"A beer and some convo"
Seems the local big theatre is struggling for cash after being badly run for ages. This was reported in the local paper.
But it seems certain other people see a reason beyond incompetent management as a reason for its difficulties.
Apparently God is smiting it as they were one of the venues wot put Jerry Springer The Opera on.
Yes that sounds more likely.
There was sad news this morning. It was on the news as “the government aren’t doing enough”.
There’s a pregnant woman horribly ill with flu. So ill she’s been flown to Sweden to have ECMO. The only place in the UK that does ECMO for adults is at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester. And she can’t go there as it’s full at the mo.
You may know that that’s where I used to work. One of the places I worked there was in ITU, where they did the ECMO.
Now the caveat: My info may well be old.
The main reason that there’s no other adult ECMO site in the UK is that it tended not to work well for adults. It’s great for newborns. It just doesn’t do well for adults. Have a look here and go to the leaflet at the bottom; it doesn’t even mention adults.
My first thought on hearing this news was “they’re keeping her alive long enough for the baby to grow to viable”. Would you want the NHS to spend huge amounts of cash for such a service? Is it really the government’s fault for not rolling out a treatment that’s not great, obscenely expensive and still in the research phase?
Again I hope that I’m missing a lot of work that’s been done over the last 7 years since I was there.
Fingers crossed for her.
And I don’t mean the politicians (although that’s conceivable too).
More the current ongoing public response to this ever so tedious public feeding frenzy about expenses.
Firstly, just how trivial is this news? The money involved is trifling, yes sort it out but do it and shut up. I hate to break it to the public of GB but we DO need politicians. We DON’T need public votes on everything. For heaven’s sake the public think Susan Boyle is worth voting as the most talented person in the UK. That should instantly disqualify those particular voters from having any say whatsoever on any substantive issues.
Can you imagine the chaos of a government actually led by the will of the people? The idiotic masses who thought that Princess Di was their closest and dearest friend and wept and wailed like Americans after being told to eat less cake? World War 3 would begin in no time. Civil strife would multiply and stupid petty idiootic concerns about personal life would rule all.
I can’t imagine a more horrific UK than one actually run by the voters.
Ok the MPs are idiots too. Some should maybe resign.
But ah, should they?
OK let’s look at the detail.
Let’s look at Elliott Morley eh? He used to be my MP. He claimed for a mortgage that he had already paid off. He’s resigning at the next election after years of public service as a local MP and junior minister. Years of poitical experience. Now I have no idea what the guy’s like, I don’t know him or any detail of his political views. BUT I’d rather he had a say than people who think McDonald’s is a fine place to “treat” their kids (but that’s another rant for another day).
According to the news he Mr Morley claimed £16000 over 18 months.
For this he may be investigated by the police/fraud squad. He’s resigning in a year or so too. I think that’s plenty don’t you?
Apparently many don’t think so.
Anger is such a stupid reason to do anything, see North Korea for a good example of what happens when you put angry idiots in charge.
So £16000. A decent amount of cash no? If he stays another year he’ll get let’s say another £60k or so in salary (as a backbencher).
Loads of people, in constituencies around the country, are demanding by-elections now. Again, anger – not a good reason to act!
So why is this a bad thing?
Well how much do you think a by-election will cost? Hm?
According to one report, about £200000 for a typical seat. So 3 times the amount.
To put a less experienced person in parliament. For a year. Only to repeat the process again in a year at the same cost again.
So if you want your anger to insist we have worse representation by less experienced people for a pointless amount of time for a large amount of money more, then I consider that counts as an idiotic viewpoint and you are clearly an idiot. The phrase “cutting your nose off to spite your face” was tailor made for idiots like you.
And if the people if the constituencies of those MPs who haven’t put in any dodgy expenses (shock horror, yes there are some, plenty in fact, shock horror again – but where do we hear of them? The Telegraph’s web page for instance has no link showing the clean MPs – but we wouldn’t expect the media to be fair now would we?) are also calling for those MPs to be put up for election then you sirs are even deeper fwits and deserve nothing but utter contempt heaped upon you. Nothing more prone to provoke a response of “you Joey” than the retards’ rallying cry of “They’re all the same – only in it for the trough”. Oh do shut the fup. Tedious, erroneus and only shows you up as a know nothing imbecile.
On a slightly different note. UK MPs even with these issues are still better than most politicians around the world. For instance did you know that MPs in Bulgaria and Russia (and probly others) are immune from prosecution from anything? Yes you read that correctly. MPs in these countries can murder, steal, defraud and so on with no official sanction and no legal recourse. I wonder if those MPs wangle their expenses as well.
People around the world are laughing at the pathetic inanity of our complaints re MPs.
Sort it out.
PS Have a look here.
There’s lots of MP’s names there. Therefore there’s loads of dodginess right?
Well for instance:
“Peter Ainsworth tried to charge nearly £1,000 for a “pewter finish” radiator cover on his expenses and was warned by the fees office that it could be excessive”
Ooh the viscious grasping soul. And horrifying to see that the parliamentary office allowed it….oh!
or
“Danny Alexander claimed £2,000 for work on kitchen and £2,000 for sofa and chairs. Also received £1,140 for the cost of alcoves, shelving and a desk for flat”
Oh no! He had some kitchen work done! Can anyone come up with any argument that this is excessive? In London? My windows in Leics were that much. And do we really want him to sit on the floor? Yes you can get cheaper furniture but it’s hardly excessive is it?
Buried deep in the article is
“Richard Benyon did not claim on his second homes allowance in 2007/08″
Not highlit at all.
Sigh.
So what’s been going on?
Had my birthday last week, harumph.
Had a couple of very nice meals out too. Thai at a place in Loughborough and an extremely nice steak somewhere north of Loughb. Thanks to Nicky for both of those tips.
Work’s been busy as usual.
Not really very exciting no.
News: Politicians fail to live up the high expectations we’ve always had of them (sarcasm assumed). Public whinge as if they’re surprised and they can’t believe it. People really do seem to innoculate themselves against reality don’t they?
Seen a couple of good progs on tellybox too.
The best one was some wotsit about the journey of the human species out of Africa and into the rest of the world. Am surprised that no-one has whinged publically that it’s all rubbish as the world is only 6000 years old and we were created as we are now anyway.
But there’s been some intriguing stuff. We left Africa via the Red Sea. It’s reckoned that this happened at a time when sea levels fell. Anyone else think there’s a possibility that the parting of the Red Sea myth from the Old Testament might be an ancient race memory thing?
And the Chinese – lawd bless em. They’re taught in school that they look different because they are special. The theory was that they grew from homo erectus. The evidence is scanty and the look of disappointment on the researcher’s face as he related discovering via genetics that this is baloney was priceless.
I do wonder why the need to specify a uniqueness. Isn’t their history and culture and land enough? Why do people need to be “better” than anyone else? I just can’t understand that drive.
Oh and just been watching “Yes Minister” again. It really is very good.
I saw a magic link today. Not sure I agree with its title though.
“25 Simple Habits That Make a Surprisingly Big Difference In Your Health”
We’ll have to ignore the poor grammar.
So what simple things will make a big difference?
The very first one is “exercise”. Ah right. They seem to be under the illusion that exercising more is in some way “easy”.
But oh no. Further down the list we get to:
“Don’t eat before bedtime”. How far before? Hours? Could be tricky.
Is nice to see “wear sunscreen” down there tho’.
But the whammy is “quit smoking”.
I really can’t believe they consider that “easy”. EH?
Never!
A few years ago when the gov were debating banning fox hunting a regular refrain from the pro-hunters was
“The amount of time being spent on this on parliament is disgraceful. Can’t we talk about more important matters?”
Despite it being they who were dragging it out, thus demonstrating that their question was dodgy at best.
Well now. The Tories come along and, despite having their best chance for election since 1979, try their best to smack down any lingering doubts over their sympathetic qualities. You know some of us were hoping that when they’re elected they’ll actually turn out to be better than we fear.
But now we can see that there’s been no change in their idiocy. Apparently they’ll allow a free vote on the hunting issue if they win the next election.
Come on guys. Some of us aren’t going to vote for you but we know you’re likely to get in whatever. Don’t be idiots bringing up pointlessly divisive issues again.
And apparently the argument that there’s been too much legislative time spent on this issue no longer applies.
[shakes head and wonders why people think politicians are out of touch]
Just back from my hols.
Found a very odd news story that seems to have blown up recently.
It’s the one about some minister asking for expenses to include a couple of movies on pay per view.
Now there’s a discussion to be had (maybe) about whether expenses can include such things but the story seems to have been reported really very oddly.
Here are some headlines from off of teh internetz:
“The Home Secretary’s husband apologises for embarrassing his wife over an adult films parliamentary expenses claim.” – BBC
“Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s husband has apologised for causing her embarrassment over an expenses claim which included adult films he watched” – Yahoo
“Blue movies on expenses: Jacqui Smith’s husband apologises for watching porn… paid for by the taxpayer” – Mail
Now it took me ages to figure out what on earth was going on here.
In all of the detail I saw it looked like there were 2 films of note. One being Ocean’s 13 and the other being “Surf’s Up” – the latter of which is PG rated in the UK. And Ocean’s 13 is a crime fillum nicht wahr?
So very very confused…
…for a while.
Talk about poor writing by the journalists involved. It took until the times website before I figured out it was 2 adult fillums plus these 2.
I think Charlie Brooker has it right when he talks about journalists getting worse as all they do is package up news wire copy and PR fluff nowadays.
But then it may also be that I’m tired.
Right then, the praying nurse. What do we think?
Everything about this story is bogus. It was put together by a “concerned” group of christian lawyers whose avowed aim seems to be to paint christians as victims as often as they possibly can in the national media. And reported mainly by the Mail which is trying to do the same.
The actual situation as far as I can gather it from various internets.
The nurse in question is a bank nurse. In other words she comes in to help out when the local services need the odd extra hand for whatever reason. The trust simply said they weren’t going to use her whilst an investigation was on-going – seems reasonable to me.
The actual incident – she asked an elderly patient if they would mind if she prayed for them. Said patient wrote to the trust saying that they didn’t mind but it’s a bit odd and maybe someone should have a word with her just in case she asked someone who really did mind one day.
So far so good. No complaint, no offence taken yet.
The crux though is that she’s got form. She had done it before and been complained about before. She’d been taken to one side and asked not to do it.
So what do the management do? She’s been asked nicely, she ignored the request. Some form of tedious martyrdom complex or just an idiot?
Anyways the Mail is happy as she’s got her job back (not that she ever lost it). I would assume it’s been re-iterated to her to keep her faith to herself rather than foisting it on weak and vulnerable people. In other words where she was before she waved her pants around on national media to get some sympathy for her non-existant cause.
I always thought the Mail was FOR people following the rules rather than just doing what they want regardless of how other people may feel about it.
But perhaps I’m a loony-left PC do-gooder.
So what would I think if a medic offered to pray for me?
Firstly I’d think, I’d rather you do something useful.
Second I’d remember that those who know someone is praying for them have been demonstrated to have worse outcomes than those who don’t know or aren’t being prayed for.
Thirdly I’d think, “blimey it must be serious” – and we know that mental health is vital to dealing with serious illness well.
Fourthly I’d think “If I say what I think, will I continue to get her best ministrations?”
And finally I’d think – I thought medicine was now supposed to be evidence based, where the staff know what works and what doesn’t – I wonder if the nurse has the nous to actually know a damn thing about what IS helpful for this problem.
But apparently all that just makes me intolerant. Whereas her being offended at the statement of my beliefs, and those of an awful lot of others (I’d hate to see what reaction one or two members of my family would have been had it been them involved), is a perfectly rational reaction and one that deserves sympathy.
And I’d love to know what her reaction would be if a pagan nurse offered to sacrifice a virgin for her (again I doubt that would be portrayed in quite the same sympathetic way by the media, despite both being as valid a method of dealing with physical illness as the other).
Oh my oh my.
I have just read the most amazing, most cynical comment I think ever.
But it does mean that for the second time in a week I have to agree with the government. Not necessarily in terms of how they’re dealing with something but more with their intent.
The new story is one of “Memory clinics” which is a bad name probably invented by media types who have no idea re medicine.
Anyway the point of these clinics (there’s to be one in every town) is to help with what will be the major health issue of the future. This is of course assuming that the Russians, Chinese, terrorists or weather don’t kill us first.
And that’s dementia. Evil medicine (you know, those nasty pharmaceutucals and non-alternative practitioners) has extended our lives really by quite a lot in the last century. But no-one’s quite sussed how to deal with the brain deteriorating yet.
So the government is doing its job and preparing for the future. At least I thought that was what the government’s job was.
But for some it seems not.
How many levels of wrongness are there in this example?
No doubt compulsory memory testing will be introduced and targets established.
More interference from this vile nannying government.
Wow!
Let’s just amend that example a little. How about moving the time scale back say 61 years.
Around that time was the formation of the NHS. We’ll say that the gov of the day suggested that there be say a hospital in every town that people could afford to use. Does the last letter now become:
No doubt compulsory health testing will be introduced and targets established.
More interference from this vile nannying government.
?
There really are some staggeringly dim people around. And they have the right to vote!
Oh and the letter I quoted was the 2nd most voted for one on the beeb’s message board about this topic.
Really very depressing.
Seems there is proper anger around today.
Some local fitters around North Lincolnshire have decided that EU citizens who aren’t British shouldn’t be allowed to work for a company owned by foreigners. Oh the actual work is in the UK.
Erm. Have they not heard of the EU? Have they not heard of globalism?
They may not like it but frankly hard luck. My sympathy with people like this is rapidly running out. The depressing thing is that people are supportive of their actions.
The foreign workers coming in are leaving their own families and coming to work for months at a time to provide money for them. But that’s not something these guys would do now is it?
When did we remain so infantile that we thought it was someone else’s business to make sure we had a job on our doorstep?
Get with the programme and find your own work. If your local companies lose out to foreign ones when tendering for business then figure out why and get your company to try and beat the foreign one in the tendering process.
It’s called business.
The only other option is socialism and that would have you up in arms at the lazy and feckless getting even more of your tax money than they do now.
Choose your system but don’t bloody whinge about it!
I’m beginning to think I hate British people.
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