Probably TMI but tough titties. Today I recieved a home STD testing kit through the post. I didn't request it because I did something risky and had an 'oh shite... What if' moment a day later, I'm not displaying symptoms of an STD and in fact I'm not worried I have any of the diseases that are tested for. I ordered it because 'just in case', because condoms minimalise risk they don't eliminate it and sexually active people should be tested every year because sometimes shit happens.
So a drop of blood will be drawn from my pinkie finger, I'm going to fill a pisspot to 9ml, swab the back of my throat and stick another swab up my bum. And then I'm going to send it off to be tested. And then after minimal discomfort and without a stranger doing anything invasive I get confirmation that I'm not putting anyone else at risk and Little Allan isn't going to go green and fall off.
My point is get tested, and get tested regularly. Antibiotic resistance is a serious danger and the best way to fight it is to practice safe sex to avoid STD's and be treated for anything you have before you pass it on.
STD testing doesn't mean being sat in a clinic with your hood pulled up with a bad rash you're resisting an urge to scratch, it is something which can be done in private in a completely dignified way. My point; please get tested - it's not frightening, it's not painfull & it's not embarrassing. Regular testing needs to be just as much as a part of safe sex as condoms. Anyways..... Have fun 😉
#PlaySafe #StigmaKills #SafeSex
Allan McLeod Online
Wednesday 26 September 2018
Monday 22 August 2016
Labour Leadership Election 2016; Why I'm Team Jezza
A few minutes ago I received my online ballot for the labour leadership election: Anyone I have ever had a political discussion with will probably assume I voted for JC.... You are right. Yes I did.
Throughout the leadership election I was inclined to vote JC because he was the man who inspired me to join the labour party to begin with, and because I view the election we are going through as a attack on him & an anti-democratic coup rather than an election to exercise a democratic right.
Before JC became leader I looked at the labour party and saw what looked to me like a shell of its former self, and doubted that it could play more than a minimalistic role in the workers movement leading to a fairer, more egalitarian society. JC's commitment to restoring that party to a party of social change, a party about standing up for the metaphorical 'little guy' and a party of the most fundamental of socialist values; equality, liberty, democracy and peace made me re-evaluate that belief; I now believe that the labour party can be saved, and I stand by my belief that the leader best placed to do that is now and will be for the foreseeable future JC.
In the interest of fairness I read the statement provided by Owen Smith on the voting form and wasn't that impressed. Namely because I don't actually believe that he is the 'unity' candidate that the 'anyone but Jezza' crowd are demanding.
Jezza is who I voted for because he IS a unity candidate in my view; namely because of his his pledge to democratise the party and his willingness to work with those who have made it perfectly clear that they don't agree with his views despite there open and destructive opposition - it beggars belief that an open hand was treated like a clenched fist simply because it was JC who held it out.
Not only do I have every faith that JC has the skill and the determination to unify the labour party, I believe that he has the skill, the drive and the compassion to unify the country and deliver a labour victory in the 2020 general election.
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Tuesday 22 September 2015
Communism, Rebellion & Animal Farm
Despite the
intent of the author, the book and film animal farm does not serve well as a
criticism of communism & socialist revolution. The storyline of the book and
film (for those who are not familiar with it) is based upon animals of a farm
who overthrow the farmer who is mistreating them and under the guise of
equality and liberation from servitude a rebellion against the farmer takes
place (as a result of the provocation of not being fed) & the pigs take
over and appoint themselves as the new rulers. The pigs then collaborate with other
neighbouring farmers, and together they share the profits from the farm with
the pigs as the visible rulers and the farmers, invisible abusers, who stay out
of sight of the rest of the animals. This resembles the situation currently in
most liberal-capitalist western nations; a government is separate from the
wealthy minority, but it is run on their behalf thus they are in effect one and
the same, despite formally being separate entities.
Despite the
claims that this depicts the revolutionary transition from capitalism to
communism, the storyline better reflects a revolutionary transition from
feudalism to capitalism, in Marxian terms a bourgeois revolution, not a
proletarian revolution. The distinction between the two types of revolution is
the transition from a single absolute ruler (the aristocrat class), to a
government whose power is supported by the capitalists (the former aristocracy)
who together from what is now considered to be a societies ‘upper class’ or
‘the 1%’. In the story a specific pig (Napoleon) gains much of his influence
through the exile and scapegoating his a fellow revolutionist (Snowball), this
looks far more like the relationship which currently exists in the UK between our
primary party of capitalists (the Tory Party) and the parties of the political
left and allied trade unions, who the Tory party use as scapegoats. The
inequality of resources within animal farm closely resembles the situation
under the current government’s austerity programme; the workers are given less
and less, while the rich who have become an elite class of masters sleep comfortably
with full bellies.
According to
the story at first there is a democracy, which gives way to a single ruler
making unilateral decisions, the pigs begin breaking the laws which they
themselves have written, and another pig Squealer is able to convince the other
animals that pigs are always morally correct.
Comparing
this to the demonization of the poor in Britain; we condemn those people who
are out of work as lazy, even in areas where during the financial crisis beginning
in 2008 large swaths of industry closed and new jobs were never created. We
still demonise people born in different nations as criminals who steal what
they want including the jobs of the British.
Is the pack
of dogs mentioned in the story which Napoleon used to chase Snowball away so
different to the right-wing press who would demonise and convince the people to
ostracise any working class hero who would stand up for them? Is this so
different from the trade union movement being blamed for lost work days when
the number of days lost to striking workers is at an all-time low despite the abuses
of our current government?
And with the
electoral system, legal system, and degree of wealth inequality we have still
alive and strong, are we not still living in a nation where adapting a
commandment of animal farm “all people are equal, but some are more equal than
others” representative of the nation and world we live in. The value of all
people as people is equal, however when it is considered that we blame people
who fall on hard times for their own misfortune, the legal system is so expensive
to access for poorer people that legal remedy is not open to them are we really
so far removed from the idea that all animals are equal, but some are more
equal than others?
In order for
animal farm to represent a socialist society (post-revolution) the society
which emerged would not have had a political class, or governance in the form
which appeared. For a society the size of a farm, democracy could have occurred
on a show-of-hands (or paws) basis, so under the control of the workers or
animals whether the society would be socialist, communist or anarchist is an
academic distinction, because both communist and anarchist ideals (in there
purest form) would not have resulted in one group in total control, having
replaced one form of totalitarianism, but with each ‘trade’ (egg production,
milk production, machinery operation) would have a representative in the
governing body of their own choosing, who could be replaced at any time by the
group they were supposed to represent.
The distinction
(in my view) between whether the workers cooperative which the farm functioned
as was effectively a self-sufficient micro-state (or commune) where the
procedure was for internal consumption, which would make it communist, or
whether it was for both internal consumption and trade with a network of other
cooperatives with full internal democracy under direct control of the workers
(the animals) which would make it anarchist it would be functioning as a part
of a network of cooperatives without the oversight of a ‘state’ (the pigs) to
rule over it.
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Tuesday 15 September 2015
Comrades: It's Time to Come Home.....
Hello again.
I has been a while I know since I’ve written a blog article
about what I’ve been up to, so this one is going to double up as a confession.
About an hour after Jeremy Corbyn was elected the leader of the labour party I
joined the party and then I e-mailed the Green Party to inform them I was leaving.
The reason I joined the Green Party was actually simple; it
was my way of telling the labour party off. The labour party had basically lost
its mojo; Blair’s government was almost as right-wing as the Conservative
Party, and up until a few days ago had been committed to political centrism believing
the only way to victory was a programme of ‘small C conservativism’ rather than
embracing Left-Libertarianism & Democratic Socialism as it’s way forward.
I joined the greens as I was becoming increasingly political
since the ConDem government took over in 2010 and I could see the effects of their
policies first hand, from friends who had been sanctioned, to poverty wages and
now since the Conservative majority government’s attacks on trade unions,
however I could not in good conscience join the labour party as it was failing
to outright refuse to cooperate with the Conservative government’s austerity
programme; a programme which has hurt the most vulnerable members of our
society causing many people to die or commit suicide through reckless economic
policies.
The fact that the labour party has since elected its most
left wing candidate in its leadership election, and has its own surge of
support shows that a great many people in the British public want an
alternative to austerity and that they are more willing to support a left-wing
labour party; myself included. As I said earlier I joined the Green’s to give
the labour party a kick up the arse – I am myself the stereotypical labour
party member; a working class northerner, and I joined the Greens because despite
their reputation as a single issue environmentalist party there policies were
far more socialist than the pre-Corbyn Labour party.
This is in my opinion what caused the green surge, the phenomenon
where over a relatively short period of time the Green Party managed to
quadruple its membership; not because people suddenly started believing that environmentalism
would stop poverty, because they were socialists and the Green Party was
preaching anti-austerity & social justice. Don’t get me wrong; protecting
the environment is a necessity and to quote my barber “as the caretakers of
this world we are doing a shite job”, but if someone is going hungry to feed their
children then I highly doubt they will have the luxury of thinking of long term
issues like wind farms & climate change (despite the fact that they are important
issues). But with a red surge which has put the green surge to shame in terms
of the numbers of members who have joined it is my view that it is now the Labour
party who is best suited to represent the views of members of the British left &
be the voice of trade unions in government as it was meant to do, while
campaigning as the leader of Britain’s anti-austerity movement instead of
leaving that task to minor parties.
The green surge served its purpose; it gave a platform to
people who wanted to speak out against the conservative government who couldn’t
bring themselves to do it on the labour party’s ticket, and it made it clear to
the labour party that if it wasn’t going to listen to its supporters then it
could be replaced. But now the desired effect has happened; a party which will once
again be the voice for the voiceless & hold out a hand to those in need. But
now I can’t help but think that those socialists who joined the green party,
like myself, would now do better stepping sideways into the Labour Party. Come
2020 Labour is the party which will be able to mount the campaign most likely
to unseat the conservatives and the more lefties which join now the more the
members of the parliamentary labour party who might attempt a coup against its
new leader Jezza will be deterred by the knowledge that a left wing party is
absolutely most definitely the wish of the members and the British left.
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Thursday 26 March 2015
What’s the world coming to if you can't eat a pie, buy a loaf of bread or buy your lover some saucy knickers without funding the Tory party in the process???
Hello & thanks reading this. I'm writing this to promote a petition
I started on change.org asking for a ban on corporations being allowed to
donate money to political parties.
Currently the petition has 63 signatures; hardly the ringing enthusiasm I was hoping for when the House of Commons receives petitions with tens if not hundreds of thousands of signatures.
The current system for party funding is hardly fair - parties who are liked by the rich & powerful become major parties, those who have to rely on cold hard logic and public spirited-ness get side-lined and rarely get noticed.
Even more unjust is that it is there customers themselves are the people who are funding the Tory party - we are, each and every one of us, I am not a Tory yet by buying from businesses that support them I am funding them; in what world is that democracy?
Corporations take our money and they then donate it to the party that they want to win. Under the current system we are funding the Tory party buy buying from there corporate sponsors. I really don't want to have to start vetting who I buy my ties, my bread, my pastries and my fluffy handcuffs from based on who the shops and brands are funding so I'd much rather that big business and the state were separated, and businesses weren't allowed to donate at all.
We are funding Cameron's road back to number 10, each and every one of us, every time we buy a pie, a loaf of bread or decide we want a night of kinky sex according to this Mirror article, because of the number of big businesses and sheer quantity of money they are donating:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/buying-12-things-means-youre-5391826
Enough is enough, please sign:
Currently the petition has 63 signatures; hardly the ringing enthusiasm I was hoping for when the House of Commons receives petitions with tens if not hundreds of thousands of signatures.
The current system for party funding is hardly fair - parties who are liked by the rich & powerful become major parties, those who have to rely on cold hard logic and public spirited-ness get side-lined and rarely get noticed.
Even more unjust is that it is there customers themselves are the people who are funding the Tory party - we are, each and every one of us, I am not a Tory yet by buying from businesses that support them I am funding them; in what world is that democracy?
Corporations take our money and they then donate it to the party that they want to win. Under the current system we are funding the Tory party buy buying from there corporate sponsors. I really don't want to have to start vetting who I buy my ties, my bread, my pastries and my fluffy handcuffs from based on who the shops and brands are funding so I'd much rather that big business and the state were separated, and businesses weren't allowed to donate at all.
We are funding Cameron's road back to number 10, each and every one of us, every time we buy a pie, a loaf of bread or decide we want a night of kinky sex according to this Mirror article, because of the number of big businesses and sheer quantity of money they are donating:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/buying-12-things-means-youre-5391826
Enough is enough, please sign:
#DemandDemocracy
Thursday 6 November 2014
Open Letter of complaint to Arriva regards quality of there buses in Northern England
Dear Arriva,
I am writing and publishing this open letter to complain about
the (lack of) service you seem to be providing in Cleveland and the North
Yorkshire coast area of England.
Firstly in many bus stops that have both electronic and
paper timetables the times advertised differ leaving travellers not knowing
which one is accurate.
Last weekend I travelled from Middlesbrough to Whitby on
both the Friday and the Saturday and found the service to be appalling.
The electronic timetables in Middlesbrough bus station
stated that the busses started at 08.50, however the first bus arrived at 09.20
on both days leaving a large crowd waiting in Middlesbrough bus station waiting
for a bus which didn’t come (93 bus).
On the way back on the Saturday I found myself in an
argument with a driver who after seeing my return Whitby Middlesbrough ticket (number
4 bus) failed to notify me that the bus in fact terminated at Redcar, when the
front of the bus stated the destination was travelling to Middlesbrough via
Loftus. When I confronted the driver he informed me that I should have asked
when I got on if the bus was going to Middlesbrough, which I do not believe I
should have to do:
Firstly I should not have to ask to confirm that a bus is
travelling to the destination its front sign claims it is travelling to.
Secondly by presenting a Whitby-Middlesbrough return ticket
to the driver, as far as I am concerned I did precisely that.
He also told me that I should have looked at the timetable
in the bus station in Whitby, which at the stop he had parked in only had
information for the 93 and x93 service; when I told him this he told me that
that is the councils responsibility.
If I did not have money for a second ticket to take me the
rest of the journey the misinformation provided would have left me stranded in
a neighboring town on a Saturday night.
Thursday 9 October 2014
Book reviewers and bloggers wanted
Hi everyone; just to let you know I'm offering discounted copies of my latest book Daniella Beckett and the Beast of Whitechapel to book reviewers and bloggers to try to get some promotional feedback.
Anybody interested should get in touch by going to the facebook page for my novel http://www.facebook.com/daniellabeckettnovel and messaging me for a discount code which can be used to order from CreateSpace at https://www.createspace.com/4646499 which is the page for my book.
This should be appealing to anybody who likes a gripping horror/werewolf story.
The RRP of my book is $9.75 plus p&p, the discount code will allow the book to be purchased for $5 plus p&p.
Previous blog entries include a video trailer and the prologue and first chapter free to read.
Anybody interested should get in touch by going to the facebook page for my novel http://www.facebook.com/daniellabeckettnovel and messaging me for a discount code which can be used to order from CreateSpace at https://www.createspace.com/4646499 which is the page for my book.
This should be appealing to anybody who likes a gripping horror/werewolf story.
The RRP of my book is $9.75 plus p&p, the discount code will allow the book to be purchased for $5 plus p&p.
Previous blog entries include a video trailer and the prologue and first chapter free to read.
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