4 December: 'President Kennedy authorized the U.S. Department of Defense to commence of Operation Ranch Hand, the defoliation of the jungles of South Vietnam. The first run was on January 12, 1962, and the last in February 1971.'
On the same day: 'An agreement on maintaining the neutrality of Laos was reached at the 14-nation Laos Peace Conference being held in Geneva.'
5 December - Berlin Crisis and the Berlin Wall: 'The largest ever escape from East Berlin, to the West, was carried out by Harry Deterling, a 28-year-old train engineer, after he and co-worker Hartmut Lichy learned that there was still an open rail connection at Albrechtshof, one-quarter mile from the border, and that East German authorities were preparing to block it. Deterling's wife and four children, his mother, and 13 friends boarded at Oranienburg, and four others got on at Falkensee. Deterling and Lichy never stopped at the Albrechtshof station, and rushed the train past startled border guards. The train's conductor, and six passengers who hadn't been in on the plot, elected to return to East Germany. The government tore up the tracks the next day and put up barriers, and there were no further escapes by train.'
6 December - the Space Race: 'NASA announced that the United States would not put an astronaut into orbit before the end of 1961, thus ending the possibility of matching the Soviets in the same calendar year. Lt. Col. John Glenn, the space agency said, would not be launched into space until at least January.'
8 December: 'Brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine, known as "The Pendletones", saw the release of their first recorded song, called "Surfin'" (with "Luau" on the "B"- side). For the single, record distributor Russ Regen renamed the group, The Beach Boys, and their first song peaked at #75 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.'
On the same day: 'Portugal's ambassador to the United Nations appealed for help from the UN Security Council, reporting that 30,000 troops from India were massing along the border of the Portuguese colony at Goa, and that seven ships from the Indian Navy were approaching Goa's coast.'
9 December: 'At the National Stadium in Dar es Salaam, the former British colony of Tanganyika gained independence, with Julius Nyerere as its first Prime Minister. Sir Richard Turnbull, who had been the British governor, served as the first and last Governor-general of Tanganyika until the nation became a Republic on the next Uhuru Day, one year later, with Nyerere as President.
Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, appeared on behalf of the United Kingdom. At midnight, the British territorial flag was slowly lowered as a record played God Save the Queen. The lights were then turned off, the new national anthem, Mungu Ibariki Tanganyika (God Bless Tanganyika) was played as the new flag was raised, and the lights were switched on again.
In 1963, Tanganyika would merge with Zanzibar to become Tanzania.[
UK chart hits, week ending 9 December 1961 (tracks in italics have been played in earlier posts)
I picked up a copy of the local newspaper last week for the first time in a while. As with most local rags the news content is inclined to be a bit Daily Star without the fun, e.g. 'dog runs off but is found later shock', or 'spider found in bananas shock.'
But an item did catch the eye: for years Norwich has been cut off, some would say good, from the rest of the country by a totally inadequate road network. That was partially alleviated by the dualling of a section (big deal !)of the north-south A11, but all else remains as is, including the tortuous route to the west. Using the A47 it takes two hours on a good day to get to the bottom of the A1 and then on to the Midlands and the north from Norwich; the Romans did a better job centuries ago, this road has been the subject of upgrading talk for decades.
The A47 serves a southern route round Norwich and for that part it is a dual carriageway; the rest isn’t, apart from a few short sections it is single carriageway, but to the north of the city there is nothing other than a spider's web of narrow winding roads to the coastal towns and getting to the southern A47 was and is a nightmare; having three rivers to cross and no proper bridges other than in the centre of town doesn’t help.
The answer was a northern route to link up with the A47 and this was finally delivered years late, as these projects are, with one glaring omission: the western end just stops and does not link to the A47 as originally intended. No real answer to that omission has ever been satisfactorily given, thereby making the project to a large degree pointless.
Logic would say that the road should never have been started without the mandate to complete the link as inevitably once it stopped there would be a myriad reasons put forward for it to go no further, and so it has come to pass.
The go-ahead for the completion of the link came about before the virus hit. Even that had a sting in the tail: a survey, or as they called it a ‘consultation paper’ and several exhibitions of what might be were put out and put on so that people, mainly those affected by the current rat running, could put their views. We were given three options; only one was worthwhile as the others were too far west to resolve the problem of an incomplete link, increasing rat-running through our area; the vast majority voted for the obvious option but the council decided on a more westerly one - so much for democracy!
There was naturally pressure from those in the first choice area and from those not wanting a nice valley slightly compromised; fair enough, but the moving westwards of the proposed link makes the journey through the rat run more attractive. The link for many would just be too far with a viable though consequential alternative, so well done to the council and highways unit for wasting everyone's time and money by pretending to ‘listen’ to our wants.
The link is also needed as the 'northern distributor' as they call it is also going to have several large housing estates built on its periphery, and the new road will provide access - wait for it - not to the A47, as no one will bother to use the further west option if it is ever completed, but access to add to the misery of the rat run. So drinks all round in the town hall for a monumental climb down that results in a wasted road that would have relieved the large local area being increasingly blighted by this rat run problem.
And it is not just a rush hour congestion problem either. The rat run has two entries, both on weight restricted bridges, but these are ignored by increasing amounts of HGVs that illegally use the rat runs for the same reason as the personal car: it is the only way south to the A47 without a very big detour.
Anyway the government said yes to the money needed and everyone waits; anything is better than nothing even if it does take several times longer than Brunel needed to build a fully functioning railway from London to Bristol.
All of course goes on hold while the virus disrupts our lives and climate change ‘concerns’ go up a gear in the meantime.
So lo and behold various groups and all the opposition parties in the council decide that the link completion is no longer necessary; indeed the money could be better spent on other local projects like buses and those community centres that should have been provided by the developers. The NIMBY’s have joined forces and don’t want anything within a hundred miles of their domiciles and the bat conservation brigade have surfaced. All want those in the area to cycle more (yawn), use buses (which creates another problem if enacted upon, see below), and really want all cars off the road - a recurring theme for those in the climate change industry, for that is what it is.
I am always amazed how local councillors know how to spend millions of pounds of our money for political expediency yet couldn’t run a whelk stall between them.
For the buses to come through our, or what was my road has been an open sore for all the people who live there, not so much for for being against buses themselves, but for the fact that they have been resisted for a very good reason.
The majority would come from a large housing estate that was allowed to be built with only one entrance and exit road that also serves an industrial estate and a retail park, both growing, and has the local ambulance station on it as well; a wonderful example of tunnel vision in local government, and despite everyone who moved there knowing this was the case and the resultant problems should anything shut the road down - and it has happened - they now want a small road that exits onto a country lane that in turn feeds into our road, opened for the buses. That of course is a smokescreen to open the road to general vehicle traffic that would make make my old road an absolute and increasing nightmare with the added new housing traffic. This small road was actually built with the intention of it being buses only and has bollards that raise in the road after a bus passes; this was seen through at the time as a prelude to opening for all and rightly a big protest saw it was not used; nonetheless it remains in place!
But does anyone in County Hall actually point out what is needed for that estate is an exit onto the A47 which much of the estate is alongside? Oh no, that would involve spending money and wisely. Much better to join the protestors to the link completion, give in to the estate group who want the moribund bus exit opened (it is blocked with concrete blocks at the moment) and totally ruin the area.
Their total incompetence is a large part of the problem. Why do councils, having wrung concessions from builders (as in new roads community buildings etc.) in exchange for the permission to put up their God-awful rabbit hutches, then mysteriously allow same to go up without those same ’extras’? We can all draw our own conclusions on that one: brown envelopes, and sheer incompetence - yet some of these decision-making people claim to be professionals in their field!
And as elsewhere people actually vote for these clowns. There are several layers of government we could do away with. I can suggest where to start: get rid of all local councillors, and work upwards.
I was involved briefly with local people wanting traffic calming measures on our narrow road (with, in parts, no pavements); it all came to nothing, despite the local Lib Dumps using the scheme in two consecutive election leaflets as a way to win over the local electorate. They lied, the town hall lied and the Highways Agency lied; they lied about the funding, they lied about start dates twice - and I have all the emails to prove it - and got away with something that in a commercial atmosphere would have landed them in court. Absolute shower, as Terry Thomas would have said.
It is a story I have seen in other areas we have lived in before and know it can be repeated countrywide. Why do we encourage them by voting for them? Not that I have for years, but enough turn out to get these people onto the gravy train in politics with absolutely no result for the electorate or area unless you can count one new bus shelter and a town sign instead of a village one, which is not far short of the sum total of ten years in office that I have witnessed.
This above apparently is worthy of a headline; the only thing of note is that five bloated council officials could all get in it together. Something so mundane that should automatically be supplied by the private bus company is after much head-scratching and moaning about finances considered an achievement; ours was nowhere near as grand.
We desperately need a clear out at all levels of government and sadly like the desperate need for NHS reforms it is unlikely to happen unless this country has a Winter Palace moment.
26 November: 'In the Avellaneda derby soccer match between Club Atlético Independiente and Racing Club de Avellaneda, the referee was forced to suspend play for six minutes due to fighting amongst the players. Four players from each team were sent off. The game ended in a 1–1 draw.'
28 November: 'After Morocco's King Hasssan II agreed to allow the Arab nation's Jewish minority to leave, the first group of 105 Jews was allowed to fly out to Israel. By the end of the year, 11,478 had left, and over the next two years, the 85,000 members of the community had emigrated.'
Also on 28 November: 'Nuclear test ban talks resumed in Geneva between the United States, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.S.R. Thirteen meetings were held over the next two months.'
29 November: 'The United States successfully placed a chimpanzee, Enos, into orbit around the Earth, clearing the way for the first American astronaut to break the pull of Earth's gravity. Enos lifted off from Cape Canaveral on board Mercury-Atlas 5 at 9:07 am, made two circuits of the globe, and was recovered safely at 12:28 pm in the Atlantic Ocean. After the successful flight, NASA announced that one of two men would become the first to be sent into orbit, settling on John Glenn or Donald "Deke" Slayton.'
30 November: 'U.S. President Kennedy, authorized Operation Mongoose, the secret funding of Cuban groups to overthrow Cuba's new revolutionary socialist government led by prime minister Fidel Castro. Brigadier General Edward Lansdale was put in command of the project, which had 4,000 operatives on its payroll between 1961 and 1963.'
Also on 30 November: 'The Soviet Union vetoed Kuwait's application for United Nations membership, in alliance with Iraq. After the Arab League withdrew its forces from the sheikdom, the Security Council, including the U.S.S.R., approved Kuwait's membership.'
1 December: 'The Dutch colony of Netherlands New Guinea raised the new Morning Star flag next to the Dutch tri-color, and was made the autonomous territory of West Papua, with partial self-government as a UN Mandate. In 1963, however, the UN turned the mandate over to Indonesia, which annexed West Papua in 1969 after a sham plebiscite.'
2 December: 'In a speech that began at midnight, Cuban revolutionary prime minister Fidel Castro declared "soy marxista-leninista y seré marxista-leninista hasta el último día de mi vida" ("I am a Marxist-Leninist and I will be a Marxist-Leninist until the last day of my life"). Castro confirmed that he would guide Cuba to becoming a Socialist state, and, in the long run, a Communist state, but added, "I'm saying this for any anti-communists left out there. There won't be any Communism for at least thirty years". However, he made clear that there would be only one political party, "The United Party of Cuba's Socialist Revolution", adding that "There is only one revolutionary movement, not two or three or four revolutionary movements." '
Fidel Castro speaks on Marxism-Leninism: Dec. 2, 1961 [University of Florida Digital Library]:
The government has conveniently dropped any questioning of the performance of the NHS during the last two years and moved seamlessly onto Climate Change, something else it has shown it has very little idea about, whether cause or solution.
The news that 12,000 patients died after catching Covid in hospital has not even made page 22 of the papers or a mention on the news channels. This is the first time after a Freedom of Information request that any figures have been officially released.
Despite it being illegal to withhold that information, several trusts have used weasel words to not release it so the figure is obviously higher.
I am not getting into the with or from argument as the figures themselves use a method that appears to muddy the waters; it is immaterial as the numbers are horrific and certain trusts should have been shut down in normal times as they have over years been at the top of the league tables for in-house infection rates. The saying that during the Covid period the worst place to be if you wanted to catch the virus was in a hospital, no longer brings a smile to ones face.
As with much else the NHS seems to get a bye in these matters. If you combine this with the decanting of elderly patients into care homes and the resulting massacre, a large percentage of all deaths from the virus can be directly attributes to decisions and actions within our NHS.
The figures for care homes are not easy to decipher. The best indication would be the excess deaths above the norm which comes in at around 42,000 not all of course from that first period which is the one the NHS is responsible for, from the data out there around 20,000 can be confirmed.
So we can conservatively say 32,000 people lost their lives unnecessarily. Even allowing for the fact that as far as the care homes are concerned many would have died anyway the numbers are enough to make one think there should be an inquiry into responsibility as to decisions if nothing else.
Jeremy Hunt called the whole thing a tragedy? A nice use of words conveniently deflecting any blame on individuals or committees, and intimating that it was somehow a ‘natural’ disaster.
At the same time there several reports of increased drug usage in care homes that lead to earlier deaths and maybe deaths by design. It is not a pretty picture but this was corroborated by several whistleblowers in care homes during the first wave of the virus; the story never got traction, but the Sun had a moment of seriousness and published this piece….
If true and it looks as though it has been substantiated, what an appalling indictment on our health and welfare services. It is not the first time, of course: the Liverpool Care Pathway showed the way on this and nobody was ultimately responsible for anything there either.
No person or group can make faultless decisions during a pandemic or any other major incident, but what happened here went outside normal parameters and should not be brushed under the carpet as so much is these days. As I said in an earlier piece, under today's regime a general inquiry would be a waste of time and money as the Jay report turned out to be.
The NHS has not even managed to give the majority of our elderly in care homes the booster they say is necessary - necessary is another argument - but for the most vulnerable it would appear the NHS is once again neglecting them; a deliberate policy? Who knows any more, but lessons certainly have not been learned, and older people never so undervalued and despised.
This appeared on the BBC site on Tuesday…
Why the NHS is struggling like never before
Lives are being put at risk with record long waits in accident-and-emergency units and 999 calls taking hours to be reached. The causes of this go beyond Covid - and with winter coming it looks set to get worse.
They do spell out some salient facts, but at the same time ‘the never enough’ theme keeps cropping up. It matters not because there has to be a limit to NHS spending regardless of the ever-present begging bowl; the endless throwing of money at it has solved nothing.
You can guarantee if the relatively small difference in spending as with in France was made available tomorrow you would not get the French health service; the one thing that article says which is true is the NHS is in a downward spiral and has been for years.
There is no mention when staff shortages are put forward as a reason for poor service that as far as GPs are concerned a large part of the problem is part time working; oh no, that would go against the narrative.
So things are actually a lot worse than this chart suggests:
I am not repeating what I have said in the past on this situation it is farcical that it has been allowed to develop.
The political blame game wont cure it, only root and branch reform and that even if allowed will take time, it is currently a juggernaut out of control.
How on earth people believe the NHS is fourth in the world standings of health care is beyond comprehension, this includes my health area...
They dare not mention a large number are waiting for over two years and that is after waiting for a consultation. I would suggest quite a few will be dead before the NHS deigns to see them. This list is old news and still growing by the week.
The NHS suffers from the Oliver Twist syndrome: more is never enough, it never can be for any health service with the demands of today outstripping income. The NHS has to get back to core values and stop extending into areas it has little in common with and treatments that are costly but have little general value.
When the begging bowl goes out the impression given is we really are the poor man of Europe in the health department and we need to spend more. Looking at the figures shows that is not strictly true, no we are not top of the league table but we certainly are nowhere near the bottom, others are doing better with similar expenditure or less.
We are above the European average, so one must conclude something is seriously wrong with the way it is funded and run, but we already know that. Having the will to put all this right is what is missing, to call it a health service at all at the moment is a dubious title and it is still consuming vast amounts of tax payers' money for very little return; frankly it is a disgrace.
And the employment figures show we lag behind only Germany per capita and that is because of their social welfare being so much bigger than ours. Again we see large numbers of people employed yet a shortage of all front line medical staff; it speaks for itself.
Even though we suffer from individuals whose use of the health service can only be described as a pitiful waste of resources we are not, if you can see one at all, outstripping anyone else in that area either, another myth.
The continual demand for more money is based on claims that we don’t spend enough on healthcare. This is only true if you consider all and everything can be treated by the State and we should facilitate the NHS to that end. No health service can do that it would bankrupt the country and some are getting to that level.
Ours has it own peculiar problems well trailed here and elsewhere, but the facts show that yes we could spend more, we are not top of the spending league tables, but we are nowhere near the bottom and that is before the latest shovelling of money at it.
I would suggest the NHS has too many of the wrong sort of staff; how else are they short of front line medical staff despite being the biggest employer in Europe? The interesting statistic is the one on ‘some services are not available on the NHS’ but doesn’t state what: dentistry has almost vanished, eye care is going the same way and again has been like that for years. Or are they talking about cosmetic surgery and the like which apart from genuine cases should not be on the NHS anyway? How they can consider trans surgery at this time when people are dying from cancer etc. because of a failure to treat, is beyond comprehension.
And government reforms: have there been any of any value?
I leave you with a Youtube video by comedian Andrew Laurence. If you don’t know him, be warned that the language in the opener is profane yo put it mildly, so don’t watch if easily offended, but no one gets to the point better than he does.
As he says at the end, be lucky… you’ll need to be.
"Time speeds up as we get older" is a frequent observation made by most of us 'oldies' and we say it more often than we used to! Where have the first two decades of the 21st Century gone, for example?
I find it hard to believe that it is almost exactly 20 years since the death of former Beatle George Harrison. It certainly doesn't feel like 20 years because the news of his death remains fresh in my memory.
He was the 'quiet Beatle' with media focus being concentrated on the Lennon/McCartney songwriting partnership but Harrison was the first one to produce a solo album after the break up of the group and his songs are every bit as good as those written by his former band mates as the following selection proves.
One year after his death there was a 'tribute' concert held in The Royal Albert Hall in London and the musicians who performed on stage that night were all members of 'George's band' all of whom had played alongside him on his recordings.
“As the lead guitarist of the world’s biggest rock band and a prolific song writer, the Beatles’ George Harrison’s greatest legacy may be the way his decades-long spiritual quest shaped the ways the West looks at God, gurus and life…”
