The Hunt For Something Better: June 2015

Monday 8 June 2015

Homeless people in the UK and metal health.

This morning driving through the shitty county town near where I live, I drove past a homeless man. I knew he was homeless due to his matted hair, untamed beard dirty out of date clothes and his peculiar mannerisms. I decided to go back home that way after completing my errands to make sure that this was in fact a homeless man and not some hipster in much need of a wash.

I drove back down the street to see the man a measly 30 yards from where I’d originally spotted him. He was sat on wall frantically looking around and chatting with himself. It became obvious that this poor man was struggling with some metal health issues. Now there was no strong lager in sight but its possible that alcohol maybe played apart in this mans unfortunate state, that said most pissed heads have already started drinking on the streets by 8:30 a.m. if they are punctual drunks that is.

Now I did not stop to see if I could help him out in some way, which I would have liked to, but fact of the matter is I’m skint myself and that is the only reason I did nothing. Sounds like I’m trying to justify it to myself and maybe I am I mean I could have ushered him in the direction of some clinic or something that may of gotten him the help he needed. But instead I drove on, I put the kettle on made myself a coffee and sat down and straight away thought about this poor man and the system that “works” and how it has failed him and how I as a human sort of failed him as well. It reminded me of a time; in fact the only time I’ve ever used the London underground. So I’m sat there on the tube surrounded by middle aged white men in suits and women in their smartest knee length skirts and blouses when a little old lady literally walked down the carriage and asked very politely for some money. Now her plea for money was accompanied by a bit of a sob story of which I’ve blacked out, as I’m sure if I remembered it, it would really haunt me to this day. I sort of recall it being about needing money for somewhere to sleep, there may of even been a child involved but it was a long time ago and I have done a lot of drinking to forget shit like that in my life. When she’d finished her little sob story and held out her frail little hand I looked around at people who really could spare a couple of quid and I watched them avoid her like she wasn’t there. Looking anywhere but in this poor old lady’s eyes. Now little old me from small county town probably should have done something but little old me from small county town was scared incase this was a scam or incase I pulled my wallet out on the underground and all of a sudden found myself at the bottom of a dog pile of youths who in turn emptied my pockets and left me with no money to get home nor a phone to inform anyone of where I was. But what really gets me is the fact that this helpless little old woman seeing that no one was going to give her anything, thanked us anyway and moved on. She was probably genuine and I probably let her down as I did today with the homeless man. I understand the people on in the carriage for not giving her anything as if you encounter a similar thing everyday on your daily commute it must get a little annoying and at the end of the day you can’t give money to all of them as you would probably have to get another job to fund your homeless giving habit, which in itself could escalate and leave you broke and homeless in some sort of ironic circle of events. These events do however leave me to question the state of care in this country. That some one in need doesn’t get the duty of care they deserve as a basic human right. At the end of the day the reason that these people don’t get the help they need is due to money, that five letter word that controls everything and everyone. From lack of NHS drop in centers to understaffed and underpaid mental healthcare professionals to the fact that most people don’t have a lot of disposable income to help others.

Unfortunately this complicated matter has know clear cut solution, nor does it appear to be getting any better while nothing more is being done.

Friday 5 June 2015

Royal Mail, UK in Debt and the legalization of a plant

Well that’s it folks. George Osborne is set to sell off the governments final 30% share of Royal Mail, raising £3 billon of the £30 billion the government needs to find. Now apparently the NHS and schools are protected from cuts but when you can amend laws like…erm I don’t know the human rights bill, I guess you can do anything. I mean it’s not like human rights are important, they were only set up to stop things like WW2 happening again, but who cares about 6 million dead Jews, right?

Now on the front end of this I can see that the government need to raise some funds and selling Royal Mail is going to have a lot less backlash than selling the NHS, which I’m still convinced the Tory party will try and do at some point in the next 5 years. But have the government explored other options? Or have they acted like the ignorant, narrow minded, middle aged white men that they are and decided that the only way to raise money is the tried and tested “sell off government shares” method, allowing for the privatization of industries, the same one that brought this country to its knees in the 80’s (thanks Thatcher).

Now I think the problem here is stuffy nosed, upper class British tradition. The same one that makes the rest of the world look at us and think of afternoon tea and cricket not forward thinking politics. Well okay I guess the U.S.A look at us with their two party system and their privatized health care but they only see those things at face value they don’t see the NHS cuts that cause the 8 hour waits in A&E or the fact that the majority of the country could be left wing inclined but have their votes spread across three parties and go on to elect a right wing majority government.

But back to the subject at hand this £30 billion deficit that needs reducing in three years and the measly £3 billion that the sale of Royal Mail will gross. It seems to me that an answer to our problems lies just across the pond, and then across some land and mountains to finally arrive in Colorado. Yes, Colorado U.S.A. home of the Denver Broncos and the Denver Omelet/Omelette and John Denver… well actually not John Denver. But Denver is in Colorado, which is what I was trying to get at.

Colorado amendment 64 is what we are talking about here, which allowed the legalization of cannabis/marijuana/weed/pot/wacky backy meaning that in January 2014 shops opened that sold drugs legally. What idiots, making drugs legal would lead to vast crime and chaos and have no possible positive effects at all...apart from the $53 million that was raised in taxes from the first year of sales. Going on today’s market that’s nearly £35 million from a state with a population of 5.3 million people less than 10% of the population of the United Kingdom.

I truly believe that this may be the fastest way to clear that £30 billion. And for anyone who thinks that it’s a bad idea I leave you with this. People will do drugs whether they are legal or not, but this way drugs can be taxed the same way alcohol, tobacco and caffeine, aspirin or whatever are. As well as this I believe it’s the perfect way to cheer up this pretty hostile little island.

Pot cookies for everyone!