You searched for David Pollock

Media

Glasgow searches for transport integration

…and efficiently run. “They will abolish an effective agency, seize its powers, and then re-create it. What a waste of time and resources,” future Conservative Scotland Secretary David Mundell said…
Media

Spear vs. Scissors: Art Held Captive by Budget Cuts

…appears in the nightmares of social workers who are in constant fear of personnel reductions and dismissals. According to a statement he made last year, David Cameron, tried to completely…
Performance / Events

Dark Days

…Brenda Mackay, Alex Mackay, Sam Macleod, Colbyn MacPhail, Petko Marinov, Shelaine McCormick, David McDiarmid, Anna McLauchlan, Lesley McMillan, Roslyn Mitchell, David John Mitchell, Harriet Morley, Ailsa Morrant, Peter Moug, Francis…
Media

[Insert outraged headline about The Glasgow Effect funding shocker]

Creative Scotland has funded a contemporary artist to the tune of £15,000 and people are mad as hell about it, David Pollock explores why they shouldn’t be so hasty. In…
Media

Scottish independence and artists: “It’s not about nationalism at all”

…a half ago I started to feel quite strongly pro-independence.” No to nationalism Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond and UK Prime Minister David Cameron signed the Edinburgh Agreement on 15…
Media

L’Ecosse Répète son Indépendance sur les Planches

…le 18 septembre. La jeune artiste se dit impatiente de voir le résultat de “l’événement politique le plus important de ces 300 dernières années”. J. K. Rowling et David Bowie…
Media

Ellie Harrison – ‘The Glasgow Effect was a boycott of the oil industry, of privatised public transport’

…Glasgow Effect was like a dark cloud hanging over me. But I did it, and I feel like I’ve made my peace with the city because of it.’ David Pollock…
Media

The 2016 Hot 100

…intended to examine localism in an international art world. Denounced as a ‘poverty safari’, it attracted much viral anger, but got us all talking and thinking about art. David Pollock…
Exhibition

It’s a Mess and Most Probably Irreversible

Vasco Alvo, Cecile Azoulay, Sidsel Christensen, Charlesworth, Lewandowski & Mann, Ellie Harrison, David Micheaud, Faith Millin, David Raymond Conroy, Joanna Steele and Jack Strange…
Media

Insignificance

David Briers celebrates documentary art that transfigures the everyday. ‘Making History‘, the valuable survey at Tate Liverpool of the impact of documentary practice on British art since the 30s, is…
Media

Artists speak about ‘value’ at For the love of it

…Harrison, David Blandy and Doug Fishbone. The conference took an artist-led approach, ensuring that delegates had ample opportunity to share their thoughts within the well-structured programme that also contained two…
Exhibition

GSA MFA Auction

…Renema, Rosemary Scanlon, Peter Schoeffer, Anthony Schrag, Maayke Schurer, David Sherry, Fiona Short, David Shrigley, Ross Sinclair, Lucy Skaer, Sandy Smith, Suzie Smith, Hirofumi Suda, Corin Sworn, Anna Tanner, Joanne…
Lectures

The Glasgow Effect: A Discussion

…like Cranhill, like Pollock, Arden, Darnley, boom, boom, boom, I could list them all day. So what they do it is, they ‘parachute in’ and they parachute their people in…
Media

Every Little Doesn’t Help

…an area, to the benefit of nearby businesses. David Martin, head of policy and external affairs at the SRC, said: “The case for the petition is very shaky. I think…
Exhibition

Experimenting With Clouds

Alan Butler, Andreas Nicolas Fischer, Ellie Harrison, Lucy Kimbell, Joanna Kane, David McAllister and Jacob Kirkegaard….
Exhibition

Trampoline

Frank Abbott, AV_DV, David Bore, Jim Boxall, Chris Burns, Bill Callahan, Paul Drury & Ian Pare, Miles Chalcraft & Anette Schäfer, Finger Disko (Jon Burgerman & Ellie Harrison), Hollow Creature,…
Media

Ellie Harrison should wrap up The Glasgow Effect and move on

…presented by David Mitchell, which ranged from online etiquette to golf club dress rules. At one point a contributor boldly observed that there are a disproportionate number of poorer people…
Exhibition

Left to My Own Devices

8gg, FOUND, Ellie Harrison, Toshio Iwai, Kaseo, Sachiko Kodama, Ryota Kuwakubo and David McAllister….
Exhibition

Rising

Helen Barff, Louise Beer, Ryan Gander, Helen Goodwin, Katie Goodwin, Ellie Harrison, Hayley Harrison, Ian Maslen, David Morgan-Davies, Catriona Leahy, Sujin Lim, Simon Read, Jessica Rinland, Ben Rivers and Chris…
Media

Making a song and dance about local buses

…this Saturday at The Black-E in Liverpool city centre, writes Local Democracy Reporter David Humphreys. Inspired by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1980s hit musical Starlight Express, the 30-minute show features Merseyside-based…
Media

Копья против ножниц: искусство в плену бюджетных сокращений

…St. Luke, David Zwirner, Space Station 65, Eykyn Maclean, Michael Werner, Thaddaeus Ropac, Gagosian, White Cube, Vitrine, Carroll/Fletcher. Это касается не только частных, но и благотворительных институций: Тейт Модерн увеличила…
Writing

It’s like 10,000 ‘friends’, when all you need is a friend

…starting point for My Five New Friends and were offered up to five filmmakers to interpret (David Hoyle & Lee Baxter, Patrick Staff, Maayke Schurer, Roxy Topia & Paddy Gould…
Media

New money: Do local currencies actually work?

…banknotes bearing colourful images of local heroes, like David Bowie and secret Agent Violette Szabo, to spend in over 150 local shops. It can also be used by residents to…
Media

This is Ellie Harrison

…in a tidy flat. Larry David. Sarah Silverman (she’s actually even funnier than Larry, though just as cringe-worthy). Snowboarding. The feeling when you have just finished swimming (rather than swimming…

Ellie Harrison Louise Haigh and Labour say that they will reform the complex fares system to ensure that passengers are confident that they are getting the best fare; confidence that X is the case, and X being the case are not necessarily the same thing. Simplification of fares would have to include the abolition of many fares. The assertion that simplifying the fares structure would reduce travelling costs is based upon a false premise, that being that the complicated-ness of the fares-and-ticketing structure is the reason why fares are expensive, that is not why they are expensive. They are expensive because the base level is too high. If you massively simplify the fares, one might then always be certain of getting the best available fare because there are no obscure cheaper fare hidden away in a Byzantine monolith, but that best fare is likely the best of a bad bunch. Railway fares are complicated, but it is within this myriad complexity that the nuances which facilitate cheaper options lurk; if you take a sledgehammer to the behemoth you bring down the cheaper options which lurk within the behemoth. If there are presently 18 options for doing Thing X, with 15 of those ways being cheap, and 3 of those ways being expensive, if you abolish the 15 cheap options for doing thing X you have massively simplified the paying-to-do-Thing X process because having 3 ways is much simpler than having 18 ways, and you have made it such that one is highly unlikely to not notice the cheapest of the available fares, because one is more likely to notice something when it is one amongst 3 than if it is one amongst 18, but it is nevertheless the case that the person is selecting the cheapest of the 3 most expensive. (i) Being guaranteed to always get the best fare; and (ii). getting cheaper fares are not necessarily the same thing. Be mindful of the actual specific wording of things: both before and after coming into government, Labour has never in actually promised cheaper fares, what Labour has promised is that one will be guaranteed to get the best available fare. The general public, politicians and public-transport campaign organisations alike have been seduced by the word 'simplification'. Simplification is not a virtue in and of itself. Simplification is a neutral concept, neither a good thing nor a bad thing; what is pertinent and important is the nature of the simplification. One can simplify travelling costs upwards. Simplification can simplify out the cheaper options. I deliberately say 'travelling costs', not 'fares', because thinking only terms of fares when it comes to simplification of railway fares and ticketing, and when it comes to Single-Leg Pricing is a proverbial red herring, one should think both in terms of fares AND in terms of travelling costs. Fare decreases do not necessarily mean travelling-cost. LNER is a prime example: with the June of 2023 introduction of Single-Leg Pricing on LNER, and the February of 2024 introduced of the Simpler Fares pilot, travelling costs for using LNER have gone up. Two halved-in-price Singles are more expensive than one Day Return; a fare reduction, but a travelling-cost increase. The changes December of 2023 fares-and-ticketing changes on c2c have many of the same fare-decreases-but-travelling-cost increases as LNER, plus its pay-as-you-go tap-in-tap-out integration with Transport for London (to simplify things) has necessitated the introduction of a weekday early-evening peak period between 4.00 p.m. and 7.00 p.m., which has numerous knock-on effects which can hugely increase one's travelling costs. The answer is not reform of the fares-and-ticketing structure. The answer is not simplification of the fares-and-ticketing structure. The answer is to decrease the price of all existing fares. Do not abolish any existing fares. Do not introduce any new types of fare. Just make all existing fares 45% cheaper, and leave it at that.

As the idiom goes: 'Be careful what you wish for, because it might come true'. Reform will only be good if it is good reform. We don't need reform, we need good reform. Some might fear that prices would inevitably be rationalised upwards. Inevitably, the rationalisation would rationalise out the cheaper options. Some might fear that reform of the fares-and-ticketing structure would, inevitably, reform travelling costs upwards, and reform out the cheaper options. Some might fear that simplification of the fares-and-ticketing structure would, inevitably, simplify travelling costs upwards, and simplify out the cheaper options. Just take a look at LNER. Be careful what you wish for, because it might come true.