This and the dead cat on Portobello beach story make me nostalgic for @jroberstson@a0.jamesrobertson.me.uk’s regular updates on criminal activities in Leith. Danger Level: High.

CCTV footage has shown the moment a hooded man picks up the 8ft nutcracker statue while on his bike from outside an Edinburgh bar as the search to find it continues

CCTV shows moment 8ft nutcracker was stolen by thief while riding his bike

This morning we received a new report (from an incident on Wednesday afternoon). A year 10 white boy attempted to spit chewing gum into my lad’s afro hair.

Big kid told us he got his first taste of direct in your face racism. Last Friday, one of his classmates came right up to him while he was speaking in Drama class, and said “How’s my little n***** today?”

Big kid told us he got his first taste of direct in your face racism. Last Friday, one of his classmates came right up to him while he was speaking in Drama class, and said “How’s my little n***** today?”

There was a huge warehouse fire in Southall yesterday. Fortunately no one was hurt. Three schools sent their kids home early. Little kid’s school was directly downwind, so they kept the children indoors all day. When I picked him up, my little lad wanted to know if his home was safe. On the way home, he broke down, sobbing primal tears. He said he’d been worried about me all day. He thought we might all be dead and had been holding on to that fear all day long.

Beautiful sunshine and frost on the school run. Little kid was super excited to see the school field frozen over. I almost walked on by on the way back, but tried to channel his wonder. The front panel of this narrowboat was glistening with frost in the morning light.

For balance and transparency: I ate lamb biryani at my little Black African heritage kid’s friend’s Halloween party last week. I don’t know where or how the middle-eastern heritage parents sourced the meat, but their south-east Asia heritage neighbours happily attended the party with their son, too. The lamb was sooo tender. As Bournemouth heritage Ed Morgan might say, “I’m a terrible person.”

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.