Courts in Crisis
This is the title of an article in The Times, with the sub-heading “Judges working overtime as cuts and delays put justice at risk”. Read it fully.
Many of my friends are judges, barristers and solicitors and this has been happening for years, but no-one has really stood up to what the Labour government has been doing to justice.
My worry is one that my late wife was very vociferous about. She did a lot of family work, which involved money, child problems and adoptions. She was adopted herself and she never really said, but I suspect it was much more a personal thing, than anybody suspected.
She also did a lot of this work on Legal Aid. Ten years before she died, she was paid more than what she got in her last year of practice. She also got more time for preparation in those far off days and everybody was properly represented by competent solicitors and barristers.
But the cuts in Legal Aid, meant that experienced barristers and solicitors no longer wanted to do this work, as they really didn’t cover their costs and there was more lucrative work available. With the retirement of experienced lawyers, like my late wife, this will all get worse.
And these cases will get handled worse and worse unless the government puts more money in the work.
So should we bother. After all, if people can’t make their marriages work, why should we as taxpayers subsidise their woes?
Yes!
Statistics show that the children of broken marriages are more likely to be the ones that will have problems in the future.
Not in My Name
My late wife was a barrister and had a very deep sense of justice. I do too, and we both feel or felt very strongly that not only should justice be done, but it should also be seen to be done. I also should say that my family comes from Jewish and Huguenot roots and this makes me feel strongly about how people are treated.
So when David Davis gets up in the House of Commons and using Parliamentary privilege accuses the Labour government of torture, I am not happy to say the least. Those that authorised the release of Rangzieb Ahmed and tipped off the Pakistani authorities, should be in the dock themselves.
David Davis has made a stand on the subject of human rights before, when he fought a by-election.
We need more MPs, like David Davis, to stand up and be counted.
Tower Block Safety
Years ago, we lived in one of the tower blocks in the Barbican. At the time, they were some of the highest residential blocks in Europe and you can still see Cromwell, Lauderdale and Shakespeare Towers looming behind the City of London like three cricket stumps.
I am always nervous of fire, and we wouldn’t have moved in with our young family, if we weren’t satisfied that the blocks were safe.
- All of the balconies on the blocks connected up, so in an emergency, you could go all the way round the block to get away from the fire.
- Each balcony had two escape staircases, that connected to the lobbies below your floor.
- There was of course a protected stairwell to get down in an emergency.
It am not aware that there has not been a serious fire in any of these blocks, so other precautions must have worked as well.
So it would appear that well-designed tower blocks can work. And talking to my children now, they all enjoyed the time spent living above the city.
But.
We have just had the tragedy in Camberwell. Was that block built to the same standards as the Barbican?
Coeliacs and Tamiflu
I haven’t got the dreaded swineflu yet, but can I be sure that Tamiflu is gluten-free.
A lot of medicines are not and as an example most cough mixtures contain wheat-derived glucose. Boots Chesty Cough Linctus is OK, as it is based on sucrose.
I have found some information on the web, one US site says that all Roche products are gluten-free and I’ve also found this list of exgredients for Tamiflu.
Capsule core:
- Pregelatinised starch (derived from maize starch)
- Talc
- Povidone
- Croscarmellose sodium
- Sodium stearyl fumarate
Capsule shell:
- Gelatin
- Yellow iron oxide (E172)
- Red iron oxide (E172)
- Black iron oxide (E172)
- Titanium dioxide (E171)
Printing ink:
- Shellac
- Titanium dioxide (E171)
- FD and C Blue 2 (indigo carmine, E132)
This list just shows what does go into some of the things we take.
I got this information from the Electronic Medicines Compendium. I tried to search for another couple of drugs at the main site and it worked.
Steve Race
Last month I missed that Steve Race had died. He was one of the last great broadcasters from the 1950s to the 1970s, who were at home doing everything. He was a jazz pianist, author, broadcaster and television panelist. And he even used to create the Quick Crossword for the Telegraph. I think too, that he was one of the original presenters of PM on Radio 4.
He was one of my favourite broadcasters and I know it is often said, but I don’t think we’ll see the like of him again.
Police Stupidity
This blog entry from The Times shows that whatever the Police have these days, they lack good old commonsense.
I have a basset hound and she is beside herself with the heat. All the doors and windows in the house are open and she’s wandering around looking for best place to snooze.
Godfrey Rampling
This is an interesting obituary in today’s Telegraph of Godfrey Rampling, who has died at a 100.
He was considered one of the finest one-lap relay runners of all time and helped the British team win Gold at Hitler’s Olympics in 1936.
He is also remembered as the father of Charlotte Rampling, the actress. She was one of the few famous people born in Haverhill in Suffolk.
Mollie Sugden
Mollie Sugden, one of Britain’s comedy greats died yesterday at 86. That was a good innings and we’d all like to do as well as she did. We’d probably all like the nation’s affection too, but we’d never get to her levels.
The Telegraph obituary saved us all a typical joke for the end.
Mollie Sugden and her husband had identical twin sons, born when she was 41.She confessed that when they were very young she had to keep them labelled so that she could tell them apart and that “more than once I bathed the same one twice”.
Jerri Neilsen FitzGerald
Sad to see that this courageous doctor has died.
She gave herself a biopsy without anaesthetic, whilst working as a doctor at the South Pole and then treated herself for breast cancer. Just like my wife, she got over the cancer and returned to work. Jerri became a motovational speaker and carried on until the cancer took her in the end.
She is quoted as saying this.
It doesn’t matter how or when you die. The only thing that matters is, did you ever live?
I’ll go with that and I’ll give her a toast tonight, when I have my evening glass of wine. Or two!
John Craven Rides Again
I used to sit with my children and watch John Craven’s Newsround on the BBC many years ago.
When I was in the south of Italy recently, I watched BBC World News and the voice of one of the readers was John Craven’s to a t!
Strange!
The Anonymous Widower 