Walking wins (Edinburgh Snow)

Just walked the approximate two mile round trip to buy provisions at the local Tesco. Bike paths all the way. A busy with pedestrians as your average summer evening, a few dogs and passed by five daring cyclists. Took less than an hour, including the shop. No accidents witnessed, no grid lock, no skidding tires. People in good humour.

Walking wins.

(photo by Lesley Anne Rose)

It's good to see the kids on back on the streets again

Lothian bus drivers protest outside of Edinburgh City Chambers. Story here.

Reclaim the Streets 2

There is a slightly frightening and altogether disturbing subtext of the recent BBC article "Police need to 'Reclaim Streets'" mentioned in my previous post (http://tinyurl.com/2fhyo3w). If you look at the the two tables in the article, one of what is being reported as anti-social behaviour and the second, who should deal with it. Overwhelmingly, it is the police, responsible for curbing criminal activity and keeping the peace, who are 'should' be responsible for dealing with anti-social behaviour on our streets. Yet the top two complaint categories involve perfectly legal, and potentially peaceful, behaviours, drinking in public* (except underage drinking, of course), and youths hanging out on streets. Even 'rowdy and inconsiderate behaviour' isn't a matter of legality of perception and tolerance.

Once you involve the police in matters that are social in nature you risk anti-social behaviour being criminalised in an inappropriate way. Over the years since the introduction of the ASBO (Anti-Social Behaviour Order) the media has been awash with stories like that of the learning disabled boy given an ASBO for looking over the neighbour's fence too often. As an ASBO, once breached, can lead to criminal charges, Britain has essentially criminalised perfectly innocent activities. Most sinister, I believe, were the councils that tried to use ASBOs to control prostitution, blocking particular women from entering areas of a city and then charging them with the breach of the ASBO if they did, thereby criminalising activity which is not illegal by subterfuge.

Soon after moving into my current home, a local politician knocked on the door and asked, amongst other things, if the anti-social behaviour problem at the end the road had been solved. It seems that teenagers used a courtyard at the end of the road to hangout on weekends and during the summer. I said I hadn't notice and problems. I was aware that kids moved up and down the street on weekend, and on the paths across the road. I was aware that they were occasionally noisy. Talking to neighbours, it seems that what most of us on the street took to be innocent if a bit high spirited behaviour, a few neighbours saw as anti-social. The police were called in and the kids cleared out. This kind of action runs the risk of turning boisterous antics into truly anti-social if not anti-society behaviour and does nothing to help young peoples' relationship with police and other adult society.

The courtyard is a great little area. Used during the day by dog walkers, on weekends at times by families overflowing from the flats that flank it and makes a great viewpoint for Edinburgh's fireworks. It is wonderfully located to be private but not isolated, quiet but connected. So why would it not make a great meeting point for local teens on the weekends? Only because it disturbs our television watching to have teens enjoying themselves outside our weather sealed windows.

Criminalising here-to-fore legal activities outside the constraints of the legal system by involving police in what are essentially problems with the organisation of our communities is indeed a sinister move. It makes the law arbitrary. I strongly suspect that I, a white, heading to middle aged and educated young man would be far less likely to be accused of anti-social behaviour if I decided to have a beer at the end of the road than would many other in society, and therefore my activity would not be criminalised in the way that others' would, for example. By demanding that the police react to localised and subjective complaints of curtain twitchers and jobs worths, we undermine the centuries old legal system that has evolved protections of individual rights and keep reactionary, vote harvesting politicians away from the processes of the legal system. I'm no great fan of our punitive legal system, but I trust it far more than I trust the upstart and arbitrary ASBO system, a symbol and symptom of the a society of individuals that have receded into their little caves, frightened to go out in a community around them which is less familiar to them than the scenes on their big screen televisions and who view every youngster on every corner as a threat.


* it might surprise North American readers that drinking alcohol in public is legal except in certain areas

Reclaim the Streets

In my university days, this "Take Back the Streets" was a battle cry for the Women's movement. Today, according to the a BBC report a recent Ipsos MORI survey and BBC report, it's the battle cry of the police.

While it is unsurprising to note that the Tories in Britain's government are demanding that more police should be on the streets and blaming the previous government (despite historic highs in police numbers, and unprecedented police presence on the streets and the new governments cutback to police and local funding) for the breakdown of street safety and the rise of anti-social behaviour. It is also unsurprising to find the police using a survey that points to increase public concern about anti-social behaviour (not, it should be pointed out, actual increases)and public belief of who should be responsible for sorting it out, to suggest their funding shouldn't be cut. It is surprising, when the watchwords of the current government is the 'big society' that the iron fist of the (state) police should be called in to sort out what is essentially a series of local problems.

So what does this have to do with this blog? Everything. Today the battle cry to Reclaim the Streets should be on all our lips. This is one of the essential points of this blog. We reclaim the streets by being on the streets. Young people have always been on the streets. I was on the streets in the late 70s and through the 80s. A few years ago I was involved in a reminiscence project in Lancashire and was regaled by stories of older people about their teenage years on the streets, harassing cops and misbehaving.

What is the difference? The difference is that now young people are the only people on the streets. When I was young, I was constantly bumping into adults, parents of my friends, friends of my parents. In some cases when I was roaming around a little drunk with my friends, these adult warned us where the police were so we wouldn't get in trouble. In other cases, they just said hello. What they told me was I was safe, they were looking out for me, but they were aware that I was out, that I was off the straight and narrow and that I should be careful. The affect was to reign in my actions, give me boundaries.

But where are we now. By "we" I mean us adults. Today I walked through a park at 6.30pm. I was the only adult in that park. My peers are behind the wheel of their cars, sitting in their front rooms watching big screen televisions and getting drunk. I walk through a small courtyard near where I live on a regular basis. It is a hangout for local young people (and receives regular visits from the police). As I walk through, the kids grow a little quieter, some say hello and some apologise if they get in my way or swear a little loudly (disturbingly, some call me sir). If more people were on the street, those kids would be reminded of those boundaries they are learning to struggle against, learning how and where they can be stretched and how and where they can't. Without us, there are no boundaries to push against, all shackles are off. There is no end to experiments in power and excess. That's what I learned as a teenager on the street. I learned my boundaries. I learned what I would and wouldn't accept. And I learned that, despite my anger at society and systems and my politics, that the most important single thing is respect for the individuals in my community. All of them, well, most.

In particular I thank Terry McCann for this. For smiling and chatting with me as I smuggled cider out of my parents home. He said I respect you, but I'm keeping an eye on you.

Over the coming blog entries, I will return to this. The stats are interesting when you look at them in another way. So are the experiences. And so is history. More to come.

Three feet High and Rising

Gormley gets bollocks wet.



Recent rains have seen the Water of Leith rising two wet a couple Gormley testes near Powder Hall.

Pleasure Cut

While a driver will take a short cut – or rat run – in order to save a minute or two, a pedestrian will find an alternate route which takes the walker through a spot of beauty or quiet, a generally more pleasant place to walk – a Pleasure Cut.

View from a Pleasure Cut taken to and from work on dry days.

Why we live in Edinburgh 1