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A personal note on the NHS – politicalbetting.com
A personal note on the NHS – politicalbetting.com
Bingo. I’m now off the waiting list for my spinal operation and this is now all fixed for three weeks today.
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Both of my parents have had non-urgent surgery in the last six months. A bit of a wait at times but generally it's been pretty good.
If you don't mind me asking are you willing to say what is wrong with you. Just wondering if it is the same issue my wife is suffering from.
If you watch the news, or go on social media it’s easy to become very downbeat. Sometimes it’s worth stepping away for a while.
We have severe challenges in healthcare at the moment, but by god t people are trying their best.
Good luck with it.
As I have said on here, my elderly old man is seriously ill, and won’t be with us that much longer. However, the NHS has been great - for him. Excellent nursing, attentive care, speedy medications etc
So the NHS is not a total basket case. The disaster zones seem to be in particular areas. Eg ambulances in some towns and cities
What I would like to know is: is this a new phenomenon? Or have ambulances often been a bit crap? I recall myself phoning for an ambulance when I had a kidney stone - i thought I was dying of a heart attack - and it never showed up. That was 5 years ago
Totally off topic... but I just checked out the mortgage rates.... they seem to be ok. If I had to remortgage now my monthly payment would only go up by about £100. Hunt and Sunak deserve credit, for all their faults they did do a good job at sorting this out. It is hard to imagine what type of trouble people would be in on this front had the situation continued under Truss and Kamikwaze.
And, no, you can NOT talk about "Oriental cuisine" in USA without a) giving serious offense to Asian people in your audience; and/or b) turning off most of the rest for being needlessly clueless (to US reality) and offensive (ditto).
Believe widespread antipathy to the O-word among Asian Americans, esp. those of Chinese and Japanese heritage, stems from US history of racial/ethnic discrimination, which in part featured heavy usage of "oriental" in US legal terminology.
As to discrimination, one of the most egregious I've ever heard of, was case of the veteran of the Union Army, a Chinese orphan rescued at sea and adopted by a New England ship, who'd fought at the Battle of Gettysburg among others.
After the war he went West, to Nebraska as a homesteader. He was a respected member of the community, honored for his service.
Until the day he went to vote (as he'd done in several previous elections) but was challenged - on the grounds that as a Chinese, he was ineligible to be a citizen under federal law, the Chinese Exclusion Act. He never voted again.
BTW (and FYI) the first Asian American governor of any US state outside Hawaii, Gary Locke of Washington, was the grandson of a Chinese "houseboy" at the Governor's mansion in Olympia. Who under the terms of the Exclusion Act could NOT bring his wife into the USA with him. So every few years he'd return to China to visit his family. Which is why Gary's dad was also born in China. During WW2 he served in US Army, and after the war that - plus changes in US law - finally enabled him to bring HIS family to Seattle.
Reckon that Asian American adverse reaction to "oriental" is NOT as illogical as it may appear from a continent away.
But sample of one. 97% minimum of NHS anecdotes should be like this.
With luck, maybe you'll be turning cartwheels as results of next general election come in.
Maybe . . . in more ways than one.
To make sure you do the latter, once you’re over the worst of the operation, go get a dog….
There is a danger in everyone concluding the NHS is irredeemably broken: it encourages either fatalism or a desire to raze it to the ground and build something else. You need to want to save something.
It’s a domestic political version of yes it’s hell in the Donbas but Kyiv’s still standing.
And on the same note, I’ve had a couple of Americans say Paki thinking it is a mildly comic term, like Kraut or Taffy
This would be an opportune moment to state that in a long life of generally good health I have always found the NHS excellent on the rare occasions when I've needed it. Yes, I've heard of bad experiences too but it's a huge organisation and the day to day performance strikes me as one we should be proud of and grateful for.
Our forefathers should have been so lucky.
But I noticed that in the United States the word "handicapped" is still used whereas it's regarded as a bit out of date in the UK.
Point Google Maps at Seattle (for example) and type the O-word into the search field. Lo and behold we have Orient Express, Oriental Market, Oriental Grocery, Oriental Massage and dozens of others. Same in NYC. No doubt all run by racist rednecks with a deep hatred for people of East Asian origin.
Reinforces my view that there are 3* unoffendable nations: those it is perfectly fine for anyone to joke about, actively dislike or
indeed hate: Britain, France and the USA.
*arguably 4 including Australia but that’s not a proper country.
Yet the Dubs just considered the continued usage of the R-word as commonplace & unremarkable in this instance. Just part of the fabric of the place.
*Main Boiling Vessel Carriers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anhinga
Am myself part of the unoffended on this score, use it myself.
In much the same spirit my Irish side is totally unoffended by Mick or even Potato Head.
Because number of German Americans and Irish Americans who perceive themselves as victims of discrimination in today's USA is approximately zilch.
Think that the Italian Americans are on similar trajectory, maybe about a generation (whatever THAT is!) or so behind, because most of their forebearers arrived in US at least that much later.
Addendum - Re: Italian Americans, note widespread apathy re: to renaming "Columbus Day" to "Native American Day" or suchlike.
Half a century ago, backlash would have been strong. Now, not so much.
Also nice to hear an NHS success story.
My story is not NHS related, since I went private, but I had a knee operation last May. I don't think knee pain can compare to back pain, and I had only been in pain for a fee months, but - I remember waking up after the op, and laughing because I was no longer in pain and had almost forgotten what that felt like. I hope your experience is similar.
Their existence does NOT make the O-word acceptable in ordinary polite OR professional discourse in US.
I’ve had my text books on flint knapping published in America. Some of them used the word “Oriental” - the orientals are known for their work with basalt etc etc
The Yankee publishers react like badly scalded cats to “Oriental”. And this was happening before Woke. It is definitely offensive in the States
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/05/13/the-long-history-and-slow-death-of-a-word-used-to-describe-everyone-from-turks-to-the-chinese/
I can remember when Paki was just mildly condescending in the UK. “Paki shops”. Oriental has gone the same way in the USA
However, I consciously avoid the (once common) phrase "welching on a bet" and similar!
AND last time I heard somebody say that someone was trying to "jew him down" was in 1990s, and was followed by ABJECT apology when speaker was called out for it.
In the US, Asian is of course the term used to describe that demographic, and often "Indian" to describe all South Asians (which seems more than a tad offensive).
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But you sound like you have some personal investment in this….
Even weirder is Kaffir. Used offensively of blacks by white South Africans, but also used offensively of non believers by Muslims
i find the language of racial slurs truly intriguing. Read an entire book on it once. Get me!
On my recent trips to America I have been highly surprised to hear educated Americans cheerfully using the word “Indian” - even “Red Indian” once or twice. And no one took offence. Confusing
Wop Salad. Kid you not!
Why? Because they are seen as triumphant nations, England has not been conquered for a thousand years, the world speaks English, America is the strongest nation on earth, France has immense soft power (and had a huge empire)
If you insult them you are punching UP, and that is OK. With almost everyone else you are punching down
i would add Germany and Russia to the list of uninsultable nations - because they are seen as powerful and dominant
We should wear it as a badge of pride. Call us Poms, we don’t care, our language rules
Prince Harry exclusive: ‘There’s enough for another book – I cut memoir in half to spare my family’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2023/01/13/prince-harry-book-two-spare-revelations-royal-family/
OKC hope you are getting back to rude health
First, best wishes to OGH - it's been too long since our paths last crossed. Hope we can put that right this year.
The economy - it's complicated. Some might argue the difference between +0.1% GDP growth and -0.1% GDP loss isn't all that great but statistics, whether you like, trust or believe them or not, are part of the on going political propaganda battle. As we saw during the pandemic, data and statistical analysis can be used as weapons in that battle.
The other side of this is the argument frequently used by pro-Government supporters (irrespective of which party is in power) and that is anyone pointing up or taking note more negative (or less positive if you prefer) data or reports is "talking down the country" and "talking down Britain".
So it goes...
My anecdotal view on the economy is a combination of the World Cup and, it has to be noted, resilient demand around Christmas (people were determined to have a good time no matter the cost) aided by a fortunate break in the weather a week before Christmas (had the previous week's wintry weather continued up to Christmas, it might have been a different story) all helped drive economic activity.
As for January so far, I'm nowhere near as confident - a couple of business owners have told me it's been "very quiet" since New Year and while I don't offer that as being representative of the wider economy, one or two other anecdotal indicators (how busy is the Tube?) for example also suggest a quiet start to 2023.
We'll see - those who want the best for the Government will be helping inflation has peaked and interest rates will rise little more if at all but whether that in any way will translate into a positive outcome for the Conservatives is far from clear and it may be we "enjoy" a year of anaemic growth at best.
As in "jock strap". Lord knows what THAT means in Scotland. Or (shudders) the rest of the UK!
Edit: and good luck and best wishes to OGH.
But if you suddenly want to be British and share this noble history, be my guest
https://twitter.com/thetrawlpodcast/status/1613823392834269189?s=48&t=d7zzM1AUE92gMZo3gJfvhQ
Yankee was once limited to New Englanders of "native" (British) stock. Southern usage expanded this to include anyone north of the Mason-Dixon line and the Ohio River. Including plenty of folks who did NOT consider themselves to be covered by the Y-word.
Subsequently, general world usage, led by British, resulted in Yankee further expanding to include even Southerners.
Who traditionally reacted in much the same way as Malc being called British. But also recognized that they were fighting a losing battle on this front with the foreign hordes who couldn't tell General Lee from Spike Lee.