The funniest part of the whole venture was the way in which people tried to ignore him. An insectizoid alien goes shopping in a rubber suit, and no one notices Continue reading Housing Benefit Hill: Sitting Target
Joan Baez does a pretty good impression of Bob Dylan. There’s a bit in No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese’s essential film about Dylan’s early years: Baez is sitting in her kitchen nursing a mug of coffee. She’s just been talking … Continue reading Farewell Angelina by Bob Dylan
With an introduction by Prof. Ronald Hutton Description Looks like a tramp. Says he’s a King. Meet Arthur – Warrior, leader and Druid. An ex-squaddie and biker turned spiritual leader and parliamentary candidate. The bearer of the Sword of Britain. … Continue reading The Trials of Arthur Revised Edition by CJ Stone and Arthur Pendragon
The Last of the Hippies By: CJ Stone. 88,685 words. Dedication. For John Pendragon 1946-1998. The last of the hippies. Blurb It’s hard to know where the hippie movement begins. It’s even harder to know where it ends. There were … Continue reading The Last of the Hippies by CJ Stone
The name “Housing Benefit Hill” is a reference to a line in Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues by Bob Dylan from the Highway 61 Revisited album. “Up on Housing Project Hill it’s either fortune or fame.” It’s one of my favourite songs. Continue reading Housing Benefit Hill & Other Places by CJ Stone
C.J. Stone, acclaimed columnist for the Guardian and the Big Issue, travels the land and investigates the curious state we’re in. Everyone’s Wally. Extracts from FIERCE DANCING: ADVENTURES IN THE UNDERGROUND by CJ Stone. Published by Faber & Faber May … Continue reading Fierce Dancing: Adventures in the Underground by CJ Stone
Politics, paganism and… Vlad the Impaler. Stories from the front-line of the spiritual revolution, a collection of writings from 2003 to the present by CJ Stone. Introduction This book has been compiled from stories from a number of different sources: … Continue reading The Empire of Things by CJ Stone
What a wonderful gig at the Labour Club last night, featuring the inimitable Nigel Hobbins, and the revelatory Native Oysters Band, in aid of the Oval Campaign. Nigel was brilliant as always, doing a poignant rendition of his Garden of … Continue reading The Native Oysters Band at the Whitstable Labour Club
“All for ourselves and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” — Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations Continue reading Swing Boys Swing by Nigel Hobbins
Housing Benefit Hill was a series of columns which appeared in the Guardian Weekend between September 1993 and September 1996. Originally it featured a cartoon series by Steven Appleby, which were very funny, but not specifically intended as illustrations of the text. (Mind you, sometimes they could be accidentally appropriate). However in September 1995 the editors at the Guardian commissioned Ian Pollock to illustrate the stories, and the results are shown below. They are remarkable drawings, not least because somehow or another Ian seemed to be able to capture not only the essence of the story, but the actual appearance … Continue reading Ian Pollock’s Illustrations for Housing Benefit Hill
