Friday 26 August 2011

Monday 15 August 2011

I Love London

After a couple of posts feeling a little disillusioned about the state of affairs last week, I thought I would talk about how much I love my city.

Even though parts of London have gone up in flames, I still love this place, and am always happy to take people around and see how excited they get to see the sights, and ask me to take their pictures somewhere that we all take for granted, like telephone boxes, the underground and the big red buses.

I love how London is separated into so many different places with its own life and culture. If you see one part of London, then you have only seen one part of London.

There's the political side of Westminster.
Notting Hill and Portobello Road.
Walking the cobbled streets of Covent Garden and standing in the Piazza and listening to classical music.
Business and skyscrapers in Canary Wharf.
Beautiful architecture in Cathedrals, Churches, Bridges, and Palaces.
Camden Town.
Sitting and watching the world go by on the steps of Trafalgar Square.

I love London and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.



In other news, I have given myself until tomorrow evening to finish my story and send it to my editor.
Wish me luck!

And before I forget I wanted to wish a very Happy Independence Day to all my Indian friends. Especially to those of you still over there, I hope you are going out and celebrating!

Friday 12 August 2011

"We are doing it because we can't get jobs"

This was an excuse that I heard about the rioting a little while ago on the TV. It really annoyed me for a variety of reasons.

First of all, there are a lot of people currently out of the job market. Myself included, even though I am grateful for this writing opportunity and my part time job on the side. It has been some years since I graduated from university and, I know this sounds crazy but, I would love a job that is secure, one that I can go to on a full time basis. In my family, not just nuclear but extended as well, a job is not a job unless you are there 9-5 or something to that effect. Something where you are getting a regular and steady income, paying national insurance and have some money to put towards pension; even if currently it looks like we will all have to work until 70 to afford to live beyond that age.
None of them know that I am writing this book though (nearly finished by the way ... yay!).

Secondly, if you are rioting because you can't get a job, having a criminal record isn't really going to help you very much when you are trying to find one.

Next, it was found that a lot of the people rioting were young teenagers. There are still years to go until they are in the job market. We don't know what it will be like in however many years time. Who knows, the situation might improve.
What really annoys me is the people who want jobs but are too lazy to go out and get one. I spent a long time sending out CV after CV, it takes time. No one is going to knock at your door and offer you a well paid job. You need to be proactive. And you need to pay your dues.

We can add to that, burning places down. How is making shops and business unable to function the path to a good economy? Just because you can't find work, it doesn't mean that you should ruin other peoples lives in the process. And why would you break into and burn down people's houses? It doesn't make any sense.

Finally, it was the places that they were looting. They were stealing TVs, trainers, HiFis, and other expensive goods. It seemed that the only way to get what they wanted was to loot the shops. The problem with this generation is that they want everything now. They don't believe in delayed gratification. They don't believe in working hard and saving the money to go towards something great. In this world of famous for being famous, it seems that the only way to earn decent  money is to act like a drunken fool on some godforsaken reality TV show, and that really bugs me.

Wow that was a long post.

Tuesday 9 August 2011

Mindless Disgusting Violence

It's going to be a serious post today. How can it not be after everything that has happened?
Just take a look at these pictures and you will see what I mean.
Even this one, of a woman jumping out of a burning building to safety. It's just frightening.

Full scale riots and looting for no real reason other than greed.
Businesses and homes set alight for no real reason other than to cause damage.
Violence spreading because thugs want to jump on the bandwagon.
Law abiding citizens sick to their stomach and scared to leave their own homes.

How on Earth can this happen?

What started off as a peaceful protest over a man who was shot by the police, later evolved into violence and looting, which took away from the original meaning of the gathering.
It was a crime of opportunity, there was even a case of people going into McDonalds and frying their own burgers. That's not a protest, that's just stupidity. They are looting places which would give them what they want, food, money, electronics, there were images of people literally ripping TVs off the walls.

Once people saw looters breaking into shops and stealing whatever they could, message spread around the capital saying that others should do the same. Many of them are saying that people could join the riots because they want free stuff, and who would say no to that?
Now, it has spread all over the country.

And if you thought it couldn't get any worse they were using the chaos of the situation to break into people's homes.

It's violent thugs who would use any excuse to cause disorder.

Come on, an 11 year old was arrested, what exactly does he have to be angry about?

These thugs cannot win. Telling them that they will feel "full force of the law" is not good enough in a country where people think that the legal system is a joke and not tough enough on criminals. This is especially true now, since there are planned police and budget cuts.

It's vile, it's disgusting, and we want our country back.

Monday 8 August 2011

Awards, Summer Time, and Creeps

First of all, I was given a Seriously Cute Blog Award from Rachna's Scriptorium


Thank you very much Rachna! Even if I am really late in acknowledging it publicly on my blog. And from that I got one new follower. To all of you, I appreciate any and all plugging of my blog that leads to new followers *cough*
And for the rest of you. I give this blog award to all of you for sticking with me. All nine of you.

It's summer time! We had some glorious weather over the past couple of weeks, reaching 30C last week at it's peek. That slowed down the writing process a week or two, because ... because I wanted to enjoy the sunshine on the days that I didn't have to go into my part time work or college. Like I said before, when you have summer here in the UK, you better spend some time outside - otherwise it's a case of blink and you'll miss it.

[all reference to creeps have been removed now]