Walking through Florence invariably means extending the courtesy, to visitors to the city, of the room to take their photographs and videos. 100 metres in any direction from my front door (and for the more refined taste, at my front door itself) and it's stop, smile, wave them on, check the photo shoot is over, and go on one's way. Over and over again. And why not? People have travelled and paid to visit the ultimate renaissance city.
So what's with the London insults to visitors? London too is a lovely city, it deserves the homage of the dilettante photographer and should equally courteously accord them their claim to preserve their own experience and visual understanding of their surroundings. What it should not have is a force of uniformed vigilantes backed up by armed 'police' and savage fines for taking a picture. London and the experience of London is photographed and videoed alright. It's first up on the Eight O'Clock News.
Next time you are in an Italian city and would like to picture your family, or your own, individual experience remember the vileness of England's surveillance state and its treatment of Simona Bonomo.
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8 comments:
Once I got into trouble for taking innocent photographs of interesting buildings. I was briefly detained, was given a good talking to, my film was exposed, and was issued a stern warning. But the place was Kiev, Ukraine, and the year 1965. Some progress. A case of reverse transition?
Lots of evidence and lots of people have observed that the UK under New Labour New Dawn has been a case of reverse transition into the Lives of Others.
Decent English social democrats must be in despair at what the New Labour entryists have done to the Labour movement.
Am speechless. What can we do?
In Syria I pledged that on return to England I would greet tourists with a friendly "Hello! Where are you from? France? Welcome to our country!" or so on, in my best pidgin-foreignerish. (There is a word for "foreignerish" in Arabic and I miss it).
Depends where we are, what we can do. In the end the people in the beautiful cities of the east stood and faced down their realised socialist tormentors - Berlin, Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, - and the smaller cities like Potsdam, the avant-guarde resisting cities like Leipzig, the cities of the Baltic states...
It's up to the Londoners, well, the English, to stop them.
You could do with some jedburgs from a friendly power
Well said Hats.
Couldn't agree more.
Aye to all that.
Am thinking of a t-shirt run, with a motto reading simply
NO.
I WON'T.
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