A Politician in the Basement

In the early hours of the morning I was dreaming that Iain Duncan Smith, the British Secretary of State for Works and Pension was hiding out in my basement flat! What a joy. 

Duncan Smith or IDS as he’s known, is the lead person in bounty hunting benefit 'scroungers' and sending them to the workhouse. Don’t get me wrong, I am not condoning blatant fraudulent behaviour and in IDS’s place I would bounty hunt too. But when he punishes the guilty as well as the innocent, he loses my vote.

IDS gained notoriety a few days ago when, during a radio interview he was asked whether he could live on £53 (or approximately US$80 at today’s rate) per week. His response: he could if he had too.  Oh dear, who told him to say that?  As a politician he should have known better. Now of course there is a petition demanding that he does just that. Well IDS is nowhere to be found because he is hiding out in my basement.  At this point over 300,000 people, including me, had signed the petition on Change.org.  

I’m more interested in what IDS is doing in my basement flat, which I do not have by the way. I don’t have to think long about the meaning of the dream. I know immediately what significance the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and basement has in my life because dreams are simply symbolic of what’s going on for the dreamer.

What’s going on for me is that I am not going to have enough to live on until I sort out my different bits of private pension plans and set up an annuity. I have been procrastinating about that for a very long time, and the dream is reminding me that I promised myself that would be a task during this fasting period. The basement of course is where one dumps things.  Okay, okay, I say to the gods, I hear you and I have not forgotten; I still have another seven days to go.

Today, I’ve arrived at day three of my fast. By now my bloodstream should be carrying up to ten times its normal load of toxins. I should feel weak, fatigued, light-headed and perhaps nauseous; that’s the price to pay for serious detoxification. But I’m not feeling any of those things because the less toxic your system becomes, the easier it is to maintain a fast, as long as there is a mindset in place.

In the last five years, I have been through major detoxification processes in a bid to force my body to consume its diseased cells and generate brand new ones. It has taken determination and a power of will that I did not know that I had. Since then, for the last couple of years, a one-day fast per week has been a way of life, but I’ve found it impossible to return to that hardcore fasting – just distilled water and herbal tea for 10 days – even though I know why I have to do it and the benefits that will ensue. But I’m on it now.

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