...elicited the immediate and concerned intimate note of sweetness and concern, mention of Iggy Pop giving him some squid, "sometimes I get para - thought it was poisoned" ... about the band, how everyones pleased with the new album's material, first release for 6 years. Babyshambles have been rehearsing non stop.
So, my lashing out verbally produced the desired contrition. He never usually asks whatever the favour is, or else its 2 or 3 words that's it. And here I've been regaled with a chatty account of an incident onstage with Iggster. (I'm the Ro'ster, Boyd's the Boydster. Its the in-house banter, group semantics a sweet and subtle but determined control system) ... But it's meaningless - nothing's changed.
My new alter-ego is MayorKovsky.
High command p.c.revolutional inner circle. The economics of the p.c.rev speak loudly of its continued survival.. It is a system by which the whole world can rise up and ignore governments and the unsustainable economics that are destroying the planet.
The pc rev is very simple, it means dont let them put a number on you, turn it all around so that it becomes your identifying code along with name and rank.
E1 lies to the East of the City of London and its western border hugs the old city wall, apart from a protruding "worm" along Brick Lane, Redchurch st and Shoreditch High st up to the junctions of Old st, Kingsland and Hackney road; its northern boundary is the railway line parallel with Cheshire st and its Eastern border the Canal from Mile End Southwards. E1 extends into the centre of the River thames so that it includes a half portion of that part of the Pool of London.
So its an appoximate square defined by the city wall, railway, canal and river.
The post-code system began in Britain in the 1920s/30s as a means of organisation for the postal service so that mail could be delivered within walking, cycling distance of a Post Office. It provided a human scale within the sprawling cities for the convenience of the Royal Mail (G.P.O) and the public. Gradually it became a convenient means for sociological survey such as Mass Observation.
In the 1980s without the consulting or consent of the public the Royal Mail was privatised and sold off together with lists of data on the population to be used generally as raw material for the analysis and targeting of consumers. What limits or control there is over this information the degree to which it has expanded in scope and volume is anybodies guess. The accumulated fruit of decades of incremental data-mining has mind-boggling potential for undesired usage and it is a highly marketable resource. In the late 1980's I requested a map of my post-code E1 from my local post office and was told that I would have to pay £55.00 from a company called Multi-map. More recently I learned that the current owner is founder of Microsoft Bill Gates and we know from recent revelations what he has been doing with it! What are you worth? How can you be used? What's your demographic? Your income bracket, consumer profile, meat for predators. Information for sale about you. How is this information managed? This is what post-codes/zipcodes are all about. Your set of characters and figures are the key to a system of information - through which corporate entities, government agencies, intrusive, aquisitive exploitative sifters, weighers and graders assess your worth and deduce strategy for your economic evisceration. (at the very least)
So the P.C.Revolution is at the moment an idea, a proposal that we think of ourselves not as economic and political subjects but active participants in our society and the post-codes as constituencies through which we can identify, communicate, organise and manage our collective lives. It is a matter of almost universal concern that our Post Offices are disappearing and with them a final node in our communal matrix. Those far-flung rural communities which work together to buy and preserve these important facilities will be at an advantage in the advancing age of government of Big Data (and this is what David Cameron means by Big Society).
Power we know corrupts, it also tends towards monopolisation until we have one big power company or a cartel between members of which and government our best interests are decided. Governments dislike regionalism because its awkward and demands a voice so gradually from the sale of council housing to weaken local government to the closure of independent newspapers and now post offices diversity is vanishing.
How long will it be before it is no longer possible to send and receive hand-written letters? Post-codes are embedded in our infra-structure and too well established to be altered. They provide us with an identity of sorts with which we have an opportunity to ally with our neighbours and actively establish for ourselves genuine communities based on our bonds of proximity and to take advantage of this excusive advantage engaging in all kinds of ways to improve our environment, exploit local resources.
Information technology ends the necessity for absolute central rule. Where local issues are concerned local voices should be heard.
SEIZE YOUR POST-CODE!