The Insider’s blog: Will NF man's conviction end months of harassment?

The Insider’s blog: Will NF man's conviction end months of harassment?



The above link will take you to a Hope not Hate page which will tell you all about the National Front's campaign in Wigan.



Wigan is a town near to where I live, so I happen to know many people who live within the area and their points of view, which true to the National Front, is not the same as the NF.



The NF is a group of mostly convicted men who have nothing better to do than commit violent acts against people, insight hatred against many communities of people including those who are black, female, gay, trans etc, basically anybody who isn't a white male.



If you wish to think of it as such, it's the UK's answer to the KKK, just this lot have never been in any form of political power and never will be.



It is time these men grew up, their current actions are the sort that they will come to regret later on in life. I simply refuse to take them seriously while they attend these marches, in numbers so low, you can often count them on one hand, and they often end with at least one person being arrested for a violent crime. I have a feeling I may well attend any future marches of their's in Wigan, just so I can add to the numbers of people who want to be seen to disagree with the members of the NF and what the group actually stands for.

Riley's account.

Ok, this is going to be a long one here, so keep reading if you're interested.

When it comes to content being reported here on Facebook, FB has a duty to inspect what has been reported. For example, you could report a picture of somebody naked, for the image containing nudity or pornography, which is fair enough. FB staff will look at the content and remove it from the site, sending a warning email to the account holder who posted the content which goes against the t&c's of this website.

From time to time however, content will be reported to FB staff which doesn't go against the website's t&c's, in which case, FB staff send an initial warning message to the person who's posted the content under question and once reviewed by staff, no further action is taken.

Then, we come to a case like Riley​.

Now the content which has seen Riley's account being blocked on here doesn't go against any of FB's t&c's, in any way at all, however...

Riley's account is under a protection measure because of the amount of content being reported which he has uploaded. None of which, I can hand on heart say, has been against any of FB's terms. However, because of the amount of content reported, his account is semi-closed, which FB staff are looking through all content posted, which is understandable, they want to protect other people from what could be harmful stuff.

This could easily be done within a day, however, FB blocks these accounts for upto (and including) 6 months, even if all reported content is found to still be allowed on this website.

Now, Riley is clearly being harassed by somebody. Riley is one of them guys who posts pictures of his dogs (which are adorable, so I don't think anybody minds them), food that he has cooked, or silly content designed to make the reader or viewer smile.

Facebook Engineering​ need to look at what process they put accounts through and work on a better time-scale for restoring account services fully. They should also have a think about a possible policy whereby if 1 person is reporting a lot of content which doesn't go against FB's terms, but could be judged as targeting a persons account, then they would be removed as a friend and possibly blocked.

Plenty for FB to do and think about. This IS a case of harassment and FB should be doing more. Please, share this video.

Pay your entertainers!

A little thing I saw the other week set a fire in me, which has caused me to be outraged at how the entertainment industry is being short changed at times, and people are falling for it.

The post was from a rather popular bar in the heart of Manchester City Centre, on canal street. Now, as I haven't approached them for comment, it's not fair to name and shame them, as the chances of them reading this are slim to none, but it is to do with their owner's post on Facebook looking for drag queens.

Now I get it, new drag queens are sometimes not up to the job fully. They are still learning their trade and could need some guidance when it comes to how to handle a crowd etc. This alone though isn't enough to be able to say that they don't deserve a fair pay for a fair amount of work. This bar in question was advertising and stating that on the job training was a part of the pay and as a result the pay "wasn't that good".

How is this acceptable? I know that in the entertainment industry hourly pay isn't a standard thing, it's usually x amount for the night or something and i'm not calling for this to be changed. I am however saying that a bar, shouldn't be taking advantage of people. I know that bar's can make a lot of money, even during the week when there's not a lot of customers which I why I find it's not acceptable to pay your entertainers less. Customers often come to a bar because of the entertainment being provided, without the entertainers, customers wouldn't turn up in many cases. Entertainment of all sorts can increase sales and help a venue to become well known.

So we must come together, as entertainers, and begin to set our own standards. Say that a good night's pay must help us to pay at least some of our bills. To say that no longer will "on the job training" become equal to a pay cheque. We can all learn our trade while making a good pay cheque and owners of venue's who wish to try and take advantage, can either join us and pay us properly, or they can allow their customers to drift off, while they struggle to find entertainers.

Depression and me - Part 2.

It seems over the past few months that my battle with depression is taking me on some really strange patterns of thoughts, which is making me look at myself in a different light.

Over the past year or so, I've lost friends, gained friends, got back in touch with friends and all in all, it's been a pretty mixed up time. You have to wonder at times if it is you who makes your standards, or the depression. Is it possible that if depression is charge of your emotions and thoughts, that you can set your standards so high, that people can't help but fail to meet them, and thus, you close your life to them?

My first real battle with depression came when I had not long left school. I had moved away from home, been living with friends and the long story short is, those relationships turned sour and I moved back home with my mum. Not too long after all this had taken place I wanted some space. I felt low in the fact that I had moved back home with my mother. A 20 something year old guy isn't going to be too happy living back with his mother, once he has tasted freedom in the way that I had.

3, maybe even 4 days at a time would pass when I would have the world closed away, avoiding everybody in my mothers house if possible and quickly making an exit if I had to interact with people. My mother I should point out was never rude to me and always made it clear that if I wanted to talk then she was there for me and I knew that all along, I just didn't want to reach out for help, since I didn't know what was wrong with me.

Over time though, my depression seemed to go away, like it had in my past, where in high school I had been told to go and see my doctor after feeling not too good about myself and talking with the school councillor. I went to see him and he prescribed me some anti depressants, which my mother refused me to be allowed to take, instead giving me a herbal alternative. I still claim that they did nothing to improve my mood, yet, others seemed to think so.

I guess the main thing that broke my depression was the fact I managed to get my own place to live. For once I felt better because here was a place I could call home. If I wanted to go and be depressed in the living room with nobody around me, I could do it. I could stay in bed all I wanted, I could have whoever I wanted around, at whatever time I wanted and for a long time, this life style was doing me fine and over a year or so, I was able to create my home.

That was all fine and dandy until I got into a relationship.

Now, i'm not going to delve too hard into my partners issues, but he has had to battle the same sort of demons in a relationship that I have. My demons came to light really, once we had started our couples counciling. He had been to see a councillor several times in the past and I had been sat in the room, she suggested that as his problems were to do with the relationship, maybe some couples therapy was in order and so off we went.

A few weeks into the counciling and we were doing good, but that's when my mind started playing tricks on me. My mind would hear about how some of his friends in the past had used places of... well lets say, you leave with a smile and a thinner wallet, if you catch my drift. These same friends are who he would go out drinking with and I wouldn't hear from all night. Little things like that where you as a partner should be able to sit back and just go "oh what is he like" were playing on my mind all the time, thinking, has he met somebody else, when will I find out, if I went and drove and sat outside his house, would I catch somebody in there with him etc.

These thoughts once in your head are very hard to clear. I know the good side to my boyfriend I really do. I know that 24/7 if I need him, he will be there. Like the night I had a few beers, and walked down a step awkwardly and my knee clicked, only when I got home and the drink was wearing off did it start to hurt and it was swollen, so he arrived at mine at about 3am and off to a&e we went. There's the time when I had been out drinking and come home on the phone to him, talked him into coming to mine so he could cuddle me, only I had fallen asleep and by the time I woke up, he had been sat outside for about 3 hours.

All these things mean a lot to me and he does tonnes more for me that I can't list on here because theres too many to mention, but still, my innermost thoughts lead me with the same feelings of "he's too good for you, he will find somebody better and move on" etc.

While all this is going on, 99.9% of the time, he is there to reassure me and say i'm talking nonsense etc, the other part of the time is him saying that I should seek my own help, away from the couples therapy, because I clearly have demons to battle and the way I am dealing with them right now isn't doing anything.

Yet, back to square one.

How can I seek help for something which I don't know about. I don't know why I have the typical jealousy thoughts that I do suffer with, I mean, I can try and pin them back to my first relationship, where my boyfriend at the time, tried to cheat on me with my brother, but is that the actual cause. The truth is, any help I did seek would require me to dig deep into my mind and frankly, that's a place even I am afraid to visit.

I'm a British person saying No to war in Syria.

Granted, I have touched upon Syria as a topic before on this blog and of course several times on my YouTube channels, mainly the BevRants channel, over time of course.

Thing is, with Syria, things are changing on almost a daily basis, and a lot of what people say isn't making any sense, it would appear though that we have a lot of people, world over, who want Syrian people to remain in their homes and face an almost certain death, rather than go to the country where they live, because of ____ reason(s).

More recently the british government have been speaking about their support of taking war action in Syria (missing out that we, the british, have been involved in Syria for some time now, but who needs to know about the sale of arms and where exactly the foreign aid budget is going). So the reason I post the title of this post as such, is because I want it to be known that when our political figures, any of them, speak about how "We the british", I want it known now, straight away, that they do NOT speak for me, when it comes to war in Syria against whatever side they want to fight against.

Having such an opinion though is not one that will gain you support or nice comments, indeed, rather the opposite. To now, I have been told that I am crazy, wearing a tin foil hat and my personal favourite is that i'm a "loony lefty". Thing is though, insults aside, many people have opinions which if were put into a political place, would result in the death of millions of people.

I speak of course about the dreaded, refugees.

We have to admit that Syria is a war zone. There is no escaping this fact, you don't even have to do much of a google image search to see the state the country is in and it is of my opinion that not much of Syria can be remaining un-touched by the war efforts of those fighting in the country. I have a difficult time, after seeing this footage and still images, trying to understand where anybody comes from when their opinion is to close the countries borders and leave the refugees with nowhere else to go apart from to remain in a country which will result in their death. Even more amusing to me is seeing where the people with such opinions live, because in many cases it is their country which is contributing to the war in Syria in one way or another.

So in closing on that part, we have to accept Syria for what it is. It isn't a 3rd world country and not all of it's population is muslim, just to set the record straight on those who want to argue that the people fleeing Syria are not poor enough to be classed as a refugee and thus, shouldn't be offered help.

So why do I speak about british war then?

Well, firstly our government is only taking in 20,000 refugees over the next coming years, this is not nearly enough and if we are to go in, we should provide the innocent people with housing. Secondly, we need to look at what has happened to those other places around the world which have taken direct action in Syria and what has happened to them.

France took part in this war a few months ago, and not even a month ago, we all saw the terrible news of what took place in Paris, an attack carried out in the name of revenge for France having started to bomb Syria.

Taking France as the main example then, why oh why would any other country want to get involved in any way, shape or form? If the example is clear for us to see that our innocent people on our innocent shores would suffer, why would we knowingly put ourselves at risk?

If we also were to get involved, we could end up pissing off another country, which is not an option we should ever want to face. How would this be the case? Well, take a look at Russia and Turkey at the moment. A Russian jet flew into Turkish air space and was shot down. Not a big deal? Well, if more incidents like this happen then more countries will begin to fight each other and before we know it, you'll be given your guided tour and welcome meeting as you will have arrived at your destination, world war 3.

So finally, people ask me, with my opinion being the way it is, what is the peaceful options that I speak of. Well, look at what has already taken place which has helped to end all wars to date. It wasn't war that brought an end to a war, it was a peaceful handling of the situation which made people see sense, despite what the original war was over.

We must always, as a world, work to a peaceful agreement, rather than war. In war, we lose innocent people and that, my friends, is never acceptable.

The Paris attacks.

Recently we in the west have been shocked to learn of another round of "terrorist" attacks in Paris, and this time, not a comic book in sight. On Friday just gone, we saw scenes which horror films are made of, as over 100 lives came to a premature end in very horrific ways.

I will of course start this post by saying I do not approve of the attacks, they should never have happened, I hope those who have passed are now at peace and those who survived the attacks to find the help they need to be able to move on, over time of course.

It is when you look into why these attacks took place, that your view may change to what you have been supporting of late. Of course much of social media and the west is happy for france to play the full on victim here, but that simply isn't true.

The truth of it is, France has been involved in the war in Syria. They were warned, as we all were, that if we got involved then we would have lives of our own lost, and as sad as it is to say, that is what has happened in France.

So yes, the politics of that country, caused this attack, in ways that are very similar to what France did only a few months before.

They invaded a country and killed innocent people with bombs, guns, air attacks etc. So, what happened in Paris? People invaded the country and carried out attacks on innocent people. "An eye for an eye" is an old term I've heard many times before, and that is exactly what is happening here.

So, we all know about France and what it has been subjected to. Are you all aware of the other terrorist attacks that have been taking place too?

Many people, sadly are not aware of these other attacks. However, Paris is attacked and I notice nearly all of facebook begins to look like the French flag, even though it was France who went to war in Syria, they were not attacked first, they are the attackers.

Now though, as the weekend concludes of course we want to find somebody to blame for these attacks. The group ISIS have claimed responsibility for the attacks and some funny news has made it's way to me, were apparently, despite nothing being left of the suicide bomber or anything around him, his paper passport has survived, in tact.

How does that work exactly? Paper can now survive bomb blasts? Maybe when the attacks make their way to british shores, I should just wrap myself in passport paper and i'll be able to carry on with life as normal.

People are also wrong when they try to pin the blame on the refugees who are trying to escape ISIS, because, why are they going to come and bomb you, when they, like you and me, don't want to have to live under threat of ISIS or any being killed simply for living in a certain part of the world.

Oh and don't get me started on how many people are wanting to blame Muslims for the attack. ISIS follow the same amount of rules from the holy book of Islam, as I do when trying to cook from a Delia Smith book, you got it wrong Delia, I cook better than you!

Anyway, it's a sad world we live in at the moment, too many lives are being lost, but we, as people, need to look at who the real attackers are, then we can begin to deal with the problem.

Depression and me. Part 1.

Recently I said on a BevRants YouTube video that I was on anti-depressants, which seemed to shock some people. When coming to write material like this, I have found it hard more recently to keep my mind focused on the topic i'm supposed to be dealing with and my sleeping pattern has all but vanished with a constant feeling of tiredness having been over me for the past few months now.

It all seemed to start a small while ago when my nana (grandmother) underwent an operation on what was called a large hernia. The operation itself seemed to go to plan, but bringing her back around from it seemed to take up most of the day, so of course we were all worried. After that she ended up in hospital for the following 2 weeks, almost 3 weeks, because of several complications and much of that time was spent on the hospital's critical care unit, where one day and night in particular, we thought we were on the verge of having said our last goodbye's to her.

As is becoming usual with my nana though, she is stronger than many of us give her credit for and she managed to make a full recovery, which is brilliant news and has reaffirmed to us all, how precious she is in our lives.

During the time all this was going on however, I spent much of my time worried and unable to feel as if I could just "switch off". My days and nights were spent at the hospital waiting around or being in visiting her. Once she made it out of hospital, life could sort of go back to normal for us, only, it didn't for me.

The feeling of being tired took over for me, I found it very rare that I could have a full day without thinking "i really want to be in my bed" and that is how it has stayed. This lack of sleeping ability with some other issues that were going on in my life, lead me to contact my doctor, whom, at my first appointment agreed with me that indeed, some sort of other therapy should be sort after before the use of any drugs to try and see if my apparent depression would be solved this way.

After about a month, it turned out that no, nothing was improving for me, infact, feeling like things were only getting worse is how I would describe that time. So, I went back to the doctors who agreed that now, medication was the only way forward, along with other therapies too, like talking with a councillor etc.

I began my treatment of medication and within a few days, I did notice some improvements, my sleeping pattern seemed to be picking up and I for the first time in along time, felt like I could get a good nights sleep.

That was all well and good up until about 2 weeks ago. I came back onto my youtube creators bit and the thought of making a video, worried me. I quickly closed the page amid thoughts of "what would you do a video about anyway" or "you haven't got a mobile working camera yet, so you can't do it". My feeling of being constantly tired has also come back to trouble me and most of my days now are spent on a bed, sleeping or just having a lack of motivation to do anything.

While it is possible that the medication could be just starting to take effect and that maybe I should look at other medications if I feel this one isn't for me, i'm putting myself out there with this situation.

I know I am not the only person to suffer with even a mild version of depression. It takes on many different forms and I know for a fact that many people reading this will go "yip, that's how it was for me".

I will make other parts to this and try to tell you all as much as I can about my history with depression and hopefully, it might clear my mind and be able to let me go back to being able to focus.