Monday 22nd of August 2005 – Summer + OCB Tree Party + Jean Charles de Menezes + New Mortgage
You’ve been in Manchester since the 23rd of July, and I’ve been missing you lots, at unexpected times… Like today, I went to the post office to get a new tax disc for the car and a little boy next to me dropped some display on the floor… We looked at each other, I smiled at him and he said ‘I didn’t do that!’, I said ‘Let’s put it back together, shall we?’ and we did, then his dad called him over… Later on when I was near the end of the queue, I found out he was 4 years old and his birthday is on the 19th of November. My eyes got all watery when I told the little boy and his dad I have a lovely 6 year old boy…
Your grandma Linda tells me you’ve been running around her garden, in your underpants, like Mowgli or a little Tarzan… You’ve been cooking mud cakes and going swimming, and going to ‘Wicked’ on Fridays: a disco for little ones… You told me you danced to ‘Amarillo’. Your grandma is insisting that you couldn’t keep your eyes off some Go-Go dancer (what a strange thing to have on a kids disco, but apparently they were only 11) when I asked you, you didn’t seem to be that interested in telling me about it… It seems your grandma is a bit too eager to find you a girlfriend when in fact you’re not really that bothered…
Some days are better than others and I’ve been having lots of fun, going out, staying in but not doing much domestic stuff, spending time alone, time with J, getting up later for work… But every now and then a wave hits me… Last night, just before I fell asleep, I thought you were in the bedroom, sleeping too, like we normally do, but you weren’t…
I don’t even feel like going out much during the week, as I’m still so used to staying in most nights!!! Linda has been telling me how wonderful you have been, how adorable you are and how all the other grandmothers thing you are lovely… That, of course, doesn’t help and makes me miss you even more, but I still ring you every other day. I’m now getting a feeling you are very happy there and that’s great, I just hope you won’t miss the big house with the garden too much when you get back!
J bought me a great camera for my birthday: Fuji FinePix E550, which is pretty good now (I wonder what you’ll be using when you get to read this) and as a result you’ll get to have my other digital camera, the Polaroid PDC3030. I’m planning on going for a little wander around our area with you, as there are so many new buildings being constructed (including the new Arsenal stadium) on Sunday the 4th of September, the day before you go back to school. We can take lots of pictures, it’ll be lovely! The day before that, on the 3rd, there’s a big urban75 picnic, in Dulwich, and we shall be going to that too… Can’t wait till you get back…
Meanwhile, I’ve been keeping myself busy. Last weekend there was an outdoor party organized by OCB (One Cell Brain), it was a full moon tree party and I spent most of the night taking pictures: 300 altogether!!!! It was one of the best nights of my life, I talked to lots and lots of people and the conversations mostly started because I wanted to take a picture of them. I hardly danced, I just wanted to snap snap! Who knows if this link will still exist, but here are the pictures of the night https://www.flickr.com/photos/plasmatika/sets/1269041/
Nights out collection https://www.flickr.com/photos/plasmatika/collections/72157594588764146/
Picnics/Walks/BBQs collection https://www.flickr.com/photos/plasmatika/collections/72157594588799917/
I also spent some time changing the mortgage provider from Woolwich to Britannia, as the 2 year mortgage offer runs out at the end of this month (even though I took the mortgage in November 2003… go figure, thieving mortgage companies!!!!). I got a fixed rate for 5 years at 4.79%, a big jump from 3.49% I used to pay, so the mortgage has gone from £634 to £714 a month. I could have chosen a fixed for 2 years and paid just under £700 a month, but I like the security of a 5 year period, PLUS, whenever you switch mortgage companies it costs a minimum of over £350, so it seemed like the better idea to get fixed for 5 years, by the end of the 5 years it won’t seem like so much money… I managed to pay 5,000 off the mortgage in the last 20 months, which seems like a lot, but there’s still £120,000 to go!!!! The flat was only valued at £140,000… Since the valuator was around, I got Daniel (he tiled the bathroom too) to tile the hallway, then J and I painted the doors, walls and ceiling… The smell of paint only just stopped lingering a couple of weeks ago! The hallway looks much better now, without that psychedelic carpet, and I ordered a bookshelf to go in one of the empty spaces in the hallway…
Your Grandma Francesca is about to receive some pension money from her father (he died a few years ago) but, as ever, it’s all so complicated with the family back in Brazil, it’ll get here eventually but it takes forever in Brazil…
After the bombings the police was in a state of very high alert, I wasn’t going underground to/from work at all, when Jean Charles de Menezes’ killing happened, the innocent Brazilian who got shot on the underground.
Jean Charles de Menezes (7 January 1978 – 22 July 2005) was a Brazilian electrician living in Tulse Hill in south London, England. Mistaken for one of the suspects in the previous day’s failed attacks, Menezes was shot and killed by unnamed Metropolitan Police officers in plainclothes at Stockwell tube station on the London Underground. He had no explosives, and was later found to be unconnected with the bombings. Menezes had lived in the United Kingdom for three years before his death.
The son of a bricklayer, Menezes grew up on a farm in Gonzaga in the state of Minas Gerais inland from Rio de Janeiro. After discovering an early aptitude for electronics, he left the farm at age 14 to live with his uncle in São Paulo in order to further his education. At 19 he received a professional diploma from Escola Estadual (State School) São Sebastião. He had originally wanted to go to the United States but could not obtain a work visa.
He then entered the UK on a tourist visa in 2002, and subsequently applied for and obtained a student visa for the period to June 2003. According to a statement by the British Home Office, he did not apply for an extension, and was therefore living illegally in the UK after that time. They also said that the style of the stamp on his visa had not been in use on the date indicated. Within 4 months of arriving in the UK he had a good grasp of the English language, and spent his time earning money to send back to his family in Brazil. Menezes had hoped to eventually return to Minas Gerais to start a cattle ranch with the money he had saved.
He was shot and killed on 22 July 2005, by London police who mistakenly believed him to be a suicide bomber. On 27 July 2005, Menezes’ body was flown to Brazil for burial. His funeral took place in Gonzaga, Brazil, on July 29.[1] A memorial service presided over by Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor was held in Westminster Cathedral, London, at the same time.
The officers followed Menezes for 5 minutes as he walked to the Tulse Hill bus-stop for the Number 2 bus line. As he boarded the bus, several plainclothes policeman boarded, continuing the pursuit. At some point for an unknown reason, during the 10-25 minute ride to the Stockwell Tube station, Menezes briefly got off the bus, waited for a few moments and boarded it again. Finally the bus arrived at Stockwell Tube station, 3.3km (2 miles) away.
At some point during this journey, the pursuing officers contacted Gold Command, and reported that Menezes potentially matched the description of two of the previous day’s suspects, including Osman Hussain. Based on this information, Gold Command authorized “code red” tactics, and ordered the surveillance officers to prevent Menezes from boarding a train. Gold Command also transferred control of the operation to SO19, which dispatched firearms officers to Stockwell Tube Station.
At some point Menezes phoned a colleague, Gesio de Avila, saying he would be late due to the disruption of public transport becaused by the previous day’s attempted bombings.
Menezes entered the Tube station at about 10:00 a.m., stopping to pick up a free Metro newspaper. He used his Oyster card to pay the fare and walked through the barriers, and descended the escalator slowly. He then ran across the platform to board the newly-arrived train. Menezes boarded the train and found one of the first available seats.
Three surveillance officers codenamed Hotel 1, Hotel 3 and Hotel 9 followed Menezes onto the train. Menezes was reported by Hotel 3 to have sat down with a glass panel to his right about two seats in. Hotel 3 then took a seat on the left with about two or three persons between the surveillance officer and Menezes. On seeing plainclothes officers arrive on the platform, Hotel 3 reported moving to the door and blocking the door from closing with the left foot while shouting ‘He’s here’ and identifying the suspect’s location. The firearms officers boarded the train and challenged the suspect. Hotel 3 reported that Menezes then stood up and advanced towards the officers and Hotel 3, at which point the surveillance officer, Hotel 3, grabbed him, pinning his arms against his torso, and pushed him back into the seat. Hotel 3 reported that although Menezes was being restrained, the body of Menezes was straight and not in a natural sitting position. After hearing a shot close to the ear, the surveillance officer was dragged away onto the floor of the carriage. Hotel 3 then reported shouting ‘Police’ and with raised hands was then dragged out of the carriage by one of the armed officers who had boarded the train. Hotel 3 reported hearing several gunshots while being dragged out as officers shot Menezes. Two officers fired a total of eleven shots according to the number of empty shell casings found on the floor of the train afterwards. Menezes was shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder at close range, and died at the scene.
Immediately after the shooting, the Metropolitan Police claimed that the shooting was “directly linked” to the investigation of the attempted bombings the previous day. It was revealed that police policy toward suspected suicide bombers had been revised, instructing officers to fire directly toward the head, as British authorities claim that shooting at the chest could detonate a concealed bomb.
The officers involved in the shooting (from Scotland Yard’s SO19 firearms branch) were debriefed and drugs and alcohol tests were taken as a standard procedure. The officers were taken off duty pending an investigation into the shooting.
Later, a security agency source said: “This take-out is the signature of a special forces operation. It is not the way the police usually do things. We know members of SO19 have been receiving training from the SAS, but even so, this has special forces written all over it.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/30/jean-charles-de-menezes-your-questions-answered
The incident has caused a lot of controversy and is still on the news, there are calls for a public enquiry and for the resignation of Ian Blair, as people think he was lying when he said the police had killed a terrorist – Ian Blair claims he didn’t, at that point, know they had killed an innocent man…
London is still a bit nervous, but not so much. There was a deadline on the 15th of August (to take all the American/british troops from Iraq or else…) but nothing happened in London… Two planes fell, one in Greece and another one in Venezuela, and on the same week the Lost series started (about a plane accident and a desert island), but no one claimed they were terrorist attacks, just accidents… Well, it seems that life goes on…
At the party, on Saturday, the OCB party, we heard an interesting story. There were some guys in fancy dress, they had been to a fancy dress party then they decided to go to OCB. One of the guys, French, was dressed as Osama Bin Laden (the ‘leader’ of Al Qaeda)… He got on the tube, with a plastic shotgun, and his friends… Shortly after they all got kicked out of the tube and had to be interviewed and explain everything to the police… the police didn’t see the funny side… The thing is, the French guy was just wearing this very flimsy white camisole, no beard in sight, and a toy gun… What I’m saying is, the police, tube workers, people in general, are all in high alert, but anyone could see this guy was partying… We’re still very shocked by Jean Charles’ death, to be honest… Anyway, there’s a picture of the man who got stopped by the police (just a guy with a white camisole, on the left) from my photos…
