Month: October 2007

Christmas has been with us, this year, since mid September, Marks and Sparks, restaurant fliers through the door advertising Christmas lunches and dinners at reasonable rates, and this week in Ballymena, in Northern Ireland, the shops are full of declarations, and the Council has erected a rather shaggy tree in the middle of a square, what it will look like on Christmas Eve I shudder to think. Christmas has become degraded, just a commercial circus. I think people forget that Christmas is really for the little children. mainly, and the family as a whole in an atmosphere of love and joy.

The essence of Christmas is surprise, and for little ones wonderment and make-believe. Dragging it out over three months destroys all that. Many years ago Christmas was heralded in the classroom with the children making paper chains, drawing pictures of Santa and looking forward to the end of term party. At home Christmas didn’t really start until mid-December, didn’t reach its full enriched colour and excitement until a week or so before Christmas, by which time the house was decorated, lists of presents were made and secrets exchanged. It must be remembered that small children would be taken shopping at about four o’clock, on or near the last Saturday before Christmas. It was relatively dark until one reached the shops on the High Street, then Christmas descended on you in a blaze of colour and light, with, for the little ones, an exciting visit to Santa’s grotto. The adults thought the present was rubbish, and inevitably not worth the money, but to the innocent child it had a significance that was more than worth the money.

The ritual of going into the bustle of the Christmas shopping, looking for presents, trooping from shop to shop, breathing on the windows, watching demonstrations of new toys, and trains going through tunnels, under bridges stopping and starting, was what Christmas was about, along with carols, the Manger, and Christmas Day with all that involved. When shopping, there was an unspoken understanding between adult and child of what was possible and what was beyond the budget for all of them. So the trip generally started at Woolworths and worked up, For the very young children Christmas was an encapsulation; it was a bubble in which everything was coloured by the coming event and all the preparations that went before, culminating at some absurd hour in the morning when the child crawled to the end of the bed and lifted its stocking in the dark, and tried to envisage what each lump inside the stocking held. He or she knew that the big lump wrapped in Christmas paper was a piece of coal, I believed that strangely if that had been missing the child would have been disappointed because that was an extra parcel from Santa, which made it special, and unwrapping was as much part of the fun as the receipt of the gift from Santa. A lot of the contents of the stocking were predictable, but there were always surprises. To maintain the fiction the adults hung their stockings across the kitchen fireplace, and they received things that would give the children amusement on Christmas morning, when the recipient feigned horror.

Are there still shops with trains running in and out of tunnels? Do they still have students demonstrating new toys, and shelves loaded with everything from small toy soldiers to toy stoves, dolls and the like? Or must we only resort to Internet shopping and the Argos catalogue. If this is so Christmas is dreary enough, without boringly dragging it all out for months and taking what little sheen there would be off the finally event. Today of course, the presents are two big and too expensive to put in a stocking in most houses. In some a stocking is a commercial item. Perhaps I’m just a scrooge giving the past a shine it never had. You might think that, I have already commented!

This suggestion comes under the heading of logical ideas which are never likely to go any further. About a year ago, I wrote a piece on obesity and longevity, where I equated longevity with a healthy, energetic and sparse upbringing. I expect you will have heard of the billions to be spent in the short term amounting to something like £50Bn by 2050, on eradicating obesity, and the fact that they are already designing beds like fork-lift trucks because the nurses can’t cope with patients of the weights they are tending to become today. I know from personal experience and experimentation, and also from observation, that once the weight is on one, it is an uphill task to get it off, and Christmas doesn’t help. The speed of life is a strong contender for being the main cause, with lack of time to be selective of food that is fresh, to cook it, and to clear up after, it is so much easier from a packet, and to hell with the additives, another contributory factor. All this hurry and having to work harder for the new lifestyle induce stress which in turn creates comfort eating, another cause.

Very expensive TV Health campaigns are being proposed by government, which, in other cases, don’t seem to have had much effect anyway. Driving in the rush-hour causes frustration and therefore stress, so, instead of spending money on exhortation, why not put more money into public transport, get rid of the school run, and make public transport so attractive in every way it will not be economical to use the car on a daily basis?

The Pros and Cons. The cost will be excessive, but it is needed anyway to reduce the carbon footprint and to ease congestion, so why not now? I hate walking for purely health reasons, I like a purpose, so walking to and from public transport will give incentive and on sunny days, maybe make me walk even further – I did it as a child. The installation will disrupt traffic, but only for a short while. I don’t want to be carrying huge quantities of shopping from supermarkets, so I will have to change my shopping habits, and even encourage the smaller shops to return in our district, like in the past – however, there will be real negative pressure from the bigger out-of-town outlets. People will want to use their cars in bad weather, but if this proposal makes any sense, the two car family will be a thing of the past, so shopping logistics will change and the major times could well be in the evenings, nearing the weekend. Money now being squandered on ever larger roads, parking, and traffic law enforcement could be diverted to a better rail network, with subsidised fare charges. One reason our transport system is so poor is because it is inadequate, expensive, and poorly run. If everyone used the system as they did pre 1950, and pre Beecham, it might justify subsidising from national taxes because all would benefit. There is no way that would be fair today, as we are taxed heavily on our personal transport. The switch will be inevitable, but controversial.

What type of transport? It is a case of horses for courses, depending on the time of day, the length of the route, the passenger numbers and the location. In inner cities I envisage robot, regular, small car units at quick intervals, centrally controlled, with a single-price-token fare, on interlocking routes, so all parts of the city are accessible from anywhere, merely by changing ‘cars’. Wuppertal, in Germany had a version of this system pre WW2. In large towns, it would probably need a variety of buses, large and small depending on requirements. This, would increase the manpower required, but with less traffic on the roads, schedules would be easier to keep, and quick turn-rounds possible. Rural services would improve out of all recognition.

I use public transport when I can, it is relaxing. On longer journeys one can read if actually seated, but to get more bums per carriage, the gap between seats is now so narrow it is only comfortable for small ladies and children. Comfort will have to be a priority if the system is to be accepted. Will it happen? It must for so many reasons, but will it be properly integrated? That is the real question. The car industry will suffer, but we no longer manufacture so only the traders and fixers will suffer. Government will lose taxes in billions, but will be able to justify recouping for a worthy cause. We will be healthier and feel virtuous at the same time – only if it happens.

The Non Election Panic. Shock and fear induce panic. What happened when Gordon Brown changed his mind says more about our current politicians, in all parties, which was enough to worry any sane person, because they were not worried about the state of the country, about the seriousness of our financial situation, they were worried about their jobs, or the fact that they might just get into Parliament. There was nothing like the hurry in which everything was done, our current situation proves that. But what it did demonstrate was that these people were not coolheaded in an emergency, and that their priorities are not our priorities.

When the Gang Of Four appeared on the scene, they were the politicians who inaugurated the Liberal Democrats, they were experienced, intelligent and articulate,. I have had a lot of time for the LidDems. I liked their approach, their politics, they were middle-of-the-road and sound, the problem that they had to fight to be accepted politically, was basically because of our mainly two-party politics, rather like Northern Ireland, people were afraid of splitting the vote.

Sir Ming, a week or so earlier had the whole party in the palm of his hand, not only because of his character, his reputation and his rhetoric, but because he was the most experienced politician currently available. He was backed by the old guard, and between them they were putting up a fair show on the understated understanding that there would be quite some time before the next election, and also their entry into power.. One of the reasons for his departure was given in the press as his age. Sir Winston Churchill only resigned when he was 81. I am an average guy, certainly no whiz-kid, but when I was Sir Ming’s age I was a joint winner of the British Design Award. That ageism rubbish does the LibDems no favours, nor the country. I have repeatedly said that it is almost impossible for those of us who are not political animals to keep up with all the new faces on the front benches. I believe a lot of these faces have insufficient experience of political wrangling to be able to hold their own when the heat is on. In Random Thoughts 37, I criticised Sir Ming for his presidential bearing , but in the context of what I have written here, it may have been the only way of achieving decisions. During the panic no one seemed to be too clear where they were going.

With the speed of living that we have today in every environment, it would seem logical that there is not time to hone politicians in the way they were in the past, when Prime Ministers were much older when they were promoted, and therefore served many years in the ranks, and in different governmental departments. It seems that today one is promoted at an early age, makes a pile, and then departs, not necessarily leaving things in a better state than when one arrived. Perhaps the time has come for professional politicians, in a way that we have professional managers in many other organisations.. After all, the amount of money being handled by the government is greatly in excess of those organisations which are paying huge salaries and large golden handshakes.

If we have to pay our top politicians top wages to get quality and managerial experience coupled with Political nous, in general, not just the odd person, then so be it, it is a small drop in a huge bucket. Professionals in many spheres have studied their subjects in depth, including, in many cases, the underlying rudiments and sources. Why not politicians, they carry incredible responsibilities, they seem to have no watchdogs, other than the public and the Press, and there is no comeback if things go wrong, unlike in other walks of life.

Fashion and global warming

I was fascinated to discover that the fashion moguls in America are now consulting the scientists concerning the weather forecasts, as global warming and the changes in climate have serious effects on their business. Apparently, and I quote from the Daily Telegraph, someone called Beppe Modenese, the founder of the Milan fashion week, has predicted ‘that the whole fashion system will have to change,’ and accept there ‘is no strong difference between summer and winter any more ; you can just imagine the confusion that this will have with all the big fashion houses sending out spies to find when the competition is going to have their shows, what they are showing and why. They won’t be able to have their bashes at the start of the four seasons, or whenever it is that they do so, it’s going to throw the whole industry into chaos. We have been dancing to their tune for a long time, it looks as though they are going to have to dance to ours.

Government Thoughtlessness

There seems to be a certain imbalance in who is required to take responsibility for what. Take just one example of hundreds; if a government Minister makes an appalling error of judgment, costing billions in money and I don’t know how many lives, there seems to be no comeback .If through computer error, carelessness or incompetence, a government department hands out over £5 million pounds in error, because the recipients either don’t choose to or are unable to check that they are overpaid, the government wants to claw back the error from people who can ill afford to refund it. To poor people, living on a shoestring, when they get a windfall, the psychological effect is to spend it, probably on replacements and essentials, but irrespective, they are not likely to sit down with a pen and paper and go back over years to see why this has been given, and I would suspect that more than half of them couldn’t do it anyway. Need I say more?

HRT Misinformation

More than once I have written about journalists, finding a report of some research in a field that has considerable public interest, themselves then writing and publishing articles which gives the impression that this research is well founded and of a high-quality. it is strange how often months or years later the same research is questioned as being flawed. This apparently is the case where a million women in the UK abandoned hormone replacement therapy, because in 2002 – 03 it was reported that it could cause heart attacks, strokes and breast cancer. It would also appear that some doctors accepted this research and acted on it. This is the price that we have to pay, unfortunately, for the current rate of communication, which was much slower, and in consequence possibly more reasoned in the past. These interpretations of researchers, along with the rescinding of them, are more often in the sphere of health than elsewhere, and I believe that those advising us should be cautious, and examine the research closely, before acting on it.

Art Appreciation And Interpretation

I have previously told the story of my photograph of a bunch of flowers waiting to be arranged, with the scissors ready, submitted for criticism, and was told by the specialist photographer that he couldn’t look at it, because he couldn’t pick the scissors up as they were the wrong way round. Having exhibited photography in an international exhibition, and had both an oil painting and sculptures accepted by the Royal Ulster Academy, I have discovered not that art appreciation is subjective, we all know that, but that people who are alleged to be the leaders of taste, have some strange interpretations. Years ago there was a piece with bricks laid out in a rectangle on the floor of the Royal Academy, and praised would you believe, I see them regularly as I pass our builders yard, and nobody seems to take any notice of them. And now we have a crack constructed on the floor of the Tate Modern, entitled Shibboleth by the Colombian Artist, Doris Salcedo. It is 169 metres long and starts as a hair crack and becomes a void into which a visitor fell. As a construction engineer I’ve peered into a number of openings in roads that looked like this, but I never at any time found them to provided the intricate thought patterns that this crack in the floor seems to have done. I recommend that you view the various entries concerning this piece of art on Google, it gives a whole new highlight on the intricacies of the artistic mind.

End Of An Era, New Policy. I have been threatening this for some time, and now it is about to come to pass. I shall no longer be posting bits and pieces of my history, nor posting on a daily basis, merely when I have something that I feel that you might like, or should know, will I break into print.

Firstly I would like to thank my grandson Stephen Jones, musician and web-site designer, ( see S*T*U*F*F Reloaded) for giving me and maintaining this blog as a present to do with as I wished. It has been an amazing year and a bit, I have discovered things about myself and my readers. The latter, not from their comments, but the numbers hitting and the pages read. I would like to thank you all, for reading my bits and pieces, it has given me great pleasure.

I want to thank Word Press for their patience with me, because I’m not very computer literate, my eyesight isn’t what it was, as a result I have to use a magnifying glass to read the death messages I receive when I make mistakes. It is they, WP, who have chosen the selection of my work which is available on the blog, over and above the 15 pieces I am allowed at any one time. This in itself has been very encouraging.

As a lot of you will know, I am well on my way to my ninth decade, and so am tending to slow down. I have one or two sentinels in the family who read my stuff, so when I get to the point of talking absolute rubbish, rather than my usual quaint opinions, they’ll tell me to stop. So today will be the start of the new order, with no rules, no targets thank God, and just occasional samples of my lateral thinking.

Thank you for your patience, John

Immigrants
According to the press, 2.2 million immigrants arrived in this country in the last five years. I must admit that I am finding that I’m dealing with foreigners, mostly on the telephone, but also in the shops and that to some extent, I have a language problem in so much that being slightly deaf I have no clue of what they’re saying, as their accent is totally foreign to me. It was interesting that in the same piece it said the UK born resident population had dropped by half a million in the same period. Speaking of my own case, a number of my family left this country to either be educated or work overseas, all of them hoping to return in due course. Some other statistics I found relevant were in the overseas-born of working age had increased by 26% to almost a million, while the British-born working population fell by 44,000. About 40% of the long-term migrants to the UK in 2005 were aged 15 to 24, compared with 13% for the UK population as a whole. I believe the significance of these figures is not only the problem of housing, health service etc which is being stretched, but with that age group it is possible that they will bring other members of their home community, as wives and so the multiracial mix of this country will increase year-on-year. A friend of mine employed a European person to clean house. This lady then returned to her own country, I assume having made the nest egg that she needed, and then her daughter immigrated and took over her job. I found it interesting that there was no one locally who was either prepared, or whom my friend was prepared to employ, and yet she picked a foreign person, with little English, and probably without a reference, and
found the whole system suited them.

Town terrorised by eight-year-old youngster.
I am not conversant with the law in England, when it comes to children having toy guns. When I was a kid I had dozens because I ran a small army in my back garden, with shoulder badges hat badges, the whole gamut. But it seems that times have changed, A copper in Wiltshire threatened and frightened a little boy of eight because he had an orange and black toy gun, and because the policeman said, that it was a replica, (what small child would want anything less?) he threatened the child with arrest, demanded that he broke up the gun and only left when the father broke it. The cream of the joke was he then returned five minutes later to warn the boy’s stepsister, aged six, about riding her battery-powered Barbie car on the pavement. Anything I would remark on that lot, would be superfluous. I told you I didn’t understand the law in England.

The EU Treaty
I never wanted to join Europe, if we had done in 39, we would never have survived after Dunkirk. I remember clearly the days when Edward Heath was extolling the merits of what is now the EU. Having spent my adult years touring Europe, meeting the Italians the French and the Germans, and spending time with them, the difference in their general approach was a key to the future, their patriotism and their parochial views predicted, as indeed ours did, that there would be serious problems. From my own assessment, I could never understand how a government could legislate for the whole of the EU, when the customs, the attitudes of the populace, the financial status, and most of all the geographical differences were all so variable, there was inevitably going to be mismanagement. Later Brussels started tinkering with legislation, which influenced purely parochial matters, probably instigated by commercial factors, not matters of state, if one considers the EU as a state. This tinkering had the effect of putting small businesses to the wall. The final nail in the coffin in my view was when France and Germany formed a voting coalition.

We need to have the small print relayed to us in language we can understand, explained without bias and then have a referendum couched in terms, which gives necessary options rather than just in or out. Unfortunately I think this so complicated, it won’t be workable

In the way that folk accepted the steady bombing of the cities during WW2, as something that if hated, had to be inured, the majority of the Northern Ireland population felt the same way during the 30 odd years until very recently.

The Story Of The Ludicrous Gift  I have referred before to the ‘liberation’ of articles by the terrorists. There are hundreds of apocryphal tales but one which happened on a contract I was engaged upon, took place a day or two before we stopped for Christmas. The contractor had a gang laying pipes down one of the main roads in the East of the City. On the morning, some men arrived in a car and one approached the men on the site with a gun, casually held in his hand, not pointed at them, just there, an implicit threat. “I want to borrow your lorry,” he said with no preamble. The ganger nodded, what else could he do, anyway the lorry belonged to the firm not him – there was no contest. The man smiled, thanked them as if he had been granted a favour and he and another drove off.

The theft was reported and we heard later in the day the lorry had been seen between Belfast and Ballymena going hell-for-leather down a motorway, filled with booze. Still later we heard a vintner’s wholesale store had been raided. The men were never caught. Next morning the lorry was found parked beside the pipe-track. When the driver opened the door of the cab he found a dozen tins of beer on the seat with a note thanking him and wishing him and his mates a merry Christmas. Is a question asked in Ireland an Irish question? In this case the question had been asked of the workmen and the questioner had answered himself – What a question!!

The Young Molotovs In ’98 one grandson was getting married in Scotland and another had been diagnosed with meningitis in Ireland. While we were all worried for the patient, we had been assured that he was recovering, so we went to the wedding, staying overnight. The following day, on our return, we were in a hurry to see the invalid, and as I was still well above the limit, the Scots are very generous and persuasive; Sophie drove to Bangor straight from the airport, about thirty miles. Late in the afternoon she started to drive us home when we found that UDA Militants were blocking the dual carriageway and we were forced to drive through a housing estate. We rounded a bend and were flanked by and held up by young boys, anything from 10 years old and upwards. One of them was brandishing a lemonade bottle with a rag hanging out of it in one hand, and flicking a cigarette lighter in the other. The rest were telling us to get out of the car, one hammering on the side door. They proposed to steel it. I looked as Sophie, she looked at me – we had been held up a couple of time before by Republicans and each time I had driven through them, hoping to hit none, but if I had, my policy was I would immediately report to the Army or Police. In this case, without hesitation Sophie stamped on the accelerator and, thank god, they were so surprised they didn’t throw the bottle, but one did try to climb into the back seat – without success – none was hit – Sophie was revving with no regard to the engine. She was 78 years old, and old habits die hard – ‘No Surrender’ is written on many walls in Northern Ireland – the paramilitaries should read their own slogans.

The government is letting our dairy farmers down. I could have been forgiven for thinking it was another April the first joke, but in fact it was another idiotic suggestion, rather than directive, from a government source. They want us to start drinking Long Life Milk instead of fresh milk, to save the planet. They believe that if we buy cartons of Long Life Milk, we won’t need to put it in the fridge, and so will be saving electricity, which will reduce our carbon footprint. Where have they been for Gods sake! Yesterday I was in Laser and discovered the size that television sets have risen to as the norm. I suppose you will be finding them wanting us to go back to the 9 inch screens of the 50s.

On the television news, a spokesman was brought on to tell us that if we had Long Life Milk as a staple as a child, we would prefer it to fresh cream milk. The inference from that of course is that tastes built up in childhood will take precedence for the rest of you life. This of course is absolute nonsense, I used to like Spillers Shapes, dog biscuits, pink in colour, when I was about eight. I haven’t eaten them since, and would probably hate them now.. The presenter demonstrated that while we in this country hardly drink Long Life Milk at all, it is a staple on the Continent. I can’t seriously believe that someone in their right senses could think that adding one particular item, daily, to the contents of the fridge, which even if it’s only half full, is running 24 hours a day, will make any difference to our individual carbon footprint, Even the preparation or Long Life Milk, I am told, uses more electricity in heating, than pasturisation does.

Being of a suspicious nature, I feel that there is more to this than meets the eye. Is it the EU who is pressurising because GB is not an open market for large quantities of Long Life Milk manufactured in the EU? Our dairy farmers have had a rough time recently, thanks to the inefficiency of the running of a government department, although the latter cannot be blamed for bluetongue. I would have thought that the government would be doing the best they could, at this time, to boost the sale of milk to help the beleaguered farmers in this country, rather than opening up borders to a possible upsurge of surplus milk for abroad. Perhaps someone somewhere has a lively interest in selling Long Life Milk.

I remember, in the 20s, that a man delivered milk in a churn, from a two wheeled donkey cart, ladling the milk with a measure into one’s jug. .From then until the late 90s, we had milk delivered to the doorstep daily, in bottles. That milk had anything from three to four inches of cream on it at the top of the bottle, something I have never seen in the milk from supermarkets. I have always found it incredible that while the full cream milk that we buy tastes as if it has cream, the cream never settles out. Why is that, are additives being used? What I have also noticed is that the milk, since the onset of the latest foot and mouth outbreak, has not stayed as fresh, even in the fridge, as it did previously, which leads me to believe that because they can’t sell their milk abroad, or even because the distribution in our own country has been disrupted, the milk is being delayed somewhere in the system.

When government agencies waste their time coming off with the unbelievable rubbish like this, and make us turn off neon indicator lights, because the small amount of electricity required to drive them, taken overall would have some effect, even in the face of the scandalous footprints of the larger countries, it would be more to the point if they transferred their energies to the failure of the Child Support Agency, and similar deficiencies.

Addressing the rise in serious, Alphabet diseases in the DHSS. This is not, repeat not, a criticism of hospital staff, but of management and the Government. Recently I had a small surgical operation, and had to return to have the stitches out. At one point, the nurse attending me had a problem, and sought the help of a Sister . The nurse was wearing surgical gloves, and everything she was doing was done with cleanliness in mind. The sister, at the time of the request, like the rest of the staff, under severe pressure was merely passing, she had no surgical gloves on her hands, absentmindedly bent to pick up a piece of paper from the floor, read it, put it to one side, and then without gloves attended to my wound. I site this not as a criticism of the nurse, but of the fact that the whole department was being overworked. The surgeons and doctors were running approximately one and a quarter hours late due to an influx of emergency cases. From my experience, in this small hospital, this was not unusual because they were understaffed, and under funded. However, in general, I think one could be wrong in thinking that the Health Service is under funded when everyone talks in Billions. I believe it is a matter of mismanagement, spending money on bureaucracy, trying to reach targets to justify government policy, and not listening to the people at the coalface, the senior nurses, the doctors, and the specialists. Talk to any of them, and you will get an entirely different picture, but unlike in the old days they are no longer in charge.

Every time they raise the question of alphabet diseases on television, they always show someone swishing away with some sort of mop, cleaning the floor. Surprise surprise, when inspectors went round a number of hospitals recently, they discovered that under the furniture there were little piles of debris of one sort or another. The actual cleaners have targets, and are commercially driven, probably with very little slack. Way back in the dark ages when I was in hospital, they had matrons and I believe at that time a lot of cleaning was done actually by the nurses as well as cleaning staff, and they scrubbed. Today it is out on contract, the ward is just another job in a day of many jobs, it has no personal relationship, the cleaners aren’t part of a team, and they too are under pressure, but for a different reason. So I find it unsurprising that the cleaning is inadequate, and in consequence one assumes, the rise in the alphabet diseases, is increasing.

Nearly 10 years ago I had a hip replacement, and after one day in considerable discomfort, I was expected to get up and walk, go to the bathroom to wash, and go to the toilet. Any man will tell you that there are a number of their kind who find it impossible to aim correctly at the WC and persist in leaving the lavatory in a worse state than when they arrived. I understand, whether correctly or not, that some of these alphabet diseases are transmitted through unclean toilets. Short of having a permanent lavatory attendant who cleans up after each patient, I fail to see how transmission of the disease by the passage feet, can be controlled adequately. Swishing about with a mop may impart a certain amount of bleach, but it will also be gathering and moving about whatever else is there. Recently I questioned why the alphabet diseases were not as prevalent in prisons, and I have just realised, that unless I’m mistaken, each cell has its own WC. While we are talking about patients walking about, they are touching furniture, television knobs, passing on newspapers and so on. They might even be carriers, and certainly some of them will not be washing their hands after having been to the WC. So I think it is totally unfair to blame the medical staff for an outbreak, unless it can be proven to be due to rank negligence on their part, and not that of other sources including incoming contractors. By the same token, it is absolutely right to blame the management, because it is their job to oversee, if an inspector from outside can come and find debris underneath something, it is purely about management that someone in-house hadn’t discovered it first.