How to be happy?

Posted on by inkbiotic

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Nothing’s happened for me to write about today, things are calm and quiet, but I have had one thought on what it takes to be happy:

I don’t believe there’s a universal secret to happiness, we’re too varied, one person’s blissful life is another’s miserable cage. So there is no rule book or map to follow, you just have to use trial and error to work out what’s right for you. Experiment, explore, ask questions. And then, when you’ve found the life that gives you peace and meaning, you have to develop the strength of mind to ignore all the people telling you you’re wrong about it.

Hopefully tomorrow there’ll be the usual ridiculousness to write about, I’m not much of a philosopher.

The image is a face sculpted in sand taken next to the Thames.

Mystery solved?

Posted on by inkbiotic
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The tube seat pattern

‘I guess, just be careful you don’t wear any negative shoes, or they might get lifted?’

Comment from A gorilla’s existential crisis

Well, it’s looking like the mystery of the black star has been solved. Although the answer itself may be a diversion, a trick to pacify us. Claims of Illuminati, black holes and aliens are still under consideration.

Weather: blazing!

Mood: chirpy

Word of the day: Hypogeal – underground

So the black star update:

The gorilla blogger, Matt Johnson (unusual name for a gorilla) did some searching around and came up with a theory to explain the star (for anyone who missed the beginning of this, there are stars on the ceiling of tube trains in London and NOBODY else appeared to have noticed them or knew what they were).

The website he linked to had this comment, which I didn’t read properly at the time.

And look out for the little star on the ceiling, that indicates the floor hatch for lifting Negative shoes.

Then after posting on a London underground forum, I got lead to another post, which led to some comments under an article about the underground, and this said basically the same as Matt’s research.

The blue stars are an indication of where the shoes are on the train, in case they need to be lifted. They were on all the old Victoria line trains and are on the baker loo as the trains are basically the same.

For anyone confused about negative shoes, this is the wiki description of shoes. Somebody had fun coming up with names for stuff.

Electric railways with third rails, or fourth rails, in tunnels carry collector shoes projecting laterally (sideways), or vertically, from their bogies. The contact shoe may slide on top of the third rail (top running), on the bottom (bottom running) or on the side (side running). The side running contact shoe is used against the guide bars on rubber-tired metros. A vertical contact shoe is used on ground-level power supply systems, stud contact systems and fourth rail systems.

I suspect it’s the vertical contact shoe that needs lifting and is marked by the star (which I still say is black.)

So I’m going to leave the mystery alone for now, but it won’t be forgotten. I suspect London is full of odd little mysteries, I’d like to connect some of them up. Any ideas how?

 

 

A failed attempt

Posted on by inkbiotic

 

black star

The ongoing mystery of the black star on the tube.

Weather: much sun, some cloud

Mood: vague

Word of the day: scintillometer – instrument measuring scintillation of star

I tried asking the information desk at the train station if she knew about the black star. She said ‘Oh maybe.’ And my heart leapt, she began searching through different message boards on her two phones. ‘I’m sure I saw something here,’ she said, flicking through. So I pulled out my phone to show her the photo I’d taken. Her expression went cold, ‘Oh no, I’ve never seen that before,’ she said.

So then I asked a young, efficient-looking guard in the tube station, his shirt said Happy to help, but he looked at me very oddly, ‘What star? Where? What tube?’ He was annoyed. Another, slightly older guard was walking past, so I asked him, he looked at me like I was mad.

So either I’m mad, or nobody but me is observant, or this is a huge conspiracy to hide the truth about the black star – presumably some secret organisation leaving its mark to watch over us. Any ideas? Of course if it’s the conspiracy explanation I have now warned officials of my presence.

 

Can you help with this mystery?

Posted on by inkbiotic
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Sorry about the crappy photo, it isn’t easy to take a photo of a tube ceiling in rush hour.

Life used to be filled with unanswerable questions, but then Google came along and answered them all. Except THIS one.

Weather: blue skies filled with puzzlement

Mood: quizzical

Word of the day: sideral – sent from the stars; ominous or evil

Question of the day: why is there a black star on the ceiling of many carriages on the tube (London Underground)? They’ve been there a few decades at least. Not on every train, and it may be only the last carriage (which is where I tend to sit) but always on the ceiling, a black star sticking about an inch across. I tried Google, but no luck.

I asked at work and NOBODY has ever noticed it but me, they looked at me like I was delusional, until I showed them a photo.

So has anyone else noticed this too? Do any of you know why they are there?

Murder and the drama llama

Posted on by inkbiotic
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I took this photo by the river in Waterloo. According to a guy there, many bones lie scattered on the beach. It isn’t connected to the cat, but kind of fits with the mood.

Mood: I don’t even know

Weather: drizzly

Word of the day: Cataplexy – condition feigning death used by animals

The police came by to see the cat’s head. They deny it’s murder, since the famous Croydon cat-killer is a case considered solved, and that the killer never existed. ‘Could this be a different cat-killer?’ I asked. ‘No,’ the policeman said firmly. However, we still have a body-less head that looks to have been cut with a knife. I feel like we should do investigating of our own. But where could we even start? I’m sure I had a book about how to be a detective as a kid but I don’t remember any of it now.

Saw Hamoudi in the kitchen. He seemed pretty cheerful, not seeing dead people or receiving gifts from strangers. He was wailing about his lack of vegetables so I offered him a tin of sweetcorn I’ve had sitting in my cupboard for some time. He explained  he can’t eat yellow food – not pasta, yellow peppers, nor chips, and not sweetcorn. When I asked why he said yellow food always caught in his throat. He demonstrated with choking retching sounds. I’m starting to suspect he might be a little bit of a drama llama.

So cats eat blossom?

Posted on by inkbiotic

 

 

bigger cat

These pictures show my neighbour’s ginger cat, sitting in a small tree, licking the blossom. He was up there for ages, shuffling about, slurping away. Very odd. Have any of you seen this before?

‘Sometimes even the wrong train takes you to the right station.’

The Lunchbox.

Weather: sunny

Mood: good

Word of the day: Cowcat – person whose function is to occupy space

Coming home tonight, all trains going my way were cancelled. So I just grabbed the first train leaving the station and tried to work out where it was going by looking it up on my phone. There were signs up – on the platform, in the train, but they all said different stops to each other, so that didn’t help. My phone stuttering in its connection wasn’t ideal. Then the tannoy announced ‘Ignore all the signs saying where this train is going. They’re all wrong! This train is going to mumble mumble mumble.’ So that didn’t help either. I made it home by sheer luck. You’d think that train companies would have learned how to deal with a crisis by now.

Jinjing and Hamoudi were in the kitchen cooking up soup. I made some toast, hoping that Hamoudi would elaborate on the dead people tales. Instead I listened to Jinjing slagging off Neville because he never cleans up after himself and leaves plates of meat lying around for days.

‘I mean, has he ever done any cleaning since he’s been here?’ asked Jinjing. Hamoudi nodded, keeping his head low as if he could duck beneath the anger. Anyway I got a bowl of soup out of it.

cat in tree

An owl and a pussycat and mushrooms

Posted on by inkbiotic

 

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‘I’ve got wild staring eyes
And I’ve got a strong urge to fly
But I got nowhere to fly to.’

Comfortably Numb

Weather: blue skies

Mood: happy

Phrase of the day: nosom para oblake (Serbian) – conceited. Literally – ripping clouds with his nose

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I decided to get out of the house today and take a trip into central London. I wandered around Waterloo station, I like to follow the train tracks to see what’s about. And I stumbled across this garden outside St John’s church. It was filled with mosaic covered ornaments and benches. It was like treasure buried in London.

Mosaics are always impressive to see, the sheer patience and staying power. It’s the kind of thing I see and think I’d like to do, but I know I’d get bored with in half an hour and end up with a few bits of broken plate on an old chair that I don’t want to throw away.

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Back home I tried to talk to Hamoudi again, but he was trapped in the kitchen being talked at by Neville, who was listing the names of cloud formations. Normally I feel sympathy for someone whose social skills are lacking and doesn’t know that he’s boring people, but I genuinely don’t think that’s the case with Neville. I think he can read cues fine, and knows people want to leave the conversation, but carries on anyway. I think it makes him feel important. It sounded like Hamoudi got away by escaping out the back door of the kitchen onto the fire escape. He’s still in the garden now, pretending to look at the apple tree.

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Finally! Talking to Hamoudi again. And eating salad.

Posted on by inkbiotic

 ‘I want to tell you my secret now…’

The Sixth Sense

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Tricky to hold the plastic pry tool and the phone at the same time, so I apologise for the ineptness of this photo

Weather: grey.

Mood: hermit crab

Word of the day: yapness – hunger

The furniture shop/garden centre down my road has now become a ‘Lifestyle Café’ after only being a garden centre for a week. A fancy sign declares it so. There were quite a few guys hanging around chatting, but I’m pretty sure they are the guys that hung out there when it was a furniture shop, so I doubt they’re spending much money. There were also a few washing machines for sale.

I drifted over that way, thinking I could do with a lifestyle. I had a look at the sign, admired the plastic ivy they had winding up the frame of the café. Then the guys all noticed me and stared, their expressions clearly saying, This is no place for the likes of you! So I hurried away.

On the bright side, I managed to bump into Hamoudi in the kitchen. He was cheerfully making a complicated salad, and after all my popcorn and crackers, I got pretty jealous. I asked him how his job at the bar was going, whether he was missing home, all the questions you’re supposed to ask someone you don’t know well. Finally I blurted out,

‘So, you see dead people?’

His face dropped, he stopped dicing carrots and leaned on the counter. Then said, his voice heavy with sorrow,

‘Back home, yeah. It’s been ok here. So far.’

‘What people? People you knew?’

‘No, just in the street. Looking in the window, in trees sometimes. They’re everywhere. They get lonely.’

‘And they scared you? That’s why you left?’

‘No, they made me sad. Every day, all these sad faces. And when other stuff started happening too, I thought, I can’t stay, this place isn’t safe.’

‘What other stuff?’ I asked.

Hamoudi said nothing, but handed me a bowl of salad with a look of sorrow and then turned away. I crept out. I was pretty excited about my healthy food, but forgot a fork so I had to eat it with a plastic pry tool for the car. They’re surprisingly effective.

I’m leaving my room! I’m going into the kitchen!

Posted on by inkbiotic

Graffiti

When you think about it, the whole world is a ‘lifestyle café’.

Weather: the kind of wind that tries to snatch you out of the world by your hoody

Mood: adventurous

Phrase of the day: Hablar hasta por los codos (Spanish) to talk non-stop, literally to talk even through the elbows

I took a walk down my street to see what changes have happened this week. There’s always something. Either somebody will have knocked down a wall to reveal a toilet in their garden or they’ll be a gathering of body builders at the church.

About half-way down the road is a furniture shop with no particular wares. Last week they had thirty washing machines, before that it was microwaves and sofas. I’m assuming it depends on what warehouse got broken into. The guys who like to hang out there are sociable and friendly, always playing music and having a smoke and a chat together. I walked past it today and it had turned into a garden centre. It had the same group of guys hanging out, but with rows of dry brown box bushes and withered geraniums.

I’m impressed they managed to change their entire product line and kill it, all within a week.

Bolstered by this go-getting attitude of can-do, when I got home I decided I wouldn’t spend the whole evening hiding in my room. I’d venture out and talk to my new flatmates. As I’ve mentioned, I tend to hide from them and only sneak out long enough to get some cheese from the fridge. I keep the crackers in my room. That’s dinner.

However, today, when I heard someone bashing around the kitchen I went out to say hi under the pretence of getting some cereal. And I encountered Neville. Neville is super woke, super friendly, and was wearing a t-shirt that said ‘Feminist as fuck’. He told me about his hometown in Delaware and how he grew up poor in what sounded like a mansion (three flights of stairs and a pool??), all the while he was cooking up a big pack of bacon. Just putting slice after slice in the frying pan. Then he began telling me all the countries that are good at making bacon and I felt the need to escape the conversation. This was more words than I’d heard in a long time and my brain was also starting to fry, but it was difficult to find a moment of pause. Apparently Denmark is not the best country for bacon, that’s just PR. In the end I had to shout that I’d heard my phone ringing and run for my room.

Still, that’s a first step in becoming a fully integrated member of society. I’m on the up and up!

London is not OK

Posted on by inkbiotic

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I want to remind you of a few news stories that broke just before Christmas, they show serious problems with poverty in London and the rest of the UK. These kinds of stories are often in print at that festive time, I guess because that’s when people are feeling generous and donate to charities. However, it also means that once Christmas is over, everyone feels the problems are finished too, they’ve donated, they’ve done their bit. The truth is, the situation in the UK is getting worse, and donating money to charity is only a sticking plaster. Austerity measures have destroyed lives, even ended lives, and the government show no sign of stopping cuts.

The focus of some of these stories is on London, primarily because that’s where I live, so I see news stories for here, but also because London is generating some disturbing statistics at the moment. People tend to assume because London is clearly a rich city, poverty induced problems must be minimal, but the opposite seems to be true. These stories might be familiar to you, so I’ll keep them brief, but there are links if you want to read more.

How Rich Are We

Out of all countries, the UK is ranked fifth for GDP (value of all goods and services produced. Article), and seventh for where the most billionaires live (article). Out of cities across the world, London is ranked fifth for where the most rich people live (London fifth richest city ) and also fifth in terms of GDP. Most of the inequality between rich and poor comes not from money being earned, but owned wealth (ie inherited or invested in property) (Wealth in London ). For a wealthy country, with a wealthy capital city, the following problems are ridiculous.

Homelessness

new homeless article

Article

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Up until 2010, homelessness had been declining, but since then has risen every year.

People sleeping rough  numbered 1768 in 2010 and 3569 in 2015 in the Uk. So double the numbers.

There are many more people homeless, but less visible, sleeping on floors of friends or in derelict buildings. It is thought that over 60% of homeless people don’t show up in figures.

However, in London the rise was biggest, from 400 in 2010 to 940 in 2015.

The other highest figure, and highest rise in figures, is in South East England.

Here are the facts and figures

2010 was when the Coalition government initiated the austerity program. It involved reducing funding for housing-related services, for example reducing housing benefit to a level that often didn’t cover rent, increasing sanctions for benefit claimants leaving vulnerable people without any assistance, introducing the bedroom tax (claimants had money reduced if they had an unused bedroom). It’s these measures, and rising rent prices that have lead to homelessness.

 

Foodbanks

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The Independent did a poll of London families and discovered that 18% have to choose between heating or feeding their family.

33% (a third) struggle to afford healthy food for their family.

14% rely of foodbanks or free breakfast clubs.

Article about foodbank use

Austerity and the wider problem

There have been reports in the newspapers this month about a lack of beds in A&E hospitals and the cancellation of 50,000 operations. This situation has clearly hit a crisis point, but at the end of last year a study was brought out calculating that 45,000 deaths had been caused by austerity measures, many of which were caused by inadequate hospital care. Substandard care for the elderly was another factor.

cuts death

Effects of health and social care spending constraints on mortality in England

Note: this has been reported as 120,000 deaths, but that is a projected figure for 2015-2020, it may well prove to be an accurate prediction, but 45,000 actual deaths is shocking enough, there’s no need to inflate it.

Thank you for reading…