The beauty of ugliness

This is quite lovely.

 http://youtu.be/_Pubn8Ra_Ls

Frighteningly hypnotic, but lovely.

Shocking pictures of royalty

Er, these pictures of Miss Kate Middleton...

I haven't seen them.

Probably because:

The Sun said they were "grossly intrusive pictures that no decent British paper would touch with a bargepole". (Drawn from msn.com)

A little strange that the paper happy to print ladies with bare breasts on the third page, every day, should say this.

Pondering

I guess I should start reading all the papers and pondering and purring and pronouncing more regularly, but no one gives a damn anyway, so...

The idea of intrusion is a weird one.

I've just been listening to Ian Hislop on the radio talking about privacy.

I think he thinks that privacy is only there for the powerful and having read some law text books on the subject and the costs involved I think he might well be right.

Protecting everyone

However, protecting them does in some small way also protect us, because it gives rise to a cultural conversation.

Asking whether people should have been taking these pictures of Kate Middleton and whether other people should have subsequently printed them does I think make us look at our own moral values and how we treat people that don't have the money to sue us.

We should be asking these questions and we should be thinking about it.

I still don't think that we should be naming and shaming people for anti-social behaviour when that definition seems to touch upon behaviour that I just don't think are anti-social.

Big leap I know, but worth thinking about.

Tempting tempestuousness

The Old Vic hosted a scintillating night of poetry headlined by Kate Tempest.

Two energetic comperes opened and directed the show.

Azir Ahmed opened the poetry with humour and sound word-smithery.

Raising dry smiles with close to the bone truths.

Not bad for a man who described himself after the performance as a 'tag along'.

Feminist rhyme

Hollie McNish, who has already made herself known to me on the radio with the poem Wow, kicked things into a more feminine head space.

A more loving, powerful and inspiring poem about a daughter I cannot bring to mind.

The rest of her set also marked her out as more than a one trick pony.

Say it with rhythm

David J truly earned the right to his name, The Vocal Pugilist, with a performance not only heart warming and beautifully woven, but skillfully and inventively spun with beat box effects.

The night offered politics, poignancy, life and laughs woven in poems and stories in a heady mix to soothe the soul and lift the heart.

I would love to mention all the warm up acts by name as they all have a great deal of talent, but I need to get onto the main event.

The lady in question

Kate Tempest, a lady of promisingly expanding renown who still seems to be chuffed to bits to be here as she launched her new book Everything Speaks.

She presented a collection of the mythical and the personal with a warmth, humour and enthusiasm to charm any cynic.

This exuberance unfortunately meant that she lost her flow a little, but she gained it back in style and kept everyone smiling.

Surprises and emotion

Smiling so much in fact that she even won an unsought marriage proposal.

I don't think I've ever seen her bow her head or blush before.

A wonderful evening, a standing ovation and an emotional roller coaster.

We care about disability, no really, we do...

So the paralympics is about to kick off.

Billboards are thanking the able for the warm-up.

It is at this point that I find this update on the Together2012 website, saying:

Please note that the activities planned for London Pleasure Gardens during the Paralympics have been CANCELLED due to the closure of the venue.

WHAT?!





I thought we were meant to be celebrating all that disabled people had to offer.

So do we do this by closing venues and messing up that celebration?

Cheers.

Olympics euphoria

Obviously a big up to all the Olympic athletes.

But spare a thought for:

You will love her, I do.

Snuffing out the competition

I was unexpectedly invited out to watch a punk band in Camden.

All there really is to say is: they were blinding.

However, I will elaborate.

Going in blind

Due to the unexpected nature of this journey I will have to admit I had no idea what I was about to see.

Turns out it was to see a band called Snuff.

It seems they have been going for something like forever.

And with good reason.

They are tight, inventive, fun and just down right impressive.

Good feeling

All this time listening to slightly pained wank on the radio and I could have been seeking solice in bands like this, oh well.

It brightened up my day, week, month, possibly even year.

And Snuffites, if you think that's being full of shit: fuck you.

Tony Blair's ghost

Stop the War Coalition organised a demonstration of roughly 30 people today outside Methodist Central Hall Westminster.

The protesters started to assemble at 4pm, when Tony Blair was due to arrive.

There was no sign of Tony Blair at the front door where the protesters were assembled.

They displayed protest signs with the word 'Bliar' emblazoned across them.

Photo by Sebastiaan Hamming

Call for accountability

Stop the War see the demonstration as part of keeping up the pressure on Blair to stand trial for his part in the Iraq war.

The chants of "Tony Blair War Criminal" and "Tony Blair to the Hague" were indicative of this goal.

There were almost as many police at the protest as there were protesters.

The demonstration began to disperse at 5.30pm.

For information on images: sebastiaanhamming@gmail.com