HANG THE BASTARD. Notes By Uncle Monty.

HANG THE BASTARD

Notes By Uncle Monty

.

"When I Met Mr. Cooke"

By Uncle Monty

Part Two

.

Online News Report from Reuters
.
'Boss of Body Parts Ring Gets 18-54 years'
By Christine Kearney

.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New Jersey dentist behind a scheme

to steal body parts from corpses, including that of British journalist

Alistair Cooke, was sentenced on Friday to a minimum of 18 years

and a maximum of 54 years in prison.

.
Michael Mastromarino, 44, in March admitted to leading a

$4.6 million operation that stole body parts from funeral

homes in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
The ring dismembered more than 1,000 cadavers in

unsanitary conditions, and sold them to doctors who

transplanted them into patients.

.
"I am sorry for the emotional pain I have caused,"

Mastromarino told the court, repeating an apology he

made to victims and relatives of the dead earlier this month.
State Supreme Court Judge John Walsh made no comment

as he sentenced Mastromarino, who had pleaded guilty

to body stealing, reckless endangerment and enterprise

corruption.

.
"His sick, disgusting and appalling actions all in the name

of greed have devastated my family," Dayna Ryan, 44,

told the court. Ryan contracted Hepatitis B when she

was a recipient of stolen body parts during a lower spine

operation.

.
As part of the scheme, a team of so-called cutters

removed bones, skin and tendons in an unsanitary

embalming room, prosecutors said.
.
"He fully recognized the gravity of what he has done,"

Mastromarino's lawyer Mario Gallucci said outside court.

"He cut some corners and that is why he is here today."
There are three co-defendants. One pleaded guilty, another

was convicted at trial and the third is awaiting trial.

.
Cooke, the former newspaper foreign correspondent and host

of the PBS television show "Masterpiece Theatre" and BBC's

"Letter from America," died in 2004 at age 95 in New York.

.
(Editing by Michelle Nichols and Xavier Briand)

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved
.

Alistair Cooke as I remember meeting him

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/photo_gallery/3525669.stm

"WHEN I MET MR. COOKE"

By Uncle Monty

Part Two

.
I bumped into Mr. Alistair Cooke at the height of his fame

in America at Colonial Williamsburg’s Scribner Bookshop in

1979. He and I were browsing book titles of our own particular
book taste and desire inside Scribner’s. I recognised him right
away, especially having watched his extraordinary and great

"Masterpiece Theatre" series on then PBS-TV for years.

"Upstairs, Downstairs" and "Disraeli," are among my fav-

ourites that Alistair superably hosted at the beginning

of each progran series.

.
I also regularly listened to his “Letter from
America” on the BBC World Service by shortwave radio.
We had a delightful chat and encounter and he told me that

his first love was always radio despite his then growing US

television fame. His marvellous and imbued photographic
essay of "Alistair Cooke's America ,” was an ongoing best

seller for sure. Almost professorial in his manner, Mr. Cooke

was a humble gentle person and gentleman who didn’t let his

fame go to his expatriate head. His soft speaking style was

exactly the same as I had heard of him on those many

radio programs of his. He knew more about America and

Americans than any living Englishman of his long broadcast-

ing day. He knew and interviewed every US President since

Franklin Delano Roosevelt to William Jefferson Clinton.

Alistair's success was not only due to him being so

urbane and erudite, but because he was also so strictly

apolitical -in his first class reports and presentations.

.

When I read of his death at age 95 some 4 years ago, I

thought to myself what a wonderful and long life he’d

had. I didn’t feel sad at his passing, only glad that I’d

at least met him so memorably at Virginia's Old

Williamsburg of so many years now past.
+
Then a few years after his death, I by chance read a news

story about his Episcopal Church clergy daughter – who I

never knew even existed -- and of her personal horror of
what the bastard Michael Mastromarino and his macabre

body-parts gang had done to her dead English father upon

his death in America. They'd cut his aged body into "sellable"

parts like he was some kind of animal instead of a respected

humanbeing. Talk of the Chinese doing that to their executed

prisoners -- running into as many as a 1,000 per year -- and

then selling their body parts for exprimentation and medical

transplants is something else. But for the New World to be

doing such by private business operators like Mastromarino

is equally as sickening as the Chinese in their vicious and

godless practice of selling body parts of their executed.

.
I was amazed that nobody at the funeral home seemed to

know or care of who Alistair Cooke was or of his fascinating

life as a noted and fine journalist on both sides of the Big

Atlantic pond for close to 60 years. To take a dead 95 year

old man and then hack his cancered dead body to pieces for

whatever organs or parts they could salvage and sell is to my

mind truly diabolical, sick and evil from beginning to end. It

makes me want to vomit even as I write this story about

the wicked and bizarre fate of Mr. Alistair Cooke. They

even altered his death certificate from age 95 to 85 so

they could sell his unfit and cancerous bones for profit.

Greed always drives the greedy from human decency.

.

My first instinct upon reading about Mastromarino-

The-Butcher was to say to myself: “Hang The Bastard.”

Along with his gang of bloody evil cutters. Saying

sorry before he was sentence doesn’t cut it one bit.
“Hang The Bastard," still keeps coming to my head even

though I strongly oppose capital punishment I just couldn’t

stop myself from reacting and saying such to myself.
.

How we mistreat the dead, tells us something about how

we mistreat the living in cultures that neither respect

the living nor the dead. The more death we have, the less

respect for human life is all around us. The hideous story

of what they did to Mr. Cooke for greed and dirty

money tells us of how we cannot even trust those with

the dead body of those we loved, or respected so much,

without fear of such evil bastards like Mastromarino

getting out their blood-dripping butcher knives ready to

desecrate yet another member of the the human dead.

The most deadly animals around us are always other

humans and not the animals of God's given grace.

I still keep saying: "HANG THE BASTARD."

.

The Life of Mr. Cooke

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alistair_Cooke
.

Peace everybody, Uncle Monty.

+7th Sunday after Trinity, 2oo8.

.
America’s Gun Culture:

“Start Them Young,” so they do and say.

I'd Rather Not Have Campbell Soup. By Uncle Monty.

I'd Rather Not Have Campbell Soup.

By Uncle Monty.

--

Nelson Mandela, the revered and living Icon of Africa,

has seemingly and rightly dropped her from the line-up

of stars at today’s big 90th Birthday Concert in honour

of him at London’s Hyde Park Corner.

--

She has also been uncomplimentarily called the

“black version” of the catty, nasty, clawing, white

“Lady” Heather Mills of the Paul McCartney

saga and divorce fame.

--

The dreadful female pair could easily be called

sisters-in-arms for all the wrong reasons for both of

them have tempestuous temperaments that would

“drive hornets from their nests.” And, they both seem

to wallow in bad press and being truly ugly and

offensive to all who should cross them for whatever

reason (s) come to their conceited heads.
Both are truly embittered women.
--
So, is she a supermodel or a superbitch? Well, the

answer is both. I like the supermodel, but I don’t like

the superbitch. That’s why I’d rather not have

Campbell soup, today.
.
I’m not talking here of terrible Heather, if you

haven’t already guessed who else I’m referring to. So

before I name the other name for those of you who don't

know who I am talking about, I think it’s best to then

quote her full foul and filthy mouth and mind by her out
and out anti-white rage. So here we goooooooo …
..
“You blonde bitch, I’m going to screw you

like a motherf**ker.”
.
“F**k you, f**k you, find my f**king bags.”
.
“You can’t f**king touch me, my cousin is

(with) Scotland Yard.”
..
She said she couldn’t be arrested by the police bec-

uase she was black and was being targeted due to

her being black.
.
However, in court, she pleaded guilty to assaulting,

kicking and spitting at the Brit cops, who she

obviously hates if they're white and in blue.
.
Naomi Campbell is a dreadful woman no matter if she’s

black, white, pink or blue. Born at London’s Borough of

Streatham and age 38, she needs help fast before she goes

into another rage based on her private and public pattern of

past confrontational behaviour from New York to London.

.

It is a disgusting and disturbing tale of uncontrollable rage,

head on assault, and language fit only for the gutter, is she.
She blows her top just like that once something or other

gets her screaming mad. She's done it to her New York

maid and to the BA pilot Mark Sutherland, who she cornered

in his cockpit as she went blitz at all of those all around her.

She even spat on innocent airline passenagers, too.

.

She clearly needs lessons in anger management. But if I
had my way, I’d first bang her up in solitary confinement
for a couple of months at the Holloway Prison for Women
so that she could truly vent her anti-white rage in full.
Then she could see what kind of supermodel and superbitch
she really is. After that, her anger management treatment

should begin in full earnest. Right now, she thinks she's above

the law and that her fame (or infamy) somehow grants her

the right not to be treated like anybody else who behaves

like her does. She believes, too, I suspect, that she can use

her blackness as a weapon against those who happen to be

white authority figures, who all too often cow out of fear

of being branded racists. To Naomi Campbell, all whites

are innately racist. She just then eggs them on ... The

fact of the matter is the supermodel and the superbitch

is a reverse racist all by herself it seems to me. She's

deeply anti-Caucasian and anti-British to boot despite

being a Black Briton by birth that she is. So are all

blacks innately anti-white? That's a good question

for Ms. Campbell to be asked of her to answer ...
.
The revered Nelson Mandela in London yesterday.

.

And so, nasty Naomi will not be at Nelson

Mandela's Birthday Concert in London today.

It seems he's had a falling out with her over her

latest rage that has propelled her now to greater

public infamy and dishonour more than ever.

But after all is said and done about her, I'd

rather not have Campbell soup. Would you?

So gooooooood riddance, then to you Naomi

along with that other terrible woman called

"Lady" Heather Mills. You deserve each other,

don't you? It's all black and white, too.
.

Bye, bye, from Uncle Monty.

+Rainbow's End, 2oo8.

Homeless Street Papers of the World. By Uncle Monty.

Homeless Street Papers of the World.

Story and Photos By Uncle Monty.

Part Two of Two.

..

Listen up homeless street vendors of the world. Don’t think you’re

the only soul in the world flogging your street rag, ‘cause you ain’t.

Listen up then to some of the names or titles of street papers I

found from around the world at the 13th International Conference

of Network Street Papers (INSP).
..
Hold your breath now, here we go with some of the street

publications with all sorts of odd and interesting names that

you’ve never perhaps heard of before until now …
Megafon, Driewekelijks, La Calle, Megaphone, Boca De Rua,
Gazeta Uliczna, StreetWise, Kralji Ulice, Hecho, Trott War, Donau
Strudl, Terra Dimezzo, Hempels, OCAS, Asphalt, L’Itineraire,
Binbhi Bicti, and Z. These 17 street periodicals thus named herein

are just a fraction of the more than 80 other street sheets published

around the world each month or weekly or whenever for homeless

street folkz to sell to try and make themselves some legitimate

bread or money or dough or greenbacks on the mean and

fraught streets of the world.
..

Argentina's Patricia Merkin of Hecho.

..

Globally, there’s about a quarter of million homeless street

vendors on six continents. Twenty countries within Europe

have over 40 street papers covering about 18 languages in all.

While America has the most street rags of any single country

in the world at some 20 right now. Asia has the least number

with only three countries claiming street paper status. And in
the whole of Africa, only four nations there can claim weekly
or monthly street sheets. Nigeria, Africa’s largest country,

is soon to start its own street publication within the next

couple of months so its representative Yomi Kuku (shown

below) told me at the street paper international conference

held at Scotland’s biggest city of Glasgow. It is here that the

world headquarters of the International Network of Street

Papers (INSP) is also based. In the same Scottish city at the
same time as the INSP Conference, there was also underway
The 2oo8 Civicus World Assemby, which I briefly popped in

to see, and Refugee Week Scotland ’08 under the banner

“Different Pasts, Shared Future.” Who needs anymore of such

bullshit like that? The UK is already swamped with too many

so-called “refugees” and useless Third Worlders without any

more of them invading us … I’m sick of such a bangwagon of
bloody bleeding hearts and Holy-Than-Thou Tear Jerkers

that insist we take more and more of the world’s unwanted

refugees and parasitic immigrants. Last year, the UK had

over 280.000 asylum seekers to feed, house and shelter

while their applications for asylum is under legal

consideration. They are a growing and constant

threat to the native homeless, whose rights are

being ignored and shafted to accommodate and appease

more iffy refugees and god forsaken foreigners. With all

intent and purpose, the British Government under New

Labour has made the United Kingdom the open dumping

ground for the swarming masses of immigrant locusts

from all of Black Africa. We cannot move for them.

Enough is by far enough.
..
Brasil's Maria Margareth Lins Rossal of Boca de Rua.

..

Homeless street papers vary widely in editorial content,
sterling page design, printing quality, artistic layout,

innovative graphics, outstanding photography, ongoing

circulation, public status, story focus, and street vendor

presence. In thumbing thru some of the world’s street
papers, I couldn’t help but notice that most of them were
a standard 30 pages in length, while a couple had only an

8-page publication and few with over 45 pages. The majority

were monthlies. Stylistically, some were high gloss magazines

and others more like local newsletters. Few if any of the street

papers were much older than 10 year old since they started to

first hit the streets. Most all of them carried a social message

of needing to rid the world of homelessness. Yet, ironically, the

rise of more street papers is circumstantial evidence of more

global homelessness rather the less at this first decade of the

21st century. And the more political the publication, the more
left leaning it seemed to be. The most expensive counties
to buy street papers was in England, Scotland, Wales and

Ireland. The cheapest countries was Russia, Burundi,

India, and Argentina. Advertisements and ad revenues

were the mainstay of the world street papers I informally

reviewed, although one or two were completely ad free.

..

One thing that was consistent, no matter what or

where the street sheet, was news features or profiles

about their own street vendors. But for heaven sake, that

should be how it is anyway. To ignore your vendors, is at

the peril of the publication’s life and limb and the liveli-

hood and well being of the vendors themselves. There is

a tendency to give lip service only to such vendors, es-

pecially when the street paper becomes more part of the

established status quo or it moves from its original roots

of subculture to that of a mainstream publishing organ.
The more successful the paper, the less it becomes a

street paper per se. Rather, it then veers, or even

joins, the ranks of the horse-blinking Bourgeoisie.
..

Nigeria's Yomi Kuku of Search and Groom

..
One of my concerns in attending the INSP Conference
was the question of profits for the vendors. Most only get

a slither of the profits from such street papers. I think it is

about time that vendors are included in profit sharing so

that the more profit the paper makes, the more income the

vendor gets. Some street sheets are more profitable than

others, obviously. Some operate on a shoe string, while a

few others are annually a multi-million dollar corporate

operation at where the vendors work tirelessly like under-

paid and under-appreciated bumble bees for the Big

Queen Bee. And the more profits she seems to make, the

less seems to be given to the street vendors. It should be

the other way around, shouldn’t it? The more profits the

corporate entity makes, the more should go into the

pockets of the vendors. But I think in the distant future,

homeless street vendors as we know of them today will

ultimately be dispensed with on the streets or reduced

in substantial numbers.
..

Some of the INSP conference delegates.

..

Let's look now at the situation for the hoped-for street

vendors and first street paper in murderous Zimbabwe

under the vile madman of Robert Mugabe, who should

have been arrested and detained when he and his vicious

cronies left the cruel country in their audacity to attend

the UN Food Conference in Rome just last month. Mugabe

should have then been charged under a prepared criminal

warrant from the International Court of Justice in The

Hague for national genocide of his own people and crimes

against humanity. Instead they let him "escape" back to

Zimbabwe to commit even further outrageous crimes

and to steal the election from MorganTsvangirai, who has

now fled to the Danish Embassy for his own safety from

Mugabe's murderous mob.

..

Such then in the present backdrop of the hopes of those

seeking to begin the first street sheet in the troubled

Southern African country that continues to move toward

a total Black Fascist Nation (BFN). In a prepared written

statement issued at the INSP Conference, the visa-barred

representatives from Zimbabwe stated a variety of

reasons why, for over a year now, they have striven "to

create a street paper that will assist the unemployed and

homeless members of the country's urban community"

without success due to the anti-media laws and internal

circumstances beyond their control. With hundreds of

thousands now homeless due the the violent actions and

so-called reforms of the Mugabe regime and its economic

and social destruction compounded each day, I cannot

imagine any kind of emerging street paper in Zimbabwe

until all that is presently endangering the stability of the

country is fixed for the better. Zimbabwe is an ongoing

nightmare that never seems to end as the world looks on

impotently at one of the world's tyrants that is Robert

Mugabe. Once the nightmare ends, then perhaps plans

to bring about a viable street paper will see the light of

day on the streets of Harare and elsewhere.

..

I now have a few closing thoughts on the 2oo8 INSP

Conference. First, it was well organised and profess-

ionally presented that was a credit to all those who

worked to bring the annual conference to the fore.

And secondly, of those who I met there, I was de-

lighted with meeting them. I would say they were a

credit to the world's street paper movement of which

they represented so well. For me as a street vendor, I

was glad to unofficially represent my fellow vendors,

from wherever and however they are, at the 13th

International Conference of homeless street papers

of the world. I hope, I represented them well.

Cheers everybody, Uncle Monty.

+St. John The Baptist, 2oo8.

..

I now leave you with a few other

images of mine of Scotland's Glasgow:

-

Scotland's Glasgow at Leigh Quay.

..

A Huge Community Ad for Glasgow2014

..
Street violinist at Glasgow's Sauchiehall St.
..

All, But The Street Vendors. By Uncle Monty.

All, But The Street Vendors.
Story and Photos By Uncle Monty.
Part One of Two
==
Not one of the thousands of street vendors of The Big Issue,
except me, was present at the five-day 13th International
Conference of Network Street Papers (INSP) held at Scotland’s largest
City of Glasgow. Not even the conference keynote speaker that was
The Big Issue co-founder and editor-in-chief John Bird was ever a
homeless street vendor as far as I know. Out of all the attendees I

randomly picked at the conference to ask them if they had been or

were homeless, I only found 1 out the 12 to 15 I asked telling me

they’d been homeless at some stage in their life.

==
Of the 6 or 7 delegates I asked, not a single one told me they’d been

a street vendor selling their street publication on the streets of the

country to which they represented at the conference. While over the

course of 15 years, according to The Big Issue Scotland, street vendors

in Scotland alone have earned a staggering £9.6 million (or over $US

20 million) by selling the Scottish edition of the street paper. Yet, not

a single street vendor was present as an official delegate or represent-

ative at the 2oo8 INSP conference that venued at Glasgow’s

august Mitchell Library.
==
There was John Bird puffing and panting as usual with his view
that there’s “a consirpacy to keep the poor” poor and to keep them
poor by UK government hand outs and welfare benefits to them. Then

he goes on about how it took him 20 whole years to get his own life

together. To him, the only way the homeless can become emancipated

from the streets is by them working in the open marketplace or better

still by selling The Big Issue. Looking fatter and older than ever, John

Bird was in his element of showmanship among the very friendly

conference toward him. He’s a Big Name, perhaps even bigger than

The Big Issue, among those who profit or want to profit from the

homeless and marginalized of the world.

==
He seemed, too, to think I was of no importance to him or The Big

Issue despite being one of his street vendors for over three years.

In the past, he’s been very warm and most welcoming to me.

But at the INSP Conference he seemed to resent my presence

for some reasons unbeknown to me, but presumably best known

to him. He didn’t speak to me, he only spoke at me as if I was

an inanimate object or an irritant flea. John’s little brother Peter

Bird was also among the 18-member Big Issue delegation, the

largest of all, at the conference ranging from Lisa Woodman,

publisher of the Big Issue; to its editor Charles Howgego to Ian

MacArthur, its group managing director; and to John Bird’s ever

present side kick, the ex-street vendor John Duffy, 53. He, Duffy,

is now newly based at The Big Issue Scotland at where his Misses,

he told me, is to join him there in the next two weeks from their

former home at England’s Ramsgate. My past harsh criticism of

Duffy, I suspect is one reason now for Bird’s aloofness and disrepect

to me … So what’s all of this got to do with an international confer-

ence on street papers, you may rightly ask? Well, plenty.
==
John Bird with INSP Conference host.

==

It’s all to do with the personalities and attitudes of those involved
in the street paper industry or socially-conscious enterprise.
All street publications evolve and revolve around the personality
and character of the editors or employees in charge of a particular
street paper. If we look at John Bird’s street mag--it reflects his
exclusive view and priority of the world of homelessness. In many

ways he is rather out of the loop of street homelessness after years

now being off the streets and therefore he's looking down from The

Ivory Tower he’s now built for himself over the past 17 years,

instead of looking up like most homeless folkz do. And so, The
Big Issue would be an entirely different publication, of course,

if his morose side kick John Duffy or John Bird’s own little

brother Peter were to suddenly be put in charge of running

such. Or if you or I were running such a street sheet we would

again be different to them. When John Bird told me at the con-

ference that he didn’t read any blogs, that reflects his personality,

too. If he doesn’t look at what others are writing, then that molds

his view of himself and less of others who write via their own

blogs like me. He doesn't have a blog himself, I guess. In all,

the best street papers are the ones that put personalities

aside and presents the raw reality of whatever are the

local circumstances and ongoing ingredients that confront the

issues and problems of homelessness, alienation, marginalization
and social deprivation. And, behind such publications there must

always be an acute and constant awareness of those many

homeless street vendors that provide the blood, guts, endurance
and lifeline of such publications. With "No Vendors, No Street Rag"

– period. A street paper conference without street vendors repre-

sented or given imput at such a conference is derelict by default
of all that it essentially stands for. It flies in the face of its public

rhetoric and stance on the issues of the homeless and the ancilliary

problems stemming from such societal questions and conditions.
==
Ricardo Grassi of Italy.

=
Officially opened by Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond
and the Lord Provost of Glasgow Bob Winter, the international

conference held 5 days of workshops and roundtable discussions

ranging from (shown above) Italian Ricardo Grassi’s ‘Promoting

your street paper as unique source of news and information’ to

American Joanne Zuhl’s ‘Catastrophic street paper disasters and

how to survive them’ to Dutch Jeroen de Rooij’s “Working positively

and effectively with Roma vendors” to Kenyan Clement Njoroge’s

and Zambian Samba Yonga’s ‘The unique role of street papers in

the Global South.” At Richaro Grassi’s workshop, I made an im-

promptu presentatioin and skit on being a Big Issue vendor.

Everybody there seemed to really enjoy what I had to say.

The key to being a street vendor is to poke fun at yourself
and at those who want to take pity on you. Pity is pitiful to me.

I don’t want your pity, I only want your respect and even better

your money, thank you very much. All too many street vendors

and those who work with them have lost the art of making

and poking fun at themselves and at others. They’re all full of

grimness, damnation and judgement. Pity them, I say.
==

Above: Glasgow’s Street Vendors Natalie Clubb and
Raymond Nesbitt with their pet dog “Kiz.”
==
During my conference break, I hit the streets of Glasgow at where my
own dad was born and raised more than one hundred years ago. It was,
however, my first visit to Scotland’s leading commercial centre that sits
on the River Clyde at Stratheclyde. The Gorbals district, once infamous
as the city’s dirty hole, has long been transformed much like New
Glasgow itself. Here the patron saint of the city is St. Mungo and with
its impressive cathedral thus named after the saint of the same name.
+

I tarried here and there until I happened upon Natalie Clubb and
Raymond Nesbitt at the Royal Exchange, who are ummarried partners
and street vendors of Big Issue Scotland. They were there with some
of their street friends and of one who I caught with his hand half way
in my jacket pocket trying to steal from me. After taking their
picture, Natalie suddenly became suspicious along with Raymond,
who demanded I show them my identification as Natalie in-
explicably grabbed my polariod of them (shown above) and
refused to give it back to me until I could prove I was indeed a
Big Issue vendor. They were unaware of the street papers
conference and Raymond remarked "that Big Issue never tells
us anything of what’s going on." I’ve found exactly the same
myself as a vendor. Luckily, I had my Big Issue badge with
me and both Natalie and Raymond soon apologised profusely
to me and she hugged me, too. That was nice and all was
forgiven. But I think it also tells us something about the
negative mindset and open fears of many vendors on the
streets. Natalie Clubb feels especially vunerable to chauvinistic
and sex-driven males who feel they can come on her like she is
a free gutter prostitute to satisfy their kinky tastes and crude
desires. I myself have even had a pimp once offer me a paid
role in some hetro/porno movie at London’s West End.
I fast told the creepy scumbag to go to hell for I am
old enough to be his grandfather, god damn him …

==

While in Glasgow, I also attended Scotland’s 2oo8
Voluntary Sector Fair held at The Gathering of which my
caption picture above shows it at its best, architecturally. It
almost looks like a miniature Sydney Opera House, doesn't it?
Yeeep … And, if you’ve been to one voluntary sector fair, you're
basically been to them all. They’re so uniformly boring, frankly.
The same was what I found at the Glasgow fair do, too. As for the
INSP conference, "All, But The Street Vendors" were there.
==
In my upcoming Part Two, I’ll present some of the other
individuals at the INSP Conference that will include
Brazil’s Maria Margareth Lins Rossal; Nigeria’s
Yomi Kuku, and Argentina's Patricia Merkin.

So stay tuned, everybody ...
Best regards, Uncle Monty.
+Fifth Sunday after Trinity, 2oo8.

Inside The 2oo8 INSP Conference.

==

Glasgow's Sunday Herald published my

comments prior to attending the INSP Conference:

Posted by: uncle monty, covent garden, central london.

on 5:51am Thu 19 Jun 08
i sell the big issue in london. i plan to attend the street papers conference for the first time. i am interested in helping vendors like me to make a greater profit from selling such street papers than those who publish and promote such for their own profit at the expense, all too often, of the street people. ironically, they talk of getting the homeless a "new life" off the streets, but the reality is they must still have the homeless to flog their papers and magazines on the streets of the world. as for the big issue founder john bird, he is in many ways a spokesman for those on "corporate welfare" more than for the homeless and/or vunerable street vendors like me. the problem is that such vendors can and are exploited, willingly or unwillingly, by the process and not the product. while i don't begrudge some of the aims or profit of most street paper publishers, i do begrudge their failure to provide safeguards for the health and work conditions on the streets, especially during the savage months of bitter winter and boiling summer heat at various locations around the world. the vendors are at the bottom of the totem pole and few, if any, are given a voice to challenge the way the "owners" of street papers do business with the vendors themselves. i sometimes only make a few quid a day, while the big whigs at the big issue continue to bathe in their fat bank accounts and charity status at the detriment of those exposed to the elements of street selling to the sometimes hostile or indifferent public that as a vendor i find is not that uncommon. if i am able, i shall raise some of the points i make here at the conference itself. my blog - http://thebiggerissue.org/ - covers a number of issue about those who are or have been homeless. truly, uncle monty. +before st. alban, 2oo8. ps. when i was asked by one of my customers if i worked for a charity, i said no! i then told her half-jokingly that i was, in fact, my own "walking, talking, two-legged charity." she then gave me ten quid for christmas after i said that!! bravo!!
--

Glasgow On My Mind. By Uncle Monty.

Glasgow On My Mind.

By Uncle Monty.

***

Glasgow is the place where my dad was born over

100 years ago. Yet, this is the first time I have visited the

Scottish city. I'm now here to attend the 13th International

Conference on Street Papers that will bring folkz from all

over the world to Glasgow. The aim of the conference is

to discuss issues surrounding street publications that are

flogged on the streets in around 43 countries by homeless

and vunerable people. I will have alot more to write about

once the conference comes to close this weekend.

So for now, cheers from Scotland, Uncle Monty.

Gone Now Are They Forevermore. By Uncle Monty.

Abney Park visitors count for many each day

He was a drug addict for years was the young married
29 year-old Dave Johnson who was having a quiet beer

with another visitor Ian Smith, 44, who is an Edinburgh-

born stonemason. We had quite a good chat we did. Dave,

now drug-free, is a fellow Anglican of mine with two little

daughters of his. While Ian is a member of the biblically-

ultraconservative Free Presbyterian Church. At Abney Park,

the unemployed and beer drinking Eastern Europeans

males walk there to shot the breeze and to lazy about all

day and every day it seems. So do some English on govern-

ment job seekers allowance who are hardly looking for a job,
obviously, if they dilly-dally all day long at Abney Park.
Geographically, many of the pathways have no directional

signs and so it is easy to go around and around in circles for

hours at a time if you get lost or wander off into the small

bypasses that make up the Victorian cemetery’s picture of
nature exploration and recognised conservation. Although

primarily an expansive Victorian cemetery, the park is
a public nature walk at where birds of every kind dwell
and thrive happily from tiny warblers to cheeky little red

robins and many other wonderful English bird species.

+

Now for the main story, please read on:

Gone Now Are They Forevermore.

Story and Photos By Uncle Monty.

+

How I landed up at London’s Victorian Garden Cemetery

at Abney Park was by simply getting off at the wrong bus
stop at Stoke Newington while alighting from bus No. 76.

I then more or less stumbled on the old burial place much

like we do so often in real life when we learn life’s tricks of

the trade by stumbling with many of our own silly and/or
serious mistakes. Landing up in a cemetery can be a fas-

cinating mistake, if you're still alive, or at least it was for

me on such a glorious early summer’s day like I found it

to be just only yesterday. Landing up dead in any kind

of cemetery is, of course, an entirely different story

of which only the living can tell and not the dead.
+

Pastoral Scene from Abney Park Cemetery.

The first thing I bumped into at Abney Park was the un-

mistakenable burial marker (shown in my caption photo)

of General William Booth and his wife Catherine, who died

22 years before did her husband who was the founder of

The Salvation Army. Last year, incidentally, The Salvation
Army itself raised over one billion, yes, over one billion,
in worldwide charity dollars.
+
The Sleeping Loin Memorial of the once famed

Menagerists Frank and Susannah Bostock. It is pro-

bably the most well-known feature at Abney Park.

To check the names of other eminent Victorians
and prominent Edwardians buried among the common
folk at Abney Park, simply visit the cemetery’s website:
http://www.abney-park.org.uk/stories/storyReader$5
+

A Murdered English Policeman of 1909.
Police Constable Wm. Frederick Tyler (his gravesite
Shown above) was only age 31 when he was “killed at

Tottenham while doing his duty” on July 23rd, 1909.
He belonged to London’s Metropolitan Police. Also, I

came across the gravesite of London Fire

Superintendent James Braidwood, who at age 29 was

killed “whilst courageously performing his duty at the

Great Fire in Tooley Street, June 22nd, 1861.” A

number of British soldiers from the First and Second

World Wars are buried at Abney Park, too, like Lt.

R. J. Daniels of The Scots Guards, 1919, and Private

James Ladds of The Yorkshire Regiment, 1939.
+
Thick underbrush and tall weeds hide many graves

I estimate that about 3,000 people are buried at

Abney Park Cemetery, which was originally the private

mansion property of, I believe, Sir Thomas Abney, Bart.

The first major statue to be erected at the park was

that of Dr. Isacc Watts, England’s greatest ever Hymn

Writer, who had been a life-long friend of Sir
Thomas. A very Christian cemetery in character I
think, it is full of classic English and Scottish surnames
so thus engraved like Harding, Read, Frost, Gould,
Hill, Webb, Spencer, Lock, Fuller, Kemp, Newton,
Rowe, Poole, Lacey, Harrison, Farrell, Browne,
Dickinson, Murray, Lynd, Steele, Ramsey,
and so on and so forth.

+
Abney Park isn’t, above all, a lonely garden cemetery, but
rather it is "lived in", if you will, just about every day with scores
of nature lovers, touring families, and curious or accidental visitors

like me. There is nothing scary, either, about the place. It is in

many way like the living are being hosted by the silent dead

while "gone now are they forevermore” from their

once earthly form and living life.

+

Abney Park statue of Dr. Isaac Watts was

England's greatest hymn writer of all times.

Aside from such fairly common homeland
surnames, I looked for the more unusual names on
the countless tombstones at Abney Park Cemetery.
Here are some I found: Charlotte Youle, age 20,
1858; James Cregey, age 31, 1883; son of Alfred
and Kelzia Cwilt, Aubrey, who died at Calcutta in
India, at his teenage age of 17 in 1854; Charles
Sweetinburch, 1917; Emily Rosina Ayton, 1972;
Henry Docwa, age 26, 1871; Edward Wessendorff
1931; Harriet Vooght, 1934; and Frederick Priddis,
1875. The large number of dead 19th and early 20th
century babies and young children buried at Abney
Park is evidence of poor health and medical care, I
suppose, for many of them at that time. Such examples
are Sarah Betteridge, age 4, when she died in 1842;
Lillian Maude Wimshurst, age 2, in 1865;
and Emily Lizette Yexley, age 14, in 1913.

I may add more to this story of Abney

Park, but for now I wanted to be sure

you got a litle whiff or flavour of such an

English cemetery garden that for years

has attracted both the living and the dead.

Truly, Uncle Monty.

+The 4th Sunday after Trinity, 2oo8.

Anglican Priests Who Invoke Mary. By Uncle Monty.

Anglican Priests Who Invoke Mary.
Story and Photos By Uncle Monty.
-
Adherents of traditional Catholicity are not just to be

found within the Roman Church, but also within the

English Church. Such English adherents are called

Anglo-Catholics or Anglican-Catholics. While I am myself

steeped in Low Church Anglican Protestantism, I have a

growing respect for what is called “High Church English

Catholicism.” Incidentally, "High Church" doesn’t mean socially
high class per se, but rather it means the deployment of highly

religious Catholic ritual and symbolism as opposed to Low Church
deritualized and plain protestant ceremonies. And, "Low Church"

doesn’t mean socially low class, either. All too many outside the

church confuse High and Low Church with class strata and

economic status. Such is most misleading.
+
However, what is not misleading is to come face-to-face
with dozens upon dozens of devout Anglican-Catholics

like I recently did at the 2oo8 National Festival of the

Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament (CBS).
It was a sight and experience to behold. In some ways
it seemed to me to be more Catholic than Catholic.
Those ordained Anglican priests who were present at CBS
were to me much like Roman Catholic priests in all but name.
Certainly their Roman vestments and their Roman religious
ritual hardly echoed plain old Anglicanism to me. Of course,
the beauty of Historic Anglicanism has always been to ac-
knowledge both its character of Protestantism and Catholicism
side by side and to let it stand at various degrees of affirmation
throughout the ecclesiastical history of the Church of England.
+
Without delving deeply here into the issues of Anglican
Catholicism, I thought it best instead to simply present a few
of my images of those so present at the 2oo8 National Festival
of CBS. Thus, I present just seven images here that show

some of the individuals and character of the Confraternity
gathering that was a significant moment in this year’s Church
events even with alot less prior publicity and media fanfare

than my earlier presence at such major events as 354th

Festival Service of the Sons of the Clergy at St. Paul's

Cathedral and before that at Archbishop Rowan Williams’

extraordinary Lecture on Sharia Law at The Royal Courts

of Justice.

+

I shall, moreover, attend the most important English

Church event of this year in July when I shall be at The

Lambeth Conference with my eyes, ears, and cameras to

encounter all that is religiously and fraternally distilled

there. But for now, I present just seven images of the

indviduals and character of the Confraternity that I

witnessed with due humble reverence and

contained quiet pleasure ...
-

The Superior-General of the Confraternity
is 41 year old Anglican cleric Rev’d Father
Christopher Pearson, SSC, who is shown above.
-
At age 63, The Venerable Howard Levett
is a popular Anglican priest among devout
Anglican-Catholics. He is the Vicar of the 1836-
founded Parish of S. Alban The Martyr.
-
Anglican Sister Anne Williams was the Homilist
at the National Festival of CBS. She and I thought
it rather funny that she was mistakenly described
as a Catholic nun by the national news media when
she was engaged in conversation with Archbishop
Rowan Williams at Westminster Abbey. Some news
reporter automatically assumed she was a nun
with her title of sister of the old protestant Church
Army and not of the Catholic Church. The Anglican
Church has a long history of religious sisterhood and
devotion under their specific church orders and rule.
-
For a moment, I almost thought the Rev’d Father
Paul Gibbons, J.P. was of Catholic Cardinality by
the manner of his traditional dress. He is, in fact,
The Anglican Vicar of Maidenhead at age 71.
“Bravo, bravo …,” I said to myself upon having
now met him and then photographing him.
-
To have captured this image in post-modern
Britain was for me a lovely and telling moment just
as the Procession of the Blessed Sacrament was about
to get under way on the cold, secular, and crime ridden
streets of the modern and anti-Christian British
capital of today.
-
Mr. John Dilkes represents the best of Church Vergers
and Sacristans within the Anglican-Catholic tradition.
I am privileged, too, to call him among one of my
many Anglican and spiritual friends.
+
As for attending the National Festival of CBS, it
was spiritually and socially quite uplifting for those
so present and for me. The Procession of the Blessed
Sacament was a religious event all by itself and in-
deed a very worthy one for all who believe on Him.
Yet, my lasting impression of the Confraternity was
of those marvellous and individualistic Anglican
priests that I met and photographed who first in-
voke Mary in their religious belief and utterance that
seems to me to be far above and beyond the realm of
their Church of England calling to which they are so
rightly ordained.

+

Religious sincerity and spiritual expression should,

after all, always transcend the doctrinal parameters

of denominational affiliation and formal membership

of the individual believer. And to come to think of it,

perhaps The Confraternity is a classic religious example

of just that. In any event, I saw Anglican priests who
invoke Mary day in and day out. And, they don’t shy

away from that in any way. So praised is Mary then

by them and by those of The Confraternity of the

Blessed Sacrament.
+
Faithfully, Uncle Monty.
+The Feast of Weeks, 2oo8.

+
From: SrAnneCA@aol.com

To: thebiggerissue@k.st
Subject: Re: you're in the news!!
Date: Sun 06/15/08 11:46 AM

+

Hi again Monty
ignore my last email - I have woken up and

found your article. It has been a busy fortnight.
You're right I did find it interesting

Love and prayers Sister Anne

+

The Movie Sister. By Uncle Monty.

The Movie Sister.

By Uncle Monty.

+

The Movie Sister, as I call her, wasn’t hesitant when

some young teenage yob tried to rush in front of her

video camera as she was then recording the final street

scenes of The Procession of the Confraternity

of the Blessed Sacrament.

+

She grabbed him in an instant by the scruff of the neck

and pulled him back until she had completed the final

shots of those clergy and laity she was filming.

+

The yob looked perplexed and he sulked at her like

he wanted to kill her. She stood her ground and didn’t

wince nor blink an Anglican-Catholic eyelid. He then

scurried off from the scene like he was all hurt and

offended after the sister had completed her movie.

Poooooor thing, you punk.

+
Harrah … And again, I say hurrah, for the good movie

sister. If I’d have had my way, he’d have gotten caned

good with six-of-the-best across his smart rearend to
teach him a good needed lesson about good manners

and proper respect.

+
I shall shortly, by the way, be writing about the pressing

issue of re-instating corporal punishment in today’s appall-

ingly bad British state schools and acadamies at where daily

violence and undisciplined students rule and roost the day.

"Bring back the cane," is what I unapologetically say.

+

But for now, please read my full posted story entitled

"Anglican Priests Who Invoke Mary" that stems from my

uncommon encounter at the 2oo8 National Festival of

the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament.
+

, Uncle Monty.

+St. Pelegia, 2oo8.

Lost Surely At Lost TV. By Uncle Monty.

Lost Surely At Lost TV.
Story By Uncle Monty.
--
There was something totally unreal about game show host

Nick Knowles, aside from being a stupid idiot who couldn’t

get his cues or his lines right. And, so they had to re-take

the shots of him on a number of times until he finally got it

right at the BBC-TV recording studios at where I sat up-

front for almost four hours watching such an overpaid

nickumpoop in his delirious action on Who Dares Wins

for Lost TV. If anybody was “lost,” it was surely

Nick The Nickumpoop.
-
Nick Knowles with Uncle Monty at BBC-TV

-
He, Nick Knowles, should have been shown to the back
door of the studio and put out on the street to beg for a
real living for he was surely that bad and that stupid. Oh,

and don’t get me going about how he spoke with that

put-on voice of his that was so unreal and artificial

I thought at first he was a broken, talking voice box

or something like that … if there’s such a thing.
-
TV studio fan with Nick Knowles himself

-
My BBC-TV studio photos here show the game show
host at his best and not his worst. I will leave you now
with other photos I've taken, too, as shown below.
Truly, Uncle Monty.
Pax Christi, 2oo8.
-
My flash camera made him blink

-
Sofia Came My Way

-

At The Freeman's Hall
--

Thankz alot for the ride, Maria ... You’ll also see
my face is reflected centre on the shining grill.
--

My photoview of England's
Maritme City of Southampton.

--
From: "john lenhart" at johnlenhart@email2me.net
To: thebiggerissue@k.st Subject: U write poison, don't u?

Date: Mon 06/09/08 10:18 AM
Uncle Monty, Can u ever write a story that does not attack the

person u write about? U have attacked Gordon Brown, Mr. Blair,

Ken Livingstone, Rev (Gene) Robinson, Adam Boulton, the govern-

ment and even the police. What is it that drives u to attack anybody

u don't like? U write a strong story. U don't mince your words. U go

right for the throat. U find fault in your victims like u did with your

latest one Nick Knowles. U savaged him. What for? Do u feel good

using your poison pen? Write something nice for a change, would

u Uncle Monty? Your blog is nevertheless great. U keep me

coming back for more just to read your latest attack stories.

From a soft critic, John Lenhart.

-

Uncle Monty replies: "i don't attack, i just present my stories

from a different prospective than most others. i don't use a

poison pen, i use the simple truth. i don't have victims, i have

only personalities, subjects, and events to write about. and

that's what i do without fear or favour. i welcome critics like

you for it makes me glad all over ... without critics i am a

failure in what i write, do and say. after all, i brand myself

first as a critical critic of all that i see around me from the ilk

of Anthony Blair to whoever or whatever comes my way.

Critics, like you and me, make life go around and around."

..