Penny Pepper

Election Thoughts 2# Register to vote today!

Registration to vote ends at 11.59pm TODAY.  Please register using the link. Ask for help if needed. Many are there to support you. 

This is a very personal blog. From my heart and from my experience as a disabled and social justice activist.

I suggest, I ask and I will even beg that you choose to register to vote today. And in doing that,  you choose to vote for the many and vote for Labour on…

Election Thoughts 1# My Socialist Heart Beats

On my travels this last week I’ve heard many comments about the UK election.

Sometimes an opinion makes my face freeze in disbelief. People not voting for Labour because Jeremy Corbyn didn’t wear a tie on some such event.

It makes me weary for a second or two. It reflects changing times. And times I hope will bring new optimism and cast off these ideas about identity. That you must weara uniform…

I was privileged to do a slot for the launch of Hastings Women’s Labour Forum and Kay has written a smashing review. Thank you! Chuffed to share to my blog.

Today I Wrote a Poem

Four stanzas. That’s posh for verses.

Iambic pentameter. Sonnet. Triple posh.

The working-class girl who was given a book of Edward Lear poems aged 6 1/4 as a get-well present and never recovered. Actually, never regretted.

I love me Shakespeare too and I love a structure because then, I know how to break it, kick it, reinvent it and go free, free flow. Tip for today.

In the photo you can see a…

The Naked Punk Shows Her Claws

The swifts stay high and the sparrows still chatter by my seaside home.

Yet this week The Naked Punk wants a riot of her own. Not in the sense of fun and riotous pleasure, but in the sense of approaching the level of firebombing. On each little Molotov cocktail there will be the word FRUSTRATION. What has set off my rarely seen streak of aggro?

The fact that today, again, in 2018, the 21st…

Penny Is The Naked Punk

Why am I The Naked Punk?

Punk is my raw beginning. It saw my writing find a raging home in early fanzines. It fired a freedom in me to start accepting myself, that I was OK as a human being, as a woman, as a creative, who could challenge the categories imposed upon me. It is the energy that triggered my activism, and my passion for social justice and equality.

I’m Naked because I strive to be…

29 December 2017

Counting the hours till 2018. Not wishing time on exactly, but restless now for new beginnings even if the battles are old.

Lots happened this last year. My book First in the World Somewherewas published by Unbound/Penguin and it’s out there in the bookshops. I’ll be visiting many in 2018. It was a privilege to launch it at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre in London –…

Sundry Thougts: Rogue One – Crips and Twists.

Here be spoilers…

I liked Rogue One but it was a bit of a struggle. My fault for going 3D. My eyes are too wobbly for it these days. Yes, things loom out at me but often I can’t work out who the hell they are, as the action unfolds in a sort of grey murk.

What did loom ou early on was a few CRIP characters. Not crip actors, you understand, don’t be ridiculous. When Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker)…

You Should Know Better: a regular blog on stereotypes and disabled people

No 1: housing

I’m an even-tempered person. I don’t get hot angry very often, but I do know cold angry, of course. I burn with righteousness to fight the social injustice concerning the many ills in our world.

Sometimes I sigh, weary but beady with a determination to expose some shit. Today’s stereotype is that around housing.

I’ve always lived in social housing – council and housing association –…

My Journals: Invasions and Legacies

I’m glad the sun is out, the sky impossibly blue for central London, though meaning there’s pollution probably.

I don’t care. We’re creatures entwined with the rhythms of the natural world, if we allow ourselves to remember that. The sunlight is a blessing. So there!

I’m picking through my journals for the writing of my memoir First in the World Somewhere, which starts in earnest very soon. And…

Penny Thoughts: The World Gone Crazy.

I’m distancing from my personal Facebook page. It’s ragging my nerves, which are quite ragged at the best of times. People get nasty too fast. I’m not engaging. Much better to prattle on here and make brief Penny pronouncements for those interested.

I’ve got a broken shoulder. In fact, I’ve had a broke shoulder for some months which severely limits my typing. Don’t mention voice dictation…

I didn’t sleep till 3am. About. Why is it, I can fall asleep in the car in startling sunlight, but squirm in my too-hot bed in a wretched state past the witching hour? Counting cats, fussing my cat, doing a crossword, sitting up, laying down. Staring at my eyelids. Any ideas, my friends how to slay the Insomnimonster?

I did think, hey, I’ll start doing some little blogs. Stop all this fretting…

Down in the BBC Bunker: Me on the Newsnight Welfare debate

The BBC, at Broadcasting House, is a strange old beast. Somehow reassuringly familiar and ragged at the edges, despite the shiny high tech news centre that beats at the heart of the renovated building.

I’m back for Newsnight, for a discussion on the government’s record on welfare. Down, down in the bowels for the studio, it strikes me as a carpeted nuclear bunker. Corridors, so many corridors,…

The sun is lovely when it’s out in London but the election is a gruelling, dispiriting experience, even with my efforts to avoid party political broadcasts and any hint of leaders’ debates.

Meanwhile, a poem to remind us of the type of people we are dealing with. Not much else to say this week other than bring on May 7th and I pray to any Gods that will listen that we do not have to suffer…

So it begins. Each time I swear I will hibernate or retreat to a cave to swear, and fume and howl.

Politics is banned in my home, particularly the TV ‘debates’ (more like sweaty mass-debates fnar fnar). There’s a saying: ‘plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’– which means for plebs like me: ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same.’ Much overused but I don’t care. Every time I…

The Theory of Everything but Not Quite Enough

Imitating cripples and the winning of Oscars – by Penny Pepper – a disabled person

I took time out from the boredom of convalescence to watch this film. Yes, the story of everyone’s favourite cripple and his first wife Jane, the much cooed over, The Theory of Everything (TTOE).

It hasn’t been an easy blog to write, especially as Hawking appears to be lapping up publicity and endorsing Eddie…