Spam From The NSPCC
I’ve just received a series of spam e-mails from the NSPCC.
That’s the last time, they get any money from me!
I tried to unsubscribe, but all it asked me to do was donate.
Medical Advances
With all the fuss about the Duchess of Cambridge’s pregnancy, it makes me wonder if C had a similar problem in a third pregnancy soon after our second son was born. She was feeling dreadful and was being sick every morning, which all made her feel she was pregnant. She was and then had an early miscarriage. She always put it down to the baby being female and that she couldn’t carry girls, but of course in the 1970s no-one knew any better. She then went on to have our third son.
I suppose today, she might had that third baby earlier, as medical science has moved on so much.
In the 1960s and 1970s, you seemed to meet a lot more couples, where there had been strings of miscarriages. One American couple, where I worked with the husband, had given up trying to have a second child, as they couldn’t afford the care in the United States. Then in England, the wife got pregnant again and by going into hospital for most of her pregnancy, she was able to have a healthy baby.
When To Have Children!
I was 21 when we married and my wife was a year younger and at Liverpool University, which I’d just left.
By our mid-twenties, we had three small children, I’d started a successful programming business and my wife was on her second first degree in law at University College London.
By our early forties, she was a very successful barrister and I was a partner in a company that changed the way large projects were handled throughout the world.
In the last five years, my late wife and our youngest son have died from cancer and I’ve had a serious stroke.
So life has been a roller coaster and like all good London mongrels, I’ll win the fight in the end. But neither of us ever regretted having our children early.
Not Getting Pregnant
It is reported today, that the Government is changing the IVF rules. But they should also change a few other things, based on my experience.
I have recently traced my family tree back to the 1820s. What is rare, is that in my father’s line, few of the women have given birth. My sister didn’t for a start.
Ten years ago, I was diagnosed as a coeliac, which showed itself in a severe lack of B12. I now moderate a list on the Internet for coeliacs and have come across several examples of female coeliacs, who have been unable to conceive, because of this lack of B12. A few were diagnosed early enough and after going on a gluten-free diet, they conceived and gave birth successfully.
Remember that coeliacs make up one in a hundred of the population. The incidence is higher in the Irish, Askenazi Jews, Italians and some from West Africa. Some have said that coeliac disease is linked genetically to sickle cell anaemia.
Top Cat Returns
It would appear that the latest film is a remake of the kids’ cartoon, Top Cat. It’s so old, I used to watch it as a child. Although, they had to call it Boss Cat to avoid conflict with a tinned cat food of the same name.
Top Cat Returns
Judging by the number of buses, they’re advertising it on, it isn’t going to do very well.
Are Young Girls More Difficult Than Young Boys?
This has never occurred to me before, as C and myself, just had the three boys. But on the bus back from the Angel a few minutes ago, there was a girl of about six really pushing the limits with her mother, who had another in a buggy. Thinking about ir, when I see bad behaviour on these buses, it possibly is more often that it’s girls being a bit raucous and naughty. I’ve also been on buses with a load of twelve year old boys and this can be a nightmare too.
So when they are young, are girls worse than boys? Or do they play advantage of what they are expected to be like?
Climbing The Shard
It would appear that a group of intrepid climbers have climbed the Shard by London Bridge station. Read the story here in the Belfast Telegraph.
People and especially students have always been doing this.
At Liverpool in the 1960s, I was in a year with Alvin John Slasser, who was usually known as Sean.
One night he climbed the crane of the Catholic Cathedral in Liverpool, which was being built at the time. I suspect that the Shard was taller, although the crane was several metres taller than the cathedral and Sean did claim to have gone right out to the driver’s cabin.
Sadly, Sean is no longer with us. In the first year of the course he died in a freak climbing accident in I think North Wales.
If there is something tall there, someone will climb it!
It must have affected me greatly, as when C named our second son, he had a middle-name of Shaun. She got the spelling wrong.
Teen Pregnancies Down
This story is on the BBC’s web site, but it doesn’t appear to be on radio or television.
The latter doesn’t really matter, but the story does.
Child Abuse Cases, Baby P and Sharon Shoesmith
I’m not going to comment on the recent judgement in Sharon Shoesmith’s appeal, as it would appear that we have all sorts of groups and interests colliding in a Court of Law, with everybody claiming the moral highground.
I have just looked at the timeline of the tragic case at the centre of it all, Baby P. As I thought he died a few months before my late wife, C.
I can remember discussing this case in particular and many others in general with C over the years.
She often despaired at the ineptitude and sometimes downright indifference of some social workers and police and sometimes suffered mentally, as she tried to sort it all out as a barrister. Not that she did many cases as tragic as Baby P. She always said that she was lucky and could come home with a clear conscience,unlike many front-line workers. Not that she didn’t worry about some of the really bad cases she handled.
She would have argued that a lot of the problems were down to constant changes in the law, with large amounts of retraining, were cutting the efficiency of the very services, the changes were trying to improve. She would always tell stories about how she’d been involved where yet another baby had been taken into care from an abusive family. Some families were costing Social Services hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.
So now that money to these services is being cut, staff are further stressed and we have well-meaning politicians shoving their oar in, I think it unlikely we’ll see much improvement in the next few years.
Howard Flight States the Obvious
Howard Flight has been quoted on the BBC as saying this.
We’re going to have a system where the middle classes are discouraged from breeding because it’s jolly expensive.
“But for those on benefits, there is every incentive. Well, that’s not very sensible.
I could also add to the first part of his statement, that young children stop you going on those long-haul holidays, as every one needs a ticket. As to the second part, it may or may not be true, but I think it probably isn’t.
On that issue though I refer you to Peoplequake. which shows that unless there is adequate provision for flexible working and a female-friendly society, the birth rate falls drammatically. Just look at Italy, Russia and Iran for a start.
The Anonymous Widower 