Your Christmas or Mine?

It was nice to watch a decent Christmas film. Not a classic in the way that Love Actually (or Die Hard) is, but it was lovely. The characters were lovely, the plot predictable, but it is the way the film is put together. And I liked the characters. Yes, the film has too much cringe at the end, but I am glad that I watched it and would happily watch it again. My wife preferred this to the much more miserable film that she had watched earlier (she thought it was to have been a comedy).  Don’t watch the video if you want to be surprised by the way…

Greta Thunberg knocks out Andrew Tate

In a battle of wits, it is best never to take on Greta Thunberg. She has responded to criticism on-line before and I have yet to see her lose a spat. Andrew Tate decided to take her on. And much of the internet has responded. I do agree that it is mean to make fun of his penis size as there are many men who have a small willy, but considering that Andrew Tate is boasting about the size of his cars, many consider that to be compensation for issues in other areas.

What is more interesting is that he has been arrested due to his video.  While he is innocent until proven guilty, let is see what happens to this vile misogynist. 

 

yes, please do enlighten me. email me at smalldickenergy@getalife.com https://t.co/V8geeVvEvg

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) December 28, 2022

I bought a Russian advent calendar. Every time you open a window an oligarch falls out.

In September, I made a post about Russians dying in strange circumstances. This has continued and the latest deaths are of Dmitry Zelenov who became unwell, fell down some stairs and sustained critical injuries while in a costal city in France. Alexander Buzakov, a shipyard chief died with no cause known at present, Vladimir Bydanov died in his room in India surrounded by empty wine bottles and his travelling companion Pavel Antov later fell out of window to his death. 

 

Also, General Alexei Maslov, 69, a former commander of Russian ground forces with close ties to Ukraine died “suddenly” the day after Vladimir Putin abruptly cancelled a trip to the tank enterprise where he worked.

It maybe that the issue with Putin being surrounded by ‘Yes Men’ is that anyone who says no meets with an accident.

I suspect that I have missed a few others who have died, but I am sure that there will be more to come, sorry fall, while Putin remains in power.

Father Christmas Is Back

While my wife and my daughter like this film, I hate it. It was not completely terrible, the chemistry between the characters of Peter and Felix, played by Kris Marshall and Ray Fearon was good. It was also filmed in a beautiful setting.

Otherwise, despite an amazing cast, the acting was over the top on too many occasions and it was directed terribly. I have watched worse films on streaming services, but not too many. The only reason that I can see Netflix having this is to make us appreciate other films. 

When it comes to the family, my wife and daughter spent time shopping in Chelmsford, I had taken the dog for a walk and after several walks yesterday and today, she is knackered. My son has a new Pokémon game for the Switch and he is busy playing that right now. It has been a relaxing day which has allowed my batteries to get a much needed recharge. 

Eddie Nketiah steps up

First of all, Arsenal. I was nervous about this game, mostly because it was a derby game, and I went to watch it with some friends, one of whom said that we were certain to win. He has predicted a score of 3-1 and he was right about that. We showed resilience to come back from being a goal down, but most importantly, with Gabriel Jesus out injured for at least two months, Eddie Nketiah stepped up. I had hoped that the team would pull together and they did.  

The kids are enjoying the days off that they had. I fed them leftovers for lunch and they enjoyed what I made, I had better not mention this too much to them as normally they do not like it when I feed them, though that is changing.

Last of all, I have been suspended from Twitter, again.  In a recent debate I have stated that I am a misogynist, transphobic and also an against the rights of women because I do not think that anyone with a penis, who is guilty of sexual assault or rape, should be allowed in a female prison. This happened with Karen White, a man pretending to be a TransWoman who had raped two women outside prison and went onto sexually assault two more women when in prison.  Hopefully my suspension will not last too long.

I hate middle lane drivers

I hate middle lane drivers. They make driving less fun. Today, I picked up my mother for Christmas.

My youngest brother was to go over to her, but he tested positive for COVID and so I collected her from London, drove her back to Colchester and in the evening after lunch, drove her back. I was surprised at the numbers of cars on the road and the drive at times was congested, mostly because of my pet hate, middle lane drivers. 

The Highway Code is simple. The inside lane is for driving, the lane outside to it is for overtaking and there can be additional lanes, again for overtaking. Failure to obey these rules causes traffic to build up. And that meant for me, a longer time on the road.

Anyway, lunch was great, my wife pulling off another masterpiece, the kids enjoyed most the presents, I am not sure about the one I got them, and I am now fat enough to be harpooned. 

Merry Christmas all!

Christmas Eve 2022

We returned to our local church today, probably for our last Christmas Eve service. We used to come before the pandemic, the children being younger then accepted it as part of what we did. They had been to playgroups when younger, also attending Pre-School there and going to after school clubs there as well. They had school events there, one where my son played the part of Joseph. 

 

Christmas Eve there involved a play which would include children from the audience who would have dressed up, terrible jokes and poor acting along with singing by the audience. But times change. We were last here for this in 2018, being in Sri Lanka in 2019 and not attending over the last two years of the pandemic. Since then, the vicar who used to run it has left. It was always going to be hard to fill his shoes, but the new vicar has not. Also the children are a lot older and this has no appeal to them. In fact my daughter coped with the experience by winding me up throughout it! 

 

I am glad we went, as now I have seen how it changed and I have no desire to keep up this old tradition. Saying that, both kids took a sleepy biscuit which was something they always have done each time they have been!

Single All The Way

We watched this as a family yesterday after the football. I have to say that this was an enjoyable film. It is not a masterpiece the way other films are, but when it comes to Romcom's, in general, I can enjoy them, but rarely love them.  

It is a shame that this film will be banned in many parts of the world because of the main characters being gay.  On this topic comparisons to Happiest Season will have to be made.  Overall, I would say this is the better film due to its balance.  Happiest Season was funnier in places, but was a bit too cringe at times.  But the best bit about this film was us all watching it together.   

What a game

What a game. My son was given updates on this by friends and would come downstairs after a goal had been scored. My daughter watched bits, commenting on the good looks of Kylian Mbappe and Emmanuel Macron while she waited for the end as she was to meet up with a friend who is part French.

I was supporting France for several reasons. One was that I have had a soft spot for them since the 1982 finals when a player was knocked out by the West German goal keeper. Also, being an Arsenal fan, there is a French connection thanks to Arsène Wenger, Olivier Giroud being a former player. In addition to that I had France in our sweepstakes at work. Sadly, the game ended as it did in 2006 when I was cheering on France when we were in Italy and France lost, again on penalties. 

It is a shame that France had been hit by a virus before the match, but I guess in future, teams may take more precautions against this. Anyway, back to the league soon..

Born in Bethlehem, deported to Rwanda

It is coming up to Christmas, that time of year when we celebrate the birth of Jesus, who fled Israel when his parents saved him from The Massacre of the Innocents. The thing is, when his parents sought asylum in Egypt, they did so illegally, being required to remain so Jesus could be murdered along with others of his age.

Today, if his parents tried to seek asylum in the UK, they would have to cross the channel illegally to do so, risking death. The reason for this is because there is no safe and legal route for many to come here who are seeking asylum  That is, or course, if they wanted to come here. Other nations take in more refugees than we do.

PMQs yesterday and NHS workers striking (or not in Scotland)

PMQs yesterday could have been better. Keir Starmer used the example of one person on his second question but did not mention that strike action may be averted in Scotland where nurses are voting on the pay deal that has been offered to them.  If Alex, the person Starmer mentioned in PMQs lived in Scotland, his operation would not be cancelled by strike action, an issue later mentioned by the SNP. Sunak mentioned COVID as being the reason for the NHS waiting lists, Starmer responded with the report the government commissioned which cited a decade of underfunding as a reason for the care backlog. I did not hear Starmer mention how staffing shortages are causing operations to be cancelled especially as Sunak blamed strikes for this.

Eating disorders were mentioned later by Fabian Hamilton, delays in mental health treatment being reported in the media as causing children to be put into care. 

Ambulance waiting times were brought up as well and Sunak implied that there were no issues before the pandemic, but the issue of ambulance waits being too long was discussed in Parliament in 2016 and the issue of some patients waiting more than 24 hours for an ambulance was raised by the media in 2018. Issues of patients waiting in ambulances for too long before being handed over to A&E was also discussed before the pandemic, this article being from 2017. 

Basically, there is an argument that these strikes are political, though those making the argument are blaming the left. When it comes to NHS workers, the strikes could be stopped, as they have in Scotland, by the government talking to the unions. That they are not, is a political decision because they hope to make Labour look bad over this.  I guess those working in the NHS (like me) should be glad that we have been clapped.

Prince Harry is a credit to our nation.

My wife and I had a bit of a disagreement about how Harry and Meghan Markle are being portrayed in the media following the Netflix documentary.  For the record, I am not going to watch it and have no interest in doing so.

I have commented on the double standards shown to the Duchess of Sussex before.  To put it simply, it appears racist when one person who is white is commended for actions that one person who is not white is condemned for the same actions.  Such things are not the fault of the rest of the Royal Family, but rather is the fault of the parts of the media that engage in it.  The media have not been nice to the Royal Family and action taken about this when their privacy has been intruded upon is right.  I understand that The Royal Family cannot comment each time an inaccurate article is published because they would constantly be firefighting.  However, they can and should comment when they see racism.  The inaction of the Royals to condemn the double standards which many see as racist is inexcusable.  

I do not think that King Charles or Prince William would intentionally be racist, but as seen with the recent case with Ngozi Fulani being asked by Lady Susan Hussey where she was really from, people can be unintentionally racist and as seen with Prince Harry when younger, can cause offence.  But too many people have been the victims of double standards, an example is how ethnic minority police officers have faced such issues.

There are calls for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to be stripped of their royal titles, but many of these people are happy for Prince Andrew, the man who did not meet or have sex with a women who had been taken from a state where sex with her would have been considered under age to a nation where sex with her could be legal, to remain a royal.  If Prince Andrew is stripped of his titles first, then we can consider the same for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

In addition to this, there are people who have claimed that Prince Harry hates Britain. This is a man who has served on the frontline for our nation. If he hated it, he would not have served it, or promoted The Invictus Games after he left. Like all those who love their nation, there will be things that he wants to improve. I consider myself to be patriotic and feel that our nation can and should be better. 

Those who can remember are aware how stories about Princess Diana were leaked to the press. People in the media who deny that negative stories have been leaked, are either ignorant or are lying. I suspect that there may be some truths in at least some of these stories, as we saw with Princess Diana, but considering these stories tend to be about Meghan rather than Harry, it appears that even in the couple, one gets an easier deal than the other from the press.

The bottom line is that too many in the media have shown appalling double standards in dealing with the couple. I disagree with the way that the couple are making money from their experiences, but they appear to have no fair way of getting their side of the story out. So far, at least, it appears that some allegations will not be addressed in the documentary, but I doubt the couple will be credited for that either. 

Meet Cute

First of all, my son is free. He has tested negative and is out of isolation. We consider his room to be high risk and will talk about decontamination measures later this week. He appears to be in a better state of health than my daughter who has recovered from the non-COVID virus that she may have caught from my wife.

I watched Meet Cute with my daughter. I really liked it. It was sick and twisted and funny. I doubt I would watch it again, but I would have had no issues if I had paid to watch it in the cinema.

Anyway, time for bed.  Good night all.

The NHS since 2010 and it’s ability to do things now

A Government-commissioned paper has pinpointed the budget squeeze that the NHS has been under as the key reason for service’s loss of capacity. This was carried out by The Kings Fund and basically says what I and many others have been saying for years. 

You get what you pay for and if you do not fund the NHS properly, it cannot compete with heath outcomes when it was better funded, or of other systems which are resourced better. 

The house of ill

My son is still in isolation, my daughter may not be able to attend her Sixth Form College tomorrow and I may be coming down I’ll as well. My wife, though unwell herself appears to be improving. We hope that my daughter has what she has, as opposed to my son, but if she comes down with COVID, the odds are that I will get it, which means either my wife looking after us all, or the end of isolation. 

I have been working as I am hoping to be off next week, initially at work, but this was freezing and once I had finished the work that has to completed there, I came home to work from home. 

I did get to watch the football from yesterday, well the highlights, and while I think that we should have had some decisions go our way, we played well and can leave the tournament with our heads held high 

And it is snowing. It has settled, but when I took Leia for her walk, it was starting to melt. Let us see if she likes playing in the snow when it is daylight.

The plague, again

My son has contracted COVID again for the third time, bringing it into the house for the second time. One of his friends on his school trip came down with COVID but that was a while ago so he must have escaped that and instead, got it off someone else.  I have noticed that with this latest variant, people have symptoms for a few days before testing positive. He is now in his room with unlimited access to Netflix on the iPad of my wife and is in isolation again. 

My daughter is not 100%, and my wife herself is on the mend from a cold herself. Other that a minor sore throat, I am fine in myself and have had a nap so that I have the energy for the Christmas Party at work. With no symptoms, I am ready to go! 

NHS football comparisons

Another manic day. I was not on call, but helped out a bit, and am still behind on paperwork from my days when I was on call.  While catching up on paperwork, I did get to watch the Holland equaliser against Argentina and the penalty shootout. 

Before this surge in workload due to Scarlet Fever, working in the NHS could be summed up as playing for England against France with eight players and no subs. Now we are playing against both France and Argentina at the same time. I am lucky to work with a great team, and while we don’t have eight players, I would say we have ten. But there are no subs on the bench. Now with Scarlet Fever, the numbers needing to be seen have doubled.

My MP claims that the NHS is to get better, but it has got worse while the Conservatives in charge, and the reasons are simple, it is not funded properly. 

A paramedic who works with us cannot remember a time before 2010 when he had to wait outside A&E to hand over a patient, something that is far too common how. I have had a patient wait hours with a fractured hip before he was taken to A&E, a patient with a possible heart attack giving up and coming to see me the next day due to symptoms. None of this happened between 1997 and 2010 when Labour was in charge of the NHS. 

What a day.

Tuesday and Thursday were nightmare days at work. At least today was not as bad as Tuesday, but on Tuesday, we had antibiotics to treat Strep A. The government have said that there is no shortage of antibiotics, and technically they are right. But there is a shortage of the correct forms of antibiotics needed to treat this. On Tuesday I dealt with one parent who was not able to get penicillin in liquid form. Today, as there is a shortage of amoxicillin which was existed before this public health crisis, I have had to prescribe capsules which had to be broken up so that children could get the treatment they need. The erythromycin liquid that I prescribed on Tuesday was hard to find today as is liquid penicillin.  We do have these antibiotics in other forms (tablets and intravenous forms) so when Conservative politicians say that there is no shortage of antibiotics, they are right. But tell that to a parent who cannot find the liquid forms of antibiotics that their child needs.

PMQs and PPE (again)

I watched PMQs with my daughter after it had taken place due to work commitments. She was at home as she had an inset day. After Starmer lost the first questions on housing, the issue of PPE came up.  Again, I admire the actions of the Conservatives when it came to Nightingale hospitals (though staffing would have been an issue) as well as changes in the law to allow doctors to certify deaths without risking death.  

But PPE was a big issue, not just the lack of it despite the findings of Exercise Alice and Exercise Cygnus, but how our nation exported PPE even though we had a huge shortage because those who raised how we could supply our frontline workers were not part of the Chumocracy.  Even then, the PPE sourced by those friends of the Conservatives was not up to our standards!

Matt Hancock has appeared to blame frontline workers for bringing COVID into nursing homes, but this would have been less likely to happen if we had decent testing and also PPE. 

I used to be in a toxic environment. I left it.

Harry and Meghan are in the news again. It is interesting to see aspects of the media who drove them out of the UK continue to berate them.  

In 2010, I left a toxic environment to work where I am now, and while I know they wish I could be better, I do know that they appreciate me.  The sense of liberation I felt when I left was amazing.  I wish the media companies who drove this couple away took a good look at themselves and think on what they did, and how it looks to people affected by racism.

Those of colour of the age of Meghan Markle and those older will all have been treated differently than those who are white in the UK. They know why some papers show double standards. 

Are nurses in Scotland valued more than those in England

Nurses and in Scotland are to be offered pay terms more than those in England are being offered and this is significantly less than what the RCN has asked for. Does this mean that SNP politicians in Scotland value nurses more than Conservative politicians in England? 

Remember that this is not just nurses, but other workers in healthcare as well.  While people clapped for the staff that worked to save lives during the worst of the COVID pandemic, Conservative politicians seem to think that claps and a pay rise way below inflation is what they need.  

Fury

My daughter is back from Belfast having visited the Titanic museum and the murals. My wife is watching Van Morrison. I picked my daughter and a family friend from Stansted but had to listen to the victory of England over the African champions. My son and I bonded earlier in the day over Grey’s Anatomy while I was catching up on paperwork. Before that I had been to Highwoods Park with Leia, a walk that she loved.

I also watched Fury. What a great, but bleak and miserable film it is.  On the plus point, it was more cheerful than All Quiet On The Western Front, but then many American films are.  If you are interested in war films, this is a must to watch and I will probably watch this again sometime in the future. However there is no point in watching it if you do not enjoy war films. As a film to portray some of the horrors of what war was like during the invasion of Germany, this is worthy. 

We survived another day

My son and I are still getting on. Cooking today was different as he did not want what I was cooking so made himself some food, my food though was quite nice.

In the morning I went for a walk with Leia which she loved and it appeared to make her tired. I rested afterwards to charge my batteries and finished watching Wednesday with my son. He had fun dressing Leia in a Christmas jumper, I do not think she liked it though! 

As for Wednesday, I prefer the Wednesday Addams from the films, but I did grow to like this one as well. Just not as much.

Cooking with my son

Today was another day cooking with my son. My wife and daughter have travelled to Northern Ireland to watch The Cure in concert leaving the two of us together. I know my wife is nervous about leaving the two of us together and I am hoping that her worries amount to nothing. Sadly my cooking was not up to scratch as I put too much salt in it. Oh well, here is hoping that things are better next time. 

Unions (again)

The Conservatives do not like unions. Unions are about ensuring members get to work, they are not in favour of bankruptcies of employers. They are interested in a fair deal for workers and thanks to the laws imposed by the Conservatives, strike action for many industries has more of a mandate than Liz Truss did when she was elected by a few Conservative members! 

A huge example of why unions are important is seen with Elon Musk. His actions to employees are disgusting and should not be allowed. I accept that he can get away with this abroad, but thanks to unions, other employers cannot act like this here. Unless they own a ferry company.