26 April 2012

Another uncomfortable night. I was okay until about 3.00 am and then my heels began to get progressively more painful. I tried moving my feet but without success. So I could not relieve the pressure on the heels. Add to that painful knee joints and some of the time a hip or shoulder and I begin to wonder how efficacious is the pain patch which I have now had on for the last five days. I’m tempted to try one night without any of the pain pills , or the pain patch and see if it makes any difference

When I told my two early morning carers, Sarah and Louise, about my bad night, they both told me that heel pain through pressure was very common with many of their clients. I was actually quite pleased to learn that this was a common problem with patients who are immobile in bed and is nothing more sinister. They then told me about one lady who had successfully improved the situation by wearing sheepskin slippers specifically designed for the process. I then went onto eBay and found some which looked pretty good and so I bought them. According to the account information they should be delivered within 3 to 5 working days

This morning, my sister and brother-in-law, Victoria and Lawrence Grand, dropped in for coffee . They live in Cornwall, so we don’t see them very often. They had been up in this neck of the woods for the christening of their 11th grandchild, Arthur Mark Grand -third child of Leticia and Tom Grand – Lawrence and Victoria’s eldest second son. The last time I saw them was about this time last year when I was taken down to Cornwall for the wedding of Lawrence and Victoria’s daughter, Augusta. Regular readers may recall my driver Barry and his wife Denise, who doubled as carers on this three-day trip and it was only a week or so after our return that Barry was rushed to hospital and put into intensive care. All we knew at the time was that it was something to do with his back and I felt very guilty at the time thinking that perhaps I had been the cause, as Barry had been lifting me in and out of the car and every time I needed moving when we would normally now use a hoist. Fortunately, it turned out to be caused by a number of cysts under his spine

I’m glad to say that after five operations and one year later, Barry appears to have made a full recovery and is once more driving his taxi.

Readers who followed the London Marathon run last week will recall the 26-year-old woman who died of a heart attack 1 km short of the finish. Her objective has been to raise £500 for her favourite charity. Ironically, her death touched the hearts of a great number of people and now over £500,000 has been raised in her memory, no doubt all, or a great deal of it, we all go to her chosen charity.

As today’s entry is a mixture of topics I will continue this theme by challenging the readers to solve five riddles for people with a high IQ. Click here  and see how clever you are.

25 April 2012

I am still waiting for my wheelchair enclosure tickets from Lord’s. I am in a ballot and therefore cannot make any firm arrangements until I know what places I have been allocated. I’ve telephoned Lord’s two or three times over the last month and have been told that they are dealing with the tickets and they will be out shortly. They are certainly leaving things very late as it will be May in a few days time and the first test match begins on 17 May.

I must admit sitting here in my study chair looking through the window at the lashing rain and wind it is hard to imagine sitting in the warm sunshine at Lord’s, watching the cricket with a nice glass of champagne in my hand.

‘ My lovely’ went shopping and to an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. A horrid day to do it but she does not seem to mind. At least, I suppose it gets her out of the house leaving ‘ Jane the sheep’ lurking in the background as my babysitter.

Jane lasted until mid-afternoon when’ Paul the computer’ took over. It turned out to be a brilliant afternoon technologically. First of all Paul managed to link a HD video processor, via cable, from my laptop to our television set (which is ancient) and in so doing I can now play anything l can get on my laptop straight, onto the television. The advantage of this is obvious, that if there is a film or something like that that we would like to watch which goes on after I put to bed, I can use catch up on my laptop and show it to’ my lovely’ the following day. This is particularly attractive now that I go to bed at 8.30 and almost anything worth watching goes on until 10 o’clock.

I really am thrilled with this little bit of electronic juggling that Paul has set up for me. I think in an earlier life this sort of thing was bread-and-butter to Paul and I am fortunate enough to reap the benefit.

The second piece of technology that he produced was, in its own way, even more exciting. It is what you would call a camera mouse link. It works like this. You open your web cam and identify a specific area of your face, say, for example, the white of your eye and lock the mouse pointer onto it. You can then control the mouse solely by moving your head or rather t your eye. Having thus identified the icon or whatever you would then merely have to say either click or enter, using an ordinary Dragon command and it will be possible to completely control your laptop without even touching it. We only tried it out today and I’m really looking forward to trying to use it and see what drawbacks there are, if any. What a boon this will be to people like me who have actually no use of their hands or their arms are two weak to raise them to the keyboard. Am I not the luckiest person alive to have such a clever friend as Paul.

24 April 2012

Another disappointing Tuesday. No visit to the golf club to see my friends and have lunch. The weather is just too dreary – cold and wet. We expect April showers this month but in between there should be sunshine and a little warmth. The month is almost over and it clearly has not lived up to its norm. The Tuesday visit to the golf club does break up the week very nicely for me and gets me out of my study chair into the fresh air, so, roll on next week.

‘Bill and Ben’ our handymen came this morning to do a number of small jobs, the sort of thing I would have done myself in the past, or at least attempted. These boys, as you would expect, are far more expert than I am, particularly in the electrical arena. The last time I tried fixing up some new lights in the children’s bunk room,, I called Alice to see my workmanship and on switching on the lights was aghast to see the wallpaper catch fire! Thank goodness I am no longer a DIY man.

I had a call this morning from the dietician, Sam, from Addenbrookes, this following my recent MND assessment. Jo, the coordinator, was a little concerned when I told her that I had lost 8 kg between September and March and as a result asked the dietician to ring me. I assured her that I eating well enough but just about half of what I eaten previously. Frankly I am rarely hungry. Alice joined in the and , told the dietician what I eat and how much.

Where I am fortunate is that’ my lovely’ has always been interested in food and a good balanced diet. I think we convinced Sam that all was well but agreed that I would have myself weighed again on my next Papworth visit, in about 10 weeks time, and then let her know the outcome. If at that stage they felt I needed a calorie supplement, we can decide on it then.

Trouble on the economic front. A week to 10 days ago the FSTE index had been rising steadily and look almost certain to go through the 6000 mark. Now, within the space of a week or so the whole thing is unravelling again, apparently due to the underlying nervousness in the Eurozone and, in particular, the position of Spain. All of this when the impression that most of us had was that we had survived the disaster of default by any of the Eurozone countries and this was accompanied by glimmers of growth in this country and the US, giving a feeling perhaps, and only just perhaps, the corner and been turned. Apparently that is not so, the world’s stock markets have been tumbling for the last several days wiping off most of the gains from the past few months .So it seems we are now back then where we were before, fearful of the precariousness of the Eurozone countries being revisited.

Perhaps this is a good place to let my readers see the explanation of the taxation system which I received a few days ago, illustrated in terms of buying round of beer. Whoever wrote it obviously thought we are all idiots. Click here and see if you are any the wiser.

23 April 2012

England’s Saints day, to some, an unofficial bank holiday which they believe should be made official, particularly as we in England seem to have fewer bank holidays than most of the other European countries

It is the feast day of St George celebrated by Christian churches. The interesting thing, which I did not know before    , was that we share this patron saint with a number of other countries, Canada; Portugal; Cyprus; Greece; Romania; Hungary; Lebanon; Syria; Spain; Bulgaria; Serbia; Bosnia; Albania and Russia. In most of those countries it is celebrated by the Orthodox Church. Because there is no special link with this saint, in fact some people claim that he never even set foot in the country, there have been moves to change our patron saint to someone who is clearly more English but change is unlikely. Today, also happens to be the anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth shared with that of the Spanish author Cervantes, best known to ask for his Magnus Opus, Don Quixote.

There are St George organisations throughout the land who traditionally give a St George’s Day dinner at which a number of ceremonies are enacted, keeping alive the pride that we should all feel at being English. The emblem, to be worn in the buttonhole is the rose, which, as I wore one every day throughout the summer, was no hardship.

Unfortunately only a small minority of the population are aware of this Saints day and today very few sport a rose.

I suppose the most outward and visible sign of a celebration is that it is the date that The Most Noble Order of the Garter was founded in 1384, whose banner portrays St George on horseback slaying the Dragon, and is the highest order of chivalry or knighthood existing in England. There are only 24 Knights or Lady companions and membership is in the sole gift of the monarch. The Garter Knights were lavish blue velvet ropes and black velvet hats with white plumes. New appointments unannounced on St George’s Day but the chivalric and installation ceremonies take place every year on the Monday of Royal Ascot week

In a country, which is now declared by its government to be multicultural, at least we could retain an element of our Englishness if more prominence was given to St George’s Day. After all from the 15th century it was a major feast and national holiday on a par with Christmas but waned in the 18th century after the union of England and Scotland. Thank heavens there are still some places, in this country, who still hold an annual St George’s Day Pageant. Let us take a pride in being English and by reviving the practice of men wearing a rose in their buttonhole, by displaying a flag of St George – the Red Cross on a white background – and by supporting any moves in Parliament to make it a national holiday.

I think this exhortation to enjoy every day as it comes , sent to me by one of our regular readers, Maureen Jones from Australia, to which could be included taking a pride in your country and therefore apposite to today’s entry. Click here and see is this makes a difference to your life.

22 April 2012

After putting on this seven-day slow-release pain patch, I had high hopes of a substantial improvement in the reduction of painful joints in bed at night. Sadly, this did not turn out to be the case. However, as Alice says, it might take time for these patches to work, so we will give it a week or so and then review the situation again. The early part of the night was fine and even at three o’clock it was only my knees which were irritatingly uncomfortable and perhaps a slight discomfort in my hips, which were not of any concern. But then between 04.00 and 06.00 my right shoulder started getting more and more painful, until by the time to get up, just after 6.30, the pain in my right shoulder was excruciating. I really think I must get an x-ray or scan and see what’s going on.

I apologise to my readers for beginning recent entries by discussing my sleep and pain, but as one of the main objectives of this blog .is to help other sufferers, and perhaps their carers, I think it important to follow these things through in case there are other patients out there with the same problems. I asked Doctor Chris whether such extreme pain was common with MND patients and all he could say was that it varies from one to the other but the general immobility during the day could cause some pain at night. However, from my point of view it seems to me that my pain is excessive.

I am well into my copy of Charles Dickens: The Life by Claire Tomlin, and was surprised to read that Dickens wrote to a friend complaining that he was suffering “from queer and trembling legs which prevented him from sleeping” , in other words muscles twitching as experienced by anyone suffering from MND which is affecting their legs. I shall be interested to see if there are any other MND symptoms mentioned by Dickens in the latter part of the book.

April is traditionally known to be the month of sunshine and showers but here we are almost through April and there have been very few showers but as the weather pattern seems to have been turned on its head we have one or two hailstone storms. One yesterday, was reported to me , by one of my carers, to be quite violent with large hailstones, not quite the size of golf balls but large enough within a few minutes to cover everything in sight like a heavy fall of snow.

There have been howls of protest over the recently announced tax adjustments. Explained by many as robbing the poor to benefit the rich. If you have been puzzled by these tax changes click here and see how the tax system works in buying a round of beer.

21 April 2012

Not a brilliant night despite the change in my medication. However, Doctor Chris Allen had prescribed some pain patches which Alice had picked up yesterday from Boots the chemist but and forgotten to mention to me. So I did not have the benefit of that patch last night. We asked our carers if they would put one on for me but apparently they’re not allowed to, and said that there other patients, who used these pain patches, had the district nurse to pop in to stick it on on. It seems to be making a big deal out of a simple patch but then as we had little choice we rang the district nurse and she was quite happy for Alice to do it. So around 10 o’clock this morning we got the first one on, which stays for seven days. So, let us see if that does the trick.

I was thinking about my dear daughter this morning and asked ‘my lovely’ when I would see her (she reminded me that she had only recently been down, I hope I’m not losing my marbles!). Then, an hour or two later Chloe rang me for a chat, it was almost psychic. Karl had apparently taken Seb and half a dozen of his school friends to Thorpe Park. I’m not sure what happens there but I gather it is some sort of theme park which the boys enjoy. I hope they don’t get too wet as the weather over these past few days has been very changeable.

We desperately need this rain anyway as this East Anglian region has already imposed a hosepipe ban. It’s all very well living in the driest and warm as part of the country but it does have its drawbacks. Fortunately we have two large way rainwater butts which is fine for watering the tomatoes and cucumbers and flowers by hand but of course pretty useless on over an acre of grass.

From an utterly selfish point of view, this rather changeable weather, which is now colder than the norm for this time of year, is no good for me. I really need to me and around 15°C with no chilly wind before I go back to my regular visits to the geriatric golf on Tuesdays.

Speaking of golf, click here and amuse yourself by watchimg the following clip.

20 April 2012

Not a brilliant night but not as bad as some. I’m looking forward to trying out these slow-release pain patches recommended by my MND team.

For some reason, which I had not been able to fathom, when I tried to boot up this morning, I had no success at all. I then unplugged everything knowing that I had last used the laptop at Addenbrookes waiting for my appointment when it was working perfectly well. This time it did boot up and a pop-up message told me that Dragon had become corrupted. (Heaven knows how, I know people say you can catch more than you bargained for when you go into hospital, but I certainly did not expect that to extend to my laptop!). Anyway, this clever laptop having told me I had a problem, offered to repair for me and after a few moments culminating with a message inviting me to restore to an earlier date when everything was working, I did so to the day before and all was well except correcting the corrupt Dragon file.

I got in touch with technical team at Dragon and they offered to send me e-mail instructions which would enable me to repair the corrupted user profile file. The e-mail from Dragon never arrived so I opened a new profile and trained it all in about 10 min and it worked perfectly well for yesterday’s blog.

When Dragon do get round to sending me the other e-mail instructions I can always delete this second profile. (In the event, their e-mail did arrive later in the morning and as Paul, ‘the computer’, was here, I got him to do it for me. It’s not that I couldn’t do it myself but only having one finger, and perhaps finding some instructions difficult to do by voice, there was no point in me exhausting myself when there was somebody more competent than myself available to do it for me. Anyway, we’re up again and running)

I gave my personal laptop to Richard, my mother’s husband. He is 93 and since I introduced him to a computer, it has opened up a whole new world for him. As he is rather tied to the house, with my mother in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, this is a real blessing for him. Up to now he has been working with an old computer and it has some sort of problem, so rather than waste money getting someone round to trying to repair it I had my personal laptop set up for him.

In many ways it’s better than the 17 inch Dell that I’m currently working on. It’s a little bit slower and only has a ¼. Gig of RAM it certainly will satisfy Richard’s requirements. Anyway, Paul kindly removed all the files personal data leaving essential programmes there, so all Richard has to do is to plug it in, and put his password in for his server and he should be up and running.

The Foreign Secretary, Terasa May, seems to have got herself into a muddle again over the expiry date for Abu Qatada to appeal against his deportation to Jordan, from the decision of the European Court of Human Rights. There Is a big row going on as to whether the expiry of the appeal period from the decision of the ECHR was midnight on the 16 April or the 17th. As a result the whole process seems to be in the melting pot again and that wretched man is threatening to sue the Foreign Secretary for false arrest and the judge who dealt with it previously says that she may have to release this man within two or three days. What a nonsense and at what cost to the taxpayer?

Some friends of my son Miles are doing, amazing sponsored climb in Snowdonia this coming August in memory of their good friend Andrew “Kanga” John, who died of MND. Nine of “Kanga’s” friends are attempting to climb 15 of the highest peaks in Snowdonia within a 24-hour period, next August. The proceeds of this activity are to be given to the MND Association. May I please appeal to my readers to support these lads who are very kindly going to great length to raise money for the Association, in memory of their friend who was obviously very popular.

Click on the following link to find out more about this appeal and then please get out your cheque-book all credit card out and make a donation. In doing so just imagine what it would be like if you, or one of your nearest and dearest, was struck down by this dreadful disease. In anticipation, I thank you all very much for your generosity

http://www.justgiving.com/wales3000climbforkanga=

  Here is  another thing  on which to exercise your imagination.  Imagine thrusting your hand and arm into the mouth of a boa constrictor in an attempt to capture it to provide food for you and your tribe. Click here to see this amazing video.

19 April 2012

Yet another hospital visit, this time for my quarterly assessment with the MND team at Addenbrookes. This time I had the boss himself Chris (Dr Chris Allen) and our lovely MND coordinator, Jo (Joanna Sassons). Quite honestly I felt this was the most useful session we have had yet. They really did go into a lot of detail about my pain and ways of alleviating it, not only about changing some of the medication but considering new beds or mattresses and so on, for which Jo will arrange for someone to come around here and start that process.

I did make it clear however that the one thing I wish to avoid was the air mattress. I know that this is almost a guarantee against pressure sores but it is a horrid thing to lie on if you have any movement at all,. I suspect it is the same feeling as a fly stuck on a flypaper. When I was in hospital with a broken leg a couple of years ago, they put me onto one of these air mattresses but I panicked in the middle of the night finding myself totally unable to move.

I have always been fearful of the dark. I know it sounds ridiculous but when I was a young child my great-grandfather came into my bedroom sleepwalking and fell over me so that I woke up to grab a large hairy arm, and from that point on, I have always been nervous of the dark. As a child I would sleep with the sheets and blankets tucked over my head. Even now, when Alice was away I would check under the bed and in the wardrobes before locking the doors. I know it’s totally logical and there is no bogeyman who is going to suddenly jump out on me but now being unable to move my legs and the rest of me being pinned down by the weight of the blankets and with my eyes covered under an eye shade, used in conjunction with the respirator to stop my nose and getting sore, I feel at my most vulnerable and therefore, in addition, could not cope with the air mattress and being totally immobilised. On the occasion that I was put onto one, the hospital were good enough to change it for me in the middle of the night (at 02.00). Joe says our other types as well as other beds that they could consider

In addition to that Chris and Jo between gave some thought to changing some of my medication, most particularly to deal with the pain. For example, introducing a seven day pain patch and prescribing soluble paracetamol instead of those huge tablets which I’m always fearful would get stuck in my throat. They were also a little concerned about my weight loss observed at Papworth Hospital (8 Kg since September) and as a result have prescribed some calorie medication. I must say if one has to put on weight it’s pretty dull way of doing it instead of all the delicious things I could eat to achieve the same effect. In any case’ my lovely’ certainly does not notice me getting any lighter when she has to turn me three times a night. All in all a good session and one that has confirmed that I am in good hands with people who really care.

I must mention the transport to and from the hospital as I have had some criticism of this in the past. Today the paramedic was Wendy, who had been here before. First of all she was kind enough to telephone us in the morning saying she was running a little late and letting us know the time she will be with this. That is a very first time anybody has done that. When it came to coming home I had estimated the length of time for my consultation and sure enough Wendy was sitting outside waiting for me. She and her driver partner had decided they would take me home first and then return to the hospital for the other patient who rode with me going to the hospital earlier that day. As he was going to take at least another hour, Wendy and her colleague decided it would be kinder to dispatch me first and go back for other gentleman. Again another first whether patient’s wishes came before their own convenience. In the past I was the one who would have to wait for two or three hours until all of the patients who were travelling together were ready to go. For this I say to Wendy and her colleague, thank you so much. It was refreshing to meet such a kind couple.

To mar the day slightly when I returned and plugged in my for some odd reason it would not boot up. It seems that my Dragon, voice activation programme, and become corrupted merely being taken to the hospital (where I read my book for a little while). I did manage to put up the computer and’ repair it’ but it still insisted that Dragon was corrupt and I should contact my technical team. I rang Dragon and they said they would put written instructions to me on an e-mail.

After my visit to Addenbrookes today I thought this little story about medical humour might be appropriate. Click here.

18 April 2012

I was horrified to hear on the BBC World Service, during the night, that one of the most important archaeological sites in the world, Babylon, has been completely destroyed. Today apparently there is no sign at all of the main brick lined street and the Hanging Gardens. I only caught snippets of this as I was half asleep but I gather the destruction took place due to the Americans installing a large pipe running right through the site, leaving no sign of the famous city which I visited in 1962. Of course, I could have got it wrong or missed something. I certainly hope so. You will understand why I     abhor such vandalism when you read below what I wrote in my autobiographical notes concerning my visit to Babylon, when I was living in Baghdad.

Babylon

Certainly the highlight of my time in Iraq was my visit to Babylon, the most famous ancient city in the world.. I was fortunate enough to be there when they had completely excavated the Main Street and exposed the bas relief of lions (and other animals?) on the then roughly 40 feet high walls.

It was the capital of ten Mesopotamian dynasties starting with the dynasty of King Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC); the 6th king of the 1st dynasty; reaching prominence as the capital city of the great kingdom of Babylonia. The last dynasty at which Babylon achieved its zenith, is well known particularly of its 2nd king, Nebuchadnezzar II (605-563 BC), to whom most of Babylon’s existing buildings belongs.

Babylon was renowned for its high, well-fortified walls and for the magnificence of its temples and palaces. Its famous Hanging Gardens, built by King Nebuchadnezzar II for his wife Amytas, were one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Amytas was a Medes and her home was in mountainous country, so the King reputedly had the Hanging Gardens built to allay her homesickness. 
Nowadays, its ruins covers about 30² km lying on the east bank of Euphrates 90 km south of Baghdad and about 10 km north of Hilla. The most important of the standing monuments of Babylon today are the Summer and Winter Palaces of King Nebuchadnezzar II, the Ziggurat attached to it, the Street of Processions, the Lion of Babylon, and the famous Ishtar Gate.

In Akkadian times, around 2350 BC, Babylon was a small village, which in 5 or 6 centuries had grown in size and importance, mostly during the reign of the 3rd Dynasty, until it rose like a city meteor to deal the coup de grace to Sumerian authority in Mesopotamia under Amorite kings. Babylon itself became a major city-state, as the capital of the great Amorite soldier, the famous king, law-giver and social reformer King Hammurabi, with a code of common law, and a king with genuine concern for the well-being of his subjects – an unusual feature in those times

I walked down this Main Street, when Nebuchadnezzar had ridden in triumph, almost 3000 years earlier, entirely alone, there were no other tourists that at that time. What a privilege; what a sense of history one felt,

On this trip I saw, what I was told, was the evidence of the famous hanging Gardens of Babylon. It was explained to me that these gardens which were 20 or 30 feet above normal ground-level had been created with asphalt tanking to contain the water and thus they were able to grow plants and trees way above normal ground-level. Whether this is true or not I have never established but it certainly makes good sense to me.

Now you will know why I cannot believe that anyone would desecrate such an important archaeological site. If any of my readers know what is the current state of Babylon I would be very pleased to hear from them.

Yesterday we had two visitors for morning coffee, Liz Moon-the artist-and her friend Ken. Liz a very old friend of Alice’s, in fact, she was at school with her. Liz is also the artist painted a wonderful conversation piece for my 70th birthday.

Alice usually asks people for 11 o’clock knowing that my carers come at midday and therefore visitors will not be able to stay long enough to wear me out. However, in the middle of the coffee morning came two more visitors Sarah, and her colleague Richard, from Roho cushions. After Sarah had been kind enough to call once before to explain how the cushion worked we could still not get maximum comfort out of it , so I asked her if she could very kindly get her local representative, Richard, to call in and adjust it to maximum comfort. Sarah was only too happy to oblige but insisted that she came herself, as well as Richardwas fairly new, which presumably meant that he has not yet expert then adjusting the cushion to the right pressure. In any event, they arrived at around 11.30 so we shuffled off ‘the Moon’ and her friend to the breakfast room while Sarah did her bit in my study on the cushion.

The trouble was that it felt extremely comfortable at nine o’clock in the morning and as the day progresses into evening it becomes progressively more uncomfortable. After sitting on it again for the whole day after the Roho team had left, it was a little better towards the end of the evening but still not quite right.

On the home front the government appear to have won their 10 year battle to deport Abduu Qatada but even now it appears he wiill have one more appeal to the Court of Human Rights (heaven knows who’s been fittingly Bill for all these legal proceedings however I suspect it is the poor old taxpayer). This appeal will no doubt delay the deportation a little longer. It seems crazy that we cannot rid ourselves of such a dangerous terrorist in case his own country treat him badly on his return. However,, our foreign office appears to have extracted an undertaking from the Jordanian authorities that any evidence he has given ‘under torture’ will not be taken into account in any subsequent trial and this appears to have placated the dissenters.

Another issue which has been causing quite a stir is our government’s announcement that it will introduce legislation to include VAT on takeaway hot food. You can imagine this has coursed quite a stir and a lot of possible’ what ifs’. For some reason the quips about this proposed tax have centred on our famous Cornish pasty. (I think our Prime Minister was seen eating one recently) For example, what if, you are in the bakery when the pasties had just been removed from the oven. They would clearly be hot and therefore subject to 20% VAT. If they were then put in the window display and, say, another customer came in an hour later, they would be cold and therefore not subject to VAT. I think the government might have created a minefield for themselves.

I think this sort of muddle might well have suggested a Confucian saying. I couldn’t find that one that was absolutely appropriate, but click here for some other sage advice.

17 April 2012

Last night was the first trial of an 8.30 bed time, as I’ve said before I’m usually ready for bed at that time but was not over anxious and spend any longer in bed than necessary due to the pain in my joints that worsen as the night goes on. I think the experiment was a partial success in that I slept through the early part of the night pretty much as usual but it was from around 3.00 a.m onwards that the pain in my knees and hips and shoulder got steadily worse. I think this would have happened even if I gone to bed at 9.00 or 9.30 so we will give it a try for a couple of weeks and then decide what is the best time to go to bed.

The media today was full of the massacre in Norway, involving the death of 77 people by, what looks like a normal nice young man who, it turned out was fanatically anti-Muslim. He firstly exploded a bomb in the government buildings in the city centre of Oslo and with that diversion then went to a little island where there was a large group of youngsters who were camping under the Labour Government banner (AUF) where he proceeded to shoot 69 of them before giving himself up. Subsequently, when he appeared in court, he pleaded not guilty for reasons of self-defence, defence of the Norwegian way of life. He explained this by saying that by 2050 Norway would have a majority of Muslims who would then be controlling the country and imposing Islamic teaching and perhaps Sharia law. He therefore made this dramatic gesture to draw attention to what he saw as a threat. The authorities are now trying to decide whether he is criminally insane or fit to stand trial.

Talking of miscreants but not, of course, in the same league as this young man, are the 400,000 schoolchildren who play truant daily. That was the number given out yesterday on the news, when they were discussing the possibility of reducing the cash benefits of Child Support for recidivist offenders. Of course, there was an outcry against this from the left-wing. Where are the parents of these 400,000 children who are either condoning the truancy or positively ignoring the strictures against it (for example, by taking them on holiday before the end of the school term because the cost is that much lower). I am certainly in the camp of those people in favour of cutting child benefit from the parent or parents of the regular truant. If it hurts their pocket they are more likely to take a responsible attitude towards their child attending school. These 400,000 children will inevitably end up on the scrapheap with no GCE’s (General Certificates of Education) and would, no doubt, include the 15% of children who leave secondary school scarcely able to read or write and then wonder why they cannot obtain employment, As a result a good number of them spend their entire life on benefits. All of this for want of a caring parent who, unfortunately, in many instances, is no better then the child itself, having been numbered amongst those children who played truant in their day and as such lacked a reasonable education. How to break this circle of deprivation? It would probably take two generations and the mainly down to the school and no longer rely upon the parents of these sort of children to set any good example.

Regular readers will recall the attempted removal of 50 odd travellers from Dale farm, by Basildon Council. The process that the gone on for 10 years and cost the council, just for the removal, over £10 million. We are now threatened with our Dale farm with gypsies having applied for a permanent five acre site on a road linking Arkesden and Wicken Bonhunt – the nearest two villages to ours. After all the fuss in the media about these particular, so-called ‘travellers’, who in the event, it appears, do not want to travel at all, it is not surprising that the locals are taking the’ NIMBY line (Not in My Back Yard).

This leads me neatly to today’s diversion. Click here and see what happened when some travellers turned up at the pearly gates!