Illustration Friday: Strength.

Strength in Numbers.


Illustration Friday.

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Technorati tags: illustration friday; protest; incurable_hippie; women.

DAD.

Last Christmas, my Dad was diagnosed with lymphoma. He died on Monday. I am absolutely devastated and full of a myriad of emotions, thoughts, feelings.

The doctors stopped trying to cure his cancer a few weeks ago, but he died a lot quicker than anyone had anticipated. I feel very cheated, I want to have toddler tantrums and stamp my feet shouting, 'It's Not FAIR!'.

I am a mixture of a mad-crying-person, and also a whole load of disbelief that this could have happened at all, never mind happened now. I still can't quite believe it, though there is a constant sensation of knowing that there is something awful, even when I can't believe that it's true.

Z is being incredibly supportive, through her own grief as well. I am spending time alone, time with her, and time with others. I find I am doing different processing of his death during these different contexts. For example I cry more when I'm on my own, I remember more when I'm talking with Z, I'm exploring the feelings and associations more when I'm with my mental health worker. There is much, much more to it all, but I think the different types of contact, and the alone-ness, are all really important and different.

I can't believe he's gone. That I'll never see him again. I just cannot believe it. I miss him already so, so much.

Rest in peace, Dad.

Un-Fuckin-Believable.

Re: MEET Boxing Legend Mike Tyson.

Dear Editor / Letters Page, @ Sheffield Star,

I am writing to complain strongly against your competition, the prize of which is to go out for a drink with Mike Tyson.

As you will know, Mike Tyson is a convicted rapist and when he attempted to come to this country several years ago there were national protests, in particular by women's groups.

Your description of him in the competition literature discusses his boxing success but makes no mention at all of the controversy in other aspects of his life, including the conviction of rape.

Promoting such a man is appalling and irresponsible, and I understand that in other parts of the country protests are also mounting. In Derby, for example, a Domestic Violence group called Next Step are running a campaign, supported by local people, against a visit there.

Giving any publicity to such a man - never mind suggesting going for a drink with him as a prize for a competition - is a measure which will outrage and upset many people in Sheffield and South Yorkshire. The Sheffield Star's part in this suggests a complete disregard for the women here and elsewhere who have survived rape, sexual violence and domestic violence, and those who haven't survived.

Sports men and women are more and more considered heroes and role models. Please don't let this man appear that way to any of the young people who will come across your paper. We need to stand up against bullies and rapists, not celebrate them.

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See also: Indymedia Article.

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Technorati tags: mike tyson; protest; incurable_hippie; anti-rape; sheffield.

New Labour Manipulation.

In the run-up to the General Election I discovered that I was on some kind of Labour Party email update list. And while the smug grinniness (?!) of Tony Blair in my inbox annoyed me immensely, there was also an element of voyeurism which meant I didn't request to be removed. I liked to see what they were trying next.

I occasionally still get emails from them, and today I was less-than-joyous to receive a Labour Party email from Clarles Clarke, but when he stated that he was emailing [me] today to find out your views on the action the Government is proposing to take to challenge the new terrorist threats that face all of us my ears pricked up.

I'll tell you what I think! Yey! Absolutely draconian measures which will lead this country in a direction which terrifies many. Civil and human rights slashed, racism incorporated into law, defying conventions which we signed up to for very good reasons, locking people up without charge for 3 months... Scary, appalling, very, very bad idea.

So yes, Mr Clarke, where do I share, I wonder... here - to register my views (he says).

But unfortunately there is no box to share my views, no email address to send my thoughts to. Instead there are questions so leading as to be essentially taking us by the hand and clicking the 'correct' answers for us. Questions such as,

Do you think police should have the time and opportunity to complete their investigations into suspected terrorists?
Do you think the government should make sure there are new safeguards to protect innocent people?

The possible answers for each are Yes, No or Not Sure...
On the radio this afternoon they were talking about polls and surveys and whether they meant anything at all.

I think we can safely say that this survey by the Labour Party means absolutely nothing other than that they are shameless, and probably getting desperate.

If anyone wants to fill it in by the way, I'll happily share my invitation with you. Go for it.

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Technorati tags: labour party; UK Politics; incurable_hippie; propaganda.

Atchooo

I have a cold. I am feeling very sorry for myself.

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Technorati tags: tea and sympathy; incurable_hippie.

David Blunkett Resigned!

Ha Ha Ha!

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Poem

I want to write a poem
But I don't know what about.
There surely is a subject
About which I want to spout.

I climbed up a big mountain
And walked all along a river.
Inspiration I was seeking
To set me all aquiver.

I rode on bulls and horses
and I ran with wolves and lions
but I still had no ideas 'bout which
I could write some rhymes.

I convened with elves and fairies
And we smoked and got quite drunk,
We took too many drugs and so
My brain, it got quite shrunk.

I thought I heard some music
Coming from inside a tree,
I conversed with grass and lightbulbs
and they came to section me.

I still had no ideas for
The ode I was to write -
I thought all through the sunshine,
I thought all through the night.

Then the birds chorused the dawn
and realisation came with it...
I'd written the bloody poem -
Which you know, cos this is it!

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I want to do an altered board book and I bought a second hand board book today from a charity shop for a few pennies. I'm quite scared because all the altered books stuff I have seen is incredibly incredible and I'm quite crap, but I want to do one and I may - just may try.

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Oh, did I mention that David Blunkett resigned?!

Blunkett 'man of Sheffield steel'.
In the square outside David Blunkett's former fiefdom, Sheffield City Hall, a great wailing went up at lunchtime as news of the resignation filtered through the city.

But it was not an expression of collective sorrow at his second fall from grace.

It was just the siren which blares out everyday at 1pm to tell nearby workers it is time to nip out for a sandwich. Read more...

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Technorati tags: david blunkett; poem; incurable_hippie; sheffield.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Celebrates Religious Festivals.

There is an interview with Maya Angelou at BBC World Service, which I think that everybody in the world should listen to. I'm not joking, I heard this on the radio in the middle of the night a few nights ago, and I'm now listening again from the site, and she is an amazing woman with some really inspirational and insightful things to say. Go, listen!

I also want to talk about government mental health public info films, and old government public information films (do coughs and sneezes spread diseases, anyone??), and suicide girls, and I'm also wondering where borderline teacher has disappeared to.

As ever, I may or may not get round to talking about these things, but that last paragraph serves as a note to self, at least.

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Best Wishes for Samhain, Diwali, All Soul's Day, Eid-ul-Fitr, Hallowe'en. You don't have a religious festival for ages, then they all come along at once... ;)

Diwali

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Samhain

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Eid

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All Soul's Day

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Hallowe'en (tattoo!)

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Technorati tags: religious festivals; maya angelou; incurable_hippie; public information broadcasts.

Illustration Friday: Broken

broken2
Originally uploaded by incurable_hippie.

Illustration Friday.

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Technorati tags: illustration friday; broken; incurable_hippie; collage.

Monday Round-Up

Following on from my Ban Cars rant a few days ago, zinkibaru has written a rather stunning post about the dangers and irritation of passive driving.

She presents a sound case for banning cars, for the benefits of those of us who are passive drivers and indeed for the benefit of the earth. She even presents a way to go about creating and implementing the laws.

Obviously an outright ban may be too large a step to take all in one go, so I propose that certain areas are exempt from the Non-driving Bill. People would still be able to drive in private members' clubs and places where no pedestrian would ever go. Obviously they wouldn't be able to drive from home to these places though, as this would involve putting the public health at risk. They would have to keep their cars at the clubs. As a natural accompaniment to the Non-driving Bill it is only wise to also implement strict petrol rationing so that any form of public transport which cannot yet run on renewable energy can have access to the diminishing supply. Read more...

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Buy a white poppy for peace here. Learn about them here.

Find out How Ethical your Pet Food is.

Last week's Link of the Week was the Opacity - Abandoned Photography and Urban Exploration site. For this week's, click on the Link of the Week graphic on the right.

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Some cool / interesting articles from the Guardian.

Living for today.
People from all over the world are now squatting in empty 'des res'
properties in the UK to avoid cripplingly high rents in urban centres

Françoise is a well-groomed young French woman who works part-time in
fashion PR in London, pays her taxes and shares a cottage with friends
in north London. She pays no rent though, because she is one of
thousands of people across the UK who is squatting. "Many people who
squat are working in low-paid jobs and simply cannot afford to pay
rent, particularly in London," she says. "We want to do something
creative with our lives, not just working behind a bar or on a
building site. If you don't have to pay rent on top of all your other
living expenses it can mean the difference between having time to live
and merely surviving."

She wants to see a more pragmatic arrangement between owners of empty
properties and squatters, so squatters can move in and take care of
buildings until the owners need them. "The laws around empty
properties don't have much humanity," she says. "If people have a home
and some food to eat, they can make progress in life. Without these
basics it is very hard to move forward. I used to pay rent, but in
London it's so expensive. There are many beautiful buildings around
and they should be recycled."

Part of nature

She says she has learnt to get by on less since she started squatting
a few months ago. "Hot water and electricity are my basic minimum
requirements in a squat, but I don't mind if there are rats. After
all, they're part of nature." Read more...

In other news:

Met admits stigmatising mentally ill

The Metropolitan police owned up yesterday to stigmatising people with mental illness and "perpetuating a myth" that they are especially prone to violence. It promised a programme of reform to stop the inappropriate use of police cells to detain vulnerable people who are going through a mental health crisis.

Officers said damage was often done by unauthorised leaking of mental health records, giving a misleading impression of suspects' danger to the public. There were also problems if uniformed officers accompanied social workers in detaining a patient under the Mental Health Act.

A review by police and NHS chiefs in London said: "We recognise that people who experience mental illness are far more likely to be a victim of crime than a perpetrator."

Brian Paddick, deputy assistant commissioner, said holding violent patients in police cells protected other people but did nothing to protect them against themselves, or to care for their clinical needs. He promised training to educate officers about the need for patient confidentiality.

The police and NHS organisations agreed to set up a network of "places of safety" across London where people in a mental health crisis could be treated.

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Technorati tags: anti-car; ethical shopping; incurable_hippie; poppies; squatting; mental health; stigma.

Papercraft Perfection.

So, yesterday I went to my first ever Card-Making / Papercraft Show. I have been making cards for about 2 years now and am totally hooked, but I'd never quite made it to one of these big exhibition events before.

It was surprisingly difficult to find Don Valley Stadium, despite having got off the tram at the Stadium tram stop, but once we found our way in it was just great.

The number of stalls was just right. There were enough to find exciting products, get new ideas, and to find some marvellous bargains but there weren't so many that you had to skim past them in an overwhelmed fashion.

My passion for pretty papers was certainly well catered for and I came home with lots and lots of unusual, funky, sparkly and amazing stuff having not spent an extortionate amount of £cash. Of course, it would be very, very easy to spend an extortionate amount of £cash so I recommend taking along the maximum amount you want to spend, and leaving cards at home. (Which was easy for me as the bank has confiscated my card anyway.)

I came away with handmade paper, rubber stamps, ink, peel-offs, stickers, scrapbook papers, pearlescent card, angel wire, vellum and embellishments.

I came out of the show absolutely and utterly exhausted, but also inspired and fired up to make lots and lots of new cards, and to use papers and tools in new ways. It was a great way to spend a Sunday :)

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Technorati tags: papercraft; card making; incurable_hippie; exhibition; funky.

Ban Cars! Seriously!

I was on a bus this afternoon, and I was furious. It was baking hot, stupidly crowded, and taking much, much longer than the journey I was making should have.

And I sat there, fuming (I was, at least, sitting down).

I was furious with all the car drivers who, each in their individual cars, were causing this hold-up by insisting on driving into / out of a city centre. Drivers who were probably all also annoyed by the traffic jam without ever stopping to think that they are part of the jam and that the jam is made up of people like them. It is not other people causing the jam, it is everybody in their car who is in the jam. If you are a car in a jam, you are the jam.

If all of those people were on buses, my bus would have sailed down the city's streets without hindrance. And not only that, if all of those people were on buses there would be more buses, with better provision and frequency.

If all of those people were even car-sharing - if each car in the queue held 4 or 5 people, as they are (mostly) designed to - then there would have been a quarter or a fifth of the cars, leading to much less of a hellish standstill.

But no. Individual people in individual cars. One after the next after the next after the next. Causing me and the 30 other people on my bus to get stressed and annoyed and uncomfortable and hot and vowing to never leave the house again.

I was absolutely furious. I wanted to write this but figured it would make me some enemies. I'm less furious now, but I'm more aware that making enemies is always a risk for someone like me, and that this blog is here so I can say this stuff. You can read or not.

Public transport needs extra money, but many of those who dismiss public transport out of hand have never been near a bus for years. They don't have the first idea what it's like. And, to be honest, the more people who use buses, trains, coaches, the more money will be ploughed into these provisions, and the better the services will be. I am the first to admit that public transport is not perfect, but carrying on driving your polluting, cluttering, dangerous, arrogant car around causes many, many more problems than the odd late bus.

World Carfree Network

(Disclaimer of sorts, incomplete: I know that there are people who really do need cars more than others - those who are disabled and particularly those in rural communities with poor public transport. I'm not talking about those people.)

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Technorati tags: anti-car; public transport; incurable_hippie; traffic jams; rant.

R.I.P. Rosa.

"People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired but that wasn't true I was not tired physically I was not old. I was 42. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

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"I do the very best I can to look upon life with optimism and hope and looking forward to a better day, but I don't think there is any such thing as complete happiness. It pains me that there is still a lot of Klan activity and racism. I think when you say you're happy, you have everything that you need and everything that you want, and nothing more to wish for. I haven't reached that stage yet."

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"To this day I believe we are here on the planet Earth to live, grow up and do what we can to make this world a better place for all people to enjoy freedom."

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"I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear."

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"I knew someone had to take the first step and I made up my mind not to move."

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"Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others"

Rosa Parks, February 4th 1913 - October 24 2005

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Technorati tags: rosa parks; civil rights; incurable_hippie; quotes.

10 Indisputable Facts for a Monday.

1. New pillows feel really, really, really amazingly luxurious.


2. However headaches hurt a lot and taint otherwise good feelings and thoughts.


3. I have both of the above.


4. I am confused by the hugeness of the bird flu panic.


5. Z and I have been together for 21 months today :D


6. ...which is a year and three quarters!


7. These lists are always harder than they look.


8. Absolutely masses of people are still sad that Scatman John died.


9. Absolutely nothing is giving me the motivation to tidy my house today.


10. There is no direct translation in French of procrastination. Last time I looked, the dictionary said something like Faire quelquechose demain qu'on devrait faire tout de suite. Hmmm.

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Technorati tags: list; 10 things; incurable_hippie; french.

Photo Friday: Retro.

100_0830retro
Originally uploaded by incurable_hippie.

Retro entry for Photo Friday. Otherwise known as my bed.

Buy, Blood, Boogie.

Alternatives to buying Christmas presents has some cool ideas if you are skint / anti-Capitalist / not Christian / just don't want to spend lots of money for that big December thing. I also recommend GreatGifts.org where you will find the alternative gift catalogue if you do want to spend, but not so much on stuff.

Do you want free ice-cream for giving blood? Apparently, Ben & Jerry's will oblige. Giving blood is very important anyway - even if you're not getting any ice cream. I think you do usually get tea and biscuits, if that is your prime motivator.

I take too many different medications at the moment to be allowed to give blood, but I really wish I could. Since my dad has been ill he has had lots and lots of blood transfusions, many of which have made him feel an awful lot better (when his iron levels have been very low). I guess I'd only ever thought about people receiving blood after car crashes or whatever, not on a weekly (or whatever) basis just to maintain a certain degree of health.

The Blood Donations site actually has a fun zone in which, amongst other things, you can read some of Billy Blood Drop's jokes...

Q: What is bright red and dumb?
A: A blood clot!

Q: What does Billy Blood Drop cross the sea in?
A: A blood vessel!

Q: What is Billy's favourite ice cream?
A: Veinilla!

It brings to mind a whole new sense of self-harm humour... a kind of cheesy, embarrassed one!

I am very much loving Audioscrobbler and Last.FM.

Last week's Link of the Week was FOUND Magazine. For this week's, click on the Link of the Week graphic on the right.

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Technorati tags: buy nothing christmas; alternative gifts; incurable_hippie; audioscrobbler; give blood; jokes.

Any dream interpreters out there?

Ok, I am somewhat sceptical about dream interpreting - mostly the kind that if you dream about x then someone is going to die and if you dream about y you are going to get rich.

However, I do think that sometimes our heads try to sort stuff out when we're asleep, and sometimes this can be played out in our dreams.

Anyway, for three nights now I've had dreams with the same theme, which is that I am looking after an animal which I neglect / treat horribly and then (in 2 of the dreams) at the last minute I start looking after them and they're ok. Basically.

Dream 1: I'm looking after Z's cats but one of my hamsters had escaped so I put both cats into empty hamster cages and fed them from hamster bowls. They were too cramped to be able to move, although one bent the bars so she could get her head out.

Dream 2: I'm looking after a dog, a black, curly-haired thing. I'm not a big fan of dogs but this was pretty and cute. But I kept forgetting I was looking after it, so not getting any dog food. I tried to feed it hamster food a few times but (unsurprisingly!) it wouldn't eat it. I had it in a kind of fenced off area of my house. Then one night I realised that it was really very ill because I hadn't fed it, and early the next morning, as soon as the shops opened I went out, bought it dog food and gave it lots of nice food and drinks and it went from scrawny and ill to really healthy and shiny-coated.

Dream 3: I'm looking after a rabbit and a guinea pig. I put them both into one hamster cage, which gives them room to basically lie still next to each other and not move. I forget to feed them again and again and when I finally remember I think the guinea pig is dead so I start feeding the rabbit who starts looking healthier, then the guinea pig stirs and I realise it is still alive after all so I feed it and it ends up fine too.

Ok, so does anyone have any idea what this is telling me? I figured that after 3 dreams with the same theme, there is something that my unconscious, or whatever, is really trying to get across, and until I *get* it, it will keep on and on.

I wake up feeling incredibly guilty for how awful I was to these dreamed-up animals and have to reassure myself a lot that it was a dream and I do treat animals well in my waking life!

Any ideas would be most welcome!

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Technorati tags: dreams; pets; incurable_hippie; dream interpretation.

Definitions and Maps.

Looking something up in my 1952 French-English dictionary, I came across the following definition, of bricolier, which wouldn't be out of place in The Meaning of Tingo!

BRICOLIER - Horse wearing a breast-collar and harnessed at the side to a two-wheeled carriage.

My favourite postsecret of the week has to be:

It also reminds me of zinkibaru's entry for Lost (mine is here). It also reminds me of how I feel, as if I needed reminding.

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Technorati tags: french; language; incurable_hippie; tingo; map; depression; lost.

Photo Friday: Conspicuous

100_0816
Originally uploaded by incurable_hippie.

Photo Friday.

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Technorati tags: rainbow flag; photo friday; incurable_hippie; pub; photo; LGB.

activism

activism
Originally uploaded by incurable_hippie.

Illustration Friday: Cold (4th post of the day!)

'It is only when the cold season comes that we know the pine and cypress to be evergreen'. Chinese Proverb.

'A cold needs the cook as much as the doctor'. Scottish Proverb

Illustration Friday.

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Technorati tags: Illustration Friday; proverbs; incurable_hippie; cold.