Slow Horses (2022)

 

The Knowledge (1979)

 

Capital (2015)

 

Jazzhats take stock by Ian Walker (New Society, 18th October 1979)

It's been awhile but I just stumbled across some old Ian Walker articles from the old sociological journal, the New Society, which have previously not appeared on the blog. If you're interested in Walker's articles from the late 70s/early 80s, click on the following link for a fascinating insight into Britain in the early days of Thatcherism.

Jazzhats take stock

A swarm of dark suits in a hexagonal, hall. Some dark suits are motionless, some write in notebooks, some move around speaking into walkie-talkies, some are on the telephone, some are moving at high speed and some are clustered before a black screen containing green printouts. This is science fiction in period costume. “There are three species of life down there,” says Luke Glass, the Stock Exchange’s PR man. “You can tell by the various colours of the badges.”

Blue badges are unauthorised clerks, “bluebuttons” in Exchange argot, who assist the dealers. Yellow badges are the dealers (brokers and jobbers). Members of the Stock Exchange have silver badges. They are the highest form of life in this building which was opened in 1972, has 26 storeys, 321 feet high, and does £700 million worth of business a day.

Above the 16 hexagonal “pitches” where the brokers and jobbers are making their deals, an electronic clock stretches the width of the hall. It is 11.55 in London, 3.55 in San Francisco, 6.55 in Toronto, 11.55 in Zurich, 12.55 in Johannesburg, 19.55 in Hong Kong and 20.55 in Tokyo. The men speaking into walkie-talkies are conversing with their clients. “Could be Hongkong, could be Cheapside,” says Luke Glass.

A bell rings, and there is a rush towards the black screens. Green lettering displays “Beechams results.” There is a sudden and large accumulation of blue and grey suits by one of the hexagons. “Dealing in Beechams,” says Luke Glass, “I’d be prepared to bet.”

Men in black uniforms with red lapels guard the four entrances to the main floor. They are still known as waiters, from the time, in the 18th century, when stockbrokers operated from Jonathan’s coffee house in the City. “They’ve given up serving coffee, but they still take messages. They are part of the security system, too. But they are wonderful sources of information, like any good waiter anywhere, even down to knowing what people’ll be in.” Luke Glass shows me the Stock Exchange Council rulebook. Its cover has a crest bearing the motto, Dictum Meum Pactum. My word is my bond. “When a broker does business, quite literally, it’s down to his cufflinks,” Luke Glass’s cufflinks are inscribed with the St George’s cross. “He has total unlimited liability. They’ll do a £5 million bargain in a couple of seconds, a system based entirely on mutual trust.” All deals are known as bargains, whether or not they are good value.

A TV screen in this office is tuned to one of its 22 channels. It shows the prices per ton of zinc, tin and rubber, the price per ounce of gold. The price per pint of Bass in the Throgmorton Bar is 43p, which Duncan Steven, aged 26, finds excessive. “In East Grinstead I get Shepherd Neame for 37p a pint, from the wood too.” On his yellow badge it says “Shaw & Co. 670,” the name of his stockbroking firm, and his number for the £115 million computer system. Duncan earns £4,400 a year, not counting bonuses, though he’s not getting many of those at the moment. “Times are hard, the market’s quiet.”

Many blue, yellow and silver badge wearers come to this bar, known also as Sloshy Nells, at lunchtime. Most yellow and silver badge wearers have a piece of grey technology stuffed inside their breast pocket, bleepers. An aerial on the Throgmorton Bar’s roof connects it to the Exchange’s telephone system. Duncan’s bleeper starts bleeping, and he has to go pick up a telephone in the bar downstairs.

A tattooed barman tells his customers he never puts water in his Scotch, and two silver badges are telling each other what wonderful weather we’re having for the time of year. “Just done some deal and they were panicking,” says Duncan, when he reappears five minutes later.

Like everyone else in this bar, Duncan wears a tie, though not one from his old school. He went to a secondary modern. “Jazzhats” is his term for those within the Exchange who flaunt class connections. “You know, those blokes who play cricket, who’ve got all the gear, coloured cap [jazzhat], MCC tie, the whole bit?” Blokes like that are also known as “waah-waahs,” he says. “Ask them something and they say, ‘Yaah’ or ‘Waah.’ You can’t understand a bloody word they’re saying half the time . . . But on the other hand there are some really whizz-kid East End kind of blokes in the Stock Market.”

Those who are well connected do not necessarily need to be whizz-kids. They sit in the right clubs and restaurants all day, supplying the business (according to Duncan), who also says it is an open secret that a jobber will always offer a lower price to a broker who is an old school chum. “Undoubtedly. No question about it.” But some heads, Duncan tells me, will soon roll. A new computer system, called the Talisman, is being brought into the Exchange, and already “it has laid off a lot of staff.”

Is the Stock Exchange enjoying the Thatcher reign? “It’s a well-known fact,” he says, “that under Labour the market is bullish.” This is good: bulls buy stock in the hope of selling it at a higher price; bears sell stock, hoping to buy it back at a lower price. “In the run-up to the election, the market was very bullish. But it just went down when Thatcher got in. Since then it’s been firm.”

One of Duncan’s friends, Colin, is a jobber. Although he sounds very posh, he says his background is “ordinary, lower middle class.” He votes Tory and I wonder if that isn’t against his own interests, if a Labour government is really better for the market than a Conservative one?

“I always look at it like this,” he says. “If you get fluctuations, like you do when there’s a lot of strikes, you get a lot of activity on the market. As a jobber this is what you want; it’s a consideration that isn’t always acknowledged. The more action, the more money there is to be made.”

William, another yellow badge wearer, lives in Tonbridge and is keen to explode myths: “We’re the hardest-drinking set going. Just because we wear shiny shoes arid stiff collars . . . When the action’s on in there, it’s every man for himself.” So this etiquette I’ve heard so much about . . . “Yes, well, you can elbow an older bloke out of the way once, but not twice, you won’t get away with it again.”

This dark oak bar with its nicotine-stained ceiling and long mirrors is now almost empty of dark suits. All William’s friends have gone back to work. “We try to provide a service for our clients. And if we get it wrong, we get a bloody bollocking too, I can tell you.” William quaffs the remainder of his pint and walks out wiping his mouth.

Pamela Allen, who is 23, is one of the official Stock Exchange guides, stationed in the visitors’ gallery. She speaks French and German, went to Folkestone Girls’ Grammar School, and dropped out of university to become an air hostess with British Airways. Does she enjoy this job? Of course she does, “Very much indeed. It’s a very exciting place.”

She is answering questions being posed by three Yugoslav engineers, from Zagreb. “Gilt-edged stock are government bonds. It’s a generic term. Originally, government bonds were issued on little white cards with gilt edges.” Pamela has all the replies by heart. The questioning over, she resumes reading the Daily Mail. “Union curbs—no time for delay,” it says on the editorial page.

At 3.15 the men in red lapels politely clear everyone out of the visitors’ gallery. We go down the stairs and out into the street through glass revolving doors. “It’s new and strange,” says one of the Yugoslav engineers. “Just like looking at the movies.” 

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 09

A song that makes you happy.

A bit random with this one. I didn't really think too much about this choice. Another time I could have picked 20 other songs, but this song hit the spot on the day when I picked it. I can't remember if I bought it as a single, but I do remember that I would listen to it again and again in the Charing Cross Road branch of Borders back in the day. I'm sure I convinced myself at the time that there was a Marxian tinge to the lyrics - for the obvious reasons. I was deluding myself:

Propellerheads feat: Miss Shirley Bassey - 'History Repeating'

The People of Providence: A Housing Estate and Some of Its Inhabitants by Tony Parker (Picador 1983)

A fair-haired young woman in a gaberdine mackintosh crossing the pedestrian shopping precinct in Robins Walk stopped with a polite smile.

— Sorry love but if it’s insurance we’ve got more than enough thanks.

A book? About Providence Estate? Go on, you’re joking! Really? Blimey, that’ll be a job! I must read it, when’s it coming out? Oh I’ll not be here by then I shouldn’t think. Mm? Well, if I could think of one word to tell someone what a place is like. ..

‘Mixed’? Well yes, that’s one word for it, I think that’s about right that is, ‘mixed’. ‘Mixed’ — how do I think he meant? Well you know . . . I mean, there’s all sorts of people here all together, isn't there? I should think that’s what he meant. You’ve got people who do what you might call hard physical sort of jobs, those that work in the docks or on the building sites — the what do you call them, ‘manual workers’ is it? Then you’ve got the people who work in offices and banks and shops and that. Then there’s those who're the sort of posh ones, posh jobs like lawyers, there’s quite a few of that sort lives around here, it's surprising. And teachers — and old people — and families — people living on their own — and kids, a big lot of kids. Happy people and sad people and odd people and peculiar people — a big sort of mixture, so that’s absolutely the right word for it that is, yes . . . ‘mixed’.

An elderly man with the collar of his overcoat turned up, coming out of the library, two books by Hammond Innes under his arm.

— It would be extraordinarily difficult for me to try and summarize a place such as Providence Estate in a hundred or a thousand words, so it would be totally impossible to do it in one.

Certainly if somebody has already said to you ‘mixed’ I would say that was an appropriate word, certainly. I couldn’t say precisely what they might have meant, but I should have thought a moment’s glance round would have made it clear because it is instantly visible, isn’t it, how mixed it is?

You have the group of tower blocks over there, then those long six-storey things, I think they call them linear’ blocks over there; then in that direction there are those small maisonette-type low buildings of flats. And if you go through that way you come to the old houses that have been refurbished; and beyond those, ones that aren’t going to be done up and are scheduled for demolition, though heaven knows when they’re going to get on with it. And the prefabs of course, scattered around here and there. . . . So I’d say yes, high-rise towers, long blocks, modern small flats, old places done up, others dilapidated . . . a large ’mixed’ area very obviously, no one could quarrel with the word. And not at all unpleasing to the eye; all in all, not at all.

You’re welcome sir, good afternoon.

Twelve perhaps thirteen years old, the small boy in a royal blue blazer and grey flannels with a too-small cap on his head and a satchel over his shoulder looked thoughtfully into the distance.

— ‘Mixed’? What did they mean, ‘mixed’ how, what sort of way? Did they mean the people or the buildings or what? Funny word to use about the estate isn’t it, really; could mean all sorts of things couldn’t it, to different people? ‘Mixed’. Mm, yeh. . . .

He went on staring into the distance. After a while he began slowly nodding his head.

— Yeh, well, if you come to think of it, that’s quite a good word. I mean like where we are now, standing on the footpath in the middle of the grass . . . you see over there’s the towers, back that way there’s the flats, then there’s the shops and Robins Walk. So you could say if you wanted to that over there where the buildings are, that’s like town, and here where we are, with the grass and the trees, this is like country isn’t it? I mean if you don’t look that way you can’t see buildings and if you don’t listen too hard you can’t hear traffic. So it’s all like a mixture between town and country, right? Not built over everywhere, but not like out in a wood or something either. ‘Mixed' is a very good word, I’d say that was about right yeh.

Bright Summer - Dark Autumn by Robert Barltrop (Waltham Forest Libraries and Arts Department 1986)

And, in the height of the summer, the 'red' air-raid warnings began in the daytimes. There was a siren on the island in the road junction near us, at the top of a very tall grey post. At the shop we heard the deep metallic growl as it started up, rising to the harsh wail which went on for a couple of minutes. People scurried away, and the shops closed; the streets were nearly empty by the time the siren finished sounding. Nothing happened. As a reminder that it was not a meaningless warning, bombs were dropped on Croydon and killed sixty-two people. Sometimes on cloudy days when the warning was on we would hear the throbbing of an aeroplane engine, hidden and persistent as if hovering not far away.

Yet, in this threatened state, normal activities and recreations went on. On their afternoons off the shop assistants were going to the West End to see Gone With the Wind (they said it was too long - we were used to films which lasted an hour and a half). The dance bands and comedy shows on the radio: Jack Warner playing the Cockney soldier in 'Garrison Theatre', Robb Wilton, 'Itma' with its fund of catchphrases; Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters singing 'Bei Mir Bist du Schoen'. Pubs flourished, as did dance halls. There was said to be a boom in reading the classics of English literature, and I suppose the black-out nights were an opportunity which many people had previously lacked for reading. The book I remember from those weeks before the Blitz was a paperback novel called This Bright Summer. Several of my friends were reading it; it was well written, and passionate in places, and in my mind it belongs to the summer of 1940.

The Black Album by Hanif Kureishi (Scribner 1995)

Brownlow went on with his packing but kept stopping to look at Shahid - who was turning the aubergine in his hand - like he wanted to say something. "The thing is, this religion - the superstitions, cults, forms of worship, prayers - some are beautiful, some interesting, all have their purposes. But who'd have imagined they'd survive rationalism? Yet just when you thought God was dead and buried, you realize he was merely awaiting resurrection! Every fucker's discovering some God inside them now. And who am I to challenge this?"

"Exactly. I'd say you're just a weak bastard, Dr. Brownlow."

"Thank you. Are they the fools or am I the fool? Where does that leave me?"

Where could it leave you?"

"Because, because, you i-idiot, everything I believed has turned into shit. There we were, right up to the end of the seventies, arguing about society after the r-revolution, the nature of the dialectic, the meaning of history. And all the while, as we debated in our journals, it was being taken from us. The British people didn't want e-education, housing, the a-arts, justice, equality . . . "

"Why's that?"

Because they're a bunch of fucking greedy, myopic c-cunts."

"The working class?"

"Yes!"

"A bunch of cunts?"

"Yes!" Brownlow struggled to contain himself. "No, no, it's more complicated. Very complicated." He was sobbing. "I can't say they've betrayed us - though I think it, I do! It's not true, not true! They've b-b-betrayed themselves!"

He untucked his shirt and wiped it across his drenched face. He threw down his hands, put his head back and, with his lips quivering, angled his thinker's forehead at the ceiling.
"C-c-cut my throat. Please. Lost in more than my fortieth year - no direction home! End me before things get w-w-w-worse!"

Shahid leapt up and rushed to the window. Thinking he'd heard Chad coughing, he concealed himself behind the dusty curtain and peered outside.

"You don't have to plead, Brownlow, the throat-cutters are checking the address right now. They'll be coming up the front path. If you stay in that position, redemption will be on the way!"

Shahid could see no one. But it was dark, and if his enemies did reach him, he'd be trapped here; and Brownlow gibbering like Gogol's madman awaiting the straitjacket, would hardly provide cover.

Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)

Hey Zinesters

Oops, turns out Communist Headache was an ultra-left, rather than a council communist zine.

Apologies. I was working from a hazy memory of the zine that I picked up in the 56a Infoshop in south east london - which, if memory serves me right, was a molotov cocktails throw away from the old Labour Party headquarters in Walworth Road - about 10 or 11 years ago.

Now that I think about it, all I can remember about the zine was that the author - or authors - were based in Sheffield, he/they worked in a library and I'm sure that there was a drawing of an insect on the front cover that looked like it'd been cut and pasted from a school textbook. Always loved the title. For sheer imagination, it's up there with 'Proletarian Gob' and Dan Chatterton's 'Chatterton's Commune - the Atheist Communistic Scorcher'

What was I doing haunting the 56a Infoshop? I think I must have been on a hunt for a copy of the aforementioned Proletarian Gob. I really would go the extra-yard in those olden days for the obscure and badly-photocopied.

UPDATE

Turns out that typing "Communist Headache" into the google search engine does turn up more than my blog entry and a ten part article by Weekly Worker's Jack Conrad on Jesus Christ and the Dialectic of History. 'White Punks on Bordiga'? I like the sound of that. Reminds me of half-digested Stewart Home novels. I'll have to check it out when I get back.

Cheers to 'Butchersapron' for the correction.

"I'm ripping down that poster. I fucking hate socialists."

The title of this blog is from The Man Who Feel Asleep's Tube Gossip. One of the funniest things I have read on the web in a long time. If you have a spare half hour, it's worth checking out.

Some more of my favourites are reproduced below (and thanks to SIAW for the original hat tip.)

I got chocolate money, but it was Euros.... I felt very modern.

Rebrov's gone from the Champions League to the bench at West Ham. That's the Spurs effect.

I smoke cigarettes because I like them, not so that I can get criticised by you every ten minutes.

I spoke to God and he told me that he hates you.

Anyway, she has to go round everyone in the IT department and remind them not to wank in the toilets.

That's not a dog - it's a rat with delusions of grandeur.

Osama Bin Laden is like the Tupac Shakur of the terrorist world. He's dead, but they keep re-releasing old statements of his.

Some people in the third world can't afford DVDs and have to watch VHS videos.

I would never punish my kids by hitting them. I just make them feel guilty and all twisted up inside.

I was actually born in Harpenden. But I got out of there pretty fast.

He was pretending to play with the phone, but he was obviously trying to photograph me.

You have the chin of a Welshman.

There’s nothing worse than those white Ipod headphones.