Hampstead Heath today

My plane landed in the London darkness at 5:30am this morning. The 15 hour flight was extruciating. I took the train to Farringdon to give myself a walk through an old haunt to my hotel in Kings Cross. London has changed a lot since I knew it 30 years ago.

I waited for my hotel to open it’s doors at 8 and left my small suitcase with them. I had time to kill until I could check in at 2pm.

Why I make these difficulties for myself I do not know…

I walked up to Euston and had some breakfast in a Wetherspoons pub. It was full of silent gentlemen my age and older. A few older couples came in while I drank my bottomless coffee. Nobody spoke, I felt watched.

The caffeine with a little ibruprofen began to work and I readied myself with a third cup. I walked through Camden and up to Hampstead. I circled back through the rain and slippery mud of the Heath. Past the ponds I used to swim in and up to Parliament Hill. I sat for a while and watched the dog walkers and considered Karl Marx’s resting place over on the eastern hill of Highgate Cemetry.

For some reason I recorded some of my perambulations on the Garmin. I added in the rest in purple

My legs were tiring and my backpack was feeling heavy. I picked up an electric bike and sped back over Hampstead and down to Camden Town. A short walk down the canal to the oddly creepy Coal Drop Yard with it’s tech company mavens and private security guards. I preferred it when it was the battlegrounds of the Borribles.

Kicking the mud off my tattered running shoes, I washed up in the British Library. Damp from the rain and puddles. Every table here is laden with laptops lighting up the punters faces. Seems a good place to sit for a bit.

When did my plans become excuses for inaction?

At Wendron Primary School in the 1970s we would be sent outside for our breaks.
Sheltering from the drizzle beneath the playground crabapple tree we would play
Tiggy.

To play we would first work out a plan.
Like crows and jackdaws us kids squawked the rules of the game at each other.
Still arguing when the bell rang, the game remained unplayed.
On lunch-break we played only to stop and rehash the rules until we gave up and played marbles.

A few years later I made friends with Paul, a boy up the road.
Paul was mostly clever and sometimes annoying.
For a time he gave me the nickname, ‘Broody’.
He was also (self evidently) quite observant. Apt.

A lifetime of plans have worked out and dreams have come true.
I am a lucky fellow.
Yet, some dreams obstinately remain out of reach.
The dreams wash against plans and get wrecked on the rocks of sensibilities.

I suppose I am overthinking it.
Damn you Paul.

Effective pay cuts and continued downgrading and job losses – rail union insider reveals grim reality of offer being put to a vote among RMT members

Written by an RMT official and published on condition of anonymity.

Rail workers should vote down the pay offer.

Why should we vote No? The reasons are clear. A 5% pay rise for the year 22/23 is a pay cut in real terms; we had no pay settlement in 2021-22 at all. Rail workers were sent out during Covid, with little protection, to keep the country running. Some of us died. We barely received so much as a ‘Thank You’, let alone any financial remuneration for the risks we ran, or the effort we put in to keep the nation moving.

For the last year UK inflation has been at 10%+ for seven months out of twelve. This offer is derisory and should have been rejected out of hand. A settlement of at least 15% is needed just to keep members where they were in 2021.

A worse offer than was already on the table

The RDG [Rail Delivery Group of train operators], directed by the government for political expediency, have been forced to remove their destructive Workplace Reform proposals from the table. Their previous offer of 5% up front and 4% to negotiate those proposals has been fulfilled by the union side, yet this offer is even worse than that. Indeed it is significantly less than other public sector workers who have received settlements of up to 7% this year – but also had raises in 2021 and 2022 which we have been denied.

Despite the resounding rejection of government proposals by Travelwatch and Transport Focus, Workplace Reform remains on the table. The ‘no compulsory redundancy’ guarantees to December 2024 are so short as to be less of a promise and more of a threat.

The intention clearly is to return to cutting 30% of Station grades staff, one way or another. This cannot be acceptable to us. The opportunity to close ticket offices entirely may have gone, but they will be hollowed out and the reduction in quality of service that they provide will then be used as a reason for closure at some point in the future. Other station grades will be de-skilled and only some individuals selected for multiskilling – and their numbers worse than decimated too. Members’ Terms & Conditions and their pensions and benefits are under attack from this process.

Too much haste; dangerous proposals

The timescale is unduly hasty, too: TOCs’ [train operating companies] plans given to the unions in July would have shamed a plan sketched on the back of a fag packet after closing time and would have seen an increase in single staffing in all stations, to a critical level detrimental to the service and the safe operation of the railway.

If members vote yes then they are voting for 2023/ 24 pay to be based on the Workplace Reform proposals that the employers want. This will result in significant job losses of 30% across all station grades. Although none of it has been agreed the principle will be considered agreed by the votes in favour of the offer. Detail will be added later, guaranteed to be a disaster for members.

The 2023/24 pay offer will not be made unless Grades Councils agree to the employers’ demands. A big question members should ask themselves before they vote is, who in the RMT is negotiating for you with your TOC? This will be at Council level, not National. What skills and proven results do they have?

Any TOC going into dispute over 2023 /2024 pay will be on their own. This division is not in our favour. Acceptance will mean the National dispute is over, regardless of the mandate delivered by members in the recent re-ballot. The promise of back pay has been used to distract members from the negatives; a few pounds in the hand before Christmas used to blindside members.

The RDG offer will end the current dispute if we accept it. Rail workers currently have an extremely strong negotiating position. We are six weeks from Christmas and have a six-month mandate for industrial action. Returning an emphatic ‘No’ vote would strengthen this position as we would be able to return to the RDG and demand a significant improvement to the offer on the table.

If you’ve already voted to accept, you can change your vote

Members can change their vote even if they have already voted, right up until the closing date, by following the link in the original email they were sent.

Please lobby all your members.

Vote NO.

Skwawkbox understands that the deal being put to a member vote by the RMT would still involve major redundancies among ticket office staff – but that rail reps have been pleasantly surprised by the negative reaction to the offer among grassroots members.

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I am nearing the end of a brief trip in which I revisited the Mid-North Coast.

Here are a bunch of snaps I took when driving through my old home. I sent them to my pal MJD to share in my bitter-sweet memories and cynicism.

This is a picture of the Coles Loading Dock.

I am sure MJD spent many an hour in the vicinity of the Coles Loading Dock. He eventually succeeded in working to escape the orbit of Toormina. Akin to avoiding a blackhole.

I often cycled past the same place on my way to work or Uni. A fellow I know once cycled his bicycle into the back of a parked car here whilst being attacked by one of our aggressive Aussie magpies.

The Backdoor

Toormina Gardens, the gateway to a bunch of shops.

I did my groceries here for 15 years. The highlight was watching some monks destroy an intricate mandala on the floor surrounded by bemused shoppers.

Nothing is permanent - A useful lesson at all junctures in our lives.

Bogan Bay

AKA Boambee Bay

Bogan Bay is populated by BBQ shelters which are exclusively named after by the men of the town. On summer days the grass is filled with oversized twin cab utes which are in turn filled with oversized people.

The BBQ’s are so popular they need to be booked in advance. The smell of burning meat often mingles with the sulphurous smell of decaying kelp. The beach is littered with small plastic bags of dog shit and occaisonal tangles of fishing line.

Sawtell RSL

An Australian Institution. The RSL in Sawtell

An alternate reality 1987 Reg Grundy induced brutalist motorway-furnituresque facade filled with greedy pokey machines and craven eyed addicts putting their lives into the slots.

Sawtell RSL looms over the high street offering the community nothing but a single darkened doorway into what could have been a community of businesses.

The frequently vandalised steel and glass RSL clock stands sentinel outside. A warning to the people entering. Do not go in! you will surely miss the school-pickup/doctors appt/the bus … your life.

Sawtell Bowlo

The Sawtell Bowlo when compared to the RSL is a kindlier place.

Nelson produces unassuming and wildly popular Australian/Chinese Meals. As is tradition the meals are heavy in sugar, MSG and cornstarch.

I had some pleasant times here. The forgotton beer garden around the back was occaisonally visited by the surviving smokers. It was a peaceful spot away from the piped music and gambling screens with a delightful view onto Chinamans Creek.

I once turned up with the fire brigade when a fire alarm had been accidentally triggered. On entering in full firefighter attire mask on, packing an air cylinder and heaving a hose.
I was greeted by the happy drunken crowd cheering at my expected entry. I pulled off my helmet, sweaty rubber face-mask and blushed as somebody shouted, ‘Are you the stripper?’ to uproarious laughter

Syntropic Agrofrestry

Bellingen much like my Mum’s home town of Totnes can be summed up by it’s community noticeboards

Bello, as it is affectionately known, has a growing virtue signalling population who are rich in time and resources. They do not struggle to put food on the table or catch a bus to work but they will tell you how to Syntrope your Agro Frestry … what ever that means.

The wealthy hippies have all the time in the world to ponder such things.

Booksellers Association of Bellingen (BAB)

Bello is redeemed by books

Despite the superiority complex of those wealthy pretend hippies of Bellingen I cannot begrudge book-lovers. Perhaps in these electronic AI infested times this reveals my own middle-class/old-fart biases but I don’t care.

The monthly book stall in Bellingen markets has always been a delightful thing and not all market book stalls are. Booksellers seem to have become more about flogging crime/mystery/romance novels in their increasing desparation to sell. Not the BAB though, they prefer thought-inducing books, a rare thing indeed.