At St Pancras I saw a young man pushing a machine around the station. I stopped and he was mapping the place for googlemaps. I asked him if I could photograph him, he couldn’t really say no but didn’t stay in the photo, he’s the one with his back to me. The machine had cameras …
Author archives: pasdelasbas
the baka
I’ve watched the two parts of a documentary seen on the BBC about a Baka family living in the Cameroon rainforest. The first part is really the original documentary made in the mid 1980s from a two year period spent filming with them. They were still living a forest life this family, hunting and gathering, …
close shave
I stopped at Flittner’s Gentleman’s Barbers near Moorgate Station in London. I looked inside and they were doing wet shaves and I thought I’d treat myself.
trainspotting
At Trowell Services on the M1 we stop and cross the covered footbridge over the motorway. Norman Richards is standing there carrying a pair of binoculars and looking for lorries.
coriolanus
It befits me not to prate on Coriolanus, one so ennobled of spirit that he doth transform me beyond my citizenship by the simple mention of his name. The Great Leader! What piffle. The man at the insistence of the people was, the others to whom he needs must turn in foreign places banished, such …
being contrary
The site Gallery: Sheffield A time and a place Visit One. It is Saturday around 12.30 and I’ve left the Showroom with my two younger daughters in it. They are on a craft workshop before watching a film. I’ve gone to get a sandwich from the Site Gallery, just up the road and a bit …
’68 is a lovely name for a baby
A standard account of the events of ’68 in France might focus around the release of potential; there was no classic revolution but the emergence of a culture of self realisation, one with important ethical and political impact. These same events were criticised at the time and since as self-indulgent and a threat to social …
a crafting of practice
I was speaking with a group of asylum seekers and refugees this evening. I had brought along a tin of corned beef but the little thing you use to twist/turn the top off was missing. An Iranian man, Ali, used a knife to cut the top open. All the while I was thinking how difficult …
tolerating fascists
The daughter of a friend, 13 years old, was talking to me about history at the weekend. She has been studying the inter-war years and the rise of German fascism. She told me that she had made herself unpopular in an discussion with her friends afterwards because (she said something like) she had not found …
it’s certainly not essex
David Essex is appearing in a show at the Lyceum, Sheffield. I’ve not seen it and pretty sure I won’t. I assume it has some cheery dance scenes, young performers, period music and reflective voice of Now Old David. The poster announces that the show is “direct from London’s West End” which means what? That …