End of this blog??

I think I may have reached the end of this blog. I want my blogs to be more specific.

I now therefore have two blogs which I aim to update reasonably regularly:

www.mightbebipolar.blogspot.com

www.thefalmouthterrorist.blogspot.com

n.b. if anyone is actually reading any of this, whilst presently there is still nothing on the latter site, it is a different site to the one listed in the previous posting due to registering it on the wrong profile.

New Blog

I've started a new blog. Well, started might be a bit optimistic. I've created a new blog - www.falmouthterrorist.blogspot.com.

The plan is to put my political rants on that blog, and use this one for everyday ramblings.

I realise the reality is I'll probably not use either. But the intention is there. Honest.

I might even write something new for both blogs later.

Watching the police

Okay, so I know telling the cops who were stepping on a man's head that I was a concerned citizen who doesn't like cops, wasn't the best response.

Luckily I wasn't drunk, so when they started pushing me and telling them I was obstructing them, I didn't kick off. Luckily, I didn't get nicked.

I didn't know what the situation was. I still don't. Maybe the bloke wsa an arsehole. But if someone's crying out in pain and shouting for someone to stop standing on his head, you at least see if you can do something.

All I did, was to kneel and ask him whether he was okay. I was asked who I was and my reply was simply based on letting the bloke know where I was coming from. I should have said I was a solicitor, said something that might have been of help.

Instead, I got pulled up and pushed away. I asked what he'd been arrested for and was told many times I was obstructing the police.

Do you know what though? I lied. I was calm because I remembered the hash in my bag and my notebook with a "fuck the police" sticker (yeah, I know - but it's fun to pretend to be a teenager sometimes), not to mention the writing contained therein.

I know it was the right decision regardless. It would have been stupid to needlessly be confrontational without knowing anything about the situation. Had I witnessed the situation, my judgement may have been different, because I think it is important for people resist cops.

However, it led me to thinking about cop watching in small towns. Cops lie in their notebooks. We should all know this by now - it's been proved time and time again. Having a few people on the streets on a Friday and/or a Saturday night in the centre of town to monitor what they're doing and to act as sober witnesses where necessary, could start making them accountable for their actions.

More importantly, it could also start to change people's attitude towards the police. Seeing a regular presence challenging their actions can be a start of questionning attitudes to authority and our culture of obedience and passivity.

People could do it autonomously in their towns....Cop Watch Falmouth, anyone?

Blog Block

I've been having real difficulties with my blog recently. In fact, I've been having problems writing. I took time off over Christmas, and now I can't get into the swing of things again. The problem is compounded by paper work. I have piles and lists of stuff to do. This stuff is supposed to be sorted before I embark on any kind of creative project. Not that my blog is very creative, but it's more creative than writing a public interest immunity argument.

Instead, I sit in front of the computer and compulsively check emails and facebook. I can't write because I have too many other things to do, but I can't find the motivation to do the things I really need to do. Therefore I waste time, doing shite, and wishing I could be a more productive person.

It's also been a mental block. My posts have become so few and far between that I keep thinking I have to start with something substantial. I should be saying something worthwhile. However, I need to remember this blog exists to get me going, to actually get words down on a page.

But it's interesting. Update my blog regularly and I'm happy putting up any old inane drivel, but when I don't do it for ages I feel under enormous pressure. It doesn't really make sense. But when have I ever made sense?

So, hopefully this will lift the curse and unclog the drain. Hopefully...

Normal services will resume soon

I just wanted to put a few words on my neglected blog to say normal services will soon be resumed. I have been without regular internet access and have not been able to either update my blog nor read others recently.

However within the next couple of weeks, this should change and I plan resuming regular blogging.

My lovely sister has also joined the blogging world - check out her blog at www.lucyapple.blogspot.com

The Falmouth Terrorist

Thought has become illegal. We have reached the point where some thoughts are so dangerous we are not allowed to share them.

I no longer know what I'm allowed to say, know what I'm allowed to own. The reality is the colour of my skin allows me certain privileges. I'm white so I'm allowed an extra level of subversion before my door gets kicked in by armed police.

We are living in a time when writing has become subversive. When I started publically writing, I didn't see it as dangerous. In other countries, yes, of course. Writers are ruthlessly persecuted. But here, writing has always felt like the soft option.

I believe in the power of writing. This much is obvious, otherwise I wouldn't write. But this idea of the State turning writing into terrorism is another matter. When a woman is on trial at the Old Bailey partly because she has written under the pen name of the “Lyrical Terrorist”, then writing is subversive. She expressed support for Jihad and radical Islam but she has done no more than read sympathetic websites and written poetry on the subject.

So can I be the Cornwall Terrorist? Or, as an anarchist, do I need a moniker less nationalistic? I could just be the Falmouth Terrorist. After all, I'm in a more literal than lyrical mood.

So what is terrorism? The law defines it as action which is “designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a a section of the public for the purpose of advancing a religious or ideological cause.” There are several ways to do this, including firearms, “serious violence against a person”, but also include “serious damage to property.” There are also offences of promoting terrorism, glorifying terrorism and inciting terrorism.

Does this mean my belief that causing severe amounts of economic damage is essential to changing the status quo is terrorism? I believe violence is an unfortunate but inevitable part of agitating for any kind of social change.

I don't really want to get into a protracted debate over the rights and wrongs of violent revolutionary action. I've had the arguments too many times, but moreover, it is irrelevant to the point I am making.

I advocate and participate in illegal actions which have the ultimate aim of agitating social change. I am fully supportive of property damage and fighting back. I believe we have to hit them in the pocket, hit them where it hurts in order to affect anything with the capitalist system.

Again, I could give you a lengthy explanation of why I believe this. I could make you think I'm a nice, if not slightly misguided person, who simply wants a better world for all.

But it's irrelevant. Either I'm legally allowed to say these things or I'm not. It shouldn't matter what the cause is.

Or does it? Are you allowed to put a value judgment on terrorist thought? The legislation does not leave room for such indiscretions, but the reality is different. I'm allowed to say I believe in causing serious damage to property is an essential tactic in fighting the State because I'm white.

Or am I? Where do the lines blur, and when does writing become dangerous, become terrorism? I'm scared by this level of control. I'm scared by what's been going on recently. I'm scared by the increasing levels of violence and repression.

As writers, we have to accept we live in a new political arena. An arena of control. You may not be saying anything subversive at the moment, but at what point do you cross the line? And are you going to wait until you cross that line until you start fighting for the freedom of speech for all?

Who ultimately decides which political ideologies are so dangerous we are not allowed to hear them? At what point did we become so stupid as a population that the State has had to implement laws to stop us accessing information and being able to make reasoned judgments?

You may read what I have to say and decide I'm a delusional fanatic, a loony fringe element. On a good day, I might even be dangerous. But wouldn't you rather read my ideas and make up your own mind? Or would your rather the State proscribed my views as being terrorist and stop me from writing?

An analysis of my current bail conditions

1.To live and sleep each night at an address which doesn't exist. The road is misspelt and a letter has been interchanged for a number on the postcode.

2.“Not to come within enter the M25 motorway except to attend a legitimate court date or meetings with legal representatives and only with written notice.”

Not wishing to pedantic, this bail condition simply means she is not allowed on the M25. This is not problematic. She has no intention of going anywhere near the M25 and doesn't think either her solicitor's offices or courts are on the M25.

3.“Not to interfere with witnesses. When her bag was searched in the custody office a document was found to have photographs of police officers who had been involved with her in the past. It can only be assumed that details are being amassed on targeted officers to limit their ability to be a witness.”

This she finds amusing. She wishes FIT Watch were having this much impact. She thinks it's fantastic to believe our actions are making the cops reluctant to attend court. However she doesn't. She believes this is a petty attempt at intimidation and stopping FIT Watch.

It is also a meaningless condition. She does not know who the witnesses are, having not received any disclosure on the case. She thinks Neal Sinclair filmed her arrest, so he may be a witness. She also remembers HX38 Zaffer Mughal talking to her after she was arrested, but does not know whether this was enough to make him a witness. The cops who nicked her were not FIT, but they were acting upon the orders of FIT. However, at this stage, she does not know who they were.

She also does not understand what interfering means. When she questioned the custody sergeant about this, she was told she might find out their home addresses and go and slash their tyres. However, whilst this image induced some pleasant daydreaming, she also realised that such an action would cause more damage than the £1 she is currently accused of.

FIT Watch are having an effect. Get involved. Send any info you think we might be interested in to defycops@yahoo.co.uk or add to blog – www.fitwatch.blogspot.com

Sock phobia

I have a pair of socks I can no longer wear. Bright stripy ones, in case it matters. Advertised as knee length but they never managed much past mid calf since their first wash.

But I’m scared of these socks. I keep pulling them out of the drawer but have not been able to throw them away. They are worn; holey in places. But this is not why I cannot wear them. Last month I was close to throwing them away, but now I cannot.

These socks are noticeable in the pictures, glaring out incongruously from the rest of my black garb. Vibrant glimpses shining through the uniforms of the cops dragging me to the van.

But I remember the socks most from the police station. The socks I was forcibly strip searched from as I lay restrained on the floor.

And it’s the socks I remember as they forced me through fingerprinting via pain compliance. Bright happy socks in a world of violence. Colourful merriment as my head was held down and my neck pressure pointed. Smirking stripes as my hand was bent in on itself and I cried out in pain.

I remember wishing the socks weren’t so tatty. I wanted better socks. My scruffy socks were the final degradation. I suppose it’s the wearing your best knickers syndrome. Only I don’t remember which knickers I was wearing, so my knickers don’t bother me.

But I can’t bring myself to wear these humiliating socks. Throwing them away seems like defeat. So they remain, taunting me with unresolved dilemmas, every time I open my drawer.