Shopping and Fucking

Dominic Fox channels Houellbecq, hilarity ensues. On the subject of occasionally priapic novelists of bleak hotels and post-industrial malaise, Ballardian's current interview is absolutely essential reading, not least for the unnerving picture of England it builds up. Glad to see the Ikea riots mentioned- I'd be curious to know what Ballard would think of Czech Dream, which, aside from being easily one of the best documentaries of the last decade, implies a similarity between post-Thatcherite UK and the post-Stalinist Eastern Bloc, the only other area of Europe as committed to such a wholesale plundering of public assets and preposterously huge gaps between rich and poor. Images as ever terrific, particularly the one above of the Trellick Tower in the distance with a sea of St George flags below. Also, the scenario of English Fascism apparently outlined in Kingdom Come (which I haven't read) may just have found it's Duce.