WEEKENDER: The Assisted Dying Bill, by Wiggia

 

Why are they all smiling!

The title gives the impression this Bill is all about helping those in extreme medical circumstances out of their dilemma by killing them. For some it makes sense, for many it is a form of legalised murder.

Far too many influences are involved that are not in any way wanting to help the afflicted but hasten them on their way for their own advantage, whether they be individuals or organisations i.e. the State.

The fact this Bill is a private members’ one does not disguise an element that shows all the signs of relieving older people of the help they need as they approach their later days.

There was a time when older family members were automatically brought ‘home’ to see out their days in the bosom of the family. That of course was a long time ago, now they become a nuisance only. Contact often is because family members can see a pot of gold within reach, I doubt if many reading this will not have across the family members descending like vultures when a grandparent dies in the belief they are entitled to what is left; I have seen it in my own family, it is not something to be proud of and the usual suspects turn up every time like locusts.

I have heard many such cases from friends over the years so I am hardly surprised how widespread it is when it happens.

Now it appears that governments want to get in on the act. In the Lords Matthew Parish was mentioned for his recent piece in the Times…..

https://x.com/i/status/1968979274775277584:

“The elderly and infirm are a ‘drain on resources’”. Lord Curry of Kirkharle quotes Matthew Parris in The Times saying it would be good if they felt pressure to end their lives early. This is the chilling attitude that legalising assisted suicide would normalise.

An interesting issue is the MP who put forward this private members bill. Kim Leadbetter is a strange choice for Westminster. Being the sister of the murdered MP Jo Cox seems to be enough to have chosen her for the shoo-in, hardly a reason on its own for being selected but many both in the Commons and the Lords have got there by association of one sort or another over the years and it still goes on. Her main distinction since winning the seat is to be very coy about her sexuality as her Muslim supporters are not known for being tolerant to sexual deviation so she butters them up to the detriment of everything else. Still she has got this far with the Bill and it looks as though it will pass in one form or another. What her motivation was for presenting the bill in the first place is not known, was it actually her or is she a proxy for the government as a whole?

There is generally a support group for assisted dying that is purely financial. Many commentators have voiced concerns over the cost of social care and the NHS (in general unaffordable), coupled with the increase in the aged population. Yet this is not a problem that has crept up unforeseen. The figures since the start of the last century show a steady rise in longevity and as with so much else little has been done to meet the inevitable demands it would bring, yet strangely the government of the time while worried about the costs is introducing ever more items to increase life expectancy, such as medical advances, better (though that is increasingly abused) diet, and lifestyle changes.

As with most advances there is a downside, in this case the cost as the recipients are of the older retired age group.

So once again many who believe they are being in some way robbed of services and financial gain see assisted dying as a way to lessen the load so to speak by targeting the group that takes most of the resources.

We saw some of this during Covid as explained in my last piece on the NHS, and the care home murders, for that is what they were went unchallenged and no one has been brought to book for the decisions made, truly one of the most disgraceful decisions made in recent times. That was even repeated when and after the instances leaked out, no one cared, so there is a problem and we cannot trust governments to legislate on this matter; they are not to be trusted.

And if anyone believes the never ending lawyer fest that is the Covid enquiry will bring answers to this and people to book, I have a bridge to sell you.

Strangely during all the discussions on this Bill between the great and the good and the indifferent, at no point has the use of DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) notices in hospitals been raised. As I have previously written I am one of the few to have had a DNR notice put on them and lived! I do know what I am talking about. Finding other examples is easy: I have spoken to three people I know, one an old friend, who have had partners and family members suggested for DNRs at their time in hospita. These were thankfully resisted by family members and all those patients are leading normal lives, which begs the question about the criteria in place for issuing these notices in the first place - or is there a simpler explanation? I leave that thought with you.

In my case the protocols were not followed, to the extent that my wife was not aware of what had happened. When she visited me the day after being told ‘I was unlikely to make it’ she found I had been moved and put in a bare room and all the medical support had been withdrawn. The ‘doctor’ was summoned to explain what had happened but failed to appear and made an appointment for the following morning. He failed to show again and my wife rightly went ballistic.

Fortunately one of the nurses that had been looking after me got hold of the doctor’s superior who came down and came in to see me and reported back to my wife. He felt it was a wrong decision, had me fed, cleaned up , changed my medication put me back on a ward and here I am. The original doctor to all intents disappeared never to be seen again.

https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/do-not-attempt-cardiopulmonary-resuscitation-dnacpr-decisions/

If you read the above it shows that little or nothing applied to my case and what was not revealed to my wife/family.

That story has all the hallmarks of the NHS not wanting to spend any more money on a patient. That one doctor who never went through the protocols thought it was an easy way out. Harsh you say? Not really, to not even have the decency to explain what he had put in motion was at best poor and at worst a dereliction of duty. How many in the same position would have accepted the original decision and let the patient die believing all they had been told (or not told)?

Despite my semi comatose state I was aware of my position and remember vowing to try and go home. I actually managed to get out of the bed and crawled because I could not walk at that stage, before (I presume) being found on the floor and put back in the bed. Surely my being able to do that would have triggered some sort of message that something was not right here. The memory of being in that windowless barren room very much alone is something that the comatose state I was in only partially blots out and will always haunt me. God knows what it must be like for someone who is fully functional.

But the Bill is for people who have full mental capacity and with a prognosis that they have only six months to live. Who decides the six months. The examples I have given presumed the patients were not going to survive but all are still here, one of them ten years later and living a near to normal life.

The safeguards are a problem. In my case we had Health Power of Attorney, but it was not asked about and my wife did not know that it applied to DNRs; it does of course and except in extreme cases a DNR can not be given to anyone with that power of attorney without going before a judge first to decide on the way forward. Where does this sit with the Assisted Dying Bill?

Yes I can see circumstances where excess pain and suffering that have become intolerable with no hope of a reverse in that status are grounds for a decision to end life. But what happens with mental problems? I had an aunt who suffered from dementia and suffered from mini strokes. She was in a private nursing home because she had the money to fund it and was not expected to last beyond a year or so. In fact she lasted fifteen years with no quality of life at all for most of that period; for her an end would have been merciful.

There are so many variables in this that a one size bill does not fit the case. It has never been an easy decision even when using DIGNITAS as the same problems exist there.

The great and the good in the Lords have to my surprise passed the Bill. Considering the age of many in that place I can only assume they voted that way in the belief that this bill will in no way ever affect them. The talk of saving money that came up with some of them was a case of this is for them not us. Beware: this is a very dangerous path to set out on.

START THE WEEK: More NHS, what is to be done? by Wiggia

In the current climate with so much wrong or going wrong in the UK, it seems almost churlish to further criticise that ailing monolithic entity the NHS.

Since my brush with the four horsemen, see earlier entries, I have had plenty of time to analyse my recent appointments with the organisation. Clearl, in its current form it is largely not fit for purpose. So much is glaringly wrong that it is a question of where to start.

The obvious place is the GP surgery There is no doubt that a postcode lottery is part of the GP set up. Some people I know have a decent GP practice allowing same day appointments, phone calls and decent services all round.

My one falls into the ‘not fit for purpose’ category. Whilst they bombard you with requests to visit them for jabs and annual health checks for all and sundry the primary purpose of GP surgeries getting to see a doctor remains frustrating, time-consuming and if you are working nigh on impossible. The Blair contract was the start of a slide in service: he or his government gave the BMA all it asked for with no questions asked over the removal of weekend and after hours work. It became a five day 9-5 service with (in our case and many others) an hour for lunch.

Why was it allowed to fester and end up like this? The fact it is a ‘private’ though publicly funded entity is a part of the reason. GP surgeries use the private and NHS parts according to their needs not those of the patients; again not all but far too many do. The fact they are paid for the amount of patients on their books rather than those that they treat makes them the sole arbiters as to treatment and when it is administered, often it seems at their leisure.

You have the ridiculous case of the NHS bombarding people with adverts to go and see their GP with various serious ailments and then the same people not being able to get an appointment to have the problem analysed. This is plainly wrong and costly for the obvious reasons of delay in treatment and costs in treating the delayed treatment when in many cases the need has reached serious levels or cannot be treated at all.

Plus how come our GP surgeries have the information screens telling migrants they do not have to have any paperwork to get treated as our recently did? We pay for all this and we are not asked how our money should be spent. There is a mindset within the NHS that they know best on all matters, not universally but by enough to make the hairs on the back of your head stand up as happened to me at a routine health check a while ago when the nurse after being asked a simple question about a long wait for treatment smiled and said ‘it is free, you know.’ I did not dare say what I wanted to.

This early diagnosis and treatment which would save lives and money has been promised for years and little has happened. If it did happen there would be nowhere to put the patients anyway, there often isn’t now, as we have the lowest ratio of beds available to patients in Europe - Germany for instance has four times as many and France twice the number.

https://www.pgweb.uk/health/3546-comparing-uk-hospital-beds-with-other-countries

Some years ago the Conservative government decided to introduce a system that it hoped would see patients treated quickly and free up beds to save money. It has backfired spectacularly, with old hospitals like our local one being turned into flats and replaced by new ones with fewer beds. The crisis has been exacerbated by the rapid increase in the migrant population - our indigenous population has remained at the same level for some years, so the migrant problem has affected the NHS twofold: not enough capacity and not enough staff to cope with the increase.

Staffing is another issue and is as stupid as the lack of beds. The NHS employs more people than any other organisation in Europe yet those who manage it (if you can call it that) constantly clamour for more staff. Despite their constant denials it is clear something is wrong. Those that work on the front line will now tell you so - which they would not have done a few years ago, denying the NHS was anything other than the best in the world and saying they would defend it to the hilt! But now during my prolonged stay in hospitals and subsequent visits for myself and more recently my wife, they are much more forthcoming about the organisation’s shortcomings. The district nurse who treated my wife recently was one of many who having spent many years in all areas of nursing spoke of the multiple managers they now have compared with just one a few years ago. Again compared with the European counterparts there is a massive imbalance in the staff employed, something is badly wrong and again the patient/ taxpayer suffers.

The figures show we do indeed have a shortage of doctors, yet the system is not employing front line staff that are available. This is simply a case of lack of funds to employ them or so we are told, despite bringing in staff from third world countries that can ill afford to lose them. Something is very wrong here.

The infrastructure has been neglected for decades, Boris, he of the promises, said we were to build forty new hospitals; not one was built and now we have no money to build one. A local hospital, the Queen Elizabeth in King’s Lynn, has been falling down for decades and was recently voted the worst performing hospital in England. We now have almost permanent scaffolding and supports to keep some hospitals upright as well as having people sitting on the floor in A&E waiting. Truly third world status.

With cottage hospitals and convalescent homes a thing of the past there is no spare capacity so the shortage of beds crisis is now a problem all year round not just in winter.

There is no outside the box thinking with the NHS. On the Continent clinics built to provide short stay facilities and minor ops are very successful and take pressure off GPs and main hospitals. Many of our old cottage hospitals did provide those services but were subsumed into the big hospitals; we had a very well-used and successful one in Sudbury Suffolk when we lived nearby, but that was closed.

They are not the answer but would help, especially as main hospitals are suffering from bed blocking with elderly patients not being able to move as no suitable facilities are now available. With an elderly population this is a problem not going away anytime soon.

There is much made of the fact that the NHS are recruiting staff from the third world. Why this should be is a mystery, many qualified British nurses cannot get jobs yet are available and the folly of these decisions is the almost routine employment of expensive agency staff, all of whom left the NHS for better pay and conditions in the private sector in the first place.

One of the observations I made when in for my long stay was the difference in quality among nursing staff. Many of the supposedly qualified nurses from abroad are very much “one item at a time” people. They seem incapable of multi-tasking: a simple request made when passing is met with ‘I will see to that when I have finished this’ and the nurse is never to be seen again - quite a normal occurrence.

And the ward where I was sent before being discharged was full of them and also the same third worlders who took a literal age to do standard tasks. As an example we had the drugs nurse come round and he/she spent three and a half hours, yes really, to dispense to ten patients, starting at eight and finishing at half eleven. So importing staff creates problems as well as solving a few.

A common problem that many can relate to is the time taken to sort out what the problem is in the first place. Again here is a personal example: my wife started to suffer pain in her knee, it got worse and a doctor’s appointment was successfully obtained and the doctor sent her to a specialist at the hospital for diagnosis and X-rays. The result was not conclusive so another appointment with another specialist was made for two months later. All the time the pain was getting worse. The second diagnosis was also inconclusive and a few weeks later it was suggested another expert would have a look at it. This one actually knew what she was doing and thought the X-rays showed little and the problem was her knee. Fine but of course this required another X-ray appointment. That happened a couple of weeks later and lo and behold it was her hip, so back to the hospital for an assessment and the news that it needed a hip replacement. How long to wait? About a year, came the reply.

By now she could not walk but dragged herself around in increasing pain. No way could she go a year like that so with reluctance we went private.

As so many people are having to make the same decision the private hospitals also have a waiting list. On the day of the op it was discovered she had developed an infection in the leg and the op was cancelled. Six weeks later it finally happened, but the endless delays caused problems with further infections and it took an age to get her back on her feet such was the state of her legs after all the inactivity.

If the initial diagnosis and op had taken place quickly it would have been very beneficial to my wife and our bank balance as we are the most expensive in Europe if you go private. Even taking that route the delay was eight months which considering her condition was inexcusable, but we are are part of an army of patients in the same position. I could not imagine how she would have ended up if we could not have afforded to go private.

But the bottom line is what is to become of the NHS? For years any criticism was met with disdain, even up to Covid where the few were still banging pots and pans in appreciation of the few still working. In my area live many doctors of all types as we are near the main hospital. Most spent the whole period at home and the GPs in many cases never went back to a full week ever again.

In the mind of someone who has seen just a smidgen of the whole problem it is obvious that the long term strategy of the NHS needs to be laid out and big changes made. Advances in medical science means many more conditions can be treated and even eliminated, but at a cost. Can we afford it? In an ideal world we would say yes but we are not in an ideal world and we frankly cannot go on this route for ever.

So priorities have to assessed and approved. Many will like the outcome but it has to be done. The service has to be streamlined. Some services e.g. IVF cannot be seen as a God given right; those who want it must start to pay towards that and many similar elective procedures such as many forms of cosmetic surgery. I am sure readers can think of many other items to add.

The NHS is just that, a ‘national’ health service funded by British tax payers for use by British nationals. Where those CEOs of trusts get the authority to decide to treat the world’s illnesses I have no idea, but it is wrong. Nowhere else that I know treats outsiders for free, all have to pay - and if you are abroad you also have to pay for your own translators if you need one, they are not supplied for free.

The waste in the NHS from prescriptions to procurement is legion. As an example on a previous stay in the local hospital they had just been issued with new bleepers which worked rarely or not at all. It transpired that whoever purchased these never did in-house trials to see if they worked and the cost was £800,000. Again I am sure there are many who can give similar stories, a scandalous waste of other people’s money and it always is.

There is also the annual increase in compensation claims that have reached record levels. There will always be mistakes but is there an effort to reduce these often fatal errors? I recently had an acquaintance whose wife had a heart attack in hospital because no ultra sound was used before the procedure and the qualified doctor was absent when a camera was inserted which caught on a tear in the heart lining and caused an instant cardiac arrest. They have admitted liability for negligence but what of the young woman’s future?

Many of the NHS trust chiefs treat their charges as a personal fiefdom. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent trans decision ours recently announced she would not be complying with the ruling and the hospital would continue with trans women using women’s spaces. Just leave such stuff alone and get on with running a hospital! The rainbow flags on the roof and the PRIDE notices everywhere do not help anyone get better. Just stop it! There is no place for wokeism in hospitals or, as we have discovered, anywhere else.

There have been suggestions the current agreement with GP surgeries should be scrapped. They should be paid for the patients they see not those on their books, and maybe the whole ‘private’ make up of the GP set up should be scrapped and all of it should come under the umbrella of the NHS as an integral part. Anyone old enough to remember when doctors did home visits often at night knows what we are talking about. If the paperwork is weighing them down as claimed then change the set up along with the current failure in many sections of the NHS to inform other parts - they were still using fax machines until recently in some areas.

The NHS cannot fix everything. There is no health service anywhere that can fulfil the needs of all, and no amount of money can solve all the problems unless one wants a health service and no other public services. There simply isn’t enough money.

There was a glimmer of hope in some quarters when the current health secretary Wes Streeting made his first public announcements on the state of the NHS. He said no more money until reforms have been made. That lasted about two weeks when a delighted Wes was seen applauding in Parliament the giving of an extra £29 billion to the health service. As the leader of NHS England said most has already been taken up with wage demands. NHS England is to be disbanded over two years, long enough to find those sacked?

Another announcement, again from the health secretary is the listing of league tables as mentioned earlier. Why? We all know which local hospitals or medical services are good or bad, league tables will do nothing to change that and the poor patients have no choice in what they are given. The Brexit failure PM David Cameron promised, as they all do, that we would have choice in doctors hospitals and surgeries; as with everything else he promised nothing ever materialised.

There has been little to change the minds of those that believe the Conservatives were indeed heading towards a private health service. Only in the Tory Government’s dying moments was money put in to help slow down the decline, the classic “too little, too late,” and again there were no plans for any changes or reform. Perhaps they really did not want the NHS to survive.

And if this is an example of the ten year plan to fix the NHS we are in serious doo-doo:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/06/29/supermarkets-told-to-cut-100-calories-from-shoppers-baskets/

So either Wes Streeting steps up to the plate and actually makes some meaningful changes or we are screwed for even more tax payer funds to throw at a service that currently is not fit for purpose in many areas.

I’m not holding my breath.

WEEKENDER: Spiral 2, by Wiggia

The spiral of decline is fast becoming an everyday reality, no longer can obfuscation, divergent tactics and outright lies from our elites? Alter that fact.

On every level we see malfeasance, corruption and groups of ideologues pretending all is well and if we all pull together things will improve, never mind the simple fact they put nothing in motion to achieve that illusory aim.

The state gets ever bigger: 70 new quangos since this Labour government took charge; the demand for further layers of state-backed positions, such as regional mayors and the accompanying offices to add to the already burgeoning civil service that has been added according to a recent report, The report includes sobering figures about the degrees of churn among both ministers and civil service, but also the scale of civil service expansion. The SCS is nearly 70% larger than in 2012, and the policy profession larger by 94% since 2016.

One has to ask why is there this push to devolve power and add layers of government, such as the regional mayors and Police and Crime Commissioners. Our local PCC has an office of thirty people, the original PCC had eight? Is there any justification for the increase? None at all: she is invisible and pointless and never had a proper job before becoming the Labour party sticking plaster. There was a rumour that the local unitary authorities will do away with PCCs and the newly elected mayor will do the job; why and how is this necessary, to get rid of one layer of government and then create another? This as now will be a political appointment yet if needed at all it should be be an independent position.

Yes, we need an accountable diligent and successful CS but like the NHS it has an awful lot of people who contribute little and the tax take from the private sector to maintain all this just keeps rising. Value for money? I think not, a DOGE is desperately needed.

Along with the costs of our open borders policy we are sinking in debt and this government has hardly got off to a good start on the economic front. Rachel From Complaints was hardly a star in the banking world, though compared with the rest of her front bench team she did at least have some experience outside of politics; not that it seems to have stood her in good stead as the bond market goes even lower than when the-short lived Liz Truss government was blamed for ‘trashing the economy.’ There are times when being tight lipped until you have a favourable result is the route to take.

We now have various political parties all blaming one another for the country’s woes. Nothing new in that except the scale of such which is futile and endless. None of them have listened to the electorate, all are playing board games with the country going to the dogs at an ever increasing rate, still they put personal political survival and party before the country, hence the back door moves to rejoin the EU, a failing entity on all fronts.

Have we ever heard so many foreign voices spelling out our demise? It is no good saying they should all be quiet as it is nothing to do with them. Not that long ago we had influence in the world; now we are kidding ourselves. Our press, or what is left of it, is generally compliant with all that goes on, little of value is printed these days and they are generally behind the curve when they do write something of note.

They did as told during Covid and continue to toe the line to a large degree. When was the last time a member of the press called out a politician at one of their asinine press conferences? It is not as though there has been a lack of opportunity.

Two recent voices partly explain much that is obvious.

Perhaps some of this would be useful:

And on a more peaceful but succinct note (re the r*pe gangs):

https://x.com/i/status/1876952358455824697

And to think there was a time when the map of the world was mainly coloured pink and despite mistakes was enhanced by our presence.

A *forthright* summation of what our country has come to:

https://x.com/i/status/1883800332691710299

and more from David Starkey who has been sidelined because he exposes the obvious and they the elites don’t like it. “Brexit… was simply the beginning of the process of reclaiming this country”:

https://x.com/i/status/1929143136372097221

For the general public and taxpayer it has become a bore and is draining the life from what is left of Britain. Rachel Reeves’ speech in Rochdale said it all with the dragooned masses behind her showing no sign of approval of the monosyllabic monologue she delivered, Andrew Laurence does a good skit of the same here.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1930589458467799135

The quality of leadership is truly dreadful. Two-tier policing and judiciary are evident despite denials we can all see what is going on. Lucy Connolly is just an unfortunate demonstration.

There is even denial among politicians that there is a groundswell of rising disquiet, most is total BS - https://media1.tenor.com/m/j5YcO9slE7YAAAAd/leslie-nielsen-nothing-to-see-here.gif:

The CEO of our local NHS hospital trust emerged in public to say that the trust will be ignoring the Supreme Court ruling on trans men in women’s spaces. Not unexpected, from a trust that in the past has festooned the main building with rainbow flags and has all noticeboards with PRIDE slogans at every turn. Just get on with your job trying to provide health care for those who pay your inflated salary and dispense with virtue signalling about something that is irrelevant and outside your remit. Perhaps you should make a trip to A&E and see as I did a couple of weeks ago thirty plus people sitting on the floor as they had run out of space and chairs! A third world service with all the trappings is now normalised for the indigenous population; as many have realised, arriving by dinghy by-passes all this hassle; priorities, priorities.

The scale of the discontent in this country is not being exaggerated. The historic ruling class has been rumbled yet the lies keep coming.

Something eventually will have to give. Time is running out for meaningful change. The mealy-mouthed “change” utterances of this government don’t even scratch the surface.

Sunday Sipping: A Matter of Taste, by Wiggia

I haven’t commented on here very often in the last three years, for a variety of reasons, one being health. A brief summary follows, I have written in detail about my experiences within the NHS organisation, the good the bad and the ugly-plus an extra ingredient I won/t elaborate on again just about covers it.

Three years ago I collapsed and woke up six weeks later having undergone two brain operations within 24 hours and a serious bowel operation a week later. Fortunately I was sedated during my time at Addenbrokes Hospital in Cambridge so knew nothing about what had happened and the subsequent procedures. I was then transferred back to the Norfolk and Norwich where I eventually started to recover, after catching Covid and contracting a bowel infection that was supposed to finish me, a change of doctor (long story) and a change in medication and treatment.

The reason I mention all this was that what happened to me and what happens to other people if brain surgery is involved: one suffers a change or loss, temporary or otherwise of faculties, memory, smell, taste.

At the time wine was not on the list of things I should be worrying about, far from it. Various tests and exercises brought about improvements in memory function, at first even my birthday was beyond recall and constant illusions muddied the progress, seeing the four horsemen of the apocalypse at the bottom of one’s bed as I did earlier is not to be recommended when you are trying to be positive!

After rehab home at last and the question of food that I could eat and the thorny question of what I could drink came to the forefront. The food was relatively easy: no spicy items, very little green stuff and a lot of trial and error was involved.

Now to the drinking. I was told no problem with wine in strict moderation, so I started to sample and the fun started.

At first red wine caused problems so was cut out completely, later to be reintroduced a little at a time, so white wine was my staple, again in moderation.

All my long held preconceptions went out of the window. Some had no smell, some had no taste, those that did have one or both had changed completely from my inbuilt conception as to what they should taste or smell like. In many cases the taste or smell was amplified way beyond that which my memory could remember, particularly fruity reds such as certain Rhone varieties with matching sometimes glorious over-the-top aromas.

As for my extensive Riesling collection many, but not all of the trocken/dry wines became dull and lifeless and it became a case of suck it and see.

Two things came out of this for me.

Firstly there was a period of seeing where all this was going, i.e. would my tastes get back to something like the previous normal? They did with most foods, and did settle with wine, but not as before, so after much consideration I made the decision to sell all that which was obviously out of kilter with my new tastes. So out went what was left of my Bordeaux - I had previously offloaded nearly all my stored ‘en primeur’ of the region anyway, Chianti tasted like battery acid and Barolo was not far behind. The list is too long to expand on here but you get the picture. In whites many became just dull; for Riesling spätlese seems to be the sweet spot, no pun intended, and buttery Chardonnays over the leaner versions; acidity over other components is now a no-go area, though not totally.

The second part is interesting in that it assumes there is a right and wrong appreciation of wine virtues/values, but if I had been born with the appreciation of wine I have now my outlook and taste would be totally different from that which has guided me for the last fifty years. No longer can I say that such and such lacks x because now it doesn’t. Is it a dilemma? No, it is simply another’s view of the same product; in some ways I have been lucky to have two bites of the same cherry.

This is no different to the way the brain interprets sound and vision. Illusions cause the brain to come to different conclusions. It all brings the tasting both amateur and professional into focus, it matters not a jot what someone else says about a wine food music etc, it is what gives you pleasure at any given moment.

To finish a short story, my oldest fiend died of dementia recently in Adelaide, Australia. We had known each since we were five years old so a long relationship. In ‘95 my wife and I managed to get three months of holiday during the winter and went on a world wide trip including six weeks plus in Australia and stayed with my friend for three weeks+ in Adelaide.

He was not into wine other than drinking it! but we stayed in the Barrosa for some days and visited some forty wineries in the Barossa and sub regions…

Back home the following Christmas a case of wine arrived from my friend from Aus. He knew little of wine but a friend of of his did so it was selected by the friend on his behalf. It seemed a good idea at the time if this was to be made an annual event, so a sum was agreed which I sent him and some suggestions for the case; wines unavailable here in the UK, would be included.

This worked well for years but recently as the dementia took hold he started to make mistakes and the last case before I stopped the exercise showed why. Virtually the whole sum allocated was spent on one bottle, I had to make good the shortfall.

The bottle as below:

Out of curiosity I looked up to see if this was available in the UK, and B&B have it at around £350 a bottle. I would never pay that for any wine, though in the past I pushed the boat out before wine prices hit the stratosphere.

Was it any good? A lot of hype surrounds it. In my current phase of appreciation the nose was phenomenal, a glorious sniffer; in the mouth for me it was a tier class Bordeaux so probably not the best person to judge that aspect now, or maybe I am?

And yes, it is a screw top.

Anyway a glass was raised to my old friend.

And a glass was raised to my consultant who explained it all to me.

A sporting oddity from my past, by Wiggia

A short tale away from the usual doom and gloom that daily saturates opinion columns to a degree that is unprecedented in my lifetime.

This came about after Rolf. knowing that I raced bicycles on the track/velodromes many years ago, asked if I had seen a recent episode of the Antiques Roadshow on the Beeb, that had been broadcast from Roundhay Park in Leeds. I hadn’t but naturally looked on iPlayer for the episode and there it was, the only banked grass track as far as I know in the UK and probably the world.

Still in use, it has been there since 1894 and still remains part of the sports complex in the park. It was built at a time when cycle racing was attracting large crowds. Road racing did not really get going until the turn of the century and this was a relatively cheap way of providing a track. 1,200 unemployed men were used by the council to build the track and other facilities, and as well as being banked it is almost certainly the only permanent grass track still in situ.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001w2vs/antiques-roadshow-series-46-14-roundhay-park-leeds-3

This also gives a short history of Beryl Burton, probably the greatest woman cyclist we have ever produced (at 15.10).

I did compete very often on grass tracks. All were simply grass athletic tracks with bikes on them, not easy to ride as with no banking the bends are not easy to navigate at speed and with fixed gears as all track racing bikes have there was a danger with the lean angles on bends, of pedals digging in.

In the early days wooden rims were used as they had more ‘give’ on the bumpy surface and Dunlop actually produced a special tubular tyre for grass track racing, more of a sort of ‘off road’ tyre that gave much better grip. These were much coveted as Dunlop stopped making them through lack of demand.

But there was another side to grass track racing. During the summer fetes and galas all over the UK would include grass racing among various other events. These were much sought after as they actually gave worthwhile prizes that in many cases could be traded back for cash or sold; remember this was an amateur sport then.

Were there any really good riders on grass? Well one springs to mind: Neville Tong who was selected to ride for England in the Commonwealth games in ‘58 in the kilometre. This is a very hard solo time trial from a standing start against the clock. He won the gold medal in this event with a record time, he was then taken under the wing of legendary Reg Harris at Fallowfield track Manchester in an attempt to convert this grass track strength into a hard track sprinter. Sadly the attempt failed and Tong went back to what he was good at, grass track racing.

Below he is seen at the Maindy Stadium Cardiff taking his lap of honour, and below on his beloved grass.

My infrequent forays into grass track racing were rewarded in an outing to Hertford fete in ‘59 - was it really that long ago? - when I won the star event, the five mile scratch race and took home for my mum a silver tea service, which adorned the sideboard for a few years.

(Excuse the old faded press cutting.) From memory this was my last effort on grass, not many events in 

southern England and the hard track took priority. Nonetheless the Antiques Roadshow revived some old and pleasant memories.

WEEKENDER: The Future - A Stateless World? by Wiggia

The recent elections in the USA resulted in Trump sweeping the board, this despite the impression given in all the media that Harris was going ahead in a tight race to the White House. As with so much these days the direction the media wish to take us is not necessarily that which is a true reflection on what is actually happening.

That in itself is a worrying trend. There was a time when the media was fairly impartial in its opinions, now not nearly so much: like everything else it is divided into entrenched camps.

This is not only giving endlessly false readings on events but in many cases it feels, rightly, that opinion is being driven by vested interests.

A good example of that was the unanimous push of government advice during Covid, regardless of any misgivings from many of a different opinion who were completely sidelined.

To a degree one can understand why the dead tree press would obey. The sales of newspapers are but a fraction of a few years ago and many titles are struggling to stay alive, never mind relevant.

The pouring of huge amounts of government money into advertising would make anyone think twice about bucking the trend and losing all that ‘gifted’ revenue.

Elsewhere the feeling with hindsight is that there was a lot of leaning on individuals and corporations to toe the official line and the ‘nudge’ unit did its part in orchestrating all this.

A comment by Pat Condell on X summed up the current thinking among governments and elites at this moment in time:

“The European Union is a model for the planned borderless world run by an unaccountable politburo. Its core purpose is to eliminate the countries of Europe and transform a diverse continent of sovereign nations into a single homogenous political bloc governed by a committee of unelected bureaucrats fronted by a cosmetic rubber stamp assembly.”

Despite the vision of remainers that all who voted for Brexit were knuckle-dragging morons who should not be allowed to vote on anything, many of us shared this view of the EU then and it has been reinforced since Brexit.

We are beginning to see the scales falling from the eyes of many, but not yet enough. This statement has much in it which should be refused but still few in power even acknowledge what is going on yet alone raise doubts and reasoned argument…

“Canadian citizen receives a standing Ovation after laying out Klaus Schwab’s plan to enslave the world: https://x.com/i/status/1848610733980062118”

Another small taste of what certain politicians regard as the future for us. This has been erased since but was archived by someone who believed it would stand the test of time:

“Remember that time when Hillary Clinton introduced her friend GeorgeSoros and his interest to get involved in US elections? The Internet sure doesn't. Why? Because it has been wiped from existence for the most part. Turns out I found a copy of the file I had archived years ago: https://x.com/i/status/1851690476463628780”

So many paths lead back to Davos; even our new PM has said he prefers Davos to Westminster:

Is he saying that our own democracy is a poor substitute for the elites of Davos? If he is then he has no right to be in the position he now finds himself in, he is a fraud; but then most of them are. Of the current incumbents, the front bench has only one person who has ever worked in the real world for a living, and that one has jusr resigned for a fraudulent crime in the not so distant past. Are any of the others suited to the positions they are hold or are given? As the years pass ever fewer have worked in the private sector in any capacity. This does not bode well.

But then we knew that. His pre-election pledge that the NHS would not receive any more money without reform was ignored like everything else, and a consultation is to be commenced on the reforms that will likely, as with all consultations and inquiries, outlast the government’s tenure.

David Icke is not for me usually a go-to person, yet here he nails it re the farming shut down that appears to be happening simultaneously all over the west.

https://x.com/i/status/1852870877144113446

Back to the NHS. Endless adverts appear telling us that breakthroughs are occurring in the treatment or cure of various diseases, new testing procedures should be insisted on and again all are rightly advised to get tested and pop down immediately to see their GP…

I cannot see all this money spent on advertising as any more than a distraction to the fact that the NHS is failing in many areas and very little will be achieved while waiting lists for standard procedures stretches out into, in many cases a time when the patient will be gone. Perhaps this is the plan; it is a fact that the last six months of anyone's life is the most expensive for the NHS should they need care.

Perhaps the assisted dying bill being presented to Parliament is part of the planned process to eliminate old people before they become a burden on the state.

My own views on this aspect of medical care (sic) have been aired on here in detail, so I won’t be going over old ground, but just a point: the ‘end of life bill ‘ before Parliament and which has just been passed, has no mention of the fact that lives are ended in hospitals and care homes on a regular basis with none of the ‘safety’ provisions that are being put before Parliament in this private member’s bill. That is happening and to say the situations are not comparable is a lie in many cases. It leaves a huge loophole in the law that can be, as during Covid, be exploited. Those responsible for that lawful murder have walked away untouched with their gold-plated pensions intact, and now that ability to end life has been extended.

Old people have very little future to look forward to. They have been discarded or are being so little by little. This once great nation has currently, despite all the bluster to the contrary, probably the worst pensions in the so called advanced western nations, and the withholding of the Winter Fuel Allowance was a deliberate mean act to a group who if they were still workng would be classified as existing well below the poverty line.

These are people who have done more than their bit for this country, paid their taxes, are crapped on from above and are now being told their lives have no value as they are a drag on the State.

And the lies, the endless lies… this from someone who claims there is an imaginary black hole in the finances, yet manages to find billions for nonsense schemes in Africa, public sector wage increases, billions for illegal migrants who get free private health care and free heated hotel rooms plus plus plus…

Can’t say she never acted!

What the hell has happened to us as a nation when this bleak and unholy future is all that can be offered?