Waffle, Politics & Boris Johnson

I first had waffles in France, (gaufres), & loved the crispy outside, light fluffy inside topped with whipped chantilly cream & syrup - absolutely delightful, but very bad for you.

It seems to me that this perfectly describes Boris Johnson. Seemingly some bite to his pledges, with a fluffy persona, all going down with a delightfully sweet & creamy taste that makes you want more.

Waffle, as in language without meaning; blathering, babbling, droning, also perfectly describes his promises & answers to any probing questions about his proposals.

We have created political monsters. People with little or no moral compass. People who will say anything to get what they want, which is power & influence. People who will change direction without compunction as the perceived mood of the people, (focus groups), dictates. People who are not what they seem - shapeshifters.

Is that really what we want in our politicians, never mind in our Prime Minister? Well, seemingly yes for the Conservative party, who have lost all sense of what is best for the country.

Parliament, the Cabinet & individual politicians created this constitutional mess.

We the people, did not vote for Brexit.

71.8% of the UK population who were registered voted. Leave won by 51.9% to 48.1%. Ireland & Scotland voted to remain. The diagram says it all.

We are now in a seemingly never ending cycle, which no one in government seems capable of sorting out.

If we are a democratic nation we need to give everyone the opportunity to say what they think now. I don't much care whether it's through a referendum or a general election, except for the fact that we will have now had two unelected Prime Ministers. This is actually not unusual.

 

Personally I do think that a Prime Ministers resignation or death should lead automatically to a General Election.

My only conclusion in the current situation is that we are not a democratic country any more.

Plastic - The Killing Fields of Pollution.

I knew about plastic bags years ago when I travelled to the Middle East & Asia. They didn't have our "sophisticated" means of refuse collection & disposal. So the plastic bags were everywhere - dumped in beautiful landscapes, forever stuck in trees & hedges, overflowing in the few bins in towns & cities.

I found out about micro beads in beauty products more recently. Just after I had bought a new facial scrub actually.

David Attenborough gave us all a wake up call to the damage plastics are doing in our rivers & oceans in The Blue Planet. The killing effect that it is having on wildlife & humans. https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/48251420

What I didn't know until last night was how pervasive plastic is in the very air we breath & the food we eat. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005xgz

Well now we do know. We can't escape our responsibility for the damage already done to everything in our world. We simply have to change. Immediately, there isn't a choice. Each & every one of us has to stop our own small pollution of everything that is beautiful about our environment. We cannot say that our individual action makes no difference.

Actually we are lucky. We live in an age where scientific evidence & technology can show us the knock on effect of what we purchase & throw away. It can also show us how the production of our everyday consumables is damaging our environment.

But we also have to show the politicians that we care enough to take real action. We need a mass movement in the style of the current Hong Kong protest about extradition to China. Politicians need to understand that the current situation is not acceptable & will ultimately destroy us if it continues.

Tomorrow I've been invited by Greenpeace to a reception at the House of Commons to launch Greenpeace's report into the plastic pollution in UK rivers. Literally a "drop in the ocean" of total water pollution.

In addition to plastics rivers are polluted with:-

• Sewage
• Agricultural Pollution
• Oil pollution
• Radioactive Substances
• Dumping - e.g. bikes, trolleys,electronic waste....
• Drugs

Rivers flow into the sea. The sea is also treated as a huge waste bin. Marine dumping is illegal. But there is only a point to legislation if it is enforced. How on earth do you enforce that?

The first thing Government has to do is to legislate to ban single use plastics. The second thing they have to do is tell us how to dispose of all the single use plastic we have in our homes. The disposal needs to be properly planned & organised. If everyone participates it will be a huge mountain.

I think I'm having a second coming as a political activist - Greenpeace Grannies unite! 

Communication, Forgiveness & Reconciliation

Forgiveness is individual. Reconciliation takes both people & isn't always possible.

We all need to enhance our communication. Although we have the gift of speech & a brain to think we really are not very good at effective communication which is honest, calm & clear. We let our emotions interfere. We allow assertiveness to become anger, we allow being upset to stop us really hearing what the other person is trying to say.

We do need to "speak our mind". But whilst we are doing that we need to try to be an "active listener" really hearing the underlying message, which is often the real message.

Conflict is inevitable in relationships & a healthy response to conflict is to deal with it head on. If you don't you carry unhealthy patterns of behaviour into all your relationships.

Empathy is key, we all need to be able to try to really put ourselves into another persons shoes. That doesn't mean that we have experienced the same thing & there are some responses which are completely wrong - "I know how you feel" for example. You don't, you can't, but you can try to understand.

We all have to compromise in life. But we also have to be true to ourselves. We have to be able to hold our own & not become defensive & angry. Those two emotions mean that effective communication & a chance to find the middle ground & reconcile go out of the window. Sometimes we do have to agree to disagree.

Blame is the enemy of good communication & any chance of reconciliation. Saying "you did this or you did that" isn't going to help. Any conflict usually has two contributors. The trick is to say how you feel about what happened, "I was very upset" or "I felt completely ignored" for example.

Good communication is all about truth & understanding. It takes real effort. It is risky. You have to be prepared for the fact that the other person isn't able to make an equal effort. Mending bridges when the river is flooding is never going to be easy - the pillars supporting the bridge might be washed away completely.

Some relationships can't survive if both people don't work together at repairing the damage.

Of course if you just want a superficial, "everything in the garden's lovely" relationship you can ignore all this. 

DNR - Do Not Resuscitate

If your doctor has written a DNR order at your request, medics are not required to resuscitate you if your heart stops. It is designed to prevent unnecessary suffering & your family may not override it. DNR can be regarded as passive euthanasia.

It is another medical ethics situation where, just because it is possible to prolong life, which is what medics are trained to do, it may not be the right thing for the patient. Everyone who is going to have surgery should think about what they would want to happen should their heart stop & should make clear their wishes, not only to their medical team, but also to their family.

That said a lot of people simply do not want to think about what might happen. They may be more focussed on just coping with the surgery itself. They may be too ill to think about DNR. They may be unconcious. In reality very few people go into hospital having made the decision. That means if there is a problem the medics or the family decide. The family may not be best placed to make the very emotional decision, especially if they have not been prepared for a relative to die & said all that they would want to say.

I think the important thing is what sort of life the patient had before surgery & is likely to have after surgery. In my case I'm 74. I've lived a very fulfilling & interesting life & have lived alone for 10 years. I have a shedload of co-morbid chronic conditions, including heart conditions, & pain & fatigue on a daily basis.

Life generally doesn't get easier as you age, whatever your health is like. Just because the average life expectancy for women in the UK is 83 - 86 (depending on the stats), & many live much longer, doesn't mean that is a good thing. 

What matters is the quality of that life - how happy or contented you are, whether you are able to socialise regularly with good friends & family, whether you are able to manage the day to day things we all have to do, whether you are reasonably healthy & active, whether you feel that there is a purpose to your life....I could go on & on.

So, I think it's a gamble - Cling to life on the basis that it's the only one you get, (unless you believe in reincarnation) - Or risk a possible slow decline or even an unpleasant one. Or "check out" gracefully without any pain & find out what, if anything, is on the other side. 

It seems a no brainer to me.

Bionic Woman - My Pacemaker & Me

I had a pacemaker fitted in 2009. https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/treatments/pacemakers  So I've been Bionic for 10 years.

Now it's got to be replaced. Without it I would be I trouble & I think I can tell that it needs replacing. I'm getting some weird symptoms which could well be attributable to the heart conditions I've got.

I have Complete Heart Block / Arrhythmia / Bradycardia - Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrullation & a Floppy Mitral Valve. Once again evidence that God had an off day when she made me! Why have only one heart problem when you can have a whole set?!

Anyway the message is good. The surgery is fine. You are awake & only have a local anesthetic. That said, all you can feel is fairly strong pressure as they push the device firmly into the shoulder. It did seem to be a tight fit & went on for some time, but it really isn't a problem. I think I remember  feeling the wiring going into the heart, but I'm not sure. Fortunately that doesn't have to be replaced - only the actual pacemaker box.

I find the whole thing amazing. The technology, the skill of the surgeons & the fact that someone invented this relatively small device that can keep me alive & kicking, (well, maybe not actually kicking). It is battery operated. So, presumably, am I.

 

It sounds so worrying, heart surgery, but this really isn't. It's quite simple, it doesn't take that long & it works. The amazingly named William Greatbatch, an American electrical engineer, invented the first implantable one in 1958. So there has been plenty of time for them to be sure they work & iron out any little glitches! Always reassuring - my pioneering spirit doesn't stretch as far as trying one out for the first time. 

I look forward to 10 more years of a perfectly beating heart! Not everyone can say that. Good old NHS.