Well, this is a strange feeling.
It is not unknown for me to sit down and start writing this humble blog with a certain lack of inspiration. Life, as wonderfully complex as it is, isn’t always what I would class as interesting around these parts (by which I mean the specific parts encompassed by this house’s four walls). I’ve also, occasionally, found myself bereft of the energy and concentration levels to put virtual pen to virtual paper, mainly thanks to the Multiple Sclerosis happily eating away at my brain.
Never, though, have I sat down to write with such a feeling of trepidation and reluctance. Never have I dithered and delayed so much. Never have I felt so ill at ease at the prospect of my own words.
Today, however, I've done just about everything I can to avoid making a start. I’ve ensconced myself in social media, read a bit, done a crossword, and watched The Olympics. And all to delay the inevitable, Because today I know what I want, what I have to, write about. Today there’s only one game in town, and that’s the riots.
Growing Pains
I touched on Southport and the following unrest last Wednesday, but then things were in their infancy.
Since that point, there have been riots in Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Aldershot, Rotherham, and London among other cities. My own fair(ish) Leeds was visited by protestors, but met with greater numbers of (peaceful) counter protestors and left pretty promptly and without much of a fuss.
But of course we’re not done.
Not if you believe social media, and, to be honest that’s becoming something to take with a larger and larger pinch of salt, There’s still a lot of enmity, hatred, and division being stoked up by certain individuals and organisations and plenty of people more than ready to swallow everything they say and spew out violence. It’s concerning.
Luckily, the police seem to be ‘on it’ and at least 400 people have been arrested (at the time of writing, and to the best of my discernment). I fully expect more to be on the horizon.
Root Causes
These arrests are for everything from Violent Disorder, Criminal Damage and theft to Racial Hatred and Incitement. The latter two charges were made due to social media posts, calling for, among other things, the burning down of a hotel that housed migrants with all inside it. Lovely. The ‘lady’ who made the post was (and I stress ‘was’) a professional childminder. CRB checks are a bitch, ain’t they.
I am, of course, fully aware of the issues underlying these ‘demonstrations’ (something I thought you did with a banner and chant, not a brick to the balls and the looting of your local Greggs). I’m aware that the misidentification of a 17 year old former choirboy born and raised in Wales as a Muslim immigrant was the touchpaper to years and years of built up resentments fuelled by poverty, lack of opportunity, and the jealousy that comes with thinking other people are getting something you’re not (Austerity and Brexit being thought by many to also be contributory factors). At this precise moment, I don’t really care.
All of that can be discussed. All of that can be dealt with. Preferably, in my view, in a way that brings people and communities together rather than driving them apart. I’d much rather see bridges built rather than walls erected. But then, I’m just a pinko commie. Fancy wanting peace and understanding to break out. The horror!
Stop
For now; for the immediate future, all I want is for dickheads to stop trashing the place. There’s no point ‘saving are cuntry’ if said ‘cuntry’ is a steaming pile of twisted metal interspersed with half empty shelves of plastic shoes and the last sausage roll. If we build the world in our image, and this is what it looks like, then maybe it’s time to put the brick down and have a think, because there is one thing I do know. Violence only ever breeds violence.
So stop it, yeah? Just stop it. You’re not making the point you think you’re making, and you’re not making things any better. Stop it now, before someone else dies, Stop it before it’s too late to stop it.
This post was meant to be all about my impending 50th birthday, the planned celebrations, and perhaps the opening of the football season. The fact that it had to be this makes me so very, very sad.
Until next time.
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Hey, there! If you enjoyed reading any of the above, why not take a look at some of my published work? Below you’ll find links to a number of short stories I’m lucky enough to have included in anthologies. I’d love to know what you think.
New Tales Of Old
Death Ship
Pestilence: Drabbles 1
Reaperman: Drabbles 3
The Musketeers Vs Cthulhu
Eldritch Investigations
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