Ben’s Musings

Mary-Lou and I are well into LOST and are working our way through the 4th Season at the moment.

This is a great video about how they came up with the title music. You might be a bit lost if you haven’t seen LOST.

I saw this many months ago and really enjoyed it. It’s a rip off of a R Kelly thing where he split a really long song into short ones and it was about midgits or something. Enjoy:

Feeling tired, broken monitors, Toby reminds us of Amy, grief so far, smiles and baby noises, Nando’s and Raising Boys.

Download Episode 16

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A few days ago there were riots in Manchester after Manchester City Council invited then allowed 150,000 Rangers football fans to come to the City Centre and drink in public from 6am when the match was later that evening.

I was appalled by the violence and still feel very angry towards the City Council for letting it happen. I fully agree with my friend Paul’s review of the whole thing.

But something beautiful happened that evening too. A chap called Tom, walking out of an internet cafe, saw a baying mob kicking, punching and stamping a Police man on the floor. He ran over, grabbed the police man, helped hiom up and ran with him to a Police Van, despite another Police officer hitting him with a baton.

Later, he helped Firemen rescue a drowning Rangers fan in the canal, shoulder lifted an unconscious man to an Ambulance and chased off two Rangers fans who were looting a Police Van, locking it up afterwards.

In-amongst all this horrible violence and disgusting preference of economy by the City Council, goodness, love and peacemaking was found.

Well done Tom.

On Tuesday 6th May, Police beat and attacked members of the public outside Bridgewater Hall including a prominent Peace Activist who I know. See the report on the MEN website here.

Basically, there was an event showcasing the talents of young black people across Manchester in Bridgewater Hall. Just as the event ended, outside, Police stopped and searched a car believing there were drugs or weapons inside. The passengers started getting agitated as people started streaming out of the Bridgewater Hall, some of whom came over to see what was going on. The Police sent a distress signal which menat that many other Police rushed to the scene. Police then started attacking people causing some serious injuries, including Raymond Bell, who works for Carisma, an anti-gang and gun charity who work in inner south Manchester.

I can only believe that the Police initially at the scene didn’t see themselves surrounded by 120 people, but by 120 BLACK people. Their mindless racist fear then led to calling for backup and the mindless racist fear spread throughout the Police via mob mentality.

Of all the people to punch, strangle to the floor, then kick, you don’t do it to Raymond Bell! He is not only well connected in the council, community and even the Police, but he is a prominent Peace activist who has done massive work bringing the Police closer to the black communities!

And you don’t attack the people whoe are peacefully making the best of themselves and you certainly don’t start attacking children!

I having been fuming over this for the last week and have become nervous about the reaction of the community towards the Police and the breakdown of those relationships. Erinma, Raymond’s Wife, said it had set back Police-community relations by ten years, and I fear she is right.

Tonight I went with a friend to see our local Labour councillor, Ray Walters. My friend was there to talk about cycle lanes but I thought I’d ask him what he and the other councillors are doing to not let the Police-community relations to deteriorate. He took a deep breath, thought for 20 seconds in silence, then simply said they were aware of the situation - what a politician! He said he can’t comment while the IPCC are investigating and it would be a mistake to organise a community meeting about the incident. I’d rather have seen some emotion and a commitment to work hard to bring together the affected people and work toward reconciliation.

I know there have been many private meetings since last tuesday to try and minimise the fallout. I hope the IPCC make some heads roll. It seems that the City Centre Police mantra is “act fast and hard, think later” in the hope that the City Centre keeps being seen as a lovely safe place to spend your money. It makes me wonder whether the effort by Police to build relationships with communities is genuine.

I’m angry, and I’m not sorry for that. I want the institutionally racist Police to repent, fire everyone involved and radically change their approach and attitude to the public.