Is there a Housing Shortage or not????

Not being terribly well off, financially, I cannot, regretfully, help towards the purchase of homes for my beloved offspring, not a problem I here you say, there are plenty of us out here in the same boat.

Anyway, not too much of a problem for my kids as they make their own successful way in their chosen lives',  all ensconced in cosy little 'villas' or in the case of son, his own cosy little 'pub'.  But Jennifer, my youngest, a successful homemaker and mother to three gorgeous girls, had to start off in private rented accommodation for which she and Steve, her partner, were paying through the [proverbial] nose.  They had to do this, as the area they lived in, like most areas in the UK, does not appear to have sufficient affordable social housing.

I believe that this can be tracked back to the conservatives and Maggie Thatcher and the 'Right to Buy' policy that they/ she introduced in the 80's.  When you think about it, it really was a great idea, let the peasants invest in their own future and see the world from a different perspective, be a property owner, invest in bricks and mortar, who wouldn't want to do this, I know I  did.  

And therein lies the problem, so many of us took advantage of this great offer, with the added bonus that massive discounts were applied to the selling price, that social housing stocks across the length and breadth of the country started to dissapear at an incredible rate. And yet no one took any notice!  

But what was the main problem with this scheme, well as usual the devil was in the detail. And what was the detail, well the most important detail, at the time was,  Councils were not allowed to reinvest the money into building more homes, so, as more and more people took advantage of the, 'Right to Buy' the social housing stock began to dwindle.

When you think about it, [and I know the three degrees of separation are fairly loose on this one, but it is my rant so give me a break] is this not a similar situation to the banking debacle of the last couple of years, where the banks were deregulated by  people in power/government and who are supposedly responsible and intelligent, [as they are clearly not],  and who, under normal circumstances you wouldn't put in charge of a piss-up-in-a-brewery because, while on the surface they have had a good idea, they have absolutely no concept of how to put it into practice as a long term and effective plan without the in-built safety features needed in such grand designs!  [The argument that permanent civil servants are in place for actioning policy can be left for another blog on another day]

It seems that all politicians have these grand ideas, but let’s face it today, knowing what we do about most of them, we wouldn't allow them to be in charge of that mythical Piss up in a Brewery let alone in charge of running the country.  And why not, well, because the majority of them, regardless of the fact that they may have attended fancy schools and universities, they just do not have the intellect to manage the bus fare on the No 22 let alone the finances and economy of the country.  

That is not an outlandish statement to make; you only need to look at it:

HOUSES SOLD OFF - NO BALANCE MAINTAINED IN SOCIAL HOUSING

BANKS DEREGULATED AND REGULATORS AND HOUSE OF COMMONS COMMITTEES UNABLE TO SEE THE LOOMING DISASTER 

UTILITY COMPANIES SOLD OFF ON THE CHEAP ALLOWING SPECULATORS TO MAKE VAST FORTUNES WHILE THE MUGS WHO BOUGHT THEIR HOMES SEE COSTS SPIRAL OUT OF CONTROL FOR BASIC EVERYDAY REQUIREMENTS LIKE GAS, ELECTRICITY AND WATER

GOLD RESERVES SOLD OFF ON THE CHEAP ONLY FOR GOLD PRICES TO BE  RISING HIGHER AND HIGHER, TO BE BOUGHT BACK BY THE GOVERNMENT AFTER WE SOLD IT CHEAPLY IN THE FIRST PLACE (It doesn't matter that it was G Brown who sold it and it is G Osborne who is buying it back) 

BRAND NEW RAF PLANES, NOT QUITE PAID FOR, BUT ALREADY BROKEN UP BY THE SCRAPPIES

MILLIONS SPENT ON TRAINING PILOTS, WHO THEN ARE MADE REDUNDANT BEFORE SEEING PROPER SERVICE 

The lists go on and on, and yet it is we through higher and higher taxation that must keep baling them out.........

The one and only constant in all of this is that consecutive governments of all parties prove over and over again that they are incapable of managing the country in an effective manner.

I read of two adjoining council houses this week that have been empty for over three months and boarded up with those awful steel shutters that you see over doors and windows.  And my question then is this. If we do not have sufficient social housing stocks, then why are two properties in Langdon Hills  and allegedly owned by Basildon Council and managed by St George's Community Housing, left unattended for three months and then allowed to be broken into and vandalised?

Why weren't these properties (if) taken back into the housing stock, and surely they were if St. George's Community Housing boarded them up, and immediately put back onto the rental lists?

Why were they left boarded up for three months without any maintenance or repairs taking place, if it was needed, while those in desperate need of social housing are forced to continue to live in overcrowded homes, or worse.  And then when limited stock is available they are forced into competing for one in that ridiculous and monstrous bidding system that most authorities seem to employ these days, and which I completely fail to understand. And while the properties are lying abandoned does this mean that the local authorities then are abandoning their responsibilities and indeed their voters/potential voters.....

It really is a ridiculous situation to witness what clearly is local authority housing lying empty when so many people are in need. My wife and I were out for a walk to the local garden centre a Saturday or two ago, and I saw the same thing in Ockendon, a property with the same type of steel shutters on the doors and windows and with obvious signs of neglect and un-occupancy for some considerable time as told by the weeds on the path, etc.

Don't people in power actually care, once they get into office, it seems not, and while I have been tweeting over the last few days to remind the UK to vote in local elections and in the referendum, taking place today,  when you see acts of gross neglect such as these, you do wonder if it is worth it, but you also begin to see and to realise why the turnout of voters can invariably be very disappointing.  The reason is of course that once in office the promises made at the hustings are soon forgotten by those making them, but,  and  for politicians whether local or national, the message must be, that you forget to keep the promises, but the voters don't forget that you made them when asking them to vote for you.

Do not continue to disappoint us, it is not equitable and sooner or later there will be a straw that falls and breaks the back of the voters.

NHS ANGER AT TIME WASTERS

I read an article in a local paper headlined "ANGER AT COST OF PATIENTS FAILING TO KEEP GP DATE",  and while reading the article I began to get the right hump with this story.

The reporter, Stephen Hackwell went on to report that "Thousands of pounds are being wasted by patients who failed to keep doctors' appointments", and went on further to suggest that, "Surgeries across South Essex are forced to pay staff to do nothing because people cannot be bothered to cancel bookings."

Is it me, is it really just me? who finds this kind of story thoroughly obnoxious not just in the headline grabbing appeal it is aiming for, but in the actual message of the story, for goodness sake, give us all a break will you.....

"Surgeries waste thousands of pounds...", ".... forced to pay staff to do nothing...."  Lets look at these two statements first.  Why are surgeries wasting thousands of pounds in this matter.  Are you telling me that surgeries are making appointments and the majority of those people making appointments are not turning up. Lets face it, it is so bloody difficult to get an appointment these days that the time, effort and cost, and there is a cost to this for the patient, have you tried phoning your surgery recently to get an appointment.  Most of them either only have one line that is constantly engaged or when you do get through and the phone is answered you are normally greeted with the immediate phrase, with no time to respond to it, of, "Hello, would you mind hanging on for a few moments" before you are placed on hold while the receptionist either deals with another call or talks to the doctor or books and talks with a patient who is standing in front of them .  And so, while the costs to you the patient may not be as expensive as the NHS tells us that their costs are, there is still a cost;  in time, in calls and in frustration.

But where do they get, "the costs in thousands" from.  It is probably me being over simplistic again or naive or both, so lets look at it from a simplistic point of view.

Doctors surgeries today operate a fairly open system in that they are there, or they are not, simple.  When they are there, they have staffed surgeries, so they are paying for the surgery, the staff, the medicines and the usual paraphernalia that one has to pay for whether it is a house, shop or factory in terms of rates and utilities, etc.

Appointments, as far as I can tell are made by the patient phoning in and being lucky enough to be given an appointment.  Again as far as I can tell appointments are given out for times that are suitable for the doctor/surgery and not the patient and again as far as I can tell appointments are normally made to coincide with the NORMAL OPENING TIMES of the surgery.

Gone are the days when you would turn up at your GP and find the waiting room literally and metaphorically choking to bursting point with both patients and  germs, no today, there are none, or at the least, very few open surgeries, YOU HAVE TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT. whether it is for the Doctor or the practice nurse. so that brings me on to the next question, how and why are, "staff being paid to do nothing?"

Again you need to ask yourself, when was the last time you visited the surgery! As you stood there at the reception desk being ignored or not.  The receptionist IS ALWAYS BUSY, on the computer, on the phone, filling out forms, filing patients notes, retrieving patients notes, when have you ever seen a receptionist at a doctors surgery doing nothing.... never, their workload seems never ending, so how pray are they getting paid to do nothing.

Don't get me wrong here, I am not condoning patients making an appointment and then not keeping it, especially if they don't even bother to make contact and inform the surgery that they are unable to make the appointment.  But, lets face it, there could be a relevant reason as to why they were unable to keep the appointment.  Take me for example: I get the train to and from work each day, It doesn't happen very often but it does happen, there I am sitting on the train and out of no where the driver makes an announcement, telling me that instead of taking the branch line via Chafford Hundred and Ockendon, this train is now going to run directly into Fenchurch Street station via Rainham, etc. SO, all of us travelling to our chosen destination are dumped from the train and invariably left with no information on what's happening as the station staff we have been dumped at have no clue either.  

So, imagine the situation, you have just been dumped off a train, you are given no information, the station staff you have been dumped on are as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike, and while you should be thinking of phoning your surgery, you are getting more and more angry and frustrated at the situation you find yourself in and forget to make the call, it happens, but this then causes the NHS to lose thousands of pounds and have staff sitting around doing nothing.......

I don't bloody well think so!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    

One doctor in the article, who wishes to remain anonymous, comments that, "It can cause a real problem. It's not just the money - it's the time it wastes."

I accept that missing an appoint can appear to be time wasted, but, lets look at it in simple terms again.  Lets just assume that five people have made an appointment to see the doctor and numbers 2 through 5 turn up ahead of or on time for their appointment.  No 1 hasn't turned up and hasn't called and their appointment was for 5 PM.  Well under those circumstances does No 2 not move into the slot immediately vacated and so on until all of the patients have been seen, leaving the last ten minutes of the missed appointment for finishing off the admin for the day and tidying up, locking up file cabinets etc. It's not as if they really HAVE NOTHING TO DO.  And if patient No 1 turned up late, they are slotted in or kept to the end, it doesn't matter.

Apparently, the Department of Health does not collect statistics on missed appointments so is all of this a storm in a teacup or are local NHS trusts starting the next round of patient disenfranchisement, by publicly labeling some patients as time wasters as another prelude to more cuts in the already deplorable service offered to the ailing patient.  And lets not forget, you can't compalin anymore because every surgery now displays that nice notice, Do Not Complain about the Service or Lack thereoff as We will just remove you from our books, or words to that effect.......

     

 For the article referred to go to:  

http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/9004434.Anger_at_cost_of_patients_failing_to_keep_GP_date/

Is blogging easy, is it for everyone?

If you are new to writing a blog, what do you write about, and how often do you write? Well, the simple answer to these questions is, I have no idea.  When I thought about starting this earlier in the month, I opened up a few web pages, had a look and found BlogSpot where you can have free web space to launch your blog to possible readers.

I then looked at a few blogs, but most of these were from professionals, and by professionals this can loosely be interpreted as people who earn a living from expressive prose, either in written or spoken form, and who are used to putting their point across on a multitude of topics in a well structured style.  If you open up any newspaper web site and read any article you will invariably also find a link to the reporter/authors blog, as well.  Same with any of the major TV company websites also, particularly broadcasters, they all seem to do blogs.  And of course the content and level of expressiveness is evident in these blogs and is as high as you might expect from people of that ilk.  There are also blogs from ‘commentators’ and   ‘watchers’ of politics and news stories, where a debate or a question during a parliamentary broadcast is heard and within a few hours a blog is posted somewhere with a 1000 word essay on what was said and what was meant by the debate and or question, in the view of the blogger if not by the owner of the original comment. Carl Gardner, http://www.headoflegal.com/  is an excellent example of this genre and writes some interesting stuff, with lively comment boards taking place afterwards

Then there is the amateur blogger, and there are different categories in this field too.  I, as an example, will fall into the ‘rank amateur’ category, someone who thinks he has something to say but then when he has the blog space in front of him, suddenly has nothing to say, looks at the screen endlessly waiting for that inspirational line of thought to re energise the spark that led me to setting up the blog space to begin with, only to find  that there is enough open space inside my head to fly a fleet of airships around with no danger of bumping into each other, let alone a good idea for a blog!

You then turn to the blog engine you are on and look at some the blogs here for inspiration and you find that there are  blogs by a whole cornucopia of people blogging on a cosmic amount of subjects, there are blogs on:

Families http://thebillingsfam.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog

Cake decoration [ angry birds one is excellent] http://sweetsugarbelle.blogspot.com/2011/04/angry-birds-part-2-yellow-bird.html

Why I am stopping [blogging]

Crafts http://handmadebymelissa.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog

Porn (yes found one)

Bread making

Flower arranging

Politics

Religion

Second Life http://emmageraln.blogspot.com/2011/04/breaking-fake-news.html

After Life

Sciences 

Education

Etc., etc.,  

Other amateur blogs I looked at did not actually seem that amateurish to me, What to do, well you could do what I did, which was rehash a couple of thoughts you had already put out there on Twitter and or Face book....  I have both, Twitter, which I have had for about eighteen months but didn’t really do much with, and in reality still don’t. And Face book, well, having a wife and two daughters and a son with the females seemingly addicted to it, from with what I could tell, trivial nonsense, I have very much resisted the temptation to go down that road, until this month, and now, I too have a Face book page, but still find it incredibly hard to join in with any real degree of enthusiasm.

Don’t get me wrong I am not, I hope, being snobbish about this, but I do think that you have to have a part of you that is reduced to the banality of a cartload of chimpanzee.  That description, taken at face value can clearly be offensive to all those users of Face book, including my wife, children, nieces and nephews, etc, etc, and it is not intended to be.    It’s just that, having seen it at first hand really for the first time this week, I really can’t see what the big deal is.  Sure, it has its uses, so too does the fridge door. 

I see from my wife’s account that she has over 130 ‘friends’ and that the immediacy of the forum allows them to keep in constant contact, even if it is only a one line message, and there is nothing wrong with a one line message be any means, But it also appears to be voyeuristic in that you have friends of friends of friends looking in and commenting on your ‘posts’, liking or disliking what you have written and giving opinions. (I  just realised, after writing that, that of course by publishing a blog that I am inviting the same thing here - but have decided to leave, with this comment to show that I do have double standards)  I also saw one of my nieces commenting on a comment on her page, that she hadn’t posted it but that she had been ‘frapped’. I didn’t want to show my ignorance and ask what that was, knowing my girls, from Face book posts at least, I thought it might be something that an uncle shouldn’t know about, or not openly at least! It was left to my wife, a hardened user of the medium, that this was where someone had put a comment on your wall attributing it to you.  I didn’t want to ask the follow up question, But how can you do that when it is your picture that appears on the post’,  I fear that will just make me look more dumber than I think I am!

Anyway, that has nothing to do with posting a blog or not, and that is what this post is all about. Wait, maybe that is the trick, if you are new to blogging and you do not make a living from being erudite and intelligent, is it just possible that you open up your blog, to begin with at least, and just ramble.  Work your way into it until you develop a theme and find your rhythm and hope for the best, Well, maybe not, but, I think that might just work for me, we will have to see how it develops...

Of course there are other questions that you need to ask yourself when thinking of doing a blog, for example: 

Why? why do you want to do a blog, if you are not a 'professional, with something worthwhile to say.  Is it keeping up with the Jones', someone you know is doing one and you feel that you need to do it too? 

Who are you targeting the blog at?  Do you have a specific audience who you want to target your blog at, and if so how do you go about getting it to them?

How often do you post? Daily, weekly, monthly?

I am not going to try and answer these questions, all I can offer is that some people do it daily, some do it as the mood takes them and some do it when they have something of consequence to say. But, I will probably fall into the category of infrequent rambler with no specific demographic targeted.  True, I do put a link to new posts on Twitter and Face book, and whether anyone rewards my rambles with actually reading them.is a matter for them.  My original idea of Blogging was to vent at things that annoyed me, have yet to do that, although plenty of things do annoy me, Royal Weddings for one, Politicians for another.  Didn't I read somewhere recently that Belgium has been 'governed' by professional civil servants as the electorate failed to elect an outright winning party! If that was the case, why can't we just do that here, think of the money we would save both in Mp Salaries and more importantly expenses, see that's what I mean, rambling and disjointed, but you can see where I am going. And maybe, just maybe, if you are not a professional, that's what a blog should be, just a series of rants and rambles about any subject that takes your fancy, whether it be family, friends, a daily photograph, or just to get something off your chest.

If someone reads it and likes it, fine.  If someone reads it and doesn't like it, that's also fine, and if they tell you they like it great, if they tell you they don't like it, well, so what, you wrote and posted what was on your mind and they replied with what was on their mind after reading it, let them do it and move on to the next one.

Happy blogging!

AV or not to AV

AV or not to AV that is the big question for May 5th, or it could be that you are not interested in that question at all and just want to vote for your local councillor or you may not even be interested in that either, anyway it doesn't matter what you are interested in, cos, this is my Blog [only kidding, of course I AM interested in anything you want to say, so, have at it any time you want].

I have to confess that I still haven't made up my mind as to whether I am going to vote for the existing, "first past the post", or not, or for change to the, "alternate voting system" and why not I hear you ask, well it's simple really.......

Every time I open a, newspaper, turn on radio or television, or indeed browse the internet, I am finding it more and more difficult to separate the real arguments for change or not,  for all of the vitriolic fighting going on between those pro AV and those opposed.  

Sworn political enemies John Reid, Labour, is sharing a platform with David Cameron, conservative and sitting Prime Minister, arguing for no change while Nick Clegg, Lib Dem and sitting Deputy Prime Minister is, albeit hesitantly sharing with Ed Milliband, current leader of the Labour party informing us it is better to change.

But for the ordinary person out there can you get past these totally mismatched pairs and listen to any positive argument from either side, or are you being drowned by the flood of accusation of personal attacks and accusations of lies against each other.

Once again the only thing that you and I as voters can take to the polls with any degree of certainty is, That ALL politicians are only interested in promoting what they believe WILL BE BEST FOR THEM IN THE LONG TERM, and that they will lie and cheat to get it, and we the plebs, are left shaking our heads once again at the sheer arrogance of every single one of them.....