Firebox run by Counterfire: Champagne socialism.

[Spanky Longhorn]

instrument-building with local artist Jonny Wild from 12, and then a chance to use these instruments in a music workshop with Ashton Mills after lunch.

No skateboard building with Johnny Favourite?

 

[frogwoman]

there's also a "lib-dem friends of palestine"

haranguing checkout girls about israeli oranges lol

 

[articul8]

Ja music workshop with Ashton Mills after lunch.
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[The39thStep]

The wonderful thing about capitalism is choice and if one is tired of Greek frappe and Uncle Tariq then at Firebox's competitors the Bean inspired Cuts Cafe you can get stuck into

On Tuesday we were blessed with the presence of three women campaigners talking about the Global Women’s Strike and in particular proposed new legislation from the US fighting for wages for house work and caring.

Apparently women do two thirsd of all work although a quick calculation as I do the washing, hoover the house, shopping and cleaning up the dog shit this morning, leads me to the tentative conclusion that my daughter is not included but what is included is 'emotional labor such as sending out birthday cards, organizing family vacations, preparing for holidays'.

 

[Firky]

'blessed with the presence'

 

[The39thStep]

Always touched by

 

[Firky]

A moving account

 

[The39thStep]

You have no idea what it is like to be a teenage girl having your first period under Taliban rule.

 

[The39thStep]

From the Guardian comments on the article 'The return of leftwing cafe culture' http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/...-cafe-culture?commentpage=2#start-of-comments

Thanks to this article, I am now sitting in Firebox cafe and have to say I'm very impressed. Big windows, spacious, and most important, it serves good coffee (and I'm very fussy about my coffee). It has the minimalist, creative style of the modern, activist culture. It also has an accessible feel, which a lot of the squat spaces didn't always have. This feels like a natural progression of leftist political culture and it does look like a visible sign of a (counter)cultural shift. Of course it's mere existence will be sneered at by the cynics, but it looks like a positive space for people to meet and discuss political and philosophical ideas. Where's the harm in that?

 

[butchersapron]

I wonder if the guardian employee posting in the comments section could expand on what exactly is:

the minimalist, creative style of the modern, activist culture

 

[Firky]

Sounds like Stewart Pearson.

 

[butchersapron]

Article headline:

The return of leftwing cafe culture

Article content:

Apart from Soho's Partisan Coffee House in the 50s, such places haven't really thrived in Britain since the 17th and 18th centuries,

The originals they were talking about were established and dominated by the well meaning well off who could afford coffee and so on - so it might be a return of sorts i suppose.

 

[Belushi]

im very glad theyve made it accesible to guardian writers

 

[rekil]

Firebox London ‏@FireboxLdn
Thx so much for the gr8 article @PatrickKingsley, Bianca jagger RT'ed it


Giulio (the guardian employee posting in the comments section) left this. Nice man.

 

[The39thStep]

im very glad theyve made it accesible to guardian writers

They are in demand. The Cuts Cafe ( apparently they aren't really a cafe , its like 'same day cleaners' its just the name of the shop) also had them down but reviews have been somewhat less than enthusiastic

 

[The39thStep]

Well if you see the style of the student activists at the moment, you'll know what I mean and there is a definite culture (music, clothes, causes) that gathers all the past activist struggles since the 1960s and post-punk with the post-Seattle, post-911, post-Uncut counter-culture and that black and red, vegan, animal rights look.
Some will sneer that there should be any mention of style, but the style does exist and "scruffy hippies" are a small part of that. The critics tend to be either the cynics who would criticise anyway, or the very spartan revolutionary activists and, really, not too many want to hang out with them anyway.
It's got a familiar look about it, a distinctively art situationist atmosphere that is, at the same time very much rooted in the present. It has already been accused of being "Latte Leninism" and "Cappuccino 'froth' Communism" by the ironically titled revolutionaries "Proletarian Democracy" (though I'm convinced that offering "fast food" to the masses as PD suggest on their blog must be a parody of some sort).
This criticism of cafe culture philosophy and political discussion seems oblivious to the fact that a fair few French and Italian radicals would enjoy a cappuccino and sit around discussing politics and think nothing strange about it. Yes, ok, very easy to make it sound like a cliche, as is any kind of student activism easily framed in this way by cynics. But it still looks like an interesting place to hang out.

 

[weepiper]

God what a bunch of humourless up-their-own-arse tossers.

 

[love detective]

From the Guardian comments on the article 'The return of leftwing cafe culture' http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/...-cafe-culture?commentpage=2#start-of-comments

This feels like a natural progression of leftist political culture

he's absolutely bang on about that (just not in the positive sense that he thinks)

 

[The39thStep]

39thstep
22 October 2012 5:37PM

We follow in the tradition of Pankhurst and her communist worker's kitchens not the Nigel Slater inspired Firebox

 

[rekil]

Is Giulio one of ours in disguise?

I don't recognise anyone without their hardhat and darkglasses.

 

[Belushi]

why exactly would 'offering fast food to the masses' be more ludicrous than posh coffees in a camden cafe?

 

[DotCommunist]

why exactly would 'offering fast food to the masses' be more ludicrous than posh coffees in a camden cafe?

If thats the only bit that screams parody to the writer then, well, wtf really.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

I think PD has achieved it's purpose quite frankly and you should all be really proud of yourselves.

 

[equationgirl]

I think PD has achieved it's purpose quite frankly and you should all be really proud of yourselves.

Proud??!!! Pride is a bourgeois capitalist yoke, comrade.

 

[Riklet]

It has already been accused of being "Latte Leninism" and "Cappuccino 'froth' Communism" by the ironically titled revolutionaries "Proletarian Democracy" (though I'm convinced that offering "fast food" to the masses as PD suggest on their blog must be a parody of some sort).

How is it ironic?

What a tit.

 

[frogwoman]

How the fuck can you think PD is anything but a parody

 

[equationgirl]

How the fuck can you think PD is anything but a parody

Because they have no self-awareness, take things too seriously and have no imagination.

 

[frogwoman]

or are part of the parasitic mileu

 

[Riklet]

For the Workers' Deep Fried Nuclear Happy Meal!

a worthy struggle comrades, epitomising the sweat and grease that built mightly civilisations, and one surely wasted upon these Ecudorian fair-trade capitalist lackeys...

 

[krink]

i went and had Eggs Tony Benedict. was fucking shit.