Should a stigma be attached to benefit claimants?

It was last week I think, listening to LBC radio, one of the presenters asked if benefit claimants should be stigmatised.

Stiggers! For years a wealth of our society have thought so, or so I though. Afterall, that's how you came into existance...Stigma, Stigmamma, Stigmum!

Last week's news was how overweight people should agree to exercise or have their housing benefit cut (more than it's already being cut)

A bill is being passed to day to legislate the reduction of benefit payments. Benefit claimants get too much. So they're reducing annual payments to 1% instead as measuring it to inflation. Haven't the Tories done well?
They've pitted the working poor against the welfare poor and blinded people with their rhetoric.

Didn't Osborne paint that picture of the father leaving for work while next door, blinds down, the benefit claimant, stays in bed? What I find interesting about that is I'm pretty sure when I first read that, Osborne mentioned the father leaving for work before 'his children are awake'.... Ooh they quickly erased that from the propaganda, especially with the likes of me wondering who's looking after his children? Ach well, yesterday they took child benefit away from children. Not mine of course, I'm not at £60,000 yet.

Within a decade benefits, all benefits, will be worth nothing. They are worth little now but with rising food, fuel, vat etc etc, you see where I'm going.

Where am I going?
Where are you going?

I hope you're going somewhere good, and not a life of permanent poverty. I'm hope I'm going there too.

P.S Should overweight ministers get a grocery allowance?
P.P.S I know I keep coming back to this but: Is parenting a job?

Note to future employer

If you are reading this then I told you that for the past three years and a little bit, I've been writing a blog.

Judge only the woman in the interview (and not badly;))

This is not me, not anymore.

Do not judge;accept.

This is a casestudy. It is a cyber document about how statutorily homeless people feel, through the eyes of one mother, who felt, who feels (who has to move on...)
There are some tips too, hidden in these depths, on how to cope.

A terrific skill you know, empathy.

Enjoy what you read

but judge me not

I could be anybody, even you.

Listen up ConDems, Parenting is the most important job in the world

I was thinking earlier that this God-forsaking coalition claims a hypocritical belief in Christian values, which is why of course, it is attacking the most vulnerable - Children through their parents, disabled men, women and children.

I wanted them to watch this video from Lorna Byrne and stop attacking mothers, beating them with an iron rod, chasing them into non existant jobs, or jobs that don't pay.

Then this morning, while in the coffee shop, I happen to glance the front page of The Times.

The coalition is going to offer tax breaks to mothers!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So afraid of losing the female vote, they're going to throw money our way!!!

Hang on; wealthy mothers. Only wealthy mothers.

Wealthy working mothers can get a tax break for their cleaners, babysitters, gardeners. They already get a tax break for their nannies. I'm told Council Leader in the playground can put his and his wife's childcare on expenses. Neither of them are fighting to keep our "it's not viable" after school club open.

ALL PARENTING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT JOB IN THE WORLD

HELP NEEDS TO GO TO THE MOST VULNERABLE, NOT BE TAKEN AWAY FROM THEM IN A "WELFARE REFORM" EXERCISE AND GIVEN TO THOSE WHO HAVE MORE THAN ENOUGH.

To just go back to dreamland a minute, I said to He Who Said I Was Hot, that the very job I'd love to outsource would be cleaning. It's a pipedream for a low earner after childcare, school dinners, music lessons, after school clubs. As it is, one of those will have to go...wish it was childcare, I can do that myself.

Help ALL mothers, don't hurt them.

Children feel everything.

The Government is bad for our health

If I have made myself ill it is because the Government has made me ill.
I have tried not to allow it to get to me but it depresses me; makes me angry, gets me pissed off. I can only articulate it on here, it silences me in reality, renders me mute. "I don't like it when you're in your daydream head mummy," says my son. I may go to the Women's Centre and start articulating it there. I told them I'd pop by, when I met them at the lobby.

If I have made myself ill it is because of recurring evictions and a State that can but won't stop this cycle; won't regulate rents or build affordable homes. It's disgusting, disgusting what's going on. Private landlords aren't dropping rents and housing associations are increasing theirs. I know all this because the perk, if you like, of being in a need of housing situation, is that you have access to what social and council properties are available and for how much they are going for.

All this makes me ill.

A government who forces me out to work during a recession, when I have a job already. I'm a childminder, though paid less. Oh, doesn't my child count?

Is motherhood not valued anymore?
Is it a 'non job'?

Is that why lone parents aren't given social housing anymore, because they don't "work"?

This government has put me on ESA, with its damning policies and legislations.

Everytime I get better I get knocked down.

A nation of knocked down people.

I'm no different to a criminal forced to do community service - voluntary work by another name - internships - we won't pay you - and we'll take away the childcare so you have nowhere to outsource your primary occupation - ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaa.

I love writing this shit.
I could keep writing it, keep writing it if it makes ONE PERSON THINK

I've got to stop thinking though. That's what's got me into my mess, well, according to Louise Hay, according to me.

Angry, pissed off, hurting, hurting hurting hurting

A nation of angry, pissed off, hurting people.

A generation of children living with angry, pissed off, hurting people, bounced from one home to another, overcrowded, cold, in debt.

I wanted to give you a happy ending. Oh! I can't!

"By the time people wake up, the damage will have been done," the Ed said to me.

Yeah...

Read all about it! Read all about it!!

I have to rest now, think of my son.

My son, my sun, my son

I'm blessed, that's the problem isn't it Prime Minister?

Blogging in Two Directions

Instinctively I know that my writing will go in two directions before the end of week when Stiggers and I will take a break.

One is SEX (Oh stigs, love, love baby, let's stay and talk about that, explore that...we've never done that, not really, not positively, hopefully, beautifully, naturally, our confidence only just beginning, so fragile..)
The other is THE USUAL CRAP
I have to mention THE USUAL CRAP because if I am going to blame myself for what I am going through, I believe the cause is not SEX but THE USUAL CRAP.

THE USUAL CRAP is making us all ill and who can change things?
The Government
Who won't change things?
The Government
Who must therefore change things?
US

I will have to go and put Stiggers' words into action. All her words, be they SEX or THE USUAL CRAP, and do something positive with her/my knowledge.

Now I must go away and figure how to post it. Which should I focus on first? Oh dilemmas...they are the making of one's life, no?

Thank you for listening and have a good day.

One Night

This new label, One Night, refers to last Thursday night when I bought my son home from school and I really needed a wee. I went, barely anything, but pain, then five minutes later, the need to go again and within half an hour, not wanting to go, for fear of that pain and then

fear

of all kinds of things

and anger

at all kinds of things

but most of all

the cruel coincidence

that I'd had sex for the first time in fucking ages (don't forgive the pun) and it couldn't be just the good, clean, positive, fun that it was could it?? No.

It's going to be a big label. I think. I don't know.
I was so scared that Thursday night, I felt I had no-one to talk to, felt I had no-one to call and of course, things just rush rush rush into your head that makes you THANK GOD for TRASH TV (Sorry 'benders, you're not trash)

I thought I had cystitus...maybe I do...never had anything like anything before so no idea. Anyway, this thought made me think of sex and the past of course, LOVES to rear it's head. Pissed off are you Rape label that I won't put anything about me on you again? This post definitely the last, definitely, where rape associates with my experience OK?

See, the search for blame...you look everywhere...and the search got really dark after I saw my water was pink and my paper was clotted and it wasn't my period.

My one night stand was just a night, and a morning too. THIS LABEL IS NOT ABOUT THAT, though I will write about it (Hey, ye Who Said I Was Hot, you could be anyone, just like me, so don't sweat it, I just regret writing that I told you I wrote a blog but you didn't ask for the link so guessed you were alright with me writing about you. I wasn't going to write about you anymore than I did. I wasn't. Now who knows when I'll stop. Your fault for being a positive experience.)

This label is about being alone. Being alone with thoughts you can't share with anyone. It's all retrospective of course now, but not really. As I write this, nothing is clear, so writing some things will be really difficult. It's out there. Are they self fulfilling prophecies? What am I creating? I've got to turn that fear which is beneath everything at the moment, into something positive.

This label is about Thursday night which led to Friday morning, where I went to the doctor, which I have to post about, which I don't want to, but what you resist persists God said in those Conversations.

The label has to end on a good note. I've too much blogging experience now to know that it's dangerous to take people on a journey with you... be it to a council flat or to the dentist, although I did take you on my stop smoking journey and it's a year tomorrow that I stopped - Yippee!! Shall I celebrate with you Nico Teen? Awfully hard writing all this...NO! No I shan't! Al Cohol....?

Can't. I'm on antibiotics for a week, my pee sample's been sent to the lab. I will know the result, but you won't, reader. It's an opportunity for me

An opportunity for me to do what stigs?

Well we don't know, do we, self elected leaders of the party that we are.

We just know that things we wanted to write that aren't part of the label will come under the label and that you will know it's over when I write REPENT.

Sunday after the Friday before...The day I asked the angel cards what I can do and the card I got back was from Angel Gabriel, saying he was with me, and to follow the signs... I did that and was told to REPENT.

You lead Gabes, I'll follow...

(and look out for signs!)

If I had a sledgehammer

This is the song from Peter Paul and Mary that I posted on facebook the night before yesterday's Lobby. I'd told my facebook friends that a long long time ago, I'd been booed off the stage singing Janis Joplin at a Canary Island karaoke night much to the embarrassment of my super yacht colleagues but had got up again and sung this and a woman from the audience got up and sang with me and we got a really big round of applause!

It's been a tough couple of days joining the lobby front but I'm glad I have joined them. A tough couple of days fighting the welfare reform bill against government rhetoric dividing the poorest sections of our society. The working poor against the welfare poor and the working poor are falling for it. Hook, line and sinker.

Who knew multi millionaires could be so clever?

Confessions to the Reverend

At Monday's lobby and again, yesterday's lobby, I met the Reverend who I've met a few times.

Yesterday, of course, he remembered me straight away and came up to say hello.

I told him that on Tuesday I'd done some sums regarding the £26000 cap. How it effects me and how it effects another single mother but who lives in a council flat.

He asked me if I'd send him the figures and I said sure, but please don't say it's me who lives in the private flat. He said he wouldn't.

"Oh Father," I continued. "Working it out was so depressing that I just got really drunk!"

"Oh you mustn't do that," he said.

"I couldn't help it Father. So many people find life so hard at the moment and you need some form of escape..."

"I understand but it's also very expensive,"

"Oh no Father, the supermarket's know how we're feeling and doing some great deals at the moment. You can get a whole pack of beers for £3.50!"

He shook his head, his eyes brimming with sorrow saying "Try, and do send me those figures so I can lobby with them."

"I will Father, today!"

He's replied this morning. "Thankyou very, very, much."

My pleasure Father. Thank YOU.

My absolute pleasure Father given the former Archbishop of Canterbury has sided with the government on welfare handouts, saying bishops "cannot lay claim to the moral highground":

"The sheer scale of our public debt, which hit £1trillion yesterday, is the greatest moral scandal facing Britain today.
If we can’t get the deficit under control and begin paying back this debt, we will be mortgaging the futures of our children and grandchildren.
In order to do this, we desperately need to reform our welfare system." (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2091330/Lord-Carey-benefits-cap-Fuelling-culture-welfare-dependency-immoral.html)

Reform our welfare system, not our banking system? You too, are with punishing the poor as you side with the rich Lord Carey?

His own father worked and his mother STAYED AT HOME. "Hard-working people." I am not a person?

He says Duncan Smith "has come to realise that we have betrayed the poorest and most vulnerable by merely throwing money at them, be it income support or housing benefit, with no strings attached."

No, we've been betrayed by a lack of affordable housing, low wages which don't rise with inflation and now beating everyone with a stick as companies sack people by the hundreds. The construction industry alone will lose 45,000 jobs this year.(http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/25/construction-industry-lose-45000-jobs-2012) Why no mention of any of this in these articles???

Oh Lord Carey, your fellow bishops aren't wrong. You, like so many others, just can't see the bigger picture. Or don't want to see it.

Yesterday's Evening Standard actually led me to this story. I've tried reading other commentator's in the Daily Mail this morning but it's hurting my eyes too much.

I was blind you see, like them, I admit it, but now I see things in ways I never could before I lost everything at a click of a finger.

That's all it takes

It's that quick

From there you must rise against ever rising obstacles.

The futures of our children and grandchildren indeed.

Preserving hope is easy to say when one is rich hey former Archbishop Lord Carey?

Once again Reverend, thank you very much.

Abuses on the Lobby front line...Cheers Dave

The Prime Minister has done a very good job, hasn't he, of pitting the people of this country against one another.

"Divide and Rule!! Divide and Rule!!

There were about a dozen of us who turned up to lobby against the Governnment's Welfare Reform Bill yesterday. Not many, but the Single Mother's Self Defence group and the Global Women's Strike Group and Winvisible, had big banners, and anyway, we were there, standing up for the rights of millions of people.

A man drives past in a van that says "Thrifty" on it. My first assumption is that he's a worker and probably doesn't earn much, then before I can think anything else, he's given us a one fingered salute.

I was so shocked, I walked forward with my own one fingered salute and shouted "Fuck you too!" That's not like me, to be honest, and this morning my anger became clear.

Yes, we were only 12, but one woman in a wheelchair, one woman with a baby in a pram, one young black girl, one young white girl who was also there on Monday and might be one of the organisers, one married mother with a daughter my son's age, one male pensioner, one priest. A pretty wholesome demographic of people. How dare Mr Thrifty stick his finger up at them when they are standing there for his benefit too.

"7 out of 8 housing benefit claimants are in work" shouts one banner.

Anyway, not long after Mr Thrifty's gone, two wealthy looking gentleman walk by and one, the older, balding one, comes up to me and says, in his cut glass accent with venom in it's delivery:

"You should all get a job!"

"Do you have a job?" I ask politely.

"Yes, I've worked all my life. Many years ago I went to Canada when it was freezing cold..."

"Well I'm glad you haven't been made redundant," I interrupt him.

"Wwwwhat?"

"I said I'm glad you haven't been made redundant and are competiting with hundreds of other people for one job."

Bluster bluster then: "I met an Indian lady with two children living in Hampstead! Hampstead! It's disgraceful, these people living in places...."

"Well if there was more social housing, perhaps it wouldn't be such a big problem now would it?" I feel the anger bubbling beneath my surface.

"Where are the father's? Where are the fathers? I have lots of children and I look after them all, where are they!"

After quoting Michael Gove saying pregnancy is a male problem, "a male problem, a MALE PROBLEM Mr Gove the Tory said," I said:

"And how many times have you been unfaithful to your wife?"

He stepped back and smirked, shocked then gaffawed, and I was about to sneer "hypocrite" when the pensioner intervened, saying money shouldn't be taken from the needy but taken away from fuelling wars such as in Afghanistan... and they were off..shouting, I couldn't kkep up...The Jews, more protestants that catholics leaving Ireland back during the potato famine... I could'n't keep up, I don't know enough.

The row was broken up and the odious blue-eyed baldy smiled at me skulking off to rejoin his friend who, as I eyeballed the Fascist, didn't look quite so odious, had not come up to us and joined in, kept his distance and so well he might, if he too had nothing good to say)

Some members of the group came up to me afterwards and asked me if I was alright, which was really kind, because you don't really expect that, when the level of abuse you've just received, is what you receive all the time if you read right wing papers. So nothing out of the ordinary really; I shouldn't have been so shocked myself.

I know I shouldn't be at the lobby. I know that I am the Great British Problem. I know that I am universally hated by greater numbers of British society today than ever before (Thanks Dave).

I'm a single mother. I'm 'unemployed' I 'live in a flat hardworking people can't afford' and what none of my fellow lobbyists know, am in reciept of a sickness benefit, so 'disabled' (I do not see myself as disabled but depression is a disease and it's no higher payment than income support, where I could hide my 'disease')

Perhaps for all these reasons it's my duty to be there, so I can stand on behalf of all the men, women and children who cannot be there.

Hit me baby ONE MORE TIME?
I will defend myself
I will defend you

Our first duty is to ourselves.
Without ourselves what hope for our children?

Sex in the 21st Century

Last Friday night I had a one night stand.

I'm telling you this because as I accepted the experience for what it was and felt no guilt or shame or anything I thought I might feel, yet nonetheless wondered how should I feel, because, well, I'm two hundred years old and I don't know, there happened to be quite a bit about sex in our mainstream media.

First, Nicola from Big Brother, who used to be a page three girl, told us all, while in the Diary Room with Twins who used to be Playboy Playmates, that she'd only ever slept with three people.
Why are you telling me that? I thought, as the playmates said nothing, which why would they?

Then, in the Daily Mirror, a woman who works on Loose Women, told us how she'd only ever slept with two men and married them both and now was a single mother who was "ashamed" her marriage had failed and had written a book: "Confessions of a Good Girl."

Eh? Good because you've only slept with two people and married them? Good is being a page three girl who has to justify a low number of shags for..what reason?

On Sunday I phone my mum who tells me the priest had given a sermon on sex a couple of sundays back! You have to know my mum to understand why it took her two weeks to tell me that and understand our relationship to understand why I didn't say "Really mum! Do you know I had sex just yesterday morning! With someone I didn't know! What a coincidence!" She couldn't really remember what he'd said however. Darn!

As my mind began to boggle, I fell upon Mariella Fostrups column in the Observer magazine where a 19 year old girl asks her if it's ok to shag the friend she does drama with, if she doesn't want a relationship with him, will he respect her ( 19! Shit, I'm 200 and feel younger than her! shit, I've got to go a lobbying, where's my mag for Mariella's quote??)

"I'm quite concerned this remains a concern for women 50 years after "free love" and the pill radically altered our sexual mores....In a society where sex is regarded as another currency, women should have the same right to squander it as men. If the female of the species still can't enjoy their lives without being judged by such Victorian values, then just what has changed in terms of gender equality?"

Hear Hear Mariella! She then goes on to say what we all know, that sex is much better, more enhanced with someone you love, but it's up to our own "personal predilection" (p52, Observer mag, 22/01)

What I find interesting from ALL of this and what I've been thinking is women are perceived as an anomaly, we are somehow, unknown and therefore dangerous. Is that why we have to say we haven't had sex/only had one partner/two/three don't think bad of me?

Single women are dangerous, single mothers are the most dangerous of all.

Are we really surprised therefore that the government has directed it's fiercest cuts to our children?

The Man Who Said I Was Hot was a Tory
"I bet you vote Labour," he said.
"I don't as it happens," I replied, "I am the leader of my own party. The I Don't Know Party!"
"What?" he laughs. "How can you have policies with I Don't Know?! ha ha ha!"
"I don't know, we don't have policies, just a manifesto, with questions like..."

The Tory party hates me. Hates Stigmums. Well, Lord Freud did say, didn't he, if there weren't children, there wouldn't be the need for cuts...

Fortunately not all Tories are the same, mustn't generalise too much; some are on our side.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/24/welfare-reform-revolt-tory-peers

As for me, I've always said, always

Good?
Don't call me Good

No chance of that now though is there?

Fisherwoman's Friends

It was too much, too much yesterday, thinking about welfare reforms, my life, where I am. I needed something, something...a drink...Janis Joplin...so I got beer from the fridge and turned the music up really loud then went to get my son at Kung Fu.
Saw The Estimator, who was picking up his son, and told him I'd been having a little party at my house, celebrating my life and he said, laughing, be careful, he could smell it on my breath and offered me a Fisherman's Friend.

Later, I cracked open more beers..the supermarket's got some well cheap deals on at the moment! Oh they know how we're feeling!

Then I went off and got drunk, on Facebook of all places, but as it happened, the best place to be. My friend Jo was there, "swigging" the same as me, so we "clinked" our bottles! Kelly was there, saying she watches Celebrity Big Brother too and lots of my friends, like me, liked Janis
So here you are, as I prepare to go lobbying again this afternoon...

Freedom's just another word...

Rent and Universal Credit capped at £26000

There are Tory spies out there, I know. That whole cabinet is going to say thanks Stigmum, now we know how to hurt you and hurt all those other families! Woo hooooooo!

Remember, before I give these figures, how hard I have fought for a council flat, how often I have bidded for some box on some estate you wouldn't choose if you were rich and been unsuccessful.

Subject: The £26,000 cap
Who: Two single mothers
Rent example: One in Private versus one in Council housing

Me:
Rent £350 per week =18,200 a year
£26000
- 18200
= 7800 a year to live on

My friend
Rent £140 per week = £7280 a year
£26000
-7280
=£18720

I worked out that I currently get £7449, excluding council tax
Doubt my friend gets £18700 with her three kids.

You might think £7749 is a lot
All this Tory shouting it's not fair people live in places you hard working people can't afford! Me and my friend live really close to one another, that's how we're friends.

Shockingly, including my rent and council tax, I get £13 more than the proposed £500 weekly cap. Yearly therefore I looked like I'm better off but weekly I'm worse off by £13. Above the proposed cap with £26689. I shall go back to the draw board with this

What's newly frightened me of course, is if I get a job that pays £35,000 a year which means I go home with £26000 after tax (what I read Dave tell Asda) is I only have £7800 to feed (at school too) and clothe and heat and I don't get to see my child at all because I've had to pay someone else to look after him. Who's going to pay me that anyway?

My friend on the other hand, on the same salary, might be able to afford a holiday, in a tent, in Devon (or somewhere). Then again, maybe not, price of rail travel these days.

WE NEED MORE EMPHASIS ON SOCIAL HOUSING
WE NEED MORE EMPHASIS ON AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Not on displacing children
Not removing them from good schools
Not watching their parents so stressed and frightened about an unclear future.

It's not 'workless' parents that ruin their future (if you read the Mail or any other right wing commentator), it's a government that fails to understand the meaning of secure affordable housing because they take their own for granted.

Welfare Reform has been proven to save very little money, an article yesterday in the Guardian saying "The £275m savings as a proportion of the £192bn spent on welfare payments in 2010 is tiny." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jan/23/duncan-smith-benefit-cap-poverty?intcmp=239) but this ideologically driven government does not care.

Do you care Tory spy?

I'm off to be sick.

Wrecking amendments - children's lives first

I managed to get out and lobby yesterday with the Single Mother's Self Defence crew outside Parliament. There I spoke to the priest I've met a few times, a fierce campaigner of people in debt, and a Lord.

The Lord came out to tell us that they were going vote on two issues

1)Homeless households be exempt from the cuts
2) Child benefit be excluded from the caps.

The Lords were defeated on the former (so fabulous news for my child) but the Government are up in arms at being defeated on the second (truly fabulous news for all children)

To be honest,I feel SO SICK. The cap takes no account of rent, never mind living costs as a parent. You read the papers (don't don't!) and Tory ministers, like Dave, going to Asda and asking workers "Is it fair that people earn benefits of £26,000? (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2090750/Welfare-reform-Labour-bishops-Lib-Dem-peers-derail-benefits-cap-plan.html)

They like to chuck around numbers to get ordinary people really riled up.

Lord Freud, the welfare reform minister, said the Labour amendments were a 'wrecking amendment.' Wrecking their wrecking plans you mean. According to Inside Housing he said:

"It is very easy to see that any local authorities could consider people threatened with homelessness or priority need as any household with children.

‘In practical terms this is the same as not having a cap at all." (http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/tenancies/defeat-for-government-on-welfare-reform-bill/6520086.article)

Laid bare for you...The caps are directed at CHILDREN. The caps are directed at families with CHILDREN. Tory wrecking amendments to children's lives as if their lives aren't already hard enough.

My child, evicted again, risks to his education flare up again and for what? Security? No! No, it's for nothing because his mother can't handle it either.

And I really wish they'd stop banging on about "a culture of worklessness" during a fucking recession where thousands are losing their jobs and hundreds are in competition with one another for one position.

This was not what I was going to write about this morning.

I will go out and lobby again tomorrow. I don't care if I'm nervous, I don't care if I'm shy. It's the Year of the Dragon and that must mean something. Roar...

In which direction do I go?

Blogging is reflecting my life.

I want to concentrate on healing myself but then go off and read stuff about housing and feel myself get so angry (Clegg saying this weekend he supports the benefits cap.. I take it personally, he met me, he took my details, he said he would help but I can't see how kicking me and other parents, disabled, elderly, in the teeth is helping
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16671210)

I want to concentrate on healing myself and blog about that. Thousands of other people feel like shit about all kinds of thing, maybe something I might say might make them feel better. Oh I don't know...

I'm obsessed with housing though. I can't help reading about it now there's so much coverage in the press with all these reform bills going through. As you know though, I find it depressing. It hurts. I feel I'm being attacked and I am, benefit recipients are being hit really hard, those in work and those not.

On Sunday, yesterday, I woke up so, so...I don't know, stuck.

I've got angel cards on my bedside table so picked them up and shuffled them. "What can I do? What can I do?

The card I picked was Angel Gabriel, telling me he was with me and to follow the signs.

Signs? What signs?

I continue to blog by instinct then?
I give blogging a rest?
I blog about love?
I blog about housing?
I blog about benefits as a form of defence for others on benefits?
I blog about positive things ONLY
but then where do I put the outside things that drag me down?

At the time the sign was to get out of bed, and given how I feel, that's a mighty good start.
For anyone, not just me.

Healing processes

No-one ever said a healing process was easy

(Taken from notebook 20th November 2011)

No-one said a healing process was quick either

Time for a Regime Change

Regime change is the replacement of one regime with another - usually understood within a political context, it would be nice to change the Tory coalition - they are all Tory, no libdems - Tory PM, Tory Chancellor, Tory Housing minister, Tory Work and Pensions guy, Tory Transport..oh every position Tory as our country goes from bad to worse...but I Don't Know what replace it with.

However, I am not talking of political regime change
I am talking Franglais
In French, regime means diet
I have to Change my Regime.

My son called me a liar this morning, moments before saying I was fat. Simply because I might have told him last night that I was thinking that when he gets up at 7.30 on the sound of his alarm, I might not hit my own snooze button but instead get up and do some 10 minute exercises.

This morning I hit the snooze button twice and he got really angry with me. I know! Called me a liar! "You said you'd get up and do exercise!" Then said that I was fat! "You're the same as those women in that book before they lost weight," he said. "What book???????" I asked. "That [Paul McKenna's] I Can Make You Thin book." "Where did you find that????? Oh never mind. I never said I would do it, just that I was thinking of doing it...I walk you to school don't I...?"

It's always tomorrow. I go to bed with great intentions for the next day then, somehow...

It's because I'm unhappy. It's comforting to stuff myself. I remembered a box of chocolates I was given for my birthday this morning and 3/4 of it is gone already.

You don't want it but still you eat. eat. eat. eat. eat. binge. eat. binge binge oh lovely oh no.

You've got all the books, all the meditiation cd's, all the free diet advice in newspapers which you read and makes you hungry even though you're not hungry, not for food anyway but for for for

Regime Change
It starts with YOU
Buy nuts don't be nuts

Oh do what you like.

It's your body/happiness/friendlife/lovelife/fitinjeanslife/internalorganslife/feelawakelife/feelawakelife?/feelawakeforwhatlife?/povertylife?/shittyjoblife?/runaroundintheparkplayingfootballlife?/passthebiscuits

REGIME CHANGE

NOW

London Occupy Camp appeal eviction order

It won't be long before the London Occupy protest camp outside St Paul's Cathedral will be removed by force.

Today protesters are appealing against an eviction order from the City of London corporation, the big financiers who have no idea how us, the 99% struggle with our lives. Of course with the full backing of the Tory party, whose interests lie within that square mile. They can't stand the symbolic images of church and country, side by side, making the news and reminding people daily of the unfair inequality, educating people daily, that there is an alternative.

I for one am gutted because the Occupy Village is a kind of utopia. One of the times I went there I wondered why there were no charities being vocal about homelessness (that being my thing) and was about to leave when I saw a sign ontop of some tents...HELP THE FORGOTTEN HOMELESS.

I got chatting to one of the guys who'd said he lived on the streets and he'd arrived the night before and had been given a tent. Another had just arrived and made the poster. I'd seen it, come over, been offered a cup of tea by a neighbour and pretty soon we were all chatting.

Imagine this community, where no-one is excluded, everyone has access to shelter, first aid, food and education.

Silly me, perhaps you live in a community which has shelter, first aid, food and education, but if you do it's because it is exclusive, groups excluded. Westminster is desperately trying to rid itself of homeless people so it can pretend the problem does not exist.

There is no homeless problem in the Occupy London camp; what people want is a better world for everyone so now they are going to be evicted.

This global movement for greater equality will continue; don't lose sight of it even if the media tries hard to blind you.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/18/occupy-london-protesters-appeal-eviction
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/18/occupy-london-court-evict-st-pauls?intcmp=239

Unable to lobby when lobbying's needed

I missed it yesterday; the single mothers self defence corp lobbying parliament against welfare reforms
I'm missing it tonight; Defend council housing against the 8% rise in tenants' rents.
I am a single mother
I am not a tenant
I am against rent rises everywhere
and against pay freezes

I am not a tenant.

Between you and me, existing tenants enjoy really good affordable rents. I don't think they know, or maybe they do of course, it's why they're lobbying.

What I mean therefore, is, for example, two bed properties that I bid on are around £120 a week. The cheapest are around £118, not much lower.

Existing tenants, their rent might be £84 a week for the same thing. I know!! Fabulous isn't it?!

I'm not not going to the lobby because I'm not a tenant.

In many ways I'm grateful there are more people to shout out against expensive rents. I'm hoarse after begging and begging for 8 years for affordable rents. Only you, reader, hear me, I could hug my followers for not switching off.

I'm not going to the lobby because

well, the fight's not in me at the moment

all I can do is eat
eat
eat
eat
crisps and chocolate mostly

Iceland are doing good deals on them at the moment

My son didn't even know I'd bought a six pack of cheese and onion crisps for £1 because I'd eaten them all before he got home!

The exclamation mark is because I've realised that's quite an achievement!

Actually that doesn't need an exclamation mark
Achievement would be making it to a lobby
Thank you all of those who go.

No rest for the loopy

It's just an observation, that's all.
I had my mental breakdown thing when, November?
Less than a month later I received a questionnaire asking me to state why I wasn't fit for work.
Aaaargh, let me sort my head out please...
Then letters from Department of work and pensions saying 'your medical certificate is running out, get another,' and not being able to get an appointment in time then getting a sick note for two weeks then getting another letter saying 'your medical certificate is running out, get another one or your benefits will be affected..'
and you want to say 'go away go away go away'
"Send us another medical certificate (by the day after tomorrow) if you are still sick and cannot work."

I don't want to be sick ok. You are making me sick ok. Just leave me alone.

Then this morning Jobs in Mind phone to make an appointment and no, just go away
Then I read my emails and see a response from the House of Commons saying my job application has been unsuccessful and
actually that's quite funny
I applied to be a tour guide in the House of Commons
back when I was feeling so down about policy that comes out of that place
Me, showing your kids around, extolling the virtues and values of our political system
I find that quite funny
I do recall laughing when I showed my support worker the application form and being told I shouldn't write "Leader of the I Don't Know Party" under "Anything else you'd like to tell us"
Why not?!

Funniest job application I've ever filled in

Ha ha
ha ha ha

I can't go back on JSA, I can't
Politicians have the last laugh I know, oh and private enterprises who get the jobless for free

The perks were good with that job though
Part time, term time, paid...

Best go phone doc. I won't get the letter in time though...

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep, let me sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

You're havin' a laugh....

I got a call from the local newpaper late last week asking if I wanted to write an article on the area's nightlife.
"You're havin' a laugh aren't you?" I said to Ed. "I never go out! I'll rise to the challenge though! Thanks!"

I blagged my way into free comedy at the Oxford pub on Saturday. It was good, and I was glad that I wasn't there on my own, surrounded by couples and groups of friends; I was with my 'profession'. I was there as 'reviewer'.

The newspaper deadline was yesterday. My winter wipeout medical questionnaire deadline was yesterday too.

I am REALLY PISSED OFF with myself this morning.

It's fun writing about nightlife, writing for money. Let's enjoy the moment!

Oh bugger, I have to write why I can't do things on this questionnaire. I can at the moment. OH shit, let me think about housing, the job market, let me think myself into a depression. Oh, let me think myself out of it again...

Let me think what pubs you can get pissed in!
Let me think how sometimes I can't communicate.
Let me think what pubs you can watch theatre in!
Let me think how my behaviour upsets people.

I sent one article to the editor
I sent one questionnaire to a machine.

Why didn't I think I might get really depressed today and saved the questionnaire til now instead of puncturing positive thoughts with punitive ones yesterday?

Same reason that when a comedian asked how many parents there were in the room on Saturday night (just me) I didn't stick my hand up.

No, I don't know what that reason is.
You're havin' a laugh aren't you....