White Ribbon Day, November the 24th, also known as the International Day for the Eradication of Violence Against Women, was founded in November 1991, and is an annual day to raise awareness of family violence. The wearing of a symbolic white ribbon stands for never taking part in, condoning or staying silent when such violence is present.

Although the foundation is active in over sixty nations across the world, surprisingly, it is not a well-known remembrance day amongst the general British public — yet considering the soaring number of cases of recorded violence against domestic partners it is easy to see that it should be more prominently recognised. Continue reading →

By its nature this whole post is rather long: we are quoting from the twitter thread of Taffistan Am Byth, (formerly Jaan Exotic) @punkistani93, and continue now with her point 11.

11.  Jim Perrin asks if it’s legit that @jomadine saw a snake in Cameroon, and then saw one on the telly in what I imagine was probably Ely, having chatted briefly with Eric on council estates. Mate, is this bloke serious? He simultaneously projects colonial tropes while denying: from childhood of finding a horned viper in a rat mole burrow is alien and terrifying. It’s integrated back into the world of the Cardiff housing estate in which he and his daughter eventually find themselves by the introduction of commentary from a David Attenborough documentary he watched on television in the latter place. Does that somehow shadow the veracity  — if it is such — of the original account? It’s a question that could only arise when your belief in the author has been undermined. Continue reading →

In this part we will quote at length a twitter thread which responds to the review by Jim Perrin, published in Welsh Arts Review in 2019, of:  I, Eric Ngalle: One Man’s Journey Crossing Continents from Africa to Europe. Jim Perrin’s review caused considerable outrage leading to many incensed complaints to the editor of WAR; so much so that some three weeks later it was deemed necessary to remove it. (We imagine Jim Perrin was mortified, as usually he has ruled the roost in these matters and would not have expected to be challenged…) In this post we will also quote several excerpts from his ill-advised review. Continue reading →