Diversity And Gender Equality

A leading period products firm has prompted fury by telling schoolgirls that men can have periods.

Period product company Hey Girls has been criticised for marketing ‘confusing’ and ‘harmful’ claims in a booklet for pre-pubescent schoolgirls who are about to get their period.

Hey Girls claims ‘not all women have periods and some men have periods’ and that it’s better to use the phrase ‘people who have periods’ when talking about menstruation.

The booklet’s ‘gender and diversity’ section also has a cartoon of four people holding bi-sexual and pansexual flags as well as those for the LGBT and non-binary communities.

It’s unclear whether Hey Girls is suggesting that sexuality relates to whether a woman has a period and the company didn’t react to a request comment about it.

The company was established by multi-award-winning entrepreneur Celia Hodson, a single mother of three children, including two girls, who experienced period poverty herself.

In fewer than five years the company has become the leading provider of period products to the Scottish and Welsh governments and has also expanded into Australia.

In two Hey Girls videos for primary and secondary schoolgirls, the words ‘woman, women, girl or girls’ are never mentioned.

The word ‘people’ is cited 11 times in the videos combined.

However, the Government denied this had ever been the case.

A Government spokesman said that this was wholly incorrect and that this group had never worked with the Department for Education in an advisory capacity.

They said that they had written to the organisation requesting they immediately remove this misleading and incorrect information from their website, and said they’d been repeatedly clear about the importance of biological sex and that contested views, like those around gender identity, should not be taught as a fact.

It was said that their Period Product Scheme for girls and women in schools and colleges uses one national supplier, PHS Group, to deliver free period products across England.

As a result of a newspaper outlet’s investigation, Hey Girls removed the claim from its website.

Heather Finlay runs Luxury Moon, a reusable menstrual products company. Hey Girls was one of her suppliers for five years before a change in their ordering protocols concluded their association.

Heather Finlay shared a photograph of a Hey Girls menstrual cup given to her in 2021.

On the box, the company said the product was for a ‘girl or woman in need’ and said proceeds from its Buy One Give One range would go directly to help girls and women in need.

Menstrual cups being sold on its site today make no mention of women and girls aside from as part of the trademark name Hey Girls. Instead, the packaging says they’re on a mission to give everyone a better period, and that for every product purchased from them, they donate a whole box to someone in need.

They need to stop this rubbish before parents stop it for them.

Some schools are refusing to show parents lesson plans and resources, based on copyright. Teachers are lying to parents about what is being taught to children – every parent now needs to make a noise about this! And the Tories need to act, but that’s not something they’re used to doing.

I am so very happy that all my children are grown up without all this woke stuff, at least their childhood came intact without the words ‘you can’t do this and you can’t do that’.

Yes, men might have periods – periods of great stupidity!

Rail Strikes Begin Tomorrow With A Week Of Chaos Before The Party Season

Train drivers have voted overwhelmingly to continue taking strike action for the next six months in their long-running dispute over pay, the Aslef union confirmed today.

Aslef (the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen) backed more industrial action after being reballoted, well over a year since the dispute started.

The announcement comes ahead of expected disruption for passengers from today and over the next week because of the union’s strikes and an overtime ban.

Members of Aslef at 16 train companies will refuse to work overtime from today until December 9 and will stage a series of walkouts between tomorrow and December 8.

Operators said they will operate as many trains as possible but there will be wide regional variations, with some operators running no services at all on strike days.

Services that are running will start later and finish much earlier than expected, typically running between 7.30 am and 6.30 pm.

Services on some lines will likely be affected on the evening before and morning after each strike between December 2 and 8 because much of the rolling stock won’t be in the right depots.

Unions involved in disputes have to re-ballot their members every six months to ask if they want to continue taking industrial action.

Aslef members at 12 train operators in England were balloted, each returning enormous votes in favour of high turnouts.

Mick Whelan, Aslef’s general secretary, said the union was ‘in this for the long haul’, adding that their members, who had not had a pay rise for nearly five years now, were determined that the train companies, and the Tory Government that stands behind them, doing the right thing.

He said that the cost of living has soared since the spring and summer of 2019 when these pay deals ran out. The bosses at the train companies, as well as Tory MPs and Government ministers, have had pay increases.

He said it was unrealistic and unfair to expect their members to work just as hard for what, in real terms, was considerably less.

He also said that train drivers were fed up and frustrated that their employees failed to negotiate in good faith, making a proposal through the Rail Delivery Group which they knew, because they had told them, would be turned down and then blame drivers for the train companies’ inability to manage services and the rail industry effectively.

The quicker fully automated trains are introduced the quicker these rail operatives can be kicked into touch. Some of these people are the best-paid people in the United Kingdom – the reason our train network is the most expensive.

These train companies are making millions regardless of whether the trains run or not, so they simply don’t care about the passengers.

Don’t these guys realise that going on strike for a day here and there is hardly going to solve the problem and the public will easily work around that?

Brits and their strikes hey! We must be the worst in the world.

They have a cheek asking for more money whilst these massive train companies are making millions of pounds a year. Millionaires look after millionaires whilst everyone else suffers.

Rail strikes, roads crowded. Air travel in chaos. Soon travel in the United Kingdom will be as difficult as it was in the 18th century.

The Government don’t want us to go anywhere, they love keeping us at home.

If they can afford to strike for six months, where they don’t get paid when they’re on strike, then they can’t be short of a penny or two.

A Mother Defends Her Son’s Long Hair Amid School Disputes

Navigating the tangled quagmire of school rules frequently evokes a spectrum of emotions, with an assortment of fond recollections and difficult moments, and amidst this learning environment, regulations control student’s everyday lives, from practical guidelines such as limiting jewellery during sporting events to bizarre disciplinary measures regarding seemingly insignificant matters such as cosmetics and other things as well.

However, amidst these stringent norms, guidelines regarding a child’s appearance frequently clash with their innate desire for self-expression, especially during key stages of their formative years. For an 8-year-old boy named Farouk and his mother Bonnie, these regulations became a considerable obstacle to access to a quality education because of Farouk’s long, prominent hair.

Model scouts are attracted to Farouk James from London, England because of his gorgeous head. He has been photographed in Italy and New York and is currently employed as a child model, yet God damn it, he can’t get into school, and his appearance has caused him problems. He was rejected by several schools because of the length of his hair.

Farouk James’ mother, Bonnie Miller, claims she was told that her brother’s hair was too short when he was at school.

Forcing your child to cut their hair is against our human rights and our Government should put legislation in place to safeguard children from these obsolete, disciplining rules.

This child has done nothing wrong apart from having long hair and yet schools have rejected him. It’s just hair for goodness sake. And if girls can have long hair in school, shouldn’t boys have the same rights as well?

And what about teachers, I can remember being in school and one of my teachers having long hair, and stupid sandals, for goodness sake, I always thought he was Jesus in drag.

Now this young boy will have to say goodbye to his friends as they’ve all been accepted into the schools that he wants to so desperately attend.

So what, now schools are saying that if you don’t like the rules, find another school, but then your options are restricted when it comes to schools with promising results in London.

There are probably going to be trolls out there with their opinions and I’m sure many of their views will be extremely nasty, and yes, some might say rules are rules, but if that is the case, then schools are coming across as extremely authoritarian, were not in 1823 were in 2023.

According to Bonnie, Farouk’s father is from Ghana, and his parents didn’t cut his hair until he was three because of cultural customs. At that point, he was hooked and so was she with his beautiful hair.

Bonnie even created a Change.org petition to prohibit hair prejudice in the United Kingdom as a result of this circumstance.

She said that they were putting together a real team and they were calling it ‘Generation Mane’, and that they would fight until those regulations are changed, not just the United Kingdom but the whole world.

With more than a quarter of a million followers, Farouk’s mother runs an Instagram account that highlights his life as a playful boy and child model, but even with all the love and support she gets online, she still gets hate mail, and that she’s received a lot of unfavourable feedback.

Farouk’s hair is part of who he is and why should he be made to cut it to appease anyone?

Could THIS Be Britain’s Worst Hoarder?

Bodies of mummified cats were found among mounds of belongings by cleaners sent in to tackle a hoarder’s home in the ‘worst case’ they have ever seen.

Workers were left stunned after making the shocking find in a house in Lancashire, that was loaded to the rafters with junk including old kitchen appliances, newspapers, stacked storage containers and office furniture.

It was so rammed full of belongings that a ladder was needed to climb through a second-storey window as loads of rubbish were blocking all other entrances.

Among the rotting debris were the bodies of up to four pet cats, which had been put on shelves and covered in newspaper.

The extreme case was discovered after the male homeowner, in his late 70s, who lived in the property alone, passed away without any known close family.

Experts said that it’s believed he was hoarding for upwards of three decades.

The teams were tasked with clearing the home in February but were barely able to enter the unkempt property at first.

It took the team 45 hours to make some progress on the case, with the home filled with such a tremendous magnitude of rubbish, they were unable to enter the property.

A ladder was put up to a second-floor bedroom window to allow access and from there, they started the demanding task of clearing piles of rubbish in dozens of skips.

Heir hunting company Blanchards, based in Kent, who hunted down relatives of the homeowner, described the case as ‘heartbreaking’.

One said it was one of our saddest and most memorable cases.

They said that they’d cleared hundreds of properties and had never seen hoarding so bad that they had to climb a ladder and enter through the upstairs window as all the other entrances were blocked.

Eventually, heirs for him were discovered, second cousins twice removed who didn’t even know him.

It’s believed that the man had plans to start a phone exchange business, which is where the hoarding started in the 1990s.

Much of the home was jam-packed full of old phone equipment which he didn’t get rid of when the business plan didn’t materialise.

A spokesperson for Blanchard’s added that he wanted to open a telecom museum as telecom was his previous line of work and that over the years he collected mounds of telecom technology. He began storing those telecom artefacts in containers.

The most heartbreaking thing is that this poor gentleman was there alone without another soul in the world to care about him. No wonder he was in such a state, and I’m sure people will come out of the woodwork once they hear of this because where there’s a will, there’s a relative.

This is an extremely heartbreaking story, but remember that anyone can have traumatic life events and grief which can paralyse them and might leave them unable to cope and you really can’t tell beforehand how things will impact you.

Crap can pile up on you and hoarding can begin because they believe that there’s something in there that they need or love in there somewhere, and they dare not chuck things away in case they throw that special thing away, and then despair sets in and things stack up and it makes it more difficult and harder to find the things that they wanted.

Then they become more depressed and become embarrassed of the hoarding and can’t let people in. They lose social connections and they wind up barely existing in a house they can’t invite anyone into and can’t or won’t ask for help.

These people shouldn’t be humiliated and we should learn to be kinder to people who have problems!

Does WhatsApp Have A Future?

Some people are turning their backs on WhatsApp and returning to old-fashioned ‘chic’ SMS as the pressure to be continuously contactable is leaving them with ‘anxiety’.

Mark Zuckerberg’s messaging service is too ‘invasive’ with people saying the constant bombardment of notifications means they’re switching back to iMessage and a simpler form of texting.

WhatsApp is presently undergoing a makeover but the sleek new look may not be enough to win back those who have jumped ship.

One of those is dating expert Clarissa Bloom, 34, who on average would receive about 300 messages a day from the 12 groups she was in.

The sight of a WhatsApp message pinging up on her phone would leave her tummy in knots as if she’d just consumed copious amounts of caffeine even after she’d muted nine of the groups.

She said it just felt overwhelming and stressful, even though the messages were always nice posts from friends and family.

She points to her WhatsApp desktop wreaking mayhem with her everyday life with the steady stream of messaging popping up on the screen hindering her work.

She said that it used to give her anxiety as she felt the need to instantly respond, however, it would break up her rhythm.

She said she would also try constantly to read messages on WhatsApp by flicking her phone down and seeing the opening line, rather than clicking on it, so people didn’t see that she’d read it, as she simply couldn’t watch a movie or a show without having to constantly stare at her phone.

All that changed when Clarissa unintentionally switched back to SMS when she got a new phone and didn’t bother to install WhatsApp.

Her life is better for it albeit she has to continually explain to people to text her when they say to her ‘I tried WhatsApping you’.

She said her mind was definitely more relaxed for it and that she didn’t feel the need to answer straight away and it had also pushed her not to check her phone between work hours, which had increased her concentration and productivity significantly.

Clarissa said one of the main bugbears was the nightmare of people seeing she had read a message, meaning she would feel obliged to respond.

She said another factor was the way people message on WhatsApp. When people used to write texts or emails, they would write a long message, and then wouldn’t expect a response for a day.

Anxiety from messages on WhatsApp, I mean what is the world coming to? If you don’t want so many messages coming through, then just don’t put the app on your phone, full stop!

However, it does drive me nuts watching everybody fiddle and twitch with a kind of nervous urge to check their phone if it’s pinged with a message alert. Mobile phones in general have been a curse on human life, and if somebody forgets to take theirs out with them I see tantrums, even from adults, net alone children.

If people insist on belonging to all these groups, then obviously their phone is going to be pinging up messages all the time, and if they really don’t want that kind of attention, switch off the phone, or simply don’t put yourself in these groups. Or failing that, put your phone on silent. I do this because my watch tells me if someone important is calling.

I love WhatsApp. You can share stuff immediately, but then I only really use it for family or close friends, so I’m not inundated with loads of notifications.

Four Mosques Investigated For Anti-Semitic Hate Speech

It was reported that three police forces are investigating suspected anti-Semitic hate speech at four different mosques around Britain.

Footage of preachers calling for Jews to be butchered and Israel to be eliminated has been passed to detectives at West Midlands Police, Scotland Yard and Northampton Police by reporters from TalkTV.

The host said that a preacher at the Redbridge Islamic Centre in Ilford, east London, invited his congregation in Arabic to join him in cursing the Jews and children of Israel.

A recording, which Talk claims was translated twice independently, shows the preacher saying: ‘Oh, Allah, curse the Jews and the children of Israel. Oh Allah, curse the infidels… Oh Allah, break their words. Shake their feet. Disperse and tear apart their community and ruin their houses and destroy their homes.’

More footage from mosques in Birmingham and Northampton show speakers calling for God to ‘heed our hearts regarding the usurping Jews and in every enemy of you and the Muslims’.

One preacher adds: ‘Oh God, limit their number. Kill them indiscriminately and do not leave any of them alive. Oh God, our Lord. Disperse them. Weaken their strength, shake the ground beneath their feet and freeze the blood in their veins. Make them captive to the Muslims.’

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said its officers continued to make a number of enquiries after being made aware of the video but there had been no arrests.

West Midland and Northamptonshire police forces confirmed officers were evaluating the contents of a number of videos to decide whether a criminal violation had been executed, which Northamptonshire police said they’d been aware of since October.

Jewish groups have called for prosecutions for any speakers found to have been preaching anti-Semitic hatred.

Steven Silverman, from the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, said that there was no difference between the rhetoric in the Hamas charter and the rhetoric that was on display in these videos.

He said that they were utterly hateful. They were violent and they were a threat, both to Jews and non-Jews in this country.

He said that there was a real risk of more than just one person being encouraged by this rhetoric to go out and take action on the streets, and we’ve seen how bad that can be in the past.

There probably will be nothing done about this, and then nothing will happen to any of them, and this country is sleepwalking into a disaster.

The problem is it’s our MPs and the law that is to blame. The police are only doing what they’re told to do, and can only act where there’s a legal point in doing so.

Of course, the police are terrified in case they’re not politically correct, but if you misgender someone on social media the army will turn up, it’s absurd.

These people are awful racists and they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. However, this has been going on for years and the damage is already done, and we should enjoy our life now because our children won’t get the same freedoms if we don’t enforce the law.

Our Government have let the genie out of the bottle and now they don’t know how to contain it.

Can you imagine what would happen if an atheist, Christian or Jew wanted to wipe out religion? But you get a few preachers spewing hate crime and our Government and the police are hiding under their mother’s armpit.

Alone Together As She Breathed Her Last…

Jimmy Carter spent the last moments of his wife Rosalyn Carter’s life the way they’d spent most of their 77-year marriage, together.

Jimmy Carter, 99, wheelchair-bound and in hospice care, asked his family to leave him for a few final moments alone with his darling wife, who passed away Sunday at their home in Georgia.

According to his son James E. Carter III, aka ‘Chip’, the family were initially together as his father, who has also been in hospice care, gave a final wish.

He said that his Dad told her that he loved her and thanked her for all the wonderful things she’d done. Then he asked them to leave so he could be alone with her.

From there, the Carters sat alone together, holding hands for at least a half hour.

The Carters were placed feet to feet at each other’s hospital beds Saturday night, so they could face one another and talk.

Unfortunately, when Rossalyn awoke Sunday morning, she could no longer talk and was pronounced dead at 2.10 pm.

Chip told a newspaper outlet that tears were coming out of his eyes.

He said that his father had told him several times over the last nine months that he had always thought he would outlive their mother and protect her until she passed, but that now he wasn’t sure that was going to happen, and that upset him, but he stayed alive and they all told him how proud they were of his relationship with her and of how he looked after her.

Jimmy Carter has continued to eat but has been quiet, finding it difficult to speak since his wife’s death.

Chip added that, depending on his health, his father plans to attend Rossalyn’s funeral next Wednesday.

His body has changed while being in care, so a new suit is being made just for the occasion.

Chip Carter added that every living First Lady was invited to the funeral, including Melania Trump.

He said that his mother was a gracious person and she would treat everybody with respect, including a former first lady.

President Joe Biden, Vice President Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff are also scheduled to attend.

The longest-married couple in US presidential history, they met when Jimmy was just three years old and Rosalyn was a newborn. They celebrated their 77th wedding anniversary on July 7, 2023.

There’s nothing more beautiful than having a true life partner that brings out the best in you, and there’s no greater gift than to love and be loved. If only we could all learn from their incredible love and compassion for each other.

Such a beautiful couple. True soulmates in every sense of the word.

I’m not sure what kind of president Jimmy Carter was, a bit before my time, but I’m sure he was a kind, decent man who meant well.

I suspect he won’t be around much longer either, he will miss his wife and probably die of old age or of a broken heart, but they were two extremely fine people, humble and hardworking.

They both stood at that altar many decades ago and vowed their union would be ‘until death us do part’, and they meant every single syllable of it.

King Charles Profits From Dead Citizens’ Assets

King Charles has been accused of profiting from the dead as insiders claim his property empire is using their assets as ‘free money’ and a ‘slush fund’.

The monarch’s private estate the Duchy of Lancaster has long collected assets owned by the people who died in its jurisdiction without a will or next of kin in a feudal system known as ‘bona vacantia’.

In the past decade, it’s collected more than £60 million which, after costs, is said to be distributed to charities set up by the late Queen.

These include the Duchy of Lancaster Jubilee Trust, established in 2001, which supports the upkeep and preservation of heritage assets across the estate for the ‘public benefit’.

But internal duchy documents obtained by a newspaper outlet reportedly show how funds are increasingly being used to fund the renovation of properties that are rented out for profit.

The 2020 policy entitled SA9 states that funds can be used for the ‘public good’ to repair, preserve and protect duchy properties when they’re categorised as a ‘heritage asset’.

However, the definition goes beyond listed buildings and includes any that fall within different categories including those in conservation areas or a location of outstanding national beauty (AONB), or if they’re deemed to be of ‘local historical importance’ or of special scientific interest.

A newspaper analyst suggests the 2020 policy gave the duchy licence to spend bona vacantia on as much as half of its massive property portfolio.

Three sources familiar with the duchy’s expenditure confirmed to the newspaper outlet that the estate was using revenues amassed from the dead to renovate its huge property portfolio.

One said that duchy insiders regaled the bona vacantia funds as ‘free money’ and a ‘slush fund’.

Properties identified as suitable for funding include townhouses, holiday lets, rustic cottages, an old petrol station and barns, including one used to facilitate partridge shoots in Yorkshire.

One document refers to the renovation of an old farmhouse to help convert it into a high-end residential let while another project saw a farm building transformed into commercial offices.

In some instances, the funds have been spent to purchase log burners for properties owned by the King and rented out by his estate.

The practice is said to help make rental properties more profitable, and in turn, benefits the King, who in his first annual payout since inheriting the estate from the Queen received £26 million for the duchy.

Am I shocked, of course not. The nefarious tightfisted family are sitting on millions of pounds for turning up to smile and shake hands, and how some people support this mob is shocking.

The Royals have been doing things like this for an extremely long time – they really need the cash, don’t they? And if it’s going to charities to maintain his grounds rather than charities to help people, then it’s going into his pocket.

It’s all done to protect the Royal billions. Do they have no shame when it comes to unearned income? They’ll take every penny.

The money is going to refurbishing private lettings rented out for profit, and maintaining venues used exclusively by the King for his jollies and as a slush fund, and we are the unsuspecting suckers, they must be chuckling their heads off, and yet they’re always screaming poverty.

Sucking money out of dead people, do they have no shame? Of course not, they’re greedy beyond belief.

This is just phenomenal greed, and it was said that the SA9 was introduced in 2020. Fancy that, this Government slipping in a rule change when everyone was looking elsewhere. Who would have thought?

Smokers Are Being Hammered By Jeremy Hunt

The price of rolling tobacco will soar as Jeremy Hunt hammered smokers with huge tax rises in his Autumn Statement.

Announcing his latest financial package to the House of Commons, the Chancellor told MPs he would massively increase the duty on hand-rolling tobacco.

This will rise by an additional 10 per cent above the tobacco duty escalator.

There was also no relief for those who smoke manufactured cigarettes, with the duty rates on all tobacco products increased by Jeremy Hunt.

According to Treasury figures, the duty rises will see an additional £2.21 added to a 30g packet of hand-rolling tobacco.

There will also be an additional 66p added to a pack of 20 cigarettes and an additional 33p per 10g of cigars.

The tobacco duty escalator increases duty at the RPI rate of inflation + 2 per cent.

It means the cost of hand-rolling tobacco is being hiked by the rate of inflation plus 12 per cent.

The RPI rate of inflation was 6.1 per cent last month.

It’s estimated the move will rake in an additional £40 million for the Treasury next year.

The Treasury move comes as the Government bids to lower the gap in the price of hand-rolling tobacco and packs of cigarettes.

Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ group Forest, said that the Chancellor has just raised two fingers to working-class people across the country.

He said that increasing duty on hand-rolled tobacco by such a punitive amount was going to push more smokers further into poverty or into the hands of illegal traders including criminal gangs.

He said this was a clear attack on smokers from poorer backgrounds, many of whom use hand-rolled tobacco because until now it’s been cheaper than buying manufactured cigarettes, and that instead of penalising adults who smoke with punitive taxation designed to force them to quit, the Government should focus on the underlying reasons why a greater proportion of people from lower socio-economic backgrounds were smokers.

He added that it was often because of their environment, but instead of improving the conditions in which many people live, this Tory Government was determined to force smokers to give up a habit that may relieve some of the stress caused by their environment.

This move by the Chancellor is the second-largest hike in the cost of hand-rolling tobacco this year.

At his Spring Budget in March, Jeremy Hunt announced hand rolling tobacco would increase by 16.1 per cent.

This is an extremely lucrative taxation. They also know that the taxation will put plenty of money into their coffers, and they seem to be laughing all the way to the bank because they also know that it would be very difficult for people to give up smoking, especially those who have smoked most of their lives.

Smokers are now treated as second-class citizens, but drinking is way more damaging to public health.

People smoke or drink because of the pressures of everyday life. Both have increased risks to our health, and as adults we make an informed choice because everyone needs something in these ominous times, it’s either drinking, smoking or junk food, and it’s all about weighing up the risks and accepting the possible consequences.

The tax from cigarettes more than pays for the upkeep of everyone in our Government, and even some smokers die of unrelated causes, and if everyone gave up smoking then the Government and the NHS would have to find something else they could moan to us about.

In fact, cannabis is now cheaper than cigarettes!

The Government can tax tobacco all they want, but there will always be hookey shops and people around who will sell it way cheaper and smuggle it in.

Is Covent Garden’s Street Performer’s Era Coming To An End? 

Covent Garden’s iconic street performers fear they could be turfed out of London’s shopping hub by Christmas as part of a council plan to decrease noise.

Westminster Council first attempted to clamp down on certain public performances with a fee-based licencing system in April 2021.

This included limiting a performer’s space to just five metres, placing a total prohibition on any sound amplification in some places and disallowing the use of any perceived ‘dangerous props’.

According to the Covent Garden Street Performers (CGSPA) association, such regulations made it all but impossible for anyone but the live statues to continue performing. Its members outright rejected its introduction and willingly criminalised themselves by continuing their performances as usual.

Next month, the council will discuss whether to finance further enforcement measures to address the crackdown, including a proposed alliance with the police.

One of the affected entertainers is Chris Thomas, 31, a circus performer from Hackney.

He told a newspaper outlet that it was absolutely shocking really, wasn’t it and that this had been running longer than he had lived.

He said that he truly believed that a lot of the people that visit Covent Garden come and visit this pitch to watch street performers and for that to be removed would kill the essence of what Covent Garden really was.

He added that it wasn’t something he was prepared to live with, and they were going to pursue the resistance to keep the pitch running, and that there was a very strong community of performers, and they were going to do everything they could to keep the place alive.

Mike Juggles, 27, is an axe juggling performer and said greater enforcement of the licence would leave him completely unable to perform.

He said that it was a shame and that they were managing themselves very well making sure that everybody was following safety measures, not being too loud, and not being rude to the audience, they even said that they wouldn’t perform past 9 pm.

He explained that the local street performers often raise money for charity and take care of their community.

Street performing in the famous shopping hub is part of a tradition going back hundreds of years to 1662 when Samuel Pepys’ wrote in his diary about a marionette show featuring a puppet called ‘Punch’, who would later become one-half of the fighting duo ‘Punch and Judy’.

Do you ever notice that government councils don’t want us to have nice things?

Two decades ago London was a place for inventive minds and free spirits. Artists, musicians et cetera. Now, it’s either immigrants, criminals or boring corporate commuters. London has lost all of its edginess, and it’s a city in decline. More and more of our culture and heritage will be muted or destroyed, and meanwhile, knife crime continues to go unpunished.

Half the fun of going to Covent Garden is to see the street performers, and during the summer months, it’s actually very interesting to watch these performances, and can be the highlight of ones day trip.

It seems like having fun is a bad thing these days. However, it’s not hard to see why our councils want to end this part of our English culture and history. I bet if the performers were doing a rap and bang rah they would be letting people celebrate in Covent Garden all they want. Looks like it’s another step nearer to a prayer mat!

I suppose this is one way to eradicate the charm of Covent Garden. Soon London will have nothing to entice visitors.

There will be more and more restrictions, I can guarantee that and eventually, it will become a Nanny state. We’re not quite there yet, but watch this space!

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