Issue 5: Social Unrest

the creative publication for the north-east issue five /// nov-dec free ///

/// James Adair /// John Bulletore /// Laura Cartwright /// Kirk Chintery /// Darren Hardman /// Reluctant Hero /// Jasmine Irvin /// Laser 3.14 /// Shaun Lynch

/// Raychel Maughan /// Adalberto Ortiz /// Carlos Santos /// Emily Sargent /// Roman Skyva /// Holly Trill /// Joe Turnbull /// Katee Woods

Social Unrest

novel

05

SOCIAL

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novel is back and still fighting to create opportunities for the aspiring writers and artists of the NorthEast. As ever we’ve tried to build a platform for rising talent and publish individuals whose work deserves to be admired. Although each issue sees us grow and expand , we’re always looking for extra support, more bodies on board and to widen our creative circle. To join our team or contribute to novel simply contact us at contribute@novelmagazine.co.uk

An old piece of Buddhist rhetoric asks.

‘When are we not living in times of uncertainty and change?’ more than any other in my living Perhaps we are in a perennial state of precarious shifts, but today, . As writers and artists we are ‘the memory, feels like a particularly turbulent time for British society and it’s our jobs to document this turbuunacknowledged legislators of the world’ to quote P.B Shelley witnessed in the news in August and lence, whether we are asked to or not. Following the scenes we . This edition of novel, issue 5, is the September we asked you to respond to the theme of social unrest utors. result of that request. Here is another huge thank you to all contrib

novel

novel emerges emphatically from a profound desire to consume art, literature and culture, in both an aesthetically pleasing and tangible way. Consumption need no longer be such a dirty word.

Much of novel’s content is timeless, so once read, why have it cast to the landfills? Printed on thick, uncoated, renewable stock, novel is as textural as it is textual. After all, it is still the palpable pulp we call paper that artists and writers turn to first as a medium for expression. With the majority of novel being composed from the creative contributions of local writers and artists, it acts as a much needed platform from which talented individuals can build a portfolio, as well as inform the public of their work, websites and upcoming displays or events. novel plays host to a plethora of art, media and prose, as well as previewing and critiquing upcoming local and cultural events. Still in its early stages, novel is sure to transform through time and space, as it becomes even more ingrained into the fabric of the cultural North-East. We pride ourselves on being a local publication with highly interactive qualities and our website offers you all the chance to comment on the content found within; as well as suggest new topics for upcoming issues and new ideas for features and editorials.

The August Riots

Nick Clegg and David Cameron have committed arson too you know?

The Soundtrack to Social Unrest

Why is Music getting the blame

You Have the Right to Remain Silent Lazer 3.14

Unit-44 brings more international Street Art to Newcastle

Reluctant hero

Newcastle Based Design Agency

We are the 99

Occupying Wall Street

Little Red Shoes: Take Them Burning Aspiration Northern Unrest The Stand The Troubles

Editors (Print & Web) Kerry Kitchin kerry@novelmagazine.co.uk Lee Halpin lee@novelmagazine.co.uk

Sub-Editor Joe Turnbull

Design Kerry Kitchin kerry@novelmagazine.co.uk

Social Media Ruth Comer ruth@novelmagazine.co.uk

Saying nowt.

Getting stopped by the Po’

A modern fairytale; Hans Christian Andersen retold Unemployment alters Johns world view

Preparation for gang war with choreography, transfer tats and napkins.

The new comedy club in town Belfast riots - Images and illustration

Directory Choice Pick:

Our online favourite from the directory this month is a younger than he looks illustrator and designer: Jamie Ludlam. From the north of England, working with a variety of traditional and digital media to get the job done, his illustrations are a perfect mix of humour, quirk and the downright bizarre. novel would like to introduce its new online resident blogger, Ettrick Scott and his blog 31: an episodic account of Ettrick’s rocky road through life told in 31 instalments, each taking place in a different locale. A dry and humorous examination of his own life and that of the North-East’s rich and varied inhabitants. At novel we are always looking for new bloggers for our website as well as reporters, photographers and illustrators. To find out more about how you can get involved both online and with the printed publication, visit our website and click on the contribute tab at the top.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Contributors: Writers John Bulletore, Kirk Chintery, Darren Hardman, Jasmine Irving, Emily Sargent, Joe Turnbull, Katee Woods Artists, Illustrators and Photographers Laura Cartwright lauracartwright.com Raychel Maughan sanquinolency.blogspot.com Laser 3.14 laser314.com Shaun Lynch shaunlynchillustration.com Adalberto Ortiz radio-schizo.deviantart.com Carlos Santos photos.grury.me.uk Roman Skyva flickr.com/photos/romanskyva Holly Trill hollytrill.co.uk James Adair jamesadair.co.uk Front Cover: This photograph and

www.novelmagazine.co.uk Twitter: @ novel_magazine Facebook: /novelmag

the one used for the editors introduction were contributed by Carlos Santos: www.flickr.com/photos/grury www. photos.grury.me.uk www.vimeo. com/grury www.grury.me.uk

novel issue 5. Published bi-monthly by Novel Magazine, all rights reserved. Printed in the UK. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Opinions expressed in articles are those of author and do not express the opinions of the publisher.

T H E

OPEN NOW!

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COMEDY CLUB 31 High Bridge | Newcastle upon Tyne | 0844 693 3336 Nov 8 Rory Bremner & Friends The scything satirist is

Nov 29 Craig Campbell The charismatic Canadian whose natural eccentricity makes for truly inventive storytelling.

out of the TV studio and on to the stage with a new live show.

Nov 2 Launch night Red Raw

Brand new comedy every Wednesday. Ace comperes put beginners through their paces, a great night for just 2 quid

Nov 13 Launch night Gavin Webster’s Northumbrian Assembly

Sunday evening topical review targeting who’s who in Northumberland, with guests, games, characters and sketches.

Dec 14-18 The Stand Christmas Special

Paul McCaffrey

Forget wearing paper hats and eating over-priced turkey – instead come and get some Christmas cheer with Michael Smiley, Simon Donald, Paul McCaffrey & host Susan Morrison

Nov 14 Mark Watson

Hugely popular stand-up debuts at Newcastle Stand with his acclaimed Requests Stop Tour.

Nov 22 Patrick Monahan Show Me The Funny winner blends high energy with hilarious stories of his Irish/Iranian/Teeside heritage.

The August Riots: A Question of Responsibility Anyone affected by the protests or rioting this summer should read this article. Joe Turnbull‘s ever authoritative voice breaks down the August riots and highlights some shades of hypocrisy in Britain’s leadership. A brilliant account of riveting events. Photos by Roman Skyva

T

he scenes witnessed this August had that palpable air of a watershed moment for British society. Do we let this moment turn the cracks of divide along generational, racial and economic lines into chasms, or do we take the riots as a sign of some endemic problems in our society and come together to address them via dialogue, compromise and greater understanding?

Let me start by saying this: I sincerely feel for anyone who was attacked, intimidated, who lost their homes, livelihoods and even loved ones as a result of the riots. I cannot begin to understand the pain of what those people are going through. Ultimately, each individual who was involved in the riots is personally ‘responsible for the predictable consequences of their own actions’ and I believe the majority were misguided and their anger misdirected. But these actions do not take place in a bubble, detached from society, so it seems only right for us to examine the conditions which made so many British people go on such a destructive rampage. These conditions are the responsibility of every one of us.

No respect for authority It seems fairly obvious that most people involved in the rioting and looting had diminished respect for authority. But can we really blame them? David Cameron et al have spoken of a breakdown in the moral fabric in sections of society. I would agree wholeheartedly, but it’s the bastions of authority in this country that have been the most immoral; setting a precedent for the rest of society which is supposed to respect them. For some, the shooting of Mark Duggen was viewed in the context of a string of deaths at the hands of police without accountability.There have been 333 deaths in police custody since 1988 but not a single conviction. This has eroded an already strained relationship between police and certain communities. The Met’s involvement in the hacking scandal has done little to ameliorate its reputation. Sections of the media, another bastion of authority, had their morally bankrupt underbelly laid bare for all to see in the said scandal.

Politicians are meant to set an example to the general public; what kind of message did they send out when hundreds of MPs thought they could get away with defrauding the taxpayer? Is it any more moral to commit theft by fraud than by looting? The hypocrisy doesn’t end there. Nick Clegg was convicted for arson aged 16 and David Cameron and Boris Johnson whilst in the infamous Bullingdon Club, were involved in public disorder, smashing windows and starting fires.

Finally, bankers and business leaders hold positions of authority; in the city a cut-throat approach to business is positively encouraged, business leaders like Phil Greene have looted millions in taxes and ‘reckless behaviour’ by investment bankers is rewarded with bonuses.

Do any of these things justify rioting? No. But they do explain why many don’t respect authority.

Lack of prospects When you feel you have no prospects it engenders frustration, boredom and a sense of hopelessness, each in part a cause of the riots.

The current job market is a vicious place. There is one vacancy to every ten unemployed people. Take a moment to digest that. That means that even if every unemployed person were driven, well qualified and well educated 90% of them would still be jobless. In reality many are despairing, poorly educated and have no previous experience. What chance do these people have of securing employment?

Many of those arrested in connection with the riots were under 18.

This age group have just taken a blow to their educational prospects with the scrapping of EMA and the tripling of student fees, not to mention a slashing of up to 80% of youth projects’ funding. Whilst it could be argued that these policies have yet to really ‘bite’ their mere existence feeds into the notion for many young people that they have no future and that politicians and wider society don’t really seem to care. If you felt trapped in a room with no doors open to you and the only ‘windows of opportunity’ were those stuffed with consumer goods you were told to want but you couldn’t afford, is it really so unfathomable that you might lash out? When someone feels so powerless that the only power they have left is that of destruction, rioting can be seen as a desperate attempt to feel powerful, even if just for a few fleeting moments.

Marginalisation and disenfranchisement The vast majority of people involved in the riots were either young, poor, non-white or any combination of the three. Each of these categories of society faces considerable marginalisation. Astonishingly, a black person is 26 times more likely to be stopped and searched by police than a white person. Additionally, black people on average get paid 18% less than white people and are more likely to be unemployed. Rather than blaming this on the marginalised, we must accept that it is partly attributable to a residual societal prejudice, which may be unconscious and extremely subtle at times. The marginalisation of young people is very similar to that of black people;

graphics, like Nike whose primary target audience is black ghetto youths. Similarly, gangster culture is overly glamorised, fetishised even, but anyone who is actually living that lifestyle will be the first to tell you it is far from glamorous. I see no-one pointing the finger at Hollywood for the endless reel of gangster flicks that are churned out.

Even if the politicians were blaming the Nikes and the Media it seems a vulgar contradiction coming from a government who sanctions the dropping of bombs on foreign soil, routinely killing innocent civilians; a government only too happy to allow the world’s largest arms fair to take place in London. It sticks in the throat to hear these millionaires talk about greed when they’ve recently effectively handed banks and businesses that already make billions the biggest tax break in living memory. Human behaviour is learned and it stands to reason that greedy, selfish societies that glamorise violence will inevitably produce some individuals who act accordingly.

studies have shown that the public perception of youth involvement in crime is severely over-estimated. One study found that 71% of media coverage of young people was negative despite the fact that A-level results improve every year. Poor people, those in receipt of benefits especially, have been subjected to a vicious smear campaign by both politicians and the media; accused of being lazy scroungers, defrauding the taxpayer. In fact, fraudulent claims make up less than 1% of the total benefits bill and are on average 31 times lower than an MP’s expenses overclaim. This has fed into a wider perception in British society that these people represent a ‘feral underclass’ and for this we are all partly responsible.

I know from my own experience as a youth worker, that if you treat people as if they are badly behaved they will act as such, whereas when you treat them as if they are responsible and mature they more often than not earn those labels. Therefore, criminalising and dehumanising certain demographics creates a vicious cycle. When people feel marginalised they begin to feel that they have no stake in society.

If they feel that society doesn’t care about them then they will reciprocate those feelings by not caring about society, making rioting and looting seem less wrong. Added to this, many people feel disenfranchised, and that political processes do not represent them. The fact that over 80% of the cabinet are millionaires and only one of them is not white is just one indicator that perhaps our politics is not as representative as some might claim. Disenfranchisement makes people feel they have no voice which can lead them to express their discontent in other ways.

Culture of greed and violence Some senior politicians have blamed a culture of ‘greed and violence’ for the riots. I would vehemently agree that greed is a problem that riddles our society and violence does tend to be glamorised constantly in popular culture. But Mr. Cameron blames rap music and ‘gang culture’ for these problems which strikes me as more than a little crass. Admittedly, some rap music is overly materialistic and does reify some sickening consumerist excesses but this is merely a comment on wider society. Blaming rap music for ‘rampant consumerism’ is like blaming a rape victim for giving birth to their attacker’s child. If materialism is to blame surely the finger should be pointed at the companies who bombard us with thousands of adverts every day, leaving almost no public spaces unbranded. Even worse, many brands aggressively market their high-priced goods to poor demo-

I started the article by saying that those involved in the riots were responsible for the predictable consequences of their misguided actions. Now hopefully, we are equipped with the context within which those actions took place. But if we are to expect the rioters, many of whom are from underprivileged positions in society, to accept responsibility for their actions it is surely only fair to expect the same of the most privileged in our society. This is not to suggest that the riots were necessarily a ‘predictable consequence’ of any individual or collective action, however, some sort of reaction was surely to be expected. Politicians have a lot to answer for, both individually and as a group.They seem aloof from the realities of normal people’s lives, robotically dodging questions with the same scripted answers making them unaccountable; this fuels the feeling of disenfranchisement experienced by so many. The expenses scandal has eroded trust in authority figures more generally and set a terrible example of criminality.The Government’s cuts are choking off the already limited prospects of many. Greed and violence are explicitly endorsed by facilitating the greed of the City and dropping bombs on innocent Libyans, Afghans and Iraqis.The police too must surely have expected some sort of consequence for their unaccountable and unlawful killings. Business elites and bankers enshrine the culture of greed and rampant materialism but we all participate in it to a degree. Finally, society as a whole but the media in particular, must accept some responsibility for the marginalisation felt by so many young, poor and non-white people. Essentially, it is the responsibility of us all to not only rebuild our communities but to make them stronger and together tackle the underlying issues discussed.

The Soundtrack to Social Unrest Katee Woods examines the reasons why music is often censored during times of social unrest and political turmoil. Focussing on politics recent condemnation of certain artists, Katee draws historical parallels which uncover sinister motives for contemporary criticism of grime and hip hop musicians. Illustration by Raychel Maughan

S

ince hip hop’s inception, authority figures have blamed an assortment of social ills on the music often heard blasting from the headphones worn by inner-city youth. But hip hop is not the first music to be vilified as a cause of social unrest or a cultural form accused of fostering oppositional values. Throughout history, many politicians and members of the ruling class have attempted to suppress music which appears to challenge the status quo. So, how significant is music in times of social unrest and why does music have the power to unnerve the most hardened politicians?

Music goes hand-in-hand with subcultures.These subcultures predominantly consist of groups of young people, who may or may not know each other, but feel connected in some way through the clothes they wear, the values they promote and the music they listen to. In the digital era, these subcultures are global. People on opposite sides of the world can be listening to the same music, aiming for the same ambitions, and valuing the same principles.

It has a unitary power.The ability of music to transcend geographical divides presents an obvious problem for those who try to contain its political power.

As technology revolutionises the way we listen to and share music, its potential to empower disenfranchised communities is realised on a global scale and can have a global impact.

Under the Third Reich, music which disobeyed Nazi legislation was deemed ‘degenerate art’ in favour of music which encouraged racial purity, obedience and traditional values. Hitler banned the majority of jazz for its origins in African-American culture, and atonal music as it was accused of dismantling ‘the Germanic tonal structure into something international and thus antinational’ and was pioneered by Jewish composer Arnold Schoenberg.The Third Reich instead favoured the music of Richard Wagner, a German composer with anti-Semite associations, whose music Hitler perceived to embody German nationalist tendencies, thus reinforcing Nazi ideology through the arts.

In 1956 the front page of the Daily Mail read ‘Rock ‘n Roll Babies’ and largely condemned rock ‘n roll on grounds of racial superiority.‘It is deplorable. It is tribal.And it is from America. It follows ragtime, blues, Dixie, jazz, hot cha-cha and the boogie woogie which surely originated in the jungle. ’When free jazz was developing in the 1960s as part of the black liberation movement in America, authorities described the moral anxiety it produced and enforced restrictive licensing policies which favoured mainstream jazz. When unemployment levels reached 1.6 million in 1977, punk’s highly politicised anger was seen as encouraging a nihilistic attitude and anti-establishment values.

It is clear then, that music has long had the ability to stir debate regarding behavioural influence and threaten conformity.

In August 2011, we experienced yet again an attack on music for political purposes. Paul Routledge wrote an article for The Mirror condemning the ‘pernicious culture of hatred surrounding rap music’ and the ‘fostering of irrational anger against the world and disrespect for others.’ Never mind his obvious lack of knowledge surrounding hip hop culture, his disrespectful suggestion of ‘irrational anger’ and selective ignorance of positive rap music; Routledge was blaming a subculture, of which rap music is a part, as the main cause of social unrest. David Starkey on Newsnight added to this attack by accusing ‘a particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic gangster culture [which] has become the fashion’. In the New Statesman, David Cameron also hinted that rap music was to blame for the riots by saying,“We have to await the conclusion of the police investigation. But Snoop Dogg has some serious questions to answer.”

And it’s not the first time that rap music has been blamed for social ills. In 2005, 200 members of the French parliament called for legal action against rhymers who they thought contributed towards the civil unrest with their anti-authoritarian lyrics.A similar incident to that which involved Mark Duggan triggered the French riots, whereupon two teenage boys were killed during an encounter with the police resulting in increased tensions between the police and young people, a relationship which rap music has extensively documented.

So, why in this age of hyper-consumerism, invasive advertising and huge economic disparities is hip hop getting the blame? Do people feel uncomfortable because hip hop illuminates the lives of those who live and experience inner-city poverty in a world of promised dreams of plenty?

Every one of us has experienced the often intense power of music to stir our deepest emotions and allow us to express ourselves. Maybe this

is about freedom of expression and the power of music to express opposition and form whole communities against accepted cultural norms. As a response to the August riots, Tony Blair was quick to denounce every subculture outside of the mainstream: “The big cause is the group of young, alienated, disaffected youth who are outside the social mainstream and who live in a culture at odds with any canons of proper behaviour. “ Again, the finger is pointed at cultural difference and rap music forms part of a subculture which could be seen to resist the ‘canons of [bourgeois] behaviour’ that Blair speaks of. Because of the social situation rap music, as part of hip hop culture, was born out of, there are inherent oppositional elements which penetrate the genre.

Many real hip hop heads feel disillusioned by the commercialisation the music has faced which has resulted in a commodification of black identity, an increase of misogynistic lyrics and an emphasis on possession-linked status. These all form discourses which make huge profits for advertising agencies and reinforce the reductionist, patriarchal and capitalist status quo. Despite this, rap music has retained oppositional aspects which marketing firms admittedly capitalise on.

Lyrically obsessing over bling and fancy goods is not oppositional but the way which some rappers portray their acquirement of possessions is. ‘Pimpin’ the system’ is one element at the core of hip hop mentality and is inextricably linked to the product-obsessed capitalist environment hip hop has developed in. This is where the duality in some rap music is revealed; emcees like Wiley and Dizzy Rascal seem to have one foot on the corporate ladder and one in the ghetto.

The looting experienced in the August riots exemplified the capitalist preoccupation with possessions, and yes, this preoccupation is mentioned in some rap lyrics, but it most certainly did not originate in rap music. What we experienced was an embodiment of both the hyperconsumerism fostered by modern capitalism and the oppositional means of acquiring goods as pimpin’ the system entails. Interestingly, big brand names and MPs are notorious for influencing biased bureaucratic procedures and slipping through legal loopholes for financial gain, i.e. pimpin’ the system in a more socially acceptable form.

All music reflects the socio-political environment it is produced within, some more overtly than others, as no music is produced entirely isolated from the wider socio-political climate. From its conception and production, music goes through a simplified chain of events: reproduction, distribution and reception, where each stage further removes the original from the artist and multiplies its possible interpretations. The point is, that no piece of music is ideologically pure, neither is it static.

Tunes like Lethal Bizzle’s Pow! may appear mainstream at first due to their lyrical content and success in the download charts, but when played on the streets in protests they acquire a new political energy and meaning. It is just as much about a piece of music’s reception and context as it is about its production.

In response to the threat which music can pose to the engrained social order, we experience attempts of censorship and demonization.

Most prominent in the case of hip hop is the violent stigma attached to the genre aptly demonstrated by Starkey’s earlier quote. Interestingly, respected hip hop scholar Tricia Rose claims in her book Black Noise that this stigma is used to restrict social mobility, not to stop violence. Does this mean that when critics who favour ruling class agendas accuse rap music of encouraging violence, they are reinforcing class divides and hierarchical social order?

It is recognised that music can be a powerful political tool with the ability to shape opinions and values, which seems all well and good to those in political power as long as they can monitor and control its content. It seems that once you have a firm grip around culture, you can control the minds of cultural consumers; a tempting potential for power-hungry egotists magnetised to hierarchical political systems. So was rap music to blame for the recent unrest? No, of course not, but it does have the potential to empower disenfranchised, impoverished communities all over the world which presents an arguable threat to the current political leaders and their ideologies.

With the aid of legal maxims, Kirk Chintery outlines what he regards to be the ‘smoke screens’ and ‘deception’ used by superstructures to keep us in a state of subservience. Illustration by Shaun Lynch

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Sh k U So * F*

et v a hn H g i i u t a R o Y he em len t R Si to

I

n the following article I draw attention to only a few striking aspects about the current political and legal system which we live under and its assumed authority over us. It is up to you to look further into the truths of the claims made here under and dig deeper into the deception. Contrary to what we are led to believe we live under a system that derives its authority from our consent; not as a collective, but as individuals. It is therefore possible to live within the law but outside of the political and legislative system; a system responsible for perpetuating the status quo by operating commercially, rather than for the public good.

‘Let he who would be deceived, be deceived’ The police have somewhat of a dual role in society. When working as constables on their oath, upholding common law, the police are among the most important and valuable members of society. They are peacekeepers and operate with discretion, fighting crime and infringements on people’s rights and freedoms. However, when operating under commercial law, enforcing statutes and collecting revenue, the police officer is your adversary. It is a police officer’s job to make arrests and issue fines and penalties in order to bring in revenue.

That’s what police officers are, they are revenue collection agents and although they will ardently deny it, they work on the basis of quotas and detections. The more cautions, fines and fixed penalty notices each officer issues, the further they will go in their career. It’s just like any business, and it’s big business. They will do what they can to coerce you into answering their questions and unwittingly consent to whichever statute they decide to use against you. Never talk to the police if you are being unreasonably questioned or harassed by them.

You have the ‘Right to Silence’. Use it. It is your privilege against self incrimination. You have the right to remain silent... anything you do say may be given in evidence. Why would you talk to someone telling you that what you say can and will be used against you?

‘The law does not notice or care for trifling matters’ Over the last few decades and specifically within this current zeitgeist there seems to be a palpable, growing and categorical mistrust of Police and an antipathy towards the force. This is true particularly amongst the younger demographic. This was perhaps at its most evident in the summer of 2010, during the Raoul Moat saga. This incident only confirmed what most of us had been thinking for such a long time: the police force is not at its most efficient when hunting down criminals. When it comes to fining motorists and drunkards, however, they are incredibly adept. The reason for this is that the police spend the majority of their time not enforcing common law (common sense law) but enforcing statutes: legislated government policies (hence police officer or policy enforcement officer). Statutes are not laws. There is a difference. Statutes employ the force of law only under consent of the governed. Statutes are generally concerned with what are known somewhat oxymoronically as a ‘victimless crimes’.

They are oxymoronic because in criminal law, in order for an action to become a crime there needs to exist two components: mens rea and actus reus (intent and injury). For example, driving without a seatbelt or being in possession of an illicit plant; within these actions there exists no intent nor does there exist an injury and therefore it is simply not a crime nor is it against the law.

‘Consent makes the law. A contract is a law between the parties, which can acquire force only by consent.’

So why are so many people punished for such offenses if they are not unlawful? The reason is because they consent. Take driving without a seatbelt; the punishment if caught is three points on your license and a fine. The fine is issued in the form of what is known as a Fixed Penalty Notice. In legalese, the language created by the Law Society, a ‘notice’ is synonymous with an ‘offer’ which requires consent in order for it to be enforced. We are all equal before the law and subsequently nobody, regardless of their presumed or alleged authority has the right to put demands on anybody or force anybody to do anything. And in reality the Police rarely do that. Everything they do is in fact an offer and they will coerce you into accepting their offer. This is the only tool they have at their disposal and by accepting their of-

fer you are contracting with them, thus giving their offer the force of law. It is consent by deception and it is all within the scope of the law.

‘The law can give rise to a fiction but a fiction cannot give rise to the law’ The supremacy of parliament is what is known as a legal fiction. As a legal fiction it can gain benefits from law by using them in ways that they were not originally intended to be used. Upon the foundations of law, a legal fiction can be built, but it cannot change the facts of nature, nor can it create the law. Laws are built upon principals. Under common law we are bound by three principles: You must not cause harm to another, you must not cause damage without consent to anyone’s property and you must not be fraudulent in your contracts.

These are the constitutional laws of the land.

Although parliament cannot create laws, what it can do, and do lawfully, is create rules that all consenting individuals within that society must abide by. The rules in our society are laid out in the form of statutes. Unlike laws, statutes do not apply equally to everyone but instead may benefit certain sectors of society over others. This is one of their main distinctions from law. The process by which a statute is enacted is not dependent upon its value to freedom and justice but rather on how much revenue it will bring in. What might come as a surprise to many is that parliament is in fact a registered corporation, floated on the stock market. Have a look online on Dun and Bradstreet (Companies House) and there you will find other supposedly public services, registered as corporations: Metropolitan Police, House of Lords, local schools, hospitals and law courts. If parliament really is a corporation then the sole purpose of elections is to decide upon a new director for that company. This is why the status quo remains. Parliament is the biggest law court in the land and it is essentially just like a theatre. What goes on is nothing more than a performance, complete with ‘acts’ and wigs. Even the word ‘court’ is synonymous with performance.

‘The meaning of words is the spirit of the law’ Understanding the meaning behind words and the assumptions they are built upon is paramount in order to navigate the smoke screens used by the police and legal eagles. Words are powerful tools but they must be understood in order for them to be effective. If an assumed authority tries to use words against you then always ask what those words mean. If they cannot answer then they will have no power to use those words against you and they will lose their authority and jurisdiction over you. Take the word ‘authority’ for example. It is built upon two words, ‘author’ and ‘writ’.The author of the writ (or writing) has the authority. So how does one become author of their own writing; an adult who can administer their own affairs within the law, rather than a child being nannied by the tyranny of parliament?

‘He who questions well, learns well.’

The few who have managed to do this are commonly known as ‘Freemen-on-the-land’. After a great deal of study and becoming well versed in legalese, they issue to the queen a Notice of Understanding and Intent and Claim of Right. Within this they will stipulate the rights that they as an individual are claiming under common law, as well as their understanding and proof that they are in no way required by law to live under the rules of legislated society. Just like a Fixed Penalty Notice issued by the police for speeding, this notice is an ‘offer’ and just like the offer to pay a fine it works on the basis of estoppel by acquiescence; which is to say that if it is not rebutted or if no counter offer is made it becomes as powerful as any legal document. As nobody, including the queen, can deny you of your common law rights or prove that it is mandatory for you to lawfully consent to the rules of said society, no counter offers are made and the notice becomes a lawful contract.

It is by seeing through the smoke screens and gaining a good understanding of legalese that people are able to live peaceful lives free from the dictatorship of parliament but still within the law.

www.laser314.com

Laser 3.14 Keep up with your local graff scene here at novel where we always keep you informed of international visitors painting in the North-East

L

aser 3.14 is a dutch graffiti artists whose work is most often seen in his home town, Amsterdam.

Like all graffiti writers he makes the public aware of his name via the process of tagging, aka bombing; the relentless marking of an identical, signatory piece of calligraphy onto surfaces using spray paint. The name Laser 3.14 can be seen all over Amsterdam and many cities the world over; now including Newcastle. What differentiates laser’s work from most graffiti writers and taggers are two things. Laser 3.14 often treads a thin line between illegal and legal graffiti by painting his tags onto non-permanent surfaces, such as the boards used by the Amsterdam council to cover derelict buildings. Once the building is regenerated the board is removed along with the graffiti and this has led the Dutch authorities to regard laser’s work target less harshly. This loose form of acceptance has meant that laser’s work has followed a recent trend amongst contemporary graffiti by trickling into more mainstream forms of exhibition and can be seen hanging on the walls of galleries. The second and more poignant element of laser’s work that differentiates him from other graffiti artists, is his inclusion underneath his tags of messages, witticisms, aphorisms, notes to loved ones and concise captions that augment the simplicity of a tag; hence the decision by himself and fans of his work to dub his graffiti, ‘aerosol poetry’.

Having glimpsed the tags of laser 3.14 around Newcastle, Novel managed to track him down and interview him at the gallery opening of his latest exhibition ‘A Decade of Aerosol Poetry’ hanging on the walls of the Unit-44 gallery.

The concealed profile of Laser 3.14. Taken by Catherina Gerritsen Laser’s semi-legal tags in Amsterdam Images from Lasers Unit -44 Display.

Courtesy of David Bilbrough

Novel: Why would you describe what you do as poetry?

Laser: Wow, that’s a good question. How do you describ e poetry? I am not the best person to answer that question. I just write how I feel at the time, a message in my head that I would like to convey to others based on how I’m feeling at that precise moment. Perhaps it’s a response to something I have seen on T.V or heard in a piece of music; something that has really got to me or evoked strong emotion; an image perhaps.This emotion and image produce synthesis and that’s how I produce my captions, based on that relationship between image and emotion. So in that sense, for me, its poetry, but for many people’s definition of poetry, perhaps not.

N: Why do you choose graffiti to manifest and comm unicate these emotions?

L: Because I have always been a graffiti writer. I started out writing graffiti when I was just ten or eleven in Amsterdam, back in ’83. As soon as I came into contact with graffiti I knew I was in love with it.Throughout the eighties I did what all graffiti writer’s do, I took the traditional approach of writing tags and painting pieces, but as I grew older my interest diminished a bit. Around about the time of the new millennium I began experimenting with different forms of writing and this reignited my interest in art again; it reminded me of the feeling I got from making art in my youth and that was a feeling I wanted to go back to. I was bored of simply writing laser though and as I was also, around this time, experimenting with poetry I thought it might be interesting to combine the two, to give poetry a new context in the form of graffiti. I started writing these tag/poems and I really liked it and I just developed it from there. The basis of what I do still lies in graffiti and seeing my tag out there, but now, for me, there should also be some interesting conten t with the tag too.

N: The tag is laser 3.14. Obviously laser was the origina l tag from your youth. What is the meaning behind the more recent addition of 3.14, which has been included since you started writing ‘aerosol poetry’?

L: Like you say, when I was growing up it was only laser, but I always liked tags that I saw in books that included numbers, it’s just one of those things i liked about a tag. I really liked tags like Barbara 62 and, erm...

N: Taki 183?

L: Yeah, stuff like that. I always wanted a number behind my tag, but I didn’t know which one or how to choose. One day I was playing a Public Image Limited record called ‘This is not a love song’, but the B-side is called ‘Public Image’. I loved this record, it’s a really great record, you know? One of those pieces of music that evoked strong emotion in me. So, I was looking at the title, ‘Public Image’ and i noticed the initials were P.I, as in pi, which translates also as 3.14. This struck me as perfect, because part of what you’re trying to do, as a graffiti writer, is to create a public image, with your tags and your pieces. So that’s the explanation.

N: Most of what you write, these poems, are very short, often around five words. Why such short, concise captio ns?

L: I don’t want the passer-by to spend a long time looking. I want them to clock it, pow! Then move on with the message almost flashed at them, just briefly. It should be easy to absorb; not a long thing going on and on.

N: Is there a woman behind some of these captio ns? I can’t help but notice some romantic sentiments in some of your captions.

L:Well, of course, I am a man. And of course there were women , love (unrequited or not) and heartbreaks. I think that an artist shouldn’t be afraid to also use romanticism in his work. But most of the romantic imagery, which I write about now, are mostly images and scenes that appear in my head. Someti mes my feelings for women, love, or a broken heart even, helps with what I call the synthesis.

N: How you enjoying Newcastle man?

L: I’m loving it. It’s so different to what I expected and the images I had seen in the seventies of Leeds, Manchester and other northern cities; it’s not so grim as I expected. I must admit I haven’t seen much, but what I have seen has really cancelled my expectations. I was expecting it to be a lot more grim.

N: It’s funny, as one of Newcastle’s most active and prolific writers is currently writing grim.

L: (laughs) Well I have taken a lot of photos whilst I’ve been here and its actually so beautiful, down near the bridges especially.

N: How has it been working with Unit-44, with Danny , Steven and Billy?

L: They have been so accommodating. This has been one of the best experiences I’ve had with a gallery N: Why do you think that is?

L: They’re young and they stand behind the artist. They’re not just money minded, they really love the art. They told me they loved my work and they tracked me down and tried to help me here.

If you look carefully there are a few examples of laser’s ‘aeroso l poetry’ to be found in Newcastle.You’ll have to look pretty hard though because apparently Newcastle’s Police Force wasn’t quite as lenient as Amsterdam’s and Laser’s toon painting excursion was cut a little short by our boys in blue.

Original prints of Laser 3.14’s work are available at unit-4 4.com Laser 3.14 Are You Reading Me? - Available through Amazon

Reluctant Hero Reluctant Hero is a dedicated and highly skilled creative studio, working for a diverse range of domestic and international clients. They work with intense enthusiasm, bringing together their skills of concept, art direction, illustration, typography, typography, then and apply these skills to the music, arts, culture and fashion industries.

Their aim is to produce accessible and creative design that their clients love and which their audience understand.

They’ve worked workedwith withsome someofof world’s the world’s most well most known well brands including known brands including Tommy Hilfiger, Tommy Mavi Hilfiger, Jeans, Mavi Barbour, Jeans, Berghaus, Berghaus, Barbour, Timberland, Timberland, Ride Snowboards, Ride Snowboards, Sean John, kids brands Sean John, kids Rags brands and Rags Eager and Beaver Eager Beaver to name to but name a handful. but a handful.

Still, they Still,give theythe give same the love sameand loveattention and atto everyto tention project, every project, big or small, big or international small, international or local. al or or al o local.

Newcastle City Tee’s for Topshop One project which Reluctant Hero is particularly proud of has been their range of Newcastle city tee’s. This project entailed Reluctant Hero branding the city from their own perspective. Retails giant Topman observed the popularity of this branding and in August they launched a range of Newcastle tee’s in their Newcastle store.

Theatre Royal Back at the start of 2011, Reluctant Hero were approached and asked to work on a huge new venture located on the Grade 1 listed site of the Theatre Royal. Reluctant Hero worked on this project from the ground up, including the contemporary Italian Bar-Restaurant PASQUALINO’S and coffee shop 9-BAR COFFEE. Working alongside Xsite Architecture and Signtrade, the project started with a branding process, overseeing all signage, and finally the design and installation of the interior artwork.

Hilfiger Denim Each season Reluctant Hero work closely with the design team at Hilfiger to develop the brands range of graphic tees.As well as the actual graphics they suggest techniques and applications that help bring the garments and the brand to life.

Electrik Sheep

Keds/Gap

Electrik Sheep can be found on Pink Lane in Newcastle. It’s where many people in Newcastle were first introduced to Banksy prints.

Here, Reluctant Hero showcase and sell their own artworks in the form of t-shirts, prints and whatever other medium comes from their brainstorming sessions around the coffee table. The Space is essentially an on-going design project where they are the client... a dream brief in the design world and as a result we have created something unique to Newcastle.

Last summer Reluctant Hero were invited to New York to work alongside local interior designers to create a fresh and contemporary space in the Keds showroom in Carnegie hall. Together they created a space which merged the brands heritage with modern street art application through vintage ads and ripped and torn wheat-paste posters.The brand loved the concept and rolled it out to their Gap + Keds concept store on Fifth Ave.

come to be?

How did reluctant hero of its founder’s formative tion crea Reluctant Hero is the e of the world’s best-known experiences designing for som ’s and Sheilen Rathod’s pasfashion brands. Peter Manning design studio with a fresh king sion to create a forward thin ir roles in New York fashion outlook led to them leaving the t Hero back here in the UK. houses and launching Reluctan

on our promises. This trust than 5 years because we deliver ial client. and focus says a lot to a potent

able to compete with How is it that you are re internationally resome of the larger, mo particularly those in nowned design agencies, offer clients a more percan we London? As a small team a greater understanding of sonal service helping us to gain nts that’s hard hopes to achieve. For our clie ve team? what the client ati cre r s to the point ship you ut tion rela abo e bit clos a and we often develop Could you tell us find to test grea our of one feel is having their very own graphic We are a small team which we where for some clients it’s like bine com and nts tale ers oth h r. strengths, we understand eac design studio a few times a yea te something fresh. The main them on each project to crea team and share ideas everyday gest influences at Rething is that we have fun as a What are some of the big y we like to travel and see of the week. luctant Hero? As a compan from visits to placgs, we draw a lot of inspiration thin new ure sec to er rself in ord keeps our eyes wide open How do you market you like Tokyo and New York. It es an e hav to ly real ’t don ? We aspects of design, from music such competitive clients gs to what’s happening in all thin p tive kee crea ays er alw oth to t is mee aim to nity unusual marketing strategy; our fashion and gives us the opportu stand out. We are quite spevast, we draw inspiration from are es enc influ er Oth fresh and intriguing so that we ple. peo roach, which often appeals to ion, art , design, old and new, as cialist and offer a bespoke app almost everything, music, fash nts clie our of y Man . tion solu clients looking for a creative well as each other. al have been with us for more both national and internation

Newcastle City Tee’s For Topshop Theatre Royal Keds/Gap

This article came to us just in time for Newcastle’s very own ‘we are the 99’ protests at The Monument. John Bulletore details the inception of the movement and it’s progression across the globe. Photographs taken by Adalberto Ortiz

2

011 has certainly been a momentous year for social unrest. First we had the Arab Spring as the call for democracy swept across North Africa and the Middle East. Then there were largely unreported protests in Spain, France and Portugal, not to mention the riots here in Blighty, which some loosely referred to as the European Summe r. Now it seems we are witnessing an American Autumn. On the 19th of Septem ber after a call to action from Adbusters, an anti-consumerist organis ation and Anonymous, a decentralised ‘hacktivist’ group, just a few thousan d people took to the streets of New York and occupied a section of Wall Street.

With such a disappointing turn out, many thought it to be someth ing of a damp squib. But emboldened by the resolute determination of the few that turned out and stayed out, American citizens of all colours, vocatio ns and creeds joined them, first in New York and then in other parts of the country.

Since then, the movement has snowballed. Occupytogether.org an online resource for the protests both nationwide and across the globe, claims that there are solidarity protests in 66 other US cities! Naturally, they vary in size and scale but there have been significant numbers at Chicago , Boston, Washington and Los Angeles.

e are the 99%

The cry that unifies this disparate movements goes “We are the 99%!” The overarching message is clear even if the aims are dynamic.This is a bottomup movement, opposed to the greed of the tiny 1% of the populat ion who own up to 80% of the wealth and resources. The wish is to ‘return the US back into the hands of its individual citizens’.The Occupy Wall Street Movement has no leader and no clear affiliation to any political group or party and is organised ‘horizontally’ rather than from the top down. Despite this, the hub of the movement, dubbed ‘Liberty Square’ is well organis ed with first aid, provision of food and even a media tent. Footage of the protest is streamed live online 24/7 with tens of thousands tuning in from across the globe. Decisions are made by daily meetings of the ‘NYC General Assembly’ which anyone can attend and vote on what direction the movem ent will take, with minutes posted online for everyone to read.

Unsurprisingly, little has been reported about any of the movem ent in the mainstream media both in the US and around the world in an attempt to downplay its significance. But it is becoming too loud to ignore. The establishment and their friends in the media are trying to undermine the movement further by labelling it Anarchist and criticising it for not having leadership or what it perceives to be concrete demands. Naturally, the police including the NYPD and Boston Police Department have began a violent crackdown on what, to date, have been completely peaceful protest s. Batons to the head, pepper spraying and mass arrests have been employ ed against protestors with their hands held aloft; familiar scenes for anyone involved in unrest across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. It’s not just the police repression that is the same; many of the chants are too. Anyone involved in the student protests will recognise the cries of “Whos e streets?

Our Streets!” and “No Ifs. No buts. No education cuts” ringing out in cities across the US.

Occupy Wall Street is very much a 21st Century protest; whethe r it’s taking inspiration from the Arab Spring in their tactics of occupying a symbolic square, recycling the chants of European protests or using social networ king and technology to spread the message. But there is something more fundamentally progressive about it than this. The organisation of the movem ent is decentralised, it has no leader, decisions are made democratically and it is not affiliated to any political groups (though has been backed by some of the unions).This direct democracy will be seen by many as a perfect antidote to the disenfranchisement they feel with traditional political processes.

Occupy Wall Street encompasses people from all walks of life with myriad political, moral and religious beliefs. And I think this very much reflects the protestor of today. Gone are the days of card carrying socialists or virulent feminists.

The modern protestor has multiple identities and a complex worldvi ew.

The horizontal organisation should allow it to avoid the all-too-familiar cooptation of the movement by any megalomaniacs or bureaucrats and keep it moving forward in a dynamic, organic way. Let’s hope that we can now take some inspiration from our cousins from the other side of the pond and take even more positive action to reclaim our futures. After all, we are the 99%!

O

nce upon a time, not so long ago, there was a gentle young woman who was at the very bottom of the social ladder. Each day, when her dreary eyelids parted to let in the first light of morning, her eyes shone red with the reflection of the Nike trainers sitting defiantly on the poster above her bed. She longed for the red Nikes which were plastered in her magazines, on buildings in her town and calling to her from the photograph on the buses driving past. The young woman, determined to obtain her dream, worked harder and harder at her job in a dank and dimly lit bar, with its floor sticky from the careless swill of older men, who would jeer at her and reach out to touch her when they had had their fill of beer. It made her feel queasy to see these men undress her with their eyes and flail at her with their greasy hands but when she remembered those precious Nikes, she took longer hours and forced herself to wince through smiles at the sleazy punters. Every night she returned home to the bleak grey walls of her high rise flat, her little black sandals crunched over broken glass as she pushed her way through the rickety doors and began the long, tiresome walk up the staircase.

Finally, after weeks of working tirelessly in exchange for a tiny wage, she had enough money for the wonderful pair of red Nikes she had been longing for. Excitement made her leap through the streets of London until she came to the bright and wonderful store named JD Sports. In the window the shoes gleamed, looking even brighter and even more beautiful than in the photographs. With pride, she exchanged her hard earned cash for the trainers. When she held the box in her hand with the tell tale tick on its side, she could hardly believe they were truly her own. Ever so carefully, she put the shoes on, gingerly tying up the laces, and then she saw her reflection in the mirror and was over come with excitement. With a new confidence she strode out of the shop, a swing in her hips.

However, on the path towards home, a man wearing soft, brightly polished leather shoes at the bottom of a silk black suit stopped her in her tracks, telling her he had the ability to make her move on to bigger and better things. He said with looks like hers she could go far and that his agency would love to take photos of her for their next shoot for what he said was a top advertising company. Astonished, she said yes – never again would she have to see that dingy pub or those disgusting men! She went with him in his BMW to the studio but at the door he asked her to take off her red Nikes. As he walked out of the room with them, anxiety ripped through her stomach as she watched her shoes move further and further away from her.They were replaced with shiny black heels which she could hardly stand up in.

These strange things caging her feet made her feel not only vulnerable but trapped. She had to wear white stockings and silk underwear and was told to strike the most outrageous pose.

When given her payment cheque, her mouth gaped open in disbelief as she saw a measly amount scrawled across the little bit of paper.

Humiliated, she handed over the heels and asked for her red Nikes, but to her dismay they were gone.Through tears and sobs, she rushed back to JD sports, horrified at the price tag on what used to be her very own trainers.

One of our youngest contributors to date, 18 year-old Jasmine Irving has translated a traditional fairytale into a modern retelling.

Jasmine is currently studying English Literature with Creative Writing and Media Studies at Falmouth University in Cornwall. Illustration by Laura Cartwright

Just when the young woman thought all hope had gone, a handsome young man from her estate whispered in her ear “Dem kicks are fresh!” She turned to face him and he winked at her. She told him of her story and he promised she wouldn’t have to worry, he had a plan.

Whilst she had been away from home that day, turmoil had begun to tear through London. The man told her how hundreds of people across town were getting hold of Nikes, iPod’s and anything else they wanted – all for free! The Nikes whispered to her to take them and even though a voice in her head warned her against it, it was impossible to resist the tempting promises the shoes were offering her.

Before she knew it they were somehow on her feet and seemed to be forcing her legs into a sprint. She gazed down at her feet in glee and wonder as they carried her into another shop where she grabbed at watches, clothes and jewellery galore. She knew she had to stop, her arms were aching with fatigue, the muscles in her legs stung from the relentless pace at which they had been running. But there was no stopping her, the Nikes just kept on moving, her hands kept on grabbing.

Policemen chased after her, following her twists and turns through the roads but the words “just do it” spun round and round her head, urging her to keep moving as she threw rocks at the officers and smashed through shop windows. She gasped trying to fill her lungs with air until she could no longer run. Police came from all angles and tackled her to the floor as her feet continued to twist and spin. Into a prison cell they threw her, removing her stolen Nikes. All night long all she could think of was the red Nikes. Her whole body was consumed with the need to be wearing them again. Finally, morning came and she was released. Her eyes shone with desire as they became fixed on her shoes behind the prison desk. She threw herself at them and began to run again. They took her over bridges and along the motorway until she got to another town. She wanted to stop but the Nikes wouldn’t allow her to. She began to crave all different colours of the same shoes, dodging through the aisles of shops she lurched at blue, green and turquoise trainers, as many as her arms would allow her to carry until she was tripping over fallen shoes and tangled laces. Collapsing into a heap on the floor she cried and cried, wishing she could make herself stop.

Scratching and hitting the Nikes in desperation she tried to force them off her feet but the laces only grew tighter around her ankles until she was screaming in agony, clutching at her legs. The red laces wrapped around her folded up body and bound her arms to her legs. She watched with terror in her eyes as the laces spun round and round covering every inch of her being until all that were left were her eyes.

To this day, she sits in the corner of JD Sports, frozen, forced to watch each person who comes in and out of the shop doors make the same choice she herself once made.Wrapped and bound, she longs to be free so that she can walk barefoot through far and distant lands, exploring with the desire to find true beauty. Not like the false beauty of the red Nikes she had so wished for.

J

ohn had always been a very particular type of man; straight laced, punctilious; the sort of person to wait for a green man at a crossing when there was no traffic on the road.

John rang the police several times a month to report ‘suspicious behaviour’ on his street. The site of a hooded top was enough to make his fingers itch for a telephone keypad. Every morning he rose at 6 am, drove his Rover 200 to the local mini-market and bought a copy of the telegraph, which he read during his breakfast of muesli and Earl Grey tea. And every morning he would try hopelessly to chat casually to the trendy young girl behind the counter of the mini-market, but all he ever managed was an overly cheerful, “thank you” or “see you tomorrow then”. When he got back from the shops he grappled with a crossword he could never finish.

BBC Radio 4 was the soundtrack to his morning. He listened eagerly and unquestioningly for the ‘facts’. This mediocre, balding man had come to regard his drab, friendless life as a comfort. At thirtyseven his aspirations were met; his vision set. Content with his position at work, John had no problems reporting to a manager almost ten years his junior and in a few years time his mortgage would be paid off. After eleven years in the civil service, John had acquiesced and was quite satisfied. And then, in July 2011, John lost his job.

August arrived and John was unshaken. He hadn’t even begun looking for work. Any day now, he convinced himself, the phone would ring and his former boss would inform him there had been

Burning Aspiration Darren Hardman, 25, was first published by novel way back in February in our first ever issue. This is Darren’s first piece of creative writing and it comes in the form of a shortstory. Darren’s protagonist has his comfortable suburban existence turned upside down and finds himself embroiled in a life of crime.

a mishap, one of the interns had made an inaccurate report, a file had been mislaid, documents lost, data badly inputted, something had occurred that had led them to this poor error in judgement.

There’d be embarrassed smiles and a ‘welcome back’, maybe an official apology would be issued. These thoughts steadied him and he maintained his resolutions. At the very least he would receive generous redundancy repayments for his long and loyal service.

August passed and John, a man who had never drank, except at the office Christmas party, was whiling away evenings draining a bottle or Merlot. He stared blankly at his television screen, his glasses no longer worn sat on a now disused desk top where previously he’d completed additional reports to impress his superiors. An open fire burned beside him lapping his face with a gentle red glow and heating his thoughts. Jeremy Paxman, a man whose every word John had used to hang on as objectivity itself; the man whom he respected above all BBC reporters, had lately appeared to him as another talking head, polluting his living room with opinion. Now taken to long lie-ins and late morning breakfasts, John no longer read his morning paper. Instead of Radio 4 he was listening to old CD’s from his youth, albums he had previously disregarded as ‘juvenile’ and ‘rowdy’. His nights became longer, the fires became more intense and one bottle of Merlot an evening became two.

Like the tide of social unrest, John’s restlessness was steadily rising.

Stood in the aisles of the claustrophobic, consumer concentration camp that was Tesco supermarket, on a Saturday afternoon, John baulked at the price-tag on a piece of grated cheddar cheese.

Without his glasses, John could clearly discern the label: One pack equals £3.75 the sticker read. Since being informed of his reduced redundancy payments John increasingly found himself feeling this way. Something as mundane as over-priced cheese had began to turn his temperature up. He had become a hot pressure cooker;

a bitter broth of resentment and curdling disenchantment bubbling away inside him, ready to brim over at any minute. Lifting the lid a little, John loosened his tie and tugged at his collar to let the air from the refrigerator cool him, like little wafts of appeasement.

Still, he practically stomped his way to the self-service checkout where he began scanning his items and thudding them into the bagging area. As he scanned his grated cheddar cheese the price popped up as four pound and nine-pence, not three pound seventy-five. As if three pound seventy-five wasn’t outrageous enough.

“Excuse me” John ushered to one of the teenage check-out attendants “this price is incorrect. It’s labelled as three seventy-five in the aisle”. John straightened up to assure the youth of his authority.

“That’s only when you buy two packs mister. It’s two for seven-fifty, so, like, it works out as three seventy-five if you buy two”.

Ignoring John’s stammering, incredulous, but wordless protestations the youth returned to his station. John was apoplectic at what he regarded as dishonest, deliberately misleading trickery. Once again his bitterness bubbled over. Without thinking, John turned back to the checkout and pressed ‘cancel item’. He then proceeded to the ‘finish and pay’ section, inserted notes into the slot and waited for his receipt. As he did this he raised his carrier bag out of the baggage area. Then, without looking around him, he dropped the packet of cheddar cheese into the carrier bag. As he felt the thud of the pack augment the weight of his carrier bag, his heart sank in unison.

When he turned away the lino beneath his feet melted into glowing red coals as searing pokers of guilt stabbed at him. The security guard’s eyes transformed into that of a demon; their gaze boring into him. Almost choking, John crossed the threshold of the supermarket, gasping and reaching for his collar, oblivious to the hubbub around him. Bent over, almost kneeling, he looked down at the cheese in the carrier bag. A breeze caught the beads of sweat on his brow and lowered his temperature. Straightening up, John looked over his shoulder and realised he hadn’t been caught. What had he been thinking? Still quivering as he hastily walked away he resolved never to commit such a feckless, hot-headed action ever again.

John stared down at what was his latest haul, beaming and satisfied. It was September and Barbour jackets were the coat of choice amongst ‘the civilians’ as John had taken to calling anybody with a

nine-to-five. John had just racked six of these coats to add to the five he’d stolen the week before. Wednesday mornings in Fenwicks were such a doddle. Staff were always thin on the ground on Wednesday morning, plus most shoplifters appear in the afternoon or at weekends and Fenwicks didn’t even have security tags or even cameras on the clothes section. The Black market value of these coats was anywhere between seventy and one-hundred pound. Not a bad day’s work, he thought to himself. Falling back onto the couch like a man who had just finished a hard day’s labour, John reached for the remote and cracked open a can of beer. A news report on BBC 2 flashed up and John was just about to flick channel irritably when the reporter made a statement in a dramatic tone that arrested his attention, “This morning at approximately ten-twenty am, armed robbers ransacked a Securicor Van on Gateshead high street in a heist that is estimated to be worth just over one point three million pounds”.

‘One point three million pound’, the words went round in John’s head, repeating over and over. He looked down at the pile of Barbour Jackets next to him. There was potentially a thousand pounds lying next to him; roughly equivalent to two weeks wages in his old job. All of a sudden his haul didn’t seem so hefty and his sense of rebellion was diminished.

“One point three million pound” he said out loud. He began asking himself, what would such a sum look like? How much would it weigh? What sized bag would you need to carry it? How would you store it? How would you spend it? Turning the television to standby, John stood up and looked into the mirror above the mantelpiece, pensive, calm. For a long time he just looked at himself.

Slowly, his eyes narrowed into a thousand yard stare. A flurry of images spun through his head like a film reel. He began posturing like Travis Bickle, taunting and gesticulating at an unseen foe.With fierceness he didn’t know he possessed John’s arms shot up holding an imaginary gun. He closed one eye, as if aiming the unreal weapon at a target. In his mind’s eye a helmeted man dressed in black was lowering a security box to the floor. Before John could complete his imaginary armed robbery, he was laughing. He laughed until his cheeks ached and his ribs were sore. Armed robbery! Stealing coats and selling them to people who couldn’t afford the full-price was one thing but pointing a gun at another human being for money was in a different league. He was a mere shoplifter, not a gunman. The consequences between the two crimes were incomparable. Wiping a tear from his cheek, John had one last giggle before he slumped back down onto the couch and resumed his beer. He looked again to the pile of coats sat beside him. How pathetic. At that moment he decided he would start looking for work the following day.

The story continues at novelmagazine.co.uk

Northern Unrest How come the riots didn’t make it to Newcastle?

Was anybody else ready to take to the streets and revolt? Why should I pay extra to eat indoors? Should we reconsider the way in which we deliver STI test results? These are the questions gnawing away inside Emily Sargent’s weird imagination. Illustration by Holly Trill

T

rying to write something on social unrest without immediately mentioning the riots is bloody tough. It’s like asking for an onion bhaji in Sainsbury’s from the four-fingered deli watchman without yelling ‘finger’ or ‘stump’. Newcastle didn’t really suffer rioting, of course. Everyone was too busy darning tiny magpies into their socks and bagging up coal. These are typical Geordie pastimes. Most homes still own a canary to keep them safe in low cupboards.

Our reluctance to get involved was obviously a relief to the shop owners and barkeeps of the town. This is a totally normal reaction; mine was not. I know it’s completely inappropriate, but a tiny part of me was disappointed. Allow me to explain: I would like to be in a gang.

Are there meetings for this?

Like Alcoholics Anonymous?

I don’t know. But there it is.

As soon as it all kicked off in London, I was ready for action. This is it, I thought, as I eagerly dabbed the back of a transfer tattoo with a flannel, excitedly peeling it off my forehead to reveal a flaming skull. This. Is. It! I roughly pulled on my pastel blue Kangol flatcap and threw open the door.

But, alas, nothing happened. Noone ever got to see the cackhanded ‘LET’S AV IT’ emblazoned across my rear.

Now, it has been brought to my attention, don’t worry, that these dark longings are: a) verging on offensive, given that actual gang members are locked in a state of social and economic difficulty, and b) totally inaccurate.

Some may say, “What the hell is wrong with you, do you realise that London and Manchester based gangs have guns, and don’t base their entrances on The Jets’ choreography?”

To those I say, “No, this is news to me”.

Clearly I was born in the wrong era.

Don’t get me wrong though, we still have plenty of gritty drama up North. I live in Elswick; only the biggest hub of scandalous affairs. I

walked into town just yesterday and saw two men arguing over a dead pigeon.The dispute was interrupted by a dog, who mediated, and snacked, and they seemed to part satisfied with the end result of joint custody.

Jesmond is also somewhat of a battlefield. The Jesmond Society does not take particularly kindly to students (understandably), and performed an alarming (slightly abstract) march last year to which I was witness. Leading the procession was an individual inexplicably dressed as a giant, angry phallus - later an observer confided, knowingly, that it was actually a finger. This figure, swaying ominously in the breeze, was followed by an army of ladies playing steel pan drums. To the unassuming observer it looked like the most terrifying way to deliver test results for gonorrhoea. Some poor soul would sit up sharply on the first fatal rumble of those tropical drums; the opening bars of Copacabana gradually increasing in volume and ferocity, and would frantically pull the blinds open, wailing “I was indeed a fool not to wrap my tool! Have mercy!”

As if this wasn’t peculiar enough, behind the steel pans of STI doom, there was an open van carrying about 17 waving children.

One can only speculate as to how that was put to the council of the Jesmond march. Here’s how I imagine the pitch of their ‘ideas man’: ‘So like, a van, yeah? Driving dead slowly - you with me ok? Like, full of children. Waving and that! Eh? Brilliant! Told you guys I was your man for ideas. Ok, so next, onto this year’s bonfire night - equally relevant and comprehendible concepts coming your way - get ready everybody: we get a van, yeah? Driving, not too fast, ok?

And we fill it with cats! I don’t know how I do it.’ Someone needs to tell the board in charge of the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony about this guy. He could change our lives.

At present however, given my failed aspirations for musical gang membership, I am simply aiming to keep the unrest in my own life to a minimum. I had an argument yesterday with a man in Pret a Manger. He tried to claim I was illegally commandeering the service of his table having only paid for a ‘takeaway’ salad - presumably to be eaten at a running pace down the high street. I said, “No, I have paid, you are also overpriced, by the way”, at which point he clocked my silver tray and said “ah, you may stay, m’am.”

The silver tray now struck me as a ridiculous prop, by the way; we’re in a cafe, not a Tudor banqueting hall. Will customers be eating their Swedish meatball wrap to the rhythm of Greensleeves as they receive a table dance from a lutist?

Up until now I have, on rare occasions, paid to sit in - only on rainy days though. From now on though I will avoid the possibility of conflict altogether. There is enough social unrest knocking about.

I don’t want to go down an argumentative road in life or else I could all too easily find myself intensely debating ownership of a KFC hot wing in Elswick Park. In the future I will always take the peaceful route. Regardless of the precariousness of the food, I’m just going to opt for Pret’s ‘old napkin’ service.

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The Stand

he Stand comedy club was initially founded back in 1995 by a collection of committed comedy connoisseurs. Its established venues in Edinburgh and Glasgow are regarded by many performers and critics as among the best comedy venues in the world.

Although the Stand is a highly successful chain of business, playing host to the biggest names on the circuit, it remains true to its roots of supporting the rising stars of tomorrow.

Opening its High Bridge venue to the public on Thursday October 27th launched Newcastle’s first ever purpose built comedy club. Headliners over the following two months include the larger than life, Phil Jupitus (November 6th), the man of many masks, Rory Bremner (November 8th), cheeky chappy Mark Watson (November 14th) and the tramadol tripping Frankie Boyle (December 6th).

Keep reading novel to find out dates for upcoming acts, including Johnny Vegas, Mark Thomas, Sarah Millican and one-liner legend, Stewart Francis. In order to welcome in the neighbours our new arrivals to the city will be initiating a registration drive, opening up their doors free of charge to local residents. This is a fantastic piece of philanthropy and says a great deal about the ethos behind the company.

To take the Stand up on their hospitality just type the following into you internet address bar: www.thestand.co.uk/free and choose which show you would most enjoy. If you’ve never been to see a comic this could be your prima facie with a world of laughter.

The Stand are not only serving up a delectable dish of comedy, they also provide you with a street level Bistro and bar, which will be open every day serving home-cooked, locally sourced, seasonal meals. After a scintillatingly successful launch, which saw an eclectic blend of big-hitters and local legends exemplify the Stand’s attitude towards its billing, this new addition to the historical High Bridge has already woven itself into the textural fabric of Newcastle’s cultural scene. The Stand: one to watch, for sure.

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The Troubles James Adair

I

t’s over a decade since the signing of the Good Friday/Belfast peace Agreement which brought an end to an epoch of ethno-political conflict in Northern Irish history referred to euphemistically as “The Troubles”.

This period is conventionally deemed to span the decades between the late 1960s and 1998 when the peace agreement was signed. The conflict resulted in the death of over 4,000 people.

Illustrator James Adair states that: ‘As an Artist trying to respond to “The Troubles” has in the past presented me with real problems. At times it was simply too obvious and too immediate to grapple with. It is also difficult to make work that is objective and not to take sides. However, I recently felt compelled to tackle this difficult subject upon seeing that many images of the troubled past have vanished. For example, many of the paramilitary wall murals and slogans have now been whitewashed over, but this is more indicative of an erasing of history, than it is a sign that the underlying causes of the conflict have been solved. With this in mind I have produced a series of works titled “Bear in mind these Dead” which documents ‘snippets’ from the past.

‘Snippets’ refers to James’ use of newspaper cuttings within his work, which consists of dismissed text and images from those who died, or were killed, maimed, orphaned and suffered during “The Troubles”’.

Due to a recent resurgence in terrorist activity in Northern Ireland, James feels now is an important time to reflect upon the causes and effects of “The Troubles”.