Got Issues?

There's pressure on me from a couple of sides to blog, cuz it's been a couple of days, and even though I'm in one of my mopey don't-feel-like-blogging funks (which is actually just a normal funk), I'm kinda coming out of it.

I know this homeless guy who sells big issues around the corner outside a supermarket. I know him because, well, I went to tescos once and he was practically unconcious, drunk, on the floor outside. I'd seen him about, said hi a few times, brought an issue or two off him, and I knew that if I left him there the police would be along soon enough and hassle would ensue. So I picked him up and took him back to mine for coffee.

I did this because, underneath the cynicsm and misanthropy, the caustic wit and sarcasm, I'm just a goof with a big heart.

So I took him back to mine, gave him coffee to sober him up, and in exchange he told me the story of his life, albeit a drunken slurred version.

Anyway, I just popped out to get some milk, and he was there. I said hi and we chatted a little. He was a state. A fractured arm, fingers, fucked up skull. He says the police did it, but he had no witnesses, so he can't do anything. I gotta say I took it with a pinch of salt, although only a very little one. Whether or not the police did it someone had fucked him up pretty bad.

The fact of the matter is homeless people get treated like shit.

The Big Issue, if you don't know, and hey you might not, is a UK charity (international now) dedicated to helping the homeless. They do this, amongst other ways, using a magazine, an intelligent pop culture type thing similar to what you get with the guardian on saturdays, which vendors (homeless or pretentially homeless people who sign up) then sell on the streets. They buy the magazine at a reduced price and sell it on at profit. A pretty good idea if you ask me, although it has been abused in the past, and the sheer amount of vendors you see about in town can make them kinda annoying. I guess that's just a symptom of Cardiff though.

But Cardiff's symptoms are another entry.

The Big Issue has just recently launched a campaign to raise the profile of its vendors in the public eye after a recent survey showed the amount of verbal, and sometimes physical, abuse they recieve. I saw the stats. It weren't pretty.

My dad used to bitch about the homeless, telling tales of issue sellers wearing Nikes and driving BMWs, but to be honest he tends to suffer from Working Class Bitterness.

( read more about The Big Issue over at the guardian - reg required now, but they're terribly apologetic about it )

well, that was a paticularly unfocused post...