Hyper-Reality

HYPER-REALITY from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.

A thought-provoking video by Keiichi Matsuda. It's brilliant and by turns scary and humorous.

End of Winter

It's cold, it's wet, it's one of those days.
Yes, those days. Gifts of light,
Water, thoughts and air.

It's noisy and crowded on the train,
In the rush hour, but it's an hour
And it holds together one of our days.

In a moment of anguish, breathe
With your mind. It's a moment and
If it weren't there, you'd be dead.

We've had our days, our moments,
And come back for more.

--
Stephen Moran

Katy Darby to judge Willesden Herald competition 2016

We are pleased and not a little excited to announce the judge for the international Willesden Herald New Short Stories 2016 competition.

Katy Darby’s short fiction has won various prizes, been read on BBC Radio 4, and appeared in magazines and anthologies including Stand, Mslexia, Slice, The London Magazine and the Arvon/Daily Telegraph Anthology. She has a BA in English Literature from Oxford University and an MA in Creative Writing from UEA, where she won the David Higham Award. Her first novel, The Unpierced Heart, is published by Penguin (Fig Tree). She is a Visiting Lecturer in Creative Writing at City University, is Literary Editor of .Cent and a former editor of Litro magazine, and co-founded and directs the award-winning short story event Liars’ League.

Katy Darby

There's nothing that Katy doesn't know about short stories, especially since Liars' League recently celebrated its 100th themed live event, in possibly her 100th costume. Liars' League has given their first break to dozens of new and up-and-coming writers, with their stories brought to life by a company of superb actors. For a fiver you can catch the show every first Tuesday of the month Downstairs at the Phoenix, Cavendish Square in London's West End.

Habemus iudicem

We have some news. The investigating magistrate for the 2016 competition. Watch this space.

The unaccompanied child refugee

Save our beautiful souls

Horsenden Hill Park today

On the way in from Melville Road

The bowling green

Playing fields

More playing fields

History of the Kodak factory in Harrow

Now set for closure, The Kodak factory "continued to grow throughout the twentieth century, and by 1965, occupied a 55-acre site, employing at its height ... over 6,000 people." From: A History of Kodak in Harrow | Harrow Online

New Short Stories competition 2016

It’s been a while. We’re going back to a simpler time when the first prize was an inscribed mug. Supported by Liars' League. Closing date for entries will be August 31st. All the details are on our Submittable page. Looking forward to reading for Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 9.



We are delighted to announce that this year's story competition is supported by the mighty Liars' League, the literary spoken word event that is taking the world by storm, after starting in London, and now with cousins in Hong Kong, New York and other cities near and far. For the past several years, the Liars' League company have provided the readings at the Willesden Herald results and anthology launch events, which has made them rather wonderful nights. It's a unique delight for a writer to hear her or his words brought to life by professional actors in front of a live audience. This is one of the things that makes our short story competition so special.

Update: Katy Darby to judge 2016 short stories competition

Tracks

East from Sudbury Hill

Sudbury Hill station

Footbridge

West view

View from the footbridge

Greenford Road

250 jobs at risk in Kodak factory in Harrow

Coming Soon - Swing Time by Zadie Smith

Music. Not the other type of swinging. Or both perhaps. NW2?

‪#‎zadiesmith‬ ‪#‎swingtime‬

"Look, just look, the Vistula is near"

Russian Prints from World War 1

"This exhibition features Russian prints made during the First World War and its aftermath. Taking its title from an early propaganda print produced by Kazimir Malevich, the suprematist painter, and revolutionary poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, the show presents work produced as part of a propaganda effort from the Tsarist war mobilisation in 1914 through to the Bolshevik era and the Civil War. ..." To read on and for full details see
http://www.londonprintstudio.org.uk/…/look-just-look-the-v…/.

At the London Print Gallery, Harrow Road, April 8th to May 7th

‪#‎russianww1prints‬ ‪#‎malevich‬ ‪#‎maykovsky‬ ‪#‎lubok‬ ‪#‎propagandaart‬ ‪#‎londonprintstudio‬ ‪#‎exhibitions‬

The Institute "in liquidation" - Summer classes in doubt

The Institute in LiquidationThe Institute, which has been providing excellent classes for adults and young people at...

Posted by The Willesden Herald on Wednesday, 6 April 2016

Willesden connection to the Panama Papers scandal

BBC Panorama "Tax Havens of the Rich and Powerful Exposed", suggests that the regeneration of the local Willesden hospital was financed in part by one Chris Hudson who used a Panama-registered company called the Yarrow Foundation. One of the leaked Mossack Fonsaca documents names Chris Hudson as the principal beneficiary. Other documents list transfers of money from Yarrow Foundation to Chris Hudson's London bank account.

Flyer: "A PFI/Private Partnership - Private Sector Partner - Working With Our Partners For A Healthier Future" - Willesden Herald photo from 2003

The Brent NHS local hospital, now called The Willesden Centre for Health and Care, was built under the then Labour government's Private Finance Initiative (PFI), a scheme promoted by Chancellor Gordon Brown. This is the same PFI that has saddled hospital trusts throughout the country with massive debts, effectively mortgages they cannot afford to repay.

To add insult to the injury of PFI, it now appears that money is being paid into offshore companies, which look like they are designed to avoid paying tax on profits from the UK. Is it necessary to remind anyone that the NHS is supported by tax paid in the UK, and that it is crippled by debts it now has to pay to companies registered offshore, who pay no tax here?

The more the parasite thrives, the more the host declines.

Willesden Herald "Willesden Centre for Health & Care" photo sequence 2009 - 1

2

3

Link: BBC Panorama "Tax Havens of the Rich and Powerful Exposed"

President Trump: Deportations to Begin

President Trump: Deportations to BeginThe Willesden Herald's take: Eleven million people targeted for detention and...

Posted by The Willesden Herald on Sunday, 10 April 2016

Let's build a wall around Donald Trump

Let's Build a Wall Around Donald Trump"We're going to build a wall around Donald Trump. And you know who's going to...

Posted by The Willesden Herald on Saturday, 2 April 2016

This week

Mismatch

If your cups don't chase each other round the cup tree,
I will arrange them so they do.
But you may not be the one for me,
And I may not be the one for you.

--
Stephen Moran

Destruction of trackside environment on the Chiltern Line

Before (east - summer)

Before (east - autumn)

Before (east - winter)

After (east - 23 March 2016)

Before (west - autumn)

After (west 23 March 2016)

Before and after pictures this week of the trackside near Sudbury Hill Harrow. Is this justfied, in any way, let alone in nesting season?

Cutting trees in the nesting season?

Chiltern Line

Tree cutting has been in progress for more than a week around this area of the Chiltern Line west of Sudbury Hill Harrow. They appear to be cutting throughout the wooded area alongside the track, not just adjacent to the track. Isn't this the nesting season? Is this right?

Faded Faded

Work-in-progress

Teddy on the line

Central Line

Tottenham Court Road station

Friday fish & chips

Panos at The Catch, Greenford Road, opposite Sudbury Hill station

A good menu, friendly staff and, by the way, an excellent example of the signwriter's art

Harry Lemon's Malta

Valetta city walls

Maltese parliament building, designed by Renzo Piano

Saluting battery, Grand Harbour, Valetta

View towards Valetta from the the city walls of Mdina, the old capital

City gate of Mdina

Dingli cliffs

Street fountains in Sliema

Mural in Sliema

Valetta

Fountain in Upper Barrakka Gardens, Valetta

Lane in Mdina

Local beer

Water font in Sliema

Marsaxlokk Harbour Sunday market

Jumping rockfish in the Sunday fish market, Marsaxlokk

Marsaxlokk Sunday market

Marsaxlokk Harbour

St Paul's Grotto
This is the Roman cave jail where St Paul and St Luke were held prisoner by the Roman consul Publius, subsequently converted, after they were shipwrecked en route to Rome from Damascus in 60 A.D. It's under St Paul's Cathedral, Mdina. 

Horse racing (trotting) at Marsa racecourse, Malta Racing Club

The course is dampened and raked between each race.

We sent Harry Lemon to Malta to report for the Willy on this Mediterranean island, and what does he do? Sends us hundreds of pictures and no text. I told him, for God's sake Harry, select a few of them and add captions. Don't be making us like captive audiences in the old days, having to sit through hundreds of Uncle Harry's holiday slides. (Ed.)