Tagged

Right. While I’ve been too busy at work lately and unable to write at all, I have been stopping by my staple blogs. I do like to keep up with Cllr Akehurst of Hackney Labour and see he’s tagged me as follows:

Pick up the nearest book
Open to page 123
Find the fifth sentence
Post the next three sentences
Tag five people and acknowledge who tagged you

Here goes:

“Moreover, the image of the delinquent and the criminal was functional in dividing the working class from itself. Criminology began the search for the typologies and differentiations of individuals, the search for the objectivity of criminality that portrayed the criminal as other than the normal. Furthermore, there developed in the late 19th century a specific relationship of the development of the new forms of criminological knowledge and the institutions of punishment, particularly the prison”.

From the chapter: “Modernity, construction and the social control perspective” in Theoretical Criminology: from modernity to post-modernism by Wayne Morrison, LL.B., LL.M, PhD, Barrister & Solicitor (New Zealand) and my academic hero.

6 Random Facts About Me Courtesy Of Ms Baroque

Ms Baroque! Wot in the hell is this?

Link to the person that tagged you – i.e. me.
Post the rules on your blog.
Write six random things about yourself in a blog post.
Tag six people of your own.
Let each person know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
Let the tagger know your entry is up.

1. You don’t know me very well, because if you did, you’d know that I cannot follow directions to save my life. Usually, I have a go, give up and ask PC Bitseach to sort it out. Ask me to set up the Sky Box or assemble Ikea. Utterly hopeless.

2. I went to high school where they filmed, “Election“. It’s funny, because it’s true.

3. Prior to that, I attended Kubasaki High School

4. I never liked Oasis in the 90s; I preferred Blur. I’m a decade behind the times generally.

5. I watch Seinfeld DVDs when I can’t sleep. “The Cartoon” and “The Strongbox” are my favourites. I am George Costanza.

6. I’ve got a postcard on my fridge which reads, “La paciencia todo lo alcanza”.

Power to the People

It appears that the Boycott Nandos people are mounting their last stand against Richard Midda. Their objective is to block Nando’s application for an alcohol licence. Given the number of pubs and licenced restaurants on Church Street already, all I have to say is, “good luck with that”.

My question is: What do you really hope to achieve? The Vortex is gone and not coming back. Richard Midda isn’t obliged to rent the premises out to your “business co-operative” or anyone of your choosing. Your victory, if any, will be pyrrhic. If not Nandos, it will be another big hitter who can afford Midda’s rent. Simple as that.

Sorry.

Liberals Turning A Blind Eye

I seems like only yesterday I was getting lectured by liberals about British Muslim women’s “freedom” to choose.

In fact, just the other day, I was told that harping on about “women’s issues” was a bit like black people revisiting Selma, Alabama.

Hello, wake up call! How many more women and little girls do these “liberals” want to sell down the river with cultural relativism?

If the police and social workers had only listened to 12-year-old Ruksana when she told them her father had threatened to send her to Pakistan to be married against her will, then she says life might have been very different.

But they did not take her seriously, she says. She ended up in a foreign country and married to a violent partner who raped her and made her pregnant, aged 15.

Even the BBC cannot resist watering down the truth. Hello! “Violent partner?” 15 year old girls don’t have “partners”. Try, “violent stranger” or “owner”.

And Rowan Bloody Williams wants more sharia? Here’s a thought: how about we stop pandering to people’s “cultures” and give everyone in this country the benefit of the rule of law and equality?

And how about waking up to the fact that people don’t accede to subjugation: they are forced.

And I am sick unto death of the honour killings, the forced marriages and the veil.

As Tammy Bruce said: -

“The American feminist movement has not taken one stand to support the women of Iraq, the women of Afghanistan, the women of Iran.”

Sing it, sister.

Don’t feel too bad, Tammy: The British feminist movement hasn’t bothered to lift a finger for Muslim women on British soil either; they’re quite happy to turn a blind eye to domestic violence, rape and murder. Hey, it’s their culture.

PC Bitseach Is On A Roll

 Friends, the PC does not stand for “politically correct”.

I quote Ferris, she quotes Col Nathan R Jessop: -

“…we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. [...] And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honour, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline.I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post”.

Read more about service and gratitude and the state of this Godforsaken nation here.

Is The 393 The New 149?

My fellow Hackney blogger, Mr Locker, once did a superb post on the busses. You really must read it.

As you can see, Ben and I shared a special loathing for the 149.

Nevertheless, and despite it’s small size and irregular time-table, the 393 surely must be marching up (or down) the London bus league table for crime, harassment and general unpleasantness.

Outside Holloway Waitrose, I got on the bus, only for Rude Lady to barge past. In such situations, I just don’t move. A character defect on my part, no doubt. Rude Lady and I stood motionless when she blinked and said, “excuse me” to go past.

This handbags incident was witnessed by a guy in his 20s who told me I should “relax” and not be “starting shit on the bus”. Like an utter moron, I responded with a forced smile commenting, “you should tell it to your friend, as she is the one who pushed past me”.

He lectured me about being a “guest in [his] country” and wound himself from Mr Peace, Love and Reasonableness into a rant about how he’d just been back in the country for three days and how he was sick of racists.

I said if he felt I was being racist, he should call the police. He responded: “I don’t need to call the police you racist bitch, stfu, stfu”.

He seemed to calm down again, but after talking to Rude Lady more, wound himself up again. You see, Rude Lady told him, “She just assumes because we are black that we are friends”.

That’s right lady, wind up the crack-head.

Nut-nut started screaming that I was racist. I told him he was being sexist and misogynist. His simple, ill mind paused for a moment. I got off the bus, walked into a shop and waited for the next thing smoking out of there.

Sorry, but I’d say and do the same to anyone in similar circumstances. So no, it’s not because you are black. It’s because you are an asshole.

I gotta get a car.

PS: PC Bitseach reminded me that the nut-nut who did assault her on the 149 displayed similar behaviour- Mr Angry one minute, Mr Composed the next, then Mr Angry again. It was in the final anger-wave that he assaulted her. Get off before catching that final wave. PC Bitseach also reminds me that 1 in 4 Hackney residents have mental health issues.

I gotta get a car.

And Speaking Of Cops

Well, not proper cops. PCSOs. Hackney PCSOs.

I was taking a little turn around Clissold Park yesterday and spotted a few young men in their distinctive Stoke Newington School uniforms, heading for the bowling green building. Perhaps that building is not secured, or perhaps they were simply behind it, because on my second turn, the smell of ‘nabis was in the air and emanating from that direction.

I’d say this was at about 15.40 hours.

I was having another wee turn around the park again today when I spotted two PCSOs in uniform and on bicycles approach me. I waved them down and told them the above. I love it. You know what their response was? Their response in light of senior Met management-speak as applied to a uniformed service where you and I are known as “customers”; you know what they said?

“Please send an email to the Safer Neighbourhoods Team, we’re just passing through”. 

Apparently we are all indeed customers of the Met, making the PCSOs waiters, and I, “not their table” (despite their having the Hackney “GD” indication on their shoulders). I believe this is indicative of know-nothing managerialism.

In the fragrant PC Bitseach’s borough, PCs and PCSOs carry notebooks and pass information / intelligence on to their colleagues and even log the same onto police databases. I believe that is called, “taking ownership” and “joined up thinking”; it is indicative of leadership. Hey, they even have PCs and PCSOs at schools and surrounding areas, like parks, at school chucking out time, to encourage the little angels to keep out of trouble. It seems to work.

Speaking of joined up thinking, I’ve just read fellow Hackney blogger, Dave Hill’s latest re the Stoke Newington School. After reading Ms Baroque’s own description of a friend’s son’s treatment by the staff of Stoke Newington School, it is my learned opinion that the administration of the esteemed Stoke Newington School could benefit from dropping its’ own know-nothing managerialism in favour of some leadership and joined up thinking with Hackney Police and parents.

Just sayin’.