Trinket Exit Strategy of our Press

Something from the newspaper yesterday which confirms all I was saying about Nepal – on the very day the Maoists declared a three month cease fire, all The Guardian saw fit to publish was just half the face of this Sadhu. Exotica unabashed. This is an old complaint about media representation however – of course [...]

Perverted By Language

Piper got the blog back and the Brighton girl from Arkansas has her own now. Still mesmerised, as am I, by the lesser films of Bill Murray: Perverted By Language: “Ghostbusters 2 is chock full of the past itself coming back to haunt the present. A train that crashed around the turn of the last [...]

The double visage.

notes towards the end of the Nepal text for Canada…. My beef with the travel story version of Nepal is that here South Asia appears on the world screen most often as a ‘realist’, but usually tragic, news item. Images of villages awaiting rescue from cyclone, flood, earthquakes, riot, famine. Images of high mountain military [...]

Revolutionary tourism

Revolutionary tourism (notes for article for a Canadian magazine). I am watching television and Nepal is on screen. It is unusual to see anything other than documentary curios from the land locked Himalayan kingdom, but this week the place is news. Strikes, curfews, shoot to kill, the King forced to promise elections, a new interim [...]

I will shop till you drop

Its grey and drizzling in Nagoya but there is no way that the Sakura is going to disappoint. Where is the umeshu? The best thing – many agree, I would guess, after my first visit here in April three years ago – is to drink umeshu while admiring the blossoms, but I prefer Sapporo beer, [...]

The Pirate Party

Check this out : The Pirate Party “Because kidnapping and killing people on the high seas is exactly the same as sharing music with your friends!” http://www.freeculture.org/pirates/ Music video contest! For the Pirate Party, we want to show pirate-themed music videos while we dance. Thus, we are also holding a Pirate Video Remix Contest! The [...]

Everyday Life of Revolutionary Movements

Alpa writes:Dear All,If anyone is interested being involved in a panel on ‘The Everyday Life of Revolutionary Movements’ at the forthcoming September meeting of theEuropean Association of Social Anthropologists, please see further details at: http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa06/easa06_panels.php?PanelID=49 The idea is to explore the contradictions between ideology and livedexperience of revolutionary movements in different parts of the world.Abstracts [...]

With Cat Like Tread… stomp stomp

Gulp, the week has flown by and being in Melbourne has landed me with the old allergies and hay-fever that is part of what keeps me away, but news sent from Pirate Paul reminds me that going back to England isn’t necessarily a return to the real: This item:‘April 5, 2006: BBC News: “Terror fear [...]

Congratulations Nicola

Hooray for Nicola Frost who now has got her PhD – I do not have a pic of her handy, but i can direct you to her first book HERE. The book is a “country profile” for Indonesia published by the folks at Oxfam. Her PhD will come out in due course as a book [...]