Crickley Hill and The Socialist Worker ...

The pages of "The Socialist Worker" would not the most obvious place for a mention of Crickley Hill, my readers may think. But you will have realised, by now, that I leave few corners of cyberspace unexcavated with Google as my trusty entrenching tool (or should that be cybercatbasher'?) and the Surf Canyon add-on for the Firefox browser as my cybertrowel. (Free add-on available here at Surf Canyon. Give it a try for finding interesting things that Google misses!)

The Socialist Worker is running a series called "The History of War" and in the first article, "The beginning of organised violence and the origin of war" Crickley gets a mention. All those wicked proto-capitalist flint leaf arrowheads ...

UK Readers will, I suspect, be familiar with the sellers of "Socialist Worker" whose habit it is to stand on street corners, or a recessed bit of pavement, with a sheaf of the journal over one arm chanting loudly, lugubriously and ceaselessly "Sōōōōōōshlist Worker", with the emphasis on the first syllable (that syllable being as long as the rest of the chant put together). I've never seen anyone buy a copy but I guess I may just not have stood and watched for long enough. There was a splendid cartoon in Private Eye, some years ago, making ironic reference to such a scene with a boss, dressed in top hat & overcoat, equipped with a monocle and a sheaf of newspapers standing outside a factory gate as all the workers emerged chanting "Cāāāāāāpitalist Bastard!"