Who snoops on the snoopers?
There are those who say that good journalism is supposed to inform, entertain or persuade; it was however a brilliant right wing journo who helped me realise that real journalists disclose.
This graffiti in Camden makes for a great story.
Whoever daubed “I farted in Yoga” is a shamelessly confessional journalist. A Russell Brand of Fleet Street,er, Camden High Street
Freshly declassified files it ain’t, but at least the story refers to a diplomatic incident / workplace mishap.
The Smell Test
And given the Government’s latest Criminal Justice Bill and the way it plans to criminalise homelessness, maybe the graffiti has been put there to highlight the way the incoming law will let the authorities arrest people simply for the way they smell.
With the obvious caveat that one should never believe anything until it’s been officially denied: here’s the Health Secretary, Victoria Atkins saying it just ain’t so.
The fact that things are worded completely differently to how our law makers say they’re worded means that the gaslighting of the nation starts long before laws are even passed, and that Parliament and broadcast TV are no longer to be considered legitimate arenas for meaningful public scrutiny.
The Plot Thickens
I forgot to mention that there is a wider context to the Who Farted in Yoga photograph.
There was a tent next to the graffiti, as well as a de facto living room.
Homelessness in Camden and Central London is inescapably real.
The price of accommodation has skyrocketed in recent years and the available housing has been cut resulting in enormous council and housing association waiting lists during a time of extreme austerity in local government finance. Of course homelessness is up – there is no such thing as affordable housing.
Scrap the Act
But central and local government priorities appear to lie elsewhere.
Of course there is the explosive question of whether “Trans women” should pee in women’s toilets and get changed in women’s changing rooms.
But what about people who smell of pee?
Should they all be fined and jailed?
I suppose it’s one way of housing them – but it feels like a Victorian Eugenics-y solution.
Where to Spend a Penny?
On the tube yesterday a couple of men sat down in front of me – one was a sharp suited banker and another an older chap who I did not yet realise, had a urinary aroma about him.
Not long after sitting down, the banker realised there was a problem.
There was a pained look on his face.
As his life flashed before his eyes, he asked himself: Did he like his life, his satchel, his kids, his wife?
Had his happiness come at the expense of others’?
Had he voted for policies that increased the likelihood that his new neighbour now smelled of urine?
The Game’s Afoot
The older gentleman immediately dived into his bag to pull out a thin jacket.
One that had been designed to protect him from the rain.
It had been colder than expected that afternoon and perhaps he just wanted to keep warm.
But it was a struggle to put the jacket on. He kept standing up and sitting down as he tried to make it happen.
And every time he did, the jacket kept rubbing up and down against the banker.
It happened four or five times, and every time the banker maintained his serene but pained tunnel vision look. He was being tested by God.
Would this ritual result in behaviour change?
In that moment it was hard not to conclude that the banker was being repeatedly whipped with a piss-drenched purple rag.
And that the old man who was doing so did so without a trace of malice.
Such is the banker’s lot.
At which point I noticed the rental love advert above the old man and went and sat on the adjacent carriage.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:share:7186974365228404736/
Reposted this on Linkedin Ranjan.
Ranjan today on London Conversation.
Taking the Piss out of the Affordable Housing talking shop?
Quite right too.
937 views Feb 2, 2022
Scrap the Act – what do you think of a Vagrancy Act? | Crisis
The embedded video will not open in the google browser if clicked this will explain why this two year old video has less than 1000 views. On such an important issue this demonstrates the Abject enshittification of the BIg Tech enclosure of the Digital commons.
Thanks, Roger, good point, this is the inshittification problem, isn’t it? Tech feudalism and rent seeking – hence the need to go offline for real discourse. The internet is massively gate kept – there need to be other methods of information distribution for people to share what’s real and what isn’t.
‘High’ time to disseminate more through fanzines, Indy press and graffiti, ‘why not?’