If Mark is a Domestic Extremist, there’s a good chance you are too!
Mark is one of several journalists who have found themselves unlawfully snooped on by a Scotland Yard unit dedicated to Domestic Extremists. “The fact that none of the journalists are suspected of criminality but all of them cover stories of police and corporate wrong doing hints at something more sinister,” says Mark, “The inclusion of journalists on the domestic extremist database seems to be a part of a disturbing police spying network, from the Stephen Lawrence family campaign to Hillsborough families.”
Police files released to Mark after he made an FoI request include notes of him attending demonstrations, carrying a tray of cress and “appearing confident”.
Mark and five other journalists are taking legal action against the Metropolitan Police over this political policing.
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Sigh! the times really are a changin’, ‘subversion’ today? like much ‘post’modern cultural phenomenon popular & lightweight!. Included in a police data-base as a ‘Domestic Extremist’? , heh your ‘notoriety’ surpasses you Mark ha! ha! ha!, you know your activities would’nt have even got a ‘footnote’ in a Dostyevsky Novel!.
Nb
Bytheway that other ‘shadowy’ figure you’ve recently hooked up with, that ‘political’ partner in crime you ‘linked’ up with in last months Chester ‘homeless’ PSPO demo , activist extremitis, Busker & Liverpool street performer Jonny Walker, is he on ‘police’ files too?. If not he ought to be, the busking Daeeesh! I’m tempted to call him & his ‘tribe’ at Streetslive.org ( See Bham Mail Story ” Birmingham Busker Who Terrorised Teenage Rival Gets Suspended Jail Sentence 27/10/15 ). Perhaps we may yet get to see a police march to the actual Tower ( ie The Tower of London ) for both of you?
* Revision ( edit )
Perhaps I should revise the sentence ( see above ) to ” you know your activities would’nt have even got a footnote in a Joseph Conrad Novel ”. The ‘guilty’ culprit featured in the B’ham Mail ‘news’ story however is now the ‘official’ Underground Man. No longer ‘regularly’ busking as such, he spends much of his day, muttering to himself in a ‘darkened’ room. Bitter, resentful & still very much ‘twisted’, his time is taken up searching YouTube for interesting ‘titbits’ to fill his Twitter site, no friends ( or if he has some left, getting fewer & fewer ) he muses depressingly on his ’empty’ facebook page & forlornly on what could have been.
* On The Police
You know I hate the police, o dear! hold on a minute let me qualify that statement, forgive me I’m in an all to frequent state of indignant rage at the moment, so speaking as a person of ‘race’ ( English ‘mixed’ race, duel heritage ), let me say that I despise & view with scorn organisations like the ‘metropolitan’ police ( today! ), & the police squad that ‘dominated’ Birmingham ( a decade or so back! ). * Note – thats why I was almost overcome by ;rage;, fuming, filled with bile & oh so ‘critical’ when I discovered ( stumbled upon online ) a newspaper article ‘triumphing’ Jonny Walker & his wife Philipa Morgan Walker as one of ‘ The 10 Hero’s of the London Riots ‘ featuring a pic of him & her giving cups of tea to ‘riot police’ in full street-battle riot gear outside their then home ( ‘flat’ ) in London.
Same with Scott ( see Bham Mail story above ) & then busking partner ‘Esther’, I viewed with not sceptism but outright ‘cynicism’ their budding street-performing relationship ( or should I say PR! ) with PC Ian Northcott aka the Busking Bobby & the You Tube Video stunt they pulled together on Birmingham High Street eg. PC Norcott taking on an ‘uncharacteristic’ busking role & singing Oasis ‘Wonderwall’ to gathered public onlookers while being filmed & using Scotts ( Esthers? ) ‘acoustic’ guitar – in the end it seems to ‘promote’ a Charity he had set up called ‘ Chocs’nSocs ( my ‘cynicism’ proving right, he’s not really a ‘friend’ of buskers afterall but a charity promoter in disquise, in fact ‘ the kind face of neo-liberalism’ I call him? & I’m convinced he actually hates Buskers! ).
You know I could have ‘marmlised’ all of ya’, taken a ‘high powered rifle’ ( taking care not to harm inoccent members of the public – I’m not a cowardly & immoral terrorist ) & in a state of ‘indignant’ killer psychosis blown the lot of you away!. Ok, now that a few ‘home’ truths are out in the open the ‘honest’ conversation can begin, as can ‘serious’ reflection on one of lifes irony’s because you know the truth is I don’t in fact hate ‘all’ policemen ( or women for that matter ), nor do I feel in general a kind of bile flung vitriol towards them at all, no indeed there are many of them I have met & like. Yes, I can say this in all truth & honesty ‘cos you know why? Because I detect in myself here ‘evidence’ of a kind of mutual love i.e. I’ve long realised that I’m a kind of ‘policeman’ myself!.
* Postscript
Yeah speaking again of Jonny Walker, to me he’s just the latest ‘street Messiah’, he’ not the first & I guess won’t be the last. So please Mark get this on the record ( ‘police’ records! ) Q. Busking Saviour? A. No, you must be joking, this guys a busking destroyer ( as are, from what I can see, his ‘tribe’, neigh herd of ‘urban’ sheep at Streetslive, in all truth, a bunch of cultural apocalyptics! ).
*
For my part ( i.e. speaking of myself as a Birmingham StreetPerformer or ‘jobbing’ Busker! ) if you ever think I would take ‘serious’ the so called ‘activism’ of this herd i.e. Walker & his pals, or more particularly any streetperformance ‘codes’ set up by the so called ‘streetslive.org’ in conjunction with that ‘cosy’ middle-class organisation the Music Union ( MU ) & ‘local’ authorities ( or ‘federal’ state-like local authorities like Birmingham city Council – like the EU, this the ‘largest’ of authorities has a ‘reputation’ for being distant & aloof with regards local ‘policy’ & decision making ) then think again. If only like me you could examine this whole state of affairs ‘close-up’ & very carefully, you know you’d soon draw the same conclusions & again like myself you’d see the whole process is largely a sham!.
Its a ‘social’ fact that Birmingham has one of the worst ( if not the worst! ) social services records in the country, bottom in the UKs tables for social care. I remember only a ‘few’ years back the ‘local’ ads on city Bus Shelters for ‘adoption’/foster parents eg. Posters featuring 2 cute n’ young mixed race girls – the ‘subtext’ being that the care-homes were full due to the over-excessive inter-racial sex couplings of Black Men with ‘white’ women ( well you never saw any pictures advertising ‘white’ babies for adoption – obviously they don’t exist! ).
Given this attitude to social care, It should come as no surprise then my claims that this council authority does’nt really give a fig for Buskers ( i.e. that other ‘itinerant’ outcast group! ) & that any current liason’s ( with eg. Walker, the MU ), all they really amount to in reality, are a kind of ‘vanity’ project excercise ( ‘cultural’ PR ) – rather like their other recent ‘civic’ projects eg. the ‘architectural’ facade that is now the ‘new’ New Street Station – literally a ‘facade’, a built urban veneer!.
In this context, I say its time for Walker ( & his busking Daeesh! ), the MU & Birmingham City Council to leave ‘us’ all i.e. the true heart & soul of ‘busking’ in the city ( mainly new ‘street’ Romanian Gypsys & old school ‘brummie’ black ‘street’ performers etc ) alone. You see everyone at the moment appears to be getting on fine & sorting themselves out with ‘spots’ etc without any ‘outside’ help from anyone. In fact with the exception of certain ‘cultural’ formations eg. Street Preachers and the like, the political ‘conditions’ on the streets of Birmingham ( what with a certain key ‘streetslive’ member practically under lock & key ) are currently ‘positive’ ( hopeful ) i.e ripe for ‘benevolant’ Anarchism ( the very ‘highest’ constitutional ideal! ).
*Conclusions
I’m saying ‘No!’ to any Walker style busking10 Commandments & that includes the ‘laminated’, 10 page, 20 page, 30 page booklet, that goes with it ( see Liverpool code booklet – yuk! ), together with the ‘obligitary’ colgate smile & presidential style handshake photo with the city Mayor featured inset on the back. No, no, no, …………let anarchy reign!.
Domestic Extremist
Q. Domestic Extremist ? A. Nah! not me!. I’m neither a sophist, casuist nor hairsplitter by nature, a person with no need for ‘extremes’. I’ve long learned that in practical reality ( & as far as any ‘policy’ goes ) theres always ‘more than one way to skin a cat’.
* Notes
Simply ‘target’ & then get rid of the likes of Scott ( see above ) & Walker from our streets, the rewards are ‘instant’ domestic cultural transformation!. No more busking smarmy git turning up & imposing himself in the cafe space as you sit down to have a coffee, no more having to put up with some ‘arrogant’ ‘b……d’ bashing it out on the acoustic guitar, in other words immediate ‘tension’ release from ‘experiential’ ( emotional! ) extremes.
Oh Its lovely, the ‘disappearance’ of just these two, thats the ‘truth’, you can now simply just sit down at the table & breath out in a long sigh of relief & then just as well breath in, yes the ‘fresh’ air of a ‘new’ day – the ‘alternative’ shopping afternoon. Dream coffee drinker, tea drinker dream on, today is the ‘cultural’ dawn!. All one needs now i.e. the cream on the cake, is for a ‘proper’ musician to turn up & entertain.
* Further Notes
Now call ‘me’ an ‘extremist’ if you like, one very much ‘alienated’ from the mainstream & sat sniping from the ‘domestic’ sidelines, I don’t care!. You know the ‘truth’ is Busking ‘Yahoo’s’ aside ( see above! ), I’m fairly tolerant of any ‘street’ faction & all forms ‘street music’.
Having said that what I would like to emphasise here, is that as a Street Performer by trade, I don’t want to belong to ‘popular’ culture nor to a mode of existence whereby song & guitar is an act of worship!. No, I’d rather remain in the underground & subvert the ‘consumer’ with Villa Lobos, Agustin Barrios Mangore.