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Another One Bites The Dust!

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A reason for no blogs since November has been because we were asked to take in a lad whose placement had come to an end because his former carers were old and had health issues. I will write up stuff about our holiday in Menton... It was just before Christmas when I was contacted about this lad and I felt cornered. There is supposed to be a get-to-know-you period before placements, but it has NEVER happened! It is ALWAYS an emergency. I've repeatedly asked for a companion for the lad for whom I already care, but the lad they asked me to take on has additional needs. Rather than being a companion, and, despite being an year older than the lad I look after, it has felt like a liability having him around! Christmas was shot, as I feared going anywhere with this unknown entity who gave me constant SULLEN on full blast... I won't rehearse all the issues here, but I found myself ready to throw in the towel by January and initiated the proceedure. The following day, supposedly unpromp
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What Can I Do With A Stinky Teenager?

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  OK so he doesn't actually stink! -Mainly because I force him into the shower most mornings, but I have an on-going issue about his personal hygiene and keeping his room clean. I ask him to do very little else- apart from cleaning up any mess he makes: I clean, wash, shop etc, ALL he has to do is keep his room and his body clean... But he does not do it. I have tried every response from calm understanding to incadescent fury, nothing works. I get 'the face' while I am talking to him and while he is forced to rectify the issue, but it is clear that anything I say or impression left is lost almost as quickly. Last Thursday, I discovered that he had let his room get to a completely unacceptable state so I told him there would be sanctions- the last time I saw it this bad, I had previously warned him I would make him empty his room and clean it thoroughly before replacing each item into the room. It took most of a day (mainly because he was being deliberately slow which had no
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Gaza October 2023

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October 7th: Hamas fighters used hang gliders to cross Israel's border and attack a festival. 1,400 people were reported killed or taken hostage. Israel (under Netanyahi) lost their shit and started retaliating almost immediately and things have been increasingly nasty ever since. Internationally, the mantra has been "Israel has the right to defend itself". The American president, Britain's Prime Minister and the EU council have all parrotted that statement. Meanwhile MASS protests e.g. an estimated 500,000 people in London are taking place across the world as citizens show their support of Gaza. Israel says it understands that Hamas is not Palestine, but that has not stopped them cutting off power, water, food and medicines to the people of Gaza whilst they and, to drop thousands of bombs and missiles onto a population that is trapped by Israeli checkpoints and restrictions. Israel instructed two million Gazans to flee south in two days and that route was then bombed
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X: Twitter in a Post Truth Age

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  I've been using the app formerly known as 'Twitter' in the last few months. I joined in 2010, but the idea of sharing my unasked-for thought with "The World" didn't attract me so I all but forgot about it.  I think it was when I was on holiday that I began to look at it more as I idled away hours. I was shocked to find a LOT of porn on it! -Not that I shied away that much ;-). Before long, I noticed a preoccupation with a handful of subjects: 'Getting rid of the Tories', 'The State of the Labour Party under Keir Starmer', 'Harry and Meghan' and, 'Trans Rights' etc. I moved from 'Observer' to 'Occassional Commentator' but have rarely actually initiated a tweet. I got my first singe when I supported a post from @Pride challenging anti Trans arguments. I was immediately attacked with some eye-watering accusations that my agreement signalled my endorsement of Child Abuse and some insanity about Gay men being forced
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La Pigasse!

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  I found myself chatting with Sanyotse when we returned from Turkey. He casually let slip that he was "keeping up with [his]Chemo", whch shocked me. I vaguely knew he had some health issue, I didn't expect it to be chemo-worthy. He mentioned that he is lonely. I immediately told him I would be coming before the end of the summer holidays with or without the lad. I made it clear to the lad that I wanted him to come, bus that this was not going to be a holiday in the sense of being in Turkey: there would be minimal "activities" and, the aim of the holiday was to chil. If he did not want to go, I was going to arrange for him to stay with his previous carers. He chose to come. I warned him that I would not listen to any moaning about being "bored"! Sanoytse has a place in Normandy called La Pigasse. It had been briefly marketed as a retreat space- the page is still on Facebook. I remembered it being launched and said at the time that I thought it would st
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Turkey!

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  I hadn't been out of the country for... eight or more years! I owed it to the lad to give him a holiday worth talking about when he got back to school. It took me a long time to decide where to go, the lad wasn't much help. Turkey seemed obvious: not too expensive and full of holidaying Brits from what I could see. There were a load of packages on offer. I eventually booked one. Normally an "all inclusive" deal would have put me off, I wasn't going for myself but for the lad. Yes, that IS the truth: I WOULD have been content to have stayed at home LOL. As it progressed I was disappointed to find out how much was NOT included... I persuaded Raice to cat-sit. He said he appreciated the time away from his mother! Things went wrong from arriving in Turkey: the holiday company had booked the transfer from the airport to the hotel when I called and asked about travel from airport to hotel. That wasn't included. I found out that was a 127 mile trip and almost cance
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Windrushed

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This year is the seventy-fifth anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush in Tilbury carrying 500 people from the Caribbean. TV schedules are full of documentaries revealing little known details like the fact that it was the owners of the ship who offered a rock-bottom fare back to England because they did not want the expense of an empty ship back to Blighty. More interesting was to learn of the PANIC amongst British politicians when they found out about the ship. Secret memos reveal worries about Black people taking up their RIGHT to settle in Britain. It showed that the British were happier taking people who had fought against them as SS officers and spoke no English than Black men who had fought FOR Britain, had been fed 'British culture' all their lives and believed they were going to help 'the motherland'. 'The Windrush Scandal' grew out of the Tory "Hostile Environment" strategy which suddenly required people who came to Britain before 19
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