I apologise in advance if this turns into a mish-mash of ideas and a ramble. I'm trying to tease the Who I Am Response out of the knotted tangle of Emotional Reactions of what I have seen over the past few days.

I reject the idea that the riots that have dominated several English cities are simply a product of poverty, or race. I see people from all walks of life indulging in this behaviour - men and women, boys and girls of many ethnic backgrounds. They are not dressed in rags, they are in possession of mobile phones and some of them have jobs - a graphic designer, a teacher and someone who recently joined the armed forces - these are not poverty stricken, unemployed youths from the ganglands.

I have heard several interviews where perpetrators claim the responsibility lies with the government, and yes in some ways it does - but I cannot accept the failures of government justifies violence, destruction, theft and killing. Even if I sometimes see the government indulging in those very same examples of behaviour.

I do not wholly support the Police - their methods are highly questionable and their management of crowds fails often, and even leads to the death of innocent people. We need to know the full story of what happened in the taxi that resulted in the shooting of Mark Duggan. We need to know the full story behind claims that a 16 year old girl was attacked by 15 riot police at the vigil following his death - did police methods inflame things? If so, they need to consider their part in this.

I reject the idea that rioting that spread was in any way a protest against Mark Duggan's shooting. It looked more to me like a free for all opportunity to steal coveted consumer goods and destroy other people's property. That is unacceptable to me as "protest".

I am bemused by the apparent lack of police response in many areas. I am bemused by the reports that instructions seemed to be "stand back and let it happen". I understand that they were stretched and dealing with a highly unusual and challenging set of circumstances, but I cannot help but recall my own negative experiences of police behaviour. I experienced kettling during a political rally in Edinburgh - the road was officially closed to traffic by the council until 5pm to allow space for the protest to conclude with the rally. At around 3pm the police began to close ranks and try to herd us onto the pavement, squashing us together like sardines. They had no legitimate reason for doing this and it felt very much like they were trying to instigate trouble. To this day I think it was an abuse of power, but I know that if trouble had erupted it would have been the protesters who would have been tarred with the brush of disgrace.

Another encounter with Police springs to mind - this time in London following an American Football game at Wembley. We were walking to the tube station and crowd management techniques apparently involve mounted police creating breaks in the crowd to filter folk down in stages. The policewoman on the horse nearest us beckoned us through and we stepped forward and then the policeman on the other side shouted and backed his horse at me and I thought I was going to be trampled. I thought it was disgraceful that in following the instructions of one officer, another felt entitled to endanger me and intimidate me.

On neither of these occasions was I breaking any law, acting in an unruly manner or damaging anyone's property.

So to watch the footage of riots, violence and looting and see officers standing back leaves me confused. It seems like a massive swing to go from over zealous treatment of peaceful people (including the death of Ian Tomlinson) to the softly softly approach taken this week with violent rioters.

Of course in some places the police did not even turn up, so stretched were their numbers - but at the very least questions need answers and there needs to be better definition over what is acceptable from a crowd and what is acceptable from police.

Seeing the wider reaction and commentary to the riots, I can at once understand the anger at what these people have done but I also find myself wondering why things erupted this way - what were the catalysts, how can we create a phoenix from the flames and heal the rifts in society that breed this contempt?

I hear the calls for water cannons and rubber bullets, the calls for intervention from the army and I feel sad that we collectively seem to want to respond in kind. For to respond to the specific incidents that have taken place with any of these extreme measures equates to instantly over-riding guidelines and policies with a knee-jerk reaction. I appreciate experienced police officers who have experience of using these methods in Northern Ireland speaking out and saying that none of the incidents have warranted rubber bullets etc. In London, at least, the increased police numbers seems to have averted repeat performances without the need to resort to violence.

One theme running through this for me is the group dynamic - how the frenzy builds and people allow themselves to follow the crowd and do things they would not normally do, or say things they would not normally say. There has been a freedom or safety in numbers for the people who gathered to loot and riot, and this group dynamic also plays out in the reaction that calls for a violent response in return.

The even bigger picture spreads out and I think of Norway and the recent attacks and I think of the response from the Norwegian Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, when he called for more democracy in response to terrorism.

"If one man alone can show so much hate, imagine all the love and humanity a whole nation can give." ~ Jens Stoltenberg

It is difficult to separate the judgement and anger at what these people have done - the injuries to people and animals (five police dogs were injured), the destruction of homes and businesses, the theft of so much property and the arrogant joy some of them express at their achievements. I'm quite sweary when I listen or watch, but I think we have a lot to learn from all the threads of this tangled web and a measured response is better than a reactionary retaliation.

We can demonise the people who burned down homes but we must remember that the police are not pristine providers of safety and freedom any more than David Cameron is an honourable man who upholds peace - his example as a leader involved in several armed conflicts, who in his own youth partied with the Bullingdon Club (a club who rent restaurants and vandalise them as a bit of posh fun) and has employed a man of questionable media practises in the form of Andy Coulson.

I'm still thinking, and sorting and need more coffee...

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Riot Responses originally appeared on Taexalia on August 10, 2011.

When I skimmed my RSS reader this morning, my eye was caught buy a post entitled How To Create Change: Don't Help People. I opened the post and, before I started reading, I made a few wee assumptions...

• I was going to read a timely reminder about saying No to time predators
• I was going to read something wholly inspiring and uplifting
• I was going to nod my head and agree with everything I read

Although the timely reminder didn't materialise in the post itself, I was prompted to revisit the idea of time predators and remind myself that it's OK to say No to time predators - and that saying No to time predators doesn't impact in any way on how nice I am.

I've struggled recently with time, generosity, boundaries and balance. It's really easy for me to say yes to everyone who asks and then find myself short of time/energy to take care of my own projects and goals. I'm practising, always practising, being mindful of my own needs rather than allowing other folk to plant themselves at the centre of my universe.

But the Men With Pens post didn't really deal with saying no to people. The article focuses on Not Helping People from a different, and in my view, slightly skewed angle.

Instead of the author accepting responsibility for his own need to help people when they haven't asked, or asking his readers to accept responsibility for their need to interfere (which, let's face it, is what a lot of unsolicited helpfulness amounts to), the author indulged in half a post of demeaning commentary about how the people who don't want unsolicited help are really happy in their misery.

I found myself with a wry smile on my face as I realised this post was advising busy bodies to let go of control and stop trying to make other people just like them - which is advice I do agree with.

He's right in that folk often don't want "help" if they haven't asked for it. For myself, I find other people's attachment to how they think I should change annoying and sometimes draining. I much prefer to be left alone to muddle through and help myself, rather than hear about how someone else thinks I am failing/not measuring up to their standards - especially when I haven't asked them.

So yes, I'm all for busy bodies reeling their needs in and focusing only on helping folk who have specifically asked

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How To Create Change… originally appeared on Taexalia on January 10, 2011.

I confess I am tired of the snow.

It's hard walking a hound in a world where the motion of cars is The Most Important Thing. This translates to a street where the pavements have been used as a dumping place for snow. We have to walk on the road. Is it on the road, or in the road? Either/Or.

People are digging out their cars and throwing snow onto the pavement, sometimes they are throwing it onto the pavement across the street from their own home. Sometimes they are doing this after the Cooncil have cleared that pavement and tried to make it vaguely passable for pedestrians.

People are digging out their driveways and making prideful comments about how talented they are at building snow walls. These snow walls extend their drive all the way to the kerb, sometimes further. They block the pavement with a wall of snow that will be the last snow to melt. Their gardens remain pretty with pristine, undisturbed snow.

The roads have been cleared and sanded and salted, forming a brown, ugly, mushy layer that bids to prevent ice forming. Some drivers see a clear road and return to "normal" driving - always pushing the speed limit. Their blinkered determination to get to the shops turns pedestrians into target practise. They sound their horn because people cannot, or will not, immediately climb into thigh deep snow piles (some of which were created by the very driver with their hand on the horn) to allow them to continue careening forwards as fast as possible.

They scare old people, and they scare dogs. Actually they scare whomever happens to be unlucky enough to be walking in their path.

I realise I am not tired of snow, I am just tired of hearing about community spirit when faced with the real behaviour of drivers in this community.

I am not tired of the sunrise on the Scots Pine.

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Morning Sunshine originally appeared on Taexalia on December 9, 2010.

I don't think I need to host a video of the animal cruelty story of the week ~ Mary Bale the RBS employee who was caught on CCTV dumping a cat in a wheelie bin. Her actions resulted in the cat, Lola, being trapped for nearly 16 hours before her owners discovered the cat terrified in her own mess.

Britain, the most CCTV-ed nation in the world, soon gave birth to a new internet sensation that wasn't quite as heart-warming as the Susan Boyle lovefest. Before she knew it, Mary Bale was a YouTube and Facebook star ~ her disgusting and unforgivable act doing the viral faster than it takes a status update to publish.

Sadly, the keyboard heroes of the world expressed their vitriol in threats of violence and even death threats. They not only lowered themselves to her level, they succeeded in making her a victim.

Instead of West Midlands Police investigating her behaviour, they spent tax-payers money giving her Police protection. Whilst they claimed the muscles outside her home were not actually Police Officers but Community Support Officers, one could accuse them of splitting hairs somewhat ~ someone pays for the protective presence, don't they?

Of course, in the face of the Facebook fanatics, what choice did they have but to protect her? Whatever my personal anger towards perpetrators of animal cruelty, I don't think we need to go the route of vigilantism and violent retribution when there is a legal system in place to deal with it. It does not matter whether the threats were made with the intention of follow through or not, they have been made with the intention of intimidating someone and how is that behaviour any better than what happened to the cat?

Sadly, that legal system seems to be somewhat remiss when West Midlands Police suggest they are working with the RSPCA but suggested that no crime has been committed. I'm no expert on the laws of England & Wales ~ but if this is true then surely something needs to change, doesn't it?

I hope the RSPCA do prosecute Mary Bale for animal cruelty and that she is found guilty. I also hope that her actions are not minimised by the abusive hordes who, in making her a victim, give her the space to shirk responsibility for her behaviour.

But I wonder ~ why did the cat's owners go to the internet first, rather than the Police?

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Mary Bale ~ How To Be A Victim originally appeared on Taexalia on August 26, 2010.

Last week my personal equilibrium was assaulted by an idiot from Scottish Hydro. This was later followed up by a pointless email from their customer service department who suggested I go and buy a sticker and decorate my door with it and their sales reps *may* adhere to the reques but, since the sticker is not legally binding, then again they may not.

This week my personal space, and indeed my personal equilibrium, has been assaulted by a charity no less.

Plastic bags are banned from my home. People who bring them in, even my mother-in-law, are given them back as they leave. Plastic bags are a scourge to the environment, whether they have a supermarket logo on them, or indeed a charity logo. As a person who sees the impact of plastic rubbish on wildlife, I detest them.

Since we moved here I have become increasingly appalled at the sheer volume of plastic sacks that are shoved through my letterbox by various charities (and companies trying to appear as charities). Some weeks I find myself with five different plastic bags begging for my old clothes. No-one, not even me, has enough clutter to fill these sacks. Each time one appears I have to take responsibility for the plastic piece of rubbish that it becomes because there is no-one to hand them back to.

Today, as I wandered to the kitchen for a coffee, I noticed that some idiot had left one of these sacks in my garden. Rather than walk four feet further and climb a thigh killing three steps to my front door and letterbox, they decided to simply dump their piece of DiabetesUK plastic waste in my garden. When I had collected the rubbish from my garden, I placed a call to the number on the sack to complain. You could say I reached the tipping point.

It seems that it is not even DiabetesUK who left the sack there, but a company they pay to deliver them. This means that the hard earned money that people donate to their charity is actually being used to pay non charity litter louts.

Having made the call, I then noticed that it wasn't just my garden that had been treated with such disrespect - the property next door also had a baggy dumped - this time on top of the wheelie bin at the top of the stairs. This property is empty and no-one will be there to collect the litter. When the wind picks up, I wonder what will happen to that piece of plastic waste?

Have you heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Or the plastic islands in the Atlantic Ocean's Sargasso Sea?

Charity status should not mean these organisations are free to litter and pollute our world.

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Charity Pollution and Littering originally appeared on Taexalia on August 20, 2010.

This is my doorstep. It is the entrance to my home. I do not think I am particularly unusual in wanting my home to be a private, peaceful place where I can relax and shut out the rest of the world. I have fought very hard for those things over the last few years, having been subjected to untenable noise by ignorant people who think that they have the right to ruin my life, and my sleep, with their appalling behaviour. Now that I have peace and quiet, the concept of home is quite important to me. I don't think I'm particularly unusual in that, pig-headed past neighbours or not.

My doorstep is for welcoming friends and family, accepting parcel deliveries, having a coffee in the morning sunshine, pondering my plan for a butterfly and bee garden. It is not a place where strange men should feel it is their right to disturb me, patronise me, try to manipulate me and lie to me.

Some time ago we decided to have a nosey at what other companies were doing compared to the company that we were paying for our gas and electricity. I don't think we were particularly unusual in doing this at the end of our year contract - a free market suggests the customer looks around for the best deal. We didn't actually switch to the cheapest supplier because the customer reviews for that company were not complimentary. We researched the options and made our choice.

A few days later my personal equilibrium was shattered not by a lunatic on laminate or a sick sub-woofing psycho. This time my working day was interrupted by an arrogant man from our ex-power company. Scottish Power. He was very insistent on trying to manipulate me and, actually, bully me into divulging information about who we had switched to, how much we were paying etc. I explained that I was not interested in cold-calling and he tried to tell me that turning up on my doorstep uninvited to sell me power was not cold-calling or marketing.

It didn't end there. Next Scottish Power began a series of phonecalls attempting to buy us back. They promised to offer us a better deal than the one we were getting but they refused to put the offer in writing - we had to agree to the deal on the phone there and then. No chance to compare the actual deal with our new deal, no time to think or research. We left them with the suggestion that they give us their best offer in writing and we'd consider it, we have since heard nothing.

We have no complaints over our new supplier and no reason to look elsewhere.

Yesterday was a busy day for me and I was happily whizzing around getting things done, creating things and in a particularly groovy frame of mind. Unusually, I was working to a deadline and I had my afternoon planned out with military precision.

This was all ruined by a knock on the door. It was not a family member, or a friend or a neighbour. It was not a parcel, or a pizza, or even a bottle of wine. It was a man from Scottish Hydro Electric.

He told me his name, which I forget, and that he was the assistant manager of something or other. I asked him rather pointedly if he was cold calling me and trying to sell me something and he, ludicrously, suggested that he wasn't.

He spouted some crap about how he was visiting people to check whether they were "on the right tariff" as there had been reports that people were being "miss-sold" power. He tried to come across as some sort of Robin Hood of gas saving the masses from being exploited by their own stupidity - because that is the way with these doorstep cold-callers, they all believe householders are dumbos.

He explained that we had been "flagged up" because we had recently switched power companies.

It should be noted that at no point were we ever an actual customer of Scottish Hydro Electric and I'm very curious about how they "flag up" people who switch power who aren't even on their books as a customer.

Basically this man was a cold caller trying to market his company to me and he didn't like that I could see right through his spiel and that I refused to be manipulated into giving out our information. After a few moments I smiled at him and said "you aren't listening to me, are you?". He then explained that I was within my rights not to buy anything from him.

No shit Sherlock.

I like to think I am also within my rights not to have to argue with someone to get them off my doorstep. I like to think I am within my rights not to have someone trying to manipulate me into sharing information I choose to keep to myself, especially on my doorstep.

Having finally closed the door, I came back upstairs to my desk and grumbled to the greyhound. I grumbled on Twitter too. The next thing I know, Scottish Hydro are following me on Twitter and trying to make things better, but really only making things worse.

According to MJ:

"I should explain; we only visit people who are not already our customers and your visit was not related to any switch you might have made recently."

Which is in direct conflict with what mr assistant manager of bullshit stated, on my doorstep, yesterday.

I don't think I'm particularly unusual in thinking that cold calling is a nuisance and I would like to live without it.

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Power Struggle originally appeared on Taexalia on August 12, 2010.

The media, the Police and quite a lot of other people are in a frenzy trying to discern the breed of dog which killed four year old Paul Massey.

They've got it all wrong.

The problem is not the genetic build of the dog, the problem is the behaviour of the people who owned the dog. The question is not whether the dog falls under an ineffective piece of legislation, the question is whether the owners should have owned any dog (or animal) at all.

The stupidity of the act may be demonstrated by the number of non "dangerous" dogs who are euthanized every year for aggression issues - a collie cross who bites children is more dangerous than a pit bull who has a responsible, knowledgeable owner with good consistent boundaries.

Whatever the breed turns out to be, the dog who killed Paul Massey has paid the price with its life and the owners of the dog, perhaps with the help of the Dangerous Dogs Act, will be free to Blame The Breed - rather than their own failures.

What happened to Paul Massey is a tragic and horrible thing, but it was also preventable. Isn't it time to look at a better way to manage dog ownership than holding up a few breeds as easy targets, and instead hold up the people who don't know how to manage a dog as the perpetrators of the crimes?

Photo Credit: Unkown

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Dangerous Owners Act originally appeared on Taexalia on December 1, 2009.

I stopped blogging again. It's like a yo-yo on this domain - get some peace, get some confidence, get some momentum and then BAM off it goes again. Silence except for the Tweets. I'll tell you what the BAM is - it's bams. Bams as in people. Let's just say that during the last couple of years this blog has attracted a few bottom-feeder readers. Instead of looking at it as a compliment, a mark of an interesting blog I seem to react by going silent.

The latest bottom feeder is going to get a mention because their time spent on this blog is paid for by taxpayers - and if I don't bloody say it on here I may never say anything on here again.

So.

During the process of trying to get help and resolution with A Problem, we have repeatedly been told by Fife Council that their failure to resolve this Problem (which has now been a Problem for at least fifteen months) is due to "a lack of resources".

It is like a kick in the teeth to be told this when I am looking at my webstats and seeing a person spending their working day reading this blog. Yes that's right - Fife Council don't have the resources to control a serious Problem that they are legally bound to resolve, but we taxpayers are paying them to spend their day surfing the Internet.

I'm guessing that if the culture of these departments allows the "workers" the freedom to use "customers" personal details to search them out on Google to see what they can find out, then I'm guessing my sites aren't the only sites where publicly funded working days are being wasted.

Yep, you read that correctly. Not only did that person waste public money surfing the Internet from a Fife Council IP address during their working day, they got here after looking at personal details I had provided during the process of trying to get help regarding our Problem and typing my name into the Google search bar.

Fab, eh? We pay our taxes and the people who are meant to be working for us are acting this way. And when we lodge a complaint we get excuses and doublespeak and not even an apology. In fact what actually happened was a repeat performance.

The Problem? Still a problem and there is still a lack of resources.

It's not rocket science.

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How Our Fife Council Tax Is Spent originally appeared on Taexalia on November 29, 2009.

CWU members voted to destroy small businesses and disrupt mail during the busiest time of the year by going on strike. I haven't seen a coherent explanation of exactly what they are striking about, and I strongly suspect some of them are still bearing a grudge about the expectation that they work a full shift for a full shift wage. The only reason I see coming up again and again is resistence to the planned modernisation of the way the Royal Mail works.

I am a personal and a business customer of Royal Mail and it is my opinion that, given some of the amazing cock-ups I have experienced (don't pay for a re-direction service unless you are prepared to accept that your mail will first be delivered to your old address and only be re-directed when the new resident maybe puts it back in the postbox marked "Not At This Address"), the Royal Mail desperately needs modernisation.

Thank goodness the CWU weren't around in the 19th Century, or we might be much more familiar with the clatter of hooves as the Stagecoach rolled into town...

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CWU Striking To Prevent Royal Mail Modernisation… originally appeared on Taexalia on October 20, 2009.

"Did you ever think, when you held or looked at a beautiful pearl,
that its origin was irritation? An oyster, in response to the
irritating presence of sand within its shell, creates a thing of
beauty." ~ Thomas F Crum

I thought I had found the pearl birthed from the last piece of grit but it seems that I have just floated on the ebb to a different shore and inherited a new piece of grit. A second strike of lightning.

I want to know what the thing of beauty is that this piece of grit is going to create. I don't want to wait, to fight, to stand up for my rights. I don't want to endure, to learn to relax and cope. I don't want to be told to shut up and do some gardening. The piece of grit has really really sharp edges and is irritating me multiple times a day. It is constant. It is in my shell, in my body mind and emotions and it isn't going to go away.

It interrupts my work flow. It interrupts my sleep. It interrupts my creative flow. It interrupts my dreams. It interrupts the chapter of the book I am reading.

It breaks into my world whether I am doing something mundane like washing the dishes or something constructive like trying to figure out code on my website or something deeper like just trying to meditate.

Funnily enough I feel emotions when this piece of grit makes its presence known, when the people who are meant to clean the grit up fail spectacularly - not all of these emotions are sunshine and daisies. In fact none of them are.

That is all.

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But I *am* Living In The Moment – It is the moment that is the problem originally appeared on Taexalia on October 6, 2009.