Phil Maxwel and Hazuan Hashim.'s films "From Cable Street to Brick Lane" - up for an award - and "East One" on at "Urban Wandering – Film and the London Landscape" at the Barbican

From Cable Street to Brick Lane....

............has been nominated as "best London Film" at the Portabellow Film Festival

well done Phil Maxwel and Hazuan Hashim....


Who's film East One....

.... (12) (UK 2013 Dir Hazuan Hashim, Phil Maxwell 70 min) + ScreenTalk with Hazuan Hashim, Phil Maxwell & Alan Gilbey - Mon 30 Sep 6.15pm, Cinema 3
 East One celebrates a part of London that has seen unprecedented change, yet retains a unique identity.  IS on at Urban Wandering – Film and the London Landscape at the Barbican 
Box Office: 0845 120 7527

EDL demonstration 3rd September & 75 years of opposing Fascism and Racism

The EDL are planning a "Static Demonstration" in Tower Hamlets on 3rd of September 2011; now that the Home secretary has banned all marches in 5 east-London boroughs (Home Office Press Release). They've been whipped up into a frenzy of Islamophobia by the popular press and have become a safe haven for a ragbag of racists.  3rd September is days after Eid ul-Fitr, the muslim celebration of the end of Ramadam, and the EDL demonsration would seem designed to provoke muslims. Unite Against Fascism is to hold a counter "Static Demonstration" in Weavers Fields (UAF website ).

I attended a very docile - if not to say tedious - static counter demonstration in Dudley. The trouble with that is that the EDL were  bussed to one spot and then "walk" to the static demonsration in what appears like a march. They then broke out of their containment and rampaged through the town, attacking an Indian Restaurant and a Hindu Temple (thereby giving the lie to their claim not to be racists and only opposed to "Islamicisation" of the UK ).

In addition to people coming for the counter demonstration, it would greatly help if volunteer citizen witnesses came and recorded, video and photographed, what happens on the day. 

We're not strangers to racist violence, Fascist thuggery and Nazi nut-jobs, in the East End of London. A car bomb exploded in Brick Lane in 1999 "Independent" news report   and Altab Ali was stabbed to death by racists in 1978 Altab Ali Park. And the Blitz, and later Nazi V-weapon rocket attacks lead to thousands dying. The Historic Landscape Character of this corner of London has been tempered by constant resistance to xenophobia and the poitics of fear and division.

Famously, this year is the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, when Jews, Irish Catholics, Labour, Communists, and local Anarchists barricaded the east end from a march by the Nazi Blackshirts

Cable Street Mural...., a photo by david sankey on Flickr.

It is unclear whether a planned march down Leman Stret (from Aldgate East Tube) to Cable Street will go ahead on 2nd October. A rally will be held in St George's Park and events held in Wilton's Music Hall on Grace's Alley. If you can make it - turn up to this. It will probably be one of the last times you'll meet participants from 1936

View Cable Street 75 in a larger map Click on blue blobs and lines for captions

London Landscape Observatory

The Council of Europe specifies Landscape observatories as a means of implementing the European Landscape Convention (UK signed). Until national or regional government sets one up... This is a set of other peoples photos illustrating the diversity of character/s within London. Click to see Flickr Gallery . Compare with Catalonian Landscape Observatory

London Landscape Observatory, a gallery on Flickr.