“The society which has abolished every kind of adventure makes its own abolition the only possible adventure.” Paris, May 1968


Monday 4 April 2011

Nothing but the best.

"I've brought you a presi", announced her indoors when she came home. The gift turned out to be a black pudding from Allens of Mayfair, butchers to the nobility. "We're supposed to be smashing windows round there, not shopping", I moaned. Apparently the lady had felt an urge to wonder around a part of London normally only visited on demos. Check out a pub and a posh shop or three. Quite right too, for we deserve the best. There is a dreadful soul destroying streak of puritanism deep in the bowels of the left, and anarchists are not immune to it, that insists on us adopting a sackcloth and ashes take on life. There is nothing liberating about not recognising and wanting quality products; and nothing good about settling for the third rate products of sweated labour rather than the craftsmanship of the true artisan. I also don't think that there is anything contradictory in spidging about getting stuff out of skips and growing our own veg on the one hand, and the desire to experience the quality that is supposed to be the preserve of the rich on the other. What we need is a new kind of relationship with commodities and accumulating cheap crap produced at the expense of other peoples misery should be no part of it. We deserve the best. All of us. And the black pudding? Not bad actually.

3 comments:

Gitane said...

Good stuff! The debate about the quality of existence and anarchism needs reigniting. A mild fan of K.M ,may I take the liberty of offering a little aperitif ; something like a fisherman/woman in the morning, a sheperd(dess?) in the afternoon and a theatr critic after dinner. Unfortunately science and technology (like I'm using now) has moved the goalposts somewhat. Power is , as the bald bloke says, everywhere! What future then for mutuality?
Could the organisation of the black bloc demonstrate the second part ofthe proposal of destruction which is the creation of something else? Personally i'm with the " even as I wash the blood of the last aristocrat from my hands I shall not rest until I have hung the last priest with the entrails of the last politician." firm. But now I'm probably 100 years out of date. By the way the best boudin or black pudding to you is made by Madame Argout, Isere, France.

Anonymous said...

the best black pudding comes from a butcher shop in alyth.....in the county of angus in scotia.or has at least won the scottish black puddin championships more than any other butcher......thought id share that with ya all.

Gitane said...

AAh but does he put fresh chives and cream in it? As I have never tasted your Alyth black pudding you may of course be right.
Madame Argout was a tennant farmer in Isere and when she killed a pig the locals would cue up for her limited edition of boudin, no cash just barter. I welded up a a pump casing for the Argouts and was awarded with half a kilo of her boudin. She also gave me a litre of eau de vie which I tried to barter with the local gendarme for him to drop a charge of poaching against me. He did'nt but took the eau de vie anyway and said that he didn't accept bribes "mais merci pour le cadeaux". Cunt.