More than two years after I suggested this should be a priority, my sons' school will have a school street during the school run times.

Highlights from this morning’s walk.

New wetland wellbeing walk by the canal.

Been drinking this stuff the last two nights.

It’s very light, tastes nice enough, but unsure about it’s claims for calming and focus.

It’s supposed to make you feel more sociable, like you’ve had a couple of pints.

All it made me feel was like I needed to pee every half an hour.

At least it upped my step count and gave my kidneys a work out.

Last night I had “ideal sleep” according to my sleep app. This is the first time I’ve managed this feat, and that’s another one ticked off my bucket list for 2025.

Eating leftover mince pies now that I’m drinking sugar-free tea.

BACK TO WORK

The last time I worked full-time, in 2015, I got fired for taking too much time off sick.

The last time I worked full time before that, in 2011, I got fried for taking too much time off sick.

So I was quite happy to work part-time since 2016, fifteen hours a week to begin with, increasing to twenty two and a half hours in 2017. It felt like something I could cope with.

And it allowed me to spend a lot of time with big kid when he was little, and then little kid, too. Although that was often tiring ‘work’ I feel very fortunate to have had that much time with them when they were so young and fun.

Working two or three days a week and really being in charge of my own hours and schedule also allowed me lots of flexibility. I could almost work when I liked and didn’t worry about how many hours I’d done. If I needed to I could easily make up time or catch up on another day.

Going back full-time today, I was very conscious of how much time I spent working, and not working. I’ve got much less flexibility now to make up my hours.

Then again, I know that at work, it’s possible to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, the bathroom, the hallway, and the office not actually doing much work. I won’t be too hard on myself for making a cup of tea, powdering my nose, connecting the wife to the internet or checking my online socials every now and then.

All in all it wasn’t a bad day. Nothing urgent to do and I ended up going down a fundraising rabbit-hole. Found a couple of new-to-me funders and shared them with the relevant people, one of whom has already said they will apply.

Job done.

New hat achievement unlocked.

Despite it being xmas holidays and eating to excess I lost a pound in weight.

If I can get to bed earlier tonight I’ll have cracked half of my aims for this year and we’re only four days in.

THIS YEAR

This year I’m returning to full-time work for the first time in almost a decade. I’m looking forward to it, though, and my main focus is going to be on researching and writing grant funding applications for local community youth work.

Last term I joined my sons' school’s parent teacher association specifically to help find grant funding they can apply for. I need to get on with that.

I also hope to be able to get more involved (again) in local democracy and activism in person. I’d like to see if we can get some kind of organised mutual aid and self-help community going.

I want to get fitter and lose some weight, so I’m intend to walk every morning (flat feet permitting) and I’m no longer taking sugar in tea and coffee.

I want to sleep better (which is partly dependent on little kid staying in his own bed all night), breathe better, and get my psoriasis under control.

And I want a new hat.

Last year I feel like I tried out some new ways of doing things that make my life better.

• journaling
• reading more
• listening to music more
• being more sociable online, less time on X
• writing (and publishing/sharing) more
• eating less red meat and more beans/pulses instead
• walking more regularly

DEVELOPERS: IF YOU REALLY WANT TO HELP THE COMMUNITY

This was survey feedback given to developers proposing to build a massive data centre on the site of the industrial estate down the road from me, but it applies more broadly to all big developers, especially those with annual profits of half a billion pounds.

I’m concerned about noise from the site causing a nuisance and health problems in an area that is already susceptible to multiple environmental health stressors, and exacerbated by deep-rooted poverty, deprivation, low pay and systemic racism and power imbalances embedded in the local authority planning system.

I’m also concerned about the local power grid. Only a couple of years ago it was reported that Ealing doesn’t have enough capacity to power more new homes that are so badly needed, particularly in Southall which suffers from chronic overcrowding. A data centre requires a lot of power. How will this work?

If you really want to do something for the local community how about you plant thousands of trees to compensate for the fact that Southall has the lowest tree canopy cover in the whole of Ealing?

How about building homes for the street homeless and providing ongoing support they will need to live in them sustainably?

How about building a drug and alcohol rehab unit to treat the ever growing numbers of addicts roaming our streets and parks?

How about using all that information processing power to work out how to provide more frequent, more reliable, free public transport in Southall and to reduce the congestion caused by all the traffic?

How about building a secular community centre, a library, a youth club, a health centre, a school? Southall is so overdeveloped now, and Ealing Labour Council sold off all our community assets to developers.

Little kid sleeps in his own bed for about three or four hours before waking up crying and climbing into ours.

At least he now just goes straight back to sleep instead of wanting to be awake and playing for two hours.

The last three nights I’ve gone to bed very late and missed all the drama. I’ve slept so much better as a result.

Unfortunately, getting up at 8:30 in the morning isn’t sustainable when the kids go back to school.

ROAD RAGE

My driving instructor told me that I would have to learn to drive twice. Once to pass my driving test (which I did first time, rather fortuitously), and once to learn to drive like everyone else does (i.e., with little regard to the laws of the land, the rules of the road, or the Highway Code).

He also gave me some more sound advice to be a good driver: in addition to getting from A to B, my aim should be to avoid causing other road users to brake, stop or get out of my way. I’m not perfect, so I don’t always get this right, but it’s something I always remember and try to do.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from a friend who was totally into cars and bikes, driving them, riding them, taking them apart and putting them back together again.

His advice was to always look ahead as far as possible. It sounds obvious, but most drivers used to look no further than the end of their bonnet (and nowadays, of course, most are looking down at their phones).

Looking head as far as possible means you can see what’s going on and get a literal heads-up on any possible hazards approaching - children, people approaching a crossing point, slow moving vehicles, vehicles approaching a turning, emergency vehicles, etc.

(If only I’d applied this advice to the rest of my life! So many wrong turns, dead ends, car crash moments, write-offs, months getting roadworthy again….)

I also like to give way to other road users (small acts of solidarity) so that they can turn or perform whatever manoeuvre they need to do, or walk and cross safely. Although this sometimes results in drivers behind me (who obviously have no idea what I’m playing at) honking their horns at me or even overtaking me (this actually happens surprisingly often at the zebra crossing next to my sons' school).

As a bonus, this strategy means that every weekday on the school run I get my road rage going by holding every other driver to my own standards:

• The speeding cars as I turn out of our cul-de-sac on to the notionally 20 mph limit “main” road.

• At the junction by our local pub where cars crossing are supposed to give way. Every day I pass there I slow down in anticipation of someone speeding through regardless, and I often have to brake sharply or stop to allow someone to turn into my lane.

• Directly ahead, the pinch point that stops lorries from getting stuck further down gives priority to drivers going in my direction, and while it’s badly designed, I usually have to give way to oncoming drivers.

• The road it leads on to is effectively a one way street as the exit is marked with a no entry sign for vehicles who would otherwise turn into it. But it’s routinely ignored and drivers coming the other way always seem to be in a great hurry in between the cars parked on either side.

• Then there’s the turn into the big main road from another one way street. The number of times I’m stuck behind someone turning right, who could have moved over to the right to allow me to turn left, but no, they need to take up the middle of the road. It’s easier now the council repainted the “Keep Clear” road markings, and that also has encouraged more drivers on the main road to give way and allow us to turn left and right.

• Speaking of the middle of the road, that appears to be the preferred place for drivers of ever larger vehicles to drive. Maybe they’re frightened of hitting a parked car or they can’t envisage exactly how wide their vehicle is?

Of course, I have to get out of their way as they’re probably not even looking.

SOUTHALL ODOURS

I step out of my house and immediately notice the artificial “cotton fresh” scent of odour suppressants wafting south from the old Gasworks site. How can this be? They finished remediating the contaminated earth in 2019, and people have been living there in the new homes they built since 2021.

Still, it’s better than the smell of petrol, which is what we had to put up with day and night for months on end in 2018. Bad enough to wake us up in the night during the long hot summer.

And it’s better than the smell of tar, which we still get when the wind is blowing from the west. Before the asphalt plant was built, we didn’t get any odours even though there is also a Tarmac plant nearby. The Asphalt plant owners say that is because the Nestle coffee plant closed. The (burnt?) coffee smell masked the tar.

I get around the corner of my block, on my morning walk, and see the small industrial estate that was the bane of our life for months in 2022. The main culprits were the paper recylcling company, which had its own incinerator for burning (believe it or not) plastics and coated wooden pallets.

Their neighbour opposite was a custom kitchen furniture maker, which also had its own incinerator for burning laminated particle fibreboard. The garage at the front regularly burns stuff in an old oil barrel.

All of which contributed to some of the most disgusting odours imaginable blowing into our kitchen, bathroom and hallway whe the wind blew from the north-east.

I walked down the street to the corner where the local council installed a tiny corner “wildflower garden”, which my wife and kids loved because it smelled so good. Two years later, it’s reduced to a dumping ground (no one could have foreseen this).

Further on my walk, past the homes reeking of marijuana, and weaving in and out of the obstacle course of bed bases mattresses and pallets stren across the pavements, I reach the town and smell the food aromas.

I’m reminded of the old Honey Monster factory, which used to regale us with the smell of roasted (burnt?) onions (I know, right?).

And my first visit to Southall (in daylight hours), twenty odd years ago, turning left out of the old station and naively going into the underpass. The stench of piss that hit me! “Welcome to Southall!” indeed.

I finished my walk through the town and back up round and through the park. If I’d gone further up the canal by my sons' school I would have got the smell of the narrowboats' wood-burning stoves, which sometimes fills the school playground and causes kids to have to use their inhalers.

And if I’d walked along the main road home or by the junction with the big industrial estate I would have choked on the heavy air filled with the exhaust fumes from cars and lorries.

Southall stinks so bad that the council set up its own Southall Odours web page, email and hotline where you can report bad smells. Because if you don’t report it, the council can’t do anything.

If you’re lucky, you might see something done after a year or two of complaining, as long as you can withstand the constant gaslighting.

If you’re unlucky, and you’re not already dead or too ill to complain, you’ll be branded a troublemaker and excluded from local democracy.

Or you’ll be told to move by the council’s community safety director.

Like I was two years ago, when I last had a blood test, I’m “pre-diabetic”, so I’m going to see if I can cut out sugar from my diet and go for a half hour walk every day.

Had half as much sugar in my morning coffee and didn’t even notice the difference, and had a cup of tea just now with half as much and it somehow tasted too sweet?

Two walks in two days as well and I’m on a roll.

WHAT YOU WRITING FOR?

I was in Hounslow, west London last year. I went to a cafe in a leisure centre. I’m not proud of it, I was volunteering with my son’s school. And I’m alone, I’m not eating or drinking and I’m writing in my notebook, right? Teacher walks over to me: “Hey, what you writing for?” Isn’t that the weirdest fucking question you’ve ever heard? Not what am I writING, but what am I writing FOR? Well, god dammit, you stumped me! Why do I write? Well… hmmm… I dunno… I guess I write for a lot of reasons and the main one is so I don’t end up being a fucking teacher!

Of course, this didn’t happen, and it the joke doesn’t really work like this. Leaving aside Bill Hicks unnecessary misogyny and condescending attitude towards our sisters in the hospitality industry - you have to admit, though, he would have been funnier than the (ri)bald bloke on Masterchef - the question stands. What am I writing for? Why do I write?

Well, the truth is, I write for a number of reasons. The main one being because it’s something I enjoy doing. Typing up blog posts on the fly in the cafe of the leisure centre where my son and his class did their weekly swimming lesson allowed me an hour to create something with no internal editor or censor stopping me. It was very cathartic. Writing this now with a pen and paper at the kitchen table is the same.

So, mainly I write for me, which is liberating. It helps me breathe and to feel alive.

But I also write for my sons. One day I’ll be gone, probably while they are still too young, and I’d like to leave them with something of me that they can get to know when that time comes. My oldest is always asking me to tell him stories about when I was young, but I’m very bad at that, and can’t remember much that’s appropriate for a ten year old anyway.

In my twenties, I used to write and receive back copious letters from friends, but also from my Dad and his Mum, my Grannie. One day my Dad’s letters stopped coming. There was no reason, or even hint of a reason. I was several thousand miles away at the time, so unable to investigate. The story I was told turned out to be a spiteful load of old bollocks, but at the time it was the only one I had, and so I believed it. I don’t feel like I know my Dad very well at all, but what I do know is that he seemed to find most enjoyment and fulfilment in his life when he was away.

After I explained to my son’s teacher that I was writing for pleasure, one of the swimming instructors at the next table gets up, stands over me and goes, “Well, looks like we got ourselves a writer!” while all the kids in their swimming costumes tried to peer over my shoulder from behind the glass screen to see what I was writing, laughing and pointing at me. That only lasted a few seconds, thankfully, before they all got on with their swimming lesson and left me in peace.

At the risk of coming off like a poor man’s Gregg Wallace, I enjoy a four nut granola every morning.

No side effects from yesterday’s vaccine.

GP called to discuss my imminent demise. She said I’m “a fat bastard and need to get out more.” I need another blood test next week to confirm. She was very nice about it.

Blood test results suggest I’m in imminent danger of heart attack, kidney failure and cancer.

Had my pneumonia vaccine and diabetes blood test this morning. Nurse was very kind and thoughtful. I didn’t pass out, although the blood test was quite painful. Now I have vaccine side effects to look forward to later…

Retreated to the relative safety of the bedroom where I’m finding solace with Radiohead and OK Computer on a loop.

An airbag saved my life

Wife wants to know what I think about the Assisted Dying Bill.

She’s strongly in favour: “It can’t come soon enough for some people,” she says.

Breathless again. Ffs.

I bought an acupressure mat (bed of “nails”) a couple of months ago to help with back pain, relaxation and hopefully to help give me a bit more energy.

I used it for half an hour or so a couple of times a week, while listening to music, and it helped with all of those things.

I hadn’t used it for a month, though, due to not feeling well with one thing and another.

Today I fell into a deep sleep after half an hour on it and had to crawl into bed for another ninety minutes. Still feeling groggy.

Notionally returned to wfh today.

✅ Made chilli sans carne
✅ Emailed work to say I will try to ease myself back into things, but still feeling exhausted
✅ Declined work meetings on health grounds
✅ Had a three hour nap
✅ Woke just in time for a late lunch
✅ Picked kids up from school

ON JOURNALING

I wrote this a week ago.

My last journal was over a week ago, last Saturday.

I’ve had a week off work with a really bad cough, wheezing, shortness of breath. Generally feeling better these last couple of days, but also still coughing. Last two days I had coughing fits in the afternoons leaving me dizzy, and exhausted. I haven’t slept well some nights either, due to coughing, wheezing and breathlessness.

But sitting here right now, I feel as good as I have done in two weeks or more.

Time off from work has allowed me to go through 90 days of journal entries to categorise and summarise them, and then outline or tease out the key themes or ideas in each area of interest. Why? Well, 1) what are all these journal entries for? I mean, I get the process, but am I missing out on something greater? 2) Lots of people publish weekly summaries and some people like reading them. But why?

I think I get it now. Doing this work has made sense of a lot of daily, weekly and monthly events, habits, routines, scenarios, relationships, that otherwise would have remained loosely connected, strung together like the Christmas lights every year when you take them out of the box you left them in in January. In a mess, tangled up, half working. Better than nothing, but a lot of stress.

And another surprising fact. While I started - and soon stopped - journaling in March, then restarted in August, I had wondered if spending the time to write in a private journal would take away from writing for my blog? Actually (and unsurprisingly, really) the opposite has occurred. I have written more than ever, privately and publicly.

I’ve also generally felt better in myself, although I’ve still had my usual ups and downs, and I’m still quite easily uplifted and dragged down.

It’s also made me realise I do a lot more things than I imagined, and do them OK.

It’s helped me to better understand some of my relationships, particularly with family.

I’m reading more, and listening to music more.

It would be useful (although perhaps less fun)to do the same exercise with my work journal. (41 pages, 46 days).

244 pages over 90 days for my personal journal.

Unfortunately, I haven’t journaled since.

LIVING AND BREATHING

I have vague memories of seeing Florence + The Machine on the BBC at Glastonbury, possibly in 2009. She was the big new thing, breathlessly jumping around all over the place, climbing up the gantry, as she showcased her debut album Lungs.

Lungs album cover photoshoot stills - Tom Beard 2009

Or maybe it was 2015. Ship To Wreck sounds so familiar and like it would have caught my ear.

All very dramatic, elemental, and possibly not quite my thing more generally at those particular times. I didn’t pay much attention then or since.

By then, I’d fallen out of love with life, not just music. In recent years, I’ve rediscovered music, and life, and this week Florence + The Machine.

My little kid is 4 ½ years old. He’s obsessed with space at the moment. When he was younger, and still napping in the day, we found that he enjoyed falling asleep to a variety of music videos on YouTube. Mostly videos of music I liked. I don’t know how that happened!

At one time he really enjoyed some of the NPR Tiny Desk concerts - bands playing stripped down acoustic or semi-acoustic fifteen minute sets on a tiny office stage in front of a small audience.

Two he really liked were Alicia Keys and Jon Batiste - which weren’t my choices (well, they were my choices, but now I had permission to choose them), but I grew to love them, too. It’s hard not love such amazing musicianship, singing and songs, all performed with unconfined joy in the moment. My son got it. So did I.

One he wasn’t so keen on, but I enjoyed, was Florence + The Machine’s Tiny Desk performance. Usually so full of bombast, almost over-produced, and perfect for rocking out stadium tours, this was vulnerable and exposed. Two voices, a harp, acoustic guitar and keyboard. Three perfect songs.

I really tried to listen to more, the album versions, but I still couldn’t get into them.

This week, with my focus on my own personal breathlessness and lung history, and still thinking about another Machine entirely, I tried again. I still couldn’t do it, not fully. I now liked the album versions of the Tiny Desk songs, but the rest washed over me. I read more about the band, the albums, reviews, trying to understand why people like them so much.

Then last night, I finally got it. I cant explain why, exactly. Maybe it’s just familiarity. Probably it’s paying attention. As with many things in life, you sometimes have to make an effort to learn to appreciate things and develop a taste (or ear) for them.

Each breath screaming / ‘We are all too young to die,'” Welch sings in the chorus of “Between Two Lungs"

I do wonder also, though, if sometimes songs speak to me even when I’m not actively listening? I’ve always been useless at remembering lyrics. Not great for singing songs in a band. But the songs I love for the music, the energy, the tunes… When I do pay attention to the words, sometimes years later, they do carry meaning for me (even if that’s not necessarily what the song is actually about). They just needed to be heard. That’s the beauty of it.

No more gasping for a breath
The air has filled me head-to-toe
And I can see the ground far below
I have this breath and I hold it tight
And I keep it in my chest with all my might
I pray to god this breath will last

I recently read: How to Write One Song by Jeff Tweedy (of the band Wilco) 📚.

It’s full of practical if fairly obvious tips on how to write and get your creative muscles going.

Here’s a poem I wrote based on two books I regularly read to my little kid at bedtime.

Three days of feeling relatively well. Today I’m coughing, wheezing, short of breath again. Feel shot.

The air outside is thick with the smell of tar and vehicle emissions.

Not doing my cough any good.

Wife reckons she has kidney failure due to her high blood pressure. She says her kidneys are due to expire in 2074.

Wife is making plans for my imminent demise.

Now they want me to have a blood test (routine annual test for diabetes).

I hate blood tests, though, and occasionally pass out. I missed last year’s.

Damn. Felt much better yesterday since starting antibiotics on Monday evening, no coughing and a decent sleep last night.

This morning I’m coughing again, though. Maybe triggered by the cold air on the school run?

I’m so tired I went for a nap, but these corticosteroids won’t let me.

Thought I was getting over my cough, but it seemed to be getting worse again over the weekend and last night.

Got some antibiotics and steroids from my GP.

I wrote 300 pages of notes and reflections in my personal and work journals in 90 days.

Finally feel like I’m getting my breath back after four days of having trouble breathing in, wheezing and feeling like I’m emphyseming.

Coughing like a bastard this morning.

Probably shouldn’t have smoked those twenty Roosters my Dad brought back from Kenya thirty years ago.

I’m officially old.

I now require eye drops, ear drops, nasal spray and an inhaler just to start the day.

Distractedly scrolling through my Facebook feed, which is now entirely made up of various treatments for ADHD in adults.

Now browsing reviews for mushroom gummies (hoping to find a bad/magic batch).

LIZ KENDALL - MAD, BAD AND DANGEROUS

Trials of employment advisers giving CV and interview advice in hospitals produced “dramatic results”, Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall told the BBC.

No. No they didn’t.

The Secretary of State for the Department of Work and Pensions was referring to her experience of visiting a severe mental illness Individual Placement and Support (IPS) programme.

In the community.

Mental health patients are in hospital usually because they are incapable of living life in general let alone getting a job. Plus, mental health units are usually secure wards, so they can’t get out.

IPS works because people are in recovery, receiving treatment that makes them feel better and well enough to start thinking about work.

One positive outcome of my immune system going into overdrive in response to the covid vaccine is that my psoriasis has (temporarily?) calmed down.

COPD

Last week I received confirmation of a diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) based on results of spirometry tests back in August (it took that long for my GP surgery to get the results from the test centre, and only after my own intervention after their repeated failures).

My GP helpfully seemed very keen to blame my twenty-odd year history of smoking.

I first smoked at about age 20. My parents were smokers (wasn’t everyone back then?). I was never a heavy smoker. The most I ever smoked was ten a day. It’s also true I smoked a number of other substances that didn’t come with filters. And then there was some vaping. I suspect that might have been the worst of the lot, but who knows? I haven’t smoked for ten years.

In my childhood, I remember several episodes of severe shortness of breath, e.g., when running around the sports field at primary school I collapsed gasping for breath, and unable to continue. I was never diagnosed with asthma. I was told to get up and stop being so weak.

As I got older, whenever the football season started, I could never get through a full game. I put it down to lack of fitness and stamina at the time, but whatever it was, the symptom was breathlessness. I was told to get fit and sent off on cross-country runs.

I had regular episodes of shortness of breath throughout young adulthood that were not triggered by exercise (I’d more or less given up by then, helped by a dodgy ankle). I thought it might be hayfever or a dust allergy.

Fourteen years ago, I needed a thoracotomy on my right lung after a chest infection went wrong. I developed pleurisy, a collapsed lung and an empyema. In the post-op, my surgeon said my lung was “as good as new”.

In the years before covid, I had frequent chest infections requiring antibiotics and time off work to recover. Then and now, I wonder if that was triggered by the Southall Gasworks remediation and air pollution?

I now see that studies show that exposure to volatile organic compounds (including benzene, naphthalene and toluene) is related to COPD.

The good news is that I had no symptoms of COPD, so it’s been diagnosed at an early stage. I’ve started with my new inhaler, and my wife reports that I’ve stopped snoring.

THE HANGOVER

I had my covid vaccine a week ago today. As expected I had a torrid night with violent shivers, nausea, headache and generally feeling like crap.

While that was the worst of it, I had a whole 48 hours of ‘mild flu symptoms’, followed by a whole week of feeling like the day after going on a massive bender.

I was hoping for a good night’s sleep tonight, in preparation for a long drive tomorrow, but it’s Diwali.

Which in our neighborhood means a non-stop onslaught of fireworks for several hours this evening.

THE SOUTHALL GASWORKS STORY

The story of how the remediation of Southall Gasworks highlights the environmental injustices faced by communities of colour.

The disregard for the health and concerns of these residents raises questions about the inequitable distribution of environmental burdens and the role of local government in protecting vulnerable populations.

It also highlights the potential conflicts between development, profit, and public health, and the need for greater transparency and accountability from authorities and developers.

(This is a Google NotebookLM creation, based on selected sources from my blog posts on Southall Gasworks.)

Nine year old said he wanted to grow some potatoes, so we planted chitted seed potatoes in bags tonight.

He said he didn’t know it was so much work!

A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

Andy’s post on Kingstonian Football Club losing their home reminded me of the loss of Southall’s football ground, and a chance meeting I had with an old supporter a few years ago.

Jim had lost his coat.

He remembered leaving it in the Halfway House pub next to the entrance to the Southall football ground on Western Road.

He told me he lived in neighbouring Hayes with his wife, who would be very angry with him if he went home without his coat.

He also had a house in Ireland.

We walked and walked, but we couldn’t find the Halfway House. It was neither here nor there. We couldn’t find the football ground, either. Nothing was where Jim remembered it.

Like his coat, they were very much alive in Jim’s memory, but in the world we walked in the goalposts had literally moved, the final whistle had blown, and everyone had gone home, except Jim (and me).

I felt very confused. Finally it dawned on me that Jim was probably feeling very confused, too. And probably very frightened. He asked if I could show him the way to get the bus back to Hayes, which I did.

We never did find his coat.

JOURNALING

My nine year old started keeping a journal at school so we can read what he’s been doing at school every day. (Replaces the “What did you do at school today?” “Can’t remember” alternative). It’s terrific.

He wanted to know what I’ve been doing, too, so I am reciprocating. I’ve never kept a diary a journal before, but I’ve enjoyed doing it these past couple of days.

It’s fair to say, though, that my lad’s days are far more interesting and fun than mine.

Back cover image of the dec 1975 issue of “issues in radical therapy” (via danielle carr on Twitter.)

LAST WORDS

These are my last words writing from the café at the local leisure centre where I go every Wednesday during term time as a parent volunteer for my son’s swimming class. It’s their final session today.

My lad has gone from being so anxious about swimming that he didn’t want to go at all, to wanting to go for swimming lessons now the class sessions are over.

The café that was closed has reopened, although I still haven’t bought anything. They have new tables and chairs, too, which is nice.

It’s been something a personal journey for me, too. Having an hour or so in relatively undisturbed peace and quiet just to write whatever comes into my head (and publish to my micro.blog) has felt very therapeutic. I feel like something significant has changed within me, for the better.

I can’t say what, exactly, for a number of reasons, not in public. Maybe another time.

I’m also wondering if it’s a permanent change, or if it will all unravel. And I’m also feeling some sense of loss. Something that has been a part of me for a long time has gone. Even though it had an overall bad effect on my life, it was a regular companion. It won’t be missed, exactly, but it takes some getting used to, it not being here.

I’ll need to find somewhere else to write.

Annual (eek!) morning walk.

THRIVING?

My son’s school’s Thrive teacher is leaving. She helped transform my lad’s experience of school from being one where he had weekly if not daily challenges with regulating his emotions and his behaviour, to one where he enjoys school every day. She’s going to be very greatly missed.

I managed to tell her this today and thank her for her work. It was so sad to hear her story.

She has committed ten years of her life to helping our youngsters get the best start in life, and done lots of extra work getting accredited to do so. But, at the end of the day, she can no longer afford to continue, and has taken a job elsewhere in sales and marketing.

What a stupid, shit country we live in.

Wife has returned home after being abducted by aliens (scroll down past the football).

CURRICULUM VITAE (REPETITUM)

Following on from my success delivering the news to my local community, I took a break from the world of (very part-time) work to focus on… playing in my first bands. And learning to play the guitar. Much of which came at the expense of any interest in or motivation to study, or revise for ‘O’ Levels, and later ‘A’ Levels.

Living in a small rural market town, some of my friends, and my own younger brother, in fact, had Saturday jobs bush beating - literally (as far as I know) beating bushes to encourage game birds to fly to their sporting deaths. Let’s never forget that killing is a sport for our aristocracy and their hangers-on. Famously, at the time, the host of these shootings was “peppered in the buttocks” by our drunken home secretary Willie Whitelaw. You couldn’t get away with a name like that now.

My brother graduated from bush beating for toffs to hunt sabotage.

I did well enough in my ‘O’ Levels (one A, eight Bs, and a C), that my maths teacher told me I would “never amount to anything”. He wasn’t wrong.

My dad tried to motivate me after my mock ‘A’ Level results by leaving me a drunken handwritten note and caricature drawing of me with an arrow pointing to it (I mean, in those days what else could he have done?) saying: “THICK CUNT”.

Then he got me what felt like a punishing summer job at the duck processing plant where he was a line supervisor. Being the boss’s son was no fun when they put me on the killing floor. I became a vegetarian for nine years after that (although since returned to meat eating - that’s another story).

I messed up my ‘A’ Levels (three Es, and failed General Studies writing about the punk band Stiff Little Fingers). I was profoundly depressed, but had no one to talk to about it. Mainly because I had been brought up not to talk about or express any “bad” or “difficult” feelings. Random people used to come up to me and say “Cheer up, it may never happen”, but it in my internal world, it already had.

Music, and playing guitar in a band, was my only outlet, but we were young and totally delusional. We were a three-piece, but believed we were the next Fab Four. We played a successful debut gig in Cleethorpes at The Sub, but instead of building on that, we immediately packed our bags and gear into a van, and drove to London to live in a series of squats in Stepney, Poplar and Limehouse.

An older ex-school friend was part of an anarchist community based out of a bookshop, and helped us find, gain entry to, and occasionally get the water, gas and/or electricity working. In those good old days, you could easily “sign on” the dole and get enough to actually live on.

I read and heard a lot about the politics of anarchism, which I found very attractive to my idealism. That said, I couldn’t ever see how it would work in practice, in the real world. It would need a revolution, of course, but even then, it would need a revolution in people’s minds and thinking first.

Six months living in squats, a couple of lousy gigs and a demo tape later, we packed our bags and returned home.

DOCTOR'S ORDERS

My local pharmacy: Come and get your FREE flu jab!

Me:

My local pharmacy: Come and get your FREE flu jab!

Me: I’ve come for my FREE flu jab.

My local pharmacy: That will be £16.95, please.

Me: I’ve got two text messages from you telling me it’s free.

My local pharmacy: Are you pregnant? On dialysis? Undergoing heart surgery?

Me:

My local pharmacy: Do you have asthma?

Me: Bingo!

RESPONSES TO MY OPEN LETTER TO PETER MASON

I got a reply to my open letter to Peter Mason[pdf], Leader of Ealing Council, and one of my local ward councillors.

Slightly oddly, he addressed it not just to me, but also to CASH (Clean Air for Southall and Hayes, and my neighbour Angela Fonso (who heads up the campaign group. You can see a record of all Mason’s Letters to CASH, if you’re interested in the history.

I’d also submitted two Freedom of Information requests(FOIs) to try to get answers, as I didn’t expect a reply (as he has never replied directly to any of my previous questions).

The FOI response on the developer Berkeley Group’s sponsorship of council events stated:

The Mayor of Ealing had sought sponsors for his Pride reception. Berkeley responded to this request and offered a £500 contribution to the event. However, while the offer was publicly acknowledged, the money was never accepted or received because the Council is committed to not accept sponsorship from Berkeley for corporate events.

The FOI response on the council’s relationship with developers was, to my mind, wholly unsatisfactory and generated a third FOI:

In other words, plain English perhaps, it took two years to put in place any formal procedure to uphold the Leader’s stated aims, and there is literally nothing to see to evidence that councillors are following the procedure, or will do. And the fact that there is nothing to see to evidence your claims is, you claim, an indication of the council’s commitment to transparency?

Anyway, here’s my reply to his reply (via his Head of Cabinet Office).

Thanks for passing on Cllr Mason’s response. Please pass this on to him.

I appreciate Cllr Mason’s honesty in acknowledging that the Mayor accepted Berkeley Group’s offer of sponsorship, contrary to council policy.

I also appreciate that the Mayor, councillors and officers have been reminded of the policy going forward.

However, the Mayor’s original tweet still stands, published, thanking Berkeley Group for sponsoring the event.

I would like to know why this tweet has not been retracted or clarified, because it continues to give what I am now asked to believe by Cllr Mason is a wholly misleading statement of Ealing Council policy, as well as free good marketing publicity for what is a proscribed organisation. That’s even worse than accepting sponsorship. (I hope that Berkeley Group were asked to donate their sponsorship directly to one of the Mayor’s charities instead.)

I would like Cllr Mason, the council leader, to ensure that the Mayor removes and publicly clarifies and apologises for his tweet, and mistakenly accepting Berkeley’s offer. I would like him to explain why it was a mistake and why it’s necessary to apologise.

In Southall, we’ve suffered, as Cllr Mason recently acknowledged in one of his self-promotion videos, six years of “many, many terrible smells and certainly some bad chemicals released into the environment”, which have undoubtedly caused long-term mental and physical health problems for residents young and old.

I hope I don’t need to remind anyone that Southall is home to by far the largest South Asian and Black community in Ealing, and the lowest average incomes, who are among the most vulnerable to the adverse health impacts of these “bad chemicals”. In addition, Southall residents live with some of the worst air pollution in Ealing from traffic congestion, FM Conway asphalt plant, and non-permitted incinerators. Some environmental justice campaigners describe this as a “sacrifice zone”.

So, it’s very hurtful, insulting and offensive to people in Southall, who have suffered and sacrificed so much, to see the new Mayor break the council leader’s pledge, and offer no public retraction, acknowledgement, clarification or apology. It’s as if his words have no consequences. It’s as if South Asian and Black lives don’t matter, or South Asian and Blacks don’t count.

I would also question how the offer of sponsorship came about. We all know that the person responsible for “Community Liaison” for Berkeley Group is Jags Sanghera, who was a Labour Party councillor candidate in last year’s local elections. Why is Jags, who came close to being elected as a councillor, offering sponsorship to the Mayor? It does make me wonder if councillors (and prospective councillors) have ever been told of the council policy, and when? Not to mention the obvious conflict of interest.

Will Cllr Mason establish a “zero tolerance” policy for accepting sponsorship, gifts and hospitality going forward (and, perhaps, apply it retrospectively)?

With regard to Cllr Jassal’s participation in Berkeley Group’s “Community Engagement” steering group, I’d have more confidence in Cllr Mason’s assertion that this is to hold them to account if the group wasn’t set up and controlled by Berkeley Group and Jags Sanghera. Were CASH invited to be members? Was I? No. Why not? Because as far as I can see, we are among the only people who do consistently try to hold Berkeley Group to account, and their relationship with the council.

As Cllr Mason addressed his reply to me to Angela and CASH as well, I’ve copied them in to this.

Yours…

Open letter to Peter Mason davidmarsden.info

RISKS TO HEALTH FROM REMEDIATING SOUTHALL GASWORKS

AI is more ethical than Ealing Labour Party. No money was exchanged.

What are the risks to health from remediating Southall Gasworks on site in the open air? The land is highly contaminated with benzene, naphthalene and a while host of other VOCs, PAHs, heavy metals, “blue billy” and asbestos, and surrounded by residential streets. The local community is mostly of south Asian and African heritage, and it is known that people with this heritage can be genetically vulnerable to naphthalene poisoning. What response from the developer and regulatory authorities should there be if levels of benzene and naphthalene are consistently above the legal safety guidelines and local residents complain of eye, nose and throat irritation, new or worsening of respiratory conditions and infections, or other health problems as a result of odour and air pollution?

The health risks from remediating Southall Gasworks on site in the open air are significant. The site is highly contaminated with a variety of hazardous chemicals, including benzene, naphthalene, VOCs, PAHs, heavy metals, “blue billy” and asbestos. These chemicals can cause a variety of health problems, including cancer, respiratory problems, neurological problems, and birth defects. The local community is mostly of south Asian and African heritage, and it is known that people with this heritage can be genetically vulnerable to naphthalene poisoning. This means that they are more likely to experience health problems from exposure to naphthalene.

If levels of benzene and naphthalene are consistently above the legal safety guidelines, and local residents complain of eye, nose and throat irritation, new or worsening of respiratory conditions and infections, or other health problems as a result of odour and air pollution, the developer and regulatory authorities should take immediate action to protect the health of the community. This may include:

• Stopping the remediation work until the levels of contamination can be brought down to safe levels.
• Providing air filters and other protective equipment to residents who live near the site.
• Evacuation of residents who are most at risk.
• Conducting a health study of the community to assess the impact of the contamination.

The developer and regulatory authorities have a responsibility to protect the health of the community. If they fail to take action, they could be held liable for any health problems that result from the contamination.

Here are some additional information about the health risks of the chemicals found at Southall Gasworks:

• Benzene: Benzene is a colorless, flammable liquid that is used in a variety of products, including gasoline, paints, and solvents. It is a known carcinogen, and it can also cause leukemia, anemia, and other health problems.
• Naphthalene: Naphthalene is a white, crystalline solid that is used in mothballs and other products. It is also a known carcinogen, and it can cause respiratory problems, skin irritation, and other health problems.
• VOCs: Volatile organic compounds are a group of chemicals that can easily evaporate into the air. They can come from a variety of sources, including gasoline, paints, and solvents. VOCs can cause a variety of health problems, including respiratory problems, headaches, nausea, and cancer.
• PAHs: Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are a group of chemicals that are formed when organic matter is burned. They are found in a variety of sources, including gasoline, coal, and tobacco smoke. PAHs can cause cancer, respiratory problems, and other health problems.
• Heavy metals: Heavy metals are a group of metals that are toxic to humans and other animals. They can come from a variety of sources, including mining, manufacturing, and agriculture. Heavy metals can cause a variety of health problems, including cancer, neurological problems, and birth defects.
• “Blue billy”: Blue billy is a type of asbestos that is found in coal tar. Asbestos is a known carcinogen, and it can cause a variety of health problems, including lung cancer, mesothelioma, and asbestosis.

It is important to note that the health risks of exposure to these chemicals vary depending on the level of exposure, the length of exposure, and the individual’s health. If you are concerned about your health after being exposed to these chemicals, you should see a doctor.

I AM THE LEADER OF EALING COUNCIL

I asked Google Bard to advise me on a local matter.

I am the leader of Ealing Council. I have received more than 250 reports about a BAD odour nuisance and air pollution from the remediation of the highly contaminated Southall Gasworks land. We had a public meeting where 250 angry residents complained about health problems as a result of the air pollution, including eye, nose and throat irritation, respiratory problems and infections, and even cancer and death of loved ones. The developer has implemented increased odour suppression to the satisfaction of the Environment Agency. I’ve given residents three numbers to call, each of which takes twenty minutes or more to get through and treats every report as an isolated incident. By the time my investigating officers arrive hours later the smell has gone. I’ve accepted over £30,000 in gifts and hospitality from the developer. What should I do?

What you should do:

1. Resign as leader of Ealing Council. Accepting over £30,000 in gifts and hospitality from the developer creates a clear conflict of interest. You are no longer in a position to objectively represent the interests of the residents of Ealing.
2. Publicly apologize to the residents of Ealing for your actions. Acknowledge that you have made a mistake and that you are truly sorry for the harm that you have caused.
3. Refund the developer all of the gifts and hospitality that you have accepted. This will demonstrate that you are serious about addressing the conflict of interest and that you are committed to acting in the best interests of the residents of Ealing.
4. Work with the developer to find a solution to the air pollution problem. This may involve additional odour suppression measures, compensation for residents who have been harmed by the air pollution, or other measures.
5. Ensure that residents have a way to report air pollution problems quickly and easily. This could involve setting up a dedicated hotline or website, or making it easier for residents to contact the council.
6. Investigate all reports of air pollution promptly and thoroughly. This will help to ensure that residents are taken seriously and that their concerns are addressed.
7. Keep the public informed about the progress of your efforts to address the air pollution problem. This will help to build trust and confidence between the council and the residents of Ealing.

What you should not do:

• Do not deny or downplay the seriousness of the air pollution problem. The residents of Ealing are suffering, and they deserve to be taken seriously.
• Do not try to cover up your conflict of interest. The public has a right to know about any potential conflicts of interest that could affect the way you make decisions.
• Do not try to blame the developer or anyone else for the air pollution problem. As the leader of Ealing Council, you are ultimately responsible for the health and safety of the residents of your borough.
• Do not give up on finding a solution to the air pollution problem. The residents of Ealing deserve to live in a clean and healthy environment, and you have a responsibility to do everything you can to make that happen.

UNDER POISONED SKIES

Watched Under Poisoned Skies on BBC iPlayer last night.

It’s the sad and shocking story of children in Iraq dying from leukaemia as a result of toxic air pollution from mega rich oil companies burning off excess natural gas in the open air near their homes.

Benzene (found in the air) and naphthalene (found in the children’s urine samples) are the main carcinogens.

Levels of benzene are between 3 and 9.6 Micrograms per cubic meter or “µg/m3”.

Levels of benzene by the so-called soil “hospital” at Southall Gasworks were between 4 and 12 Micrograms per cubic meter or “µg/m3”.

SOUTHALL RESIDENTS TO GIVE BLOOD SAMPLES

After six years of campaigning for justice:

“The fact that gas used to be manufactured from coal has been lost to the public consciousness, but the chemical legacy remains.”

“These communities already have multiple disadvantages with air pollution, overcrowding and poor housing. This is another burden being placed on them.”

Via: Scientists to examine health fears at west London luxury development

RESPONSE TO EALING'S AIR QUALITY STRATEGY AND ACTION PLAN

Ealing Council’s draft Air Quality Strategy is a 64 page document together with a 40 page Action Plan, and the consultation period runs until 30 January 2023. It’s taken me the best part of six weeks, all my spare time over Christmas and New Year, to get through it all, make notes and cross-reference to try to make sense of it all and offer some feedback.

Really, there must be a much longer consultation period if Ealing Council is genuinely interested in residents' views.

The following is a summary of what the key points of interest are for me, and in particular in relation to Southall, where I live and work. My additional suggestions are in bold, and my comments and questions in italics.

Warning

This is a LONG post. I’ve tried to break it into sections to make it easier to read.

Disclaimer

I don’t claim to be an expert, other than through experience. I am just an ordinary resident living in the midst of four major industrial and construction site polluters for several years. I have campaigned alongside my family, neighbours and friends for clean air after my then nearly four year old said he wanted fresh air not stinky air. He’d been hospitalised three times when he was two and diagnosed with asthma. We soon discovered people who had lost loved ones, had heart attacks, ectopic pregnancies, cancer, all attributed to the foul petrochemical stink.

I welcome any corrections.

My Summary

If Ealing is serious about “fighting” inequalities, action must be targeted to protect vulnerable people in Southall to reduce air pollution and its impact on the health of its large, mostly economically deprived and non-white population.

The Strategy and Plan must target children and older people, people with lung conditions, and pregnant women: outside schools and school run hours. The Council must question if it is ethical to promote active travel in Southall when it knows that it is a high pollution area and that most of its population is particularly vulnerable to its adverse health impacts.

The draft strategy and action plan don’t do this at all.

Clean Air for Ealing!

To begin, I think it’s fantastic that Ealing Council has stated its vision for clean air for all Ealing residents, in alignment with that of local residents’ campaign group Clean Air for Southall and Hayes (CASH).

CASH has been asking for clean air for residents in Southall and Hayes since 2018.

Summary of the Strategy and Action Plan

Ealing’s draft air quality strategy’s five stated priorities are to:

• Reduce road traffic emissions
• Improve indoor air quality and reduce emissions from wood-burning
• Reduce emissions from construction of new developments
• Invest in green infrastructure
• Raise awareness of air quality

It would be useful to see the strategy and action plan follow the same structure with clear definitions of terms, and specific and detailed aims and objectives for each priority, along with baseline air pollution levels and equalities data for each in order to monitor and measure impact.

Somewhat confusingly, the action plan groups its actions into six categories:

• Emissions from Developments and Buildings
• Public health and awareness raising
• Delivery servicing and freight
• Borough fleet actions
• Localised solutions
• Cleaner transport

This maybe because they are copied and pasted from the previous 2017-22 action plan.

It would be better for understanding, monitoring and evaluation to have consistency and coherence between the two documents, updating the action plan where necessary to reflect this.

Also somewhat confusingly, Ealing’s draft air quality strategy has nine stated goals, starting with the obvious. I’ll say more on these later:

1. Improve air quality
2. Tackling the climate crisis
3. Fighting inequality
4. Protect biodiversity
5. Protect health and wellbeing
6. Raise public awareness
7. Promote sustainable infrastructure
8. Support the transition to clean energy
9. Creating good jobs

Inequalities

There’s a lot of talk in Ealing’s air quality strategy about being inclusive and “fighting” (“reducing” would be better?) inequalities, and recognising that not everyone will be able to reduce their own air pollution “footprint” (“exhaust trail” might be more apt?). I’m not convinced that the strategy actually does this consistently, if at all. More on this later.

Public Health Policy

The strategy sets out how it fits into national, regional and local policy frameworks.

When I first read the strategy, I felt it fell very much within an environmental policy framework (which in Ealing seems to come under the Cabinet portfolio for Climate Action), with its focus on reducing air pollution, and as we’ll see later, promoting active travel.

In contrast, the draft action plan is explicitly a legally required document that falls directly within a public health policy framework (Ealing’s Healthy Lives cabinet portfolio).

*There’s obviously a good deal of crossover between the two, and other policy frameworks and cabinet portfolios, too, not least of which is housing policy (or Good Growth), and social policy (Tackling Inequalities).

It would be useful to see this joint responsibility formally recognised in both the strategy and the action plan, too. This work is important, and there needs to be joint working and accountability.

The strategy goes on to make the case for why air pollution is bad and needs to be reduced. The headline figure that around 150 people die every year in Ealing due to long-term exposure to toxic air is not insignificant.

Ealing’s Health Profile from 2019 puts that figure in some context:

Air Pollution in Ealing

Pollution Sources

The strategy states that the two worst air pollutants in Ealing are nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5). Short and long-term and/or frequent exposure to high levels of both can cause irritation to eyes, nose, and throat, and cause or worsen heart and lung disease in children and adults, and reduce life expectancy.

Those most vulnerable to the adverse health effects of toxic air are children, older people, people with pre-existing lung disease (e.g., asthma), and pregnant women.

It would be sensible and ethical for the strategy and action plan to focus on reducing air pollution in and outside schools, sheltered housing, residential and nursing homes, and in and around identified local air pollution “hotspots”, especially where these are located in areas of known multiple inequalities (e.g., Southall).

I don’t believe the strategy or the action plan really does this at all.

The strategy explains in further detail what the main sources of NO2, PM10 and PM2.5 are in the borough.

Again there is what appears to me, to be some inconsistency about sources and their health effects within the same document. For example, on page 19 there is a graphic showing that wood burning is a source of particulate matter (PM2.5 - 20%, data from 2019).

On page 11, another graphic suggest that wood burning is a source of nitrogen dioxide (but not particulater matter):

In the graphics from the 2017-22 action plan, wood burning doesn’t get a look-in at all, data from 2013.

It would be useful for the strategy to have clarity and consistency on air pollution sources.

The good news is that road traffic emissions, the council’s key action area for 2022-30, reduced significantly in Ealing between 2013 and 2019.

It would be useful if the strategy could make clear and explain how the reduction in road traffic emissions between 2013-19 happened.

Air Quality Monitoring

The strategy notes the air quality targets set by European Union, United Kingdom and World Health Organisation (WHO) guideline limits.

It’s worth noting here (and in the strategy), that, as things stand, the background levels of PM2.5 in London (i.e., particulate matter that comes into the borough from outside Ealing and even from abroad) is around double the WHO’s target.

The draft strategy document continues by identifying the areas in Ealing worst affected by air pollution from nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter. There are eight Air Quality Focus Areas, including one in Southall covering South Road (remember the name), The Green, King Street and Western Road.

Ealing has 67 air quality monitors acrosss the borough, all recording levels of notrogen dioxide, but only four measure particulater matter (PM10 only).

It seems remiss not to have more PM10 monitors, or to have any PM2.5 monitors (although their are three NO2, PM10 and PM2.5 monitors around the Southall Gasworks site, rather erroneously remarketed as The Green Quarter.

Ealing publishes annual air quality status reports.

Ealing also has an interactive map showing all its NO2 diffusion tube monitoring sites where you can see graphical annual data summary charts. Unfortunately, none seem to have been updated since 2021.

It would be useful to have more monitors for particulate matter, especially PM2.5, across the borough, and in Southall, and for published data from all air pollution monitors to be kept accessible and up-to-date.

Priorities for Action

Back to the strategy’s priorities for action, and my comments and questions, and suggestions.

• Reduce road traffic emissions.

The biggest reduction in road traffic emissions came during 2020 covid lockdowns, and while it’s not practical, feasible or desirable to replicate that going forward, it might be worth promoting the idea that employers should encourage and support an increase to the 36% of Ealing’s working age population already mainly working from home whenever possible, as opposed to the current political groupthink that everyone must return to the office in order to be productive.

• Improve indoor air quality and reduce emissions from wood-burning.

There are two wood-burning incinerators close to my home, which frequently create disgusting burning plastic odours forcing us to stay indoors and close all our windows. Not very good for healthy lives or improving indoor air quality, and the Council’s response to mine and my neighbours’ complaints has been infuriatingly slow and unhelpful. It doesn’t give me much confidence that the council really believes all these fine words about reducing air pollution and improving health outcomes when it comes to enforcement action.

• Reduce emissions from construction of new developments.

Wouldn’t this be fantastic?! Again, the Council’s response to the Southall Gasworks poisoning has been shameful, and bears no resemblance to its 2017-22 Air Quality Action Plan pledges to reduce emissions and enforce construction management plans. How can we have any confidence that the council will put residents' needs for clean air first, and above developers' desires to enrich themselves and their shareholders by cutting corners by compromising the health and quality of life of the most vulnerable population in the borough already faced with multiple inequalities?

• Invest in green infrastructure.

Southall has the least tree canopy cover in Ealing, yet is subjected to massive overdevelopment. This almost entirely terraced town is being transformed into a new Manhattan.

The one concession negotiated hard for by our elected representatives, and granted by the London Mayor for overruling local democracy to allow the Gasworks development, was to widen the South Road bridge by the train station to ease the often gridlocked road. Now, the Council Leader has undemocratically pressed the ‘reset’ button. Having sat on the Mayor’s money and done nothing for so long it’s no longer nearly enough to do the necessary work. We are promised £9.5m worth of cycle lanes, a tiny new ‘pocket park’ outside Lidl on the High Street, and a couple of mini-‘orchards’ planted in existing parks, instead. And we have the ‘Poison Park’ to look forward to, the ‘green space’ crafted by Berkeley Group from the contaminated old Gasworks land.

If the council’s air quality strategy is to have any real meaning and intent to address air pollution and multiple inequalities in the Southall Air Quality Focus Area and beyond, it must surely include a vast tree-planting project, and proper maintenance of our existing parks if no new ones can be created on non-contaminated land.

Instead, the council Leader has undemocratically proposed a ‘compromise’ to destroy most of the already re-wilded Warren Farm Nature Reserve in Southall in order to build new sports pitches that the vast majority of local people he consulted don’t want. I don’t understand how the Leader’s desires complement the Council’s stated strategies to reduce air pollution, tackle the climate emergency they declared, and to protect and promote biodiversity and our ecosystem.

• Raise awareness of air quality.

The council also wants to (and must) lead by example.

If the council really wants to lead by example on reducing air pollution, then the council Leader cannot accept or request car rides to or from meetings in Southall, councillors cannot park in cycle lanes in Southall, nor fly to the property developer festival in the south of France. They must engage with Southall residents suffering the worst of the air pollution from multiple sources, and stop denying or minimising the existence and extent of the problems, and proactively and collaboratively work to reduce or stop such pollution episodes continuing.

Otherwise, the council’s strategy isn’t worth the virtual paper it’s printed on, and is just more hot air.

What we have in the draft plan, however, is largely a copy-and-paste of the previous 2017-2022 plan, which was, at worst, a demonstrable failure of ambition, leadership and political will, and, at best, a simple failure of the council to do what it said it would do.

Strategy Goals

1. Improve air quality. Protect the health and wellbeing of Ealing residents from the harmful effects of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter (PM) air pollution.

The strategy MUST have the inclusive goal of protecting residents from the harmful effects of ALL air pollutants (not just nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter)..

2. Tackling the climate crisis…. by aiming for the highest environmental standards.

The “highest environmental standards” must be clearly stated and defined.

3. Fighting inequality…. to ensure that no-one is left behind… [and] residents feel safe.

The strategy must ensure that inequalities are reduced, that ALL residents are included in this process, and that their concerns for the safety of their air are taken seriously and acted upon. Promoting the uptake of expensive electric vehicles and discounting parking spaces for them is discriminating against economically deprived mostly non-white people who suffer most from air pollution.

4. Protect biodiversity. Ensuring our parks, open spaces and nature are protected and enhanced.

This is particularly relevant right now, as the Council Leader pushes on with his undemocratic desire to destroy much of the already rewilded Warren Farm Nature Reserve in Southall, and killing off a quarter of London’s endangered skylarks, in order to build new sports pitches and/or a football stadium.

5. Protect health and wellbeing. Protecting and enhancing the physical and mental health of all.

Except in Southall? Public Health England’s four risk assessment reports into the Southall Gasworks poisoning clearly stated that “Odours can cause nuisance amongst the population possibly leading to stress and anxiety. Some people may experience symptoms such as nausea, headaches or dizziness."

6. Raise public awareness. Promoting awareness of the causes and impacts of air quality issues, as well as the available local solutions…. encouraging community activism….

Except in Southall? At every opportunity, Ealing Council has sought to erase, deny or minimise the the causes and impacts of air quality issues related to Southall Gasworks, refused to enforce any local solutions, and actively discouraged and attempted to prevent community activists' voices from being heard.

7. Promote sustainable infrastructure. Ensure local transport and development planning supports investment in sustainable infrastructure, that limits impact on air quality, enabling a shift to low-emission transport and energy options.

Except in Southall? The Council recently decided NOT to widen the South Road bridge in Southall. Widening the bridge, as promised, would ease congestion, and improve air quality, public transport and active travel options. The bridge widening was the one concession granted to the Southall community when the London Mayor overruled local democracy to give the go ahead to developement of the highly contaminated Southall Gasworks site.

8. Support the transition to clean energy. Supporting the uptake of low-emission energy technologies and improvements in efficiencies, and reducing reliance on the consumption of fossil and solid fuels.

Like in Chile? Simply promoting and encouraging more (low emission) cars isn’t going to reduce congestion, emissions from brake and tyre wear, or help to reduce our “reliance on the consumption of fossil fuels”. Ealing reportedly doesn’t have enough power on the electricity grid for new homes until 2030.

9. Creating good jobs. We want to… deliver an ambitious programme of building more genuinely affordable homes.

Ealing is building fewer genuinely affordable homes than ever, and making the housing crisis in Ealing worse by demolishing more social rent homes than it is building.

Spotlight on Southall

These are all my comments, so I’m not putting it all in italics.

My suggestions and questions for the strategy are still in bold.

Southall cannot be used as a good example of how Ealing Council takes air pollution seriously.

Inequalities

Southall has a BAME population of more than 90%.

Southall Broadway/West and Southall Green are the two council wards that border the old Gasworks site, and which are downwind from the FM Conway asphalt and Tarmac plants, and the two wood-burning incinerators, depending on wind direction. They are connected by the Gasworks site and by the Air Quality Focus Area from South Road to The Green, King Street and Western Road.

Southall is already a high pollution area (and an Air Quality Focus Area as a result), but has several additive sources of unmitigated, uncontrolled air pollution.

Economically poorer, BAME people, children, older people and pregnant women are the most vulnerable to the health impacts of toxic air pollution. Certainly not a fairer start for Southall’s children.

We know from bitter experience over the last six years in Southall that the council has failed in its duty to protect some of its most vulnerable residents from harm.

Raising Awareness

To add insult to injury, the council failed to raise public awareness of the risks and the air quality monitoring data in an open and transparent manner before work on the site began, and while the work was in progress. It was only thanks to local residents and CASH campaigners that a Public Meeting was held in 2019, and it was only then that Public Health England (PHE) acknowledged that some people with African and South Asian heritage are genetically vulnerable to naphthalene poisoning. PHE stated that “levels of naphthalene [at the Gasworks site] must be urgently reduced”. Residents were never informed if, when or how levels of naphthalene were urgently reduced.

It’s noteworthy that the Council claims it asked PHE to get involved only “following concerns raised by local residents” and not because the Council itself carried out an Equalities Impact Assessment prior to works starting in 2016, knowing that the Southall population was significantly more vulnerable to air pollution due to high pre-existing levels and multiple inequalities.

Similarly, the council says it responded to residents' concerns by installing “independent” air quality monitors on site in 2021, but this is five years after the work started, and two years after the main source of air pollution and odour complaints (the so-called soil “hospital”) was decommissioned. The monitors now installed record near-real time data for “urban background” emissions of odourless particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide.

The odours and air pollution that residents are concerned about originate from polyaromatic hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds (i.e., the hundred years’ of toxic waste from town gas, coal tar and petrochemical work sites). We are told that there are diffusion tubes monitoring these emissions, but there is a total lack of openness and transparency as to their locations and the data they have recorded. The council has refused to answer the most basic questions (e.g., what chemical or chemicals causes the odour of petrol? What level of this chemical or chemicals in the air is detectable by the human nose?) So much for raising public awareness!

Public Health

We are also told that the emissions from the site are not harmful to health (this despite hundreds of residents reporting that they have suffered ill-health as a result), so it is surprising that the council then spent £200,000 (albeit paid for by Berkeley Group) on these monitors. Is the air pollution from Southall Gasworks harmful to health, or not? The money would have been better spent on statutory nuisance enforcement. Why did Berkeley Group agree to pay for these monitors?

Moreover, the council must have known in 2016 that the economically poorer, mostly BAME population of Southall carried a higher burden of risk to the potential ill-effects of a hundred years' of highly contaminated toxic waste being dug up and “cleaned” in the open air in the middle of a densely populated residential area. Why wasn’t truly independent (i.e., not paid for by the perpetrators Berkeley) air quality monitoring put in place before work started (to record a baseline), and open and transparent near-real time data published so that residents could see for themselves the reality of what they were forced to breathe night and day for the best part of two and a half years?

Enforcement

Why didn’t the council force Berkeley Group to stop work and make the site safe in the three month heatwave of 2018 when residents pleaded with the council leader, local councillors and Member of Parliament to do so?

The council failed to act on enforcing the construction management plan (CMP) at Southall Gasworks. Indeed half of the plan was missing from the planning portal and the council admitted that it didn’t have a full copy of the original CMP.

How on earth was the council planning to enforce a CMP it wasn’t in possession of? This was a gross dereliction of duty to care for the health and wellbeing of (by its own definition) the most vulnerable residents in the borough.

The Council was committed to full enclosure of waste sites in its 2017-22 Air Quality Action Plan. Why wasn’t the one hundred years of petrochemical waste “soil cleaning hospital” enclosed?

National Grid have enclosed their enclosed their soil remediation work specifically to avoid causing odour nuisance to the local community (and thanks no doubt to campaigning by local residents and activists at Clean Air for Southall and Hayes).

On Whose Side?

Why did the former and current council leader accept over £30,000 in gifts and hospitality from developers including Berkeley Group to fly (!) to the south of France for what Private Eye Magazine describes as a booze and hookerfest?

The new council leader claims he went there to negotiate hard. If that’s the case, what did he negotiate? He also claimed that it wasn’t what he expected and that it was a mistake to go. If that’s also the case, why was it a mistake?

How can we be sure that the new council leader and his administration won’t continue making these mistakes and taking the side of developers rather than standing up for the residents they are elected to represent?

Local Action

If the soil is now clean and the air is safe to breathe, why would stopping works during hot weather (which didn’t happen in 2018), and covering stockpiles (why weren’t they covered already?) be given as examples of possible mitigating actions?

There must be a new commitment to work with and for residents where these are issues. Air pollution and odour nuisance reporting and investigation procedures need to be overhauled as they are currently not fit for purpose (reporting process too convoluted, each one investigated as a single, isolated incident rather than as part of an ongoing problem, residents are simply not believed and our reports are minimised and invalidated).

Work on the Gasworks site is due to complete in 2038. Why is the date for net-zero emissions set for twelve years after this date in 2050?

There’s a similar commitment to target zero-emissions for construction vehicles by 2040, which is two years after the new draft local Plan period for new developments ends.

What has Ealing Council done to date to campaign for greater regulatory powers and for a Clean Air Act? Please give examples.

This draft Air Quality Strategy is fine in many respects in terms of the words it contains, but what concerns me is that these are empty words if they are not acted on and enforced.

Recent history strongly suggests the council doesn’t have the leadership, organisational culture or political will to act in the interests of its most vulnerable residents in Southall.

Active Travel

There’s a lot of talk about active travel and Ealing Council’s multi-million pound Let’s Go Southall campaign in the draft Strategy, but very little on its real cost and impact. They seem to have about 50 regular weekly activity groups. Over two years that’s 5,000 sessions. 30,000 attendances (not individuals). So average of six people per session? 1,000 people attended at least two sessions (repeat attendances). My guess would be not many more than 1,000 in total, most will be repeaters (thinking GP referrals, lots of organisers?). If it’s helped 1,000 individuals, that’s £5,400 per person. If 10,000 it’s £540 per person (still seems like a lot of money). And there’s no evidence that it’s helped anyone!

The council must be open and transparent with residents that Let’s Go Southall is a top-down neoliberal behavioural change (“nudge theory”) programme led by a retired stockbroker, and not the “grassroots social movement” of the council’s Orwellian publicity.

If the Council is serious about improving safe active travel options in Southall, then it must improve road and pavement conditions and safety first. Many of the roads and pavements are not fit to cycle or walk on, especially for children and families, older people, and people with disabilities.

Air Quality Action Plan

The 2017-2022 Action Plan

a. Included a number of no-or-low-impact schemes such as Low Emission Neighbourhoods (LENs), implemented in 2021 as Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs). The Action Plan itself states that there is no (or, elsewhere, conflicting) evidence that LENs/LTNs reduce air pollution within the designated area, and that there is evidence that they increase air pollution outside it. The Action Plan also states that LENs/LTNs are often implemented in areas of relatively low air pollution. Surely it would be better to reduce traffic in areas with high levels of air pollution?

b. Similarly, a 20mph zone was implemented borough-wide, yet the Action Plan states there is no evidence that speed reduction zones produce a reduction in emissions. The Plan states that there is a perception that road safety is improved. Perhaps the Council will reflect on the road safety issues associated with its promotion of the uptake of much heavier electric vehicles while reducing road space for vehicles.

c. Another low impact scheme was Play Streets. How many Play Streets are there now? How often do they run? Where are they?

d. How many Pocket Parks are there? Where are they?

e. How many Green Screens are there? Where are they? Why were green screens not erected at Southall Gasworks even after residents complained of dust from the site in their homes?

f. How are these schemes evaluated in terms of reducing air pollution? Where are the air quality monitors located to record baseline measurements to compare against air pollution levels during or after the scheme is in place?

g. Enforcement of anti-idling laws was deemed “not cost-effective”. Smoke control was not deemed a problem and therefore not promoted or enforced. Who made these decisions?

h. What is the wider ‘cost’ to residents in not taking enforcement action against these criminal behaviours?

The 2022-2027 Action Plan (AQAP)

If air pollution monitoring data cannot inform the efficacy of individual actions, how can it be used in combination with secondary data to do so? I’m sure there must be a sensible explanation, but to most people I suspect this statement makes little sense. In Southall, we have continuously been asked to ignore our own lived experience of health and quality of life problems attributed to the open-air ‘cleaning’ of a hundred years of petrochemical waste at the Gasworks site, in favour of the developer Berkeley’s assurances that it’s own monitoring of air quality is ‘within acceptable limits’ and harmless to health. Public Health England published four risk assessments based on Berkeley’s data, and came to similar conclusions, although neither looked at any secondary data. The air pollution data has still to be published so that the public can make up their own minds.

I’m not sure how imperceptible changes that cannot be detected by monitoring or modelling can be interpreted as Low Impact or a step in the right direction.

The Action Plan here seems to contradict the Strategy by stating that changes in the levels of air pollution above a certain level can be attributed even to individual actions (although more likely to be due to multiple actions).

If the council is serious about using air pollution data and secondary data to establish efficacy of its air quality strategy and action plan, (which sounds sensible enough), then it must explain what measures it will use, and publish baseline data and regular updates.

Like it does with its performance dashboard.

Looking at the Council’s own evaluation of it’s 2017-22 Action Plan, I would suggest that it’s achievements are minimal, and misleading.

Electric Vehicle charging points (p. 30 of 2022 AQAP) were not actually a specified target in the 2017 AQAP, so I’m unsure how this can be claimed as an achievement? Similarly with School Streets and specific cycle lanes. LENS/LTNs were specified as a target, but there is no mention of that fiasco here. Air quality monitoring data must be used to locate pollution hotspots for any future implementation of LENs/LTNs

The 20 mph speed limit was implemented borough-wide, but only since December 2021. Why did it take so long? What is the use of it if it isn’t enforced, especially in Southall?

Surprised I haven’t been asked to remove this review of FM Conway. Is 5,000 views a lot? I guess, at the end of the day, it makes no difference.

STRAWBERRIES FOR PIGS?

Little did we know at the time, but these little strawberries were usually engulfed in a toxic plume of benzene, naphthalene, and god only knows what else.

Sensibly, the wife refused to eat them.

We later discovered that official planning documents for the nearby old gasworks, which was being dug up in the open air for new homes to be built on the contaminated land, stated that no vegetables should be grown on the land. Ever!

Ealing Council Leader Julian Bell publicly blamed 'the wrong kind of wind', and – quite possibly – privately blamed 'fucking moaners'. All the while racking up over £30,000 in declared gifts and hospitality from developers including Berkeley Group, who were digging up the gasworks land.

Our soon-to-be local ward councillor and (ex-)Head of Planning Peter Mason knew all about the dangers (he tells us on Twitter) from the contaminated land back in 2009 when he campaigned against its development along with our MP Virendra Sharma (who said the development would be 'a disaster environmentally').

Yet no one told people living nearby to expect to be gassed in our own homes and gardens during the three month heatwave that was shortly to arrive.

In fact, Ealing Council announced on Twitter that the odours, while 'unpleasant', were 'not harmful to health' would be 'gone in a few days'.

I later discovered that there is scientific evidence that some people with Asian and African heritages are genetically more vulnerable to very serious and sometimes fatal health conditions from inhaling naphthalene, a fact acknowledged (although later denied, despite the published evidence) by Public Health England at a packed public meeting in July 2019.

No one told us.

Ealing Council, despite being fully aware of the potential dangers to health (and to the environment) failed to carry out any kind of Equalities Impact Assessment, and only helped Berkeley Group to rush through the decontamination process to maximise their profit from Crossrail in Southall.

Profit over people. Labour Council. Our lives didn't matter to them.

Now, we are being asked to believe that our MP (who has begun making the right noises two years too late – what happened to the nearly 1,000 signature petition I gave you in 2018 Mr Sharma?) cares and is on our side, and that our local ward councillor cares and always has done. Only Bell is – unusually for him – honest enough not to suddenly pretend he gives a shit about anyone but himself and looking after his own family.

At the packed public meeting in 2019, which our local ward councillor chaired, he and Bell refused to declare their financial interests with Berkeley Group, refused to let me speak with the microphone so that people couldn't hear that the Council, Berkeley Group, the Environment Agency and Public Health England had all colluded to cover up the real level of toxic and carcinogenic air pollution – that it was consistently above legal limits and rising – by manipulating, removing, and presenting the air quality data in such a way as to make it look like it was mostly within legal limits.

At the same meeting, our MP arrived late, mostly unseen, sat silently at the back of the room, and left early, mostly unseen. At the same meeting, a strangely truthful Bell admitted that he had 'known about the nuisance, the BAD nuisance, for two and a half years'! Yet nothing could be done.

Now Peter Mason, free from his constraints as Head of Planning after resigning following his failed coup attempt to take the leadership from Bell last year, is telling us that something could and should have been done, yet all of them remained silent and did nothing for years.

Unbelievable!

HOW I CAUGHT COVID

I tested positive for coronavirus yesterday.

I started to feel unwell – like I had flu – on Sunday afternoon. After a night felling too hot and too cold, Monday morning I had a temperature of 38.3°C.

I went to my local walk-through testing clinic later that afternoon.

It was a self-test. If I'd known, I would have ordered a test-at-home kit, although I wouldn't have got my result as quick.

I couldn't do the throat swab as it made me want to throw up. The nasal swab was faintly pleasurable.

• • •

The walk-through experience was generally quite anxiety-provoking. I can't wear my glasses or hearing aid while wearing a mask, so found it stressful trying to follow instructions. The testing marquee itself, for all the hand gel, seems like as good a place as any to catch covid.

In eleven months, I've been out to the supermarket maybe three times, the pharmacy the same, to the park occasionally. During the summer, we visited my mother-in-law after she had recovered from covid.

I took my six year old to and from school every day up until the Christmas holidays, and that is the last direct contact any of us as a family have had with other human beings.

• • •

So, it's a bit of a mystery how I caught the infection. The most likely source I can think of is our communal stairwell to our flat, which we share with our next door neighbours and their visitors, posties, delivery drivers.

When the pandemic began, we always used to wear a mask to go out, but we stopped doing that (and got out of the habit) in the summer when infection rates were low. I had still been wearing a mask to bring our grocery deliveries in, but not when I put the rubbish out....

HIGH TRAFFIC NEIGHBOURHOOD

Took me an hour (as opposed to 10 minutes) to drive my lad home from school this afternoon, thanks in part to the High Traffic Neighbourhood (‘Improving access for HGVs’) in Southall ‘Green’.

Like a rat, I tried the side streets and back roads option and found those to be jammed, too, and Scotts Road - although confusingly still two-way throughout - is now No Entry from the eastern end.

I would have abandoned my car and got out and walked/scooted home, but there was nowhere to leave it - all the pavements (and even the double yellow lines) were parked on, or being used by, er, pedestrians.

The more virtuous brothers and sisters amongst us may righteously question why me and my lad weren’t scooting/walking anyway? Why are we driving when Southall is known for its traffic gridlock?

We have done it a couple of times. It takes us 40 minutes each way in fine weather. My lad would love to do it every day, I’m sure, although not in the wind, cold and rain. I don’t believe my dodgy feet/knees/hips/back would manage it daily, either.

And why are we going to a school so far away from where we live?

Well, it’s the best (and happiest) school in Southall. And it’s the one that is furthest away from the gasworks stink and toxic air. We wanted to give our little asthmatic boy some clean air five days a week, if we could. (Of course, we since found out the school is under the Heathrow flight path, and next to the smoky narrowboats moored on the canal….).

(In case you are wondering, the ambulance somehow squeezed down the middle of Western Road, fortunately no well-intentioned bollards or planters in the way.)

A SUCCESSFUL HOME DELIVERY AND THE LOCKDOWN/LOCK-IN.

My second son was born late Saturday night (what would normally have been my beer night) two weeks ago, after a short, but intense, labour.

He was delivered at home by two brilliant midwives, who were fully protected courtesy of customised #tinap bin bag aprons, unused clean air protest dust masks, and disposable gloves my wife stocked up on back in February when – without any scientific advice whatsoever – she somehow accurately foresaw the current coronavirus global pandemic somehow reaching the UK's shores (and airports). Practising prudent use of valuable PPE supplies, the midwives wore their own prescription spectacles to protect from splashes to the eyes. (This is, of course, not true. They had NHS supplied aprons, surgical masks, and gloves.)

Home delivery

Now, we've had our groceries, pizza and most other household and personal items delivered to our home, rather than dealing with the stress of actually going out and having to interact with other people, for years, so a home delivery of our new son might have seemed like an obvious choice.

But a home birth was definitely Plan B, and only came to be Plan A due to coronavirus related issues with hospital birth and childcare arrangements for our nearly six year old, which now favoured delivery at home.

Preparing for birth

My boss had told me a few days prior that 'home births are great, because you can make a cup of tea'.

So, I stocked up on tea bags, and prepared myself mentally and physically for the big day by repeatedly ignoring my wife's pleas to listen to her hypnobirthing mp3s on the expected role of the 'birthing partner' (whatever that is), and getting through the last of my beer stockpile in anticipation of several years of enforced sobriety (in order to deal with nighttime and next morning emergencies).

I'm just thankful we never got around to implementing my boss's idea for a work appraisal, because his multi-tasking expectations are clearly way beyond my capabilities.

Labour of birth

While I fully accept that I had the easiest job on the night (bar my nearly six year old, who thankfully slept through it all in the adjacent bedroom), I was very pleased the main bit was over relatively quickly (three hours) as my right arm and hand were getting tired.

To ease the pain of contractions, and in the absence of any pain relief other than 'gas and air', my wife insisted (on pain of death) that I massage her lower back for two minutes every three minutes.

In between massages/contractions, I had to top up her glass of filtered water and hold it to her lips for her to drink.

Birth

When the baby's head came out, slowly, I remember thinking it was weirdly like watching a picture coming out of a printer.

When he was out, I immediately noticed his testicles seemed abnormally large, the size of giant tea bags. (Turns out they were swollen with fluid.)

'He's a boy, he's definitely a boy!' I said.

I could have done with some gas and air myself at this point.

After birth

My wife has been pretty amazing through it all. I don't know how she copes with the lack of sleep, although I'm doing my best to make sure she gets a couple of hours whenever she can when she's not busy feeding baby.

I have done a few nappy changes. Son no. 1 is always delighted whenever his little brother pees all over me, which was really his main reason for wanting a little brother in the first place.

Lockdown/Lock-in

We're mainly homebirds, so the lockdown/lock-in has not been too bad for us. And we're lucky to have had everything we needed, including toilet paper, flour, use of our communal garden and area where we live for exercise, sunshine, unusually fresh air, and seeing red kites and egrets flying over, among other lesser spotted wildlife.

My eldest lad has suffered the most, as he misses his school routine and friends, which is compounded by his not realising that he would no longer be the centre of attention now his little brother is here.

RETURN TO WORK

I returned to work last week after my extended absence due to respiratory illness, which may or may not be related to three years of breathing the poisonous gasworks' air.

I find I now have to literally climb over two rough sleepers camped outside the door of my workplace in order to get in. There is no more space in the nearby doorway, and the doorway around the side entrance is similarly occupied.

By my reckoning, we have five more rough sleepers than we did two months ago, or two years ago, or four years ago.

Meanwhile, Southall’s skyline is rapidly changing from terraced family houses to much-needed ‘genuinely affordable’ skyscraper studio flats, while ‘parklets’ are opening up in the posher parts of Ealing.

To be fair, I did see that the Bell regime have cut a deal with Compton’s foldaway bikes so that residents on the Copley estate can hire them without having to pay a membership fee, and improve air quality at the same time.

SOUTHALL UNDER SIEGE: THE NEIGHBOURS FROM HELL

‘A lack of scrutiny,’ says John Freeman, Regulatory Services Officer at Ealing Council.

He’s talking about lessons to be learned from the council’s response to the new asphalt plant built in neighbouring Hillingdon borough in 2014.

‘We didn’t expect there to be so much odour from a new building, or so many complaints.’

Moving swiftly on.

Oppressive odour

The highly contaminated old gasworks site in Southall has been kicking up a stink, too.

Carcinogenic benzene and naphthalene, among a cocktail of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, heavy metals and particulates large and small, are in the air.

‘The odour is oppressive,’ says Damian Leydon.

There are twenty or thirty people in the room.

No one bats an eyelid.

Upset residents

Damian is the Operations Director at 'Southall Waterside', as the gasworks site is being marketed.

It's wedged between the grand union canal, Yeading Brook and Minet Park to the north-west of the site, and two of the twenty percent most economically deprived council wards in England. Southall Green to the south, and Southall Broadway to the north and north-east.

‘The last thing we want to do is upset residents,’ says Damian.

It’s a bit late for that.

Please stop

Damian previously worked as the Construction Manager on Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant in Somerset, and the Athletes Village at the 2012 London Olympics.

Presumably, there were no carcinogenic leaks, oppressed, or upset residents there.

Three times I ask Damian, ‘How many residents are you prepared to upset before you will stop?’

No answers

As for almost every question that night, at Ealing Council’s Air Quality Scrutiny Panel meeting in September 2018, there is no answer.

The meeting concludes, and later the ‘minutes’ are published, but such minutiae do not make the cut.

Was I at a different meeting?

The final report of the ‘scrutiny’ panel, six months later, reads as if the problem is in the past, finished, with yet more ‘lessons to be learned’ (and immediately forgotten).

Friends with benefits

As I leave the meeting, I see Damian having a cosy-looking chat in the corridor (of power) outside the meeting room with Julian Bell, Ealing Council's Leader.

Councillor Bell sat through the two hour meeting in silence.

I ask Julian if he’s booking his holiday in Cannes?

The south of France resort hosts the annual MIPIM property developers’ ‘booze and hookerfest’ (as Private Eye magazine calls it).

Julian is a regular attendee, all expenses paid for by Damian’s employer Berkeley Group, despite claiming to be teetotal. Peter Mason, my ward councillor, is a new attendee. He is not teetotal.

‘If my son gets cancer because of this, you better not stand so close to me,’ I say to Leydon.

He rolls his eyes.

‘David, don’t let’s make this personal,’ says Bell.

We can't breathe!

For two and a half years, my family, my neighbours and friends, have been harassed, attacked, and gassed in our own homes and gardens.

Our children have been forced to breathe ‘stinky’, poisonous air in their school playgrounds, and in our public parks.

We have been laid under siege through three hot summers, including last year’s extended heatwave.

Despite many repeated requests to stop, Damian’s uncovered, unenclosed cesspit of decontamination of a hundred years of toxic waste continues unabated.

Good neighbours

‘Be a good and respectful neighbour,’ says Councillor Mason, at the ward forum.

‘It’s unpleasant’ we are told. ‘It will clear in days, and it’s not harmful to health,’ Ealing Council namelessly tweeted. In June 2017.

Round and round we go.

Is this corrupt?

‘It’s the wrong kind of wind,’ claims Bell.

‘It’s not our responsibility, it’s the Environment Agency.’

‘It’s not us, it’s Public Health England.’

‘I’ll phone Julian and get him to put a councillor on it for you,’ Tony Pidgley, founder and chair of Berkeley Group tells us.

“Cash. Always cash.” (Tony Pidgley)

We started a campaign. Clean Air for Southall and Hayes. CASH for short.

‘I DO NOT TAKE CASH! I DO NOT TAKE CASH!’ is our MP Virendra Sharma’s frankly bizarre opening statement, shouted at us when we go to meet him.

What’s going on?

When is remediation NOT remediation?

Back to the future with John Freeman.

I email John to ask him when remediation of the soil (the cleaning of the contaminated land) is due to be completed. It’s the excavation, the turning, the moving of the toxic waste that has laid at rest for fifty years or more that we’re told is likely to be the main source of the odour nuisance and air pollution.

‘March 2019. It’s finished already.’

‘But it still stinks.’

‘Did you leave the cooker on?’

‘But I’ve seen the planning documents where it says remediation is scheduled to be completed in 2038.’

John consults his colleague, James Potter, Ealing’s Contaminated Land Officer, whose post was initially funded by none other than Berkeley Group.

A very simple explanation as it turns out.

‘The remediation for the next nineteen years is, in a sense, NOT remediation.’

Berkeley bribes?

Then there is the fact, confirmed (and denied) by Public Health England, that the majority Asian and African population of Southall, due to genetic factors, have an increased risk from exposure to naphthalene.

And then there’s Berkeley Group's track record of paying off their former finance director to keep quiet about allegations of bribery and corruption at the top of the company.

Understandably, we doubt the veracity of their own reports of the air quality monitoring data recorded by their business partner, data which they refuse to share with us.

Enough is enough.

Stop the work at the gasworks site while it is made safe.

Stop poisoning Southall.

Please donate to our legal campaign for justice: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/cleanairforsouthallandhayes/

INCONSIDERATE CONSTRUCTOR

Lorry driver on his phone while leaving ‘Southall Village’ building site, right next to school entrance during school run.

Got a load more verbals from the driver and his colleagues on site - ‘Did he hit anyone?’, ‘He doesn’t work for us!’

All part of the Considerate Constructors Scheme, aka Couldn’t Care Less Scam.

LOUDER THAN WORDS

We are all consciously or unconsciously re-enacting previous unresolved experiences of loss, or absence, of relationships. These disappointments evoke in us resentment and anger, which control us until we can forgive - to see the victim in the perpetrator.

We remain victims all the while we are unable to forgive, and all the while we are unable to let people into our inner worlds of pain - to protect ourselves from breakdown, but also to protect other people from this part of our experience for fear of what it will do to them, and how they will react to us.

Had hearing test on Friday. 20% hearing loss in left ear. Ear canal is wafer thin in places, meaning wax build up. That, or a brain tumour.

My back is killing me and I’m practically crippled after being out in the rain all day training and coaching.

Thanks to FA 1st Aid trainer Richard Barnes for relating the story of how he had his left wrist cut through to the bone and dangling off.

Doing homework for the FA coaching course I’m on. Last night I suffered the ignominy of fainting during the bloody bit of the 1st Aid class.

ABDUCTED BY ALIENS

Abstract: Anally probed with a four metre long tube. Tags: alien, abduction, colonoscopy, humour, personal

Last week I was abducted by aliens.

I was woken at dawn by my alarm clock to find a bright light shining in through the window. As if in a trance, I found myself drawn towards the light and compulsively (as I do every morning) drew the curtains.

I felt a presence in the room.

‘Turn your alarm off, for God’s sake!’ said my wife.

I felt a non-human presence in the room.

‘Miaow’ said the cat.

I found myself getting washed and dressed and heading out the door, as if I had an appointment to be somewhere. After a brisk twenty minute walk, I found myself right inside the massive, shiny metallic spacecraft, which appeared to have landed slap bang in the middle of a car park. I felt no fear, although I was a little apprehensive. I entered the craft and was transported up into its upper level via some kind of elevator.

I have blogged before about my experiences of abduction and how aliens harvested my organs and tortured me, so this was nothing new. I felt a familiar apprehension as I caught sight of one of my abductors, a short woman in a green uniform.

‘Would you like an enema before we start?’ she asked. ‘A glass of water would be nice,’ I replied. ‘Do you need to go?’ she asked me rather sternly this time. ‘Well, I’d like to be back in time for the football.’ Now in something of a huff, she handed me a green paper gown to wear, which appeared to have been designed for tailed creatures. I followed her through to what looked like an operating theatre where I was surrounded by three little green men with surgical implements and machines which went ‘BLEEP!’.

They made me lie on a table and paralysed me by injecting something into my hand. One of the aliens stuck his finger up my back passage and said, ‘This might hurt a little bit.’ Then they made me pass out by gassing me. I awoke sometime later to find the aliens withdrawing a four metre long tube from my rear end. ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘I didn’t feel a thing.’ I was as high as a kite. They handed me back to my wife on a piece of string and told her, ‘Don’t let go of him.’

Somewhat bizarrely, they also gave me a piece of paper describing the contents of my colon - nothing at all in there save a few pesky piles.

What a bloody relief!

TWENTY TEN (THE PREQUEL): THE CHEESEMAKER

Originally intended as a follow-up to part one of my milk-based food product styled personal review of 2010, this post quickly regressed into a metaphorical guide to the cheesemaking process, as you will see.

By the end of the first week of March 2010, I felt like I was several thousand feet above sea level. High up a mountain, again, perhaps mostly due to the ever-decreasing capacity of my right lung, but plummeting to new emotional depths thanks to the leaden weights of my ever-increasing self-doubt and sense of despair, perhaps partly as a reaction to stopping taking my antidepressant medication (although I stopped because I was feeling worse, not better).

One of the problems I found with officially going a bit mental is that I started to lose all confidence and trust in myself and the rest of the world. I think it’s fair to say that I’ve always been a bit of an independent-minded so-and-so and generally not afraid to say out loud whatever comes into my head. This invariably leads to me getting punched in the face. Or some other non-violent conflict.

The Big Cheese

A few years ago, I worked for someone who was responsible for making the lives of a few of her staff abjectly miserable, quite contrary to our organisation’s stated raison d’être ‘for better mental health.’ It appeared that she would move from one person to another and to another and then, it seemed to me, it was my turn. I decided I wasn’t going to take it.

During a torrid six months as her primary target, I had to undergo hospital tests on my heart for still unexplained and not since repeated vomiting and blackouts. When I told my GP what was going on at work she immediately signed me off with stress and didn’t want me to go back when I did. By the time my boss had finished with me I was unemployed and unemployable. Never underestimate the power of a bully.

I learned from painful experience quite a lot about how bullies and psychopaths operate. I learned that, while part of me wants to stand up to them and expose them for what they are, the sane part of me wants to avoid them altogether. So when I did manage to find a new job with a decent manager and then moved on from that with a good reference into my current post four years ago, I was delighted to be in a position where I was ‘the boss’, although, of course, I still had to report to a management committee made up of volunteers, led by a truly wonderful Chair.

When I say I was glad to be in charge, I don’t say that because of any desire to have power over others. Quite the contrary, in fact (unless I’m deluding myself). I’ve always believed in sharing power and responsibility as much as possible, but you can’t do that if you have an egomaniac boss or a rigidly hierarchical organisational structure. Yes, there are differences between staff and service users (staff get paid being the main one), but I try to minimise these as far as I can.

Cheese Grating

It was also gratifying to work in a London borough that not only funded my new organisation’s work, but whose commissioners seemed genuinely supportive. Within two weeks of me starting my new job, however, it was grating to be informed that the local authority would be able to fund us for only 40% of what we had budgeted for on their advice of just three months earlier. My first significant and highly unpleasant task, therefore, was to have to ask staff to reduce their hours from full-time to two days a week or to make them redundant in order that the organisation could survive.

Over the next two years, we began to flourish and I was able to bring in external funding to supplement the local authority’s money so that we could provide a still much-reduced service to what we had originally planned. Even so, it seemed popular with members, staff were highly skilled and dedicated to their work and feedback from carers and professionals who referred people to us was without exception, I think, almost worryingly positive.

Cheese Ripening

By working together on daily household and business tasks, we had established a sense of community, friendships and social engagement from a safe and supportive workplace. A lifeline for people whose experience was often one of many years of loss of sense of self and worth and an absence of meaningful relationships and occupation. A second home, where they were welcomed back with warmth and kindness into the human family (cite Richard Bentall’s ‘Doctoring The Mind’) and encouraged to believe that they had real reasons to hope for - and expect - better lives.

We had people going out into the community to volunteer and set up our own catering service to employ some of our members in very part-time casual work, based on their existing skills and interests. For all but one, this was the first paid work they had done in years. We weren’t able to find anyone permanent full-time employment during a time of global recession, but still I felt proud of what we’d achieved in difficult circumstances and with fairly limited resources.

Cheese-Induced Nightmare

So when I attended our annual review in 2009 with our main funder and described what we did and the impact it had on people’s lives I was gobsmacked to be told ‘We don’t care what you do or how you do it. We just want people off benefits and into work.’ I felt physically sick and faint.

While I understand (and, in principle, support) government targets to help people with disabilities to return to work, I’ve always been sceptical about the management-theory driven obsession with outcomes and, worse, the introduction of outcome-based contracting - where service providers get paid only if they meet agreed targets. What happens, is that the largest national providers are able to tender for local contracts with the lowest unit cost, inevitably, in my opinion, sacrificing quality (process) in the name of quantity (outcomes). Except that they fail to deliver.

Processed Cheese

To me, what we do and how we do it - the process - is of fundamental importance. There are plenty of organisations who work in completely different ways and who consistently fail to get people with diagnoses of schizophrenia (who form 60% of our membership) off benefits and into work and who receive considerably larger sums of money for doing so, making their CEO’s rich (and famous) in the process. Pushing people who lack confidence and don’t feel ready to work into inappropriate and unsupported employment simply doesn’t work for most and carries the very real risk of being detrimental to their mental health.

In order to massage their figures, these organisations ‘cherry-pick’ or ‘cream’ the most able and likely to find employment while ‘parking’ those with the most complex needs and severe disabilities, the very people small, local organisations like mine tend to work with. This is not to say that these people are not able. My experience tells me that indeed they are, but that they require much longer to build up sufficient confidence and trust and need much more support to do so. Time and support costs money, but so does a lifetime of unemployment and welfare dependence, not to mention the personal and social costs of inactive and isolated lives.

Cheesed Off

Well, that was a rather long-winded way of saying that in 2009 I began to feel that I was being fucked about at work. What I believed to be the right way of working and what I was being told to do by my paymasters conflicted and didn’t make any sense to me. A year later, while I had time on my hands due to my own physical and mental illness I ‘discovered’ that evaluations of the way I was being told to work clearly stated that this approach doesn’t work, either. I felt angry for not trusting my own judgment (based on experience and advice from mentors) and felt like I’d been bullied into submission, yet again.

Join me for another cheese and whine morning next time.

TWENTY TEN (PART ONE): HARD CHEESE

Abstract: Thankfully, there is no Part Two.

Tags: snowcock, nanowrimo, manflu, cheese, depression

Note: probably none of the links work now.

I began 2010 by wishing everyone (except fascists) a Happy New Year and a promise to blog my reflections on the naughty decade in due course.

Well, that will have to wait for another time, but here - thanks to my identi.ca memory aid - are my reflections on 2010.

After recovering from hiccups, speaking in tongues, a hangover the size of every Xmas and New Year and forced communication with O2’s customer service drones, I went back to work and set about the urgent task of building a snowwoman in the front garden.

This was my equal opportunities response the the much celebrated #SnowCock (replete with massive snowballs) of Glossop erected by Tim Dobson and friends.

Heaven snows he’s miserable now

Snowwoman somehow ended up transgendering into #SnowMorrissey until he inevitably lost his head, prompting a lyrical tribute from the similarly all-white and undead Andy C.

Just as life imitates art, ‘real’ life inevitably imitates life online. Perceptively and spookily - leaving aside the evidence of my maniacal online rantings - Andy C was concerned for my mental health.

If I’m honest, my most recent mental breakdown occurred somewhat earlier. Without wishing to go into too much detail and bore anyone with my personal troubles, I had been speaking with a psychotherapist since September 2009. After a few sessions, she expressed her concern that I might be ‘bipolar II’ and asked me to see my GP in order to get a referral to a psychiatrist for an assessment. I felt pretty shocked to hear this as I’d never considered that I might have had any hypomanic episodes (let alone needed to see a shrink) even though that might have explained some of my problems.

In tears, I told my GP what my psychotherapist had said, and thus I began my own pharmaceutical research into the effectiveness of anti-depressant medications to give me some respite (my GP’s word) from my heightened and unstable emotional state. My GP also referred me for a psychiatric assessment.

Mightily relieved finally to have spoken to someone about my difficulties and for allowing myself to ask for help, I felt as high as Jesus on the mountain for forty days and nights. Looking back now, it’s perhaps significant that my identi.ca output during this time was the highest it’s ever been (according to Michele’s Denticator - unfortunately it only shows the last 12 months, so you will have to take my word on that). Interestingly, my output last month, since I’ve been feeling better and like my ‘normal’ self was just as high if not higher:

I also increased my long-form blogging output, with a serious intent to try to write more regularly and have some fun in doing so. Perhaps significantly, my first post during this high period was about mental health. I wrote eight proper blog posts in those forty days and nights including:

A rant on authority and the War of Terror

A tribute to Manchester United and my Mum and Dad

A reminiscence piece I originally wrote in 1989 about my time stuck in a blizzard on Longs Peak, Colorado

An Ubuntu fanboi article

Another reminiscence piece, this time about a childhood incident

And a frankly bizarre post about a blue tit

It had taken me nine months to write my previous eight proper blog posts and almost five months to write the next eight. I wrote only one in the two months reviewed in this post while I was feeling so physically and mentally ill. Between May and December 2010 I wrote another fourteen.

I crashed down to earth only three days and six thousand unpublished words after my spur-of-the-moment decision to write a fifty-thousand word NaNoWriMo ‘novel’ in thirty days. Like all the other novels I’ve started, this one remains unfinished, although I did get past page four on this occasion. All of this was while I was working full-time. Mild insomnia helped.

Man flu

Just like in 1994, 1999 and 2004, I felt myself slowly burn out as Xmas approached and by the time #SnowMorrissey had melted I was feeling too depressed to work or do anything else other than go to the doctor’s surgery. My GP doubled my anti-depressant dose and I later self-diagnosed the new but familiar sharp stabbing pain in my lower right side under my ribs as pleurisy for which I prescribed myself Lemsip Max. The previous year I’d had a similar but worse pain with frightening shortness of breath, which only cleared up after a month or so using an inhaler.

Less perceptively and spookily - and admittedly without the benefit of a stethoscope, cheeseometer or any medical training - Andy C was less concerned about my physical health. Less is more.

Six days later, after a brief investigation with her stethoscope, my GP confirmed my pleuritic self-diagnosis, signed me off work and prescribed my some antibiotics for a chest infection, too. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a cheeseometer either. I started to feel a bit better, but a cold winter’s night a week or so on and the pain returned. Perhaps understandably, I was generally feeling more and more miserable, too.

At least everything was running smoothly at work during my two weeks absence.

‘It’s just a slice of cheese’

I went back to work on 1 February feeling much better after United had made City wait another year at least for their first trophy since 1976 and after setting in motion Arsenal’s annual implosion.

Seventeen days and an x-ray later, however, I was in Accident and Emergency with a suspected collapsed right lung. After a blood test to make sure I wasn’t suffering from a heart problems I went home the same evening. The following day I developed a strong desire to punch Nicholas Winterton in the face. Repeatedly. And regularly. Say every ten minutes. Coincidence?

Pull yourself together

By now, I’d lost touch with Reality, defending homeopathy. I’d lost hope, despairing at James Robertson’s inevitably futile struggles to print and use his own postage using only Free and open source software. I’d lost my humanity, calling Basil Brush impersonator Richard Cutts a demented glove puppet for agreeing with me about Nicholas Winterton.

Three weeks before my x-ray, I’d phoned the local mental health trust to find out what had happened to the referral letter my GP had sent them back in September 2009, four months earlier. They helpfully told me that I wasn’t a priority for treatment because I was working and, therefore, apparently OK. I asked them what did I have to do in order to become a priority? Try to kill myself? They offered me an appointment the same afternoon.

Naively, I assumed that this would be an appointment with a psychiatrist. After waiting for an hour behind the locked doors and shatter-proof glass partitions of the Community Mental Health Team building that kept the professional healers and helpers apart from me and rest of the presumably perceived as dangerous local community it serves, it turned out to be an appointment with a nurse who scribbled a few notes on a scrap of paper. He then produced a copy of a letter dated the same day that he claimed had been posted to me the day before inviting me to a meeting with a psychiatrist in two weeks.

Three days before my x-ray, I met the psychiatrist. I made an extra effort to wash my hair, shave and put on clean clothes to make myself look less like Jim Ignatowski.

He sat in front of me reading my notes as if for the first time. After a couple of uncomfortably silent minutes he said ‘You’re not Stephen Fry bipolar.’

I suppose I should have been relieved about that, but my immediate reaction was confusion - how could he possibly know? All he had asked me was ‘Would you like a coffee?’ He didn’t even ask if I wanted decaf, sugar or milk and yet he was magically able to undiagnose me without conducting any blood tests, x-rays, scans or other measurements of the balance of chemicals sloshing around in my brain, which is the current unproven theory of choice among the medically inclined.

We had a bit of a chat. I asked for psychotherapy on the NHS as I could no longer afford to pay privately. He recommended that I keep taking the medication even though I complained to him that I felt worse than ever after four months on them. I was finding sleep difficult, yet felt tired all the time, couldn’t concentrate properly, had a dry mouth and sometimes felt my mood change from OK, to tearful, to agitated, to angry and even to suicidal in the space of a few hours.

I told him I’d washed and dressed specially for him. He laughed and said that was good, because otherwise he’d have had to section me under the Mental Health Act (have me forcibly detained in the mental health unit of the hospital). He rounded off our meeting by suggesting that I should pull myself together and get a life (not his exact words, but my honest interpretation and not far off). As I bid him goodbye and was closing the door to leave he asked me if I had any plans to kill myself.

I decided to stop taking my medication. Within ten days I successfully predicted England’s abysmal failure in the South African World Cup.

Look out for more cheesy Twenty Ten goodness next week as I march on into March and explain the cheesy references….

WATERBOARDING ON THE NHS

Abstract: Gagging for it. Tags: waterboarding, NHS, bronchoscopy, torture, worklessness, Nazi, psychotherapy, banana, splat

On Another Planet this week: controversial new government plans to tackle ever increasing worklessness using waterboarding.

Techniques refined and perfected by secret military personnel known only by their codename ‘Our Boys’ are being piloted by the NHS in an effort to ‘encourage and empower’ people claiming statutory sick pay to return to work.

One persistent malingerer, who asked not to be identified, claimed that he was subjected to an horrific ordeal at the hands of his torturers and says he was tricked into believing he was just playing a game of ‘doctors and nurses’.

‘I always liked playing doctors and nurses when I was a kid,’ said Roger (not his real name).

Over to Roger to tell the rest of his story.

Nazi

I received a phone call from my local hospital telling me I had an appointment with the chest consultant I’d seen before. I thought it was a bit odd, because I’d seen the surgeon who operated on me only the previous day, but I went in anyway. I felt I could trust these people after they did such a great job of fixing my lung. Anyway, when I got there, they made me wait for an hour as usual, then a pretty young student doctor asked if I minded if she sat in on my appointment? How could I say no? I could barely speak with my tongue hanging out like that. So I just nodded and wiped the dribble from the side of my mouth hoping she hadn’t noticed. When I got to see the consultant himself I thought it was a bit odd that he was wearing full Nazi regalia, but he seemed like a nice guy and to know his stuff.

‘Don’t rush back to work", he said.

‘Now, about this bronchoscopy. Don’t worry, I’m sure everything will be OK. I’m 90% sure everything’s fine. People say it tickles a little bit, but you’ll have a sedative and some local anaesthetic that they put up your nose and on the back of your throat. That will make you cough, but it’s really nothing to worry about.’

‘Fine, I’ll do it,’ I told him.

So this week I went in for my ‘bronchoscopy’. After waiting the requisite hour, I was hurried into the day surgery operating theatre by a pretty young nurse and ignored by the doctor. Another nurse made small talk with me to reassure me. I clambered on to the operating table so that I was sat upright with my legs outstretched. The second nurse put a bib on me to deal with my dribbling while the doctor chatted with his friend on his mobile.

‘Hi, I’m Dr Heydrich,’ he said to me finally.

Although I had been feeling relaxed, at this point I suddenly felt a twinge of anxiety.

‘I’m going to put some anaesthetic gel up your nose,’ he said, as he squirted anaesthetic gel up my nose.

The second nurse then stuffed a tube up my left nostril, saying, ‘Don’t worry, it’s only oxygen.’

Banana splat

I looked at her and she had donned what looked like a welder’s visor. ‘You look like you’re about to do some welding,’ I said.

‘It’s just to protect myself from any splatter,’ she replied.

Another twinge.

‘OK, open your mouth, please,’ barked Heydrich. ‘I’m going to spray some anaesthetic on the back of your throat. It tastes very strongly of bananas,’ he added, as he sprayed what tasted like banana flavoured liqueur on to the back of my throat, making me cough. ‘Just a little bit more,’ he said.

‘UURRRGGHHH!!!’ I splattered.

‘UURRRGGHHH!!! UURRRGGHHH!!!’ I repeated.

‘It’s OK,’ said the second nurse, holding my head down with her hand. ‘It makes you feel like there’s a ball in your throat and you can’t swallow.’

‘UURRRGGHHH!!! UURRRGGHHH!!!’ I repeated, desperately.

Heydrich then took what I had thought was a stethoscope and zoomed towards me with the bright flashing end of it and shoved it up my right nostril.

AARRRGGHHH!!!" I said.

‘Let’s try the other one," said Heydrich.

They swapped the oxygen for the stethoscope, which then dropped out of my traumatised right nostril.

‘AARRRGGHHH!!! AARRRGGHHH!!!’ I repeated.

That hurt even more than the right one did. The second nurse (I don’t know what the first nurse was doing, but she was there afterwards) then pushed something into my mouth, saying, ‘Open your mouth and hold it with your teeth.’

Heydrich zoomed back into view.

‘We’ll try it through the mouth’, he said, as he pushed the thick black fibre-optic tube down my throat.

‘UURRRGGHHH!!! UURRRGGHHH!!!’

I tried to cough and splutter, but my throat was numb and I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I was drowning.

‘UURRRGGHHH!!! AARRRGGHHH!!!’

I panicked and pulled the tube out, gasping for breath.

‘I can’t do it!’ I cried, literally, tears rolling down my cheeks.

‘I can’t do it. I’ll go back to work. I promise!’

Over. Roger and out.

Another Planet understands that if this pilot is successful, then the procedure will be rolled out to the rest of the UK in the coming months.

As Nick Clegg-Hess, Deputy Prime Minister, said:

‘What we need is strong, stable government. That means we must weaken and destabilise people who are not working for whatever reason and by any means necessary to get them to conform and work to pay our taxes. This is about control and maintenance of the status quo. Anyone who thinks otherwise is sadly deluded and will be dealt with accordingly. Waterboarding is an effective and reliable means of manipulating even the craziest of people to do what we want them to do. It’s in the national interest to get people off benefits and into work and we will do whatever it takes to make that happen, even if it means torturing people after they have already confessed."

On a more serious note, I’m open to suggestions for other medical procedures you’d like me to blog about. Let me know your ideas in the comments!

CONFESSIONS OF A THORACOTOMY PATIENT

Abstract: Lung-form blogging at its cheesiest.

Tags: thoracotomy, empyema, decortication, cheese, collapsed lung, chest infection, pleurisy, NHS,

Last week I met a beautiful young Hispanic woman and we spent the night together. She cared for me deeply and carefully, and I gazed upon her lovingly as the morphine (d)ripped through my veins. She checked me out and made sure that everything seemed to be in working order.

‘Hi, I’m Sofia,’ she said.

‘I’m going to be looking after you tonight.’

Thanks to the morphine, I carried on smiling and Sofia carried on with her job of nursing me through my first night after my thoracotomy on the high dependency unit of the five star NHS hospital I was staying in.

I had quite a good time despite drinking nothing but water the entire evening. We shared a few bottles together - Sofia would hand me an empty one, pull the covers around me and I would half-fill it and hand it back to her so she could measure and record, discard and disinfect. She checked my tubes and drains to make sure they weren’t getting clogged up with ‘cheese’ or any other unwanted dairy products. She made sure that my drains were working properly and that I was getting enough suction (stop it!). In the morning, she washed my back. My only regret is that half-way through the night somebody much more attractive ill than me was trolleyed through and Sofia spent more time with him than she did with me.

A good swing

So, Sofia had taken over from Gilbert, a beautiful young Chinese-looking man who I woke up with after my general anaesthetic. Gilbert was every bit as diligent and caring as Sofia and I don’t think this is just the drugs talking. I was amazed by the level of care I received throughout my stay, with one or two relatively minor exceptions, which I’ll come to later. And it’s not just because I was probably quite a good patient - I was calm, polite, not in any great pain or discomfort, doing well - eating, drinking, breathing, coughing and I had a ‘good swing’. Most of the other patients around me appeared to be quite a lot older than me and if not older then certainly in more pain or experiencing more problems after their operations. They were cared for with equal if not more time and attention as far as I could see and hear.

Who else do I need to thank for treating me so well? On admission to the hospital at 7 am on Friday morning I was met by nurse Martin, who seemed more nervous than me, but who handed me over to the highly organised Lindsay. Lyndsay wasted no time in getting me half-naked on to the bed so that she could attach clips and cables to my chest and stomach to run an ECG. Then she made me strip completely and wear a flowery dress. To complete my humiliation, she had me walk down to the diagnostic testing department in full public view where I had an x-ray. When I got back she wanted me to wear some thigh-high stockings, too. How could I resist her helping hands to put them on for me? Thank you Lyndsay!

Thanks also to Rick, the porter, for your sense of humour in wheeling me up and down and up and down again to the operating theatre where I’m sure everyone had a good laugh at me in drag. No doubt the pictures are all over the internet by now. And thanks to Dorcas, the clinical nurse specialist who spoke to me on the phone before I went in to tell me how bad it was going to be and who greeted me in the hospital before the operation with her hands - literally a nice touch, and one repeated by Lyndsay, Rick, Gilbert and Sofia later. A quick, simple touch to the hand, the shoulder, arm or elbow is extremely reassuring I find. Thanks for your humanity.

The cheese factor

Pre-operation, I also spoke to several doctors/surgeons/registrars or whatever they call themselves. They may even have had first names, but somehow if they did those names haven’t stuck. All I can really remember is being told that the operation would take 90-120 minutes rather than the 30-45 minutes I was expecting. This was due to the fact that they would be doing a conventional ‘large’ incision of about 10 cm rather than the keyhole 2 cm cuts I’d been told I was going to have. The change of modus operandi was because of the ‘cheese’ factor - they needed to scrape the rind off the lung, not simply drain fluid. I signed the consent form. By this time they had me where they wanted me and I had resigned myself to my fate. What else could I do but submit? Yes, there’s a risk with everything, but carrying on with a lung full of cheese didn’t seem like a good bet.

Finally, Rick got me into theatre again after an aborted first attempt because my blood results weren’t back in time. This also meant a delay of an hour and a half, which didn’t affect me too much. I was kind of in a semi-meditational state I reckon. Either that or just frozen with fear. Now it was the turn of the anaesthetists to do things to me. Thanks to Belton (not Ben Elton) for painlessly finding my veins first time and inserting the cannulas that would feed the juice to knock me out and sustain me with fluids. All I can remember is a bit of aimless chit-chat, breathing deeply into the gas mask that was placed over my face and….

Chris the Crafty Cockney

Less than two hours later I woke up on the high dependency unit with Gilbert looking after me. At some point I remember my surgeon coming round to tell me, quite madly in his Chris the Crafty Cockney way:

‘You’re fixed!’

‘Thank you!’ I said.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

After Gilbert and Sofia, I was handed over to Tara, who was a bundle of fun in our short time together. Tara couldn’t wait to get rid of me, though, and pushed the wheelchair herself to get me on to the main ward so that she could go and have lunch or something. I had been looking forward to moving wards actually. The high dependency unit was a bit noisy and a bit dull and now I would have access to my belongings that I brought with me - mp3/video player, internet, email, phone, etc. But when I was shown to my room (it’s on old private hospital bought by the NHS) I felt strangely disheartened and lonely. On the high dependency unit, Gilbert, Sofia and Tara were always within eyesight or earshot, but on the ward my new nurse Nas and everyone else was gone within seconds. I was still attached to two drains and my morphine drip, so I couldn’t go anywhere. I felt as helpless as a baby.

At least I was on the ward in time for the Manchester derby, the most important game since the last one. And my mum and step-dad John were visiting at 2pm. Lunch was forgettable - one of my few complaints is that the food was largely very poor quality. As I discovered on my discharge from the hospital, there is a very good coffee bar and staff/visitors' restaurant in the hospital, which I believe is managed by the same company that provides the patients' meals, yet the comparison is dreadful. I didn’t have much of an appetite due to the morphine, but it doesn’t help when you are served up slop that is worse than school meals of thirty-odd years ago.

Back to the footy. My mum proudly explained that my brother would be texting her with news of any goals.

‘That’s great, Mum. But I’m getting text updates from the BBC every few minutes on my internet tablet.’

BBC text updates on one of the most uneventful ninety minutes in the history of football aren’t much fun, but sustained conversation more than my brother’s updates.

BLEEP!

Crikey, a text from my brother to my mother.

‘15 seconds left. Scholes header. Game over.’

My mum read the text out loud.

‘What does that mean?’ she asked.

Oh, christ.

‘It means,’ explained ever-patient John, who is not a football fan:

‘United have won the game with a last minute winner yet again.’

‘Oh.’

‘What do you think it means?’

This remote victory barely raised a smile on my dry lips and hardly registered an increased pulse according to Nas when she took my blood pressure. It is surely my least celebrated United goal ever, although I did manage a laugh and a cheer the next morning watching the highlight on Match of the Day.

Sunday I had three separate visitors morning, afternoon and evening and I suspect I was fairly grumpy/tired during at least one of those, so apologies certainly to my dad. I have to say, though, that visits are extremely tiring and quite emotional. It’s no wonder hospitals advise no more than two visitors at a time. And when you’re in that state of post-op pain or discomfort, lack of mobility, tiredness, feeling sick etc., you’re really not much company. It’s great to see people, of course, but as a visitor you can’t expect too much from your relative or friend. And thanks, dad, for leaving me with the advice to get a hair cut and a shave so that I don’t look so much like Frank Gallagher!

A quick thanks also at this point to some more lovely nurses - Sarah, Yvonne, Nadia, Esther - sorry if I missed anyone.

Minor complaints

I mentioned earlier a couple of minor exceptions to the high level of care I received while in hospital.

One would be that the cannula on my wrist became loose, swollen red and painful. I asked one of the nurses about it and she said it was ok and bandaged it up (after dropping the bandage on the floor!) to hold it in place. Later another nurse came to use the cannula to inject my antibiotics. Now this can usually feel a little uncomfortable, but nothing more than that. This time I was screaming in agony. I pointed out the problem again and she said that it was ‘unacceptable’, removed the cannula, patched me up and fixed the cannula in my hand so that it could be used for both the morphine drip and the antibiotics, painlessly.

My second minor complaint would be that the same nurse who dropped the bandage came in gloved-up to remove my second drain, then went out again touching the door handle to call for assistance (two nurses are required - one to pull the drain out, one to tie the stitch, the painful bit). I asked her to change her gloves, which she did so willingly and acknowledging that she should do so. The point is that she should be taking the initiative not waiting for patients to prompt her. It’s fairly basic stuff.

My only other quibble is that I was discharged on Tuesday morning (four days after my op), barely able to walk more than a few yards without getting out of breath so basically forced to book a taxi home. They gave me some paracetamol, ibuprofen and dihydrocodeine for the pain, but for three out of the five days I’ve been home so far that hasn’t been enough to control the pain. It’s really been quite distressing for me and for my family to see me in so much pain and to be able to do nothing to help. I’m seeing my GP on Monday so maybe I’ll get some extra help with that.

The drugs didn’t work

I’m not sure how long it’s going to take for me to recover and go back to working full-time. As far as I know, I’m expected to make a full recovery, although I was a more than a little perturbed to read that post-op pain from a thoracotomy can take months or even years to go away.

I’m still not sure how this all happened. In January I had a chest infection and pleuritic pain similar to that which I’d had in March 2009 when I had a really acute episode of shortness of breath, fever and a consolidation on the same lung. That cleared up quickly with antibiotics and an inhaler. This time around, the drugs didn’t work, so my body responded by sealing off the infection in my lung by surrounding the lung with fluid.

Unfortunately I tried to work through this in February, which left me feeling too exhausted to go get an x-ray right away. Once I got the x-ray I was admitted to Accident and Emergency immediately where they did some tests to rule out heart problems, I think, before sending me home. Then I had to wait five weeks before seeing a chest specialist and another week or two before getting the results of fluid samples and a CT scan.

Hard cheese

As luck would have it, all of these tests were negative (ruling out the likes of cancer and smoking as possible causes, as far as I know). But the build up of fluid had continued and I had progressively felt more and more physically and mentally tired. My surgeon was certain that I had what is known as empyema (the hard ‘cheese’ as he called it and that I talked about earlier) and this required decortication (scraping the rind off the lung) via a thoracotomy (an incision along the underside of the shoulder blade).

As it turned out, I was told that the scraping bit wasn’t required, which is great news as that would likely have damaged the tissues of the lung. I’ll be seeing my surgeon again in a week or two I think and the chest specialist next month. I’ve been told it’s still possible that I could have tuberculosis, although there is no evidence of that yet (it takes a while to show up apparently). Meanwhile I’m taking antibiotics for pneumonia - if I don’t breathe deeply and cough well enough I’m at risk of getting a chest infection. And, despite the lovely nurses, I don’t want to go there again!