31 May 2013

Editorial

Contents                                31 May 2013
Mexican tall ship                  Roger Morton
News of Gilles-Eric Serelini
Coming apart                       Joselyn Duffy Morton
Cartoon                                 Claudia Ward
Cover                                     Roger Morton

Nobody can think of anything else to talk about but the weather. It is cold, wet and miserable. The sky is covered in grey-black angry clouds. In 24 days, it will be Midsummer’s Day and then the days get shorter. We are starting to get desperate.
This morning I saw a dead wet animal beside our car. No it was my fake fur hat which I had dropped in my rush to get out of the rain yesterday. I had worn this big warm hat to ward off the cold as we wandered round La fete de fleuve in Bordeaux. What is going on? When is it going to warm up? We light the fire every day. We have nearly run out of wood.
Cold though it was, the young Mexican sailors on board a large three-masted sail boat were still full of smiles and charming politeness. I could hunker down in Bordeaux very easily. Noisy cows and wet soggy fields have only a certain life-style appeal. It is hard to beat a city – especially one as beautiful as Bordeaux.
Last week we also visited friends in Marmande, the Tarn and Esperaza. It didn’t rain all the time, in fact we even managed to play boules but everyone had their heating on and I was bundled up in the same clothes I have been wearing for the last eight or nine months. Enough all bloody ready.
If I had the dosh I would fly down to Venice to see what Jeremy Deller has put together for the Biennale. It is good when art reflects what society is going through. Remembering  all the while ‘poor people don’t buy art’ but they sure as hell like to look at it. (Then perhaps a diamond skull was a ‘society’ reflection on the coke-toting feelingless bank-heads who didn’t give a shit - rather than an artist desirous of up-selling his competitors).
Sounds like the British Council commission that Deller has put together has had serious thought. Stuart Sam Hughes painted the mural which depicts William Morris throwing Roman Abromovich’s yacht into the Venice Lagoon (evidently that same yacht obscured the view at the last Biennale); then there’s a 30 foot high mural of a hen harrier carrying a range rover, this one painted by Sarah Tynan (I think the ‘hen’ is short for Henry ie Prince Harry, but I could have got that muddled up); there’s steel band music, work by bannerman Ed Hall who usually makes Trade Union banners; even the Museum of London has a pertinent point to make. It’s been a big ask and it sounds like a volatile mix – just like Britain is.
Wouldn’t mind going to Caitlin Davis’ London literary party for her new book Camden Lock and the Market  - it has got some of Roger’s photos from Dingwalls Dancehall in it. But that’s tomorrow and we’ll be here waiting for the bloody rain to stop.
A bientot, Joselyn Morton
ps don't forget to sign End Ecocide in Europe petition. It is a really important campaign and if you, as a citizen, want your voice to be heard, this is a European Citizens Initative. Make all those deplorable actions (by Monsanto, fracking, companies, mining companies, banks who fund them etc) a crime.

Mexican tall ship







Images by Roger Morton

30 May 2013

Environment



Gilles-Éric Séralini
Il est le chevalier blanc aux rats difformes., chercheur et professeuren biologie moléculaire à l’université de Caen, est devenu l’emblème de la lutte anti-OGM. Les multiples tumeurs qu’ont développées ses rats de laboratoire sont, selon ses travaux, la preuve des effets toxiques d’un maïs OGM alimentaire très largement utilisé, le NK603 et d’un pesticide, le Roundup, tous deux produits par la firme géante Monsanto. La publication de ses recherches, suivie de la publication d’un livre de vulgarisation, Tous cobayes, et d’un film éponyme, ont provoqué un choc dans l’opinion. Et une contre-attaque terrible de Monsanto et des pros OGM. Aujourd’hui, il ressort son livre pour répondre à ses détracteurs. Il nous détaille un véritable ‘réseau mafieux organise pour le denigrér.’
The above is an extract from La Provence. Hopefully we will hear more of the work of Gilles-Eric Seralini, in the English press. editor

Poetry



Coming apart

The small cupboard
is screwed and glued,
I feel slightly jealous
as I am coming apart
all over the place.
Don’t know if it shows in my face,
it does in my voice
when I answer the phone
friends say ‘are you
alright? I thought I was being
cagey but bright

Later, he says ‘where’s my glove’?
I hear ‘let’s make love’
it’s the middle of the afternoon
we’re in the garden
so I am a little surprised.
Joselyn Duffy Morton ©

Cartoon

Claudia Ward

Cover caption

Photo:Roger Morton 

Shell/Hell sign in Esperaza