25 October 2010 (Monday) - This and That..

Last Wednesday I mucked out my letters rack. This morning the thing was full again. Including a letter from the DVLA containing my road tax disc. I ordered it on-line on Wednesday and the thing must have come with the post either on Friday or Saturday. I’m impressed with that.

I see from the news that my mother is about to get some new neighbours. In order to help the poorer families in London, the Government is to pack them off to poorer parts of the country. Apparently this had two advantages. Firstly the poorer families won’t feel out of place if they are lumped in with the lower orders of other towns. And secondly they won’t be lowering house prices for those who feel the need for a little exclusivity. I *thought* the Prime Minister was keen on fairness for all?

Such slum clearances have been done before – and anyone who lives near me can tell you what a roaring success Stanhope has been (not!). If anyone could be bothered to look back through Parliament’s records, Hansard (from over fifty years ago) records what a failure the entire concept of “London overspill towns” was.

For all that history can be dull, if we don’t learn from it, we just keep on making the same mistakes….

In closing I’m going to be somewhat depressing. I met some old colleagues today. I hadn’t seen them for fourteen years, since they moved to Swansea. They were back in the area because one of our old bosses is very ill, and they were visiting. I deliberately haven’t visited because I know how ill this chap is.

Once a very well regarded and respected member of the hospital staff, following a major stroke the chap is now bedridden and (from all reports) is utterly oblivious to the world around him, is incapable of speech or movement, and has very little chance of ever improving. I haven’t visited the chap because I know that he wouldn’t want me seeing him in that state.

And I wouldn’t want anyone to see me in such a state either. Should the worst happen, please take this blog entry as written instructions to pull my plug.

(Normal service and knob jokes will resume as soon as possible…)

In the meantime, have you heard about the bird….?