the treacle tarts

International week of actions for Reykjavik Nine 12.-16. January

2011-01-04T13:14:00.002Z

An international week of actions has been called for 10th - 16th of January, 2011 in support of the Reykjavik Nine, nine individuals including anarchists and radical leftists, who face up to 16 years in prison for protest against the Icelandic parliament.

To find out more see http://www.rvk9.org/in-english/

Above, folk at The Happendon Wood Action Camp (happendon.coalactionscotland.org.uk) show their support for the Reykjavik Nine.

Fuck the State! Love the RVK9!

wee message

2011-01-03T13:03:00.000Z

Arundhati Roy - We - 1 of 7

2010-11-27T20:53:00.000Z

remember this?

2010-11-02T20:51:00.000Z

Advice to Iraqi women

A new theatre piece by Martin Crimp, presented this week at the Royal Court

Martin Crimp
The Guardian, Thursday 10 April 2003
Article history

The protection of children is a priority.

Even a small child on a bike should wear a helmet. And a newborn baby on a plane must be strapped to its mother.

A child on roller-skates should wear kneepads.

And elbow pads.

A child on roller skates should wear knee and elbow pads as well as a helmet.

Buy one of those plastic things to stop young children opening the drawer in the kitchen: there are knives in it.

Don't give children small mechanical toys: they can swallow the moving parts. It's tempting, but just don't do it.

Check the eyes of teddy bears. Don't buy a teddy bear if the eyes are loose. Check the squeak of the teddy bear. If you think the squeak might frighten your child, don't buy it.

If you have a dog, muzzle it - and if you have a cat, mind it doesn't sit on your baby's face.

If you have a mud-scraper outside your house, tie rubber over the blade.

Your house is a potential war zone for a child: the corners of tables, chip pans, and the stairs - particularly the stairs - are all potential sources of harm.

Your house is a minefield.

Your house is a minefield - you only have to think about the medicines in the medicine cupboard - or the hard surfaces in the bathroom - the bath - the enamel sink - these are very hard surfaces. Avoid slippery floors.

Avoid slippery floors and at the first sign of unremitting fever, do call a doctor, call a doctor straight away.

The doctor will come straight away at the first sign of unremitting fever. She will have the latest drugs and the most up-to-date skills. If necessary she will intubate. Don't be frightened to call out your doctor: she is waiting for your call, she has spent her whole life waiting for it.

It's not a good idea to give your child long pyjamas: they can trip over the ends.

Mind zips.

Avoid zips, especially metal ones.

Give your child fresh produce. A child should eat fruit and the fruit should not contain pesticides. The fruit must be grown scrupulously. The growers of the fruit and the land itself must be treated with scrupulous respect if you want your child to thrive.

Although beware allergies.

Beware zips, beware allergies, test for allergies every three days, test for food allergies every three days, or more frequently in summer when pollen is also to be avoided.

When driving in the country to see the country orchards, seat your child in the back and strap it down. Strap the child down hard and if you need to use your mobile, stop the car.

Don't buy a car without rear airbags. Don't buy a car without side-impact protection. Don't let your child play under a car, or beside one, because a car is a minefield.

Just like a home.

A car, just like a home, just like an orchard, just like a zip, is a minefield for a child.

If you have a toolbox, lock it. Lock the tools inside it. Don't let a child handle a chisel - not even a small child's chisel. Even a hard pencil used for marking timber is dangerous.

Don't let children write or draw with a dangerous pencil. Mind the caps of felt pens. Make sure the caps, if inhaled, would not obstruct your child's airway. If an accident does occur, call a doctor straight away. The doctor will come and immediately remove the obstruction.

Explain road safety from an early age. Explain that the traffic comes from two directions. Explain what a red man means. Teach your child the word "amber" from an early age. Explain how dangerous water is. Explain that just two inches of water is enough to drown in.

Supervise all swimming. Make sure your child wears goggles because of the chemicals in the water. By all means inflate a paddling pool in your garden but bear in mind that your garden is a potential war zone.

Like your house.

Like your house, like your car, like your child's colouring book, your garden is a potential war zone.

Keep sheds locked.

Lock sheds. Lock garden chemicals out of reach. Secure hoses. If you have a greenhouse with seedlings in it, keep the child away. When your child is in the pool, screaming in the pool, supervise it at all times, and don't let it burn.

Don't let your child burn. Even on a hazy day it still might burn.

Even in the water. Even in the shade of a tree.

Even in water a child can burn. Even in spring it's still possible. In the time it takes you to cut the grass and trim the edges, a child might have burned, because of the very strong rays. Avoid sunlight, and in strong sunlight, when there are fierce rays, apply cream.

Use a good cream. Use a good brand. Use a reliable cream. If you use a good brand of reliable cream your child will not burn.

Your child will not burn if you are liberal with a reliable cream.

If you want advice about which brands of reliable cream to choose, talk to your pharmacist.

· © Martin Crimp, 2003

Bullying Council Takes Anti-Open Cast Community Council to Court

2010-08-30T17:48:00.001+01:00

By Doug Well

The on-going battle over open cast coal in the Douglas Valley has had a shocking development, with South Lanarkshire Council issuing each member of the Douglas and Glespin Community Council with legal notices that proceedings against them are to begin at Lanark Sheriff Court over alleged libel claims. This move is seen by the community as an attack on their freedom of speech.

This latest dispute, where South Lanarkshire Council under the auspices of Archie Strang, council Chief Executive, are taking primary school teachers and pensioners to court in an effort to silence their dissenting voices, comes because of a logo reading “South Lanarkshire COALcil” and an article titled “South Lanarkshire Council and Scottish Coal Hand-in-Hand at Community LIE-aison Meeting”. The logo superimposes the Council's logo with that of Scottish Coal, and the article was a repost, linked from the Coal Action Scotland website.

The article described a liaison meeting between the community, Scottish Coal and South Lanarkshire Council. At this meeting, the council made every effort to exclude the community from it, misrepresented what was said in minutes and council workers were indistinguishable from Scottish Coal representatives.

Coal Action Scotland are demanding that South Lanarkshire Council end all legal proceedings immediately and issue an apology to the Community Council.

Fiona Reed from Coal Action Scotland said today: “It is unbelievable that the Council would take legal action over what is essentially a link, and not even contact the original authors of the article. This is nothing more than an attempt to limit the Community Council's freedom of speech. The community has to put up with ill health, environmental and economic degradation from open casting, and now the politically-motivated bullying of this deceitful council. Take it back and say sorry Archie.”

Coal Action Scotland are also asking people to stand in solidarity with the Community Council and post up the controversial logo and article on their websites and blogs.

- The original article can be found here: http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=1635
- Douglas Community Council have been opposing the decisions by South Lanarkshire Council to allow numerous open cast developments throughout the valley for close to 20 years, with the campaign against Mainshill Open Cast Coal site, where over 650 letters of objection were submitted to the council and a survey by MSP Eiline Campbell found that 70% of residents opposed the mine.
- Coal Action Scotland works with communities affected by coal mining and infrastructure and takes direct action in support of campaigns, such as the recent 7-month occupation of Mainshill Wood in South Lanarkshire
- South Lanarkshire Council is renowned in the area for being pro-open cast coal and for putting the interests of Scottish Coal before those of the people in South Lanarkshire. Indeed, the council has never refused an open-cast application by Scottish Coal, despite overwhelming community opposition.

LIBERATE TATE COMMUNIQUE #2

2010-07-15T15:24:00.000+01:00

LIBERATE TATE COMMUNIQUE #2

It was us and it was art!

Last night (28 June), as the Tate celebrated 20 years of BP ‘support’ for British Art with a Summer Party, Liberate Tate disrupted the proceedings inside and out by pouring hundreds of litres of ‘oil’(molasses) and scattering thousands of feathers as the UK’s celebrity glitterati watched on in fascination.

Sipping Pimms and gobbling canapés many of the guests expressed confusion at whether these striking actions were ‘art’ or not. Despite inaccurate reporting in various media outlets, Liberate Tate would like to claim full responsibility for these acts of creative disobedience as art – art that refuses to pretend to do politics but is politics, art that makes transforming the world a beautiful adventure.

The Tate Summer Party had been planned to be in the museum gardens and involve speeches from BP executives. However, due to the rumours of disruption, Tate was forced to hold the entire event inside the museum and no speeches were made.

As the evening sun baked down on the stone courtyard of Tate Britain and members of the cultural and corporate elite made their way into the party, 13 figures dressed in black, their faces veiled, appeared from around the corner. In a mournful procession the art-activists approached the entrance carrying large barrels branded with the BP logo. Dozens of photographers and TV cameras swarmed and a moment of tense silence enveloped the area. Something was going to happen.

Then in a perfectly choreographed moment, the front phalanx poured hundreds of litres of the black liquid all over the entrance, whilst others threw feathers into the air which gently drifted down into the huge sticky black pools. The sombre figures walked calmly away, disappearing into the city, as the security redirected the guests to another entrance as the cleanup operation began.

Meanwhile, despite the heavy security at the door, two Liberate Tate art-activists managed to infiltrate the party wearing large floral bouffant dresses underneath which were concealed large sacks filled with the oily molasses. Calling themselves Toni Hayward and Bobbi Dudley, they began their performance in the crowded central gallery. At first drips began to fall from their handbags. “Oh, I seem to have a leak” whispered one of them to the lined up waiters dressed in brilliant white, who kindly provided napkins to stem the spill.

Soon the sacks under their dresses burst releasing tens of litres of ‘oil’ across the shiny parquet floor. As a crowd formed around them, the two donned BP branded ponchos and scrambled on all fours trying to clean up the mess using their high heel shoes to pour the slick back into their handbags, but to no avail. “Compared to the size of the gallery this is a tiny spill, a drop in the ocean,” they apologised to the viewers, “we’ll definitely have it cleaned up by, say, August”.

The polite crowd that had formed continued to watch appreciatively for another 20 minutes, amidst a sea of camera-phones. Many began debating among themselves whether this was art or not (“I think it is. I like it”), whether Tate had organised it, and what their personal aesthetic reactions to it were (“If I had seen this outside, I think I would have felt as I do seeing it… inside”). More than one invited artist openly described this to their fellow drinkers as the most sophisticated work in the room.

LIBERATE TATE

Liberate Tate, is a network dedicated to taking creative disobedience against the Tate until it drops its oil company funding. The 28 June art activist performances follow on from last month’s disruption of Tate Modern’s 10th Birthday celebrations by hanging dead fish and birds from dozens of giant black helium balloons.

The network was founded during a workshop in January 2010 on art and activism, commissioned by Tate. When Tate curators tried to censor the workshop from making interventions against Tate sponsors, the incensed participants decided to continue their work together beyond the workshop and set up Liberate Tate.

http://www.twitter.com/liberatetate

Images: http://www.immoklink.com/BP-Tate/index.html

http://www.youandifilms.com/2010/06/license-to-spill/

Callout Interference 2010

2010-05-30T19:07:00.002+01:00

Interference 2010
21-25 June 2010

Combine art, politics and protest in Interference 2010

We’re looking for artists, non-conformists, pissed off individuals, alternative thinkers and people who want to make and shake things up to join us in addressing and acting upon climate change, the environment and other social and political issues of the day.

Artsadmin’s Interference is an intensive weeklong series of collaborative workshops, actions and events in June, offering you the chance to work with new people who have a range of experiences, to test ideas in a supportive environment and to push both art and activism in an array of new directions.

Working alongside artist activists Beth Whelan and Julie Hill, participants will develop new ways of working together and making a difference. During the week we’ll look at two approaches to making change happen; reacting against present systems and creating new visions for the future. These approaches will include:
Story-telling and myth making
The history of creative resistance and some of its triumphs
Climbing and reclaiming public space
Urban foraging
Self-publishing
Skill-sharing
Night biking
Evening escapades
Intervening and interfering in everyday life, with encouraging support from guest interventionists sharing their ways of working.

The week will be based at Artsadmin’s Toynbee Studios home in East London and will be punctuated by activities and trips with a focus on participation, engaging with people who inspire and excite.

How to join us!
Interference is open to people from all backgrounds and experiences, so if you are new to art or activism and want to give it a try, if you’re interested in working collaboratively or being part of an empowering movement, then please write a short paragraph explaining why you want to get involved and send it to heather(AT)artsadmin.co.uk
Please note participants should be prepared to not only think about change, but act on it!
The workshop is limited to 20 places, so get in touch as soon as possible. The deadline for expression of interest is Friday 4 June. Open to anyone who’s 16+.

The problem. And how we got round it.

2010-05-25T15:54:00.002+01:00

I just don't even know what to say.

2010-05-25T15:30:00.004+01:00

These posts are a selection of advertisements taken from The National Geographic, mainly from a few years ago now.

Thank You Man. Thank You Science. Thank You SkyDigital.

2010-05-25T15:21:00.003+01:00

Does that Jeep float?

2010-05-25T15:11:00.002+01:00

There's No Better Way to Fly. Lufthansa. Selling your dreams daily*!

2010-05-25T14:41:00.004+01:00

* from $125

YOU and THE WORLD OF WORK

2010-05-25T14:23:00.002+01:00

With thrilling career opportunites such as these: Eyebrow Threader, Chicken De-boner, Static Security Guard and Minister of Religion, trips to the Jobbie Centre are just what i need in life.

LIBERATE TATE COMMUNIQUE #1

2010-05-15T12:27:00.001+01:00

Dear Tate

Happy Birthday. We wish we could celebrate with you. But we can’t.

As we write, your corporate sponsor BP is creating the largest oil painting
in the world, inspired by profit margins and a culture that puts money in
front of life, its shadowy stain shimmers across the Gulf of Mexico. A toxic
tide that turns thriving ecosystems into deserts and deprives cultures of
their way of life, it is one of the world’s greatest works of corporate art,
a work that reeks of death and speaks of our society’s failure of
imagination.

Every day Tate scrubs clean BP’s public image with the detergent of cool
progressive culture. But there is nothing innovative or cutting edge about a
company that knowingly feeds our addiction to fossil fuels despite a climate
crisis, a company whose greed has killed twenty-one employees in just over a
year, a company that continues to invest in the cancer-causing climate
crimes of tar sands in Alberta, Canada.

By placing the words BP and Art together, the destructive and obsolete
nature of the fossil fuel industry is masked, and crimes against the future
are given a slick and stainless sheen.

Every time we step inside the museum Tate makes us complicit with these
acts, acts that will one day seem as archaic as the slave trade, as
anachronistic as public executions. Every time Nicholas Serota is asked how
a museum that prides itself on dealing with climate change can be funded by
an oil company he responds that there are no plans to abandon BP sponsorship
(anything to do with having an ex-CEO of BP chair Tate’s board of
trustees?).

When art activist group The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination
(Labofii) were invited to run a workshop on art and civil disobedience, they
were told by curators that they could not take any action against Tate and
its sponsors and the workshop was policed by the curators to make sure the
artists produced work “commensurate with the Tate’s mission". In March 2010,
Tate Modern ran an eco symposium, “*Rising to the Climate Change Challenge:
Artists and Scientists Imagine Tomorrow’s World*”, on the same day that Tate
Britain was celebrating twenty years of BP sponsorship with one of its ‘BP
Saturdays’. Incensed by this censorship and hypocrisy, participants in the
symposium called for a vote: 80% of the audience agreed that BP sponsorship
should be dropped by 2012.

So today we offer you a birthday present, a gift to liberate Tate from its
old-fashioned fossil fuel addiction – a gift for the future. Beginning
during your 10th anniversary party and continuing until you drop the
sponsorship deal, we will be commissioning a series of art interventions in
Tate buildings across the country. Already commissioned are *Art
Action*collective, with a birthday surprise at this weekend’s
*No Soul For Sale* event, and The *Invisible Committee*, who will infiltrate
every corner of Tate across the country in the coming months.
We invite artists to join us and act to liberate Tate. Free art from oil.

www.twitter.com/liberatetate

channelling leopard

2010-03-18T00:42:00.002Z

Chimpz lvs hierarchy.

2010-03-06T20:09:00.000Z

BONOBO: Bonobo communities are peace-loving and generally egalitarian. The strongest social bonds are those among females, although females also bond with males. The status of a male depends on the position of his mother, to whom he remains closely bonded for her entire life.
CHIMPANZEE: In chimpanzee groups the strongest bonds are established between the males in order to hunt and to protect their shared territory. The females live in overlapping home ranges within this territory but are not strongly bonded to other females or to any one male.
GIBBON: Gibbons establish monogamous, egalitarian relations, and one couple will maintain a territory to the exclusion of other pairs.
HUMAN: Human society is the most diverse among the primates. Males unite for cooperative ventures, whereas females also bond with those of their own sex. Monogamy, polygamy and polyandry are all in evidence.
GORILLA: The social organization of gorillas provides a clear example of polygamy. Usually a single male maintains a range for his family unit, which contains several females. The strongest bonds are those between the male and his females.
ORANGUTAN: Orangutans live solitary lives with little bonding in evidence. Male orangutans are intolerant of one another. In his prime, a single male establishes a large territory, within which live several females. Each female has her own, separate home range.

The Story of B by Daniel Quinn

2010-03-06T15:54:00.003Z

Revolutioary Association of the Women of Afghanistan

2010-03-05T13:59:00.004Z

RAWA is the oldest political/social organization of Afghan women struggling for peace, freedom, democracy and women's rights in fundamentalism-blighted Afghanistan since 1977.

They're cool - as is the RAWA Solidarity Scotland group that has been raising funds and awareness - they're doing a sponsored bike ride:

You are invited on a fun cycle ride from Edinburgh to North Berwick on Saturday the 20th March.

The women involved with RAWA are a brave lot. Working for womens rights in
Afghanistan is dangerous work. The suggestions in the media are that the occupying
forces are now trying to tempt the Taliban into a coalition government. That is
very bad news for Afghani women and children. Just ask RAWA.

The sponsor cycle will start from the Forest Cafe. We will assemble at 10:30am
where the Edinburgh RAWA solidarity group will provide refreshments (and flags!) before our
send-off. And remember you can get the train back . . . of course after you've
indulged in some ice cream etc.

Please send an e-mail to the list if you're interested in cycling or sponsoring so we can fill you in on the details.

rawasolidarityscotland@lists.noflag.org.uk

Hope to see you there!

Mainshill Solidarity Camp

2009-07-28T18:52:00.002+01:00

Mainshill Solidarity Camp in South Lanarkshire Scotland is on the site of a proposed open-cast coal mine. The land has been occupied and defended by campers who are working with the local community in opposition to Scottish Coal's plans.

See updates on the website:
mainshill.noflag.org.uk

tart tart tart

2009-07-07T23:17:00.002+01:00

Tart:

TART * The sweet: as in the dessert tart, coming to English in the 1200s from French. A bit of pastry with some fruit in. Maybe a spot of cream in there and a glaze on top.

TART * The tart: as in the adjective tart, meaning “sharp, piquant,” originating from an Old English word teart, with intense meanings of pain and suffering.

TART * The sweet and tart: as in the pejorative tart applied to prostitutes, promiscuous women and occasionally men. This version of the word was sweet in that it was used in a positive sense when it appeared around the mid 1800s; it took pejorative connotations not long after. It's thought that the first use of tart in this sense was as a shortening of sweetheart, or jam-tart, cockney rhyming slang for sweetheart.

Item 4:

2009-07-06T16:36:00.005+01:00

Item 3:

2009-07-06T16:31:00.003+01:00

Item 2:

2009-07-06T16:18:00.005+01:00

Item 1:

2009-07-06T16:08:00.002+01:00

Evidence

2009-07-06T15:59:00.000+01:00

I've been quiet for a while...the evidence to follow.

Smash Miss Contest - The Video

2009-03-18T10:40:00.001Z

Protest Groups Disrupt Miss University London

2009-03-11T12:17:00.004Z

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
11.03.09 4:30 AM
smashmisscontest@gmail.com

Protest groups disrupt Miss University London beauty pageant.

“Now I know why my mother’s generation did what they did in the 60s. I feel amazing. Tonight we did what we said we would – we smashed Miss University London!”
- Martina Pasonaria, 30, Musician

At 1.30am this morning a group calling themselves SMASH MISS CONTEST infiltrated Miss University London and caused disruption throughout the event with stink bombs and personal alarms, culminating with a stage invasion bringing the show to a halt during the announcement of the winner. A questionnaire and open letter to participants were scattered to the audience, contestants and compere.

Miss University London re-emerged two years ago amongst widespread controversy. Set up by 121entertainment, led by Christian Emile, the event drew in three different protest groups. Miss-Ogyny, a group specifically set up to resist the pageant’s presence on campus, rallied opposite the entrance. They were joined by The Space Hijackers who handed out tissues to men queuing for the pageant.

“They couldn’t hide what the event was – a crass judgement of women based on their looks, all so that they could make money.”
- Helen Bradshaw, 21, Student

**Video on youtube soon**

We (heart) Leila Deen

2009-03-07T10:49:00.008Z

Good aim! Watch it happen or play the game.

Creative Rebels Needed

2009-02-24T09:59:00.004Z

CLIMATE CAMP AT THE G20, WED 1 APRIL

CALL OUT FOR WORKSHOPS and CULTURE - AT CLIMATE CAMP G20

Climate camp 2009 /// Stopping carbon markets /// Because nature doesn't do bailouts.

At Noon on April 1st people will gather at the European Climate Exchange on Bishopsgate to set up camp against carbon markets.

The camp is looking for workshops for the day. We would love to hear from you if you can offer a workshop, especially (but not limited to) workshops on carbon trading, market solutions to climate change, and the economic crisis. We are also really keen to hear from you if you can offer music, street theatre or anything else which will make the day inspiring and educational!

Please let us know if you would be able to offer a workshop and the details at g20workshops@riseup.net

The information about the camp is at www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20, and we hope to see you there!

Smash Miss Contest!

2009-02-16T10:23:00.004Z

On Saturday The Ketchup Vaginas (name to become evident soon enough...) had a stall at the Anti-Capitalist Feminist conference 'Gender, Race and Class' - and met lots of great people interested in spectacular interventions...visit and find out more about Smash Miss Contest!

The People VS The Banksters

2009-02-04T11:44:00.004Z

RBS, or The Oil Bank of Scotland have misappeared billions of taxpayers' money in a matter of months. And their favourite investment? Fossil fuels...

FOSSIL FOOLS more like! Taking the snow-fight fun to a bank that likes to take a risk any day of the week, 30 or 40 people pounded the doors, the building, bankers and of course, each other. Workers in the bank stopped working to watch, and the rotating door got jammed with snow - business as usual stopped for a good half hour or so.

Climate Justice Assembly Declaration

2009-02-02T12:06:00.001Z

Bélém, Brazil, 1 February 2009

CLIMATE JUSTICE NOW!

No to neoliberal illusions, yes to people's solutions!

For centuries, productivism and industrial capitalism have been destroying our cultures, exploiting our labour and poisoning our environment.

Now, with the climate crisis, the Earth is saying "enough", "ya basta"!

Once again, the people who created the problem are telling us that they also have the solutions: carbon trading, so-called "clean coal", more nuclear power, agrofuels, even a "green new deal". But these are not real solutions, they are neoliberal illusions. It is time to move beyond these illusions.

Real solutions to the climate crisis are being built by those who have
always protected the Earth and by those who fight every day to defend their environment and living conditions. We need to globalise these solutions.

For us, the struggles for climate justice and social justice are one and
the same. It is the struggle for territories, land, forests and water, for
agrarian and urban reform, food and energy sovereignty, for women's and worker's rights. It is the fight for equality and justice for indigenous peoples, for peoples of the global South, for the redistribution of wealth and for the recognition of the historical ecological debt owed by the North.

Against the disembodied, market-driven interests of the global elite and the dominant development model based on never-ending growth and consumption, the climate justice movement will reclaim the commons, and put social and economic realities at the heart of our struggle against climate change.

We call on everyone – workers, farmers, fisherfolk, students, youth,
women, indigenous peoples, and all concerned humans from the South and the North – to join in this common struggle to build the real solutions to the climate crisis for the future of our planet, our societies, and our cultures. All together, we are building a movement for climate justice.

We support the mobilizations against the G20 summit and on the global crisis from 28 march to 4 April, and the 17 April 2009 mobilisation of La Via Campesina.

We support the call for an International Day of Action in Defense of
Mother Earth and Indigenous Rights on 12 October 2009.

We call for mobilisations and diverse forms of actions everywhere, in the lead up to, during and beyond the UN climate talks in Copenhagen, especially on the Global Day of Action on 12 December 2009.

In all of our work, we will expose the false solutions, raise the voices
of the South, defend human rights, and strengthen our solidarity in the
fight for climate justice. If we make the right choices, we can build a
better world for everyone.

2009-01-29T17:48:00.003Z

You didn't remain impartial Mark Thompson, you exposed your bias.
Bricks, squashed tomatoes and indeed shoes may be posted to his BBC HQ office at Television Centre, Wood Lane, London, W12 7RJ

Extract from Friday at Kaaitheater

2009-01-28T18:50:00.002Z

I’m from Manchester in the UK and I’ve lived in cities all my life. I’ve lived off food I’ve got out of bins for six months at a time.
It was a fun thing to do with friends.

What we did was meet up in the evening, after the pub or whatever, and cycle round the smaller supermarkets of the city, hopping in the bins at the back and picking through the see-through plastic bags picking out what was edible. Bag of pineapples? Magic. , for example, Bag of beef? Eurgh, put that back in! My all time favourite skipped food finds have to be…No 1 the forty bunches of Marks & Spencer’s flowers – we gave them away to everyone on the main road, they were like Oh that’s so nice are you really sure are they for free?! And we were like, we just got them out of the bins, on you go! And then No 2 the great mango and cabbage find, literally about 40 of each, mangoes not even ripe yet. My friend made a lot of chutney. And then finally No 3 is when they recalled Maltesers, that was a good one. They got everywhere.
We’d take loads of bags with us, and divide out the food into bags for different people that we’d then drop off on our way home. You’d put in all the things you thought each person or household would like the most – no cheese for them, they’re vegans, all the ricotta for Thom, he’ll use it, and flowers? They have to go to Scarlet, she loves them and so on.

I like statistics which are expressed in humans, so for example, 1 in 15 people think Obama is actually going to make some changes, or 1 in 2 people have tried cat biscuits or, I remember in secondary school when someone found scientific proof on the internet that 1 in 3 people were definitely gay, and the whole class looked round the room of like 30 of us and realised that meant 10 of us were gay but we were 12 and we didn’t know if we were one of the gay ones or not so it was quite exciting.
So, 1 in 5 people in the UK live below the poverty line, in Belgium it is 1 in 10. Meanwhile, across Europe, 30-40% of food put on the shelves ends up in the bin. In the UK an organisation formed to get some more numbers on it. For me there was a clear winner for the worst and therefore kind of the best statistic. Guess how many whole chickens are thrown away in the UK every day? Any guesses? 5,500 whole chickens. Each day. Shit. Sqwauk.

a pretty good day.

2009-01-27T21:22:00.001Z

Early wake up with phone calls and buzzes and there's folks on the sofa and an invite for breakfast where there's beans and squishy skipped bananas and ach - we'll make a plan on the way. Wobbling bikes lugging cardboard gun, wedding dress, banana skins, bouquets of wilting flowers and a fat suit.
First stop the bank, where there's an organised protest – placards and leaflets and a megaphone and in we go without a thought and blag and blah and ask the questions that they can't answer until we're firmly escorted out.
I wanna do something but I don't know what.
There's a samba band around the corner – Let's get 'em round here.
I'm bored. Let's buy loo roll and throw it in. Let's write messages on it.
Let's go.
Catch youse soon.

That shop window's got a door in - we just have to dodge the guard - catch him off guard.
OK, hold my gun - let's go. One by one we step, grinning into the readymade playground.
I pull down my new-man-the-mannequins trendy trousers and hold his hand and ask the gathering crowd: “SHOPPING IS...?”
“That's the police on the way”.
“SHOPPING IS...SEXY?
“You'll have to leave now”
“SHOPPING IS...BORING.”
And off we go and it must be time to distribute these flowers salvaged from the bins in all their cellophane glory. We shower the band with confetti and dance along to find those most deserving of the flowers.
A couple parting – here, you get him, I'll get her – say they're from each other.
Another guard. But he wont have it – he's got his image to think about.
And then there's folk in the window – wedding dress and fat suit, telling a strange love story of super bargains.
We chat to the guy who's visiting from Nigeria. He says "if it looks too good to be true, it probably is", but eventually he accepts the flowers and as far as we know they brought him no ills. He can't imagine that we'd ever make our way to Nigeria on our bikes, but he certainly likes the sound of us trying.
After some negotiation the bargain bride and bulging companion are released from the shop with no more than a strained groin and a confused shop-manager. BHS has never known such excitement.
On then, on.

GIVE BLOOD says the sign and so we obey - “can you keep moving round please”. Each time a chair becomes free we move camp. Dresses and fat-suits and crumpled guns and all. This is very important, despite the fact that there's nobody waiting behind us.
Giving blood isn't as simple as it seemed.
The tricky questionnaire filters most of us out but I scrape through and leave a pint of myself behind.
Then it's on to McGills for karaoke (and replacing those lost fluids) but it's a no-goer so we creep underground for the free preview and out for the trudge home.
May as well lets stick our heads in the bin eh? And the trudge home is harder but merrier with bags of food to share out over tea and snoozes and banging loud crazy tunes. And in the background there's bikes to be fixed, sculptures to be made, friends to be met, dogs to be walked and then the party to fill the night.
That was a pretty good day by the way.
(Though we never did find a use for that cardboard gun).

Things are getting sticky

2009-01-27T09:25:00.000Z

So I thought I'd leave you a little something to wake up to, little B. On a regular basis.