Handbag Calamity

A friend on social media asked: “When Spring Cleaning your bag, what is the strangest thing you've found, or perhaps something you usually have that others don't”. It brought back a memory that still makes me blush. No, not for that reason, you naughty people!

A can of Ambrosia Cream Rice with 30% extra... much to the amusement of the colleague who’d asked if he could borrow an emery board.

He said “I thought it was meant to be half a brick in case you were attacked?” I replied that this was better as you had a handy snack having worked up a hunger beating the shit out of cheeky workmates with it.

I’d gone shopping on my way home from work as there was a Morrison’s between my office and Paddington station a few weeks before. I’d been wondering why my bag was so heavy 🙄.

What was worse was that I’d upended my bag on my desk in frustration looking for said emery board. The can had trundled across my metal desk, hit the floor with a sturdy thump, rolled across the floor and hit a third colleague’s desk with a loud clang.

50 Years Since the Moon Landings

I was just five but remember watching the moon landings on our tiny black and white TV. It’s greenish screen took forever to warm up within its Bakelite case.

NASA created some amazing solutions to the hazards of space travel that have passed into our everyday life: space blankets, memory foam to name but two.

Today I could have a TV that almost thinks for itself to watch plans for a trip to Mars on. What have we done since that comes anywhere near producing the same levels of exploratory optimism? I can’t help but note that whilst communication has leapt forward in its ease, mankind has gone backward, misusing both our planet and each other. Will it take near extinction for our species to wake up?

Menstruation

A BBC news article asks if it is time to end the veil of secrecy surrounding menstruation?

I say yes, it needs to end.

Too many women globally are still made to feel ‘dirty’ or ‘unclean’ during their period. Too many girls still start without being prepared. Too many women go through menopause without knowing what to expect or what is available to help. Too many women are unsure about what is normal and what isn’t regarding their own body and some receive unnecessary medical treatment as a result. Still too little is understood about the biology of menstruation scientifically which means that treatments for menstrual irregularities are positively Medieval. Too many girls are missing schooling either because they are ostracised from society during their period or because they lack access to sanitary protection. Our silence as women feeds into the mythology that women are somehow ‘lesser’ because we bleed.

Keeping the Kids in Bed

As a result of my post on 1970s home decorating in Facebook, I've remembered why we kids didn't get up at dawn and disturb our parents. The lack of bedroom heating and relatively colder winters meant ice on the inside of the window glass.

Not that you could get up if you were stopping with Granny Greyhips (my Dad's Mum) in Townhill, Dunfermline. The beds had flannelette sheets, two (at least) good wool blankets, a candlewick bedspread, and a matching Eiderdown of truly epic weight. Basically, you had to be at least twelve before you had the strength to get out of bed unassisted!

The EU

Do we have a say in the EU whilst a member?

This was the question posed in a recent comment online. It included a sidebar on immigration.

Actually yes we do. Other EU countries have made use of existing EU law to regulate the degree of migration. Successive UK governments chose not to.

I followed the immigration statistics for several years during the period of peak debate on the subject (see the ONS website). During that time it was more or less 50:50 EU/non EU. The level on non EU barely shifted during the time the Conservative governments were promising to slash numbers. The UK had full control over the migration of non EU migration yet did nothing about lowering it. Call me sceptical about it being the EU’s fault that the EU migration level didnt fall either.

Most of the most frequently complained about EU laws and policies in the UK were proposed by Westminster, lobbied for by our MEPs and voted for by them.

How many can name their EU constituency? How many their MEP? Know their MEP’s voting record? Watch or read the EU Parliament’s media? How many have contacted their MEP on an issue? How many bothered to vote in the EU elections?  How many read at least a synopsis of the manifestos?

Ditto Westminster and their MP?

If you don’t engage in the political process, you tend to get the government you didn’t want.

Brexit-go-round

They said Brexit was the most important issue since the war. It should have been handled the same way.

It’s not getting resolved because
- referenda are a tool of direct democracy where we have a representative indirect democracy
- our political system is geared around the left/right axis of the political compass whilst Brexit is an authoritarian / liberal issue.

Trying to ram a square peg into a round hole x 2 was never going to work.

A non standard issue needs handling with a non standard process.

Institutional Thievery

I am sick of seeing comments about benefit fraudsters whenever a story is posted about someone dying from sanctions.

0.7% of the welfare budget is fraudulently claimed according to the government’s own figures (the budget was £264 billion year ending 2017; 34% of all government spending and including pensions of £111 billion).

Tax avoidance according to the Tories £35 billion a year, but it is believed to be nearer £60 billion a year.

People who commit benefit fraud are named, shamed and sometimes sent to prison. Wealthy tax dodgers are given anonymity and made to pay a small percentage of their outstanding tax.

It was estimated last year that 70,000 sick and disabled people will be paid £1BILLION of benefits they were denied after a major government mistake.

Just who is robbing this country?

Disability Shaming

The government’s own figures state that less than one percent of disability applications are fraudulent.

70,000 disability benefit recipients have been underpaid as a result of shoddy administration according to the National Audit Office, many of which will not be paid back. On average, it amounts to some £5000 each but for some it amounts to as much as £20,000. Could you afford to loose that much from your pay packet? Would you be able to cope if you lost your mobility tomorrow? Would you still be able to get to work if your mode of transport was removed? Would you still be able to do your job if you were in horrendous pain?

I know of which I speak because my spine broke just three weeks after being one of 300 people made redundant. In three steps, I went from being pain free and fit to crippled. That level of pain does not just affect you physically (I shook from it) but also mentally (my speech used to garble).

I was ‘fit for work’.

How many employers do you think were prepared to employ someone with an unstable broken spine? How many insurers prepared to cover an employer hiring such a person?

I have degree or degree level qualifications in engineering, IT, project management, life sciences and oceanography. I have experience in oil & gas, telecoms and media.

I am ‘over qualified’ for jobs in my areas of expertise yet can get jobs well below my skill set. Jobs on zero hour contracts. Jobs that don’t even cover my food bill. Just as well I’d already paid off my mortgage else I’d be living on the streets, eh?

My message to those of you condemning the disabled:

You are one pay check away from being in difficulty.

You are one moment away from losing your health.

You are one second away from being labelled work shy for reasons beyond your control.

The disabled are not the problem. Given sufficient, given the right support, they contribute.

Government administration errors cost tax payers far more.