helen-louise's journal

Urgh (A title I have used before and probably will again)

2019-03-13T20:28:14Z

Gods. I'm supposed to be doing work for my degree, doing work for UESP, and writing a eulogy for my grandmother's funeral, and I'm sitting here watching the idiots in Parliament shuffle around pawns on a chessboard instead.

Comment from a friend - "Pretty sure chess is too advanced an analogy. They're moving the same two checkers back and forth endlessly."

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Two months of socialising in four days

2018-12-18T16:14:28Z

My life has been non-stop the past week.

I had to appeal my PIP, complete a PhD project plan for university and get it checked by my supervisor, and fit about two months' worth of socialising into a single weekend. On Friday and Saturday, Grant and I went up to Leeds to see PokeCharms people, play video games, and go to the Royal Armouries. It rained. A lot. We got upgraded from standard to first class on the train to Leeds because of a lack of wheelchair space (OVER AN HOUR's phone calls between me and LNER, who have been sucking particularly hard when it comes to actually following through with assisted travel bookings lately), and I really do need to make sure we always go in first class because it's the only way that Grant has enough room. He isn't just fat, he is WIDE - his actual skeleton is wide, and while he could reduce his tummy size, I don't think that trying to lose weight off his shoulders is at all practical.

On Sunday we saw Tim and Peter like usual, except "usual" hasn't been very frequent lately due to various people's illness and/or busyness. I feel very short of money after two visits to Pizza Express in two days, one of them WITHOUT COUPONS (the horror!).

Yesterday was a day and a half. Trains were non-existent for a couple of hours due to emergency services attending "an incident" between Clapham Junction and Surbiton, which basically stops the entire SWT network from happening. So we got considerably delayed. I realised I was out of the one medication I can't miss a dose of or my head will explode (venlafaxine) and had to call the pharmacy several times, each time getting their rather new and completely useless counter girl who wouldn't/couldn't put me through to a pharmacist because they were busy. Once trains existed again, waiting for a ramp at London Waterloo I managed to drop my phone and by some quirk of physics it bounced off the train floor and into the gap under the train. I did eventually get it back but that delayed us further.

We met stellarwind.livejournal.com in Russell Square and got to the museum to find it was closing early and we had 20 minutes to look at things. It's actually a tiny museum and you can get a good idea of "pickled things in jars" and "bones" in 20 minutes, but we'd expected to have at least 2 hours to look at everything properly. The early closing gave me more time to call the pharmacy. Two more times.

We had dinner at the very lovely little Vietnamese place Pho Hot (great for vegans and omnivores alike - I recommend their vegan pho or garlic tofu on rice, Richard recommends their garlic pork) and dessert at Cookies and Scream. This all went very well. After dinner we arrived at The Garage 15 minutes before doors opened for the annual Ginger Wildheart Birthday Bash only to be told there was a last-minute delay, so we had to wait in the cold for 45 minutes. We did, however, acquire a reasonable place to sit, which is good when you have a wheelchair user plus two people with sensory issues who might get dizzy and/or overwhelmed at any moment. The gig was great. However, I'm not exactly certain about buses in Highbury and Islington because when I'm with Richard we just walk to Caledonian Road (the nearest accessible Tube station), so we managed to miss our stop quite badly. This meant we then missed the direct train home and had to take a train plus bus combo with more waiting in the cold.

It was good to spend time with my Israeli friend who I've known for 15 years and talk to every day, but had never met in person before Friday - but OMG so much stress. I don't even understand how that could all happen in the same day.

Tonight, Richard and I are going to see Cheap Trick and Def Leppard while Grant sits at home playing Elder Scrolls Online (he didn't want to pay £55 for a ticket, which is entirely reasonable - at least Richard and I both get in for that price because he's my free carer). And then tomorrow I get to go and have some blood tests and SLEEP. Oh, and write Christmas cards.

I have been completely useless about asking whether anyone wants a Christmas card this year due to aforementioned busyness, so I am going to go with my usual list. If you have a new address or suddenly don't want a card, please tell me in the screened comment section below (comments which don't have private address information will be unscreened). Also if you aren't on my usual list but want to be added, let me know and I'll see what we can do.

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A Very Important Petition

2018-08-23T05:00:51Z

If you are an EU citizen and are annoyed that British people are going to lose their EU citizenship as a result of our feckless government's decision to leave the EU, please sign this petition. This is an official European Commission petition and therefore has some chance of doing something useful, as opposed to all the other petitions which have no legal standing.

In other news I am well but extremely busy - thesis chapter due on 31st August, meeting with the thesis committee on 6th September, PIP assessment on 7th September. I expect I'll be able to update my journal a bit when that's over. (I have probably hundreds of photos of art exhibitions and suchlike to post when I get A Round Tuit.)

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Dogs at Polling Stations, Voting when Blind, and Eff Off Evening Standard

2017-06-08T14:44:17Z

Am back from telling. Dogs at the Polling Station update: 5 during the hours of 1pm - 3pm.

Yay: I got licked by a very fluffy husky.
Boo: His owner was a very obnoxious Tory.

Here is an interesting video from BBC News: How do you vote when you're blind?

In other news, London's newspaper, the Evening Standard officially Went Too Far last night. It is now edited by George Osborne, who is famous primarily for being Chancellor of the Exchequer (a.k.a. Finance Minister) for David Cameron's government. Obviously, you would expect a bit of Tory bias in his newspaper.

Well, yesterday it was announced that Diane Abbott, the Shadow Home Secretary, is unwell. Shadow Ministers are from the main Opposition party (currently, the Labour Party) and literally "shadow" the jobs of Government ministers. Conservatives have argued that she isn't really unwell at all, this is an excuse to get her out of the limelight because of mistakes she has been making during the Election campaign. Personally, given my chronic illnesses, it seems entirely obvious to me that a person who has previously been very competent and suddenly starts making mistakes could be ill. But hey, I'm biased in a different direction.

The Home Secretary is responsible for immigration, policing, and national security. Theresa May was previously Home Secretary, and during her incumbency the UK Home Office asked LGBT asylum seekers utterly atrocious personal questions, held traumatised people in detention, generally treated them like crap on a stick, and sent legitimate asylum seekers back to their original countries to get tortured and/or killed. The Home Secretary is also responsible for the UK's efforts to Fight the War Against Some Terrorists. It's basically the third most important job in the British Government.

The Evening Standard responded to the news of Diane Abbott's illness by commissioning this absolutely appalling cartoon. It's rude, obnoxious, and dismissive of pretty much everyone with a long-term serious health condition. The rather wonderful Jack Monroe has pointed out everything that Diane Abbott has achieved in her career. It's long, and impressive. Plenty of other politicians never accomplish this much. So why does she get so much abuse? Could it be because she dares to be middle-aged, female, black, and fat?

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Richmond Park, Brexit, and the General Election

2017-06-08T07:34:50Z

Today is the British General Election, and I am scared shitless.

On a local level, there is a strong chance that I will once again have the overprivileged twit who didn't know what BSL meant (when given the context of "BSL interpreters for disabled people") as my Member of Parliament. I am absolutely horrified that the local Conservative party chose Zac Goldsmith as their candidate for MP, after he resigned from the party and triggered an entirely unnecessary by-election only a few months ago. He claimed it was about blocking the expansion of Heathrow Airport. Well, guess what? The Conservative Government decided to back the expansion of Heathrow Airport! So how can he stand as a Conservative again? Okay, he never ruled out rejoining the Conservatives 'in the future', but five months later is hardly the sort of 'future' that people were expecting when they asked him.

Basically, the man is a self-serving slimeball*. He believes that the reason he lost the by-election in December was because standing as an Independent, he wasn't allowed access to the Conservative Party database of supporters, and Conservative ministers weren't allowed to help him. (Although some non-minister Conservative MPs helped him, including pro-Heathrow expansion friends.) 1871 votes isn't a big margin, and while people might be willing to vote Lib Dem as a protest against Brexit, people who are scared of Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister aren't going to risk losing a Conservative seat. Urgh.

*[Since we need some humour to break up the unrelenting grimness, I saw this article in one of the local rags the other day: A huge snake paid an uninvited visit to a home in Kew and immediately texted Richard to ask "Was it Zac Goldsmith?". He replied, "It's a popular misconception that snakes are slimy. Actually, only Tories are slimy." My dear friend Stellarwind pointed out "There's a very distinctive difference. One is a predatory cold-blooded reptile that makes some people very nervous... the other is a snake."]

On a national level, the fact is that the Conservatives hate disabled people. I could link to literally hundreds of articles to prove this, but here's one about mental health, and one about physical disability. That second link should be read by EVERYONE I know except for those who are expecting a PIP assessment soon and can't afford to get triggered.

There's also the absolute mess that Brexit is going to make of our country. I have no training in economics and cannot really argue this point, but I do know that the pound was worth US $1.6 only about a year ago. Now it's more like 1.1. And that isn't because the dollar got a lot stronger, it's because the British economy is collapsing.

I was arguing with an idiot this morning who claimed that "u can look at it as people more incentivised to buy local and your economy will benefit". I replied "'Buy local' means giving up every foodstuff which can't grow in your climate. Goodbye, oranges!". The exchange rate matters A LOT for trade. Even on the most basic level of an individual wanting to shop, it matters. I want a $20 nerdy t-shirt from the US? It used to cost me £12.50. Now it costs me £18.18. (The idiot claimed I should "buy a nerdy UK shirt. this is how you rek your own economy gettin evrythin foreign", and I tried to point out that the specific design I want to purchase is sold by an American company, and then I gave up trying to argue.)

The Conservative government is violently pro hard-Brexit (i.e. a complete split from the EU, removing the right to free movement, withdrawing from the European Court of Human Rights, withdrawing from the European Medicines Agency, etc). I'm a scientist and I'm worried sick about the effect of Brexit on science. I'm also a person with Northern Irish ancestry, and I'm worried sick about the effect of Brexit on the Irish border. These things matter, and it's like a load of little Englander UKIP-voting Brexiteers haven't even thought about them.

And I just can't cope. My mental health has been collapsing ever since this election was called, along with many of my friends'. Richard is kicking himself for not taking up Belgian citizenship when he was still entitled to it. I'm going to be out today working for the Liberal Democrats, trying to make sure that we keep our Sarah and don't let that awful Zac back, but a General Election really isn't the same as a local by-election. And I've been too ill and stressed lately to do more than cheer Richard on as he's delivered leaflets. If we lose by a narrow margin, it's going to feel very personal.

[Leaving this public for now. If any anonymous trolls decide to have a go at me, then I'll close it down. Not in the mood to argue.]

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