Through the wonders of
continuous positive airway pressure I slept till 9am this morning.
That's unheeard of. Over brekkie I solved a geo-puzzzle (with just
the teensiest bit of help) and then saw something on-line which
made me cross.
A local branch of the
Pilgrim's Hospice is
to close. The public are up in arms and all sorts of campaigns to
save the place have been launched on Facebook. But as Mr Fenn (my
old English Teacher) used to say "fine words butter no
parsnips". The hospice openly says on their website "More
than 75% of our funding comes from our hugely generous local
community". Obviouusly the local community isn't so generous
any more.
Those who are full of
indignation aboutt the closure of the hospice have become accustomed
to free health care but they don't seem to realise that not all of it
is government-funded. I have maintained (for over thirty years)
that the best way to maintain public services such as this is *not*
to subsidise them by voluntary donations. No government (of any
political persuasion) is going to fund anything that someone else
is already paying for. The Health Service is under incredible
financial constraints; why would they use very limited resources on
hospices and air ambulances and blood deliveries when someone else is
willing to pay for these services?
I then spent the morning
failing to solve more geo-puzzles, and then we went on something of a
mission. To town for assorted shopping. We got the makings of five
gallons of beer for £7.50, which was something of a bargain. We went
to Dobbies for a crafty munzee, and then round to the Riverview
Diner at Bybrook Barn for lunch. For those of my loyal readers
who've never been there, the Riverview Diner is an authentic American
diner which was shipped to Ashford from the US fourteen years ago.
I'm reliably informed (from those wwho know) that the menu is
"American as the Brits would imagine it to be".
There's no denying the place is rather gimmicky, but I love it.
From there we popped
round to the music studios. The music shop has relocated there and I
needed new reeds for my sax. I got chatting with the chap on the
till, and when he realised I was a student at the music studios I got
a ten per cent reduction.
We then went on to visit
"Daddies Little Angel TM", who is
blooming. We took her to Folkestone's equivalent of the
Cheapo-Bargains shop. Something of an eye-opener. We would have gone
on to the Admiralty, but time was pressing.
Home, and Martin visted.
He's been to the Folkestone
Geek Fest which had taken place today. I'd considered going, but
had decided against it. I was right to have done so. Having paid a
fiver to get into the place there was nothing to do except to spend
more money. Many years ago when a group of us used to frequent the
fandom scene there was all sorts of stuff to see and do at sci-fi
conventions. Nowadays they are just places where you buy overpriced
merchanidise and buy expensive autographs from people who were famous
many years ago. Apparently sci-fi stars of twenty years ago were
littering Folkestone's Geek Fest today. Charging (on average)
fifteen pounds per autograph they couldn't keep up with the demand.
And with "er
indoors TM" off to film night and "Furry
Face TM" chewing on his new bone I tried
out my new saxophone reeds. There is still an occasional bum note,
but far fewer than I have been experienceing. Mind you at £8.50 for
three, as opposed to ten for a fiver from eBay, I would hope for a
noticeable improvement.
I'm now going to watch
more of "Game of Thrones"; if nothing else the
blonde one gets her kit off and flops them out with entertaining
regularity...
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