Monday 29 December 2014

Looking for signs of life

A farmer on the radio (from where all my inspiration comes) said that he had just scanned his sheep, and 12 were 'empty'. You have to be ruthless to use terminology like that, but I think you have to be ruthless to be a farmer, full stop.

A Network Rail executive is on the radio right now, failing to justify why he had allowed thousands of people to be stranded at Christmas because of 'essential work' to the lines which was not completed by the time that everyone needed to escape their loved ones and get home.

Traditionally, he explained, Christmas is a quiet time, by which he means that most of the businesses which allow their employees a few days off are going to lose money anyway, so carrying out work on the railway at this holiday period produces minimum disruption - to them.

I'm not going to bang on about the privatisation of public services again (he lied), but this wouldn't have happened with British Rail - even under Beeching - would it?

Someone called the police over Christmas on a 999 call, because a hedgehog was eating slugs at the bottom of his garden. How is this related to the privatisation of public services?

Well, this 999 call should have obviously been taken by the Mental Health authorities, but they are all so stretched working in A and E right now, that the police have to handle all the nutters by holding them in cells which should be reserved for drunks, and they are completely untrained for this sort of work.

Stories like these are a good way of softening everyone up for further privatisation - you know, leave it to the professionals.

19 comments:

  1. Farmers are down to earth and call a spade a spade and it is a pity more people don't do the same. Ruthless is not the same thing.
    Nobody wants to deal with mental health cases, A&E are too busy with drunks and can't do mental health even when they're not and the police shouldn't be doing it either because they aren't equipped for mental health cases. The asylums should never have been closed down. Yes and bring back BR, I agree with you.

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    1. I didn't think farmers even used spades these days, let alone call them by name. Anyway, it took a while to find out that you ultimately agree with me, but we got there in the end.

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  2. Round here Rachel, the farmers call a spade a shovel.
    As regards the rest of your remarks Tom - well it made me laugh out loud, otherwise I would have cried. Is this a sign we are all getting old or is the country really going to pot - or worse.

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    1. Sorry Weave, but spades and shovels are two different things.

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  3. Whilst I agree about BR. Having worked for 35 years in the MH field, including in an old asylum, I can say the latter were generally locales of systematic institutional abuse and it was right they were closed. Unfortunately since the current Government's NHS 'reforms' MH is being once again starved of funds relative to the rest of the NHS staff. I always find farmers a bit scary.

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    1. Bear in mind it wasn't me who called for asylums to be brought back. Farmers also make a second career out of frightening people - usually with shotguns.

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  4. NHS full stop. Blogger edit could not get rid of the surplus 'staff'. (You know what I mean)

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  5. Perhaps you would have been less offended if the farmer had said "Oh bother this sheep is not with child".which is considerably less "ruthless" I'm sure he wouldn't have offended Your sensibilities deliberately.
    Re. Rachel's comment about re-pening asylums and your apparent agreement. I am proud to say that I was part of the army of people who supported people to move out of such institutions. And even then we had stopped referring to people with mental health difficulties as "Nutters"

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    1. Fucking hell - Rachel seems to be putting words into my mouth again - when did I EVER say that I wanted to reintroduce asylums? As for 'nutters', then I am proud to include myself in that category, largely as a result of the ingest of top-quality LSD. As far as sheep go, then I can tell you that my sensibilities have been in no way offended, other than that - in the old days - mutton was the available meat due to the wool industry. You keep you knickers on.

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  6. Before you all get your knickers in a twist I made the remark about asylums tongue in cheek. I worked in an asylum in Norwich as a management trainee in the early 1980s, hated it, and we still had inmates who had been there since the 1930s. I know it was all very wrong. The point is there are not enough facilities for the mentally ill today. I don't know the answers though.

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    1. Well said Rachel. I - and Clarkson - knew what you were talking about.

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    2. I feared that Frugal in Derbyshire had misunderstood me. I assumed you hadn't.

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    1. And with him, nutters, spades, shovels, asylums, hedgehogs, and empty sheep. Just another day.

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  8. In Germany, the privatisation of trains brought us lots and lots of hours "lost" waiting for trains. Privatisation of the post took us lots and lots of parcels "lost" on their way. Privatisation of hospitals brought perversed economic thinking into health care, with a lot of humanity "lost" on the way when poor overworked doctors and nurses run to do their statistics.

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