I’ve been on holiday again. Completely absent from what is usually my reality. And I didn’t even have to leave the city. It seems funny that you can vanish so completely from a place that normally seems so small, where everybody knows everybody and a day doesn’t go by that you don’t bump into an acquaintance or friend unexpectedly – typically when you are looking exceptionally rough and are in a hurry and probably in some sort of pain which makes your salutary smile look twisted and morbid hence deepening the sense of social paranoia that we all seem to suffer from.

The novel, Luicien Goldmann argued in his 1964 work, Towards a Sociology of the Novel (Amazon Link), should be considered in terms of the economic situation from which it emerged. He's a nice Marxist.

“The novel form seems to me, in effect, to be the transposition on the literary plane of everyday life in the individualistic society created by market production. There is a rigorous homology [structural resonance] between the literary form of the novel...and the everyday relation between man and commodities in general, and by extension between men and other men, in a market society.”

Well why not? It seems commonsensical that writers are products of their surroundings, as are novels.

Gone with the Wind, Hard-back, Macmillan 1936 (First Edition) and War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy, Hardback, Macmillan 1942 Edition.

From the Logical Wisdom of Isabel

You had a scotch egg, I saw the wrapper, and Robbie wouldn’t eat a scotch egg, because he just wouldn’t do a thing like that. A girl came in and was very upset that we had sweet potatoes from Israel. And pomegranates. No they’re not, they’re amazing, they’re not stupid in Greece, they’re really nice. What if they’re not from occupied territory? Well you can’t, you can’t know. It's big, economy, maybe, but not the small people. Sweet potato farmers have to live, even if it is a country which is bad. It just says Israel, but I made a formal complaint about it.

This girl has come in – this soap, but it is an Israeli product – she’s complained about lots of things. She freaked about that as well, the soap; why does she have to be such a hypocrite; she ignores all the other bad things that happen in the world. It’s not my fault, give it a rest lady. The last time the shop tried to avoid all the Israeli products, other customers complained. I got confused, first I thought ‘this is wrong’, but I dunno. These pies aren’t really enough. Nor do I. Can't we just get drunk?

Ferret Comment: What a weirdo, what’s he doing?

We've given in and added a few nods to social networking (ironically choosing to promote a little on Facebook, when this week Google Buzz is the hot new thing.)

For a limited time (how limited is a total secret) you can purchase the whole of TYPE Review Volume 1 (that is our 2008/09 edition [RED]) for £10 (RRP £13, includes P&P to one UK address, International shipping extra).

For the past two months I have been slowly gathering the materials with which to hunt the vicious Signal crayfish, grey squirrel of our waterways, a scourge of riverbanks, fish stocks and native species of crayfish. To do this I have followed the instructions of George Monbiot, and last week I put the finishing touches to my free ticket to a meal.

'Anne Huxtable waited here 8th Dec, 1952 for a friend who did not turn up'.

'David Williams watched the rain from here, 7th September 1979'

'Mrs Mary Howard adjusted her hat in the reflection in this window June 3, 1921'

'Nathan Walker walked past here 47 times during 1968 on the May 21, 1968 - he looked up'.

TYPE Review is proud to be associated with the Glasgow Festival of DIY, and will be involved in various events during the last week of September.

This is a community-led initiative to demonstrate the possibilities of 'reducing, reusing and recycling' in our everyday lives, and the benefits of being as self-sufficient as possible.

As the website states, it is to be:

A festival highlighting the activities of various individuals and organisations in Glasgow that could be seen as DIY, not-for-profit or non-commercial, highlighting communal and sustainable alternatives to dominant forms of culture.

The festival will explore the nature of these activities and their interaction with the urban space that is Glasgow. It should prove to be a celebration of the rich and diverse movement of groups and individuals inventing, shaping and engaging with their environment.

TYPE will be, amongst other things:

1. demonstrating small-scale and hand printing techniques
2. organising spoken word events
3. opening up our allotment for demonstrations

We also hope to attend and contribute to most of the other events that are being organised.

If you wish to attend, or help out, visit the website: http://www.diyglasgow.co.uk.

We finally recieved TYPE V.1 I.2 from the printers (It has been a long, arduous journey this time around), and are now printing the covers as fast as possible in order to attend the launch of Triangle, our featured section this time around.

One casualty has already been had; Tom skewered his thumb when making a lino cut, but is still carrying bravely on, plaster secured in place, as there are only twenty-four hours remaining before the copies go on sale.

The rhetoric which currently surrounds us concerning the financial crisis, of politicians claiming inordinate amounts of money through 'expenses' and other such nefarious means, is not a new thing.

It is strange that overt radicalism has never been the way of the British. That successes in gaining freedoms have always been partial and incomplete. Here in a selection from a hugely popular pamphlet by William Cobbett we can see how little the worries, the targets and the arguments have progressed in 193 years.