Homelessness: Make June the end of May - #EndMayInJune

Signs of bad times

As I walked to work this morning and then walked back to my hotel to collect my stowed baggage for the station in preparation for my journey back home, I could not help but notice the number of young people sat on the ground, their backs to the walls of shops or offices building signifying some need.

Need, not wants, here were the youth in the 5^th largest economy in the world without a prospect, opportunity, promise or hope. The only thing occupying their minds was the means to take shelter compounded with one sign that broke my heart, the young man’s sign said he had not eaten for days.

Now, I do not care if that is anything but the truth, I would hope that cynicism and suspicion would not rob me of sympathy, maybe empathy, a sense of compassion and the ability to be touched by the hardship of another.

Great needs with little supply

Besides, I know privation, not to that extent, but I have gone hungry in the midst of lack and when I would have been rendered homeless, I was fortunate to find support from people who covered my nakedness, shame and misfortune. To them, I am grateful probably not to the extent that I can repay them, but that when I see another in a situation that I have once experienced, I will not ignore them and walk on by if I am opportuned to do something, no matter how little.

Then, there was another thing on the signs that struck me, at least were asking for £16 to be able to spend a night in a home shelter. What the home shelter would probably provide is a bed, a shower, hot drinks and some safety from the elements and menace. I would not know if they also provide food.

Homelessness is a thief of the future

However, for someone who has nothing and has not eaten for days, how on earth would the shelter take priority over food, the little that comes from alms might only cover just one meal and so they are still out on the streets day after day in the hope that someone would just pour our God and love upon them that they would not only smile but cry the tears of joy bearing hope.

I have said before, homelessness is debilitating to the extent that it almost impossible to see how steals the future away from the present which becomes an enduring and harrowing existence. Without a home address, you probably can’t take on the most basic jobs, talk less of open a bank account or make any headway in life beyond being caught in the rut.

The charity of no clarity

Then I have my gripe with homeless charities, I am not convinced they are doing enough if anything, I see signs that I should give to charities rather than the homeless. I have this to say, if the charities were really seen to be helping the homeless, there would not be so many homeless and somewhat helpless people on our streets.

The other side of this argument is we probably would be persuaded to give to the charities and readily walk the homeless to the nearest point of help just as the Good Samaritan of old committed time and resources to the wounded stranger.

In this electioneering season in the UK, I have even bigger concerns; Theresa May boasts of offering strong and stable leadership, but I have no time for leadership that has no heart. Our social services are cut to the bone, that people cannot get by. The thought that British nurses are resorting to food banks in full employment is a disgrace I cannot find the words to express. [The Independent]

Make June the end of May

Theresa May said there are many complex reasons why people use food banks, I’m sorry, the reason is not complex, it is simple, they are not being paid enough and the cost of living is rising far beyond their means.

The system is completely messed up and I do not believe Theresa May as a bloody difficult woman has the wherewithal to bring the necessary humanity and compassion to bear to change things for the better for those who suffer homelessness, who use food banks or have to rely on the system to get by. That people in full employment should live from hand to mouth is utterly contemptible, an atrocity of the magnitude that has no mitigation or acceptable excuse.

This is not the United Kingdom that should be happy to have remain like this, things must change, the homeless and the hungry nurses are neither thinking Brexit nor strong leadership, they are hoping against hope for respite, food for their hunger, shelter for their heads and a future that gives them a chance for a different life.

Theresa May is not that person and I’m afraid, no such one is in the Tory Party to do that too.

The karma of the vending machine

Enzymes on the run

Every once in a while, I get peckish, a feeling of wanting something, maybe anything to eat just to sate a craving or a hunger.

I am not one given to snacking, nor am I a vulture that eats between its meals. A workday would be a breakfast of oats, a few biscuits and lots of tea until when I get back home for a proper meal that almost always puts me to bed before I have to get up at 11:00 PM for my pills.

Working it out

On Friday, I had sworn to spend the weekend at home, but a thorny problem as I left work meant I spent my time swotting into the witching hours trying to understand the whys and wherefores of the conundrum at work. When I seemed to make some headway, I decided I would be at work the next morning to try out the possible solutions and catch up on a number of elements I felt I could close out.

Arriving at work, an uppity security guard reclining in his seat tried to put officious obstacles in my way, only courteousness held me back from delivering a needed putdown, though as I signed in, I measured him by asking if he was the chief security personnel for the weekend, he replied in the affirmation and that invariably put him in his place.

A chocolate jackpot

The day brought heavy rain and great results, at least, I achieved most of what I came in to do before a taxi cab came to take me to the station. At the station, I decided to get a bar of chocolate from the vending machine. I put in a pound coin and once I got my chocolate I was given some change of £1.70. My luck, I thought, so I told the station master and pocketed my jackpot.

Monday came and I was leaving late, so a colleague offered me a lift to a major station where trains are more frequent than the local station in the town where I work. The newsagents had close because it was already after 06:00 PM.

Stuck against a fall

I bought a ticket and walked up to the platform which was a good walk away from the station master’s office. Feeling peckish again, I decided to get a packet of crisps from the vending machine at the station. Again, I inserted a pound coin and made my choice. The dispenser whirled and the packet of crisps got stuck at the lip of the dispenser where it should have obeyed the law of gravity and fallen into the chute where I could have retrieved it.

There was nothing I could do to retrieve my quarry and a notice on the vending machine indicated none of the station staff would be able to help if I had problems, the only option left was to call a number and give a machine reference.

The karma of the machine

The number being a premium rate number would suggest if I called I might well end up spending well over a pound in calls to determine whether I would get a refund or a service engineer would be sent out to fix the problem. On balance, the trouble wasn’t worth more than the pound I had apparently lost. Since that packet of crisps was the last in that row, there was no point putting more money in to get the next packet of crisps to push off the earlier packet of crisps.

I made do until my train arrived well aware of the fact that I had just been a victim of the karma of vending machines. Winning big and losing some.

C’est la vie.

Thought Picnic: Aborting peristalsis

A lunch-time malfunction

Suddenly caught within the travails of thought, taste, smell and food which was triggered at lunch this afternoon.

I had ordered beef stroganoff and rice, at the time of the service, it appeared the rice was hot, or maybe the plate was hot because I was getting uncomfortable as I stood at the till to pay as the till broke down.

I settled at the table and spooned the first and second mouthful at which point the mechanics of peristaltic movement seized to function, a massive paper-jam, in my throat.

Tearful choking

I took a few sips of my drink with the hope of eventually easing the blockage without much success; I could breathe but at the same time I was choking.

At which point, I had to run out unto the patio where all I could cough up was the drink, but the choke was still painfully there, I was already in great discomfort and in tears, my colleague that the table completely oblivious of what I had suffered.

Another drink of water did not help, as the time-out for regular peristalsis loomed, the process of ingestion could not be completed, I had to run out again and every that had gone in was seen again as the natural had been aborted for survival – Relief, but that was the end of lunch, I could not believe how much that experience had exhausted me, I was tempted to end the day at work.

Much, much later

Hungry as I was, the next intake I had was some tea about an hour after that, then two pygmy bananas before I returned to my hotel with the hope for supper.

The entrée of taramasalata and warm flat breads went down well but the main course after the second bite suddenly went off to my taste and with the collusion of my memory and my thinking exciting a feeling of nausea, I was in the gents the next minute and that was the end of dinner – I can only wonder what the whole problem was before I begin to worry.

Should I be bothered?

In the first instance, I could surmise that the rice was not really as hot as the plate felt and that could have the tendency of choking you but the event 8 hours after left me more concerned than it was comfortable to be.

One needs to see what tomorrow brings before panic sets in, puréed food or a liquid diet – let’s not go there yet.

Desiring a Palestinian Passover

Hamas – the democratic will of the people

Recently, I have been involved in vigorous commentary, debate and dispute on the issue of Palestinian democracy.

More so, because the election of Hamas by the popular vote of the Palestinian people in response to urgings from the West to democratise has now given the West the opportunity to now bring the Palestinian people to their knees – in poverty, hunger and death.

I cannot stress enough, the fact that Hamas was elected on the complete platform of their “repugnant” views of the eradication of Israel, the continuation of their armed struggle against occupation (what the West calls terrorism), the creation of an Islamic state in the land of Palestine, their well known anti-corruption message and their commendable social services in Gaza.

Grace augmenting injustice

Israel, exists by the grace of all who have allowed it to thrive to the detriment of the occupied peoples as they bully the populace with tanks and gun ships against the primitive incursions and attacks composed of suicide bombers and home-made rockets.

The rhetoric about the elimination of Israel thrives on the fact that an injustice coming to 60 years still shows no prospect of resolution.

The Palestinians cannot go to war to claim what they believe to be their land and the 1967 line is continually breached with impunity most especially by foreign Jews who believe in a literal land of Israel to the exclusion of any other people - settlers - they are called.

An unjust world of hypocrites

Then I read that the UNRWA is under so much duress by the influence of Israel that they cannot freely distribute aid to the starving Palestinian refugees, the report is harrowing; even as essential other aid is withheld because of a democratic choice the Palestinians have made in voting for Hamas – ideology and all.

At the same time, I read that Nuclear North Korea is about to allow the UN access back in the country to distribute food aid to starving Koreans.

This is the same UN that is supporting the persecution of non-Nuclear Iran as we prepare for what might possibly another major skirmish in the Middle-East perpetrated by the United States.

I get fed up with the idea that the United States feels the International community is acquiescent to purveying their vituperation in the direction of Iran. Just as we had with the coalition of the coerced, more are being coerced into the uncomfortable situation of endorsing detrimental action against Iran.

A Palestinian Passover – I dream

Now that Israel has closed the crossing necessary to get food aid to people in Gaza in preparation for the Passover.

They in their festivities of celebrating the passing over of the angel of death breathe despair, destitution, deprivation, debt, desolation and death on a people who are already on their knees, almost scratching the ground for food.

It would be to the utter shame and disgrace of the West if the pictures that moved humanity on Ethiopia some 20 years ago, would now migrate as far north as the Middle-East.

Here is waiting for the day that the Palestinians would also celebrate their own Passover, when they rise to take their land and celebrate in the joy of deliverance from a world that is steeped in standards not worthy of the weight of human history but expressive of total human misery.