On Sunday I actually drove up to London to see some old comrades and friends; a wonderful afternoon of good conversation and memories of many old struggles.
It's a very long drive for me these days, even on a Sunday when the roads are normally quiet. By mid afternoon I was starting to lose it big time, even with the help of a couple of pills.
The drive home was a nightmare - endless traffic jams and constantly stopping and starting, changing gear over and over again. It was agony.
Then we drove past Ladbroke Grove and Notting Hill and Robyn took a couple of pictures of Grenfell Tower on her phone.
The burnt out wreck dominates the skyline.
It's a miracle how anyone survived and the questions continue to mount up.
Early on, the singer Lilly Allen stated in a Channel Four interview that the real figure for the people who died in the block was 150 instead of the official 79. She was criticised and had an interview scheduled for the 'News Night' programme on BBC2 shelved.
Since then two independent demographers have separately been interviewing survivors to work out the numbers of people living in the block and how many have survived.
These demographers have produced estimates for fatalities which range from 103 to 150. Not a million miles away from Lilly Allen who came up with her figure after talking to Firemen and Police Officers 'Off the Record' at the scene.
No one is criticising the Fire and Police services for not identifying bodies - that is going to take time and considerable effort.
But refusing to give estimates of the numbers lost sounds like a cover up - they must have a good idea by now after going thorough the building.
We all accept that there are people who will never be identified and others for whom no trace may ever be found.
But we are all adults and we need to know the numbers involved. Clearly these will range from 150 upwards and we need to have those figures now.
Any suspicion that the authorities are hiding the true extent of this tragedy is likely to rebound of them many times over when the full figure is known.
Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
Another odd day - last night I slept in a bed for the first time in six or eight weeks. It was quite painful and I only managed three hours asleep but it was still a good move. I've got swollen feet and legs from sleeping in a chair for so long and it may help with that.
Then, I managed to sort out the toilet.
Our dysfunctional toilet gave up on us about three weeks ago. It was a really simple repair - I've changed a flap valve before but this time I couldn't risk breaking another vertebrae doing it. So, I needed a plumber.
It's very frustrating. Not least because for three weeks I haven't been able to find a plumber who would come and do it for us - for them it's a small job. So we've been flushing it with a bucket and that's not so easy with a broken back.
In a way that was a good thing because for a long while I didn't have the cash to pay for it and my back was too bad to get some more.
Today I found someone and had to pay over the odds to get the job done.
Very frustrating.
Anyway it still doesn't work properly but it doesn't work properly in the way it did before it completely broke down.
But then everything pales into insignificance when you look at Grenfell Tower.
It turns out that the company that installed the cladding that burnt so quickly chose to use a plastic based variety that cost £24 a square metre. The fireproof variety cost only £2 a square metre more. The total cost of covering the tower with flame proof cladding would have been just an extra £5000.
Meanwhile the company invested £2.5 Million of its profits in offshore tax avoidance schemes and then went bankrupt.
Tonight at about 5pm, some five hundred frustrated residents of the tower, near neighbours and friends and family of the missing attended a demonstration at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Town hall.
I've been there many times. When I was working I had to do so many hours of education every year to keep up to date. Many commercial course providers hired the public hall and rooms at the building.
They were sumptuous.......immaculate.
The council has unspent reserves of £300 million pounds, while their contractor saved £5000 cladding Grenfell Tower with flammable materials that turned the block into a death trap.
Anyway, frustration boiled over at the demo and the people (who weren't violent) forced their way in to try and confront the council.
At the same time the councillors and employees were being ushered out by the police - for their weekend off.
For the last two days no one from this wealthy council has been seen at the tower. Not sorting out accommodation for homeless people, accommodating the donations of food, drink and clothing from private individuals or trying to inform relatives of who was alive and who was dead.
And now they have gone home for the weekend!?
Meanwhile Lily Allen, who I have always had a lot of time for, had a very confrontational interview with Channel 4 News where she questioned why it was that the authorities have been down playing the number of casualties. She said that the unofficial word from the Police and Fire Brigade locally is that some 150 are dead.
Lets hope it's less than that but it is perhaps typical that the most accurate estimate so far has come from Lily Allen.
Heads will have to roll for this.
There is a seething anger on the streets.
There is a long, hot summer coming.
Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
Here's a picture of Grenfell Tower, North Kensington last night;
The picture was taken about an hour into the fire which completely destroyed a 24 storey block of council flats in Ladbroke Grove.
The Grenfell Tower Action Group blog has been warning of the acute fire risk at these flats for the last four years - last November they blogged that it would take a catastrophe for
any action to be taken.
It wasn't.
The problem here is that this is a very poor area which is administered by a Tory council representing some of the wealthiest people in the country. Naturally, administration of the block has been farmed out to a privatised management group.
The recent refurbishment of the block cost £8 million pounds of public money but did not involve any improvements to fire safety. Instead, cladding was put around the block; a purely cosmetic measure.
Worse, the fire appears to have spread through the cladding, which is why it took hold so quickly. It looks as though the cladding included flammable materials.
It's not unusual in cases like this that, after several years of enquiry, some public body (the taxpayers) gets fined.
In this case, at least 12 people and probably many, many more, have died.
At the very least people need to go to prison for this.
Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
