My Roundup of all the Cutural things I experienced in 2022 - Paul Atherton's Theatre, Cinema, Exhibition experinces last year...

 HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

As you can appreciate, living in London, culture is my lifeblood, it forms and creates me as a person and with so much choice going on all the time, it teaches me constantly. This is the round up of Theatre, Cinema, Exhibitions, Restaurants, Bars, Events & literature I experienced in 2022.

THEATRE

Jan - A Fight Against… - Upstairs at The Royal Court Theatre
Jan - The Glow - Downstairs at The Royal Court Theatre
Frb - Hamlet - Eddie Izzard one man show - Riverside Studios
Feb - Ava:The Secret Letters - Riverside Studios

Mar - Henning Whein - Hackney Empire Theatre (Comedy)
Mar - Outside In - The London Vaults Theatre (I inspired this play and helped write it)

April - For the Black Boys Who Considered Suicide When The Hue Got too Heavy - The Royal Court Theatre
April - Jerusalem - Apollo Theatre

April - La Boheme - Kings Head Theatre

May - The 47th - The Old Vic Theatre

May - The Haunting of Susan A - Kings Head Theatre
June - To Whom It May Concern - The Kiln (helped workshop this play)

July - This Is Not Who I Am - Downstairs at The Royal Court Theatre
Aug - Margot Le Rouge/Le Villi - Holland Park Opera (Opera)

Aug - Jack Absolute Flies Again - Olivier Stage, National Theatre

Sept - Eureka Day - The Old Vic Theatre
Oct - Jews In Their Own Words - Downstairs Royal Court Theatre

Oct - It Takes Two - Hen & Chicken Theatre
Oct - Life Of Pi - Wyndhams Theatre

Oct - Marvellous - @SohoPlace Theatre

Oct - The Crucible - Olivier Stage, National Theatre
Nov - Tammy The Musical - Almeida Theatre
Nov - Baghdaddy - Jerwood Stage, Royal Court Theatre
Dec - Don’t Shoot The Albatross - Canal Cafe Theatre
Dec - Kelly Jackson - Dorfman Stage - National Theatre

Dec - Jive Aces - Aldwych Theatre (Music & Dance)

Dec - A Christmas Carol - The Old Vic Theatre

Dec - The Nutcracker - ENB - The London Coliseum (Ballet)

Dec - 2:22 A Ghost Story - The Criterion Theatre

CINEMA

Jan - Liquorice Pizza - Genesis Cinema

Jan - Spiderman: No Way Home - Genesis Cinema
Jan - Bliss (X Fringe) - Genesis Cinema
Jan - Scream- Genesis Cinema
Jan - Belfast - Genesis Cinema
Jan - Nightmare Alley - Genesis Cinema
Jan - Sing 2 - Genesis Cinema
Jan - Parallel Mothers - Genesis Cinema
Feb - Souvenir II - Genesis Cinema
Feb - Jackass Forever - Genesis Cinema
Feb - Uncharted - Genesis Cinema
Feb - Charlie Chaplin (Documentary + Q&A) - Genesis Cinema
Feb - The Power of The Dog - Genesis Cinema
Mar - The Batman - Genesis Cinema
Mar - Red Rocket - Genesis Cinema
Mar - X - Stratford Picturehouse
Mar - The Lost City - Empire Cinema, Leicester Square
Mar - The Worst Person In The World - Genesis Cinema
Apr - Morbius - Genesis Cinema
Apr - Sonic The Hedgehog 2 - Genesis Cinema
Apr - Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore - Genesis Cinema
Apr - The Bad Guys - Genesis Cinema

Apr - The Northman - Genesis Cinema
Apr - The Unbearable Weight Of A Massive Talent - Genesis Cinema
Apr - Enio Morricone (Documentary) - Lexi Cinema

Apr - Downton Abbey (Q&A with Costume Designer) - Regent Street Cinema
May - Dr. Strange & The Madness of The Multiverse - Genesis Cinema
May - Everything, Everywhere, All at Once - Genesis Cinema
May - Who Killed The KLF (Documentary + Q&A) - The Social

May - Lix Arteana - Genesis Cinema
Jun - Top Gun:Maverick - Genesis Cinema
Jun - Jurassic Park: Dominion - Genesis Cinema
Jun - Lightyear - Genesis Cinema
Jun - Good Luck To You Leo Grande - Genesis Cinema
Jun - Minions: The Rise of Gru - Odeon Luxe Leicester Square
Jun - Elvis TCB - Genesis Cinema
Jul - Thor: Love & Glory - Genesis Cinema
Jul - The Grey Man - Genesis Cinema
Jul - Little Women - Screen On The Canal
Jul - Where The Crawdads Sing - Genesis Cinema
Jul - Super Pets - Genesis Cinema
Jul - Afterlight (Documentary Essay + Q&A) - Genesis Cinema 

Aug - Manifesto (Documentary + Q&A with Jeremy Corbyn) - Genesis Cinema
Aug - Bullet Train - Genesis Cinema 

Aug - Hit The Road - Genesis Cinema
Aug - Fire of Love (Documentary) - Genesis Cinema
Aug - Lucky (Apple Original) - Genesis Cinema
Aug - The Old School (Documentary + Q&A with Alan Cumming) - NFT1 Screen BFI
Aug - Official Competition - Genesis Cinema
Aug - Beast - Genesis Cinema
Sep - Tad The Lost Explorer and The Curse of The Mummy - Genesis Cinema
Sep - See How They Run - Genesis Cinema

Sep - Crimes Of The Future - Genesis Cinema
Sep - Clerks III - Genesis Cinema
Sep - Moonage Daydream (Documentary) - Genesis Cinema
Sep - Cathy, Called Birdy - Genesis Cinema
Sep - Snowflake - Close Up Cinema
Oct - Emily - NFT1 Screen BFI
Oct - Monsoon (+ Director Q&A) - Arthur & Paula Lucas Lecture Theatre - Kings College

Oct - Allelujah - London Film Festival - Premier - Royal Festival Hall
Oct -  Lyle The Crocodile - Genesis Cinema
Oct - Black Adam - Genesis Cinema
Oct - The Banshees of Innishirin - Genesis Cinema
Oct - Encounters Over Several Plants (art) - Tate Modern  

Oct - Triangle of Sadness - Genesis Cinema
Nov - Living - Genesis Cinema
Nov - Decision To Leave - Genesis Cinema
Nov - Wakanda Forever - Genesis Cinema
Nov - The Glass Onion:A Knives Out Film - Genesis Cinema
Nov - She Said - Genesis Cinema
Dec - Matilda The Musical - Genesis Cinema
Dec - Lynch/Oz (Documentary Essay) - Genesis Cinema

Dec - Avatar: Way of The Water 3D - BFI Laser Imax, Waterloo

Dec - I Wanna Dance With Somebody - Genesis Cinema

EXHIBITIONS

Jan - Leigh Bowery - Fitzrovia Chapel

Jan - Shackleton - Royal Geographical Society
Feb - Ash, Ember, Flame: A Japanese Kiln In Oxford - Embassy Of Japan

Feb - Mac Collins: The Ralph Steadman Prize - Design Museum
Feb - Hogarth In Europe - Tate Britain
Mar - We Gather - Craft Council Gallery
Mar - Out & About - The Curve - Barbican
Mar - Take A Moment by Barbiston - Piccadilly Lights
Mar - HIstory of House Of Vans - House of Vans, Waterloo
Mar - The Procession by Hew Locke - Tate Britain
Mar - Fighting Anti-Semitism from Dreyfus to Today - Weiner Library
Apr - One For The Women by Dark Yellow Dot - Genesis Cinema
Apr - The Travel Bureau - Whitechapel Art Gallery
Apr - Rooted Beings - Welcome Gallery
May - Prostitutes Cabinet - English Prostitutes Collective - Bishopsgate Institute
May - Breaking The News - British Library
May - Photo London - Somerset House
May - Dreamachine - Unboxed - Woolwich Indoor Market   

May - John Heduk: London Masque - Royal Academy Of Arts
Jun - Magnificent Maps of London - Metropolitan Museum

Jun - The Cabinet Office - National Archives, Kew
Jun - Archives On Film:Celebrating The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee - National Archives, Kew
Jun - The 1920s: Beyond The Roar - National Archives, Kew    

Jun - In The Air - Wellcome Collection
Jun - The Other Shakespear - Royal Geographical Society
Jun - Walter Sickert - Tate Britain
Jun -  Cornelia Parker - Tate Britain
Jun - Althea McNish: Colour Is Mine - William Morris Gallery
Jul - Grime Stories: From The Corner To The Mainstream - Museum of London
Jul - Black Heritage Collection - Museum of London
Jul - - Whitechapel Art Gallery 
Jul - Beatrix Potter:Drawn To Nature - V&A Museum
Jul - The Connor Brothers:Mythomania - Maddox Gallery, Notting Hill
Aug - Jill Craigie:Film Pioneer - BFI Mezzanine Gallery
Aug - Fashioning Masculinity:The Art of Menswear - V&A Museum
Aug - Maxim Zhestkov:Waves - Launch Night - W1 Curates
Aug - Labain Hamid - Tate Modern
Aug - Gallery 31:Swimmers Limb - Somerset House
Sep - The Bigger Picture by Qido - Genesis Cinema Gallery
Sep - Design Museum
Sep - Tom Dixon at 20 - Tom Dixon HQ, Granary Square, Kings Cross.
Sep - Science Gallery, London Bridge
Sep - Comfortable Cities - City Centre Gallery
Sep - The City Model & Exhibition - City Centry Gallery
Sep - Little Palette by Sebastian Chaumeton - Maddox Gallery, Maddox Street.
Oct - Bryan Talbot’s Luther Arkwright: 50 Years of a British Comic Legend - Cartoon Museum
Oct - The Carpenters Line - Japan House
Oct - States Of Oneness:Kamala Ibrahim Ishag - Serpentine Gallery South
Oct - Beyond Nature:Jeff Rob - The Crypt, St. Pancras Church
Oct - Banking & Slavery - Bank Of England Museum
Oct - This Exhibition Is A Work Event: The Tale Of Boris Johnson - Cartoon Museum (My work with Mike Stokoe - The Best Of Times.. The Worst of Times… is hanging in this exhibition)
Oct - Infinite Folds:Barbara Chase-Riboud - Serpentine Gallery North
Oct - Frieze Art Fair - Regents Park
Oct - Fara Thomas: Bright Light City (Private View) - Select Gallery
Oct - Everest Through The Lens - Royal Geographical Society
Oct - Reimagining The Musical - V&A Museum
Oct - Caroline Wong:Artificial Paradises - St. James & Soho Club
Oct - Politics of Charm: Women, Bame, Queers & Progress - Cicek Art Gallery
Nov - There Was A Time: Jewish Family Photographs - Weiner Library
Nov - In Plain Sight - Wellcome Collection
Nov - Butterfly Effect: Lily Mixe - Saatchi Gallery
Nov - Studio Response - Saatchi Gallery
Nov - Modern Landscape: Stanley Donwood - Saatchi Gallery
Nov - Marinel Sheu - W1 Curates
Nov - Lynette Yiadom Boakye - Fly In The League Of The Night - Tate Britain

Nov - Grace Ndiritu - Healing Pavilion - The Wellcome Collection

Nov - Jim Naughton - Objects In Stereo - The Wellcome Collection

Nov - Africa Fashion - V&A Museum

Dec - Cezanne - Tate Modern

Dec - Lu Yang - Neti Neti - Zabludowicz Collection 

Dec - Bob Brewer - Big Yellow Circle - Dark Yellow Dot Gallery

Dec - Christopher Ionas - Portraying Our People - Wigmore Hall

Dec - Yinka Ilori - Parables for Happiness - Design Museum 

Dec -  Costume Design - The Alchemy of Ann & John Bloomfield - BFI Mezzanine Gallery
Dec - Stephen Chambers - The Outliers - Vigo Gallery
Dec - SixnFive - Cycles - W1 Curates

Dec - The Lost King: Imagining Richard III - The Wallace Collection
Dec - August Robin - Eclectic Exhibition - MiArt Gallery
Dec - Bill Brandt - Inside The Mirror - Tate Modern
Dec - Fred Tschida - Sphere - The Royal Festival Hall
Dec - Christopher Klarendin Thomas - Another World - Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)    

LITERATURE

Jan - The Innovation Illusion: How Little is Produced by so many, working so hard - Frederick Erixson & Bjorn Wiegel
Jan - Stories of The Law & How Its Broken - The Secret Barrister
Feb/March - The Shame Game: Overturning The Toxic Poverty Narrative - Mary O’Hara
April - The Power of Women: A Doctor’s Journey Of Hope - Dr. Denis Mukegwe
May/June - Out Of The Sun - Essays At The Crossroads of Race - Esi Edugyan

July - Tips From A Publisher: A Guide To Writing, Editing, Submitting and Publishing Your Book - Scott Peck

July -  An Obstacle Course: Homelessness assistance and the right to housing in England - Amnesty International (Includes my contribution) 

Aug - Tenants - Vicky Spratt

Sep -  Cloud Money:Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War For Our Wallets - Brett Scott
Sep - The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressell

Oct -  A History of Britain in Just A Minute - Gyles Brandreth
Nov - A Home Of One's Own:Why The Housing Crisis Matters - Hashi Mohamed
Dec - From The Silence of The Stacks New Voices Rise Vol. 3 - The London Library Anthology (Includes my essay Britain Isn’t Great).

More to come...

Restaurants

Bars

Events

Museum

A review of the National Theatre's play Kerry Jackson - critiquing the critics...

 There was something telling about the National paper reviews that were published around the National Theatre’s play of Kerry Jackson, it was as if all the reviewers were white and middle class and had an expectation of what a play should be when performed at the NT and concluded that this production was most definitely not that.

Now I’ve just used the term “white and middle class” which doesn’t really mean anything does it? But, I can safely say you’ve got something in your head that I intended you to see. I don’t need to give you any more depth or explanation than those brief words, because it’s a stereotype, something that we all know, but equally something that actually exists. Do all white middle class people conform to this stereotype? Of course not, not all of them are white to start off with, but are there enough who do, to create one? Absolutely.

Somewhere in the 21st Century, the word and notion of stereotype has been corrupted to mean myth or legend. Something that was based on conceivably a smidgen of truth that has been corrupted so far from its true meaning to make it now just pure storytelling, think Robin Hood, there was a place called Loxley, but after that, who knows?

But that’s not what a stereotype is, our world runs on the dependence of stereotypes and their behaviour, they exist, it’s what enables marketeers, advertisers, public relation experts and even AI social media coders to earn their keep.
 

First it was straight forward stereotypes, based on economic wealth A,B,C1,C2,D & E. Then it evolved into sub groupings, the Yuppies (Young Upwardly Mobile) and the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) and today we can go even deeper to the Nano & Micro-Influencers, but these are all stereotypes and yet they exist in real life as their behaviour is observable and predictable.

In the race to be inclusive, which in truth normally just means being inclusive with ideas and literally nothing else i.e.” think like I do then I don’t care what sex, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or disability you have, you’re all welcome here” but “if you don’t think like me then you’re a privileged, racist, homophobic, ableist, even if you do happen to be Working Class, Poor, Black, Gay & Disabled.”

I watched Kerry Jackson at a preview performance, purely by chance, next to the Walthamstow Village Tapas restaurant owner who inspired the play. I did not see the play the way the critics did, because I’ve lived a real-life and unlike them, I’ve been in every experience in that play, except in the main, in the reverse.

You see I’ve been homeless for thirteen years, but I am emphatically middle class. I was sitting in the National for crying out loud, how could I be anything else [joke..ish]. I have a special dispensation to pay in cash (could you see someone working class insisting on that), now that they only take credit-cards and I know more about theatre, having started going when just 14 years old, beginning with Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff, than most people who attend any Central London performance. 

Even though I grew up in a small Welsh mining community my white mother would take me, the only black in the village, to the Welsh Capital once every two months to see a play there.

So the criticism of the situation being unbelievable only comes from people who’ve had myopic lives. I’ve run pubs filled with working class people in Wales, who’ve mocked me for “speaking proper” and been a cleaner in one, when living in Butlers Wharf near Tower Bridge, the Anchor Tap pub, where the Landlord used to love telling his punters he had the only toilet cleaner in Britain who turned up in real Armani (true story).

And as for her characters not having depth, that to me seemed to miss the whole point of the play. They were obviously all stereotypes, That was precisely its purpose. Those stereotypes weren’t as solid as you’d think though. That “think like me” drive was strong here. As soon as our character experiencing homelessness turns out to support Capital Punishment our lead character throws out the notion that he’s workshy and he is now instead, misunderstood.

The times I’ve had conversation with Remain Voters (see again, a stereotype but I don’t need to add anything here, you know I mean the British public who voted to Remain in the structures of the European Union in the 2016 EU Referendum) who would get annoyed, and say to me, I hate debating this with you Paul, you keeping bringing facts into the argument, is a perfect reflection of that.

Nearly everyone who voted to Remain, didn’t vote in the EU elections, yet nearly everyone who voted to leave, did. It was why UKIP had over a third of our elected MEPs. Would anyone like to explain the depth in that thinking? Explain why this would, or even, could be the case? 

Because sometimes people are just idiots, they do what they think is the right thing to do and follow their prescribed stereotype, it is that, afterall, that marks out their tribe. There is no depth or meaning to their behaviour; it's just how they feel they need to be to fit in. The 2.1 Kids, Volvo, dog & semi-detached house to mark middle class success, may have disappeared but it’s been replaced with the eco-warrior, vegan eating, poop cleaning and cycling. It's not the characters that are meant to learn anything in this play, it is us.

Becuase here, as in real life, pragmatism beats sensitivity, nobleness is killed by ego, concern is replaced with performance, youth acknowledged as being naive, loneliness trumps values and it all happens under the overriding notion that reality doesn’t wrap up into nice neat explanations. I thought it reflected our vacuous nonsensical 21st Century life perfectly.

We live in a world of stereotypes and Kerry Jackson delves and explores them very well indeed. Let’s hope the critics find more depth in their criticism next time they can’t find the nuance in something, simply because it doesn’t spell it out for them in the way they need it too, elsewise they should wear their Disney’s Ratatouille's critic stereotype with pride.

The Queen And I... one of her homeless citizens...

 I visited the Queen lying in state at The Palace of Westminister last night. I'd missed the funeral procession in the day but managed the three hour wait to get in through the disabled access queue due to my MECFS, so I was able to bow in front of the Queen's coffin at 10pm Wednesday 14th September 2022. 

As someone who is homeless and has been for the past 13 years, I couldn't help reflect on the dichotomy of my situation. I was fully aware that the Metropolitan Police had used their powers to move many of my community from the streets in the area to enable mourners to take their space instead. This was not something I agreed with, but I felt it had little to no bearing on the monarch I'd come to pay my respects to.

These were Council, Mayoral and Police decisions and as far as I am aware the monarch have no powers over any of these institutions to tell them what to do. 

The clash between republicans and monarchists online over the events as ever took a binary arguement and one that didn't further either sides position. No right thinking person would believe that free speech should be quelled, by arresting people with "Not My King" signs, but equally no right thinking person would see it acceptable that a family funeral should be interupted by the yelling of a single individual ruining it for the many who were stood respectfully in silence, but somehow in this "pick a side" world, nobody could agree on this. 

The usually arguemnets of colonisation reared it''s head too, but as ever, the argument felt hollow. There's an odd notion that Britain created colonisation, which of course we didn't. The first modern record of it was with the Italians and the Roman Empire. But Africa was the originator of the idea, then Asia, then Greece etc.

The thing that makes it so prevelant was that the British Empire was the biggest, the longest and the last; at least where country empires come into things. The reality, is of course in the 21st Century, the Empire builders are now corporations and they behaviour hasn't differed from the behaviour of the City Empire builders 2,000 years ago.

Slavery, as we all know, is still it's basis. Every battery of every technological device in the world is mined from the Congolese Cobalt mines, which uses child slavery to drag this valuable ore from the ground. Meta's Instagram is the new slave trading platform for all types of slaves from Sex slavery to manual labour slavery. 

So it seemed strange to me that the very platofrms people were complaining about colonisatoin on, already owned the user under colonisation, but this time, seemingly with their total compliance and unababted acquiesence.

And that uniquely 21st propersriouness was what drove me to acknowledge one of the most unique moments in British history last night. As a scout I'd met the Queen, as a receipient of the Princes Youth Business Trust with a grant for my lingerie delivery business in the 90s when I was in my early 20s  "A Touch Of Silk", my name and Prince Charles's would always be immortalised in the Sun Newspaper headline, "Charle's props up Naughty Knickers".

Just a few months ago in the Tortoise Media Newsroom, I had facilitated friend and Royal Correspondent Richard Fitzwilliams to join me to defend the monarchy following the Duchess of Sussex's Oprah Winfrey interview.

As a person that grew up in the small coal mining viallge of Ystrad Mynach in South Wales, I remembered the unity she brough to our community through the Silver Jubilee. How the Queen Mother was loved by the Working Class, she smoked, drank gin, and loved a flutter on the horses.

The Queen stood as something above politics, above division, above petty family squables. Probably the most famous person in the world, she never fawned over publicity, duty was her intent and duty was her outcome. To give one's life to her citizens is something few, if any could ever understand.

It is not a life you chose, but one you are born into, the responsibilities are immense and the job never ending, as Queen Elizabeth proved, right up to the point of her death, having acknowledged our new Prime Minister Lizz Truss just days before.

So when I was stood in front of her coffin last night and gave her my final bow (unbeknwnst to me at the time) in front tens of thousands onlookers through BBC iPlayer and Youtube. I acknowledged the passing of the only thing that had ever remained a constant in my life.

Prime Ministers had come and gone, my biological mother had left, my mother, who was born the same year as the Queen and who's Birthday was on the Queen's official one had died in 2014.  So in solace and in solitude I said goodbye to Her Royal Highness with both sadness and happiness.

The thing that I admired most about her was the ability to bring the best out of Britain and witnessing the queue afterwards, it did just that.

Rest In Peace your majesty... you deserve it.



 




 

For those who are asking, why?

 Suicide is never far from my mind these days. I mean how many times am I prepared to throw myself at systems over and over again knowing the outcome, after nearly a decade & half of doing it, isn’t ever going to change.

But a few weeks ago I found myself on Vauxhall Bridge staring into the water and thinking of what solace could come next.  

I was there because I was walking to my doctors, because after having discovered beau’s lines on both thumbs a few days after having a barrage of tests for cancer, which all came back clear, I’d emailed to discover if I should be concerned (they usually appear after a severe illness like diabetes or Vascular problems occur) but after months of chasing, I had received no response and they were about to grow out. I don’t have access to a phone so I walked to the practice in Vauxhall, in the building where I used to live.

I couldn’t help but smile that I knew exactly where to stand for the optimum chance of success in my quest, because of a sign.

A sign very generously placed there by the Samaritans. I loved the exquisite ironiy of an organisation designed for the prevention of suicide, becoming the guide for those who were considering it.

The sign read:

“SAMARITANS

Talk to us, we’ll listen
Whatever you’re going through,

You don’t have to face it alone.

Call free day or night on

116 123”

It was clearly placed there, at the highest point on the bridge, as this is where people most successfully end their lives. The occurrence is now so familiar that every bridge in London is dotted with them.

Now, what really struck me, was the fact that three decades ago, that probably was the main cause of suicide, a lack of feeling a member of society a sense of isolation and the resulting depression that only loneliness would force you to pick up pills or head to the underground.

Today, though, calling someone to talk wasn’t going to help anything.  I wasn’t lonely or isolated, I had many people to talk to, many friends on whose shoulders I have and could cry on and a myriad of families to reach out to in desperate stakes. Including those I know through the Museum of Homelessness.

So no, talking wasn’t going to help or prevent me from jumping at all.

In fact talking was the fundamental problem and the reason I was standing there.

All Third Sector and Public organisations do these days is talk, they talk about race, about gender, about disability, they talk about change and hope and innovation and revolution, but they do absolutely nothing whatsoever. 

We live in a world of how not to do something, not in a world that says yes, let’s do that..

Got a complaint, there’s a process, nobody is interested in addressing your complaint, they want you to fill out of masses of forms, make you give up at the first hurdle, drown you in paperwork, just the notion of you complaining should be treated with derision and hostility and if that doesn’t put you off,  if that process doesn’t reach the conclusion they can slither out of, they’ll simply ignore it altogether anyway.

I was stood there looking into that invitng water, because all the people who are paid to support us in the UK are utterly corrupt and totally incompetent. I was going to caveat that to say not all, but I can emphatically and without hesitation say I've not met a single useful person anywhere in the sectors that has been useful in over a decade. In all the 100s of people I have had dealings with, not a single one.

I was thinking about ending life on the bridge because Arts Council England had created a situation whereby I was going to lose £30,000 I’d invested in storage fees, every possession I’d ever owned, crashed a project I’d been working on for 5 years and then lied about it.

The lawyers I’d reached out to seemed, as ever, enthusiastic and then just as quickly failed to continue with fervour. Friend Adam Hemmings, who has been the only stalwart battling me with every step of the way with absolutely everything, succumbed to illness and so to my MECFS is taking me out just when I need the most energy.

Groundswell had fired me as a Volunteer because I had complained that they were censoring those with Lived Experience of Homelessness on a project that they’d raised a £1/2 Million on the back of mainly my journalistic contributions and thus I had raised it as a concern with Comic Relief, that they were not only falsely advertising to the public but also to the individual contributors. 

As ever stupidity reigned large and instead of Comic Relief getting in touch with me to ensure they understood fully the problem they simply told Groundswell, who then fired me. Not concerned that they were losing contributors hand over fisti, but because.

The Local Authority were trying to house me in Brent with no finances set up, no care package and so far away from the places I reside they may well have sent me to the outer hebrides.

Paypal has stolen over £1,000 of my money, having got wrapped up in it’s own algorithms and not a thread of human decency could be found anywhere.

The Trustee who stole my son’s Trust Fund is due in court again in 2 weeks, having waited 6 years to get this to trial. The last time I was there last month, was literally a chapter out of the Secret Barrister’s 1st book, with the CPS having lost the paperwork for the trial.

THe DWP had managed to get away with another two years of not paying me what I was rightfully owed in Disability Benefits of both Employment and Support Allowance and Personal Independence Payments,

Which wasn’t enough to pay for my goods in storage and hence why I was thinking you know what, that water doesn’t half look tempting, one step, a rush of air and then hopefully the shock of the cold water puts you into unconsciousness and that’s it.  No more suffering, no more battling with intransigence and stupidity, no more

And here’s the real killer, if you’ll excuse the pun, I reached out to tons of journalists I know, masses of politicians I’ve worked with, CEOs of Charities I’ve supported asking for help, but not one and I mean out of hundreds here, not one, was able to assist.

To put that into context my wheelchair bound, 30 years homeless friend, Bullringbash who is dying in appalling palliative care, who is having to fight absolutely everybody, every single day, instead of  getting to enjoy his last period of life, when he got a back payment of incorrectly stopped benefits bought me a Google Chromebook, knowing I’d be writing everything I’d had published on a the broken screen of a Samsung Galaxy A6 Tablet. He just did it, no ask, no inference. He looked at my life, saw a problem and fixed it.

Imagine if that’s how the entire public & Third (Charity) sector worked. Looked for problems and fixed them, rather than create them and then compound them.

But this is the reality for everyone in Britain, the people with power, money and influence never assist. The people who have absolutely nothing always do. I reconnected with Jack Monroe the other day in the Tortoise Newsroom, a single mother blogger, suffering from depression and who was surviving on the equivalent of DWP benefits, she had done more to change the perception of poverty, than any journalist, politician or charity. 

So I have just 7 days left before a point of no return, everything I own, every personal letter, every video recording of my son, his toys, all those luxury items that I’d hoped to return to a residence after I first lost my home due to a credit file error back in 2009, but never found a resolution to the problem.

Those luxury items, the Bang and Olufsen Television, the Savile Row Suits, the Wedgwood Crockery, the Denson Stereo, the handmade John Lobb shoes, the Lock & Co. Hats, the Gucci watch were all set to be converted into an on street London Citywide Art Project Entitled Paul Atherton’s Displaced: Dispelling The Myths of Homelessness.

This was the project that ACE agreed to pay me to trial, that said they would organise a bank account for me to achieve it, granted me the money, paid it to a Charity 3rd party of their chosing, but realised they’d screwed up in paperwork, asked me to amend, which would completely change our agreement so I declined, they then persuaded the third part to illegally return the money and have done nothnig to fix the problem since. Instead they lied and ignored evidence to such an allarming degree that I felt it was impossible for them to get away with... I was wrong!

I was hoping one person would do the decent thing, accept responsibility and step in… but nobody did.

And if that’s not enough to make you quit life, then you’re a way better person than me…