Isobel is invisible
the skill of her job is to be discreet
as she cleans
She sweeps the stairs with a hand-brush
because the hoover lead would trip us up
and the noise disturb us
Isobel is invisible
she leaves a trail of cleanliness after us
she changes light bulbs and toilet rolls
and washes our coffee cups
even though that is not her job
She is closer than our shadows
with her footfall
soft as tissue
…
Maker, dancer and lifelong activist Jon Lockwood has died aged 54.
Unfailingly kind in his personal life, Jon took part in a wide range of struggles to change the world for the better: from anti-nuclear activism and Reclaim the Streets, to squatting and the Occupy movement (of which he was an early, and vigorous, promoter on social media).
‘Evil Jon’ (though he was anything but evil) was a familiar figure to anyone who attended the various PN Summer Camps of the early 2010s.…
Does anyone else feel an increasing amount of history repeating?
A few months ago, in Brighton, I saw a gig poster for a triple bill of Eat Static, Banco de Gaia and Zion Train – had I fallen down a wormhole into 1995? I pinched myself.
But it is a fitting soundtrack for the year: just like 1995, there’s a Kill the Bill campaign to really bring back memories of the Freedom Network – past attempts to defend our freedoms against legislation increasing police powers, restricting…
Dear Fibromyalgia,
You woke me up three times last night. When sleep finally came, my careful, conscious positioning of my body went out the window. And so, you woke me with pain. When I finally woke at an appropriate hour, you greeted me instantly; my constant, demanding companion. Over the night, carefully-maintained joints and muscles have stiffened, the previous day’s physiotherapy undone.
I feel like I haven’t slept – non-restorative sleep is typical with fibromyalgia.…
You may be familiar with the children’s, or parlour, game where participants line up, or sit in a circle, and pass a message along. Somewhere along the line, the message becomes garbled and the amusement is in comparing the result with the original message.
The typical result was along the lines of: ‘send reinforcements, we’re going to advance’. This became ‘send three and fourpence, we’re going to a dance’. That’s obviously more than 50 years old.
The name ‘Chinese Whispers’…
You may not know this, but there was a whole 14-paragraph section of the Glasgow agreement dealing with climate-related ‘loss and damage’.
The Guardian reported that this was ‘perhaps the most bitterly fought section of all’.
The phrase ‘loss and damage’ first appeared when the original UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was being drawn up in 1991.
The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) asked for an international insurance pool to be created to ‘…
‘The peace garden is opposite the War Memorial,’
Said the old soldier.
‘We had to fight to make the peace
Back in the good old days.’
‘No, the War Memorial is opposite the peace garden,’
Said the old pacifist.
‘You’ve had so many wars to end all wars,
Still millions are dying from the wars you left behind.’
‘Look,’ said the old soldier.
‘You chickens stuck your peace garden
In front of our War Memorial to cause non-violent…
Here in Scotland, a year later than expected, COP26 is nearly upon us. As the global climate emergency worsens before our very eyes, world leaders will gather to discuss their collective priorities and plan for action (or inaction).
While the pandemic has amplified the unequal access to this forum for those communities who are most affected, there are many challenges to the COP structure that I’m sure will be addressed by others.
But for grassroots climate activists, it’s…
Recently, I interviewed the poet Catherine Okoronkwo, who is the advisor on racial justice to the bishop of Bristol, Vivienne Faull, helping to deliver on commitments made following last year’s Black Lives Matter protests and the toppling of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol.
Okoronkwo, who was born to Nigerian parents and grew up in the Middle East, is currently vicar of All Saints and St Barnabas in Swindon.
Okoronkwo sees her father, who passed away recently, as one of…
The Zapatistas are coming!
Oh no they’re not! Oh yes they are!
Activists around Europe have been planning since January to receive touring Zapatistas, on a ‘Journey of Life’, a field survey of Europe, trying to understand our social and political context and to find accomplices.
The news that they might arrive in a week is apparently surprising.
A chance conversation, being in the right place at the right time, means I’m suddenly involved in trying to find…
I don’t think I am in alone in watching in absolute horror as the rest of the world has abandoned Afghanistan to the Taliban. Our government, with many others, has betrayed their democracy, and abandoned them to a theocratic regime with a reputation for brutality, especially towards women and girls.
For the past 20 years our Afghan sisters have made great strides towards equality. They formed a national cricket team, competed in the Olympics and won awards for their scientific work.…
‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.’
We don’t know who originally came up with this. It wasn’t Benjamin Disraeli though some attribute it to him. Wasn’t Mark Twain, either, though he did popularise it.
When I was an undergraduate, we were recommended to read Darrell Huff’s How to Lie with Statistics, which I still have a copy of (indeed, I still have most of my degree textbooks). It’s worth a read, although it’s very old, written in the…
Nine years ago, we wrote about a Russian naval officer named Vasili Arkhipov who saved the world.
We’ve learned since then that the story of Arkhipov’s role in the Cuban Missile Crisis was a little more complicated than we thought. Even so, it is clear that Arkhipov played a key role in preventing a confrontation at sea turning into global nuclear war.
On 27 October 1962, 12 US warships surrounded a submerged Soviet submarine, the B-59, a began dropping hand grenades…
The COP26 Coalition has called a Global Day of Action for Climate Justice for Saturday 6 November, halfway through the COP26 climate negotiations in Glasgow.
They are calling on people to either come to Glasgow for a national demonstration or to take action nearer to home.
There will be a People’s Summit for Climate Justice from 7 – 10 November.
The COP26 Coalition is a UK-based civil society coalition of groups and individuals mobilising around climate justice during…
England is entering a dangerous period. British prime minister Boris Johnson is knowingly creating the perfect conditions to breed stronger variants of COVID-19 that can overcome the vaccine.
A group of experts warned in a letter to the medical journal, the Lancet on 7 July that the complete lifting of almost all COVID restrictions in England on 19 July was ‘dangerous and premature’.
One of the concerns of the expert group was the long-term health of the millions of…
Nearly everyone I talk to is feeling a bit weary just now. Weary with the pandemic and all that it means, weary with the chipping away of the welfare state and the lack of honest and compassionate human behaviour demonstrated in Westminster.
Weary with the upsurge of overt racism that Brexit has brought us and weary with fear and anger for the future of the planet and its people, flora and fauna.
It’s the same old stories: divide and conquer; keep the rich getting richer and…
With some of my friends, for the past eight Decembers, I have been co-organising the week-long Leicester Human Rights Arts and Film Festival. We believe that festivals and the arts have an important role to play in creating, maintaining and defending a culture of human rights.
Through its seven days of poetry, music, performances, film, art, talks and discussion, the festival creates a forum for engaging with human rights issues at home and abroad.
With the support of local…
Today was weird. On whatever untrained basis, I ‘mediated’ two people from another housing co-op for six hours. A really overwhelming sentiment was the disappointment, disillusion and disengagement created by other people’s apathy.
It’s hard to hold a neutral space and encourage creative, open thinking when you’re hearing your own cynical and depressed thoughts repeated back to you.
So what I need now is to celebrate all the joyous, proactive, connected, determined, adventurous…
As I write this, BBC News is reporting the fatal stabbings of a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old in different parts of South London, within hours of each other. Another 15-year-old child has been arrested for one of the murders.
So far, 21 teenagers have been murdered in London in 2021.
As we ease out of lockdown, our old social problems are resurfacing with a vengeance.
Personally, I think the blame falls…
I’m not much into football, though I do live with a football ‘fan’ and it’s sometimes on TV when I am in the room.
I’m usually reading or playing a game on my phone. Sometimes I get the headphones on and watch something on the iPad.
Same goes for the cycling: Tour de France, etc.
I’ve never been sporty and it’s not something I generally take much interest in.
This latest England team, though.
I’ve taken a bit more interest in the matches (in between reading…
