Dean Whitbread

When atheists use logic to confront belief, it really is as dumb as fighting for peace, or fucking for virginity.

I frequently take a picture of the view from my kitchen, which happens to also be my office, so I'm there quite often. It's not an obsession or a compulsion, I don't mind if I miss it, but while I am there, I document the banal in all its beauty.

I note the passing weather, the changes in light, the changing seasons with the coming of winter, the appearance of a second storey on the temporary building which workers renovating a nearby property are using. I see birds, clouds, shadows, and high visibility jackets, and always that view again.

Images taken between 29 Oct 2011 & 08 Jan 2012.

Thoughts on my way back from Paris, Dec 13, 2011

I sit in the plane surrounded by the people in whose land I sought refuge less than six months ago, hearing the lilt and scrape, the fiddle and swing of their language. Suddenly, it is devoid of charm, and feels only parochial, odd and stilted, instead of curious, intriguing.

Speaking French and drinking coffee in one of the greatest and most inspiring world cities has effectively disrupted my plans. My sincerely nurtured, long-held desire to live in this long, thin land of oil and gas and prawns, and to fit into it by observing certain rights of passage such as suffering the winter months, and by learning to speak the hurdy-gurdy tongue of modern Norway has evaporated in eight, short, Parisian winter days of art.

French is an entire world, an intellectual empire, a way of existing expressively, vibrantly. It is the global experience of countless millions.. French is a real language, a lingua franca full of subtlety and mystique. It is the other half of my own tongue, the sexy half, the half that kisses and seduces. It is a masterful language, spoken with passion and pride, things which moralist, democratic Scandinavians in general and Norwegians in particular like to hide out of a misguided sense of propriety.

Everyone in the city of Paris is an artist, if they want. In London or New York you’re not a real “capital A” Artist if some gallery hasn’t hosted your work and rolled out wine for intellectuals and reviewers, and you can’t be a proper writer if you haven’t had a book published. In Paris, anyone can be creative, and so, everyone is, it seems, everywhere, in superb measure, often, and sans inhibition. There’s no hiding your light out of deference to an obscure concept which keeps everyone “equal”, or British class-obsession to keep you in your place; instead there’s the appreciation of talent both raw and refined, acknowledgement of the struggle along the path, the pain of creative birth, and the assumption of one’s natural place being at least as elevated as the next person.

London is the only real competitor to Paris, by dint of history and proximity. I am London, formed of it, 80 kilos of its mud and water walking around, talking English, thinking in English, planning in English. Fifty years of born and accumulated London, until so recently laying thick upon me like an old wet Cromby. But London has nothing on Paris, not air, not water, not light, not music, not literature, not fashion, not the underground nor the overground, and certainly, definitely not art, which is everywhere, unabashed, unexcused, and stupendous.

I went to Paris and something just changed. A new SIM went in. My settings became parametres, my methodology gained élan. Eight short winter days changed me for an improved model. I feel awake, interested, stylish. I want to up sticks, desert the north, and eat French food forever. I want to sleep with French women until I fall in love and plight my troth. I want lightbulbs powered by nuclear energy, and police with large, visible guns. I want irony, snobbery, intellectual, quick-fire wit, and the right to complain. I want to rail against hypocrisy at the same time as exemplifying it.

French is the other side of me, the side I deserted twenty five years ago, and I want it back.

Shot using Panasonic Lumix GF1 with Photojojo TV lens, December 10th 2011

People need to swear. There is a need to cuss. People need an outlet for the insanity of every day life. I've found that as long as I don't watch TV news, and avoid 80% of the press, I can avoid swearing, mostly, and this is an improvement.

News. I watch people's behaviour incredulously. People are just insane.

I can't believe the shit that goes down. I don't just swear, I am in awe of the levels of crap that raineth down upon all humanity, let alone the really bad bits of it, you know, torture and all that fucking evil shit.

It's fucked, totally fucked. Right? Are you seeing what I'm seeing?

I try not to watch it. I begin to swear and shake my head. Much as I think I need to swear, it's not a good look for a civilised man.

Yet I do not feel ashamed to be reacting like this. If I didn't swear, it would be a lie. I must cuss, to tell it as it is. 

http://realswearing.org/

Remember: peace first, then act.

When you feel frantic, when you feel worried, peace first. Then act.

When you feel the pressure, the expectation from within and without, peace first. Then act.

In a crisis, peace first, then act.

That moment of peace, it is always nearer than you think. Just ask for it, find it.

Then act.

Noise. Made by people all over the world.

There are no banners. Since yesterday the entire event has been about crime and brutality and has nothing to do with the original event, the death of Mark Duggan.

  This is how it looks to have started. The protest was a vigil outside a police station, after Duggan was shot dead by police in hotly disputed circumstances. During the vigil the liquor store was robbed, the empty bottles lobbed at the police station. The 50 or so friends and family (who were kept from the body for 36 hours - police have since admitted this was a mistake) were angry, but not rioting. At some point a 16 year old girl was bashed up by five cops in riot gear, that sparked stone throwing, so it went.

  Of course there is widespread anger. But many working class people despise their rulers, regardless of colour or background, or even who happens to be in power. People have seen all authority exposed as a sham, and they ask, why the hell should I care?

  The shadow side of Britain is criminality which runs from top to bottom. MPs and members of the upper house have been prosecuted and sent to prison for cheating on expenses. Murdoch's minions have been exposed for paying off police. Cameron attended News International meetings 24 times in one year.

  There is little respect for law even among police who have a string of dodgy deaths and clumsy cover-ups in recent years, Tomlinson, Menezes, Smiley Culture.

  Our establishment is seen as corrupt, and everyone knows this. Authorities do not command respect from anyone, least of all savvy, hard-nosed, selfish opportunist criminals, a generation born into the kind of valueless, amoral consumer-driven materialism dominant since Thatcher.

  Then there is the fact that young people's futures have just been chucked in the trash, with education now out of reach and costing a fortune, courses cut, and youth centres closed, public sector jobs cut, all to get a "well done" back slap for Britain from the IMF...

  Add to this one spark of genuine grievance as a catalyst, and you have your British storm.