DOTING

I have neglected my blog as usual - not from lack of inspiration but sheer lack of a minute to myself. Between deadlines and school plays and meetings and the usual end of term/end of year chaos, I haven't had a second. I am stealing this moment because there's a problem with an online editing tool I was using so I can't work through the night to finish the job on time and it may have to keep until tomorrow (what a shame).

Through my little window on the world, I watched 4 strapping lads move into a house across the road yesterday. Three of them are pretty laddish - there's a fourth who's rather neat and tidy and cycles a bicycle - he'll be the one that will keep the bills together and clean the bathroom.

Another one brought his girlfriend round for the guided tour today. Before she went inside, she tottered back out to the pavement to dispose of her gum - not wanting to mess up the nice house or anything. Before leaving an hour later, they treated us to a fine public display of flesh and affection at the gateway.

The one with the small, silver car is out now with his lady friend - who is less exposed. And the other two are in the back and off they go - where to I wonder?

This is quite fun - we may have lowered the tone of the neighbourhood, I expect these guys to, at minimum, raise it a few decibels. BTW, did I mention the police dog handler living two doors up? He moved in about 6 months ago and the following night, hearing noise at the front door, the mitten answered - to be pinned to the spot by an enormous german shepherd. This is probably the best possible position to be in when you meet a new neighbour who happens to be a policeman - kinda puts him on the back foot a bit and yourself on the moral high ground.

He likes to work out - we saw the equipment being delivered - and, since the lads moved in, he has spent an awful lot of time flexing his tanned biceps by his car.

I forgot to mention some comments I got. This from Ivona:

Thank you - I am here and I am reading you. I never thought that my formation is the cause of the way I think (I lived 12 years under a communist regime). Anyway, I am trying to overcome my shortcomings and walk in the other's shoes as well.

I guess you were right about human rights. The world is not perfect, but I would like to make a contribution to improve it. Starting with myself as a first step.

From Della R, is a link to her blog where she argues that Bob Geldhof is a pawn of G8 and that Tony Blair is working for Free Trade, not Fair Trade. The latter may well be true but I think you underestimate Bob and Bono. You may not like them, they don't care - they are making noise and getting attention. More than can be said for most of us. It's easy to be cynical, it's far more difficult to have some faith in people once in a while.

POSITIVE THOUGHT 5: Things can only get better.

With lickspittle wearing a little thin, I thought George might appreciate some new material for his dictionary of archaic idiom. I can hear sneak thievery slavering from his lips in his Glaswegian drawl - actually the image is so real maybe he already said it. Jackass and popinjay could prove useful for self-descriptive purposes - any suggestions for a word to represent his bling thing?

It's back to business as usual in Britain. I have a new resolve - I'm going to see if I can write our way out of this morass. Not me alone, nobody is that arrogant, but me and everyone I can encourage to join me. It is possible to fix things. Think local, think sustainable, think switching off the light when you leave the room. Most important, think positive and drink lots of water for the concentration.

POSITIVE THOUGHT 1: Very few people are baying for blood - I admit to cushioning myself against fascism and extremism by not reading those newspapers so I could be missing something. But from where I'm sitting, people are calm, reasonable and determined to get on with things. Due process will take care of the rest (we hope - things have been known to go wrong on that score but let's be positive).

POSITIVE THOUGHT 2: Bono is right, celebrity is currency and I'm glad he's spending it wisely.

POSITIVE THOUGHT 3: I have no celebrity but I can write so that's what I'll do. Let's use our powers of persuasion, in the best language in the world, to talk to the people who hate us, resent us, fear us - and don't know us. The news coverage of the bombs surprised everybody in Saudi it seems - they had no idea that London was such a multicultural place - they thought it was full of proper white English people that say things like golly gosh. So, now that they know what we look like, let's build on it. Let's not wait for more bombs to reveal our true colours, let's take the debate to them.

POSITIVE THOUGHT 4: the sun is shining and it's a bountiful day

I have a new blog buddy - Ivona - she's Romanian and living in London. We don't exactly see eye to eye on things but that's not a problem - it's nice to have a medium to explore differing opinions. Our social freedoms must seem somewhat bizarre to eastern Europeans who were the victims of state-sponsored terrorism for so long. But our freedoms were hard fought for and are there for good reason. And with these freedoms come responsibilities, including the responsibility to be diligent in our pursuit of fairness and equality.

Enough preaching. It's Sunday, the sun is shining, the coffee is fresh and all is well with my little world. Spent hours on the phone last night catching up with old friends in Hackney. I house-shared with a bunch of great women there in the 80s and rang on the off-chance that any of them was still there. And they were all there - Mary and Mary and Ruth and they're all OK. And they still know how to party.

So - here's a positive outcome from 7/7 - old friends reuniting. Mary's mum, Nina, lives with her in rural France because she's old and infirm and can't manage the stairs in Hackney. Nina had polio as a child which left her with a bow leg and indomitable spirit. She is the epitomy of English grit and backbone. After university, undeterred by her disability, she went to Africa as a lay missionary. Her work took her to Rhodesia where she developed a deep and lasting love for the people.

When Zimbabwe became independent, Nina, twice-widowed, mother of two grown up daughters, sold her house in Hertfordshire, split the money with her daughters and headed off to Zimbabwe to offer her help to Robert Mugabe. She had friends in high places in the new government, having befriended many of the country's young revolutionaries in her former time in the country. Due to her honesty and outspokeness, however, she soon fell foul of the regime and my first encounter with her was her arrival in Heathrow airport, following her deportation, worldly goods contained in two plastic carrier bags.

The plane was full so they had to stick our bag lady in first class, where she sipped champagne and doubtless regaled the passengers with the extraordinary stories of her life. Nina nursed two husbands while raising two daughters, largely single-handed. They had an unusual and unconventional upbringing, their home always open to the wounded, the lame, and the infirm. Their extended family included transexuals, criminals and down-and-outs - you never quite knew who might arrive on a visit.

Nina moved in with us in Hackney. If I feared her presence might hamper our style a bit, I was soon reassured. We were party central and a drop-in centre for the neighbourhood. Every Sunday, she'd perform the miracle of the loaves and fishes and you never knew who might turn up at the dinner table. We'd take her down the local for a G & T and the stories could get quite outrageous - what a life, what a woman.

Nina's coming to Cornwall on holiday soon and I hope I'll get to see her. She became like a surrogate mother to me (my mother was enchanted by her) but then she's like everyone's surrogate mother.

Another buddy joins the club, stoneleaf, - he says:

The way the west treats the rest of the world really pisses off a whole lot of people but we just refuse to acknowledge this in its entirety. Sure most of them aren't angry enough to kill, but there're plenty angry enough to turn a blind eye, to lend someone a bed for the night or else help in some indirect way.

This is so true. Take trip through rural Ireland some time, awash with arms caches buried on remote farms - people turn a blind eye, partly because of the low level support stoneleaf describes, but partly because of intimidation - the intimidation highlighted by the bold McCartney sisters following their brother's brutal death at the hand of terrorists.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. As long as we continue taking the lion's share of the world's wealth and resources, the ranks of our enemies will continue to grow. Bono is speaking in rhyming couplets these days - he's just too damned eloquent for words. On G8 and Africa he talked about climbing the mountain, reaching the peak only to reveal another peak on the horizon, so you keep climbing. We must keep climbing and make poverty history.

I've tried umpteen times to get writing today but constant distractions. Major distraction at WE ARE NOT AFRAID. Daniel Rohrig was front page when I arrived but he's been buried deep in the archives - but you must see this picture - here's the deep link.

I think people in England have been confused, scared and distracted since Thatcher first kicked welly. It took a pair of gobby Irish shites, a successful Olympic bid and 4 bombs to bring Britain back to its senses and restore its confidence.

The world expects wailing but instead they get calm. Public displays of emotion are not British - the way of things here in a crisis is to straighten your shoulders and make yourself useful. And people were very useful - offering help instead of running for cover.

We're back to the times of suspicion. In the 80s a mate of mine travelled to London, first time out of Ireland, and got rather drunk en route, as you do, it can be a long and emotional journey. Destination Kilburn, he got a bit dozy waiting for the tube and, in his confusion getting on the train, forgot a bag of precious music tapes - did I mention he was a musician and a mighty good spoon player?

Shortly after his arrival at base, sans music, the police were at the door and arrested the lot of them. They had carried out a controlled explosion in the tube station and were a mite annoyed - so was my mate, his precious, unique store of Irish music was dust.

My mate was no threat to anyone but himself perhaps, and left London, disillusioned, as quickly as he had come, sad lesson learnt. Being Irish and living in London in the times of the Harrod bombing, the Canary wharf bombing - you are not the most popular person in the boozer. You have to modify your tones, whisper at times, in case your accent might give offence or draw the wrong attention.

I cannot imagine how difficult it is for London's Muslim communities this week - victims like the rest of us but with the harsh, hostile glare of public suspicion hanging over them. Separated from the local community by social and political events that are not of their design or desire. Pity the parents grieving their children, and the children grieving their parents.

This vicious and lamentable assault struck at some of the centres of the Islamic community in London - in Aldgate and Edgeware Road - the former is a focal point for the poor, and the ultra-rich Arabs congregate aroung the Edgeware Road, just a stretch up the road from Park Lane and Marble Arch. Whoever did this thing did not care for poor or rich, Islamic or no.

What does this tell us about our enemy I ask. Not a lot is my non-forensic, non-police-like response - haven't got a notion. But I hope the police have. I hope the police catch these plonkers before ordinary people do. I hope they get the evidence together to stitch them up good time.

However, TOP PRIORITY is to RECOVER THE BODIES THAT ARE STILL TRAPPED - bugger the forensics. If my kid or next-door-neighbour was missing, I would care less for forensic evidence and prefer to dig in and be done with it. Are the forensic teams hampering recovery or am I just too cynical for words?

As time goes by, Kings X becomes our Ground Zero. We've always had the capacity to f**k it up ourselves, with stray cigarette stubs and the like. What blows it for me is the people/bodies are still trapped. Fix it now, please.