The life and times of Richard Orwell

Things at the moment

2010-08-24T16:30:00.002+01:00

Well life isn't going too badly these days, finished therapy, doing ok in jitsu, have a nice house in a nice area so I really can't complain too much.
I'm desperately looking for a job though, it's not just the money even if that is a big part of it. I really need to do something with my day, I've been getting up later and later in the day and it is honestly depressing.
The hospital I wanted to volunteer at is no longer accepting further volunteers and just about everywhere wants you to commit to doing just a few hours but for a minimum of 6 months or even a year. I want to volunteer about 20 hours a week not three but I need to be available for work and if a good job comes along I've got to be able to take it.
But hopefully one of the many, many jobs for which I've applied in the last month will come through and it won't be an issue.

Off on a trip to the lake district in a week and really looking forward to it. It's the annual Jitsu Foundation summer camp. Three days, of walking, climbing, eating, drinking, swimming, diving and jitsu. I know I'll come back covered in bruises but it'll all be worth it.

Currently I'm an orange belt still but on the 25th of September that may well change, I just need to pull my finger out and train hard for the next month and I'll get there. It's the self defence grade, it's the turning point where you actually can look after yourself to a certain degree. You can also counter some of the techniques that others may use. Still a lot of work left to do though. I have 3 ground holds, and 6 immobilizations to learn, 7 new throws to perfect, 8 old throws to develop, 6 wrist locks to improve, 6 arm locks to improve (including their variations) and three counters to perfect. That's on top of developing the principle and secondary strikes further, improving performance in a V and increasing the efficiency of my weapons defences. All to be done in 5 weeks. On the bright side I I train an average of 4 times a week I have 40 hours of training left until then and that's more than I had when I got my first belt. Most of my throws and locks are almost there, they just need improving. I have good knowledge of the principles and can run a good effective warm-up. So I need to keep perspective, remember why I'm doing it and try to work on the syllabus as much as possible.

Been a while

2010-07-22T12:43:00.004+01:00

Ok so it's been a while since I posted. I have so much to add now and catch up with.
Firstly I'm feeling a lot better these days and after over a year of pain I'm finally getting my life back.
In June I finally got my orange belt and am so proud.
I have recently found a love for cupcakes.
Was in Birmingham for a national ball and awards dinner last weekend.
Have agreed to participate in medical studies.
All this and more will be talked about in the coming posts.

Wholsum

2010-05-24T15:37:00.001+01:00

It has changed a little since my last visit.
They now have full seating in the area that used to be the shop and have a limited range of speciality items in the fridge by the food counter. Also there sockets available at a couple of tables for laptops.
It is really close to the East London Line Dalston Junction Station and handy for anyone in the new housing developments there. This means that anyone from Dalston to New Cross can and shoud give it a try and people a little further away should because it is well worth the visit.

I had a vegan sausage and roast vegetable panini.
The portion was excellent and at less than £5 good value. The tastes were well balanced with sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, courgettes and pesto all complimenting or contrasting to combine for a rich and flavoursome experience. I followed it with a vegan chocolate orange cake which was light, rich, moist and thoroughly tasty.
Washed down with a raw cola and a lemonade the whole lot came to £8.80. Not bad at all

The area is not without competition for quality vegan grub with The Pembury offering some decent options and Café Pogo nearby they have their work cut out but for good snacks in an afternoon I haven't found anywhere as good in North or East London as Wholsum.

Wholsom can be found at 16 Dalston Lane, London E8 3AZ
Nearest Stations are Dalston Junction, Hackney Downs and Dalston Kingsland

Wandsworth council fail

2010-04-27T11:45:00.004+01:00

So Wandsworth council fail yet again. They fail to callback when promised and to clear up their mess. A couple of weeks ago I called them about my housing benefit and after waiting nearly an hour on hold the person to whom I got through was quite rude. Over the course of the call he kept blaming the workload for all of the problems. I fend this inexcusable, blaming the workload is blaming the service users. Either they are understaffed or the staff they have aren't up to scratch it is as simple as that. When workloads exceed capacity it is time to hire more staff, quite simple.
They had received my change of address form on the 6th and added it to the system along with my tenancy agreement. A few days later and they had stopped payment of my benefit and issued a letter (I still haven't got) requesting my tenancy agreement. The staff two weeks ago confirmed that it was on the system and didn't know why that was the case. I asked for a manager to call me back and was assured that they would do so within two days. More than a week went by and nothing so I called them again yesterday, spent some time on hold and got through to someone who wasn't as rude but still couldn't explain what was going on or offer any kind of a time scale. At this point I'm despairing a little and ask again for a manager to call me back. Lo and behold I got a call about an hour later. She said that the best she could do was email the assessors and keep on at them injecting some urgency into it.

I know that these things can be done quickly and have been in the past. The council had stuffed up my claim royally back in September and October last year and when a councillor got involved the complaints officer was able to process the whole thing within a day and I had my first payment just three working days later, backdated and sorted. The fact that they had processed the cessation of payments for my old address indicates that this could have all been done by the 10th and I would have been able to pay my rent timely. Sadly the council are pretty useless and show this at every turn.

Volcano 2; the madness

2010-04-19T14:51:00.002+01:00

After five days of volcanic ash pouring into the UK's skies, stopping all flights and making the skies a little prettier things are getting bad.
Flights should of course still be grounded, that is one thing of which I am certain. However as the situation continues supplies are not reaching where they need to and this is now having an impact on bone marrow and blood product dependant patients.
There are passengers stranded around the world and things are slowly starting to fall apart, education, the media and the health services are all suffering now and it will only get worse.

Emergency procedures must now be put in place to mitigate the impact. Extra flights for supplies should operate to and from just outsides the no fly zones to the rest of the world. Then from the airports where flights can operate priority shipping, rail and road transit must be implemented. This means that item X that is stuck in Boston USA is flown to say Madrid from where it is taken by rail to close to its final destination in say Manchester and by road the remainder. The system should work on a triage basis and the speed of travel should reflect perishability and how vital it is. So blood products and marrow etc. first, food second, vital staff third and everything else whenever an however they can but likely slower and later.
If we don't do this then people could start dying needlessly.
The density over London is much higher today and at ground level it is sufficient to cause substantial irritation. Yesterday after being out for a walk for a few hours I started to get very irritated eyes, skin etc. today I opened the window and the smell was not pleasant and the dust settled was noticeable. The air is hazy and it is difficult to see whether there are clouds (other than the ash cloud).
I have no reason to fly but now it has reached the point where the ash is becoming a real danger health both directly and indirectly but the only reason anyone will die is the failure of the agencies to co-ordinate the contingency.

Volcano!!!

2010-04-15T13:46:00.002+01:00

Well Iceland have finally sent us three quarters of what we were asking for, sadly this is a lexicographical cheat and not the cash for which we were asking. For the ext few hours at least a cloud of highly dangerous ash is heading across the country and as it now affects London too people are bothered. Thankfully the ash is so high up not to be a bother to us and when it rains it may be a little more acidic than that to which we are accustomed but not noticeably. All it will do is ground flights and make the sunsets a little prettier. Though one question tat remains unanswered is where are they putting all of these planes while the flights are grounded? It is known that there are not enough spaces in all the airports for all the planes and that they rely on a certain number being in the air all of the time. So where are they all? The answer is that many planes are being held outside of the danger zone and some are even just flying around outside the danger zone because there is nowhere to put them.
All because engines cannot cope with extremely abrasive powders passing through them.
Now is the time to run and hide from apocalypse theorists and just enjoy the orange and red sunsets.

Putney

2010-04-13T10:43:00.003+01:00

Well in the end I got the place the council found for me and I'm quite happy here. For once something has gone right. It's a decent size place and while the floors are reminiscent of a scene from 2012 I do like it.

However I appear to have landed in a Tory stronghold and it is rather depressing. I did spend a half hour publicly demolishing the policies of a tory activist outside the station thereby saving many innocent ears from her bile. Meanwhile the Labour and Lib Dem activists were free to get on with it. I have to say though that she really didn't know her party's policies that well and I had to explain to her in some substantial detail exactly what those policies are and the demonstrated voting history of the party. She started by saying 'some might consider me middle class' and went on to say 'my husband and I own an architectural consultancy'- yep middle class to me "we have hardly had any income over the past year though due to many clients failing to pay due to the recession" She carried on at length about how she was trying to get a grant for her children to go to a private art school etc. I then had to stop her and ask how she had managed over the past year, she said savings and that they could manage another year but that she was really annoyed that they weren't getting any help. Forgive me but does someone with two cars, savings that last two years and a house in one of the richest parts of one of the richest cities really need help from the state? If a person does not need to rely on one month's income then they are middle class, if they have enough in savings to last two years with that kind of lifestyle then they are simply rich. I asked why state education wasn't good enough and she said that she didn't want her children to go through that as she didn't have to either and it would be taking a huge step down for the family. I did of course say that it is ridiculous for someone who claims to be in support of individual responsibility to be asking the state for a grant to send her children to an elitist school.
I then questioned her about the party's plans to gerrymander the boundaries if they win the election and she said that as far as she was concerned it was the right way to make the system fairer. I had to point out all the holes in the plan, the intrinsic problems of the simple plurality voting system, the legal and internationally legal implications for the proposals and the rights of the people to decide the system that should be used by referendum. After some time she conceeded.
I then laid into the proposals on benefits and tax with some vigour and by the end of it she conceded that she did not wholly agree with all of the party's proposals here.
I then moved onto the touchy subject of equality, I started with the Party's recent alignment with extremely right-wing groups in Europe which she said was troubling. I then moved onto the voting record on section 28 clause 28, the declaration of human rights, civil partnerships, rights equalization and so on. Sh said that the party had got things wrong here sometimes.

I finished by summarising what she claimed to stand for, what the conservatives had done and were proposing as well as her own contradictions. She had said that there should not be disability benefits because there is no such thing as being disabled just differently-abled and that it is up to the individual to make what they can of it, while at the same time asking for grants for her family so that they could maintain their own privilege and status at the expense of the tax payer, that she herself did not agree with many of the policies of her party and that she would not be best represented by them. By the end of the time she said "you must vote for the party that represents you, you must vote Labour and she said this really loudly while still wearing the blue rosette.
I think of that as a victory, and certainly a victory in an area home to the boat race, a friend of mine described it as a 'Tory Rally' I said that I was a bit fun though to which he responded 'Like Nuremberg'

So here I am in the Tory heartland fearing the election and have a vote Labour sign in my window.

Housing Roller-coaster

2010-03-24T10:04:00.002Z

On Saturday I got the notification that the council wasn't going to help me, then on Monday I got a call telling me they were referring me to the private sector placement unit. Not long after I got a call offering me a place out of borough, I had to turn it down as it was out of borough and I would be back at the beginning of the waiting list again. Then not too long after I got another call, this time it was a place in Putney. Got the landlord's details, viewed the place and it is pretty perfect. Sure it has its flaws but it's big, it's comfortable, everything works, structurally sound and the location could scarcely be better. Everything I need would literally be on my doorstep. The transport in the area is great too. So now I'm waiting of the council inspecting the place so that the paperwork can get done and I can move in. Fingers crossed now that it all goes through and that it goes through within the next week.
Really nervous as in all honesty it would be the best place I've ever lived in terms of quality, security and convenience.

life

2010-03-21T12:09:00.002Z

Yesterday I received a letter from Wandsworth council informing me that they would not assist me with my impending homelessness. Currently I live in a three bedroom flat which I share with two others. We have been given an eviction notice for the 3rd of April and the others will be moving out by then. Myself, well I have no money for a deposit and my LHA rate won't cover much anyway so I can't find a place. Because of the DWP messing me around for nearly a year I am about to enter a debt relief order which will prevent me borrowing for 1-3 years and will eliminate any chance of securing a deposit, without entering the order I'd have about 8 court cases in the coming months and a lot of visits from the thugs in black suits known as 'debt collectors' and 'court appointed bailiffs'.
If I were to just stay in the flat I'd be responsible for the rent and bills of three people, that's £270 rent, £14 council tax and about £35 in utilities every week. I get £150 a week total plus about £4 off the council tax bill. Then I'd have court costs, breach of contract penalties, would probably be sued by the agency for the holding deposit they would have to refund the tenants and any compensation they might have to pay for breach of contract, interest to my flatmates on their deposits and would have to repay their deposits as no doubt the money would be swallowed by the rent. So the council is telling me that it is reasonable to stay here despite the fact that I will be clocking up £200+ of debt every week I stayed, and that could be up to two months while the landlord gets a court order. And all this debt would be excluded from the debt relief order!
There is another kick in the nuts, if the court includes in its order that I am to be evicted for non payment of rent (i.e. the co-tenants' portion) then I will be classed as intentionally homeless and then they still won't assist.
So on the 3rd of April I lose everything, my home, most of my possessions and any prospect of stability in the foreseeable future.

Wandsworth council is the cheapest borough in the country for council tax, this band C property is just £606 a year including mayoral precept. In Havering my old band C house used to be in the order of £1300 a year, more than double. Havering is also Tory too. The thing is that Wandsworth scrapped everything they could legally (and sometimes not legally) get away with. They contracted out pretty much everything thereby slashing wages, they placed people in the private sector for a housing solution before rules were even passed by the Lords, they abolished counter services and the ability to pay in cash at their offices. Call backs from their phone lines take about a week and it takes about two weeks to get an appointment to see someone about benefits. They could easily raise the tax by £100 a year per household and still be one of the cheapest and half the national average. With the £5 million or so net, that would generate they could increase housing stock by 100 every year. If they increased band D to £1000 per year, still just over half the national average, they could generate somewhere in the order of £35 million, that's enough for around 600 homes per year, or homes for around 1400 people per year. They wouldn't have to keep it up for very long either, after 20 years there would be an increase in social housing stock in the borough of 12000 purely on the back of that increase. The increase in social provision also reduces prices in the private sector which further reduces pressure on social stock.

As a brief moment of folly, if Wandsworth increased council tax to £1373 (the national average) then it would have somewhere around £60 million extra at its disposal. That is enough for over a thousand homes a year (cost price construction for 1 bedroom properties used as an average in this case plus land cost), that means that in just 20 years there would be social provision for an extra 40,000 people. Again private sector prices would be much cheaper too, current property prices in the borough roughly equate to the saving people make on council tax compared with Lambeth, Merton and Richmond. Increase in the council tax means that people wouldn't actually pay any more as property prices and rents would fall back to meet the difference. Cheaper rents also means that people are more able to live in private housing on lower incomes thereby freeing up social stock. Increases in social stock also reduces private rental prices, eventually you reach equilibrium between the two factors but with far cheaper accommodation for all in the borough and more of it.

Sadly, all this fancy is for nothing and will never happen. In two weeks time I will be faced with the choice of sleeping on the streets or essentially squatting in this place until forcibly removed.
I will join the thousands of hidden homeless for some time and fairly soon and will be denied the therapy I need to return to productive life on the basis that I won't have stable housing.

Arg

2010-03-17T23:45:00.002Z

Well in two and a half weeks I become homeless and a few days earlier I essentially have to be out of this place.
I'm terrified to be honest, got no prospect of finding a place at the minute and I'm still waiting for the council to get back to me.
There are a few mates who will be looking after my stuff for me and I may have a sofa for a few nights. I just wish I was 25 already and didn't have this worry.

Jitsu and grading

2010-03-14T11:32:00.003Z

Well I made it to the pre-grading yesterday, the feedback was that I should be able to grade but that I do have some work to do, as I already knew. Aside from sideways travelling breakfall (the rest was alright but we didn't get to do this one)I really need to neaten up my defence against grabs and to avoid muddling the throws including the purple and even higher throws that ended up being used, I accidentally did the likes of o-soto-guruma, not really appropriate for a yellow going for orange, oops.
So I need to really practice my grab defences and defence in a V for the net two weeks and sideways travelling ukemi. If I can do that then grading shouldn't be too bad. I've got about 8 more sessions before grading, that's about 14 hours of actual training. Hopefully I can convince the various sensei to give me the practice I need.
I'd so love to grade to Orange this month. I'll really have a lot of work to do after that but it'll be worth it. I'm now feeling a lot more confident and hopeful of grading to purple this year.

More on Jitsu

2010-03-12T15:48:00.004Z

Well tomorrow is the day of pre-grading and despite recent injuries I will probably be going. I'll be going for my Orange belt this time and all going well I'll be able to grade. Knowing exactly what I need to work on is a good thing and while I have a pretty good idea tomorrow will sort out exactly what my weaknesses are for this belt and if maybe I should wait until 5th of June to grade rather than 27th March.
If I do grade this month I will have a tough 9 weeks ahead to get my green belt but I've been given something of a headstart on that already thanks to a couple of the clubs I train at. I have one green belt throw down to a tee and a good understanding of a few others, I understand the principles of the new wrist locks too as well a few of the new arm/knee locks etc, get the counters, understanding of warm ups, and have the advanced ukemi pretty good. So whilst in theory I would have as much to learn again as I should have learned to date, the truth is my workload will be similar to that for yellow belt but with an increased expectation of me in terms of execution of technique.

At the moment my weakest points are sideways standing travelling breakfalls, over the belts, remembering which number goes with which lock, ippon seoi nage (one arm shoulder throw) and seoi otoshi, with just two weeks to get that stuff right and improve the rest a bit.

I'm not expecting any mons (merits) but it would be great to reach orange belt this time so I can unlock even more knowledge and begin to pass that knowledge on. In terms of overall progression aim to reach green belt by June, Purple by December and then light blue by June next year, whilst I would ideally like to reach dark blue by December next year this is a bit fast, then I need to ask myself a lot more about teaching and think about working towards brown belt and teaching a club on my own. If genuinely I an heading towards brown then that will be at least one year as a dark blue first. Of course then I would work towards the main goal of black belt, two years teaching and learning and a slightly insane grading behind closed doors.

Housing Crisis

2010-02-27T20:27:00.004Z

This country is facing a serious housing crisis. This is not a new problem and not one that will go away without swift and substantial government intervention. Previous governments have made the problem much worse with a few strokes of the pen.

The green belts may sound like such a nice thing but the truth is they are environmentally very damaging indeed. They limit the natural expansion of urban areas, forcing overcrowding within them and they decrease acreage in the countryside. That's right rather than protecting England's countryside it leads to mass road building and other transport projects to get people through the green belt from the other side. So you end up with some low density new towns with poor local transport all around the cities with this artificial barrier between them that adds as much as 20 minutes to a commute and increases the carbon footprint by as much as 100%.

So you have more demand for housing within the actual cities where there is little space available. Towers were and still are a good solution to the problem. Take an area of land that can provide 80 semi detached houses. That same area can provide as many as 800 high quality homes with public green space available just using medium hight high-rise apartment buildings. Mistakes were made when councils cut corners and the result was poor housing for poor people. This mistake should not happen but the principle of state sponsored high-rise building is still sound.
Take the Barbican estate in the City of London. This was built to a very high standard, all flats have a view of green space and water, utilities that are still relatively exclusive and all with good access and excellent pubic transport provision.

In the 1980's the Conservative government set about selling off the nation's housing stock at a huge discount. This policy of right to buy has been steadily reducing the supply of affordable housing ever since. Recent replacements such as social home-buy and part rent part buy schemes have been poor in construction, too expensive for many to afford and too few in number.

So right now we have three million people trying to get into London who can't and 1 million in London who are facing homelessness, are street homeless, live in overcrowded or unsuitable accommodation or are in temporary housing.
This city needs a minimum of two million more homes right now. Ideally four million homes within two years. Yes that will change the official population to being somewhere in the order of 14 or 15 million, yes house prices will drop a bit, but in honesty those are both good things. We live in a city with an effective population of 15 million as it is, it's just that half the population is currently based just outside the city or are off the records for one reason or another (sleeping in friend's living rooms and not counted as it would affect benefits etc) so we have to accept that and ensure that everyone has the their needs met. Secondly house prices are now far too high, it is not possible for someone on an average wage to buy an average home any more so for those who support private home ownership, in order to realise your vision house prices need to come down anyway.

I will speak briefly on overcrowding. Overcrowding is sanctioned by the current legislation, living rooms and kitchens are designated as suitable sleeping rooms, under 25s are forced to share accommodation and there is little help for those who even meet current criteria of overcrowding. If there were enough one bedroom and studio flats and young people were able to rent these then far more of the existing larger properties would be freed up for families currently forced to live in cramped conditions.

So to some up:
London needs 4 million homes within two years.
The country needs an extra 8 million homes within two years.
Legislation needs to change to help people living in cramped conditions and the under 25s.
More housing needs to be rented out by local authorities and right to buy needs to be replaced by fixed tenure.

Ju jitsu

2010-02-22T03:10:00.003Z

Ju-jitsu, jiu jitsu or jujitsu (depending on how you chose to spell a phrase that was never in Latinate text in the first place) is a defensive martial art. In this case it is the Japanese form rather than Brazilian jiu jitsu. I'm a member of The Jitsu Foundation and I've been practising and studying the art for about four months now, working towards my second grading in a month and a judo competition in a couple of weeks. It is something I really enjoy for a number of reasons but I guess I should start with why I first decided to give it a try.

I was violently assaulted a year ago and at the time I didn't realize what an effect it would have on my life. A classmate at uni suggested that I gave jujitsu a go to look after myself in the future. I've never fully approved of martial arts, I always saw them as an escalation of a problem and so I dismissed it. As the problems of PTSD set in over the weeks and months that followed my life kept going downhill, I was becoming ever more cut off from the world and my friends, I had to leave university and wasn't able to get a job and have had to battle just to stay alive. Over this time two doctors and two councillors suggested that I gave jujitsu a try. Eventually a friend put things in clear words to me:

Him: If you were allowed to carry a gun on the street and did, would you get out of the house more?

Me: I guess.

Him: What if you could have something completely legal that you can only use in defence?

Me: Yes

Him: There is something, it's unlikely to be as effective as a gun but you can diffuse situations with it, defend yourself against a range of attacks, improve other aspects of your health and coordination too. It's ju jitsu.

And there we have it, ju jitsu. So in October last year I started training at the ju jitsu club where that classmate who first suggested it trains. It has been a lot of fun and my motivation to be as good as I can be at any time to look after myself has seen me through the bruises and the aches. In the real world I'm not good enough to defend myself yet, though there are some things I've learned that could be useful and for the first time in my entire life I can touch my toes when my legs are straight.
It has also been great for my social life too. The Jitsu Foundation is often described as the drinking club with a martial arts problem, and whilst there exists quite a lot of truth in that we still take the practical martial arts seriously, we just think that getting to know each other is important too. We spend around 2 hours a time doing relatively unpleasant things too each other and if we didn't then see each other off the mat this could seem pretty mean but we then go to the pub and spend a similar amount of time having a chat and a drink.

We also have another rule that is a stroke of genius. If you get hit in the face you buy that person a drink. Yes you did just read that right and there are good reasons why that is an excellent rule. You want to make sure you punch straight and on target because you want a free drink, this means that everyone is punching right and therefore we can learn to defend against real punches. You want to make sure that you don't get hit because not only do you get punched in the face and that's not nice but you also then have to find £3 to by that person a drink. The result is that you move your feet and you get your head out of the way of the punch.

The final maxim of the art is maximum effect, minimum effort/ if it works then it works. So the throws are based on minimum effort, the wrist and arm locks require technique over strengths and blocks, if done right don't hurt. Though atemis or strikes can, a lot, some of them can kill, instantly. This is why japanese jujitsu is not a sport, if some of the techniques are applied the other person will have many broken bones and will probably be dead. Arm and wrist locks are really breaks if executed just slightly further and this is why it is an amazing art. You have the option of taking control, or if need be going further. There are times when the only option is to knock someone out or otherwise immobilize them. If there is more than one attacker you cannot afford for them to keep getting back up and comming at you, if they are reaching for a deadly weapon etc then again dangerous force is ok and needed, sadly.

I will say one more thing about it though and that's that I'm beginning to enjoy the aches and bruises from training. They are now the feeling of taking my life back for myself.

apple and lemon stir fry

2010-02-18T09:31:00.002Z

This started as I had some leftover cider and lemons after an evening of pancakes.
Heat oil in a wok till it starts to smoke and add frozen 'chicken' or firm tofu, frozen veg (broccoli, corn, spinach, carrot, peas) in the meantime soak noodles in boiling water. when the veg is just about done add cider and pepper, paprika, cayenne and a squeeze of lemon, stir a bit longer evaporating some of the cider and add the noodles, stir add more cider, lemon and bouillon, stir and serve.
Tasted pretty good and for enough for two plates cost a total of about 50p

Food!

2010-02-18T07:54:00.000Z

So yeh, I'm one of those vegans.
What do I eat I hear you ask, well anything and pretty much everything that doesn't come from something that poops. Yes I eat tofu and yes I eat lentils but I do eat amazing chilli, curry, stir frys, pancakes and most importantly CAKE!!!
I've always been passionate about food, or at least eating it and since becoming vegan this has not changed, just the range of foods I now enjoy has increased.
I'll be adding recipes to the blog in the future but be warned I'm not the guy who spends hours carefully measuring and weighing, I put it all together and adjust until it tastes great.

Politics

2010-02-15T13:33:00.000Z

I'll start by saying that I have no party affiliation whatever. I do however despise some more than others, the BNP, UKIP, the Conservatives to name just three. As a result I'll vote however needed to keep those parties out. I have my reasons. The BNP and UKIP are fairly obvious so I'll go straight onto the tories.
They are a party whose only purpose is winning and recreating a time that never really existed. They have pushed politics back to the right since the 70s and have done more harm to the people of this country than anyone since the second world war.
They have no problem contradicting themselves at every turn and still allow Hannan active party membership whilst he espouses just about everything the people of this country hates. They are the party that opposed the formation of the NHS, opposed mass state education, student subsidy, decent welfare, union rights, gay rights, sexual equality, the abolition of the death penalty and flogging.
In 1979, the former stalking horse of the Edward Heath, became Prime Minister. For her first term in office she was deeply reliant of the cabinet and on the support of the back benches. She set about the most callous policy of the late 20th century. This policy was tried only one place before, in the military dictatorship of Chile. Milton Friedman's monetarism was given its first trial in a major economy and over the course of the beginning of the 80's it pretty much decimated the nation.
Over three million people became unemployed based on official figures at the time. Sadly the truth was much worse, were this measure the main method used today we would have an unemployment rate of 1.5m today rather than 2.5m. It is estimated that true unemployment (jobless total) reached a staggering 5 million by the end of the decade. At the time there were around 55 million people in the country.
The problem with the strategy was that it led to mass closures throughout Britain's industry. Turning off the taps to control inflation was not entirely successful and ripped out the heart of the working family. The real heartlessness was the lack of support for those who lost their jobs. There was little in the way of retraining, most had no formal qualifications outside of their industry, not even O levels.
People like my parents who left school at 14 and 15 to start work were not given a chance. Their livelihood was removed suddenly and without chance to adapt. My father had worked in the mines for 15 years and before that had worked at a brick kiln, it was all he knew. There was no alternative industrial jobs and he could barely read or write.

My mother faired a little better having an education to 15 and was fully literate and had experience working in an office and in cotton/ sewing but life was still hard. In my early childhood there were three coal mines nearby and in the town alone three cotton mills and countless factories. By the mid 90s there was only one factory left and they had reduced pay dramatically. Today there is nothing left. There is one street of shops, half of them boarded over and anyone who wants a chance of getting a job must commute serious distances.

In the early 90s thousands left the country in search of work, many more stayed behind. From the end of the decade things did actually start to get better but there was a massive problem. Some people had been out of work since the early 80s. Their kids were now in the job market but sadly without any background of work it was always going to be difficult for them to get work. They had been brought up in a world where the system had caused serious problems and would only try to keep them down. They learned to do whatever was needed to live and live as comfortably as they could. These are the children of the hardworking nation that turned into the scallies, chavs, neds and chavers that people so often despise today. It isn't their fault and they have so much pain inside that it is no wonder that they behave the way they do. Society gave up on their parents in the 80s, it gave up on them in the 90s and now their children? unfortunately as a nation people seem to have given up on them too.

All of this is the direct result of the actions of Margaret Thatcher and her government. There are reasons why she won in 79 and these must be acknowledged. The unions had missed their golden opportunity 'In Times of Strife' which was to be legislation requiring fairly simple and needed limits on the power of unions. In return arbitration would have been more robust and employers forced to stick to their commitments. The limits of unions power was an end to wildcat strikes, no flying pickets, introduction of a cooling off period between announcement and action as well as a requirement for industrial action to be backed up by a secret ballot. Today, they have less power than this and they could only dream of such freedom.
In the 70s the unions were often going too far with strike action and demands and it was inevitable that the tide of public opinion should turn away from them.

In 83 Margaret Thatcher was fortunate to win a war and this pretty much ensured a landslide victory despite the shameful circumstances of the war, the heavy losses and the tragic actions taken by the British military at her command. At this time the Labour party had some catastrophic problems, a lot of them were image related but some were more fundamental. The liberals, as had been the case for decades were nowhere to be seen. In 87 problems in the Labour party and the tories' right to buy scheme ensured the outcome. In 92 John Major was seen as different than the autocratic Mrs Thatcher and with the massive failure of the pre election Labour rally he secured victory, albeit with a narrow majority that dwindled to a negative figure by 97.

Whilst I can see why people voted for the Conservatives throughout this time I still disagree with them from 83 onwards. In 79 it is possible that I myself might have fallen for their charm but after 4 years of their disastrous rule there is no way that I could have in good conscience.

The Conservatives opposed sexual liberalization in 67 and introduced section 28 years later. They opposed civil partnerships and the repeal of section 28. Whilst the party today say that they are pro gay rights and even have a few gay MPs their actions say otherwise. Their shadow cabinet includes figures who publicly opposed liberalization and accordingly voted against it. This includes the leader of the opposition David Cameron.

They also voted against a ban of fox hunting and in opposition achieved protection for animal testing through operation at a European level. They are proposing a so called free vote on the fox hunting ban should they win in may, this however will essentially be a vote to bring it back. There is no place for this kind of activity in any society let alone modern Britain.

Their proposed changes to the House of Commons involves the reduction of the number of MPs by 10%, essentially these would be Labour and a few lib dem seats that would be lost. This is because of the way that votes are distributed around the country. Currently the constituencies based on population with a minor geographical adjustment and alignment to borders. The labour vote is well concentrated in many of their seats and as a result it requires them to receive fewer votes to get a majority as it stands at this time. This is not an excuse for the proposals by the Conservatives. These proposals amount to gerrymandering. The electoral system is the cause of this issue and if they want it to be fairer and more proportional then they should support
PR/ STV etc. They dislike this as they seek to govern and with strong majorities. The Labour proposals are for an alternative vote system that is majoritarian and leads to each MP having a clear mandate and is likely to produce relatively stable governments with clear majorities. This system would have produced very different outcomes to those we have seen over past 6 decades.

Finally (for now) I will talk about benefits. Currently a person under the age of 25 who has lost their job or is unable to work due to illness is likely to receive just £45pw to live on and only enough housing benefit to pay for a room in a shared flat (and often that is difficult). The conservatives are planning to cut health related benefits by around a third. This is completely unacceptable. The reason they are planning to cut health related benefits is that these are the people least likely and least capable to complain or do something about it. They are the people least likely to steal to support themselves and they are the people least likely to protest.
Officially Employment and support allowance for a 24 year old is £50pw, however when deductions for emergency loans have been taken that is less than £45 and as little as £42. How can a 24 year old living alone survive? The answer is that they can't. If they can't keep up their rent they will be homeless and classed as intentionally homeless. If they steal to eat they could end up with a criminal record. In some parts of London a typical studio or one Bedroom flat will cost around £120pw but at the same time the amoubt they get for their rent is less than £75 meaning they have to spend every penny they get on rent and have nothing left for any bills or food.

The reality is that cuts to unemployment benefits leads to an increase in crime and this increase in crime costs more than the money saved on benefits. They are however being typically callous and cutting benefits to those who are least able to break the law to make ends meet so it won't cost as much in crime as they save. At the same time many of these people will probably sacrifice their health by going to work before they are ready and this will save money in pensions later if they die young as a result. Many will end up homeless and actually on the street receiving only that basic £45pw thereby saying the entire cost of their housing benefit.

It is astonishing that the people of this country are not generally listening to these facts and the Conservatives still stand a chance of winning in May.
Every person who votes for the Conservatives in May must live with the fact that they are condemning the country and millions living in it to a worse future. They must live with the increase in suicide and street living and they must live the real increase in poverty that will result. For every increase in animal cruelty, waiting times, tuition fees, and every cut to wages the Conservative voter must take full responsibility.

Title

2010-02-14T01:55:00.000Z

Fairly obvious title really: conceived in 84
Well I was conceived an the last hours of 84, thanks parents for that information, and born, bang on time nine months later.
So 1984, a book by Eric Arthur Blair (aka George Orwell) and year of general turmoil across the world including the UK where the miners' strike came to a head. 1984 was quite an eventful year so I feel that putting that (albeit pathetic) link with history in there was quite important. George Orwell and the man behind the facade are an inspiration to me (despite being working class aspiring to a better life rather than being middle class and fashionably left wing and as yet not having written anything of any importance) and frankly the most brilliant author of the twentieth century.

An author has many options open to him, he can write in extraordinarily high lexis or he can write what he means in plain English. He can use symbolism and linguistic features until such a time as the bovine livestock return to the farmers abode but unless the reader actually gets what they are talking about and unless a broad audience can do so then there is no point. The brilliance of Orwell was that he was able to use every feature at his disposal and in a way that every person who can read English, even if only to the level of a nine year old school child, can read, digest, understand and appreciate.

So what is in a title? history, threads and aspirations.

Background

2010-02-13T22:39:00.000Z

So who is Richard Orwell anyway?

I'm a strange guy from a working class background. Started life in Wigan with close ties to Bolton and then at six moved to Ireland where I lived for the better part of 12 years. The place in which I grew up was largely describable as the backarse of the backarse of nowhere. I went through the schooling system somehow and when seventeen I escaped to the glorious wonder that is Bolton. Where I went to college for a bit including a stint at a college the other side of Manchester.

Finally in 2006 I got to London and really love it here. It has its flaws, and lots of them but I love it. London is for me a holiday city in which I have had the great privilege of living for the past three and a half years and in which I hope to continue living for many years to come.

Now such a summary glosses over so much that is important in my past.

My childhood in Ireland was relatively poor, there were poorer of course there were but life was tough. We didn't have much, we did have a roof over our heads but it wasn't exactly ideal, for over a year only two rooms had heating (open fires) the rest had nothing, no insulation of any kind, terrible damp and falling to bits. Even after improvements it was pretty bad, there were, leaks, power problems, unsafe water... My dad was at the beginning of my life the cashpoint and little more when the mines closed in 91 and he lost his job this role ended. For years he did try to work, but wasn't successful. Over the years he worked as part of a number of government training schemes and that sort of thing but we did struggle quite a lot. My mum took the role and worked hard throughout and looked after me and my brother and provided for us as best she could. Sadly my father took things out on us more than he should really was not a father to me. He went from the family cashpoint to family mugger over those years and things never really got better. My mum was ill a lot over my life and I took time out of school to help look after her and deal with household stuff. Thankfully she's still around though I wish she was down here in London.

Schooling wasn't great, it was strict, catholic and a little austere. Primary in England was alright but I resent the fact that in school I was taught religion as fact rather than one possibility. In school in Ireland it went a whole step further and I was even taught that the celtic legends were fact as part of history class. At least in primary they understood that I had learning difficulties and compensated for it, they may have done so in a fairly harsh way but it did work. I left primary with straight As and answered all 6 sections on the maths paper of the entrance exam when you're only supposed to be able to answer 5 in the time they give. Secondary school was when things began to get really difficult for me. My grades suffered massively, educational needs ignored and when I revealed that I'm an atheist I was made to see the school chaplain frequently and threatened with expulsion. One teacher went so far as to call me 'the master of excuces' when I shattered my arm and was unable to write.

This was where I really learned what violence was though I will write more on this later but it was not by any stretch of the imagination an easy time and I did in the end change to another school.

From the age of 7, yes 7, I was doing substantial manual labour. Where we lived we had a bog from which we got our fuel. As a kid I would have to mark, turn, foot, stack, bag and bring home much of the turf and 93 was no easy year as the weather was particularly bad. Later I did odd jobs at neighbours and even had proper jobs throughout schooling. This did prepare me well for later life and ensured that I always worked hard in any job that I got.

I have unfortunately spent much of my life ill from one thing or another, as a young child I was constantly ill from fairly minor things but it was fairly constant, I was in hospital fairly frequently and sometimes for a fairly long time. This really became a problem for my education after I moved to England. Tonsillitis generally doesn't sound too bad but when you have it 1-2 times a month nearly every month for a year and a half it really takes its toll. I was hospitalized 4 times due to severe effects from it including over Christmas. I lost three jobs to it and nearly my life. Early in 2005 my sixth form college threw me out for being ill too often, two days later I lost my job for the same reason. Thankfully problems were resolved a few months later when I had the tonsils removed. Sadly this was not the last time I was seriously ill. At the beginning of 2009 I began to get ill, this got worse until I was no longer able to get out of the house easily. I was admitted to hospital with severe dehydration and suspected meningitis. I spent some time there including on an isolation unit. My condition deteriorated to the point where my condition was grave. After a week of being treated for anything they could think of, having just about every test they could think of and had so much blood removed that they ran our of veins, I thankfully started to improve. It turned out that the cause was HIV. I later find out that the gas fire in the house had made things worse. Thankfully HIV isn't that bad generally and most of my life will hardly effect my life at all. Obviously there will be some effects but no where near as bad as people think. Night-sweats are the biggest impact it has on a day to day basis

Just a few weeks later though I was violently attacked and have since been struggling with post traumatic stress disorder. This has caused me to withdraw from university and prevented me getting work over the past year. This mental illness has been the worst illness of them all and caused me to give up my three bedroom house and move into shared accommodation which I'm now about to lose. I've had to battle with the DWP, two councils and go through two area's queues for therapy and am not too far off finally getting it. Had I not moved in September my therapy would have started then.

This pretty much brings me up to now and where I am today. Unemployable, broke and about to be officially homeless.

Why am I blogging?

2010-02-13T22:27:00.000Z

Why am I blogging?

Well to begin with I've got nothing better to do with my time at the moment and I have a tremendous amount of free time on my hands.

The second reason is that I see things in the world at the moment and I get very angry and if I'm honest I'd like to get it off my chest and share it with people.

Finally, I have my problems at the moment and I'm using this as a way of working through it.

Bear with me while I get started on this as I'm fairly new to blogging.

Thanks for reading.