#Robinsons Supermarket

[beingjellybeans]

MetroMart offers multiple ₱1 deals in 11.11 MEGA PISO SALE

MetroMart offers multiple ₱1 deals in 11.11 MEGA PISO SALE

MetroMart, the no.1 on-demand online grocery delivery platform, provides multiple PISO SALES with leading supermarket partners, discount sales, and FREE Delivery in the 11.11 Mega PISO SALE this November 11-15, 2022  The 11.11 Mega PISO SALE, will feature items that can be purchased for only ₱1.00 when you order and get it delivered via MetroMart across select branches of S&R, Robinsons…

[gravethi3f]

feeling like a Colin Robinson victim today whenever someone tries to talk to me

[i-think-you-should-leave]

How do we move our bodies ever?

[grundoonmgnx]

John Robinson, The Emphasist/ All The Things You Tell Me About Myself Are Designed To Keep Me In a State of Ideological Capture (or: recreation of the end of the seance in Venice owing to the absence of sponge cakes in the supermarket in Castello), 2024

Oil on canvas, 40 x 50 cm

[songofwizardry]

Ok I'm out of the UK and meant to be on an organising break so I don't even know the worst of it, because I'm off all my usual networks and chats, but here's a long post, because I'm angry: in the last few days, across the country, there have been (halal and Muslim owned) businesses burnt down and attacked including cafes (1 and 2) and a supermarket in Belfast; a Muslim cemetery was vandalised; multiple hotels housing asylum seekers or said to be housing asylum seekers were set on fire sometimes with people inside. And that's just what's on the news. The stuff coming out anecdotally, from the people I'm talking to, is even worse. And again, I'm not hearing the worst of it right now.

The rhetoric is blatant and obvious: the leaked list of targets for Wednesday evening that's going around explicitly says they won't stop coming until we make them. It explicitly targets immigration support, immigration lawyers, and asylum seeker and refugee support centres; and just because you think you live in a diverse area does not mean it’s not a target and that numbers aren’t needed. By virtue of it targeting immigration support (and by design!!!) they’re targeting areas with large Brown, Black and immigrant populations. Particularly Muslim populations.

I don’t want to fear monger, bc where communities have been showing up, the fash are being driven out. But like. I will not lie. It is terrifying to see blatant far-right, Islamophobic, explicitly anti-immigrant and anti-asylum rhetoric so openly on our streets, days on end. It makes me incandescent with rage to hear about mosques across the country issuing warnings and shutting down events, and to hear about my friends outside London whose families haven’t been able to leave their homes in days, to hear from my friends who are or support asylum seekers about how terrified they are. It infuriates me to see, even at this point, the language and reporting, because to make the news we have to step out of a mosque being targeted and offer the fash food and a tour of the mosque; because they're still talking about how much we "contribute" to this country and that's why you shouldn't target us; becaus there's still people pointing out super "reasonably" that this is a natural response of the white working class to unchecked immigration or our terrible crimes or the violence of Muslims or those fucking savages or because there's too many goddamn people crossing the channel or. Whatever new bullshit. Genuinely, this is still turning up in the reporting, and on socials, go look on twitter and you will be utterly horrified at the shit that's being said. I'm seeing it on tumblr too.

It makes me so fucking angry and yet I am unsurprised, because Nigel Farage is an MP and can still say that this is a “response to unchecked immigration”, because the shadow Welsh secretary can say there is “political justification” for the far-right action on our streets, because my friends who are asylum seekers have seen years upon years of being blamed for every ill and failure of the social safety net that the government has been responsible for. This is where we end up after years of talking about “no-go zones” in Muslim areas of cities, after “Stop the boats” (full of terrified people who are escaping unimaginably bad circumstances) becomes a reasonable political chant, after we had a prime minister whose blatant islamophobic comments were just… ignored for years, after years of newspaper front pages demonising us.

This isn’t just about the stabbings. (Tommy Robinson was in London leading a fash march before these stabbings. This has been a long time coming.) This is the result of years of this shit. So yeah, we are scared, and concerned, but also angry (maybe that’s just me; I am always angry). Look out for your friends. Check in on people, particularly if you know PoC and people targeted by Islamophobia (misplaced or otherwise, our Sikh friends get a lot of this shit as well), immigrants, and asylum seekers and refugees.

Numbers have been key to keeping the fash down. Counterprotests are happening everywhere—if you can get to one SAFELY (being the key word here—if you’re visibly going to be a target, there is no shame in staying home and staying safe) please do, don’t go alone under any circumstances, take the GBC number, don’t split off from the group, etc. Repeatedly, we have been the ones keeping each other safe. Counter-protests are being called by Stand Up To Racism (which is a SWP front), but particularly within London, BLMUK and LAFA (the London Anti-Fascist Assembly) are also coordinating responses—you can see stuff on the BLMUK instagram. Do what you can to help, but if you’re going out there, do it as a group and do it safely.

And please please push back against the anti-immigrant rhetoric, against these prevalent ideas (even) amongst “polite” middle class white liberals about Muslims who refuse to assimilate, about the “state” of “those” areas of Birmingham and Manchester and London, against the good immigrant narratives and the blame we get for everything from inflation to overcrowded classrooms to NHS underfunding, against the fucking vile way people talk about asylum seekers and people crossing the channel.

I am tired and sick to my core of the myth of “polite” British racism. I am tired of being told that things like that don’t happen here, of the shock I get anytime I describe the Islamophobia and racism that people (that I) experience. I’m actually very very tired full stop, and I don’t know how to end this paragraph.

Fuck the fash. We keep ourselves and each other safe. We need each other to keep our communities safe. Organise. And for the love of god, listen to us.

[shotofstress]

Sebastián Piñera, criminal internationally known for been the president of Chile two times as well for been a clown, is death and all over the world, but especially in Chile, his image is gonna be wash of all the blood. He not only robbed a bank and was a fugitive, he also was corrupt as fuck and did money laundry, scammed, trafficked babies, children and teens for upper class adoption from foreign europeans, gringos and other places, but also for sexual abuse as well for Organ Trafficking, he even had as his right hand an "ex" mossad agent, Hinzpeter who helped him to bring literal tons of cocaine to the country and then keep the traffic and micro traffic working and use south american emigrants that were in extreme poverty to traffic so then he could blame them of been the responsables of the huge drug addictions and narco violence here. He also allowed false flag terrorism to keep the occupation of Mapuche territory, their killings and stealing of lands and resources. Between his political assassinations we can count beloved upper class TV face and show host Felipe Camiroaga, who had said on TV during student protests movement (for food on schools and free education and stop the corruption at educational institutions) that if the youth was protesting, Piñera had the obligation to hear them bc the people was right and was his duty as president. Under Piñera's orders Hinzpeter killed Camiroaga with other 20 people on board of an helicopter, a C-212 Aviocar of the Chile's Air Force, that was heading to help people of the Robinson Crusoe Island in the Juan Fernández Archipelago because the destruction cause by the infamous 2010's massive earthquake that moved the Earth from her axis. Piñera even let Hinzpeter to inform the crime as an accident and this fucked even paraphrased in the live media TV and radio the words that Camiroaga said to Piñera on his program calling him to be a good president, putting together phrases to mock and refer to his death.

And if u think that he already was a monster for this, let me tell u that in Octuber 18th of 2019 and the next months se did a dictatorship in which he declared on national transmission that the state (he) was in war against the people (who were literally just people, civilians all with no weapons bc here we dont own weapons), and the military and police went to the street and houses to kill. The motive Piñera had to begin this? That school teens evaded the payment in the subway as a form of protest for the constant rise of the ticket price in a country in which most of us are poor and the using transportation for 1 month cost at least 1/3 of the minimum wage.

They police and the military murdered, wounded and did systematic mutilation and torture as psychological warfare learned by training with Israeli military and mossad. They practiced beforehand shooting to students in the university of professors here, they (as always) go inside with no order nor justification to shoot us with shotguns to the face with war weapons like teargas cans and special bullets. Piñera sent the police and military to pillaged the supermarkets and burn them and blame the people and the left, they even use the burning buildings to hide the corpses of people they killed, probably there were alive ppl too. They tortured, raped and mutilated people not just in their police and military quarters, they also used underground stations/subway stations as torture houses, something that they are familiar with bc Pinochet's dictatorship. The Piñera dictatorship had never been called dictatorship in anyplace, specially in the TV bc he and all his family and friends own the media (all the TV channels and 99% of news paper like El Mercurio, La Nación, Las últimas Noticias, The Clinic, etc etc). We still have Disappeared detainees and they are not recognised as such, and also not every torture survivors is recognised as such, we have tons of people that lost their ocular globes partially in sight, totally, or the globe was totally destroyed and they are not recognised as victims of the genocide attempt. Piñera wasn't destitute as president, he didn't even faced justice, nor the national justice nor the international one, even when there was hundreds of pictures, videos, audios and other evidences of his crimes, he wasn't even called criminal, dictator or anything. He was accused of Crimes against Humanity and yet national and international law did NOTHING. His crimes in Chile were so many that representative (diputado) Jaime Naranjo read 1300 pages of some of Piñera's crimes for 15 hours straight and had a full live streaming.

So when your media and journalist tell you that Piñera was a good president, please remember this post (that don't even have all his crimes nor in detail) and remember that he was a monster that die without a thing to worry about in his life that face zero justice and that all the world let him go out scot-free. Don't belive in news nor even in chileans or other south americans that tell you that Piñera was good and that "the left" were terrorists and shit like that bc we here barely have something like a left wing and even if we had, no one did a shit to stopped the massacre.

Don't believe that Chile and Piñera are lovely, here is just full of blood thanks to right wing and the stupidly of the left and the liberal bourgeoisie.

Likes don't help to spread this post, ppl. REBLOG IT FOR FUCK SAKE

And if u are a boot licker the the fuck out of my blog and if u comment some bullshit I'm gonna block u and report u. Fascists, specially chilean fascists DNI.

[redstonedust]

extremely funny to me that most vocaloids have vague character guidlines like ''dont do anythin that would damage the company's image'' but pou-ta is out here like

so bad news everyone we can NOT draw the porter robinson vocaloid buying pads and ibuprofen at the liberal supermarket /hj

[dailyanarchistposts]

Note from Return Fire

It’s time again to confront the authoritarian turn brewing on the fringes of the climate movement, and here Klokkeblomst reminds us why. The essay’s subject – the academic Andreas Malm, who blows hot air about why pipelines should be blown up but also about the need for a new ‘War Communism’ of harsh State interventions in the face of the ecological (or, in his reductive terms, ‘climate’) crisis – can serve as an initial target, but we publish this contribution we received in the hope that it will also speak to the tendency that is latent in the current atmosphere of desperation, which we should expect to grow regardless of the influence of this particular figure. (While seeming less influential as yet in radical circles, Malm is wooed by certain establishment media in his native Sweden where he cuts the figure of the militant parading his support for Hamas and other authoritarian groups for a bourgeois audience; suggesting, as with his fellow academic – and fellow apologist for the atrocities of State communism – Slavoj Zizek, he seeks his main recognition in an arena that is not involved in the complicated dynamics of actually trying to effect revolutionary action.)

While in this case in favour of such actions (purely theoretically) if only they fit into his hierarchical schema, we can place Malm on the same spectrum as the UK academics Paul Gill, Zoe Marchment and Arlene Robinson of Univeristy College London’s ‘Department of Security and Crime Science’, who published a paper last year written to offer clear recommendations to the repressive organs of the State as to how to equate anarchist sabotages – legally and propagandistically – with terrorism: he is an enemy of our struggle. His vision insists on quantifiable movement growth as standard for an action’s effectiveness rather than chaotic flows of desire and affect which these sabotages often spring from, achieve, and unpredictably inspire; instead insisting on seeing their ‘results’ in a vacuum (following the well-trod elitist path of other eco-authoritarians Deep Green Resistance). As such he’s a good example of Leftist (and sometimes Left-anarchist) obsession with what the author of excellent third part of ‘After the Crest’ series – reproduced in a forthcoming chapter of volume 6 of Return Fire – calls ‘geometrical growth’, a logic of accumulation: in resistance like in capital.

Now like always, justification is never lacking for his politics of ‘emergency’ that would justify totalitarian State measures; once you’ve accepted the price of such intervention as justified and likely to achieve the results you want, in today’s world there’s no shortage of issues to tack this lust for iron-fisted measures on to. The logic of urgency, however, is a poor metric for the ecological struggles we need. The idea that we have only so many years, decades, or “chances” left only obscures the effects of the crisis that are already happening; just disproportionately to the poor, non-Western, non-human. Such clock-watchers base their forecasts on technocratic measures like CO2 particles that are determined on levels utterly out of our participation, leading us directly away from our own judgment and experience: for instance, in the ongoing struggles to defend land and simultaneously rejoin the life of what actually sustains us beyond the supermarket and internet, or against capitalist extraction projects; which such academics and (wannabe-)politicians haven’t been positively contributing to but now want to co-opt and lead, straight into the dust. And, as this reduces the successfulness of these resistances when we let this happen, it gives even more grounds to the authoritarians (Left or Right) who propose their more ‘radical’ solutions...

In Malm’s take, the anti-nuclear movement is ‘naïve’; yet his model rests on technologies that don’t even exist yet in forms that have shown results, and he ignores efforts like re-vitalisation of indigenous lifeways, restorative agro-ecology, commoning, etc. This isn’t surprising for the legacy he likes to see himself as representing: the Leftist project of seizing the reins of a global industrial order, the results of which he hypocritically decries; yet remains utterly attached to its world. This is far from an isolated symptom these days; it hits a nerve for the terrified citizens who buy his books. Furthermore, his strident defence of the State – and insistence on the primacy of its agency vis-a-vis the ecological crisis – comes at a time of a crisis of governance worldwide which anarchists would do well to push away from the State-form; but Malm offers the contenders for the outcome of this power vacuum a new legitimacy, an ‘eco-Marxist’ flavour serviceable for the same project of infinite technocratic accounting that the progressive (we don’t mean this in a positive light) parts of the capitalist system are already clamouring for. He ignores the actual fault-lines like borders – which, as a Statist, he can only favour – which have been and will be some of the first flash-points as ecological collapse gains speed. Each argument for totalitarian responses invigorates others; we can see for example how in Germany among the supporters of the most restrictive COVID-19 regulations was the federal leader of the Green Party, proposing the governance of the state of emergency as “the model” for “the configuration of climate change”, praising Chinese “management of the pandemic”...

While we disagree that the struggles Malm should support instead should be “non-violent (but not pacifist)” because we do not find it to be a useful conception or restriction, as we’ve made clear since our very first chapter, and we’re not sure exactly what “climate justice” would mean in this context, we find it important to extend the reach of this piece as much as possible; including, to the degree we can, to the youth and others recently becoming active in the fight for a dignified life and a flourishing ecology we could call home. Artwork was supplied by the author, with a couple of additions from us. We welcome feedback at returnfire@riseup.net – also, to see the articles referenced by title throughout this text in [square brackets], consult chapters of the current volume of Return Fire (vol.6). PDFs of Return Fire and related publications can be read, downloaded and printed by visiting our website.*

– R.F., Winter Solstice 2021 * returnfire.noblogs.org

[daramdarararam]

Hirap maging pinoy. Sinisingle out ni NutriAsia ung toyong binebenta sa Dali na kaparehas daw ng packaging? parang andami namang iba na ganon din packaging, you know marca pina??? mas gusto naming toyo yan kesa DatuPuti panget ng lasa ng toyo at suka nila. Bumaba siguro sales nila, yun ba namang kada sulok ng barangay may Dali! mas mura kasi talaga. Ang mamahal kaya ng presyo sa ibang stores, super mura ng delata, lalo ung ala-spam na luncheon meat jan!! Hindi na ako magtataka if pagtulungan ng ibang malalaking retail stores like Robinsons Mini, puregold/alfamart tong Dali.

Some of the brands/products na go-to ko jan e ung GoNutt!!! Kulina tomato catsup na kalasa ng heinz !! saraaap. at masarap ung icecream nila, ung mga tinapay nila etc. kung ako sa ibang stores, babaan din nila presyo nila. kasi kaya naman pala ganon kababang presyo ng hindi sinasakripisyo ang quality eh. sarap din nung bakakult saka ung blueberry yoghurt na lagi ko din jan binibili. even ung mga pinoy brands, may ilang sentimo or 1-3 pesos ang difference sa ibang supermarket!! para sa mahihirap, napakalaking luwag non. 1k ko makakapaguwi ka na ng isang box jan! frozen products gooods den lalo ung chicken nuggets!!

andaming energy no. hindi ako makatulog eh hays hahahahaha shareholder talaga ako ng dali bwhahaha!

[funnyfooddatabase]

Celebrity Apprentice Diet Snapple Trop-a-Rocka and Snapple Compassionberry

Drink

Type of Funny Food: Tie-In Product

Introduced: May 2010

Location: Supermarkets

As part of the final challenge of Celebrity Apprentice, the last two contestants- Bret Michaels and Holly Robinson Peete- were tasked to create a marketing plan for an original Snapple flavor they conceived.

Bret Michaels, a diabetic, chose to create Trop-a-Rocka, a diet black and green tea with pear, mango, and cinnamon, while Holly Robinson Peete created Compassionberry Tea, a black and green tea with passionfruit and strawberry flavors. 

Both flavors were available for a limited time in supermarkets. Proceeds from the sale of both were donated to different charities- Trop-a-Rocka to the American Diabetes Association and Compassionberry to the HollyRod Foundation for autism research.

[celestialvoyeur]

9 People You Would Like to Know Better

Tagged by @introvertia - Thanks!

1. Three ships : AOS Spirk, TOS Spirk, SNW Spirk  😂

2. First ever ship : Spirk 💙💛

3. Last Song : Oh Lord by Foxy Shazam

4. Last Film: Star Trek: Beyond (I swear I do like things other than Star Trek, I just happen to have watched the AOS movies most recently lol)

5. Currently reading : A Stitch in Time by Andrew J. Robinson

6. Currently Watching: Mostly YouTube videos about house cleaning so I can get some motivation!  😂

7. Currently consuming: A cheese and ham toastie 😊

8. Currently craving: Creme Caramel! (honestly, I WANT one and the supermarket was out the last time I went 😭😭😭 first world problems)

If you want to: @gunstreet @spirkme915 @flippyspoon @wonderbent @thetimetostrikeislater @onwhatcaptain @spocks-husband @cicaklah @why-lamp

[phoebejaysims]

Robinson Family - Round 4

Now that Liam’s got his degree, the workforce is a callin’. Thanks to good old nepotism, he was able to score a job at his father’s workplace in the span of one conversation...

The business offices are a little useless at the moment, so I’m thinking of having Liam and his dad invest in a shop. I feel like Tillage needs a Poundland to sell various bits and bobs: a place to give the supermarket a run for its money.

The Robinson’s are moving up in the world. They even splurged on a car!

[charlesandmartine]

Friday 30th June 2023

Happy Birthday Amanda.

Up early because we were changing locations, but first we needed to get this troublesome tyre sorted. Mr Enterprise said we needed to take it to their preferred tyre provider KAL Tires. They were on route to our next location and in Penticton, some 6 or seven miles away. We rocked up on the forecourt just after eight in the morning just after they opened for the day. They were rammed packed and really couldn't commit to a finish time, so given that Mr Enterprise couldn't provide a replacement car, we had to get it fixed; after all we had a date with the Kettle Valley Heritage Railway. All aboard at 10.30 sharp. Basically we had very little time to hang around tyre emporiums. Mr Enterprise gave us an alternative, Fountains Tires just around the corner. They were very nice, but also very nicely sucked their teeth and said you wouldn't believe how busy they were today. We agreed we wouldn't, but what could they do for us. I left Martine to be a little tarty and explain that it would ruin our holiday if we couldn't be on the road in an hour.

They cracked on, fixed it and refused to charge us!!

We were on our way; 20 km to the railway, stuck in traffic, sweltered in the building heat, screamed into the railway yard at 10.26, the engine whistle sounding in that maunful North American sort of way they have a habit to do. Slung the credit card at the ticket lady and ran down the platform as the guard shouted 'all aboard '. I parked the car.

The train took us 10km along the standard guage track from Summerland along the original Kettle Valley Railway Line (the same line as the trail we walked 2 days ago) passing farms, wineries (the Dirty Laundry Winery), rivers and forests. The 104 year old engine, now converted to run on oil, was uncoupled at Trout Bridge Canyon and brought us back again. Not originally on this line but as a 4-8-0 would have had similar capability to an engine required to pull heavy ore up a 2° gradient. We thoroughly enjoyed our journey, the ticket inspector gave a running commentary and spent some time sitting talking to us. He said that it was the UK that was inspirational in the establishment of Heritage lines in Canada, although some were struggling and could face closure. The traveller's faces reflecting the same glazed little boy enthusiasm you meet anywhere in the world as soon as a steam engine puffs around the bend.

After lunch we set sail for our next two night stop in Salmon Arm. To get here we had to travel the long winding road alongside the complete 84 mile length of Lake Okanagan, momentarily stopping at 'Save-on-Foods' store to pick up supplies in Kelowna and walk along the lakeside at Peachland, another of our old friend Mr Robinson's town creations. The bright shiny supermarket more than adequately provided us with a rubbery chicken and a most fine selection of locally produced Canadian SB. It has, I would like to confirm, proved exceedingly pleasing on the palette and could well be the start of a long and fruitful relationship.

Our bed for the next 2 nights is in a very well appointed basement with an agreeable outdoor space from where this missive is being crafted.

ps well over 30° C again today.

pps Canada is proving more and more pleasing as we progress north. 200km today

ppps we bought some Tim Tams.

pppps it's Canada Day tomorrow.

[bellisimaflowershop]

#bellisimaflowershop 🌹💋❤️ Surprise them with fkowers 🌸🌸🌸 📍South Supermarket Malolos 📍Message us/📨 @bellisimaflowershop.malolos 🌸 🌹🌹🌹 #vdaywithbellisima #valentinesgiftph #valentinesday #giftidea #philippines #ofw #seamanlife #flowershop #onlineshop #bouquetflowers #malolosflowershop #viral #BulacanFlowershop #robinsonplacemalolos #free #delivery #chocolatebouquet (at Robinsons Malolos) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cof4DqVh5Se/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[mariacallous]

Counter-terrorism police have finally concluded that a firebomb attack on a migrant centre last week was terrorism motivated by the far right. But you’d never have guessed it from this past week.

There haven’t been column inches from counter-terrorism ideologues laying out the drivers of this terrorist attack, nor has there been round-the-clock media coverage of the community where the perpetrator is from, asking why they hate so much. Most national newspapers didn’t give the attack front-page prominence the next day.

The day after the attack, the home secretary appeared to go out of her way to say that the attack was not being treated as terrorism. This is despite the fact that the perpetrator had tweeted that he planned to “obliterate Muslim children” an hour before his attack. He referenced the far-right Islamophobe Tommy Robinson, repeatedly wrote about Muslim “grooming gangs” and shared content from far-right Islamophobic groups including Act for America.

Is it possible that the comparatively muted reaction to this despicable act of terror is because the perpetrator was not “foreign”, but instead a Briton hating immigration: a cause much of the rightwing media and our government stand behind?

At the Muslim Council of Britain’s Centre for Media Monitoring, we analysed the media reporting of 16 officially designated terrorist attacks between 2015 and 2020 in painstaking detail. The report uncovered a huge disparity in the way the term “terror” (and related terms) has been used by the media. Unsurprisingly, “terror” was used far less commonly when the perpetrator was from the far right.

For example, the report cites how many were unwilling to call Thomas Mair, who murdered Jo Cox, a terrorist, despite the murder being described by the Crown Prosecution Service as a terrorist act. ITV’s Rohit Kachroo, a contributor to the report, highlighted how a young man inspired by white supremacists in El Paso, Texas, shot 20 people dead in a supermarket, yet media outlets were initially unwilling to call it a terrorist attack.These should not be challenging cases.

On a side note, it is worth noting that mainstream reporting appears to have become more consistent since the Christchurch terrorist attack that killed 51 Muslims. This has included a greater willingness to call attacks by the far right “terrorism” where appropriate, and being more circumspect and not jumping to conclusions about motivation when the terrorist is, for example, inspired by Islamic State.

But it’s not merely about the reporting of terrorism. It’s also about why this far-right terrorist had such disgusting views about Islam and Muslims.

It’s important not to assume that media discourse about Islam, Muslims and immigration directly led to this attack, but given the awful reporting about Islam, Muslims and immigration that has become commonplace in the rightwing press, the correlation is worth exploring.

Columns by Melanie Phillips were quoted several times in the manifesto of the anti-Islam far-right terrorist Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 people in Norway more than a decade ago. Unfortunately, however, rather than this prompting some reflection, sections of the press have since doubled down.

In the week following the far-right terrorist attack on a migrant centre in Dover, the home secretary, Suella Braverman, claimed asylum seekers were engaged in an “invasion” of the south coast, defended by newspaper columnists such as Allison Pearson; and the Spectator published an article hostile to immigration with an image of a tidal wave of Muslim-looking individuals hitting the white cliffs of Dover. The Daily Mail, which did report the Dover centre attack on its front page, described it as an “intensification of Britain’s migrant crisis”, which came “amid new fears over the number of arrivals”.

It appears that even after a terrorist attack from someone who used such language, incendiary language about Islam, Muslims and immigration has not died down, but has actually escalated.

The question to ask is, why has this happened? First, there is a deliberate unwillingness to take far-right extremism seriously across the media and political establishment. In fact, there are even attempts to decrease focus on the far right, including most worryingly by the reviewer of Prevent, William Shawcross, although also across the pages of news outlets such as the Spectator.

Second, it is because anti-Islam sentiment remains acceptable in mainstream discourse. Why else would people like Rod Liddle, Douglas Murray and William Shawcross be considered reasonable interlocutors at the BBC, for example? And why else would Islamophobia in our governing political party be ignored?

Finally, it’s because in parts of the media and politics, narratives blaming an “other” for society’s ills play a crucial role. They distract from the real forces undermining British society, and get a lot of clicks.

We are at a crucial moment. And things look set to worsen as we face a probable recession, far-right voices are poised to return to social media platforms and far-right forces across the globe continue to rise.

If our media and political establishment cannot reflect and confront far-right terrorism and its drivers after a terrorist attack on a migrant centre, when will they?

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944)

This review contains mild spoilers (which are basically revealed at the beginning of the movie).

Everybody talks about the shot in Billy Wilder's The Apartment where we see Jack Lemmon in his office, the rigid symmetry of which provides a certain dehumanizing, soul crushing quality. But I think it's worth bringing up for comparison the way this movie presents its protagonist's office. When we see it during the day, this insurance office is lively, bustling with activity, and the energy of the work is palpable. This is a movie where one of the central characters is a crack insurance claims investigator played by Edward G. Robinson, and as a result is maybe the only movie I can think of that makes the insurance business look cool or makes an insurance man a good guy. But you see this office at night, once at the beginning and once at the end, and the environment is less invigorating in this context. If you look closely at how the tables are lined up, it perhaps even resembles the way the crosses and tombstones might be arranged in a cemetery, and as a result casts a funereal pall over the proceedings sandwiched in between. Which is appropriate as when we first meet our protagonist, an insurance salesman played by Fred MacMurray, he's bleeding to death from a gunshot wound and offering a confession, which can be alternately seen as self-serving and totally unflattering, depending on the scene.

This sense of geometry carries over to other key scenes, like the ones in the supermarket, first where MacMurray plans the murder with iconic femme fatale Barbara Stanwyck, and later where they figure out how to play it cool in the aftermath. The environment at first seems perfectly banal, the relative activity allowing a discreet meeting in plain sight. But then you see how that banality manifests in the geometry, with the aisles squeezed a little too closely, to the point that MacMurray and Stanwyck have to move apart every time someone comes by to pick up a can of baby food. And you grasp the deadening, suffocating quality of the environment, and you understand why Stanwyck might want to kill her husband, as an escape not just from a marriage to an unkind husband, but an entirely unfulfilling existence. And you grasp why it's difficult to keep cool in the aftermath of the murder, as this existence is so deadening and so suffocating that being freed from it takes on a certain urgency. This won't make sense to anyone outside of a select few who used to post on a certain defunct internet forum, but I remember a wildly hyperbolic comparison a poster once made about how awful it was to live in the suburbs, and I have to wonder if they'd ever seen this movie.

Actually, a clear understanding of geometry carries over to the dialogue scenes, of which there are many, as this is a fast talking classic starring some of the best fast talkers in the history of cinema. It's tempting to say this movie would work as a radio play given how good the dialogue is, but that would undersell Wilder's keen visual direction. You can see how precisely the actors are blocked in scenes like the one where a witness to the crime comes to Robinson's office, and how the arrangement of their bodies draws our attention to MacMurray's expression as the witness helps Robinson uncover inconsistencies in what were previously understood to be the events that transpired. Going for a close-up might seem redundant at this point, but it's not without impact, as MacMurray's face makes him uniquely suitable to this role. He has a kind, almost swollen face, which serves him well in jovial roles like The Absent-Minded Professor, which is how I'd known him before seeing this movie. But it also highlights that he's very much not a strong, alpha male type, and in fact might be the type whose moral fiber is weak enough to be persuaded into committing a murder for insurance money. MacMurray's rounded edges are a strong contrast with Stanwyck's sharp edges, and the eerie effect of the sunglasses she puts on, and the daggers of ice one can feel from her eyes when she takes them off. And of course, the absolute king of the fast talkers is Robinson, whose affection and love for MacMurray are a warm counterpoint to the sexual tension and sinister scheming between MacMurray and Stanwyck. When he arrives at the end and sees MacMurray bleeding out, he seems disappointed, almost wounded.

"Know why you couldn't figure this one, Keyes? I'll tell ya. 'Cause the guy you were looking for was too close. Right across the desk from ya."

"Closer than that, Walter."

"I love you, too."

When the king of the fast talkers slows down, it means something.