San Domenico

Paul Talling writes: 'I've driven past this empty building beside the A3 for years. There is something always slightly sinister looking about it - in a Hammer House of Horror sort of way. There is always a light on in one of the windows presumably security.
There have been rumours that it has some sort of secret military use'

www.derelictlondon.com

Textiles

A shop window near Finsbury Park

From www.derelictlondon.com

Thread

‘I’m riding a tram and, as is my habit, slowly absorbing every detail of the people around me. By ‘detail’ I mean things, voices, words. In the dress of the girl directly in front of me, for example, I see the material it’s made of, the work involved in making it – since it’s a dress and not just material – and I see in the delicate embroidery around the neck the silk thread with which it was embroidered and all the work that went into that. And immediately, as if in a primer on political economy, I see before me the factories and all the different jobs: the factory where the material was made; the factory that made the darker coloured
thread that ornaments with curlicues the neck of the dress’ and I see the different workshops in the factories, the machines, the workmen, the seamstresses. My eyes’ inward gaze even penetrates into the offices, where I see the managers trying to keep calm and the figures set out in the account books, but that’s not all: beyond that I see into the domestic lives of all those who spend their working hours in these factories and offices...A whole world unfolds before my eyes all because the regularly irregular dark green edging to a pale green dress worn by the girl in front of me of whom I see only her brown neck.

‘A whole way of life lies before me.


‘I sense the loves, the secrets, the souls of all those who worked just so that this woman in front of me on the tram should wear around her mortal neck the sinuous banality of a thread of dark green silk on a background of light green cloth.’

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

http://www.resurgence.org/clothingdirectory/index.htm
http://www.knowledgeproblem.com/archives/001606.html
http://www.bafts.org.uk/Upload_files/WFTF_Response_to_Economist_Article.pdf
http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/

Watching Planes Closely

‘Watching planes closely and recording their serial or registration numbers and squadron markings goes back to the last days of the Blitz, when the first issue of the Aeroplane Spotter appeared, a 12-page periodical intended to improve the quality of aircraft recognition among British civilian air defence volunteers. It included photos and silhouettes of the major aircraft types, both friend and foe, and was the first publication to pay attention to military serial numbers, changes in the registry of civilian aircraft, camouflage schemes, squadron markings and unusual insignia. Such markings are important because, once a database has been compiled, an analyst can use it to infer how many aircraft of a particular type or its variants are in circulation, to deduce the size and composition of squadrons, and to keep track of sales, modifications and losses. The Aeroplane Spotter’s legacy lives on in the activities of today’s spotters, including their websites, which publish not just photos and data but also details of search engines that can trace virtually any aircraft through its serial or registration number.

For example: http://travel.flightexplorer.com/about.aspx and http://fboweb.com/fb40/default.aspx

‘Spotters began to expose the CIA’s rendition capers to public scrutiny less than six weeks after 9/11. This was almost inevitable, given that the Agency had chosen to conduct its abductions via the world of civil aviation. The CIA’s operatives seem not to have understood or cared that at all hours of the day and night international airports are simply alive with people – aircrews, flight controllers, ticket clerks, baggage handlers, refuellers, cleaners, police and customs officers, and passengers – who are alert to everything going on around them. Nor was this the only instance of incompetence displayed by the CIA in running its rendition programme.’

From Chalmers Johnson's review of ‘Ghost Plane: The Inside Story of the CIA's Secret Rendition Programme’ by Stephen Grey (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n03/john04_.html, 8/2/2007).

http://www.statewatch.org/rendition/rendition.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2936782.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/oct/26/usa.topstories3

Starting Pistol

It looks like Spielberg's truly kicked off the Chinese Olympics, withdrawing his involvement in protest at China's underwriting of the Sudanese government.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7242016.stm
Here's the Sudan Tribune's take: http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article25970

Astonishing success at drawing attention to the issue. Perhaps there could have been no better country to host the games if what you're after is twelve months of concentrated attention on human rights and moral compromise.

It gave an extra bit of spice to Lara Pawson's review of Nicholas Shaxson’s ‘Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil.’ in LRB 7/2/08 (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n03/paws01_.html). I'll concentrate on one character who caught my imagination: Jacques Foccart “a master manipulator” employed by DeGaulle, known as the ‘White Sorcerer.’ When De Gaulle set up Elf Aquitaine to ensure the French got their fingers in the oil pie, it's operations in Gabon proved crucial. The leader there, Omar Bongo, had been keeping things sweet, parcelling out the cash and favours – and using Bwiti secret societies. Foccart took this one step further, ‘Most top Elf officials were Masons and Bongo was encouraged to establish his own lodges in Gabon in order to foster solidarity with Elf.’


Foccart and Chirac

Fascinating reportage from Le Monde on oil and freemasonry:
http://mondediplo.com/1997/09/masons

‘It took another twenty years, and the biggest fraud investigation in Europe since the Second World War, for the scale of Franco-Gabonese corruption to come to light.’
Here's the World Socialist Web Site on TotalFinalElf: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jul2003/tota-j11.shtml

I reckon the Freemasons are probably perfectly decent individuals for the most part, who do a lot of work for charity. But for those who disagree, check the over excitable http://www.freemasonrywatch.org/

I once did some filming in Chinawhite, Air Street, Piccadilly, and I'm sure through a doorway linking some underground basements there was a disused Masonic hall, with chequered floor and appropriate symbolic accoutrements.

Halcion Sleep

A still from 'Halcion Sleep' by Rodney Graham. A self-portrait of the artist knocked out on the eponymous tranquiliser, one of the most addictive, being driven around Vancouver. One of his earliest memories, the artist says, is waking from a deep, secure sleep in the back of a car.

Now showing at the Wellcome Library in Euston:

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/exhibitionsandevents/exhibitions/sleepinganddreaming/index.htm

And here's a link to Iran's leading sleep centre: http://www.irsleepcenter.com/

This is not illegal

Once in a while you wake up feeling like you live in a democracy. To celebrate the Court of Appeal's decision to overturn the conviction of five men found in possession of extremist literature - and to win a few fans at GCHQ - here's a link to some jihad . For the curious.

http://www.islamic-world.net/youth/jihad.htm

It should be stressed that this site does not condone jihad. Curious, nonetheless.

This is the BBC on the Appeal Court ruling: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7242724.stm

And here's a classic piece of work, drawing the veil off a Jihad site to reveal...the CIA:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4513.htm