Badgering the Local Bobbies

All news starts off local. Without reporters dropping into a court case, pestering the manager of an NHS trust, sitting through an inquest or badgering the local bobbies, democracy and accountability in Britain would not be possible.

Stratford High Street, Stratford, Newham, E15

Local news, effectively local newspapers and their websites, is essential to our society and don’t let anyone tell you that the propaganda rags produced by local councils are a substitute for independent newspapers that can run campaigns, concentrate their fire on a council or simply cover the local sheepdog trials.

From Henry Porter’s I Mourn the Death of Local Newspapers, The Observer (2009)

A Season in Hell

A while back, if I remember right, my life was one long party where all hearts were open wide, where all wines kept flowing.

Marylebone Road, Westminster, NW1

One night, I sat Beauty down on my lap.—And I found her galling.—And I roughed her up.

Tontone Street, Folkestone, Kent, CT20

I armed myself against justice.

Queenstown Road, Wandsworth, SW8

I ran away. O witches, O misery, O hatred, my treasure’s been turned over to you!

Democracy Village, Parliament Square, Westminster, SW1P

I managed to make every trace of human hope vanish from my mind. I pounced on every joy like a ferocious animal eager to strangle it.

Gerry Judah's Auschwitz-Birkenau Model, The Holocaust Exhibition, Imperial War Museum, Lambeth, SE1

I called for executioners so that, while dying, I could bite the butts of their rifles. I called for plagues to choke me with sand, with blood. Bad luck was my god. I stretched out in the muck. I dried myself in the air of crime. And I played tricks on insanity.

From Arthur Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell (1873)