Sheep in the road 4 2015 by Hand Over Fist Press

SHEEP

IN THE ROAD DECEMBER 2015

ON THE WALL

Alan Rutherford 1984

The

CONTENTS –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Edit & Design: Alan Rutherford Published online by www.handoverfistpress.com Cover photograph: a fly Deadline for submitting articles to be included in February issue, No 5 is 15 January 2015 Articles and all correspondence to: alanrutherford1@mac.com

Opening 03 NHS Privatisation 05 Robert Arnott Blair’s Chilcot Moment 11 The Country can’t afford ... 13 Chris Dillow Thats why (we don’t comply with your war cry) 19 Steve Ashley Trident and its replacement 20 [Diane Abbott] Don Quixote 24 The Brodgan Boy 30 Brian Rutherford The Blurts of Line ... 32 with Lizzie Boyle What are you doing here? 39 [Jean Mohr] Bristol: Urban 41 Chris Hoare & Rudi Thoemmes Lone Wanderer 53 Cam Rutherford Agitators needed now 58 Ships with Everything! 60 Lesson by Brian Rutherford The Countryside 63 Joanna Rutherford Electrif Lycanthrope 73 Keith A Gordon Ranting and Raging Mad 79 Letters 81

DECEMBER 2015

Alan Rutherford

OPENING Blah-blahblah-blahblah––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Hello, The December issue of Sheep in the Road as a magazine contains opinions, thoughts and ideas that aim for ‘sense’ as they cogitate on the page, here in the better part of this planet ... The UK, a civilised society in decline, where the prime minister’s gaff is the home to visiting despots looking for arms and equipment to keep their respective populations in obeyance ... leaders from Saudi Arabia, China, Egypt and India have recently been given the royal approval despite their regimes featuring prominently in a bad light in Amnesty International’s reports. All the while, the UK’s government proposes devilish cuts to the welfare of its poorer citizens as it shuns the plight of desperate refugees worldwide ... just what kind of monsters have we uncovered with the Tory election victory earlier this year? Paris: 13 November 2015 ‘The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason’ Voltaire Until next time, get active, stay alive ...

DECEMBER 2015

Alan Rutherford

SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 4

Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t let this man make the NHS another CASUALTY

EXPOSÉ

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NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE PRIVATIZATION EXPOSED:

government putting profits before patients Robert Arnott

The response by the British Medical Association (BMA) on behalf of junior doctors to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s attempt to cut their wages and conditions of service has given a focus for the anger of yet another group of NHS staff who are joining others who have seen the value of their pay slashed by years of pay freezes and below-inflation increases as well as the value of what they do. The underlying problem behind this and the growing crisis in the hospitals and front-line services, is the five-year freeze in NHS spending, resulting in two-thirds of NHS Trusts facing massive deficits. The NHS as a whole is facing in the year 2016– 2017, a total deficit of over £2 billion.

DECEMBER 2015

The collective principle asserts that no society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.

Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune. the cost of which should be shared by the community. Nye Bevan

However, the biggest threat to the NHS is privatisation; part of Tory Party dogma. Already the NHS has been made even more fragmented and inefficient by efforts of Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) to contract out services, as encouraged by the toxic Health and Social Care Act 2012. In parts of NHS England, for example, services in the geographical area of one trust have been contracted out to another, which has chosen not to provide it directly, but to bring in a third, even more remote NHS Trust to do the work; sheer madness. Up and down the country we have seen contests by Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) to carry through the daftest contracting exercise, from one trust trying to undermine the only acute hospital trust in a county by contracting out most of its elective services, to another, which was determined to privatise elective musculoskeletal services, despite BUPA refusing to take the contract for fear it would bankrupt two local Accident and Emergency services, or the Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) exposed by Pulse magazine, taken up by some national newspapers, as offering cash bonuses of up to £11,000 to GPs to refer fewer patients to hospital, raising huge concerns about the effect on doctor-patient trust and their commitment to the fundamental principles of the NHS. However the worst example is the private healthcare provider Circle’s failure to meet any of its targets or make anything but losses at Hinchingbrooke Hospital before finally pulling

out just two years into a ten year contract. This is a reminder that despite the privatising frenzy of some Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), that it is not so easy for private operators to guarantee any profits from the NHS. Another big name, Serco, has withdrawn from bidding for healthcare contracts after a series of highprofile failures and mounting losses. Virgin is losing money on most of its NHS contracts. One would have hoped that this experience would have stopped the onward march of privatisation. However, private firms have won £3.54 billion of £9.62 billion worth of contracts awarded within NHS England last year; almost 40 per cent. It’s useful to remember that these big figures are the total payable for the whole contract over five or more years, and not by any means the profit firms can make from each deal. Now the cash squeeze is forcing down the amounts of money on the table and therefore how much the private sector can scoop in profits. That is, of course the good news, but not before the damage has been done. That is why all private bids but Interserve pulled out from the controversial contracts for cancer services in Staffordshire; the deal was so underfunded that the local NHS Trust also pulled out of the proposed £600 million fiveyear contract, saying they could not guarantee to provide services on this funding, leaving the prospect of no local services for cancer patients in Staffordshire. In Cambridgeshire too, the private sector realised the apparent £700 million five year contract for older people’s

DECEMBER 2015

services was nowhere near as generous as it seemed, and the contract went to a consortium of local NHS trusts. One hope for the private sector has been the fact that despite the ruinously expensive cost of disastrous Private Finance Initiative schemes in various parts of the country, Government Ministers are still pressing Trusts to sign up for a new scheme, in which a larger share of the upfront funding comes from the public sector, while the private sector still makes good, guaranteed profits on the rest.

The real boom sector for private operators has been in the new bureaucracy of the NHS, with high-priced management consultants crawling all over NHS trusts, steering Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) decision-making through commissioning support units and developing fancy graphics and neat PR (Public Relations) spin for Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) reconfiguration projects. Capita, whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s past service failures has emerged on the scene, grabbing a ÂŁ1 billion contract to supply support services to GPs. McKinsey and Company alone has been picking up tens of millions from dozens of projects like Shaping a Healthier Future, the plan to axe Accident and Emergency Units and whole hospitals and perhaps their most cynical act was to organise a secret meeting exposed by the Daily Mirror where the demise of the NHS and its replacement by private health insurance has been plotted. They were desperate to stop details of the meeting being made public, but

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thanks to the Care Quality Commission, the plot has been revealed. What is even more alarming is that Lord Prior, now a minister in the Department of Health, was present and on being found out has had to retract his support for the venture. They will, of course, be stopped by the collective act of the people of this country. This is all a far cry from the NHS as set up by Aneurin Bevan with its basic organisational structure, minimal overhead costs and exclusive public-sector provision of services ensuring that every penny of NHS spending was delivering patient care, not profits to capitalism. To rescue the NHS from fragmentation and the grasping private sector, we need an end to the cash freeze and the internal market that has triggered this madness. There is an immediate need to repeal the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and the whole apparatus of the internal market, and to reinstate the NHS as it was before Thatcher, Blair and Cameron. But there is common cause to be made with all that share a commitment to repeal the Act, to bring privatised services back in house and stopping the cuts and closures which are reducing NHS trusts to little more than an emergencies-only safety net. Everyone now realises that much more funding is needed to rescue primary care from the disastrous neglect and relieve the intolerable pressures on GPs. More funding is also needed to restore NHS pay levels, improve staffing levels and quality of care and meet the needs of a growing population with growing numbers of older people and demographic changes

in population and disease patterns. With the Trades Union Congress (TUC), a Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn, NHS trades unions, patient organisations and others joined together, we can win. The Governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s majority is just twelve. If we can now hope to mobilise a campaign effort targeting key cuts and privatisation, we can shake the Government and build a movement that can seriously fight to defend and restore our NHS that works for patients not big business. It may be that the champion of the NHS in the future is the House of Lords.

Professor Robert Arnott is a researcher in Healthcare Policy at Green Templeton College, Oxford and Secretary of the Oxford Branch of Left Unity.

Pamphlet from 1948

hmm... tony still has those skeletons in his closet

Jez for Prez Say no to a monarchy Alan Rutherford

SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 4

THAT CHILCOT MOMENT

DECEMBER 2015

Alan Rutherford

REMARK

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THE COUNTRY CAN’T AFFORD by Chris Dillow Edited from the blog Stumbling and mumbling 7 October 2015

13 There’s one thing George Osborne said in his Conference speech this week which looks odd. It’s this: We simply can’t subsidise incomes with ever-higher welfare and tax credit bills the country can’t afford. However, recipients of tax credits are part of the country too. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that the 8.4 million of these will on average lose £750 per year because of Osborne’s cuts. For a lot of the country, it is not tax credits which are unaffordable, but the cuts in them.

DECEMBER 2015

What’s going on here? Part of the answer is that Osborne is perpetuating an error which the Tories – and indeed journalists – have been committing for years: he is equating the government’s finances with the nation’s. Mr Cameron did just this when he justified the cuts to tax credits by speaking of a “need to get on top of our national finance.” Of course, any fool can see that this is wrong: the country and the government are not the same thing. For a large part of the country, tax credits improve their finances.

There’s a related error – what I’ve called the cost bias. The cost of tax credits is NOT the £29.5bn which the government spends on them. This is a transfer. Instead, the costs are the deadweight costs associated with them: for example, the cost of administering a complex system (which is one reason why I prefer a basic income), or the disincentive effects they create – for example, the higher taxes levied on other people to pay tax credits. The big purpose of tax credits is to raise in-work income and so incentivize work. Whether tax credits are therefore a cost at all is thus questionable.

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I fear, though, that what we’re seeing here isn’t just a neutral intellectual error. In defining the country and the nation to exclude the low paid, the Tories can create the illusion that the interests of the worst-off are not part of the national interest. This is an old trick of the ruling class. Here’s C.B. Macpherson describing 17th century attitudes: The Puritan doctrine of the poor, treating poverty as a mark of moral shortcoming, added moral obloquy to the political disregard in which the poor had always been held ... Objects of solicitude or pity or scorn and sometimes of fear, the poor were not full members of a moral community ... But while the poor were, in this view, less than full members, they were certainly subject to the jurisdictions of the political community. They were in but not of civil society. The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism Jeremy Hunt’s claim that tax credit recipients lack self-respect and dignity echoes this. In this way, Osborne’s rhetoric serves to create an illusion that the interests of the poor are antagonistic to the “national interest” ...

hmmm ... this chancellor is GIDDY?

Jez for Prez Say no to a monarchy Alan Rutherford

DECEMBER 2015

a hint at dickensian times to come ...? SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 4

I am really looking forward to that ‘after-dinner mint’ moment ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJZPzQESq_0 DECEMBER 2015

That’s Why (we don’t comply with your war cry) There are no poppies for the children Or for their mothers left to cry They’re only for the ones who kill them When the bombs and bullets fly There are no cenotaphs for old men Who were simply standing by Their story’s never told When the bands go marching by That’s why we don’t comply With your war cries If a soldier is a hero What do we call the child With a life blown apart And a memory defiled? What do we call the mother Once considerate and mild Deranged out on the street Vengeance running wild That’s why we don’t comply With your war cries

Photograph: Alan Rutherford

We remember all the dead From the last World War In defence of a true just cause But no one ever said We will for evermore Consent to every war There was a demo for Iraq Two million people came We said if you attacked It would not be in our name But you went in all the same

Like you really couldn’t care And left a million people dead On the lies of Bush and Blair That’s why we don’t comply With your war cries You raise the call to arms You place them all in harm’s way Ready to invade another nation And if the brave ones you train Are traumatised and maimed They’ll be forced to fight again For compensation We keep two minutes silence We remember all the dead But we can’t forget the violence And the words never said About the murder of civilians And all the casualties of war And all the poppies in their billions That should be falling to the floor And that’s why That’s why We don’t comply With your war cries Bring them home Bring them home Bring them all back home Words and Music Steve Ashley © 2014 Album: This Little Game (2015) http://stopwar.org.uk/music3/steve-ashleythat-s-why

DECEMBER 2015

COMMENT

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TRIDENT AND ITS REPLACE MENT

by Diane Abbott

Edited from the Guardian 1 October 2015

This week Jeremy Corbyn restated his well-known position on nuclear weapons. Asked if he would ever use the nuclear button, he replied: “No. I am opposed to the use of nuclear weapons.” Nobody should have been surprised. He has held this position all of his adult life. What would have been absurd would be for him to say anything else. So Corbyn will have been as taken aback as anyone else by the kerfuffle this caused in some quarters of his shadow cabinet. His statement was described as unhelpful, although no one explained who it was unhelpful to. Arms dealers, perhaps? The truth is that the complainers say more about political attitudes during the New Labour era than about defence policy. On the specific issue of Trident, three senior military officers, Field Marshal Lord Bramall, General Lord Ramsbotham and General Sir Hugh Beach, summed up the case against it in a letter to the Times in 2009.

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Among other things they pointed out: “The force cannot be seen as independent of the United States in any meaningful sense. It relies on the United States for the provision and regular servicing of the D5 missiles. While this country has, in theory, freedom of action over giving the order to fire, it is unthinkable that, because of the catastrophic consequences for guilty and innocent alike, these weapons would ever be launched, or seriously threatened, without the backing and support of the United States.” This shows how utterly pointless the “finger on the button” question is.

And the generals went on: “Nuclear weapons have shown themselves to be completely useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale of violence we currently, or are likely, to face, particularly international terrorism; and the more you analyse them the more unusable they appear … Our independent deterrent has become virtually irrelevant except in the context of domestic politics.” The uselessness of Trident has been long understood. So clinging to it as a Labour party commitment is all about presentation and nothing to do with serious defence policy. Yet renewing Trident will cost £100billion. The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has admonished us all that we have to live within our means. So why spend billions on a cold war weapons system that is effectively useless?

There are more general questions, too, raised by the response to Corbyn setting out his views on Trident. The first is: have colleagues really learned the lessons from the leadership campaign? One of those lessons is, surely, that people are tired of obfuscation and spin. They want politicians who believe in something and who set out those beliefs honestly. But there is also an issue about what constitutes leadership. Critics of Corbyn on Trident seem to think that leadership consists of a willingness to press a button and incinerate millions of people, or even to send thousands of British troops to risk their lives in wars of dubious legality. I suspect the public is weary of this kind of socalled leadership. Instead, Corbyn is trying to offer leadership on issues such as putting human rights at the top of our foreign policy agenda, even if it involves challenging allies like Saudi Arabia. In the world we face in 2015, that kind of leadership is both more relevant and much harder.

Trident = suicide Artwork: KW Kaluta

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REVIEW

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The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ... Its theme discussed in Wikipedia

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The novel’s structure is in episodic form. It is written in the picaresco style of the late 16th century, and features reference other picaresque novels including Lazarillo de Tormes and The Golden Ass. The full title is indicative of the tale’s object, as ingenioso (Spanish) means “quick with inventiveness”,[7] marking the transition of modern literature from dramatic to thematic unity. The novel takes place over a long period of time, including many adventures united by common themes of the nature of reality, reading, and dialogue in general. Although burlesque on the surface, the novel, especially in its second half, has served as an important thematic source not only in literature but also in much of art and music, inspiring works by Pablo Picasso and Richard Strauss. The contrasts between the tall, thin, fancy-struck and idealistic Quixote and the fat, squat, world-weary Panza is a motif echoed ever since the book’s publication, and Don Quixote’s imaginings are the butt of outrageous and cruel practical jokes in the novel.

Even faithful and simple Sancho is forced to deceive him at certain points. The novel is considered a satire of orthodoxy, veracity and even nationalism. In exploring the individualism of his characters, Cervantes helped move beyond the narrow literary conventions of the chivalric romance literature that he spoofed, which consists of straightforward retelling of a series of acts that redound to the knightly virtues of the hero. The character of Don Quixote became so well known in its time that the word quixotic was quickly adopted by many languages. Characters such as Sancho Panza and Don Quixote’s steed, Rocinante, are emblems of Western literary culture. The phrase “tilting at windmills” to describe an act of attacking imaginary enemies, derives from an iconic scene in the book.

easily tell “whose side Cervantes was on”. Many critics came to view the work as a tragedy in which Don Quixote’s idealism and nobility are viewed by the post-chivalric world as insane, and are defeated and rendered useless by common reality. By the 20th century the novel had come to occupy a canonical space as one of the foundations of modern literature. from Wikipedia

It stands in a unique position between medieval chivalric romance and the modern novel. The former consist of disconnected stories featuring the same characters and settings with little exploration of the inner life of even the main character. The latter are usually focused on the psychological evolution of their characters. In Part I, Quixote imposes himself on his environment. By Part II, people know about him through “having read his adventures”, and so, he needs to do less to maintain his image. By his deathbed, he has regained his sanity, and is once more “Alonso Quixano the Good”. When first published, Don Quixote was usually interpreted as a comic novel. After the French Revolution it was popular for its central ethic that individuals can be right while society is quite wrong and seen as disenchanting. In the 19th century it was seen as a social commentary, but no one could

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Don Quixote on my book shelf

FOR THE LOVE OF BOOKS ...

I WALK THE LINE

POETRY

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THE BRODGAR BOY 30 “Archaeologists found this tiny clay figurine while working on a spectacular Neolithic settlement complex between two stone circles on the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney. While archaeologists have speculated that the Orkney Venus may have served a ritual purpose, representing a goddess or ancestor, Nick Card of the Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology (ORCA), who is directing excavations at the Ness of Brodgar, suggested that this latest find might represent something more personal – perhaps a casual piece of art, or even a lost toy.” The Orkney News, 2011

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After your sharp, regular ribs, The soft curve of your breast was a puzzled surprise. I smelled the spent cattle on your skin and your hips, Pressed against mine in the silence. Then, during winter, you made me a boy, There on the stones of the killing room floor. Who was small and as quiet as the little stone toy, I dropped in the mud by the door.

Brian Rutherford

http://www.bletherskite.com

DECEMBER 2015

REVIEW

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THE BLURTS OF LINE THAT MESS YOUR HEAD

Alan Rutherford with Lizzie Boyle Comics and Graphic Novels

I have always been attracted to ‘comics’ and comicstrips. As a boy I sat for many an hour with my brother and friends engrossed in a communal appreciation of all manner of graphic japery ... Walt Disney, Dell Comics, DC Comics, Marvel Comics ... This often led to heated discussions on a comics merits, which was our way to weedle out the shit and ensure we only bothered with good stuff. Considered by some as trash, and the delinquent stuff to interfere with your reading abilities, accused of creating a short-term concentration syndrome in otherwise healthy enquiring minds, I think by careful selection and pruning we managed to avoid this (?). Even so, although there may be a case for this argument with some poor examples of the genre, I believe

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Stop putting us in these fucking comics, you jerk!

Alan Rutherford

BEWARE DUFFERS DONâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;T LIKE COMICS!

the good ones, with their dynamic odd angle, new perspective view of subjects and situations within frames of reference ... added another element, other meanings, another point of view ... and possibly as much imaginative stimulus a ‘text only’ book can achieve.

Over the years, as my interest in graphics has grown, I discovered that the ‘odd angle, new perspective’ was also what made the work of Russian Constructivists of the 1920s interesting to me. Designers like Alexander Rodchenko, in his photographs, used this heightened dynamism to develop new, fresh views by photographing subjects and locations from odd, unexpected angles, to create an attractive tension ... I love this. I am grateful to Lizzie Boyle of Disconnected Press who replied to my email with some interesting insights into the comic-world: The “odd angle, new perspective” thought is actually very useful when thinking about comics. Often, visually, normality is presented head-on or in over-the-shoulder movie-dialogue type angles. We generally exist at head height / shoulder height in TV and film, when there’s a conversation going on. Something like the TV series of Fargo mess with this, giving you tracking shots, low shots, things to mess with you a little, all with the purpose of rooting you in the bizarre isolation of the Minnesota landscape. Kubrick was also great at this, particularly with his use of the slightly disturbing, straight on, symmetrical shot: see https://vimeo.com/48425421.

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In comics, odd angles should subvert the image and the story. If everything seems everyday and mundane, but the angle is odd, the creators are trying to inform you of something, to keep you on your guard, to make you notice (however subtly) that something is not quite as it seems. Tilted horizons, camera shots from very low or very high, half faces, and tricks like panels without borders can all be very effective. The key is that the oddness needs to contribute to the story. Too many comics jump around – high angle, low angle, close up, medium shot – for no real reason other than to make the page look more dynamic. Creators need to ask themselves: which way are we moving on this page? Are we getting closer to revealing a hidden truth in the story and therefore getting physically closer to the characters? Are we losing trust in the character and perhaps pulling away, feeling a distance between us and them? Is the camera holding steady, teasing us, making us hold our breath for something that’s going to happen as we turn the page? In an ideal world, every comic would be produced with this level of care and attention to detail (I’ll confess: some of ours have been and some haven’t. Deadlines are deadlines!). I think at the very least there needs to be mindfulness of choice of angles so that things contribute to the story more rather than just jumping around. In film and television, we’re happy to linger on a shot, to let the tension build up by changing absolutely nothing. Perhaps a little more patience in comic story telling would help...

Also at: www.disconnectedpress.co.uk you can order the excellent Sentinent Zombie Space Pigs by Conor and Lizzie Boyle.

Right: the cover of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;CROSS: a political satire anthologyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; published by Disconnected Press, it came out before the last election ... a time to get CROSS! Cover design: Pye Parr

Very good satire on UKIPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ankle-biting englishman, Nigel Farage, as he puffs up to imagined migrant threat in great little englander send-up, Agent of the Crown, taken from CROSS. script: Richard Clements art: Nick Dyer lettering: Jim Campbell

REVIEWED From Another Way of Telling by John Berger and Jean Mohr

WHAT ARE YOU DOING THERE? A Sunday afternoon in autumn. The large market square of the market town of B—. It was sunny, but it wasn’t a sun that warmed, it simply shone with its violent light on people and things. Some were directly in this light, some were in shadow. There were no half-measures about this light. The peasants from the neighbouring countryside paid little attention to the quality of light, they had come to the fair to buy or sell cattle. As for me this violent sunlight posed certain technical problems. I would have preferred a cloudy sky, even mist. Making my way between the cattle, the peasants and the cattle dealers, I was looking for some angle of approach. Warming-up – in both senses of the word. I wasn’t playing any games, I don’t like that, I wasn’t pretending not to take photographs. In any case its not easy to trick a Savoyard peasant. And I prefer to be frank about what I’m doing, whenever its possible.

Near a line of calves some men were talking. Dryly. They had seen me but were pretending to ignore me. Suddenly one of them spoke out, not really aggressively, but rather more to amuse his colleagues. ‘So what are you doing there?’ ‘I’m taking some pictures of you and your cattle.’ ‘You’re taking some pictures of my cows! Would you believe it? He’s helping himself to my cows without having to pay a sou for them!’ I laughed along with the others. And I went on taking my photos. That is to say, taking in my own way what was before my eyes and what interested me, without paying and without asking permission. Jean Mohr

DECEMBER 2015

B R I S TO L

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URBAN Photographs Portraits: Chris Hoare Location: Rudi Thoemmes Alan asked me to contribute a few of what he called “your urban photographs.” I am not a photographer but enjoy taking snaps of my ever-changing neighbourhood, it gets me out of the house. I do however know a few photographers and one of them is Chris Hoare who has been taking portraits for the last two years or so around East Street, Bristol. I suppose we both come under the documentary umbrella whatever that means these days. In the case of the East St it is to do with a rapidly changing and disappearing social landscape. Gentrification is part of the story but it is not the only one, it never is. Rudi Thoemmes November 2015

DECEMBER 2015

• The Portraits Chris Hoare is a young and experienced photographer based in Bristol, UK. He has a passion for telling stories with his images and capturing cultures beneath the mainstream. This is evident through his first solo publication Dreamers, a three year photo story that comes together to give an insight in to Bristol’s underground Hip-Hop scene. Outside of telling stories with his images Chris has a diverse palette of photographic skills and is available for commission.

• The Cityscapes Following ventures in antiquarian books and publishing, German-born Bristolian Rudi Thoemmes established RRB Photobooks to share his passion for interesting rare and out of print photobooks. www.rrbphotobooks.com A keen photographer of develping Bristol.

www.chris-hoare.com

DECEMBER 2015

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DECEMBER 2015

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SERIAL S CRI P T ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

LONE WANDERER

Writer/Film Cam Rutherford

BLACK SCREEN TITLE CARD – Ten years after the nukes fell from the sky. EXT. DESERT – DAY Somewhere on the outskirts of future Los Angeles. Nothing in the distance but orange mountains and dead trees, the landscape distorted by furious heat-waves. No sign of life; Barren. LONE WANDERER (V.O.) The drought started the second American Civil war, and when the water-situation turned even more sour the new-age World War began, the drought spreading globally meant every country was fighting for water. Soon enough the fighting turned to all-out suicide warfare for all parties included. Nuclear War had begun behind every civilian’s back. Near the beginning of the end the struggle of the Everyman changed from finding water to finding shelter. I can’t remember how, but I survived the nukes. The sound of a dying motorbike engine in the distance.

DECEMBER 2015

The LONE WANDERER (30s) handsome-butrugged, short beard, medium length hair and a ripped cowboy jacket with a holstered revolver. Riding a rusted rumbling CS550. It begins to slow down a noticeable amount; black smoke pouring out of the engine. The Lone Wanderer looks at the gas dial - Empty. CUT TO: EXT. DESERT – NIGHT The sky has darkened. The large black space occupied with vibrant purple and red clouds creating a lush toxic-waste painting. The Lone Wanderer is now pushing his bike, fatigued and exhausted, he has travelled this way for a long time now. He notices a rusted sign standing near a rusted skeletal structure of an abandoned car. The sign says NORTH. He looks disappointed; LONE WANDERER (V.O.) God damnit. Everyone knows North is no man’s land ... the toxic-levels mutated everything. But I need the gas. He continues walking. EXT. DESERT – NIGHT Later on, the wind whistling loudly rustling the dead trees back and forth. He stops, standing in admiration and curiosity. Standing lone in barren terrain; a half-collapsed 1940’s style Diner/Gas station. Strangely the vibrant neon sign lights are still working, and are illuminating the exterior of the structure against the night’s darkness, DANS GAS N DINER

EXT. DANS GAS N DINER – NIGHT As the Lone Wanderer walks closer he becomes illuminated in vibrant neon green and red. He looks back and scans the area before kicking out his bike stand and resting it. He walks towards the decayed structure. INT. DANS GAS N DINER – NIGHT The Lone Wanderer walks through the red-door, with an OPEN sign hanging on it. The interior’s power doesn’t work, mainly due to half of the main rooms ceiling has collapsed, fallen onto itself. The interior is dark, segments of it being lit-up by a somehow-still-working glowing jukebox, that’s playing an occasionally muffled I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE by Roky Erickson. An emptiedout cash register lies on the desk, next to an old smashed “QUICK GRAB” vending machine. He hears a crack of glass in one of the other rooms, he spins around and draws his revolver A YELLOW-JACK; a mutated being with cracked yellow skin and glowing blood-shot eyes, jumps out and sprints towards him. The Lone Wander shoots his revolver, the bullet penetrating the Yellow-jack’s forehead and leaving his parietal bone, bright-yellow blood squirts onto the jukebox. LONE WANDERER (V.O.) Goddamn Yellow-jacks. Mutated scum.

DECEMBER 2015

The gunshot was loud against the silent night. The Lone Wanderer is cautious, and worriedly walks to the big front windows. Nothing in the dark distance. The hanging television set up in the corner of the room switches on suddenly, causing him to jump.

CUT TO: EXT. DANS GAS N DINER – NIGHT He’s filled up his bike to the max; and even found a couple gas canisters that he rigged up onto his bike for the journey ahead. He reloads his revolver, and holsters it.

CUT TO: TELEVISION SET An old advert from before the nuclear war. A SALESMAN (30s) with a suit and fedora hat stands in front of a tin-trailer.

EXT. DESERT – NIGHT He arrives back at the rusted North warning sign.

SALESMAN Hi there, if you’re watching this then you are in for a hell of a deal! This here is a Radi-Van; a state-ofthe-art trailer that is one-hundred percent resistant to them god-awful nukes. You a family man? You a hardworker? Well, make sure you live to see the morning sun with a Radi- Van! The TV flickers into static. The Lone Wanderer begins scavenging, turning every room inside out, filling his ripped rucksack with old tools and potentially useful scrap. He finds an old Radi-Van leaflet half burnt. EXT. DANS GAS N DINER – NIGHT After more rummaging he kicks the back-door open. The back of the shop illuminated by a miraculously stillworking gas pump. The Lone Wanderer fetches his bike.

SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 4

LONE WANDERER (V.O.) I wanted to go South, I used to have a life there before the nukes. It would’ve given me closure... But I know there’s nothing for me there anymore. The sky’s lush backdrop splattered in toxic vibrancy begins to change, forming into a bright green. Thundering rumbles roaring in the distance. Lightning strikes as flashes of highvoltage electricity streak through the sky. The Lone Wanderer climbs off his bike, and lifts the seat up. He takes out a dark-green military looking box, and opens it. He pulls out a light metal suit, that attaches separately limb to limb. He proceeds by putting on a metal gas-mask. LONE WANDERER (V.O.) North seems like the place to be. I could die up there... Then again you spend enough time wandering this barren land and your pretty much dead already.

He closes the seat. And jumps back onto the bike. He violently kickstarts it, revving it powerfully, and driving off into the distance, up North; towards the toxic-storm. TO BE CONTINUED ...

The Frontier (2015) Post-Apocalyptic Short film by Cameron Rutherford, Blaze Rowe, Jason Givens and Thomas March can be viewed at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwsvAcOWhG0

Something you don’t read everyday ...

The present system cannot be patched up – it has to be completely transformed. The structures of the parliament, army, police and judiciary cannot be taken over and used by the working people. Elections can be used to agitate for real improvements in people’s lives and to expose the system we live under, but only the mass action of workers themselves can change the system.

Workers create all the wealth under capitalism. A new society can only be constructed when they collectively seize control of that wealth and plan its production and distribution according to need. We live in a world economy dominated by huge corporations. Only by fighting together across national boundaries can we challenge the rich and powerful who dominate the globe. The struggle for socialism can only be successful if it is a worldwide struggle. This was demonstrated by the experience of Russia where an isolated socialist revolution was crushed by the power of the world market – a market it could only contend with by becoming state capitalist. In Eastern Europe and China similar states were later established.

We oppose everything which turns workers from one country against those from another. We oppose all immigration controls and campaign for solidarity with workers in other countries. We support the right of black people and other oppressed groups to organise their own defence and we support all genuine national liberation movements. We campaign for real social, political and economic equality for woman and for an end to all forms of discrimination against lesbians, gay men, bisexual and transgender people. Those who rule our society are powerful because they are organised – they control the wealth, media, courts and the military. They use their power to limit and contain opposition. To combat that power, working people have to be organised as well. The Socialist Workers Party aims to bring together activists from the movement and working class. A revolutionary party is necessary to strengthen the movement, organise people within it and aid them in developing the ideas and strategies that can overthrow capitalism entirely. We are committed to fight for peace, equality, justice and socialism. The Socialist Workers Party

SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 4

www.swp.org.uk

Alan Rutherford

AGITATORS NEEDED NOW!

The maritime world may be losing its glamour, with ever-larger tankers and bulk carriers it is becoming an industrial process, a technical boredom of navigating minimal risk. But it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t so long ago that ships of every flag that set to sea faced unknown adventures, tramped across oceans and seas carrying cargoes of just about anything you can imagine, haphazardly steaming the planet to deliver these goods, familiar and exotic ... anyway thankfully, even today, despite the building of ever larger computerised leviathans, there are still little ships with everything in their holds.

SHIPS WITH EVERY THING! SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 4

Lesson What is it child, that pulls the eye and draws the body down? The sea, sir, and its milky mind that stretches out to draw and drown. What is it child that slides and shifts the sun to jar the eye? The sea, sir, speaks in glass and green two words, stumble, die. Brian Rutherford

NATU RE

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THE COUNTRY SIDE Photographs Joanna Rutherford

Mention the countryside and you will find yourself deluged with all kinds of different responses. It is an area of the UK under attack, encroached upon by samey-same housing, scandalously adopted by the god-awful Countryside Alliance, still the playground of wealthy ... and where a profit can be made its beauty and uniqueness is expendable. From blood-grubby hoity-toity and still active fox hunts, grouse shoots, hare coursing ... to a badger cull of dubious value, this is one version of countryside. Joanna, enthusiastic country/nature person, presents photographs that show despite all that is done to it, the countryside is still out there ... go visit!

DECEMBER 2015

SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 4

DECEMBER 2015

SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 4

DECEMBER 2015

SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 4

DECEMBER 2015

SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 4

R E V I E W ED ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

ELECTRIF LYCANTHROPE Little Feat Bootleg from1974 re-released 2014

Review ripped from Keith A Gordon & Excitable Press

Little Feat never achieved the sort of commercial success expected of its overwhelming critical acclaim. Formed in 1969 by Mothers of Invention alumni Lowell George (guitar, vocals) and Roy Estrada (bass) with George’s friend Richie Hayward on drums and pianist Bill Payne, Little Feat released a half-dozen studio albums and a live set during their ten-year run. In spite of developing a brilliant mix of rock ‘n’ roll, blues, boogie, R&B, country, and funk music that today would be considered ‘Americana’, the band built a loyal, albeit small following with their raucous live performances, but they enjoyed little commercial success. No single Little Feat album charted until 1974’s Feats, Don’t Fail Me Now (peaking at #36) and Waiting For Columbus, their double live 1978 LP, proved to be the band’s only true hit (rising to number18 on the charts).

DECEMBER 2015

Electrif Lycanthrope was the first Little Feat bootleg LP that I ever saw, and I quickly snatched up a copy at a Detroit record show around 1980. The original vinyl version, released by The Amazing Kornyfone Record Label sometime in the late 1970s, featured nine songs taken from a live September 1974 radio broadcast on WLIR-FM in New York City, with the band performing at The Ultrasonic Studios in Hampstead NY, a common venue for these live-to-radio performances. Electrif Lycanthrope wasn’t Kornyfone’s first Little Feat bootleg – they released a number of other Little Feat titles, including Beak Positive (a fine 1975 show) and Aurora Backseat (documenting a 1973 show) – but it’s widely considered by the Feat faithful to be the best of the band’s handful of bootleg albums. Aside from its original vinyl release by TAKRL, Electrif Lycanthrope was available for a short time during the 1990s as a dodgy ‘European import.’ This new CD reissue of the album includes three additional ‘bonus tracks’ for a total of a dozen red-hot performances, and while I can’t speak as to the legality of this particular release, it seems to be part of a series of live recordings trickling out of either WLIR-FM and/or The Ultrasonic Studios (check out the great recent Bonnie Raitt and Lowell George release, Ultrasonic Studios 1972). Regardless of its origin, or how long it may or may not be available to buy, Electrif Lycanthrope offers a simply mesmerizing performance by the band in a casual, laid-back environment that allowed them to stretch out and display their tremendous musical chemistry.

SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 4

Electrif Lycanthrope features material from 1973’s Dixie Chicken and the following year’s Feats, Don’t Fail Me Now. Kicking off with the band’s classic ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Doctor,’ the rhythm section of bassist Kenny Gradney and drummer Richie Hayward establish a fat groove from the beginning, frontman Lowell George’s thick Southern drawl belying his California birthplace. George’s fretwork here is stunning, full of texture and great tone. ‘Two Trains’ is slightly more up-tempo, with Bill Payne’s funky keyboards leading the charge, a loping rhythm dancing behind George’s soulful vocals. While George’s instrument is busy in the background, threading a subtle but wiry lead between the rhythms, Payne takes centre stage with his imaginative and charming keyboard runs. A cover of the great Allen Toussaint’s ‘On Your Way Down,’ from Dixie Chicken, is provided an additional minute here for the band to shows off its instrumental chops, beginning with Payne’s church revival piano intro and the syncopated rhythms provided by Hayward’s steady, hypnotizing drumbeats. George’s reverent vocals here display a different facet to the man’s talents, his equally nuanced fretwork providing an additional dimension to the classic song as the band chimes in with backing vocals. George’s breathtaking solo three minutes in underlines the subtlety of the band’s performance. A fan favourite, ‘Spanish Moon’ showcases both the band’s harmony vocals behind George’s spry performance, but also his sultry guitarplay and a strong rhythmic backdrop provided by the band’s often

overlooked other guitarist, Paul Barrere. Payne’s keyboards are dominant here, offering a fine counterpoint to George’s guitar.

arguably two of their three best studio albums in front of a token audience, but playing like they’re headlining an arena.

‘Fat Man In The Bathtub’ is another longtime crowd pleaser, and here it offers a look into the band’s evolving New Orleans blues and R&B influences at the time. With a cacophonic instrumental backdrop that incorporates plenty o’ Crescent City funk, the performance provides plenty of foot-shufflin’ moments amidst its seemingly free-form jam. The popularity provided George’s ‘Willin’’ may have become a bit of an albatross around the singer/songwriter’s neck, but this gentle, affecting reading – based around George’s weary voice and acoustic guitar, and Payne’s subtle piano – proves the strength of his lyrics and performance. Of the three additional tracks included on this CD reissue of Electrif Lycanthrope, the band’s signature ‘Dixie Chicken’ fares the best, the song’s ramshackle arrangement providing plenty of space for Payne’s nimble piano-play and George’s rowdy notes.

The sound quality here is amazing considering the relatively primitive recording technology of the era, although it does get a little muddier on the last three songs, which may have been taken from a second-generation tape. Many fans prefer Electrif Lycanthrope to the authorized live set Waiting For Columbus, which is widely considered one of the best live rock albums of all time. Why argue over semantics? Get ‘em both and revel in the joy that was one of the era’s most dynamic and electrifying live bands!

If you’re a hardcore Little Feat fan, you may already own Electrif Lycanthrope in one of several formats, but if you don’t, you really should grab up a copy of this CD while you can. If you’re a newcomer to the band, or simply ‘Feat curious,’ this live recording provides an excellent introduction to one of rock ‘n’ roll’s best – yet criminally unsung – outfits. The recording captures the band at the pinnacle of its chemistry, cranking out songs from what are

DECEMBER 2015

Alan Rutherford

SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 4

RANTING & RAGING MAD

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More of the same ...

TAOISEACH Enda Kenny has warned Islamic terrorists would blow up iconic Irish landmarks Newgrange and the Rock of Cashel if allowed to spread their reign of terror through Europe. Mr Kenny made the comments when addressing the escalating migration crisis in Europe, which has seen hundreds of thousands of refugees flee war zones controlled by tyrannical Islamic militants in the Middle East. ‘Look at what’s happened in Syria with the growth of ISIS. Purely from a historical point of view, they want to blow up Newgrange and the Rock of Cashel, and they want children shooting others in the head. This is horrendous,’ he said. The so-called Islamic State has destroyed numerous cultural heritage sites as part of its war of terror in Iraq and Syria. Ben Carson stands by belief that pyramids were built by biblical figure Joseph Republican presidential candidate Dr Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, tells reporters on Thursday that a belief in the Bible is not ‘silly at all’ in response to a question about his statements on the origin of the Egyptian pyramids. In a speech made in 1998 Carson explained his theory that the structures were built by the biblical Joseph to store grain and not, as is now generally accepted, meant as burial tombs for pharaohs

DECEMBER 2015

SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 4

WAFFLE LETTERS

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Dear Editor ... Blah-de-blah-de-blah ...

DECEMBER 2015

HAND OVER FIST PRESS

BOOKS â&#x20AC;˘ DESIGN at www.handoverfistpress.com

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SHEEP IN THE ROAD Vol. 2 Alan Rutherford 2015

SHEEP IN THE ROAD Vol. 1 Alan Rutherford 2014

IRISH GRAFFITI some murals in the North, 1986 Alan Rutherford 2014

NICETO DE LARRINAGA a voyage, 1966 Alan Rutherford 2014

To read/view a book, please go to BOOK page on website and click on their cover and follow the links ...

KAPUTALA The Diary of Arthur Beagle & The East Africa Campaign, 1916-1918 Alan Rutherford Updated 2nd edn: 2014

SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 4

â&#x2013;ź MAGAZINE

SHEEP IN THE ROAD issue 3 October: 2015

The first issue of Sheep in the Road as a magazine has writing, photography, cartoons and odd assemblages of ideas, rants and reviews ... eminating from a socialist and thoughtful core.

Available to view/read at: www.handoverfistpress.com

HAND OVER FIST PRESS

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