Poppies

Poppies seem to spring up on people’s lapels earlier each year, and on younger lapels than ever before. Walking through London Bridge tube station last night I saw them on teenagers, and then later that evening caught a few minutes of an inane interview of Girls Aloud (a pop band apparently) on the BBC and [...]

Thought Crime – its a joy!

At dinner the other day, KK told the story of his recent meeting with a ‘community copper’ on a bicycle who accosted him walking along the street. KK was wearing a beard and a back-pack, and the accusation was “you’e looking a bit serious, lad”. He was in fact thinking of buying fireworks, it being [...]

Ma T incarnates in my local offie.

Grrrrrrr. Not happy. I’ve just been to the off licence (bottle shop; liquor store) to buy two bottles of beer to smooth the dissertation marking evening that will occupy my Saturday night in the big city, and the smug South African bastard who works in my local ‘Odd Bins’ insults me when I decline to [...]

correspondences of theory – citation

- a reply to a fav student on our MA Postcolonial in CCS who asked about ways to present his work on charity/WTO etc. My reply turned out to be as much for me as for him, got me thinking about how trinketization in anthropology left us adrift, bereft of purpose and value, and how [...]

South Asian Anthropologist Group Meet at Goldsmiths.

I was asked to do a commentary ‘discussant’ talk on the two papers in the Movement panel at Alpa and Ed’s South Asian Anthropologists Group workshop, held today and tomorrow at Goldsmiths. These are the rough notes I spoke from. Conference details and programme at:http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/departments/anthropology/southasia-papers.php The articles I was asked to discuss were:Business and Community [...]

paris to die for our sins

this may be a little late and I’ve lost the date – might have been April 1 – but its another of those items I have carried around for ages in a lint laden coat pocket after ripping it from a newspaper in amazement: Big News: Paris Hilton is slated to play MA T in [...]

All we need is Radio Ga Ga

Doodling around the web thinking about charity fundraisers, and the difference between what Bono and Geldolf have not achieved, and the massive responses to the Tsunami and the South Asian quake. Pop music fails miserably, where people’s organisation seems more capable. So, here is Queen playing at Live Aid in 1985. They do ‘Radio Ga [...]