Yet another new blog

Four months ago, I saw on Facebook an "ad" for a research project: <<The research is conducted by clinical psychologists at the University of Oxford and Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust. The research is approved by the University of Oxford Central University Research Ethics Committee (R69638/RE001). It is funded by the NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre.>>  The research is looking into how people's mental health is being affected by Covid-19 and it asks for volunteers. If you're interested in taking part, please don't contact me. Google one of the organisations above.  I agreed to take part back in May. I filled in a long and detailed questionnaire, and now the researchers are back to ask more questions, albeit in a slightly shorter questionnaire, thankfully. I'm guessing here, in a totally amateurish way, that their first bit of research maybe gave the researchers reasons to do a follow-up - in other words, they found grounds for furt...

It's partly about visits to people in care homes. Visits are limited right now because of the pandemic. A small number of relatives (about 40, I see on the BBC website) want more freedom to visit. I wonder how many people live in care homes. Is 40 a representative number?   It's awful, this. And I would love to have some guidance on it. I'm not looking for political guidance - I regard both the Scottish Government and Dr Donald McAskill and Robert Kilgour (on behalf of care home owners) as offering political advice.  The issue for me is people. We all know people who have relatives in care homes. They want what's best for them and they are afraid for their relatives' future in this pandemic. At the same time, people want to visit their relatives and we know it's good for them to have visits.  And at the back of everyone's mid should be the understanding that eventually we will all approach the stage where we will need to be in a care home.  How do we manage ...

 Here's a Commonwealth joke for you: Q What's bordering on insanity? A Wales and Scotland. No, I don't think England or English people are insane. But they are definitely getting a bad press.  I don't believe for one minute that England is populated by right-wing crazies, staging demos in Brighton to fight off the hordes of furriners trying to get there in wee boats from Europe. Ignoring advice to wear masks and observe safe-distancing.  Nor is England overrun by Covid protesters marching around Trafalgar Square, waving placards and claiming the virus is a government plot or a conspiracy by the Russians and the Chinese to attack 'British' freedom. They too refuse to wear masks and observe safe-distancing - oh, and, of course, they take their little kids with them, thus putting them at risk. Action that would have social work at your door if you were living in Leicester or Bolton.  And England is definitely not full of people who can't see a day off coming wi...

Three years ago I adopted Missy. She was 9, had all her injections, was chipped and spayed and insured. She had apparently always lived in a flat, just as I do. Sadly, her human had died and I was told by a neighbour that he had always worried that she would never survive a cattery. She looked to be perfect for me.  I've always had cats, although mostly they've been outdoor cats.  Missy was pretty traumatised when she got here in the cat basket. I spent a lot of time socialising her. It was a while before she answered to her name. Now she eats well. Sleeps on my bed. Is very vocal when she wants something - like breakfast at 4.30am. I've got used to just getting up and feeding her then.  She has her little ways. The big thing is she doesn't play.  A friend tells me we often misunderstand "companion animals" even when we've had them around us all our and their lives: for example, a lot of dogs can't swim and have to be taught, although humans always thi...

As the English schools head back - albeit with a high absence rate - the media have at last picked up on the scandalous cost of school uniform. I'll come clean. I loathe school uniform. I have unhappy memories of my mother going into debt every year with provvie cheques and menojes to be able to kit out 3 kids with all the stuff we had to have in order not to stand out at school as being different: blazers, pleated skirts, jumpers, shirts, trousers, ties (that nobody could knot), PE kit, schoolbags, etc. And the shoes - o my gawd, the shoes - that we grew out of in the middle of the school year and which my mother struggled to replace. And, of course, whatever we did we were different. For a start, we were being educated in a Glasgow scheme school. That fact overshadowed just about everything we did. School uniform is expensive. Thanks to a decade of austerity, a lot of families find their wages have declined. Some families are now dependent on local school uniform banks wh...

I saw a woman on C4 News on Saturday night talking about the English schools going back next week. She's not sending her 6 year old daughter to school just yet. She'll wait to "see how it goes" and may send her later. It occurs to me that this woman is happy to use other people's kids as sacrificial lambs: send them in, see if they catch the virus and if they don't, send your own kid in. Sadly, she wasn't challenged on this attitude. I'm not a particularly moral person but I find that view quite offensive. She was asked about parents who have to work and can't be at home with their children. She was, she said, "between jobs". She looked uncomfortable at being asked about this and she wasn't pushed on it. Me, I wanted to know: what are she and her daughter living on? A partner's income? Savings? Benefits? But it was what she said after that that really offended my teacherish heart: she thought her teaching of her daughter for t...

Let's just imagine that Scotland takes its independence in 2021. That will leave Northern Ireland and Wales thinking: "Bloody hell, we're on our own here now with the loony Tories". And they too will start planning their departure into the big wide world. But what happens next? First, Englandshire (as I see Little England these days) will leave the EU once and for all. After all, folks, that's what a majority of the voters wanted. No, in fact that's not true: somewhere between 34% and 43% of the voters of England wanted to leave the EU but they still live in a world of First Past the Post voting so the result drags everyone out of the EU whether they voted for it or not. And they can't change their minds. They may have known very early on that the EU referendum was purely shite and purely advisory (as all referendums are) but English voters don't seem to have the stomach to argue with the likes of the unelected prime minister Dominic Cummings. So...