The Virtual Stoa

Maxim Gorky, born 16 March 1868, died 18 June 1936.

Paul Hirst, formerly an Althusserian Marxist partially responsible for the Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production volumes, latterly a post-Althusserian who had much of interest to say about the contemporary world, born 20 May 1946; died 17 June 2003.

The British Film Institute has just released its triple-DVD set of Jan Svankmajer: The Complete Short Films, and this is what Marina Warner has to say about it in tehgraun:

“26 extraordinary works so far, they unfold his artistry and his preoccupations with rare richness, and have been annotated by an admiring group of critics and film historians.  So this set of short films is a marvellous and invaluable collection.”

Yes, indeed, yes indeed – Svankmajer’s Dimensions of Dialogue may be the best short animated film that there is, and many of the others are not bad at all – and there are special reasons at the Stoa for celebrating the release of the set:  it’s been assembled, put together, produced, hand-tooled (I’m not really sure what the appropriate verb is) by my brother Michael. So well done him.

See subject line.

Sonja Davies [also, also], Vice-President of the New Zealand Federation of Labour, peace campaigner (“Mrs Peace”) and Labour MP for Pencarrow, 1987-1993; born Wallaceville, 11 November 1923, died 12 June 2005.

The BBC, covering the issues that matter, over here.

(The Virtual Stoa’s favourite polydactyl lives in Marin County, California; but I don’t think Alison Thomas is interested in him, owing to her less than fully cosmopolitan attitude, when it comes to cats.)

When my friend Katherine isn’t thinking about ideal theory, she’s training for a 100km in 24 hours journey across the South Downs, or somesuch, on foot, to raise money for Oxfam and the Gurkha Welfare Trust. Sponsor her! Blog over here (a must for foot fetishists! and blister fetishists — there must be some out there), and click on the “Sponsor Us!” link on the left-hand side. Highly recommended (unless you think, of course, that Oxfam is a bunch of neocolonialists).

Enrico Berlinguer, national secretary of the Italian Communist Party, 1972-1984. Born 25 May 1922, died 11 June 1984.

Stoa readers: who should I vote for in the Deputy Leadership contest?

The various candidates keep sending me email, which I delete; and Harriet Harman has written to me at home twice, because she got my initial initial wrong on her initial attempt, and I think both of those ended up in the bin, too; and publications I subscribe to have arrivied containing Peter Hain flyers, which go into the bin.

But now I have to cast a vote, and while the Fabian Society has sent me this morning a handy booklet called “Labour’s Choice” with stirring essays in it (“Building on Success”, by Hazel Blears, that kind of thing), but I’m not sure I can face reading it with the care it no doubt deserves all the way through.

But I will read the comments thread to this post before filling in my ballot paper, so if anyone does have anything to say, please fire away.

At the moment I’m hesitating between Hilary Benn and Jon Cruddas, because I can think of at least some nice things to say about those two, and I struggle in the case of the other four. (Though I also have a vague memory of Alan Johnson being one of the less bad ministers for higher education, and that should count for something.)

I rather admire Walrus two (currently in a fjord off the east coast of Baffin Island).

Below the fold is a statement from the Oxford branch of UCU, which will appear in the next issue of the Oxford Magazine.

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Oh dear. I’ve just heard Ruth Kelly on the Today Programme, which is even more effective at making me want to get out of bed than the wretched Thought for the Day. She was wittering about British Values, and thinks they should have their own Day.

But I can’t decide whether it should be held each year on 5 November, in an attempt to reinvigorate national traditions of anti-Catholic bigotry — or whether a more appropriate way of celebrating British Values would be to have British Values Day on any other day of the year, and then for us to ignore it?

Stoa-readers! How would you like to celebrate British Values? (I’ve already had “throwing up in the street and having sex with someone inappropriate” suggested to me.) And on which day of the year?