31 Dec 2023
Laura Bill reveals why she’s glad to be bidding farewell to the current year…
Ponderings of misery have been upon me since at least Christmas Eve so if you wanted cheering up… well, disclaimer… Just saying.
I partly blame the telly – adverts of dying children, tortured dogs and abandoned donkeys in between gushing families engorging themselves with stuffed olives, prawns and sausage rolls with twinkling Prosecco glasses by the fireplace. And presents. Piles and piles of Love Actually-style wrapping.
This whole sickening juxtaposition seems to me to be getting worse and it is not easy to be jolly and joyful after this year, is it? I am tired of seeing person fawning over a ‘fabulous food bank’ or an ‘amazing night shelter’ on social media. People who have never had the experience might think these basic and dehumanising places are wonderful but they would soon change their minds.
An article in The Guardian with the headline ‘Shoplifters to benefit most from ending short jail terms in England and Wales’ made me laugh.
For a start, who wants to shoplift? Who wants to put in all the effort and risk required when they can just tap their card once and walk out with that warm fuzzy feeling you get from making a billionaire smoking a Havana cigar with his feet on his desk even more money?! Well it’s good news apparently for those forced to steal food for their families this year as they can look forward to hundreds of hours of community service instead of jail.
Happy times…
I know I’m not the only one to be happy to be rid of 2023. A photo of former councillor Danny Clare with his partner at Heathrow Airport spoke so much to me when I saw it on Facebook this week. Somebody who had so much to give the community was put under so much pressure and stress from social media bullying that he quit his role. So much unnecessary energy poured into a hate campaign. Remember Professor Tim Boatswain had a similar thing in relation to his voluntary work with Conservation 50 and the Civic Society? Who really decides a good use of their time is to launch a relentless Facebook diatribe against someone they have probably never met? Why not have an actual conversation? Even if you don’t agree with the other person’s opinions surely it’s a much more civilised alternative?
In these times where people need good value shops in our super expensive city, we lost Wilko in The Maltings and also saw the closure of Love Brownies and Oliver Zissman’s salad bar Leafy. And still the beloved Smokehouse Deli remains shut as owner Gels Picciuto continues battling it out with SADC over what he says are compromised building control regulations at his premises.
Cell Barnes people crying out for a salt beef sandwich or the best eggs benedict they’ve ever tasted will have to walk into town instead.
Add to all this, several people getting in touch with me about failures to their social housing and having to live with leaks, rats or whole families squashed into hotel rooms. I tried to get some answers regarding the Noke Hotel refugees.
Yet years on…no definitive comment from the Home Office about what they are doing, what support they are providing and meanwhile confused and bewildered vulnerable people wander around Chiswell Green on an allowance of £1.36 per day – which is now being cut to £1.25.
Then there were the road closures on the High Street. How much money was wasted on that particular stroke of genius?! How many people were massively inconvenienced and all for what? After so much blood, sweat and tears, endless meetings, lost sales and frustrated delivery drivers the whole thing was scrapped and returned to its original situation of the road being open.
And if I’m ranting about the state of things, how can we possibly ignore the situation with our overstretched GP surgeries.
All I’ve heard all year is people on hold for hours trying to get appointments only to be cut off or told to call back tomorrow.
Several stressed GPs and receptionists have suggested that I should call Rishi Sunak if I have a problem or pointed that they are the only person working that day and that they are doing their best. I even offered to volunteer on reception at my own surgery but strangely they declined. The situation reached a personal low for me when I had to return for a second smear test in a matter of months because my original had been mislabelled. What a joy it was to repeat that particular experience.
Even the smallest of pleasures have been ruined. Who can forget my drive-thru dalliance at McDonald’s and the discovery that you pay a stealth tax for Just Eat deliveries?
Meanwhile, the long-awaited Jubilee Square remains just that.
The one positive consistency in our year has been Nick the city centre postie, usually in his shorts, bringing a smile no matter what else is going on in the world, magically popping up unexpectedly like the shopkeeper in Mr Benn.
I could go on. Don’t tempt me. But at the end of the day we may not always have a GP appointment. Or be able to park (don’t get me started on trying to navigate our tiny car parking spaces!). We may not even have peace. But we always have hope. And that’s what I’m holding onto for 2024!!
