STOCK MARKET LOSSES
Microchip manufacturers Intel triggered international stock-market losses posting a warning of falling profits. Scepticism about the veracity of companies' accounting has risen since the investigations into Enron revealed the business's earnings to be a fiction, designed to boost the share price. In Britain Vodafone's management shrugged off the loss of £75 billion buying out rival Mannesman as not affecting the basic structure of the company, adding to the doubts about share values. This year the London stock exchange has already lost a quarter of its value.
The elevation of the stock markets from the earthly realm of making things was celebrated by New Labour advisor Charles Leadbeater in his book Living on Thin Air, an assessment that Industry minister has dismissed as 'hot air'. Recent developments, though, show that it is not just the financial sector that is playing the stock exchange, but all kinds of companies are supplementing their business with financial speculation.
QUEEN MOTHER'S FUNERAL
British Prime Minister Tony Blair dug himself into yet more trouble over his attempts to secure a more prominent status at the Queen mother's funeral. This is not the first time that Number Ten's predilection for high camp public ceremony has got it into trouble: witness the Millennium Dome fiasco. The problem could easily have been avoided by the simple strategy of not attending the Queen Mother's funeral. As to the Prime Minister's complaint that the press ought to interest itself in policy issues, that would be easier if the government, too, interested itself in policy issues.
COMPANION OF HONOUR
Harold Pinter is to be a Companion of Honour in the Queen's birthday list. Despite a doughty record of fighting the establishment from the left, the playwright has always shown a something of a taste for the trappings of aristocracy. As a young actor he adopted the stage name of David Baron, and kept a pewter mug behind the bar of his local pub. In 1978 he married Lady Antonia Fraser.
DILAPIDATED DWELLINGS
Come to a screening of Patrick Keiller's feature-length documentary The Dilapidated Dwelling, with a discussion by Patrick Keiller and architecture writer Martin Pawley: Framestore-cfc, 19 to 23 Wells Street, London, W1T 3PQ, between Mortimer Street and Oxford Street. The foyer will be open from 6.30pm for a 7.00pm start.
Tickets are available from audacity.org at £15.00, and cheques should be sent in advance to Audacity Limited, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Phone 07947 621 790
-- James Heartfield