Tuesday, March 22, 2005

*John Reid for PM

thewife has been in pain for much of the past week. She has been developing an abscess making it difficult to bend or walk. She was waiting to see if might disappear of its own volition, as these things sometimes do. She waited and waited until late Friday night she realised she was going to have to do something about, of course by then its a bit late, so Saturday morning she calls the out of hours clinic, yes we have one of those, but its the afternoon before they can see her. She's given antibiotics and painkillers, but has little faith in either. I have a flexi-day on Monday, partly so that I can recover from our abysmal showing in the pub quiz, and partly so that I can do stuff. thewife decides that she is going to see her own G.P. so shoots off (okay hobbles) and gets an immediate appointment with her favourite G.P. who decides that a bucket of antibiotics would not shift this baby. She makes a call and thewife is being admitted to hospital for surgery. THE SAME DAY! I run her there she's admitted and processed relatively quickly, is out of theatre by teatime and is surprisingly chipper come evening visiting time, complaining bitterly that they are keeping her in overnight. Well perhaps not bitterly on account of her having a swivelling flat screen tv, with phone and internet and email facility (not connected) for the princely sum of � 3.50 per day. I phoned her twice at the exhorbitant rate of 50p per minute (mobile rates may vary), so that's how they make their money. All that and remarkably good (In-house catered) hospital food, I know I've sampled it and it wipes the floor with that shit Sodexho serve throughout the U.K. I know I've seen and smelled it and that's as near as I want to get to it.

So there you go the NHS is sometimes really good.

*Just kidding of course. thewife was admitted to the last female bed so the hospital was therefore closed to all female admissions!
posted by timesnewroman at 10:37 AM  

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Saturday, March 19, 2005

Cinebuff Extraordinaire

Small American Character Actor

thewife had been in discussion with mumsy, they were trying to recall the name of an actor, but couldn't. Later that night she recalls the earlier discussion and mentions that he was a small American character actor. "Rod Steiger" says I, straight off. "That's him" she says most impressed. I'm more than impressed, I'm gobsmacked. Actors are not my strong point, they're hers. Normally I would have said something like Tom Cruise and she would have laughed cos he's not even an actor let alone a character actor.
posted by timesnewroman at 1:57 PM  

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Friday, March 18, 2005

Stand Down Margaret

Never done complaining about the government. Yet another minister joins the never ending list of new Labourites upon whom I wish very bad things. This time, as foretold by Father Bell in a comment, the target of my bile is children's minister and former peace loving lefty Margaret (C.N.D.) Hodge.

The bastards have only gone and deprived the good old Woodcraft Folk of DfEE funding of over � 50,000 a year. For a small voluntary organisation that's the sort of kick in the bollocks that could land you in deep shit. Even the Thatcher government wasn't so bitter and vindictive as to deprive them of funding, but here we have a supposed Labour government A Labour Government (Kinnockesqe repeat re Liverpool's Militant Council), many of whose party members were probably brought up in the Woodies landing the potentially killer blow.

Why? Not good value for money they claim. Bollocks its practically fucking free, gratis, provided by volunteers! The educational provision is exceptionally good and much of the citizenship agenda being introduced now by the statutory youth sector has been carried out by the Woodcraft Folk for decades. The materials the organisation has developed over the years have been used and welcomed throughout the youth sector.

The DfEE apparently have suggested that the organisation did not have"sufficiently robust outcome indicators" I would suggest that any fuckwit that put those words together in a sentence in English and claimed to part of a Government Education Department deserves a good kicking in the playground. And me anti-war too. Perhaps that's the problem then, the Woodies have never shied away from being an anti-war organisation and have been very visible in the Anti War movement.

A further suggestion has been that the Woodcraft Folk has largely become a middle class, organisation, run by professional parents. A bit of that is true and its my current beef too, however where I come from its not, our kids are from areas of spectacular social deprivation. I used to work for the Woodies, developing new groups in areas of multiple social deprivation in the former Strathclyde Region, (which had a lot of multiple social deprivation). We were good at it as well, but it took money, and that's what the government are taking away! Bastards!!!!!!

You can read more here, here, here and here!
posted by timesnewroman at 7:39 PM  

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Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Yea, Sure Thing Cardinal.

I probably wouldn't have bothered to read the Da Vinci Code, but with a recommendation like this, I'm heading down to Borders' now.
posted by timesnewroman at 7:14 AM  

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Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Strange bedfellow

I normally hate the Guardian columnist David Aaronovitch. Today, I find myself agreeing with him 100%. Why doesn't the Roman Catholic Church just tend to its own flock and keep the fuck out of everyone else's life?
posted by timesnewroman at 7:12 AM  

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Sunday, March 13, 2005

Where did the weekend go?

Tournament Bridge

thewife and I went for a walk around Eglinton Park. It was very cold, even snowing for a spell, but when the sun was it out it was very beautiful. I expected a carpet of crocuses, snowdrops and daffodils, but they aren't out yet, maybe next week.

The weekend just seemed to disappear a bit too quickly. Spent Saturday afternoon at the footie and after last week's dreadful episode we started this week pretty much the same against the Arabs. Nevertheless we did manage to score first which set us up for a while, despite some of the worst referreeing decisions I've seen for a while. There are moments when you can completely undestand the bile directed at referees although after the final whistle you realise how ridiculous it is and that its just a game really. Well for most of us anyway, it is. I'm sure there are some mad buggers out there though as Anders Frisk will testify.

A penalty awarded against us for the most blatant dive. The keeper saved it though, its amazing how often that happens when it's clearly a wrong decision on the refs part.

After that we were pretty much the better side although if United had took the chances they had it could have been very different. The final goal by Danny Invincible was a cracker though and 3-0 will do me nicely.
posted by timesnewroman at 6:00 PM  

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Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Checking the facts, Onboard viewing and Oh Fuck not the eighties again!

Not thewifes Auntie. 

Yep its a bell. A bell from the ship that thewife's auntie was named after. Okay it wasn't really her auntie, it was a neighbour that everyone called auntie. Auntie Fortie. Named so because HMS Fortitude was launched on the day she was born. I have this vision of a father and mother with THE deepest insight into irony naming their daughter Fortitude because that's probably what she would need a lot of growing up in the East End of Glasgow during the war, or at anytime with a name like that. It was an amusing story and I tell thewife I have to blog that one. I'm not a Sun style blogging journalist (actually I don't consider myself a scum journo at all) though and I will let the facts get in the way of a good story. I was looking for a photograph of HMS Fortitude and the best I could come up with was a photo of it's bell. The reason for this is that HMS Fortitude wasn't a ship at all. It was Ardrossan Harbour which was press ganged into becoming a naval establishment during the war. Which throws some doubt onto the authenticity of the story. How do you launch a harbour?

On my way home from work yesterday, I jumped onto a bus to the station. It was a very modern bus, complete with television. Some crap pop video though. Complete waste of technology.

I heard the Bravery yesterday. I wish I hadn't. Complete shite and if this where popular music is heading dust of your old new romantic costumes folks cos the worst excesses of bad 80s pop is about to be thrust upon us. Of course if we have to endure and at the other end we get the new Smiths it would be worth it.
posted by timesnewroman at 7:04 AM  

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Sunday, March 06, 2005

Ahhhhhrggghhhhh!

I had the pleasure of heading off to Rugby Park yesterday on beautiful sunny day, a couple of pints before the game and all set for an afternoon of boredom punctuated with pain. Missed penalty in the dying minutes of the first half, to be followed by a miserable second half. Aberdeen, themselves shit, were marginally less shit than ourselves and had a bit more heart in their play and probably were deserving of their victory. Jeez I think I would rather watch Elton John than this again. No, on second thought perhaps not. Jeffries should go, but he won't. Have a look at his record in the 4 years he's been here. Not a solitary victory against the old firm, something we used to manage at least once a season prior to his arrival. Manager of the month in December 2002!!!!! Give us a break and piss of back to whoever will have you.
posted by timesnewroman at 3:39 PM  

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Friday, March 04, 2005

Vicious circle

The I.T. people haven't been round to connect us to our network printer at work. That's pretty much the same story for about another 40 or so people nearby. Mind you musn't grumble, there are other people on the same floor who haven't got phones or computers up and running yet. Anyway a consequence of this is that people are emailing the admin section, all 5 of them, with stuff to print out on the one printer they have access to.

I'm about to go to a meeting and need a paper I'm working with. I email admin, asking if they can print a couple of copies out. I'm advised that their printer is now down so they can't print anything either. Hmm I think and then remember I have a hard copy in a filing cabinet. The filing cabinet is in a basement though, where they have been stashed temporarily in the course of our move. I then discover that you need to have a member of the caretaking staff there to let you in and out. I am however advised that you have to put a caretaker request form in though. Of course you need to print out a hard copy of the caretakers request and send it down to the office support people don't you. Duh!
posted by timesnewroman at 7:44 PM  

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Thursday, March 03, 2005

Hold the veg

We watched the second of Jamie Oliver's School Dinners series last night. Regardless of the stick he gets I like him, I like his food and I like his style. Above all I like his attitude.

It was scary watching kids that hadn't, wouldn't eat vegetables. Instead they would plough into the staple stodge that was on offer, like pizza and chips or smiley faced potato shit things, or worse still turkey twizzles or whatever the fuck they were, with practically no turkey and a massive salt and saturated fat content.

At home they were getting pretty much the same or worse. There was one kid who had a packed lunch that consisted of 2 chocolate bars, a chocolate biscuit, a packet of chocolate sweeties, a bag of crisps and 2 sandwiches (that she wasn't going to eat).

Nowadays it seems school dinners aren't cooked, they are heated.

In my day things were very different, we had cooked food, with vegetables, okay the were boiled vitaminless, but the thought was there. And if we were lucky we got a pudding that was good. If we were really lucky, we got caramel cake and custard.

Nowadays, you can get the same caramel stuff in a jar. It's called Dulce de Leche and you can pour it into a shortcrust tart and.......well go and try it. But not too often and only if you eat your vegetables!
posted by timesnewroman at 6:53 AM  

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