You and I......

ME. YOU. I. THEY. US. THEM. THE...
You know what is ffffffrustating interesting about America is how unnnnfnn-interested they are in the recent Brexit vote. Americans still think of Europe as somewhat of a Louis XVI Disney movie. No offence. I/we love Louis and Dizy!

It took Andrew almost 3 fff years to get his UK citizenship. No queue jumping. All legit. By that time he was totally beleaguered and couldn't apply for any jobs in Europe. Full circle. Now. I don't know what else to say about all that. Funny/horrid/despicable. Life. That perhaps the same would/world now.

When I wrote for The European in the ‘90’s I received nil expenses: slept on floors, trains. ..Rarely, very rarely slept on or against any humans ! They trusted me and one hopes the trust was reciprocated.

Crossed the Berlin Wall to watch Die Volksbühne perform Bulgakov‘s The Master and Margarita (and gave my friends tickets to a so-called sold out Communist house. Favors must be…I …should have just given the tickets to the desperate East German thesps who begged me for a ticket. Fool me…

Where is all this going? Well, we all (well maybe not quite…) want to be part of THAT world. Is it now a bigger world? Did/does/ doesn’t now make a bigger world for the U.K..? Like the United Nations. The European Union is a fantastic idea that came to fruition. But did it ever offer, in reality, that much to anyone. Significantly. Especially the U.K. ? Occasionally. The facts speak for themselves. I ain't sittin' on a fence here. I totally applaud Cameron's bravely in screwing his colours to a sticking place...Yet: was the idea – as great as it is/was greater than the sum of its parts?

Prime Minister David Cameron was very brave to leave a/that decision to democracy. VERY! Wasn’t it a famous Brit PM who spoke a great spake re: democrats….! Democracy..the worse of....
President Obama almost got not elected! Perhaps that will be true for…..

Feel sad that with all the technology possible in one human hand the world has not yet got bigger but significantly decreased in stature! All the great photographs that could be but yet never are. Walter Benjamin. Umberto Eco. Please don't rise from heaven or the grave to be both disappointed and conformed in your brave distopia...

time has told me...

Judging from the ecstatic reviews/commentary on Olivia Chaney‘s website I am way way behind in discovering this folk singer/songwriter/Purcell/Nick Drake lover’s talents. But as she admits/opines about her career, she wasn’t ever exactly ‘zeitgeist’. She performs at the London Festival of Baroque Music on Sunday.

Architect Zaha Hadid is dead

I just read that Zaha is no more. Well: she will ever be more because that was who she was/is. Enough was never a word attached to her work ethic. I often joked (well it was no joke) that I would love a Zaha bungalow at the bottom of my garden. A little out of my price range, alas. As should be any great talent who has fought so hard and become a name on the world stage of their craft. Sorry to 'float' a conspiracy theory but she did die of a 'normal' heart attack in Miami didn't she? I can well imagine that for some many people a long long respite in the netherworld would make them....
sorry for that- but you know why I wrote it. (Anyone ever seen The Parallax View- great movie [and of course a total work of fiction,,,,,////,,,,,,,/,,......)......./.....)

I used to be an architecture 'cat' roaming the 'buzz' of the Architectural Association in London. I know the 90s buzz became a bit of a 'purr' in the new millennium but Zaha Hadid's ghost forever roamed the windmills and corridors of those students' minds. And will mine as well...

لتكن القوة معك 

we are talking architecture NSA- not something any of you know anything about. (Well- one or 2 of you know structural engineering- but you pale into insignificance compared to Zaha's intel...) - well she's gone now. Good night and good luck. 

Both Sides Now (originally was linking to Shadows and Light but there's something quite 'personal' about the former song that is probably somehow in a very unusual way more apt for Dame Zaha Hadid).

Zaha Hadid. The Peak Project, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China, Exterior perspective.1991. Medium: Synthetic polymer on paper mounted on canvas (©2016 Zaha Hadid) 

Maggie's Centre Fife

Un chant: Brussels March 22, 2016

Bruxelles -JacquesBrel

this was written in one uncorrected 'blogging' sitting.so there may be minor changes to come..

Please stop this senseless killing. Fundamentalists: I know the West is full of hypocrisy,. But it is more so full of beautiful things. As is the Islamic State. The West has forever and a day waged religious wars. To no effect and to what cost? And the Muslims may say so why should we stop? But so many of your brethren totally abhor what you do. What you stand for. Many don’t believe in ‘Western greed’ any more than you do. Many, though, have a far better life in the ‘West’. You can’t blame them for wanting that. And that for their children and spouses.

The ‘West’ has an absolutely appalling history of colonialism. But were the Islamic states in reality that much different? Hasn’t almost every nation had ‘hegemony’ as intrinsic to its agenda? The Swiss being the exception. Except, arguably, they piggybacked an agenda (highly distasteful to them=Nazi anti-Semitism) and made their country’s fortune on the unclaimed Jewish wealth in their bank accounts). That is true btw and the Swiss had to pay out eventually. But it was tiny compared to the compound interest amassed.

I believe Prime Minister Tony Blair (hindsight is a great thing PM: Genghis Khan felt he made mistakes too-methinks a C20 dinner with Genghis might be more.... ) and President Bush made one of the biggest mistakes in C20th history by their actions after the 9/11 attacks.  And I would ask Muslim fundamentalists to think again about their actions when the innocent die for no reason. You may argue that Americans didn’t care about Muslim interests back then. And you may well be right. It took the body bags of innocent American sons and daughters on their parents’ doorsteps (figuratively) for American families finally to start asking: what war are we fighting? And the painful truth is: New Yorkers would care 'less' about dead Belgiums than they would about dead New Yorkers. Now I've said it! If that had been NY today things would have been very different. But why so? Isn't that the terrible arrogance of human existence?!

The IRA fought for a just cause against the British but was that cause also negatively self-perpetuating? Could one ever condone the slaughter of innocent civilians? I would argue no, but others (Gerry Adams) may cogently argue the opposite.

The NSA (National Security Agency) believes (or cogently argues its continued government funding) that they can defeat Fundamentalism by ‘controlling all the communications’ of our planet whilst riding roughshod over democratic Constitutional rights. Donald Trump may indeed cogently argue the same. And occasionally they may prevent some catastrophe. But: as the IRA famously said (they did) after the Margaret Thatcher 1984 Brighton bombing : Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once – you will have to be lucky always.

The NSA are fighting a no-win battle against rogue humans. (I'm not sorry if that offends you. It is a statement of fact. Not support for terrorism.) So oftentimes you will win Fundamentalist Muslims. But WHAT are you winning? WHAT? Ask yourselves that? More dead people? People who could so easily be your neighbor, your son, daughter, spouse, fruit vender, tourist agent? WHAT? And what are YOU winning NSA? 

You may not like me invoking the Pope of all people. He cited Thomas Merton on his visit to America. The Pope championed a man who retreated from those Western values that you so abhor. As many do. And I would argue you could practice your own religion much as Merton did. If you feel an outsider then one is not alone in this world. The world celebrates, for the most part, conformity. And yet being different makes most of the money. Go figure. Humans are really screwy! Animals seem so much more switched on. Except those (or is just the squirrels gravitating to me) that think sofa fiber is food. Maybe they are smart in some way and I am the stupid one. Maybe a Ramadan squirrel (who's a little...). 

President Obama is a good man. He wants change. He wants to help Muslims. But you tie his hands when you keep killing.  Some say his current visit to Cuba is just all hand shaking and flag waving. But oh my g! Did he have the balls to do it. He’s got balls but he is, alas, only human.  And he only has so much time left in office. So you may say, so why should we bother? Why hope for anything then? Because clearly Fundamentalists do hope for something. But shouldn’t it be something great within yourself/ oneselves?  

FUCK the world. You answer to yourself. Look at the shit Galileo had to deal with!  (too many great words to quote...) (apologies for my merde francaise…) So what possible excuse could you have to destroy it? If it is anger then I totally hear you. Totally. But where has the world ever got by destroying things? Nowhere. And the great thing about being human is that we get somewhere. We make things. Some of them may be crap. A lot may not be quite perfect. But it is possible to travel to a new plateau. And even if we just look out of the window: surely there is something worth contemplating rather than destroying. Surely! 

[A documentary image from last year still haunts me. It is a cat limping delinquent in the demolished streets of Homs. Burnt to the skin, almost legless, crying in pain to the camera. You think to yourself: it is just a cat. It is just...
and then there are no more words.]

Dans le Port d Amsterdam

The heart's a hunter, lonely always. (Tennessee Williams-perhaps...)

Wine comes in at the mouth

And love comes in at the eye;

That’s all we shall know for truth

Before we grow old and die.

I lift the glass to my mouth,

I look at you, and I sigh.

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass

From moonlit place to place,

The sacred moon overhead

Has taken a new phase.

Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils

Will pass from change to change,

And that from round to crescent,

From crescent to round they range?

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass

Alone, important and wise,

And lifts to the changing moon

His changing eyes.

W.B. Yeats

When the legend becomes fact, print the legend...

Spotlight is the kind of film you feel obliged to see fearing pangs of enjoyment denial. Well: director Tom McCarthy, on his credits, makes films very simply about very complex individuals and events. Spotlight is no exception. Great about McCarthy is that he never seems interested in taking a moral stance, though morality and hypocrisy of story every which way are thrust in your face. Inevitably. Just never by this director. No need. The story of Spotlight is everywhere to be found. What’s worth stressing about this movie is its humanity. No-one/where is ever a saint. Interesting that Spotlight and The Club (March 25) are released in the same year. It isn’t a wet liberal minded conscious we are talking about here. It is the hypocrisy of the moral high ground in a world where almost no-one can make claim to that territory. Even when you map read at some time you too will falter.

A controversial double-bill (did Mubi steal my double-billing-great minds/hommage think alike;) with Jim Loach's Oranges and Sunshine?

Don’t bother to explain…