Posts Tagged "a"
Bath Chronicle write about my complaint
This morning, the Bath Chronicle have written a piece covering the complaint I made to the ASA about ‘Healing on the Streets’ Bath. They mentioned that I blog here and I am sure many people may find my blog as a result.
I would ask that anyone who does come here as a result to read my account of why I made the complaint by clicking here.
Anybody wishing to get in touch with me can do so through the ‘Contact’ page here.
Thank you
Subscriptions
I recently moved my website over to a wordpress.org self hosted site instead of the wordpress.com one I had previously. This means that the people who subscribed to my blog through email updates and RSS feeds would have lost the connection to my blog posts.
I tried to put out a post on my old blog (http://www.ratherfriendlyskeptic.wordpress.com) about this but I’m not sure if it got through to the feeds and emails or not. I thought I would just post to say that if you used to subscribe to my blog you will need to re-subscribe (by clicking the ‘follow’ button on the bottom right of this page).
I found a way to transfer over the majority of email subscribers (so if you found this blog via an email update… that’s why…)
Sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused, I do think the move has been worth it though.
Leave other people alone.
Since I was a child I have visited the small town of Ypres in Belgium numerous times, and while there I have gone on to visit the numerous war memorials and burial sites where there are hundreds and hundreds of white crosses marking the burial place of soldiers killed in WW1 – allies and non-allies (whose grave markers are actually black squares laying on the floor). Then there is the Menin gate in the town centre itself that is covered with the names of those who are missing in action from WW1.
The poppy worn for remembrance has its origins in the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ that was written by Lieutenant Colonel Colin McRae. I’ve visited the place McRae is said to have written the poem. It’s a very somber place. There are poppies everywhere.
This year I am not wearing a poppy on remembrance day. I haven’t got one because I haven’t been anywhere that has sold them.
It doesn’t mean I wont remember the people who have died in conflict – both troops and civilians, family and strangers…
A poppy is a symbol. A two minute silence is a symbolic action. You don’t need a poppy to remember and you don’t need a two minute silence to remember.
Shockingly to some, you don’t even need to remember. It is completely your choice and you shouldn’t have to face questions from people about why you’re not wearing a poppy or being silent.
If you’re one of those people who has stopped someone in the street or has questioned why someone isn’t wearing a poppy (which has happened to me twice), ask yourself why it is any of your business what another person chooses to do, and then walk away.
Perhaps if you are one those people who has posted on Facebook ‘you can either stand behind our troops or stand in front of them’ you can ask yourself what you are actually saying. We should agree with your view on war or be prepared to die?
If you really stand by that sentiment, you are a pretty horrifying person.
I’m afraid to break it to you, life isn’t that simple. Actions and words and feelings and opinions are very complicated.
Some people will wear a poppy, some people wont wear a poppy. It’s not problem. Some will remember with or without a poppy and some wont take the minutes to remember at all. It’s their choice and not yours. It’s called ‘freedom of expression’ and it’s a basic human right.
Deal with it.
my existence is crap
I had dreams, but when I left school I was a bit disullusioned with what I wanted to do and I was talked into enrolling onto a college course that wasn’t suited to me, but rather, was a course that a particular relative would like to have done and because they couldn’t I was, in their mind, the suitable replacement.
The year after I quit college I enrolled on a business course because that left me with loads of options, however, my life decided to be a bitch and gave me a huge tumor in my ear that was threatening my life. After surgery and recovery I was so far behind with my work that my tutor kindly suggested I try again next year.
A year later and I was nineteen and my mother had only what was best in mind when she told me that going back to college was probably impossible because of our financial situation. She didn’t know about adult learning grants and I, being naive, didn’t bother to find out about them. So I went into full time work and I did an NVQ in the bakery that I was working in.
That’s the extent of my qualifications. A handful of GCSE’s and an NVQ in bakery retail and service.
I have tried several courses since. Home study, full time placement, online part time etc. however after a rather nasty two year bullying campaign that I had to deal with when I worked for Sainsburys my mental health was sort of fucked up. I was diagnosed with severe social anxiety and panic disorder all because my line manager couldn’t be bothered to sort the problem with the bully out because he ‘didn’t know how’. Spineless bastard.
It meant that my negative thoughts overtook my common sense and I sabotaged every opportunity that was handed to me. It was like being trapped inside of yourself, watching as you destroy things but not being able to do anything about it, or to stop yourself.
Now, all this time later and I have recovered and I want to achieve something with my life and now I have no chances. Nobody will give me the chance to do something to get a step up to somewhere.
I am unemployed, my job seekers people keep screwing me over with my money, nearly every job I apply for tells me I have too much experience (because of previous retail management training) or not enough experience, or I have experience of the wrong sort.
My goal was to finish off the open university degree that I started two years ago and couldn’t afford to continue because of the social anxiety, however, I can’t afford to even consider paying £650 for the first part of the course because I don’t even have £6.50 let alone £650.
I have applied for a course at college but to get onto it I will need to take out an ‘adult learning grant’ but I still owe them money from a previous course I took, and I can’t afford to pay them, so it’s unlikely I’ll be able to get onto that course even if I’m accepted by the college.
It really annoys me because I want to achieve something and people wont let me. I get tarred with the same brush as people who are on job seekers allowance and don’t want to do anything. I’m not like that and not everyone who gets job seekers allowance is like that. It’s a vile generalisation that people make and it angers me.
Every two weeks I have to go to the job centre to sign on and it is humiliating. Every two weeks I get enough money to pay my mum some rent and then have enough in my purse left over in case I need to travel to interviews (which is very rarely.)
Gordon Brown was right when he recently said there isn’t a life on Job seekers allowance because there isn’t. This life that I live right now, it’s not an existence.
It’s a life full of ‘hang in there’, ‘you’re CV is great’, ‘something will give’, ‘there’s a job out there for you’, ”you’re applying for jobs in the right way’, ‘something will turn up’, and ‘don’t let it get you down.’ It’s disappointing. It’s annoying. It’s undignifying. I hate it.
Check it out…
