Blog

I feel rather like an American redwood tree, growing contentedly in a field, and now felled in the name of progress, because it was on the centre line of a new motorway. My current inability to go on the Internet, has given me pause to reassess my future.

My daughter is convinced that circumstances are telling me to give up the blog. To some extent I feel that I have come to the end of the road because my comments are sometimes repetitious, as the sins I comment on are committed repeatedly, and often I find what I have said one day is repeated the next or a few days later in the media. I find that I also occasionally a have an incredible number of readers, and someone told me that it was probable that schools were using my biographical material for projects.

In consequence I am at a crossroads. Clearly, at sometime in the future, I am going to have the Internet problem untangled by a specialist, who is currently on holiday. I get very few comments on what I write, and as I have said before, it is rather like shouting down a well, all you get back is the echo of your own voice. I am therefore considering taking the biographical material, adding previous apposite posts, and leaving it so that those who want to research the past and review the rate of change in 80 years can, thus leaving it to others to point out all the dishonesty, the subterfuge and the downright criminality that is abroad today.

I suppose what I’m doing is running a flag up the pole to see if anyone salutes it, a ploy I learned from Tony Blair.

Until the the Northern Rock affair I was a relatively happy man and then everything changed. I had built up savings over a period of time so that if the wheels come off we can pay for care. I had no problems writing or posting the blog, and life was relatively uncomplicated. I have previously said if it ain’t bust, don’t fix it, but one can’t fend off the deluge of Microsoft updates forever. It seems that everyone takes the Internet for granted, and if for any reason one is cut off, the whole system of information exchange breaks down.

Now someone has engineered the loss of quite a bit of my money without me lifting a finger. I am having taxes imposed because the government is footing the bill to make up the shortfall created by a few people seeking high salaries and golden handshakes, with little thought for the future but at our expense. Unfortunately it doesn’t stop there, firms are taking over companies and forming huge conglomerates, that in turn force changes on the individual. With my broadband supplier being taken over, presumably as a financial proposition, I have lost my broadband, and telephoning the helpline is a nightmare. In addition I had a free anti-virus, which I was told was no longer free, and for safety’s sake I paid up a two-year subscription and am now being asked questions about blockages that I have no idea of the answers. In consequence it could be this ignorance which has caused the problem with my broadband. To sum up, by my accidental downloading of so-called updates I don’t want and don’t need, takeovers, nonsensical investments abroad, others who wish to make more money, have all contributed to me changed in my whole system of life, and are persistently trying to change it even further. I do not believe that they are doing this for my benefit, hidden in the system there is a cost to pay.

I am old, not totally stupid, but I find having to learn something new every week, not of my choosing, about changes in banking, political changes, rules from the council, shops and practically everywhere else, is all beginning to annoy me and exhaust me to the point where I feel I must give up and hibernate. The problem is that it is not in just one sphere. Those who have control are constantly making new rules, deluging us with information leaflets with get-out clauses in small print, and insurance is a complete take-on. I believe we have arrived at a point where the phrase ‘buyer beware’ is no longer relevant because it is now too complicated to know what to beware of, and have so lost control of our own destiny.

I find it ironic that I am having to put this on disc and send it to my grandson by surface mail, to post on the blog for me, because progress has cut me off at the knees.

I believe today, the press, en masse, are often allowed to act like a school of sharks in a feeding frenzy with no respect or decorum, even at a PM’s briefing. What I found unbelievable and which spoke volumes was that when asked why he did not pass through the Lobby, he actually answered instead of telling his interlocutor to do something earthy. On another tack, it doesn’t take even a normal person to realise all the implications of the vast amount of changes government is proposing in the near future. First of all it is going to cost a fortune because change is expensive in time and materials, and the recipients of the services that are being changed, will suffer in the meantime, if not in the long term as well. It is clearly just an effort to gain brownie points in the face of such wide disillusion, and the shortage of time before the next election. I would have thought that at a time when the majority of us are actually losing hundreds if not thousands of our savings, as well as being stripped of it by increased taxes and rising costs, the government would draw in its horns, and move slowly, rather than starting massively expensive ventures into unknown fields, where the outcome is not totally predictable. There is more than one area where this is apostate, housing and the carbon foot-print are just two. What I find most aggravating is that no one seems to take into account past history, when they are making decisions in the short term, when the effects will be felt long-term.

Recently I was thinking about my life immediately after the war, our carbon footprint then was minuscule to what we have today. By today’s standards we were poor, considering every purchase carefully. We had no car, few had central heating, we generally heated only one room at a time, public transport was mainly driven by electricity, and most of the shops that we needed were within walking distance, which in turn was good for health. Very little of our food was imported, and holidays, if they were taken at all, were spent within reasonable travelling distance in Britain. Are unripe strawberries out of season, worth bringing all the way from California? This aspect never occurred to us in the old days, when we waited for the season to change and then enjoyed a renewed experience, and didn’t feel deprived.

Now we are talking about whole swathes of our countryside that have been vandalised by vast housing estates with, maybe only occasionally a small group of shops, which are certainly not in walking distance for most of us. This was induced by the arrival of the vast shopping centres, and one could conject that some were at the instigation of the supermarkets. Now it is clear that even green field sites are being used in preference to brown ones. Essentially government policy obviously means nothing.

People like myself have been writing for years about the efficiency of small groups of shops within a conurbation covering the major needs of the local inhabitants. This, not eco-housing of unspecified standards and quality, is what is required. Another vast housing estate, even if it does theoretically appear on paper to have a smaller carbon footprint, will, socially and with respect to travel, be another open prison. You only have to listen to the people who live in flats where the shops that are part of the area have had to close down. They claim that they have lost more than the convenience of the shops, they have lost that social element so necessary to their lives. Today, without the extended family, with two incomes, and the mummy run, there is little time to be sociable, and lives are far more insular. There are fewer church halls, scouts and girl guide groups, and less socialising among the young in a safe environment. Both these last statements and the psychological effects of them are well known, but the government only talks about reversing the trend.

An open letter to the medical staff of the DHSS I would like to confirm that the majority of us consider ourselves very fortunate to enjoy the quality of the Health Service we all have. In attending hospitals since I was about one year old, in the 20s, I have had operations, breakages and in recent years, been operated on, stabbed with needles and provided with new bits and pieces to keep me going. In all that time, and ongoing, I have received nothing but courtesy, sympathy, care and professional attention of the highest order. Any time a politician chooses a photo opportunity in a hospital, the patients questioned by the presenter will give glowing reports of the sympathetic care, consideration and the competence of the staff looking after them. The Health Service is unfairly denigrated, not because of the medical professionals working within it, but the politicians, the non-medical managers, and the media short of a story highlighting some individual short coming. This all combines to inhibit and or criticise the excellent work, with pettifogging targets, changes of direction, interference and random criticism. No organisation of the size of the Health Service can be perfect, but on a percentage basis I believe its record would be hard to be surpassed with the number of successful procedures that it handles daily..

The Quantum Computer. I find it interesting that a few days ago I was writing to say that I thought there was a potential for a simple computer, reasonably priced, that needed no updating, and will perform most of the functions that the average home user would need. On the first of July, the Daily Telegraph wrote about a new system so complicated that it would take a highly trained person to manage it, yet they predicted it would be commonplace in the future. They say it operates by harnessing atoms. To me, who lost his hair over a short period through having the wireless transmitter for the computers, too close to his head, I am convinced that here is a source of great health risk. If you read up about it you will realise that it has some potential for scientists requiring highly complicated calculations, but would be a sledgehammer to crack a nut as a home computer.

Why do they do it? They are forever rehashing old films, which were not only masterpieces in their day, but are equally of high-quality now. I have always been a respecter of a high proportion of the films Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart made. They made one together, called Sabrina. It was a simple story beautifully scripted, touching lightly on social and psychological differences, was amusing and clean cut. There were no confusing crowd scenes, no padding, the story was elegant and placed elegantly. Now Harrison Ford has been persuaded mistakenly, to make another version, which is so crass that one wonders why anyone you would have put money into it. Yesterday I came across another horror, it was called Rush-Hour, had a totally unbalanced, Afro-American, presumably star, as the lead, persistently talking rubbish at high speed, and to the total impairment to the story. The mayhem and smashed up vehicles alone will have a cost a fortune – I just wonder why it was ever produced.

I recently was forced to buy a new computer. Nowadays, it seems that when you get a new computer you get free, sixty-day trial, versions of the latest software. On this new computer I was given Microsoft Office. For over 30 years I have been struggling with each new advancement, from the BBC1, right up to the sophisticated versions that we’re getting at about half the price, and 40 times the complexity. I still only just write documents and letters, do the family budget, illustrate books on Photo Shop Elements, use my camera, and the Internet. My needs haven’t changed in all that time, but I now discovered, because a 60 day trial was over and my Word programme suddenly went walkabout that it had changed the whole format, it took away my menu bar, and when I started hunting I couldn’t believe all the complexity of what I was finding including something called ‘ Widows and Orphans’. It was something to do with the top and the bottom of the page, but what in the world do I need to know about that for? I know where the top and the bottom of the page are
.
If we can’t persuade Microsoft and all the other manufacturers to keep it simple, stop upgrading us with downloads we don’t want, and sometimes accidentally allow to be installed, thus making our own software, to the likes of me, unintelligible. Then I think it is time that a new manufacturer comes onto the market with a very simple machine that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, doesn’t have to have up-to-date software, on the principle that the Navy extols, a sort of ‘if it was good enough for Nelson then its good enough for me’. I can’t really believe that I’m the only one with a home computer, not high-powered business, who just wants a stable piece of equipment, that I understand, that never changes, and has stood the test of time, at a reasonable price. Please! Someone out there open a factory and turn them out, you’ll make a fortune. Something about the level of a good quality 1995 model would be ideal.

My regular readers will have noticed that the rate of posting articles has dropped over the last month, this was because the Press and the Opposition were saying pretty well everything I would have said, and I saw little point in reiterating the obvious, and my e-mail had also made posting a serious problem. It is now time for my other eye to be operated upon, and for at least a fortnight if not longer, I shall not be able to use a computer. In addition I am in the process of revising the policy of the blog, which I think has run its course in its present format. This process will take quite some time and I will keep you posted on the outcome.

Lies and statistics we all know about, because we have been subjected to them for a whole decade, when government has tried to justify itself by allegedly meeting targets that it has set itself, in every field of endeavour, when those with experience in these very fields have been warning consistently that standards have been dropping and money has been thrown away. They don’t seem to learn, they consistently tinker on a daily basis with our most valued services, ignore the financial warnings that are given continuously, and now they are busy digging a deeper pit in every respect for the opposition to fall into when they are voted in in the next election. Where they are going to find the money to support all these new changes, is certainly a mystery to me. The sort of rubbish that is being perpetrated was demonstrated yesterday when the BBC was quoting statistics that over the last month domestic spending had risen, and they blamed it on the weather, and the purchase of new clothes. It is my humble opinion that those with any sense had realised that within the blink of an eye they will not be able to afford the luxuries they were used to, and before they all rise in price and are out of reach, they are buying them in. It is equally clear that although the tax revenue on some items will rise along with inflation, the economic pinch will cut the overall revenue, with obvious further tax income reduction, and as the government has taken on several long-term heavily funded propositions, hidden taxes will continue rise.

I have said it before, and I’ll say it again, my grandmother in the 30s repeatedly said of the government and commerce, ‘don’t believe all they tell you, dear!’

I just cannot believe all I’m hearing and reading concerning the vast changes in so many spheres of government, running concurrently, contrary to public opinion, and all in order to save money. Once again we are finding proof that Civil Servants, and Managers are not the right arbiters of standards in professional fields. Leave the Doctors, the Head Teachers, the Chief Engineers, to run their bailiwick, then we will save money. Every new approach, change in principles, and protocol causes an immense waste of time and money, which is the real problem. The Government is using every ploy possible to cut cost, raise taxation, and shed its load, because it has been budgeting badly for years.

Education.
In my last post I implied that I was certain government tinkering with the whole educational system had reduced the standards to a level, where Further Education suffered to the point where many degrees were not worth the expense they had cost the exchequer and drop-outs were at an excessive level. I was therefore unsurprised when I read in the Daily Telegraph yesterday, that Imperial College were adding a year to degree courses to bring the students up to an acceptable educational level. The philosophy of advanced academic education for all, while a proven fallacy for years, by its very nature unworkable, should have been abandoned and the old system, where the trades, which have also become degraded, could flourish once more so we would not have to use immigrant labour to fill the gap.

Medicine
Due mainly to government policy and harassment, we have lost our free dental care to a great extent. Do you notice they don’t reduce our tax because we are now paying our dentist instead of the Treasury doing so? Now the government wants to do the same with the Family Doctor. Many surgeries have modified their systems to accommodate the unsocial hours of the patients, offering small surgery units on prescribed days and most of the other proposals in this new approach the government is proposing, while still maintaining that personal relationship so vital to many patients. If the government brings in local Super Surgeries, not only will this have all the assembly line traits of hospitals, with no doctor-patient relationship, it will have a Manager, and soon become part of a commercial cartel, with all the cutbacks that will involve.

Lost CDs and Documents.
In my experience top Civil Servants have a soft ride, they pass down the work and consider their job is to manage. Middle management, the engine room of the Civil Service, is where the buck usually stops, where the stress is, and where most of the long hours are to be found. So one can’t say a top Civil Servant, carrying a politically hot potato, is tired, distracted, or confused, enough to forget he has the hot potato in his hot little hand. So I find it extra ordinary that knowing it should never have left the safe, it could be left on a train accidentally, not even in a brief case. Unless of course he had been reading it on the train and it had bored him to distraction.

Educational Chaos.
I expect like me everyone who reads this will fail to understand, first of all how they can have 600 schools that are in risk of closure, how they arrived at that situation, and what are they going to do with the children when they close them, also where are they going to find teachers of the right quality? Say each school has 500 children, that means that a third of a million children will be affected, .worse, if you take the population of each age group as being 0.7 million, and that there are seven age groups involved, say 5 million, of which two thirds are going to secondary school, or 3.3 million, then those affected represent roughly 10% – even as a rough calculation it is mind-boggling. Soph, who was a secondary school teacher, teaching to A level has said for a long time that the standards required to get into university and to graduate are too low, with the result that those who reach that level are not all confident and competent to finish the course, and that a high percentage of those that do are inadequate. When I was at university in the 50s in a class of 40, there were only two dropouts, one through serious illness. If her comments are accurate then some of the teachers are below par. Teaching requires dedication, a sensitivity to the reaction of the children, and the strength of character to obtain respect and that can control 30 unruly kids with a glance or a word, and doesn’t need to resort to a harsher punishment. It is not just yet another job!

Is this another government knee-jerk reaction, because inefficiency has allowed this condition to arise unnoticed? I’m sure it didn’t happen overnight, It is acting precipitately instead of with long and serious thought to the way in which standards can be improved without the children involved being disadvantaged.

Caveats.
I read somewhere that with the advent of the Internet instead of the passage of paper being reduced, as one would expect, it has increased immeasurably. Recently I have made a couple of purchases not on the Internet because almost all my purchases there have been a disaster, and I have lost money. These purchases were across the counter. In the old days, you walked into a shop, you trusted the man behind the counter, you expected the article that you purchased to last you a lifetime and it usually did, you paid, received a receipt and went home with the article. Today, the chances are that when you go into the shop they will only have a demonstration model, because warehousing costs money, and so you have to order, and then the paper-chase really starts, if you are fool enough to admit to having an e-mail address, not only do you get paper coming through the letterbox telling you about the delivery, the contract you’ve got, and an invoice, even though you walked out of the shop with a receipt that formed the guarantee, the whole thing is repeated on the Internet so, just to be on the safe side, you print that up so that you can read it at your leisure in case of some caveat that you object to. In some cases you even get telephone calls to see you if you’re happy with the product, generally at teatime. All I want to know is why the word of the man at the counter is not adequate, and if the product when it is delivered is not up to scratch, a phone call will get you a prepaid label and you can return it either to the shop or from whence it came. I strongly suspect, like the use-by dates on the packets of food, all this paper is to avoid being sued whether rightly or wrongfully.

On the second of this month I wrote a piece about knife crime. In the Daily Telegraph the other day both Blair and Brown were being castigated for the vast amount of money they have wasted during their time in office. In the piece, I quoted that Brown was proposing to waste a million pounds on advertisements in the hope of stopping knife crime, and I gave my reasons for saying ‘waste’. I now discover he has upped the anti for advertising to 3 million. What I find annoying is that it is pure knee-jerk.

Advertising has all the same principles as canvassing for an election. If you have been voting for one party all your life, the canvasser is wasting his time – except that if he doesn’t call some would be offended. Conversely if you dislike his party, he can talk or he might and you won’t be swayed. So he is really canvassing that small percentage of the waverers and the don’t knows. If you think of products instead of parties, the attitude of the viewer of advertisements, as a generality, follows the same path, after all politics is an intellectual product. One other thing, he is talking about 16 to 18 year olds who carry knives and are likely to use them, probably less than 1% of the population, and it is highly probable that this particular 1% wouldn’t waste its time looking at advertisements. If I am right in this assessment, the £3 million is going to be totally wasted. This government has always had a propensity for throwing money at things in the hope of getting away with a cure. The 3 million is needed because the government is going to use high octane professionals to direct, to write the scripts, hunt out the locations, select the cameraman and actors, and then put the whole story on a disc.

I have had a different idea which would involve the very people who share their lives with the knife carriers, and cost buttons by comparison. Instead of spending £3 million, on professionals, with their egos, their units, and their large salaries, why not have a competition for all secondary schools, or only those in areas where gun crime is prevalent. The schools to put forward how they would make advertisements that would be telling. The winning schools would be provided with the technical hardware as a permanent gift, to enable them to create the advertisements that they propose. This idea would have several aspects which would bring home the message. The fact that so many children were initially involved in the subject and the creation of a scenario which would show the horror of gun crime, the fact that some could be acting as part of the procedure as gun criminals, and the fact that it was competitive and one would we hope be highlighted on regional television as progressive programming, I believe that this would be far more advantageous than the ads.