Blog
Personal posts, newest first.
New Drawing Challenge dropped!
The 80s was when I was first exposed to “political news”.
Lefties like Tony Benn, who clearly spoke a lot of sense, were “loonies”.
Obvious drooling idiots and upper class twits like Cecil Parkinson and Michael Heseltine were hailed as intellectual stars and saviours, at least until they got caught with their trousers down.
Thatcher was God.
It brought out the very worst in people and us as a nation, and we’re still paying the price.
What is capitalism? It’s a much more complicated question than most people imagine. www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2026…
It’s like a virus.
In Southall, which is predominantly south Asian, I now frequently see and hear friends and neighbours espousing far right rhetoric about “new arrivals from India”, even when their own parents were immigrants from the same country.
Yesterday lunchtime, a friend who suffered terrible racist abuse as the only brown kid at his school, was telling me how “immigration has caused all the problems in Southall.” Nothing to do with poverty, racism, or any other political choices.
He was with a white British man, who told me he attends the local drug rehab unit recently relocated to Southall. Supping from a can of super strength lager while sitting on an upturned empty fruit box in between two greengrocers’ pavement displays, he told me how he had spent much of his life in jail for killing a man with a shotgun. He claimed it’s all right for him racially abuse black people because one of his four wives is black and one of his thirty children is black.
His advice to his kids? Sign-on, get money for nothing.
Don’t touch his daughter or he’ll shoot you, too.
And religion is the cause of all wars.
He also claimed he could buy mangoes at a third of the price local shopkeepers are paying for them, sell them cheaper and make a bigger, quicker profit.
He also described how to illegally adjust an old-fashioned tachometer with a radio battery.
He said a lot of other things I didn’t catch because I’m partially deaf and he has no teeth.
New post: Racism and xenophobia are not ’legitimate concerns’mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2026/09/r… politicians/media describe groups like those in black wearing masks as protestors against asylum seekers in small boats, they presume the motive is ’legitimate concerns’ rather than racism.
New drawing challenge today
Been there, done that.
If there were a Fediverse meetup in your city or region, would you go? #EvanPoll #poll #fediverse #meetup #FediverseMeetup Yes Yes, but… No, but… No Poll: cosocial.ca
My little lad would absolutely love it if anyone takes him up on his drawing challenge.
My six year old has been running family drawing competitions for months. He draws something and challenges family members to draw the same image he has drawn. Then he grades them using his special grading system. Tonight we built the only natural extension of this competition Elijah’s Drawing Hand. See… davidmarsden.info
My six year old has been running family drawing competitions for months.
He draws something and challenges family members to draw the same image he has drawn. Then he grades them using his special grading system.
Tonight we built the only natural extension of this competition Elijah’s Drawing Hand.
See Elijah’s drawing, try to copy it, submit your attempt and wait to get your grade!
Love the poem on the About page.
7 – 11 September 2026: walknotes.comReader: walknotes.com
Toaster, oven, microwave, washing machine, TV remote control, printer. All have numerous different buttons and settings for doing different things. I only ever really use one button or setting on each.
Haha!
Police Scotland have thrown out a Reform MSP’s 'hate speech' allegations against a leading Scottish human rights lawyer
Police throw out Reform MSP's 'hate speech' claim against top Scottish lawyer
A useful bonus feature of handwritten-publish is that if I use the built-in
transcription and send the text with or instead of the handwriting image, that's
what gets published.
Effectively, I'm posting to micro-blog directly from my writing notepad.
How cool is that?!
Danger! Keep Out!
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Transcript
In all the twenty years I have lived in Southall, I have never once visited the Manor House Grounds park! Why not? To be honest, it never looked all that inviting from the outside. It looks like (and is) a closed-off space with no way out except the way you go in. My impression of it, rightly or wrongly, was that it was always a place occupied by street drinkers and drug dealers. In other words, I didn't think it was a safe or pleasant area to go to. I've been reading and seeing a lot on my social media and WhatsApp feeds that it's even worse now, as is Southall more generally. I took my life in my own hands and ventured inside.
What I found before 10 a.m. on a Monday in the school holidays in late August is a hidden treasure! The park was deserted except for a couple of people using the outdoor gym, someone lounging in the children's playground, someone else relaxing on a bench, and a few squirrels and pigeons. The busy road on The Green is right outside, but it felt quiet and peaceful inside. A welcome respite!
While I was in the area, I took a closer look at the Manor House itself, and in particular the ruin at the back which was refurbished many years ago as a catering training college. As far as I'm aware, it's never been used in all this time.
I walked up to the roundabout that takes you over the bridge to the station or to Merrick Road. Old Southall is steadily being demolished and new buildings are granted planning permission in its place. I've often wondered if this pattern is related to settler colonialism. Displacing the indigenous population in the name of regeneration and "civilisation". There are some things that some people would prefer if some other people don't think about!
I ended up back in the "new" library at the Dominion Centre and wrote this up by hand in the study room, where it was perfectly quiet as I was the only student. This will be a more regular haunt.
You know, we might just win the World Cup
VAR instigated a retake of my old retake of Billy Bragg’s “A New England”.
I wasn’t even born when we won the World Cup I’m fifty-nine soon and all hope I’d given up My wife asks me now ‘Why don’t you be a better fan?’ But all the players I loved at school already failed for Ing-erland
I loved you then, and I love you still I bet you’d beat Ghana, it ended nil-nil I don’t feel bad about letting you know I just feel bad about letting you go,,.
You know we might just win the World Cup If we play like a new Ing-erland And win in normal time
You know we might just win the World Cup If we play like a new Ing-erland And win in normal time
I loved the games in Italia ‘90 But that was thirty-six years ago! I can’t believe what I’ve seen since then Every time we go down to ten men…
I saw two shots on goal last night I looked at them, they were the only highlights Is it wrong to wish on the BBC? I wish, I wish, don’t go to penalties
You know we might just win the World Cup If we play like a new Ing-erland And win in normal time
You know we might just win the World Cup If we play like a new Ing-erland And win in normal time