Hamlet or tempest? Something is rotten in the state of local politics.

I have been thinking about the election happening in Cambridge on the 5th of May.
Something is rotten in the state of local politics.

I have been thinking about  how difficult it is for people who aren't from traditional backgrounds from entering the politics arena to do so without falling fowl of some rule or regulation or just saying something poorly judged. You can have a whole twitter storm etc. Descend on you and depending on intersectionality and your background you may well not be able to stand tall and shout back at someone attacking you.

This relates to the twitter mob and it means I have to look at my own behaviour when I have been in it. The mob mentality I'd strong, it's simple and morally just and a group of righteous people who think like you do. Anyone who has a differing opinion or is ignorant of what is so obvious to those inside the mob are wholly wrong and you feel justified in your picking at them. It's like bullies in the playground, it's the animal that takes joy in bringing down those weaker in the pack. It's the sexist, racist, homophobe mentality, it's the KKK or indeed the black panthers, it's any group that creates an us and them.

We are all people after all and surely the way to change behaviour we don't like is to persuade and inform but not to chastise. In the past few weeks I've seen a fair amount of in-fighting, insults and slurs flying around.
I (will attempt to) kindly say this to others who may have been involved. We are all people, we have intersectional biases and challenges and experiences.
It's difficult enough to get into politics if you're a cis white man, let alone anyone else, but when we attack those who might misjudge their actions or get something wrong we lose what we are fighting for. We leave the concept of a united Cambridge at the door.
Indeed this is meant to be what we are trying to get away from as a society, braying pmqs and insulting fellow candidates.

Having questioned my own actions in twitter storms. I would really like to say that I'm very sorry for jumping to conclusions and judging myself just to challenge you, I'm sorry if I have embarrassed you as a person, while I may have disagreed vehemently with what you were saying I should not have acted in such a knee jerk way. I think as a society we are better than that, let's work towards that as exploratory partners, not attack dogs with a scent.

This is just a brain fart from my head as it comes rather than planned in any way or even properly proof-read. I'm hoping I can get away with it.

Long time no speak Womble-Watchers, it appears I'm rubbish at blogging. Too much worrying about whether what I say is palatable or meaningful or worth anything.
Too long have I let this place become a mausoleum for my online life... I'm not even tweeting much anymore.

I want to jump back in but I'm not sure how, like a child having fallen from their bike I'm feeling apprehensive about how to get on again.

I think/hope I get it, I think my fear of what others might think about my thoughts is stopping me from exploring what they actually are. I'm not living online anymore, I'm not sure how but I want to start again.

This tempest inside my head brought up the idea of Internet anonymity past and present.

There have been recent stories of the right to be forgotten, I kind of miss the Internet of old where we were, at least somewhat screaming into the void, connected but not physically.

I'm now in a situation where many of my closest friends and I met online, generally on Twitter but yet I've all but retired from Twitter.

I wonder whether it's because my online persona is now around 5/6 years old at least and the people that care know who/where I am in real life. It leaves me feeling more than a little unsafe. A good old flame war is one thing but when someone can bring those flames to your front door it's quite another.

I guess the thing to attempt is to care less, somewhere along the line the whole wide world sprouted teeth and got all shadowy and dangerous.

I want to claim our togetherness back. I want to feel supported by each other rather than concentrating on ways I could get hurt.

My wonderful real life tweep network are some of the most lovely and supportive people I've ever met, I choose to believe that the majority of the world is like this instead of being as fox news would present it.

Anyway, this whole rambling post was meant to be a warning that I may post more regularly or I may not (Depends if I want to really), also a restating of the purpose of this blog...

Some sort of mixture of baking, cooking, crafting, disability, health/social policy, mental health issues and graphics. It may or may not be interesting, that's not the point, the point is if I can work out s focus for my blogging and my thoughts I would be really more prolific than I am.

I think that will do me for now.

W

Virus fairy and feeling Ugh!

I Had a visit from the virus fairy this weekend. I've been rather burning the candle from both ends lately, been not having hardly any down time and not much sleep.
Although I'm ok with it to a point, eventually my body cracks, I just don't have the ability to keep going like I used to pre the attack of this summer.
So I spent Thursday evening, Friday and Saturday Morning in bed, had loads of sleep, even though it still doesn't feel like anywhere near enough.
Eventually forced myself into getting up, got dressed, felt exhausted.
I really need to sort the flat out, get rid of all the crap.
Thing is, even just getting up, getting dressed, washing a few plates etc. and sitting around all day feels like too much at the moment; and I fall even more behind on the housework, even less chance of getting all the other jobs I need to do done.
I really need to sort all my stuff out, chuck away a load of stuff, thing is, it's getting started, and continuing... lets be honest, it's the whole darn thing. I have no energy anymore.

So yeah, in an attempt to make myself feel a little bit useful today I made a new avatar for twitter.

That concludes the interestingness of my day, well it probably doesn't, I've just hit brain fog territory and I can't think anymore.

"Big Society", Meager Governance and Reasonable Reform

Words, words, words, both wonderful and terrifying; I have wanted to desperately be able to write something about the BRILLIANT #spartacusreport, otherwise known as the Responsible Reform Report available at Sue Marsh's blog or also Here if the above doesn't work. It's truly something I feel passionately about, the fact that the government have not only failed to listen to us all but that they have flat out lied, saying that we have been consulted when they have ignored us, as shown in this radio interview with Sue Marsh and Maria Miller (the laughably titled "Minister for Disabled People").

Whenever we ask questions we are pointed to press releases and facts that have been shown time and time again to be false, when we try to stand up and be counted we are countered with vitriol and accusations that most are scrounging at virtually every turn, when in actual fact the figures show that the amount of fraud is tiny (a,b). We have encountered the change in language and approach by the "centrist" media who do not seem to actually represent us at all, encouraging anger towards those least able to stand up for themselves.

Through all of this many of us have felt attacked and like giving up, but some of the brilliant and tenacious among us like Sue and Kaliya saw that they needed to stand up and be heard, even in the face of considerable personal cost. Somehow they got a team together, and managed to fight the lies that people were properly consulted in this reform process. They managed to get people to rally around, write, research and produce the entire report and then fund the campaign and distribution of this report.

This is all very lovely and wonderful but it shouldn't have to be done, we should be properly consulted, our fears and questions should be properly answered and any changes necessary should be made BEFORE the introduction of these changes. Over the last year we have seen wonderful displays of communities rallying around and changing things because of the inadequacy of the system to deal with this stuff (e.g. the cleanup operation around the riots, this, and many more grassroot movements). Be under no illusion, it's great that people pull together but this is not what we should expect in a civilised society, we shouldn't have to fund our own reports into DWP lies, we shouldn't have to run our own libraries because public spending has been reduced to such a level where the system ceases to run in a reasonable manner. It is disgusting that we live in a (G8) country where people have to choose between food and fuel, commit suicide rather than face the stress and humiliation of benefit reassessment and or turn to prostitution to pay for their own education.

The idea that in some way this can be spun into a good thing literally sickens me, as does the DWP Press Office response which seemed to be just bombarding the #spartacusreport hashtag on twitter with more links to the same thing, they really cannot bear to enter into debates and instead just toe the line repeating the same thing over and over until we go away.
We were trending for almost the whole day, the print media including the Guardian and the Mail (YES the MAIL), with Boris Johnson (see mail article) opposing as well as a whole host of celebs on twitter retweeting yesterday. 
We will not go away, we will not be silenced, because we are right, because we know it and because we can't tolerate this, not just for ourselves but also on your behalf, even if you have not had to claim in the past, you may be in need in the future and should have something to support you through it!

The Ultimate Christmas Song

Nickie, my very good friend from twitter and Typecast has challenged me to decide upon my favourite Christmas song.

I was incredibly surprised by what immediately came to mind, for it wasn't the funky dancing childishness of Slade, or the rudeness of Mr Garrison from South Park, it was an immediate choice, and one I think describes me at this time of year to a T.

It describes everything that is important to me at any time, but so important at Christmas, I am often identified as a scrooge, because I don't like the bright lights, the flashing, the noise, the hustle, the bustle, the glitter, the forced joy, the intrusion of the bright and shiny into my life at the darkest time, it feels like shining a light directly into my eyes when I have had them shut in a dark room.
This song, feels like a warm fire, like mulled wine, and mince pies and pigs in jackets and feeling a bit sick from over eating but being curled up on the sofa with someone I love watching Christmas day telly!
This is my Christmas, and I so rarely get it, I don't want the everything else, I want the food, the joy and the love, the togetherness, standing against the darkest part of the year together and coming through it, with love.

Presents don't matter at all when you have that do they?

Many apologies if this one is already picked but it IS the Ultimate Christmas Song.
Tell me your favourite Christmas Song, or why not join in and write a post about yours, link back to me!

Red Queen Crisis

A few times lately I have had to try to describe/explain the mental flips I can do when in a fit of depression to others; Of course it didn’t actually work last night but I managed to get other coping mechanisms in place.

I think as a consequence of me growing up I have actually come to start to understand my depression, what I thought was somehow a defect in myself, a mark on my character is actually just another condition, a disease I have to fight against.

It tells me life is hopeless when it’s not, it weaves webs of mistruths in my head until I can’t see anything apart from my loneliness and the blackness of my future. It tells me to do things I shouldn’t to try and kill my pain or to not do things that will help me because there’s no point.  I have always felt like this, it has just taken me a long while to come to terms with the fact that I have this in my life and I’m not quite normal, I’ve always known that I’m not. I just never took it as a difference but as a flaw, I think my double standards make me able to see all sorts of shades of grey for other people but not in myself.

Now I start to see it as a strength, I have many coping methods others don’t. I can give myself and my time without thought to others in a way that other people would find absolutely exhausting. When I am feeling totally black and without hope I can quite often just go “NO! I REFUSE TO FEEL THIS WAY!” and spend my time doing everything and anything to distract myself to the point of exhaustion when I can normally quiet my thoughts enough to actually sleep. This is a real strength.

This is what I mean when I say I can flip, I also tend to do this when my physical health is bad, like a self righting mechanism of some sort, because if I kept feeling bad then I would just go into a completely downward spiral. The other contributing factor is that I often make myself physically more ill, as a part of my depression’s action; that is, I push my body until I make myself ill because it makes me feel more sane again or I don’t do things like eat properly or take my medication.

All of this takes me to why I was so bad last night, my pain has been increasing and I should go back to the doctors and get my medication adjusted but this is just another aspect of depression ruling my world, I don’t want to, I can’t bring myself to, I just want everything to go away and for me to fade away to nothing. So with increasing levels of pain my mood rises but then it has nowhere to go once it’s up apart from down, if I try to make myself feel better by taking part in exercise I end up at square one.

Me feeling absolutely terrible last night was just me, not being to cope with the various currents of physical pain mixed with emotional pain and mixed with plain old exhaustion lead to a crisis.

I am really quite proud of myself for managing to ask for help when I needed it, the plan now is to go watch my gorgeous sister being a tree in Roald Dahl’s Snow White and then to make myself a doctor’s appointment in the morning, however I’m kind of hoping I might get some sleep in the in-between time.

Brilliant Play, I am one VERY proud sister, she wasn't just a tree but a narrator too!

Validate me.... validate me hard!

Right, I have to write something about myself, and given that I'm no longer actually even capable of holding a coherent thought about myself for longer than one hundred and fourty characters I thought I would get you guys to help.

Please if you could tell me about me, then rather like a film puts up reviews of itself I can use what you say about me to help.

So, tell me about myself, review me... coz I'm constitutionally incapable of seeing what's behind her nose.
You can even do it anonymously if you like... I'm looking at you, yes you, you can say what you like!

k thx bai

x

------
Thank you for your input, I have been really quite ill recently which is even more difficult to gauge than my MS, Your wonderful comments have really helped.
Also, I'm sure they will be invaluable for helping me write a personal statement for my PGCE application, feeling a little better now.

The Power of BatPants!

So ages ago I went to primark and bought a whole load of branded stuff, I bought sonic lounge pants, I bought bananaman lounge pants and I bought batman boxers. Yes, I had lost myself in the men's section of primark, I could quite happily make myself a little nest there.
It's quiet, there are lovely T-shirts and jumpers and PJs and boxers and it's like a transvestite dream of lovely comfy clothes!

But anyways, yes, I went home, I wore everything else but the BatPants became lost, they were almost TOO awesome to wear! They became like a fable! "One day I shall wear the BatPants of glory, and on that day, the world will become AMAZEBALLS"!


So, I wore them yesterday because I was feeling a bit naff and something amazing happened! Nothing amazing happened, there were no streamers, there were no police on zip lines arresting me for my awesomeness, life just continued, with me in AWESOME pants!

BATPANTS!

Yeah, I had the confidence to post a pic of me in said knickers of awesome on the Internet, yes, everyone on twitter was pleased I liked my boxers but it was fairly disappointing, I still felt a bit crap and my brain was still a depressed mess of ennui. I could not get my brain into sleep mode, and so, at 2:30am I forced myself to bed, to stare into the void.

Then something pretty amazing happened, I became a bit amusing!

This just got more amusing when speaking with the other nighttime inhabitants of the Internet (@angelikaka, @urbanvox and @nemesisuk)

I went to sleep, eventually, at around 4am. Then woke up at 4pm! It seems I had found the key power of my batpants! They make me a bit more mental than usual during the night and nocturnal!
This is clearly the BEST POWER EVER!

upsidedown of course!

My week in Pictures

It's the hat - again!

This week I have done lots, I dunno if this hat picture was from then or like last thursday or something, oh no! If it's not from this week how can it be in my "My week in pictures?" Coz I didn't do one last week, so NER!

Pasta! but Fast food!

I went to "Work" (volunteering) and had lunch and stuff! It's been the week of World Aids Day so it's been pretty darned busy! this was great lunch actually, it's fast food pasta! Wonderful idea!
So yeah, I went in Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week, not done full days or anything, only a few hours here and there but it makes all the difference to my mentality, I end up having so much more self respect.

Elspeth's picture of a
"random person"

Also it was nice to have somewhere to go chill out after what was the bleh of the DWP interview which was stressful, but a blooming relief when it was over. Then it was time all too quickly to go pick up Elspeth from school!
We then had loads of fun in the evening, with her watching Modern Family which is just fabulous and then it was time for bed. We were topping and tailing and she kept uncovering my feet so I kept waking up, but it
was really good!

Morning people!

Then it was Wednesday otherwise known as #n30 or strike day, etc. and my brother came over with breakfast for me and Ellie, then it was time to go into town to volunteer again and Ellie stayed with my brother.

the march in terrible lighting conditions

As I got in the march was going past, was lovely and joyful as an atmosphere! Shame I couldn't join them really! but after a while we all met up again in town and went to where the Rally was (even if it was mostly over by then) and we got stickers! Then coffee with @Puffles2010 and @smithsam on twitter who dealt very well with a sudden 11 year old given I didn't actually warn them I was bringing her!

I LOVE Hot Numbers Cafe

Then we went home via Arjuna (a health food store) on mill road, and picked up a posh squash, a pumpkin or something which I'm gonna make into soup at the weekend.

I don't know what this is called!

By this time it'd gotten really dark, and we enjoyed the Christmas lights on the way back through town to home, when Ellie went back home. I was all knackared and sleepy!

Anyways, that's enough for this week I guess, but I shall try to get back to it next week!
I'll leave you with possibly the most attractive photo that has ever been taken of me, I am so pretty!

Oh so pretty!

What is twitter to me?

Twitter's "Fail Whale" (displayed during outages)
has now become almost as ubiquitous
as the Microsoft "Paperclip" once was.

I'm not even entirely sure why I'm writing this when I'm fairly sure that the only people who ever read this blog are on twitter already!

However, it's becoming abundantly clear to me that to "get" it you have to be in it.
It's like the Matrix; you have to see it for yourself. So I guess I felt I would try to put into words what twitter is for me.

Twitter is a cross between Facebook and an instant messaging platform; you are limited to 140 characters, so updates tend to be concise. I think what people don't get is the social bit of the social network aspect of twitter. It is honestly one of the most supportive environments I have ever experienced, it is as involving as you let it become and is much more than simple status updates.

Because everything on twitter is public (other than direct messages and messages from protected accounts) it’s a very open environment, because of the way it works you can see conversations between the people you “follow” take place in front of you. In this way you can jump in when appropriate (and sometimes not so appropriate). 

It very much has the feeling of being in a pub or a coffee shop with conversations taking place all around you; you can pick up and drop conversations more easily than in real life.

In my opinion, the absolute key to a successful relationship with twitter is numbers. If you follow less than about 60 people (and by people I do not mean celebrities) you just don’t get the interactions that make it work.

In order to know who to follow I would suggest simply ask someone who you already follow, if you’re completely new to twitter and have no ideas then maybe do a search on subjects that interest you, as your circle of followers and followees opens up you will probably need a client like Tweetdeck or Seismic to enable you to be able to truly experience it.

Twitter is like all the best and worst parts of social interactions, except there’s less rules to stop you having to endure the bad bits!

At this point I really wouldn’t be without it, I get most of my news from it (albeit I wait until someone like Reuters or the Beeb posts about it before believing it at face value) you learn what you can trust, same as with any other form of media.

 I tend to be better informed about current events than I used to be, however, there is the slight issue of being too connected, a twitter buddy once wrote a blog post about the difficulty in “switching off” (see @Puffles2010) and I understand the issue only too well; however, I feel that in general the benefits massively outweigh the bad bits.

What I do find is that other people just don’t understand why I am so taken with what seems to them to be a social network akin to Facebook or something, which seems to be filled with subversive political monsters or narcissistic celebrities (how the “mainstream media” tend to portray it) possibly dependant on the day of the week and the wind direction as far as I can tell.

I think one of the most important points about twitter is that it is, like life, what you make it, however, I really love the interconnectedness of this interface.

And yes, if I’m honest, it does feel a bit like being part of Borg v 0.00000.00027 but you know what? Bring it on! What could possibly go wrong? *winky face*

Am I completely insane to feel like I am part of a huge network people connected by ideas and art and humour and politics and TV or not? What do you think?