tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91349674951690870082024-03-13T07:18:45.166+00:00overnight to many distant citiesUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger256125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-66638100219281849602013-05-22T22:49:00.000+00:002013-05-22T22:49:27.471+00:00Glorifying TerrorismThis was what I thought in 2006:
Introduction
Andrew McKie
The purpose of the stories and the poems in this book is to glorify ter- rorism. More specifically, they attempt to break the law proposed by the British Government designed to outlaw anything which might be read or interpreted as that.
Of course, this current Government knows you could ride a coach and horses through this legislation, and that it isn’t supposed to apply to the contents of this book, not really. But that’s what this current Government says, now.
My purpose is not to introduce or analyse the work which follows, except to commend it to the attention of anyone interested in what is per- haps the earliest clear ideological crisis of the 21st Century, and to hope that it will be a spur to debate. It is likely that you, like me, will violently dislike or disagree with the implications of some of the entries in this an- thology; indeed, I will go further; I suspect that I disagree more with the political views of the authors of the majority of these pieces than most of its readers will. But I am happy to stand beside them because of the one thing on which we do agree: freedom of speech.
It is as well to be clear at once that, in liberal Western democracies, lib- erty is not licence, and that no freedom is unfettered. Full-blown Libertar- ians may wish it otherwise, yet even their ingenuity may be hard pressed to find an accommodation with Jihadists who advocate as a moral duty the extermination of them and all they stand for. Trotskyites and others on the Left may claim a moral equivalence between the force exerted by the State and its enemies, but it is a notoriously partial ground, and depends on your sympathies – the Israelis or the Palestinians? the Irish Republi- cans or (in the six counties) the democratic majority Unionists? the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon or Hiz’bollah? the Russian Federation or Chechen separatists?
A bid for neutrality in these No Man’s Lands does little good. Even on the football terraces of Glasgow or Liverpool there is a race memory of dif- ference which goes back three centuries or more before the founding of the clubs. History, even – perhaps especially – invented history, encompasses all our narratives, as great glorifiers of terrorism such as Sir Walter Scott knew. As Orwell pointed out, even the declaration that art is not political is in itself a political statement.
And so, while it is almost laughable to hear the BBC describe the be- heading of a Western captive in Baghdad by some terrorist group as the work of Iraqi “insurgents” or “militants” (the more so since most such out- fits are imported murderers), the fashion in which it is ridiculous depends upon what has fashioned your own political views.
7
8 Andrew McKie
History may resolve some of your doubts. What could be wrong with Stirling’s memorial to William Wallace, Scots inventor of guerrilla war- fare, or even Mel Gibson’s wildly inaccurate film about him? Or the plaque unveiled earlier this year to Irgun’s bombing of the King David Hotel? Or the comments by the British Prime Minister’s wife that we should try to understand what drives young Palestinians to become suicide bombers? Or Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, which doesn’t disguise his connec- tions with an armed resistance to apartheid? Michael Collins or de Valera? Che or Fidel? Leon or Vladimir? The decadent Europhile neo-Papist (but Royal) Stewarts or the voice of non-Conformist, Parliamentarian small- landowner England (but Puritanical and Regicide) Cromwell? Custer or Crazy Horse?
The fact is that our views of all those contests are coloured not only by our own political standpoint but by results. Though a horrible thing, I would strongly disagree with the view that the bombing of Dresden was a war crime, but it is routinely regarded as that in Germany, and by people without the slightest sympathy for the Third Reich (I don’t know Gunter Grass’s opinion).
Whose governments were Left or Right wing: Pinochet’s; Franco’s; Hitler’s; Stalin’s; Castro’s; Deng Zao-Ping’s? Whose were open and whose restrictive in terms of freedom of speech: Nero’s; the Venetian Doges’; Charlemagne’s; Louis XIV’s; Thatcher’s; Ortega’s; Haughey’s; Gor- bachev’s; Kohl’s; Mitterand’s; Berlusconi’s?
Since you are an intelligent reader, I suspect that I disagree with you on at least three of your answers to the questions above. Since you are an intelligent reader, I suspect you disagree with at least three of your own answers, and find at least three more which contradict others.
Which brings us at last to the contradictory and thought-provoking work which follows. A literature of the fantastic has, paradoxically, less opportunity to trim, conceal and spin than has everyday journalese (itself a tautological phrase).
The success of all science fiction and fantasy is rooted in three things. First: it must make, or build. We demand from it worlds that we have not imagined, but which, when they are constructed, we can imagine visiting. Second: it must remain consistent unto itself; in other words, if it falls apart, it can only do so in its own terms (you can’t have vampires in space opera, or spaceships in Faerie, unless you’ve set it up that way).
Third, and hardest to explain, but easiest to spot for anyone who reads any kind of fantastic literature: it must be true in some way. Which is just a way of saying that good sf and fantasy are always talking about how the world is, and how it might be. Sometimes ( John Brunner, John Wyndham, Philip K Dick) as prophecy or awful warning. Sometimes (Ursula K Le Guin, Arthur C Clarke, JRR Tolkein) with an almost optimistic yearning. But whichever it is (and all the writers suggested as examples of one ten-
Introduction 9
dency have moments of demonstrating the opposite), it is about elucidat- ing the present, rather than predicting the future.
Indeed, it is the freedom of sf and fantasy that makes it the most flexible literary form for this purpose: the excursions into the fantastic by Borges, Marques, Havel, Lem, Bulgakov, Kafka and others in the last century were often born of restrictions on what could plainly be said. British publishers may have refused Animal Farm on the ground that no one wanted to read anthropomorphic fables; in the countries where it mattered, everyone got the point. When The Master and Margerita came out in serial form, the magazines flew off the shelves: no one could quite believe the authorities had not realized what it was about.
But of course they hadn’t, as they never do. The most vocal opponents of Tony Blair and his ever-more authoritarian declension of Home Secre- taries (at the last count David Blunkett, Charles Clarke, John Reid: though who knows by the time of printing?) do not claim him as a Kruschev. I am sure all of them believe that they are doing their utmost to combat the terrorist threat.
Which allows us to return to the restrictions which liberal Western democracy has always placed upon freedom of speech, and against which voices have been raised since before Milton’s Areopagitica. But whether the logic of the arguments advanced (implicitly or explicitly) in the pieces which follow create a case for greater freedom of speech, one thing is evi- dent about the new curtailment of expression. It will achieve nothing, can- not, indeed, achieve anything productive in the “war against terror”.
The purpose of terrorism is to make ordinary life unsustainable by creating random assaults on the population. The hope is that resisting the ambitions of the terrorists becomes less important than the horrors which may be consequent upon resistance. The game is not worth the candle, they hope we will say. And the result is that families are displaced from Catholic or Protestant areas of Belfast, from Jewish or Palestinian sections of Jerusalem; Bosnians, Serbs, Croats, Hutus and Tutsis, and who knows what group next, shuffle from refugee camp to refugee camp.
It is perfectly respectable for legislative bulwarks to be raised against such bullying. And so we have in Britain a law against the incitement to riot; we have numerous public order acts; we have laws against incitement to racial hatred, and laws, or proposed laws, against discrimination on the grounds of sexuality, ethnicity or religious conviction.
But, as I have said, this collection is not primarily about the logic of that existing legislation, but asks only why, when it is already in place, any new law should be required. If some Imam urges the slaughter of all Jews, he may be prosecuted as the law stands. If some Roman Catholic thinks all Protestants damned, or vice versa, he may say so; but if he does so in a particularly incendiary situation, he may be charged with offences under the Public Order Act.
10 Andrew McKie
Some believers in International Socialism (Trots) have been arguing since I was in nappies for violent perpetual revolution; though the adher- ents of that doctrine may feel they have been victimised by the state, the state has in fact provided me with the opportunity to read the maxims of their founding fathers at the taxpayers’ expense at every public library, and paid for their adherents to attend places of further education, where they can try to sell me more copies of their tiresome newspapers. Neo-Nazis, when they can avoid calling for measures which offend against the law against incitement to racial hatred, have no difficulty publishing their ar- guments. I personally have no trouble in ignoring those arguments as both wrong-headed and repugnant. I can, however, see no way in which either group should not be allowed to advance its case which does not at the same time compromise the ability of, say, the Liberal Democrats or the Scottish Nationalists to do the same.
The question, for liberals, for conservatives (who are, in the British tradition, liberal) for socialists (who are, in the British tradition, liberal) is one of proportionality. Whether or not we want unfettered freedom of speech, there is at least a case for the law prohibiting open calls for the assassination of individuals (this is not theoretical, as the Rushdie case demonstrates) or groups (as both the conflict in the Balkans and Islamist and Nazi assaults on Jews demonstrate).
I am writing this in the country from which liberal Western democ- racy, inherited from Greece, spread throughout Europe. It is also the cen- tre of Western Christendom; not, perhaps, a doctrine which many of the writers in this book wish to advance against the threat which proudly op- poses it, but a tradition which allowed the evolution of the civilization we are now engaged in defending.
Getting here, thanks to a terrorist scare the day before I left Britain, involved a prohibition on carrying laptops, mobile phones and – most dif- ficult for a family with three children, one of them an infant – a ban on liquids, including close examination of baby milk, on planes.
I don’t like those curtailments on my freedom of movement, but I un- derstand them as a reaction (even if over-zealous) to a perceived threat. I have myself been fairly close to terrorist bombs several times – South Quay (one failed bomb, one successful); and in Soho and Covent Garden (the Admiral Duncan, the White Swan, the bomb near Centre Point). I was on a train stopped on its way to King’s Cross on 7/7.
So I don’t mind these tiresome, temporary, impediments to liberty, be- cause they are temporary and proportionate. Having everything X-rayed and taking off your shoes at an airport may do some good; so may making it illegal to call for the extermination of an entire people on the basis of their religion or ethnicity by birth.
What is absurd is to call for a law which prohibits anything which might be characterised or interpreted as “glorifying terrorism”. And, in the
Introduction 11
peculiarly post-modernist interpretation in statute, by anyone. You, like me, may not think it enough for Tony Blair to assure you that he’s “a pretty straight kind of guy”. You may start thinking quis custodiet ipsos custodes or, if you’re of a slightly different political cast, who, whom?
You’d be right. There’s an important battle going on here, and one which probably only became clear to the West after September 2001. It’s a battle for what we believe in, but whether we’re reactionary Presbyterians or Catholics, liberal middle-of the-roaders, radical Trotsykists or Libera- tiarians or, probably most acutely, devout Muslims who want to hold to traditionalism without being labelled wicked, when it comes to legislation we would do well to ask what we were taught to ask of any remark: Is it necessary? Is it true? Is it kind?
The trouble is that it’s a maxim which relies on the good faith of our masters. I have, as you would expect from someone who has made a living writing editorials for The Daily Telegraph, a certain scepticism about this Labour Government. But I have also understood, and indeed supported, certain aspects of its stance on the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, its support for America, its anxiety to tackle what I think is a genuine assault on the values of Western society. That, I’d guess, won’t be shared by many of the writers who follow.
What we do share is a demand that we inhabit any area of thought we choose; an assumption that the imagination not only should not but can- not be policed, and a refusal to take the word of “moderate” governments that their illiberal, shoddy and badly-drafted legislation does not intend us to be its target.
Under this legislation I can think of plenty illegal sf classics, from Dune’s suicide commandos to short stories by Bob Shaw, John Varley and Bruce Sterling. So can you. All we are asking is that we continue to be allowed to think of them; that the people writing for you in this book con- tinue to be allowed to think of them, and others. If we are not going to be allowed to think as we choose, we choose to be targets – not for terrorists, but for our own legislators.
Andrew McKie Montepulciano, August 2006
The book in question was published by Rackstraw Press and was full of excellent sf stories by clever people who often disagreed with my view (as predicted), but were never anything other than wonderful. The book was devised, edited and made by the very brilliant Prof Farah Mendlesohn. Goodness knows where you could get a copy now.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-87289051586124009222011-06-08T19:45:00.002+00:002011-06-08T19:48:53.132+00:00Herald column June 6 2011A slight technical meltdown means The Herald website didn't get this up. Here's the raw copy for the multitudes that have requested it:<br /><br /><br />By Andrew McKie<br /><br />Last Monday I took my life in my hands and ate a Greek salad. The cucumber was from Hertfordshire, which probably meant that it was free of deadly levels of E. coli, but also meant that it didn’t taste of very much, as tomatoes and cucumbers pumped full of water and grown in British or Dutch polytunnels usually don’t.<br /> The food in Italy, a couple of days later, was better. On Wednesday, I had a small glass of white wine with my lunch (spaghetti con vongole) and a Campari-soda before a dinner – prosciutto, then pasta Bolognese, fegato alla Veneziana, and a big slice of parmigiano reggiano and an espresso instead of pudding – which I accompanied with half a litre of red wine.<br /> Nice for you, readers may be thinking, but why tell us, unless the aim is to foster jealousy and undermine the appeal of our breakfast toast, instant coffee and the box of Coco Pops against which we’ve propped the newspaper? <br /> Because, to echo a title by the food historian Margaret Visser, much depends on dinner. Eating those meals, I became embroiled in three major news stories: the row over food safety prompted by the E. coli outbreak centred on Germany, which by yesterday had killed 19 people and made more than 1,800 seriously ill; the declaration that one in three Scottish children is being brought up in a “binge-drinking” household; and the assertion by Barbara Stocking, Oxfam’s chief executive, that within decades there will “absolutely not be enough food” to feed the world’s population.<br /> All three are significant stories which raise important issues. Naturally, the knee-jerk response of many lobbying groups is to demand government action. Specifically, in the words of Oxfam’s report, “to regulate, to correct, to protect, to resist, to invest”. For Alcohol Focus Scotland, that means minimum pricing and stricter licensing; others have called for stricter rules on food production in Europe. It’s a depressingly familiar reaction to matters which are, at root, to do with individual choices by consumers. <br /> Spanish cucumbers, it seems, did not cause this outbreak, but that has not stopped a catastrophic slump in sales of vegetables, and probably an expensive round of bureaucratic compensation payments. Yet such threats to public health have been well identified and controlled – particularly in Britain – for more than a century; which accounts for their rarity. <br /> Of course, it is important to identify the cause of this outbreak and, if there are lessons to be learned, see that they are. But since E. coli can be avoided by very simple precautions (washing and cooking vegetables properly) by consumers themselves, racing to introduce sterner regulation would be a clumsy and damaging response.<br /> Similarly, Scotland, and the rest of the United Kingdom, has an unenviable record when it comes to its drinking habits. But narrowly defining the real dangers of alcohol in terms of units or their cost in order to maximise the scare potential of the story, rather than looking at the behaviour and responsibilities of individuals, is to distort the picture. As this newspaper wisely pointed out, government measures are a peripheral distraction; the central issue is changing attitudes. <br /> I dispute the claim in Friday’s editorial that no one wants to see a return to the 1950s, when self-control was seen in part as a moral issue. Older rituals of food and drink, tied to religious observances and balancing periods of abstinence with prescribed days for feasting, encouraged responsible behaviour more effectively than any blunt instrument Holyrood may devise.<br /> Sensible drinking can add immensely to the store of human happiness, just as excessive drinking can generate terrible misery. The same is true of food. The “obesity epidemic” is caused by ignorance, reliance on unhealthy, disgusting, packaged and junk food, and by families failing to sit down to eat together. In this country, we do not just eat and drink badly, we buy and cook badly. We spend much less of our household income on food than most Continental Europeans, and throw out a third of what we buy untasted. The solution is not to manipulate the consumer price, nor to regulate manufacturers and producers of food and drink, but to make people care about their behaviour.<br /> Oxfam is quite right to point out that it is an outrage that nearly a billion people go hungry while so many in the developed world are obese. It is right, too, to attack the dumping of crops by the EU and the USA – the equivalent of households throwing out the “buy one get one free” food they never get round to eating – and the mad subsidies which encourage the use of agricultural land to produce biofuels, in order to meet climate change targets. <br /> But Oxfam seems unable to see that these absurdities have been created by governments doing exactly what they are asking for more of: prevention, intervention, correction, protection and investment. The single greatest thing oppressing farmers in the developing world is the existence of tariffs set by the EU and the USA to protect domestic producers. <br /> The reason for the growth in yields in the West is precisely the large-scale farming and technology, including genetic modification and chemical fertilizers, which Oxfam opposes for the developing world on environmental grounds. Despite the price rises of the past few years, two of three world’s three staple crops (maize and wheat) are, in real terms, half the price they were in the 1940s, and a quarter cheaper than they were in the 1960s. India (which used to import rice) improved yields spectacularly by introducing such techniques, and by abolishing their equivalent of the Corn Laws. Regulation, the fashion for “sustainability” and the command economy solutions of the “Fair Trade” movement impoverish many more than they help.<br /> Prosperous countries need to take food more seriously and consume it more responsibly. Poor countries need to be given the advantages the rich countries have already had from the introduction of modern agricultural practice and access to free markets. Doing that would prove the truth of the third aphorism with which Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin introduced La physiologie du goût: “The destiny of nations depends on the manner in which they feed themselves.”Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-79746023467012911152011-04-20T22:18:00.001+00:002011-04-20T22:20:52.639+00:00Herald ColumnsI'm trying to spot those which don't appear online & offer them here. I think this may have been missed from April 4. <br /><br /><br />If you’re taking part in a debate, it’s a good policy not to ask any questions that you don’t know the answer to. That’s because debate, like “abate” and their aphaeretic relative “bate” in all its various senses – diminution, strife, rage – ultimately shares a root with “batter”. Debates are for bashing the living daylights out of your opponents, not for establishing the truth, which may be why, having delivered what he no doubt thought was the knockout punch, Pontius Pilate didn’t stay for the answer.<br /> But you and I are above all that sort of sophistry, so perhaps we can approach, in a spirit of honest, humble, Socratic inquiry, one of the urgent questions of our age: “Why is the Labour Party so remarkably useless?”<br /> As attentive readers may have guessed, I haven’t generally delivered my vote in the direction of that party, even when it tempted me with Bob Gillespie in Govan. But I’m aware that, for unfathomable reasons, not everyone shares my views, and -– in the midst of what we keep being told are “savage cuts” – Labour’s comparative lack of support strikes me as genuinely rather puzzling.<br /> True, the party is ahead in the national opinion polls by five or 10%, but during the “savage cuts” of the Thatcher governments in the 1980s, it was regularly out in front by 20% or more, and it contrived to lose all those elections. For the Holyrood elections, as the Rev Ewan Aitken, Labour’s candidate for Edinburgh Eastern, put it yesterday: “We are not behind but we are not ahead.” <br /> To be neck and neck with the governing party is an alarmingly feeble position for an opposition on the eve of an election but, as party managers must know, it is at least better than the frankly catastrophic showing of Iain Gray in the poll before last week’s STV debate, in which only 7% of respondents identified him as the best candidate for First Minister. <br /> No doubt I should be heartened when Scottish voters rank their country’s Tory leader above the leader of its Labour party, but the truth is that I’m baffled. Or at least I was until I saw Mr Gray’s performance, which went some way to explaining it. Tavish Scott was a hole in the air, and managed to be more impressive; Patrick Harvie came out of it better, and he wasn’t even on the programme. But the fault isn’t just Iain Gray’s; Ed Miliband is faring no better south of the border.<br /> Perhaps the polls are wrong. After all, three days before that Govan by-election in 1988, Labour were on 53% to the Nationalists’ 33%. The platitude of all politicians in the face of poor opinion polls – that the only poll that matters is on election day – has, like most clichés, the virtue of being true.<br /> Nor, though I might wish it otherwise, can it be simple cause and effect derived from that other political cliché which brought Bill Clinton the presidency: “It’s the economy, stupid.” After all, despite Norman Lamont’s efforts, the economy was in pretty good shape by the end of John Major’s government, and it didn’t stop them from getting one of the worst bloody noses in electoral history. It may be more surprising that although Gordon Brown left the economy in the worst condition in living memory, it didn’t lead to a Tory landslide. <br /> But it’s for precisely that reason that one would expect Labour to be in much better electoral shape almost a year on, now that the cuts to public services are beginning to take effect, and when growth remains hesitant. Where, for example, is the surge of support from all those Left-wing Liberal Democrats who feel betrayed?<br /> I don’t know, but I suspect that the trouble for the Labour leaders, both at Holyrood and Westminster, is – appropriately enough – the same as the inept debater’s. They have no answer to offer. During his speech at the March for the Alternative, Mr Miliband neglected to say what the alternative was, and Mr Gray has not been much more forthcoming at differentiating Labour’s spending plans from those proposed by the Nationalists.<br /> The public may dislike and fear the cuts being proposed by the Coalition government, but on the whole, they believe in their necessity. They may be sceptical about the SNP’s spending plans, but no competing vision is being offered by the Labour party, other than increasing the rate at which we borrow money. For the “savage cuts”, which amount to just over 3%, will only return us to the spending levels of 2008. We are not paying off our debts, but merely addressing the deficit by slowing the rate at which we are borrowing.<br /> In many ways, the other week’s rally typified the Labour party’s problem. It brought together a large number of people who work in or depend on the public sector to complain noisily (though, I happily concede, almost entirely peacefully) about the level of cuts. But surely few, even among the protestors, would argue that no cuts are required. That irritating chant “No Ifs, No Buts, No [fill in the name of your special interest group here] Cuts” is not an argument.<br /> There are lots of “ifs” and “buts”, yet no credible alternative vision is being suggested by Labour, not even an illusory one, such as Tony Blair’s specious “Third Way”. Even with the last government’s expansion of the public sector, the protestors are hugely outnumbered by voters who, for all their worries about public services, acknowledge that we cannot continue dunning taxpayers to expand the state forever.<br /> Labour’s central support, of course, and the vast majority of its financing, comes from the public sector unions. Gordon Brown attempted to expand the party’s natural support by adding 800,000 people to the public payroll, and by dragging almost everyone he could think of (including families earning £60,000 a year) into the welfare system. That story had a very unhappy ending. <br /> The Labour party has yet to find another political narrative to offer those outside its core constituency. Until it does, it will have trouble in parliamentary constituencies, whether for Holyrood or Westminster.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-48553247228013490972010-09-06T07:12:00.002+00:002010-09-06T07:14:50.454+00:00Every Little Helps...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQmB01lXJxEMWhgPtpj1d0WSlig9Y81EUVHsDpcUNEir1FDgcf4WY-k2Jd8542zDmiYi_p4U22_O2APH7K63nYXhe9R4kp_Yye_YlkY-JNltZx6ZCdS0SnL9TZbYM9ghwt3f9s0_nPXp8/s1600/IMG_0001.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 298px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQmB01lXJxEMWhgPtpj1d0WSlig9Y81EUVHsDpcUNEir1FDgcf4WY-k2Jd8542zDmiYi_p4U22_O2APH7K63nYXhe9R4kp_Yye_YlkY-JNltZx6ZCdS0SnL9TZbYM9ghwt3f9s0_nPXp8/s400/IMG_0001.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5513695427635666434" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />With the addition of tobacco, you could live in this aisle.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-40386159618603738022010-07-30T14:23:00.001+00:002010-07-30T14:23:24.360+00:00Bread baked<div class='posterous_autopost'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/P4dbUGq8XpwD3jOnVfCPSaZIXZViUgTXX0qyUPxBaS0OCJAeNlP7a8VbSEw9/photo.jpg" width="320" height="239"/> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://distantcities.posterous.com/bread-baked">distantcities</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-57790710135896250082010-07-30T13:51:00.001+00:002010-07-30T13:51:23.184+00:00Picking stones out of jam. Exceptionally tedious<div class='posterous_autopost'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/DxvI2b4h7mN7TDv4dRUiWTIEPk4Za016oxhfVQDBaHgl7DtcGFk1CQn0MFH4/photo.jpg" width="320" height="239"/> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://distantcities.posterous.com/picking-stones-out-of-jam-exceptionally-tedio">distantcities</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-39167785631496851322010-07-28T15:52:00.001+00:002010-07-28T15:52:42.887+00:00About a third of the plums on one of the trees were ready<div class='posterous_autopost'><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/0vHImpxO11f59yc6eF4d1XGjfx83WINZeFuKp3AI4rQ8rmIU0FZq1PZi7hq1/photo.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/chuoTVMbfqpnXRFAj9peTrL7p73gwXKLpvl2Ggj7WR6w8nzeaFhJFRlO1905/photo.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="478" height="640"/></a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://distantcities.posterous.com/about-a-third-of-the-plums-on-one-of-the-tree">distantcities</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-2128841094396261012010-07-21T15:28:00.001+00:002010-07-21T15:28:06.399+00:00Further progress: Sure & Certain Hope of the Resurrection (unfinished)<div class='posterous_autopost'><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/wnRQDzvDgKxjj3FnWfKFqYZn2pTkYTRcEnYibAF6xGRMj3N234y55JOEJcLE/SureCertain2.jpg.scaled.1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/1DfbzGQkYBZDJxXZxMIlAnUPMxqhIo2PzB2GbGLMrCAhX01Fy3xMjiYp4Ity/SureCertain2.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="375"/></a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://distantcities.posterous.com/further-progress-sure-certain-hope-of-the-res">distantcities</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-46707426024011578242010-07-21T15:26:00.003+00:002010-07-21T15:26:39.113+00:00New paintings: The magician<div class='posterous_autopost'><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/9eze9pm4CM9fEtEWFeGmbMwl0SRFVM1wXyyWpWYqAXTd0OcF3low6QWf0GAw/the_magician.jpg.scaled.1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/c5qldlN0NYdRuPXgTReilFmhkBsDInNhIKdvAwF4jRKt9RPZZYEnULe3dosF/the_magician.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="382"/></a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://distantcities.posterous.com/new-paintings-the-magician">distantcities</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-17149310042068798942010-07-21T15:26:00.001+00:002010-07-21T15:26:20.398+00:00New paintings: Marie, Marie, Hold On Tight<div class='posterous_autopost'><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/C2QGmJbxXDCW4OECfvyC76zZik9XQgRhdwGMOkoq1XUGr9Spx7Tg3calmi7r/marie_marie_hold_on_tight.jpg.scaled.1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/lQFwuBM6fccMVW6Oo3zawCw1KIwD1psluWsfdCtCBuH7DTuQi43xYMWAJX0M/marie_marie_hold_on_tight.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="615"/></a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://distantcities.posterous.com/new-paintings-marie-marie-hold-on-tight">distantcities</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-7442009858703557312010-07-13T23:49:00.001+00:002010-07-13T23:49:09.653+00:00painting in progress: Sure & Certain Hope of the Resurrection<div class='posterous_autopost'><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/pSc8lf1ginlY35AakEdr8T0tDQeQdDlmlwZ5X3LXYcVr7gCf6FO1KMR9KVvv/wipSureCertain.jpg.scaled.1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/9GrqtrgtiN71pAdVpUe1Qb3s7PTl3u1OTCsDOhSTDuU3xVlvDOZUn8eMRiwO/wipSureCertain.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="375"/></a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://distantcities.posterous.com/painting-in-progress-sure-certain-hope-of-the">distantcities</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-3153084256946423002010-07-03T18:43:00.001+00:002010-07-03T18:43:32.998+00:00New painting from the Shipping Area series: Bailey<div class='posterous_autopost'><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/GRweiEOxti5vaK7JV741Um3uazxqr1prpziht47iVA4u7GV1H6WDviWbDJgI/photo.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/XHTB6x0roYjzqREGTLyLZRgKs5kQ5aibWzNGkViIbRy1MoZSnm5znZjU2GSY/photo.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="667"/></a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://distantcities.posterous.com/new-painting-from-the-shipping-area-series-ba">distantcities</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-50309577805797254722010-07-02T23:51:00.009+00:002010-07-03T00:16:15.031+00:00TapenadeLooks like garden mulch, tastes like what it is: one of the glories of Mediterranean cuisine, which is one of the great arts of the civilized world. It is the easiest thing ever to make a jar like this:<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcNsokjrS5e5c1vxBPTtUW_CGJTaOoDeba6LdOXJYiSI1tX9YWO0VxSsyaNRuMvrej3yy2l9Qgq1q1WYDpHVnZ_jxrjBSQlJgkWZ6kuOM0VQVFP40euf6hJ95s8bwQvdkjrolStKYL4Uw/s1600/tapenade.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 270px; height: 360px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcNsokjrS5e5c1vxBPTtUW_CGJTaOoDeba6LdOXJYiSI1tX9YWO0VxSsyaNRuMvrej3yy2l9Qgq1q1WYDpHVnZ_jxrjBSQlJgkWZ6kuOM0VQVFP40euf6hJ95s8bwQvdkjrolStKYL4Uw/s400/tapenade.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489462054641210050" /></a><br /><br />ie, a double sized jamjar. Which is done like this:<br /><br />One tin anchovies<br />BIG handful of herbs from the garden (oregano, golden oregano, thyme, rosemary)<br />A red chilli<br />Three cloves of garlic<br />Three tablespoons of capers (big ones, but the ones preserved in salt are better than the ones in brine)<br />Couple of sybose (spring onions)<br />A little tuna (optional)<br /><br />Put all this, with a bit of black pepper, in a liquidiser. Add in about as many wrinkled oily Greek black olives as you can get in the bowl. You'll be stoning them as you go, because the good ones are unstoned. When the undersides of your fingernails are all black and you have more than 75 stones beside the whizzing machine, put the lid on and blitz. Pour in good olive oil the while. A teacup's worth in the first minute, then see how it goes. Probably the same again, and perhaps even twice as much, as you get it to the consistency of supermarket pesto. And a bit of lemon juice (half a lemon, perhaps).<br /><br />Good as a dip, on toast, and poured over hard-boiled eggs. Especially nice for breakfast. Anyone over 8 years old who doesn't like tapenade is suspect on the food front.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-57502751689885973332010-07-01T12:10:00.001+00:002010-07-01T12:10:11.645+00:00Lunchtime<div class='posterous_autopost'><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/Z90VyondiztpIa8qoJZcG7kn8Ep7OAnHZ1R0h6KYG7UCHQHTEyVKLjojwVD1/photo.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/Trx9ZhEF6S3NHLTuGFaF2MBiB1cXEWBe6C9Y2IvuNmDqJpo2MZxUEUvoKPAk/photo.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="667"/></a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://distantcities.posterous.com/lunchtime-280">distantcities</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-79834243715806515792010-06-29T19:13:00.001+00:002010-06-29T19:13:27.653+00:00Today's picture: South Utsire, North-East Forties, Westerly, Three to Four<div class='posterous_autopost'><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/LiIUULI2DgdxLqjPNlH9YLoYILap40FMtJHidI8YtXJdBWI33In8jN3S10DJ/utsire.jpg.scaled.1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/xOrn5kLL2zvUTWD0oNATZYJiyPqz1XILRlh3rTf8icZDViXOWSbuoMOOOy7T/utsire.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="382"/></a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://distantcities.posterous.com/todays-picture-south-utsire-north-east-fortie">distantcities</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-84516898014648377582010-06-11T21:42:00.001+00:002010-06-11T21:42:46.175+00:00Today's painting: All the flowers you planted<div class='posterous_autopost'><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/kF4RSyo4h23b1PNBCI5EEpysKYKu0D3opRi1m7kJzmK035eEiU7LGPfmeRFA/alltheflowers.jpg.scaled.1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/ui9MuKMmBk4QGMopVkZ6nvLYQ7vYapOzAXs5o51wh35iIP8gx0NSwGWRggi7/alltheflowers.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="667"/></a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://distantcities.posterous.com/todays-painting-all-the-flowers-you-planted">distantcities</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-54158784498464416992010-06-04T23:56:00.001+00:002010-06-04T23:56:53.994+00:001940s-style overcoat from John Pearse<div class='posterous_autopost'><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/9zyle3Wi5M6L0TUI1u2PvCEH5b4Rw1VqvVBNK4rhWu8mCWpelSpTFC5bfB6h/overcoat.jpg.scaled.1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/cL3XqJYe737j3GZbiCQ0tRNdgshWNYMbybGtmMNvXuzCqK29m37TaSvPNCY3/overcoat.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="667"/></a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://distantcities.posterous.com/1940s-style-overcoat-from-john-pearse">distantcities</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-91262125634114327932010-06-04T20:08:00.004+00:002010-06-04T20:14:31.964+00:00Saatchi and Tatton Park: British Contemporary Art NowHow tautological is it to talk about contemporary art now? As compared to Sensation, say? <a href= "http://online.wsj.com/article/SB127560457553800743.html">Here</a> is my Wall Street Journal Europe piece on the new Saatchi show. Pressure of space means it doesn't explicitly say that Phoebe Unwin's paintings are very good, but they are.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-30161565639058042972010-05-31T09:30:00.001+00:002010-05-31T09:32:01.678+00:00Herald Column 1 June 2010This morning's Herald column (not on website).<br /><br />You may have missed a good story about David Laws which emerged on Friday afternoon. No, not the one which came out later that evening. Paul Goodman, the former Tory MP for Wycombe, reported on the website Conservative Home that Laws had been asked whether he wanted a pot plant for his office. He declined, but took the trouble, while he was doing so, to ask what the Treasury’s budget for pot plants was. Apparently, he got a fairly quick answer. And straight after that, the Treasury no longer had a budget for pot plants.<br /> It was that sort of approach which led so many people to be optimistic about Laws as Chief Secretary to the Treasury. It’s difficult to overstate the damage that a ministerial resignation of any sort does to the coalition government not much more than a fortnight into its term, and it’s worse still that it should be over expenses, the very issue which prompted their promise of a “new politics”. But of all the members in the new administration, Laws was perhaps the single most damaging scalp which could have been claimed.<br /> He’d already won widespread admiration for the speed with which he had identified cuts, and for his assurance at the Dispatch Box. The fact that it was a Liberal Democrat who had frontline responsibility for taking the axe to public spending was also a useful piece of political cover for the Conservatives: the necessary pruning could not simply be characterised as typically vindictive Tory cuts. It was a useful glue, too, for keeping the two parties committed to the same programme (which is almost certainly the thinking behind Danny Alexander’s appointment to the post).<br /> But Mr Laws’ experience in the financial sector and his efficiency in getting on with reducing the deficit made him the emerging star of the front bench. If anything, he was even more of a pin-up boy for the Conservatives than for Liberal Democrat backbenchers: he was the principal architect of the Orange Book policies which moved the Lib Dems to a genuinely liberal economic position, and made the current alliance not only thinkable, but positively attractive.<br /> So his departure is a great shame. But it was inevitable. I don’t share the sentiments of those who argue that David Laws should have been more candid about his personal life. Though I know and like both Ben Summerskill of Stonewall and Peter Tatchell of OutRage, I can see no reason why MPs need to declare what they get up to in the bedroom. Indeed, staying in the closet, like Mr Laws, is, some might argue, more dignified than parading about the internet in your underwear, like Chris Bryant, the Labour MP for the Rhondda.<br /> But Mr Laws didn’t need the payment of taxpayers’ money to his partner to protect his privacy. Even he, one suspects, put little stock in his slightly weaselly defence, which relied on claiming that the rules are unclear on exactly what constitutes a partner. They are a bit, but hair-splitting on the issue sounds particularly unconvincing from a man who put out a positively sanctimonious statement about his own exemplary record on expenses. <br /> I imagine quite a lot of the public will have some sympathy with his fears that stopping claiming rent would have given the game away about his relationship with his landlord, but I suspect very few of them think it was worth £40,000 of their money to keep up appearances.<br /> The expenses scandals have been deeply damaging not merely in exposing the bad behaviour of a fairly large number of MPs. They have created a corrosive atmosphere in which any expense is assumed to be unjustified, and every politician on the take. That is a problem, because there clearly are justifiable expenses involved in the work of a member of parliament. David Laws happens to be a very rich former stockbroker, but it would be very damaging to insist that all prospective MPs should have such resources. The expenses row has also created a rod for the back of the parties (that would be all of them) who claim the impossible: that they are going to keep things Persil-white from now on.<br /> But if there will always be some trouble from this quarter, it can at least be dealt with robustly by the measures that David Cameron was the first to suggest, chief amongst which is the decision to make all such claims available to public scrutiny. It is of a piece with that thinking that one of Mr Laws’ first decisions was that any public sector salary higher than the Prime Minister’s would have to be personally approved by the Chief Secretary. And the government has also announced that same should apply to public spending decisions. Hence the online publication of all public sector spending over £25,000 (a measure Derek Brownlee introduced into the Public Services Reform Bill in Holyrood in February).<br /> There must be no room for complacency in this scrutiny. Treasury estimates have apparently suggested that tax revenues are rather better than expected, and that Mr Laws might be able to ease off slightly on the cuts, and still bring the deficit below £100 billion by 2013. Quite correctly, he responded that there should be no let-up in finding and enforcing savings. <br /> Correctly, because politicians’ expenses may be the visible scandal, but the figures become trifling when they are placed next to the unnecessary expenses in the public sector. If Danny Alexander can bear that in mind, his lack of economic expertise may not be a problem. Between 2005 and 2009, government departments ran up a bill of £780,000 on pot plants and cut flowers. Mr Alexander must simply ask whether spending of that sort, and on everything else, from PR consultants and first class travel to newspapers and biscuits, can be justified. We already know that it cannot be afforded. That is the lesson of Mr Laws’ hostility to the pot plant. If his legacy is that kind of approach, his 17 days in office will not have been wasted.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-4481092186498360732010-05-29T11:46:00.001+00:002010-05-29T11:46:53.795+00:00In the larder<div class='posterous_autopost'><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/QWWDzXQkDB2Rq9kAm8rYAAtcjn9GidLfUtlndQrsFDNlg5jh4AvHH3eySX66/photo.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/MwJYMevxHhnWessptFJY3b427GJMGts4X0WMFIYvuo2M4uCkjKO9LUVLiCPX/photo.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="667"/></a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://distantcities.posterous.com/in-the-larder">distantcities</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-46894708148586325852010-05-25T23:50:00.001+00:002010-05-25T23:52:08.476+00:00Herald column 24 May 2010I'm getting some complaints that the column isn't always online at the Herald site. Here's the raw copy:<br /><br />If you wanted to make an investment of £100 million or so, would you hand it over to a bunch of people who want to build a 2,500-seat velodrome in the East End of Glasgow, where it will provide a lasting legacy for the many thousands of budding Chris Hoys for which that part of the world is renowned? Or might you wonder whether your cash would be safer in a chain of kebab shops, off-licences and tattoo parlours? <br /> To put your mind at rest, the outfit handling this investment guarantees “100% dedication. 100% satisfaction.” The very first line of its mission statement promises: “to organise and deliver the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games in a way that fully realises the aspirations of the Glasgow Bid and the contractual obligations of the Host City Contract – on time and on budget.”<br /> Which sounds lovely. There’s a snag, though. With four years still to go, Glasgow 2014 Ltd is already £70 million over budget. I wouldn’t describe my satisfaction at that as “100%” – au contraire, in fact, as the man on the Channel ferry said when asked if he’d dined. The only thing it might be the correct percentage mark for is the level to which the organising committee for the 20th Commonwealth Games has met my expectation that it would demonstrate appalling fiscal incompetence.<br /> Naturally, having shown early on the ability to throw money away that characterises grand projects of this sort, they’d now like some of the cash that they think they would have had if it weren’t being spent on the Olympics in London, so that they can throw that down the stank as well.<br /> Possibly, like me, you don’t have £100 million to invest just at the moment. But then nor does the Westminster government. What it currently has to invest is minus £1.8 trillion, or 126% of GDP, or £76,000 per household. That’s if you don’t count the banks bailout, of course, which would make it minus £2.3 trillion, or 161% of GDP, or £96,000 per household.<br /> In the face of these frankly terrifying figures, it seems fairly pointless to argue about whether the government should not spend this money that it doesn’t have in the East End of Glasgow, or not spend it in the East End of London. One simply concludes that they should not spend it.<br /> But huge projects such as the Olympics or the Commonwealth Games are the most obvious example of taxpayers’ money being squandered on exercises in vanity masquerading as “investment” or “regeneration”. Private building contractors do not feel that throwing a gigantic beanfeast and shoving a couple of thousand testosterone-laden lunks into their newly built block of flats is a necessary preliminary to flogging them off. If the Government wants more social housing, or a swimming pool, or a gymnasium, why not just build the thing without the additional expense?<br /> Because the truth is that for all the talk of how much such projects do to revitalise run-down sections of cities, there is precious little evidence that they do. The vast majority of these schemes do not deliver any appreciable benefit. The “multiplier” argument that the wider economy benefits is pretty bogus when it comes to sports facilities, which don’t produce much in the way of a financial boost for the areas in which they are constructed. Dressage arenas, volleyball courts and archery ranges have a fairly limited usefulness beyond their immediate function. And, of course, every pound spent in constructing a velodrome is a pound not being spent on, say, an accident and emergency unit. <br /> Nor is there even necessarily a short-term financial boost from the event itself. Tour operators in South Africa report that holiday bookings have actually fallen in the run-up to the World Cup, as, understandably enough, more visitors are put off by the presence of football fans than there are football fans. <br /> Two of the Olympics often held up as great successes – Atlanta and Sydney – suggest that the colossal expenditure required to stage them did not deliver much in the way of benefit. True, Atlanta (which was an exercise in naked corporatism which relied on huge levels of private sponsorship) did in fact turn a profit, just, but it brought in $10 million for an outlay of $1.8 billion. Sydney cost the Australian taxpayer around AUS$2 billion. And for all the bruited claims that it would showcase the city’s charms to a wider international audience, subsequent foreign tourism to New South Wales actually fell behind tourism in the rest of Australia.<br /> I admit that I don’t have much interest in sport. But I wouldn’t go as far as Noam Chomsky, who thinks that its whole purpose is to foment jingoism and distract the lumpenproletariat from things which really matter, like seeing through the gigantic capitalist conspiracy organised by the military-industrial complex, of which the snooker at the Sheffield Crucible and the darts at Frimley Green are merely components.<br /> In fact, sport can clearly be extremely good at generating money, which may be why billionaires are so keen on owning football clubs. Manchester United’s magazine, for example, sells 30,000 copies -– in Thailand. You don't need to be Warren Buffett to see the opportunity for making a bob or two in a market like that.<br /> Successful sports teams, as a result, manage to attract customers, sell television rights, market replica strips and even pay the ridiculous salaries of their players without reaching into my pocket to do it. If they pay a design company £95,000 for a G in a set of circles which looks remarkably like one they produced earlier for an arts group, it’s nobody’s business but theirs. If they put up a stadium, they pay for it by selling tickets.<br /> Given the apparently insatiable public appetite for huge sporting events, the real puzzle is how you can contrive not to make a fortune out of them. But the answer to that is simple enough. You just get government involved in the process, and wave goodbye to the money. Your money.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-13230109340700755612010-05-24T10:59:00.001+00:002010-05-24T10:59:26.042+00:00Grid (iii)<div class='posterous_autopost'><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/JXPwS01IHnXc7o7Rk8nofKIjSpKP8FCEU1kBZ7ss1zDh3ev1xenuIGlhM13A/photo.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/DrcsTcV14zsSI72p7BUekg8GD5hwDrqo2ETWkI2rA9GUmTOQtAYosT92PCbL/photo.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="667"/></a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://distantcities.posterous.com/grid-iii">distantcities</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-81312457421788700872010-05-24T10:51:00.001+00:002010-05-24T10:51:53.249+00:00Grid (ii)<div class='posterous_autopost'><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/3T4Gyv8gZuA0JMcdAa8EVAD7fpWlpjwg6eKjbMV8uRA45bl35wtCSzs9T6U5/photo.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/higmdD1FMMtzXmc1ErIWjCJPakoRSSuuSGrSj9KygHVBcCrRUNIBVoqZEgV3/photo.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="667"/></a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://distantcities.posterous.com/grid-ii">distantcities</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-54248057633362091762010-05-24T10:47:00.001+00:002010-05-24T10:47:04.758+00:00Grid (i)<div class='posterous_autopost'><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/mHTNqvshPzLuYJQYCkVg7qmuTShLsYlAdB4aUNGpxAyQLbkkDtd4PcymvCw1/photo.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/ZRPM6eL3OlqzyiNKQhzIEIZZhgrkI0Wx5KMP0poWKUH3Rhl9JyO0MCf9XC7D/photo.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="667"/></a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://distantcities.posterous.com/grid-i">distantcities</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9134967495169087008.post-46250361353423894032010-05-11T15:31:00.001+00:002010-05-11T15:31:32.805+00:00Preparatory charcoal sketch<div class='posterous_autopost'><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/PRUXxwb0F1RD7aMkARsI64shGUUwhn970P4ux5L04pJYP1SrsaSCBZ3AZGiz/photo.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/distantcities/fjBtOmccVsI6cTjBF53IVivGkeX41A1PYAnwWAO81KIDMCqKoBs6wgk252eY/photo.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="667"/></a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://distantcities.posterous.com/preparatory-charcoal-sketch">distantcities</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0