That’s a bit like saying you can find cheaper rollercoasters outside Disney Land.

It’s true, but price isn’t why people go. It’s prestige and experience.

Thank you.

Pretty sure Gaza doesn’t need the Green party declaring genocide on them, they’re already dealing with one.

Meanwhile in Britain in 1906…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zdjt7nb

Admittedly the Tories tried damned hard to take them away again on several occasions.

That’s why I ended my statement with “too”. It implicitly means both.

Would be great if they could make it so that people could, y’know, get actual appointments with GPs too.

Yeah, it’s strange how much that overtones window has shifted during my life time. It makes me hanker for the quiet times if John Major’s stint… And I say that as a socialist.

I think that the business of parliament got hijacked by the business of the city during the 90s. Thus has left us with career politicians.

The difference being what sort of business benefits the city. The Tories have been great for boom and bust. An absolute bonanza for hedging and shorting, but less so for long term stability. I think that’s where labour come in. The sane business but with a calmer plan.

It is a great step forward, but the barrier to entry is relatively high. You can sign up to substack for free and they take a cut of your profits (that most writers don’t draw enough attention to earn.

Meanwhile ghost charges $9 a month, billed annually.

That’s a significant barrier to anyone that can’t afford to see if their writing will be popular and as long as that remains it will struggle to gain traction in the same way.

And yeah, I know you could host your own too, but again a price point and a technical barrier.

I like ghost, the interface and the ecology, but the truth is that it isn’t going to attract the sort of vibrant, young community it needs if you have to stump up $108 just to see.

I think one of the great things about 2000s/early 2010s internet was the proliferation of free to use platforms like livejournal, blogger and WordPress. Sure there was a lot or jank, but I found some of my favourite writers back when they were scratching their name into the internet.

Burns night 2018. A wonderful horrible terrifying brilliant life affirming night out in Newcastle.

They’re good people, but good grief can they drink and talk shite whilst being utterly charming and threatening.

I don’t know if you are meant too, but at that point it’s all too awkward to know.

Also +1 for the self cut. I’m always good to shave mine with some clippers.

Verified British experience.

Over-tip on the way out, even though we don’t really tip for anything else. Nah mate, keep the change.

Scuttle off whilst still putting your coat on.

I just want to add some context as a person that’s going grey.

You are still incredibly young in your 20s. There’s still so much time left for you.

It’s the ideal time to drop out. Think things over and find some purpose or direction.

Or not.

So much is made about knowing your course in life, when often learning to drift the right way can be far more enjoyable.

So yeah, not exactly a call to hedonism, but try to find what you enjoy and where your ambition lies then make positive steps to get there.

Chap looks like he’s been to sports direct.

Fair question.

I haven’t protested about this specific issue, but I have done about others. Specifically, the erosion of human rights in the UK.

Here’s a video of a performance protest we made last year:

Au

It’s pretty blunt, it’s about how wealth is used to distort rights and the meanings of language. The full thing took over four hours to read out. We held a talk and a symposium as well as educational visits with schools. I’m a big believer in education as social justice.

Hypothetically then, in their case, I would make art that engaged with the subject. Just like picasso did with Guernica, an image that still resonates the horror of war.

We are talking about the protest, not the subject of the protest.

That’s one of the problem with protest stunts. They get attention but often the attention drowns out the intent.

I get that. And I broadly supported the stop oil protests that took a similar form. But I do take objection to the weird value judgement they are making.

What’s worth more, art or sustainable food…

If I wanted to get complex about it I’d highlight the numerous ways in which art and sustainable agriculture have traditionally interwoven through folk practices, but I’m going to keep it simple and say that the sort of false equivalence they just used is the rhetoric of fascism.

In the UK it is frequently used to defy art that may be oppositional to political and corporate interests.

And that’s it, art is, more than anything, a vector for public discussion and protest in its own right.

Their protest and the reason behind it is fine. The daft shit they said during it undermines everything else and could do easily have been avoided with a small amount of thought.

I love a good protest … But this isn’t a good protest.

What’s the most important thing?” they shouted. “Art, or right to a healthy and sustainable food?”

Yeah, no. I think in a civilised world we should be able to have both and that sort of argument is weak as fuck.

Destroy all art because it is more important that we conduct research into cot death. Oxygen is more important than art and yet look at you, with your galleries.

It’s infantile posturing of probably well off middle class kids who want their Rosa Parks moment for Instagram clout.

Further to that, attempting to destroy something that essentially belongs to everyone is just going to bring negative press. How about going after something owned by the head of Nestle? No? Is that too difficult and requires too much work?

I was at one for the end. Here’s how we saw it go down.

Hyperbole increased on the upper floor. Lots of "big talk " about the future and less chat about the job at hand.

There was a round of death rattle hiring where a whole bunch of people were added to the team.

Then last in first out.

Some of those new hires were there for less than 3 months before they were let go.

Then bloodletting. One or two redundancies a month. Their work being shared between the remaining staff. Told each round would be the last as the company restructured.

The worst bit, the people being fired knew they were going when they came to work in the morning to find they had been locked out of all the IT systems. They then spent the rest of the day sat around waiting to be summoned to be let go.

Meanwhile, the upper floor seem to be driving new cars and spending a lot of time outside the building. You also notice some new management faces and overhear chat about another business.

This massively increased workload and killed morale. Going to work felt like putting on your dead best buddy’s coat and doing an impression of them to yourself in the mirror whilst you had to hold down your own job, which had gone from pressured with purpose to pointless slog.

But in return you are promised a raise in the future.

And then one day… You turn up. Your team are all stood outside. The doors are locked and the paperwork is on the post. Most of us got paid most of our last paycheck.

Maybe because we don’t want to actively encourage a dystopian hellscape where people deliberately destroy themselves for entertainment.

I know it already happens, but the increased financial incentive will just mean the poor are even more likely to sell their health.

Pretty sure there was a short side mission about that in Phantom Liberty.