Good news and bad news

First the good news. Declan’s petition to the UN has been moved to another petition website because of useful features such as anti-spam filters and the facility to delete signatures. That was on 22 October and since then we have been very busy researching and emailing prominent scientists and academics who are pro human embryonic stem cell research. Signatures are coming slow and we are starting to wonder if our emails are being dumped straight into people’s spam boxes – Declan was informed not so long ago by more than one high profile scientist that his invitation to become an honorary associate of NAC was found in their spam box, and I too have found reply emails in our spam box.

The plan is that once we have a sufficient number of prominent signatories (including a few celebrities we have in mind), we will then present the petition to patient and scientific groups. If Declan and I were off the street by then, I would have a campaign and a website around the petition, very similar to Oxfam International’s campaign ‘Make Fair Trade’, which 20 million have signed to date.

Therapies using embryonic stem cells may one day provide important new strategies for the treatment for a host of currently untreatable disorders, and since even the healthiest can be struck with, say, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, an accessible and energetic campaign could also attract tens of thousands of signatures – why not? And then a country may be less reluctant to ask the UN to consider an international declaration that would facilitate human embryonic stem cell research.

The bad news. The catalogue of harassment against us has intensified to such an extent that I have made a quantum leap to being a beggar first and Big Issue vendor second. All Friday evening, for example, out of necessity, I spent begging in the train station, the street and as usual outside the local supermarket – I carry my passport in case the police stop me, and my pay as you go mobile phone in case I have to send a text message to Declan informing him that I am in the police station.

Also, we have spent the last two Friday nights working throughout the night in a 24-hour internet café – as I stated in my last bog, Friday night appears to be the time of the week when I am at most risk (I sleep on the outside so that Declan can sleep with our well-tied bags): I was kicked in the chest and shoulders on a Friday; dragged out of the porch by the ankles and, a few hours later, kicked in the back on a Friday; and on an additional two Fridays we have had beer thrown all over us as we slept. You would be forgiven for thinking that our porch is situated in the West End rather than in the heart of London’s business district.

The problems with our Big Issue pitches (from which we sell The Big Issue magazine – a magazine sold by homeless throughout the UK) have actually escalated. Not only does Declan continue to be run off his pitch on Liverpool Street by, among others, The London Paper and London Lite, but now I have to contend with Shortlist, another free paper – on Thursday I had two Shortlist distributors, one on either side of me. Of course, I sold nothing. Since Declan received a letter of 10 September from John Bird, the founder and editor-in-chief of The Big Issue, more or less telling Declan to stop bothering him, all his emails to The Big Issue seem to have fallen on deaf ears. He emailed head office again last Monday over The London Paper and London Lite, to no effect.

Undeniably, selling the Big Issue is very much at an end and we are literary being left with nothing unless I am able to earn £5 or £6 a day begging – it is for this reason that I am going to put in a lot of hours this week asking for money until I get better at it (as I have stated before, begging is a recordable offence and can land you in court).

Although the active constituency of all believers in Britain is about eight per cent of the population, the Government appears to be intent that an organisation like NAC will never get off the ground – in a nutshell, NAC seeks to be a network platform for non-religious and secular voices. We, on the other hand, are intent that NAC will become a reality. If we get enough prominent signatures to get our petition going, I have no doubt it will be the beginning of the end of our time on the street.