Here Dragons Be Eaten

My dear ol' dad used to mock my cycling efforts, claiming, as a mere school boy, to have oft cycled over a hundred miles in a day.

Of course, I never thought to doubt this claim. He grew up in a quieter world, one far less polluted by traffic- horrendously modified exhausts, baseball caps askew, empty-eyed aggression- and would certainly have been able to journey upon infinitely safer roads.

All the same, I vowed to myself that I would, one day, be able to announce to him that I had finally cracked the century. Alas, that ship has since sailed; even should I one day achieve the saddle-sore goal of one hundred miles in a day, dad is no longer here to upwardly adjust his past. Such was one's fondness for anecdotal reminiscences that I must have wanted to believe.

Perfect from Alison Christine

But dad contracted polio at a young age. He would have spent much of his youth with somewhat limited capacity for such cycling exploits. My father always had a weaker right calf, causing him to limp with a slightly inwardly-adjusted foot. Hardly the gait of a long distance cyclist, one might think.

But then, one never can tell. Children can be remarkably resourceful creatures. His never-talked-about disadvantage certainly didn't prevent dad from walking many miles with his family. Now, with mother's memories fading fast, it seems unlikely that I'll ever be entirely certain.

Dad's cycling, whatever the mileage, would have taken place in a richer, more diverse and aesthetically pleasing world. One can barely contemplate the wildlife that he might have encountered upon his wanderings. But he wouldn't have noticed it, unless it had reared up and bit him. He was far more likely to have been enthralled by a passing aircraft.

My latest cycle pulled me coastwards, from the centre of Norwich. The sun fierce, dragging numerous Buzzards into the thermals. Just north of Swannington there was a pair of hunting Hobbies, plucking dragonflies from the summer air. But the highlight had to be the female Goshawk that I spotted from the rise, just north of Attlebridge; I say spotted, again it was really the alarm calls from mobbing Swallows that drew my attention. Always a bird to saviour, a Goshawk!

At one point, barely able to crawl, the cutest of Field Voles caused me to turn about and lift the little fellow on to the verge. Best not to ponder its chances, just to cross fingers and to wish it well. At least it was far too tiny to bother the Buzzards.

Ninety miles, dad! I'm creeping slowly upwards. I'll get there soon, but then I've been saying that for several years now. Still, just the ten more needed...

If maybe the weather should hold...

If perhaps I could ignore the wildlife I might yet just do it!

Naming And Shaming The Blameless

Leonardo the Luminary whirled the cloak through the gold-flecked air. A captivated crowd held its breath. A phosphorescent flash seared into retinas. Magic was afoot! Something was about to go missing!

The hand was swifter than the eye. Magic wasn't afoot. Smoke caught in throats. Houdini devoted much of his later life to exposing these charlatans. Britain had hoped to move on!

David The Cameron wafted his 'precious' arms behind the cloak of a fabricated recession. Another PFI debt burned itself into the pockets of the public-sector funds. The wind changed and eyes teared up. Magic again wasn't afoot. Although someone was definitely trying damned hard to make the NHS disappear. Maestro, we need your enlightenment.

So the pretend Sorcerer's Apprentice, JC under the auspices of The Grand Master, wants to, "name and shame GP practices with low cancer referral rates," does he? Why does this proposal not fill my deflated soul with joyousness? To be named and shamed also by the likes of The Daily Mail and The Sun, the BBC; monochrome images of the torch-wielding heathen hoards rounding upon the castellated practice flit far-from-reassuringly through my mind. What could possibly go wrong?

Thanks to Fadzly Mubin

Many well-informed individuals are now openly discussing the inevitable demise of 'our' treasured NHS. And still we, the British public, allow the pretend-screen of the mysterious recession to blind us to the hard-driven goal of these soulless people; that would be to rip the bleeding heart out of what remains of the public sector, especially that of the NHS. Why else would a country of largely working or aspiring-to-work individuals find itself currently in the hands of a bunch of privileged Etonians, entirely representing the interests of multinational businesses that wish to regard us solely as factory fodder? If only we hadn't permitted those daily tabloids to tell us what to think! Have I missed anything? No, I honestly don't believe that I have.

But, with so much Acme smoke, sparkle and mirrors in operation, it's quite a feat to merely keep one's eye on the proverbial ball.

"Believe in better." "Every soldier deserves a hero's welcome." "We're all storytellers." "Empowering us all." "Go fun yourself."

We could all be forgiven for perceiving the world to be looking quite rosy, should we permit 'our' media to tell us exactly what to think. Until we step, stupefied from the virtual, and back into the real world. As a recently encountered Norwich poster so succinctly put it, "Enjoy social networking, enjoy social exclusion."

Once again Fadzly Mubin

So, back in the real world, who might, for example, this Nuffield Health Group be, this 'concerned' body, regarding the imminent death of 'our' NHS? This multi-award-winning organisation? Might it be yet another private provider of health, operating in the UK's free-for-all health market? Yet another pseudo-charity tax-dodging private organisation publicly putting out feelers for more tax-dollars to be pumped almost directly into their own gaping maws?

Undoubtedly the genuinely precious gem, that is the NHS, needs more money, but the situation has been so skewed that the closer-observer would be entirely justified in doubting that this alone can any longer plug the holes. Sadly, rather like buboes on a festering corpse during an untimely outbreak of bubonic plague, the NHS, by covert design, is now quite literally riddled with private (PFI) interests. And those tax-dodging cushioned CEOs will now forever be sucking the life bloods from the beast, as licensed so to do by 'your' government.

To continue with the analogy, wafting our arms frantically through the air, attempting to clear the smoke, we learn that, working inside the NHS, some top-earning doctors and dentists are also endeavouring to ensure that their tax affairs are in order, attempting to search out some of those tender entrails. Perhaps these tax-concerned individuals have smelt the fast-decaying meat and have merely been caught up in the feeding frenzy; perhaps they're jolly nice and considerate neighbours, perhaps they throw a mean party.

'Wealth begets wealth, begets wealth, far more swiftly than ever it could be earned,' pretty much sums up life in modern day Britain. We might well sigh and think, "Well, there's not much that I can do about it," and we'd be right, sort of. But, if we continue to do nothing to challenge this status quo, we will surely soon find that those at the top will not be content to settle at even these levels of gross-inequality. I think it has been termed 'affluenza,' this inability to ever settle for the immense mounds of wealth that might lie sleeping in those city-scaled property portfolios. Oliver James's contention (and book) is certainly worth a ponder, should you be prepared to consider the faceless billionaires in their heavenly towers of power also somehow as victims of the consumer society. Maybe, one day the last remaining human on earth, will ponder his mega-immense, yet curiously vacuous, domain, before settling down to devour his own left foot.

And again Fadzly Mubin

So, as an alternative to watching the CEOs of 'our' NHS relentlessly sucking the lifeblood from the same, perhaps we could start naming and shaming the real problem individuals. Hang your privileged heads, you soulless parasites:

John Major: for introducing the concept of PFIs to the Public Sector, the means by which the NHS is currently being picked clean.

Tony Blair: for wasting three terms of (New) Labour governance doing absolutely nothing to redress the ravages of the demonic Thatcher, and for seriously accelerating the rise of the PFIs in the NHS. Made millions though, ahh bless.

And finally Fadzly Mubin

Jeremy C Hunt: for having the front to label himself as, "championing the NHS," instead of serving his time behind bars for the attempted assisting of insider trading over the BSkyB stitch-up. Don't for a second believe that he's stopped sewing.

David Cameron: for orchestrating the greatest attack upon the NHS that it has yet seen. The general public looked from 'saviour' to asset-stripper, and from asset-stripper to 'saviour', and 'saviour' to asset-stripper again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Keith Simpson: for being exactly like Keith Simpson, an MP we can be entirely certain will divert as much wealth as is 'humanly' possible, from the least to the most wealthy. Let's not forget that 'democratic' Keith, champion of the expenses, routinely devotes three times as many hours to optimising his expenses as he does to letting down his constituents. Fact!

The Undead Thatcher: no explanation needed. Let's hope and pray that the Devil's own foot soldiers are never able to discover the whereabouts of her one metre thick leaded coffin, allegedly buried one full mile below the earth's surface. Apparently the festering corpse just refused to burn; 'nuff said.

Perhaps instead of 'naming and shaming' the largely guiltless we could afford those in the Public Sector the time and the absence of pseudo-targets that might allow them to achieve the very best results for those with whom they are charged with caring. Perhaps, while we're at it, we might decide as a nation exactly what we think we can afford on health (and education) and then draw a single line that might apply to everyone. Sorry Queenie, if the nation can't afford to fund the use of these cancer-fighting drugs for young Sean here, then it certainly can't afford to cauterise hubby's leaky racial-intolerance gland. You'll just have to invest in some of those industrial strength earplugs.

Just watch those affordability lines shift.

And there it was, gone!