Took a trip out to Salford today.  Started off at the People’s History Museum, then walked along the River Irwell to Salford Quays.

Quite a lot of graffiti and street art along the way.

I went to The Lowry and the Imperial War Museum.  Really good exhibition called The State of Us at The Lowry, about the interface between biology and technology.

Also really liked Lowry’s paintings – I hadn’t realised that he did a lot more than just iconic paintings of factory life.  I really liked ‘Portrait of Ann’.  The graphic style.  And it’s very enigmatic.

There was a factory one of my hometown, Wigan, looking pretty industrial back in the 30s or so.

There was a particularly depressing exhibition about Yemen in the IWM.

Very grim stuff – so much suffering.

You get some nice views over the river around Salford Quays.

 

 

 

 

 

Read Arise, Sir Food Bank by Frances Ryan (tribunemag.co.uk)

Knighting Iain Duncan Smith – the man responsible for Universal Credit, the bedroom tax and ‘fit for work’ tests – shows just how much contempt the establishment has for ordinary people.

What a stitch-up. Man who has presided over the significant worsening of many people’s lives – here, have a knighthood.

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/12/arise-sir-food-bank

#shitesoftherealm

Read In Defence of Salford by Ronan Burtenshaw and Marcus Barnett (tribunemag.co.uk)

The Murdoch press has started its attacks on Rebecca Long Bailey and her Salford ‘mafia’. It’s not hard to figure out why – Salford is a proud and radical working-class community that points the way forward for the Labour Left in 2020.

Nice little article about Salford, socialism and Rebecca Long Bailey – obviously Tribune’s pick for next Labour leader. She’s already being hammered by the right-wing press.

Interesting description of Salford as “somewhere between the Manchester metropolis and the surrounding Lancashire towns” – obviously geographically, but politically too, hadn’t really thought about it like that before.

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/12/in-defence-of-salford/

Read Autonomous by Annalee Newitz ( )
I finished the book Autonomous by Annalee Newitz a couple of weeks back.

It was pretty good. Fun and easy to read and keeps you turning the pages. Interesting themes of free culture, here focused on open sourcing / reverse engineering pharmaceuticals. And the lengths to which those in control of intellectual property rights will go to enforce them.

Interesting side story of human / robot romance and gender identity.

Replied to Office Art, or the Obligation to Re-Use (zylstra.org)

I feel we have an obligation to re-use. The best way to keep things from humanity’s pool of cultural artefacts and knowledge available is by re-using and remixing them.

It isn’t about choosing the perfect images for my walls, it’s about choosing a few good-enough ones that speak to me at this moment in time.

I think this is really true – the perfect is the enemy of the good, as they say.  I think knowing something can be ephemeral, or improved upon, removes the friction of acting.  I’m finding this with writing in my blog/wiki.

I feel we also have an obligation to re-use. The best way to keep things from humanity’s pool of cultural artefacts and knowledge available is by re-using and remixing them. What gets used keeps meaning and value, will not be forgotten.

I’m also enjoying this as a way of stimulating thoughts and writing too – by quoting and reusing parts of other people’s posts as a jumping off point.