Open Racism

Today I went to the post office to post a copy of Lime Magazine to my Uncle I was in it recently talking about my natural hair. Anyway behind me there was a man, he was about 40 wearing a pin striped suit he had gone grey and looked like he was visiting during his lunch break. He was with another woman who looked like she was from the office.

He said to the woman “Did you hear on the news this morning, Israel might bomb (and I didn’t hear the country name but I think he said Palestine)” She didn’t reply but then he went on “Yeah I wish they would, I wish we could drop a bomb on all those countries we need to get rid of all the Muslims the (insert derogatory name for people from Pakistan here) the (insert derogatory name for people living in Japan here) and all of those (insert a derogatory name for black people here).

The woman went bright red and suddenly found something interesting on her phone to look at and said “I don’t want to talk about this right now”

I could not believe what I was hearing! All the people from behind the counter were the people that he was saying he needed to get rid of. I wanted to turn around and cuss him big time but I had to be better than that and they had not heard him so only I was offended.

I turned around and got one good look at him so I will always know who it was, smiled and put my angry fists in my pockets.

It was sad when I saw him go up to the Muslim girl behind the counter and say “Hi darling, how are you? Having a good day?”

I really hate people like this.

Its not good to engage....

.....In road rage..



As you know I work in Central London and each day I commute to work using the tube. If I'm on time I walk to the station, if I'm running late (or lazy) I catch the bus. Because I went jogging at the weekend and my legs were still hurting, on Tuesday morning I decided to jump on the bus. There were no seats so I was standing right near the front.



The bus set off as usual but I noticed at one junction it was taking ages to turn when I heard the bus driver sound his horn I looked out the front to investigate. In the middle of the road was an Audi stopped dead. The driver had his window down and his arm out doing a rude sign to the white van behind him.



From where we were, we could clearly see the words on the side of the van 'HALAL MEAT BUTCHERS’ but the Audi driver wouldn’t have been able to see it he was angry and really red faced. I couldn’t hear him but I could see that he must have been shouting out all kinds of profanities spit was flying from his mouth.



Suddenly the van doors flew open and out of each side jumped out these two bearded guys with blood stained aprons on. One of them had this humongous knife! The whole bus gasped and watched.



As soon as they approached the guy in his Audi his face went from red to white, he wound up his window quickly and sped off.



When I say sped off I'm talking like I blinked and he was gone I just heard wheels screech. It was hilarious. I heard some old African lady kiss her teeth and say 'idiot man' that just topped it off for me I couldn’t stop laughing. My laugh can be infectious sometimes and suddenly the whole bus was laughing even the driver.



I love those little moments in life when just for a second people come together. I walked into work with a big smile on my face.



The whole incident reminded me of the time I got road rage.



I was driving along nicely when the two lanes I was in merged into one, I signalled to move into the right lane but this woman in her fiesta wouldn’t let me in. I didn’t even think about it but just went behind her. Later on the traffic the road changed from one lane to two and then back to one again. I found myself in a position that she now needed to move into my lane. You know there was no way I was letting her in.



Unfortunately she was incensed and instead of dropping behind me she continued beside me, It was really slow moving traffic. She wound down her window and started screaming and telling me to move over. The woman just wouldn’t quit and the rational me thought 'oh just let her go' but she started calling me names and swearing and everything. I saw her mouth open and her lips moving and I realised that I needed to shut her up.



I just don’t know what came over me. My shopping was beside me and there were eggs on top, in a moment of madness I just threw one.



(I'm laughing I'm writing)



It sailed into her car and broke on her lap



I smiled, it felt good she was completely speechless her mouth was opening and closing but no words were coming out so just to make sure there wouldn’t be any more abuse I threw another, these were back in the day when I played netball regularly, and my aim was perfect. It smashed on the side of her head and rolled down her face.



I was enjoying myself I felt like a child playing a game but then I snapped out of it and realised I needed my eggs, so I then slowed down and waved her to go in front of me.



I bet she won’t be in such a hurry to wind down the window and start cussing anyone else in the future.



That’s the problem with getting all angry and driving around cussing people. Your car is not your armour and eventually you are going get hurt. Then at your funeral people will be asking 'why?' and saying 'what a nice person you were’



So the Moral of this story is… (lol) ………I will wait for your replies :)



Just FYI
The weeks ahead are going to be busy so I might not post often. On Friday I'm going to Liverpool for a mass salsa conference (Selah I'm going to be an expert) I'm going with a friend of mine. The weekend after I'm going out of town for a wedding, its one of Mr Specials best friends, the one after that I'm going to be out of town again as its my Mum's 50th Birthday Mr Special is joining and then the one after that Mr Specials brother is getting married. Busy as always! Angel

What would you do with a Snow Day?

Yesterday, London was hit by the worst snowfall for 18 years and came to a complete standstill. £48 million ($69 million) was lost in revenues as offices shut. Many employees couldn’t get to work or had to stay home with their children because all the schools closed. The entire bus network was closed down as even though they did grit the main roads, they didn’t grit any side roads so the busses couldn’t get out of the depots and slipped down the side streets. The tube network was brought to a standstill with only two lines running, the rest were mostly suspended or severely delayed. So no bus, limited tube and if you thought about driving you must have been crazy, if your car wasn’t snowed in the un-gritted roads were treacherous, you couldn’t get anywhere, even the airports shut with one plane even sliding off the runway. Most people saw it as a disaster however I have to admit I really don’t think it was.

Being forced not to work meant people had to slow down and live a little. Anywhere there was a hill people who never usually interact were sledging or even skiing down it on whatever they could find. The parks were full of people!

I heard of Brizillian & African tourists seeing snow for the first time. If you were trying to travel and were sitting for ages because you were slowed down you had the time for pleasantries or even chit chat, suddenly London became a very friendly place. Many workaholics were defeated as even though most of them could work from home when they looked out the window and saw the world having fun they put away the laptop and went out to live their lives. It was so bad the Mayor came on TV asking us to not use the day for a mass skive that we should all try and go to work. Try telling that to the mother that doesn’t know her baby anymore as it is always with the nanny, or the father who is having a difficult time with his son and now has time to build a snowman with him in the backyard. What would you give for an extra day off? For those that didn’t venture out this was a day to catch up on some things you wanted to do at home, to read that book they had been planning to read for ages, to paint the hall that has had the paint sitting there for months now or just catch up on some much needed rest. If you were suddenly forced to stay at home for the day what would you do? Perhaps there will be a baby boom around November time. Hahaha!

Me – well I didn’t get a chance to skive off but I still enjoyed my day.
Id left my gloves around at Mr Special’s on Sunday and this wasn’t the day to not have gloves however when I got up I didn’t watch any news or TV, I just looked outside, wrapped up warm and got my wellies on and went out to work.

I decided to slow walk to the station and enjoy the snow it was beautiful, kept having to alternate the hand that was holding the umbrella so that my hands didn’t freeze but I just took my time enjoying the stillness and the softness of the morning. Just as well I walked, can you imagine if I had waited for the bus? When I got to the station my tube line was running but with delays.

At work my boss was impressed to see me (brownie points) he had managed to get in and he lives way outside London so he figured most people should be in. They weren’t!

Then something sweet happened at around 11.30 Mr Special arrived with the gloves, he didn’t want me to get cold so dropped them off at my work. I have to say that my workplace is really out of his way and must have taken him ages with the tubes the way they were but he thought of me that made my day! He had been sent home from work (lucky man) as the weather was getting worse and he seemed quite concerned about how I would get home.

When he left he said ‘leave early baby, and any problems come straight to mine ok?’ He is a darling isn’t he?

I left work slightly early had no problems getting home. The snow was worse on the way back and having to walk wasn’t great so when I got home in the warm I thought about all the people who are suffering because of the economy at the moment and are having to choose weather to heat or eat in their homes. I prayed that they and the homeless were safe and warm.

When I looked outside over my balcony and saw the row of snowmen on the grass. It made me smile.

So that question again, if you were forced to stay home for the day and not work, what would you do with it?

ps - there is more bad weather to come...watch this space..