A bit of an ironic laugh, it's true, but I thought I would share it with you all.
At last Gordon Brown decided to throw the towel in and resign. His cabinet colleagues decided it would be a worthy gesture to name a railway locomotive after him.
So a senior 'Sir Humphrey' went from Whitehall to the National Railway Museum at York, to investigate the possibilities.
"They have a number of locomotives at the NRM without names," a specially-sought consultant told the top civil servant. "Mostly freight locomotives though."
"Oh dear, that's not very fitting for a prime minister," said Sir Humphrey. "How about that big green one, over there ?" he said, pointing to 4472 Flying Scotsman.
"That's already got a name" said the consultant. "It's called 'Flying Scotsman'."
"Oh. Couldn't it be renamed ?" asked Sir Humphrey. "This is a national museum after all, funded by the taxpayer."
"I suppose it might be considered," said the consultant. "After all the LNER renamed a number of their locomotives after directors of the company, and even renamed one of them Dwight D Eisenhower."
"That's excellent", said Sir Humphrey, "So that's settled then...let's look at renaming 4472. But how much will it cost ? We can't spend too much, given the expenses scandal !"
"Well", said the consultant, "Why don't we just paint out the 'F'?"
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
More tales from the benefit queue
Has the Department for Work and Pensions run out of money for paying benefits? I'm left wondering. For the second time in a month, my ESA has failed to arrive in my bank account on the due date. The last time it happened, I called the DWP and was told ' it's a national computer problem - we don't know why or what causes it'. They said they knew about my missed payment and had already manually rescheduled the payment. It arrived 5 days late.
I asked what would happen if I had no money whatever and could not fall back on savings till the money was in my account. "You can go to your Job Centre and get a crisis loan". Oh yes, more bureaucracy.
WHY is this happening? WHY are people who rely on benefits to pay bills and feed themselves, be treated in such a throwaway manner? What are the problems with the payments system and when are they going to be fixed - Yvette Cooper you should tell us, it's your ship and your watch!
I also received the paperwork about my ESA appeal. When I read what the so-called health professional said I was incredulous. Was this the same medical assessment I attended or did this report talk about someone else?
For instance, one part of the medical assessment procedure referred to my ability to squat and kneel. I can kneel and get up again only with difficulty because of pain in my knees. I demonstrated at that assessment that I could only kneel and get up by leaning on the furniture and not taking all the weight on my knees. I also said I could not squat or sit cross legged at all. In the report I was stated as having no problems with these movements.
On my original form, I had left a number of boxes blank - probably due to the depressed state I was in. The assessment did not re-visit those questions, it simply made assumptions about the answers.
Statements were made about my hypothyroidism which demonstrated clearly that the assessor had no detailed knowledge about this condition, its symptoms or its effects and therefore was inadequately qualified to make any accurate assessment of my ability to work. She was a nurse, not an endocrinologist, or even a GP. The vet I take my cat to would have done a more competent assessment.
The most telling part of the whole report was the part that replied to my challenge that the assessor was incompetent to do the job, that it was not necessary to have a doctor's qualification to become an assessor making judgements about someone's ability to work. How long before we return to having butchers as NHS surgeons to save money?
I asked what would happen if I had no money whatever and could not fall back on savings till the money was in my account. "You can go to your Job Centre and get a crisis loan". Oh yes, more bureaucracy.
WHY is this happening? WHY are people who rely on benefits to pay bills and feed themselves, be treated in such a throwaway manner? What are the problems with the payments system and when are they going to be fixed - Yvette Cooper you should tell us, it's your ship and your watch!
I also received the paperwork about my ESA appeal. When I read what the so-called health professional said I was incredulous. Was this the same medical assessment I attended or did this report talk about someone else?
For instance, one part of the medical assessment procedure referred to my ability to squat and kneel. I can kneel and get up again only with difficulty because of pain in my knees. I demonstrated at that assessment that I could only kneel and get up by leaning on the furniture and not taking all the weight on my knees. I also said I could not squat or sit cross legged at all. In the report I was stated as having no problems with these movements.
On my original form, I had left a number of boxes blank - probably due to the depressed state I was in. The assessment did not re-visit those questions, it simply made assumptions about the answers.
Statements were made about my hypothyroidism which demonstrated clearly that the assessor had no detailed knowledge about this condition, its symptoms or its effects and therefore was inadequately qualified to make any accurate assessment of my ability to work. She was a nurse, not an endocrinologist, or even a GP. The vet I take my cat to would have done a more competent assessment.
The most telling part of the whole report was the part that replied to my challenge that the assessor was incompetent to do the job, that it was not necessary to have a doctor's qualification to become an assessor making judgements about someone's ability to work. How long before we return to having butchers as NHS surgeons to save money?
Friday, August 21, 2009
Justice but not revenge
On December 21st 1988 I was sitting watching television in the small cottage I was renting near Knutsford to the west of Manchester. It wasn’t far from Manchester airport and the aircraft traffic was a ‘feature’ of the location, both low flying craft in and out of Manchester, and higher aircraft on the way elsewhere. The lower flying ones seemed about to land on the roof when the wind was in certain directions.
Later that evening, news started to come in of a disastrous air crash. A plane Pan Am flight 103 headed for New York JFK had come down on the town of Lockerbie near the Scottish border. Houses had been destroyed and many killed and maimed on the ground as well as the loss of all those on the flight.
In the aftermath, a plan of the route that the plane took to where it crashed from its take off at Heathrow was published. I realised that the Pan Am flight COULD have flown over me and I’ve always remembered that evening.
Looking at Wikipedia today, the flight information seems a little confused. It says that the take off was to the northwest and the flight then turned due north over Daventry in the West Midlands towards Scotland. That route would not have taken it over Lockerbie and would have been anomalous for a plane that had to check in with Prestwick air control before leaving Scottish airspace for the Atlantic crossing.
So, lets say that instead of crashing into a Scottish village, the bomb had been detonated earlier and it had crashed on me instead.
I would not have wanted my friends and relatives to prevent or speak against my killer spending his last agonising days at home. We put people in prison as much because they are a public threat as a punishment. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi isn’t much of a public threat in his condition. We have yet to see how Libya will deal with him, but they are keen to renew links with a world that has shunned them. They want and need to build their economy with western links and technology. Perhaps he should be under house arrest for his remaining days so that there can be no suggestion that he could possibly plot further atrocities.
There is another aspect too. If Al Megrahi had been kept in the UK, we would have had to care for him using NHS resources. There are British people who are dying because the NHS refuses them drugs which could help their condition – allegedly on grounds of cost. Isn’t it better that whatever care he gets now is paid for by the Libyan Government and his family and not out of our pockets?
I would like to say that I also support the compassionate release of Ronald Biggs. He had already been moved to a hospital outside the prison and was under a totally unnecessary 24-hour guard. He can’t walk and is being fed via a stomach tube. Does it really matter where he spends his last few days. He has now been moved to a care home close to where his son lives.
We are supposed to be a civilised society. There are British people languishing in jails in various parts of the world, including Islamic countries. Some of them have allegedly not had fair trials. If we are to ask honestly for clemency and humane and fair treatment for them, it is right that we let this dying man go back to Libya and that is something that America seems to have forgotten. Keeping Al Megrahi in prison in Scotland would not have brought loved ones back. Putting people in prison is supposed to be about justice, not revenge.
POSTSCRIPT
This last paragraph has been in the post since first publication, but it seems that commenters are not giving it any consideration or are just not reading the whole post. So I'm highlighting it. Unless the contents are personally abusive or obscene, I will publish all comments regardless of the point of view.
============================================================
I ask would be commenters to put themselves in the position where THEIR loved one is in jail in a foreign country and terminally ill. What would you really want to happen to them?
============================================================
Later that evening, news started to come in of a disastrous air crash. A plane Pan Am flight 103 headed for New York JFK had come down on the town of Lockerbie near the Scottish border. Houses had been destroyed and many killed and maimed on the ground as well as the loss of all those on the flight.
In the aftermath, a plan of the route that the plane took to where it crashed from its take off at Heathrow was published. I realised that the Pan Am flight COULD have flown over me and I’ve always remembered that evening.
Looking at Wikipedia today, the flight information seems a little confused. It says that the take off was to the northwest and the flight then turned due north over Daventry in the West Midlands towards Scotland. That route would not have taken it over Lockerbie and would have been anomalous for a plane that had to check in with Prestwick air control before leaving Scottish airspace for the Atlantic crossing.
So, lets say that instead of crashing into a Scottish village, the bomb had been detonated earlier and it had crashed on me instead.
I would not have wanted my friends and relatives to prevent or speak against my killer spending his last agonising days at home. We put people in prison as much because they are a public threat as a punishment. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi isn’t much of a public threat in his condition. We have yet to see how Libya will deal with him, but they are keen to renew links with a world that has shunned them. They want and need to build their economy with western links and technology. Perhaps he should be under house arrest for his remaining days so that there can be no suggestion that he could possibly plot further atrocities.
There is another aspect too. If Al Megrahi had been kept in the UK, we would have had to care for him using NHS resources. There are British people who are dying because the NHS refuses them drugs which could help their condition – allegedly on grounds of cost. Isn’t it better that whatever care he gets now is paid for by the Libyan Government and his family and not out of our pockets?
I would like to say that I also support the compassionate release of Ronald Biggs. He had already been moved to a hospital outside the prison and was under a totally unnecessary 24-hour guard. He can’t walk and is being fed via a stomach tube. Does it really matter where he spends his last few days. He has now been moved to a care home close to where his son lives.
We are supposed to be a civilised society. There are British people languishing in jails in various parts of the world, including Islamic countries. Some of them have allegedly not had fair trials. If we are to ask honestly for clemency and humane and fair treatment for them, it is right that we let this dying man go back to Libya and that is something that America seems to have forgotten. Keeping Al Megrahi in prison in Scotland would not have brought loved ones back. Putting people in prison is supposed to be about justice, not revenge.
POSTSCRIPT
This last paragraph has been in the post since first publication, but it seems that commenters are not giving it any consideration or are just not reading the whole post. So I'm highlighting it. Unless the contents are personally abusive or obscene, I will publish all comments regardless of the point of view.
============================================================
I ask would be commenters to put themselves in the position where THEIR loved one is in jail in a foreign country and terminally ill. What would you really want to happen to them?
============================================================
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Art in times of trouble
That, or something similar was the title of a TV programme I watched tonight while I enjoyed a simple supper of omelette and chunky potato fries (rustic oven chips to my Brit audience).
It made me think about how I value my eyesight, and how driven my own world is by the visual image, especially since a friend of mine is losing his sight. I cannot imagine a more visually driven person. Whenever he calls me his first words are usually, ‘Jenny, you just MUST look at this website” He is so disappointed if he happens to catch me away from my PC screen so I can’t instantly respond with equal enthusiasm to what has inspired him, or my PC is on a go slow and I can't get to what he is looking at fast enough.
I cannot imagine how I would respond in the situation that someone said the awful words "You are going blind", but I know I would be angry. Angry that medical science couldn’t intervene to save my sight, but most of all angry that there was so much of the world that I HAVEN’T seen - from places in the UK to active volcanoes in Hawaii, and so many works of art only ever seen as tiny pictures in a book or at best, computer screen sized.
A few years ago, as a birthday treat, my (now estranged) husband took me to an art exhibition.Monet’s paintings were on show in London and such was the enthusiasm to see them, the gallery was open all night. We went in at 1am and for me, time stopped. I had never realised that the canvasses that were so familiar to me were so HUGE. A couple of years later, we visited Monet’s home at Giverny where those paintings were born, and I had the same sense of wonder, all over again.
The art programme I watched showed paintings from miners whose work created over 50 years ago reflected their toil in the mines and their lives above ground. Images of chimneys, yes, and big families, smoky pubs and things you would expect, but also a wonderful one of two men with their racing whippets.
It also showed the paintings that were stored in the same mines during the war while London was being bombed and discussed whether money spent on publicly owned art is a good social investment. In the news this week was the story about paintings previously owned by banks who were bailed out by the Government. Certainly we have the right to see those works, since our taxes saved them from being sold to pay off some of the debts. A free exhibition please.
I'm not putting links to any images in this post. If you have to go and look for them for yourselves, it might make you remember them better.
It was a very different image that inspired and lifted me today. I am helping with my sailing club’s junior training week. A dozen or so youngsters from as young as nine are learning to sail in the sheltered waters of Chichester Harbour. My job today was to drive the club's 21ft launch 'Sinbad' which acted as a ‘mother ship’ and I was helped by Fiona, the mother of two of the children.
She didn’t have a camera on board, but I got some shots on my mobile phone of Eve and Ralph as they zoomed past us in a lively breeze. I realised later that I had just missed the shot I really wanted because Eve turned her head to look at her sail. The sheer joy of achievement in her expression will stay with me for a very long time, as will the happy smiles of the ones who came alongside us with the instructor, and swapped places with others waiting their turn. Those smiles stuck, even after the inevitable upside-down moments.
It is ironic that today’s society is so evil thinking that I can’t share those pictures with you all and really need to delete them after I have transferred them on a memory stick for Fiona, just in case someone wonders why I have them on my phone. What a sad world that I can’t keep them and let them brighten a dark winter day in the future when creeping age and creaky bones have put an end to my own active sailing.
It made me think about how I value my eyesight, and how driven my own world is by the visual image, especially since a friend of mine is losing his sight. I cannot imagine a more visually driven person. Whenever he calls me his first words are usually, ‘Jenny, you just MUST look at this website” He is so disappointed if he happens to catch me away from my PC screen so I can’t instantly respond with equal enthusiasm to what has inspired him, or my PC is on a go slow and I can't get to what he is looking at fast enough.
I cannot imagine how I would respond in the situation that someone said the awful words "You are going blind", but I know I would be angry. Angry that medical science couldn’t intervene to save my sight, but most of all angry that there was so much of the world that I HAVEN’T seen - from places in the UK to active volcanoes in Hawaii, and so many works of art only ever seen as tiny pictures in a book or at best, computer screen sized.
A few years ago, as a birthday treat, my (now estranged) husband took me to an art exhibition.Monet’s paintings were on show in London and such was the enthusiasm to see them, the gallery was open all night. We went in at 1am and for me, time stopped. I had never realised that the canvasses that were so familiar to me were so HUGE. A couple of years later, we visited Monet’s home at Giverny where those paintings were born, and I had the same sense of wonder, all over again.
The art programme I watched showed paintings from miners whose work created over 50 years ago reflected their toil in the mines and their lives above ground. Images of chimneys, yes, and big families, smoky pubs and things you would expect, but also a wonderful one of two men with their racing whippets.
It also showed the paintings that were stored in the same mines during the war while London was being bombed and discussed whether money spent on publicly owned art is a good social investment. In the news this week was the story about paintings previously owned by banks who were bailed out by the Government. Certainly we have the right to see those works, since our taxes saved them from being sold to pay off some of the debts. A free exhibition please.
I'm not putting links to any images in this post. If you have to go and look for them for yourselves, it might make you remember them better.
It was a very different image that inspired and lifted me today. I am helping with my sailing club’s junior training week. A dozen or so youngsters from as young as nine are learning to sail in the sheltered waters of Chichester Harbour. My job today was to drive the club's 21ft launch 'Sinbad' which acted as a ‘mother ship’ and I was helped by Fiona, the mother of two of the children.
She didn’t have a camera on board, but I got some shots on my mobile phone of Eve and Ralph as they zoomed past us in a lively breeze. I realised later that I had just missed the shot I really wanted because Eve turned her head to look at her sail. The sheer joy of achievement in her expression will stay with me for a very long time, as will the happy smiles of the ones who came alongside us with the instructor, and swapped places with others waiting their turn. Those smiles stuck, even after the inevitable upside-down moments.
It is ironic that today’s society is so evil thinking that I can’t share those pictures with you all and really need to delete them after I have transferred them on a memory stick for Fiona, just in case someone wonders why I have them on my phone. What a sad world that I can’t keep them and let them brighten a dark winter day in the future when creeping age and creaky bones have put an end to my own active sailing.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Weasel words to the front line
At this moment I have less respect for the British Government and our Prime Minister than I have ever had.
Gordon Brown's assurances that British troops in Afghanistan are adequately equipped stands starkly against statements of the most senior military personnel that have emerged in the last few days.
Mr Brown clearly realises that he is up against a wall here, and it would have been impossible for him to directly admit that he has ignored military pleas for more money and more equipment. However he could have at least said that he took on board what was said and would listen to the people who are in command in Afghanistan and also to the families who are bearing the grief of loss.
There are those too who wonder exactly what the conflict in Afghanistan is supposed to achieve. Some may even feel that this is a war by the 'Christian' western world on Islam especially since George Bush spoke of it in a term they find repugnant - as a crusade. I'm not hearing enough of what I would like to hear which is that the people of Afghanistan themselves want us to help them fight against extremists in their own country.
If Britain and America are to continue to have support for this conflict, they must clarify and publicise their aims and ensure that they are aims that are achievable and that the whole of our population can be comfortable with.
This is NOT expressing any lack of support for the troops themselves which is a very different thing. If our Government are going to ask our armed forces to go and engage in wars and conflicts for whatever reason, those troops have a total right to be properly equipped.
They also have the right to speak out if they believe that their comrades are dying unnecessarily because someone here wants to cut budgets, and so do the bereaved families. I salute those who have chosen to put their lives on the line for world peace and security.
I don't want to hear any more excuses and lies and face saving from our PM and members of the Government, I want to hear promises that they will do everything they can to ensure our armed forces in Afghanistan get the equipment THEY say they need.
Gordon Brown's assurances that British troops in Afghanistan are adequately equipped stands starkly against statements of the most senior military personnel that have emerged in the last few days.
Mr Brown clearly realises that he is up against a wall here, and it would have been impossible for him to directly admit that he has ignored military pleas for more money and more equipment. However he could have at least said that he took on board what was said and would listen to the people who are in command in Afghanistan and also to the families who are bearing the grief of loss.
There are those too who wonder exactly what the conflict in Afghanistan is supposed to achieve. Some may even feel that this is a war by the 'Christian' western world on Islam especially since George Bush spoke of it in a term they find repugnant - as a crusade. I'm not hearing enough of what I would like to hear which is that the people of Afghanistan themselves want us to help them fight against extremists in their own country.
If Britain and America are to continue to have support for this conflict, they must clarify and publicise their aims and ensure that they are aims that are achievable and that the whole of our population can be comfortable with.
This is NOT expressing any lack of support for the troops themselves which is a very different thing. If our Government are going to ask our armed forces to go and engage in wars and conflicts for whatever reason, those troops have a total right to be properly equipped.
They also have the right to speak out if they believe that their comrades are dying unnecessarily because someone here wants to cut budgets, and so do the bereaved families. I salute those who have chosen to put their lives on the line for world peace and security.
I don't want to hear any more excuses and lies and face saving from our PM and members of the Government, I want to hear promises that they will do everything they can to ensure our armed forces in Afghanistan get the equipment THEY say they need.
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