Wildewire

  Facebook does entertain me: I laugh at all the pretence. They implement issues of morality in quite peculiar and unequal ways. I have been censured for the 6th time or so, for seven days, for attempting to post the following image which, allegedly contravenes their rules on nudity. : " "Do not post: Images of Real nude adults, where nudity is defined as Visible genitalia except in the context of birth giving and after-birth moments or health-related situations (for example, gender confirmation surgery, examination for cancer or disease prevention/assessment) Visible anus and/or fully nude close-ups of buttocks unless photoshopped on a public figure Uncovered female nipples except in the context of breastfeeding, birth giving and after-birth moments, health-related situations (for example, post-mastectomy, breast cancer awareness or gender confirmation surgery) or an act of protest" If you think this picture contravenes those rules, please let me know.  As soon

  "Lockdown" has been easier for me than for many: I have become used to a restricted existence as I have been out of work for so long. I have cut luxuries like 'nights out' from my impoverished existence for the best part of two years and before that, my stressful and underpaid job hardly left much to even run the car on which I relied to get to the blooming job so I had not been splashing the cash much before that. I'm bothered by reactions to the pandemic: people making a fuss about wearing masks when they're in contact with other people, others who pretend to honour the "bubble" of contacts concept, and still more who just refuse to accept anything they've been told and refuse to alter their behaviours because... they're British(?). I've been consistently disappointed in my constant attempts to find paid employment. I have railed about applying for jobs for which I am qualified and where I can demonstrate appropriate experience. I am

I am more than a little appalled to have found myself out of work since August 2018. I was underpaid in my last job to the point where I couldn't afford to maintain the car on which I relied for the 66mile daily commute. Despite responsibility for 15 staff running a council-owned venue with nearly £600K turnover, I found I was being paid the same as the CEO's diary-keeper. If I had known it would have taken this long to find a replacement job, I would have still left as they claimed not to be able to pay me as much as the next lowest paid "manager". Long hours, long commutes and poor pay didn't leave much room for much else so my "social life" had dwindled long before the Covid 19 hit. I had fallen into the custom of having a Green Day with two friends on Saturday or Sunday (depending on NUFC fixtures) since about 2015 and this became my weekly social highlight.  UK is now into the second Lockdown and although a vaccine- three in fact have been developed

Discovering the Radical Faeries was great! One of the things I liked most about them was the diversity of participants: not only does it welcome LGBTQ people but I experienced my first residential queer event where I wasn't literally the only Black person. I will always be grateful for that... However... Unarmed George Floyd was murdered by policeman Derek Chauvin on May 25th and most of the world was triggered into making positive statements and practical acknowledgements of racism and police brutality. it was exciting because, since BREXIT, there has been a palpable feeling that advances in race relations since the 1970s had simply slipped away. I was hoping the Fae would join in, but they didn't- there was nothing alluding to it on their social media profiles etc. They have a 'Faeries of Colour' Facebook page which I kept checking in to see if anyone apart from me had shared anything but nothing was ever there. When the page was started, by a well-meaning Fae with li

I confess that most weeks with absolutely no green are tiresome, but in the 9th (?) week of the UK 'lockdown' it is proving more difficult for me than is reasonable. Facebook is my main diversion as I've found no new job opportunities for which I can apply for a while. -A month ago I found out that I've been shortlisted for a job I think I'd actually enjoy, but they're not going to interview until the lockdown eases. My problem with Facebook is that people  state their opinions regardless of science or (my interpretation of) common sense and are adamant about their "right" to do so. I've locked horns with friends keen to end the lockdown including one who's severely asthmatic and has at least one very small child and another who keeps announcing that it is a "hoax" but won't elaborate on that statement.  The government wants state schools to reopen on June 1st but public schools like Eton et al won't reopen until Septemb

When an ex-partner/fomer MEGA crush recently shared on Facebook his abhorrence of the word Queer as a descriptor for non-heterosexual people, I realised that my feelings about the word have shifted. "Reclaiming" words of hate is a complicated business; when "Queer" became fashionable in UK in the early 1980s I noticed that Queers were almost entirely white, under thirty, had cash enough to be in all the "right" bars wearing a uniform that featured jeans, tight white tee shirts and green "bomber-style" jackets with orange lining. As a black man, I never felt part of that crowd. It amused me that a particular journalist, who was a High Priest of the 'movement' at the time was, a few years ago, calling out guys who dressed like that. The fact that he no longer looks good in that drag might have something to do with it. My attitude to "Queer" changed when I made friends with a couple of different straight guys who are comfortabl

The sanctuary project has not progressed. It has been well over a year since I discovered that one of the main people in the group had a completely different and largely incompatible concept of what we were trying to achieve; they were openly antigonistic to the idea of being open to the visitors who form both the spiritual and financial engine of the project.  I did my usual of taking on all the planning and realised my mistake when, despite a week-end meeting where we went through proposals line by line, my two partners displayed a lack of understanding of the fundamentals of the project. This has happened before: when I started Intercultural Arts, I took on all the planning and got a group to act as its trustees. All I asked them to do was to read monthly reports on the project's progress, which proved too much. By the end; I was shouldering so much of the project on my own I began to miss submissions and incur fines which is why I closed it down. This has been the first tim

I'm definitely less productive at the moment than I have been. My morning Facebook binge has gone from around ninety minutes to more than a couple of hours. I'm depressed by people who post their opinions- that the Covid-19 virus was man-made, that it is being disseminated via 5G telephone masts, that the lockdown is a Nazi -(yes "Nazi" plot) etc. Someone I know claimed that people VOLUNTEERING to take part in vaccine trials were succombing to "the Nazi National Health Service". I asked her to explain and she doubled down with more of her OPINION- as we know; opinion overrules science and empirical fact. I decided to unfriend her rather than enter into futile debate. Another friend posted about "this man-made virus". When I asked him to share his source material he talked about governmental management failures, but wouldn't accept that wasn't the same as saying the virus had been man made. This friend is older and [fact] sparsely educated

An interesting by-product of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the responses of people with extreme religious beliefs who claim that their faith is stronger than the virus. Sadly, for them; the virus didn't get the note and there have been a succession of "pastors" "immams" and others dropping dead from "Covid 19 complications" (AKA their own stupidity and arrogance) and unknown numbers of their "flocks" and their famillies who've been infected and/or died. When one "pastor" claimed that he'd continue his services until he was "in jail or in hospital" just two weeks before he was in a morgue it was clear that he DID understand the risks but flouted them anyway. Well... The pandemic and self-isolation instructions have come at Easter; one of the most lucrative times in the "Christian" calendar. "Churches", especially in America where they pay no tax have business plans built around estimations o

The doorbell rang on Sunday. It was a guy I'd helped out almost ten years ago when he was suffering abuse from his Thai wife who, once she'd become a mother, told him how she was going to kick him out of their house and make him pay for it until the kid was 16. He was a friend of a longterm lodger. When I met him his wife attacked him regularly- I took photographic evidence and I contacted various social support oganisation and social work officials on his behalf all of whom were poised and ready to deal with a very real issue that men up here refuse to acknowledge. He did nothing. He refused to contact these people who were waiting to help him. I literally took it to the point where I couldn't do any more- he would have to step up. Eventually the various officials, two of whom were embarrassed at their work because of this told me there was nothing they could do any more. I was left feeling VERY exposed, embarrassed and quite annoyed. I didn't cut ties with him imm

I just hope that we; the people, will be able to hang onto the practical changes being implemented to combat the global pandemic. This is an opportunity for the biggest redistribution of wealth... ever! A little over ten years ago, governments across the world used financial reserves to prop up the failing banking system; the prevailing wisdom was that without the banks world economies would fail. Now that people are unable to work and therefore earn, they will be getting into debt, what will the banks do now? If people can't pay their mortgages, or rent will they be evicted? If they can't pay for utilities, will they be disconnected? Either way; the situation is unprecedented and there will be a moment when we, the people will have the power to make things change for our permanent betterment or we will allow "them" to restore the stinking status quo. Perennially intractable issues like housing the homeless have suddenly been implemented and most people are real

Well!!! I don't think that 2020 is turning out to be much like many people hoped. I'm writing at the start of the 2nd week of "lockdown" in UK in response to the global Covid 19 pandemic. My experience hasn't been that different from life pre-lockdown TBH; having been unemployed since August 2018, money has been too tight to spend on much beside "essentials". Nevertheless; I've had a very positive attitude since late February when I had a flash of inspiration that reminded me that I was in charge of my responses to whatever happens to me and that being more positive would generate the sorts of vibrations around me to enhance not hinder my life. I watched something which made the point that if you're constantly believing that things won't get any better you'll probably collaborate in making that a reality. Think about it: if you have a mindset that fails to recognise the potential positives in a situation, you won't be able to purs

So: Prince Harry and his wife have stepped down from duties as members of the British Royal Family, vowed to repay tax-payer's money spent on the house the Queen gave them, to spend most of their time in Canada and to be financially independant. This is in response to the unfettered, unrelenting racist jibes Meghan, Duchess of Sussex has received from the moment the British press got wind that someone nearish to the British throne was courting a 'dusky beauty'. It was sort of polite, if totally clueless at the start: references to Meghan's "exotic DNA" and Princes Michael of Kent wearing a bejewelled 'blackamoor' broach when she met Harry's fiancee. It has got progressively worse; Harry broke with protocol and told the press he wouldn't stand for it, so they stepped up the snide comments and attacks. I became increasingly annoyed. The usual arguments about "The Royals" weren't even dusted off- just rolled out in that particu

There didn't seem to be much to celebrate! This feeling seems to intensify each year!! But, being STILL broke and out of work, achieving the age of 59, whilst an achievement of sorts, didn't warrant particular effort. I thought for a moment there might have been a reminder on Facebook, but there wasn't which was fine. Luckily, my friend came round with supplies- and a jumper he claimed was too big for him. He didn't know it was my birthday so it became a de facto pressie! Apart from the fact that I'm one lodger short at the moment and therefore my income has almost halved, life is settled into a fairly stressless if unexciting routine. The lodger is only here for half the week so I get lots of glorious time to myself. A big part of my day is looking and applying for jobs. I really don't understand what I'm doing wrong so that I'm not being shortlisted. Is it my age? -My reputation? -My sexuality? Should I pretend to be something I'm not just to

I am a bloody good director of theatre, my work is better than much I have seen! My sadness has been that I finished my training at a particularly difficult time for the Creative Sector in UK: the mid-1980s belonged to the Thatcher government who thought that art and culture wasn't something that the state needed to be supporting so it cut grants and support and opportunities for work suddenly disappeared as encumbent directors hung onto their jobs for dear life. I also made soppy, community-minded decisions about my early work rather than going all out for developing a "reputation" while I was young. Without a 'financially comfortable' family to fall back on I relied on my general management skills to make a living as close to "The Arts" as I could. But each contract took me further away from where I wanted to be. I'd been working for the Black Theatre Forum after raising the money to relocate The Actors Centre to its current location which includ

I'm struggling with the fact that I am STILL looking for work 17 months after I resigned from my last job! I couldn't have remained in the job; my pay was just enough to stop me sliding into more debt but not to address the 7 months of no income I'd had after being made redundant when I couldn't pay my mortgage. I thought the poor pay was down to working for a local authority until they made the mistake of sharing a list of salaries and I realised I'd been being shafted from day one!... After finding out, every day I worked there was painful. I've applied for at least two jobs per week last year but have secured only 4 interviews. Whilst I'm sort of used to it now, this has been a shock to my system: I'm not used to struggling this hard to find work. In the past; I've been able to raise money to deliver creative community development initiatives, but we closed the community interest company last year so that's not open to me anymore. Why do

I enjoy spending Christmas to New Year on my own. Friends don't believe me and have in the past tried to kidnap me to "save" me from the terror of solitude. Except that I actually do appreciate it as a reflective time. I'm wary of the family tensions that seem to bubble up at this tme of year. I alway say- and I think it is true; that if I looked after young children I would make the whole period into a succession of treats... But I don't, so I don't. As a non-meat eater and someone who dislikes feeling stuffed with food; Christmas has been a problem for me for a long time, once I realised I COULD opt out of it, I did. Of course; being poor hasn't helped LOL. It would be nice for my period on the work wilderness to end! I shut down my life as much as I could when I was made redundant a couple of years ago, the job I left last year only paid me enough to stop the debts I'd incurred getting bigger but my lifestyle didn't change that much. Austeri

Well... That was shit! Thank goodness that decade is over. There's NO indication that my future will be better, but looking back on my life since 2010 is depressing. The Selfservatives announced "Austerity" in 2010 which was implemented from the Comprehensive Spending Review of 2011 which adversely impacted the Voluntary Sector where my work is based. The organisation I'd developed from an irrelevant monthly 3 hour chat between minority ethnic elders into a dynamic agency supporting creative professionals from minority ethnic communities to secure work in the region's cultural venues had its funding cut and I was made redundant. It was run by people who were out of touch with what the organisation was actually for and who'd ignored my warnings about what I thought the government would do in response to the global banking crisis... But I did get an apology from them when I was proved right. At the end of the decade I've closed the 'CIC' I starte