Harry’s Place

It occurs to me that the last movie I plunked down money to see in a theater was Persepolis– and that was last January. And although I check the new releases fairly regularly, I haven’t noticed anything since then that makes me yearn for a return visit.
I should note that I have strong– and perhaps […]

Since it’s Friday, and Madiba’s in town to celebrate his brithday, here’s some South African music from the 1980s about the grand old man…

… who  outlived an old fool…

See also this version of Asimbonanga where the great man himself makes a guest appearance.

So, we have the first Boris-RCP related furore.
It was blogger Dave Hill who had the story first. He’d seen a draft poster for the Rise festival, and noticed that it didn’t proclaim itself an “anti-racist” event. Then, the Socialist Action front group, the National Association Against Racism got their act into gear, and issued a press release:
‘We were […]

I liked this paragraph from The Washington Post’s obituary of writer Eliot Asinof, who wrote the book “Eight Men Out” about the fixing by gamblers of the 1919 baseball World Series, and who co-wrote the excellent 1988 movie of the same name with director John Sayles:
[Asinof] ran into trouble while working on a Western movie. […]

I’d never been to a Nandos, until Brett took me.
We had just been to a talk on gays in the Middle East, with a very buff looking Mr Gay Universe, who was a lawyer from Tel Aviv, and an American SWP woman with an anglo saxon surname, representing the perspective of Palestinian Trotksyites on the […]

Since it’s Friday afternoon, perhaps it’s time for a chuckle.
The Times is running a Communist-jokes competition… and I mean ones with punchlines, no soundbites by George Galloway are eligible.
A man is thrown in a Soviet prison cell and the other inhabitants of the cell crowd round him. “How long you in for,” they ask. “Ten […]

This is a guest post by Alec Macpherson
As we all know, Tony Benn asks most powerful man whom he meets the following questions:
[*] What power have you got?
[*] Where did you get it from?
[*] In whose interests do you use it?
[*] To whom are you accountable?
[*] How do we get rid of you?
Still, as I […]

My step-daughter is 21 and slap bang in the middle of her university finals. I first met her when she was 13 and a more level-headed and switched-on teenager you couldn’t wish to meet. Even the two serious  boyfriends she’s had in this time have been ‘take home to mother’ material. I struggle to think […]

Being an old comprehensive school type who is still rather stuck in the late seventies myself I was rather taken by George Plemper’s photographs of working-class kids on London’s Thamesmead housing estate in the Jubilee period. Thamesmead (for those who have never had the pleasure of its acquaintance) is a massive sixties housing estate which […]

Warning: First video not work safe - for most workplaces.
I know each generation claims that the youth of the day are reaching a new low, but seriously…Can I Smell Your Dick?

Although the version most likely to be on the radio is - I Can Smell That Chick

Depressing on several levels but […]