NHS

It is somewhat disconcerting when a GP tells you  that the NHS is fucked. Yes she used those exact words. She is young and looking to do something else with her skills and talents; whether she can find anything that pays as well remains to be seen.

I have had a lot of contact with the health service throughout my life; I have spent a lot of time in waiting rooms and in wards, the prospect of repeating the latter terrifies me now.

Getting appointments to see a GP is pretty hard. They seem to have endless lists of patients, each of which is probably a bundle of issues that can only present one problem in the allocated ten minutes. There was a time when GPs at least pretended to be interested in the patient rather than the problem but maybe that is just me. Much of my childhood was spent in the hands of the NHS, and although I remember a lot of waiting around, I always felt that someone cared.

The modern NHS is now in the hands of managers, with the structure being tiered; managers appoint underlings and so on, jobs are manufactured as the whole thing becomes a business ready for a takeover by the private sector.  Hospitals are no longer friendly, welcoming places. They are anything but. Car parks charge a fortune and retail outlets abound. Far more employees are there to run the building than to care for patients and the salaries of those in high office bleed the purse.

We are in danger of losing a wonderful service that we have all paid for and made use of, and that many of us owe our lives to. The current government is made up of many wealthy people who have interests in private health care and would love to give away the whole thing so that their friends can profit from it.

Being ill

We take so much for granted and yet it takes very little to change our lives. We are vulnerable all of the time and yet we tend not to think about that or indeed our mortality. The latter tends to come up more often as we get older and an awareness of out impending check out becomes clearer with each passing year.

I was at the doctor's this morning for a misery inducing urticaria that strikes me periodically. She seems to be exploring the causes but I don't think she will find it. It has been investigated by a number of GPs over the years and they all end up throwing up their hands, and so I live with it until it gets me down again. Mostly it is absent but when it manifests it dominates my life.

I was actually not thinking too much about it this morning but that was what the appointment was made for.  The other issues that I have need new appointments. There was a time when a GP had time to talk to you and find out what was wrong. Talking sometimes was all that some needed, maybe a little reassurance and possibly for some a prescription for a placebo. Ten minutes is now the limit and so I have had to make two more appointments, with different doctors who will deal with each problem in isolation rather than dealing with me. I am more than my conditions but hey they are human beings working to rules inflicted on them by bean counters.

I have a very painful knee - I have no idea what is causing it and no idea whether I should be working it or resting it. At the moment I am doing the latter but when I do get up to walk the pain is excruciating and so I tend to do this as little as possible.

More worrying is again a long standing problem which just won't go away. This is in part due to my inability to express what is happening.  I am writing this as a means of assisting myself in describing what happens and maybe I can start to make sense out of it.  Ok here goes, I am having periodic episodes that are quite scary.  They are not painful but deeply unsettling and each time I get one I wonder if it is the last one, the big one.  I go weeks without one and then maybe I will experience four or five in a day and sometimes at night too, then they are gone again.  The odd thing is that each one begins with a feeling of deja vu. I hear the laughter already. It could be a sound, a smell, any sensory input, though more frequently it is something I see. Then I know it is coming. It feels like something inside me has burst open and my body is being flooded by something warm. My ability to think and process becomes impaired and I have to stop whatever I am doing and wait it out. It lasts less than a minute generally and then all is normal, whatever that may be.  I am not sure that I have described it fully but that will do for now. I have something in writing and that may be of some help to someone.

So yes things could be better, but i am still here for now and grateful for that despite the pain and the fear. I am taking nothing for granted.

Referenda

Or is it referendums?  We are under a blitz of garbage from the media - in out in out what's it all about? I mean it is not as if the outcome will have much effect on most of us; we will still be bled dry by the filthy rich, whose interests will be protected whichever way they turn.

As Mark Twain said, "If voting made any difference, they wouldn't let us do it."  Besides most people have no idea what they are voting for, couldn't care less or can't be bothered when it comes down to actually putting a cross on a piece of paper and pushing it into a large black box.  The majority in this country are pretty apathetic and would not scratch their bums if someone else was willing to do it for them.

The current shambles of a government were elected by a minority. They usually are, with nearly half of those qualified to vote either not registering or just not turning out, and so we get what we deserve.

It would seem that the loony right is split between going and staying, and so by voting I will be forced to agree with half of the tory party. That goes against the grain I must say, but on balance it appears that the really crazy elements are urging us to leave Europe. They seem to want us to shrink back into something that they believe was great. I am sure that they would have us re-instate Hadrian's wall, Isolate the Welsh and cast the Irish loose into the Atlantic. By isolating us they can re-instate the old ways, get rid of human rights and fully exploit the workforce  while kicking Johnny Foreigner out of the country.

Many people are fundamentally selfish and couldn't give  toss about anyone else, many are also intrinsically racist or xenophobic. They are well represented by the current government.  After the referendum has been and gone, the consequences will become known and the recriminations will be the next distraction.

Domestic pets

This is a dangerous topic but one that crossed my mind this morning. A large white dog came bounding from the close opposite this morning. Full of youthful enthusiasm it made a thorough nuisance of itself, jumping up at little old ladies and terrifying their own dogs, before running back and forth over the main road causing cars to take avoiding action. The owner appeared five minutes later and was able to locate the animal and carry it back home.

Now antisocial behaviour by dogs is blamed on their owners I know; dogs simply behave according to their genetic disposition when given the chance, and it is up to the owners to watch them, control them and clean up their shit. A lot still fail to do this and most pavements will have a dog turd or two to tread in.

Dog lovers are legion of course and for many they are company, an excuse to exercise, or even child substitutes. Some love their animals more than they care for human beings and that is understandable, given the way that human behaviour seems to be going.

Cats cannot be considered to have much of a relationship with humans at all. They like the shelter and food supply that they are provided with but naturally they are vicious predators and love to kill mice, voles, shrews and small birds simply because that is what they do.

Recently there was uproar in the press about dogs being eaten in China, or Korea, I can't remember where, and yet people quite happily eat pork. Pigs are highly intelligent creatures and yet few complain about them be exploited as a food source. Dogs however seem set on pedestals yet I suspect that far more children are attacked and maimed or killed by dogs than by pretty much any other non insect animal.

Pet lovers seem to have little time for the rest of us who cannot relate to their animals in the same way that  they seem to.  Many of us do not enjoy being sniffed, licked or leapt upon and fail to appreciate the animal hairs that seem to abound wherever a cat or dog has been.

I do not dislike dogs or cats, I will even give attention to my grandson's hamster, more out of pity for it than anything else. Putting animals in cages, keeping them in houses all day long or chaining them up does seem rather cruel and unnecessary yet this is what happens  to many domestic pets. People accept this and yet complain about the conditions that food animals have to endure.

We anthropomorphise, it is a human trait; we talk to dogs and cats as if they can understand and yet they do not. They may understand emotions and can respond to threats and the like but how much difference is there between a goldfish and a caged animal?

Books and things

My reading began when I was hospitalised at the age of three. Well to be fair it was probably a little later than that,  and I remember being taught to read by nurses. Some would spend a long time with us children and would bring us books to keep us entertained.  Books were an escape from the institution that we are in and for me reading is still an escape, though what I have to escape from I am not sure.

I read for pleasure and rarely do I pick out a non fiction book. Text books were always a bore for me and even newspapers and magazines do not fill me with enthusiasm. When i read a newspaper, I scan headlines and may read a few sentences of an article but rarely will I stay focussed until the end.

I have joined two book clubs since moving here and enjoy both, though they do differ substantially. One of them has a dozen members who meet at member's houses and each member takes a turn at choosing a book. The meetings are fairly formal, each member taking turns in expressing an opinion about the most recent choice. When everyone has had their say, a general discussion may take place, but all chat is about the merits, or otherwise, of the current read. When the discussion peters out we all go home.

The second club is different. There are usually five or six of us and I am the only male presence. I do feel a little on the outside, but the discussions are less formal than the other group and also not only about the book. Book choices seem to just appear from a general conversation and there is more conversation about other things than just the book. 

Book clubs are a good way to widen one's reading. I have read books that I would never have thought of picking up, some of which have been a pleasure to read. Others less so, but that is the nature of reading novels; some writers appeal whilst others do not.  Frequently I have several books on the go at once. This week I am reading "The Book Thief","  "On writing" by Stephen King, and   "Disclaimer "by Renee Knight. I find it helps to keep the books in separate rooms, but even so when  it comes to discussion it is sometimes hard to remember which book is which and plot lines may get confused.

My grandson is six and is now reading fluently if rather woodenly. It is hard to get him to express feeling in the words or even to give some sort of acknowledgement to punctuation but he will get there. I am happy that he loves books, loves stories and loves to read. There are few more valuable skills to learn.

In or out

Whilst sitting in the dentist's chair and experiencing the near drowning experience again, I distracted myself by thinking about the upcoming referendum. To leave or not to leave is indeed the question, and I admit to not having a clue as to how to cast my vote. I suspect that many will not bother as they feel that their vote counts for nothing. In general elections that may be the case but in this instance, in theory at least, every vote counts and it seems that all is in the balance.

I find myself looking at the supporters of both sides and tend to be swayed in the opposite direction to  many of those. This puts me in a tricky spot as I do not want to side with Cameron and his cronies, but neither do I wish to side with HRH and the half of the tory party that wants us to leave.  The pamphlets simply find statistics that support the vested interests of the few that back them, and the media are driven by their wealthy owners; even the BBC can no longer be seen as neutral.

Whatever decision is made will benefit the wealthy and the rest of us will probably see little or no difference, regardless of what we are told. We are powerless at the end of the day and like me in the dentist chair, incapable of being heard. 

A night at the opera

I saw Tosca last night. It was a company that I have never heard of and in a venue that I had never before visited and so I went along with some trepidation. I always arrive early for everything, and last night was no exception. We had a meal and a couple of glasses of wine in a nearby restaurant before the show and found our seats with at least fifteen minutes to go. I like to watch people even though I am not fond of being amongst them, and it fascinates me to watch an auditorium fill.  I often place bets with myself as to which seats will be filled last, and it is usually those in the middle of a row, where the most people can be disturbed by those who linger in the bar for as long as they possibly can, or leave going to the toilet until the last possible minute. Seven thirty came, and there were still people faffing around looking for their seats and generally making nuisances of themselves, and it struck me that these were people of my age or even older; people brought up in different times and with different social values, or so I naively imagined. In fact the whole audience was made up of the silver haired, with a handful of younger people possibly there to look after their parents.

Opera is an acquired taste. There is nothing natural about it, and yet it encompasses so many art forms in one experience. To go to an opera is not something that most people would consider unless they are already interested. To begin with it is expensive, and then you have to suspend your disbelief as often, wholly unrepresentative people take on the roles of young lovers or whatever. It requires concentration as well as understanding and let's face it opera does not have a lot of street cred.

What is the future for provincial opera companies? When my generation are no longer there to fill the seats, will the next generation be willing or able to take our place?  I suspect not, and that is sad. Opera may one day be limited to places like Covent Garden and will be the property of the wealthy. The rest may never experience the thrills and the emotions that go along with performances of Puccini, Verdi, Mozart and the rest of the great operatic composers.

Tosca was good. The orchestra very professional and the cast performed with their hearts. It was a good evening even if my lack of faith in my fellow humans was underlined once again.

"People are bloody ignorant apes."

I try to like people.  I used to be gregarious once upon a time but somehow these days it all seems too much effort. Don't get me wrong, there are people that I like a lot and I can even cope with small groups but en masse, people generally make me want to withdraw into my cosy little shell. Even walking through the high street is, for me, an unpleasant experience; everyone seems oblivious about the presence of others and the respect for personal space seems to be a thing of the past.

I know that the flaw is in me and I try to analyse it. Partly it has to do with hearing loss. Having only one ear is quite a handicap. I have no perception of depth of sound and none of direction either. All sounds come from the same source and that could be anywhere. Where there are many sound sources, they all come in together and it is impossible to distinguish one from another and so I feel isolated in crowds where everyone is talking at once or if there is a plethora of background noise. It is hard to describe really but I just cannot function well in a crowd.

My intolerance of other people becomes more enhanced as I get older and in a few days I shall be heading for the airport.  Those places seethe with bodies and noise and smell. As soon as you enter the terminal you are trapped into a processing machine. Expected to check in three hours prior to the flight then herded through queues and  into the departure lounge along with the rest of those on the same flight.  I will examine the company carefully and hope that I don't have to sit next to the enormously fat person, the one with a cough or the one with a young child of any description. Flying is bad enough without making the nightmare worse.

In small select groups, people are ok. I enjoy spending time with friends and family and although I am happy enough in my own company, I would not wish to be alone for an extended period of time.

In Terry Pratchetts book "Small Gods" the villain dies and finds himself in a desert of black sand alone apart from the figure of Death. Death says "YOU MAY HAVE HEARD THE EXPRESSION - HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE. IN TIME YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG."  *
Death vanishes and leave him there for eternity.

* Death always speaks in capital letters
** Samuel Beckett.

Living in the past

This year has begun strangely. Already a number of names that I grew up with have died and January is only half done. Someone said the other day that looking back into the past is pointless and that we should either live in the present or look forwards.  I certainly live in the present, and yet I find that replaying the past has many positive aspects. At my age, speculation about the future seems rather pointless, especially as those dying around me are much the same age as I am. My best friend from childhood is very ill and unlikely to last long and talking about old times with him is much more pleasant and productive than thinking about what is yet to come. I suppose the thing is, that as you get older, you have far more past than you do future and the distant past is far easier to recall than what happened yesterday.

Talking about the past can also be cathartic, buried memories can be the cause of issues that we do not understand, while opening those memories can enable us to put them away and allow them to rest. Most of us have skeletons in our cupboards and life when we were children was very different to what it is today. Our parents had lived through the terrors of the second world war, many were traumatised by what they had been through, just like their own parents, and there was no counselling in those days, you just had to get on with it. No-one wanted to talk about the wars; it was as if the telling of it would unleash nightmares and make it all happen again and so it was blanked out. No parent is perfect, and times were very hard for young working class families.

We edit our memories all of the time and by talking with those whose lives overlapped can help correct the errors and put things into perspective. We can still bury the unpleasant if we wish, but however bad the experiences may have been, they are part of who we are and accepting that enables us to live with who we are today.

I look back a lot, especially when I hear of the deaths of my contemporaries, and I am trying to create a log of my life, both in this blog and in a more extensive autobiography. This way my children and grandchildren will have a glimpse into the past that might serve to inform them of their own roots, whilst allowing me to indulge myself in reliving  some of the past.

Terry Pratchett said that there was a rumour going around that before you die, you see your whole life flashing before you; it is true, it is called living.

House buying

We bought our first house in the early seventies. Prior to that we had lived for a year in a caravan close to the beach which was wonderful in summer and pretty dire in the winter. We had almost no money and to buy a house was huge step. It cost us five thousand pounds and was a tiny terraced house without central heating or a decent bathroom or even running hot water. We took out a 90% mortgage and raided meagre savings to fund the rest. It was a step on the ladder however and we made the most of it.  We had pretty low expectations I suppose and that was the way that we had grown up.

Things are no easier today. Our son wants to buy a house rather than continue to plough vast sums of cash into the bank of a landlord who manages to raise the rent every single year   and who also requires that they pay a sum of money just to renew a contract.  

Many MPs are landlords and recently they failed to pass a bill that would have made landlords maintain their properties to a decent standard.  In the same week the tories are planning to demolish the sink estates, selling the sites to their friends and ensuring that affordable accommodation is becoming a thing of the past.

Buying property in London is already pretty much beyond most young people and property is being snapped up by companies and foreign investors, pushing the price of a basic property above the half a million threshold.  Even here in Kent it is hard to find a place  less than 400,000 pounds  and this is just silly money.

Mr Cameron and his friends have little idea as to what is meant by affordable, as to those with their hands on the reins, everything is affordable.                      

Changes

So David Bowie has died: his death, like his career was stage managed and as always, the media loved him for the opportunities that he provided. He was a remarkable human being, who did much to change the ways that people looked at the world and at themselves. He made it easier for people to be different, to be themselves and to accept themselves, as well as producing music that was in itself different and challenging.  His contributions to society were enormous and the tributes have come from all over the world.  Few performers or entertainers are worthy of the label celebrity but he most certainly was.

Musicians since the early twentieth century have set out to challenge the status quo (not that band), and have reflected the need for change. The Jazz and Blues that originated in the USA, opened the way to fighting racism and division in that country. Later, protests against war drove a whole wave of musicians, notably Bob Dylan, to rail against the futility of conflicts and the divisions within societies in general.

The sixties saw an explosion in bands playing a new sound altogether and dressing in styles that were a rejection of all that had gone before, this led to the Glam Rock of the seventies and then the anti music revolution of punk. After which it seems to me that music lost its way and few bands or artists have been able to be original or to challenge  or to bring about real change.  Everything is now about money; to see a band perform costs an arm and a leg, and the likes of Simon Cowell can put together relatively untalented bands and make them famous for five minutes.  Talented musicians with something to say seem to be absent and the kids are growing up with pap.

We may never see the likes of Bowie again; the rich and powerful dictate what music is made and aired, and of course they do not welcome change.

2016

Well that is another year gone, and I still don't understand the nature of time or its interconnectedness with the dimensions of space. I try, but frankly I struggle with three dimensions let alone four. I keep meaning to acquaint myself with the quantum world but having been told that it is possible, even ordinary for a sub-atomic particle to exist in more than one place at the same time; my mind is boggled. I suspect that those that claim to truly comprehend the quantum world have access to see of the world's best drugs and are not sharing.

From the tiny knowledge that I have, it would seem that at the sub-atomic level, things do not behave in the ways that we have come to understand, and yet there are some who believe that the odd behaviour of particles can be used to explain so much of what we experience.  I was directed to this expensive video by an acquaintance and have ploughed through part of it, but it would seem that quantum mechanics has been hijacked by those who wish to apply micro behaviour to macro situations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qisWnwj8VaA

They may be right, but as I watched this, the words bull and shit, kept cropping up and I did find it very hard to swallow.

I must watch again when I fully understand the true nature of life, the universe and everything. Maybe this year I will attempt to understand gravity.

celebrity status

Talking of things that we do not really need, we seem to be in a phase of decline in which anyone who has been on TV becomes a celebrity, and that status draws in the worshippers like moths around a flame. The media is obsessed by them and whole sections of newspapers are dedicated to the raising of mere mortals to pedestals that they can only fall off.

I watched Celebrity Pointless on tv the other day. Not only did I not know who any of the supposed celebrities were, but could not see how on earth they had gained that status. What did become obvious throughout the show, was that whatever they had done, clearly did not require a brain, and the whole show was a demonstration of sheer stupidity, something that they all seemed to revel in. Stupidity has become a badge of honour, something that anyone can strive for and achieve with minimal effort.

Celebrities are role models for the next generation; it is no wonder that educational standards are falling. 

Things that we really do not need.

This is the season when we are reminded constantly that we live in a world where the only think that matters is money.  Without it you are in trouble and it seems that the more you have, the more you want. So many people have far more money than they can possible spend in a thousand lifetimes and yet they still want more.  In pursuit of more money we are exposed to barrage upon barrage of temptations and expectations that are designed to separate us fools from the money that we have. In consequence we buy mountains of garbage that we could really do without. In no particular order we have -

Bottled Water.  We live in a country where tap water is cheap and clean and yet there is a flourishing market for bottled water, much of which probably comes for a tap anyway. It is seen as essential to have a bottle of water with you wherever you go and you must also drink it the right way. It has to be drunk through the side of the mouth, not the front, and it must also have the right label.  So we are accumulating vast quantities of plastic waste simply for the sake of fashion.

Christmas wrapping paper.  Thousands of miles of printed paper is used each year to wrap gifts that no-one really wants and is torn up and thrown away into landfill along with the excessive packaging that seems necessary to make cheap plastic rubbish  attractive and saleable at inflated prices.

Christmas crackers.  Was there ever any product more ridiculous or less desirable?  How many tons of materials and how much energy is wasted in their production each year? I am sure that the chinese economy is maintained by them but really?

Christmas lights.  Ever since the Griswolds' Family Christmas, it seems that some people like to illuminate their neighbourhoods for the month of december. They are wasting so much energy and goodness knows how they pay the electricity bill when it comes. On top of that other people drive around their neighbourhoods to look at the displays, thereby wasting fuel and pouring more exhaust fumes into the already polluted air.

Christmas food generally.  Super concentrated calories that have short lived appeal. Christmas cakes and puddings laden with sugar, fruit and alcohol seldom get fully consumed and much of what we put on the table gets left and discarded.

Plastic toys and games.  I remember when plastic was a novelty. It has worn off!

Christmas cards. Why oh why do we send them?  Probably because everyone else does and though the post office makes a fortune, it is an annual chore that most people would quite easily shed.

I could go on, and I know that I do tend to, but then what is this blog for? Maybe we could do without that too.

That time again

I went on the bus into town yesterday as I had one or two things that I wanted to buy and for once I chose not to leave everything until the last possible moment.
Being a monday and being not too close to the actual event, the shops were not the usual feeding frenzy and all seemed pretty quiet and almost normal. Normal that is apart from the fact that all of the shops seem obliged to play endless streams of christmas muzak and many of the poor workers were dressed as elves. I did feel for them, sitting at their tills for hours on end, looking both bored and stupid.  I don't think my tenuous grip of sanity would last a day in those conditions; give me ten minutes of Bing Crosby or Wizard and I would need to insert the nearest christmas tree into whoever was responsible for inflicting so much agony on so many people.
Anyway, job done I returned home feeling quite smug, now able to complete the small part of the process that I have any responsibility for.
There was a time, many years ago, when my main cast at Christmas was to fill the children stockings. Sorry if this is a spoiler for anyone, but the man in the red suit and the rest of it is a myth.  I would of course leave it until Christmas Eve and late on christmas eve at that. I would have been to the pub for a few drinks with friends and would return after closing time to find a mince pie and glass of sherry waiting for me.  Having struggled to deal with this offering I would then fill the socks with bits and pieces and quietly transfer them to the foot of each of their beds. They never once woke up so I guess I was able to keep quiet.
Now it is the grandchildren that hang up socks on christmas eve and it is their parents job to maintain the myth and the harmless lies that we tell our children, while we look on and enjoy the memories of our own childhoods.
So we are near to the end of the process; so much time and energy spent on wondering what to buy and then buying it. So much umming and aahing about the annual christmas card battle and the huge expense on stamps, the stocking of vast quantities of alcohol and food, the yards of wrapping paper and the real enemy - sellotape, the end of which is forever vanishing.  Soon it will all be over and the landfill sites will be festooned with the waste and the big businesses will count their profits while we wander witlessly into another year.
Wishing that anyone reading this has a joyful time with friends and family, enjoy your Christmas or whatever you choose to call this festival of capitalism gone crazy.

Conspiracy theory

By and large, the world's press is an out of control machine, designed to promote propaganda and the views of the wealthy owners.  Yes there are newspapers and other media outlets that try to present information in a balanced and truthful manner, and then there are the rest who see their role as sellers of newspapers and advertising.

Rather like politicians, the media are no longer trusted and many look at each story as being a fabrication, or at least a distortion of the truth, and who knows? they may well be right. However to see every catastrophe as a conspiracy is probably not a good thing.

There are plenty who believe that America never put a man on the moon, that area 51 hides evidence supporting the existence of aliens, and that the attacks of 9.11 were either bogus or home grown as a means of turning the west against all things Islamic.

The social media give a platform to anyone who has an opinion. Last week, the tragic events in Paris were being blamed on Israel. Allegedly the killers were not fundamental Islamists, but Mossad agents, there to encourage France to make war on Syria.  An interesting idea, and one can see that any action against the Arab nations by the west would be applauded by the Israelis, however it does seem unlikely that however demented they may be, Mossad agents  are unlikely to become suicide bombers.

Some believe that Jeremy Corbyn's rise to the leadership of the Labour Party was engineered by the Tories, knowing that he could never lead the party to an election victory. His humanitarian views, his care for social welfare and for those unrepresented by the government make him an easy target for the tory press and so the labour party are and will remain toothless for the foreseeable future.

Many believe that ISIS is a construct of the West and that it is supported and fuelled by arms manufacturers and governments that make profits from war.  This does seem believable, though the truth does have a habit of seeping out eventually, so time will tell.

It gets harder and harder to keep anything quiet. Any organisation that fosters wrong doing will, sooner or later be exposed by whistleblowers, either out of a wanting to do the right thing, or out of revenge. Public shaming is so easy today and in that there are dangers.

The truth is out there somewhere, and probably lies between the press and the social media. Perhaps we are not ready to accept it yet.

Fools and their money

Groupon has an offer this morning, selling two acre patches of Lunar land for ten pounds.  For this sum, you also receive a certificate that purports to prove your ownership.  No doubt there will be some eager to purchase such a thing and I am sure that many will receive these certificates as christmas gifts. It would seem that the purveyors of snake oil have resorted to online sales.

Plastic crap seems to drive what is left of the economy. Everywhere you look there is ready made garbage that appeals to children and is bought by the tonne by adults at their wits end trying to appease the voracity of appetites for Peppa pig, Ninjago or whatever happens to be in fashion right now.   Within weeks the garbage that is being purchased now  will have lost any sort of attraction and will  be consigned to the black bins along with the superfluous wrappings.

Much of what we buy has redundancy built in.  So we no longer maintain or repair, we just replace things because that is the cheapest option and of course the skills needed to repair things are slowly dying out as are venues where repairs can be done.  I cannot remember the last time that I had shoes repaired for example. Maybe modern materials are better, but my shoes seem to last forever and if they should wear out they will just be replaced.

Everyone wants your money. Never a day goes by without some charity or other sending out pleas for cash, online scams are there in abundance and comment are bleeding the bank accounts of the unwary and unprepared. Of course if you have any left then the tax man wants to take his share too.

I remember a friend who got involved in a pyramid scheme and tried to convince me to participate.  I think it was a company that sold cleaning products. Each salesperson was supposed to recruit eight others, each of which made some payment to the recruiter and so on.  What he hadn't realised was the exponential nature of the scheme and how quickly the population of the world would become Amway salespersons if it continued.  He eventually conceded that it was a stupid idea, unfortunately he had paid in his dues.

So should I buy up a chunk of lunar land in the hope that prices will rise?  I don't think so.

Subservience

The leader of the Labour party certainly makes an impact. We all know that he can never become Prime Minister, and yet there are plenty out there who love to criticise and condemn him for even breathing. He is it seems a man of principle and he is not afraid of challenging the status quo; for that I admire him.
The tabloids have been pointing out his refusal to bow to the queen; a move that some see as shocking behaviour. Why should any human being bow down to any other? It is an act of subservience and one that says "You are my better and I know my place."  Throughout history the ruling classes have had their way, they have been obeyed and worshipped even and the population as a whole have been kept in their place.  Children have been brought up to follow along in the same paths as their parents and so the process has continued.
The monarchy and their underlings have enjoyed this for long enough and it is high time that political leaders,  of whatever party, used their own free will rather than continue along the usual lines just because it has become deeply entrenched in our traditions.
Maybe humanity has evolved to be led by the nose by those deemed stronger or fitter or smarter than they are. The current Royals seem neither strong, fit or even smart, and the most likely next monarch is certainly not one to command a great deal of respect.
Royalty, like religion, has served a purpose, in the suppression of free thinking and thus maintained a stable society in which the wealthy use and abuse those less well off. Fewer and fewer people are so easily conned by either organisation, despite the efforts of the press, and Mr Corbyn was right to demonstrate his refusal to adhere to the ritual, however symbolic it may be.  To accept that someone is better than you is also to accept that others are worse and in a modern world that is not acceptable. I will bow to no-one; we are all human beings.
  

Educational standards

Never a week goes by when someone is having a go at schools and/or teachers. Every one of society's ills is blamed on the establishments that are charged with the education of our children. If kids display a lack of manners, it is the school's fault, bad behaviour, abuse of drugs, knife killings, you name it are all the fault of the school.

We are living in strange times where the needs of the workplace are constantly shifting and because of this, the politicians like to fiddle with the running and the purpose of our education system. More and more is being squeezed into a curriculum that has been overburdened for decades; more and more is expected of teachers, who are constantly bombarded by "new" initiatives that pop in and out of fashion every few years or so, and then there is the accountability that has shifted from student to teacher.

I was browsing through some of the old textbooks that we used in the seventies; the Nuffield Science scheme and the Schools Council Integrated Science Project, and the quality of the material and the demands placed on students were worlds apart from what is expected today. Yes students are still expected to learn, but it seems to me that the emphasis is no longer on the process of learning but on the assimilation of a lot of unrelated facts. Practical work is being phased out on economic grounds, and health and safety concerns have reduced worthwhile experiences to a complete sham.

Taking children out of school has become an administrative nightmare as well as a dangerous activity, taken on only by the brave or foolish, and so for many children, school has become intolerably dull.

Social pressure is a huge factor in how attitudes have changed too.  Learning is seen as being uncool and succeeding academically has very little street credibility. Many young people want to be successful, but their role models are footballers or talentless celebrities that shoot to fame via reality TV shows.  Some come from families that place no value on education, but see schools as containment for their children for part of the day.  They are not taught the most important of life's lessons at home, the parents expecting someone else to take on that role, or not caring one way or the other.  Education is not valued by much of the population; it is seen as irrelevant by some and who can blame them - for many the curriculum is irrelevant. We seem only to value things that we pay for and everything else is taken for granted.

Educational standards are not down to the schools, they are the responsibility of all of us, parents, grandparents and adults in general have a role to play is changing the attitudes of young people and engendering responsibility and self worth in a generation that is in danger of losing its way.

Poppies

Every November, the British Legion takes to the streets and floods every retail outlet with trays of artificial poppies.  This is their big fund raiser and I assume that the cash raised goes to good causes, though these days you can never be sure.  Apart from raising money, the idea is to raise awareness of the terrible events of 1914-1918, when so many lives were lost in a seemingly avoidable conflict. The poppy is seen as a symbol of peace and it is easy to imagine the battlefields, once red with blood, changing in the aftermath to fields festooned with the fragile poppies.

It seems ironic that now the poppy has become a point of conflict in itself. Some feel that everyone should wear a poppy in November, and because that is the way that they think, anyone seen without a poppy is branded as some sort of traitor.  There is a jingoism that blossoms every year and the symbolism has been hijacked by the far right groups such as Britain First, which seems to have taken over from the BNP and the National Front.

There are a number of pro military organisations, that seem to be emerging and growing in size with passing time, and just like in the first world war, it is those who get killed or maimed for life that are labelled as heroes.  In reality of course, some that go to war were heroic, but the majority were ordinary people in the wrong place at the wrong time and had no choice in their actions.

Modern warfare is very different to that of the early twentieth century. Much of the carnage is now delivered from afar and soldiers do not spend months at a time knee deep in mud in trenches infested with rats. Hand to hand fighting and the ridiculous charging at machine guns probably never happens. Those that had to do so had no choice - they either faced the hail of enemy fire or were shot by their own officers if they refused.

Being killed in warfare is tragic and rarely heroic. Yes of course there were men who sacrificed their own lives to save their comrades but for most soldiers they were trying to survive as would anyone in their position.

Petty arguments over symbols have a habit of escalating and each year the conflict over who wears poppies and their "Britishness" seems to grow.  While the poppy is seen as a support for war in general, many people will refuse to wear one and I do not blame them.