New Scientist: Faith in denial

Declan's difficulties while attempting to sell The Big Issue (a magazine sold by homeless people on registered street pitches) have continued – on Thursday afternoon he had to write to the founder and editor-in-chief of The Big Issue, John Bird, see previous blog. On Thursday and Friday evening Declan's pitch was unceremoniously taken over by a distributor of the free daily London Lite and he had no choice but to walk off. So since he had some magazines left, on Saturday we decided to take a bus to Covent Garden, where we have a weekend pitch for the two of us. We shouldn't have bothered spending money we don't have on the transport: almost as soon as Declan was on the pitch, four homeless with cans of beer came along, sat beside him and, well, more or less scared away any potential Big Issue buyer. (Noam Chomsky – described by The New York Times as "arguably the most important intellectual alive", and an early signatory of Declan's petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning – identifies economic strangulation as a primary method of domination and control – see blog of 12 June “The threat of a good example”).

        Delacroix's 1830 masterpiece Liberty Leading the People

The latest issue of the New Scientist carries a piece by British philosopher AC Grayling "How humans dared to know", with the subheadline: "Our passion for 'Enlightenment values' owes a lot to the 18th century. But where do those values come from and what do they mean today?" Grayling, one of Britain's foremost public intellectuals, says that if one compares the lives of ordinary people 300 years ago with those we can enjoy now, the impact of the Enlightenment on the structure and practice of society can be fully appreciated - and admired. "As a historical phenomenon," writes Grayling, "the Enlightenment movement emphasised reliance on reason, sought to take a scientific approach to social and political questions, championed science, and opposed the clergy, the church and all forms of superstition as obstacles to progress." He also writes: "Enlightenment values today are commitments to individual autonomy, democracy, the rule of law, science, rationality, secularism, pluralism, a humanist ethics, the importance of education, the promotion of human rights."

Science is also central to an article by Michael Brooks, former senior features editor at the magazine, titled "Faith in denial", with the subheadline: "The Catholic church's insistence on demonising IVF is making it look irrelevant and out of touch". Brooks comments that it is time for the Vatican to accept IVF: Louise Brown, the world’s first test-tube baby, turned 30 last week; and, with more than 3 million people having now been conceived through IVF, she is no longer the miracle she once seemed.

At the time of Brown’s birth the church was undecided about the morals and ethics of IVF, but it has since banned its members from using the technology, declaring it "morally unacceptable". That, Brooks explains, is primarily because it views the destruction of embryos, a common aspect of the IVF process, as equivalent to murder. The church also takes the view that IVF allows us to play God. “The Catholic church’s position is looking ever more absurd, especially when you consider that it stands virtually alone on this matter,” Brooks writes. “The vast majority of Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu groups see IVF as a useful means to an essential end: overcoming infertility. Muslim scholars issued their first proclamation, or fatwa, on IVF within two years of Brown’s birth. This came from the leaders of the majority Sunni group, to which over 90 per cent of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims belong. The fatwa decreed that a married couple was free to use IVF as long as there was no donation of gametes from third parties. The minority Shiite group is even more tolerant: it has allowed its members to use donated eggs or sperm since the mid-1990s, so long as all parties adhere to Islamic codes regarding parenting.”

Brooks points out that most Catholics “are similarly progressive, but this means they have to flout the dictates of their church”. He adds: “After a 1987 Vatican pronouncement on the immoral nature of IVF, Margaret Brooks, an Australian Catholic and the first woman to have a child born from a frozen embryo, boldly told The New York Times that no one paid any attention to such decrees. At the same time, several European Catholic hospitals announced that they would defy the church and continue to provide IVF treatment. It was, one hospital said, ‘an infinitely precious human service’.”

“The pope is not in the business of bowing to popular demand, but even he must sense that the church’s position is becoming ever more isolated,” Brooks writes, adding: “He could do something about it. The church has changed its views in response to scientific and technological developments before. It was the invention of the microscope and the subsequent discovery of the ovum that first persuaded Catholics to err on the side of caution and adopt their current position on the sanctity of the embryo. Why can't the Vatican take account of all we have learned in the IVF area and revise the rules again?”

Brooks goes on to argue that making "a sensible retreat" over IVF would also open the way to resolving other controversies over reproductive technologies – for example, stem cell research, which the Vatican opposes. “This in turn might enable other conservative religious groups to back down without losing face. Muslim scholars have already blazed a trail here too. In 2001 the Islamic Institute, a think tank based in Washington DC, convened a panel of medical, scientific and religious experts to work out how IVF and stem cell research fit in with Islamic teaching. They concluded that IVF is ‘a compassionate and humane scientific procedure’. On stem cells they went even further, calling it ‘a societal obligation’ to perform research on the extra embryos that are produced in IVF procedures because of the potential benefits that could accrue from it.”

Since it seems unlikely the Vatican is going to willingly embrace "Enlightenment values" in respect of IVF, as part of our international campaign on therapeutic cloning and human embryonic stem cell research we intend having a ‘take action’ section with an email to Pope Benedict XVI urging him to revise the church's rules on IVF in response to scientific and technological developments. (Our NAC website, which was suspended on 8 March due to an erroneous Spamcop report that was sent to our web host, carried three original campaigns, one of which "The Vatican and the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals" contained as a 'take action' an email to the Pope urging him to stop obstructing family planning.)

Police 'No sleeping' sign in the porch

Last night at 10.00pm Declan and I were woken in the porch we sleep in by three workers from Broadway, the homeless organisation that Superintendent Lorraine Cussen of Snow Hill police station, in her email to Declan of 10 June (see blog of 11 June “Letter to the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis”), recommended we engage with. “If we could have a chat with you and Declan,” the most senior of them says, “about what we can do for you.” Somehow she already knows about our case in the European Court of Human Rights, so Declan further informs her that he wrote to the Court on 12 May, citing a violation of Article 34 of the European Convention on Human Rights and requesting that the Court take this matter up with the Government (see blog “Letter to the European Court under Article 34”) – Article 34 establishes a duty on Convention states not to subject applicants to any improper indirect acts or contacts designed to dissuade or discourage applicants from pursuing a Convention remedy.

I add that since 13 June Declan has been assaulted in the porch (see blog of 14 June “Declan is assaulted in the porch”); his main bag, which contained, among other things, all our documentation and money, has been robbed in the Dellow Centre (see blog of 18 June “Declan robbed in the Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre”); and he has been assaulted in the Manna Centre (see blog of 19 June “Declan assaulted in the Manna Centre”) – the robbery took place the same day Declan had intended sending by registered post his second request for priority to the European Court, which I posted to the blog that afternoon, with the robbery included; the request can be read here (two days after the robbery, the Dellow Centre presented Declan with a letter from the European Court, which is published here).

This orchestrated campaign of violence against us seems to have only started, I say, adding that that afternoon, in Bow Street police station, Declan is told that the case on the robbery of all our money and documents has been “struck out” because the investigating officer was unable to get any CCTV footage whatsoever from the Dellow Centre (see email to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor below, to which his Personal Secretary, Sr Damian McGrath, replied this morning: “I am writing to acknowledge receipt of your email concerning Providence Row Charity. The Cardinal is out of the country at the present time but he will see your email on his return next week.”); around the same time in the Idea Store Whitechapel library I am told by a member of staff, in the middle of my computer booking, that I have to give the computer up to another card holder or security will be called (see email to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council below); and at 9.10pm, when we arrive back at the porch, we are greeted by the City of London Police 'No sleeping' sign overhead. So, no I don’t think Broadway can do much for us, I finally say.

The Broadway worker means if we would apply for benefits. But Declan explains he would have to withdraw his application to the Court, which neither of us could contemplate. (The Department of Work and Pensions terminated our benefits on 27 September 2006 because Declan didn't sign on two days before he was due to do so on 29 September, see blog of 8 September 2007 “Application to the European Court of Human Rights”.)

       ‘No sleeping’ sign

She fixes her eyes on the City of London Police 'No sleeping' sign. “This was put today?” she asks. Just the latest attempt to move us out of the porch, I reply, adding that on 9 May police told us they were "cleaning" the City of London of rough sleepers and that we either move to beyond city boundaries or be arrested, despite that Declan had been diagnosed in the Royal London Hospital with a sprained ankle only hours before (see blog of 9 May "Letter to the Mayor of London”); police also told us the same thing on 17 May (see blog of 17 May "Letter to the British Prime Minister"). Then the whole approach changed, I informed her: on 2 and 9 June, we have to move out of the porch (to beyond city boundaries) so that the City of London's Cleansing service can wash and disinfect the porch floor with immediate effect; and we can be arrested if we don’t move (see blog of 18 June "Second Request for Priority to the European Court").

We are quite aware that the sign is “not worth the paper it is written on”, Declan says. The May issue of The Pavement (a free magazine for London’s homeless) states that shopkeepers in the big tourist area of the Strand (Westminster area) are abandoning the Whitehall Safer Neighbourhood [police] Team’s 'No sleeping' signs on their shop fronts, claiming that they are no longer effective; apparently, the shopkeepers prefer to call the police if they have any problems or incidents. (We, by the way, have been sleeping in this porch – an office building – for over a year and a half (since 3 November 2006), bed down at 9.00pm, get up at 4.30am, don’t drink or smoke, and never have had a complaint against us; hardly material for the sign.)

“We will come back some other time,” she said, and they all left. So what is going to happen when police tell us we have to move out of the porch because the sign gives them permission to move us on (as they can see the proprietor(s) have not consented)? Well, Declan will pick up his bags and head off, but I am going to stay put: I will submit that there hasn’t been a complaint against us in over a year and a half and that this is no more than a flagrant violation of Article 34. Declan’s recent letter from the Court, dated 16 June, not only acknowledges receipt of his email letter of 12 May pursuant to Article 34 but states that Declan should inform the Court “about any major developments” regarding the case; so if I am arrested Declan will do just that, again by email, and within hours of me being placed in custody. (And if it is a worker who wants us out? Well, more or less the same. I will politely, and very apologetically, ask him to phone the police, having explained that our case is before the European Court of Human Rights.)

In his email, Declan will argue that my arrest violates Article 8 (which includes an individual’s physical and moral integrity), as well as Article 34. Declan will submit that the interference with his rights under Article 8 was not prescribed by law, that it did not pursue any of the legitimate aims in Article 8(2), and that the interference was not necessary in a democratic society. “There is simply no relationship of proportionality between the aim pursued and the interference with the applicant’s rights,” Declan will say.

At least I can take comfort we don’t live under Robert Mugabe – an article in The Independent today titled “'A flagrant violation of democracy': ANC tells Mugabe to delay election” reports that the ANC said it was "deeply dismayed by the actions of the government of Zimbabwe, which is riding roughshod over the hard-won democratic rights of the people of that country”. But I find very uplifting a talk given by Noam Chomsky (described by The New York Times as “arguably the most important intellectual alive”, and an early signatory of Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning) – in December 2006, see blog of 12 June “The threat of a good example”.

This is the email to Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor yesterday evening:

Subject: Providence Row Charity

Dear Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor

Previous correspondence refers. Please find below a copy of my email of even date to the Chief Executive of Providence Row Charity, Ms Jo Ansell, regarding the above.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

-----------------------------------------

Subject: Providence Row Charity

Dear Ms Ansell

Thank you for your ("Receipt acknowledged") email of 23 June in respect of my email of 20 June, wherein I drew to your attention as the chief executive of Providence Row Charity (of which the Dellow Centre is a part) the robbery of all my and my wife's money and documents in the canteen of the Dellow Centre on the morning of 18 June (crime reference no. 4215697/08).

In further reference to my email of 20 June, I can confirm that this afternoon I visited Bow Street police station to be updated on the investigation into the robbery. I understand that the investigating officer, PC Van-Gelder (number unknown), has been unable to get any CCTV footage whatsoever from the Dellow Centre, and consequently the case has been "struck out" by him.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey
Chain no. 69828

cc Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Archbishop of the Diocese of Westminster (by email)
Mr Erik Fribergh, Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights (by registered post*)
________________________
* Supporting Documents, p 13, Second Request for Priority under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court

And for the record, this is Declan’s email letter this afternoon to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Councillor Denise Jones:

Subject: Idea Store Whitechapel

Dear Cllr Jones

I refer further to the attached copy of my most recent correspondence with Mr Ian McNicol, Head of Idea Stores, to whom you referred my original complaint of 21 January regarding Idea Store Whitechapel and the repeated loss of computer bookings and internet access on both my wife's card (card no. D000350314) and my card (card no. D000355837) since 14 November 2007.

I also attach copy of my wife's and my computer bookings for 23 and 24 June.

In the continued absence of a response from Mr McNichol in respect of the aforementioned complaint of 21 January, I wish to confirm that (1) on 24 June at approximately 12.30pm, while on computer 24 in Idea Store Whitechapel, my wife was asked by a member of staff to give the computer up to another card holder, despite that thirty minutes earlier a member of staff had confirmed in writing that my wife had booked the computer from 11.30am to 2.30pm (this particular member of staff was aggressive, threatening to call security if she didn't move immediately; only leaving when another member of staff intervened to allow my wife to retain her booking); and (2) on 23 June at approximately 3.30pm, while on computer 23, my wife was asked by a member of staff to give the computer up to another card holder, despite that a member of staff had confirmed in writing that she had booked the computer for my wife from 2.30pm to 5.30pm (this particular member of staff only left when another member of staff intervened to allow my wife to retain her booking).

I also reconfirm that (1) on 28 March, my wife experienced difficulties accessing the internet from 12.30pm to 1.50pm (she was informed by a member of staff that no other person had reported any difficulties whatsoever accessing the internet); (2) on 11 February, a member of staff had to move me from one computer to another because it was not possible for me to access the internet (no other computer user reported any such difficulty); (3) on 10 February, my wife lost her booking to another card holder and had to spend 10 minutes dealing with a member of staff before the computer was re-booked in her name, and (4) on 1 February, I received an email from Mr Sergio Dogliani, Principal Idea Store Manager, advising that the restriction by Idea Store Whitechapel of my wife and I to a 3-hour maximum free computer use per day as from 29 January was irretractable, despite that for several months previous both my wife and I had been given extra hours of free computer use, subject to computer availability.

As I explained in my original letter of complaint of 21 January, since 22 October 2007 my wife and I have been using as much of our computer time in Idea Store Whitechapel as possible to contact distinguished scientists and academics to invite them to sign my petition to the United Nations on therapeutic cloning and the use of stem cells for research and for the treatment of disease. To date, this petition has been signed by 519 scientists and academics, including 22 Nobel laureates.

Kindly note that the case of Heavey v. the United Kingdom is currently before the European Court of Human Rights (Application no. 22541/07).

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

cc Mr Erik Fribergh, Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights (by registered post*)
________________________
* Supporting Documents, p 14-16, Second Request for Priority under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court

Letter from the European Court of Human Rights

This morning, after he had signed for it, Declan was handed a letter from the European Court of Human Rights at the reception of the Catholic Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre. The letter is dated 16 June, two days after Declan was assaulted in the porch in which we have been sleeping since 3 November 2006 (see blog “Declan is assaulted in the porch”). The day before yesterday Declan's main bag, which contained all our money and documents, was robbed in the Dellow Centre (see blog “Declan robbed in the Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre”); and yesterday he was assaulted in the Manna Centre (whose building is provided rent-free by the Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark), despite the usual two-hour round trip to get something to eat for lunch (see previous blog).

So I almost ripped the envelope apart when Declan handed it to me. I was actually convinced that it was the standard Committee Decision Letter to inform Declan that his application of 8 September 2007 is inadmissible. It reads:

Application no. 22541/07
Heavey v. the United Kingdom

Dear Sir,

I acknowledge receipt of your letter of 19 May 2008, with enclosures.

The Court will deal with the case as soon as practicable. It will do so on the basis of the information and documents submitted by you. The proceedings are primarily in writing and you will only be required to appear in person if the Court invites you to do so. You will be informed of any decision taken by the Court.

You should inform me of any change in your address. Furthermore, you should, of your own motion, inform the Court about any major developments regarding the above case, and submit any further relevant decisions of the domestic authorities.

Please note that no acknowledgment will be made as to the receipt of subsequent correspondence. No telephone enquiries either please. If you wish to be assured that your letter is actually received by the Court then you should send it by recorded delivery with a prepaid acknowledgment of receipt form.

Yours faithfully,
For the Registrar

Clare Ovey
Legal Secretary

The letter of 19 May 2008 to which the Court refers is an email that Declan sent to the Registrar with his letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown of 17 May (see blog "Letter to the British Prime Minister"); it also contained a copy of Declan's email letter to the Registrar of 12 May. This email of 19 May was in fact supplementary to his email letter to the Registrar of 12 May (see blog "Letter to the European Court under Article 34"), drawing to the attention of the Court a violation of Article 34 of the European Convention on Human Rights and requesting that the Court take this matter up with the Government – Article 34 establishes a duty on Convention states not to subject applicants to any improper indirect acts or contacts designed to dissuade or discourage applicants from pursuing a Convention remedy.

Any sparks of optimism we may have had at the start of the case were rapidly extinguished on reading the letter – in fact, we seem to be going backwards. In a letter of 22 November 2007, the Court stated that it was unnecessary to consider Declan’s request for priority of 8 September 2007 because it would be examining his application “shortly, possibly by the end of January 2008”. Now, seven months after the Court's first letter, it is “as soon as practicable”, and “no acknowledgment will be made as to the receipt of subsequent correspondence”. And “No telephone enquiries either”. Declan had intended sending his second request for priority to the Court by registered post only two days ago, the very same day all our money and documents were stolen, so it had to be put off (I did, however, post the request to the blog later that afternoon, with the robbery included; it can be read here). Declan will of course adhere to the Court’s advice and will be posting his second request for priority as soon as I have begged my way to £5 (for recorded delivery) in the local train station.

The Prettys lost their legal battle

Terminally-ill motor neurone disease sufferer Diane Pretty didn’t do well in the European Court either, and died on 11 May 2002 after failing to win her long battle to win the right to have her husband help her die – the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales disagreed that she should have a right of choice and was given permission by the Court to submit written comments. In Taking a Case to the European Court of Human Rights Philip Leach points out that in Pretty v UK “the Court did not exclude that preventing an applicant from exercising her choice to avoid an undignified and distressing end to her life might constitute an interference with the right to respect for private life”, but she lost her case anyway. In another case, Reuters reported on 11 June that Debbie Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis, has won the right to mount a challenge in the High Court to force the UK's top prosecutor to clarify the law on assisted suicide; she is seeking assurances so that she does not have to worry about her husband if he helps her visit a euthanasia facility in Switzerland at some stage in the future.

Diane Pretty lost her final challenge to choose the time and means of her own death; and how can Debbie Purdy get the assurances she is seeking? But church control can be weakened. At least, Noam Chomsky (described by The New York Times as “arguably the most important intellectual alive”, and an early signatory of Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning) thinks it can: by coming together (see blog of 12 June “The threat of a good example”).

And while on the subject, this afternoon Declan sent his fourth email to the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor (Abhreception@rcdow.org.uk), in his capacity as Archbishop of the Diocese of Westminster, regarding Providence Row Charity, of which the Dellow Centre is a part (the first email is here, and the third here):

Subject: Providence Row Charity

Dear Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor

Previous correspondence refers. Please find below a copy of my email of even date to the Chief Executive of Providence Row Charity, Ms Jo Ansell, regarding the above.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

--------------------------------------------

Subject: Providence Row Charity

Dear Ms Ansell

Further to my conversation yesterday morning with the Operations Manager for Providence Row Charity (of which the Dellow Centre is a part), Ms Stephne Harrison, I can confirm in respect of the robbery of all my and my wife's money and documents in the canteen of the Dellow Centre on 18 June that the crime reference number is 4215697/08.

I understand from my visit to Brick Lane police station this morning that the police constable to whom the case has been allocated, PC Van-Gelder (number unknown), has yet to contact either Providence Row Charity or the Dellow Centre.

As for my emails to you of 6, 10 and 11 June concerning my difficulties with reception staff on the checking of records for mail for me, I understand from Ms Harrison that clients of the Dellow Centre may request "on a daily basis", if they so wish, for records to be checked for mail. If I am mistaken in this regard, please so advise.

In further reference to the aforementioned emails, I can confirm that this morning I signed for a letter from the European Court of Human Rights advising that my case will be dealt with by the Court "as soon as practicable".

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey
Chain no. 69828

cc Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Archbishop of the Diocese of Westminster (by email)
Mr Erik Fribergh, Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights (by registered post*)
________________________
* Supporting Documents, p 13, Second Request for Priority under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court

The threat of a good example

On 19 December 2006, the award-winning news program Democracy Now! ran a piece on Noam Chomsky entitled “From Bolivia to Baghdad: Noam Chomsky on Creating Another World in a Time of War, Empire and Devastation”. (Noam Chomsky is an Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and one of the foremost critics of US foreign policy. The New York Times has described Chomsky as “arguably the most important intellectual alive”, and in 2006 he was voted the world’s number one intellectual in a poll by Prospect and Foreign Policy magazines. Chomsky is also an early signatory of Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning, and we are, well, big fans of him.)

Chomsky at the World Social Forum (Porto Alegre) in 2003

The piece mainly comprises of an excerpt of a talk Chomsky gave at an event sponsored by Massachusetts Global Action the weekend previous. He spoke about recent elections in Latin America which brought leftist governments to power that are challenging US foreign policy. Chomsky said: “This is the first time since the Spanish conquests, 500 years, that there has been real moves towards integration in South America. The countries have been very separated from one another. And integration is going to be a prerequisite for authentic independence. I mean, there have been - I’m sure you know - attempts at independence, but they’ve been crushed, often very violently, partly because of lack of regional support, because there was very little regional cooperation, so you can pick them off one by one.”

From our point of view in terms of the international campaign we are planning to run in support of Declan’s petition to the UN, we find something else Chomsky said on Latin America particularly revealing: “[A] move towards integration, independence and authentic democracy with mass popular movements and participation and so on, all extremely important, but also along with it goes a decline in the methods of domination and control. I mean, the US has dominated the region for a long time with two major methods: one of them, violence, and the other, economic strangulation, economic controls. And both of those methods are declining in efficacy.”

In one of his books, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, Chomsky writes that no country is exempt from US intervention, no matter how unimportant. In fact, it’s the weakest, poorest countries that often arouse the greatest hysteria. There is a reason for that, he says. “The weaker and poorer a country is, the more dangerous it is as an example.” On the politics of Noam Chomsky, Wikipedia says:

His conclusion is that a consistent part of the United States' foreign policy is based on stemming the "threat of a good example." This 'threat' refers to the possibility that a country could successfully develop outside the US managed global system, thus presenting a model for other countries, including countries in which the United States does have strong economic interests. This, Chomsky says, has prompted the United States to repeatedly intervene to quell "independent development, regardless of ideology" in regions of the world where it has little economic or safety interests. In one of his works, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, Chomsky argues that this particular explanation accounts in part for the United States' interventions in Guatemala, Laos, Nicaragua, and Grenada, countries that pose little or no military threat to the US and have few economic resources that could be exploited by US business interests.

The similarities in the campaign against Declan and I are striking. Take violence: what can beat an ongoing attempt to move us out of the porch we sleep in at night when we have been sleeping there for over a year and a half (see previous blog for Declan’s letter to the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis)? On economic strangulation, I would need a weekend to enumerate all the examples. But just a few. I have been wearing the same clothes for ages because every time I ask for something in the Catholic Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre I seldom get it; last Sunday, in the Manna Centre (whose building is provided rent-free by the Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark), I was told the clothes room was closed: I am only given a couple of minutes, every two Sundays, to find a maximum of three items from a jumble of second-hand clothes. From 10 January to Easter (when a guy gave me £10) I had no choice but to go into the local train station and ask people for some change because of all the problems we were having - and still have - trying to sell The Big issue, a magazine sold by homeless people on registered street pitches. My daily food is two Weetabix and two grated-cheese sandwiches, one is Declan’s, which I get at the Dellow. I also cut my own hair so at least I can hide it underneath a cap – the nuns of the Dellow haven’t brought in a hairdresser since December.

Declan’s examples, well, his two best … He walks a round trip of two hours to the Manna Centre every weekday to be guaranteed a bite to eat for lunch – although he frequently gets more than just food: on Sunday, he got kicked under the table not by one, but two Poles. And he has had so many problems with homeless in the Dellow’s washroom that he shaves in a local park every weekday before 6.00am (see blog of 22 April “Letter to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor”), but that would be an example of violence, I suppose.

Undoubtedly it is hard; but when you live in Siberia, you get used to the weather.