We are in a race between disaster and catastrophe

Today, someone I consider a friend, posted a few rants on facebook.

First she posted a link to a note that her friend had posted. The headline screamed MUSLIM DAY OUT IN ALTON TOWERS.

I read the note, there was no source, just an article stating that the day was planned in summer for a day of halal food at alton towers, prayer sections and segrating the sexes from going on rides together, and a quote from a 19 year old boy who wanted to go on that particular day, tried to book it and was refused because he was a non muslim.

I then read her post about the current government being wankers and racist to christian people.

A couple of her statements I remember read:-

'Can you imagine the muslim reaction if we demanded a day out?'

'The government are breaking the law, what about the Equality Act 2010?'

Then her friend added a reply. His profile picture depicted two drunken looking men {likely himself and a friend) red faced, one arm up, each with mouths open as if they were shouting. If I were to judge his picture I'd say they had ASBOs. He said, and I'm paraphrasing:-

"When you defend this country you get labelled a racist!" 

My friend replied to him to reassure him he's not racist in this case by speaking out. His response was?

"FUCK OFF ALL YOU PA*I SCUM"

(That is not paraphrased. I have censored -  although, he did not)

I decided to google this news story. Firstly, it was from 2006, secondly it was organistion that had created a promotional event called 'Muslim Day Out in Alton Towers'. Other people were welcome at alton towers on the day, but would have to adhere to the segregated rides and halal food which I agree is unfair - religion should not be enforced upon anyone.

But the Muslim community certainly weren't demanding a 'Muslim Day,' organising it, or even attending it! The group who were obviously trying to promote themselves and cause a stir couldn't even shift 1,000 tickets and it ended up cancelled - I know this, because the Sun were so interested in following up on the story. I didn't read the full conclusion but I'm sure they encouraged their readers it was down to them the day out didn't happen.

I disagree.

I believe that is a good representation of the Muslim community in Britain. There are only a few idiots (as in any class, creed, gender, religion, race, country etc etc...)  and unfortunately they draw the media attention and we all should understand there is an underlying reason for that. We think we have a free media, but hopefully the recent Rupert Murdoch scandal will wake up any zombies who believe they're being told everything objectively.

It's interesting that this occurred today. Just yesterday I began this blog completely differently. I was shocked to hear that pop star Kelis rant on twitter about experiencing racism at one of the London airports, here is her account:

http://twitter.com/#!/iamkelis

"We just landed and I had the midget (her son) with me. We get in the passport control line and apparently pissed this one man off cause he thought I cut the line. Which wouldn't be far fetched of me but this time I actually didn't (not entirely anyway) well the point is from 0 to 60 This fat red faced sweaty "man" (I use the word man loosely here) started calling me a slave and told me to call him sir and how I was Probably a disgusting Nigerian. He called me kunta kinte and ranted and raved some more.

The man behind the passport desk laughed, shook his head in agreement I guess, and said "kunta kinte". All the while the entire line full of people I just sat on a plane with for almost 3hours, over 50 people said nothing. I mean literally nothing. Didn't flinch. We all no I'm no saint, so I retaliated. Not the way I wanted to Or how that pig deserved. But #1 my gorgeous baby boy was literally sitting on my hip and #2 I'm a believer. And we are better. Sposed to be.

Anyway, it made me think. This person was aprox a 50 year old English man. I didn't say anything at the time of the riots in London. For a lot of reasons. But I am in lLondon all the time and today I'm gonna say that the racial issues in the UK are disgusting. It's racially decades behind progression because everything is swept under the rug. People don't talk about it. People don't fight about it. Not mentioning a problem doesn't make it go away. I bring it up now because as an American it is abundantly clear that my country has a Smorgas board (spelling?) of disgusting racial problems. We are the poster child for racial inequality even still with a black president But its NO SECRET! And that I can fight against. I can try to prepare and teach my son. Because its out there. But you can't fight for or against something no one is willing to talk about or even admit exist. Everyone wants to be politically correct. But who really cares? And what does that help. I could go on and on. I won't. But maybe someone will start to talk about it from here."

I think we should talk about things, I find my own experience of racism mainly at school subtle but definitely life changing. It affects my confidence and belief in my self worth. My friend is so upset that there is no Christian sort of day, when she's Catholic. Earlier this week she had posted an image of the UK map with block letters written over it: "FUCK OFF! WE'RE FULL" but forgets her grandfather came here from Ireland - but then again I'm unsure if it's Northern Ireland - technical issue there in my statement.

I got involved in the posts on my friend's page, I told her she's getting angry over something which happened in 2006, and her friend who says he isn't racist, is a racist.

She deleted my reply informing her to stop being incensed over something in 2006. She deleted her friend's comment, then she wrote me a message which didn't resolve any of my issues. She ignored that it was an old article and asked why the muslims think they can do this, but that' I'm a mate, so no offence.

I told her I was not impressed by the 'you're alright you are, no offence' response.  I said

If the Sun wrote this in today's paper (it is not online as a new story when I googled it) it sounds like they're rehashing an old story. Also that organisation whoever the f they are, are probably just trying to stir things to promote themselves. This organisation organised a day out in 2006, less than 1,000 muslim's bought tickets so it got cancelled so how the f do muslims get the blame? They didn't ask for it. I can't believe you fell for it.

I have to wonder about someone who doesn't open their mind to facts plus the same day I read an article on a young boy jailed for 'trolling'. Sean Duffy posted offensive videos and messages on tribute pages for a girl who committed suicide after being bullied. The boy who was jailed actually suffered from Aspergers syndrome which may have affected his judgement. I would be less shocked if my ex-associate had ranted about this issue because to me.

I have no problems with people who debate and keep an open mind to the truth.

It does make me question where I fit in when it comes to contributing to the media. I don't believe in vilifying a religion over a group's actions. Condemn the group!

Back to the Future I thought I had. [Bio part 2]

I don’t know when I realised I wanted to write, I just remember always getting pens and pads for presents...so I would just write whatever came to me as I hung around my parents clothes stores. I was such a nerd I used to date my work too, some of them date back to ’91 which means I’ll have been 8.

First issue of Vibe I bought in 1996. Fugees cover - with a free casette featuring demos by D'Angelo and Erykah Badu

I used to buy all the magazines I could when I was younger, mainly Smash Hits, BIG, Top of the Pops, Vibe, Blues & Soul, Off The Wall, the odd copy of anything else with someone I really liked on the cover. A lot of times I thought "I could ask better questions than these people."

Many years later, in my Sixth Form book I wrote I wanted to be a music journalist.

When we studied a module on media at school I became really interested in becoming a journalist and writing books because I thought nobody was representing my opinions and I wanted to share my voice.

I was always inspired by my family and friends faith in my talents, but I had a lot of opportunites and setbacks which shouldn't have been hard to recover from if I had believed in myself.

I remember for my GCSE coursework we had write a story and a poem, I loved that assignment based on a jazz musician. When I got my work back my poem was missing. When I asked my teacher what happened she told me she entered it in a competition.

I didn't back my work up...I tried to recreate the poem but I never could re-write it. I don't know which competition she entered it into or if she won - I'd like to think it was that good that she did!

When I was 17 I saw a flyer in the library to be part of a BBC Talent workshop to create a pilot soap set in Bradford which ended up being called Khidaaar! [which apparently means what’s up in urdu – I think]

It was the most fun thing I had ever done in my life at that point, I loved working in a team creating a character, my group selected me to pitch our characters storyline

I won the first and last scene for my team's character which was a massive achievement. I thought this would be where my future lies. The show was directed by Kate Rowland who was head of BBC Radio. I ended up storyboarding for the episode and script editing and loved every minute of it.

My BA [Hons] degree was in Media Studies at Sheffield Hallam Uni.  I got my experience in journalism, pr, writing for film and writing for TV and learnt about media around the world and its history.

As soon as it was all ending I got a call, from someone who I’d worked with on the BBC Talent soap, saying he remembered how hard I worked and asked me if I would help him with a new company he set up.

I ended up being a band liaison manager – looking after the music artists he signed up. I’d accompany them on festivals and take care of their backing tracks.

After a while I ended up as company secretary – just because the role was available, I guess! I threw myself into the work, without getting paid as I was living off my student loan [I was very good –  non drinker here!].

I loved that we hosted workshops for people of any age. We ended up writing a theatre piece and performing it in 2 cities for Black History Month 2004. I designed the flyer [with 1 or 2 mistakes on it]. It was great, conceiving the play with the CEO and the participants who were encouraged to develop their characters.

We also made a film documentary called “When Something Ruled The World” which got screened alongside our theatre piece .

I was also responsible for a member of staff under the job centre scheme and speaking to the local press, Huddersfield Examiner in which we were featured quite a lot.

It was an amazing role, I left it not because I wasn’t getting paid properly, I would still be there but I could never stick up for myself and I would get blamed for everything going wrong. It still makes me emotional thinking about it, because I lost a job I loved so much. I never found anything like it since.

My confidence was knocked, my self esteem was shattered and  I couldn’t get a job like that again and thought I would fail at it anyway. I ended up at a call centre for just over 2 years listening to people who were in debt. I’d go home and cry about their day as well as mine. It was awful hearing their stories. The only thing that kept me there so long was the fact I really loved my team.

It got to the point where I thought if I can’t get a job doing what I want, maybe I should run my own theatre workshop group, which I found hard to get off the ground, I didn't want to do it the way I learnt from my previous boss, I wanted to start small scale and with funding, so while trying to set that up I thought I'd get a job at least using my IT skills.

I got a job in admin that was different from the call centre, I liked a couple of people but otherwise I was surrounded by mostly miserable people who’d worked there a long time, and I didn’t want to become one of them, so after almost 2 years I managed to get another admin job at Bradford Council.

Admin, although I could do it well, I began to sink. Saving me though -  my stifled creativity was bursting to come back out with the theatre project, some free lance articles and I ended up on a music album...

Spotlight: Tom Cain's break into the media





Tom Cain Assassin



Tom Cain is the pseudonym for the author of thrillers Assassin, Accident-Man and Dictator. The award winning journalist tells me how he got his break in the media.

By pure chance...



In the summer of 1979, when I was still at university, my parents were living in the States. So I spent a lot of my vacations living with my girlfriend and her parents. But then we broke up and I had nowhere to live. I was literally out on my arse in the street. The only person I knew in London was a guy whose brother was married to my half-aunt (tenuous, huh?) I called him up and asked if I could have a bed for the night. He said, sure, but he warned me that his flat was about to be used as the office for a bunch of Times and Sunday Times journalists, temporarily without work owing to a printers’ strike at the paper, who were about to do a spoof newspaper called Not The Times. To cut a long story short, I ended up being the Not The Times tea-boy and dogsbody, got to know a bunch of journos and 18 months later, when I was an unemployed graduate, one of them gave me a day’s shift as a researcher on the Sunday Times. And I was off …



The hardest struggle was simply getting my foot in the door. It took about 18 months and I got very, very low at times along the way – also very, very broke – but once I got my foot in the door I was very lucky and things happened fast. I was Young Journalist of the Year and a professional magazine editor within three years of my first paid day’s work. But it’s still a struggle, perhaps of a different kind. It’s a very, very tough world right now for journalists and authors. I’m having to work much harder and hustle much more fiercely to get less well paid. And 99% of writers would say the same.



I was writing non-fiction and humour books right from the start of my career. Back in the 80s it was much easier to get a publisher to take a punt on a silly idea. The money wasn’t big, but it gave you experience and a track record. I was also very lucky in that I had a mate who came from a very powerful family who ran a big TV/radio/literary agency, so I also got a couple of TV gigs. The agent fired me when I turned down the chance to be on ‘That’s Life’ which was a very popular, but very cheesy BBC show starring Esther Rantzen … But by then I had enough of a CV and enough contacts that I could get another agent. I kept publishing stuff over the years. And so when I had the idea for The Accident Man, my first Sam Carver novel, I had no trouble getting an agent interested in the idea. Turning the idea into an actual book, though ... well, that was a whole other matter …





Tom Cain Accident Man