Category: General

Don’t Believe a word they say dear!’ was something my grandmother said to me regularly. She was a tough old bird with the heart of a Raspberry Ruffle – you would have liked her. Yet, clearly not new, I still am taken off guard by the sheer level of current deception, Take waiting times for hospital services. The government’s new strategy enables it to lie through its teeth. A friend of mine, in his 80s, suffering from severe arthritis, finds sleeping in one position extremely uncomfortable. Painful. skin cancer of the ear has resulted in him only being able to lay his head on a pillow on one side, and so must sleep in one position. In January he discovered the cancer, in mid-February he was referred to the hospital, in March he was re-assessed, and told he would have to wait two months. He thought he would go private, but a waiting list of nearly 2 months made him see no point in the extra expense. He wrote to the hospital explaining his loss of sleep and asked if he could be seen earlier Instead he received his appointment for operation which was three-month hence, not two. He decided to stick it out, only to discover that the date given had again been increased for reasons unspecified, by another three weeks. Out old curiosity, I telephoned a doctor friend in Scotland and ask him what the waiting time was there, he said four weeks, rarely more. I give this to make the point that waiting times are far more protracted than the government pretends. Logically, from the day the GP has written requesting a surgical appointment, the period until that is met is the waiting time. A second assessment implies the doctor’s diagnosis is inadequate, perhaps occasionally, but putting in an additional assessment could be a ruse to enable a waiting time of a maximum of three months to be increased to seven months – in my friend’s case, seven months of painful discomfort – it clearly also adds to the overall cost. I realise the surgeon wishies to allocate times related to seriousness, but surely the doctor using a simple grading system would generally be adequate.

Untrustworthiness is prevalent in all walks of life. Bush and Blair telling lies, television quiz shows being fake, and I have it on got good authority that where a member of the panel doesn’t know the answer to a question, the filming can stop, he is given the answer, and the filming reinstated, and this is common. How often have you been short changed, or found the bill is inaccurate? There’s a growing culture that some women are buying clothes on approval, wearing them for an evening, and then returning, allegedly unsuitable, only for some other person to discover smears of makeup and the smell of antiperspirant having made a purchase. There are thousands of pensioners who have last their pension, which should have been stamped on by government legislation, on the very first occasion.

Recently I have been watching films made in the 60s, to 80s, and those made after 2000. The difference in quality, quality of sound, speech, clarity of speech, and attention to detail is incredible. A lot of the techniques induced by electronic simulation, cross-cutting in the editing room, and cost-cutting are producing films that are mudled and confusing, and I believe the public is paying for a cheaper and poorer article. I looked at two films recently, Becket made 30 years ago and a cowboy made about 2000. Becket was beautiful in every way, The cowboy was allegedly a comedy film, but if having between 30 to 40 people shot dead is comedy, without a laugh in the whole film, there must be something wrong. John Cleese was given a very weak and simple role, totally out of context, and even he was as boring as ditchwater. Incidentally, the protagonists were supposed to be using Winchester rifles, but I think the technicians rather than the producer had became overzealous because certainly the Winchesters were firing like an Uzi. I find it unsurprising that there is so much aggression among young people today, the films themselves carry aggression, vicious wounding and murder to extremes that would never have been permitted in the past. I also find today that so many films have to incorporate sexual encounters, more like rape even than lust. Deborah Kerr, Jean Simmons and many others could impart love, attraction and fulfilment in the old days, without sexual callisthenics, and nudity in the most uncomfortable surroundings such as on a grand piano or the back of a hired car. Why can the act of love not be portrayed as a gentle, loving and delicate experience, as it should be, and not a brutal attack on the senses.

We should vote with our feet instead of being ripped off, even though it might costs a little extra. If we’re not getting value for money we should complain. There must be a web site where we could all write what we feel and name and shame. The problem of course is if you are wrong, you can be pouring money into the pockets of the legal profession. On second thoughts I will just tell my friends what I think, and not risk being sued for slander.

I come from a family that thought it was wicked even on Christmas Day to drink more than one Sherry. I was first introduced to real alcohol when I joined the Navy and I never turned back. I find the subject fascinating because it has so many facets, there is the pleasure of drinking, there is the urge to drink, one can make alcohol in its many forms, and one can talk about it endlessly

This piece started because a young acquaintance of mine is talking about the pleasure he got from wine he had bought at something like £50 a bottle, or six pounds a glass if you like. This took me back to the 50s, when I earned so little I could not afford to drink except on special occasions. Sophie and I played bridge with some close friends, who were probably as poor as we were, we played for a penny a hundred – losers pay. The money was used to buy half bottles of good wine, as recommended by the vintner, because we were tyros in this matter. We drank it with a celebratory meal, when we had gathered enough from the kitty for the wine. I see these wines on wine lists, they never cost less than £25 a bottle, and I am afraid that I want more from life and in particular from my £25 than a bottle of wine. This particular friend and I started making wine, he from the fruit of the field, I from tinned grape juice, and packaged fruit juice – 60 gallons a year. We really took it seriously, recording everything you could think of, daily temperature, weather, specific gravity and a host of other things which in consequence enabled us to steadily improve the quality of the wine, until at parties when we had blind tasting, and brought in reasonably priced commercial wine, we were pleased to discover that the tasters didn’t all go for the bought wine. One thing I did discover, which has been a policy of mine ever since, is that, not going into the higher echelons of the very best, but in the general run-of-the-mill wines, especially home made, the outcome of two wines carefully mixed is generally better in flavour than either of the constituents.

Have you ever sat watching television, drinking wine? Firstly the act of lifting the glass and taking a swallow becomes reflex, secondly, when the glass is empty filling it becomes a reflex, you taste little, you drink a lot, assuming it’s there to be poured, and if it’s home-made it will be in a huge jug, so alcoholism can also become a reflex. My brother also made wine, and like all winemakers some of the brews were not up to scratch. He took a pressure cooker, made a spiral, inserted a thermometer and distilled those wines he didn’t like two or three times, to make a very good alcohol. This he mixed with brown sugar and coffee to make Tia Maria and from then on his Tia Maria parties were legendary. The fact that most people suggested he supplied a white stick with every third bottle, didn’t detract from the pleasure.

Like all pleasures, there are pitfalls, and in excess – problems. When I was in the Navy, and 18, totally broke, I was invited to a party and had to buy something to take with me. Remember I was an ing?nue where it came to drink, hadn’t even had my first tot, and was looking to buy something I could afford. I was persuaded to buy barley wine, which I believe is not a wine but a strong – Oh how strong, beer, and when I gave it to my host he roared with laughter and suggested that I drink it. I woke up on his settee the following morning having no idea of what had happened at the party. I was told later that it was considered locally as dynamite. (See also The Passing Out Parade on Old Gaffer)

Living in Ireland one inevitably comes in contact – shall we say – with that dangerous brew from potato mash – poteen. The first time I tasted it, there was no indication of its proof, it was in a hip flask which was basically a medicine bottle with a screw top, but I suspect it was very high because as soon as it came in contact with the tongue one had a sensation of the whole contents of the mouth expanding – a little unnerving..

As someone who lived through the age when drink-driving was acceptable, and who appreciates for that very reason the necessity of having a ban, the one thing that I believe has resulted has been a reduction in the spontaneity, the conviviality, and if you like, some of the absurdity of the parties in those days. When people sitting around a table where half the guests are throwing it back as if there’s no tomorrow, and the other half are drinking some pallid soft drink, I suppose this is inevitable. Of course there are always taxis, but it’s amazing how often this fact is forgotten.

The government’s proposed massive rebuilding programme doesn’t make much sense to me for a number of reasons. Have you, recently, tried to get a plumber, an electrician, a painter or a builder to do a small of even a big job for you? So, in my innocence, I wonder from where the government is producing this army of tradesmen, whether it really has the accommodation to put them up if they are coming from abroad, and what this influx of foreigners is going to do to our racial tensions, which even now are presenting problems for the police.

I don’t know what it’s like where you live, but building has been stopped, here in areas of Northern Ireland, because the infrastructure, the drainage and sewerage, are inadequate to cater for the building that has already been achieved, without aggravating the situation. We also have a freshwater problem, as you probably do, where at times of drought we get a hosepipe ban, and all sorts of other inconveniences. I wonder if these factors have been evaluated on a regional basis, so that the sites chosen are not going to aggravate already parlous situations. I’d take a bet!

We then come to the flood plain proposals, on whether building on the flood plains is a sound idea or not, on which the Housing Minister, Yvette Cooper, seems to change her mind regularly,. One of the caveats that she uses it is that it would be good provided that the flood defences are adequate. I would like to draw her attention to the fact that it will take many years to provide adequate sea defences, as the sea has a considerable force, which takes careful design and different remedies for different conditions, all of which slow down the process. I would also point out that global warming, something which we have found recently to be unpredictable in its results, will inevitably be another factor for design considerations. Sea revetments, from retaining walls, through steel sheet piling, to rip rap, being built within tidal conditions, will consequently increase the timescale and costs. The engineers will be designing for a minimum of a hundred years, as they did in the past, but this time they will have to include a greater factor of safety. In my humble opinion I believe that this factor alone precludes the consideration of building on flood plains as part of the government’s current massive plan, because of cost and time.

Another strange statement this week, really left me open-mouthed. Chief Constable Peter Fahy, of the Cheshire Constabulary, proposed that as a result of unacceptable behaviour by young people, as a result, in turn, of the excessive drinking of alcohol, that the age at which young people were permitted to drink in public places should be increased to 21. When you consider we are sending men of 18 to the Middle East to get killed, and we put men of 17 behind the wheel of a car, which in the wrong hands can be a lethal weapon, his proposal does not strike me as rational thought, If you are a regular reader of this blog you would realise I have been urging, over the last year, repeatedly, that recreation and recreational areas are provided for the young and the teenager to stop the gang culture and give them something interesting and healthy to do, as I enjoyed in Balham, in London in the 20s and 30s. Then parental control and example were routine, something difficult to reinstitute, but essential, even if criminal proceedings are required to institute it.

Yet another strange statement. George Osborne of the Conservative front bench, is suggesting that inheritance tax is abolished. I come from a middle-class background that was often insolvent, and have never risen to great wealth, but I am comfortably off. Even as a young man I thought it was criminal the way in which the landed gentry, if several of them in succession died successively, lost everything that had been built up over the years through swingeing inheritance tax.

As a great-grandfather, joint owner of his house, for which the value has been going through the roof in recent years, I feel that the current system of inheritance tax is totally unfair to those who are merely pensioners and moderate wage earners, still wishing to provide for their descendants, especially now with the housing ladder being so inaccessible. The suggestion that the first home should be exempt from inheritance tax would seem to be a much better halfway house than the full Monty that Osborne is proposing. Let’s face it, money has to come from somewhere, and instead of thinking of ways of hiding the excessive sums the government seems to need today, I feel it would be better that the whole taxation system is revised so that it is transparent, we can see what we have to pay, not have it partially slipped out from behind our back.

This is the last post on global warming in whatever way you interpret it. Recently I wrote a piece and sent it to a nephew, one whose opinion I value, who has tracked the jungles of South America and the slopes of the Himalayas looking for, finding and naming new species of flora. I asked his opinion on it and he gave it the thumbs down. He advisied me to read http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/ hadleycentre/index.html, and also sent me a damning publication put out by Scientific American, entitled The Physical Science Behind Climate Change. I have read these articles, like the program put out on TV by David Attenborough, they are highly convincing.

Discussing the subject on my basic level, it is evident that something has got to be done to reduce global warming. If the graphs are to be believed, Europe, North America and Asia appear to be the worst contributors to this condition. The rate of change is now exponential with the inherent warnings. I, like any normal person, feel that it is my responsibility to do all I can to preserve the world for those coming after me. I have two basic gripes, however. Firstly, it would appear that big business throughout the world is resisting those very changes that are required. The greatest indicator of this is what is happening in Beijing only, as a result of the future Olympic Games, instead of throughout the whole of China. Similarly, in other countries, and especially the USA, the scientific lobby goes unheeded.

My second gripe is aimed at politicians who in the main are only giving lip service, or, like our own government, using the fear of global warming as a means of raising taxes, and appearing to be sincere by introducing legislation totally out of proportion with the effect it will have on the overall climate change, but will have severe effects on house buyers and those proposing to modify their current accommodation. I refer to the Home Information Pack which is now being extended to include three-bedroom houses. Like attacks on water usage, it is a broad brush, a catchall policy, which takes no account of the circumstances of the individual, and the consumption of water, power and energy generally, in any given circumstance. It would seem to me to make no appreciable difference in being forced to have energy-saving devices such as solar panels, while all the time these other countries are belching out so much smog like China, where visitors are being warned not to go there

This is a last post in every sense. I shall do my personal best. within reason, ( so much of the government blurb is technically unreasonable), to reduce global warming in the way I live, and keep my reservations and criticism to my self.

To those of us who were brought up in a Britain containing so few immigrants, that many of us had never seen any, or only those in dock areas or Greater London, it comes as shock then, to discover that there are gangs of up to 40 youthful immigrants from the African continent, who are rampaging in wars of their own, on our streets, using knives, guns and hammers, and killing people.

I found on the Internet, a report put up by a newspaper and relayed by Google, that the only son of Idi Amin, one, Faisal Wangita, had led such a gang in Camberwell, London. Recently, at a bus stop, part of the gang set upon an 18-year-old African student, a member of yet another African gang, killing him as a result of 25 stab wounds and being beaten with a hammer, all in a one-minute attack. In May, Wangita was cleared of murder by an Old Bailey jury, but found guilty of conspiracy to wound, violent disorder and possession etc,. and sentenced to five years detention..

A senior police officer stated that more intervention was needed to stop large numbers of traumatised young men, here from civil wars in Africa, forming street gangs. He said the level of violence used by these groups was extreme.

I believe that the question that presents itself, is how does one intervene? It seems that the rules governing the invasion of civil rights are so stringent, and so strongly upheld by members in both the government and the public, that to a great extent the hands of the police are tied. Continually we are hearing the police accused of selecting candidates for stop and search, from mainly ethnic societies. It may sound totally crazy, and will certainly be objected to by some members of the population, but the only solution that I can see is to set up, at some point, portable through-passes similar to those at airports which pick out people carrying metal objects. If these were set out randomly, quickly, on both sides, and at the two ends of a main thoroughfare, with no side alleys, it might just give people pause for thought, if being caught carrying offensive weapons, resulted in tagging. Those ‘suddenly’ entering shops could be asked to go through the screen Definitely sneaky! Unselective, with the civil rights of everybody being abused, but perhaps it could be the solution to an unmanageable and unimaginable problem. The advantage of random selection is that only a small portion of people are affected, while a large proportion are made to think twice, the principle currently used with cameras for speeding.

Allegedly is a word constantly used by the press when they want to make a statement for which they could, or might, be taken to court for libel. The problem with this it is that it enables them to say pretty much what they like, with often horrendous effects being inflicted on the individual being reported about, and when it is proven that the whole matter was a mistake, the charges withdrawn and the person given a clean bill, the damage is already done, because the latter stages of the matter are not sufficiently dramatic to deserve the same headline withdrawals.

A True Case A man, with a strong rural accent, was trapped one night in an airport through missing his flight. He found a small child wandering alone in this empty space looking for its parents. He took the child to find an attendant to take the responsibility, and while doing so was photographed on closed-circuit television. The only person he spoke to, to get help, was one of the staff going off duty, who didn’t clearly understand the English language. He was taken, charged with kidnapping and, I believe locked in jail. Many important people gave testimonials to the man’s honesty and ultimately, after a considerable time had elapsed, the woman who had gone off duty and had then gone on holiday, was discovered and the whole matter cleared up. His reputation was so badly damaged, and as his work involved sports, which placed him in the realms of children, he had to go to another country to be employed, where his alleged reputation was unknown.

The word allegedly should be outlawed when used in this sort of context. It is heavily overworked, and a screen behind which any amount of slander can be implied, irresponsibly and randomly. The recent mistake with the TV recording of the Queen, possibly allegedly, refusing to be interviewed, shows the level of lack of research by the media, before someone is libelled. The race to be first to state or print, in this competitive environment, is too strong to allow reasoned revision.

Let us start off with a disclaimer, I’m neither a doctor nor a scientist, and my information has been taken from the Daily Telegraph. What I am doing is questioning the statements made from my own experience. In simple terms the article says that Cancer Research UK, states that drinking two large glasses of wine a day creates a risk of bowel cancer by a quarter. (it doesn’t say a quarter of what) This is in spite of the fact that doctors have promoted wine-drinking to resist heart problems. The study goes on to state that it is based on 500,000 samples taken in Europe, when almost 2000 were found to have bowel cancer. It goes on to say that every year 35,000 people are diagnosed, presumably in the UK, with bowel cancer.

Years ago I made 60 gallons of wine a year, of which 54 gallons was drunk after racking off the lees. During this time I learned that the containers, the water; the yeast, from grapes, in bottled or dry form; all contributed variables which modified the quality, the specific gravity, and the final flavour. Breweries in this country used to be found where water sources either in streams or Artesian, were of a pure quality. One therefore must assume that the quality of water in winemaking is similarly carefully selected, but across the world will have different impurities. It is the variation in the natural yeasts found on the bloom of the grapes, that gives them their distinctive qualities, but as the grapes are crushed straight from the vine, they must in themselves carry other impurities. So I feel it is safe to say, as I found myself, that no vintage of a given grape, from a given vineyard, will be the same as any other, so perhaps one can’t make sweeping statements about its effects.

The amounts of wine that people drink as a proportion of their total daily intake, must be small and yet I am sure that when these half a million samples were taken, they didn’t also take note of the diet that the people ate during the day, let alone while they were drinking wine. If 35,000 people are diagnosed per year, in a place like Britain, where wine with a meal, and alcohol generally are not a staple, as it is abroad, will I be stretching it a little to suggest that the variations in the actual manufacture of wine, with the variations, or indeed lack of variation of some with respect to diet, could possibly invalidate the survey? In other words the survey has been specialised without taking into account other vital issues which might produce the same effect.

Years ago, when we went on holiday, we lived with French people in their own environment, speaking their language, eating their food and living as they did. It was noticeable that many of the children daily drank diluted wine with their meals, and while I took no actual survey, I think it is safe to say that everybody drank wine in fair quantities. Whether all this has diminished with the advent of Coca-Cola and other modern concoctions, I don’t know, but it seems to me that it is very late in the day to discover that the French people have not themselves discovered that they have had a higher than normal rate of bowel cancer for generations, compared with other countries, where the drinking of alcohol is not taken as a staple.

Our Special Relationship. I am old enough to remember the problems that Churchill had with persuading the Americans that not only was our situation dire, but that a Hitler Europe would do no favours to America. Ever since, I have been suspicious of the so-called special relationship, none more than when we were inveigled into the two current wars. I have never felt that Bush was a leader at all, let alone a strong leader, rather a puppet being worked from the wings. I believe he is just a showman. One only has to listen to his speeches to gather the vagueness of his intellect, and watch him striding in a military fashion, as he thinks, hilariously as I think, to his helicopter, or a cenotaph, or to a platform to make yet another speech, to realise it. So when I see how Prime Minister’s, and especially our latest one almost genuflecting before him, I get frightfully worried. When Churchill met Stalin and Roosevelt at Yalta, there were few smiles and nobody was under any illusion that they were not three tough men fighting their own corner. For some reason that I cannot put my finger on, the quality of the leaders has changed so much. It is an interesting exercise to see them, from all the countries in the world, on television, and assess, more from body language than anything else, who are the hard men, who are cheats with their glib smiles, and those so overawed with their position, or concerned for their status and reputation, that their body language tells you that they’re uncomfortable. The photo opportunities for all those attending Summit Meetings, is a dead giveaway.

With people in such dire straits, up and down the country, with their houses and their lives in disarray as a result of the flooding, it seems ludicrous to write what I propose, but it is nonetheless, in my view fairly important.

During this past week there was a programme on television which I did not see, but was reported to me, concerning Hitler’s ‘off-camera’ conversations. I say ‘off-camera’, when I really mean ‘off microphone’, unofficial remarks made to someone in shot, but not for general consumption. We have all seen top politicians, in question and answer sessions, on television, where a man has approached, whispered something in the ear of the person with a microphone, in such a way that his lips are unseen – they are frightened of lip- readers.

The program I refer to was a compilation of scenes of Hitler on stage and in casual mode, talking to people including Eva Braun. The producer had taken old clips and enlarged them so that the readers could actually follow the conversations between Hitler and whomever he was talking to, by lip reading.. These, apparently according to my informant, showed Hitler to have not only a gentle streak, but I suppose what can be referred to as human reactions. Whether this serves any useful purpose whatsoever, is a matter of personal judgment, but the reason I am writing this article is not whether I care or not, what Hitler had to say, because I saw what he did. It is because my informant said that this producer was now intending to perform the same trick with cinematographic outtakes of conversations, intended to be private by members of our Royal family, translate these and offer them on public display. I find this proposal abhorrent. When I see clips of the young Diana, and other young women, friends of the Royal family, being besieged on every appearance, this type of incursion is bad enough, but if every person who is being photographed had to keep silent because some casual remark could be presented later to the public, especially out of context, I find it not only unbelievably crass, but sick. This terrible maw that constantly has to be fed, the British reading public’s appetite for sensation and gossip, should not be appeased in this instance, and the law should prohibit it, or else where will it all end?

The Shambles of Shambo. Recently in Wales, a sacred bull, Shambo, held in a Hindu temple was diagnosed with bovine TB. Local farmers, allegedly worried for their own cattle, pressurised the authorities to have the animal put down, with predictable results, as far away as New Zealand, As one who has suffered from TB, and being cured purely by diet and fresh air, I find it amazing that in this day and age Shambo could not have been cured, unless this is contrary to Hindu practices. In any case, if the animal was contained in the stockade within a temple, it seems unlikely that it could have infected any creatures within miles, unless they were worried that mice or a stray cat might have carried the infection. I could have understood if the authorities had instituted extremely strict rules on the removal and destruction of the natural waste from the bull, but as slaughter, to my simple mind, appears to be a bureaucratic solution, forced on the basis of our laws, to which no flexibility has been applied, outrage, like a stone thrown in a pond, will naturally ripple round the world.

In the same newspaper that reported the death of the bull, it also reported that a number of citizens of this country had been planning subversive acts based on religious dogma. A large number of the religious rituals, practice by various sects today, have their roots in necessity. For example the Jewish religion requires that its adherents do not eat meat on the same day as they drink milk, presumably because you could not, in the past, have it and eat it. Similarly life in an area where there is little water will make circumcision a sensible precaution. There has always been persecution in the name of religion, and religion an excuse for aggression, where the basic reasons have nothing whatsoever to do with religion. Today, with people of all nations being more materialistic than religiously inclined, religion is being used more as a tool to achieve an end, rather than an end in itself. It is therefore necessary for those in authority to think carefully, circumspectly, and with an eye to the outcome, of any action or statement they may make which has a quasi religious content, as their actions could be interpreted, by those who wish to make trouble, to inflame for their own ends.

The introduction of targets by Tony Blair was, I believe an insult to the intelligence of the nation. We all have targets, some are very simple like mowing the lawn, which we allow ourselves to put off if we have a good enough excuse. In business, five-year rolling plans and some other targets have been in vogue since the dawn of time, and we knew how to manage them. Even our domestic budget is a form of target, but when if ever are we to be rid of those put up by the government? Brown is re-tracking in a number of areas, let us hope he sees the errors in this ploy. This type is pernicious, ill conceived and a hammer to crack a nut. If reputation, the post itself, pay, or any other serious consideration is at stake, the temptation to find a way to appear to meet the target set, be it legal or contrived, will be irresistible. There is a serious tendency today for people to believe dogma and act on it without testing its validity.

The phrase ‘Lies, damn lies and statistics’ really applies to targets. They are set through mathematical analysis, based on assumptions arrived at either by sampling; reference to records, which may or may not be accurate and representative of the whole, or inspired guesswork. To be applied Nationally they take little or no account of human behavioural variations, changes in geographical, ethnic, fiscal and other local influences, and above all unexpected circumstances, such as staff illness, lack of funding, even extraneous problems such as power cuts and weather.

Hence, if targets are to be met and local circumstances make it virtually impossible, then one could and probably does change some of the factors to arrive at an amenable figure. If it is education and the results are poor, try changing the syllabus so the students have easier subjects and the targets are met. In hospitals change the routine so the through-put of patients is increased, therefore the average waiting times are reduced, even if the fewer, more urgent and difficult cases are further delayed.

Targets, unlike people, have no ability to reason and no compassion, they are merely a goad to justify Government claims of doing better, when few, from their own experience agree. Targets can induce abuse and dishonesty, where none previously existed. Targets are a form of rate fixing – a price for a product, based upon time. When rate fixing was prevalent In engineering, a man was paid a rate for producing a product in an agreed time, based on a Rate Fixer’s assessment having actually watched the man work. The man under scrutiny was very particular to cut no corners. Once the rate had been agreed the man upped productivity to get a comfortable wage and set aside enough of the product to slope off to a Wednesday match without being missed.

Targets in learning are counter productive because the subjects most needed by the country, the Sciences, are being under subscribed because it is more difficult to obtain suitable grades. Yet once the young people have these alternative qualifications, the jobs aren’t there.

Instead of the civil servants, or even politicians, making the decisions, let the professionals based upon experience, local conditions and their own expertise, run things, rather than have blanket targets which seem to cost a bomb, increase staffing and paperwork for little or no improvement. If the professional is at fault, the responsibility is his, not the whole team. The real decrease in educational standards over the last 10 years, as reported by a renowned authority, instead of the figures conjured by the government, seem to bear out the fact that targets don’t work

This is not a bleat about those earning prodigious sums, but a plea on behalf of those on the other end of the scale. Living as I have in so many different societies, from life in the British Raj, through rural Britain, working-class London, to the rarefied atmosphere of Northern Ireland, I have seen such incredible changes, to the ruling classes and the impoverished, from the Victorian era to this incredible society we are now part of. We seem to worship instant notoriety, give monumental payments to those folk providing, so-called, entertainment, without a thought for what this type of adulation is doing to the economy of those not so well off.

I have two professional golfers in my family, and yet I think it is totally crazy that a man receives half a million Sterling for coming second, and seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds, for winning a single golf tournament. When I hear musicians, film actors, and presenters on television, with more money than they will ever be able to spend, obtained in effect from the pockets of many of whom are unlikely to see their bank statements ever in the black, I fail to understand why this situation is allowed to persist. I also object to the fact that the top football league is allowed to pay such extremes of salaries when the lower leagues haven’t even enough money to maintain their stands to the standard required today for safety.

In my youth there were very few people who had as much wealth as those just mentioned, and the class system maintained the situation. Now the whole class situation has been inverted, the wealthy of yesterday are having to sell off heirlooms to pay their taxes and young people, overnight, by reaching those very heights and adulation, rarely deserved to the extent it is portrayed, are promoted by specialists angling for a quick buck.

I suppose there is no way that we can level out the giving and the taking so that those at the bottom of the heap may have their pleasures at reasonable rates. Those who are at the top of the heap, currently earning these vast sums, should receive their reward at a sufficient level to justify their worth, and create a goal for others to aim at. My family is sport mad, so I hear a lot of the gossip and one thing that comes out of it is that the rising stars, not only in sport, are so keen to be accepted in their chosen milieu that they will work almost for nothing to achieve their aim. On the basis of that, they are entitled if they are successful, to be recompensed for the time served in learning the profession, but it doesn’t seem to make sense to me that a man who has also had to struggle to reach the top of his profession, a surgeon, or any of the other professionals you like to name, should receive so little compared with those enumerated above. This is not a rant, it is an expression of frustration at what in many cases, but not all, is a moneymaking racket engineered by a few who are escalating their own percentages while promoting others, merely, in the case of young rising talent, only to dash their dreams subsequently, when the cream is getting a bit thin.

River cottage and the like. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, that eccentric farmer-cook, overreached himself the other day,. when he tried to change the eating habits of some urbanites. I think he tried to do too much in too short a time, but however he did make me think that there is an industry out there, for which we are clearly paying, which is devoted to meeting the demands of some of the food gurus who constantly preach about diet. All the time food is cheap, tasty, simple to prepare, with little post washing-up, so-called junk food will be on the menu. What I object to so strongly is that all the packaging, much of it unnecessary, has now to be labelled in all sorts of categories and which I suspect, 99% of the population either doesn’t understand or doesn’t read. But we are paying for that printing, and the hours spent discussing how is to be applied, how it is to be regulated, and government departments are concerned with advertising basic common sense as if it was a new idea. There was all that fuss about school dinners, which seems to have died down, and obesity is constantly being discussed on television, .As one who has had a weight problem for years, my experience tells me that a simple, balanced diet, of small portions, is all that is required, and it is self-control which should be advertised on the packets. The younger members of my family, partly through eating out, through being interested in food, and being prepared to take trouble, have extremely varied menus, and much of the food that they eat, such as aubergines, I find to be relatively flavourless; but I was brought up on roast beef, Yorkshire puddings and three veg, toad in the hole, and all the other British recipes from way back. These require considerable preparation and more clearing afterwards, perhaps that is why they’re no longer popular

One thing is certain, he is absorbed with his image. That is totally clear every time he opens his mouth on television. One thing I’ve failed to understand, but then I’m stupid, is why he is going to town on the poisoning of a foreign spy, by another spy. There is no shadow of doubt that the act has wider implications from the point of view of the health of some of our citizens, but it doesn’t have to be a hammer one takes to a nut. In my simplicity I believe this is purely an ego trip with tricky side issues.

The Primer Minister’s action uncovers a dichotomy. Currently in jail, or widely being searched, a number of people from the Subcontinent have allegedly, or been proven to have carried out actions of terrorism, in this country, not so much on their own people but on the indigenous population. To someone with an ounce of intelligence it might come as a surprise that the representatives of those countries on the Subcontinent which have been harbouring training establishments for terrorism, have not been sent home. To my simple mind this is more than a parallel case. It would appear tricky if every time a national of another country is assassinated in this country by one of his own nationals, that a number of embassy officials would be given their marching orders. Is this particular case, therefore, selective because it has been so much in the press, because the murdered man gave secret information, and was therefore the responsibility of the government, or is there something, as usual, that they’re not telling us?

Now let us look at something far more important. Housing! I never cease to be amazed at the misinformation provided to our leaders by their advisers. Brown has made great stress on his proposals to build millions of houses at a time when we need housing, but we need updating the infrastructure far more. Houses need surface water drainage and sewerage disposal, mains water and electricity, telephones and waste disposal. As a one-time sewerage engineer, in June this year I posted a Serious Warning concerning Flooding, and in it I gave a rough idea how sewerage systems grow, and explained it was impossible to keep up with progress, For example how difficult it is to take an old system, or even the non existing system, and sewer the sort of areas Brown is talking about. In our district, and we are on the edge of a green area, development has been such that sometimes we are told by BT that their lines will be out of service for a period as they are overloaded. I strongly suspect that applies to a lot of the other services. Recently our government instituted a new landfill site approached through a housing site.. The houses in the vicinity have been inundated with blue bottles to the extent that they are coating the windows; this is the sort of unanticipated problem that will be faced by massive building without massive attention to the infrastructure and design details, cause and effect.. I suspect that this is just another ego trip, and quite like a lot of Labour’s proposals, subject to yet another U-turn, when it dawns on somebody in Whitehall of the monumental problems, disruption and expense this proposal will naturally generate..

‘Givers and takers’. I was talking to a young woman the other day about the behaviour of some people, and she came up with the phrase, ‘givers and takers’, and I started to think about it. She said there are some people who give, all the time, of their time, materially, and mentally These people will not, under any circumstances, allow those they help to repay them in any way. At the other end of the equation are the takers, those who demand, accept as their due, wouldn’t dream of repayment, rather they demand even more. I have come across these people and, this young woman says that, to some extent, I fall into one of the categories. Clearly there are grades from one extreme to the other. I suggested to her that the givers suffer from inferiority complexes and a low opinion of their own value, in spite of the fact that they are truly valuable, and have to keep reinforcing some need for acceptance. From my own experience, I guess that the other extreme, the takers, too have an inferiority complex, though in this case they feel that their value should be recognised, applauded and paid homage to. Consequently they don’t need to recognise a debt for what they consider is their right. Am I barking up the wrong tree, or even barking mad?