The Politics of Dancing

The Secret of the Jack of Clubs Circle A short distance from St James Park underground station, down a narrow side street, so narrow and nondescript, with an entrance almost hidden by a tree, that most people miss it. Going down a short flight of steps, you enter a short street, leading to the park dominated, on the left-hand side, by a late 18 th century terraced house. Some well-worn steps lead to an imposing black door, but this is not the interesting entrance. No, if you walk a little further on, to the right side of the main entrance there is a short metal spiral staircase leading to the basement. Should you walk down these stairs you would come to a dark green door. This used to be the entrance to the servant’s quarter, but now it serves as a meeting place for the Jack of Clubs Circle. I have deliberately omitted the name of the Street or the number on the door, since knowing these small details could put your life at risk. Indeed, I may have already told you too much, an...

This was written in May 2015 to mark 150yrs of Portobello and Goldborne Markets. THE BATTLE OF THE ELECTRIC CINEMA I The situation became critical after the capture of The Electric Cinema. This had been taken by a crack fast food squad. The roof of which was now being used as a burger gun nest. This was now spraying heavy fire on the junction of Talbot Road and Portobello, pinning the defenders down around the blue toilets. A hasty makeshift barricade was assembled, but the fire was withering. So whilst Goldborne was holding well, even managing to send reinforcements south, it would be to no avail if this key junction remained tied down. Soon the Homogens would be able to connect with the chain store army holding the ground to the west of Blenheim Crescent. Somehow that burger gun nest had to be taken out. I looked around me at the Hetrogens, the stall holders, the artists, actors, freelance photographers, dancers, potters, artisan bakers and small shopkeepers. All det...

THE GHOST OF NATASHA ALEXANDROVA PREOBRAZHENSKY: A STORY FOR  CHRISTMAS “You too are an exile, I thought. You mourn for the broad open steppes where you have room to spread your icy wings. Here you feel stifled and constricted, like an eagle that cries and beats against the bars of its iron cage.” Mikhail Lermontov ‘My love had grown one with my soul; it became darker but did not go out.’ Mikhail Lermontov A Hero Of Our Time The reign of Nicholas 1 st, Tsar of Russia began in 1815 with the bloody crushing of the ‘Decembrists,’ idealistic young men who wished to install a constitutional monarchy and establish basic rights and freedoms. Nicholas’s reign continued as it began and Russia became frozen, an autocratic police state. However by the beginning by the 1840’s and 50’s there began the first stirrings of what was to become the Russian revolutionary movement. Whilst this story is fiction, such idealistic young people did exist. They perhaps now seem naïve...