Gordon Brown has promised he will “do everything in my power" to ensure there is no repeat of the brutal death of Baby P”. Not good enough and it never will be until the government drops it’s insane obsession for creating a paper mountain made of pages and pages of forms and returns from social workers. Social workers are required to spend hours of their precious time writing reports and ticking boxes in order to demonstrate to the government that all is well. It is not. Many social workers are prevented from doing their job and so they are disillusioned and de-motivated. Nice one Gordon though the blame lies more with traitor Blair.
It has been said that many social workers see their main task to be getting the statistical returns in on time. The welfare of clients is compromised in such a negative climate with such preposterous objectives. I have seen the same culture developed in my local Children’s service for whom I worked until recently. I am now unemployed and glad to be free of a system dominated by the same burocratic obsession with ticking boxes.
There is a plan to allocate access to social workers via call centres. The idea is monstrous and in my opinion devastatingly destructive. It is designed to remove people from waiting lists who will either not fit new criteria or will not have the means to access the service.
A social worker recently told me that “ the only thing that is readily on offer to most clients is meals on wheels” and that things are getting worse by the week. Money is wasted on burocratic rituals while people go months with out proper access to WHAT THEY NEED.
It is understandable that we all want to see the people negligent in the tragic case of baby P brought to book but we must look at the bigger picture. The fact is that today services and quality of service is being eroded and dismantled by a labour government. They have become so detached from our reality they are no longer able to meet the needs of the vulnerable.
One of the contributing factors to this mess is the decline in credibility of political statistics. Paddy Ashdown recently described this as due to an increasing lack of honest transparency among our politicians. In other words we can’t trust them and if the boxes are not ticked they will juggle the forms and resulting statistics until they are happy with the result. One in four posts in Social services are vacant and I suspect it is far worse in some areas
While I was till working in my local Childrens services in Wandsworth I became directly involved in a case of a young man at risk. My line manager had no idea as to what route should be taken. When ever I protested that nothing was being done I was told that as I had reported the facts to a senior manager my job was done. I was not happy with progress so I pushed some buttons again and eventually the young man was allocated a place of safety but only at the last minute and in my opinion this only happened because I kept pushing. Another case of every one too busy ticking boxes?
Recently the government introduced a scheme requiring all public service workers at all levels to act when ever they thought a child to be at risk. The intention was eventually to make all adults responsible in law for intervening for such a child whether it be to make a phone call or to intervene in some other way. What a fantastic idea I thought! Finally all children are OUR CHILDREN. Proper socialism at last. Sadly the Nevres Kamal the social worker who “ blew the whistle” in Haringey (all local authorities have a whistle blowing policy) was sanctioned and ultimately ignored. A letter from her legal representatives is copied below.

Ms P Hewitt MPSecretary of State for the Department of HealthHouse of CommonsLondonSW1A 0AA
Our ref: LD/KemalYour ref:
Strictly Private and Confidential
16 February 2007
Dear Secretary of StateMs Nevres Kemal v Haringey Council
We act for the above-named Claimant. She worked as a senior social worker at Haringey Council and discovered that child abuse victims were not being protected. Haringey of course is the home of the Climbie tragedy.
Our client's claims follow similar recent revelations in Westminster and Leeds. Statutory child protection procedures are not being followed. Child sex abusers are not being tackled.
Our client whistle-blew the fact that the sexual abuse had been ongoing for months and the new management brought in post-Climbie had not acted. She was then targeted for a witch-hunt by management who sought to dismiss her. She received a final written warning and was transferred out of child protection.
Our client won her racial discrimination and whistle-blowing claims (copy attached) at Watford ET on 15 February 2007 (copy decision attached).
We write to ask for a public inquiry into these matters.
Yours sincerely,
Equal Justice Ltd

The enquiry will roll on and we will be told some thing palatable at the end of it but while Social services are allowed to decline we will get no where. It is time this government acted responsibly and effectively to ensure that sufficient funding is available for training and resourcing social workers.. So far it has failed miserably to such an extent that it’s policies have eroded not improved existing services. They have made significant positive changes in some areas of the work and how it is carried out such as new procedures for dealing with rape victims and there are others but the overall effect of their target driven obsessions is mostly detrimental.
Mean while we must all be vigilant where children are concerned. We must be ready to intervene if we think any child is at risk. I will never forget the young woman who challenged me while I was pushing my three year old son in his buggy in the dark. She over heard me say to him “ you don’t know where you are now do you?” ( it was part of a game we played when he couldn’t sleep) She thought this was odd and she turned to ask him – “ do you know this man?” He told her I was his daddy and she apologised to me. No need. I wanted to kiss her. What a brave and loving thing to do! Don’t hesitate. Participate.

Peace


Copyright e d g a r b r o u g h t o n 2008

bah humbug ?

Losses at Europe's biggest bank, HSBC, relating to the US housing market crisis reached $4.3bn (£2.7bn) in the third quarter.
The unprecedented turbulence in financial markets continued to present "enormous challenges", the bank added.

The times they are a changing. The recent financial crisis is responsible for the forming of different attitudes regarding the difference between what is necessary and what is desirable in the mind of the consumer. We knew about the difference all the time but in times of boom we all tend to spend a little more on the fripperies and desirables as opposed to the necessities. We all know about the struggles of the local shop against the might of the four giant superstores but today the Co-operative society announced a 25% increase in turnover. You may know that the good old Co-op is basically a socialist organisation and it looks as though people are becoming increasingly choosy about where they spend their money. I am in the process of moving what little I have to them and I know of at least one other person who is going to do the same. Recently Shoreham Steve wrote a lengthy comment to a post on my blog which outlined his attempts to deal only with ethical business. Not so easy but always laudable to try. More and more people will respond favourably to the fair trade companies and will slowly reject the wasters and users i.e. the major banks and their dodgy chums.

Are the high streets dying? I don’t think so. Just evolving but people will begin to hang on to their old mobile phone a bit longer and they will probably hang on to their cash rather than spend it on the luxury items. If the shops that only sell unnecessary goods were removed from the scene entirely then what would be left? Not much. Our local high street at Clapham Junction is no exception and is made up of the usual shops. They all sell stuff no one needs. Most of us have what we need though of course I accept there are far too many exceptions.
Recently Brown said he hoped his measures would encourage the banks to start lending again. That is what caused the problems in the first place so it is imperative that they, the banks, are monitored closely. Brown also thinks that new tax cuts will encourage consumer spending. Great! Lets all go and buy more stuff we don’t need.

I am no financial expert as you will have already deduced from this post but I do believe we have to begin to look at a personal policy around spending that addresses three basic issues if at all possible.
1. Do we need the new purchase?
2. If we do was it made responsibly in terms of the effects on environment?
3. Did the people who made it get a fair price for a fair days work in a safe , healthy work environment?

Some of you will already know how difficult it is to buy in this way but we have to begin to demand the option, partly by refusing to buy what does not meet our standards. Boycott the decorative, the trivia and the fripperies and have a sensible Christmas. Give to the poor and the children and try not to give too much to the venture capitalist and the high Street muggers. If you can’t eat it, it doesn’t save you money or you can’t wear it, keep an old person warm with it, make some thing useful ( tools) OR make a child very happy for longer than three days then don’t buy it.
If people down sizing their Christmas spend causes businesses to go to the wall it is probably a case of natural wastage and or survival of the fittest which many of those failing businesses would have claimed when the boot was on an others foot. The decline in the high street that you think you might be seeing could be the beginning of some thing radically more realistic and viable. Let us hope so.

Finally I would like to hear what others think and what strategies they employ when spending. The best comment will receive a free goodie from the EB Band catalogue.

Peace



copyright e d g a r b r o u g h t o n 2008

Ray Dixey

Old roadies never die at least not in so far as they are integral to the life of the band and therefore to the history and legend. Ray and I keep in touch via e-mail and he comes to gigs when he can. I think some times Ray misses the camaraderie and in his own words being “ connected”. Now our Ray is some thing of a writer like me so between us the idea evolved that it would be fun to have him write an occasional piece about the old days or any thing else he fancied. He has a caustic wit when addressing the petty burocracy that plagues us all so don’t be surprised if we get some commentary on modern life in forth coming contributions. Any way enough from me. Let’s have Ray introduce himself.

Kindly Rob has let me (big)Ray Dixey write a piece for his weblog.
I first met the band when they were a 3 piece band in the 60s with Rob and Steve’s mum Joyce driving them to their gigs. At the time I was with a bike club and got invited up to Warwick where the band were doing a gig through the streets on the back of a flat back lorry and needed some back up.The next time I met the band was at a free concert at Hyde Park corner at a benefit gig for the people squatting at 144 Piccadilly, a large enpty house which could have been used for helping the homeless of London.The 3rd time I met up with the band was at a gig in Bracknell, Berkshire and hung around after the gig to help the road crew strip down the bands gear and load the truck.Rob and co. must have been impressed at my enthusiasm and being unemployed I was offered a job to start the next day with the 3 other crew members,which turned out to be 5 days of back to back work the first gig being up Liverpool,the second in Kent, the third was Hull,fourth Swansea and the fifth in London.As there was now 4 in the road crew and only 3 seats in the truck I made a bed in the back curled up inside one of the W.E.M. p.a. horns and think I got more sleep than the rest of the crew over the 5 days.There were times over the next 10 years when the EB Band didn’t tour. At these times I took on tours with other bands and worked my way up through the ranks learning how to sound mix. I had my name on Geno Washingtons,Geno live at the marquee. Later I was offered a job as a p.a. hire manager and assistant manager of a rehearsal studio working out of Pinewood Film Studios where as I had a lot of muscle and could bench press 400lb I got not only to be minder to The Beach Boys, I also got to do the sound monitoring for them while they rehearsed for a press gig in a London hotel.I retired from the music business in 1983 as the company went bust. My father had just died and I sold my house in London to buy a bungalow in Essex near my sister and became a carer to my blind mother until she passed away.I now live in South Wales half way up a mountain and have just recently had quadruple by-pass surgery.More later.
Love to all,Big Ray.

I have to express my disgust and condemnation on hearing the news that last month a teenage girl in the Kurdish region of Iraq was stoned to death by a group of men. It is believed that 17-year-old Doa Khalil Aswad, who came from the Yezidi faith community, was killed because she had fallen in love with a local Muslim man. Her death was filmed by her killers and the video posted on the internet. Amnesty International has described the killing of Doa as “abhorrent” and says it is becoming increasing concerned about the number of honour killings in Iraq.

An Islamic court in northern Nigeria has postponed an appeal hearing on behalf of a woman sentenced to death by stoning for the crime of adultery

An Islamist rebel administration in Somalia has had a 13-year-old girl stoned to death for adultery after the child's father reported that she was raped by three men.
Amnesty International said al-Shabab militia, which controls the southern city of Kismayo, arranged for 50 men to stone Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow in front of about 1,000 spectators. A lorry load of stones was brought to the stadium for the killing.
Amnesty said Duhulow struggled with her captors and had to be forcibly carried into the stadium.
According to Amnesty International, at one point during the stoning nurses were instructed to check whether Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was still alive when buried in the ground. They removed her from the ground, declared that she was, and she was replaced in the hole where she had been buried for the stoning to continue. Inside the stadium, militia members opened fire when some of the witnesses to the killing attempted to save her life, and shot dead a boy who was a bystander."
During her trial Duhulow was originally reported by witnesses as being 23 years old, based on her appearance, but established from her father that she was a child. He told Amnesty that when they tried to report her rape to the militia, the child was accused of adultery and detained. None of the men accused was arrested.
A man has either to confess his adultery to the court or four men must have witnessed the act for the male “adulterer” to be held accountable. Nothing surprising there then.

Apart from the horror of such vile practice a whole nation is brutalised and slowly inured to such savagery and ultimately corrupted. Any body left to complain or protest will be swallowed up and disappeared. It seems the darkest days are still to come. There is little any of us can do except to add our voices to the protest when we can. Meanwhile Amensty International need our cash to continue the fight for reasoned justice so please give what you can spare. http://www.amnesty.org.uk/

Big Brother/ Father is vetting you? As a Vatican watcher I was intrigued by the latest announcement concerning the induction of new priests. Is the proposal for a Vatican edict to profile and vet men who wish to become priests a sound idea? The aim of the new process will be to determine if the candidates for priesthood are likely to be able to control their sexual urges.

Thank you for the kind birthday greetings. May all your days be happy.

Peace

Copyright e d g a r b r o u g h t o n 20008

on Putney heath

Clip clop then stop to tarry a while – below me she heaves – a whinny quiet – she is well schooled in my subterfuge and stealthy guiles. There is the stench of Great London in our nostrils. Tra la lee – oh for a nose gay for my true love – an orange stuck with cloves or a fine lace square drenched in fragrant oil. Trot my lovely sure and steady – always ready with a fine pair of Spanish in my belt. Clip clop on flint newly laid – stop in the darkening glades here on the heath high above Putney. Dare we tarry my mount and me? Rest for one small ale at the Green Man and trade some trinkets out back of the bear pit. Alert I be always hearkened to the sounds on the wind while she below keeps us up above the dirt – thinking of the curly headed one, darling in the whirling skirt – a slip along hips like on a boat she be – ah I would take her down to Frenchy in the west for a month or two in summer. Alert I see a King’s man on a town mare stopped under a spreading chestnut. Lurking in the gloom and green and all plumed up like a high un. He sees we. I will coldly drop him should he call me out. He stares long and hard but doesn’t have the interest and we pass by unchallenged. He is looking for an easy life and me for easy pickings. Clip clop then quiet on softer ground. She pricks up her ears and we hear the Kings man heading off to Roehampton opposite ways to we. The glow of the lit up city far below beckons me to a tavern friendly to us in Wandsworth Town. Best be there by dark and best we make swift now. Caught by the man and me carrying would see me thrown in Newgate. Ha ha! My neck was made for a fine silk scarf and not for a hang man’s rope.
Days later I pull up at the Ragged Staff Inn for the night. The place is on a high hill above Swindon. I like to look out and below on the men who would bring me down. She said she’d be here. I ached to see her framed in the light of a roaring fire. Peachy cheeks rosy with life. She is sweetness, loyal and kind. I would never do her harm nor cause her hurt in any way. She is the one who keeps me safe and of good hope. Black curly hair, buxom and lovely in the fire light. Holding on to her. Feeling her heart beat. Mine is beating like a drum.

The pale sun of developing winter falls across Eland Towers the shadow of a ladder falls through the window across the living room wall. We’ve got the builders in for total renovation. Years a go I worked on building sites and have had an aversion ever since to all things dirty, cold, wet and windy. I don’t much care for D.I.Y. either and although I have some practical skills and a few tools I would rather leave it than mend it. Consequently Eland Towers has fallen into extreme disrepair but soon all will be transformed with all the exterior masonry fixed up, windows painted, a new kitchen and .... a new studio for yours truly. We’ll have a new bathroom by the end of Saturday coming so things are well underway. Adam is our main man on the job. He is a proper working class Brixton boy and it seems as though he can fix and mend every thing. He is also a very nice bloke.

The chaos here is at least constructive and we are looking forward to the end result with great anticipation even though it is a week or three away.
I am still working on the components of the new song and video Deliverance in the midst of the building work. I realise this has been a while coming but it will be worth the wait. I’d like to finish it by Monday.

I have had a spate of emails from UK fans recently asking about UK gigs and I have to say there will be no gigs this year. How ever, the new year is a different matter and the EBB will be looking to gigs in the UK and across the water. We have some very nice offers including a return to Gagarin the Athens club.
2008 has been a strange old year and in many respects I will be glad to see the back of it. I am going to spend the rest of this year having a nice time. It’s my 61st birthday on Monday coming and far from wanting to take things easy I plan to spend the next year busily engaged in new projects as well as finishing old ones off.
ONE is top of my list and Luke has decided to make a big push on his own material in 2009. In his own words “ I’ve finally got the songs”. I believe he has and I will be assisting him with that in the back ground as and when required and I have to finish my novel The Instantanium.
The agenda for the EBB is very much a work in progress at this time but all will be resolved and all revealed here as we move on through this winter which seems to be trying to provide some thing of an Indian summer in spite of what has felt like random weather for ages. Actually the two weeks holiday I took in September were among the best of the summer. The sun is shining warmly now as I return to this writing after a few phone calls and consultations with Ad’ the builder.


The western counties call. Me and Mary can hide down there with Frenchy and Gumbo. Likely lads light fingered and steadfast and safe to run with. We’ll meet in Bristol for rum n fun. Frenchy’s great, great grandmother was the notorious ship wrecker Belle of Trevellyan. They hanged her high for her work. He come from a long line of smuggling aristocracy. He’s a good man if you are in with him and a dreadful foe if you are not. We took a few coaches together and the stuff of lone riders down Bodmin way on the moor. We broke Gumbo out of Northampton jail just before Christmas one year with snow on the ground. The King’s men tracked us for two days but we lost them in a storm. Don’t get paid enough to follow the likes of us for long and they none too keen to catch up with us neither. We was took an held over a night in Symonds Yat on our way to Cardiff City but was let go for lack of witnesses to an alleged robbery on the road. Truth is Frenchy burned down the witnesses cottage and killed their chickens.

Mary slips her hand in mine and I feel good. Like a proper pair we stay close and snug together holding on to each other. Both us kissing and a cuddling until the lust come on her and she be like a wild ‘un. God bless the lasses says I and all the loveliness about ‘em. It’s Time to climb the wooden hill to heaven on earth.

copyright e d g a r b r o u g h t o n 2008

Our good friend Peter Jones sent me the above pic of 38 Kipling Avenue - Warwick where Steve and I grew up. We lived there until we came south in 68 or there abouts.
Peter took most of the early black n white pics of the band until we made the move to London. We re met up with Pete ( Tufty) a couple of years ago when touring in the west country. He has recently been to Warwick to visit his Mum and took the photo then. The photo arrived by email with a comment about global warming in Warwick as evidenced by the palm tree in the front garden. I can’t help wondering what my parents would have made of that not to mention the many weird and wonderful changes that have taken place since they passed. We live in times of the greatest change and all at a increasingly rapid rate.
According to a panel advising the UK Government on climate change the UK should cut it’s gas emissions by at least80% by 2050. Hmmm !

The head of the international monetary fund has said “The world is facing financial meltdown". The scramble to fix what should never have been allowed to happen in the first place is going through the gears. It is clear that we are all subject to the greedy machinations of the International money mafia and there is nothing we can do to avoid it no matter how hard we work to be secure. We are made slaves to a failing system. We will do as we are bidden because we have no option and we will prop up the financial institutions that threaten us all with our own cash. We all know greedy speculation is chief culprit in this crisis.
Good people who have lived and worked exactly as they were bidden by the rules of our society ( I have not ) are ruined or reduced by the very people they trusted. Their pensions have never been under so much pressure and their savings have, in the most extreme cases, completely disappeared. It was naïve to think that any banks were acting in any one’s interest other than their own but we have kept our heads down because life in our neck of the woods was quite comfortable. Is it time to look for some thing better elsewhere? A better more honest way of doing business. Perhaps we should look at institutions such as The Co – Operative society where there still appears to be some kind of socialistic ethic behind the purpose of their business. Some time ago I was very interested by reports that younger people looking for work in the city of London’s financial sector were querying prospective employers connections with ethical / unethical companies / organisations. I commend this trend and suggest we should all take a good long look before we leap in all our transactions and scrutinise the people we would work with or for especially with those who you entrust with your hard earned cash.

Thanks for all the interesting emails you send me. It is very interesting to read about events in our collective past that, some times, I can hardly remember at all. It helps to fit the pieces together over time. It is fascinating how different members of the band remember slightly different bits of the story and how collectively we arrive at some semblance of what actually happened. So keep writing your reminiscences, stories and news of the now.


peace




copyright e d g a r b r o u g h t o n 2008

I seem to have been away for some time. I needed a break from all things EB band including this blog. The last year has been some thing of a trial. Geese fly across the sunset sky high above the broad. My heart beats well again. Urban life seems to be not so attractive among the arteries of eastern waters where the Bittern booms and foxes cry in the dense foliage of river banks. Where a natural pace and rhythm slowly emerges in my day, colouring my thoughts , anxiety subsides. It is calming here in the wet lands.

Back in the day the millwright would climb the steeple of the highest church and look out at the windmills he maintained. If the sails were in the cross of Jesus position all was well. If the sails were in the position of the cross of St Andrew then he knew the windmill needed repair and he would set out to fix things. Same day service as and when needed. This was before telephones, faxes, texts or email. Occasionally the water swirls as a big fish surfaces. The sky is huge and the light magical. Long ships sailed these water when the Norsemen came to Miceni. Shallow drafted ships that could sail in a couple of feet of water allowed the hull of the boat to tip just enough to allow a warriors horse to step over the gunnels and on to land. Cormorants are every where. They seem to enjoy the kill swooping down to spear a fish only to let it drop back in the water uneaten.

Our boat throbs it’s way into the growing gloom of a small broad off the side of a great river. The sun set is now glorious as we settle for the last few casts for elusive Esox Lucius or even a small perch. The boat is still for the duration of night. I reach for my guitar. A song with out an ending is running around my brain. It, like the pike, has eluded me for weeks and it is time to progress it. Back in the world, a short step from where I am, Fiscal Chancellors and financiers are reeling from the first stages of the great illness. Their capital system is failing. Their greed and ours has shaken the models for capitalistic security and prosperity.

“Governments are brought down by the collapse of computer banking systems and the pirates who intercede at major transference terminals and make off with the credits are still selling rice to the dying of the ruined hinterlands, whose rulers have forgotten them in the race to go Western” –
Super Chip the final silicon solution.

It must be clear now that Governments have huge reserves in order to be able to shore up the failing profiteers. The Head of Leh-mans was taking as much as 5 mill in salary, per annum, over a period of six years. What would the US have done with the 700 bill allocated for propping up it’s failing banks had they not needed to? It is amazing what hidden treasure can be found by western governments and the nouveau rich of the developing economies when they and their pals decide they need it. Is Obama a threat to their world order? He intimated the possibility in his acceptance speech some weeks ago. We shall see. Is it reasonable to expect our hopes will be dashed with the usual disappointment of endless broken promises or will a new day dawn in the land of the free? It seems the needy shall not have much relief in these times and the promises of the good and great are hollow though still – unsung good works are carried out by many people who will not accept the increasingly selfish status quo of these days. They struggle as public servants to do what can be done with dwindling resources. On closer inspection Cameron appears to have little if anything helpful to add to the pot regardless of Labours poor showing in recent polls.

Recently during the days of The Hamar festival at which the EB Band performed a new friend gave me an old guitar. It is an unusual object and is hybrid of Fender jaguar and other parts. I restrung it and here it is in all it’s wacky glory.

It plays nicely and has a distinctive sound that is great for some chord work. So thank you Steinar. No one ever gave me a guitar before.

A new suite of video editing programs sits on my hard drive. I want to re-visit all my previous material and re-process it all but the Deliverance video project is now top of the list and should be finished over the next few days. Keeping busy defeats some demons. The music is almost finished and I have half of the video material. So, I’ll be getting on with it all then.

peace

copyright e d g a r b r o u g h t o n 2008