The "Nature" of Teenagers

Having observed a particularly callous act of a teenager towards her parent, a 50-year old observed, with an indulgent smile, that it is in the nature of teenagers to hate their parents.  He does not even know that, although there were always, of course, people aged 13-19, they did not exist as a group until they acquired purchasing power.  In the 1930s they existed only in USA, the first country where large numbers of parents were well-off enough to give their children substantial pocket-money, and they were called "bobby-soxers" from the short white socks they all wore.  Here we just became adults the minute we left school, wore adult clothes, and were expected to contribute to the family budget.  Some of us hated our parents and even voiced that feeling, but, except for the very rich, we knew we had to contribute to family welfare, or go off and be independent.  There were no teenaged "passengers" and no question of settling back in with parents after some other project had petered out.  This led to greater self-respect and understanding of what society is about.  It is about everybody pulling their weight.

There is no such thing as a Human Right without a corresponding Human Duty

The phrase "Human Rights" consists of two words.  The meaning is that if we are human we have a right to certain necessities that animals do not have.  But if we are human we also have duties that animals do not have.  There is no such thing (except for babies or the totally mentally incapable) as a Human Right without a corresponding Human Duty. All of us with a right to be cured by the NHS have a responsibility to the whole organisation to keep it in working order to the best of our ability and not lay unnecessary burdens upon it.

How doctors, as well as patients, are destroying the NHS

We have come to think that every minor ailment must be treated and doctors must prescribe.  They can no longer tell you to wait a bit and you'll get better. 

Because I am 85 and am constantly being told to report chest pains, I duly went to see my GP, after a few days of pain in the left side of my chest, quite sharp sometimes and of course imagined I must have something wrong with my heart.

I was reassured to be told that it is muscle pain, and felt better already.  I would have been quite ready to go home and take paracetamol when required, but she insisted I have a cream and codeine!  I got the cream at the pharmacy, but refused the codeine, which I consider OTT for the amount of pain I have.  Then when I got home I discovered the cream, too, is analgesic only.  Just to reduce the pain.

Over-prescribing is happening all the time, and we don't even know the cost of these unnecessary drugs.  I know that some patients won't leave the surgery unless they get a prescription, but even when I resisted these were forced upon me.  We are really being turned into a nation of softies.

University-trained nurses are not "too posh to wash" says Willis Commission. Of course they are.

From my experience of trying to get young people to help me with the garden, I think they are all too posh to get their hands dirty at all.  From the youngest age they are taught that it's wrong to get dirty.  Their clothes are too nice for them to be allowed to play in the sand.  Hospital nurses are no longer expected to do much personal care for patients.  When it comes to old people who cannot manage to deal with their own bodily functions a very different kind of carer is needed.  He or she is imbued with an understanding and empathy with the elderly, perhaps acquired from their own family experiences, perhaps because they just happen to be born with those particular qualities.

There comes a moment when treatment is no longer useful, or wanted, just to be made comfortable as we await the end.  It is perfectly reasonable to want to be allowed to die when life has lost its pleasures and its meaning.  Why should we be chivvied out of that acceptance?  We need to grow up about death and allow the elderly to express their preference for it.  This is not a feeling of defeat, just a feeling that one's life has come to its end and we need to be cared for by somebody who does not find wiping our bum for us disgusting and does not make us feel terribly lonely by refusing to accept that death is near.  Those people deserve to be paid just as  much as trained nurses.  Of course they never can be.  But their satisfactions come from something deeper than money. 

Traffic Experiment in Kensington - common sense to be used instead of traffic lights.

It is encouraging so see the success of the removal of all traffic lights, lines on the road and even the
separation of pavement from roadway on a long stretch of Exhibition Road in London.  Instead of obeying instructions, drivers, cyclists and pedestrians are expected to use their own good sense and treat each other with respect.  It sounds too good to be true, but evidently it is a system increasingly used in continental cities, and accidents are substantially reduced.  The area certainly looks much more attractive without all the road signs.  It would be great it it could be a pilot scheme not  only for traffic but in other areas of our lives.  Our brains and common sense are being eroded by nonsensical bureaucratic laws, making us act in a way that goes against all our instincts, e.g. cases where police or firemen are not allowed to put themselves in danger, and a member of the public has to do so instead in order to urgently save a life.   

Children and computers

My grandson, who lives far away, came recently and was able, most cleverly, to get my scanner to work even though I hadn't used it in the 10 years I've had it and it had become obsolete.  He did the equivalent of looking for a part for an old car on the internet, and finally found the old-fashioned software needed and got the thing to work.  What he did was unimaginable to me.  If I had had to pay somebody to do that it would, of course, have been much cheaper to buy a new one.  As usual, he was in a rush, and, in the process disconnected my printer and neither of us noticed until he had gone home.  He said, "Grandma, get any kid down the road to fix it" and I did just that and a 15-year-old came along and did it without too much trouble, and it wasn't a question of plugging something in somewhere, it involved a lot of mysterious key-work.  Some of this skill is taught at school, some is just a willingness to use trial and error.  I am dead scared of pressing any key on that basis - never knowing what horrors might unfold.

Younger and younger children are acquiring this skill and it's wonderful to behold and they learn a lot of facts without having to go to libraries.  But I think it gives them a rather unfounded sense of superiority, so they think there is nothing at all to be learned from their elders.  Their ignorance of every-day things is sometimes staggering, cooking the simplest of food that can't go in the microwave, knowing where the fuse-box is, how to find the candles if the lights fail, that you can smell food to judge whether, even though it's pas its sell-by date, is still perfectly safe to eat, that biscuits, for example, can be a bit soft but won't kill you.  One was idly picking my blackberries and throwing them on the ground as he chatted on his phone.  I asked him to please not do that - he was welcome to eat them, but not just to throw them down.  He didn't know they were edible!  Sewing on a button is a forgotten skill.  Because I love it, I still, or rather, again have an open fire.  The coalman told me that the staff at a pub which had newly re-opened its fireplace asked him to stay and light the fire for them because they had no idea how to do it.  Computer sense has replaced common sense.  But we do need a bit of the common kind.

A better punishment for Boat Race nuisance

I'm not mentioning his name because publicity is what he loves.  Interrupting the Boat Race was a stupid and useless prank, only calling attention to all the effort that goes into rowing and the strength of character of those young men.  But putting him in jail is a stupid expense to the tax-payer and may well turn him from a prankster to a criminal if he can't get a job afterwards and picks up a lot of "useful hints" from the other inmates.  Fine him, let him spend a few years paying off the debt, take away his driving licence, make him do community service, but jail is just a no-brain idea for that kind of stupid misdemeanour.

Recipe for fruit that doesn't ripen

We bought some hard nectarines which started going bad rather than ripening.  I cut them in halves, poured some apple juice on them and sprinkled some cinnamon and cooked them in the oven and they were delicious. Have the nerve to publicise this because I think we live in a world where it would no longer occur to a lot of people to do this, so maybe useful.

Abortion

I don't understand why Jeremy Hunt or any man other than the father of the foetus concerned should have anytthing to tell a woman about when she may or may not have an abortion.

Over-prescribimg by doctors

It was not surprising to read that a million patients are getting repeat prescriptions for tranquillisers when they should not be - that way they get hooked and can't get off them again.  Ever since my mother died, leaving so many medicines unused I have worried about this counterproductive wastage.  I was prescribed an anti-biotic and taken off it for another when it seemed to me there had been not enough time ( much less than 24 hours) for it to have a chance to have an effect.  Recently an old friend (93) who was obviously - to herself, to her nephew, to me, to the nurses - very near to death was told that she was to have another anti-biotic.  She couldn't see well, hear properly, walk, digest, control her own bodily functions, but was very clear in her mind.  She just wanted to be allowed to die in peace.  She said she did not want it.  A more senior doctor came in and persuaded her that she must try it.  Too weary to argue, she consented and it was administered, and she died 4 hours later.  Surely geriatric specialists should recognise when death is near and when nothing can help any longer, and is, anyway, just not wanted.  I have tried to get this doctor to explain his actions but have not been able to.  He said that if she had been confused her Living Will could have been consulted and she could have been allowed to die.  Since she was not confused, she could not refuse the medication.  Pure Alice in Wonderland thinking!  Is this sort of action common?   If so, no wonder the NHS is short of funds.

Our Inhuman Society

There is such a sad story in today's paper.  One Sarah Catt, married, mother of two children, found herself to be pregnant, she thought by her ex boy-friend, and illegally aborted the baby and buried it.  She was found out, tried, and now has gone to jail for eight years.

What possible use is this jail sentence?  She doesn't need to be punished - surely she has suffered enough.  Now her children are to be punished with the loss of their mother.   She is not a danger to the public.  She is not likely to re-offend.

For goodness sake, she could be given some community service helping to look after homeless mothers and their children.

I am ashamed to like in this unimaginatively cruel society.

Capitalism

If you think the State should provide the essentials to keep society going, by collecting taxes and doing it for you, then you're a Socialist.  If you think people should stand on their own two feet and the law of supply and demand will solve all the problems and provide what we need at a price we are willing to pay, then you're a Conservative.  Naturally, neither system works perfectly by itself, so we need a Mixed Economy.

We've got a Conservative-leaning Mixed Economy at the moment and it's not working very well.  To start with, the Banks, the very heart of it, had to be given a lot of money to prop them up!!!To do that we've had to reduce benefits to the disabled and sell school playing fields.  Can that be right?  But now matters have got even worse.  We seem to be having to pay those lovely property-developers to property-develop!  And remove anything that is hampering them, like planning permissions.  And not even insist that they build houses normal people can afford to live in.

All our least favourite people are being handed out the dosh.  Who's next?  Will estate agents have to be subsidised to help them sell these houses that we can't afford to buy?

Happiness

For me, happiness is making something.  I can't really knit any more because of arthritis in, of all things, my thumbs, but I've still got my bag of wool.  My grandson's baby is due this month, and I've got out his old teddy, safely stored in the attic for over 20 years.  I've washed him but he's got some marks on his legs I can't get off, so made him some trousers out of some check pyjamas.  Now he needs a sweater.  Knitting that tiny thing I can manage.  That is what I call fun.  It makes me just as happy as any of my old kinds of fun did.  Also Joe will love it.  He's a sentimental fellow and he doesn't know about it.  Double fun!

Sell-by Dates

I've always thought sell-by and use-by dates are an insult to our common sense.  We have eyes to see and noses to smell whether food is bad or not, and for things like biscuits, well, it's a question of whether you don't mind them a bit soft.  Out-of-date biscuits, for example, aren't going to do you any harm.

What does do harm to the whole world is the amount of food waste this creates as children are raised who take them seriously.  A young neighbour whose whole family lives on benefits came to borrow some bread.  She said, on reading the label, "You'd have had to throw this away anyway tomorrow, it's out of date". When you come across one such opinion you know that it must be that of many more and I find that very distressing.

But this was meant to be on a lighter note altogether, because I saw some envelopes that had a sell-by date.  I thought it was a joke.  However, now they are past that date, and of course they were self-stick and don't self-stick any more.  Did the manufacturer hope I would now throw them away and buy some more?  Well, I'm not, of course, but have to look for the cellotape every time I use one.  Never saw what was wrong with licking them myself.  At least my tongue is always where I know where to find it!

Cheating Tycoons

Asil Nadir is evidently facing a lengthy jail term for stealing £29 million.  If he goes to jail he'll just make himself comfortable and he is not a danger to the general public.  What he loves is money.  Let him be fined instead of costing the country even more.

Vicious Dogs

How daft to put the owners of vicious dogs who have bitten people in jail!  This will make them even more aggressive than they already are, make it difficult for them to get jobs when they are released and cost the taxpayer a whole lot into the bargain.  They need to be fined.  They obviously have money, they need it to even feed a large dog.  And banned from keeping animals.  Throwing all offenders into jail is just a stupid non-solution to the problem they present for society.

Cycle paths

What a good idea Boris Johnson seems to have had about cycle paths along the railway lines!  Alongside most lines there is some space and obviously they are going just where commuters and others need to go.  Sometimes whole disused lines could be used for this purpose.Certainly there are probably lots of people busy thinking up how difficult this would be and the huge cost.  Perhaps cyclists could be recruited to volunteer to clear undergrowth and do other unskilled preparatory work?

Congratulations to the Post Office

What a good idea the Post Office had to produce stamps so quickly honouring the Gold Medal winners! I have bought some for my young relatives who have been excited by particular sports in the Games.  Most of them won't want to use them as they don't write many letters, but they are attractive to own and can be kept for a few years and sold when a bit of cash is needed.  Also, wish we had a medallist round here so we'd get a gold-painted letter box.  Proves there are imaginative people in P.O.H.Q. somewhere.

Who cares if there was life on Mars millions of years ago?

If anybody ever asked me if I wanted any part of our taxes to be spent on finding out whether there was life on Mars millions of years ago I'd say "NO" and I rather imagine half of us at least (the female bit) would do the same.  But nobody ever asks, they just go ahead and do it.  I wish those billions could be spent on developing renewable sources of energy and preserving our own lovely planet instead.

Should homeless women be "bribed" to have contraception implants?

In a programme on Radio 4 on Thursday  "Inside the Ethics Committee" a doctor had proposed that homeless women should be offered £20 to have an implant which would keep them from conceiving for three years.  This was considered very, very controversial, but what struck me about the discussion was the it concentrated on the rights or otherwise of the women and did not at all address the rights of the unborn child which would, almost by definition, be taken into care at birth.  Some of the women mentioned had had five or six children, all taken away from them.  Surely it isn't fair to let a child be born knowing that it will not have a family and a home.  I find it totally moral to offer this £20 and wonder if others feel the same.

Splendid Olympic Torch Relay

I haven't read too many congratulations in the paper directed to those who organised the Torch Relay, so here are mine.  I think it remarkable the way it has gone so smoothly, with excellent choice of torch-bearers.  About 6 weeks ago we, in Thornton Heath, were told it would pass through here on July 23rd at 11.30 a.m. and it did just that.  We had only to go to the end of the next road, where a lot of people were collected, and, for once, there was some sense of Community.  It was good to see the normally empty streets full of people walking and we all cheered and shouted when we saw the flame being carried by a man in a wheel-chair.  A man in a shop there brought a chair out so I could watch in comfort. When I took it back, overcome with the feeling of goodwill we all experienced, he gave me a smacking kiss on the cheek!   May the whole Olympic show go off in such an atmosphere of friendship and goodwill!

What is an elite?

Yesterday's Observer's headline reads "£13 trillion:  hoard hidden from taxman by global elite."

The Oxford English Dictionary describes an elite as "a group of people considered to be superior..."
If even the Observer considers these people to be an elite we are lost indeed.  To me they are people who take but don't give.  They have the nerve to rely on whichever country they happen to be residing in or where they own property to provide the infrastructure on which even they depend, but who don't want to contribute to the cost of its upkeep.  They need the police, they need the roads to be kept paved, they need the sewers to work, they need the airports to function safely, they even need the state school system to provide minions who can at least read and write well enough to serve their needs.  But they want the rest of us to pay for it all for them.

If we think they are an "elite" we contribute to the idea that it is money, not morality, which drives society.

Closing Maternity Units

We are told that a senior specialist thinks it will be better to close local maternity units so that we can all have the benefit of senior specialist care in centres of excellence.

This is the most recent example of people who don't know how the other half live making rules for the rest of us.  Chances are this senior specialist has never had a baby!

What we need is to be in easy reach of our much-trusted midwife, who knows us.  Most of us just go ahead and have a normal baby in a normal way.  Sometimes there are false alarms - you don't want to have travelled miles to a strange hospital to be sent home again.   This is turning a normal process, more and more often accomplished at home, into something weird and wonderful that needs specialists.  If that is the case we are grateful that they exist, but it's probably only in 5% of cases.

We are being driven mad by people who have no "real" life experience making daft rules.  This, increasingly, includes politicians who know nothing but politics.

Buying a Travel Card for London

Balham is our nearest Underground station, so we went there to buy travel cards for my adult and child visitors.  Long wait at ticket office.  Only one man in front, an American, who apologised, but he was only trying to get his refund on his Oyster card, which is why I'm not getting Oyster as it's a complication to get refunds at end of your visit.  In the end he got it and had to sign 3 bits of paper!!!  So I got the adult card, no problem, but they don't have them for children.  Suggested you buy a ticket each time, but that you can get them from Rail Station for children.  Luckily Balham has both, so went up there to get it.  Photo needed, nearest booth 5 minutes away at Sainsbury's.  Finally achieved this.  £29.  Perhaps cheaper to pay each time, but if you already have a travel card, you don't want to have to queue up to buy tickets for your child.

There are people sitting in offices making daft rules for the rest of us to follow, in so many walks of life.  See next blog.

Amendment to yesterday's

I have discovered that it's only at rail stations you have to have a photo in order to get a London travel card.  At Underground stations you don't.  Great relief!

Photos on London travel cards

Some Japanese friends arrive today.  I wanted to get them travel cards in advance, but have discovered, that just a month ago, a new rule was made insisting on photographs on them, so I couldn't buy them for them.   Even when they arrive, there's nowhere to get photos taken anywhere near my station.  What a time to start this, just when all these people will be coming to the Olympics!  Travel cards are much easier for people who aren't used to the system than Oyster cards are.  Since we seem to be able to do everything at short notice, couldn't we waive the need for the wretched photos until after the Olympics?

What makes a baby happy?

Today I heard an unusual sound in the bus.  It was a baby about 10 months old gurgling and crowing to itself so happily, as is natural.  Perhaps you don't notice babies as much as I do, but I tell  you, this is not usual behaviour in the bus.  I turned round and saw that, unusually, his mother had placed the pushchair facing the aisle, so he could see what was going on, and of course there's lots of movement.  Most mothers shove the pushchair in facing the grey wall of the bus and then get on their mobiles.  The babies sit there dully, vacantly.  Winking or smiling at them often can't stir them from their torpor.  When the pushchairs had to be folded, then they were sitting on their parent's knee and could see out of the window.  It was a good day for the mothers  when they first had this facility, but it was a bad day for the babies.

I really think it is important for babies to be stimulated and to enjoy communication and the sights and sounds of the world.  I just don't know how to put this idea over.  I am sure it is an important one.

Political Correctness

P.C. drives me mad.  If four-letter words can be shouted by schoolchildren in the bus all the time, why shouldn't they be used for the functions they actually describe, when needed?

However, it's not them I worry about.  My father was blind.  He was proud of being blind and the way he managed his life despite that.  He was indignant when it was suggested he was "visually impaired" as though "blind"  were a rude word, needing a euphemism.  Nor should "deaf" be a word we can't use. I must admit that "disabled" is much better than "crippled" because that word has so many other implications.  As for "black", well that is what my husband proudly calls himself. 

But what is bothering me at the moment very much is that we need to accustom ourselves to talking about death.  Old age can be a lonely time when your contemporaries begin to die, or be too old to visit and too deaf to enjoy phone conversations.  We can have lots of other friends and relations, but it is still the ones of our own age with whom we have a special bond.  This is because we understand each other and our situation and that situation is that we are going to die.  But younger people, mostly, and particularly those caring for the elderly are just too embarrassed to talk about death and if the old person brings it up they are likely to be told "Don't talk like that dear, you'll be with us many a year yet".  This is just what they don't want to hear.  And it makes them feel very lonely, because they know they must not bring up the one subject that they really need to think about.  Many don't want to be here for endless declining years, we just want to be able to talk, quite normally, about what lies ahead, which is death, inevitably, without embarrassing anybody.  So if there is one thing carers need to learn, it is that.  Please listen to me.  I know from talking to plenty of people in their final years.

Good manners

Yesterday, in Covent Garden, an opera singer was entertaining the crowds.

On the steps, just below her, a group of school-children were talking, laughing, playing, eating but their teachers made no attempt to either ask them to keep quiet or to sit somewhere else.  Disregard for each other is becoming a very noticeable feature of our society.  Surely it should be explained to children that if someone is trying to entertain, even if you are not interested in what they are doing you owe them the common courtesy of keeping quiet while they do so?  If nobody teaches children these things, how will they grow up to be just normally kind people?  It is unkind to behave in that way

Old people and their houses

I don't understand why old people who can no longer live in their houses should be allowed to keep them and borrow money from the government instead of selling them and paying for their care with the proceeds.  Well, I do understand, it is because it is thought that that is what they want, and old people tend to vote more readily than young ones do.  But, really, if the relatives want to hang onto the house to inherit, then they should look after its owner.  Keeping houses empty for years is anti-social when there is such a housing shortage.

Not understanding the Internet

I was very excited today because got 2 e-mails from people who had actually read my blog and one of them liked it very much.  However, when I tried to read the comments I couldn't do it.  And then  I seem to have wiped out the one about Teenagers, which was what they commented on, without wanting to at all.

There has never before been a product for which there are no instructions.  Hopeless to click on "help" because it is written in a language I don't understand by people who can't imagine there are people like me.  My grand-daughter says "You know so little about your computer, Grandma, I don't know how you manage to use it at all."  Yet it's essential to me.  No good asking some kind reader to help me, because I won't be able to read their comments, and will be scared to try to in case I lose another one.

All I can say today is so glad of evidence there are readers out there.

Look after the elderly OR inherit their house

I really can't see the problem.  You can either look after your relatives while they are alive and inherit their house when they die or have the State look after them and be paid with the proceeds of its sale.  You can't have it both ways.

A kinder way of treating babies needing adoption.

After a rest, I'm returning with happiness to comment on a piece of good news.  Why it has taken so long for the authorities to come to this conclusion is a puzzle, but common sense now prevails and little babies needing adoption are to be looked after by the same people who want to adopt them during the time they are to be fostered until the process can be completed.   Anyone who has had children knows how sad it is for tiny children to suddenly find themselves in a different home.  In some ways, the smaller they are the worse it is because nobody can tell them what is happening.

Why are hospitals selling Kitkat in their canteens?

I heard that rather nice James O'Brien on LBC talking about the fact that a hospital which had had a very good report from whoever it is that checks up on them gave to each of its staff, as a reward, a voucher to get a free Kitkat in their canteen.

James felt this rather an insulting sort of reward,and probably I agree, but what shocked me more was that the hospital has Kitkats in its canteen at all.  I've been boycotting these delicious things for years because they are now made by Nestle.  Nestle sends salespeople to Africa to persuade young mothers that their powdered milk is better than what Nature provides.  This is wrong on so many counts.  1.  Mother's milk is free and these are very poor people.  2.  The water supply isn't reliable.  3.  It is easy to make the mixture either too strong and give the babies diarrhoea, or too weak and undernourish them.  I just cannot understand why Nestle isn't satisfied with the huge profits they already make without trying to drag this particular market into their net.

But the fact that our hospitals are encouraging them is the hardest fact to cope with.

Red Bull

I've just picked up two empty cans of Red Bull discarded in the road outside my fence.  On the outside the label claims that drinking it boosts energy, but I don't think it can really do that because the people who drank them didn't even have the strength to carry their empties as far as the next dustbin.

How Disgraceful!

It was so depressing to read, at a time when there is real misery in rich and poor countries alike, that a young couple should consider it right to have such a large and lavish  party for their enormously rich friends that only the Palace of Versailles could accommodate it.

Probably they do not even know that, in 1789,  just such OTT behaviour in that same "venue" led to the perpetrators and many more going to the guillotine.  History can repeat itself.

Elderly Advisers for Care of the Old

Those who want to find out what causes teenagers to get into unruly gangs and otherwise behave badly have had huge success by recruiting other teenagers who understand the problem from the inside and know how their contemporaries think.

Those who try to improve the care of the elderly have no such idea.  Our fate is decided for us by well-meaning people of every age except our own.  Nobody, by definition, knows what it is like to be old because nobody has experienced it.  But some of us could give help in that direction.  When I visit a geriatric ward I so well understand how the inmates are feeling, but am usually condescended to and sometimes mistaken for one of them.  With the best will in the world, those young nurses can't empathise with the elderly.   They refuse to believe that there comes a point when you accept the thought of death with equanimity and the jolly rebuttals of any such suggestion only serve to make the aged more lonely than ever.

The role of money

I have just come across a note I made in 1988.  J.K. Galbraith, the economist wrote "It is funny that incentive for the poor involves taking money away and incentive for the rich involves giving them more".

Some things never change.

What is a living wage?

I went to Wimbledon on Saturday to buy some clothes in the excellent charity shops there.  I noticed several advertisements in the shop windows of the "Help Wanted" variety, which is apparently at odds with the current difficulty in finding jobs.  But it all ties in perfectly logically - these are jobs people just can't afford to take.  One was for a manager of a charity shop - full time - £12,500 a year.  Another for a full-time cook, £6.90 per hour.  How can people afford to do these jobs, unless they have a partner who is earning better?

Shopping

Yesterday I wanted to buy some trousers.  I think of British Home Stores as including the elderly among their clientele.  I was offered "petite" "classic" or "summer".  I opted for "classic" and was amazed and amused to find they were all made of denim.  This is when you feel you have really fallen off the edge of the world.  Language no longer means what it once did.  A kind young assistant went through the "summer" collection and found the only pair of size 14 in either black or navy.  It was perfect, but I was lucky.  What I was looking for seemed such a classical sort of request, but evidently not. However, I would, at 85, feel ridiculous in bluejeans.

Housing Shortage

The shortage of housing is directly connected with the creation of teenage gangs and their poor behaviour.
When families are inadequately housed there is just nowhere at home for youngsters to invite their friends in.

There are thousands of empty houses and flats in London.  Why do we allow this situation to continue?  If they belong to Councils which cannot afford to put them in good condition, let the Councils open them up to people on their housing list and give the responsibility for mending them to the new occupants.  In return the occupants would have to agree not to sue the Council.  This sueing is destroying life for so many families.  If they are in private hands the Council Tax should become punitive.  It is anti-social to keep property empty while you  wait for it to increase in value. 

Love

I had a visit from a 12-year-old girl yesterday.  She comes from a religious family.  We were talking about teenagers helping out with chores around the house and garden and I said that mostly if you see someone you love with too much to do you help them out of love.  She said "I don't think there's much love in the world".  It's a sad conclusion for such a young girl to come to.  When I challenged her assertion she said she had offered to carry a heavy load of shopping for an old lady, but her offer had been rudely refused.  She asked if I would accept such an offer from a young person I didn't know.  I said I would, but would take care my money was in my pocket and not in the bag. 

I blame the media for the poor opinion we all have of each other.  News of bad behaviour sells newspapers and happy stories mostly don't.  Trailers of films or TV programmes show the nastiest and most violent clips, sure that those are what will attract the viewers.  With what enthusiasm does the media follow the corruption or infidelities of people in the public eye!

We must, as a society, be doing something wrong if a 12-year old, religious girl thinks there's not much love in the world.  There certainly is, but nobody likes to talk about it.

Patients in Corridors

It's a shame to castigate the NHS for not finding beds for new admissions, because the bed-blocking is often caused by their own humane regulations.

When I broke my hip I wasn't allowed home before re-learning how to go upstairs and would not be released until a hand-rail was installed on my own staircase.  The delay for installing the hand-rail was 2 weeks.  I was luckily able to afford to have the work done myself so only bed-blocked for 24 hours.

Living on £1 a day for food

Congratulations to the Bishop of Oxford who decided to live for a week spending only £1 a day on food.  He managed it by eating lots of porridge and lentils and carrots, and ended up really hungry at the end of the week.   I admire him for doing it, especially as he had to go to dinners where everybody else was gorging themselves and there was lots of tempting food around.  I should think it is a useful exercise to make you realize what it's like to be always wishing to eat your fill and be reminded that so many children, particularly, over the world never have enough to eat.

A Joan of Arc for Greece

Greece needs some charismatic leader in the Joan of Arc style to suggest they all work together instead of supporting 30 different parties and demonstrating and striking and generally making matters worse.

If they left the euro they could return to the drachma and it would be very low in value.  It is an ideal tourist country and instead of rather putting off the tourists with all this unrest, they could all put their minds to making it very welcoming.  Joan of Arc could summon up their patriotism and, with a hopeful, cheerful atmosphere, combined with low prices, tourists would flock there, to take advantage of them and to encourage a country which is trying to recover.  They could appeal to all those rich Greeks living abroad to send money, or come for holidays themselves.  It doesn't seem to me impossible.  Force of personality can achieve so much and it could be a great example to other countries facing such difficulties.

Incidentally, we might try a little cooperation in this country, instead of the mud-slinging politicians seem to enjoy so much.

Human Duties

Recently it has been suggested that some doctors may refuse to treat patients who will not give up smoking or try to lose weight.

Have they got a point?  If we have a "human right" to medical care, we surely have also a "human duty" to do our best to keep our own bodies in good order.

Except for very small children, who have all the rights and none of the duties, we surely have to each play our part in trying to make society work.

Being out of touch

It's not only David Cameron and his posh friends who are out of touch with normal beings.  On Friday I went to see one of the doctors (not my favourite one, though) at our surgery.  We are very lucky - if we don't specify a doctor, we can see somebody the same day.  I have a painful lung and have had pneumonia before, so thought I should have it checked.  He said what I expected, take anti-biotics and come back in a week's time if it's still painful.  This was perfectly satisfactory, but, when listening to my chest, he asked why I was wearing so many layers of clothes.  I had to explain that old people who use public transport have to wait at bus stops and they get cold if they don't wear enough clothes.  Mostly they have learnt this.  Anyone shivering at a bus stop is usually someone too young to own a vest.  Is  it not sensible for an old woman with a dodgy chest to wear plenty of clothes on a cold May morning?  David Cameron is one thing, a doctor is another.

London Marathon

This time last week was the London Marathon.  What luck that it was a beautiful day with bright sun.  I haven't been able to post since because the format of the blog was changed by Those in Control, but now it's back again.  Thank you Those! and my grand-daughter, Sophie, who knew what to do. What I wanted to say was what a wonderful event the Marathon is and how lovely to have something that nobody wants to protest against.  35,000 amazing people participating, from serious athletes to those giving themselves extra difficulties by wearing animal costumes or carrying an Eiffel tower, all the essential observers who cheer them on, and all that £50 million raised for the various charities the runners run for.  It was very sad that Claire Squires died, but now pleased she would be that generous people gave so much money to the Samaritans in her honour.  When the press has done a good job of persuading us that we are a selfish, lazy lot, it was just wonderful to see this evidence that we are not.  Let's hope this fine spirit can still reign for the Queen's Jubilee and the Olympics and let London shine again.

St. George's Day

Good old Croydon!  I got to the (800-year-old) market yesterday and found St. George's Day was being celebrated.  Granted, it's tomorrow, but you can't celebrate properly on a Monday.  St David and St Patrick get celebrated with gusto every year, but recently St George has been left out of it.  There were Pearly Kings and Queens and lots of England flags around and a really festive atmosphere and the Morris Dancers were getting ready to perform and outside the church there was going to be entertainment all afternoon.  It really lifted my spirits - we don't celebrate England enough - grumbling's more our line, but I, for one, love England.  (Despite foreign-sounding name, born in Ipswich 85 years ago).  I hope the pubs will be celebrating St George as well as the other two from now on.

Sending patients home from hospital at night.

We expect our hospitals to be open for us 24 hours a day.  Sometimes it will happen that patients are ready for discharge in the hours of darkness.  If they are not fit to travel home alone, it doesn't really make much difference if it is day or night - they will feel abandoned even if deposited in their own home.  To what extent are we expecting the Health Service to care for people after they are discharged?  Those who have absolutely no family or friends are equipped with a call button so that they can summon help.  A hospital exists to treat illness or injury, not to take responsibility for what happens after this has been done.  Otherwise where does it all end?  I'm afraid that a non-existent family somehow often materialises when it is time to read the Will.

Whistling

Spring is here and the ice cream van is around and it is playing "Whistle while you work" to attract the childen.  It's surprising to hear it because that song was popular when I was only 6 or so and rushing out to catch my friend, the ice cream man, who went by every day about 3 o'clock.

It strikes me that nobody whistles nowadays, but they used to then, particularly builders as they slapped brick upon brick or window cleaners up their ladders or postmen or boys on bicycles or men cutting their garden hedges. (Women didn't whistle, and girls were encouraged not to.  "A whistling woman and a crowing hen is good for neither God nor men")   It is tempting to think people were happier then - and perhaps that isn't so far from the truth, because it's quite difficult to get your mouth into the right shape if you're unhappy.  It's not my imagination that whistling has just faded away.  After all, I don't think anybody would even think of writing a song with that name nowadays - it wouldn't click with anybody.

Up With Elites!

That silly man, and I can't bear to add to his reputation by even mentioning his name, who brought  the Boat Race to a halt, claims to be against elites.

All the wonderful inventions and discoveries that mankind benefits from have been made by members of an elite of people who are endowed with more brains, perseverance and dogged determination than the rest of us.  The young members of the Oxford and Cambridge teams have demonstrated those qualities. They are to be appreciated and encouraged. not despised and envied in that  mean-spirited way.  You don't automatically get them by being born a lord or educated at Eton.  Thomas Edison said "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration".  Being prepared to work devotedly and at personal cost  is the qualification for joining the elite.  He has the education, let him just go ahead and join them and put his energy into something productive rather than destructive.  

If you've got "Jesus" on your t-shirt, does it mean you are a Christian?

Yesterday a young woman with a baby asleep in a push-chair and another small child under her arm was trying to get off the bus.  There were several young women near her but none of them helped her.  I wondered why not - it seemed so obvious that somebody should.  When the door closed one very strong-looking, healthy girl turned around, and her t-shirt said "Worship Jesus".  Perhaps that's enough to get you into heaven?  No Christian actions required.

A piece of good news

Last Tuesday, 24/3/12, I went to a concert in the Festival Hall where 800 children from Lambeth Primary Schools sang to us.  When we found our places they were all on stage, sitting still and chatting, laughing and waving to us.  The conductor came in and asked for silence, which she got immediately.  There followed 10 songs, in various languages, sung with enthusiasm and skill and it was a beautiful experience for audience and children.  There had been only one rehearsal of the entire choir, that morning, because, of course they could not be all got together more than once, but all the work had been done in the individual schools.

Afterwards the children were kept on stage for 10 minutes while the parents followed the instructions they had received as to how to find their particular school.  We went to 3-GREEN for Rosendale and in no time Ava appeared and we went off to find ice creams on the South Bank.

I write this because we have an unfortunate tendency to stress our failures in this country, and never to rejoice at our achievements.  This was definitely a moment for rejoicing on two counts, music teaching and organisation.  Congratulations to Lambeth!

What seemed to me missing was a song at the end that everybody could sing together.  God Save the Queen isn't considered appropriate any more.  Could we not have something short and sweet that everybody can learn the words to and be generally uplifting to all?

Closing Libraries

West Norwood library has been closed for months because copper was stolen from its roof and the building is not usable.  This is a serious loss.  It was always busy, particularly with children.  At a moment when we are concerned about the fact that 11-year-olds can't read as well as would be expected it is very serious that this facility is not available to them and their parents.  There is no sign on the door to give users any indication of when it might be open again.  Evidently Lambeth Council does not consider this a very urgent matter.

In an effort to save money South Norwood library is now closed several days a week.  At a time when so many graduates are unemployed, could they not work in libraries?  Even on a voluntary basis it would be better for them than doing nothing, and they would gain experience.  Is it necessary for each smallish library to have more than one trained librarian on site?

The future of the country depends on us having an educated workforce.  Facility in reading is essential for this.  I am afraid Councils consider libraries soft targets, but they are vital, particularly if there are now fewer books in peoples homes.

How to teach a woman who leaves a 16-month child home alone that this is wrong?

A 20-year-old woman (or should we say child?) who left her 16-month-old baby alone over five nights, only returning for a couple of hours at a time to feed her cereal, is threatened with jail.  Is this really appropriate?  She doesn't so much need punishment, as basically to be taught how to live.  If she is put in jail presumably someone else will have care of the child and there will be an added rift between them.  It seems to me that both her and the child should be placed somewhere where she can care for it under supervision and learn the joys as well as responsibilities of motherhood.

Wastefulness

I sympathise fully with people who get frustrated with that wretched IKEA self-assembly furniture, but most of us can find someone cleverer than we are to help out.  However, one person decided to just dump the pieces, along with the huge cardboard box they were delivered in, outside our row of garages.  We know this has to be cleared away quickly, otherwise it's considered a dumping place and more arrives.  So I folded up the cardboard into a sizes suitable to be picked up with the recycling, and my neighbour sawed up the wood for my open fire.  What a terrible waste, though!  This isn't a prosperous area.  Everyone feels so poor.  How can this happen?  I think the thing must have cost about £150.  This is a road few people use.  Just leaving it there and hoping somebody would take it wouldn't work very quickly.  What should I have done with it?

Human Duties

I'm afraid I'm a bit tired of hearing about Human Rights and wonder why the term Human Duties isn't nearly so often heard - in fact never.
If old people have a right to be cared for in hospital, there is a corresponding duty on their family to see that this is being carried out.
If children have a right to education, their parents have a duty to see that they are properly fed and rested before they go to school.
Each right has its parallel duty.  Let's try to think of it that way to make Society work better.

How long do we want to live?

My 93-year-old friend at last died at 4.30 p.m. last Sunday, despite the best efforts of the NHS to keep her alive, against her will.  Of course they had the best of intentions.  Of course they are there to preserve life.  But: Thou Shalt not Kill, nor Shalt Thou Strive, Officiously to keep Alive.

On Friday she told a doctor who was going to launch on yet another course of anti-biotics that she did not want it.  She only needed to be kept comfortable, she wanted no further treatment.  The young doctor fetched a senior one, and he persuaded her to accept the medication.

On Saturday it was clear to her nephew that she was near death.  On Sunday it was clear to me.  Three hours before she died a nurse came in to give her not one, but two injections.  I don't think they were the anti-biotics, she had already had those.  No wonder the NHS is short of funds, pumping expensive drugs into dying people. 

My friend had made a living will.  She had made it clear to everybody she knew in the past two years, and more, that life had no more attraction for her.  What's more, she was a person who hated waste.  She saw it all around her, both in her nursing home and in the hospital.  She made me promise to campaign on these two issues, not prolonging life artificially, and not wasting our planet's resources.  I am going to pursue this on her account as well as my own as long as I have breath and finger-power to do so.

Abortion

Nick Santorum, hoping to be the next President of the United States, believes that a baby conceived as the result of rape is "a gift from God" and must not be aborted.

There has been a lot of discussion about the vexed question of abortion and it is understandable that people have vastly different beliefs about it.  But those who believe there is a Right to Life and that the foetus has a greater claim to survival than does its mother, refuse to think about what kind of life this poor little baby may well live.  It is just unfair to have an unwanted child.  Whatever the reason the mother might have for not wanting it, the fact of being unwanted will make it very difficult for it to have a happy life.  This idea seems to haunt people their whole lives.

Beyond not wanting it, the mother who has been raped has ample reason to hate the father and certainly not want to perpetuate his genes, and may well be led to hate the resulting baby.  I'm afraid I think Santorum is a wicked and unimaginative man totally unsuitable to be President.

What happened to Pneumonia - the Old Man's Friend?

Alexander Fleming foresaw problems that anti-biotics might run into.  I wonder if he thought of this one?  When we lose sight, hearing, general health, mobility, and, above all, ability to control our bladder and bowels, some also lose the will to live.  Along comes pneumonia to finish us off.  But if we are in hospital along also comes a well-meaning young doctor and prescribes anti-biotics.  The pneumonia is cured, but not whatever took us there in the first place.  It would be kinder to let people die, suddenly, of their pneumonia than linger on suffering and dependant.   I have spent a lot of time in geriatric wards.  Because I am old myself I understand.  Because I am old myself old people tell me they know they can no longer go home, they don't want to go into an institution, they would rather fade away.  How long are we going to put up with this really cruel system?  By definition younger people find it hard to imagine how old people feel.  The rules are made by the comparatively young. It is ridiculous that the word "Death" is never mentioned.  At a certain point "Death" becomes our friend.  I know for sure because I have a daughter who died at 52 of cancer.  That is what she thought.

Learning Resilience at £25 an hour

An article in the London Evening Standard on Wednesday 15/2/12 reported that teenagers are having to be taught resilience to be able to cope with failure in sports or exams and general difficulties in life.

Surely this is proof positive that a good many children are overprotected - having to be taken to and collected from school, phoning parents to be picked up instead of finding their own way, not expected to undertake any tasks at  home not having any understanding that money doesn't grow on trees, never having the idea they could do a paper round or a bit of gardening for an elderly neighbour and earn a bit of pocket money.  Not, in fact, wanting to get their hands dirty.  Not willing to do anything they don't want to do.  Not understanding that, usually, people will only pay you to do something you wouldn't do otherwise.

We seem to propagate and even enjoy the idea that the streets are dangerous and allow the children to believe it.  In fact, the more we believe that, the fewer pedestrians there will be and the very emptiness becomes a temptation to evil doers to have their wicked way.  Children, on the whole, prefer to go out  in twos and threes anyway.  Let them build their courage together and have a bit of pride in, for example, reaching 11 and finding that they can go down to the shops alone and get that forgotten litre of milk or buy some fresh rolls for breakfast.  Without scaring them, they will have to be told the same old things that we who used to walk to school alone from age 6, were told.  Don't talk to strangers, don't get into anybody else's car, don't accept any food or sweets from a stranger, if you get lost ask a mother with a child to help you - or a policeman, who were to be found walking their beats in those days.  The dangers were there in the 1930s, as they are now, we just didn't expect to go through life without meeting any.

Peter White, that successful totally blind-from-birth broadcaster tells the story in his autobiography of being sent out on his first solo trip to the corner shop at age 11, the fear he felt and the consequent pride when he got home triumphant with his purchase.  He did not know that his mother had followed him all the way.  Parents of sighted children can't do that, but just have to bite their fingers till the little darling gets home.  But we do owe it to the children to see that they aren't so pathetically over-protected that they need lessons in resilience later on.  Life itself is meant to be the lesson in resilience.

Why would Prince Charles be in a hurry to be King?

I wonder why everybody, including those very clever clogs at Private Eye, thinks that Prince Charles is in such a hurry to be King?  He now has the freedom to do all the useful things he does do, above all at the Prince's Trust, which has substantially helped 650,000 young people over the 35 years of its existence.  As is evident from all the publicity there has been about the Queen's life recently, a whole lot of it is spent doing her duty, which involves endless handshaking and being the figurehead for the Country and the Commonwealth.  The Prince probably observes her doing a very good job and appreciates all the more his present ability to do what he is most interested in.  Being the Monarch doesn't seem to me a very pleasant task at all.  Thank goodness the Queen can still perform it so well - and thank you to her.

Ski-trip coach accident in France

I feel so sorry for the poor coach driver who has had his whole life and career damaged irrevocably because he dozed off at the wheel, killing a teacher and injuring several children and traumatising the rest.  This is yet another example of essential extra staff not being hired in a cost-cutting exercise.  It is well known how soporific night-driving is and there certainly should not be only one driver on such a trip when it is taking place at night.  Every driver knows of the danger of dropping off, even for a second, and surely the people responsible for setting up this trip are drivers themselves.

No law is needed.  It is sufficient for parents and teachers to refuse to allow the children to go if there are not going to be two night-time drivers.  What is the cost of the wages of one extra driver divided between so many?  And how worthwhile the expenditure of these few pounds!  We have to extend the range of our own responsibilities if those in charge are not able to take them on.

Mega-Concerts in Hyde Park

Hyde Park belongs to all Londoners, not just the privileged few who live around it.  How can the desires of 100 or so of those outweigh the pleasure of the thousands of people who enjoy the concerts?  To me that makes no sense at all.

Let the killjoys go out to dinner on the nights of the concerts or enjoy one of the other entertainments London has to offer and leave the park to the pop fans.

The Price of Food

Yesterday I went to Croydon Market.  I bought 8 huge, lovely navel oranges for £1; 12 bananas for £1 (neither too green nor too black); 3 large avocados to ripen, £1; a large bowl of tomatoes (12, red and firm) £1;  a bowl of  9 pears (granted, not pretty enough for supermarket shelves, but, from experience know that they will not taste any worse for that) £1; 1 pound of good-sized, white, closed button mushrooms £1.  I could have also bought 3 Savoy cabbages for £1, but am old and can't carry too much and anyway how long does it take for 2 people to eat 3 cabbages? 

Taking into account the huge bargaining power of the supermarkets for wholesale prices it is hard to imagine how these small traders can manage to sell their produce so very much more cheaply.  Avocados, for example, are usually 65 pence each, or more in the shops.

Apart from that, it is so much more fun to go to market and have a bit of banter with the traders.

What makes anybody a Christian?

Richard Dawkins has raised the question of what constitutes a Christian.

When I go to hospital, which is usually the only occasion on which I'm asked to state my Faith, I always put "NONE" on the form because I absolutely don't want any parson to come along and pray over me or exhort me to confess my sins or ask me to prepare to meet my Maker.  So in any official census I'd put myself down as an atheist.

However, there is just one rule I find most useful in life, and that rule was laid down by Jesus Chist, "Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself", or "Do as you would be done by."  If we all adhered to that there wouldn't be any need for the police.

So I think Jesus Christ was the greatest of all the philosophers, but that still leave me an atheist.

Danger of Electrocution

Everything in my house is old, like me, but I feel that my life-experience is up to dealing with them.  I like to soak in the bath in the morning and listen to the radio, plugged in in the corridor just outside.  Recently it has taken to talking very softly, so I put a stool in the doorway and listen to it from there.  However I am conscious of the danger.  Years ago somebody I knew electrocuted themselves just by adjusting the radio while in the bath.  Probably this was because it was before all plugs were earthed, but there must still be a reason why there are no electric outlets in bathrooms.  I am very, very forgetful, but did not forget not to touch the radio while soaking.  I wonder if this is an out-of-date precaution?  Decided not to put it to the test!

Basildon and the Dale Farm Travellers

I'm so glad I don't live in Basildon, for they do seem to have spent millions of pounds very unwisely and unsuccessfully in trying to move on the travellers on the Dale Farm site.  They knew they needed a big budget for this - surely the best thing would have been, with this huge amount of money to spend, to make some arrangement with the travellers as to where it would be acceptable for them to move to instead of just spending it all on lawyers' fees.  Even if they had succeeded in evicting them all by this method, they are not just going to evaporate into thin air.  They must be allowed and to be willing to live SOMEWHERE.

I go back to the same old theme.  Isn't there anybody there able to come to a common sense solution?

Being a Bin-man in Indonesia

Congratulations to the BBC for this 1st in a series of 3 programmes in which British workers discover what it is like to pursue their profession in other, much tougher, parts of the world.  Wilbur Ramirez leaves his magnificent vehicle and rubbish neatly wrapped in plastic bags in a London borough to join Imam on his quite different work experience in Jakarta, population 28 million, the capital of Indonesia. He spends 2 weeks there.   The first shock, the vehicle in question is a handcart, which has to be pulled from the terrible slum where Imam lives with his wife and child, to an elegant neighbourhood of enormous houses.  These have a hole in their front wall, and the rubbish has to be pulled out of that, loose, all jumbled together and loaded into the cart.  Imam jumps on it with his bare feet to reduce it as much as possible.  He also has to sweep up and clean out the drainage ditch which runs along in front of the houses.  He works for a Housing Association and is meticulous in leaving all clean, for at the least complaint he can lose this arduous and poorly paid job, but he is desperate to keep it.  Four trips are made in the day, taking the rubbish from 100 houses.  But the work is not finished, for then the family, together, sorts through it all to separate out anything that can be recycled, paper, tins, plastic, glass.  Then that has to be taken to a merchant who will buy it for a little more much-needed money.  Only a short night's rest on the floor amongst the rats and the flies and early next morning the punishing routine starts again.  They deposit their loads quite close to where they live and a lorry comes occasionally to collect it, but, in that heat, they have to live near this horrible, smelly pile.  One day Wilbur went to visit the landfill where the lorries deposit their loads.  Several, even poorer people live there, on what they can scavenge from this pile.  That is why there is no hope of Imam and the others creating a union and claiming more money, the people from the landfill will gratefully take their place.

This kind of documentary, involving a person to whom one can relate, for Wilbur deals so well with his change of working conditions and, in spite of language difficulties, makes  himself loved by the family,  is very effective.  Big, strong Wilbur is moved to tears by the conditions about which he could do nothing.  The representative of the Housing Association did, for the cameras,  promise to increase Imam's wages in 3 months' time, but we don't know the real end of the story.

I look forward to the next in the series, even though they are gruelling viewing, for I do think we need to know.

The man who delivers the coal, Mr. D. M. Price, an old-fashioned coal-man, is a happy person

Yesterday the coal-man delivered 10 bags of smokeless fuel in the traditional way, loose, in bags, carried over  his shoulder.  On one of his trips outside for another one he apologised for having taken a bit longer than usual - a passer-by, struck by this unusual scene, had wanted  him to pose for a photograph.  He was delighted.  He is proud of  his craft and also of his beautiful truck, gleaming as when it started work 50 years ago, which he maintains himself.  It announces that he delivers products we don't hear about these days - anthracite, stovesse.  It must attract attention wherever it goes.  Because it is loved it looks so much younger than its years.

He says that his father was a coal-man and he used to help him deliver, and never wanted to be anything else.  The difference from his father's time is that he has to travel far and wide across London as there are not so many open fires these days, but he sees that as a plus, and was happily setting off from here in Croydon to Richmond for his next delivery.  One day he delivered to a pub in Putney which had just been taken over by new owners who were starting to re-introduce coal fires.  He was asked to stay and show them how to light one!

Mr Price is a contented man.  He  must be getting near to the end of his delivering days, it is such hard manual work, but he doesn't look forward to retirement.  He'll carry on as long as he possibly can - he says the happiest people are those who actually enjoy the work they do.  He always has time for a chat and says that is all part of the way of life he has chosen.

Women in Prison

I have been to see a play, or, rather, a series of very heart-rending but also entertainng, monologues by 5 members of the amateur South London Theatre Group in West Norwood.

It is called "5 Women" and highlights the fact that the system does nothing to help the prisoners out of their drug or other addiction back towards a productive life in society.  Poverty, childhood neglect, finding no other way of  living beyond petty thieving, finally the wearing-down of the individual so that being in jail is the most pleasant place for them to be, all this points up the uselessness of the prison system when it is heavy-handed on people who start off by being only weak and unsupported and end up knowing no other way of making a living.

It was interesting to find in the theatre a booklet published by an organisation called "Women in Prison" whose founder, Chris Tchaikovsky, has written:

"Taking the most hurt people out of society and punishing them in order to teach them  how to live within society is, at best, futile.  Whatever else a prisoner knows, she knows everything there is to  know about punishment because that is exactly what she has grown up with.  Whether it is childhood sexual abuse, indifference, neglect;  punishment is most familiar to her."

If prisons are not fit for purpose and yet very expensive to run, isn't this the moment to look for alternatives?
"Women in Prison" has plenty of suggestions.

Renewing your passport? Do it now.

I am just recording this because we so often complain that our contacts with the authorities are not satisfactory.

I discovered my passport needed renewing, got a form from the Post Office, filled it in, took it back to the P.O. with new passport photos, they checked that all was in order and sent the application and old passport off for me and my new one was delivered just five days later.  It was only luck that I looked at the old one just now and not when I was preparing for a holiday, but if anybody reads this and is nudged to do the same it could save them a lot of anguish later on.

The NHS card entitling me to medical care in Europe had also expired.  Renewing that was even easier.  You phone the suggested number, a very clear automated voice replies, you answer its questions, it could understand what I said, and the new card came in the post three days later.

A good news day!

Why is Frankie Inglis in prison?

Today, as so often, the question  of why we put so many people in jail compared with other European countries is being raised.

The reason is that there are plenty of people in there who should not be.

A case in point is Frankie Inglis.  I suggested mentioning her in this blog, but making it anonymous, but she was keen for me to put her name in.

Frankie had a much-loved son, Tom, a very active sportsman, who, after an accident, could no longer move or talk - he could just look at her and his eyes pleaded with her to put him out of his agony.  He knew that she could, for she was well into her nurse's training.  She tried, but was interrupted, and did not succeed the first time.  She had the huge courage to try again and this time was able to carry it through.  That was
treated as murder, and she is serving a 5-year sentence.

To me, this makes no sense at all.  If it is a punishment, it doesn't compare with the agony she went through, first of all seeing her son in this terrible state and then stirring herself up to perform this courageous act.  It is obvious that punishment had no place in this case.  If it is to protect the public, it is equally nonsensical, for nobody else's son is in danger from her.  On the contrary, she is a splendid person who put the well-being of her son above her own.  She knew there would be a penalty to pay, and she faced it for love of him.

It is not as though public opinion would demand a stiff sentence.  She writes, ".. I have only ever had kindness and understanding from people.  There may be those who feel angry towards me, but I have never encountered that attitude, and, to be honest, if I did, it wouldn't bother me.  I've always said that it was Tom's wishes, which were paramount, so if anyone disagrees, that is their opinion and it doesn't affect me".

A trial was necessary, anything more than a suspended sentence defies reason.

What our prescriptions actually cost

It is a common belief among old people that they have paid National Insurance all their lives and, therefore, aren't getting anything more than their just deserts from the NHS.

Because I have lived abroad and remember how hesitant I was to seek any kind of medical help (insurance never covers the whole cost, and, anyway, you have to provide the money up front and then claim it back) I am very conscious of how lucky we are to be unhesitatingly ready to look for medical care for the least sniffle.

My mother, once, years ago, lost some valuable pills and had to pay to have them replaced.  She was shocked and amazed at how much they had cost, and was more careful afterwards. I've never heard of this happening on any other occasion and, short of sending everyone off to the USA for a while to begin to understand what life is like without a Health Service, I don't know what could be done, but there must be a way in which we could be made aware of, say, the cost of an average course of antibiotics, or of calling out an ambulance or of a hip replacement, or of a night in hospital.  The result might be more of a counting of blessings than the constant complaining that is the conventional behaviour.  I am sure that the public could, if better informed, do a great deal to save the Health Service from its constant state of penury.

Old People in Hospital

Just because our old relatives are in hospital it doesn't mean we can shift all responsibility for their welfare onto the NHS and their over-worked nurses.  We aren't caring for them at home - therefore we can surely afford some time and/or money to keep an eye on them.  If we don't live anywhere near, and they don't have any friends/neighbours that drop in, then, shock-horror, we should pay somebody to visit them and report back to us   This wouldn't be a luxury, but a necessity.

Less money in 2012, but more valuable TIME.

There is such a hopeful article in yesterday's Observer by Heather Stewart on the ideas of an economist, Robert Skidelsky, under the heading "'Cut working week to 20 hours', urge economists".  This philosophy is being propagated by the New Economics Foundation which aims to change the situation in which some people have too much paid work and others too little.  We have used our increased wealth over recent decades to buy more stuff we don't need, to throw out perfectly good bathroom suites because they are the wrong colour, to over-invest in too-expensive housing.

It is obvious that a better use of that wealth would be to give us more time to enjoy our pastimes, preserve our physical and mental health, look after the environment, and, above all, spend more time with our children.  Since there are fewer jobs around, let's share them out and all enjoy a less frazzled way of life. For one thing, just as a start, more hours spent in the office to impress the bosses don't necessarily mean more productivity.  Even super-women and men don't keep up peak performance over 10 hours a day.

To those who could not contemplate such a change because of enormous mortgage payments the answer must be to rent out some of that space and at the same time help to reduce the agony of the housing shortage.

This way we could stop destroying our beautiful planet at such a speed and, what's more could offer to the BRIC countries an example of greater leisure rather than greater consumption as an aim for their growth-oriented economies. 

The great god Growth is a false one.  It destroys our well-being, doesn't nurture it.  Let us give maximum attention to the event being organised at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics on Wednesday when these ideas will be explored.

Retail Therapy

A friend of mine was feeling sorry for people who are now feeling the pinch and can no longer resort to their retail therapy.

My thought about R.T. is that it isn't therapy at all, because therapy is meant to get to the root of your problem and help you to deal with it.  At the very best, it's just a palliative, making you feel better for about the same amount of time as a stiff drink does.

But on top of that, buying stuff we don't need is very bad for the well-being of our planet, but no governments can afford to put environmental issues first on their list of priorities because they want to get re-elected, so they have to put the great god Growth first.  To save the planet, it is necessary for us all to change our minds about what is most valuable to us, and we are very far from putting Green issues at the top of our desires.

I once wrote to Professor Brian Cox, that extremely attractive, persuasive and enthusiastic proponent of space exploration and suggested that he, above most people, is in a position to understand what a wonderful and unique planet ours is, surrounded by lumps of rock that are either too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry, which have gravity that could not support human life.  If he could put his weight behind initiatives for preservation of Earth, instead of so energetically favouring expensive space exploration, he could persuade young scientists of the necessity of preserving the world.  He has already, it seems, encouraged more young people to consider studying science rather than the easier options, so he has power.  But he didn't even answer.  Of course no politicians would want him to say that - "we have ways to keep you quiet".

2012, year of NEW solutions to our problems

How lovely to see the happy crowds enjoying the splendid fireworks on the Thames on New Year's Eve! What I hope for 2012 is that we can be innovative in facing the problems it will certainly face us with.

We seem to hear of new scams all the time.  Today it was that some people are buying up council flats and sub-letting them and making their pile that way.  This is a criminal offence and those found guilty will face jail sentences.

Surely this is the time to stop using imprisonment as a punishment for this kind of thing?  Every prisoner costs the taxpayer a great deal of money, and, what's more, when released, finds it harder, with such a record, to earn an honest penny.  They should be fined, or do community service or some other punishment to fit the crime.  Prison just doesn't make any sense except for dangerously violent people.