English stew

Just when you thought it was safe to get back on the trains...

Stranded passengers leave trains

Bit like those recorded messages at call centres isn't it,"we know you are waiting" and you finally hang up in anger.

And you'll love this one:

Pregnant woman shot dead in 'parking' dispute

Sounds like the Housing Association I live in (bit like the American housing co-ops only without co-op). Every couple of months you get sent a little glossy brochure from the über association with happy smiling faces, particularly of ethnic minorities. Blurbs describing how fantastic every tenant feels and how their lives have been transformed. The truth is far from...

The various contractors need no coaxing to elucidate on that. I've put up with clutter in the front hallway for years. Then a bike, traversing space getting smaller, and now a bigger bike making it almost impassible. You'd think it was a joke wouldn't you until you read headlines like that in The Telegraph. but we won't name names yet shall we. A little stew anyone?

Someone else the conventional English wise don't like is artist Steve McQueen. Good Artforum review of his Queen and Country by Brit. Martin Herbert. The show travels to London soon. Great article on Saul Levine's films too in the same issue.

Nothing to do with London (unless you live around Dalston) but nice to see that Reha Erdem's Times and Winds I mentioned a while ago has done well at New York's Tribeca Fest.

Tonight (and online for a week) is Nightwaves, hosted by the long ago ousted ex-ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) director Philip Dodd. Contemporary Utopias (how appropriate) and the wonderful Brit doco maker Molly Dineen about her new one. She was definitly in the linage of the Maysles brothers and Fred Wiseman spending upwards of a year or more with her subjects, preferring camera to video, but feeling the need to 'cast' her main subjects.
Molly Dineen and her new film 'The Lie of the Land'
and British Farming Forum and a brief int
Screens Thursday 21.00 tonight and you can watch it on Channel Four's website but only if you're in the UK, alas, and not as video on demand. Those reading this overseas can, however, watch a revealing and honest spot on BBC's Newsnight Is France too Serious? in which Britain's French cultural attaché, Sophie Claudel, says it is time for the French to be more self-critical.

Worth listening to last night's Nightwaves too for a better understanding of current Brit politics.