Very late weekend update

Friday we went off to watch some rugby with the inlaws.



Starting the match with fireworks might have been a bad plan.



And Max and Paddy were there....



Unlike the three failed attempts by Wigan, this was a try for St. Helens.



Wigan didn't play very well, but this little dude was flying the flag of hope all the way through.



This ref isn't welcome anywhere near Wigan.



There wasn't a whole lot of er, 'try' involved.



Dejected Wigan supporters leaving the stadium :(.


A combination of stupidity and business at the game meant I forgot to take photos. But it was really good! Keymer was a brilliant NPC, really got them riled up. There was yelling and side taking and forts full of blood and a history lesson about how Manchester means tit-fort.... I was so pleased.

Then Retro after with MattAllen, Sanderson and Pips. Pips drank a pint!

Ben very kindly let us crash at his since we're still car-less and we got up early with him. Dropped him at the Midland and then had a wander around Manchester. We headed into work to try and use the damned fax machine, to no avail. But managed to use the photocopier instead. And then we had the rest of the day just to do random stuff.

Things we learned:
1. Only the elderly and employed are awake and walking around Manchester at 9:00am.
2. Krispy Kreme are always delicious and they have good, normal, coffee
3. Subway breakfast subs are amazing.
4. Old men can be kicked off trams for antisocial behavior.

I went and bought a hoodie to help combat the cold and we went a wandering:








We wandered over to Albert Square and saw the carpet of flowers set up to look like textiles.





I finally remembered to take a photo of the portable toilets at Piccadilly gardens.





We went up in the ferris wheel and did a few circles. It was pretty cool. I could point and go 'I can see my work from here!'

We wandered up to St. Anne's square and had some German food at the markets. We missed the Lakeland stall though, which makes me a sad panda.

Then Pips recommended seeing a movie, so we headed off to the Printworks to book Wall-e.



We had about a half an hour to kill and decided to find some bookstores. And wandered down some alley ways.













Wall-e was adorable. I loved it. And I got a pink lilly from the flower thing at Albert square. It was a pretty awesome day out and a really good weekend:) What wasn't awesome was discovering fuck all trains run from Victoria on Sundays. Made it to Piccadilly though.

More Wigan and Leigh Housing blunders

Man with Cystic Fibrosis, degenerating quickly, wants to move over to Ashton to be closer to his mother. Not just for the lovely family aspect, his mother is his primary caretaker.

He was put in band 4 (or the same band that Mr. Me and I would be,) then band 2 and now the highest priority, band 1. The latter only happened after the local paper intervened.

Mrs Ackers said Wigan and Leigh Housing contacted her after the Evening Post's intervention.

And they confirm that Mr Ackers' housing application has now been moved to band one category as a "medical and welfare" emergency.

A Metro spokesman said: "It is clear that Mr Ackers has considerable health issues. We have increased his priority for rehousing."

What I find the most interesting about this is the comments section of the article.

John LP seems to back up everything I said last week after finding out about Terry O'Mara's gossip.

What a disgrace !! Poor Colin has enough to deal with without all this, I just hope its sorted favourably towards him soon.

I have only ever had the misfortune to deal with the unprofessional, incompetent staff at Wigan and Leigh Housing 3 times so consider myself lucky as each time it was on behalf of some poor individuals who I knew personally and was trying, as a gesture of goodwill, to support them legally etc.

I can happily state from experience that the managers right up to the Chief Exec (who doesn't want to get involved at all) portray themselves as being bigger and better than 'Joe Public'.

Its about time the relevant governing body audited this department and the council officials took notice of what was happening in their borough to some of the most needy and deserving individuals instead of concentrating on petty, needless money wasting schemes !!

At least it isn't just us. I guess. It's still awful they can't work with the people who need it the most.

Terminally ill man fights for housing

Edit: It's worth mentioning, less than week ago a pregnant 19 year old was said to become homeless thanks to.... Wigan and Leigh Housing.

Who steals little picnic tables?

We arrived home from the pub and dropping our Gav off around 3:00am on Sunday. I was in a pretty good mood, despite being sick and stressed last week I think I loosened up enough to blow off some steam. As we opened the door Mr. Me noticed something was missing. Our little table. We had this little picnic table outside our door that we used for BBQs and outdoor Scrabble. It's gone now.

We suspect it was Sex Offender Steve who, for whatever reason, decided it now belongs to him. It was one of the few things we told him to leave alone but he has quite a distorted sense of what's his and what's ours. The things we asked him to leave alone he didn't, just proceeded as he pleased with no consideration for how we felt.

Here's what we told him to leave alone:

The trees. (Cut Down.)

Our chairs (were in his yard, we have them back now.)

Our paving stones (sold/given to his brother)

Our stupid little table (now missing.)

I lost it, I'm not proud. But living above this guy has me in a state most of the time now. I'm nervous in case one of the local plebs decides to exact some justice, I hate him and the very sight makes me feel ill.

A long time ago the Mr. said he could use our yard. As a result his DIY stuff is all over the place, like everywhere you look is a piece of wood or a tool of some kind. So now our little table is gone, I decided he can't use our yard anymore and tossed as much as I could manage back over the fence.

It's stupid, but the picnic table was the last straw. We hadn't done anything to him. We haven't done anything to deserve having our things stolen. But he did it anyway.

I guess 16 years inside doesn't teach you how to live with other people.

After my fit of 'get out!' we went to bed where I tried my best to fall asleep.

But that dream soon evaporated, within about 10-15 minutes I heard car doors slam. He called the police.

They came around and talked to us. I told them I was upset about our little table being stolen and Sex Offender Steve had stolen things from us before. They asked about how the yards are divided and I explained the back bit was ours. They seemed satisfied and left (after laughing when I burst into tears and apologized as I'd drunk too much gin.)

I slept poorly on Sunday. I'm so anxious, so angry, so drained, so frustrated. I hate this so much. This is my home. It's horrible, but it's mine.

The vigilantes are here

When I found out about this I went through a fair spectrum of negative emotion. The most dominating one was fear. What had Steve done to get 16 years? The rumor on the estate is it had something to do with disfigurement. What did the girl look like now? Suddenly he changed from being the inconsiderate DIY fanatic to being a sinister figure of violence.

But mostly the fear wasn't from him directly. Our neighborhood isn't a Guardian reading middle class party. It's more working class, the types that gladly take justice into their own hands. I could almost hear the rallying cries around me from last Tuesday. Though they may be friends with thieves and drug dealers, they aren't rapists. And rapists are different.

We thought we'd made it through the worst. It's been a week since we had a note slipped to us from a friend about what he is. Since then the police park outside our flat a lot. It comforts and scares us. I'm not used to such a high police presence. We thought they came to check up on Steve, make sure he was where he said he was and not because of any external threat. What we didn't anticipate is vigilante-ism can start quietly.

Last night was a literal breaking point. I was playing Civ IV and listening to Have I got news for you. I've had difficulty unwinding at home lately, I need a lot of distraction to relax. And just as I fended off the barbarian hordes an almighty crash shook the floor. We hoped it was just stupidity from downstairs. It's common enough for our neighbor to fall on something or knock down a shelf. He enjoys DIY projects, but isn't particularly graceful about them. When he tried to hack into a tree in our backyard he broke his collarbone. We looked out the window and saw nothing but an empty street and our neighbor across the road peering out of his window. It's that kind of place.

From our angle we couldn't see anything wrong. My first concern was our car. It sat directly in front of his door. But it looked fine, the evening frost was undisturbed. A little while later I saw headlights shine on the small brick water building next to our block of flats. A policeman got out and went downstairs.

We investigated and found two large holes in our neighbor's windows. He was bricked. A clear message for him to get out. The police officer came to our flat and suggested that though this kind of violence against him is kind of satisfying, we're in danger. I know. Our consolation at this point is we haven't received any kind of threatening letters or phone calls. The footprints in the grass suggested they'd come close enough to aim accurately. They know who they're after and it isn't us.

What concerns me anyway is we might get caught in the crossfire. The more this escalates, the more perilous living in our home becomes. The more fearful I become. But not because of what the man downstairs did, because of the people trying to do good by driving him out. I'm sure that's what they want. It's what I want too. I just wish there was a way to make that happen with out endangering innocent people. Like me.

My neighbor is a rapist.

Tuesday evening Andy-Across-The-Road delivered some strange news. News you could verify.

My neighbor is a convicted rapist.

Specifically, this neighbor.

I'm very, very conflicted about this. On one hand, he served a 16 year sentence. His time is done, finished, debt to society served. On the other hand, the part of me that fantasizes about kicking him in the nuts for cutting down the trees in our yard wants to beat him over the head with a shovel. And a 16 year sentence for rape seems pretty steep.

I'm not really sure how you resolve feelings like this. Petty criminals I can handle. Our neighborhood is rife with car thieves, robbers and drug dealers. I know. But the drug they deal is pot. The cars they steal are from other parts of Wigan. The robberies were of post offices and banks. I can deal with those things.

But sexual violence makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It's a primal thing, one you can't overcome just by being educated. And if anything, it's the education that sickens you.

Weekend review, the trains! THE TRAINS.

The thought occurred to me I should probably start chronicling my adventures. If anything so I can read them and relive when I head back to the US. Primarily so I don't become a needy windbag and start abusing the time and hospitality of my friends back home.

Friday didn't start out well. I left work early in an attempt to be home by 6:00pm. All seemed well until we hit the signal box outside Walkden. Then we stopped.

And stopped.

The conductor told us '10 more minutes' until a half an hour passed. Two women came from the back of the train in a fury. One was claustrophobic, the other concerned about leaving her office. In tandem they chewed out the train driver, while a bunch of middle aged women near me snickered at duo's demands to walk along the tracks.

There are two types of behavior you see when things like this happen. The first is supposed wizened indifference, as evidenced by the older ladies. They're used to the trains failing and believe there is nothing you can do about it, so you suck it up. It's the typically English way to go about public transport. They tend to be quite cruel to people, generally new to the whole process, who are immediately infuriated at the incompetence of the whole system.

Those newcomers are the second types. They're the ones who just started jobs, or college, or moved to the area. The ones that are learning how to commute, learning how the system works. They're the ones that get angry and want to hold people accountable. What they quickly learn is no matter how much earache you give the train companies and their call centres, the best you'll get is a 10 pound voucher. That's even if the toilets are out of order on a 3 hour journey.

Train late beyond the 8 minutes and 30.57830 seconds? 10 pounds. Broken down train on the Wigan via Atherton line? 10 pounds. Cancelled connection where you have to sleep at Crewe for the evening? 10 pounds. Train run over your first born and dog? 10 pounds and an interview in The Sun.

Network Rail operate under the delusion that it's enough.

On Friday, Mr. Me could see the problem (for once,) a broken down train at Atherton station was causing a bit of a pile up. It wasn't moving. The brakes wouldn't release.

Eventually we pushed forward to Walkden station for about 10 minutes. I smoked a few cigarettes in direct rebellion of the new railway by laws and got back on. 10 minutes turned into 30. We finally arrived at Atherton at 7:15 pm, an hour and 10 minutes after we were supposed to.

According to the Ticket Collector this is happening everywhere even today. Though you wouldn't know by reading the supposed advocate for the people Passenger Focus's blog. (Actually, the whole site seems pretty crap.)

This type of thing? Pretty par for the course. Makes me long for MAX and Tri-Met.