#who should be the minister that visits the nursing home

[worst-archivist]

“Yeah, well. If we all were like you I doubt society would’ve progressed past the Middle Ages. You keep being you and I’ll keep being me.”

He sighed at her next question. “No, im not hungry. And it’s not a type of food either. I’m- I’m not going to take the time to explain smoking to you. I doubt you would find it pleasant.”

what do you call an alligator in a vest? an investigator.

A few too many seconds of awkward silence pass, broken only by a drawn-out sigh and slow clap.

“Congrats on giving me a migraine. I’d ask if you’re here to make a statement, but I’d expect you’d throw out another pun.”

[thephilosopheroffeelings]

Reader discretion is advised: This is not an objective piece of writing.

What a morning! What a few days actually.

First we learnt that there is a ring in Turkey that keeps healthy people in hospitals, carries out unnecessary medical operations, sends people to private clinics while claiming that there is no space in state hospitals. In this way, they were able to claim money from the state. They were basically stealing our taxes for years. These people are all healthcare workers - doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, you name it. And ministers - no surprise here - were playing three monkeys. Just last year in this way this ring killed 12 babies and one brave person said 'enough is enough' and made an official complaint and one brave prosecutor decided he would mess up with their plans. They were threatened but did not step back. It is not easy not to step back in Turkey as the legal system is not working properly. And one brave journalist exposed the names of these people & hospitals while explaining everything openly. The current government fucked up - pardon my French - our very well functioning and free healthcare system. And this one is a very clear example of it. With their neo-liberal, political Islam & populism fueled policies, they pioneered the privatization of healthcare & education. Now we have thousands and thousands of private schools and hospitals (was born in a state-hospital & proudly state-educated basic bitch here!) everywhere. For years, as a small group of people, we were saying that these private institutions are there to make profit only and should be regularly checked as their services for vulnerable people (patients & under-aged school kids) in the society. No government officials wanted to see our point and we were blamed for being Marxist, Islamophobic, anarchist,... The list goes on and the names get dirtier. I just hope that this will be a turning point. I know it will create even more struggle as no one now is able to trust any of the healthcare workers but hopefully this struggle will lead to somewhere fruitful for both patients & healthcare workers. I just wish strength to all of my friends & family who work at any private or state-owned hospitals. Especially the ones are working at state-owned hospitals: You are underpaid; you are working more than 60 hours a week; you are burnt-out and suicidal; your life is under constant danger as it has become quite common for healthcare workers to be killed in the last 10 years. But you keep pushing. I am 35 and since my birth, I have immensely benefited from the free healthcare service you provided. I trust you. Thank you for everything you do.

I received a text this morning: Fetullah Gulen dies. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. What a beautiful morning. I sincerely wish he died in a confinement cell but oh well. If you were born in the 80s, depending on your family's political orientation you either hate or love this guy. I hate this guy. I grew up in a family in which religion was not part of our daily lives as everyone, regardless of their beliefs, has always been an avid defender of secularism. It is not an easy life: They burned my people alive, they put marks on our houses, my dad received many threat letters due to his work in trade unions by cancelling extra time for Friday prayers, my uncle was ripped off from his titles and spent time in prison while he was a major general, my grandad was labelled as a communist teacher (spoiler alert - he was not; he was just believing in equality & secularism) in the little village they lived. He was shot as he was visiting each home in the village he taught to find out if there was a girl not being sent to school. Luckily, he survived and kept teaching. He taught me how to read and write and always believed it was way more important for a girl to be educated and empowered than a boy in the society we were living in. It is no surprise that I have never heard a good thing about Gulen. I remember very clearly all of my friends were going to his group's private schools and my dad was sending me to a state school, even though he could afford it. I was feeling left out (teenage mind!) and he was strict af. I was allowed to go to a rock concert but was not allowed to go to any of his group's gatherings. If you are not Turkish, you would not understand how uncommon the reality of this statement is. I did not understand my dad then. But the older I get, the more respect I have for him. He has been through a lot in this country and he was just trying to protect me. After the coup attempt in 2016, this guy was announced as a terrorist and now everyone in Turkey seems to be hating him by saying that they were simply deceived by him. But before 2016, he was one of the biggest mates of the current government and the majority of the population was respecting him as a religious authority. I will never forget the time my dad told me a quote from Ataturk when this radical shift occurred:

‘Mankind is made up of two classes: Those who work and those who are idle. Religion too, divides men into two groups: Those who deceive and those who are deceived.’

His death coincides with two important things. First, as we funnily shared on WhatsApp with friends, he actually did his last favour to his old mate by changing the news for the day. His death has become quite the headline and the cruel healthcare ring was forgotten. Tragic but true. Secondly, today was also the day, Ahmet Taner Kislali, who was an academician, journalist & politician, assassinated in 1999. I remember his funeral like yesterday: Fifty thousand people were walking behind his coffin and crying. I was a little kid while watching it live on TV and remember my mum & grandma were weeping. He was a staunch supporter of secularism. He will always be remembered for his defense of the secular and democratic ideals of the Turkish Republic. He was assassinated by the supporters of political islam and anti-secular movement groups, like the Gulen movement. Kislali tirelessly and bravely worked in Turkey for Turkish people while Gulen was living in peace and wealth in the USA.

Legacy of Ataturk is rather complex. I will never ever say that he was democratic. I will never say that he was always right. I will never ever say that people were ready for his reforms. It was a top-down revolution. Hence, we are still struggling. But today, let's remember the legend and his reforms about religion:

1. Abolition of the Caliphate (1924): Ended the Ottoman Caliphate, separating religious leadership from the government.

2. Abolition of the Ministry of Sharia and Religious Endowments (1924): This ministry, which oversaw religious affairs and institutions, was dissolved to secularize public administration.

3. Closure of Religious Courts and Schools (1924): Religious courts (Sharia courts) were abolished, and religious schools (madrasas) were closed, centralizing education under the Ministry of Education.

4. Replacement of Sharia Law with Secular Laws (1926): The Turkish Civil Code, modeled after the Swiss Civil Code, replaced Islamic law, secularizing the legal system.

5. Ban on Religious Orders (Tarikats) and Dervish Lodges (1925): Religious orders were disbanded, and their lodges and tekkes (meeting places) were closed to reduce religious influence on society.

6. Introduction of the Hat Law (1925): The Hat Law mandated the use of Western-style hats instead of the fez, which had strong religious and Ottoman associations, symbolizing a break from religious dress codes.

7. Removal of Islam as the State Religion (1928): The 1928 constitutional amendment removed Islam as the official state religion, marking a key step towards secularism.

8. Call to Prayer in Turkish (1932): The adhan (call to prayer) was required to be recited in Turkish rather than Arabic, aiming to nationalize religious practice.

9. Establishment of the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) (1924): Created to oversee and regulate religious matters, ensuring that religion remained under state control in line with secular principles.

These reforms were crucial in Ataturk’s broader efforts to modernize and secularize Turkey. Due to these reforms, we have been struggling for 100 years. We will always be a divided country as people trying to destroy his legacy and people trying to keep his legacy alive. Today, let's be fair to him and evaluate his legacy with the circumstances back then. Regardless of all the criticism I have reserved for him, I am also not ashamed to say that I will forever be grateful for his legacy as a female from Turkey.

Here is to another 100, in all its complexity.

[collymore]

Well said Ash Sarkar! Similarly, your evaluation is both sensibly and honestly outlined!

By Stanley Collymore Frankly, I couldn’t have agreed with you more Ash Sarkar, and will effectively go even further, and express the earnest personal wish, that rather regrettably significantly many more, discernibly of these types of actually, fatuously narcissistic people, simply weren’t on that submarine; now thankfully lost, in the very sprawling depths of the mighty Atlantic Ocean but expectantly so next time round! Because, if the clearly feckless and puerile rich, have that sort of money, to really throw away on such literally fatuous vanity projects and basically get into obviously, serious trouble like this solely and distinctively of their very own making; when also rather realistically these clearly obscenely, inordinate sums of money could  really have been put to better use. Simply by assisting people in genuine need, who’re actually quite literally starving and, furthermore, desperately homeless; acute situations, which the plethora of these haughty pillocks are absolutely cognizant of; nevertheless, in spite of this most of them evidently and selfishly, don’t give a toss about! So obviously commonsensically why then should I significantly personally, or others effectively just like me with a staunch moral perspective, clearly concerning the virtuous value of life, as well as a natural concern, for the welfare of those that simply through no obvious fault of their making still find themselves distinctly haplessly deeply ensconced in the dire ranks of the rather mercilessly, ill-treated; the very undoubtedly ignored, and also the generally underprivileged. As those of us, that quite honestly wish to basically alleviate as best we possibly can their abominable situations and suffering; naturally and sincerely ask ourselves, why we should honestly, give a damn about what essentially, occurs in that stricken submarine; relative, to those sociopathic, selfish and effectively narcissistic, morons? Ash Sarkar is obviously spot on in her very lucid, truthful and and forthright assessment. Spending really eye watering amounts of money to egotistically visit, what is essentially, the final resting place of crucially hundreds of unfortunately drowned people; quite essentially a solemn graveyard, that morally should be very permanently, left alone anyway, is ethically by no mean either a good thing or an intelligent, utilization of money. Nor come to that, the multiple millions, which those several governments will essentially fork out, essaying to rescue what's very unquestionably for them, prime ingredients from within this essentially significant coterie, of their exceedingly and uniquely privileged 1% percenters solely ultra rich men and equally female members club, who never the less for all their crude wealth are clearly lowlife scum! (C) Stanley V. Collymore 23 June 2023. Author's Remarks: How the hell has Britain effectively managed to be twisted so out of shape and specifically so lose its basic sense of right and wrong? So utterly corrupted now, in fact, that people like doctors and nurses: those who will literally be called upon to urgently save lives, if needs be, are now readily and frequently vilified  and openly castigated by right-wing media organizations , while reckless thrill seeking billionaires, a bloated, pathologically lying ex-Prime Minister and similarly likeminded politicians, all in league with a distinctly immoral, serial adulterously and a massively financially avaricious dysfunctional monarchy are unbelievably lionized, fawned over and saintly idolized! While in marked contrast hatred and public vitriol is viciously and customarily directed at those who both honestly and unafraid point out to the sick participants amongst surfeit of the aforementioned relevant home truths, but which self-evidently they don’t want to hear.

[whatisonthemoon]

An Article On Yasue Erikawa’s “Comfort Women” Activism (No Mention of U.C. or Moon)

Source: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2013/08/113_117360.html

A Japanese activist urged the Japanese government to make a formal apology, Tuesday, for the sexual enslavement of Korean women during its colonial rule here (1910-1945) and inform the whole world about the truth of the issue.

By Chung Min-uck A Japanese activist urged the Japanese government to make a formal apology, Tuesday, for the sexual enslavement of Korean women during its colonial rule here (1910-1945) and inform the whole world about the truth of the issue. “It is essential for Japan to face history in an upright manner and make a formal apology to Koreans, especially regarding the sexual enslavement,” said Yasue Erikawa, 66, president of the Group that Promotes Friendship by Overcoming the History between Korea and Japan, in an interview with The Korea Times, “This will serve as a starting point in mending ever-deteriorating Korea-Japan ties.” Referring to past occasions in which former Japanese leaders offered apologies for wartime atrocities against Koreans including those made by former Japanese Prime Ministers Tomiichi Murayama in 1995 and Naoto Kan in 2010, the activist argued that these cannot be accepted as full and sincere. “(The past apologies) do not count because no Koreans regard them as sincere,” said Erikawa. “Together with a renewed formal apology, Japanese government should also launch an investigation into its drafting of Korean women for sexual slavery and open up the truth to the entire world.” The group president first came to Korea in 1970 when she married a Korean. Living in Korea since then, she said she found out about the truth behind the past deeds done by the military of her homeland. “I got to know many things about what Japanese have done to Koreans after coming to Korea,” said Erikawa. “The sexual enslavement hurt me the most and I came to think what I can do about it. It goes same for the Japanese who joined the group.” She said her driving force to establish the group came when she saw the Korea-Japan relations deteriorate due to the sexual enslavement of Korean women. It was established in May 2012 with a small group of Japanese people regularly visiting nursing homes where some of the sexual slavery victims reside. “I felt the same feeling when I recently heard of the news that a Korean man drove his one-ton truck into the entrance of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul,” Erikawa said. “Can’t the Korea-Japan relationship be something like that between my husband and I, full of love and trust? I really felt sad.” The civic group leader also commented on the ongoing civic movements led by the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, a Seoul-based civic group that holds “Wednesday rallies” regularly in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul demanding proper compensation and a full apology to the victims. “The council displays a sign stating sexual slavery but I am doubtful of its purpose as it moves in a direction to divide Korean-Japan ties and also the ties between the government and ordinary people,” she said. “This also motivated me to launch the organization.” Meanwhile, Erikawa said her group is planning to expand its agenda to other problems between the two neighboring countries such as the Dokdo islets.

Related links below

The Might of Heaven (2015) - text from Sanctuary Church's sunday service including a sermon by Hyung Jin (Sean) Moon, with Hyung Jin going into Erikawa's history, with text of her talk as well.

Yasue Erikawa: An Often Unrecognized Asset

Japanese Sanctuary Church Says Yamagami Had No Sanctuary Connections

On the KCIA’s Money for Yasue Erikawa (1978)

Yasue Erikawa, Moon, money, shame, guilt, fear and hell.

A Japanese Import Breaking through in Korea - Yasue Erikawa in a FFWPU (UC) publication in November 2009 about working in South Korea. Erikawa on Kook Jin, “"Kook-jin nim is very spiritual, and at the same time, very intelligent. Whom could I introduce to him? It was so difficult to think of a person who could interact with and work with Kook-jin nim..."

The IFVOC in Japan, and the UC’s Presence in Okinawa

IFVOC’s Founding (According to the UC)

On the KCIA’s Money for Yasue Erikawa (1978)

6500 women missing from Moon mass weddings

[atlanticcanada]

A lineup for ambulances and closed ICU beds paint a grim picture in Moncton

A video shared on social media of multiple parked ambulances waiting to unload patients at Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre in Moncton, N.B., are highlighting a bleak reality.

Officials say it is a direct response to multiple challenges within the hospital’s walls right now.

In a statement to CTV News, Dr. Natalie Banville Senior, the senior vice-president of Clinical Programs and Medical Affairs for Vitalité Health Network, said, in part, "limited access to primary care, hospitalization of patients awaiting admission to long-term care facilities, staff shortages and an increase in respiratory viruses are contributing to delays in our emergency departments."

She says the hospital is also reporting an outbreak of vancomycin-resistant enterococci, a bacteria resistant infection known as VRE, in the internal medicine and telemetry unit, which is exacerbating the problems.

“The public can do their part by avoiding emergency department visits for non-urgent problems and by adopting practices to prevent the transmission of infections,” added Banville Senior.

Christianna Williston, the director of communications and stakeholder relations with Ambulance New Brunswick, did confirm that 11 ambulances were parked outside of the emergency department at Georges Dumont on Tuesday at approximately 4 p.m.

“Seven of those ambulances were experiencing offload delays at that time,” said Williston in an email to CTV News. “Of the remaining four ambulances, three were at the emergency department for scheduled patient transfers, and the other ambulance was scheduled to pick up a patient to return them to a nursing home.”

She says, at the same time, there were three ambulances at The Moncton Hospital that were experiencing offload delays. 

In response to the parked ambulances, New Brunswick’s Minister of Health Bruce Fitch said more should be on the road soon.

"I was in Campbellton, the EMT school is starting up there Jan. 1 [2023], well received within the community. It's going to free up paramedics to have more ambulances on the road,” he said in Fredericton on Wednesday.

“I also went to the school in Moncton, which is also going to have EMTs on the road, there's 20 people there who should be in the ambulances probably by the end of December."

Unfortunately, it is the tale of two hospitals in the city. Just streets away at The Moncton Hospital, recruiting challenges have forced ICU beds to close.

In a statement to CTV News, the executive director Christa Wheeler-Thorne said, in part, “we can confirm we have temporarily combined our Coronary Care and Neuro ICUs at Horizon’s The Moncton Hospital (TMH). There are, collectively, 10 funded beds on these units, however the decision was recently made to temporarily close five of these beds as we navigate through these staffing challenges”

She adds that Horizon Health Network hasn’t had to create any temporary care spaces at this time and that teams are managing the current situation well.

“Horizon has a plan to recruit and retain health-care workers, including critical care staff, to our organization and we prioritize this each and every day,” she added.

However, the situation is leaving residents alarmed.

Right now, there is a New Brunswick Health Coalition rally planned for Dec. 16 in front of Champlain Place in Dieppe, N.B., with one main message for government -- spend more money on the health-care system.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/7OtgVC3

[barbaramoorersm]

July 3, 2022

July 3, 2022

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Isaiah 66: 10-14c

The Prophet speaks of Jerusalem in feminine terms. 

Psalm 66

The Psalmist presents the “tremendous deeds of God”. 

Galatians 6: 14-18

Paul shares a powerful statement.  “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”. 

Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

Jesus instructs those he sends out in ministry.

 Today, Jesus “appointed” and sent out seventy-two of his followers in pairs, and tells them he is sending them out “like lambs among wolves”.  Then he gives them specific instructions about their behavior when rejected by some and accepted by others.  These instructions and the words of Paul that he “bears the marks of Christ on my body” can make these readings rather difficult ones for a preacher.  And yet, here they are, and you and I are invited to converse with them and find a message in them for our lives.

As Jesus’ message becomes more attractive to people, it is understandable that he needs some help in sharing his views and reflections about God.  Help in reaching a wider circle of people.  These seventy-two were in one way “Jesus’ advance team”. Two by two and carrying little baggage should give all of them some protection and freedom. In the previous chapter he already commissioned the twelve with similar instructions.  These instructions were appropriate for first century life and offered suggestions on how to address the issues they would face.  In some unfriendly circumstances they would, be like “sheep among wolves”.  A frightening and vulnerable description!

Some twenty years ago when I worked at Highland’s Center for Women, I observed the attention and kindness of the nurses who visited, cared for and helped to heal women who were facing breast cancer.  The patients often felt like “sheep among the wolf of cancer”. From diagnosis through healing, from hospital stays to recovery at home, from dealing with the loss of part of one’s self to beginning again, these nurses were present, loving, instructive and nonjudgmental.  I remember saying to one, “What you are doing is a profound act of ministry”.  Her response, “No, that is what you do as a Sister”.  But what they were doing in service of others was a profound call that flowed from their faith.  And these calls are not limited to sisters and clergy.  These nurses were like the seventy-two today, send out to heal and bring life to others.

 Even Jesus recognized that a ministry of care and compassion needed to be shared, just like the nurses with whom I had the honor to work. By our Baptism we are figuratively sent out by Jesus to serve, love, embrace and minister to those in need.  I often think of the four church women who by their baptismal call returned like “the seventy-two” in December 1980 to minister to the poor and children in El Salvador.  They were captured, raped and killed.  They were in Jesus’ words, “sheep among wolves.”   Thank God our ministries rarely face “wolves” like that.  But, Paul in our second reading as he carried out his ministry often met many “wolves”.  He writes that he “bears the marks of Jesus on his body”.

What does Jesus’ commission to the “the seventy-two” have to say to all of us as we live out our daily lives?  All of us no matter our age, education or situation are being asked to live out our faith in ways that most of the time, are very small but can make a hugh difference.  When nurses, technicians and doctors collaborated in a poor Rochester neighborhood years ago to bring education and portable mammography to individuals who might never have it, they are examples of “two by two” assisting others and saving lives.

When citizens work together to bring safety to schools and try to decrease gun violence, they resemble the efforts of “the seventy-two”.  When the older members of our families and communities extend their time, prayers and gestures to those who are suffering, they resemble “the seventy-two”.

One final thought that surfaces from this Gospel. The task and efforts we make to be aware of and recognize the “wolves” that try to block the goodness of people are critical.   In our current culture, we are faced with the “wolves” of lies, invented truths, character destruction, violence and narcissism.  At times we may feel like powerless “sheep” when we face them, but with God’s grace and the collaboration of others we can name them, expose them and bring some healing and comfort to others.

Jesus seventy-two returned full of excitement and optimism after their new ministerial activities.  Even at this point in the story, Jesus reminds them not to focus on their successes but the larger picture of service.  And Paul, as he writes the Galatians, reminds all of us that in our service of God and our brothers and sisters we are “ a new creation”.

[nordleuchten]

The La Fayettes and their servants

Although I spend most of my time researching and discussing the Marquis de La Fayette and his family (all of them fairly well known individuals) I am immensely intrigued to study the life of people that have been “forgotten”. People like me and you - who lived ordinary lifes, loved their family, tried to get by in times of war, peace or revolution - people one can truly relate to. I started some time ago looking into the servants and employees of the La Fayette’s and hoped to find some sort of register, naming and detailing all the people that worked for the family. Alas, I could not find what I was looking for. These registers (for I am sure they once existed) have either been destroyed or are stored somewhere beyond my reach. I therefor turned to the letters and documents that have been left behind. I already wrote about La Fayette’s valet, Sebastien “Bastien” Wagner, who served La Fayette until the end of his life and after that continued serving the late generals family. There is a second valet, who accompanied La Fayette during the American War of Independence and for whom I plan to make a separate post. I also want to make a separate post about Georges Washington de La Fayette’s tutor, Felix Frestel.

This post now is about several servants mentioned in Adrienne’s letter to James Monroe. When Monroe was the American ambassador to France during the later stages of the French Revolution, he corresponded often with Adrienne and tried to help her as much as he could. Among frequent visits to the prison (to raise awareness for her case), Monroe also attended to different financial, legal and logistical matters that Adrienne could not attend to herself. Adrienne instructed Monroe to provide for several of her and her family (both de La Fayette and de Noailles) servants. A number of the servants and townspeople were quite outspoken about the fact that the La Fayette’s were good people who always treated them fairly and that they would not celebrate or rejoice in the imprisonment or execution of any member of the La Fayette family.

Adrienne wrote to Monroe in a letter in February of 1795:

I ask Mr. Monroe again to add 300 [livres] of a life’s pension for my poor nurse, also old and infirm.

I take the liberty also to recommend to him Pierre-Louis Mercier who has served me for seventeen years, and who has put himself in jeopardy since the beginning of my misfortunes. Please allow me to ascertain whether he is in need of anything, and I ask for his protection on any occasion in which he would need to claim it.

Once again I consign to him a family very poor, and very numerous, Felix, our former coachman, his wife and children. His eldest son shares the persecution that my husband has experienced; he is a prisoner like him, and because of him. I solicit the kindness of Americans to preserve this family from misery.

I request permission to commend him to Desmanges and his family if they have need of him in whatever it be, and to allow me in such a situation to encourage them to have recourse to his charity.

Hennequin and especially his wife, although they have spent little time at my home, have given me proof of their attachment in such a courageous manner that I would be guilty of not placing them, one and the other, under the protection of a nation to which I have the consolation of showing I am not an ingrate. I advise them therefore to avail themselves of the minister of the United States on any occasion as they would have done to me.

A young person who has also shared danger with me, the Citizeness Benjamin, has a note from me that she does not want to use. I have made her promise that if some circumstance or institution or whatever, renders this small sum useful, she will have recourse also to Mr. Monroe. I am keenly interested in this young person.

(…)

I finish by appealing to you to regard the family of Citizen Beauchet, and his wife, as if they were my own family, to send me their children wherever I shall be, if they ever have themisfortune to lose their parents, or one of them, and the other should desire it.

In an undated letter (probably late 1794) Adrienne wrote:

Second Promissory Note

I promise and commit myself to pay annually to the Citizen Marthe Aufroy, teacher and friend of the mother whom I mourn, thousand livres for a life-annuity, payable in advance every three months, without any deductions.

(…)

Third Promissory Note

I promise to do my part to pay annually to Citizen Marie Anne Marin, my instructor and that of my sisters, who since their growing up has never ceased to provide for their needs and who after my misfortunes and during our cruel separation, has acted as a mother to them, the sum of 1500 livres as a pension payable in advance every three months, no withdrawal for taxes, the whole to commence from the time in which she would be separated from us. I beg her to accept this testimony of my friendship, with my true and affectionate gratitude.

(…)

The second [promissory note] directive is for an individual, also a septuagenarian, who is extremely infirm. If ever my respected mother’s will is read, and at least the articles concerning the remunerations carried out, the promise will be fulfilled and my request made void.

The third [promissory note] is intended to ensure the future of a person more than 60 years of age, in poor health, overwhelmed by our misfortunes, and for whom it is necessary for me to be assured that she shall not lack the basic necessities to live comfortably, should the difficult life to which I am destined forces me to separate from her.

(…)

If ever the Citizeness Beauchet has the misfortune to lose her husband and she should be without money, I place her and her children under the special protection of the United States until the moment when we will be able, she and I, her children and mine, to share our difficulties together.

I remind him again of a young person named Citizeness Benjamin who has shared some of my dangers. If she ever loses her father, she has recourse to the minister of the United States to furnish her the means to be near me. And I take the liberty to recommend her to him for this purpose. She has been like a daughter to me, and I owe her maternal care if she becomes an orphan.

I cannot finish without recommending again to the kindnesses of the American minister, Mr Mercier, a servant who has served me for seventeen years with fidelity and zeal, and who has also run risks for me and shared with me a month in prison. He has a position at this moment, but I cannot bear the idea that he would suffer poverty. And I need to hope that he will not be abandoned by the United States.

Still, even with these accounts and letters, there is precious little that we know about the life of these people. Most of the time we only know their (family) name, their position and time of service, sometimes not even that. I will do my best to find out as much as I can about these (and other people) and hopefully I can present you more post like this in the future!

[justforbooks]

Louis Renault was born on February 12, 1877. He was a French industrialist, one of the founders of Renault and a pioneer of the automobile industry.

Renault built one of France's largest automobile manufacturing concerns, which bears his name to this day. During World War I his factories contributed massively to the war effort notably so by the creation and manufacture of the first tank of modern configuration: the Renault FT tank.

Accused of collaborating with the Germans during World War II, he died while awaiting trial in liberated France toward the end of 1944 under uncertain circumstances. His company was seized and nationalized by the provisional government of France although he died before he could be tried. His factories were the only ones permanently expropriated by the French government.

In 1956, Time Magazine described Renault as "rich, powerful and famous, cantankerous, brilliant, often brutal, the little Napoleon of an automaking empire — vulgar, loud, domineering, impatient, he was a terror to associates, a friend to practically none," adding that to the French working man, Renault became known as "the ogre of Billancourt."

In 1938, Renault visited Adolf Hitler, and by 1939 he had become an important supplier for the French army. At the time Hitler's Wehrmacht invaded France in 1940, Louis Renault was in the US, sent by his government to ask for tanks. He returned to find the Franco-German armistice in place. Renault was faced with the choice of cooperating with the Germans and possibly forestalling them from moving his factory and equipment to Germany, which would lead to an accusation of collaboration with the enemy. He put his factories at the service of Vichy France, which meant that he was also assisting the Nazis. Over a period of four years, Renault manufactured 34,232 vehicles for the Germans. Renault argued that "by continuing operations he had saved thousands of workers from being transported to Germany", but Life in 1942 described him as a "notorious Paris collaborationist".

During the occupation of France the company was under the control of the Germans, with people from Daimler-Benz in key positions. Renault himself became unpopular among members of the French resistance. The Renault factories on Île Seguin in Billancourt had become top priority targets for the British bombers of the Royal Air Force and were ultimately severely damaged on 3 March 1942. Renault's health issues worsened, including his severely diminished renal function, and in late 1942, he suffered aphasia, and was unable to speak or write.

Three weeks after France was liberated in 1944, Renault surrendered "on condition that he would not be jailed until indicted." He was arrested outside Paris on 22 September 1944, on charges of industrial collaboration with Nazi Germany. At the time of his arrest, Renault "denied that his firm had received $120,000,000 from the Germans for war materials, said that he had kept his huge, much-bombed plant going at the request of Vichy to keep its materials and equipment out of Nazi hands and to save workers from deportation." He was incarcerated in Paris's Fresnes Prison being already seriously ill at the time. The records for the exact period of his incarceration at Fresnes would later turn out to be missing. Renault was moved on 5 October to a psychiatric hospital at Ville-Evrard in Neuilly-sur-Marne.

When Renault's health quickly declined on 9 October 1944 he was again moved to a private nursing home at the clinic Saint-Jean-de-Dieu in the Rue Oudinot, Paris at the request of his family and supporters, having gone into a coma. He died on 24 October 1944, four weeks after his incarceration, still awaiting trial and having claimed to have been mistreated in Fresnes Prison, with his 1918 French Legion of Honor for exceptional contribution to the victory of the First World War, having been expunged by the Vichy régime.

No autopsy was performed and the exact cause of Renault's death remains unclear. An official report at the time gave the cause of death as uremia.

Louis Renault is buried at his country home Chateau Herqueville, in Herqueville dans l'Eure.

In October 1944, the provisional French government seized Louis Renault's company. The Minister of Information, Henri Teitgen, said at the time this was not a confiscation, rather "it was merely a step to get French industry back into production. Later a commission would examine the books, confiscate war profits, bring charges."

On 1 January 1945, four months after Louis Renault's death, an order of General Charles de Gaulle's provisional government decreed the dissolution of Société Anonyme des Usines Renault and its nationalization, giving it the new name Régie Nationale des Usines Renault (RNUR).

Thus, the company Louis Renault had created was nationalized on the official case of collaboration. Renault was charged posthumously with "guilty enrichment obtained by those who worked for the enemy".

In 1944, after the expropriation of his company and his subsequent death, Renault's last will and testament was opened to reveal that he had left his company to his 40,000 employees. At the time the company was nationalized, Renault's wife Christiane and her son Jean-Louis owned 95% of the company stock and had received nothing, while the other stockholders were in fact compensated. By 1956 "Renault [was] now France's largest nationalized company, employing 51,000 Frenchmen, making 200,000 automobiles and a profit of $11 million a year."

The director of the plant during the war obtained a judgment in 1949 stating that he and the plant had not collaborated.

In 1956, Renault's widow, Christiane Renault, claimed that Louis Renault was murdered and sought "to establish that Louis Renault was another of the more than 9,000 Frenchmen listed by the government as having been killed by "irregular executions" in the post-Liberation vengeance," and Louis Renault's body was subsequently exhumed for autopsy. Madam Renault cited as evidence "a report showing Renault's urea content to be normal a week before his death, and an X-ray showing a fractured vertebra."

In 2005, the UK Daily Telegraph reported that "according to eyewitness and family accounts, the previously wiry little 67-year-old had been tortured and beaten," and that "a nun at Fresnes testified that she saw Renault collapse after being hit over the head by a jailer wielding a helmet. An X-ray organised by his family indicated a broken neck vertebra."

In 2005, the Daily Telegraph said Renault had "felt that his duty was to preserve France’s manufacturing base. Military and Daimler-Benz officials arrived at the gates of his Billancourt factory to assess it for removal into Germany, together with its workforce. Renault fended them off by agreeing to make vehicles for the Wehrmacht." According to Anthony Rhodes's Louis Renault: A Biography, Renault once said of the Germans "It is better to give them the butter, or they'll take the cows." The 2005 Daily Telegraph report said Renault attempted to save his company from displacement and absorption by Daimler-Benz: "But for his efforts, Renault factories and employees would have been shipped to Germany."

Subsequent studies showed that while Renault had collaborated, "he also hived off strategic materials and sabotaged trucks. Dipsticks were marked low, for example, and engines dried and seized in action, an outcome much in evidence on the Russian Front." Suggestions that Renault management had slowed production for German occupiers was countered with the argument that workers rather than management had organized the production slow-downs. A 2005 article in Daily Telegraph said it could legally be argued that the Renault company, the "jewel in the country’s industrial crown" was procured by theft, and that "admission that Louis Renault and his company had received rough justice would raise the question of compensation – huge compensation."

In 2011, Patrick Fridenson (at Wikipedia Français), a business history professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and the author of a book on Renault said “It’s extremely difficult to say to what extent Louis Renault should be considered a collaborator, he ran the risk of complete dispossession if he resisted the Germans.” Scholar Monika Ostler Riess, who had studied French and German sources found no evidence that Mr. Renault collaborated any more than his peers. “He just tried to save what he had, what he had built. The alternative to cooperating with the occupiers was to see the Germans take over his company"

Robert Paxton suggested in his 1975 book, Vichy France: old guard and new order: 1940–1944, that the Renault factory might have been returned to Louis Renault and his family, had he lived longer. The Berliet truck factory in Lyon remained in Marius Berliet's family possession, despite his having manufactured 2,330 trucks for the Germans. Marius Berliet, who died in 1949, had, however, "stubbornly refused to recognize legal actions against him after the war."

On 29 July 1967, Louis-Jean Renault, the only heir, received minor compensation, specifically for non-industrial, personal losses. In 1982, representatives of the Organisation Civile et Militaire and their counterparts at the company Robert de Longcamps, worked in vain for the rehabilitation of Louis Renault, saying he had been "wrongfully accused of collaboration with the enemy", their requests to Robert Badinter, French Minister of Justice, unheeded.

Renault's were the only factories permanently expropriated by the French government. As of 2005, Renault officials avoid mention of Louis Renault. For the centennial in 1999 of the original Renault Frères company, celebrated by Régie Renault, the company ignored the grandchildren of Louis Renault.

Despite the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which mandates just and preliminary compensation before expropriation, Louis Renault and his heirs were otherwise never officially compensated for their company. Renault returned to the private sector as a Société Anonyme (S.A) in 1996 when the French government sold 80% of the company.

In 2011, his heirs again sought to restore Renault's reputation and receive compensation for what they see as the illegal confiscation of his company by the state.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[anarchist-soupkitchen]

ooop its a really long essay

A brief list of why the Tories is pretty rubbish

 Before we start, I have a few things to say. As this is intended for UK audiences it might be a little difficult for people outside of the UK to understand the wording of certain topics, I will include somethings that need more explanation up here but if I do not include it here, please feel free to ask down in the comments.

Tory: someone who is a part of the conservative right

Anglicanism: the English church’s version of Christianity

This essay is a PERSUASIVE ESSAY this means its BIASED I hope you could tell from the title. This essay is from the view of someone who is white I am not trying to speak over people of colour on issue like race and I encourage you to look at non-white creators within the UK to get views on this matter.

I am pretty armature when it comes to my writing so do not expect something ground-breaking. And with that out of the way, let us begin.

1.       The tory party we know today was founded in 1834, you would think that would be plenty of time for its members to grow and shape the party into the best organization it can be. But with the tory party still stuck on the same ideas that Anglicanism is the only true religion, and that queer people should not have rights you would think that the party is straight out of the early 20th century, or still stuck on the same ideas the party was founded upon. It does not matter what side you are on and how your choice to view the tory party, people can agree on the prominent figures inside the tory party from old to recent. An example of a prominent tory of old was Winston Churchill a well know racist who also, coincidentally got us through WW2 when he was appointed by Chamberlin. He fostered such views that white people should govern over the “primitive” black and indigenous people of Africa and that Indian people “bred like rabbits”. To anyone who knows their UK history, 1983 was a very eventually year for politics and the UK as a whole. You now have to wear seatbelts in the front seats of cars, the dismembered victims of serial killer Dennis Nielsen are found in his London flat, unemployment was on a record heigh since the 1930’s and a general election found that Margaret Thacher was to be the next prime minister after a landslide win in the polls. Over the course of her 11-year reign of terror she periodised free-market capitalism and privatised public sectors including transport, railways and mines. Then because she did not like the Scottish government, she through a hissy fit and closed all mines in Scotland. Just like that she fucked up the economy, where in the big mining areas of the past are still experiencing the aftershocks today. I remember my granny telling me how she made up food packages for the miners around town and how it was so devastating to the town’s economy. Everyone was unemployed and starving, even my grandad. These examples really show that the Tories will support people who are the worst in British society if they have the parties’ interests at heart. You would think the tory party cannot get any worse but with modern polices such as pledging to get 50,000 nurses for the NHS while only giving them a 1% pay rise, which is only £7.78 for a low band nurse, by 2023. Or being “tough on crime” even though 96.4 crime were recorded by every 1000 people in 2019. You can see how tough they are about carrying out their polices. Let me tell you my favourite of the lot, Boris Johnston, our current PM, wants to limit immigration by 100,000 people. They want to only let in “the brightest and the best,” what a load of shite. Our immigrants are the backbone of our society doing everything people like the Tories would not even dream of doing. Imagen seeing Boris working in a McDonalds or in your local call centre. That fucker probably has not worked a day in his life. According to the migration observatory, migrants make up 50% of the low pay workforce. Either way you look at it, its abysmal. The government should do more for these people that letting them rot in a McDonalds or in a low paying job. If you have taken time to be a model citizen, train and get your qualifications, possibly learn a new langue to mover over to a shitty wet rock I do not see any problem with the government providing necessities to get you started in your new life. We have got the money.

2.       Can I ask you, what side do you think Boris Johnson is on? I will let you think for a moment. The Working class makes up more than half of our population according to the BBC’s class calculator. They say that a government is reflective of the people’s views and I think that is bullshit. Out of the working-class eligible to vote, who do vote, only three in ten vote conservatives. Do you want to know why people in the working class do not vote tory? Because under tory leadership since 2010, 6000,000 more children and their families were forced into poverty. The need for foodbanks skyrocketed 12.3% in the last five years and that is no even accounting for the pandemic. It is clear by now; I have given you enough time to think. “we know whose side Boris Johnson is on- the billionaires, the bankers and the big business.”- labour shadow chancellor, John McDonell. We know the conservatives are very busy committing acts of voter suppression and giving money to their friends instead of caring about you. They are buzzy introducing laws that make it mandatory to have voter ID in order to vote. If you do not make it free people will stop coming. The electoral commissions think 3.5 million voters just will not come back. this is all a part of, “takle[ing] every aspect of electoral fraud”- tory manifesto. It is well known that many rich people have been investing in the party for quite a while. Here is just a few: Anthony Bamford head of machinery in JCB, he gave £12.1 million since 2005. Charles Cayzer owns a shipping tycoon, he gave £480,00. Did you also know, Boris is known to be very generous when it comes to giving back. You’ve probably herd in the news about the conservatives handing out £3mil in contracts to tory owned covid PPE companies over the course of the pandemic. Some of that went to a MP, Nadim Zahawi who is a shareholder in SThree. SThree was given £1mil in contracts over the course of the pandemic. With all the evidence I have given above you’d think the government its rolling in it, I suspect they are but I doesn’t look like it from the outside. They have cut funding to courses drastically, as well as benefit schemes. Like cutting access for eighteen- to twenty-year-olds to the housing benefits. Yet with all the money they been cutting away from services and councils who desperately need it they still have enough money to cough up a commission for a royal yacht named after the duke of Edinburgh, costing over £200 million. Seems sweet does it, name a yacht after the ghoul of Edinburgh, right? You probably know the just of it now, your wrong. Not only is the yacht being paid for by taxpayers, but they are also naming it in honour after a racist. Or how the BBC would phrase his words as “memorable one-liners”. Here is a selection I find quite fitting: “The Philippines must be half empty if you’re all here running the NHS”- while meeting with a Filipino nurse. “If you stay here much longer, you’ll be all slitty-eyed”- he said to a group of British students while on a royal visit to China. My favourite must be “It looks like it was put in by an Indian.”- referring to and old-fashioned fuse box in Edinburgh. He is supposed to be the duke of the bloody place! I really like how one article what I read put it “[Prince Philip] screams out loud what other racists like him have learned how to conceal and camouflage in what they think and project as civilised demeanour.”- Hamid Dabashi.

3.       What I find absolutely astounding, is the Tories inability to show compassion to the people who have nothing. If you did not know the vagrancy act among other things crimeless the homeless and rough sleepers, which is by far a very bad mixture with the recent homelessness statistics, homelessness has risen 28% since labour was last in office and if the Tories continue down the path they are now, it is only going to keep rising. What you would find is most shocking is that there’s solutions for the homeless crisis right in front of us, what the Tories must to not be able to see. Layla Moran of the liberal democrats thinks they “must take a more compassionate and holistic approach, starting by scrapping the vagrancy act”. I think that would be a step forward and away from the old ways of prosecuting people for not being as fortunate as the rest of us, but there is something even more simple than that. Repossessing the 200,000 buildings that have been vacant in the UK for more than six months. Not only would that put a sizeable dent in the houses we need, but it also saves space. The UK is small collection of islands and I do not think the Tories can see that. We do not have the land available to just start building everywhere while leaving all those homes empty and unfilled. Its not a way to solve the housing crisis and its certainly not a way to save the money we supposedly need. Even the homes the Tories are building are left dormant because they are too expensive for the area, they are located in. With the way things are going the Tories will have to build more houses than they ever built before, because by 2041 homelessness is expected to doble. That is 400,000 more households if things do not change -a study by heriot-wat university. The evidence suggests that whatever the Tories are doing to end homelessness it is not working. Everything is not as bleak as I just told you though, the conservative has ended homelessness before. In the hight of the pandemic the conservatives got 90% of all rough sleepers off the streets and put them in hotels or hostels. This helped people apply for benefits, find jobs and get some more permanent assistance. People was helped during the pandemic, but when the funding ran out last July, homeless and the rough sleepers in the hotels and hostels where back out in the streets again. Alone and forgotten by the government that promised to end the very crisis they are apart of years ago. Theis shows that the Tories have the money to help the unfortune but they would rather sit on their arses chatting about what colour they should paint the walls of their house. More recently the Torie introduced a law what will fine people for sleeping in doorways. It really shows what the Tories care about, getting linings for their pockets. The Tories have the money to stop homelessness and when it was a danger to them, they stopped the issue what has been so recuing in our politics for decades. They helped the people who so desperately needed it only to chuck them back into the cold when covid-19 was no longer a danger to them.

4.       The conservatives fail to keep minorities safe in the society that they created. It is not surprise that the Tories are the most incompetent as ever. A study by BBC radio 5 found that hate crimes have doubled since 2013. An optimist would assume that is great, that there must mean that people have been reporting it more, right? Partly so. Although we have seen a rise in reports of hate crimes, the rate of prosecution has dropped down from 20% to just 8%. And that is just the tip of the iceberg, in a survey of faith-based organizations; the home office found that seven in ten of the employees surveyed has never reported a hate crime to the police where one happened. For a country where we are supposed to be the most tolerable it is no surprise that a big portion of the hate crimes committed are ones where the religion the victim followed played a big part. Our population, like many others, is influenced by our politicians. After Boris described Muslim women in burkas as “letterboxes” in an interview; citizen UK found that there where a surge in hate crime directed to Muslim women where the word “letterbox” was used. Again, continuing with the theme of hate crime against religions, Muslims made up half of the statistics in 2018 – 2019. The biggest spike we have seen in the last few years has been to Jewish people, where hate crimes against them have more since doubled. It is not a surprise since people seem to relate being a ‘good’ Jew to being a Zionist. Other minorities like trans youth under sixteen in England and whales now must go through everything that goes with puberty on top of not wanting to have the body you cuntly have all because TERF’s and conservatives do not think puberty blockers should be available to them.  At this point I genuinely think they want trans kids dead, how could you not see that the benefits of puberty blockers far out way the potential consequences. If puberty blockers really where the target they would have taken them of the shelfs completely, but they did not do that did they? They just restricted the rights of an already marginalised group more. Its not just trans kids but the fight for a third gender to finally get recognised is still waging on despite it being a battle since 2018. The government petition has been signed 136,000 times demanding non-binary finally be recognised as a valid gender in the eyes of the law. I hope I can get recognised as well as everyone else. It may not seem a big deal to some of you reading this but it is to thousands. Especially the people who want to go on hormones and medically transition. Because right now I and many other people are restricted and not allowed to get that service. If you are in the UK and you are of age, I urge you to signs the government petition. In other news the conservatives are just now getting to outlawing conversion therapy three years after they announced they would do so. It just shows how the party is not on target. On the topic of not on target let us talk about the increasing number of racial minorities becoming homeless because of lack of funding to their communities. Since the conservatives got into power in the 2010 racial minorities now make up 40% of all homeless despite being only 15% of the current population. It really shows how much they care about anyone who is not white. Yet people like my gran will continue to say they are doing enough for these underfunded communities.

the tory party really has nothing going for them, they are certainly not for the working class, they cannot solve homelessness and they do not give two fucks about minorities. To think anyone would vote form them is just amazing. Its fucking stupid to believe that they are anything but a bunch of rich shites dawdling around and thinking up ways to get more money into their pockets. To end this really all over the place essay, if you vote tory you are a massive twat.

Sources in comments:

[fundielicious-simblr]

Character Recap! Gen 2

After a good break to sort my life out, I decided that it would be good to do an update on everybody (yup, this is one of those posts) Why, you ask? Because I enjoy driving myself crazy by creating unnecessary amounts of work for myself - but y’all knew that already 😂 Keeping in line with that theme, one night at 4am I decided that I wanted to revamp my character pages (which ended up being my whole Tumblr theme) which would require updated pictures of everybody. I don’t know what possessed me to dredge up my old coding knowledge - if you can even call it knowledge- but I’m still in the process of finishing the character pages for gen 3 because there’s so many of them. 😅

Even though we’re on gen 3 officially, these characters are still mentioned in some parts of the story, and I also find it hard to let go of these since they’re my OG 8, the first sims born in game that I’ve ‘raised’. I’ve only just had the time to sit down and calculate peoples ages, meaning that the first 2 couples should technically still be adults, but I’m not reversing the aging process - we’re too far in 😂

I’ve updated my character’s page for gen 2 (gen 3 is almost done, but this isn’t about them 😂) I decided to add the ‘labels’ for each couples (where they fall on the fundie scale) because then it would align with what I do for gen 3′s character pages and how I label them. I tried to summarize all the ‘yikes’ bits of the relationships with the bulletpoints to truly highlight the 🥴-iness of it all you know? 

Allan & Casandra 

Meet Allan (54) and Casandra Collins (51) - Here’s a quick recap of their relationship:

They met at Family Bible Camp at 22 and 18 respectively, and were married 5 months later - both had their first kiss at the altar.

They continued to live as quiverfull fundamentalists after their marriage, subscribing to conservative biblical modesty standards, meaning that Casandra (and their subsequent daughters) wear skirts and dresses. They pledged to allow the Lord to decide their family size which led to 15 children - 13 living and 2 miscarriages.

Allan works as the Head Pastor at Newcrest Baptist Church along with being on the Board of Directors for the Centre For Learning and Life, whilst Casandra homeschools their children still at home and ministers to the women of the church in her duties as the Pastor’s wife. When she’s not doing that she’s visiting her grandchildren that live in town, or traveling to see the children and grandchildren that live elsewhere.

Here they are with all their children:

Back L-R: Adalynn (32), Barrett (31), Macie (31), Zoe (29), Maggie (25), Reece (24), Beckett (23)

Front L-R: Amira (22), Priscilla (20), Annette (20), Allan (54), Casandra (51), Charles (18), Parker (17), Ashton (15)

Branden & Lea

Meet Branden (52) and Lea (50) Collins - A recap of their relationship

They met when Lea’s family visited Newcrest Baptist so her father could give the sermon as the visiting pastor when he was 17 and she was 16, and they were married a year later - they saved their first kiss for their wedding day.

They had trouble having children for the first year and a half of their marriage, eventually having their twin girls Abbey and Brittany (28), their son Tanner (25) joined the family 3 years later.

Branden is now a retired Christian novelist, whose books have been bestsellers and he travels from church to church to run writing seminars for authors who are hoping to make it in the business. Lea stays at home and tends to her garden now that all their children are grown. She started the garden in their time before children and that garden has grown to be a local hit - she’s been selling the honey made by their bees and runs workshops to teach young women how to start their gardens to promote healthy eating. She travels along with Branden when he's teaching somewhere, and if she doesn’t she’s visiting her grandchildren.

Here they are with their children:

Front L-R: Abbey (28), Brittany (28), and Tanner (25)

Claire & Ryan

Meet Claire (51) and Ryan Paulson (55) - Here’s their recap:

They met when Claire travelled with a music group to perform at Ryan’s home church when she was 20 and he was 24, they were engaged 3 months later and married 3 months after that - they too had their first kiss at the altar.

They too pledged to allow the Lord to decide their family size and ended up having 10 children, like their parents they subscribe to conservative biblical modesty standards, meaning that the girls in the family wear skirts and dresses only.

Ryan runs his own IT business whilst Claire is a renowned Christian musician. Despite her immense talent, Claire’s main focus was and still is homeschooling her children and being a keeper of the home. As Ryan is his own boss, he is able to travel with Claire whenever she travels to teach of perform, she’s taught their children (who’ve seemingly inherited her talent) and the family performs at various events.

Here they are with their children:

Back L-R: Carter (30), Valentina (28), Alan (27), Celeste (26), Kristyn (24), Sabrina (24)

Front L-R: Jarrod (20), Zachary (18), Conner (15), Jarrett (15)

Danielle & Sebastian

Meet Danielle (51) and Sebastian (53) Hunt - Here’s a recap of their lives:

They met when he moved to Newcrest for his Veterinary residency and started attending their church, where during their courtship they both realised they had a shared love of nature and animals. 6 months later they were married, at the ages of 28 and 30.

They struggled to have children, and when Danielle did get pregnant 3 years into the marriage they ended up losing that pregnancy in the 3rd trimester - Danielle was pregnant with a baby girl they named Sarah. The next year they got pregnant and had their son James (19), and 4 years later they had their daughter Gabriela (15).

Sebastian runs a Vet Clinic in Brindleton Bay and Danielle stays at home to homeschool Gabriela, she does work at the clinic when she has the time and is responsible for the bookkeeping.

Here’s their family:

Elaine & Taylor

Meet Elaine (48) and Taylor (49) Godwin - Here’s a recap of their lives so far:

They met when Taylor moved to Newcrest to be a commuter into the city for his job as an engineer, and started attending their church. They courted for a year before marrying at the ages of  24 and 25.

They had their daughter Kyra (23) a year into their marriage, followed by twins Rory and Ruby Rae (17) 6 years later, Ava Grace (15) was born 2 years after the twins, and the youngest Amelia (11) was born 4 years after Ava.

Taylor works as a mechanical engineer whilst Elaine uses her teaching degree to homeschool the children and teach at the local homeschool co-op. Elaine wanted her children to have the experience of being taught by more than one person, but wanted control of their curriculum, meaning that the co-op was the best thing for them.

Here’s their family:

Fletcher & Cara

Here’s Fletcher (45) and Cara Collins (44) - Here’s a recap of their lives:

They met at Cara’s university when Fletcher was 22 and Cara was 20 and married 3 years later at the ages of 24 and 23 respectively. They set their own standards and therefore kissed before marriage. 7 years into their marriage they had their only child, a son that names James Lee (14)

Whilst Fletcher was raised in a conservative, fundamentalist household, Cara was raised in a less strict conservative Christian home and they chose to realign with less strict rules for their lives. 

Fletcher works as a Sergeant for the Newcrest Police Department and Cara works as a fundraising specialist for the local Conservative party in Newcrest. 

Here’s their family:

Grayson and Keira

Meet Grayson (42) and Keira (40) Collins - Here’s a recap of their lives:

They met when Keira moved to Newcrest to work as a Nurse in the pediatrics ward at Newcrest General hospital, Grayson had begun his rotations and they were in the same orientation group. Keira also joined Newcrest Baptist, their relationship blossomed from there and married after dating for a year and a half at the ages of 26 and 24.

They were open to having as many children as the Lord saw fit to provide, and they had their son Matthew (14)  2 years into their marriage, followed by their son Archie (11) 3 years later. There were complications during Archie’s birth that lead to Keira having a partial hysterectomy to save her life, meaning that their family is complete with their 2 boys.

Grayson works as an Obstetrician/Gynaecologist at Newcrest General, and Keira worked as a Nurse until they had their children. They’ve chosen to homeschool their children until high school, after which they enroll them in a private Christian high school. Once Archie the youngest moves into high school, Keira plans to return back to work at the hospital.

Here’s their family:

Harley & Gabriel

Meet Harley (42) and Gabriel (45) Barnard - Here’s a recap of their relationship:

They met at a dinner party in San Myshuno, they became fast friends and started dating a year after they met. They dated for 2 years before getting married at the ages of 28 and 21.

Harley was the first of her female siblings to go to college, she has a 1st class degree in Fine Arts with a focus on Fashion. She’s also the first of her female siblings to work a full time job. After going to college, Harley realised she was more like her older brother Fletcher and his wife in terms of beliefs, so when she married Gabriel they both agreed that in terms of beliefs that they’d attend a conservative non-fundamentalist church in San Myshuno. They both chose not to have children, so they spend time with their nieces and nephews, as well as the children their nieces and nephews.

Gabriel works as the Head Chef of a 5 star restaurant in the city, and Harley is the Editor-in-Chief of the popular fashion magazine ‘Myshuno Madness’

Gen 2 total: 8 sims (16 if you count the spouses)

Aaaand that is the first reintroduction post! Posts will restart after this one, mostly because I need queue some things up before doing the gen 3 posts so that I don’t need to worry about spoilers 😂

[acesgroupchat]

They march shoulder to shoulder, more than seventy thousand strong. Their feet beat perfect silent time on the polished stone floors. In death as in life their marshal leads them.

Father and son march side by side at the head of the column. Behind them, an army stretches in steadfast order, as far as the eye can see. Beside them, princesses, consorts, and ministers walk together, upright, proud, and certain. Together they come to the banks of the river. Together they go into the water, heads held high and steps in steady rhythm.

Lin Shu lets the water flow over his legs, swell against his chest, close over his head, and feels his soul washed clean. Beneath the water, his mother reaches out to take his hand.

The bright fields of the afterlife welcome them, and the makeshift camp of Chiyan’s dead becomes a bustling city. Her residents settle in and find themselves beginning to heal. Names, now restored, are hung with pride in doorways. The prayers of the living wind among them, bearing the faint perfume of incense in their wake. Older family members come to greet them and welcome them home. They are barely out of the river when Lin Shu raises his head and finds Tai Nai Nai standing before him, arms held out in welcome. She looks as frail as she had when he last saw her living, but her embrace is firm and certain.

It is all that was promised and more. Lin Shu watches as his parents settle into a new rhythm of social calls and easy activity. Aunt Yueyao is a frequent visitor, and Prince Qi joins her often, his wife and children tagging along. They are all eager for news of Tingsheng, and Lin Shu tells story after story, everything he knows of the last fourteen years, of Jingyan’s careful work and Tingsheng’s cautious joy. It is not the life that they had any of them expected or wished for, for Tingsheng or for themselves, but it is reason enough to hope, and for that they are all grateful. It is enough. It is perfect.

Even so, he finds himself walking often, to the edges of their little city, deep into the fields and along the riverbanks. His home is bright and full of easy conversation, a place of comfortable welcome. Beside the rushing waters is the only time he cannot hear the joyful laughter, which echoes in his ears everywhere he goes. He skips rocks through the current. Once, he thinks he sees one make it across to the black stone of the other bank.

He is on his way there when he turns a corner and finds himself somewhere else entirely. The faint scent of rot fills his mouth, and plum trees stretch before him as far as his eyes can see, full of a first delicate bloom. For a moment, it brings him to a stumbling halt. Not far from him, half sheltered under the branches of a tree, a figure in white turns toward him.

Lin Chen snorts, eyes sweeping over him. “It figures that you would be here. Grown bored again already?”

Mei Changsu takes one step towards him, then another and another. It is not far to walk, and Lin Chen meets him halfway.

It is easier, after that. His family home is open to him always, and he is there often, but just as often he finds himself wandering through the gardens, and through the various chambers and halls that are Lin Chen’s own, but which nevertheless open to him at the first thought, sometimes before he realizes exactly where his feet are carrying him. This is a source of endless amusement for Lin Chen, who has left off even feigning annoyance in favor of mocking Mei Changsu mercilessly for not realizing something that should, apparently, have been obvious.

“Really Changsu, when I said that the garden was closed to mortals what did you think I meant?”

“Fei Liu comes and goes as he pleases.”

Lin Chen snorts. “Fei Liu is the son of a nymph whose mother drowned herself in the river. He wouldn’t know mortality if it bit him.”

Fei Liu, who had been lounging on a branch above them, chooses this moment to throw most of an orange peel at Lin Chen’s head. Lin Chen grabs at his ankle, but Fei Liu springs up out of the branches, soaring away over the treetops and out of sight.  Lin Chen watches him leave before settling back against the tree trunk in a lazy sprawl. Mei Changsu lets their shoulders press together, stares up into the crowding leaves above them. He finds, though, after a moment, that he is not quite finished with this conversation.

“I cannot be the only mortal you have ever brought here.”

He should not be able to feel Lin Chen roll his eyes, and yet he does. “First of all, I have never brought you anywhere. I cannot be held responsible for your trespassing. Second of all, just who do you imagine I would have brought here? This is my private garden, where I come to retreat from the burdens of mortal suffering. Letting mortals in here entirely defeats the point.”

Mei Changsu pauses. He is not particularly inclined to let Lin Chen accuse him of jealousy, but the question has been nagging at him for some time. “What of the others who have shared your bed? You have brought none of them here?”

Lin Chen, as expected, bursts out laughing. The trees around them shake, raining down leaves and petals on them both, and Mei Changsu feels himself shaking where Lin Chen’s shoulder is pressed to his. Lin Chen laughs for an unreasonably long time, slowly tipping sideways with the force of his mirth until he is sprawled across Mei Changsu’s lap, grinning up at him. Mei Changsu waits very patiently as Lin Chen collects himself, though he does not stop giggling even as he even as he dries his eyes on his sleeve.

“What others? Changsu, I didn’t even have a bed until you decided I needed one in order to nurse you properly.”

“You didn’t have a bed?”

“Why would I? You know I don’t sleep, Changsu, we’ve been over this.”

Mei Changsu purses his lips rather than answer, but Lin Chen, predictably, reads the answer on his face anyway and succumbs once again to gales of laughter, swamping them both in drifts of flower petals. Mei Changsu decides that perhaps he will pay his parents a visit after all.

And it’s better, like this. Dividing his time between his family home and Lin Chen’s ever-changing halls and gardens. It is a paradise. It is more than anyone could ask or wish for. It is almost perfect.

“You miss him,” says Lin Chen. It breaks the lazy stillness of the garden, and Mei Changsu is forced to open an eye. When no further elaboration appears forthcoming, he hums an inquiry.

Lin Chen waves a hand, a broad, expansive gesture that sets the plum blossoms rustling. “Your prince. You have been pining for him, just as he pines for you.”

“I don’t pine,” he protests. Lin Chen gives him a flat look.

“He sends prayers to me as well, you know. It’s a habit he picked up during the many, many years you were so judiciously refraining from telling him where you were. I rather thought he would stop once this matter was resolved, but instead he has taken to pestering me after your wellbeing. Every day sending along his hopes that you are well cared for, and not being made to pay some absurd toll for his good fortune, and that you have everything that you might wish here in the afterlife. He has left you a staggering number of offerings, as I know you are keenly aware.”

Mei Changsu opens his mouth, and finds he has no words to answer. He closes it again. It is true that Jingyan’s prayers have become something of a constant companion. They are a treasured part of his existence, a devotion he does not deserve but clings to anyway. It is also true that he is beginning to worry for Jingyan. He does not know how much time has passed for Jingyan since his second death, but the grief that laces his prayers has only grown, shows no sign of abating. It is painful, to think of Jingyan in pain, and here in the underworld there is absolutely nothing that he can do to console him.

“You miss him, Changsu. Is it such a terrible thing to admit?”

He shuts his eyes. “There is nothing I can do for him now.”

Lin Chen chuckles. “Look at you, so aware of your condition. How you’ve grown.” When Mei Changsu swats at him, he catches his hand, twines their fingers together. For a moment, there is quiet. Then,

“What if there were a way for you to return?”

The words go through him like lightning, and he sits up. It jostles Lin Chen, who glares at him. His posture is still relaxed, but there is a weight to his gaze.

“You said it was impossible.”

Lin Chen doesn’t answer. An orange falls from the tree, into Lin Chen’s outstretched hand, and he begins to peel it, the soft skin parting easily beneath his long fingers, forming a long coil.

“Lin Chen. You said that it couldn’t be done. What do you mean?”

“I said that I would not, not that I could not.” Lin Chen sighs, and sits up. “It is a difficult thing, for a mortal to return to life once they have left it. Almost impossible, but not completely, as you yourself have experienced. For those who are not mortal, the matter is somewhat simpler.” His eyes meet Mei Changsu’s and his gaze is very sharp. “You have not been strictly mortal for some time now, Changsu.”

He swallows. “And you would let me go, just like that, if I asked?”

Lin Chen’s free hand catches the back of his head, and tugs him into a kiss. His mouth is firm and certain, and Mei Changsu finds himself melting into it when, just as suddenly as it began, the kiss ends, and Lin Chen pulls back. His smile is gentle, but there is heat in his eyes. “I know you will come back.”

Mei Changsu clears his throat. “And you would not mind if…”

Lin Chen laughs softly. “I have known your heart since well before you first stumbled into this garden. If I had minded, we would never have begun. He seems like a sensible person, far more sensible than you, in any case.” The last of the orange peel comes free, and Lin Chen sets it down carefully by his hip. “Jealousy is not in my nature, Changsu. You miss him. He misses you as well, clearly. If you wish to return to him, you can.”

His hands are shaking, he realizes. He closes his fingers in his own sleeve and tries to collect his thoughts. For all that it seems impossible, there can be no question of his answer. “How do I get there?”

With an easy, graceful motion, Lin Chen splits the orange in his hand, six segments coming off into his palm. “These will allow you to walk among the living without pain.” He presses five of the segments into Mei Changsu’s hand, the last held between his fingertips. “When they run out, it will be winter. Return to me then.”

He presses the final segment to Mei Changsu’s lips, fingertips dragging across his mouth as the fruit slides inside. The delicate skin breaks against his teeth and juice floods his mouth, bright and sweet, tasting only of sunlight. As the garden fades around him, Lin Chen’s voice echoes in his ear.

“I will be waiting, Mei Changsu.”

[danteriverflow]

Things to think about

Version 1

1. A Council of the Isles

The purpose is to discuss areas of shared values/interests/concerns equally. To be attended by:

UK PM (if it still exists)

Regional English representatives (perhaps North, Middle, South)

1st Minister of Scotland

1st Minister of Wales

1st Minister of NI (unless Irish unification)

Gibraltar

Channel Islands

Isle of Man

Other significant island groups. (Outer Hebrides?, Shetland, Orkney, Atlantic islands, Diego Garcia, Falklands, etc)

Representative from Republic of Ireland

2. Brexit

Create a mini common market for perishable goods (Food, Fish, agricultural products) with the EU. No quotas/tariffs. Mirroring relevant EU standards.

Create a European Citizens Card granting shared UK/EU citizenship to anyone who wanted to apply for it.

EU workers rights to be mirrored as a baseline standard.

3. MP Reform / Elections

PM to be directly elected by the public. From the majority party, no longer simply to be the leader of the majority party.1

MPs ousting a sitting PM become ineligible for reelection.

Proportional Representation for general elections.

A “None of the Above” option to be added to ballot papers.

All party names, logos and branding to be removed from ballot papers and polling stations.

Less than 75% voter turn out reduces the parliamentary term to two years.

Voting age reduced to 16 years

Parliamentary term of 4 years. (Unless voter turn out is too low)

Elections to be held on the first Sunday of June.

Referendums regarding Constitutional change can only be won if two thirds of entire electorate vote for the proposition.

Formalised, legally binding, independently set, and judged, code of conduct for MPs (with real consequences for breaking them i.e prison, entire family banned from holding public office). 2

Fixed budget for MPs offices per annum, equal to per pupil funding. No expenses at all.

Parliament/the Crown/the state to purchase offices, with living spaces above in each constituency for the sitting MP. No other accommodation is paid for by the state.

MP starting salary to be the same as the starting salary of a teacher or nurse. (Same performance related criteria used for pay rises)

Pensions and other benefits to be the same as a teacher or nurse.

During periods of parliamentary shutdown (holidays) MPs will be tasked with doing seasonal work, fruit picking, etc. Salaries withheld for non-compliance. (Added to MP code of conduct rules.)

MPs pledge allegiance to: The nation, its people and the rule of Law and not the crown.

The right to national self-determination.

MPs barred from using social media.

MP's with external interests (must be declared, code of conduct) are banned for participating in votes and discussions where that interest is pertinent.

4. House of Lords Reform3

Creation of the title “Lord Senator” for people who will sit as the second chamber.

Limited to 99 people who hold the title for 3 years.

They must have demonstrable expertises in a specific field. (Science, medicine, law, education, commerce, etc.)

They may be reselected to sit for a further 3 years.

They will be nominated by a cross party committee and voted on by 101 (this number could larger if desired) randomly chosen (jury service style) “Citizen Electors”.

Traditional honours will still be awarded but only public nominations for those honours will be considered. Political donors will automatically be exempted from ever receiving an honour (honours will be stripped from political donors).

Titles bestowed will be honorary and receive no state funding or benefits. Titles may not be used as name salutations. These honours will be removed publicly for misconduct.

5. Party Funding

Political donations to be taxed at 60% over £5000

Donations may only come from tax paying, resident British Citizens.

End of Non-Dom status. Holders of UK birth certificate pay UK taxes regardless of where they live.

Publicly searchable database to be created for donors. (Who they are, where they are based, tax status, how much they have donated etc.)

All donations to be collected together and distributed equitably amongst all parties.

All political party’s must have a leader elected directly by its members.

6. Education

All schools become Free Schools. Academies abolished.

Eton to be closed and burnt to the ground.

All schools to have a board of governors made up of staff, parents, local officials, and community people to hold school leadership to account.

LEA to resume it’s old purpose, but without responsibility for standards.

Schools to, once again, receive their budget in one lump sum.

Academy Trust leadership to be disbarred from school leadership/OfSTED and lesser roles in schools will be highly controlled and limited in scope.

OfSTED to be scrapped and remade.

No notice of visit

No fixed length of visit

Old grading to be scrapped and replaced with 5 star ratings for multiple specific areas.

All teachers to be observed for 1 full teaching lesson, but not personally graded or evaluated.

Inspectors must hold the rank of Deputy Head or higher with a minimum 10 years classroom teaching experience.

Teachers will be chosen at random to become inspectors for one school inspection.

OfSTED to publish no documentation/guidance except the inspection report.

Privatised exam boards to be scrapped and replaced by a single national system.

Academic qualifications set by professional academic bodies (universities or Royal institutes)

Vocational qualifications to be set by trade guilds so training and qualifications are relevant to their field.

Students will have a mixed experience of academic/vocational education set to their needs and aspirations.

Students will develop a personal record of achievement. School achievements, exam grades, work experience, outside experiences (scouts/guides, coaching, sport achievements, Music, etc). All has equal weight.

What students do after they have finished compulsory education will be used to help parents' evaluate a school's performance.

Primary schools will focus on Literacy, Numeracy and the joy of learning.

Primary schools to include nature awareness. Plants, animals, trees. Camping trips, rambling, community allotments.

All student's learn a foreign language and offered the chance to participate in a student exchange program.

7. Monarchy4

Monarch would be retained, but stripped of all divinity/superiority.

They will be trained from birth to be head of state.

The extended family will not receive any titles, state funds, assistance or grace and favour lodgings.

The bells and whistles pageantry will be reduced to a basic minimum. Maybe keep some of it for the tourists.

8. Policing

A small national police force to deal with terrorism, organised crime, people smuggling - Pan-national crime.

County Constabularies to focus on local issues. Petty crime, cats up trees.

Police Stations to be closed and replaced with Tardis style community based police boxes.

Police Constables to spend all their time out in the community.

Interviews of suspects to occur with independent public observation.

Detention cells will not be under police control.

De-militarisation of Police uniforms. Return to more traditional uniforms.

No guns, no tasers.

Police to be trained in non lethal de-escalation techniques.

Soldiers serving in the armed forces will be looked after for life. Housing, physical care and mental health, transition from soldier to civilian. Their partners and children under 18 will also be looked after.

Instead of going to war the leaders of each country must fight each other one-on-one. The winner is victorious, no reprisals. Legally binding contract/treaty to be agreed before hand.

Crime and punishment will be separated.

Parliament decides what types of activity are criminal.

Parliament decides what types of "punishment" are available.

Courts decide if the evidence presented proves the accused is guilty of what they have been accused.

Courts decide what sentence is appropriate for that person from the punishments available.

"Punishment" should not be vindictive but to prevent recidivism.

If an activity becomes de-criminalised those already serving a sentence for that crime are immediately released from that sentence.

9. Housing

Buy-to-let mortgages to be abolished. If you can’t afford to own it outright you can’t afford to rent it out.

Rent to be capped at 60% of the equivalent monthly mortgage payments. If the mortgage was £1000 per month the maximum rent you can charge is £600 pounds in total for the property, not per person.

Minimum rental duration to be 5 years. Short term rentals will be called hotels.

Long term rentals (20+years) will be offered the chance to take ownership. Sale price minus the total rent paid.

All homes built will be council owned.

Council houses sold must be returned to council ownership for price paid, not market value, if less than 20 years has passed since sale.

Houses to be sold by the square metre, not by number of bedrooms. To aid comparison.

10. Environment / Economy / Society

Solar panels on the roof of every public building.

Smaller wind turbines added to lamp posts along motorways.

Companies selling products that use excessive/unnecessary plastic packaging taxed more.

More community green spaces in housing areas.

Switch farming from animal to cereal/vegetable.

Phase out large Power Stations, replace with smaller less damaging ones.

Better recycling/reuse for more types of materials.

More clothing reuse/recycling.

Abolish crypto currencies/Bitcoin.

Find a better alternative to petrol and electric cars.

Balance should be created between work and home life.

Plant more fruit trees in public areas.

Transform the economy from growth driven to sustainability. Stop keep making stuff just to sell just to keep profits increasing.

Job security. Happy, nurtured people work better/harder and more productively. Also get ill less.

Allow people space for personal development. Passive skills enrich life and work. Motherhood/maternity (and paternity) leave should not be seen as a hinderance but an asset to a company. The skills developed raising a child are huge.

Life is for people. Take the people out of a business and the business disappears. Get rid of the business and the people are still there.

All life is valid.

The right to personal self-identification. (Yes, you can identify as a panda, if you so wish)

Universal Basic Income £12,000 per year5

Homeless people are to be provide with a proper home to live in, paid work tending outdoor public spaces, community projects or something more suitable is provided (only to provide up-to-date work experience and references).

Big tech companies to be tax properly on revenue raised from UK income.

Social media users get 15% cut of the money made from selling their data.

Small businesses (revenue under £2 million) pay no tax.

Software sold as subscription must also have a one off payment standalone version for sale.

Subscription services must offer a free, entry level tier where no credit card is needed for signup.

Electronic equipment must be 3rd party repairable.

Subscriptions can be terminated by the customer at any time by writing to the company regardless of how close you are to a renewal period. Failure of the company to comply results in all the money you have ever paid them being refunded to you.

Private companies operating public services may continue to do so but will pay the state 60% of all profits for the privilege. No tax payers money will be handed over to them. Debts incurred will be their own.

Banks will never be bailed out. People's savings up to £150,000 guaranteed.

Separate interest rates for borrowing and saving.

Savings interest rates will be tiered:

10% - £1 to £10,000

5% - £10,001 to £50,000

1% - £50,001 to £100,000

0.5% - £100,001 to £500,000

0.01% - £500,001 to £999,999

-10% - £1,000,000 and over

Redundancies start at the top. CEOs/management get cut first. The people who caused the problems should be punished before those who have no power in an organisation.

Fire and rehire abolished.

Terminally ill patients have the right to end their life on their own terms.

Colonial artefacts held in museums to be duplicated and returned to place of origin, if place of origin want them back.6

Complete global nuclear disarmament.

Notes

P.S.

Tumblr and webbrowsers don't always render markdown as expected, sorry. Footnonte links aren't seeming to work.

A list of candidates from each political party (3 per party) will accompany the ballot paper. The voter would choose one person from each political party they would prefer to be Prime Minister in the event that that party won. (Majority vote wins) ↩︎

13 Citizen Electors will be randomly (and secretly) chosen to evaluate if the accusations breach the code. The accused will remain anonymous to the Electors. ↩︎

I like the idea that people who know what they are talking about (experts) can examine the full ramifications of laws and how those laws will impact upon their field without needing to appeal to, or worry about, populism to win an election. ↩︎

The only reason not to go full republic is to stop the likes of Nigel Farridge, Boris Johnson or some other rightwing twonk or Neo Nazi lording it over us. ↩︎

Available to anyone over the age of 21 with at least 5 years National Insurance contributions (voluntary work, work experience, Saturday jobs, and apprenticeships are valid). Available to anyone who applies for it. No other state money will be received - no job seekers, housing benefits, pensions, working tax credits etc. £12,000 per year is all you get. This should make government expenditure simple because all you need to know is the number of people over 21 multiplied by £12,000. ↩︎

Items we would like to keep will either be bought at market value or leased from country of origin. ↩︎

[iol247]

Opinionista • Ismail Lagardien • 15 March 2021

Fifteen years along the road to nowhere, and the worst is yet to come

We are at a point, now, where instead of pointing to the perversity of misguided distribution, corruption, theft, maladministration, tenderpreneurs, and State Capture, discussions are deflected – and the spectrum of opinion has been narrowed.

In 2015, Justice Malala published his book We Have Now Begun Our Descent. Without having read the book I sat down to consider South Africa’s future, and concluded that there was little to no hope for the country. I was in Bonn, Germany, at the time, after four or more years in the secretariat of the National Planning Commission. Although the Covid-19 pandemic has had a dreadful impact on South Africa’s political economy and society – as it has on almost every country in the world – the country’s problems took a turn for the worse at Nasrec at the end of 2017, and Malala’s “descent” gained momentum. 

I want to break with orthodoxy, and say that it is the politics, not “the economy,” as the old canard goes. Homo economicus might believe that the economy is everything, and everything is the economy, but “the economy” is those millions of transactions that humans make every minute of every day, and the personal and public political decisions that enable or disable those people (from making those transactions).

A collapse that preceded democracy

Before I continue, I want to share a passage I wrote between 1991 and 1993, when I was the southern African correspondent for the New Straits Times of Malaysia. I don’t have the exact date of publication, because the person who decided to make a “portfolio” of my work neatly trimmed my reports and columns but failed to include the date. I was going to save it for my memoir, but here it is – written at a time when the apartheid government was losing its grip on power and state institutions in the early 1990s:

“It is as if a villainous character had every day, over the years, gone to the Union Buildings, the seat of government in the capital, Pretoria, and methodologically and systematically undone every single screw, bolt, nut and nail of government. Every day, now, for months on end, a section of government in South Africa is coming apart. It is difficult, now, after a spate of scandalous exposes in recent months to say exactly when the disintegration first started, or when the first door, window or desk in the Union Buildings collapsed. What has become evident, however, is that the state is collapsing bit by bit, in slow motion, while its powers of rehabilitation [are] dissipating with its political might.”

It has been reported, over and again, that the democratic government inherited a state that was on its knees. As the Afrikaner historian Herman Giliomee wrote, a decade ago, March 1985 marked, “the day apartheid started dying”. 

Wrote Giliomee: “Pik Botha recalls: ‘I will never forget the night of July 31 when [Minister of Finance] Barend du Plessis phoned me… [He said]: ‘Pik, I must tell you that the country is facing inevitable bankruptcy … The process has started.’”

We had growth, and increased social spending, but the thieves saw opportunities

The first democratic government of South Africa, led by Nelson Mandela, was fully aware of the terrible state of the economy. They managed, within a decade or more, to provide utilities and access to public goods and services (including social grants) to millions of people across the country (all necessary for a stable, progressive social democracy), while managing the country’s finances, avoiding profligacy – and through it all, produced growth and a Budget surplus. 

This demonstrated that you can reduce poverty, provide social services, deliver public goods and services, as well as manage the country’s finances. The problem that emerged, after the first 12-15 years was not lack of growth, or a contraction of the economy, it was about distribution – much of the growth did, indeed go to social spending, but a lot more began to go into the wrong pockets. Corruption, maladministration, cronyism, nepotism and prebendalism took root – what good was the ANC-led state, if it did not line the pockets of its leaders, and members who were deployed to state agencies, and boards across the country?

Fast-forward to a few years later, and we are at a point, now, where instead of pointing to the perversity of misguided distribution, corruption, theft, maladministration, tenderpreneurs, and State Capture, discussions are deflected – and the spectrum of opinion has been narrowed. Somewhat simultaneously rose the politics of identity (the ugly version), and instead of policies focusing on social problems, they focused on contortions of language, the politics of revenge, populism, scapegoating, and the speeches and statements of leaders were increasingly laced with words like “bloodshed,” and all the while xenophobia, aimed mainly at Africans and Asians, has spread. 

A careful read of Carl Niehaus’s eight-page submission on likely policies of the ruling alliance, suggests we are expected to choose between Radical Economic Transformation by policy (ANC), or Radical Economic Transformation by force (EFF). At what point do the ANC’s radical forces join the EFF? Impossible, but not improbable. 

Are we there yet?

Let’s take stock, briefly, of where we are. We know that “the economy” is in the pits. But what makes an economy stable, expansive, progressive and able to secure social justice? Don’t ask an economist. To them it’s all cost-benefits, assumptions, laws and models which they mistake for truth. And anyway, people who are so sure of their own predictive powers belong on the beachfront with fortune tellers. What makes an economy work is everything else: the people, the institutions, the policies, ethics, food, water, shelter, clothing and, well, energy. If we start just with energy, consider the fact that we may have load shedding  for at least the next five years. 

This week, Eskom’s Chief Executive Officer, André de Ruyter, confirmed that “there will be a shortfall in supply of electricity of approximately 4,000 megawatts over the next five years as announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa. We welcome further interventions announced by the president, which will include a further request for proposals for a further 2,600 megawatts from wind and solar energy.” 

Using non-economic rationalist orthodoxy, us ordinary citizens know, intuitively, that you cannot run a shop, a workshop or any heavy industry without a stable source of electricity. We also know that you cannot get to work without commuter trains running. We also know that we place our lives in danger with every taxi ride. While us mere mortals don’t travel abroad much, if at all, we know that planes belong in the air; that the public broadcaster is meant to serve as, well, a public broadcaster; the police are meant to serve and protect; our military personnel should be able to march in straight lines, and its hardware has to be up to date (you can’t have stockpiles of ammunition that is outdated); along with the police and military, the state security system ought to make us sleep better at night, and criminals need to be prosecuted – even if they are among the highest office-bearers in the ruling alliance. 

A woman walking to work is not safe. A family sitting at home watching TV is not safe. A farmer working his or her fields is not safe. The driver stopping at a red light is not safe. Do we really expect someone to invest in an existing or new industry or fund innovation if a faction of the ruling party calls for “the mass nationalisation of industries including mines, insurance companies, steel and chemical companies”? The future of work is changing, but our major union leaders, supported by barbarous professors, want our workers to stay in the bondage of assembly lines – instead of retraining them for new, more innovative means of production.

All of these represent the life world of everyday people in South Africa. Every time anyone buys a loaf of bread or a bag of oranges they comprise “the economy”. Speaking of oranges, you can return the land to “its rightful owners” and (with the help of the former white owner) farm citrus products, but if individual oranges have a fungal disease you may not be able to export your produce. That’s not a racist conspiracy. (I use this one example because I have some insights into a related domestic issues case, and about the way the World Trade Organisation works.) 

This can go on and on if we can’t guarantee: the safety of investments; a reliable stream of energy; community and personal safety; trains that run; a reliable justice system – with judges who are unimpeachable; a postal service that is functional; public servants who do the jobs they’re paid to do; teachers who teach; nurses who are paid well, and don’t sign in for one another when they want to escape parts of night duty; and if we don’t play our part, as active citizens.

The government can build schools, but parents must make sure their children attend school, and show an interest in the child’s education. The government can provide trash cans, but people must use them. Visit downtown Johannesburg and you may get a sense of how filth has built up – it’s not quite at the levels of Naples, but give it time. While we hold the state and political parties to a high standard, we need to, also, report on citizens who refuse to pay or steal electricity and water, then cry foul if they are brought to book. That, is largely, the result of ANC promises. With another election in a couple of years, do we really think the ANC, or any political party is going to tell people to pay their electricity bills or get cut off? And so, it’s not “the economy” it’s everything we do, and say, every day, that makes the economy work. 

We may have started our descent, as Malala, wrote almost six years ago; my loss of hope has deepened – helped along by #statecapture revelations. But let me turn to the observations I made in the early 1990s, with regards to the National Party:

“What has become evident, however, is that the state is collapsing bit by bit, in slow motion, while its powers of rehabilitation [are] dissipating with its political might.” 

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2021-03-15-fifteen-years-along-the-road-to-nowhere-and-the-worst-is-yet-to-come/

Submitted by TT

[singledarkshade]

Sewers, Bookshops And Slime

Summary: Hoping to cheer his friend up, the Doctor stops off in Rory's home time. When UNIT appear on the scene, Rory and the Doctor discover there is something unfriendly lurking beneath the streets. Sequel to The Doctor And The Nurse, A Fishy Tail, Getting To Know You, Kernel Of Stubborness, Home Sweet Home and Party Time.

  Something Rory loved about travelling with the Doctor was the fact his bed on the TARDIS was the most comfortable he’d ever slept on. It was like sleeping on a cloud and the firmest mattress imaginable. The day before he’d spent most of it getting soaked to his skin, again, as he helped an entire village hide from raiders behind a waterfall.

Returning to the TARDIS, Rory spent an hour in the warm bath that the TARDIS kept at the perfect temperature, had a quick dinner, before heading to sleep.

He had no idea what the Doctor did while he slept and didn’t care as all he wanted was to be unconscious for several hours.

Opening his eyes, Rory stared at the picture on the cabinet beside him and wondered what Amy was doing at that moment. Sometimes he wished that she was here with him, but then there were other times he didn’t. He never wanted her to be in danger at all never mind the crazy situations the Doctor dragged him into. His phone buzzing made him jump and he grabbed it, answering without looking properly.

“Hello?”

“Rory,” the man’s voice he didn’t expect came making Rory freeze, “Rory, can you talk just now.”

“No,” Rory stated sharply before he hung up and, rolling over, pressed his face into the pillow.

“Is there something wrong?”

The Doctor’s voice surprised him, but Rory was becoming used to his friend appearing at odd times.

“No,” Rory murmured, he grimaced at the silence before adding, “I just got a call from someone I don’t want to talk to.”

The Doctor was silent for a few moments before saying, “If you’re ready I thought we could visit one of my favourite places.”

“Give me time for a shower and food then sure,” Rory replied.

With a gentle clap on Rory’s shoulder, the Doctor left him to get ready.

 The Doctor nodded when Rory appeared in the console room, “Okay, are we…”

He was cut off when Rory’s phone rang again. Pulling it out Rory checked the caller before declining the call.

“Are you not talking to Amy again?” the Doctor asked concerned.

Rory shook his head, “It wasn’t Amy.”

“Then who?”

“It’s not important,” Rory dismissed.

Curiosity filled the Doctor. He had come to know the other man well and Rory had never acted like this. To be honest he’d never known anyone other than Amy to call Rory, Rory on occasion called his grandmother so the Doctor was intrigued by the mystery caller.

“Where are we going?” Rory asked sharply.

The Doctor frowned before deciding to leave it, for the moment. He knew that once Rory was ready, then he would talk about whatever was bothering him.

“It’s a planet called Planta,” the Doctor told him, “Most of it is basically a garden. It has a team of scientists who work in the different areas and it is the basis of a lot of the medicines used by the galaxies hospitals.”

Rory shrugged.

“Okay,” the Doctor frowned, “Not a hit. How about a trip into the past instead?”

Shrugging again Rory leaned against the rail. The Doctor frowned, it was unusual for Rory to be so ambivalent, he made a decision and started the TARDIS moving.

“Where are we going?” Rory asked after a few moments.

“To see a friend,” the Doctor told him, “Someone I think you’ll be happy to see.”

The TARDIS landed and the Doctor started towards the door, stopping he looked back, “Are you coming?”

Rory frowned but followed him out the door, frowning confused to see he was in London just outside a row of shops not that far from the hospital he worked in. Before Rory could asked the Doctor where they were, a squeal of delight sounded from behind him. The two men turned just as the red head threw herself at Rory.

  Rory automatically wrapped his arms around Amy when she jumped into them, closing his eyes as she hugged him tightly.

“I didn’t think you’d make it so early,” she laughed, “I thought you’d be working.”

A little bemused Rory replied, “Day off.”

Amy beamed with joy as she grabbed his hand and dragged him towards the middle-aged couple standing watching with amused smiles.

“Rory,” Amy stated when they stopped in front of the couple, “This is Clayton and Julia Gove.”

Clayton was tall, thin with salt and pepper hair, a neatly trimmed beard and sharp grey eyes, while Julia was slightly shorter with long dark hair and deep brown eyes.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Rory,” Julia said taking his hand, “Amy talks about you all the time.”

“From all she’s told us,” Clayton spoke up, “I’m surprised you’re not ten feet tall.”

Rory chuckled, “It’s nice to meet you both too. Everything Amy tells me about her time with you sounds incredible.”

Amy squeezed his arm tightly.

“We’re just setting up,” Clayton told him, “Why don’t you two go and catch up?”

“Are you sure?” Amy asked.

Julia chuckled, “We can handle things before the event starts. You and Rory spend some time together, just make sure you’re back ten minutes before we open the doors.”

Amy quickly hugged Julia before grabbing Rory’s hand once more as the couple headed into the bookstore.

“Can you give me a minute?” Rory asked, “I’ll meet you over at the café.”

Amy nodded, hugging him quickly again, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

With a happy bounce, Amy headed over to the café while Rory turned and marched back to the TARDIS where the Doctor was standing.

“Why are we here?” Rory demanded.

“Thought you might want to see Amy,” the Doctor shrugged nonchalantly.

Rory stared at him.

“You seemed a bit down after the call you didn’t answer,” the Doctor noted, “You told me she was going to be here, so I thought why not.”

Rory’s glare didn’t move from the Doctor who smiled innocently at him.

“What are you going to do?” Rory asked him finally.

The Doctor shrugged again, “Have a wander. Look around. I’ll meet you back here in a few hours.”

Still looking a little suspicious, Rory nodded and left the Doctor to join Amy.

                                 *********************************************

 The Doctor was bored.

It had seemed like a good idea to stop off here so Rory could see Amy for a few hours, his friend seemed affected by whoever had called him earlier that day and the Doctor hoped spending time with his best friend would make Rory feel better.

But he was bored.

Heading back to the bookshop, he wrinkled his nose as a strange smell floated his way. Taking a deeper sniff, the Doctor mused on what it was. If forced to describe it, he would have said it was like a lemon mixed with stale sweat. And he was sure that he knew it from somewhere, he just couldn’t remember where.

He spotted Amy and Rory walking just in front of him, Amy had a grip on Rory’s arm as she talked. It was clear to anyone with eyes how much the redhead adored Rory, their connection obviously strong. Part of him wanted to ask Amy to travel with them but knew Rory would not be happy. The younger man was extremely protective of Amy, to the extent he did not want her to have any knowledge of what situations he himself got into while travelling with the Doctor.

“We’re heading for dinner after the event,” Amy was saying as the Doctor caught up enough to overhear, “Can you come?”

Rory hesitated, “I’m not sure. I may have to head into work, but I’ll let you know.”

They reached the door and Amy hugged Rory once more before she left him standing watching her leave. Rory turned and jumped finding the Doctor standing only a few feet away.

“What are you doing?” Rory demanded annoyed.

The Doctor frowned, “We may have a problem.”

  Rory grimaced worried, “What kind of problem? Is Amy in danger?”

The Doctor held up his hands, “I’m not sure yet but we should have a look. I need to fetch something from the TARDIS first.”

Rory sighed and motioned his friend to lead on. He was so happy to see Amy, it was amazing to not only see her but to see how much she was enjoying the job. The one she had abandoned him for.

He saw the Doctor’s coat tails disappear into the doors of the TARDIS and Rory followed on finding the Doctor digging through a box, tossing things over his shoulder.

“What are you looking for?”

“Something to work out the smell,” the Doctor replied before sticking his head into the box again.

Rory rolled his eyes, “That explains nothing.”

Finally the Doctor jumped up holding what looked like a mash of a phone, a hairdryer and computer game controller.

Rory opened his mouth before shaking his head, “There’s no point me asking, your explanation will be part gibberish.”

The Doctor gave him a hurt look, “This is the ‘Aroma Detector’. I want to work out where the smell is coming from.”

“What smell?”

The Doctor frowned, “Likely it’s not in your olfactory range but there is a strange smell coming from near the bookshop,” he quickly added at Rory’s look of horror, “I’m sure Amy and her friends will be fine. I just want to have a look.”

“Okay,” Rory agreed, he started out the TARDIS again stalling when he came face to face with several soldiers all with their guns trained on him, “Doctor!!”

Rory felt the Doctor grab his arm tugging him back inside the TARDIS before taking Rory’s place in the doorway.

“If UNIT are looking for my help,” the Doctor stated darkly, “I suggest you put those away.”

“Apologies, Doctor,” a woman in uniform stated, “But after everything with Harold Saxon we had to be sure it was you.”

“Harold Saxon?” Rory asked, “The Prime Minister who went mad?”

The Doctor glanced back at him, “I’ll explain later.”

Following the Doctor as he moved to the woman in charge, Rory looked around the people standing there. All were military and all looked completely in awe, even a little afraid, of the Doctor.

“I’m Captain Adrianne Murphy,” the woman introduced herself, “And when we detected your presence, I was ordered to recruit you to assist us with the current situation.”

“Situation?” the Doctor asked concerned.

Murphy nodded, “There have been a number of disappearances recently and a strange energy pulse detected at sporadic intervals.”

The Doctor pursed his lips in thought, “Show us what you’ve got.”

Murphy nodded and started across the road to where a large van sat. Rory appeared at his side looking worried.

“Who are these people?” Rory murmured softly.

“This is UNIT,” the Doctor explained, “They watch out for alien attacks. I used to work for them back when I had curly hair and a really cool car.”

“Ohhhkay?”

“They’ve picked up the same thing I did,” the Doctor continued, “While we’re there pay attention to everything for me. You’re good with people, so be your usual self and listen to whatever anyone tells you.”

Rory nodded and as had become the norm over the past few months followed the Doctor into the unknown.

                                 *********************************************

 Amy helped Julia set up for the book signing, humming happily to herself.

“You’re in a good mood,” Julia noted with a smile.

Shrugging Amy replied, “I am.”

“Would that have anything to do with a certain childhood friend?” Julia asked amused, “You know the one you were practically attached to from the moment you saw him this morning.”

Amy smiled, “You know how much I miss Rory, and I didn’t expect to see him until later.”

“Well, he is absolutely adorable,” Julia smiled back, “Is he coming to the signing?”

“Hopefully,” Amy said, “He said he might have to work.”

Julia squeezed her hand, “Well, if he can come then invite him to join us for dinner tonight. We can swap stories.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Amy grimaced.

“Why?”

“Because I know the stories Rory has to tell about me,” Amy said self-consciously, “And how bad some of them are.”

Julia mused on this for a second, “I really want him to come to dinner now.”

                                 *********************************************

 The Doctor stepped into the UNIT mobile command van and looked around, he frowned as everyone saluted him.

“Oh, don’t do that,” he sighed annoyed before turning, “Murphy, what do you have for me?”

Murphy motioned him to one of the screens, “My commanding officer wishes to speak to you.”

Moving to where the woman stood, the Doctor gestured Rory to join him, a huge smile touching his lips when he saw the man on the screen before him.

“Brigadier,” the Doctor said, fondness filling his voice, “It’s so good to see you, my old friend.”

Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart chuckled, “Less of the old, Doctor. You may now look like a new recruit, but I know how much older you are than I am.”

“How much older?” Rory murmured in his ear.

The Doctor frowned at him, “Not now.”

“And I see you have a new travelling companion,” the Brigadier noted.

Still frowning slightly, the Doctor nodded, “This is Rory Williams. Rory, this is Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart. A dear old friend of mine.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” Rory smiled politely.

“I hope you don’t take any nonsense from him, young man,” the Brigadier, “And remind me to give you a few phone numbers for advice on how to handle him when he gets annoying.”

“Alistair,” the Doctor stated through gritted teeth, “Can we get to the point?”

Chuckling the old man nodded to Captain Murphy who was standing at the Doctor’s side.

“We’ve have detected some unusual readings in the past few days,” Murphy explained, “This morning there was a spike in the energy readings. And the team we sent to investigate haven’t been heard from in three hours.”

“Where were they looking?” Rory asked concern filling his voice.

Murphy turned to him, looking a little surprised but answered, “In the sewers beneath the row of shops just across the road.”

Rory looked at the Doctor worry filling his eyes, “Amy…”

“I know,” the Doctor said softly before turning to Murphy, “Show me what the readings were before your people disappeared.”

Murphy nodded and quickly brought up some schematics on the screen beside the one showing the Brigadier. The Doctor pulled a pair of glasses out of his pocket, slipping them on before he leaned forward and studied the information in front of him.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“The team were filming while down in the sewer,” the Brigadier confirmed, “But there is nothing I could see that was helpful.”

The Doctor shrugged, “Let me see.”

Leaning closer in, the Doctor and Rory studied the dark grainy scene of an indeterminate person walking through a dark tunnel. Rory jumped when the person was grabbed suddenly and yanked away before screams sounded then the screen went black.

“Interesting,” the Doctor mused, taking his glasses off.

“Not the word I was going to use,” Rory said, barely contained panic in his voice.

The Doctor turned to him promising, “I will make sure she’s fine.”

“I have a team ready to go with you, Doctor,” Murphy told him, “Mr Williams can wait here.”

“I’m coming,” Rory stated, when she was about to argue he repeated sharper, “I’m coming.”

Murphy frowned, “I can’t agree to civilians going into potentially dangerous situations.”

“Rory is coming,” the Doctor said, “He’s a qualified nurse and has already seen a lot more than half the UNIT teams ever will.”

“Brigadier,” Murphy turned to her commander officer.

The Brigadier chuckled, “If the Doctor is happy with Mr Williams accompanying him then who am I to argue?”

“Usually the first one,” the Doctor smirked at him.

“Pot, kettle,” the Brigadier threw back.

“If you two have finished,” Rory spoke up, “I want to make sure Amy is safe so can we find whatever this thing is?”

  “Why did I think this was a good idea?” Rory murmured softly as he walked at the Doctor’s side through the tunnel, gripping the torch he’d been given.

The Doctor chuckled.

“You’re almost at the spot the team disappeared,” Murphy’s voice came over the radio, “Be careful.”

Rory grimaced but continued walking, wishing he could see more. It was so dark and the beams from the torches weren’t highlighting enough for him. Then he smelled it.

“Doctor,” he murmured, “I think I can smell whatever you could earlier.”

“Finally,” the Doctor replied, “I’ve been tasting it since we came down here.”

Rory winced, “What is it?”

The Doctor winced, “I’m not sure yet, I know that smell but just can’t quite remember.”

“Let me know when you do know,” Rory told him, “Something that smells this bad should have a name.”

They continued forward with the UNIT team, who were scanning the surrounding area.

“Doctor,” the lead scientist called to him, “I’ve found something.”

The Doctor bounced over and Rory followed him. Rory wrinkled his nose seeing the orange goo on the wall, making a noise of disgust when the Doctor touched it with his finger and then touched his finger to his tongue.

“Really?” Rory demanded disgusted, “You have to taste it?”

“The tongue has 10,000 taste buds,” the Doctor told him, “It’s better at distinguishing certain things than trying to scan it with the technology of this time.”

Rory rolled his eyes, “Still disgusting.”

He shrugged, as he mused on whatever he was tasting. An annoyed grunt came from one of the other soldiers.

“Kawalsky?” Herman, the leader of the team, called.

“I slipped,” the reply came.

“Are you hurt?” Rory asked, pulling out his first aid kit and moving over to the man who was trying to get up from the ground.

The man shook his head, “I’m fine.”

Rory nodded and helped him stand before turning back to the Doctor who was staring at him.

“What?” Rory asked confused.

“Don’t turn around, Rory,” the Doctor said, his hands held out, “Walk over to me.”

Worried Rory was about to step forward when he felt something cold and wet drip onto his neck and heard a strange hissing sound.

“Rory,” the Doctor motioned to him urgently, “Move to me, now.”

Taking one step forward, Rory cried out when whatever was behind him grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him away into the darkness.

  The Doctor stared horrified as his young friend was pulled away, “Rory!!!”

“Doctor,” Herman grabbed his arm.

He tried to pull away to chase after his friend, but Herman held onto him.

“Let me go,” the Doctor snarled.

Herman held on tighter, “You can’t help him by running into the unknown. Sir, come back to the truck and we can look at what we’ve found.”

Closing his eyes, the Doctor hoped that this wasn’t him abandoning Rory and nodded.

“Make sure you get a sample of whatever that is,” the Doctor ordered, staring where Rory had disappeared.

The UNIT team packed up and they headed back up with the Doctor to the mobile command centre. As they passed the bookshop, a familiar redhead waved to get his attention.

“Hey,” Amy said, “Sorry, but you were with Rory earlier.”

The Doctor winced inwardly before nodding, “Yes, Dr John Smith,” he introduced himself with his usual nom-de-plume, noting to tell Rory later, before adding, “Rory has been working with me recently.”

“I was wanting to talk to him,” Amy said, “But he’s not answering his phone.”

“He’s in the middle of something just now and his phone is turned off,” the Doctor lied, “Can I give him a message?”

Amy nodded, “Just want to check if he’s free to come to dinner tonight.”

The Doctor hesitated as he looked at the young woman’s bright eyes, before nodding, “I’ll get him to call you as soon as possible.”

“Thanks,” she beamed before heading back into the bookshop.

The Doctor sighed and headed back into the UNIT command centre, “Tell me you have something.”

“Doctor,” the Brigadier appeared on the screen, “I’m sorry about Rory.”

“He’s not gone yet,” the Doctor stated sharply before turning to Murphy, “What do we have?”

Murphy quickly pulled up the information they had discovered.

“What did you see?” the Brigadier asked.

The Doctor sighed, “All I saw was a shadow and an arm before it grabbed him. And the slime, and the smell, they’re familiar but I can’t…” he stopped and stared at the screen again, scanning the energy signatures several times before pulling up the footage again. He closed his eyes going over in his mind everything that happened and remembered the hissing sound before Rory was grabbed, “Oh no.”

“What?” the Brigadier and Murphy asked in unison.

“I know what it is,” the Doctor told him, “The good news is that Rory and members of your team are still alive.”

“And the bad news?” Murphy asked.

The Doctor grimaced, “The creature is an Apepssis. If we don’t find and stop it, then its eggs will hatch and overrun the city.”

                                 *********************************************

 Rory slowly felt consciousness invade the blackness, aware of the fact he was warm and comfortable. As he became more cognizant of his surroundings, Rory became aware that he was surrounded by a thick liquid. Suddenly reality crashed into him and he tried to breathe finding his lungs were filled with thick gunk he couldn’t expel. Panicking at his inability to breathe, he thrashed trying to free himself, Rory managed to get a hold of his first aid kit and found the small pair of scissors from it. He could see a skin surrounding the bubble of orange slime that he was submerged in and fighting against the viscous liquid surrounding him, Rory stabbed at the side of the bubble as hard as he could. It took a few attempts but suddenly the bubble burst and Rory was expelled onto the cold hard ground. Rory threw up the goo filling his lungs and nose, gasping for breath once he’d managed to clear his airways.

Shakily Rory stood, wiping his face and then checked his pockets finding the small torch he had put in before leaving the TARDIS before locating the first aid kit on the ground amongst the slime he’d been trapped in.

Turning on the torch, he was relieved that whatever had grabbed him wasn’t here but was both horrified and amazed to see several pods filled with the same orange slime that he’d woken in.

Moving closer Rory stared as he saw each one had a person in it, he assumed these were the missing people and seeing the UNIT uniforms in the last few confirmed this. Looking closer Rory noticed that several of people in the pods had strange elliptical shaped attachments on their arms and legs.

Eggs, the voice in his head said and Rory shuddered, before he checked himself for anything possibly growing out of his appendages. Relief filled him when he found none. Taking a slow deep breath, coughing when he found some of the gunk remained in his mouth, Rory studied the pods a little closer, noting the size of the attachments in each and realising that there was an order. The pod he’d been placed in was at the end which meant he had been the last person grabbed, which meant the Doctor was still out there to find him. With this logic he moved to the pod beside his where he saw a woman in a UNIT uniform, and thankfully no eggs growing from her. Looking around, he was annoyed to find the scissors he had were the sharpest object around, musing that at least this time he was able to get some power behind them compared to his panicked stabs.

Gripping the scissors in his fist, Rory raised his arm and slammed the point down into the skin of the bubble, jumping back when it burst sending more slime over him as it expelled its occupant.

The young woman began to cough and throw up just as he had, Rory knelt by her side and gently rubbed her back.

“It’s okay,” he soothed, “Just get it all out and you’ll be okay.”

She remained on her hands and knees, taking deep breaths as Rory continued to rub her back and calm her. Finally, she turned to look at him and, realising that she didn’t know Rory, pulled away staggering to her feet.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“Rory,” he introduced himself.

She looked around, “Where are the rest of your team?”

He shrugged, “I don’t have a team.”

“You don’t work for UNIT?” she asked confused.

Rory shook his head, “No. What’s your name?”

“Kayleigh,” she replied.

“Nice to meet you Kayleigh,” Rory said softly, “What do you do with UNIT?”

Kayleigh shrugged, “I’m a junior science officer. This was literally my first assignment in the field and…” she motioned around them, “Eww.”

Rory chuckled slightly in agreement of her assessment.

“So,” she asked, “If you’re not UNIT, how did you end up down here. And I’m guessing in one of those things from the mess of you.”

Rory shifted remembering once more how uncomfortable his clothes were stuck to him, “I’m a friend of someone who sort of works for UNIT, the Doctor.”

Kayleigh’s eyes widened, “You know the Doctor?”

Amazed by her reaction, Rory nodded.

“He is a legend,” she said with awe, “Some of the stories, I have no idea if they’re true but if they are then…wow.”

“Well if we get out of this,” Rory noted, “You can ask him.”

  Rory pushed his hands through his hair grimacing as he got more gunk on his hands and had nowhere to wipe his hands clean. He really hoped there would be a shower in his very near future. Kayleigh was looking at the other pods in the chamber while Rory tried to work out if waking those with the eggs was a good idea.

The decision was taken from him as Kayleigh suddenly attacked one of the older pods with the scissors, he had no idea when she had taken them from him.

“Why did you do that?” he demanded, “We don’t know what those things are doing to them.”

The man who had been in the pod opened his eyes and scratched at the floor. Rory dropped down by him and tried to turn the man into the recovery position, but the protrusions attached to the man’s body hindered Rory’s attempts.

“Help me,” Rory snapped to Kayleigh.

Looking horrified, Kayleigh tried to help Rory turn the man but as they were all covered in the viscous liquid, they couldn’t get a proper hold of him. A few seconds later the man stilled, and Rory checked for a pulse.

“He’s dead.”

Kayleigh let out a shuddering breath, “I had to get him out. He’s our team leader, I had…I had…”

Rory caught her arms, “Kayleigh, I understand but until we know what those things are doing then we can’t release anyone else. All I have is a first aid kit and we’re going to need a lot more than that.”

“Sorry,” she whispered, “I just…I know them, we’ve worked together for a long time and seeing them like this is horrible.”

“I know,” Rory told her, “Trust me, I understand. Our best idea is to get out of here, find the Doctor and get UNIT then come with a proper team to release them.”

Kayleigh nodded.

“Alright,” he gave her a small smile, “There is one main exit in front of us. I think if we follow that tunnel then it’s possible that we’ll find the way out or at least run into the team UNIT send next.”

She frowned in thought, “You think they’ll send another team?”

He shrugged, “I’m being optimistic. Talk to me once we get out of here and I’ll freak out then.”

Kayleigh took one more look at the pods before nodding, “Let’s get out of here.”

Rory started walking towards the exit, Kayleigh just behind him. They barely made it three feet before Rory heard hissing.

“Back,” he whispered sharply, “It’s coming this way.”

Confused Kayleigh only moved when Rory grabbed her hand and pulled her with him into the back corner of the room where the older pods sat. He hoped that because this corner had more of the pods, it would hide them both.

He watched what looked like a cross between a human and a snake literally slither in. The hiss echoed around the chamber and he could feel Kayleigh’s nails dig into his arms.

They were trapped.

  The Doctor grabbed the carton from Murphy as he finished the spray gun to sedate the creature they were after.

“Are you sure this will work, Doctor?” the Brigadier asked.

Glancing at the screen briefly, the Doctor nodded, “If it’s an Appepsiss, then yes it will work.”

“What is this thing again, Doctor?” Murphy handed him the next part he needed.

The Doctor rolled his eyes, “The best way to describe it for you is a humanoid snake, the secretions and smell mean it’s in its birthing phase of the mating cycle. The people it’s taken are being used as the food to grow the eggs.”

Murphy grimaced, “So, our people…”

“From the timeline,” the Doctor continued, “And the number of people it’s taken so far then it won’t have been able to lay eggs within the cocoon for all of them. We will lose some,” he shook his head sadly, “I can’t do anything for them, but we will be able to save most of the victims.”

Murphy nodded, “The team is ready whenever you are, Doctor.”

Fixing the final piece, the Doctor nodded, “Let’s go.”

Heading out the command centre, he found the group of UNIT waiting for him. He glanced over to the bookshop and could see Amy standing talking to an elderly woman before turning away and following the team down into the sewer once more.

Using the sonic the Doctor followed the trail of slime through the tunnels. Now he knew what it was, the Doctor knew how to track it. Marching forward with the UNIT team behind him, he held up his hand stopping them. He could hear hissing which the Doctor knew meant either it was about to lay more eggs or attack.

Neither would be good for Rory so the Doctor entered the chamber with the sedative gun ready. Looking around he saw two pods had been destroyed, the Appepsis was in the centre of the room staring into a corner where several pods sat hissing loudly. It turned and saw the Doctor, the hissing becoming even louder.

“Don’t shoot,” the Doctor snapped hearing the UNIT goons stampede in behind him. Turning his attention to the alien in front of him the Doctor held up his hand, “I can help you. I can take you home and find a way to keep your eggs sustained without the people you’ve taken.”

“SSSminessss,” it hissed at the Doctor, the creature made itself larger about to strike.

The Doctor sighed in annoyance, why did they never just accept his help? Activating the spray, the Doctor aimed it at the Appepsis and started to rain down the sedative on it. The Appepsis snarled and hissed fighting against the sedation but soon it fell to the ground unconscious.

“Doctor,” Rory’s relief filled voice came just as he turned off the spray.

“Rory,” the Doctor stepped towards his friend, stopping to see Rory covered in orange slime from head to toe, “Are you okay?”

“We’re fine,” Rory assured.

“We?” the Doctor asked seeing the young woman appear from wearing the same slime, “Of course, we.”

“This is Kayleigh,” Rory introduced the woman who smiled a little nervously, just before she was escorted out by the UNIT medical team. Rory turned to the look at the pods, “Can you save them?”

The Doctor nodded, “I can but only those who are in the first stage.” He looked at his friend and chuckled, “At least you’re not soaked again.”

Rory frowned at him.

“Go, get checked out and cleaned up while I help release these people,” the Doctor said, he reached out to clap Rory’s shoulder automatically, stopping before he actually touched the younger man, “Oh, and if you drip any on the TARDIS floor clean it up or she will not be happy.”

                                 *********************************************

 Rory ran his hands through his hair, checking it was finally goo free before he turned off the shower. Relieved he was clean once more, Rory dressed quickly before grabbing his phone that had been left in the TARDIS while they headed down into the sewers. He winced seeing multiple messages from Amy. The final one bemused him as it mentioned that a John Smith had told her he was working but he shook his head. He didn’t have the energy to question it.

‘I’ve finished work,’ Rory text Amy, ‘I’ll be at the bookshop in a few minutes. Dinner sounds great.’

He checked the rest of his messages finding several from the person he didn’t want to hear from, quickly deleting every voice mail and text message.

Grabbing his jacket, Rory headed out the TARDIS. The UNIT soldiers and scientists were still wandering about but thankfully they weren’t being too intrusive.

“Rory,” a familiar voice called, turning he stared at the woman with long brown hair coming towards him, “It’s Kayleigh.”

He laughed slightly, “Kayleigh, I didn’t recognise you not covered in orange slime.”

She chuckled, “I wanted to thank you.”

“For what?” Rory asked confused.

Kayleigh chuckled again before realising he seriously didn’t know why she was thanking him, “Are you kidding me? You saved my life.”

“It was nothing,” Rory told her, “I’m just glad we’re both okay.”

Shaking her head, Kayleigh stepped into him, “Thank you,” she said deliberately before kissing him.

Surprised Rory accepted the kiss for a few moments before pulling back. Kayleigh gave him another quick kiss before handing him a piece of paper and walking away.

  The Doctor watched amused as the oblivious Rory was kissed by the young UNIT scientist he’d saved. Seriously the boy was leaving a trail of broken hearts in his wake across time and space but had no idea. The Doctor also spotted Amy coming out the bookshop, catching the look on her face when she saw Rory being kissed. From the narrowing of her eyes, Amy was not happy about it.

When Kayleigh left him, Rory looked down at the paper before sliding it in his pocket and instantly forgot about it when he spotted Amy. The Doctor smiled as his young friend wrapped his arm around his childhood friend and hugged her tightly.

“Hi,” Amy spotted him, “Dr Smith.”

“Doctor Smith?” Rory mouthed at him confused.

The Doctor nodded, “Hello, Miss Pond.”

“Amy,” she insisted before asking, “Is something wrong?”

The Doctor shook his head, “No, just wanted to let Rory know everything from today is being cleaned up and he did a great job.”

Amy beamed at Rory.

“Have a good night,” the Doctor told his friend, “I’ll see you later, Rory. Miss Pond, Amy, it was a pleasure to meet you.”

Rory smiled as Amy led him away. The Doctor watched them leave, relieved that his young friend was safe. Returning to the TARDIS, the Doctor accessed the recordings from Rory’s phone. He knew he shouldn’t but whoever had been calling Rory was concerning him so just wanted to make sure it wasn’t something that would hurt Rory.

“Rory, it’s your Dad,” the voice came over the speakers, “I need to speak to you. Please call me back.”

[atlanticcanada]

N.S. seniors advocate wants mandatory vaccination requirements for long-term care workers

When it comes to those working in or visiting long-term care homes in Nova Scotia, Bill VanGorder, with the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, believes if they’re able to be vaccinated, they should be.

"To put it bluntly, we recall when we had some of the outbreaks, the bad outbreaks in long-term care homes early in the pandemic. It was reported that those outbreaks were started by people accidently bringing COVID-19 into the homes,” said VanGorder. “Why would we risk that again?"

VanGorder would like to see mandatory vaccinations for those who work in long-term care homes.

That’s one of the topics Barbara Adams, Nova Scotia’s new Minister for Seniors and Long-term Care, will discuss with the province’s top doctor when they meet next week.

"Right now, we don't have a number of what percentage in long-term care are vaccinated. I did ask that question," said Adams. "All we know right now is vaccination rates by age group and certainly those who are older are much more likely to be vaccinated. The group least likely to be vaccinated is between 20 and 24, some of whom work in long-term care, so that's a concern for us."

Nova Scotia plans to move into the fifth and final phase of its COVID-19 reopening on Wednesday, Sept. 15. When it does, all COVID-19 restrictions will be dropped across the province, including mandatory masking and gathering limits.

Border measures however, will remain in place.

"Many of our members are deeply concerned about the decisions in terms of masking and the removal of masks for visitors entering long-term care,” said Michele Lowe, executive director of the Nursing Homes of Nova Scotia Association.

The province says health care facilities will continue to set their own policies for masks and visitation. However, Lowe would like to see a consistent approach.

"It should be something that Public Health considers that for health care facilities, at least in long-term care, where we have our most vulnerable, that we have a policy that is right across the province the same,” said Lowe.

As of Oct. 4, proof of vaccination will be required for Nova Scotians who are 12 and older to participate in non-essential activities. Some Nova Scotians have concerns about how the policy will work and are waiting for additional information from the provincial government.

"I think a lot of people, most people, want to follow the restrictions. They want to do what's best for themselves and for their neighbours, and for everyone in the province to keep everyone safe," said Chris Parsons with the Nova Scotia Health Coalition.

"But what we really have to do is make sure there's enough information and tools to do so and hopefully we'll get those soon.".

How the new vaccine policy will end up rolling out in the long-term care sector is unclear.

"If we really look at what Public Health has come out with, it would mean that it would go back to that individual nursing home to either mandate all staff have vaccinations or it would be up to that nursing home to say to visitors, you must show proof of vaccination, so there's no real clarity around it,” said Lowe.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/3tvnUqx

[filthysweetie]

If you are still taking prompt ❤ Hartwin no.13 "are you flirting with me?", "you finally noticed?"

I am forever and always taking prompts! You actually are the first person to request one, so i guess that means technically i’m taking prompts ‘now’? Thank you so much for requesting this, it was so fun to write. 

For anyone keeping track, this is day 18 of my self challenge :)

———

Harry opened his eyes the slightest bit. After years of this sort of thing, he knows to be cautious when coming back to consciousness—never quite sure what side might have picked you up when you were out. Even if you feel asleep in your own bed. 

But Harry hadn’t fallen asleep in his own bed, he’d fallen asleep across the world in a hospital barely fit for the people in it, hooked up to IVs and floating on drug induced clouds. And then he’d woken to patients and doctors alike fighting and killing and if he’d had the energy he would have jumped into the fray too—he’d gotten so far as falling out of his bed, pulling IVs and causing alarms to go off all around before the air cleared and Harry could breath as himself again. He never wants to lose control like that again—knowing it can be taken from him is…

He’s not waking up in that ramshackle hospital, though it certainly still smells like a hospital. There’s a softer cream to the walls than Kentucky, and more than that there’s a boy—his boy—jumping up from his chair.

“Harry!” Eggsy is wound so tight but trying so hard to restrain himself, Harry can see it in the flush of his cheeks and the way he keeps unconsciously leaning closer only to yank himself back, “you’re awake…” he sighs, almost to himself before continuing, “Don’t ever do that again. I’m going to get the nurse.”

He’s gone before Harry can even wet his lips. He’s at Kingsman. He’s home. 

Eggsy comes back with Darleen, who quickly goes to work checking his vitals before asking Harry the mundane questions of his name, rank and number, who the prime minister is and what he remembers. Eggsy hovers behind her, a tangible bout of energy that Harry keeps finding his eyes drawn too. Goodness, Eggsy looks more worried than he had when he was in jail. God, doesn’t that feel like years ago. 

“…alright,” Harry gets out after the formalities and about four glasses of water, “I think that’s enough of that. Clearly I’m still breathing.”

Darleen gives a very unimpressed look, “And I would like to keep you that way.” She turns to Eggsy, pointing a finger accusingly, “Nothing strenuous.”

Eggsy gives a sheepish grin and watches her walk from the room. Harry supposes she is beautiful, but it surely the boy can do better than her. Not that there’s anything wrong with Darleen, she’s a fantastic nurse, it’s just that she has a stronger hand than what Eggsy needs and besides—she may be in a relationship. It would never work; he should just stop now before he gets hurt. (Who is he talking to again?)

Eggsy turns to him once Darleen is around the corner, taking a rushed step closer and grabbing the hand that isn’t stuck with needles, folding it into his own.

“Hey.” He grins like an unrestrained child.

“I’m glad you’re here, Eggsy.”

“Yeah?” Eggsy asks, leaning closer still, propping his elbows on the bed in atrocious manners but he’ll let it go this time. 

And then, because Harry is hopped up on pain killers and really a quite insensitive man at heart, instead of saying ‘so sorry for what I said to you in anger, that is no excuse and I apologize and respect your decision not to forgive me’ his mind takes in that Eggsy is here and that he is in Kingsman’s medical ward and says:

“I didn’t think they’d let you back in here.”

Eggsy pauses, face losing some of that shine, and Harry would berate himself if he could think straight. He leans away, just a bit and Harry frowns at the loss.

“Well, lot has changed since you’ve been gone, bruv.” Eggsy clears his throat, “why don’t you sleep some? I’m sure you’re tired.”

“Tired?” Harry gives a little laugh, “I’ve been unconscious for who…knows ho…w long I’m …not…”———Eggsy is there when he wakes up—in clothes much different than his usual. It looks almost like…

“Is that the suit I gave you?” Harry scrunches up his face, “was going to give you.” He amends. 

Eggsy almost startles, looking up from whatever was in the file he was looking at and grins at Harry, “Sure is! Works like a charm and everything,” Eggsy runs his hand down his lapel and Harry can’t be blamed for following it’s trajectory.  

“But the tie.” Harry can’t help but notice it’s different than the stripped navy one he chose. 

“Yeah,” Eggsy looks down at the time he has, a charcoal grey, that while nice, doesn’t give the look as much movement as the other would have, “it got a little roughed up.” Eggsy shrugs, looking away before turning back and giving a cheeky grin, “But you’re here, so you can always give me another one.” 

“Well I suppose I must.”

“Good.” Eggsy cheeks look pink—the hospital is obviously too hot for a suit. ———By the time he’s out of the hospital wing, he never wants to see the damn place again. Eggsy was very kind to visit as often as he did, and bring Harry trinkets and more kindly, good discussion. He’d learned soon enough that in his absence Eggsy, Roxy and Merlin had gone and saved the world and Eggsy was now a full fledged member of Kingsman, final test be damned. It did something to him, to know that Eggsy was excelling, was living up to his potential and surpassing Harry so splendidly. He still had much to learn, but as Eggsy himself said, Harry is still here and more than willing to help. 

Eggsy visited as often as he was able around missions, sometimes with Roxy or JB in toe, and Merlin came in with a huge stack of files the moment Darleen said he could to give him a debrief on what the state of the world at large was. While he had visited before, it was only under Darleen’s watchful eye as talking shop would  ‘upsetting the delicate healing process’ or some nonsense like that. 

Nevertheless. The world wasn’t teetering as much as he expected, which was pleasantly surprising. What was not so pleasantly surprising was that in his unconscious, he’d been unanimously voted in as the new Arthur by the remaining Kingsman agents. It was backstabbing of the highest order.  

“Here,” Eggsy sets a parcel down on the ornate desk that now belongs to him. Harry raises one eyebrow in a way he hopes his intimidating. Eggsy just bites his lip to stop smiling. Harry sighs and opens it—he hopes Eggsy’s not doing this out of any misplaced guilt about Harry being unable to preform standard field operations. If Harry was a little less selfish, he would ask the boy to stop. But he’s not, so here they are. 

“Is this…” Harry slowly pulls out the figurine.

“It’s Arthur’s round table!” Eggsy can’t stop himself; “There you are at the head,” he points to the little figure in the most regal clothes that doesn’t look anything like Harry (Harry also decided not to mention that there can’t be a head to a round table), “and there’s Merlin on your right, and then Lancelot over there and Perceval next to her, and then that’s me to your left, Galahads represent.” He takes a moment, “I didn’t name the others, so that’s up to you.”

“How…kind.”

Eggsy laughs, a strong laugh that fills the room and Harry can’t help but smile, “Come off it, it’s funny as hell. Your real gift’s in the bottom.” He cocks his head towards the parcel. 

There’s a receipt in the bottom—Harry takes it out and looks at Eggsy who wiggles his eyebrows. It’s a receipt for…

“No,” Harry feels his jaw drop.

“Oh yes.” Eggsy gives a giddy little laugh, and the excitement fills Harry, “It’s finally time that Mr. Pickles had a sibling.”———Ms. Pickles jumped at JB again, trying to get the poor dog to play when clearly he just wanted to nap.

“Stop letting your dog harass JB.” Eggsy says from the kitchen as though he has a sixth sense for JB. They’re at Harry’s house after a long walk with the dogs, and Eggsy is fixing them a late breakfast. 

Harry is much more than capable and said such, but Eggsy must have noticed the fine lines of tension on his face (the headaches, while infrequent, were something close to debilitating) and demanded he sit and be waited on for once (“It’s gentlemanly of me, Harry, you should be all over that.”).

“She’s just looking to play a little, no harm done.”

Eggsy snorts, “I cannot believe how poorly trained you’ve let her be, it’s shocking.”

“She is a princess and deserves to be treated as such.” Harry clicks his tongue and Ms. Pickles trots over for the chin scratches that are imminent, “Besides, she’s a gift, you know, and deserves the utmost respect.”

Eggsy laughs and turns off the kettle, “You should treat the gift-giver like a prince then; it’s only fair.”

“Well I tried to cook him breakfast but was banished from the realm.”

Eggsy snorts, coming into the dining room and setting a full plate in front of Harry, “eat your food, Harry. You can pamper me later.” He winks. 

The food is delicious, though it may have been the company. ———Harry’s been Arther for…a while now. Time moves oddly when in these types of positions. But he’s been in this seat for a while and it’s the first time he’s wondered how Chester died. 

He was told that Eggsy did it, that he came back and finished Chester off after figuring out his plan, but there’s one thing to hear it in Merlin’s crisp, factual tone and another to see it. Harry finds the video surveillance from that day and sets it up to place on his tablet, suddenly feeling the great desire for some popcorn, even though he knows the video ends in death. ———“I’d rather be with Harry, thanks” Eggsy’s voice is tinny across the playback speakers but there’s no mistaking what he said. There’s no mistaking the look on his face when he watched Chester drink the drink that would kill him—the drink meant for Eggsy. 

Harry sets down the tablet, taking a moment to put pieces together that had been payed out perfectly for months now. 

“Hey Harry,” Eggsy walks into his office, without knocking as always, at home in Harry’s space. Harry finds he quite likes that, “I brought you some of those fancy cherry cordials you’re always going on about. Figured my pleb palate won’t be able to tell the difference but worth a shot, yeah?” Eggsy looks up from his bag and makes a face, “What’s wrong? Why you look like, I don’t know, the Queen just came in and farted or something?”

“Eggsy,” Harry gets out then tries again, feeling much more nervous than a man his age has any right to, “Eggsy, are you flirting with me?”

Eggsy’s eyes lock on his for a moment before he laughs, a short burst that forces its way past his lips, almost involuntarily. Oh. Well then. That does answer that, doesn’t it? Harry look at the tablet in front of him. He’s misread situations worse than that before, surely. Just can’t think of any that went quite this bad.

“You finally noticed?” Eggsy laughs again and when the words actually register Harry’s head snaps back up. Eggsy already looking at him, smile shy around the edges but confident in that beautiful way that he always is. 

Harry gets up fast enough that his chair (his heavy oak chair) falls backwards and makes his way over to Eggsy faster than is probably warranted Eggsy’s half way through hey be careful, you’re still healing you idiot when Harry’s upon him, cupping Eggsy’s chin in both hands and pulling him in for a kiss that should have happened ages ago, but he’s so glad is happening now. 

Eggsy sighs into it, a happy little sound that gives off faint edges of surprise like he can’t believe this is happening. If anyone has room for those doubts, it should he Harry—Eggsy shouldn’t doubt for a second that he is the best thing that could ever happen to someone, the best thing that ever happened to Harry.  

His lips are soft and warm and he melts into it, bringing his arms around Harry’s neck as Harry moves one of his around Eggsy’s waist, pulling him closer and relishing every sparking point they touch. His mouth is inviting and the slide of his tongue makes Harry pull him closer, makes him bit at Eggsy’s lip and bask in the moan Eggsy lets out. 

Breaking away is hard, and Harry can’t do it, not fully—he buries his face in the crook of Eggsy’s neck, licking and kissing and nipping the exposed flesh and drinking in every sound, every shaky breath and shiver that works through Eggsy’s body. 

Harry pulls back, just enough to look Eggsy in the eye, “you beautiful, amazing boy. It’s my turn to flirt with you.”