Where for art thou I Phone

'The only sin is stealing'

It's been over two weeks now since my I Phone was mercilessly ripped from my hand by your everyday bike-riding, hoody-wearing thieves. I still have not received a replacement from my insurance but that's a different matter that should be filed under 'First World Problems'.

I am often on a high horse about a lot of things, one being my notorious lack of dependency on your everyday vices e.g. smoking, drinking, gambling. Many times in my life I've had to explain why I don't do these kinds of things, 'What, you don't take ANY drugs? Not even weed?' my former boss asked. Or 'You must do SOMETHING?' staring at me with the face that should be reserved for actual circus freaks. I just laugh it off, yes I am THAT boring unfortunately/fortunately. Yet the old adage that 'you shouldn't speak to soon' rings true for me and my beloved crutch; my I Phone. It hasn't escaped my attention that no other devices require the brand name to also be mentioned i.e. You wouldn't call a phone other than an I Phone by its name, ever remember saying 'pass my Sony/Nokia/Blackberry'? No but you would say 'pass my I Phone'. Their obvious triumph in marketing has always made me want to not covet this brand like the rest of the world seems to. Oh how I would cuss my husband for always telling me about a new spangled app that I didn't care about and for always playing on it even on the loo. My contract was due for renewal so I relented and gave in to the gargantuan marketing force that is Apple. I soon came to rely on this tiny white block, accumulating hundreds of amazing and sentimental photos and videos, inputting important dates in the calendar, putting all my reference numbers and banking details in the notes. Not to mention emails on the go, Twitter and Whats App, my social life lines for a recluse like myself. Of course I didn't back these things up, I'm not a 'backing up' sort of lass, still not becoming the full technophile that I never wanted to be.

Not for one minute during this did I feel sorry for myself, this incident is just a tiny insignificant moment even relative to my tiny insignificant life. There's a billion horrific things that happen every day. Of course I was mildly angry when it happened, I was angry that I didn't look around me before I whipped out my phone to text even though I had a feeling that that very thing would happen, I was angry that I would even have to be aware of some thievery occurring two minutes from my house at 1 o'clock on a Monday afternoon, I was angry I didn't back up my beloved files, I was angry that the woman next to me wouldn't call the police, I was angry that when I called the police they didn't turn up, but most of all I was angry when I found out who they were and that they lived right around the corner from me.

Due to various hood connections, it wasn't difficult to find the two culprits because within half an hour of taking my phone, they were bragging that they had got 2 I Phones just that afternoon. Well I guess if I pocketed a grand in one Monday afternoon I'd feel pretty chuffed too. I found out their names and addresses, this being hearsay the police wouldn't have been able to do anything about it, so I have this information and yet am unable to obtain justice. In spite of my spurious connections, I am not the vengeful nor violent type. Yet this time I am quite consumed with the idea of wreaking some kind of moral retribution on them. It's not what they did, it's the principal guys!

Due to my own investigative work I also know they've both been in and out of prison, one just recently came out. Also that that very same day they did some robberies outside a nearby primary school, mums with I Phones yes please! They returned only two days later and when one mum had the audacity to chase after one of them and demand her phone back she was duly punched in the face and her jaw was broken.

So not only do these guys get to put their feet up and count the money from their ill-gotten gains, but something tells me they are laughing at the stupid law-abiding citizens who actually worked to buy these things that takes them seconds to take for themselves. My question is, is this what a free country is? Is that how life is supposed to be???

At Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London, the rich used to sit at the seats at the top, being the hygiene freaks in the wrong sense of the word, instead of using the toilet like today's 'civilised' ??? society, they would just soil themselves and their waste used to drip to the bottom; right on top of where the common people used to sit. The same can be said of the moral fabric of the top, inevitably it drips to the bottom.

The fact that I know who the culprits are makes me feel as if it is fate, how many people can say that they know who robbed them? Until I figure out what to do, I'll have to stew in this sense of injustice, however small...

.

Bloody immigrants. Paying their taxes and contributing to society and shit. How dare they

There is a constant barrage of negativity levelled at immigrants and more specifically non-English native speaking foreigners i.e. not American, Canadian or Australian, by the media, government and much of the general public. Any debate on immigration by politicians focuses on a competition to see who can exclude the most brownies, blackies and Polish. (I once read a reader comment in the Metro saying 'all Polish women are dogs', I also read an article in The Sun which purported that due to the allegedly high incidence of HIV in Poland, meant that Britain was going to be on the receiving end of an HIV epidemic; for your information, both allegations remain unfounded).

So it was no surprise to hear on BBC radio last week that a so-called study had found a link between youth unemployment and Eastern European immigrants, when is the last time you saw a British 18-24 year old waiteressing or hauling tourists around Central London on bikes?? There was also a headline in the Metro today reading 'One 'British' job is lost for every four immigrants'. This was according to government immigration advisers, the Migration Advisory Committee. They say there were 23 fewer jobs for every 100 migrants who came from outside the EU.

Does this take into consideration all the British expats around the world? No.

Will it publish that the proportion of Brits who live in Spain is the same proportion of Mexicans that live in the US? No.

But that is not what this study was designed to prove now was it? Britain appears to act like a petulant child who happily shares other kids' toys in the nursery but God forbid anyone tries to share Britain's toys. Bitch fit ensues!... Wake up!! Our economy is crap because of our and the world's financial systems, not because of immigrants! Governments always fail to mention the positivity of immigration, Tesco and Google were invented by immigrants, anybody find these two companies useful?

So what makes my leftist/ 2nd generation brownie immigrant/ pro-immigration/ living in the real world stance less biased than a study by government immigration advisers? Nothing, yet this same government report goes on to say that immigrants are less of a burden on health services than us beer guzzlers because they are young and tend to be in good health. They cost Joe taxpayer on average £2,216 in education, £2,450 in healthcare and £708 in social services per year. Notwithstanding how crap 'average' figures always are, this in effect establishes that immigrants pay MORE in taxes than they cost in state services. Tell that to any member of the group BNP/ EDL/ uneducated zenophobe; (who each have about four teeth on average,) that immigrants contribute more than the average BRIT, they are 'net contributors'.

More music to my ears from the report includes that crime rates have fallen because immigrants are less likely to offend. Furthermore, average wages have remained the same. It also adds that 'migrants are found to increase wages at the top of the UK wage distribution and to lower wages at the bottom'. How did they link this fact to immigrants in particular? Nothing to do with the effects of capitalism, shareholder and corporation power and rubbish education for the working class no?

Additionally the National Institute of Economic and Social Research said this week that immigrants had little to no effect on unemployment. Although according to the Metro that is a 'claim' and not a matter of fact. Other positives to emerge from the government report are that immigrants are more likely to use public transport than drive, walking and cycling, so immigrants contribute less to our pollution too! Another conclusion was that immigrants love Britain more than white Britons! 'expressing a higher sense of belonging to Britain than the average British-born individual without any migrant heritage'. I think that calls for a Pow Pow! In spite of the pandering to the anti-immigration squad headline even a government source has shown immigrants are not to blame for criminality, unemployment, HIV, the state of our state services, lack of social mobility or anything else they want to blame on Johny foreigner. The headline should have read 'Britain. All our problems are our own fucking fault'.

See http://www.paulvallely.com/?p=1437 and http://anbarrockny.blogspot.com/