I have accidentally made too much popcorn. Unpopped corn appears to be one of those unquantifiable solids in the universe. Sure I’ve got to ‘put enough kernels to cover the bottom of the pan’ but we all know that’s never enough, but as soon as you add even one more kernel than that to the mix, suddenly they’ve bred like Gremlins at a Volvic factory and you have all the corn in the world, as though Odeon have decided to ambush you. There are certain substances that exist like this. Muesli is another one. No matter how much muesli you put in your bowl, its always too much. Two teaspoons? Yeah, I want two teaspoons of muesli. Add milk, then suddenly, six VATS of muesli have flooded your kitchen and you have to hire a field of horses to eat their way through it. I bet horses eat muesli. They look like they do. Anyway, scientists should really look into how this occurs to create a similar effect with money or Xbox games and then save the planet. Though I’m sure instead the secret would end up in the hands of evil and we’d find that countries besieged with war would suddenly have thousands of casualties of muesli flooding or perhaps houses filled with popcorn bombs that overfill the house till it bursts from the inside out. These are the sorts of things I am usually concerned about.
Another thing I am very concerned about is what’s going to happen to the NHS. I know. You didn’t even see that link coming? Slick wasn’t it? Read it back, enjoy it. Try and work out how it really doesn’t work and yet it does. Much like the popcorn mystery. Ooh another link! So yes, as I was saying (I wasn’t. I was typing. I don’t say the words out aloud as I input them). It amazes me that even after several hundred healthcare professionals have stated that the NHS changes will cause ‘irreparable damage’ that the government still aren’t considering a U-turn on its action to change the infrastructure that’s worked for so long. If anyone knows about the ‘if it ain’t broke’ stratagem, its the NHS, being that they wouldn’t fix a bone on a patient for the sake of it. Sure its not the most perfect system in the world, but its largely only got worse due to cuts in funding and ridiculous high costs and taxes on medical supplies. It is and has been one of the UK’s most important public services, if not the most important public service since its creation in 1944.
I happily moan about the NHS on a regular basis. My local hospital, The Whittington, is on my phone as ‘The Shittington’. This makes me chuckle in a childish manner every time they call and once booking an appointment in, I will tell anyone I can how long I’ll have to wait when I get there and how it’ll take up my whole day just so a doctor can say ‘come back in 8 months.’ Thing is, its really not very bad. As a type 1 insulin diabetic I have received treatment and care that by now, under a privatised system, would have cost hundreds and hundreds of thousands. Either that or I’d only be able to eat cucumber all day every day and trust me, that’d get wearing. Though I would be thinner. And have lovely skin. Hmm. Er, anyway, I wouldn’t have my diabetic pump right now that saves me injecting 5 times a day – I was genuinely getting worried I’d drink water and it’d pour out of me like a sprinkler system – and has given me the best control of my blood sugar levels since I stopped letting my parents be in charge of my health (this wasn’t as long ago as you’d think considering I rang my dad only yesterday to ask abut my headaches).
It does work, and it’d work better if the government put funding into the right areas. GPs shouldn’t be allowed to have management over the money of our health service. In all my years of diabetes (26 now, should you ask) a GP has only ever referred me to a doctor at a hospital to be dealt with if its anything more than a flu. Even flu has required them sifting through books and manuals to find what it is, rather than knowing. Even worse was my last GP who spent ages trying to fob off different tablets at me ‘for my blood sugars’ only for my hospital doctor to tell me that they should only be prescribed to Asian men over the age of 45 and that I should never ever have been taking them! Turned out my GP would get a bonus every time he prescribed such drugs and I knew then that my health was secondary to his pay check. To think that there are GPs out there – and by no means do I mean all of them. My current one is awesome – that will be using the budget they are given for purposes that aren’t in patients interests, is worrying.
Health professionals know what they are talking about when it comes to healthcare. That’s why they are health professionals. I know this doesn’t resonate with Andrew Lansley considering that representatives from Unilever, McDonalds, Walkers crips and Pepsi have all helped input into the health legislation. If anything it seems he’ll only do the exact opposite of what’s necessary to keep this country’s health in good condition. Considering people will start being too poor to eat well, or afford the gym or other ‘luxuries’ anytime soon, surely it should be a priority? Of course its not though, as money comes first. I really hope Andrew Lansley considers a similar ignorance of healthcare professionals should he get very ill.
Rant over. I’ll continue eating my mountain of popcorn now thinking about the world’s wrongs. Should you want to do your bit to save the NHS, you could attend this which should be excellent:
