NHS CEEFAX appointments available

 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer says It's 'not right to say only women have a cervix”, he could be right… I distinctly remember my mate Dave down at the pub about 20 years ago saying he had it too …or was that Ceefax? I often get the two confused … one is the lower, narrow end of the uterus that forms a canal between the uterus and vagina and the other is a teletext information service launched by the BBC which you could access via your tv by fiddling about with buttons on the remote control … both required a lot of finger work to reach and often never seemed to have the desired result so I’m sure it could be an easy mistake to get both these confused but the Ceefax service ceased in 2012 so Sir Keir would be wrong on on either accounts as neither of the two genders have Ceefax anymore, I wish pandering woke credentials to the trans-mob would become just as obsolete as Ceefax now is too!

Handel the Racist

 I have recently discovered that the Royal Academy of Music in London is reviewing its collection of pianos and violins with the intention of removing items that might be linked to Britain’s colonial past.

“Pianos made with colonial ivory and artefacts linked to Messiah composer George Frideric Handel, who invested in the slave trade, could potentially be problematic and are being considered to be removed from its onsite museum”

I never guessed that listening to Handel’s Messiah was an exercise is white supremacy, now I feel thoroughly ashamed, I am almost considering handing myself over to Humza Yousaf’s Hate Police to be trialed in the court of Wokeness …what a load of fucking shite!!! 

The last time someone tried to censor who could listen to what was when a wee nyaff on Facebook declared people who voted No to Scottish independence should now sing Flower of Scotland at the Rugby in a self-assuming belief on a hierarchy of patriotic class system where presumably he thought he would be ranking at the top in all his eunuch splendour! 

It’s an obnoxious state of affairs when public institutions (or individuals)  are desperately trying to out-woke each other for plaudits from liberal left extremists (or their peers within their silo if a bubble as dumb Nat mentioned above) 

If it’s not a privileged Prince Harry landing in a private jet with Megan draped out in clothes and jewels worth in excess of £67000 to lecture us about poverty then it’s the board of botanical gardens removing sugar cane plants due to their link in colonialism and the slave trade. 

A Fearful New World

 Since the reopening of my local gym (since it’s closure due to Government covid restrictions) the gym’s own covid precaution rules are to wash your hands in the changing rooms before entering the gym for prescribed duration, no sweat towels allowed and all equipment must be wiped down before and after use using anti-bacterial cleaning products provided at cleaning stations.

Now I find myself spending more time cleaning the cardio equipment before and after use than I am actually on it! This may have been great training for the Karate Kid with his “wax on / wax off” but if you ever saw the nooks and crannies on a Stair Master Cardio machine it would take all the conjuring of Micky Mouse from The Sorcerer Apprentice to give that a timely wipe down. 

…and these blue paper towels which are now abundantly available at multiple cleaning stations dotted around the gun are not recyclable …they are contaminated waste therefore they all have to end up in landfill. ... Greta Thunberg must be having a cardiac arrest at the very thought if this! Every time someone wipes down a piece of kit they use enough blue paper to wrap a Clydesdale horse in, there must be a daily skip hired around the back to take all these used paper towels away each day! 

Now I don’t want to underplay the seriousness of Covid but there is a point where the grand neurosis of scientific senselessness exceeds receding dangers of the diseases and considering science fact over fiction and gyms such as Bannatyne (my local sweat pit) need to accept the sun is over that zenith! 

Quantitative microbial risk assessment studies conducted by the CDC and other reputable institutions (which means not China) have already proven that the risk of fomite transmission of COVID-19 is generally low with a less than one in 10,000 chance that contact with a contaminated surface would cause an infection so it’s time to return to a world where you are not frowned upon if you attempt a cash transaction, even the Chinese have probably returned back to a semi-normality eating bats again and such shit and their sabbatical for genocide against Uyghurs is over now (and the West back to turning a blind eye) so why can’t we and get the economy back up running again at full tilt without fear as if treading water with a shark viciously prowling under our feet.

I’d never thought I’d have to stick on a mask before entering a bank unless I was about to rob it but these days it’s a prerequisite to muzzle up, local paper shops have these massive Perspex screens up these days like apocalyptic trading posts from a Max Max movie, just going into the newsagents at the top of my street to purchase the falkirk herald is like a walk into some dystopian road warrior movie.

As I said before, I am not mitigating the risk over Covid and understand the wisdom that some precautions and safety measures must stay in place with the vulnerable being protected, I am pro-vaccine, having had two shots of the AstraZeneca’s elixir myself, and I understand they seem to be effective (apart from the Chinese one, Sinovac) but there is a certain national entrenched neurosis with some people about pumping these vaccines into their bodies and to an extent it’s understandable with every government acting like a Jim Jones attempting people to drink his Kool Aid , but it should not be mandatory, we need to stop demonising those who resist and de-politicise the mask wearing too, more should be done to calm their concerns, persuade by all means by informed debate but not virtually grab them in a headlock and stab their arms with a needle. 

Vaccine Passports are a bit ominous, Boris down South was right to drop such an idea but Mama Scotland up here in Sturgeonstan  is still undeterred and determined to introduce them.

Demands for “papers” at checkpoints to attend certain places and events do have sinister overtones of State Control which many never thought would happen in the “free world” and considering that vaccinated people are only estimated 17 per cent or less safer towards the non-vaccinated this statistic does not really justify the social apartheid and unrest which it is causing, vaccines don’t, as we currently know, prevent infection and transmission, the only distinction between the vaccinated and unvaccinated is that if you are double jabbed you are less likely to suffer the potential consequences of this virus (which to me is enough of an incentive to get vaccinated) 

In the meanwhile I will continue to wear that panty liner across my face like a good wee soldier and wipe down every surface my grubby paws touch as I await the eureka moment of clarity when Mr Miyagi pops up and proves these “wax on wax on” drills fit into the bigger picture…but won’t hold my breath for that to be any time soon!

Scotland Dodged a Bullet 7 years ago

I almost made it…By this I mean I almost refrained from writing a post about how, on Saturday passed,  was the 7th anniversary of the Scottish independence referendum where just under 45% of voters voted for Scotland to leave the U.K. and just over 55% voted to remain…but of course I could not let it go without my rant on my favourite subject! I was so proud I could bite my tongue and stay off social media by not posting any comments about this but …no…time to shoot these fish in the barrel again, pick that low hanging fruit … goad some of these self-proclaimed great Scottish patriots again (patriots…lol, their ignorance would destroy Scotland if they had their mis-informed way) 

The Nationalist narrative was, and seems to remain much the same, that an independent Scotland would have ensured that Scottish oil, the best oil in the world, would have been sold at a premium price. The sheer pride of independence would have raised productivity, solving the funding crisis, as international business would have flocked to Scotland. The sheer happiness engendered would have led to all Scots giving up drugs, and Sammond would have been too busy winning his Nobel Peace Prize to be engaging in anything that might have led to any trial. While a free Scottish NHS would by now have increased life expectancy in Scotland by 10 years at least. All that lost by voting no…but reality is somewhat different to what these Darien dreamers would have you believe and if you try to question it then they will soon attempt to drown you out with their tartan tambourine thumping.

SNP have no credibility, they are failures at every part of their Government responsibilities. The real issues of law, education, NHS and poverty.

Their supporters have no idea and the whole Never-endum has been nothing but a huge waste of time and resources.

And their ongoing toxic campaigning has brought nothing but division and despair for the rest of us, the silent majority who have already rejected and continue to reject their fantasy ideological aims.

Nationalism is a noisy empty vessel which distorts the view of those outwith this country. They receive a disproportionate amount of media attention whilst the SNPs record in Government is swept under the carpet.

And it's not just the cozy Central Belt commentariot, it's the London based media which has allowed it to happen, buying into Sturgeon's empty rhetoric instead of challenging and exposing their hypocrisy and incompentency.

This is a disgrace to democracy, and a disgrace to the Scottish people 

Had Scotland voted for YES in 2014, it would still, given the financial deficit, be outside both the EU (where it currently does 18% of its trade) and rUK (where it currently does 60% of its trade). But now membership of the EU is just another manufactured SNP grievance in pursuit of independence.

And consider in the far (given the financial pre-requisites in order to apply to join) future a putative iScotland within the EU:

Scottish MEPs would represent less than 1% of the EU total, as compared to 9% of Westminster's MPs. And within the EU one country one vote has been jettisoned in favour of Qualified Majority Voting, where your voting block is based on the size of your population. Germany's population is 83 million, France 67 million. This means that EU decisions will be largely based on French and German priorities, doubly so since they are the primary source of EU funds - better not to bite the hand that feeds you.

The voice of a putative independent Scotland (should it ever be allowed to join) with a population of 5.5 million ( just over 1% of the EU's population) would be a wee whisper; it would be a strange form of independence

Armageddon that would have been visited on Scotland had the nationalists got their way in 2014…we dodged a bullet.

The message for those who voted Yes in 2014 (and quoted the White Paper which has since proven to be the greatest work of fiction since 1986 Oor Willie holiday special) is “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”

We dodged a bullet but some want that same gun reloaded … more the fool them! 

More Baloney from Blackford

 Gobshite Ian Blackford predictably pipes up with his “The Scottish will be dealing with another poll tax to deal with an English problem” in regards to Boris’s National Insurance payments hike, do people actually still fall for this Ethnic Nationalism rhetoric?

Spoiler …the answer is yes, the repugnancy of nationalist hate against the English in very thinly veiled within a certainly group, an impregnated ideology by a tartan face hugger called SNP and just like that scene from the movie Alien one day it’s going to burst out their belly into full blown ethnic Nationalism like we have read in the history books but have apparently never learnt our lesson from. 

Separatists in democracies are all the same, be they Scottish, Irish, Québécois, Basque, Catalan, et al: Beneath their alleged grievances is a fundamental bigotry against the majority designated as the oppressor and with this current party of freeloaders in the Shortbread Senate of Edinburgh grievances against the English are cultivated in aid to blur their own failings which, with the SNP, are legion. 

Lucky for us that English taxpayers dont reciprocated and take the same the attitude by not going to fund services in Scotland when we (Scotland) received billions during the pandemic to fund furlough and to help struggling businesses. 

The way taxation works is that money raised across the UK which includes money raised by National Insurance is divided according to the Barnett Formula so that it funds Scotland. What this means is that Scotland will get back rather more from the increase in National Insurance than we pay in…so perhaps the problem is that you’d rather have that money in your hand than in the Scottish Government’s mitts do decide what to do with it! Perfectly understandable considering their record on spending our money and as they will have no constraints whatsoever on spending this extra money coming north of the boarder it although it should be spent on health and social care they will soon fritter it away on pet projects … perhaps learning Afghanistan refugees Gaelic or redecorating it’s offices with tartan paint and EU flags.

The chat goes something like this…

The opposition-“Fund the NHS properly”

The Tories-“Ok. We’ll increase NI to fund it”

The Opposition -“Look at the Tories. They’re increasing taxes”

It's naive to expect the Government to pay out so much during the pandemic without us having to pay it back. Where do Governments get their revenues anyway? The bottomless penny wishing well or by shaking the money tree? 

It was not that long ago that we were being told that Boris will sell the NHS to Trump …since then he has invested more money into the NHS coffers than anyone PM previously… now he intends to fund even more into it …that’s the problem with people, they all like to think and pretend to be socialists until they get the bill then it’s “eh, doh, I never realised the money had to come from somewhere” 

What has the NHS done for the health service in Scotland? A read of my previous blog post should answer that question to some extent, for the care sector it’s most famous faux pas to date is sending untested covid patients back into care homes! 

What we should be looking at is if this extra funding going to improve the care sector and the NHS? Unfortunately I don’t think so, we can’t just deal with the problem by throwing money at it. In part it can be solved by better management and revisiting the procurement policies, in fact some may say that chucking more money at it encourages waste and mismanagement so makes the problem worse, but perhaps that’s a post for another day under another topic.