ANDREW'S BEEN FOUND!!! help find my friend's missing brother

At 12:46pm (BST) Andrew's sister Sarah tweeted that Andrew had been found and was on his way back to hospital.

Thank you so much to everyone who read and shared this post, and others, in the effort to find him.



Andrew McArthur is a vulnerable young man who went missing yesterday and was last seen in West Wickham – the Bromley end of south east Greater London.

I’d like you to take just a couple of minutes out of your day to read this post and help us find him. Please could you also share this post with people you know, or tweet about it... anything really.

His sister, Sarah, is a friend and former colleague. So I felt compelled to try to do something to help. I can’t do much, but if I can help spread the word (and I appreciate it’s a big if) maybe that will contribute in some small way.

Here’s a recent pic of Andrew.  When he was last seen he was wearing a black Bench waterproof, a grey T-shirt by Penguin, and jeans. He has light reactive lenses in his glasses.

Andrew McArthur

He went missing from The Maudsley Hospital in Beckenham on Monday 3 September.

Andrew was last seen at around 5pm by the hospital staff. If you live or work in or near Beckenham, Bromley, Croydon or any of the areas near Bethlam Royal Hospital, please keep a look out for him.

Andrew seemed to be OK to the staff at the hospital, so he was allowed out alone. He went missing once before back in 2009, so we're really hoping that he turns up safe and sound.

Andrew suffers from schizophrenia and by 10pm Monday was due to take his medication. Obviously, the more time passes when he’s not medicated, the harder it will be for Andrew to think and act rationally. So it’s really important he’s found.

Please share this with as many people as you can.

If you see Andrew please call Sarah (his sister) on 07890 105 089 or let the Metropolitan Police Service know by calling 101 and quoting the reference number: CAD8123.

Thank you.

after the london riots, why david cameron needs to lead the clean-up

David Cameron is right.

That’s not something I ever thought I’d write, let alone a viewpoint I’d ever share in public.

I have not had a right-wing epiphany though.

In the speech given on 10 August, the Prime Minister spoke with forceful authority on the causes of the appalling scenes of rioting, looting and criminal destruction visited upon the UK.

Clearly he is a man who wants us to know he is not only going to be tough on crime, but tough on the causes of crime too.

“For me, the root cause of this mindless selfishness is the same thing that I have spoken about for years,” Mr Cameron said.

And I agree with him on that point. I have often regaled people with my opinion that the UK has lost its sense of civic pride and civic duty over the last three or four decades.

He went on, as politicians often do: “It is a complete lack of responsibility in parts of our society. People allowed to feel that the world owes them something, that their rights outweigh their responsibilities and that their actions do not have consequences.”

On this point, David Cameron and I speak with a single voice.

However, I do feel he is being somewhat selective with scope of his argument.

When I heard the Prime Minister speak these words the first thing that sprang to mind was this:

MPs' expenses: Eric Illsley claimed £150,000

And this:

How Jim Devine claimed thousands using fake receipts

And especially this:

MPs' expenses: duck house MP 'refusing to pay back £40,000'

It also brought to mind this:

Phone hacking: Hundreds of "smoking gun" emails released to detectives probing police corruption

The rioting, looting, and arson that the UK, and in particular London, has witnessed in recent days cannot be excused. The wanton destruction, criminal damage, lawlessness, and violence are all things that defy legitimisation.

Homes have been destroyed. Livelihoods ruined. Some people have lost everything they owned and worked for. Some have lost their lives.

I look around and wonder what on earth has happened to my country.

And I ask myself who the hell is actually in charge.

Is it a callous minority, hell-bent on helping themselves to whatever’s available while no one is looking, and doing their best to conceal their illegal and immoral behaviour?

Or is it a callous minority, hell-bent on helping themselves to whatever’s available while no one is looking, and doing their best to conceal their illegal and immoral behaviour?

In his speech David Cameron also said: “Well, they (referring to the ‘actions’ in the above quote) do have consequences. We need to have a clearer code of values and standards that we expect people to live by and stronger penalties if they cross the line. Restoring a stronger sense of responsibility across our society, in every town, in every street, in every estate is something I’m determined to do.”

Once again, Mr Cameron, you and I occupy common ground.

But – without wishing for one second to sound like an apologist for scum – this code of values and standards needs to embraced by everyone.

I do not want to live in a country where seemingly ordinary people wreak havoc because of greed, avarice, a lack of respect for their fellow human beings and a disregard for the safety and wellbeing of anyone and everyone around them.

Similarly, I do not want to live in a country where politicians steal from the public purse, where newspapers hack into the phones of dead teenagers, where corrupt police officers are being bribed by journalists to supply information and turn a blind eye.

Anyone in a position of authority and leadership will find out, if they weren’t already aware, that respect is earned – it doesn’t come with your job title, or your accent, or your grey hairs and wrinkles.

Leaders are respected most when they are leading from the front. After all, if you’re not out front you’re plainly not the one doing the leading.

punch drunk in london

Ever punched a random stranger in the face? Unprovoked?

I have.

This happened to me while travelling on the Tube from Piccadilly Circus to Paddington a while ago.

Before you even bother asking, yes I had been drinking. But not to excess.

So, there I was on the Bakerloo Line northbound at about 7pm. It was – not surprisingly – quite full, so I was standing up. I often do. And I was not the only one – there were loads of people stood all around me, hanging on to the handrails and studiously avoiding eye-contact.

I let go of the overhead handrail at one point to check my watch.

The train lurched.

I lurched with it.

So I quickly reached for the handrail.

The thing is while many car wing mirrors state that “objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear” nowhere on the London Underground network have I seen anything point out that objects in mid-lurch may be harder to grab hold of than you might imagine.

Nor have I seen anything that says faces attached to random strangers may be easier to punch than you would ideally like them to be.

My hand shot out, fingers still curled in what might loosely be called a fist.

Picture the scene.... the dead-weight of my hand, heading toward the handrail at considerable speed, when the train lurched causing the man standing next to me to involuntarily lean in toward me putting himself in what I’ve come to think of as the line of fire.

Whereupon my hand connected with his face in an uppercut that would have made my old boxing coach shed a tear of pride.

Poor bloke. His head snapped back. And for a split second the no-eye-contact-please-we’re-British people standing all around looked up in unison to see what was going on.

I was aghast. Which is not a word I get to use very often. So here it comes again. Aghast, I tell you.

Not least because he was a bit bigger than me and I would have thoroughly disliked him returning the gesture.

Something, or someone, in my head took over. I stepped closer and slapped his face repeatedly where I’d just hit him, saying something to him like “that was a shock, you’ll be all right.”

I can’t help but think the rather obvious smell of an earlier encounter in the pub may have helped carry me through. That and the shedloads of front I was now displaying.

We pulled in at Baker Street station, the doors opened and off he got. Looking somewhat bemused.

I’ve told this story countless times since it happened and the above is a mostly faithful retelling of the event, it’s at most 10 percent fiction (I wonder, should that be a comma or a semi-colon in that sentence?).

Every time I’ve told it I’ve had the same reaction to the tale – a mix of incredulity and laughter.

I’ve often wondered if the bepunched man ever told, or even still tells, the story. How different must it sound from his perspective.

“Some drunken idiot hit me in the face.”

And I wonder did anyone laugh when he told them.