HaverFolk News 26th January, 2012 Hi all, Newsletter time once again with a report of last nights’s Andy Roberts feature evening from John the Fox. Havering report 25 January: A splendid turnout for our guest artist Andy Roberts (Haverfolk’s Andy not the Liverpool Scene one) meant the number of floor spots was restricted (the guv’nor Simon Oliver led by example and stood down, despite having practised something special for the evening). Proceedings were opened by our Hillbillies Pep and Terry playing a quick bluegrass piece then leading all-comers in the songs You Ain’t Going Nowhere and Worried Man Blues. MC for the night Smolovik formally opened proceedings with Down By the Riverside then called on Foxen who performed Freewheeling Days, their tribute to the late Suze Rotollo, Bob Dylan’s girlfriend who is pictured on the front of his Freewheeling album. Our own Thief of Dadgad, Graham Harrison, marked Burns Night by singing Archie Fisher’s Lindsay. Concertina and guitar duo Bernie and Maureen Pilgrim gave us Grandfather’s Tune and Uncle Bernard then violin maestro Richie Barratt made a welcome return, accompanying Micky Brown on a song we think was called Can’t Wait Till the Weekend Comes. Newcomer Di Russell accompanied herself on mandolin for a Mumford and Sons song, Awake My Soul and Ray Spillman, recovering well after his recent stay in hospital sang Norwegian Wood. Poetess Carol read us a brief ode written during a workshop she went to on hands and Peter Walters sang Gypsy Rover. Then it was time for the main event. Andy has a growing reputation as a songwriter and treated us to an hour and three-quarters (with a break) of mostly his own compositions. [ full setlist ] Old favourites such as London Bridge (which Haverites insist on calling the Cormorants) and Winter In Andalucia jostled with newer compositions such as Never Was to Be (an online collaboration with lyricist Daryl P Hall) and Clean Living Woman Blues (lyrics by Andy’s partner Linda Hartley). As it was Burns Night he gave us two of his Scotland-inspired numbers The Last Nail and The Rowan Tree (not to be confused with the Scottish ballad written by Lady Nairne). We also got a version of his epic, Gernika, inspired by a visit to the Basque city on the anniversary of its bombing by the Luftwaffe. He finished off with his song Cajun  Music Cajun Food and invited Pep on banjo and Richie Barratt and John Foxen on fiddles to join him. He was called back for a well deserved encore and aptly provided The Last Subway Home, reminding us it was time to take the last train. A fine end to a fine evening. – John Eason Local Round-Up: This Sunday, 29th January the FaB Club has a “Club in the Pub” session featuring Al Neville & Friends. http://www.fabclubgrays.com There is a singaround at Waltham Abbey Folk Club on Monday, 30th January; all welcome. http://www.walthamabbeyfolkclub.com This coming Tuesday, 31st January sees a guest night at Romford Folk Club with C’est la Vie; the compere & commere are Mick & Nora. http://www.romfordfolkclub.com Also on Tuesday, 31st January the Hoy at Anchor Folk Club has a guest evening featuring Tony McManus. I quote direct from their website: ”Tony McManus is the Jeff Beck of the acoustic guitar”; ”His guitar playing is faultless…atmospheric and evocative…consistently appealing” just two of the many glowing reviews attributed to this guitar virtuoso. In the course of his relatively short career Tony has established a reputation as the best Celtic guitarist in the world…the man whose fellow guitarists would aspire to and are in awe of!”  http://www.ridgeweb.co.uk On Thursday, 2nd February, Loughton Folk Club has guest Josienne Clarke; again I quote direct from the website: “Josienne Clarke is now one of the leading lights in the current folk revival movement. Her music is borne from sincere and succinct songwriting, distilled through traditional folk, executed with skill and dexterity. Come and see!”  http://www.loughtonfolkclub.btck.co.uk/   also   http://www.josienneclarke.co.uk Back to Haverfolk: Our next open session is on Wednesday 1st February when all are welcome to claim a floor spot. The first 15 to give their names to the night’s MC are guaranteed at least two songs. After that, it depends on how many we have, but we’ll try to fit you in for two if we possibly can. That’s it for this week – a rather shorter-than-usual newsletter, but not so much happening this time. Make it a date- Wednesday at eight! Cheers – Peter Walters HaverFolk, The Function Suite, The White Horse, 118 High Road, Chadwell Heath, Romford, RM6 6NU                            www.haveringfolkclub.bravehost.com

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Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogHaverfolk Newsletter Andy Roberts feature evening

Please read, understand and inwardly digest that 

aroberts@gmail.com is NOT an email address belonging to Adrienne Roberts. 

Get it right! Brain surgeons, tut. What can you do with them?

On 26 January 2012 16:15, Adrienne Roberts <aroberts@neurosurgery.org> wrote:

Adrienne Roberts Senior Manager, Legislative Affairs American Association of Neurological Surgeons/    Congress of Neurological Surgeons 725 15th Street, NW, Suite 500 Washington, D.C. 20005 ARoberts@neurosurgery.org Direct Phone: 202-446-2029 Main Phone: 202-628-2072 Fax: 202-628-5264 Cell: 703-254-9424

From: Cynthia Spriggs Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2012 11:11 AMTo: Adrienne Roberts; Alison Dye; Cathy Hill; Katie O. Orrico; Koryn Rubin; Rachel Groman (groman.rachel@gmail.com) Subject: Home Email Addresses

  Adrienne:            arobertsdc@gmail.com Alison:                  adye12@hotmail.com Cathy:             jandchill@aol.com Cynthia:           cyntmaria@msn.com Katie:                    kateorrico@aol.com

Koryn:                   Koryn.rubin@gmail.com    

via posterous Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogHome Email Addresses

Time capsule pictures from Calabardina and Aguilas in Murcia, Spain just before Christmas 2010. Sad that we can't be there every year at present. The current weather over there doesn't seem to be quite as idyllic as usual though, bu a few degrees warmer than London and a lot milder than Scotland. 

Calabardina

Calabardina Taken December 21, 2010 at 4:23 pm

Evan Roberts pouring cider

Evan Roberts pouring cider Taken December 20, 2010 at 3:19 pm

Aguilas, Murcia, Spain

Aguilas, Murcia, Spain Taken December 20, 2010 at 11:23 am

Aguilas, Murcia, Spain

Aguilas, Murcia, Spain Taken December 20, 2010 at 10:30 am

Aguilas, Murcia, Spain

Aguilas, Murcia, Spain Taken December 20, 2010 at 11:23 am

via posterous Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogAguilas and Callabardina Christmas 2010

Kew Gardens October 2010

Kew Gardens October 2010 Red Shoveler from South America Taken October 25, 2010 at 1:43 pm

Shabby Chic Dresser Portobello Road Market

Shabby Chic Dresser Portobello Road Market Taken October 30, 2010 at 11:14 am

St Paul's – Millennium Bridge – Glass

St Paul's – Millennium Bridge – Glass Taken November 1, 2010 at 7:57 pm

Wanstead Park

Wanstead Park Taken November 4, 2010 at 12:57 pm

Kew Gardens October 2010

Kew Gardens October 2010 Taken October 25, 2010 at 1:44 pm

via posterous Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogTime capsule from October 2010

I saw a car driving up the Romford Rad the orther day with "Air Ambulance" written on the side.

It didn't fool me, I know what a helicopter sounds like.  via posterous Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogLondon’s Air Ambulance

Richmond – Twickenham Green Pine Cones Richmond – Twickenham Taken August 9, 2010 at 1:39 pm Airstream Cafe London 08 10 Taken August 14, 2010 at 2:41 pm Street Cries Prohibited Richmond – Twickenham Taken August 9, 2010 at 1:44 pm Bat Walks at Marble Hill Park Richmond – Twickenham Bat Walks at Marble Hill Park Richmond – Twickenham Taken August 9, 2010 at 1:52 pm Richmond – Twickenham Ferry Crossing The River Thames Richmond – Twickenham Taken August 9, 2010 at 11:27 amAndy Robertshttp://distributedresearch.net/blog/via posterousThanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogtime capsule for August 15th Richmond to TwickenhamRelated posts:Arctic Tern RichmondTime capsule for July 25th to August 8th, 2010August Rain and The Harvest

Andy Roberts http://distributedresearch.net/blogvia posterousThanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogGood Morning Sunshine in the ValleyRelated posts:I think this is the best so farThere is a MoleThe tide is in

High tide from the point, 340 degrees. Andy Roberts http://distributedresearch.net/blogvia posterousThanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogI think this is the best so farRelated posts:The tide is inThere is a MoleThe point

I created this panorama of the Point at Penpol. Andy Roberts http://distributedresearch.net/blogvia posterousThanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogThe pointRelated posts:The tide is inPhotosynth PanoramaThe symbol and the thing

I created this panorama when the tide was in on my iOS device. The point is here. Andy Roberts http://distributedresearch.net/blogvia posterousThanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogThe tide is inRelated posts:Photosynth PanoramaHigh Tide dareComment

Hi 2011 intake! It was really good to meet those of you who were able to come along to our Welcome Days on Wednesday 18th May and Wednesday 6th July.  I would like to take this opportunity again to welcome and congratulate you on your appointment on Network Rail’s graduate engineering programme.  For those of you who were unable to make it the reason for my email is to introduce myself and run through what was covered on the day. We had a number of speakers and current graduates covering a variety of elements but I need to focus with you my session from that day. I support Nigel Ward, Professional Development Manager who will be your line manager for the duration of your scheme.  One of my responsibilities will be managing the on-boarding of you all and assisting Nigel with your development when you join us in September.  As part of the planning process for this, there are a number of initiatives that we are working on to ensure your smooth transition into the business.  You will shortly be receiving joining instructions from me for our induction event which will commence on Sunday 4th September at our residential training centre in Coventry. You will be there for the whole week and on the Friday (9th Sept) all of the 2011 intake will then be transported to our technical training centre at HMS Sultan in Gosport.  I have to stress to those of you who missed the event at Westwood that you will be required to stay the middle weekends of the three week induction. Accommodation and full board will be provided for the duration of the induction event and whilst at Gosport you will be working the Saturday mornings.  You will, however, have free time on the Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday.  You will leave Gosport on Friday 23rd September.  On your fourth week you will spend this with your buddy and the other graduates who are based in your ‘home’ location.  This is to familiarise you with the relevant offices/areas that you will be based at. One of my first priorities is to look at your initial placement following on from your induction programme.  All of the 2011 cohort will start the initial training with a 20 week (approx) placement in one of our maintenance delivery units.  We have a number of these around the country and it is my plan to try and place you in one that is nearest, not only to your place of work e.g. Swindon, but also where you are living if that is possible.  In order for me to look at the range of locations vs the delivery units, I would be grateful if you could complete the attached information form (if you haven’t done that) to update me on your contact details.  I appreciate that you may be planning on moving over the summer but if you can give me an indication on where you are likely to be living when you commence employment with us that will assist me greatly.  Please note the broadness of London as an area as this covers Sussex, Wessex, Anglia & Kent.  Once I have all these forms returned I will be able to confirm where you will be based for that placement.  After your initial maintenance placement you will then start your formal 6-9 month placements which will be outlined to you during the induction period.  If you are unclear about any of this please don’t hesitate to contact either myself or Nigel for clarification.  Again, don’t worry too much about this as we will discuss this with you during your induction event. A second initiative that I am working on is getting our graduates from 2010 to contact you to invite you into the location where you will be working i.e. if you are based in Glasgow you will be invited to meet the previous grads at the office in Buchanan House in Glasgow! This will be over the next few weeks.  I will assume that by your completion and return of that document you are happy for me to pass these details to our grads so they can contact you and arrange a suitable date to bring you in to meet them along with the other grads who are joining that location. Full joining instructions for your three week induction programme will be sent out over the next couple of weeks.  All travel arrangements and tickets will be organised for you and I attach the form that you need to complete and return to me so that I can arrange this for you.  As part of your training you will be required to wear Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).  Attached is a form that you need to complete with the size that is relevant to you. Please can you return the Graduate Information Form, Ticket Request Form and PPE form to me (if you haven’t already done so) by Wednesday 20th July at the latest. Important Information Required : for those of you who couldn’t make the welcome events and those of you on the 18th May event I need you to complete the attached security clearance form for your stay at HMS Sultan.  The forms that were included in the packs I issued to those who did attend on the 18th May were incorrect so please can you complete the one that is attached and send to Lesley Harding (along with the necessary ID forms) asap.  Those of you who were on the 6th July event are ok as you received the correct version of the form. If you have any concerns or want to chat through any issues please don’t hesitate to contact myself or Nigel either by phone or by email. Kind regards Janice Bridgeland Professional Development Assistant Engineering (Graduates) Network Rail 40 Melton Street London NW1 2EE Tel: 020 7557 8858 Mobile: 07825 376901 Information Form.doc Download this file On-Boarding Presentation.ppt Download this file PPE Order Form.doc Download this file Ticket Request.doc Download this file Basic Check Application Form.doc Download this filevia posterousThanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogNetwork Rail – Welcome & Information RequestsRelated posts:Information overload? Time to relax thenAre junk information diets killing us?Requests

I counted 140 Curlews on two mudbanks in the estuary near Devoran today. That’s a huge increase on recent years, and suggests the curlew population, and that of other wader birds, are well on the way to fully recovering after the wildlife disaster that followed the closing of the tin mine inland. The curlwes were mostly resting, but some were feeding on small molluscs in the mud. Their downward curved beaks are proportionately probably longer than that of a pelican, but narrow. In order to swallow or crush the little periwinkle type univalves, they were having to manipute the shell whole, right down the beak almost to the head in order to get enough leverage. We also saw two grey herons fighting over a small piece of fishing territory, flocks of oystercatcher, redshanks and a family of buzzards overhead.via posterousThanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blog140 CurlewsNo related posts.

Dear Sir/Madam,We specialize in the PCB manufacture field for more than 15 years, with good quality and pretty competitive price, with the good delivery time and good services.If you need the PCB products, pls do not hesitate to contact me.Thank you & Best Regards.Creation Cirtech Co., Ltd                          Eric HongTel:   +86 755 2666 6755Fax:   +86 755 2666 4728E-mail:  creation@21cn.net          sales6@creationpcb.comWeb:    www.creationpcb.commaJwzjOnhvkOKXWp4CCUiS+w5gjPCUwzfPsXUoQy+qgMFM3trphkSpdSo8ktANvia posterousThanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogReliable Printed Circuit BoardsRelated posts:Pictures of stuff on shelvesThe Forbidden City, Beijing ChinaTemple of Concordia Agrigento + Igor Mitoraj

lots of pictures of shelves full of stuff  See the full gallery on Posterous  via posterousThanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogPictures of stuff on shelvesRelated posts:The Forbidden City, Beijing ChinaPictures of new species discovered in New GuineaDivshare – Free file hosting for mp3s and blog pictures

It’s Podcast 44 – Romford Folk Club part 2 June 12, 2011 at 5:27 PM   Andy Roberts Podcast 44Episode 44 of the Andy Roberts Podcast continues the soundtrack from the Romford Folk Club guest night of April 12th with six more self written songs performed live.Here’s the download and play link etc: Download podcast 44Subscribe to the podcast RSS or get it from iTunesDownload MP3 to save – 38 Mb in size, playtime 26 minutes 20 seconds :- 44 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 44.mp3 Andy Roberts Podcast #44 ShownotesShow Notes for Podcast 44Yellow BoatGernikaDoing it all aloneMigrationJoan of ArcThe Dream is Overvia posterousThanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogAndy Roberts Music Podcast #44Related posts:Ustream.tv Tuesday Nights Andy Roberts Music 7.00pmAndy Roberts music – Listen upPodcast

There is a mole in the garden, Hotel Sully, Paris, Marais. Andy Roberts http://distributedresearch.net/blogvia posterousThanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogThere is a MoleRelated posts:tiny cars #TinyPlanetRadioFolk music legend Loudon Wainwright on his musical family

By rejecting all the means by which renewable electricity can be generated, such as wind farms, tidal barrages, hydro elcric dams etc, the UK has set a very dangerous courseThis article titled “Support wind farms? It would be less controversial to argue for blackouts” was written by George Monbiot, for The Guardian on Monday 30th May 2011 20.00 UTCWhy do those who oppose wind power insist on spoiling their case with gibberish? In his column on Friday, Simon Jenkins claimed that onshore windfarms were being planned “with no concern for cost”. But the only reason for building them is a concern for cost. If it weren’t for this issue, they would be the last option governments would choose – God knows they cause enough trouble.As the government’s Committee on Climate Change reports, large onshore windfarms are “already close to competitive” with burning natural gas, and are likely to get there by 2020. They are the cheapest renewable sources in this country by a long way. Offshore wind costs roughly twice as much, and its costs have been escalating. After attacking the high cost of wind power, Jenkins argued that we should instead invest in “sun and waves”. The committee shows that while the expected price of electricity from onshore wind in 2030 is between 7 and 8.5 pence per kilowatt hour, solar power is expected to come in at between 11 and 25p, and wave between 15 and 31p. Talk about no concern for cost!Incidentally, the cheapest low carbon option, the committee says, is nuclear power, at 5-10p. But, because of public objections, new plants are likely to be confined to existing sites, which means a maximum of about 20 gigawatts (a quarter of our current power capacity). Planning objections also restrict the spread of onshore wind. The only viable means of getting carbon off the grid, the committee suggests, is a mixture of sources: renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage.But those who oppose wind power can’t help themselves. In parliament earlier this month, Glyn Davies, the MP who is leading the fight against windfarms in mid-Wales, insisted that “Welsh windfarms have a load factor of just 19% – the lowest ever recorded” and that “the carbon impact of the development can never be compensated for by any possible carbon benefit”. Rubbish again. The capacity factor for Welsh wind (the amount the turbines produce as a proportion of their idealised output) is 26%.Professor Gareth Harrison of Edinburgh University estimates that the carbon payback time for the wind developments in mid-Wales will be roughly 12 months (all references on my website). Davies, like Jenkins, also claimed that “so much more” could have been done with the same money had it been spent on wave and tidal power, offshore wind and solar photovoltaics. Should MPs not be obliged to do some research before they open their mouths in parliament?Anti-wind campaigners are also highly selective. The Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales, obsessed by windfarms, says nothing about the opencast coalmines ripping south Wales apart. Nor do you hear a word about the destruction of the ecosystems of upland Wales (and England and Scotland) by sheep grazing. These champions of the countryside want to save it from only one threat.For all that, it’s a real one. While the windfarms themselves divide communities, everyone hates the new power lines required to connect them to the grid. Here in mid-Wales, I have yet to meet anyone who will speak up in favour of them. Because they have to march across so much countryside, their visual impact is greater per pound of investment than that of any other technology.Though you could see this issue coming as clearly as the pylons themselves, the green movement is completely unprepared. Greenpeace tells me “we haven’t done any work on pylons”. Hardly anyone seems to be aware of how perilous this situation is: how easily renewable energy could be killed by the power lines issue.This is about to become a national struggle, in which opponents of the new pylons will be cast as heroes. Promising direct action, reminding us of the great battles against the reservoirs supplying England, those who marched against the new lines in Wales last week will put us, unless we act quickly, in a dangerous position. Green activists will be outflanked by green activism. The same battle will then be fought all over the United Kingdom, wherever a new power line is planned.Many of the areas affected by proposals for new lines are either Tory constituencies or Lib Dem seats the Tories will hope to take (all of which are now contestable). It is hard to believe that the Conservative commitment to low-carbon energy could withstand a major rebellion within the party: Tory environmentalism is easily uprooted.The greens need to decide where they stand. The only position that makes sense to me is unequivocally to support the campaign against overhead lines. Where new powerlines are built they must go underground. If they can’t go underground, they shouldn’t be built. If we are not against pylons marching over stunning countryside, what are we for?But here too there’s a problem. Like the windfarms, overhead lines are favoured by the government because of its concern for cost. According to the National Grid, burying the lines connecting the turbines in mid-Wales to the rest of the system would cost 3.2 times as much as putting them on pylons (£562m vs £178m). But how much does that add to the cost of electricity?Calculating this is easy (there’s an explanation on my website) – as long as you know the capital costs of the whole project. But neither the National Grid nor anyone else I’ve spoken to is prepared to hazard a guess about the cost of the rest of the infrastructure, so I can’t yet tell you whether burying the power lines makes onshore wind here more expensive than competing technologies.In fact my efforts to obtain relevant data of all kinds from the government, the National Grid and the wind industry reveal that, like the environment movement, they are completely unprepared for this backlash. Dismayed by the collective failure to address the pylons issue, the campaign against windfarms now confidently tells the same story about this technology as others do about nuclear: the turbines are erected by big, greedy corporations; they are unfairly subsidised by the government; they will cause untold damage to human health. In view of the flack you get for supporting any power technology, I’m beginning to think it would be less controversial to argue in favour of blackouts.So this is where the United Kingdom stands. We cannot keep burning fossil fuels without cooking the biosphere. We don’t like nuclear power. We don’t like onshore wind. We won’t like the costs of the other technologies. We reject all the means by which electricity is generated. Yet no one is volunteering to stop using it.• A fully referenced version of this article can be found on George Monbiot’s website guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogSupport wind farms? It would be less controversial to argue for blackoutsRelated posts:Architects worried by tower blocks and windPbwiki supportWild parakeets seen as a threat in the UK

Is Marx more diminished than enhanced by Terry Eagleton’s defence of him?This article titled “Why Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton – review” was written by Tristram Hunt, for The Observer on Sunday 29th May 2011 01.30 UTCAs the IMF dishes out its medicine in Lisbon, Dublin and Athens, and the limitations of neo-liberalism become more apparent, the moment is surely right for a compelling account of Karl Marx’s relevance to the modern world. And in campus conferences, continuing sales of Das Kapital, and even the words of Pope Benedict XVI (moved to praise Marx’s “great analytical skill”), there is a growing appreciation for Marx’s predictions of globalisation, rampant capitalism, and the instability of international finance. As the Times put in the middle of the 2008 crash: “He’s back!”But Marx also remains the target of any number of lazy slurs. The easiest way to kill off debate about Marxism is to jump straight to the Stalin show-trials, Soviet gulags, and Khmer Rouge Year Zero. The philosophical beliefs of a mid-19th-century denizen of the British Museum are all too quickly elided with the most terrible atrocities of the 20th century as an all-purpose intellectual get-out card.So Terry Eagleton – literary critic, liberal-baiter, Marxist man of letters – has set himself the task of explaining why Marx was right. “What if all the most familiar objections to Marx’s works are mistaken?” he begins. His plan is to take on “10 of the most standard criticisms of Marx and try to refute them one by one”. He does so, he believes, at a time when capitalism is uniquely in crisis: “the system has ceased to be as natural as the air we breathe, and can be seen instead as the historically rather recent phenomenon it is”. Or as Friedrich Engels used to put it: “This time there’ll be a dies irae such as has never been seen before… all the propertied classes in the soup, complete bankruptcy of the bourgeoisie, war and profligacy to the nth degree.”But for any admirer of Eagleton or Marx, the book is a disappointment. There is none of the logical precision, winning prose or intellectual ambition displayed most recently in Eagleton’s Yale lectures on faith. Part of the problem is the structure. This is a work of intellectual rebuttal, as chapter by chapter Eagleton takes on a century of misreading Marx. All of which means he is fighting on an enemy territory of dreary objections. For example, there’s a long attempt to justify the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and the Leninist aftermath, as well as the East German system of childcare – not something, I imagine, Marx and Engels themselves would have bothered with.The consequence of such deviations is that there is little sense of the anger, brio and bravado of Marx and Engels; none of the humour, irony and creativity so central to the Marxian heritage. Instead, this book reads like a rapidly crammed set of notes for an American midwest college course. There’s an array of lecture-hall style jokes and fairly worthless hyperbole. In no credible sense do one in three children in Britain today “live below the breadline”.Thankfully, amid the banalities, there lurk some wonderful passages. Eagleton is right to stress the centrality of democracy to Marxian communism, as well as explain so successfully the nature of free will within Marx and Engels’s account of history. This is all very much the humanist, Paris Marx of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts.Eagleton also stresses the modernity of Marx’s thinking and how, for example, he saw the nature of social class shifting with the progress of capitalism. “As long ago as the mid-19th century, he is to be found writing of the ‘constantly growing number of the middle-classes’ … men and women ‘situated midway between the workers on the one side and the capitalists on the other.’” This is a long way from the hackneyed dichotomy of proletarian and bourgeois.There is also a touch of the old Eagleton when he deploys Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure to explore the interaction of culture and materialism. When it comes to Jude Fawley, we need to appreciate that “Oxford University is the ‘superstructure’ to Jericho’s ‘base’.”However, Eagleton’s touch is less sure when it comes to the human condition under communism. In trying to rebut claims of utopianism, he goes too far in suggesting that “Marxism holds out no promise of human perfection” and “envy, aggression, domination, possessiveness and competition would still exist”. Engels, though, was clear that the ascent from socialism to communism entailed a metaphysical change. Under the leadership of the proletariat, humanity achieves true freedom liberated from its animal instincts: “It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.”Here was the quasi-theological endpoint of Marxism and it would have been more rewarding if Eagleton, such an intriguing catholic thinker, had expanded upon the Judaeo-Christian assumptions underpinning much of Marx’s heaven on earth. But perhaps that was too close to the bone.In the end, this is another worthy volume in the rarely scintillating Marx-Engels interpretative canon. Useful for undergraduates at the University of Notre Dame, but not for anyone else interested in the drama, insights, and majesty of Marxism. Marx might well have been right about an awful lot, but sadly Eagleton fails to make you care very much. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogWhy Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton – reviewRelated posts:Karl Marx, part 6: The economics of powerThe Wizard of Oz – reviewThe latest word on globalisation

Temple of Concordia Agrigento and sculpture in foreground by Polish sculptor Igor Mitoraj who lives in Italy. A series of these are placed in different places and are there till November this year.via posterousThanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogTemple of Concordia Agrigento + Igor MitorajRelated posts:The Forbidden City, Beijing Chinatiny cars #TinyPlanetElche Palm Gardens with Surprising Water Feature Sculpture

It’s Bob Dylan’s 70th birthday today.Wicked Messenger: Bob Dylan and the 1960s | MikeMarqusee.com http://www.mikemarqusee.com/?p=153Mike Marqusee restores the forgotten moral and political contexts of Dylan’s supernova years. In doing so, he rescues one of the most urgent poetic voices in American history from the condescension of his own later cynicism.(via Instapaper)Andy Robertshttp://distributedresearch.net/blogvia posterousThanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogWicked Messenger: Bob Dylan and the 1960sRelated posts:Obama abroadBob Dylan posts web message about China showsMoDo on Bob Dylan and protest