Slàinte!

I took my courage in both hands this week and phoned the doctors' surgery and turned down their offer of a 'stroke review.' This caused a certain amount of consternation on the part of the receptionist (What doesn't? The words 'good morning' can get this woman into a tizzy.) Did I want another appointment? No. I'm just not doing it any more. I'll take my chances, especially since I've noticed that while we talk at these reviews about my weight, whether I smoke and how much I drink, the one thing we never talk about is the possibility of a stroke.

Nor do I want the ultrasound offered after I recently had a colonoscopy that turned out to be completely clear, as did the blood tests afterwards. My vital organs are in fine fettle, thanks.

The mammogram is also out from now on. The way the mammogram is done has changed recently and it's even more unpleasant than before. Again, I'll take my chances.

I'd already chucked the flu jag because it made me ill. Yes, I know, it's a dead vaccine and can't affect me. But it did.

I'll go on doing what a friend calls 'the excreta test.' I call it the jobby test. But that is it.

So what's brought about this sudden rebellion?

First of all, I'll be 70 in March. I've had a stroke (at 35 - not nice) and Guilain-Barré (now that's a syndrome to avoid if you can) and I honestly never expected to be here. The family history also doesn't make for cheerful reading. That's why I went round the northern hemisphere 7 years ago while I was still pretty fit (cheers, Craig!). But from now on, I'm just going to enjoy life.

Secondly, it's suddenly clear to me that medical science is not keeping up with the ageing population: everyone I know that is heading for 70 or 80 or 90 has got something - or several things - wrong with them. These are not new health problems but just the stuff old people have always had: arthritis, diabetes, cataracts, dementia, sciatica, digestive problems, kidney disease, Parkinson's, etc. What could be a healthy old age is just the same old grind it always was because there are no solutions to these problems - yet.

What's happening now is we're all being urged to examine our 'lifestyle.' As if cutting out the fags, a pint and sweeties could somehow prevent the ageing process or reverse osteoporosis or bowel disease.

I have the awful feeling my generation is just too young to get the benefits of current research into ageing. That's maybe a couple of generations down the line and I wish future generations the best of luck as they live to be 125.

But living in the UK is depressing enough right now without devoting my declining years to a topic as boring as health, so here's to a long and happy - and, with luck, riotous - life! Make the most of it.

Slàinte!

Another Cold War

I'm so old I can remember the first Cold War. 

In the 1950s and 60s, we were all going to be incinerated in our beds by the Reds nuking us. In the event of a nuclear war - expected any minute - Machrihanish (outside Campbeltown) would be turned into an airstrip for the combined US and UK air forces and the fleet in the Holy Loch in Dunoon would be blasted to smithereens either by 'friendly fire' from Machrihanish or by the Russkis. 

We're still waiting. Turned out the Russians (even backed up by the East Germans, Yugoslavs, Czechoslovaks, Hungarians, Poles and Bulgarians) didn't have either the firepower or the desire to blast the poor old UK out of the water. But the fear - ah yes, the fear - kept us on our toes. Kept us spending big bucks on the armed forces for a generation. It also led to the founding of CND - no bad thing, in my opinion.

Now we're told by Gavin Williamson, army minister in the Tory government: 

"Moscow is spying on energy supplies which, if cut, could cause "total chaos" in the country.It is "the real threat... the country is facing at the moment."

Let's get real. Maintaining Fortress Europe, with a full set of nuclear weapons, is only of interest to two world powers: the USA and Russia. And the area the two of them are interested in fighting over is far from the UK. We're talking Crimea and Ukraine. The only way the UK will get involved is because we have the US nuclear weapons base on our territory. At Faslane, to be exact. About 30 miles from Glasgow. Some of us are none too happy about hosting a nuclear fleet - which is really the USA's nuclear fleet. They pay for it. The UK just rents it. 

Gavin Williamson on behalf of the UK government wants more money spent on the UK's 'defence' (that is, 'attack') budget and he's trying to make a case for it. He also wants the replacement for Trident in place quite soon and that's to be parked at Faslane too. 

It is all, of course, bollocks. Exactly what 'energy supplies' are the Russians threatening to cut off? Oil, gas, wind power, wave power, water? Give us an example - proof if you like.  How do the British government know that's what's planned? Have they intercepted messages? Threats? At least tell us how the Russians might go about it. 

This is like the stories of Russian fighter jets flying over UK air space that we've been hearing for months now. No, they don't. They do fly but they're in international air space and no threat to the UK. 

The amounts of extra money these people are talking about spending on 'defence' are eye-watering. 200billion quid on a replacement for Trident alone. Given the condition of the UK economy - thanks to Brexit, the historic debt racked up by both Labour and the Tories since 2008, the deficit, and the indecision of the Westminster government about what to do about, well, any of it - we can't afford to spend more on anything, and least of all the military. 

Cutting 'welfare' spending will only save about 2% of GDP this year - if that. 

Productivity is falling, along with wages and standards of living. The UK is already slipping down the league table of wealth-producing countries, with a poorer debt rating than ever before. 

So how come Theresa May is suddenly Trump's best buddy at Davos. Well, here's the reason: Trump holds the purse strings. Just read all this again if you're not convinced. 

There are times when I wonder what it will take to persuade the people of the four nations of the UK they're being taken for mugs. Will there ever come a time when people will say: Enough? I wish I could think so. But right now all I can see are Daily Mail/Telegraph/Express readers standing up in cinemas across England to applaud Winston Churchill - Our Winnie - and looking back at their history. And let's not worry too much about the future. 

Banks

Well, in fact, RBS. Specifically, RBS Giffnock. Again.

I was in the bank last Monday and I got a request from them afterwards to fill in a 'brief' questionnaire. I was delighted. Saves me the bother of writing another furious letter.

It looks as if every RBS branch around Giffnock has been closed down apart from Shawlands (where you can't park). That means a couple of things: it is inconvenient for customers who would like to bank locally in places like Newton Mearns or Barrhead, but it's also a total pain in the arse for those of us who use the Giffnock branch because there are always extra customers waiting to be served. Add to that a 're-vamp' of the branch, which reduced the number of tellers from 4 to 2 (although last Monday I noted a 3rd teller was on duty) and the removal of all - och, I don't know what they're called - people who used to be there to talk to you about your account/lend you money/set up ISAs, etc. Those people have gone. The tellers do it all.

Last time I wrote a furious letter in July 2017, I complained about a few things:

- queues - okay if you're well and young and able to stand for up to 20 minutes, but not so good for  me. Last week there were a few chairs dotted around (as I'd suggested) but nowhere near the queuing point. I've now suggested RBS should just go the whole hog and make the branch like a reception area of A&E or a doctors' surgery with rows of seats. Maybe even issue tickets, like at some supermarket delis, so you know when your turn will come. Last time I complained, the manager phoned me. He wasn't very taken with my suggestions...

- over-extended tellers: I can't explain it any other way. I don't go into the branch that often (for obvious reasons) but every time I've been there I've heard a teller (1 of 2, remember) suggest a customer should get involved in some scheme or other: have a review, put funds into an ISA, etc. That means the teller has to shoot off into the back office to get the paperwork and, when she (it's almost always a she) comes back, she's tied up for a long time with one customer. I also object to the fact that their conversation is not private.

- useless ATMs. Every couple of weeks, I need the sum of 55 quid for my cleaners. The RBS machines don't do fivers. The manager assured me way back in July that machines that did fivers were coming but there's no sign yet.

- service: I'm not going to start banging on about how we the taxpayers own RBS, although we do. But something has gone drastically wrong with RBS's concept of service in the last few years. I'm a customer - have been for 52 years - not that that matters. But my bank account is not free: I pay a fee monthly to keep it running.

I do want to make it known to RBS: I am not here to meet the needs of your shareholders. The bank is - or should be - here to meet my needs as a customer. And it isn't doing that.

Then I read that RBS is closing its branch in Barra. I suppose that's one way to avoid the queues and the useless ATMs. But if I lived in Barra I'd want to know what the hell kind of service is this? When I was in Islay in August last year and in October the year before, the only place we could get cash from an ATM was Bowmore - ironically at the RBS branch there - unless the post office was open. Time was when RBS in Islay had branches at Bridgend, Port Ellen and Bowmore. So do people just routinely drive to Bowmore these days from all over the island?

I'm sick of this. I've spent years refusing to deal with companies that don't treat their staff or their customers well (the two go together in my experience). So why should banks be allowed to get away with such treatment of their customers?

Accidents at sea

Two men are missing after a fishing boat sank in Loch Fyne. You can only pray for a miracle.

To people living in the Central Belt this means little. Their day in the workplace will start on Friday as it did the day before. To people who live in the rural and coastal communities of Scotland, where a lot of men depend on fishing for their livelihood, this news sends a shiver down the spine.

I remember well when four young men were lost from the small community of Iona. That was in 1998.

The Independent got it right: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/the-lost-sons-of-iona-1191467.html

I'm not sure what happened next. These young men were young: the next generation of parents and grandparents. Can a small community recover from that kind of loss?  I know that Iona at that time needed a teacher for its primary school and an Argyll teacher volunteered to move to the island and stayed there for a few years. The island's community council advertised for people to come and live there. Did it work? Is the community recovering? I hope so. 

Further back, three young men were lost when fishing off Islay. They often went out on the boat together. The weather was fine and there was no reason to expect a problem, But later the weather turned bad: an Islay mist came down. I remember standing in my back garden in Bowmore and hearing the helicopter flying over towards the local hospital. Like everyone else, I hoped someone had been found alive. But that wasn't the outcome.

One of the young men missing was a former pupil from the high school. One was the son of the school secretary in the same school. The third was the badminton partner of a colleague's wife.

In the case of Loch Fyne, I'm still hoping for a miracle.

Fancy a movie?

I don't go to the movies any more - apart from the very occasional outing to the GFT (Glasgow Film Theatre).

I can't stand the smells for a start: hot dogs and nachos eaten by people who apparently canny go 20 minutes without eating something. Meanwhile I can't get a decent cup of coffee to take in with me - let alone a glass of wine - just an overpriced bottle of water.

I also can't stand the disruption: 10 minutes after the film starts, some clown in my row wants out. It's always a guy. What for? To go to the toilet or to buy a 'snack'? Why didn't he do that before the movie started?

And I really canny stand the noise: phones going off, despite requests on the screen for 'patrons' to turn their phones off. The phones ringing might be acceptable if it wasn't for the morons who answer the calls and carry on a wee conversation while I'm trying to follow the film.

And then there's the prices:  I looked them up: 'the average Odeon peak adult cinema ticket to see a 2D movie costs £9.04, although in many cases extra charges apply. Off-peak it is £8.0.0' The extra charges are for 3D and no doubt for 'special' showings of films like Star Wars.

So that's £16-18.08 for 2 adults on a date. Not to mention the cost of the 'snacks' or the meal beforehand. And how much is that for a family of 2 adults and 2 kids I wonder?

It doesn't surprise me to read that cinema attendances in the USA are falling pretty fast and it's mainly due to rising ticket costs:

https://movieweb.com/movie-theater-attendance-2017-rising-ticket-prices/

I'll bet it's happening in the UK too.

Old people like me remember when this happened before.

When I was wee, I went to the movies every Saturday morning with the 'big girls', local lassies who would march 20 or more of us along Govan Road to the Plaza cinema to see Disney classics like Cinderella and Snow White. My mother told me the big girls were mortified when I stood up during Cinderella and bellowed: 'You've dropped yer slipper!'

In my teens, I went to the movies just about every week with my friends. I lived in Pollok which had zero facilities of any kind: nae cinema, nae pub, nae cafes, definitely nae restaurants. But there was a cinema in nearby Cardonald that we could walk to, and if we didn't fancy the movie that was on there (note: cinemas then showed different films, not the same 3 or 4 blockbusters), we would take the bus to Mosspark (one cinema) or to Govan (3 cinemas, although it used to be 5).

And then cinemas shut down and were converted into bingo halls. After that, they either shut altogether or were turned into supermarkets. By then I was a student and could go to the movies in the centre of Glasgow - and get a discount.

Now I wonder: what happens next? A repeat of the disaster of the 70s and 80s? Or can the multiplexes reinvent themselves? It will take a real re-imagining.

I see some UK cinemas are installing armchairs - recliners, in fact. I seem to remember enjoying that  - and wonderful air conditioning - maybe 15 years ago in Canada and the USA.

How about private viewings? Book a small theatre in a multiplex for you and your family and friends. You pick the film and choose the time and date, and the cinema arranges the snacks or the meal in a nearby restaurant. Actually that sounds like quite a good way for me to celebrate my upcoming big birthday!

Cheers!

Did anyone else notice a newspaper headline at the weekend suggesting that: 3 in 5 adults reward themselves with an alcoholic drink as a way to relax after the working day?

Did you tut in despair at the way standards have slipped? Or did you, like me, think: Really? 3 in 5 admit to doing this? Some of these people are lying and it isn't the drinkers! And it's pretty rich this news coming with a hefty slap of disapproval from journalists, not themselves the most abstemious people in the world.

But why would people drink nowadays?

I mean, it's not like the 18th century when the lives of the poor in Britain were awful and it was cheaper to buy gin (and feed it to your children) than it was to buy food.



 After all, we live in the 5th - or is it now, thanks to the Tories, the 6th - wealthiest economy in the world. And we all know about the dangers of too much drink. The media are never done telling us.

I would say we're on the way to driving smoking out of our society. That was always a good way to relax - and I speak from personal experience. So having a drink at the end of the day probably replaces the fags.

And then, there's the stress people now endure at work: there's constant pressure to work harder and do more. Keep up to date with technology even though you're not paid to do so. And take more responsibility. In many public services, just as in industry, staff have been cut over the last three decades, but especially since the introduction of 'austerity', and more work is routinely passed on to those who are left. And remember, the UK is still the country in the wider Europe where people work the longest hours, not because they want to but because that's the only way to get through the work.

And still, we are less productive than the Germans. Go figure.

Sadly, we also suffer from what I call Thatcher syndrome: her government introduced the idea of workers being at the customer's beck and call, even if you didn't have the staff to handle the demand. So people these days apparently will not wait so much as a minute but need to have their phone call answered within 4 rings. Need a reply to a letter within 5 to 7 working days. Need to be attended to within minutes of arriving at the checkout, although UK supermarkets - god rot them - are getting round that one by having almost no manned check outs, just self-serve, so if you're going to moan about anyone it'll be another customer.

And if all that's not bad enough, in the small amount of leisure time left to you you can switch on the telly or open a newspaper or surf the internet and there you'll find people waiting to hector you about your lifestyle:

Give up smoking.
Stop drinking.
Go vegan.
Avoid sugar.
Don't eat chocolate or cheese or Gregg's sausage rolls.

Above all, don't listen to the conflicting advice given at every turn by the so-called experts, and ignore the fact that these days every GP practice and every dental surgery routinely doles out a 'lifestyle survey' to its patients. I once asked my dentist why he needed to know what and how much I drank. He had a kinda shifty answer: Well, you see, he said, gin can affect your teeth. And he wasn't best pleased when I said: Okay, I'm all right then - I don't drink gin. Cheers!

As the great Adam McNaughtan's song told the late Princess Di who was a great fan of colonic irrigation: you can do what you like but...

Yer still gonny die!

Toby

I was going to post a picture of Toby Young, the new 'universities tsar', but for some reason google won't let me. Not to worry. If you care what he looks like (weedy, specky, beardy and a bit thick - what else do you need to know?), you can google him yourself. It won't take you long to find Toby's shenanigans on the internet, despite his attempts to delete his history.

Toby Young isn't a Scottish problem. I'm glad to say we have our own devolved education system and, all being well, Toby won't be getting anywhere near it. So why bother with him?

Well, it's just that for the moment, Scotland is stuck with a Tory government in Westminster headed up by a person with the poorest social skills I've ever seen in a politician. I've had hamsters with a better knack for getting on with people - and I've had one that ate my skirt. While I was wearing it. I can go back to the early 60s and tell you about Sir Alec Douglas Home who tried to explain the UK economy on the telly using matchsticks. Then there was Ted Heath, described by my family as an idiot and creepy with it. When Harold Wilson retired suddenly, I asked my very astute father why: He's losing his marbles, he said. And he was, due to early-onset dementia, although it's been well hidden ever since. I asked my grandad if George Brown would be the next prime minister and was told: Nah - he's a drunk.

Theresa May seems to lack the kind of judgement that ordinary people have when faced with her colleagues, never mind the opposition. My honest opinion is that she should have sacked most of her cabinet immediately after the disastrous general election of 2017. Even looking at the situation as a total outsider with no political knowledge, it's obvious May has dug a big hole for herself and is now slowly disappearing into it. She's stuck with Boris Johnson. She's going to have to make Jeremy Rhymingslang her depute. And the moron David Davis will be allowed to go on making an arse of Brexit.

And Toby Young will keep his well-paid job, despite the outrage of women, working class people and the disabled, all of whom he has managed to offend mightily on twitter. Because behind Theresa, and Boris, and Jeremy, and all the rest of the cabinet there's the utter arrogance of the Tory grandees, who know they can do and say what they like because the public - especially in the south of England - will go on voting Tory. They'll continue to describe Boris as a bit of a card. They'll still say David Davis is doing his best against the hostility of the EU. They'll go on thinking Jeremy Hunt is a safe pair of hands, despite the fact that the rest of us can see he's as slimy as hell and plans to run down the NHS till he can privatise it.

So here's a question for people in Scotland: you've seen the list of people who donate to Scotland in Union and - heaven help us all - they're as close to Tory grandees as you'll ever find in Scotland. Is this really who you want to have running your country? 

The media game

The news is the NHS is in a helluva state: nurses treating patients in the back of ambulances because there's no room for them in hospital corridors; ambulance staff stuck in hospital car parks for hours because they can't offload their patients; hospital corridors blocked with trolleys because all the wards are full; operations postponed because hospital beds are needed for emergencies; nursing and medical staff at breaking point. 

Winter in the NHS. It happens every year. But wait a wee minute.

The horror story being described on TV, radio and in the UK newspapers right now is about the NHS in England. It may even be about the situation in Wales and Northern Ireland but there's no way to tell because the headline is always just 'the NHS.' We know it's not happening in Scotland. At least, some of us do. Some of us know that health is a devolved issue and the NHS in Scotland is actually doing a lot better than it is elsewhere, despite an ageing population and the usual outbreak of winter flu.

The same applies to the distribution of broadband: the Labour Party faults the Scottish Government for not setting up rapid broadband communication faster, but never mentions the fact that this issue is reserved (that's the right word) to Westminster and the Scottish Government has no control over the project. So the newspaper headlines and TV reports finger the Scottish Government, not Westminster.

This week, farmers in Scotland demanded the Scottish Government tell them what subsidies will be available after Brexit, although Brexit is again an issue that is reserved to Westminster.

But some of the Scottish public think postponed operations and total chaos on the wards apply to Scotland too, that the Scottish Government is failing to deliver broadband and somehow the Scottish Government is responsible for farming subsidies.

So it's turned into a wee game: it's not that Sky News and all the other news outlets like ITV and STV don't know that the NHS in England is different from the service in other countries of the UK. They just prefer to ignore the fact. And they have to know which matters are devolved to Scotland and the other devolved authorities and which are reserved to Westminster. Unless they are totally stupid. And even this lot are not that stupid.

Who is responsible for feeding false information to the public on these matters? I can't decide if it's the TV news channels which seem to miss out the word 'English' when dealing with matters that don't affect any other area of the UK. As if they think the word 'England' somehow covers the whole of 'Britain.'

Or maybe it's the constant flood of non-information put out by the Tories and Labour, often using Freedom of Information requests to provide false information, like this week's revelation that some ambulances in Scotland go out manned by a single person. Yes, they do: they always have - those are the ambulances doing non-emergency work, picking up and dropping up patients. But suddenly this is presented by the Tories in Scotland as a problem.

The ramifications for Scotland when another independence referendum comes are quite clear: the media (TV, radio, and almost all newspapers) will say anything, tell any lie, spout any kind of nonsense on behalf of the union. And since those of us who believe Scotland is capable of being an independent country have no other outlets, we have to keep battering away in the pages of the National and the Sunday Herald. And we have to demand - honestly, demand - that Scottish
Government spokespeople get out there and make it known how the news is being distorted. It's not that hard: most TV and radio journalists these days seem to be gutless: won't press home any point but just allow their interviewees to spout tosh. And if we can't rely on 'mainstream media' there are plenty of us out here online happy to spread the word.

Who runs Scotland?

I came across a reference to a 'Lord Lieutenant' in something I was reading today and realised I'd no idea who this person is or what he or she does.

So I googled it:

<<The Lord-Lieutenant is the British monarch's personal representative in each county of the United Kingdom...the Lord-Lieutenant is largely an honorary position, usually awarded to a retired notable person in the county>>.

I'm guessing here that the LL is picked by her maj from a suitable list of notable persons and that's not going to be made up of the local butcher or the crossing patrol woman who retired last year or the village postmaster. So who are these people? The last LL of Ayrshire was a retired soldier (officer class). The current one is a former sheriff in Kilmarnock. There doesn't seem to be any information about the LL in other areas.

The Lord Lieutenant it seems has deputies. They don't get paid a wage but they do get a military-style uniform and expenses to cover their costs, secretarial help, mileage allowance and a driver.

A driver of what, I wonder? 

The 'modern' responsibilities of Lords-Lieutenant include:

• Arranging visits of members of the royal family and escorting royal visitors;
• Presenting medals and awards on behalf of the sovereign, and advising on honours nominations;
• Participating in civic, voluntary and social activities within the lieutenancy;

Well, this is just so much flannel - the kind of stuff I associate with the royal family. Utterly irrelevant to real life. But wait, there's more...

• Acting as liaison with local units of the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Army, Royal Air Force and their associated cadet forces;
• Leading the local magistracy as chairman of the Advisory Committee on Justices of the Peace; and
• Chairing the local Advisory Committee for the Appointment of the General Commissioners of Income Tax, a tribunal which hears appeals against decisions made by the HM Revenue and Customs on a variety of different tax related matters.

It's these last bits I'm bothered about. Well, no, I'm a liar: I don't like the idea of the monarchy having any role in my life. But this is starting to look like another layer of government. Or an alternative government that we don't get to vote on. Who pays for this liaison with the troops, and the chairing of this and that? I'll bet it's not her maj. And what on earth can a LL possibly contribute to HM Revenue and Customs appeals or the appointments of justices of the peace? 

I expect a lot of the people who take up these 'grace and favour' positions are thrilled to be asked to do so. And, I'm sure, they carry out their duties to the best of their ability. But we don't need them and, above all, they are not accountable to the voters of the country. 

It's just like the House of Lords, which is a racket in my opinion: a way of keeping a layer of government in place that is not answerable to any of us and is, thus, above the people and not of the people. The House of Lords is the opposite of democracy: it's a way of perpetuating the 'ancien régime' that the French got rid of in 1789. And as long as we keep allowing this group of people to go on promoting each other, making decisions on the future of the UK and - most of all - raking in enough cash in expenses so they don't have to actually earn a living, there can't be democracy here.