Our Beloved NHS is Sixty

Oh, where to start.
The NHS isn’t perfect and it never promised to be but I’m sure there aren’t many who would disagree that it’s founding principles of free health care for all, regardless of background and circumstance, are principles worth holding on to.
All the main political parties, at each and every election, can be depended [...]

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“Apes and gorillas are people too”

I was curiously surprised when I read that the Spanish government is to give human rights to great apes.  Of course it’s good news for the marvellous hairy beasts in that they will be given protection from experimentation and exploitation.  Of course that protection should already be in place by way of their animal rights but if giving them human [...]

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On By-elections and Reptilian Humanoids

Interesting to hear that the Green party is to run against civil liberties martyr David Davis in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election campaign.  Green party candidate Shan Oakes will stand against him and this is very good thing indeedy.  She has a blog and her tag-line is . . . The real civil liberties candidate.
Yes, odd as it may [...]

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(Almost) Rants and Viewing Points

What’s that phrase they use about a week being a very long time in politics?  Oh yes, I remember.  It’s . . . a week is a very long time in politics. 
The same can be said about the news. 
I get my time on the pc and one of the first things I do is check out the news.  [...]

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Midsummer

What a gorgeous evening to celebrate Midsummer.  The sun has come out in her fine blazing glory in honour of her longest day’s work.  After tomorrow, her days will get shorter and shorter and then Winter will arrive. 
Here’s how this blog celebrated the solstice last year and as I can’t improve on that, I will just leave you with a [...]

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Stupid is as Stupid Does

I was astonished when I read this article.  Obecalp is a placebo designed for children.  Jennifer Buettner who’s company produced the drug said . . . “When drugs are not needed and the patient still thinks that medicine would help, we believe that the placebo effect can work,”
This is a staggeringly stupid comment!  No, Jennifer, when drugs [...]

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Movie Nights

I love movies.  I don’t do TV, not much.  I enjoy political shows, comedies and nature programmes but I have zero tolerance for stuff like reality TV, tiresome soaps and those live chat shows where Average Joe goes on TV and exposes all his private business to the world.  I have to confess though that for the first time [...]

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Qualifications, Job Skills AND Compassion?

The government wants nurses to be rated by their kindness.  They are to be measured and marked by how much compassion and empathy they show towards their patients . .  and by how much they smile.  Health secretary, Alan Johnson wants nursing teams across the NHS to be scored and the results displayed on a website.  [...]

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Another Final

My son, gutted the other week because he wasn’t awarded the rugby player-of-the-year trophy, is determined to be the champion of something!  He has now been entered for the schools Sports Stacking competition.  He got the record speed stacking time in his school and will go on to represent Year three in a local competition.
I’d never heard of [...]

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Renewable Energy: the power of the human body

The End of Cheap Oil and the Rise of the Scythe

Originally posted on You Tube by Kaivido
Quaintly out-dated?  A bit antiquated?  Well, we might think we can look back fondly on those days of heavy labour and hard graft from the techno-safety of our retrospective armchairs but it’s not so far-fetched to believe that in this age of rising oil [...]

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Excuse Me! Are we invisible?

So asketh the Church according to St. England. 
I’ve been catching up with the news and was amused to see that the Church of England is sulking because it thinks the government is favouring Islam.  Ah bless.  My kids do this too.  They carry out all kinds of attention-seeking antics when they feel that I’m paying more attention to one of their siblings.  Well [...]

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My Wonderful Plan and other things

Sheesh guys!  I go away for a while to get ready for the reunion today and this place turns into ghost land.  The only hits I’m getting are generated from that new automatically-generated thingy that WordPress added recently.  Even the spammers have lost interest.
Anyway, to bring you up-to-date and make sure you haven’t forgotten me, [...]

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Classroom Pets: Loved to Death?

According to this article in today’s Guardian, the RSPCA has said that having animals in classrooms regularly handled by the children may be harmful to the creatures.  Now I’m sure there are many who will be saying this is just more pc gone crazy or that it’s a health and safety policy too far but all things considered [...]

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Show and Tell: Cuppa-time

Misslionheart tagged me earlier this week and in true EP spirit, I’m only just getting round to playing.  I’m not really sure what the game is but there’s a picture of a coffee mug on her post so if I’m guessing right, all I need to do is take a picture of my favourite coffee/tea mug and post it [...]

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On Reunions and Happy Days!

I’m busy making a movie . . . of sorts. 
I’m having a reunion with a bunch of friends.  Most of them are now scattered across the country and two of them live in the States so we don’t get together as much as we’d like to.  We’ve all known each other since we were eleven years old and [...]

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