Lost and Found in E11

Field Study's Man in E11 was grieving over the loss of a whole colony of bees or "beeres" as he prefers to say. I asked him to quit using that pun; it annoys me greatly and this is precisely what seems to encourage him to persist in using it. I wonder how you would describe that as a personality trait? Mindf****r? I forgave him for the mind-fiddling as I knew he was traumatised by the loss. However we were 7 weeks into 2014 and, but for a crap cut-up neo-beat pastiche, there had not been a new year report from the allotment apiary. I insisted he engage his stiff upper lip and "make the damn report (Field Study's) man!!!"   I believe in tough love and I was not going to tolerate the lip wobbled speech of a pathetic gibbering field student. Every wobbled "w", fumbled "f" and tongue tied "t" (wtf) met a gruff demand for him to go back to the beginning and start again. It has taken us a long time to piece this report togeth...

Field Study's Man in E11 returned from the allotment caked in a foul smelling mud. The stench was rank; a powerfully noxious blend of sweat and vomit, in which the emetic field student seemed quite comfortable and even pleased with himself, particularly when he belched. His eructations added to the odious miasma which hung around him like a strange aura. He reminded me of a mongrel terrier we had, a great rabbit-er, which would roll in cow-pats and any stinking thing else, to mask her smell for the hunt. I retreated as far from the field student as I could in an effort to avoid the rhizomatic intrusions of his stinking muddy field. I tried to ask him what on earth, or in the earth, he had been doing. Each time I opened my mouth I gagged. We resorted to writing each other notes via a very cheap reporters notebook. Where have you been?       Climbing in the high canopies of the purple sprouting broccoli forest. Hovering above a field of newly emer...

Lost and Found in E11 tries to review an essay from, Patrick Keiller, The View from the Train: Cities and Other Landscapes. Verso 2013. Patrick Keiller occupies a respected place in a field of studies sometimes referred to as 'psychogeography'. The publication cited above represents a body of work admirable for its eloquence, inventiveness and creativity in a variety of media addressing various problems in and of the contemporary landscape. Keiller may have reservations about being cited as a proponent of 'psychogeography' - that as a discipline it broadly lacks the intellectual and academic rigour which underpins his work. Here in, Lost and Found in E11, we are trying to develop our appreciation and understanding of our place (in the world). To do so we have sought out learned texts and other emanations exploring the meaning of place. We find ourselves in a state of doubt about the muddled politics and suspect values of our cultural consumption, that our '...

Field Study's Man in E11 is late (again) with his psycho-geography homework What is our excuse this time? Previously on this blog, we expressed anxieties about exploring and reporting on the sensitive territories of home, particularly if there are dilemmas and disputes concerning the privacy of the territories. Proceed with caution, a voice whispered into our left ear before exiting via the emergency right ear. The urgency of escape expressed by the voice of hopelessness nee caution may have been due to an alarming hollowness of the shell between our ears. Within our limited capacity to imagine, we think we heard a voice echo, 'abandon all hope, ye who enter here '. No, he said, 'there'. No, she said, 'here'.  One of the problems about the voice of caution/hopelessness saying "there" is that we cannot, with any authority, go on to pretend we are clever and/or cultured by sharing the Latin translation of that iconic cliche. We would like to ...

Field Study's Man in E11 and I are in a dispute as to whose incompetence or fault it is that our emanation for the Journal of 'Field Study International, Field Report 2013' is unfinished and late. It is necessary to contribute to this publication for various reasons, not least because this blog (with all it's fictions and processes) takes it's title from an assumed role of being 'thee' field student for the area/postcode of E11. 'E11' in many instances however may not extend much beyond Julian Beere's/FSMiE11's corporeal limits - thus there is plenty of negative space here for more field students, their studies and emanations.  Last August saw a return by Julian Beere to the postcode district of E11. It so happens that he, in the guise of 'Theatre of Names and Addresses', contributed an emanation to the 2003 field report, from an address in E11. That report consisted of a list of all his home addresses. There were 35 addresses, a...

Field Study's Man in E11 coughed, sneezed, choked, and wheezed, altogether gripped in a paroxysm of consumptive pseudo-debilitation. When he could articulate something intelligible, beyond a spluttering rendition of a demented Beat poem, he was very abusive.  "Why the f* * * * * * hell did you f* * ** * * bring me f** ** ** here you f ** ** ** * berk?" I protested. It seemed as if the field student was blaming me for the domestic conditions causing his malady. His debilitation took on a curious delirious quality as he started to jabber in a mysterious tongue that sent shivers up and down my spine. I hesitated as I started to try and reason with the field student, who sounded lost in a very strange stream of consciousness, as he babbled, in between his paroxysms; a cut up rendition of a Wikipedia paragraph on the health effects of mold.  I am aware, from bitter experience, that Field Studies Man in E11 is not an easy person to communicate with at the ...

Just when they thought they had lost each other for good, Field Study's Man in E.... and Julian Beere found each other. As the bell tolls, they contemplate the interconnectedness of their being with the aid of anecdotal evidence.... It was Friday 3rd January and I was out and about doing my humble job as a purveyor of paper ephemera. I was tasked with purveying in the City of London and thus I purveyed with a peculiar enthusiasm reserved for the daytime denizens of that particular area of London. My mind was really elsewhere, embroiled in the dreary details of life at home; so menial was the purveyance that I could be, and was, in the midst of a full blown psycho-domestic about the various inadequacies of my lodgings and yet still purvey with ease. In my preoccupied state of mind I am sure I overlooked and ignored many, perhaps most, of the diverse details and resonances of that historic area. I have made excuses for my mediocrity by considering it as a gift to artists who...