{"id":4290,"date":"2013-01-20T07:05:53","date_gmt":"2013-01-20T07:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/?p=4290"},"modified":"2013-01-20T08:19:31","modified_gmt":"2013-01-20T08:19:31","slug":"20-january-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/2013\/01\/20\/20-january-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"20 January 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cold, cold, cold spell the forecasters have been predicting is still not here but I suppose it could be a matter of perception. Temperatures for the past few days have been hovering just around the freezing mark which is cold, admittedly, but does that really qualify as cold, cold, cold? I\u2019m not sure. So it was interesting to run across a little comparison site on the BBC web site (http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-21044545<\/a>). While it\u2019s -1 o<\/sup> Celsius here, it tells me that it is -38 o<\/sup> C (-36 o<\/sup> F) in Yakutsk, Russia. So, one can\u2019t really say that we are enduring cold, cold, cold temperatures in comparison. At the same time, it\u2019s worth noting that Los Angeles is enduring temperatures as low as 17 o<\/sup> C (63 o<\/sup> F) and Sydney, Australia is managing to struggle along with temperatures of 37o<\/sup> C (99 o<\/sup> F). It\u2019s all relative, I guess.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One nice feature of the cold snap, the ground is frozen so no more muddy patches \u2013 Molly\u2019s and my morning walk has included the railway cutting for the first time in several weeks.<\/p>\n

\"Snow\"What we do have, though, is snow, snow, snow<\/a>. It started coming down in the middle of Thursday night\/Friday morning and continued throughout most of Friday. Of course, Sod\u2019s Law means that Friday morning I had two early meetings in West Oxfordshire which, by the time my alarm went off, was already under about four inches of snow. While I probably could have got there, I might not get home again so discretion got the better of me and I rolled over and back to sleep.<\/p>\n

I was somewhat amused this week when I received concrete evidence of the government\u2019s (of successive flavours) success in achieving their long-term, over-arching aim for the NHS. Ever since the Thatcher government, the mantra with regard to the NHS has been \u201cChoice\u201d and specifically the intention to give the patient (or \u201ccustomer\u201d if you prefer) as much choice as possible as to who they see and where they go for treatment. Blair continued the emphasis and it\u2019s clear that Choice in the NHS has finally been delivered.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m all for choice when it\u2019s real and when that choice can be made on the basis of evidence and data. Successive governments have tried to do the same with schools \u2013 in theory, any parent can send his\/her child to any school they want to. And, the government collects and publishes statistics to help parents make an \u201cinformed\u201d decision. The only small problem is that essentially there is no real choice except in very few circumstances. In the rural areas the only real choice is the local school; in towns there may be a few secondary schools and in the large cities there may be several within a reasonable proximity. However, the \u201cgood\u201d schools, not surprisingly, attract the highest demand and the funny thing about schools is that they are generally of a fairly finite size and when they\u2019ve accepted the number of students they can accommodate, they\u2019re full!<\/p>\n

But, in the NHS we definitely have choice as demonstrated by the letter I received the other day.<\/p>\n

For the past four or five weeks I\u2019ve been having increased pain and discomfort in my neck. You will remember that I\u2019ve had two surgical procedures and, for the past two or three years I\u2019ve had very little pain. Now, all of a sudden and out of the blue, the pain is back. So, I trotted along to our GP and he referred me on to see a consultant.<\/p>\n

A couple of days later, I received a letter inviting me to book my appointment . This I could do in a variety of ways at a number of institutions, the letter suggested. Excellent – what’s better than having a choice?<\/p>\n

The first section of the letter contained simply my personal details. Yep, those are all correct.<\/p>\n

The second section explained the various ways I could make my appointment \u2013 by phone, by textphone or online via the Internet. Fabulous – I am loving the choices I have!<\/p>\n

The third section invited me to book my appoint for ONE<\/b> of the following institutions. This gets better and better – even more choice!<\/p>\n

As I read through the options available, however, I spotted a couple of small problems. The ONE institution listed at which I could book my appointment was the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. Hmm, no real choice. The letter then went on to note that:<\/p>\n

Online booking for this service is not available. Phone between 8am and 6pm, Monday to Friday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I guess it\u2019s all about providing the illusion of choice?<\/p>\n

We are awaiting the arrival this afternoon (I am writing this on Saturday) of our good friend and favourite international diplomat, Jordan Ryan. He flew in on Friday to attend a conference in Sussex and is planning to come up by train this afternoon. Hopefully, the bucket-loads of snow we\u2019ve had won\u2019t make his journey too miserable. I\u2019ll let you know.<\/p>\n

(Yes, he made it.)<\/p>\n

Finally, Simon Hoggart, a very amusing political columnist for the Guardian whom I have mentioned in the past, writes every year about \u201cRound Robin\u201d Christmas letters (such as ours) which he detests. Every year in the run-up to Christmas people send him some of the worst examples they have received. In a recent column<\/a> he highlights some of his \u201cfavourites\u201d which includes the following:<\/p>\n

But what is most amazing is that at the very end of this seven-page letter, with its accrual of detail so boring that it becomes weirdly fascinating, he writes: “My mother passed away, aged 89, after a stroke. We were planning a big celebration for her 90th, but it was not to be.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At least our Christmas note doesn\u2019t run to seven pages although I\u2019ve no doubt it\u2019s tediously boring.<\/p>\n

And finally, finally, happy birthday to our Nick whose birthday is today (not last week).<\/p>\n

Love to you all,<\/p>\n

Greg<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The cold, cold, cold spell the forecasters have been predicting is still not here but I suppose it could be a matter of perception. Temperatures for the past few days have been hovering just around the freezing mark which is cold, admittedly, but does that really qualify as cold, cold, cold? I\u2019m not sure. So … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “20 January 2013”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9w76b-17c","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}