New Mural in Whitechapel

Taken from East London Advertiser

"A 40ft high mural painted on the side of a building showing characters like the Krays and the Elephant Man has been unveiled along the ‘2012 Olympics Highway’ in London’s East End.

The mural telling the story of Whitechapel took six weeks of painting by artists Mychael Barratt, Nicholas Middleton and Jim Glover, commissioned by TV Edwards solicitors for their new offices in the Mile End Road.

People depicted on the mural include Captain James Cook who kept a house in the Mile End Road, Salvation Army founder General Booth whose monument is outside the building, and George Bernard Shaw who chaired the Fabian Society in Whitechapel, as well as the Krays, the Elephant Man, artists Mark Gertler and Isaac Rosenberg and TV Edwards himself who opened his first law office in Stepney in 1929."

George Bernard Shaw is the most prominent feature of the mural, depicted shielding his eyes as though looking into the far distance. He was an outspoken socialist eugenicist, it is interesting therefore that his head partially conceals John Merrick, the Elephant Man.

These Can Be Yours (1949)

Survive the Jive - Logo Explained

The rune that is used as the logo for Survive the Jive is an ancient Anglo Saxon and Norse character from the runic alphabet. This rune is known by many names;- *Algiz is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name, among the Anglo-Saxons it was called either eolx, ilcs, ilix, elux, eolhx, in the Nordic Elder futhark it is known as Elhaz, and in later Norse it was called the Yr rune. In modern times it has been known by some as the Life Rune or leben rune.

The rune has represented three different sounds at different times; [z] [ks] [ɻ], [y]
The esoteric meaning of the rune is debated, but in Anglo Saxon it meant 'elk sedge', a type of wetland plant, which ought not to be grasped. I therefore see it as a protective rune, hence its use as a logo for Survive the Jive.

In modern esoteric circles the Rune is though to be representative of the world tree, Yggdrasil or Irminsul and thus symbolises a connection between the earthly and the divine. This may be due in part to the way it resembles a man with arms raised upwards.

In the Anglo-Saxon rune poem, the shape of the rune appears in the Anglo-Saxon futhorc alphabet, as ᛉ Eolh. However, instead of representing the sounds of the letter "Z" as in the Elder Futhark and Gothic Futhark, it here represents the sound of the letter "X".

Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem


Eolh-secg eard hæfþ oftust on fenne
wexeð on wature, wundaþ grimme
blode breneð beorna gehwylcne
ðe him ænigne onfeng gedeþ.

Modern English translation

The Elk-sedge usually lives in the fen,
growing in the water. It wounds severely,
staining with blood any man
who makes a grab at it.

In the Survive the Jive logo, the Eolh is combined with a Tir rune, as a bind rune flanked on one side by an inverted Lagu rune, which looks like a J and on the other by a Sigel for S, forming S.T.J for Survive the Jive.