Cycling and Class

When the Observer Culture section does a four-spread feature on cycling then one can be sure that the current cycling trend is a revolution indeed. "Middle class revolution" muttered my friend Liam sipping his tea while I poured over an item on Mariella Frostrup's preferred choice of bike (very cute, though I would have opted for the Christiania version).

And he's right. In my East London ex-council estate building you can tell the temporary residents (me and my friends, hipsters and students mostly from middle class homes) apart from the permanent residents (those more likely to be working class, immigrants, poorer and/or with lower status jobs) by looking for the bike on the doorstep.

It's ironic that the trendiest bikes of the cycling trend is the fixed gear and single speed bikes, popular amongst hipsters for their simplicity and elegance, is very similar to the type of bikes that used to be ridden by factory workers over fifty years ago. Inspiration is often sought in such romanticized images, the most desirable of fixed gear bikes in Sweden at the moment is named 'Strömmen' or 'The Stream' after the stream of workers that used to be seen cycling to the ASEA factory in Västerås.

Dole sues filmmakers from Malmö for defamation

The dissertation I’m working on this summer is on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), in particular of multinational companies. The term is quite fuzzy and can include everything and anything from the environment, to community development to the safety of employees.

A running theme in my paper is the difficulty of holding large powerful corporations to account. The recent story of Dole suing two fellow Malmöites who made a film about their alleged improper use of pesticides illustrates this very well, see the article in Business Respect or local newspaper Skånskan.

When irresponsible practices are exposed in the media it’s important to tread carefully and not give in to sensationalist claims. While issues such as not paying banana growers a fair price for their products (buy Fairtrade bananas instead of Dole!) and a long but now old and thus less exciting history of environmental and human abuses (see a good article in (Global Issues) may not create the buzz necessary to finance a film such issues are nevertheless just as important.

A new lawsuit was filed against Dole in April this year regarding a story reminiscent of Shell's abuses in Nigeria - hope this lawsuit gets the attention it deserves without having to exaggerate the story. And that the story can help expose the very unfair production and trade system of bananas.

Hidden treasures of Berlin

As soon as school finished and summer began I put some flowers in my hair and went to Berlin. Here are some of my favourite spots I found there...

1. Club der Visionäre: grab a beer and soak up the sun on a float with live music all day and night.


2. The black and white photo booth next to the Kaiser in Kottbusser Tor: finally an old-school photo booth that does the individual four photos, lovely description of itself as well.

3. Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park: an absolutely massive and beautiful park with a very impressive memorial of which the statue pictured here is just a small part.

4. Le Petit Mignon: quite a pretentious little French record/magazine/book/zine/poster shop with a reluctantly charming owner, think Bernard Black. Fantastic selection of everything.

6. Eiszeit Cinema: very nice independent cinema tucked away in a backyard. Various bike films and videos were showing when I was there, as part of the International Bicycle Courier Festival.



7. Bull Bar: somehow I ended up here the majority of late nights in Berlin, irresistible combination of good beer, metal heads and general cosyness, on Wrangelstrasse 90, Kreutzberg.



8. Sanatorium: super slick bar on Frankfurter Allee, nice drinks and music.


9. Best street ever: Falckensteinstrasse - best pizza ever on one side and best ice cream ever on the other side!


10. The International Bicycle Courier Festival mentioned above was organised by the Berlin Massive who have the best taste in everything, larger size of the guide on my flickr page.