Occupy Wall Street looks like a reversion to an older pattern; for there is no more a “Wall Street” than there is a “Hollywood”; it’s another tourist street, with a statue of a bull, some Doric columns and a US flag.
London
London riots: it’s a class war
Why are young people in London burning police cars and looting local shops? It’s a protest against a middle class Britain that has ignored its unemployed and angry brethren, explains Mary Riddell.
Media briefs: Hun complaint … Liz Murdoch rejects board …
The Australian Press Council has upheld a complaint brought by dogged activists Save Albert Park against the Herald Sun’s reporting of the Australian Grand Prix. Media news from around the globe.
Redundant in London: from the beginning
New Back in a Bit blogger Amanda Austen writes about getting laid off from her television production job three years ago in London, just as the GFC hit.
travel Avoiding the JAFA tag: tips for living in London
Aussies living in London are often quickly slapped with the JAFA (Just Another F*cking Aussie) tag. Grace Jennings-Edquist offers tips on how to avoid the stereotype.
On yer bike, Barclays
Melbourne isn’t the only city with a shiny new shared bike system, London is rolling one out too. But, as Jon Day writes, the bikes — which are sponsored by Barclays — have come under attack for being a long way from the utopian ideals of the Netherlands scheme of the 60s.
Daily Proposition: A crime tale that’s all flash and no Underbelly
The Kangaroo Gangs fleeced London’s major department stores of millions of pounds of jewellery, clothes and even a chimp from Harrod’s zoo in the 60s. Now you can read all about them, writes Michael Kitson.
Guy Rundle: Rundle’s UK: Jack Straw takes the stand, Chilcot becomes the new Watergate
Today Jack Straw took the stand at the Chilcot Inquiry, the first currently serving cabinet member so to do – and promptly landed his erstwhile leader, Mr Tony, even further in it.
Boris Johnson: Let’s profit from other people’s misery!
London has been labelled “divorce capital of the world”, but look at the bright side, says mayor Boris Johnson: zillionaires suing each other over divorce settlements is a boon to the local economy.
London Evening Standard goes free
As ad revenue falls, most newspapers are busy trying to suck more money from their readers. But the Evening Standard is trying a different tack: giving away the paper for free.
A lesson in contrasts: how one riot was reported
Skin colour makes a huge difference on the language used, when it comes to how violent street riots are reported in the media. Better to be a London Nazi skinhead than a Sydney Lebanese Muslim.
PHOTO GALLERY: London through a lens
A great collection of photos of 20th-century London and its inhabitants from a new exhibition at the at the Getty Images Gallery.
Yuppies v Punks for a working week
Who has the superior lifestyle: hand-to-mouth agitators or the city-boy capitalists they abhor? Vice Magazine assigned one staff writer to pose as a punk and another as a plutocrat to investigate.
How modernism changed the facade of London
In very basic terms, Modernism opened up the closed Victorian city of London, but objectors, from HRH downwards, believe it would be far better to have a bit of opened-up-neo-Victoriana-Georgiana rather than a ‘brutalist’ and ‘communist’ piece of contemporary design.
London metro police accused of torture
Waterboarding is at the centre of an anti-corruption investigation into London’s metropolitan police force, putting fuel on the fire of public concern regarding police brutality in the UK.
The Tracey Emin show: self abuse and sewing
Sometimes I’m inclined to regard Tracey Emin as Jade Goody’s long-lost sister. For both, achievement has been inseparable from publicity; their careers derive from the merchandising of personal traumas, which take us on involuntary tours of their tormented innards.
Breathing gin and tonic
A temporary London bar is offering a cloud of breathable gin and tonic to its patrons. Is this just a fancy way of skimping on the alcohol?
London, the city that votes on red buses
The problem for Boris Johnson is that the GFC has put the kybosh on many of the plans — mainly public transport — that would have put his stamp on the place.
G20 washup: questions over the death of Ian Tomlinson
Footage released overnight casts a sickening new slant on the death of a bystander at last week’s G20 protests in London, writes Andrew Crook.
Allco name change should be worth a few cents on the share price
The real story today from today’s stock exchange announcement from Allco Equity Partners is that its name is mud, hence the proposal to change it, writes Glenn Dyer.
Boris Johnson cuts green team in half
Leaked documents seen by the Guardian show that the Greater London authority plans to reduce the total number of 40 staff working on environmental issues in the capital to 20.
