Ersatz TLS discussion
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Weekly TLS
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What are we reading? 19 December 2022
Wexford was very settled in his marriage
I still mask as well Scarlett, I have had no issues recently, but a couple of years ago an angry old man In an Aldi tried to pull one off of my face and security had to intervene
giveusaclue wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i loathe posting on WWR when the mods then vanish your post, just composed a quick summary for WWR and its gone, no sign of it and i have no clue why it would need wiping...."Have you considered a new name? Have no idea if it's possible.
scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "I wonder what that percentage of cops with unhappy marriages inhabit the world of fiction?"Oh, an awful lot! However, if you are going to use this situation, the writer owes i..."
Unfortunately, the marital strife often overtakes the crime solving which I find boring.
Mod
Have you considered a new name? Have no idea if it's possible...."
Well, TooManyWilsons has done it.
MK wrote: "Have you considered a new name? Have no idea if it's possible"No I haven't - if they are going to mod like that I don't feel the effort is worth it. I just stopped posting anything
Greenfairy wrote: "I still mask as well Scarlett, I have had no issues recently, but a couple of years ago an angry old man In an Aldi tried to pull one off of my face and security had to intervene"thats shocking,what an idiotic old man, where is his worship of "en-der-veed-ual choisss"
in the shires mask wearing is not confronted but i do notice as i walk into a store a lot of suprised faces, as the herd follows the tory line.....the biggest shock i had was in July...my only london visit since Feb 2020(meal with friends), to see i was only one wearing a mask on a busy train there and back....no windows open, just air con....
giveusaclue wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i loathe posting on WWR when the mods then vanish your post, just composed a quick summary for WWR and its gone, no sign of it and i have no clue why it would need wiping...."Viner has slapped down a lot of debate on issues which the G dont agree with, comment is free should really read "comment is free unless you disagree with the Guardians most woke and intolerant staffing minority who drove out Suzannah Moore and Hadley Freeman"
As a G reader since 1992, its appalling that two feminist journalists, experienced women were bullied out while commenting on their own lived exeperience and to boot, one who was of Jewish descent was then bullied about reporting on Jewish issues...really sad story, both of them
I may never stop wearing a mask on public transport, concerts, movies, or similar enclosed places or situations: I haven't had a cold since the pandemic started, which is very unusual for me and a pleasant change.
Mod
While I completely agree about intolerance, I have to say I object to the pejorative use of "woke" which has become so common.
Factory Girls, Michelle Gallen. I haven’t read her first which was highly praised. Set in the early 1990s, three young girls are waiting for their results to give them the opportunity to flee their small Irish town and The Troubles so they get a summer job in a factory. The handsome sexist Brit manager cherry picks the women in the factory and uses them. I read some comments on Goodreads and the negative ones are shocked, shocked I tell you, by the raunchy, rude, sexy language. I think to myself, well, did you read the blurb? Did you read a sample? There was a racist comment from one character therefore I cannot read the book.
I thought the book was fun, a bit over the top in places, but Gallen certainly succeeded in giving you a flavour of the constant level of pressure and community influence Taigs and Prods lived through, the minefield of relations between and within the two sides. The writing is vivid and visceral, and not for the faint hearted. What I found interesting and well done was the gulf of class within NI and also that feeling described by many of NI writers of the lack of hope and opportunities available, which creates a sense of oppression and desperation.
I felt that sometimes character was sacrificed to ideas the writer needed to get across but although not a perfect book, I enjoyed it and found it a worthy addition to that list of books reflecting on the ordinary lives of those who lived through the Troubles.
Berkley wrote: "I may never stop wearing a mask on public transport, concerts, movies, or similar enclosed places or situations: I haven't had a cold since the pandemic started, which is very unusual for me and a ..."i didnt have a cold since the pandemic till 3 days ago lol....i blame little ones with their grubby hands lol
a new translation of a DDR feminist classic, great to see new translations, always.https://www.theguardian.com/world/202...
Mod
https://www.theguardian.com/world/202..."
Interesting, thanks, AB.
Looking to see if there's anything in French, Franziska Linkerhand has been translated. I'll see if it's in the library.
AND THE WIND SEES ALL by Gudmundur Andri Thorsson, translated by Björg Árnadottir and Andrew Cauthery. And what a good job the translators did.A 5* outstanding read for me. Books need to be judged on what they set out to do, not what they don’t do. This is a book of vignettes of inhabitants of a small, fictional north Icelandic village. Kata Choir rides through the village waving to various inhabitants and we are introduced to those she passes by. There is no plot. What there is, is a spell woven by the author, weaving these disparate lives into a community that know and do not know each other, people who do not know themselves.
Goodreads describes this as Nordic hygge. Rubbish! This describes layer on layer of sadness, missed opportunities, unfulfilled longings, unhappiness, lives of quiet desperation and misunderstandings. The saddest part is how we misunderstand ourselves, compound a mistake in our lives and live half lives of regret. All in exquisite poetic language.
I bloody loved this book.
Storm wrote: "AND THE WIND SEES ALL by Gudmundur Andri Thorsson, translated by Björg Árnadottir and Andrew Cauthery. And what a good job the translators did.A 5* outstanding read for me. Books need to be judged..."
Must get onto this. It’s been in my pile for an age.
Thanks for the prompt. And the review.
Mod
- The Fatherland Files by Volker Kutscher, Prussia vs the Reich, East Prussia, the Polish corridor, the Prussian police chiefs in Berlin being replaced by the Reich, political differences ...
- Wedding Station, the prequel to David Downing's John Russell series, which begins with the burning of the Reichstag.
- Diana Mosley's biography.
- Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd which I'm reading now, based on accounts given by tourists, students, journalists, diplomats ... Very interesting.
I've also just watched the 1st season of the TV series Bauhaus. Arte and the German channel ZDF co-produced it to commemorate the centenary of the founding of the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1919. It focusses on a little-known woman artist, Dörte Helm. This 1st season covers the period up until the school is going to move to Dessau and I found it fascinating.
A couple from me.. Too Many Bones by Ruth Sawtell Wallis
This was Wallis’s first novel. Her protagonist is a 21 year old anthropology student, Kay Ellis, who has taken a position as Dr. Gordon's assistant to help him catalog six hundred skeletons. They are unique in the anthropological world and make up the ‘Holtzerman Collection’, coming from an abandoned graveyard in the remote Carpathians excavated in 1900 and are the most important example of inbreeding ever found.
But when she arrives Kay discovers that it isn’t quite the wonderful opportunity she had expected. There’s infighting amongst the management at the museum, and she is soon humiliated with accusations that a woman couldn’t possibly do the work she was employed for.
It’s only midway through the piece that murder comes into play, and it is guardedly welcomed as it steps the interest level and pace up a couple of notches.
It’s a convoluted plot, and doesn’t always bear close examination, but it’s characterisation that is Wallis’s strength, and what holds the interest as the story careers recklessly towards its conclusion.
Wallis was an anthropologist who discovered the Azilian skeleton remains in Montardit, in the French Pyrenees, but her career was terminated in 1935 during the Depression because "it was unthinkable to have two employed academics in one family during the Depression“. She had married a professor of anthology in Minnesota in 1931.
She then worked for the Federal Government undertaking the largest ever study of children’s growth. Her five novels were written at this time, and during the war, when she continued to work for the government. In the 1950s she studied native people of Nova Scotia, before becoming a sociology lecturer.
and, The Inner Room by Robert Aickman
This is a story is one which can be appreciated in different ways.
In the 1920s a young girl, Lene, chooses and old and decrepit dolls’ house as a present from a rundown toy shop. Only when she gets home does she find that the dolls within are inaccessible.
Aickman epitomises weird fiction. This is a pretty normal scenario, with no overtures to horror, yet from the outset it is unnerving. The intricate work that goes on into constructing a miniature house and the tiny replicas of people within is something I have always found deeply unsettling.
In Lene’s case, this uncanny object confuses her consciousness and begins to enter her dreams.
Aickman is careful with his boundaries, he never lets the story descend into farce. To the reader as well as Lene, the miniature house is alive, yet at no stage in the telling has the story become implausible.
It is Aickman at his best.
Fuzzywuzz wrote: "Mr Fuzzywuzz and I went to Belfast today, travelling by train, which gave me ample time to read."Have you ever visited the Crown pub? It's worth having a drink there just to enjoy the interior (reviews on the quality of food and service are mixed). I was totally impressed by the look of the place, even run down as it was in the 1970s:
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaur...
giveusaclue wrote: "Unfortunately, the marital strife often overtakes the crime solving which I find boring..."For sure, that can happen - it's all a question of balance. What you describe seems (to me) more common on TV series than in books, though. If it's all plot, plot, plot then the characters can often lack depth; if there's too much kitchen sink, there can be a lack of pace.
It's down to the skill of the author and personal taste where the 'good balance' lies.
Greenfairy wrote: "I still mask as well Scarlett, I have had no issues recently, but a couple of years ago an angry old man In an Aldi tried to pull one off of my face and security had to intervene"He deserved a good slap, or a kick in the gonads!
AB76 wrote: "As a G reader since 1992, its appalling that two feminist journalists, experienced women were bullied out while commenting on their own lived experience.."I could not agree more - it is very disappointing. I still feel more or less obliged to support the Guardian financially, despite this, as a counterbalance to the absurd right-wing bias in the UK press which arises from our present systems. Just a perusal of the headlines every day is enough to show how most papers ignore important stories (such as, today, the NHS crisis) to report tales of the Royals or this or that 'celebrity'.
The 'opium of the masses' is no longer religion, but trivia.
giveusaclue wrote: "MK wrote: "Have you considered a new name? Have no idea if it's possible"No I haven't - if they are going to mod like that I don't feel the effort is worth it. I just stopped posting anything"
This may sound a little 'off topic' but I think the edges of any group - be it left or right - are just too sure that their way is the only way.
This holds true for the Guardian as it seems to with weather events many of which are blamed on climate change. Here in Seattle a local weather guru who happens to be a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington did a weekly weekend weather spot on a NPR affiliate; that is, until he called out a weather event as - not being 'climate change.' The lefties (we are SO blue here) got irate and got him fired from this service. That's when I stop contributing to that station.
Rant over.
I'm going to have to be more attentive to who is wearing a mask. It is more usual here in Seattle. Still required in any medical setting. Yesterday every staff member at my local library wore one. And I often see them when I am out and about. Nobody raises an eyebrow here - which, I think, is a good thing.
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "As a G reader since 1992, its appalling that two feminist journalists, experienced women were bullied out while commenting on their own lived experience.."I could not agree more - it..."
the UK media bias towards a conservative agenda is pernicious and its been 40 years or so of politics and the media being in bed together. The Mirror and Guardian plough a lone furrow of dissent, though oddly the FT have now joined this fight with their disgust at Brexit.
When the Clown was defecating all over democracy as PM, it almost became a parody of press influence as various bloated, bottom feeding Torygraph magnates vied for an audience with the cunning, lying bloatbag, as he fed his own flaccid policy through his favourite mouthpieces
It takes a brave journalist to consistently and doggedly stay on the track of the rightwing politicians, many are silenced to never appear on tv (Carol Cadwalladr) or driven to the quieter sides of the media (Oborne), after stepping on one or two many toes.....there are countless more
Lastly, the poor old BBC and C4 lead the broadcast fight against the right wing but both are having their wings seriously clipped for their approach. The BBC did a poor job on Brexit, letting too many gasbags whine on about the "deep state" and "project fear" and remain almost terrified in last 8 months to say or do anything that may offend the Tories
scarletnoir wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "Mr Fuzzywuzz and I went to Belfast today, travelling by train, which gave me ample time to read."Have you ever visited the Crown pub? It's worth having a drink there just to enj..."
No, I haven't, but may have a wee nosey next time I'm there,
giveusaclue wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "I wonder what that percentage of cops with unhappy marriages inhabit the world of fiction?"Oh, an awful lot! However, if you are going to use this situatio..."
A shout out for Bill Slider. I know it took him a while to get settled with the 'right woman', but Atherton continues the search (nothing like commitment issues/problems). I still look forward to the next iteration do out here in Feb. It's called - Before I Sleep and is #24! in the series. I am first in line at the library.
Are there any weather nerds here? If so and if you are curious about the latest 'o my God' storm, I suggest you take a look at https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/ 3 January edition. For all those seeing it's a 'climate change' thing, here in Seattle we call them 'Pineapple Expresses'. I'm thinking it was a November Pineapple Express several years ago that took down a lot trees (leaves hadn't fallen yet) and caused numerous power outages. Mine was out for four days. I finally got so cold (there are only so many blankets you can put on a bed) that I found the last hotel room north of town. Power came back on the next day.
Attention all you UKers. I hope you keep masking up, but I am also hoping that this news article about the NHS is exaggerated - https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-w...
MK wrote: "Attention all you UKers. I hope you keep masking up, but I am also hoping that this news article about the NHS is exaggerated - https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-w......"Not at all - it is an accurate description. Whatever its faults (and there were quite a few, including the Iraq war) the previous Labour government made sure that the NHS was decently funded - or at least until the 2008 crash.
Two days ago, Sunak said that the NHS "has the funding it needs", which is a blatant lie, and a claim which only a super-wealthy person who never uses the system could make.
The Tories claim that they increase spending on the NHS year by year - true in cash terms - but this is extremely deceptive because:
1. the population is ageing and increasing, so the demand is increasing at a faster rate than the funding provided;
2. the targets for increases in workforce (nurses etc.) will be missed;
3. there is no plan for freeing up beds in hospitals, since if patients are well enough for discharge with support, the support is often not available.
I could go on, but won't. For anyone interested in the NHS and its funding, the best source of detailed information is - IMO - to be found in the reports produced by the King's Fund, an independent think tank, for example this one on workforce pressures:
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects...
Just finished reading this book set around the actual place name of the title overlooking Puget Sound. I know some folks on here are familiar with the area.
Enjoyed the book very much, like the characters and the suspense was well done.
scarletnoir wrote: "MK wrote: "Attention all you UKers. I hope you keep masking up, but I am also hoping that this news article about the NHS is exaggerated - https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-w......"as the largest employer in the UK, the NHS has been starved of cash and innovation for a decade. The Tory system of slowly salami slicing the public sector into the dark ages was well planned, the BBC are a media version of this, less and less in the coffers with political stifling of creative momentum.
With the NHS its implications are far more serious, by its nature as a universal healthcare service, whats more alarming for me is the crumbling infrastructure. Delays in the latest software and computers, hospitals decaying and crumbling, leaks when it rains, chronic loss of employees, its a huge problem
i attended a routine blood test yesterday at my local, non A+E hospital (all blood test done there rather than my local GP surgery since covid). It seemed smart, clean and bright and i offered the nurse taking my blood my full support with the recent strikes.
I cannot envisage a life without the NHS but clearly there are many on the right who think they can make a fortune and to hell with the rest of us. My opinion (for what it’s worth) is that the NHS needs to be kept in its basic free at the point of delivery form but other ideas need to be looked at. The problem is in our strident only two sides and mine is right world that we are living in, even to suggest a discussion gets the extremists out. Re a previous comment about the weather man and cancel culture, what happened to I may disagree with you but I uphold your right to have your opinion?
Shouting someone out or down is not a debate. It doesn’t bring facts to the fore.
I see that Reform U.K., a right wing successor to the Brexit Party (which has brought us so many advantages, cough) is fielding candidates against every Tory seat. Their support has gone from 3 to 7%. You mean the Tory party isn’t right wing ENOUGH?
CC - Thanks for recommending The Sanctuary by Emma Haughton, a well-constructed contemporary mystery. Lightish, as you say. It took a little while for me to be gripped but then I ripped through it.
MK – I think you mentioned that Tillamook is from the PNW, which I was unaware of. It’s now the family favourite, not as super-rich as VT’s own, Ben & Jerry’s. I picked some up to try it only because I liked the look of the old-fashioned tub.
MK – I think you mentioned that Tillamook is from the PNW, which I was unaware of. It’s now the family favourite, not as super-rich as VT’s own, Ben & Jerry’s. I picked some up to try it only because I liked the look of the old-fashioned tub.
Russell wrote: "CC - Thanks for recommending The Sanctuary by Emma Haughton, a well-constructed contemporary mystery. Lightish, as you say. It took a little while for me to be gripped but then I ripped through it...."Yes, once it gets going it has hooks! I ripped through, too.
Trinity: The Treachery and Pursuit of the Most Dangerous Spy in History
is a wonderful study of physics, atomic science and the world of the emigre scientists in 1930s and WW2 England.The bookish, quiet,communist Klaus Fuchs escapes Nazi Germany, where his Lutheran minister father and other relatives are under Nazi suspicion and comes to the UK. Nothing is easy about his first few years, he has issues with passports and permits, is sent to Canada as an enemy alien(one enemy alien transport ship is sunk off Ireland by u-boats) and then is recalled to the UK, where his expertise was to be used as an assistant to scientists exploring the idea of nuclear fission, a wartime study project.
Early on, Fuchs remains just a name, the real shock for me was how poorly organised and staffed MI5 and MI6 were as numerous communist agents settled themselves at the heart of government in 1940. One soviet agent who defected even said there were 2 agents in the civil service but nothing was done, he also surmised one of them had a name beginning with P (Philby). Elsewhere the mistakes kept coming, as the war years passed, Fuchs seemed to pass through like a tiny grain of sand in a mighty MI5-Mi6 sieve.
I have got as far as 1941 so far, the physics side of it is well explained and not too difficult, the only reason i can see that Fuchs was so lucky in this period, as Soviet agents circled him, was he seemed to have no visible presence as a communist, by his nature, he seemed to do nothing but work.
It is a real shame accross the world that so many Soviet agents spread their influence in the Allied world in WW2. Ostensibly on the same side, the Soviet agents were pawns in the bigger game of Stalins evil plans...
i picked this up on a waterstones browse and glad i did...
AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "MK wrote: "Attention all you UKers. I hope you keep masking up, but I am also hoping that this news article about the NHS is exaggerated - https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-wo..."According to the King's Fund, funding for the NHS has gone up by 50% since 2009. I would love to know how much of that has gone on frontline treatment.
sad news.. Saqi bookshop to close in london, due to lebanese economic woeshttps://www.aljadid.com/node/2395
i have read a lot of Saqi published books...fortunately the publishing arm will stay in business
giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "MK wrote: "Attention all you UKers. I hope you keep masking up, but I am also hoping that this news article about the NHS is exaggerated - https://www.seattletimes...."but i wonder how much the bill to run the NHS has risen since 2009? I would imagine even if calculated in this dire world of outsourcing and efficiencies, it will be a significant figure
AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "MK wrote: "Attention all you UKers. I hope you keep masking up, but I am also hoping that this news article about the NHS is exaggerated - https..."This sort of thing doesn't help:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cm...
The critical paragraph:
Auden Mckenzie’s decision to raise prices for de-branded drugs meant that the NHS had no choice but to pay huge sums of taxpayers’ money for life-saving medicines. In practice, the NHS was at one point being charged over £80 for a single pack of tablets that had previously cost less than £1.
Shouldn't someone have started wondering during the 10 years it took to come to light?
giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "MK wrote: "Attention all you UKers. I hope you keep masking up, but I am also hoping that this news article about the NHS is exagge..."the prescription situation is fascinating, i think the NHS abandoned 100% free prescriptions in about 1950, which probably made sense with over 65s and students not paying the full amount
of course the actual cost of the drugs is huge and the NHS then offers those drugs via prescription at a very sensible rate(though that process can be where a lot of money is sucked into the prices charged by Big Pharma). Famously in the USA, there is a lot less balance in the Big Pharma to prescription market
Anecdotally cold meds are hard to get where i am now and the pharmacist where i went to get some sudafed said some of his new deliveries for cold meds wont be till early Feb. He said the anti-biotic situation is even worse, its a crisis
Mod
I said I was reading this at the moment.
Here are a couple of quotes. These are humorous, but of course it's not always the tone throughout the book.
By Samuel Beckett:
I creep along blindly shivering and eat curried mutton ... Then crawl further till I can't stand any more and collapse into Felsche, which is too full. So I leave a little warmer and get as far as Café Fürst Rechschezler, where the coffee is execrable and the newspapers abundant. My spirits are so low that I read The Times.Leonard and Virginia Woolf decided to drive through Germany on their way to Rome which might have been risky —
Woolf thought it quite absurd that any Englishman, whether Jew or Gentile, should hesitate to enter a European country. Nevertheless he took with him protection in the form of a letter signed by Prince Bismarck, then a diplomat at the German Embassy in London.
... As it turned out, their short stay in Germany was transformed — not by Bismarck's impressive letter — but by their pet marmoset, Mitzi. Perched on Leonard's shoulder, she was an instant celebrity wherever they went, melting the hardest Nazi heart. ... For it was quite obvious to everyone that no one possessing such a 'dear little thing' could possibly be a Jew.
Absolutely loving Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford, my Christmas read this year. Annoyingly, I only got to the beginning of the second book when life returned to normal (and much less reading time) this week, so I really haven't a clue how I'm going to maintain momentum now that I'm in the trenches. Not a book where you can read just a couple of pages at at time. Ho hum.
AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "MK wrote: "Attention all you UKers. I hope you keep masking up, but I am also hoping that this news article abo..."Beware of sudafed. Last time I took one I ended up at A&E with raging palpitations attached to an ECG.
giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "MK wrote: "Attention all you UKers. I hope you keep masking up, but I am also hoping that this new..."Sudafed has been fine for me in the past, the only medical horror tale i had was Tramadol for a nasty stomach bug/pain about a decade ago. Blimey, i'd never taken opiates medically before and that was a 48 hrs of hallucinations and nightmares, all totally bizarre. One nightmare was an oil tanker falling out of the sky onto me on repeat about 20 times, strangest experience of my life, a night of 3 minute nightmares,very little sleep but no pain...lots of strange visions
Wind and rain in the Great Northwest. No order to resume masking up, at least yet. Winter stories. I have been reading "The Ancestor" by Danielle Trussoni, a modern Gothic novel set in the Italian Alps. Our heroine has been identified by DNA as the heiress to a mysterious title and heritage. I've been moving right along, though I guessed one secret early on.
AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "MK wrote: "Attention all you UKers. I hope you keep masking up, but I am also hoping that this news article abo..."I wonder if there is any country that has healthcare that is both affordable and available.
Here, I was having it easy when my former employer allowed retirees that had been employees long enough to piggyback (and pay) for health insurance after 65, assuming they also had medicare. When they discontinued this service 2 years ago, I was paying more than $550/month for coverage. But that covered everything except for a smallish deductible - all prescriptions, eye exams and glasses. Now I'm out on my own and these are my monthly costs - ~$145 for medicare taken back from my federal social security, $202 for that which medicare doesn't cover, $110 for drugs - but not fully covered as I have some predetermind co-pay. somewhere in the $50-$60 range.
It is so damned complicated! The only good thing (so far) is I have access that appears to be a lot better than the NHS whether there's an emergency visit or some surgery that is not life threatening.
As far as the Tories are concerned, they seem to be on such a high socio-economic level that it is impossible for them to even contemplate how the average middle class person lives, and woe to you if you are poor. They (the Tories) seem to be a mirror of our worst Republicans who would be happy to dismantle government, sell public lands to the highest bidder, and sit there and watch while the air gets dirtier and the water polluted.
When do you get to consider a political path different from the Tories?
MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "MK wrote: "Attention all you UKers. I hope you keep masking up, but I am also hoping that this new..."Tories are worshippers at the shrine of Ayn Rand, selfish individualism, the pandemic was a nightmare for them as it suggested some form of collective responsbility was needed, when they all wanted to do was declare every aspect of public health intervention as a "choice".
Sadly that was what they managed to do with their high jacking of every covid measure into a commons debate, which led to watering down of every restriction and utter confusion.
With the NHS its no different, the nightmare for the people without easy cash is that when the underfunded NHS lottery affects your health and quality of life, the british media and the tories are there to remind you that there is an alternative to the NHS the one they all use, private healthcare (BUPA etc), at a huge price
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Oh, an awful lot! However, if you are going to use this situation, the writer owes i..."
Even Barney Miller and his wife, both decent people, drifted apart.