Posted 2:31 PM by Neil
It's the end of the world as we know it:
the last days of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'.

The last ever episode of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' might have made me sad but it did not disappoint. Instead it demonstrated why over its seven year arc the programme remained the most interesting thing on television.

Buffy represented a conscious effort to create a female superhero(ine), but it was much more subversive than 'Wonderwoman' with better clothes and a sense of humour. The classic male superheroes have tended to be brooding loners wrestling with their isolation and their egos. The cult of the superman, whether in its Nietzche or Clark Kent form, has always had a fascistic side - the ubermensch flying high above the powerless masses.

Buffy may have been 'the chosen one' with unique abilities, but she always fought as part of a closely knit affinity group to which all members made their own particular contribution: wisdom and experience (Giles); a good heart and personal integrity (Xander); kick-ass lesbian witchiness (Willow).

In the final, seventh series, the tension between Buffy as 'chosen one' and the rest reached crisis point as the core gang was joined by a small army of potential slayers from across the world. At one point they mutinied against her orders before the contradiction was brilliantly resolved in the final episode by Buffy relinquishing her uniqueness, declaring: "In every generation, one slayer is born... because a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule... So I say we change the rule. I say my power should be our power". In doing so she empowered all the potential vampire slayers, and by implication young women in general: "From now on, every girl in the world who might be a slayer will be a slayer. Every girl who could have the power will have the power".

Buffy and her pals referred to themselves as the Scooby Gang in self-mocking homage to the 70s cartoon strip. But in Scooby Doo the ending is always the same - once the kids have unmasked the villain they hand him over to the cops and the normal social order is restored. In the Buffyverse the state offered no such protection - police, priests and politicians tended to be either stupid or actively in collusion with demonic forces.

In the final series it was business as usual. The preacher who picked up the girl fleeing from her pursuers turned out to be the most evil of all, while the potential slayers had to beat up a group of cops intent on killing Faith (slayer no.2).

Marx wrote that "Capital is dead labour, which, vampire like, lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks." Buffy might not have been this explicit, but it hinted at it in episodes such as 'Anne' where Buffy runs away from home and finds work as a waitress in a diner. While experiencing the delights of casualised wage slavery she discovers that young homeless people are disappearing, seduced by religious missionaries offering a promise of help. When they reappear they have aged overnight into dying, decrepit old people. Buffy soon finds out the secret: an underground sweatshop run by demons where people are worked until they are exhausted. Naturally Buffy leads a slave revolt.

In the final scene of the last episode, schools, shops and the whole town were consigned to the hellmouth of history, as Sunnydale was swallowed up by the earth. Xander declared: "All those shops gone. The Gap, Starbucks, Toys 'R' Us. Who will remember all those landmarks unless we tell the world about them?". The end of the world as they knew it - but smiling they stood to face a better one.

Posted 1:03 PM by Neil
Buffy, Bush and Baghdad Museum

The controversy about what happened at Baghdad museum in the aftermath of the Anglo-US Invasion continues. There are differing accounts of how many ancient treasures were looted, and by whom, but a strong suggestion that some items were professionally removed rather than randomly picked up in a mass smash and grab. The whole thing reminds me of one of those episodes of Buffy or Angel (or even Indiana Jones) where some archaeological artifact is sought, some forgotten script decoded, in order to confer some evil power or other.

With this in mind, lets invent a conspiracy theory... Perhaps the Baghdad museum affair was not a consequence of the war, but its main cause. The rulers of the world are quite happy for people to moan about a 'war for oil' as a smokescreen for the real object of the conquest - something n the museum whose possession will speed the progress towards global domination. In 'Reptile Boy', one of my favourite episodes of Buffy, an elite fraternity of rich students try and sacrifice Buffy to the giant Snake demon who guarantees their wealth and power. The name of their fraternity, the Zeta Kappas, no doubt delibearately recalls a real life Yale fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, amongst whose members have been counted both George W Bush and his father. Were Bush's henchmen in Iraq really looking for some Mesopotamian snake demon icon to use in their rituals? With Buffy finished, can anything save the planet but an international proletarian uprising? Watch this space...

Posted 9:19 AM by Neil
FRANKLY, MR DURSLEY

Summer solstice weekend and the streets are full of witches... most of them children heading to and from bookshops in the midst of 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' frenzy. I was interested to see JK Rowling popping up on the recent 'The Importance of Being Morrissey' documentary proclaiming her undying love for The Smiths. I will certainly be reading the new book with that in mind - and here it is on page one: "He was a skinny, black-haired bespectacled boy". Yes, you've guessed it, Harry Potter is Morrissey - the slightly geeky outsider who has the last laugh, or should we say 'a jumped-up pantry boy who never knew his place'. How about 'Harry Potter and the Cemetery Gates" for the next book title?

Posted 11:48 AM by Neil
SOUTH LONDON MAGICAL LANDSCAPE

I am doing a talk on Monday June 9th for South East London Folklore Society on the' South London Magical Landscape'. It will be a search for South London's spirits of place via a whistlestop tour of its forgotten sacred sites, springs, groves, burial grounds, and more. I am not sure how much of my unmanageable collection of random South London esoterica I will be able to throw into the mix, but it will certainly include stuff on the Thames ritual riverscape, the Forest Hill visions, Camberwell and the cult of St Giles, and the mysteries of the Old Kent Road. It all happens at the Mitre pub in Greenwich at around 8 pm.

Posted 11:21 AM by Neil
GAMES FOR MAY

My May festivities started off with with my talk on 'May Days in South London' for South London Radical History Group. Use Your Loaf Social Centre in Deptford was decorated with flowers and incense as well as its usual anarchist posters which complemented the talk's theme of the interrelated red and green strands of May Day. There was a good crowd with a nice mix of anarcho and pagan types.

On May Day itself I went to Greenwich for the Jack in the Greenprocession. The Jack was an impressive leaf covered frame topped with a crown of flowers. It looked like hard work for the bloke inside, especially after a few drinks. The Jack set off from the Richard I in Royal Hill, Greenwich at about 12 accompanied by drummers, fiddlers and accordionists. They stopped off at the Cricketers in the centre of Greenwich and were last seen (by me at least) heading off towards Deptford.

I went into town, where May Day in London was swamped by thousands of police. I wandered down with the hemmed in crowd to Trafalgar Square, but managed to stay outside the cordon. It was a bit lacklustre I thought and slightly disconnected - as if people's real energies were focused elsewhere, probably rightly on the war in Iraq.

A couple of weeks later at the wonderful Green Angels space in Southwark I finally got to do some Maypole dancing at the end of the interesting eco-magic session run by Adrian from Dragon Environmental Network. They had a silver birch pole set up there which I gather had seen action at the Green Angels Beltane do and at Avalon in London's Beltane event there.

As a follow up to my May Day talk I got asked to come and talk to a group of children in the Woodcraft Folk (co-operative version of the scouts) about the First of May. Before I got them all making May crowns of flowers and branches I started off by asking if any of them knew anything about May Day. After a few chipped in about maypoles and may queens, one boy put his hand up and said, totally seriously: "In Star Wars they say May the Fourth be with you". I must remember to mention Jedi Beltane greetings in my next talk.

Posted 1:42 PM by Neil
SPACE SUPERIORITY COMPLEX

This month saw the 19th Annual National Space Symposium in the USA, heralding a frightening acceleration of the militarisation of space. An excellent article on 'The Post-Iraq Space Superiority Complex' on the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space site (follow the links to latest news for this article) reports: 'explicit decisions by Air Force Space Command to look at new generations of strategic ballistic missiles, including missiles that include nuclear and conventional weapons... Rhetoric has reached levels that might otherwise be considered shocking, if it did not fit so well into the post-Iraq euphoria of the nation. Lockheed-Martin proudly displayed its latest corporate slogan for electronic-warfare equipment, 'We're not looking for a fair fight.' Col. Robert Kent Traylor, deputy director of space operations and integration for the Air Force proudly showed the logo of his Air Force division, 'Air and Space Operations: The Superiority Complex.' Air Force Secretary James Roche said, "The war in space has already begun."'.

The London offices of space warmonger Lockheed Martin will be a focus for this year's May Day events. Lockheed Martin was also targeted by the Association of Autonomous Astronauts during the 1999 Carnival against Capital.

Posted 12:28 PM by Neil
SUBTERRANEA

Earlier this week Justin Woodman gave an interesting talk to South East London Folklore Society on 'Subterranean Worlds and Underground Civilisations', taking us on a journey through modern mythologies of hollow earth, alien bases at the Antarctic and Nazi quests for lost secrets. As Justin observed, in a world where everything visible has been mapped and accounted for, what lies beneath our feet retains some mystery, a dark space into which fears, fantasies and hopes can be projected.

Justin's outline of the conspiracy theory whereby the King of the World shapes global events from the subterranean realm of Agharti reminded me of some present-day paranoias. While the King of the World exerts his malignant influence via a series of tunnels, Osama Bin Laden is sometimes said to have vanished into a cave complex while rumours abound of Saddam Hussein escaping through secret tunnels of his own.

Back down to earth, this week also saw the publication of Christopher Jones' 'Subterranean Southwark' book, a meticulous catalogue of cold war bunkers, catacombs, underground toilets, and every conceivable type of underground structure in this part of South London. Currently it's only available from 56a InfoShop, 56a Crampton Street, London SE17 (price �3.50)

Posted 12:02 PM by Neil
MAY DAYS IN SOUTH LONDON

In a couple of weeks I'm giving a talk to South London Radical History Group on 'May Days in South London'. The talk will cover ancient Beltane celebrations, folk customs such as May Queens and the Jack in the Green, and International Workers' Day celebrations south of the Thames. Along the way I will be mentioning the Illuminati, Walter Crane, Gerald Gardner, the General Strike 1926 and much more besides.

The date is Tuesday 29 April 2003 at 8 pm, the venue: Use Your Loaf Social Centre, 227 Deptford High Street, London SE8. 2 minutes from Deptford British Rail station, 5 minutes from Deptford Bridge DLR station. Admission Free.