Welfare Rights Bill 2011

I got a letter from the DWP today telling me that if the Welfare Rights Bill 2011 is ratified, then I will get no support from the state from April 2012 until I've eaten through the monies I'd saved for my retirement.

My condition is degenerative so I won't get any better.

I have applied for over 1000 jobs in the 2 years, 7 months since I was made redundant. I've had four interviews in this time, two of which couldn't even me bothered to inform me I didn't get the job. A close second place resulted in the feedback that my previous employer had been under-utilising my skills and that I should be applying for jobs in the £40 to £45k mark. Not many of those jobs about in good times, let alone now. Applying for lesser jobs results in no interview due to being over-qualified!

In short, I have a broken spine, qualifications, experience, dedication to job hunting (I've even applied for jobs the same day as having been in hospital with needles in my spine!), have studied throughout life, put money away for retirement, and whittled away my youth working like a dog only to find myself on the scrap heap at 47, treated like a dole bludging scum bag and left to rot. Well, thank-you very much Mr. Cameron. 

Syria

Oh Syria! The crimes of your security forces do not occur within the shadows of a blackened veil of evil. The world is watching. Those that love freedom will not remain silent, nor ignore the fire storm being unleashed upon your people. Do your rulers love power so much that they would stand on piles of rotting corpses to hold on to it? Shame on you for your "Yes"!


Russia, why do you put your Cold War hang-over ahead over what is morally right? Shame on you for taking the role of apologist!


Iran, you, of all people, should understand the fields of the dead. Shame on you for your support of more of them.


And shame on any of us standing by, mute to the blood spatters and to the wails of the grieving!

Seasonal Blues, Reds or Golds Anyone?

The turn of the seasonal clock toward winter gives me mixed emotions.

Shortening days mean the onset of SAD and a greater challenge in resisting my chronic depression, especially in the darkened cold of January and February. Conversely, there are many simple pleasures: the reddening leaves in October, November's breathlessly crunchy days, Christmas Carols in December and skeletal trees highlighted by lichens and mosses by winter's end.

The onset of Autumn means home grown veggies and jewel hued flowers. I couldn't resist buying a bouquet of butter yellow sunflowers from Waitrose this week, nor the deep pink Asters from M&S. Looking at them makes me feel like I've fallen face first into an artist's paint palette. Their effect is made all the more striking by my placing them in deeply coloured and clashing pottery vases.

From Blogger Pictures

Thinking of those home grown vegetables reminds me of the calorific joys of home-made winter stews made in that most scary of kitchen equipment, the pressure cooker. These are not properly served without a basket of crunchy bread nor of chilly, empty cats wrapped around my ankles as I release the lid. 

Ah, but then my loathing of icy pavements thick with grubby snow raises it's ugly head and makes me want to hibernate 'til Spring. Am I part bear? At times I think so; in temperament if not appearance. Still, at least this last has a rationale in that I'm terrified of landing butt first and doing my dodgy back further damage.

I must finish on a pleasure. My fur friend Nutmeg's shared disgust of the cold means I have toasty toes at night as she curls up under my duvet with me. I could do without her habit of bringing her supper with her though... cat spitty biscuits are as comfy as toast crumbs in the bed!

Building a Better World

Not for the first time, I find myself wishing that the BBC would make their Real Player content available world wide so that all my friends could watch this week's episode of Songs of Praise. As might be expected, it was a commemorative of 9/11 (for one week only : Songs of Praise)

At one point, two young girls talk about their friendship, one Christian, one Muslim. They live in Birmingham, UK and met through a group called The Feast Factor that seeks to promote community cohesion between Christian and Muslim young people.What they have to say about each other and how they have found their differences made for a more interesting and stronger friendship is truly inspiring and very moving (The Feast)

They were followed by the Birmingham Community Gospel Choir (Birmingham Community Gospel Choir) singing one of my favourite country music songs, "Love can Build a Bridge" :

"I'd gladly walk across the desert

With no shoes upon my feet

To share with you the last bite of bread I had to eat

I would swim back to save you

In your sea of broken dreams

When all your hopes are sinking

Let me show you what love means

Love can build a Bridge

Between your heart and mine

Love can build a Bridge

Don't you think it's time?

Don't you think it's time?

I would whisper love so loudly

Every heart could understand

That love and only love

Can join the tribes of man

I would give my heart's desire

So that you might see

The first step is to realize

That it all begins with you and me

Love can build a Bridge

Between your heart and mine

Love can build a Bridge

Don't you think it's time?

Oh, don't you think it's time?

When we stand together

It's our finest hour

We can do anything, anything

Anything, anything

Keep believin' in the power

Love can build a Bridge

Between your heart and mine

Love can build a Bridge

Don't you think it's time?

Don't you think it's time?"

I would also recommend reading Bishop Alan Wilson's blog entry for today : Forgiveness and Healing.

Exercise Exciting???

I had an appointment at the physiotherapist today. I was expecting a bit of bending, exercises and a flea in the ear for not doing enough since my first visit (is it possible to kick your own butt?). Instead, I had one of the most interesting two hour conversations I've had for a while. Yes, I know, quite a statement when you consider how I do love to talk!

There are many changes under way within the NHS, some of which give me great concern, but I am loving recent moves to offer more community-based self-help courses with a multi-disciplinary approach. Prior to my back exploding, I practised Iyengar or Sivananda yoga most days. I was banned by my surgeon and osteopath for year before they both declared they'd made a mistake as I'd stiffened up somewhat (no sh*t Sherlock!). I have struggled since to get back into it even though I know my body and mind love it.

This past couple of months has finally seen me getting some practical help in dealing with my back, depression, and singular inability to get flexing. One Talking Therapy course later and I'm booked on to another that fuses Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) with meditation, visualisation, and breathing techniques taken from Eastern medical traditions. Today my physiotherapist is referring me to another that fuses traditional physiotherapy with CBT. The first is to help me maintain my recovering depressive state and the later to encourage me to manage my own pain better.

These therapies are no fluffy, pseudo-science based nonsense but soundly based on recent scientific studies that support what Yogis, Tai Chi and Qi Gong folk have understood for centuries. Namely that the mind has a profound effect on the biochemistry of one's body. My degree is in Life Sciences so I love 'getting under the bonnet' so to speak and anticipate seeing myself as my own experiment.

Watch this space as I grumble about the 'no pain, no gain' involved in these courses!


My physiotherapist has made several reference recommendations that I thought I would share :
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0671033972/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0980358809/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&m=A14N8KU5L9NGDX
http://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/
http://www.britishpainsociety.org/

New Definitions

I was watching the BBC News this evening when I noted a new definition of the word "Freedom" (or, maybe, "Democracy") arising from the Libyan "Arab Spring". Namely, the ability to write rude messages on a public wall in nail varnish without penalty.

Britain's Riots.

There's a police shooting incident. A protest march is arranged before the facts are known. A minority start trouble on the streets of London. What happens next is shocking to the 'average Joe'. Violence flames, seemingly at random, across central London and soon spreads to other major cities throughout the United Kingdom.

I watch the news, sickened, appalled and ranting. Not at the pictures however, but at the sound of the apologists talking about 'poverty' and 'boredom' and about young people being left without hope. In fact, if I hear one more excuse for those who have left their homes with the express intent of going on the rob "for a laugh" and I think I will projectile vomit!

Shop owners are not 'rich' and if you were truly poor, you'd be stealing food, basic clothing, and the materials needed to build your own shelter. Are you living in a third world style ghetto with buildings made of corrugated tin and cardboard? Are you living with open sewers passing by your front door? Do you have to pick over a rubbish heap looking for things you can sell in order to buy a handful of rice? No? Well, then you are not poor nor 'hard done by'.

As you watch your stolen television, do you see people living under such conditions taking apart their own communities because they are bored and without hope? No, what you see are people working as many hours a day that they can with the aim of lifting themselves out of the gutter.

The violence we have been seeing over the last few days is criminal and motivated by greed. It is the result of a society that has married materialism to a lack of personal responsibility. That people are capable of being surprised by it is the most shocking thing of all.

No, 'they' won't be able to claim on 'their' insurance as that does not cover damage caused by civil unrest. So, the net effect of your greed is simply to reduce your own environment still further. What are you going to do when there's nothing left to destroy?

How do we 'mend' Britain? Perhaps if the powers that be reassured parents, schools, and adults in general that instilling the notion that poor behaviour has consequences won't lead to them being treated as if they'd committed a mass human rights violation would be a damn good start?