Have a Sainsbury's Christmas!

Three years ago, I was listening to the radio yesterday when my attention was drawn to the opening chords of my favourite song played at Christmas time. Irked because it was still a month until Christmas, I tried to think happier thoughts. To my horror, it then became apparent that the song was being used to promote the Christmas offering of the retail behemoth Sainsbury's.

The song was "I believe in Father Christmas" by Greg Lake. An erstwhile member of 1970s supergroup Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Greg Lake had started his music career with the now legendary King Crimson in 1968. In King Crimson at that time was long time Lake collaborator Pete Sinfield. After leaving King Crimson, Sinfield became a successful music producer and songwriter. With particular reference to Sainsbury's he famously penned "The land of make believe" which provided Bucks Fizz with a bit hit.

But back to "I believe in Father Christmas". I will resist the urge to lament the annihaltion of the song by Toyah Wilcox in the early 1980s. The original song was written as a protest against the commercialisation of Christmas. I could write a book about the lyrics but will instead concentrate on the ones which really matter. The final line underlines the true sentiment of the song; "The Christmas we get we deserve". Interestingly, the third verse contains the lines, "They sold me a dream of Christmas, They sold me a Silent Night". Obviously Greg had Sainsbury's in mind when he wrote it in 1974. Perhaps he saw what was coming and was trying to warn us all?

The irony of Sainsbury's using this song to coax us in to their shops is too much. At a time when the Government has spoken of the need to try and rejuvenate our high streets, has it occured to them why that need may have arisen? Successive governments and local councils throughout my 45 years have shamelessly promoted the growth of out of town retail sectors knowing full well the likely effect on our high streets. They even have the temerity to suggest that one of the problems with our current high streets is too many shops. There weren't too many shops until the Government decided to put them out of business!

My issue is not with Sainsbury's per se. My issue is with the promotion of a retail sector which has contributed to the demise of community spirit and which operates with carte blanche. Unregulated and unaccountable to Government these supermarkets have been allowed to proliferate out of control. In trying to understand the use by Sainsbury's of "I believe in Father Christmas" in it's Christmas advertising campaign, I assume they meant to warn us that if we shop there, we'll get the Christmas we deserve. I suppose we can all take that how we choose. I'm going to buck the trend and use my local high street because I value my local community and choose to support my local small businesses.

Recently, a whiff of common sense emerged from Downing Street. It seems as though the new head of the Bank of England has tried to convince the Government to ditch it's support for the burgeoning housing market in favour of the small businesses. It's reassuring to know that they remember what small businesses are. That said, I hope this is the start of a new trend towards vibrant high streets with their greater community cohesion. Perhaps then we might not see quite so many of our elderly dying due to the effects of the cold. We may also have more time to engage with the people in our neighbourhood. Our local area might even seem like a nicer place to live and we might, God forbid, get the Christmas we deserve.

The video for the song "I believe in Father Christmas" was shot in the Sinai desert and features footage of the Vietnam war. As such, it is seldom shown because it is thought to be too harsh to be shown in the festive season. On the contrary, I would show it all the more to remind people of the true world they live in and the true origin of Christmas. Given the choice of being sucked in to insane consumerism of Black Friday or the reassuring message of Christmas, I know which one I'll be choosing,

A Medical Giant.

I've just learned of the sad death of Dr David Glyn Jones. Where do I start? First and foremost, DG was the man who saved my life. He picked up the fact that I was in kidney failure and got me to the right place with the minimum of fuss. For that alone I will always owe him a great debt. He is also the man who has inspired me more than any other to pursue a career in General Practice. Although he was just 62 years old, a life can't be measured in mere years.

After he retired as my GP, he continued to do some locum work and I would periodically bump in to him at my local Lidl. He was completely unpretentious and had time for all wherever he happened to be. He didn't finish work at 5.30pm because I don't believe he ever did finish work until last Friday. his consulting style was very relaxed and I always felt as though he was continually assesing me whenever I went to see him. He was clever at drawing people out and one instictively trusted him. No flash car, no flash clothes, no flash talk. Nothing flash about him. He was straight as a die and one of the most genuine people I've ever encountered. When my daughter died from meningitis, he was distraught because he had actually tried to get to our house before the ambulance came even though she wasn't even registered with him. When I decided to go abroad with Mindy after Thea died, we went with his blessing against medical advice because I hadn't long started immune suppression for my kidney transplant. He knew that there are occasions where medical advice takes second place to humanity. He made sure I had hospitals to go to en route and provided me with essential items which I might need.

His decision to leave General Practice was Denbigh's loss. He left due to the crippling mountain of needless paperwork which continues to dog our GPs as I write. He had little truck with the concept of a ten minute appointment and his mantra might have read, "It'll take as long as it takes but it'll be done properly". The funny thing was that I was never consciously aware of people in the waiting room getting fed up with waiting. Perhaps it was because they knew it would be worth the wait. I'm sure he made mistakes because like it or not, all doctors do. But he was absolutely straight with you and left you in no doubt when you left his consulting room.

I missed him when he left General Practice and feel really sad for his family now that he has gone. Having devoted his medical career to the people of Denbigh and the surrounding area, there seems little justice in his passing away so soon. For me, he will always be the man who allowed me to do what I'm doing today because without him, I wouldn't even be here. May he rest in peace. 

Advent: A golden opportunity?

The word advent is now an important part of the Christian calendar. Translated from the latin, advent means arrival and referes to the impending arrival of Christ. Thus did Christmas become such a major festival in our calendar. As such, this Sunday will be Advent Sunday and marks the beginning of preparations to celebrate the birth of Christ.

Christmas in the modern age has been successfully hijacked by the marketing men who strive to make it work for their sales ledgers. A report today reveals that the collective debt of UK householders now amounts to £1,430,000,000,000. That's clearly a lot of money but let's try and make that figure a bit more relevant. It means that on average, every man, woman and child in the UK owes £22,633 through a combination of credit cards, unsecured personal loans and mortgages. Yet at the same time, we keep hearing about this word austerity. Apparently, times are really hard in the UK as a series of government cutbacks continue to exert their vice-like grip.

The problem is that the current level of indebtedness is now just as big as it was in September 2008 just before the financial crash. There are therefore two possibilities. Either the government cutbacks are not working or people are continuing to borrow their way out of trouble. Clearly it's not quite as simple as that but the point is made. People are evidently continuing to make the same mistakes which led to the crash in the first place. The sub prime mortgage scandal in the US has been cited as the original cause of the crash but it's important to address the facts. Certainly the lenders were culpable in lending to people who hadn't a hope of repaying but he the people were equally culpable. In taking on committments which they knew they couldn't possibly afford, they were knowingly going down a path of no return. When one person this, the results are calamitous for that person. Whejn the entire country does this, the results are calamitous for the entire country. We know this because in 2008, one bank went under, one escaped by the skin of it's teeth and millions of people lost their jobs and incomes.

When I'm at home I now prefer the radio because the TV has just become a glorified salesman always trying to tempt you with some new product which you had previously managed without perfectly well. As the retail giants do battle to try and produce the perfect Christams advertisement, the TV programme must now take second place. I exercise the option to which David Cameron refered when he was still leader of the opposition. I turn it off because it has lost it's appeal. I'm happy with what I have and feel truly blessed when I look at those people in the world who have nothing. Literally nothing. If I look at the Philippines, Syria and a whole host of other countries, I am easily reminded of my good fortune and their tragedy.

From the fourth century, Advent was a time for fasting and reflection with even dancing and celebrations being frowned upon. You have only to look around you to see that the concept of fasting now would be unimaginable to the many. These days, people try to do without something they really like for Lent for few fast during Advent. Self denial is fast becoming a thing of the past. Our refusal to compromise and do without is creating misery and this report simply highlights that fact. Our failure to distinguish between what we want and waht we need is costing us dear.

When Pope Francis yesterday published his proposals for the future of the Catholic church, his opposition to materialism was palpable - and rightly so. Not just in the UK but all around the "civilised" world, people are becoming increasingly obsessed with material goods. The problem with materialsim is that it does not make for happiness in the true spiritual sense of the world. It's ok for a brief time but then the novelty is lost and the emptiness continues.

If our collective debt currently stands at £1,430,000,000,000, I shudder to think how much bigger it will be come January. Heaven forbid anyone allows religion to get in the way of a good spending spree, but it might just be that the time has come for faith to fight back and show people another way. The Conservative party was once the party of faith but all that changed about 20 years ago for fear such an association might cost votes. It seems to me that the need for faith in our society has never been greater. Whether that faith is Christian or not doesn't matter. What matters is that people become aware that a world exists beyond the lure of the marketing men.

One of the people interviewed for the report on debt admitted that her debt was nerve racking and made her feel ill. I can't imagine it having any other effect. The report concluded that 74% of those with debt admitted to being unhappy - no surprises there then. At the root of much of the borrowing is avarice. To look wistfully at the belongings of your neighbour is one thing but to enter debt to have the same is quite another. That said, I feel strongly that our children should be taught at home and at school the importance of budgeting and living within your means. For years now, savers in this country have been penalised and this is a national disgrace. We ought to be rewarding responsibility rather than penalising it.

So what of Advent this year. Is this to mark the arrival of yet more debt and yet more misery or could it possibly be an oportunity for us all to just step back and take stock? Advent starts on Sunday and gives us a four week period within which to remind ourselves of what really matters in our lives. It's also a great opportunity to consider all the people less fortunate than ourselves. We sadly seem to be stuck with Sunday trading but that doesn't mean we have to engage with it. I wonder what would happen if people for once turned their backs on materialism and instead turned to their fellow men? Maybe then we wouldn't see so many elderly people dying due to cold and hunger. Perhaps mental illness would become a bit more accepted. The benefits just go on and on so why not give them a try for the next four weeks? What's the worst thing that can happen? It can't put us in to any more debt but might just show us the way out.

PC Hopper - Bent Copper!

In my younger days, I used to delight in some of the satire in Viz magazine. As young adolescents, it appealed to our somewhat warped sense of humour and the characters were literally fantastic - or so we thought.

The news that one of the policemen involved with the Andrew Mitchell "plebgate" affair has been found guilty of misconduct in public office seems to validate the worst aspects of the character "PC Hopper - Bent Copper". Referring frequently to the wrongful imprisonment of the Guildford four and the Birmingham six, this cartoon portrayed the police to be people with integrity of the variety which we wouldn't take kindly to. In time, the references spread to the handling of the Hillsborough tragedy and today's news is just the latest in a long line of examples.

My point though is this. Is there any other organisation in the country which could behave so appallingly and yet take such a painfully long time to take action? All this does is to reinforce the popular view that the police have simply become a law to themselves. There are no winners in this story because Andrew Mitchell has had enough mud thrown at him to put paid to any realistic chances of a comeback. I suspect that this has been the intention all along though and it has done the police no credit. Their recent appearances before the Commons Select Committee showed no regret or contrition. They clearly resented having to be there and their contempt was palpable.

We used to think Viz was just a bit of fun but I'm now starting to see the serious side...

The wind of change

As news emerges that RWE Innology have pulled out of the proposed wind farm off the North Devon coast, we are told that they felt the market conditions weren't right. It is equally clear that the announcement last week by Cameron to shelve green energy funding has been a big factor. Notably, the residents of Lundy island have been vehement opponents of the scheme which hoped to generate enough electricity for 900,000 homes.

There is a wider problem here though. It was announced today that 27% more elderly people died last winter due to influenza or a lack of adequate heating. The latter, as I have written many times before, is because they are faced with a daily decision of whether to eat or heat. The current energy system in the UK is literally sending people to their graves yet still we do nothing to address this. Our continued reliance on fossil fuels is just unsustainable whether we like it or not. It's all very well being a NIMBY but it doesn't alter the fact that we need to find alternatives to fossil fuels. More people will die if we continue to oppose progress.

The greatest indictment here though is the numbers of those who died who had been living alone with little if any contact from the outside world. The decision by Esther Rantzen to launch a telephone service to reach out to the lonely elderly is definitely a step in the right direction. More than this though, we need to look again at day care centres for the elderly. Heating a room for a large group of people is always more cost effective than heating a room for one person. In addition, it brings people together and promotes human contact. If heating is important, the latter is vital. Sadly, it is another illustration of how badly we fund care of the elderly in the UK. We are talking here about people mainly on the old age pension - not retired civil servants on more money than they can hope to spend. Granted, the old age pension is costly but leaving the elderly to die is inhumane. I feel more comfortable with expense than inhumanity so would be prepared to pay more in taxes.

Cameron was quite wrong to be drawn in by Milliband's false promise. Let me be clear. Enforcing a freeze on energy prices does not address our dependency on fossil fuels. It is as simple as that. Furthermore, if the Scots decide to go it alone next year (and I strongly believe they will), they will take with them our previous reserves of North Sea gas and oil. Thus, our fossil fuel dependency is about to become even more expensive. A price freeze is all hot air without substance. The green subsidies are vital if we are to make any progress away from our current fossil fuel dependency. It is not optional. Given the choice of spending in excess of £50 billion on HS2 and making the divide between London and the rest even greater or investing in our ailing energy infrastructure, I know which way I'd vote!

The NIMBY can have his moan but progress has to be made. The potential from tidal power in the Bristol Channel and the Menai Straits is immense but we appear to be overly sensitive to the concerns of environmentalists. Given the pollution of fossil fuels on our lanscape, I would have thought tidal power would be welcomed with open arms.

The Peter Principle in 2013

The Peter Principle is one of my favourite truisms. At the same time though, I wish it didn't come true so often. Briefly, the Peter Principle states that in an organisation where promotion is based on achievment, success and merit, each employee will eventually arrive at a position beyond the level of their capability.

Reading this piece, I defy you not to think of at least a dozen people to whom this applies. The recent headlines concerning the Co-Op bank provide us with as good an example as we could reasonably wish for. In promoting a Methodist preacher with no formal banking experience, it is all too easy to jump on the bandwagon and pillory Paul Flowers. The fact is that he only did what most of us might have done if offered such a high salary. He proved he is human. He took the money. I have genuine sympathy for the church whose name has been dragged through the mud with him but not for the politicians who turned a blind eye to his evident inexperience for such an important role.

The Methodists I know don't take drugs or engage in the sort of activities Flowers is alleged to have engaged in. Instead they are decent folk who look out for their fellow man and just try to do the right thing. Whenever a leading figure in the church is exposed like this, it undoes all the hard work of their colleagues who tirelessly get on with the real challenges with little or no recognition on a daily basis. That said, I hope his church shows him the support he will now badly need and I hope he is once more reminded of what really matters in life. He of all people shouldn't need too much reminding. Perhaps his promotion within his church was an example of the Peter Principle as well and the entire organisation needs a period of introspection to learn from the error.

After the crash of 2008, we were nevertheless assured that no bank would be badly led again. This makes it all the more surprising to understand. It wasn't even as though he had a banking background. I note that the Labour party has already begun the process of distancing themselves from the man whose low interest loans they have all too gladly accepted. The relationship of political parties with donors seriously needs to be reviewed because the current system absolutely stinks.

UKIP have the patronage of Paul Sykes. Labour enjoy the patronage of the Unions and the Co-Op bank (even though the latter can barely afford to buy a pint of milk such is the extent of their current mess). The Tories enjoy the patronage of various city billionaires and even the ailing Liberals have friends in high places. There has to be a better way of doing this because it is fast becoming a case of whoever has the most money gets the keys to number 10. This in no way reflects true public opinion and does not reflect well on the current political system.

I read a number of years ago that bureaucracy is rather like an enormous cess pit in which the really big bits float to the top. Sadly, that comparison is depressingly true and we badly need to rid ourselves of that smell. The greatest irony in the Paul Flowers story is that at a time when faith has so much to offer by way of a meaningful alternative to the vices of modern life, it has shown itself to be no better than the rest. Church congregations are dwindling up and down the land yet the church has so much to offer.

As Cameron seeks to distance himself from his green credentials and as Farage seeks to spend his way to an EU referendum, as Milliband seeks to distance himself from all knowledge of Paul Flowers and as Nick Clegg seeks to change with the wind, we can all rest assured that the Peter Principle is as true today as it as ever been. Just as the Co-Op put Paul Flowers at the head of it's massive banking operation, the Unions put Milliband at the head of the Labour party. It seems that such decisions don't concern the likes of you and I.

Just not cricket!

In many ways, the modern era of cricket can be traced back to the final Gentlemen versus Players match in 1962. With a history stretching back to 1806, this annual event in the sporting calendar showcased the best amateurs against the best professionals. As it drew to it's close, it had become akin to one of those Victorian Follies with it's raison d'etre long having been superfluous. For all that though, things were different then. Although there were amateurs and professionals with their respective class distinctions, standards on the field of play were nevertheless sacrosanct.

As aggressive and as great a bowler as Fred Trueman was, his 307 test match wickets were acquired by letting his cricket do the talking - although he was never a short of an opinion. Trueman was a direct straight talking Yorkshireman but not a rude one. Certainly he did plenty of muttering under his breath when things weren't going his way, but he would never lower himself to directing vulgar language to a member of the opposition. He was bigger than that. In those days, cricket was bigger than that. What has happened since has coincided with the advent of the professional era. But it is no coincidence.

Jonathan Agnew was quick to highlight the stupidity of holding two Ashes series back to back and he has been vindicated in his view. After just one match, standards have already slipped to new lows. Behaviour from both sides has been appalling and there is a good reason why I refer to this. Young players look to the national team for guidance on how to play the game. They might not be able to bat like Bell or bowl like Anderson but they will be able to emulate their behaviour. That is now a source of great regret. By fining the Australian Captain a paltry 20% of his match fee, the ICC has given carte blanche to other players to behave accordingly. As the Captain of his national side, Clarke should have had his entire match fee withdrawn and been suspended for one match. Failure to treat this problem properly now will leave cricket no different to football if indeed we are not already there.

While coaching under sixteens a few years ago, I was genuinely appalled by some of the behaviour I saw. I later reflected on where this might have come from. Clearly, parents always have a huge influence on their children but so too does the national side on our TV sets. I started to think back regarding the first unsavoury incidents I had seen when watching the national team.

Although a little before my interest in cricket, the England Ashes tour of 1974 to the Antipodes produced a surreal moment. Rather like those natural phenomona when two oceans meet, an incident occured which was possibly one of the very last to include a survivor of the old era with a pin up boy of the new. England had been suffering a bruising at the hands of the new found Australian pace bowling duo of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson. They weren't there to make friends and exchange pleasantries. They saw their role as being one of utter unbridled aggression and they did not disappoint. As news emerges that Jonathan Trott is to return home from the present tour (albeit for personal reasons), it is timely to consider that our current batting crisis was nothing compared to that which confronted us nearly 40 years ago. In a desperate bid to inject some steel in to the English top order, the rotund Colin Cowdrey was recalled and joined up with the tour which featured several players who had not yet been born when he made his first century at Lords. In his book, Cowdrey recalls walking out to the crease and politely introducing himself to Jeff Thomson, "Hello, I'm Colin Cowdrey, pleased to meet you". He was not being obseqious because this was just Colin behaving in the correct manner. He was greeted with a vile torrent of abuse and later professed that many of the words used had not hitherto been familiar to him. Colin was one of the finest players to represent his country and his manners were never less than exemplary. Oh for such an example for our youngsters today.

I then recalled the unpleasant exchange between Ian Botham and Alan Whitehead during the home Ashes series in 1985. When you have the talent of Botham, it does you no good to resort to such acts of petulance and I'm sure he can't look back on that incident with any pride. We than witnessed the unfortunate spectacle of the England captain Mike Gatting becoming embroiled in a finger wagging altercation with the Pakistan Umpire Shakoor Rana. Gatting was a redoubtable character but not a rude one so it was surprising to see himself get flustered in this fashion. Granted, the umpiring up to that point had been shocking, but Gatting should not have allowed himself as captain to sink to the same level.

But if Botham and Gatting were both culpable in their behaviours, Chris Broad took bad sportsmanship and ill manners to a new level. It culminated with him demolishing his stumps when he disagreed with an umpiring decision - not a very dignified approach.

Interestingly, the team who dominated world cricket during my younger years rarely got involved with this sort of behaviour. The West Indies for a long time were so far ahead of all the other teams, they had no need to behave badly because they could rest assured of a win in the majority of cases. Famously, Michael Holding did kick down the stumps in anger at another umpiring decision which had not gone his way on tour in New Zealand. This though was the exception rather than the rule. Viv Richards had a hot temper but did not put it on show on the field of play. Many a dressing room was the worse for wear after his three pound bat had ricocheted off a few walls and windows.

The current Ashes series is deluded if it thinks it can be compared with the Bodyline series of 75 years ago. Bodyline emerged as a tactic purely because one batsman had become the dominant difference between the two sides. Whatever the rights and wrongs of Bodyline, it did not feature foul language or discourtesy. Douglas Jardine instructed Larwood where he wanted him to bowl and Larwood did so. There was no need for finger pointing or swearing then and nor is there now.

I was intrigued to learn that Michael Clarke had been docked 20% of his match fee simply because a pitch microphone had picked up what he had said. There should be no need for microphones in the first place. A strong umpire would snuff out any silliness in an instant and the current crop should be given the power to do so. Cricket used to be like Rugby in that arguing with the referee was just not the done thing. To get back to that, the ICC needs to send out a strong message sooner rather than later before cricket becomes a bore. It is not good for anyone to see players behaving in this fashion and even the players must feel pretty silly to say the least. While the porfessional era is now here to stay, it doesn't follow that we have to compromise on standards. To do so is a cop out to the marketing men and shows a massive lack of leadership both on and off the field of play. If England are to get back in to this series, I candidly suggest that they seek to do so with the bat and the ball. It's time to shut up and get on with the cricket.

Tchaikovsky: The enduring magician

Today I took my family to see the English National Ballet perform the Nutcracker. In a way, this is terribly predictable. It's nearing Christmas time so I must go and see the Nutcracker. But there's an irresistible urge to do so. Not especially to see the Nutcracker but for the sheer escapism to another world.

For the record, it was as good a performance as I've seen since 2003. As usual for the English National, the sets were sumptuous and the costumes dripping in luxury. The orchestra was of a very high standard under the tutelage of a high class conductor. But that speaks of the music, the sets and the costumes. What of the dance?

The Pas de Deux will linger long in the memory. Both principal dancers were on the top of their games and gave a flawless performance. The last night in Liverpool is tonight so the Matinee had much to live up to. It did not disappoint. There was not a seat to be had and if you want an indication of the performance, the army of small children present remained quietly enthralled to the end.

It's sobering to reflect that when this was first premiered by Tchaikovsky in 1877, it was roundly panned by the harsh Moscow critics. Deeply hurt, like Achilles he retired to his tent and did not emerge until 1890. When he did, he had revised the Nutcracker and the critics were won over. I'm glad he didn't give up because he re-invigorated a genre which had been dwindling throughout the early part of the nineteenth century.

This was the fifth time I've seen the Nutcracker and each performance brings a magic of it's own. In the catalogue of Tchaikovsky ballets, there is only Eugene Onegin which I have yet to see. His music epitomises the deep beauty of the music which came out of Russia in the late nineteenth century In those days, the rivalry was intense between the composing elite. On a trip to Paris during his retreat from ballet during the 1880s, Tchaikovsky heard an instrument he had not heard before. It's unique beauty captivated him and he immediately sought one. The celesta became a closely guarded secret. He used it to dramatic effect in the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. This is the point in the Nutcracker when you could hear a pin drop and today's performance was no different.

My first Nutcracker was in 1987 and it still holds it's audience enthralled. I can't recommend it highly enough and as an entry in to ballet, I would strongly recommend the Nutcracker as it has something for all ages. It got me when I was 18 and I'm still coming back for more. Congratulations yet again to the English National for a sterling performance - it was a privilege to be there.

Could JFK save the NHS?

As the world pauses to remember the day President Kennedy was assassinated, I reflect on the speech he made in his inaugural address to the nation.

He famously challenged the American people with the following words: "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country". It was a brilliant speech and set the tone for a Presidency which would be cut short all too soon. His speech also featured a quotation from the prophet Isaiah. It vwould be difficlult to imagine any current political leader daring to refer so openly to a religious text. That illustrates well the difference between life in 1961 and life in 2013.

But back to those words which I quoted. As our current NHS continues to dominate our headlines for most of the wrong reasons, it seems to me that the majority of oprobium has been directed at healthcare workers. This has not been without some justification as the aftermath of the Francis Report continues to exert itself within hospitals and primary care settings. I certainly don't intend to take issue with Lord Francus because his report was badly needed if only to identify those areas where we neede to improve. There is no room for complacency and even less room in healthcare where people's lives are on the line.

That does not cover the other half of the equation though - patients. Recent statistics revealed that up to 40% of patients presenting to A and E should not be. These patients were identifies to have problems for which A and E is not intended. As has been pointed out recently, the clue is to be found when we dismantle the acronym. Accident and Emergency is supposed to provide assitance for those two eventualities and while it has a role to play in variour locations during out of hours, it is not there to deal with trivia. Sadly, the latter turns up at our A and E departments all too often.

At a time when the NHS seeks new ways to become more efficient with it's limited resources, now would seem a good time to go back to the words of the late American President and remind people that evrybody has their role to play in sustaining the NHS. It does not run on fresh air and every penny counts. There would be no harm (no pun intended) in reminding people of their responsibilities to one of our most vital assets. If that 40% was removed, the benefit to hospitals the length and breadth of the country would be felt by all concerned.

Deeds not words

Cricket is home to many a good adage and one of the oldest in the book follows that bowlers win matches. Day 2 at the Gabba was a case in point. Although the record of England here is fairly abysmal, they set a new low with their latest batting display. Saying that, let us not take anything away from the Australian bowling performance. Their two main strike bowlers bowled with aggression and fire - two attributes which have been lacking for Australia in recent years. Provided they can emulate this performance, the England batsmen will have to find their feet sooner rather than later.

After just two days of this latest Ashes series, Australia look nailed on to go one up with four to play. Realistically, England aren't going to be able to bat for a draw because the Australians will have plently of time to bowl at them (five or six sessions at this rate). Thus, England will need to go for the win. To climb that particular mountain they will need significant contributions from all of the top six since the Australians look well placed to set a target in excess of 500. To scale that sort of total batting last in the first encounter of an Ashes series away from home is the stuff of fantasy.

I'm glad the series has finally got in to it's stride because the silly rhetoric leading up to the match was already tiresome last summer. Some responses to my piece in the summer relating to the decision by Broad not to walk when out were distinctly unsympathetic. One respondent asked me to show him which law of cricket states that abatsman must walk? As that respondent well knows, there is no such law. Neither is there a book which lays down the spirit in which cricket ought to be played. Until quite recently, there has never had to be because we always had greater pride in our manners and our reputations. Another respondent to that piece asserted that it was "crap then and crap now". It's difficult to know how to respond to such a statement. Putting aside the lack of depth and reasoned debate, I take it that he doesn't agree with my view on the way in which the game should be played?

Sadly, my experience as a cricket coach tells me that his is not a minority view. Unsurprisingly, the youngsters in the game have a tendency to follow the national team. As such, they seek to emulate the manners and behaviour thereof. Herein lies the problem. This is why I take such issue with the decision of Broad to not walk. He sanctions everybody to do likewise and thus puts cricket on a par with sports like football where anything goes just to secure an advantage. Cricket was always better than that. It always used to be about the manner of victory rather than victory at any price.

Getting back to the cricket though, the events of the second day have illustrated the value of an old saying churned out periodically in the sales industry. "You're only as good as your last week" can here be translated to "You're only as good as your last match". Reputations take years to build but as the 2005 Australians found out, they are lost all too quickly. I wonder about the decision to play a clearly injured Prior. I don't think it will have done much for the confidence of the reserve keeper Bairstow. Should Prior be unable to play in the next match, Bairstow will be chucked in to the lion's den knowing how valued he is by the selectors. While England's bowling was alright, bowling a side out for 295 is not exactly legendary. The greater worry of course was England's batting - if we can call it that. Carberry aside, nobody seemed prepared to roll up their sleeves for the fight. The underbelly was indeed soft as evidenced by the performance of the middle order. The Australians will sleep well tonight but I rather think the lion might not.

Viva Las Vegas

Founded as recently as 1902 and incorporated as a city just a few year later, the history of Las Vegas (The meadows) is a great example of the challenges facing healthcare.

In a recent training session on life support, the instructors asked us where we thought the best place would be to have a heart attack in terms of a favourable clinical outcome. Putting aside the obvious answers (a hospital or on a football pitch within spitting distance of a cardiologist in the crowd with the nearest specialist cardiac centre being just minutes away), we were rather surprised to learn the answer.

You will have guessed by the title of this piece that Las Vegas is indeed one of the safest places to be when having a heart attack. To be specific though, you would ideally want to be sat in front of a slot machine monotonously feeding it with silver dollars. That is because, each machine is reportedly accompanied by a defibrillator. Assuming this is due to good planning rather than luck, it begs the question, why?

Because the casino owners know that the chances of a heart attack are significantly increased when somebody is going through the stress of gambling, they have provided the very best medical response. Well, nearly. For fear of a sudden outbreak of altruism among the casino owners, their stance is simply to treat the heart attack rather than deter the person from gambling. As vested interests go, this takes some beating. Ergo, if the addiction is making you money, feed the addiction.

Not far from Las Vegas is the town of Shivwits. This is the ancestral home of the Paiute Indians. They, of course, pre-date the gambling havens of Vegas and Reno by centuries. The arrival of the casinos brought prosperity to the Mormons who opened them but health misery to indigenous tribes such as the Pauites. The main concern of the Pauite tribe leader is not alcoholism although that has been an historical problem. No, the one thing which threatens them as a race is type 2 diabetes. They have one of the highest rates in the USA - and that is saying something! The rate of diabetes in under-19s in the USA is three times higher among the indigenous Indian tribes. But why is that?

There are both genetic and lifestyle factors which have contibuted to this anomaly. For the last two centuries, addiction among the North American Indians has been well documented. In the early days, alcohol was the substance of choice but then habits started to mirror those of the wider society springing up around them. Abuse of marijuana, amphetamines, hairspray and crystal met have all been documented. So are these Indian tribes inherently predisposed to substance abuse? Well, maybe they are.

Before Westernisation took hold in the form of Vegas, these tribes were hunter gatherers. The content of carbohydrates in their diet was tiny and thus they evolved as an incredibly efficient race able to cope in the harsh temperatures of the dessert with limited nutrition and water. They ate what they could kill or find and that didn't amount to much. Post Vegas, their lives have been transformed for the worse from a health perspective as they no longer have to hunt or find. Added to this is the fact that their diets have now become awash with carbohydrates as Westernisation has exerted a vice like grip on them.

But just as the Mormons used their religion to build Vegas and therefore become richer, a similar picture has been going on back in the UK for years. Go in to your local supermarket anywhere in the UK for the last couple of months and you will be bombarded with images of a festival to which few people have any allegiance. I speak of course of Christmas. As with Vegas, religion has little to do with profits and the profits made out of Christmas are enormous. The mountains of carbohydrates which now confront us in the name of a festival whose meaning has long since been hijacked by the all conquering retailers are contributing to our own diabetes time bomb. Worst of all, it is completely unregulated and makes no attempt to hide its cynical intentions.

Meanwhile, we are being told daily about what a mess our NHS is in. Standards of care are being questioned. Medical competencies are being questioned. The numbers of nurses are being debated. Community hospitals are being closed down. GPs are being asked to work longer hours to try and relive the strain on the hospitals. All the while though, little if anything is being said about the causes of these problems. I can stuff myself stupid with a diet rich in carbohydrates and fat and do little or no exercise. I can pour alcohol down my throat for fum because it is so ridiculously cheap and I can then smoke myself like a kipper. But after all that I can turn up at my GP surgery or local A and E department safe in the knowledge that someone will give me a pill to make it better. Nobody will judge me because they are not allowed to do that. They will even refrain from referring to my weight for fear of the distress this may cause me. Given all of the above, is it any wonder the NHS is struggling? Also, is it any wonder the supermarkets so utterly dominate our society? Illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and strokes are the legacy of their strategies. But they don't have to worry about the cost of putting us right because the NHS does that. They are therefore to do as they please and make profit for fun with no recourse to anyone.

On balance then, I question which is worse. Vegas with its defibrillators behind every slot machine or the UK with its unregulated supermarkets? Both induce ill health but I would argue that Vegas does so with a touch more honesty. I don't agree with them fuelling an addiction but at least they make no bones about it however unpalatable that is. The supermarkets though are a different kettle of fish. They vie with each nother to show who is the cheapest and offer us reward points for coming back. They are therefore charging us more in the first place and rewarding us by selling cheap carbohydrates and alcohol to fuel our addiction. Thus they ensure our custom and make their profits. In any assessment, that is a pretty rotten business plan and yet millions of us are drawn to it daily. They even sell us our petrol now just in case there is an aspect of our spending which they haven't yet sufficiently exploited.

It is not the casino which has made the native Indians obese in Nevada. It is the Western diet which has done that. We in the UK are merely mirroring what has been going on the US and reaping similar rewards. Just this week I saw another proposed supermarket development in the market town of Mold in North Wales. As usual, the justification for such a decision revolves around jobs because apparently this is the best we can do in this country. This is lame excuse to finish off another high street as it surely will. An elderly lady in Aberystwyth faces being evicted for another supermarket to be built. Once agin the local councillors cite jobs as their rationale. If this constitutes the extent of the vision held by those charged with making the big decisions in our locality, Heaven help us all. By comparison to the myopic vision of North Wales councillors, Viva Las Vegas!

Call that a recession?

The Bank of England has just announced that it may well elect to hold interest rates at their current historic low even if the rate of unemployment falls below the critical figure of 7% earmarked by the new Governer. 95% mortgages are springing up like wild fire and this week we learned that the Co-Op bank agreed to appoint a fromer Methodist Minister as its CEO. This decision was taken after the banking crisis of 2008. We had been assured that appointments to such positions would be subjected to the closest scrutiny. Another empty assurance.

House prices are rising at levels even greater than we saw before the market collpase of 2008. Frankly, all this can only ever lead to another, bigger collapse than the last one. Our levels of persoanl debt have also continued to rise in spite of the so-called "austerity cutbacks". There are two conclusions which may be drawn from this. One is that people aren't as hard up as they say they are. The other is that people are just borrowing their way out of trouble blissfully aware that they haven't a cat in hell's chance of paying it back. Sadly, the statistics favour the latter over the former.

One of the biggest flaws in the measures to address our woes in the wake of 2008 was the failure to recognise and reward savers. It is the latter which will set the country on a sustainable course of recovery. Although it will take longer, it will be genuine and weather any storms. Instead the country appears to be borrowing it's way out of trouble. We might as well have Ed Balls as Chancellor and just go the whole hog!

On any level, this is lunacy. We are merely replicating the days of Labour under Brown and Blair. History has shown us where that led. To do so again beggars belief. Surely the Government has an ounce of common sense? Fuelling another housing bubble and financing HS2 do not seem a sensible way to address our growing national debt. As the Archbishop of York has highlighted this week, there have never been so many people earning a wage who can't make ends meet. Why is that?

I suspect that our inclination to compromise has a lot to do with it. Of course fuel is more expensive and food inflation is crippling but I can't believe how many people are letting themselves fall in to debt. I also can't believe how little our Government is doing to deter them. Companies such as Wonga must think it's Christams every day at the moment!

Speaking of Christmas, if the levels of debt are high now, I shudder to think what they will be come February when the inevitable credit card bills gently plop on to a million door mats. Much has been written about the future of the church this week as the argument over women bishops rages on. The fact is that the church should be at the forefront of efforts to tackle the avarice driving our debt levels. Avarice is one of the great evils of our age which is not exactly helped when we have high profile public figures such as Simon Cowell proclaiming school to be a waste of time when all you really need is a bit of luck.

The next banking collapse will make the last one look like a ripple on a mill pond. We need to act quickly before the ripple becomes a tsunami...

The UK in the EU - you put your right foot in....

As British politics continues to be polarised as to whether or not we should remain in Europe, we would do well to take a look back before we start considering the ramifications of a future referendum.

In 1967, the UK was rebuffed for the second time by the then French President Charles De Gaulle. De Gaulle was totally against British membership of the Common Market. He was not alone. Despite Britain having played a key role in ensuring French liberation during the Second World War, De Gaulle and other European leaders remained suspicious of the British and were openly more happy with them outside the tent looking in.

With Paul Sykes this week promising to bank roll UKIP in an attempt to guarantee a referndum for the British people, it is worth considering the outcome of a "No" vote. Certainly we would leave the EU but should things subsequently change for the worse, we might not find it quite so easy to get back in. Going to Brussels cap in hand would be ignominious enough but to be spurned would be moreso.

Having digested the arguments on both sides of the debate over the last few years, I remain committed to us having a referendum. People born after 1957 have not yet been afforded their say on the matter. Regardless of what they think, they at least deserve to have their say. This counts for everyone between the ages of 18 and 55. That is a lot of people. Granted, some may be indifferent but many are known to have strong views and successive opinion polls show that two thirds want to have their say.

We have given the Welsh a say which has resulted in them having a National Assembly in Cardiff. The Scots have achieved the same result in Edinburgh and nearly went one step further last year. Yet we are all denied our say on something which impacts massively on the country. Our EU membership impacts on our laws, our taxes and many other aspects of our lives besides. While we have correctly resisted calls to join the Euro, we really need this referendum to settle the debate. Can you imagine having this Coalition for 38 years with no opportunity to vote them out? That would be unthinkable. The same should apply regarding our EU membership. That is not unreasonable - just fair. 

Monty Python and the Comeback...

It seems as though we stand in the midst of an epidemic of comebacks. It isn't always obvious though to know when they are well judged by the person or group involved.

The latest comeback to appear in our news is that of the surviving Monty Python team. As soon as the word surviving is used, the age of the act becomes self evident. Let nobody doubt the place of the Pythons in the history of British comedy. From their early roots as members of "That was the week that was" hosted by the late David Frost and produced by the late Ned Sherrin, the Pythons redefined British comedy. In many ways, they were the comedy equivalent of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. Both refused to take themselves too seriously and revelled in poking fun at the establishment. Then, as now, the establishment has always taken itself too seriously.

Before they branched out in to films, the original sketches of the Pythons were wonderfully original and, during my school days, it became de rigeur to quote the dialogue verbatim. Quite why we did this is now unclear but it seemed very funny at the time. That is the point though. It was funny at the time but we have now become older while the Python humour remains locked in a 1970s timewarp. There are only so many ways in which we can allude to a dead parrot before the joke becomes, well, dead. In addition, the prospect of a transvestite lumberjack in the early 1970s was comic genius but now nobody would bat an eyelid. Even the superlative one-up-manship of the four Yorkshiremen would now seema little tired. To his credit, Terry Jones was rather more candid about the proposed reunion when he quipped, "I hope it makes us a lot of money".

The only comeback which would fill me with greater dread than this would be if John Cleese and Connie Booth decided to write another episode or two of Fawlty Towers. The latter was the comedy sitcom by which all others are ultimately judged. To take it in to 2013 though would be a huge mistake. As brilliant as it was, Fawlty Towers belongs in the 1970s and would frankly look absurd anywhere else. There is one episode in particular which would not be aired on British Television now anyway as it would cause a furore. That said, it was very funny and universally acceptable in 1975. Time moves on.

From that same era comes news of the comeback of one Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The Bond villain extraordinaire has seemingly been at the centre of a legal dispute. Now resolved, the owners of the franchise are now at liberty to re-introduce him. Be prepared to see Blofeld in the next installment of the much milked spy saga. The Fleming novels were and remain great spy books. The early films were a big deal for the audiences of the 1960s. What has followed has become a parody of the parody of itself. If Blofeld is to return, they might as well make him a transvestite and go the whole hog.

With the exception of one series in 1996, Doctor Who ended in 1989 before being dragged out kicking and screaming for a new audience in 2005. The media world is now awash with retrospectives of 50 years of Doctor Who despite him being off our screens for 16 years. If that isn't milking, I don't know what is. Even the sets on Doctor Who are rubbish now. In my youth, even children could tell how bad they were and this paradoxically added to the appeal. Gone now are the cardboard walls and pathetic background actors to be replaced by a professional franchise.

As with Doctor Who, the Rolling Stones have milked their half century to death this year despite being dormant for much of that time. It would be more apt to celebrate 50 years of being tenuously connected with the music industry rather than the version which the marketing men have been trotting out.

But the comeback to end all comebacks could happen next year if the Scots regain their independence for the first time since 1707. Now that really would be a comeback. Indeed, their proposal to cut Corporation Tax in the event of such an outcome promises a jobs boom. Given how few jobs there are currently, that shouldn't be too difficult.

One my all time musical heroes has just announced his third studio album in 42 years. David Crosby is his own man though and is motivated by his music rather than dollars as evidenced by this sedentary output. Having been twice inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he hardly needs the recognition. His comeback after drug and alcohol addiction has been truly remarkable. While George Best spurned his liver transplant, Crosby has put his demons behind him and seized the opportunity. As the recipient of a transplant myself, I savour every day because I remember only too well the effects of a life on kidney dialysis both on myself and my family. While Crosby and I have benefited from organ transplants, a new form transplant came to my attention this morning.

A scheme has started whereby pacemakers are removed after people have died in this country (with consent from the next of kin naturally). The device is then sterilised provided it has at least 70% of it's battery life left and exported to India where lives are being saved and transformed. Predictably, the EU won't sanction their re-use in Europe. Europe's loss is India's gain though and this is a great example of what happens when we seek to get the most out of our existing resources. The cost of a new pacemaker is around £2,500 which is far beyond the means of the masses in India. This scheme breaks down the barriers of cost and restores life at very little cost. Now that's what I call a comeback. 

Paul Sykes and the EU Referendum

There is a famous expression which seems to be used rather less these days. "Pull the ladder up, I'm alright Jack" was a popular phrase used in the UK to highlight selfishness. It was so popular that a cult British film from that era was called "I'm alright Jack". It starred Peter Sellers as the epitomy of the Union Shop Steward and satirised British Industrial life in the 1950s. It was the most popular British film of 1959 which served to demonstrate the extent to which the unions dominated at that time.

Peter Sellers was on his way to becoming one of our biggest stars having been a member of the Goons before embarking on a glittering film career which culminated in the Pink Panther films. In his role as Fred Kite, the Shop Steward, Sellers excelled at portraying the paranoia and control which ruled the UK at the time. That movement of course was largely extinguished when Margaret Thatcher successfully took on and beat the National Union of Mineworkers in the bitter dispute of the 1980s. Nowhere was the bitterness of that strike more apparent than in Barnsley in South Yorkshire. I lived there not long after the strike had been defeated and I can not adequately convey to you the absolute hatred of the Tories which pervaded the entire region. To this day, Barnsley remains about as safe a Labour seat as you can imagine and it always amuses me to see the Tories going through the rigmarole of even fielding a candidate. In a by-election in 2011, the new Labour candidate scraped home with 14,724 votes followed by UKIP on 2,953 votes. The Tories managed narrowly to garner more votes than the British National Party. To put that result in to some kind of perspective, the previous Labour incumbent had resigned the seat after admitting to defrauding £14,000 in Parliamentary expenses. That equates to roughly one embezzled pound for each vote gained by his successor - not exactly what you might normally expect in the face of such a blatant abuse of public money.

Like Simon Cowell, a local Barnsley lad called Paul Sykes left school with no qualifications. Like Simon Cowell, Sykes made a lot of money. Unlike Cowell, Sykes didn't achieve his fortune through luck. The son of a miner, he set up a business at the tender age of 18 stripping bus engines and selling the parts to the Middle East. That was in 1961. In 1990, his business had expanded to building the Meadowhall shopping complex on the site of the old steel works in Sheffield. As I write, his wealth is estimated to be around £650 million give or take the odd million. It was always claimed in Barnsley that when the private number plate PS1 became available in the late 1960s, Peter Sellers bid for it but lost out to the lad from Barnsley who had started out with nothing. Paul Sykes has an impressive track record of getting what he wants and being prepared to fight for the privilege.

Sykes has famously been a Tory party donor but famously left in 1991 in the aftermath of the Maastricht treaty. With the late Sir James Goldsmith, he financed the Referendum Party. Their aim was simple - they wanted a straightforward "in or out" referendum regarding our continued membership of the European Union. Sykes remains a vehement opponent of the European Union and is willing to spend his hard earned brass in fighting for everyone to have a say on our membership of the EU. He is a massive donor of UKIP and has today announced that he will be bankrolling their election campaign for 2015.

In making this announcement, Sykes has pretty much dictated the outcome of the next General Election. Two thirds of British voters want an EU referendum to have their say. Sykes intends to let them which is not unreasonable given that we haven't been deemed worthy of one since 1975! This will boost the UKIP vote and dent the Tory vote. It will also dent the vote of Labour and the Liberals too so the only foreseeable outcome now is another coalition but this time featuring a concession to UKIP regarding a referndum. Nigel Farage could scarcley have hoped for better news than this. The irony of the lad from Barnsley having no affiliation to Labour is not lost on me. Had the Tories been more united in their stance over Europe, the next election would have been theirs bankrolled by the likes of Sykes. Instead, their disunity which has plagued them since the mid 1980s has once more spelled their downfall. Make no mistake though. Paul Sykes will agree to a coalition with anyone just as long as the referendum is delivered. This is because he knows what most people have known for a long time. Such a referendum will see us leaving the EU immediately. Cameron, Clegg, Milliband and the CBI are all petrified at the prospect thinking that British jobs will be threatened. On the contrary, such a decision will require Britain to once more stand on it's own two feet - something that we haven't done for a very long time. The rest of Europe needs to be more afraid of us leaving because we'll be alright Jack...

Tendulkar: The hero for the common man

Ever since the Golden Age of cricket, the masses have sought their heroes. Idolised and sanctified, the early recipients became the true forebears of the professional era as we now know it. Dr. W.G Grace is perhaps the famous of all cricketers but things were different then. For a start, the British Empire was then at it's zenith and for the millions who worked down the mines and in unimaginably difficult working conditions, the cricketing exploits of the Gloucestershire physician provided a welcome distraction from their day to day hardships.

That was in late Victorian England whereas Tendulkar is revered almost exclusively in his native India. For all the records he has broken along the way, the aspects of his career which deserve special praise are his longevtiy and the way in which he has coped with a public expectation which we can barely guess at. There is no doubt he has been a great batsman but arguments regarding the greatest are always very difficult. I don't consider him to be the greatest for the simple reason that he has never had to make his runs on uncovered pitches. He may well have done so but we will never know. It is also easy to forget that his career has coincided with a new era in Indian cricket. He has enjoyed the company of some truly wonderful players during his 24 years at the crease. I will always look back on the side which featured Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid and Sehwag. As a former bowler, the mere mention of their names makes your heart sink. At the beginning of his career, Tendulkar shared the field with the man who was India's darling for a long time. Kapil Dev had vied with Botham, Imran, Hadlee and Rice as the world's finest all-rounder during the 1980s. He was a very under-rated bowler and an explosive batsman. With Gavaskar, he carried the hopes of the nation for a long time.

They played their cricket when the West Indies ruled the cricket world. Had Tendulkar been playing his last innings against Holding, Garner, Marshall and Roberts in their pomp, I feel 74 might have flattered him. That said, you can only bat against what is front of you and his performance has been admirable. We grew up with our own idol. He was the man for whom the bars emptied at Test Matches when news spread that he was going out to bat. National productivity stalled for the tenure of his innings. Ian Botham was the one name we wanted to see on the team sheet because we knew that as long he was playing, anything was possible. The number of biographies of Botham are testament to the massive interest in him. Even in Botham's day, they played nowhere near the amount of cricket they do today and I very much doubt whether his weary body would have lasted more than his 102 test matches let alone 200. He had to perform with bat and ball and that takes it's toll on any man. Where Botham and controversy never strayed too far apart, Tendulkar has had an unblemished career with only his captaincy skills shown to be lacking.

It is scarcely possible to imagine what cricket means in India. I've never been there but have many friends from India and they leave me in no doubt about the place of cricket in Indian society. If we think the football Premier League is big over here, we don't know the half of it. With such fanaticism comes massive expectation and Tendulkar has weathered that particular storm admirably.

When I consider the greatest batsmen from history, they are mainly men of average to short height with a few notable exceptions. Cerrtainly, batsmen like Graeme Pollock, Gary Sobers, Peter May and Frank Woolley were all very tall. These players aside though, I think of Jack Hobbs, Don Bradman, Wally Hammond, Viv Richards, Dennis Compton, Neil Harvey, Colin Cowdrey, Brian Lara and Everton Weekes. These were all players who would fill a ground by the reputation and technique of their batting. Tendulkar would certainly fit that bill and didn't appear to have a weakness in his game. Some would argue that batting on the slow, dry wickets of the Indian sub-continent is a different proposition to the faster wickets of the Caribbean and Australia.

With the passing of Tendulkar, India will be watching out for it's next idol and in a way, one pities the unlucky recipient of such intrusive attention. Whoever that person is will need to have great powers of concentration and a Stackhanovite attitude to batting. They will accrue great riches at the expense of their private life. The baton is being held out but who wants it?

  

A blueprint for the UK

Yet another report emerges this morning warning that millions of British people will be advised to start taking statins in an attempt to reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease. Today's news also sees the Prime Minister warning of the low aspirations of the young poor. Yesterday's news was dominated by the announcement of plans to address the growing strain on the NHS emergency departments.

Can you see a connection? None of these stories attempt to get to the root of the problem. With education about lifestyle choices, more people would be empowered to make better decisions regarding the amount of exercise they take and the amount and type of food they choose to eat.

The low aspirations of the young poor is more a statement of the obvious than it is news. What we need to do is consider why they have low aspiration. Put simply, they don't currently start life on a level playing field by almost every measure you care to make. In particular, the education system is letting them down badly. As I wrote in a recent piece, even the gifted students from poor households are at a disadvantage as eveidenced by the sobering statistic that nearly 26% of medical students are privately educated whereas only 7% are privately educated nationally. It's not hard to see why the children from poor backgrounds have such low aspiration when we give them so little to aspire to.

The latest proposals to reform the A and E system in the UK once more choose to avoid the real problem. By its own admission, the latest proposal acknowledges that about 40% of A and E patients should never have gone there. To palm these people off on a paramedic or a GP is again missing the point rather. Theses patients are people who very often just need educating about what constitutes an accident and what constitutes an emergency. It's all very well standing in judgement of thier ignorance but that will not change unless we begin the process of educating people. This can be done through Public Information Programmes on the TV and Radio or, in today's imternet dominated world, social media. Either way, this should not be beyond us. To address the root of a problem is always more effective than just fire fighting the problem.

So if social mobility or a lack thereof is disadvantaging large sections of our society, we need to ask ourselves why? Failure to address this question will only exacerbate further the growing divisions between the haves and the have nots. If all children at given the same opportunities through education at early years (1-5), their outcomes in later life will become more equitable. This is why we need to be making the provision of nursey care more accessible to everybody. This is core to the development of our wider society. If we get it right at early years level, we give ourselves a chance of a fairer society. If we don't, we will just have more of the same. Even children from less well off backgrounds will have had access to play through nursery and their parents will have greater opportunity to go out and earn. If such a measure meant raising taxes for a better society, it would be brave politician who would argue against it. Getting early years right will address play, exercise and diet. Numeracy and literacy are not as important at that age - they can come later. As is often cited, such practice is the norm in Scandinavia and they have lives which we can o nly dream of.

Just this morning I was reading about Norway. Granted, it is a wealthy country on account of it's natural reserves of oil and gas. However, unlike Venezuala and the UK it does not squander it's assetts. This explains why the Norwegians are tied in to a rigid cap on working hours. They start at 8 and finish at 4. Working 50 hours a week is frowned upon because the country promotes the concept of family and leisure time. This is something which we all did in the UK not so long ago. We have now become busy fools living to work. The Norwegians work to live and positively welcome leisure and family time. Could this explain why they are so happy despite having less day light than us? One thing which I would vote for would be a ban on Sunday trading.

I would not promote this measure for reasons of faith per se but would rather promote it for reasons of social cohesion. Do we really need to be shopping 7 days per week? We still have the same level of disposable income and there surely comes a time when there is more to life than spending money in a shop? If this measure opened the door for families to spend more time with each other and engage in leisure, fun and enjoyment, I think we'd all be feeling a bit better. 

The four Yorkshiremen

In late August 1980, the Centenary Test was contested between England and Australia at Lords. Then as now, the regular England wicketkeeper was injured and a member of the Bairstow clan selected in his place. Although drawn, the match boasted no fewer than four Yorkshiremen in the England ranks and even the umpiring was presided over by Harold "Dickie" Bird. That England team also boasted two spin bowlers and it would be hard to imagine such bold tactics being employed when the next installment of the Ashes begins this week at the Gabba.

Given the injury to Matt Prior, Jonny Bairstow looks certain to don the gloves and follow in the footsteps of his much missed father David. The 1980 vintage had Geoff Boycott grinding his way towards his 7,000th test run whereas our current crop sees the emerging Joe Root being demoted to the middle order to accomodate the more considered approach of Michael Carberry. In 1980, Bill Athey was Yorkshire's representative in the middle order and he would go on to become an effective opener by the late 1980s. Next week could well see Gary Ballance being given the nod to prove himself at the highest level and it opens up the prospect of Yorkshiremen taking up the numbers 5,6 and 7 in the order. Sadly, Tim Bresnan won't be fit for this match otherwise history would have repeated itself.

It was regrettable to hear Michael Vaughan expressing reservations about the wicket keeping ability of Jonny Bairstow. Jonny has been first choice for Yorkshire for a while now and has inherited his father's skill with the gloves. I don't think Vaughan has anything to worry about and, if anything, the extra responsibility could well exert a positive effect on Jonny's batting which has yet to reach its full potential at Test level. There is no questioning his talent so he just needs to convert those scores of 30 to something more meaningful during the first few tests to really announce himself properly.

I do hope the two teams let their cricket do the talking in this series rather than getting too hung up on social media. I also hope that late night excursions to bars have been learned from. There is no doubt that Stuart Broad will bet plenty of stick from the Australian crowds after his blatant decision not to walk when so obviously out during the summer just gone. You can't make such ill informed decisions as that and not expect a reaction. Maybe my specs have become a little too rose tinted as I get older but I can't Dickie Bird standing for that when he was wearing the white coat. I think his finger would have been up and that would have been the end of the matter.

Of course, four Yorkshiremen playing for England is not a record anyway and possibly the most famous England scorecard of all time features no less than five. Once again the opponents were Australia but that occasion was in 1938 at the Oval. Hutton managed 364 runs in the first innings and was joined in the side by Maurice Leyland, Arthur Wood, Hedley Verity and Bill Bowes. The latter became a wonderful cricket journalist for the Yorkshire Evening Post. Verity fell in the Second World War with the Green Howards. Leyland was a serial accumulator of big hundreds and Hutton remains one of the finest batsmen we have ever produced. But what about Arthur Wood, I hear you ask?

Wood was the Yorkshire and England wicketkeeper in 1938 and strode out to the Oval wicket following the dismissal of Hutton for a then world record score of 364. With the England score now on 770 for 6, it was Arthur Wood who famously siad, "I'm just the man for a crisis!". He then put on a stand of 106 for the 7th wicket with Joe Hardstaff junior. Oh for Jonny Bairstow and England to bring back some memories of Arthur Wood.... 

Charity begins at home?

Throughout the tenure of this Government a series of political commentators have attempted to highlight the disparity between our austerity cutbacks and the amount we give to foreign aid. I wonder how those commentators are feeling today?

As we witness in real time the tens of thousands in the Philippines who have lost absolutely everything, it is surely immoral to question the amount we give to foreign aid. I repeat, these people have lost everything. Not X boxes, satellite dishes, computers and televisions but food, water, a roof over their heads and clothing. That is their reality. We talk openly about austerity in the UK as if we knew what it meant. If we went to the Philippines today, I'm sure the people there would give us a rather better defintion than our more rose tinted version.

It is sobering to reflect that Remembrance Day this year seemed alsmost to get in the way of the great debate concerning which retailer has the best TV advertisement for Christmas. Putting aside the obvious cynicism and immorality of the sabotage of Christmas, I can't believe that anybody can have Christmas on their minds in November. Heaven forbid anybody remembers why we have Christmas! It is a religious festival which has been hijacked and fleeced by the marketing men. The biggest culprits though as those who buy in to this nonsense. While I don't condone the cynicism of the retailers, I take more issue with those gullible enough to fall for it. Frankly, I couldn't care a fig whose advert is the best and hopefully won't have to be subjected to their hollow, materialist drivel.

I pray for the people in the Philippines and I'm glad our Government is showing the moral responsibility by sending aid. I'm pleased that the public is giving to the aid appeal and urge people to reconsider their priorities. Charity does not begin at home because it is the duty of all of us to consider our fellow man. This is just plain humanity and I would like to think that the plight of those poor people in the Philippines is even more important than the John Lewis Christmas advert given that we are still in the first half of November...

On a final note, I do hope the Fire Fighters have a great four hour strike today over their pension grievance. Fancy asking a fireman to work until he or she is aged 60! Obviously at age 55 they are all robust and physically fit enough to do their jobs. 60 though is just taking things too far. It's good to know that our income in retirement continues to occupy our thoughts.
 

Mickey Mouse knighted?

As I get older, I often wonder if I am losing touch with reality or if reality is losing touch with the rest of us. Let me explain.

A few news stories have caught my eye this week. Collectively, they inform me that our country has lost it's way. The funeral of Harold Perceval attracted lots of media attention after the local undertakers and the RAF Association issued a request for mourners. He had taken part in the Dambusters raids on Germany during the Second World War. This man and his generation were responsible for us winning the Second World War. It struck me as being rather sad that requests for mourners had to be made at all. It would be good to think that we value those who sacrificed so much for our country when we were in our real hour of need. It seems as though we had forgotten about this man. That it is the most illuminating story of the week from my perspective.

On Remembrance Day this year, the actor Brad Pitt and his film crew were filming for their latest film in Oxfordshire. That they were dressed in German Nazi uniforms to do so was beyond the pale and just illustrated the extent to which money can seemingly override all else. For all their apologies, it is a sad day when filming becomes more important than remebering the war dead. We are expected to remeber them for just one day in the year and apparently even this is now becoming too much for some.

On the subject of sad days, I read with horror reports that the former football player David Beckham is to be knighted in the New Years Honours list. Only from a perspective of proportion and decency do I now condemn the entire Honours system. Such an award makes an absolute mockery of all those who truly deserve such recognition. This is a victory for money over substance and shame on those who have sanctioned such a farce. Given that he has just announced plans to relocate to Florida in pursuit of his next million, I can only assume that they have got the wrong person. Surely they meant Mickey Mouse or are they one and the same thing?

The final item which attracted my attention was the news that the mother of Baby Peter is to be released after four years in prison. Four years in prison seems plain wrong to me. She oversaw the prolonged suffering and eventual death of her defenceless son. Am I the only one to find this decision wrong? I hope so because what with the other items in the news, I am beginning to despair for our future. Dare I make a plea for some common sense or I am I just being over ambitious?

Are grammar schools the answer?

As a new debate thankfully begins regarding the growing gulf in social mobility between the haves and the have nots, it seems the right time to revisit the advantages of the grammar school system.

Under the current system, bright children in state schools are disadvantaged in so many ways. In the first instance, the standard of education is inferior which perhaps explains why privately educated children have to pay for the privilege. Added to this is their preclusion from so many good courses not because they're not good enough but because they just don't know how to play the game. Their counterparts get all the requisite advice and coaching because they have paid for the privilege. That is not fair in anyone's book.

The opposition to a return to the grammar school system is steeped in socialist dogma. Regrettably for those children smart enough but too poor to afford a private education, the opposition centres around reservations relating to the steaming of children with an 11 plus examination. Heaven forbid, we can't have some children being more academically gifted than others. In an era where every child must have a prize, it is simply too painful for some to acknowledge difference. Difference not superiority. This is where people allow the debate to become rather muddled.

It is our difference which makes us all unique. Some can run fast. Some can paint. Some can make music. Some can understand physics and so it goes on. All the grammar school system did was to allow children to fully recognise their academic potential. The only winner was the country because University places were being selected from the whole pool rather than the one with the money funding it. As for those who didn't make the grade for grammar school, they were the ones who took on apprenticeships and jobs designed for school leavers. That was a good thing but has painted as being somehow discriminatory. What it do was to recognise and nurture their talents. That was it's biggest crime.

I went to my local Comprehensive for a year and then went to a boarding grammar school for the rest of my education. It remains the biggest step up in education which I have witnessed. The step up from John Moores University to Medical School has been quite gradual by comparison. The children at grammar school were miles ahead of me academically and I had only missed the first year! In truth, I spent the next six years catching them up such was the gulf between comprehensive and grammar school education. Granted, such a policy won't go down with the socialist lobby groups but for the future chances of our country, I don't think there's much to think about.

For the record, the cabinet of John Major had more privately educated members than the current Coalition cabinet. John Major is righ to highlight the lack of social mobility but suggests nothing to address it. Might I suggest a return to the 11 plus and 13 plus examinations. This would be a big step towards equality if they are really serious about it.  

Selection for Medical School: how should we do it?

Two months before my fortieth birthday, I embarked on a British medical degree programme. Before medical school, I was a Sales Manager in fast moving consumer goods. As such, my route in to medicine has been the exception rather than the rule. My reason for choosing medicine was influenced by my life experience. I had been the sole carer for my first wife for three years until she died from breast cancer. I had also been a dialysis patient following kidney failure which gave me valuable insight in to the patient experience. That said, I did not have such experience of life at the age of eighteen and wouldn't expect many others to either. What I did have was a diverse experience of life by the time of my Medical School interview.

During our initial weeks at Medical School, my new colleagues and I attended a session in Basic Life Support. At the end of the session, the trainer asked the students if they wanted to divulge the real reason they had chosen a medical degree. To their credit, all the students answered with great honesty. Their answers shocked me. The majority disclosed that money was their biggest motivator for studying medicine.

Current Medical School entry remains biased in favour of privately educated students. Although only 7% of British students benefit from a private education, just over a quarter of medical students are privately educated. State educated students therefore remain disadvantaged under the current regime. Ironically, these are the very students most likely to grow up with the life experiences which will best foster true empathy with their future patients. This elitist disparity does little to address the concerns expressed by Lord Francis. The Francis Report will only effect improvements if it's recommendations are heeded and understood.

Admittedly, it is a long document but the central message is clear. Henceforth, Medical School selection must aspire to indentify those students who best display the attributes of care, compassion and empathy. It is the latter which should underpin the selection process for Medical School. The intellectual capacity of medical students is assumed because interviews are largely reserved for the star pupils anyway. Medical selection remains too resistant to the arts. While nobody disputes the value of a good scientific understanding, artistic subjects will provide us with more rounded individuals.

Much has been written about empathy and for good reason. Understanding the definition of empathy is key to the future selection of medical students. First recognised by Carl Rogers in 1959, empathy has since been sub-divided in to several categories ranging from emotional empathy to cognitive empathy. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) remains the foremost measure of empathy and explores the seven global sub-scales. The problem of course, is that this test can be learned and hence taught. Our Medical Schools need to be seeking a tool which will assess the care, compassion and empathy of potential students on the day of the interview. The tool will need to be designed to avoid easy replication which can easily be coached and taught. That is the big challenge.

The extent to which we can relate to the concerns of the person sitting in front of us is informed by our life experiences beforehand. This may explain why the United States have adopted a post graduate approach. Those extra three or four years of life experience can be vital to the emotional development of that student. If an eighteen year old states that they have worked at a local residential home, it doesn't reveal reveal how well they empathised with patients and neither does it reveal why they chose that experience. While such experience is good, it doesn't necessarily inform the selection panel. The selection day should therefore aim to see how students react when faced with stressful, emotional situations. Unfortunately, such situations can only be contrived using actors on a selection day. That said, I have always found the actors employed by my Medical School to be very realistic.

During my career in Sales Mnagement, we often went away in a large group for outdoor activities to explore our individual and collective strengths and weaknesses in problem solving. I have long advocated the utilisation of such an approach when recruiting medical students. Just being academically able is not enough for those intent on a clinical career. Such days are really useful for identifying our willingness to consider the views and opinions of those around us. They also foster good communication skills and highlight social limitations.

Given that the amount of life experience which an eighteen year old can get is often limited, we need to be exporing all their experiences of caring if we are to continue selecting students straight from school. Many may have had a caring role within their own social circle, be it family or friends. The impact of such experience needs to be expored in terms of how it has changed them.

Thus, an aspect of recruitment which could be improved is the skilled exploration of exactly why that student has chosen medicine. Many are unfortunately coached to say the right thing at the right time but a skilled questioner would recognise such responses and explore them further. By their own admission, many members of my cohort claimed to be motivated by financial rewards. Granted, they were first year students and may have matured since then. Thye may not have matured though, and that ought to be a cause for concern.

Lord Francis urges a culture of compassion, care and empathy. I question whether any of these can be atught. If we want to recruit the best doctors, we might have to accept that they may not always be the ones with the highest examination marks. We would all agree that an ideal candidate will need a baseline capacity to retain and understand key facts and concepts. The challenge is to accept that the attributes of compassion, care and empathy are just as important. The present system of spending two years frantically trying to put your curriculum vitae in the shop window is fundamentally flawed. As laudable as it is to go and help build a village in Africa, the notion of doing so has now become almost de rigeur among potential medical students as they seek to put distance between themselves and the competition. I don't doubt that some such projects will be genuine but question the true motives for many of them.




     

           

            

Rupert Murdoch or BT? I choose radio..

The news that the Australian corporate behemoth Rupert Murdoch has lost his precious Premier League football income to BT might be of interest to you. I have to admit to being glad that he has lost out since things have been going his way for a very long time now. Having said that, I'm no fan of the overcharging, promise breaking BT so feel absolute indifference to their win since they will never enjoy my custom again.

Thank God for radio. This is the piece of my life when I can get other things done while my faithful friend in the corner keeps me up to speed with the comings and goings of the world about me. In truth, I lost interest in football when the Premier League was formed and the game became dominated by some very unsavoury characters. Although one recent retirement was good news, the culture now is not attractive to me. It is far more about the winning than playing the game in the right spirit.

The Premier League is a symbol of the Professional era which was promoted so much by the likes of Jimmy Hill in the early '60s. I hope he's happen with the outcome but very much doubt it. Just today, Michael Owen rejects accusations that he ever dived to get a decision from the referee although he does admit he "went down" once or twice. What exactly is the difference?

There used to be word for it when I played sport. We would call it cheating so if this is what you get in the professional era, I'd rather not watch...It's not pretty and insults my intelligence.

Keeping a perspective

As the country prepares to remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, the news today contains a familiar mix of the serious, the scandalous and the pointless. Because so much time has now elapsed since the Great War and the Second World War, it is all too easy to lose sight of the sheer waste of human life. I often struggle to understand the true legacy of such pointless sacrifice.

The current situation in Syria is a timely reminder of what happens to real people when war happens. Nobody ever wins and the human cost is tragic. It isn't just war either as evidenced by the recent events in the Philippines. I heard a marvellous quotation yesterday which was attributed to no less a person than the Dalai Lama. He is reputed to have said that "to be born and given life is the greatest miracle of all and the challenge is to decide how to make the most of that gift". Although this is so obvious in so many ways, it's not always apparent when we look around us.

In Wales, two thirds of men and women over the age of 40 are now obese. This is marginally worse than Scotland. To compromise our health in such a way doesn't suggest an appreciation of the gift of life. Instead, it speaks of a life of futility lived with little hope or aspiration beyond the next calorie laden feast. If our lives really were so precious, we would surely want to live them for as long as possible in the best possible health. Why is it then that so many engage in consumption harmful to their health?

Our government has this week fallen in to a very dangerous trap. If the Tories are to have any chance of being the next government in their own right, their best chance is for Alex Salmond to win the vote for Scottish Independence. Should the latter happen, and I believe it is becoming more and more likely, a Cameron led Tory government would be left with enough egg on it's face to make a rather large omelette. Their decision this week to end ship building in Portsmouth after half a millenium has left all their ship building options North of the Border. This smacks of an ill thought out move to try and scupper the SNP gaining independence. If they fail to gain independence, Milliband is as good as home and dry and I shudder to think where that will leave us. If they gain independence, the Union will be gone and divided we will fall.

It was this morning announced that BT has been awarded a huge contract to screen live football matches from the Premier League. As this has become the nearest thing we now have to a religion, it is at least pleasing to see Mr Murdoch having lost out for a change. That doesn't follow that the new devil will be an improvement on the old though as the whole process is being driven by vast amounts of money. Whenever that is the case, the customer usually comes off second best. Watch this space.

So how much have we learned since those two world wars? This week saw the publicity seeking Russell Brand calling for people to not bother voting. Such action brought us the likes of Hitler so one would have to question the intellectual basis of such an argument. I hope we remember the war dead tomorrow because that is the bare minimum we can do.

Russell Brand: A study in self importance

Now that the "debate" has abated regarding the rant of Russell Brand, I would like to inject some badly needed logic to proceedings. Like many others, I first saw the headlines regarding his discourse with Jeremy Paxman. I subsequently listened to a transcript and struggled to suppress my laughter. He sounded like an angst ridden teenager angry at the world with none of the answers except revolution.

I've never regarded him as anything beyond a clever publicity seeker and saw no difference here so let's consider his argument. In the world according to Brand, nobody would vote because nobody is worth voting for. This is not a new concept because we have had a word to describe such an eventuality for a long time now. We call it anarchy because it results in a state of no government. As such, people do what they want, how they want, when they want and the country quickly descends in to a state of chaos. I don't deny this is an option but history alone warns us to first consider the alternatives. Even without the lessons of history, logic should tell us to vote if only to avoid such an eventuality.

What Brand didn't do was to suggest an alternative to the problems he identified in the politicians of today. To do so might have been more constructive. In 1981, four prominent politicians broke away from the Labour party to form the Social Democratic Party. For a time, they became a real force in British politics and threatened the two party status quo. The point here though is that Jenkins, Williams, Owen and Rodgers were fed up with the Labour party and so decided to offer an alternative. They did so very effectively and achieved great success in changing the perception that there were only two parties in British political life.

In 1993, UKIP was formed by Conservatives fed up with their party refusing to offer a referendum to leave the EU. Disillusioned, they did something about it. They now have a decent chance of holding the balance of power come the next election.

So my point to Brand is this; if you're so fed up with the status quo, do something about it and offer a viable alternative. Anarchy was ok for the punks to sell a few records in the 1970s but doesn't serve people very well.

The vote is worth the same today as ever. It only has a worth if it is used though. That is the point. I don't doubt that most people are fed up with the constant bickering at Prime Minister's questions but disengagement won't do anything about that.

After three and a half years Coalition, I would argue there has been an improvement in that the Tories have been prevented from having it all their own way. The Liberals have held them to account reasonably well and it shows us all a different more mature approach. It can be improved though. The Liberals have long argued for proportional representation and until that happens, we will continue to have our politics dominated by the Tory/Labour Punch and Judy show. I repeat, we will be stuck with this if we don't vote. We might just effect change though if we do vote. So, Mr Brand, what would you rather? More of the same, anarchy or fairness? He has talked the talk but now needs to walk the walk but I don't see him walking...

Compared to Russell Brand, even Nick Griffin assumes a degree of plausibility on the basis that he actually fights for what he believes in. We obviously don't agree with his views but must respect him for the fact that he is willing to stand up and offer them. That is real democracy. We get to see all sections of the political rainbow and cast our vote accordingly. I would point Mr Brand to countries such as Zimbabwe, Egypt, Syria and Pakistan. I could go on but the point is simple. We don't know how lucky we are. It's easy to see the fault in our political elite but not so easy to consider how much worse it could be.