Pete and Phil Ramble on … about Nature and Socialism
By Pete Field and Phil Hall
Recent Posts
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Depression #16 by Dan Pearce
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A Shared Vision of the North Downs Way
Phil Hall Well, 2007 was a bad year for me. I felt an enormous pressure. I started to look at maps to see where I could go. We live in South West London in a beautiful part of the city,… Read More ›
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Escaping the The Monkey Trap
By Bryan Greetham. Rodin’s Thinker at the Louvre in Abu Dhabi. Photo, Phil Hall We are busy producing a generation of the most sophisticated recyclers of received opinion In Robert Pirsig’s best-selling book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,… Read More ›
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‘Other’ Covid-19 pandemic success stories
Anyone paying attention? By Dale T. McKinley Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, much of world’s public as well as media attention have been focused on those countries hardest hit. From the early and widespread outbreaks in China, Italy,… Read More ›
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Tony Hall’s Interview with Yves Montand
Yves Montand in Nairobi in 1966 On the face of it it may seem strange for a film star to speak so much on politics. But for Yves Montand and his wife, Simone Signoret, one of the really distinguished couples… Read More ›
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Poet of Honour: Vijay Seshadri
Poet of Honour is a celebration of some of our best contemporary poets who are nothing but an inspiration. This month Ars Notoria is thrilled to present the Pulitzer Prize winner, poet Vijay Seshadri.
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French working class noir
The birth of a genre, French noir 1930 – 1960 When thinking of “film noir” the names that spring immediately to mind are Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston, Orson Welles, Raoul Walsh, Sam Fuller… Humphrey Bogart, Edward G Robinson, Barbara Stanwyck,… Read More ›
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What can you do about your future?
By Pete Field We need to be better people. Would you torture your own children? Would you destroy their future? Would you sell out your family and friends for cash? If you could, would you wipe out the world?We love… Read More ›
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Sorry, it was an accident
How we kill and never think about it In the mid-sixties driving in the countryside meant squashed insects on the windscreen, sometimes hundreds of them. You had to get the wipers going, smear them off with water. Now our insect… Read More ›
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Would you like a Bushbaby?
Phil Hall Someone from the countryside was selling a young bush-baby in a corner of Dar-es-Salaam market. Mom was smitten. She bought it. Let’s see this creature sweet enough to melt Mom’s resolve. Look, boys. she said, coming in through the door…. Read More ›
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UK Appeals Court Annuls Guaidó’s Seizure of Venezuelan Gold
By Francisco Dominguez The Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) was right in appealing to the High Court’s ludicrous decision last July to grant US-sponsored Juan Guaidó, in his ‘capacity’ as self-proclaimed “interim president” of Venezuela, the right to retrieve 31… Read More ›
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a genie’s ease
When poets are publishers, other poets forget to notice them as poets. Thus, Todd Swift has remained a hidden diamond. So, to highlight his work, it delights us at Ars Notoria to bring his poem to you this month. It plays at many levels concealing the harshness directed elsewhere from the poem’s apparent impression!
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Jeremy Corbyn and The Psychological Agony of the Left
By Phil Hall After the failure of the revolution in 1905 in Russia many of the revolutionaries despaired. Some of them committed suicide. Others slunk off to Great Britain, which gave them refuge. This was a moment of Thermidor, when… Read More ›
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U.S. Wildfires—a national emergency in the midst of a pandemic
By Karen Phillips When I began writing this article on the wildfires raging in the United States, horrific events were happening simultaneously in several states. As my research progressed, instead of having less to write about I found more escalation,… Read More ›
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#15 Depression, by Dan Pearce
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Wake up in Uruapan
By Felipe Elvira Imagine waking up in Uruapan. Many thousands of Uruapenses who have crossed the border over into the USA dream of doing just that. They make films about it. Uruapan, with its orchards and breathtakingly beautiful national park… Read More ›
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Cartoon Brexit Villains
By Rob Hyde On the face of it, given how my country-hopping life in Europe turned out, I should have been made an EU pin-up boy. On the face of it, given how my country-hopping life in Europe turned out,… Read More ›
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# 14 Depression by Dan Pearce
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If You are such a Badass, Join a Trade Union
By Phil Hall By Phil Hall When you look at the mountain of self-help books you should laugh. This is the correct response to most of them. Each one usually contains only one or two interesting ideas. Typically, these ideas… Read More ›
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Lance the Boil in the Collective Unconscious of the USA
Make a Film about the life of Angela Davis By Phil Hall It’s fascinating to see how films or books or musicians who really epitomised the zeitgeist and hit the spot sometimes plunge out of sight. What a good film… Read More ›
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Wilderness years for the Labour Left, by Paul Halas
By Paul Halas With the Labour Party once more appeasing the “Establishment”, can it still be home to left wingers? Like many, I’m one of those who has found the past year thoroughly dispiriting. Leaving aside Covid, these have been… Read More ›
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The Balloonist
By Phil Hall On the 22nd of April 1992. There were 10 petrol-gas explosions in northern Guadalajara, killing at least 242 people, injuring up to 600 and destroying 8 kilometres of city streets making 15,000 people homeless. But the southern-central… Read More ›
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Travels in an Oxcart in South Africa at the Turn of the 19th Century
By Connie Hall Arthur Lewis Hall was a fellow of the Royal Society, a winner of the Murchison Medal and credited by the makers of Earth Story, a BBC documentary, with being one of the first geologists to guess the real… Read More ›
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Superhero Status Anxiety
K, a superhero, finds working as an ESL teacher tough… By James Royce Mcguire It’s wacked. Here he is living the life of a superhero, not angry at anyone, simply living his life and there she is. A half-cat creature… Read More ›
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Tony Hall’s Interview with Nelson Mandela in Hiding
It was 1961, I was a reporter on the main SA daily newspaper The Star. The African National Congress had been banned by the white Apartheid government, and its leaders house arrested and not allowed to meet or speak publicly. Nelson Mandela, a Johannesburg lawyer,… Read More ›
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Editorial, July 2020
In July we began the month with a powerful argument against Rebecca Long-Bailey’s dismissal by Richard House published by Paul Halas. It had a large number of other signatories. The article was widely read and then republished elsewhere. There is… Read More ›
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Poem of the Month: Benjamin Cusden on the homelessness
Benjamin Cusden is a poet who crossed over to the light from the darkness, and in the pamphlet, Cut The Black Rabbit, to be published on the date by Against The Grain Poetry Press. he presents the view from that darkness.
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Poet of Honour: Mimi Khalvati
Mimi Khalvati was born in Tehran and has lived most of her life in London. She has published nine collections with Carcanet Press, including The Meanest Flower, shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize 2007, and Child: New and Selected Poems 1991-2011, a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation.
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Liberalism and Worker Ownership, not Das Kommunism.
By Neil Newman One of the most striking facets of the secular religion Marxism is the almost complete lack of a model for the post-revolutionary society. What are the economic relations of that society? How does that society continue on… Read More ›
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# 13 Depression by Dan Pearce
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So, you want to learn a new language?
By Philip Hall For more than 30 years I have been teaching people how to speak, write, read and listen in English with some success. I was a Spanish teacher, too for a while. Spanish is the language that I… Read More ›
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Understanding risk
By Bryan Greetham In this period of COVID-19 it is essential that we understand risk and to do so means we need a basic understanding of the statistics involved in assessing risk. On 23 rd August, Professor Chris Whitty, the… Read More ›
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They drew the 20th Century
By Paul Halas Cartoons that were art. Growing up in a family that was immersed in the visual arts – chiefly in the form of animated films – it’s little wonder I had access to all kinds of books filled… Read More ›
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Andy Hall’s photographic career began with a Big Bang
On and off, for over thirty years, Andy Hall has aimed his camera at The City of London My adult life began at the end of the 70’s, more or less in line with the beginning of Neo-liberalism, which over… Read More ›
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So You Want to be a Poet
Publish and be damned, as the Duke of Wellington retorted! There is no one way to write poetry and there are many who would teach you poetry while they struggle themselves! There are no regulations regarding workshops. So please stumble and be bruised; choose workshops and mentors wisely. Success is not guaranteed. Do read poems, learn, read more, listen, read aloud, and follow your path. Even the likes of Walt Whitman and Lord Tennyson were condemned in their times! Many have explained poetry, only poetically, but no one can do so concretely. Here are other takes by various poets…
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What the left forgets about Israel: the longing for a homeland is legitimate.
Let me explain. When my mother was four it was 1940. She was in Paris with her own mother, a blond bombshell. Harry Piel who discovered Marlene Dietrich also discovered my grandmother. Before my grandfather, an Austrian Jew, swept… Read More ›
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Poet of Honour: Nick Makoha
The Founder of Obsidian Nick Makoha is a Ugandan poet and playwright and based in London. His debut Kingdom of Gravity was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize and nominated by The Guardian as one of the best books of 2017.
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# 12 Depression by Dan Pearce
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Vision
By Keith Woodhouse The night was over And the sea curds crackled And bent, crisply, in the deadening rays Of morning, As she sank into the bank Of the sand speckled Tulip blossom And angry Red spangled pupil sun. The… Read More ›
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TV situation comedy – a Tory secret weapon?
By Paul Halas A favourite saying amongst Tories, not least the late demented Margaret Thatcher, is that the Conservatives are the natural party of government in the UK. Simply in terms of incumbency that statement is just about correct: since… Read More ›
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#11 Depression by Dan Pearce
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Want to meet the Dalai Lama? Don’t bother.
By Adam Lickley 2017 did not end well for me. I was ‘let go’ from my job, my apartment was flooded, and I spent an uncomfortable night in hospital having my appendix removed. Life was on hold for a while,… Read More ›
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So you want to be a journalist?
by James Tweedie So you wanna be a journo, and why not? Well, here are a few good reasons to let the dream die. The pay is rotten For a white-collar job with its own university degree course, journalism pays… Read More ›
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Return the gold to Venezuela
by Francisco Dominguez On July 2nd 2020 British Judge Nigel Teare, with regard to a Central Bank of Venezuela litigation for 31 tons of gold entrusted to the Bank of England to be returned to the Venezuelan state, issued a… Read More ›
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Mandala
My march through the relative silence of nine years Has brought me to a small house With a green garden Two daughters A son and A wife. Where are my brothers? Where are my parents? Where are my uncles and… Read More ›
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So you want to be a dancer?
By Adam Lickley So you fancy being a dancer, huh? And who doesn’t want to be paid to do something they love? Well, that’s the name of the game in the arts world. Only trouble is, that’s what everyone wants,… Read More ›
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Norris McWhirter’s White Rabbit
By Phil Hall The first guided client to be ushered up the slopes of Chomolungma-Sagarmatha by Sherpa Tenzing was brave Sir Edmund. This was the day that the mountain was finally colonised. I wonder, did Sir Edmund Hillary pee on… Read More ›
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So you want to be a comic strip writer
Story-writing for comics By Paul Halas It’s surprising how often I’ve been asked how one becomes a comic strip story-writer. My first reaction is usually to try to figure out if the person asking me is a, just being polite,… Read More ›
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Poet of Honour: Fiona Sampson
March Lapwings Now everythingbegins to moveand everything stayswhere it iseach ash treeand each hummockshifts againstitself eventhe grass shiftsand the electriclapwings crychange changebecause the commonmelts and flowseven the earthflows like thawingice how lostthe senses arein this disturbancehere… Read More ›
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#10 Depression
Ars Notoria is pleased to present episode 10 of Dan Pearce’s groundbreaking graphic novel, Depression.
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Letters from Paul Robeson
Selected by Dominic Tweedie from: Paul Robeson Speaks: Writings, Speeches, Interviews, 1918-1974 Paul Robeson was a superstar in the USA in the 1930’s and 40’s despite the fact that he was African American. In 1915 he was twice an All… Read More ›
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Fascism and Conspiracy
Modern conspiracy theory and the appeal of fascism and racism for the working class By Bryan Greetham In my first contribution to this discussion about fascism I examined the claim that fascism was a last ditch response to failing capitalism…. Read More ›
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Black Lives Matter a lot in Cuba… since 1959
by Francisco Dominguez When in 1868, Cuban slave-owner Manuel de Céspedes embarked on a 10-year nationalist uprising against Spain, the colonial master, he did not imagine he would be building not only the political bases of an independent Cuba but… Read More ›
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New government, same old policies
by Eugene McCartan Image: new Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin, leader of the Fianna Fail party. SO, AFTER months of shadow-boxing and pretend negotiations, three parties—Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and the Green Party—have eventually tied the knot and will set up… Read More ›
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#9 Depression
Ars Notoria is pleased to present the ninth episode in the comic series, Depression, by Dan Pearce
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Fascism offered a return to pre-industrial society
National Socialism offered the lower middle class a way of side-stepping the choice between liberalism or socialism. It offered a return to traditional German values. By Bryan Greetham I wanted to take up the claim that fascism was a last… Read More ›
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Stand up to Apartheid Israel, you Lily-livered Soft Leftists*
The moment has come for the soft left to develop a backbone and make a stand against reactionary expansionist Zionism. By Phil Hall and Naeem Ali Jundyeh LET’S be clear. It was the United States and British governments who… Read More ›
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Rebecca Long Bailey’s wrongful dismissal.
There was no antisemitism: the troubling case of Peake, Starmer and Long Bailey By Richard House, Abdul-Karim Al-Malahi, Paul Kelly, Tosh McDonald, Alec McFadden, Andrew Samuels and Chris Searle** Last week the actor Maxine Peake conducted a 1,650-word interview that appeared… Read More ›
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Born to Respect the Wild
We grew up up understanding that nature is wild and and dangerous. By Phil Hall In a film that hasn’t really stood the test of time, My Dinner with Andre, one of the characters played by Wallace Shawn says: I… Read More ›
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Catastrophes are not for drama queens
Global warming is real, but it is not an excuse for misanthropes to voice their hatred of humanity. The debate about global warming parallels the debate about nuclear catastrophe. We are as close as we ever were to catastrophe, to… Read More ›
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Two Poems
A Storm A storm is brewing. Rain is sudden, heavy, falling with shadows, a thunder of echoes on the horizon. The summer air is thick and slow, waiting to be moved by a long awaited wind. Soon, raised hands will… Read More ›
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Tabla Tarangam!
Yogesh Patel A recent report exposes short comings of many publishers in the UK. Albeit, to call the behaviour racist would be unacceptable. I have met many and they are anything but. However, a burrito of ignorance and arrogance spiced… Read More ›
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We need a Great Constitutional Assembly for Great Britain
A Freedom Charter for Great Britain? If we held a constitutional assembly, all the progressive forces in British society could finally agree on a common vision for the future and, having thrashed out this vision, unite around it. This is… Read More ›
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Editorial: June 2020
Welcome to the monthly editorial and welcome to Ars Notoria. Strangely enough, the editorial for June 2020 will be published before the editorial for May 2020, but that is the arsy-varsy, topsy-turvy world of online publishing these days. We are… Read More ›
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#8 Depression
Ars Notoria is pleased to present the eighth episode in the comic series, Depression, by Dan Pearce
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Where’s your vision Sir Keir?
By Paul Halas The blame game continues. Meanwhile… While the general public and the media obsess about Coronavirus – both those who are terrified of it and the others who think the whole issue’s blown out of proportion – and… Read More ›
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Taking Power in Guyana
PPP/C must seize the day by James Tweedie Guyanese caretaker president David Granger still refuses to admit defeat in elections almost four months ago. But the winning People’s Progressive Party/Civic seems reluctant to force a transition of power, despite the… Read More ›
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Climate change: it’s later than we think
Socialists and capitalists together have ruined the planet. by Pete Field Even though climate scientists tell us we have not much time, their forecasts – despite their academic tentativeness – might actually be too optimistic. We already know for sure… Read More ›
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Animation with a social conscience
Halas & Batchelor Cartoon Films 1940 – 1995 By Vivien Halas This year marks the 80th year since my parents, John Halas and Joy Batchelor founded Halas & Batchelor Cartoons, in its day a household name responsible for over 2000… Read More ›
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The Danger of Working Class Fascism
Everyday working class, fascism is real by Phil Hall One of the dirty secrets of history is that fascists can also be working class. Marxists, communists and socialists claim that all fascism comes from the middle and lower middle classes,… Read More ›
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Poet of Honour: Steven O’Brien
Pearl Fishers by Steven O’Brien Such ember-gold in your eyes,As no other girlAnd deep church-glass green,Purple, soft as smoke. Some daybreak soonWhen our blackbird is a high minstrelAbove the rippling treesSlip your hand in mine,No other girl but you And… Read More ›
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Binary
by Yogesh Patel Saddens me we are binaryto my skin.Grandpa used to tell me a lie.Prof Macaulay would throwthe answer papers in the air.The ones landing on the table would pass!There is no random indiscrimination in most discriminations. Never for… Read More ›
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#7 Depression
Ars Notoria is pleased to present the seventh episode in the comic series, Depression, by Dan Pearce.
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An all-American coup
First Chávez, now Trump Photo by Alisdare Hickson (https://www.flickr.com/people/59952459@N08) by James Tweedie Sayre’s Law states that: “In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake.” Egyptian historian Charles Issawi’s maxim about… Read More ›
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HOW DONALD DUCK SAVED MY LIFE…probably
COMICS – THE SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT By Paul Halas To this day there’s still an intellectual snobbery about comics in the UK, which is a shame as no other medium can communicate so well with so much economy. On… Read More ›
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Is socialism a partial solution to discrimination?
Is the solution to racism, misogyny and prejudice a nicer capitalism or do we need a more profound transformation of society? What do we do when a right winger like Priti Patel claims that she is fighting prejudice? Do we… Read More ›
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THAT REPORT
A short appraisal by MERVYN HYDE As a baby boomer, born one month after the war in Japan ended and growing up in a working class family, I grew up along with the welfare state and the NHS. From the… Read More ›
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Guyana: Waiting for Granger to Go
Democracy delayed is democracy denied by James Tweedie Today is the 40th anniversary of the murder of Guyanese revolutionary writer Walter Rodney, a crime his family still believe was ordered by then prime minister Forbes Burnham. Three months – and… Read More ›
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The Mystery of Apolitical Bob Dylan
By Phil Hall Prospero in his cell busy indwelling, might have time to ponder the mystery of the myth that is Bob Dylan. He is concealed behind a dark blue velvet curtain embroidered in gold; Dylan with a megaphone standing… Read More ›
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Angry and Hungry
– and bloody annoyed at the constant micro and macro racism of the British police By Des Willie My day started as it often does when I’m shooting with the alarm going off way too early and just at the… Read More ›
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2015 AND ALL THAT
How we regained faith in politics By Paul Halas Jeremy Corbyn was a phenomenon. This relatively obscure politician emerged from the backbenches to lead the party five years ago, and almost tripled the Labour Party membership. Labour became the biggest… Read More ›
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#6 Depression
Ars Notoria is pleased to present the sixth episode in the comic series, Depression, by Dan Pearce.
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– with The Greatest Of All Time…
In my wildest dreams I never thought I would hang out with my hero, Muhammad Ali. By Andy Hall In my wildest dreams, I never thought I would be hanging out spending time with my hero Muhammad Ali, let alone… Read More ›
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From the forthcoming memoir: Eve and Tony
Extract originally published in The London Magazine By Eve Hall My heroine of very early days was Joan of Arc, whom I loved passionately. I dreamed of martyrdom and detested the English soldiers who burned her at the stake. Every… Read More ›
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MAKING SOCIETY FIT FOR CHILDREN
Challenging the Neoliberal Onslaught By Richard House I recently interviewed tireless childhood campaigner Sue Palmer for the Morning Star on her campaigning work for children’s well-being.1 Sue founded and runs the excellent Upstart! organisation in Scotland,2 is the author of… Read More ›
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How to be a Gourmet
– like Richard Steinhardt By Phil Hall Grandpa was an admirer of Napoleon and this was partly why he chose to live in Golfe Juan in 1972. The other reason they both chose to live in Golfe was because they had… Read More ›
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Breakfast toad in the hole
A cracker from the renowned Circus Chef. “A bit of isolation cooking here. A breakfast toad in the hole and not one for the faint hearted. As we released the Giffords Circus cookbook a couple of days after lockdown began,… Read More ›
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Poet of Honour: George Szirtes
George Szirtes We remain rainless. The late sun draped on washing like a faded flag. This is our nation with its fabled history of bloom, fight and fade. We’re fading. Leaders at press briefings continue to conjure the great spirit… Read More ›
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Allow Me to Spit!
In the USA racism is the collateral damage caused by social inequality and injustice, and a history of slavery, segregation and discrimination. By Phil Hall ‘Killer Mike’ in his emotional response compared the killing of George Floyd by a policeman… Read More ›
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#5 Depression
Ars Notoria is pleased to present the fifth episode in the comic series, Depression, by Dan Pearce.
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The decade of political idolatry
It’s staggering that as the world spiralled into a political death loop over the past decade, and trust overall in our electoral systems has taken a severe beating, that another phenomena should have come about: the political icon. Leaders have,… Read More ›
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Guest poet
Anandi Sharan Giving and receiving Giving and receiving isa matter of systems-logic.Listen to the poets!Here it is,metabolising civilisation.Is it not timeto make love?The rest is not in our control.It is up to the system.I once had a mad lifeand was… Read More ›
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Who controls the Surplus?
The Problem of Surplus and the COVID-19 Pandemic. ‘Can we justify £16bn fortunes when nurses are poorly compensated, care workers are on zero-hour contracts and thousand are homeless?’ by Dr. Pete Stanfield dirig ancient Assyrian term for surplus (Veenhof, K…. Read More ›
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Brave Green World
Can we look forward to a more sustainable future when the Coronavirus virus recedes? By PAUL HALAS For the first time in years the smog has cleared over San Francisco, Beijing, Delhi and Los Angeles. The criss-cross vapour trails in… Read More ›
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No Country is an Island
Song by Richard Tuley: Taking Back Control By Richard Tuley Perhaps it’s distasteful to mention Brexit. People are dying in droves, horribly. The Tories got a resounding mandate. Case closed. The British public bought the lie and now we… Read More ›
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Ideas about Cuba and Che
By Phil Hall When we watched a film about the Mexican revolution starring Pedro Infante in 1997 my wife explained a little about what was going on to our teenage children: ‘Unfortunately, during the Mexican revolution, our family was on… Read More ›
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The Poetry of Markets
One of the greatest pleasures in my grandfather’s life was to visit the market in Cannes, to admire the variety and quality of the produce on offer and to chat to some of the stallholders. Covered markets in Spain are… Read More ›
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4# Depression
Ars Notoria is pleased to present the fourth episode in the comic series by Dan Pearce.
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Abandon the Cities!
The revolutionary environmentalist, Anandi Sharan, argues that to meet 2050 zero carbon emissions the government must give each of us 1/2 an acre of land. By Anandi Sharan Political economy in developed countries has as its aim some version or… Read More ›
Featured Categories
Politics ›
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Pete and Phil Ramble on … about Nature and Socialism
18th October 2020
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UK Appeals Court Annuls Guaidó’s Seizure of Venezuelan Gold
8th October 2020
Phil Hall ›
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A Shared Vision of the North Downs Way
10th October 2020
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Would you like a Bushbaby?
9th October 2020
Socialism ›
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Jeremy Corbyn and The Psychological Agony of the Left
2nd October 2020
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If You are such a Badass, Join a Trade Union
30th September 2020