04.04.2020
Last night I got back home with the heebee jeebees. The sense well and truly spooked out of me. As everyone is aware, things have been very odd around London recently, but the absolute science fiction horror blockbuster dread really sank in for me on the train ride home.
I passed one of the homeless guys I’ve got to know a little bit, I always give him a quid now, if I’ve got tips. He’s another lost case. An alcoholic, not the nasty kind, but the kind that just couldn’t cope with the world. I think he too has special needs, almost all the homeless people left out seem to either be intellectually disabled, have some kind of neuro developmental disorder, or psychological trauma that causes them to dissociate, or lose faculty of every day life skills. Many of them may well be addicts, but it seems they ended up with drugs or booze because it’s the only way for them to survive. In short, all these people require care from social services, or psychiatrists, or should be in assisted living. Basically the issues of homelessness need long arduous solutions, and our government just can’t be fucked.
That aside, being out alone at night with no one around but desperate homeless people is quite scary. I don’t hold poor people up as saintly or think they’re martyrs, there are some very nasty homeless people out there, just because they are that way because they were hurt and deserve care doesn’t mean they’re all angels. There’s a few you know to avoid.
Anyway, I saw one solitary person at Highbury and Islington station. As I scanned the screen to see which train was leaving next, a voice over a loud speaker was telling people not to use the trains. At a train station. That was strange. Then, utterly bizarrely, I did not see a single person till Whitechapel. That’s six stations, on a Friday night, passing places like Shoreditch Highstreet. If anyone has a passing familiarity with London, they’ll know how fucking mental that is. And as a Londoner, hearing silence in places you’ve never heard it before, in your entire life, is psychologically very difficult to process. I can’t understate the shock.
So I was thoroughly spooked already when I got out one station later in Shadwell, which as we’ve discussed, has always been a shady area. So I’m on my guard whenever I walk around at night, I’m a Londoner, I’m used to it, but this was a little different.
The general strategy is stand up straight, walk quickly but don’t run and only look straight ahead (avoiding eye contact is a very important London survival skill), especially if someone is yelling at and following you as happened to me last night. I wasn’t 100% sure if he was shouting to me, I couldn’t tell if it was “sir” or “Sam,” there was another homeless guy roaming further up the street, so I hoped it was directed at him, and wanted to avoid drawing attention to myself by checking. But the footsteps and voice got louder as they approached. Crunch time, I had to decide to run or confront this person, but I wasn’t going to have someone attack me from behind if the want to mug me. At one point I could out run any mugger, I had a 41min 10K time, and 19:59 5k, but having crawled through a fairly deep trough of depression, and eating a lot of pizzas, I can’t run like I once could. And I was carrying a giant half meter pizza (attempt to cheer up my other half), and my bike helmet. So I had little option.
I’m quite tall, and can be loud, so I figured I could pretend to be menacing enough to avoid a physical confrontation. I once scared two burglars off, I told them to piss off, and they got all “what, come on then” etc. so I said I was a police officer. It worked that time. This seemed different. I knew if it was going to come to it, it would be much better to get a punch in first and floor this guy, rather than risk getting hurt myself. Trouble is, I could end up regretting that for the rest of my life. As I turned, I think my plan was just to shout “WHAT?!”
I was incredibly relieved to see if was just a desperate, manic, wide eyed crackhead. I’ve seen this guy around a lot, again, judging on his appearance and behaviour, I’m fairly sure he has a mental disorder and the lack of proper treatment has meant he’s ended up self medicating with crack and maybe spice. I put a pound in his hand, he immediately left me alone.
So, things actually feel like they’re getting a bit dangerous, and I’m wondering if I am risking my safety carrying on in this job. None of the other jobs I applied for have got back to me though, so I’m not sure what to do. Apparently over a million people have applied for universal credit over the last two weeks, so I suspect jobs are hard to come by at the moment. I’ll get something eventually.
This wasn’t how I planned to start this blog. The way in was substantially more whimsical. It would have gone something like this.
It’s an awkward time of year for underwear. As it gets dark, it’s still very cold, so thermal long johns are mandatory, for me anyway. I wear Uni Clo heat tech, really good, one pair are at least 5 or 6 years old, and only just starting to show it. Some riders wear two pairs of jogging bottoms, still more just brave the cold.
They are awkward because through the day they can be slightly on the warm side. And changing in and out of them, in a tiny room with four blokes in, is less than ideal. Yesterday especially was warm, and the boss texted me asking me to come in early. I gave a non committal yes, but couldn’t say when because I had a few things to do. The things to do were read about Conan setting the soul of an elephant headed alien demigod free from his decaying prison of flesh by cutting his heart out and squeezing the blood onto a wish fulfilling gem which cast a spell of vengeance on the evil sorcerer who tortured him and kept him locked in servitude in a bejewelled silver tower. And take the goblin for a walk.
So I turned up an hour or so early, in long johns and all, slightly over warm. I didn’t mind too much because the previous day I was about three hours late, maybe four. I get easily baffled by time tables (ADHD again). No one noticed, but I missed a trick by not saying I forgot to sign in with the finger print scanner when I arrived at 11am. These couple of extra hours made up for it. One of the few redeeming features of a minimum wage job is I really don’t give a fuck. When people have been rude to me, over late pizzas etc, I don’t bother pretending to care, just get to the point, do you want the pizza or not? The shift manager’s been getting abuse though, a lot of people can’t get it through their thick fucking heads that we’re working through a global pandemic and there are significant pressures involved. In all honesty though, and I think most delivery riders would agree, when we do say have a nice evening to customers, we mean it.
That shift was fairly uneventful, although the tips started improving. I found it a bit annoying though, when people put up messages of gratitude to guys doing jobs like me, but don’t think to leave a quid or two like they would for a waiter. It’s the same job. And thank you notes don’t pay the bills. Still, people are tipping more, and being genuinely nicer to me.
On hold.
I counted 24 ambulances from around 6-11. Fewer police out than the other night, but I managed to get into a bit of a scrape with one officious pair. One of my main through roads has a huge hole in it at the moment so it’s blocked off. I’m on a scooter though, a courier too, and there’s this life destroying virus about so allowances can be made. I just hop on the pavement, ride through a gap, then back on the road. I was doing this for a few days before a police car caught me in the act. The I don’t give a fuck, the world is dying and I’m being paid £8:20, attitude influenced the way I dealt with them. They pulled me over with the lights and siren and gave me all the ‘do you know why we’re pulling you over’ stuff, they tried to claim I went though a red light, which I disputed because I went over the pavement, if their issue is me riding on the pavement they can’t have it both ways. After a bit of back and forth, I, and I can’t believe I got away with this, said, “look I'm not being facetious, but I’ve got a lot on, I’m really busy, so… sorry?” I shrugged. This annoyed them a bit, they said “what do you mean sorry? Do you want me to write you up three points.” I said “no, obviously not but you’ve made your point, so if you’re going to, do, but if not, we’ve both got things to be getting on with.” They let me off, as I knew they would, but not before enjoying a nice hit of power trip dopamine.
I’ve been told stupid things enough by police to no longer automatically defer to their authority. Especially in terms of riding motorcycles, unless they’re bike police, they don’t know what’s safe and what’s not, and will do you for breaking rules even if it’s the safer thing to do. They’re not worth listening to. Once I got in trouble for stopping in the bicycle box at a red light. There was a time when the police where cracking down on this, because there had been a spate of cyclist deaths (mostly killed by articulated lorries, who shouldn’t be in central London at all, but it’s easier to blame motorbikes). One time a police guy was ranting about this and the lights changed so I just rode off leaving him mid sentence. Another I was actually given a ticket, but I thought it wasn’t fair, because if I stayed behind the line I would have been between cars which is more dangerous, so I made them take me to court. On the day, the copper didn’t turn up, so I didn’t need to defend myself. I thanked the magistrate for their time and she said “we call it justice.”
Back at the shop, the guys agreed I got away with it because I’m white and speak good English. I think that’s probably 100% definitely without a doubt certainly true. Imagine if I was black, chances are they would have just rammed the scooter without talking to me.
There’s a whole essay on this point, about the impact of policing targets introduced by Thatcher in areas like Brixton, which meant they nicked tons of young black guys for weed and insignificant harmless infractions rather than focusing in more difficult busts, like violent criminals, which breeds resentment, compounded by constant racial profiling in stop and search, which criminalise young black men. We, or BAME people anyway, still massively feel the impact of this today. We’ve ended up with a whole series of riots in London because of this. I wondered about treatment those people receive compared to how I basically told a cop car to fuck off and stop wasting my time after I actually committed a crime, and they did!
I also wondered about the prevalence of police on the roads compared to ambulances. There’s been a lot more. I wondered if it’s because the police look for trouble and ambulances know where to find it. My suspicion that they were picking up the sick was confirmed in Islington, when I saw them put a blanket on and comfort a frail old man in the street. I think possibly we was suddenly overcome by the effects of Covid-19. My respect for the police increased then. I don’t think they’re bad people, they just have a large amount of racist bad apples and jobsworths.
The other reason there’s more police is the streets are rapidly becoming lawless. I saw a group of four dodgy as fuck blokes walking around Hoxton backstreets right where I had a delivery, I didn’t feel like getting mugged so I went round the block a few times till I knew they were gone. I saw a few burglary warning posters up too, and think I actually might have seen a burglary in progress. So it’s tricky, I’m really grateful to the police, but I think most Londoners would agree, the Met haven’t exactly clothed themselves in glory over the years.
An actual burglary taking place in Shadwell?
Talking of crime, yesterday I heard one of the riders at the Stratford store had his scooter nicked while he was dropping off a pizza. The police used the tracking device on the scoot and found it in an hour. The young ex con was impressed with how quickly the thief must have made off with the scooter, according to him, Honda Visions aren’t that easy to hot wire. Apparently since then the Stratford shop has shut because a lack of staff.
The inexorable march of progress. The chefs used to smoke out this back door, but not anymore. They just smoke inside now, so I stink of fags after every shift.
Lack of staff is one of the things we’re struggling with. A lot of the guys who run the place get their cousins to work there. Most of them are students from overseas, and they’re not allowed out of their halls or houses. Apparently their landlords are telling them if they go out for more than a brief walk they can’t come back.
At 8pm applause suddenly erupted from front doors and balconies. It seemed almost instinctive now, or spontaneous, because as far as I know it hasn’t been promoted. I was in quite a posh area, near St Pancras Way in Camden, where the population isn’t as dense so it wasn’t as impressive as where I live, but still it was nice. There was a genuine feeling of solidarity. I don’t expect we’ll all start wearing red bandannas and calling each other comrade, like Spanish Anarchists, but now, when you beep your horn and wave at an ambulance, they beep back, and people say thank you and seem like they mean it.
And in fact there is a real visible form of anarchism taking place in tower blocks and cull de sacs all over the city. Posters like these for mutual aid groups are going up everywhere. It feels like people are assuming the role the state should, but are unable to provide. I expect people working together, responsible for themselves, in small residents’ groups will be transformative. It will become clear that cooperation is a far more effective way of organising society than competition. Solidarity. Long live the People’s Republic of London!
I think this need for autonomous self organising direct democracy will become more and more apparent as the centre re affirms control of the Labour Party and assumes an autocratic top down leadership. Kier Starmer just won the leadership. My prediction is it will become irrelevant again, and we’ll have to look elsewhere for democratic solutions to the problems we face. I have no idea what they will be but I’ve already seen articles about how party members aren’t fit to choose the leader. I’m already debating whether to hand in my membership. Just seen the People’s Aunty Diane Abbott is stepping down as Shadow Home Secretary. Sad times, since everything about Corbyn and McDonnell is being vindicated. In fact, Tory economic policy is now to the left of Starmer, so I can’t see what he has to offer at all. It’s not about capturing old ground with old ideas, that at best will paper over cracks till the next crisis happens. We need to gain new ground.
I used to believe the Labour Party was an impediment to progress, it looked like that was changing for a bit, but unfortunately I think we’re going back to Millibandism, at best. Something else will emerge.
At the end of the shift I sneaked another pizza out for my mate Christopher, the garage dweller. He wasn’t there but I left it on some rags to keep it off the floor. I was a little sad the next day to see it untouched, I’m guessing our friend has flown the nest. I hope he’s ok and has somewhere safe and warm to sleep.
Busy night.
I chatted to a Deliveroo rider as I was leaving. The shift manager said he had a few issues with them, losing their rag with him, nerves are getting ragged everywhere. Apparently the issue is, now so many takeaways are shut, all the orders are going to the few that remain open. They can’t keep up with demand, especially since so many staff are off, so the Deliveroo guys are kept waiting out in the cold for their orders. Most places aren’t letting them inside the restaurant because they’re worried about catching the disease. Some of the Deliveroo guys are on a slightly different contract where they get more per delivery, but less per hour, so I think some of them aren’t even making minimum wage. On top of that I keep seeing the police hassle them for standing too near each other, when they need to to hear if the number for their order is being called out.
These guys work hard. Our Greek hero moonlights as a delivery rider for Uber Eats on the pizza place’s bike, good hustle. He told me he sits with his morning coffee, signs into the app, maybe does a couple of drops near by if they come up and earns a tenner or so. When it’s really busy we have these guys from a company called Buzzbikes ride with us. They’re a bit like a centralised version of Deliveroo. If a restaurant is going to be really busy, they outsource to this company who supply a few extra riders for the night. This is the reason, the riders think even if we stop working, they’ll manage to keep the store open and avoid paying us the 80% furlough.
We’ve had a few of these guys on recently. Last night there was a suave Milanese bloke, who I’ve seen working at another store, but he drives a car, and waits in it most of the night. But last night he waited in our riders’ room and chatted. It was interesting listening to people from countries haggard by austerity discuss world events. The Italian was a private jet pilot. I didn’t ask him why he was delivering pizzas now, because it’s an insensitive thing to ask, it implies there’s some shame to having a low status job, and could bring up some personal misfortune, maybe he lost his pilot licence, maybe he lost faith in himself, maybe there’s just no work. It’s a bit like ex cons, you don’t ask why they were in jail. Anyway, the Italian blames the Dutch for vetoing the Euro bond and the Greek blames the Germans, most of the Indians think Coronavirus is man made and the British government want to kill the poor, and the Lithuanian just watched videos of people having street fights on his phone. But even the ex pilot has a second gig working for Amazon Prime. He says it’s not worth it, seems like ok money, but there’s loads of hassles. Apparently at the moment its just delivering stuff for Morrisons, carrying huge bottles of water up several flights of stairs. I disapprove of people drinking bottled water at the best of times, but making people haul it around for you…
I had a boss once, Scottish public school boy, from some Edinburgh Hogwarts boarding bullshit. Someone at a hotel was rude to him when he was dropping off stock. He said, they thought he was “just some delivery guy,” and tried to cover his tracks with a “I mean… I mean… you know.” But it was too late, the mask slipped, he thought he was better than delivery people, he wasn’t the run of the mill working class oik he appeared to be just because he was driving a van, oh no, he’s much better than that, much more important, refined, they wouldn’t be rude to him if they knew who he really was. I listened to the stuff he talked about, he wasn’t half as intelligent, knowledgeable, hard working or kind as any of my pizza friends, and they’re all just some delivery guys…
He was a total fucking moron.
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