Neil Scott

It’s easy to go through life without taking a stand against anything or anyone. Strongly held beliefs are like rocks on the path of least resistance, they are places to pause, have a picnic and chat to fellow travellers.

I was listening to the Adam Phillips radio essay on Excess (kindly edited into one package by Momus) and heard him mention that, statistically, the thing that old people are most likely to regret is being too virtuous. Taking a stand is a way of being naughty, of shaking things up a little, and obstructing the unthinking majority.

For instance, I am currently campaigning in order to turf out the addicts and drunkards who bed down in Hope House, the local Salvation Army hostel. Thus far, my campaign consists of writing to my councillors and posting this entry, but I am hoping that this will galvanize othersto put pressure on them to move out sooner rather than later.

Hope House, like all Sally Army hostels, offers a teetotal setting for the dispossessed to get their lives in order, which in theory sounds excellent. In practice, it means that groups of addicts congregate on the pavement outside, dealing drugs, smashing bottles on the pavement, plotting petty crimes and generally enjoying themselves too much. Rather than offering a cure, the Salvation Army exacerbates their problems by facilitating a kind of anti-social community club.

It sometimes looks as if half of all Glaswegians have just come back from the Great War, so shell-shocked are they by malnutrition, drugs and alcohol. Lumping them all in one place may be useful for the police and ambulance service (it is almost akin to the Hamsterdam series of The Wire in its concentration of the problem), but it is a blight on the community and no good for the addicts themselves, who should be better integrated in the community.

For those who want to join in me in taking a stand against this blight, feel free to drop me an email.

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