Monday 5 January 2015
Here we go 2015. The start of the working New Year is always a bit of an adventure. Started me thinking, Like many people in January 2000 I was starting the new millennium with great hopes for the future. I was working on a new musical Steel Town that would be staged that year. Also I was joining Teesside University to manage a project working with 7 steel communities in Tees Valley. I was to do this for 18 months but little was I to know that this would lead to me moving to Teesside the day of the final show of Steel Town and that I would spend the next 15 years (so far) in academia.
I recently rediscovered a VHS of the launch of the TVCO project and digitised it.
Here it is.
Sunday 4 January 2015
I  shared a letter on Zero Hours contracts a few days ago on Facebook  thinking my little circle of bolshy friends may have something to say about it. Now I'm astounded to see it's been shared over 14,000 times and the likes may go over 13,000 anytime soon. This and the 100's of PM's I've received from some pretty desperate people tell me that this is not just one mans rant. These are big numbers that endorse my belief that there's a lot if injustice going on. It's not just abusive "employment" conditions either. There is housing rental injustice as pointed out by my friend Kev Howard who also brought to my attention recently the injustice being perpetrated on people with disabilities by ATOS et all. I'm sure there's more e.g. the financial injustices: corporate greed, bankers bonuses and tax avoidance that everyone is talking about. The exorbitant cost of life's necessities such as water, gas and electricity. The mis-labeling of our food products. I was just remarking to my wife yesterday, if we put together the money we've clawed back in illegal banking charges and mis-sold PPI over the past few years it amounts to a huge chunk stolen from our income. What the hell is happening? What can we do about it all?