We looked for Spirit the coconut man, but he has (left). Fortunately he has been replaced by Charlie Collins, who everyone seems to like more than Spirit although they never seem to come out & say it. But frankly I'm not convinced of the cat.
"Walking around the town centre today in his bright red hat and colourful tie, a broad smile spreads across Charlie’s face as he surveys the block of 34 new flats that will be named after him – Collins Tower. The construction has had its share of critics, but Charlie is delighted with the way it is all coming together." (source)
Also met young Graeme Archer, apparently an up & coming intellectual & habitue' of Greenwich Village that is Broadway Market. Mary & I are so excited at getting involved in the philosophical, scientific, political & cultural debates & polemics that must be constantly fermenting, brewing & spewing forth from the packed bars, cafes', holistic massage parlours, temporary autonomous zones, streets & gutters of GV that is BM.
Yet I was unconvinced about Graeme Archer. Mary fair split her sides at Graeme when he explained how he & his associates were going to abolish the Arts Council to allow consumers to decide which theatres and museums get funding. After Graeme took out his laptop & proudly showed us his appearance at the Conservative Conference talking about Spirit & BM, I joined in the guffaws & we politely made our apologies & left - Mary growling under her breath about the foul alchemy & duplicity of those who pretend they can make the iron law of property under capitalism disappear & the malodorous rentier class & oleaginous shopkeepers...
“The small shopkeeper,” wrote Marx in “The Class Struggle in France,” “rose up and moved against the barricades, in order to restore the movement from the street into his shop. And when the barricades had been destroyed, when the workmen had been defeated, when the shopkeepers, drunk with victory, turned back to their shops, they found their entry barred by the saviours of property, the official agents of financial capital, who met them with stern demands: ‘The bills have become overdue! Pay up, gentlemen! Pay for your premises, pay four your goods.’ The poor little shop was ruined, the poor shopkeeper was undone!”
