52° 23’ 48.23” N
1° 59’ 06.38” W
elev. 168m
Field Report
The following anonymous report was recently recovered
from the Birmimgham dead letter box following a routine sweep. We assume it is
from Wickes, revealing he is alive and active. Commissioner Reid has suppressed
its distribution, deeming it unwise on the basis that wanton
disregard for standard procedures risks undermining discipline and Wickes'
wayward subjectivism and defeatist tone render his intelligence suspect and
unreliable.
Now moving through the Mercian heartland, the intention
of our adversaries becomes ever more apparent. Defeat and humiliation is
insufficient, only wholesale eradication will suffice. The great factory has
gone - where comrades struggled in the furnace-heat of underground bunkers
during last century's anti-fascist struggle. Torn down - the low, red brick workshops, foundry and
engine- shop reduced to fields of rubble, sealed-off by wire fencing, sold-off
as discount car-parking lots.
Beyond the rubble fields, St Modwen's brave new world
emerges: re-generation, renewal - the old economy of skill, driven by sleight
of hand gives way to the economy of knowledge, driven by ingenious fictions,
massification and unbounded desire. A new architecture for a new age: a
cathedral of learning and knowledge at its centre: viewed from the southwest, a
gleaming white wedge, six storeys high, up-ended like a
crash-landed cruise-ship; seen from the northwest, bathetic and ludicrous, a
bright blue monstrosity, reminiscent of a discarded Domestos bottle, gigantisized.
The absence of irony reveals the Monetarist's iron
will. I stare in horror and amazement at a garish structure; it is covered in purple and puce cladding - a 'one-stop-shop' for the control
and improvement of workless teenagers and
'troubled families'. It's called 'The Factory' - social engineering supersedes
mechanical engineering. I remain undecided as to whether the choice of name is
an act of supreme cynicism or simply crass ignorance. 'The factory' an advice
shop for the unemployed and disadvantaged youth built on the ruins of a former
factory, which employed 25,000 local people in its heyday.
Against such heartlessness we shall not prevail - unless
we are willing to adopt their methods as a tactic. Should we risk the fate of past revolutionaries
whose transformative intensions were
stymied by adopting the methods of their adversaries? The age old conundrum, consensus cannot be
built through conflict. I conclude - the situation is hopeless.
Gallery
