Of mobile phones and the extortion of the internet costs

You probably think that I'm completely obsessed by the weather. You'd be right. Well, almost. Now, they say, we are expecting more snow and winds and freezing temperatures from the weekend. Great. Well, actually, not. The wind today keenly whipped around my face when dog and I were walking on the Heath. He likes it. Me not. At least we don't get the question mark faces when they see him. Or the amazed stares of 'What on earth has she done to that dog?' It's not MY fault I want to shout at them. I didn't do it! My Russian lady friend. She who has a dog that mine actually does an Obama bow to. An Obow wow wow, so to speak. She couldn't believe it when she saw him. In her rounded vowels she said that we must 'get compensation. It just doesn't look like him!' I know what she means. Not much hair has grown in ten days. It took three years to get that long.

New technology is great, isn't it? It is until you get the bill. I was upgraded to a BlackBerry. In my understanding, I believed the patter that internet and browsing were 'free.' Well, actually, they're! I can't believe that I was duped like this. I received the mother of a bill this week. Something that I had surely not anticipated. I recognise that we are still at the mercy of the phone companies when making international calls. I do tend to spend time abroad and I know from past experience just how much we are exploited for making calls there but this time I was charged for internet and browsing and I really, really (honestly) didn't realise that I would be charged. In fact, no one explained this to me. Only now, having checked my bill and contacted CarPhoneWarehouse and O2, has this been explained in terms of how much each megabyte costs! So beware! Don't be taken in by the beauty of the mobile phone upgrade. I think I'll go back to my old, trusty Nokia. I'm mightily peeved.

Sunshine, SAD, Avram Grant and Yom Ha'Shoa's Holocaust Survivors

Amazing. A whole day of sunshine. People out and about. Summer dresses (even though it's still chilly) and sandals and legs. Walking dog this morning (ok, I've taken him out of hibernation, notwithstanding my pure embarrassment, no, not really) and the people I met en route to the Heath were full of the real joys of spring. "Sunshine!" we shouted at each. "Blue skies!" We have all suffered from SAD this winter and to see the sun above is liberating.

The above was written three days ago. Since then we've had grey skies and wind but today it's sunny but SO cold!

Pompey did well yesterday. Avram was the saviour and 20 people crowded into the flat to celebrate Pompey making it to the semis before they made their way to the match. The fact that they're on their way to Wembley yet again to a final, notwithstanding that they are broke, relegated, full of injured or out of contract players, is irrelevant. Avram wore his black armband and celebrated how strength of mind and the fact that football is not life or death encouraged his players to beat crabby 'Arry's lot. Go Avram!

To continue the Avram theme: Today was Yom Ha'Shoa, Holocaust Memorial Day. Avram left Wembley in order to fly to Krakow and thence to Auschwitz to go on the March of the Living. The fact that his father buried most of his family in the wastes of Russia, having 'escaped' the extermination camps, is a tribute to the way that Avram has led his life. He said that his father was born with a smile on his face and died that way.

A story on AP today showed that the Holocaust is not over for those who experienced it. Over 200 Jews remain in mental health facilities in Israel, never having been able to expunge their memories. Some are 'locked in', unable to speak; others chain smoke and stare bleak-eyed into the distance; some have grotesque nightmares and others, who had managed to make lives for themselves post-war and have families and grandchildren, have found themselves back on psychiatric wards because these horrific memories will not leave them and have placed themselves at the forefront of day-to-day lives.

Ruby Wax, who writes that she suffers from depression, is going around the country with some kind of comedy show for those who suffer in psychiatric institutions. Perhaps she should wonder how Holocaust survivors spend their days. There's no comedy in trauma.

Of dogs and groomers and electioneering

Multi apologies. I've been away. It's been cold and wet and windy and I've suffered from SAD and now it's April and my birthday! Can't believe how quickly the time goes.

We're on our way to an election, although the party incumbant doesn't appear to have the balls to actually call it and yesterday the two weakest, most dorky, most irritating and infuriating - the boys Milliband - decided to launch a campaign wherein Dave the Cam is reflective of 'Life on Mars.' Doesn't everyone know that everybody loves the idea that political correctness is a burden and calling a spade a spade in the manner that Gene Hunt does is something to be admired, not vilified. And they want us to vote for five more years of the loathesome Mandelson and the man who sold off our gold reserves for the lowest price possible. Yes, that 'intellectual giant.' Geez...

Yesterday I took the dog into the groomers. He'd had a long winter. He was dirty and smelly and, quite truthfully, he was tangled. Guess what the groomer did? He shaved him. Can you believe it? A Rough Collie. A Lassie contender. A dog whose beauty is in his ruff had it shaved away! I'm in shock. I'm distraught and speechless that someone whose job it is to make dogs beautiful could actually do such a thing! He no longer looks like a Collie. He looks deranged. You can see the skin in some parts. The groomer showed me the bag of hair when I arrived to collect poor chien. 'He was matted,' he told me. He was never matted! All the groomer had to do was wash him, condition him and BRUSH him! Who's ever heard of SHAVING a Collie?! It will take years to grow!

So it's not all fun and games on my birthday. Zach came over with a card. He's taking me out for lunch later in the week. He's still good but still not doing anything actually to fill his days again. What a shame that the course didn't last for years...

Bleak winter cold and a tragedy in Scotland

This winter just goes on and on. Walking on the Heath today, the icy north-eastern wind permeated my fleece-lined jacket and even though I was wearing hat, gloves, cashmere scarf and fur-lined boots, it was as if I had been dumped down on the Russian steppe. There were still rivers of ice along the paths. Yesterday it was such a gift to see the sun, even though it was bitterly cold for most of the day. Today it's grey again and the sparse spring flowering bulbs are attempting to show their faces above the tundra. There's a number of violet crocuses that can be seen, alternating with the green shoots of daffodils but the sky is leaden and it almost looks like snow again. Tomorrow we are off to sunny climes where it's predicted to be 36C on Thursday and 'Beth' is sweltering in shorts and t-shirt. Who's to complain about that!



A terrible story in the news today. An asylum seeker, obviously seriously mentally ill, imposed his will on his young wife and their 21 year-old stepson, and the three of them jumped from the top of a council block in Scotland. How awful. It was reported that this man was 'fine 90% of the time but off-the-wall the other 10'. I would have to think that it was the other way around. Or maybe not. Maybe you just have to be of unsound mind for that finite 10% in order to jump from a skyscraper. Or any building. But his family? Were they mad too? Could he have been so persuasive that the other two, in desperation for his sanity, decided to end their lives in this fashion?



While walking the dog yesterday (now that I can as my back is about 85% better), I bumped into one of my fellow volunteers from the local hospital. 'I read your book!' she told me. 'It was amazing...' (that's nice of her). She's going to recommend it to a friend whose daughter is also Bipolar, 'although not as bad as your son is...' My son is good at the moment. When he was around yesterday he told me that he now wants to return to university and take a degree that is challenging and worthwhile. 'I've done the teaching course and found that I could handle it and much more...' he told me. 'And I'm taking the meds properly.' Wow. Progress.

Back Pain - In the mind?

Apologies. I've been injured. That is my back - or it could be my hip/leg - has an injury. Is it an age thingy? I stepped out of my car to put my foot on the pavement last Monday week and, weeeeze, ping, went my back! I managed to get a quick appointment with the physio who thought it was something to do with my 'hinges' and treated it as that. Over a week later and it was worse. Oh, well, thought the physio, it could be a prolapsed disc. Not sure really. See a sawbones. Get an injection. Think of surgery. Ah, well, no, I thought. I'll get a scan and that's it. So I saw Mr. Magic yesterday. The fabulous D. who's managed to put me back together before now. Why I didn't think of him last week is beyond my comprehension. Let's say it was the pain.

So deep tissue manipulation, as well as using his x-ray eyes to understand my skeletal frame and the way that I stood and how I was experiencing these vast amounts of pain, he told me he thought that I had dislodged my leg from my hip. After an hour of maneouvering me this way and that, I could stand up and the pain had, the on-going intense pain, gone! Oh, boy.

You see, my body had gone into protection overdrive and I had seized up with the fear of pain. So that's why those scientists had written that backpain is in the mind! Now I can, to some extent, understand where they are coming from. The more your muscles protect the injury and the more you fear the pain and the tensing and anxiety that stops you from breathing properly, the more it hurts.

Well, I'm going to go along to the surgeon this afternoon and I'll go through my real and regular back problems but I'll tell him that I'll opt for rehab chez Mr. D. and forgo any thought of intramuscular steroidal injections or back surgery - for the time being, that is. Who knows what the future brings?

And Zach is still good. He finished the course. Passed everything with flying colours. Is now a fully-fledged teacher of English as a foreign language. All he needs to do is to find a job. Yup, that's all.

Enough already!

It's one of those days where I'm going to kvetch. It hasn't stopped raining all day. The rain is now falling in vertical lines and creating huge puddles on the patio. When I walked the dog this morning - yes, I know, but I had to - we both got soaked. My jeans, my anorak, my hat. Even my boots leaked water. My very expensive Ugg boots that I really would have believed would have been better made. Maybe it was the wrong kind of water! We had to avoid the baby-lakes that lay in wait for us when we walked uphill. The cars, seeing us huddled into the bushes by the verges, kindly slowed down and drove around the grey, cold stuff so that we didn't end up totally wet from top to toe. As it was, the poor dog kept on shaking his fur but it just got wetter and wetter. J. wrote me a text from home: "It's weird seeing people in their summer clothes! It's February! Is this global warning (sic)?"

Zach came around last night so that he could work. I still can't get over him being so responsible and so possessed of doing the right thing, on time and creating lesson plans and making sure that everything is correct! Another personality - although it is the one that resided there beforehand. It's just that we hadn't seen it for such a long, long time. He even makes sure that he gets enough sleep. I keep tapping myself on the head to make sure that I'm not dreaming. The nice thing is the knowledge that there's still sufficient grey matter there that hasn't been eradicated by the oh-so-copious use of narcotics.

I see that the cannabis diaries has been published. Splashed all over the Daily Mail last week. Lots of photos of son from childhood to present day. All real names. Felt sorry for the boy, really. Not much fun having your face spread all over the tabloids with the nomenclature 'addict'. Because I wouldn't compromise and divulge real names and faces, the tabloids weren't interested in me. Such is life. So long as it gets borrowed and people read it, that's fine.

They predict that this rain is going to turn to snow within twenty-four hours. Then I'll really have something to kvetch about. So long as I don't go head-first again. I have a course to go to in south London tomorrow. 'Listening and responding' to cancer patients. Hope that we don't have the wrong kind of snow.

Those kill-joy Saudi Arabians

What kill-joys the Saudi Arabians are. Anything pink, from roses to chocolates, have been banned from being sold in shops in the peninsula. Why? Because it's against the religion to celebrate St. Valentine's Day and the pink stuff is just so anti-Islam. So between marrying eight-year-olds to 80 year olds and stoning adulterers and cutting off the hands of thieves, the religious authorities have the time to ensure that no one buys anything pink or sends a Valentines' card or buys their loved-one a pretty bunch of flowers because it insults their religion. Gosh! They must have so much time on their hands. Insanity.

Today there's two full pages of Gordon Brown; he of the bitten, dirty fingernails and greasy hair, whining about how he should have been the one to have been the PM instead of Tony Blair. He's now joined the celebrity brigade of the woe-is-me I too suffered, crying a little tear when speaking of the death of his baby daughter. I agree. That's sad. But to use her death as a part of his electioneering is depraved. He is so out of touch with the electorate that he may as well be on another planet. Hold on. There's an Endeavour Shuttle going soon...

Isn't everyone just sick of winter? It just seems to go on and on. I know and realise that it's still only February but the cold is getting to me. Maybe it's my age. I need to see and feel some sun. Yesterday it was bitter and the only thing going for it was that the dog didn't get mucky on the Heath but came back with icy paws. He refused to go out again later in the afternoon. You'd think that with his coat, he wouldn't feel the steely winds. Today we did a street walk because the mud had reappeared. The thought of hosing him down yet again deterred me.

Zach's still good and working twelve and fourteen hours a day, preparing his lessons and researching topics to teach. The reversal from total layabout to obsessive tutor is remarkable. One addiction replaced by another but at least this one leaves him no time nor desire for the former. The fact that he is really enjoying the strictures of the course and the people he's with and the positive future presented to him thrills me. Let's hope it continues along these lines. The shops filled with pink heart-shaped balloons and pink-ribboned boxes of chocolates and cards and flowers present no threat to people who have sanity in their lives. There's enough kill-joys even here but this is one instance where we are all free to express our freedom to worship at St. Valentine and maybe even Zach will have found someone to share in this.

Bipolar disorder and the most able students; Zach's progress

A piece in the paper today stated that clever children have a much higher risk of developing Bipolar disorder than less able ones. I guess that's news. Research has shown that the more intelligent children are four times likelier to go on to suffer the condition. The people I know who have Bipolar disorder? Yes, they're all the brightest ones. Zach certainly is. He coasted through school, never really putting in any effort and pretty much under achieving because he didn't feel the need to.

Talking about Zach's education the other night, he pointed to the fact that he didn't read any of the texts for English Literature A-level. Just the crammers. Still managed to get a B. With a bit more reading, there's no doubt he would have managed A's all round and gone to Oxbridge but he just didn't want that. The irony is that he's now started a teaching course and is (so far) loving it! I always thought that he would make an excellent teacher. He's bright and funny and articulate and well spoken and manages to get his point across succinctly. I can see a class of students enjoying his input. Let's hope that he succeeds.

The interesting thing about the brightest kids being diagnosed with Bipolar disorder is that it is also these kids who are the most creative too. Kay Redfield Jamison, in 'Touched With Fire, Manic-depressive illness and the artistic temperament,' explores the relationship between creativity and madness. As one of her critics wrote about her book, it is "an emphatic analysis of the creativity that emerges from a little madness and the horror from too much." Zach is studying hard. He's teaching class and he's researching and preparing his next lessons. He's still also writing music and wants that project to be successful too. 'I'm a little manic,' he said to me last night. 'It's a good manic,' he added. 'I'm watching it. Not letting it get the better of me.'

Star systems and the amazing Israeli response to the Haiti disaster

It's kinda nice that little has been happening here. Well, that's a bit of a lie but I don't want to expand at the moment. Suffice to say that we have a good semblence of sanity and health. Let's not analyse it too much. Taking things on a daily basis then there's sufficient improvement to inaugerate a star system. I remember the gold and silver ones from primary school. I loved green. Red and yellow were good too. So here it is: all the colours, apart from black and brown, are good. The starry ones the best. I think that we are at a green. Should red be pointing in another direction? I'll have to consider that.

My mind has been on the terrible events in Haiti. What a poor downtrodden country. It's just amazing though that whenever the cameras are on the Haitians, even the ones without anywhere at all to live and no clothing that they can call their own, that they all look so sparkly clean and pressed. How do they do it? It's the same in India. Among the squalor and filth the women are beautiful. Their saris, folded and brightly coloured, do not appear to be hiding dirt or despair. Why is it that only in the west do the street people and the poverty stricken shout their condition?

I'm so delighted that the Israeli response to the Haiti disaster was so fantastic. Who else had the presence of mind to bring a fully operational field hospital that contained, among myriad other medical aid, imaging, x-ray and paediatric care? A functioning neo-natal unit and a telecommunications centre? Yet, by reading comments on various boards, you would be seething at the resentment by the Israel-bashers that Israelis could do such good deeds. Suffice to say that the positive comments outweighed the negative ones. The major aid organisations that search for survivors are leaving. The Israelis are staying there, so hopefully they will, against all odds, find others beneath the rubble and stench.

Library loans, cancer, mental illness and the long-awaited medication compliance

It's raining. I never thought that I would be pleased to see rain. I'll hate it by this afternoon but at least it's melting the vestigages of the snow and ice. I don't have to take a stick to aid my progression along the filthy streets and I can wear boots that I can walk in. Finally. I hope it lasts. This morning we walked for an hour and I didn't slip once! We are supposed to hit the giddy heights of 9C on Sunday and sun. Ok. It's not the Dead Sea in January - all blazing heat and azure skies - but it's not the arctic.

I received a print out from the Public Lending Right this week. It tells me how many times my book has been borrowed from national libraries and how much I have made from this. I think it's done pretty well. From July 2008 to June 2009, its first year of publication, it was loaned a total of 2,212 times. That means that, added to the sales, it's been read over 7,000 times! Not too bad, considering. It hasn't overtaken James Frey but, then, he's been proven to be a liar. Fiction masquerading as fact in a 'memoir.'

Yesterday I was back in my role as volunteer in Oncology at the local hospital. Counselling patients with cancer makes me reconsider mental health problems. I still don't know what is 'better' or 'worse' and it was something that a colleague and I discussed during a quiet period. If you have a physical illness you will, at least, do everything possible in order to seek a cure or alleviate its symptoms. The very diagnosis of a mental health condition invariably means that you are not of sound mind sufficiently (in many instances) and you will deny yourself adequate intervention and help.

Zach opined that he never again wants to avoid taking medication. To repeat the hell that he went though in Ladakh and Delhi last year is the last thing on his mind. Previously, he told me, other 'episodes' at least had their memorable parts. There is nothing that he has positively from India's breakdown. He cringes when he thinks of it and finds it painful to the extreme. So something positive came out of it. It's only taken thirteen years. Let's hope it continues. I won't hold my breath.

HEALTH AND SAFETY IS AN OXYMORON (and so are the morons who came up with it)

So, so fed up. Fed up with looking at the white stuff. It's nice if you can stay inside and don't have to live. To go anywhere. To have to walk, run, drive anywhere. Food we have but I've ordered dog food and the poor dog has about another day's worth but I can't go anywhere in the car today because it snowed again last night. And, as predictable as day following night, the roads around here are impassable.

Walking the dog (a much abridged version) this morning, I saw a Mini simply sliding its way down towards the main road, its wheels locked, it's driver staring straight ahead in terror. Why he had even wanted to take his box on wheels to these roads on a day like this was anyone's guess. He hadn't even cleared the snow from the roof or the bonnet. Other pedestrians were watching him too. Further up the road another boy-racer sped along, spraying snow and dead grit, until he, too, found himself at the brow of the hill, thumped on his brakes and carouselled into the side of a parked BMW. We looked at each other in disbelief, we of the two legged kind, and continued along our way. It was treacherous.

Zach calls me each day and we lament the weather. He's had some kind of gastric flu and has been throwing up copiously every night. He's worried that it's affected his meds. He's cold all the time and hungry too because he's now scared to eat in case it all ends up either on his floor or the loo. The Winter Vomiting Bug appears to be the one that's closing down wards. That and fractures. I'd hate to think what hospital A&E departments are like this week. Grit has been reduced by 50% and we are, according to news reports, running periously close on empty for that and salt. None of the pavements are safe. Either they've semi-melted and are mini ice rinks or slimy, slidely slush. Either way it's likely that I'll end belly up yet again.

The gardener in the house that backs onto our garden has, in his great intelligence, decided to light a huge fire with wet branches and leaves and the smoke has gathered in huge clouds that have descended into each and every window and crack in the brickwork here. My apartment smells like the aftermath of a damp conflagration. I went out to him and berated him for doing so. His answer: 'Sorry, can't hear you.' So much for neighbourly good feelings. I think that a phone call to the very nice Italians is in order.

And once more the waiting for EDF Energy, the 'Sustainability Partner', to turn up and relocate the effing meter. All morning Monday. I called today to complain yet again. 'Oh, Mrs. Morris. You were left a message in November. The appointment was cancelled. It's now for the 9th February.' Of course no message was left. Just another sodding runaround from them. They're all so nice on the phone. Health and effing Safety again. No other reason not to have the meter where it's been situated since the block was last renovated. Years ago. You see it's dangerous for someone to top up their meter in the dark. When I made the point that there's a light switch in the room where all the meters are situated and that most everyone knows how light switches work, the nice gentleman to whom I was speaking said, yes that's right but Health and Safety has tied their hands.

I AM SO SICK OF HEALTH AND SAFETY
HOW ABOUT HEALTH AND SAFETY GRITTING THE ROADS AND THE PAVEMENTS

Snow, fractures, the NHS and Bill Oddie

Hairline fracture of a bone in my wrist. Therefore somewhat difficult to type! Sorry. Two falls in one day and the second one did it. We have so much snow and ice and nothing has been cleared. There's piles of snow and grit and sand but it's all lethal and we don't have the infrastructure here to deal with it.

I spent two hours at the local NHS hospital but was favourably impresssed. Pre-triage and then ten minutes to register and then straight to X-ray. Fifteen minutes and then they were done. Another hour to wait and an extremely nice registrar. What a difference...

But I have a caste on my wrist and it's so hard...

An interesting week with Zach. He's been staying here. Yet another chapter. To be discussed...

By the way: Bill Oddie. Now telling everyone how he's come through his depression. I'm delighted for him. Would have been nice if he had said thanks.

New Year: New changes. Will it be any better?

Gosh it's cold here. In October we were informed by the Met Office that we were going to have a 'mild winter.' On a par with their 'barbeque' summer that didn't arrive, I don't think that they do their job very well, do they? And they're telling us that by 2050 we'll have 'scorching summers'. Blah blah blah...

So this morning we skated our way around the Heath and the dog avoided the really icy bits too but he has four legs and a lower centre of gravity and there's not too much to worry about him toppling over. I only saw three people almost come a cropper this week on one particular and famous piece of glass. You'd think that the powers-that-be who work for the Heath would've done something about this. But, of course not. I remember when I last asked these gentlemen about doing something to alleviate the possibility of broken bones. 'If we grit one path,' one of them said. 'Then we'd have to grit them all...' Makes one open-mouthed in awe, doesn't it!

Lots of articles about poor Mr. Shaikh. One thing in agreement: Why was it that the Chinese authorities wouldn't allow him to see a psychiatrist? Was it because the Chinese actually wanted to execute a Westerner simply to show that no one's gonna mess with them? Well, it seemed to have worked. Who's going to boycott China?

So tomorrow it's back to normal. We have a new year and a new decade. I wonder whether it will be any better than the last. Will there be new medications discovered that work better for people with mental illnesses? Will there be more money injected into the system here for better care in the NHS for those who are vulnerable? Will there be a different attitude shown towards drug addiction and mental illness? I think it's highly unlikely that anything will change. One can but hope.

Sick to my stomach: Poor Akmal Shaikh

For the first time I agree with a foreign office minister of this government. Ivan Lewis described his feelings of revulsion with the Chinese authorities. He was, he said 'sick to my stomach.' How I know how he feels. When I heard that the Chinese had executed - or, rather, killed in cold blood - a man with severe mental health issues, my heart dipped downwards. I felt quite coldly sick. This is the twenty-first century. Haven't we learned anything? How can we tolerate a country that murders the vulnerable like this?

The worst, though, is reading the comments at the various media outlets. I would say that 99% of them utterly agree that the Chinese have done the right thing! Would these people concur that the Chinese would have had the moral authority to execute a 53 year old man who, although he had smuggled heroin, had cancer or MS or Parksinsons' Disease? Would there have been a huge outcry if he had been a white Englishman?

The sheer callousness and ignorance of the posters is astounding. I agree, no one should smuggle heroin. Heroin is simply disgusting. God knows what it's done to Zach. Or, rather, what Zach has allowed heroin to do to him. However, there but for the grace of God goes Zach. He says that even in his most psychotic moodswing he would never have involved himself with drug smuggling but having seen him at his worst, when he is unable to determine who he is, then is this likely?

Chinese human rights? An oxymoron if there ever was one. A thirty minute trial? A man, who for two years on death row, was refused psychiatric help for his Bipolar disorder? This is a country that the UK and everywhere else in the world wants to do business with? A juggernaut that rides roughshod over everything. China that sits on the UN Security Council while executing the sick and the vulnerable.

I'm sickened. It doesn't matter how often Bipolar disorder or other mental illnesses are discussed in the media, no one seems to want to understand it. I looked at the photo of Akmal Shaikh in the paper today and it's heartbreaking. Maybe being as ill as he was he was unaware of what was happening to him. Maybe his life was so awful that it's better that he's no longer alive and suffering in the way he was. It didn't sound as though there was a great deal of happiness there. His behaviour was just too manic and his decisions too extreme. Maybe if he'd received treatment here in the UK and was taking the right medication, then none of this would have happened. Who knows? Although from my experience here, it's more than likely that he fell under the radar of the NHS or slipped through whatever basic 'treatment' that is available to the mentally ill. Let's just spend the millions on more beaurocracy and backhanders.

RIP

The grounding of Britain and no to Chinese human rights

Isn't this country quite insane? 2" of snow and the whole place has ground to a complete halt. Why is it that every time that we have 'extreme' weather here, nothing works? The trains stop. The buses collect together into little groups and refuse to budge. Cars are abandoned at the roadside (and are dealt the ignomy of parking tickets) and airports and ferries hunker down. It's bizarre. We must be the laughingstock of the world. In the 'States, where they have this weather every year, homeowners are bound by law to clear the paths in front of their homes and gritters work 24/7 in order that people can get to work and school, hospital appointments or to do their shopping. Here, shoppers had to spend last night in John Lewis in the bed department because they couldn't get home. Local authorities didn't have the presence of mind to grit the roads to major malls and hospitals.

It's a national disgrace. When I walked the dog on the Heath yesterday morning, slipping and sliding along the paths, I saw two men in green uniforms coming towards me. They were walking on the snowy, leafy bit (just as slippery though). Workers, with their Westminster badges highlighted on their anoraks. Ah ha, I thought. Just the men! 'Why don't you grit the paths?' I asked. 'They're lethal. I've almost fallen over three times!' The older one laughed. 'Yeah,' he answered, 'We've also been sliding all over the place.' 'Then why can't it be gritted?' I reiterated. 'Health and Safety,' was his response. Eh, what? 'We can't grit because of Health and Safety..'

I have now heard it all. I guess this just reflects the malaise at the heart of our society. The staff melted away on the Eurostar, afraid to take any decisions on their own so that off-duty police had to man the tannoys. No one was available the whole weekend to inform the public what was happening on the channel tunnel. No one took responsibility. And here the excuse, any excuse it would appear these days, is effing Health and Safety. It's an effing oxymoron (excuse the pun).

As an aside, it looks as if the English/Indian guy arrested in China for drugs smuggling will be executed, even though he has mental health problems. Human Rights in China, you see, don't exist. Where are the demonstrations? I hope and pray that Zach doesn't make it that far east. He's still insisting on travelling yet again. Yes, I know but what can I do? Unless we go to court, he's entitled to his passport and in his present state would convince a judge that he is compos mentis. Irrespective of his Health and Safety!

Global chill, Copenhagen hubris and sanity

It's a quiet time of year. Thankfully. No histrionics. No tantrums or mood swings. It's like being with a human being. Let's hope it continues along this line. We take it on a day to day basis. 'Did you speak to Zach today?' 'Yes,' 'How was he?' 'He was fine. No different to yesterday...'

Christmas is upon us again. It actually feels slightly Christmassy too. It's bloody freezing! Yesterday it snowed. Great, big, fluffy, white globules that descended upon us from the skies above. It settled on the cars in the street and on the garden gnomes and the trees, making everything appear as if It's a Wonderful Life was about to reign supreme over our reality. I think, in some ways, that Copenhagen must be Pottersville. Full, it is of anarchy and hubris, hysteria and hypocrisy. All those do-gooders flying there in their Golfstreams; Chavez being applauded every time he opened his mouth and Mugabe denigrating the west. 'Cos of course these guys are just the epitome of goodness. Now we await the delights of Ahmadinejhad. Yummy. What can he possibly say that anyone can applaud?

It was -28C in Winnipeg the other night. The high in Moscow today is -24C. We are expecting winds from Siberia and snow of up to 8" overnight. I hope that I can get to my hairdresser in the morning. It's the firm's Christmas shindig and I can't possibly go with yucky hair! Will London be able to deal with the white stuff? What will the buses do? Will they make their ways out of the terminus (terminii?)? Will we have a repetition of last March when the whole of London ground to a standstill because, even though the meteorologists had (for once) rightly predicted snow, nothing was done about it?

I'll keep you posted. Meanwhile I'm going to put the heating on.

Climate change, courses and Zach

It's extraordinary how time flies. I can't believe that it will be Christmas in two weeks. Where does it go? Of course, it doesn't feel too much like Christmas because it is so mild this week. We've had mild Decembers before, of course. I don't buy into 'Climate Change.' The climate changes. That's life. A bit less pollution. A few less forests in the Amazon chopped down. Less building along low slung beaches in the Far East could help but it's all such hypocrisy for these thousands of 'enviornmentalists' to fly over to Copenhagen, rent copious amounts of limosines, eat and drink and make merry and spend OUR money doing it, and then piously tell us mere mortals what to do and how to lead our lives. And as for recycling our slops - do me a favour! Rant over. Two minutes. Is this a record?

I see that the UK is still lagging behind in the heart and cancer leagues. Not surprising when so much of the NHS budget is wasted. The graft that goes on is in a league of its own. All very well being proactive in screening but what do we do when we have a patient with symptoms? I think that there are so many well meaning people in the NHS who would love to do a good job but their hands are tied by managerial tampering. It's jobs for the boys. Oh dear, another rant...

An update on Zach: He's still good. Says that he's still taking his meds. Looks fine. Has put on weight. He's applied for a course and hopes to hear back this week to see whether he's got on it. Hope so. Will open all sorts of doors for him and it will be good for him to have something to do on a daily basis that will involve his intellect.

I also participated in a course yesterday. Now I know more about cancers than I really wanted to know and their treatments. It's fascinating but frightening but the knowledge that there are cures is a bonus. Maybe I should pursue it more proactively. Could I manage yet another degree course? Medical ethics sounds interesting... We'll see.

Marriage guidance counselling on the NHS? Whatever next? Beds for the insane?

I see that the NHS are proposing to offer marriage guidance counselling for free as one of its services. That's ripe. There's no money for drugs, beds, staff or research. A friend of mine is a scientist at the local hospital. She's working in oncology and attempting to find various cures for leukemias. It's a privately funded department because there are no government funds available for this kind of blood testing. Most of her colleagues have already been made redundant as a consequence of the recession. Private money is also wanting. She thinks that she will be next and doesn't know where her next job will be. But who will then be there to find the cures?

In addition to the above, the local hospital - in the midst of a huge refurbishment - and another hospital within the vicinity, are now the subject of a proposal to merge their two A&E departments. There's no money, you see, to keep the other, alternate, A&E open. This is also after a huge refurbishment of that particular hospital. The local hospital is already ill-equipped to deal with the huge catchment area for emergency medicine. How it could possibly cope with adding the fall-out from the other establishment is anyone's guess.

The psychiatric department where Zach has spent many moons was recently closed and a new one reopened. The problem is, though, that the local authority has to keep occupation at a minimum because there's no funding to offer the mentally ill the beds that they need. This is borne out by their 'criteria.' It used to be the case that if someone was considered a 'danger to him/herself or other people' then they would be sectioned. Well, this no longer seems to be the 'criteria' to which the NHS subscribe. God knows what it is. From experience, there's no 'criteria' at all.

NICE restrict medication that is proven to work for liver cancer sufferers; NICE operates a post-code for other medications and, this morning, I heard John Frieda on the radio proposing that hairdressers raise funds for a new operating theatre at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. An operating theatre? What is going on here? This is just after Children in Need, an annual private fund-raising event for the very same hospital raised hundreds of thousands of pounds. Great Ormond Street is an NHS hospital.

It's a scandal. Who is actually proposing that the NHS offer marriage guidance when there's not enough money for drugs, for childrens' operations, for mental health patients or even sufficient staff to provide urgent medical care for the elderly? Has anyone heard of the word priority?

SAD, Katie Price, celebrity and rattypoo

Hi guys. I'm sorry. I just haven't had the energy or the inclination to write the blog for a bit. I think it has to do with the days - they're so short and so dark and so dingy. I get up in the morning and it's dark and then it's dark again at 4ish and I get fed up. I didn't think that I would suffer from SAD. I crave the bright blue skies and the sunshine and the beach and the smell of the pine along the boardwalk, running towards the port. There's not much of that here. Only the floods in Cockermouth.

Zach's good. I ought to bring you up to date with that. He has put on weight and looks 'normal', for once. Doesn't have the gaunt, haggard, withdrawn 'Twilight' pallor. He's not shaking or drooling or shuffling his feet. He's eating and has developed a tummy. Of course he's not too happy with the tummy effect and I catch him looking down at himself or glancing at himself in mirrors, side on. He's usually concave, not convex.

The meds are working. Zach sleeps and eats and we have conversations and he's got ambitions to do something that doesn't entail finding a dealer or 'smoking brown.' It's a new sensation. He's applied for something and wants to start something else in January. It's small steps but they're steps.

Just as an aside, I've been watching 'Celebrity'. I know. I'm sad. (Apart from X-Factor, of course!) I've been wondering why the 'public' have been voting for Katie Price on a daily basis. What is it about her that they want her to do all the tasks, however ghastly they are. And, golly, aren't they nauseating? What sadist comes up with 'tasks' such as these? Is there a groundswell of wanting to see Katie suffer? Or a groundswell of wanting her to do well? It's pretty odd, whatever it is. I think that she's one ballsy lady, whatever... Dunking your head into slime and being showered in cockroaches? Ugh. What does she have to prove? Is she the masochist, being manipulated by the public or is she manipulating the public?

The above is, of course, quite a red herring to Zach's machinations. I don't know whether he watches any of that. I think that he prefers real animals. He's got his own ratty in situ.

'Health and Safety' insanity

Can someone please tell me what is the point of 'Health and Safety'? I ask simply because I'm just so bloody frustrated with the all-purpose answer from anyone who works for anything to do with utilities. It's the saga of Zach's electricity. I spent half a day in his flat a few weeks ago, waiting for the man to turn up and 'do' something with the electricity meter. It's in a room along with every other tenant's meter - gas and electricity. At waist high. All you have to do is to bend over to read it. Nothing dangerous there, I swear.

The meter was supposed to be moved inside of Zach's flat on Tuesday, for 'health and safety reasons.' He waited in all day but no one turned up (at least he didn't see anyone from the electricity company). The appointment had been made weeks ago. I rang them for him to find out what had happened. He didn't have enough juice left on his mobile. 'Someone was there,' I was informed. 'But they couldn't do anything for "health and safety reasons".' What were those, I enquired. 'I don't know,' came the response from the very nice man at the end of the phone. There's nothing unsafe about the meter, I told him. It's got good company with everyone else's. They're not having to be moved for 'health and safety reasons.'

Zach was down to his last £1 on the meter and called out for an emergency add-on. You have to do that, I was told. Not before the last £1. Nuts. The meter man turned up first thing this morning, Sunday. Of course Zach was asleep. The phone rang once to say that someone was there but when Zach got to the door, the add-on man had disappeared. Now he's out of both gas and electricity. Sitting in the chill and the dark and unable to boil a kettle. He's effectively cut off. What a botch of a system.

When I rang the electricity company once again on Zach's behalf and explained the situation, I was told that if Zach had paid his bills, then he wouldn't be in this situation. I agree entirely. But we're not dealing with someone who necessarily thinks like everyone else. He's got problems, I told her. He's not unique. I'll bet there are plenty just like him. She agreed. Then, I posited, this is not a very effective way of dealing with vulnerable people who should benefit by health and safety but who, evidently, are being let down by those very same laws.

Meanwhile we have an extension cable. There's a plug in the hallway of Zach's block and, because the landlords have still not mended the stove, the doorbell, the shower unit or replaced the rotting carpet in the bathroom - not to mention their recalcitrance with dealing with Ratty - he can use some of their electricity while he waits yet again for someone to turn up and add on the electricity because 'health and safety' meant that no one moved his meter without him being there because god knows what could possibly happen to the meter man confronted with a waist high electricity meter.