BLOG 174: Friends at Work

"Work should be a place where people can get necessary emotional support." Dr. Sharon Toker


People are often impressed that I wrote a novel. It got published and sold quite well – It still sells... only the other day I saw someone reading it on the train. People are often confused as to why it is that I’ve never written another and never intend to. For a while the media liked to reference the book so I suppose I could have used it as a springboard to other things... but I never did.

For me the novel was cathartic. It gave me a voice. Not my voice, but a voice in which I could tell people that bad stuff happens to good people and sometimes there can be smoke with absolutely no fire.

First novels are often full of semi-autobiographical content and the danger of only writing the one novel is that people think it’s your story... when in actuality it’s just a story you made up using the things you know to be real to you to illustrate the points and give the story gravitas.

When pick up the first edition of the ‘book wot I wrote’ all I think is how much my life has changed since I sat in my house with what seemed like a state of the art computer ten years ago and transferred my handwritten notes into the story of Martina Sanchez and her unbalanced work colleagues.

As I flick the pages I can see the ‘about the author’ blurb and see I was living with my partner and ugly cat when the book was published a couple of years after completion. The cat, like that relationship...is long dead! I see the opening quotation is a song from Nickleback (thank you Chad for allowing me to feature your lyrics).... and realise that even the ‘gold ‘stations don’t feature ‘Someday’ on their playlists now. And as for that computer... it was so huge and clunky it had more in common with Gutenberg’s printing press than the laptop I’m using today! Yet at the time of publishing all those things were current and felt like they would never pass.


I still get asked about the book. My publisher forwards mail from readers, some just wanting my underwear (get help fellas get help!), but most from readers for whom the journey Martina Sanchez went on is oh too familiar and that they wish to share with me what happened to them and why they too found themselves in similar predicaments.

I get a lot of letters from women who are returning to work after having raised their families who find themselves bullied and manipulated by women half their age and are too bewildered and embarrassed to do anything about it. I still get the odd request from magazines to write pieces about the double edged sword of looking good and being young in spirit when in fact you are older... much older than you look or indeed act.

I am amazed that ten years since I wrote the book and eight years since it was published... though partner, ugly cat, clunky computers, and Nickleback at the top of the charts, are all things that have passed... the issues that prompted me to sit and write “That River in Egypt” have not gone away.


Ten years ago, I went through a particularly harrowing experience in the workplace. I was bullied within an inch of my life – I say that not in a dramatic way but as a statement of fact. It was after a failed suicide attempt (made as direct consequence of the bullying) that I sat down and wrote how it was that confident woman could end up doubting everything she ever said or did and feeling that 140 headache pills and a bottle of Russian vodka could end the torment.

It’s a horrible place to be.

But the fact remains that young women have it within them to be vicious and vile to anyone that they view as ‘Old enough to be my mother’. And it is that vicious streak, fuelled by the misguided notion that attractiveness and verve is the exclusive property of youth... that caused me...and Martina Sanchez... and all the women who took time to put pen to paper to tell me their experience, to seek to just end the pain.

This morning I got up early, grabbed a coffee and started opening my post. Within the usual array of bills and invites to join Virgin Media (now 40% off for the first 3 months folks!) there was a letter forwarding mail from my publisher.

I’ve just finished reading a letter from a woman whom I shall call Pamela and... well I shall share it with you guys because ... well just read on...

“... I kept on rooting for Martina, thinking maybe on the next page her colleagues will see that she is not the enemy. I’m not saying I didn’t like the end of the book but I was kind of hoping for a fairy tale end.
I suppose I was doing this because I’ve been through similar stuff to Mart (do you mind me calling her Mart? I feel I know her so well she’s a friend).
I went back to work when my daughter was 10, my husband’s hours – he drives HGV- were cut back and we needed the money. With Kayla at school, I’d refreshed my secretarial skills on a home learning course, so getting a job as an administrator at a furniture chain’s head office seemed ideal.
At first the other girls were really friendly. They were all under 30 but really bright and bubbly. They kept inviting me out for meals and drinks and I thought why not? It was nice to have a social life that didn’t revolve around my husband and child, and it was lovely to be just me for a change. I got on great with the girls and work was a nice place to be. I hadn’t put my age on my CV because all the websites tell you not to, but I’m proud of my age and what I have achieved in my life so I didn’t think to keep it secret so of course I told them.
Well, that’s when everything changed. I look good and I like to dress well, the girls used to compliment my outfits, but the moment my age was out there... Suddenly all the issues these girls had ever had with their own mothers during adolescence got transferred to me. (You know how you cannot accept your mum could ever be a sexual person and you hate her looking nice?). Everything I wore to work was pulled apart and analysed and they always compare me to their mums and sniff and say their mother wouldn’t dream of wearing THAT! I started to try and make myself invisible...wearing frumpy mumsy outfits that I hoped the girls would find appropriate. But I couldn’t win.
Suddenly if I was talking to one of the warehouse guys... nothing major just silly banter... I was a slut. At the company party I was dancing... my boss complimented me and they all were horrified. The next day the rumours started that I used to be a lap dancer!
Then it got worse... my work began to be called into question. Suddenly even my bosses started to say that for someone of my age and experience I shouldn’t have to be told how to do stuff, so they stared giving me tasks with no clear instructions. I had to sit and try and figure out how to do stuff, meanwhile my bosses were screaming for work to be completed and saying my performance had fallen and I needed to get better... and fast. When I mentioned the lack of instructions was slowing me down, my bosses said maybe they made a mistake taking me on because of the old adgage old dogs take longer to learn new tricks.
I couldn’t understand how it had all gone so wrong, and so quick. I withdrew inside myself. My colleagues were either ignoring me or bitching about me. My bosses were not supporting me and accusing me of incompetence. I couldn’t tell my husband it was all so awful, I didn’t want to admit the failure so I just sucked it up and struggled on.
A new boss was transferred from another division and didn’t see a problem with me. We used to chat and laugh. It broke up the day. He used to give me a lift to the bus stop if he passed me leaving at the same time. Well that was all my colleagues and the other bosses needed. They told anyone with ears (including suppliers and customers) that I was having an affair with David the new boss. I tried to clear my name (I’m a married woman with a child for heaven sake!) but they didn’t care. I went to David and asked him to do something about it – he just shrugged said it would be a nine day wonder and to leave it alone. Of course his ambivalence made things worse. The rumour mill took that to be confirmation.
Before I knew where I was like Mart, I was getting hate texts from my colleagues. I can’t tell you how afraid I became of my own phone, they could get to me evenings and weekends, it wasn’t just a work thing anymore.
But at work it was the worst. People would whisper behind their hands while looking at me. Worst still, conversations would stop if I entered a room and start again noisily when I left. I was very alone. If anyone spoke to me it would be about tasks at work and they would talk in loud mocking voices pointing out the one thing WRONG with the task I just did rather than the 99 things I did right. The general consensus was that I was an old tart who couldn’t even do her job.
My reputation was in pieces with these people.
I had done nothing other than tell them I was 42 when they thought I was much younger. They thought because I looked younger than some of them, that I dressed well, that I was up for a laugh and a night out, that I could banter with the men, that one of the men would give me a ride in his car – that I was a threat. But I couldn’t see that was the problem... it seemed ridiculous that all I was going through was caused by the fact they couldn’t deal with the fact that at 42 I wasn’t a little old lady. I thought the problem was me.
I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t handle a little admin job up the road... that I just put up with it, and put up with it... until the evening following a day when a girl half my age was screaming at me about how useless I was... I just couldn’t face the thought of waking up to another morning with that ahead of me.
I am eternally shameful of the fact that it was Kayla who found me in the bathroom in a pool of blood after I slashed my wrists with a mirror”

The letter continues and yes... she finally whistle blew, and left. I do hope that the settlement she got from the industrial tribunal will help, but I can’t get over the fact that little girl will have the image of her mother in the bathroom for the rest of her life.

And why because some jumped up twenty something feels threatened?

I cannot believe that ten years after I was dealing with vicious twenty something girls it still goes on.

I cannot believe that companies still allow these disgraceful females the venue to perform acts of such cruelty.

I cannot believe that the predominately male hierarchy of so many companies are so enslaved by the promise that youth offers (especially when packaged in the body of a twenty something woman) that they will support youth every time over age and experience.

I know from my own recollection how management turn to the victim and ask them to make the change. How they use the words “life experience” as a sanction for the behaviour of pack animals... how they say the bullies have none and you have loads so it is down to you to sort it.

I know how desperately alone you can feel when this happens to you and how everything conspires to make you embarrassed about your predicament and paralysed when it comes to looking for help.

I don’t know of one company (at least in the UK) who has a policy on preventing this kind of work place bullying. Twenty something women in these sorts of packs will tear an attractive older woman apart. And companies will stand and watch the show, claiming every time that the victim is older and should have been wiser and side with the bullies. I don’t know if it is mummy issues that make these women so vicious or if it is just that they want exclusive rights ... I don’t know and I’m not interested in why a bully is a bully. I’m only interested in the victim. I’m interested in her, and her trauma and what ever positive solutions there are to end the situation.


But as far as I know... from bitter experience unfortunately...that the only solution is to report it, leave a paper trail of you reporting it... and leave. Then sue the buggers.

The after effects of this kind of bullying are huge. You will never be the same person you were before. Your self esteem will have taken such a brutal hammering that it will move towards the low side and you will for the rest of your life require external validation to feel even remotely good about yourself. I would strongly recommend counselling in order to get something like equilibrium back. You will need to tell your story and be heard. You will need to get your voice back.

Alternatively... sit yourself down and write a book.

It worked for me!





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BLOG 173: Time Flies

“Tonight's the night I've waited for. Because you're not a baby anymore” Neil Sedaka from his lyrics to Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen.

How many times do I have to say it? I signed up for a baby, not a kid. Stupid I know, but I bet I’m not alone. When that biological clock starts (and in my case it was a real clock... I went from no interest in the next generation to tinnitus of ticking overnight!) with the tick-tocking all your dilated pupils can see in a babe in swaddling clothes. Yeah you vaguely think ahead to first teeth, first steps and even first days at school... but hulking teenager braying for a cribs style sweet sixteen party?... ah nope. No... when you hormonally paint the nursery and hang cot mobiles the only crib you are thinking about is the one that junior will lie in when you both come back from the labour ward.

As an adult we are all familiar with the concept of time flying. One minute we are being told off for eating the contents of the sandpit or biting other playground occupants and the next we’re in detention for chewing gum and having a fight behind the bicycle sheds. Blink an eye and we’re in the doghouse at work for stinking out the office when we reheated last night curry and having heated words with the office bully. Same old same old but we overnight seem to be bigger, and yet we still feel the same as we ever did.

I don’t know why we never remember that time flies for us all. As a parent you just somehow are permanently surprised at how your little baby has hurtled through life at full pelt and landed you (in my case) as being faced with the prospect of a full on Sherwhete Sixteen do in your house. My baby is no baby anymore. And yet it I swear it was only yesterday that I told his five year old self – no more house parties... just outings for birthdays till he is 16. Apparently that was 11 long years ago.
Still a deal is a deal... a house party it is.

(Actually that makes me sound much more reasonable than I am ... I did try to bamboozle him with the prospect of a hummer limo taking him and 7 mates to a festival and bringing them back after... but he saw through that one!)

He held me to the deal I struck with his five year old self and my house WILL be converted into teenage paradise in less than 4 weeks.

What I’ve found most alarming is how such a non-event birthday, has been somehow transformed into a right of passage milestone while my back was turned.

Back in the time before MTV, being 16 in Britain meant just one thing to most of my peers. Cider. At 16, Britain’s draconian licensing laws finally relented a little and allowed a nominal child to purchase just one alcoholic beverage... fermented apple or pear juice. Of course things could be worse... we could have been born in America where one can marry, buy a house, shoot half a town with legally bourn arms and still have 5 years to go before you could legally celebrate any of the above with a bit of booze. But by European standards, we Brits are hard done by when it comes to access to alcohol... so 16 was only sweet in the fact we could legally purchase 2.5 litres of 9% vol apple grog and get blotto.

I do believe my 16th birthday involved the members of my local youth centre (which included on George O’Dowd, now known to the world as Boy George) getting blotto in Woolwich Town Centre and me being sick as a dog on the 161 bus home. We were vaguely aware that our cousins over the pond made a big deal of 16, but it really was nothing special to us beyond being the occasion that heralded our first legal hangovers.

However, thanks to MTV, and their ghastly “My Super Sweet Sixteen” series... in which episode after episode parents sell internal organs to fund extravaganzas to celebrate their off spring reaching this milestone - just for said fruit of the loins to throw an epic strop that they wanted a pony as in horse NOT a watch from the designer store in Beverley Hills of the same name... expectations for this milestone have risen. It is not unusual for limo’s chefs, fireworks and even helicopters to be a part of an average British child’s 16th birthday party.

I knew we were on a slippery slope the moment coca-cola replaced dandelion and burdock as our favourite fizzy drink!

Damn them crazy yanks and their merry mental ideas. Its fine for them... they need a distraction that the privileges of being an adult are held back till 21. But for us hey ho... cider at 16 may not seem much ... but every privilege and curse of adulthood is coming for ya in 24 months. Why the need to go crazy about being 16?

What is 16 any way?

It’s just a year older than 15 and a year younger than 17. It’s the year before the penultimate year of childhood and for many is just a dress rehearsal for being a proper grown up. Of course sex becomes legal at 16, but face facts... sex at 16 is a tragic imbalance between genuine desire and practical lack of realistic opportunity! There is also more fumbling than pleasure at that age... hence the focus on the realistic availability and results of cider! It’s an inbetweeny stage, where one finds themselves feeling not like a child but finding ultimately that you are still one! What on earth is there to make a big deal over?

But hey... these days no one knows what dandelion and burdock is... we are all slaves to coca-cola and in keeping with all things Yankee Doodle we must slavishly follow their cultural norms as if they were our own.

And so this morning, defeated by any attempt to suggest something a little more in keeping with our culture (wellies on Clapham Common and a bit of brit pop being thoroughly rejected)... my son and I sat down to plan the Sherwhete Sixteen do that IS going to happen whether I like it or not. And let’s face facts I find it nigh on impossible to happy unless he is... so I like it (I guess).

But I can tell you who will not like it.

Wilfred Samboogha.

Wilfred Samboogha is the manager of my local bank. He lets us call him Wilf as he believes this makes banking much more friendly. (It doesn’t Wilf... When you write to me I still cack my pants and I hate being asked to come in and ‘have a chat ‘with you.) Wilf is gonna be inviting me in very soon cause I don’t see Wilf as the sort of chap who will embrace the idea of parties for children that cost not only more than the average wedding but more than the cost of the average divorce!

I am trying to cut and trim the mounting budget as I go...10 hours of hot tunes down loaded by my Club DJ mates saved on a mobile disco, 72 silver and gold comets that explode into coloured starbursts did cost a pretty penny but the nice man on the shop took pity on me and gave me 60 coloured mines and bursts of wriggling fish free! The nice bouncy castle man said I can have inflatable sumos chucked into the deal and I’m buttering up some ancient rellies for catering! But the fact remains, that my son’s sherweet sixteen shopping list has much more on it than what was on mine all those years ago. (Dry ice machine on the cheap anybody?)

Wilfred is gonna go mental! (And rightly so as I deeply suspect that it may well be at some stage the funds to cover this extravaganza may his branches money rather than mine). Promise you WILL get it all back Wilf!

Time may well have flown by... my wee little baby is now a towering six footer who wants to dance the night away with his pals and celebrate reaching the age of consent.We will light the sky with fireworks when it is all over and oooh and ahhh like it's the 4th of July in Disneyworld! I know he will have a fabulous night to remember and that makes me very happy indeed.

But and i know it is not responsible so please don’t blame me... there is just a teeny tiny part of me that remains nostaligic for the days when it was culturally acceptable to celebrate 16 with a three quid purchase of 2.5 litres of 9% proof apple grog and have a messy bus ride home!



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BLOG 172: Uncertain Extinction

“He who refuses to learn deserves extinction.” Rabbi Hillel


Nature is a clever process. Dinosaurs seemed like a jolly good idea... but when it became clear that they were never going to make the earth look like the sophisticated planet it now is... Nature threw the ice age at them...and hey presto...the planet moved on.

I like that system. Okay, it’s not perfect. Dino-cousins like frogs, crocodiles and some pretty useless birds are still lingering on... but hey!...they are pushed way back in the food chain and really don’t provide a daily annoyance. It’s a great system overall. Nature chucks out the things that just don’t work. She stuck mankind at the top of the list and as guardians of the blue planet it’s our job to be caretakers of what stays in and what is allowed to die out.

Overall we do a pretty good job. Okay we can’t make up our minds if recycling dinosaurs as fossil fuels will contribute to our downfall... but overall for cousins to apes we’re not too awful as caretakers. We tend to be always on the outlook for better ways of doing things and although we stuff it up on occasion, we seem to be going in the right direction. Or at least it seems that we’ve held off Natures wrath enuf to ensure so far she hasn’t stuck us in the freezer like the last occupants of the job!

And yet there is still a tendency to hold onto things and processes in our everyday life that genuinely do not further our planets or our future. Why oh why do we keep these things going? I have a personal policy – if it is broke...don’t fix it! Side step it like a steaming dog turd and make a better choice. There is always a better choice.

Following a week in which all us residents of the United Kingdom have reflected on what we dislike and passionately let the whole world know, I have had occasion to focus on things that exist on our fair isle that I genuinely believe we would all be the better for the extinction of.

I don’t know WHAT the hell these things are for... they are not nice to look at, they are not nice to smell, they are an offence to taste, they don’t make good hearing and I would not touch them with someone else’s barge pole.

I mean WHY!!... What are we thinking?? The following things should be extinct by now.. I mean REALLY??... we don’t need any of the following things. I implore you, good citizens of the UK... we may be a tiny kingdom, but the world looks to us for leadership on matters of enchantment. There is nothing enchanting about these things... I beg you all to join me in the road to extinction of:


Leggings
Oh please... you really want to have your thighs in cased in sausage skins? Either you are wearing trousers or tights (panty hose). There is no need for a combo of both. If you have ever been behind someone wearing these monstrosities you will know the view of their undergarments through the thin material is not something that spreads joy. There is no need for leggings to be worn in public. And no... no one believes that you need them for your dance class, you convince no one that you are only sporting these eyesores because you are an athlete.

Wheelie Bins
What ...you never noticed they are a complete eyesore? Time was corrugated metal circular bins stood proud in people’s gardens. They were discrete and designed to hold household rubbish. Waste disposal teams would remove the contents weekly and we all lived happily ever after. But no more. Suddenly every council has a corporate colour and bins are only available by the lurid colour choices made by the administrators of bin emptying services. To add insult to injury, weekly collections are extinct and replaced by gargantuan wheelie bins that hold enough refuse for a month! One cannot bear to look out into ones front garden anymore for fear of the luminous miniskip on wheels looking back a one... hence why our nation of gardeners have one by one elected to tarmac over what once were pretty gardens.

Polystyrene plates
What the hell are these for? Either a plate is permanent and made of china or it is disposable and made of paper. Who wasted time inventing these silly hybrids! They don’t work! If I wanted to saw through the meat into the wood I’d slap it straight down on the table! Get rid... and now!

Coursework
Can we please go back to just sitting exams? The youth of today live in permanent stress-zone when it comes to education. In my day, you showed up to class, listened to the blah blah blah, did an essay or two to prove you have the concept down and did an exam at the end to prove you remember it. Exams were a bit stressy but nothing a few crib notes, a bit of revising and a whole heap of chocolate couldn’t see you through. Now some nutter decided everything should be 'modular' and kids have their educational temperature taken ever five minutes. My son nearly has curvature of the spine from the weight of his school bag, poor chap is lugging tomes of stuff to and from school in the name of coursework. In addition it’s like exam week every week as if this coursework is not completed he will fail the subject regardless of a brilliant exam performance at the end. No wonder kids give up on school early and think their school days are torture! Best days of your life?... PAH!

Reportage
Who actually needs 24hr news, half the time the story is incomplete! I saw a report on a 24hr news channel last week in which a reporter stood outside a building where she THOUGHT something was going on, and told us what MIGHT be happening inside! Look, where I come from that is called spreading rumours! I don’t care for your opinion on what might be happening missy, I want to know what IS happening and if you don’t know, I suggest we go back to having three news slots a day to give you time to find out.

Small dogs
NO ONE should trip over a dog. Or indeed carry it your hand bag. Please get a grip, if its legs are too small to manage to walk... it is not a dog. Walkies are a major reason why we persist in keeping these dependant beasts. They justify the perambulation of our streets at obscure hours... on your own walking around your neighbourhood just to ‘stretch your legs’ looks plan odd, but put a dog on a lead and suddenly you are purposeful. When the dog is so microscopic it looks like you are walking a leather belt ... then it's too damn small! And don’t start me on dogs who have to be carried! You know it is nonsense... nature would never have designed a canine on this teeny-tiny scale, it just doesn’t work. Canines under knee height should be boycotted. If you want something smaller... get a cat.

Loved ones Tattoos
REALLY?? you cannot remember your children’s names? REALLY? The only way you can remember young Chardonnay and Dareen Junior is to ink their names into your skin? And your parents... known to the world as Elsie and George but have a different complicated name for your use which you can never recall without reading your own skin?..So you HAVE to get Mum tattooed on your right arm and Dad tattooed on your left, for easy reference? Come on... you MUST know how absolutely daft you look. To the laser clinic with you now and stop the madness.

Psychics
If they can see into the future ...Why can they not just see next weeks lotto numbers and take early retirement? These people are frauds, we know it, they know it and yet the hope that the future is mapped out and we can get early preview prevails. It is ridiculous! The only accurate prediction a psychic will EVER make is that your purse will be lighter ater seeing them.

Beetroot & Celery
If the stain lasts longer than the taste why even bother, beetroot is a waste of time. Don’t even start me on the pointlessness of celery. These plants exist to feed animals much lower down the food chain – not us. They flag it to up to us with the massive levels of effort we must go to make them palatable for human consumption. Take the hint.

Ornamental coffee tables
Are we really so short of ways of bashing our shin bones? This is the furniture equivalent of a small dog. We persist on buying them because they are cute and miniature and then one day we trip over them and curse the day we brought the useless thing home. You don’t need one – and if you persist in having one in your home...one day it will kill you. You have been warned.

Superfoods
Sorry you REALLY you can’t tell when crap is being repackaged with false claims? It is no coincidence that every single superfood that has recently discovered attributes that will help you live forever are the same foods that were always discounted at Saturday closing time because no one bought them. Because they are awful. And they taste like poo. Please be aware that this subject covers green tea and pomegranate juice also. The clue is in the taste!

Zumba
Because most of us do not live in Brazil (SORRY YOU DON’T...REALLY!) I applaud any fun way to get fit ( I find alcohol works for me... next day the hangover reduces my appetite and the running back and forth to the loo is very toning on the thighs). BUT there is something about this brazillian exercise regime turns people into zealots... “WHAT... you’ve not gone to Zumba??... OMG how are you still alive??” Oh get over it... I’m glad shaking your booty like you are in Rio keeps you fit - but like Aerobics and Pole dancing before it... this exercise fad too will pass... and some of us will never try it... and live. REALLY.

Hairsculpting Superstars
I get it sharp implements need respect – but the Crimper? No, not so much ...it’s not art, it’s a haircut, get over it! Time was the trimming of hair and the positioning of rollers was something your hairdresser did. But now they are artistes who SCULPT. They create looks. They have ranges of stuff named after them. And you have a better chance of spending a Saturday morning with the Dali Lama than getting an appointment. And if you do... you will leave behind the equivalent of the down payment of a house in Chelsea for the priviledge... AND be expected to leave a tip. Only to go home and wash it out just so that you can start to look like someone you recognise. I mean really... what the hell is “product”.?.. what ever happened to hairspray and a touch of gel?

Non waterproof mascara
Eyes water. It’s what they do. Girls wear mascara to make the lashes around the eyes look longer. I get that. So why do they sell mascara in the non waterproof variety? How often do I buy this by mistake, then get caught in the rain and look like a member of the band Kiss. Non waterproof mascara should that be extinct by now. I don’t get it... we need that option because??? (Answers on a post card please.)

BB pins
Smart phones do not make people very smart. They use them for billions of functions but no one seems to be using them to TALK on. Surely the key word in the descriptor is PHONE. I know they can do smart things, but at the end of the day...it is a phone. I have had my Blackberry for over a month and I still don’t know what on earth a BB pin is... not that it stops people sending me theirs. Please... it is a phone. If you want to contact me.. press dial... lets chat. I know how to do that. Smart!

Local Heroes
Let’s face facts; the locality was an accident of geography not the making of them. Yes Bob Hope was from Eltham... but he really didn’t put it on the map. It was there before. I checked. Can we please celebrate a person’s achievement and not the fact their mum happened to pop em out near your local co-op. Less time praising the town for its famous sons or daughters, and more time encouraging others towards the same levels of greatness.


So that’s me list for now... let's not hang onto things that should naturally be extinct... lets move on.

Fellow custodians of future... we can do this, we can eradicate these annoyances, and move into the bright new dawn knowing we have progressed not just ourselves and our nation... but the world!

Oh Mother Nature will be so proud!








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Blog 171: We are family

“London calling to the faraway towns:Now that war is declared-and battle come down” From London Calling by the Clash

I have listen to all sorts of codswallop this week. I have seen normally sane well balanced people (who know media manipulation from the truth every time)… turn into draconian enforcers baying for retribution. I have smelt the smoke of my home town on fire. I have felt fear as I am blamed for what happened because of my appearance or my lifestyle choices. I have tasted blood in mouth as I restrain myself from joining the debate… because it is stupid, it’s not debatable our family is falling apart.

Well enough. Vigilantes who claimed to protect the high street of the town I grew up in went ballistic the other night because they saw boys on the top deck of a bus who were different from them. To the vigilantes these boys could have only been passing through my town to loot and rob it. And in a mind blowing act of logic, the vigilantes set fire to my town centre. (see photo above).

So enough now.

I was born in this city half a century ago opposite the Palace of Westinster - seat of western democracy. I don't think I could be more London than that. I am older and wiser than most of those I hear talk and most of those I see do. So now, I am talking and you lot you can shut up and listen.

We are London. We are a family. We may all have huge differences but… we, the people who call this place our home are ONE.

In this family though, the parents have raised the kids on empty promises and lousy examples. They have played each of us off each other till we hate the very notion of the other existing in the same space. Then the parents went on holiday leaving the kids with nothing to sustain them more than a stomach full of rage and box of matches. The parents have returned from holiday and are acting totally shocked that the kids have burnt the house down.

We each and everyone of us who live in this city and its suburban overspill have to understand… WE are the kids in this analogy. We have to stop destroying each other because the parents got it wrong. They know they got it wrong, but they will never fix it if we keep fighting amongst ourselves and hurting each other. They want us to blame each other… because that way they never have to accept that they caused this. They just shrug and say “I’m going to show those kids the back of my hand”. And suddenly they are justified and right.

Of course good parents talk to their kids, find out the issues and work with them. It’s not a quick fix but that is how you make rounded human beings who understand violence is not the default setting to disagreement. Bad parents lash out in temper or embarrassment at a kid to quickly seize power – it doesn’t make for rounded human beings but when you are looking for a quick fix there is little that works faster than the back of the hand in the heat of the moment.

Our metaphorical parents have ‘the back of their hand’ ready. They have rubber bullets, they have water cannon, they have an arsenal of justifications for their own bad parenting and they are ready to punish the kids. They will not be grounding us for the weekend. They mean to ensure that there will never be a debate about why this happened and they mean to ensure that they can look in the eye the other parents (who are watching us misbehave in horror)and say “All taken care of… we won’t be having THAT little episode again".

Look I know they’ve divided us and made us all hate each other. BUT...Can we all try to understand that burning down our own metaphorical house and hating on our own metaphorical family members because we are all are different is NOT the answer.

Listen to me… some of your fellow Londoners are unemployed, some are young, some are rich, some are old, some are married, some are raising kids solo, some are shopkeepers, some are big businessmen, some drive firetrucks, some are policemen, some are people of colour, some came from other parts of Europe, some live in the suburbs, some chose the centre, some pray to different Gods and some believe in nothing at all… THEY ARE ALL LONDONERS! They are your family…what ever minuscule differences you can find… we are a proud city of diversity not a city of clones. This sudden hatred we all have for each other… this has been engineered. We are being played.

We ARE being played. Our metaphorical parents set it up for this to happen so they can push through even more hurtful schemes than they have already. While we are too busy blaming each other to notice.

So we need to stop. NOW.

We don’t need vigilantes and opportunists and vandals, and murderers and threats and fires and fear. And you know why... Because we are better than this.

WE are London.






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