Watch

….Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries(DVD)…it is an Australian television series based on Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher Murder Mystery novels. Set after the First World War Miss Fisher is a thoroughly modern woman. We do not get to know much about her background except she is financially independent and has links to the British aristocracy. Not that she is the stereotypical upperclass woman. As soon as she steps back onto Australian land she is embroiled with poisoned husbands, cocaine smuggling rings and illegal abortionists. Two of her sidekicks are ex- communist dockers; Burt and Cec. But Miss Fisher is happy to use her own gun, hidden in her garter, to right wrongs with an undercurrent of helping those not as privileged as herself. Great to see such a positive female role and a series that attempts to show a broader range of characters than you usually get in mainstream television. It is also very witty and clothes you would die for!!

Support

….Manchester for Ayotzinapa fundraising party on Saturday 25th April, from 7 to 10pm at The Yard (Hulme). Entrance fee is £ 5.There will be stalls, Latin American music, delicious Mexican food and drink, and an exhibition of posters in solidarity with the 43 missing students of Ayotzinapa. Their parents have not given up in their struggle for justice and there is an increasing human rights crisis in Mexico. Find out more at this event.

Go

to a talk by Sheila Cohen, author of Notoriously Militant; the story of a union branch at Ford Dagenham. On 22 April at 2 at the WCML. This book tells the story of Ford Dagenham from 1931 until it closed in 2002. Intertwined with it is the struggle for trade union rights in one of the most anti-trade union companies. What makes this book different is that Sheila tells the story through interviews with leading shop floor union officials and stewards. Listen to Sheila talk about working class politics and socialism at

Read

…Artwash; Big Oil and the Arts by Mel Evans which shows how and why the big oil companies sponsor the arts in this country. Companies including Chevron, Exon, Mobil and BP are exposed as trying to use their financial weight to build links with the artworld to try and erase their destruction of the enviroment. They are literally trying to wash away their sins by their involvement with high profile partnerships with organisations such as the Tate. Mel has spent years doing undercover research, grassroots investigations and activism to expose the links between the oil and art world. The campaign against these partnerships has worked as arts organisations are cutting their links with the oil companies. Buy it at
Find out more at