Is Martin Davies a dickhead?

The answer is it depends which Martin Davies you're talking about. Actually I know three off the top of my head. One of them was on Watchdog today - a typical money-making capitalist cretin, promoting his own website and career as a 'journalist' ie private PR merchant for bankers. He advertised the American Express credit card this time (after persuading my poor gullible loved-one a few months ago to get the Virgin credit card)on BBC one! How can he get away with it?

The second most recent was the Martin Davies who taught me how to manage stress, who is basically God himself.

The third was Martin Davies, the ex-social worker who used to be my boss. The only thing I remember about him was how proud he was that nobody had ever taken a grievance against him in his 25 year working life. Nice person too.

How come the nice people never get fame and fortune?

Birthday week apologies for Thatcher

OK I'm sorry for making jokes about Thatcher dying. It's just not funny .

NOT FUNNY.

I repeat, not funny.

You are visiting the award-winning Tattontastic website

Launched in August 2005, as a protest against 'Morganisation' aka 'geek-rule', this website which you have the pleasure of reading right now was yesterday awarded the ultimate accolade as being one of the inspirers 'favourites' on his computer at work.

The founders of Tattontastic however, are concerned that this means that they have in fact caught the 'Morganimus Maximus' virus turning Tattontastic into the Morganism it was trying to subsume.

An onlooker said 'I thought Tattontastic's jokes about Thatcher dying were quite harsh. Then I realised I was Morganised.'

Isn't it about time that bullying and harassment was made illegal?

Yet again another story about a woman commiting suicide because of bullying and harrasment. Today, a woman worker at 'KFC' was found to have committed suicide after colleagues verablly abused her.

It's an absolute joke that this happened on the same day that Robbie Williams got £200k damages for papers saying he was gay. The defammation laws are disgusting in this country - giving rich people the chance to get even richer whilst those who really need help for defammation have no opportunity for legal redress.

In my job, one part of which (of course the part of my job I really cherish and adore) is managing car parks. You can imagine the abuse myself and my staff get on a daily basis - from highly educated human beings. Apart from internal policy there is no opportunity to change people's behaviour.

The law is an ass. The law must change to allow individuals to take civil action regarding aggressive behaviour - such as verbal abuse and attacks.

Phil's cousin's blog is better than mine

I mean I know she's a bit older than me and works in the business, but Phil's cousin's blog is better than mine. And because I'm so uesless I don't know how to even refer to it so other people can look at it. joella.blogspot.com - think that's it. Hope she doesn't mind me advertising it here.

Her photos are brilliant - I can't even put mine on here.

Will Thatcher khark it tonight?

Heard the joyous news that Thatcher was in hospital 'feeling faint'. In fact the news was enough to enable me to get off from my sick bed (nasty cold that even Nurofen Plus doesn't seem to be sorting out) to write this. However if she does pop off tonight I'll be pissed off as I'll probably miss the party.

A good week

It started off badly with a bit of stress, but finished great so I must remember this week. Monday taught Expert Patient Programme course which was good, although I was so worried about my work in my day job that I was a bit preoccupied.

Tuesday was ok ish - managed to go through in tray in about ten seconds, but then got a rollicking as covering reception due to staff bereavement. Then Wednesday was Stress Managemnt training which was excellent. One of the best training days I have ever been on.
There are three stages of 'burnout' apparently. Stage one - where you feel stressed to yourself, ie worried thoughts etc. Stage Two is when you appear stressed to some others - ie palpitations, lack of sleep etc. Stage three is the crash stage - where your symptoms (whatever they are) are apparent to everyone. The key thing is your sense of humour - once that goes you've had it.

At stage three a lot of people develop the five anxiety illnesses (although some don't and just go back to normal).

Obsessive Compulsive, generalised anxiety disorder (distress all the time), panic disorder - panic attacks, four is post traumatic stress disorder and five (apparently the most common) - depression.

Then he (Martin Davies) went through the thought, feeling, behaviour 'vicious cycle'.

Then he went through transaction analysis. PArent, Child Adult. Interesting, not sure I agreed with all that though,but useful of course. It's very freud-ish, famildynamics. The whole concept of what a child is is only about a hundred years old of course.

The upshot was I decided I was potentially on stage one of burnout so I have tried to book a week off at Christmas.


Union stuff going well. Everyone's up in arms and I'm one of the people who know most about what's going on! Watch out George Bush, Tony Blair and Patricia Hewitt!

What happened to 'merit goods'?

I would really like to know how much the English Economics A Level has changed in the fourteen years since I did it. Obviously socialism's gone out of the window, but what about the theory backing it up? We learnt that things like education and health were 'merit goods' ie that the production increased the value of society and the economy to such an extent that it was in the economy's interest to provide them free of charge.

Has socialism died?

I'm sad enough to have looked socialism up in my 1991 Collins Dictionary of Economics. Under their definition it is basically a mixed economy - some state provision of services and some private sector. I was taught, and this isn't that long ago - when I was eighteen - that this is the sort of economy that we live in, in the UK. In my 2000 Penguin dictionary of philosophy, socialism is 'a theory and a movement advocating public ownership of the more important means of production'.

But precisely who these days is advocating this? Not the labour party for definite.

Not Roy Hattersley, from his diatribe advocating selling off the NHS a couple of weeks ago with the health secretary. And not Polly Toynbee who was doing the same. And not the New Statesman magazine, which had a glossy colour page pull out on privatising the NHS sponsored by Norwich Union.

And these are the 'left wing' of the Labour party.

Tatton victory over Hewitt as she retreats over 'Commissioning a Patient Led NHS'

The secretary of State for Health was forced into an embarrasing climb down today as she admitted that the only way forward was Tattonisation.

Speaking on the politics show on BBC1, she said that the important thing was that patients would lead the NHS.

She said that Primary Care Trusts would only subcontract out services after extensive local consultation.

Tatton - 3
REst of the World - 1

Scott is an international hero!

Scott is a hero! Hopefully we've sent the sploggers packing and I can get on with my fplogging. It's brilliant - I don't have to worry about saying the word kitten, kitten, kitten. Kitten to my heart's content!

Scott - you're welcome to come over to London anytime and stay with me and Phil. You might find us a trifle dull though. I rant and rave about the future of health commissioning in England all the time, and Phil rants and raves about military computer strategy games all the time. But you can play with the kittens.

Reclaiming fplogging and plogging: The quest for significance ahead of irrelevance and coincidence

I may not have invented any words in my lifetime, but I do think that language needs to be reclaimed by people who are not saddos. For example, splogging is a good one - those idiots advertising silly things on blogs. But fplogging seems to have been conquered by computer geeks (name of a computer programme). Pflogging is better - it seems to be slightly more controversial (language within software, not owned by anyone). Plogging is also good - political blogging. But I'm a female political blogger. A Fplogger.

Fploggers of the world unite.

What I do want

Phil - I don't think this can wait until bday/xmas. Can we get one of these?
http://www.greengardener.co.uk/wormeries.htm

Trotsky is still alive and loves Marmite!

The subtitle of this message could read 'Do members of the Socialist Workers Party have a sense of humour?' and the answer to that question is (and I'm very sorry to say this) No.

But Trotsky (our k*tten) is gorgeous. Marmite is lovely too (our other k*tten). One day I will gain the technical skills (Phil, hope you're reading this) to load photos on to the web. Until then the readers of this blog will have to imagine two beautiful small female cats - Trotsky; black and white, Marmite; black, causing mayhem. Yes, the stuff coming from their bottoms has led to a few swearwords on this blog, but heh, it's 2005! 'Plurality of provision' as Tony Blair and Patricia Hewitt would say.

A list of Christmas and Birthday gifts that I may not accept

1) cat faeces
2) A porn video starring Michael Winner, Les Dennis and Sir Nigel Crisp
3) a packet of crisps from Iceland
4) Songs of Praise DVD
5) men's briefs
6) 'The Third Reich' by Mr Adolf Hitler
7) 'The Third Way' by Mr Anthony Giddens
8) a large bowler hat
9) Subscription to the spectator/economist/daily mail/evening standard

Does anyone else communicate with their boyfriend using their blog?

I'm sure somebody somewhere must be doing a phD on 'Women, IT and communication'. Hopefully now my blog can be a small part of it.

Anyway, to answer your concerns regarding 'other men' and the internet, Phil, I think the odds of me finding a suitable 'boyfriend' on the internet are about 3 billion to one. You don't need to be a brain surgeon, or even a phd student in neuroscientific surgical skills to work that one out. As you know and I'm sure your parents would testify (even if mine wouldn't) - I'm very fussy. And anyway, we're now 'attached'. As you can no doubt remember, you live here. Quite how I'd slip Scott from Ohio into the flat without you noticing, I'm not sure.

With regards to the Xmas/Bday present issue, I'd love any gift you gave me.

Love is the greatest gift of all. xxx

Does it matter that Phil can't spell?

NEWSFLASH - I have not invented the word splogger

Does apathy cause anarchy or does anarchy cause apathy - does anyone care?

Mum, Dad and Phil: I don't want christmas or birthday presents this year, just comments on my blog

And if you don't put comments on here then I'll start putting comments on here myself - about you!

Seriously though aren't those spam bloggers irritating - are they called sploggers? Mention the k word and they start trying to sell you candles bizarrely. I wonder if the sploggers have identified 'small cats' as a key word.

I can't really be bothered to write something every day, or even every week, or on an annual basis, if nobody's going to read it (and comment on it) to be quite honest. What's the point?

The other idea I thought of doing was emailing my address book to let them know I was doing a blog and get some comments that way, but then I remembered the time I emailed a story and poems I wrote when I went on holiday once and practically caused a riot in the caribbean.

As far as I'm concerned communication is a two way process and this is very one way at the moment. I ask a few questions, and the general public, including my parents and boyfriend ignore me. Anarchy, apathy. Easily confused.

Careers advice

When I worked at Hackney Council we got this free little publication called 'Opportunities' full of jobs for people in benefits and fraud offices. On the second page in was a section called 'Six ways to...' in green. I really loved the tips and collected them every week, building up a book of strategies to do things to do with my job. One day it was 'Six ways to achieve success'. The first answer was 'define success for yourself'. Interesting. The problem is that what you think of as successful changes over time. I've decided today that it's knowing someone who's been part of a sociological experiment. Of course tonight the person who I knew as 'Councillor Neil Hughes' is going to be on 49up as 'Neil'. He was a good councillor and stuck up for all the old people who were being evicted by ITnet (the privatised housing benefit service). Wonderful, that the universe is such a huge place yet humanity and beauty still excel on such a small scale.

Kitten poo, a funeral and a leaving do

Is internationalism coming back into fashion?

How cute are kittens?

How mad are 'fathers for justice'?

Should I do a PhD on a social history of dementia in the twentieth century?

Tattontastic strategy

as I've been so rubbish at adding entries, will add post headlines quickly, then delete or add my own comments later when I've got more time

Could pineapples save lives in surgery; should Phil do a PhD in this?

First posting

Started this blog to discuss ideas about PhDs, kittens, financial management, stoke newington, dancing on margaret thatcher's grave, surgery, boyfriends, journalism, organic food, dementia and the history of medicine.

Oh, and comedy.