News

For the past three months I have been hanging on my post, waiting for a tribunal date to be set. Well a letter came yesterday, saying that the tribunal had already been heard, and saying that 'I had elected for the case to be dealt with on the basis of the paperwork alone'. I certainly hadn't made that decision. In fact I wasn't even asked that question. So I have been tried in absentia, as it were, at a hearing that took place some two hundred  miles from where I live, and without me being told about it. So much for British 'justice' and 'fairness'. These are nothing more than a figment of the national imagination. It has left me feeling heartily sick. I've sent the paperwork to my support worker, in case anything can be done.

A history lesson

I've just finished reading a substantial (but very well-written) biography of Marie Antoinette. The woman was nothing more than a product of her background and her times, as are we all. Yes she was treated shamefully at the end, but I don't blame the people who rose up against what she stood for. I don't like the idea of violent revolution one bit, what with all the gas-bags spouting ideology for ever after, and for all the intolerance and cruelty which inevitably follow in its wake. However I fully understand why revolutions occur, living in the country and time that I do.

In general

My week has been, mentally, very exhausting. I have written to appeal against the decision I received recently from H.M. Government's agencies. In the meanwhile I have taken them to court over their previous treatment of me, and am waiting for a date to be set. Earlier on this week I had the sad task of cleaning up a flat whose occupants had been arrested. The flat was in a shocking state and I almost threw up once or twice. Add to this my usual round of harpsichording and psychiatric appointments. It does tire me out.

A question

'That time of the year' is rapidly approaching. In fact it has been rapidly approaching since September, when Christmas goodies started to appear on the supermarket shelves. I've just seen an advert by a restaurant, showing that they will give free meals to the 'homeless and needy' on Christmas Day. Of course this is a highly commendable act, but what are the homeless and needy to do for the rest of the year? And why doesn't the government do something to improve the lot of these poor people? Where is our national responsibility?

Today

I've had quite a busy day. After an hour at the library first thing this morning, I went straight to the historic building. Today I was in gardener mode. I raked up a vast quantity of fallen leaves, and put them on the two compost heaps. After that I moved and re-planted some chrysanthemums and pansies, which has bade the front of the garden look a whole lot brighter. Two other staff have made a display of hand-made poppies, in preparation for armistice day tomorrow. The weather wasn't very nice; cold and wet, and left me chilled through to the bone and with sore hands. Still, that was a job well done.

Today

We've had a fair bit of rain these last few days. It's good for the garden (I've taken over the gardening at the historic building), but I really don't like being out in it. It has been wet all day, but not so cold as yesterday, but sufficiently nasty to keep everybody indoors. We didn't have a single visitor at the historic building, and I can't remember the last time that happened. I did make use of the time, though, practicing new pieces. We closed an hour early, so I shall be home nice and early this afternoon.
Last July I had an appointment at the funny farm. When I got there the woman I was supposed to see was on holiday. She'd forgotten to record the appointment on the computer. At that point muggins dropped off their radar for the second or third time, and I couldn't even be bothered to contact them. Well last Saturday I got a letter, completely out of the blue, from the said woman at the said establishment, asking me to an appointment this week, and asking me to phone if I couldn't attend. Well I can't attend. My support worker will come with me, and I need more than three working days' notice to arrange that. And I'm not phoning. They already know that I don't do that, so I've written them a letter. Let's see what happens.

In general

Yesterday I had rather a nondescript sort of evening. Around teatime I was contacted by my support worker, who had just read the report I sent her. She was not impressed by the errors and omissions, so we are meeting to prepare our appeal. The appeal is probably on a hiding to nothing, so it's likely I'll be taking them to court again. That's the trouble when the writer is government-approved rather than independent; they are bound to tow the government line instead of being objective. It was a simple spaghetti for dinner, followed by a couple of documentaries, and the marvellous Vincent Price film The Masque of the Red Death, based on Edgar Allan Poe's story. The weather has been noticeably colder lately, and I put the heater on for the first time this year.

Fossils

Meet my ancestor John Freeth of Birmingham (1731-1808). He was an interesting man. He was an innkeeper, poet and songwriter, and a major figure of the Enlightenment in Birmingham.  He also ran a coffee house (the Leicester Arms, Bell St), where his circle, the Jacobin Club, met. I think I like him already, but I expect he was a bit of a cunt, like the rest of my family. The paintings show the man himself, and himself with the Jacobin Club.

Past times

I've had such a lot on my mind lately, and such a lot going on, that I haven't been able to write for a while. So much in fact, that my brain ground to a complete halt where it was so overloaded.
British values include such virtues as fairness and tolerance, so we are told. Well the government's treatment of the disabled is anything but fair or tolerant. It has been so disgraceful that the U.N. has published a damning report on the subject. I don't like to play the victim. It really doesn't become me. I can't help pointing out, though, that most of my year has been blighted by my own personal experiences of this so-called 'fairness and tolerance'. I am in fighting mood, and am taking the government's agencies to court over my treatment at their hands. The papers have all been sent, so now all I am waiting for is a date.
I can hardly believe the current state of things, except that I know my experiences to be true. I can fully understand why thousands of disabled people have committed suicide as a result of the terrible cruelty to which they had been subjected. The government, needless to say, is in complete denial of this fact. I am certain that, were it not for my intellect, I would by now be drugged up to the eyeballs in an institution, living on the streets, or worse. I must be as tough as old boots to have been able to withstand the repeated horrors of this year.
The country seems to have gone back in time to about 1837, when the reforms of the 1834 poor law were starting to be implemented. People such as myself were categorised as "idiot, imbecile, lunatic, feeble-minded". We were the undeserving poor, who found incarceration in a workhouse infirmary (and all the concomitant brutality and cruelty) preferable to starvation on the streets. We were objects
of derision; objects of fun to the morally-upright. We were objects then, and are still.
I can only hope (but not pray. That is outside my experience.) that real fairness and real tolerance will one day find a place in the policies of those who govern us.