Knock knock, trick or treat?!
Give us lovely things to eat!
Sweets, preferably
Monday, 31 October 2011
Today's young people and protest
The young people are destroying your way of life. The young poeple have always done that. Your job is to encourage it, not discourage it.
It is not your young people who are destroying the rain forests. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are depleting the ozone layer. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are exploiting the poor in sweat shops all over the world. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are taxing you to death, then using the money for war and machines of war. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are ignoring the problems of the weak and the downtrodden, letting hundreds of people die of starvation every day on a planet with more than enough to feed everybody. They are asking you to stop it.
It is not your young people who are engaging in the politics of deception and manipulation. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are sexually repressed, ashamed and embarrassed about their own bodies and passing this shame and embarrassment to their offspring. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who have set up a value system which says that "might is right" and a world which solves problems with violence. They are asking you to stop it.
Nay, they are not asking you... they are begging you.
When the cries and pleas of young people to change the world are not heard and never heeded; when they see that their cause is lost - that you will have it your way no matter what - young people, who are not stupid, will do the next best thing. It they can't beat you, they will join you.
Your young people have joined you in your behaviours. If they are violent, is is because you are violent. If they are materialistic, it is because you are materialistic. If they are acting crazy, it is because you are acting crazy. If they are using sex manipulatively, irresponsibly, shamefully, it is because they see you doing the same. The only difference between young people and old people is that young people do what they do out in the open.
Older people hide their behaviours. Older people think that young people cannot see. Yet young people see everything. Nothing is hidden from them. They see the hypocrisy of their elders, and they try desperately to change it. Yet having tried and failed, they see no choice but to imitate it. In this they are wrong, yet they have never been taught differently. They have not been allowed to critically analyze what their elders have been doing. They have only been allowed to memorize it.
What you memorize, you memorialize.
(God, to Neale Donald Walsh in Conversations with God book 2 p.119/120)
Charlie Gilmour lost his appeal against his 16 month jail sentence for swinging against a cenotaph during a student protest and will spend christmas behind bars.
Hefty prison sentences have been doled out to those involved in the August riots.
Expenses claims, tax loopholes, tax dodging, war war war on the tv day after day...
We can change our planet for our children
Don't think you can't.
It is not your young people who are destroying the rain forests. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are depleting the ozone layer. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are exploiting the poor in sweat shops all over the world. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are taxing you to death, then using the money for war and machines of war. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are ignoring the problems of the weak and the downtrodden, letting hundreds of people die of starvation every day on a planet with more than enough to feed everybody. They are asking you to stop it.
It is not your young people who are engaging in the politics of deception and manipulation. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are sexually repressed, ashamed and embarrassed about their own bodies and passing this shame and embarrassment to their offspring. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who have set up a value system which says that "might is right" and a world which solves problems with violence. They are asking you to stop it.
Nay, they are not asking you... they are begging you.
When the cries and pleas of young people to change the world are not heard and never heeded; when they see that their cause is lost - that you will have it your way no matter what - young people, who are not stupid, will do the next best thing. It they can't beat you, they will join you.
Your young people have joined you in your behaviours. If they are violent, is is because you are violent. If they are materialistic, it is because you are materialistic. If they are acting crazy, it is because you are acting crazy. If they are using sex manipulatively, irresponsibly, shamefully, it is because they see you doing the same. The only difference between young people and old people is that young people do what they do out in the open.
Older people hide their behaviours. Older people think that young people cannot see. Yet young people see everything. Nothing is hidden from them. They see the hypocrisy of their elders, and they try desperately to change it. Yet having tried and failed, they see no choice but to imitate it. In this they are wrong, yet they have never been taught differently. They have not been allowed to critically analyze what their elders have been doing. They have only been allowed to memorize it.
What you memorize, you memorialize.
(God, to Neale Donald Walsh in Conversations with God book 2 p.119/120)
Charlie Gilmour lost his appeal against his 16 month jail sentence for swinging against a cenotaph during a student protest and will spend christmas behind bars.
Hefty prison sentences have been doled out to those involved in the August riots.
Expenses claims, tax loopholes, tax dodging, war war war on the tv day after day...
We can change our planet for our children
Don't think you can't.
Half Term and JSA
Just my luck wasn't it, that I had to cancel my week in the Bahamas because I had to sign on and prove I'd been jobseeking, in order to get my £67 which gets me and my boy first class these days ha ha haaaaaaaaa. Still not funny.............
You know my thoughts. My son was ill on the tuesday. Imagine I had to take a day off work! Couldn't though could I? I had to be a nurse (which isn't a job if it's your own child you are tending)
Signing on during a school holiday is bad luck. It could have been the week before or after but no. Oh well.
It was a fellow single mother who was checking my claim and I really felt for her by the end of our interview. Her 14 year old was with a childminder. She didn't want to be where she was.
The guy I had a few weeks ago was off (looking after his kids?) but apparently, although I'm meant to be with another woman, this man wants to see me next week, he wants to 'help' me. What he wants is to put me on the Work Programme and I shudder to be honest with you.
I might do it though, not because I want to, but because I can write about it. I mean, people don't really know what this Work Programme is about. It could be like the abandoned Back To Work for Lone Parents pilot which was good. That was only a week though and this one may be 16 hours a week over a month. All I know, from the outset, is I may have to ask an hour off to go to my son's class assembly.....
Oh well, jobs applied for in order to receive my £67:
Membership assistant for Lone Parent charity. Not heard back so we can safely assume I didn't get that one.
Political journalist for a... for a what? Got the link on www.direct.gov.uk and it said the website was under construction. It also said it was 20 hours a week, Monday to Friday 9-5. Made me think it's perhaps my Dream Job boss now working under a different name
Graduate researcher/journalist for healthcare company. Well, I am a graduate. Does it count if it's not a terribly recent graduation. Pay is £1000 a month for a 38 hour week.
Where will the Work Programme send me for 'experience'....
There are so many awful places to go...
Read this and weep/consider yourself fortunate.
(Oh and half term was great. Didn't do much which was plenty!)
You know my thoughts. My son was ill on the tuesday. Imagine I had to take a day off work! Couldn't though could I? I had to be a nurse (which isn't a job if it's your own child you are tending)
Signing on during a school holiday is bad luck. It could have been the week before or after but no. Oh well.
It was a fellow single mother who was checking my claim and I really felt for her by the end of our interview. Her 14 year old was with a childminder. She didn't want to be where she was.
The guy I had a few weeks ago was off (looking after his kids?) but apparently, although I'm meant to be with another woman, this man wants to see me next week, he wants to 'help' me. What he wants is to put me on the Work Programme and I shudder to be honest with you.
I might do it though, not because I want to, but because I can write about it. I mean, people don't really know what this Work Programme is about. It could be like the abandoned Back To Work for Lone Parents pilot which was good. That was only a week though and this one may be 16 hours a week over a month. All I know, from the outset, is I may have to ask an hour off to go to my son's class assembly.....
Oh well, jobs applied for in order to receive my £67:
Membership assistant for Lone Parent charity. Not heard back so we can safely assume I didn't get that one.
Political journalist for a... for a what? Got the link on www.direct.gov.uk and it said the website was under construction. It also said it was 20 hours a week, Monday to Friday 9-5. Made me think it's perhaps my Dream Job boss now working under a different name
Graduate researcher/journalist for healthcare company. Well, I am a graduate. Does it count if it's not a terribly recent graduation. Pay is £1000 a month for a 38 hour week.
Where will the Work Programme send me for 'experience'....
There are so many awful places to go...
Read this and weep/consider yourself fortunate.
(Oh and half term was great. Didn't do much which was plenty!)
Friday, 21 October 2011
St Pauls closes Cathedral doors
I was literally just on my way to St Paul's Cathedral to support the protesters camp and join them in wanting social justice when I read on Twitter that the Dean has closed the Cathedral doors.
Over the past week there have been rumblings in the press about how St Paul's is losing money because access to the church is limited and well, now,"health and safety and fire" operatives have whispered in the priests' ears and well, it's a hazard isn't it? What if something goes wrong inside the cathedral, parishioners won't be able to get out!
http://www.stpauls.co.uk/News-Press/Latest-News/Statement-from-the-Dean-of-St-Pauls-21-October
I'm disappointed to tell the truth. I liked that the peaceful process was happening outside St Pauls. Protesters were barred from the Stock Exchange because that is England's Holy Place and the powers that be wanted no trouble there. This only made the juxtaposition of the protesters' concerns with this God serving Tourist Destination well, the embodiment of the spirit of the actual event, campout protest against corporate greed (CofE innit, St Pauls?).
Ironically, the book I'm reading at the moment is Conversations With God Book 2, all about producing the society that we want (we being the protesters and possibly you who is perhaps unable to protest)!
Until the next time!
Over the past week there have been rumblings in the press about how St Paul's is losing money because access to the church is limited and well, now,"health and safety and fire" operatives have whispered in the priests' ears and well, it's a hazard isn't it? What if something goes wrong inside the cathedral, parishioners won't be able to get out!
http://www.stpauls.co.uk/News-Press/Latest-News/Statement-from-the-Dean-of-St-Pauls-21-October
I'm disappointed to tell the truth. I liked that the peaceful process was happening outside St Pauls. Protesters were barred from the Stock Exchange because that is England's Holy Place and the powers that be wanted no trouble there. This only made the juxtaposition of the protesters' concerns with this God serving Tourist Destination well, the embodiment of the spirit of the actual event, campout protest against corporate greed (CofE innit, St Pauls?).
Ironically, the book I'm reading at the moment is Conversations With God Book 2, all about producing the society that we want (we being the protesters and possibly you who is perhaps unable to protest)!
Until the next time!
Clegg's response to my letter
I never told you, probably because the boredom drove me to...oh, nowhere special,no sunny, blue seas under a blue sky....
I got a reply to the letter I sent Clegg in May. OK, I got the answer back in July but like I said, it bored me into a pit of my own filth making.
What is funny I guess, and why I recall it now, is that the letter was from the Department for Communities and Local Government telling me it was sorry to hear about my housing difficulties but the matter was one for the local council.
Oh how Clegg had laughed when I told him I'd written to Brown. "Got an answer did you?!"
"Yes, yes," I'd stammered. "Yes I did actually and he told me it was up to the local authority to help me and the local authority is YOU."
Mind you, perhaps he remembers. This letter says "neither Ministers nor their officials are able to intervene in individual cases." I know, I allude to my failure in my letter do I not? Would I have failed if they had intervened? OH and hang on, why did Clegg ask for my details and get his Pal to meet me if they never had any intention to help me? Oh that's right, it was just before the election and they were scared I'd go to a Red Top.
"As you are aware," the letter says, which I am because my letter wasn't about my problem, "the Government is carrying out wide-ranging reforms to the social housing system. These are being taken forward through the Localism Bill which is currently before Parliament.."
It still is, it still is but not for long...
"Local Decisions: A Fairer Future for Social Housing.. can be viewed at
www.communities.gov.uk/publications/housing/socialhousingreform.
"It includes measures to improve mobility (Home swap to find jobs Shapps says) and under-occupation (only for council tenants though as the news about elderly homeowners underoccupying hit the headlines yesterday and the Tories saying that was 'bullying'). It also covers the introduction of a new 'affordable rent' tenancy (yes, keep that in inverted commas) and changes to the system of council housing finance (the government will ensure councils raise rents)
"I hope.,..that your housing situation will be resolved before too long"
When is "too long"?
Still an answer is better than no answer. Cameron's office said my letter to him had been passed on the Department of Communities too, but this here Clegg's response didn't mention that so I'll take it the letter to Dave was discarded in a public dustbin. Shall I?
Here's a good piece of writing on the housing crisis from Polly Toynbee. Some of the comments are interesting too. I'll be with like minded people this afternoon, so hopefully can pick myself up a bit and not feel so defeated, stuck in a pit of my own filth making. Chin up...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/14/cathy-come-home-lesson-rents-mortgages?CMP=twt_gu
I got a reply to the letter I sent Clegg in May. OK, I got the answer back in July but like I said, it bored me into a pit of my own filth making.
What is funny I guess, and why I recall it now, is that the letter was from the Department for Communities and Local Government telling me it was sorry to hear about my housing difficulties but the matter was one for the local council.
Oh how Clegg had laughed when I told him I'd written to Brown. "Got an answer did you?!"
"Yes, yes," I'd stammered. "Yes I did actually and he told me it was up to the local authority to help me and the local authority is YOU."
Mind you, perhaps he remembers. This letter says "neither Ministers nor their officials are able to intervene in individual cases." I know, I allude to my failure in my letter do I not? Would I have failed if they had intervened? OH and hang on, why did Clegg ask for my details and get his Pal to meet me if they never had any intention to help me? Oh that's right, it was just before the election and they were scared I'd go to a Red Top.
"As you are aware," the letter says, which I am because my letter wasn't about my problem, "the Government is carrying out wide-ranging reforms to the social housing system. These are being taken forward through the Localism Bill which is currently before Parliament.."
It still is, it still is but not for long...
"Local Decisions: A Fairer Future for Social Housing.. can be viewed at
www.communities.gov.uk/publications/housing/socialhousingreform.
"It includes measures to improve mobility (Home swap to find jobs Shapps says) and under-occupation (only for council tenants though as the news about elderly homeowners underoccupying hit the headlines yesterday and the Tories saying that was 'bullying'). It also covers the introduction of a new 'affordable rent' tenancy (yes, keep that in inverted commas) and changes to the system of council housing finance (the government will ensure councils raise rents)
"I hope.,..that your housing situation will be resolved before too long"
When is "too long"?
Still an answer is better than no answer. Cameron's office said my letter to him had been passed on the Department of Communities too, but this here Clegg's response didn't mention that so I'll take it the letter to Dave was discarded in a public dustbin. Shall I?
Here's a good piece of writing on the housing crisis from Polly Toynbee. Some of the comments are interesting too. I'll be with like minded people this afternoon, so hopefully can pick myself up a bit and not feel so defeated, stuck in a pit of my own filth making. Chin up...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/14/cathy-come-home-lesson-rents-mortgages?CMP=twt_gu
Why rent when you can buy?!!!!
I heard it on the radio, the r r radio..
My housing association advertising 'affordable' housing! Cue jingle...
Why rent when you can buy?! You can own 25% of your home and pay rent on the rest! As time goes on, you can buy more and more! So then if you own 40% you only pay 60% rent! That 40% isn't free of course, it's borrowed money, a mortgage. So you pay a mortage and rent so you've got two things to fall into arrears with!!
That's not my worry.
My worry is that housing association's will use rents to build properties to sell, sell under schemes like this.
So if you are someone like me, who may not want to buy, how secure will you be? Let's pretend I end up earning vast amounts of cash. Is my option to buy 25% or will I be told to look elsewhere for accommodation? Be pushed back into the highly expensive, highly insecure private rental market?
The localism bill is legislating fixed term leases for all council and social properties. Gone is security unless you buy it, part buy it. I don't even think you have to be loaded to 'part-buy' one of these homes but oh the high price you pay.
We are in a massive massive crisis because our properties were sold and not rebuilt.
Now they will be rebuilt to be sold.
The Right to Buy
Buy to Let
All these have fucked your children and destroyed state subsidised housing.
Affordable social housing is on its way out. I saw a new build just near me the other day and it said "Flat's for sale." Who was selling? A housing association!
I'm realising I can't write stuff like this. It's too hard
I cannot bid for one of the few remaining council flats, it makes me want to die, be gone
The best thing is not to think about it, but imagine no-one thought about anything, you would lose everything.
There's a housing emergency meeting near Parliament today at 5.
Updates on the housing crisis and attacks on the tenancies, rents and benefits
Local campaigns.
A national protest on November 15th. Hardly anyone turns up to those. Hardly any of the five million people on waiting lists, hardly any people sleeping on floors in overcrowded homes.
I could bury my head in the sofa
or go and lend my support
Which would you do?
My housing association advertising 'affordable' housing! Cue jingle...
Why rent when you can buy?! You can own 25% of your home and pay rent on the rest! As time goes on, you can buy more and more! So then if you own 40% you only pay 60% rent! That 40% isn't free of course, it's borrowed money, a mortgage. So you pay a mortage and rent so you've got two things to fall into arrears with!!
That's not my worry.
My worry is that housing association's will use rents to build properties to sell, sell under schemes like this.
So if you are someone like me, who may not want to buy, how secure will you be? Let's pretend I end up earning vast amounts of cash. Is my option to buy 25% or will I be told to look elsewhere for accommodation? Be pushed back into the highly expensive, highly insecure private rental market?
The localism bill is legislating fixed term leases for all council and social properties. Gone is security unless you buy it, part buy it. I don't even think you have to be loaded to 'part-buy' one of these homes but oh the high price you pay.
We are in a massive massive crisis because our properties were sold and not rebuilt.
Now they will be rebuilt to be sold.
The Right to Buy
Buy to Let
All these have fucked your children and destroyed state subsidised housing.
Affordable social housing is on its way out. I saw a new build just near me the other day and it said "Flat's for sale." Who was selling? A housing association!
I'm realising I can't write stuff like this. It's too hard
I cannot bid for one of the few remaining council flats, it makes me want to die, be gone
The best thing is not to think about it, but imagine no-one thought about anything, you would lose everything.
There's a housing emergency meeting near Parliament today at 5.
Updates on the housing crisis and attacks on the tenancies, rents and benefits
Local campaigns.
A national protest on November 15th. Hardly anyone turns up to those. Hardly any of the five million people on waiting lists, hardly any people sleeping on floors in overcrowded homes.
I could bury my head in the sofa
or go and lend my support
Which would you do?
Thursday, 20 October 2011
Housing minister says no to downsizing?
This article from the BBC caused a bit of a broo ha ha in the right wing corners yesterday http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15362474.
It has been suggested by the Intergeneration Foundation, in a report backed by Labour, that pensioners living in under occupied homes, should downsize to smaller properties to accommodate younger families with children. They'd be offered all kinds of carrots, like tax breaks, or no stamp duty on their smaller property.
To my surprise Shapps has said: "Whilst this report makes interesting reading, we do not agree that people should be taxed or bullied out of their homes."
I agree!! My goodness Shapps, we agree!!
Hang on. This is about private properties.
Not so long ago, indeed, still raging somewhat, is a Tory government plan to oof pensioners out of their homes. OK, just council ones...
http://www.expressandstar.com/money/property/2010/07/05/elderly-may-downsize-in-homes-plan/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/18/under-occupied-homes-kensington-chelsea
The hypocrisy!! Labour encouraged downsizing too so but clearly not one thing for one group and another for another.
As much as I desperately need a council flat for me and my vulnerable family, I've always understood that older people might want to stay in their homes, might want to keep a room free for visiting grandchildren, visiting friends, regardless of their social or financial status.
Class and money has reared its ugly head again.
In the Mail (of course they'd be against this!) Dr Ros Altmann, director of the Saga group said: "The idea that older people are hoarding housing has come across as quite offensive. The family home is about more that just bricks and mortar and it's unhelpful to point to older people who live in a three-bedroom house and say they don't deserve to be in it." (20/10/11 p4)Hear hear, for all older people, not just those with mortgages.
I hope when debate swings back to council and housing association tenants, Shapps words, indeed, his Party's words, are relayed back to them.
People should not be bullied out of their homes. No people. No-one.
It has been suggested by the Intergeneration Foundation, in a report backed by Labour, that pensioners living in under occupied homes, should downsize to smaller properties to accommodate younger families with children. They'd be offered all kinds of carrots, like tax breaks, or no stamp duty on their smaller property.
To my surprise Shapps has said: "Whilst this report makes interesting reading, we do not agree that people should be taxed or bullied out of their homes."
I agree!! My goodness Shapps, we agree!!
Hang on. This is about private properties.
Not so long ago, indeed, still raging somewhat, is a Tory government plan to oof pensioners out of their homes. OK, just council ones...
http://www.expressandstar.com/money/property/2010/07/05/elderly-may-downsize-in-homes-plan/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/18/under-occupied-homes-kensington-chelsea
The hypocrisy!! Labour encouraged downsizing too so but clearly not one thing for one group and another for another.
As much as I desperately need a council flat for me and my vulnerable family, I've always understood that older people might want to stay in their homes, might want to keep a room free for visiting grandchildren, visiting friends, regardless of their social or financial status.
Class and money has reared its ugly head again.
In the Mail (of course they'd be against this!) Dr Ros Altmann, director of the Saga group said: "The idea that older people are hoarding housing has come across as quite offensive. The family home is about more that just bricks and mortar and it's unhelpful to point to older people who live in a three-bedroom house and say they don't deserve to be in it." (20/10/11 p4)Hear hear, for all older people, not just those with mortgages.
I hope when debate swings back to council and housing association tenants, Shapps words, indeed, his Party's words, are relayed back to them.
People should not be bullied out of their homes. No people. No-one.
Dale Farm travellers forcibly evicted.
Yesterday was the culmination of a long running legal battle to evict a traveller community from a landsite they hadn't been legally occupying for decades. There's a legal one right next to it and well, I guess the community grew.
Amid violence they were evicted yesterday. Bailiff's were supposed to come at dawn but instead riot police led the 'operation'. Turning up in full riot gear with shields
Intimidate Provoke
No bloody wonder some thought 'fuck you' and started hurling bricks.
Over in Greece it was anti-cuts campaigners being tear gassed. Our police used Taser guns. Is this the future? Taser guns in the side pocket at all peaceful protests. There were no guns at Dale Farm. Just people protecting their homes and livelihoods and children's education and old people's care. Sure, activists were there to lend their support, but people losing their homes need support from somewhere, from someone.
You can never know how awful it is to be evicted until it happens to you, or nearly happens to you as it nearly happened to me and my son. Twice.
In the Standard yesterday, a story about how a £120,000 a year Tory told a single mother being evicted from her London home to 'live in the real world.' She wrote to a member of Boris' team wanting some help and guidance (as I also did to various politicians) and was told:
"There will never be enough council houses available...I am afraid you have to live in the real world where the country has no money and residents will have to deal with their own issues reather than expecting 'the system' to sort their lives out." (19/10/11 p.7)
Dale Farm is the real world. Dale Farm is people losing their homes. Did the council try and find them somewhere alternative to go? No. According to the Guardian, a local priest serving Dale Farm said:
I'm just so sad it came to this. There were other options - Basildon was offered sites from the Homes and Communities Agency, and it is tragic they were not taken up." (20/10/11 p7 from p 1 lead)
No-one is helped anymore and barriers are put before those trying to help themselves.
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH.
There is a protest November 15th at Parliament.
There is still a chance to stop this disastrous localism bill from going through that will see people losing their homes becoming the order of the day.
You never know, you could be next.
Amid violence they were evicted yesterday. Bailiff's were supposed to come at dawn but instead riot police led the 'operation'. Turning up in full riot gear with shields
Intimidate Provoke
No bloody wonder some thought 'fuck you' and started hurling bricks.
Over in Greece it was anti-cuts campaigners being tear gassed. Our police used Taser guns. Is this the future? Taser guns in the side pocket at all peaceful protests. There were no guns at Dale Farm. Just people protecting their homes and livelihoods and children's education and old people's care. Sure, activists were there to lend their support, but people losing their homes need support from somewhere, from someone.
You can never know how awful it is to be evicted until it happens to you, or nearly happens to you as it nearly happened to me and my son. Twice.
In the Standard yesterday, a story about how a £120,000 a year Tory told a single mother being evicted from her London home to 'live in the real world.' She wrote to a member of Boris' team wanting some help and guidance (as I also did to various politicians) and was told:
"There will never be enough council houses available...I am afraid you have to live in the real world where the country has no money and residents will have to deal with their own issues reather than expecting 'the system' to sort their lives out." (19/10/11 p.7)
Dale Farm is the real world. Dale Farm is people losing their homes. Did the council try and find them somewhere alternative to go? No. According to the Guardian, a local priest serving Dale Farm said:
I'm just so sad it came to this. There were other options - Basildon was offered sites from the Homes and Communities Agency, and it is tragic they were not taken up." (20/10/11 p7 from p 1 lead)
No-one is helped anymore and barriers are put before those trying to help themselves.
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH.
There is a protest November 15th at Parliament.
There is still a chance to stop this disastrous localism bill from going through that will see people losing their homes becoming the order of the day.
You never know, you could be next.
Love hearts and aliens
An eztimated 2,700 people died from fuel poverty last year according to today's papers. Wasn't I saying just yesterday that I was paying to freeze to death? People are, pensioners especially vulnerable. I met an old lady yesterday who can't sleep in her bedroom at the moment so she and her dog share the sofa as the living room is warmer. Please sign the petition.
To beat the current cold that is living in my own uninsulated flat, and having more choices than a pensioner, I raced to Primark yesterday afternoon and bought a baby grow for grown ups. A fleecy one. They are all the rage. My son asked for one for his 9th birthday and I seriously thought he was regressing but no, at the time there weren't any for his age available, so popular these all in ones are becoming.I returned the size 7/8 football designed one yesterday and exchanged it for one with lots of little aliens.
Mine has love hearts all over it which my son disagrees and says is pink leopard print. No matter, we're beginning to resemble teletubbies the two of us.
My boy was warm last night but I wasn't. I must be more sensitive to the cold.
With this in mind I bought a copy of the Daily Mail because they are offering a "free" double duvet if you send 35 tokens and a fiver for postage.
I know I know...For over a month I have to buy the Mail just so I can get a 9 tog duvet.
Oh well, I take the view that reading a view you don't agree with helps consolidate your own point of view.
We disagree on alot me and the Mail. I mean, the Mail doesn't even like me and my sort and Mail readers take a dim view of me and my sort too but no matter.
On fleecing energy companies me and the Mail have the same view.
People have already died and more are going to be killed by cold related illnesses.
Please sign the petitions with yourself or old people in mind. These companies are going to make a £125 profit off each customer it was said on the news a couple of days ago. It's disgusting: http://www.foe.co.uk/what_we_do/final_demand2_32882.html
If you are still superloaded despite your energy bills you can build your own jimjams to be really really snugly cosy! I can but dream... Just a basic for my son with hood and feet cost over £35. For me I dread to discover: http://www.the-all-in-one-company.co.uk/
Otherwise, try not to think of the working conditions required to churn out the cheap and head to Primark. They've got some cool designs! I wore a t-shirt under mine last night.
Layer layer layer...
I'll switch on my heaters at some point. I just want to enjoy my "low" bill for a while...
To beat the current cold that is living in my own uninsulated flat, and having more choices than a pensioner, I raced to Primark yesterday afternoon and bought a baby grow for grown ups. A fleecy one. They are all the rage. My son asked for one for his 9th birthday and I seriously thought he was regressing but no, at the time there weren't any for his age available, so popular these all in ones are becoming.I returned the size 7/8 football designed one yesterday and exchanged it for one with lots of little aliens.
Mine has love hearts all over it which my son disagrees and says is pink leopard print. No matter, we're beginning to resemble teletubbies the two of us.
My boy was warm last night but I wasn't. I must be more sensitive to the cold.
With this in mind I bought a copy of the Daily Mail because they are offering a "free" double duvet if you send 35 tokens and a fiver for postage.
I know I know...For over a month I have to buy the Mail just so I can get a 9 tog duvet.
Oh well, I take the view that reading a view you don't agree with helps consolidate your own point of view.
We disagree on alot me and the Mail. I mean, the Mail doesn't even like me and my sort and Mail readers take a dim view of me and my sort too but no matter.
On fleecing energy companies me and the Mail have the same view.
People have already died and more are going to be killed by cold related illnesses.
Please sign the petitions with yourself or old people in mind. These companies are going to make a £125 profit off each customer it was said on the news a couple of days ago. It's disgusting: http://www.foe.co.uk/what_we_do/final_demand2_32882.html
If you are still superloaded despite your energy bills you can build your own jimjams to be really really snugly cosy! I can but dream... Just a basic for my son with hood and feet cost over £35. For me I dread to discover: http://www.the-all-in-one-company.co.uk/
Otherwise, try not to think of the working conditions required to churn out the cheap and head to Primark. They've got some cool designs! I wore a t-shirt under mine last night.
Layer layer layer...
I'll switch on my heaters at some point. I just want to enjoy my "low" bill for a while...
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Paying to freeze to death
My son got dressed for school this morning underneath his duvet he was so cold.
Yesterday, by chance, I (and no doubt 1000's of customers) got a text from my electricity company:
"[Giant Thief]would really like to speak with you & complete a health check on your account before winter."
I called because I was meaning to call. I'm still paying last winter's debt. The girl on the other end of the phone said my bill would be increasing to account for the winter payments.
"No way!" I said. "I'm already paying £40 a week for last year which drives me into further debt week after week. I have not switched on my heaters yet and this morning my son was too cold to get dressed. My life is hard I don't care if I freeze to death but I cannot allow my child to freeze to death too."
Apparently, as from last week my account is in credit. I am using £68 a month of electricity - don't ask me how. Washing machine is used once a week. Water heats at night on an economy meter. They suggested I do my washing when the electric tariff is cheaper - after midnight.
Anyway, big plus, is the girl reduced my weekly payments to £15. The heaters haven't come on yet though and no-one is telling me how to use them efficiently.
Heh heh, efficiently. The girl admitted that storage heaters "are not that good anyway. They give out heat but it's not that warm."
So yeah, we're paying to freeze.
It's not a choice between heating and food. Debt pays my food at the moment. Debt pays my energy bill debt caused by this energy company.
Dave says pay your debts and then switch companies. Oh my god Dave, do you know nothing? We are beholden to these companies.
As luck would have it, this morning I got an email from Friends of the Earth. Please sign this petition. By not doing so you are demonstrating that you are as hopelessly out of touch as David Cameron.
I told the guy on the phone (for I got transferred to a guy) that it was a petition to stop the Big Six ripping us off.
"We're number 2!" he exclaimed joyously.
"It's nothing to be proud of," I replied.
Please sign it, it'll reduce your own bill too. Thanks.
http://www.foe.co.uk/what_we_do/final_demand2_32882.html (enjoy the video!)
Yesterday, by chance, I (and no doubt 1000's of customers) got a text from my electricity company:
"[Giant Thief]would really like to speak with you & complete a health check on your account before winter."
I called because I was meaning to call. I'm still paying last winter's debt. The girl on the other end of the phone said my bill would be increasing to account for the winter payments.
"No way!" I said. "I'm already paying £40 a week for last year which drives me into further debt week after week. I have not switched on my heaters yet and this morning my son was too cold to get dressed. My life is hard I don't care if I freeze to death but I cannot allow my child to freeze to death too."
Apparently, as from last week my account is in credit. I am using £68 a month of electricity - don't ask me how. Washing machine is used once a week. Water heats at night on an economy meter. They suggested I do my washing when the electric tariff is cheaper - after midnight.
Anyway, big plus, is the girl reduced my weekly payments to £15. The heaters haven't come on yet though and no-one is telling me how to use them efficiently.
Heh heh, efficiently. The girl admitted that storage heaters "are not that good anyway. They give out heat but it's not that warm."
So yeah, we're paying to freeze.
It's not a choice between heating and food. Debt pays my food at the moment. Debt pays my energy bill debt caused by this energy company.
Dave says pay your debts and then switch companies. Oh my god Dave, do you know nothing? We are beholden to these companies.
As luck would have it, this morning I got an email from Friends of the Earth. Please sign this petition. By not doing so you are demonstrating that you are as hopelessly out of touch as David Cameron.
I told the guy on the phone (for I got transferred to a guy) that it was a petition to stop the Big Six ripping us off.
"We're number 2!" he exclaimed joyously.
"It's nothing to be proud of," I replied.
Please sign it, it'll reduce your own bill too. Thanks.
http://www.foe.co.uk/what_we_do/final_demand2_32882.html (enjoy the video!)
Just Do It!!
Yesterday, all over the UK on university campus' the film Just Do It - A Tale of the Modern Outlaw was aired so those who missed it at the cinema had a opportunity to see it.
Fortunately for me there was one matinee showing at the Metropolitan Uni so I jumped on Zat bike, sang "It's not my day to die" in scary road moments and settled down in the college amphitheatre.
It's such a good film! Really. It follows a group of climate camp activists as they put their bodies in the way of corporate destruction of our planet.
Marina, the Domestic Extremist, who started putting her body in the path of political policy by making tea at demonstrations.
The intelligence and humour of these activists are the same people you see on the UK uncut protests. If you've not been on one of those, then you should see this film. One cambridge undergraduate jokingly says how easy it is to become an outlaw, but it's no joke, it is easy! That's exactly what I was in that kettle a week and a half ago.
One activist says how she returned from Denmark and the police brutality she experienced there during a UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen "radicalised". That she'd campaigned about climate change before, but now, she would campaign against capitalism and how that is responsible for our planet's destruction.
It's an intelligent film, informative, and I for one am really relieved that there are people out there campaigning for my future and yours. Hope prevails even when hope is seemingly defeated. Campaigns have been won. People haven't lost their homes because plans for the third runway at Heathrow was cancelled to give one example.
Watch it, join in, www.justdoit.com :)
Just while I'm here, I want to upload this video of the kettling I was caught up in when I went to the Block The (NHS) Bill protest. I witnessed the violence you will see, moments before the kettling, which followed such a fun day. It's as though the police wait until the party's over then pounce. And politicians wonder why kids are angry. Anyway, I'm not the one with the camera, I'm the one in the corner, finding my religion (REM)
Fortunately for me there was one matinee showing at the Metropolitan Uni so I jumped on Zat bike, sang "It's not my day to die" in scary road moments and settled down in the college amphitheatre.
It's such a good film! Really. It follows a group of climate camp activists as they put their bodies in the way of corporate destruction of our planet.
Marina, the Domestic Extremist, who started putting her body in the path of political policy by making tea at demonstrations.
The intelligence and humour of these activists are the same people you see on the UK uncut protests. If you've not been on one of those, then you should see this film. One cambridge undergraduate jokingly says how easy it is to become an outlaw, but it's no joke, it is easy! That's exactly what I was in that kettle a week and a half ago.
One activist says how she returned from Denmark and the police brutality she experienced there during a UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen "radicalised". That she'd campaigned about climate change before, but now, she would campaign against capitalism and how that is responsible for our planet's destruction.
It's an intelligent film, informative, and I for one am really relieved that there are people out there campaigning for my future and yours. Hope prevails even when hope is seemingly defeated. Campaigns have been won. People haven't lost their homes because plans for the third runway at Heathrow was cancelled to give one example.
Watch it, join in, www.justdoit.com :)
Just while I'm here, I want to upload this video of the kettling I was caught up in when I went to the Block The (NHS) Bill protest. I witnessed the violence you will see, moments before the kettling, which followed such a fun day. It's as though the police wait until the party's over then pounce. And politicians wonder why kids are angry. Anyway, I'm not the one with the camera, I'm the one in the corner, finding my religion (REM)
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Exchanging one for one thousand
Gilad Shalit, an Israeli captured by Palestinian Hamas five years ago, has been released today in exchange for 1000 Palestinian prisoners.
I don't know anything about Middle Eastern politics but according to the BBC both sides are happy today but tension remains.
Reminds me of what I was reading last night. In my quest to understand myself better I was reading and finishing Philip Pullman's The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ.
Free Barrabas! Free Barrabas! A murderer was set free and Jesus crucified in his place.
There is no link, or perhaps there is but I'm not making it.
Some things are just too vast for me to understand.
I am pleased that Gilad Shalit has been released. I am pleased that some of the Palestinians are being released. I say some, why one for one thousand?
Religion is divisive and that is my problem with it.
I like Pullman but I doubt Pullman likes me.
I figured what I am you see. He is an athiest. I am not an athiest. I am not a Christian. I can't be. I don't want to be. You can be one if you like. You can be whatever you like.
I am an agnostic who goes to church. Sometimes.
There are many things that I do not understand but I wish the Middle East peace.
I don't know anything about Middle Eastern politics but according to the BBC both sides are happy today but tension remains.
Reminds me of what I was reading last night. In my quest to understand myself better I was reading and finishing Philip Pullman's The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ.
Free Barrabas! Free Barrabas! A murderer was set free and Jesus crucified in his place.
There is no link, or perhaps there is but I'm not making it.
Some things are just too vast for me to understand.
I am pleased that Gilad Shalit has been released. I am pleased that some of the Palestinians are being released. I say some, why one for one thousand?
Religion is divisive and that is my problem with it.
I like Pullman but I doubt Pullman likes me.
I figured what I am you see. He is an athiest. I am not an athiest. I am not a Christian. I can't be. I don't want to be. You can be one if you like. You can be whatever you like.
I am an agnostic who goes to church. Sometimes.
There are many things that I do not understand but I wish the Middle East peace.
Should we put our age on application forms?
It jumped out at me on the Equal Opportunities Monitoring form on my job application:
Age......years.
Oh bollocks.
It's a charity, they won't discriminate but oh bollocks, they might think I'm too old for the role particularly when they look at all my previous experience. My years and years of other experience and then of course years and years of "nothing". It's that "nothing" that gives me a chance...the same chance as an unemployed graduate...who will think someone who's older might get it, someone with more experience.
Then this morning Google won't let Stigmum into blogspot unless she gives her date of birth. What? No! Google wouldn't let us through though.
I had to make it up didn't I? I mean, Google would never believe that Stigmum is over 200 years old. We put that she, I, was just over 100.
The Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form did state: "If you do not answer these questions, it will not effect your application."
That's alright then...
Age......years.
Oh bollocks.
It's a charity, they won't discriminate but oh bollocks, they might think I'm too old for the role particularly when they look at all my previous experience. My years and years of other experience and then of course years and years of "nothing". It's that "nothing" that gives me a chance...the same chance as an unemployed graduate...who will think someone who's older might get it, someone with more experience.
Then this morning Google won't let Stigmum into blogspot unless she gives her date of birth. What? No! Google wouldn't let us through though.
I had to make it up didn't I? I mean, Google would never believe that Stigmum is over 200 years old. We put that she, I, was just over 100.
The Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form did state: "If you do not answer these questions, it will not effect your application."
That's alright then...
Monday, 17 October 2011
Application Forms
I have spent the day filling in an application form.
It actually takes more than a day these things. Or at least I think so, me and my two degrees.
Squeezing a life time of jobs into your mind and finding those most relevant to the position you are going for. Preferably recent ones. My volunteering got a big look in on this one.
I went up to the Heath for inspiration and met this Oldish Guy I know who's very pro my protesting, which is nice. He told me not to write anything negative,which was good advice because I wanted to write about redundancies and not having used Excel in years.
I hope I get this job. It's part time, local and for a lone parents charity.
Brilliant really.
Application forms. Terrifying things.
Shame I can't put my blog link, but then I'd really stand no chance.
A pity really.
My casestudy of a single mother not being relevant to a lone parent charity because in it I swear and
write about all the negative things
people tell me about their lives
through my own voice
We are only human
Humans bleed
Sorry if you don't like it but then if you don't like it you're not one of my followers, which is fine, I understand
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhahehehmmm
It actually takes more than a day these things. Or at least I think so, me and my two degrees.
Squeezing a life time of jobs into your mind and finding those most relevant to the position you are going for. Preferably recent ones. My volunteering got a big look in on this one.
I went up to the Heath for inspiration and met this Oldish Guy I know who's very pro my protesting, which is nice. He told me not to write anything negative,which was good advice because I wanted to write about redundancies and not having used Excel in years.
I hope I get this job. It's part time, local and for a lone parents charity.
Brilliant really.
Application forms. Terrifying things.
Shame I can't put my blog link, but then I'd really stand no chance.
A pity really.
My casestudy of a single mother not being relevant to a lone parent charity because in it I swear and
write about all the negative things
people tell me about their lives
through my own voice
We are only human
Humans bleed
Sorry if you don't like it but then if you don't like it you're not one of my followers, which is fine, I understand
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhahehehmmm
On not being shortlisted
I applied for a job as a Deputy Features Editor on a housing magazine and got a email from the agency dealing with it, that I hadn't been shortlisted. They were sorry to disappoint me.
I emailed back then burst into tears. It was my son's birthday and was feeling fragile as I'd have to move over to jobseeker's allowance the next day. Demoralising, demeaning, desperate Jobseekers. I didn't hear back and to date, haven't applied for a job I'm not capable of doing.
I'm not suggesting you do the same as me, I'm just telling you what I did.
Thanks [Sir],
Despite my ex editor at [Publishing Company] saying I'd be perfect for the job given my past as a journalist and my present as a housing campaigner I knew I wouldn't get this and can't help thinking it's because I'm a single parent so problematic for the role (maybe).
Perhaps it's for the best though. I imagined meeting Grant Shapps, doing the interview for my article then saying ( because I would have to): "Downing Street told me to contact you saying you'd be very interested in what I had to say. Do you remember? Here are the letters...Why did you never reply to them? Will you reply to them now? Off the record if you like."
I will add, I have a good relationship with politicians of all parties because I'm a diplomatic sort! What's also funny about this job is that my pseudonym subscribes to this magazine's website!
Too much to give sometimes ey?!
Thanks for getting back to me and so quickly too.
I will warn you. I am being moved from income support to jobseekers under the government's new legislation. I have to apply for jobs or they will stop my benefits. This means I will possibly (almost certainly) apply for jobs I am not capable of doing so I can write it down in my jsa notebook. I'm really sorry. No-one asks to be in a situation such as mine.
I'm disappointed this didn't work out for me but something else will!
All the best,
Sue de Nim
I emailed back then burst into tears. It was my son's birthday and was feeling fragile as I'd have to move over to jobseeker's allowance the next day. Demoralising, demeaning, desperate Jobseekers. I didn't hear back and to date, haven't applied for a job I'm not capable of doing.
I'm not suggesting you do the same as me, I'm just telling you what I did.
Thanks [Sir],
Despite my ex editor at [Publishing Company] saying I'd be perfect for the job given my past as a journalist and my present as a housing campaigner I knew I wouldn't get this and can't help thinking it's because I'm a single parent so problematic for the role (maybe).
Perhaps it's for the best though. I imagined meeting Grant Shapps, doing the interview for my article then saying ( because I would have to): "Downing Street told me to contact you saying you'd be very interested in what I had to say. Do you remember? Here are the letters...Why did you never reply to them? Will you reply to them now? Off the record if you like."
I will add, I have a good relationship with politicians of all parties because I'm a diplomatic sort! What's also funny about this job is that my pseudonym subscribes to this magazine's website!
Too much to give sometimes ey?!
Thanks for getting back to me and so quickly too.
I will warn you. I am being moved from income support to jobseekers under the government's new legislation. I have to apply for jobs or they will stop my benefits. This means I will possibly (almost certainly) apply for jobs I am not capable of doing so I can write it down in my jsa notebook. I'm really sorry. No-one asks to be in a situation such as mine.
I'm disappointed this didn't work out for me but something else will!
All the best,
Sue de Nim
Everyone's replacable, even Tories
So, the far Right Defence Secretary finally resigned over his best man being his personal advisor.
Quick as a flash he was replaced by the Transport Minsiter.
Similar job isn't it?
The ex Defence Secretary can still keep his job as a minister. Can sit on the back, as opposed to front, bench. Still collect a wage. Do you think he'll get a drop in pay?
What do you think'll happen to that Letbin bloke? Chucking away letters from his colleagues and constituents? Will he get to keep his job?
How people can bring themselves to vote for these people I have no idea. They're all put in "safe seats" so watch them get re-elected in the next round. Uurgh.
To think, I was fired for forgetting one shift. One iddly piddly three hour shift. Fired.
Well, I wasn't told exactly so I resigned, without actually telling.
Then jobs I do go for I'm told I don't have the relevant experience.
It's a problem facing over 1 million unemployed young people.
Different worlds isn't it, that of ministers and that of yours...
Quick as a flash he was replaced by the Transport Minsiter.
Similar job isn't it?
The ex Defence Secretary can still keep his job as a minister. Can sit on the back, as opposed to front, bench. Still collect a wage. Do you think he'll get a drop in pay?
What do you think'll happen to that Letbin bloke? Chucking away letters from his colleagues and constituents? Will he get to keep his job?
How people can bring themselves to vote for these people I have no idea. They're all put in "safe seats" so watch them get re-elected in the next round. Uurgh.
To think, I was fired for forgetting one shift. One iddly piddly three hour shift. Fired.
Well, I wasn't told exactly so I resigned, without actually telling.
Then jobs I do go for I'm told I don't have the relevant experience.
It's a problem facing over 1 million unemployed young people.
Different worlds isn't it, that of ministers and that of yours...
Friday, 14 October 2011
Tories ignore child poverty increase
The Child Poverty Action Group lost its case in the high court yesterday as it tried to overturn the Government proposals on housing benefit reform.
They argued that the reforms to cap benefits "...could mean upwards of 20,000 children having to move, 14,000 out of their local area, resulting in disruption to education, health and social services."
I have been through this. I am still under threat of this happening again for the fourth time. My blog is my proof that this is no scaremongering.
The high court agreed with the Tories that it was important to cut spending. There's justice for you based on knowledge. These people know fucking nothing.
According to the Guardian, Iain Duncan Smith lost his rag somewhat accusing the poverty charity: "CPAG's challenge to our housing benefit reforms was an ill-judged PR stunt, and amounts to nothing more than a massive waste of taxpayers' money and court time."
He added (and this is where I just lose my own rag even more): "The cost of housing benefit has spiralled completely out of control, and this judgment is further vindication that our reforms will ensure support is in place for those who need it, but stop the crazy excesses we have seen in recent years of people on benefits living in houses that those in work could not afford."
Housing benefit has only spiralled out of control because rents have.
Instead of placing me in a flat I cannot afford I could have been offered a council flat to rent.
Emphasis could be put on building more affordable housing.
They don't want to do it though. Cameron announced more Right To Buy which won't solve this crisis (5 million waiting countrywide is the figure isn't it?)
Then cross party they are saying you have to be in work to qualify.
Here's the Duncan Smith poppycock: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/14/iain-duncan-smith-losing-cool
Here's the article they'll be given to those who work, where I left a comment:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/oct/11/workers-priority-council-housing-lists
I don't want to say watch me and my child get displaced again because I'm frightened the next time will kill me.
Duncan Smith will be pleased with that; one less family on benefits.
They argued that the reforms to cap benefits "...could mean upwards of 20,000 children having to move, 14,000 out of their local area, resulting in disruption to education, health and social services."
I have been through this. I am still under threat of this happening again for the fourth time. My blog is my proof that this is no scaremongering.
The high court agreed with the Tories that it was important to cut spending. There's justice for you based on knowledge. These people know fucking nothing.
According to the Guardian, Iain Duncan Smith lost his rag somewhat accusing the poverty charity: "CPAG's challenge to our housing benefit reforms was an ill-judged PR stunt, and amounts to nothing more than a massive waste of taxpayers' money and court time."
He added (and this is where I just lose my own rag even more): "The cost of housing benefit has spiralled completely out of control, and this judgment is further vindication that our reforms will ensure support is in place for those who need it, but stop the crazy excesses we have seen in recent years of people on benefits living in houses that those in work could not afford."
Housing benefit has only spiralled out of control because rents have.
Instead of placing me in a flat I cannot afford I could have been offered a council flat to rent.
Emphasis could be put on building more affordable housing.
They don't want to do it though. Cameron announced more Right To Buy which won't solve this crisis (5 million waiting countrywide is the figure isn't it?)
Then cross party they are saying you have to be in work to qualify.
Here's the Duncan Smith poppycock: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/14/iain-duncan-smith-losing-cool
Here's the article they'll be given to those who work, where I left a comment:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/oct/11/workers-priority-council-housing-lists
I don't want to say watch me and my child get displaced again because I'm frightened the next time will kill me.
Duncan Smith will be pleased with that; one less family on benefits.
Please Sir, will you pay me £1 a day?
How did I lose the Dream Job?
The Dream Job I was given a brief for but no salary?
Because I dared
I dared
I dared
I dared
to ask the boss if he'd pay my phone calls..
Not my broadband just my phone calls..
I was so busy that first week and realised my debt...
"I can't afford to do the job properly otherwise"
No
he said at first
Then only landline calls.
"But you operate from a mobile, lots of companies do"
No
"If I got a smart phone with a £20 sim, that could cover all calls, I could work when I was waiting for my son as he did Kung Fu."
No.
"It would only amount to the equivalent of you paying me £1 a day and hours all for the interests of your company!"
"This isn't working,"
And that was his final words.
"What do you mean?"
Help me out reader.
Where did I go wrong?
The Dream Job I was given a brief for but no salary?
Because I dared
I dared
I dared
I dared
to ask the boss if he'd pay my phone calls..
Not my broadband just my phone calls..
I was so busy that first week and realised my debt...
"I can't afford to do the job properly otherwise"
No
he said at first
Then only landline calls.
"But you operate from a mobile, lots of companies do"
No
"If I got a smart phone with a £20 sim, that could cover all calls, I could work when I was waiting for my son as he did Kung Fu."
No.
"It would only amount to the equivalent of you paying me £1 a day and hours all for the interests of your company!"
"This isn't working,"
And that was his final words.
"What do you mean?"
Help me out reader.
Where did I go wrong?
Legislating exploitation
I actually had this thought a couple of weeks ago when I was quite happy being exploited.
Started with seeing a picture of Dave standing with some woman from his Work Programme Providers.
I've told you the form a few times but as a reminder, you the taxpayer pay the private company to take on me the trapped on state benefits that you also pay.
It's stepping on the heads of the most vulnerable to achieve economic growth and you the taxpayer are funding that. Twice.
What did someone say on Question Time last night when talking about tax breaks for small and medium businesses. Young people have 'no salary expectations'.
These companies also know they can pay people low salaries because there are another 2.56 million out there who could fill in the role.
It does upset me have to say, alot of Tory ideology does. Maybe its because I have done it all before; worked for nothing glad to have it on my cv.
I'm too old now. Gone my idealism.
Still, I was reminded this morning that the problem is way bigger than the vignettes I give you. Just take a look at this
A whole global racket going on to exploit the cheapest commodity of them all: The Human Being.
I thank the blue sky out of my window and the autumn leaves waving at me.
If you are a lucky person, be thankful you are a lucky person and have a nice day.
Started with seeing a picture of Dave standing with some woman from his Work Programme Providers.
I've told you the form a few times but as a reminder, you the taxpayer pay the private company to take on me the trapped on state benefits that you also pay.
It's stepping on the heads of the most vulnerable to achieve economic growth and you the taxpayer are funding that. Twice.
What did someone say on Question Time last night when talking about tax breaks for small and medium businesses. Young people have 'no salary expectations'.
These companies also know they can pay people low salaries because there are another 2.56 million out there who could fill in the role.
It does upset me have to say, alot of Tory ideology does. Maybe its because I have done it all before; worked for nothing glad to have it on my cv.
I'm too old now. Gone my idealism.
Still, I was reminded this morning that the problem is way bigger than the vignettes I give you. Just take a look at this
A whole global racket going on to exploit the cheapest commodity of them all: The Human Being.
I thank the blue sky out of my window and the autumn leaves waving at me.
If you are a lucky person, be thankful you are a lucky person and have a nice day.
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Jobseekers Notebook
I had to go and sign on today.
I had to show proof I'd been actively looking for work.
I was pissed off. It's that or depressed isn't it. Maybe I was both.
No buggies on the first floor. Men and women, who knows if they have children or whether they are desperate for a reason to get out of bed in the morning. The Job Centre doesn't qualify as a best reason.
It's reported on the news (BBC). Unemployment has reached its highest level in 17 years with 2.57 million of us out of work (I work.. cleaned my bathroom yesterday or is that not work because the bathroom belongs to me? I cooked a meal too but is that not work because the meal is for my child?)
Just my luck my signing on day is a Thursday. Long time followers know why I don't like Thursdays. Thursday is bidding day, which I do not do because I get suicidal thoughts, which I don't like so don't encourage them.
I hate the jobcentre despite being welcomed by a friend from the Parent Council who works there.
I hate the way we're all judged and I will write more about that because I want to.
Alas, that's my problem too though isn't it? How I write everyday. I can't tell the job centre I do that.
Yesterday on Twitter I asked the whole world if anyone wanted to pay me for writing this heh heh heh.
Well, an anonymous donor paid for the Defence Secretary's "Advisor". An anonymous donor could pay for me. Why not?
Might take the fun out of blogging. Do you think it would?
To encourage me to look for work, I am going to start a new label.
Call it my JSA Notebook. Jobseeker's Allowance Notebook.
I have to fill it in for the job centre...oh it's so depressing, patronising, bollocks, reminder of rejections, no hopes, how what you want doesn't want you and other bollocks.
Will I still write under the work or benefits labels? Yeah, maybe. I never know what I'm going to write do I?
Oh well, to end on a bright note, I went to a focus group afterwards on education (youth unemployment also at record high) and got a £10 book voucher for my trouble and met lots of lovely "White British Low Income" mums and one dad.
We have jobs, why are being forced to Jobseek?
I had to show proof I'd been actively looking for work.
I was pissed off. It's that or depressed isn't it. Maybe I was both.
No buggies on the first floor. Men and women, who knows if they have children or whether they are desperate for a reason to get out of bed in the morning. The Job Centre doesn't qualify as a best reason.
It's reported on the news (BBC). Unemployment has reached its highest level in 17 years with 2.57 million of us out of work (I work.. cleaned my bathroom yesterday or is that not work because the bathroom belongs to me? I cooked a meal too but is that not work because the meal is for my child?)
Just my luck my signing on day is a Thursday. Long time followers know why I don't like Thursdays. Thursday is bidding day, which I do not do because I get suicidal thoughts, which I don't like so don't encourage them.
I hate the jobcentre despite being welcomed by a friend from the Parent Council who works there.
I hate the way we're all judged and I will write more about that because I want to.
Alas, that's my problem too though isn't it? How I write everyday. I can't tell the job centre I do that.
Yesterday on Twitter I asked the whole world if anyone wanted to pay me for writing this heh heh heh.
Well, an anonymous donor paid for the Defence Secretary's "Advisor". An anonymous donor could pay for me. Why not?
Might take the fun out of blogging. Do you think it would?
To encourage me to look for work, I am going to start a new label.
Call it my JSA Notebook. Jobseeker's Allowance Notebook.
I have to fill it in for the job centre...oh it's so depressing, patronising, bollocks, reminder of rejections, no hopes, how what you want doesn't want you and other bollocks.
Will I still write under the work or benefits labels? Yeah, maybe. I never know what I'm going to write do I?
Oh well, to end on a bright note, I went to a focus group afterwards on education (youth unemployment also at record high) and got a £10 book voucher for my trouble and met lots of lovely "White British Low Income" mums and one dad.
We have jobs, why are being forced to Jobseek?
Pass the bill...Ouch
You'll be pleased to know that the protest I, doctors and academics and ordinary people went on, the kettling I went through so your parents, mine, your child, mine, you, me could have a free National Health Service as long as we live made no difference at all to the outcome of the "Health and Social Care Bill". See, no mention of the word "National." You're paying now love. Happy?
The bill was voted down by 354 to 220 by the House of Lords so will go back to the House of Commons to the glee of our ruling Tory Party, I mean Coalition.
"Critics of the Bill say it paves the way for profit-making private firms - or "Any Qualified Providers" - to bid for every section of the NHS from the hospital casualty units to physiotherapy. Crucially, it means GPs deciding what gets funded and, in turn, lead to patient care decisions being based on cost the the first time in the history of the NHS." (P.2 Camden New Journal)
There are 1000's of people who are feeling disappointed today. Angry.
Is there any point? Is there any point protesting? Our leaders don't listen to us, our leaders don't care for your point of view if it doesn't match their own. Our leaders will do what they like.
Martyrs to the cause we're becoming aren't we?
Egypt, Libya, Syria, Greece
Did you know the Americans have occupied Wall Street? Yeah! Banners and flags peacefully highlighting the inequality and greed that's so pervasive in our societies. You'd be forgiven for not knowing because it's hardly been reported in the press.
There is a point to protesting. Of course there is a point.
Dave said he'd LEAVE THE NHS ALONE. There is NO MANDATE for this destruction.
Will you only see it when your local hospital is closed?
Will you care then?
http://occupywallst.org/
The bill was voted down by 354 to 220 by the House of Lords so will go back to the House of Commons to the glee of our ruling Tory Party, I mean Coalition.
"Critics of the Bill say it paves the way for profit-making private firms - or "Any Qualified Providers" - to bid for every section of the NHS from the hospital casualty units to physiotherapy. Crucially, it means GPs deciding what gets funded and, in turn, lead to patient care decisions being based on cost the the first time in the history of the NHS." (P.2 Camden New Journal)
There are 1000's of people who are feeling disappointed today. Angry.
Is there any point? Is there any point protesting? Our leaders don't listen to us, our leaders don't care for your point of view if it doesn't match their own. Our leaders will do what they like.
Martyrs to the cause we're becoming aren't we?
Egypt, Libya, Syria, Greece
Did you know the Americans have occupied Wall Street? Yeah! Banners and flags peacefully highlighting the inequality and greed that's so pervasive in our societies. You'd be forgiven for not knowing because it's hardly been reported in the press.
There is a point to protesting. Of course there is a point.
Dave said he'd LEAVE THE NHS ALONE. There is NO MANDATE for this destruction.
Will you only see it when your local hospital is closed?
Will you care then?
http://occupywallst.org/
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
I won £25 in a competition!!
On Monday morning I spied a white envelope by the front door with my name written on it by hand. "Ooh, who's this?"
Inside was a cheque for £25 payable to me!! OH the draught!!!!
A note!
Hello [Stigmum]
Congratulations for your tip here is your cheque from [Travel Company]
Regards
Lovely handwriting!!
£25!!!! Like winning the lottery! Camelot's never blown in that much for me!
And for a tip!
What tip?!
When?
I shall end my day's blogging with this post. I have to sign on tomorrow, demonstrate I've been looking for work....
It's a challenge blogging sometimes because I have positioned myself as someone harshly judged by society so feel I must tell what that life is like..on benefits..statutorily homeless..
American Resident got me thinking about that last night with a great post asking if Pioneer Woman is the most amazing blogger ever
I'll leave therefore on a postive note, in the hope of more positive things will come to me.. but really must get on and apply for something now or risk my benefits being taken off me...
£25!! For a tip!!
Oh yeah baby!!
Inside was a cheque for £25 payable to me!! OH the draught!!!!
A note!
Hello [Stigmum]
Congratulations for your tip here is your cheque from [Travel Company]
Regards
Lovely handwriting!!
£25!!!! Like winning the lottery! Camelot's never blown in that much for me!
And for a tip!
What tip?!
When?
I shall end my day's blogging with this post. I have to sign on tomorrow, demonstrate I've been looking for work....
It's a challenge blogging sometimes because I have positioned myself as someone harshly judged by society so feel I must tell what that life is like..on benefits..statutorily homeless..
American Resident got me thinking about that last night with a great post asking if Pioneer Woman is the most amazing blogger ever
I'll leave therefore on a postive note, in the hope of more positive things will come to me.. but really must get on and apply for something now or risk my benefits being taken off me...
£25!! For a tip!!
Oh yeah baby!!
How to deal with bad dreams and nightmares
I shall proceed to tell you about how I have dealt with my rabid dog nightmares because it is a fresh example.
If you have malevolent dreams, or pictures in your mind (like last year during my 'bodyquake' I saw images of women being burnt at the stake and all sorts of nasty things) then the best thing to do, in my opinion, is shine a light on it.
Now JK Rowling, through Harry Potter, describes the Patronus. A white light and positive energy that beamed from Harry's wand into the shape of a stag.
Maybe you haven't read Harry Potter or seen the films so you don't know what I'm talking about, which is fine!
Sunday night I had my nightmare. Monday night it came back. I lifted my palm to the dog and imagined that white light was beaming from it, from me.
Yesterday the creature appeared in my daydreams and I'd blast it again with my light.
This morning, like now I'm writing about it, the dog's turning away from me. It's power has gone. I'm getting better with this Light thing!
I hope the dream stays away!
Light. Imagine light. Always LIGHT to get rid of nightmares and I'm guessing dark spirits as well (not that I want to experience that either)
BUILD YOUR STRENGTH.
Sticks and stones may break your bones
Your soul will never leave you.
USE ITS LIGHT
You know, I might tell my son what I've told you. He gets bad dreams.
"You were in it mummy, you were the bad person, you were the lion wanting to eat me up! I couldn't call you!"
Sleep easy my son my sun, sleep easy all of you;)
If you have malevolent dreams, or pictures in your mind (like last year during my 'bodyquake' I saw images of women being burnt at the stake and all sorts of nasty things) then the best thing to do, in my opinion, is shine a light on it.
Now JK Rowling, through Harry Potter, describes the Patronus. A white light and positive energy that beamed from Harry's wand into the shape of a stag.
Maybe you haven't read Harry Potter or seen the films so you don't know what I'm talking about, which is fine!
Sunday night I had my nightmare. Monday night it came back. I lifted my palm to the dog and imagined that white light was beaming from it, from me.
Yesterday the creature appeared in my daydreams and I'd blast it again with my light.
This morning, like now I'm writing about it, the dog's turning away from me. It's power has gone. I'm getting better with this Light thing!
I hope the dream stays away!
Light. Imagine light. Always LIGHT to get rid of nightmares and I'm guessing dark spirits as well (not that I want to experience that either)
BUILD YOUR STRENGTH.
Sticks and stones may break your bones
Your soul will never leave you.
USE ITS LIGHT
You know, I might tell my son what I've told you. He gets bad dreams.
"You were in it mummy, you were the bad person, you were the lion wanting to eat me up! I couldn't call you!"
Sleep easy my son my sun, sleep easy all of you;)
Dreams of rabid dogs
Sunday night, a whole pack of black, rabid dogs, circling me, snarling, saliva dripping from their fangs. I was very, very frightened and they wouldn't go away.
The following day, I consulted my good pal Google and got this:
Unless it is a pet, a dog usually represents contention, offense,
or an unclean spirit. A rabid dog represents evil, contagious evil,
persecution, great danger. (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080812092801AAQ5q1u)
Monday afternoon I see my friend The Ed and he says "It's the police" and I'm like "Of course it is, doh!"
Monday night there's just one dog and soon after my alarm went off so that was alright.
Yesterday the dog just snarled into my mind at random moments, like when I was washing up.
Today I am eyeballing it and it turns away. Hopefully pretty soon it'll go altogether.
I'm so angry. This morning I was walking back from the school run and a fire engine was out on the street opposite the police station, infront of a cafe. I spoke to a guy in a regular suit and asked which building he'd come from. He pointed to the police station and I thought "Prick." (Heh heh and there was me last week saying I'd say Peace be with you to all my enemies!!!)
It's not funny. Politicians ask themselves why young people are so angry and it's really not difficult to figure out, particularly when bonds of trust have been broken.
The following day, I consulted my good pal Google and got this:
Unless it is a pet, a dog usually represents contention, offense,
or an unclean spirit. A rabid dog represents evil, contagious evil,
persecution, great danger. (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080812092801AAQ5q1u)
Monday afternoon I see my friend The Ed and he says "It's the police" and I'm like "Of course it is, doh!"
Monday night there's just one dog and soon after my alarm went off so that was alright.
Yesterday the dog just snarled into my mind at random moments, like when I was washing up.
Today I am eyeballing it and it turns away. Hopefully pretty soon it'll go altogether.
I'm so angry. This morning I was walking back from the school run and a fire engine was out on the street opposite the police station, infront of a cafe. I spoke to a guy in a regular suit and asked which building he'd come from. He pointed to the police station and I thought "Prick." (Heh heh and there was me last week saying I'd say Peace be with you to all my enemies!!!)
It's not funny. Politicians ask themselves why young people are so angry and it's really not difficult to figure out, particularly when bonds of trust have been broken.
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Release from detention
We are released one by one through a corridor of police, standing there with their flourescent jackets like air traffic controllers.
"All of them for just one of us!" I say to the good looking anarchist I'd been chatting to about the Holocaust earlier. "Who knew we are so powerful!!!"
We wait. We can just about see the person who went through infront of us, trying to shield their face.
My turn.
I walk zig zag past maybe five policemen and come to a group of about four of them, one of whom is holding a camera. A video camera?
I extend my palm out to its lens. It's symbolic. They can see me, they've got pictures of us all.
"If we're going to trade information can I have your names?"
"Yes. It's all here clearly labelled on our jackets."
Flash thought. I'll have to get my pencil out of my bag. A sharp instrument that.
"What's your name please?" asks the Filth. Because they are the filth at that moment. They aren't the copper. They aren't the bobby. They are the Other. The Oppressor. The Captor.
"Do I have to give it?" I ask, quietly I think.
"We'd prefer it if you did." (or something close to that)
"Do you mind if I don't give it to you... Today?"
"Why not?" I can feel them all looking at me.
"I just don't want to, that's all."
"Where do you live?"
"Why do you want to know that."
"So we can come and see you tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? What for?"
"To ask you for your name."
"I just told you, I don't want to give you my name."
"Don't let them intimidate you!" I look over the heads of my captors and see a young man, with shoulder length curls and a really gentle beautiful looking face.
"Don't let them intimidate you! They've managed to intimidate three people already. Just three, you don't have to tell them anything. Don't let them intimidate you!"
Do I smile? Or is it just my eyes that call out to him my thanks for his being so beautiful?
"Go with them please," says the Filth talking to me about two Others.
"Where am I going?"
"You can go now."
"Oh right, thanks."
Suddenly another one says to me, his notebook in hand. "The government has asked us to take note of who comes to these protests. Can you tell us your ethnicity?"
I scan down this list and see W1
Calender Girls!
Later I asked myself how come I was such a pushover all of a sudden.
"That one, White British. You know.. I was out there, we were out there looking out for your interests today."
"I know, we don't like doing this." At the time I shook my head thinking 'my arse.."
Then, and I just remembered this last night, talking to my friend, the Ed. One of them, blond starts saying something like "If you go on to join a protest or start a protest you will be arrested."
"Today?" I say somewhat confused.
"We are telling you that if you join a protest..."
"Yes, today?"
"Yes, if you join or start a protest today you will be arrested."
"I'm going home. I'm going home for a cup of tea. I was on my way home for a cup of tea when you stopped me."
And with that they let me go, and I quickened my pace up the way I had come and caught up with the Welsh crew ahead because they'd been so kind and so funny and I wanted to say thanks.
Tell you what though, the rabid dogs have not left my dreams yet.
Bastards.
Intimidate Provoke Oppress
Attack Occupy Resist.
They have the power to take everything but they cannot take our spirit. They cannot take our souls.
RIP to all those who die seeking fairness and justice for themselves and their fellow country men and women with special mention to the 26 Christian Greeks who were killed on Sunday whilst on a peaceful protest. (The Independent 11.10.11)
"All of them for just one of us!" I say to the good looking anarchist I'd been chatting to about the Holocaust earlier. "Who knew we are so powerful!!!"
We wait. We can just about see the person who went through infront of us, trying to shield their face.
My turn.
I walk zig zag past maybe five policemen and come to a group of about four of them, one of whom is holding a camera. A video camera?
I extend my palm out to its lens. It's symbolic. They can see me, they've got pictures of us all.
"If we're going to trade information can I have your names?"
"Yes. It's all here clearly labelled on our jackets."
Flash thought. I'll have to get my pencil out of my bag. A sharp instrument that.
"What's your name please?" asks the Filth. Because they are the filth at that moment. They aren't the copper. They aren't the bobby. They are the Other. The Oppressor. The Captor.
"Do I have to give it?" I ask, quietly I think.
"We'd prefer it if you did." (or something close to that)
"Do you mind if I don't give it to you... Today?"
"Why not?" I can feel them all looking at me.
"I just don't want to, that's all."
"Where do you live?"
"Why do you want to know that."
"So we can come and see you tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? What for?"
"To ask you for your name."
"I just told you, I don't want to give you my name."
"Don't let them intimidate you!" I look over the heads of my captors and see a young man, with shoulder length curls and a really gentle beautiful looking face.
"Don't let them intimidate you! They've managed to intimidate three people already. Just three, you don't have to tell them anything. Don't let them intimidate you!"
Do I smile? Or is it just my eyes that call out to him my thanks for his being so beautiful?
"Go with them please," says the Filth talking to me about two Others.
"Where am I going?"
"You can go now."
"Oh right, thanks."
Suddenly another one says to me, his notebook in hand. "The government has asked us to take note of who comes to these protests. Can you tell us your ethnicity?"
I scan down this list and see W1
Calender Girls!
Later I asked myself how come I was such a pushover all of a sudden.
"That one, White British. You know.. I was out there, we were out there looking out for your interests today."
"I know, we don't like doing this." At the time I shook my head thinking 'my arse.."
Then, and I just remembered this last night, talking to my friend, the Ed. One of them, blond starts saying something like "If you go on to join a protest or start a protest you will be arrested."
"Today?" I say somewhat confused.
"We are telling you that if you join a protest..."
"Yes, today?"
"Yes, if you join or start a protest today you will be arrested."
"I'm going home. I'm going home for a cup of tea. I was on my way home for a cup of tea when you stopped me."
And with that they let me go, and I quickened my pace up the way I had come and caught up with the Welsh crew ahead because they'd been so kind and so funny and I wanted to say thanks.
Tell you what though, the rabid dogs have not left my dreams yet.
Bastards.
Intimidate Provoke Oppress
Attack Occupy Resist.
They have the power to take everything but they cannot take our spirit. They cannot take our souls.
RIP to all those who die seeking fairness and justice for themselves and their fellow country men and women with special mention to the 26 Christian Greeks who were killed on Sunday whilst on a peaceful protest. (The Independent 11.10.11)
Stop and Search
"The police might want your name and address."
"Why?"
"To put on their database?"
"Why, I haven't done anything wrong."
"I'm just warning you that's all. It might happen, the terms of release."
"What if I don't give it?"
"They could take you down to the station to give it there."
"But we haven't done anything wrong, it's not fair."
"They might ask to see the contents of your bag"
"Can they do that?" Fuck yes, they can...
"Yeah, under section (16?)"
"They can look at mine if they like!" I say, heh heh, fuck my chest feels tight.
"Don't tell them that."
"No! Of course not!"
It's just I'm thinking.
My bag contains a copy of this month's Spirit and Destiny
and Philip Pullman's The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ.
Figuritively epeaking
Search me!
No, I know, not funny.
"Why?"
"To put on their database?"
"Why, I haven't done anything wrong."
"I'm just warning you that's all. It might happen, the terms of release."
"What if I don't give it?"
"They could take you down to the station to give it there."
"But we haven't done anything wrong, it's not fair."
"They might ask to see the contents of your bag"
"Can they do that?" Fuck yes, they can...
"Yeah, under section (16?)"
"They can look at mine if they like!" I say, heh heh, fuck my chest feels tight.
"Don't tell them that."
"No! Of course not!"
It's just I'm thinking.
My bag contains a copy of this month's Spirit and Destiny
and Philip Pullman's The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ.
Figuritively epeaking
Search me!
No, I know, not funny.
Hugh Laurie - dressed as a policeman?
I'm being kettled with about two or three dozen fellow protesters on Lambeth Bridge.
Police surround us, containing us in rows of two, three. Coppers everywhere you look.
Hang on, isn't that Hugh Laurie?
That is Hugh Laurie dressed up as a policeman!
What???!!!!
I'm not there with a friend so I tap a man next to me, a new friend, on the arm.
"Hugh Laurie's standing over there with a policeman's uniform on," I say giggling incredulously.
"What?" he says looking at me.
"Hugh Laurie, over there, look!"
"Oh yeah!" he agrees, laughing.
He turns to his friend: "There's a policeman over there, looks like Hugh Laurie!"
She laughs aswell!
Then someone says "Oh, I bet he gets ribbed about that alot at work."
Compassion? Do I hear compassion?
A compassionate anarchist?
Yes think of this next time you want to label a protester, next time you want to judge an anarchist in a scornful way believing us to be..what do you believe us to be actually?
John Lydon, of the Sex Pistols fame, once said an anarchist is someone who bends the rules, not breaks the rules.
No-one broke any rule on Sunday. Everyone was out speaking against cuts to the National Health Service, the Bill which is due to be read today.
Privatising the NHS, now that's against the rules. There is no mandate for what the Tories are trying to do.
Police surround us, containing us in rows of two, three. Coppers everywhere you look.
Hang on, isn't that Hugh Laurie?
That is Hugh Laurie dressed up as a policeman!
What???!!!!
I'm not there with a friend so I tap a man next to me, a new friend, on the arm.
"Hugh Laurie's standing over there with a policeman's uniform on," I say giggling incredulously.
"What?" he says looking at me.
"Hugh Laurie, over there, look!"
"Oh yeah!" he agrees, laughing.
He turns to his friend: "There's a policeman over there, looks like Hugh Laurie!"
She laughs aswell!
Then someone says "Oh, I bet he gets ribbed about that alot at work."
Compassion? Do I hear compassion?
A compassionate anarchist?
Yes think of this next time you want to label a protester, next time you want to judge an anarchist in a scornful way believing us to be..what do you believe us to be actually?
John Lydon, of the Sex Pistols fame, once said an anarchist is someone who bends the rules, not breaks the rules.
No-one broke any rule on Sunday. Everyone was out speaking against cuts to the National Health Service, the Bill which is due to be read today.
Privatising the NHS, now that's against the rules. There is no mandate for what the Tories are trying to do.
Unlawful imprisonment
I don't know how many we were being kettled but I'd say not many. I was never ever far from a policeman whereever I happened to be standing. They could hear every conversation and one was happily snap snap snapping his camera doing his little dance around our group.
I was with people who'd never been kettled before. A girl from America, another from Wales, possibly others, I didn't hear anybody talking of past experiences.
I'd hazard a guess that there were more police surrounding and containing us that there were of us.
Fortunately there were stewards in there who handed us Bust cards. In the event of being arrested to say "No Comment." There was a number for legal help on it too.
If they asked us for our names and addresses we might have to give it, we were told. Refusal to do so might see us arrested.
Under some act they had every right to stop and search us.
I don't know what I was feeling because I was feeling EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE.
Bewildered, anxious, worried that I might not be back home in time for when my son came back from his dad's.
Thank God, really truly, that the guy with the guitar and harmonica were in there with us.
He bends down, opens his case and removes his instrument.
Some of the crowd start singing Python's "Always look on the bright side of life" and our guitar man joins in and knows all the verses too!
His friends then tell him to play the song we'd all joined in with on the comedy patch.
Strike Occupy Resist!
There was something most surreal and abit scary cheeky defiance singing this while illegally detained so close to the police you could almost hear them breath:
Intimidate Provoke Oppress
Soon after we were told that we would be released. I smiled at the guitar man: "Your playing secured that for us. Thank you!"
Here, have a listen. Imagine you are hearing it live, join in at the chorus!
Picket Line Party by CosmoInnit
Thank you for all of you in there that made the hour (or more?) pass less fearfully that it otherwise could have done.
No thanks, none, to the police.
What they did and what they put us through was totally and utterly unnecessary.
At the same time as we were being kettled 26 civilians were being killed by the military while out on their peaceful protest in Greece.
Intimidate Provoke Oppress
FILTH.
I was with people who'd never been kettled before. A girl from America, another from Wales, possibly others, I didn't hear anybody talking of past experiences.
I'd hazard a guess that there were more police surrounding and containing us that there were of us.
Fortunately there were stewards in there who handed us Bust cards. In the event of being arrested to say "No Comment." There was a number for legal help on it too.
If they asked us for our names and addresses we might have to give it, we were told. Refusal to do so might see us arrested.
Under some act they had every right to stop and search us.
I don't know what I was feeling because I was feeling EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE.
Bewildered, anxious, worried that I might not be back home in time for when my son came back from his dad's.
Thank God, really truly, that the guy with the guitar and harmonica were in there with us.
He bends down, opens his case and removes his instrument.
Some of the crowd start singing Python's "Always look on the bright side of life" and our guitar man joins in and knows all the verses too!
His friends then tell him to play the song we'd all joined in with on the comedy patch.
Strike Occupy Resist!
There was something most surreal and abit scary cheeky defiance singing this while illegally detained so close to the police you could almost hear them breath:
Intimidate Provoke Oppress
Soon after we were told that we would be released. I smiled at the guitar man: "Your playing secured that for us. Thank you!"
Here, have a listen. Imagine you are hearing it live, join in at the chorus!
Picket Line Party by CosmoInnit
Thank you for all of you in there that made the hour (or more?) pass less fearfully that it otherwise could have done.
No thanks, none, to the police.
What they did and what they put us through was totally and utterly unnecessary.
At the same time as we were being kettled 26 civilians were being killed by the military while out on their peaceful protest in Greece.
Intimidate Provoke Oppress
FILTH.
Heading home after peaceful protest
We were all told to leave Westminster Bridge by the south end and turn right.
I heard that. Clearly.
The north end there was the wall of police I'd seen when I arrived but don't know why we couldn't leave that end. Hardly matters I suppose.
I was walking towards Lambeth Bridge vaguely asking myself where I was going. I fancied stopping at the Riverside Cafe for a cup of tea but figured I'd get a free one when I got home.
I'm walking over Lambeth Bridge and at the end see police vans but also see the guitar and harmonica player who'd done a set of funny protest songs on the comedy patch on Westminster Bridge. I go over to say thanks, he was really good! He thanks me for the compliment!
I ask him what all the police vans are doing there without questioning why he and everyone else aren't actually walking anymore.
I see a line of police in their flourescent yellow jackets walk past us and again think nothing.
Then I hear this kind of shout and the police have grabbed one another and encircled us, the force of which made me wobble a bit on my feet, made my body sway.
"This is unlawful imprisonment," someone shouts.
I feel my chest tighten and tell myself not to panic. It wouldn't do to panic.
I hear a guy say: "Let's play tag, you're it!"
"You're it!"
"It!"
and laugh.
A little later I tell a young guy (really good looking actually!) that I got free tickets through Seefilmfirst to go and see an opera called The Passenger on friday night. It's the story of an German SS officer who is on a cruise ship who sees one of her ex prisoner's from Auschwitz.
"My brother wanted to leave at the interval," I tell this boy. "But I told him we should stay to see the rest because stories like that are still relevant today, people around the world are still being oppressed, perhaps not to the same extent but..."
"It's important to feel it," says the guy.
"Hmmm," I say because if I was anywhere else I might say yes
but in a police kettle I am feeling it.
Maybe I should've stopped for that cup of tea?
Maybe it was right I should experience it?
Somebody told me this morning that kettlingpeople is illegal. If it isn't, it should be.
Here's a friend's experience. She occupied Fortnum and Mason's in a peaceful protest and wasn't allowed home at all:
http://ladieswotlunch.posterous.com/i-am-sparticus
I heard that. Clearly.
The north end there was the wall of police I'd seen when I arrived but don't know why we couldn't leave that end. Hardly matters I suppose.
I was walking towards Lambeth Bridge vaguely asking myself where I was going. I fancied stopping at the Riverside Cafe for a cup of tea but figured I'd get a free one when I got home.
I'm walking over Lambeth Bridge and at the end see police vans but also see the guitar and harmonica player who'd done a set of funny protest songs on the comedy patch on Westminster Bridge. I go over to say thanks, he was really good! He thanks me for the compliment!
I ask him what all the police vans are doing there without questioning why he and everyone else aren't actually walking anymore.
I see a line of police in their flourescent yellow jackets walk past us and again think nothing.
Then I hear this kind of shout and the police have grabbed one another and encircled us, the force of which made me wobble a bit on my feet, made my body sway.
"This is unlawful imprisonment," someone shouts.
I feel my chest tighten and tell myself not to panic. It wouldn't do to panic.
I hear a guy say: "Let's play tag, you're it!"
"You're it!"
"It!"
and laugh.
A little later I tell a young guy (really good looking actually!) that I got free tickets through Seefilmfirst to go and see an opera called The Passenger on friday night. It's the story of an German SS officer who is on a cruise ship who sees one of her ex prisoner's from Auschwitz.
"My brother wanted to leave at the interval," I tell this boy. "But I told him we should stay to see the rest because stories like that are still relevant today, people around the world are still being oppressed, perhaps not to the same extent but..."
"It's important to feel it," says the guy.
"Hmmm," I say because if I was anywhere else I might say yes
but in a police kettle I am feeling it.
Maybe I should've stopped for that cup of tea?
Maybe it was right I should experience it?
Somebody told me this morning that kettlingpeople is illegal. If it isn't, it should be.
Here's a friend's experience. She occupied Fortnum and Mason's in a peaceful protest and wasn't allowed home at all:
http://ladieswotlunch.posterous.com/i-am-sparticus
Monday, 10 October 2011
Atmosphere at the Block the Bill Save the NHS demo
To the tune of Daisy Daisy - Words by Shirley Murgraff OAP - Everyone, with your hymn sheets, singalong!
Lords and Ladies we how have to look to you
The Other Place claims a mandate but we all knew that's not true
They'd only a shotgun marriage, and they're doing so much damage,
That we have the right and must use our might
To get rid of their ghastly stew
So Lords and Ladies now you must play your part
You know the NHS is so close ot our people's heart,
It must not be run for profit, Greedy paws must be kept off it
So kill the bill that will make us all ill
And give back what was ours from the start.
To the tune of "John Brown's Body"
Words also by Shirley Murgraff OAP
They want the NHS to lie a-mouldering in the grave,
But we are here to tell them that the NHS we'll save
And anyone who thinks differetn's either foolish or a knave
'cos we're not going to let them get away with that.
Chorus:
Our public NHS forever,
Their life support machine we'll sever
Private heatlth care no way never
'Cos we're not going to let them get away with that
They say they've got a mandate and that's the biggest lie of all,
And their lies they keep on growing and their stories get more tall
But we're here to tell them that they're riding for a fall
And on their backsides they'll be falling very flat.
There was also comedy from Josie Long and others I didn't catch the name.
Peaceful protest is honestly so much fun and so life affirming!
Do go along to UK Uncut protests because they are so imaginative and so much fun!
Mind you, shouldn't say that really. If our Leaders think we're happy they'll really stick the boot in...
Oh, everyone was really angry and pissed off
Which they were as it happens which made the comedy so sharp!
Lords and Ladies we how have to look to you
The Other Place claims a mandate but we all knew that's not true
They'd only a shotgun marriage, and they're doing so much damage,
That we have the right and must use our might
To get rid of their ghastly stew
So Lords and Ladies now you must play your part
You know the NHS is so close ot our people's heart,
It must not be run for profit, Greedy paws must be kept off it
So kill the bill that will make us all ill
And give back what was ours from the start.
To the tune of "John Brown's Body"
Words also by Shirley Murgraff OAP
They want the NHS to lie a-mouldering in the grave,
But we are here to tell them that the NHS we'll save
And anyone who thinks differetn's either foolish or a knave
'cos we're not going to let them get away with that.
Chorus:
Our public NHS forever,
Their life support machine we'll sever
Private heatlth care no way never
'Cos we're not going to let them get away with that
They say they've got a mandate and that's the biggest lie of all,
And their lies they keep on growing and their stories get more tall
But we're here to tell them that they're riding for a fall
And on their backsides they'll be falling very flat.
There was also comedy from Josie Long and others I didn't catch the name.
Peaceful protest is honestly so much fun and so life affirming!
Do go along to UK Uncut protests because they are so imaginative and so much fun!
Mind you, shouldn't say that really. If our Leaders think we're happy they'll really stick the boot in...
Oh, everyone was really angry and pissed off
Which they were as it happens which made the comedy so sharp!
Block the Bill demo - Sunday 9th Oct
From the flyer handed out at the Block The Bill protest yesterday:
BLOCK THE BRIDGE
BLOCK THE BILL
THIS IS OUR LAST CHANCE TO SAVE THE NHS
THE GOVERNMENT'S HEALTH BILL WILL
End of Universal Healthcare
No Mandate
No-one voted for this bill, and the government refuses to listen; the vast majority of doctors and nurses hate it, and ordinary patients stand to suffer. Those benefiting are American-style private healthcare firms, who have spent millions lobbying the government.
The NHS is a cornerstone of our society and an institution we should defend proudly
UK Uncut is a national network of people fighting the government cuts.
Austerity economics is the policy of the rich and powerful. It cannot be stopped by asking nicely. We cannot wait until the next election. We must take to the streets now and make our voices heard.
The brilliant day can be seen in pictures here:
http://storyful.com/stories/1000009328
(Sorry you have to cut and paste it, that it doesn't lead you straight there. Come next time!)
BLOCK THE BRIDGE
BLOCK THE BILL
THIS IS OUR LAST CHANCE TO SAVE THE NHS
THE GOVERNMENT'S HEALTH BILL WILL
- UNDERMINE UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE
- ALLOW PRIVATE COMPANIES TO PROFIT OFF YOUR HEALTHCARE NEEDS
- FORCE CUTS TO VITAL HEALTH SERVICES
End of Universal Healthcare
No Mandate
No-one voted for this bill, and the government refuses to listen; the vast majority of doctors and nurses hate it, and ordinary patients stand to suffer. Those benefiting are American-style private healthcare firms, who have spent millions lobbying the government.
The NHS is a cornerstone of our society and an institution we should defend proudly
UK Uncut is a national network of people fighting the government cuts.
Austerity economics is the policy of the rich and powerful. It cannot be stopped by asking nicely. We cannot wait until the next election. We must take to the streets now and make our voices heard.
The brilliant day can be seen in pictures here:
http://storyful.com/stories/1000009328
(Sorry you have to cut and paste it, that it doesn't lead you straight there. Come next time!)
Where else have I got to go?
A lovely day Saturday. I kept bumping into people I've known in the past.
One of them was Mr Grey from Papier Mache Towers. He who told me to write a letter of appeal which had no effect (but he knows I was raped in the past from that letter and I didn't like that once he knew)
Anyway, as you know, he nor anyone else had any power to stop my eviction or help me into a secure council flat.
"How are you?" he says to me as I run into him on the High Street. "Good!" (I was feeling good, I wanted to buy a see through shirt to go with a skirt I've never worn and found one in Help the Aged for £2.99!) Then of course I remembered how he knew me and told him that other than that things were shit..Expensive rent, fired from jobs, signing on to jobseekers..
"So I've decided to follow a spiritual path!"
He takes a step back as he absorbs this information and appears lost for words.
"Well where else have I got to go? I've been to shrinks, if I go again they won't help and they'll just tell me to bog off or take drugs. It's suicide dreams or spirituality. I'm gonna give it a go!"
He smiled at that. We chatted a bit more then he shook my hand when it was the moment to go, which was, well, strange because I've never shaken his hand before!
I realised later as well that I became spiritual years and years ago after trying and failing to become an athiest. Maybe I'm just coming out now. I don't know, because I came out to my followers here a couple of years ago I think, embarrassed to tell you all that I pray.
Last night I had a dream that a rabid dog was threatening to attack me. Saliva was dripping off its fangs, it looked really menacing, its eyes boring into me and I woke up really scared.
See, it's spirituality or shit like that.
What have I got to lose?
What have you for that matter?
It is good that we have free will and can choose isn't it
With God that is
Not the fecking State....
I'll leave it there!
One of them was Mr Grey from Papier Mache Towers. He who told me to write a letter of appeal which had no effect (but he knows I was raped in the past from that letter and I didn't like that once he knew)
Anyway, as you know, he nor anyone else had any power to stop my eviction or help me into a secure council flat.
"How are you?" he says to me as I run into him on the High Street. "Good!" (I was feeling good, I wanted to buy a see through shirt to go with a skirt I've never worn and found one in Help the Aged for £2.99!) Then of course I remembered how he knew me and told him that other than that things were shit..Expensive rent, fired from jobs, signing on to jobseekers..
"So I've decided to follow a spiritual path!"
He takes a step back as he absorbs this information and appears lost for words.
"Well where else have I got to go? I've been to shrinks, if I go again they won't help and they'll just tell me to bog off or take drugs. It's suicide dreams or spirituality. I'm gonna give it a go!"
He smiled at that. We chatted a bit more then he shook my hand when it was the moment to go, which was, well, strange because I've never shaken his hand before!
I realised later as well that I became spiritual years and years ago after trying and failing to become an athiest. Maybe I'm just coming out now. I don't know, because I came out to my followers here a couple of years ago I think, embarrassed to tell you all that I pray.
Last night I had a dream that a rabid dog was threatening to attack me. Saliva was dripping off its fangs, it looked really menacing, its eyes boring into me and I woke up really scared.
See, it's spirituality or shit like that.
What have I got to lose?
What have you for that matter?
It is good that we have free will and can choose isn't it
With God that is
Not the fecking State....
I'll leave it there!
Friday, 7 October 2011
Who's afraid of the big good God?
Me actually
No, not really
Well yes, yes I am
I am afraid of myself
That's ok though. After all, who isn't afraid of being happy, joyful, positive thinking, all that good stuff?
I have failed to sustain my good feelings from monday's seminar, from before monday's seminar actually, I've had good feelings since my son's birthday. Fragile at first but getting stronger every day.
Then suddenly, boof, the bubble bursts and I can't laugh at my 'Oh the draught' as my debt gets higher and higher. I am still paying my electricity charge at £40 a week and it was cold last night and I'm afraid now at how expensive the winter will be if last winter cost me £600 for three months with those fucking storage heaters. Excuse my language. I know this is happening to alot of us.
I'm in arrears with my son's piano lessons and I get a concession. If I pay it off £20 a week over a month that means £60 is coming out of my account each week when my jobseekers allowance is £65. I'm lucky I can live on tax credits and child benefit but that doesn't cover...
God is in all of us.
It is worth believing that because God is light and love
and those of us with tough lives have to lighten up and love ourselves a little. Love ourselves alot really but some of us can only manage a little and that's ok to be going on with.
We all have an inner voice buried deep beneath some shite of self castigation and worries about tomorrow and general unhappiness and self judgment.
Sometimes when you feel really shit is when you find that God in you
It's when you find YourSelf
Other people don't have to feel really shit in order to feel that deep down they're ok really. Their deep down feeling has risen to the fore and they live their okness and their brilliance, and their superness, and their greatness, because that's what ok is, everyday.
I don't want to start banging on about God because it annoys me when other people do
Why does it annoy me when other people do?
Maybe I'm denying myself all those lovely feelings by thinking bills and homelessness and jobseekers and shit.
I am going to forget about all that and I am going to follow God
Which is to say that I am going to follow Me
Like you follow You or should if you're not already following yourself.
I've asked Stiggers why I have to write shite like this
and it's because it's not easy in this world to say you believe in God
because then you have to live It
I guess this post is for people who struggle
I want to say it's hard to go from living in one way to another
but I know it's really easy.
You just need to
Live
Now
Just like all the books and teachings say.
Live Now
Be aware of yourself Now
Good luck!
Right, I'm off to lighten up!!
Breathe
(oh, and I don't like the death and dying website I gave you in an earlier post but I won't delete it from there just incase you might!)
No, not really
Well yes, yes I am
I am afraid of myself
That's ok though. After all, who isn't afraid of being happy, joyful, positive thinking, all that good stuff?
I have failed to sustain my good feelings from monday's seminar, from before monday's seminar actually, I've had good feelings since my son's birthday. Fragile at first but getting stronger every day.
Then suddenly, boof, the bubble bursts and I can't laugh at my 'Oh the draught' as my debt gets higher and higher. I am still paying my electricity charge at £40 a week and it was cold last night and I'm afraid now at how expensive the winter will be if last winter cost me £600 for three months with those fucking storage heaters. Excuse my language. I know this is happening to alot of us.
I'm in arrears with my son's piano lessons and I get a concession. If I pay it off £20 a week over a month that means £60 is coming out of my account each week when my jobseekers allowance is £65. I'm lucky I can live on tax credits and child benefit but that doesn't cover...
God is in all of us.
It is worth believing that because God is light and love
and those of us with tough lives have to lighten up and love ourselves a little. Love ourselves alot really but some of us can only manage a little and that's ok to be going on with.
We all have an inner voice buried deep beneath some shite of self castigation and worries about tomorrow and general unhappiness and self judgment.
Sometimes when you feel really shit is when you find that God in you
It's when you find YourSelf
Other people don't have to feel really shit in order to feel that deep down they're ok really. Their deep down feeling has risen to the fore and they live their okness and their brilliance, and their superness, and their greatness, because that's what ok is, everyday.
I don't want to start banging on about God because it annoys me when other people do
Why does it annoy me when other people do?
Maybe I'm denying myself all those lovely feelings by thinking bills and homelessness and jobseekers and shit.
I am going to forget about all that and I am going to follow God
Which is to say that I am going to follow Me
Like you follow You or should if you're not already following yourself.
I've asked Stiggers why I have to write shite like this
and it's because it's not easy in this world to say you believe in God
because then you have to live It
I guess this post is for people who struggle
I want to say it's hard to go from living in one way to another
but I know it's really easy.
You just need to
Live
Now
Just like all the books and teachings say.
Live Now
Be aware of yourself Now
Good luck!
Right, I'm off to lighten up!!
Breathe
(oh, and I don't like the death and dying website I gave you in an earlier post but I won't delete it from there just incase you might!)
To be pro-Choice and pro-Life
A couple of weeks ago while I was doing the Dream Job I had a dream.
I was walking along an edge and next to me at head level moving along at my pace was a noose.
I looked at it, felt no desire to grab it and shove my head in it and thought "No."
Then I woke up.
It was a good dream. Ordinarily I happily put my head in the noose then see my son and pull my head out again.
I told the girl at the seminar about it. Crazy how you can go so deep into a conversation with someone within minutes of meeting them.
"I'm pr0-choice," I told her, smiling. "Babies who aren't here yet I'm pro-choice but for those of us who are here I am pro-life. I won't kill myself.
My suicide dreams are always nooses.
On the news last night we were told 2000 people at the BBC are going to be made redundant. Two million unemployed and all us parents being shifted to sign on every two weeks for jobs that are scarce or non-existant. "It's so demeaning," said Mistress Ha Ha this morning. I heard another woman in (mum's gone to) Iceland saying to the cashier: "I've been trying to work on my cv and it's so hard I've given up."
Don't give up.
Don't hang yourselves those of you who feel you can't go on
HANG ON
Take each moment at a time
Hold your hand
Breathe
I was walking along an edge and next to me at head level moving along at my pace was a noose.
I looked at it, felt no desire to grab it and shove my head in it and thought "No."
Then I woke up.
It was a good dream. Ordinarily I happily put my head in the noose then see my son and pull my head out again.
I told the girl at the seminar about it. Crazy how you can go so deep into a conversation with someone within minutes of meeting them.
"I'm pr0-choice," I told her, smiling. "Babies who aren't here yet I'm pro-choice but for those of us who are here I am pro-life. I won't kill myself.
My suicide dreams are always nooses.
On the news last night we were told 2000 people at the BBC are going to be made redundant. Two million unemployed and all us parents being shifted to sign on every two weeks for jobs that are scarce or non-existant. "It's so demeaning," said Mistress Ha Ha this morning. I heard another woman in (mum's gone to) Iceland saying to the cashier: "I've been trying to work on my cv and it's so hard I've given up."
Don't give up.
Don't hang yourselves those of you who feel you can't go on
HANG ON
Take each moment at a time
Hold your hand
Breathe
"She didn't die"
One of the first questions from the audience at Monday's Lorna Byrne seminar was from a woman who's mother had a heart attack and died on the operating table. She died for some minutes and came back.
The woman said she'd heard of people who had died who'd seen a white light before they returned but her mother had seen nothing. What did it mean?
"She didn't die then," said Lorna. "The doctors were wrong."
My response was to laugh quite nervously. I could hear noise, confusion, then Lorna said: "No, God didn't show her this time." She did that a few times in the evening, stop while she was speaking as though she was listening to someone.
(Seeing nothing goes against everything that she herself has seen and takes for granted because she's always seen.)
It's a pity I wasn't sat next to the woman who's mother had died and come back because I'd have asked her about it (curious soul me). I'd have asked something like: "Did she remember being dead? Did she even know she was?"
I am strangely comforted though. I told my son that death was like sleep that you sleep when you don't know you're sleeping. Nothing.
Now Lorna is telling us there is a heaven which is this incredible place where you feel a love beyond any love you've ever felt before, where people who have been there, do not want to return here.
I can't imagine it. Or rather I can imagine it but I can't imagine sustaining such a glorious feeling of all encompassing love for all of eternity.
Wouldn't one get tired?
I hope the mother who died and came back doesn't feel frightened that she didn't see what others claim to see. Takes comfort instead that she didn't know she'd died and didn't think she was alive while she was dead.
There's a book about death and dying but I can't remember who wrote it (it's suggested reading at the back of the Barbel Mohr book and girl next to me at the seminar was reading it, and raved about it as she was trying to come to terms with her grandmother's death.). I just went to google to see if it came up and I got a website link. I'm going to leave the death thing for now though as I don't want to think about it but you might want to and that's ok!
http://death-and-dying.org/
(Grrr. I'm really annoyed because I changed my browser to Firefox when I was doing the Dream Job but now every link I put for you on here doesn't lead you to the site. You have to copy and paste it. Sorry about that! Hopefully I'll figure how to get things back to normal soon!)
The woman said she'd heard of people who had died who'd seen a white light before they returned but her mother had seen nothing. What did it mean?
"She didn't die then," said Lorna. "The doctors were wrong."
My response was to laugh quite nervously. I could hear noise, confusion, then Lorna said: "No, God didn't show her this time." She did that a few times in the evening, stop while she was speaking as though she was listening to someone.
(Seeing nothing goes against everything that she herself has seen and takes for granted because she's always seen.)
It's a pity I wasn't sat next to the woman who's mother had died and come back because I'd have asked her about it (curious soul me). I'd have asked something like: "Did she remember being dead? Did she even know she was?"
I am strangely comforted though. I told my son that death was like sleep that you sleep when you don't know you're sleeping. Nothing.
Now Lorna is telling us there is a heaven which is this incredible place where you feel a love beyond any love you've ever felt before, where people who have been there, do not want to return here.
I can't imagine it. Or rather I can imagine it but I can't imagine sustaining such a glorious feeling of all encompassing love for all of eternity.
Wouldn't one get tired?
I hope the mother who died and came back doesn't feel frightened that she didn't see what others claim to see. Takes comfort instead that she didn't know she'd died and didn't think she was alive while she was dead.
There's a book about death and dying but I can't remember who wrote it (it's suggested reading at the back of the Barbel Mohr book and girl next to me at the seminar was reading it, and raved about it as she was trying to come to terms with her grandmother's death.). I just went to google to see if it came up and I got a website link. I'm going to leave the death thing for now though as I don't want to think about it but you might want to and that's ok!
http://death-and-dying.org/
(Grrr. I'm really annoyed because I changed my browser to Firefox when I was doing the Dream Job but now every link I put for you on here doesn't lead you to the site. You have to copy and paste it. Sorry about that! Hopefully I'll figure how to get things back to normal soon!)
Thursday, 6 October 2011
The Fear of going to hell
I want to quote for you a passage from Conversations With God. The guy Neale Donald Walsh would write ranting letters to people whenever they upset him and one day he wrote a ranting letter to God and when he finished his hand kept going. It's an awesome book.
I'm quoting the bit I'm quoting because Lorna Byrne (I know, I'm going on aren't I? I'm probably not going to stop either) said she'd been shown two outcomes of our planet. One of total destruction and one of unity and peace. Both are attainable and we all know that it's not looking too good at the moment.
Anyway, it's chapter 4 and in the previous chapter Neale asked God what hell was.
"The big worry is that somehow we'll mess up and not get to ever see You, be with You."
"You mean "get to heaven"?"
"Yes. We're all afraid of going to hell."
"So you've placed yourself there to begin with in order to avoid going there. Hmmmm. Interesting strategy."
"There You are, being flip again."
"I can't help it. This whole hell thing brings out the worst in Me!"
"Good grief, You're a regular comedian."
"It took you this long to find that out? You looked the world lately?"
"Which brings me to another question. Why don't You fix the world, instead of allowing it to go to hell?"
"Why don't you?"
"I don't have the power."
"Nonsense. You've the power and the ability right now to end world hunger this minute, to cure diseases this instant. What if I told you your own medical profession holds back cures, refuses to approve alternative medecines and procedures because they threaten the very structure of the "healing" profession? What if I told you that the governments of the world do not want to end world hunger? Would you believe me?"
(Page 89. Don't be afraid of this book!)
Oh and read this which a friend wrote. A truly excellent blog:
http://www.thewritefuture.com/the-write-future/2011/10/eat-andor-die.html
I'm quoting the bit I'm quoting because Lorna Byrne (I know, I'm going on aren't I? I'm probably not going to stop either) said she'd been shown two outcomes of our planet. One of total destruction and one of unity and peace. Both are attainable and we all know that it's not looking too good at the moment.
Anyway, it's chapter 4 and in the previous chapter Neale asked God what hell was.
"The big worry is that somehow we'll mess up and not get to ever see You, be with You."
"You mean "get to heaven"?"
"Yes. We're all afraid of going to hell."
"So you've placed yourself there to begin with in order to avoid going there. Hmmmm. Interesting strategy."
"There You are, being flip again."
"I can't help it. This whole hell thing brings out the worst in Me!"
"Good grief, You're a regular comedian."
"It took you this long to find that out? You looked the world lately?"
"Which brings me to another question. Why don't You fix the world, instead of allowing it to go to hell?"
"Why don't you?"
"I don't have the power."
"Nonsense. You've the power and the ability right now to end world hunger this minute, to cure diseases this instant. What if I told you your own medical profession holds back cures, refuses to approve alternative medecines and procedures because they threaten the very structure of the "healing" profession? What if I told you that the governments of the world do not want to end world hunger? Would you believe me?"
(Page 89. Don't be afraid of this book!)
Oh and read this which a friend wrote. A truly excellent blog:
http://www.thewritefuture.com/the-write-future/2011/10/eat-andor-die.html
Seek an answer, you will find it
What is hell and who goes?
My burning question to Lorna Byrne which the Universe heard loud and clear because the book I am reading at the moment is called "Conversations With God Book One" and the guy, Neale Donald Walsch asks God "What is hell?" and God says: "It is the experience of the worst possible outcomes of your choices. It is the natural consequence of any thought which denies Me, or says no to Who You Are in relation to Me." He (God) then goes on to say: "Yet even this experience is never eternal . It cannot be, for it is not My plan that you should be separated from me forever and ever." (That's a relief then!)
So Neale asks: "But if there's no hell, does that mean I can do what I want, act as I wish, commit any act, without fear of retribution?" which I will have to read again as I'm reading "Must you be threatened in order to "be good"?... You are your own rule-maker..."
Adolf Hitler went to heaven. God tells Neale. I was like whhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?????
I'm glad I've been led to this book because it's really good!! Barbel Mohr quotes from it at the end of her Cosmic Ordering book and the woman next to me at the Byrne seminar recommended it as well.
She was funny. She said "Because you've recommended some books to me, I'll recommend some to you" (which was funny because that's not why I told her about the books that I did). She mentioned Conversation with God then asked if I'd read Women Who Run With The Wolves. "It's my bible!" I said and she laughed: "Me too!"
If you have a question, especially about yourself, you will find the answer or the answer will find you and it's surprising how quickly!
My burning question to Lorna Byrne which the Universe heard loud and clear because the book I am reading at the moment is called "Conversations With God Book One" and the guy, Neale Donald Walsch asks God "What is hell?" and God says: "It is the experience of the worst possible outcomes of your choices. It is the natural consequence of any thought which denies Me, or says no to Who You Are in relation to Me." He (God) then goes on to say: "Yet even this experience is never eternal . It cannot be, for it is not My plan that you should be separated from me forever and ever." (That's a relief then!)
So Neale asks: "But if there's no hell, does that mean I can do what I want, act as I wish, commit any act, without fear of retribution?" which I will have to read again as I'm reading "Must you be threatened in order to "be good"?... You are your own rule-maker..."
Adolf Hitler went to heaven. God tells Neale. I was like whhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?????
I'm glad I've been led to this book because it's really good!! Barbel Mohr quotes from it at the end of her Cosmic Ordering book and the woman next to me at the Byrne seminar recommended it as well.
She was funny. She said "Because you've recommended some books to me, I'll recommend some to you" (which was funny because that's not why I told her about the books that I did). She mentioned Conversation with God then asked if I'd read Women Who Run With The Wolves. "It's my bible!" I said and she laughed: "Me too!"
If you have a question, especially about yourself, you will find the answer or the answer will find you and it's surprising how quickly!
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
Heaven and Hell
The question I didn't get to ask Lorna Byrne on Monday was:
"If the angels have told you about heaven, shown you heaven, have they told you about Hell and given you any indication of the kind of people who go?"
I've a feeling my son's going to ask me about it see and I want to give him a fair answer.
(AND the Catholics have written a new translation of the Liturgy. One of the prayers that used to go something like 'Jesus died and on the third day rose again' now goes like this: "Jesus died, descended into Hell and on the third day ascended into Heaven." Nice one Catho's, bring back the Fear...)
I have to admit, my arm wasn't shot up as eagerly as other peoples because I didn't really like my question, I just thought I should ask it and in truth, I still want to know.
The girl next to me didn't stick her hand up because she thought it wouldn't be fair if she was picked when I'd been waiting longer. ????????????? Don't ever do that reader yeah?
She had a super cool question. Lorna Byrne has learning difficulties, she can barely read and write, she says. Girl next to me wanted to know what help she got to write her books and whether they were ghost written. I don't think they were.
As for Heaven, there's no exact location, it's a place that people who go there don't want to come back from and God has a library. A library! That really threw me. Lorna hid from Him in his Library. I thought there were no material 'things' up there (across there?) Is it e-books without the hardware?
If I go I'll let you know!
Ahem, when I go....!
See you later!
"If the angels have told you about heaven, shown you heaven, have they told you about Hell and given you any indication of the kind of people who go?"
I've a feeling my son's going to ask me about it see and I want to give him a fair answer.
(AND the Catholics have written a new translation of the Liturgy. One of the prayers that used to go something like 'Jesus died and on the third day rose again' now goes like this: "Jesus died, descended into Hell and on the third day ascended into Heaven." Nice one Catho's, bring back the Fear...)
I have to admit, my arm wasn't shot up as eagerly as other peoples because I didn't really like my question, I just thought I should ask it and in truth, I still want to know.
The girl next to me didn't stick her hand up because she thought it wouldn't be fair if she was picked when I'd been waiting longer. ????????????? Don't ever do that reader yeah?
She had a super cool question. Lorna Byrne has learning difficulties, she can barely read and write, she says. Girl next to me wanted to know what help she got to write her books and whether they were ghost written. I don't think they were.
As for Heaven, there's no exact location, it's a place that people who go there don't want to come back from and God has a library. A library! That really threw me. Lorna hid from Him in his Library. I thought there were no material 'things' up there (across there?) Is it e-books without the hardware?
If I go I'll let you know!
Ahem, when I go....!
See you later!
Love Thy Enemy
Forgiveness
Love your enemy
All very difficult things to do on the path of a happy contented life.
Love Ugly? I don't think so!
I might have found a trick to make this easier
If we all have guardian angels and let us assume for the sake of this argument that we do, then that means that our enemies also have guardian angels.
Angels, from what I am being told, are neutral beings (beings?), neither male nor female, can present themselves as either, and do not judge.
In her book, The Cosmic Ordering Service, Barbel Mohr says that we should say Peace Be With You to our enemies. The premise being if we send out good positive thoughts, good positive things come back to us.
My new trick then, if I find it hard to say Peace Be With You to Ugly, or even the Foca sometimes, or whoever, then I can say Peace Be With You to their angel instead! If Ugly knew she had an angel she might not be as Ugly as she is and me and my ugly thoughts might diminish if I don't give them so much of my time.
A tall order I know, especially as the Tory party are all smugly camped out in Manchester telling us life isn't going to be good for a few years as they quaff their champagne and gaffaw loudly with no thought for any of the vulnerable people they promised to protect. (http://www.monbiot.com/2011/10/03/more-cuts-please/)
Peace Be With You Grrrrrrrr
Stigmum, Peace Be With You.
and Peace Be With You reader
and All The Best Everyone (except cabinet millionaires and greedy bankers...aaaaargh, not easy, not easy this love your enemy lark!)
PEACE
PEACE
PEACE
be with
YOU!
Love your enemy
All very difficult things to do on the path of a happy contented life.
Love Ugly? I don't think so!
I might have found a trick to make this easier
If we all have guardian angels and let us assume for the sake of this argument that we do, then that means that our enemies also have guardian angels.
Angels, from what I am being told, are neutral beings (beings?), neither male nor female, can present themselves as either, and do not judge.
In her book, The Cosmic Ordering Service, Barbel Mohr says that we should say Peace Be With You to our enemies. The premise being if we send out good positive thoughts, good positive things come back to us.
My new trick then, if I find it hard to say Peace Be With You to Ugly, or even the Foca sometimes, or whoever, then I can say Peace Be With You to their angel instead! If Ugly knew she had an angel she might not be as Ugly as she is and me and my ugly thoughts might diminish if I don't give them so much of my time.
A tall order I know, especially as the Tory party are all smugly camped out in Manchester telling us life isn't going to be good for a few years as they quaff their champagne and gaffaw loudly with no thought for any of the vulnerable people they promised to protect. (http://www.monbiot.com/2011/10/03/more-cuts-please/)
Peace Be With You Grrrrrrrr
Stigmum, Peace Be With You.
and Peace Be With You reader
and All The Best Everyone (except cabinet millionaires and greedy bankers...aaaaargh, not easy, not easy this love your enemy lark!)
PEACE
PEACE
PEACE
be with
YOU!
Lessons in Love
At Monday's Lorna Byrne seminar I wanted to ask her about her marriage to her husband Joe.
When Lorna was about 10 years old angels appeared to her, showed her her future husband and told her they wouldn't grow old together.
I remember reading that and being really shocked. How cruel!! Why tell somebody that? At the time I thought that's why angels don't appear to me and tell me things because I would think about it too much. Every day of my marriage I'd think "you're going to die." That's if I had the courage to go through the marriage in the first place.
Pain. Lorna has felt gigantic enormous pain at losing her husband but she'd have felt enormous gigantic pain if she'd done a me and turned away from him for fear of feeling the pain in the first place.
We can never know if our relationships will last but that's no reason is it, not to give them a chance. Not to give yourself a chance. Or the other person a chance.
It is a question isn't it, of living each day as it comes, and if that's quite hard, to live each moment and to thank those moments for they are full of hope.
Full of love
Full of hope
Full of love
Full of hope
Fear is not a friend.
Full of hope
Full of love
When Lorna was about 10 years old angels appeared to her, showed her her future husband and told her they wouldn't grow old together.
I remember reading that and being really shocked. How cruel!! Why tell somebody that? At the time I thought that's why angels don't appear to me and tell me things because I would think about it too much. Every day of my marriage I'd think "you're going to die." That's if I had the courage to go through the marriage in the first place.
Pain. Lorna has felt gigantic enormous pain at losing her husband but she'd have felt enormous gigantic pain if she'd done a me and turned away from him for fear of feeling the pain in the first place.
We can never know if our relationships will last but that's no reason is it, not to give them a chance. Not to give yourself a chance. Or the other person a chance.
It is a question isn't it, of living each day as it comes, and if that's quite hard, to live each moment and to thank those moments for they are full of hope.
Full of love
Full of hope
Full of love
Full of hope
Fear is not a friend.
Full of hope
Full of love
Messenger of the Angelic Realm
What a wonderful evening Monday night was. I truly didn't know what to expect and was nervous and excited at the same time.
The journalist who was meant to be interviewing Lorna Byrne had been taken ill so another stepped in her place and if I told you she was the perfect choice for a potentially sceptical English audience (I say English because she was in Scotland last night and it's not just Scots in Scotland is it?) would you believe me? She was funny, irreverent, took the piss abit, put everyone at ease.
Lorna Byrne is a Messenger. Not like a priest is a messenger (or none that I've met). She's small, she's shy, she hides behind her hands when she's embarrassed. She's very light, like, for example, there was a point when she was talking about God's Library and I shifted in my chair, a abit uncomfortable. The conversation about this other realm was becoming a bit too much for me. Lorna stalled and the journalist asked if the angels were telling her what to say and what not to say and she said yes. The journo asked her if the angels were telling her to hold something back at that moment and Lorna said yes, that some in the audience were finding it difficult! And she giggled and I giggled and that's what I mean by light.
The journalist asked her questions for an hour. What is an angel? What do they look like? Lorna was in London at the time of the riots...were angels there? What did they make of it? Loads of questions. We were told angels were the guardians of our souls. We all have a soul and all have an angel guarding it. We need to look after our planet. We need to look after ourselves.
The next hour was taken with questions from the audience. Again, loads. Big ones some of them. So many religions, which does one choose? How can I become more patient? The trouble in Syria, Libya, why don't angels intervene? Do I have a guardian angel? Can you see it? Do you begrudge the role asked of you? I'm at a crossroads, what is my purpose? WHAT IS MY PURPOSE? (I hadn't heard the answer either so good job she repeated it)
"LIVE YOUR LIFE!"
Afterwards there was a meet and greet and Lorna would do it as a blessing we were told. The crowd swarmed to her as they do at communion on a Sunday. It was really funny! I'd got chatting to the girl next to me about all kinds of stuff and she said "Are you going up?" and I said "Yes, I told my mum I'd thank Lorna on her behalf." Would I have gone anyway? Yes, I think so! A Quaker girl in the queue behind us told us she'd actually come along for a seminar on gay marriage but saw this advertised and thought 'that sounds interesting! What's all that about?!' She'd never read Angels in my Hair or Stairways to Heaven, she'd never heard of Lornal Byrne before.
The blessing was a healing prayer and a hug. She hugged everyone. Everyone. A hug! Some were crying, some were smiling. Everyone was really ordinary, like you, like me, like Lorna is and isn't.
Obviously this isn't a great description of the evening, infact it's a pretty poor one, but I hope I've given you a sense.
By some chance, coincidental chance for I'd been faffing around the book stall at the end, I was walking just behind Lorna and her friend when I was heading back to the tube and at the lights, fell into conversation with her. I didn't ask her the question I'd shot my arm up for in the hall but chatted about my mum, how she'd wanted to write to her but didn't know where to send it, and I'd said I could hand deliver it! "She says "Thank you!"" Her friend said "We read all the letters you know!"
I wasn't crossing the zebra crossing we came to but Lorna and her friend were. Lorna looked back at me and there was a sudden flash of surprise on her face. A look of joy on her features in that split moment, like she was seeing me for the first time and recognised me. Then she turned back and walked on her way.
I didn't think to ask her anything on that short walk but I got all the answers I needed.
It was an extraordinary evening looking back and will stay with me for a very long time.
Thank you Lorna Byrne.
(at this juncture I don't know how much me and stigs have written about her as there is more I want to say! This may be the last thing but it may also be the first thing, you know as much as me!)
The journalist who was meant to be interviewing Lorna Byrne had been taken ill so another stepped in her place and if I told you she was the perfect choice for a potentially sceptical English audience (I say English because she was in Scotland last night and it's not just Scots in Scotland is it?) would you believe me? She was funny, irreverent, took the piss abit, put everyone at ease.
Lorna Byrne is a Messenger. Not like a priest is a messenger (or none that I've met). She's small, she's shy, she hides behind her hands when she's embarrassed. She's very light, like, for example, there was a point when she was talking about God's Library and I shifted in my chair, a abit uncomfortable. The conversation about this other realm was becoming a bit too much for me. Lorna stalled and the journalist asked if the angels were telling her what to say and what not to say and she said yes. The journo asked her if the angels were telling her to hold something back at that moment and Lorna said yes, that some in the audience were finding it difficult! And she giggled and I giggled and that's what I mean by light.
The journalist asked her questions for an hour. What is an angel? What do they look like? Lorna was in London at the time of the riots...were angels there? What did they make of it? Loads of questions. We were told angels were the guardians of our souls. We all have a soul and all have an angel guarding it. We need to look after our planet. We need to look after ourselves.
The next hour was taken with questions from the audience. Again, loads. Big ones some of them. So many religions, which does one choose? How can I become more patient? The trouble in Syria, Libya, why don't angels intervene? Do I have a guardian angel? Can you see it? Do you begrudge the role asked of you? I'm at a crossroads, what is my purpose? WHAT IS MY PURPOSE? (I hadn't heard the answer either so good job she repeated it)
"LIVE YOUR LIFE!"
Afterwards there was a meet and greet and Lorna would do it as a blessing we were told. The crowd swarmed to her as they do at communion on a Sunday. It was really funny! I'd got chatting to the girl next to me about all kinds of stuff and she said "Are you going up?" and I said "Yes, I told my mum I'd thank Lorna on her behalf." Would I have gone anyway? Yes, I think so! A Quaker girl in the queue behind us told us she'd actually come along for a seminar on gay marriage but saw this advertised and thought 'that sounds interesting! What's all that about?!' She'd never read Angels in my Hair or Stairways to Heaven, she'd never heard of Lornal Byrne before.
The blessing was a healing prayer and a hug. She hugged everyone. Everyone. A hug! Some were crying, some were smiling. Everyone was really ordinary, like you, like me, like Lorna is and isn't.
Obviously this isn't a great description of the evening, infact it's a pretty poor one, but I hope I've given you a sense.
By some chance, coincidental chance for I'd been faffing around the book stall at the end, I was walking just behind Lorna and her friend when I was heading back to the tube and at the lights, fell into conversation with her. I didn't ask her the question I'd shot my arm up for in the hall but chatted about my mum, how she'd wanted to write to her but didn't know where to send it, and I'd said I could hand deliver it! "She says "Thank you!"" Her friend said "We read all the letters you know!"
I wasn't crossing the zebra crossing we came to but Lorna and her friend were. Lorna looked back at me and there was a sudden flash of surprise on her face. A look of joy on her features in that split moment, like she was seeing me for the first time and recognised me. Then she turned back and walked on her way.
I didn't think to ask her anything on that short walk but I got all the answers I needed.
It was an extraordinary evening looking back and will stay with me for a very long time.
Thank you Lorna Byrne.
(at this juncture I don't know how much me and stigs have written about her as there is more I want to say! This may be the last thing but it may also be the first thing, you know as much as me!)
Monday, 3 October 2011
I'm off to hear Lorna Byrne speak!
Hello hello stigs!! Hello to you too person reading this!
My, I've missed blogging but had no time as the Dream Job was keeping me well busy and I was well too tired to blog aswell despite the temptations and urges.
Could have come back to it any old way today as it's been a mighty blog about fortnight.
Support worker came round and said I was.. feck, whatever, I'll remember the word in a minute..
Got a letter from housing benefit saying the payments had stopped because I was no longer in receipt of income support or Jobseekers allowance (I was told if you remember, that it would be a 'smooth transition')
The letter from housing benefit had a new claim form I had to fill in with my whole life in blue or black ink. I was working full time, had my circumstances changed? Yeah! I was working for free not being paid, had my circumstances changed? Um, no! I didn't know what to do but all friends told me not to be honest and say I was working, but tell them nothing at all.
The Dream Job... Well... A week ago last Friday he sent a text saying "It's not working". His cc'd mother replied: "Hunh?" and I replied to all: "Yes, what do you mean?" and am still awaiting his response.
Have I been fired again without being told?
Is this the way with welfare recipients?
If I'm back to blogging I'll fill you in..well about Dream Job at any rate. Still hurting but they say that if things don't work out it's because something better is coming along.
Yeah? Got turned down for a job on a housing magazine on my son's birthday and had to sign over to Jobseekers Allowance the following day.
It's good to cry. So I took my tears to the Church of the Immaculate Conception and said "Thank you for my son" and when I'd stopped crying lit four candles.
Lorna Byrne is in London this evening. You may know her, she's been able to see and communicate with angels all her life and wrote her very beautiful autobiography "Angels in my Hair".
I feel very lucky. She's an incredible woman. I knew she was here tonight but had no sitter and £25 a ticket also seemed excessive (Oh the draught...)
"Maybe it's to pay for the hall," said my mum at the weekend.
I texted my mate Charlie: "Hate to ask but are you free Monday..."
Privileged. That's what the support worker said I was when he closed my homeless household support case. People aren't as privileged as me, he said.
Lorna Byrne will tell us, I'm guessing, through her interview with a journalist, that we all have a guardian angel and that there are millions of unemployed angels all crying out for us to ask them for help.
Yes I am privileged.
We are all privileged
We don't all know that though.
I want to take a more spiritual path from now on. I need to, it's a much happier route the one looking out for positive coincidences (like free Monday night babysitters and a mother who said she'd buy my seminar ticket:)).
I don't know what thrust my blogging will take but quite probably what it says on the tin - single mother on benefit, parasite bleeding the state dry....Which I'm not, we're not..you know that now don't you?
Stigmum drives this
I am just her conduit.
Have a lovely afternoon this blazing hot, blue skied, sunny October afternoon! (Been crazy hasn't it?!)
My, I've missed blogging but had no time as the Dream Job was keeping me well busy and I was well too tired to blog aswell despite the temptations and urges.
Could have come back to it any old way today as it's been a mighty blog about fortnight.
Support worker came round and said I was.. feck, whatever, I'll remember the word in a minute..
Got a letter from housing benefit saying the payments had stopped because I was no longer in receipt of income support or Jobseekers allowance (I was told if you remember, that it would be a 'smooth transition')
The letter from housing benefit had a new claim form I had to fill in with my whole life in blue or black ink. I was working full time, had my circumstances changed? Yeah! I was working for free not being paid, had my circumstances changed? Um, no! I didn't know what to do but all friends told me not to be honest and say I was working, but tell them nothing at all.
The Dream Job... Well... A week ago last Friday he sent a text saying "It's not working". His cc'd mother replied: "Hunh?" and I replied to all: "Yes, what do you mean?" and am still awaiting his response.
Have I been fired again without being told?
Is this the way with welfare recipients?
If I'm back to blogging I'll fill you in..well about Dream Job at any rate. Still hurting but they say that if things don't work out it's because something better is coming along.
Yeah? Got turned down for a job on a housing magazine on my son's birthday and had to sign over to Jobseekers Allowance the following day.
It's good to cry. So I took my tears to the Church of the Immaculate Conception and said "Thank you for my son" and when I'd stopped crying lit four candles.
Lorna Byrne is in London this evening. You may know her, she's been able to see and communicate with angels all her life and wrote her very beautiful autobiography "Angels in my Hair".
I feel very lucky. She's an incredible woman. I knew she was here tonight but had no sitter and £25 a ticket also seemed excessive (Oh the draught...)
"Maybe it's to pay for the hall," said my mum at the weekend.
I texted my mate Charlie: "Hate to ask but are you free Monday..."
Privileged. That's what the support worker said I was when he closed my homeless household support case. People aren't as privileged as me, he said.
Lorna Byrne will tell us, I'm guessing, through her interview with a journalist, that we all have a guardian angel and that there are millions of unemployed angels all crying out for us to ask them for help.
Yes I am privileged.
We are all privileged
We don't all know that though.
I want to take a more spiritual path from now on. I need to, it's a much happier route the one looking out for positive coincidences (like free Monday night babysitters and a mother who said she'd buy my seminar ticket:)).
I don't know what thrust my blogging will take but quite probably what it says on the tin - single mother on benefit, parasite bleeding the state dry....Which I'm not, we're not..you know that now don't you?
Stigmum drives this
I am just her conduit.
Have a lovely afternoon this blazing hot, blue skied, sunny October afternoon! (Been crazy hasn't it?!)
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