Occupy Brighton: Up to Date Reportage on the Most Limp-Wristed Revoution in History

I don't want to be on X Factor. Why would I when I'm on Rorate Caeli!? It doesn't get bigger than that in the traditional Catholic World!

If anyone wants a copy of the song below, by the way, I have home recording software on my computer and a copy is yours for just £2.49, yes, that's right, just £2.49, by which time I'll have got around to the elaborate sax solo and the difficult B-side, Across the Universae Ecclesiae.

Anyway, more reportage from the Occupy Brighton camp tonight, where I've been choosing love over fear in what has to be the most limp-wristed revolution in history. Not that its just a Brighton thing. This kind of not-in-the-slightest-bit-offensive, very confused protest is now going global. I don't know what is amiss with it, its just I can imagine Che Guevara walking into the 'occupied territory' on the Victoria Gardens strip, wondering why he'd even bothered learning about dialectical and historical materialism, throwing his kalashnikov into the fountain and walking off in a huff. They were even worried about making noise after 11pm because the landlord of the King and Queen pub had told them he'd made a complaint about noise to the Council because his baby daughter wasn't sleeping well. So, in a spirit of true civil rebellion, the camp complied because they don't want the Council to get complaints. "Let's not storm the Winter Palace tonight, boys, we might wake the children!"

That's not to pour scorn on the resolve or idealism of the protesters. Most, though by no means all, are quite young, naive and just want to see the World be a nicer place in which niceness prevails over political corruption, corporate greed and the inordinate love of money. That's right! Just £2.49!

This evening there were about ten of us around the campfire. Guitars were released from their cases and played, though I must say I did not have the courage to play any of my own material ("Summorum what?") It was only when I walked home with a friend that we discussed the reality of the Occupy situation and that, in fact, despite the presence of between 20-25 tents on the site, only ten people were around all night. I asked my friend whether anyone might have gone to bed early and he said, "No, they're empty, mate." I spent a good hour trying to catch up with an incredibly competent guitarist as he negotiated his way through a series of intricate song arrangements with chords that I have never seen.  There was a truly cringeworthy moment (yes another one) when I played along to him playing 'Another Brick in the Wall' for which I shall have to answer on the Last Day. 

Credit where it is due, though, for the Occupy Movement is not, from what I can see, rejecting the homeless. I talked to one man by the campfire who has been homeless in Brighton quite a long time and who apparently goes on the Soup Run by the Peace Statue. He has a tent and sleeps in the Occupy camp and he's grateful for it because in his words, 'it is the only just rent system in Brighton'. He has a point. We discussed how much housing benefit St Patrick's Nightshelter take from the Council in terms of public money and how even more rapacious corporate scumbags like Baron Homes Corporation Ltd plunder the misery of the homeless at 17/19 Grand Parade and use the money to help sister organisation, Baron Estates, acquire a vast portfolio of property at home and abroad.

He says that every hostel and temporary homeless accommodation place he has been offered from the Council he has refused and walked away. Why? Because they are all s**tholes, squalid dives of places where you literally have to be on drugs in order to stay there, in order to stay sane. He was particularly scathing of St Patrick's Hostel, where all he found in his room was a messed up rubber mattress and a sink covered in blood! All of these places charge a top-up of between £10 and £20 a week even though it is obvious both charities and businesses in the tramp-farming trade could do well without it.

So, he prefers to sleep rough and has done for a long time. He isn't on smack, crack, Jack Daniels or even Scrumpy Jack. He chooses to live as a rough sleeper because he has seen all there is to see of Brighton's accommodation for the homeless and life is genuinely more pleasant and safe outside.  He even camped out for a while near 'millionaires row' where Brighton's celebrities reside, like Fat Boy Slim a.k.a Norman Cook, who started out in The Housemartins and went on to become a very rich local DJ.

All he did was camp on the beach near the millionaires and lit a campfire, slept out there with a placard demonstrating against Brighton's squalid and corrupt hostels system and the millionaires called the police on him and made repeated efforts to have him removed from the beach!  Nice! God forbid that millionaires should see such eyesores as the homeless outside their windows! All I can say is, thank God the Occupy Brighton people let him sleep in his tent there and he has a nice fire he can warm himself by. Good on them!

Meanwhile, please pray that I will not be possessed by the spirit of '68, or if I am, to be exorcised of it soon so that I do not join these young idealistic children of the revolution in their fight against enemies both 'visible and invisible'. Say a prayer for them. They mean well. One of them even works at Domestic and General. The homeless man said that this camp is being treated very leniently and that if the homeless had tried this camp city (yes I know its already a camp city) then police with batons and tasers would have been in before the fire could be stoked.

The idealistic young people will most likely eventually quit the camp within the year (that's the 99% of them who do have flats) and ten or twenty years down the line vote Conservative. The 1% of the camp that is genuinely homeless are the real deal. Their stories, I believe, should be reported more. Aside from that, I think that the Occupy movement is just an excellent excuse for young left-wing people to feel 'good', chat, make friends and sing songs by a campfire like, presumably, their parents did. I came home to my nice warm flat, ate some nice warm pate on warm toast, had a nice hot cup of tea and now I'm going to my nice warm bed. Tomorrow morning, like many of the radicals of Occupy up and down the country, I'll have a nice warm shower, some nice warm lunch after Mass and maybe pop over tomorrow evening to chat with them again to warm myself by the fire like St Peter denying his Lord. Gosh, now this is what I call my kind of a revolution! I get to keep living as I have been and watch the World change before my very eyes! Right, bedtime, but first I'm going to listen to the proper Catholic legend, Bruce Springsteen, one more time. "Tramps like us, baby we were born to ruuuuuuuuuun!" Incredible...

One last thought on Occupy. Somehow, we have to communicate to the Occupy movement that with only one or two exceptions, great mass movements that push God to the periphery or exclude Him are either doomed to fail or result in some kind of tyranny.  St Francis of Assisi and Blessed Theresa of Calcutta show us that we can only change the World for the better when we ask for Divine Help and when we are servants of God, rather than masters of human affairs. If all men and women in Parliament and the banking industry served God, then our current climate, let's face it, may perhaps be a little different.

No Abiding City

Brighton's homeless have, according to the BBC, doubled this year. Meanwhile, I received a text telling me that, in Oxford, homeless are left outside in the cold because all the shelters are full. I am quite certain that there is an unusually large queue for this time of year at the soup run on the seafront, due to what has been described as a "purge" from London, around venues for the Olympics and that some have made their way to the 'city by the sea'.

The BBC link above actually has some quite shocking quotes from homeless people who tell of their having been forcefully pushed out of areas of London. The South East is therefore receiving some more homeless than is apparently usual. China did the same, India did the same, so who can blame that other 'third world' nation, the UK, from doing the same. After all, they're not good for tourism and the image of the UK.

It has been a strange two days or so. On my way to going to visit George and Diane yesterday I came across a couple, Neil and Margaret, outside the Jobcentre in Brighton, having recognised Jim, a former successful jockey, now hanging out in Brighton hoping to be found by the Rough Sleepers Team in Brighton. He turned up at the door of the Church on Friday during Catechism asking for a sleeping bag. Fr Ray gave him his jacket and I gave him a duvet from the garage of the Church. His story is rather confusing, I have to admit, but however he got here, he is in Brighton and is now rough sleeping.



Despite the fact that the interview above is rather 'in your face' I thought it worthwhile posting it up. It isn't 'politically correct', it isn't necessarily 'tasteful' and it isn't that 'pleasant', but nevertheless, these are the real opinions of real people living life on the edge in Brighton and for that reason they are worth hearing. I don't personally agree that 'foreigners' are taking a great deal of housing, certainly not in Brighton, Brighton being not half as cosmopolitan a city as, say, London, but nevertheless, that is their perception. Given that the man, Neil, has fought for this country and is left destitute after his stint in Northern Ireland, I certainly believe his words are worth listening to. I found it astonishing that the couple were looking for work at the Jobcentre even though they are homeless, but, even so, they are cut off from the benefits system, Neil having missed his letter telling him he has a medical assessment, when he was in Manchester, because they sent the letter to the wrong address. If you don't turn up for your medical assessment, in this country, then you are cut off from the benefits system. They've been in Brighton a week or two and sleep in a car park and it is getting colder by the day.

Their words are a challenge to us all. Perhaps there are issues with them, there is likely to be, but I believe that the Gospel still speaks through them. They are right to say that unless they have been here 6 months sleeping rough then they will not be considered to have a local connection and the Council will not house them until they have seen winter through.

I recently heard that a man of just 39, a rough sleeper called Steph Kelly died in Brighton on the streets. He had been taking a great deal of drugs over time, upon his release from prison. At the meal at the evangelical Church for the homeless on Monday they gave him a minutes silence. Men and women cried as they remembered the friend that they lost to drugs, alcohol and a cocktail of prescription drugs. People had tried to warn him to stop but he couldn't, wouldn't or didn't think he or the life he was living was worth it. You might perhaps think that street homeless and hostel homeless would become immune to hearing of the deaths of their brothers and sisters, but despite the harshness of their lives, often ravaged by alcohol and drug addiction, they intensely love their brothers and sisters. I know someone who says he has 20 friends who died in the last two years. He worries that he is next, but he 'doesn't care' either whether it is him. He says he cares when others die, but he doesn't care if he dies. There is a certain nihilism there, a devil may care attitude towards himself and yet when it comes to others, it is something else entirely.

Meanwhile, this evening, I met a lady who had a most horrendous story to tell. She is a mental health nurse who now feels she cannot work in the United Kingdom because the NHS is so appalling. She complained of the way in which the NHS deals with mental health patients and especially the 'care in the community' system. She said that in America, things are markedly better, whereas here, we never get to the root of the problem for mental health patients and just throw medication at them and then let them go. However, tonight she was particular angry.

Why? Well, her story, or rather the story of her niece, who she was comforting tonight, is not pleasant. The story of her niece is, in fact, perhaps the most harrowing story I have heard for a long time. Recently, her niece, who I met, and her boyfriend and son, befriended someone in their area. They didn't know he had mental health issues. One night, he called at her flat, where she lives with her boyfriend and son and was troubled, so they invited him in for a cup of tea. The man proceeded to go to the kitchen and got knives out of the drawer and started cutting himself up in front of them. In fact, he started cutting himself up so much that he cut a vast array of his arteries all over his body. The boyfriend tried to stop him but he just kept grabbing more knives. The mother had to get the son and literally throw him out of the house while getting the neighbours to call the emergency services. By the end, the man was dead, only to be brought back to life later by the emergency services. The niece now lives in a house which is covered in the man's blood. Totally covered in blood.

They have tried repainting the walls but the blood is still coming through. The man thought he was possessed and was trying to cut 'the demon' out from himself. He was rushed to hospital but the couple and the son were left in a house literally covered in blood. Understandably, they want to move but the Council are not yet doing anything to move them. The house should really be abandoned by now, in my opinion, and they are still in shock. But the most harrowing aspect of the story is that even though the man was at death's door, having cut himself to pieces, literally with parts of his internal organs hanging out, he is now out of hospital and is calling at the door of the couple and he won't stop going round. Why has the man not been sectioned? Why is he not in a secure hospital? Is he not a 'danger to himself and others'? Well, this is 'care in the community'.

Apparently, it was Margaret Thatcher who closed down all the mental asylums of Britain and just let the society that she said did not really exist deal with psychopathic mental patients. Say a prayer, or a Rosary, for the lady (you can pray for the 'iron lady' as well, of course), her niece and her family as despite the terrible things that have happened at the flat, the local authority seems to be washing their hands of the situation, while they are still trying to wash the blood off the walls and repaint them despite the fact that blood is still coming through. I don't know why people who are troubled come to Brighton but they do. Some people are desperate to get out. The lady I was speaking to about it is Catholic but she has lost her faith over the years, so say a prayer for her too and for the protection of her relatives.

The niece, who still lives in the same house, still coping with the trauma of what happened went on her way back to the same house where the same guy is still calling round is on the edge of a breakdown. Her boyfriend is, following what he saw, having a nervous breakdown. I told her that the Catholic Church has exorcists but that it is likely that 99% of cases are literally to do with 'mental health'. She replied that if you had seen this guy cutting himself open and opening up his chest in front of you, his eyes and face changing so much that that person you thought you had met was no longer there, you'd know that demonic possession is totally real.

Oh and, last, but by no means least, pray for the man who is (at best) seriously mentally ill, who is harrasing the family and that the authorities will take action that will save his life and bring peace to their lives. Welcome to Brighton and, remember, its nothing like what the Council and tourist board say it is. You could have the best 'global economy' run by a world bank in the World, even one run along the lines of the Church's social teaching, but, somehow, I don't think it would save the West. Only Our Blessed Lord can save this country.

This is Laurence England reporting to you live from Brighton and, while the view here is sometimes pretty, there is no doubt in my mind that this country is going to the wall, big time and how! If you live in the countryside, well, good for you! My advice, for the time being, is stay there! And it isn't even Halloween yet...Ave Maria, gratia plena...Anyway, to end, let's end with something light. As you'll hear from our video, I've got nothing on John Squire, but George, even though he isn't famous, is still a better singer than Ian Brown. Why not say a prayer for Ian and his ladywife too who is, apparently, a Mexican lady.

New Protest Song Alert: The Eye of a Needle

I don't have sound on my computer, so I'd be interested whether the sounds levels regarding vocals and guitar on this are about right, or, indeed, not. Regardless of whether this song is good or whether it is something that wouldn't make a Pete Doherty B-side, I don't imagine I'll ever get a job working for the Leisure and Tourism department of Brighton and Hove City Council. Lyrics below...


The Eye of a Needle

You’re down and out in Brighton
So now what you gonna do?
Though there’s ‘To Let’ signs everywhere
This city’s got no room for you
You’ve got some cash
But the agents they want more, more, more
You need a flat
But brother you are poor, poor, poor

So you go and see the Council
Maybe they’ve a room for you?
You drag your belongings
Down Crack Central avenue
You were full of hope but now that you’ve arrived-rived-rived
You see the room and you break down and you cry, cry, cry

There’s a soldier up above who’s been beating on his wife
He left Iraq but now he can’t cope with civilian life
And there’s a sad man rapping at your door, door, door
Asking, “Here, do you know where I can score, score, score?”

Then you lay on your mattress,
Out the corner of your eye
You spy a used needle that an addict’s left behind
You’ve never stayed anywhere like this before-fore-fore!
There’s a dry patch of blood upon the floor, floor, floor, floor, floor!

Oh this is Brighton
Brighton
Welcome to Brighton
17/19 Grand Parade
Brighton

There’s a sad man rapping at your door
His arms are cut to shreds and now he’s asking for your support

You get a letter from the Council
Telling you the room’s price
You ask, “How can it cost that for this squalid little dive?”
Then another letter comes up to your door, door, door
You’ve got to pay 'top-up' or you’ll be out in the morning

You ask who runs this joint
You find out that its Baron Homes
They’re making money out of you
It chills you to the bone
The owners making loads of cash, cash, cash
You see another tenant in a body bag, bag, bag

[Audacious key change]

You’re down and out in Brighton
So now what you gonna do?
When the eye of a needle is just what you’re passing through
You tell the Council but they don’t really mind, mind, mind
Do they care if you should live or die?

You wait for 7 hours at the Council
Maybe there’s another room
“There must be more to Brighton than Crack Central”, Oh , but you?
You’re not welcome in this town because you’re poor,
"Here’s a ticket to the town where you come from,"
The rich they are welcome here, that’s all
But not you, no, you are not really their sort,
Then a stranger walks straight through your door, door, door
He’s got the keys he’s the tenant from before-fore-fore!
There’s a bad man rapping at your door, door door!
Asking, “Here brother, do you want to score, score, score?”
The Council ask, “Have you ever considered Eastbourne?”

This is Brighton
Brighton
Brighton
Welcome to Brighton
Brighton
17/19
Grand Parade
Brighton

[Repeat to Fade]