Isolated Blurt Thread Again

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

I understand WHY people want to demonstrate in the UK, and it is not just solidarity with US protestors.

We have a problem with racism too in reduced opportunities for people of colour, and assumptions made by 'ordinary' people about black men.

We do not have a disproportionate number of black people being killed by police. Our police are not perfect but every time someone dies as a result of police actions there is an impartial investigation - that doesn't happen in the US.

Our Police forces have far more oversight than in the US and are better trained to deal with situations without the use of force.

But in some parts of the country, particularly in parts of London, the Police can be seen by black people as representing the oppressors and although a significant amount of street crime is carried out by black men, more than their percentage of the population would suggest, stop and search is often targetted at innocent black men unfairly.

Racism may not be as violent as in the US, but it exists. But waving signs saying "Hands Up! Don't Shoot!" have nothing to do with UK issues.

True. That said, many of us in the States appreciate the solidarity. I saw a meme I liked the other day. It showed a white woman in front of flames. It was captioned, "No, it's not my house that's on fire. I still think it matters." But besides the admittedly questionable applicability of the signage, you've explained why it makes sense for people to protest.

I should point out that many of us are well aware of the difference with police in the UK. They are often held up as a model of what many of us would like our police force to be like. I'm sure that when you live with them on a regular basis, they don't seem much like models, but they are surely a vast improvement over a police force with a track record like ours.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I should point out that many of us are well aware of the difference with police in the UK. They are often held up as a model of what many of us would like our police force to be like. I'm sure that when you live with them on a regular basis, they don't seem much like models, but they are surely a vast improvement over a police force with a track record like ours.

Friends of mine in Northern Ireland would like to point out that one of the four countries of the UK has always had armed police. Even before the army were called in.

Similarities in how they were seen - disbanding the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) and replacing them with the PSNI (Police Service of NI) was possibly the most crucial structural change required in the peace process.

I think similar changes will be needed in the US, but be even harder to implement.

It's a strange dichotomy that the average American is outgoing and friendly, customer service is generally excellent, yet police and security guards in my experience are a bunch of arseholes, with disabilism, xenophobia, racism and generally overstepping their authority. And if that's how they come across to a white American woman who's only spent six months there in the last decade...

 

[oggbashan]

True. That said, many of us in the States appreciate the solidarity. I saw a meme I liked the other day. It showed a white woman in front of flames. It was captioned, "No, it's not my house that's on fire. I still think it matters." But besides the admittedly questionable applicability of the signage, you've explained why it makes sense for people to protest.

I should point out that many of us are well aware of the difference with police in the UK. They are often held up as a model of what many of us would like our police force to be like. I'm sure that when you live with them on a regular basis, they don't seem much like models, but they are surely a vast improvement over a police force with a track record like ours.

I live in a quiet seaside town. Yet there is an undercurrent of aversion to the Police. Why?

At the time of the Miners' Strike, we had about 50 people who worked in the Kent Coalfields. The town raised a significant amount of money to support local miners, much of which wasn't needed locally so was sent to Nottinghamshire.

Hobbit can give much more details of the Police actions during the Miners' Strike, but those police actions upset many local supporters despite our town being a conservative safe seat. They still treat the Police with reserve despite current policemen being a different generation.

Hostility to the Police can last a very long time.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

Friends of mine in Northern Ireland would like to point out that one of the four countries of the UK has always had armed police. Even before the army were called in.

Similarities in how they were seen - disbanding the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) and replacing them with the PSNI (Police Service of NI) was possibly the most crucial structural change required in the peace process.

I think similar changes will be needed in the US, but be even harder to implement.

It's a strange dichotomy that the average American is outgoing and friendly, customer service is generally excellent, yet police and security guards in my experience are a bunch of arseholes, with disabilism, xenophobia, racism and generally overstepping their authority. And if that's how they come across to a white American woman who's only spent six months there in the last decade...

I find myself nodding emphatically, even while my brain says, "Don't generalize." I'm a white woman, and for many years, I've been afraid to call them because of the danger they pose to husband, my pets, my neighbors, and to me. It would require imminent danger for me to call them. For a black man to call police, it must require dire straits. There are truly heroic officers, but the odds are, that's not who will be showing up at your door.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

There is something moving all around the world, and I think people really want to use the momentum to finally get somewhere. If we don't take this opportunity, then how much more do we need before we are willing to do something. Now is the time to put pressure on organisations that so far had been reluctant to address the issues.

In my country, the protests are organised to support against the American police violence, violence from our own police, but also against so much more. We have anti-racist organisations, but also women organisations, LGBT organisations and all other kinds of organisations mobilizing their supporters to get out on the streets and raise their voices for equality. Equality for all; not only for specific groups. The demonstrations may be primarily under the flag of Black Lives Matter, but I think the main message is that all lives matter.

As the adage goes, an injustice to one is an injustice to all. Of course, MLK put it more eloquently: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

 

[oggbashan]

B***** Typos!

I found my latest submission (still pending as I write this) difficult to rid of typos. I had gone through it twice, used spell check and grammarly and when I previewed it on submission I found four typos that had been overlooked.

I had to amend and resubmit. Then I saw three more. Back to draft, amend, resubmit. Two more - repeat.

I had thought it was perfect but when I reread the printout of the final edited and re-edited version I spotted another one - bight where it should read night.

Sod it! I'm leaving that alone.

 

[TxRad]

Ogg, haven't you learned yet, that typos are the gods way of driving writers even crazier.

 

[oggbashan]

Ogg, haven't you learned yet, that typos are the gods way of driving writers even crazier.

Faulty eyesight doesn't help. If I look away from the keyboard my fingers can be one letter to the right or left and produce nonsense.

 

[Handley_Page]

Faulty eyesight doesn't help. If I look away from the keyboard my fingers can be one letter to the right or left and produce nonsense.

An interesting idea for cryptography

 

[oggbashan]

An interesting idea for cryptography

Too easy. That's a simple letter substitution code.

For example:

oggbashan becomes phhnsdjsm

 

[MelissaBaby]

My greatest strength as a writer is that I don't know enough to be wrong.

 

[TxRad]

My greatest strength as a writer is that I don't know enough to be wrong.

Wait until you figure out there is no wrong, only what does and doesn't work and that keeps changing as the stories change.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Wait until you figure out there is no wrong, only what does and doesn't work and that keeps changing as the stories change.

Exactly.

 

[oggbashan]

I am missing a delivery from eBay, left against my front door when I was out on Tuesday.

If, as I and the courier firm suspect, it was stolen, the thief is going to be disappointed. I think it is a secondhand DVD of historic performers on Llandudno Pier.

 

[Handley_Page]

I am missing a delivery from eBay, left against my front door when I was out on Tuesday.

If, as I and the courier firm suspect, it was stolen, the thief is going to be disappointed. I think it is a secondhand DVD of historic performers on Llandudno Pier.

Nice one, Ogg.
I've been bothered about that sort of thing; Hermes left a package on my back steps; what got me was that I was IN. If the daft *****d had rung the doorbell, I'd have been ok.

 

[oggbashan]

I am catching up with my output.

Og's blog part 07 has just been submitted. On to Part 08.

 

[oggbashan]

Og's Blog Part 08 published. 09 being written.

But I had an idea for a poem. I wrote it, submitted it, and only then saw a duff rhyme. Two letters changed and then resubmitted.

 

[oggbashan]

Og's blog part 09 is pending but I thought I would finish my account of events in Devonport in the early 1960s in Part 10. I have just done a quick list of events to put into that part. I've probably got enough for parts 10, 11, and 12 before I move to London in the swinging 1960s...

 

[oggbashan]

A milestone.

Yesterday I reached 1,000 followers.

Thank you to each and every one.

 

[Handley_Page]

Ogg, you deserve it

 

[oggbashan]

TV problems

I have Sky satellite systems and Freeview.

The timer on my Sky box has been slipping and was over an hour behind real time. I tried to switch to Freeview, which I hadn't used for months, and got the message 'no signal'.

I called out our local aerial technician. His normal job is as one of our firemen.

He was able, eventually, to reset the timer on the Sky Box but he was surprised that it was so ancient. He suggested that if I contacted Sky they would probably upgrade it free of charge. He will replace the Freeview aerial. Because I am on the seafront and battered by winter gales an aerial lasts five years at best and my one had been there for ten.

I tried to negotiate Sky's website but had problems because they didn't recognise the box I had. Eventually, I found a phone number. When I finally got through to a human being they were astonished. I had been using that box for 18 years at my current address and twelve years before I moved.

That box had been obsolete twenty years ago. Its service life had been assumed to be about five years and I had been using it for thirty.

The customer advisor had to speak to his supervisor because he had never had a customer with a box that old. He had to ring me back three times before he could get a decison. My box will be replaced - at no charge - with a better one that has HD and recording.

But I will lose any recordings on my old box.

"What recordings?" I asked. "My old box doesn't."

 

[oggbashan]

**** PayPal

I've had a message that becasue of new regulations PaYPal has to have an additional check.

I have to associate a mobile number with my account and then they will send me a security number to enter to validate my account.

But:

1. I don't have a mobile. I can't see a mobile's screen and my fingers are too clumsy to use a mobile.

2. I'm deaf. I can only hear and understand people I know who also know I am deaf and speak clearly so I can follow what they are saying. I can't hear a voice SMS message from an automated voice.

What do I do to autheticate my PayPal account? Ring us - they say. Send a Text - They say. I can't do either.

 

[Handley_Page]

Ogg, if you have not yet had your Freeview TV aerial fitted, can I make a few recommendations?
1. put a load of Silicon grease (MS4 or similar) on every connection, particularly the main coax junction.
2. a quick wipe of MS4 round the screws and bits of aluminium will preserve it all a good bit longer.
MS4 does not melt in summer heat, nor freeze in a dead-cold winter.

 

[oggbashan]

Ogg, if you have not yet had your Freeview TV aerial fitted, can I make a few recommendations?
1. put a load of Silicon grease (MS4 or similar) on every connection, particularly the main coax junction.
2. a quick wipe of MS4 round the screws and bits of aluminium will preserve it all a good bit longer.
MS4 does not melt in summer heat, nor freeze in a dead-cold winter.

My aerial mechanic (when he's not being a fireman) does that BUT our major problem has been lightning strikes.

 

[oggbashan]

I've had a message that becasue of new regulations PaYPal has to have an additional check.

I have to associate a mobile number with my account and then they will send me a security number to enter to validate my account.

...

PS. 4% of UK people do not have a mobile. I think may of them might be like me - unable to use one. But many more live in places without a reliable signal.

My seaside house is one. You can get a weak signal on some mobile networks but nothing at all on others.

PS. It is amusing to watch some youngsters staring at their mobiles in disbelief.

4G? No. 3G? No. 2G? Maybe. 1G? Possibly.