Lonely In The Cold
I think that living alone in the cold weather, we have had the last few weeks, has been much worse, than living it with someone. The weather is after all a classic mutual moan and a problem to share. And where do you get cuddles from?
At least if the sun is out, the sun gives you a lovely rub and bathe!
This weather can’t go on much longer. After all Noah only had to put up with just over a year and he had some nice pets to play with! And some awful ones too!
The Future Of The NHS
This is very much in focus, after the Francis report into Stafford Hospital. Here’s my four-pennyworth, which I wrote to BBC Radio 5.
In the last five years, my wife and son have died of serious unrelated cancers. I’ve also had a bad stroke and also hospitalised because of heart failure.
The large modern hospitals, like Addenbrookes, University College and the Royal London have been superb. But the small hospital in Manchester, where my son was, was completely Dark Ages. But NHS and local politics wouldn’t allow the wrecking ball in.
All these small hospitals should be demolished and everything centralised.
After all if you were any form of medical staff, would you like to work in a small crap local hospital or a big prestigious one? So crap hospitals, like Stafford and I suspect a few others, get the staff they deserve.
So when you want your local hospital to do everything, just think again about what you want!
But then wasn’t in any different. As a child, you avoided all of the local hospitals in Enfield and Barnet, and went to London if you could. Recently, at Newmarket, everybody avoided Bury St. Edmunds Hospital if they could and went to Addenbrookes. At that hospital, I’ve met so many staff, who live nearer to Huntingdon, but prefer to avoid the hospital at Hinchinbrooke, whose reputation isn’t the best.
So can a lot of the problems in hospitals like Stafford, be put down to the good staff leaving a sinking ship?
Why Am I Drinking So Much?
Yesterday, I drank heavily all day.
I had three mugs of tea before I left home to do my shopping and then another cup of tea in Carluccio’s with my breakfast.
Before I left for the football, I had a large glass of milk and then I had a tea on the train going to Ipswich.
I didn’t drink anything in the ground, but I did have a small bottle of water coming home, to wash down my Warfarin.
With my supper, I then had two 330 ml. bottles of Celia lager, to wash down the Marks and Spencer’s curry.
A couple of weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been able to drink that amount of fluid, as my throat was rather dry. But just as my gut seems to have improved, it now seems to be the turn of my throat.
Thinking through the last two years since my stroke, I don’t seem to have been able to drink like this. In fact some doctors have told me to limit my fluid intake.
In some ways though, this drinking behaviour has happened before. In the early 1970s, I was working as a consultant at Time Sharing in Great Portland Street and was getting most of my fluid in the Mason’s Arms next door. I remember then thinking, I was drinking too much, so I switched from coffee to tea at home and started to drink masses of the stuff. I felt a lot better.
Then sometime about 1985 or so, I gave up coffee again and started drinking tea, after I thought I’d got a serious mouth infection. I actually, stopped drinking coffee this time, a couple of months ago, as I thought I’d got a similar infection.
So it’s all very strange. At least drinking lots of tea, with one drink a day, isn’t going to do me any harm.
One side effect of my health and possibly all of the drinking, is that for the first time in a year or so, wine now seems to taste like wine again.
Do We Have A Death Wish?
After the death of my wife and son, some medics thought I might be suicidal. I don’t think I ever thought about it, although I was pretty depressed by myself in hospital in Hong Kong, until my son arrived.
But in some ways today, showed me a dark side, that I keep very much under control.
As a child, I didn’t like the Underground and especially, when I was waiting for a train in a tunnel station like Wood Green, I’d tend to back onto the wall, with my hands over my ears. I still hold back on the Tube, but often these days there is an empty seat, to sit safely. I’m probably just being prdent these days.
On New Barnet station, whilst waiting for my train, a couple of fast trains ran through and they scared the wits out of me. So I retreated into the shop.
I do wonder how many commit suicide in such a situation on the spur of the moment.
Thinking about it, I do wonder, whether it’s just the survival genes taking over. After all, we all have a lot of those, as those that don’t would have died out years ago in the caves.
let’s face it, it also helps you do extraordinary things. Just look at the story of the baby rescued from the dock in Somerset, by the 63-year-old, George Reeder.
Afore Ye Go
When I was in my teens, I used to mark up newspapers at this shop, which then was owned by a Mr. Shaw.
The Paper Shop at Oakwood
I’d get in at 5:30 in the morning, if I didn’t oversleep, mark up all the newspapers for the delivery boys and girls to distribute an hour or so later. I do wonder, if that routine, which I did for a couple of years, set me into my routine of always getting up early and working.
The flats in the background of this picture had a tale about one of the shop’s customers.
Flats With A Tale
He was the owner of a well-known department store in North London. he was also a dedicated alcoholic and when he went into the local hospital, he was on a bottle of Scotch whisky courtesy of the NHS.
I don’t know the end of that story, but a pharmacist friend has provided a post script. Years ago, the ward rounds in hospital often offered a top of whisky to those, who wanted it. They found it funny, that each bottle of the Bell’s whisky, they used to serve, had “Afore ye go” on the bottle.
It still does!
Am I Mean To Myself In Small Ways?
My left humerus hasn’t been in the best of sorts the last couple of weeks. But it’s always been like that in the cold, ever since the school bully broke it. After Southgate I took the train up to Oakwood station and could see the park, through which I used to walk every day to get physiotherapy on my arm, in the three months or so after it mended.
I always used to walk, rather than take the two buses, as it was in some ways easier. And of course, I got to keep the bus fare! What I used to spend it on, I can’t remember! But it was probably bits for my Meccano.
In some thmgs, I waste money, but at other times, I’m quite the opposite. It must be my careful Jewish and Huguenot genes!
Subway Are Against The Tax On Toasted Sandwiches
Surprise! Surprise!
I saw this in the window of the Subway next door to the Harris and Hoole in Southgate.
Toast The Tax
I can understand their corporate anger, but it still doesn’t get round the fact, that their shops have nothing to offer a coeliac like me.
So how about a gluten tax, based on the amount of poison in the product? Or even just a simple bread tax? The latter would only be applied to non-real bread of course.
The Red Sock Code
This article is both tragic and sad, but funny and gives a good feeling.
So what’s wrong about bring ladies, or men for that matter, of easy virtue, into a care home to help with the caring?
Let’s Tax Fizzy Drinks!
There has been a call this morning, for a tax to be put on fizzy sugary drinks. It’s reported here on the BBC.
I would not be affected by such a tax, as I suppose the only high sugar drink, I take is the odd smoothie, when I need to take my pills out.
I did however chat to someone yesterday, who has retired from a job, where they looked after obesity and diabetes in the community. Judging by that pair of jobs, there is a serious connection between being overweight and getting diabetes.
So perhaps, it would be a good idea to try to cut down on all that sugar! On the other hand, we perhaps shouldn’t go for artificial sweeteners, as many like the outspoken, DogtorJ, believe them to be a problem. He incidentally is a vet, who is a coeliac, and has come to some interesting research-based conclusions.
I doubt we’ll ever see a tax on fizzy drinks, as the industry wouldn’t allow it and I suspect, it would be a vote loser.
Deaths From Asthma
The previous post on asthma got me thinking, so I looked up if there was a site, that gave asthma deaths by country.
There is and it’s here.
The site is interesting , as it gives an awful lot of ways you can die. just select and click go.
For example, one of the sections is falling from trees. No-one actually died that way in the statistics they show.
The Anonymous Widower 