Seany's Blog

People have said to me in the past you should write it all down. Not many people get to stand on top of the royal albert hall. Or race down the mall in golf buggies. Or dress Bono up as a steward, and stand at a gate and check tickets. Sit and have lunch in the BBC Canteen with Arther Lowe,  Or stand on the deck of one of the largest aircraft carriers in the world. Meet countless celebrities and stars of film and rock and roll. But sad to say I have. Now this isn't about bragging about what I've done and who I've Met. Its about getting it on paper before I cant see anymore, its about my past life or what my fuddled brain remembers. Its an account of a different time BHS if you like before health and safety. Before I was diagnosed with MS. There are so many stories where do you start. I guess it would have to be a visit to the old BBC TV Centre in wood lane where I would spend the whole day as an official visitor. Back in those days I was a freckly kid, It was a time of...

Ignorance is Bliss 20 May 2017 “He's turning into that bloke Fitz in Catford” someone overheard about me the other day. If anyone bothered to watch ‘I, Daniel Blake’, that is what my life has become through no fault of my own. And it’s not a nice place to be. It’s like being an outcast. I am ashamed and so should you all be. This is how we treat people in our society today.  I have to say looking back at the last blog I was a bit harsh. But seeing as they don’t read it who cares what they think. I always used to live my life in the fast lane, just like you going to work coming home getting pissed watching episode after episode of the latest thing everyone else is watching so there something to twit about on twitter. I used to buy the latest ‘phones when they arrived on the shelf. As I've mentioned before I have a bloody nice camera and take a bloody good photo if I do say so myself. I love my two cats Eduardo (named after watching Family Guy at college many years ago.) That...

I wanted to go online and was handed this: Great if you’re on Facebook or Twitter, but hang on, what's this new icon I have never seen before? Do any of you know what that means? I am not writing this for my benefit because believe me it’s for all of you. One day you will all be old and become invisible, just like me. I was offered the chance to go and talk about becoming a digital champion for said Council but when you are ten minutes early as you should be if you consider anything important, and the person you’re supposed to be meeting hasn’t even rocked up yet and arrives 15 minutes after you, that winds me up. There are two kids sat behind the reception desk. One on the phone, and I said I had come to see so and so and he wheeled his chair over to the other antique monitor bolted to a pole, to look at the same website you get at home. He then rolled back and rang the extension number.  Now I am here to meet someone championing what is being done “How do you...

I am not Larry Lamb18 May 2017 "Are you sure you’re not Larry Lamb?" There's my passport, letter from the hospital with my diagnosis and a utility bill. "He does look like him". For the last time ladies I am not Larry F@#king Lamb. SECURITY! That’s how the day started. I spent a good hour on the laptop this morning trying to apply for a disabled freedom pass  I was told last week I could have had five years ago. I took the advice from last time “You need to apply online Sir”. So off I went. On to the Lewisham Council website. I started ticking boxes, as you do, and answered all the questions. Then it all went to shit!  Or did it? Those of you that know me well think I'm grumpy and moaning all the time. When I taught my friend Dave how to use a computer it involved a lot of shouting “Read what you’re doing” “Slow down a bit and listen to what I'm telling you”. Back me up Moyles you know. “Do it online” “Do it online” that’s all you hear these...

Answerphones and Adverts (living in the virtual world) 17 May 2017 Today I say goodbye to Facebook. It has become addictive, confrontational, full of people who just want to argue. “Ramblings of a mad man” someone said to me today because I happened to put up a post about ATOS. It seems I am now fully invisible to them all, a real shock as I only started talking about my disability a couple of weeks ago. So it’s goodbye.  Life is too short and too precious to me now to be worrying about what you had for breakfast. At 5 tonight this gets deleted, so say your goodbyes and send me a yellow dot with a face on it because half of you won’t even read this and I cannot be arsed with any of it anymore. I put that on my Facebook today to see what would happen. I was online this morning and nearly got into a new argument about yet another coffee shop to add to our neighbourhood. The usual questions started to be asked. Is it buggy friendly? do they have highchairs? How's the wi/fi? Is ...

Cathy, I Love You 15 May 2017 Now just in case you missed the news today, that actually happened. Cathy I Love You. As I said in my first post the NHS have bent over backwards and been there throughout. The news today that nurses are to go on strike saddens me deeply. And the news about MRSA and cuts and millions of pounds being spent on a daily basis is bombarding us in tweets and pictures wherever we look. It’s been like that for ever. Hasn't it? Let’s take a look at how I see it. The massive hack at the weekend was a result of having outdated software. We all rush out to grab the latest gadgets as soon as they come out. Take the iPhone you’re reading this on, or tablet, or laptop. All have software built in to kill them in a few years’ time so that you have to buy a new one. We all want the latest because we are bombarded with flashing TV images adverts for everything the big boys upstairs want us to buy. Well some bright spark up high decided one day that instead of buyi...

Turn it Off, I dare you? As I sit here looking out of my first floor window At Derek The smaller of the two idiots I live with, Bouncing around in the tall grass. Battering the Mouse he Just caught. Eduardo Stretched out on the pavement, waiting for the next train to arrive, so that his many friends who know him well, will stop and give him a stroke Rolling round on his back like a beached Walrus. (Who ever is feeding him please stop.) I can look back on a great day. I cannot tell you how liberating it is to switch off your internet and phone Say f'#k you Facebook for the day and get out with friends and enjoy yourselves. I am quite lucky I live in a nice Neighbourhood not too far from the south bank in london town. That’s darn Sarf if your T Northerner's. He he sorry I digest.   The ITV Studios are a bus ride away and from mine you can be there in just over 40 minutes on T bus. Stop it now. I am allowed I was born up there. Today I went with three mates to w...

Don’t write us off.  You might learn something 14 May 2017 What ever happened to be nice to one another? Oh that’s right - we would rather stare at a screen. I am guilty of it. I have replaced my addiction for nicotine (and shall we say other harmful substances), with ‘likes’ on Facebook and smiley faces. When Tim Bernard Lee first invented the internet he gave it away to the world. As the hacking attack proved on Friday last week it has become a monster as well as a wonderful tool which now connects us all together. My reason for doing it isn't by choice and I also make the effort to get out and see people. I live next to the local train station and see on a daily basis hundreds of people staring at their screens, as they wait to herd onto over crowded trains. I live right on the corner and watch as motorists approach the junction, mobiles in hand, sending text messages. Kids with the latest ‘phones playing games as the traffic flies by, oblivious to the dangers around them. We...

There is help out there. If you know where to look 13 May 2017 I spent the last five years kidding myself I wasn’t ill, coming to terms with the fact it’s never going to get better. When I was diagnosed back in 2012 I treated the whole thing as a joke. MS? What the hell is that? That’s for old people surely. They are in wheelchairs and are miserable all the time. How wrong can a person be. Most people with the disease learn over time to control it and live long and productive lives. The support offered is out there and after a bit of research it’s amazing and you find you’re not alone. I was miserable and blocked it out of my mind at first and that made me feel even worse. Why me? Most people diagnosed are between the ages of 20 and 40. I was 48 when the first signs presented themselves. I suffered really badly with depression back in the day, tried anti-depressants, but that just made me feel numb and out of touch with reality. So I gave that up and turned to alcohol to blank out h...

Young vs Old 11 May 2017 I was always taught to respect your elders, something that seems to have been forgotten in today’s society. Don’t get me wrong, I am sure there are a lot of parents out there who still strive to teach their children the same family values their parents taught them. But there is a lost generation out there with no such values. The world has changed a great deal since I was a child. I grew up in a small village with no mobile phones or video games. The internet didn't exist and a clip round the ear was still acceptable if you did something wrong. Fast forward to yesterday. I just finished teaching at my ‘ITs Easy’ class. Something I set up to make computers and phones easier for mature people. I had a new student turn up today who lives a few doors down from me. Peter is his name and he's 92 years young. We walked down to the bus stop and a kid who must have been 14 rode his bike straight at me on the pavement shouting and swearing at us to get out of ...

Now and Then 10 May 2017 Can you imagine the shame and embarrassment of walking down your high street in the middle of summer, wearing shorts, with diarrhoea running down your legs for everyone to see? Just one of the side effects of the medication I am on for my MS. There's also the  fatigue, failing eyesight, not being able to feel my left foot, and the pain in my lower back is now constant and something I wouldn't wish on anyone. I am stuck at home with my two cats and the Internet. A prisoner in my own little world. Sure I get out, but even walking to the shop down the road is an effort. The PIP helped a lot. I was eating properly, going shopping once a week and cooking healthy meals. There was a bit left over to have a couple of beers with the boys and I could just about survive. Now while I wait for my next assessment, it’s back to the foodbank. I starve. Some days I eat a lot of toast, fish fingers and mash. It’s only for a year I will survive. That’s what now is like...

Don't let the bastards get you down 9 May 2017 There is a line from The Shawshank Redemption “Get busy living or get busy dying”. I tried to explain what it’s like to be caught in the system yesterday. A never ending barrage of abuse and ignorance from ATOS and the DWP. You have to be so strong willed to get through it all and they rely on people giving up. The more I read about how the system is destroying peoples’ lives and the amount of deaths I am sickened. I would like to see any of the MPs in charge live on £100 a week in London. The sanctions imposed by the Job Centre cut that in half, and as they don’t send letters anymore, you only find out when you go to get money from the bank. You then have to give them proof as to why you didn’t turn up. I read the other day of a woman who had her £8,000 mobility car taken away and then offered £46,000 in taxi fares so she can continue working part time. Another had her car taken away after yet another assessment. She has chronic ast...

What now? 8 May 2017 When I turned around to look at something, that’s when my life changed forever. Something as simple as moving my head triggered a series of events that where to have a huge effect on me as a person and my way of life. My eyes where the first things to go. They stopped behaving as they should. The right stuck in the corner. “That’s not right” I thought, and the next morning trotted off to the optician at the top of the road. He took one look and immediately phoned King’s College Hospital and told me to get there as soon as I could. Luckily for me it’s only a couple of stops on the train from where I live.  About twenty minutes later I was seen by a doctor and admitted. “We have to run some tests” I was told.  Two days later I was told it could be MS. At the time I joked about it saying “Does that mean I have to stop shopping at Sainsbury's?”. it wasn’t until I got home and read through all the leaflets that the reality started to sink in. Let me tell you...