Category: Kids
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Autumn Fair today at little kid’s school. I was supposed to be there helping out, but not feeling well enough. Seven weeks since I felt better than suboptimal.
Help me find my old bandmate and songwriter.
Brilliant start to the day. Little kid said he wanted to park close to school today (we usually park away from school and he scoots in). Got a parking ticket. Had no idea it was restricted there. I’ve parked there hundreds of times before, others also parked there this morning as usual. Warden must have waited until I walked off as well.
Where You Been?
Everyone has been asking, so here’s the deal. Unless you count Butlins in a wet and windy Skegness (and I do), I haven’t been anywhere.
Nowhere that doesn’t have at least a flaky internet connection, or a sleeping family.
While I suppose I have been ill with what turned into an acute exacerbation of my chronic lung disease, that makes it sound worse than it was. I was still here, just under the weather.
Everyday activities became more difficult. Breathing became more difficult. But it’s carry on, or what? Throw in a few anti-sleeping pills and sleeping became more difficult. Concentrating became more difficult. For my sins, I did take a few weeks off work. But I did have a lot of free time on my hands.
As regular readers will know, I recently began excavating my old band Hovercraft from the analog archives of cassette tapes stored in cardboard boxes for thirty years. Why? Well, it’s not the first time, and it sure won’t be the last. It’s something I do periodically. Hovercraft were easily the best band I ever played in, and our life was cut short after an exhilarating nine months. I didn’t know why at the time, and I don’t know why now, but of course I have blamed myself aplenty. As well as Sir Gareth Southgate.
What better way to put all of that self-recrimination behind me than to reinvigorate the band, bring them back to life and tell the world how great we were-and still are?
With my old friend and bass player Aaron (aka Ron Nasty), I resurrected Hovercraft’s songs, created a website (hosted here on micro.blog), and began the boring, expensive, hard work of promoting our songs and searching for our lost singer/songwriter Charlie Pepper. We have a couple of big, exciting album releases planned before Xmas, and more than anything else this project has reinvigorated me, in between coughs and wheezes, and kept me going into the wee hours mixing, mastering and co-producing the whole package.
Another personal project I have been working on is a reorganisation of my website here, and more significantly, thinking about my “social” output and writing. I haven’t been very social recently, and I seem to be less interested or good at it as I get older. Plus, my time has been invested elsewhere. Anyway, I will keep at it, and will streamline my actual, proper writing so it all makes a bit more sense. I started by curating all my diatribes on local democracy and community activism and creating Southall Stories (also hosted here on micro.blog).
Yes, I am an investigative journalist! (According to Claude.)
Hopefully it will be a useful resource for anyone who is interested in all the political shenanigans in Ealing. Another archive restored!
Another personal project, and one I rarely talk about publicly, is my management of a one hundred strong online soccer management gaming community. This summer we celebrated ten years together - no mean feat at all. That’s kept me busy, too, and while the old website isn’t new (or hosted on micro.blog), it did get a makeover and some improvements, and another new website (hosted here on micro.blog) and community, and another archival project (created by Claude and ChatGPT with me as their copy and paste coding monkey like I was a teenager all over again).
Yes, I am a web developer! And an archivist! And a community manager! And (thanks to our AI overlords) yes, I am a coding monkey!
On the work front, which I haven’t forgotten about, before my recent illness, I developed a £1m+ funding application for a cross-borough youth project that will transform young people’s lives in two of the most-deprived areas in west London - and, we hope, support them to become our community leaders of the future. All very exciting, and not a little stressful - a lot depends on it being accepted and successful. I hope we find out soon if we get the grant.
Yes, I am a project development and sustainability lead! On an administrator’s salary!
On the home front, my kids are transitioning from Reception to Year one (so far so good, loss of afternoon playtime is the main complaint) and from Primary to Secondary (so far so good, all the other kids being so much taller is the main complaint).
Mum looks set to move at the very start of next month. Moving house is the most stressful life event, and doing so when you’re 80, unwell, and from the home you bought expecting it to be your final home in the town where you went to school is harder. She’s handled it pretty well, to be fair, although the anxiety has kicked in the closer we got to the desired completion date. It’s not been easy for me, either, as there’s a limit to what I can do from a distance. It’s mostly “ask your solicitor” or “tell your solicitor” and trying to reassure her that everything will be all right in the end.
Lastly, and least (and this has turned into a half-time team talk), I helped raise over £600 for my son’s school PTA. So not a bad half year’s work at all.
I might not have “been” anywhere, but I’ve been here, now. Breathing (sometimes with difficulty), creating, preserving, caring for others. Breathing new life into old. That’s not “nowhere” - that’s everything.
From Antisemite to Anti-American
When confronted with documented evidence of war crimes, defenders of atrocities cycle through predictable stages before settling on a final (final?) position: reframing opposition to genocide as “anti-Americanism.”
This evolution is telling. First came the antisemitism accusation - the nuclear option deployed when hospital bombings and destroyed aid trucks became indefensible. But when that weaponisation of historical trauma failed to silence criticism, the charge quietly disappeared, replaced by a more sophisticated imperial framework.
Now the same critic who was supposedly driven by “rabid anti-Semitism” gets recast as an anti-American contrarian. The accusations shift, but the goal remains constant: delegitimise opposition to documented atrocities through character assassination rather than evidence.
The “anti-American” framing is particularly absurd given the intertwined nature of Anglo-American imperialism. British special forces operate in Ukraine alongside extensive arms sales and military coordination with Israel. When Boris Johnson can veto Ukrainian peace negotiations and the UK maintains outsized influence in international organisations despite its declining economic power, we’re seeing coordinated imperial projects rather than American unilateralism.
The “special relationship” allows Britain to punch above its weight strategically while America provides the military muscle. Royal Marines in “high-risk operations” in Ukraine, deep military oversight of Gaza operations, and the historical legacy of the Balfour Declaration all point to British imperial continuity operating through American power.
Critics who oppose both British and American imperial interventions get labeled “anti-American” because the imperial mindset cannot process consistent opposition to coordinated oppression. It must choose sides in great power competition rather than opposing the system of domination itself.
The accusations will keep shifting - antisemitic, anti-American, whatever works - because the goal was never sincere concern about prejudice, but silencing criticism of documented atrocities.
Why complain?
Two years into Gaza’s destruction, you can trace the evolution of genocide denial in real time:
Phase 1: “It’s not happening” - Israel is only targeting Hamas, civilian casualties are minimal, reports are exaggerated.
Phase 2: “It’s justified” - Palestinians brought this on themselves, Hamas (“ISIS” - seriously?!) uses human shields, Israel has the right to defend itself.
Phase 3: “It’s normal” - War is ugly, these things happen, other conflicts are worse, why complain about hospital bombings when other wars exist?
Phase 4: “Why do you care?” - The mask fully drops. Not defending the actions anymore, just questioning why anyone should object to war crimes at all.
Each phase abandons the previous justification while moving the moral goalposts further into the abyss. By the end, you’re not debating policy or tactics - you’re facing someone who has reasoned themselves out of basic human empathy.
The weaponised whataboutism reveals the imperial logic - both Ukraine and Israel are Western client states whose “sovereignty” depends on US backing. When a UK prime minister can fly to Kyiv in order to veto peace negotiations, and US aid determines Israeli military capacity, these aren’t independent nations making sovereign choices.
Some of this stems from historical guilt transformed into moral blindness - where “never again” becomes “never again to Jews” rather than “never again to anyone,” providing cover for Western imperial projects wrapped in humanitarian language.
The most chilling part isn’t the denial itself. It’s watching someone systematically dismantle their own moral framework, piece by piece, to avoid confronting what they’re supporting.
“United have backed Amorim by spending £200m on attacking players this summer, while negotiations likely to end with Alejandro Garnacho, Antony and Rasmus Hojlund joining Chelsea, Real Betis and Napoli respectively, are continuing.”
New £73m signing Sesko looks every bit as terrible as unfairly scapegoated Hojlund he has replaced in Amorim’s totally inflexible “system”.
Garnacho isn’t perfect, but he’s a matchwinner. Antony looked reborn on loan at Betis last season.
So, it’s pretty obvious it’s not the players, but the manager’s tactical inflexibility.
Man Utd chiefs back Amorim despite Grimsby defeat: bbc.com
“We might live in a world where critics of AI are the loudest, but songs like this quietly and powerfully prove them wrong.”