When does choice matter?

So ... in every competitive business sector you have to find the edge, that factor which will set you apart from your rivals to make your service, what you deliver that little bit different ...

... poor quality photograph taken in 2001 in T-or-C ... there is actually a sign in the frame which promises 'Cremation with a difference ...'

... what the difference was we never determined ... well, what are you going to do ?

... 'We were just driving by, and saw your intriguing offer ...
... 'No, no-one is dead ... but if the service offered is as tantalising as you indicate ... well ... I am feeling a tad queasy ... so, you never know ...

Dancing ponies? Random explosive in every fifth service? Free lottery tickets?

... whatever it was ... there was promise of a difference ...

It's the same with elections ...

There is a choice to be made ... and the electorate must make it ...

... but not all do ... many, to many voice the opinion of 'it makes no difference', especially those who retain the blush of youth ... (which is anyone under 35 yrs from my perspective, but let's round that down by a decade) ...

... thing is, all politicians fundamentally disregard the 18 - 25 vote because they CAN ... because they KNOW that HUGE sector of the electorate is damned by their own media induced apathy to not partake in the event that will change their lives and their younger siblings and grandparents live for the next 10 - 20 years ...

... it is the same every election ... politicians will never pay heed to any large sector of society which does not vote ... END of discussion

So ... it doesn't matter who you vote for ... that is the whole point of a democracy ... even if/when Chairman May is reinstated, this is not relevant ...

... what matters is that your vote is cast ...

The argument is put forward that wars were fought for the right to exercise your vote, and ones of those rights is not to vote ...
... well actually ... having had 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation antecedents all of whom were politely but firmly invited by the relevant HM Govt of the day to explore the exciting possibilities of European or Middle Eastern long-stay vacations, with as much tinned bully-beef, lice and shrapnel as they wanted, and then some ...
... and talked at length with them over their experiences of war and expectations of peace ... the one thing that appeared clear and consistent in all discussion was ... 'We did not sit up to our necks in mud and sand and death for so many years just for you to sit on your arse and spout drivel about 'doing nothing being a choice' ...

Vote tactically

Vote blindly

Vote using a coin toss

Vote having carefully weighed all the issues and manifesto claims, with due and diligent research and contemplation ... well, someone might ...

Just VOTE

When is a business not a business ... (this is not a trick question) ...

... so can Healthcare be a business ? ...

... for anyone outside of the United Kingdom (never was a nation so misnamed ) evidently the answer is 'Yes' ... but is it really? ...

... healthcare = the provision of service for the protection, improvement, maintenance, or, sadly in some cases, the reduction in degradation of the health of the individual ...

... that in itself is not a business ... it is an aspiration ... a basic human desire to care and provide succour for those in need and suffering ... this has been a demonstrable and recorded cornerstone of societies since the dawn of mankind ...

... and whilst socio-economics was established on the local goat-standard and medical science did not extend beyond willow-bark and trepanning everything was fine ...

... then some bright spark (who maybe had no viable inherent skill or talent) instigated the concept of a cash based economy ... and matters rapidly escalated from there ...

... so now we have a social health care model within G.B. plc that is anything but ...

... health care is financed so that is 'free at the point of need' and is delivered equitably and without means testing of the individual ...

... but the default status therein is that social health care is for all, a true socialist model (with a small silent 's'), and is not designed for the specific individual ...

... the difference between 'made to measure' and 'off the peg' ...

... so if the service is for all then you takes a ticket and you waits in line ...

... if you are in acute, life-threatening need that you jumps the queue ... otherwise you waits ...

... but then we run into the brick wall mentality of ' well, I never need healthcare so why should I pay a greater tax burden to no benefit to myself, after all, A&E are just full of obese dunkards ne'er-do-wells and NHS hospitals are rife with superbugs ... I know this because I read in the newspaper ... saw it on TV ...' ...

Hmmm

Problem is ... when the unlikely event of anyone requiring acute life-saving treatment occurs ... the individual is very unlikely to be able to afford the true cost of their immediate care and ongoing, often life time, after care ...

... all private health care insurance plans are a gamble (that is after all what insurance is ... a high stakes financial flutter) ... based on premise that the majority will not claim ensuring there is sufficient in the pot for the shareholders, the executive dividends ... and the few unlucky souls who need a pay out ...

... so we have a choice ... all pay in together, and unlucky souls take out ...

... or all, who have the income to do so pay in, and the unlucky souls in that much smaller pool take out ...

... and those outside the pool ... well like all fish removed from their natural environment ... thay flounder and gasp

Never mind - there is always the witch-hazel

Monster Mog

So after many years of scrimping and saving, and an ace-high straight over three-of-a-kind (thank you Lady Fate), I finally have sufficient spare cash to acquire a monster mog of my very own ...

We had a Maine Coon in our student house in the early '80s (back when dinosaurs had recently left the planet) ... he just wandered in off the street one day ... red tabby with feet like pontoons and a tail that swept the picture rail ... ate everything in sight and required us to padlock the fridge ... and if you have never seen a cat work through a left-over vindaloo with a look of grim determination on his face ("I have started and I will FINISH ...") then you do not know what entertainment is ...

Big Red, as he was titled by all (well, except a housemate from Burnley who took great delight in discovering he could use the term 'Coon' legitimately ... he's now a leading light of UKIP ...), was typical of the breed in being completely atypical as a feline ...

... so much so that when the landlord popped round on one of his surprise visits (aka inspection ... "Stand by your beds you 'orrible little man! Is that an approved use of a vacuum cleaner ?") to find a large ginger moggy occupying the majority of the sofa, eating half a doner kebab from the take-out tinfoil and watching Top-of-the-Pops (a social reference which appears more and more bizarre by the day, and by the latest media revelation), and hollered "Is that a CAT?" ( there being a "No Pets" clause in the lease) ... we felt justified in replying "No..." ... and that seem to prompt such an existentialistic crisis that the matter was pursued no further ...

Big Red joined you in the bath, drank from the sink, could open any container (it was only the fact that the electric can opener had lost a final battle with a can of FB corned beef that prevented him from tackling the range of Heinz tinned staples...)

Ding! Dong! ...

Ding! Dong! ...

... the 'witch is dead' ...

So many many things raise concern about the sad passing of Mrs. T. , and it IS sad when a valiant foe is not defeated in battle, or by the public, but is cut down first by their lieutenants and then by the ultimate insidious, unsympathetic and most-patient enemy of us all ... time itself.

Mrs. T. (a nomenclature that caused major confusion in the mind of the elder ratlet - long convoluted discussion which had me doubting my sanity until realisation dawned ... "No, that old lady was not married to the humorous coloured gentleman with all the necklaces who was in the A-team" ... would have explained so much ... "You ain't getting me to endorse the concept of a caring society, fool!") was a "divisive" character I am repeatedly told ... by all sides ... well so was Churchill ... and Lloyd-George ... and Wellington ... in fact any notable figure of history who drove change of any class, colour or manner HAD to be divisive ... if you don't divide you don't change ...

... whether that change was good or bad, now that's another matter ...

So, 'Ding! Dong! The Witch is dead ...' ... well, yes, she well maybe ... and free-speech is indeed a noble concept that all should defend to the last breath ... but having something worthwhile to say is perhaps also a valid point ...
... one can use free speech to spout the vilest hate-filled diatribe or announce the most glorious sentiment of love for all mankind ...
... and, yes, the download is an effective 'protest' statement ... effective in the sense that it is easy and without cost (in any significant manner anyway) ... but there are so many better tracks to commemorate the facts ... "Tramp the Dirt Down" would have my vote, but that's just a personal favourite ...

... and whilst I am the first the encourage 'young people' (anyone under the age of thirty now ... sadly) to engage in politics and current affairs ... the sight of those who did not live through the '70s & '80s and the effects of Unionised hegemony succeeded by Thatcherite market mania, dancing on the old birds metaphorical gravestone was a little bemusing ... and somewhat pandering to the stereotypical view of the "Trotskyist leftie" ...

... but did 'trickle-down economics' really have the munificent benefits that were touted ... not a lot trickled towards anywhere other than the S.E. corner of this sceptic isle ... and only in a very selective direction therein ...
... was Section 28 one of the vilest pieces of legislation within allegedly one of the most civilised societies of history ...
... were those who could not fight for themselves simply abandoned to the tender mercies of those who would care ...

... all depends on where you were at the time or the tales you were told at your aged relations knee ...

Anyway, the Wicked Witch was nowhere near as scary as the flying monkeys ... THEY gave me nightmares as a child ... having been dragooned into watching this classic child friendly movie by grandparents every Christmas for year on year ... where were Social Services then, eh? ...
... and these days, having emptied the pail of water over the old dragon, we are left with the nation being run by the Three Stooges ... "run" ? ...  that is use of the verb in the loosest possible sense ...

Then again, isn't there delicious irony in that funeral being funded in any part whatsoever from the public purse ... surely that is one event that cries from the highest pinnacle for both private funding and pay-per-view broadcasting ...

So ... RIP Maggie ... you were an evil old witch to some (maybe many) and the saviour of GB plc. to a (select) number ... but I do hope for Old Nick's sake you have not gone down to the fiery pit ... 2 weeks down there and you'll have closed every last furnace down !
(Always close with an old joke).

Another year wiser ...

Another year wiser ...

Well another year gone ... am I any wiser?

Let us consider the evidence ...

- still working for the same bunch of (insert Anglo-Saxon derived adjective of your choice) individuals
- still working on the novel (aka mid-life crisis ... well it's an advance from 'adolescent dreaming' ...)
- still seeking a raison d'etre (how does one insert a circumflex)

Not looking good

... but ...

- have celebrated 10 years of (reasonably) happy and productive wedded bliss ...
- have two ratlings of (occasionally) astonishing intelligence and perspicacity (though worryingly middle-class ... witness junior ratlet asking grandmother to identify which variety of avocado was in the salad ... I didn't even know what an avocado was until I was 20 ...)
- have finally acquired my monster moggy after many years of saving and scrimping (and wheedling around Mrs. Rat extolling the benefits of the presence of Felis giganticus in the eternal battle against local rodent populace ...)

... so ...

... on reflection, perhaps not bad ...

Buzzing about ...

Busy Busy Busy ... busy bee busy bee ...

... now that was entertainment ... Arthur Askey ... (other black and white Music Hall acts are available) ... if you don't know ask your (gt) grandparents ..

So ... we are all in this together ... working through the pain ... we managed with austerity during the war ... still looks like bleeding the patient dry to cure a headache, but I am certain that they know what they are doing ...

... whether they are being honest in telling us what they are doing is another matter ... I still have the sneaking suspicion that in 3 yrs time GB-populace will be presented with a 'bill-of-sale' and advised that we are now jointly owned by burgeoning economic powerhouses of Asia ... `it was tough but we struggled through and got a jolly good price, don't you know!' ...

... then again, perhaps this is Fate settling scores of Empire ... there is a certain degree of irony in this ...

... still, in less than 2012 hours we have a feast of running, jumping and prancing about to look forward to ... and several decades of reaping the legacy ... and what fun, many (mostly) just words of condemnation for unelected regimes of the Levant using heavy weaponary within national borders in defence of its own populace against 'unwarranted agressors' ... then we have missile batteries on rooftops in the East End and we all pray that none of our loved ones are flying out of Docklands over the summer ...

... again irony sometimes does not know when to stop ...

... and through all this, those who work for the public purse just knuckle on ... no share bonus ... no incentivised pay-scheme ... no pay-rise ... just more demand ... fewer colleagues ... more measurement ... more targets ... more abuse ... less support ... its almost as though they want us to fail ...

... surely not ...

Plugged in...

... so it goes ...

Yet another poor soul in today for treatment as consequence of their smartphone ...

 ... busy checking up on his social network accounts (no names to avoid lawsuit) on his mobile tech and yet to evolve the evidently necessary third eye in the top centre of the cranium ... young master walks straight across the road junction and across the bonnet of the old gent minding his own business tootling back from the garden centre ...

... all of which raises several points ... interesting or otherwise ...

... whilst awaiting the paramedics to attend to his (it is later revealed) double compound fracture of both tib & fib and dislocation of one knee, did he take the opportunity to tweet his latest adventure ...

<<lying in road in severe agony OMG!>>

... if the poor old chap with the bootful of geraniums had been updating his MyBook page when he struck down the flower of modern youth, he'd be up before the beak in no short order to have book and then several hefty medical bills thrown at him ...
... so is the pedestrian similarly processed for 'perambulation with due care and account' ... having seen the contents of his MP3 player (got stuck on rapid scan as a result of the RTA) prosecution on grounds of contrtavention of basic taste and decency is a most definite possibility ...

... and, without wishing to channel my grandfather, when did it become necessary to be plugged into the network 24/7 ...

... surely humanity has not reached the depths of existentialist despair whereby one's very existence is confirmed by audio-visual stimulation ... if stimulation is what it pertains to ...

... it was said that mankind was but two meals from barbarism ...

... now it one minute unplugged maybe enought to render swathes of the populace bereft of meaning and validation ...

... then again ten seconds unplugged may have saved today's first case from what will be the best part of a year's recovery ...

As Mr Ant bext expressed it, though somewhat anachronistically, "Unplug the juke box! Do us all a favour"

(and, No, the irony of the means of this medium does not escape me)