Clouds moving in

Another move

2012-01-27T13:28:00.002+01:00

Doubt this will be a surprise to anyone, but yes, all future posts for this blog will now be over here.

Thanks for reading, commenting and supporting - and hope you continue to visit me at my new Wordpress home (which to be honest I had totally forgotten that I had set up and continued posting on here!! - getting older huh?)

Legislating against women

2012-01-25T08:54:00.000+01:00

One of the blogs I read wrote an excellent post about the so-called 'Personhood' legislation in America.

Rather than give you an analysis or a summary - I'll just give you the link - here.

Dreams and aspirations

2012-01-16T19:17:00.004+01:00

This post is partly inspired by one from my friend Blue - over here.
I'm not writing about the same topic - but, in some ways perhaps I am.

Who doesn't have dreams and aspirations when we are young?

Crap that we are brought up with (in my personal case), garbage that society feeds us about a woman's role in life and the eternal prince who will one day arrive, and then, as we get a head on our shoulders - we find our own dreams. (without a shitty prince)

A great career. Travel the world. If we are lucky - maybe a good relationship with someone. That's probably the most difficult one. But I thought I did most of those.

One day, we sit down. We know some of those dreams won't come true. And it hits hard I tell you.

When I told my mother i was going to chuck the UK and live in Spain - she said dismissively - 'Castles in the air,' - but it was the one she visited in the end. So, maybe not a castle, but I still got there. To my personal castle in Spain.

But now, where I am I? Able to afford those trips to Africa, South America, Central America etc etc etc that I wanted? Of course not. I'm counting the pennies per day. I joke not.

You make financial plans. You add net present value (yeah I can do that) - and, NPV doesn't quite equate for the glorious US of A fucking up the world economy so well.

What else? Well the UK govt decides to keep increasing the pension age. Thanks. That is so unhelpful. I paid 40% fucking tax, shagged my arse off and I can't even get back into the country where I was born and get jack shit nada.

Oh, this wasn't the point of the post.

My dreams and aspirations are now only hoping to be able to survive. A bit like my friend.

When you realise you can't realise your dreams - the hope dies. I know where she is coming from.

And then - you have to change your aspirations. Ain't quite the same though. Can I earn enough to live - is not the same as - can I plan my trip to South America?

More simply - where do I get the money to even live?

Oh and to any smug bastards who think people have not been 'prudent' - don't even go there. We all try for a life. Any critics and I will have your fucking arse. If you dare go there.

A few good points about geocaching

2012-01-09T09:16:00.003+01:00

After my extremely negative post about geocaching, readers may be wondering why on earth I indulge. So here to redress the balance, are a few positives.

1 After forking out vast sums of money for the techy gadget aka the GPS, at least we learned how to use it. After a fashion.

2 You do get to visit nice places/locations that you might otherwise not have seen. Three random favourites off the top of my head are:

Carteia (placed by Fetiche),
Sayalonga (placed by rnofuentes)
and the promenade at El Cantal (placed by the SanBa family)

Sometimes you get a decent walk out of it, sometimes you just visit an interesting location, with some history, maybe an old building, or some stunning views. Those to me, are what make a good cache. Puzzle caches are fun - when they are not too difficult, which they invariably seem to be to me, - and the quirky or unusual types deserve a point for originality.

3 It is good to be able to find a cache. At the moment, Partner and myself are nearly falling over each other in our rush to get to the more obvious caches. We are then so incredibly pleased with ourselves that we walk around with stupid grins on our faces. And as we invariably go caching first thing in the morning - nothing else gets done that day due to our momentous achievement of finding one small and easy cache!

Well, there we have it. I can't think of anything else to add to this somewhat short list. The attraction is that it gets you out and it can be fun. Not much more to say other than that. That's probably why I've only got 33 to my name in three years. I don't think I'll be awarded my geocacher's anorak just yet.

Five Seven things I don't like about geocaching

2012-01-08T20:29:00.003+01:00

I started geocaching out of a spirit of perversity. Nothing new there.

As I am not prone to rewriting stuff - you can read my first adventures here (1) and here (2).

1 The first post highlights what has always been one of my gripes about geocaching - the need to buy a consumerist technological gadget.

And as my first post also says, I totally failed to find a local cache without a GPS. I probably wouldn't have found it with one either but that's another matter. The truth is, it's pretty difficult to go geocaching without a GPS, although ironically the last two we found in Spain (here) could probably have been found without one. So - cost of a GPS is a disincentive, and they can be expensive. They certainly are in Gib.

2 The international geocaching site is free to join. Great. But - and there is always a but. There is an elite group of members known as premium members. If people want to pay extra for bells and whistles that's fine, but when they make their own caches only visible to other premium members, that smacks of discrimination and elitism.

3 There are people who cheerfully raid the tat pots of treasure for all the nice goodies and don't put anything of equivalent value in the cache.

4 There are people who claim to have found a cache when it has been archived or is not temporarily unavailable! How can you do this? Talk about being obsessed with numbers. I know people do this because when one of our caches had been totally destroyed - someone subsequently 'found' it. I mean really, that is just farcical. There was no cache there to find, so quite simply my dears, you did NOT find it. As in all walks of life, bluntly speaking - there are cheats. (Rather polite for me, I could have been a little stronger there).

5 As mentioned above - there are people who trash caches. I doubt they are geocachers, although in a way they obviously are as they manage to find them to destroy them. But why spoil someone's harmless fun?

6 Caches in boring places, pointless places, with no purpose to them, no outstanding walks or views, and no decent buildings or history. Link here for an example of a pointless cache.

7 Not finding a cache. The truth is, if you are going to find one, you invariably find it in the first few minutes. The longer you spend hunting around, the more frustrating the whole exercise becomes. Maybe if you have found thousands of caches the odd DNF (did not find) is statistically insignificant. I guess it's just as annoying though - not that I am ever likely to be in that amazing position having not even approached 100 caches yet :D

Week One

2012-01-07T11:28:00.001+01:00

To date:

One less internet friendship (although I have no idea why, as for once, I did not break it off).

A letter from the newly appointed management company for the block informing us that the proposed budget for next year will include a 40% hike in communal charges. Needless to state, most of this is to cover, guess what? The fees of said management company. None of which will go on block maintenance of course, which, unless I have missed something somewhere, is what most, if not all residents want to see. Said management company also seems to think it is their role to call the annual meeting. Er hello, I thought I was a director and that is MY role.

So most of yesterday was spent drafting an agenda for our annual meeting, emailing to and fro with the company adminstrators for our block council of management, and faxing the management company to inform them the directors call the annual meeting. Not some employed agency that hasn't been confirmed by the council of directors.

We tried out the washing machine again. It still leaked. Shit. Nothing is open today in Gib as it is Saturday. A week's worth of dirty washing looms.

Increase in management costs plus new washing machine = at least £500.

I do hope this is not an indication of the way this year is going to go.

Oh, and I have a cold sore too. I wonder why?

It ain't my day

2012-01-06T20:12:00.000+01:00

And now the washing machine goes pear-shaped :(

Oh well

Sometimes I wonder

2012-01-05T22:51:00.004+01:00

I was going to write yet another boring post about internet fallouts. And really, who gives a fuck apart from me?

Thanks to those of you who have sent olive branches.

And to the one who is no longer around, who has dumped me unceremoniously for whatever reason. My patience wears thin. I don't take kindly to being ignored. At least I normally have the courtesy to tell people why I am annoyed at them. Even if I don't win any popularity contests by doing so.

A Cloudy 2011? - A Happy 2012

2012-01-04T13:33:00.009+01:00

As the dogblog and my news/reportage blog are getting their annual reviews of 2011, I thought I would write one on here too, of the more personal type.

Readers may remember my dilemma back in March when I was invited to a summer house-warming party in the UK by a university friend, with whom I was pretty close for some years. I received some excellent advice in the comments, and dithered for a while before making my decision.

At the time, work was thin on the ground, so therefore, cash was in short supply too - thus giving me a suitable get-out to appease my conscience. Could I really justify upwards of a grand going to the UK on a jolly? No.

And my usual yardstick - what would the other person do in my situation? Well, given that she has ample money, and took more than five years to come and visit me for one night (en route from a dressage course near Jerez) I didn't feel like a high priority in her social life. So why should she become one in mine? I wrote more about that here ..

I mentioned in one of those posts that my university friends are my longest standing relationships. I visit them on the rare occasions I am in London, and we exchange Christmas cards.

So what happened this Christmas? Well, as we all know, I am not a fan of Christmas cards. I am so miserable that I think it could be money better spent. But there are a few people and dog people that I exchange cards with, for whatever reason. And that natch includes my three university friends, who never fail to contact me at Christmas, even in my sulky non-Christmassy card years.

First card received from university friend number one before Christmas. Sent to Mr and Mrs Partner's name. (Did this guy know me at university under my own name? Yes. Why does he persist to call me Mrs Partner's name?). Written to Me and Partner on the inside of the card. We knew who it was to, that wasn't really necessary. Didn't bother saying who it was from. Lucky I know the writing eh?

Next - well - nothing before Christmas. I see. There is me, being so organised for once, getting all my cards sent before Christmas and I get one unsigned card from a uni friend. (Pippa and us, did of course, get some lovely dogblog cards).

But while I was in Spain, on roaming, I got a mail from my bestest university friend ever, wishing me Season's Greetings. On 29 December. Hello! Bit late for Christmas sweetie, that was 25 December. A bit like the birthday greeting that I got similarly late last year, via email of course.

Anyway, this really exciting email contained some photos of that wonderful party that I missed. As I was on roaming I wasn't that desperate that I wanted to spend money downloading them in Spain. They would wait for Gibflat. I eagerly clicked on them for a slideshow today.

Well, what a surprise. Did the photos blow up any larger? No, they were the tiniest possible things that you needed a microscope to look at. The luncheon party was hosted in a marquee. Sitty down at tables with posies of flowers every six inches. Endless bottles of wine and champagne. Of course. And there was me thinking it would have been a nice little help yourself buffet in the dining room and a wander round and chat thing. Then there was the 'after party' for those who stayed over. Another hundred people sitting down at a table outside this time. A very long table. Obviously.

Dear reader, I looked at those photos and nearly died at the thought of possibly even going there. Was I ever glad I declined.

The last photo was their latest new dog. Another pedigree cocker spaniel to be used for shooting. I may be wrong as she hasn't actually told me they are pedigrees. They may well be rescued cocker spaniels. I'm not going to be asking though. In fact both my partner and myself took one look at that dog and she so reminded us of one of our previous dogs (Paddy). You don't always need good breeding to look good. (Paddy was a glorious cross spaniel/setter/labrador/something).

Anyways, I decided I had misjudged her and figured there would probably be a card back at Gibflat, she had sent the mail to include the photos. Wrong. Come along, get real. This woman now corresponds by email, belatedly for whatever occasion it is, and is racked off because I didn't drop everything to attend her hi-faluting luncheon party.

But I did get a card and a decent letter from the last of the three university friends. He said he knew it wouldn't arrive in time for Christmas but at least I would have something to read in January. He made the effort though, and nice card and nice letter.

Well, that's the people I have known for years. What about more recent acquaintances - via the internet?

Readers may remember my posts about people who died this year from cancer. Sharon, aged 37, who died in April on her birthday. We had met her the previous year when she came on holiday to Spain with one of our internet friends. A very sad death and one that touched a lot of hearts.

Similarly Claudette, who died in October. Claudette lived in America, but was a dogblog pal with a great sense of humour and a huge amount of goodwill for people.

When she first said she had lung cancer, I was counting the weeks - but it never happened, and I began to think she would just keep going. But it doesn't work like that, and I should know as well as anyone. The end comes quickly, and for Claudette, sadly it came last year. She left a large and irreplaceable hole in the dogblog community.

And speaking of dogs - how many more dear friends - with blogs that I have never met, have gone to the Rainbow Bridge? And how many more remain on death's door, or at best, unhomed in a refuge? As with any year, I continue to be disappointed with the way people abuse and reject animals, the way some search for a 'designer status symbol' because that rescue dog isn't 'quite right' for their family, and the way some people will pay thousands of pounds for that pedigree pup while another person is struggling to pay vet's fees for a rescue dog. (link on Pippa' s for that one). And we all know that some of those lovely pedigree pups still end up being cast off and chucked out.

I have distinguished myself on the internet this last year by falling out with nearly all my nearest and dearest (internet I mean - I don't have any other nearest and dearest). Maybe it was one of those years.

I didn't fall out with all of them. Some of them fell out with me. Perhaps the biggest fall-out occasioned when I asked a genuine open question on Facebook about the proposed American shutdown. And like the American shutdown, I too fell victim to the anti-abortion lobby. Because in America, free speech seems to mean, if I don't like what I read, that you have written, or someone has written with your approval, I will shut you down too.

Now if someone disagrees with me, I am prepared to have a reasonable discussion. Not an emotive one, but at least one that includes a few facts. Because I don't base my views and opinions on biblical garbage (or any other religious garbage) or pro-militaristic, believe-everything-the-government-says sort of crap. So let's hear both sides? Yes?

Now, why should that provoke such repercussions around the boring old superficial internet? It shouldn't of course.

Well this is why. I defriended everyone who was also friends with someone I had considered an internet friend and who suddenly decided I was persona non grata. I know half or most of my friends are Christian, non-vegetarian, pro-military intervention, probably right-on Republican. But I don't defriend them because of that.

To cut to the chase, sometimes you can sit on both sides of the fence but you need to know with whom you are sitting. And that one day - you too may be cut off without further ado.

In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me —
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

More about Pastor Martin Niemoller here.

I think these words are really powerful. And I hope I have the courage to always speak up for people whether they share my beliefs or not. And look for the facts and not believe every silly little governmental piece of propaganda that is churned out. But sticking your head in the sand is not the way to go. Nor is trying to be friends with everyone.

So there we go. Fewer internet friends. No Facebook account. Oh wait, the dog has one. Even though it is against FB terms and conditions apparently. Although he is, surprisingly, not the only dog with a FB account. But seriously people, that FB dog account is not there to spy on people who I can no longer see from my own page. Far be it from me to say, but mopping the floor is more interesting. The dog account is because, due to the dogblog, he has a few dogpals. Mostly he goes on, or rather I do (shock horror), to click on Save a Dog and try and get a few cups of feed donated to rescue dogs.

I think these last few paragraphs have more than demonstrated that it is a good idea not to be involved with Facebook. Or forums. Or really anything where you say more to people than hello.

Speaking of which, this month last year, one of my bestest internet friends chucked me. But good things happen to nice little girls and he finally bestowed his much-missed friendship on me yet again.

Everything went swimmingly after that and we exchanged new year greetings a few days ago. And since then? Ah well. I've no idea what I have done wrong this time. Looks like a long and lonely January, and February, and ..... Maybe this year I will get over it.

Happy New Year everyone.

May your friendships be warm and genuine, may you adopt rescued animals, and if you fall out with people - please don't slag 'em off on Facebook - it usually gets back.

And as we used to say in olden days, a prosperous and healthy new year. By prosperous I don't mean rich capitalist - just, enough money to make ends meet at least. Because a lot of people don't have that. And healthy - because that is what we all want. So to all my friends, whether people, or their animals, hope you keep good health and overcome any problems you have.

Uf. I need a week off after all that.

Just another day

2011-12-25T09:20:00.005+01:00

There are lots of people who describe Christmas Day as just another day.

And sit down to a huge Christmas lunch with all the trimmings, open their presents from the huge pile under the tree festooned with bright ornaments, have friends and family round for food, drinks, games, chat, fun, and maybe even watch the queen's speech for all I know.

That, is not 'just another day'.

'Just another day' is:

When you get up at the same time rather than waking up in the small hours dying to open your presents under the tree - because there is no tree, and there are no presents.

When you don't have children, or any family, or close friends coming to visit.

When you don't prepare a special - and far too large - Christmas lunch.

When you have enough space for your cards.

When you aren't religious, so most of what Christmas should be about goes over your head.

Just another day is doing exactly what you do on any other non-work day.

I wrote similar feelings on Itchy Feet last year, and reading back over it just now, I was surprised I'd written about the memories of childhood Christmases. This year, they didn't even come to mind.

Oddly today, I did wake up not long after midnight. Probably because the cat bites were hurting. But what was going around in my head, apart from dreams of being savaged by a pack of vicious cats, was a song by Lindisfarne.

It was from the album 'Nicely out of Tune,' and wasn't a particular favourite track of mine because it was a bit dirgeful. I'm not fond of dirgeful music, unless it is part of a funeral service. So I usually skipped this track.

But my Partner liked it, in fact he likes all the tracks on the album, so these days it gets played through.

It is an appropriate song for the time of year. 'Winter Song.' One of my best husky pals reminded me that the Winter Solstice the other day marks the start of winter.

I'm not one for lyrics, so I never really listened to the words to this song. My idea of a good tune is one I can happily la-la-la along to without needing to know the boring words. You can tell that, because even now, after 40 years, I didn't realise there was a reference to Christmas in this song.

And that wasn't the line going round in my head. Because, the trouble with British folk/rock bands is that more than most bands, they sing quite clearly, and even I can pick out the odd few words.

It was this: 'Do you spare a thought for the homeless...'

Because for the homeless, Christmas Day really is just another day.

Lyrics here.

Song below.

Merry Christmas people.

Christmas Eve rants of the day ....

2011-12-24T15:29:00.006+01:00

Today's post was going to be a light-hearted post about incompetent staff, parsimonious customers, and rich supermarket owners.

You can read that one later.

For now, the first part is ....

Taking the dog out of the door for his lunchtime walk, Partner noticed next-door's cat in the stairwell.

This is not the first time the cat runs rampant around the block. Doing whatever cats do when they run rampantly around blocks.

Last time, I coaxed it upstairs, we did nice cat noises together, I picked it up and we did nice purrs. Partner and dog were able to leave the block in tranquility.

Well this time the little fucker was right outside our front door. Then it ran downstairs. By the time I got down to intercede, it was stand-off time. This, for anyone who doesn't understand, is where extremely large and fast dog who adores people, children and puppies, wants to kill cats that are encroaching on his territory.

When I say wants to, I mean will. Record to date: Pippa: a couple of cats, and an extremely large vicious rat. Cats and rats: 0. A couple of claws in his nose and a scratch.

Now, a cat with nowhere to go, is just not going to win this battle. I'll spare those of you with cats and rats the details of the dog's rather efficient technique. Suffice to say it works.

I went to move the cat out of the way in the hopes I would alleviate the situation. Hissing from cat and snarling from dog. Groaning from Partner.

They went one way and I tried to placate the darling cat who had been my friend before. I picked him up. Scratch, hiss, bite, went the little bastard. I dropped the fucking thing and cursed him to hell as he ran upstairs.

'I'll catch you up when I've sorted the blood,' I called after Partner and dog. Before I knew it the Vamps would be out wanting to chase cat, dog, and suck my blood. i shot upstairs too.

Owner of cat wandered out of her flat happily.

'Your cat was downstairs,' I snarled. 'It's happened a lot recently.'

'Oh, I know. My mother let him out for three hours the other day.'

Hello. Stupid fucking cow. You know? Why does your cat have the right to run up and down the block? Huh? When there are two dogs - to our knowledge - who live in it? And we have already told you our dog is not the most cat-friendly specimen in the world?

I am sure there are no bad cats, like there are no bad dogs. I'm not exactly fond of this cat at the moment, but I'm even less fond of his stupid fucking person.

Despite blood gushing out of my hand (ok maybe not dripping all the way down the stairs) she called happily upwards for darling gatito and seemed not to notice my Significant Injury. She didn't move her idle fat arse and run up there to find him. Why would she? If she was that interested in what the cat was doing she would supervise his very annoying block excursions and wander around with him.

All I can say is, wait till the nice Doberman upstairs grows up. Heh. Heh. Heh.

And the second story is ......

Anyway, there we were in Morrisons as usual. I'd bought finger chillis, at £5 a kilo, previously called Thai chillis, and then priced at £5.99 a kilo.

Pesky woman rang them in at £5.99. I queried it. 'They're £5.99 a kilo and only 18p,' she said. And looked at me scornfully. I withered on the spot.

Really helpful Placatory Partner said maybe the sign on the shelf was wrong. I always thought they had to sell stuff at the shelf price or not at all. But I was clearly in the wrong. All ways round.

I looked at the receipt. Thai chillis at £5.99. I went back to the shelf. Finger chillis at £5. I moaned at Partner but said it was only a few pence so what did it matter.

Well, lo and behold for Christmas. He jumped on his soapbox and said 'Imagine doing that 100 times a day. In every Morrisons shop. Not even as though the staff get anything out of it. That's why their profits are so good. You go and ask for that money back.'

Ah right. Me. I have to be the one making a total plonker of myself saying this price is wrong and I want a few pence back.

I mean, his point had logic, and why should Mr Morrison have lots of my money unnecessarily? But for a few pence? Three, by the way, I had now worked it out to be.

Truth was, I'd been had before on this chilli lark. I'd bought the Thai ones, for £5.99 and been charged for the expensive ones at £6.99, but because it was only a matter of pence I didn't have the brass neck to go and complain.

He plonked the shopping bags down and insisted. I slouched up to the customer services desk and cringed. The woman looked surprised and went off to sort it. Trouble was, the nearest cashier she asked couldn't find them on her till code thing.

In the end the customer service person agreed to give me 5p off. I was wrapped. I had made all of 2p profit. I signed the form and wished her a Merry Christmas and still felt like a total arse for making such a fuss.

'You know,' said Partner, as we walked home, 'it's important to sort these things out.'

I have the feeling Santa won't be coming down my non-existent chimney tonight.

There's the bucket, pee in it

2011-12-21T12:58:00.003+01:00

Once upon a time, my partner went to do a job in an expensive part of the city.

Actually it was a posh suburb/village/sort of thing where aspirational people lived.

Two bedrooms, a dining room, all to be painted white, and at the time, approx cost £750. Including paint.

Partner and his employee - a smart and totally respectable young man - turned up on the job.

They were busy unloading, dust sheets, tools, equipment, paint etc, when the Lady of the House came out.

She kindly pointed out the bucket in the garage. 'That's for you to pee in.'

'Simon, load everything back in the Land Rover,' he ordered. Simon was still reeling with shock anyway. I don't think anyone had ever told him to pee in a bucket. Certainly not in Darras Hall. FFS his mother lived there. He drank with Ant and Dec (I think they are TV people).

'I'll take you to court,' said the Lady of the House.

'I don't think you'll win,' said Partner.

You've got cancer and you're sick? Get back to work.

2011-12-08T19:54:00.005+01:00

A good friend, who has gone through the gruelling ordeal of cancer treatment, has alerted people (on FB) to the latest really clever proposal by the Department of Work and Pensions in the UK.

Apparently having cancer does not mean you are sick. Oh no.

When I worked in the UK health service, the standard comment among clinicians was that there were three ways to treat cancer - butchery (surgery), burning (radiotherapy), and poisoning (chemotherapy).

Right, but having all those treatments so means that you are capable of going to work, having a back to work interview, and just skipping on with your life.

Hello, incredibly greedy grasping people at DWP and your political leaders. Have you thought about the impact this sort of treatment has on people? Physically? Mentally? And, do you really really think they are going to waltz into that wonderful crappily paid job you are going to offer them (anything to get people off benefit) and be able to give their absolute utmost? Maybe, they might have other things on their mind? Wondering how long they will live perhaps?

I am not a fan of Macmillan but they have organised a petition against this stupid proposal. Link here.

To summarise.

It seems that cancer patients receiving radiotherapy treatment, and those receiving non-intravenous chemotherapy (oral), have not been exempted from work interviews or medical assessments. Hell, what's a bit of radiotherapy? Or poisoning by taking tablets? No side effects from any of that surely?

But cancer patients on intra-venous chemo, ie nasty needles stuck in veins and sucking poisons for hours, were exempt.

Not unreasonably IMNRHO, cancer charities asked the DWP to end this anomaly and treat all cancer patients the same. Because, actually patients on radiotherapy and oral chemo amazingly also suffer side-effects. And possibly they do not feel very well.

Anyways the bright sparks at the DWP seemed to think that the best way to sort this was to take away the exemptions from the intra-venous chemo patients. Gosh! What a very clever way to go!! Total equality for all extremely sick patients.

I have had three good friends die of cancer this year. One of them I was lucky enough to meet before she died, the other two I didn't. The thought of any of them having to go through interviews to go back to work makes me want to poke someone's eyes out. Another friend has recently been diagnosed with cancer.

Cancer is not nice. It doesn't discriminate. The treatment is not nice either. It is invasive whether it is surgery, chemo or radiotherapy and there are physical and mental after effects whatever the treatment.

And when all these cancer patients are offered jobs while THEY ARE STILL POORLY - will they get time off with pay for chemo? Cos how many employers will want to pay for that?

I read some shite about the UK on the internet, and this one really, really, leaves me cold. Make sure you don't get cancer if you live in the UK, 'cos you need to be right back to work the day after you have been diagnosed.

After all, you are hardly sick are you? Stop bludging and claiming those benefits to which you are not entitled.

You've only got cancer,

Donna, donna, and Joan Baez? Just another hypocrite?

2011-12-05T13:52:00.004+01:00

Ay!

When I was a kid at junior school, ie below 11 years of age, we sang this song.
I couldn't sing it without crying.

Couldn't bear the thought of the poor calf being killed. Vegetarian before I knew it maybe?

Joan Baez is tougher than me. Puts human rights before animals. Her choice. Great that she takes on Czechoslovakia in 1989. But whoever speaks for the animals? And the calf with a mournful eye? Using a sad Jewish song with your beautiful voice to gain political points? Crap sweetie. However lovely your voice and your right-on politics. Even if you may possibly have been vegetarian for a few days back in 1968. Possibly.

So my dears, eat your steaks sweethearts. And enjoy. After all who gives a shit about one more dead animal if it tastes nice.

Cows are easily bound and slaughtered - of course.

Oh, and here is the lovely record with the absolutely unbeatable, almost unbearable, voice of Ms Baez.

Ms Baez who don't give a shit about animals.

Arguments

2011-11-25T21:03:00.001+01:00

There are lots of good things about the internet. Mostly, in my opinion, that includes sharing information for free.

But there are an awful lot of bad things too. Truth is, I'm not sure what value it has added to my life. I managed well enough before.

Fax, 'phone, mail order worked fine.

But, let alone the abhorrent, pornographic, and violent garbage that is on the internet, there are also your average arguments.

I'm more than qualified to speak about this as I have argued with the whole world on the internet.

On forums, via Facebook, pms, and emails. Not on blogs as far as I can recall because I am a supreme dictator on my blogs and censor anything that I think is rubbish. Such power.

One of my - natch - ex-friends, described Facebook as the Work of the Devil. In a way she was right. But the truth is, it's not the (social - or anti-social) network site - whether FB or a forum - that is the problem, it's the online intimacy that develops between people who have never met. And may never meet. When there is a mix of dynamics where some meet and others don't, the situation gets even more complicated.

The reason I started this post was because I was saddened to read something on a FB wall. It was on the wall of one my friends (who I didn't meet) who died this year. Won't take a genius to work out who that was. I never fell out with her (!) and I respected her courage and strength. Wow! Was she tough.

There was a disagreement on that person's wall about posts after her death. And, all the points had merit, I didn't disagree with them. The bizarre thing about FB is that when someone has died, people go back to their wall and post, and say 'We miss you.' Or maybe they just go back to read, because you don't, or can't, just wipe out a lifetime with a flick of a key. Maybe people want to just look back and remember. Who knows? It's like a photo album, or reading through old letters or whatever.

To me, those pages should remain for what people want to say on there, if anything. People may want to leave messages to family, friends, and make commemorative posts. I have another friend who died this year, who I did meet. Her FB page is a peaceful place to visit. And that, to me, is how FB pages for our former friends should be.

If we want to spat about stuff on FB, there are other places to take it. Or even a link, but I really think it would be nice to leave the pages of all of our former friends as that peaceful place.

On FB, we all have our own walls, our own groups where we can share our hurt feelings. They are the best places to vent. Or maybe on our blogs.

And then, we take them down. Or at least I do. When someone has read my really fed up rant of the day, I can take it down and move on. Because taking it down shows you have put it behind you. To you, and to everyone else.

Arguing over the internet.

You see, sometimes we don't need to do it. I will share my golden PR rule for the zilliionth time, the one I often forget. Never argue with the stuff that doesn't merit it.

Because, arguing, gives that crap point credence. Leave it alone. There are different ways - and different places - to get your message across.

Hey - I always follow my own rules .....

Does your vote count?

2011-11-21T19:15:00.001+01:00

Well, not much of a surprise but Spain seems to have gone for another right-wing government, yet again the Partido Popular (PP) is in power.

When we first moved to Spain, the PP was in charge under Jose Maria Aznar. But people didn't like the American alliance decision to invade Iraq, the horrific bombings in Madrid in 2004, and suddenly the PSOE (a left-wing party) was in power.

There are some things about the PSOE term that reminded me of the first idealistic terms of the Blair government in the UK. Not least, Zapatero was determined to make his cabinet equally balanced between women and men. How many other countries have ever done that?

He did pull the Spanish troops out of war zones that the local population did not want to support.

To remind you all, Zapatero's grandfather, who fought on the Republican side, was slain by Franco's soldiers during the first weeks of the war. Can you imagine living with that and not trying to do something about it?

Our neighbour's father was killed in the far north of Spain, in the prison in Oviedo, and she still cries on the anniversary of his death. After that, she spent her youth picking beans in the field. She still can't read and write. What a great legacy Franco.

Her husband's younger brother was killed aged 21. In a gunfire fight between - who knew who was who, and on what side? These memories continue on, but perhaps for not so much longer.

Just thought I would add a few points about the Civil War in case anyone hasn't heard about it.

But was it really Zapatero's fault that the world economy crashed and Spain's did too?

Come on Spaniards. The world is in a recession and has been for some time. Know why? Ever heard of American bankers?? Spain is a bit player in the world economy. Just like most of us.

The most surprising thing about this Spanish election though, is that the PSOE was kicked out of Andalucia. As most of us know, Andalucia is the home of poverty, peasants, subsistence agriculture, and communism. No longer it seems. It is now the home of people who don't believe the socialists can do anything for them and they need to look to the right-wing party.

Hell, there ain't no construction, there ain't no great house sales, there ain't no tourism, and there ain't much else tanpoco in Andalucia.

But, things are looking good for Spaniards because it seems that all those who voted for the PP now expect a job. Yeah, right.

Because to me, Rajoy's austerity measures don't sound like more jobs for anyone.

En sus suenos.

And next up, Gibraltar elections.

Oh and as a total sideline. I recite a tale from my rather capitalist/conservative/right wing parents.

They so loved it when a labour (ie left-wing) government was in power. Why? Because there was more employment, and more money to go around. So more money for people to spend with them.

You all vote right wing if you want. You will have no job, no money, and you have no conscience. Be it on your own head.

Not such a sideline. Think carefully before you vote in Gibraltar if you want a job.

Poets Day

2011-11-18T07:24:00.002+01:00

As everyone knows, today is Poets Day.

No, this is not like World Awareness Day, Meditation Day, Ingrowing Toenail Day, Wear a Blue Ribbon in your hair to show solidarity with Oppressed Bankers in America Day, or any of those other days.

Because this, and every other Friday of the year is Poets Day.

I was sitting happily in our revamped civil service office in Notting Hill. It was Friday afternoon and not much was happening (fortunately). We'd dealt with the pesky anti-government reporters from the Observer and Saturday's edition of the Guardian, and no-one else was giving us any grief.

'Right then, I'm off,' said one of my colleagues. 'It's Poets Day.'

I looked up, interested. Colin was rather arty, into amateur dramatics, and had a nice posh plummy southern voice. Well spoken, is the phrase that comes to mind. Not something that us lasses from Yorkshire usually get labelled.

I wondered which particular poet he was talking about. Or was it a group of them? I started on the interrogation, which Colin - and everyone else - enjoyed immensely. He finally put me out of my misery.

Here in Gib, the mass exodus starts around noon. You can tell it's Friday because the car horns start tooting as people absolutely MUST leave the Rock as quickly as possible. I have no idea why there is this burning urge to get out of Gib (apart from people who live in Spain of course and want to go home) but the few roads we have are clogged.

The money exchange around the corner has a queue down the street - and if you get there too late they have invariably run out of euros. We never see anyone in there during the week, they seem to exist solely on the currency exchanges they make between noon and 3pm on Fridays.

Building sites close at 2 or 2.30pm. Construction workers can be seen falling into the pub for a quick one, at the exchange as most of them live in Spain, or just walking/cycling home across the frontier. A few even live in Gib.

After that peace descends on Gib. To me the weekend is the best time to be here just because it is so quiet. Half the shops close on Saturday because the proprietors are Jewish. No offices, banks or building societies open, and on Sunday, the only shops open on Main Street are the ones catering for tourists - selling perfume, tobacco, spirits, jewellery and electronics.

But when you don't work - Friday can be a stressful day. No really, I'm not joking.

You see, when it gets to Sunday evening, there is no gloomy 'It's Monday tomorrow' feeling. In fact, Monday is rather to be looked forward to, as everyone else has to go to work, but you do not. You remember having to drag yourself into that ghastly office - and revel in your freedom. So you don't do anything on Monday. Your reward for being chained to that desk for so many years. Tuesday is pretty similar, after all the week isn't even half way over yet.

But by Friday, you realise that you have done stuff all this week, and if you want to achieve anything more than sewing a button on, or ironing a few T-shirts, you need to get a move on. Especially as government offices close at lunchtime. The only thing that opens late on a Friday is the library which keeps going until 7.30pm. About the only place in Gib still open at that hour.

So when it gets to Friday, I have to do everything in a few hours that I have failed to do all week. And Friday should be a day for winding down and doing very little. After all, it is Poets Day.

Piss Off Early Tomorrow's Saturday - in case you didn't know.

I want that dog/puppy/designer lifestyle :(

2011-11-14T13:40:00.005+01:00

Today on Facebook (which I really try not to look at very often) - I saw a dog who looked just like mine.

It is the strangest feeling to look at a dog in a KILL shelter - THAT MEANS, IT WILL SOON BE DEAD IF NO-ONE ADOPTS/FOSTERS - who looks like yours.

You think to yourself, I rescued my dog, and for the last eight years, he has been safe. It could have been different for him.

You look at that other dog, and think, they may not get the chance.

Please people, put away your pedigree puppy aspirations and rescue a dog who maybe only has hours, let alone days to live.

Does that designer puppy really mean so much to you that you will condemn a different dog to death?

Because that puppy you buy, means one more dog, that no-one wants, will end up dead in a shelter (that isn't really a shelter at all - more of a staging post on the way to death).

Rubbish recycling?

2011-11-11T16:26:00.002+01:00

Recycling - what? Plastic bags - or profits??

Sadly Morrisons in Gib has gone down the road of charging for plastic bags. I think they cost 2p and any proceeds (note - not profits) go towards local charities.

In fact, they tried this one on some years ago, but it failed miserably and free bags were re-introduced.

But aided and abetted by the likes of Eroski, Mercadona and Supersol (to name but three) supermarkets in nearby Spain, Morries has gone down the same road again.

Naturally this move is to help the environment by encouraging people to reuse their bags.

Hello, Morrisons (and every other supermarket under the sun). We DID recycle our plastic bags quite happily. 1) They got used in our rubbish bins and 2) they got used when we took out the dog.

It doesn't take Brain of Britain (and/or Gibraltar/Spain) to work out that no free bags from the supermarket means you have to acquire them from somewhere else. But where?

Sadly, we accepted the miserable fact that we might well have to buy some plastic bags. I picked up a bag of pedal bin liners. They cost £1.75.

We were standing at the check-out and I was gazing at 40 bags for £1.75 and doing the sums. The first thought was that 40 went into 175 more than four times - 4.375 to be exact.

So actually buying rubbish bin bags means paying more than twice the price of a previously free and now 2p carrier bag. Am I going to use any less bags for a) the rubbish bin and b) picking up after the dog? No. Is it going to cost me more? Yes.

There may well be people who got free carrier bags and chucked them in the bin. If so that was extremely silly of them. We did not.

This bright shiny environmental move to encourage recycling is going to make JSN difference in this household. Apart from costing us more.

Far be it from me to say kind things about the many tobacco smugglers who take their fags out of Gib and into Spain with more than the legally allowed limit - but at least when they take them out of the cartons and stash them in their cars/motorbikes - they throw away those lovely black bags.

We didn't buy the pedal bin liners. Just in case anyone was interested.

Sexism at its best/worst

2011-11-08T17:13:00.002+01:00

- depending upon your perspective.

I share with you this link. Wow! These men are so funny and sharp they are going to be cutting themselves on their pistons. Or some such similar piece of kit.

Land Rover Dating

PS I think I have sorted my blog problems. Next on the list, patriarchal society, sexism, misogyny, violence against women. Shouldn't take me too long to sort them too hopefully.

Dilemma dilemma - what to do??

2011-11-08T08:19:00.006+01:00

I am going to have to do something with this blog.

All the old posts have just blurred into one huuuuuuuge paragraph.

Do I reformat each post individually?

Change templates with blogger?

Migrate the whole lot to wordpress?

Just move the popular ones?

Because this is the problem. When you are coming up first on a google search, or in single figures then you want people to have an easy read. And ploughing through one huge paragraph is not easy at all.

Any suggestions out there while I muse on this one??

Breast screening - do I? don't I?

2011-11-04T12:51:00.005+01:00

The lovely blogger does not seem to want to let me separate my paragraphs with a gap so this post is available for viewing (complete with separated pars) on roughseas. I won't be closing this blog down as people do read previous posts when they are searching for info, but I'm unlikely to write again until it lets me choose a format I want. Blogging should be easy.

Tick tock the clock goes back

2011-11-02T09:38:00.002+01:00

And about time too.

I am not a lover of summertime at all. I see no reason for people to faff around with hours - so that there is an extra hour of daylight in the evening or some garbage like that. Just, why?

Personally, I like to get up when it is daylight, and go to bed when it is dark. Or even before it is dark in my case, being something of a Sleep Monster. So people tell me.

In fact, I don't mind getting up half an hour or so before it is daylight. Coffee, waking up slowly etc etc just about uses up that pesky half an hour.

But when it isn't daylight until after 8am - what on earth is one supposed to do for all those hours? (This is assuming a getting up time of somewhere between six and seven).

You can't go cycling, you can't go walking because it is too dark. Damn nuisance. I have gazed at the clocks and the calendar throughout October, waiting for that magical Sunday when it will be daylight again at 7am.

I always thought it was strange that people said it was a wonderful opportunity to have an extra hour in bed when the clocks went back. Because, as it is Sunday morning, most people can stay in bed as long as they want - in theory.

Winter hours were a nuisance in the UK I have to say, but that was because there was so little daylight. It didn't matter how you cut it, you went to work in the dark and came home in the dark. It was so depressing when it started to get dark after 3pm and you had no chance of going home for two or three hours.

But as I don't live in the UK, any more, that's now of no interest to me. At least here on the southern end of the Iberian peninsula we can look at daylight from approx 7am until 6pm during winter.

Back to Sunday when I was in Spain waiting for the clocks to tick tock backwards. We all woke up at the usual time. By which I mean everyone woke up at what would have been the same time had the clocks not gone backwards. And everyone got up.

I don't just mean us and the dog. The goatherders next door went to work - by the clock an hour earlier, but really it was just the same sort of hour they would normally have gone - about half an hour before it got daylight. The guy who drives tractors and ploughs all the local fields drove down the street a few minutes before daylight.

It doesn't matter to campo workers, and to a similar extent, to construction workers, what the clock says. People need daylight, so that's when they start. In fact I did wonder if people n the village have clocks at all.

And in summer it seems so irrelevant because everyone (except us) stays up in the dark nights because it is cooler. Andalucians are used to living outside in the dark.

So I shall enjoy the next six months of 'proper' time, and dread the arrival of summer time when I will be jet-lagged for at least a month due to the clocks going forward.

I thought I would look up something about summertime. I vaguely remembered it was introduced when I was a kid in the 60s/70s to combat the energy crisis. Wrong!!! I was obviously getting confused with the Harold Wilson experiment of staying on summertime all year in that period.

In fact summertime was first proposed in 1895. I was stunned to read that, I have to say. London-born Kiwi George Vernon Hudson apparently liked collecting insects and valued later daylight hours for this. Great. We all get our hours changed for someone to collect insects??

Hudson's proposals failed but meanwhile British builder and outdoorsman William Willett was cantering around on his horse in 1905 before breakfast and was horrified to discover how many lazy Londoners were asleep in the morning in broad daylight. Hello, Mr Willett. Those lazy Londoners may well have been knackered labourers who didn't have a horse to ride around on in the peaceful early morning and valued what little sleep time they could grab.

Nor did Mr Willett like having his evening round of golf interrupted by dusk. That really says it all doesn't it?

Anyway it wasn't collecting insects, lazy idle Londoners, or cutting short the evening's golf that brought about the introduction of summertime - it was the first world war. The Germans beat us to it in April 1916, with the Brits following a month later. Initially it began towards the end of May and ended at the beginning of October. Well. I think that would be an improvement if we have to have summertime at all.

It seems, reading Wiki, links here and here, that people have been messing around with the clocks for nearly a hundred years now. And the amount of studies carried out, to work out whether or not there is any financial saving, energy saving, reduced number of accidents, defies belief.

And guess what, yes, people are still faffing around introducing bills to change the hours this way and that. I would have thought the British government would have more important things to consider than messing around with an hour at the end or beginning of the day. How about homeless people? Unemployed people? Especially all those pensioners who won't have a pension until they are 70 - or whatever the ever-expanding goalpost is - and won't be able to get a job either? The list is endless but I bet most people wouldn't put daylight saving(s) at their top of priorities for the government's Must Do list.

Messers Hudson and Willett, you would not be on my Christmas card list (assuming that a) you were around and b) I even sent them). Truth is though, that reading the tedious history, it would have happened without entomologists and horse-riding golfers.

And then there were three ....

2011-10-31T11:19:00.018+01:00

They say things go in threes don't they?

So when I read the email with the sad news that an internet friend had died of cancer, I wondered who the third one would be this year.

The young and lovely Sharon died on her birthday in April aged 37. Originally she had breast cancer, but it spread elsewhere and her death earlier this year marked the end of a very courageous and selfless fight against an unrelenting illness. I wrote about meeting Sharon and Fiona some twelve months ago here.

My partner pointed out that I had forgotten someone. Probably because I hadn't known him, but Partner had worked with a young man (let's call him T) in the construction industry who was diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this year. Six months or so later, he too was dead in his late 30s, again from rapidly spreading secondary cancers.

So that made Claudette the third one this year after all. For those of you who read Clouds and don't know her, here is some background info.

Claudette and I came to be friends, like so many of us, because we all had blogs about our dogs. Or rather dogs with blogs, ie we write from the perspective of our dogs.

I never met her. We started our dog blogs some four years ago, she starting Lacy Lulu's blog about six months after I had started one for Pippa, and she quickly found Pippa's.

She was one of his regular commenters back then in the days when comments ran to 20 or 30!!, and often, one of the first to comment on a new post.

Unlike Sharon, but like T, Claudette had lung cancer. I don't remember reading her very early post that said she had it, but oddly, I do remember reading about her having chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and sent some well wishes to her for that.

A couple of years ago (where does time go in blogland??) she wrote about having a biopsy to assess how far the lung cancer had spread and the news wasn't good.

The trouble with having worked in cancer services is that you tend to look on the gloomy side. And there aren't too many bright sides to look on when it comes to lung cancer. I was saddened to read her news back then, and hoped against hope that she would still be with us for some time. And - she was.

Friends all around the world rallied round to keep her spirits up and let her know she was in our thoughts. Anne, Snowball's Jie jie in Singapore, gathered a few of us together to help make 1000 cranes. This is an eastern belief, apparently Japanese, that says making 1000 paper origami cranes grants a wish for someone, perhaps long life or recovery from illness or injury.

Not too difficult I thought, being an origami fan in my youth, until I couldn't find any origami paper to buy here in Gibraltar. But then I read that any paper would do, and with a little practice, I was happily ripping up magazines with colourful adverts to make lots of multicoloured cranes.

At the same time, Brooke from Australia, who with her partner, set up the dogs with blogs internet community, organised a rota for us all to send a small gift to Claudette, so that she received something each week. Not sure how well that worked in terms of timing given the postage from Europe to America but anyway, I packaged my gifts for Claudette in bubble wrap, a card, and sent my share of the cranes at the duly appointed week.

When I read the email telling me of her death, I thought sadly that the cranes hadn't worked after all. And then I thought, perhaps they had helped to give her some extra time. Who knows?

We mailed occasionally and we shared facebook pms too. It seems every tribute I have read to her talks about messages to so many people, so I don't know where she found the time. Perhaps that says something about her generosity and willingness to make time for everyone.

Claudette was a brave woman who shared the unpleasant details of her treatment, and the side effects, with us all. Like many other courageous people with cancer, she posted pictures of herself after chemo treatment, laughing and discussing the best choice of wig.

And, realising, there were many other people out there on our dog-related network who either had cancer, or had friends/relatives with cancer, or just needed some support, she set up a new group on facebook for people to share their experiences and knowledge.

What I will remember most about Claudette is probably her honesty and openness. Her friendliness to everyone. Her lack of judgment against others.

Most of all though, what I will miss, is her droll sense of humour. In spite of everything, and suffering lousy cancer treatment, she could still come out with some witty jokes and turns of phrase that cracked me up.

Claudette brought smiles to many peoples' faces and I guess that will be how she will be remembered. Someone who shared happiness and merriment and enjoyment of life even when she knew time was running out. Sweet dreams Claudette, and to Floyd, we send you our condolences.

Three other tributes to Claudette here: Maryann, Greg and Brooke, Bren

Meditation

2011-10-10T20:18:00.007+02:00

Some millions of years ago I did an MBA with the Open University. It suited me at the time, work paid for the fees, and I was hungry and career motivated enough to fit it in at weekends and evenings.

There was one summer school that really stood out for me. It was near Peterborough at a hotel, and pretty reasonable accommodation. That always helps. So did the fact that on the last night I gaily flitted around the place being bought drinks by people I hadn't even met all week. Oops. I staggered back to my room, and I mean, really, really staggered.

We had an interesting group, ie during the week you all get assigned to a working group of eight or so people. We got on well, and one of the instructors said they were pretty amazed by how well we gelled together. As a group, we ate together, drank together, worked after hours together, and happily chatted away.

They were nice people in the group, easy to get on with, and no, I'm not in touch with any of them. Future contacts never even came up. Just as well, as I'm not a believer in the 'we'll meet up in 20 years time in Trafalgar Square' sort of syndrome.

One of my colleagues, Robert or whatever he was called, was talking about stress to me one evening before dinner. We did this whole thing well, you see. Drinks before dinner with our colleagues for casual chat. We were probably quite exclusive, in retrospect, with our own little corner and our select group.

'Why don't you try transcendental meditation?' he suggested. I respected whatever his name was, and liked him, so I didn't dismiss the idea although I knew fuck all about it and thought it was sort of hippy beatleish stuff.

Much later, I tried to get my boss to fork out for the TM course but he wouldn't have it. Stress, I said. Worth a try though. So I paid myself.

For my first appointment, I had to provide a piece of fresh fruit and a white handkerchief, maybe something else. Well, money obviously.

I sat on a plain chair in someone's room, closed my eyes, and was given a meditational word. I still use it. Or near enough, as it is the sound that matters, it was given verbally.

I practised on the metro. I practised in bed (or rather, on the futon at the time) and invariably fell back to sleep. I practised when I was going to sleep, that was an easy one.

I went for individual tuition and later for group sessions. To be honest it was not expensive. Partly because the tutor I used was independent from official TM stuff as he thought they were too expensive for most people.

One evening we were sitting in a somewhat tawdry hotel for a group med. Whacky huh? Eight or ten people sitting around a table together meditating.

The next minute, or rather five minutes or so, I floated on air. OK, I didn't do that. I have only ever done that many years ago when I got nice painkillers in hospital that blasted the shit out of me.

But I did experience a huge release of tension as everything suddenly lifted off my shoulders. Hard to describe. I shifted slightly in the plain chair and something went somewhere into the depths of Whitley Bay. And, well, I really did feel I was floating upwards.

Group meditation is meant to be more powerful because there are more people and more vibes. I went to some more group meetings. Never happened again. Maybe it was the seedy venue that made it work.

I still meditate and it still sends me to sleep. Thanks whatever your name was on the MBA summer school back near Peterborough.

And for those of you who want the nitty gritty. I think my group had all gone to bed that last night and I was in party mode. I've also always easily flitted, and fitted, into and out of, other groups. As it was an MBA course, back in the 80s there were an awful lot of men and not a lot of women. I had to pass so many people to get through the drinking areas. Nightmare, I tell you!

I fell into bed at something like 3am and promptly picked up the 'phone to report back to base to inform my partner I was pissed. He took a hell of a long time to answer. And then I went happily off to sleep.

The next morning I even turned up for breakfast. Uff, it was hard, but I was there. Didn't bother to go for the ghastly course wind-up stuff, just packed up and went home.

A great week, and the TM recommendation was so appreciated. Doesn't really matter what type of meditation you choose to try. As they say, don't knock it until you have tried it. TM works for me. Has done for nearly 20 years.

Fire alarms and wholemeal bread

2011-10-06T12:37:00.006+02:00

Never a dull moment at the supermarket is there?

So the other day I tripped off as usual to see if there was anything new on the shelves, stock up with paracetamol products (joke), and give myself some exercise with the forty minute walk round trip. The walk is the best bit, I could cheerfully walk there and back without going inside, but needs must.

No sooner had I picked up a pack of chestnut mushrooms (we get through a lot of those) than there is a strange whooping noise.

I looked around puzzled. Was it an alarm? Fire? Bomb scare alert? (days of going to school near a high security prison and working in London kicking in here) or just some miserable electrical failure?

Staff started walking purposefully for the door but there was no screaming and yelling. Eventually customers followed them.

I was still near the door. I sadly put down my basket which had the last remaining punnet of chestnut mushrooms and hoped to hell no-one would nick it.

As I walked out I was fascinated to see people walking out with their trollies. With goods in, unpaid for. They didn't go anywhere but stood by the entrance. Eventually the penny dropped. Or rather the pound. Perhaps they didn't want anyone to nab their trolley and take it to the trolley park and retrieve their pound deposit. How sad. And I tell you if that was a real fire, my one pound coin would be the last thing on my mind. That's assuming I had a trolley which is most unlikely given that I never buy that much.

The staff trooped across to the far side of the car park. Two staff stood in each side of the entrance doorways to block any naughty customers sneaking back in (and nicking stuff no doubt).

One bright spark had the smart idea of asking if it was a real alarm or just a drill. It seemed it was a drill. Odd, I always associated Wednesday mornings with school fire drills. Things must have moved forward in life to Tuesdays. Just as well it was a drill really because the staff gaily marching off and leaving all the customers outside the entrance about to be engulfed by a conflagration wasn't very clever. I do hope in the event of a real alarm they will tell us all to move our arses, and fast.

Then the staff started moving back inside - and - what happens next? Desperate customers can't wait to get back to their shopping and start trying to push in front of them. Dear me!! As someone politely said, 'these people need to go back to their station' or something similar. What is it with people that they have to push back into the store?

Top tip. Always give yourself plenty of time when going to a supermarket on Tuesday in case they have a fire drill.

I found my mushrooms. Someone had moved my basket to stock up the table I had plonked it on, but it had been put tidily on the floor. I had put it on a table as I didn't want anyone to fall over it in the rush to get away from the fire.

Totally separately, I always used to take fire drills seriously. There is no point treating it like a joke because fire is no joke. I know. We had one in our house when I was a kid.

First things first. Shut the doors, preferably checking there is no-one in that room. It drove me up the wall when we had our fire drills at work and people wandered out of their offices without shutting their door. The whole point of a drill is to get it right if you ever need to do it for real, not treating it like 'just another fire drill so it doesn't matter.'

Yesterday it was Partner's turn to go to the super. As he was picking up some bread, he started listening to a customer sounding off to a bakery assistant about the fact that there was no organic wholemeal bread. Clearly if there isn't any bread out that means they don't have that dough mix in the store.

Bakery assistant patiently explained this. Ranty woman kept whingeing. BA suggested that she do what 'This gentleman had done, and buy organic white instead.' Ranty woman said it wasn't the same and her husband only liked wholemeal.

Partner helpfully said 'At least it's organic. Looks like another cranky day in Morrisons (ouch!!). Have a nice day.'

As he left, RW turned away and BA stuck her thumb up at Partner. I wouldn't have their job for worlds. What can they do if they have used all the dough and new supplies haven't come in? RW should bake her own I say.

And, it has to be said I did screw my nose up when he came in and said he had bought white because there wasn't any wholemeal ........

Paracetamol anyone?

2011-10-02T11:36:00.008+02:00

I was idly standing in the supermarket checkout, as you do. It was fairly early in the morning, and most of the checkouts only had one person going through so I hit the nearest one that seemed to be nearly finished.

The woman was chatting to the cashier about I have no idea what. Then the cashier picked up the box of Lemsip and some other cold thingy.

'I can only sell you two of these because they contain paracetamol,' she explained.

We then all listened entranced to the customer's heart-rending tale of how her husband had a cold last week ['you know what men are like', she added] and she needed to stock up the store cupboard right that minute.

Really? Now having a cold is bad news but it isn't exactly the plague or ebola.

Then there was a problem. Not only did she have a pack of Lemsip and whatever else, she also had one of those bottles of something for a cold. You can tell I don't do cold remedies.

'Does this one contain paracetamol?' asked the cashier.

'Probably,' said Ms Cold Medicine Addict.

The cashier looked at the bottle and again explained that the store policy was to only sell two paracetamol products and that she couldn't go against that.

Ms CMA started to get upset and explained how utterly vital it was that morning to buy a load of cold medicines just in case somebody in the household caught a cold in the next few weeks.

Then she pointed out that only a week or a few days ago, she had bought not only two packets of Lemsip but two packets of ibuprofen as well, which was much stronger.

Now, I am no painkiller expert, having never bought one in my 50+ years of life, but as far as I know, paracetamol and ibuprofen are not the same thing. They may well both be analgesic (pain-relieving) active ingredients that are found in other medicines, but their chemical make-up is different. Apart from anything else, ibuprofen is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) and paracetamol is not. So, unless the store had a policy on not selling more than two packs of ibuprofen in combination with paracetamol purchases, Ms CMA's comment was irrelevant.

When I got home I decided to look up this strange rationing of paracetamol-based products.

Apparently back in the last century (ha!) new regulations came into force in the UK in 1998 that limited the number of painkillers that could be sold in one packet to 16. This was to prevent the 200 or so accidental deaths and suicides that happen every year due to overdoses. It seemed the government hoped to reduce the number of deaths by 10% - that works out at 20 by my reckoning.

Now while I don't advocate overdosing for one minute, faffing around with tablet packaging, virtually doubling the price, and supposedly limiting the sales to potentially save 20 lives wouldn't be a priority on my government list of new laws.

Especially when anyone with half a brain would just visit endless shops if they really wanted to buy lots of paracetamol-based tablets.

And this thought occurred to me while I was listening to this amazing drama unfolding in front of me. Why is Ms CMA not just shutting up and going to another pharmacy for another few boxes or bottles of whatever?

Because she didn't have any cash. She only had her American Express card. And she didn't think a pharmacy would like her buying a couple of cold remedies on her card. Even the cashier had suggested she go over to the pharmacy branch of the store and buy a couple of extras.

Meanwhile, the till next to me had seen at least three customers through in the time I had been avidly listening to the pill opera. I contemplated moving my half dozen items across for speedy service. But no, I was too gripped to find out what happened next.

'Shall I call the supervisor?' asked the cashier wearily.

'Yes please. I'm not happy with this. AT ALL,' said Ms CMA.

To be fair, she did keep apologising to me for the delay. Hey, free entertainment. I smiled nicely.

The supervisor appeared. We all listened to the same story about the whining poorly husband, the empty store cupboard, the possibility of even yet more colds in the next few days and the essential need to buy as much as possible this very minute. Oh and guests were turning up at quarter to ten. They probably had colds as well.

In spite of all those extenuating circumstances, the supervisor backed up her member of staff and repeated the two products only rule.

Supervisors get paid more to avoid confrontation and think smart. 'Shall I take these over to the pharmacist and see if they will let you buy all three?' she asked.

Ms CMA agreed. Off trotted the supervisor. The remaining items were all checked through the till and Ms CMA was given the bill.

Another problem. The cashier had rung through two of the paracetamol products and the supervisor had walked off with them. Ms CMA wasn't happy paying for them when she didn't have them in her sticky little hands.

Luckily the supervisor came back, and said - guess what? - the pharmacist wouldn't allow the sale of more than two products. I don't know how I kept a straight face.

And I'm thinking when I have a cold, I drink weak black tea, hot water and lemon, sometimes with honey, and if I could find the energy I might consider rushing out to buy a bottle of whisky to slug into it as well. I never do, but it's always an option. This reliance on Lemsip et al was fascinating me. I began to wonder what I was missing out on.

The cashier started ringing my items through. I wondered if I would be allowed to purchase toilet cleaner without ID or a prescription in case it could be toxic even though it was Ecover, but it went through without a murmur. So did the three bottles of cider for a fiver on special offer.

Ms CMA and the supervisor were still in deep discussion. I was still listening. Ms CMA repeated her assertion that she had been sold a million painkillers the previous week at the same store by someone else.

The supervisor looked very serious. 'If we find out who that was they will be in deep trouble,' she said ominously.

I could understand Ms CMA being racked off with what appeared like a bureaucratic petty store policy. Especially if she thought she had bought the same thing a short while before.

But hectoring and bullying the cashier was unreasonable and potentially putting someone else's job on the line because she wanted to prove her point and couldn't be arsed to go to another pharmacist to stock up that empty store cupboard was downright selfish. If the store has a policy, it isn't up to a cashier to break it and risk their job, and it is beyond the pale to dob someone in who may have sold you something in error previously.

In fact reading up on it, I doubt they did. An excellent thread here on a mountain biking forum for some bizarre reason !! pretty much summarises everything about the whole issue.

Must register on that forum. Wonder if they know as much about bikes?

Back to the checkout. Ms CMA and supervisor were still deep in discussion (?) I paid. 'Have a nice day,' I said, and grinned at the cashier. She smiled back.

Seriously though, and I guess most of my readers will know this. Cold medicines do not get rid of the cold. The analgesics lessen the headache and the other stuff decongests your nose for easier breathing.

I wonder what people did before Night Nurse and Lemsip? I use pine and eucalyptus essential oils for decongestion. The hot drinks I've already mentioned. Good food helps. Carnivores can indulge in beef tea or chicken soup, I tend to go for anything curried or with chilli/cayenne in it, a miso soup, or a vegetable soup. Headaches wear off, probably in a not dissimilar time to the effect of a painkiller.

There is life out there without cold remedies. But if you do choose to indulge in them, read the active ingredients listed on the packaging so you know what you are buying, and make sure you read the information leaflet so you don't accidentally overdose. No more than eight paracetamol in 24 hours. Shovelling in potentially dangerous drugs because you haven't informed yourself isn't clever.

To summarise:

1) I don't see any circumstances where it is acceptable to bully cashiers or supervisors, even though store policies can be frustrating for customers. If you do want to have a go at someone make sure it is at least a supervisor, or better still a manager - but not a checkout operator. They are not paid to make decisons about store policy and don't deserve to be the butt of our frustration.

2) If you take a load of paracetamol or any other painkillers for colds, please try to learn about what you are taking. Read the information leaflets and learn about active ingredients so you know what the risks are and what any adverse reactions may be. This applies to any drugs you may be taking, including prescription drugs. ALWAYS read the information leaflets. If you can't read or the print is too small, ask someone to read it out to you, or ask for a large print version (well, I live in hopes they may be available).

3) Consider using alternative ways of alleviating the pain involved with the common cold - which are usually a sore throat, throbbing head, blocked nose. Your cold isn't going to go away any faster or slower regardless of how many paracetamol or other cold remedies you take. And preferably stay at home, if possible, so you don't pass it on to someone else who really doesn't want your grotty cold.

Moving on

2011-09-11T15:50:00.015+02:00

We all need to move on of course. Don't we?

From our memories, from things that didn't go right, from things that we couldn't influence.

There is a fine line between commemorating the past and dwelling in it.

Since my parents died, I have spent years dreaming about them, but recently, they have left me alone. So have the horrid work situations which also haunted my dreams.

Friends and lovers who are in the past? That's where they are consigned.

Old national wounds? Spain and Arab nations claiming each others countries? Because they possessed them years ago? I don't think so. Do Ceuta and Melilla want to be Morrocan? Does Andalucia want to be Arabic? And does Gibraltar want to be either Spanish or Muslim?

Do the Falkland Islanders want to be Argentinian?

As feminists, there is not much point commemorating our past victories when we are still stuck with our discriminational problems.

And for animal rights activists, there has been some progress over the years but it is small.

When this sort of activity happens - we still live in a sad and abusive society

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-14817582

And finally, yes it was bad when the Twin Towers was hit, yes it was bad when Atocha station in Madrid was hit, and yes it was bad when London was hit as well.

Going over it every year doesn't help, it encourages resentment and hatred.

It is too raw and too recent. Reviving it every year really doesn't help.

Get rid of the vitriol and work out how to live together. Or at least in peace and without war.

Female suffrage? Equal rights anyone?

2011-08-27T16:10:00.013+02:00

A friend posted something on FB about celebrating the anniversary of female suffrage.

The article was from an American newspaper dated yesterday because the 26 August 1920 was when women in America got the right to vote. (Link here and if you are really suffering from insomnia check out the comments)

Well that's good - America preceded the UK by some eight years. But being in a peevish mood I moaned about Americans celebrating their 81st anniversary of female suffrage. Hardly a 'special' anniversary, and as far as I could read - no-one died to further the cause of female suffrage in the USA.

One of my friends pointed out that we can all be parochial and it is good to share our experiences and history from different countries (OK she didnt say all that but I think that's what she meant - sorry A, if I misunderstood). I hold my hand up straightaway and confess to being parochial.

But who, British, has not sat in history classes studying 19th century social history for 'O' level without learning about the suffragettes? And that Emily Davison was killed under the king's horse at Epsom? And to be really honest, who remembers her name? - rather, we all remember the Pankhursts. If Emily died in the cause of women's suffrage, other women went to prison, went on hunger strike, and were force fed with tubes into their stomachs. These women fought and suffered to ensure that other women got the vote.

So my view of female suffrage is based - narrowly - on what I learned about my own country's history. The same friend who commented about our parochial mindsets also pointed out that perhaps the American suffrage was needed by the temperance movement to achieve Prohibition. Another interesting thought.

Anyway, moving swiftly on away from the UK and the USA - and onto New Zealand. For those of you who don't know, New Zealand has been a trail blazer in equal rights for women. Women in NZ were granted the right to vote back in September 1893, voting in their first election in November later that year.

Not only that but NZ can claim to having a woman mayor in the same year, the first time the office had been held anywhere by a woman in the British Empire. Good one New Zealand. For anyone interested in the right to vote, here is an interesting list of when women were granted suffrage across the world. I say granted, because - that's what it was/is - something that should be a right but happens to be granted by those in power who finally succomb to acknowledging they can no longer wriggle out of it. list

Back to NZ. If NZ was hot off the mark with giving the women the right to vote, they were hellish slow in giving women the top job of head of state - prime minister. Even the UK had managed it during the 20th century before NZ, although not, of course America, which still awaits a female leader in the 21st century. Confronting their prejudices head on, Americans chose a half black man in preference over the incredibly brilliant Hillary Clinton.

Hell, who wants a bright woman running the world? I did. And I was gutted when a load of my American feminist friends seemed to think that choosing a black man was such a right-on statement of their principles when they could have voted for Clinton. Bollocks. They should have worried less about their right-on racist-friendly credentials and just gone for the right person. I thought Clinton had some excellent ideas, was sound on so many issues and was such a serious contender to lead America - and truth be told, to lead the world, because let's not deny it, that's what America does. My perspective wasn't about - let's back the woman because she's a woman - or I would be espousing Michelle Bachmann or Sarah Palin as super duper candidates for anything and everything. Actually I wouldn't choose either of them to be the cashier at my local supermarket but that's just my view.

NZ's first woman prime minister was Jenny Shipley, came to power in 1997 and served until 1999. She was succeeded by Helen Clark who served until 2008. But if NZ was slow off the mark to have a woman prime minister, the country still managed to hit the record books as one of the few countries in the world to have had two female heads of government, and one of only two countries to have two female heads of government directly succeed the other.

A couple of soundbites about Shipley. A member of the NZ National Party, she was the first NZ PM to attend the gay and lesbian hero parade, and achieved the lowering of alcohol purchase age from 20 to 18. She now has business interests in China.

And on Clark - she was a member of the Labour Party and served as prime minister for three terms. In 2009 she became Administrator of the UN Development Programme - and the first woman to lead this. Another milestone for Kiwi women.

I had better mention Australia as they are pretty near neighbours. After NZ granted the vote to women back in the 19th century, the Australian states followed pretty soon afterwards. At this point I have to mention Julia Gillard - how many of you (non-Antipodean friends) have heard of her? I hadn't. She is the first woman prime minister of Aus. Born in Wales, I might add, Barry, actually. Only the second prime minister of Australia who was born outside Aus.

Gillard has some interesting views. Pro-choice ie supporting women's rights to abortion, but, she doesn't support gay marriage. She wants a sustainable Australia - which translates to anti-immigration. And she wants a republican Australia. Just to add, Quentin Bryce is the first woman Governor General of Australia. (Who she? I hear you ask)

When I was a kiddy in the 70s, women prime minsters were all the rage. Bandaranaike ( I never did know her first name), Indira Gandhi, and Golda Meir. I was indoctrinated with my father's skewed views - 'better a bad prime minister than a good woman pm'. This from the man who became a devoted follower of Margaret Thatcher. Of course, he dismissed Bandaranaike, Gandhi, and Meir. They came from third world counties or something like that.

Hello daddy. These third world countries, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), and India, that were inhabited by wogs, happened to be part of the British Empire or supported by it, and well, the truth is, their populations weren't as sexist as you were. Electing a woman as head of state was not a marker of a country's stupidity. Israel was clearly an anomaly in the scheme of things, as my father had some good Jewish pals, and obviously they would never have knowingly voted for a woman prime minister.

But looking at the list of women leaders in the world, I am amazed to see that of the early prime ministers, the first one was an acting German Jewish woman in the Ukraine - Evheniya Bohdanivna Bosch, the next three were the trio I mentioned above, then, there was Élisabeth Domitién, from the Central African Republic, who was premier minister from 75/76 - I had never heard of her - and then, we get to Margaret Thatcher. Only the sixth woman prime minister in the world. And to be really blunt, the first one from an influential western country.

list here .... to be continued .... because this is enough for now

Surviving

2011-08-06T20:59:00.006+02:00

I thought a brief explanation about survival rates might be helpful.

Before I started working in the health service, I had no idea what the concept meant. I figured it meant you either lived for ever or you died. But on joining the health service, I learned pretty quickly.

An 80% survival rate doesn't mean that eight of ten people will live for ever and a day after being diagnosed with X illness or disease. It refers to a five-year period. Not that you will necessarily live out your so-called normal life until 70 or 80 or 90 or whatever. Just that you have a good chance of being alive five years after diagnosis. And that doesn't even get into the issues of reoccurrence or metastatic cancer for example.

I must say as with a lot of communication, the NHS (UK health service) has improved its presentation of statistics. You can actually look up five year survival rates for cancer. - Here for anyone interested. If you look at that cursory weblink, you will note that breast cancer survival rates are above 80% which is a good thing. Similarly the rate for testicular cancer is 97% and prostate cancer is 80%. Malignant melanoma is between 80 and 90%.

Why then are people jumping on bandwagons to promote our awareness of any of those cancers?? Pancreatic cancer has a survival rate of less than 4%. Liver cancer is similar - the graphs I looked at didn't mention the rate and also used one year survival rates because they look better. Lung cancer is around 8%. As is oesophageal cancer. Stomach cancer - 15%. Ovarian cancer is one of the baddies too but that is a whopping 40 odd %. Colorectal is one of the three 'common cancers' along with lung and breast. The survival rate for colorectal is just over 50% - that is really poor. When do we hear about any of those cancers??

Pause for a quick anecdote. We sold one of our houses to a medic. An eye surgeon. He had a Land Rover so mostly Partner and he talked Landies. But at some point they flipped onto a clinical discussion and Partner pointed out that survival rates were based over a five year period. Eye surgeon/Landy friend was bemused and asked how Partner knew that. Pretty obvious really given the fact I was responsible for cancer services. Then 'Well yes but not many people know that." Maybe not, but they should. Telling people they have a survival rate of 80% or 20% or whatever - without telling them it is over five years is downright misleading. The Mayo clinic - as ever - has a good and clear article here.

Now, while I am on about survival rates, I need to mention lead time bias. I was rather up on this at one point and could quote every relevant piece of research under the sun. Put very simply - lead time bias is about the difference between the start of your illness and when it is diagnosed or discovered, and the perceived impact earlier detection has on survival rates. Actually for once, Wiki puts it incredibly well. Check it out here.

Basically for example, if you are diagnosed with breast cancer from the screening programme, you may well find out that you have cancer sooner than you would if the cancer was diagnosed when symptoms appeared (normally small lumps in the breast/axilla areas). When the cancer is diagnosed doesn't affect the overall life expectancy (and therein lies a whole issue about waiting times) but it can skew survival rate figures if it is detected early. If you are diagnosed earlier - you may well 'appear' to live longer. But life expectancy isn't or shouldn't be dated from diagnosis, it is from when the disease starts. There is a huge difference there. Anyway, check out the Wiki link because the diagram on there explains it very simply. Wiki also points out the additional impact of mental anxiety of earlier diagnosis.

Let's go back to survival rates and lead time bias. For women diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001-2006, five-year relative survival rates have reached 82% (England only) compared with only 52% thirty years earlier in 1971-75. Ten year survival rates for women diagnosed with cervical cancer have improved from around 46% in the 1970s to 64% for the latest period.

Lead time bias anyone given the screening programmes??

Cancer - and that time of year

2011-08-04T20:27:00.004+02:00

Oh dear. It is that time of year where women start posting crass comments on facebook about the colour (of their bra), the state (of their hair), where they like it (left their handbag) and now the latest one, which I can't possibly reveal - or remember - what it is.

If anyone is interested mine were white, long and messy, and hidden under piles of clothes.

All to raise awareness of breast cancer.

Do you know anyone who hasn't had breast cancer? Unlikely.

UK stats for 2008 say that of all cancers in women, 31% are for breast cancer. Or a different statistic says that the risk of developing breast cancer is i in 8, ie 12%. You can do anything with statistics.

I have met some great patients with breast cancer, have some lovely friends who have had breast cancer, and I can't begin to know how they manage to smile and keep going every day after their crap treatment, and everything that really goes with a cancer diagnosis.

But what gripes me about this facebook trivialisation is that I don't see how it helps anyone.

Why does making a sexually suggestive comment raise awareness of breast cancer? Why do we need to raise awareness of breast - or any other - cancer?

What we need to do is generate a little more knowledge and empathy.

There is nothing funny or light-hearted about being diagnosed with a potentially life-threatening disease.

Openness, honesty, and supporting friends seems to me to be a far better way to go.

Three friends come to mind immediately - one who has set up a facebook support group for cancer survivors and caregivers, another, who has posed for photographs bald and naked. Another has used her talented skills to help other women with chemo problems find the right wigs while they are going through hair loss.

To me, that is what raising awareness of cancer is about.

Health service rationing

2011-08-03T15:04:00.004+02:00

Everyone knows health care is rationed. Don't they?

Whether it is funded, or not funded, by government or insurance companies - or you pay for it privately - it is still rationed because money is finite. It is just not possible to fund every medical treatment under the sun, and people who complain about that are amazingly naive. The difficulty comes when deciding exactly what to ration and how to do it.

Here are a few random tales, all of which were publicised for whatever reason at some point so I'm not breaking any confidences. Let's start with breast implants. I was happily sitting at my desk when the 'phone rang. It never stopped all day. When I put it down it rang again, and my secretary was in and out all day with messages from newspapers, radio and tv stations all wanting me to call them back.

Why? Because one of our local GPs had referred a patient for breast enlargement so that she would be more successful as a topless model. Some background. Well, naturally the NHS isn't - or wasn't - some sort of support agency to the Job Centre. It's prime function is not one that offers surgery to anyone and everyone who feels they might do better in life if they were 'better' looking. Or perhaps, looked different would be a more appropriate description.

And indeed, being referred for surgery to help her topless modelling career wasn't how the doctor got the referral through. His patient was suffering from low self-esteem due to her small breasts. If she didn't have depression then, no doubt it would set in later. The operation cost slightly over two grand. Not huge in the scheme of things.

Working in public sector press and media I found it useful to not have a view on things. It made it much easier to churn out my party line, and not get involved in any discussions and - say the wrong thing. This GP wasn't a fundholder so it fell to the health authority to fork out the £2K+ - and that's why I spent all day politely telling every media caller that a) we couldn't go into detail about individual patients and b) it was up to every doctor to exercise their clinical judgement appropriately when referring patients for surgery etc etc etc. I was quite happy with this line and it was dutifully repeated by everyone who called me when they published or broadcast it.

Some years later on, I can allow myself an opinion. In no particular order:

1) I still think it is up to each and every doctor to decide what is the right treatment for their patient. Up to the patient then to decide whether to take it up.

2) Suffering from lack of self-esteem and/or depression is not good. Just because mental illness isn't obviously visible doesn't negate from the seriousness of the illness and the trauma that people suffer. People who are mentally ill and fall in and out of big black holes do not have a good time - and like other chronic illnesses - it is always with them.

3) I have probably also had low self-esteem from having small breasts, although becoming a topless model wasn't high on my list of career choices. It is not nice to pass people in the street and hear them saying they can't decide whether you are a girl or a boy. Not helped by the fact I was tall and had shortish hair. Then there are the ones who quite bluntly tell you that you have small breasts, that you are flat-chested, that you look like a boy, and that you don't look remotely sexy. And this last point is the issue.

What on earth is it about our (male) society that imposes such conditioning on women they feel they need to have surgery to get bigger breasts? Or that the aspirations of a young woman are to become a topless model? I know that appearances are important and that we are all judged on them. But women are judged in a different fashion.

We all know the ideal woman. She has a slim but curvaceous body. Long well formed pins, reaching right up to her cute and firm arse. Oh, I should add that those pins are immaculately smooth and shaved every day so that a chiffon scarf will drop straight down them. She has long sexy hair, big eyes, and a beautiful Colgate pearly white smile. And naturally her breasts are NOT small, but just the perfect size, firm with a suitable amount of cleavage for men to peer down.

Who creates this ideal woman? Men. She's not a woman. She's a sex object. And anyone who wants breast enlarging surgery is sadly conditioned to believe all this. They are buying into the male fantasy of the perfect ~~woman~~ sex object. And they aren't doing any favours to women who don't want to be judged on the size of their breasts. A few years ago I met someone who had undergone breast enlargement and had her eyes tucked. She looked top heavy and the skin around her eyes was so tight. I think she could have spent her partner's money more wisely.

So these days, I would be sadly disappointed to hear about any GP referring their patient for breast enlargement. For whatever reason. It seems to me to be treating the symptom and not the cause, but maybe that's what medics do. Some helpful counselling and assertiveness skills would be a lot more helpful - IMO.

Some of the longest waiting lists in my NHS days were for plastic surgery - and the two critical areas were for burns, and for reconstructive surgery following breast cancer mastectomies. Technically I suppose one could argue that reconstructive surgery is similar to breast enlargement and could well involve self-esteem issues - but at the end of the day, I don't think there is any comparison between a woman who has gone through surgery and chemotherapy, that was not something of their choosing and a young woman wanting bigger tits so she can appear on page 3. Incidentally, I read later that her modelling career didn't last long. So, in terms of rationing - I would not want to see the NHS spending money on breast enlargement for women, whether for self-esteem issues or not. There are other ways to gain self-esteem.

Onto another controversial area. Fertility treatment. We decided that we needed to introduce criteria for this service. Which is another way of saying rationing the service. We put a paper to the board with extremely tight criteria. The chief executive had primed the chair about it. She was expected to approve the paper.

But she had been lobbied by some of the local fertility action groups. And - she told me in confidence, and quite a few others as well - that she had been unable to have children back in the days when fertility treatment didn't happen on the NHS. So when it got to the critical moment at the board meeting - she deferred the decision for consultation with our local groups. Great, another two months of indecision.

The proposal got watered down of course. The age limit went up to nearly 40 (conception is less likely as you get older so treatment for older women was less effective), we had a clause requiring residency in the area for a couple of years, something about a stable relationship, and there was probably something about only three goes at it, or something similar.

Out of those of us who originally discussed it, there was me - the only woman, and some 40 or 50 year-old men, who had children. Not exactly the most empathetic group for infertile women. Yes, we heard about the angst. The emotional trauma for women who couldn't fulfil their lives by not having a baby. The sheer mental distress of it all and how it affected their relationships. And how wonderful it was for those who did eventually conceive. That's great. Because in a world of limited resources - you stand up and tell someone who is being deprived a few months of life for an expensive cancer drug that your need for an IVF baby comes first. I couldn't.

Next up came screening for Down's Syndrome. But by then I think we had lost the will to ration, and this really was just a long-winded exercise to write down some firm criteria about when and whether pregnant women should have blood tests, ultrasound tests or amniocentesis.

But a few years later, with a change of directors - rationing picked up its lively head again and we decided to hold a public meeting and discuss how to spend our so-called development monies. These were peanuts in the scheme of things as virtually 90% of the budget is already spoken for as soon as it is allocated. Those of us responsible for some of the key services - maternity and child health, elderly services, mental health services, cardiothoracic medicine, and cancer - were asked to present our 'case' for investing in our service.

I have to say it was rather a tabloid exercise. Asking people to decide how to spend money based on a few presentations over a couple of hours? I didn't present my case. I asked a clinical director for cancer services and a breast cancer patient to make the case. I figured they could do a lot better than I could have done. They did. We 'won' the debate. Always choose the right people to give the message. And there ends my mixed post on rationing.

In theory it should be based on clinical effectiveness - ie don't provide services that don't work. Secondly, don't provide expensive services that either don't work or when there is a cheaper and as effective service available.

Most people don't want to accept, or don't like the fact that rationing exists. They also don't want to make the decisions themselves but they sure as hell want to blame those of us who can't make a health service budget into the bottomless pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Generic prescribing

2011-07-30T23:00:00.005+02:00

I spent the vast part of my life knowing nothing at all about - prescription - drugs.

The nearest I got to anything remotely druggy was when I had appendicitis, or maybe it was when I had yet another fractured ankle. But I got this wonderful painkiller when I was lying post-operatively in my hospital bed. it was an injection and it transported me heavenwards. Seriously.

I floated above the boring old hospital bed and felt as though I was in another world. It was so good I asked for another painkilling shot. Sadly the staff must have wised up to teenage druggies. I got a painful shot in the arse and no ethereal levitation. That was my only brief dalliance with the wonderful world of opiates - or whatever it was.

Period pains, headaches, anything else - I never bothered with painkillers. Figured they would all eventually go off anyway. And they did. So when I started working in the health service and drugs became part of my job, it was a whole new world. I learned about generic prescribing.

This is an easy one. For anyone who doesn't know - as I didn't before I joined the NHS - generic drugs are just drugs without a brand name. So to give an example: Zovirax is a brand name cream for cold sores made by GlaxoSmithKline UK. The active ingredient in this is aciclovir. Aciclovir is what makes the difference. It doesn't matter what the drug is called or who makes it - the active ingredient is what counts.

A few months ago I skipped off to Morrisons and, as I was stressed out of my head for no reason in particular, I had a cold sore looming. I asked at the pharmacy counter how much the Zovirax was. Seven pounds something for a tiny tube. Er, I don't think so.

Facebook pals will know that I invariably recommend Smirnoff Blue Vodka for all oral problems - and at around eight pounds something it is far better vfm. I don't recommend drinking the vodka though, however nice it may taste. Far too strong. Best to use as an antiseptic or mouth wash or whatever.

But back to the pharmacy counter. I pulled a face, wrung my hands, and said how expensive that was. The pharmacist said, 'We have our own brand' and gave me the box to look at. I compared it with the Zovirax. Exactly the same. The pharmacist watched me and helpfully told me they were the same. I parted with three quid for Morrisons' own brand aciclovir. Not sure if it is any more effective than Smirnoff but that's another matter.

This post is about generic prescribing and how you need to check out active ingredients. Incidentally, I have noticed that my American friends are far more clued up on generic names - whether for dog drugs or people drugs - and I wonder if that is for health insurance issues?

Spoilt brats

2011-07-07T09:58:00.005+02:00

I don't like or dislike children. I just have no particular interest in them.

The concept of having my own never occurred to me. It always strikes me as bizarre when people call adults selfish because they have chosen not to have family. I am not aware that I have a duty to reproduce.

Anyway, what I do not like are spoilt brats. And selfish mothers. Getting on the bus yesterday with three bags of shopping in the heat of the day - who occupied the first four seats on the bus? Yes, three children and their mother, who, was approximately half my age. Did any of said three children get up and offer a 52-year-old woman their seat? Of course not. I wasn't the only middle-aged or older person standing either. They weren't toddlers. They were children of say, junior school age. They didn't have any bags or baggage. They could quite easily have taken seats at the back of the bus, which is what a woman with her two children did yesterday. Another seven-year-old boy (I know how old he was because he started chatting to the others) also sat next to them - he was travelling on his own.

So I could see no reason for these three and their mother to take up the first seats on the bus. They were looking sulky and bored. One of them stared at me. I glared back at it. The middle one stared too. I glared again. I suppose it could have been worse. They could have been screaming. Grumpy old people like me grew up in the days when we stood up on the bus to let older people have our seats.

What is so special about today's children that they NEED to sit? Why do they lack basic manners and courtesy? The only people I ever seem to see giving up their seats for older people (and I mean older than me here) are adults of varying ages, as I would still do too. But children? They never give up their seats. Precious little gits, presumably with rude and badly educated parents.

If you are a parent and your children are ever unprivileged enough to get the bus on the rare occasion you are not ferrying them around in your SUV, perhaps you could suggest they may wish to offer their seat to an older person. And not take up all the front seats when there are plenty at the back. Thank you.

Trial by jury? or by media?

2011-07-06T11:22:00.010+02:00

Please people, don't indulge in convicting someone through trial by media.

A few points about trials. If someone pleads not guilty, then to all intents and purposes they are not guilty until proved otherwise, ie beyond all reasonable doubt and all that.

It is difficult for most people to avoid seeing or reading media reports on deaths, and suspected murders. (Not so much for me as I don't have a television). But because there has been a death, and there are suspects, does not automatically make someone a murderer. Emotive reports and hard facts are not the same.

Jurors concentrate on what they are told in court not the crap that has been churned out on television or in newpapers. Being a jury member is an incredible responsibility - especially when you could be condemning someone to death. You aren't there to say - I read about it/saw it on television so therefore this person is guilty. You are there to listen to two sides of an argument and objectively decide which one is stronger, based on the evidence presented.

Casting aspersions on someone's character, ie proclaiming that a woman is a slut/whore/lives a promiscuous lifestyle however you wish to call it, is not evidence of anything. Unless a woman is being prosecuted for having lots of sex of course.

I wasn't a juror in the Casey Anthony trial so quite frankly it is not up to me to say whether she was guilty or not. She was found not guilty of murder (and two other charges, although guilty of misleading police) so that should be an end to speculation. Don't jump in and condemn the people who were chosen to do the job, and came to a unanimous not guilty verdict.

What I will do though, is criticise our society that even makes it acceptable to portray a woman as a pleasure-seeking slut who is therefore, a bad mother. This isn't to advocate the idea of bad parenting. I am not doing that for a minute.

But I am criticising the stereotypical view that a woman needs to be a chaste - almost virginal - stay-at-home mum. I mean, she has to be bad right, because she is a single mum in the first place? Unpackage the imagery of what women 'ought' to be according to society.

Don't judge women because of their sexual mores and perceived bad parenting. It certainly isn't relevant in a murder trial based on circumstantial evidence. As others have said, she wasn't on trial for being a slut and a bad mother. But that was what she was judged for in the media. And when someone has been proved innocent stop saying they are guilty and that you know better.

I remember a discussion about the Guildford Four once in a newspaper office. Or maybe it was the Birmingham Six. Either way, I rashly pointed out that we all knew they were guilty. I got a blasting from a colleague and rightly so. They had been proved innocent in a court of law and that's what matters.

I wouldn't want to take my chances of trial by media. For all the flaws in our legal system, a jury trial strives for impartiality and objectivity and we should all be grateful for that. Two interesting links: The first one says what I was trying to say except better. The second is written by a psychiatrist and considers the issue of bi-polarity. One Two

Birthdays - and friends ... again

2011-06-26T20:15:00.009+02:00

Another year older. Sadder? Wiser? Sadder - in some respects. Wiser - not a chance!!

First up, thanks to all my Facebook friends for the lovely greetings, wherever you come from, either geographically, or from various networks. You may be dog friends, land rover friends, feminists, part of the Scottish network, or from Farmville. Think I've covered everything there, but whatever, it was lovely to get those messages. I've been off-line for a couple of weeks and it was gorgeous to come back to lots of happy birthdays. Today has been my first chance to say thanks.

Now for the rest of the post, if you have haven't read the earlier stuff - here is some context. Birthdays and Party, party

The quick precis for anyone who can't be arsed to read those, is that I think it is nice when people remember your birthday and acknowledge it, and, that this year, I was invited to a party in the UK the day after mine - and was deliberating whether or not to go. These posts are both relevant - read on.

To start with the last post first, no, in the end I didn't visit the UK and go to the party. I received some very generous offers from internet friends to meet up, offers of accommodation, and some good advice too.

So, why didn't I go? Sounded good. Posh party and meet new people before and/or after. How about cash-strapped? That's probably the basic one. I can't justify spending hundreds - verging on a thousand pounds - for a few days jolly. Simple as that. Plus, for whatever reason, because my partner and I have birthdays on consecutive days, we have always tried to make our two days special. Did I want to spend our birthdays apart? No. Haven't done that for years.

Next. Over the last few years, one of my basic questions has started to become - what would someone else do if the situation was reversed? ie would they traipse a few thousand miles for a party? When my partner's niece died Sarah and he planned to fly back to the UK for the funeral, we started to question if anyone would ever fly out for one of our deaths. Unlikely. Again if you can't be arsed to read the post, he wasn't even offered transport or accommodation.

Back to party party. This is (was?) to be fair, my dearest friend from university. In our lovely long university hols, I visited her and other friends at their parents' homes. And some came back to stay with me. On leaving university, most of my friends ended up in London, away from their family homes. We were all growing up. Arrangements between all of us became much looser - 'always welcome, come when you want'. Luckily, as my remaining close friends were all in London, I had a decent choice of accommodation there. If there was a work conference or meeting needing an overnight stay, it was a good opportunity to catch up with friends. And if I ever got a rejection, it was because someone was away, so I just rang one of the others.

Not many people passed where I lived, Up North, although ironically Dearest Friend did. And that's exactly what she did. Although we lived a couple of miles from the motorway, did she ever stop off? Of course not. One day, we were somewhat put out to discover that on one of her annual holidays, she had taken the time to drive down from their second home to a local castle ten or fifteen miles away. Hmmmm.

It wasn't as though we weren't welcome at her holiday home though. It was about sixty miles drive away, but we were frequently summonsed when they were in residence. We camped outside as there wasn't room inside. At New Year, we stayed at a crap hotel so we could dine together on New Year's Eve. One year, I had picked up some ghastly virus and couldn't face the annual winter summons. She sounded rather put out. I should have realised then that she was not to be disobeyed.

When I moved to Spain, it took her five years to condescend to spend less than 24 hours with us, en route from a dressage course teaching horses how to dance. I had discovered by then that she had visited Spain on numerous occasions, some relatives of her husband had a place up the coast, they had a quick trip to Madrid one week, a friend in Majorca held a party, etc etc - how far down the list had I sunk?

The last time I visited her, we had to go to the post office. 'Do you think the card will get there for her birthday tomorrow?' she said anxiously. To Majorca? To the Spanish friend who seemed to merit more visits and cards than me? I doubt it would have got to her on the other side of London the next day, let alone Majorca. 'No.'

So this is the woman who wants me to drop everything, forego mine and my partners' birthdays and attend her summer luncheon housewarming party. The party was today. My birthday was yesterday. I sent my reply a month ago saying I wouldn't be attending. And did I receive any birthday greeting from her? I don't think I need to answer that. I think you can all work that one out yourselves.

So, yes, it hurt that she didn't acknowledge my birthday. Maybe Vicky was right (see previous party party post) with her comment. Maybe our paths have become so wide apart that we are strangers. Sadly. Which brings me specifically onto birthdays.

There are some internet friendships you make that are closer than others. You remember their birthday, they don't remember yours. Or vice versa. I know, because I have been guilty of that - knew when it was roughly, but something came into your mind and - whoosh - you miss it, for which I am truly sorry. Not helped by being offline half the time (excuses excuses). So when someone doesn't remember mine, hasn't made a note, doesn't think it is an important thing to say Happy Birthday, you realise you aren't that important in their life. Even if you are in contact every day. There comes a point when you stop telling people it is your birthday just for them to dish out a trite and meaningless greeting. As I said, sadder - and - wiser ?

And all the more reason for appreciating the birthday wishes I did receive when I returned on-line today. Thanks especially to those of you who sent e-cards as well as a greeting. Sometimes FB helps because it makes remembering birthdays easy - just look up at the right-hand corner. Maybe I'll make more effort after yesterday, even if I don't know people too well.

Almost forgot. What did I do? Woke up at some disgustingly early hour, and decided to get rid of superfluous clothes. Some went in the charity bank, the others are marked up for poss car boot sale/Friday Ads - or the charity bank. Walked round the beach. Went into town to buy a bottle of cava and a couple of beers. Wandered around town checking out all the changes. Came back home, cooked lunch (asparagus and potato salad for the foodies out there) - and decided against cleaning. It was a good day.

Death and bereavement

2011-06-10T12:34:00.005+02:00

Remember the Funerals post here?

Here is its companion. I ended that post having attended three funerals in my life, between the ages of approx 30 and 40. It seems from comments received on that post, that I wasn't alone in being excluded from family funerals as a child.

The next funeral I went to was my father's. I wrote about my last visit to see him here. There is something about death that takes you totally unawares and knocks your legs from under you.

As a kid I often worried what would happen to me if I became orphaned. My mum and dad, and Good Dog Tarquin of course, were my world. I couldn't envisage one without that security bubble. But with age, and so-called independence, work, and a relationship of your own with someone, that fear recedes.

As an adult you know, or at least expect, that one day you will have to cope with the death of your parents. Sensibly you tell yourself that day will happen, and once they are in their 70s, you think it isn't that far away. Although not imminent. But you know you will be able to cope with it as a grown-up.

So when my father did die, even though I knew it was going to happen, I was stunned. In fact, I probably didn't feel anything straightaway as it fell to me to sort out everything. My mother was nominally the executor, but she hadn't a clue what to do, and why should she? I was around and was happy to handle all the paperwork - all she had to do was sign the forms and letters.

I went to the Registrar with the letter from the GP to get the death certificate to start moving the paperwork. I opened the letter to see what the GP had written. It didn't make any sense to me, and I asked the Registrar what it meant. It was some vague woffly term that implied he had died from cancer all over his body. Well that isn't what kills you. It may be what leads to the death, but I wanted to know what had happened. The Registar said it was probably heart, lungs, liver, kidneys - whatever - that had failed, and that GPs in the community weren't as precise as hospital doctors.

There was a slight admonition that I shouldn't have opened the letter as it was addressed to her. Well hell!! Who cares? It was my father and I WANTED to see the cause of death. What a load of crappy bureaucracy. I should add that there had been no post-mortem examination as he had been seen in the local hospital by a doctor in the previous week. So there we were, from suspected colorectal cancer (Stage 3 by my guessing from the minimal info from the geriatrician over the 'phone) to death a few weeks later.

The funeral came and went. Although my mother was technically the starring player, I was Best Supporting Role, and dressed up accordingly. Black Cerruti suit, jet necklace, nice black (Wolford) tights and smart black shoes. Black lace gloves too. As, 'Gloves and no hat, but never hat and no gloves,' for those churchgoers out there.

When I returned to Spain, I felt, well, flat. Very flat. I didn't really know what to do with myself apart from speak to my mother every day on the 'phone when she rang up worried about one thing or another. My partner started spending increasing time on 'planes visiting my mother to sort things out. 'Siempre esta volando en el aire,' as my Spanish neighbour said - he's always flying in the air. And he was.

Then one night I started to have a panic attack. Thinking about my past, my parents, realising my dad had died, and just wondering where life was going and I was suddenly lying there breathing horribly quickly and too fast. For anyone who doesn't know - panic attacks don't kill. But they aren't too good when they are happening and they can be frightening for the person lying next to you. And they continued. Every now and again, or maybe, quite often, I would start one. But when they were over, there was actually a feeling of relief. I guess they are a way of relieving stress.

When my mother died - I couldn't face going back to do the honours. Practically, we couldn't both go because of the animals. I really couldn't handle going back to their home, to the same church, and - one parent less. Exactly the same scenario except the mother who had stood next to me at my father's funeral would be in that wooden box up front. So while I made the arrangements over the 'phone, Partner agreed to go and be the Star. Meet rellies he'd not met before.

It was after her death though that the desolation kicked in. If I had felt that some of my past had been wiped out when my father died - it felt like it had all gone when my mother joined him. It was as though the first part of your life, your early and formative years, no longer existed. With them gone, so had those first precious and childish years. And while it wasn't the idyllic childhood they had told me it was, it was the only one I had. All contact with that had gone. Just memories. No more.

Thinking of my mother was split between two views, her later cranky years in life - and those lovely early ones when she soothed my brow and fed me beef tea, picked me up from school on Wednesday lunchtimes (half day) to go for lunch at the Strafford Arms and eat egg mayonnaise and grissini, bought me Famous Five books - the list is endless. I read quotes on the internet about 'you'll never know how much you miss your mother until she isn't there' - and realised they were true. Gah! I hate sloppy stuff like that!!

And, although I had a partner, I felt so alone. Isolated. Where was my support now? There wasn't any? It was silly really, because I had been financially and emotionally independent for years. I had been the one trying to help them in their later years. But old habits die hard, and I felt frightened. They weren't there for me to go back to when something was wrong (and feed me beef tea and soothe my brow). They just weren't there. And half my life had died with them. I still miss my mum. And I still feel alone. Perhaps it comes of being an only child.

Public relations - in the NHS

2011-06-08T13:09:00.007+02:00

Stress seemed like a good topic for the day - but in thinking about it, I thought I should precede it with one about public relations to give a little insight.

As everyone probably doesn't know, the average PR person is not that well paid. When I first went into PR from journalism, the salaries were better than I was getting as a journalist, but Max Clifford super-earners we were not.

Invariably people graft away in relatively lowly jobs either in the public sector - local government, civil service, health service - or in the private sector, where the salaries can be good, and, they can also be even worse than the public sector.

As everyone probably also doesn't know, every one in the world without the slightest relevant qualification, thinks they are a PR expert - to the extent of even applying for PR jobs. When I advertised for PR managers, specifically requiring journalism and/or PR skills and experience, I got every person under the sun applying. 'I like talking to people, so I can do this job,' sort of application.

And every non-PR manager KNOWS, just KNOWS, that they are far more of an expert about PR than someone specifically appointed to the job. They may have even listened to a lecture for an hour about it. Who knows? Just gotta love the civil servant telling me how to write and where to place the commas. What my intro should be. What boring verbose language to use. Hell! Why not write the press release yourself? Actually some of them did 'helpfully' send down drafts. They were crap.

And the medic, the nurse, the manager, everyone, but everyone, telling me what to do and what we need. And would they actually pull their tiny little finger out to do anything themselves? Only if and when it meant personal glory for them at my expense. So the realities of life in PR, are not a social whirl of booze and buffets. About the only decent one I ever managed was a launch in Scotland where we had chablis and smoked salmon. But otherwise food and drink was pretty mediocre on that wonderful circuit of networking, chatting, and no hard work. The civil service was slightly better than the health service. At least we had a budget for smoked salmon and chablis. Once.

PR involves being on-call at weekends and nights during the week. In some cases, there are formal rotas - invariably when you have a nice large department and you take it in turns to be on-call. This does mean that you get an on-call allowance, ie extra cash. In very olden days you had to stay in all over the weekend - because there were no office mobile 'phones. (When the mobile 'phone did arrive your arm nearly dropped off lugging it across London to go home). The only time you could escape was to go and buy every single newspaper on Saturday and Sunday mornings and then spend the rest of the morning ploughing through them looking for relevant cuttings. Even Sunday Sport!!

When the 'phone rang, you answered it. Didn't matter what time it was, you answered it. Our 'phone was downstairs which was just as well, as I had sort of woken up when it rang after midnight and I had finally staggered down the uncarpeted stairs, carefully avoiding the ladders that were permanently stored on our staircase. It was usually a nuclear query of course. Gah! Which nuclear expert to wake up at some unearthly hour to ask about nuclear probs? And try and absorb the answer. An escaped canister somewhere? An unacceptable leak of radiation? Exactly what you wanted to deal with when you were half asleep. Still, choose job, get paid, do job.

But when you have attained the lofty rank of a senior manager - there is no on-call allowance. Your salary is deemed to be sufficient and this is when you start to be owned by the company, whether it is public sector or not. Especially when it is the health service. Then you have to find one of your colleagues who specialises in the subject to speak to the press (unlike the civil service where normally you are the spokesperson). Invariably your colleagues don't want to speak to the press. They don't consider they are paid to do so, they may have the knowledge, and you don't, but it is your job to speak to the press even when you have no idea of the topic being asked about. They sure as hell aren't going to tell you something they know about in order to make you look good.

At the time we had a boss who considered that PR was everyone's business. Sadly all his staff did not. My colleagues considered weekends and holidays to be off-limits. I received a call one New Year's Day, and rang the relevant manager. 'I don't want to speak to the press on New Year's Day, can't you deal with it?' Er no. My New Year's Day has also been interrupted thank you very much. I was gardening at the time, it was beautiful weather. Really, how do people think I can possibly speak to the press without being told about the issues? I wasn't telepathic. Nor am I now.

When we held our big public consultation, I usually arrived in the office around 8am. If I was lucky I went to a public meeting in the evening and finished sometime after 9pm, or 10pm or whenever. If I was unlucky, I stayed at work until after midnight working on the fifty millionth version of the crap draft document, accompanied by my superb admin assistant who would rapidly make all the amendments and endlessly keep printing it out. I would take her home, and then drop off the latest versions of our draft documents to all our board members through their letterboxes. I should say there was no extra cash for either of us for this dedicated duty. We had a job. At a time of cutbacks it was enough.

We had board meetings virtually every week. One day, one of the intelligent non-executive board members had a bright idea. 'Why don't we get a journalist to write this document for us?' Bang head on table? One of the exec directors who knew my CV helpfully pointed out that we did have a journalist around that very table. NED looked at me from under his microscope (he was a medic of sorts) wondering what sort of species I was. If I was a journalist, why was I working for the health authority? I couldn't possibly be a proper journalist could I? Because if I was, I would be working for a newspaper.

And how many battles had I already had with the arrogant self-opinionated managers who considered that they could write a public consultation document far better than me? Public sector life? Easy? Money for old rope? No. In the end, I committed to re-writing the - so far - crap document over a few days and getting rid of all the ghastly managerial speak. I demanded input from a couple of knowledgeable people, but given that, I could do it. We did do it of course.

Me, and a couple of directors spent a couple of days locked away, even including getting a couple of pizzas in the office to keep us going. (We paid for them before anyone starts to worry about a couple of pizzas coming out of the public purse). We left the office only to go to the toilet. We went home when it was finished. Or rather they went, I finished the document off - and yes, delivered the latest version to the picky board members into their letterboxes. After midnight. As usual. Was it a good document? Yeah, I reckon it was. Within the constraints of what people wanted to include, but at least it was readable and didn't come on like an MBA thesis.

And - therein lies another PR lesson. Always, but always say how good your work is. Doesn't matter if it is rubbish because, that is what everyone else does. Gotta promote yourself. Tell everyone you are fantastic. Completed an insignificant piece of work - gosh! I did great stuff didn't I? You don't need to be good. Just say you are. To the right people.

Now, onto the next PR lesson. When people tell you they want a PR strategy and lots of really good communications, that means they are telling you how to do your job. In fact they want nothing more than to tell you how to do it, without doing anything else. Will they provide contacts, information, write anything, provide interviews, move their arses to help? Quite honestly - will they fuck.
Newsletters? Don't even go there. The nightmare of every PR manager.

What your super colleagues will do, is endlessly moan and wail about the need for great PR - and tell you to do something. Like PR is one person's business? Because no, it definitely is not. I got sick of it in the end. Ha! I told my dear colleagues exactly what was needed from them to run a decent PR strategy. Everyone lost interest. See, it's easy to say 'What we need are good communications, a newsletter, a PR strategy...' and all the rest of it. Anyone can say that. Hardly takes Brain of the Year. It griped me to hell that my health service colleagues on more money had crap PR skills, expected me to deal with the press for them on their behalf - without giving me the relevant info - and I was treated like some mediocre person, without a skill, who could just chat to the press and write a few press releases, but who didn't understand proper health service stuff. So that my dears, is why I left PR. And learned about cancer services.

Health issues - more smears ......

2011-06-01T12:41:00.007+02:00

OK, a few stories about screening.

The biggest story to hit the UK was when screening errors at Kent and Canterbury Hospital led to the deaths of eight women and 90,000 women were recalled for further tests. BBC News link about results

Not surprisingly, after that, screening procedures were tightened up somewhat. 'Quality' crept into screening bigtime. Actually it didn't creep, it jumped in and screamed across the stage. When I first took over responsibility for cancer services, I was told screening was included. Big difference in health authority terms, none to the public. But basically, screening is regarded as a public health function, ie something to keep people healthy. Cancer services are about treating people who are sick.

'You'll be chair of the quality assurance group,' said one colleague. Knowingly, and sniggered. I didn't even get to the first meeting of 'MY' group. I was busy writing the Millennium Plan for Year 2000 and couldn't spare the time. I had, however, recently acquired a seconded assistant - a medic gaining public health experience - so I cheerfully sent him to cover for me. It was only afterwards that he told me what an interesting experience it had been for him because he had never chaired a meeting before in his life.

I finally made the next meeting. I guess the group wasn't too happy that I had skipped the first one. They also weren't too happy that for more than 12 months my authority had been promising them a newsletter that had never materialised. Ah! a gift horse. Newsletter? Get that one whacked out in no time. Even if one director, a secretary and a public health consultant had failed to do it. See, journalists do have some advantages.

At the end of that first meeting, one of the consultant surgeons said to me, and I still remember his words to this day: 'I am right, aren't I? You aren't a clinician.' Well, so what. Two clinicans hadn't produced the frigging newsletter that they were all clamouring for so they weren't much use. And secondly, there were so many clinicians around the table that there were more points of view than you could poke a speculum into.

I think I gave the polite and restrained (for me) response of: 'No, I'm not. We are lucky to have plenty of intelligent clinicians around the table with a lot of knowledge and experience. It's my job as a manager to pull that together and use it in the interests of improving the service.' Or some such similar crap.

This guy was no walkover. He had more than one of my female colleagues in tears and was rude and insulting to them. He was well known for being sexist and arrogant, and old-fashioned. He didn't try it on with me any more. In fact, when he moaned about the preponderance of vegetarian food available for our lunches - which people had said they preferred - I arranged a carnivorous banquet for him but he didn't turn up. I received grovelling apologies however and no further complaints about the food.

I should say that I also represented our organisation at his leaving do. He wasn't a bad guy, in fact I would say he was good if you stood up to him. He also took the time to show me around his clinic one afternoon so that I had a better understanding of the work he did. I liked him.

Bit of background. My district included two hospitals with laboratories where the smears were tested, and the same hospitals also had colposcopy clinics where women went for an even nastier procedure than a smear. We had a totally separate admin department that organised the invitations and result letters. Then there were all the hundreds of GPs, and community clinics, the GUM clinic, blah blah. Oh, and health promotion, I always forget that one. All this lot were on my cheerful little group.

To add spice to the mix, one lab was also used by another authority, and that authority had different procedures to ours. Gah!! The minor first disaster was learning that in spite of all our new quality assurance procedures, the shared lab had discovered some poor reporting of smears and hadn't bothered to tell either me, or my colleague in the other authority about this.

Whose neck is on the block? Theirs - and - OURS, as guardians of the screening programme. So much for joint working together. But when the other lab had a problem - they did tell me. I probably wished they hadn't. I had to call a serious incident procedure. The lab had totally missed a smear that wasn't just borderline, or abnormal. It showed cancerous cells on the slide.

This is probably the point at which to say, that screening slides of cervical smears was a hellish boring job that was badly paid. Invariably as local technicians qualified, they were poached for a few more quid by a local lab. I would never dream of blaming the technician for missing something. Or even the cytopathologist that double checked it. It was just not an easy job.

For me though, the very worst experience was one that didn't happen - hopefully. A colleague was in charge of registering local homes, some of which included people who had disabilities. There was a problem in a home with someone who didn't want a smear. Did my colleague come and ask me what the local policy was? Of course not. ( A few personal power political games possibly in play here).

She went happily off to ask a MALE public health doctor who knew jack shit nada about the work of our group. 'Sedate her,' he said authoritatively and arrogantly. 'She needs a smear.' Well, Mr Arrogant Public Health Consultant, it is basically not your decision. Simple as that. It wasn't then and it isn't now. Do not force a woman with disabilities to undergo an invasive test that she clearly doesn't want. Sedating her? Hey date rape doctors here we go.

Finally I'll finish with a comment dear to my heart. It's hardly surprising that patient information has always been one of my priorities. I could never understand why medics, nurses (usually left to nurses of course) and every other clinican in the health service, always thought they could write well, because they couldn't, it wasn't their job to write - theirs to diagnose and treat.

When I discovered that GPs were sending out info and letters, as well as our computerised admin centre sending out similar-but-not-quite-the-same info to our resident female population, I asked a colleague to conduct an audit. By which I mean, asking all the local surgeries to send in their patient info stuff so that we could share best practice, aka tell the ones who are writing rubbish to STOP DOING THAT. Because that was what I wanted at the end of the day.

And what was worrying about the results? GPs were writing out to the women on their list and telling them, basically, that if they didn't attend for a smear they would get cancer. Now that was not only misleading, it was a downright lie, and only served to perpetuate disinformation. I wonder why women are ill-informed about cervical smears? What next? Patient consent perhaps?

Health issues - cervical screening

2011-05-31T14:45:00.008+02:00

Back to health, 'cos there is always something to write about health, and how many of us have not been through so many similar scenarios? (Although seems not everyone had my exciting operational childhood).

On one post, I said that I believed in my youth that cervical screening was A Good Thing. This was primarily because I knew stuff all about it. I am not saying it is a bad thing, but you really don't need to do 1000 Hail Marys if you choose not to take up a screening appointment.

IMNRHO, cervical screening receives far too much airtime. Why does it receive so much publicity when it is hardly one of the most common cancers? Possibly because it combines two irresistible subjects, cancer prevention and sticking things up women, to put it bluntly. And for all those women out there who have had smears, that is exactly what it is and what it feels like.

However, I shall now add to the airtime, as I find it an interesting topic, not least because of the amount of ignorance out there. I'll start with mine.

I can't remember what or where I first heard about cervical screening. Probably, like lots of other women of my generation, something I read about in a magazine. And my first fuzzy impressions were that it was important to go for one as it would prevent cancer. In case you are already bored - just read one more comment. Cervical screening, in itself, does NOT prevent cancer. Nor is the purpose of the programme to detect it.

So having heard about this strange procedure where someone sticks something up you and it could possibly be slightly uncomfortable, what happens next? Well, again, in my antiquated day, the first experience was usually when you braved the local doctor to ask for a prescription for the pill. My GP was OK to be fair so this is not a criticism of him, more of the system, or lack of it at the time. But ask for pill, and jump on couch, open legs and nasty cold thing is stuck up.

When I had my first cervical smear, there was no organised call and recall programme. Screening was provided by GP surgeries but on a sporadic basis depending who your GP was etc etc. Call and recall (as it's called in NHS jargon) which is the incredibly organised invitation system, was introduced in the late 80s. My mother received an invitation in her early 60s and asked me what to do. I figured a) she wouldn't really like the experience and b) she had managed 60 years of her life without a smear so best leave it alone.

Some years later, I took over responsibility for the local screening programme in my health authority, and we had a call and recall programme up and running. We had merged two districts so we had one running a three year programme, and one running a five year programme. We also had GPs doing their own thing. Nightmare.

First though, a few facts, just in case the women's mags didn't include them, or you don't read the nice leaflets the NHS now provides. Or you don't live in the UK.

1) Cervical screening tests for the presence of pre-cancerous cells. That is, cells that may, or may not, later turn into cancerous cells.

2) If there are abnormal cells, this is described as dyskaryosis. Dyskaryosis can be borderline, mild, moderate or severe.

3) What you want to receive is a normal (negative) result. This is not negative by any stretch of the examination, it means that there are no indications of dyskaryotic cells. Moving up the scale, you can get a borderline one, or an abnormal one (refers to mild, moderate or severe dyskaryosis). Or if it can't be read, you get an inadequate one. Doesn't mean you or the smear are inadequate, just that it couldn't be properly read back in the lab, eg not enough cells, or too much mucous, blood or goodness knows what on the sample.

4) All screening programmes provide false results, usually known as false positives or false negatives. A false negative is when you are given the all clear and a problem is later discovered. A false positive is when you are told there is a problem - and possibly given unnecessary treatment for that - and, you didn't need it.

5) You do NOT have to attend for a smear test, however much pressure your local clinic or surgery puts on you. It is your choice.

6) From 1990, UK GPs got extra money for reaching certain targets for the amount of women they managed to screen. So, if they got half the women on their surgery list in for screening they got one payment, if they topped 80% they got more. Mmmm, ever think your GP has your best interest at heart? Or their pocket? What is the use, in a cash-strapped public sector service, of screening women who are at low risk of developing cervical cancer just to stick more bucks in a GP's pocket?

7) If you want to know more, check out the NHS cancer screening website. Their public information leaflets look awfully like the ones I developed more than ten years ago, but hey ho, these things happen. Seriously, though, I do think there is a lot of good info out there and saves me repeating it all.

http://www.cancerscreening.nhs.uk

And - here is another very good page.

Next up - a few horror stories??

The little things

2011-05-16T11:38:00.005+02:00

The other day a friend told us about something another friend had for sale. We agreed to go and look at it, preferably early in the morning over the weekend. Our intermediary was happy with that as he gets up early anyway. He agreed to ring us with a time.

As luck had it, he rang back when we were asleep, and left a message. The next morning - not having checked the answerphone - we were still expecting to go look at the prospective goody. Have you ever sat around waiting for someone to ring you with time and location for a meeting?

Invariably their idea of early is midday and the morning is happily wasted as you sit around getting more and more irritable. Or at least I do, and so does Partner. Just in case there is anyone out there who doesn't know, I am a morning person. By which I mean I get up between six and seven am, like to do things in the morning, start thinking about lunch at midday, do nothing in the afternoon, start feeling tired, have some tea/supper later on, and fall into bed in the evening. Not a night-time person by any stretch of the imagination. Night-time and darkness are for sleeping.

And the second thing to say is, I am probably impatient. I do NOT like waiting around. Even waiting for the bus to school I used to get annoyed when it was late, and timed my arrival at the bus stop a couple of minutes before the expected time, but allowing for the odd occasion when it was early. Waiting at bus stops for more than five minutes was never my thing. All that changed somewhat when I went to India and had to wait days for a train. But waiting around for someone to ring to set a time? And seeing the day disappear in front of your eyes? No. Not my thing.

So I decided we would go out, because we would be back home by mid morning and still able to make any appointment. And off we went. After a few minutes, my 'phone went. Had we got the message on the answerphone? No. The appointment was for 5pm that day as it was the only time the other person could manage. This is the weekend. This person does not work at weekends as far as know. Why are we all hanging around until 5pm? No-one stays in bed that long. And this is a five minute job - go and look at something and decide if we want it. We agreed to turn up for 5pm.

How are we getting there, I asked? Walking? I thought your partner could drive, says our intermediary. Hmmm. Well that poses a problem to start with as it is a van and there is only room for one passenger. Where was I supposed to go? Ah. I get it. Nothing to do with me. So I'm not factored into any of this. Well where is it, I asked? Oh, it's near Such and Such Street, says intermediary. That wasn't even five minutes away from us, no need to drive there thinks me, but strangely and unusually said nothing. We'll ring when we get back in an hour or so, I said and clicked off the 'phone.

When we got back we rang and got directions for this place, although not the actual address. I should say that this goody was a vehicle bit and on the vehicle so all we had to do was spot the vehicle in the right car park and have a look without hassling anyone. Off we went. Gib is not a big place but when you don't have good directions, it's not always easy to find somewhere.

We looked at every conceivable nearby car park but the vehicle we were looking for was nowhere to be found. So we came home. That's enough of the tale without going into really boring detail. Basically, someone who had nothing to do with the proposed purchase was acting as intermediary (no cut involved because it wasn't even an expensive buy) and telling us time, but no location, how to get there ie driving not walking, assuming that we were going to buy it anyway so would put said bit in vehicle, AND thinking that I had nothing to do with this possible purchase. Oh. No. Here we are with the money, to buy something and no-one is fitting around us. Or telling us what we need to know.

Point number three - when I am going somewhere - I like to know where I am going. I want an address and specific instructions. 'It's around Such and Such Street' and 'Go up there and it's in the car park' don't really suit. So people, don't give me orders, don't organise what I am doing, and please provide accurate directions in future. And early morning does NOT mean 5pm. Everyone's weekends are precious time. We want to enjoy ours too.

Babies, kids and all that crap or whatever I called it before Blogger spat out the dummy

2011-05-13T20:30:00.002+02:00

Some of my dear friends may already be aware that the maternal instinct thing fortunately passed me by. That's if you even subscribe to the theory of maternal instincts as opposed to cultural gender indoctrination.

Which, put simply, means women are bombarded with endless messages from the moment they are old enough to think, that their main role and function in life is as a breeding machine. Having children is the most wonderful and fulfilling experience ever and that is what we all live for.

Well, I don't and neither do countless others so the propaganda got lost somewhere along the line. I have never found ugly wrinkly babies remotely appealing. Give me a puppy, a donkey, a baby chicken, anything really apart from an ugly wrinkly baby that will grow up into an obnoxious person. Probably an ugly wrinkly obnoxious person. And as for thinking they will look after you in your dotage? Hmmm strikes me as a) amazingly selfish and b) amazingly naive.

As I reached adulthood my views didn't change. I still didn't find babies or young children cute, appealing or interesting. I did however, not dislike the early teens type kid that seemed to suffer all the problems of adolescence. Not young enough to be cute any more but not old enough to be treated as an adult. So I would make time to speak to this somewhat ignored group if they came my way.

I've never understood why people speak differently to children compared with how they do to adults. Hopefully the ghastly talking down to kids thing has decreased over the years. As far as I could see, they were all small people and deserved the same respect and the same type of conversation that big people got. Like big people, if little people came out with smart comments to me they would get one back.

When the first of my university friends finally had a baby I dutifully started knitting a cute matinee coat. If the baby got chance to wear it once I would be surprised as it took me that long to finish it. Even knitting baby clothes was boring as hell despite the smallness of the coat. All in all my friend was pretty good with me when I went to visit and admired the latest designer acquisition. She didn't get annoyed when I called it 'It'. (It was a boy actually). Nor did she bat an eyelid when I screwed up my nose as she efficiently changed a nappy.

Naturally she went on to have a girl next. One of each. We visited her parents one New Year and I spent most of the time playing on the floor with the toddler. As she grew up, I spent time with her in her bedroom, playing with the cat, the hamster and painting our nails together. Mummy was out at pilates or something like that. The young daughter was easy to get on with and I enjoyed her company. No idea what she is like now in her very late teens.

Another couple of friends (again from my university days) had their two - one of each again - somewhat later in life, so when I visited them a few years ago, the two children were still junior school age. They were nice too. Interesting, polite, friendly, well-behaved - and I was asked to read a bed-time story to the boy. I wouldn't have volunteered because there is nothing worse than sticking your nose in where it's not wanted, and being rejected. But always happy to read stories, so that was fun.

On the same trip, I visited other friends. The teenage son was out but the daughter (sixth form) was at home. Again, easy company, loads to talk about, and an interesting and pleasant young woman. None of those friends pushed their kids in my face - at any age. But equally, their children were not ignored while I was there, they were treated with attention and the same amount of respect as an adult. Their parents took time with them, explained things, talked to them sensibly, and from my incredibly inexperienced point of view, seemed to be the sort of parents one would want.

I like my friends, and fortunately - I happened to like their children. Accepting someone's children is a bit like accepting their partner. They are - presumably - the most important people in their world, and you want to get on with them because you like your friend (s). Just like you don't expect your friends to settle with terrible partners, you don't expect their offspring to be vile creatures.

People know I am more interested in dogs than children. For virtually all our married life we have had dogs. If friends don't like dogs they don't need to visit. That includes Mother-In-Laws (Mothers-in-Law?) from hell too. And it is really impressive when someone asks you to stay, and says that you can bring the dogs of course. How totally considerate. Although preferably not to be shut up in a cupboard at night a la MILFH.

Some years ago one of our British friends came to visit us in Spain. He's always had a cat but has been pretty wary of our dogs, or to be more accurate, the German Shepherd. As we sat in the patio, Prince settled down happily next to Andy. "I've never really got this close to him before," said Andy. "Are you sure it's the same dog? He's quite nice really." Give me an old dog before a baby any day.

Allegories?

2011-05-11T15:48:00.010+02:00

Promised you all something about - allegories. So here we go.

When I asked for a simple explanation of the proposed American shutdown, I was surprised to get a rather trite and facile explanation of household budgeting. think of it this way: you spent all of your money except for 10 dollars on shoes. You want more shoes, but your husband says you can either buy shoes or eat. You decide to buy shoes and shake down your mother for more money so you can eat, except she doesn't have any money, so you go hungry and blame your husband

Well, anyone who knows me knows that I am unlikely to spend money on shoes. In fact, I can't remember the last time I did, unless training shoes count. Similarly, food on the table always comes first in this home, along with warmth and shelter. And highly unlikely that my husband would tell me how to spend my money.

Moving on .... It's not about that. To go back to using allegory... I'd like a new car. I don't NEED one, my 2001 Celica is great, but hey, a Lexus would be nice. But there are things I need to take care of FIRST -- we prioritize our budget. Take care of the taxes, insurance, utility bills, food, vet care, ETC... then see what's left. Obama and the dems buy the Lexus first, then go into debt. The republicans (who now control the House but not the Senate) are trimming the budget - and Obama is whining that he just won't spend ANY money then, if he can't have his Lexus. Again... it's allegory. But hopefully that makes sense.

Yeah. I have had one new car in my life. A Mini Metro for anyone who is interested back in the 80s at a cost of some £3000+. I saved the money and bought the car. Our oldest vehicle is 37 years old. I really don't give a shit about a new Celica or a new Lexus. So that is the personal stuff out of the way regarding the 'allegories'.

Except ... I think I should add a few points about my ability to manage budgets. I haven't got to 50+ years of age without working out how to add up. 1) Million pound budget manager for cancer services (I mean lots of millions, obviously) 2) Somewhat smaller budgets for managing the chief executive's office 3) Book-keeping for a business for 25+ years 4) Submitting tax returns for same 5) Somewhere in the past I think I can find that MBA - and wait! - I even enjoyed calculating Net Present Value. So do not tell me how to manage a domestic budget. Thank you. Or tell me not to buy a new pair of shoes or a new car. JFC.

Importantly, I do not think the parallel between domestic budgets and the proposed American shutdown is remotely similar. Balancing a budget is one thing - arguing about ethical points is another. So let me provide my scenario. I also think allegory is a totally inaccurate description. allegory noun ( a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one : Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory of the spiritual journey. • the genre to which such works belong. • a symbol.

Ron and Dan live together. Doesn't matter what sex they are before you ask, they are gender neutral names. Every six months they swap around the control of the domestic budget. At the moment, Dan is in charge of the budget and Ron is not working much so relies on Dan. They have agreed that whoever is in charge, pays the basic bills and proposes a plan for capital expenditure (for example).

Ron doesn't like Dan's proposals and starts to complain. Ron gripes about Dan eating tuna sandwiches at lunchtime because Ron likes dolphins. (Yes! I know it is unlikely that Republican Ron would do that but the whole point of this is finding an ethical sticking point, thank you, so read on). Ron wants Dan to stop buying tuna. Dan refuses. Dan says s/he will stop paying the bills and reduce the household services. ..... Dan agrees to buy tuna that doesn't damage dolphins.

And - the budget continues. No problems for anyone. For what it's worth, I think that was slightly more relevant than a comparison with budgetary overspending. The whole point about the shutdown was about making political points about ethical issues. Not whether or not you buy shoes or cars. Or overspend.

Next up, I had thought of writing another um - allegory?? It seemed inappropriate to post on my facebook wall given the sensitivities of my readers. But.. this is my blog and my space (so to speak).

Let's imagine you live in a nice house in a nice street. You are happy in your home but - around the corner in the rather tatty trailer trash area is someone who has something you want. They could be the Beverly Hillbillies with black gold in fact. But you want it and your needs are more important.

Guess what? You go right in, saying they are unsound neighbours. You ask a few friends to help who live a few blocks away and who daren't say no. You don't like the morals/religion/ethics/clothes/anything really of this trash and rip the shit out of them. You take the black gold too. Naturally it is all done in the name of beautification of the neighbourhood. A few lies don't go amiss about what trash they really are because everyone believes you. Once you have what you want, you pussyfoot around for a bit pretending to help and then clear off. As do your poodles.

I hope that was a helpful parallel. It isn't an allegory at all. It is just a different way of portraying American politics. ETA courtesy of the lovely Otter Um allegory - analogy??

analogy noun ( pl. -gies) a comparison between two things, typically on the basis of their structure and for the purpose of explanation or clarification : an analogy between the workings of nature and those of human societies | he interprets logical functions by analogy with machines. • a correspondence or partial similarity : the syndrome is called deep dysgraphia because of its analogy to deep dyslexia. See note at likeness . • a thing that is comparable to something else in significant respects : works of art were seen as an analogy for works of nature. • Logic a process of arguing from similarity in known respects to similarity in other respects. • Linguistics a process by which new words and inflections are created on the basis of regularities in the form of existing ones. • Biology the resemblance of function between organs that have a different evolutionary origin. DERIVATIVES analogical |ˌanəˈläjikəl| adjective analogically adverb ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense [appropriateness, correspondence] ): from French analogie, Latin analogia ‘proportion,’ from Greek, from analogos ‘proportionate.’

Women don't exist

2011-05-10T16:57:00.008+02:00

I have been so busy droning on about internet politics and crap like that to the extent I have ignored world affairs.

Or perhaps there is indeed a link. It is called censorship. As in. You. Do. Not. Exist.

Hillary Clinton will do for starters. As will Audrey Tomason. And why are these two women in the news? Well, strictly speaking in orthodox jewish terms - they aren't.

Check out the links but, to cut to the chase, an orthodox jewish newspaper in New York cut Clinton and Tomason out of the photo where key White House staff were watching an update on the Bin Laden attack.

Let me put on all my hats.

As a historian - messing with history is garbage, and very, very, dangerous.

As a journalist - messing with records is lying and deceptive, and very, very, dangerous.

As a feminist - this is one of the biggest crocks of shit I have heard for some time. Getting rid of women on photos is getting rid of women, because men don't want them to exist. Especially in positions of power. Simple.

And if orthodox jewish men view those women as sexually suggestive that is THEIR problem, not that of the women in government. That's like saying - women shouldn't go out at night in case men want to rape them.

Now here is a comment that I particularly want to criticise.
While I disagree with the altering of the photo, I don't think it is g'neveit daat (GD). GD would be when they are trying to trick people into thinking something not true. The hasidic jews know that there are women in government, including as secratary of state. Also, does it really matter which officials were there or not? 

Well, sweetheart, yes it does matter which officials were there. In fact why not get rid of all the men and leave the women in the photo?

In fifty or 100 years time, some of us won't be here. I certainly won't. Which hassidic jews will then know about the photoshopping and which women were in power at the time? Just - why delete the women? Because every single orthodox jew in the world finds them sexually suggestive? I find this horrific.

Any manipulation of data, history, records, images, - is deceitful - although it seems some jews can rationalise this one.

I should say that I didn't realise how incredibly sexist, no - misogynist - some jewish sects could be. My heart goes out to both Clinton and Tomason for the sheer disrespect and offence that they were shown from the jewish community.

rabbijason religion.blogs.cnn news.yahoo.com huffingtonpost

A few other comments. If you scrolled down the comments on one of the links there was a comment about women who cycle. Jesus!! Can't women do anything without being regarded as god-damn sex symbols???

Secondly - Golda Meir was the first thought that came to my mind - no pix of her? Israeli prime minister, third woman pm in the world?? Nope, apparently according to one religious zealot, she don't matter. Well done Golda, you left yourself a great heritage. A jewish community that disrespects intelligent and powerful women.

And - jewish people - if you ever wonder why you alienate yourselves, this is one very good example.

Cloudy netiquette?

2011-05-09T15:38:00.012+02:00

Always good to have a little post about netiquette I feel, as it changes by the week, or maybe by the day or the hour. Let's start with dirty linen. It doesn't get washed in public. Or shouldn't. So that means: 1) If you know someone in real life and you have an argument, you don't bore the rest of the forum with the sordid and - in some cases - sexual detail. It may well be amusing to the rest of the world, but you just end up looking a prat. However tempting it may be to tell everyone how horrible your former friend was, you don't make the other person look small, only yourself. 2) On the other hand, if you are on a private forum, ie it is closed to the world and visible to members only, and you have a section where you are free to argue whether on a personal level or about controversial issues, then that is fair game. You can criticise someone on there, and wait for a response, a counter-attack, an apology, or whatever. But even if it is a special section on a forum - you may still find that you lose friends. Being able to insult someone on a forum without being banned does not mean you will win popularity contests. 3) Slagging people off on public facebook pages is puerile. In the extreme. In addition, when you are no longer friends with someone or have blocked them, having a go at them behind closed doors is underhand. Don't deal from the bottom of the pack. They will probably hear about it anyway. And if that's your real intention, why not just email said person? 4) If you find yourself host to some insulting and rude comments, whether on your facebook page or on your blog you have two choices. You can leave the comments as a record of what people said. You may think that is a wise idea, as once something has been said it can't be taken back. Maybe people wrote when they were tired/drunk/stressed/who knows? And, other people may find it upsetting or annoying. Admittedly they can also choose not to read it. However, you can delete comments on blogs and conversations on facebook. The power of censorship on the internet is wonderful. 5) You can fall out and in with people a number of times on the internet. I know, I have done it, believe me. And, do you know what? When people have the courtesy to offer me friendship again after we have fallen out, I am happy and appreciative to accept that friendship. We all fuck up. 6) Facebook is not the most important method of communication on the internet. It may be the most used social network, but there are other places to go. Many of my internet friends use Twitter (unless it has changed, I found it too much like hard work) and Tumblr. Probably a third of my Facebook list comes from forums, another third is from blogging, and the last third is friends of friends of friends of friends who either have German Shepherds, huskies, play Farmville - or all three. There are people who want to know the ins and outs of everyone who they have on their friends list. Are they safe? Who are they? Who do they know? Do your friends know them personally? (Yeah right). Me, I really don't care. So long as they aren't vicious axe murderers/Michael Vick/or similar lowlifes, I'm not too worried about them. 7) You can choose to be open about your views or not, depending on what you are hoping to gain from the internet. You would have to be more than half asleep if you look at my blogs and do not realise what my views are. I see no reason to write in detail on facebook and if you are so interested in what I think you can find my blogs and cheerfully send yourself to sleep reading about my views on the world and their dog(s). Now for those of you who don't know - here is the facebook fallout. In both senses of the word. A month ago I asked about the proposed shutdown of the American government as I hadn't a clue what it was about. When I looked it up, I found nothing helpful on the internet. Here..... Hello US pals. Been reading about your proposed shutdown and don't understand. I gather you had one 15 years ago. But what is it? And why is it? Please can someone explain either a) really simply or b) give some useful links rather than the crass media ones I have found. Even better, what does it mean to people who live there? .....is my question. There was a long discussion. I found it helpful and interesting, and other people also did. Apparently others didn't as the following morning I noticed two 'friends' less. I don't know when I would have noticed, but ironically I was trying to comment on a wall post by one, which was a link to a good dog blog post. But I couldn't comment. Obviously. And then I looked up the other 'friend' who had posted the same sentiments on the shutdown discussion. Yup, also gone. Now while the first one was a relatively recent friend, the second one was a dog blog pal of four years, and a regular blog commenter, and an occasional pm/email friend. Not someone you would expect to drop you like a hot cake. Let's call her Friend 2. The discussion on the proposed shutdown seemed pretty reasonable in the internet scheme of things to me. There was only one rather rude comment (made by the first person I noticed who had defriended me) which was patronising and mocking towards someone else. I doubt either of them lost sleep over it. So. What annoyed me about this? Well firstly, someone I had known - as well as you do in the dog network - for four years, dropped me without even kissing my arse goodbye. More importantly, and I don't know the reason, so I can only surmise, but it followed a controversial political discussion. Do you drop people because you disagree with their point of view or because you host a serious discussion on facebook? Because if that's the case I could reduce my facebook friends to er one, maybe two. Just to be clear, what has really, really, really got up my nose, is what seems to be a deletion based on personal views and opinions. Around abortion and military intervention. (By which I mean US plus poodle allies invading half the world in the name of liberation but in a real quest for oil). Here is a quote from a pm I received: It is totally contrary and bizarre of XXXXX to do this, because it is like she is saying "unless you agree with me, follow my religion and my politics" then you are not to be a face book friend. And the day you delete people because you don't like the way they think, is the way you go down a dangerous road. Actually, you have already gone there. This is a woman who - in the words of another dog blog friend - 'throws friends away like an old pair of shoes.' (Thank you - you know who you are - for allowing me to use that brill quote). Because I wasn't the first to be deleted. Or the second. But at least the third that I know of. And why, might I ask? Because our lives don't fit the ideal role model? Our views are unsound? Mine have been the same for some time. There was just something about this whole thing that freaked me out. Deleting people that you have 'known' for years beacause of a political discussion? Freedom of speech? So long as they are the right freedoms maybe? Or the right speech? Still here, dear reader? I deleted all the people who were friends with Friend 2. Why? Because as far as I could see I had been deleted by someone I considered a friend following a political discussion. That smacks of censorship and fascism to me and if you want to be friends with someone like that - fine by me. But don't expect me to approve you sitting on the fence being friends with everyone, sweeties. Because one day, one day, those same people like Friend 2 will maybe decide they don't like what you say either. They won't tell you though. You will just be - gone. The truth is - you just don't matter and neither do your views. Older people on the internet may have even heard of the Nazis. Perhaps we are all judged by the company we keep?? That's why I changed mine.

Work - the early years

2011-04-26T19:33:00.009+02:00

I thought I would break up the health posts and write about that classic four letter word - WORK. It may sound surprising but I came from a very emancipated Yorkshire family when it came to women working. Women cooking, keeping the house, bringing up children and going out to work. Give up when you get married? Whatever for? There were no restrictions placed on my grandmothers and my mother in terms of work contribution to the household. One of my great-aunts got it pegged though. She worked as a seamstress, then got married, gave up work, didn't have any children, and cooked rather well. Now there was a woman who prioritised important things in her life. And avoided the unimportant ones. My parents followed the emancipated route for me however, and let me 'help' them on the market at age something-under-the-legal working age which is clearly why I was only 'helping'. In fact delivering orders was hardly what I would call work, but it started me on that wonderful working experiential ladder. I wonder how many children of my generation didn't work under age? Anyway, come somewhere near legal working age, I was permitted to do a full day behind the stall. The first day was pretty terrifying I have to say. My mother, in a rather cute PR move, gave away the first piece of cheese I cut, (it was only a small piece, obviously). I was the cheese girl. The Saturday boy/girl did the cheese. I got used to it, and gained confidence. Although every time someone said they had given me a one pound note and I had short-changed them for ten shillings, I was mortified. Apparently some of those customers did that regularly with the new Saturday boys/girls. It was an outdoor market, so it was cold in winter and warm in summer. In winter I wore thick tights, two or three pairs of socks, jeans, walking boots and a million jumpers. In summer, on a hot day, I wore nothing underneath my white smock. I carried 55lb cheeses around and opened them in the traditional fashion with a cheese steel so that it crumbled on opening. I carried middles of bacon and sides, although struggled with those somewhat because they were unwieldy. I worked every Saturday throughout senior school, with the exception of one geography field trip. I couldn't join in any Saturday sports although the most I would probably have achieved would have been ballgirl at tennis. Not much lost. Unlike my father who wasn't allowed to play cricket on Sats because he was - guess what? - working on the market. At university I came home every Friday afternoon and worked Saturdays. I have no concept of what my friends did on Friday nights or Saturdays at university because I was never there. To compensate, my mother did my washing, and I went back each weekend with a pound of bacon and half a pound of cheese. My rail fare was paid by my father, and I received a payment for the day's work. Clearly the family firm could not survive without me checking in every weekend.... After I had left university, it seemed that trade had suddenly fallen off and they didn't need me on Saturdays any longer now I was home. Hmmmm. Anyway, I wanted to get a 'proper' job even though I was disappointed my super duper skills were no longer needed on the market. When I finally landed a nearby job, my parents advised me to keep my nose clean and work hard and I would always get on. Well, as surely everyone knows - that is actually not the most helpful advice in the world. How about - 'Watch out for your back, because someone will always be trying to stab you there. Watch out for your front too. You will have no friends or allies. Especially if you are intelligent, well-educated, reasonable looking, slim, blah blah blah oh, and far too sarcastic. Do not believe what people tell you. Don't worry about what you do, it's all about what you say you do and how much you can talk.' But sadly, they didn't tell me that, and it took me a long time to learn that one. The first job wasn't bad. It was one of those temporary programmes set up to help unemployed graduates with a useless degree so they can add 'WORK' to their cv. About the only toes I trod on there were sexual ones. I was in the pub one Friday with the office group and one of the guys spilled beer on my skirt. 'I hope you're going to pay my dry-cleaning bill,' I said bossily. 'No, but I'll take you out to dinner.' I demanded somewhere decent. No fish and chip meal. Off we went to posh town to a class restaurant. I was impressed. The boss's secretary wasn't. Not only was she shagging the boss she also had a relationship with my dinner date, who natch was married. So? I couldn't see anything wrong with him taking me to dinner in lieu of a dry cleaning bill. Good company, nice night out. What was the problem? Sexual politics was another one my parents forgot to tell me about. In the next job, I was beautifully upstaged in the promotion stakes. The general concensus in the office was that I was in line for it and we all waited for it to happen. It didn't. No, mum and dad, keeping your head down and working hard doesn't get you anywhere at all. Going in and telling the boss you want that promotion does. Someone else got that promotion by using that rather obvious and blatant strategy. Not hard-working good little me keeping my head down and my nose clean. I still hadn't worked out the failings of my parents' advice though, despite it being so clearly shoved in my face. I thought the boss was clearly a rarity in the world of work where deserving industrious people 'got on' and his failure to promote me was a strange anomaly - and a signal to clear off because he didn't value me. So I did. Little girls should be seen and not heard. People who work hard and keep their heads down get on. What's the difference? There isn't any. Both statements are a subjective and biased opinion and a very ill-informed and damaging one at that. If this sounds like the 'I blame my parents for everything' blog, it isn't. I think some of their advice was well-intentioned and totally unworldly. In the case of work, they had worked together in their own business for some 30 years at this point. They were hardly going to be in touch with office politics. I learned the hard way. And usually only in retrospect.

Health issues (2)

2011-04-23T16:52:00.004+02:00

So there I am, happily putting all those childhood illnesses and accidents behind me and looking forward to a healthy adult life. I was going to fast forward 20+ years - but suddenly remembered - chicken pox!! While I may have had measles two or three times, tonsilitis similarly, the two things I managed to avoid in my early years were chicken pox and mumps. I don't know how I avoided them. Whenever one of those school notes came around telling parents they may wish to keep their little girl at home because little someone else had got a nasty infectious disease, my mother tossed it aside and kicked me out of the door and off to school. I had to take my chances. And I never did get mumps or chicken pox. Until the day I was working on a newspaper and noticed a nasty rash on my chest. I sat opposite the chief reporter. She was lovely. One of the few people in my life who I really can't find a bad word to say about. We discussed my spotty chest. I went to the doc. I was off work for three weeks. I scratched of course. As you are told not to do. And there were a couple of scars on my face but I can't see them now. Poor eyesight or just faded away? So the moral behind that one is - don't go to the pantomime with your pals in your early 20s if you haven't had chicken pox. The pantomime, incidentally was very good. Russ Abbott, with some very adult jokes. Almost worth the chicken pox and three weeks off work. Now, and I have been putting this one off - there is the teeth thing. I hate the teeth stories. When I was little I went to see Uncle John (who naturally wasn't an uncle at all but a masonic friend of my dads who happened to be a dentist) and he never did anything to my teeth just gave me those tiny tubes of toothpaste. I loved those. A bit like mini Hovis loaves. Sadly he died young, as dentists often do. My father found us another one in the local town and I was the guinea pig. I came out moaning and crying and was told not to be such a baby. My father went some time later, came out black and blue and badly bruised and we didn't go back. After that we found an ok one. One Friday evening I had a pain in my mouth. Went to the dentist and he suggested we buy some very strong alcohol and swill it around my mouth. I think it was an infection of some type. It may well be totally unethical and unsound and incorrect advice these days - but I continue to pass it on. Smirnoff Blue is my vodka of choice. Apart from anything else if you use it as a mouthwash in the morning it doesn't smell. Moving swiftly on, to Nepal, 1985. Pokhara to be precise and we were in a cheap and nice hostel-type place. Someone offered us toffees. Big mistake. Out came a huge filling. Naturally I was petrified as you are when a filling comes out and you are in the middle of Asia. We hot-footed it back to New Delhi which I thought may have a better calibre of dentist (yes, I know ....). In New Delhi, the sad tooth was refilled. Once in safe white English-speaking land again aka Sydney, I found me another dentist to get it checked out. I told the dentist the story. He nodded sympathetically. I lay back. He put on some music. Indian music!!! The last thing I wanted to hear. It seemed I needed to have the new filling out. A temporary bandage or some such crap applied. Another new filling in later. A lot of Aussie bucks later. Have I mentioned wisdom teeth? No. When I was in sixth form, one of my good friends had hers out, and was off school for weeks and in pain and agony. I survived the ordeal of Nepal, New Delhi and Sydney and returned home, and - went to the dentist. The old dentist, who used to stink of tobacco and do hypnotism, had a bright new assistant. BNA told me my wisdom teeth needed to come out and he was surprised I wasn't already in pain. At which point, I became suspicious of dentists. And refused point blank for anyone to touch my wisdom teeth. There may have been more work on the toffee filling carried out. Why not? It would have been money. I don't remember what happened about that now when it was so many years ago. Cervical screening can rear its head at this point. Naturally I believed that it was A Good Thing to go for smears. I didn't understand a thing about it, but I knew it was A Good Thing. I went to my local doctor for a smear, and when there was a mobile women's health group came around our offices I visited that. I said I had recently been screened, but no matter, we'll just do it all over again. With hindsight - what a total waste of time and space. And money. Because more frequent screening of women in a low-risk group achieves nothing. Eyesight? Gosh I forgot that one. It can wait for a later post too .... Total in the decade of my twenties: Chicken pox One large filling falls out, gets refilled, gets taken out and temporarily refilled, gets filled, and gets taken out and refilled again. What's the betting I still have a filling in that tooth???? Well, you'll have to wait a few posts.

Health issues (1)

2011-04-21T16:02:00.005+02:00

Another in the doom and gloom series. It should probably be titled ill-health or sickness or something. Like every other kid I went through the gamut of childrens' illnesses. I also had a mother who would NEVER, by which I mean, absolutely NEVER give me a note to stay away from school. 'Nicky was away with a cold and a note, I want one,' said little me. 'NO,' came the reply. It got a bit more serious though. I got tonsilitis. More than once. Twice? probably three times. At which it was deemed I should have my adenoids and tonsils taken out. At the time, in the 60s, it was all the rage. Do you know anyone who survived that era with their tonsils intact? All duly ripped out, I went home. I wasn't feeling too good so I was allowed to sleep in my mum's bed. Comfort zone I guess. I felt sick so she brought me a bowl. As you do, when you are feeling sick, you try and vomit whatever is making you ill. So I started vomiting blood. Lots of it. I was pleased with myself, as the bowl filled up. I thought I was doing the right thing. This was a washing up bowl by the way. A very large one. The ambulance came and I was rushed back in for an emergency blood transfusion. My parents stayed all night, thinking that I wouldn't wake in the morning. That's what they told me anyway. All I knew was that I woke up with a needle in my arm connected to a large red bottle with blood slowly dripping back into me. That was the second year of school, say around age five. Having recovered from that, the next year I had a bad tummy ache. Whoosh! Into the ambulance again, this time with appendicitis. True to form, this one had after-effects too. The surgeon was proud of his work. He had made a very slight incision leaving the tiniest of scars. But then he had to re-open it when I got gangrene. My poor dolls were subjected to being painted yellow on their abdomen from then ever afterwards. Like all young people in their teens I had sprained limbs. The first was when I was playing England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Germany, Japan, Touch. Remember it? Maybe not. The seven steps that we jumped from were rather impressive. There were only a couple of us who could jump from the top. Elizabeth and I. But one day I jumped and fell awkwardly. Maybe I fell badly. Maybe my eyesight had already started to go and I couldn't see where I was jumping. Someone rushed me off to sick-bay, ie carried me. Parents were rung. And it was off to hospital again. My parents told me it was a tip fracture, I guess they meant one of those greenstick things. Off school for weeks yet again. After that, jumping from the steps was banned at my school. Ha! This was 40 years ago, probably not allowed to jump two steps these days let alone seven rather high ones. When we went ice-skating from school, I sprained a wrist. Simple in the scheme of things. A trip to a play somewhere, a fall in my rather nice black suede boots. Bad lighting? Or bad eyesight? Again? But another sprained ankle and another plaster cast. And then - playing squash in sixth form. Crashed against the wall, (never could do that manoeuvre where you get the ball close to the wall and return it), struggled up, off the court, got a lift to the bus station and back home. This time it was a ripped ligament with 17 (I think) stitches. Third time for a leg in a plaster cast, a wooden rocker, a knitting needle to poke down the cast for the inevitable itching, and even more time off school. At least I missed mock 'A' levels. Total: One adenoidectomy and tonsillectomy + blood transfusion One appendectomy + gangrene + re-opening of original incision - six stitches, scar, very visible even now 40+ years later One tip fracture (?) - right ankle - with plaster cast One sprained ankle - left - with plaster cast One sprained wrist - right - with crepe bandage (I can do a great job with crepe bandage even now) One ripped ligament - right ankle - with stitches and plaster cast That's probably not much for 18 or so years. Old person's aches and pains next up ......

Family planning

2011-04-17T14:18:00.003+02:00

To me means just that. Planning a family means planning when to have children, presumably preferably when you are solvent and can provide a happy and loving home. Family planning means using contraception, which, shock horror, rumour reliably informs me that even Catholics indulge in. Or family planning means not having sex at all. Family planning also means making sure you do not have children when you don't plan to. For whatever reason. Money. Health. Personal and family relationships not working out. Being born into a dysfunctional family is no fun. Or being born into one where you are not wanted. My aunt always proclaimed that my cousin had been a mistake. I may have been born into a dysfunctional family but at least I was very much wanted. When I went to university the thought of getting pregnant absolutely horrified me. It would have destroyed my degree, my career, my future life. Or maybe not. But without a doubt if I had become pregnant I would have had an abortion. Without a second thought. I don't consider an inseminated seed to be a person. I don't consider a foetus to be a person. And, my life comes first. My body is mine, and no-one else's to determine. Every other woman in the world should have the right to do what they want with their body. They don't. Who tells men what to do with theirs? Well? Does anyone? So, abortion is also a part of family planning. The part that we all hope to avoid, but that needs to be there for a stop gap. Whatever the reason for that stop gap is. And instead of criticising that service, maybe people should consider how to help the people who sadly need that service in the first place and work out how to help them instead of bleating on about unborn foetuses. Because I don't seek to impose my view on anyone else. I would very much like the world to be vegetarian, feminist, environmentalist, anti-capitalist/globalist, etc etc but it ain't. And I don't tell you what to do. So please, leave women to decide what they want to do with their own bodies. Thank you. And why the USA government proposed a shutdown over family planning is beyond me. Or is it? With which, I expect to lose, even more internet friends :)

Time

2011-04-16T13:00:00.009+02:00

Time, they say (whoever they may be), heals.

Not being the sort of person who accepts what other people say, I tend to disagree. All time does, is blunt the immediate sensation and push things in the past a bit. Until they come back.

However, to start at a sort of beginning. On a study tour to New Zealand with the NHS I came away with what felt like half the publications of the NZ health service. So much so, that they got packed separately and mailed home.

One of the books I was given when I was visiting a general practice, was on guidelines for depression for GPs. Mental health wasn't one of my responsibility areas - I only ever touched it when we ended up with inquiries into the suicide of a patient. Or worse, when previous patients committed murder.

So I started to read this book, which as usual, seemed to include all possible symptoms under the sun to diagnose depression. A bit like when I was looking up tick disease regarding the dog. Is he off colour, not eating all his food, apathetic? Yup, he could have tick disease. Similarly, are you not motivated to do really exciting things like cleaning, paperwork, or going to work? Yes you too could have depression.

I'm not trying to trivialise depression by any stretch of the imagination but it did strike me that half the world has depression (quite possibly), or the medical profession didn't understand that sometimes people actually didn't want to do boring shite. Does that really mean I have depression because I put off the dusting? Or the ironing? And choose the garden in preference? Or go to the beach or the national park with the dogs?

But the one thing that really griped me was the section on coping with grief. Anyone who was still grieving three months after a bereavement was depressed. I can't remember how long it took me to get over my father's death. It was more than three months. As for my mother's? We're talking years not months.

And quite honestly, I do not think I am on my own because when I discuss the deaths of parents with friends, they too still carry grief. Then there are my dogs. And the family dogs that I grew up with. Three months to get over their deaths too? Gotta be joking. Note to self: next time someone or some dog dies, make a note in the calendar for three months time to suddenly bound around with happiness.

Seems the only thing time brings to me is nostalgia, and old age. I can quite easily sit fretting about every single dog we have homed, and wish they were still with us. Doesn't matter that isn't reality or how things work, it's how I think. And I wish my parents hadn't been so frail when they died. I am so sad that my father was poorly and my mother was frightened. Time doesn't help with any of that. At all.

The things I hoped were in the past - childhood, school, first job, third and fourth jobs (second one doesn't usually come into it oddly) - all come back with a vengeance at night to haunt me. I can really do without confused nightmares from my past. Time, it seems has neither erased nor helped. The fears, the bad experiences, the failed expectations and the disappointments in life just return time and time again. Most nights.

If only I could dream about the nice things that have happened. Or even the nice things that haven't happened.

Time isn't helping me very much. It moves too fast, and doesn't heal.

Time quickly passes by
If only we could talk again
(Mike Pinder)

Meals in (laws)

2011-04-16T09:55:00.003+02:00

Before I resume the doom and gloom series of posts, which clearly, I am not too good at posting regularly, here is one inspired by a couple of friends.

They wrote about visiting the MIL and being fed. Or not being fed very much in the way of a home-cooked welcoming meal.

My mother was a superb cook, as was her mother before her. Once the Cordon Bleu series of weekly magazines came out in the 1970s, there was no stopping my mum. Bit of a mistake on her part as my father lost total interest in eating out because the meals out were never as good as the ones at home. She was ever after destined to be chained to the cooker and the kitchen sink.

When we became part-time vegetarians, we lapsed when we went to my parents. It just wasn't worth the grief to tell them. But finally we bit the bullet and came out. Needless to state this was not a good thing. It seemed as though my mother felt I was rejecting 30+ years of wonderful cooking, and how they had earned their living (selling bacon, ham and cheese).

We had got to the point where we just did not eat meat or fish any more, and it was futile pretending we did. So after that we were never offered any food when we visited. They had an interesting perspective on hospitality. It was that we should appreciate and eat whatever they, ie she, dished up for us (regardless of what we wanted to eat, or not eat), and when we entertained them, we should cook what they wanted. And it wasn't stuffed peppers with tomato sauce. I didn't cook for them again. In fact they didn't visit again.

For the couple of years that we lived relatively near to them ie one and a half hours drive away, they condescended to make one or two trips. Otherwise for the whole of our married life in the UK, it was our duty to visit them. I smile when I read about people's parents travelling from one end of the country to the other in their seventies and eighties, sometimes driving, sometimes taking the train or the 'plane. Mine wouldn't drive for an hour and a half to visit us in their mid sixties. Contrast this with the enthusiasm of the MiL to invite herself to see us.

For the most part, traipsing up and down to see my parents was a drive of approx two and a half hours. Plus a couple of hours there chattering about nothing - invariably about the neighbours' lovely child. Feel the 'we should have been grandparents' digs coming on there? Then another two and a half hours back. The best part of the day gone - and all without food apart from breakfast before we left. Quite honestly, after a week at work, that was not the way I wanted to spend half of my precious weekend.

One sunny week, Partner said he would go down and decorate their house, (gratis of course). My mother was panic-stricken. What on earth would she feed him? Anyone would think he had landed from Mars. I patiently went through a list of loads of obvious things. The wonderful onion quiche she used to make. Mushrooms and onions in white wine and parsley. Salad of any and every type. Omelettes. Pasta in tomato sauce. Potatoes Dauphinoise. Cauliflower/broccoli in cheese sauce. Chips!! None of those were hardly difficult for the woman who used to dish up sole georgette, steak soubise, scampi provencale, lamb chops stuffed with kidneys and herbs, pot roast pheasant etc etc etc. And he would cook his own breakfast.

But she didn't cook for him at all. He went to the supermarket, bought in some food, and fended for himself. A couple of evenings, he went to the pub or the take-away and ate out.

One year, he even re-decorated his mother's latest new council flat (also gratis). I descended too. Later. See previous post somewhere, prob the MiL one. The MiL post states that she was not the world's best cook. However, she had gone one better than my mother, she had actually bought a few things in from the supermarket, veggie burgers or nut cutlets or something like that. The sort of thing people buy when they don't know what to cook for you. There wasn't enough to last for however long we were staying and we had to cook for ourselves and buy more later, but I guess it was a gesture. Of sorts.

So I claim the prize. Not just for ready-made or take-away meals provided by in-laws, but no meals at all from either in-laws or parents.

Birthdays

2011-04-12T13:26:00.010+02:00

I have a friend with a birthday this month, so I thought I would muse on birthdays today. We have exchanged birthday greetings and cards with each other ever since university. One year I was on holiday in Portugal and sent a card late, which apparently never got there. Another year her house was being revamped and neither my card nor her mother's arrived. She blamed the builders. I was annoyed as I chose a very nice card with a resplendent peacock. A year or two ago she sent me an email on the day and said there was a wonderful card in the post. Might as well have been a wonderful cheque in the post as it never arrived. Since then, we have tailed off to an email greeting. I email her on hers and don't get a response. A couple of months later, she emails me 'happy birthday darling,' and I reply. I don't get a response until I receive a Christmas card. Actually I don't get a response at all, I just get the Christmas card and a scribbled note on the card. Still old habits die hard, and every year, until she stops, I guess I'll still mail her. No more cards though. As people know, I'm not really a card person. I think they are a bit of a waste of space - although - it is lovely to receive them sometimes. Conflicting views there. For my 50th I received one card, from a neighbour. But it was unexpected so it was nice. Oh, I might have received one from a UK couple, can't remember. When I was working, we used to take holidays around my birthday as we have them on consecutive days. It made a far better way to celebrate a birthday in some exotic, warm and sunny location. Now as I live in an exotic, warm and sunny location, it gets even harder to decide what to do to make it into a special day. It was easy when I was young. My parents managed a class bit of family planning with my birthday incidentally. As December babes, they were subject to the Christmas and birthday present-in-one routine. They claimed their child would not be subject to that. It was probably total fluke to be honest but they managed the date furthest away from Christmas in the whole year for my birthday. There were kiddies parties when I was young with magicians and stuff like that. There were family parties before I was school age. When I became a teenager it became (boring) celebratory meals out with my parents. Presents were very traditional, clothes, jewellery, a silver watch at 18 because they didn't consider I had come of age then. At 21 I was allowed a gold watch. I chose a very nice low-key Longines. Some years later, I was dashing to Euston for the train home. I looked at the time and the watch wasn't there. I was horrified. I retraced my steps to the tube station - but not surprisingly, there was nothing. I reported it to Lost Property at BR. Yeah, someone is just going to hand in a gold Longines aren't they? Too busy to replace the worn-out strap - and - lose a precious watch. I never dared confess. But at the time I wore my watch all the time and my parents would have noticed. I bought another. It looked the same but it wasn't as good. It had a battery and the other had been manual. It's sitting in a box somewhere with a load of other watches that don't work. My other presents as a kid were the standard ten shilling note, upped to a pound at one point, and premium bonds, from my two grandmothers. The one always gave me more than the other, I suspect there was a little competition going on there. Anyway it all got safely put in my piggy bank. Suddenly, though, there were no more presents. A card from my ~~mother~~ parents, and no presents. I think a couple of times she slipped a note in the card, but no presents. Why didn't anyone send me flowers? I like flowers, and it isn't exactly difficult to organise. I think the only time my parents sent me flowers was for my wedding. So what is it about birthdays as we get older? Do we want or need presents, cards, a celebration? Or just an acknowledgement that someone thinks enough about you to remember that it is your day?

'I keep my mouth shut these days'

2011-04-11T11:30:00.009+02:00

It was one of those mornings.

After my failed attempt yesterday to sneak off to the outdoor gym and get back before Partner's hunter gathering run I was ordered to stay at home today. I decided to spend my time usefully so harvested a couple of farms and wrote the odd pm.

When he returned, I dutifully went downstairs to help with the shopping and the bike. Once all was safely gathered in, the rant started.

Apparently he had been cycling through the housing estate on a one-way street on his way home, which is his normal route. I need to say two things here.

1) He is NOT a slow cyclist, even when loaded up with shopping
and
2) he IS an assertive cyclist.

That means for the non-cycling community, that he takes his place in the road, not the gutter, and if there is no space for cars to get past, they have to wait. I really must finish my cycling rant post which is half written.

'Parp! Parp!' went Toad. Partner thought it was probably someone he knew having a laugh - it frequently happens. Builders that he knows around Gib recognise him on the bike and toot. "PARP!! PARP!!" went Toad again.

Partner realised it wasn't a mate. He stopped the bike in the middle of the road.

'I'm in a hurry, I need to get by,' Toad stated.
'You're not going to,' was the (smug) reply. 'It's a single lane road, and you're not getting past me.'

Fat Toad was not impressed. Neither was Fat Toad's Fat Daughter. She had to go to school. (Should have got up earlier IMO).

Partner suggested a) that Fat Toad got out to discuss it, and b) that Partner would call the police if FT was unhappy. FT said bicycles should not be on the road. They were dangerous. FT began to speak in Spanish. Partner said he was happy to abuse FT in Spanish as well as English. FT's FD told everyone to calm down.

By now Partner was well into his stride, or cycle revolution.

'You should be walking to school instead of sitting in the car. You might not be so fat.'

Ouch!! It should be said the school is not five minutes walk from the estate, so his comment was valid even if the observation was unnecessary. A bloke in a van behind FT's car said 'Way to go son!' as Partner got back on his bike. And rode very, very, slowly through the rest of the estate, sitting in the middle of the road all the way through and at the exit to the main road. Don't mess with Partner on a bike.

So, now he's calmed down a bit and decides to take the edge off the door which has swollen with the damp and humidity and is sticking slightly. Note - we are well after 9am here. There is traffic noise in the street, and drilling somewhere. ZZZZZZZZZZZZ!! goes the sander. I'm still doing really useful things on Facebook.

'Are you asleep?' he called out. Uh? I've just helped you in with the shopping, listened to the tale of the cycling encounter, and you think I'm asleep. He finished sanding and came back into the flat. His mouth was wide open. I realised he hadn't been talking to me at all. Someone had said something about the sanding. Probably one of our immediate two neighbours, although given that one goes to work at 7.30am and the other at 6am, that was unlikely.

'Unbelievable,' he muttered.
'Guess who that was?' The penny dropped but even I couldn't believe it.
'The Vamps?' I suggested, incredulously.
'Yes.'

The Vamps, for anyone who is not familiar with them, moved in nearly two years ago. For the whole of the summer we were subject to endless drilliing, banging, you name it from 8.30am-5.30pm while the flat was being revamped. (Ha, that was funny huh?) But people want to change stuff, so noise is noise, have to ignore it basically. When they moved in, we discovered they were vampires. On Friday and sometimes Saturday nights, they host Gibraltar's gathering of vamps from around 11pm until 6 or 7am. Then, they carefully drag their coffins into place and fall into them to sleep the day away, while the rest of us get up. Our two immediate neighbours have both complained about the noise to them. Once, there was serious screaming and yelling up there and someone called the police. Apparently it was just a row between two sisters. But we have never complained to them. Live and let live. So far, they don't play loud unbearable music, even if they do seem to talk and laugh a lot. Hey, if they are having a good time, nice one.

We see one Vamp more than the other one. It was the one with the smiley face who had turned up in the hallway. (ie 2ft square bit of space outside the three flats on our floor). She stood there in her jim-jams, wringing her hands and looking fuzzy.

'Are you asleep?' had been addressed to smiley Vamp. She had nodded her head.
'I'll only be two minutes,' said Partner, who really didn't need a second confrontation in less than an hour.
'OK,' said smiley Vamp sleepily, and sleepwalked back upstairs.

You gotta laugh. He was only two minutes and there was really no point having the conversation about their noise at night, the endless noise during the flat refurb when they weren't living there, or the fact that most people don't sleep during the day - and no the Vamps don't work nights. Well only as vampires. Hey, other residents in the block, we'll just leave all noisy work until 1am when the Vamps have woken up and are feeling perky, because that suits them. He wouldn't have stopped sanding today however long it was going to take but that's not relevant. Vamp got away lightly. This time.

Oh and the title? Partner promises every day that he keeps his mouth shut now and doesn't argue with people, or make smart comments. At least it was a 50% success rate today.

Notes: For anyone who doesn't know, Toad, refers to Toad of Toad Hall of Wind in the Willows. He considers himself to be King of the Road. I apologise to anyone who is offended at the description of the fat antagonist and his fat daughter. I repeat the story as it was told to me.

My father

2011-04-10T15:23:00.003+02:00

I thought I would redress the balance given my post about my unloveable MiL. No, I am not going to write nice things about her. Don't be silly. I said on the funerals post that she organised a good one, that is the nearest anyone will get to hearing me make a compliment about her. She could probably organise a good piss-up in a brewery too but a) she certainly wouldn't pay for it and b) she would probably object to it on principle. This post will instead, slag off my side of the family, ie my father. This, of course, is not the done thing. He was revered by many members of the family, looked up to for his business acumen, modest financial success, intelligence, wit, and - generosity. Perhaps I should have missed out everything except 'generosity' because that is probably what the family members were really interested in. Not all members of the family looked up to him. His older sister and his mother bossed him around. One of the reasons I was wary of my MiL was a tale from my own mother's past. My father had finally splashed out for a car (well before I was born), and they were going for a Sunday drive. As people did. Probably still do. 'We have to call and pick up my mother first,' my father finally confessed to my mother. I don't think my mother could believe it. As a young couple, they had finally bought a new, ie second-hand, car - and when my father was telling his mother about it, there was an automatic assumption that she would be going along for the jolly too. Did my father have the balls to say no? No. When my grandma (who wanted to be called Nanna because she thought grandma was rather ageing) died, there was about £160 left in her savings. The one down, two up, that she lived in was rented. The money was split between her four children. 'I'll take Older Brother's share,' said my father's sister. 'He'll only piss it up against the wall anyway.' He was in Australia where he had sensibly moved to some years previously, so I doubt he got to know that he was deprived of his measly inheritance by his Grasping Older Sister. There was a small bookshelf that had always been intended for the youngest daughter, who lived in London. Grasping Older Sister took that too. There was much discussion around our kitchen table about how unfair that was. Did either of my parents do anything about it? Little me resolved to sort it. I wasn't very old at the time, but luckily, GOS lived sort of next door ish. I wandered up our drive and down their avenue and knocked on the door. 'I've come for Little Auntie's bookcase that Nanna left for her,' I said ingenuously. I took it down the staircase, out of the house, paused to say thank you, dragged it up the street, started to get fed up with it, and finally brought it back down our drive. 'I've brought Little Auntie's bookcase,' I announced proudly when I arrived home. I think my father nearly wet himself. My father was an odd mix. It's like he always felt he should have done more than he did, and took it out on the rest of us. After leaving the RN, he wanted to go back to sea - but who else would look after his mother? Yup, youngest son. So he stayed home. He was offered a job in rags in the Midlands and decided not to go because he thought he might fall out with one of the partners. Yeah. In retrospect, I wonder if his mummy had something to do with that one too? He had to be in charge. (Wonder where I get it from?). When I was old enough, I worked with them on their market stall. When he got bad-tempered he would start shouting at my mother in front of customers. So when he hit the roof, I walked out. I usually came back half an hour later, but really, there was no reason for it in the first place and arguing in front of people like that with your wife is just deplorable and abusive. If he even started on me, he got the same treatment. I walked out while he had chance to cool down. The control stuff was just unbearable. When a lad I knew asked me out in my early teens - we knew each other from standing at opposite bus stops - it was a no no. I mean, it wasn't as though he lived in a council house, darlings, his parents owned their own perfectly acceptable detached house in a good street. Nope. Not allowed. About the only boyfriend who had my dad beaten was the head boy of the local grammar school. 'Well,' said my father pompously, 'you will bring my daughter home by some ridiculously early hour of course.' 'I can't possibly guarantee what time I will bring her home. In my role as head boy, I have a lot of duties to attend to on the night so need to stay late and your daughter will be quite safe with me. I will bring her home when we have finished at school. At whatever time that is.' Ha! Suck that one dad. Even my mother was pissing herself. Boring head boy boyfriend had taken the wind right out of my father's sails and left him speechless. Good one. We didn't go out for long. Then there was the adorable Viking gardener. I hadn't thought of him as a boyfriend, more as a friend, but I was informed we couldn't possibly take him out to lunch anywhere because of his Yorkshire accent. You're having a laugh dad. And what sort of accent did you have? Huh? My father didn't work on Monday, Tuesday or Thursday. His working week was pretty short. Much what we all want really, a very nice set up. His day would start with a disgusting fag, toast piled high with butter, and a very loud Yorkshire Radio Station. I tried to get up before him to have my breakfast in peace and tranquility, and not have smoke blown in my food or my face. Or loud Yorkshire Radio Station blasted into my ears. I took to taking them tea in bed in the hopes of keeping him there longer. My mother grasped the respite once he had risen. She surfaced about an hour or so later. Apart from in summer when she got up amazingly early and had put on a wash, dusted, vacuumed and done everything else before 8am. After breakfast time space invasion, my father would then pretend to do something vaguely work related. Either chatting to the staff in the bank/building society or going to pick up goods for work later in the week. And more chatting. At 10.45 he returned home and expected coffee to be ready. This was ground coffee boiled up with milk. It was a rather sickly vile concoction so I demanded black coffee. My mother was naturally chained to the cooker making two types of coffee. She didn't even like the stuff. An hour or so later, he would wander upstairs and have a shave, infrequently a shower, and comb the hair over his bald patch. Sometime after 12 noon he would clear off to the pub for an hour or two. He invariably timed his return for The Archers, so the bloody radio would be turned on again for an everyday tale of countryfolk or whatever it was billed as. I loathed The Archers. Some meal times involved stealing each other's food. Chips for example, were a prime target. Eating the food would degenerate into a stabbing frenzy as we both tried to claim as many chips from each other's plates as possible. My mother sat in the middle helplessly, saying she didn't think it was a good idea and forks could hurt people. When we had chicken - he always had breast. He didn't like chicken legs. There was no question of sharing round, no, he had as much of what he wanted and the rest of us picked up what was left. Inevitably my mother ended up with a leg. She liked breast too but did she ever get chicken breast?? I forgot to say he was usually at least ten minutes late for lunch. He was always kept talking by some inconsiderate punter in the pub. He only ever had a pint or two and a small rum (for which I blame the RN). My mother and I both knew exactly what he had drunk and it wasn't what he told us. Maybe what he drunk explained the bizarre behaviour after our meals. Naturally, with a full stomach and having had a couple of beers and a small rum, or rather more than that, he went to sleep in the arvo. So then began a race up the stairs. If I got there first, he would drag me back down the stairs so that he could win. Small child is not exactly capable of returning the favour to 6' 2" man weighing 15 stone. Did it hurt being dragged down the steps? What do you think? There were the love taps and pinches too of course. Nipping me and leaving bruises was fun. Slapping me and leaving bruises were just 'love taps'. Hardly surprising the school medical officer called in my mother because she was worried about my bruises. My mother knew my father loved me, and explained that I bruised easily and played outside a lot in the garden. Truth is, I don't think she had a clue. As I grew older, it seemed to be excellent fun to tear away my bath towel to leave me naked. At which point, I started dropping the towel. If that's the game, let's cut to the chase. Naturally, I was chastised for dropping the towel that he was trying to tug away and for being so immodest. Shall I mention how he used to 'jiggle' my developing breasts? All dads did this apparently. I would always be his little girl, I was told. At least until I was 30. Daddy's Little Princess? But I got married before I was 30. Daddy still thought he was in charge of course. One day I disagreed with him. He threatened to hit me. Sadly for my father, his threat wasn't interpreted too well by my partner who said: 'You lay a finger on her and I'll throw you through the fucking window.' I didn't get any more threats like that. What else did he say in front of my partner? Oh yes, the ~~crass~~ class one. 'You're looking rather tired. Must have been all that trashing around you did when you were younger.' Honestly. What sort of misguided arsehole says that to his daughter? The same one who carried out all the appalling behaviour I have just described? I have to laugh when other family members praise my dad and say how wonderful he was and how lucky I was. They really don't have any idea what goes on behind closed doors.

My mother-in-law

2011-04-09T14:50:00.013+02:00

Mothers in law occasionally (!!) comes up as a topic of coversation among some of my friends.

It is beyond me why male comedians seem to poke fun at their wife's mother-in-law. I think my women friends, like me, will agree whole-heartedly that there is nothing on earth worse than the mother of your husband, especially if you have married the only or favourite or most useful son. (Mine was the latter)

In point of fact my partner got on very well with my mother, and she loved him to bits. Even my father was heard to refer to me, his daughter, as his son-in-law's wife. Now is not the post to dissect that one.

Moving swiftly on to my infamous MiL. My first words to her were over the 'phone when I was in Australia and we had decided to get married. (Married to my partner, not my MiL, heaven forbid). I don't remember anything terrible about that, so let's move on to her first bout of interference.

We got married in a Register Office in Sydney. Neither of us is/was religious, and we weren't into show. Getting married was for us, quite simple really. We invited two obligatory witnesses and had three gate-crashers. My parents didn't come/chose not to come, and luckily the MiL couldn't either.

Happily married and ensconced in our little flat in Potts Point, we received a letter from her one day. Telling us how she was going to organise a church blessing and a party for us when we got back. Knowing what I do of her now, I'd be surprised if she was going to pay for it. And anyway, it's not the role of the mother of the bridegroom to go around organising stuff. That would have been the prerogative of my parents, who, luckily weren't stupid enough to suggest it. MiL didn't give up lightly.

In the end Partner told her in no uncertain terms that we had absolutely no interest in a church blessing or a party, and she had better not lift a finger to organise a cup of tea - let alone anything else - because we certainly wouldn't be attending.

That first attempt to interfere should have rung warning bells. Maybe it did. When we first met, she looked me up and down, and said, in a very pronounced South Wales accent, "Well, you're a skinny rabbit aren't you?" Possibly I was. Almost certainly I was, but "Hello, daughter-in-law, how lovely to meet you and welcome to the family," might have been a nicer greeting.

What should I call her? "You can call me Mam, or Our Mam," which is what all her children called her. But I noticed her son-in-law called her by her name. She wasn't my mother and I wasn't going to call her Mam. She got her name when I called her anything to her face.

Next up, we have moved to a rented place in Herts just north of Watford. MiL lived further north, we were probably equidistant between her and Watford. One evening she rings up and declares she wants to go to Watford Market the next day. Er why?

What Partner was instructed to do, was to drive up to collect her, then back (past our house) and on into Watford. Followed by a traipse around the shops with her, dutifully carrying all shopping, no doubt paying for coffee at a caff, and then piling her and and shopping into MY car, set off on the return journey past our house, up to hers and finally back to ours. Get the picture?

Hello MiL, how about you ring up saying YOU are driving to Watford and would one of us like picking up? She did drive and had her own car. Dear reader, alarm bells were def ringing on this one. I could see no logical reason for my partner to take my car to his mother's and drive however many miles out of the way when she was more than capable of driving herself.

The words CONTROL, POWER, DOMINANCE, MANIPULATION, sprung to mind. After - amazingly - a reasoned discussion that evening, he agreed to ring her in the morning and explain that sadly he was no longer free to do the Watford shopping run.

Then there was the bags of coal story. By now we had moved to our own house. She had been down to visit her mother in South Wales, and came back with a couple of bags of coal that were no longer needed.

Did she take them home and ring to ask us to collect them? The woman who couldn't drive herself to Watford? Of course not. She was with a friend, and they just happened to be passing our new house - which she had not yet been invited to, I may add. She happened to be passing 20 miles or so north of her own house, on the way back from Wales.

I think she needed a GPS because there was no way our house was remotely on the route between her place and Wales. At all. Nosy old MiL couldn't resist an excuse to come and sticky beak around our house. Like hell. I called Partner from whatever he was doing and he met her at the door, thanked her for the coal and sent her on her way. She didn't get across the threshold. In fact she never did.

Nor did she get to the second house either. But the third one ..... this was where Her Majesty was allowed to visit. I don't know what came over me. We were of course, living in the best part of the city, although in a small terraced house. We hadn't been in long, but we invited her up for autumn. We put a bed in the small bedroom, and tidied it up for her arrival. She was scheduled to stay a week I think.

I did the dutiful DiL thing as best I could. It included carting her over to the Lakes when I had a business meeting so she could traipse around some twee town and enjoy the scenic journey. I cooked for us. We were vegetarian by then. One day I came in from work and she was ensconced in the kitchen - she had decided she wanted cauliflower cheese and had bought a cauli and was preparing to cook. Well, she couldn't cook for shit. Her sprouts were soggy as hell because she put those stupid crosses in them, her gravy was undiluted salt, and any meat she ever cooked was virtually cinders. I quailed. And took over the cooking. Bloody cheek anyway taking over my kitchen without asking. Imperious dragon.

But she obviously liked something about the trip, apart from the cheap shopping trolley that she bought up the high street as a souvenir. Shortly before leaving, she announced that she could live with us in the small room (well until she took over ours no doubt). "I can just bring a few knick knacks, a couple of bits of furniture and install myself here." I was rather diplomatic in those days. Well sort of. I didn't actually say "Fuck. Right. Off. Mother-in-Law."

I developed paranoia about the descent of the MiL demanding permanent residency status. Apart from anything else, she had three other kids who all lived within a stone's throw of her down south. Why in hell did she want to come and live with us? I'm an only child and had both parents at that time, but clearly one would probably be left and it would have first call on being looked after. Not the MiL. Go live with your own daughter or your other two sons.

She announced her next visit would be at Easter. JFC, how much furniture and knick-knacks would she be bringing? And anyway, I didn't want to entertain my bloody MiL at Easter. Just wait until you are asked (not that she would be again).

Partner rang her back and patiently told her we would not be around. It seemed she had some friends visiting the area and she had cadged a lift (she seemed to make a habit of it where possible). Well she could damn well uncadge it.

By now, I was beginning to get the measure of her, say seven years into the marriage. I figured she'd turn up anyway. Partner wasn't so sure. I mean, why would your mother turn up on your doorstep when you had told her point blank you wouldn't be around? Nevertheless he agreed to my precautionary measures.

We stole out of the house incredibly early, bustled the dogs into the car, and escaped up the coast. We stayed out all day and got rather hungry although we had some lovely dog walks on the beach. Eventually, we headed for home. We pulled into the back street to put the car in the garage. Then we went into the garden through the back gate and sneaked into the house through the back door.

I had visions of her sitting on the front doorstep complete with bags, baggage, knick knacks and furniture. I had left the curtains pulled so she wouldn't see us in the house if indeed she had turned up. I ran through scenarios in my head about sending her on her way in a taxi. I skulked up the stairs to 'HER' bedroom to peep out of the window. The coast was clear. I breathed the biggest sigh of relief.

As I walked leisurely down the stairs I glanced through the glass door into the porch. There was something on the floor. Shit! I picked up a letter. In her handwriting. Oh yes, the old dear had honestly had the balls to turn up. I knew she would.

It seemed she was embarrassed. She had told her friends that she was coming to stay with us over Easter. But when they turned up we weren't there. (No, we said we wouldn't be - did you tell your friends that one too?). Can't remember what happened after that. I think she ponced some accommodation from the friends of the friends before they all went back down south again.

Not long afterwards there were snotty letters, snotty 'phone calls, general family interference, and Partner got sick of it. He stopped speaking to her.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago, and he spoke to his sister expressing his condolences on the death of her daughter, his niece. 'Oh, it's your wife's fault that you and mum aren't speaking isn't it?' said Big Sis. 'No,' said Partner patiently, 'Mum and I fell out about something else'.

See, the miserable woman had clearly told all the family that everything was my fault. Well, fuck her. Because you know what, we didn't even get a frigging wedding present from her. Or Christmas presents. Or birthday presents (not as though she could forget mine, given that it is the day after Partner's).

Just forgotten the Mother's Day tale. Partner and I don't do Mother's Day. We didn't do it separately before we met, and we didn't do it afterwards. We both figured - before we met each other - that we did enough for our mothers all year round and we were damned if were going to pay through the nose for flowers and buy a silly card. We agreed, on marriage, to continue with this policy.

What happened when we visited his mother's a few days after the dreaded Mother's Day? There was a bloody card signed by my Partner. I was not pleased. When we got home I tackled him. He swore blind he hadn't sent one. So was I supposed to believe that she had dragged out a card from many many years previously, dusted it off, and displayed it so that people wouldn't think he hadn't sent one? Well, knowing her as I came to do, I could easily believe that.

I think that's the lot. Hope it brought a smile to someone's face somewhere. If not my MiL. I lied. There is more. My MiL's generosity knows no bounds. When we first turned up on her doorstep for the Big Reunion after getting married in Aus, she offered us a drink. Well not straightaway. In fact, I think when she offered tea, Partner asked for a beer. She frowned. "What would you like to drink?" she asked me and pointed to her drinks cabinet. "But you can't have the brandy. That's mine." Just as well I didn't like brandy wasn't it?

That same trip, we were naturally sleeping on the floor in the sitting room. One night she was going out with the new old husband, ie it was her third marriage. This was to her second husband who she had married twice because they had got divorced at one point. Sort of like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Maybe not quite like them. "Don't take too much money" she instructed poor FiL. "And don't go buying people drinks." We had a nice peaceful night in. Partner's gran was staying too, and took a bottle of lemonade to bed. Presumably to combat the salty food.

Some time near midnight the reckless party animals came in. MiL plonked herself down on the sofa, next to our sleeping bags on the floor and started blethering away. Jeez! Just shut up and clear off to bed. Suddenly she said "Isn't the ticking of that clock annoying you?" "NO!" shouted Partner. "Just the sound of your voice." She went to bed then.

However, we could have stayed there for some time. Unemployed, on the dole, and looking for work. Naturally we would have to pay board to sleep on the floor in the sitting room, accompanied by the noisy clock. We went back to my parents where we had our own room, and didn't pay board.

Sadly, some years later the FiL died. He was a nice guy. We went to his funeral in South Wales. See previous funeral post. MiL had done her usual trick of buying and selling council houses which she always got housed in because she had a registered disability and now had a small two-bed council house back in SW. She had one of the bedrooms. Her sister had been staying with her and had the other bedroom but come the day of the funeral and the advent of the guests, she cleared off to her own place. That left a bedroom free. The guests were us, one of Partner's brothers, and two friends of FiL. Who got the double bed? Well not us. Not the oldest bloke either (nice guy). Just some bloke who no-one else knew. The rest of us slept on the floor.

But the real issue was our two dogs. They HAD to sleep in the cupboard. Huh? Dogs sleeping in cupboards. Locked up in a tiny space?? We didn't rock the boat. Waited for everyone to go to sleep, aka the grieving window, and the guy in the double bed, and then the four conspirators - us, the younger brother, and the guy sleeping on the floor - let the dogs into the sitting room with us. The brother and the older guy didn't have a problem with the dogs so why the hell were they in the cupboard? In the morning we popped them into the porch and told MiL they had been out for a walk.

The dogs of course, were an issue at the wonderful future residence never-to-be of the MiL. When she came to stay, she insisted on waving her hands in the air at the dogs. We said this wasn't a good idea. Being dogs, they thought she had food for them. And jumped up. And knocked her over. So. Don't. Do. It. And don't blame the dogs. It is your fault, their home, and we have explained why they are doing it. Don't wave your bloody hands around.

Then there was the Cardiff trip. We were still in nice mode and Partner had gone to do up yet another of her council houses in South Wales. I arrived somewhat later by train to stay for a few days and travel back with him. It was our birthday week. MiL offered us her car for the day. My birthday. 'We can just pop into town, check on the curtains, blah blah boring blah, do this that and the other, take me back home, and then you can go to Cardiff.' ('Can you just?' should be written on her gravestone, 'Before you go, can you just ... rehang the toilet door, fix the toilet seat, hang the mirror, paint the wall - you name it.') I could see the day evaporating. And did I want to spend my birthday in boring local Welsh town following MiL around? Did I hell. And did I care about going to Cardiff in a Land Rover? MiL might have thought her Volvo was better but I didn't give a toss. We took the Land Rover to Cardiff and left her to her own devices. It was a very nice day. I liked Cardiff. I also liked not spending the day with my MiL.

Now, I really really think that is it. No husbands were harmed in the writing of this post. He has read it and corrected a couple of points. We both had a laugh remembering crap from the past. Lesson to MiLs. Don't fight battles you can't win.

Blogging and commenting and stuffs

2011-04-06T15:51:00.005+02:00

I really can't manage to post doom and gloom endlessly so here is something rather more banal. Although not to the blogging community. Friend B posted on facebook about people who read and comment, and specifically about those who regularly read and don't comment. Ages ago, I would regularly read my statistics. Invariably the dog blog got the most hits. And, the hits on the other blogs often came via the dog blog and it was often easy to work out who the readers probably were because of the correlation with the general location and the ISP (partly dependent on whether or not it was dynamic). Some left comments on my personal blogs and others didn't. The Land Rover blog is an exception as that gets loads of hits through search engines. So we'll ignore that one for the purpose of this post. Now, I appreciate the comments from my dog blogging friends both on here and on Itchy Feet, and rarely read the stats any more. Some had/have personal blogs of their own and others didn't. And, although they didn't comment on every post, and some commented infrequently, their comments were invariably sensible and thoughtful. As, for example, have been some of the recent ones on my 'party' and 'funeral' posts. For those of you not in the FB loop, the discussion looked at the etiquette of blogs, commenting, following, adding to blogrolls etc. You all know the sort of thing. But always worth a repeat and a discussion because things move on. And so does technology and so does etiquette - although probably not as fast as technology. So for what it's worth, here are my views on blogs and commenting and following and blogrolling and all the rest of it. I appreciate all comments on my blogs apart from abusive, manipulative and offensive ones. A discussion is ok, scoring points is not. My blog, remember that? If you don't like what I write, don't read it. I also realise that some people are not happy commenting on blogs, don't know what to say, don't have enough time, or quite simply, can't comment if they are at work. I totally admire the ones who not only blog every day or every other day, but get round a zillion other blogs and comment too, and it is not the same comment they leave on each blog. I can't do that. I like it when those of you who don't comment - at all, or very often - at least write and tell me that you do read my posts and find them interesting. Thank you. Someone did that this week, and I appreciated it. Now, why don't I comment on other people's blogs? Well, like everyone, I may read, intend to do it and then forget or get distracted. Or I have nothing to say. Classic examples here are boring posts about your kids going to school (sorry, just alieniated all my parental readership) or mindless photos. Photoblogs invariably have a load of comments on the lines of 'What a wonderful image dahling.' My comment would add no value. Even if I could recognise a wonderful image, dahling. So it's a good image. So what? Better off posting on a camera forum and having a discussion. Or, and this is an interesting one - it may feel too cliquey. I have seen blogs with hundreds of thousands of comments (OK hundreds anyway) where people are fighting to comment to get in with the in-crowd. Dear, dear me. I know most of my regular commenters from other places, our comments may well sound cliquey on each others' blogs. When I have visited other peoples' blogs and everyone seems to be partying on together I am loathe to leave a comment. Which leads me onto the next aspect. Making new contacts - and either a) you forget to get back to them or b) you make a comment on theirs and they don't comment on yours, or don't add you to their blogroll. Or whatever. Followers. One of Blogger's worst ideas. Sounds like sheep or lemmings. I am neither. I will still add people to my list, because truth is, I find it easier to scroll down someone else's list looking for a good read than looking at a crappy follower link. Thank you to those who follow me and/or add me to your blogroll. Blogrolls. As you will have guessed, this suits me more. I obviously don't do new-fangled stuff so I am stuck with blogrolling friends. If and when they want. But I don't chuck people off if they don't add me, and I don't delete them if they stop commenting. While there is some mutuality in blogging, I add - or don't add - what I choose, to my blog. That's probably avoided the crux of the etiquette question. Do unto those etc. Well honestly there isn't time. Not in my life anyway, which is why I admire the ones I mentioned above who find time to blog and comment regularly while still in work and running homes. I don't think there is a need to reply to every comment on my blogs. But sometimes, I like to thank people for their comments on a sensitive post, or reply to questions or points. I have no idea how many people come back to see if there is a reply to their comment. Equally it seems a bit tat to go back to someone else's blog and derail their subject by answering over there - but it so depends on the subject, and how well you 'know' the blogger. A couple of thoughts to leave you with. Thanks again to those who comment regularly or infrequently, or let me know elsewhere that you read my blog. One small reason for liking comments on the blog is that it keeps the discussion - when there is one - in the same place. Having it split between facebook and blogs is difficult. I'm probably the only one who sees all of it. Not everyone who reads my blogs is a facebook friend. I have probably not caught up with some people and I am sorry for that. Actually I know I haven't. And the most important one is, that if you blog, or even comment on blogs, you do what you feel comfortable with without feeling pressurised while at the same time respecting fellow bloggers. And that means to people who do regularly read either this or any other blog, without ever commenting, it would be nice to occasionally say why you are reading. There endeth the homily for today. Except to say, to anyone who is interested, that the person from the UK who found my post so interesting that they clicked on the email linky thingy never did comment. But did I expect them to? Just thought you may all want to know. Blog life huh?

Funerals

2011-04-03T10:46:00.005+02:00

I thought Death and Bereavement would be a suitable next topic in the new gloomy stories series, but to write that one, I have to set a bit of context first.

Not really sure when I first encountered death per se. Probably Great Great Aunt Ellen who was an ancient Victorian relic. I think I saw her once at some family tea party, was ushered over for my brief audience with ~~Queen Victoria~~ Great x 2 Aunt Ellen, and then ushered away again when my childish presence failed to amuse. And at some point she disappeared.

A few great aunts and uncles started to fall by the wayside, but my grandmothers were probably the first close relatives I remember dying. I think I was in my early teens and pre-occupied with my own adolescence so I don't remember any huge drama or feeling any great sense of loss. Or maybe I just have a poor memory.

Their deaths were accompanied with long grave faces and much officiousness from my parents. It was all very solemn and serious. I felt however, that in attending my first funeral, that of one of my grandmothers - who I had spent a lot of time with, one of them lived with us, both did at one point - I would be marking a rite of passage towards adulthood. It was not to be. My mother said very firmly that funerals were not a place for children and she had no intention of me going. Dejection. So much for growing up. I went back to my metaphorical corner where little girls were seen and not heard.

Needless to state when the second grandmother died a couple of years later, the same story was trotted out. The youngest of my great uncles died and - you've guessed it. Not a place for children, even though I was by then at university. His widow died a few years later, actually on the day I was travelling back from my stint as a bridesmaid which some of you will have read about elsewhere. I was 24. There 'was no need' apparently, for me to attend my great aunt's funeral either.

At this point I realised the only funerals I was ever likely to attend were my own, and those of my parents. Assuming they didn't put a caveat in their wills saying that their funerals were not a place for their little girl.

Salvation came at work. There I was happily bashing away at some story or other when the news editor assigned me to cover a funeral. I nearly blurted out 'But gosh! I've never been to a funeral. I don't know what to do. How will I cope?' I didn't. I was of course, aged a mere 30 at this point. I went home to change into something more respectful and funereal. Or what I thought was respectful and funereal given that I didn't actually know. My father invariably wore his black and stripes, and KT tie, and my mother wore a rather mumsy grey velvet suit whenever they went to the mysterious and secret events called funerals that weren't for little girls.

I slipped into the back of the church. It was bursting at the seams. A couple of local police officers nodded at me. I should explain that this was no ordinary funeral of a local dignitary. Oh no. My parents' over-protective behaviour in shielding me from the horrors of funerals had resulted in my first funeral being that of a murder victim. It was a very sad and horrible crime. The old woman concerned had been brutally killed, hit over the head as I remember, by a young woman (and/or her boyfriend) who had rented a room from her previously, and was running a bit short of cash. What a terrible way to die. I don't think I embarrassed myself any more than normal. A few tears dripped down my cheeks as the cortege went past and my over-active imagination pictured the woman's last moments. I was told to write as much as I could about it, so I filled most of the page and got a by-line and page lead.

Shortly afterwards, and while still working on the same paper, my partner's step-father died. Fortunately the news editor was sympathetic and gave me two days special leave. It was pretty impossible to get down to South Wales, attend the funeral, and back in a day. This was another eye-opener and exceedingly well done - to my inexperienced eyes of course.

I have very little good to say about my mother-in-law but she certainly arranged a class event. There were two cars for family. I could see a problem with this straightaway. There was the widow (the MIL), the four children (one of which was my partner), the husband and two children of the daughter, me, and the girlfriend of one of the sons. There was also the brother of the deceased and his wife and some other relatives on the same side. Even back then relations between me and the MIL were not exactly cordial. I had visions of her saying ' Well you can just go in the second car while I travel in style with my children in front.' Or maybe tell me to walk. Or whatever. The husband and the two children agreed to go separately.

That still left the thorny issue of who went in the first car, and who got allocated to the second one. MIL inclined herself graciously towards me. 'You will, of course, come in the front car with us.' I nearly fell over. The girlfriend, on the other hand, was relegated. Either to the second car, or she went with the husband and kids. On arrival at the church, MIL reminded me that I must go in the front pew with the family. Dear me. Whatever had come over her?

I should say that I had liked her husband. He was as nice and easy-going as she was unpleasant and cantankerous. It was another full house (ie church), packed with South Walians. And unsurprisingly, some exceptionally good singing. The spread afterwards was held at the brother's house. That was amazing too. His wife (who had the most lovely singing voice during the service) must have been baking for the previous week. The kitchen table was heaving with beautiful cakes and loads and loads of food. And as people chatted and relaxed I realised the ham tea after the service wasn't just a bite to eat. It gave people who hadn't seen each other for some time, chance to catch up, and it provided a more gradual way to get rid of the tension and emotion surrounding the funeral. (Needless to state my parents did not make a habit of attending ham teas after funerals). So at the age of 31, I had finally attended my first family funeral, even if it was the stepfather of my partner.

The next one was another sad work-related one, this time in the health service. There I was, sitting in my office just after eight o'clock, I think it was the first day back after the New Year break. The 'phone rang and it was one of my manager colleagues from the teaching hospital. One of the surgeons had died in a ski-ing accident during the holiday, leaving a widow and two young children. He was talented, young, conscientious, helpful, and had an excellent clinical reputation. We worked closely on a number of cancer-related issues, and he was the sort who would always go the extra mile, contribute whatever he could, and generally brought an awful lot to the service. When I asked him to do a presentation for an evening session I had organised for GPs, he made a superb effort, and his talk was the highlight of the evening. What a loss.

The funeral was the following week. As it was winter, it was freezing. I had a black suit, hat, and gloves, but no black coat. I had a brown one, and a Barbour. It fell to me to represent the authority as well as to turn up on a personal basis. I needed to buy a black coat. I poured through a couple of catalogues I had - but no black coats. Or none that could be sent in time. The following Saturday was spent going around the shops looking for a decent black coat that would pass muster in front of hundreds of consultant surgeons. I should point out that the main role of the authority was as scapegoat for anything and everything. Lack of presence at meetings was always criticised. Not turning up to a funeral would be bleated about forever. Turning up in the wrong clothes would probably be worse.

I found a decent coat. Luckily. Perhaps it should be an interview question. 'Are you prepared to spend all day Saturday traipsing around the shops and buy a black coat for £400 if you need to go to the funeral of a work colleague?' And when I got to the church, was I ever glad I had done. There wasn't a person there in any other colour apart from black. If the other two funerals I had been to were packed, this was jam-packed doubly. And it was a BIG church.

There can't have been a clinic running that morning as surgeons, physicians, nurses, GPs, admin staff, radiologists, radiographers - you name it - filled the pews. A group of medics who I worked with squashed themselves up so I could join them in the pew, otherwise I would probably have been standing at the back. I think we sang Jerusalem. Or at least I did until my voice faltered in the second verse and I had to shut up. Tough managers don't break down in church in front of all the city's health service staff.

Afterwards, the widow and children stood in the freezing snow and ice outside the church receiving all the guests (or whatever it's called). Another first. I'd only seen that one done at weddings. I shook hands dumbly - what the hell do you say? I couldn't think of anything. My colleague did, 'Terrific guy,' she said sincerely. 'Thank you,' said the widow.

There we have it. Three funerals by the age of 40. One for my in-laws, and two sad work-related ones.

And the whole point of this amazingly interesting saga is that it serves absolutely no purpose at all in shielding children/ teenagers/adults from death and funerals. It is a part of life, and it would be better to introduce them naturally as and when they happen.

Because it has to be said that going on your own to cover the funeral of a murder victim isn't exactly the best intro. Thanks mum and dad for yet another whacky decision in my upbringing.

A fool's tale

2011-04-01T14:31:00.010+02:00

It is, as people know, the custom for journalists to write spoof stories on 1 April. I remember colleagues vying with each other to write the most ridiculous stories possible.

At the same time, these crazy stories had to have a grain of truth in them somewhere, or at least, to be potentially credible. A spaceship landing in the market place was a bit too obviously fictitious. But this is not going to be one of those sort of tales. In my characteristically unconventional fashion, I shall buck the trend and write a serious post.

Chatting with a friend a few weeks ago, I realised that I paint a somewhat rosy picture of my life, flitting backwards and forwards between two homes in the sunshine as a lady of leisure without a care in the world. Perhaps that is the Public Relations Manager in me coming out, presenting the good side of life. Or perhaps I think it is more interesting and rewarding to write about. Still, in an attempt to redress the balance, I propose to write a series of gloomy posts. Naturally these will cover the usual issues - money, health ie ill-health, relationships, friendships, work, unemployment, death and bereavement of course, crime, bureaucratic nightmares, redundancy - what have I left off the list? Oh yes, divorce. I can't manage that one, although there have been occasions when it could so easily have made the list. The sunny posts will continue of course, on Itchy Feet.

So where to start? Perhaps with something that has had a disproportionate effect on me. I was flicking through some old emails - if one can flick through emails - and enjoying reading them. I'd forgotten the content of so many of them, just had a hazy reminder of a - mostly - enjoyable exchange. It was rather like looking at old photos, you don't realise how much you forget until you look back at something tangible.

I was obviously in a ghastly nostalgic mood, sadly thinking 'all in the past, there'll be no more of that again, ever.' Now if I was dishing out really helpful practical advice to someone in the same position, it would be on the lines of 'Do snap out of it. This person has made it clear they no longer have any interest in you. Enjoy the memories if you want, but realise that's exactly what they are. If someone's ended a friendship, accept it, go forth and find new friends, and stop wishing things were different.' Or some such crap.

But whoever takes their own advice? A number of friends have complimented me on my level-headed practical approach to problems they have had. Thanks for that, although I don't think I said anything more valuable than anyone else could have done. If it helped though, I'm pleased. I've also received some excellent and sound comments from people on here. It's easy to look at someone else's problems and give advice when you are cold and objective and not involved in the situation. Not so easy when you are in the midst of it.

Advice is the wrong word. One I don't like. It smacks of 'I know better than you, so why don't you do what I say?' I hope whenever I have suggested anything to someone that they didn't take it as bossy advice. Option appraisal on the other hand I can live with. I considered it a rather high-faluting management term when I first met it, but now, everything is subject to option appraisal. Even the tiniest domestic situation - which causes problems in itself but this isn't the time for that gloomy post. At least it prevents a knee-jerk reaction doing the first thing that comes into your head. And I have realised with age, that time to think can bring different solutions. Or options.

I used to like pros and cons lists. When I was considering getting married, I cleared off to New Zealand for a holiday and happily made out the list. The cons list was longer but I still got married. At least the (short) exercise had given me chance to think through the implications. Option appraisals are even better though. You get to do a P&C list for every option.

So what options do I have in mind? Well I could snap out of it (as above). That would be a good idea. It hasn't worked so far, but maybe one day? I forgot the classic one to start with - Option 1 is always Do Nothing. But no, I don't think that will serve. It's relying on time, and how long will that take? I could waste even more time reading endless emails from the past and indulging in maudling and totally unproductive sentimentality. I could continue bleating about it on here. Wah! Wah! Someone doesn't want to be friends with me! Maybe not. I have other things to write about on here.

But I could start a new blog using those millions of old emails. Sort of like 84 Charing Cross Road. Or as I wouldn't be publishing the other side, maybe more like Letters from a Fainthearted Feminist. Most appropriate. What I really want to do is pick and choose some good bits and write about them rather than copying them. And maybe a few not-so-good. Then it becomes more 'Emails I've written, never meaning to send,' with apols to the Moody Blues. A blog with draft emails that I could write, wanting to share them with the one person who would understand them - and because he doesn't want me to contact him again, ever - I could never send them. A one-sided conversation in fact. No-one to answer me back or tell me off or criticise me or misunderstand me. Maybe I would get so bored with that I might even snap out of my soppy nostalgia.

If I was doing my level-headed approach to a friend, I would probably only offer two options. Option 1 - The snap out of it one. Option 2 - Or if you want to do something and try to salvage something, send a mail saying you think there has been a misunderstanding, and explain why. Then you have two further choices - either say it might be nice to contact each other occasionally (birthdays, Christmas and New Year?), or at least to agree to part on more civil terms than the last acrimonious exchange. And what are the disadvantages of that option? Well, you don't know if your ex-friend would even read the mail, let alone reply. You could get yet another cold rejection or no reply at all. You could be lucky and get a nice response. Unlikely, but hey you would have made the effort.

Would I do that? Would I hell. Because every time I think about it, I remember those last words he wrote and my fingers freeze up. So dear readers, if you have got this far, I shall not be taking my own sound advice. But I may start a new blog. All interested readers who need something soporific can let me know if they want the url, either on here or on facebook.

One of our neighbours in Spain stopped by the other day to tell us her younger brother had died. Four months from diagnosis to death (from cancer). News like that always seems to put apparently petty squabbles into perspective.

And yet ...... ever still seems such a long time to me. More fool me. And not just an April one.

ETA: Thanks to Bren for posting this sad but so relevant poem on her blog here

My own fault

2011-03-19T07:29:00.005+01:00

I have taken the last post down. The reason for that is nothing to do with the content but because I noticed someone had clicked onto the 'send an email' link. It's the only one of my blogs that had permissions enabled to do that, and that was my fault however it happened, so I have now changed the settings. I really don't like the idea of people mailing my posts around the place, particularly if they don't comment and I don't know who they are. So to whoever it was from the UK, if you find my post so riveting that you consider mailing it to someone else, I would appreciate you possibly telling me exactly what was so interesting by leaving a comment. And if you don't want me to publish it you can mention that in your comment. Thank you. As I said on the previous one though, have a good weekend people.

To party or not to party?

2011-03-15T11:51:00.006+01:00

Some of my friends will know that I am considering a trip to the UK later this year. In a few months to be more precise. I say - 'considering'.

A week ago I received a surprise invitation from a very old friend, I mean I have know her for more than 30 years, rather than that she is ancient and decrepit. Both her and her husband are two of my friends from university. Since my sole remaining schoolfriend dropped off the map a couple of years ago, my university friends are my longest standing relationships.

There is something unique about the relationship that you built up with people so long ago in that period when you all first leave home, well, in term-time anyway. You spend three years in each others' company virtually every day, and after you have graduated you keep in touch and visit them for overnight stays.

Thirty years on and with far less contact you probably have very little in common except those first three years together, but it's still nice to see each other from time to time.

So, the invitation is to visit the UK in June for a house-warming. I say house-warming, but from the photo I have seen, mansion-warming would be more appropriate. And I am, of course, welcome to stay with them. In fact for his 40th birthday party in London, they not only put us up, but also our two dogs, in spite of the fact they had a couple of cats at the time. Whenever I have visited London - I have always been welcome to stay with them. And not usually just a night's kip - a visit to the theatre, restaurants, mutual friends invited around invariably got thrown in as well.

This is the couple for whom I was bridesmaid more than 25 years ago. I've spent time working with her on an archaeology dig when we rented a flat together, and we've been youth hostelling together. Would I specifically visit the UK for anything - or anyone - else? Unlikely. But we go back years with a lot of shared experiences, and sometimes that means a lot. And if that gives me an opportunity to visit the people I don't know, who I have pretty regular contact with on the internet, I think that would be good too. It's looking like a good plan and a nice trip.

So where is the dilemma? In my head obviously, although that probably goes without saying.

Let's start with the house-warming. It occurred to me, as I was thinking about it wandering to the shops (a very good time for pondering life's dilemmas) that I wouldn't know anyone else at the party. Our social circles are at extreme ends, if that's not a mixed metaphor. In fact I don't have one, so that's easy.

I started to play through in my head the typical sort of conversations that you have at these functions with people who you don't know. Stranger - 'What do you do then?' Me - 'Nothing.' Embarrassing pause. When one does nothing, one is expected to be busy doing nothing. You can't just do 'nothing.' I can. I can do nothing amazingly well. The art of being an only child is to ensure one is never bored with one's own company. And I am not. You should be busy doing voluntary things, or working on a consultancy basis, or at least dabbling at something to justify your existence. I could say that I hung wallpaper last week with my partner. 'Oh, so you're an interior designer then?' (says Stranger, vaguely interested in arty work). 'No. He's a painter and decorator.' Now this is where the non-existent conversation goes even further downhill. When mixing in fashionable middle-class professional and arty circles, confessing that one's partner is a skilled tradesperson is akin to sticking a pig's head in the mosque.

Perhaps I should play the game and tell them that I went to university with the hosts, have a Master's degree, a qualification in journalism and my last job was being in charge of cancer services for half a million people. Well the last one's a turn off to start with. Who wants to talk about cancer at a party? The journalism might get me a couple of points. Then they would want to know why I wasn't successfully writing loads of freelance stuff, or a really exciting book about my time abroad. I would like to know that too.

Having exhausted the work convo, the next inevitable one is ... or in fact perhaps it might have preceded the work convo given that I am a woman ... 'How many children do you have/what are they doing/where are they/blah meaningless blah questions about kids?' 'I don't have any children.' I could go further and say, 'I never wanted any.' We are now all but dead in the water and haven't even been chatting five minutes, so Stranger comes up with one last effort.

'You must have pets then?' (despairingly). I can actually answer yes to that one. I can tell him/her that we rescued a stray Spanish dog off the streets in our village. They can tell me about their pedigree Bichon Frise or Burmese cat which cost them a small fortune to buy. I can tell them about our dog nearly dying from tick disease and watch them squirming in front of me. At that point they would definitely see one of their old friends on the other side of the room and excuse themselves.

Of course, there may be other potential conversations that haven't worked themselves out in my head yet.

Moving swiftly onto meeting up with internet pals. Now, there is a decent handful of nice people within an acceptable radius of London. There is another decent group of people in Scotland but I haven't factored Scotland into the visit, so I'm sticking with the south (east).

But how to do it? Should I announce a date and hold court at King's Cross/Euston/Liverpool Street/Paddington or whatever main-line station would be most convenient for everyone or easily reached? That would give everyone the chance to meet each other as well as me. Or, should I plan an itinerary and travel around meeting up for a couple of hours with each person, and find myself nearby youth hostels? I think they still take 50-year-olds.

People who I have never met have already offered me accommodation. I don't know what to say, to say that I am touched sounds inadequate. I certainly appreciate people's willingness to open up their homes to a total stranger. It's the sort of thing you do when you are young and travelling around the world, but at 50? I can't even offer the favour back as we have a one-bed flat (without a bed), and a sofa for the dog. It's pretty tight on space.

And then, what about the whole food thing? If anyone doesn't know by now, I'm vegetarian. That doesn't mean I eat fish either. Having said that, everyone who has ever cooked for me has gone out of their way to ask what I did/didn't eat. Even the most obnoxious mother-in-law in the world bought a few veggie things from the supermarket. The only one who refused to cook for me was my own mother. Eso va la vida.

There is smoking too. I loathe it. I don't want it in my lungs, hair, clothes or anywhere remotely near me. Pop music and television are also on the no list. If I stay the night, please can I go to bed at 9pm and get up at 6am? Whereupon I should like either some very nice ground coffee, espresso or filter is fine, or Darjeeling or Assam tea. I do not like Nescafe. I do not like PG Tips or Brooke Bond either. In fact I would prefer a glass of heavily chlorinated tap water rather than drinking crap hot drinks. Mineral water would be nice though. I would bring a sleeping bag of course, and as I sleep on the floor in my flat, a bed isn't really necessary at all.

So you see, dear internet friends why I have a slight dilemma. I like my internet friends. I also have the mentality that when things are going well, don't fiddle with them, if it ain't broke don't fix it. These are people with whom I've shared emails, blogs, mutual woes, Christmas cards (well, not many of those), dog tales, and some good laughs.

Some time ago I had a hypothetical conversation with my-no-longer-internet friend and said I didn't know if I would want to meet him if he ever visited anywhere near. That wasn't because I didn't like him, but because I didn't want to spoil what we had. Irrelevant now of course. I think we agreed that the best way to meet internet friends (not specifically us) was to try a couple of hours on neutral ground and take it from there. But not staying with people and being in their face and all the rest of it. So that's the worry to me. Meet up - and - not get on. Everyone has a crap time and you lose a good internet friend. I've already lost one, and I wish I hadn't. In spite of everything I wish we were still friends. I'm not the only one who has been on the receiving end of an internet-initiated relationship that has gone sour. None of us like receiving mails that mis-judge us, or say they want nothing to do with us ever again. It's not pleasant at all. I'm honestly not sure I want to take the risk of that again.

And then, why am I even thinking about going to a party? I am no longer a party animal. Was I ever? Maybe once. But my idea of a good time is a walk with the dog, a meal at home, and a good book. Perhaps that has always been my idea of a good time though.

Comments, suggestions, answers on a postcard, all more than welcome on this one .....

Working woman's woes

2011-03-11T11:24:00.013+01:00

It's nearly ten years since I quit work, which is virtually the same period of time I spent in my last job, ie working for the NHS. Has the time flown? Yes.

It has flown faster than an afternoon sitting in my ~~prison cell~~ office wondering what on earth I was doing with my life. Five o'clock, or 5.30pm depending on what bus I had decided to catch, couldn't arrive soon enough for me.

This from the woman who, a few years previously, cheerfully stayed until after midnight writing documents - and then hand-delivered them to the board members who needed to see them as soon as possible. I'm sure they didn't get up at 1.30 in the morning to read them, but the effort had been made.

And do I miss work? No. There has not been one single day when I wished I was back there.

Am I bored? No. In fact the only reason for even considering working again is the obvious one. Money.

So this week, I have put in an amazing effort and worked four days in a row. Well, that's not strictly true. I didn't go on Tuesday, although my partner did.

We were decorating a new flat in one of Gib's rather up-market developments, hanging wallpaper to two feature walls. The paper was expensive and very stylish.

Day one was spent lining the walls. The walls were almost nine feet high, (nearly three meters) and the sitting room was 20 feet long (six meters). So there we are, standing on two step ladders with a huge long piece of lining paper that needed to be hung horizontally nine feet up. And the only way to move across the room was to start hanging in one corner, and then one person holds the concertina-ed lining paper while the other person moves their step ladder, we stick the next section, hold the paper, move the step ladder, etc etc. It took ages.

At one point, in the bedroom, I was standing awkwardly on the ladder and my head started swimming and I could feel the balance going. Not physically, just in my head with the sensation of falling backwards. I leaned forward, and it went away.

Day two was sizing the lining paper, which was why I got a reprieve.

Day three was hanging the expensive Parisian paper with a 64 inch pattern repeat. Paperhanging is like dressmaking, or making curtains - it's all in the measuring, the setting out, and - the cutting. One wrong cut, and you are stuffed.

I spent ages deciding on the best place for positioning the flamboyant pattern, and, just before we were about to start the cutting, I changed my mind about how to position the six pieces of paper, ie 1) centre it, 2) start from one corner and just work across, or 3) have two slightly narrower pieces at each end so that there was a virtually perfect match right across the wall. To me, a feature wall is just that, and it needs to look good.

Including measuring, matching, cutting, hanging, replacing the electrical fittings, washing out, and clearing up, it took us nearly six hours to complete the wall. My head was overflowing with measurements and calculations.

While we were waiting for the paste to soak I started working out the number of drops for the large sitting room wall. Basically there wasn't enough paper. We hadn't ordered it and we hadn't measured it, so not our responsibility - but ours to sort it out.

The wall needed nine full drops, two short pieces over the door, and a narrow drop on the side of the door frame. We would have to cut and splice the narrow piece. It also meant we had absolutely no margin for error, and if there was a fault in the paper, we would be nowhere.

I woke up at 3am with visions of an unfinished wall if we cut the paper wrong, or snagged it, or there was a fault, or ... or ....or.... I tried to work out a way of making a full length drop behind the door and couldn't. Then I started calculating drops for another job we had been asked to do. Ten drops, I thought to my insomniac self, got to be four rolls. I so did not want the stress of worrying about running out of paper. And why am I waking up at night fretting about work? That's one of the reasons I chucked it in the first place.

When anyone ever says that decorating is easy - they should try doing it for a living.

Day four had already begun, and when I woke up again, I did not want to go. It felt like one of those days where you have to chair a difficult meeting. I insisted on double-checking the measurements of the wall, even though they were ingrained in my head. We laid the paper out and made the cut.

Then I insisted on putting it against the wall, just to check it was right. Pretty fatuous waste of space really, because once we had cut one piece of paper, there wasn't anything we could do. If it was wrong, ie too short, we couldn't finish the job anyway. I just didn't feel like finding out we had got it wrong after nine pieces had been cut. It was OK.

We finished the wall in almost the same time as the previous day. It was a straight match so the cutting and hanging was easier, even though there were more pieces.

And this morning, I woke up so pleased that it was not another work day. Phew. I was mentally and physically drained when I had finished work on the past two days, for 'just a bit of paperhanging' as people invariably say. That's before you even take into account keeping an eye on the cat who seemed to think wallpaper was the tastiest delicacy ever invented. Nicely chewed edges would look really good.

Now, if you have waded through hanging those two walls, here are a few points about working for yourself which are not related to the job above, rather, on years of self-employed working.

Working for yourself means just that. It means that, you choose what hours you want to work, obviously fitting in with clients' hours where possible. While we would prefer to start at 7.30am or similar, clearly it's not practical when people are rushing around getting ready for work. That's assuming they are even out of bed at 7.30am.

But when we say we are finished for the day, that's just what we mean. No, we are not working a standard eight-hour day just because you do. Or because you want the job finished faster. Because as the day goes on, we get slower and slower. And more and more tired. Then there is more chance of making mistakes. And if we finish it quickly you think we are too expensive.

We give a price for the job. We don't charge by the hour, by the day, by the roll, or by the gallon. It is up to us how we complete that job to the best of our ability in the time we want. We give a written fixed-price quote. When people accept that, we don't expect them to complain later if we finish the day's work by early afternoon (as happened a while ago). We do tell people that the job will be done over a specific number of days, but we won't necessarily be there all day. Clearly in one ear and out the other in a lot of cases.

Truth is, we are running a business, not a charity service. If we are fast at the job, surely it should be to our advantage? It doesn't mean a cheaper price for a client because we complete it quickly. What they are paying for is a good quality job. Easy. Isn't it? People can always say no to the price we quote.

On one job, the client was out until early evening, so she told us we wouldn't see her until the next day. Fine by us. Next thing we knew, she was ringing up in her lunch break asking where we were. Amazing that she could manage to find the time for a lunch break to pop home after all. And really, there was nothing else we could do that day, so what did she want us to do? Sit around doing fuck all to make her feel she was getting value for money?

We can, and usually do, work quickly. We take our time with the measuring and cutting. We could work slowly. And what is the added value in that? The job is the job, however long it takes.

I don't think people realise that when there are two people working that means the hours worked are multiplied by two. I don't think people realise the cost of setting up a business. Vehicle insurance, personal and public liability insurance, office costs, consumables, materials, capital equipment, and in Gib, annual trading licence and employment department certificates. No holiday pay included of course, social security to pay, and no pension rights unless you provide your own.

All people see is someone working a short day and they add up the cost of the job and divide it by the number of hours to work out an apparently expensive rate.

Then of course, there is payment time. There are those wonderful customers who just give you the cash or a cheque straightaway. Some of them even think to say that they like the job. We like that, it is nice to think that someone appreciates a job. When someone says 'Fantastic!' that is even better. Then there are the ones who hang you about, and it doesn't matter that you write payment on completion on the quote. On occasion, I have been known to say, after listening to a load of woffle 'So where's the money?'

But none of this compares with some of the people we know who have far worse experiences. As I wrote earlier, being self-employed, in theory, implies that you have some control over what you are doing. You give a price to do the job the customer wants, to a good standard, and complete it in a mutually convenient time. You are providing a skill, expertise and labour in return for the money you consider it to be worth.

No. One of our friends has, on more than one occasion, given a price - and then his customer turns round and tells him what he is prepared to pay. And what does said friend do? He accepts it. He needs the money and his customers know that. He's also been asked to do extra work on top of the original job and just not been paid at all for the extras. This is most definitely not being self-employed. Nor is giving a set price per day or per hour. You are basically working for wages. Or when he was walking down the street, a previous customer said 'You still painting? Be at my house in five minutes.' He was there of course. An order is an order. Even when given by someone who later negotiates the price down.

This is not a one-sided post though. There are occasions when the customer does not get a good deal. A painter we know went to do a job painting a couple of rooms in a flat. When the clients arrived home after work, he was happily asleep on the kitchen table having drunk a couple of tinnies, and three-quarters of a bottle of vodka. He hadn't done any work of course so he didn't get paid. But it didn't cost him anything for a drink that day.

Colour me .....

2011-03-06T15:03:00.003+01:00

.... Autumn. I have a confession. This may surprise and shock some of you, but I have actually been colour analysed or whatever it's called. For someone who finds putting on make-up a drag, and rarely wears it, and spends most of her time messing around in casual trousers and boots - my hedonistic moment (actually nearer an hour) may sadly diminish my standing in your eyes. I was wandering around Selfridges in Oxford Street, as you do. I was dreamily looking at fabrics when I should really have been buying notions or whatever they are called. Interfacing, buttons, thread, etc. There was one of those promotional stands. Colour Me Beautiful in fact. I looked idly at it, and flicked through the book. It looked quite interesting. It basically said that people look better in some colours depending on their skin tone and hair colour. I could buy that theory. There was a practical chapter about colour wheels and tones and blah blah blah that all made sense. There was even a consultant relatively near me. I bought the book but didn't make an appointment. I didn't make an appointment for another three or four years, but finally, with a lieu day from work and in the north of England, I bit the bullet. The price had gone up of course. I think the astronomical sum of £25 had shot up to £35 or £40. Still, I had a day off and it was time to get this out of my system. I was sure I was a Spring, or maybe even a Winter, looking at my wardrobe full of strong colours. Blacks, bright reds, whites, greys, bright pink, royal blues. I figured I wasn't summer, or autumn with all the bright orange and lime green colours. Off I went through glorious North Yorkshire scenery to a lovely house reached by an exceedingly long drive. I was dutifully wearing a white top so I could be draped with scarves in varying colours which showed me to my best/worst aspects. They all looked the same to me, and so did I. I could not tell the difference between one colour next to my face or another. Also I had frosting on my hair apparently. Why do Americans call everything frosting? Icing on cakes is frosting and so are highlights in hair. (My consultant was American). I was not to wear grey. This was a no-no. Especially with the frosting. If I went back to dark blonde/light brown I could consider it. Bit of a bummer as most of my work clothes were based around grey. Serious, sober, and professional. Somewhat unlike me I suppose. It turned out I was a sludgey autumn. NO bright colours. No shocking pink. No burgundy. No black. No white. The list of NOs was endless. The amount of clothes I would have to discard would be endless too. At least my lovely olive green Barbour was a Very Good Colour. As was my mother's chocolate brown coat which I stole at every opportunity. I was such a wimpy autumn I 'flowed' into summer. Hmm. Not sure about that one. I skipped off with my portfolio and wondered if this woman even knew what she was doing. I suspect she did actually. Incidentally she was one of the models in one of the official books. And I did get coffee and biscuits (which I didn't eat) included in the price. Do I stick religiously to 'my colours' after all these years? Of course not. But I do think there is still some basis to it and most of my clothes are built around the palette for my muted and broody autumn. Why did I do it? Curiosity primarily. I couldn't for the life of me work out what 'season' I was and I wanted to find out. And, as someone working in PR and journalism, it's difficult not to admit to the fact that first visual impressions matter, especially when advising people on what to wear on television, or for a press conference. So, there was some professional interest in it too. How can you knock something when you don't know enough about it? When I was working in London, I went on a management course and one session was directed towards telling advising us what to wear. I thought it was ridiculous. I didn't need to be told what to wear to look good. After all, I wore home-knitted pullies, silk shirts, expensive skirts, had a couple of tailored suits, and otherwise dressed - eccentrically? I certainly didn't want to look like the overly made-up dressed-up woman jigging around in front of us all telling us we should aim to dress like her. A few years later on, I started to buy Vogue Designer Patterns. The suits, in suitable autumnal sludge colours, flew under my fast fingers on the sewing machine. And there I was. Finally, still frosted, I mean blonde highlights, suited in suitable autumn suits, and even wearing the make-up. By then I could have given the lecture myself. Not sure I could ever have successfully done the colour analysis for anyone else though. Post Script I have just looked up the American site and see perhaps I am not in such dreary, drudgey, sludgy, company after all. Seems like Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie, and Jennifer Lopez are all gloomy autumns too. I also think Angelina Jolie's hair on the CMB website is frosted. Wonder what her consultant said about that?

The one that got away

2011-02-21T11:48:00.005+01:00

Here is the post I started writing nearly four weeks ago, and then, wasn't really sure what to write. Or even why I was writing it. Or whether to. Time helps with most things, even writing blog posts, and mulling them over for weeks. To the extent that I know now that I am writing it because I like neat and tidy endings, and writing it provides that for me. Also because, it meant something to me for those years, it merits a post. And at least this post will be much shorter than the ones I was writing in my head three or four weeks ago. We started emailing on a pretty regular basis a few years ago. We'd mailed occasionally beforehand, and fallen out occasionally too. We were worlds apart - literally and metaphorically. Our lives were totally different, and we probably held opposite opinions on virtually everything under the sun, but I liked him. He was funny and he was interesting. He also had (has) a lovely dog which I suppose should be a minor point, but never is with me. There were lots of laughs and lots of grief. Who on earth could fall out about Sploofus, Scrabulous and Farmville? Er, we did. We fell out about sharing photographs too. Perhaps, on reflection, over the years, there wasn't much we didn't fall out about. It was, to say the least, an up and down relationship. Either we were up and laughing and having a good time, or we were down and arguing and one of us was walking away. Initially it was me, later it was him. Meeting people on the internet is like meeting people in real life. Except it isn't. There are similarities. You meet, you exchange conversations in common places, and then you drift elsewhere. But you don't really know these people, do you? It's not like socialising with neighbours or work colleagues. You can't share enough information in enough time. There is something strange about receiving a mail that says, 'don't contact me again, ever.' There was a please in front of it, but an order is an order, which is what that was, and adding 'please' makes no difference at all. An attempt at fake politeness. No more, no less. Initially, I was annoyed that someone else thought they could dictate terms and conditions of what I mistakenly thought was an equal relationship (in my dreams huh?). But should I respect that? I pondered long and hard. What about the times I had said I wanted to stop communications and my request had been ignored? Hey, when a woman says 'no', she never really means it does she? I don't like being told what to do, but what really stopped me from trying to explain that maybe we had, not for the first time, misunderstood each other, was someone telling me they wanted to have nothing to do with me again. Ever. That's pretty powerful, and it worked. So I never did write back, didn't seem much point. And in a way, there was a strange sense of relief. No more fall outs to worry about, no more thinking I'd say the wrong thing, no more looking for messages that weren't there. Every other time we'd fallen out, I'd been sad or upset, but this final one was different. Yes, I still look at my mails to check them out of habit, but knowing there won't be one. Why would there be? And maybe I breathe a sigh of relief that there isn't. I don't have to decide whether or not to reply. Yet, there are times when I miss him. When everything was stolen from our vehicle in Spain last year, he was the only person who offered practical help. Kind thoughts and good wishes from my Facebook friends (who no doubt will all be alienated at this point) are all well and good, and I did appreciate them. But how many people offer to send cash to someone they have never met and never will, because they trust it will be repaid? He did. And when I was fed up or wanted to moan, he was, in the early days, always there with a laugh, and a cheerful word. He would dish out the same sort of pragmatic advice that I do to others, but mostly he would try - and succeed - at making me smile. Things always change though. Maybe that's why I decided to clean up the finca, start blogging again. Do something that doesn't involve looking for mails that will never be there. Perhaps some good came out of it after all. Edited to add: Ironically my post here was written a couple of days before our final disagreement. A premonition? Or just co-incidence?

Facebook - Now you see me ..

2011-02-17T12:25:00.015+01:00

Now you don't. For those of you who don't know, I have deactivated my Facebook account for a while, to take a break from my busy round of internet social networking. There are a number of reasons for this so I thought it was worth writing a post, seeing as how so many people (ie 600+ million according to checkfacebook.com) use Facebook, and of those approximately half (depending on what stats you look at) use it for gaming. To start at the beginning, I joined Facebook for no particular reason, just that I noticed others were doing so, and I thought I would have a look and see what the attraction was. There didn't seem to be any, so I promptly left it alone. At the time, most of my internet time was spent writing my own blogs and visiting and commenting on others. And I spent time on forums too, and to be fair, some of that was actually useful. I went back on Facebook to start playing Scrabulous - and it was good fun. Luckily it was constrained to his lunchbreaks and after work which meant a) we weren't playing all day and b) I had plenty of time to think about what word to make with my seven letters. I needed plenty of time. And then, while I was playing Scrab, I noticed quite a few of my (dog) blogging friends were on Facebook. So I acquired some friends. And a few more. Then I noticed a popular game - the inevitable Farmville. I hit on a lot of other games, played them, chucked them, and blocked them - the games, not the friends. (See earlier post here about my views on games, and an interesting read here that puts me in my place for my somewhat derogatory comments about mindless games. And here is a short read about why people play games on Facebook). The friend list continued to expand, again mostly based on my blogging contacts, but some were added in the need to gain extra pals for the latest farm upgrade, but even they were mostly dog people. I hadn't met any of these people, nor do I ever expect to. Well, that was true until last year when one of them did visit Spain on holiday and we met up. The exception that proves the rule. But if one of the main Facebook activities is keeping in touch with friends and family, or refinding people from the past - I haven't used any of that. The few friends I keep in touch with tend to - occasionally - email me, send cards, or write letters. Remember letters? those old-fashioned things that arrive in the post. I got one the other day, an aerogram, or rather air mail letter as I see it is called, and it was a lovely surprise. Nor would I want to share exchanges with my 'real-life' friends in public on my Facebook wall. So what do/did I share on Facebook with hundreds of people I don't know? Not very much really. A few photos, links to updated blog posts, bushels and strawberry pigs (they are worth 15,000 coins so a good one to share). I made flippant comments on some posts, and admired the odd photo. I made a few serious comments on dog posts, and once in a blue moon on some posts by feminist friends. I did use the pm service quite often though. But the more the list of friends grows, the harder it is to keep track of people. You wonder if you have missed something. In fact, I often did. Kind-thinking friends would pm me to point me to a post about something so that I didn't put my booted foot in it. Instead of relying on the news feed, it seemed to become important to click on individual profiles. Gah!!! How many clicks was that? Especially if you needed to go back to it all over again. Too many clicks. Too much time. Feeling there is a need to interact with people, or they will be offended if they don't hear from you. How many people asked where I was when I deactivated, some of whom wondered if I had blocked them? More than one, to my surprise. I'm one of the types who invariably accepts a request from people who want to 'friend' me. If they have enough decent friends in common I do feel slightly guilty about saying no. Most people accept my friend requests that I make, so why should I not accept the ones who ask me? Here is a brief summary of a study which I found interesting. I really don't care about gifts or reciprocity or anything like that but I do have an occasional guilt twinge. Occasional. When I look at the profiles of a lot of my friends, they are so different to me. Many of my American friends are the 2Rs (there are probably 3Rs but I can't think of one right now) - Republican and Religious. So not me. My profile says/said very little. Perhaps if I put up my left-wing, animal rescue, vegetarian, feminist, environmentalist, ethical, agnostic/atheist views etc etc etc on Facebook I might not have quite so many friends. Or at least I would have them long enough for everyone to expand their farm, and then be discretely deleted. I mentioned that most of my friends are from the dog world. There was soooo much drama recently on there when it seemed Facebook was suddenly policing those people who, shock! horror! signed up as dogs. Well, they didn't sign up as dogs, but they were basically an extension of a dog blogging persona eg Rover Collie. It is apparently outwith the T&C to sign up as a dog, or hamster, cat, guinea pig, pet python, you get the idea. It is also not allowed to use a false name. Yeah, so I don't know anyone signed up under either of those? And do I care? People harmlessly sign on under an alias, or play at being their dog/cat/whatever. So what? If Facebook wants to protect the image of the site from serious abuse, I do not think animal identities are the place to start. Or maybe they are. One friend suggested that sex abusers/paedophiles may well try and lure teenagers with cute animal pix. Another friend suggested that maybe parents should monitor more closely what their children are doing on the internet and on Facebook. Moving onto more dog-related stuff. I am well sick of seeing posts about the Westminster Kennel Club Show. I had to look it up to discover what it was, but apparently it is something like the American equivalent of Crufts. I am not into showing dogs, at all. To me, it doesn't seem to be all about the dogs, it is all about the vain people behind them. And, although I may well be missing something, whenever I have seen those shows - yes I did watch Crufts as a kid - it does rather concentrate on pure-breeds, doesn't it? Pure breeds are very nice. I have lived with three pedigree ones in my life in the family home, and two in my adult life that we rescued from shelters. Their temperaments are no better or no worse than a rescue cross-breed. We've rescued two of those as well. But some of the other type of posts, that sadly I see a lot of on Facebook, are requests to adopt all the unwanted dogs who have only a few days left - or even hours - before they are gassed in a kill shelter. I wondered for some time why people put these posts up. I couldn't see any point to it, so I asked a small group of friends via pm what they thought. And one of them answered that she knew of one or more dogs who had been rehomed via a Facebook post. Whereupon I stopped feeling offended about seeing a lot of beautiful dogs who might well not be alive much longer, and hoped somewhere, someone, would give them a home, and if that was via Facebook then it was worth the posts. But I got my knuckles rapped recently for commenting about breeders making money. Apparently very few do. They are only breeding dogs because they love them. Really? If they love them that much - why aren't they out there rehoming all the dogs on Death Row? And because to me, every puppy bought from a breeder potentially means one dog less that is rescued from a shelter, whether breeder specific or otherwise. And that means one more unwanted dog killed unnecessarily. So, I looked at the time I was spending on Facebook, and wondered why on earth I was doing it. Yes, I had enjoyed a few laughs and made some new virtual friends, outside the blogging ones I already knew. And I had a large virtual farm with lots of points and mastery signs. According to today's Daily Telegraph, Facebook is worth around $50bn, and Zynga (Farmville) has been valued at between $7 and $9bn. What are they doing for me? Nothing. So why am I wasting time on them? And feeling overwhelmed with stuff that is nothing to do with my life apart from the virtual circuit. Fortunately I have certainly not put real cash into Zynga, because get this:

users can also buy Facebook credits to purchase extra features. These ‘virtual goods’ provide more than 90 per cent of Zynga’s revenue stream,

from this article here. If I want to avoid doing chores, put off essential tasks, whatever, I can just as easily write blog posts and comment on others as I used to before the lure of Facebook hit. If anyone wants to email me, they can. I usually reply. Or I can pick up a book. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier is the current one. So that my dears, is what I shall be doing, for a while at least.

Why don't things work out like we want?

2011-01-24T12:58:00.003+01:00

Comments and conversations on Facebook are often quite inspirational and thoughtful.

Over the weekend I have read a couple of quotes that people have posted - they could be about anything, but mainly about life, I guess.

And as I was feeling philosophical, I thought I would look at why things don't work out as we expect, or plan, or hope. This could be anything - personal relationships, jobs/work, a holiday, and sometimes even life itself.

I certainly didn't plan at the age of 50 to be living in a flat in Gibraltar and not working. Nor did I plan to get married in Sydney when I embarked on my world trip some 25+ years ago.

So, back to the question. Here is a random list of causal factors, to me:
• circumstances, this could include lots of things, but I was mainly thinking time and place • external factors, eg the unexpected that is totally out of your control
• conflicting relationships and personality clashes
• health problems
• addictions - drugs, alcohol, tobacco, gambling - they are health issues too, but can be so destructive, and are not readily solved by willpower, that I figured they needed a separate category
• power imbalance
• not working hard enough to make something work
• misunderstandings.

A few comments on some of these. I'll start with the last one first and talk about general breakdown in communications, or poor communications. After all, what else would you expect from a journalist?

In my years working in the UK public sector, poor communications was nearly always mentioned in any complaints about the health service, and was often regarded as the main problem. And in child protection incidents, it always featured highly. Wherever there are multi-disciplinary teams, the potential for communication mishaps is high because bluntly speaking, people just don't speak to each other, or they work on a 'need to know' basis.

I really dislike 'need to know' because it invariably means someone else is taking decisions about what I need to know when they don't know my job. There is no way that you can advise on the best PR line to take when you don't know the full story. Similarly the medic who thinks the social worker doesn't need to know something or vice versa, can result in some tragic cases.

Interestingly, I've just read a book about the sinking of the Indianapolis, the American warship that carried the casing and uranium for the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. I added that for those of you, who like me, know very little about American history. It was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine - after, obviously - it had delivered the bomb. Of some 1200 people on board ship, only 25% survived - slightly more than 300. The ones who did survive and were finally picked up had spent days in the South Pacific surrounded by rings of sharks that invariably chomped a body in half for tea, or lunch, or breakfast or whatever.

But if reading about that was bad, what was worse was reading the communication blunders that didn't log the Indianapolis as missing. Either someone didn't get one radio message, someone else decided to ignore another one, yet someone else decided to keep information to themselves, because no-one else needed to know. It was a disaster waiting to happen and it did. Still the US Navy changed procedures afterwards which was of no use to the relatives of the 900 men killed. The navy also court-martialed the captain, the only one who was ever court-martialed for the loss of his ship as a result of an act of war.

So when people treat communications as a sort of minor, not very important issue - it isn't. People died at sea 65 years ago because of crap communications. Oh, Doug Stanton, 'In Harm's Way' if you are interested. A good read.

And still on communications, I remember endless courses and lectures during my management studies about Active Listening. It seems to me, in my cynical non-managerial older days, that this is a fancy way of saying 'listening to what someone is saying.' The difference between hearing and listening. Not what you think they are saying, not what you want them to say, but actually, what they are saying. And if you don't understand then you ask for confirmation, and if you think there could be ambiguities you do the same.

But how many of us ever do it? Especially when we are wound up over our own issues or thinking about something else. Have we any idea what issues the other person is contending with? Bad communications are a minefield (to continue the warfare analogy) on their own. When you add in any of the above factors in my original list, it's a wonder anything ever works out in life.

A couple more examples. If you have health problems, you are waiting for test results, an operation, or having treatment with nasty side effects, that's all going to be uppermost in your mind. Anything else takes second place. Relationships, whether family, friends or partners, are fundamental. Everyone needs contact and relationships (Maslow's Triangle). When they don't work out, like health issues, it impacts on the rest of your life. So try going to work and feeling crap and having argued with a friend or a partner and trying to get through an important project. On top of that, someone else doesn't want it to go through for whatever reason. Maybe they feel crap too, or don't like the project. Maybe they just don't like you. Take family issues. Those of you with happy families are lucky. Can't say I know a lot about it. Always seems to be someone, somewhere who wants to be in charge. A bit like work.

Let's finish with relationships. Of any sort as this is probably what concerns all of us so much. I like to lecture on this topic as I am so bad at it. Do as I say and not as I do in fact. But ..... try and listen to whoever it is and ask for clarity. Make sure you really are both even discussing the same topic. If you like them/need to get on with them (ie family or work) then, don't blow up unnecessarily, shrug your shoulders, and, ask if it's worth it. How many years do you go back? And if you are really sure, then yes, move on and leave them behind.

Don't burn your bridges unless you are sure though. Because each time you burn them, and later decide to rebuild them, it gets harder and harder to build that bridge back to where it was, or even anywhere near. There will come a point when you can no longer rebuild.

I want to be a rockstar?

2011-01-18T12:42:00.002+01:00

Anyone who thought I had finished with feminist posts with my nice revived easy-going Clouds blog will be disappointed. Searching through YouTube for an original version of Nickleback's Rockstar - I was puzzled to find lots of versions of the official video seemed to have an important word taken out. What on earth was it? Swearing? Nah!! Course not. Drugs. So that very naughty word seems to have to be taken out of some of the YouTube vids. But .... it is perfectly ok to continue with gratuitous photos of scantily clad women, references to shagging women in planes (mile high club), the key to the playboy mansion, and photos of a naked woman in a bath tub, and another one gyrating sexily and - oh! wait! one photo of a not particularly attractive man with not many clothes on. What does that say to you? Well maybe not much, but it says to me that a few references to illegal drugs are worth censoring by whatever powers rule YouTube. Whereas really boring stereotypical objectification of women is not. Because it's not even important is it? It's life. We all want those hot sexy young chicks. In fact what we want is that life where.. 'the girls come easy and the drugs come cheap..' Mmmm, girls. Are we talking under age sex here? Or just crass language that describes all hot little bits of stuff as 'girls' (who come easy). Rather like.. and 'Gonna date a centerfold that loves to blow my money for me.' Very nice bit of imagery there. How are they blowing it? There was one older permed grey haired woman. She wasn't in her bikini or up to her eyes in bubble bath. Not even blowing bubbles. Good music. Shit objectification of women in both words and pictures. I have no interest in the drugs. I've got enough to do coping with the battle against women. But here is the original - because I don't believe in censorship. Rockstar - original lyrics until it gets censored again

On hitch-hiking

2011-01-18T09:30:00.009+01:00

For no particular reason, I was recently reflecting on my hitch-hiking experiences of the distant past. I was of course, brought up 'never, NEVER, to accept a lift from a stranger.' Not bad advice by any stretch of the imagination. But what is it about parents who tell you not to do things that everyone else seems to do? You just have to try it. I went youth-hostelling a couple of times with a friend and - although we weren't hitching - it didn't stop us being offered lifts. Not surprising really. From behind we were two tall slim, young women, one fair, one dark. Catered for most tastes. We were in our mid-teens. I refused all the lifts, saying I wanted to walk - which was true. My friend would have accepted, but hey, she spent most of one night with the youth hostel warden. Nor do I mean the evening, I mean after we came back from the pub post 11pm. And my father thought girls were safe in youth hostels with wardens to look after them? But when I went camping in France with another friend - and her family - I figured a lift from the top of the camp site to the bottom would do no harm. It seemed a safe environment. So we jumped in and nothing happened. I felt very guilty though. Can't even remember if I confessed my terrible sin to my parents. It would have been pretty stupid, but there again I was naive so I may well have done. Next up was a few years later and I was a little braver. I was on a course from university in the Lake District. Being an early riser, I had skipped out of bed for a walk, and then decided I might as well wander into town and buy a newspaper. Which I did. But it took longer than I had planned and I didn't want to miss breakfast. So when some guy in a van stopped to offer me a lift I jumped right in. He dropped me off, good as gold, where we were staying in some class Wordsworth-type place, and I flourished my paper and my story of somewhat risky behaviour. I gained some street cred I suspect. After that I left the risk-taking alone for some time until I went to Australia. This is a big place for those of you who don't know it. My travelling companion and I decided to eke out our funds by hitching from Sydney to Melbourne. We got a train from central Sydney to the furthest suburb and hit the main road. Sadly, it wasn't the friend from the youth-hostelling days, this one was shorter and fatter - which does not guarantee the same level of offers of lifts. I was getting to the point of suggesting she jump in the ditch (which is classic hitching advice because people think there is only one person to pick up, whatever that might signify) and someone stopped. We hopped in merrily and eventually - hours later - approached Melbourne as dawn came. It was a beautiful sight. I've still got the memory of that wonderful Australian sunrise, the open fields, the trees, and the grazing horses. My mate had snaffled the dog box while I had spent all night in the passenger seat. My legs ached and I needed to stretch them. It was a good lift though, and he was a nice truckie. From Melbourne, we went onto Tasmania, and stayed at Launceston. The following morning we set off south and decided to hitch out. The first guy who stopped, gave us both a bad feeling and we passed up the lift. Eventually we accepted a lift from someone who 'looked ok' whatever that may mean. Looks are not everything however. He decided to take us sight-seeing. But we didn't want to go sight-seeing. Especially down some deserted road in the middle of nowhere in Tasmania. 'We want to go back to the main road, thank you, and get to Hobart.' We argued on these lines for some time. My mate of course had nicked the back seat so I was stuck in the front with Mr Sight-Seer. I was considering how feasible it was to jump out of a moving car when he finally agreed to our demands to take us back to the main road. We told him to stop, and we got out. Talk about taking a deep breath. We then got a good lift from some 'hippy-looking' types in an old V-dub sort of thing. I was wary about this lot after the last experience, but mate decided they were ok, so we jumped in the back. And they were nice. I should add that I was brought up to avoid drop-out hippy types who were always the depths of society and not to be trusted. Unlike reasonable looking middle-aged men. Ha! We survived Tasmania, and with youth, optimism, and folly, we decided to hitch back from Melbourne to Sydney for the return leg. Got a decent truck lift as usual. As he wasn't going right up to Sydney he said he would meet his mate and we could swap over. It seemed he needed to meet his mate in some obscure forest glade. What's wrong with your average truck stop? If I had been wetting myself in Tasmania - this was something else again. How do you jump out of a huge truck in the middle of the bush? You don't. Well we didn't. And, we met his mate, swapped over, and got to Sydney. Phew gets nowhere near the mark. Of course, hitching with a man is different, isn't it? So once I hooked up with my partner in Sydney and cast off the short fat mate, we gaily set off down to Melbourne (can't even remember why - wanted a cheap holiday probably). I don't remember most of the lifts but the one I do remember is the guy who proudly proclaimed he didn't have a roadworthy certificate on his vehicle. OMG I thought, it's going to fall apart with us inside and we'll be killed in a crash. What was even worse was the fact that he decided he absolutely MUST overtake every car in front of him, regardless of what was coming the other way. At one point we stopped at some lights and we said this would be a great place to leave. Jumped out, grabbed the rucksacks out of the boot, and ran. He seemed totally loopy. Only later did my partner realise very sadly, that he had left his genuine Aussie bush hat in the back seat. I still hear about it to this day. There were a couple of good lifts around Healesville and Marysville though. Someone stopped for us and we discussed walking. He dropped us off in the national park and pointed up the hill and said we would enjoy it. Of course, in the middle of summer with huge rucksacks, that's great. Hiking uphill through the bush. In the heat of the Aussie sun. We didn't have much choice so we took the route he pointed out. Down the other side, we got a lift into Marysville. Don't think there was much traffic there in those days. We got the same lift out the next day, but we avoided the scenic walk that time around. I'd almost forgotten the time when I was still freaked out about lifts and someone offered us a lift in Tenerife. We were staying at some camp site near nothing apart from banana plantations and we were waiting for the bus. I refused to get in. The driver looked surprised and puzzled, and my partner shrugged his shoulders and said 'She doesn't want.' After that, hitching took a back seat, so to speak. When we were discussing it the other night, I said I would never do it again. And then remembered in my late 30s I went on a work trip to NZ. The place I was staying at was not quite as near the main highway as it purported to be so I began the long trudge into town. Lo and behold, someone stopped for me. And what did I do? Yeah, I got in. That really was the last time though wasn't it? I said to my partner. 'What about the time you were walking into town a few years ago and it started raining?' Ah, yes. 'But he looked a nice guy, he was German anyway, and people do that sort of thing where we live in Spain....' To be honest, I actually wasn't worried. I thought he was stopping to offer me a lift because it was raining. Which is reasonable. He was. Don't do as I do or as I did, do as I say. I wouldn't do it these days. Honest. Well, unless it was raining and I didn't have a waterproof .. and .. and .. and

Head over heels

2011-01-08T10:10:00.007+01:00

As it's (nearly) a year since I wrote on here, I thought I would start this new year off with a new post, and open this blog up for comments again.

When I first started this blog, it was intended as an outlet for a few rants, and to write about some of the issues that concern me. These are, in no particular order, vegetarianism, animal cruelty, feminism, and probably coming in second place - globalisation, consumerism and environmentalism. I'm sure there are more issues that I occasionally get wound up about for at least five minutes, but those must be the main ones as they are the ones that came to mind first. (So if the opinions of a lefty, vegetarian, hairy-legged feminist are of no interest to you, I suggest you find another blog right now).

However I no longer feel like ranting as it is far too energetic and tiring, so any posts on here will be more thoughtful (??) in a musing sort of way. That was musing, not amusing.

So, head over heels? One of the perennial discussions in feminist circles - along with wearing pink, using make-up, shaving, and other such hugely important topics - is wearing high heels. Or even anything that isn't flat. One of the other perennial discussions is why these topics even get a look in, when women are being murdered, raped, abused, and victimised because of their sex, every day of the year.

But changing opinions and stereotypes needs to be confronted at many different levels. And to me, it would be fatuous to pretend appearances don't matter. They do.

So if you are wobbling around precariously on some dangerous footwear, with baby doll smooth legs, and a face plastered with cement make-up, you may want to ask yourself why you are doing it. And you will probably answer - because it makes me feel good, and I look better.

That's what I have said in the past when I asked myself why I did it. Whether or not you have taken into account that you may be conforming to (patriarchal) societal expectations and perpetuating the 'sex symbol' stereotype is another matter. Or maybe you are aware of them and consider that they don't affect you. Or any other woman? And that's just for appearances' sake.

What about the damage to your feet, posture, back, legs? My mother had a huge array - I say huge, I mean to my small childlike eyes - of stiletto heels in the shoe cupboard. I would try them on when dressing up, and stagger around in them. This was particularly stupid as not only were they vertiginous, they were far too big. How I never fell over and sprained an ankle is beyond me, particularly as I invariably wore her overlong frocks and usually had a train, secured in place by my tiara. Still, us women have to start practising these important things early in life. In fairness to my mother she did tell me not to wear the shoes, so I had to wait for her to clear off to work when indulgent Granny was in charge and never denied me anything.

In my teens I graduated to my own high heels, I think three inches was about the highest I scaled. About the only flat pair of shoes I had at that time was a pair of walking boots and a pair of tennis pumps. It was hardly as though I 'needed' the height - at 5'8" or 9" I was well above average height.

And the whole idea of needing heels to look taller is just crazy. What is it built around? The idea of tall, slim, long-legged woman - whose role in life is to attract men. As someone who was/is tall, slim, and with longish legs I can tell you that men are just as interested in short, not particularly slim women with crap legs. So all you short women who want to be tall are just buying into a silly myth. Men are just as keen on the other female stereotype, that of the little woman who needs to be protected.

Which brings me onto that other crazy expectation. That men MUST be taller than women. Why? The same protective non-threatening theory? Imagine my chagrin when all my tiny short friends ALWAYS attracted the 6'2" boyfriends and I was stuck with the ones around my height or slightly less. If I wore those desirable heels, I towered over the men. If I wore flats, I looked soooo unsexy.

I have no idea when I abandoned these weird and unrealistic notions. Probably when I started hunting for non-leather shoes - the choice of decent synthetic shoes/boots is/was limited. Or maybe it was when I finally realised high heels were not really very practical at all. With the help of mail order companies in pre-internet days, I managed to find some decent flat boots, and scoured department stores for flattish but hopefully smartish shoes.

A couple of years ago I had been reading a discussion on a forum about this very topic. A day or so later I noticed some women in the local square wearing a variety of boots, mostly with high heels, but one woman wore a pair of flat boots. She had a free and easy walk and looked full of confidence. In comparison the other women looked slightly strained and false. Maybe just my biased view.

This year, I am amazed. Everywhere I look, 9/10 women wearing boots are wearing flat ones. Such is fashion, and our brainwashed addiction to it. It's one of the better years by far, ojalá that these wonderful boots were churned out every year and women stopped feeling the need to totter and teeter around in crazy footwear.

As for me, I found a wonderful on-line store based in London where they also have a showroom, bought one pair of boots and then ordered another two in different styles. Three pairs of flat, comfortable and stylish boots? From a vegan ethical company? I couldn't believe my luck.

Gratuitous pix of a pair of my new booties.