Catching up

It's a long time since I wrote a post.

That's because after I was made redundant, we had a couple of very happy months. We arranged to visit the family at Christmas, and although my husband didn't feel too well, we went hoping he'd recover.

He didn't. He turned yellow. We thought he'd developed jaundice, but that didn't seem too important as he had no other symptoms and he agreed to see the doctor after the holiday.

He still didn't feel well, and was still having bouts of yellow colouration, so off he went to see the doc and was referred to hospital. They did tests.

On 7th February he went for the results and came back saying 'it's not good news. It's cancer, and it's not treatable.' What do you say? Apparently he had bowel cancer, with no symptoms apart from a little indigestion, which had now spread to the liver and thereby prevented chemotherapy from being used because the liver would process it, and his was compromised.

The doctors didn't know how long he had, because he had had no symptoms to calculate from.

On 28th April, after rapidly going downhill, he died.

I'm posting this as a warning to people who think it's OK to skip apparently minor symptoms. My husband hadn't really had indigestion before, but thought it was just something to expect as you get older. I'm here to tell you that minor symptoms that are different to what you normally have can be a warning of cancer or something equally foul. Go and get checked. Before it's too late.

Life moves on

Today I got The Letter.

In August I become redundant. That is, the charity I work for can no longer afford to pay me. The work I do is still requested, but it's not chargeable because I advise charities and the Government has decided to put most of the advice online, making my job no longer feasible.

Doesn't bother me particularly - I'm practically at retirement age anyway, and I've been doing it for far too many years - but in a time when jobs are supposed to be something they're creating, why do they make so many jobs redundant? Machines to do manual work, the internet to do mental work, but none of it as well as humans used to do it (preen, preen!).

Machines can do the same job over and over again, but ingenuity and additional flair is way beyond their capacity. Information can be posted on the internet, but somebody is still needed to explain it to those who can't quite get it. Shame - they will never get it now unless they can scrape together enough money to pay someone to explain it.

And there's the rub. Charities used to do things free of charge, funded by the goodwill of those with money and social conscience. The present government (with help from the last half dozen) has made it practically impossible to do that. Charity will be abolished (sorry, God - they're not listening). Anything you do has to be paid for these days - if not, you'll be taxed anyway. And if you haven't ignored all the pundits and saved madly for the last few decades, you won't be kept in your old age either - you'll work till you drop.

I hope they sleep well at night. I will - but I'm one of the lucky ones.

Stars before the eyes

We had an amazing weekend.

We went to Nottingham to see Bellowhead on their final tour. We've been fans for some time, so we had to get to see them one last time.

Nottingham was a surprise - I haven't been since I was at college, and all I remembered was the Robin Hood statue (from a school visit), Yates' Wine Lodge and the Hole in the Wall pub... Great days! 

Turns out there's a lot more to Nottingham than I remembered, so we're hoping to go back for a long weekend before too much longer and see some of the sights. There are great shops and eateries too - not what we're used to here. The waitress in Zizzi's didn't bat an eyelid when we asked for vegan options.

Anyway, the main event was definitely Bellowhead. The theatre was wonderful, and huge! The support act, Mawkin, were really good, but Bellowhead were on top form and absolutely amazing. You just get absorbed into the music and the crowd and all move together.

I do hope that was not their final tour - how could you give up the effect you guys have on a crowd? How could you never produce that amazing sound ever again? Nobody else can do it. Have a rest, then think again!

Bellowhead, stop reading here. We really enjoyed your show, honestly.


The crowd were great. Except one or two. Honestly, if you don't want to go to see the band, why on earth did you take up a seat that an enthusiast could have? 

The one that most irritated me was just to my left and down a couple of rows. She was on her phone the entire time, with the backlight on maximum so it was quite blinding whenever it flashed in my direction - the stage lighting was either blue or red, so a bright white light was really distracting. Eventually she got up and left.

She wasn't the only one. Do they come with partners who are fans, or do they not know how to behave in public? 

There's only one word for that kind of behaviour - rude! It distracts other audience members and is totally disrespectful to the performers.

Shall we set up a movement to tap these rude people on the shoulder and ask them to leave, or would it be better to ask an usher to do it, or to get one of the stage lights directed at them? No, the last one would totally ruin the show!

Emails - a help or a curse?

As most people who know me have by now realised, I love email.

I can have a conversation with someone I couldn't normally speak to because they're busy when I'm free, but I can send an email and they can respond when they can, and vice versa.

However - as my friends and acquaintances will realise, I do quite a lot of things - I'm into politics, I work practically full-time, I volunteer and I campaign on anything from vegetarianism to government policies. On top of these, I love cooking and gardening (when the weather's fit), I read novels and I like puzzles (they are my 'me-time activities').

Everyone needs a little time to themselves to keep them sane, but when I take time out now, I miss things. It's very difficult to weed out those emails you no longer need, but I am still interested in many of the causes - I just don't have time to read them all, and I don't believe anyone should work (or volunteer) all their waking hours.

So what's the solution? I can't bear the thought of having them come into my phone as they arrive, so my phone would be constantly pinging as some people do. In any case, the coverage in this part of the country is pretty patchy and there is no chance that I would read emails while driving, so I'd still end up with a backlog.

Is there an answer? Or shall I just ignore the ones I can't get to? Answers on a postcard please - I might just read those!

Get Carter in Doncaster

I wasn't sure about going all the way to Doncaster to see Get Carter - it's not my absolutely favourite novel, but I'm so glad I did. The https://www.northernstage.co.uk/ production was superb - dark, menacing and gritty in a way the Michael Caine movie could never have been.

Kevin Wathen as Jack Carter was perfect, with northern accent and the ability to turn from nice young man into terrifying vicious monster in a moment. The set was magnificent - totally adaptable at a moment's notice - so clever!

It was a shame that the theatre was so empty - I know it was Saturday afternoon and football's on the telly, but really, people missed a fantastic afternoon.

It was also sad that the movie and this production were set in Newcastle. I don't think it says in the book where it's set, but it should be Scunthorpe and Barton on Humber - the Ted Lewis group in Barton are beginning to identify where scenes in various Ted Lewis novels are set and take guided tours around the 'scene of the crime'. But having said that, the North East accents really made the Northern Stage production work well - I'm not sure a Lincolnshire gangster would work nearly as well!

It's the last night in Doncaster tonight, so if you don't have tickets, it's too late (we heard they've sold out!), but you can still catch them in Durham, Salford or Southampton. And if you have tickets for tonight, spare a thought for poor Kevin - he's already done one performance today - yet I'm sure he'll be excellent tonight too.

A Blog Addiction

Insidious, these blog thingies.

I started writing a little blog of my own, as a place to moan without upsetting quite so many people on Facebook (!), and now I seem to be involved in rather a lot - either following or writing, or helping to write.

For instance, I can recommend the blog on the Voluntary Action North Lincolnshire website - it tries to explain what VANL does, which is difficult because it keeps changing with economic circumstance. Green Party councillors on both Bottesford and Barton Town Councils have blogs, which they write between them, and I'm following some other interesting ones which explain about the people who write them.

Blogs are a great way to find out about other people. You rarely have time to talk to people nowadays, so why not read their thoughts in their blog? People you may have thought you would not like become much more understandable when you read about their motivations.

My only problem now is, when do I find time for all the other stuff I used to do?

Ch, ch, ch, ch, changes

I've just been reading some of Martin Bell's book about why he turned to politics, and he's quite right.

We all know things change over time. If not, we'd stagnate and get nowhere. But before I was born, everyone respected the UK. Our press told the truth; our politicians were wise and would support and protect weaker nations; we stood for law and order, and we had a place in the prosperity stakes.

What happened?

As Martin Bell says, in the 1990s the press went down the plughole. Rather than chasing the stories that were important, that mattered, that might make a difference, the press were taken over by multimillionaires wanting to make money and possibly put their own point of view as fact. Sales plummeted, but they continued pushing to make papers like the Sun concentrate on naked women and misbehaving single parents, instead of what our politicians were doing abroad. It didn't seem too important at the time - we were all busy trying to make more money ourselves in the 1990s (probably because they'd told us it was a clever thing to do), and we didn't have time to read the papers.

But while we were ignoring the boobs in the tabloids (in many ways!), those same multimillionaires, with their friends, pushed the politicians into supporting their crazy schemes, reducing their taxes and selling their goods to make them even richer. So we got even less news from the rest of the world, wars broke out behind our backs, fuelled by the arms manufactured by these men and their friends, and millions of people were starved, bombed and driven out of their homes through no fault of their own.

And only now do the great British public complain - they don't want these same refugees to come here. They might steal our jobs! Well, we don't have any skilled people here to do many of those jobs; neither do we have any unskilled people to do the unskilled jobs, because they're apparently too busy procreating and stuffing their benefits money up their noses or into their arms - I do, of course, get my information from the tabloid press here!

We now have social media to help us, so perhaps now is the time to set up a new press, like the Victorians did, to pass on the real news of what's happening in the world. In the meantime, use your own social networking skills to find out about it. Don't just believe the tosh they print or publish on TV - even the Russians beam their version of news to us, but we all know from James Bond how reliable that's likely to be. (Having said that, some of it makes more sense than what our lot are telling us!). Take it all with a very large pinch of salt, and work out for yourself what's really happening.

Then Vote Green at the next election!