This is a story about intrusive thoughts...

I've never been able to find the 'off' button for my brain or my mouth. That's a problem.

I also have a rather photographic memory, and can construct well reasoned arguments based on evidence. Most people just tend to go with their gut feeling, and are happy to be wrong about things, because what they want to be true feels more natural to them. Being wrong is also great if you want to carry on living your decadent hedonistic life in ignorant bliss of the suffering that it causes to other people.

Sadly, if you have a rational, logical brain, good memory and you have collected a lot of varied experiences from around the world, so that you can compare and contrast everything that you see and integrate it into a 'big picture' then you have a limited tolerance for small minded people.

Yes, this is extremely condescending. Sorry about that.

So, fundamentally, I lost my job went homeless and wailed at the moon because of an existential crisis. The first thing I did when I got back to London was to sign up for a Philosophy course. I feel that I have died a thousand deaths, and I fear not one more. My priorities in life are a little different from yours.

The bottom line is this: all this talk of ending war & poverty is hot air. Many years have passed since the so-called 'enlightenment' and we are still allowing evil deeds to be committed in our name. You cannot fight for peace, just like you cannot fuck for virginity.

The war on terror is terrorism. Look at the faces of refugees fleeing the illegal wars in the Middle East. They are terrified.

That is all.

Tags: #homeless #terrorism #notanonymous #politics #career #london #bipolar #politics

This is a story about being an activist...

The streets of London are home to a huge population of runaways, refugees and other homeless people who have been marginalised by society. We tend to ignore them and their struggles. There are so many, we can't help them all, right?

I'm not OK with people freezing to death on the streets, right under the noses of the wealthy. I'm not OK with just walking past human suffering on a daily basis, on the commute to the office. There are people huddling in shop doorways for a little shelter from the elements. It's brutal out there, and things are getting worse.

There are no words to describe just how cold it is, sleeping rough. I have slept on a glacier. Millions of tonnes of creaking ice. That's cold, even with a decent sleeping bag, sleeping mat, and a tent. Sleeping out on the streets is just as tough - most homeless people don't have equipment that cost hundreds of pounds. The most vulnerable people in our society don't even have enough money for food, clothes and other basics that they depend upon.

Normally charities will expect you to reach for your wallet. Normally charities will expect you to donate money. The whole fundraise & spend model of charity has failed, sadly. People and corporations are just not giving enough. People and corporations are treating charitable giving as a way to absolve themselves of personal responsibility for the wrongdoing in a society that they belong to.

Let's start with some empathy, instead.

If you haven't roughed it ever in your life, or it's been a very long time since you were truly soaked to the skin, freezing cold, shivering, and with chattering teeth... then you have lost touch with what some of your fellow human beings are going through. There are people freezing to death, here, in a supposedly civilised advanced Western econonmy. I'm not OK with that.

Please, try and make it to West India Quay with some warm clothes and a good sleeping bag, and sleep out with us. 7pm to 7am on Thursday 12th November 2015. It's incredible that this can take place when Canary Wharf Estate don't really want a whole tent army right under the noses of rich bankers!

The Centrepoint charity has worked incredibly hard to make this possible, and only by agreeing to do things in the most unbelievably controlled way. There is private security for the event, as well as Canary Wharf's own private security force, making sure that the wrong sort of people are not protesting about the abhorrent situation of young people being left freezing to death on the streets of London.

Sadly, in the 3 years that this event has been happening in Canary Wharf, my ex-employer JPMorgan Chase & Co has donated a paltry £70,000. That's a disgustingly small amount of money considering how this bank has wrecked lives. One of my colleagues was driven to #suicide by the insanity of what Global Banking is doing to the world.

I absolutely do not want to see this event lose credibility, so please sign up for an official ticket and donate whatever you can afford: https://www.centrepoint.org.uk/news-events/events/sleep-out/west-india-quay

Whatever happens, please please please tell everyone you know about the plight of the homeless and support this event.

7pm to 7am, Thursday 12th November, 2015.

So, last week, I was working for HSBC on their number one project. The biggest bank in Europe at the moment is HSBC. They just declared quarterly profits have risen 33% to $6bn. That's a substantial amount of cash that they have extracted from the world's pockets!

So, how much do HSBC care about the homeless? Well they employed a homeless person (me) but their due diligence should have prevented me from getting that job and working my way out of poverty and debt. I should have been trapped into living on the streets.

We can't have the wrong sort of people getting ahead in life, can we? It's all about the rich getting richer, at the expense of the destruction of society by people who already have more than they need.

I made sure I got this email from the HSBC Group so that nobody is going to get sued! Hurrah!

I've got a bunch of other emails that prove that Corporate and Social Responsibility is a joke. These companies pay a pittance in order to try and cover up wrongdoing on an unimaginable scale. The institutional corruption is disgusting.

I'm being warned by journalist friends to flee for my life for whistleblowing. You'll be able to find me... sleeping rough somewhere in London. If the Safer Streets teams can't find people, then good luck to the banks with their teams of lawyers out to gag me!

Come and sleep rough with us!

That is all.

 Tags: #homeless #frankie #london #banking #capitalism #notanonymous

This is a story about goodbyes...

Oh, Megabank Plc. I would go to the ends of the Earth for you. Shame the feeling wasn't mutual and you grew tired of my unique style. Oh well. Best of luck with the #1 project and looking after your 213,000 shareholders in 131 countries, 48 million customers and 245,000 employees in 72 countries.

Here is a picture of a random homeless guy.

Tags: #banking #career #homeless #london #frankie #capitalism #notanonymous

This is a story about some bags I lost...

I think I might have accidentally left some bags unattended on the underground. When I was riding the tube around London, distributing free colourful cardboard stars, during rush hour on Bonfire Night, November 5th 2015, I think I may have been a little distracted by the fact that I had lost my job. I also haven't been taking my medication. Oops.

I've made this little map, to show where I went with my bags, while distributing free colourful cardboard stars. I have put a star on the map to indicate where I think I might have lost each of the bags. The tube stations were pretty busy at rush hour, so I'm sure lots of people went right by my unattended bags, but whether they picked them up and took them to lost property I don't know yet.

I'm so pleased that there wasn't any disruption caused by me leaving my bags unattended. I know that unattended bags are something that we need to be vigilant of, as Londoners, during a time when we are dropping bombs on Syrians and causing a major refugee crisis. I know that bags on mass transit are something we should be worried about when planes are being blown up in Egypt.

Luckily, in this instance, the bags were totally safe. Nothing to worry about.

Stay safe, London.

Tags: #notanonymous #terrorism

This is a story about the lives of others...

The more a person spies on another person, the more they see themself reflected back. The more they sympathise and see the ordinary humanity in the person that they are spying on. The more empathy they feel, the more they start to doubt the ethics of spying.

We can use software to do a lot of the 'heavy lifting' of spying, but we still need intelligence officers to actually then do in-depth analysis after red flags are raised by the systems that monitor our electronic communication.

These analysts may then be sanctioned to perform further, more in-depth snooping, if there looks to be a strong case to justify the further intrusion into the life of that citizen. They have to argue the case to their superiors. They also have to argue the case because it's their job to make cases. If they didn't think anybody was worth spying on, there wouldn't be any jobs in the intelligence field.

When a case is accepted, then even more information is gathered, sometimes at great expense. Then, somebody has to pick up the bill. It's time to start building a case now against that person, to make them pick up the bill.

The usual ways that the intelligence agencies will make their citizens pay would be prosecution for terrorism, fraud, drug trafficking, prostitution, human trafficking, weapons. Unfortunately, this can also extend to anti-establishment activity, which would not be criminal. The only payback would be a smear campaign, which is a lot easier if you have lots of juicy details about that person's private life that you have snooped without their knowledge.

There's never any backing down. Nobody will ever say "On reflection, I was wrong and we should not have pryed into the private life of this citizen" because nobody wants to look stupid. Everybody wants to justify the case that was made and actions that were taken.

All I'm going to say is this: I'm only human, and I've never engaged in organised crime or terrorism.

That is all.

Tags: #privacy #politics #civildisobedience #notanonymous

This is a story about you. This is a story about me. This is a story about everybody...

Hi, my name's Nick Grant, and I'm not anonymous.

I believe anonymity creates lonliness, isolation and kills the social ties that bond us all together. If we don't know any of the names of the people with whom we share a cramped tube carriage, then we are living far too anonymously. You know what the person next to you smells like, but you don't know their name.

Without social structure, we can act in inhumane ways. We start to see people as statistics. We start to treat people with no regard for their feelings, for their safety.

SAFE

We all just want to feel safe and secure. Do you feel safe and secure? I hope you do. I see it as a human right. I think it's being infringed by the way we have organised ourselves into ultra dense urban populations, where we are mistrustful of each other.

You shouldn't mistrust me. I just want to be friends. I just want everybody to get along.

London, please don't be alarmed. I come in peace. I'm unarmed and I'm not out to harm, alarm or upset anybody.

So, if you see me on the tube, say "Hi Nick" if you recognise me. I will be overwhelmed that somebody knows who I am. I feel really anonymous. I don't like being anonymous. I feel unloved.

I'm giving out some coloured stars... that's my only purpose this evening. It's totally benign. Peaceful.

If you see me, we catch each other's eye, I might introduce myself. I'm not trying to sell you anything. I'm just trying to make meaningful human connections. All I'm doing is giving away colourful cardboard stars to anybody I feel shines out, as a beacon of human connection. You are under no obligation to accept a colourful cardboard star, which is totally free.

If you're too busy thinking about getting home and getting your dinner, I'll try and read your body languague as best as I can. I'm certainly not inviting myself into your life. It's totally OK to ignore me if I misread your eye contact for human connection. Please ignore me if I make you feel uncomfortable... I really don't mean to.

Have a safe journey home tonight. I hope you're happy, safe and secure.

Stay safe.

I see you shining. Hope to see you soon.

If I see you shining I will give you a star.

Love,

Nick Grant (that's my real name)

Tags: #notanonymous #london #politics #civildisobedience

This is a story about protesting without violence or vandalism...

Holding a gun makes you feel powerful. You have the ability to be judge, jury and executioner, all rolled into one. Thankfully, we don't have that many guns in the UK, yet. I'd like to keep it that way.

Fighting fire with fire is never a good idea. "Offence is the best defence" is actually an offensive quote, and it breeds arms races. Who's going to have the bigger stick? An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.

Guy Fawkes' plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament was not a good idea. But the fact that he failed meant that he got his point across, even if he was burnt alive. Becuase we killed a man, he lives on as an anti-government symbol that will rise up whenever people are disillusioned with the 'democratic' system we have in place. That's about the only positive spin we can take from that night, November 5th... a long long time ago.

Tonight, London is bracing itself for widespread disruption, around the Million Mask March and the work of Anonymous. I fear that more anger-prone outbursts will result in violent clashes with the Metropolitan Police. I love the police... they do a very difficult job under horrendously difficult circumstances, protecting the most vulnerable people in society, and trying to uphold laws that YOU supposedly voted for.

But the majority of people are not politically active. They are disillusioned with politics in this country. They will happily vote on X-Factor or Big Brother, and indeed they follow these programs with great interest. Do they watch Party Political Broadcasts and Prime Minister's Question Time? No way. They don't see any connection between what goes on in Westminster and their lives.

Sadly, the lives of too many people in this country are ruled by too few people who are far removed from the reality of ordinary living in the United Kingdom. That is causing bitterness and resentment. The 'have-nots' are very angry with the 'haves' and they have no way of expressing that anger in a constructive way that makes a difference.

I fear that things are going to turn ugly tonight, and I really implore anybody and everybody to keep a lid on their feelings and try and go about their business with some dignity and self-control. Yes, we all like letting off fireworks... but I implore angry young people to do it responsibly.

The thought of a policewoman or man being horribly burned, like earlier this week, is really inexcusable. That person has a family. That person is human too. It's not them and us... we're all in this together, even though that Gammon-Faced Cockwombling Spunkflute that is David Cameron uses that line, but doesn't mean a word of it, in his massive house in Chipping Norton.

So anyway, I'm #notanonymous. You know who I am. I'm making a dignified and nonviolent protest about the divisions in British society. I'm proud to be a subject of Her Majesty the Queen of England, and live, love and work in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Long live The Queen and God bless her and the United Kingdom.

I remain, Ma'am, your loyal subject.

I know you like Corgi dogs, your Highness, but I hope you like this picture of my cat, Frankie (June 2007)

Tags: #politics #frankie #notanonymous #civildisobedience