Friday Night Is Music Night: Herschel Bars, by JD

He wasn't just a man of science you know!

 William Herschel - Music(ian) of the spheres http://www.lablit.com/article/550

"Granny farms" - A Modest Proposal, by JD

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39038927

Reading Wiggia's excellent post - http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/granny-farms.html - he has highlighted the fact that the current system of care for the elderly is far from satisfactory. It is an important subject not least because we are all going to need looking after at some stage.

It is difficult to find how we have arrived at having approximately 11,000 care homes in the UK.. The Wiki entry is a bit vague on the origins of what is now the care home 'business' But it seems to have expanded very rapidly during the 1980s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nursing_home_care

That boom in the number of care homes during the eighties attracted some of the more dubious 'entrpreneurs' who saw a money-making opportunity. I can say that with some confidence by retelling the tale I told Wiggia and which he refers to in his text:

About 30 years ago (or more) I knew an Englishman running a bar in Spain and he used to talk occasionally about selling up and moving back to England to invest in what he called Granny Farms: the care home business. He disappeared and when I asked where he was I was told he had done just that; gone home to open a care home. But it was the term Granny Farm that gave a clue to his thinking. There was no charitable or other noble ideal involved, it was a business opportunity. It was just at the beginning of that point in history which saw the emergence of the 'yuppies' and 'greed is good' culture so it is hardly surprising that many care homes are less than ideal.

There are maybe half a dozen care homes in my local area; I haven't been in any of them (yet!) and I don't like the idea of having to move into one. 'Death by bingo' is not my idea of a healthy retirement. From what I have heard it seems that at least two of the homes are rather unpleasant places run with that 'granny farm' mentality. One of them is run by people who seem motivated simply by profit. Another one is currently building an extension. And from the outside it looks as though they are just more poky bedsits.

There is also a care home opposite the Working Men's Club and that one would have been my choice if necessary. Maybe not now, because one of the carers there died a few years ago. I knew her reasonably well and she was good at her job and actually did care about the people she looked after. And here we come to another important factor. It all depends on the people who work in these places. If it is 'just a job' then it is not going to be a nice place to live.

That is something which is not even mentioned when politicians start devising 'solutions' to the problems of old age and care. They look at it as a financial or management problem that can be 'solved' given sufficient money. An earlier post on Broad Oak about throwing money at a problem applies also to the problems of looking after the Oldies:

http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/you-can-throw-money-at-problem-but-you.html

After reading that post it is even more obvious that a radical solution is needed to help improve life for the elderly but radical thinking, or indeed any kind of thinking, is not a skill one finds among politicians or bureaucrats.

In fact this problem has been a long time coming in that there has been such a fragmentation in our society including the dissolution of families. Fifty or sixty years ago such a crisis was unthinkable.

From what I know this is not a crisis in other countries, certainly not in Italy or France or Spain. They still regard family as the focal point of life.

Wiggia sent me some links to how the Italians deal with things. What comes out of those links is that the family side is in trouble because of the low birth rate so the state is having to step in but in a different way to here.

The other thing that was interesting was that Italian care homes are in the centres of towns or cities rather than on the fringes. So with the Mediterranean style of living, sitting outdoors at cafe tables, there is much less chance of Oldies feeling isolated. Among other things, the weather in the UK is against us for a similar idea to work here.

Meanwhile in Spain there are some who just refuse to grow old! -

"Francisco Nunez, 112, is from Bienvenida, Badajoz, southern Spain. Nunez lives with his octogenarian daughter. He says he doesn't like the pensioners' daycare center because it's full of old people."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4076740/How-live-100-9-oldies-Spain-s-hub-centenarians-tips-staying-young-fresh-healthy.html

But what underlies the stories from Italy and Spain is that both countries still have strong family bonds and communities. That is still the case to a large extent where I live but I don't know about the rest of the country.

I propose my own radical solution which you can dismiss as silly if you wish but........

Many years ago my mother would watch people passing the window and she knew which of them were on their way to the local British Legion for their Sunday 'liquid lunch' and, at closing time, they would make the weary journey homewards. (This was in the days of restricted opening hours.) And then in the evening the same faces would again pass the window for their second visit to the Legion.

My mother would often say "The Legion should build some bedrooms for them so they can sleep it off and save all that walking back and forth!"

Now that is more than just a throwaway joke because there is a precedent of sorts. The famous and exclusive Gentlemen's Clubs in London such as the Carlton Club, the Army & Navy Club, the Royal Automobile Club and others do in fact have bedrooms for their members who may wish to stay overnight. If it is good enough for the upper echelons of society, surely it is an idea to be copied by the 'lower orders'.

There are three Clubs close to where I live: the Working Men's Club, the British Legion and the Conservative Club. All three are thriving whereas the pubs are dying on their feet like pubs up and down the country. One of the reasons is that the Clubs belong to the members and are non-profit organisations. Any profits accrue to and are spent for the benefit of the members.

It is a logical step for the Clubs, as existing 'hubs' of communal life, to follow the example of those London clubs and offer the same facilities. It is a further logical and small step to provide for the elderly members a permanent residence within their premises. And it would be another logical and small step to develop that into a combination of care home and Club.

Most of the facilities are in place already in the form of a concert room (now called grandly the 'functions room') and quieter lounges away from the bar area. Many of these clubs already provide food so it would not be too much of a stretch to expand the kitchens. And the Clubs already provide things which would be appreciated by oldies: our Conservative Club currently organises coach trips to the races, the Working Men's Club currently has dancing most nights of the week (how times change!) - that's proper dancing by the way, not the nightclub style of jiving and twisting the night away - the Legion already hosts an Over 60s club and has done for many years. I fact my granny was chairman of that club for the last 20 years of her life.

Most, if not all, of the current residents in care homes will be members of one or other of the Clubs anyway and I feel sure they would be very keen on such an idea. And there is the joke among local gossips - "Oh So-And-So, you would think he lived in the Club!"

It could become a reality.

Feel free to tell me why it wouldn't or couldn't or shouldn't work.

P.S. There is a long tradition of self-help and self-improvement in this country from the Rochdale Pioneers through the Yorkshire brass bands to Northumberland's Pitmen Painters. The problems of care of the elderly will not be solved by the 'higher busibodies' in Whitehall and Westminster, 'top down' solutions rarely work. It has to come from the people who will be the ultimate beneficiaries of any new ideas.
=======================================================================

Some links to give an idea of how the Oldies fare elsewhere -

http://www.expatfocus.com/expatriate-italy-elderly-care
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/5970/italy_the_badante_immigration_and_the_elderly
https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-07-07-aging-italy_n.htm
http://www.retirement-village-spain.com/
https://www.inforesidencias.com/centros/buscador/residencias/madrid

More NHS abuse

Having seen what happens when the healthcare and insurance rackets are given a free hand (see Paddington's overview here), I remain in favour of a system where medical treatment is free (or at least, affordable by everyone) at the point of delivery.

But there needs to be some way of getting people to treat the National Health Service  responsibly.

My dentist in the Seventies was an old hand who remembered the introduction of the NHS in 1948. At last common people could have free expert help with their dental and optical (anybody else remember the tell-tale NHS blue plastic spectacle frames?) problems.

One man came to him requiring dentures. The dentist took casts and sent them to the manufacturing lab. Then came the second appointment, to check with the patient that the plates fitted well.

The man was delighted: "These are the best of the lot!"

"What do you mean?"

The man held up a bag of "choppers", garnered from visiting every dentist in the area.

After all, it was a free service.

What rules should we have? What should be included in the offer, as of right, and what not?

Don't try this at home (NSFW: adult content)

While the ransomware business continues to afflict the NHS, an informant tells me of another way Europe's biggest employer is being needlessly inconvenienced: kinky eroticism.

A man comes in with not one, but two large carrots driven serially into his rectum by his wife, puncturing his colon and requiring a partial colostomy. The vegetables are surgically removed and, as per protocol, returned to their owner.

Another arrives with a similar difficulty, explaining that he has "fallen on the lavatory brush". Good thing it wasn't Carmen Miranda's hat.

Women can be that stupid, too: one presents herself at the hospital with a whole apple in her back passage - so deep that staff can't remove it without a major operation (the patient finally manages to expel it herself, somehow). The fruit is a variety called Pink Lady.

Turning to the front bottom: a young man from the Eastern Med turns up with a nasty infection because he has injected his penis with Vaseline to enlarge the head. Apparently this is not an unknown practice back home.

The biggest challenge of all for doctors and nurses is preserving a professional straight face.

Sunday Music: More Big Bands, by Wiggia

The sheer explosion in popularity of the big bands lead to a huge number of outfits performing during the thirties and forties. Many of the earlier twenties bands faded away as the swing era came in but many of the thirties bands stayed the course, even managing to survive in the rock era.

Many of those that stayed the course changed styles, changed personnel and instrument line-ups, and some changed the whole direction of their music. Ellington is the best known and probably the most revered of all the bands and his music evolved continuously over decades. He also almost certainly did more work as a soloist and with other musicians than any other bandleader, as did Kenton who as seen and heard in the previous piece pushed the boundaries as far as anyone; Basie less so, yet stayed at the top right to the end such was his popularity.

Here I am simply going to put up some pieces from a selection of bands in various styles to illustrate that variation and how they changed.

This early Ellington rendition of “Mood Indigo” shows Ellington had a piano style even then that traversed the ages and yet had Russell Procope on clarinet soloing, an instrument that diminished in usage as a front liner soon afterwards.



Filmed version of the above(embedding disabled): https://youtu.be/GohBkHaHap8

By 1943 Ellington had written this but it was not well received at the time, so he shortened the suites into six parts, one of which is here, and when re-released in ‘58 it became a classic, from Black Brown and Beige:



Kenton made his name with a huge swinging style and a run of popular numbers such as Artistry in Rhytmn and the Peanut Vendor and this from ‘62 “Malaguena” with its Latin theme and sumptuous brass section:



City of Glass I featured in the last piece but Kenton pushed the boundaries of big band music in other numbers and albums. This is a live ‘68 video of Kenton just back from a serious illness with Intermission Riff, big bands don’t get much better than this:



and then in ‘72 for contrast, “Here’s that Rainy Day”:



Kenton's Innovation Orchestra of 1950 was putting out some numbers that were advanced for the time and his delving into Latin American music predated the Bossa Nova period, plus albums like MacArthur Park added to his broad based output.

Always a slightly underrated outfit Terry Gibbs had various bands, this is his ‘Dream Band’, not underrated himself by anyone with knowledge of music; a long and successful career. "Don’t be that Way":



A very current big band the Amazing Keystone Big Band with Quincy Jones as arranger shows the big bands have not entirely disappeared, here in a Latin vein playing “Manteca” in 2014:



A classic number “A Child is Born” here played by the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, featuring Thad as arranger and playing flugelhorn. This was the resident band at the Village Vanguard NYC during the seventies, not as well known over here as they should be:



This is interesting. Oliver Nelson, musician-composer-arranger is one of my favourite jazz artists who went on to various strands of music with huge success. Here he is with a big band Jazz Interactions Orchestra the album Jazzhattan Suite and the number “Complex City” released in ‘68. To my mind the whole album is based on Kenton's “City of Glass” and has the same lush brass section - this also was not a complete success but an attempt, again in my view, to succeed where Kenton failed ? The similarities are too obvious.

Oliver Nelson will figure in more depth my next piece.

Declining by degrees

US professor "Paddington" writes: 

About 20 years ago, our political leaders finally became aware that the well-paid industrial jobs were becoming much more technical, and fewer in number. They looked at the famous statistic that college graduates earn more over a lifetime than non-college-graduates, confused correlation with causation, and pressured the education system to increase the number and percentage of graduates, and the quality of them.

The last is impossible, but it was quite easy to increase the number and percentage of graduates, simply by watering the coursework down.

However, there are disciplines where actual mastery matters, including Nursing and Engineering.

I contend that it is only a matter of time before we separate 'real' degrees from the others.

This leaves the question of how to designate the other degrees. Since B.S. is already taken, I would suggest B.E. (Bachelor's of Equality), B.F. (Bachelor's of Feelgood), or B.N.P. (Bachelor's of Nothing in Particular).

Friday Night Is Music Night: Willie Nelson, by JD

Last month was Willie Nelson's 84th birthday. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Nelson

He wrote his first song at the age of seven and started performong at the age of 10 according to Wiki which is why he seems to have been around forever. He is still writing songs and performing. His latest album, released earlier this year, is called "God's Problem Child " Two of the songs are included here including a very whimsical "Still Not Dead" which he wrote in response to internet rumours that he had died in 2015!

He has been a prolific songwriter as can be seen from this list- http://songwritershalloffame.org/songs/detailed/C133

Starting out in Nashville as a clean cut 'all American boy' writing and peforming, his most well known song is 'Crazy' which Patsy Cline turned into a huge hit. Willie then left Nashville and went home to Texas where he grew his hair long and became an 'outlaw' heading off in a different musical direction in a very successful partnership with Waylon Jennings.

He also developed a very distinctive sound and style on his very battered old acoustic guitar explained in a short video here and along the way he has recorded with artists as diverse as Julio Iglesias and Ray Charles.

On with the music!..................