Rav Casley Gera

Ah, St. Paul’s Cathedral! Icon of old London, shrine to the survival of the human spirit, blah blah. What better place to hear Jeffrey Sachs, celebrity economist, brain of the Make Poverty History campaign, and all-round Bringer of Solutions to Difficult Problems (oh yes, and Chairman of Columbia University’s Earth Institute), explain to us the route to a sustainable future? Except, of course, it’s actually a crap place. [Read more →]

In a faraway domain, a fragile democracy is fighting for survival. Everyday we watch on our screens it struggles to maintain order amongst chaos and defend its day-to-day operations against dissent and malicious attacks. What? No, not Iraq! I’m talking about Wikipedia. [Read more →]

I’ve always been disappointed by clubbing. Now, I’m not instinctively a club person - I mostly like music with guitars in, I prefer beer to class A’s, and I start to flag at about three on the usual night out. The club world swam into my consciousness in around 1994, via my brother’s obsession with jungle; but no sooner had I become aware of this strange world, than Britpop broke and carried me along with it. Life became a blur of collarless shirts, sideburns and Sovereigns, middle-class parents suddenly bemused by their violin-playing darlings’ newfound interest in pool and darts. [Read more →]

One of the main reasons why the early 1990’s will be remembered as a fairly rubbish period in clothing is the over-prevalence of the label. Formerly something to be hidden on buckles and washing-tags, manufacturer logos suddenly took centre stage on t-shirts, jumpers and bags. Nike, Adidas, they were all at it, but the worst offender was probably Stussy. [Read more →]

“Patrick roars to nomination,” screamed the Boston Globe. And roar he did, securing 50% of the votes cast in the three-way contest for Democratic Party candidate for Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is not some masonic colonial-reenactment society. It is simply the state. More than probably any other state in the union, Massachusetts clings to the trappings and pomp of European society, even as it celebrates its own revolutionary heritage). Of course, for the army of supporters who spent Tuesday, September 19 waving signs, knocking on doors, and making endless, endless phone calls, it felt less like a roar and more of a slow, difficult whimper. But now that the hard work was done - at least for now - there was time to relax and celebrate.

When I arrived at the party, my first priority was to find out whether we’d actually won. [Read more →]

Being the diary of Ravinder Madron Casley Gera, a volunteer with the campaign of Deval L. Patrick, for September 19 in the year two thousand and six, the day of the Primary Election for the position of Democratic Party candidate for Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

6.00am. I’m awake. Having kept holiday hours for several weeks - sleeping 1-10am or thereabouts - this is something of a shock to the system.

6.05am. Right. What to do? The “Primary Day Victory Plan” sheet I picked up at headquarters says we need “visibility from 6.30am.” [Read more →]

As the rest of the world enjoys its increasingly ambivalent relationship with the ongoing spread of American brand names, it’s strange that, within America, the same tensions exist. You probably know about the attempts some small communities have made to oppose Wal-Mart coming in. Well, on another level entirely, a similar process is at work in Boston - the city’s gradual commercial takeover by New York. [Read more →]

In response to his article, “The tall and short of it”

Dear Jeff Jacoby,

I’m going to have to take a little umbrage at your article, “The tall and short of it,” in today’s Globe.

You ask of Deval Patrick, “is there anything there?” Were you watching the same debate as I was? Maybe it’s because from my seat in the JFK Jr Forum I could only see the candidates on TV, but I heard Patrick make a range of numerated, precise policy statements. [Read more →]

I first came to New York when I was 18, and I can honestly say being there was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. A few visits while I was studying in Boston didn’t exactly change my mind. But that was before I lived in London. Surely, I thought, couple of years in the original City At The Centre Of The Modern World would take some of the shine off the current City At The Centre Of The Modern World?

So, in the midst of an epic tube-train-flight-monorail-train-bus-tube journey from London back to Boston on Monday, I decided to have a pootle around and see how I felt in the city. [Read more →]

I suppose you could accuse me of jumping on the Mercury bandwagon. Although the ex-Pulp man’s croonings had floated onto my radar before his latest album was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, I did take the opportunity of the nomination to give it a proper listen. For the uninitiated, Coles Corner is a richly orchestrated smoky-lounge bar album of wistful ballads that recalls Pulp’s This is Hardcore more than their more commercially successful material. It’s unashamedly retro, and unashamedly Americana. [Read more →]