UK Winter Fuel Anomaly

1949 was quite a year – RCA perfected a system for broadcasting colour television, the first Polaroid camera was sold, as was the first commercially available computer, the Ferranti Mark1. China became a Communist state, and Russia officially had the nuclear bomb. Of course, there were happier events as well taking place, such as the births of over 700,000 babies, among them yours truly. Anyone with a liking for maths will have worked out that those of us who have survived until now will have reached the big 6-0. Great stuff! I had been looking forward for ages to getting my free bus allowance, and my winter fuel payment. I received my bus pass okay, but the Winter Fuel Payment is only given if you are 60 or over before ‘the qualifying week’ for the winter concerned. The qualifying week always begins on the third Monday of September. It is not given either to those who have the misfortune of being in hospital, during the qualifying week, and have been there for over a year, or to those who have the good fortune of being guests in one of Her Majesty’s penal establishments. As I was born in November (I celebrated my first Guy Fawkes bonfire when I was a day old), I obviously do not qualify to receive the above mentioned payment this year. Why is there this anomaly in the system? Are those of us born after the third Monday in September more hot blooded? I think not. It’s all to do with money; filthy lucre for the Government of the day. There are around 203,000 folk this year who are not eligible for the payment, which, at £250 per head, translates into £50,750,000 for the Treasury. That should be enough spare cash to install extra radiators in some MPs’ flats, or to heat their ducks’ pools.

On a happier note, I received an email from Chris Fox, well known and respected internet marketer, a couple of days ago, in which he gave me details of a free report entitled “Google Launch Grip”. It’s actually a fully blown system that you could start using TODAY! It’s available by clicking here

Quite POSSIBLY one of the SIMPLEST techniques I have ever come across to reach thousands of visitors.... you’re going to be amazed out how EASY this tactic is to implement...

Police, Nurses, and Red Tape

Those overpaid guys and gals in Westminster, who masquerade as the UK Government, seem to really have lost their marbles this week. They will announce today that all new nurses will need to be educated to degree level in an attempt to improve the quality of patient care. The move, which will be enforced from 2013, is designed to raise the status of nursing and to end the stigma of the “doctor’s helper” Actually, as far as I can see, the nurses have been carrying out a few of the doctors’ duties for some considerable time now. It seems that anyone who wishes to become a nurse will need to have a degree within four years, in one of the biggest shake-ups of medical education in the history of the NHS. There are more than 400,000 nurses in the NHS, making up the largest part of the country’s health workforce. At the moment, the minimum level for NHS trainee nursing positions is a diploma — a two or three-year nursing course.

If this new recommendation is implemented, with all nurses required to obtain a degree, I would think that the standard of proper nursing would actually decline, instead of showing an improvement. A lot of folk who would make excellent nurses because of their temperament and caring attitude will look for other types of work if they feel that they cannot cope with studying for degree exams, or that their brain power is simply not geared up for it. Some will also be put off by the prospect of a long and expensive period of study. For those who are not suited to the nursing profession, but who would study for, and receive the degree, we could be facing a scenario where some of them would feel themselves to be above carrying out mundane tasks, and to be “too clever to care”, refusing to carry out duties such as washing and feeding patients and helping them to the lavatory etc.

In a somewhat similar situation, I’ve managed to help quite a few folk over the years in learning a new language, but I am not allowed to teach it in schools, simply because I don’t have a degree. Do all those who have gained degrees make excellent, or even good, teachers? I think not. There are thousands of teachers in our schools who are simply not suited to the job. They are brainy enough, sometimes brilliant, in fact, but they cannot impart their knowledge to others. We could, and indeed will have, the same kind of situation in our hospitals and health centres. I reckon the old saying is still true – that nurses are born, not made.

Now to something which concerns our policemen, and which is definitely more bizarre. The official Police Cycle Training Doctrine is soon to be published – pamphlets in 2 volumes, containing 93 pages -- the cost of which is estimated at thousands of pounds. It will include such nuggets of information as how to balance on a bike so they don’t fall off, how to stop and get off it safely, how to brake and avoid obstacles such as rocks and kerbs. It even advises bobbies not to tackle suspects while they are “still engaged with the cycle”. I feel a sitcom is definitely in order – I’ll even supply the signature tune for free:- “Ride we gaily, on we go; Plod on bike, with thief in tow.”

Back to the Health Service for an example of some of the stupid rules that have crept into everyday life in Britain. Visitors to the Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax were asked not to coo at, stare at, or ask too many questions of newborn babies in the maternity ward – on the grounds that—wait for this – it could infringe the babies’ right to privacy! What on earth was I going to ask a one day old child – his bank details? In the meantime, the Children’s Index is a data base which brings together all sorts of information on our nation’s children, and which is available to 400,000 doctors, social workers, and other officers of the state. It follows that you are not allowed to coo at babies for fear of invading their privacy, but it’s fine for the Government to give out details of a child’s health and education records to 400,000 public sector staff. Writing this has so infuriated me that I’m away to phone Gordon Brown to see if it’s okay to have my dose of Diazepam (Valium) earlier than usual.

MPs, Cats, and Spiders

It’s good to be back in cyberspace after an absence of 8 weeks, due to my computer contracting some kind of virus which sadly turned out to be terminal. Fortunately, it wasn’t transmitted to the person sitting in front of the screen, so I’ve survived, and as you can see, I have set up another machine that will have to put up with my rantings for the foreseeable future.

Quite a lot has been happening over those weeks – the expenses row in Westminster surfaced again, MPs are to be banned from employing their close relatives to type out their missives and fetch their favourite biscuits, and the leader of the BNP was allowed to appear on Question Time. Shock and horror was expressed by the newspapers, trying to outdo each other in condemning John “Nick” Griffin, the BNP leader. Now, I’m certainly opposed to what that party stands for, but the scenes outside the BBC on the night in question were deplorable. We had the usual sort of mob, baying for blood, all with their own hidden, and sometimes weird, agendas. Some of those are members of the mainstream parties, whose leaders are allowed on most platforms, although their conduct leaves a lot to be desired at times. Britain, as far as I’m aware, is still supposed to be a democracy, so we should all have the right to express our opinions.

After the hype over the past couple of days over the 10 new nuclear stations that the Government says we need, there is widespread speculation as to how many of them will ever actually get off the ground. It seems that the Government is forcing potential nuclear investors, such as Centrica, EDF, EON, Scottish Power etc to take on full exposure to the risks of construction. Ongoing prices will be so volatile that they could easily cripple any of those large utility companies financially. Some of those companies are in debt anyway, and having to sell off assets such as their electricity networks to pay it off. Other governments across the world are also sanctioning new stations, and offering good subsidies, so it would seem likely that companies would prefer to do business with them, rather than with Britain.

On a lighter note, I’ve been fascinated for some time by some of the weird laws that exist in countries world wide, but it was only recently that I realized that our own country passes hundreds, nay, thousands of regulations and edicts each year, some of which are just about impossible to understand, even after having had a dictionary for breakfast. I might just mention a few of them here in the months ahead.

ASBOs (Anti-social Behavior Orders) were supposed to cure all ills in neighbourhoods, but some of them are completely absurd. Take the car thief from Manchester who received an ASBO forbidding him to walk or cycle anywhere in the city unless accompanied by his sister or mother. It did not ban him from stealing or driving cars. The poor guy – as he was banned from walking or cycling, it’s only logical that he should go out and nick the nearest available car. Then there was the woman from Kilbride who was given an ASBO denying her the right to answer the door in her underwear. It was okay, presumably, to strip everything off, and answer it in her birthday dress.

I mentioned at the beginning that my computer had been down for a while, so to pass some of the time, I enrolled in fiddle classes. It’s probably not a very bright idea at my age, but it has had a nice side effect. The classes are fine, but a lot of practice is needed at home as well. This has resulted in a lot of moaning and screeching sounds being heard in the vicinity of my humble abode, and cats of every make and model, that used to stare malevolently at me as I did my bit to save the birds, are to be seen no more. They have all fled; had enough, it seems. Likewise, my spider friends prefer to stay in their nooks and crannies, instead of taking their usual evening constitutional. The moral here seems to be simple – for those of you who are scared of the little creatures, get down to your local music shop, and invest in a fiddle.