Enjoying a lute lunch with the guitarist Michael Butten

© London Intelligence, October 2018

I feel privileged to have lunched today (Thursday, 4 October) with the Italian guitarist Luigi Legnani (1790-1877), the German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) and the British lutenist John Dowland (1553-1626). 

Their 21^stCentury central London medium today is the award-winning British guitarist Michael Butten. Butten's flowing lunchtime recital of pieces from each of those composers fills the air inside the cavernous church hall at St John’s Smith Square in Westminster. In Butten’s accomplished hands, their passionately composed music reverberates with searing clarity down through the centuries. 

Berkshire-born Butten spellbinds around 60 lunchtime concert-goers with Legnani’s majestic and oft-frisky Fantasia in A Op.19. Yet Butten captivates most with his church hall resurrection of Dowland’s Praeludium and Lachrimae Pavane, the latter based perhaps on Dowland’s most famous lute song, Flow My Tears. 

Lost Love

Butten’s Dowland interpretations are moving and evocative, inviting us to hear what Dowland wanted to convey with his soulful 17^thcentury lute compositions. I momentarily close my eyes on Butten to open my ears wider to let this musical poetry fire my imagination. An image appears of a mourner of a lost love. The grieving soul wanders deep through a midwinter forest of England now long gone.

Butten later glides through Bach’s Violin Sonata No.3 in C and richly deserves his echoing ovation inside a church hall that itself echoes England’s past pain; St John’s Smith Square suffered a gutting direct hit from a Luftwaffe bomb on 10 May 1941, the last day of the Blitz. The entire church needed rebuilding.

Butten too seeks to resurrect, as he himself puts it, ‘the often neglected guitar music of British composers’ and the ‘lute repertoire of the British renaissance’, notably Dowland to whom Butten encores in tribute.

Butten’s subtle guitar playing stands alone as extremely good value; and exceptional value at just a tenner for an autumnal lunchtime. 
But it’s worthwhile too to keep an eye on Butten’s noble mission to infuse fresh interest into – what is, essentially - the soul music of 17^thCentury England.

michaelbutten.co.uk

© Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, October 2018

Is Crossrail delayed Crossrail denied ?

By Paul Coleman

It’s not a delay if you stop to sharpen the scythe. 

Delay beats error and always trumps never.

However, such clichés don’t easily hitch to Crossrail, London’s much-vaunted east-west railway. 

Red-faces

It’s autumn 2018 and Crossrail should now be all set for a full operation of new Elizabeth Line train services, scything through London's congested and overcrowded rush-hour commutes. 

The tracks are laid in new tunnels under central London. 

New trains are tested and ready and waiting to run along the Elizabeth Line (above).

But in late August the government and Transport for London announce Crossrail will be delayed by ‘nearly a year’ due to the need for further technical tests following a raft of problems.

The delay and an attached cost over-run red-faces London’s political establishment, chiefly because the government and TfL are allocating £15.4 billion of taxpayers’ hard-earned money to Crossrail, up from the project's original £14.8bn.

Pricing out 

Hence, the pressure mounts on Crossrail chief executive Simon Wright, TfL and the government to deliver a fully operative Elizabeth Line for London as soon as possible. 

It’s bad news to keep a nonagenarian monarch waiting for a train, let alone millions of Londoners. 

Yet Crossrail has already affected millions of Londoners even before a single train service has run - by raising house values for private homeowners near its suburban stations but also pricing out potential homebuyers.   

For an analysis of the deeper impact of Crossrail on London's political economy, see Crossrail: All That Glitters..

 

© London Intelligence, September 2018. 

London Intelligence ®️ is a registered trademark of London Intelligence Limited.

 

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Council Cuts & Thieving Bean Counters

Council Cuts & Thieving Bean Counters, the latest update from Grenfell MediaWatch.


© London Intelligence, September 2018.

"We will not let you forget" - Grenfell

Bereaved nephew Karim Mussilhy (Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry)

Karim Mussilhy sets the tone for the Grenfell Tower public inquiry with his powerful testimony, writes Paul Coleman.

At one point, an inquiry barrister seems to try to caution Mussilhy’s forthcoming remarks. 

But Mussilhy refuses to be “censored”.

His uncle - Hesham Rahman - was killed by the Grenfell fire of 14 June 2017.

Read more at www.londonintelligence.co.uk

© Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, May 2018

Grenfell Tower Fire: Flammable cladding ban, 'stay put' and more

"I want you to do right by our family," says Claudia Davies, bereaved ex-partner of Steve Power, one of the 72 people killed as a result of the Grenfell Tower fire. 

Davies directly addresses her remarks to the Grenfell Inquiry chairman Sir Martin Moore-Bick after she and Power's daughter Sherry gave powerful testimony at the inquiry's victim commemoration sessions.

Toyin Agbetu of the Grenfell MediaWatch Update says Davies and other Grenfell residents are helping to steer "the inquiry in the right direction" with their powerful testimonies.

Homeless

Agbetu, in The Power of Testimony, the latest of the Grenfell MediaWatch's useful round-ups, notes with shock and indignation that, as of 24 May 2018, 130 of the 210 households affected by the fire still remain in temporary or emergency accommodation. 

Hackitt review

Agbetu also highlights the conspicuous absence of government cabinet ministers and of MPs at the inquiry - focusing on their "empty chairs". 

The government has said though that the use of the cladding on the Grenfell Tower was illegal.

Of the 156-page Hackitt review of building regulations, Agbetu says it contains "some good recommendations...but these could take a year to put in place". 

And, of course, Hackitt did not call for an explicit ban on flammable cladding.

Ban

The government though announced it is to consult on a possible ban on flammable cladding. "This should've happened months ago," says Agbetu, who points out that the government's own Equality and Human Rights Commission called for such a ban.

The government says it will also restrict the use of cheaper desktop studies to see if building materials are fireproof. 

In Wales, plans are afoot to ban all flammable cladding. Sprinklers are already mandatory on all new buildings too. "Wales has far less resources than England," says Agebtu. "But much more political will." 

Croydon

Agbetu notes that finally Barratt Homes will pay for the fire safety cladding upgrade on private residential tower blocks in Croydon. 

Flat owners had protested against being asked to pay £30,000 each.

Stay put

The London Fire Brigade has reversed its 'stay put' fire policy and now tells residents in London's 100 or so residential tower blocks to 'get out' if there is a fire. 

The 'stay put' advice is believed to have led Grenfell residents being trapped.

© London Intelligence, May 2018






 

War against cash in the land of meatballs and mooseburgers

By Paul Coleman

© London Intelligence, May 2018

 

‘Money Money Money’ chorused Abba, one of Sweden’s most successful exports. 
The quartet’s 1976 hit replays in my jukebox brain - especially after visiting the Abba Museum.
But a war against cash seems a dim and very distant prospect in the city of meatballs and mooseburgers. People in this tranquil place seem at peace.  
They stroll towards an 18^th Century windmill through the flower-strewn and sun-drenched gardens of Waldemarsudde. 
They admire Prince Eugene’s elegant waterfront mansion that dominates a craggy yet verdant headland on the island of Djurgården, an oasis in the heart of Stockholm.

Crisis or war
Yet the Swedish government is sending a pamphlet, If Crisis or War Comes, to its 4.8 million households. They want Sweden’s 10 million people to be prepared for the worst – such as ‘serious accidents, extreme weather and IT attacks, to military conflicts’.

The government doesn’t trust Putin’s Russia – and has reintroduced military service for 4,000 18-year-olds a year. Sweden now permanently stations troops on its Baltic Sea island of Gotland.
The pamphlet asks ‘what would you do if your everyday life was turned upside down?’ If, for instance, the shops run out of food, or, heaven forbid, ‘payment cards and cash machines do not work’.

War on cash 
Leaving Russophobia aside, Sweden has already declared war on cash. The Abba Museum doesn’t want my SEK (Krona) notes and coins.
Card payments are the only ‘Money Money Money’ that Abba’s Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny and Anni-Frid will accept.
Neither can I pay with SEK cash in the Irish-themed restaurant at Stockholm Arlanda Airport.

Predatory
Sweden seems hell-bent on becoming the world’s first cashless society. Some experts say Sweden could jettison paper and metal money within a decade. Two thirds of consumers say they can do without cash and most use cards to make payments under 100 SEK (£8.54, €9.74).
Cash is used to make only 13% of all payments.

Control
Why? Cards are more convenient.
Swedes are also told a cashless economy reduces the risk of tax evasion, forgery and predatory street crime. Cash is the mother of violence, apparently, not fear.
However, the lack of cash has also pressed the Riksbank to ponder the creation of a crypto-currency. Sweden’s central bank believes it can control the supply of such an e-Krona just as it controls the supply of banknotes and coins.

E-Krona 
But what happens to such an e-Krona when there is a ‘situation of financial unease’, as the Riksbank says, meaning a banking crisis? ‘There is a risk that there would be no rapidly available freestanding alternative such as cash is at present,’ admits the bank.
Back to the mint, then, and the printing press, as the sirens wail.

Ambition
Could London follow Stockholm and try to become a cashless city? A big part of daily London life operates as cashless. London’s 3.75 million daily tube users have used Oyster ‘top-up’ cards since 2003. Bus drivers have not accepted cash for several years.
Transport for London bosses even reportedly harbour an ambition to phase out Oyster card payments in order to close ticket offices, ‘top-up’ machines and further cut staff costs.
Tube users are plagued by repeated announcements: ‘Why not use your contactless bank card today? Never top again, and it’s the same fare as Oyster.’

Oyster cling
Not every Londoner believes that last bit. So, many passengers cling to their Oysters whilst others blithely touch in and out with their bank cards and smart phones.
Furthermore, trust in banks remains persistently low since the credit crunch and the banking and financial meltdown of 2007-09, aggravated by banking system failures, such as TSB’s online failure of late Spring 2018.
Some also fret that banks might use electronically collated travel information to target them with station adverts for financial products.

Need money
Wider still, not every Londoner on lower incomes has access to debit cards, overdrafts and credit.
Cash might no longer be convenient but people still need money – and Abba too.* 
World War III, though, we can all do without.

Inside the Abba Museum...© London Intelligence May 2018

* Abba have announced they will record new songs again after 35 years.  

© Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, May 2018

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True forgiveness: ugly 20th Century racism rehashed - Powell, Lawrence, deportation threat

The broken glass of 20th Century race and class reveals its unforgiving sharpness once more in 2018.

Firstly, a clumsy BBC - often confused over how to cover race and class issues - dunks its own head in a race mire by re-hashing and re-broadcasting Enoch Powell's notorious incendiary, racist and mistaken 'rivers of blood' speech from 1968. This is where Powell predicts black immigration will lead to 'rivers of blood' in UK cities. The BBC draws an accusation on its own head of seeking to posthumously 'forgive' Powell at a time in the 21st Century when immigration and race still divide working people in the UK.

Forgive, not forget

Secondly, Neville Lawrence, the father of Stephen Lawrence - the black teenager racially murdered by white youths 25 years ago - says, in an act of true forgiveness, that he 'forgives' his son's killers, even though only two of five original suspects are in jail convicted of the murder. But, whilst Lawrence says he forgives, he says he does not forget. He says the others should be brought to justice to pay for their crime and that a police investigation should stay open. 

Unforgiving

Finally, the United Kingdom government seems to take an unforgiving stance against an estimated 50,000 older black people who came as children in the 1950s and 60s to Britain from the West Indies - from places like Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago. 

For one reason or another, these people failed to secure the paperwork to confirm their right to live and work in Britain. Now, 50 years or so later, these people, for whom Britain is their only home, are being threatened by the government with deportation. Some, in these personal ID-driven times, are even being denied life-saving medical treatment as they cannot prove on paper they have a legal right to be resident in Britain.

Amnesty

Calls upon the UK government to grant these people an amnesty and the right to remain are becoming louder; especially as they are children of black people from Britain's former Empire colonies in the West Indies. These people were invited by the UK government in the 1950s and 60s to come and live and work in Britain, to help mitigate the UK's chronic labour shortages in its public services after World War II.

Many people in Britain's long-established black communities are asking whether the UK government would be so unforgiving if these people were the children of white Australians, Canadians, South Africans or New Zealanders. 

© Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, April 2018

 

Anti-smoking agency PHE tells own smoking staff to 'have more respect'

 

© London Intelligence 2018

© London Intelligence 2018

Public Health England says its 'single aim is to motivate millions of people to make changes that will improve their health' – and that includes persuading people to quit smoking.

However, PHE, an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care, might need to persuade more of its own staff to quit too. 

London Intelligence photographs taken on Thursday 12 April show how PHE staff routinely drop cigarette butts on to the pavement outside the gates of the agency's imposing site on Colindale Avenue, a busy pedestrian and residential thoroughfare in north London. 

These butts pile up beneath an empty butt bin.  

Apologise

Staff also heap stubbed butts on top of a Barnet Council rubbish bin right outside the PHE site’s gates. Cigarette smoke and e-cigarette vapour is also puffed over passers-by.

A PHE spokesperson said on Friday (13 April): “The cigarette butt litter is completely unacceptable and we sincerely apologise to local residents. 

"We have cleaned it up and reminded our colleagues to have more respect for the area.

"We are committed to playing our part in driving down smoking rates and this includes motivating our own staff who smoke to quit."

Note: PHE reports smoking kills 79,000 people in England every year. For each death, a further 20 smokers suffer from a smoking-related disease. 

© London Intelligence 2018

© London Intelligence, April 2018.

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After Grenfell, a Blame Game: Grenfell Fire Update

Grenfell fire victims and the tower © Paul Coleman, London Intelligence 2017

Central and local government struggle to mitigate the ongoing tragedy suffered by Grenfell fire survivors, writes Paul Coleman. 

Anger centres on the slow rehousing of households evacuated from their Grenfell Tower and Grenfell Walk homes. Of 209 evacuated households, 86 remain in emergency accommodation as of 1 March 2018, according to figures from the North Kensington Law Centre. 

Another 63 households have moved into temporary accommodation and just 60 into permanent accommodation. Read more... http://www.londonintelligence.co.uk/an-ongoing-tragedy-grenfell-update/

Courtesy and © Jeff Moore Justice4Grenfell 2018

© Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, April 2018

Land Worth More Than Londoners: Reported sale of Brixton Market

Report of sale of Brixton Village and famous market.

http://www.brixtonbuzz.com/2018/02/brixton-village-and-market-row-sold-to-private-group-of-companies-for-37m/

©️ London Intelligence, February 2018.