Tuesday 29 June 2010

Hayfever

The sunny and hot, but very niggly, sticky and close weather we have been having, and an high pollen count has meant that my Hayfever has been playing up again. This morning I woke up at 3.15am coughing and wheezing. I Fell asleep again though at 3.45am and slept through. Sunday night was bad, as I woke up at 3am, and I didn't fall asleep until 4.30am, though I am not the best of sleepers at night, even when I am in 100% health.

I was severely affected during June, July and early August 2006. My throat was tickly and dry all day, particularly at night, when I couldn't breathe. I was having to drink pints of water when I woke up at night that summer to wet my arid throat. I also had several coughing bouts that summer and it was the worst I have known, before or since. It eased when the weather turned cooler in mid-August.

My eyes were stinging a bit yesterday. However, hayfever and myself are no strangers. I was first struck down with in June 1979, when I was nearly 3 years of age. I had it severe in my early years. I remember my nose and eyes running like Linford Christie, and taking Sudafed. By now, I am used to it. I just find that some summers I get it worse than others.

People say that thunderstorms clear the air during humid weather. THEY DO NOT. All they do is make the atmosphere more humid, particularly when it rains. What "clears" the air is a change of wind direction. If there is a moist, humid, South-Westerly or Southerly wind, and the wind changes to the West or North-West, it becomes cooler and drier. If there is an Easterly wind in summer, it is a drier heat.

Sunday 27 June 2010

Abused? You don't know the meaning of the word?

Does anyone find that the word "Abused" or "Abuse" has become misused like "Eccentric" or "Genius"? Say if someone called me a Tosser, I wouldn't say they had abused me, I would say that they are ill-mannered. Yet that is often classed as "Abuse". No, abuse for me is being raped, sexual abuse, being repeatedly physically or mentally bullied. I just feel many people are getting too soft. I heard last week of a woman getting counselling because she got a parking ticket! No, the perjorative term of "Abuse" is an insult to someone who has been genuinely abused.

Wednesday 23 June 2010

The Budget

In the last 100 years, the UK has had five unelected Prime Ministers. They include Neville Chamberlain in 1937, Alec Douglas-Home in 1963, James Callaghan in 1976, Gordon Brown in 2007 and David Cameron in 2010. Cameron was different to the previous three in that he faced the electorate, but didn't win a majority of seats. He formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, so he is still an unelected Prime Minister and will remain so until he wins a majority of seats at the next General Election.

In fact, in the UK, no party has come close to achieving 50% of the votes cast since Labour in October 1951, and they lost. Both Labour and Conservative have won with 55%-60% of the electorate voting against them. That includes Harold Wilson with a majority of 97 in 1966, Thatcher, who had landslide majorities of 144 in 1983 and 100 in 1987, or Blair who had landslide majorities of 178 in 1997 and 167 in 2001. That isn't a majority government!

On Tuesday, the new government announced an emergency budget as the UK is apparently Trillions of pounds in debt. I felt it was an ideological budget. Some pain was inevitable and unpopular measures were going to have to be made, but the pain is going to be worse for some than others, and they are the usual targets - the ill, the disabled, the poor and the working-class, who will suffer most for a recession/depression caused by millionaire, public school bankers through their greed.

You might ask, "What do you mean? We are all in it together". Perhaps this government needs to go back to school because they are confusing "We are" for "You are". VAT has been put up on items from 15% to 20%. This is an indirect, stealth tax, which will hurt the poor more than the wealthy. It is due to be implemented in January 2011. Amenities and council services will be slashed, again hitting the poor the hardest. Child Benefit has been frozen. Why don't they means test it so the rich don't get it or freeze it for the rich but give rises to the poor? Why don't they increase the wages of lower paid staff in the public sector but freeze those of highly paid staff for three years?

Also announced has been swingeing cuts in public spending, and ALL new and existing individuals who receive Disability Living Allowance will have to go in front of a panel to prove that they are entitled to it. DLA is hard enough to apply for in the first place. What if that panel knows nothing about the effects of a disability affecting an individual who has applied for it? There are more people with Autism than familiar and visible disabilities such as Down's Syndrome or Cerebral Palsy, but it is still a hugely misunderstood condition, as is Asperger's Syndrome.

This is why it is paramount and vital, now more than ever, that training occurs in Autism and Asperger awareness, for the benefits agency and tribunals. It needs to start NOW. TODAY. Too many people with Autism and AS receive no support from social services, and are shunted between the Mental Health and Traditional Learning Disability services. If someone with AS goes in front of a tribunal to apply for DLA after 2013, and they have no support or social worker, the panel, who might be ignorant in Autistic Spectrum Conditions, may conclude that the needs of the person applying can't be that great or desperate. If they were, they would have a support or social worker. Due to that, DLA might be withheld. Autism and AS are also invisible disabilities, like mental health problems are.

I also feel that this government will, as soon as they get the chance, cut the top-rate of tax in the UK from 50% to 40%. I also feel that they will bring in massive increases in the civil list for the Royal Family, so people such as Prince Edward, whose achievements include getting into Cambridge University despite getting a C and two D's at A-level, quitting the Royal Marines because they were too tough, taking part in "It's a knockout" on TV circa 1987, filming Prince William at University and being President of the Lord Taverners, Lord Hangeron and Lady Leecher can get more money from the tax payer.

The government is saying "The benefit system needs reforming and it needs to be made difficult to get benefits because the system always gets abused. Think of how many hospitals and schools we could afford if we weed out fraudsters". Yet when you call for the rich to be taxed more, or non-doms to be taxed or loopholes or offshore trusts to be closed, and millionaire, public school bankers, who have got the UK into the recession/depression that it is in now, to be taxed on their bonuses, or the Civil List to be frozen, you are accused of practicing the "Politics of envy".

Just think how many hospitals and schools we would have if bankers were taxed on their bonuses, or non-doms were made to pay tax or if taxloopholes were closed and offshore trusts and accounts closed down. The far-right, war-mongering, anti-Trade Union, racist, homophobic rag the Scum is extremely hypocritical. It attacks benefit fraud and measures to be implemented so it is very difficult to claim for benefits. It also attacks Asylum seekers and immigrants. It is run by an Australian based American whose company, News International, last paid tax into the UK Treasury in 1987!

You might ask what I would have done. I would apart from the measures I have stated, bring in a tax so those earning >200k a year pay 55% tax and those earning >300k or more 60% tax. I would have left VAT as it was and DLA alone for ill and disabled people who need it.

The Tories have always made scapegoats at those at the bottom, particularly if or when things go wrong with the economy, or for society's ills. Look at their history. In the past, they have targeted coloured people, homosexuals (Section 28), the unemployed, and does anyone remember the war in the early '90's on single parents or John "Back to basics" Major. They are carrying on where they left off. Their election campaign for 2015 or whenever it is should be "VOTE TORY: BASH THE NEEDY TO AID THE GREEDY".

DLA is being severely restricted. What and who will be next?

Government for the people by the people? A budget for shithouses by shithouses more like. Welcome to compassionate conservativism 2010.

Sunday 20 June 2010

The Internet becoming an illness

I know there is a mental illness called Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. I wonder in the Textbook of Psychiatric illnesses, conditions and disorders, in years to come, there will be a term labelled Facebook-Obsessive Disorder or Internet-Obsessive Disorder?

Saturday 12 June 2010

Why Bother Having MBE's/OBE's/CBE's?

The usual honours list has appeared with celebs getting MBE's, OBE's and CBE's. I don't know why they don't reform it, with an Order of Merit or Achievement award or something like that... because Member of the British Empire stands for being a member of an Empire that ceased to exist 40-odd years ago. People also get knighthoods for doing a skilled, but well-paid job they enjoy doing for years and years. Is it right that they should, when people who have jobs that they dislike, with comparatively little pay, who turn in skilled and competent performances, don't receive any reward whatsoever?