please empty your brain below
The rise in need for foodbanks should be seen as as an embarrassment for this country. That for many in a certain political spectrum, it's seen as a good thing, is even worse.

I look forward to the day our donations are no longer required on this scale.

Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 06.02.18 - 7:58 a.m. | #

Unless you are properly wealthy, many of us aren't that far away from needing a food bank if we run into financial problems, for example through illness or caring for an elderly relative, if you are paying a mortgage - you are not a home owner, the bank owns your home. Many politicians believe that most people are like them - i.e. they have reserve wealth (sell a painting, let go of the gardener, take fewer holidays), or a loaded relative, who can get them through a sticky patch, but in reality most 'real people' have financial diarrhea, it goes into one end end of the bank account and comes out of the other.

Still Anon | 06.02.18 - 8:34 a.m. | #

This is a sad reflection on life in the UK today.

On a lighter note - I'm curious whether it's a Decorate Your Own (Gingerbread Dog) Biscuit, or a Decorate Your Own Gingerbread (Dog Biscuit).

dg writes: The latter.

Bob L-S | 06.02.18 - 8:43 a.m. | #

Staffie....oh, you mean a dog...had to read that twice!

B | 06.02.18 - 9:17 a.m. | #

like B I had to read it twice ... the first time I read "staffer" and thought it was one of the park staff

and when I started reading the final section I was horrified that DG might be hitting problems, but thankfully he was a donor not a recipient

Caz | 06.02.18 - 9:43 a.m. | #

Are food banks necessarily a bad thing - a sign of the disintegration of the welfare state; of the loss of the right to adequate social security benefits and instead reliance on the precarious charity of the parish? But are they also a sign of community cohesion; of people who can help, supporting those in need?

And were the crocuses open (unfurled) or closed (furled)?

Andrew | 06.02.18 - 10:16 a.m. | #

Cat food and dog biscuits! Getting ever closer to a post about kittens?!

Cornish Cockney | 06.02.18 - 10:21 a.m. | #

"Another lady emerges through the great oak doors and lights a cigarette"

This is why my wife and one of her friends stopped donating to a local food bank, fortunately not all in need smoke. Donations now go in the collection point in the supermarket.

Mike | 06.02.18 - 10:44 a.m. | #

I used to get agitated about anyone in financial need spending money on a nicotine addiction. Then I realised that the link is the other way round, if you are a victim of Big Nick, then you are far more likely to be in financial need.

Malcolm | 06.02.18 - 11:04 a.m. | #

@ Andrew Bowden

No one sees a rise in need for food as a good thing. What politicians from a certain persuasion see as a good thing is that the need is increasingly met. They are celebrating the community cohesion that Andrew (10:16) talks about rather than the poverty of people.

One could be disparaging of politicians of different persuasion saying that their dislike of the increase in people using Food Banks (which happened dramatically in the first half of this decade despite the main cause of need - delay in benefits - decreasing) is due to them preferring people going hungry waiting for the Welfare State to provide, than be fed by peoples' goodwill. However that would be equally disingenuous - those politicians don't like that more people use Food Banks as they see it as an increase in need, just as their opposite numbers see it as an increase in supply.

Si | 06.02.18 - 2:29 p.m. | #

A lovely post. You write so beautifully and fittingly for each subject you choose (or get chosen for you by your - chosen - random method).

So it is with sincere apologies that I tweet from my pedant's (pseuds?) corner.

Two ladies are sitting, please. Sat is a simple past. You are writing, for vivid effect, in the historic present.

They sit. They are sitting. Never they are sat.
And for past tenses: They were sitting or they sat. Never 'they were sat'

And certainly not sat sitting or stood standing.

Sorry. Sorry!

Martin | 06.02.18 - 2:30 p.m. | #

Careful Martin - you may have your membership cancelled!

In other news, I first read this excellent post whilst sitting on a train and I’m now catching up whilst in a bus. Or should that be in a train or on a bus. Oh well! 😉

Rob Healy | Homepage | 06.02.18 - 3:49 p.m. | #

I saw the photo on the first post scanned the text for a mention of us Tower Hamlets Idea Store members getting £1 entry to the Tower of London. By the time I got to the third post I realised how low down the list of priorities that is for so many people in the borough.

| 06.02.18 - 6:49 p.m. | #

DD set up

None | 06.02.18 - 7:57 p.m. | #

Food banks are set up by left leaning to bash Tories.

Mark | 07.02.18 - 9:03 a.m. | #

You are a good man DG.

Neesy | 07.02.18 - 10:02 a.m. | #

At my local supermarket the self service is virtually always quicker.

Rick | 11.02.18 - 8:11 p.m. | #











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