sutton038

Several hundred years back, the City of London was protected by a great stone wall, and access was controlled via several key gates . Aldersgate was in the north, Ludgate was to the west, Aldgate was in the east, and on the south end of London Bridge there was Bridge Gate. Later, others were added, like Bishopsgate, Moorgate, Cripplegate, and Newgate. Nowadays, the physical wall and gates have slipped out of popular memory. To many modern commuters into the City, the Moorgate is nothing but a station on the Northern Line of the London Underground. Recently, a wing of the Occupy movement set up camp just up the road from Moorgate, in Finsbury Square. Another wing set up in an old building in Sun Street . Like the original St. Paul’s Camp, the new camps seem  like incongruous outposts amidst the black sheet glass and metal frames of buildings housing financial giants. The protesters have managed to take temporary control of small areas of physical space, and yet, do they really hav...

COMING TO A CINEMA NEAR YOU Last week I got published in The Ecologist. The article was called A four-step guide to bypassing high street banks . This is my second article for the magazine (my first was on food speculation ), and this time the aim was to sketch out how people might engage in financial protest, not by waving placards, but by changing debit cards. Many people agree in principle that major high-street banks have too much power, and that they frequently abuse that power. Nevertheless, many individuals don't necessarily have the time, or inclination, to protest about it directly in the manner of the Occupy protesters. There's been a lot of discussion about how to make financial protest more inclusive (including this piece by Kenth Gustaffson on a type of ‘ virtual occupy movement ’), but perhaps one of the most profound (and often overlooked) forms of protest is to distance yourself from mainstream finance by withdrawing deposits and avoiding using the services. The...

London banks were on high alert last week as Max Keiser – the dark lord of financial hellraising – arrived in London to do what he does best: Sacrifice the sacred cows of finance orthodoxy. It’s fitting that he chose to do so in a pub down an alley in London Bridge – The south bank has long been a place of covert speakeasies where villains, pirates and heretics might slag off the king and preach rebellion among the drunken rabble. The event was a fundraiser in aid of   Resonance FM , London's alternative arts radio station.  Needless to say, it was awesome, and yes, I was drunken rabble. DARK LORD RAP: MAX RAGES AGAINST THE MACHINE Max Keiser is in intriguing guy. I don’t claim to know his background in any depth, but the quoted back story says he was 1) initially a stockbroker, 2) then an entrepreneur that started the Hollywood Stock Exchange , (a platform for buying and selling film rights, later sold to the huge brokerage Cantor Fitzgerald) and 3) an entertainer that ...

It’s a pleasure to announce that I will be syndicating out blog-posts to the website of the great new London-focused magazine CurioCity . CurioCity was started by Matthew Lloyd and Henry Elliot in early 2010, originally as an informal handmade pamphlet to distribute to friends and family. Back then, a group of us wrote articles and put together the first issue in Henry’s lounge in Kennington. It’s come a long way since then, and the first professionally printed version is now being stocked in iconic London outlets such as Foyles and Rough Trade . The website has now been set up to provide a regular flow of high quality pieces centered on London, suggesting ideas for experiences that are fun, educational, and that encourage a deeper engagement with the city. Urban adventures in financial landscapes My main focus is going to be ‘ Financial Psychogeography ’. ‘ Psychogeography ’ is a word that means different things to different people, but I’m taking it to refer to: the exploration of c...

The financial sector is frequently contrasted to the ‘ real economy ’. The ‘real economy’ is seen to involve the production of goods and (non-financial) services, while the financial sector is seen to act as a facilitator of, and gatekeeper to, investment flows into those industries. Banks and funds are in the business of predicting which businesses to back, steering debt and equity based on future perceptions of the real economy. The financial sector runs ahead of, or parallel to, the real economy. In some conceptions, it isn't connected to the real economy at all. The usefulness and accuracy of the traditional distinction can certainly be questioned, but if ever there was a place in the world where the distinction made visual sense at least, it would be London. London is one of the few cities where the financial sector can literally be seen from a distance, most notably in the stark concrete and glass of Canary Wharf . London is also home to many decaying remnants of the old man...

Winter is approaching and it’s looking like one of discontent. St. Paul’s cathedral has become home to a couple hundred protesters freezing in colourful tents, railing against the global financial sector. It's the Occupy London movement. On Tuesday night I attended the general assembly outside St. Paul's. It was mostly to go through certain housekeeping protocols, like why it’s a bad idea to piss in bottles and throw them into public bins. Other items on the agenda were issues of security and maintaining good relationships with the St Paul’s clergy. It’s calmed down a lot since the first Saturday, when the cops were doing their tacky psychological warfare techniques, whispering sweet nothings like “Sir, if you enter the protest, you may not be able to leave again.” There’s a few cops left now, but they’re mostly blending into the scenery. I was impressed by the camp food system that has sprung up, driven by kind donations, some from local chains like Pret (which incidentally a...

A few weeks ago a group of wayward individuals met at Waterloo station. We hitched a ride on a train going north into the English wilderness. Bertrand was forward-thinking enough to have brought beers for the journey, a skill he learnt in his 10 years working for Deutsche Bank as a structured equity derivatives trader. Next to him was Ingo . Ingo does things that make my mind hurt, which involves channelling and managing innovation and systems design, in Sweden. Behind me was Neil . He works for the Young Foundation, helping to design things called Social Impact Bonds, ways of allowing private investors to get involved in financing early interventions that might reduce social malladies. He was chatting to David , who specialises in design, and in particular, new means of mapping and visualising the financial sector. Bertrand started talking about social CDOs , and that's when people on the train started to look at us funny. A girl sitting next to me asked me who we were. Um, how d...