The Daily Terror

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AN ANTIDOTE TO PROPAGANDA Given the world’s continuing economic disaster, it seems we now have a new distraction to terrify us as we shift our focus away from the phantom beardies living in caves, plotting the destruction of our “free” world. Free thinking? Free of the slavery of debt? Free market?

Free of propaganda thought control? Freedom of religion? Time to ask yourself: what is the worst that can happen? Is it really that bad?

In this first issue of The Daily Terror, we put forward an alternative to rampant consumerism. Don’t buy cheap American designed crap made in Asian sweatshops – GAP between the ears – look for a better alternative. Find a reason to buy an item of clothing or object of design that motivates you, improves your world and ours and inspires you to be an individual. If you can’t find what you like, make your own!

Read. It is a contemplative process of education. Information about the world around you and the world that came before you, can be transcribed into printed material to be archived for future generations to reference, reflect on the past, and re-educate themselves about a way of life that once existed in order to understand and improve the NOW. Inspire the future to create a new sense of wellbeing. We print because we can and The Daily Terror presents our most recent discoveries and long lost findings. As an antidote to the waste press, we hope you will take this publication home with you. Don’t throw it away.

Remember what the dormouse said, “feed your head.”

All copyright remains the property of the publisher and the original creator unless otherwise stated. © 2008 The Daily Terror.

The Jago was a corner of Shoreditch : thank heaven, it has been cleared away now for fifty years.

*Why did we choose this picture? We just think he looks good!

Photograph of Lewis Powell, Lincoln assassination conspirator, 1865*

Vive le Terrorist! Throughout the ages, mankind has risen up against the orders of power. Revolution has influenced society more than political, monarchial or military powers ever could. The idea that “The People” hold the supreme power has stirred the ideologies of generations.

Since the English Civil War there has been little political revolution in this country. When politicians think that they can direct the public’s agenda, it is often the case

- woven round the life of Little Dicky Perrott,

that the public direct the political agenda.

This is democracy and freedom of choice.

In other parts of the world, freedom to choose is limited or controlled by agressive political or military powers. It’s not too distant a memory to ignore real social unrest and resistance to political pugnacity. The challenges to social organisation of the late 1960’s in Germany, Italy and France and global revolutionary movements – a new generation of activists. China’s massacre

in 1989 during the social uprising and protest around Tiananmen Square. Chairman Mao’s People’s Liberation Army idea that “An Army of the People is Invincible” no longer seemed to hold true. Whilst this was an obvious example of control for non-free political societies during the time, it was also a precursor to the downfall of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Revolution has never been an easy task to see through to a positive conclusion. To

agenda

overthrow a holding power means you must be stronger, and with law enforcement and the military on their side, the holding power often has the advantage. This was the case in Czechoslovakia’s attempt to hold off the USSR’s invasion in 1968, Mexico’s student protests, Paris’s student riots, worldwide student against the Vietnam war and Britain’s mine workers uprising in the 80’s.

It is often left to history to piece together the events leading up to revolution. The West has had it easy for a couple of generations; abundance of food, stable economies, social integration. So it is with uncertainty that we assess the current worldwide situation of financial collapse, social segregation and fuel shortages leading to increased cost of even the most basic of food. All of these broken promises and uncertain futures could create a tinderbox of revolution. Revolution isn’t just about social upheaval, politics can only change so much and is often the precursor to wider change. A reaction against a regime (however tyrannical) can shift balances of power under the guise of democracy. But democracy isn’t just about electoral process. It comes with an abundance of requirements.

Freedom of speech and expression, freedom to protest, freedom to have a voice to make a change. It is these things we take so much for granted that have been slowly eroded. In the UK, Habeas Corpus, historically an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action through which a person can seek relief from unlawful detention of himself or another person, has been eroded beyond comparison. 42 day detention – whilst targeting terror suspects – can be used to affect anyone considered a potential threat to the government, that includes your everyday protestor. Events involving terrorism have been exploited by this generation of governments worldwide. The War on Terror has led to the imposition of laws that affect us all. That is why we are Terrorists. Not the “terrorist” tag that has been applied by the media to anyone who raises an eyebrow at government policy but the liberators of the truth, we want to see things change.

Revolution is about a total change of ideas, about creating a new political agenda to incite a massive social change. With this incentive “The People” can move forward; socially, technologically, culturally – all through motivating ideology. We look back at civilisa-

tion’s timeline and it is the Revolutions that pin-point the periods of great change. From the Greeks rising up against their Persian rulers through to Basrans removing the British from their “liberated” city in Iraq, people have responded with a legitimate reaction to abuse.

For those who yet to have liberty, if the system doesn’t prevail, then perhaps they too can be inspired to revolt.

One image resonates as one of the most recent icons of the people standing up against agressive control. The Tank Man, as he has been dubbed (due to no one being certain who he was or if he lived), stirred the passions of people around the world. Those who knew for certain that they were living in a non-free society saw him as an icon of revolution. Tank Man has been hidden from the Chinese people ever since – with little awareness of the Tiananmen Square events in today’s students at the very University that the original student demonstrators came from. When shown the image of the man standing in front of the tank, today’s students had no idea of its context. But this man changed the world, at least for those who know about him. China blocked this image from their version of flickr.com, closing down access to the entire website until it could be censored beyond the idea of its purpose of photo-sharing. The power of this image is still too much for the Beijing Government to contemplate their people’s reaction, which is why we print it here.

RIOTS OF NOTABLE ACCLAIM

Gin Riots, London (1743)

Cable Street, London (1936)

Poll Tax, London (1990)

Cheap gin imported from the Netherlands became an extremely popular drink in the early 18th century. It was suggested by religious leaders and politicians that gin drinking encouraged laziness and criminal behaviour.

The 1729 Gin Act was passed in parliament increasing tax on the drink, an extremely unpopular move. The result was the uprising of the working classes and in 1743 they rioted. After a mass of damage, the government responded by reducing duties and penalties, claiming that moderate measures would be easier to enforce.

The Battle of Cable Street or Cable Street Riot took place on Sunday October 4, 1936 in Cable Street in the East End of London. It was a clash between the Police, overseeing a legal march by the British Union of Fascists, led by Oswald Mosley, and anti-fascists, including local Jewish, socialist, Irish and communist groups. The majority of both marchers and counter-protesters travelled into the area for this purpose. Mosley planned to send thousands of marchers dressed in uniforms styled on those of Blackshirts through the East End of London, with its large Jewish population.

Known as the Community Charge, the Poll Tax was introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1989. Based on a fixed tax per adult resident per household, the charge seemed to shift the tax burden from the rich to the poor. Calls for mass nonpayment by Anti-Poll Tax Unions resulted in non-payees being prosecuted. Growing unrest at draconian enforcement of payments culminated in several Poll Tax riots across the UK. The most serious were the events in Trafalgar Square, where 200,000 protesters were met with running charges by mounted police.

who who fought and stole and loved his family like the rest of them.

words by Liam Maher

We’re not sure when the lost history of the rural tailor’s guild was lost. Those of us in the industry who were paying relatively close attention at the time cannot even say for sure when it was found again.

But when indications that there was once a group of designer-artisans (they would more likely have referred to themselves as inventor-craftsmen or, in urgent situations, simply as “brothers”) began to emerge on the horizon it galvanized the suspicions and kindled the imaginations of a fairly wide range of observers within a short period of time.

When early Christians began spreading their message, they thought of its content as being good news. The word “gospel” means simply “good news”. I make this reference because many of us regarded the discovery of the rural tailor’s guild and the reemergence of its doctrines as very fucking good news. The possibility of a new menswear gospel. Probably many of us regretted we had missed the great –isms of early creative revolutions; cubism, futurism, fauvism, minimalism, expressionism, impressionism, constructionism, surrealism, situationism… – not to mention the irreverent ones like; Fluxus, CoBra, Op, Pop, Povera and Punk. If we worked in menswear we knew our own discipline’s versions lacked the urgency and sincerity of these examples. The most inspiring –isms of our trade came from music; folk, psych, prog, teddy, mod, rocker, ska, reggae, dance hall, punk, new wave, disco, new soul, blitz, bboy, hip-hop, trip-hop, rave, house, madchester, la sape, electroclash, indie, newrave… Great shit. Really. But without real substance or tangible fundamental quality.

There. I said it out loud. These cultures ignited our passions in a hot-up-your-groin kinda way but we always knew there was something ringing hollow in each of them.

We whiffed a bit of bullshit. They were borrowed from music. They had ample style inspiration. But they offered only arcane individual platforms in terms of tangible quality, craftsmanship, utility, philosophy

and function. They helped us recognize quality in jeans, and leather jackets but that’s about it. We took some inspiration from sport: team sports, board sports, and outdoor. They also delivered a bit of style and attitude but, although their framework for quality was arguably deeper, it was even more arcane.

We knew we couldn’t get what we needed from men’s “fashion”. God no. Absolutely not. With apologies to everyone from Giorgio Armani (and his 80’s soft shoulder) to Thom Browne (and this century’s Pee Wee suit). With apologies to all the regional quasi-isms of Antwerp, Ura-Hara, Brooklyn, Copenhagen, Berlin, Barcelona, etc…

We admired the sincerity and authenticity of these movements but we could see how quickly they were grafted on the artificial seasonal cycles of the fashion machine.

Great to see in the wild, but sad to see once hunted, trapped and left in a cage by the trend-spotters and reduced to begging for scraps and grinning stupidly at visitors to the global fashion zoo.

In view of all of this it is no surprise we reacted so goddamn quickly to the rumors of something different when we began to hear them murmured. We wanted it so badly some are saying we willed it into existence. Some are saying we willed it with such force that we pushed it right into the past knowing we could then simply wait for it to catch up with us in the present.

But we didn’t even know each other. There was no organized “we”. How could the rural tailor’s guild possibly have been the concoction of an interlinked crew of conspirators when the links themselves didn’t even exist? I didn’t know Simon Armitage, Joseph Corre, David Gensler, Sruli Recht, Shawn Stussy, Christopher Bevans, Steven Trussel, Darren Romanelli, Scott Morrison, Maurizio Donadi, Ilan Bitton, Jason Denham, Joe Perry, or any of the dozens and dozens of others with who have come togeher via a shared interest in the doctrines of the Rural Tailor’s Guild. Of course, thanks to Young Kim, I did know Rostarr,

militancy

This is a story of all that was sordid in that filthiest of London slums.

Davi Russo, Tommy Otago and Jose Parla – and I obviously knew a few others like my own brother Niall at Rogan (and now Double-RL). But this number was a fraction of the total that has surfaced since the rumours first began.

Why now?

I’m starting to believe that gospels hide in history waiting for the time when they’re needed most. Depending on our age many of our lives map effortlessly along at least a portion of the timeline initiated by mass-production and progressing through to globalization. In a myriad of ways it is a uniquely inspiring time to be active in menswear but throughout our extended honeymoon we’ve been trying to shut out the sound of this whisper in our heads. Something is trying to alert us to danger. The danger isn’t ethical or moral (I wish our slates were clean enough for that). The danger is creative. Under the system we are allowed to create mountains of designs and we feel thankful for that so we don’t ask for more in fear our current privileges will be revoked.

But if we did ask for more, we’d ask: Can we spend longer on a product to get it right?

Can we make it again if we didn’t get it right the last time?

Can we make it more personal?

Can we tie to our own history?

Can we manifest reverence for the work of anonymous forbearers even at the expense of easy-originality, the glamour-ofthe-new, and the cult-of-the-celebrity?

Can we build it to last?

Can we pack quality so densely into the finished garment that you need a magnifying glass to see it?

Can we pack it even more densely so a magnifying glass is not enough and would need to be replaced with a microscope?

Can we take inspiration from our peers without it being a “knock-off ”?

Can we build on each other’s advancements in order to advance the overall discipline more steadily and more convincingly?

Can we trust ourselves and each other enough to shift from Competitive to CoInspirational?

Can the machines be made to serve the designs instead of the designs being made to serve the machines?

Imagine the melon-twisitng excitement to find that we’re not the first to want these questions answered.

Brawls with jagged bottles as weapons,

OF COURSE WE’RE NOT THE FIRST

It would really be a case of getting high on our own supply to expect to be the first. Of course there was a generation of designers, developers, artists and craftsman who would have been asking these questions even more urgently under literally life-anddeath circumstances. That would have been the generation who stood at the threshold of that timeline. –Who felt the first furnace blast of change on their own faces.

Of course there was a rural tailor’s guild at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

How could there not be?

Of course it became militant. How could it not? There was a battle commencing and we know now that the losers lost big because we’re living proof that the winners won huge. Faced with a big loss, of course these “designers” dug their heels in and became militant.

Of course they went underground. How could they not? And once underground a culture doesn’t just hide itself from mainstream society, it also becomes invisible to the writers of history books.

So now we look for clues. There’s no question about the organism itself, only riddles as to how exactly it behaved and speculation as to whether it ever fully disappeared. For ourselves, we’re determined to keep looking. We look for signs in the past. Clues about the guild itself, but more importantly tangible foundations for better garment designs, practical parameters for more substantive quality and a more vital design ethic. These things lie partly in the past. We look for signs in the present.

We respond to news about sustainability, marketing-fatigue, individualization, globalization, emerging luxury markets, the “40 year old boy”, and the rest of that shit, and we filter these messages from a new point-of-view. We twist the bad news into good news and refine our own gospel.

We look for signs in the current work of our peers. If more of us adopt the code of our predecessors, we can reinstall their contribution to a tradition in which we are supposed to be working. -And we can each become part of a more noble tradition ourselves.

militant tailor words by Jason Jules

On June 16, 1829 Geronimo, leader of the Apache Tribe and major-league style inspiration for generations since, was born to the Bedonkohe band of the Apache, near Turkey Creek – then part of Mexico and now considered part of Arizona, USA .

A swerve-master when it came to the US and Mexican troops, both of whom took unkindly to the very existence and subsequent insurgent behaviour of the Native American nation, Geronimo led the last major force of warriors to avoid capture by the US – refusing to acknowledge the supremacy of the American Government until he finally surrendered in 1886.

Although not formally a Chief, he was a moral and military leader to his people – a combination which made perfect sense to the hugely religious and ethical Apache tribe. Legend has it that his spiritual powers proved as useful as his courage and military nuance when it came to battle.

Following his surrender, he was imprisoned in Florida for a year and then ‘kept under released’ – in… prevented from returning to his homeland for ever. Despite being a prisoner of war, Geronimo refused to half-step and became something of a celebrity until his death in 1909 – selling pictures of himself, authorising his own biography and appearing at the 1904 World Fair.

An original styler, his tip was to fuse rugged cavalryman with the spiritual warrior and the rural English gent, working a look which still resonates today.

(It has been heavily rumoured that he was associated with the Rural Tailors Guild which said to have originated in the US and England).

Young Meagher Liam Maher is on a militant tailoring mission. With little more than a few jacket prototypes and a rigorous, Dogma 95-style manifesto, Maher launched Young Meagher three years ago—and the menswear line/conceptual fashion project has been incubating whilst wrapped in a shroud of secrecy ever since.

The Amsterdam-based project, adheres to a rigid set of rules, as decreed by the mysterious 19th-century Militant Guild of Rural Tailors.

The core precept dictates that “researchers” forego mass production in favour of handcraft; Maher describes it as “a sort of ‘defense’ of artisan ideals, design invention and high quality.” The pieces that emerge are called “test garments” and do not abide by the usual cycle of seasonal collections. Instead, he advises, “ When it’s cold, wear the warm stuff; when it’s warm, wear the light stuff.”

squalor, dishonesty, murder, death -

ON SAVILE ROW “Savile Row is about elegance, heritage, distinction and exclusivity,” says Poppy Charles, girl Friday at H. Huntsman and Son – one of the streets, oldest, finest and most renowned tailoring establishments.

Indeed, it’s true to say that this ethic has enabled the street to survive over the years to become a truly Great British institution. A Savile Row suit is seen as one of the world’s greatest status symbols and a Savile Row tailor is commonly regarded as the best there is. Recently, however, certain elements have upset the apple cart, stuck a fly in the ointment and started a Battle Royale in the street that is synonymous with classic British style.

The argument basically revolves around the definition of a Savile Row suit that most agree is not one that is just ordered and fitted on the street but one made by the craftsmen who have either handed down their skills from father to son or are trained by craftsmen of repute. Today on the west side of the street we find the new blood, some of whom produce adequate bespoke suits, but nestled between them are those who do not. Many of the more established companies see these ‘impostors’ as a definite threat to their existence and nothing less than a slight on their good name. As Lara Mingay of Kilgour says, “40 Savile Row is not Savile Row, their suits are made up in

even nobility among those whose only commandment was “thou shalt not nark”

words by Chris Sullivan - illustration by Sichi

a factory in the North of England.”

Savile Row’s first resident Richard ‘the Rich’ Boyle, first Earl of Burlington, also found himself under siege in 1676. A glass works was built next to his lavish town house and the company were boiling human excrement to extract potassium and saltpetre to make glass. The smell, rumour has it, was excruciating. After a series of formal complaints the glass works closed down. His wish granted, his Lordship then signed a new lease, and without a by your leave, died.

The man who quite literally put the area on the map was the third Lord Burlington, another Richard Boyle. After returning

savile row

from a sojourn soaking up the architectural wonders of Italy, Boyle commissioned the building of several streets in the Italian style, to cover his father’s land. He then named all the streets after members of his family – Burlington Street, Cork St., Clifford St. and last but not least in 1733 named Savile Row after his wife Lady Savile, whose inheritance provided much of the finance.

The area with its rather continental allure soon attracted the attentions of the man who would push the street and the history of men’s fashion one almighty step further – Beau Brummel.

Brummel laid the foundations for modern male elegance, as we now perceive it. Overnight, men went from an over abundance of frills and lace to a silhouette that is not massively removed from today’s. Brummel was mainly responsible for that change. He battered down all known sartorial conventions.

He literally re-wrote the book.

Brummel’s first concern was cleanliness, a totally outrageous concept at the time; he bathed in milk, scrubbed himself relentlessly and manicured his nails to perfection. His outward appearance, even then, epitomised the Savile Row principle of simplicity and economy of line. In the words of his sideman Captain Jesse; “His chief aim was to avoid anything marked; one of his aphorisms being that the severest mortification that a gentleman could incur was to attract observation in the street by his outward appearance… there was in fact nothing extreme about Brummel’s personal appearance.”

Not without humour, Brummel when once asked if he ever ate vegetables replied that he once “ate a pea.” It was this wit and complete submersion in the sartorial arts that made him the favourite of the then Prince Regent and the toast of the town.

Royal patronage apart, Brummel’s enduring legacy is that of taste, refinement and the use of soap. At least two of which are a male prerequisite.

Brummel’s tailors were the first craftsmen of their kind to be known as Savile Row tailors. He favoured Schweitzer and Davidson in Cork Street, Weston in Old Bond Street and Meyer in Conduit Street, although, as far as he was concerned, they had nothing to do with his sartorial excellence. Brummel, eventually, fell into bad habits, the most fatal being a dangerous attack of sarcasm, a flaw that did not go unnoticed by his patron the Prince Regent.

Virtually banished to France, Brummel

died in obscurity in 1840 aged sixty-two.

Under the auspices of Brummel by the early 1800’s, tailors and their craftsmen played a major part in every gent’s existence. The master tailors became gradually more envious of the well-paid journeymen, known as ‘flints’ or ‘honourable men’ who in fact did all the work. In 1833, the masters tried to break their monopoly by employing ‘dungs’ a class of outworkers who would work longer for less money. Their activities became known as ‘sweating’.

The ‘honourable men’ as a result, formed a union- The London Operative Tailor’s and persuaded other workers to organise themselves into The Consolidated Trades Union.

Their collective aim was to establish a worker’s bank and abolish employers to be replaced by Boards of Trade. There would be no exclusivity, no privileged groups, no seniority and no outwork, therefore forcing the employers to abandon their use of virtual slave labour. By 1834 the Union could boast some 10-13,000 members and in April of that year, not at all dissuaded by the fate of the Tolpuddle Martyrs just a month before, they went on strike.

They met at ‘Houses of Call’ such as The Blue Posts in Kingly Street and initiated their members via a bizarre secret ceremony that involved swords, sashes, white surplices, curious oaths and a bizarre hand signal. Soon the police, alarmed by the Union’s revolutionary agenda began infiltrating the gatherings in an effort to destroy the organisation. The Union’s eventual collapse however, was not precipitated by the police; it was brought about by greed – the legendary nemesis of every egalitarian principle. On May 20th, Union members found their headquarters burgled and their funds embezzled. Penniless, they had to break strike.

The masters re-employed the bulk of the strikers, but all had to sign a pledge denouncing the Union. This defeat was not only a massive blow to the Tailor’s Union it was also hugely detrimental to Trade Unionism per se. It would take another half century before the organisation would reform.

Just as the trade is harmed today by the use of lacklustre workmanship, so was it then as the bosses employed second-rate craftsmen to produce a vastly inferior garment. As a direct result, a new breed of ‘Slop and Show’ shops erupted, able to match the quality of the established, and by 1849 the ‘traditional’ shops were in decline.

The man responsible for elevating the street’s fortunes was by and large Henry Poole. In 1846, on the death of his father, Henry took over the family’s rapidly expanding tailoring business and moved to Savile Row. At first Poole specialised in livery for the servants of nobles but moved on to personal tailoring as events took a turn for the better. He secured the patronage of Baron Meyer de Rothschild followed by Prince Louis Napoleon, then a rank outsider in the race for the French throne. As the unlikely Louis ascended to the title of Emperor (aided by a £10,000 Rothschild donation), Poole’s fortunes took an almighty leap.

Poole set a precedent that still exists today in that many a tailor’s career is elevated via the patronage of celebrities and royalty.

Poole courted such opportunity and really hit the big time when ‘Bertie’ the Prince of Wales made him his tailor. On one hand, a leg up of ridiculous magnitude, Poole’s shop became “a rendezvous for gilded and sporting youth… more like a club than a shop,” but on the other hand a curse as the company was driven to penury by the tradition of allowing regal types unlimited credit who rarely paid at all. As Poole wrote prior to his death in 1876: “There will be nothing much to leave behind me.”

With or without Poole’s connivance, tailors’ premises rapidly became the place to hang. Clandestine sexual congress was all the rage in Victorian England and many tailors provided their clients with every possible facility in which to indulge their hobbies. Guest bedrooms above the shop with a “discreet eye turned to the ladies who accompanied them” were a common feature readily available for the tailor’s better client.

The designer/tailor Tom Gilbey believes that the multiplicity of fittings was but a ruse to disguise other activities of a far more delicate nature; “They had twenty fittings with their tailor… and in the back or around the corner, would be something else.”

Another famous Savile Row tailor, Thomas Hawkes (of Gieves and Hawkes) also owed his success to a rather curious Victorian fascination, that of Foreign Exploration.

The Royal Geographical Society were for decades resident at Number 1 Savile Row and Mr. Hawkes made a substantial name for himself by kitting out almost all of the era’s great explorers. As Stanley explains in his book How I Found Doctor Livingstone, when he chanced upon the lost adventurer, the good Doctor was “clad in flannels,

With the help of Father Sturt, respected by all as a strong man,

with a patent Hawke’s cork solar toupee on his head, a most unusual thing in Ugogo.”

Soon after, in 1912, Hawke’s purchased the Royal Geographical Society’s premises. He and Mr. Gieves are still there today In the early 20th century Savile Row suffered badly as a result of first, the Titanic and secondly the First World War, losing many a valued customer and worker. By 1920 Savile Row was on its knees, until one man dramatically raised its profile.

The renaissance of Savile Row in the first half of the twentieth century was due, almost entirely, to Edward Prince of Wales.

It was he who popularised the ‘suit’ as we now know it (before known as ‘the lounge suit’, an item befitting only the casual occasion). HRH then took it a step further by adopting a suit with a much more relaxed cut as invented by his tailor, the Dutchman Frederick Scholte.

The ‘London Cut’, as it was known, was then championed by Scottish actor Jack Buchanan who introduced it to America where its popularity surged until it eventually became known as the ‘American Cut’.

Hollywood at the time perceived the English per se as the coolest cats on the block and lapped them up. Ronald Coleman, Noel Coward, David Niven and Cary Grant (whose maxim was ‘the simpler the better’) were the style icons of the thirties and all were strictly Savile Row. Fred Astaire, a man not entirely bereft of style, discovered that HRH had his waistcoats made in Hawes and Curtis and as he said; “the next day I was there and asked if I could get the waistcoat like HRH’s. I was apologetically told that it could not be done. So I went somewhere else and had one made like it.”

That somewhere else might well have been Kilgour & French who went on to make the dress suits he wore in the movie Top Hat – one of Savile Row’s most enduring images.

After the Second World War, recovery in Savile Row was slow. The American look, popularised by cinema, had caught on in Britain. The Zoot suit, once outlawed in the USA, had become the chosen uniform of the British spiv, immortalised by the great Arthur English. Esquire, the bible of male American style, had championed the ‘Bold Look’, a radical paring down of the zoot. This colonial aberration was the antithesis of the Savile Row ethic. The street shuddered.

One glimmer of hope for the Row came in 1951 when Savile Row created the ‘New Edwardian Look’. It was adopted by many

he tried to earn an honest living as a shop assistant,

an ex-officer of the Guards who curiously grew their hair a bit longer, sported a slightly flared jacket, a natural shoulder line, slim trousers and narrow sleeves, finished off with an overcoat with velvet collar and cuffs. Maybe one of the Row’s greatest innovations, the ‘Look’ was dropped like a drug dealing rugby international as the ‘ Teddy Boy’ adopted it en masse. The Ted’s much publicised antics with the cut-throat razor did not amuse the inhabitants of Savile Row one iota.

Hardy Amies, in the fifties and sixties pushed the street’s reputation beyond its natural boundaries. Amies noticed the rise of the high street tailor chains and, not in the least bit snobbish, designed a brilliant range for Hepworths. He also realised that success in tailoring was and still is largely reliant on the client list that is, in the main, attracted by a little bit more than cut. In the sixties many other tailors could boast a celebrity clientele. Sinatra and great train robber Bruce Reynolds went to Kilgour; J.F.K. to J.K. Wilson, Gregory Peck and Lawrence Olivier went to Huntsman, Michael Caine to Douglas Hayward, while Lesley and Roberts had to make do with Bing Crosby.

Tommy Nutter, a man who fully realised the power of one’s client list, used his social skills, while club hopping after work in the West End, to provide a new and vital list that included Brian Epstein, Mick Jagger and Twiggy. Nutter in 1969 threw every convention right out of the window. “I just went wild with the lapels and cut them as wide as you possibly could – enormous – and it was terribly flared at the jacket.”

With the brilliant tailor Edward Sexton at his side, Nutter could do no wrong. “It was sort of based on a mixture of the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s, all thrown together, yet it didn’t resemble any of those periods. It was in fact my own look.”

After Tommy Nutter left Savile Row in 1976, the street once more slipped into orthodoxy. Most of its customers were Americans; some were catered to by the legendary ‘American Run’, where a tailor armed with measuring tape would journey to the States in search of clients. There were tailors, however, who would never entertain such a notion. One such man was the legendary Harry Helman, the universally acknowledged Godfather of Savile Row. He and brother Burt were the consummate pros, their client list included John Hurt, Terence Stamp,

Muhammad Ali and James Fox but their approach was really straightforward. As Burt stated in the late 1980’s, “I always say, rather do good work and make less, then your producing something worthy.”

Yet even though this commitment to excellence and not the fast buck has provided Savile Row’s unequalled reputation throughout the world, from the mid eighties till the late nineties times were tough as old customers died out while those young gadabouts that might previously have been proud of such a garment chose to go overpriced designer instead.

Of course the situation was not helped when in 1987 the then Environment Secretary Nicholas Ridley, used government legislation to relax property use laws in the West End enabling anyone with a lump of cash to set up shop anywhere they liked and so rents and rates rose as the big multi-national designer corporations moved in.But luckily for us one codisil remained. For those resident on the East side of Savile Row there still exists a stipulation within their age-old lease that states that the premises must be occupied by ‘fine tailors.’ On the West side, in the post 1987 development, no such clause exists although there are moves to extend the stipulation to include all and any tailoring premises on the celebrated street. The curious thing is that historically a Savile Row suit can come from any number of streets – Old Burlington St. Clifford St., Hanover St., in fact most of the streets that surround its namesake.

Indeed a ‘Savile Row suit’ earns its moniker because of its construction (that hasn’t changed in a hundred years) and its impeccable standards of craftsman ship and not for its location.The bone of contention is that the culprits are physically on Savile Row and have every right to claim the title Savile Row tailor because that is where their shops are. I am sure most entered into the fray unaware of the imminent furore.

Maybe they just thought it a good idea.

‘There should be a set of rules as there is in the French ‘Chambre Syndicate’.

As Richard Charlton, a cutter at Kilgour, states, “There one has to adhere to a set of rules as long as your arm, other wise he cannot call himself a ‘couturier’. Savile Row is now more than just a street. People expect a degree of excellence and some of the tailors, not mentioning any names, do not deliver it.”

Indeed many bona fide craftsmen are

somewhat dismayed by the situation. As Poppy Charles says, “Our craftsmen have trained for years to provide the best and now are being undermined by people who are just using the street’s history without delivering the quality. And some of the public don’t even know. Really these days to become a Savile Row tailor, you only have to buy a shop on the street, but it’s not that simple. To become an adequate cutter and coat maker can take 7 years of hard training and to perfect that skill can take a lifetime.”

The main threat to Savile Row however, is not from interlopers but from the profound lack of craftsmen. The problem according to Richard Charlton is that, “A lot of the great coat and trouser makers are getting on a bit and even though there are young people who want to learn the trade, the people aren’t there to train them. This lack of craftsmen has pushed the price and lead times of a suit right up because there are only so many craftsmen who can

deliver the quality we expect. They are in demand, they are really busy and can command high wages, and worst of all they are dying out.”

“Even though we at Huntsman and several other tailors constantly train new people- and there are some really excellent new cuttters and coat makers coming through- there are not enough craftsmen to teach, as those that are able to do so are so very busy producing suits,’’ concurs Poppy Charles “Each month I get hundreds of applications from young people wanting to learn the trade but sadly we just cannot meet the demand.”

As a result, a true Savile Row suit is getting more and more exclusive, a fact that has in the past helped every trade on earth, especially fashion and that even in these troubled times has caused Savile Row to be busier than ever. “It will never die out,” says Charlton, “It will just change. More and more people come to us fed up with

looking like everybody else and are now looking for something that lasts. A bespoke suit will never date. It will make you look better. We can do things for your figure that a track suit could never do.”

As for the new breed, Charlton is characteristically generous, “Many on the other side are not even tailors while some could be described as parasitical. As for the likes of Oswald Boateng, Spencer Hart and Richard James, they have raised the P.R. of the street, attracted new customers and produce adequate bespoke. I say good luck to them. The trade has never been good at P.R. there’s a lot of talk and a lot of drinking but nothing ever actually happens.”

The good news is that Savile Row is once again appreciated by all and business is good. Ipso facto the street has a fine chance of surviving until that ever so glorious day when yours truly can afford the full on bespoke. And that, dear reader, could be a very long time.

Fashion’s Inconvenient Truth

The best thing for the environment is to stop producing disposable crap.

Waste comes from over-production. Obvious. It took me 10 years to get around to the homework of my own vocation. But when I finally did read a few books, I learned some perspective from James Twitchell’s Twenty Ads That Shook the World. Twitchell asserts a little new old math.

thought leads me to a state of dull panic which I drown out by playing music really loud. Wyclef ’s If I Were President is the tune doing this work this week. But, that last equation in Twitchell’s math is:

Industrial + Revolution = Mass + Production.

Mass + Production = Overproduction. Overproduction + Capitalism = Need-Creation.

Need-Creation x Overproduction = Advertising. Advertising x Overproduction = Mass Consumption.

Right? Or am I misunderstanding something? At the InterTextile event in Shanghai, this all started to come together in my head.

Most of us will have a pretty clear picture of how much trash is pushed behind the convention centre as soon as a tradeshow is over. Week X is the Boat Show. Week Y is the Computer Show. The two days between events, half the Boat Show exhibition is piled into dumpsters on the not-so-pretty side of the venue.

So it is particularly ironic to see tradeshow exhibition resources dedicated to new “eco” materials. In Shanghai in particular they got the memo. Given China’s reputation for waste management, the irony is sharper than ever.

Eco is the flavour-of-the-month. Exciting stuff really and I’m not dismissing the products on offer. Corn Fabric, Seaweed Fabric, Bamboo Fabric, Wood Fabric, Paper Fabric, Soy Fabric, Recycled Fabric.

Here’s the thing, the answer needs to be to make stuff that people won’t throw away in the first place. I, for one, relish the idea of employing the new organic fabrics insofar as they represent quality. Only if/when they allow for quality.

Get it? If not, think of it this way; somebody invented machines that made soap faster than anyone could use it up. More soap than society needed. Instead of stopping the machines it made more sense to change society. Easy, just make folks feel dirtier than they actually were. The rest is history. Soap operas, game shows brought to you by...

It may surprise you, like it surprised me, that the first artist-corporate collaboration was not Murakami for Louis Vuitton. It was Sir John Everett Millais selling his artwork “Bubbles” to the Pears Soap company.

While we’re on the subject, Pears used Lillie Langtry to opinion-lead before Bernard Arnault paid J-Lo to pose for Vuitton. This whole “art” of branding (thanks to the V&A for raising it to that level) is the result of mass-production’s potential.

I have no answer. The whole train-of-

Mass + Consumption = Waste

but the bubble of this new pride of responsibility burst all too soon through no fault of his,

words by Liam Maher

Quality is The Point If we make stuff that folks don’t throw away, we’ll pursue a design strategy that is better for the environment, nearly regardless of the fabrics we use. Go ahead and use petroleum-based material and go ahead and use fabrics processed with chemicals.

Use ‘em right alongside the new organics.

But use them all to make a thing that won’t end up in the waste stream.

If you’re stamping out graphic tees you suspect get thrown away after two years, cut it out. Tee shirts are great. I’ve got tees I’ve had for ten years.

Make them in organic cotton if that’s cool. In my book it’s even more important to make them in quality yarns. Is Pima cotton good for the environment? I have no idea. How about Giza 45 or Giza 77 or Luxsic or Sea Island or Suvin? I don’t know but I’ve got tees from Visvim and Smedley and APC featuring these fibres and I don’t throw ‘em away. No corn-fabric or soyfabric or whatever but not destined for a landfill either. Because they’re fantastic quality and to ever throw them out would be insane.

Hiroki Nakamura was investing his spirit and the resources of Visvim into the idea of DeepQuality long before Gore’s film but the two things aren’t unrelated.

That’s just the dope on tees. If you’re in bed with a high-street distributor owned brand (DOB) you’ve got some soul searching ahead of you.

Tailors speak

CUSTOM MADE

SIR TOM BAKER

A list of useful phrases to avoid being outdone by a traditional tailor... or to distinguish a traditional tailor from a cheap ripoff merchant.

Balloon. Having a balloon = A week without work or pay.

Baste = A garment assembled for the first time.

Block = A standard pattern around which the suit is cut.

Bodger = Bad craftsman.

Bunce = A perk of the trade like left over cloth one might sell.

Cabbage = Left over material.

Codger = A tailor who does up old suits.

Cork = The boss.

Crushed beetles = Bad buttonholes.

Darky = Sleeve board.

Drummer = Trouser maker.

Gorge = Where the collar is attached.

Hip stay = The wife.

Kipper = A tailoress.

Mangle = Sewing machine.

1/1 One of a kind custom made waistcoat created for a private buyer. Featuring a black and white check pattern wool front and a silk back and lining. Hand sewn by our favourite Japanese tailor Masato Okazaki for the Terrorist label.

All the outer seams, pocket tops and button holes were hand stitched with heavy thread. Finished with antique buttons.

Okazaki’s own brand, Melazoma was established in 2007. He is also the pioneer of the Maz’s Rockin’ Blues bootleg CD collection.

Sir Tom Baker is a new cutting edge bespoke tailoring shop in the heart of Soho.

It specialises in both classical and rock ’n’ roll menswear. Tom Baker trained at Hardy Amies on Savile Row. His bespoke customers include Mick Jagger and Robert Plant.

His obsession with cut and fit has put him at the forefront of his chosen profession and he is widely considered to be the most innovative and exciting tailor working in London today.

Customers can choose from a selection of beautifully tailored jackets, suits and trousers available off the peg. Alternatively, they can order the ultimate bespoke suit, handmade exactly to your specifications and personally overseen by Tom himself.

Also on offer is a large selection of shirts, ties and accessories.

The shop also boasts a concession of fine footwear by Archie Eyebrows whose creative consultant is the legendary Terry de Havilland. The collection comprises a range of stacked Cuban heeled styles, which draw reference from the originals of the 60s and 70s. Described as “Dandy Shoes For Tough Dudes”, the range is full of attitude. A custom made service is also available.

Completing this unique retail line-up is a selection of handmade hats by world renowned milliner Stephen Jones.

4 D’Arblay St. London W1F 8DJ.

Mango = Cloth cuttings.

On the cod = Gone drinking.

Pigged = A lapel that turns up after a bit of wear.

Pork = A reject that another customer might buy.

Schmutter = Poor cloth.

1% OFF ANY PURCHASE WITH THIS VOUCHER

Skiffle = A rush job.

Skye = The armhole.

Tab = Difficult customer.

Trotter = Fetcher and carrier.

Umsies = Someone who is being discussed whom the speaker does not want to name because he is present.

Whipping the Cat = Travelling round and working in private houses.

AT

A CHILD OF THE JAGO 10 GREAT EASTERN STREET, LONDON EC2A 3NT

but only because no one makes good in the Jago.

A CHILD OF THE JAGO

From a time predating the teddy boy spiv look of early rock ‘n’ roll, there has always been the sharp and smart spirit of the gent.

Throughout fashion history, men have nicked the styles of their betters, as each class increases its income to dispose on style-making clothing. A more brazen style that had ever been seen before – tougher than wild western outlaws and more wild

T-SHIRTS

than Marlon Brando’s Wild One. Much of this first generation of streetwear can be found at A Child of the Jago, London’s recently opened men’s fashion shop. The shop carries original Terrorist clothing and artefacts (the shop’s label is named Terrorist), a preemptive strike at the heart of fashion today. Amongst the tailored suits and contemporary streetwear, the collec-

tion creates a new message from a heritage of long forgotten fashion credentials.

The spirit lives on today with street styles around the globe. The Jago makes a point of ensuring not only that you look good, but you feel it is the clothes that make the man.

Look the part, feel the part.

A Child Of The Jago is located at 10 Great Eastern Street, EC2A 3NT.

Silk patch T-shirts by Terrorist, £85 Inspired by the idea of traditional handmade clothing, these silk patch T-shirts also take advantage of new technology and materials. Bamboo cotton makes up the T-shirt, which is then adorned with digitally printed artwork on a silk patch. Each patch is then hand sewn – a focus on detail that offers the customer an exclusive oneof-a-kind product.

Shown here are two examples using Hogarth’s iconic social message artworks of Gin Lane and Beer Street. Other designs in the collection include Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People and a photographic portrait of Geronimo.

jago

APACHE

Terrorist derives much of its heritage from the libertarians, freedom fighters and rogues found throughout history. Part of the collection takes inspiration from the symbols and imagery of the Native American Apache tribe. Shown below is a pair of waxed cotton Apache pants. They come in a variety of colours and a heavy duty plain cotton alternative is also available.

Also available is the cashmere Apache hooded jacket. The custom knit uses the finest Scottish cashmere. Both items show the blend of tradition and the contemporary that frequently appears in the Terrorist collection.

THE FINEST TAILORING

One approach of the Terrorist range covers formal tailoring. All custom designed for the shop, the ethics of quality tailoring have been applied to the collection.

Examples of tailoring can be found in the Wild West inspired drape coats and swag jackets, rock ‘n’ roll influenced lurex box jackets and a signature frock coat, suitably named “The Jago.” It is possible to dress in complete three piece suits, combinations of trousers – choose from drainpipes or pegs, waistcoat – single or double breasted, and accompanied with a formal jacket. Other items of notoriety include prison striped trousers and waistcoats and a reworking of a punk classic in the form of the Tartan Rotten box jacket. All items are available now at A Child Of The Jago.

A WHOLE OTHER STOREY

above left: silver lurex box jacket above top: The Jago coat above bottom: Tartan Rotten box jacket

Adventurous shoppers who explore A Child Of The Jago can find themselves in an Aladdin’s cave of curiosities and vintage collectable clothing. The basement space is an ever-changing room filled with an abundance of artefacts collected from the Terrorist’s travels through time.

Items include original military uniforms from many of the world’s great conflicts, a tasty looking wild boar, an archive of vinyl records covering the best musical genres and a Hells Angel’s false leg.

Even the time machine used by the Terrorist explorers is on show. However, it is defunct, having been damaged on a recent mission, now missing its crucial time-travelling component parts.

words by Jason Jules

What’s all the fuss about print? With virtually every publication in the country watching their circulation figures drop as quickly as Gordon Brown’s popularity ratings, why on earth would anyone want to produce yet another printed periodical?

One would think we’d have all learnt by now with the demise of such great titles in recent years that it takes much more than a bunch of ideas and an enthusiasm filled editorial team to make a successful magazine. And yet we persist.

For some of us it’s nothing more than an exercise of the ego – a classic case of vanity publishing. For others it’s a response of a modern day Luddite – a determined attempt to ignore the fact that so much information is now readily and freely available on the web. But then there are those among us who would like to think, similar to that notion espoused by Oasis, that such publications, be they magazines, newspapers or fanzines, are an opportunity to stand on the shoulders of giants.

Oz Magazine has had a number of incarnations in its history.

The first was as a satirical publication, inspired by the likes of Private Eye. Then published in Australia, it challenged the status quo through a combination of daring stunts (at one point they kidnapped a TV presenter), audacious hoaxes (they’re first issue claimed that the Sydney Harbour bridge had fallen down) and un-

compromising investigative journalism.

In the second phase, once some of the original Oz team had relocated to London, they embraced the psychedelic aesthetic of the time, producing some of the most magazine design ever. During this phase they worked with the likes of Germaine Greer and featured challenging issues (at the time) such as police brutality, abortion, censorship and homosexuality.

On several occasions they found themselves entangled in controversy. In Australia in 1964 they were found guilty and sentenced to jail and hard labour under obscenity laws for publishing a cover which featured one of the editors and others pissing in a public fountain. This sentence was eventually quashed.

On another occasion during their London period, the publication produced a kids issue which featured the work of schoolchildren and included ‘obscene’ material such as a sexualised depiction of Rupert The Bear. What followed was the longest obscenity trail in the UK to that date. John and Yoko produced a song in their defence ‘God Save Oz’, and joined a march demonstrating against the trail, which involved activist and artist Caroline Coon, comedian Marty Feldman and DJ John Peel among the defence witnesses. Again they were found guilty, only to have their sentenced thrown out on appeal.

Lost Girls (Published by Top Shelf, ISBN 1-891830-74-0) Wendy, John and Michael get it on with Peter in this collection of hardcore Victoriana erotic stories from the mind of Alan Moore.

Illustrated by Melinda Gebbie.

“Now, Dicky Perrott, you Jago whelp, look at them (the high class crooks) - look hard.

LINK WRAY

words by Jason Jules

Fred Lincoln “Link” Wray Jr (May 2, 1929 – November 5, 2005) was an American rock and roll guitarist, composer and occasional singer.

Link Wray is the man many claim did more for Rock’n’Roll than Elvis. He’s the man to whom many attribute the roots of heavy rock. He’s also the man who turned his back on the industry, became a virtual hermit, making music in his back-to-basics farm in the middle of nowhere USA , for the best part of a decade. Conversely he’s also the man who was later hailed as a true icon of punk rock. And, even years after his death, rock guitar legend Link Wray still is causing controversy in the world of music.

For, to the bewilderment of many and the anger of others, he’s yet to be awarded induction into the Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Fame and Museum...

The Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame and Museum has been in existence for over twenty years. While its most recent inductees include Madonna, Leonard Cohen and

John Mellencamp, it lists among previous performers the likes of Van Halen, U2, Bob Seger ZZ Top, Eddie Cochrane and of course Elvis’s – both Costello and Presley.

Link Wray, who Pete Townsend in 1974 claimed as “the king” is still out in a virtual wilderness, only, this time, unlike that prolonged period in the sixties, it’s anything but a self-imposed exile.

Born Fred Lincoln Wray, to a white father and a part Shawnee Indian mother, Link began life in North Carolina, learning at the age of eight to play slide guitar from a black carnival traveller called Hambone.

His love of music was shared by his three other brothers, and although Link suffered tuberculosis during his service in the Korean War, on his release from the US army he performed in bands with the other members of his family. Due to his illness – he lost

a lung – he was advised not to sing and so set his focus on perfecting his guitar playing. Doing the circuit of virtual obscurity as a country and western band and then a country swing band, it was as a backing band – a kind of pick-up unit for artists appearing on the local version of American bandstand – called Milt Grant’s House Party (kind of like Jools Holland’s Later, but for the way under forties), that they shared the stage but not the limelight with the likes of early Rock and Roll legend Fats Domino and bobby sox hero Ricky Nelson.

It was on one such an occasion – this time during a recording of a show in-front of a live audience that Link Wray experienced a breakthrough which would change his life – and the course of rock music history forever. Attempting to nail the backing for the tune the Stroll, in preparation for the

music

Diamonds performance of their hit song. It was then that the band inadvertently came up with a dirty twelve bar blues which, only sounded remotely like it’s intended song... indeed, it was so removed from the Stroll that the audience mistook it for an original tune and demanded four encores.

Never one to miss an opportunity, Cadence Records head man Archie Bleyer got wind of the huge fuss which had been made about this tune and asked to hear it.

It didn’t take him long to decided that he hated it. But it was his young stepdaughter who eventually convinced him to give the guys a chance – she loved the tune. She was also the one who convinced them to change the name. Originally called Oddball, it was given the way more inspiring title Rumble, a name she came up with because it reminded her of the fight scene in West Side Story. Rumble was street parlance for ‘gang fight’.

The track was not only distinctive for its uncompromising title. The dark and ominous guitar sound, which Wray tried very hard to recreate in the studio after that first memorable live performance was the result of him poking a pencil into his amplifier speaker – and was born the fuzz tone. While it was that sound that would become the template for rock and roll guitar as we know it, back in 1956 it was enough to get the track banned on a number of radio stations. The title and the sonic rawness, it was argued, was a rally cry to juvenile delinquency – a neat trick for a track with no lyrics. Despite this, it became a huge hit – both here in the UK and in the US. It reached number 16 in the US national charts.

Cadence couldn’t handle the heat of the controversy and let Wray go. The track set the template for further Link Wray hits through the fifties and early sixties – raw, electric guitar lead instrumentals with names like Jack The Ripper, Ace of Spades and ‘Rawhide’ – which Wray, frustrated by the culture of the labels and their desire to mould him into a less edgy performer released on his own label and sold through

the back of his car until it was eventually picked up by the Swan label.

By the mid sixties Wray announced that he was ready for retirement and the life of a farmer. But his retirement was more like a self imposed exile, turning his back on the restrictive record industry he built his own recording studio in a disused chicken coop on his farm in rural Maryland and settled into a live of virtual, if not unpleasant obscurity in doing so, getting more in tune with his increasingly prevalent Shawnee Indian heritage.

Until, that is, in 1971 when Polydor released a self titled LP culled from those back yard sessions – a record which marked a departure from his rock’n’roll garage band style tunes and had more in common with Van Morrisson, The Band and the Rolling Stones take on Americana.

Although it received great critical acclaim, it returned poor sales figures. This return to mainstream resulted in performances on the same bill as a variety of Summer Of Love nostalgia acts and then later on in the seventies with Robert Gordon – the rockabilly revivalist who reintroduced him to UK audiences and especially the burgeoning punk generation who empathised with his nonconformism and outsider status.

It was post-modern Hollywood which kept him in the limelight through the 80’s and 90’s with films such as John Waters’ Pink Flamingos and the 83 remake of Breathless (starring Richard Gere) and Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, using his work as part of their soundtracks.

Enjoying something of a revival through a lexicon of soundtracks inclusions, Wray toured the US in 2005 – leaving his home in Sweden, where he had settled and married (he met his wife some years before while she was studying Native American history in the States) in the 90’s, he played forty dates to celebrate the release of Wray’s Three Track Shack – songs he recorded during his period of splendid isolation on his Maryland farm. He died at home in Copenhagen on November 5th. He was 76.

Now, three years after his death, the campaign to have the man who refused to compromise his art, who championed the cause of fellow native american Indians and inspired everyone from The Who, Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix and set the template for a sound that we would later call heavy metal is still experiencing what some might brand unjust social exclusion.

look good in black… johnny cash, siouxsie & the banshees, kraftwerk, the cramps, the velvet underground, baader meinhoff gang, marlon brando, johnny thunders, pere ubu, bo diddley, alfred hitchcock, charlie chaplin, chuck berry, om, sun o, joy division, yoko ono, billy the kid, captain black (mysteron agent), batman, black panther, black bolt, spider man (sometimes), raven, mystique, dracula, frankenstein, darth vader, james brown, cole porter, duke ellington, john coltrane, marlene dietrich, sid vicious, debbie brand, bauhaus, roxy music, david bowie, iggy pop, king tubby, u-roy, i-roy, merlin, alistair crowley, tappa zukie, johnny depp, montgomery clift, frank sinatra, fred astaire, johnny rotten, picasso, salvador dali, bette davis, joan crawford, rita hayworth, claus von stauffenberg, lenin, peter lorre, vincent price, the hood, gene vincent, beatles (hamburg), crass, cult, adam & the ants, marco pirroni, damned, specials, don letts, dj mad daddy, dominatrix, vivienne westwood, andy warhol, black panthers, echo & the bunnymen, harmonia, can, syd barrett, ennio morricone, etienne daho, elvis, fela kuti, frankie goes to hollywood, gary numan, ghostface killa, half-man half-biscuit, mephisto, chumbawamba, imbeciles, jeffree star, jerry lee lewis, soo catwoman, johnny hallyday, humphrey bogart, doors, laurie anderson, lenny bruce, mr spock, manhattan transfer, nightwatch, wyatt earp, eric von stroheim, yves st laurent, robin hood, doctor who, the black shield of fallworth, the black knight, coffee, guinness, boredoms, druitti collum, nosferatu, dr calligari, anarchists everywhere…

every other colour… nobody worth mentioning…

Some day, if you’re clever - cleverer than anyone in the Jago now -

DIRTY STOP OUT

Dirty Stop Out is a band with a mission to push the boundaries of rock and roll and revive the forgotten world of sexy, sweaty, glamorous live performance. They have emerged through experimenting with the cultural, visual and musical influences of rock and roll, country punk and electro.

Joseph Corre and ‘Filthy Luca’ Mainardi have created a musical platform that reflects the colourful characters of rock ‘n’ roll heritage with lashings of sex, humour and entertainment. They plan to use this as a stage to create interesting collaborations and a forever changing musical experience

Lo-FI

of the German composer Richard Wagner) and electronics designer Chris Huggett.

The company was small and none of the products were commercially successful but are now prized by collectors for their unique lo-fi sound and kitsch value. Think the new wave of new wave and Myspace chart success.

Then there is the more grown up Moog, one of the first widely used electronic instruments. Robert Moog created the first subtractive synthesizer to utilise a keyboard as a controller. It sometimes took hours to set up the machine for a new sound.

Or try your hand at a Suzuki Omnichord.

When Suzuki introduced the Omnichord in 1981 it had a profound effect on both music instruction and as a tool for professional musicians. An odd-shaped electronic musical instrument, it features a touch plate and chord buttons, making it almost too easy to play. Just press the chord buttons, strum the touch plate and you’re playing dynamic

Back to basic sounds There comes a time when you need to grow wiser about the toys you play with. So, without littering your home with art bargains that may or may not accrue you a fortune, the alternative is to buy gadgets that will allow you to grow and learn in a way you could never dream of.

Musical toys are a gift for the senses, not just amazing to look at with their many buttons, knobs, keys and controllers that make you feel like rocking the Millenium Falcon’s flight capsule, but a way of creating your own musical legacy. Take for example the Electronic Dream Plant’s Wasp.

EDP was a British firm that manufactured audio synthesizers during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The company was formed by musician Adrian Wagner (a descendant

that avoids ego and celebrates the days of old London Victorian grandeur and vaudeville showmanship where each creation, whether music, film or theatre, was of a high standard and executed spectacularly.

With the addition of The Clash’s Mick Jones and backed with a band of vagabonds and colourful and excellent musicians, Dirty Stop Out is complete.

The first EP release is entitled ‘Cuntro Classics’ Volume 1 and is a collection of 7 tracks. The music is a rock ‘n’ roll, electro and country punk extravaganza. In addition, the album is accompanied by a deluxe DVD of music videos to accompany 5 of the 7 album tracks. ‘Cuntro Classics’ Volume 1 will be available in Agent Provocateur stores and online at www.agentprovocateur.com. The album and DVD launches on the 10th November with a live musical extravaganza at KoKo on 13th November, suitably titled Pirate Provocateur. ‘Cuntro Classics’ volume 2 will be released in March 2009 and will continue the series of exciting collaborations with videos created by some of the world’s greatest directors.

Guest performers and collaborators so far have included Bobby Gillespie, Nina Hagen, Sienna Miller, Les Rita Mitsuko, Rhys Ifans and Dot Alison. Dirty Stop Out is currently championing home grown talent and plans to create a forever changing entertainment experience.

chord progressions. Beginners can immediately start playing in tune, while professionals often use the instrument to help map out and shape songs, especially on the road. The sort of thing you would find alien women playing to serenade Captain Kirk.

Or go back to the beginning and pull out the Theremin, one of the first electronic instruments. Move your hands between two metal antennas. Control radio frequency with one hand and volume with the other.

GUY STEVENS

words by Eddie Pillar

There are half a dozen names that evoke a seminal definition of mod. Paul Weller is the only contemporary example. His vision shaped the look and attitude for the 21st century.

But what about the originators? Those ‘white Soho negroes of the night’...

Rod Stewart, Steve Marriott and Pete Townshend are first amongst musical equals – they were peacocks, thrusting the mod image into suburban living-rooms through Ready Steady Go! Andrew Loog Oldham and Pete Meaden were the entrepreneurs, hustling their way to a modernist nirvana with a manifesto of youth-culture-as-artas-commodity, riding the zeitgeist with Austin Reed and John Steven.

But what about the music? Who was the mod face with his ear to the black American underground?

It was Guy Stevens. He was the face without even being a straight-down-the-linemod. He was above such simple definitions.

He was a music man. The music man.

Robin Beste, who ran the seminal outof-town mod nightclub, The Birdcage, remembers, “I was tooling around London with Peter Meaden – he was looking for new songs for his latest discovery, The High Numbers. He’d booked a meeting with Guy Stevens at his office. There was a certain commotion as we turned up; the latest disc-delivery from the States had just arrived – from Stax Records. Stevens

opened the package and the first record out was ‘Hold On I’m Coming’ by Sam and Dave. That beautiful brass intro kicked in and the pair of them played it again and again. Just the intro. Listening and talking about it and listening again. I was just sitting in the corner, ignored, as Stevens and Meaden eulogised about this semireligious experience.”

Stevens had always known his black music. At a time when very few US soul or R&B singles managed a UK release, he was always first with the latest cuts. Bitten by the black music bug, Pye Records employed Stevens to select releases from Chicago’s Chess label for their Pye International R&B series. An instant success, the label championed the careers of such household names as Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and Etta James.

As mod icons go, it was as resident at The Scene Club in Soho’s Ham Yard that Stevens takes his place in the pantheon. As the disc-jockey at London’s main mod hangout, Stevens discovered and broke just about every big record there was. His night was where taste-makers showed to check

the latest tunes and later incorporate the best into their sets. Stevens and his selections steered the mod scene at its peak and soon he had established Sue Records with Chris Blackwell.

The ultimate 60s mod label, Sue, was Stevens’ legacy – the coolest record company there ever was. From its trademark red and yellow label, more akin to a Jamaican ska release, to its consistent output of quality black music. Sue Records remains one of the most collectable record labels – bar none.

As mod faded, Stevens shifted direction and became a record producer. A spell in prison in the late 60’s and a well-documented battle with alcoholism marred his career but in spite of that, he both produced and named Free and Mott The Hoople. His career blossomed but from the glory days of the early 70’s there was a gentel decline until he produced The Clash’s ‘London Calling’ in 1979. The album reinvigorated both Stevens and the band and resulted in a multi-platinum classic.

In 1981 Stevens, like his friend Peter Meaden, died young.

words by Vivienne Westwood illustrations by Sichi & Vivienne Westwood

AR

I make the great claim for my manifesto, that it penetrates to the root of the human predicament and offers the underlying solution. We have a choice: to become more cultivated, and therefore more human; – or by not choosing, to be the destructive and self-destroying animal, the victim of our own cleverness (To be or not to be).

We shall begin with a search for art, show that art gives culture and that culture is the antidote to propaganda.

Dear Friends, We all love art and some of you claim to be artists. Without judges there is no art. She only exists when we know her. Does she exist? The answer to this question is of vital importance because if Art is alive the world will change. No Art, no progress.

We must find out; go in search of her.

– But wait! Who is this with fire-cracking smouldering pigtails, gold teeth and a brace of flintlocks in his belt? He is a pirate.

– And what does his t-shirt say? – I love crap. (Pirate hands Vivienne Westwood an Hawaiian garland of plastic flowers.)

Pirate: ‘Leave everything to me. I plunder for you. Stick with me and you might get a share of the bounty. My name is Progress.’

AR: But you have stolen imagination.

There is hardly anyone left now who believes in a better world. What is the future of unlimited profit in a finite world?

Pirate Progress: ‘I like you artistic lot.

But, trust me or not, – I’ll take you with me if I go down. We’ll all burn together.’

(Film clip, close up: the pigtails burst into flames and with a “Ha-haagh!” the pirate disappears in a pall of smoke followed by black night) (Still dark) AR: He is not Progress. He must have stolen the name. (The defiant face of Pirate Progress appears and disappears like the Cheshire Cat. Light returns). True progress, as the Greeks thought of it, is without limit. How can things get better and better if there is a limit?

Beautiful slavegirl: ‘Everything must have an end. And to progress or advance in any way you must know where you are going. An end cannot be something you choose for the sake of something else. For example, money is not an end but a means to an end. And for this reason, I shall be set free.

I am so happy! I am the famous Rhodopis (Rosycheeks). My master made a fortune from selling my body but now my lover will pay a vast ransom, – even more than my future earnings could be. Oh, Liberty!

I thought you were my end, but now, I see you are just a beginning. Can I be happy when the other slaves don’t have a beginning? The only true End must be Happiness – but not just for one person. I see now that progress can be an end without limit for there is always a better way of living. And though we may progress towards greater happiness, as an end it will always escape us and a good thing too, because if we ever reach Paradise we’ll all be dead’.

AR: Happiness is the true end of human existence. In practice this means to realise individual potentialities to their limits and in the best way possible. I think we would all agree.

Child slaveboy: ‘A slave is not a person but a thing. – A thing can be something like a car, or a hammer, as well as a slave. – Soul-destroying, to put it in a nutshell. But my mother told me how to survive. – I must try to understand the world and that way I don’t lose my soul, I know who I am. When she said, goodbye, she said, ‘Love Liberty, but forget the key, for the key turns only once. I love you.’

Alice: ‘She was your mirror. Her love showed you Yourself. She believed in you.’

AR: A work of art may show us our self – who we are and our place in the world. It is a mirror which imitates life.

Alice: ‘Those round convex mirrors are very good; – you see a lot, but concentrated down; – you see big and small at the same time: – you need to fit all the things into a microcosm but it has to reflect as well’, and turning to the art lovers ‘I was just explaining this to Pinocchio’.

Pinocchio: ‘Now that I have become a boy, I want to be a freedom-fighter.’

AR: Action! Nothing is possible without art. Come with us. – To find if Art is alive, we must first know who she is. To the Lyceum!

Alice – to Pinocchio: ‘ We are going to see Aristotle. His analysis of Greek tragedy is such an objective break-down that it serves to define art in general and in all its forms – what it is and what it isn’t,’ then finding themselves alone, ‘ We must go back and find the others’.

Pinocchio: ‘There’s a bloke here who lives in a barrel.’

Diogenes: ‘I shit and wank in front of people in the street like a dog: I am the Cynic. The Great Alexander made a point of coming to see me and asked if he could do me a favour. Nobody’s better than me.

– I told him to step out of my light. I am famous because I’ve got the balls to do what I want.’

Alice: ‘He doesn’t want much.’

Pinocchio: ‘Cool, I’ve found art! I could be Diogenes II. I’ll call myself a piss artist and make lots of money.’

AR: Come back children. Alice we’re waiting for you to introduce us to Aristotle. And Pinocchio, you’re just being silly. Though Diogenes is obsessed by himself he doesn’t believe in anything, let alone himself. That’s why he’s a cynic. This self-promotion and doing what you want is a sham philosophy of life. No, no, it’s not self-indulgence but self-discipline that makes the individual.

And you, especially, need self-discipline if you’re going to be a freedom-fighter.

Pinocchio: ‘ You are right. Diogenes seemed kind of happy, but he’s a poser. – Too boring, I couldn’t keep it up. Ha, ha, keep it up! I could sell canned sperm. Great marketing opportunities.’

Alice (sarcastic): ‘Oh how lewd!’

Aristotle, a Greek gentleman, impeccably dressed, – in contrast to Diogenes – stands centre stage. Alice moves to his side.

Alice: ‘Aristotle refers to the writer of tragedy as “the poet”. Greek tragedy was expressed in verse but this is not the important thing. What defines the poet is that he is an imitator – just like a painter or any other maker of images. If a historian were to write up his whole history in verse this would not make him a poet; for he tells of things that have happened in real life and this is not imitation. Imitation is the work of the imagination. The poet’s role is to tell of things that might happen, things that are possible. Aristotle adds that the poet may imitate life not as it is, but as it ought to be.

The way Aristotle describes tragedy is very much the idea of taking the microcosm and fitting things into it: – ’ Aristotle: ‘For tragedy is not an imitation of men but of actions and of life. It is in action that happiness and unhappiness are found, and the end we aim at is a kind of activity, not a quality; in accordance with their characters men are of such and such a quality, in accordance with their actions they are fortunate or the reverse. Consequently, it is not for the purpose of presenting their characters that the agents engage in action, but rather it is for the sake of their actions that they take on the characters they have. Thus, what happens – that is, the plot – is the end for which a tragedy exists, and the end or purpose is the most important thing of all.’

Alice: ‘Dear Aristotle thank you for stating the links between character, action and fortune. I remember you once said that character is a person’s habit of moral choice. But please now tell us what you mean when you describe a work of imitation – in this case tragedy – as ‘the Whole.’

Aristotle: ‘The events which are the parts of the plot must be so organized that if any of them is displaced or taken away, the whole will be shaken and put out of joint; for if the presence or absence of a thing makes no discernable difference, that thing

is not part of the whole.’ (Aristotle retires) Alice: ‘That’s how I feel about Velasquez.

That exhibition was the most powerful thing I’ve ever seen; yet his work is so minimal and reduced. The people in the paintings were so real that I sometime thought they weren’t there, especially in the split second before you turned to look again. The paint was so thin! I was so stunned, I just wanted to melt into a pool on the floor.’

AR: One can begin to grasp something of the obsession people have had with the idea of the circle as a perfect form. A work of art then, is an imitation reduced to its essentials, thereby forming a whole – as in a microcosm.

Thus art gives objectivity – a perspective, an overview. We define objectivity as seeing things as they are.

Real life is not objective – we can never get the complete picture. It is chaotic and continuous – a jumble of particulars in which events are engulfed in the flux of circumstance. How can the artist be objective when he, himself is part of the change? He needs a fixed fact to stand on – a standard, a measure, a model.

Alice: ‘ Tell me all about it! If there is nothing fixed in the world then you find yourself in Wonderland where everything changes – including yourself. – And you try to play a game of croquet with a flamingo for a mallet and the ball is a hedgehog who runs away.’

AR: A hedgehog must understand the world from a hedgehog point of view, and we must understand it from a human point of view.

We do have a fixed standard – timeless, universal, recognisable. We refer to it as Representative Human Nature (RHN). It is the key to this manifesto: – You or I – as individuals – we change.

But there is something typical about us that does not change. When we say, “Man is the measure of all things”, we mean the unchanging part: Man, both in his general nature and according to his various types: this is RHN. Aristotle takes this for granted when he says, “In accordance with their character men are of such and such a quality……… it is for the sake of their actions that the actors take on the characters they have.” He also says that the best characters in a play are people with whom we can empathise – “someone like ourselves”.

For example, Chaucer’s characters are

as alive to us today as when he first invented them: Timeless – outside of time, they speak to us of the human genius, what it is to be human. Each detail illuminates the type and is what we call the universal in the particular – “someone like ourselves”. When we recognize this we are being objective – through putting ourselves in the place of another – we leave our ego behind.

We are not saying that art has to be confined to the direct portrayal of human beings: we do say that art must be representational – for it is in imitation that objectivity lies. In practice, through his medium of RHN the artist gains direct imaginative insight into the general nature of things; his view extends from the model.

Consider the Chinese master, the painter of bamboo: – we have a shared object – the non-ego, RHN. And from this fact he reaches out and grasps the very cipher and nature of bamboo. And we see through his eyes, his own particular poem of life: Perfect as it ought to be.

Consider the divine music of Bach: Bach is pure objectivity, the most representative of men because he was the least egotistical in front of his talent.

Music has not yet been conceptualised by the art mafia, though they are trying. We do not accept a symphony composed on the remaining three keys of a broken piano, accompanied by the random throwing of marbles at a urinal. Yet its equivalent is the latest thing in the visual arts. (Aren’tya OD’d on the latest thing?) Indeed the visual artist has gone further. He has set up the urinal as art, claimed the broken piano as his production. Why? Because he chose it. Relying now on presentation skills and self-promotion – behold the artist! As long as we believe him.

And abstract art which is supposed to be symbolic and expressive of events in the mind? – Unfortunately these canvases offer us no help in becoming mind-readers.

We do have such things as abstract symbols e.g. 10 (X to the Romans) but the artist must explain his personal marks. If the artist fails the test of objectivity where does that leave us?

Alice: ‘Oh hello, Mr. White Rabbit! Please stop a moment! The artist has just produced a giant hole in the air. Perhaps he thought it was a “ Whole”. I’m sure you have an interesting observation on holes’.

White Rabbit: ‘Negative,’ (rushing off ).

Artist’s Agent: ‘Superb intellectual irony.

– Right on!’

Mad Hatter: ‘ What do you mean, we’re not mind readers? We’ve all got a hole in the head and we can fill it with whatever “ Whole” we want’ (changes price-tag on hat from 10/6d to £10m) Pinocchio: ‘I’m going to be a real painter and a freedom fighter. I’ve been drawing in secret. To see the world as it ought to be – that can’t be bad for a freedom-fighter – hard work though.’

Talking Cricket: ‘Pinocchio, you know that there are two sides to people, the donkey and the boy, – the self who wants to live in Toyland versus the self who wants to grow up. It is the inner struggle between doing what you want and being true to your Best Self, that humanizes a puppet.’

Pinocchio: ‘Dear little Cricket, I still get around, – have a laugh! But, yeah this inner voice is always having a go, “Pinocchio, don’t be an arsehole! I am your human genius. Listen to me!”’

AR: Pinocchio, the whole future of art is at stake and depends on you and others controlling your imagination and listening to your best self, – your human genius.

Imagination is the driving force in human nature. But it is likely to run wild and escape into the chaos of endless desire, unfulfilled longing and alienation.

Pinocchio: ‘Alienation! Hell! Those donkey’s ears. – What a terrible price to pay.

Poor Candlewick!’

Alice: ‘Candlewick was Pinocchio’s friend in Toyland, who became a donkey and was worked to death by a cruel master.’

AR: The way we control the imagination is through the imagination itself – or rather, through its “best self ” – the ethical part.

The Ethical Imagination is a power of control, an inner check, which prefers to see things as they are. It questions art: is it probable? – is it true to life? – could it be otherwise?

– Critics in the seventeenth century objected to Corneille’s play, “Le Cid”, that it was not probable – because it was not normal or true to human nature, that the heroine might be allowed to marry her father’s murderer – that this was bizarre, extreme and therefore unethical. Others disagreed and there was a battle of opinion.

There are no rules – each person must decide. Yet we are not completely at sea, if we refer to RHN. To the great artist the ethical imagination

is absolute, he never ceases to explore and cultivate it. – To the art lover, we possess it in differing degrees, all may cultivate it. It is intuitive, you get at the truth through insight and you get better at it with practice, through comparison – between works of art and with real life. You need the stamina of a life time.

In general: the true artist is always true to his art; the impostor is self-conscious, demonstrating his idea, projecting his theory, his ego, and e.g. the figures of the painter are not borrowed ideas who demonstrate themselves talking, dying, dreaming – they do it. They are of themselves and they LIVE! – and the flowers are not showing us how pretty they are, or how weird – they are what they are – Etc.! No invention for the sake of invention! Invention must serve the purpose of art.

Art is the only objectivity available to human beings; real life, including science, cannot do this: art is objectivity.

To recapitulate, the artist, taking RHN as his model presents an imitation of life; the imitation is a completed view, a whole, as in a microcosm – albeit an illusion of reality. The illusion captures our imagination and the ethnical imagination tests it out as to it’s truth. We see our human face and we ask, – could it be otherwise?

Without judges there is no art. We, the art lovers respond to the truths of art and spread the ideas which give culture.

Thus RHN is the authority on which culture rests. Culture must rest on something abiding, an authority, a belief. But our authority is not dogma (no need for God to supply social cement or fill the spiritual vacuum) but the authority of a consensus, – the facts of shared experience.

Culture is a unifying experience. We are moving towards a centre which is infinite.

Our guide is RHN, universal, timeless and recognizable even to the point where we recognize something we’ve never seen before – as true to life. In this sense RHN is a dynamic force, alive and open to improvement because it depends on the inner check – the ethical imagination – of every one of us. We become more human which in turn gives culture its rejuvenating power.

We define culture as: The exploration and cultivation of humanity through art.

Art lover: ‘ Very good, – I recognize art: Therefore art exists! No matter how great the artist, if no-one appreciates his work then he goes unrecognised: Therefore no

culture! It’s up to us as judges.’

AR: But – the artist has no responsibility to culture or to us: He serves art, alone.

This is the true meaning of the L’art pour l’art movement, mistakenly translated as “Art for art’s sake”. But then, the English have never understood it. The painter, Whistler is a protagonist of the creed and we must seek his opinion before we can safely say that we have found art.

Whistler: ‘Art happens – no hovel is safe from it, no Prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about, and puny efforts to make it universal end in quaint comedy, and coarse farce.

This is as it should be. Why after centuries of freedom from it and indifference to it should the people have Art thrust upon them. She has no desire to teach, no purpose to better others.

Art seeks the Artist alone. Where he is, there she appears, and remains with him – loving and fruitful… And when he dies she sadly takes her flight.

With the man, then, and not with the multitude, are her intimacies; and in the book of her life the names inscribed are few – scant, indeed, the list of those who have helped to write her story of love and beauty.’

Art lover: ‘ We also have our part in all true art! – for, remember RHN that makes the whole world kin.’ 15 Whistler: ‘ True indeed. But let not the unwary jauntily suppose that Shakespeare herewith hands him his passport to Paradise, and thus permits him speech among the chosen. Rather learn that in this very phrase (Representative Human Nature), he is condemned to remain without – to continue with the common.’

Art lover: ‘ You mean that what is popular is also vulgar. And is the artist, then, a freak of nature? We small band of art lovers expect no favours from art. But from you, the artist, we hope to see the world through your eyes – in this way we serve art.’

Pinocchio: ‘ You get out what you put in – that’s my motto from now on. As a painter, perhaps Art will visit me some day, – just like the fairy with blue hair.’

Lady art lover: ‘Mr. Whistler, I fear for these young people! In your field, painting – which has had such an impact on our lives – there is nothing happening nowadays. What are they to do? All their friends run around trying to catch the latest thing.

When you’re young you like to think something is happening.’

Alice: ‘Running around? I don’t waste time, I make time – to see the “latest thing” – the Rokeby Venus! – Manet’s Olympia! There is so much happening outside Time.’

Whistler: ‘If Art be rare today, it was seldom heretofore. It is false, this teaching of decay. The master stands in no relation to the moment at which he occurs – a monument of isolation – hinting at sadness – having no part in the progress of his fellow-men.

He is also no more the product of civilization than is the scientific wisdom of a period. The assertion itself requires the man to make it. The truth was from the beginning.

So Art is limited to the infinite, and beginning there cannot progress.

We have then but to wait – until, with the mark of the Gods upon him – there come among us again the chosen – who shall continue what has gone before. Satisfied that, even were he never to appear, the story of the beautiful is already complete – hewn in the marbles of the Parthenon – and broidered, with the birds, upon the fan of Hokusai – at the foot of Fujiyama.’

Pinocchio: ‘Mr. Whistler, are you the only American genius?’

Art lover: ‘Progress in art – Picasso!

What would he not have given to capture the “mana” of those bulls from the cave paintings of twenty thousand B.C.? If art progressed then today’s painter would be greater than Picasso.’

Lady art lover: ‘It’s true we don’t have to wait for Art. She exists. But time is running out for the art lovers. I’m talking about the planet. It’s all very well to say that we can become more human through art – human enough to save the planet! Meanwhile, all we can do is believe in Alice and Pinocchio.

At least they will have the advantage of a sane outlook on life.’

(Giant projection of Hitler’s face – in relation to which Hitler standing on the podium in front seems to be about the size of a garden gnome.)

Hitler: ‘All effective propaganda has to limit itself only to a very few points and to use them like slogans.’

AR: Alice and Pinocchio, We have come to the end of our journey and you have passed the test. In the pursuit of art you became automatically impervious to Propaganda.

Indeed, each of you quite forgot to take your daily NINSDOL pill. You are no longer addicted to Nationalistic Idolatry, Non-

Stop Distraction and Organized Lying – the three constituents of Propaganda. The art lovers now invite you to become members of our movement, AR. Let us progress to the inauguration ceremony.

On the way we could look in at a Conference on Culture which is attended by those very same art lovers who from the beginning had no interest in our journey. Here it is in Paris. Pinocchio, I know you’re dying to go to the Louvre but Alice, you could just pop back in your book and I’ll put it in my pocket and take you in.

Opening speaker, French professor of anthropology: ‘And Man came out of Africa 180 thousand years ago (talk lasts • hr. AR: – He’s scared of seeming Eurocentric) – and the good thing is he ended up in Paris. (AR: Quite right too. France was the greatest flowering of western culture for the three centuries up until the First World War – interrupted by the Revolution of course).’

AR : Pinocchio, you certainly had the chance to immerse yourself in the Louvre. The conference was a continuous drone of complacency for three days. – I thought, I will stay – to know if it is this bad. I managed to get my word in early on – saying that you can’t have culture without justice before the law and cited the withdrawal of Habeus Corpus which has happened in England.

There were other points made from the floor, squeezed in between the long speeches of the art gurus – and the banquets: – Philosopher: ‘ We need more festivals’.

Top cultural advisor: ‘ We need a common vision of the importance of television and cinema for the cohesion of society.’

Choreographer: ‘Dance is the only international language. It should be at the top of every agenda.’

Rapper: ‘I need the state to sponsor my music. The internet only helps established artists.’

Composer: ‘ Young people should know that culture is not entertainment.’

Director of state art gallery: ‘ We have not once mentioned American culture!’

AR: I think the purpose of the conference was to say that European culture has value– how do we retain it and also promote it? The problem was that each assumed himself so cultivated that none bothered to define culture – the more he appreciated everything, the more cultivated he thought he was.

They mix up culture with anthropology,

the science that treats of the traditional crafts and customs of groups of people who are different from our groups. Well, “something different” is not always art, and culture is not local and peripheral but a universal and centralising power.

Art lover: ‘ Yes, true culture occurs in another way: The artist is alive to difference and that is what makes his work original. He sees the common element in things that are apparently different and discriminates between things that are apparently similar. The Chinese say that the painter finds likeness in unlikeness and unlikeness in likeness.’

AR: Anyway, contrary to what we understand by culture, the conference reiterated – endlessly! – the mantra of “Cultural diversity”.

Unesco is promoting this concept in a “Universal Declaration”. This is the kind of thing they say – I made a note, “Since cultural goods and services arise from human creativity, it follows that cultural diversity will be enhanced in conditions conducive to creative activity and to the production and distribution of a wide range of cultural products”. – A global bazaar to promote tolerance and awareness!

The delegates then wondered how we could prevent tradition being swallowed up in a global soup– along with vanilla ice cream topped with onion sauce, magic mushroom Cornish pasties and – Pinocchio: ‘Ratshit!’

Lady art lover: ‘And Pinocchio, I think Alice has pinched some of your cheek. As we were leaving she jumped out and yelled –’ Alice: ‘ You’re all a pack of cards!

AR: Children, You are expensive – crap is not good enough for you. Time is your luxury. You like to be alone because you like to think. As art lovers and readers you will converse with the highest forms of intelligence. You will form your own opinions and your ideas will be the avant-garde.

Ideas will give you power and you will fire the imagination of your friends.

– You see through propaganda. Therefore engage in politics. It is time for you to receive your badges from the noble warrior, Leonard Peltier.

Alice: ‘But Leonard is innocently serving Time.’

Leonard Peltier: ‘It is the spirit of Leonard which now speaks: Art is an imaginative illusion which captures the imagination. State your vows.’

Alice: ‘Every time I read a book instead of looking at a magazine, go to the art gallery instead of watching TV, go to the theatre instead of the cinema, I fight for Active Resistance to Propaganda.’

Pinocchio: ‘The freedom fighter’s motto is: You get out what you put in.’

(Leonard pins on their AR badges) Leonard Peltier: ‘Alice and Pinocchio, you are now in the presence of a great secret. Your journey has revealed to you that human beings have a choice: – we can cultivate the human genius and build a great civilization on earth. Through art we see the future. It holds up a mirror of our human potential; – or, as victims of our mere cleverness we will remain the

destructive animal. Our innovations can contribute to progress, but our humanity is a scientific fact, and must be taken into account for advance to happen, otherwise we have partial science which will kill us.

Indians have not made this mistake; they see the world in its entirety. Our first duty is to love our mother, Earth. Indians know the importance of living in harmony with creation: men – not gods. The Greeks called human arrogance hubris.

Voice of Icarus: ‘Remember the myth of Icarus. Do not fly too near the sun. Your wings are made of wax.’

(Light radiates through the patterns in a mandala composed of concentric circles

alternating with diminishing squares. The squares represent the organization and knowledge of man and the circles represent the truth and chaos of nature.)

Leonard Peltier: ‘Progress lies in the centre of the mandala. Step forward. (In his hand he holds a small convex mirror from which the light is coming.) This is the mirror of true progress.’

Alice and Pinocchio look at themselves in the mirror.

The most important thing about the manifesto is that it is a practice. If you follow it your life will change. In the pursuit of culture you will start to think. If you change your life, you change the world.

words by Remi Kabaka illustration by Jimi Crayon

is for the Arsenic.

The Aries of the poisoner’s solar system has an almost theatrical notoriety. Not just because of the likes of Agatha Christie but because early in its inception it was used as a colouring agent for sweets. I’m reffering of course to the Bradford sweet poisonings of 1858, a catastrophe so perfect it killed 20 people and befouled a further 200 before people realised what was going on.

Imagine arsenic, sweets, children and the industrial north, seriously, you can’t get more Victorian than that. Used in foundation, tiny doses of the powder were also discovered to have recuperative qualities where complexion was concerned. It was Dorian Gray in actuality, poisoning impossibly vain women that, like Narcissus, got too high on his own supply.

But why else is arsenic the king of killers? Well this little beauty is odourless and tasteless, the perfect bitters for any cocktail, gracious with Gin, Absinthe and Lovage... mix well and serve.

Cheers...

lifestyle

Diary of a Sex Pest

Girl About Town By Miss B Haven.

18th April No more pinstripe sex on nice sheets, with nice men. Fuck the tender kisses and missionary-safe climaxes. I don’t think I’ll survive another boring Mayfair encounter.

Maybe east is where it’s at...

25th April I spot him standing at the bar, right in the middle, waiting to be served, very calmly, like some dark eye in a very turbulent storm. It’s Friday; the Bethnal Green Working Man’s Club is rocking and rolling like a rough sea. And in the middle of it all, he’s caught my eye.

He’s introduced to us at that one precious table that we’ve managed to find, the six of us are gathered around like monkeys at a temple, and he clocks me and looks

away. But I know it’s not over and as the night goes on, we talk and glance and smile till we get to his flat. He’s been flirting with me all night. Why? I ask. He reaches over, pulls my chair closer to him and says, ‘For such a sweet girl, you have a real twinkle in your eye.’

I catch my breath and hold his gaze and he whispers: ‘ You want to be fucked like a dirty little whore, don’t you?’ Before I can tell him yes, he throws me over his shoulder and takes me into the bathroom, all white and bright, and plonks me down onto his sink. His hands push up my black dress, tear off my knickers and grab my ankles. He falls to his knees in front of me and, sliding his hands under my ass, he brings his face close to my cunt. His breath is warm.

As he pushes his tongue hard against me

and, with one quick flick, he parts the lips, sending a shudder through me.

Suddenly, he gets up: “I want to see everything. Fuck this tidy bikini line, I’m going to shave your pussy.” He grabs some shaving foam and sprays cold soft bubbles between my legs. He shaves like an expert. The battery charged razor buzzes against his hand as he flips it around and teases the tip of the vibrating handle over my lips.

He’s concentrating so hard, it’s like watching an artist work. It’s like being branded, like being made his. I’m on display, legs apart, as he carefully inspects his handy work. From front to back, nothing is missed.

My dress is covered in foam. He pulls it off, puts me in the shower, rinses me down and leads me into the bedroom where he pushes me onto my hands and knees on to the bed.

The electric razor is still buzzing so he stokes the handle up and down over my clitoris, making me arch my back and push my arse up towards him. He pulls it away, lies down and starts playing with his cock. He knows I want him to fuck me but it’s about being willing and waiting for that moment you actually get fucked. He has it down to a tee.

I crawl across to him and kneel at his side. Watching me he leans back, hands behind his head. I like to pick a cock up with my tongue, lick it up off the belly and suck it into my mouth. Gently pushing the skin back with my lips as I watch it disappear.

Giving head is something I love, the sensation, every last shudder he gives. Having a cock in my mouth is like foreplay for my pussy. It gets me so wet. When I feel I am ready I turn around and present for him.

He fucks me slowly but deliberately, thrusting hard and then stopping. Every time I try to push into him, he pulls back, slowly inching out of my slit until I feel the tip of his cock pulsing against the lips.

Every time I push back into him, he pulls back so that I can’t fuck him, he’s fucking me. I wish he wouldn’t tease me like this.

He slides his hands over the small of my back and onto my buttocks. He squeezes and kneads them, stretching the cheeks as if to open me up. I can feel the little ring of muscles in my pussy desperately tighten their grip on his head. The urge to beg is rising but not yet, not yet. I spread my thighs a little wider and arch my back a little, offering my cunt up to him – to take as slowly or as fast as he wants.

Then just as I think I can’t take any more teasing, he pushes me down on my front, face jammed in the pillow, and keeps thrusting into me until I come.

Photographer - Benjamin Kaufmann, www.benjaminkaufmann.com. Stylist - Alice Wilby. Make-Up and Hair - Alisha Bailey. Model - Vicky Blows @ Girl Management.

Illustration - Helen B Wilson. With thanks to: The Gore Hotel, www.gorehotel.com. Miss L Fire @ Sniff, www.sniff.co.uk

When ‘Kid’ Brady was sent to the ropes by Molly McKeever’s blue-black eyes, he withdrew from the Stovepipe Gang. So much for the power of a Colleen’s blanderin’ tongue and stubborn true-heartedness. If you are a man who reads this, may such an influence be sent you before two o’ clock to-morrow; if you are a woman, may your Pomeranian greet you with a cold nose – a sign of dog-health and happiness.

The Stovepipe Gang borrowed its name from a subdistrict of the city called the Stovepipe, which is a narrow and natural extension of the familiar district known as Hell’s Kitchen. The Stovepipe strip of town runs along Eleventh and Twelfth avenues on the river, and bends a hard and sooty elbow around little lost, homeless DeWitt Clinton park. Consider that a stovepipe is an important factor in any kitchen and the situation is analysed. The chefs in Hell’s Kitchen are many, and the Stovepipe Gang wears the cordon blue.

The members of this unchartered but widely known brotherhood appeared to pass their time

on street corners arrayed like the lilies of the conservatory and busy with nail files and penknives. Thus displayed as a guarantee of good faith, they carried on an innocuous conversation in a 200-word vocabulary, to the casual observer as innocent and immaterial as that heard in the clubs seven blocks to the east.

But off exhibition, the Stovepipes were not mere street-corner ornaments addicted to posing and manicuring. Their serious occupation was the separating of citizens from their coin and valuables. Preferably this was done by weird and singular tricks without noise or bloodshed; but whenever the citizen honoured

Learn to read and write, learn all you can, learn cunning, spare nobody and stop at nothing.

by their attentions refused to impoverish himself gracefully, his objections came to be spread finally upon some police-station blotter or hospital register.

The police held the Stovepipe Gang in perpetual suspicion and respect. As the nightingale’s liquid note is heard in the deepest shadows, so along the Stovepipe’s dark and narrow confines the whistle for reserves punctures the dull ear of night. Whenever there was smoke in the Stovepipe the tasselled men in blue knew there was fire in Hell’s Kitchen.

Kid Brady promised Molly to be good. “Kid” was the vainest, the strongest, the wariest and

o-henry

Illustrations by Tom Hovey

the most successful plotter in the gang. Therefore the boys were sorry to give him up.

But they witnessed his fall to a virtuous life without protest. For, in the Kitchen, it is considered neither unmanly nor improper for a guy to do as his girl advises.

Black her eye for love’s sake, if you will; but it is all-to-the-good business to do a thing when she wants you to do it. “ Turn off the hydrant,” said the Kid, one night when Molly, tearful, besought him to amend his ways. “I’m going to cut out the gang.

You for mine, and the simple life on the side. I’ll tell you, Moll I’ll get work; and in a year we’ll get married. I’ll do it for you. We’ll get a flat and a flute, and a sewing machine, and a rubber plant, and live as honest as we can.”

“Oh, Kid,” sighed Nilly, wiping the powder off his shoulder with her hankerchief, “I’d rather you say that than to own all of New York. And we can be so happy on so little!”

The Kid looked down on his speckless cuffs

and shining patent leathers with a suspicion of melancholy.

“It’ll hurt hardest in the rags department,” said he. “I’ve kind of always liked to rig out swell when I could. You know how I hate cheap things, Moll. This suit set me back sixty-five.

Anything in the wearing apparel line has got to be just so, or it’s to the misfit parlours for it, for mine. If I work I won’t have so much coin to hand over to the little man with the big shears.”

“Never mind, Kid. I’ll like you just as much in a blue jumper as I would in a red automobile.”

Before the Kid had grown large enough to knock out his father he had been compelled to learn the plumber’s art. So now back to this honourable and useful profession he returned.

But it was as an assistant that he engaged himself; and it is the master plumber and not the assistant, who wears diamonds as large as hailstones and looks contemptuously upon the marble colonnades of Senator Clark’s mansion.

Eight months went by as smoothly and surely

as though they had elapsed on a theatre programme. The Kid worked away at his pipes and solder with no symptoms of backsliding. The Stovepipe Gang continued its piracy on the high avenues, cracked policeman’s heads, held up late travellers, invented new methods of peaceful plundering, copied Fifth Avenue’s cut of clothes and neckwear fancies and comported itself according to its lawless by-laws. But the Kid stood firm and faithful to his Molly, even though the polish was gone from his finger-nails and it took him fifteen minutes to tie his purple silk ascot so that the worn places would not show.

One evening he brought a mysterious bundle with him to Molly’s house.

“Open that, Moll!” he said in his large, quiet way. “It’s for you.”

Molly’s eager fingers tore off the wrappings.

She shrieked aloud, and in rushed a sprinkling of little McKeevers, and Ma McKeever, dishwashy, but an undeniable relative of the late Mrs. Eve.

It’s the best the world has for you, for the Jago’s got you, and that’s the only way out, except the gaol and the gallows.

Again Molly shrieked, and something dark and long and sinuous flew and enveloped her neck like an anaconda.

“Russian sables,” said the Kid pridefully, enjoying the sight of Molly’s round cheek against the clinging fur. “The real thing. They don’t grow anything in Russia too good for you, Moll.”

Molly plunged her hands into the muff, overturned a row of the family infants and flew to the mirror. Hint for the beauty column. To make bright eyes, rosy cheeks and a bewitching smile: Recipe – one set Russian sables. Apply. “ You’re a bird, all right, Kid,” she admitted gratefully. “I never had any furs on before in my life. But ain’t Russian sables awful expensive?

Seems to me I’ve heard they were.”

“Have I ever chucked any bargain-sale muff at you, Moll?” asked the Kid, with calm dignity.

“Did you ever notice me leaning on the remnant counter or peering in the window of the five-and-ten? Call that scarf $250 and the muff $175 and you won’t make any mistake about the

price of Russian sables. The swell goods for me.

Say, they look fine on you, Moll.”

Molly hugged the sables to her bosom in rapture. And then her smile went away little by little, and she looked at the Kid straight in the eye sadly and steadily.

He knew what every look of hers meant; and he laughed with a faint flush upon his face.

“Cut it out,” he said, with affectionate roughness. “I told you I was done with that. I bought ‘em and paid for ‘em all right, with my own money.”

“Out of the money you worked for, Kid? Out of $75 a month?”

“Sure. I been saving up.”

“Let’s see – saved $425 in eight months, Kid?” “Ah, let up,” said the Kid, with some head. “I had some money when I went to work. Do you think I’ve been holding ‘em up again? I told you I’d quit. They’re paid for on the square. Put ‘em on and come out for a walk.”

Molly calmed her doubts. Sables are soothing. Proud as a queen she went forth in the streets at the Kid’s side. In all that region of low-lying streets Russian sables had never been seen before. The word sped, and doors and windows blossomed with heads eager to see the swell furs Kid Brady had given his girl. All down the street there were “Oh’s” and “Ah’s,” and the reported fabulous sum paid for the sables was passed from lip to lip, increasing as it went. At her right elbow sauntered the Kid with the air of princes. Work had not diminshed his love of pomp and show, and his passion for the costly and genuine. On a corner they saw a group of the Stovepipe Gang loafing, immaculate. They raised their hats to the Kid’s girl and went on with their calm, unaccented palaver.

Three blocks behind the admired couple strolled Detective Ransom, of the Central Office.

Ransom was the only detective on the force who could walk abroad with safety in the Stovepipe district. He was fair dealing and unafraid, and

went there with the hypothesis that the inhabitants were human. Many liked him, and now and then one would tip off to him something that he was looking for. “ What’s the excitement down the street?” asked Ransom of a pale youth in a red sweater.

“Dey’re out rubberin’ at a set of buffalo robes Kid Brady staked his girl to,” answered the youth. “Some say he paid $900 for de skins.

Dey’re swell all right enough.”

“I hear Brady has been working at his old trade for nearly a year,” said the detective. “He doesn’t travel with the gang any more, does he?”

“He’s workin’, all right,” said the red sweater, “but say, sport, are you trailin’ anything in the fur line? A job in a plumbin’ shop don’t match wid dem skins de Kid’s girl’s got on.”

Ransom overtook the strolling couple on an empty street near the river bank. He touched the Kid’s arm from behind.

“Let me see you for a moment, Brady,” he

said, quietly. His eye rested for a second on the long fur scarf thrown stylishly back over Molly’s left shoulder. The Kid, with his old-time policehating frown on his face, stepped a yard or two aside with the detective.

“Did you go to Mrs. Hethcote’s on West 7th Street yesterday to fix a leaky waterpipe?” asked Ransom.

“I did,” said the Kid. “ What of it?”

“The lady’s $1,000 set of Russian sables went out of the house about the same time you did.

The description fits the ones this lady has on.” “ To h-Harlem with you,” cried the Kid angrily. “ You know I’ve cut out that sort of thing, Ransom. I bought them sables yesterday at--” The Kid stopped short.

“I know you’ve been working straight lately,” said Ransom. “I’ll give you every chance. I’ll go with you where you bought the furs and investigate. The lady can wear ‘em along with us and nobody’ll be on. That’s fair, Brady.”

“Come on,” agreed the Kid hotly. And then he

stopped suddenly in his tracks and looked with an odd smile at Molly’s distressed and anxious face.

“No use,” he said grimly. “They’re the Hethcote sables, all right. You’ll have to turn ‘em over, Moll, but they ain’t too good for you if they cost a million.”

Molly, with anguish on her face, hung upon the Kid’s arm.

“Oh, Kiddy, you’ve broke my heart,” she said.

“I was so proud of you – and now they’ll do you – and where’s our happiness gone?”

“Go home,” said the Kid wildly. “Come on, Ransom – take the furs. Let’s get away from here. Wait a minute “I’ve got a good mind to – no, I’ll be d---- if I can do it – run along, Moll, I’m ready, Ransom.”

Around the corner of a lumber-yard came Policeman Kohen on his way to his beat along the river. The detective signed to him for assistance. Kohen joined the group. Ransom explained.

“Sure,” said Kohen. “I hear about those saples dat vas stole. You say you have dem here?”

Policeman Kohen took the end of Molly’s late scarf in his hands and looked at it closely.

“Once,” he said, “I sold furs in Sixth Avenue.

Yes, dese are saples. Dey come from Alaska. Dis scarf is vort $12 and dis muff--” “Biff!” came the palm of the Kid’s powerful hand upon the policeman’s mouth. Kohen staggered and rallied. Molly screamed. The detective threw himself upon Brady and with Kohen’s aid got the nippers on his wrist.

“The scarf is vort $12 and the muff is vort $9,” persisted the policeman. “ Vot is dis talk about $1,000 saples?”

The Kid sat upon a pile of lumber and his face turned dark red.

“Correct, Solomonski!” he declared viciously. “I paid $12.50 for the set. I’d rather have got six months and not have told it. Me, the swell guy that wouldn’t look at anything cheap! I’m a plain bluffer. Moll – my salary couldn’t spell sables in Russian.”

Molly cast herself upon his neck. “ What do I care for all the sables and money in the world,” she cried. “It’s my Kiddy I want.

Oh, you dear, stuck-up, crazy blockhead!” “ You can take dose nippers off,” said Kohen to the detective. “Before I leaf de station de report come in dat de lady vind her saples – hanging in her wardrobe. Young man, I excuse you dat punch in my face – dis von time.”

Ransom handed Molly her furs. Her eyes were smiling upon the Kid. She wound the scarf and threw the end over her left shoulder with a duchess’s grace.

“A couple of young vools,” said Policeman Kohen to Ransom: “come on away.”

So do your devil-most, or God help you, Dicky Perrott - though He won’t : for the Jago’s got you!”

BECUMMING AN MP With just £500, a handful of statements and a headful of ideas you can be at the top of the world’s power list and even become the British equivalent to Obama...

Let’s face it, British elections rarely offer the level of excitement of the US Presidential race. It’s not that we’re not politically active or passionate about how our country is run. However, voter apathy is often just a reaction to political apathy. You need someone with the ability to stand up for what you want, rather than a dispassionate socialite who just wants to sniff at the power house of Westminster.

There are 646 spaces for MPs at Westminster, approximately 389 backbench MPs in parliament, 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) in Edinburgh, 60 members of the National Assembly for Wales in Cardiff, and 78 British Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) based in Brussels and Strasbourg. So how is it done? How do you become one of the few influential people who can actively set about changing the world for the better... or the worse, depending on what your persuasion is?

To stand for election, you must submit nomination papers, signed by at least ten electors from the constituency you wish to represent, and pay a £500 deposit (which is returned to you if you gain more than five per cent of the total votes at the election). Once you have been nominated, you must be democratically elected to become a member of parliament. This usually involves an intensive campaigning period which includes meeting constituents, mak-

if you’re only scoundrel enough, and brazen enough, and lucky enough

ing speeches and talking to the local media. MPs are elected by members of the public in their constituency. This is either done at a general election (usually held every four or five years), or at a local by-election if a seat becomes vacant at any other time.

If your persuasion is party politics, and your party is in power, you could progress from junior minister in a government department, to minister and then cabinet minister. If your party is in opposition, you could be a party spokesperson on certain issues, or have responsibilities in a shadow cabinet. You must gain the support of your local party members and be authorised by your party’s nominating officer before you can become the prospective parliamentary candidate for your constituency. The major political parties have tough selection procedures. An MP ’s basic salary is £61,820 a year, plus expenses to cover staffing, travel and accommodation. Additional payments are made for extra responsibilities such as chairing committees, or being a party whip or cabinet minister.

The role of MPs is not set out in any single document but has come to consist of a combination of representing and assisting constituents, voting on legislation and deciding on policy as well as various other tasks that keep British democracy in motion.

politics

Who can stand as an MP?

• People wishing to stand as an MP must be over 18 years of age, and a British citizen, or citizen of a Commonwealth country or the Republic of Ireland.

• Candidates must be nominated by ten parliamentary electors of the constituency they wish to stand in.

• Authorisation is required to stand for a specific party, otherwise candidates will be described as independent or have no description.

• In order to encourage only serious candidates to stand, a £500 deposit is required when submitting the nomination papers – returned if the candidate receives over five per cent of the total votes cast.

Certain people are disqualified from standing as an MP. You can’t become an MP if you are: • A peer.

• An undischarged bankrupt.

• A member of the clergy of the Church of Scotland, the Church of England, the Church of Ireland or the Roman Catholic Church.

• Holding a position that receives wages from the Crown, such as a civil servant, holders of judicial office, the armed forces or the police.

• A prisoner serving a sentence of over one year in prison.

• A person found guilty of certain electoral offences.

Any candidate standing for election without the support of one of the major political parties is unlikely to become an MP, although it can happen as both Martin Bell in 1997 and Dr Richard Taylor in 2001, have shown. A further incentive to secure a party nomination is that your deposit will be paid for you by the central party.

MPs are elected to represent their local constituency in the House of Commons when new laws or issues are debated. One MP represents each of the 646 constituencies in the UK. There are also representatives elected to serve in the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly or the European Parliament.

An MP ’s work involves: • Attending sessions in parliament.

• Debating issues and raising questions in parliament.

• Voting on new laws and policies.

• Sitting on committees and attending meetings and conferences.

• Holding surgeries and advice sessions in your constituency.

• Taking up constituents’ issues and concerns with relevant ministers.

• Studying reports and research on relevant issues.

• Making speeches.

• Giving interviews to the media.

Electoral campaigns are your main point of contact with the voters. You need a strong campaign message, complemented with an equally strong, if not stronger, campaign image. Communists were the best at creating propaganda imagery, and continue to do so – although most contemporary propaganda addresses social reform rather than allusion to confrontation with the enemy.

If your campaign image is right, the chances of being noticed by the media is much improved. A handsome face can allure people away from commenting on your controversial housing, immigration or social reform policies. Everyone loves a family man, so if you have a wife and kids exploit them for all they’re worth. If you don’t have a family and kids borrow someone else’s.

This was a popular method adopted by closet homosexuals and sexual perverts in the 1980s with the art of baby kissing.

A politician’s prefered mode of transport is often the campaign bus. Open top is the classic version, with microphone in hand and catchy pop-song theme tune on continuous repeat, you can distract voters away from the humdrum day-to-day routine and motivate them to enter into political reaction to your presence in their lives.

Policy making can be a hard task, you should stick to a few important points rather than addressing every social problem that faces the voter. Targeted policies can of course bring about wider support.

In the city you should discuss the matters that affect the majority, such as the economy, healthcare, social reform on crime, public services including transport and of course a general awareness of everyone’s apparent distaste for the current political system. Nowadays it is also important

to discuss National Security and Climate Change. These can help garner support in minority areas. If you are standing in a less populated area of the country, matters of immigration and economic reform with the agenda of “no more taxes” can win over the voter with relative ease.

An easily memorable campaign message is an important element to successful campaigning. Words favoured by the voter are: • CHANGE • PROGRESS • REAL CHANGE & REAL PROGRESS It is advised not to discuss matters of: • MEGALOMANIA • TOTALITARIANISM Matters of revolution and overthrowing regimes should be left until after you have secured power. Look out for the Terrorist Party’s move into politics at the next General Election.

HOW TO APPLY Download and complete the form “Application to register a political party in Great Britain and Northern Ireland” at: www.electoralcommission.org.uk Once registered you can find funding, and start your campaign. Ensure you keep account of any expenses and income you generate during your campaign.

Other resources and information are available at: www.parliament.uk www.dopolitics.org.uk www.aboutmyvote.co.uk

SCREAMING LORD SUTCH

Many thought he was a crazy, but inside British political circles he was a well respected man who enthused political debate. His intriguing life led us to ask, “ Who was the real Screaming Lord?”

David Edward Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow, is more widely known as Screaming Lord Sutch. He was a musician and aspirant politician famed for founding the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. We met with Sutch’s long term partner, Giselle, one Friday night in a little posh wine bar on Portobello Road.

Giselle met David Sutch in 1976 at a party in Little Venice. Returning to his house he asked her in for coffee, which she politely refused. However, he gave her his telephone number and she later decided to give him a call. Their first date was in the West End at an AC/DC gig at the Old Marquee. This was a new world for Giselle, having never experienced the inner circles of Rock ‘n’ Roll. His celebrity status on this circuit came as a surprise to her.

She found Sutch to be a humourous man, funny but in control. One time when her car broke down he made the call for the AA to help, this was just one example of his gentlemanly manner.

Since they had known each other, Sutch had always been running for parliament.

He regularly used to get 600-700 votes every time he stood at elections. In the 1960s, he stood in various parliamentary elections, often as a representative of the National Teenage Party. His first attempt to enter Parliament was in 1963, when he

contested the by-election in Stratford-upon-Avon caused by the resignation of John Profumo. His next foray was at the 1964 General Election when he stood in Harold Wilson’s Huyton constituency.

He founded the Official Monster Raving Loony Party in 1983. Over his career he contested over 40 elections, rarely threatening the major party candidates, but often getting a respectable number of votes. Some of his policies, such as voting at 18 and passports for pets, later became law. This did little to deter the legendary deposit-losing Lord Sutch, who increased the number of rock concerts he performed per year to pay for his mock political campaigns. It was shortly after he polled several hundred votes in Thatcher’s Finchley constituency in 1983 that the deposit paid by candidates was raised from £150 to £500.

Arguably his most significant contribution to British politics came as a result of the Bootle by-election in 1990. He secured more votes than the candidate of the Continuing SDP, led by former Foreign Secretary David Owen. Within days the SDP dissolved itself. In 1993, when the British National Party (BNP) secured its first local councillor, Derek Beackon, Sutch was able to point out that the Official Monster Raving Loony Party already had six councillors.

- one of a thousand - maybe you’ll be like them : bursting with high living, drunk when you like, red and pimply.

He was an easily recognisable figure at election counts due to his flamboyant clothes. He loved dressing up and Giselle became his tailor, producing the infamous leopard skin suit, notably admired

by Margaret Thatcher. He often conjured up a Jack the Ripper type character at his gigs, the crowd made up of a devoted following of Teddy boys and Hells Angels. He had a real talent for performance. Sutch made a film “Mary Kelly”, named after a Jack the Ripper victim. There is only one copy in existence.

His devotion to his family life, his music and his politics was put into words in 1991 with the publication of an autobiography, Life as Sutch: The Official Autobiography of a Raving Loony (co-written with Peter Chippindale). For reasons still not clear, the book was swiftly recalled by publisher.

David Sutch was a sober man, refusing to involve himself in drink and drugs. Giselle explained, “He was really sane, but a depressive event lead him to be prescribed Prozac.” The doctor’s orders also included the suggestion to stop making music, the stress of producing and performing being noted for contributing to his illness. It can only be presumed that the medication led to his worsening mental health, which came to its tragic conclusion with his suicide in 1999.

society

IREZUMI I have been getting tattooed since my 25th birthday. I am 56. So you do the math. At first it was simple run of the mill stuff, an eagle, a dragon, that sort of thing. It was for me not macho, not trendy, just an object of beauty and commitment, you know “the river of no return” that was the mentality, that is how I saw it then and that is how I see it now. It was around then that I made my first trip to Japan, a country whose culture interested me. I found myself hanging out in Tokyo getting drunk on sake, losing sleep, fascinated by the whole shooting match. It was in the clubs that I made friends – trendoids, wanna bee’s and the nefarious, a.k.a. the feared “ Yakuza” or Japanese Mafia, who

words by Gene Krell

ran the show. If you want to stick around and get along (which I did) it’s best to have the latter on your side.

I grew up on the mean streets of Brooklyn and knew the drill, when to talk, when to shut up and when to look aside and soon they took a liking to me, so much so that they invited me to an Onsan or Japanese spa – a rite of passage for a newcomer and a honour for a Gejin ( Foreigner). It was here I discovered the beauty of the Japanese Tattoo. Most yakuza are heavily marked, almost as a tribal ritual and a means of recognizing their gang affiliation, and so as they unrobed, their clandestine world revealed itself .

Let me start by explaining the basic difference between Western and Eastern methods of tattooing: In the West most tattooing is done with a machine and stencil. Everyone has seen those pictures of tattoo parlours a thousand times – the dentist like chair, the electric machine, the walls covered with illustrations of the “inkists” work, just pick your illustration and go.

In the East the tradition is very different.

In Japan during the Edo period the artist would often work freehand and use wooden rods that would pierce the skin to create an image that, twirling with bright colour, was influenced by classical Japanese paintings. The tattoo would also tell an elaborate story drawn from the legends and history of Japan. Today the outline can also be done with a machine.In most cases this is done by a Deshi or student who will eventually take the name of the master – for example Horitoshi 2 , Horitoshi 3 – all emanate from the master Horitoshi 1. The Deshi are obedient slaves who speak only when spoken to, sit cross legged in the corner and observe their master’s every nuance. The Irezumi or tattoo artist has (unlike their Western counterpart) yet to fully eschew the traditions of his ancient trade. The colour within the outline is still applied in the traditional way, the only difference being is that the rod is now metal and used as a drill to puncture the skin, gauging and making the colour even more brilliant.

The obvious question is “does it hurt?”

And the answer is a most definite “ Yes” with an added “BEYOND BELIEF.” It is not done to move or show pain while the work is being done. It can be extremely uncomfortable, especially in areas like under the arm and shoulders, but you must never show pain. Never! Not ever! Interested friends of mine could not bear to watch me being tattooed and had to leave. It can be gruesome to witness (which undeniably is part of the “ceremony”) it is also very expensive – up to a thousand dollars a session – and can take up to five years to complete, taking into consideration the time to heal.

To add, Japanese Tattoos are rarely “Single point” (as in a typical Western tattoo) but rather part of a “body scape” that is either full body, upper torso or just the back. Today as younger “ Yakuza” travel the world, they are starting to integrate the traditional work with Western styles like the “Soul tattoo” parlour on outskirts of Tokyo,

There it is - that’s your aim in life - there’s your pattern.

which specializes in mixed styles – one young tough having opting for a likeness of “Elvis the King” in the midst of a stunning depiction of the Wind Gods.

In some sense the attitudes and perspective have changed. The “New Breed” Yakuza do not lean as heavily on tradition. Gone are the curly “Punch Perms” hairdo’s, the high heel shoes and tinted glasses and in some cases so is the tradition of Yube tsumae, the cutting off of a finger when one offends the Godfather or Oyabun. In the past some older members would even have toes grafted onto missing fingers to avoid detection. The notion of ceremony was to give part of your soul to the Oyabun (which in the days of the Samurai days meant you could no longer properly hold a sword). As attitudes have changed in other areas, so too have they in regard to the tattoo. The “New breed” of tattooed Yakuza are today almost eager to show their work, whereas the old guard were more than reluctant. It was rare to see tattoos that extended below the wrist or above the neck but today work above the shoulder line is quite common. The evolution of the culture is as much about

US ARMY SMACK DEAL

cool as anything else. Armani suits and hip-hop music are de rigeur. In a way the changes within this once covert world are a metaphor for what is happening in Japan itself.

Make no mistake, the whole culture of Irezumi is still littered with considerable, though often perverse values and the “Master” tattooist is still considered an artist who is held in high reverence. The Tattoo masters are very select in who they tattoo and there still exists a high protocol in getting to meet one. They are not interested in tattooing a butterfly on some teeny bopper’s shoulder. Your Tattoos belong to the Master and many a man is skinned after death, the decorated hide sold to museums and private dealers. This practice I am told is very rare these days and even considered rather eerie.

Whatever the changes, in Japan, the tattoo will always be the mark of the outsider and seeing someone in a full body suit would usually indicate he is not a social worker. Those tattooed generally live on the outskirts of society and most Tattooers have gang associations in that the work done is generally paid for by the Yakuza

Clan. The Irezumi are still outsiders existing in a clandestine world of outlaw culture and that is undeniably a major part of the equation.

The one thing that does remain, all social ramifications apart, is the sheer beauty, the pure splendour of the Master Tattoist’s work. I spoke with “Hide” a handsome young Deshi, himself covered like a canvas from various masters. He believes the art to be his heritage, a dignified profession that he is carrying on. The salient point that must be recognized is that most consider this a noble art, deeply ingrained in the culture and the fact that they are marked as anti-social never enters the picture For the initiated, for the hard core, this is not a trend, it is a lifestyle. The Irezumi see themselves as warriors guarding something that is really quite sacred. The Yakuza see themselves as a society of outlaws – new age Robin Hoods, if you will – providing a valuable service to society.

And why do I, Brooklyn born and bred, do it? On any given day I can give you a dozen different reasons. Do I ever regret it? Well I am getting more work done this month. There is your answer.

As the war on terror continues, so does the export of heroin from Afganistan. In order to continue the propagation of democracy, the US Department of Defence has proclaimed that heroin production is a necessary evil of democratic change in the region. 95% of Taliban funding comes from the sale of heroin to Russian mafia and European gangsters, who pay in arms and military hardware.

“A Taliban or an Al- Qaeda without weapons is not worth fighting,” announced US General Arnold Whit. “ We’d be left with no excuse to remain in the region in order to enforce freedom for the people of Afghanistan. We allow the Taliban forces to line their pockets with dirty money so we are able to continue this war on terror. Otherwise the war would be over in weeks.”

A Taliban leader, who has recently taken up residence in a mountain retreat on the boarder region of Pakistan, told our source; “the US Army has been a prolific source of inspiration for us to continue farming poppies for heroin production. The US Military have opened up new roads that allow us to export the drug more rapidly. We have phrased it ‘Rapid Deployment’. We couldn’t be happier.”

The increasing poppy production quotas issued by the US have come under criticism from liberal Europe. Anxiety levels in the EU have increased in accordance with the record opium harvests in Afghanistan, and a decrease in heroin retail prices. Opiate problems still predominate in the European drug treatment system, and the cost of treating this population will remain a major burden on health budgets for many years to come. US Drug Enforcement Administration representative Kobe O’Lanahan; “ We’ve got coke coming from the south of us, smack from the east, it means we’re fighting battles on all frontiers. We’re happy to look for any excuse to kick ass wherever we can. It’s keeping the Euro folk in check by handing the problem over to them. That means they stop bitching about the war.”

A recent EMCDDA report highlighted the increasing concern this side of the Atlantic, representative Pierre Cantaloupe told us; “2001 production bottomed out to an all time low of just a few hundred metric tonnes. 2006 to 2007 saw a increase from 7000 to 9000 the highest it has ever been.

We are expecting the 2008 yield to be over 10,000 tonnes.”

But Mr. Beveridge, when he spoke, had overlooked one other way out.

Terrorism in the 21st Century The issue of torture has been in and out of the news with numerous allegations of use of brutality in Guantanamo Bay and abuse by soldiers in Iraq – most notably the Abu Graib scandal. According to Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org), the use of torture was documented in the following countries in 2004 and 2005: China, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Malaysia, Morocco, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Uganda, and Uzbekistan.

Some news articles have devoted discussions as to whether certain practices (water-boarding, forced standing, sleep deprivation, etc.) should be classified as torture.

Central to any of the recent debates about torture have been two questions: 1. What constitutes torture?

2. Are there situations when the use of

torture is permissible?

Most people define torture as deliberately inflicting pain on another person, and tend to leave it at that. They would probably go along with the World Medical Association’s very wide definition of torture contained in the Tokyo Declaration of 1975 as: “…the

deliberate, systematic or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons acting alone or on the orders of any authority, to force another person to yield information, to make a confession, or for any other reason”.

The only reason to carefully define torture is in order to inflict punishments that are borderline “not torture.” Luckily for us, there is no reason we need to engage in such discussions. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (article 5) states “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” We don’t need to define torture, we need to define “degrading treatment or punishment.”

Torture is outlawed in international law and forbidden in the laws of many countries.

The convention against torture reinforces this by insisting that states should either extradite or prosecute alleged torturers within their boundaries, regardless of where their crimes took place. Some countries explicitly forbid the use of evidence obtained by torture in any legal proceedings.

Some states have defended the use of torture in particular cases, denied that inflicting pain in those cases amounts to torture, or narrowed the definition of torture to exclude many things that most people would class as torture. The US have carved out their own defintion over the past few years as acts that include only the most extreme pain, limiting “severe” pain under the statute to “excruciating and agonising” pain, or to pain “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death,” US Department of Justice interrogation memo, 30 December 2004.

So for them it is acceptable to torture you, unless they go too far and you die.

STOP PRESS President-elect Barack Obama has vow to close the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay. 255 foreign detainees are still held as “unlawful combatants”. He argued that the detention centre violated basic principles of American justice. We still need to wait to hear what the proposals to Congress will be.

COTTAGING a great british pastime words by LSC Oakeshott

Intriguing thing Edwardian architecture.

Solid gothic spires stand upright atop everything from offices to sewage works, rendering every building a moralizing structure casting a watchful eye over blue and white collar worker alike. Our forefathers had idyllic views of the countryside too, dreaming of rugged fair play on the village green and decent patricians firmly entrenched in church and manor house.

There the right sort of sentiments could be found among chaps bonded together in sport and labour. Thus another male preserve, the gents’ lavatory, was styled as a homely cottage, its latticed windows and tiled roof perhaps symbolic of bucolic famlial bliss and certainly not the place to dishonour one’s heavy-breasted country wife with a spot of gross indecency.

Outside these unlikely looking dens of

iniquity a chap might carry on as if he were a paragon of virtue, floating light on airs of faithfulness and decency, but into such “cottages” he could swoop as a phoenix of sodom to play out his secret and decidedly illegal fantasies. Lavatories oft frequented by those seeking such liaisons would grow in notoriety, their locations whispered of in illicit Polari, the queer cant, over packets of pork scratchings and pints of mild. The risks were high, exposure would bring disgrace or imprisonment and made cottagers necessarily wary when fellating or buggering one another in their chosen haunts. As a result, the first cottagers developed the now infamous unspoken codes and bored in oak-paneled cubicles the first glory holes to keep things necessarily impersonal. One might expect things to have changed with the passing of a century, but only five years ago the government listed Sexual Activity in a Public Lavatory as an imprisonable offence, entering it onto the statute books just after Intercourse With An Animal and Sexual Penetration of a Corpse. “I can’t believe that having sex in a loo can get you sent to prison for six months, alongside necrophiliacs!” exclaimed a friend of the shadow-attorney general, but the very essence of cottaging is its illegality.

It was a better way, Dicky felt, when Father Sturt asked him who had stabbed him, and he did not nark.

It is hard to think of cottaging without the potent images of tentative sideways glances at the urinal, nervous accomplices having a “varda for the lily law” (keeping a lookout of the police), under-partitionwall foot signals and phalluses jutting obnoxiously into neighbouring cubicles. The removal of the “pretty police”, officers who would flirt with prospective cottagers and then handcuff them for a purpose which was anything but sexual, has reduced the risk of being caught and LGBT activism has taken away the shame of being gay, yet cottagers still remain criminals wary of arrest as they bugger merrily away under-cover.

A veteran of many a squalid cottage recalled with remorse a lost golden age.

“They were beautiful buildings; I remember my local one in Yorkshire being bricked up ‘because homosexuals were doing peculiar things there’. All the new-builds are no good, the cubicles are so unsubstantial, there’s not the romance of those big old urinals where you could sidle up to someone and the whole brightly lit modernist concrete is so unsexy. As a gay man, now you don’t need to go there to pick someone up and so standards have slipped. Even a decade ago you’d still get lots of gorgeous men going there, they were good times.”

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