Category: Uncategorized

Depression or frustration?


So many people in the UK and globally have a clinical diagnosis of depression. I am myself included in those folk.


Depression is often a catch all term, not only for us lay people but professionals in the field of mental health, using it to explain why people seem unhappy, miserable, isolated and alone, along with those who cannot function in any way, or worse lose their lives to this very destructive and all too often deadly condition.


I am diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and a level of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD, and these all affect my life significantly at times, but today, I had one of those light bulb moments. A ding above my head. What if the accepted diagnosis also covers up a key issue. One we all experience in our lives to some degree.


Now, we live in a world that has all kinds of information at our fingertips, quite literally, to be honest. We can pick our phones up and using whatever search engine we like (or more likely was preinstalled on our phones or computers), and using the right phrase, question or keyword can look anything up. More often than not the results we then get will be heavily censored according to what state or country we live in, or more often which source has paid the most to the billionaires running the search engines, but will generally offer us some possibly believable answer.


I know, I seem mistrusting of how the Internet, or to point of fact our society runs. That sadly is because after 56yrs of life experience, I am, and that is a big part of the problem.


If I kept the working title of this piece, you will already know that I am talking about that innocuous almost innocent word, “frustration”.


So what does frustration actually mean?
Well according to the Cambridge Dictionary (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/frustration) it can be a feeling; the feeling of being annoyed or less confident because you cannot achieve what you want, or something that makes you feel like this.
It can be preventing; the fact that something prevents plans or efforts from being successful


It also is described as being an annoying situation; disappointment or discouragement, or a discouraging situation


The dictionary goes on to describe it as preventing success; the act of preventing something from being achieved.


Yes it is all of the above, but in my view a much stronger word or term than it is ever given credit for. To me frustration is all too often the cause of disagreement,

disappointment, ire, anger or even rage. But it is also not only negative, it can be the catalyst for motivation, change of approach or path, it can become the key starting point in a new quest for knowledge or answers.
Let’s first focus though on the assumed negative connotations, the word being used to describe prevention. What does frustration prevent for me? I am the only person I can truthfully use as an example, and yes there maybe subjectivity in my opinions, views or findings, but I truly believe that is a given for anyone seeking to re-understand themselves.
To explore this, I need to consider what frustrates me and what my emotional and physical responses may be to that.


We have all watched, listened to or read a news article that we would say frustrated us. Often because a better resolution could have been brought about by what we see as common sense. Then we may say common sense is not that common. I may at this juncture kinda disagree with that conjecture, for “common sense” is based upon our understanding of a situation or issue. Our understanding, however, is based upon our knowledge, experience and values. It also is effected by how good the communication is regarding the description of the situation. For instance if someone was to tell you they saw a man in a black suit bundle a woman into a van and drive off, your first reaction may be to ring the police. But if that same description was that he saw a man in a black uniform bundle a drunken woman who had been arrested for a breach of the peace into a police van, you have a completely different account. Both are descriptions of the same incident, but the former lacked key information for you to reach a better understanding. Now there maybe no need to contact the police.


When we are given a news story, its description gives rise to what the story teller wants us to define, and then how we are expected to react. If we are unquestioning of the reporter, editors and those who control which allegiances the media hold, then we like proverbial cattle will follow the path given and continue our journey to pasture, shearing or the abattoir, depending on which way the dogs lead us.


It’s when we challenge the story, look deeper into the language and leaning that we may become frustrated. We may see so many of our flock wandering blindly toward the bolt gun, despite our begging them to make a turn at the gate away from the shepherd. That feeling at that point that overwhelms us is “frustration”.


To me, Jonesy, frustration wears many hats. My daily frustrations mainly arise from my health. My inability to plan, my difficulty sustaining friendships, my social awkwardness, my lack of being able to sustain any routine or commitment that ensures my working life, for all intent and purpose is over.


This maybe the point I should explain me, give a little insight into my background. Those who follow me on social media may want to skip this next bit, as I am kinda already open to many of them.


As I write this I am a 56yr old bloke, who has for around 6yrs been medically retired from work.


I had a long career in social work, working in the field of child protection for many years, before that children’s residential care, and started my working life at sweet 17 as a care assistant in a very badly run and abusive nursing home. Sadly that was the 1980’s and even if I had of had the knowledge and experience to change that, I did not have the opportunity, there were in reality no systems in place for me to turn to. I am writing this in 2023 and it upsets me that although now there are supposed safeguards such as ofsted and the care quality commission, they rarely act upon any information until its too late, and someone is either injured or worse.
The years between being that green care assistant and supervising social workers, investigating abuse, and doing all possible to protect the most vulnerable children in our society I had many other roles and jobs.
I worked in a sweat shop in Manchester for evangelical Christians who were making fashion goods for Harrods and the like, where health and safety wasn’t even a term. I drove buses in some of the most poverty stricken and deprived areas of the UK. I dressed as a dustbin on BBC Radio Manchester, being interviewed by Janice Long, that was surreal, I was a registered doorman for a number of years, I ran my own business selling crockery, worked in shops, drove delivery vans, drove for the WRVS and lots of other less descriptive roles.


I have seen pure opulence to poverty you dare not reminisce over because its imagery hurts so much.


I have laughed at sheer horror and cried with complete joy.


I have loved as a father, a husband, a partner, a friend, a brother, an uncle and a son.
I have mourned with the pain I never comprehended or even realised existed.
I have followed the materialistic iconic fashion labels, but also lived out of a binbag.
I have drank tea with families that could scarce afford the teabag, but also eaten cucumber sandwiches at the Palace with the Royalty of the day.


In my life I have met the absolute best souls of our society such as Bruce Kent, to the worst our prisons could ever be home to.
So in an abridged kinda way that’s me.
Ok, as I have already stated, for years now, I have felt and displayed many indicators of depression, anxiety and to an extent PTSD, it is easy to adopt labels that fit with the feelings and effects of adversity, loss, and hopelessness experienced due to chronic health conditions and bereavement. Some of my physical pain symptoms due to nerve damage and neuralgia are even now treated with medication that is more commonly used to treat depression.


I am pretty open about my feelings and often between comments from some people who only see me on days I am in some way able to function, such as “you’re not ill” or “you can’t be disabled” despite my qualified and experienced doctors and consultants with all the facts and test results assuring me that I am, I get told “you are very depressed” or “you need help”. Now, it is good that people recognise you are experiencing hard and challenging periods within your life, that you are not the person the faux smile and clowning seems to suggest, and for a few to recognise that behind the façade you build up anew every single day that you truly do struggle at every moment to remain here, often looking for ways to end it without leaving behind the pain of loss for others to experience. I recognise I need help, I have screamed, cried and begged for that help, for support. I have researched ways to end my life, looking objectively at the tools I have, from a knife to an injection of insulin, and what they would leave others to clean up after I passed.


I consider daily the people my death may effect, and cry for those no longer on that list because either they too have gone,or they are no longer parts of my existence.


Despite the pleas, any support is minimal and still after now well over a year since i recognised and excepted that i needed help i have yet to receive anything beyond a couple of assessments, and promises of what may at some time in the future be on offer. Yes even my writing this sounds like my depression defines me, and I do agree with the diagnosis, however it’s not quite that simple.


Along with my depression, frustration has been a guiding factor in my decisions, both rational and occasionally completely irrational. For a long time after losing my career, my focus and my life path, I carried anger that was born from frustration. That anger worsened with the death of my brother Robert, and that was fuelled by frustration at the futility, the failings of services, such as the GP’s, hospital staff, community health, the ambulance crew (on one occasion) and social care. I was frustrated at his estranged wife for the cruelty and abuse Robert disclosed she had dealt upon him, frustration at my family, but most of all frustration at the guilt I carried myself for choosing to be away the one weekend that resulted from his being failed and led to his death.


I was and still get so frustrated that cuts in services mean so many are so vulnerable, and that Roberts death was not isolated nor rationally with hind sight unexpected.
I am continually frustrated with the corruption of those who hold power, those who govern, those who are supposed to represent us, the people of the UK.


That frustration again breeds anger and borders upon rage at times. I watch when it cannot be avoided, the effects of corruption and cruelty upon those who are vulnerable to ministerial decisions on statute and cuts, I get angry at their puppets (or are they the masters) who own the media, those true scum that vilify the sick, the disabled, the powerless, to protect the abusive elite who manipulate us as if we were measly pieces upon a board game, and all expendable in the name of their god “greed”.


So why do I bother getting frustrated, why do I allow (as if it was a rational decision I could make) myself to feel anger at these people? I can only surmise that my values, my morality and hopefully my empathy mean I cannot sit watching the rise in hatred being focused upon ourselves in support of the true enemy of our nation, of humanity,the puppet masters themselves.


So yes Depression is the clinical diagnosis I have to endure, but frustration to me is not just an effect of this, not just a factor within the term of depression, it defines me as much if not more. Frustration has motivated me to spend my immobile day writing this rather than watching someone else’s limited imagination play put on my TV screen whilst I lay semi helpless on the sofa, in a t-shirt and shorts because their is little chance in my health allowing me to leave my prison like bungalow today.


Frustration likely is a factor in triggering my heart attacks, in raising my pulse to SVT levels, maybe of the refusal of my brain to shut down even in the event I actually fall asleep.


Is it frustrations or stubbornness keeping me breathing, a need to remain, to ensure change does come, even if I amno longer able to activate it?

The useless Britains

Why the hell are we not beyond livid at this? But putting human excrement in our rivers is truly only the tip of the biggest scandal in our history. In previous eras, even as recent as the sixties and seventies, corruption if discovered meant the politicion or businessperson was held to account. However it serms this now is the time of the 21st Century weakling roll-over and give up generations!
This shite is not acceptable, but nor is the other corruption caused by this government and previous ones, privatisation, stripping the UK of all its assets, even selling off most of our infrastructure to the French Government, so they too can profiteer from the British people on a huge scale.
Because of these parasitic MP’s and their masters, we no longer have a fit for purpose health service, any fit for purpose armed forces, a fit for purpose road network, any fit for purpose utility companies, a fit for purpose rail network, any fit for purpose social care or social services, fit for purpose housing, fit for purpose entitlements (stop calling them benefits, we paid into the pot for them. Just because folk cannot work they are not scrounging scum, that title should be reserved for those in power. Oh and before you say “i know people that can work but just sit on disability benefits” or “they are not disabled” ask yourself if you are their fecking doctor, or carer, are ypu experiencing their pain, their fatigue, their anxiety, their embarrassment at pooing themselves or leaking? If not shut the feck up!), not even a fit for purpose democratic process. We definitely do not have a fit for purpose, government, Prime Minister or even opposition.
Truly folks play dead, ignore the cruel corrupt decisions, all you want now, because after years of so many warnings from us, it truly is likely too bloody late to fix. You, we have condemned ourselves, our children and our grandchildren to just about the bleakest and most oppressive future possible.
Are we proud?

Titanic Folly

Sight seeing actually on a sea grave is not ok, however rich you are. The Titanic (or Britanic?) Was a huge loss of life and the survivors (mostly the upper classes as us poor folk were locked below so as not to offend the sensitive stomachs and senses of the wealthy genteel class) were never the same after it. Well none of those with any morals or empathy anyway.
So tbh I am sad that people, any people are suffering, though I also see the irony in the super rich being locked below this time, I feel for the anguish, pain and loss of all involved including their families, but why the absolute feck were they there? Why have people got £200k± to spend on this vile morbid excursion, if they have that much cash to squander why are people living in poverty and dying of starvation?
These playboy set are whatever the circumstances in my view, the worst sub strata of what can be laughingly called humanity.
I do not think they deserve the possible grizzly end that seems apparent, but if anything it should bring about a whole array of questions, not only to the maritime authorities, but to us, demanding to know why these folk get to lead these lives, and how to stop them.
Remember, we are many, and don’t shed too many tears, for they truly shed none for you or the billions of others struggling in this so out of balance world.

Energy crisis, real or fake?

Around 3% of your fuel bills are paid to the national grid. That’s about £20 a year.
Ofgen are very cagey about who generates the electricity, we do know the French Government own a huge swath of the generation plants,including nuclear and wind power.
The cost of that electricity is set by the stock exchange trading,but not open trading, its called wholesale but is controlled by a monopoly league of the main companies such as Eon, Octopus and the like. The prices they charge you do not reflect the cost of generation nor connectivity.
So this entire cost of living crisis in the UK is about profiteering for shareholders. And get out of your head that share holders are middle class middle England pensioners in Clackton or Brighton, share holders are mainly the richest people in our society and not just British but mainly overseas investors.
They are people like Boris and his dad, Sunak, May, Starmer, Musk, Putin, Gates and all those vile creatures that surround them.
Their profits cannot be allowed to suffer even if you have to.
It truly is that simple.

Submerged privilege

Ok folks, you will likely think me heartless for writing this post, it seems to be the trend atm, and that’s fine, but it seems that all the news outlets are completely ignoring the fact a former Primate Minister lied not only to his buddies in Parliament but to the nation, on many occasions and deliberately so, that he was PM and leader of the current ruling party, having and attending parties, when the entire world was scared and suffering, and covering for his mates to do the same and travel anyrlwhere they wanted. They are stoney silent on the fact that his punishment for not only the lies, the law breaking, the abuse of his position of power is …….the removal of his pass to get into the house of commons.
To me that is akin to someone removing a bank robbers National Trust membership instead of prison for armed robbery.
Now some of you will no doubt say “what does it matter, no one died?”, sadly we do not know that either way, but we do know that people were watching or rather not being there as relatives died, were not allowed to ave full families attend funerals, were not allowed to support family members and loved ones after people died.
We also know he was incharge of a government that profiteered to the max from fear and death. His colleagues of whom he was the boss, the responsible head honcho, the buck stops here man, deliberately defrauding us all, fabricating contracts from fake firms, doing dodgy deals and again allowing and enabling people to suffer and die, whilst filling their quaffers.
We know that so many ordinary people where desperate to help others for no profit or gain whilst this corruption was blatantly happening on this disgraced PM’s watch. I could name so many local and national organisations who fought to save lives from the NHS staff who put themselves and their families at risk, the care workers, shop workers, bus drivers who did the same, as with so many others who our infrastructure requires to run at even a base level,to all the in my mind heroes making and supplying ppe for no profit or gain nationally such as For the Love of Scrubs, Volunteer Riders UK, to the many many local ones such as Sheila’s Sewing Circle and numerous others.
So instead of the media screaming for the heads of Johnson and those corrupt people in power, despite tge clear legal statement that he lied,now a point of fact withing British law, the press if full of a single story about a British Billionaire (and others who are not it seems important enough to warrant identification) possibly being lost in a tourist sub that was giving them access to what should be respected as a mass grave, and nit a tourist site.
Well this is where folks will call me heartless,he and the others knew the risks of their venture. They were doing it to sate their own gratification and not to benefit anyone else. When I get on a bike I know the risks too, if I crash and die the lives of those who love me maybe effected just as harshly as those of the said billionaire but likely no more and no less.
Fine report it, as any possinly fatal RTA or even plane crash, at a push, but do not use it as a way of hiding the truly real issues that should be focused upon.
I wish no one harm, injury or death, and as I do not not know the fate as yet of the subs passengers,I truly hope they are saved, but I also want people to see just what Johnson and his cronies, past and sadly very much present have done, I want him charging, given its now fact he broke the law I want him sentencing and imprisoning. No one individual or government should be above the law. No one. So take his freedom not his bloody pass.

Do all lives matter?

Yesterday, Tuesday the 13th of June 2023, three people were killed and three more injured in a vile attack, which left two 19yr old students and a 50yr old man dead.

Initially the attack was being described by authorities to the emergency workers involved as a terrorist attack, and there was a very real concern that this could have been the beginning of more violence.

It was quite late in the day that information began to leak out to the media, and despite multiple road closures and large areas of Nottingham being closed off, not even the services on the ground had a clear picture.

There was talk of trams being deliberately derailed and even a train being crashed.

Initially the street closures seemed to be being blamed upon the previous day and nights storms.

This horrific attack thus far has no explanation, there is no clear motive, beyond vague reports and supposition in regard to the mental health and background of the ‘alleged’ perpetrator,who is described as a man of West African origin.

As time goes on more information will come out, there will be stories, accounts, anecdotes and claims made, by the press, local people, authorities and all sorts of different groups, some from the local communities and others from either positions of support or opposition.

The incident will be used by many to promote hate, or even to distract us all from other issues.

Nothing will take away the absolute pain and destruction that has been imposed not just upon the victims themselves, removing their lives and futures from them in such a callous manner, but also upon their families, friends, networks, communities and likely many more.

The survivors will have to live with the enduring and traumatic effects this attack has caused them. At the time I am writing this it is apparent at least one of the survivors is fighting for their life, two others are described almost glibly as having minor injuries, but the emotional and psychological consequences are likely to be anything but minor.

This horrible event may have a single or multiple causes, none of which warrant the loss of life and damage imposed upon the victims.

It will touch us all in some way, whether by increasing uncertainty, creating new fears, bringing together people through empathy or destroying trust, stripping links, and building upon what I believe is unjustified hatred.

There will be blame a plenty, and the entire situation will for a time be a political weapon for some, who will use it for their own ends, whether they be to bring people together,split communities up or sadly be an excise for the removal of yet more rights and freedoms we should all be intent upon protecting and truly hold dear.

At this point all I can see is the pain those who survived, along with that of the people who love those who didn’t are already experiencing, and the vast anguish and emotional devastation yet to come.

The actions of the perpetrator likely will bring changes. Some good, some terrible. The consequences will reach beyond those directly involved.

There will be guilt, regret, fear and even relief experienced by many.

We cannot allow these actions whatever the motives to further damage even more lives. These were it seems the actions of a single person, this was terrible on every level but not a “terror atrack”. The person who carried it out is in my opinion, absolute vermin, but should not be used as a catalyst for more violence, not be used as a way of promoting yet further hate, not give rise to more restrictions of our lives.

We have to learn from situations like this, other horrid events, such as Hungerford, but we also must be realistic. We live in a nation of around sixty eight million people. Each of us people will have a point where we trigger, we break, and for most of us that can result in a rant on social media, us shouting of gesticulating out of our car window, screaming at the TV, or as I did many years ago punching a stone flagged floor (which was not a wise move).

Sometimes, infact all too often, frustration and anger can lead to violence, whether in the home, in the pub, school or yes even street.

Still far too often people can be hurt, physically, psychologically and emotionally, and still way too often people can be killed.

What makes this event stand out is not that people have died, but that people with no apparent link to their assailant were attacked. There was no clear reason or catalyst for his actions. For some reason, that makes things scarier. The fact that it currently appears the victims could not have anticipated nor defended against their attacker,that they died, or were injured purely through circumstance makes it appear worse than if they knew, or had a relationship with this horrible excuse for a human being.

No amount of legislation,no knee jerk reaction can defend against such attacks. Bringing in new laws, tougher sentencing,or even calls to arm a the police will not stop such things happening again.

Breeding fear of people based upon their heritage will not protect anyone. In Hungerford the attacker was a white British male. Here it was a black west African excuse for man. Likely both had significant mental health issues that were not recognised or overlooked, maybe if we had better mental.health services it could have been avoided, maybe not.

I am sure Facebook will have thousands of self appointed experts laying blaim, offering opinion and judging many more by these vile actions that one man carried out.

There is blaim to be had. The murder is ultimately to blame. Government cuts are also likely to part of the cause, poverty maybe, culture whether racially or gender based possibly, but again this was one man. Do not allow his twisted vile actions carry any more influence than the have already had.

Do not give him credence by using this as a tool to politically motivate derision upon other that were not responsible nor involved. His actions were those of a weak man, a powerless man. We must never give lie to that. He needs punishing, anyone who enabled him needs holding to account but he cannot become a means to an end.

My guilt

In all the years in Child Protection and Residential Social Work I saw so many children standing by the worst parents imaginable. Many who were either directly abusive, enablers or chose the abusers over their own kids.

I tried to be the best dad I could be. I have always protected, loved and cared for my kids. I was not a perfect parent, but who is.

I had years of parental alienation from their mother who is a skilled liar and has no compassion nor empathy.

Every time she speaks to me she calls me mental, broken, and damaged. Maybe I am, I certainly hurt because of the self loathing I have for me.

Both of my children believe her ongoing lies and cannot recognise any of her faults. They do not believed she ever failed them, but see me as useless and pathetic.

My parents and some of those who were supposed friends at the time of us splitting up enabled her, not actually accepting the truth and not listening to me.

Now my parents have gone a stage further, so any relationship I did have at least with my daughter is now gone.

My son believes me to be a discriminatory bigot who would judge him for his life path. Hopefully there is nothing further from the truth.

Even writing this makes me feel inadequate and beyond a failiure.

Since my brother died, or even before, my mother has chose to vilify me to everyone that will listen.

She does not accept that anything she did with Rob was inherently wrong. No responsibility.

I did not cause my brothers death, I fought every day to keep him here. I went away the weekend he died. I recieved a call when I was returning, but I was still in Chester, 2 hours away, from my mother telling me how ill he was. I told her to ring police and ambulance. She refused. I called them whilst driving back. A few minutes after I arrived the armed police did. I couldn’t get in but they broke his door in.

Sadly it was too late for robert and he died in Chesterfield Royal Hospital.

Robert was 18 years younger than me and as much of a son as my son is.

The guilt I feel for being away that weekend still eats away at me. I will never forgive myself. But my mother accepts nothing.

Since then she has fuelled the animosity that built up between my kids and me.

She gave one sided accounts to my sister and extended family.

Even after all that I continued to live close by, giving her and my dad all the support I could.

Now I have no family. It is truly as if I am dead to all. When the do have any contact it is scorn.

My PTSD has been fed by the guilt that overwhelms me.

Now I feel empty inside on my better days, on my worst each breath is a disappointment.

I am angry, but not with others, all with me.

I do have people that support and care for me. Sometimes though I even turn them away.

This is my existence now.

Road safety in Cymru

Wales has always been home to me. I was not born there but spent many years living and working there. Never have I felt so relaxed as when staying in Wales. In fact the only reasons I do not live there now are around being here for others.
Today though I am saddened at the realisation that Cymru has been took over by people with such little sense. It seems the Welsh Government has decided all roads that were 30mph should and will now be 20mph. At least according to a article I have read today in the MSM.
Now do not get me wrong, I get the need for the safety for l pedestrians, especially children and those with mobility and health issues that may effect their awareness. I fully support 20mph speed limits when schools are coming out, kids are not armoured and 20mph can and often does mean more pedestrian victims of road traffic accidents will sustain less injury and are more likely to survive the impact. I cannot and will not argue that point.
What I will say though is that I have been a driver for 38yrs. I spent over 10yrs of that driving double decker buses and another year driving delivery vans all over the UK.
My other jobs meant driving all over the country in so many different environments to Courts, hospitals, schools and peoples homes.
My only real hobby makes full use of all roads.
The one lesson i learned throughout that time has been additional rules and restrictions upon a road never increases safety.
That’s a contentious statement I know, and yes there truly is evidence to back it up. If in doubt search out Hans Monderman, he was a Dutch road traffic engineer. He undertook experiments in regard to sinage and restrictions, to the point of removing all pavements, road markings and signs in a community. Guess what, it proved to be safer with a massive reduction in accidents.
When people are placed under pressure to watch a speedo on their car, on their motorbike or in their truck, when they are looking for cameras and signs they are not watching out for other hazards.
Now I have a bee in my bonnet about roads, as many of you know. I hold no faith in the records taken by the police in regard to causes of accidents, why? Well because all the recordings have a major flaw, they never give the investigator the option of recording the accident as being due to the condition and surface of the road.
This is even more of a flaw now that it has ever been given our roads are now akin to a WW2 runway after it was bombed by the luftwaffe!
We have potholes a plenty, failing surfaces and faux repairs undertaken by placing either a blob of inferior tarmac substitute to fill a hole or once outlawed surface dressing to hide all the malrepaired holes.
If you want to improve safety you firstly need to know why accidents happen, and recording all as errors of people whether the driver, the victim or other folk does not provide us with that. Yes, when we take control of any vehicle from push bike to juggernaut we take upon the responsibility for our actions in regard to the control of that machine, but we are not the only factor in an accident.
So reducing the speed limit to 20 from 30 is not a true safety measure, it likely in my unqualified but very experienced opinion is like putting a sticking plaster on a huge shark bite whilst still underwater.
If you hold up people by reducing speed, you end up with some people trying to go faster where they can, so if there is a camera they slow down for that, but then speed up. A 15 minute journey will still take 15 minutes whatever speed you place upon the road.
Now, we get the muppets going on about camera vans…..”if they speed they deserve the fine” brigade….but, people get to know where speed cameras, even mobile ones are, and often the speed trap may entrap odd people taking the mickey and driving like the brainless twonks they are, but mostly it will be folks doing a couple of miles above the limit. Yes they “broke the law” but that does not in my (some will argue feeble) mind make them the ones to blame for the accidents. The camera vans in my extensive experience are often placed in dangerous positions causing higher risk due to their presence, even parking upon the pavements causing disruption and danger to the people they are supposed to be ensuring the safety of. Here in Derbyshire one was photographed this week in someone’s drive, hidden, and that is entrapment, never prevention!
So how should we make roads safer?
Well if you have gone away and read up on Monderman, you may already have some ideas, if not then firstly lower reliance on instruction and demand, by truly giving the driver the responsibility, allow them to decide where speed is safe and where caution is needed. When people drive in a dangerous manner and cause accidents prosecute with true sentencing, not just minimal fines, not just a year for killing folk.
But also investigate the accidents properly, hold councils to account and identify the true cause of the accident, even if the cause was not involved by direct contact or impact.
We need traffic vehicles and police officers (and no, I still ain’t a fan of the police in any way) rather than the pathetic and in my mind dangerous cash cow camera vans.
We need to educate those driving and those others using the roads, but not with the current wishy washy speed prevention course, run by some arrogant pseudo entrepreneur who has decided to make easy money preaching crap to a trapped audience.
We need roads to be wider, especially near schools, and a good infrastructure with safe communities, so folk do not feel the need to drive the 400yrds to drop off or pick up. Sadly many of you won’t remember true communities that Mrs Thatcher destroyed.
We do not need more of the same, speed humps damaging vehicles and making them unsafe, damaged roads, invasive road works due to over use of weakened infrastructure caused by over development of areas, so fat cats can profiteer.
Yes keep lower speed limits where people are vulnerable, such as outside schools, but enforce the removal of obstruction, such as dangerous and rude parking, delivery vehicles at school coming out times, and……well, you by now either get my point or not, I guess.
Thanks for reading.

Government Warning

People are obviously scared about the new government warning app that will take over mobile phones.
Well we should be, but not for the reasons we are being directed to believe.
The app is not about nuclear war. In that event what would be the point in “warning” us? We would be either dead or not, your kitchen table will not help.
It may be to a degree be relevant to fires, floods, and severe dangerous weather warnings, but we kinda have survived without that for eons, so not really the greatest need for it there. Despite the government insisting that’s why they are bringing it in.
Most of us have seen Independence Day and other entertaining films, and yes folk are going on about UFO’s and Alien contact, but to be honest it’s not in my humble opinion big fleets of Borg, not some intergalactic Empire or even some huge flaming asteroid we need to be worried about.
The reason this app or whatever it is, to me is so scary is that it’s totally about control.
This program can and will be used to not only “warn” (if you want to use that blatant misdirection) the nation but will be able to be used locally, possibly down to a few streets or even a section of an estate or area.
The app/program/system will be able to take over your phone, not only emitting an audible siren (possibly with higher or lower frequencies also broadcasting, which is a whole other concern), but stops people being able to use their phones, by locking them out, until they respond, (or until they are unlocked by the government or their agencies).
This means that the government, the organisations they comply or collude with, can in effect black out all communication at once anywhere and whenever they want. 
Now I am sure they will put all the appropriate “safeguards” in place, just as we would expect from any trustworthy- erm- government would, but those safeguards are only there until they are not. 
We live in darkening times, a period of history that is unlike any other in so many ways.
The human race can easily destroy this planet we call home, ten times over, but there is no profit in that.
We have, or rather most of us, have a reasonable standard of living (everyone easily could and should and would but for those making that deliberately impossible). I would say no one starves or lives on the streets, but we know despite there being no need for such poverty globally,  never mind in the 5th richest country on this planet, that is a lie.
So why a need to warn or isolate us, using our own technology? 
Well the motivating factor of today’s society is greed. We all know that, whether we choose to see or admit it. Greed is not just the motivation for next door to have a better car or lawn mower than you, it’s is for the very few richest most powerful people to hold absolute power over everyone and everything they see.
There was a line from a Meatloaf song that states “money is power and power is fame” and that sadly is the overriding principle of today’s society.
When you have a world run on such values you always will have poverty,  and worse people living a life that holds no value to others.
In the past things were changed by civil disobedience,  by marching, angry mobs, unions, strikes, yes, even riots and revolution. They are the tools used throughout history by the people to attempt to make a fairer society, they were the tools used to get us rights (rights are never granted, by those in power, they are demanded by those who have none).
Sooner or later today’s society may awaken from social media, from video games, from the celebrity gods we promote and follow. When we do the current world differs hugely from the past.
We no longer have industrial areas, where all the community works, sleeps and lives.
Now we likely don’t know the person living next to, above or below us. Now our community is often almost exclusively on line.
If we are isolated from the online world, from social media, from text and from calls we kinda become powerless.
We cannot form into the angry mob, because a mob is more than one. A march becomes a solitary walk, a riot becomes criminal damage. Revolution becomes a section under the mental health act or a prison cell. 
This is why having a tool to isolate us from others is so essential for a government and establishment, especially ones as cruel and corrupt as those we currently have to live with.
Jonesy.

Unseen illness & people’s recognition.

I truly have just realised its not about how visible a pain is, my epiphany today is that folk only understand the pain that they themselves have been through.
This is absolutely why invisible illnesses such as Fibromyalgia or Chronic Pain Syndrome are not accepted, even it seems by some ill trained professionals.
We are asked to describe our pain, but for me that’s like being asked to describe the shapes I see in smoke.
If I said a “velociraptor” but you had never seen one it would be meaningless.
I currently have just had the wrong tooth removed by my dentist and developed a rather painful abscess under the tooth he should have removed. Now on antibiotics for the pain.
The people who I have told about it are all genuinely sympathetic to my pain, but for most I believe it’s because they recognise the severity of tooth ache through personal experience or the experience of close friends and family. Its lovely to feel the support from these folk, truly, and most of these fabulous people I see as my family anyway, however, when I describe a fibro flare up, or the after effects of a hypo, or the embarrassing situation crohns can leave me in, or worse in some ways the destructive effects of anxiety, ptsd and depression have left upon my life, the loss not only for my brother, for my still born children, for my….er, self by losing career, identity and most of all my still living family, because its not something that they or many of you have experienced there is no point of reference for them. This not their fault, no competition, and sadly some of my issues they will have had to live through and vice versa. I am not saying my situation is any worse than theirs!
Maybe when we use a phrase to identify an illness not seen nor understood we should call it a “not yet experienced by you illness”. (I am sure there will be better suggestions).
These illnesses are not always (but all too often can be) fatal, and when they are the cause of death will likely be “misadventuture”, not “the only end to the suffering” or “an end to pain” or “a scream for help”. Maybe if they were seen as potentially fatal then its possible we would all offer support rather than seeing those fighting these illnesses as weak, it is possible we would recognise them as as strong, as the warriors they are, not as feeble (a phrase been bandied to me).
Does it really matter? Well yes it does. With so called “invisible illness” there is not just the illness itself to contend with. It maybe that you have to take stupid amounts of meds including pain killers, opiates just so people do not see you as “putting it on”. For me personally I constantly wear a pain patch, I take codeine, morphine, and paracetamol almost every day, I also have to take other poisons including very strong immune suppressants just to stop me soiling myself. My lack of concentration whether through illness, pain or medication inhibits me every single day, it’s akin to having dementia, as I forget things whether the cooker, a task or even what I am saying during a conversation.
I strive every single day to hide the pain, to ensure people do not see me as weak, or useless. I get angry, more at myself than others but that anger is destructive, because it feeds my interaction with people including those i love.
Not being able to get up some days nevermind leave the house, not just due to pain but anguish, fear, lack of motivation, and…..so many other reasons that cannot be voiced with mere words.
How do you explain this to folk that haven’t experienced it? Well you can’t.
If but it were a tooth ache, a head ache a broken bone people would get it, but non experienced illness whether with a physical or mental causation is not understood by so many.
I am sorry to babble on, but I do hope some who haven’t and I pray will never experience chronic invisible illness will read this and just think about those folk they know, those who have to live like this.
Jonesy.