back in a bit!
Right, well I can’t hand-on-heart pretend I have either the time (or frankly the inclination) to type a lengthy post when Koh Samui beckons (woohoo!) any more than I have had for the last ten days or so whilst tearing about the land o’er the flood plains of Northern England like Speedy Gonzales, but suffice to say I am almost ready to go; camera, Kindle, brand new bikini and factor >million sunblock are carefully packed, the fridge is empty of anything perishable and the fishes will have a new personal assistant from tomorrow morning onwards, at least until I’m reunited with them on Monday the 23rd.
I have spent the last three days industriously zipping through the PADI Open Water online theory test and finally passed the Final Assessment with 90% some two hours ago, quite a formidable achievement considering I did not study physics (or a great deal else) at school and don’t know one end of a wetsuit from another) in addition to altering the bits of my well-worn holiday wardrobe which were salvageable to make them not two sizes too big, and bolstering the bits which were not with a last minute mercy dash to TK Maxx. Plus I’ve finally got a handful of new pictures up on the site, having at last remembered how to upload them without inadvertently deleting the whole shebang, or something like it. Phew.
By far the most important announcement of the week and my main reason for posting (given that I have not as yet broken the ten plate barrier at Yo Sushi; thanks to the good folk at Terminal 3 the story might be very different twenty four hours from now) is the long awaited launch of the UK Network of Sex Work Projects’ National Ugly Mugs Pilot Scheme, an initiative with which I have been involved for some considerable time and which will finally allow sex workers all over the land to anonymously report incidents and access alerts to help them avoid others, in the meantime building an intelligence database that will hopefully help police track and apprehend offenders however mobile they are – there is no other integrated scheme like it in the world. The sharing of information (as anybody who has skimmed through SAAFE’s Warnings and Wasters section, and even more so those who, like me, have benefited from it) is incredibly valuable even on a small scale when avoiding those up to no good. And this is not a small scale.
The launch event where I was speaking (amongst others far more illustrious, although I did at least remember to write a speech this time), involved a mad dash to Manchester and back across the floods plus a very nice salt beef bagel with proper pickles, and went very well; it was decidedly odd to be in a room full of people who are actually on our side for a change – the more occasions which call upon me to stand in front of an assembled group and gaily announce that I am a prostitute (and I’m pretty sure the onlookers weren’t expecting the ‘sex worker speaker’ to actually turn out to be me having clocked the far more glamorous and immaculately dressed blonde lady sitting to my right, whom I look forward to keeping in touch with enormously as the rather fabulous Sue Cawley is a Detective Chief Inspector at Lancashire Police) the more I think I enjoy it, especially when not having to justify or defend my way of earning a living.
Also attending was Andrew Boff who to my slight surprise I liked immediately, Sean Sutton, head of SCAS/Missing Persons Bureau (who are very keen to have lots of lovely information to make nutter-detecting databases with) and Baroness Stern, the author of The Stern Report and whom I didn’t get to speak to but has been on our side for years. Trust me, it’s surreal in the extreme to sit and listen to lots of Important People (including the wonderful Shelly, Rosie, Lorraine and Alex from UKNSWP and everybody else I’ve not mentioned) talk about how they’ve had enough of us being targeted, robbed, attacked and worse, and are going to dig their heels in and do something about it. Fun though.
Anyway, the registration and reporting forms are all up and running so ladies reading, do follow the link and sign up. There’s lots of good information there which I don’t need to repeat here since it’s gone midnight and I have a Dominos on it’s way – if they get lost they’ll be struggling, since I’ve just remembered my O2 phone is currently functioning as a handy alarm clock/calculator and not much else. Hey ho.
Next incall availability is Scarborough from Tuesday 24th (and if you’re expecting a suntan, we have definitely never met).
I may be back on in the week. Free wifi an’ all.
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