Freedom of Information Request made to the UK Border Agency

To Whom It May Concern:

I would like to issue the following request with regards to the Freedom of Information Act:

I had been enrolled at the IRIS Scheme under my leave to remain granted as a Tier 1 (Post-Study) Work Visa. Upon switching my Visa to Tier 1 (Highly Skilled Migrant) Work visa on [disguised], my enrollment had expired and I was asked to re-register at an IRIS Registration office. Since this date, I have been trying to access an IRIS Registration office but have failed to do so in four to five attempts. I have followed the guidelines on the UKBA website, at the following link (http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/customs-travel/Enteringtheuk/usingiris/registeriris/whereregisteriris/), and finally decided to buy my latest flight to Munich for a flight departing on [disguised] from Heathrow Terminal 5.

I was at the Heathrow Terminal 5 IRIS Registration Office around 4:30 PM on [disguised]. The office was closed and I was told by security personnel that the office had been closed for over 2 months due to relocation of staff members. Even though the website does include a disclaimer that reads "Please note that the IRIS enrolment rooms listed in our 'IRIS scheme definition document' have been superseded. Only the list below is accurate and up to date." I have found the information to be inaccurate for Heathrow Terminal 5.

Could you tell me why this information has been inaccurate for what seems to be at least a period of two months according to the security personnel at Heathrow Terminal 5, Southern Security Gates?

I have also heard from UKBA staff members at the UK Borders, at various airports, that the IRIS scheme was planned to be "phased out"? Is that correct, and if so, why has there been no announcement on any UKBA website, or through other publicly available information sources?

Furthermore, non-EU and non-EEA border control queues at UK airports are often very long. Although, this may be a subjective observation, this has been a subject of public debate as discussed by relevant ministers and the public. In this regard, has the UK Border Agency considered establishing a separate queue for non-EU and non-EEA citizens who are UK-residents? Unfortunately, the time lost at UK Borders by non-EU and non-EEA citizens who are UK-residents and who travel frequently, especially for business purposes, are very valuable. Has the UK Border Agency done any studies on this, and drawn up respective policy proposals?

Finally, is the UK Border Agency aware of the fact that re-registration to IRIS scheme is effectively almost impossible? Why would a UK-resident, who has switched visas have to re-register on the IRIS scheme whilst their biometric information have remained the same? Is there no co-operation between the respective bodies of the UK Border Agency who could integrate the changes in circumstances of residents with their respective registration information, such as that of IRIS registration?

Kind regards.

Name:
Omer Cavusoglu

Address:
[disguised]

Phone:
[disguised]

Besiktas Kulubu'ne Mektup

Asagidaki yazi, ileriki blog yazilarimda daha detayli olarak deginecegim bir olay uzerine, tarafimdan, 26 Eylul 2011 gunu Besiktas Kulubu'ne gonderildi. Yazi, son bir kac gundur yasanan bir bilet skandali ile ilgilidir.

Yazidan da anlasilacagi gibi 29 Eylul 2011 tarihinde oynanacak olan Stoke City FC - Besiktas JK macinin, Besiktas taraftarlarina satilacak biletlerinin bir kismi, Londra Dalston'da bulunan Istanbul Travel tarafindan ustlenilmistir. Istanbul Travel, Besiktas Kulubu'ne, biletleri, uzerinde yazan bedel olan £15'dan satacagini taahhut etmesine ragmen, farkli yontemlerle farkli kar amaclari gutmus, ve, hukuksal ifadelerle "karaborsacilik" olarak tabir edilebilecek hareketlerde bulunmustur.

Birkac kisinin yaptigi uyari ve benim de yaptigim telefon gorusmeleri ve email tarfiginden sonra, Besiktas Kulubu'nden bugun aldigim bir telefona gore, Kulup Yonetim Kurulu'ndan biri, konu ile ilgili detayli bilgi almak icin benimle Londra'da gorusmek istedigini iletmis. Bu hususta, Besiktas Kulubu'nun konuyu takip altina almasini olumlu karsiliyor, ve konu ve bu durumdan zarar goren musterilerle ilgili atilacak adimlari umutla takip etmeye devam ediyorum.

------

The post below (in Turkish) is an email I have sent to the Besiktas Football Club, following the ticketing scandal raised by a travel agency named Istanbul Travel, based in Dalston, London, who had agreed with Besiktas FC to sell tickets to Besiktas (away) fans for the Stoke City FC - Besiktas JK game on 29 September 2011 on behalf of the club. The travel agency, who bought the tickets at face-value (unless other agreements were made, unknown to me) from the club at £15, pledged to sell them at the face-value. Naturally so, trying to conserve their own financial benefit, Istanbul Travel, started selling these tickets as part of a "tour package" that includes a return journey to and fro Stoke-on-Trent and the ticket itself, all conveniently priced at £60, which means a £22 profit per ticket (this will be explained and analysed in future blog entries on the subject). Furthermore, the agency tried to sell tickets to those individuals who did not want to buy the tour package - those who had means to travel on their own - at the price of £30.

A few people have raised the issue with Besiktas FC, who have had to deal with the situation in ad hoc fashion. After a few follow-ups and my latest email to the club, a club representative called back to let me know that a member of the board of directors from Besiktas who is coming to the game and staying in London on Wednesday would like to talk to me to get a better idea of the story.

I welcome and appreciate the efforts by Besiktas FC, my childhood favourite team, and look forward to the steps they will take in order to combat this misconduct.

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Konu: Karaborsacilik Ihbari ve Bilgiye Erisim Talebi

Sayin Yetkili'nin Dikkatine,

Bildginiz uzere, 29 Eylul 2011 Persembe aksami oynanacak olan Stoke City FC - Besiktas JK macinin biletleri, Ingiltere'deki taraftarlara, Londra Dalston'da bulunan Istanbul Travel adli firma tarafindan satilmakta.

Firma, £15'luk biletleri, gidis-donus seyahat turu da ayarlamak kaydiyla, "paket organizasyon" adi verdigi turlarla £60'a satmakta. Taraftarlarin onemli bir cogunlugu da, herhangi bir piyasa ya da denetleme kosullari gozetmeksizin, firma tarafindan belirlenen bu fiyata razi oldugu icin, bu tur paketlerini almaktadir.

Fakat, biletleri, tur paketi olmadan almaya calisan taraftarlara, "bu biletler £30'a satilacaktir" denilmekte, ve konu ile ilgili sorulan sorulara "Fiyati biz belirleriz. Besiktas Kulubu bizi baglamaz. Biz kendi karliligimizi gozetmek durumundayiz" seklinde yanitlar verilmektedir. Bu konu ile ilgili bircok kisi gecen haftadan itibaren Besiktas Kulubu'ne sikayette bulunmus, sikayetlerin dogrulugu, kulup gorevlisi Sn. Oguz Han Karaoglu tarafindan da onaylanmistir.

Bugun itibariyle, sahsim adina 3. kez yaptigim muracatta, Istanbul Travel yetkilisi Metin bey (soyismini bilmiyorum), once "sadece tur biletlerimiz var" dedikten sonra, kendisine iletilen "tur biletleri ile normal biletin arasinda nasil bir fark olabilir? bilet her zaman aynidir, ve musteriye talebi karsisinda tedarik edilir" yanitina "beni baglamaz, ben tura satmak istiyorsam tura satarim, sana satmak zorunda degilim" seklinde yanit vermistir. Kendisine "kulubun talimatlari var" dendiginde ise "kulubu karistirma, kulup de olaylarin farkinda" seklinde yanit vermektedir.

Bu hususta, sizden, IMKB'de islem goren bir sirket olarak, Besiktas AS'nin Istanbul Travel ile yaptigi bilet satim anlasmasi ile ilgili bilgi talep etmekteyim.

Buna ilave olarak, kulubunuzce resmi olarak onaylanan sikayetler konusunda ne yapildigi, ve kulup Yonetim Kurulu'nun bu konu hakkinda nasil bir takip baslatildigi konusunda bilgi talep etmekteyim.

Karaborsacilik yapmaya calistigi alenen belirlenen bir firma ile calistigi anlasilan Besiktas AS'nin, taraftarlarinin ve sermayedarlarinin haklarini gozetmek dogrultusunda, bu firmaya karsi ne gibi yasal yaptirimlar uygulama karari aldigini ogrenmek istiyorum.

Bilginize arz eder, ilgilendiginiz icin tesekkur ederim.

Saygilarimla,
Besiktas Taraftari
Omer Cavusoglu
[email adresi]
[telefon numarasi]

geographies don't lie

When you descend into Maçahel (or Mach'akheli in its native Georgian) from the Maçahel Pass at 1,800 metres, you start to wonder why this is not already part of Georgia. At 600 metres elevation, Maçahel is an area that is home to some 18 villages, split between Turkey and Georgia, with 6 of them on the Turkish side, and the remaining 12 on the latter. The valley formed by the River Macahela (or Machakhlistskali) is surrounded by mountains on all sides at varying elevations, starting from 2,000 metres high and slowly decreasing to sea level as the river flows into the Black Sea near the Georgian town of Batumi, the capital of the Adjara Autonomous Republic.

The area had long been home to Georgian communities as part of the Georgian Kingdom until it surrendered to the Ottoman Empire at one of Mehmed “the Conqueror”’s eastern campaigns during the 16^th century. Quite surprisingly, however, it was not until the 18^th century that a number of the communities of the region started to convert to Islam. That being said, this conversion was not much different than those practiced by the neighbouring Armenian or Laz communities who, until today, keep a special part of their ethnic identity intact and in some unique harmony with their religion, in a way not much pronounced as one finds in other parts of the country. As such, the customs, as well as the native Georgian language remained dominant for all communities across the Maçahel region.

Through the decline of the Ottoman Empire and following the Russian advance through the Southern Caucasus, mass migrations outside the area have started to take place. However, it was in 1921, when the Turkish-Soviet border was drawn, that the remaining communities on either side of the border would fall into what could be seen as an eternal division. 6 villages have decided to remain within the confines of the newly founded Turkish Republic after a popular vote, leaving not only some of their relatives behind, but also valuable minerals like salt and natural resources, whilst opting to settle in a country that embraced their religious beliefs.

One can still come across the "nazar boncuğu", the evil eye bead amulet, to keep from bad luck during the construction of new timber buildings across the valley.

In the earlier days of the Cold War, relatives and friends from both sides were able to pay rare visits to one another as we learn through oral history. However, following the end of the World War II and the joining of Turkey into NATO, the area has become a sensitive frontier for the Soviet Republic. Many of the villages were emptied around Mach'akheli and populations have migrated to other parts of the country. The Soviet-Turkish border issue was so sensitive that dynamites were installed on a bridge spanning over the River Çoruh (or Ch'orokhiin Georgian) in the nearby district of Borçka, so that if the Soviets were ever to come through to attack the town, their efforts could be damaged by exploding the bridge. Fortunately, the occasion never arised, meaning that an unlucky one of the two soldiers guarding the eastern side of the bridge did not have to swim over the river for his life. Already by this era of the Cold War, the earlier generations of relatives from the divided communities started to pass away and the centuries-long bonds have started to vanish. This did not imply a total breakdown of communication, though, as legends have it, folk songs were sung in harmony over the mountains from each side so that the communities remaining in Turkey would not forget about their language and history.

At the end of the Soviet-era, those who have come back to the villages around Mach'akheli would barely recognise anyone, were they to be taken to the Turkish villages. Even the village names would now be beyond recognition, all renamed in the republican era, the central one now being called Camili (meaning the one with the mosque). Today, the new generations of Camili still speak Georgian with their grandparents, however, unlike their parents, many of them learned Turkish before they started primary school. Majority study or work in the major cities across Turkey and often come back for a summer retreat, a harvest or to help with their relatives, many of whom now include Maçahel as part of their “Black Sea and Northeast Anatolia” trekking and historical tours.

Geographies do not lie. It has always been a curious indicator of many myths and reminder to those who once forgot the stories that lay behind it. Up until 1963, the only way to access Maçahel was via foot. This was at a time when trekking in the region was not yet a popular activity but the only means to reach this mountain-locked area. The beginning of the construction of the dirt road on that year had granted relative access to trucks who helped with exporting some of the goods produced in the region; now famous for its beekeping and honey. It was also not until the mid 1980s that the villages around Camili were wired with electricity. Asphalt pavement on the initial dirt road is still taking place at different times of the year. It is, due to this lack of access to and fro Maçahel that the contemporary Turkish residents of Camili have started to enjoy a limited journey through the land that was once united with their villages.

The road leading up to Macahel Pass transforms from finely-paved asphalt to a pebbly dirt road. Flocks utilise the road, sharing with the few vehicles that pass by, at times at a fog reducing visibility to a few metres. That is bad for driving but good if you don't like to see hundreds-metres deep exposed cliffs on the side of the road.

Because there is still no official border crossing between Turkey and Georgia at this location (the actual border, being a hypothetical line that runs through bushes over the mountain and its exact details known only to locals, the high authorities and the Turkish and Georgian gendarmeries, conveniently located on either side of it), when the roads are closed due to heavy snow – in some years, for up to 6 months – the only way a Camili resident can reach the provincial capital of Artvin is through a rare international journey that does not require a passport or a visa: we were told that a few times throughout the winter, groups of Camili residents would walk to the gendarmerie at the border and would be handed over to the Georgian authorities, who would then drive them with their shuttle buses, down the river path into Batumi and then to Sarpi, where one of the only two border crossings between Turkey and Georgia is located. The Turkish authorities would then pick them up and let them pass back into Turkey so that they can take another one-hour bus ride back to Artvin to complete an almost full-circle. All the more a reason to believe Camili is, by nature, a part of the Georgian Republic. Or, another way to say, that the political boundaries may know no geographical boundaries, but will always succumb to the common will.

The border between Turkey and Georgia was drawn along, what is recognisable to a careful eye, a dried stream bed. It makes a funny loop where it meets the Camili village. This was because, an elderly lady did not want to give up three households that were adjacent to the village to the Russians and had the border loop around it.

Midsummer in Camili and nearby villages is a time when the explosion of all shades of green has come to its full-bodied maturity. The early spring’s blossoms have slowly faded and the valleys and the mountains have given full exposure to green leaves of pine, chestnut and linden trees. Youngsters helping their parents build new timber houses, cool their sweat in the fresh and cold waters of the stream as the communities gather their harvest, only a small portion of which can be exported outside the city in time to keep fresh, while the rest will be stored in serenders, large timber storerooms elevated by long legs to keep the rats away, as the villagers will prepare for the long months of winter.

be careful, what you say here may become public domain

I've asked Google: "How many contracts does a person go into during their lifetime?" I've got a link on "soul contract" and a Wikipedia article on "work-life balance" at the top of my search results. Of course, these results may have been different if someone else did the same search on Google or if I did the search on a different computer. Because, it is argued that Google feeds from the caches, cookies (and all other sorts of tasty-sounding technical terms) that hold fingerprint information on whatever you have done with your computer on the world wide web. You should try this same Google search and let me know what you actually come across.

World wide web, in its form that we understand today, has been around since late 1980's, early 1990's. As can be understood from its name, it is a global network of information that users across through the Internet. It is supposed to be world-wide and it is supposed to be accessible.

We were sat in a nice terrace bar of a hotel watching the Bosphorus as M., D., I. and R. started debating about touch-screen technology, Apple's software manufacturing, Facebook's privacy settings, etc... They all seemed to have complained about the facts that Apple would only release products compatible with (at that point of the discussion, a not so well defined) a range of Apple or Apple-supported-only hardwares and interfaces; and that Facebook's new auto-tagging technology was creepy and that one's permissions should be sought before they were tagged on a photo. All seemed to be relevant for those concerned with their personal privacies and the fact of life of consumerism. But what privacy are we talking about here? And in what kind of commercial business environment?

A few months ago, I had visited D. and G. at their house. D. was telling me about working on new technologies to set up a web-based platform whereby he could introduce the concept of micro-voting in Turkey. It was around the time of the controversial 12 September, 2010 Referendum on amendments to some of the articles of the Turkish Constitution. It was controversial because all of the changes were voted as part of one package although some of them were quite progressive changes, and others regressive when looked at a certain point of view. Many people had requested that certain articles should have been voted separately (like Italy did with the recent referendum on water, nuclear power and political immunity issues). What D. wanted to achieve was to be able to get people's opinions on each of the articles proposed to be changed in the referendum. This could help understand which of the proposed changes were more popular than others, as compared to the simple "Yes" or "No" we got after a referendum that covered it all. Obviously, there are polling companies who provide such services and newspaper articles are abundant with such analyses, but D.'s compelling idea was to make this share of information publicly available and accessible not only as a source of information but also a platform of interaction.

It was also D. who thought privacy settings on Facebook were rubbish.
"Can you imagine? We leave so much footprint with all the junk: texts, photos, notes, messages we share on the Web. That, some day, someone can just compile all of these and make a biopic (a biographical film) about anyone and everyone." One can even run a feature film on an anonymous person at their funeral, although of course you may not like that idea too much. Well, let's say, a wedding then...

So, what is, of this privacy that we are so much concerned with? That we've been tagged unexpectedly on an image that makes us look uglier than our social norms permit us? Or that a future employer will find out about a pot-smoking image and we'll lose our chance to get that amazing job we were after? Well, then why are you on Facebook? Why have you agreed to the terms that were set out right before you, which you probably have not read? There is a somewhat funny South Park episode on this subject worth watching for the fun of it.

Of course, you'll come back to me and start talking about all the international regulations that should protect people's privacies. Well, I am not an expert in them, so I'd rather skip that. The point of discussion here is merely on a grander scheme of things. The problem is, we often forget to think like those who we go into contractual agreements with. Of course, Apple will seek its benefit to give us an iTunes update that won't download unless you've upgraded your MacOS software (for which you'd have to pay even if you bought an original Mac at some point). And of course if you haven't updated iTunes because of that, you won't be able to upgrade the iOS of your iPhone neither. I mean, iTunes is after all a media player software, how up-to-date does it really have to be? Technically speaking...? Neither will Mark Zuckerberg care about asking for your permission before you are tagged on a photo? As long as he's tangentially legal... And, well, the regulators will bend themselves 360 whilst their happiest (read the wealthiest) customers are making big money.

When AKP (the Justice and Development Party of Turkey) came to power back in 2002, we all said "ohhh, they will even put a headscarf over men". Well, they haven't. Neither has Turkey turned into Malaysia. But, it is fast turning into China! A regional power in the making with an aggressive export-led economic development model within the framework of a semi-autocratic political system that knows no boundaries on the limitation of liberal rights. We've looked the wrong way to find our enemy, and a lot of us have agreed, whether you like it or not, to this agreement, as we feared from a worse outcome that was never to come.

A person goes into a contract with their nation-state at birth. Their passport (if they retrieve one) does not belong to them but to their State. Their name belongs to their family and all the social package that is to come with throughout their lives. Their identity belongs to a range of people, not least their family, with whom they go into another contract. A person goes into a contract with their society, their friends, their schools and school teachers. Then, come the consumer products, brands, more identities, lifestyles, and commercial consumerist agreements. Salaried or contracted employment, pension funds, favourite football teams and their hooligans, marriages and death certificates. Google has not given me any clear links as to my question on how many contractual agreements does a person get into? Jean-Jacques Rousseau had long thought and written about the idea of the Social Contract borrowing from his liberal godfathers John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. I don't know if he has ever come up with a number.

I have consciously agreed Google to publish this premature piece on its Blogger servers. I don't know what they will benefit from it, but at least I've got my ranting out of the way (not so aggressively, though, as I had enjoyed last night, albeit the frustration during that late conversation). I know that it will be a piece of a long long string, out there on the web, but that's fine. The more information, the merrier. As long as we know how to filter. And as long as we know what we are agreeing to. Well, for that, we've got to read the terms more carefully, don't we? And probably, just relax a bit and enjoy the ride. After all, best things in life come unexpected, just like a random tag on a photo.

waving the black flag

Through the timber window frames and the countless books on the oak-tree shelves of the library, I could see Fortnum & Mason. Two days ago members of an anarchist initiative occupied the building during the marches against spending cuts and I was standing in front of the very windows that I now looked through. Back home, long time ago, old friend S. had been a member of an anarchist-communist initiative. He wrote for the short-lived Mülksüzler (carefully chosen name, with a slight inspiration from Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed), and to Kara Kızıl Notlar (Turkey's admittedly first theory-based anarchist journal). He co-ordinated a group of us translate parts of a manifesto. These had followed our days of occupation and boycott of the university's privately-run cafeteria in their very naive but sincere and well-organised attempts to get the lunch meal prices down. Long gone were the days of action and quasi-autonomus movements now... But two days ago I wondered if I would run into S. during the marches as I now remembered him for a moment whilst gazing out onto Piccadilly.

...

We had just attended a session titled Preservation / Destruction as part of the Royal Academy: Future Forum series, held at the Geological Society. Ippolito Pestellini and James Westcott of OMA discussed the provocations and implications of preservation, exploring how “our obsession with heritage is creating an artificial re-engineered version of our memory…” The presentation was an extension of their project titled Cronocaos which was exhibited at the 2010 Venice Biennale. It was in a way, as they described it, an explanation of what they exhibited at the Biennale, which was not fully understood by the audience. The idea of Cronocaos was initially to focus on 26 projects that have not been presented before as a body of work concerned with time and history. However, there was also a secondary meaning attached to it, as described in their words: "2010 is the perfect intersection of two tendencies that will have so-far untheorised implications for architecture: the ambition of the global taskforce of ‘preservation’ to rescue larger and larger territories of the planet, and the – corresponding? – global rage to eliminate the evidence of the postwar period of architecture as a social project".

As OMA claim, "while 12% of the world's surface is listed as heritage site (only a small proportion, 1.8% being built-up environment, whereas the rest include natural environments); there is an ongoing destruction of some other sort of heritage that is mainly driven by certain ideologies". This destruction was mainly carried out on postwar socialist architecture, the likes of which include many housing estates, including Robin Hood Gardens or Woodberry Down Estate in London (LSE Cities recently held an informal screening event for a documentary film titled Utopia London that also touches on this issue). Such examples are abundant throughout Europe, not limited only to the discourse of postwar socialism, but to a wider range of issues to do with the language of modernist architecture, be that a building for residents or for cultural or political enterprises . In Istanbul, the debate around demolition of Ataturk Kultur Merkezi and Istanbul Manifaturacilar Carsisi, prime examples of modernist architecture, can be recognised as part of this phenomenon, especially at a time, when an entire neighbourhood occupied by Roma people, next to the Theodisian Walls, was razed to pave way to construction of neo-Ottomanesque rows of villas, a government-led action that was a product of a semi-romantic ideology that rejects any heritage it the style of internationalist movements. OMA describes this phenomenon in the following terms: "There is now a global consensus that postwar architecture – and the optimism it embodied about architecture’s ability to organise the social world – was an aesthetic and ideological debacle". Although the aesthetics of this debate does play a crucial role, as much as the long-term incapability in supplying the necessary social infrastructure for its users, further crippled by the policies that followed after the periods of modernist movements in architecture; this is far from a unique occurrence in the history of built environment. OMA also touches upon that: "Our resignation is expressed in the flamboyant architecture of the market economy, which has its own built-in commercial expiration date". Expiration date does in deed matter, and there seems to be a random function has determined the extension of expiration dates of certain architectural heritage.

After all, there is significance in what we decide not to preserve (hence destruct, or allow for decay and destruct), and what we decide to. The presentation touched upon this through quite various and clever examples (including that of a project held in Venice and a house that was listed within the month it was constructed). The underlying message was that it is difficult to play with and evolve a preserved, or rather, a listed building or a site. Of course they did not fall short of establishing the fact that "preservation" was introduced within the Western culture and has primarily been a preoccupation of this very culture. Introduction of their "Project Japan" tried to support this theory albeit failing to do to appreciate the complexity of the diverse anthropological meanings of the term "preservation" in different contexts. "Mass preservation" may only be a relatively recent Western construct (which helps boost tourism revenues for countries with listed sites, and establishes for them an additional cultural benefit), one can actually go as far back as the ancient civilizations to trace the origins of this idea of "designing buildings that would be listed even before they are built". After all, the notion of "building to last forever" was arguably an ancient, and one that was always embedded in part of the Western understanding.

On the other hand, much was not discussed in this forum about the very different understanding of aesthetics and progression in the Eastern cultures. Japanese do "preserve" some of the ancient traditions, as was rightly noted, and in deed sometimes destruct and re-construct them. This was displayed with an example of a temple that was re-built 14 times. But the Japanese have also embedded a unique form of modernity through constant progress that frequently means demolition of the idle in masses, without necessarily re-constructing the same form (I am trying not to go into the unavoidable forms of total erasure through natural disasters such as earthquakes, here). A history of Meiji restoration, which went chronologically and culturally parallel to the late Ottoman and the subsequent early Turkish modernisation, helps us understand the nuance in the approach to "preservation". But of course, the time and the scope of the session would not suffice to go into these debate. Although they may not have had the time for it during the presentation, Ippolito Pestellini did actually appreciate a comment from the audience during the Q&A session, that suggested that the current "stasis" in Europe's cultural and political dominance, as well as the decline in its rate of progress could help us understand the roots of the establishment of these heritage codes that were being criticised. One may argue that the recent notion of heritage management is an attempt to re-establish the cultural superiority of the Western ideals in a frontier in which the post-colonial discourse still seems to hold relevance.

In their final analysis, OMA's presentation did also hint to a clever provocation of re-thinking "preservation", and with it, the notion of "destruction", for which they had adopted the Unesco's Heritage document and re-written an "agenda for progressive destruction". The floor was then given to three respondents, followed by a very well chaired panel discussion and Q&A by Christopher Woodward.

The first respondent, Simon Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage, started his response by stressing that listing buildings and sites for heritage are not acts of "preservation", but of "conservation". He defined preservation as "an attempt to keep the qualities of a building in its original form" almost in a stage of stasis whereas conservation meant "protecting a building by improving its conditions, and managing its already available resources while keeping loyal to its original qualities". Making the obvious comparison between the passive and active qualities of the two actions, well known by architects and planners, he claimed that English Heritage sought to conserve buildings that were significant to the built-up environment of English architecture. That said, with a hint of criticism of OMA's presentation, Thurley did go on to approve of their idea that a fetishist approach to listing heritage sites created problems for progress in the business of conservation. However, he also claimed that, according to the studies they carried out, the public in England felt that more buildings than currently listed should be included as part of the English Heritage. Of course, conservation is not a very cheap business and much of the debate around what should and should not be conserved revolves around the issues of values and revenues protected and created by the act of conservation. It was interesting within this context, that a question from the floor by a gentleman at the Q&A session, who had worked long ago at the respective offices of local communities, regarding whether any calculations were made by English Heritage to estimate a threshold (relating to a monetary value of costs to keep maintain the building and run its conservation management) beyond which the costs of conservation would be regarded too high to decide to going ahead conserving the building would not be viable. His experience, as he has shared it, was that decisions on preservation were taken somewhat randomly and these were mainly either a "yes" or a "no" decisions, without much thinking done into the long-term future of the conservation project. He did not observe any such calculations to be made whilst these decisions were taken. The audience was unfortunately not given a very clear answer by Thurley on this question neither.

...

Following the end of the forum, we moved to library of the Geological Society where people had gathered for drinks. We went on debating the different values of conservation, the obvious social and political implications of preservation/destruction on not only the buildings themselves but also the people who use, live, love, and care about these buildings. We also tried to generate hypothetical urban planning scenarios that dealt with densification, which is a major part of K.'s research. It was then that I realised that the ethical, the cultural, the historical and the aesthetic rationales of conservation seemed to matter less for me than the pure economic benefits of a carefully constructed scenario of non-conservation (destruction, or replacement) that could ensure both short-term and long-term revenues. I did find it myself difficult to construct such strong scenarios, but I was nevertheless surprised to find myself less interested in the conservation of the ornamental ironwork of Fortnum and Mason and the significant history laid in the architecture of the building it occupied. A few years back, I would be fetishisising the knowledge of which architectural era and type I was observing during my history courses in university. Although still far from being anarchistic, I felt this new approach was still a much more progressive line of thought. It could easily lead me to come up wia brutally authoritarian and aesthetically mundane scenario or to a well market-oriented neo-liberal solution were the Fortnum and Mason building to be "destroyed" in this hypothetical scenario.

I then had a final long gaze at the building across the road, behind the timber frames. K. made a quick move to fixed her hair with a not-much-needed attempt to "preserve" its shape. I watched the windows of Fortnum and Mason reflect the traffic signals and cab headlights in absolute calm. A small merry go round was revolving in the underexposed background where the fluorescent blurred onto its shiny surface.

great directors and their great films

What makes a director, a great director? Box office, awards, charisma, endurance, diversity, establishment, anti-establishment, independence... There can be as many variables as there are movies and directors themselves and many of them we repeatedly hear, do in fact, refer to formative meanings, rather than to describe the "greatness" of the subject. After all, "great" is a difficult to term to begin with. For Angela Ismailos it is a group of filmmakers, whose films she says she has been deeply inspired by (it is more likely that it is a group of directors to whom she had easy access to). She has interviewed them and made a documentary titled Great Directors. It is her very personal "journey" with a narrative that does not always connect very easily. In fact, the reviews of the film are usually anything but good, criticising the lack of coherence through the feature as well as of Ismailos' incapability to get more out of the directors she has interviewed. Furthermore, her own appearances in scenes where she has portrayed herself as a very serious filmmaker, what feels like an attempt to mark her introduction to the film industry (this is her debut film) already at a league of "great directors" end up as a caricature. Rightly so, many reviews criticised the selection of the directors and her editing style that falls short of convincing the viewer to believe there is an overall story to tell. However, the appearances of Ken Loach, David Lynch, Agnes Varda, Todd Haynes, Bernardo Bertolucci among others is enough to make this film a worthwhile watch. If anything, one wants to visit, re-visit the truly great works of cinema these directors have made and that seems to be a point many reviews have missed. And it is an important in its own right.

Bernardo Bertolucci introduces himself through his encounter with Pier Paolo Pasolini, which, obviously was a definjng moment for the former's career due to the role he was offered by the latter. At this eraly scene of the documentary, we are drawn back in time to 1960s which is probably the era Ismailos started appreciating cinema. What seems to be set at a chronological narrative, thanks to introduction of Ken Loach, Agnes Varda and their films from the 60s and 70s, the documentary often jumps through eras, whilst attempting to bridge the directors through more abstract themes such as "struggle to define a new identity in his art" or "use of form in his/her narrative". Many of these connections are made somewhat poorly and the transition scenes often include a harsh-beat symphonic music with appearances of Ismailos herself walking along collonnades in Vatican or cruising by industrial docklands, shot from ground-level angled up towards her face, with a hint of magnitude with her very serious looking posture.

And then suddenly, we are back at Varda's garden where she is talking about her purple dyed hair and getting old while two cats play with flowers in the background, and walls carved with her name during the time spent here for more than 30 years. Another zoom into Lynch's shaking hand, scenes from Eraserhead and Mulholland Dr. and back again into the heavy drum beats. But it is precisely this cheesy play between the pure and simple emotions of the diverse range of filmmakers and their films that Ismailos attempts to fill her camera with. It is the tangibility of the directors she has interviewed, as opposed to their real-life attitude, grandeur, pompousness, or humility, which is what audience can associate with and which is what makes this documentary ever so graspable and digestable. Ironically enough, there is almost no greatness in any of the interviews and despite the fact that some of the directors interviewed may not even know another or approve of one another, they all seem to be part of this "family" that exclusively belongs to Ismailos' imaginary to which we are invited to for an hour and a half. This casual interplay does not always work though. It is easy to understand how frustrated reviewers of this film were to see Fassbinder used as a tool to enhance the film with his only real association tothe film being the mutual admiration of Ismailos and Todd Haynes, but then again, many reviewers may have been pissed off not to have had the chance to sit down with many great directors to make a documentary like this.

Not everyone does get the chance to spend a sunny English afternoon with Ken Loach who ends his interviee by saying "I've just been given a bus pass, so I guees I now have started the second half". Long-time Communist Party member Bertolucci may have suffered an identity crisis in the last couple of decades of neo-liberalism, but Loach has never lost his wit to enlighten the masses with the stories that mattered the most but exposed the least. If anything, his sharp cinematographic edge was recently highlighted with The Wind That Shakes the Barley. What "Great Directors" does great is to stimulate such discussion for the audience whilst browsing through a library of films that not only include those of the directors included in the documentary but also of people like Francis Ford Coppola or Martin Scorsese.

Greatness may only be a facade of this film. At best, a naive attempt to catch the attention of the audience, at worst, a farcical self-indulgence. It is no less than a "100 films you have to see" list, and more often than not, is it a lot more inspiring than that. Take it with a pinch of salt, if you will, but we've got to listen to the director, whose attempt it was to uncover a mystery she did not even know where would lead to, following the inspiration of these people. A very self-motivated journey it is, it is a pleasure to be part of it whilst reading into, what may only be momentary excerpts from (after all, these interviews only last a good couple of hours, at maximum) minds and eyes that saw through their lenses to bring the imagery on the big screens.