NOVEMBER 2005
"Wolverhampton Safer Partnership is urgently seeking a Substance Misuse Co-ordinator. Applicants should be a Senior Manager with a broad range of experience in substance abuse."
The mind boggles.
The flu season is now upon us, and I have noticed the following.
Self-employed - flu only occurs on Sundays.
Private company employee - flu lasts a maximum of one week.
Civil servants - flu lasts between two and six weeks, depending on the amount of work that needs to be done at home.
The only reason the Government gave for trying to push through Parliament the 90 days detention act, was that "the police wants it." How come they have completely ignored the wishes of the police regarding the 24 hours pub licence bill. Is it "because the alcohol industry wants it?"
Ruth Kelly, the Secretary of State for Education, is showing that while she might not have mastered her brief, she at least is accomplished in "Blair-speak."
In relaunching the relaunch of the relaunch of the Education White paper she declared that "schools will be at the heart of the Government's vision of a great education system." She obviously has a great future ahead of her.
I see that the average housewife in Britain now uses 2 minutes to prepare a meal for the family. How things have changes in the last 50 years. (Warning. This is going to be a long and boring tale on "when I was young.")
My mother's year started around late April when the first coltsfoot emerged from the snow. These were collected to be used for next winter's cough medicine, and from then on she was very busy collecting herbs both for medical and culinary purposes.
Around Midsummer, after having planted the potatoes, the children, chickens, rabbits and the dogs were loaded on to the train (it was my job to sit with the live stock the cattle wagon) for the annual trek to the summer house, which was around 70 kilometres away, on a small island in the Oslo fjord. At the railway station we were met by my maternal grandfather. We were all loaded into his boat for the last leg of the trip.
Once on the island the whole summer was spent fishing; going out in the boat around 4 o'clock in the morning trolling for mackerel; back around noon for a short nap; then checking the lobster and crab pots in the afternoon before spearing for eels in the evening. A few hours sleep before a new day's fishing.
Occasionally there were shoals of herring coming in; when this happened you fished till you literally dropped; once the boat almost sank because it was too full.
At other times the tuna came in. Then we would go after them with harpoons, and as they were too big to get into the boat, they were then towed to shore, though they also sometimes pulled the boat for long distances. We also shot seals on occasions.
When the fish could not be found we collected gulls' eggs and eider down, wild rasberries and kelp, mussels and snails.
All these my mother preserved in different ways; smoking, drying, canning and salting and at the same time feeding a hungry family and half the neighbourhood.
My father came down and joined us when he had time off from work, but he also spent a lot of his free time in the forests at home picking blueberries, lingonberries and cloudberries, several hundred kilos, which my mother then made into jam.
At the end of august we all went back home. This was the time to harvest the apples and blackcurrants in the garden and pick mushrooms in the forrest.
Later the men in the family went to our shooting lodge up on the moors for the ptarmigan, and then there was the elk stalking in October, while the children had time off from school to dig up the potatoes.
We usually bartered for a pig which one of my uncles slaughtered in November. My mother then made sausages, spareribs and headcheese for Yule, and the hams were hung in the attic until May.
Winter was a wonderful time for us all, but my mother used this to make all our clothes for the coming year. She carded, spun, wove, knitted and sew.
We were basically self-suffiecent, only buying milk and flour; though we often bartered with farmers for those as the rationing after the war didn't supply a lot.
Then around the middle 1950's the shops started to fill up again, and while I'm sure my mother wasn't too unhappy about that, life somehow got more boring.
Aki is still battling with her local council's planning department. She has now got permission to demolish the old farm house, though they didn't actually bother to inform her, one of her neighbours alerted her to the fact that this had been approved. She now has a feeling that if she knocks down the house, they will claim that they cannot approve of a new one as there is no house on the farm.
In the meantime she also have problems with Edinburgh City Council. When she graduated from University 2 years ago, she informed the tax office that she was no longer a student, only to be told that she didn't need to pay council tax until April next year.
April came, and as she heard nothing from the council she phoned them and asked for the bill. Numerous phone call and letters followed, but not the promised bill. Until one day she got a summons that she was being prosecuted for no-payment of council tax. After having produced the telephone bills and copies of her letters to the council, they sort of admitted that she might not be entirely to blame, and that they would drop the prosecution if she would cough up the money. Which she did, as she had put the money into a special account, anyway.
Then, a few weeks ago, she got a letter stating that there had been a change in policy, and they wanted the council tax for July to February 2003 after all. But out of the kindness of their heart (or words to that effect) they were willing to let her pay over a period of 6 months.
I'm starting to believe the the East Yorkshire Council actually might be right when they state that they are one of the best run councils in the country.
You might remember that my friend Markus started his own falconry centre this year. Well, DEFRA has now effectively bankrupted him. Because of the possibility of bird flu, the Government has decided that there can be no falconry demonstrations, there can be no falconry meets for hunting and the birds have to stay on the premises until further notice, meaning that he can not honour his contract of clearing out gulls and crows from landfill sites or from sports facilities. Nor is he eligible for any compensation. It also leaves my eagle owl Arthur stranded at the centre just as he is coming into his prime.
Strangely enough, the chicken farmer's have been told that they can keep their birds outside as there is almost no possibility that bird flu will hit the UK this season. So it is difficult not to believe that this is just another opportunity for the zealots within the Labour party to have another go at country sports.
But Markus is not the only one to fall foul of clipboard man. Each December we have a Festival of Christmas in Beverley, (though for how long until it has to be billed as Winterval or something similar is anybody's guess) where Father Christmas arrives in a sleigh pulled by 6 reindeer. According to new rules and regulations we now have to have someone walking along him with a bucket of disinfectant to wipe down any child that manages to touch the animals. Kind of takes the magic out of the occasion, especially since no child is allowed into Santa's grotto unaccompanied.
The Swinemoor Stav Festival Committee met on the last day of the month, and things are surely not getting easier. While people coming up for the Stav-thing provided much needed security this year, the Thing will be held down south next year. As the police seemed reluctant to get involved, we are facing a serious problem. However, our local M.P., Graham Stuart, is fairly sure that he can put enough pressure on the new Chief Constable to actually make the coppers do their job, though I have my doubts.
Neither is the perennial problem with insurance going to make life any easier for us; basically no insurance company will provide cover for small events after the concept of "no win, no fee" was imported from the States a few years ago.
And we of course has the usual problem of staying under the radar of the Council and Health and Safety regulations. We did decide, though, to muddle through for another year.
One bright spot, though, is that we have finally got the coppers to put in an appearance on the estate for a few hours once a month. A sergeant and a constable will be available at our office for people to voice any concern they might have, which is at least something, as it is almost impossible to reach the force over the phone. Most people tend to give up after having been put on hold for up to 30 minutes.
However, our beloved Government has ordered that the police force will merge with neighbouring forces into a super force in order to combat terrorism more effectively, even if local policing unfortunately will have to take a back seat. The fact that the London bombers slipped through the net largely because there was little or no police presence in their local environment, is as usual seen as irrelevant.
An elementary school down in Oxford has come out top in the newly published tables. When asked what was the secret of its success the headmistress answered that they had ignored Government guidelines, and instead concentrated on teaching the children how to read, write and do numbers the way children were taught before the People's Party's improvements. One will guess that the fact that the graduates of the school were 3 years ahead of the approved level, will get the Head sacked for encouraging elitism.
One thing I have a little difficulty in getting my head around in Lord Turner's report on pensions, is the fact that he recommends that we should work until 68 or 69 in return for a larger payout. It seems to me that it is almost impossible to find work after you reach 50, so where are the jobs coming from?
And as the average life expectancy around here is 68, I have to say that there has been less than total enthusiasm for the plan locally.
Politics is a funny game. When one thinks that the different parties can never agree on anything, something happens that restores ones trust in their ability to cooperate. It seems that the backbenchers of all the parties in the Commons have decided to lobby the Government for a 22% increase in their salary. Touching, isn't it?
Can anyone explain to me the latest Government initiatives? Smoking is to be banned in public places where food is served, but will still be legal otherwise, which will include youth cafes, but it will be unlawful to sell tobacco to anyone under 18, but you can carry around up to a year's supply of cannabis and ecstacy tablets, but will not be arrested as a dealer, as long as you declare it is for your own use.