Medical conditions.

Has anyone else given a thought that all medical conditions are just made up bunkum? I look back on my family history and various letters to and from family members going back some 7 or 8 generations. What jumps out is the fact that very few members never smoked or never drank alcohol. And yet none died at an early age, well, save for Annie who died aged 6 months. Almost every single one lived to 80 years old or older. A good 30% lived until 90+.

This led me to suspect that all we hear about smoking and alcohol related illnesses is indeed utter bunkum.

Go back 4 generations. They numbered 42 people across 8 families. All smoked. All drank alcohol. All bar one lived to be 86+ years old. The odd one out was Annie mentioned earlier. They all ate red meat, when they could afford it of course. The male members did nightly trips to various ale houses and drank until they could drink no more.
None died of cancer. None died of any alcohol related illness. In fact most died from natural causes. They where more likely to have died from old fashioned mucky housing than of anything else.

There will be those that claim we did not have the medical expertise back then so they could have died from any number of smoking or alcohol related illnesses. But that does not hide the fact that todays medicine could be totally bogus. Bogus in so much as how exactly do we common people know that what we are told is good for us is actually good for us?

Sure, people live longer now than at any stage of our evolution but that could be down to how much cleaner our home and work environments are.

People have lived with cars for years. People have drunk massive amounts of beer for years. And yet, it is only in the last few years they have bothered to inform us that all manner of things are now bad for us? Come on. It is all made up bullshit. Nothing more. Nothing less. All timed to coincide to what what people expect our better to inform us about.

Every 10 years or so over the last 60 there has been some magnificent discovery medical wise. It is in our conscious to expect it so when it happens we are triggered to respond how we do.

Think about it and you will see for yourselves.

The day I could have died.

My Grandparents fell under the compulsory purchase order that destroyed so many families in the Spring Bank area of Kingston upon Hull during 1964-5. The area the order covered was some 2 square miles of old fashioned back to back housing. From Derringham Street to Spring Street and Spring Bank to Clarance Street. Hundreds of houses, shops pubs and a park destroyed in one fell swoop. My Grandparents house off Trinity Street was a big 6 bedroomed privately owned house with a back garden that extended some 700yards off the back of the house. Surrounded as it was by a 6 foot high builder brick wall along its full length, both sides and across the back. Before I get slammed for having a rosy memory of that wonderful house to back up my own memory of it I took the sizes from the Government/Council owned archives thhat anyone can view.

The estate as was was not truly an estate in the modern sense back then. It was nothing more than a collection of mostly back to back, 2 up, 2 down terraced housing with larger properties along one side of Trinity Street and dotted about around the estate, known locally as The Spring Bank estate.

Most of the houses were owned by landlords but the rents were very low so the standards of some of the families were not as high as the might have been. Other houses and businesses were privately owned. These privately owned properties were the ones who suffered at the hands of the local council. The council offered these people a fraction of the true value of the properties and affectively stole the houses from under the feet of the house dwellers. My Grandparents where one such family. In 1960 they paid 1,200 UKP (a LOT of money back then) for the house after selling a smaller house off Thoresby Street for 800UKP. In 1964 when the stealing by stealth began the council offered them 200 UKP. The same value that everyone else on the estate had been offered. No consideration was given to house or property size whatsoever. Every single building was offered the same disgusting low price even for those times.

Anyway, in 1965 they moved from a private house to 2x25th Avenue on North Hull Estate. The house was not very big compared to the house the council had just stolen from them but as there was only my Grandmother and Grandfather plus the occasional visit from us Grandchildren to consider so they took it. The rent, via Hull County Council, was reasonable too.

I was five years old when they moved but was already used to visiting my Nana and Papa as my Grandparents were known to us kids. But, when they moved it became a 4 mile journey to their house compared to the 1/2 mile it used to be. My first visit during the very cold and snowy month of November 1965 aged five years old almost cost me my life.

I had got on the bus, alone as children had little to fear in those days as most all adults looked out for children back then, and kept muttering to myself what my Nana had told me. "Get off the bus at the terminus (which was at the end of 21st Avenue. Cross the road then same way as the bus points go to the end, then turn left then after a short walk turn left again the walk down there until you see the huge oak tree. Once you reach that you are almost here. Carry on walking until you reach 25th Avenue." The instructions where clear even for a five year old child. However, somewhere along the line I had missed a turn and instead of walking down Endike Lane I was in fact walking back where the bus had just come from.

It was one of the coldest evenings of that year (1965). Thick ice had laid everywhere. Trees glistened and flowers danced in the icy cold wind. After I had walked a ways, the wrong way, I started crying as by now I knew I was lost. With freezing cold hands gripped tightly around my books and pencils I stood, crying, not knowing what to do. Then, a man on a bicycle stopped and asked me what was the matter. I told him where I wanted to be and he said "Well, you are going the wrong way to reach there. You had better get on the back of my bicycle and I will take you are far as Elerburn Avenue. 25th Avenue is next one along." So, I got on his bicycle and with the icy wind tearing at my face and hands we set off.

After what seemed an eternity we arrived at the point where this man could go no further. I thanked him as a 5 year old thanks anyone and after checking I knew where I was going he went on his way and I mine. It was but 100 yards from the drop off point to where my grandma lived but along that 100 yards the cold had by now caused frostbite in my fingers. I dropped all my books and pencils and was really scared when I found I could not pick them up because my fingers felt like rubber and the mere touch of anything hurt. But being 5 years old and with a determination only a child possesses I managed to pick them all up bar two pencils. I was once again crying and tears on my face hurt as the dripped.

Eventually, I arrived at my grandma's house, frozen, crying and through the cries I mumbled that my hands and face hurt. My grandma sat me opposite a big open fire with flames merrily dancing and slowly worked her magic to get the feeling back in my hands and face.

That was the night I almost died. If it had not of been for that gentleman stopping and giving me a lift on his bicycle I know now that I would most certainly have got lost and would of eventually given in to the very cold icy evening wind that blew so menacingly.

The World just gets worse.

I fear for a world slowly but surely, for whatever reasons, coming to the end of its life.

I fear for my children, aged 9, 8 and 7 months at the time of writing, and their children and if Man still exists by then their childrens children, growing up and living in a world where those with the power to uphold the law slowly but surely increase their firepower in the mistaken belief that to contain the bad elements of this world they must fight fire with fire.

The World stage has been the same for many hundreds of centuries. The West is relatively affluent with a decent standard of living while the East burns under the hot baking sun in lands made primarily of sand. Okay, those descriptions are not 100% accurate but that is how my Grandmother saw it and how she saw the world and how it would evolve when she was alive is scarily coming true.

Those in the West exploited those in the East. The East, while not getting poorer never got more affluent either.

As the world turns slowly but surely what my Grandma, she died 1982, said is now coming true. She said that the West would pay dearly for its dabblings in hot sandy countries like the Arab countries and South Africa. She always named these two area as volatile. She always said "Hot sun and commonsense never go together well." And that a "nuclear missile will come not from a powerful nation, though China, the sleeping giant, should be watched closely, but from a small none powerful third world country."

Looking at the world stage as it sits now some 25 years after her death she seems to have got most things right.

Closer to home we have a police force getting ever more powerful weapons in the name of security. They use these weapons not against bad forces but against their own peoples. National Security is the buzz word of this century and within that remit that countries own law abiding people get their freedoms curtailed.

I fear for my children's future. I really, really do.

Fighting back.

There is an element of our society that has always been there but these days there are very few people who will fight back.

This element are commonly known as 'bullies'. The turn on people on a whim. They often times just fight someone for the sake of fighting. They are often fueled by alcohol and drugs. They have a heighten sense of themselves. They should not be given any quarter. They have no right to live amongst us good people.

In previous decades this element was kept in check but nowadays they run amok with no fear of retribution. This situation has come about for several reasons not least of which is the general publics fear of being arrested, hauled before a court and possibly interned. If one fights back then the 'bully' and worse the police see you as the problem not the bully. This situation must stop.

People are being killed from protecting what is rightfully theirs. Not a day goes by without someone being maimed by some bully because they looked at the bully in a funny way.

This situation is simply intolerable. The police have a huge role to play in this and it is they who must not allow bullies to bring charges against those who are willing to fight for what is theirs or willing to fight for just walking down the streets.

This http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/6953609.stm is the sort of thing that happens when the police have lost all respect from the tiny 'bully' minority from amogst the very people they serve. People who take part in such things should not be allowed the same freedoms law abiding people have as a basic right.

The time is now for fighting back against the growing number of bullies on our streets. Forget the police and their inertia whenever you see or indeed if you are a target yourself, some bully attacking someone, anyone of any age, then step in and smack that bully into next week. Protect others as well as yourself and we shall all live in a better place.

I do.

Are they accountable?

For making the worlds people live in fear? I reckon they are.

Land locked newspapers and Internet based news outlets, far too many from both fields to list here but they are\all the same in this regard). They rarely note anything good. 99% of the news from those outlets is bad news. Another murder. Another knife attack. Another beating. Another robbery. Etc, etc, etc. Same sort of news reported day in and day out. None, and I do not include satirical news outlets for obvious reasons, have a 'Good News' or 'Feel good' page or pages or section. Sure, they may now and again, put out some article that is good news but the vast majority of news reported is bad news.

Take the BBC web site at http://www.bbc.co.uk as a prime example. Every single day the report the same bad news. From home and abroad, same old tired format. They split the World up into sections and the U.K is further split up into smaller chunks so you can read more bad news about an area closer to wherever you are! Very thoughtful I am sure.

What is stopping these news outlets from dedicating some space every day to some good news to cheer up their readers? Nothing. Well, nothing except bad news is good news for news outlets as that, they claim, is what their readers want. But, as a reader myself of several of the top online news outlets I can state I would rather read about some good being done somewhere than read about yet another death or fire or plane crash or war or whatever is happening in a given BBC mandated area that is bad.

'Welcome to the Good News only section of the <insert news outlet here>'. Will we ever see something along those lines in any serious news outlet? I doubt it. Are the worlds peoples so downtrodden and nasty that all they want to read about is something bad like someone being killed or an areoplane crash that killed all 203 passengers or yet another country is attacked by the U.S.A. because that country does not conform to what the U.S.A. considers correct? I think not. I think, and this is world over not just in the U.K., that if the news outlets produce a page or complete section relaying only the good things that happen in this world, and there is a lot, then that page or section will quickly become the first page a user goes to.

Our society is bad enough these days without these news outlets reporting on things that make our society seem much worse than it is. I'll ask again. Why can they not set aside some space to report only good news. I bet you that that space will be widely read and will probably get more hits then anything else they report on.

As an aside, my dear old long dead Grandmother always held that the U.K. is no worse now and no more violent than it was in her youth during the 1926-1936 than it is nowadays. The only reason is seems worse is because nowadays news travels much faster, the police are better equipt and that people are more inclined to report crime against themselves or a crime they have witnessed. Was she correct? She had a habit of oversimplifying things in such a manner but if you read the statistics then she was not far wrong.

Extremists.

I am sure that the vast majority of people born, raised and living in the UK abhor the violence and devastation left by extremist. car bombs, burning cars etc are all bad things that nobody should have to endure.

But, there is one burning question that has been in my head for a long time and I have asked many people who should know the answer but as yet have not been given a reply that makes any sense. Nor an answer that has an ounce of truth in it.

I will state categorically, I abhor any violence. Terrorist activity or wars. I am in no way condoning these actions nor the groups involved.

The I.R.A who during the 70's and early 80's raged terrorist activities against mainland Britain caused much worse damage then the current terrorist activity and yet today there is billions of pounds being spent on infiltrating, getting to know and hopefully stopping todays terrorists. This money is more, much much more than what was spent on doing the same back in the 70's and 80's. Why?

The carnage and devastation caused by terrorists back then was much worse than anything we have seen in recent years and yet we have spent much more money on curbing these recent atrocities. Why?

I will say it again.

In terrorist terms recent events have no been a patch on those of the 70's and 80's in terms of devastation and carnage so, why the sudden raise in monies?

I can make assumptions but they are probably way off base and could be seen as being from someone who is paranoid. Neither of which are true or correct.

The question is simple and yet no one who should be able to offer an answer does so which makes it look like they are building up defenses on the back of something that is really, in terrorist terms, no threat but in the name of safety of our citizens we shall remove a few freedoms.

And that is what I think all this boils down to. Curtailing freedoms. Not anti-terrorism.

Fat Tax?

Whatever next! A thinktank, and I use the term vey lightly, from Oxford has suggested that VAT (Value Added Tax) of 17.5%.

They claim 7.5% rise on fatty, sugary or salty food would cut heart and stroke deaths by 1.7% and that 3,000 lives could, possibly, be saved.

Consider, if you will, the methods they used to come to the conclusion 3,000 lives would be 'saved'.

First they used economic data to work out how demand would fall as the price of unhealthy foods increased, and which foods people might turn to instead - then used these results to predict the benefit on the health of the population.

Dairy products, that most staple of English foodstuffs, which contained high levels of saturated fats, such as butter and cheese, was attacked.

This however proved ineffective to their ends as they, somehow, worked out that people would simply switch to other 'unhealthy' foodstuffs containing high levels of salt. Quite how they worked this out is astounding because high salt content is utterly different from high fat content. But, I digress.

After they did not get the results they wanted to prove their point they switch to something called the SSCg3d score. This attributes points to to certain nutrients per 100g of food.

By taxing all products which scored poorly on this scale lives could be saved with approximately 2,300 fewer deaths each year from stroke and heart disease.

And here is the good bit.

They tweaked the range of taxed products to include foods that might score poorly but may be used as alternatives if so called 'unhealthy' foods. Not surprisingly, this approach yielded the most apparently striking results, with as many as 3,200 deaths prevented.

Now, call me cynical but anything like this study that has 'tweaked' things to suit their own aims smacks of misleading information. Also, how can they project what people eat when by our very nature we are fickle food eaters? Further, if some foodstuffs were taxed as they suggest you will immediately have a two tier situation as those who can afford it will carry on eating so labled 'unhealthy' foods while those who cannot afford it will not, as this study suggests, lead to 'healthy' food eating but will infact result in people who either will seek alternatives (as in similar products) or get themselves into further debt trying to give their children what the children want.

This study with its skewed methodology and by extention flawed results should be thrown away without a second thought.

Young Drink Drivers.

Here in the UK it has been said that the number of young drink drivers make up a large percentage of the numbers who drink drive.

I personally have never drink and drive mainly because 1) I don't drink and 2) I cannot drive any more (through illness not because I was banned or anything). Still, joking aside, the fact that this particular age group are risking their and others lives is alarming, if not to be expected.

Expected? Yes. Why? What makes you say that?

I say that because, well, look how we, and especially the 'establishment' treat our young people. Almost daily over the last 10 or so years our young people have been bounced from pillar to post via legislation. Never before in this countries history have so many rules been aimed at a particular group as they have been in the last 10 years. The most high profile of these being the ASBO. They, the younger generation, are fighting back as only they can. By doing the very things The Law has told them they cannot do. This trait has gone on back through the ages. The more rules one imposes the higher the figures against that rule will slew and the fact that there appears to be more of our young people doing dangerous things making the figures higher against them should never surprise anyone.

Those aged between 14 and 21 have always been a target as they are probably at their most unruly at that age. They are most certainly at the age when doing dangerous things or living on the edge, is seen as exciting and the 'establishment' via The Law has always tried to curb them and the more they try the harder this age group fights back.

One day, maybe but do not hold your breath, our Government will see the folly and fix it but until that unlikely event happens I blame the 'establishment' and The Law for every young person killed due to fact they made up some law or other aimed at curbing the young doing what the young will always do and that is fighting the rules.

By the way, if you reading this fit into this age group then please take note of the following. Do not drink and drive because you do not risk just your own life but the life's of those around you.

Double Standards.

So, the debate over euthanasia took a nose dive in the UK with the defeat of the latest attempt to legalise euthanasia for the terminally ill in the House of Lords. Under the banner "The Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill" it was last defeated on 12 May 2006. That defeat has not stopped those in favour of euthanasia continuing to fight their fight. Even today they continue to put forward their case.



Because our staid government will not be seen to support such things those in favour of it have to rely on such as Lord Joffe who brough a private members bill. He has vowed to  reintroduce the bill at a later date.



And because this debate is one that touches the very core of our being the debate over whether it should or should not be allowed will rumble on and on until such a time as they do legalise it. It is legal in some EU countries already.



I saw my Grandmother slowly die with the Big C and it was not a pretty sight as she was slowly eaten away by this most horrible of diseases.  After she died I has a talk with my Grandfather who exclaimed that if he had been strong enough he would of ended her suffering long before the end. He also said that he had been selfish in that he wanted to keep her alive for as long as was possible "because I loved her". In those two comments from my Grandfather we can see the turmoil burning within him. The same turmoil I suspect those who would be given the chance to end their partners suffering early would have.



It is not a simple case of saying let us allow or disallow euthanasia. I have no idea what the bill mentioned above contains. What follows comes purely from my heart and head.



There should be safeguards in place to stop those killing their partners out of hate or because they got fed up of looking after them. There should be be safeguards over what drugs are allowed to be used and also it should be determined properly that a patient is going to die. One thing I do think should be done is there should be a signed consent form from the patient with their signature on it written whilst they were of sound mind.





However they decide it should be done, whenever they legalise it, one thing for sure is it will eventually be legalised.



My own personal thoughts on this subject is it should be allowed in certain circumstances.