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The Saturday at Marxism is always the busiest day – everyone who will be attending the event has arrived by then and nobody will be going home until the Sunday at the earliest and this year was no exception. 

Nevertheless, i was not unduly worried that we got to Euston Square with only a bare 10 minutes before the start of the first meeting, although the bad news for me was that I was heading up to the seventh floor of the Institute of Education (due to the way in which the floors are numbered only 3-4 floors above where you enter the building depending on which side you go in) which since I refused to use the lifts meant a bit of a climb upstairs.

Although I enjoyed everything that I attended as I usually do at Marxism I am going to concentrate on the 3:45 – 5PM slot, at which I attended Ten years on: remembering Paul Foot, which was organised with four excellent platform speakers all of whom had known and worked with Paul Foot, and a few contributions from others likewise, but not run as a standard meeting. 

Inspired by this session I changed my plans for the last meeting, giving John Molyneux on Art and WW1 a miss and instead attending Alex Callinicos on Is the far left in crisis? instead, which meant a return to the Logan Hall. Mention of WW1 leads again to those links: www.greatcharity.org, www.facebook.com/GreatAuction and www.twiiter.com/great_auction

All in all a thoroughly good day, and as you will see, plenty of good photos…

 

It was raining on the Friday morning, so my host suggested we get the bus to Stratford as that route involved less walking. We initially had a view to getting the Central line all the way to Tottenham Court Road, but it was so crowded that this was modified to changing at Mile End to the Hammersmith and City Line and travelling to Euston Square. On subsequent days we would travel the H&C between Euston Square and West Ham, going one stop on the Jubilee to or from Canning Town. 

We arrived at the event in good time for the first meeting, in my case John Parrington on Is Science Neutral? Next came Marxism and Mental Health, which so impressed me that I asked the speaker to email me her slides, which she subsequently did. After this it was time for lunch, and the Norwich picnic was easily located courtesy of an inflatable canary which stood out the proverbial mile. The afternoon session had plenty to live up to, but courtesy of Amy Leather (who also organised the whole event) on Fracking and Mark L Thomas (middle initial used to distinguish himself from the comedian who has lately lost his touch somewhat) on The Labour Party and the Unions it did so. 

In the evening, in spite of it being the eighth floor, I went to the meeting on WW1 and the British Empire, with Talat Ahmed. This was only right for someone heavily involved in the Great Centenary Charity Auction, more details about which can be found at www.greatcharity.org, www.facebook.com/GreatAuction and/or www.twiiter,com/great_auction

In the bar after the meetings were all done we were treated to some excellent live music before heading back to Poplar for the night. 

As usual I have some good photos for you…

A combination of great heat (and apparently tomorrow is due to be even hotter before the storms arrive just in time for the weekend) and a heavy workload made today at James and Sons a more than usually draining day. Still, we are more or less on track for the July auction, which will serve as a dress rehearsal for the Great Centenary Charity Auction in September and is therefore more than usually important.

The proceeds of the Great Centenary Charity Auction, being held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of WW1 will be used to fund research in blast injuries. For more details check out www.greatcharity.org, www.facebook.com/GreatAuction and/ or www.twitter.com/great_auction

As usual I have some fine pictures for you…

Hello and welcome to the first in a series of posts, interspersed with my more regular posts that I will be producing about this year’s Marxism Festival.

Travelling down on the 11:56 train (one hour later than usual, as the start of the event was postponed to enable people to take part in Public Sector strikes) I arrived in very good time to deposit my heavier luggage and take my place at the first meeting, which in my case was on What is fascism?, with Jo Cardwell from Waltham Forest. I then took in Brian Richardson on Malcolm X, before attending the opening rally, in a jam packed Logan Hall. There were some wonderful contributions throughout. While the most enthusiastic reception was accorded to South African miner Makhanya Siphamandla that for Afghan asylum seeker Manjeet Kaur was barely any less enthusiastic.

Following the final rally it was time to hook up with the person I was going to be staying with (yes, this time I had actually had details of my accommodation in advance) to make arrangements. This was achieved with the aid of a borrowed mobile and without too much difficulty. Having established that we would have to travel back together each evening as there was only one key and no possibility of cutting a replacement due to the nature of the lock we headed straight back (I was not keen on hanging around with all my bags in tow.

The route we took that night involved the Piccadilly and Jubilee lines (the latter inescapable because the local station at the other end was Canning Town), although we did not use the Piccadilly again. Never mind the hideous eyesore of a development that bankrupted its developers, the true icon of that area is a building designed by Erno Goldfinger where the lift shafts are separate from the main building, and linked to each floor by passageways.

As usual I have plenty of photos…

This post is devoted entirely to the extremely scenic walk from Cerne Abbas (of chalk giant fame) back to the house in which we were staying. The viewing point for the giant is about 5 minutes walk from the centre of the village and is beautifully sited. From the viewing point I walked up to the tiny village of Minterne Parva before following a very overgrown footpath to Buckland Newton. 

Buckland Newton is a pretty village though it is a sign of the times that the Gaggle of Geese pub has closed down. I left Buckland Newton on the road towards Alton Pancras, from whence a path led practically to where we were staying. However, I got too ambitious, and tried to save a bit on the route by taking another likely looking path before reaching Alton Pancras. 

This led to a nerve jangling encounter with some bullocks and then a scramble down to the only visible road from the other side of the field when in spite of signs indicating its presence there was no evidence of the Wessex Ridgeway Path. I was badly off track, near the village of Brockhampton, 4 miles from Mappowder, which in turn was a good couple of miles from where I was aiming, but I no longer dared do other than follow the road.

Although the walk ended up being longer than I had intended it was mainly very enjoyable, and provided a vast haul of quality photos…

I arrived early at James and Sons, expecting to be going to Raynham Hall, only to discover that the meeting had been cancelled, so I used the extra hour to good effect, getting lots of images done, checked and edited. I also created another advertising poster that I have subsequently sent out as a press release.

As usual I have no shortage of good images…

Silver Poster

 

Yesterday’s Eastern Daily Press contained a wonderful article about the Great Centenary Charity Auction which you can see for yourself via the following link: http://www.greatcharity.org/?p=96 on the revamped website to which I have thus far added four posts.

Also today, a massive social media blitz has got under way, and already our facebook page has new likes, and I am sure that our twitter site has new followers as well.

In and around these activities I have also been imaging for the rehearsal auction and as usual have some highlights for you…