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FEBRUARY 2013
MONDAY 18th FEBRUARY 2013
Bluntly, excuse my colloquialism, "I'm bloody pissed orf". Damned NUJ union has decided their members are not up to the job requirements of the future and have decided to go on strike, meaning I have no immediate access to continuing news stories (channel 80), as I please on the channel I prefer. Let's be absolutely up front about this. That members are facing compulsory redundancy and the BBC, having decided to redeploy where they can and having ended up with surplus to requirements have proceeded as many hundreds of commercially viable private firms have had to cope across the country, as NUJ members are fully aware, for they are the ones who have been telling us! That the BBC is externally advertising while offloading is a clear statement that those being offloaded do not fit the criteria of the jobs on offer. What the NUJ is in effect saying is: "people for jobs should be selected on the basis of their colour, nationality, ethnicity, disability and total inadequacy but we do not accept they should be selected because they are right for the job". That is typical trades unionism! Fine. We have the internet. I'll go abroad. I also have Channel 4 which after the BBC is in my view the best TV news channel. And I'll bet the NUJ has been right behind all its members who have been causing the outrage of recent press irresponsible journalists ploughing cavalierly across people's private lives. We must get across some sense of personal accountability which apparently still does not exist in either trades union or Labour circles of influence.
MONDAY 18th FEBRUARY 2013
In responding to the BBC's Sunday morning: Breakfast, Andrew Marr, The Big Questions, Sunday Politics, I discovered a report on Wilko Johnson's reaction to being diagnosed with terminal cancer.
SUNDAY 17th FEBRUARY 2013
In responding to the BBC's Sunday morning: Breakfast, Andrew Marr, The Big Questions, Sunday Politics, I discovered a report on Wilko Johnson's reaction to being diagnosed with terminal cancer.
We all respond in different ways to shock news that suddenly turns our private world upside down: be that through news of accident affecting others, or our direct involvement in accident or trauma; and we have no idea how we would respond. My cancer is not at this stage terminal but having spent two years, during which doctors have had to undertake two lung biopsies to know what they are dealling with, although that is only one aspect of my health problems, I know how such dramatic news can promote an extraordinarily positive response.
Too frequently, even those of us who maintain up-to-date wills, forget our inevitable mortality. It is good to be suddenly brought up short and made to think. My response was to immediately change priorities and start looking at what I needed to do to try and make my departure from this life as easy and organsied as possble for those left behind.
I am a bachelor, which places an extra tier of responsibility. I have to cover being mentally unfit or otherwise being incapacitated, as well as what is to happen to my body. I am an inclusive organ donor and as I cannot stand funerals I need to try and get science to accept my body. My family line is straight to first cousins. Fortunately, there is one who understands my mind and in whom I can trust absolutely. By the time all is organised to guide her, I can make arrangements for a solicitor to handle in the event some tragedy causes me to lose her.
There is an ad for cancer related funding currently on UK TV which illustrates succinctly what it must feel like when you are still years from your expected natural demise. Despite prolonged life expectancy, the fact (barring acident) that I shall make three score years and ten dilutes any sense of panic; my mind is pre-programmed that anything in excess is a bonus and many have not made that. Therein lies a sense of guilt which I will dwell on later. My news is simply signalling the terminus is approaching: a warning that time's sand is running out and from now on my mind should be more concentrated on evaluating priorities as to how I should spend that time and what do I really want to make sure I complete. Therein lies the advantage of modern medicine, even if it is still unable to be more precise. It has flashed up "buffers ahead", stand by, rather like offering one a sherry, while one contemplates the menu.
WEDNESDAY 13th FEBRUARY 2013
In response to the BBC's "The Big Question", asking if organ donation should be by default of not opting out.
Yes. Society is at the tipping point of recognising a more realistic and pragmatic attitude to death. At one time cancer was never spoken about and people were "spared" knowing they were terminally ill (there were always exceptions of course). There is also a tipping point over aspects of religion and the exciting acquiring of new scientific knowledge and acceptance of scientific pragmatism.
Increasingly, those of religious belief or wider philosophy are being called to account for their views. Bodies are nothing more than encapsulations of biological activity. On all counts it is utterly immoral for any person to deny another life at all, or simply a better quality of life once it is clear their caldron of biological activity is unable to continue, to anyone else.
We have got to accept that if we cannot fund all needed medical help it is immoral to keep someone alive, when they are ready in all aspects to depart and deny an otherwise healthy person in pain a hip replacement when they need it.
One does not apply the laws of physics to the science of biology: why then defame researchers into the world of spirit; the reality of spiritual empathy between all living things; the complexity of deep prayer and contemplation; and those entities no longer in possession of physical bodies who wish and do communicate with those on this plane?
There is no conflict between science and concepts of the nature of God: the empiricist knows because they have experienced.
Before adding in above my response to a Facebook post. An interesting morning of contrasts and contradictions. Waitrose seem to be refurbishing their car park electronics for which there clearly had been no pre-planning for physical management, unless they too were caught out by an extraordinary busy morning. It seemed that everyone had chosen 11:00a.m. to shop. I had expected to whip in and out but then found myself buying more than was on my original list, having waited an unconscionable time for a parking space, acquired by going in exactly the opposite direction to everyone else.
We had Obama's announcement of some sort of intention to gun reality last night, countered by news of another American behaving oddly this morning, despite training to the contrary, killing four people pointlessly and then having a shootout with police. Now presumed dead, my response is, 'that'll save further expense of a trial' but on a human level, here was someone who obviously had gone haywire, possibly having rendered service to his country. Where were the social support options?
At least ITV apologised for their showing in focus the Duchess of Cambridge slightly pregnant in a bikini. The question is the balance between the public reality of their roles and their right to be treated with the respect of privacy mostly accorded anybody else, yet it is transparently obvious they are not like anybody else. Therein the conundrum. The majority of the people currently want the monarchy to continue. In its present state, despite the jerky motions over the years, the institution has served us damned well and last year was an absolutely stupendous year that no other nation on earth could have delivered, because we and we alone (despite other royal houses still in existence) are the real McKay, full of precedence.
Meanwhile I confront my own conundrum. A believer in flexibility, adaptability and malleablility, I am frustrated with the refusal of all web browsers to respond in a universal, consistent way. Where one used simply to do a web page in MS internet technology and arrogantly inform people, use that and don't moan about odd results if you won't, a die-hard windows man who's moved to Apple (used to use Safari on windows) is somewhat floundering around. Mac Safari has too few a take-up to justify such high-handedness but as I persevere regaining the expertise I once had before a prolonged absence, I have to say DreamWeaver is indeed a dream, once you get the real hang of it... which I haven't yet! On the other hand I have just come across the following from the manual through which I am floundering to achieve my next goal. "Ajax is a great example of the natural tension that exists between innovation (going "outside the box" to achieve better results) and standardiasation (the desire to keep things orderly) because, amidst all the excitement around Ajax, there is also a concern that things are moving too fast and too wrecklessly." Encouraging. I'm not the only one with a conundrum!
TUESDAY 12th FEBRUARY 2013
We have been fortunate. A pretty layering for a day and overnight, then it cleared without the slush and muck. A damp coldness permeates but I do not have to go out in it.
MONDAY 11th FEBRUARY 2013
It is winter time and in this valley of the Chilterns we had a wet surface on which the snow lay briefly. With no deep frost it has evaporated without mess. I am sure we are all grateful while offering our commiserations to those not so lucky.
SUNDAY 10th FEBRUARY 2013
Rain has settled in for the day with a vengeance. Fortunately, light enough to easily endure on my way to church. I was tempted to carry on to a restaurant for breakfast but decided that was a cop out. There are things I had set myself to do and despite problems caused by my server going down, losing me time yesterday, excuses are excuses, even if one is making them only to or for oneself. "Move your butt". So, application.
A dull grey day but one in which I am alive, well fed and warm, because I am able to say "sod the heating bill". There are many who cannot and most of those do not deserve to be in that situation. That there are some who bring such despair upon themselves is without question. We have all come across them on our own personal journeys but I believe them to be in the minority. Nonethless, we have a duty to all to counter scroungers, while bearing in mind that some of those so deserving are responsible for heaping their own deserved misery on to others not so deserving: life partners and acquired offspring, and their extended family relationships; and those relationhips' friends. One individual can cause much havoc and great misery to many, simply by being careless of and uncaring to just one other person.
So, what good am I doing sitting at my desk and dashing out through my fingers the thoughts that come to my mind? I started doing this thirty years ago, drawing the attention of over 1,000 people a week simply by saying "Hi!" to the world at large, through the developing digital medium. As a printer, I was aware of Tim Berners Lee's early work on printers' type-setting software, so accepting the digital world came easily to me. What, for years, had been letter outpourings to the general press and articles to specalist technical journals suddenly became more prolific and diverse, as digital was so much easier than bashing keys on a portable typewriter.
I was in my twenties before I acquired a social conscience and joined The Howard League for Penal Reform and The Prison Reform Trust. It was then that I started writing letters to the press; became involved in press censorship as a result of Mary Whitehouse's opinoinated inteference; and ended up with a sufficient public prominence as to join an ad hoc group of independently-minded local business people who offered temselves as the next town council—the town said, "Give it a go"! I also stood for The Referendum Party in the 1997 General Election.
Family ill health, from which my own ill health developed, leading to a ten-year loss of digital presence, during which period technology raced to new dizzy aspirations, made catching-up a somewhat convoluted task but I think I am ndearly there.
So, what thoughts? What is my stance? A diverse background, involved in many things and while running out of steam, the mind is still there, the fingers agile and digital communications offer a wider sharing than paper and print can.
SATURDAY 9th FEBRUARY 2013
Hello. Having spent some weeks messing around, re-learning what I had grown up with while the technology was developing, I have ended up with something similar, in principle, to that which I first created over twenty years ago! Broadcasting my views digitally, growed and growed like Topsy, until Topsy fell ill.
So, let's hit the nail on the head. Cancer is not necessarily a death sentence. There are many cancers which remain livable and manageable, as well as some completely curable: mine is currently manageable and livable. Further, ageing does not mean copping out, for which reasons I'm back, once more launching forth! |
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