17 December 2011

Paul ‘the computer ‘came round this afternoon and did some absolutely marvellous work on my computer. First of all he fitted a brand-new screen in the laptop, which he had managed to buy for just under £40, which had got damaged at the hospital the other day when an elderly gentleman backed his wheelchair into the bag hanging on the back of wheelchair, which held my laptop. The alternative would have been to send it back to Toshiba, waited probably 4 to 5 weeks, due to the Christmas recess and then had a bill I suspect around £200, whereas with Paul the whole thing was done and dusted in half an hour for a fraction of the cost.

He then helped me with my Excel spread-sheet on which I intend to record the marks for the examination papers, from China, which I have undertaken to mark. (That is if I can find a way with my occupational therapists, Lynnes assistance, to secure a pen in like my curled up hand in order to tick the papers in the appropriate part of the answer and then record the marks in the margin. I had a pretty good idea how we can do it provided I can persuade Lynne who is very good at improvising when she puts her mind to it).

It’s years since I use Excel and I was almost there but could not work out the last little bit. When Paul came he finished it in a thrice. Finally I had some tricky media, to load onto the Media library which again I left to Paul. He is an absolute star and I certainly could not have kept going, with all the problems I’m having with the laptop and Dragon, without Paul’s considerable knowledgee and assistance..

Apart from helping me through my problems that have arisen through Dragon, and indeed helping me to keep going, Paul is always coming up with great ideas. I mentioned to him the other day that I can’t really listen to my iPod music any more because I have to point the remote control precisely at the Bose standalone, on which the iPod is housed Even if I can manage to point it in right direction I find I’ve not got enough strength to press the buttons. So Paul believes he can make me a hand infrared control unit which will enable me to operate the iPod for my laptop. How brilliant is that.? What is so wonderful about this arrangement is that it is a win win situation. Paul’s presence enable Alice to get out and him being here enables me to improve my computer skills. Quite apart from anything else Paul it is very good company. .I am a very lucky fellow.

Another nice surprise today when a bottle of champagne arrived from the eldest of my nephews, William Garton Jones.. I suppose I have rather given the game away about my favourite tipple, so it makes life easy for those kind people who want to give me a present. Champagne is always very acceptable.

We are really swinging into the Christmas spirit in this household. The window sills are already becoming overcrowded with Christmas cards; the turkey has been ordered, a lovely Christmas wreath will be hung on the front door tomorrow and the Christmas tree collected and decorating.. Wonder woman’ Alice has managed to make all the preparations, as usual, and at the same time deal with all her Christmas cards in which she insists on writing a decent note as well as buying and wrapping up presents. I thought this year she might have eased off a bit and dropped a few names from the Christmas card list, but superwoman, Alice starting out with the best of intentions, in the end I suspect included most of the regulars. Why is it that the first half a dozen Christmas cards which come very early are usually from people who you have decided that you can safely leave out this year?

All we need now is an inch or two of snow that we have had over the last few days to complete the chocolate box picture. As always, I am really looking forward to it. I love Christmas.

Click here  for the latest unfair to Dumb Blondes joke.

16 December 2011

I received an email yesterday from the Trading Standards supervisor (the first and last, in fact, perhaps he has been reading my blog in which I complained I had not heard from them!). Anyway the long and the short it was that, Chris Missen, the officer dealing with it had certainly been in touch with Dragon and reported back to his supervisor, who wrote to me as follows.

‘As regards the “free servicing” claims; this is something that we are taking up with the company and we will certainly be looking to them to amend their advertising.  They should be making it clear to customers in their advertising that telephone calls will be charged for so that no-one is misled.

Mr. Missen is continuing to liaise with the company in respect of the software package but, as I said to you on the telephone, we have no powers to compel them to resolve the outstanding issues.  I do think we have reached the point where if the system cannot be made to work correctly then you will need to take action against the company through the civil courts. 

I do sincerely hope that the problems can be resolved and the system will then function correctly.  However, I do completely understand your frustration at the time that this is taking and that is why I say now might be the time to force the issue by taking the matter further‘

So far as Dragon are concerned they continue to deny that they received a reply to their e-mail to me 22 November, despite me having forwarded it to them on at least five occasions each time telephoning and asking them to acknowledge receipt. Each time I do this they promise to ring back but never do. If I have got no further by the New Year I think I must seriously consider going to the County Court.

I have now received copies of the reports following my recent quarterly visit to Papworth Hospital and Addenbrookes. Basically Papworth say I am doing well on the nasal ventilation. They noted a greatly elevated blood pressure but do not suggest the reason or what can be done about it. Otherwise a very good report. Addenbrookes, which followed a couple of days later, basically recorded what I tell them but did pick up on the high blood pressure or hypertension, and suggested that my GP repeat the blood pressure reading within the next couple of weeks. They noted that I asked Chris Allen to let me know that he has positively eliminated the possibility that I have multi-focal motor neuropathy (MME) rather than MND. (see 4 December entry) and Chris will report back to me on this. I know I’m clutching at straws but one wants to be absolutely sure. They noted that my speech remained intelligible with the voice quality was hoarse. Apart from that most of the rest of the report was pretty much as before. Basically getting slightly weaker month by month but otherwise no serious changes.

Alice Everard, a good friend of my Alice, came round this afternoon with her lovely dog Amber. ( I do miss having my own dog) We had a very pleasant chat together while Alice slipped out to do something. These little visits are just long enough and serve to break up what might otherwise be a monotonous day. In any case I do enjoy picking up the news of what’s going on outside the bounds of my little domain.

Talking of kind people I completely forgot to mention that my friend Tristan, from the gym, came round last evening and shared a bottle of champagne with me. We were able to get a wheelchair into the breakfast room so I could have a smoke at the same time. It’s almost a year to the day that we did the same thing and the last time Tristan bought two bottles of champagne and I must admit that although I was not drunk I certainly felt a little off after the second bottle

However, the kindness I was referring to was that one of the springs on our garage door broke, a week or so ago, and Tristan very kindly managed to find a brand-new pair of springs exactly matching those on our door, which are at least 50 years old, to my knowledge. Not only did the get them for us but also fitted them. What a kind friend. If we could not have found replacement springs we would probably have had to replace the door, at well over £1000. As they say it’s not who you are but who you know in life that count

 Here is a little story for you that is reminiscent of the time I played the priest in the Faust

at Sadlers Wells (but that’s another story. Click here.

 

15 December 2011

Yesterday, ‘my lovely’ called me from the front hall and said that someone had come to see me. I looked through the dining room and saw this little middle-aged lady standing there. I had absolutely no idea who she was until Alice broughy her through into study.

‘This is the new vicar’ she said. .She sat down and we chatted about this and that and in passing I mention my blog and suggested she might care to look at it .Then, like all of my readers, if she found something interesting she could make a comment on it, which if I approved, I would publish. Well, this happened to be after I had written a series of entries saying, in effect, one of the reasons we were in the financial mess globally is that people have been allowed to build up far too much personal debt. Coupled with the millions who live on state benefit plus millions more who claim handicap allowance, many of whom are capable of doing some sort of work but prefer to live off those who do work, in other words live off the state. This prompted the following response from the vicar and as it was such an hot topic, for the first time since I started this blog. I decided to include it in the body of the blog, as part of an entry, together with my reply, inviting other readers to add their own comments.

I had received ,a few days earlier, an interesting comment from a friend of mine, basically on the theme that for every one that receives there must be somebody who gives and he started his comments off with what he described as the Five Best Sentences ,which echoed this sentiment. I had reproduced these Five Best Sentences at the beginning of my 11 October entry and it was obviously this that prompted the vicar to comment.

This is what she wrote ;

“HI Mark, you invited me to comment on your blog. I looked at it yesterday and I noticed the five “best” sentences for 11th Dec. I would like to suggest that they are probably best if material wealth is your goal, but if spiritual and emotional wealth is your goal, might I refer you to Matthew chapter 5 verses 1-12, known as the Beatitudes, or blessings?

“Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy …”

I would also like to suggest that the pursuit of spiritual wealth leads to as much material wealth as anyone needs, and contentment with it, without worrying about idlers and freeloaders.

And this was my reply:

Dear Vicar

(At least I hope you are the lady vicar who visited us the other day to whom I was not introduced and therefore did not learn your surname)

Thank you so much for your thought-provoking comment on my 11 October entry. I entirely agree with your sentiment and perhaps labelling these five sentences as the five best was misleading. Of course, I was not the author and perhaps I should have made it clear that I did think that they reflected the comments and I have been making over the past few weeks concerning the idlers living on state benefit who shamelessly come onto the television saying they would far rather live on benefits than go out to work and earn just a few pounds more.

No doubt there were a number of these, whom I’ve come to call me self unemployed, amongst the small army of so-called protesters at Dale Farm–most of whom are clearly not gainfully employed otherwise they could not spare the time to protest , week in and week out. So I suspect are a good number of the tented army of so-called ‘Protesters against Capitalism’ camping around St Paul’s Cathedral. Most of whom and their ilk at Dale Farm, are what you describe as freeloaders, always taking from society and giving nothing back. It is this very capitalism, against which they are protesting, that provides the benefits, including free health care, policing, education etc. that allows them to survive protesting and contributing nothing. The simple message I was trying to convey ,by using these five sentences, was as they say in Yorkshire, ‘you get ‘owt for nowt’.or, as I believe it says in the Bible somewhere, ‘give and thou shalt receive’

Perhaps I can return for a moment to your comment. You both refer me to the Beatitudes. If you ever have time to read my blog you will find that I value spiritual and emotional well-being, or as I call ‘quality of life’, far more than I value material wealth.

I know we should not believe everything we read, and, in particular, not take literally everything written in the Bible. But,’ fair go, vicar’ (as my Aussie friends would say) do you really think the meek will inherit the earth and heaven will be the sole domain of the poor? There are many instances, if I remember my Bible correctly, where God applauds those who laboured, for example the story of the father who gave his son’s the talents to see if they could multiply them

.It is only through the generosity of the philanthropists such as Peabody, Rowntree, Bill Gates and the millions of small people like myself and my wife who give regularly to charity (covenants for the church roof etc,) that the poor and the meek are taken care of.. In other words people whose goal was material wealth, but NOT their only goal. Spiritual and emotional goals and material wealth are not mutually self exclusive,

As to the Beatitudes if these are the truth Then logically the opposite must also be true so, for example, if you’re not meek you will not inherit the earth or enter the kingdom of heaven, if you are not poor. ((Mind you the government does a pretty good job to ensure that. by taxing our income and then taxing savings from that taxed income, then stripping us of all but a modicum of our savings if we need to go into old folks home before finally takes another slice in death duties or inheritance tax, that most of us will end up in the poor category anyway)

As I said earlier if read more of my blog you would realise that I value the spiritual and emotional side of life, or what I call quality of life, way above material wealth and by repeating the heading The Five Best Sentences, I gave my readers the wrong impression.

Let’s face it. We come from different generations with different values and different manners. Fr example,I find it hard to come to terms with the modern form of address, Hi, Mark. from someone one has only met for a few brief moments, Forgive me but what is wrong with Dear Professor or Mr Cato which would have been deemed more appropriate in my day, certainly from the meek, but then I have not moved with the times.

Of course you’re right about one thing, most of us have far too many material possessions and we could all live with far fewer.

On the other hand had we not worked hard to accumulate some wealth beyond our immediate needs we would not have been able to make modest charitable donations.

I sincerely thank you for taking the trouble to comment so interestingly on my blog entry and I hope you will forgive my rather blunt reply and I invite other readers to join in the exchange of thoughts, I suspect the majority will agree with you that even if they do I suggest that does not invalidate the point I was trying to make in my original comment.

Now I have a dilemma. What on earth can I include now to lighten the mood and give you some amusement. Click here and try this.

14 December 2011

Following the EU summit last week, our Prime Minister’s of the proposed new EU constitution, on the grounds that it could damage our economy and in particular is biased against financial institutions, is still very muchin the nes. I had intended to write a piece about this but then received an excellent summary from a political commentator in the Netherlands, Mr .Julian Lindley French. This gentleman is far better informed than am I, so, instead of me struggling to write something that I know so little about ,I have decided to reproduce Mr. French’s commentary, with which I am pleased to say, I generally agree,

Strictly, I suppose I should seek his consent before I reproduce his comments but, by the time I caught up with him and received it it would be stale news. In any event being a political commentator I’ve no doubt he will be delighted to have his thoughts disseminated far and wide

“Saturday, 10 December 2011

Well Done, Prime Minister. Continent Isolated, Britain Right

Alphen, the Netherlands. 10 December.

T.S. Eliot wrote, “We are the hollow men. We are the stuffed men”.The most telling image from this week’s European Summit was British Prime Minister, David Cameron, sitting all on his lonesome in the Council chamber. Not only did it show the childishness of our Dear European Leaders, but also the extent to which this summit was really more power politics than principle. Time will show Cameron to have been right and our Continental friends should realize that the massive majority of Britons have no problem with standing alone.

The summit was not about the Euro – nothing was done to fix that. Rather, it was about the rebranding of the European Union into an Empire. A German Empire led by Berlin with its French Passe Partout acting as agent. The hollow men and women of the twenty-four other member-states wished to do nothing that might offend Europe’s new headmistress, Chancellor Merkel. So, David Cameron was made to sit on his own in one corner of the room like some offending schoolboy. For Cameron it must have been like being back at Eton. It was pathetic to observe, as I did – I was one hundred metres away.

President Sarkozy, employing the gracelessness with which we have come to associate with a man who does a great nation no honour, suggested that Cameron had made “unacceptable demands”. If he means by that that Cameron had acted to protect Britain’s core financial services and by extension the British people from a Euro-saving tax, 85% of which would have been paid in by Britain, then I suppose that is ‘unacceptable’. Can you imagine a French president agreeing to such a punitive tax on a critical French industry? No way. Can you imagine a French president opening the door to an aggressive set of European regulations that would in time destroy said industry? One only has to look at the ninety-plus cases the French are facing in the European Court of Justice for breaking EU rules to know the answer.

There is no such thing as a free tax and the result would have been the British people paying for a currency disaster that French newspaper Le Monde says rightly has nothing to do with the British. Moreover, Britain is already the second biggest net contributor to the EU mainly because of a previous Franco-German power play when they stitched up a deal on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that forces the British taxpayer to subsidise French farmers. Sarkozy even had the temerity to suggest that banking deregulation had caused the Euro crisis. This may have something to do with the fact that in January the French will have to honour €52.9 billion in government bonds, a further €35.9 billion in February and by April a further €50 plus billio

Taken together the refusal of ‘Merkozy’ to address Eurozone sovereign debt, Chancellor Merkel’s insistence that the European Central Bank cannot act as the lender of last resort and the failure to address Europe’s appalling growth-strangling over-regulation now dooms the Euro to failure.

No amount of effort to shift the blame for failure onto Britain and Cameron will work because time, and not much time, will demonstrate who really is responsible.

Of course, the usual suspects came out of the woodwork back in London to attack Cameron. The BBC’s flagship radio news programme ‘Today’embarked on one of the most politically one-sided set of interviews and commentary’s I have ever heard. Retired diplomats such as Lord Hannay suggested that Britain will now be excluded from ‘process’. Lord Hezeltine even suggested that Europe is in its inevitable way to forming a United States of Europe. What planet are these people on?

They miss three simple verities. First, most political moments are indeed ‘process’, but every now and then a ‘moment’ comes along that is strategic. At such moments a stand needs to be taken and this was indeed a strategic moment. Second, a profound ideological split exists between a statist Europe beloved of the French and the more free market British who are much more attuned to global realities. To have signed a deal on those terms would have subjected Britain to European statist nonsense effectively ending all hope of the flexible economy Europe (and Britain) needs if it is to properly adapt to this globalized age. Third, and above all, not only the future of the Euro was at stake, but also the future power map of Europe.

The choice was between a legitimate Europe made up of democracies and a power Europe led by Germany and France. The deal on offer to Britain was in effect to become a super-Belgium subject to German and French whim. Berlin and Paris have done everything they can over recent years to exclude Britain from their power core and this was to be the final act. Britain will never accept subjugation to their leadership and rightly so.

Through the centuries there have been times when Britain has stood alone against the hegemony of one or two powers in Europe. This is another such moment and we British are again called on to make a stand. So be it! The one inspiring thing that came out of the Brussels summit was to see a British Prime Minister stand on an issue of principle. Now Britain stands clear in opposition to a Europe it does not believe in. That is the best negotiating position London can possibly have.

So, be sure of one thing Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy this game has only just begun. In Prime Minister Cameron you are facing at least one European leader who understands that.

Well done, Prime Minister. Continent isolated, Britain defiant…and righ

Julian Lindley-French”

After such as for provoking entry I wondered what I could add at the end for a little diversion but not appear to be too frivolous and yet but have some link to the subject matter of the entry. Click here and try this.

 

 

13 December 2011

Another Tuesday, only two more to go before Christmas. Although it was a lovely day, bright and sunny, it was extremely chilly but I still went to the club because today was the Geriatrics Christmas Lunch. There was a good turnout and it was great seeing all my old mates again. I very much doubt that I shall grace those portals again until after our 49th wedding anniversary on 16 March. That is my next target date, assuming, that is, I don’t keel over before Christmas!

I didn’t get back until nearly 4 o’clock so has nothing much to report today other than the arrival of a lovely Fortnam & Mason’s hamper, a very generous Christmas gift, from my nephew Tom Grand, who is also ‘my lovely’s’, godson. It has lots of goodies in it with which we spoil ourselves over the Christmas period , before going on that guilty post festive season diet that scarcely lasts a week or so .

Two of my grandchildren are in Christmas plays this evening. Little Lara and Seb both go to the same primary school, and as Seb is in a rock ‘n’ roll version of the Nativity play – the mind boggles – I wonder what on earth little Lara is doing?! Having said that I would love to be there but we will be represented by son Smiler and Kimberly. Kimberly is a great photographer so hopefully we will see some pictures when they report back to us.

There was an interesting money programme on television, last evening, in which they took three different families, each on a net income of £40,000 a year, to see if they could manage on that amount. They examined what the family spent their money on and how they controlled this expenditure, if at all.. One of the husbands, for example,
was obviously a bit of a control freak and had created reams of charts for every conceivable head of living; running the house; maintenance; food; travel etc and built up little funds for emergencies and contingenics. You have to admire his determination to live within his means but, I’m not sure that I could go to such extreme lengths. Having said that I must say they seemed very happy and his wife, who didn’t really approve ,dutifully went along with hubby’s eccentricities without making a fuss.
How many of my lady readers would do the same?

Another couple, without any children, spent without any thought,.It seemed to me that the wife used most of the spare cash to buy shoes. What is it about women and their shoes? I remember the President of the Philippines’s wife, Emalda Marcos, admitted to having over 200 pairs, when her husband was deposed. All paid for, of course, from her own money!

The final couple, if I recall correctly, were dissatisfied with their level of income as I suspect, by their deep suntans and weather beaten skin, took, at least, two sunny holidays every year.

One interesting thing that came out of this programme was, that be it rented council house or mortgaged Villa; chidren or cihildless, they all spent between £100 and £120 a week on food. I don’t know what sort of food they bought but my ovely and I, on a fairly bland diet of healthy food, certainly have always spent more than that for just the two of us (extra when the the children come home, or we have guests..Maybe I have been over paying the dear old thing, these past 49 years or so. If so, it’s far too late to raise the matter as I can no longer write and’ my lovely’ has completed control over my cheque book. In any event, I have no complaints whatsoever about my food (I better stop digging before the hole gets too big for me to get out ) The other thing that must have slanted the expenditure was the mortgage payments as they all lived in different value houses, so I’m not sure that the comparison was a true one all but only one family said they could do with more money. Well they would say that wouldn’t they.

Looking at the broader picture, as the austerity which is going to come, from the credit crunch, has not really affected people lives up to now, those who on a fixed income are going to have to make some lifestyle changes. Certainly cutting out the McDonald’s and Pizza Hut houses etc and be more imaginative about making meals at home. You can make a perfectly delicious soup from left over scraps, for example. Interestingly, out of those who were interviewed the average spent only around 20% of their income on food. Compare this with the French who apparently spend, on average, more like 30% but then many more of them live in rented accommodation and do not have the burden of a mortgage

The one thing that came out of the programme, was that everybodywas aware that they were going to have to make changes, tighten their belts etc. It may be that we will take 10 years or so to get back to the prosperity that we enjoyed in the 80’s but really there’s not too much wrong with the way we live now. If anyone feels hard done by then, just sit back and imagine yourself in one of the many countries that are suffering from drought, floods. earthquakes etc. where people have lost everything, including their homes and their only concern is to get enough food to keep themselves and their little ones alive, and hopefully they will then realise how very, very lucky they are.

That’s enough sermonising, click here to see why we all love children..

12 December 2011

As another week has gone by with no telephone call from either the Trading Standards people or the Dragon technician, I thought I would chase up Trading Standards who are meant to be chasing up the Dragon people. . Christmas is upon us and there is little time left to resolve this matter before the festive season begins. Chris. Missen, the member of staff who was delegated to deal with this formal complaint against Dragon referred, me to a conversation I’d had with his supervising officer, which in effect, apparently meant, in government speak, that there was nothing more that they could do. (What, if anything, have they done?) Mr Nissen acknowledged that the Trading Standards office had no teeth and could only draw attention to the complaint and hoped, that this official intervention would have been sufficient to concern the Dragon people to try to resolve this matter. I can just imagine the corporate management of this international company quaking in their boots upon receiving this official complaint

So far as this supervisor informing me that ‘nothing more they can do’ I am totally unaware what they have done and seen no e-mails, no correspondence of any sort, had no report from Trading Standards and therefore have not the faintest idea what they had done. It seems to me to have a government backed organisation which has a supervisory role and no teeth is as useful as a chocolate teapot and if Mr Cameron is looking for savings then the Trading Standards Office must be a prime target

As I seem to have come to the end of the line with the Trading Standards office I had no alternative but to telephone Dragon the senior technician, Ruben, and ask where we are in this matter which has now gone on for a long over six months. Ruben denied receiving a copy of a reply to one of his e-mails sent to me on 22 November. I was able to forward a copy of my reply to the hand. As they do not have a ‘read receipt’ set up on their inbox I asked him to be good enough to acknowledge receipt by giving me a ring.

As is quite common with Ruben I heard nothing. However, during our earlier telephone conversation I had suggested that the only way that they were ever going to get to the bottom of this problem was to send one of their technicians to sit with me at my computer and see all the problems for himself. Rubin said that they did not normally provide such a service but I have left it to him to think about.

As it took me four hours to do yesterday’s entry, due to Dragon breaking down every few words, I’m keeping this one short and sweet and will report back later on my progress with Dragon.

I had some difficulty in deciding what excitement to add to today’s entry so click here and see what I selected which I think reflects the times we live in.

.

11 December 2011

In the light of the current world situation I thought I would start with what have been described as the five best sentences ever written, Some of which were written centuries ago but are just as apposite today. and then I will conclude this entry with 25 excellent homilies. or, If you prefer it , Great Truths.

FIVE BEST SENTENCE
1. You cannot legislate the poor into  prosperity, by legislating the
wealth out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without  working for…another person must work
for without  receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything  that the government does
not first take from somebody  else.

4. You cannot multiply  wealth by dividing it.

5. When half of the people get the idea that they  do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of  them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to  work because somebody else is going to get what they worked for, that  is the beginning of the end of any nation!

Well, last night coincidently, the BBC put on a documentary entitled How the West Went Bust. This was the. European side of the sorry tale of which I previously watched the American side, that probably started the avalanche over parcelling up and selling on the sub prime mortgages as triple AAA investments.

After glossing over the corruption and millions of euros which are unaccounted for, the documentary turned to the English economy. Much of it was about consumer credit. In other words people buying things they could not afford and building up a large amount of debt. It rather quaintly showed the world in which I was brought up in when you were cautioned by your parents not buy anything until you could afford to do so, i.e. have saved up sufficient money.( I remember doing a paper round to save up £15 to buy a full set of Dickens – which I still have today) but then it showed the introduction of Hire Purchase in order to stimulate post war consumer spending. Which as I say was foreign to my generation so some smart Alec, euphemistically quickly renamed it ‘Deferred Payment’ which did not sound so drastic , a change from the way that we had been brought up to save the things that we wanted to buy.

Certainly the greedy bankers in this country had a part to play in the current financial crisis but, as the head of the Royal Bank Of Scotland explained. the banks are between the devil and the deep blue sea. Unless we pay the ‘going rate’ ,then our best people will go and work elsewhere, so in effect the banks will pay more and more to get the best people until it becomes uneconomic .Ideally, there really needs to be a worldwide moratorium on salaries and bonuses rather like the nuclear disarmament agreement. However I can see the impossibility of achieving such worldwide agreement. There will always be some small offshore country that would be prepared to host these massive financial institutions which can turn over £4-£500 billion in one day, so I really don’t know what is the answer to this no more than I know how they can bring footballers wages back to realistic levels. Interestingly, knowing nothing about football, it seems to me that clubs appear now to be reaching the ceiling whereby the wages they pay are crippling them and a number of them are going down, so it may well be that FIFA will cleverly devised some means of capping these ludicrously high wages for kicking a ball about.

Unless some sanity is returned or imposed on the financial institutions we are all doomed. Greece will almost certainly collapse having failed to honour its debts and be forced out of the Eurozone. Others like Italy, who have no choice but to pay interest on their debt at a rate which is totally unsustainable, will probably be next, followed by who knows? Portugal, Spain and then once the whole thing starts to unravel maybe the collapse altogether of the Eurozone. What effect that will have on the global economy no-one knows, one can foretell, only speculate and then base the contingency plans on that speculation. But then as I have said before, I am no economist so what do I know about it! The only glimmer of hope in all of this is that there are a lot of very clever people spending every day scratching their heads for a solution. Pray for them to come up with one soon.

More to my point is that I received a lovely long newsy e-mail from my darling daughter Chloe, basically apologising for not having spent time with me or contacting me over the past few weeks. Poor thing must be run off her feet with a part-time job in a very senior position as a clinical psychologist and three young children, all having to be ferried to different Christmas parties, pantos, school plays etc and a busy husband ,to keep happy. Of course, I don’t expect that the darling thing to spend a lot of time with me it’s quite enough that she thinks of me daily and prays for me whenever she can (albeit I am an aetheist). In any case I’m so looking forward to seeing her and the rest of the brood here over Christmas.

To finish this rather heavy entry, as promised I now give you 25 very sage sayings. Click here, learn and inwardly digest.

10 December 2011

From yesterday’s doom and gloom to the mundane but to me probably my biggest problem. What to do with my defective laptop screen that does not leave me without the means of continuing my blog and answering my daily e-mails? Fortunately that good Paul ‘the computer, came round this afternoon so that Alice who could go and do some Christmas shopping. We have found a relatively inexpensive way of replacing the screen which Paul is clever enough tofit himself .so I shall not worry the MND Association – whose computer iit is -or my own insurance company but just pay for it myself.. We spent three happy hours together fiddling around with the computer, tidying things up and investigating sources of improving its performance. Paul is so experienced that it is a pleasure to learn from him how some of these things are done.

Talking of Christmas, the winter is coming with a vengeance, icy roads and blustering winds, although the middle part of most days we are treated to a blue sky and sunshine. Great fun if you’re young and fit and I used to enjoy playing golf in such weather provided I was well muffled up against the cold. Much of the country north of Birmingham has already experience heavy snowfalls. Certainly our pretty local historic town of Saffron Walden..pulled out all the stops, as they do every year with their Christmas Fayre! Market stalls selling all sorts of little gifts; Father Christmas ringing his bell; the local church choir singing carols around a tall twinkling Christmas tree,with hot mince pies and gluvine on offer, or if your preferred it, a little bag of hot roasted chestnuts straight from his brazier fire..Although I didn’t manage to make it this year seeing that always made me feel that at last Christmas was upon us. Such a pity there was  not an inch or two of snow on the ground which would be made this timeless scene all the more magical.

I wonder if we will have a white Christmas here, which is the driest county in the United Kingdom. I hope so, so that when the grandchildren come they can build their snowman and get out our ancient sledge. Much more fun for the the little ones doing something in the country rather than in their pocket handkerchief size garden in London.

We had a kindly gift from our local MND association, a pretty Christmas card with a £25 voucher to spend at Marks and Spencer. In the same post we received a request from the MND head office for a donation. I sent them a cheque for £50!

For those of you who retain any residual doubt about the part played by the American bankers in the recession which started in 2008 you really must try to see the BBC film Storyville, episode 14 , which is only available for viewing, on BBC iPlayer,for a few more days. It  is really a film about the hardly believable greed of the top echelon of American bankers hedge fund managers (There was one CEO or MD interviewed who had obsemely ‘earned’ £485 million, in salary and bonus, in one year and shamelessly faced the camera and claimed he deserved it.)who ignored all the warning signs and when the bubble burst, tens of millions of people lost their job , their savings and their homes , A salutary lesson which one can only pray the bankers have learned from or alternatively the supervising bodies will prevent a repetition .

In these hard times this little   nugget of sound advice may well strike a chord with some of you. Click here to read it.

9 December 2011

After all the frustration I had yesterday with Dragon (it took me nearly 4 hours to do my blog entry) it was no more promising today with half an hour wasted before I could get the wretched thing to work. No news either from the Dragon technicians themselves or from trading standards. Yet another week goes by and we are now near solving the problems. So more telephone calls on Monday.

My mother’s 95th birthday today- she is in better shape than I am. Fortunately 92,year-old, ex naval husband, Richard, who is an absolute saint and copes wonderfully well with her in the early onset of dementia. I’m not so sure that I would be as patient as he is. Anyway, they are too far away, in Church Street Shropshire, for us to drop in on a regular basis but we’re very fortunate indeed in having two of my oldest friends, the Prytz’s – parents of my god-daughter, Amanda, now married and living in Malborough, New Zealand making excellent wine with her husband – living quite close, who do drop in regularly and keep an eye on them for us. They have very kindly invited them over for Christmas dinner .Before the MND we would visit my parents a couple of times a year and I would dutifully ring up every Friday, indeed, as I still do – to make sure that all is well. Now, from time to time they come here, by a local taxi, for lunch and then a mid-afternoon return. That seems to suit them well and it is just about the only way we could manage to see them.

All of today’s newspapers are featuring the stance taken by our Prime Minister, David Cameron, in vetoing the Eurozone plan for saving the Euro. He was a lone voice amongst the 27 members 23 of which supported the plan. Mr Cameron exercised his veto (so far as I understand it, for the first time any British Prime Minister has done so). His reason for doing so was to protect the British economy and our financial institutions which would have been severely threatened by this new constitution. We lnow stand isolated, so far as Europe is concerned, and later may well be ostracised from any decision-making, some of which may affect us. However, we have not heard the end of this.

I hope that Cameron – ‘having once wielded his handbag’ – will take advantage of the current situation to renegotiate some of the terms of the existing constitution. For example, opt out of many of those ludicrous Health and Safety regulations which infect our society, having come from the European Parliament. Secondly, making our own judicial system independent of appeals to the European courts. I have every confidence that our own Supreme Court, headed by British judges, are far more likely to come to a just conclusion on human rights and the other issues which are referred to them than nine or 10 judges from all over Europe who have entirely different standards to our own

So far as the economy is concerned it will be interesting to watch and see if they try to make, for example, Frankfurt the financial centre for Europe, that it has always aspired to be, to the detriment of this country which has generally been recognised by the world as the best financial centre. Our problem I suppose will be over trade with Europe , which at present represent something like 40% of our GDP. So we obviously have a vested interest in saving the Eurozone from collapsing for two reasons. First of all we have something like £650 million invested in financial institutions, banks etc and no one can predict, at this stage, what effect such a collapse would have on the world market. Personally I doubt whether it would spark off a world depression so long as people keep their heads. Economic depressions seem to be generated from weak financial positions where the countries concerned do not have enough confidence to get themselves out of trouble. To some extent we’ve seen signs already in this country. People are simply not spending, so the economy is not expanding and our GDP this year is now forecast at 0.78% (compare this with China who are deliberately slowing down their growth to 9%). I’m no economist and so these are just personal views. The glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel is that at least the world leaders seem to be combining to establish contingency plans, hopefully learning from past mistakes.

If you’re worried about losing your job and you want to see if you’re still on the ball click here and try this

8 December 2011

My quarterly MND assessment at Addenbrooke’s today. I didn’t get my usual team, Dr Chris Allen ,was elsewhere and even the co-ordinator (Jo) was attending to another group but she did pop in for 5 min or so just catch up. Since Jo has had her baby she only works part-time so I was allocated to her other half for my assessment (whose name I am ashamed to say I have forgotten). The only other person there was the Speech Therapist who agreed that, although my voice has changed slightly that is a result of the weakening the diaphragm rather than anything more sinister. We also had another lady in attendance who was observing the whole process as she was setting up a similar assessment centre in Bury St Edmunds (?).

As usual I found myself having to do most of the talking after answering the question ‘ How are you keeping’. My own assessment of the difference between this visit and the last was that my arms are slightly weaker and possibly my legs but not using the m it is difficult to say. Otherwise, there was very little else of substance to deal with.

They looked at the Papworth report in which Dr Ian Smith had said that the volume of my lungs had been consistent for the best part of the year and he said that ‘that was very reassuring’, whatever that means!

I raised the question of the Multifocal Motor Neuropathy (MNN) and, of course, Jo knew all about it as they have several MNN patients. I knew that it was 1,000,000 to one chance that I have been mis-diagnosed but having been made aware of the mistake made by my correspondent from Australia, who was also initially diagnosed with’ flailing arm syndrome’ until it was changed to MNN, it would have been foolish of m Dr Chris Allen was not there, I asked Jo to specifically ask Chris to answer my question, that they have been through the process of eliminating the possibility. I know this is rather remove impugning the experience of my consultat but one has to grasp at every straw and I would not have done so had I not received the case history of the gentleman in Australia, who was misdiagnosed with’ flailing arm’ syndrome only to have it changed months later to NNN.

We went through the problem of the pain I am suffering from a night and the coordinator made note of the need for an urgent follow-up from that injection which I had at Papworth and, to the best of my recollection, this was about as far as we went. I mentioned that we had cracked the running nose (rhinitis) by using Rhinatec nose spray, and the rumbling tummy, which caused me to be so bloated, had been improved by a change of medication.

Then, off to my second appointment at the Eye Clinic, which was scheduled for 2 p.m. ( and it then being only 11.10 p,m, I would have been in for a long wait) but that kindly and helpful receptionist, Angela, managed to squeeze me at the front of the long list for the consultant to see. (I needn’t have bothered to exercise my charm on Angela, for in the end I had to spend two hours in the draughty front hall waiting for the ambulance to bring me home.) The main object of my visit to the Eye Clinic was for the consultant to check up on the left eye on which I had the cataract removed. He seemed well satisfied with the outcome and, as a result, we discussed doing the second eye. Although the cataract in this right eye was not so serious as the earlier one he thought it well worth doing. Accordingly he has undertaken to fast track me as much as he can, bearing in mind my uncertain life expectancy.

As I was leaving I asked the consultant where he came from and he said Greece. So I commiserated with him over the financial state of his country I suggested that (from personal knowledge) one of the main problems is that a lot of people do not pay their taxes.

He agreed that certainly was one of the main causes but also said was that corruption was rife and we both agreed it would probably take a decade of austerity to bring Greece back to equilibrium.

After leaving the Eye Clinic I made my way to the transport desk in the front hall and on the way there an elderly gentleman managed to back his wheelchair into me. Unfortunately, my laptop was in a bag hanging on the back and it was not until I took it out to read my book (on Kindle) that I noticed a small crack in the screen at the top which had produced a large black spot the size of a plum. Clearly, I shall have to have a new screen. My dilemma, in reporting this now is that they will want to take the laptop away and Toshiba only offer a three-week turnaround. That means that, bearing in mind the Christmas holiday, I would not see my laptop again until sometime in early to mid January. As it is my right arm and my only means of communicating, inwriting,with the outside world I shall have to cook up something with ‘Paul’ the computer to avoid this immense void in my life – no emails; no Blog; no reading from my Kindle books and no diversion from Sky and the various television i Players.

Not a happy prospect, particularly concerning my Blog – how many of my faithful followers would I lose?. I will have to get Paul or Richard, (Morris) my web designer, to make a short entry explaining the problem for my readers, reassuring them I had ‘not popped my clogs’! (I should explain to my overseas readers that to ‘to pop one’s clogs’ means to pawn them being the only thing you have left, for a small loan, as you would have no further need of them as you were going to die. No doubt, the money raised would be spent on liquor to dull the ending.! Hence ‘pop goes the weasel’ from the nursery rhyme. The weasel being absolutely essential to a weaver to make any money,)

Where was I before I started all this nonsense? Ah, I remember I was bemoaning the fact that my laptop had been damaged following my visit to the Eye Clinic. I should have completed explaining about this visit.

After giving me the okay for the eye that had been operated on, the consultant looked at the other eye and agreed that it would be sensible to have that done too. He knows about my MND and how valuable every month is to me, and very kindly promised to try to fit me in on any cancellation they got provided I would accept a 24-hour notice. I agreed, praying that if telephone call came, it would not clash with any other arrangements we might have made.

Well, that’s about it I think you would agree that after all that grief it has not being a particularly happy day and I really deserved the large whisky when I got home!

I finish with a typical medical joke. Click here

V