Category Archives: Prose

Rave heads, revisited. Revisited.

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Matei

The Cable nightclub in London Bridge and the Vibe bar in Brick Lane – raving institutions both – were forcibly shut down within a year or so of each other and now the authorities put the squeeze on Fabric, conditioning … Continue reading →

The orphans of Romania who are building new lives underground

Posted on December 6, 2014 by Matei

A story I wrote and that ran in Huck Magazine, a subculture bi-monthly. I knew about the children of the tunnels, but was just one of the passers-by. Huck readers and I now look at them through the eyes of … Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism, Prose | Tagged cinci lei, gara de nord, joost vandebrug, romania, romania's orphans, the lost boys | Leave a comment

Tech Strings

Posted on November 29, 2014 by Matei

“Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?” – Joseph Heller, Catch 22, 1961 Pando.com is the San Francisco-based website that first covered the Silicon Valley wage-fixing cartel and most harshly scrutinised Pierre Omidyar’s motives for putting $250 million into his … Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism, Prose | Tagged ad tracking, dailymotion, didigal adveritsing, edward snowden, first look, gchq, glenn greenwald, isis, monetisation, nsa, pando, pierre omidyar, programmatic advertising, surveillance, tech, techtopus, tor | Leave a comment

From The Guardian: Ikea funds went to Romanian secret police in communist era

Posted on November 23, 2014 by Matei

Secret police files reveal six-figure payments to Ceausescu’s henchmen, as retailer denies knowingly paying Securitate. by the Deviant’s Matei Rosca in Bucharest

Posted in Journalism, Prose | Tagged cnsas, communist romania, ikea, secret operation, securitate | Leave a comment

This is Iulian Nanu’s world and we are all just living in it

Posted on November 5, 2014 by Matei

Editor’s memo Such as it is, here’s the inevitable first guest post on this site. Tired with office routine and disillusioned by the rat race of corporate Britain, a friend of the Deviant decided one year ago to … Continue reading →

Posted in Prose | Tagged foreign aid, ghana gap year, ghana volunteering, international citizen service, voluntourism | Leave a comment

GUSH Cosmetics Au Naturel

Posted on June 28, 2014 by Matei

From between the Deviant’s sofa cushions! Eco-friendlier-than-thou multinational cosmetics corporation’s North America boss had ties with tar sands oil extraction and strip-mining industries. Soap tycoon Mark ‘Castevet’ Constantine of LUSH Cosmetics talks to the Deviant on the phone – shocking … Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism, Prose | Tagged luch cosmetics, lush canada, lush north america, mark constantine interview, wolverton securities | Leave a comment

Letter from Chișinău

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Matei

Cutting from Private Eye 1353 (NOV2013): back then I wrote the readers of Britain’s finest news and current affairs magazine a letter from Chisinau. At the time I didn’t know that Russia was about to go to war with Ukraine … Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism, Prose | Tagged private eye magazine | Leave a comment