My jeans were stuck to my skin, I was covered in mud. In retrospect it was lucky that, at the time, I dressed like a rambler anyway. My Berghaus anorak had certainly not had a workout like this in London. I could still hear the hunt behind me. I thought so anyway. Now I'm not so sure, but I kept running.

I made it back. I cut off the road across a field, I could see what looked like a motorway services on the other side. I threw myself over a fence and landed in a carpark. Leigh Delamere. I'd never been so happy to see people, normal people, a Costa coffee sign, a McDonalds logo. I checked my pockets. I had my wallet. I was muddy, but no one really noticed. I went into the toilets. I took care of myself. I sat in the services. I decided that the life I was living wasn't really for me. Yes, transgressive art and politics can be interesting, but you should be careful about what you involve yourself in, what you advocate. You might end up on the wrong side. They might not like you.

Photograph by Verity-Jane Keefe

[rupertacton]

The Coming War

“We will blow the fuckers to smithereens” said Akela as he carefully put the IED together.

The fighting had been getting more intense. What started as a few isolated clashes centred around Brownsea Island and the rest of Poole Bay had begun to spread around the country. The Scouts operated with greater numbers and this numerical advantage defined the early skirmishes, but as the Woodcraft Folk, and it's more radical splinter groups, were pushed further underground they adopted guerrilla tactics, which meant that the Scouts were forced to adopt more innovative methods to suppress what they saw as the subversive activities of these smaller youth movements.

Youth movements had become extremely important in the years following the Great Disturbances. The remnants of the traditional power structures had entered into an uneasy alliance, a Centrist Coalition, that, despite it's name, was authoritarian in nature and deeply bound to the Royal Family and the Aristocracy. They argued that it had to be, to stop the country falling into complete chaos. Martial Law was put in place indefinitely and the more troublesome regions and cities had strict curfews imposed upon them. The Scouts had become essential to imposing these new conditions.

They were one of the few groups outside of the Police and the Army who were bound by a code of loyalty to the Royal Family, and more importantly, they consisted of the young and the healthy. As well as stamping down on subversive elements within the schools, they were mobilised into Bob a Job Squads, providing services and acting as a vigilante police force in regions where the remaining Police Service had dwindled to a handful of older pre-Disturbance members and become ineffective for the level of control needed from the government.

Knot tying and camping were still part of Scout activity, but small arms training and hand to hand combat were added, along with recruits from the various cadet groups of the armed services. As waves of civil unrest still swept across the country the Scout base at Brownsea Island was fortified, the John Lewis Group were expelled, and with the help of the ever loyal National Trust, the island became a paramilitary training centre for elite Scouts from across the country.

The Woodcraft Folk were slow to react, due to the nature of the organisation they were reluctant to react to the increased militarisation of the Scouts. Passive resistance and non-violent civil disobedience were the initial tactics. A heated Althing was held 2 years into the Scout's new role in enforcing government policies, some District Fellows argued that they should become part of the wider Scouting movement, some proposed splitting away and reforming the Kibbo Kift Kindred, dark ideas which had lain dormant within the movement for many years started to rise to the surface, others proposed continuing passive resistance or waiting for a return to democracy.

A small group of South-east London based District Fellows decided to do something else. They knew there was a small cache of arms still hidden on a local estate from before the Disturbances swept the country. Including the Venturers and Pioneers they numbered around 20. At the Althing they managed to persuade a number of other groups to join them, not revealing anything except that the time for passive resistance and non-violence was over.

In the back room of a youth centre in Brockley the first Thing of the new Woodcraft Armed Volunteer Force (WAVF) took place. London was still relatively free from Government intervention, the GLA still retaining a level of control and a semblance of democratic process, which meant that a meeting such as this could only go ahead within the walls of M25 Security Cordon. Consisting of about fifty 10-20 year olds of both sexes, the meeting was heated. Plans were discussed, anger was expressed at the way the Scout's were shutting down Woodcraft meetings, the adult leadership of the Woodcraft Folk were criticised for colluding with and appeasing the Scouts out of fear for retaliation and the creeping fascism that was becoming part of everyday life in the name of “order” was loudly decried.

The arms cache was revealed, handguns, sub-machine guns and about 20 grenades were the remains of a long forgotten street gang's arsenal. Some people at the meeting were shocked when they saw the actual reality of the weapons but armed resistance was unanimously supported by all in attendance. Although the arsenal was small it was enough to start training a core group of District Commandos in Oxleas Wood near Charlton. Members from the regions were sent out of the M25 Cordon with instructions to start cells in their own Woodcraft groups. Training publications were created, with ideological justifications of breaking the vows to pacifism that all Woodcraft Folk took, instructions on bomb making, hand to hand combat and how to react when interrogated.

The first attacks on Scout Huts occurred in the London area. Mainly vandalism and petrol bombings. Disaffected Scouts started to be recruited for double agent work and infiltration, many within the movement were disillusioned with the way they were being used by the ageing leadership to uphold a government that stood against a lot of what they had been taught in modern Scouting. This led to a mass clampdown on both dissident Scouts and Woodcraft Folk around the country. Meetings were to be fully vetted for revolutionary content and members of dissident groups were put under state surveillance.

The original Brockley based cell, now calling itself the Brockley Thing in tribute to one of the original Woodcraft Folk chapters, and with an as yet unused arsenal of guns, ammunition and grenades went fully underground. The older District Fellows went across country, breaching the security cordon and staying with sympathisers, as they made their way to Poole Habour. Money was siphoned from Woodcraft Folk accounts, now being disbanded and handed over to Scout and Beaver groups, into the accounts of a small boat charter company run by a former District Fellow and plans were put in place for an attack on Brownsea Island, the home of the Scouts.

In many ways it was a symbolic attack, a declaration of war. The Brockley Thing members, numbering 10 in total, arrived at Brownsea Island just before dawn in two small inflatables. They landed on a stretch of sandy beach and quickly moved into the wood that covered most of the island. 5 of them headed towards the huge former hotel for John Lewis employees that now housed the Scout leadership and the other 5 headed towards the camp on the other side of the island used for training the elite Scouts.

The attack was completely unexpected, although the Scouts had intelligence that the more radical elements within the rival organisation were espousing a more hands on approach to resistance they had no idea about the small group from London and the arms cache. Around 10 Scouts and 2 District Fellows from the Brockley Thing were killed in the fighting that ensued, one member of the Brockley group was taken prisoner, and 3 Scouts were kidnapped. The surviving members of the Brockley Thing escaped on the inflatables with their hostages, landing on an isolated stretch of  Poole Harbour near the Arne RSPB Reserve, where they were met by the remaining members of the cell.

The reaction was almost immediate, all non-Scout approved youth organisations were banned outright and members were made to leave or face arrest and indefinite detentions. As the small rebel cell moved across country they were pursued by Scouts, both groups making use of the outward bound training they had all received on camping trips before the Great Disturbances and the trade war with the EU that left Britain isolated and cut off from the rest of the world with only it's history and landscape left to hang on to.

The original group were apprehended trying to re-enter London after a number of engagements with Scout Troops throughout Dorset, Hampshire and on towards the M25. They were all executed on the spot, 2 of the 3 Scouts who were taken hostage were also executed for aiding their kidnappers. However, the attack and ensuing crackdown, ensured that the ideas of that first meeting in the back room of the youth centre in Brockley had taken hold around the country. Small leaderless cells sprang up from the remains of the illegal groups. District Fellows, some working from within the Scouts, mounted a sustained guerrilla campaign of bombings and shootings. The Scouts mounted their own campaign, and the Government struggled to control the group they created, who were now more concerned with destroying the Woodcraft Folk and their allies than maintaining order. The arms came flooding into the country from around the world, war was coming and the child soldiers of Britain were ready to fight.

[rupertacton]

THE CARETAKER

The Londoners were the best. They were the most fun. As they headed out in the morning, maybe to walk the Coastal Path, maybe to one of the local attractions, the Caretaker would head in. The job was perfect for someone with such a curious disposition. There was always a risk of getting caught, but there was always a reasonable explanation. Some people would actually be thankful for such professional and attentive service, leaving special mentions in the guestbook. It was the guestbooks which first got the Caretakers attention, tiny little windows into the lives of the people who ghosted in and out of the cottage as the weeks of summer passed by.

It started as a summer job to earn some extra money in the holidays and became a career. There wasn't much other work around, the economy of the area was entirely dependent on tourism and, besides, the fringe benefits were more than enough. After working at a number of different properties in the area the Caretaker had now been settled looking after the same cliff top cottage for many years now. It was located on a stretch of coastline owned by the Heritage Society and the Caretaker's cottage was located a short walk from the holiday cottage, but tucked away, creating the illusion for the holidaymakers of being somewhere quite remote.

Of course this illusion was only mostly true. The village in the cove at the bottom of the cliffs was far enough away to be forgotten about but close enough to provide a pub that was a walk away. There were a number of other properties on the cliff-top, mostly holiday homes, either owned by private individuals or the Heritage Society. The holiday cottage slept 3, mainly attracting couples, or people with one young child, older couples, and the occasional, slightly awkward, group of friends. It was expensive in the summer, less so in the winter, and the clientèle changed accordingly. It was mainly people from the cities; Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and, more often than not, London.

It started with the keeping of little mementos, people often left things in the cottage when they had left, and the Caretaker saw no harm in keeping something discarded by people who seemed to have more than enough stuff already. Hairbands, tins of food, socks, underwear, leaflets, scribbled notes, books, receipts. It was enjoyable but frustrating, you could only get a vague idea of the people from these tiny little scraps, and the Caretaker craved more.

It helped that they often left the cottage for the whole day, only to return at night, to cook, and drink, and make love, or play board games, or argue. There was a spot between the cottages, just behind the hedge and stone wall which separated the gardens, where the caretaker could sit and listen to all this happen. This, combined with the mementos gleaned whilst getting the cottage ready for the next guests, sufficed for a year or so. The next step was obvious, but building up the courage to enter the cottage while people were staying took time. Getting caught without a convincing explanation would almost certainly lead to disciplinary action and either a move or a sacking, and neither of these things would do.

After a year the Caretaker had worked out when people were leaving for the day, and not just popping to the shop. The backdoor to the holiday cottage could be reached via the garden and this meant the Caretaker could avoid the path and reach the door without much risk of being seen by anyone. The walkers were the easiest to predict. If they left in the morning with full backpacks and walking boots on, they were almost certain not to return until dusk. The visits started tentatively, pushing the key into the lock and entering the cottage was an act of transgression, the beating of the Caretakers heart seemed to echo through the cottage.

Despite some near misses with people returning early, walks disrupted by arguments, visits to local attractions that worked the opposite effect on the metropolitan couples, the Caretaker managed to continue visiting the cottage. The thrill of crossing the boundary into other peoples lives gradually wore off but the Caretaker's fascination didn't.

Taking small objects for the Caretaker's growing collection became the central part of each visit to the cottage. Sticking to things that often went missing or wouldn't be noticed limited what the Caretaker could take but after a few years the collection was respectably large. Questions of taxonomy, classification and storage quickly became important. Each object had a number, which corresponded to an entry into a growing series of log books with details relating to the date and time found with a brief description of the object and the people who it once belonged to. After the purchase of a cheap laptop these log books were also backed up digitally, and the purchase of a digital camera meant each entry could have a corresponding image.

Storage and display of objects was a problem that needed to be solved carefully, the Caretaker wanted easy access to the collection but was very aware of not leaving too much of the collection on display, as guests and fellow Heritage Society employees would occasionally show up at the front door, or, annoyingly, pop in for tea or a chat.

Over time the Caretaker started to create a hierarchy of objects. There was an archive area in a series of wardrobes and chests of drawers in the bedroom, many of these objects would only be accessed occasionally, they consisted of things considered less interesting, generic objects that said little without the corresponding information from the database. The display collection, which was rotated a few times a year, was kept in the study, a room that no visitor would ever need to see. Certain objects from the archive appeared in the display collection but there was always a large percentage of new objects and a few objects that never left. These untouchables included the first object the Caretaker took and a few large pieces that were left behind by guests who never tried to reclaim them. There was also a small handling collection of the most tactile and texturally interesting pieces in the collection, that was added to and archived at regular intervals in relation to the Caretaker's current obsessions.

As the collection grew it started to tell different stories and the Caretaker would search for new meanings from the objects. Arranging and rearranging the collection started to reveal the fashions, food fads, music trends, book reading habits, politics, sexual fetishes and more of a group of people the Caretaker would never have got to know otherwise. At first it was pasta, then couscous, then quinoa. At first it was La Perla, then Agent Provocateur, then Victoria's Secret. At first it was chocolate body paint, then furry handcuffs, then butt plugs. At first it was Riders, then Bridget Jones, then 50 Shades of Grey. All of these trends overlapped and reappeared, sometimes the Caretaker would pick a subject and curate a specific exhibition, cross referencing objects from over the years and grouping them thematically, sometimes the Caretaker would pick a year, or series of years,  and exhibit only objects found within that time frame.  

The individuals slowly became less interesting than the objects for the Caretaker. Listening to the talking, bickering, sex, drunken arguments, jokes, and debates, which was once so thrilling, became of secondary importance to the collection and it's constant demand for new artefacts. A small storage unit in the closest town was rented for overspill objects or objects deemed less likely to be relevant or important in the future. It was becoming harder to conceal the collection, which the Caretaker now liked to think of as a museum, A Museum of Them, them being the city dwellers who appeared then disappeared, leaving behind tiny traces of their lives in the small slice of rural paradise they temporarily inhabited for the duration of their visit to the cottage.

When the Police came, accompanied by senior Heritage Society staff, they found the body of the Caretaker in the study/exhibition space, surrounded by the objects, the database still open on the laptop. The existence of The Museum of Them was quietly and quickly dismantled, a couple of stories about the death of the loyal Heritage Society Caretaker appeared in the Parish quarterly and the local paper.  The funeral was attended by a few co-workers and some people from the village. The Caretaker was cremated and a new caretaker was tasked with looking after the needs and desires of the cottage and it's temporary residents.  

Images courtesy of Verity-Jane Keefe

[rupertacton]

ALA

00:00, Monday, Strata Tower, Elephant & Castle, London

Broken glass, the twisted remains of Boris Bikes, the smell of explosives, the sound of alarms. 

The aftermath of the explosion was exciting, shocking, scary, empowering and dangerous. They all agreed on this. Despite the lack of deep structural damage they all felt the point had been made. The entire concierge/reception area was destroyed. The area around Elephant & Castle was closed to traffic. This would last well until the next day at least. Debris would have to cleared from the road and train tracks, and the investigations by the Police and the Fire Services would have to be completed before things got back to normal. There had been no casualties, although they had all gone into this knowing that security staff and residents were all at risk of serious injury or even death. Like all terrorists, which they now most definitely were, they had considered the risk to the general public, staff and residents worth it for the purposes of raising the awareness of their cause, in fact, they considered it an integral part of it.

Sitting in their safe room, deep in the corridors of one of London's most prestigious universities, the mood was somehow both subdued and heightened. Elation at a successful operation was mixed with an intense realisation of what they had actually done. The wine bottles were being emptied at a much faster rate than the packets of Kettle Chips. They wondered what the less militant members of their informal pub based talking shop would make of the “action”, and would anyone guess it was them. The next meeting was due that week, and they expected the attack on the Strata would dominate discussion. The tower was universally hated by everyone who passed through the group.  It wasn't just architecturally without merit, it also represented everything they thought was wrong with planning policy in London, and in a wider way what they all feared was the future for London and the whole of the country.

The 4 members of the cell had grown tired of the discussions in various London pubs. They were hardly impotent discussions, many of the people who joined them held positions of influence in academia, local government and the media, some elements of what they discussed even made their way into public policy and guides to architectural best practice. Most people in the group were more or less resigned to this, seeing no alternative but to work within the system and try to better it or at least ameliorate the worst elements of the current situation.

Calls for direct but peaceful action were also listened to, and demonstrations were arranged.  Property trade shows, building sites and planning meetings became the site of regular interventions. All 4 of them took part in these, none of them were from backgrounds of direct activism, but they had joined various demonstrations in the past and this seemed like more of the same. Outside of the small world of the architectural press and academia there didn't seem to be much interest.  Planning wasn't an easy sell to news editors compared to violent Islamicism or the rise of various fringe political parties.

Being arrested at the demonstration arranged at the MIPIM trade fair changed everything. All 4 of them were arrested together. All 4 resisted arrest, all 4 felt the feeling of truncheon against skin and the feeling of being treated as common criminals for peacefully expressing their views. They were released without charge in the end but soon after they started meeting separately from the rest of the group. Reading lists were discussed, architectural criticism was replaced by the various manifestos and start up guides published by terrorist groups of all political and religious persuasions that were freely available on the internet. These covered everything from bomb making recipes to anti­surveillance techniques to how to successfully package your attack for social networks and the conventional media.

It was a steep learning curve, the first training camp was a shambles. There were some delightful walks through the countryside from the Anglesey holiday cottage that belonged to an unassuming friend, but at the end of the 4 days they all agreed that a nice weekend away wasn't really preparation for a sustained campaign of terror. The next time they stepped it up. No pubs, no meals out, no visits to bird sanctuaries or National Trust properties or disused Nuclear Power Plants. The first explosive device was tested and successfully detonated somewhere in Snowdonia National Park. The friend who owned the place in Anglesey just assumed they were all having affairs with each other and didn't want to question why they kept using the cottage.

They took sabbaticals from their various posts at universities, or their public sector planning jobs.  This was common practice and no one really took much notice. Everyone thought they were writing books. They took care to maintain the same radical but moderate opinions they usually expressed. They visited the Shard, the Walkie Talkie, the Gherkin and many other buildings in London, profiling the targets, identifying weak points in security, looking at the risk to themselves and to the people who work or live in the targeted buildings. They struggled with the ethical implications of the possibility of killing innocent people, the damage it could do to the cause they were trying to further and the personal impact of becoming criminals and terrorists.

They collectively decided that they had gone too far to stop now. In some ways they had become infatuated with the idea of terror and imposing their will on the general public for it's own sake but they also thought people had become entirely complacent, most of the population not even having the vaguest clue about what was being done, and not really caring when they did. They considered themselves the only people who could actually wake people up to what was happening: The immense property scams conducted by developers, both in collaboration with and at the expense of local councils and central government. The use of urban regeneration as a smokescreen for the social cleansing of London. The rapid gentrification of large swathes of the city. The empty towers full of luxury flats with overseas owners. The rise of pseudo­public space. The nightclubs and pubs closing down.

The Strata stands like a three eyed Cyclops watching over the battered corpse of what was once the Heygate Estate. The wind rushes across the empty plaza at it's feet but never seems to turn the three wind turbines in it's head. A man in a fleece, sensible shoes and cords is placing a small package carefully near the entrance to the lobby, the security guard is dealing with a difficult woman claiming to be a resident, she's asked him to come across the road to help her with some bags and he has obliged despite himself. Two people are sitting in a car parked in a back street just off the Walworth Road, one is holding a makeshift remote detonator made from an old NOKIA 3210, one is holding a stolen untraceable smartphone, simultaneously the detonator is pressed and the manifesto of London's newest terrorist group is published online...

Image courtesy of Verity-Jane Keefe

[rupertacton]

An Anthropology Of 18 Objects: The Debrief

All 18 pieces are now posted. If you want to buy the publication featuring all the objects for the bargain price of £5 it is available here: 

http://rupertacton.bigcartel.com/product/an-anthropology-of-18-objects

If you want to see some of the pieces performed live there will be a London show coming very soon. Watch this space for further details of that.

I hope you've enjoyed all 18 objects, it was definitely a good experience working this way and there will be more stuff like this in the future I hope.

In the forthcoming months there will be A LOT MORE MUSIC on here. Keep an eye out for exciting developments with the ever ongoing SYLO project and a tasty little free download EP featuring production from 184, Naim, Kissinger and Kams.

One love, as Blue said.

[rupertacton]

Number 18: Basket

Number 18 from An Anthropology of 18 Objects, a publication that I made in collaboration with Verity-Jane Keefe.

I participated in The Horniman Museum’s Community Fieldworkers project in early 2014. 34 South Londoners were invited to respond to 18 objects from the museum’s anthropology collection.

The publication is available to buy here.

[rupertacton]

Number 17: Snuff Spoon

Number 17 from An Anthropology of 18 Objects, a publication that I made in collaboration with Verity-Jane Keefe.

I participated in The Horniman Museum’s Community Fieldworkers project in early 2014. 34 South Londoners were invited to respond to 18 objects from the museum’s anthropology collection.

The publication is available to buy here.

[rupertacton]

Number 16: Shredding Tool

Number 16 from An Anthropology of 18 Objects, a publication that I made in collaboration with Verity-Jane Keefe.

I participated in The Horniman Museum’s Community Fieldworkers project in early 2014. 34 South Londoners were invited to respond to 18 objects from the museum’s anthropology collection.

The publication is available to buy here.

[rupertacton]

Number 15: Teapot

Number 15 from An Anthropology of 18 Objects, a publication that I made in collaboration with Verity-Jane Keefe.

I participated in The Horniman Museum’s Community Fieldworkers project in early 2014. 34 South Londoners were invited to respond to 18 objects from the museum’s anthropology collection.

The publication is available to buy here.

[rupertacton]

Number 14: Mask

Number 14 from An Anthropology of 18 Objects, a publication that I made in collaboration with Verity-Jane Keefe.

I participated in The Horniman Museum’s Community Fieldworkers project in early 2014. 34 South Londoners were invited to respond to 18 objects from the museum’s anthropology collection.

The publication is available to buy here.