Category: Longform
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Community Cats
Just around the corner from my lad’s school by the canal is a cul-de-sac which is home to some “community cats”.
Having spoken to a few of the people who live there, it seems that none of the seven or eight cats and kittens have homes or owners, but are looked after by the people who live there.
So they’re not strays, but they’re not feral, either. They’re community cats.
These cats have been around for as long as I can remember (which admittedly isn’t so long these days), but it’s only in the last few weeks that they have become of growing interest to my lad and some of his friends on their way to and from school.
What started off as simply “aw, look there’s a cat”, has now become a financial investment in daily supplies of cat food, and extra time in the morning and afternoon to stop, feed and stroke Tab, Abby, Popcorn, Tiny, Smoky, Toffee and one or two others I can’t remember the names of.
I made the mistake of sharing a few photos of these cats with my cat obsessed mother, who was very upset that they don’t have warm, dry homes and owners who overfeed them with specially bought and cooked fish. I’ve tried to reassure her that they look healthy (shiny coats), well-fed and looked after.
Free Palestine
There seems to be a co-ordinated drive to obliterate Palestine, and Palestinians, from the map.
I find it very upsetting that my government, and many other “Western” governments are wholeheartedly supporting Israel’s genocidal “self-defence” narrative.
Nothing justifies carpet-bombing innocent people - mostly women and children.
Nothing justifies cutting off their supplies of electricity, water, food, fuel.
The sadistic Netanyahu told Palestinians in Gaza to leave, then bombed the crossing into Egypt while they tried to do so.
These are war crimes.
Now, our fascist government is attempting to outlaw any expression of support for the people of Gaza and Palestine.
Fully supported and enabled by our fascist “opposition” party.
The Labour Mayor of London helped to spread what turned out to be fake news about an alleged anti-Semitic attack on a Jewish-owned shop. Known liar Luciana Berger, MP, did the same. As did countless other “sensible, adult centrists”.
It’s not anti-Semitic to support the people of Palestine in their long struggle for freedom from Israel’s oppression.
Play Street
We used to play in the street outside our home as kids growing up in the 70s. In rural Lincolnshire. Of course, it wasn’t a main road, it was the road on our council estate. Pretty much everyone had a car, and many of the houses had their own garage.
In London, or Greater London, it’s generally not safe for kids to play in the street, although we’re lucky where we are that our little cul-de-sac can double-up as a relatively safe enough play area most of the time.
The road next to us is an HGV Access Road, thanks to our local ward councillor and current council leader.
It’s definitely NOT safe for kids to play in at all.
Not until the Water Company came along. For the past two or three weeks, they have closed part of the road where my sons’ friends live to clear the pipes of wet wipes, sanitary products, fat and oil.
They’ve dug a massive hole in the road, which I’ve told my nine year old is The Pit of Tartarus. It’s all barricaded off, with heavy machinery, waste skips and various bits of equipment.
So the road is now a no through road, with access only for residents and deliveries.
My kids and their friends have really enjoyed playing out in the street whenever they can, thanks also to our “Indian Summer”.
Of course, there are plenty of drivers who ignore (or don’t see?) the signs telling them the road is closed, and drive down it anyway. My job was mostly to tell them, “No, you can’t drive on the pavement. Can’t you see there are kids playing? Plus, it’s a pavement. This isn’t the Wild West!”
Fortunately, everyone was reasonable enough when challenged to back away, turnaround and drive around following the “diverted traffic” signs.
Thankfully, my job was made redundant by the older kids in the group, who took it upon themselves to relieve me of my onerous duties. They barricaded the pavements with spare cones, and now they marshall the traffic. Much more effective!
Class
Thinking about Maths at school, got me thinking about the origin and meaning of class.
It’s a classic word, and means so many different things depending on the context in which it’s used.
Its Roman origin relates to the dividing up of society, or groups of people for war or military objectives.
My Latin teacher at school was obsessed with lining up the desks and chairs at the end of each lesson.
“Caecilius pater est” is the only Latin I can remember.
We rebelled, and persuaded our headteacher to teach us Classics in Translation instead. That was fun. Reading, and learning all about ancient Greek philosophy and mythology.
Distraction
It’s easy to get distracted.
My nine year old told his mum last night that he was so distracted by thoughts in his head at school that the teacher gave him a blank piece of paper and a pen to “download” everything in his mind.
All he could think about was Super Mario and Nintendo.
Well, it was Maths.
I always liked Maths at school. Mainly because there was no homework, or writing, or revision to do. Either I knew it or I didn’t. And I mostly did, up until A Levels.
My “Pure Maths” teacher told me I would never amount to anything. I guess he was right about that.
My “Applied Maths” teacher tried to make lessons more memorable by telling us a story about a man who grew jellies in his garden. I guess he was right about that.
I got a B grade in O Level Maths. If I’d actually made any kind of effort I could probably have got an A. Things could have been oh so different!
The Swimmer
My nine year old is on week three of his school swimming lessons.
Prior to the first lesson, he was very anxious about getting his hair wet, and getting his nose under the water. This, despite the fact that he absolutely loved the sea and the pool on our holiday last month (and last year, and the year before that).
We bought him a swimming cap, which everyone has to wear in any case. He’s got massive natural afro hair, so the first three swimming caps we bought were too small.
He was very anxious about putting on his swimming cap for the lessons. I said I would help him, as I would be there, but of course, that never happened as they all just marched straight into the changing rooms leaving me alone with my coffee-free café.
Fortunately, one of the teaching staff helps him with his cap.
So he keeps his hair dry. And after the second lesson last week, he came home and informed us that:
- he put his nose under the water and survived
- he wants to go swimming at the weekend
- he wants a swimming “noodle”.
Human Shield
The school asked for a parent to volunteer to accompany the children to their weekly swimming class.
They said I could sit in the café and drink coffee. No swimming required. I volunteered.
I’m basically a fourth chaperone, in addition to the three teaching staff. I simply accompany the children to their swimming class, and back.
The class teacher gave me the two page risk assessment to read on the first morning, and I’ve taken it upon myself to stand either at the back of the line of kids, or in the middle, depending on where there is a gap of supervising adults. I try to act as a human shield on zebra crossings.
That’s it.
While the kids are having their swimming lesson, I sit in the adjacent café (which is permanently closed, by the way) with my distraction-free writing device. I get an hour a week now to write in peace. It’s wonderful.
Bolognese!
Last week, we had a new front door fitted.
That morning, I took it upon myself to prepare a bolognese before the doormen arrived so that we didn’t need to get in each other’s way, and so that we had something to eat for lunch for the next few days.
I make my bolognese in a 12" frying pan and cover it with a grease splatter fine mesh to let it cook slowly for a few hours. When the doormen arrived, that’s exactly what my bolognese was doing.
What I didn’t realise, until it was too late, is that the dust from their drilling and general doormen work was settling on the stove top in front of my bolognese on the back of the stove.
This was brought to my attention by my wife, who was already in a state of being very upset by the new door hanging to the right and not the left like her old door.
I inspected the bolognese and the splatter mesh cover carefully for signs of white paint dust similar the to very evident white paint dust sitting on top of the stove.
I honestly couldn’t see anything, although the bolognese did have quite a sheen (although this was after I’d just added some milk to it).
Anyway, my wife refused to eat it, so I had no choice, really, but to eat all of it over the next four days.
If anything, it tasted a bit spicier than normal, not in a bad way, and I have not grown any extra fingers, yet.
The Door
The door was old, but it still functioned as a door. It opened and closed, and kept us safe and warm.
As it got older, it got a bit cranky and quirky.
The spring-loaded closing mechanism no longer worked as it should. If you were a small person, a cat or a delivery driver, you had to beware this big old heavy door slamming shut whether you were in, out, or somewhere in between.
Sometimes the lock wouldn’t work at all and you had to hope there was someone inside who would let you in. Mostly, it required a certain knack to unlock it. Which kept kids out, and ensured extra exercise for grown-ups getting up off the sofa to let kids in.
One day, the housing association’s sub-contractors came to take our door away. It was a fire safety hazard, according to a very expensive risk assessment they carried out several years ago in the wake of the Grenfell Fire.
They came, they saw(ed), they removed our old door in five minutes flat, leaving a gaping hole.
The new door is sleek and fancy.
“It’s a like for like replacement,” they said.
“Hmmm… the handle is on the right hand side,” I said.
“And the door opens to the left not the right.”
“I’m very unhappy,” said my wife.
“It’s not magnetic,” said my nine year old.
“Where’s they keyhole?” my three year old didn’t say, but the question must surely have been going through his mind as he tried to unlock the door on the wrong (right) side with the new key.
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 Masondavidmarsden.info