Personal Blogs

Well folks, two years on and i am sat here wondering where did all the patience go during the lockdown.  Yesterday i had the misfortune to be in tesco's at 5.30 pm and a recalcitrant male manchester united fan impatiently stood so close to me i assumed he wanted to share my clothes.  When i pointed out that there should be space between us, that per haps i should put on three stone and then he would  not be so eager to get so close, he said he wondered if i would finish my business before match kick off at 8pm.  I was delighted to tell him - that was his priority not mine and i do not like football.  

Still - this is the attitude i speak of in my new book - Making Demons - How we make our children unwell...  ISBN 978-0-9567083-4-2.  What have we been teaching our children over the last 200 years?  to be unwell, to have anxiety and depression and demand everything NOW!

With a rising rate of suicide and psychiatric illness, psychological disorders it is time we stand back and really think about what we are doing and what we wish our children to be like in the coming century? is it a gimme culture or a 'consideration' culture we wish to foster - selfishness or SELF-LESS-NESS.

My my my.  its been a few months and yes folks I am still alive.  I returned to studying in November 2020 with the Conflict and Development (T879) course and am mightily disappointed. 

Now I can apply myself to almost anything (swimming / skydiving etc skiing no thank you) and I cannot apply myself to learning this module.  I am sure everyone means well, but Robin DiAngelo's words keeping ringing in my ear - no matter how much they may wish to aim to help, white people fail to achieve the aspiration as their own need to protect their 'society' gets in the way.  She puts it much more succinctly but that is the gist in her book "white Fragility". 

So when reading how over and over again intervention from the west in ANY situation has caused problems.  I revert back to DiAngelo and the values which maintained the western society. 

I have just finished the simulation on Northern Ireland and am disgusted with how the situation arose.  I mean I live in England and should have been aware, I mean I am more informed as to the war in Palestine than I was about Ireland.  But now I understand.  The similarities are unmistakeable.  In1641 English take land from the Irish and hand it over to other English and Scottish people; and make the Irish a second class citizen all because they maintained their catholic faith; and the Irish uprising and civil war began.  To this day the Irish struggle to maintain their Ireland and have accepted partition North and South but continue to fight for someone, anyone to understand.  And England did the same with Palestine.  Taking land (which had been colonised and was not theirs and handing it over to Jews to form Israel because the Americans and ENglish did not want Jewish refugees.  

So why do 'they' expect a different outcome - even with the Thatcherite lockdown on the media; and the huge (yes 'huge' not 'massive' as 'massive' refers to weight whereas 'huge' refers to size; and I'm not American) amount of money Israel is pouring into maintaining the philosophy that anyone who speaks out against what they are doing is anti-Semitic.  Ummm  starving children and leaving them without water and electricity is allowable as they deny access to the one aquifer Palestinians if there is a drought situation - yes Israel diverts water and partitioned the farmland into no-mans land so Palestinians cannot grow crops and over 80% of the aid is USAID which is driving Palestine into debt and reliance. BTW have you seen the plant Israel has which produces Vitamin B3???  how much water is diverted for that?  How much money are they making?  and how much artillery can they buy with the profits that bombs Palestinians as they try to farm their own land. 

Why am I surprised.  I can go back centuries and see this pattern of behaviour repeated.  Spain practically took over the Caribbean and South America, (do correct me...) but noooo  not content with taking land, the Colonialists fought each other for the land, ironically it was never theirs in the first place, to access the resources.  Oooh lets talk about Iran / Iraq / Syria or Pakistan and India;  China and Hong Kong.  See - nothing but problems. 

Why am I reflecting all this?  Well apart from my contempt about the quality of resources on this course; I am contemptuous of an attempt to change the language around conflict and development; (conflict occurs all the time???  conflict is necessary for development;  conflict transformation????) thereby re-contextualise historical accounts of colonial involvement (eg Sierra Leone).  Conflict is bad, negative and not always necessary to enable development.  ANd what development?  To have institutions similar to that which we have in England?  puhleeees.   I think the question I am left with is - Is development necessary?  Why are westerners demanding everyone in the world be as screwed up as them?  Frankly living in a mud-hut may not be ideal but living in a concrete box 40 ft in the air with no access to a garden during this lockdown is no picnic.  I would give anything for a mud-hut out in the open, with a well behind it.  Access to fresh air (not polluted by modern methods of manufacturing) working on my loom, or stitching leather moccasins  is waaay better than this modern way of life which causes road rage, isolation in a crowded inner urban 'modern' city and worse has resulted in an inability to share a hug. 

As my brother would put it...  'they' created a demand and now make us pay for the 'supply' because really - who benefits from is walking around with a phone in our pocket?  24/7 work emails and calls....

maybe I should have called this a rant....  

Happy Summer Solstice!!!  My dream for you today is that you have love in your heart and joy in your step. 

Word of the Day:  Oxymoron

TFAM:  There is always time - we just fill it with inconsequential things.

As we approach the 'exit of Corona Virus' or whatever they wish to call it.  I wonder how many people are affected by the sight of crowds, feel anxious about going out and struggle to engage in conversation face to face.  These are all symptoms of generalised anxiety disorder and I see signs of this anxiety on the faces of the old and young alike as they try to pick up the pieces of their lives. 

It is not just a fear of catching the virus, it is the feeling of being overwhelmed by the sight of so many people, by the noise, by the rush and push of crowds.  It is a common feeling amongst ex-prisoners and ex-army staff.  It is the need to slowly be reintegrated back into society.  But our society was broken.  So how do you reintegrate into a society that is broken.  Oh yeah, people are dashing to the beach because it is hot; but the singletons, the ones who had to live in their boxes over boxes and only had their phone, Netflix or other social media to help them keep in contact with the wider world. 

Elderly people who rely on the delivery man, the cashier, the fellow bus passenger for human contact lost all connections, except with the NHS sending a txt reminding them of the dangers, to stay inside, to remain safe, to not overwhelm the NHS. 

How many people out there knocked on their neighbours door and asked if they were alright. Because they were alright, with their children and their husband/wife but are so used to their own life they have never bothered to meet their neighbours before the lockdown, never thought to consider the person who lived across the road, or next door. 

Why am I pondering on this?  Because yesterday I stood and had a chat with an older woman and we laughed and joked, about her standing behind driveway gates and me walking past doing my shopping.  I stopped because she waved and said hello, I stopped because she was behind gates and I didn't know if her children bothered to visit her.  I stopped because for a moment I realised I am the lucky one - I am alive, I am walking around and I am doing my shopping.  Like normal.  Like always. 

But how many are not.  How many are huddled in their home still afraid to come out. 

Go on, I dare you, knock on your neighbours door.  I dare you to say hello and ask - Are you alright?

and mean it

Some times i wonder if people realise how with the march of technology we are creating a sub-class. 

Having had so much trouble with printers lately I have been forced to attend the library on an almost daily basis.  This has made me more mindful of what I do have, the luxuries in my life i take for granted - yes i found myself singing Amazing Grace in the shower today.  A song I was told was a lament and should not be sung in the office by a suedo-black person.

Any way back to the point.

In visiting the library i noticed there were no children using the computers, no young people.  This was completely different to visiting the library in the town centre, it was packed with children and again in Moss Side and East Manchester, Longsight, Fallowfield. 

However, Chorlton, Sale, Stretford - no such clammering to use the amenities. 

Without addressing the lack of technology at home available for our youth, we are creating a sub-class.  A group of people who already feel disadvantaged and further marginalised by the need to do homework over the internet, on the computer, at home. 

Many of our young people, with working parents, on supposedly decent salaries, are unable to access what is taken for granted. 

and no a smart phone is not an adequate tool. 

I had the pleasure of seeing my niece dressed up in finery and found myself muttering about death and love. 

I wasn't drunk or going crazy.  Though her husband did think I was wishing him dead.  I blame it on Grimm's Fairytales. 

Fairytales has always been one of my favourite things to read and it was with absolute shock I read my first book of Grimms with the real endings. 

For the Masters they referred to Rapunzel.  Now most people know the storyline and can usually quote it, and have watched the Disney version.  But Grimms were known for their recounting of facts, not fiction.

A female was kept locked in a tower.  Her wicked 'aunt' visited her and her hair did grow long.  The hair was strong enough to lift a person from the ground.  She was visited by a male.  The male killed the aunt and they lived happily ever after. 

Grimms say the end slightly different.  The 'aunt' threw the male from the tower, he was blinding by the thorns he fell into that saved his fall (but took his sight).  Rapunzel killed the 'aunt' and escaped with her unborn children.  Yep children. twins.  Many years later, the prince who had been wandering over the lands heard her singing and called out, Rapunzel's tears cleared his sight. 

Now if you read the tale, you would note that very little time is spent on the pleasant ending.  So little as to give the idea that it was added as an afterthought.  The same can be said of Hansel and Gretel, The Goose Girl, the Six Men, most have a lamentable moral which involves death.  Which brings me on to my niece.

She looked like a fairytale princess and I was immediately drawn into thinking about fairytales (having just re-read C4 - through to C8 again and I began to think of a possible tale to tell.  With overcoming and adversary, death and joy felt by all at the end.  Normally you have the Princess rescued by the Prince, but in Enchanted (movie) the Prince/ordinary bloke (divorce lawyer) is rescued by the Prince. 

So...  A fairytale of some sort.

There once was a Prince, a very bored Prince.  He had everything he could possible want and wanted for nothing.  He was handsome, tall, strong, knowledgeable and considering all things, quite vain.  His parents, King and Queen of Cornithicus, spoiled him rotten.  So rotten that if their son, Prince Drake, merely looked at something in passing they would order for it be given to him.   It went on like this from when the Prince was small to when he became a man.  By which time the Prince, now of an age to take on more responsibility, decided that he needed to experience more to life than his kingdom and his parents.  Quite frankly he was so bored of everyone bowing to him, he had begun to feel quite stifled. 

That night, he took a satchel and filled it with scones and butter (yum) and climbed into his car, sorry climbed onto his horse (period setting) and rode off, following a rarely trodden path through the forest.  Presently, as the sun began to rise, he came upon a neat cottage hidden amongst the trees and feeling tired, knocked on the door.