Author: admin (Page 9 of 22)

Stuck on flies.

Flies pollinate more plants than bees, the help remove rubbish, dead bodies and excrement from our lives

The humble fly is a great boon to society, but like all boons it has a few busts. There are lots of flies, an estimated 1,000,000 species of mosquitoes, gnats, midges and others, although only an eighth (about 120,000 species) have been studied. It is one of the major insect orders both in terms of ecological and human (medical and economic) importance. There are about 17 quadrillion flies in the world.

The origin of this piece was one particular year in the studio. The studio opens onto the back of a restaurant, the owner was very penny pinching and did not empty his bins as often as he should, so every time they were opened to put more waste in a cloud of black flies would rise up. We are on the first floor so they would then come straight into the studio.

We tried all sorts of things to get rid of them pennies in bags of water, extreme violence, rolled up copies of Socialist Workers and file papers, available from the pound shop. In the end a fly curtain on the door was the most effective remedy, subsequently the owner brought in a manager for the the place and the problem disappeared. But for most of that year we were inundated with flies, most of which ended up stuck on fly papers, which are very indiscriminate, they don’t care what they kill.

I would like to thank Cris Thompson for the 3D printing of the fly bodies, he can be found at www.3dmigos.net .

1.3m x 150mm x 150mm

The words on the piece read;

FLIES FLIES FLIES

for pollination, poo and promiscuity, you can’t beat a fly. Let’s hope they stick around a long time.

DON’T YA JUST LOVE A FLY

DIRECTIONS FOR USE

1. Pull out string to unwind adhesive strip.
2. Hang the strip from the ceiling using the drawing pin provided.
3. Kill wild life

So there you have it another little tribute to the underdog, the struggling masses, those that make up the bulk of the world around us but have little say in its running. Do you see a theme here? When we listen to the radio or watch the television we are are inevitably shown a world that is run for the benefit of the few, where their needs and wants are expressed as the most important things and that the needs and wants of the majority do not mater and cannot be afforded. We are taught to look up at the wonderful achievements of the rich, why, they are rich for heavens sake, that in itself is a measure of success.

The destruction of the environment, global warming, the immiseration of the vast mass of the people, destitution caused by war and the subsequent refugee crisis, which is small by comparison the the mass movement of people that will be caused by global warming. None of this maters because profit is being made by a few. Arms are being sold, oil is being drilled and fracked, and more land is stripped for farming. The poor are trampled on and pushed aside in the clamour for profit.

But it does not have to be like this, we are many, they are few, we have to organise against this rotten system where ever and how ever we can. We have to protect the poor and dispossessed, raise the masses to control society and not be controlled by it, thats what democracy should mean.

So in the words of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, “Let them see what kind of a person I am. I’m not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching… they’ll see. They’ll see and they’ll know, and they’ll say, ‘Why, she wouldn’t even harm a fly.”

Walking home yesterday evening across Walthamstow Marshes I was attacked by wasps. They came from nowhere went straight on the attack, stung the arm I took my hat off to beat them away and was stung on the head, there were visions of me jumping in the canal to get away from them. I should have known something was up from the antics of the couple in front of me, lots of arm flapping coat dropping and running. But there was not a lot I could do once they had homed in on me.

I must admit that I’ve never come across wasps so violent before, I’ve always found them to be drowsy in the autumn, getting in your porridge and jam sandwiches, and getting stroppy when you flick them away, not just diving in to the attack because you are passing. But that is what happens in the declining part of the year, things start winding down for the winter, the wasps will soon all be dead apart, from some queens who will hibernate ready to restart wasp production in the spring, I guess the rest have all got the hump.

Spiteful little bastards think their end has come so they are attacking all and sundry. Later to day the Labour Party leadership election results will be announced. A situation brought about by a large group of rightwing, Blairite, MP’s are fearful that they will be deselected, have attempted to deselect their leader, their worry is they are loosing their home. Also terrified that the LP is moving to the left the establishment got in behind them, with newspapers, the BBC and various pundits piling on tales of woe should Corbin win.

On the other hand there has been a very popular response to the Corbin leadership with thousands of people joining the Labour Party because they smell the possibility of a decent opposition to this rotten Tory government. An opposition that talks about real justice for working people, not the mealy mouthed Tory light that we have been fed for the last few years.

The problem is there are too many LP MP’s who are tied into the system they should be opposing, all they are prepared to do is tinker around at the edges when they should be pulling the whole rotten edifice down. That would give real hope.

It’s the same at home, I’ve harvested the garden and called to plumber to service the central heating. Soon the radiators will be running hot, I’ll be swapping the polo shirts for the thermal vests, and stew will be replacing the salads. I don’t really have the hump, I try to take an optimistic view of life, given the crap that seems to fly around this can be a challenge at times, so I’ve going to try to vent a bit on line, sorry folks, but you don’t have to read it.