‘I often enjoy my work’ – or so a sex-worker’s statement read on a flyer from the red-light Museum of Prostitution, although the respondent didn’t say whether she enjoyed her work all the time, or with all her clients – we can only imagine on this one. Located on Achteburgwal Street, bang in the middle of the red-light, the museum, a good starting-point makes no…
Well, they’re certainly quiet now at time of writing. Just like other world streets during this crisis. However, the city is almost synonymous with the song ‘The Streets of Baltimore’ a bittersweet and heavily-covered country song written by Tompall Glaser (1966), although Gram Parsons’ version features on the HBO series The Wire, hugely popular series which, through its portrayal of social inequality, the illegal drug…
You can hear it on the street: “Christmas isn’t what it used to be – it’s all commercially- driven…..blah,blah!”And to read that ‘One in five Brits do not know that Jesus was born on Christmas Day’ (1).Or, the other statistic which quotes: ‘new poll shows 91% of Brits celebrate Christmas ( but just 22% celebrate the birth of Christ’) (2) – so perhaps they have a point….
The morning was fine and dry with enough blue sky to make a sailor a pair of pants, as the saying goes.And in front of St George’s Hall, the pipe band of the Liverpool Scottish were playing Green Hills of Tyrol – that lament of a Scottish soldier in the Crimean War. Anyway, it was a full hour ahead of the firing of the…
This is indeed a first-class film which has only been released a few weeks.A cinematic tour de force presenting a mix of fact and fiction often confusing the viewer.But of course the storyline is based upon one of Gotham City’s characters. In the film, Gotham becomes New York City, but not the NYC of today – that tourist magnet and home to 19.49 million people, a…
‘A tenuous link’ seems the right phrase: how else could you call a merchant ship British – a ship built in south-east China, its owner, Stena Bulk, a Swedish company, and its all non-British crew of Latvians, Indians and Filipinos recruited by a subsidiary of the aforementioned Stena Bulk.True, the recruitment agency (Northern Marine), is based in Clydeside no doubt employing Scottish workers, but as far as research goes…
Imagery of Britain’s colonialism and glorious seapower abounds and it’s good ammunition for propagandists of that certain event from June 2016.For example: Farage: “the referendum was won without firing a bullet.’ (1)Arron Banks ( major campaign contributer of ‘Leave’): “it was a war. We won.” (2) However some didn’t allude to history, choosing instead to display their ignorance of British trading patterns:Dominic Raab: “I hadn’t quite understood how reliant UK…
This four-day event sponsored by the Royal United Services defence and security arm – a military think-tank – started on May 15 and was attended by the usual top brass of admirals and captains, the aim of which was to ‘test whether apparent change in naval national strategy is by default or design.’ (1)Quite a mouthful, but a statement I understood referred to is whether…
Arnie Schwarzenegger has one and so does Sigourney Weaver, Brian May et al other celebrities (a Seiko watch, that is).And Novak Djokovic was presented with one upon winning a recent tennis championship.Okay, it’s likely that some are paid by Seiko – product exposure during Hollywood movies is as good as advertising but the basis of Seiko’s success in bring reliable, inexpensive watches to…
A Jimmy Cagney lookalike in baseball cap and plaid shirt, the Mississippi river pilot was quite opinionated of American society: “too many Jews and African-Americans in government” he proclaimed as the ship swung ten degrees port up river to New Orleans.I thought: oh! dear, is this the type of prejudiced society I half-expected it to be? By the way, for those fortunate…
Such knocking on the door wasn’t the usual sort; figuratively speaking it was a demand to be heard.The place was the South African Parliament and the urging came from the African National Council to educate the nation’s black youth – ‘ANC press Vorster for immediate action’ read the headlines of the Cape Argus. In 1974 this coincided with my first trip to Capetown and although…
Who are Seaborne Freight?