I was heading back to Wales tonight, to see my old gran. She was very excited, calling me to make sure I’d booked tickets, and texting me to let me know she’d saved a roast dinner for me, and would heat it on my arrival.

Then, as I was heading to Paddington, I had an epileptic fit. I have them regularly, and they’re not really anything to worry about. I’ll fall to the floor, unconscious for about a minute, then just feel tired for an hour or so afterwards. Fits are a nuisance, but I’m aware of when I need medical attention, and this time I didn’t.

After sitting down until the dizziness subsided, I caught the tube. I got to Paddington station 3 minutes after my train had left. Gutted. So I headed to the ticket office and explained what had happened. The First Great Western cashier rolled his eyes, and told me to buy another ticket. I asked, since it was off-peak if he couldn’t transfer my ticket. No, he said, only with a certificate from the ambulance. I explained a) I hadn’t needed an ambulance and b) ambulances wouldn’t issue a certificate. He told me I’d “definitely have needed an ambulance” if I’d “really had a fit”. I was astounded at this point. He handed me a leaflet outlining their complaints procedure, then started trying to sell me another ticket. I said I’d get one at the machine, at which point, to my utter disbelief, he pulled a face at me and said “fine”.

I left, since I knew I’d cry unless I went to the machine. The money wasn’t the problem here. I was mortified that a simple request to transfer a ticket due to circumstances beyond my control had been instantly dismissed, with a side swipe implying I was faking a disability. I’d offered to show him my medicalert pendant & Disabled Persons Railcard. He wasn’t interested. What was upsetting was being treated so terribly by people who were expecting my money. There was no other train company I could use to get to Wales, so they can be as rude and lacking in compassion as they liked.

In the end, I used the hour long wait to buy my gran a box of chocolates and snag a cup of tea. Next time, I think I’ll get the coach, rather than a First Great Western train to Wales.

Their complaints email address is fgwfeedback@firstgroup.com and they’re on Twitter as @FGW

When you watch a film, and it’s not being screened digitally, there’ll be a few inevitable moments in every film where you won’t see a scene. This is rarely important in a film. But for a lot of my life, the scenes where my brain stalls are numerous, and last a good few seconds. Imagine you’re watching Lost in Translation, and a few seconds aren’t screened, but you don’t even notice. Now imagine that happens 20-40 times a day, but you’ve no idea when it’s occurred. That’s my life. Yet hardly anyone notices.

Before my grandmother died, she suffered from Alzheimers. She didn’t just “have” Alzheimers, she genuinely suffered. She was aware that something was amiss, that her memory was playing tricks on her and hitting out at her relationship with her family. She’d regularly confuse my dad with her brother as she struggled to cope with grief and memory. Amongst the most harrowing moments of my life were the regular moments when she’d forget my grandfather had died, then remember as if for the first time. “Where’s Stan?” she’d ask, shortly followed by “He’s dead, isn’t he?”, realising the love of her life, who’d been ill for so long, had gone.

But she never forgot me, and that was something I clung to. Her memories were jumbled, with regular gaps and disjointed, but they were still there. With a little careful jogging, she could often remembersome of the things we had done together. Nearly every visit ended in her realising there were things she wanted to talk about, but that the scenarios were no longer in her head. She’d struggle with constructing sentences. She’d become aggressive, then defeatist. She’d cry. We’d always cry afterwards. She died shortly after my grandfather, and though we missed them both terribly, we understood the crippling effect grief has on the body, even as the mind disintegrates.

But I worry constantly about how much we remember. How much of it is accurate. My sister recently moved into an area of Cardiff in which I’d spent a lot of my teenage years. Yet I couldn’t remember a single road name, or the shops/off licences/pubs I’d frequented. I’m heading back to Cardiff in a few days and I’m hardly sure I can rely on my memory to guide me around the town. I still feel a massive attachment to the city and country, but my memories of it are dimmed. Does it matter? Not on the surface. But I worry that later I’ll appear more baffled than I currently am, in my mid-twenties. That my inability to remember phone numbers, street names and surnames will translate into an inability to accurately remember the dynamics of past relationships. I’m already hopeless at remembering faces. What happens when I forget my best friend’s surname?

So I’ve stopped cycling. My incredibly experienced flatmate has too. It’s just so much easier to sit on a train, than it is to risk my life day in day out. It might sound melodramatic, but it really isn’t. I ended up in an ambulance, inhaling gas and air and having my jeans cut off two months ago, after a van that was parked in one of your Cycle Superhighways hit me in Clapham. I really like cycling, but your reluctance to make it safe or enjoyable has ruined that. It’s not enough for you to be photographed looking jolly on a bike. You also need to give a toss about cyclists’ safety. You said in one of your books (you write an awful lot of books. Amazing you have time, what with being a full-time Mayor, and having a column in the Telegraph) that “Every successful bicycle journey should be counted as a triumph over [death]“. It certainly feels as though that’s the case in London.

What are yours?

Edit: Updated to say I shall also be making a concerted effort not to sleep with any North Korean leaders. Day one going well.

“What is more important than anything else in a library is the fact that it exists” – Archibald Macleish

Wandsworth Council, as part of the cuts falling  from the Comprehensive Spending Review, are considering closing York Gardens Library. York Gardens Library is in the most deprived ward in Wandsworth: Latchmere. I live less than a mile away, in the least deprived ward in Wandsworth: Northcote. With this in mind, I had a look at the council’s equality impact assessment.

Battersea, Battersea Park and Northcote libraries are included since they are the three nearest libraries and the council argue that if York Gardens closes, people will simply travel to their nearest library instead. Wandsworth council’s own equality impact assessment highlights that York Gardens has three times as many black users than the borough average, and 7.5 times as many as nearby Northcote library. This is the case all the more for children and young people. The equality impact assessment states:

“Usage of the Library reflects the character of the surrounding population, where people of non British white ethnicity, mixed ethnicity, Asian and Black African and Caribbean ethnicity accounted for 51% of the population in 2001. These groups make more use of the Library than white British people. The use of the Library by Black African and Caribbean people is particularly noticeable.”

I don’t even have to make an argument here. The council’s data speaks for itself. The same applies to women, and those with disabilities (especially learning disabilities):

More women use the library than the borough average, and four times as many users have a learning disability than the borough average – eight times as many as in my ward.

Aside from demographic statistics, the most convincing, and heartbreaking argument to save York Gardens comes from the survey of why people use the library. Apologies for the deluge of bulletpoints, but this is all vital:

“York Gardens library is particularly important to children compared to other libraries. Children and Young People using this library are also appreciably older than those using other libraries – 50% are in the 11 – 15 yr age group compared to the borough figure of 19%. The comparable figure for Northcote library is 11%.

• 45% of children visiting York Gardens library came with friends or on their own compared to a borough average of 18%, reflecting the neighbourhood character of the library that it is accessible from local housing without crossing any major roads and the older age profile using this library. Using the alternative libraries would involve journeys along and across busy main roads.

• 40% of children come to use a computer compared to a borough average of 19%. [Northcote Library10%] and of those 48% use them specifically for homework compared to 22% in the borough at large. [Northcote Library 7%].

• 49% of children and young people come to do homework compared to a borough average of 17% [Northcote Library 8%]

• 35% borrow books for homework (borough average 15%) and 41% because ‘I want to get better at reading’ (borough average 30%) [Northcote Library 6% and 20%]

• 49% of those who use the library to do their homework do so because it provides somewhere quiet to work [Northcote Library 10%]. Other answers to this question reinforce the importance of the library as a resource for studying.

• 59% of children and young people considered the library had helped them to do better at school [Northcote Library 15%] – the highest response of any library in the borough.”

So to summarise, York Gardens library is used heavily by teenagers, especially black teenagers, who use it for schoolwork, to feel better about themselves by reading, and to use computers. They often go with friends, highlighting the importance of the library to the community and the nearby Kambala estate. Closing York Gardens would mean the children and young people who use it would have to travel further, across busy main roads, to areas of the borough they are unfamiliar with, instead of doing homework with their friends in the evening. Were Northcote library to close, I honestly think the impact on the children nearby would be minimal. Were Northcote chosen, however, the very vocal, savvy affluent residents would secure maximum coverage for such a closure. Northcote residents needn’t worry, though. Wandsworth Council spent £13m on building them a free school only last month.  Closing York Gardens will save the council a mere £219,000. If they do so, they will have to provide an outreach service, taking the savings down to £127,000. This would cause council tax to rise by less than a pound a year. Even that is irrelevant, however: Eric Pickles slammed Wandsworth council recently for hoarding £105m in reserves. The council are victimising the poorest in the borough, to make ideological cuts, simply because they think Latchmere residents won’t put up a fight.

The best argument not to close York Gardens however, is the residents, in their own words.

If you can, join us tomorrow(Saturday 5th February), at 1pm for a Read-in to protest against the proposed closure.

UK Uncut protested today at Boots, who avoided a £87m tax bill last year by relocating their head offices to Switzerland. Protesters were today handing out leaflets, and occupying the store since the news of Boots’ tax-dodging comes at the same time as we hear of massive cuts (sorry, restructuring) to the NHS.

The protest was peaceful, and good-natured. Several shoppers joined the demonstration, and once we left the store to hand out leaflets on the street, passers-by were wishing us well and cheering us on. One woman marched up to the manager of Boots and asked “Is this true?” waving a leaflet in his face. He shrugged and told her, unfortunately, it was, but it wasn’t a decision he was involved in. I chatted to a Community Support Officer about his bike (it’s far superior to mine), and we spoke to the manager of Boots as well: there wasn’t any ill-will about.

Then, as I was stood next to the locked automatic doors, I noticed that a police officer was asking a woman to remove a number of leaflets she’d placed in the gap between the door. The woman asked why she was being asked to do so. The policewoman initially said “Littering” then claimed it was criminal damage. At this point the woman objected to being touched on the arm by the policewoman.  A number of people started taking photos of the exchange, then she was arrested by two officers who led her towards a thoroughfare next to Boots.

A number of protesters followed to keep an eye on the situation, chanting “Shame On You”. At this point, one of the officers, CW2440, used CS spray gas on a number of protesters nearby. I decided to film from a distance, rather than follow, as can be seen in the footage below:

I saw at least 7 people who had been sprayed in the eyes including a journalist, with three men particularly badly affected. One protesters had contact lenses in, which reacted with the spray. If you’ve never been tear-gassed before, it’s horrific. You can’t see, you’re in extreme amounts of pain, and massively panicked by the fact that you have no clue where you are, or who is around you. I called an ambulance, who confirmed they’d be there as soon as possible. At this point, three police officers with slightly different uniforms arrived at the scene: Legal Observers later told me they were Diplomatic Police, and definitely had tasers, though may also have been armed. Boots staff were shocked by the scenes, and an optician and first aid team inside offered to help those injured. The ambulance arrived soon afterwards, and took the three worst affected inside, initially thinking they could treat them in the ambulance. After 15 minutes, they confirmed they’d be taking them to hospital. A police officer then started speaking to us, informing us of how to make a complaint, asked us if we had the contact details of those injured then told us the number of the officer who’d used CS spray gas. Another officer later came over to a legal observer I was talking to and confirmed that Officer CW2440 had been the one to use spray gas on the protesters. I’ve never seen police officers offer up this type of information before, though am happy to be corrected.

It was a hugely jarring thing to witness, and I wasn’t affected. The policing was initially calm, and hands-off then suddenly became massively over zealous. That CS spray gas was used on one of the busiest streets in London in response to people simply chanting is terrifying. I’ve often thought criticism of the police can be a little unproductive, but today has made me think otherwise.

We never had much money at all growing up, relying on free school meals, libraries, school uniform grants and bursaries from the local council for the bus to school. When I went to university in 2005, the LEA paid all of my fees, and I was given a full student loan, as well as an income-assessed scholarship from my university of £2000. In Sixth Form, I got EMA, which meant I could afford the bus to do my A Levels. In Newport, the city we grew up in, the nearest Sixth Form college is a fair distance from the biggest estates and the city centre.

Unfortunately for Fern, when she finishes her GCSEs this year, if she wants to do A Levels, she’ll have to find the money for her textbooks, travel and lunches herself because the government consider EMA to be wasteful, and pointless, despite not having visited any FE colleges whatsoever to see the impact EMA has on access to education. She wont’ be able to borrow books from the local library, because it’s closing. Due to high unemployment in our area, Saturday jobs are few, and those that do exist are usually cash in hand, avoiding the minimum wage. If she does manage to pay her way through Sixth Form college, she’ll have to fight for a place at University, which are currently becoming increasingly competitive, thanks to rising unemployment rates, and freezes on funding for student places by, you guessed it, the government. Should she get a place at University, she’ll be paying at least £9000 a year in fees. I paid £0 per annum, a mere six years ago. She’ll graduate with at least £40,000 in student debt, almost double my debt.

On graduation, like me, she won’t be able to return home to live rent-free whilst job-hunting. She’ll have to take the first job that will pay the rent, all the while looking for something better. With the news today that unemployment rates are still increasing, the likelihood that she’ll be able to get a graduate job, without interning for months, is slim. If she’s unemployed for any period of time, she’ll have to jump through hoops to ensure she can get the measly £5o-odd pounds a week the government deem sufficient for someone in their early twenties to live on.

Fern can’t vote, and has no say in what the government are doing to her future, how they’re affecting her life chances. I appear to have slipped through the net, and escaped a single-parent-teenage-mother- family-on-a-council-estate Daily Mail wet dream to have achieved a good degree from a top university, through grants and bursaries. Fern, and my other young brothers and sisters have seen their chances at social mobility dropkicked back by about twenty years. If Fern has learnt anything about the political system in the past few years, it’s this: politicians, from whatever party will fuck you over. Even if you don’t vote for them, and no one wins an outright majority, they will find a way to fuck you over. They will do it with glee, and they won’t listen to your voice. Voting and letters to your MP won’t change a thing.What we’re teaching young people about their current place in the political system is worrying and dangerous.

My siblings and their peers are young, furious, and they’ve had their life chances sold off for ideological reasons by a bunch of over-privileged careerists, and they won’t forget in a hurry.

What I don’t understand is the need many journalists, bloggers and public figures have felt to examine the charges and exonerate Assange of any guilt. I’ve read countless blog posts, and tweets, predominantly by men, explaining that the Assange faces aren’t rape but “sex by surprise”, and snide remarks about those quirky Swedes and their bizarre laws. Predictably, the Mail are leading with the idea that Assange was set up, that the women acted as “honeytraps” (it’s Adam and Eve all over again). The fact that one of the women was mentored by a “militant feminist” has been brought up, despite the fact it seems a non sequitur.

Firstly, I’m uncomfortable with so many people feeling that they can expressly define rape, and say unequivocally that what occurred in a bedroom between two people does, or does not constitute rape. I have no idea what happened between Assange and the two women he is accused of raping. I’d argue only the three people involved do. Equally, I know very little about Swedish law, and I’m uncomfortable with people who aren’t conversant in it making statements that the charges he faces are charges that shouldn’t exist in any legal system.

This case has parallels to Roman Polanski’s: both initially avoided international arrest warrants, when both were detained people were quick to dismiss the cases against them. Whenever I see another person come forward to dismiss the claims Assange is being detained for, I’m reminded of Whoopi Goldberg proclaiming that what Polanski did, and admitted he did, wasn’t “Rape-rape”.

I enjoy Polanski’s work. Repulsion is one of my favourite films. In my head I’m capable of appreciating his art, and condemning what he subjected a 13-year-old girl to. The case against Assange is yet to be proven. However, I’d like to see the left accepting that as humans, we don’t neatly fit into “good” and “bad” pigeonholes. Just as I can concurrently enjoy Rosemary’s Baby and think that Polanski as a child rapist is a deplorable individual, I can believe that Wikileaks is necessary and a worthy endeavour, and accept that Assange may be a rapist.

By all means, argue that the timing of Interpol’s warrant may be suspect, or that the charges may not have received such attention had the Embassy Cables not been leaked. But don’t try and define rape, or examine the tabloid fragments of the case and claim that there is no case to answer. Assange was aware that the charges would be brought, and has come forward knowing the press attention would make scapegoating him difficult.

Further Reading:

Feministing – Some Thoughts on “Sex By Surprise”

Cath Elliot – Why it’s wrong to casually dismiss the allegations against Julian Assange

This story is chilling on a number of levels: it continues a trend of women being prosecuted when rape cases they have brought fail, and on a wider scale makes women far less likely to come forward. Unless you’re raped by a complete stranger in a dark alley, you can expect clouds of doubt, questions about your behaviour, and whether you brought it upon yourself. If you know, or even worse, you’ve dated or previously consented to sleep with your rapist, you can expect the sympathy to dwindle. If you had a drink beforehand, or were wearing, well practically anything, ditto. Stranger rape accounts for a small fraction of rapes reported, and yet it’s still viewed as a yardstick by which to judge how much someone has suffered. Never mind the emotional torment bound up in being raped by someone you’ve trusted, or even loved. Whoopi Goldberg was able to claim that Roman Polanski drugging and raping a minor wasn’t “rape rape” without much backlash.

And the way society views rape by someone who is known to you, and assumes that you could have prevented it, is massively damaging. I can count, from the top of my head, 11 women I know, myself included, who’ve been raped. They all knew their rapist, two-thirds were raped by an ex-boyfriend. None of them went to the police. It all came down to one reason: they knew they wouldn’t be believed, or if it did go to court would go nowhere due to lack of evidence. What evidence can you provide? Several of them had been drinking before being raped. Some had shared a room with the perpetrator. None of us felt able to go to the police. Perhaps most worrying is that two of them were law students.

I can’t see this getting any better under the current government with their grandstanding over anonymity for defendants in rape cases, and the fact that forces are now being pulled up for handling rape cases abysmally shows how rotten the system is. But I know that everytime the tabloids report and vilify a woman who’s been prosecuted, women read the story, and a large number decide there’s no point reporting rape.

As a friend asked recently: where are the headlines for women who don’t come forward, for fear of not being believed?