31st July 2022

 I wanted to write about my home city, currently enjoying national glory via the Commonwealth Games. Everone Brummie is here. Lenny Henry, Julie Walters, Ozzie, Duran Duran etc.  But…
I’m fed up with trade union leaders like Mick Lynch, who are using the Games to blackmail the government and the nation by calling on its relatively well-paid members (train drivers earn c.£59k pa) to stop the public getting to the Games and anywhere else for that matter. Similarly, BT and other trade union leaders are calling for a General Strike, not seen here since 1926. There’s simply no comparison between then and now. After WWI, high demand for coal and slowness to modernise the industry led to massive unemployment and real hardship. But now? During lockdown, paying everyone furlough wages plus supply chain disruption was bound to leave the economy with inflation. Every day, the media reports that advanced economies around the world are all dealing with similar problems. Strikes should only ever be used as a last resort, when workers are absolutely desperate.  So, why are senior Labour Party officials like John McDonnell calling for a General Strike now?  It’s greed, stupidity and self-aggrandisement - a bullish approach to the rest of us on much lower incomes….
Here’s the amazing, snorting bull at the opening ceremony of the Games in Birmingham. Seems appropriate somehow.

24th July 2022

The best laid plans…I should have been writing this from Scotland - a treat for our Emerald wedding anniversary - but we both got Covid instead. As if I haven’t suffered enough this year. Bell’s Palsy, diabetes and now the evil bat disease - but still I haven’t managed to talk to my GP! Our local NHS hospitals are just as great as before, but it seems that GP surgeries are now largely privately-run businesses. However, unlike in the US - where patients are the paying customer and therefore sought after - the poor UK patient gets the worst end of the stick. No-one’s interested in me because I’m not paying, so three times this year I’ve had to bypass the GP altogether.  I liken it to when a bus driver depends on getting to the terminus depot on time to such an extent that he speeds past the queues waiting at bus stops. In other words, the original rationale for his job has changed markedly to suit a very different clientele. I had hoped my GP would prescribe Praxlovid, the best Covid drug, but was eventually told by an urgency clinic I found at last, that I wasn’t “vulnerable enough”. (No problem for the US President I see). I simply don’t understand why the general public here haven’t taken to the streets yet in protest. At least today’s ST is at last headlining it. 

17th July 2022

 On yesterday’s Today programme, a Heathrow official said what a wonderful job the airport was doing, post-lockdown. Well, over the last few weeks I’ve had an ideal opportunity to compare it with Boston’s Logan airport. A world of difference.  Heathrow was a nightmare, outbound and on our return. Passengers are treated like cattle, rounded up and steered into various ‘pens’!  Why is it thought acceptable to make us walk for twenty minutes to reach the departure gate? Meantime there’s the inordinate amount of time they expose everyone to the money-making plethora of shops and restaurants before announcing the gate numbers. And don’t even start me on the security queues and procedures, where - like hamsters in a revolving wheel - tired passengers are forced to walk yet more miles around Disneyworld-like barrier chicanes before being grilled and x-rayed. In contrast, Boston had few shops and, once through security, you’re straight through to one long space containing all departure gates. No twenty min walk anywhere. Boston security, though, was curious. Those under 75 (me, just) had a full-body x-ray, arms above my head, and had to remove shoes, whilst the over-75s (OH) didn’t! Now need a lie down in a darkened room.

10th July 2022

 So Boris was forced to resign as Conservative leader. The political landscape looks very different from afar. The media has much to answer for: a pernicious witch hunt. Never have I seen such intensive, incessant, bull-baiting in a land supposedly decent and democratic. It all started with the pandemic, which came out of the blue. Laws had to be formed instantly, without precedent, which were difficult to enforce and impossible to legislate against. Both the main Party leaders were caught via the gossamer-thin pandemic laws. Boris was caught in an entangled web of his own making, ridiculously judged by an obscure ‘hanging judge’ and a ‘socialist’ police force, whilst Keir slipped free via a police commissioner whom he’d canvassed for previously? Such is the slippery political path that governs a nation. What next then? 

In America

 Ah, the highs and lows of American hospitality. I didn’t expect any lows. Yesterday the ferry from Portland Maine to Diamond Cove Island was understandably packed. It’s high summer and the weather was glorious. But we struggled to find a seat on the wooden benches on board. Opposite me were 2 ladies sitting on a bench for six people. Either side of them were lots of bags filling the whole bench. As the ferry moved on the waves, making our stance unsteady, I asked them politely to move their bags to the floor so we - as seniors - could sit. They refused!! Grrr. In complete comparison, on the island,  a resident in his own golf cart offered to give us a ride in the heat. So generous and kind. Thank you sir.