Hey, Ya!

Some time ago I wrote about a “tech solution” and how it was impossible to reason with. That solution is now imminent and you should be terrified.
Here’s why.
Globally there’s a huge amount of balls in the air waiting to drop on the post-crash landscape, the juggling clown of Capitalism is in the final throws of his act, the audience is watching, dumbfounded, tongue lolling like a faithful dog waiting for its master to tell it when to take a shit. The balls are speculative financial concepts, the dog is you and your stupid face.
One ball is America and its John Carpenter future.
Another, England and Brexit.
Others are Russia and its dominance, the Middle East and that shitstorm, division, mistrust, Shareholders demands for positive returns, all that fucking noise.
Gravity will inevitably take hold and there’s fuck all you can do about it.

In the wings there’s Business interests, projections they keep fairly quiet about, but they’re about to take the stage for the Swan Song.
The next big thing about to fuck us up is the removal of our necessity. An entire layer of people are about to be rendered surplus, to be surpassed by technology.
It’s already here but a lot of us can’t see it because it looks like convenience.
Too cryptic?
It’s Automation.

Within 3 to 5 years a large amount of jobs that Humans currently do WILL be done by machines/robots or algorithms. Like I say, it’s already here, but it’s only just begun.
Already we’re facing massive issues with poverty, they will accelerate at a previously unknown rate as the machines take hold.

I’m fully aware this sounds like rambling tinfoil Skynet nonsense and you’d be right to call me out on it. However, it’s not just me, check this paper from a bunch of Oxford University fuckers:

Click to access The_Future_of_Employment.pdf

It’s a big document for sure, but here’s a single sentence that should have considerable impact:
“Our model predicts that most workers in transportation and logistics occupations,
together with the bulk of office and administrative support workers, and
labour in production occupations, are at risk”
Think about that for a while.
I’ll wait.
Listen to this in the meantime:

If, sorry, WHEN all those jobs go to the robot crew it’ll create a massive shift in Human ability to exist within the current Circus. When the Clown’s balls drop everything’s fucked.
You included.
The change is happening, don’t get caught out.

Fake. New.

It’s been a few years since I bothered writing, much has happened and I’m not going to elaborate.

As things currently stand the country is fucked beyond all expectations, there’s no real solutions in sight and Winter is coming. Again.
As unsurprising as all of this is it’s still remarkable how totally unprepared we are for it.

Years ago I moved to Birmingham on a dart-throw whim and when I arrived I realized I’d forgotten to pack a few things. One of them was a tin opener. Hardly a big deal, so I went to the local corner shop and bought a new one. When I tried to use it though I found that the metal it was made from was weaker than the can it was meant to open. The can opener wasn’t actually a can opener, it was a can opener shaped object, sold as a real one.
For me it’s become something of a metaphor for “how things are”.
We don’t have a functioning government, judicial system or democracy any more, instead we have things that look like them them but totally aren’t.

There are reasons for all this and, as you can imagine, they’re mostly financial. Capitalists cite “costs” as a valid excuse for inaction, but money has stopped working and their entire economic system is broken. Yet instead of admitting it and working towards a solution they carry on with the façade, plunging the country and the bulk of its inhabitants into blinkered dark hopelessness.
Something’s surely got to change.

There have been threads of hope in recent years indicating that positive change may well be on the way, but as yet nothing has come to fruition. One of the problems causing this impasse is that people are still Consumers.
Generally speaking people consume Hope and don’t tend to create it, waiting for others to act and then maybe join in. Enthusiasm ebbs and flows until it’s ultimately dead and all are left exhausted by misplaced optimism.
Breaking that tired cycle is very difficult, almost insurmountable.
It needs to begin with removing oneself from the process and inventing something else.

I obviously don’t have any answers, just as you don’t, but yet again I’m compelled to say that nothing’s working.
Seriously how long can any of us continue this?

Pissing on your own chips

light

In recent years Bristol has undergone a slow motion transformation from a slumbering city of potential to a vibrant hub of creative businesses. On paper this is a good thing, in practise it brings a whole new set of problems.
Before I go into that I want to revisit what I call The Stokes Croft Example. Stokes Croft at the turn of this century was a run down district where people looking for dirt cheap accomodation could find a place amongst the tramps, drug addicts, artists and others who weren’t bothered by gritty realities. Somewhere around 2007 a small organisation calling itself The Peoples Republic of Stokes Croft set up shop there and began the gradual process of turning the area into a “Cultural Quarter”. From its inception I thought the idea wouldn’t really amount to much, but it did and in ways which are now tediously predictable. Once the streets were cleaned and the turds were polished people flocked to the area from all over the country, it became the place to be seen and rents went up accordingly. The artists and activists who helped start the transformation could no longer afford to be there and had to move out.
I used to live and work there, today its somewhere I rarely visit.

Expand that example to Bristol in general and therein lies the problem which I think is beginning to unfold.
For the past year or so I’ve been aware of friends and colleagues being priced out of areas which they’ve lived in for years. Rents kept going up and at one stage I joked “At this rate we’ll all be living in Fishponds!”
Well, at this stage we can’t afford to live in Fishponds any more. The problem of unaffordable housing has got so bad in the city that after a series of unfortunate events I’ve had to move away completely. I’m not the only one either.
I was in Temple Meads station waiting to leave town a few days ago and I got a call from a friend asking my advice for someone in a similar position. I didn’t know what to say. There aren’t many options left.

Having spent around 15 years in Bristol, a city which I love and do a lot of work in, it was pretty fucking galling to be faced with having to leave purely for financial reasons. I have a family, I work full time. Simply putting a roof over our heads should not cost 70% of my income.

The solution I’ve found is one that I turned my back on some years ago, (ironically enough when I moved back to Bristol and got involved in the early days of Stokes Croft.)
I’ve bought another boat. All being well I should be back on the canal by late November. Commuting to Bristol isn’t something I will relish but if it means I have a stable, affordable home for my family then it’s a small price to pay.

This solution isn’t for everyone though, nor should it be. Genuinely affordable homes just aren’t being built in the volumes required and with the housing industry driving our pitiful economy at the moment, that’s unlikely to change any time soon. New build houses are constructed to the absolute minimum standard required, the lifespan of these places is pitifully short while their cost is extortionately high. Recently there was a mini housing boom caused by easy availability of Buy-to-Let mortgages. Prices went up yet again, spurred on by the greed of would be landlords looking to invest in something with a guaranteed return.
Whilst looking for rental property recently an acne-faced young estate agent explained it all very clearly to me. The plan which they set in motion was to boost sales of old rental stock to new, would-be, landlords who would then flood the market in about 3 months time with recently refurbished properties to let. In around February 2015 by their estimation there will be a surplus of supply which they reckon will drive rental prices down a touch. (I personally doubt that anyone will drop prices, it’s not a thing that happens.)
The thing to remember about Landlords is that money is their key driving factor and everything else comes a very distant 2nd. In the same way the car scrapage scheme boosted the new car industry, Buy-to-Let artificially inflated the housing market, temporarily.

Something new needs to happen about the state of housing in this country, something bold. I have a few ideas on what that could be but until my own situation has stabilised I’m doing fuck all for anyone that isn’t Family.
Good luck with Winter.

Back2theBurg.

Last week I decided it would be interesting to spend an evening at a local planning meeting, purely for research purposes you understand.
It was concerned with the former Gas Tower site on Glenfrome Road in St Werburghs, a fairly large amount of land, recently “decontaminated” after decades of use as a gas supply facility.
Decommissioned a few years ago the site was in use by the Morrison construction company, mostly for storage, until the tower itself was demolished.  The steel was taken away, the mess cleared up and the massive hole it left was filled in.
(I have a bunch of photos somewhere, I’ll edit this post when I find them.)

So, the meeting was in St Werburghs Community Centre and took place in the kitchen because of what looked like some confusion over room booking.
A good start I’m sure you’ll agree.
In attendance were several familiar faces, all well intentioned people.

Now, without going into all the details of the meeting and it’s procedure, (for there are many and they are dull) I’ll just say that best way of putting it is that it was “inconclusive”.
People exchanged various snippets of information, stated opinions and resolved to monitor the situation.

What little came from that evening is this:
The land is owned by Wales & West, a power supply company, who will be selling it at some stage. They are obliged to sell it for the highest figure they can get.
There are medium sized businesses in the area, most of which are failing and may not renew their leases. One of the business has expressed interest in buying the building they are in but no other information is available.
If those businesses end up eventually leaving, there then becomes available a much larger pocket of land in which it would be viable to build  shitloads of houses.
There is recent history of previously industrial land in this area being converted to housing use.

Most of that is true, some of it is conjecture, which makes things clumsy.

In the case of the Gas Tower site the overall best outcome would be for it to become a place for Actually Affordable housing. Not bullshit, underbuilt plasterboard hovels, Actual Homes.
In reality though that won’t happen. The best case scenario is that it becomes another Self Build like the one on The Other Side of The Tunnel. And that’s far from adequate.
St Werburghs is now an expensive place to live, for various reasons. More Self Build would push prices higher and force people further out of the central area.
Already shitloads of my friends have been forced to move out because of property prices, often ending up miles from town and their workplaces.

The state of Housing in this country is appalling. I’ll not regurgitate a bunch of words, it’s a fact.
People will die again this Winter, just as they did in the last one, because of poor housing. Also fact.

As long as housing is seen as an investment, rather than a place to live, then the situation will continue and become a whole lot worse.
The only way I can see to even attempt to reverse that is the mass occupation of empty property by people in housing need. It would take a concerted effort, it would be difficult, but possible.

St Werburghs used to be a place where many Travelers would rest up for a while before, generally, moving on to other things. Many people would be volunteers at Summer festivals, helping where they could and contributing to their success.
When construction started on the Self Build though, Bristol City Council forcibly  removed everyone living in trucks, Anti-Traveler bollards were installed and “The Crusties” were generally made to feel unwelcome.
There have been many cases of vandalism against live aboard vehicles.

Recently though there has been a quiet increase in people coming back to The Burg and living in trucks. There doesn’t appear to be the same disdain as there once was, which is obviously a Good Thing.

Elsewhere in The Burg there is unfolding a classic battle between Good and Evil in the form of the imminent sale of Lynmouth Road Allotments by a world wide liquidation company.
The basic situation is that there have been Allotments there since roughly round the time of World War 1, the company who last owned the land has gone bankrupt, which has placed the land in the hands of Liquidators. Later in September it will be auctioned to the highest bidder who will most likely be a property speculator. Bristol City Council have put in a bid of £20,000 for it but is unlikely to win.
There is a campaign running to try and save the Allotments, they’re doing well.
If they win through their methods of petitioning and waving Wurds-on-Sticks then fairplay, good job. It hasn’t worked much in the past but hey, maybe this time!

Back in the 90’s the road building programme was effectively brought to a halt by the very same people who later found themselves being removed by Bristol City Council from the streets of St Werburghs.
Post-Occupy Bristol a few of the actually homeless people who sought some kind of refuge on College Green were removed from a small patch of unused land in St Werburghs.  Land which is directly opposite Lynmouth Road Allotments.
It wasn’t cops that removed them though, it was representatives of “the local community”.  Once they were removed trees were planted where they once camped their tents, a direct attempt to discourage return.
Just like the Anti-traveler bollards.

My point, if there is one, is that when people are removed from communities, for whatever reason, their skills are also removed. To exclude people because of their lack of money is pathetic.

To bring this pile of words to a close, here is what I propose:
The former Gas Tower site become a “Winter Mooring” point for Bristol’s Traveler community until such time development begins.
An agreed “Mooring” time could be agreed beforehand, just like with liveaboard boats in Bristol Docks, a fair weather Port in the years harshest times.
When Spring arrives the trucks move on to where they need to be.
The site could be maintained by live-in Summer Caretakers and used as a short stay caravan site for visitors to the city in the warmer months.

This could happen with or without permission, it’s not important which.
It’s a viable, collaborative way for the site to be useful till the usual bastards get their hands on it.

 
October 2014 update:
When I first wrote this it got reblogged on a local forum generally concerned about community issues. The comments that followed focused on my capitalization and use of punctuation marks, not the actual points raised. Obviously annoyed by this, I made the post private and more or less stopped writing.
“What’s the fucking point” I thought.

Anyway, today I found out that the site of the former Gas tower has been occupied by a handful of people living in caravans etc. I haven’t visited the site yet, so I cannot comment on how things are.
However, I’ve been told that the owners of the land have attached some kind of notice on the gate referring to a “Common Law Eviction”. Most will remember these being used at Dale Farm some years ago and more locally at the Eco-Village site in Burgland. This process is very unpleasant, usually resulting in violence, destruction of personal property, arrest and a lot of mental suffering. All of this is inflicted by the Baliffs carrying out the “Common Law Eviction”.

With Winter approaching hard, yet again people will die purely because of poor housing.
This has got to  stop.
What I proposed last year with the “Winter Mooring” notion is now immediately possible. If a firm agreement could be brokered allowing the temporary use of the site during the colder months then all of the impacts listed above could be negated.

When I write, many of the opinions stated are not actually my own. They’re more like viewpoints that perhaps need to be discussed, or at least vocalised.  This is what I mean by “General Noise”.  I try to write fairly and consider things from as many angles available.  When perfectly valid information is ignored for the sake of my writing style it sends a very clear signal to me that the aforementioned commentors aren’t exactly rational people that I care to engage with.  So I didn’t.  I probably should have done though.

As I write now a bunch of people are sheltering from what has easily been the coldest day of the season so far, on a disused plot of land, with the imminent threat of violence hanging over them.
There is also a very concerted effort being made in the distract to “deal with” the “problem” of travellers on the streets. Vehicles and caravans are at risk and there’s a perfectly legal framework in place to remove them all from within the city limits. People may literally be thrown out of the city.
That’s really not on.
By taking the former Gas tower site I imagine the people there understand this and have tried to find a way to remain in Bristol. If, or when, the “Common Law Eviction” happens they will be put in a very turbulent situation, all of which is avoidable.

It’s really simple.
Empathise.

Screaming into The Void

In the build up to the invasion of Iraq this country assembled as one into the largest manifestation of objection to government policy that I have personally witnessed.
The efforts of all those people amounted to nothing, as did every single protest this country produced since.

Go to Poundland, buy a bucket, stick your head in it and shout as loud as you can about all the things you’re concerned with. Your voice will be heard by yourself and the people in your immediate vicinity, but that’s it.
By all means walk around town with words-on-sticks if you like, but don’t expect that to garner the result you’re after. Literally everything you do is futile in terms of legal objection to the state.
The sooner everyone  understands this the sooner we can perhaps move towards our energies being put to better use.

Humans have huge potential for Good but it will take a long time before decency overtakes ignorance.
The less time we spend screaming into The Void of  “democracy” the better.

Generation Fucked

This Cul-de-Sac of pursuit we’re currently driving down will be the end.
There is no way to halt the way things are done, the Corporate machine has no brakes, no means of stopping, apart from a wall and that’s where we’re heading.
Everyone over 35 has failed in their attempts to prevent this, however hard they tried.

The way I see it at the moment is that the people steering The Machine are either  mentally ill greedy psychopaths or they have a Tech Solution.
The first one is troublesome and nigh-on impossible to reason with.
The 2nd is impossible to reason with.

With this happy thought in mind, what possible future is viable?
Well, once the big crash finally happens I reckon it’ll be Super-Fun-Times all round for “People Who Know How To Do Stuff”, and shit times for “Consumers”.
In short, money will not function.
If that’s all you have then you’re fucked, useless and your boring corpse will be lazily kicked down the street like a tin can.

Environmental Responsibility

Warm, innit?
I’ve just been reading a thread on Something Awful in which people discuss a wide range of current events. Various things of interest came up, here’s 3:

1.
“After Mardis Gras the environmental load in the thousands of tons of plastic beads that are simply tossed away every year is staggering. Some lay hung on trees and powerlines for months, most are simply washed into the river and from there into the gulf.”

2.
“Barely two weeks after 25,000 bees were found dead in a parking lot in Oregon, another round of bee devastation has been reported. This time, the mass die-off was far worse. More than 37 million honeybees were found dead in Elmwood, Ontario, according to beekeeper Dave Schuit, who lost the bees from 600 hives in June. He and many others are pointing to insecticides called neonicotinoids, used in planting corn and some other crops. “Once the corn started to get planted [in Elmwood] our bees died by the millions,” Schuit said. After a record-breaking loss of honeybees in the U.K., the European Union banned several pesticides in May, including neonicotinoid pesticides.”

3.
“Emmeline Pankhurst, founder of the Women’s Social and Political Union in the UK, was horrified by the screams of women being force-fed in HM Prison Holloway during hunger strikes in which she participated. In her autobiography, she wrote: “Holloway became a place of horror and torment. Sickening scenes of violence took place almost every hour of the day, as the doctors went from cell to cell performing their hideous office. …I shall never while I live forget the suffering I experienced during the days when those cries were ringing in my ears.” When prison officials tried to enter her cell, Pankhurst, in order to avoid being force-fed, raised a clay jug over her head and announced: “If any of you dares so much as to take one step inside this cell I shall defend myself.”

—–

“Challenge ACCEPTED!”

Last year Mr Mark McGowan posted a piece to You Tube in which he was incredulous at the near total lack of anything approaching effective protest in this country. One of the things he mentioned was the then approaching backdoor privatisation of the NHS.
“Wait till that shit starts kicking off! Then you’ll see!” he said.
I took a track by the almighty Zoomzip and pasted a load of Mark’s words on it, here:

(Sorry about the shit video, can’t be arsed making one to match the track yet.)

Anyway, it’s a year or so later and the NHS as we know it is packing it’s desk, flanked by Security. The shit hasn’t quite hit the fan yet, but it’s certainly approaching the blades and everyone knows what’s about to happen.
BOOM! Carnage.
The streets are still quiet, everyone’s taking it like an abused wife.
One of these days though, one of these fucking days everyone will snap and it won’t be a Funday for Bastards.