The Merry Frinks (1934)

Down in the tube station at 18:48

Just spotted this intriguing picture of Engels plastered* across a London Underground tube train advertising panel over at Solomon's Mindfield blog.

No, it's not Workers Power trying to do Banksy but part of London Underground's most recent 'Art On The Underground' campaign. (See the Mayor of London blurb in the bottom left hand of the picture? Boris will be pleased.)

I say 'recent' but it dates from June and July of this year. What can I say? I came late to the Party.

By way of an apology, please follow the link which will explain that the poster (and quote) is part of an art project devised by Jeremy Deller, which is entitled 'What is the city but the people?'

To quote the bloke Deller himself:

' . . . I came up with the idea to give [London Underground] staff a collection of quotes and the idea grew from there. I often wish announcements were more personal and reflected the realities and absurdities of living and working in a big city. I think the travelling public enjoys some humour and unexpected insight during their journey.'

As well as the Engels' quote in his project, Deller also includes quotes from Ghandi, Napoleon, Sartre and Goethe amongst others. The idea behind the project was that from time to time, London Underground drivers (and others) would insert quotes from the great and the good in amongst the usual pronouncements of 'Mind the Doors'; 'Next stop Russell Square' & 'I used to be someone, you fuckers'.**

It's been a while since I've travelled on the Underground in London but if their tannoy system is anything like the mumbled, garbled and strangulated announcements of drivers and others on the NYC Subway system, then they could have been reading from the collected editorials of Daniel De Leon all this time and I'd have been none the wiser.

More on the project (and the public's response to it) from the LA Times; Open Magazine; and that natural institution, Arthur Smith.

Before I forget: that particular quote from Engels? I understand that the original plan was to place it as it as massive poster in the Clapham North tube station, but the Executive Committee of the SPGB had a word. No need to take the piss, is there? we're just working up to our second wind.

Footnotes

* 'plastered' - Insert your Marx and Engels boozing it up on Tottenham Court Road joke here.

**'I used to be someone, you fuckers'. - Allegedly said by a tired and emotional Jah Wooble over a London Underground tannoy system sometime in the mid-eighties whilst he was working for said organisation.

More cold water. comrades. More cold water.

Much too frivolous for the 'Do They Mean Us?' series but if you happen to type 'Socialist Party of Great Britain' into an anagram generator, it comes up with PROFITABLY RAINIEST CASTIGATOR.

It's got everything: the social composition of the membership, the ingrained pessimism and the on-the-surface hostility to all and sundry.

And you thought the Thatcher link was going to be the most frivolous post of the day?

A word from our sponsor . . .

One for the Party archives?

Abstract propaganda front and centre in The Merry Frinks, a madcap comedy from 1934.

And there was you thinking that the Hays Code was enforced in 1934 because of Mae West's single entendres and Joan Blondell showing a bit of thigh. How wrong you were. Jack, Harry and Daryl apparently viewed Utopian Socialism as more dangerous than Upton Sinclair during this time period.

The commie curmudgeon in the clip is Allen Jenkins, who some of the more infantile older readers of the blog will recognise as the voice of Officer Dibble in Top Cat. A worker in uniform.

Of course I'd love to claim Allen Jenkins's Emmett Frink as one of us, but how do I explain away the earlier scene in the film where he's carrying under his arm a portrait painting of Joe Stalin? Despite my best efforts, I can't.

More Comintern Third Period than Great Dover Street Impossibilism, but a very funny film, nonetheless. It's worth hunting down.

SPGB'itis

We've had the staples: Small Party of Good Boys and Simon Pure's Good Brand are the best known, for instance.

We've had the witty Small Party of Glesga Bookies (as the local branch in Glasgow was known in its early days because, it turns out, a number of its members were bookies) and we have had the just plain abusive Smug Pricks and Gobby Bastards (just made that one up but I've yet to copyright it).

But I think the old school playground nicknames all fall by the wayside with Julian V from Enfield and Haringey Branch's recent suggestion on the Party's discussion list that the SPGB now stands for Senile Pensioners in Geriatric Bathchairs. The bloke's got form in the witty stakes. It was Julian who came up with the title of 'Socialism Or You Money Back'.

Sterling Cooper's loss was the SPGB's gain.

Cheeky opponents and the usual malcontents will riposte that they've been referring to us as that for years, but it's no good now mentioning that now on the commentary of your latest dvd. Prove your point by providing the requisite YouTube clips from those Arena specials you were on all those years ago. Otherwise, button it or we'll send the youth section around to have a word, brew a pot of tea and share some Werther's Originals.

Next Month's Socialist Standard

Going by the front cover of next month's Socialist Standard, it looks like it's going to be a cracker. But I would say that, wouldn't I? Shit, sorry, that line is more '63 than '68. (Ask your Gran what I'm alluding to.)

Believe or not, from what I can gather from comrades of a certain vintage, the SPGB wasn't as buttoned down in the late sixties as you might have first presumed. SPGB members were getting articles published in the underground magazine, OZ, some did the 'teach in' bit, and it was even rumoured that a member in the provinces knew all the words to Strawberry Alarm Clock's 'Incense and Peppermints'.

Of course, they didn't always get it right. Reproduced below is a few SPGB slogans, chants and situationst type graffiti scribblings from the late sixties that sadly didn't catch on. Maybe in 2068?

'What do we want? Everything? When do we want it? When everyone musters under the Party's banner.'

'Get out of your head and into your branch meeting.'

'If you're going to San Francisco Clapham High Street, be sure to bring back some bound volumes for the branch.'

'The personal is political . . . and I'm laying an action detrimental on your arse.'

'Power to the parliamentary majority.'

'Under the pavement lies a bevvied up Glasgow Branch member.'

'Be realistic, demand only six Socialist Standards to sell next month.'

'Run, comrade, the branch treasurer is behind you!'

'Those who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring to that Conference Resolution from 1907 have to submit an item for discussion for the next Autumn Delegate Meeting.'

To talk with the taste of a corpse in one's mouth means that we really should change pubs for future branch meetings.'

'Turn on, tune in, fall asleep during an EC meeting.'

'You can no longer sleep quietly once the delegate from South London branch gets onto the subject of the aristocracy of labour.'

'I've looked under chairs. I've looked under tables. I tried to find the key to the literature room. They call me The Seeker. I've been searching low and high. I won't get to get what I'm after until the Head Office Organiser gets back from the Manor Arms.'

'Before writing, learn to think. Before thinking, do you want to write next month's Socialist Standard editorial?'

'Are you a consumer or a participant? Do you want to buy the Socialist Standard or sell it?'

Comrades, 5 hours of sleep a day is indispensable: we need longer EC meetings.'

'We don’t want to be the watchdogs or servants of capitalism, but please do sign me up for the Standing Orders Committee.'

'Form dream committees. Let's try again to come up with a Party logo.'

'When the last sociologist has been hung with the guts of the last bureaucrat, the Central Organiser will have to wind up Lancaster Branch.'

'Politics is in the streets. Let's head back to Head Office for a cup of tea and a natter.'

Where have all the good jokes gone?'

'Take revolution seriously, but don’t take yourself seriously.'

Oh wait up, the last one was a genuine piece of graffiti from Paris in '68. Pseudo-revolutionary middle class bollocks.

Further Reading:

From the Bureau of Public Secrets - MAY 1968 GRAFFITI

From the December 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard - Hippies: An abortion of Socialist Understanding

The case for "Unscientific Socialism"

I was just about to scribble off a post about how I'm tearing my hair out at the thought that Celtic were going to surrender their title to lowly Gretna (saves me penning a similar line when Celtic surrenders its title to R*ngers next Saturday), when MacDonald goes and restores my faith in the power of whinging prayer by scoring a goal.

It takes 43 minutes to score against Gretna? Christ, they're not even on win bonuses. Get it bastard sorted!