But I’m not. I’m on my blog writing whatever pours forth – because I can.

I know all the theory on what I’m ‘supposed’ to be writing (and how) but to be honest, I don’t think I care any more.
Copyblogger is one of my favourite reads and I’ve soaked up a great deal of knowledge from his generous offerings but I’m not a marketer and I’m not a product – not yet anyway.

Until my course is over and I’m in the job market I really am just rosevibe here and I once had a fair few blog friends who came around to visit purely because I was me and not some one-dimensional tweeter.
I miss that, a lot.

Over the last 2-3 years I’ve amassed quite a bit of knowledge about the web, social media, writing, conversation, e-learning, project managing, marketing, programming and jewellery making, but because I’m aware of how much I still need to learn to be as good as I want to be I never seem to find the time to put any of it into practice (coursework excepted that is) and it’s been remarked on by a few of my twitter friends (*cough* @PhilWoodMusic, @crashbox *cough*) that I talk about things but never seem to share my work..

A link tweeted by the aforementioned copyblogger for a post by Rajesh Setty explains my lack of sharing better than I could – even if saying so assumes that I think of myself as smart.

(..and we all know by now that I don’t, if I was it wouldn’t be taking me so long to figure out how xml, xslt, wsdl, soap etc work! never mind installing php on my laptop.. still haven’t done that *shame*)

I have so many ideas and half-formed projects in my mind that I need to become immortal just to see half of them through – it frustrates the hell out of me that I don’t have the energy or health to get even one off the ground. All my energies are directed into my course and my family right now – perhaps if I didn’t have ME/CFS to contend with things would be different, but as it stands – I’ll be lucky to come away with the degree I want.

..but if I get less than a 2-1 I’ll be screaming the C-B words, muchly!

I get annoyed so easily these days – mainly by people who needlessly mock others; who take delight in the misfortune of folk in the limelight and seem to have lost any semblance of nobility, civility, honour and conscience.

I’m not a saint by any means; but constant finger pointing and mob rule alongside the ‘reality shows’ and our rotten society as a whole.. it sickens me and makes me want to grab the face of the self satisfied wanker behind it all and ram it full force through the nearest window into a rusty spike.

I know.. a tad graphic – but I can’t convey the depth of Grrrrrrr! and Arrgggggh! that I feel when looking at what the people of this country have turned into in the name of multi-culturalism and political correctness when things like that are condoned and in some circles elevated to the height of fashion, wit and branded entertainment.

Now the beloved is pointing at the clock and ordering me to bed so I guess it’s probably for the best if I leave this here before I get truly riled and kiss off any chance of sleep.

..But, even after the revamp – don’t expect this blog to fully reflect my knowledge and experience, its a personal space and so will more likely reflect my feelings and opinions with the odd sprinkling of ‘professionalism’. I’m not focussed enough on one area to create something professional for myself, I’ll leave the professional stuff at work where it belongs – or create a section of the site for it ;0)

G’night all – if you love me, do me a favour and tell me something wonderful about the world, after the tv viewing and general crapness of our world on the surface, I could do with a glint of glory about this year to carry into the next.

love y’all

Vics Xx

You do not believe me? I previously told the tale of how they stopped my benefits while querying a large sum in my bank account – the large sum being a backdated payment from themselves. Not backdated because I was trying to claim for more than I was currently receiving mind; backdated because they kept losing my information (and I had receipts proving the information had been handed in) it was not an easy time.

Forward to a little while back when I was living in Swinton; I had to pay the best part of £300 in over payments because I couldn’t prove that almost 10 years previously I’d not been paid income support (I hadn’t kept the ‘sorry you’re not eligible’ letters) this experience has led to much needed storage space in my flat being taken up with paperwork dating back almost a decade in case I got stung again.

I am so glad I have this paperwork because ONCE AGAIN Manchester city council are trying to force me to pay money I do not owe despite having lived outside of Manchester since July 2005.

I have received a letter informing me that in November 2005 I had a liability order for £232.71 in unpaid council tax. they want to send in the bailiffs in 14 days to reclaim it. Of course I rang up to query this.

I was told that because I’d not informed them I had left the property in question (remember this bit) I was obviously being held responsible for the amount up until the new tenant took over (01/04/2005  – 28/02/2006)
He said, so long as I could prove I’d not been in the property when the summons was sent (11/10/2005) they’ll take off the court costs. He also said that Salford council would not inform Manchester council of my move, I would have to do that myself and as I obviously hadn’t this was the result.

I was pretty certain I’d done so when making my final payments – whenever I move, the last day is spent with a long list of phone numbers and my debit card ensuring everything is stopped or transferred, I can’t think why this one move would have been handled differently, but.. benefit of the doubt as it was during the onset of the ME/CFS and my cognitive abilities were a tad impaired back then.

Anyway, having gone through all my documents I can prove that I moved out of that property in July 2005 (tenancy agreement and rent invoices) but on top of that..

Now.. Remember the little bit above about not informing them of my move..?

I have letters from the Revenues and benefits office addressed to my new place telling me that my benefits have stopped for the property in question due to moving outside of Manchester.

These are dated 20/07/2005

If I had not informed them of my move I would like to know how they managed to send these letters to my new address 2 days after I moved into it? Especially if the 2 councils do not communicate with each other – who but myself would have informed them of my move and my new address?

You know what the most disgusting thing is? If I had not kept these letters, I would be expected to fork out the best part of £200 for a debt I don’t owe. Again.

Once again, proof that the only thing you can expect when dealing with Manchester city council is incompetence.

..backdated no less.

Now I have far less income yet I and my family manage to survive quite happily on it – we don’t own a great deal but what we do own adds value to our lives and centres those lives around the home.

I think that’s the problem with most folk today, they want to own things for the sake of owning them; designer labels, the latest toy, flashy car.. Where they live tends to be more storage space than home; there’s no need for all this.

Even cigarettes and alcohol are unnecessary expenses; they add little to your life but ill health in certain cases, I know many would disagree with that but I ask you – what do they truly do for you? Do they make you happy or is it just an expensive addiction, an escape from a life you don’t really like very much?

I say: don’t pay to escape your life; save to change it.

The only thing I want to own is my own home – not for financial reasons; I don’t see it as an investment, I see it as somewhere to put down roots and raise my daughter, somewhere I can change and decorate and do to as I please.

..But most importantly I want my own home because it is somewhere that I won’t be forced to leave at the whim of the owner.

If people put more importance on the things filling the home than the home itself then in my opinion they have very skewed priorities, a home is not a base of operations, it isn’t somewhere you eat and sleep before going away to live your life – that’s a hotel or a bed and breakfast.

A home, to me at least, is the place you wish you were when you’re somewhere else, a place you want to get back to, that you want to invite others to.

More than anything in this world I want a home for me and my family. That’s why I’m pushing myself to do this degree and why I’m trying as hard as I can to make myself employable despite my health issues – I don’t want to live in storage for the rest of my life and I refuse to subject my daughter to that; even if we can’t move on, she will be able to – I’ll make sure of it.

This post was prompted by an observation, I was eating my breakfast and watching the news the other day when a ‘breaking story’ came on about a bus accident in Egypt.
‘At least 4 British holidaymakers have died of horrific injuries’ ‘everyone on the bus has sustained burns or severe injury of some type or another’. Later on the same program it came out that they didn’t actually know if any of the injured were actually British, they’d been in contact with the consulate office and she was doing the rounds of the local hospitals in search of information.

I am obviously paraphrasing here because my memory is imperfect and the actual words spoken escape me. But the thing is, these things were said before any real information was available – people watching this could have family on a package tour to Egypt, the newsreader actually said ‘we have no concrete information as of yet and there are no phone lines set up’ etc etc

So basically they were spreading rumours.

These ‘respected’ bearers of the worlds news were possibly worrying people in this country about loved ones abroad just so that they could ‘get in there first’ without having any facts to check or anything of real value to impart.

That’s like me saying ‘I heard that 2 Americans were stabbed in London yesterday, someone said one of them died, they’d only been here a few days’ then receiving  an email for more information because they have a cousin visiting London on honeymoon who hasn’t been in touch and google wasn’t helping. Ok, maybe a little far fetched but still, you see my point surely?

If something horrific occurs then the responsible thing to do is to get the basic FACTS before telling the world. At the very least the breakfast team could have waited to see if the accident actually DID include Britains, how many it included and where concerned family members could go for information.

Instant news is not news unless it’s factual, if the facts aren’t there it’s simply rumour and hearsay and really belongs away from mainstream reporting.

Perhaps my response to this post on the BBC message board is so strong because as a student having a day off through the effects of ME/CFS it felt directed at me personally, I’ve been off college today because I’ve spent the last couple of days in bed, yesterday was a complete wash out – on the plus side it’s been a long time since I had a day that bad (needed help to go to the toilet and had to eat all my meals in bed, just sitting up to play a 5 minute card game totally wore me out!)

Listening to the You & Yours section today on ME made me so angry. I work as a Disability Support Worker in a North of England university, supporting genuinely disabled students with conditions such as Cerebral Palsy, deafness, leukemia etc. with their studies. Often I have had students claim to be suffering from ME, listing the usual vague symptoms (most of which we all suffer from at some time but just dont go on about it). They then claim they are too ill to continue with studying and either slope off home or demand that Disability Service resources pay for notetakers etc to basically do their work for them. These students are always from supportive family backgrounds where parents pander to this self obsession. Websites and support groups feed the fantasy. In my experience this ‘condition’ does not exist in a medical sense. It is just another expression of the obsession with self so prevelant today. As my 93 year old Gran says: there was no ME in my day, we didn’t have the time.

It’s made me so MAD! but then, this is exactly the response we get from people all the time, sadly from people like this woman who are supposed to be there to help us.

I’m just so glad that Thelma isn’t like this! I’ve definitely dropped lucky with my support worker at college, she’s been as helpful as she could possibly be, she talked me into getting a lift key even though I feel like a prat using the lift when it’s quicker to walk (I have to admit though, not tramping up and down stairs does make a difference, i’m more alert in class!) She’d even like me to go with her to talk to people about the illness if she’s called upon to do a presentation just to make sure the correct point is put across!

Yup, thankfully MY support worker is not cut of the same cloth as Loulouham!
Anyhow, I put in my tuppence worth on the BBC message board, since my response has yet to be moderated I’ll share it with you guys here:

Unfortunately Loulouham it’s people like you who make me so angry.

Just because you cannot visibly SEE the effects of an illness does not mean it isn’t there.

The students you are maligning only manage to make it into class on their good days, the reason they have such supportive parents and carers is because THEY see what that student is like on the bad days when they can’t get out of bed and need carrying to the toilet, when they are crying at the frustration of being able to do something one day and not the next.

ME/CFS is hard enough to deal with at the best of times but when a ‘support’ worker won’t give you the support you need because they disbelieve in your illness – well I think it’s hardly surprising most of them in YOUR university leave.

Fortunately I’m studying at West Herts college on a course franchised from Hatfield university, My support worker has been both helpful and supportive, this has enabled me to study without too much worry – you see stress exacerbates this illness, people like you ADD to that stress. It seems obvious that in your capacity of support worker you have failed those students because of YOUR prejudice.

Imagine having full blown flu ALL the time, then add onto that blinding headaches, crippling pain.
SO tired that you can’t think, in so much pain you can’t function and people telling you it’s all in your head because every test comes back negative.

Go a couple of years down the road from that, you’re now accustomed to the pain so can ignore it most of the time, you husband your energy so that you can do a course of study in order to better your position in life – despite having to rest on the days you’re not in class.
Then you have to deal with the ill concealed dislike of someone who is supposed to be your liaison with staff members, sneering as you ask for help.

I assume you are aware this controversy should have been effectively ended by a report from the Chief Medical Officer for England in 2002, which concluded that ME/CFS is a genuine and disabling condition.
CFS and ME are also classified by the World Health Organisation as neurological disorders.

..but then obviously your experience is so much more balanced and objective than a report by medical professionals who stake their reputations on findings such as these.