Oatly, alternative to milk and soya milk

A year or two ago I came across Oatly by chance in my local wholefood shop. Oatly is an organic oat drink along the lines of milk or soya milk and I think it’s jolly yummy! The nearest thing I’ve had to it is Rice Dream rice milk which for me is one of the other best alternatives to cow’s milk, both for taste and health reasons.

According to the carton, “Oatly is made from carefully selected oats, based on a unique process developed at the University at Lund in Sweden.” Ah yes it would be…of course!? The only ingredients seem to be oats, water and salt, so if you are into that sort of thing, it’s vegan too. Excellent stuff, I shall no doubt be slurping some more very soon.

Are Sanctuary Housing above the law?

“One of the worst housing associations I have had to deal with…” Tim Loughton MP (East Worthing and Shoreham), September 2008.

There may be one or two people out there who wondered what happened to the devastating noise disturbance situation my ex-partner Lin and I were going through in 2007 and 2008.

Eventually the housing association concerned moved their tenant out (the second crazy anti-social behaviour nightmare in two years – we were attacked and threatened on our doorstep, with loud screaming and swearing at all hours, amongst other things), they properly sound-proofed the flat below Lin’s, and they moved their unfortunate local manager on. Lin is now being treated with the respect that any innocent member of the public deserves. She does actually own her flat after all!

It took five visits to our local MP Tim Loughton and well over twenty letters to Sanctuary Housing and various other organizations (including the now defunct Housing Corporation, Supporting People, and the head of local police) before they took us and several of our neighbours seriously. The police and the local council were reluctant to get involved, although they were helpful at times, especially the supportive but ultimately powerless PCSOs. “It’s not a police matter”, we were repeatedly told. The Environmental Health recorder didn’t get results. No-one seemed to be seriously bothered about the stinking “skunk” cannabis, we wouldn’t have minded ourselves if they’d kept their windows closed.

For over a year, Sanctuary Housing’s behaviour was astonishing:- blatant bullying tactics, lies, dishonest back-covering and incompetence by several managers (fortunately we had evidence of this – you really should be ashamed of yourselves local manager Peter Jackson, Sanctuary Supported Housing head Tim Susans and regional manager Wendy Fletcher, what were you doing? Astrid Kjellberg-Obst and Steve Wood, is all this okay with you?), local and national offices ignoring many of our letters including one sent through their complaints procedure, contradictions and lack of clarity about what the law actually was on more than one occasion, written false representations of what we had written to make it mean the opposite i.e. outrageously manipulative lies, the accusation that Lin had not been co-operating with West Sussex Mediation Services – when in fact they themselves were preventing this from proceeding by not returning the mediation people’s phone calls.

Presumably they thought they could bully us into shutting up? It was obvious there was a real long-term problem but they preferred to try and make us look unreasonable for daring to complain. In the meantime Lin had serious depression, migraine headaches and I virtually had a nervous breakdown both before and after moving out. Both of us had problems at work due to exhaustion and ultimately our relationship itself did not survive the nightmare. The neighbours across the road, a lovely friendly retired elderly couple, were extremely upset by their complaints not being taken seriously.

“Sanctuary Housing? Oh no!”, said a nurse friend of mine when I told her about all this. “They kept ignoring several serious complaints and sending us threatening letters when I was in their student accommodation in Brighton. The university had to get involved on our behalf, it was a nightmare”. We and our MP couldn’t help wondering how many other people up and down the country have been on the receiving end of Sanctuary Housing’s grotesque and morally bankrupt unprofessionalism. And just plain indifference.

On their website, Sanctuary Housing describe themselves as “An industry leading social enterprise helping to set standards across the entire sector”. In his patronizing, clueless and ill-informed letter of denial to our MP, the Chief Executive David Bennett couldn’t even be bothered to get our address right.

According to an article from The Guardian in January 2004, the Chief Executive David Bennett of this “not-for-profit” organization was at that time receiving over £200,000 per year from tax-payers money. (According to Inside Housing and the Daily Mail 25.9.09, he is still one of the biggest housing ‘fat cats’ – now on £288,000.) Good luck to them, the money is obviously rolling in as they expand their “not-for-profit” empire, around 70,000 homes making them one of the biggest Registered Social Landlords in the country. Thanks for sorting out our situation in the end David, but from our experience at least, your organization appears to have one or two problems.

Yes, all the above is actually true! No full apology or explanation was ever offered. Useless. Uncaring. Arrogant. Disgusting.

The progressed Moon through my 4th house

Some time back I realized I completely missed an obvious astrological correlation with my sudden change of residence about a year ago and the generally introverted tone of my life since then. Like many astrologers, I mainly follow the transits of the outer planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto to make sense of the processes and patterns in my life. However the progressed Moon can also be an important indicator, and I had completely forgotten about it!

A quick Google came up with: “The progressed Moon moving through the 4th house often brings with it a strong need and search for ‘roots’ and basic life definition.” “Heaviness and introspection”. “It’s a good time to retire to your own private place. It’s a good time to look inside yourself, your attitudes, feelings and emotional orientation. There is a strong fear of being alone or alienated.” One of my astrological bibles down the years has been Stephen Arroyo’s “Astrology, Karma and Transformation” which has: “A time of retreat, preparation, perhaps staying at home more than before. Almost always a reflective time when one needs privacy and some kind of social, domestic, or familial ‘womb’ in which new parts of oneself may incubate and develop in a protective atmosphere.”

With Saturn conjuncting my Moon (I’ll be glad when that one’s finished, the last pass is in early July, hurrah!) over the last year too, all this makes perfect sense. I feel like I have been living in a “womb” since I moved into my tiny flat, and even all my care work is now about supported housing and hostels for the homeless i.e. also 4th house issues. Family stuff has been around in the background for me too. I am looking forward to the Moon through my 5th house from roughly November, much more fun!

Tim Burness music and interview

Time for a bit of blatant self-promotion folks. I am featured in a recently uploaded podcast at http://www.epilepticgibbon.co.uk.

Mr. Gibbon and myself had a great time doing the interview, thanks to Ian and his assistant for giving me the opportunity to mumble about myself and my music, amongst other things. Most of the best music I’ve done over the last 25 years is in there. There is some progrock, punk, ambient stuff (including a track from Tuu), a track from one of my musical influences (not what you might expect?) and also some er… comedy!

Some topics covered in the interview include: ex-Pendragon drummer Fudge Smith’s contribution to my last two albums, how I met my keyboard man Monty Oxy Moron from The Damned and how his classical style (comparisons have been made with Tony Banks and Keith Emerson) fits with being in a punk band, and how I have spirituality coming out of my bottom.