Sometimes It's not good to be right

This is one of the times I would have preferred to have been wrong. In my blog of 10th April I noted my concerns that we were likely to experience increased racist attacks in Belfast.

Today, Northern Ireland and Belfast and South Belfast hangs it's head in shame at the persecution of Romanian families at the hands, feet, bricks, bottles and hatred of those who have no idea or care about these people who wanted a better standard of living than they had in Romania - many escaping poverty and deprivation beyond what we could ever imagine.

Of course, out of such hatred and heartlessness, we have been able to lift our heads a little and be heartened by the actions of those who worked to protect, support and shelter those poor frightened men, women and children and we are advised they have now temporary accommodation for reflection and safe space.

Of course the planners and perpetrators of these unconscionable crimes need to be brought to justice and dealt with by the courts - there should be no hiding place for racists in Northern Ireland.

However, we also need to look for those who are using "race war" and playing into fears about cultural identity and nationality/"Britishness" as a way of influencing vulnerable and impressionable young adult men to do their bidding. Is this simply an outlet for getting an adrenalin rush now it is no longer about interface violence and the "other side" is no longer the opponent? Is it gang culture? and more importantly how can it be stopped before racial violence and sectarian violence become synonymous?

It's not enough to deal with the behaviour that's the easy part; fixing hate filled hearts will take longer and won't come cheap.

Which Hazel

Shed no Tears for Hazel Blears
As she squirms and wriggles amid her fears
Her little mutiny brought no bounty
By picking her time for ministerial office rejection
To create maximum damage with no protection
She rocked the boat of Captain Brown
Now she proffers apologies to avoid deselection
While he remains at the helm until election

Ineligibly Emaciated

I believe that we have a humanitarian crisis looming in Belfast and across Northern Ireland.
We have some really sad stories here from some our fellow European citizens in Belfast who have found themselves unemployed and because their work has been short-term, temporary contracts or via recruitment agencies they don’t meet the benefit eligibility criteria not having been on the workers registration scheme for one year etc;

Of course the jobs situation is now dire and the temporary work has dried up and many we placed into employment have lost their jobs. Not all are in a position to go home and for some here is home now - this is particularly evident for some of our older single male Eastern European clients. One (and I acknowledge perhaps more extreme example) a man in his early fifties who had to flee Romania/Hungary in 1999 and at the time of EU (2004) enlargement was seeking asylum in the UK, has no job, no money at all and is very definitely falling into mental and physical ill health – he is emaciated and it heartbreaking to see him deteroriate physically and mentally; he is a Chemical Engineer and speaks 4 languages but only had temporary jobs and volunteering since bcoming to Belfast from London 2004.

Many economic migrants made their home here and also contributed as employees and volunteers.

We now have a new criteria the “ineligible destitute” and of course a political hot potato (which unfortunately is not part of a hot meal for them) which no government agency wants to deal with and no one voluntary agency is able to deal with and we need to be really sensitive about highlighting individual cases in the media as these folks are already vulnerable to racist attacks and increasing a profile could result in the wrong sort of attention.

We are signposting these vulnerable folk for help as we don’t have any funds in our small charity whatsoever to provide financial assistance (other than from our own pockets which is happening too).

How do you offer help to a fellow European citizen and fellow human being who is starving before you and becoming more and more emotionally unwell when this person despite working and volunteering because of "the rules" is not eligible for public assistance? How do you get someone somewhere to listen and make changes, who can see beyond numbers and boxes to the real human need? How do you continue to do your job when you can't offer any help to someone who is losing hope and may ultimately lose their life because they don't meet the eligibility criteria?

This is the reality of the recession for those at the bottom of the heap, no job, no home no money, no help and no hope. Perhaps if reality TV would like to film the real reality of those people who are forgotten and what it is like to try and exist on nothing and have your dignity and self worth eroded by having to steal serviettes in the food line to be able to blow your nose?


I am not scare-mongering I also know that on the ground there are with the unemployment situation and currently “contained” community tensions at interface areas, that there is an emerging concern that Black Asian and Eastern European people are (if not already) becoming the focus of anger from those who have lost their jobs as a result of the recession or who just need to blame someone “different” for their situation


I am so very sad, so very angry and I know others who do similar work share the same concerns - watch this space and Happy Easter

Fattitude

This blog starts with a prequalifying statement; I have never made any secret of the fact that I am overweight – it doesn’t weigh me down nor does it prevent me functioning as the Chief Executive of a charity that helps people who experience labour market disadvantage to maximise their potential to secure sustainable employment. It doesn’t prevent me functioning as a wife, mother and grandmother and it doesn’t get in the way of the other bits of being in a relationship with my significant other.

In fact whilst my weight does not define who I am, it does however for some create the need for some to prefix my name when describing me with the word “Big”. Now of course it could mean “big heart” “big giver to charity” “but I am astute enough to know that it’s my body size that gives me this additional tag.

Truth is I am big enough to stand my own corner and have long held the view that those who matter don’t mind and those who mind don’t matter. I absolutely cringe at those size acceptance websites and News Groups particularly those BBW sites and the men aka chubby chasers. I have been fat most of my childhood and all of my adult life and I never felt the need to stand in line like a link of sausages waiting to be picked by some chunky chipolata connoisseur – puts a whole new connotation on pan handler. I also never had the need to go in search of a man who would punch his weight with my rolls of fat; in fact my abundant beauty and my intelligence and wit proved to be an intoxicating mixture and had I been of the mind, I could have had both the men and the hot dinners.

I read today about the Facebook Group set up to ridicule a family that all happen to be overweight and the youngest of whom had the misfortune to expose herself to the nation on that meritorious platform known as the X Factor. Unfortunately for her she had neither the voice or the x factor – but what she did have the plus size factor and since appearing on that programme her and her family have been subjected to horrendous cyber bullying.

Contrast this with the Facebook group in support of the children’s television presenter who was deemed by some as being unfit to present to children as she only had one arm. For me it’s a bit like the deserving and undeserving poor – in the eyes of some if you are fat you offend the sensibilities of the great British public and therefore deserve your unjust desserts.

Tempers Frigid

Of course we forgot to put the clocks forward but it didn’t matter very much as I decided to lie in bed all morning rather than go downstairs and face the kitchen with 3 dishwasher loads distributed across its length and breadth from last night’s family dinner or the huge goggle-eyed lump sitting in front of the television watching the Australian Grand Prix. I can’t see the attraction even if Jenson is on the button.

I decided to have a long leisurely bath but given that our current bath must have been designed with pygmies in mind there was nothing long about it – not much width wise either before shedding some ballast I was almost resorting to rubbing myself down with a tub of I can’t believe it’s not butter before getting in to prevent the need for lifting gear to be brought in. When I lean forward the water rushes forward like the Severn Bore and lifting one’s arse cheek tends to require a releasing shuggle which creates a noise akin to a sink plunger. Anyway, I had a bath without interruption and SO came up and did the decent thing and washed my hair; well at least he held the shower head while I did the work.

Having a soak allows for putting the world to rights and perhaps because the clocks went forward my mind went into overdrive and I began to ponder on why I always feel so wound up about not doing enough with my free time. Friday evening I am usually so cream crackered after a week’s work that I don’t feel like doing much other than flopping on the sofa and trying to stay awake (which doesn’t always work). Saturday morning I take my sister for a counselling session (which I encouraged her to attend and hence taking her) When I get back it’s the weekly laundry – I don’t know how my mum managed it with only the kitchen sink and an outdoor mangle when I was a child and I have memories of her scrubbing the detachable collars of my dad’s shirts with Lifebuoy washing soap to remove the line of grime which was a mixture of Brylcreem and sweat and also using a washing board no wonder her hands were rough and calloused.

Saturday afternoon I generally take my daughter and granddaughter shopping or SO and I hit the shops to spend money we haven’t got on things we don’t need. We talk about going out for food or the cinema but we usually end up remote and distant – SO commandeers the remote and I keep my distance in the kitchen watching Forensic Detectives or (the shame) one of the telly selly channels. Sundays tend to be “our day” and we generally find stuff to do together either in the house or garden or out and about.

I do wonder if the time vampires have got me as I never seem to achieve all the things I think of doing in my spare time and I know I have a lot more to spare than other people. I suppose I feel rather guilty that I don’t pack enough in to the evenings and weekends. I have been thinking that I could have let the World Wide Web take over my life and have stopped living it as a result. Do I need to restrict my online activity and get a life?

In the Lap top of the oh my gods

After spending the morning worrying about my cash flow woes and a meeting tomorrow with our Bank Manager - I tend to see it as a visit to the blood bank as the blood tends to drain from my fizzog when I start to think about how I am going to present the justification arguments for a £102K overdraft with not much in the way of security, I stopped for lunch and on return happened upon this email in my in box:

"Hi Susan,

I have tracked down the laptops and they are being couriered over this week – I will let you know when they arrive"

My faith in my ability to ask for and receive has been duly restored and I am now wondering if there is a banking god or godess who could send the ability to convince the commercial manager of my ability to do what I say on the collecting tin as opposed to filling it with donations as in my business we suffer from Donor Kebab - that syndrome that skewers us from being charity flavour of the month.

But I can smile a bit in deficit :o

The Grim Repair

We have in the past months been given a running commentary in the press and media on the forthcoming demise of a young woman, wife and mother who was thrust into the spotlight via unreality television and who was laughed at, vilified and since her diagnosis of cancer has become another subject of a nation's gathering to its bosom - not quite the people’s princess but in the same ilk This blog is not about her nor is it about her decision to do deals on her dying while continuing to live out her last in the public eye - that is her choice however, heart wrenching or gut wrenching depending on one's view of her and her entrepreneur spirit world.

It did however get me thinking about a number of things relating to death and dying and reminded me of an ongoing feature in the local paper which asks people in the public eye if they would prefer a quick death or time to prepare; not much of a choice is it?. It didn't interest me enough to be able to recall the statistics but I am now wondering if that question was asked to the nearest and dearest of the dearly departed what would be their choice? Ok they don't have a choice but if there was a choice. The long goodbye versus the short sharp shock. The tree felled in one chop or taken down branch by branch; having been the nearest and dearest in both forms of deforestation, neither is a choice and both cause distress and, I think, leave a different after shock. I am also wondering when the point of losing a person occurs – when that person finally sheds his or her mortal coil or when that person as a result of their illness/disease changes more than the ageing process brings.

Back to that young woman in the midst of her own dying, doing it her own way with a reading public catching its breath as she struggles for hers. As I write this I am asking myself why should dying people have to be out of sight, perhaps she has it right and a celebration of her death should be as much a celebration of her life.

The this came to mind:

Death Be Not Proud

by John Donne (1571-1632)

Death be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,

For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,

Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.

From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,

Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.

Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,

And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,

And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.