The Secret Language

One of the interesting things about neuro diversity is how it shapes your relationship to the world. This is not always a bad thing, though the problem with it isn’t how it can inspire the kind of creativity or genius that more intense ‘sufferers’ can experience. The issue is how the regular workaday world is completely at odds with you. That is my problem. It isn’t really even accurate to call it a medical problem, but the only way I can try and draw attention to my needs is through that process, hence going through the Work Capability nonsense.

I don’t deal with change particularly well. Perhaps in a weird way unemployment – though obviously limiting due to financial reasons – is a comfort to the neuro diverse. I had a friend who once said everyone should experience a period of unemployment. I think he was right; if nothing else you see how the tie around your neck is more shackle than style.

People look to religion to find their place in the world. I refute the existence of a higher authority and the man made systems that men built in His name to control the rest of us. However I reserve the right to use what might be termed ‘spirituality’ as a language; a way of communicating with the world my feet are standing on in the place and time I live.

To that end the changing of the seasons, the pattern of the clouds, and the line of trees on the horizon as I look out the window, the angle and position of the sun in the sky are important. They are as hands on a clock. I wonder if I could ever live anywhere else. I was in London for a month a decade ago when I tried and failed to attend a university course (for various reasons, mainly due to it being shit and expensive in the post grant world). I could not even relax in my rented digs. I couldn’t unpack. I felt like a permanent visitor. It wasn’t even so much the intensity of the capital urban landscape; Ealing was a relatively benign sea of concrete (I wonder if that’s still the case).

As the seasons pass I can sense their particular flavour in the same way I can sense the day of the week. Each has its own feel. Not in a mystical – that is, fluffy – way; as opposed to religion this is real mystery. I find that I am acutely aware, on some level, of the differences in the environment particular to different times. The levels of brightness, the intensity and fecundity (or lack thereof) of the land and how it obscures (or not) the pylons on the skyline ten miles away, how the sun sets just behind the tall trees on the left in winter, how it sits in the middle of the sky getting red on my birthday, and how the air feels when it’s warm. Perhaps this is nonsense and everyone notices these things.

This is religion to me. This is the secret code of the world that cannot be expressed through clocking in to a machine or following the orders of Bob from HR. This is the real world and it lives and breathes irrespective of how much money some Welsh tosser with a Napoleon complex tells me he can help me save. This is life. It does not require that I do anything: it doesn’t ask me to bungee jump to my gap year death; it does not require that I earn enough money or date a supermodel. It is almost pagan in that it is the connection men forge with their particular surroundings and how they mark the passing of time.

But that relationship is being threatened. Not just by the Coalition’s attempts to curtail my finances in lieu of my ability to deny that world, but in the changes wrought by human hands. That skyline is threatened by a row of super pylons that the electricity people want to be built. The environment isn’t the lucid blue sky I remember from yesteryear in the summer, instead the months post winter remain cold long after they should. The jet stream has moved pulled, in my non-scientific opinion, by the man made currents of climate change. If people do not believe our climate is in serious flux then I believe they are very ignorant. Summer used to be that period where time itself would melt into the sky and you could lie on the grass staring into azure infinity sublimating yourself into an ocean of sky. Now it is cold and wet. Our crops are threatened and our world is changing.

It is likely that humans will adapt. They will have to, whether you live in a green and pleasant land or in the seeming (and teeming) flood plains of the east in countries like Bangladesh. But this transition is going to be painful; we have forsaken any chance to turn back the tide of carbon emissions. We are going to miss our targets and all our efforts will seem to have been in vain while idiots like James Delingpole argue that fracking wells make more benign and pretty neighbours than a windmill. This is the insanity of the modern world and it is only just getting warmed up.

Redline Britain

There are a lot more things I have to say than I ever blog about. Unfortunately I’m too lazy to be a citizen journalist and, if you gaze yonder eastwards, you’ll see a list of far better people than I to get facts from. Besides, this blog was mainly intended as a personal catharsis with observations on the world as it now turns. Sometimes though things have to be said.

On Question Time this past Thursday, professional fence sitter and coalition nobody, Simon Hughes MP, revealed that, during the Coalition negotiations, Osbourne wanted to penalise JSA claims by 10% in the second year. This, claimed Hughes, was his red line. I don’t know if this is true, though it’s hardly a leap of faith to presume the Tories would dream up something so punitive.

It was a revealing morsel: it tells us that everything we have endured so far, along with what is to come, is necessary and acceptable. All of it Simon thinks is necessary; the destruction of a society and the impoverishment of an economy upon which we are all so dependent, like a life raft floating in a hurricane. This could not be more telling: cutting ESA from people by virtue of a private programme that doesn’t use medical practice, a Work Programme that has failed to the point it actively inhibits work chances, benefits cut for the slightest reason on presumption of guilt not innocence – and that is one aspect of the austerity programme. None of this stands on the right side of that redline, but cutting benefit by £7 in year two (which is indeed loathsome) was the straw that would break his back.

This is typical of the liberal democrats who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in claiming that getting the poorest out of tax was a success. They don’t pay tax because they have no money; they can’t even pay VAT because they have no money to buy goods with. This isn’t a success it just further shrinks the economy because there will be less money coming in while these people will require financial support – something that’s being withdrawn as quickly and as quietly as possible. All that’s left are the supermarkets who pay fuck all for their merchandise and their staff which means less money going around. I can’t shop locally for this reason. It is insanity. It is liberal democrat policy.

Meanwhile the media has succeeded in getting people to agree with all of this. Paying benefits is a sign of social failure and a cause of social unrest, instilling unacceptable virtue. Borrowing money is what that nasty Mr Brown did – despite the nasty Mr Cameron and the nasty Mr Osbourne pledging the match Brown’s plans and calling for even lighter financial control. The crash was everything the Tories could have hoped for – yet they still didn’t win the election. It took Clegg and his friend Simon to proclaim the new king. I think it self evident that, had Cameron been in charge during 2008, he would have bailed out the banks – and probably more. He would probably have tried ushering in austerity even then, at the behest of JP Morgan who, we now learn, have a blueprint for our society. Likely he would have failed. It is ironic then that Mr Brown was the best Tory they never had.

Osbourne has increased the time claimants have to wait before claiming to a week. This is not just stealing money from the unemployed on the basis of future claims (in much the same way he claims not to like stealing money from future generations, hence the cuts – apparently). It is further cementing unemployment into the system. We already know that capitalism uses unemployment to keep wages low (and besides who really thinks we could ever have full employment from here on out), but this notion of using unemployment to introduce further cuts is nasty. It is using unemployment to punish unemployment financially. But the voters love it.

He also wants the unemployed in for weekly signing sessions as the norm. This already happens after 13 weeks (and presumably is part of the approach Hoban wants as punishment for failing the failing Work Programme). How this will save money is not clear. It has never helped people: getting people to attend weekly has only ever been seen as a punitive measure. A means of feeling the collar a bit harder: “we’re keeping an eye on you, you lazy git!” Jobcentre Plus has been under the cosh of cuts for years now, starting with labour. Now it’s needed more than ever it is far from safe from the axe man’s attentions. When I was signing they were understaffed: I could not get a regular signing time because of their hopeless system, nor a regular adviser as Fridays seemed to be the day most people weren’t contracted to work (or they were all skivers). None of this makes sense…that is unless you believe they intend to keep this within the public sector.

Fortunately I am listening to Animals by Pink Floyd as I write this; it is the only way to stay sane.

Dependence

No mate, you’re just paid by Barclays. You don’t have a job. They just pay you to tell me that ripping people off while expecting me to honour my debts is reasonable. That’s not a job. That’s not contributing or bettering society or even this community. You’re no less a benefit recipient than I; the difference is you’ve got a name badge and a tie. I’ve got a Jobseeker’s Agreement.

That’s what I tell myself each time I pay my pittance to Barclays each month for making the mistake of getting into (a relatively small amount of) debt as a student. Interestingly at the time Barclays were part of the college infrastructure whose advice to students worried about how they’d finance themselves was to borrow.

We’re all dependent on money, and the money comes from on high. We’re like the Israelites weaned in the desert on heavenly mana, except our gods are the corporate elite and their politician acolytes. We need money to live – interestingly the words almost sound the same: mana/money. Weird.

These people, if you can call them that, control the world we live in. austerity is their current weapon of choice. You’d be wrong in thinking it doesn’t benefit them, because it does. It might not benefit my local corner shop, but compared to Tesco (who is rapidly squeezing out that kind of enterprise) they are overpriced. That’s because austerity leaves people unable to afford anything else. It also keeps customers compliant and susceptible to the latest slice of ‘every little helps’.

Unemployment means an equally compliant workforce. Apparently 5000 people applied for 275 vacancies in a new Tesco somewhere in Midlands. That means 4775 scroungers still failing to make the grade; they clearly need punishment them for their fallings. But it’s all going to plan: move public money into the pockets of the ruling elite and curtail opportunity for the rest who are to be nothing more than a cheap labour force. I have just been to Tesco’s careers page, though I have no intention of working for them, they have graduate programmes. So you’ve just spent several years learning cutting edge science or theory that you’d hoped to put to use repelling the boundaries of science, perhaps to create new medicines or devices. Nope, you get to be trained to process unexpected items in bagging areas.

What a huge waste. But again, it’s all part of the plan. We are not led by visionaries; we are led by one interest alone: profit. Anything that doesn’t suit that plan is disregarded and marginalised. People with dreams and aspiration, despite the use of that term by the government, are dangerous and surly. They need to rein those ideas in; that’s why Osbourne talks about striving and skiving; sublimate your ambitions – and with his final words Winston said “I aspire to TESCO!”

The clock strikes thirteen once again.

PS it’s bad enough they get my dole money as the only place I can afford to shop. You’d think then no one would complain: money goes out, money goes back in.

PPS Mark Littlewood, go fuck yourself you evil piece of scar tissue.

Silent Scandal

So what is the reality of mental health on the Work Programme? It seems pretty poor. Is this a provider unique issue? I cannot know personally; I was assigned to Employment Plus by deign of the machinery of the DWP. I’m given to believe that process is based not on need or suitability (assuming any differences or areas of expertise among providers) but on who has the fewest customers at the time. Anecdotal evidence does seem to suggest that my experience is not unique. I can well believe it.

But this is not solely a problem of the adequacy of providers. While I am of course critical of the attitude undertaken by my (former) adviser, the problems run much deeper. He is only saying what he’s been drilled to say – in fact that ‘only following orders mentality’ is another and large symptom.

It goes beyond even the Work Programme itself. This attitude is systemic. It permeates the DWP from tip to toe. We all know how difficult it can be dealing with advisers, even Disability specialists. The individual that I had seen in the past couldn’t, for example, understand why I found it difficult working in busy places and made a fuss with my Jobseekers Agreement at the time. She insisted I remove retail work entirely, regardless of where I might find a job and regardless of that being the only work I’d done. Not only that but there was no suitable alternative offered and she looked down at me like I’d tried claiming that my dog had eaten my homework.

This is the attitude from the corporate filth at the top. We are blighted having this class ruling us. What use are the mentally ill, the ‘difficult’, to them? Even doctors struggle to answer that question and they are supposed to help the ill or the unwell. Doctors routinely shy away from dealing with matters related to benefits; they are averse to dealing with claims and claimants like garlic to vampires.

No one wants to help people with difficulties because there’s no money to be made. This attitude has infected society festering into a weeping sore of division and disapproval. People in the street do the jackboot job of the corporate elite; happy to judge others on their behalf like a cross between Neighbourhood Watch and ATOS. The mentally ill must be judged and made pariahs publicly. It is for their own good. There is a time and a place that this reminds me of, but Godwin’s Law prevents me from naming it. I think you know what I mean.

The People’s Assembly meets on Saturday in Westminster. I can’t attend, but I can only hope that, despite the sneering prejudice that, sadly, it has already attracted, something positive comes from that. There’s no doubt that those sniffy of the likes of Owen Jones might have a point. Grimly, they may be proven right. But to them I say: give it a chance. Hear what they have to say on Saturday and then make a judgement. I certainly agree we need deeds not words, and we need then en mass in solidarity and right now. The unions have abandoned us, particularly the PCS whose agents enact the sanctions against the poorest, rendering them from society utterly, and Labour has turned blue. The silent scandal of mental difficulty must not go on.

The Call Centre

A new horror has emerged from the Stygian depths we know as BBC Three. It is called 'The Call Centre', a show purporting to be fly on the wall inside the Welsh headquarters of Saving Britain Money. This epic hellhole is overseen by a man presumably brought back from some past medical dilemma by the blood of David Brent. The script of The Office flows in his DNA to the point one can legitimately question the authenticity of the whole project. In fact it is probably healthy to be that cynical because what lies within is beyond description.

That overseer is known simply and only as 'Nev', presumably shorthand for 'Never Again', in the way one speaks of concentration camps. Speaking of which this particular gulag is populated by a crew of sales hungry back combed spray tan enthusiasts whose life stories comprise the narrative of the programme. In the first episode, of the two broadcast thus far, we meet Hayley who's love life she mistakenly made available to 'Nev'. This became the ultimate challenge, in his mind: to find Hayley a fella - never mind how she might feel about it. In the process this bumbling fifty something lump of insensitivity proceeds to embarrass her in the way industrial tribunals are not fond of. His behaviour waves off any notion of sensitivity or tact - all of which, in Brent fashion, he would regard as good humoured, vacillating between cringe inducing and genuine harassment. 

During the same episode 'Nev' is interviewing new recruits with two prime examples of the man's laughable pandering to his much much younger workforce. Firstly, during a group interview/welcome session one person at the back of the room makes the mistake of yawning. This compels 'Nev' into a fake rage, as some demonstration of the kind of vim and vigour he wants to inspire in his sales force, culminating in the launching of a savoury projectile at the yawning captive. You don't yawn on 'Nev's' watch! Secondly and as a dismal ending to this farce, an 18 year old wannabe called Natalie is paraded through the sales floor like a piece of meat while 'Nev', like a Town Cryer reading Fifty Shades of Grey, proclaims "Beautiful Welsh girl coming through, you'd give her a job wouldn't you lads?" 

There's tears, tantrums (one girl is demoted to tea lady through her tardiness, blissfully unaware she's been reduced in stature from callmaker to teamaker and mistress of the urn), spray tan and sick, and a girl (the same tea girl) in hotpants with a face like an orange rabbit clearing it up. Dont' worry, it was her sick.

Saving Britain Money. I'm not entirely sure how; the narrative is interspersed with clips of the staff being soundly rejected by the Britain whose Money they are inexplicably trying to Save. It isn't explained how the company works and it doesn't seem to matter. These are the people that ring you up at Inappropriate O'Clock to sell you, variously, PIP claims or Cavity Wall insulation grants - basically whatever the latest bullshit scam is, they are on it. The only success these people can claim comes from, presumably, the sheer volume of calls they make. The law of averages is in their favour, not the quality of their service or product.

The second episode featured more of the same telling the sad story of George, an outsider from the wilds of England who desperately wanted to fight into an environment he clearly was at odds with. It was painful watching; George was clearly a nice guy making every effort to fit in. But it was clear he was better than this venal carnival. The essence of his story, as described with customary tact by 'Nev', was his failure with the women - and what a thing for a young man to bear. An utter failure of masculinity. 

Of course that macho trope is pure bollocks. However in a speed dating event set up by, you guessed it, 'Nev' he had only one woman expressed any interest. Unfortunately for him, cruelly cementing his outsider status, she had no real interest in him. His sales team had gotten wind of this and coached him to blow her out before she got the chance to do likewise. The whole alpha male point scoring exercise (us blokes gotta stick together) was painful to watch and was of course met with the not-so-silent approval of his peers. A desperate instinctual attempt by George to rise in stature within the pack that had the unfortunate effect of portraying the woman negatively, even 'Nev' described her in a faintly unsavoury fashion, jokingly referring to her as 'a bit of a maneater'.

And that is the wonderful world of modern Britain, where dreams go to die.

10 0 Clock Dead

"There's a show, keeps on annoying me

Late at night, on a Tuesday-eee!

10 0 Clock Live perhaps you've heard

About as entertaining as a turd

Lauren Laverne, she ain't no wit

David Mitchell painfully sarcastic

Charlie Brooker and Jimmy Carr 

Proselytising from afar"

(to be sung to the tune of the Littlest Hobo).

Why are you slagging this off? You might ask. Well, stop shouting at me and I'll tell you. 

It isn't that Charlie and David aren't funny. Indeed they are very clever, if rather tedious (same shit, different day). Jimmy Carr on the other hand is a pillock; he's another sneering aimless comedian that trades on malaise and indifference - never mind the hypocrisy of satirising tax avoidance while avoiding tax. The less said about Lauren 'am I a comedian yet?' Laverne the better; I've always found her deeply pretentious. She is sup up herself she could use her colon as a handbag.

No, the problem is that this show offers no solutions. I'd rather listen to the People's Assembly and speakers like Owen Jones and Mark Steel (who IS funny) than these tired hacks. You can bet that the 10 0 Clocksters are being paid handsomely for their comfortably delivered and extremely safe satire, just as you can rely on their tedious audience of media students to lap it all up. The whole thing is a vehicle for their egos. 

That would be fine if the whole thing went somewhere, but it doesn't. It's just 4 rich white people from comfortable suburbia lecturing us on what it's currently fashionable to bash. They lack the courage of UK Uncut (proper heroes) but seem bred from the same stable. Instead of sitting behind a desk and shouting, Charlie, why not get off your comfortably paid arse and effect some change. Same with the rest of them. Talk is cheap, you are not and you can fuck off. I want solutions, not cheap potshots at easy targets. This is just laziness that breeds more of the malaise Carr and his ilk feed off. Do something, not just 'Barclays avoid tax...that's bad!"

It's self gratification: same with shows like Have I Got News For You. People like Hislop that take the piss out of everyone. That would be fine if he had any answers. But he doesn't so what are we doing? Token MP turns up to engage in a consensual roasting when the show should be something MP's genuinely fear to go on. In more enlightened times this might be ok, but we are not in those times. The society is on fire, people are at each other's throats, and this kind of intellectual masturbation becomes how we appease our turbulence. It's not enough.

Health Advisers?

I thought I'd give Employment Plus a ring to see what training their staff are supposed to have (officially speaking) in terms of mental health. Their contact number is on their website - as is an advert for a Job Life Coach (their term for Work Programme advisers). There is no mention of mental health expertise or training so I decide to ring them to ask about that specifically. This is their response (once again subject to amusing pitch manipulation - bear in mind the volume isn't great):

Curious they mention services unknown to me. Tellingly these include a health adviser that comes to the centre one could speak to. I suppose their response would be that such people are only available in larger centres (if at all). If that's true then surely the adviser could at least have mentioned this to me, could have perhaps arranged for me to see them - or something. Nope, no mention at all; just told that, in liue of bringin g a support worker, I have no problems because I'm on JSA (which of course = full health happy times).

Now I can't really take this as gospel; the person I spoke to did make it clear she isn't a Job Life Coach herself, so she could be mistaken. To give her the benefit of the doubt this then is not something she made up, but could be something that once existed and now no longer does and, not being a JLC, she wouldn't know that. That said, why not make sure you have such people in place? Did you not think you'd be dealing with people that have particular needs, or do you just think God would help them?