Bebo

Steve Wallis <SteveW519>

	"A Little Time", about me hopefully going out with a Muslim woman to see Paul Heaton/Cerys Matthews	381 days ago
	I've created a Bebo page for my alter-ego Steven Wallis (who is now one of my "friends"), and I posted this blog entry there earlier: I have been a political prisoner on psychiatric wards on many occasions since the summer of 1998 - after I was the only member of the Socialist Party of England and Wales to speak in the debate at the 1998 European School of the CWI in favour of the Scottish Militant Labour leadership's proposals to turn the Scottish Socialist Alliance into a party (now the Scottish Socialist Party which had six members elected to the Scottish parliament in 2003). I am now an informal patient, in Nelson Ward, Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI), and would have been discharged several months ago if it wasn't for the fact that I am homeless (and several thousand pounds in debt so I can't afford to get somewhere to live unless I get housing benefit which I have finally found out I can get). I am about to start selling the Big Issue. A then nurse once told me that if nurses see a former patient on the street they are supposed to ignore them! She told me she would ignore that rule, and may even go for a drink with them. However, relationships between nurses and psychiatric patients, or former patients, are strictly forbidden. Such a rule (probably enforceable by the law) makes a certain amount of sense. After all, vulnerable patients with mental health problems could be taken advantage of. However, I have now been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, having mood swings, being high when things are going well in my life and the world and being low when things are going badly. This is a perfectly rational response, and since I have a vital role to play in the world, my mood swings are much greater than others in a similar situation. Basically, there is nothing wrong with me. There is a nurse who I previously fell for, on a previous admission at the MRI, and didn't even realise she was Pakistani or a Muslim. As Darius Danesh would say, I am colourblind!!! Earlier this week, she told me that she doesn't know what love is and that all the men she has had relationships with have tried to take advantage of her. This helped me realise how strongly I feel for her, and that I want to help her find out what love is, and how kind a man can be. [Actually, I have a female-type mind, being less single-minded than men who have a cause they are fighting for, and sometimes putting individuals I love ahead of the cause.] I am a virgin and, although the nurse hasn't told me, I'm sure she is too (unless she has been raped and I'm sure she'd have told me by now if that had happened to her). As a Muslim, she doesn't believe in sex before marriage. I don't want to lose my virginity until the world is free, because many women from my past with whom I have shared mutual strong loving feelings have turned me down due to more important considerations than personal enjoyment (due to the crucial role I have in ensuring we have a really brilliant and hopefully mainly socialist world). This week has been the most monumentous in history, with the election of a black president in the USA. I supported Barack Obama, on the internet and putting out a newsletter, and want to celebrate that brilliant achievement which probably puts an end to the prospect of unethical capitalism triumphing in the world! The choice now is between some form of much more ethical capitalism and a democratic socialist society (which I think should involve proportional representation by single transferable vote as well as hierarchies of committees based on workplaces and local communities). Socialists opposed to PR, particularly Marxists, are in a very weak position, so a "dictatorship of the proletariat" with only the working class in power is pretty much ruled out too. I was very chuffed recently, when Paul Heaton (formerly of the very political band The Housemartins and also The Beautiful South which also did some political songs) invited my band Red Day to be a friend of his at MySpace. I checked his page and saw that he is performing tonight (Friday 7 November) at Manchester Ritz Ballroom along with Cerys Matthews (formerly of Catatonia which were also political) and another support band. I managed to get two tickets on Tuesday, at quite a reasonable price. Obviously, this gig has been kept fairly secret so that their biggest fans are able to attend. I decided, when I saw the gig was on, that I would try to find one woman to invite, and wouldn't go with anybody else, who would be a second choice. That wouldn't have been at all romantic! When I shortly afterwards found out that the nurse had never had a decent relationship, I knew I wanted to go with her. I told her later on the same day. She has not yet said that she will come, but she is working on my ward on the late shift which finishes at about 9pm. This will be the first time I see her after the US presidential election. Hopefully she will realise that I have played a really good role in the world, bearing Obama's stunning victory in mind, and be prepared to put up with whatever consequences she may face for having some sort of relationshop with me (or maybe just going on a single date). I will say that she can pay for her ticket if she prefers, although I've paid for it already and don't want the money. I have told her, and will go ahead with my promise, that (even if she adamantly tells me she will not come) I will wait outside the gig on the off-chance that she eventually changes her mind about not coming and eventually turns up. I couldn't face going in without her! Besides, it's been such a great week politically, and I have written a really good song ("A Little Time", which you can listen to on this page) for her that should bowl her over, so I am very confident that she will come to end this great week in a wonderful way! If she doesn't come, I'll take it on the chin and hope that my self sacrifice and romantic actions win her over in the future. If she does face any sort of legal action over going out with me I will back her up in court. I have never had a particularly good relationship (all mine have been with psychiatric patients largely because I have spent much more time with them and nurses than anyone else during the last ten years and nurses have turned me down for reasons I've stated above, although with one nurse we made arrangements to visit Australia together before she let me down on the internet) and haven't had a girlfriend since 2002, although I have had four dates with a former patient earlier this year, but the spark wasn't there. I have often felt that my life is far more interesting than the soap operas that so many working and middle class people spend so long watching - but this is now more of a (divine) comedy, like an episode of Friends!!! Anyway, sit back and listen to "A Little Time". You may notice I've nicked bits from a fair number of other songs including Housemartins, Catatonia and Beautiful South songs including the one with the same title - but it is an original work of art in itself and I am dead chuffed with it! [NOTE: Click on my "friend" Steven Wallis, who is a fan of himself, to listen to "A Little Time"!]
	posted by Steve Wallis