Short Sharp Shock: Blog Action Day

Early in the morning, I walk through St, James’ Park and each bench is occupied. The same faces, the same routines; they shelter under newspapers, huddled against the weather.

During the day, you’ll find them drinking White Lightning on the grass in front of the National Gallery – and why should they not? Alcohol fills the emptiness.

In the evening, I see them curled in doorways down the South Bank or under Blackfriars Bridge – and London’s wealthy commuters walk by them unseeing.

The harrowing images of third world poverty are somehow unreal, they’re too terrifying; we distance ourselves from in them in the same way that we walk past the old man on the bench.

Today is the day you stop. You face the horror and the denial.
And you ask how you can help.

There are lists of links on the Blog Action Day homepage.
I chose this one.