daishin and greum maol stevenson in Wyndford. Photo: Chris Leslie“All that is solid melts into air.”—Marx
“All conditioned things are impermanent.”—the Buddha
daishin and greum maol stevenson in Wyndford. Photo: Chris LeslieToday The Guardian has a photoessay by Chris Leslie about the demolition of the Wyndford high flats, with quotes from tenants including daishin and me.
by greum maol stevenson & daishin stephenson
Two years ago, this blog discussed how an organisation called Street Change Glasgow was treating people in poverty with contempt. Before publishing the piece, we emailed them our concerns, but they did not respond.
In response to the questions I sent Glasgow Housing Association (soon to be renamed Wheatley Homes Glasgow), I received the following letter today. Decide for yourself how many of the questions it answers.
A week ago today, Glasgow Housing Association invited Wyndford residents to a “drop-in session” at the Maryhill Hub, to “have your say on GHA’s exciting new regeneration plans.” As those plans involve the demolition of more than 600 homes, and GHA’s Locality Housing Director, Linzi Heggie, has already admitted that the demolition will go ahead no matter what tenants say, some tenants of those homes were there with a list of questions.
Yesterday, Linzi Heggie, Locality Housing Director at Glasgow Housing Association, admitted that the “consultation” with tenants as to whether the Wyndford high flats should be demolished will make no difference to the outcome.
On Wednesday I was forced to pay money to enter my country.
As I have recently written about the 20th Century’s attempt to invade the 21st, it would be remiss of me not to mention another emissary from that period, George Galloway, former socialist and former MP, who now represents reactionaries who want Scotland to stay in the UK, against reactionaries who want Scotland to be independent.
Laura Henderson
Photo: Cube Housing Association
Dear Landlords,
I remarked today to a fellow tenant (or “customer,” as you call us) that communicating with Cube is a bit like praying. But then I corrected myself, because when praying we do not know for certain that no one is listening or that our supplications will be ignored — which we can be certain of when communicating with you.
A few years ago I read a personal essay by the author of a popular book in the “misery memoir” genre. In the essay, the author described their lowest moment as being when they were jogging past a McDonald's and saw the employees watching and laughing. The author was horrified that “even” people working at McDonald's felt able to mock them. If only those proles knew who they were laughing at!
This kind of grandiosity is, in my experience, more common among authors than not. I have long suspected that the reason authors are so self-important is that we know how unimportant our work really is.
If there is anything positive about the pandemic, it is that it brings home whose work really matters. You cannot eat books.
#classism #elitism #narcissism #personalessays #miserymemoirs #covid19 #pandemic #authors #writers
Profile at Scottish Book Trust
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