Category: General

Hydrogenated oils
My next-door neighbour and I were talking about injurious additives in food, usually taken over a long period, and the incredible rise in obesity in the population as a whole. We talked about all the usual reasons, junk food, boxed meals, carry outs and suchlike when she suddenly introduce something I had never heard of, hydrogenated oil. She said a friend of hers, who was a trained chef, had asked her if she would like to eat a Tupperware box, because a similar process derives hydrogenated oil. I wasn’t prepared for reading what I did in Google when I put up hydrogenated oils. I went to www,wisegeek, and also to ‘partially hydrogenated oils’, on the same page.

When I read the descriptions of all that is wrong with taking in hydrogenated oil, and the injurious effects on the body, I could not understand how the government would permit this material being used in the food industry at all, let alone under regulation. It’s whole purpose is to speed up, and probably cheapen the manufacture of a number of items such as biscuits, cakes,etc, not right across the board, but by selected manufactures, at what cost to us?. Some fish fries use it because it keeps the oil clean for longer periods than conventional oils. I don’t propose to go into further detail, just read the websites on Google and then make up your own mind. Don’t forget to read the ingredients content when you buy biscuits and cakes and even oil.

One of the problems of being very old, living alone, and slightly injured, it is that one has a lot of time to think, to question, and above all compare the old with the new. What I write here today, is one of these doubts and questions.

The DHS This is not the first time I have mentioned that I believe our hospital and medical services are the best in the world. In the last few years as a result of my own necessity and that of my wife’s, I have had considerable time in which to evaluate these services first-hand. The degree of expertise, care, and consideration is of the highest order, and when you see the hours that people are working, often carrying out tedious repetitive jobs, and still maintaining a balanced outlook, we should be grateful. It beats me why the Health Service system is constantly under review by government, and changes either threatened or being made. Just over a week ago I was in hospital watching, as you would expect, and was amazed at the amount of writing the nurses, doctors and technicians were having to write for each patient as they were treated. One can only assume that the growth of advertisements suggesting that legal proceedings can be an option, if there is a possibility of accident or malfeasance without cost to the individual. I would have thought that a document could be produced for the patient to sign, which maintained their rights, but was couched in such a way that it would only be in the very severest circumstances that the lawyers would have a foothold. There is no shadow of doubt, that records are essential, but I believe what I propose would cut it down by half. From my experience in heavy engineering, there was no doubt that from the end of the war, right up until the 70s or 80s there was a level of shoddy workmanship, which induced injury by some of the more delinquent contractors. The Health And Safety Act was brought in to change this condition, but unfortunately, I believe, people who are not technically involved but were re-droughting the act, were taking every opportunity to increase the area covered by the Act without reference to the long-time effects on those at the coal face, and the Health Service has thus been heavily inhabited by it.

I am at that stage in life, where I seem to have less interest in learning, than I do in being amused, but when you live alone, with all your contemporaries no longer here, being amused, becomes almost a matter of will power, that is to say deriving one’s own amusement, however banal. Believe it or not, thinking up television games with more intellectual content than just a quiz show, among other things, can be quite interesting and distracting. But unfortunately at the end of the day one tends to revert to the wide screen, and watch films. This will have naturally forced me into Criticism Mode, especially with the pap currently on offer from Skye.. I was never a devotee of Woody Allen and his obsession with New York. I now find that somebody in the chain of command, has bought up vast quantities of Woody Allen’s films from way back, I remember them even from my teens. Coupled with that they’re also dragging out British made films even before the 40s and a lot not long after. Some of them are very good, but many of them nowhere as good as whoever it is, says it’s is, when commenting on them in the Radio Times. Time and again I have saved on Plus a film highly recommended, only to find it was verbose and not to my taste.

One thing I do discover is that in these old films, the diction is much clearer, that the actors actually used their lips, whereas in the modern films, especially the American ones, one has to try to follow the script which is being mouthed with almost tight lips, and a quasi-Afro-American accent that is mostly unintelligible. Going back to the days of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, even the Westerns had actors talking in language that we could understand in Britain. When you watch an American film today, devoted to criminals and roughnecks, I don’t know whether you would agree with me, but it seems that they adopt this deep Southern accent as another dimension of colour, which is very difficult to decipher, especially as nowadays the musical directors seem to have more influence than the actual director?

If you go to the back pages of each day in the Radio Times, you’ll discover that day, after day, after day the same old films of being offered not always from the same source, but on the same pages, and if you read the blurb you might not mind because there appears to be so much on offer, but repetition rapidly reduces choice.

In doing my accounts, I have discovered that not only I, but everybody else is dilatory in cashing cheques, for a number of reasons. We obtain our loose change from a hole in the wall, and consequently rarely go the bank. The amounts that the cheques carry are often small, money presents to small children, discounts, and a small payments in moieties. In my case the bank is over 5 miles away, in a part of town I rarely visit. I have also discovered that even large companies are not prepared to accept a credit card payment without a service charge, and therefore the tendency is going towards using a debit card, presupposing your account is not in the red. Clearly this change in policy is a by-product of the credit crunch, and the practice of so many people not to honour their debts. If you receive a cheque and for some reason cannot, or wont take it to the bank, one is then forced to write a covering letter and affix a stamp and take it to the post, all of which is another waste of time. As I have said repeatedly, the majority are penalized by the misdemeanours of the minority.

If my analysis is correct, in another year or so, whether we like it or not, we shall be forced to carry out all our financial dealings on the Internet, and those without a computer will be forced to go to one of these computing centres, or more likely the facility will be provided by local government in their offices and libraries. For someone like myself who has lived through so many changes, we find that life is no longer simple, as soon as you are competent in any particular field, the rules and operations of the field are changed again and again, often for very little purpose.

Strange Meerkats
I have written before about the fact that people are prepared to trust the information given by the picture of a disgruntled dog with adenoids, called Churchill. The other day, I was informed by someone in the advertising business, that the advertisements using meerkats are an incredible success. It’s all very well to say the British are mad about animals, but it does seem a step too far to set aside common sense to that extent. There is no shadow of doubt that not only the quality but also the quantity of advertising has increased incredibly since the credit crunch. The advertising executives seem to have discovered that entertainment in any form, is preferable to giving the facts straight from the shoulder, and much of the entertainment seems to err on the side of razzmatazz, and the facts and figures that one would have thought were essential, are more than a little sparse. Just out of interest, instead of skipping over the advertisements on TV, once in a while take a look at them, they certainly are entertaining in many cases, but whether they are as informative as one would like is a matter of opinion. I must say I find it highly amusing to imagine how some of these highly paid doyennes of the entertainment business, who were themselves preaching on the value of various products, must be feeling now they have been usurped by what the Africans probably considered as vermin.

The diversification of interest
No one could say I was sport mad, I will watch the odd football match, or international rugby but I don’t think that I would willingly support these championships that are springing up all over the country, and the Olympics. However, I am of the opinion that I am doing so through the back door. Long before the credit crunch, I had a number of shares in banks and building societies which formed my savings. When the credit crunch arrived at lease three of these concerns were taken over by bigger companies that later were to have been found to be making irrational decisions. The result of this has been my income from these investments, which was supposed to be stable, was in fact reducing at an alarming rate. I now discover to my horror, through watching sports on television, that these actual companies are currently supporting sport in its various forms, which itself entails supplying kit to the players, travel expenses and probably footing the expenses of the various events in the stadia around the country. I vaguely remember having seen that some of them were also funding tours. When you consider that the government has bolstered these people out or our taxes, and to this must be added loss of income to the pensioners who have been saving for their old age. I find it remarkable that the government is happy for this procedure; the perpetrators will tell you that it is wise spending as it generates business through advertising. They’d have a hell of a job trying to prove that to me, when I see how many seats at the matches are empty.

An estimate on waste
Local authorities, by the amount of paper they use to cajole us to save the world, should be estimating the overall level of waste of the world’s resources which is induced by large food shopping centres importing products from abroad by air, to satisfy the rising demand for unusual and exotic products, as well as those products home produced. We might get a surprise. There has been a great rise in the amount of notice which is taken of sell by dates both by the traders and by the purchasers. I am of the opinion that there is a considerable safety factor built into these dates that reduces their life. For one who was brought up with no such things as refrigerators and freezers, where you built up an immune system to such an extent the tummy troubles were not a problem, I believe that one of the severest wastes of resources and man power is our throwaway society. Someone will tell me that it is our obligation to support commerce in the underdeveloped world. I feel that there is a better way than transporting food halfway around the world to satisfy a very small, out-of-season need, and the inevitable waste.

How often we have we said or heard that phrase, as an excuse to justify something not justifiable. The old find it difficult not to draw comparisons today, as things have changed so rapidly in less than a lifespan, and not always for the better. Those of us born at the end of the Great War or as far forward as the 30s, will have been subjected to the confining mores of the Victorians, to which today’s standards bear no relationship whatsoever. Indeed in most cases they have been reversed. I was brought up with phrases like ‘Little boys should be seen and not heard!’. Subjects today, which are commonplace, such as a family divorce, social and sexual relationships, were never discussed in front of the children, say anyone younger than 12 or 15. In my case, I was not allowed to go to the wedding of a relative who had been cohabiting with a married man, whom she was marrying after his divorce. A high proportion of people of the lower and middle ranks had a door key on a string, accessible through the letter-box, without fear of burglary. I wont bore you with any more of these comparisons, there are endless. The majority of the admonishments were for what were considered bad taste; assumed rudeness to adults; boisterousness, referred to as hooliganism; and speaking out of turn were all crimes for which a clip round the ear was a minor punishment, but could also warrant a thrashing or being sent to bed. It was the parents who took this seriously, while the children accepted it as part of daily living, anything else would have been too weighty. I firmly believe that these minor punishments never served the purpose for which they were intended, but made us more resilient, and taught us to duck and dive, which was a much better education for adulthood. Taking my case and those of my closer friends I’m convinced that our psyche was in no way damaged, it merely taught us the rules of the war between the old and the young, and us and our educators.

My interpretation of the behaviour between the Edwardian classes, the-haves, and the-have-nots, was mainly on a par, with where they could afford to live, the poor lived in large numbers in small accommodation, which meant that most of their activities took place outside the home, in public houses, on commons and in back-streets; while the rich could hide their extremes in large houses, clubs, and country estates. The Victorian era allowed the have-nots to introduce what became a middle class, in a size that made it noticeable. This in its turn created something for the ambitious to aim for, and with time the Victorian era ultimately totally changed peoples view of what was good or acceptable taste. Just consider the time that has elapsed, between when Queen Victoria came to the throne, and the 1950s which I feel was an amazing turn-around in our way of life. Then strictures were ignored or turned upside down, and an imaginary freedom where everything went was in vogue, and the meaning of ‘went’ covered so much, in a very short time.

What followed was first of all, a throwaway society, in which possessions were no longer respected, tastes could change overnight, taking with them inherited possessions that had come down through the generations. Strangely, with the aid of television, these rejected articles suddenly became collectors’ items in a small number of cases, but this did not stem the change from the old to the new. Designs in every walk of life seemed to bear little relationship to what had gone before, and the mores that went with these designs, including the taking of drugs, a total sexual freedom, and to some extent also, a disrespect for the tastes that has been the norm in society generally. Laws were brought in right across the board, without careful thought or testing, until we had situations which were totally ridiculous, and should never have been broached without more thought. One case is that of the chastisement of children in school by corporal punishment. One must assume that a number of cases of malicious treatment by teaches, up and down the country were used as the basis of condemning all corporal punishment. As one who was caned more than most, for less than most, I can’t say that I have any serious hang-ups on the matter, nor on some teachers who were vicious bullies. Their actions should not have limited the options for a responsible teacher to maintain decorum in a class. This business of the few determining the future for the many by the actions of the few, appears constantly in legislation today. This is one of the differences between now and the 20s, the legal eagles have got the country by the throat. Engineering, medicine and a host of other useful and valuable work is being hampered and made more difficult and costly by the ability of the individual to find advertisements advising him to possibly claim. It is only recently that doctors and dentists etc. have had to carry heavy insurance against being taken to court on a whim, or the hope of gain, something my forebears would have eschewed if they had heard of it.

My response
Reading the comments in the post below, no one could doubt the quality of thought, the determination of ideal, and the sincerity with which those ideals are held. I have taken a census of relatives and friends who have been senior officers in the army and have served in war situations, and it is interesting to find that in general they have the same outlook. They are not prepared to accept that there could be change; is currently every country must spend a vast sum of money just in case someone decides to invade them, or that nations together will act as policeman on any nation that might have reprehensible intentions

To me, this is the mindset of not only the army and the politicians, it is also that of the population at large. This I believe is where some change must be wrought to overcome this mindset, in the face of such carnage, useless expense, and ultimately in down grading the lives of so many for so long. When you consider the way the advertisers can make people believe, in many cases, boasts that are clearly based on a miniscule of fact and blown up to gigantic proportions in order to sell a product, when one thinks of the cost of advertising, manufacture and distribution, it is evidently a paying proposition. I therefore believe that there should be inaugurated World Wide Web sites in every language, and in many guises, showing the futility of war, in all its facets. In particular the waste that is so unproductive. People Power is sometimes mobilised, but never on more than parochial a scale. What I am proposing is that groups of people in every country should form to persuade their countryman that their leaders must find an alternative to war, and combine with other countries to sustain this theory to a level that even the thought of going to war, when other solutions are eminently possible, would be an anathema. . Surely it is the responsibility of the members of every nation to question the validity of the ideal, the mindset, set out above, and insist that their leaders search every avenue to avoid resorting to war. As I have said in my proposal there are unscrupulous people with their own agenda that conflict could well ensue. It is for this reason that I propose a worldwide police force of military capability, subscribed to, in every sense, nationwide.

I fondly believe that although I shan’t see it, the Internet will have such influence in the long run, that what I suggest not only is a possibility, but so obvious it will become a fact.

Illumination.
You can just imagine some civil servant, dying to impress his superiors, waking up in the middle of the night with ‘The great idea!’. He had decided, either here or in Brussels, that those little clear, candle light bulbs used for wall brackets and hall chandeliers are a serious waste of energy even if they were only 40 W, and had to be abolished and replaced by some ugly, un-aesthetic, white energy-saving monster that would have no place whatsoever in all the fittings, in all the lounges and halls across the nation. In my case it will affect approximately 17 40 W bulbs, and the fact of all that energy that I am wasting is keeping me awake at night, not to mention the fact that I’m going to have to decorate the walls, and the reception rooms, when I buy new light fittings to replace those now obsolete.

Would somebody for God’s sake tell those in charge to take a grip, and crawl back into the real world, get advice from someone with commonsense, and one hopes the sense of the ridiculous, before we all go raving mad

Education
There is a battle of words in our house over what I wrote yesterday concerning education, and in particular homework. I’m sure she is right, because she was a highly regarded schoolteacher, with excellent examination results. But then you see her aim was to produce high results in her own field, not taking an overall picture of education per se, and the needs of the individual for his or her future, depending upon the type of future, and his or her ability. School by its very nature has to take account of the wide differential in the ability of its pupils, and steer a course, which will suit all but the highly gifted. I think it is accepted that there is a need for more than just the three Rs, that aesthetic, an awareness of the world, with its population and of its history, is essential, coupled with basic physics in this new world where physics has taken over in so many fields. I was amazed the other day, to find that small children at private preschool classes were being taught French songs by rote, probably taught with an overlay of a regional accent. Everything a child learns in its early years, by its very nature is a form of rote, and when I see adult counter assistants, adding the price of two articles on a calculator, I realise that education has failed the modern generations. We were taught to add long columns of figures, tricks for doing other calculations in the head, because that would be the basis upon which our financial dealings in the future would be conducted and we would be assured of fair dealing. I feel that it is essential that some university’s think tank gets to grips with what is necessary, for the lifestyle, the intellectual ability and the aesthetic of school leavers, so that their time at school is used to the best advantage for them, not for league tables, or the advancement of the careers of some teachers. Teachers by their very nature want to do the best for the children, and in most cases do, but they are operating in a narrow field, taking into account only their own requirements, leaving someone else to decide the overall value of the education being offered. Then we might do away with homework, and stop anything beyond an additional 12% of learning being added to the daily life of our schoolchildren. If this extra time is essential, why have such long school holidays, when the students are ultimately bored to death? Their free-time is valuable for their development in other fields beside school work.