Happy Birthday…. to the NHS!

….. oh, and to the gorgeous Mister Greg too (I will probably do a seperate post about him later in the week hehe! :oP) xxx

I for one think that the NHS is a bloody marvelous institution and it was truely a tour de force of Labour’s achievements as the first post-war government, being elected in 1948. Despite the economy being unstable after The Churchill Years, Labour were still able to establish a principle which frankly goes unmatched in the rest of the western world - a free basic entitlement to healthcare.

Although I am a stanch supporter of Labour, I am pleased to see that the modern-day Conservatives have also embraced the concept of the NHS (see the rather interesting article below). At least if the country goes mad and elects Cameron or his successor, the NHS will hopefully continue to improve rather than be left to languish due to some bitter trist from 60 years ago. Put it this way, if Churchill’s Conservatives cannot win a successive term after bringing the UK home to victory after World War II, and it looks to be because of Labour’s manifesto to establish the NHS… what chance did they think they’d have by continually opposing it?!

Happy 60th Birthday NHS, long may you remain with us!

By Tim Castle Reuters - Saturday, July 5 12:41 am

LONDON (Reuters) - The taxpayer-funded National Health Service marks its 60th birthday on Saturday, secure in its future with Britain’s main political parties committed to its credo of free healthcare at the point of need.

Treating one million people every 36 hours, its annual budget has grown from 437 million pounds in 1948 to over 100 billion pounds today, a near ten-fold rise once inflation is taken into account.

Treatments undreamed of at its beginning are now routine, with new drugs and antibiotics transforming the way doctors can deal with once debilitating and fatal conditions.

Hip replacements were so unusual in the late 1950s that the surgeon who invented them asked patients to agree to return them after their death.

The NHS now carries out 1,000 hip replacements every week.

Labour Health Secretary Aneurin Bevan launched the NHS on July 5, 1948 with the promise that “everybody, irrespective of means, age, sex or occupation shall have equal opportunity to benefit from the best and most up-to-date medical and allied services available.”

Plans to nationalise all of Britain’s health infrastructure were curtailed by the parlous post-war state of the country’s finances, and Bevan had to be content with just taking over the hospitals.

GP practices, dentists, opticians and pharmacies remained — as they do today — self-employed small businesses, contracted to provide NHS services.

But the change to the nation’s health was dramatic.

“Nobody realised how much unknown sickness there was until the NHS began,” said retired GP John Marks, 83, who qualified on the service’s first day.

“So many people just could not afford to go to the doctor. There was an unprecedented rush to the GPs with problems people had been putting off for years.

“Before the NHS, healthcare in this country was a disaster, particularly if you were poor.”

While the service was a keystone of Labour policy, successive Conservative governments were less enthusiastic.

But Conservative leader David Cameron has embraced the service after his party lost three successive elections to a Labour government committed to expanding healthcare funding.

“The fact that we have a health service that takes care of everyone, whatever their needs, backgrounds and circumstances, is one of the greatest gifts we enjoy as British citizens,” Cameron said in a speech on Tory health policy last month.

The NHS is now run independently by separate administrations in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but all remain committed to its core principles, as their health ministers confirmed in a joint statement this week.

“Devolution has brought different approaches to the NHS in the four nations that make up the United Kingdom and this is resulting in an unquestionable divergence between our health systems,” said Scotland’s Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon.

“Nevertheless, this statement on our shared principles highlights a resolve to ensure that the NHS remains free at the point of delivery and continues to strive for the highest possible standards in clinical excellence and patient care.”

Problems at City Hall already?!

Oh dear… now, what was Mr Johnson saying about Ken’s administration being made up of phonies and crooks?

2 senior advisors let go (one your right hand man) in 2 months… hopefully in his third month it will be BoJo himself!

There is also a quote in the story that says “Ray Lewis hopes to support Boris Johnson in an unofficial capacity” - does anybody else think that this smacks of croniesm? Lets get Lewis out of the public eye but keep him on the books etc? DODGY and smacks of hypocrisy!! Well, that’s my opinion anyway!

Deputy mayor resigns from office

London’s deputy mayor has resigned two months into his post amid claims of financial irregularities.

“That will be £5 exactly please”

… is what the check-out guy at Sainsbury’s said to me a few hours ago.

No story really, although hitting a note dead on seems to happen quite a lot with me in there (and no, it’s not due to me buying ingredients for any of Jamie’s meals for a Fiver!).

Fin x

Accruing for trouble?

I just came across this news story from the BBC regarding Alistair Darling’s new proposals to try and help safeguard the UK populus’ savings deposits held at UK banks and building societies.

Although the principal is a good one, no-one seems to be putting up the additional guaranteed money to support the scheme… Isn’t this a fundamental flaw? After all, the fund is set up to give customers a hope of recouping some of their lost savings if their bank goes under and can’t afford to pay-out it’s creditors… i.e us! It just seems to be a magical pot of money that doesn’t actually exist… which is slightly worrying! Surely there’s an accrual somewhere? DOH!

 Savers’ cash safer if banks fail

Chancellor Alistair Darling has proposed new measures to protect savers in the event of a bank getting into financial difficulty.

The plans are intended to increase public confidence in the banking system in the wake of the near collapse of Northern Rock in September last year.

As part of the plans, the threshold for guaranteed deposits is expected to rise from £35,000 to £50,000.

Any changes will come into effect in the autumn or early in 2009.

The chancellor has presented his written proposals to the House of Commons, ahead of a consultation period.

The measures are not set to cost banks any cash up-front, they will only be approached if problems occur.

525,600 Minutes

… that’s how long that I will have been in London for come 17:15 this evening.

Just thought I’d post a quick note to my blog to recognise this fact. It’s certainly been a fun year - one which has not only gone rather quickly, but one which has also overseen a lot of largely positive change for me.

Nothing too flowery to finish with, however, Let’s All Go Down The Strand!

Join the clip around the 3 minute mark - singing along to this in Leicester Square at West End Live has to be the campest and most London-y thing that I’ve done in my whole year down here hehe!!

Have a banana! x

NB - Apologies for the awful clip… it was the only musical version of Let’s All Go Down The Strand that I could find! Gah!

A Boy From Nowhere

OK, so I really cannot get this song off my media centre!

Michael Ball’s version of “A Boy From Nowhere” (originally from the 1991 musical Matador) is absolutely amazing!! I currently have the volume cranked up as high as it will go, and the song on repeat whilst singing along wildly hehe!

This YouTube video doesn’t really do the performance justice really - the .mp3 is much cleaner , and the sweeping song bridges sound awesome. The song can be found on Ball’s album A Song For You.

And if you’re especially interested, Tom Jones recorded a version of the song for the musical’s concept album prior to it’s staging on the West End stage. I must say, although the song also suits Jones’ voice, Ball’s version has that real kick in the bollocks factor which throws you to the back of the room and makes you shout “wow!” in my opinion hehe.

The Conrad Boys

Just a quick post to say a few words about a film that I recently watched and found that I really really enjoyed.

The Conrad Boys is an independant film from 2005 by a young chap called Justin Lo who bravely undertook the responsiblities for writing, producing, editing and starring as the lead character within the film. Several reviews online seem to think that he did the first two really well, and fell slightly short on the final aspect. I would agree with this and would say that some parts were a little wooden, however it was nothing that would serve to spoil your enjoyment of the film, and a trivial niggle I should think. The music that was composed for this film by Chelsea Lo (I am presuming a relative) was also rather pleasant and currently has me humming along to it everywhere I go.

Captivating newcomer Justin Lo stars as Charlie Conrad, a 19-year-old history buff with the world on his shoulders. Following the death of his mother, Charlie sets aside his college plans to raise his highly imaginative 9-year-old brother Ben (Boo Boo Stewart). Isolated from his peers, Charlie accepts his responsibility yet secretly yearns for the freedom and romance associated with youth.

Charlie suddenly gets his chance when he meets Jordan Rivers (Nick Bartzen), a charismatic drifter and fellow lost soul. The two of them hit it off immediately, and they soon embark on a tumultuous romance that gives Charlie a taste of the freedom he’s been craving. Just as their relationship intensifies, however, Charlie’s long-absent father, Doug (Barry Shay), returns to town with his own plans to take care of Ben.

Caught in a struggle for Ben and eager to hold on to Jordan, Charlie must finally search his soul and make momentous decisions regarding the future of his family. Written and directed by first-time filmmaker Justin Lo, THE CONRAD BOYS is a deeply personal and heartfelt story that will stay with you for a long time to come.

[Taken from www.theconradboys.com/story]

Normally I am not a big fan of so-called ’gay’ films as I don’t think we do them too well (the obvious exceptions to this which is springing to mind are the amazing Beautiful Thing, Eating Out and Latter Days) - normally such films border on pornographic and are of terrible cinematographic quality. However I found The Conrad Boys to be a fresh film that I really found myself falling in love with. Cute is probably the best way to describe it.

Should you ever find yourself looking at your DVD collection in despair for something to watch, then order The Conrad Boys from here (or any other good DVD stockist - be warned, the link I have provided is for REGION 1 players only!) and your woes should all disappear as soon as the postie comes a-knocking :oD 

“Fifth of gays are victim of hate” - Stonewall

Interesting (if not repetitive/’nothing new’) article on the front page of the Metro newspaper today.

It’s good that we have stories like this regularly making the news, however the article doesn’t really appear to rally the troops all that much - I don’t see much new positive action coming out of it really.

I also note that the article used the term ‘gays and lesbians’ - firstly, bad grammar/use of plurals, and secondly don’t we structure it as ‘lesbian and gay’ as it’s deemed more ‘correct’ (despite gay and lesbian sounding much better for many reasons)?

Doing the math, if the old ‘1 in 10′ adage is taken to be correct, then that would mean that there are 6 million lesbian/gay folk in the UK… and one fifth of that figure would suggest that 1.2 million people in the UK being falling victim to hate crime or ‘incident’ (whatever that is) over the last three years… that equates to 400,000 people per year!

It would also have been interesting to see the demograph and trending on the report to see if there were more incidents in 2006 than 2007 and 2008 to date, and also to see which areas were worst for it (as that can help to solve some of the problem by letting us gays know where we’re best to try and avoid living should we be fortunate enough to be able to make the choice etc).

Yes, of course we shouldn’t have to change our lives to combat this thuggery, however with a bit of our own common sense and nouce, we too can do our bit to help to reduce these shocking figures!

Fifth of gays are victim of hate

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

One in five gays and lesbians has been the victim of a hate crime or incident in the past three years, according to a damning new report.

However, three-quarters of victims do not bother to report crimes – a third because they do not think police can, or will, do anything about it.

Of those that did go to the authorities, just one in 25 saw it result in a conviction, the survey by gay charity Stonewall found.

Chief executive Ben Summerskill told Metro: ‘It’s entirely unacceptable in 2008 that anyone should live in fear of attack and abuse simply because of who they are.

This evidence is a scar on the face of a modern nation.’

The charity is billing its research as the first statistically significant national survey of its kind into homophobic crime.

It was carried out, with Home Office support, following the conviction of two men for the homophobic murder of Jody Dobrowski on Clapham Common in June 2006.

The report recommends encouraging police to improve the recording of homophobic incidents and tackling bullying in schools and offices.

Last night, home secretary Jacqui Smith said she would ask a ministerial action group to tackle the issue.

She added: ‘In the 21st century, no one should ever feel under threat of verbal or physical violence just because of their sexual orientation.’

Mike Cunningham, of the Assoc¬iation of Chief Police Officers, said: ‘It cannot be acceptable that a third of victims do not report incidents because they do not think the police would, or could, do anything about it.’

Mr Dobrowski’s mother, Sheri, said: ‘Homophobia is endemic in society. We cannot accept this. No intelligent, healthy or reasonable society could.’

Maplin shows off it’s new ‘hardware’

I was in Maplin the other day to purchase my new external HDD so as to take some of the pressure off my internal SATA and, whilst perusing their quality merchandise, I couldn’t help but notice that it seems that they have (perhaps innocently! hehe) decided to forray/stumble into the world of ‘adult’ products…. LOL!

Faceparty - Pwned!

Looks like somebody wasn’t too happy with the mass deletion of accounts that Faceparty did (see my earlier post)

I’ve taken these screen shots of what comes up should you currently visit their homepage; www.faceparty.com

Hacking/Cracking isn’t really all that ethical… but sometimes, in circumstances like this, it can be condoned :oP

I should also add that this is nothing whatsoever to do with me, I am meerly a spectator observing and reporting on what I’ve seen online.

** NB - It now would seem that this message has come from the website owners themselves… if this is the case, then frankly I would find it to be pathetic and childish - but then again, what do I care for the future of their site, I’m not even a member any more - hurrah :oD **

Enjoy! x