Relax – I’m safe, I’m not a homeless beggar.
Currently Police Scotland and the UK Borders agency are running an operation in Edinburgh to immediately deport foreign homeless beggars back to their home countries. If they want to go, fine – but I’m a bit afraid of coercion of the form ‘You do want to go home, don’t you, sir!’ As far as I’m concerned, anyone has the right to be in any non-private property they choose.
I’m fuming that at a recent community council meeting, it was said that ‘unfortunately, begging of itself is not a crime’ (my emphasis). As far as I’m concerned, if there’s a crime, it’s that we haven’t organised society so that there is no need to beg. Of course, if a beggar acts in an offensive manner, then there is some right – and public nuisance laws – to deal with this.
But if you are offended by people simply and politely asking for money because they aren’t in a position to earn enough for themselves, then do something about it! Attack the cause, not the symptoms – try to build a fair society where we all have enough.
I’m reasonably pleased that I was one of several thousand people braving Saturday’s perishing cold to protest against Donald Trump’s actions and policies. I hope that he might be persuaded to tone his offensiveness down just a little, but I’m not holding my breath on this score.
Some placards and posters were quite amusing, in my opinion.
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I shouldn’t be pleased that I’m on this video (sadly no longer available on the BBC) around 27 seconds in – the point is not to aggrandise myself.
Well, it’s been basically a rubbish year.
We’ve said goodbye to too many people: David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Anton Yeltsin, Elie Wiesel, Gene Wilder, Leonard Cohen, Robert Vaughn, Fidel Castro, Eric (my cousin’s partner) and John Glenn spring to mind. But the death that has affected me the most is the loss of my father in October. Here’s how it went, according to Facebook: Continue reading
Understanding Digital Policy was the title of an unconference I was at this week. (It was at an outpost of the University of Liverpool in central London – hence the title and illustration for this post.)
Although it was billed as covering
it went much further than that, into how will and how should policy be shaped, and what research should be done. This was at least in part due to the organiser, Simeon Yates, leading the the ESRC Ways of Being in a Digital Age team, and so being highly influential on research directions.
You can jump straight to my personal reactions if you want, but here’s how the day progressed. Firstly, we found interesting and/or kindred spirits by writing our own ‘about-me’s, looking at each others’ and deciding who we wanted to work with. Continue reading
Rubber side down!
It’s definitely winter – I’ve been wearing booties over my bike-boots to keep my feet warm, even when it’s not raining.
I was overtaken by a <very rude adjective> Brompton on the upper stretch of Leith Street last night. I’m definitely not up to speed yet. Bah!
What Elly said. It was a bit wet and windy today, so the return into headwind wasn’t so much fun. Elly’s post has photos of me in Lycra.
The title is a compliment to the many people older than me who overtook us during this holiday, riding old clunker machines with hardly any Lycra in sight. Continue reading
What Elly said. She has better photos, but here are some extra Bruce-ramblings: Continue reading
What has Dutch subtitles, Is narrated in Spanish, has lyrics in English, took place in Cuba, stars four animated wrinkly old codgers and is watched by Bruce and Elly? Answer: Rolling Stones – Havana Moon. Continue reading
a back-up of https://friends-ssct.org
wibbelwobble
Good governance and leadership
Participatory Budgeting for the Leith Neighbourhood Network
Maximising the impact and value of library and information science research
Leith Harbour and Newhaven Community Council
News, funding opportunities, and support from Research, Innovation & Enterprise
Digital evidence that Bruce might have a life 