NHS (No Hope Surely)

    I've been behind with everything lately, including this blog. You know the feeling! A combination of things, I fear. Old age creeping on, as the bishop said to the actress. (Only I'm not sure if it was a bishop or someone else. Which really proves the point regarding failing sensibilities!) Or is it the pain caused by  trying to meet all the things life throws at us, retired people included. I hear much talk concerning pressure. the word stress is frequently mentioned today. Is life really more pressurised today I wonder; it certainly feels it! 

    The older I get, the less I know.  The world, certainly my world gathers momentum. It is taking off and there's not much I can do about it. Apart from running for the hills I've got to stay and cope as best I can. I strongly suspect much, not all, but a fair amount nevertheless of our problems stem from modern technology. Very clever, at times life changing but all too often a pain in the backside. May I explain the reasons for my negativity.    

    Now I don't own a mobile phone plus the blackberry?  in my car has never been connected. I can turn our 'smartarse' television on and off but have mastered nothing else on the thing. Just three examples of my life in the year 2014. Everyone else copes, understands this technological age and leaves this old codger out on a limb, so to speak. You must be joking. Examples from that most revered of institutions, the NHS give food for thought.

    One, my wife has serious health problems but copes with cheerful determination. She sat one day in the local, up to date, state of the art hospital. The examination was going well until the consultant mentioned her brother's recent operation; a non existing operation! My wife was quickly despatched to another room, another consultant. The second consultants remarks that my wife got two for the price of one was witty but in a way quite disturbing.

   Two, the hospital prescribing, thus duplicating the same drugs that I was already taking was potentially dangerous but it was some time ago. Plus the politicians assure us daily that things could not be better in October 2014.

    And three, I should have been in Birmingham last week, booking made to see another consultant, at a hospital unknown to me concerning neurology. Only it was nothing to do with me. Right insurance number, right name on the letter except that it was nothing to do with me, wrong person altogether. Took some sorting out, not for the first time. Quite scary really, almost certainly human error concerning computers and human operatives. How many times is your life interfered with because of computers, or is it just me? (Lest anyone think I don't rate the NHS, not true. If you are in any doubt as to that most noble of institutions, watch 24 Four Hours in A and E on the television at the moment. Amazing and very humbling.)

 Since I last posted time moves on, unstoppable. This week in the news is the Virgin rocket crashing. Cause unknown but you wonder if computer errors are at any stage involved. 

    It is my birthday this Sunday, God willing. Seventy five years young! I see the changes and I have seen. The end of the Second World War and the formation of The EU for good or bad. Colour television, half electric cars. Births, marriages and deaths, notably the death of President Kennedy. (I will do the passing years justice in a future post sometime. In the meantime, anyone like to tell us the most memorable five things from their lifetime.)

'Stop the world, I want to get off' sang Anthony Newley. I feel the same sometimes! But life goes on and I don't suppose computers will go away, they're here to stay. You imagine someone born on Sunday. I wonder what they will experience in the next seventy five years? 

  

Always Look on the Black Side of Life.

Having written two posts on June that were fairly cheerful I started to think of aspects in the month that got me going. After all, I'm not called Grumpy for nothing!

For instance, the idiot fat cats in the world never suffer in hard times. I noticed, there are 172 Civil Servants earning more than the Prime Minister. (£150,000 or more.) Plus more than 100 BBC staff also earn more than David Cameron. (The most senior executive, Carol Thomson earns £333,000 a year.)

Our chief executive of Derby City Council, Adam Wilkinson earns a mere £160,000 a year. Poor man, except that Kent County Council gave him severance pay of £365,000 when he quit as director of environment after twelve months. Justin King, chief executive of Sainsbury's received almost £8,000,000 last year. What a pity they recorded their worst growth in six years, lest some of my more affluent readers try to suggest such indecent bonuses, salaries and pensions are justified. The trend is that the salaries of directors of large companies are increasing whilst profits are decreasing. (BBC News, 4th July.)

The word effluence springs to mind rather than affluence. I notice a loaf of bread made in Nailsworth has up to a hundred customers in the Cotswolds despite costing £21 each. I'm not so sure about the sensibilities of that either in these austere times.

One can argue that one's money is yours to spend as you please, but is it that simple. Whilst half the world starves, Britain is in the middle of the worst depression for many decades and Cabestan, a Swiss company offer a watch for sale at £250,000. (The Scuderia Ferrari One.)

I think that what gets my goat, so to speak, is the hypocrisy of it all, big business and the rich purporting to care whilst continuing to profit massively in a troubled world. Not all company profits are decreasing. I noticed brewers Fuller, Smith and Turner showing great concern for the future. Well, it didn't stop your yearly profits being up 17% on the year, did it lads.

I've suffered several dodgy life threatening experiences over the last few years. So much so that I made a vow not to concern myself with things I can't change. Yet here I am, raving about stupid, greedy imbeciles who really don't deserve a minute of my time. So why do I do it? I refuse to read regularly either The Daily Express or The Daily Mail. What pathetic apologies for newspapers they are. Negative, subversive, biased, frankly unpleasant and pandering to their readers prejudices. It worries me that many, particularly the older generation like my mother in law are influenced by the propaganda of people with a hidden agenda. (I do of course recognise that The Sun wields great influence but I always assume, naively in all probability that most realise the Sun is a comic at heart.) If none of us ever read a newspaper ever again I doubt our lives would be too diminished. We need to know of the world beyond our immediate environment, but how much do we need to know in reality.

Is it paranoia or merely concern that makes me so het up at times. Many things in June besides 'fat cats' caught my eye. In Gloucester Cathedral flower arrangers have been told they must undergo Criminal Record Bureau checks. The usual PC rubbish. Plus the EU attempting to ban the sale of eggs by the dozen is mind bendingly dumb. A dozen is divisible by half, a quarter, a third, a sixth, try that, you metric lovers. I don't know what is worse, the interference or the stupidity.

The police had many, many chances to apprehend a rapist in London and failing to do so makes me angry and not a little sad. This alongside the case of Eddie Gilfoyle whose conviction for murder after eighteen years now seems highly suspect. The police failing to heed the written warning given when Raoul Moat was released from prison is enough to make even the fairest of individuals roar with frustration. (Yet the police had until recently a Home Office Adviser on red tape. Officially 'the independent reducing bureaucracy advocate'.)

France -Inter sacking comedians because they had the temerity to suggest Nicolas Sarkozy is a midget is pathetic but at least it's funny. Of course he is a midget. I too at five feet four am a midget. Of course you are a midget, Sarkozy, so deal with it, you power mad French fool.

Just some of life's irritations from the past weeks. All off my chest now! Do you get steamed up with the world out there or is it just me. And is it the same for my readers overseas? Same or similar problems? How do you cope with it all; I'd love to know.

This was to be the end of this miserable post. Except that I've just had four superb days in the Yorkshire Dales in the motorhome. Met a chap whose father is a lord. A chap without a bit of swagger or brag, what a lovely guy you are. Stayed once again on my favourite campsite, Cow Close Barn near Leyburn. 'Mike, the 'boss', affable and helpful as ever. Dad, Alec, not in the best of health but never one to let his problems affect others. Both utter charmers, plus their equally lovely, hard working wives; always a pleasure to meet again. Four days with my own smashing wife savouring the delights of great people and beautiful countryside. What the heck am I doing letting the idiots in the world get to me. You tell me!