innerhippy

I've been pondering this Hug-a-Hoodie message from David Cameron ever since the media picked up on it a few days ago. I can see that it's a case of social inclusion and that all they want to do is blend in with us and not be stigmatised just by what they wear. Fair enough.

Well as it happened, I was lucky enough to find myself in a situation only last night when I could put this to the test. One of these so-called teenager "hoodies" decided to attack me for no apparent reason, which left me with a very upset girlfriend, a broken nose and about 2 litres less blood. Oh silly me, if only I'd hugged him instead! But my problem is one of timing: when exactly should I attempt this hug? Should it have been as he was insulting me? Or maybe just before the punch to my face, or perhaps just afterwards? Obviously the young fellow wasn't aware of my intentions to give him a loving hug, otherwise I'm sure he would have just left us both alone.

I could really do without being punched again over a simple misunderstanding. But you know what, I'm just not sure that Hugging a Hoodie is really for me.

Reuters August 2016

Recently knighted president of London, Sir Ken Livingston, today defended plans to increase the Congestion Charge for London pedestrians as being "realistic, fair and good for the new global economy". Ever since the controversial charge was introduced 4 years ago in 2012 in a bid to reduce pavement congestion, Sir Ken has been under sustained pressure to make pedestrians exempt from the charge. When asked to justify the proposed 25% increase to €65 per pedestrian per day, Sir Ken told reporters outside his Dorney Wood residence that "the costs involved in deploying the charge must not outweigh the revenue generated". The congestion charge has still only operated at a profit during 2009, the year when private cars were banned from the central London zone altogether, but the president was still defiant, "we still need to find ways of reducing the dangerous levels of pavement population during peak times, and increasing the charge will encourage many people to consider whether they really need to make the daily commute into town". When he was asked if there were any plans to resurrect the Tube network, he replied "no". The Underground network was closed in 2008 following the Livingstonegate scandal which revealed the misappropriation of investment funds, which saw 98% of the total revenue being directed towards private security and decoration companies, leaving 2% for track and train maintenance. Sir Ken was cleared in the subsequent investigation that looked into his relationship with these companies. Despite being on the board of directors for 46 out of 48 of the private companies, his position was not considered to be a "conflict of interest". Mark Trottalot from the London Ramblers Association said today "what we are seeing on the pavements is Livingstonegate all over again. He wasted all that public money on paint and CCTVs at the same time as watching the Underground network grind to a halt. He hasn't become the 3rd richest man in the UK by chance, and the fact that he now owns a company that will bring face recognition technology to our pavements is very worrying indeed".

There has been a great deal written recently on the bungling police tactics used in the raid on a house in Forest Gate (in a nutshell: 250 police pile into a house, shoot a Muslim man for no apparent reason, drag two guys down stairs, arrest them for terrorist offences, trash their house, interrogate them for a week and then release them with no charge, followed by a hearty "sorry"). Not exactly great PR for the police. Their catch-all excuse is, naturally, fighting terrorism.

Well, just in case you think you might be safe from suspicion if you're a non-Muslim, then think again. There seems to be little the Police won't do under the "terrorism" banner.

Just the other day I was looking out of the window in a residential street in Hackney, East London. I was witnessing a vehicle towing truck preparing to pluck a car from the road and take it away. Looking closely, I saw that the car had an occupant: a terrified woman clutching a new born baby in her arms. I decided, naturally, that this was far too good a photo opportunity to pass, so I grabbed by camera and went out onto the road. By some bizarre coincidence, by the time I got outside, a van full of police officers had also decided to take a closer look.

I snapped away at this strange scene, trying to capture the poor woman's horror as the burly removal men in yellow jackets wrestled with various lifting contraptions around her car. Then a police officer approached me and demanded that I stop taking photographs. As far as I was aware I didn't consider this an offence so I naturally refused. He then produced his notebook and demanded my name and address. What had I done wrong, I asked? His answer was "hostile reconnaissance". He then informed me that "it was a tactic used by terrorists" and that I was acting "suspiciously". So now I'm a terrorist for taking photographs! I tried to point out that the police were in the way of my photographs and that it was not my intention to photograph them, but he still insisted that I was conducting hostile reconnaissance. A small exchange of heated words between myself and this moron was halted by a second police officer who formally instructed me to "fuck off" and took his colleague away.

I know this is hardly earth shattering news, but it does show that the police will use "terrorism" for pretty much anything nowadays. If you have a similar story then please, please tell all.

"Police Intelligence" – the greatest oxymoron since "Friendly Fire"

I live in a country that's surrounded by water, has a temperate climate that's usually damp, rainy and miserable and yet we're apprently having a drought. Well, not all this country to be honest, just the south eastern corner – the remainder of the country's drowning in the damn stuff. The organisation that provides my water is a private company called Thames Water, and they have imposed a hosepipe ban for the summer in order to preserve dwindling supplies. This is the same company who's profits have risen to £383m so far this year, directors bonuses increased from £228,000 to £615,000, the chairman gets a whopping £800,000 salary, the managing director £415,000 and so on. So why do we have a water shortage? Unusually low rain fall? Perhaps, but I suspect that loosing 946 million litres per DAY doesn't really help (staggeringly, that's a third of their entire supply! I can't think of any other industry that can loose a third of its product and get away with it).

There are serveral arguments that Thames Water use to wriggle out of this mess. "We're doing everything we can to replace the antiquated victorian mains network". There is a road just around the corner from my house that has been dug up for the past 6 weeks, courtesy of Thames Water. It's not a particulaly long road, perhaps a stretch 200m long, and is being dug up be a bunch of half-witted, fat-arsed workers with an average age of well over 80 – and who appear to have invested their salaries in PG Tips. It doesn't take that long to replace a water mains if you're serious about it. Another argument from the Water Mafia, is that they will not be able to secure financial investment if the company doesn't make an operating profit. What a load of bollocks. If they play by market rules, then they should live by them. As a "private" company they operate in a competitive market, which means that the consumers have a choice. It's not rocket science, it's called market forces, or that dirty word "capitalism". So do I have a choice of water suppliers? Of course not. Do my water bills reflect by reduction in service? Like hell.

Thames Water should take responsibility for running out of our water and sort this mess out. If it means the fat cats getting in their fat cars, filling it up with bottled Evian then that's what they should do. We've paid for it and they've lost it. My garden would weep at this situation, but sadly it's run out of tears.