Lexin

I draw to your hopeful attention an epetition asking the government to lay Richard III (newly discovered under a car park etc, etc) to rest in York Minster, rather than in Leicester.

I view York as a far more fitting place for him than Leicester, with which place he had little to do in life.

On Saturday I went on the TUC’s march for a Future that Works (stupid name, not at all catchy) and I’ve uploaded a few photographs.

None of them are very good because I did the short march for the crocked, which started from St James Street, and it took a long time for people to start forming up, and by the time they’d started and formed up I’d lost interest in taking photos.

Turnout was about 150,000 or so. Not as many as on the march in March, which was disappointing. But then I don’t think the big unions pushed it as much as they could have done. Our union really rammed it down our throats, which probably explains why there were so many of us compared with our size and so few of some of the bigger ones.

In other news

I’m carefully taking blood sugar readings every day at least once a day and so far I’ve come up with the following things that are reliably not good for me to eat:

Mashed potato
Cornflakes

This does make some kind of logical sense given what they’re made from. But why those two, when syrup filled flapjacks are (comparatively) fine. Must be the oats, I suppose.

I can see the way the wind is blowing on this issue and I for one don't want a society in which people with illnesses are pitted against each other in some bizarre X-Factor-style media popularity contest as the rest of us judge who is and isn't deserving of fair treatment.

So says Cystic Fibrosis suffer, Sharon Brennan. And you know what? She's right.

People in the UK may have seen the headlines about that guy, somebody Diamond, from Barclays losing his bonus for cheating - something to do with fixing lending rates. (I confess I didn't read the articles and therefore don't fully understand what he did.)

Anyway, one of the newspapers (I think it was the Mirror, but it might have been the Sun) today has as its headline, "Sign on you crazy Diamond", calling for Diamond to resign.

Which I thought was rather clever.

ETA: His name turns out to be Bob Diamond which confused me, because I thought he was something to do with football.

I don't think today is one of my better days.

But here's a further opportunity to do so:
cancer patients to face welfare to work tests..

As one of the commenters on the Grauniad website said, "Remember, we're all in this together*.

*applies to chemotherapy patients, the disabled, students, working families, pensioners and public sector workers. May not extend to bankers, those employing aggressive tax avoidance strategies, property developers and millionaire members of the Cabinet."

Can be found here: http://www.private-eye.co.uk/covers.php?showme=1293&

I nearly cracked a rib. Seriously.

People in the UK will have noticed (one hopes) that there was a strike on yesterday.

What people don't tell you about being an activist when you step forward to share the burden is how much it's going to bloody hurt! Every bone aches and I thought when I got up this morning that I wasn't going to make it to work. As it is I'm limping around like a limping thing that limps – and I didn't make it all the way round the march.

It was thus

I got up yesterday morning at what felt like the crack of dawn, and made it to the picket line at just after 7am. Our enthusiastic young member, Comrade L, preceded me and he had the leaflets to hand out so that was good. I had the collecting tin for the Hardship Fund, which I proceeded to deploy: I shout "Hardship Fund!" at scabs and members of other unions alike, for all the world like that bloke in Monty Python shouting 'Albatross!'

At 10am we decided we'd had enough – which was good as the security guard at our building came out to try to limit our numbers. As there was only six of us, we were rather peeved, but not as much as we'd have been if he'd tried that trick at an earlier point in rather than just when we were heading off for breakfast.

After breakfast we made a move towards the march assembly point at Lincoln's Inn Fields. As soon as we arrived we all spied other friends in the movement and split up. I touched base with an old friend, the secretary of the first branch executive I was on, who's left the Ministry of Magic for a full time job in a teacher's union. So that was enjoyable. I was noodling around wincing at the noise when a bloke came up to me, asked me if I was in PCS and said they were looking for people to be interviewed on Radio 5 Live. I agreed (what was I thinking of?) and went along with him.

I don't know if anyone caught it, probably not, but I thought I acquitted myself quite well on radio. I made the point, as did one of the teachers who was interviewed that our pension schemes were looked at with a view to affordability within the last six years and are scheduled to reduce in cost as a percentage of GDP over the next fifty years. This is also the point which tripped up a minister in an interview on Radio 4, so that was interesting as none of the people interviewed on R5Live had heard the earlier interview at that point. We'd been too busy picketing.

I also made the point that despite what the government may be saying, this strike was the best supported that I have ever been on. We had significantly fewer people crossing our picket line than we've had before, even from other unions who were not balloted for action.

Guilty

It took a long time for the march to move off, and it was hot and I was starting to feel rather ill. I don't do well standing in any case. So when the march reached Aldwych, I'm afraid I bottled out – I thought I was going to faint, which would have been humiliating so I slipped out and went to sit down. By the time I felt well enough to move, the march had long gone so I went home, feeling a bit guilty.

Interestingly, people seeing my "Coalition of Resistance" tee shirt stopped to talk to me about the march and the strike, asked why we were doing it and actually listened to the points that I made. This included two staff from London Underground. So I didn't feel it was a complete waste, even though I missed what sounded from Twitter like an excellent rally.

I learned, though, that I can either picket (which I'd done for nearly three hours) or march, but not both. Both means too much time on my feet and I really can't cope with it.

Counting the money this morning we raised £143.44 for the hardship fund. So not bad.

Well, gloria1 and I went to the March for the Alternative yesterday. ( More about the march... )

What I learned: there are nearly as many squirrels in London as there are anarchists.

I came across this on the net, and thought it funny in a horrifically apposite way:

A banker*, a Daily Mail reader and a disabled person are sitting at a table sharing 12 biscuits. The banker bolts down 11 of them and says to the Daily Mail reader, "Watch out for the welfare scrounger, he wants your biscuit."


* Note: Not bank staff. Bank staff are paid very much less and their bonuses are commensurately less.

I'm back from my trade union's annual conference...and about to settle down in front of the TV and watch something which requires 0.01% of my attention span.

This is because after 4.5 days of sitting on hard and uncomfortable chairs listening to speeches that start "President, Conference, Comrades..." I really can't do with anything which might be hard work.