Edinburgh of the dead

And so, I strayed,
To places that made me afraid,
A city of many hills,
That surely gave me the chills,
It has so many ghosts,
Beware they might be your hosts.

By Regent's Park, I walked,
In the wariness of the stalked,
To wit, in the rubble, I saw,
A hand outstretched live and raw,
Before fear gripped me so to run,
My senses deigned it belonged to someone.

In this stroll, I wrote and thought,
What a place to be highly wrought,
Stones and memorials mark the places,
Of souls and works of long gone faces,
A city strewn with graves,
Of the dead, we became as slaves.

Adolescence: Revisiting the RSS Class of 1981

Calling from the deep

This morning as I got to work, my phone rang and at the other end of the line was a voice I could not make out. A name and my memory went into a tailspin, I was trying to remember a quinquennial period of my life that ended just a few days over 36 years ago and my recall was not recalling much.

Apparently, one of the most enterprising of my secondary schoolmates, and I mean that in every way, he drove his own vehicle to school, but was not given a parking space within the school walls. He had set up a WhatsApp group and invited the class of 1981 to join. I was added to the group and very few could remember who I was.

Now, that I think of it, apart from my sadness at the way the Parents and Teachers Association of my secondary school treated my class in the summer of 1980, I have hardly written about my secondary school life. Yet, it is not without event and adventure.

More fiends than friends

One other thing is I have not necessarily kept contact with the closest friends I made in secondary school, from the scoundrel to the evasive, the fleeting contacts we made afterward only showed how divergent our lives had become. The common strain that brought us together was kids born abroad and with another bedwetters, but that did not beyond school materialise into friendships.

It is strange that in a conversation with my dad some time ago, he noted that I had not cultivated friendships with my secondary school mates. Then I think of friendships I have tried to rekindle from my primary school days and other friendships that have lasted a lifetime from my post-secondary school days.

There are issues that seem to set my secondary school relationships apart and I do believe the time has come to begin to document those parts of my history. Then again, I have acquaintances I made in secondary school who have indeed become friends, not only that, I have made friends with their relations too, who in some cases have married into relations of mine.

My large family of One

However, this collision of the shadows of the past with the intricate and delicate balance of my present brings some interesting areas of complex and somewhat strained conversation. We all make assumptions about the lives of others following a particular trajectory when in reality, that is rarely the case.

I have to tackle the very extant and pertinent question, “How are you and your family?”. Indeed, I have woken up in a jolt from the nightmare of dreaming I had a wife and two children. The thoughts even in the dreams questioning how all this happened to me without my involvement.

I was once integrated with a nuclear family until I was 10 before I was sent to boarding school, after that, the family was a nebulous mix of close and distant relations, many of whom I now hardly know, some have already passed on and others I relate to on Facebook. I have three half-brothers I have never met, one of whom is already a father.

In my bowels, I have reached the age of grandfatherhood, I know this because one of my very close friends who is much younger than I am has been a grandfather for at least 5 years. Yet, I cannot say I do not have a family, rather, I do have a family, it is a large family of one. I never married, I have never had kids. To enter into much more detail about that would challenge the seemingly conservative disposition of some of the entrants into the WhatsApp group.

Conserve on the detail

Suffused with religious supplication and the grandiosity of prayerful incantations, the more liberal matters of a life less ordinary may not be understood, neither would I want to impose any of my worldviews into the Remo Secondary School (RSS) Class of 1981.

My family is well, I am glad to reacquaint myself with you all, of all I can remember, we at least liked each other and there was rarely if ever, any hate or animosity between us. I look forward to recalling the wonderful memories of my early teenage years. I finished at 15, and I guess most if all are now over 50.

For God and Fatherland was the motto of the school, I guess, I am not doing much for either today, on reflection, there is much to be said and much more to be forgiven.

The UK: In a country where the poor are roasted for the privileged

The ringing question

"What does it take to get the voice of the poor in this country heard?" A member of the audience at the BBC Question Time broadcast on Thursday the 16^th of June 2017.

On the 14^th of July, Grenfell Tower, an apartment block of 24 storeys was reported to be on fire around 1:00 AM, what was shocking was the rapidity with which the fire spread with resulting fatalities that could rise to over 100. [Grenfell Tower fire - Wikipedia]

What made this fire and tragedy more shocking was the fact that the tower block residents, the Grenfell Action Group had been complaining and agitating about fire safety and hazards from as far back as 2013. [Grenfell Action Group]

Money for style over safety

In recent years, a £8.7 million refit was done to the apartment block, completed in 2016, the activity included a suspected accelerant cladding that is banned in Germany and the United States of America, which might give a lie to the idea that our building safety regulations are worth the paper they are written on.

The refit which could have included fitting in a sprinkler system at the cost of £138,000 was not done, invariably putting aesthetics above the safety of human life.

It goes without saying that a whole institutional framework in the British establishment involving council apparatchiks, councillors, mayors and ministers are responsible for not learning lessons of the past, ignoring pertinent concerns, sitting on reports and recommendations that should have been expedited and implementing stringent cuts in the relentless pursuit of cutting the deficit at the expense of the human lives of the poor considered insignificant, irritant and irrelevant to their absurdly greater purpose and goals.

Mining for a forced-upon humanity

When the Prime Minister visited the scene of the tragedy yesterday, it failed to occur to her that leadership includes taking the brickbats whilst being there to offer succour, sympathy, comfort, empathy and assurances to the victims. She failed to use her humanity and the opprobrium that resulted after other leading politicians and senior royalty visited and interacted with the people has forced her to find the smidgen of compassion eked out with duress.

It goes without saying that Theresa May has lost the moral right to be the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Despite her remedially late actions, if at the first opportunity the Prime Minister of this great country could not for whatever reason meet with victims of an entirely avoidable tragedy exacerbated by some member of her cabinet, she by all terms cannot then aver that she has the authority to negotiate Brexit on our behalf.

The matter is about humanity, it is political, it is social, it is economic, it is about government, it is about caring, it is about a more equal society and for the unfortunate souls lost in the Grenfell Tower fire, it is the realisation that no one thought they mattered until the clamour for justice has forced the cossetted and comfortable political class to feign a sense of empathy with the poor who normally wield very little power and rarely have their voices heard.

The poor left to rot

In the last 7 years, the changes in society security entitlements, the outsourcing of eligibility criteria to death panels with a profit motive, the cuts to public services, the starving of the National Health Service to ready the institution for a fire sale to the moneyed classes, the dearth of buildings and accommodation for the working classes and the favouring of the rich over the poor in terms of access and policy initiatives has been a race to the bottom that has widened the chasm between the rich and the poor to an unbridgeable existence.

We have a democracy in name only that in its reality is the government of the people, by the few for the fewer still.

That is why the question at the beginning of this blog needs asking, “What does it take to get the voice of the poor in this country heard?”

Hold them criminally responsible

The blood of the innocently shed out of indifference, disinterest, the lack of consideration and concern revelling in institutional inhumanity shall be visited on the heads of all those responsible. Nothing but a criminal prosecution of the whole chain of responsibility that allowed the Grenfell Tower tragedy would be adequate justice.

Meanwhile, the need to expedite action to rehouse the victims and find means of ameliorating compensation for them must be the most urgent consideration. It is shocking that in the 5^th largest economy in the world we suffered such a display of the dereliction of duty to our poor as if we were in some lawless and chaotic Bantustan.

No, I do not think the government have nearly begun to feel the aggrieved sense of injustice and anger from the people, that they presided over this atrocity must be a blot on their records, recorded for posterity without the mercy of sophistry. These leaders who engage with soundbite are completely out of touch with our reality. Send them packing forthwith.

#EURoaming: Roam, Roam, Roam Your Phone

Roam, roam, roam your phone,
Gently overseas,
Silently, noisily, merrily, happily,
Call Europe with ease.

What the EU gets us

Roaming charges are being dropped within the EU from Thursday, the 15^th of June 2017. You can carry your contractual tariffs and allowances abroad without incurring extra charges, these also cover your Pay-As-You-Go bundles.

However, once outside the core allowances, the prices can suddenly go up. I remember returning home from a Spanish holiday in September 2007 to a phone bill of €1,420, though it did not really bother me, I thought being with the same company in different countries and being charged exorbitant rates was just outrageous.

There are lots of benefits of being in the EU and I doubt when a closer look is made of #Brexit we would see any advantages for the UK apart from that obsession with freedom of movement. I dare say, that codified phrase that looks innocuous enough is more an appeal to our latent xenophobia.

As a consequence, we suffer

In the end, the politicians will suffer little consequence for #Brexit, they will swan off into retirement with eye-watering pension pots, just like Nigel Farage would, but the ordinary person will be affected. The pound is at its lowest for decades just as gambler-politicians alter and change our lives at a whim like the throw of the dice for their own egotistical and political ends.

Whilst it lasts, let us roam and enjoy, the need for a dual-SIM phone might be obviated in the EU, I will find out when I travel next month.

From what I can see in the Which article, it appears Three offers the best deal for UK customers travelling out, you cannot acquire a cheap contract in another country to exploit roaming in your home country. I am sure mobile phone companies would come up with ingenious ideas to make up for the loss of profits from roaming charges.

Courtesy of Which magazine

Seeing the strange in strangers exhibiting strangeness

Curls adrift with the shade of blonde,
Walking up the road with an angelic visage,
Looking into window panes every few steps,
Hands running through the hair,
For vanity, we must live.

Then interests came as desire does,
To wit, what we must do to enjoy,
With pleasure is tacked a fantasy,
Never satisfied to attainment,
They must for another thing ask.

Just as the thought swelled with admiration,
A chance encounter revealed a surprise,
As he passed a man on the street,
Without cause, his voice was raised,
After which he cursed and railed.

Then back to the other episode,
My race is an exotic find for the curious,
My state is incomplete for a date,
To which I must boldly and crossly aver,
Have me as I am or be gone with you.

In the stranger, we expect the good,
But in the unknown, you can see the strange,
Beneath the skin is much human strangeness,
Sometimes to be held in contempt,
If you are uncomfortable in your skin.

We, the people said, 'Silly girl.'

Catching up on it all

No doubt, reams of commentary and analysis would be written about the just concluded UK General Election of 2017, but I will like to write a postscript to the event.

When Theresa May the incumbent Prime Minister suddenly called an election on the 18^th of April 2017, the ruthless streak of the lady was to completely annihilate the opposition and put the Labour Party completely out of the reckoning.

The polls suggested the Tory Party would win a landslide and Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party would lead it to its worst electoral defeat in history. There were analysts who until the day before the election who completely underestimated Jeremy Corbyn and believed their prognostications to the point of annoyingly projecting it on any platform that would accommodate those views.

Giving Jeremy a closer look

Until the election was called, we were coasting to a somewhat ruinous separation from Europe called a Hard Brexit, Theresa May believed she had read the minds of us Britons and came to the conclusion that it was the freedom of movement that bothered us the most and so her headstrong Brexit strategy was gathering moss in that direction.

Invariably, we also had our doubts about what Jeremy Corbyn could achieve and probably would have voted for someone else until Theresa May’s arrogance, audacity and effrontery presented us with a stark choice of giving her free rein to take us over the cliff edge or we begin to subscribe to the reasonableness that became the hallmark and demeanour of Jeremy Corbyn.

The media bias against Jeremy Corbyn and his team was unrelenting and palpable as they brought up every ghost of the past to scare and terrify us into Theresa May’s ‘Strong and Stable’ corner.

Yet, the hashtag #EndMayInJune bore an amazing resonance as we began to look at Theresa May’s record as Home Secretary and then Prime Minister, we began to see leader that probably stood for nothing, all goals, aims, ambitions and promises given the oxygen of rhetoric, sloganeering, soundbite and endless repetition was just a lot of hot air and nothing else.

A broken record it was

We were not convinced that giving Theresa May a stronger hand in the #Brexit negotiations would give us the kind of Brexit that would be good for us. The referendum is a done deal, however, it is my view that if the politicians decided should ask us about whether we wanted to stay in Europe, it is right for them to return to us and review the manner of our leaving.

Basically, if we want to get off the EU bus, it is best the bus gets to a bus stop where we can safely alight rather than us jumping out of the window whilst the bus is in motion. There was a streak of British bloody-minded daring-do that was beginning to inform our manner of leaving the EU that was patently unacceptable.

Then again, even if Brexit was an important electoral issue, there were seriously pertinent local issues that were left by the wayside, those were the issues that Jeremy Corbyn brought to the fore as Theresa May sequestered herself away from needed scrutiny to challenge her record in government.

We had to stop this gamble

She was either clueless or given to sophistry that the gamble she took calling an election was beginning to write itself out as political folly. I had to vote and so I committed myself to a 500-kilometre roundtrip from Edinburgh to Manchester to vote on Thursday morning.

I believe, there were many like me who decided they had had enough of politicians in the mould of Donald Trump who took everything for granted and had no scruples gambling away our future on the whim of egotistical and reckless abandon for personal ends portrayed as a national interest.

Invariably, even after two terrorist attacks within weeks of each other and the local elections that appeared to buoy the Tory Party, the gamble did not pay off, and rather than increase her majority in the Parliament we are met today with a hung parliament with the Tories needing the support of the anachronistic, provincial and primordial Democratic Unionist Party of the Northern Ireland to form a minority government.

What a silly girl

One is left to almost blurt out, ‘Silly Girl’, but a lesson has been harshly taught and history is being penned with the enthusiastic aplomb of an epic-making thriller. Theresa May will go down in history as the incumbent leader who called an unnecessary election to bury the opposition into irrelevance giving her the freedom to traipse about like an empress, only to be reduced in clout, authority and effective mandate.

Unfortunately, the stiff-necked woman has learnt no lessons, the core of the team that heralded the shambles we are in have been retained to continue in shambolic plunder of our commonwealth. The Tory Party is, however, a restive hornet’s nest, it would sooner implode over something before the next scheduled election of 2022. I do not expect Theresa May to last this new Parliament as the leader of the Tory Party.

We, the people

What we have learnt is that people do feel strongly about the way we are governed, they are concerned about the NHS, social care and our communities, but would not be terrified into making choices like the ones that brought us Brexit again. We want a managed exit from the EU that involved consultation, consensus and agreement.

We are done with UKIP and its immigrant poison, the people persuaded of the UKIP agenda did not automatically file into the Tory column as Theresa May expected, they dispersed into columns that appealed to our greater sense of being as the Labour Party that was supposed to become history claimed more seats off other parties than they lost, a net gain of 21.

A strengthened opposition is what we need for the kind of Brexit Theresa May was cooking up for us and we have one led by Jeremy Corbyn who by terms is in the ascendancy. For that alone, I’m in clover.

God Save The Queen!

Related notes

Blog - The UK: One Vote! #GE2017

Blog - Fuck #Brexit, there are people suffering

Blog - Opinion: He was British, what changed him?

Blog - Manchester: Our humanity is our strength

Blog - Homelessness: Make June the end of May - #EndMayInJune

The UK: One Vote! #GE2017

One vote

One vote; that is all it is, that one vote that you can only cast for yourself as one person, an individual, independent, inspired or instigated.

You cannot cast a vote on behalf of your household, when you enter the voting booth, you alone, persuaded by truth or lies, passion or indifference, concern or apathy, duty or routine to exercise a right that much blood has been shed for over centuries. That amazing right of self-determination.

Yet, you also can decide not to exercise that right to vote, leave it to others to decide your fate or fortune, where you have sight you can choose to be blind, where you have hearing you can choose to be deaf, where you have a voice you can choose to be silent.

It is just one vote, but each one vote taken together constitutes a majority for the person who wins against the other who might have won if others who chose not to vote did decide to vote.

A vote that changes things

It is one vote, the doorway to policy that can shape and alter the future for a country, for a people, for a lifetime and more pertinently for each and every citizen, the ones who voted, the ones who didn’t vote, the ones who cannot vote and the yet unborn who will access this world in the circumstances created by that vote.

We can choose to vote as informed people, checking out what is promised against what is possible, reviewing the record of incumbency and projecting that over the possibility that they might or might not have new ideas or we can choose to vote persuaded of soundbite and rhetoric, platitudes and talking points, mantras and slogans, empty boasts that tingle the ears but mean nothing in reality. We have the choice of ignorance and if we boldly embrace it, our folly lays before us.

A moral duty to vote

To vote is not only a civic duty, it is a moral duty, yet there has been no general election voter turnout above 80% since the elections of 1950 and 1951, on average since then, over 30% of possible voters have decided not to exercise the right to vote. [UKPoliticalInfo]

This cohort of ‘can vote – won’t vote’ people can make the difference in the kind of government we elect, clipping the wings of the tyrannical using the dividends of democracy to pursue an agenda that only serves the interest of the few. We are all affected when we vote and we are all affected when some of us do not vote.

Do everything in your power to vote

In the 2015 General Election, I was about to travel to South Africa when the election was called, I was fortunate enough to have ample time to plan to vote that I was able to avail myself of the opportunity of a postal vote, which I did.

I would have like to have a more streamlined process of applying for a postal vote, but the system appears to be a voter suppression scheme that does not lend itself easily to that option, this time around. Working out of Edinburgh I could have let my opportunity to vote pass, it is just one vote, but my one vote is valuable, it is my sight, my hearing, my voice and my full participation in our democracy – the government of the people, by the people, for the people.

My plan to vote

I will not let some people decide for me what I can also get involved in and decide for myself too. It comes at a cost of time, resources and strength, and if you believe in participatory democracy, you will support this view.

I am taking a train to Manchester tonight to arrive home just before midnight, I will be up first thing on Thursday, thankful for the people manning the polling stations from 7:00 AM to vote and then I will be catching a flight to Edinburgh to arrive at work just around 10:00 AM.

That is the plan and I am looking forward to being fully part of this democratic privilege.

It is one vote, one vote from me, one vote from you, all votes taken together become the key to our future, if we choose wisely, we would have a bright future ahead, if we don’t, the prospects are bleak and the pains we suffer today would just be the beginning of a future of more pain and agony. Have you seen nurses at food banks and the homeless on our streets? Those are results of failed policy.

If we are to have a United Kingdom that works for everyone, then it is our duty to go out and cast that vote. On Thursday the 8^th of June 2017, the polling stations are open from 7:00 AM to 10:00 PM, change the future by voting tomorrow.