Light in the darkness

This is my Twitter profile. For those of you not on Twitter, the 'pinned tweet' stays there permanently, and underneath come all my current tweets in chronological order, newest at the top.

It's been a dark week. There are so many dark weeks, and I am finding it a struggle to focus on the lighting of candles. Perhaps I have been spending too much time reading the news. Perhaps it's the lack of light and the fog. Not really.....it's really the state of the world, the state of this country.

I'm sure you read about the UN report on poverty in the UK. It didn't tell me anything I didn't know but it brought it all together in one damning and desperate bulletin - the cruelties of Universal Credit, the huge increases in homelessness, the explosion in food bank usage.

What's to be done apart from voting out this compassion-less and incompetent government?

Some people are doing things. Take, for example, Jack Monroe, the food writer. After her experience of trying to feed herself and her young son while living on benefits in desperate poverty for two years, and then using a food bank, she started cookery writing, beginning with a blog, in which she offered tasty recipes for people on tiny budgets. One of her books is Cooking on a Bootstrap and the latest is Tin Can Cook. Both would be useful for people using food banks, and she is currently raising money so that every food bank in the country will receive a copy of Tin Can Cook, which they are free to photocopy for all of their users. If you donate £9 to the scheme, a food bank will get a copy plus three tins. This covers all costs, including postage, packing and admin.

Help Refugees has also been lighting a candle this week with their Choose Love shop in London. A real pop-up shop at  

30-32 Fouberts Place, Carnaby Street, London, W1F 7PS 

has items on sale that you can buy for the charity Help Refugees to give to refugees. You can also buy them online here.

Yesterday Dave and I lit another candle. This autumn we read a War on Want report called Deadly Investments, about UK banks' complicity in Israels' crimes against the Palestinian people. You can read the full report here. Here is an excerpt:

We banked with the Co-op Bank for 30 years until they had all that shenanigins five years ago and we worried about losing our money and moved to First Direct, which is owned by HSBC.

Yesterday we moved back to the Co-op Bank and it's a relief to know I am not helping to arm Israel in their violent oppression of the Palestinian people, of which THIS is just the latest example. 

Do you have a candle you'd like to light?