There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by a Sword. The other is by debt. John Adams 1735-1826

Recently I have been taking advantage of my repaired Canon G12. Whilst on lunch break at work I scuttled down to the square to grab some colourful images of the succulent foods being sold at the European Food Market. Feeling slightly disenchanted that I could not do an interview due to the limited amount of stories that Bournemouth cultivates, someone had unsurprisingly snapped this one up. so instead i took pictures.

 In response to the bleak atmosphere that everyone is feeling; There is hope

Making sense of the riots?

'Can we even imagine what it means to be a young man in a poor, racially mixed area, a priori suspected and harassed by the police, not only unemployed but often unemployable, with no hope of a future? The implication is that the conditions these people find themselves in make it inevitable that they will take to the streets. The problem with this account, though, is that it lists only the objective conditions for the riots. To riot is to make a subjective statement, implicitly to declare how one relates to one’s objective conditions.’ Zizek 2011: London Review

WHAT IS PROGRESS?

A Medieval Graveyard in London has accommodated plague culprits for centuries said coronary scientists. Turned out the graveyard in Southwark is one I used to attend monthly ritual meetings in memory of the prostitutes buried there. Deloitte is delightfully digging up these bodies to incarcerate concrete foundations for a flash new business block instead. Sadly it seems these women will always be cast as the plague?

Here are some disposable pictures of friends and family that I took over the summer using a disposable and a super sampler four lens lomography camera. The latter are supposed to capture images in motion, however they all look pretty much the same stand still. As the forth coming months in Bournemouth approach I realise how much I will miss the commotion of the city, the laughs and deep sentimentality I experienced everyday in an old student house in the midst of South East London. Runs to telegraph hill, Nunhead cemetry and endless coffee breaks at Browns. The deadlines that unpicked and poached at the seams of each co-habitants calm facade has left me endangered in falsely gratifying new future bonds. Phone calls are not the same, I am left to grieve books and friendships.

Besides my revelling in self pity, I start an MA journalism tomorrow morning at Bournemouth University. Last minute decision; to try and equip me with skills for the job circuit- I feel like I am going in blind folded the thoughts that supplemented my graduate blues of walking in limbo may leave me walking in deadly regretful shadows for next year. This all may seem very dramatic but the cuccoon that Bournemouth builds around it’s inhabitants is extra repulsive for an individual who feels indebted to break it’s walls. I am currently sitting in a new hide away I have found (whilst trying to get a part-time waitress job) over hearing a conversation about putting strange objects such as battery packs in one’s mouth. This is rather refreshing to hear, I miss these strange topical conversations- when suddenly go missing you find yourself searching for new strange groups of people to build strange conversations with. You never know what you will learn. London is the kind of place where you have to build yourself on conversations of the unknown; of what you might find yourself talking about. I have had the most strange conversations with the most interesting individuals, wondering automatically becomes addictive.

So tomorrow, what awaits me should be interesting. Consuming myself in even more studies whilst living with my family whose lifestyles and schedules are utterly consumed in soap opera media and big brother; hence my only form of interesting encounters is to sit in restaurants alone around the town and write this reflective blog.  

day 3 of intermittent hell

Today after a near reaching 11 hours in the library, not really sure exactly the impact that has had on me, it did in fact make me feel like i was levitating, as if an innate power had conquered the gravity beneath my spine. And then i realised it was not God but red bull and pro plus.

two weeks of dissertation solitude. I hope to remember this for the rest of my life.

Rule number 1. never give up. Ironically if that means staying sat in the same position until deadline, then so be it. You are allowed to day dream, who is around to stop you? This is where the tricks with yourself start to emerge, you are on your own. your own demon.

So, in the process of day dreaming i began to reminisce about the person i wanted to be while i was growing up. I think the fact I am staying in my family home maybe partially culprit. Anyway, i started to look at the walls around me and thought deeply about the hard work my parents had fuelled into this house so much that the dead rooms became suffocated with a white noise. It is almost as if history is scratched into the bricks, circulating an invisible film strip.

I decided two things. (in fact i decided four but the other two will have to be inscribed on my forehead before they prove themselves) 1. who was i fooling? when we grow up we usually take the first thing we see and follow in it’s footsteps. This energy between these rooms i can feel makes it hard to forget the simple morals i was taught, and i begin to feel almost guilty for my spineless unruled behaviour in almost the last 4 years. I start to slow down and feel reassured as i remember the person i was meant to be from just retracing the hard work that had put me here in the first place. Not my hard work, but the small indentures from others. We must remember the small things because it makes us who we are. I tend to look at the bigger picture. This is never a practical thing and it is almost never foreplays itself in reality. There we are, be real. yes it is a cliche but if you de-abstract it, it’s pretty straight forward.



2. We all have talent but we just need. we just need to find the right environment to help it blossom. A vegetable is not tasty if it is under cooked or over cooked or a flower might never grow in the right heat or die in the wrong heat.


3. i then created this thought in my head. well in fact it was an image. It’s funny when you think of what thoughts actually are, are they images or words for different people? is a day dream this too? i will have to draw it to give it justice but i realised we cannot always find love, we have to be lucky and it is something like ladders and scales. my image was of boy girl boy girl (no particular order, may have been girl boy, girl, boy) facing away from each other single filed up a steep hill. (It might make it easier if you visualise a pandering heart rendered expression of the one before the other as they climb up the hill.)  In the centre of the hill boy girl are facing each other and then the line continues each facing in front of the other. (still pandering, couple of tongues hanging out. one is sobbing) Another cliche, but think about it, it is true.. look familiar?


4. respect and love yourself, sometimes it is very nice to build yourself in a cuccoon from the world and breathe in it. This might make you a nicer person to be around in the outside world

5. and steph please just decide what it is you want to do, i am bored of this now.

also i need to quickly add something in this post, 6. always quote things and never forget. I love to read. and thought remain in my head until the day they become relevant again. I just remembered a beautiful quote from a book but would definitely become a paraphrase if i tried to re-cite it. It was something like, words stay forever. We don’t. This is why knowledge is so important. (even if it is someone elses) also this is why organisation is so important, it gives respect to the knowledge, it prunes and shapes it. it resources the knowledge.


Sorry that these six points were not actually two. and also they are not exactly anything near the initial thoughts of reason.