Death

Its that time of year when everything is dead and people can get depressed, The pagan Christmas is not about celebrating death, but the light that is to come, similarly, in Christianity the celebration is not so much about the birth of Jesus as it is disputed as to when he was actually born, but to draw attention to God in man, God made flesh. The qualities Jesus gave, and also the promise of his return one day when there is peace.

The picture above was created by my nine year old niece, she didn't like it and asked if I would take it from her which I have done as you can see, I understand completely as I have also created in pictures and clay things that are not loved and cherished, but dark and disturbing.

My niece prayed for and lit two candles, one for all the living people in the world and one for the dead. This was when we paid a visit to an ancient Abbey up North, this Christmas. Then she asked me some difficult questions, one of them was about death and what to do if and when faced with death. The agony and pain of it, she was indignant and asked how would I feel.

I said to my beloved niece that if there is nothing you can do about it and it is going to happen, you must resign yourself to death, let death take you. She was resistant to the idea, but then something in the Abbey, a picture I think caught her eye, and she accepted it, and I felt her relax.

This started me thinking then and I wondered how satisfactory the answers I gave her actually were, I felt them to be a little too harsh, especially for a child. I felt the need to tell her about Jesus, but she gets a lot of that from school and she would rather tell me about what she knows about Jesus than listen my ramblings on the subject, she was much more succinct and articulate about him anyway,to her it was all very simple.

So now there will be the returning of light as we head into the new Year towards spring, to everything turn turn turn, there is a season ...

BBC Jody McIntyre interview

It has just hit the news on TV, here is an extract, note the disdain the BBC presenter has for this young man, its awful. Shameful BBC!

Jody McIntyre being pulled from his wheelchair #demo2010

This is utterly shocking, footage of police dragging a man from his wheelchair. Onlookers manage to intervene and stop this brutality, but one thing sticks in my mind here, how, when the police are so clearly in the wrong, they still have the arrogance to repeat their mantra with arrogance "get back"!

This is an upsetting video I give forewarning to anyone who has a disposition similar to mine; you want to know the truth and it hurts when you see it. Sorry, but being as close as you can to the truth is so important in life, so, here it is and thanks again to Lenin from the Tomb for this one.

Captain SKA - Liar Liar

Okay, having been out of political activism for a while now, with the art exhibition, the holiday and a dodgy tummy on my return (ugg!). I am slowly returning to the fold, and how things have changed, the political landscape is new, its fresh and there is a dearth of young people getting actively involved in things like the tax dodging issue, how corporations are finding loop holes and not paying money in tax while children get denied education, disabled people get penalized and women bear the brunt of cuts in the public sector. The young people may be being denied education but they sure as hell can do their maths. The amount in unpaid taxes by the rich and by corporations far exceeds the amount in cuts.
Anyhow here is a very good song with a message and its just being launched now, I am secretly hoping it will make the Christmas number one spot.



Cool innit!

Holiday Art

I did four pictures while on holiday, one of them is unfinished still, and another was a drawing that I had done earlier this year and happened to be still in my pad waiting for some paint. The other two are below. One is of the Algarve coastline, the other is of a Moorish castle in a place called Silvis.

At the Zoo

Someone told me its all happening at the Zoo, and it certainly was true at this free for public Zoo in Spain. Of course those Lions were absolutely spectacular and I was smitten especially by the male who was very domineering and proud, and posed for me, best of all. The lioness was equally spectacular but in a different way, she was very muscular, she had rippling muscles all over her body and was very alert, but that beautiful male did take the limelight as the pictures in the previous post shows.
It got me thinking about our connectivity to animals and nature, how this male lion posed for me and the camera, there was communication there and he was showing his glorious nature. After that encounter, I went around the rest of the Zoo ( it was a small Zoo but a very impressive one ) spending time with the animals and birds, talking to them, I said to them:- "Strike a pose!" and to my amazement, many of them maneuvered themselves to get in a good pose for the camera, the tiger and African parrot in particular.
How marvelous are our beasts and how marvelous is nature itself?



The gazelles were a tad shy, but not really that surprising as they were only a short distance from the lion enclosure!
I have just finished a glass gazelle that I made for my niece which took me over six months to make and I was very keen to see how the glass gazelle I made from scratch compared to a living one. I will put up a picture of the glass one once I have got a photo of it and downloaded it.
Gazelles are stunning albeit shy creatures and I enjoyed spending time by their enclosure gradually gaining their confidence.



It really does all happen at the zoo, and free ones are simply the best!

My Holiday Romance with the Lion Heart

Well now I know another beautiful part of the world, the Algarve in Portugal, and yes I am going to bore you with holiday pictures!

I wasn't looking for a holiday romance ( honestly ), but those Mediterranean types are so sensitive to peoples needs, they are so ... well ... sweet, I did fall a bit in love with a beautiful boy...







Ahhhh, we met in Spain actually I was just there for the day, short, but long enough to fall in love. He gave me so much love and attention I thought we would be together forever, but then, oh drat, I noticed something ...



Story of my life, I was one girl ( or lion ) too late, but I ain't letting him go that easy. That's Portuguese Love.

Hooray Hooray It's A Holi Holiday

Hi, I'm off, after all that hard work what with the exhibition and all, I'm leaving on a jet plane and I will be back in a weeks time. Here is a nice collection of cats to keep you amused while I'm gone, love and peace, Sophie xxx

Cavatina from The Deerhunter

This is Nina playing some wonderful classical guitar at the exhibition.

The Exhibition 2010

The door to the exhibition and the famous 'visitors book'





A watercolour and acrylic called " Shhhh"


Ian playing his guitar at the gallery

The Youth of Today have a lot to say!

Children and babies are gifts and it is true, it is something I believe. They are great healers, come into the world full of love and wanting to please and just want to play and have fun in life. These are among the reasons why it was quite important to me that young people and children got a chance to see our exhibition and I was keen to see what their reaction to it was.

The group of school children who came last Tuesday initially broke the ice by asking me how Vincent died ( they were admiring our showpiece of Van Gogh in the Yellow Room ) to which I told them the truth that he shot himself, we talked for a while about Vincent, his anxiety and mental health troubles, which the young people showed that they understood and were sympathetic about, in fact there were terms that I used that I knew I did not have to explain or go any further as they had understood, and maybe experienced some of those things themselves.

Their teacher had instructed them to choose a piece of art work that they most liked to which many of the students replied that they had got two, or even four!

The children loved it and were intrigued about how I made the glass, which I found difficult to explain as it is a very involved process, but when they all came along, last Tuesday, they really did appreciate the exhibition and they left after about an hour giving me instructions to carry on and never give up!

I am very pleased that there have been a number of young people come to the exhibition and many of them said that they enjoyed it, the comments book is very complimentary and one famous artist (an older type) left a comment today saying that he was impressed with the talent on display! And he hoped people would enjoy it as much as he had! Well that is a result!

Today we had our youngest visitor to the gallery, a baby girl, well a toddler in her pram, she couldn't see the pictures as they were too high up from the vantage of her pram, but when the pram turned around and faced the ceramic green men plaques, the youngster shrieked with delight and shouted "man" "man" "man", then she noticed the apes and her grandma told her that they were apes and she continues to shout out "man" "man" "man", which was very funny. As she approached me in her pram she looked at me and said "Mummy" three times, that shocked and delighted me! Her grandma turned her chair to face the exhibition and asked her which was her favorite piece, she took it in, thought about it, and then as clear as anything said 'guitar'. This little girl totally made my day, bless her!

Sadly tomorrow will be the last day, but we are making plans to return for another show particularly as someone called 'Tinky Winky' from 'Telly tubby land' made a comment in our book which read 'again again again'. We can't let the kids down now can we?

Arial picture of the students at Millbank (10.11.10)

Disability and resulting human compensation for it.

The exhibition is now in its third week and we were wondering whether two weeks would have been enough and is it dead on its feet now. I thought so, but the afternoon at the exhibition proved me so wrong. There was a steady stream of visitors all afternoon and someone had made their way from Maidstone to come to it especially (and its a hidden away venue - not easy to find) so that was particularly heartening, and we spent a good three quatres of an hour talking too which was very nice. The guest from Maidstone was a special treat for myself as curator and for the exhibition itself. If she is reading this blog, I must encourage her to go for it, do an exhibition with the photography for example, it is so worthwhile and can lead on to other things.

There was also a very nice and posh middle class and middle aged lady who I got talking to at the exhibition. She told me that in life there are some things that should be kept to yourself unless you really trusted someone. My answer ( and I presumed she meant our openness regarding our mental health capacity) was that sometimes someone had to make the first move and also as well as that, the particular experiences that we ( the exhibitors ) have had, has been so life changing and significant that it rendered us unable to keep it to our self.

Then it was how sorry she was for us incapables, or words to that effect, to which I bought her attention to the fact that anyone with any disability or finds themselves compromised in some faculty usually not only learns to live with it, but also compensates for it. I gave the example of how blind people might have enhanced hearing facilities or any other such combination to which she found herself agreeing.

So for us, what is our compensation, this nice lady said she thought that we must have 'psychic' abilities as compensation. Now I don't strictly disagree, its just that I think everyone has psychic abilities and it is nothing special, what I said to her was that our compensation lies in our healing abilities, our art, our ability to entertain etc.

This again goes back to our show piece Vincent, his true life story seems to be covered up somewhat by those who do not want to hear the facts about his mental illnesses and his incarceration in mental hospitals.

Perhaps they just want us to not have any talents, because we can't do a regular nine to five, we have to be patronised, written off, medicated to the land of nod, isolated and forgotten about. Of course our brothers and sisters won't allow this to happen and neither will many of us, but it can be extraordinarily difficult at times, sadly many do give up and mortality rates for mental health service users can be higher than the general population. Although it is not always the case, but I have had that many friends die by taking their own lives, and die from general ill health and neglect, it does sadly ring true.

johnny cash - there ain't no grave - The Johnny Cash Project Part 1

A brilliant song and fantastic innovative computer graphics.

Students smash Tory HQ

The students have rightly had enough of being given no hope and no future by the Torydem Government. These students are our future, they are brave and learning some street fighting skills, something that is necessary and that we the older generation were unable to teach them. May they be blessed, guided and protected always.

More news from the exhibition.

It was a very cold and rainy day today, so we didn't expect many people to turn up to look at the exhibition. I really hoped that someone would come in, and then, low and behold, a couple ... typical of this area, one from Strood, one from the Delce and just the sort of people you'd expect from these areas; rough, unkempt, unhealthy looking, the 'all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth' types, the typical people from round this way and by God I love 'em.

They were wonderfully appreciative of all of the exhibits on display, asking questions about them, laughing, pondering the meaning of some of the work. The woman was one after my own heart as her favorite work at the exhibition was Chris Barchard's 'War', which is also my favorite, we discussed the title of the work and looked on it admirably, both of us commenting on how deep the picture is. Oh! how I love these rough types, they must have spent about forty minutes in the Gallery, going back and forth, they genuinely enjoyed it.

That's all I ever wanted, to reach the masses like this, to make art accessible, enjoyable and for everyone! The icing on the cake were the comments they made in the book, the woman said how interesting everything was and the rough and ready young man said that he really enjoyed it and it was something to give people HOPE ( he wrote that in capitals ). They said they would return for the classical Indian music tomorrow, the sitar and tabla rendition and I really hope they do return.

There have been a few wealthy looking types, people who came in at the start, they might have been interested in the work, but they were as stiff as boards and, as is common among these people, they looked like they are looking for a money spinner, who knows some might come back for purchasing, and I secretly would love to be supported in my art work by a rich benefactor, but yes, well, dream on ...

On the whole though the exhibition is starting to take off, we have a group of teenage schoolers coming in tomorrow first thing, again something that I am so glad is happening, to reach the youth with our work is a dream come true, although of course they might hate the stuff ... but I doubt it, anyway I am really looking forward to watching their reactions ( if any ) to our work. We also will be having a group of local Asian women visiting the exhibition, so its all been good so far.

Music makes pictures that often tell stories

Just thought I would post up some more pictures from the Exhibition and say how wonderful the music is and has been already. We have had a few people ask if the musicians have CD's available, so, they ought get on the case as there are a few buyers out there who like your music very much.

picture By David Jones

Personally I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at the gallery, particularly when I see and get to chat with new and old friends, some I haven't seen for a long while, in one case I had a good long chat with an old friend who I hadn't seen for ten years, and I learned so much about him as we talked at the gallery.

Yesterday, my enthusiasm with the music went through the roof as we had a sitarist and tabla playing, it was moving to say the least and I am so glad they are coming back to play another session on Tuesday.

Most of all I am enjoying the interest people are showing in the art work, this is something that gives me the greatest joy of all because it is what I wanted when I was making and producing the work; to share emotions and feelings. That people feel something when looking at my or any of the others work is really what its all about. It is a bonus if anyone feels they wish to purchase any of the pictures, ceramics or glass work, but I would say that they ought buy now as the prices are low, they would have an investment because the work will be worth a fortune when we're dead! So roll up, roll up! (I am joking btw).


'Holy face' by me


The things we make are not only objects and pictures by which we express ourselves, we also learn about the subject through the painting, ceramic or piece of glass work. So if you paint or draw flowers or fruit, you learn through that painting more about their nature. In the finished product you pass what you learned and how they made you feel.

Much of my work is of a philosophical nature it is and has been a way that I can learn more and express my feelings. It is well known and neither do I make a secret of the fact that I have on a number of occasions done visual and three D representations of the devil, but I have also done many flowers, trees, birds and biblical icons such as Moses, Adam and Eve, Jesus, John the Baptist and a few Mary's. I twice attempted a clay representation of Calvary, and there is a story and a half about one of those attempts, which I never will forget. It made me wonder whether in order to hand depict Calvary, the artist really has to be pure and clean in heart and maybe at that time I wasn't, but well who knows, maybe one day I will be!

Glass boat from china

Charity, Creativity and Mental Health

Sunset with boxes by Chris Barchard


Something that I didn't expect from the Exhibition was the amount of interest people would have in the charity, 'the National Perceptions Forum', a mental health charity sponsoring the event.

A few years ago we produced a DVD about ourselves, our history, how we formed, who we are and what we are about. We still had quite a few in the office cupboard so I took some to display at the exhibition, they went like hot cakes on the opening night and everyday since then, so too has our magazine 'Perceptions'. So today the office administrator came down from London to replenish our stocks.

It rings true for so many people that mental health problems and emotional instability go together with creativity, real creativity that is. Not learning a few tricks to go on huge canvases to make a financial killing, no, our work, the work shown on the exhibition by the six is stuff that comes from our hearts. We put everything from ourselves into it and we are not ashamed to do this, we don't hold back mainly because we have a need to express our wrought emotions somehow.

Suffering with emotional problems can mean for many of us that we have consequential social and relationship problems. Statistically I read somewhere that people with a diagnosis of a serious mental health problem are less likely to be able to manage long term relationships and among the people I know it does see to be the case.

Van Gogh really is a case in point and our lovely showpiece 'Vincent in the Yellow Room' illustrates this beautifully. Vincent did his best work in a mental institution and he never sold one piece of his work in his lifetime preferring instead to hang on to them maybe? His life was plagued by inappropriate relationships and emotional instability but the work he produced was exquisite. I have been compared to Van Gogh's story by my close friends and family on a few occasions something that I find both alarming and complimentary.

The unexpected upshot of this exhibition is an understanding of what it means to have mental health problems, the exhibition shows what we *can* do and hopefully people can see the love that is in our hearts. Something that we may not be able to show to people in any other way other than with clay, canvas and other artistic mediums.




Vincent in the Yellow Room by Maureen Oliver

Collaboration and the Art Exhibition's opening night

Being part of setting up, organising, and running an exhibition has been quite an experience with many unexpected and wonderful things happening.

One of the most comforting and heartening things has been the amount of interest the exhibition has provoked and the number of people who have been willing and abundantly able to help with the organising of it and thus ensuring its smooth running and success so far.

It has been no mean feat either, getting together work from six artists, the framing of the works (huge thanks goes to my Mum for that as well as the many other things she helped with) organising for people to travel across the country to help with the installation, filming it to produce a DVD (eventually) and live music performances.

The music played live (classical) has proved enormously popular, some very wise artists commented on how having music at such an exhibition like ours enabled those attending to feel free to talk about the exhibits with the music providing a pleasant cover for peoples initial thoughts (without it, thoughts might be embarrassingly amplified!)

It has brought us all closer together, parts of my family and some very amazing friends.

The opening night on Friday 30th October set the tone, and I started to realise how good what we were doing actually was. We developed a mutual appreciation society where each of us has some brilliant and remarkable skills that we all verbally appreciated and we made a collaborative effort. I believe a collaborative art and music exhibition is preferable to a solo show (the pressure of that must be unbearable) but a solo show is one that is more highly regarded in the art world and one that is aspired to by the majority of artists.

Rather than being competitive with one another as artists, it is just brilliant to love and appreciate each and every one of us, as far as I am concerned we are great and on the opening night we were able to talk about our work with other artists and interested people. We all really enjoyed it, its the stuff dreams are made of.

Ceramic wall plaques @ the Exhibition

This one is called 'bird face' some people think s/he looks more like a fox ...

I made about twenty ceramic wall plaques and am displaying seventeen of them, twelve of them are human faces, ( of which a couple are green men ). Three apes and one hanging ceramic heart which has glass inlay. They look good together and make a nice set, we used fish wire to hang them up ( which is almost invisible ) so they look just like floating faces against a wall.

It is interesting watching people as they look at the ceramic faces, and I love looking at them all as a group, their expressions are funny, sad, happy, one even looks positively angry in a certain light!

The funniest thing about the ceramic faces is that they seem to be looking right back at you!

Jimmy's Guitar at the Exhibition

Here is a guitar I made out of glass for my nephew Jimmy and it is being shown along with other pieces of glass work at the Nucleus Arts Center Exhibition. One piece of glass work has been sold and the buyer got a bargain. It is a glass boat from China but made of glass. There is a great deal of work that goes in to making these pieces, Jimmy's guitar shown below took at least four months to do. But it is a worthwhile result.

Exhibition Showpiece - Vincent in the Yellow House

Here is the showpiece to the 'Art of Recovery' Exhibition at the Nucleus Arts Center. It is by Maureen Oliver and is a beautiful and sad picture of Vincent. It is brilliant.

Picture at The Exhibition

Here is one of my favorite pictures currently being shown at the Art Exhibition I am busy organising called 'Art of Recovery' at the Nucleus Arts Center.

It is entitled 'War' and is by Chris Barchard.

The reason why I love this picture so much is because it speaks volumes about the injustice of War. The form at the top right hand corner is rounded and to me looks like it has a heart in its center and is shedding a tear as the aggressive and angular forms making pointed, incessant scheming and vicious attack. It reminds me of Picasso's Guernica.

Mad Pride and the protest at speakers corner, London

Today in Hyde Park Speakers Corner, a bunch of sanity challenged people like myself who were like myself despite the odd emotional outbursts surprisingly sensible and sane at least some of the time depending on the environment anyway. Well we braved the cold wind and the rain to join together to protest against and articulate our disgust at the Condem government.

It would have been good to have brought my camera along as on arrival at about 1pm there was a life size effigy of David Cameron hanging from a tree by his neck and a young man with bad shaky hands holding a megaphone and reading from hand written notes giving a very sound political speech. He said the plans for the day were that they were going to leave David Cameron up there suspended until ... he was going to say and did proceed to say it after someone in the crowd said "he's dead" ... until he gets really uncomfortable.

Many people took willingly to the megaphone to read their poetry and make speeches, all of it was good and some of it extremely emotional and angry. One young lady stood by me crying and I must admit there were times I felt like that too. People saying how much they had believed in the hype about us all being the same and we would be okay if we would only get a good nine to five, and how hard they had tried to do this, only to dramatically and spectacularly fail with all the drastic consequences on everything from housing to work to relationships and family.

I could so relate to all of that and I am glad I didn't think about it today at the protest because I would have been in fits of uncontrollable sobbing. The last time I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital I lost my dear cat; she lost her life due to the severe disruption that these things cause, mental instability is a very serious and debilitating condition.

People today spoke brilliantly about how we are being demonized because we are on benefits, how we are being used by this government as examples of the undeserving, when the truth of the matter is that it could happen to anyone and the people who pay into the tax system, by far the majority are people who are happy for there to be provision for us because they are our brothers and sisters, cousins, uncles and aunts, children, Mums and Dads.

The speeches today were brilliant, my favorite by far was a speech / performance by Clare from Bath (we go back a long way), she said many things that were so true and had me in stitches, but the one thing that really stuck out was when she said that she strongly believes that us mad people should embrace our madness and show it !!! Because she said that not only being ourselves defies the likes of Cameron and also perhaps scares them, Clare said that the normals out there, when they see us acting up and being outrageous ( something I can't always help and have little or no control over anyway); the truth is she said slowly and looking down to ground, is that they the normals want some too!

Then the Cameron effigy was attacked and disemboweled by three women to a cheering audience followed by a two minute yes two minute! scream, which I didn't participate in, I walked back towards Buckingham Palace through the trees of Hyde Park all full of emotion and wondering if I looked like the Munch painting to passes by (and with such apt background acoustics).

Respect to Mad Pride for organising the event, hope there will be many more of them, until we get what we want and need, which is dignity and respect and the back of this small, weak, despising and vicious government.

The Victorians and the net - how much have things changed?

The net is a wonderful thing in my opinion. Of course before its existence we had ways of getting through long and often lonely evenings and nights, but the net has opened up socializing and connectivity with one another and it makes it a pretty good second place to real face to face communication and socializing.

It could be argued that at times it can be better than face to face networking, although each has its place, and at other times it can be worse. Obvious point I know, but now I am going to tell you about my own particular beef with the net, and its one that I half expected but it is no less annoying none the less.

Its the sexism ... Most of the time I post as my own gender, but I had been wondering at times if my posts were being taken less seriously because of my being female. It was a nagging thought that kept coming up, so after a while during some discussions I changed my gender to male, and I keep thinking of the famous Victorian authoress George Elliot who felt it necessary to change her gender to male in order to be taken seriously, but it does work surprisingly.

It did feel as if the efforts I was making in some contributions in places on the net were much better received when I posted as a man. And of course you are a lot less likely to be patronized or asked out for sex (this did and still occasionally does happen although not like it happened at one time a while ago).

Its not that its a mans world that bothers me, it is the fact that women are not treated generally speaking with having any or very much positive contribution to make in life, we are regarded with suspicion or ridiculed, patronized and so on.

I long for the day when we can be free, be true brothers and sisters and respected equally. Judged first by what we do and say rather than the by colour of our skin, by our sexuality, our gender or any other any other aspect of ourselves to whom others may feel fit to denigrate; as a crude and cruel way to make themselves feel better.

This happens a lot in the sub conscious. It does take a conscious effort on behalf of all those who want to see the back of sexism and a better world to understand that it happens and is detrimental to all; men and women alike. People need to stand up against sexism and make changes in life, even if it means something simple like trying to understand and imagine what it must be like to face some of the things us women have to face. Just to be more supportive towards women and therefore paving the way for a future of equality and mutual respect.

Naked Woman, Wild and Free

This watercolour has been transferred and made into a tattoo on a friend of mine, his name is Rob.

She appears to be wild and free, just like we'd all like to be.

Pain

Not sure if you can feel what I feel with this ceramic model of a man I made about a year and a half ago with a tattoo of a winged serpent on his back.




He's saying "it ain't me its the devil won't you tell him to stop".






Well I feel sorry for him anyhow.

Charity

Believe me I do feel for the predominantly young people whose job it is to sell charity on our High Streets, but what a crazy job it is.

For a start there is a common saying that goes 'charity begins at home', that is not being selfish although it might sound it especially if your attitude towards people in say the third world is a paternalistic one, or a misplaced guilt ridden one, i.e people who feel guilty about living and think somehow other people (who have struggles probably similar to theirs) are a more worthy cause than theirs is.

I myself am not only a charity worker but also a charity supporter, and I pay subs to the anti-nazi league (the fore runners to Unite Against Fascism) and to the Socialist Workers Party, I also support individuals who need help when and where I can, and I sponsor an orangutan called Monty on behalf of my Dad.

However, these street charity workers' job takes the biscuit. I bumped into one today who said " Hello what are you doing" I thought to myself " I'm minding my own business", but I just said " I am walking down the High Street" to which she replied "But I am really nice you know" ! Then started saying she wanted a chat... Now I do really feel sorry for these young people as I said before and I am sure they are very nice people. But I really can't say that I would support any one of these causes over another so I blanket don't get involved in any of them, as I certainly wouldn't afford to support all of them.

Many of them are things that should be a given anyway, such as clean water and sanitation for parts of the world that still don't have them. The young and the old should be cared for by society, the elderly respected because of what they have put into life already and the wisdom they can pass on and the young because they are the future.

On charities supporting animals; they really can become a constant nag for financial assistance. Our relationship with animals should be a respectful one, but when the society we live in hardly respects human life it is wrong but no surprise that animals get mistreated. In other words it is our society as a whole that needs to be fundamentally changed into one that puts the needs of the people and the environment first, which is why I give money, am a member and supporter of the SWP.

Homelessness charities are ones that pull on heart strings too and with the wealth that there going around with many people having many more than one house, and other lush and unnecessary luxuries there really is no need for anyone living here to be living rough. In among the homelessness issues, are mental health problems, a very high proportion of homeless people have mental health problems, so again you can see how all of these issues interlink.

We need providing organisations and ones that cater for peoples needs, but they should be funded centrally and evenly, not reliant of private finance and charity. Lets not forget all those rich billionaires and millionaires who have ill begot gains through exploitation and dodgy dealing, for them, charity is definitely one they should seriously consider and very soon too.

It doesn't matter whether anyone believes in God or not, if its not for ones soul or afterlife, charity given by the rich in vast sums to the poor and needy ought be seriously considered for the sake of their own consciences if nothing else.

Black Sabbath

It is supposed to be a lethal combination, the smoking of marijuana and someone with a diagnosis of a mental illness and certainly the advice given to us (mental health service users) is to steer well clear from it. We are never given any more information than that. It is bad for us and there are examples of people to whom it has caused a mental illness.

I have already written about this in an article that was published in a magazine called 'percetions', one of the arguments being that no-body actually knows what came first, the mental health problem or the smoking of marijuana. We are never offered any scientific explanation about what the drug actually does and how it therefore creates or exacerbates mental illness. The reason why we are not given an explanation, and only told to not do it, or else have whatever scant services we have taken away from us is probably because the drug affects each one individually and there are also enormous variations in the drug itself.

It could be the dynamics and relationships that people have with one another in the small groups or the circle of smokers that people find such a strain. Or the dealers or the pushers, not to mention the pressure on people of it being illegal.

I have smoked it on and off since I was eighteen, introduced to it by my Jamaican guy. Neither of us fared very well in life concerning our mental health but to put it all down to the substance would be belittling our life histories and our separate personalities. We both had our own insecurities and were drawn to each other personality wise because we were and are very deep and analytical thinkers. The drug enhances this and that is what we enjoy about it.

So I was always told since I was a kid that my problem was that I thought too much. Well we have got Grey matter for a reason, and I always did enjoy exercising mine. We should not only be true to ourselves, but also try to enjoy life as much as possible. So marijuana fits on both of those accounts.

But here is the rub. It is so easily abused in this society we live in, first by it being made illegal and all the degradation that goes with that, secondly the pressures and etiquette of group smoking. I never was one for etiquette you know, so I have either smoked it just with a boyfriend, or latterly just on my own. These days or in my recent past I found smoking it alone preferable although this was something that the dealer that I used to have found very difficult,as I could make a very small amount last a very long time.

But my mistake I made was that I let it become a habit. I didn't think about it, I just did it; every day for two maybe three years. That is a serious abuse of the drug, and I paid for it. My mental health did deteriorate, I wouldn't be bothered to do much around my flat to keep it clean and tidy, and worst of all by the time I was forced to give it up, I was getting very adverse reactions to it indeed. Such as getting and enjoying a 'high' for no longer than about two minutes if I was lucky, followed by hours of crippling anxiety, heart palpitations and severe depression.

This is not the drug itself, but its abuse.

But I do believe that what I experienced need not be the case, that the drug can be medicinal for people including alleviating mental health disorders and problems, although yes people would need to be extra vigilant and careful with it when using it for those purposes.

For a start it should only be used occasionally, and when it is truly needed,of course that is for each individual to decide, but just as prescription drugs are and can be abused, like valium for example when used on a regular basis, the same applies to marijuana. There are probably similarities between the two in terms of the effect they have on people.

Marijuana lifts the spirits and relaxes you, its effects can last for a long time, much longer than valium, therefore in order to treat it right, you should make sure that the effects have subsided completely and for a long while before you think of doing it again. also, just as Valium should only be used when necessary i.e when you are perhaps over stretched, stressed and maybe in a state. Marijuana will work if used similarly.

It is because I was a lucky girl and found a small amount in the high street the other day that I have been given one more chance to experiment with this drug and hopefully get it right this time, by not allowing it to run and ruin my life and by treating it with the impeccable respect that it deserves.

So I have thought about what purpose it can serve and have come to the conclusion that I will use this small amount to help me to practice the sabbath. A day of relaxation and rest, on the Sunday because not much happens then anyway, hopefully it will help me get into the habit of resting one day a week which I am sure will do my health good.

I have no intention of having a dealer again, so when this small amount is done, that will be it for better or worse, although I will always hope for the day when it becomes legal.

Donald Duck Meets Glenn Beck in Right Wing Radio Duck

What Katie Did (on the edge of seventeen)

Some friends of mine decided after twenty seven years of living together and having three children that in the event of either one of their deaths ( they are in their fifties) that they would rather not money from their estate go to David Cameron and his party but instead to their children, so they did the honorable thing and got married.

I wouldn't say I love hearing wedding day horror stories; some of them are just so tragic it pains me terribly and it lingers far to long to refresh the tales on this blog.

But the story of Jan and her partner Reece's wedding is hilarious.

Everyone seated at the registry office, the mumbo jumbo from the registrar and the usual ritual of 'if they are any objections to this marriage say now etc etc' A statement that is so ritualistic as well as the ordinarily silent response. However on this occasion, a desenting voice.

Oh my, just who could be objecting to the marriage of this long standing couple?

None other than their sixteen going on seventeen year old daughter in this posh registry office. When asked to expand on her objection she launched into her views, that she didn't think it was a good idea, she was not sure it was the right decision and that she had been happy to have grown up where they had not been married. Katie was serious.

The registrar dismissed it without raising an eyebrow and said there was no legal case to be heard against the marriage and simply continued with the proceedings.

Jan could hardly contain her amusement at her gobby child. She had tears rolling down her face as she tried to stop herself from letting out an almighty laugh. She was told by the registrar to look at her future husband and she couldn't to save herself from laughing.

Altogether sounds just about right to me, forced to marry for financial reasons with rebellious children in tow. That seems like one wedding I would have loved to have seen.

Does God Exist?

Does anyone know ???????

Is The Pope Catholic?

The Popes visit to Britain seems to have caused some vitriol from certain circles. some like Peter Tatchell, take a position against the Pope because of the relatively large cases of child sex abuses that have occurred under the gaze of the established catholic church to which, the Pope has not given the kind of apology to those abused as should be. Also, among these people is the criticism of subjugation of women and gay men and women within the church.

There are others opposed to the Popes visit because they suffer from bigotry and have beef with catholicism and those who follow the catholic religion (although I have not seen them give a coherent reason why, they just display some ugly superior disdain without giving reason).

There is no way I am going to defend or make allowances for the above average numbers of cases of child abuse in the catholic church, or the sexism or the homophobia. But I will say the obvious which is there are pressures on priests to have all the answers, to be a bit above the masses and the pressures from celibacy. Often catholic priests go into the profession at a young age and are inexperienced, not mature emotionally and may have no or limited sexual experience.

That they vow celibacy means they might find sexual gratification from children as they are disallowed and disallow themselves a relationship with someone who is an equal. That is out of the question, so they find that children are not only eager to please but also easily manipulated. It is a combination of the sheltered lives that the priests lead and that they are emotionally underdeveloped and insecure.

It is the link between the catholic church and the state that causes this problem. It is not the fault of the people who practise this religion, and the priests themselves need a lot more understanding.

When Marx says that religion is the opium of the masses and the heart in a heartless world, it is true and for a religion to be practiced it requires some level of ritual and ceremony, however bizarre it looks and might be to others on the outside looking in. In no way is this a justification for the vast wealth that places like the Vatican have, it does not cost much to practice rituals and ceremonies, let alone accumulate vast sums.

Due to the unequal society we are born into, every institution will reflect this inequality, and there will be and is struggle within them for something better, for something that has freedom and equality at its heart.

All institutions contain this struggle, from the family, hospitals, schools, leisure, sports industries and also religious institutions. These institutions are here when we are born, we can choose to shape them and / or get rid of them as adults... However this must always be done with the interests of the majority of people. What they (the majority) understand and are prepared collectively to do.

We are Bradford (our defense from the threat of the far right fascist EDL)

Below here is Lenin from Lenin's Tomb's analysis of yesterdays event in Bradford. I went there ready to stand firm against the EDL and yes we did that, but also we had a really good time; a party in fact, some prayers for peace, some singing, dancing and meeting up with old and dear friends. The MDL, Muslim defense league also did a beautiful job of stopping the EDL as Lenin writes...

Saturday, August 28, 2010
The 'big one' was a washout for the EDL posted by lenin
Well well. I haven't time to update you on everything that happened yesterday. You should have been following me on Twitter if you weren't. You can see some pics too. But the big picture is perhaps best encapsulated by the well known acronym: wtf? As in, wtf was all of this hysterical nonsense about 'riots'? As in, wtf was all of this about the EDL making Bradford their 'big one'.



Because the first claim, that holding an antifascist demonstration in Bradford would inevitably provoke a riot and couldn't be carried off peacefully, was the rationale for the police delivering leaflets through people's doors warning people not to attend the counter-demo or risk being arrested - reminding people of how many years people were (disgracefully) sent down for after 2001. It was the rationale for the council, supported by the police, calling a poorly attended 'multicultural event' out of its fundament and telling Asian lads effectively that if they didn't want to get arrested they should go to Manningham instead of the city centre. It was the rationale for local council-funded mosques organising day trips to take the youth out of the city. It was the rationale for all the smearing and nonsense from Searchlight and the Telegraph and Argus and the police and the council - though, to their credit, eight local councillors supported the 'We Are Bradford' protest, and one of them turned up and spoke.

The combined forces of the national and local state, the local media and an anti-fascist group with union funding were all against this protest happening at all, and they put incredible pressure on people. We couldn't mobilise many people at Exchange Square. I would have expected a few thousand people under normal circumstances. In fact, it was closer to one thousand, though admittedly it was a rather boisterous one thousand, with music, dancing and brrrraaap-brrrrraaap aplenty. Many of those present would probably rather have been out there with the local people when they decided to confront the EDL directly. But that would not have been possible with so many police present. And the point, that antifascists could stage a peaceful protest in the centre of Bradford without triggering a 'race riot', and that it is the racists and fascists, not antifascists and not local communities, who start riots, was made.

As for the EDL's big day out, it was a shambles that ended with fascists and racists getting their arses kicked and their collars felt. This wasn't mainly because of the police. It was because lots of the normal crowd were scared off by the possibility of having a fight with local Asians. This is going to be a long-term problem for them. They can't physically intimidate Muslim communities in Britain, which is supposed to be their rationale. They can build a periphery of racists, some of whom will come along to their demonstrations if there's little risk to themselves. They can provide the (almost bankrupt) BNP with a recruiting base. They can write acres of masturbatory 'poetry' for their websites, and produce little black hoodies with the EDL logo on. They can beat people up in small numbers. Indeed, where they think they've got an easy target, they can mobilise several thousand people who are ready for a ruck, prepared to break police lines and go on a riot. But Braford, 'home turf', 'the big one'...? No, the majority of the 'infidels' didn't dare turn up to that one.



For most of the protest, 800 EDL were penned into a mothballed shopping centre project surrounded by large fances. They had spent the morning getting tanked up, on an agreement with the police who laid on double decker busses to take them to and from the pubs. They presumably had more than a few carry outs while they were in penned in to the 'Urban Gardens'. During this time, they regaled onlooking journalists with their usual repertoire of 'Allah is a paedo', and added a new chant of 'we love the floods' in reference to the recent catastrophe in Pakistan. When it turned out that a small, multi-racial crowd of local people had arrived opposite the EDL protest zone, the EDL started throwing bricks, bottles and even a smoke bomb in their fury. My understanding is that, unlike in 2001, local Asian kids made it clear to police that they weren't interested in fighting with coppers and that their main goal was to defend the local community. To that end, they tolerated a lot of shit and provocations from the police, refusing to be goaded into brawling with them: a lot of tactical lessons have been.

In the end, a few hundred EDL succeeded in breaking through the police cordons and started to run riot. Now, I put it to you that if 8,000 cops, with helicopters, mounted officers, surveillance and superior control of the geography, couldn't contain a few hundred fascist and racist thugs, this is because they were more obsessed with 'controlling' Asian youths (the paranoid racism of West Yorkshire Police hasn't changed) and antifascists than anything else. This vindicates the argument that the state can never be relied on to combat fascism. As it happened, it was hundreds of Asian kids, almost a thousand of them, who appeared as if from nowhere and stopped the EDL in their tracks, giving a few of them a good battering before sending them running back to the police to be voluntarily kettled again. If the high point of the EDL's day was getting back under police protection and saving themselves from the local community, you know it's an #EPIC #FAIL.

The tragedy is that those kids had to do it by themselves. The tragedy is that an antifascist group, and the local media, and the police, and the council have spent months mobilising against a counter-demonstration. The tragedy is that people's energies were not harnessed to building up local capacity for resisting the EDL, such that tens of thousands were out in opposition to the fash, so that they didn't dare try to riot. If that had happened, there wouldn't have been a peep from the EDL. They would have been extremely well behaved, for a bunch of bevvied racists, and left early. Instead, that vital energy was wasted in a campaign for a ban that was only ever going to lead to exactly the pattern of 'static' protest followed by EDL rioting, ultimately contained by well organised local people, that ensued. It's a disgrace that people were organising poorly attended separate events (the 'multicultural event' drew about 100 people at its height), doing everything they could to prevent unity on the day. Lessons will have to be learned from this.

One last thing. How is it that all the news noticed that there there was a peaceful UAF protest in the city centre, and that neither Hope Not Hate nor the Telegraph and Argus appeared to? Why were there surreal reports, obviously written from miles away, with wholly invented details and wholly separate events blurred? What is the point of that, after everything else that has transpired?

Labels: anti-fascism, bradford, edl, english defence league, fascism, islamophobia, racism, uaf, unite against fascism

The anti fascists who came to Bradford were royally entertained, what a way to go; superb tactics on the day, and a nice victory for all anti fascists.

The years of the Independent Woman

I just love this hip hop track by Roxanne Shante, she was one of the first female hip hop artists and dates way back to I think around 1984, or it might even be earlier than that, she was fourteen when she first started to use the mic and she is roughly the same age as I am.

When hip hop started to get rough and mean with things like gansta rap, it was difficult for the ladies to be part of it as there was a lot of disrespect towards women with them either being referred to constantly as ho's (whores) or if the music and lyrics were not about women at all the rap videos became soft porn massive with marketing and objectification of women going on at that time.

Roxanne Shante made one rap song bringing down her female counterparts like Monie Love and others who I can't think of their names at the moment, she was basically saying that she (Roxanne) was the first, which she was, but there was no need to dis those that came after her.

They say and I think its true that imitation is the highest form of flattery.

But at this time say early nineties, the days of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, the industry was more about porn and ganstas and it was not what hip hop had been about originally.

It was the girls who really added flavour in the beginning, when they got mistreated, they left hip hop by and large and got into the new R and B, formally and briefly known as swing.

There are girls in hip hop now, like Missey Elliot, good as she is, some of her earlier stuff reflected the bitches and ho mentality when she said that women involved in sex industries are the winners, 'ahead of the game' is the term she used. This is the sort of pressures that women were under then and perhaps to a lesser extent still are now, giving support to an industry that totally undermines women, our health and relationships.

We are not sex objects.

Those early days of hip hop certainly were inspiring and encapsulated a feeling of liberty like no other music form before. Although it has been pointed out to me that groups like 'the lost poets' from the 1960's civil rights movement days where probably the roots of 1980's hip hop.

It is so good that it has lasted coming up for four decades, today there are many political hip hop rappers like Lowkey and Immortal Technique and all kinds unsigned and really excellent ones.

However I would argue that there is still a lack of female rappers unlike in the early 1980's when there were so many.

Roxanne Shante now works as a psychologist.

Do I, do I, do I? No, sorry, I do not marry

Now this may be controversial, not that I am known for this type of writing or behaviour of course, I have just seen yet another set of wedding photos and after a very short while in, the pictures and the whole scenario starts to grate on my heart, I start to feel terribly inadequate and the more you watch, the greater these feelings get.

Its all about the beautiful young couple, their devotion and dedication to one another, that's ok, I'm not knocking that, but why do they have to emanate being rich and posh for the day?

I guess these are the weddings that are on the market, and just the done thing.

These imposing environments are just a reminder of whose world this belongs to and people buy into it just for a day, but a very significant and what should be a most poignant day of expressing love gets turned into property relations sanctified by privilege and all the negativity that goes along with it. Things like pride, jealousy, feelings of inadequacy, feelings of loneliness and so on.

Most young girls and children want to get married and I was no different, at the age of about ten years old I asked my father if I could have a horse drawn carriage at my future wedding, and was shocked by his abject negativity towards the idea. I pursued him with the idea he basically said that they cost too much money, a factor a ten year old has the bliss of not taking into consideration while dreaming, until my dear father burst that bubble.

Perhaps if he had said yes, I will do anything for you my lovely daughter I might be married to this day, who knows.

As a teenager, I was very rebellious and decided at about fifteen or so, the age I decided to become a left wing political activist that I did not want marriage for myself. I was not going to go around denouncing it for other people but I had made a personal choice and one that was based on witnessing the break down of my parents marriage and the impossibility they had for a while of ending it amicably as incompatibility was not an option in those days.

My heart strings were pulled on the idea of marriage during my first relationship, and I remember having vague and intermittent fantasies of being in our local church with my lover then to be my husband turning around to see me look beautiful in a fantastic dress.

However that bubble was burst when I found out you had to be a member of the church and for quite sometime before they will allow you to declare your love and commitment to someone while looking beautiful, oh well bang goes that idea, church membership doesn't sit well with left wing political activists you know.

My first boyfriend knew that I had strong views about marriage and so he never asked me for my hand, so I remained a free and single woman after that relationship eventually ended.

So the next time I brushed with marriage was during my second serious relationship, being much older by this time, my views on marriage and the desire not to was just part of me and part of the furniture, so when he popped the question, although it was more in an enquiring and roundabout manner, I had to explain that I did not believe in marriage as an option for myself.

Incidentally, I had been asked by two other men just prior to this second serious relationship; to which I had replied that I was not the marrying kind!

This second relationship was quite serious and we both wanted something to formally mark our dedication and commitment to one another, so he came up with the idea of a friendship blessing where we would also be able to exchange rings as a token of our love for one another. I thought this was a wonderful idea and went about organising everything with my Mums help.

I managed to convince the clergy at Rochester Cathedral to perform the ceremony there. They agreed and said we could use any part of the Cathedral we wanted for our purposes. Brilliant. My partner wanted to have the ceremony in the crypt so that is what where it was held.

It was a thanksgiving and blessing of our friendship and was also a healing service on our request. The Canon used healing oil for any person there who felt that it would help with their healing needs and we remembered the dead, we were all invited to light a candle for the deceased, particularly those who we had loved dearly.

I have still got the ring he gave me, although our relationship did not last, but just as the Canon had said to us when we exchanged them, 'let this be a reminder of how much your friendship is valued by this man and how much he loves you'.

I rarely wear the ring now but its there and is precious to me because it is a reminder that I have been loved, that thought encapsulated in the ring helps at certain times, times when I feel unwanted and lonely. Its not a magic cure for the loneliness I feel, but there is a warm thought there.

That friendship Blessing was a positive experience and one to blog about for sure, a great alternative to marriage for someone like me who doesn't believe in it and just won't do it!

The Peace Camp vs Parliament 2010

It has been such a pleasure to see the peace camp develop on the Green, Parliament Square. Almost surreal, but as you can see from these pictures I took in June the Peace camp is / was very real, and very creative.

A place where the spirit of people power was encouraged and as such, was also so opposite the square, grey suits and shadowy corruption of parliament in every way.


This picture of the statue of Churchill, so famously defaced in 1999 when people involved in the anti- capitalist movement put a clod of grass on top of his head and he looked like he was sporting a punky mohican hairdo, much to the horror of the establishment circles.

That day in June he was being haunted by a bright red dragon, perhaps representing the spirit of the many groups of workers to whom he sent the troops in to crush when they rose for a better life ( during his prime ministerial days, before his one during the second world war ). They struck against the employers and were brutally put down by troops who Churchill gave the order, the miners of the welsh valleys were particularly bitter with Churchill.

Of course there were things like rationing and the war as a whole which caused such hardship predominantly for workers of the country, he was actually most unpopular among the ordinary people, something you would never has guessed from the hero worship and his almighty statue that takes pride of place in parliament square.

However, aside from those details, the image represents the disdain the peace and environment movement had and still has for authority ( there was also a fair share of anarchists and socialists mixed in together as well ).

The desire of those people for more democracy and freedom. It is expressed creatively here in the above picture; Churchill being haunted by the dragon ( not the black dog you note, no, its a bright red dragon! )



Right in the middle of the Green was this charming Peace garden, people came there to meditate and talk about all manner of things from philosophy to politics to religion, to dig the earth and grow some plants and flowers.


The great peace veteran Harry Patch ( RIP ) was remembered here too




Yes, this is parliament in 2010, on the buses driving past, the public don't quite know what to make of it all, what is more interesting, parliament, or the peace camp?

Perhaps they are a bit afraid of the audacity of the peace campaigners who encourage people to think a bit deeper and maybe question the way things are.

When it comes to posing an alternative to parliament, the camp perhaps fell short, but I don't think that that was what it was all about, certainly as a spectator, the significance is about the Peace Camp being set up on Parliament Square and representing the desire of the people to see change.

The utter distrust, some maybe many have of establishment politics and the yearning for something different, something better, something that allows us to be the creative humans beings that lies deep within. That thing which is prevented from flourishing because of the wayward priorities of the current system whose political representation is parliament.

The Unsung ones

Ain't old people just wonderful! They have experience, understanding and many also have a brilliant sense of humour. Of course it is not necessarily across the board, as with any characterisation of an age, it is a generality and there will always be exceptions.

Today I heard a lovely story about a very poor, fail and dishevelled looking old lady trying desperately to get someones attention in the crossroads on the local High Street here. She was clutching a very fat purse and was asking passers by who it belonged to. So happens my Mum walks passed and goes to her assistance, together they try to work out what to do. The old lady wants to give it to a policeman but of course they are never around, so they ummed and ahhed together and then, Mum comes up with the bright idea of going through the many cards in the wallet to find a bank card and going along to the same bank as the card in the wallet. They then proceeded to walk to the bank for them to return it to the rightful owner. Simple. Wonderful. Well done Mum.

They were stopped on the way by a very frantic woman who looked at Mum and the old lady who was holding out the purse and exclaimed "you have got my purse! oh thank you thank you", great, this lady explained how relieved she was because everything important was in that purse as well as all of her spending money for a trip to France she was making tomorrow. Wow! how good of Mum and this poor old lady to have saved and stopped the severe stress that would have resulted for this woman.

I love the consideration, the concern and the ability of these two to do the right thing, alleluia!

EDL - Go To Hell

This is the sentiment coming from East London yesterday, 2oth June 2010. The area has a famous and proud history of fighting fascism, from Cable Street in the 1930's, Lewisham in the 1970's, Isle of Dogs in the 1990's and now Whitechapel. There were over 5000 people today in a demonstration of Unity against the proposed march from the EDL ( the English Defense League, aka Eidiot Defense League ). The anarchists really captured the mood, and gave it some spice with the wonderful stunt on the roof of a local hospital ( pictured).

Something that is worrying however is the behaviour of the police; the very large demonstration passed peacefully. At the end and in the evening, the police were stopping white people in Whitechapel from going down the High Street, telling them that there were gangs of bengali men who were attacking white people. It is not only a ridiculous lie, it is also sewing seeds of division in the community. It is disgraceful behaviour, I just hope that the people will see through these lies being spread about by the police.

I felt so safe and looked after on the streets of East London yesterday, you could feel the love, the strength and the unity. The power we the people could have in our hands is awesome.

Brothers and Sisters?

There was a time when I went against the grain, bent over backwards and fought for the idea that mental health service workers and staff were like brothers and sisters to us mental health service users. That perspective is being seriously eroded by the constant battle with members of staff at the local community mental health team and the local day care services to not treat us as if we have no issues and should get out on our bus passes (which are also under threat) and get a job.

At best this is setting us up for failure, and at worst is a number crunching exercise to get us off their books in order that they see to it that they get a promotion or a bonus or some such delight.

Once a person’s emotional life and ability has been disrupted and strained to the point of breakdown, few can salvage a semblance of emotional stability to the point where a life of full or even part time work can be endured. Our nerves get completely obliterated, shattered, and it is quite often irreparable damage. If any staff member has been to college all they have to do is refer to the many texts and reference books on the subject.

What is happening now is systematic abuse of the rights of mental health service users. It is being conducted in the name of ‘recovery’ or ‘anti stigma’; if you can work, then you are ‘recovered‘. The term ‘recovery’ was invented by service users in order to gain a bit of personal dignity which was perceived to be lacking for service users around fifteen or even twenty years ago, when a mental illness was thoroughly misunderstood and people were primarily considered dangerous.

Service users simply wanted others members of the community, staff, relatives, friends to understand the factors surrounding a persons mental deterioration rather than their being solely judged as symptomatic and as having questionable functionality (the medical model was the old fashioned term for it, or medical reductionism).

However the way the recovery model is now being presented back to us is that we have a questionable medical condition in the first place, there is actually nothing wrong with us that a regular nine to five or part time nine to five will be the salvation for. Variations on this occur, such as if we lost weight we would feel better ( which might sound like its true, but this is often accompanied by an unwillingness to understand underlying emotional factors). Or if we went to a local church group or something, anything but have specialist mental health services needs, for fear of ‘stigma’, apparently. This is just all too convenient for the enormous disinvestment and lack of funding mental health resources has had and is continuing today.

The way people with mental health and emotional problems are currently being treated is producing a variety of reactions among the service users themselves, they range from; and by far the most common is one where people wonder how the staff would feel if *they* were being treated in the way in which we are currently being, on top of the severe mental illness. Then there are others who feel there is no alternative but to threaten suicide; then a very small minority who talk about taking their hedge cutter or other such instrument to places where staff are situated in order to use on the staff out of sheer frustration.

Staff members are now expected to ‘enable’ us to do things ourselves as opposed to give us help to do things when we need help, as this would be seen to be encouraging dependency. So what we are finding is that service users are being expected to do the staff’s job for them in the name of 'recovery', avoiding 'dependency' or whatever else buzz words management and staff care to use.

In the area where I live there are no state funded residential homes, the very few that exist are all privately owned and service users have a job to persuade the local authorities to fund places for them at the extortionate rents they charge. These places are often fraught with in-house conflicts and difficulties as the conditions and wages paid to the staff are poor.

There are only two day care centers, and the culture in these places is to force service users out after three months or so. So service users are not being provided with a safe place where they can relax and meet new people, improve their friendship circles and social networks.

The day centers are now pseudo work places where service users are expected to ring in if they are unable to attend on either or both of the precious little two hour slots they are entitled to twice a week. That only amounts to four hours a week, for three months.

At the moment there are still two hospital wards for service users, a home treatment team and a community mental health team. All of these places are poor and inadequate, there are not enough hospital beds to meet peoples needs. The home treatment team is short term and intensive, it has the effect of lifting you up to let you down a short while later, and the culture of the community mental health teams means that they simply want to wash their hands of service users in the name of ‘recovery’.

Staff seem to think that the answers to their poor and inadequate conditions of work lie with the service users themselves, that if we made our opinions known everything would improve for everyone. First of all that is a cop out from the staff, service users are an atomised group, we cannot and never have been a significant organised or cohesive force, nor will we ever be. Our commonality is only through our being ill and nothing else. Any democracy we have encountered has been massively flawed to say the least, at any given service user meeting (at the Day center for example) if we agree on something to be done, it will more often than not get ignored or swept under the carpet.

Service user representatives on management boards (that the government was so keen to encourage), invariably agree with management ( due to the structure ) and have no positive impact or influence on service delivery on the ground. Service user representation is ineffective in aiding service user needs, but hey, some service users enjoy the position it gives them and the few perks that go along with it.

Over the years I have tried my best to encourage changes in the system that would lead to general and overall improvement. But what is taking place now is slanderous abuse of human rights, and worse of all it is using terms invented by the service users in order to justify this degradation.

If you are ill, even with your emotions (or especially with your emotions), you should be entitled to treatment and care. It is being cut so far back now that it has become a sick joke for most people who have suffered emotional problems, we are being boxed into a corner where are choices are becoming very limited indeed.