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Art Vinyl (see: is a an enterprising low-budget business which has survived the last few years (and the recession), by 'popping up' in different locations within London for a few wks or months at a time. It occupies temporary spaces in order to keep costs to a minimum.

Previously located on the popular Broadway Market in Hackney, just off London Fields, the shop is currently inhabiting a space just off Carnaby Street (on the first floor of a shopping arcade there). Andrew Heeps, who runs the London branch of this business (the other is based in Germany) has had some really good ideas for publicising the store and its wares, including one highlight - a party where the community was invited to bring in one of their favourite album covers which took them back to a moment in time in their lives when they were most happy or which had poignant resonance for them. The records were then played one by one live in the shop on decks during the week and people came down for drinks, to talk and meet each other. It was a really nostalic affair.

This was an amazing week-long exhibition where people of all ages and backgrounds came to the shop, including some now quite elderly women, with their Elvis records, who danced to their favourite songs in the shop. Everyone had to bring a photograph of themselves from that era when they played that particular record. The photo was then pinned to the wall next to the frame with their album cover in it. And a portable typewriter, on display was placed on a table so that people could type out their personal memory of playing that record and why it meant so much to them. These memories were then pinned up with the photographs.

The Hackney Mockney Secular singers also performed in the shop, banging out some covers of punk songs by the Kinks and the Buzzcocks. And an editions of The Eel, the popular local Hackney fanzine was also launched there.

if you want to contact Andrew Heeps, you should try via his website above.

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH ABOUT LIMITED ED MILIBANDS'S OPTIMISM

Where matters of climate are concerned, Ed is an optimist (his optimism being the only thing about Ed that is not limited).

Ed thinks that assurance FROM AN OPTIMIST should be taken as read - does Ed.

Ed thinks that scientist who are ABSOLUTELY certain, are better scientists than those who doubt - does Ed.

Cheery Chappie - Limited Ed Miliband says (transparently) he is 'not a scientist'. That is apparent Ed - but neither are you an astute mind, rational thinker or - well - very bright. You do, of course, make up for all that with optimism. OH DEAR.

And the guy that gave you the climate job, Ed, what was his name again? Does he LIKE optimists - favour them, perhaps, over clear, analytical minds, that can no more talk hogwash than say "Al Gore is a saint"?
Ah yes - BROWN! That's the chap. Well Ed, he did save the world, he can't get everything right. Brown is no scientist either, is he.

Carry on up the creek.

ENTERPRISE BRITAIN (#1)

"Art Vinyl is a an enterprising low-budget business which has survived the last few years (and the recession), by 'popping up' in different locations within London

AND popping up on the Newsnight blog eh? Looks like commerce is out of recession!

Heavy Industry

I was listening to Open Country Thursday it was about the River Clyde. One of the speakers was extolling the virtues of the wonderful clean river now that all the ship building, and other industry had left. HHhmmm but one hell of a lot of jobs left too. They vanished over the other side of world, I wonder how filthy their rivers and seas are now. We had rules and regulations to keep things from too much polution, but I don't suppose any of these polution considerations matter in foreign climes. So we again export our jobs our dirt and our so called "climate footprint" and pretend we're greener than green.

Where have the u numbers come from ? And have the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ changed its policy on allowing commercial's/spam on the blog Re Nos1 ?

Whats going on ?

#Ecolizzy

This is the beauty of carbon trading. We could make things here but that would increase CO2 emissions. So they get made in another country without the same restrictions. Then shipped back here. There not being carbon tax/ cap and trade etc on shipping.

Obviously with the shipping there are more emissions in making the thing somewhere else and bringing it here. But as it is all done withing cap and trade which they want at Copenhagen it will save the planet.

There has been a steel works closure announced today. I haven't found it yet but try and search and see if you can find out how much it was worth closing the steelworks.

The emissions permits which they will now not use can be sold on elsewhere.

I will give you a warning if you find the figure. You will be staggered at how much they are worth and how much will be made by closing the steelworks and selling the permits on. Truly amazed.

NOT TO WORRY - THE DOME IS A SUCCESS STORY (Prezza)

What is the temperature inside the Millennium Tent? Did they have to build insulated buildings inside it, to keep people warm? How long before the fabric begins to go insidiously porous in places that are hard to find? Does it 'sweat' internally? Mould?

I suppose it must be OK - Prezz would not mislead su would he.

#6 Quickly looked and found the obvious one about Corus

So you get rid of your climate change emissions by mothballing and sending the problem abroad, and then tell China or somewhere to lower their carbon footprint, and we'll subsidise you to do it?! That's just why one can see no one believes in all this stuff.

#6

Sorry still haven't been able to find out how much it will be worth to close the Corrus steelworks. It isn't out yet in the news media.

Perhaps it is something NN could do in time for tonight, they will be able to get hold of the company accounts etc which I would have to pay for.

The steel works will own carbon credits to allow it to produce emissions. As soon as it stops producing, these then can be sold on to the carbon market or used elsewhere.

In carbon trading for a steel work the amounts will be enormous!

The closure of the steelworks relates to this post of 26th November re carbon intensity.

/blogs/newsnight/fromthewebteam/2009/11/thursday_26_november_2009.html

Celtic Lion

#8 ecolizzy

Seems to be a lot about 12 months ago about Corus quitting over the carbon trading

I suspect that all the eco-fascists will be celebrating tonight with the announcement of the closure of Corus's Lackenby site. However, its not a total loss because they are allegedly " mothballing " the plant but it will cost an absolute fortune to restart, blast furnaces will need new fire-bricking. Perhaps its all part of the stock market parasite celebrities " Corporate Nazi " plan to turn the UK into some kind of tax haven eco theme park for the potential non-dom super wealthy. Treat the " indigenous " population like the Israelis treat the Palestinians and force them through poverty into city ghetto's all in the name of " saving the planet "for them greedy selves

Brown and the Milibands and all the other eco-freak politicians need to be brought before the court of public opinion on a charge of treason. If Copenhagen goes through what remains of our energy dependent industry will be asset stripped by the stock market parasites as it will worth more dead than alive. Not much point keeping our armed forces either if we have no production means to withstand any hostile invasion on home soil.

SO: THE UEA DID 'A LITTLE MANIPULATION IN THE PRESENTATION OF A FEW DIAGRAMS'

Compared to the adjusted truths of our damnable politicians, the UEA 'transgressions' DO NOT REGISTER.

Politicians call their brand of deceit 'POLITICS' and it magically becomes OK. Perhaps, unnoticed in these dark days, science (underpinned by Mammon) has taken to deceitfulness also. Deceitful science could now be as OK as politics.

Weep integrity.

#11 brossen

"blast furnaces will need new fire-bricking"

That's it. You either run them 24 hours a day, day in day out. Or not at all.

I feel quite sad. My working career started in a foundry. Shame to see the places go one by one where the secrets of fire and metal are learnt. Myself I always felt some affinity to bronze age man, to the time people learnt to work metal. Like some unbroken line of knowledge passed down the millennia.

And now when I turn there is no one to pass those skills on to.

Last year my dog died and I went to cremate him on the bank of the river in the Glen. People were telling me not to do it. To let the vet take him or bury him in the garden. He was a Prince a warrior, being bounced around in the back of a van in a plastic bag or rotting in a back garden was not to be his final journey.

Those who were telling me not to cremate him didn't understand. They could only envisage it from their frame of reference. A smouldering campfire in the torrential rain or a damp smokey leaved autumn bonfire of leaves.

They weren't part of some secret society of a tradition passed down over 1000s of years. They didn't understand about building a pyre that after 30 secs would burn so hot it would start to melt metal. In their imagination they had burn, not instantaneous combustion, vapourisation, disassociation and reformation into pure spirit.

As the rain fell in torrents in the minutes before I light the pyre and said my final farewell to my best friend in this physical life. I reflected on our life together and a life gone. Not just his life, but lives within lives.

Many years before I started in the foundry. On the furnaces molten iron at at 1200c. The metal had to be inoculated with magnesium. Not a tiny bit of ribbon in a classroom. But kilograms of it in a brown paper carrier bag lobbed into the cupola.

As it was my first time I was instructed in the drill. When the shout went out. To turn my back, face away. Pull down both my blast shield and the tinted guard. To keep my eyes closed until the all clear was called. They were emphatic about the instructions.

But it was my first time. So had to have a look. I have seen, felt and experienced what the warning was about. You must imagine it, because it is beyond words.

This was just one of the things I'd seen, learnt, experienced and done. But it was a life that had passed all that of fire and metal gone. The ability to mould, melt and cast were of a past world a previous life.

I said to my friend only I can do this, told him not to be afraid. Got my lighter an lit the pyre. The paper took the kindling, the kindling the sticks, all the time the updraft drawing more oxygen to the heart of the pile. The kindling the sticks, the sticks the logs and the charcoal mixed.

Starting slowly a growing roar. Masking the sound of the river in torrent then the encompassing surround of the incessant rain that washed the tears from my face.

Standing on my own I was a teenager again watching a column of pure energy rise to touch God. Gone in 60 seconds. Part of the knowledge of fire passed on to me.

The connection to the primordial is in the tradition of the metal worker. To use fire to take earth and make metal.

At Redcar it will not just be the jobs that are lost, the community that is lost, the income that is lost. All the things the politicians will say.

It will be something deeper. Something deeper that some of the men will not realise until it is gone. It is being part of a tradition more than 4000 years old. One of those who from earth, using fire, can make metal.

The community might not realise it, but they will lose a connection of something ancient and deep. Something the alternative call centre option will never ever replace in the deep dark depths of their psyche.

Celtic Lion

KCL #13

Been there, done that, got the tea shirt, when I was a teenager I regularly rode shotgun in a tanker delivering foundry sand. Got right into the heart of the casting floor and was totally mesmerized by the process, likewise beside the Bessemer converters at Ravenscraig when delivering the Serfco foundry products I mentioned in a recent post.

Perhaps everyone forgets the potential eco-sustainability of metal casting, the original metal is never lost and can be endlessly recycled. I remember seeing GWR rail chairs being used to cast man-hole covers at a foundry at Stourbridge. Perhaps my most exciting encounter with the steel industry was the Pig Iron plant at Cargo Fleet Middlesbrough, iron poured onto moulds on a conveyor with a water quench at the top, separate batches to different specifications.

BEAUTIFUL ROGER - BUT IN THE INTEREST OF BALANCE (#13)


WHAT IT SAYS

Man first tamed fire then bled to death
The rocks were metals dreamed their dreams.
And in a frenzy of desire
He undid mother Nature's seams.
Bronze led to other alloyed sin;
His error was writ in the tin.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

AND AS IF THAT WERE NOT ENOUGH (#2)

Limited Ed faces square to camera and declares: "4000 SCIENTISTS CAN'T BE WRONG" And we, who are a little more mature, paraphrase Magic Obama to inform him, in one voice:

"YES THEY CAN".

Oh Ed! You really are LIMITED Ed. MOST SCIENTISTS THAT EVER LIVED WERE WRONG. That is the history of science!

Brossen

With your interest of trucks you know where I lived and what we built. In the 60's we lived in a small rural village. Very Heartbeat. My dad being the local village bobby, you know the score, heavy old push bike, cloak over the cross bar. Cycling around shot gun licenses, foot and mouth, pulling cows out of of the canal etc. Very gentle man. But one of the hardest bloke you'd ever meet. Was a fireman on the railways, shovelling 50 ton of coal everyday. 6ft 16st fists like a bunch of bananas. Me mum told me in 1952 when they went to Ireland for their honey moon, they went to a fair. There was a boxing both. £5 to go 3 rounds. My dad said he'd have a go. Mum told me it took 3 blokes to get him off him after 30 seconds of the 1st round. They wouldn't give him the money because he had to go 3 rounds, not knock him out in half a minute.

Anyway I was about nine and my mum said I could say up until my dad got back from work. He didn't turn up and I had to go to bed.

He was back the next day. H told me he had to work late as someone had died. For brossen who knows where I was born, a truck manufacturer F.

My dad told me he was working in the foundry and the cupola with the molten metal spilt and covered the floor where he was standing.

I asked my dad did you have to get his body. He told me there was nothing left, just his wedding ring.

A few years later a neighbour who was a security guard at the factory took us round and showed us the foundry where the accident happened.

Though I intended to do degree in earth science and ecology I had about 9 operations on my leg and missed completing my physics A level, rather than retake it I applied for a job at the factory as they needed a metallurgist for the quality control associated with defence contracts.

Had to my first year in the training school for my basic Engineering Industries Training Board. Then out into the factory. First placement was in the foundry, first job loading those furnaces.

Molten metal is a strange thing. Hypnotic and mesmerizingly beautiful while at the same time heart racingly scary.

#15 BALANCE RESTORED

Thank you Barrie. Though you are at an advantage over me. There were so many memories it was painful to write and I was crying. All I had was the little box with the previous lines of text. Which I could see but couldn't read. When I got to the end I just hit post without ever looking at it.

It was morning brew time in the metallurgy lab 1978. Richard sat next to me. He said we were responsible for all the capitalism, greed and destruction of the planet.

He told me he had been reading Jacob Bronowski's book The Ascent of Man. Who was this we? The metallurgists. Before we came along and made metal people used to do their thing and share and barter what they had or could do with others in the community.

The the metallurgists came along and made metal. They made jewellery to adorn the women and money. Soon the money the metallurgists made became more important than what people could do and do for each other.

We, Richard told me, are the cause of the world's problems. So I opened my crisps and thought about it.

BALANCING ACT (#19)

Public grief is all too easy to intrude on, Celtic.