Choice & Democracy

The recent American election made me wonder just how democratic Western democracy is. Are we really saying that Trump & Biden were the best candidates for America to chose from? Or even Trump & Harris? If we are I think we should all be deeply worried, because similar patterns can be seen in other, so called, democracies, including the UK. 

Running for election in the USA is all about money. Both Trump & Harris raised hundreds of millions of dollars for their campaigns. If you can afford it, and there are no limits on spending, you can stand. It used to be funded by public money, but now private money is much more widespread. Candidates who are backed by the likes of Elon Musk with assets of $304 billion literally buy the election. Candidates who relied on public money had to agree to spending limits. Private donors give candidates far more freedom.

I don't believe private donors are driven by altruism or the good of the nation. Having spent shedloads of money private donors expect a return on that investment. They are business people. It's the art of the deal. They want jobs for the boys & political power or they want a quid pro quo in terms of future legislation. One way or another they want control. In simple terms it's blackmail or bribery.

Instead of being concerned about voting errors or fiddles, which are largely eradicated in the west, we do have a transparent & fair system of voting with proper oversight, we should be much more concerned about money. We can argue about the different methods of voting - first past the post or proportional representation. Personally I would get rid of F P T P. 

But we should all be far more concerned about the undermining of democracy through the current imbalance in funding for parties & candidates. What we need is a level playing field where there are limits on spending for everyone involved in the process. I do think that private money should be removed from the process because it isn't like giving to charity. The donors are paying for something they want. It's transactional.

Time will tell with every new government elected to office whether they do what is in the long term best interests of the country & even international affairs. But by then it's too late. Cronies will have  important, decision making roles in government. International companies will have their way to new contracts eased. Wealthy individuals will become even more wealthy & powerful. Leaders will inevitably be compromised & justify it in some way. 

I know we live in a world dominated by consumerism. But buying elections really should be the last straw. Voters should unite & stop it. 

expenses potentially reaching $1 billion.

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/us-elections-2024-how-much-does-it-cost-to-elect-a-president-of-the-united-states/articleshow/112824555.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

expenses potentially reaching $1 billion.

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/us-elections-2024-how-much-does-it-cost-to-elect-a-president-of-the-united-states/articleshow/112824555.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

NHS - How Much Does it Cost? -

My husband always thought that we don't really value the NHS because we don't directly pay anything for what we get. It's free at the point of need. I don't think that is sustainable any longer. 

So I'm digging to find out what the cost of the simple basics are. It isn't easy. The Kings Fund is helpful. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/data-and-charts/key-facts-figures-nhs

Full Blood test - Couldn't find NHS cost. Private (Spire Healthcare) approx £160. Includes the practice charge for taking the sample and a laboratory fee for processing the specimen. £109 (Nuffield Healthcare).

Urine Test - Couldn't  find NHS cost. Private (Spire) includes a consultant fee £150 - £230

RSV Vaccination - Ive just had this free on the NHS. Privately it costs £180 - £200 (Pharmadoctor)

Flu Vaccination - Boots £21.95. Rowlands £17.99.

GP Appointment - A 2022/23 study estimated that a 10-minute face-to-face GP consultation costs around £56.

Prescription -  NHS estimates that the average prescription costs around £28. 

Outpatient Appointment -  NHS is around £120 

Inpatient Cost -  General ward: £351 per bed day. Isolation ward: £586 per day. ICU: £1,621.16 per day.

What we need to do, in the face of the ever rising costs of NHS care, is have a real conversation about how we can make the NHS viable, without the huge cost to the taxpayer while retaining the general principles that we all love. We need to think about a hierarchy of need. Obviously A&E and serious medical conditions need to remain free at point of need. But why shouldn't we either be prepared to pay something towards the day to day smaller costs or be prepared to take out insurance to cover those?

According to the Irish nurse who did my RSV vaccination, health insurance is not uncommon in Ireland. I think that may be the Republic, not Northern Ireland. https://www.movehub.com/uk/moving-abroad/ireland/healthcare-for-expats/#four

If we accept that neither the UK nor the NHS is the same as it was in 1948, we surely have to accept that we need to find a new model for the 21st Century. Rather than ever increasing taxes shouldn't we be prepared to either pay a bit towards some things or have basic, relatively inexpensive, insurance for some things?

I certainly think that if we make lifestyle choices that increase the risk of needing healthcare, like taking part in some sports, we should be responsible for having an insurance policy. I also think that now the NHS sends out text reminders for appointments there is no excuse for simply not turning up or cancelling. There should be a hefty fine. Having everything, always, free just doesn't seem viable.

Leaders Facing Justice.

As far as I can see from research there have been judicial cases against leaders of 15 different countries between 2000 - 2020. (9 of them in Africa). Between 2020 - 2024 I have found 11 more. My list may well not be exhaustive. My point is that this is not isolated behaviour. It is becoming more & more prevalent. The increase starts to become much more evident in 1993 with the Jugoslavian war tribunals. It is becoming learned behaviour by unscrupulous & greedy leaders. They know that they can get away with it. 

2000 -2020 - East Timor, Sierra Leone, Italy, Cambodia, Peru, Congo, Sudan, Libya, Kenya, Tunisia, Egypt, Guatemala, Chad, Ivory Coast, Kosovo.

2020 - 2024 - Croatia, Argentina, France, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, South Africa, South Korea, Pakistan, Russia, USA.

To my mind this pattern, which seems to be endemic, matters because of what is now happening in Ukraine, Gaza & the West Bank & possibly even more crucial, the American presidential elections. Putin, Netenyahu & Trump, if he is elected, are not leaders intelligent & caring people want to be in charge of wealthy & powerful countries. 

The problem is that although there is International law & there are International courts, bringing transgressors to justice isn't easy. For a start you have to be able to get the leaders into an International courtroom. They aren't going to volunteer, so they have to be extradited if there is regime change, or they have to be forcibly brought to court. They can be tried in absentia, but not sure that really puts them off. 

Then there is the difficulty posed by gathering a verifiable evidential trail & credible witnesses prepared to risk testifying. In addition, the Prosecutors & Judges face intimidation & worse from supporters of the criminals. It takes courage to go against incredibly powerful & usually wealthy men, (mostly). Not only the people trying to enforce the law themselves are at risk, but also their families. Not sure I would put my head above the parapet. 

It's a quagmire. Law is important, but it does have to be enforceable & have consequences for the perpetrator. Especially when it involves death, destruction, genocide, starvation, crimes against human rights & humanity & complete corruption.

The really startling thing is that there are so many men, (usually), prepared to behave in this inhumane way to retain power & accumulate obscene levels of wealth.

We need to find a solution that works.

 

Putins Palace

I really didn't think I could be shocked anymore by the excesses of dictators. But I've been following the story of Alexei Navalny for quite a long time. He did a documentary on Putins Palace amongst other investigations & posts. This link is not Navalny's, but it is very detailed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQbCOYnp_fA

There are several "security" services operating in Russia. The SBP is the presidential security service. The FSO is the federal protection service. Intelligence services are the GRU, FSB & SVR. Putin is known to be paranoid, probably with good reason - If I were a Russian I'd probably think I would be doing the world a favour if I helped bring him down. The measures he takes to avoid anyone having the chance to get to him are amazing. He has had a lot of time to refine the techniques he uses to remain safe & in power.

https://www.quora.com/How-secure-is-Vladimir-Putin-in-his-position

As of 2023, Russia's economy is forecast to be among the largest in the world by nominal GDP, with a value of approximately USD 1.9 trillion. Russia remains a significant economic power with a strong resource base and a diversified economy. However, the ongoing war in Ukraine and Western sanctions will weigh on GDP growth ahead - Focus Economics - Russia's Economy.

According to NDTV World Putin is said to be worth $200 billion. What is it with these corrupt leaders? Just how much money does any one person need? It simply isn't possible to spend it in a lifetime, no matter how many palaces, yachts & aeroplanes you've got.

My conclusion is that it's the "Little Man / Napoleon" Syndrome. A psychological pattern in which people, often men, feel inadequate due to their height and may overcompensate with aggressive or domineering behaviors. It's thought to derive from anxiety & feelings of inadequacy & inferiority. Causes include being bullied or teased about physical appearance, leading to insecurity. Some people respond by constantly attempting to prove themselves, leading to hostility & aggression.

Life for average Russians is not wonderful. 

https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/russian-federation/

I imagine that living in a dictatorship, with huge variations in wealth, power & influence must be very hard indeed. Not having any access to truth, only propaganda - defined by Lenin as the "reasoned use of historical and scientific arguments to indoctrinate the educated and enlightened", must make you feel very powerless to change anything. 

So those brave people who do stand up to people like Putin deserve our help. Not just words, but action too. 

 

AMOC - The Climate Change Impending Disaster you've never heard about.

Actually you do know what AMOC is - it's the Gulf Stream. But you probably don't know just how important it is. You almost certainly don't know what would happen if it stopped working properly. Therefore, if you are quite a bit younger than me, you aren't aware just how it's failure may well affect you. I'll hopefully be long gone.

 

It's a "conveyor belt bringing nutrients, oxygen and heat north from tropical waters, while moving colder water south — a balancing act that keeps the Northern Hemisphere warm". It has switched off in the past & the scientific concensus is that it is dangerously close to doing so again with massive consequences. Climate Change is causing it to slow now. 

This week a report was published saying "the risk of collapse has been "greatly underestimated" and will have "devastating and irreversible impacts" for the world". There are 2 possibilities;-

• Dansgaard-Oeschger events, leading to a sudden warming over Greenland, 10 to 15 degrees Celsius [18 to 27 F] within a decade

• Heinrich events, big ice discharges into the northern Atlantic 

The science is beyond my pay grade, but it is real & there has been a concern for over 50 years. I can remember it in the 60's.

The effects would be far reaching. " Ireland, Scotland, Scandinavia, Iceland, would likely get several degrees colder and also drier. Southern Europe would still be warm and Northern Europe would be cool. These temperature differences drive extreme weather events, bringing a lot more variability and storms. The sea level would also rise by up to half a meter [1.6 feet] in the northern Atlantic in addition to the global average rise that is happening anyway".

Ocean carbon dioxide uptake would be affected. "If the overturning circulation stops, that CO2 will stay near the surface and quickly equilibrate with the atmosphere. That would make [C02 concentrations] rise faster in the atmosphere".

"An oxygen-depleted ocean it would disrupt the entire web of life in the northern Atlantic, and that would disrupt fisheries".

"In the Southern Hemisphere, greenhouse warming would get worse".

https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/rivers-oceans/we-dont-really-consider-it-low-probability-anymore-collapse-of-key-atlantic-current-could-have-catastrophic-impacts-says-oceanographer-stefan-rahmstorf

We have messed with our planet heedlessly for decades. Ever since we stopped being nomadic & settled. But the huge unsustainable rape of resources that I have seen in my lifetime has been exponential. 

We humans are literally destroying our habitat & everything in it. 

We really do need to wake up & understand what our children & grandchildren are facing if we don't take serious action.
 

Offsetting & Greenwashing - A Modern Fairy Tale

Offsetting Source "How Bad are Bananas" - Prof Mike Berners Lee 

"Can carbon be offset? - it is a nonsense - cheap offset options (are) fatally flawed - we can't just use them to counterbalance our emissions. The only genuine offset is removal of CO2 or other greenhouse gases, taking them out of the atmosphere & storing them permanently. There is no substitute for cutting our carbon footprint". 

"We should not fall for the idea that we can offset our footprint, as is often offered by airlines, often at absurdly low cost. The test for a legitimate offset is that it must actually remove carbon".

We need to have a realistic conversation about what "necessary flights" are.

Greenwashing Sources - https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/greenwashing  Shout Out U K - SOUK 

"Claims are often based on questionable plans, including emissions offsetting and “insetting” – rather than actual emission cuts. As such, the transparency and integrity of such claims remain critically low and risk creating a failure to deliver urgent climate action".

"Greenwashing is a marketing tactic where a company makes misleading claims about its environmental impact or the environmental friendliness of its products. The goal is to convince consumers that a company is more environmentally conscious than it actually is". 

"In 2020, a suit of consumer protection agencies gathered to carry out the survey that would turn to evidence of the wrongdoings of large UK businesses undertaking greenwashing practices. Hence, the study discovered that four in 10 international companies made deceptive statements. Greenwashing promotes false solutions to the climate crisis that distract from and delay concrete and credible action".

10 worst greenwashing companies Source - Earth.org;-

Volkswagen

BP

Exxon Mobil

Nestle

Coca Cola

Starbicks

Ikea

Plastic Bottle Water Companies

Major Banks

Fast Fashion Brands 

 

We have all the evidence we need, but we desperately need more action. But it isn't enough to say our politicians are not doing enough. They aren't. But neither are we on an individual level. Every single one of us needs to look at our lives & assess what we are doing, regularly, to stop the escalating & devastating effects of climate change. 

We will only solve this if we are all really well informed & are prepared to change our unsustainable habits.  

News! - Speculation, Repetition & Interruption

I listen to BBC Radio 4 & World Service news & also watch TV news. It seems to me that insidiously, in order to provide content, interviewers often ask speculative questions, or even questions that they know the interviewee will not answer. For example, what will happen now that Yahya Sinwar has been killed in the Gaza / Palestine conflict. Similarly, politicians & pundits are asked to guess what will happen to tax in the budget.

I find this very frustrating & needlessly time filling. I want news programmes to tell me what has actually happened, where, & how it has affected people & the environment. If there is certainty about what will happen as a result, that's fine too. I want that news to be accurate & verified as far as possible. It may well be useful to ask someone with real experience or expertise to comment, that isn't what I'm talking about. If an interviewee can contribute evidenced information which suppliments the facts, then I'm all for it. 

What I really find objectionable is unsubstantiated waffle which is little more than guesswork. 

I've lived long enough to feel fairly confident that this is a relatively new phenomenon. The world was not filled with people who make a living from giving their opinion on everything & anything. It goes along with the whole PR, special advisors, influencers, celebrity, ethos we have now. I really don't feel that we benefit from any of it. 

News is very important. The public do need to be informed about what is happening in the world because we are all affected in some way by what happens almost anywhere. I also do think that we need to hear other points of view than our own. We do need to be challeneged & possibly be able to change our minds if appropriate, based on factual knowledge we may not have known.

While I'm having a rant I also find repetition really annoying. The presenter will outline a story & then bring in an often on the spot correspondent. Fine. But what I don't need, in a minimal timeframe, is a repetition of exactly the same outline of the story by both. Surely the job of the correspondent is to add detail to the bare bones of the introduction?

Finally I really hate the interview techniques of some presenters. The interruptions, the talking over in order for the interviewer to make a point. Surely if you ask a question you should have the courtesy to actually listen to the answer? I realise that the media think that we have the attention span of a gnat & each section of news is very time limited. I also realise that politicians are trained not to answer the question but to put across their party points of the day. But this can all be very counter productive to the listener. 

I'm coming to the conclusion that listening to the news is less & less the best way to be informed. Longer, in depth interviews can be much better, depending on the interviewer. 

No wonder so many people are reading the news on their phones & computers. 

  

  

Evidence & the Gaza War

RUSI - the Royal United Services Institute has done an interesting piece about the IDF's use of AI for military targeting & says it's "more about speed than accuracy". RUSI "outlines broadly how targeting cycles operate, including the critical points where technology could limit or expand civilian deaths". It's a long read & you may not want to read it all. But the conclusion is that the IDF use it's systems  " not to refine targeting, but to expand & expedite it's target cycle...which constitutes a systematic devaluation of Palestinian lives, which could be reasonably considered collective punishment."

https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/israel-defense-forces-use-ai-gaza-case-misplaced-purpose

I have followed the creation of the state of Israel since I was in my teens & read "Exodus" by Leon Uris, published in 1958. No one should minimise the history of Jews around the world. They have suffered more than most. Notably at the hands of the Nazis. The creation of a Jewish state after the Holocaust seems necessary & inevitable. 

I do have a huge issue with the way that the Israeli very right wing government & the IDF have conducted the war against the Palestinians. I have tried to find evidence supporting the claims of the IDF that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields & justification for bombing hospitals, schools & refugee camps. I am struggling to find any. In addition they have killed aid workers & journalists. 

"Oxfam and Human Rights Watch have observed or documented that the Israeli authorities have carried out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks in violation of international humanitarian law following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks in Israel, imposed collective punishments on the civilian population, deprived the civilian population of objects indispensable to its survival, and used starvation of civilians as a weapon of war. These are all grave violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and customary international humanitarian law. The vast majority of Gaza’s population has also been forced to flee their homes, many as a result of Israeli actions that amount to war crimes". 

Amnesty International says the IDF are creating a "buffer zone” along the eastern perimeter of the occupied Gaza Strip (which) should be investigated as the war crimes of wanton destruction and of collective punishment." This is 16% of the entire occupied Gaza Strip. Also "Israeli military has unlawfully destroyed agricultural land and civilian buildings, razing entire neighbourhoods, including homes, schools and mosques". 

There is so much evidence to support the conclusion that what the Israeli government & IDF is doing, not to mention what they are tolerating settlers doing to Palestinians in the West Bank, you would imagine that they would would be committed to providing plentiful evidence to support the claims they make about Hamas & Hezbollah (in Lebanon).  But although I understand that what is effectively a guerrilla war is very difficult to win - Afghanistan is a prime example, I haven't seen the Israeli information machine provide very much evidence at all to justify it's actions.

In the absence of evidence I have to conclude that they are behaving illegally, the death & destruction is completely unacceptable & the USA & UK need to stop supporting this onesided war. There also does need to be a legal holding to account.

One of the worst things about this war is that although the IDF do not allow any journalists into Gaza, which to my mind speaks volumes for the fact that they can not justify it, there is plentiful verified evidence from brave journalists & NGO's, plus from Palestinians themselves, which we see daily on our TV's.

We all know what is happening.

 

We don't need no education....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iITFrcNLcA  Pink Floyd "The Wall" 1979. The year I became the head of a primary school at 34.

I had been trained in the 60's. I espoused, Montessori, Piaget, Steiner. I believer in child centred education & learning by doing, not by rote. Since then the world has changed immensely. So have I.

I still believe the child should be the centre of what is taught. They should have a really broad based education & learn by experiencing. No one learns to drive a car from a book or how to play football from a video. But we have AI. We have sophisticated technology. We have interactive whiteboards & computers. The rate of change is exponential.

Even more importantly than that the world is simply not the same place it was in the 70's. We have mass consumerism, but many of the old industies & jobs have gone. We have limited natural resources & need to find different ways of doing things. Family structure & parenting has changed out of all recognition. Populations are more mobile. In many ways we are more fortunate, but we have also lost reliability & structure. The needs of individuals & society are worlds away from the 70's.

But although education has changed I really don't think it has been given the time to really think about the needs of modern children, the state, the world & the system. What's more, I think we desperately need to do that or our children won't be prepared for an uncertain & changing world.

Education is both individual & societal. Both need to benefit. If we don't equip our children with the skills to be happy, balanced & productive individuals at whatever level, our society will not flourish. Most educational change is imposed from the top. From politicians. The world & it's wife thinks that they know what education should be because they went to school. But by definition their education is out of date. 

We need people with real experience & expertise to look at educational trends around the world & select the really good tested methods. We also need an open public discussion about what we as a society want education to be. We are in the 21st century, but education isn't. It's all about testing, examinations, administration & box ticking, putting huge pressure on the teaching force who are leaving in droves. No one wants to be a head now. 

A good education depends on good teachers who are well trained, creative & dedicated. It's a caring profession. It runs on goodwill. That has been eroded away by bureaucracy & overwork. 

But the most important thing is that our children need to enjoy school & feel that it is relevant to their lives now & in the future. I seriously doubt that it is.

Hope

Hope is not the same as wishing. I can wish I might win a million, but it's unlikely, a) because I don't gamble & b) because the odds are stacked against it.

I can hope. My hopes are fairly simple - good health & lives for my family & friends, a good death eventually for me, to do more good than harm in my life. 

But what hope do so many people in the world now have? If you follow the news you don't need me to enumerate the many devastating & utterly pointless conflicts, or the malnutritian & famine, or the crimes against women, the lack of basic human rights, sanitation & water.....That doesn't even include the people suffering from depression & mental illness.

"Individuals with very low levels of well-being—and in despair in particular—suffer not only poor outcomes on the health, longevity, and productivity fronts, but they also typically avoid civil society, live in loneliness and isolation, and are vulnerable to misinformation, conspiracy theories, and radicalization".

"A growing body of evidence suggests that the single most consequential component of subjective well-being is hope. It is critical to future outcomes for individuals and society. People usually think of hope as an emotion rather than something that can be measured and linked to behavioral, economic, and political outcomes. Economists who study hope define it slightly differently. Hope is not simply the belief or feeling that one’s circumstances will get better, that is optimism. Rather, hope is optimism combined with the belief that one has the agency to make things better".

https://www.brookings.edu/about-us/

My question is, if the world does not take action to make our countries more equal & evenly balanced, if we don't share land, wealth & resources, what will happen? My guess is that we will create a "monster" race. A race so disenchanted with the unfairness & inequality of many societies that they will be prepared to do anything to right the wrongs.

The difficulty I have is that I think the evidence for this is already there for everyone to see. All forms of extremism, religious of otherwise, are already clearly visible. The extreme right & extremely religious aren't able to listen. Populism is rampant. Self interest & power is all that matters to many. 

I would like you to think what you individually can do to force change. We have to hope that we have power to influence politicians because they are the only ones who can take effective action. At the moment I don't see much evidence of that.

 

Gifts & Politics

Christmas is on the horizon. My heart sinks every year. What to buy? Where to buy it? Will it be a good present or go straight to the present drawer or charity shop? It would help if I enjoyed shopping, but I just don't have the energy or inclination now.

MP's can accept gifts, it's not illegal so long as they follow the "Rules" & declare them. The Register of Financial Interests says the total value of gifts that Sir Keir Starmer has accepted since October 2023, (i.e. before becoming PM), is £74,905.80 - 11 football match tickets valued at thousands of pounds, as well as more than £24,000 in work clothes and accessories.There is also accommodation valued at £20,437.28 plus loans & gifts of clothing for his wife.

I can well understand that if "ordinary people" become very senior politicians there will be costs that their salaries don't meet. Sir Keir's net worth is said to be around £7.7 million, however, & it could rise to between £10m and £15m. That to me is wealthy. I would have thought he could afford his own clothes & specs. If HRH Katherine can patronise some hight street shops I would have thought Sir Keir & his wife could too.

I can also understand that actually having the time to go shopping must be extremely difficult. But then I imagine they have personal shoppers for that.

Then there is the football matches & events. I imagine that socialising at this level means that there would be a huge number of offers of free tickets. After all it does your event no end of good if the PM attends. There is a "quid pro quo". But is it a good image when real fans & supporters have to fork out vast amounts of money they probably can ill afford to follow their clubs? Given the Taylor Swift ticket fiasco, again are the optics of accepting those good?

The path is littered with elephant traps for politicians. In a way I don't want them to be spending their time worrying about minutiae like this. I would rather they ran the country effectively. But they do have well paid advisors & civil servants. I would expect them to be speaking truth to power about the advisibility of accepting gifts. 

I would also expect people who are at the top of government to have the common sense to understand that if it wouldn't look good in the headlines of the Daily Mirror or Daily Mail they probably shouldn't do it. Especially not when they are telling us on a daily basis that things will only get worse for all of us.

How Are You?

This has become such a meaningless, empty, phrase. I listen to Radio 4 a lot & am really fed up with interviewees saying that alongside "thank you for having me". Firstly, if you aren't really interested in the reponse to "How are you" then why are you asking? Secondly presumably the interviewee has been chosen because they have some expertise or experience to bring to a question & is possibly being paid for sharing it. The type of programmes I listen to aren't social occasions. I hope that all parties are polite, but phrases like this are grating & completely unnecessary. 

I do try not to rant too often on this Blog, but this is really p...... me off.

It's true on a personal level too. When someone says "How are you" generally the response is "I'm fine thanks, how are you". It tells the questioner nothing & they usually let it go, because it is generally accepted as just a convention. People rarely expect a genuine answer. 

However sometimes when you respond, the person you are speaking to then goes into lengthy detail about how they, or sometimes a member of their family, is. This has happened to me several times recently. While I'm happy to say that I'm possibly not having a good day, I really don't want to go into detail with most people, however genuine their enquiry. Similarly, unless it's a close friend or family, I really don't need to know the finer points of their medical condition or latest visit to the hospital. I especially don't want that level of detail about their relation, who I don't know.

It's all about appropriateness & balance. It is important to interact with people socially in a real & friendly way. We should be interested in eachother. But some people simply don't seem to have a filter. They don't seem to be able to judge what is & is not appropriate, genuine & interesting to someone else rather than "unloading". 

It isn't simply about saying the words. It's about listening & being able to pick up clues from facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, context clues, etc that tell you whether the conversation is appropriate to the person & the situation.

Maybe we are losing the ability to do that because we are communicating via our mobiles & computers too much. Real social interaction needs be face to face. Even touch is important. You can't do that over a phone, computer or radio. 

 

Complication, Confusion & Trust

I think we all benefit from simple messages. 

Personally I don't find maths easy, but I do understand visual graphs & charts. I like simple explanations of things, for example Prof Spieglehalter is my icon of easy to understand. Similarly I'm a fan of "More or Less". What I really dislike is the modern technique of political interviewing, as exemplified by some of the presenters of the "Today" & "PM" radio 4 programmes. To be fair, it must get really irritating when politicians simply don't answer the question, but trot out the response they have been programmed to put across, which may or may not have any relevance to the question. Interruptions & speaking across eachother is extremely annoying to the listener.

Our world & it's problems are very complicated. If I consider the Climate Emergency, the current ongoing wars, food security, wealth distribution.... none of them are simple. It is almost impossible to give a black & white synopsis of the information we have. I doubt that one person can grasp the total picture & certainly no one could put forward an easy solution that would work. We need teams of expertise to reach consensus in decision making. So I have no issues with advisors, so long as they are qualified to advise.

So people like me, who are interested in what is happening to our world & what the solutions & outcomes might be, can become confused by the warring voices. Not least because there are "bad actors" who quite deliberately muddy the waters. Who do we believe? Who do we trust? 

It isn't simply a question of trust. Our individual lives are busy & complicated. Just dealing with the everyday can be time consuming & difficult. How many of us have the time to verify what we are being told? Why should we have to? But we no longer trust governments & politicians. We don't trust the press & the media. We don't trust the Police. Unbelievably, many do seem to trust Influencers & Social media despite the evidence to the contrary.

I don't expect those with power in charge of government or multinational companies to always get it right. They should be allowed to make mistakes & change their minds, that is human. 

But I do expect them to be open, truthful & take responsibility to put the mistakes right. That seems to be really difficult for them to do because they overridingly want to protect their power, position & wealth. 

What is the answer? The only one I can think of is oversight bodies that actually do their job properly, with the power to hold anyone to account & operate sanctions if appropriate. But seeminly the bodies that we have are unable or unwilling to actually do their job. Hence all the "Special Enquiries".

Our society is in a mess & so is our planet. But we do have the intelligence to put it right. The public just need to get their act together to force change.

A Visit to A&E

I have just spent most of the weekend in the A&E of my local hospital. It isn't the first time, unfortunately I am someone who gets far more than their money's worth from the NHS. I never cease to be grateful for the care & skill of medics. How they cope with the sheer volume & variety of patients & the working conditions continually amazes me. Morale & care seems surprisingly high considering what they have to put up with, so I would never criticise the people who actually work in the NHS.

I do think the system needs a serious overhaul though & have blogged about it before. If they were to follow patients journeys through the system I think they might see opportunities for improvement.

I don't need to bore you with the detail of the circumstances that sent me there, but I will tell you the progress through it. 

14.30 - medical incident -> phoned 111-> initial speedy triage (efficient) -> 2nd triage, same questions but much longer & very inefficient. Took about 45 minutes. Both my daughter & I found it very difficult to understand the person asking questions -> doctor eventually rang hours later -> told to go to out of hours appointment at 19.00 -> a wonderful, competent, GP who sent me to A&E with a printed copy of the notes she took of all the neurological tests she did -> A&E 20.15 receptist + nurse then waiting room -> 9 hours in various waiting areas in a chair! Eventually triaged, same questions, ECG, Bloods, Blood pressure. Doctor eventually, same questions & tests as previously & a CT scan. No one was very interested in the very good notes the out of hours GP had given me. Everyone wanted to go through the same tests & questions themselves & didn't seem to know what the outcome of the previous persons questions & tests were. Long gaps between every interaction with no information -> eventually discharged at about 05.15 next morning. 

I was utterly exhausted having had no sleep & in quite a bit of pain because sitting in really uncomfortable chairs triggers some of my normal health conditions. 

I can completely understand why everyone a patient sees has to ask name, DOB & address. They need to know they are treating the right person. 

What I simply don't understand is why so much time is apparently wasted answering exactly the same health & incident related questions & doing exactly the same neurological tests. Why don't medics have ipads to enter the information as they go & share it with everyone treating that patient? In fact, does a single patient really need to be seen by so many people?

Triage means the preliminary assessment of patients or casualties in order to determine the urgency of their need for treatment and the nature of treatment required.

If my condition had been more serious than it turned out to be I would possibly have been dead after the time that elapsed.

When I got home at about 06.00 next morning, after waiting for a taxi, I went to bed. The hospital apparently tried to phone me around 9.30 to call me back for another CT + angiogram. My phone was turned off, but fortunately I woke up at about 11.00 & my daughter got through in time to collect me & take me back.

I'm fine now. But at 79 with several chronic conditions that experience was very trying. 

I completely understand from far too much experience, as far as a patient can, the difficulties the NHS operates under, (apologies for the pun). I just think that one of the great failings of the system is effective communication & sharing of information. In this age of modern technology it is really not acceptable to be wasting so much time in repetition. The use of ipads might be expensive initially but they could also be linked to the whole NHS computer system & from that every surgery & hospital could access a patient history in real time.

There must be other ways technology could be used to make the system better for medics & patients. 

 

Life Goes On....

How resiliant are you? 

Life doesn't tend to be a "bed of roses". There are so many idioms about this - "a dogs life", "as you sow so shall you reap", "calm before the storm", "come rain or shine", "get a life", "a taste of your own medicine"... We all need to be able to deal with the good & bad days, the kindness & cruelty of life & other people. 

Some people have to cope with far more though. Some people are tested to the limits of endurance. The bandwidth of adversity is extremely wide. From unkind, cruel or bigoted speech to physical harm & even murder & genocide. Until we have to face adversity we really don't know how well we will cope. I imagine most of us hope that we will deal with whatever happens well, with consideration for others & care for ourselves.

Life really does go on. We cling to existance in the most adverse of circumstances. The great driver is to continue to live. 

In todays unstable world I really wish that there was more understanding, empathy & human kindness & a lot less judgement, self absorbtion & protectionism. When we are faced with "bad actors", (people or organizations responsible for actions that are harmful, illegal, or morally wrong), I wish we all had more moral courage to speak out & take action against them. It seems to me that we increasingly manage to compartmentalise what we see & know. We tell ourselves that our actions won't make a difference, that it's someone elses responsibility, that we will make matters worse...So nothing is done & the "bad actors" win by default.

This is true at a micro & macro level. If someone says or does something that I think is untrue, offensive  or harmful & I do nothing, I am jointly responsible in allowing that to continue. If we as a nation see what is happening at a macro level internationally & do nothing, we are perpetuating evil & discrimination.

The really sad thing is that it is a repeating pattern. We even ignore the lessons of  recent history. We repeatedly say "this must never be allowed to happen again" when we are forced, by evidence, to face up to the consequences of our inaction. Other people are seriously harmed.

There have been so many Public Enquiries in the UK - Covid, The Post Office, Contaminated Blood....Wikipedia has a huge list. There have also been political documentaries like the BBC "Corridors of Power - Should America Police the World"  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0020xmq  looking into what happened in Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Darfur, Libya, Syria - Repeated failure to act, over & over again.

We are now doing it again. Unbelievably Syria has continued since 2011. The first Sudanese war lasted from 1955 -1972. The current one has continued for 17 months. What is happening in Ukraine seems likely to go on for as long as Putin is in power. The situation in Gaza & the West Bank has rumbled on for decades, but currently is by far the worst. 

For millions of people life doesn't go on & we just watch on our TV's & smart phones.

I Wonder Why?

The older I get the more perplexed I become. I have always been fascinated by how much the behaviour of people varies. Not only the behaviour of peoples from different cultures & countries, or even within the UK, but specifically in England. We appear to be becoming more & more polarised. Ever more extreme. 

For example why do people mindlessly believe what they are told by social media, "influencers", the press, the TV even? Why do they not use the amazing tools we have to verify information before they react? 

Why do people react aggressively or violently to situations & information without digging deeper to find out not only the truth, but also the underlying causes of whatever has happened?

Why are women targeted by men the world over & treated really badly, abused & even killed?

Why are so many children abused & not cared for properly?

Why is there such a wide discrepency in both opportunity & wealth in all countries?

Why do we think that it is acceptable for a very small percentage of individuals to have more wealth than actual countries? In fact why do those individuals think that squandering their money on mega yachts & several palatial houses is acceptable when there are people who don't have clean water or anywhere to live?

Maybe that is the answer to all my questions. We have allowed our world to become extremely unfair. We have allowed the people who have the wealth & the power that goes with it, to have control over more or less everything from business to politics to economics. We have allowed the richest 1% to own almost half of the world's wealth, while the poorest half of the world own just 0.75%. They literally rule the world & the poorest struggle just to survive. 

Don't even start me on the dictators & truly evil leaders, who squirrel away billions of their countries wealth, while watching the mass of people struggle to live. The Pandora Papers published in 2021 exposed use of "offshore havens" by the wealthy.

If we are to survive & prosper, that prosperity has to be shared more evenhandedly. We need to grow economies to generate income to lift people out of poverty & develop sustainable infrastructure. Everyone needs to contribute to that according to their ability to pay. We do need to have entrepreneurs with vision, but it is not acceptable that if successful they are allowed to amass vast amounts of wealth & then pass it on to their offspring. That just perpetuates privilege.

Not everyone is equal. Humans vary a lot. But everyone should have the Maslow basics & everyone should have equal opportunity to live & succeed.

https://wir2022.wid.world/chapter-4/

https://wir2022.wid.world/www-site/uploads/2021/10/ANIM_F4.3a.mp4  

 

Normal?

We all think we are "normal", but what is normal? How do we define it? Is it behavior that conforms to the most common behavior in the society we live in? In which case how do we reconcile the very different, cultural, accepted behaviours worldwide? Is it the most common behavior for  an individual, whether or not it conforms to society norms? Statistically 'normal' means not significantly deviating from the average. I can only compare myself to my friends, family & aquaintances. My social group, like most people's, is relatively homogenious. So how do I know that represents normality? It is only normal for my group & even within that group there is a wide range of behaviours & beliefs.

We learn what normality is initially from our parents. Like it or not, our parents teach us by conditioning, habituation & imprinting. Our version of what is "normal" depends on who parented us & their social strata. It is "learned behaviour". Teachers follow on from parents & there is an argument that education is also indoctrination.

One definition of normal human behavior is any behavior, including speech, that does not bring harm to  individuals or people. "First do no harm" is probably a good mantra for anyone, not just medics. 

When I compare the world today to the world of my childhood, teens & early adulthood there is some similarity, but not much. My world today is much better in many ways, certainly more financially secure & technologically sophisticated. The world I remember was simpler & more relaxed. I have had to adjust to a new "normal".

The thing is, has that adjustment meant that I accept things that would have been anathema to the younger me? In some ways yes, I'm less judgmental & emotionally volatile. But my moral compass is the same. I'm just far better informed & understand the complexities better. I have the web at my fingertips & can research & verify information.

The most worrying thing is that "normal" seems to mean something so different today that I just can't come to terms with it. Wars, mindless violence, corruption, failed states, poverty, famine, waste, polution, unsustainable lifestyles ..., all of this & more has become normal.

We are in danger of accepting all of this. If we don't resist this new "normal" our society will collapse, because it isn't normal. It's all very abnormal. 

 

International Diplomacy

In theory international diplomacy enables sovereign states to communicate, negotiate, and cooperate with one another. As well as those 3 it's functions are intelligence gathering, image management, policy implementation & promoting interests. In international negotiations there needs to be a clear goal and strategy of what can be exchanged to reach an agreement. All very noble, but does it work?

There are organisations that rely on international participation such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation & the International Monetary Fund. NATO, (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), is different in that it is a political and military alliance of countries just from Europe and North America.

According to the Carnegie Endowment UN aid programs save lives but are often slow, bureaucratic, and occasionally marred by cowardice and/or mismanagement. Particularly the Security Council, is in desperate need of reform. It is definitely one of the most dysfunctional parts of the UN, largely due to the widening ideological gulf between the five veto-wielding permanent members, (P5),usually Russia and China on one side and the United States, UK, and France on the other. Numerous member states have competing interests which challenge international order. Time and again, the Security Council has failed to take any action because one or more P5 members blocks things using their veto. The organization has to become more efficient and less political to tackle the multitude of crises it faces. It's a toothless tiger.

I have recently seen amazing documentaries showing just how America & it's European allies failed spectacularly in the Jugoslavian war of 1993 - 1995. UN troops watched the Srebrenica genocide & were unable to do anything. Then again, in the Rwandan genocide of 1994, when 1,074,017 people were brutally killed  94% of whom were Tutsi.

Today the Israeli government is waging war in Gaza & allowing atrocities in the West Bank. There is a real danger that will escalate to Lebanon & Iran. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, but the war has continued on & off since 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea. War began in Sudan in April 2023, but little appears in the press or media & it's hard to see that there is any international diplomacy going on. 8.2 million people have been displaced. More than 25 million need humanitarian assistance, and deteriorating food security risks are triggering the worlds largest hunger crisis.

More than ever we need international dialogue & international solutions to the dire situations that beset us. Overarching everything is the Climate Emergency, which will never be solved unless all countries act in the interests of everyone. All to often, particularly in America, (but they are not alone), self interest overrides the necessity for hard choices to be made for the benefit of others. If you live in a war torn country where death & devastation mark every hour of every day you need a United Nations that can force a cease fire & negotiation. If you are in danger of starvation, through no fault of your own, you need a United Nations that can deliver temporary food supplies & a long term, concerted, effort to ensure it doesn't happen again.

I have just lost faith that we have the people or organisations that can get us out of this. Our only hope is the NGO's, the Charities, who understand the problems & can see what needs doing. Diplomatic language won't solve this mess. We need people who will speak truth to power & we can all do that in our own way. 

We should care. We should make ourselves heard.

Changing your Mind

Is it better to be a "my mind's made up" person or an "I've changed my mind" one? 

"A wise man changes his mind, a fool never will." — Spanish proverb. "You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy." — C. JoyBell.

I'm not saying that vacillating,"wavering between different opinions or actions; being irresolute", is a good thing. I'm also not saying that being indecisive works well. I have known people who were unable to make their mind up what they wanted for breakfast, never mind who to vote for in an election. I find that level of indecisiveness very irritating & time wasting.

On the other hand I find people who are completely unable to see a different point of view almost impossible to cope with. It's like having a conversation with a brick wall. It's deeply arrogant to believe that you know everything there is to know & therefore your opinion must be right.

I am unashamedly liberal socialist in my views. I think that the many extreme disparities between peoples & individuals are at a crisis point. I believe that we are at a critical point in the climate emergency & the very future of our world as we know it is at risk of oblivion. I believe that if we are to survive we need to make serious changes in how we live together in our ecosystem. 

But if reliable evidence to the contrary were to emerge, I hope that I would be capable of changing my view. The crucial ingredient is reliable evidence. 

We humans are too impressionable, too willing to follow the herd. Why on earth do we follow unelected "influencers" in our millions. Why do the Taliban believe that their "vice & virtue" laws relating to women are acceptable? They include a ban on women’s voices and bare faces in public. Why do people tolerate & even believe in authoritarian dictators like Assad, Putin, Kim Jong Il? Presumably it's both indoctrination & fear.

 

If you live in a democracy & are free to think & speak out you are very lucky. That is one of the reasons I think that "no platforming" is so deeply worrying. We are able to challenge what someone says & believes. We can bring evidence to support that challenge. There are many countries in this world where that is not possible. Where people who have tried to do that are either dead or in prison. Dissidents & journalists are brave in the face of repression.

We simply cannot know everything there is to know about something at a given point in time. We need to be open & flexible. The ability to change your mind is a valuable freedom. We need to protect it. 

 

 

Food Security

I was shopping in a big supermarket yesterday. The mange tout & sugar snap peas came from Peru. The green beans came from Kenya. Why aren't we growing these basic vegetables in the UK? It is the season when they can easily be grown here. My husband grew green beans every year. They are prolific. 

Beans from Kenya come by air freight. Kenya is 4,475 air miles away. Kenya sends out about 350 tonnes of vegetables and cut flowers each night ready to be sold next day in UK supermarkets. Leguminous vegetables (peas, beans, mange tout) constitute the largest proportion of Kenyan imports to the UK. Kenya is on the East coast of Africa.

Peru is on the West coast of South America. Air transit time from Peru to an airport in the UK is approximately 3 days. It is 4,032 air miles away. Transit time by sea from Peru to port in the UK is approximately 28 days. Peru is now the world leader in blueberry exports, growing from 223 metric tonnes in 2021-22 to more than 286MT in 2022-23. It is the UK's largest source of blueberries.

I fail to see the logic of transporting basic foodstuffs half way round the world by ship, never mind by air. The cost, financially & in terms of air pollution, must be huge. Then there is the ethical & human cost. The key to this is money. Agricultural workers in countries like South America & Sub Saharan Africa get minimum wages. The minimum wage in the UK is much higher. We get cheap food because the people who harvest it are not paid as much as we would have to pay workers here.

We routinely buy fruit & veg out of season. I would say we shop quite mindlessly. We just select what we fancy or what we need for a recipe. Much of it is frozen & that impacts on the quality. I'm tired of complaining to supermarkets because apples rot when left at room temperature after being frozen. I spent much of my late teens & twenties in rural Herefordshire, where there were orchards everywhere, log ago grubbed up because there weren't enough people to pick them. I've now reached the point where I'm looking at the origins of all the fruit & veg I buy because so much travels huge distances in refrigerated containers. 

We are an island. We need to be as self sufficient in food as possible. We should have learned that after 2 world wars. Hopefully there won't be a third, but that really isn't the point. In a world disrupted by the climate emergency food production is being adversely affected worldwide. Wars elsewhere impact on food production. Acute hunger remains persistently high in 59 countries with 1 in 5 people assessed in need of critical urgent action.

It isn't just fruit & veg. There is a dark side to the flower trade. There is widespread exploitation of workers. In numerous flower-producing regions, the rights of laborers are trampled underfoot. Workers, predominantly women, are subjected to grueling hours, meagre wages, and rough working conditions. The danger of pesticide exposure is a risk, with many bearing the brunt of health issues due to insufficient protective measures.Then there is the environmental toll taken by the flower trade. From water-intensive farming to the rampant use of fertilizers and pesticides, the industry has carved deep scars into our environment. Even the process of shuttling these blossoms across continents leaves a carbon footprint that feeds into our mounting climate crisis.

Like so many areas of so called civilised life our choices & decisions are coming back to bite us. We really didn't think enough about the long term impact & results of so many consumer choices we made over the years. We became mindless consumers. We didn't think things through or even care what our choices were doing to our world or to people in other countries.

Well we do know now. The evidence is easily accessible & overwhelming. We need to stop, think, & make better choices for everyones sake. 

 

Self Image, Self Esteem & Self Confidence.

Who do you think you are? - literally. Not what your genealogy is - the line of descent traced continuously from an ancestor. Who are you as a person? What is your personality? What are your values? Importantly what is your self image - is it honest?

We each have a mental picture of ourselves, of our characteristics - 

intelligence, beauty, ugliness, talent, selfishness, and kindness...We have a tendency to create an ideal self. We have the capacity to overlook our flaws & exaggerate our good qualities. We are able to justify our actions or non actions. We have a different perception of ourselves as an individual & what we are like in social situations. Self-esteem is how a person feels about themselves and their abilities. Self-image is how a person sees themselves and how they believe others see them.

It matters to us how other people see us. There is a whole PR, (Public Relations), structure that has developed.  It's purpose is to manage and disseminate information from an individual or an organization to the public in order to influence their perception. The PR business has been with us for longer than you might think, probably back to America in the 1900's. But it seems to have existed in ancient civilisations, Greece for example. The world wars saw the concept of propaganda emerge. 

Today, with modern instant communication, PR has become an art form. A fundamental technique is to identify the target audience and to tailor messages that are relevant to each audience. Focus groups reveal   the needs and desires of the audience. A deep understanding of that gives the PR people huge power. Messaging is the process used to create a consistent story. The aim is to remove doubt & influence the "right" decisions.

My point is, more than ever, we each, individually need to be aware of how easily we can be swayed. We like to think we are in control of our thoughts & actions. We think that we make the right decisions. But do we? 

I think the 21st century is a dangerous world where our self image & self esteem is really important if we are to withstand the intense & widespread manipulation, propaganda, & interference in decision making, that has become our "post truth" world of "special advisors", P R specialists & general unelected, often foreign, malign operators. 

We need to sharpen our skills of research & critical thinking & fight back. The unacceptable is being made acceptable. We see that today in so many places - the sad refugee & migrant situation, wars in Ukraine, Gaza & 12 other countries, a global food crisis where people are starving....

We need to be people who will not accept other people's suffering & dying. As well as self esteem & self confidence we each need to be able to have the best self image possible as a human being. We each need to be prepared to challenge the propaganda narratives. 

It is a war that we need to win.

 

Customer Service?

I have two strands to this, tipping people for serving me & customer service when I buy goods.

Firstly tipping. Tipping is supposedly to reward low paid people like waitstaff and deliverers. I really find this problematic for all sorts of reasons. In 2024 the UK living wage for adults over 21 is £11.44 per hour. 18 - 20 year olds get £8.60 per hour. 16 - 17 year olds & apprentices get £6.40. Presumably for unskilled jobs, although I would say that Carers for example are not unskilled & many are on basic wages. The argument being that tipping is neccessary to increase the wage paid by employers. My feeling is that the employers should be paying a wage that people can live on, without needing tips & tipping just allows employers to get away with not doing so.

The other strand to arguments for tipping is supposedly paying extra to people who provide good service. But shouldn't service be good anyway? The UK has been criticised for looking down on service industries as a job. It's probably still due to our class system. But we all rely on service industries & in countries like America, France & Italy the same snobbishness doesn't apply. Again my argument would be that I shouldn't need to tip for a meal or drink being brought to me. It's part of what I pay for when eating & drinking out. The responsibility is with the employer to pay serving staff properly. No one tips people working at tills or stacking shelves. 

Then there is that great misnomer customer service. Some companies are great at it. It's easy to contact them when there is a problem, particularly to be able to speak to a person without going through several phone menus, awful music & a long wait. My previous broadband provider was excellent. There is nothing worse than a computer issue & they were great at sorting it out. If  I've been sent faulty goods there are UK companies that really don't quibble. They make arrangements for the goods to be returned & replaced providing that the fault is genuine. 

But there are also rabbit holes you end up going down in order to complain, involving excessive menu's & waits on a phone, chatbots, non response to emails, prevarication & delay hoping that you will lose the will to live. Ultimately, if it's really bad you may have to threaten the Small Claims Court, Citizens Advice, Trading Standards, the Media consumer programmes....It has just taken me 2 years to get a company to remedy an issue with a green roof & even now it isn't fully resolved, although it's better than it was. 

My point is that companies need to realise that the power is with the consumer now, both in Law & in their understanding of what it is reasonable to expect. We are better informed through advice online & in the media. Rating companies & service has become an art form. Reviews are everywhere. Publicity is not difficult to get if a company behaves really badly. 

But it shouldn't need to go that far. Companies need to keep their clients on side. They will be more successful & get repeat business if they treat customers well. Customers should not have to fight for good customer service.

We are a consumer society. Growth depends on purchasing & financial stability is the basis of economics. Alienate your customers at your peril. Finally don't pay your workforce peanuts & your senior management & shareholders millions. We won't stand for it any more.  

Unbalanced Minds

Tacitus, a Roman historian & politician, said " I give only one example of the falsity of gossip & heresay, and I urge my readers to beware of incredible tales, however widely they may be believed, & instead to believe the unvarnished truth". He was a wise man & his quotes are worth reading. "A bad peace is worse than war". "Mens minds, once unbalanced, are ready to believe anything". https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/2936846.Tacitus 

Tacitus did not have the debatable benefit of Social media & instantaneous communication we have in the 21st century, but what he says is really relevant today almost 2,000 yeas after he wrote. We are swayed by what we see on TV, our computers & phones. We read truths, half truths & lies. We listen to gossip. We don't routinely fact check. We assume what we are being told is the truth. 

We are living in a post truth era. We really don't know who to believe & who to trust. How can we rely on our own capacity to discriminate between lies & fact? How can we know how to behave? When image & public relations are everything & we demand charisma from our politicians we can easily be swayed to believe anything. Statistics are manipulated. The BBC now has to have a special department to verify fact. Malign Foreign agencies hack into our communications. Artificial Intelligence & algorithms rule, facial recognitian can be manipulated.

I wonder if we know what reality is?

In this world seemingly it is easy to whip up mob rule. Mindless, ill informed, criminals & yobs rampage destroying everything in their path & terrifying people. People are injured, businesses are destroyed & looting is commonplace. This is not a demonstration against some injustice. This is wilful illegal behaviour, largely by men high on testosterone & adrenaline who are just out for a fight. 

Riots can arise out of perceived grievance or dissent - poverty, unemployment, poor living conditions, governmental opression or taxation, conflicts between races & religions even football matches. People may feel they have grievances & are not being heard. Rioters possibly want change & want to be heard. 

Whatever the reasons, real or imagined, this is not acceptable in a so called democratic & civilised society. 

The question is what do we do with them when we catch them? Because with todays surveillance techniques it certainly should be possible to catch them. We need to have a public discussion about justice & criminality because our justice system isn't working. It isn't as simple as Crime & Punishment. Locking them away in poorly staffed, unsuitable prisons won't work & there isn't the capacity anyway. We need to consider using more restorative justice & community sentences. 

Criminals need to understand what they have done & why the reasonable majority won't tolerate it. 

Violence & Rioting

Violence is destructive. It can be against objects, property, people, animals...It can be behaviour by an individual or group, threatening, harming or injuring individuals or others, or destroying property. Violent behaviour often begins with verbal threats but over time escalates to involve physical harm. Verbal violence can involve using hate speech.

"Behaviour involving physical force intended to intimidate, hurt, damage, or even kill.".

It is important that we try to understand the causes of violence. What makes a person behave in a way that is not acceptable to the majority of society? It's a complex mix -  There are biological, psychological, and socioeconomic influences that need to be considered. 

Causes of aggression can be biological including genetics, medical and psychiatric diseases, neurotransmitters, hormones, substances of abuse, and medications. People possessing neurotic traits are prone to cruelty and violent behaviour. Extraversion is related to violence and alcohol use in males and females. Neurotic individuals record high levels of stress and violent acts. Apparently Assertive Debaters are the most likely of all personality types to say they don't shy away from physical fights. Debaters love to challenge others, test limits, & push boundaries. Sociological causes of violence include frustration, exposure to violent media, violence in the home or neighbourhood, and a tendency to see other people's actions as hostile even when they're not.

I can't remember the last time I hit someone or deliberately pushed them. My generation did smack children if they were very naughty, generally on the back of the legs, but that was 50 years ago. The idea of doing physical harm to someone just hasn't been part of how I would deal with conflict or disagreement for decades.

The current violence in UK cities & towns, starting in Southport, is a shock. It has spread like a virus across the UK fuelled by online influencers, anti-Muslim extremists and fascist groups, spreading lies & disinformation. The violence has nothing whatsoever to do with the tragic death of 3 children in a knife attack allegedly by a 17 year old boy. 8 other children & 2 adults were injured. 

Police, who had to deal with what must have been a very traumatic scene at the stabbing & with the aftermath, must have been deeply affected. But now, days of violent disorder has followed & they have to cope with that too. Many officers have been injured by the mobs bombarding them & setting fire to buildings & vehicles. They are specially trained, but I have no idea how they cope with what they have seen & experienced.

Ordinary people, Muslims & Refugees in particular, have been barricaded inside & subjected to terrifying threatening behaviour. 

There is no excuse for this criminal behaviour. Linking it in any way with the tragic events last Tuesday dishonours all of the people involved who are shocked & grieving. This is direct action, far right, politics disseminated & co-ordinated via social media. Many "demonstrators" are not local, they are bussed in. The English Defence League, which is Islamophobic and xenophobic, has evolved into a diffuse idea spread mainly online. 

The difficulty is establishing how representative this is of the UK today. I want to believe that these yobs are simply mindless, ill educated, criminals. However, very right wing conservatives, supporting the Rwanda plan for example, like Suella Braverman, Priti Patel & Jacob Rees Mogg have fired an anti refugee hard line groundswell. The boats crossing the channel do need to be stopped on both H&S & humanitarian grounds. But not by whipping up the sort of anti foreigner rhetoric we are seeing now.

People are obviously struggling financially. The housing situation is dire. 16 years of huge macro economic problems starting with the financial crisis, Brexit & a pandemic have had a very detrimental effect. But the Conservative government record is poor to say the least. People are struggling. 

But refugees & migrants are not responsible for that & not all refugees are Muslims.

Heatwave Killer

The hottest day in Oxford was the 19th July 2022 when the maximum temperature of 38.1°C was recorded. Temperatures have soared past 30 degrees again. This current stifling heatwave follows on from an unusually wet & stormy Spring.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/past-uk-weather-events

In my youth I loved the sun & would spend hours trying to get a tan in blazing heat in places like Greece & Turkey. I'm lucky not to have had a problem with Melanoma. 

Now I literally cannot stand the heat. I hide away in my North facing front room & remain as still as possible. Any exertion causes me to be very uncomfortable, overheating & becoming breathless. It isn't my pacemaker that is unable to cope, it's me. I slow down, struggle to exercise, sleep, eat and easily become dehydrated. I have complete heart block / heart failure & other co morbid health conditions, which all deteriorate too. I become exhausted & need more energy which means my pacemaker needs to work  harder to keep me going.

But I am so fortunate. I live in a country with a good health service, I have a personal alarm & can summon help if I'm in trouble. There are good hospitals in Oxford. I have access to reliable information & know what to do & what not to do. My house is comfortable. I have a daughter & her family who live nearby. I can cope.

So many people can't. They really struggle. 2022 saw the highest number of recorded heatwave deaths over the last seven years in England, at 2,985, which followed the second highest in 2020, at 2,556 heatwave deaths, and 2023, which saw 2,295 heatwave deaths. These are excess death figures. The stress of a hot day can increase the chance of dying from a heart attack, other heart conditions, or weirdly, respiratory diseases such as pneumonia. The human body can't tolerate its temperature reaching 43 degrees C (about 109.4 degrees F). Anyone who reaches that core temperature — 99.9% would die. Heat also kills in more subtle ways — by worsening pre-existing issues, like cardiovascular or renal disease.

Extreme heat should be taken seriously. Climate change should be taken seriously. It isn't just people who are suffering. All wildlife is affected by extreme temperatures too. Intricate food chains are disrupted as hot weather also affects insect populations and dries up the soil. Heatwaves play havoc with already-declining insect numbers. Mammals become dehydrated.Trees prematurely drop their leaves. Warmer water affects amphibians & ponds dry out. 

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/about/state-of-climate  

Time is running out. The scientific evidence is plentiful & verified. We need to make difficult choices & accept changes to our lives that will impact everybody. If we don't this will only get worse.