Caution you may become an O.A.P

First of all I'd like to start this edition of ze blog off by wishing everyone a happy new year and hope your plans do come to fruition.
One thing about new years is it reminds me about getting physically older even if somedays I don't half feel rough just wondering what I'll be like by the point I get into my sixties and that takes me to this weeks subject.
When you get to the point you need a lot of looking after often people move into care homes sometimes by pure choice sometimes because the Local Authority who part fund care having done the math have decided having people coming to you would cost more than you going into care.
Now the UK like many western societies, has an aging population so more folks are requiring care provision which is currently troubling our Politicians. They think they have a plan but the treasury are stalling over paying for it. It is being suggested that money currently given to every pensioner to cover the additional costs of staying warm in our cold winters - a cost that is increasing as energy costs are going through the roof - should only be given to the very poorest of pensioners. The idea being mooted is the money saved would go to pay toward care costs.
One problem I can see straight off is this will require systems and people to assess income levels to determine who gets it and who doesn't so you may not have that much by way of savings. Also in my experience, some people over 65 are still paying their mortgages off and if they have say more than £150 per week coming in it may be they have less disposable income than someone just under that amount who will get additional help.
Is that fair?
One is also inclined to say why is is  that this Winter Fuel Allowance rather like the welfare bill is touchable but Overseas Aid is not particular as many reports do question it's effectiveness in helping the disadvantaged overseas? And would it not make more sense to review the cost from the commitment to Co2 emission restrictions placed on energy providers that are in part pushing up the costs of heating our homes and factories?
If energy prices could be reduced then apart from anything else the cost of the Winter Fuel Allowance might well be more sustainable. And even now pensioners are going short on heat.
I can see this upcoming year being a worrying time for the elderly.

Communication breakdown

Getting hot don't you think?
The day got off to good start when my digital set top box that thing that feeds my old school tv decided to expire. I mean I woke up earlier with it still being warm at 4:30AM putting on the BBC's news channel to catch up with the latest G4S disasters, dozed back of to sleep only to wake up at 5:15 to an alternating black screen and white noise from the old built in analogue tuner in the TV itself!
I bought this around late October 2006 when my old STB a Nokia left by ONdigital, the worlds first Digital tv via an antenna company, was liquidated in 2002 and I've a fair idea of what happened. It's most likely to be  power supply issue involved a couple of capacitors that have gone short circuit having leaked. It's a very common problem in consumer electronics as to keep costs down, they use underrated components assuming by time they've failed, you'll sent it to landfill and buy another. I just might unscrew it and have a go fixing it although I found a dirt cheap replacement in a local charity store that's a deadringer for it using the same chassis but just different switches and a marginally different remote.
I'm tempted to look for a FreeviewHD USB adapter for the laptop instead as it can handle 720P pictures. 
Sunday saw a big fibre trunk outage that made using the internet for chat rooms a pain as it was taking over a minute for a few words you typed to come back. From what I read while at work, it covered Devon up to Manchester via Birmingham as as somehow they internet things I'm in Wolverhampton of all places and they'd get their feed from Brum, that's what happened running through midnight Sunday. It's been fine afterwards but after  over a week of well nigh perfect broadband and darn quick uploading, it left me a bit down.
This afternoon I'll watch the Women's soccer on the BBC the first pre Olympic event.

September musings

Wow! A warm dry late Summers day here that I spend a fair bit of my time out doors in due to my rotten internet service provider breaking up the broadband every 10 to 15 minutes and having momentary drop outs at all other times. England I'm sure must be home to some of the worst connections anywhere in the Western world so on top of everything else it sure doesn't surprise me some many do emigrate as the infrastructure is just so lousy here.

The major telephone provider is meant to moving toward high speed fibre broadband installation but I'll believe that'll come here when I see it!



You know I talked about the moral panic a few weeks back well we're at the start of another revolving around the case of an 16 year old boy who while left for a week to look after a four year old girl while his parents went away decide whilst leaving the four year old to her own devices to commit a bit of crime.

People are calling for the laws around the age children can be left on the own to changed and also the ages when older children can be left to look after younger siblings.

I really cannot understand this as the main thing is the person who is meant to look after the younger child has to be said to be mature (however we define that) which varies from child to child as well as tossing in the observation that in my experience some adults are insufficiently mature to be around children although they may give birth to them!

The benchmark is usually around from the age of 13 subject to your own assessment of your child which seems reasonable to me having looked after my older brother for periods when my folks weren't in.

This takes us to the universal requirement of children needing experience of handling responsibilities for themselves ready for when they become adults which as the adults we have to provide as we won't be around forever!!

Clearly this child has to reminded of the responsibility he undertook and how he let down his family, placing his young sibling in danger but I see little good from a Social Services investigation into the family.

Panic stations!

So far this week all I've been hearing is a sense of moral panic following last weeks disturbances, riots or whatever phrase you may care to deploy to describe what happened in England.

As I said last week here and in a few other places I have no intentions of getting into any kind of a political debate over this in part cos I know just how much exposure to our political points of view can cause irreparable damage to our friendships as well as being seriously hacked off about the rhetoric and posturing of all the major politicians over here over it.

Greed and a sense of 'got to have it all' have been raised by many commentators political, social and religious to explain in part the actions we saw.

Greed is by now means new in our society and it's history goes well back to the Bible.

It is used as a motivator for consumerism by commerce as we're encouraged to think the regular 1.6 four door automobile isn't good enough for us, we can do better and anyway don't we deserve this even if we don't really need it and sometimes there may be an opportunity cost to others, such as putting that second car on the road cos our garage isn't big enough?

Greed is not uncommon when quite literally our neighbours submit building plans that use part of OUR gardens for their OWN gain and lets not forget those politicians who took our money as tax payer for expenses that they had not in fact incurred.

It seems to me those out were little different morally in that regard.

That takes to the idea of looting and stealing as somehow shocking acts committed by the urban youth.

Let me make it clear I disagree theft and theft with any kind of menace actual or implied but in a society where others are seen to get away with it, the moral bar is lowered and in a year that has seen many powerful people caught out defrauding us and getting lenient sentences is it that surprising that such crimes do occur in the heat of disturbances?

And are these exactly new as I can't help but wonder if we hadn't had this in previous centuries and hadn't that led to the Riot Act?

While disagreeing the actions, I'm not so strongly persuaded all this can be blamed on mid twentieth century social values such as Liberalism or the Welfare State rather the disconnect between action and consequence which outside of last weeks actions has resulted in other issues across society. And often politicians fail to acknowledge themselves the connection between the actions and the consequences as much as they are entitled to make their arguments to favour of a policy. None of us can afford to just disregard each other as immaterial in the bigger plan.

The reaction to the Prison Minister's comments trying to categorize rape offences into minor and major is testimony to that.

I suppose my final musing form a moral stand point is one of disbelief that Politicians of all parties were trying to say how they had brought about decisive action who themselves were on vacation seemingly regarding the disturbances across the Capital, London, as being not sufficient reason to return while they were being dealt with by Police forces on the ground.

The perimeters are set by Parliament through with the Police fighting away through the often contradictory guidance and recommendations of previous inquiries into similar situations to keep the peace without direct political interference.If the politicians want to make life easier for policing these things, perhaps they'd care to reform the guidance using parliamentary time instead?