Have a fag - it'll calm your nerves!

The new UK government anti-smoking campaign is frankly disgusting: a man standing outside a house (top marks to him for not smoking in the house) lights up and straightaway a tumour starts to grow from his cigarette. The voiceover is about how smoking produces mutations in the human body.

I didn't see or hear anything after the first 30 seconds. I turned to another channel, and I suspect a lot of other folk would do the same. Apparently, smokers think government advertising exaggerates the effects of smoking so ads have to be 'hard-hitting.' I have a beef with the government's approach to public health myself. Probably more than one beef, in fact.

It's 30 years since I gave up smoking but I'm still classified as an 'ex-smoker'. I am going for lung function tests in the New Year and, when my GP isn't telling me my wheezing is because I used to smoke, she's telling me it's my 'lifestyle.' I don't think I'm rich enough to have a lifestyle, so could my health problems be because I'm nearly 65? Live in the damp west of Scotland? Was born poor and lived in damp housing from birth to age 27? Worked twice for longish periods in buildings where asbestos was being stripped out?

Women of child-bearing age in my family have been fed the line for years that they must not touch a single drop of alcohol during pregnancy or they'll produce a child with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome - that is, mentally and physically disabled. I've seen this called 'the golden lie' by a spokeman for the British Medical Assocation. In my book, it's a lie - golden or otherwise. I've seen children with FAS and I promise you it takes more than a couple of glasses of wine a few times a week to produce that effect.

We have a pretty well educated population in Scotland. Certainly a population that talks a lot about everything. For example, we have 3 smokers in my close family out of 16 of us. None of us gives them an easy ride. They can't smoke in anyone's house, or anywhere near the kids. The family expresses its disapproval of smoking regularly to them. They also obey the smoking ban, as everyone else does. I reckon the three are addicts and no amount of lecturing or hectoring is going to stop them. They'll stop when they want to.

What I'm looking for from public health is the following:
- no more lies or exaggerations about health issues
- no more 'nanny state' (no, I don't like the phrase either but it's the best there is) - we're educated enough to make up our own minds on health issues
- no more blaming the poor for matters that were beyond their control before most of them were born
- no more wasting the public health budget on TV ads that folk simply turn off.

Sleep, little one, sleep!

Not a hope in hell where I live.

I think it's a fact well known to my pals and those who can be bothered to follow this blog that I don't sleep well. In fact, I'm awake now at 6.49am on 27 December. This isn't a major problem when you're retired like me. It was a much greater challenge when I was still working. And I know I have friends who suffer from insomia much worse then I do.

My big beef for the moment is that the bin men have just been.

What the f*ck is wrong with these people?

Are they on some sort of bonus: the earlier you go out, the more noise you make, the better East Ren pay you? Are they on a double shift? Get the bins emptied by 8am and we'll pay you double to do the recycling - and make twice the noise?

I don't need to tell you the noise is hellish - and will be repeated several times this week, because this morning was just the bottle bank being emptied - there's still the plastics, the paper and the food waste to go.

I'd go back to bed but there doesn't seem any point.

Bring me sunshine!

My sister and I agreed on the way back from Silverburn today that Boxing Day in Scotland is just like a 1960s Sunday. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, nobody on the streets, everybody indoors eating Xmas Day leftovers.

The only thing to do on Boxing Day is shop but Silverburn was pretty quiet. Plenty of parking spaces. Plenty of folk wandering about. Nobody buying much.

And all the TV channels - Sky, BBC, ITV - were talking up the Boxing Day sales.

Can it be true: capitalism feeding itself?

As our American cousins would say: go figure!

Enough with the petitions!

I've counted them: I've had 23 requests from friends in the last 6 days to sign petitions.

I should make it clear I am concerned about what's happening in the Middle East. I also hate what happened in Newtown. And I'm not too impressed with the UK's presence in Afghanistan, or the way the Coalition is victimising the disabled.

But. And this is a big but. (No pun intended). No petition anyone signs up to on Facebook will make the slightest difference to any of these issues.

If you really feel strongly, march on behalf of the people of Palestine and send money to http://www.palestinecampaign.org/. If you want the UK to get out of Afghanistan, lobby your MP, MSP and MEP. If you are alarmed at the way disabled people in the UK are being picked on, join the Labour party, pay your dues and make your views known.

I'm not sure what we can do about US guns laws, since these are outwith UK jurisdiction and frankly none of our business.

But stop annoying me with requests to sign petitions. These achieve nothing, even if they make you feel better.

Poor Neon

First he's born to parents that saddle him with the name Neon.
Then his parents split up.
His mother gets custody of him.
Then he gets sick.
His mother decides she doesn't like the way the doctors plan to treat his brain tumour despite his father being in favour of the treatment proposed.
His mother runs off with Neon and they all have to go to court over the whole business, thus delaying his treatment.

I kind of understand the mother-child bond that would lead Neon's mother to question the treatment the doctors prescribe for him. She wants what's best for her child so she's entitled to ask questions but she has no expertise in this area and, eventually, in a life or death situation - and that's what this is for Neon - you have to depend on the experts.

There's also a bit of me that thinks: this is a person we're dealing with here, not a pet dog or a goldfish. Neon's mother and father don't own him. They can't be allowed to play about with his life chances. He has rights and somebody has to exercise them on his behalf. At least, the doctors looking after him are bound by the Hyppocratic Oath to act in his best interests.

And yes, I have worked with children with life-threatening or life-shortening illnesses: cancer, MS, muscular dystrophy, rheumatoid arthritis, anorexia. Throughout it all, you have to keep telling yourself this is a person in front of you, not a condition. It's awful to be the person standing outside the situation looking in, but sometimes that's the person best placed - like Neon's doctors - to make a rational decision.

Here's to Neon's speedy recovery.

Meanwhile, back at the BBC.....

Not one but two reports today on the BBC's handling of the Savile 'affair'.

The BBC has enemies: the Murdoch press, the Tory party.....Murdoch resents the BBC's access to so much money through the licence fee. The Tory party thinks BBC managers are lefties and unfair to the Tory party. I'm kind of resentful of having to pay for a BBC licence myself when I rarely use most BBC channels or stations and don't think much of some of them. And I suspect the Tories are right about 'left-wing bias' - if by left- wing bias we mean they don't favour the Tory party.

However, I'm convinced of a few things:

- The BBC is too big. The fact that so many senior staff can be 'moved to a new role' at the drop of a hat is a bit of a giveaway: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20786533 And nobody gets the sack? Explain that to me, please!

- Far too much money is being spent on management and not enough on the creative side of the business.

I've just been reading about Hewlett-Packard and how this once huge and innovative US company is about to go down the tubes: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2130977,00.html HP got its reputation for innovation from the engineers who ran it until 2000. Then it felt into the hands of business experts and suddenly innovation was out and managerialism was in. HP then realised it was falling behind other companies and started looking for smaller innovative companies to take over, bought an overpriced UK firm - very unwisely - in 2011 (anyone else thinking of RBS?) and suddenly its share price is through the floor.

BBC employees are rightly proud of the innovative work it does, Its children's TV, the website, Radio 5 - all are excellent - but when was the last time BBC1 produced a Downton Abbey or a Homeland or even a Clocking On? Any challenging documentaries or drama series coming up on BBC2? Any chance of reducing the hours of repeats on Radio 4?

- What I most resent is that the BBC Trust isn't doing its job. The BBC is important to the UK, too important to be left to the managers currently running it. Chris Patten doesn't seem to have an idea what the newly formed BBC Trust should be about, but seems happy to be guided by the Director General, rather than representing us - the people who pay for it.

And the Trust is certainly not representing Scotland: http://www.scottishreview.net/KennethRoy35.shtml?utm_source=Sign-Up.to&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=281919-The+mystery+man+of+the+BBC+in+Scotland

Here's hoping this could be a fresh start for the BBC but I"m not confident.

Plague Ship?

This is the UK cruise ship Oriana, which was described by a passenger disembarking at Southampton as a 'plague ship'. Now, when you know the norovirus is about - and it's about a lot in the UK just recently - and you know that several hundred mainly elderly passengers on a cruise are a sitting target for the norovirus, you can do two things: cancel the cruise (not a good idea if you want to make money) or step up the hygiene on the ship (which is what the crew did). I'd say the Oriana's hands are clean in more ways than one. Though I'd love to know how the passenger recognised it as a plague ship.....

Can we stop this happening again?

Do you remember where you were when the Dunblane Massacre took place?

I was doing a residential course in Jury's Hotel in Great Western Road, Glasgow, with a group of about 20 teachers, preparing them to teach French in their primary schools. Hotel reception knew the rules: no phone calls when we were working, but a call came through about 11.15am. It was the sister of a participant who said something terrible had happened at Dunblane Primary School. I related this to the class. One of the group said he had a niece there. We stopped the class and sent everyone off to their rooms. I'm glad to say his niece wasn't involved.

The rest of the week was a blur: there were TV pictures showing parents pushing buggies towards the school in search of news; Shereen Nanjiani asking them pathetically 'how do you feel?'; flowers piling up outside the school; the royal family - was it the queen? - visiting. I wondered about the headteacher and his staff. They would have to do the initial identifications. Was someone taking care of them? And what about the non-teaching staff? They would be local and know the kids.

Every time there's another massacre, it comes back to me and I'm sure many other people in Scotland. Beslan was awful. Columbine too. But Newtown Connecticut is the worst so far, because so many other 'incidents' have taken place - 13 in the US in the last 20 years - and the kids are so young.

Most of the Dunblane parents chose not to appear on TV at the time but on the 10 year anniversary, some did take part in a documentary. I remember the parents of a 5 year old boy who died. They were older when they had him. He was an only child. The photo they allowed us to see showed a wee man in a fair isle tank top, a checked shirt and a bunnet - the spitting image of his dad. I can't imagine how they handled this at the time - or how they go on living with such horror.

Can we stop it happening again?

Velocity My Arse

This is Tom Shields's column from today's Herald Scotland. I notice Tom's column only appears a few times a week these days. The old boy's obviously getting ready for retirement. Sometimes his column is a bit tired but just occasionally, he plays a blinder - like today.

Glasgow is to host the Commonwealth Games in 2014. And the preparations have already delivered us into the hands of charlatans - otherwise known as PR consultants - as can be seen here. I'm all for people making money out of large public events, but these people are taking the piss.

full speed ahead to the 2014 Games

Tom Shields

Can I have a quick word with you about velocity

Can I have a quick word wi

Velocity is the organisation in charge of commissioning a £300,000 bit of artwork in the east end of Glasgow. Velocity appears in various typographical guises as VeloCity, VELOCITY and velocity. To be old fashioned, we'll call it Velocity.

Contextual targeting label:

home improvement

But what is it? "A collective and cultural response to the impact of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games on the city and its communities. Velocity is an aspirational approach to partnership working that requires a paradigm shift to re-imagine, repair and reconnect neighbourhoods, communities and the city."

A simpler question: who's behind Velocity? Mainly those two visionary powerhouses Glasgow City Council and Creative Scotland. It doesn't have a chief executive or a director. Velocity is run by a producer. Sounds like the movies so there may be a gaffer and a best boy as well.

Is Velocity doing just the one big bit of artwork? No, it will "bring coherence, a curatorial overview and a consistency of methodology to the delivery of art in the public domain across the city".

How will that be achieved? By "evidence-based intervention through sensitive mapping process". Come again? "Velocity uses the term sensitive mapping to mean its physical mapping process brought together with demographic and social profiling alongside targeted stakeholder and community engagement. Examining the physical and social fabric of a city or an area in this way creates a relevant and authentic approach, a velocity dna that creatively connects people, place, artist and agency to re-imagine, repair and reconnect."

What's on this map? Velocity has divided the city into east, west and south clusters joined by Commonwealth routes which will "provide creative solutions for aspirational transformation". Aspiration in the east end? Yes: "Velocity proposes an east cluster around the single, holistic concept of a Commonwealth Avenue. This concept has the potential to re-imagine, repair and reconnect what would normally be seen as a series of discrete urban issues." There is a problem: "Cultural activity across the east cluster is sporadic."

Where are these quotes from? The Velocity Operational Plan. It uses the phrase "re-imagine, repair and reconnect" a lot. Will they be fixing potholes in Glasgow's roads for the 2014 Games? Probably just the holes on Commonwealth Avenue.

 

I hate this government

'Hate' isn't a word I throw about a lot. I usually tell people hating is bad for you: gives you frown lines, not to mention indigestion.

But I hate this government. I hate Cameron and Osborne for the way they've demonised the poor and the disabled; for their lies about the welfare state; for their openly Tea Party approach to economics; for secretly letting the ministry of education take over schools in England. I especially hate how they personify the gulf between trust fund Britain and those who are just getting by on low wages - or not.

I'm also starting to hate the Lib Dems, for whom I've always had great respect - in fact, I've voted for them in local elections. But they're not standing up to the Tories, except in token ways that I don't find convincing. What difference will it make to voters if Parliamentary boundaries are not re-drawn, as the Lib Dems have threatened? How will it matter to the vast majority of us if the mad May woman fails to get the power to read our emails and texts?

Maybe the Lib Dems - who are supposed to be full partners in the Coalition - are doing lots of stuff on our behalf on the quiet in Cabinet or in committees. Maybe they really do stop the Tories doing worse things to us than the list I gave you at the top. If they are, it's time they told us about it.

Not that I'm convinced by the Labour Party, of which I've been a member for 40-odd years off and on. Ed Milliband is still burbling on in Parliament about Cameron and his mates wrecking restaurants in their student days and Ed Balls is still heckling them, even though the Tories have managed to turn his yapping to their advantage. Who stands out in the Shadow Cabinet? Name 3. I can name two: Andy Burnham and Chuka Umunna.

It's enough to make me vote for Scottish independence.

My First Trout Pout!

No, I don't mean I've got one. I've just seen my first real-life trout pout. Normally, I don't move in circles where women inject themselves with botulism but today at the hairdresser's, surrounded by an adoring audience of stylist, tea boy and towel girl, there was a definite trout pout in the next chair to mine.

Sadly, the owner couldn't have been any more than 30. I thought the word 'trout' as an insult was usually preceded by 'old' - or is 30 old in today's yoof culchur? I can't say the trout pout did much for this woman. Nor did the dye job, which looked to be the texture of straw and was a shade of yellow not normally seen in nature. Put me in mind of newsreels from the old Soviet Union, where you could at least explain bad dye jobs because women had limited access to beauty aids.

So let's get this right: breeding and nurture give a woman in the wealthy southside of Glasgow a lovely figure and an attractive sweetheart-shaped face. Daddy - or hubby - give her designer clothes, bag, boots, etc. And all she can think to do to 'improve' on what she's got is puff her lips up and ruin her hair.

Personally, I'd have sent her to elocution classes in her pursuit of perfection. That might have eradicated the high-pitched, slightly strident and definitely grating Newton Mearns drawl. Oh, and maybe a wee spell at school or college might have helped raise her conversation above the level of 'so then we watched X Factor and had a bottle of Cava'.

So I noticed her but I don't imagine I even registered on her radar despite having to ask her to move her large Mulberry handbag off my seat. Being a woman over 50, I'm used to wearing a cloak of invisibility. Trout Pout will have to get used to it as well. I only hope she has developed a personality and a few interests by then. Or maybe a good divorce lawyer will be enough to keep her in botox  and dye jobs.

Get off the phone!

Confession time: I hate the phone.

I hate the 32 bars of music that play while I'm waiting to be put through to 'one of our team'. I hate being told 'your call is important to us' - it's obviously not important enough for the company to hire more call centre staff so I don't have to hang on for 10 minutes. I hate the endless loop of 'to blah blah blah, press 3'. I'm convinced following all the available options will only lead me back to the start of the list, since none of them meet my needs.

Last week, my library buddy and I went to a homebound client's house and got no answer. Very worrying. We looked for the warden of the sheltered housing complex the client lives in, but she is responsible for 5 sites and was obviously elsewhere. In the end, we made a note of the only phone number on view, went back to the library, pretty worried, and phoned them. This is a huge organisation - GHA - but it has only one phone number. We took it in turns to hold on. After about 15 minutes we got through to a person, who didn't know what to do. My library buddy told her: phone the warden, find out if she knows where the client is and phone us back. Luckily, the client was in hospital - I say luckily but she could just as easily have been dead behind the door.

People will say anything on the phone, things they wouldn't dare say to your face. I've been shouted at and sworn at more often than I care to remember. I've also been told off for being rude by a woman trying to sell me electricity when I told her I never bought things over the phone. For months now, I've had to tolerate up to 7 phone calls a day from people trying to get me to claim for PPI, despite the fact I've never bought such insurance. And yes, I am registered with the website that should protect me from these calls - except when they come from overseas - as they so often do these days.

I watch the generation below mine - and sometimes people of my age - unable to manage a lunch with friends without checking their mobiles every few minutes. I hear about phone-bullying far too often: teenagers getting horrible texts which drive them to mutilate themselves and occasionally to kill themselves.

And now a nurse has apparently committed suicide after being inadvertantly caught up in the 'Kate is pregnant' story. Most people sympathise with the victim of this phone 'prank'. But I've also been told on Facebook that Kate Middleton is responsible for the woman's death and that the nurse was obviously not fit to do the job she was doing if that's all it took to send her over the edge.

I just want to mention a single word: ethics. The ethics of the two media journalists who made the phone call interest me. The UK is in the middle of a debate about the regulation of the press. I am in favour of control of the press, in the form that has been adopted in the Scandinavian countries. Maybe
Jacintha Saldanha had never given it much thought. Her husband and kids may see it differently.

Tina's Cafe

Tina - christened Argentina by her Chilean seaman dad and Scottish mother - runs a cafe in Drumoyne Road in Govan. Her assistant is Elaine. They can quite often be found in the late afternoon sitting shattered after a hard day eating a cake straight off the shop counter. They do meals like curry, lasagne, mac n cheese and salad to eat in and to take away, though it has to be said there's not much demand for salad. Their all day full breakfast goes down a treat.

Tina's cafe is at the heart of the community right next to a couple of schools and the health centre and across from Elder Park and the Library. People drop in at all times of the day, especially elderly folk. Parents come in at the end of the school day for a coffee before their kids come out of the school. The kids come in for snacks too. Charles delivers books to the homebound with me and the two of us go in every Thursday for a roll n fried egg and a coffee. The coffee is pretty poor but the egg roll is superb.

The prices are ridiculously low.

The welcome is great.

From time to time, I think Tina and Elaine should get a bit of publicity and I consider contacting BBC Scotland Radio, which would love the 'craic'. But then I think: Are you nuts? Every community has a Tina's cafe. And then again I think: I hope so.

Look after each other...

I've said this before but I'll go on saying it forever: it's great to have a night out with your mates. A meal, a few drinks, a visit to a club. But, guys, you have to look after yourselves and each other. Don't wander off on your own. Don't let anyone else wander off. Make sure your mate gets a taxi home if he or she is too drunk to carry on clubbing.

I'm not saying there are predators out there. Life is much more boring than the telly, but shit happens.

This rant is prompted by the news of the death of Victoria Sloss - Vikki - who drowned on Saturday morning in the Clyde. Vikki was a second year university student of nursing. Think of her boyfriend and her family and how they are feeling right now.

Take care of each other.

Get real, please!

Yet again messages are appearing on my FB and Twitter feeds, telling me that 'scroungers' shouldn't be allowed to take money off the 'state'.

The state is me and you and millions of other people who pay their taxes. Most of the so-called scroungers were also working till recently - paying their taxes - and would like to be working now.

Has anybody missed the following news?

 

This is fact, not opinion! And not bigotry!

Place your bets!

The closest I've come to the press is that I worked with a woman whose ex-husband - note: ex-husband - was being hounded by the Daily Record. One morning she was wakened very early by someone ringing her front doorbell. When she opened the door, a photographer took her picture. The Daily Record printed it on the front page next day. What did she have to do with her ex-husband's story? Nothing at all. The editor obviously thought a photo of an ex-wife in her dressing gown was in 'the public interest' - I think that means it would sell papers. It also humiliated her professionally and in her community. Of course, she could have complained to the Press Compaints Commission. And it would have done - what exactly?

About as much as the PCC did for the McCanns and the family of Milly Dowler. I'm not too worried about the likes of Hugh Grant and company - they have enough money to protect themselves, although I suspect their best defence would be to keep their private lives totally private and not carry it out in the public arena. But to poor and totally innocent people caught up in horrible troubles, the PCC has proved no defence at all.

So if the PCC is useless, shouldn't we shore it up with more powers? Leveson says yes. So do the Lib Dems, Labour and the victims of press invasion - and probably quite a lot of the public. On the other hand, the Tories and the press say no: we can't have politicians interfering in press matters, although nobody has yet shown how Leveson's proposals would do that.

Anyone want to bet the press win against Leveson? Yep, I think they will too - and the circus will continue to roll on.

Put some clothes on, Glasgow!

Went to the Fort today. It's an open-air mall. Lots of nice shops but no protection from the elements. What a cold place! 5C at lunchtime, but the wee street of shops is like a wind funnel and it was perishin!

And all around us were Glaswegians without jackets: guys wearing short sleeved t-shirts, lassies in shorts and see through tops. At least one of them I saw was turning purple in the cold. And it's not just in the east end you see this phenomenon. I've seen lassies in the centre of town plodding through snow in high-heeled sandals and guys at George Square in their vests in the pouring rain swinging their car keys - like 'I just parked my Porsche roon the coarner so ah don't need a jaicket.'

Is this why Glaswegians have low life expectancy? Does hypothermia get them rather than illness?

Meanwhile out here in leafy East Ren my neighbours are sewn into hats, gloves and scarves from September till May - and live to be 93.

How to make money

I've often wished I'd been born with the gene for money-making.

Today I was talking to my library buddy Charles, telling him about my adventures in George Square on Saturday evening trying to get into a pub with friends for a 'quiet' drink. We tried 3 pubs before we found one that didn't have a queue outside. This was at 8pm. My friends have been away from Glasgow for 20 years and were quite surprised by what they saw. All the pubs seemed to be occupied in force by 20-somethings. How, I wondered, could these young people afford a night on the bevy in the middle of the month? And, believe me, they were on the bevy - big style. And I'm guessing this wasn't the only Saturday night in the month they were out there. Surely they don't use credit cards to buy a round of drinks? I asked.

I then got a lesson from Charles on how 'payday loans' - that's Wonga to me - work. The young person phones up, asks for a loan of £100 and, if they meet the requirements - basically, who is your employer and what is your employee number and bank account number? - the cash is in their ATM within 20 minutes. On payday, they pay back £118.

What a jolly wheeze. The loan company only needs to employ some people in a call centre to get the information and issue the money. They don't need to do security checks. If the young person doesn't pay up, they have the information they need to get the money back off them by seizing their wages. Destroying their credit rating in the process. Of course, the interest rate is extortionate. Of course, once people have started on this kind of easy borrowing, they'll continue, gradually become poorer and poorer and thus be forced to borrow more money and more often.

The payday loans people are in good company: other businesses sell poor people cheap furniture at extortionate a.p.r. rates. Still more offer 'cheque cashing' services for those without a bank account or just needing money fast - again at very high rates. Then there are the companies that buy gold at very low rates - again often from people too poor to argue about the price they are offered.

This all seems to be acceptable to government - and to the rest of us who are just idly standing by and watching the poor being exploited.

Charles pointed out to me something I hadn't noticed: that the voice-over for Wonga is spoken by Nicholas Parsons. I wish to point out also that the puppet characters are all old people. The young are not associated onscreen with this form of borrowing. Since old people are a bit of a joke on the telly, the whole business is meant to be seen as a bit of fun.

Second thoughts: if having the money-making gene means doing this, I won't worry about getting rich.  

The Congo

The Democratic Republic of Congo is famous in the UK as an answer you can give to almost any geography question on the TV quiz Pointless: it is in Africa, it is landlocked, it is a former Belgian colony, the people speak French as their second language, it lies on the border between Christianity and Islam, it has somehow got itself caught up in a territorial land grab with Rwanda.

Other than roughly where it is, I suspect us Europeans are a bit vague about the DRC, despite the horrors carried out there by King Leopold of the Belgians, who regarded it as his personal fiefdom and is said to have salted away $1 billion in gold and diamonds his thugs (troops) forced the local people to dig out.

I have no more idea than anyone else what's going on in the DRC right now. I heard tonight that one of its main cities, Goma, has just 'fallen', though I'm not sure who to. It looks as if almost a million people are at the mercy of the invaders.

But no - wait! The people of Goma should be at the mercy of no one. UN troops have been in the DRC for a decade, apparently deployed there to protect the local population. Where have they been while the fighting has been going on? What have they done to protect the populace?

This is one of many forgotten wars. Protest if you can. The people of Africa - especially people who have been slaves of colonists - deserve better.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jan/23/congo.international

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo

Meet the Elderly?

One of the madder ideas from  the Tory Party recently was that us 60 year olds should volunteer to take care of 90 year olds. Setting aside minor details like whether some 60 year olds are fit - or safe - to look after the very elderly, there's a bigger question:

What makes us think the very elderly - the over-75s - and there are more and more of them - only want to have contact with other very elderly people? Do they have to be herded into some kind of corral? Are they not allowed contact with other generations? Does their physical frailty somehow reduce them to being a problem?

I had a salutary experience today.

I've joined a group called 'Meet the Elderly.' I'll be driving a 90 year old woman on a Sunday afternoon either to a museum for tea and a guided tour or to a volunteer's house for tea and a blether. This woman has slight mobility problems and trouble with her eyesight, but she is as sharp as a tack with a great memory, has a great sense of humour and is finding it very hard to accept that she is seen as useless to society. She worked all her days and looked after her parents in their old age but has had to give up the family bungalow she lived in for 77 years. Chillingly, she refers to her very comfortable retirement flat as 'solitary confinement'. She has no friends left alive. Her only relative is a second cousin. She sees no stimulating company from one week to the next.

My idea of hell in old age is to be left sitting in a room lined with armchairs. Nobody talking. A TV babbling away in the corner. Nothing to look forward to but dying. If that's the future for the very elderly, pass out the 'Do Not Resuscitate' labels now.

But I'll bet this woman is going to be interesitng company and has some great stories to tell from her social and working life in Glasgow in the 40s, 50s and 60s.

I know this from delivering library books to the very elderly in Govan. Archie was a gunner on merchant ships in the North Atlantic convoys in World War Two. May is the widow of a victim of the Ibrox Disaster and moved to Ibrox to be close to where he died. Lena brought up a large family alone and is still dealing with a middle-aged son who has addiction problems. It's an education to listen to these people.

They all had a contribution to make in their younger days - and they sure as hell deserve our attention now in their old age.

Democracy at work?

Thank you, Krishnan Guru Murthy, for pointing out on C4 News tonight the big problem in UK politics right now: after yesterday's Corby bi-election and elections for police commissioners (in England or in England and Wales? Not sure), he interviewed representatives of the Labour Party and the Coalition, let them harangue each other for a while and then reminded them all they were doing was shouting at each other, not engaging the voters.

I'm delighted Labour managed to get a majority at the Corby bi-election of seven and a half thousand on such a poor turnout.

But I have to ask: what is the point of the Coalition's flagship policy to have elected police commissioners? I can see why the people that got elected like the idea: more jobs for the boys - well, it looks like it's boys, doesn;t it? But I can also see why the public didn't bother turning out to vote. Why have commissioners at all? Why have the election in November? Why hold an election without explaining through a TV, radio and internet campaign what it's for? If I was really cynical, I'd say this - low turn-out due to voter apathy - is how you get the people you want into these positions. And what kind of mandate do these commissioners now have on a 7% turnout?

I conclude this is another bit of the omnishambles the Coalition is so good at. The loss of voter confidence and the rise in cynicism among voters will be immense. The amount of money wasted on the exercise defies belief.

As for John Prescott, time to - as we say in Glasgow - GTF!

Morning, all!

I'm having one of my sleepless nights, so here I go.

We have a wee row of shops just down the road: a hairdresser, a lawyer, and a general shop that does papers, milk, snacks at lunchtime, booze, fags and things you run out of but need when all the other shops are shut. They have an ATM. The owner also gets up at 5am to organise the delivery of papers.

The lawyer is about to give up his lease, after 6 wasted months trying to attract customers. How the hairdresser's hangs on nobody knows, but there are a lot of independent stylists renting a 'chair' in the shop and that may make it easier since they will bring in their own customers. But the manager/owner of the general shop is looking very depressed and talking about shutting down because she can't 'compete with the supermarkets'. Christmas will not help, she says, because people are not spending - or when they do, they're spending in Tesco's, not the local shop.

I wish I had a solution to this problem because I like having a local shop where I buy my papers, order magazines, get stamps, cards, milk and rolls, They are open till 9pm - later than the local Morrison's. If - when - I reach the stage I can't go out to pick up my papers, they will deliver.

Maybe this is going to be like having a local butcher or fishmonger. We won't miss it till it's gone. I hope not.

What a difference a week makes!

Last week the USA was all about the aftermath of Tropical Storm Sandy and the presidential election. I thought this week they would be talking about how to deal with the federal budget, whether Obama could work out a way to work with Congress, what the Republicans would do next. Even how the recovery from Sandy is going and what can be done to help.

But no, this week the issue dominating the web and the media is that General David Petraeus, head of the CIA, had an affair with his biographer.

And the media want to know: Was it his wife's fault for getting old and letting her hair go grey? Was it his biographer's fault for being so attracted by his fame and position?

Do I care? Do you? Do the US public? Probably not. We've been here before - often. If there's a plus side to this business, it's that sales of newspapers have rocketed in the US.

It's interesting that recent studies of the brain of young men indicate that they may not reach maturity until the age of 30. General Petraeus may even prove that period extends in some cases to the age of 60.

Or maybe we should just remember that old saying: there's no fool like an old fool.

And move on.

Boy, does the BBC need help!

A few years back when I first retired, I saw a message on the BBC website seeking volunteers for its Scottish viewers' panel. The intention was, they said, to widen the range of members and make it more representative of Scottish viewers. I've often been very critical of the poor quality of news-gathering on BBC Scotland TV especially, so I decided it was time to do my bit as a volunteer.

I followed the link on the website for the application form. It seemed the BBC didn't have a special section on its site for volunteers but expected me to complete a form for a job application. The first few pages asked for personal details. Fine. The next pages asked for academic qualifications and at page 14 I was still trying to fit my Scottish school and university qualifications into a form obviously designed in London with English, Welsh and N Irish candidates in mind. O levels? Don't have them. A levels? Sorry. The section asking when I'd been at university didn't let me put in my 3 qualifications and only covered 3 years rather than the 6 years of university education I'd had in Scotland.

However, I kept on going. My university subjects weren't all recognised - no ticky boxes for Drama, Moral Philosophy or Russian. My teaching qualification wasn't recognised. Nor was my work experience (in a wages office and the dispatch office of a bakery and later editing scripts and writing handbooks for C4 education programmes).

By the time I'd reached page 14 I still hadn't been asked anything about my life experience or what I could offer the panel if appointed. Call me naive but I'd have said these were the only really important bits of information anyone needs. If you really wanted to bring in a wider range of members to the volunteer panel, you'd want to know if they'd brought up a family or been carers, where they'd worked, how they spent their free time - maybe even what kind of telly they liked!

At that point, I gave up. Well, I'd no way of knowing how many more pages there were on the form (no, Geoff, it wasn't a Pdf!) and time is precious when you get to my age!

But it gave me an insight - maybe a false one - into how the BBC operates: someone had been employed to devise that form and no doubt somebody was employed to plough through the replies and separate the job seekers from the volunteers. A wee group would be convened to consider the volunteer applications and discard applicants found wanting. Then there would be interviews. Letters and emails would fly back and forth and eventually the mountain would rumble and spit out a mouse - or maybe 3 volunteers for the viewers' panel. All highly bureaucratic, centralised and costly.

But the most important thing is: does this process get you the best people? In volunteering terms, I would say no.

I'm a good volunteer to have around. I do the job carefully, follow the rules (mostly) and understand about stuff like health and safety. But I gave up at page 14 of the form. How about people who are interested in the media but have no academic qualifications? Would they even get to page 14 before deciding the BBC's wish to bring in a wider range of people to its viewers' panel was a joke - and this off-putting form was proof of that?

The great thing about volunteering is: you don't have to do it. This is something that her maj's government doesn't seem to realise (By the way, I just loved their suggestion that 60 year olds volunteer to look after 80 year olds!) and we do exercise quality control, believe me. I gave up on one volunteering slot because I didn't like how volunteers were treated. I said so and nothing happened, so I walked. Two colleagues have just chucked the library home delivery service in Glasgow because they have been messed about over their travel expenses (12.6p per mile - yes, you read that right!) for 5 months.

Looking at the BBC from the outside, I'd say it shares characteristics with organisations like BT, RBS and Scottish Power. It's too big. Still too centrally organised, despite efforts to get it dispersed to the 'regions'. Too remote from its customers - except we the viewers are also the owners!

In news terms, it has fallen way behind C4 News and Sky News. STV's late evening news programme has Reporting Scotland knocked into a cocked hat. If Newsnight is toast, that's fine by me. It was, after all, the London news people who said there would only be a 'Scottish 6' news over 'their dead bodies'. Folks, that can be arranged, especially if you play right into the hands of the Tory Party, as happened last week.

Hello, Republicans!

I think this is my favourite photo from the US presidential election. Do I feel sorry for these fine, upstanding supporters of the Republican Party? Not for one cotton-pickin minute!

These are just a few of the people who tried time and again to undermine Barack Obama in his first term. They claimed he wasn't American-born and therefore not entitled to be president. Donald Trump demanded Obama's birth certificate be made public and still refused to accept it was real when it was published. And still the attacks went on: Obama was a socialist, a dictator, a Nazi, a Muslim, a communist, a Kenyan! They were so determined to oppose the introduction of Obama's healthcare plan that they told the US public our NHS allowed doctors to let elderly people die. They built up a war chest of billions of dollars to fight his re-election - sums of money beyond the reach of almost all US citizens.

But guess what? The Republicans lost. Again. Obama is back for 4 more years. Maybe there's a lesson to be learned by the Republican Party. They have been so unable to come up with credible candidates for office that they offered US citizens Mitt Romney, a man for whom the word flip-flopping was invented.

And this was his vice president:

 

 

The Republican Party has steadily driven US politics further and further to the right so much so that the expression 'lunatic fringe' now seems to describe the mainstream members of the party. Can the party recover? Only if it takes steps to appeal to women, blacks, Latinos, young people, the poor.

 

Why am I so interested in US politics? Because here in the UK we have a government partly formed from people who seem to imagine everything Amurrican is good and worth imitating. I hope a shift closer to the centre by the Republican Party will help the Conservatives to re-think their approach to - for example - healthcare, education, social security. Because I live in a part of the UK that is largely out of step with the present government.

 

Test's for Teacher's

The Scottish government plans to introduce literacy and numeracy tests for people planning to become teachers.

So let's see if I've got this right: if I wanted to be a teacher now, I'd arrive at teacher training with my 5 Highers and 2 Advanced Highers, a 4 year honours degree, a compulsory year living and working in France and a postgraduate diploma in Russian behind me - and I would then have to do a test in maths and English language to prove I was fit to teach.

What exactly are these to be tests of? Do I know my times tables? Can I punctuate a sentence? Do I have a good enough command of grammar to be able to communicate with kids? Can I spell?

I can only see these patronising and pretty insulting tests as a vote of no confidence in school education in Scotland. What we're really saying is that intelligent, apparently well-educated and well-qualified people leave our schools without the basic skills needed to go on to higher education. And that universities, having discovered their students are incompetent in maths and language, don't take steps to correct the situation before they let them graduate. 

If there is a problem with our education system, we need to go back and study what's happening in our schools ab initio. That will mean, of course, agreeing what we think are the basic competencies all learners need and how to achieve them. We might also have to agree that understanding maths and mastering spelling have nothing at all to do with the ability to learn - or to teach.

I write as one with an O Grade arithmetic (33% in O Grade Maths - refused entry to the Higher Maths class - not that I wanted in) who often gets handed the bill in restaurants because I can work out in my head how to add a 10% tip and then divide by 13 or however many are at the table. I have a friend who worked successfully as a Home Economist for 40 years (and is still in demand as a supply teacher) who was only diagnosed as severely dyslexic at the age of 50. No test known to mankind will make me a better mathematician or my friend a better speller.

But that doesn't seem to be what these tests for teachers are about: failure to pass the tests won't mean people like us will be kept out - or kicked out - of teaching. It'll just be brought to our attention that we are deficient in these areas and we'll 'get support' during training.

So what is this all about? IMHO, as we say on Facebook, there's a wee panic going on: Scotland has slipped badly in the international rankings - see the OECD reports - and this is our way of sooking up to the morons in government and business who want to turn the clock back to a time when education was perfect. Whenever that was.

For years, her majesty's inspectors ranted on about the need for 'rigour' in our education system. So what happened? Pressure, that's what. Education became a race: if you're a pupil in a school where the headteacher is under pressure to deliver good results, you'll find there's damn all time for your education: it's all about a rush to get you through 'levels' - onwards and upwards. Your education will be superficial. There will be gey little time to pursue areas you find interesting before you are pushed on to the next test. You will not specialise in secondary school - you'll do 5 Highers, because the school needs you to contribute to the statistics that appeal to the local authority and the inspectorate.

Does this begin to sound like a circle - or a cycle? Or a spiral - a downward one?

Scotland's got a terrible record in social engineering. Maybe we need to stop worrying about OECD tests and look to what our near neighbours are doing. I mean the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians. They live on our latitude, they share a lot of our history, they often face the same social problems as us. Can we learn from them, instead of jumping on any passing - preferably English or US - educational bandwagon?

Curriculum for Exc......?

It now looks like it's going to be something that happens every generation: there will be a huge rumbling noise and Scottish education will chuck everything it's been doing up in the air. Then we'll look for something to replace it all, pick on things that are the exact opposite to what we were doing, spend years studying the new system and bedding it in and, as soon as it's in working shape, we'll chuck that out too.

Last time, we introduced 5-14 and Standard Grades. Every child had to be tested in Maths and Language in primary and the first two years of secondary and then go on to study 7 or 8 S Grades. Suddenly, no subject could be done for fun - like PE or Art - but had to have an academic element, usually involving sitting a test or writing an essay, thus taking the enjoyment out of school for a lot of kids.

The aim was inclusion, obviously. Did it work? Afraid not. But I would say a lot of that had to do with school inspectors and the cult of the statistic. No sooner had schools got hold of a way to 'measure' kids' progress (levels A to F in 5-14 and Credit/General/Foundation in S Grade) than the whole of education got caught up in trying to decide what to do with the information it was gathering.

The broad answer was to hit headteachers over the head with it: only 10% of children passing writing in P1 in your school? Time you did something about that! Never mind that writing always lags behind reading and maths. Pass your concerns on to your teachers and make them test early and often. Is the conversion rate from S Grade to Higher weak in this secondary? Get the pressure on the teachers. They have to teach to the exam, cutting out most of what made your subject enjoyable. You may get everybody up a grade by pushing and pushing but do you get happy kids? Ask the teachers - and the parents. Don't bother asking the kids - nobody ever asks them, poor sods.

Or as my former boss used to say: You don't fatten a pig by measuring it.

Now we've got a new initiative: Curriculum for Excellence, although I like what teachers call it much better: Curriculum for Excrement. There are so many things wrong with this it's hard to know where to start. Here are a few ideas from Carole Ford, ex heidie of Kilmarnock Academy:

http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/opinion/comment/carole-ford-scottish-students-will-fail-in-a-flawed-system-1-2610840

And here are few remarks from a relative of mine who is a teacher:

<<Some kids will NEVER be tested externally in this system. Those not deemed 'ready' to sit N5 or above will never have to do an external exam and the unit tests can be done over an indiscriminate length of time - there are no time limits on the new NARs (like NABs now). One of our N4 unit tests is to design a leaflet - with no specific time allowed. I could make my kids do it in 2 periods and another school in 20. Therefore, there are no set agreed standards. This will also serve to create a huge division in educational attainment - some kids will be confined to obscurity and fewer life chances with only N3s and N4s to their name with all the stigma that comes with being 'too thick to sit an exam' and others will be fast-tracked to N5, Higher and beyond.

It is a disgrace. N3 and N4 will not be worth the paper they are printed on. Or will they be virtual...???>>

And my own view? I'm not involved in education any more but I feel for teachers who have had little by way of guidance as far as I can see. And I pity thse students who - again - will be regarded as 'non-academic' and left to do what we once called 'O Grade colouring in.' Whereas those of us who worked with these kids know just how much they are capable of. But they will stay where they've been for most of the last 200 years: bottom of the heap.

I Luv Lilyhammer

I just watched the episode of Lilyhammer (BBC4) in which Norwegian National Day is being celebrated. It's a very funny episode that I could hardly watch for laughing, and for all the wrong reasons. Let me explain.

I used to work in a local authority in Scotland where one of my responsibilities was securing funding from various sources for education so headteachers, psychologists, teachers and others could study education in other parts of the world. These international links were said to be very important - and they often were very useful - and they extended to the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, most of the EU, and the rest of the UK. 

How important these links were I didn't realise till I was told that the Director of Education and Social Work and the Chair of the Education Committee (note the capital letters - this is how important these people were) wanted to go to Norway for National Day. There was no budget for this and nowhere to apply for money, Norway being outside EU and British Council reach.

When I pointed this out, I was told it wouldn't cost that much since Ryanair flew to Norway. Trouble was, the travel agents we dealt with were rightly reluctant to deal with Ryanair for reasons to do with insurance and guarantees customers would reach their destination - well, you've heard before now what the problems can be with these tinpot airlines. (There is now new EU legislation to deal with problems raised by Ryanair and others - that takes some doing!)

But I was under pressure. In the end, the only way to send these 2 VIPs to Norway (arrange accommodation and meals and pay for the poor sod who was to hire a car and drive them to civilisation) was for me to put the costs on my own personal credit card. And that's what I did. It only took me a few months to get the money back once the Depute Director of Education found out what had gone on.

Was this a good use of council taxpayers' money? What would have happened if I'd refused? Dunno, but now that I've seen Lilyhammer's hommage to National Day, all I can say is: this is what these people wanted to see? Is there some educational value here? Any Scottish kids or teachers getting any benefit? Lines of nubile teenage lassies tossing batons in the air, some off-key singing and a few speeches - that's it?

Here's to transparency in all forms of government.

Nanny Knows Best

Last week I noticed on STV an 'infomercial' about recycling that urged me to avoid food waste by making a list before I go shopping so I don't buy stuff I don't need. It's great what you learn off the telly. I'd never have thought of that. This little gem of a film is no doubt paid for by the Scottish government - that is, you and me. I'd certainly never expect my taxes would be used to make films telling me this kind of crap.

Tonight on the BBC's Scottish news there was an item on how drying your washing indoors can lead to damp. And we know damp can cause asthma and other respiratory ailments. I grew up in Glasgow flats where washing hung permanently from the kitchen pulley and family life went on happily underneath. I now live in a flat with no outside drying area and hang wet washing in the airing cupboard in my kitchen, with the door open so it dries faster. How on earth have generations of Glaswegians survived the danger of wet washing? It beats me, but then looking at my family history I reckon TB, cancer and strokes have been the real villains in my family tree. Forget the washing - wet or dry.

I'll try to avoid cliches when I can but I can see two things going on here.

The Scottish government just loves telling us citizens it's all our fault. We're destroying our environment with landfill and plastic bags. Just as we're destroying ourselves. If it's not the fatty foods, it's the fags. If not the fags, the booze.

Secondly, I recognise the 'nanny state' when I see it in action. It's just so Scottish, this 'Ah tellt ye, Ah tellt ye' attitude adopted by the wee parliament in Embra. I'm not sure where we got it from. Centuries of religion - Cafflik and Proddie - that seems designed to keep us in order and stop us having fun? Or is it from our education which still has a big element of 'Don't think - jist dae it. Cos Ah said so.'

Whatever the cause, I've decided I'm a grown-up and I'll do whatever I want. That means I will wander the aisles of Lidl without a list, let my washing drip and eat my fried egg roll at Tina's caff on a Thursday afternoon. Oh, and cheers!

Let's hear it for the NHS!

I want to share this bit of good news with everyone: according to the Glasgow Herald today, Scotland's health boards have achieved their targets for the fourth year in a row!

Isn't that wonderful?

Sadly, the targets we're looking at are for efficiency savings. I might be more encouraged if the targets were for reducing waiting lists for operations or giving patients access to - for example, physio in less than the average of 7 weeks it takes in my health board area - or improving access to specialist nurses rather than cutting the numbers of nursing and medical staff and closing wards.

But hey, we can't have everything, so we'll just have to accept - again, according to today's Herald - that NHS patients may have to be sent abroad because their local hospitals can't meet the legal requirement of operating within 12 weeks. And we'll have to live with the knowledge that places like Yorkhill (same source) will continue to rely on fundraising by patients and their families. And that breast-screening will continue to be the one-size-fits-all provision it is, instead of more money being put into research to ensure 4,000 women a year in the UK avoid unnecessary surgery (the Herald again).

A saving's a saving. however pointless it may look to me.

And by the way, is the Herald really worth £1.10 a throw? Not buying it would be a wee saving for me and might reduce my blood pressure, which must go sky-high when I read their reports on the NHS: thin on facts and devoid of any kind of critical comment.

Hello out there!

I've done nothing all day today except read and, after looking at the TV schedules and the weather forecast, I may just carry on reading for most of this week.

Right now, I'm getting to the end of Blind Eye by Stuart McBride:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_9?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=blind+eye+stuart+macbride&sprefix=Blind+Eye%2Cstripbooks%2C154

I also have half a dozen books waiting on my tablet.

If you don't hear from me between now and Xmas, can you just check my blinds and make sure I'm in here reading and not lying dead behind the door!?

Savile - it ain't over yet!

Three points:

- How many rock/pop 'stars', DJs and other showbiz hangers-on are now cackin themselves, waiting for the polis to knock on their doors?

- Is there some kind of competition going on to get to the highest number of Savile victims? I hear there may be more than 300. Folks, one is too many.

- I'll bet the newspapers are thrilled to bits to have our attention taken off the phone-hacking scandal.

- And the media groups that hate the BBC (Murdoch, ITV, etc) must be delighted.

Sorry, that was four. And I can probably come up with a few more.....

Supermarket Etiquette

Nobody likes shopping in supermarkets. Customers are there because it's the only shopping method available (online not being option for most people). Most of the staff are there, not because they are temperamentally suited to the service industry, but because they need the money. The least we can all do is share a few simple rules to make shopping as painless as possible:

- Have a bit of thought for the rest of the world. If you're older, shop mid-morning or mid-afternoon to avoid the lunch and teatime rush when people get off work. When the shop's quieter, there might be time to exchange a few nice words with the check-out staff. Ask them when they finish - if it's not for hours, sympathise. Hope they'll be kept busy - time passes faster if you're busy.

If you're younger but in a hurry, try planning better. Do you really need to be buying tonight's tea tonight? Or feel free to use the self-service aisle. The rest of us hate it.

Do you really have to go out shopping mob-handed? The supermarket isn't a family outing - surely you can do more interesting things than this with your kids? If there are two adults and you have to go out shopping together, let one take the kids to the cafe for coke and crisps while the other shops. If one of your kids starts screaming the place down, stop shopping and pay attention to the kid, ffs. They're your first responsibility, not the corn flakes.

- In the car park, try to avoid people pushing trolleys. You could slow down to the 10mph suggested on the warning sign - or even stop to let them cross the road. In fact, painted lines on the road mean you have to stop. You may not intend to hit us, but some of us slower-moving folk (oldies, people with small children, folk pushing wheelchairs, staff pushing long lines of trolleys) are a wee bit worried at how fast you drive.

- If you're being served at the deli counter or the fish bit, say 'Please' and 'Thank you' to the serving staff. They have a thankless job, are on their feet all day and have to dress up in ridiculous hats, so the least we can do is appreciate the service. Oh, and teach your weans to use these words as well. There's enough grabbing and grunting going on in the world as it is. It's a bonus if the serving staff can say 'Thank you' back. Saying 'Cheerio' to each other is nice. Try it.

- Try to avoid abandoning your trolley across the aisle, making it hard for other people to get by with theirs.

- If you dunt someone in the back with your basket - or run over their feet with your trolley - say 'Sorry'. Just the same as you would if you bumped into them in the street. It's only one word. Doesn't cost anything. Doesn't cease to exist just because you're in a shop.

- If someone is looking closely at stuff on a shelf that you want to get to, either wait or say 'Excuse me.' Do not push in and grab. These are two other wee words that are not used enough in shops.

- At the checkout, if you can see the pin number the person in front of you is keying in, you're too damn close. Back off a step or two.

- If you're a member of staff, smile. They do it in M&S and Whole Foods and Waitrose. It's quite often what brings customers back and keeps you in a job. If a customer asks a question and you don't know the answer, don't say: 'I don't know.' Say 'I don't know but we can find out' and hand them over to customer services.

- Finally, let's remember shops will be busy at Xmas and New Year. It's also worth while reminding ourselves the shops are only shut for a day at these times. Shop early: don't turn up at Asda in Govan at midnight on Xmas Eve expecting to pick yourself up a turkey and a few last minute prezzies. Supermarket staff also have families who would like to see them.

I'd say happy shopping but I'd be lying. Tolerable shopping might be as much as we can hope for.

Lest we forget

Do you get emails and Facebook messages about supporting the annual Poppy Appeal? I do too. I'm always surprised at the tone of these messages, usually along these lines: I'm buying a poppy to support our service personnel and "I don't care who's offended by that."

It's ok - I'm not offended. I don't wear a poppy myself. I used to buy a white one from the Peace Pledge Union but I don't know where to get them any more.

So why don't I wear a poppy? It's got nothing to do with supporting our service personnel (or with wanting our troops brought back from Afghanistan - tomorrow if possible). I don't come from a service family, but my grandfather served in the army and was at Gallipoli in World War 1. My father was in the navy in WW2, on warships that escorted merchant vessels anywhere from Gibraltar to Simonstown in South Africa and all points in between. Neither of them was injured but they were certainly marked by their war service. Adjusting to everyday life after war service (4 years in one case, 5 years in the other) wasn't easy for them, and I don't suppose it was easy for many others either.

I remember my father's friend Harry C who had been a prisoner of the Japanese in Burma. He never talked about his war service but was known to have periods when he couldn't work, didn't eat and shut himself away from family and friends. He was in a mental hospital several times. He told my father he had flashbacks - he saw and heard vivid scenes from his wartime experiences - right up to the end of his life.

Was there support for ex-service people like him? I don't think so.

I know that kind of support exists in the US. The US system is called the Veterans' Administration. It offers nationwide health provision for ex-service people. It is funded by federal government and provides support for their mental as well as physical health. I know of people being looked after by the VA today who were injured in the Vietnam War in the 60s.

The VA doesn't depend on contributions to charity or selling poppies: aftercare is an entitlement, not a gift. If we take our support for service personnel seriously - and surely we must with so many seriously injured young people, often disabled for life, being returned to civilian life from Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 10 years - then we have to put their entitlement on a firm footing and stop behaving as if raising £50 million is a tremendous act of unselfishness on our part instead of what it is - a drop in the ocean when you're trying to rehabilitate and support sick and wounded ex-service people.

Of course, it's more than Starbucks paid in taxes last year. Anybody want to tackle that one? And I suppose we should be grateful that at least the poppy appeal is no longer named after one of the most incompetent commanding officers the British army has ever known. But the poor haphazard support we're offering now isn't right and we need to fix it. So buy a poppy if you want but write to your MP, your MSP, your MEP - anyone you can think of - and ask them to support the establishment of a VA here in the UK.

Is it me?

Am I the only person who has noticed the amazing amount of free advertising being given to one huge multi-national company this week? Every newspaper, magazine, TV station and news website has been publicising - free of charge - this company's newest gadget.

The gadget has just been launched in order to cash in on the lucrative Xmas market, despite the fact the company claimed till fairly recently they would never get into this area of IT - I guess greed will win out every time - and just 6 months after the last big innovation was launched - again, with huge amounts of free publicity.

This is a company with a very iffy reputation in some parts of the world. Remember the awful working conditions and high suicide rates in its Chinese factories?

Fifteen years ago, the only place this company could sell its products was education. It was definitely a niche market. Its products were and remain good-looking but very, very expensive compared to other companies'.

Now, it seems to be intent on gobbling up all its rivals: Samsung, Kindle - the lot. And the media seem to be helping. It wasn't a good idea for Miscrsoft to corner the market in software - and it's definitely not a good idea for Apple (there, I said it!) to dominate the hand-held device market so completely. We'll be sorry.....

Calling time on Time

I think when the dust settles on the US presidential election, I'll be calling time on Time Magazine.

Not that the relationship has been a disappointment - in fact, it has often been very rewarding - with good items about the US and from places as widespread as Mongolia, north Africa and Venezuela. And excellent writers, especially on politics and economics.

But in the past year I've noticed the magazine has a new art editor and it has become more and more difficult to read. Tiny type - looks like font size 5 or 6 at times, even when there's plenty of space available on the page. Headlines and sometimes even articles in pale blue, green or pink. Even worse, red or white type against a black background - how on earth do dyslexics cope with that?

The last straw was a first rate article two weeks ago describing how the two presidential candidates routinely misrepresent each other in print and on TV: even with a reading light behind me and the occasional help of a magnifying glass, this wasn't a comfortable read. And if I'm paying for the magazine, I want it to be what suits me!

So good luck to all at Time. I'll miss them - but not the layout!

Now if I can just get Virgin Media to dump the crap email layout they claim is forced on them by Google, my reading life will be just dandy!

Don't believe all you read!

If I only ever read the headlines on websites like BBC News, Sky News, the Daily Mail, the Herald and so on, I would think Wales was some sort of hell-hole: a wee girl abducted and apparently murdered in Machynlleth, a young woman murdered in Gwynedd, a family of 3 victims of arson in Preststyn, a maniac mowing down pedestrians on the streets of Cardiff - and all in a short space of time.

A couple of weeks back, I was also wondering what on earth was happening in Dundee, where similar tragedies were being visited on families. Before that the north-east of Scotland experienced a series of horrifying deaths in car accidents, many involving young people. And, of course, Glasgow always has more than its fair share of mayhem.

And yet, I have to point out that we live in a very safe country: crime in the UK has been declining for years. In Scotland, violent crime has decreased by 55% over the past 10 years. In addition, random violence is rare: most violent crimes are committed by people known to the victim and most murderers are caught and jailed.

So why do we have the impression that violence is rife, that murderers are 'getting away with it', that we live in a lawless society?

It's partly because crime sells newspapers, so the press are always going to feature crime on their front pages. The TV news services likewise use lurid online headlines to get us to watch their bulletins. But it's also because the police (and to a lesser extent, the fire services) make sure their press officers feed the media with information. If there's anything sinister here, it's that it's in the interests of the emergency services to play up the level of serious and violent crime: it's a way of making sure the public resist cuts to the emergency services, especially frontline policing.

Cynically, I would say that scares about knife crime (which is down), random murders (down), the abduction and murder of children by strangers (almost non-existent) - all of these distract us from the less life-threatening but much scarier crimes committed around and against ordinary people: vandalism, drugs, gang activity and property theft of all kinds. These anti-social crimes affect more of us than violent crime. Why don't they appear more often in the media? Could it be because they're so much harder to deal with?

And just in passing, I have to point out that roughly one elderly person a week goes missing in Scotland, usually to be found dead later, often dementia sufferers who have wandered off. Can you imagine the hue and cry if this happened with children? Some victims just don't attract attention.....

Fair comment?

Fair comment on BBC's Reporting Scotland? I think so.

Why? Why? Why?

There are many mysteries in life:

Why can't I find the Mod results on the BBC website?

Why is Bing the worst search engine ever created?

Why is my house invaded in October by giant spiders I never see at any other time?

Why are Virgin's excellent techies served by the worst phone system ever?

Why do people buy new sets of Xmas tree decorations every year? (O yes, they do!)

Why do people who can't spell insist on writing l-o-n-g posts on Facebook?

I don't expect to get answers to any of the questions above but I would love an answer to the next one:

Why are the two top stories on BBC Scotland News tonight fkn football and not unemployment or the independence referendum?????

Scotland's new police chief.....

.....o dear. Can anyone persuade Stephen House to stop dressing up like something out of Kommando Komics and wear something better suited (sorry) to the head of one of Europe's biggest police forces?

The profiles I've read of the man are not particularly flattering. Known as Action Man. A management wonk brought in from the Met. Likes reports. And more reports. Has already suggested HALF the civilian employees will be made redundant and many police stations will be closed once the single police force is set up - and that's before he's even got his feet under the desk.

Does not inspire confidence. Is community policing safe in his hands?

Watch this space.

Welcome to Toryshire

What would drive a perfectly reasonable member of the Labour Party  - that's me, by the way, in case you don't recognise the description - to vote for independence for Scotland? Why, the Tories, of course! Or, more exactly, the obsession of the right wing of the Tory party with backing off from European laws and possibly leaving the EU altogether.

Did I not hear Cameron at his party conference telling us we are 'Better Together'? Obviously that only applies to the UK Union, not the European Union.

Somebody tell me Cameron will grow a backbone and snuff this mad idea out once and for all.

Somebody reassure me the Lib Dems won't allow it to happen.

Prof, leave the kids alone!

I was planning on having an early night tonight after a busy day out today and another to come tomorrow, but then I found myself reading about some new research that suggests children are spending too much time in front of 'screens': tv screens, computer screens, games screens. Somebody mentioned 5 different screens but I've run out of ideas at 3. That may suggest how much 'screens' are part of my life - and probably yours.

Some professor of something or other has got money for research to prove looking at screens is a BAD THING. He apparently wants to stop parents parking their weans in front of screens in the UK.

Just a few points:

* Who says parents are parking their weans in front of screens? I would guess that parents watch things on these screens WITH their kids so there's interaction going on all the time. Show me the evidence that's not the case.

* Supposing the prof is right and parents are parking the weans in front of a screen, show me the evidence this is a bad thing.

* Who says reading a book - a real book - is better for you than reading off a Kindle/tablet screen? I do both. Does that make me a bad person or a good person or 50/50?

* The prof looks to be about 50. He is definitely not a digital native, as most kids now are. Is he suspicious of IT because he's had to learn all about it? While kids just grow up with IT these days, adapt to it and adapt it to do what they want. Kids are much more adaptable than we think: I'm reminded of a Skype call to Chile which all us adults thought was wonderful but during which 7 year old Tito announced he was fed up with all this yakking and was going out to play footie.

* How much time in front of screens is too much? Prove it.

* If this is really part of the 'let's beat obesity' campaign, can we just say so instead of trying to scare parents who really just want to do what's best for their kids?

* If you pass a law restricting the length of time kids can spend using IT, how on earth are you going to police it?

Autumn in Newlands Park

I was right in the middle of a rant about the Tories and their demonisation of benefits claimants, when I realised the sun had disappeared. I'd been planning to go to one of our local parks where I'd noticed a lot of plants and trees with their autumn foliage last week - when I didn't have my camera, of course. So off I went. By the time I got back I'd decided the Tories could go to hell in a handcart for me. Nothing anyone says will change these people.

So here are a few photos of Newlands Park in autumn. Enjoy. By the way, I haven't 'Photoshopped' or cropped the flower photos at all: the colours are so genuine, they don't need to be doctored. Which is more than can be said about the Tories.

Virginia Creeper on a house near the park

 

Japanese Acer

 

 

 

 

Looking towards the pond

 

 

The last blooms of autumn

 

Love the way this rose just seems to float in the air

 

It's Asda for me!

There's no pleasure in clothes shopping if you're fat. Fat people can only expect to buy clothes in styles and colours nobody in their right mind would wear, usually badly made from synthetic materials, badly finished - and if you find something half decent it'll be two or three times the price everybody else has to pay.

Elvi were pricy but good quality and their shop at Newton Mearns shut long ago. Debenhams don't do large sizes. M&S say they do but they lie. New Look at Silverburn do but only cheap n cheerful clothes you know will be done within a few months. M&Co do too but they only sell dead posh stuff by some Danish designer whose tops retail at £32 quid each. Tesco only have Xmas party clothes.

My poor sister for weeks has had to listen to me saying: Honestly, would YOU wear that?!

Then on Saturday the saintly sister suggested we go to Asda in Govan. I walked into the changing room with 7 tops and went to the check-out with 4. I had a choice of styles and colours - and I wasn't paying any more than the rest of the human race. The Asda staff were friendly and helpful and I paid a total of £35. I came home feeling like prehistoric man dragging a wooly mammoth back to the cave. I will go again.In fact, I might even go online and order more stuff to be picked up in-store.

This is for our trip to the Falkirk Wheel on Tuesday.

 

This is for lunch with Diane (from Colonsay) in town on Wednesday at the Bistro Beaumartin.

This is for 'Medea' at the Citz with nephew Al on Friday. Can't show you the 4th top - I'm wearing it!