Sarah has been admitted to hospital. She's had a good sleep and is absolutely fine and chirpy this morning. As she has been every day after these episodes. I think we may have made enugh fuss that she will get some experienced attention and the tests she needs today.
To clarify my points yesterday:
All the various support staff were excellent throughout. Quick, efficient, helpful, faultless. The only thing you can't get in a hospital is to see a doctor.
Is it right, that as a matter of routine, the wait to see a doctor, unless you've severed your arm with a chainsaw, is 3, 4, 5 hours or more?
When my daughter had her first episode I told the doctor I thought they were fits and could she do the appropriate tests. She said I was wrong and it was not necessary. On the next four occasions I had the same discussion. Surely that's not right. We have made so much fuss that this might finally happen now. I will be the happiest dad in the world to find I'm wrong, they were right and I'll publicly say I'm an idiot. But should it need all this?
Friday, 22 July 2011
Thursday, 21 July 2011
The NHS is broken
I loved the NHS. I have had the badge on my Twitter avatar when it's been under attack. My first job was in the NHS (as a medical scientist), my mother was a nurse, my father was a hospital porter, my uncle an ambulance driver, my sister a laboratory biochemist and my ex-wife a public health service microbiologist. The NHS has helped my kids be born, looked after my friends and family when they've needed it and my parents have died there. So you can see my affection for it.
But I think its time is over and should be dismantled. A recent experience has opened my eyes to its core problems.
On Friday evening at 6pm I got a call from a local park that my 16 year old daughter had collapsed and had been unconscious for 30 minutes. Of course I sped there, found her and called an ambulance. While waiting I thought she was having a fit, shoulders twitching uncontrollably. The ambulance was there in 10 minutes, great expertise from the paramedics who took her to A&E at Warrington Hospital.
Loads of administrative and nursing staff there, so she was directed within 10 minutes to the paediatric emergencies. Again they had five nurses and an administrator and was seen very quickly and efficiently and assessed by a nurse who said she needed to see a doctor. From my phone call to here had taken less than 50 minutes, had involved many people. Very good. Two and a half hours later we were still waiting to see a doctor. The three other kids there had been waiting even longer. One toddler was bleeding from multiple facial lacerations. He'd been there for three hours since his assessment. There were no doctors to be seen.
After three hours I talked to the five or six support staff, who were very helpful, did everything they could when it was needed, but mainly had to stand around chatting waiting for a doctor to arrive. They suggested, now it was after midnight, that it might be quicker to go to to the out of hours emergency GP service down the corridor. So we did. Another spacious room with comfy chairs, a dispensary with a pharmacist, a receptionist and a nurse. There were also three security guards, us and one other patient. All ten of us spent the next hour trying to avoid eye contact. The pharmacist and receptionist looked at their PC screens. The security guards messed about with their walkie-talkies and played with their mobiles. I had a Kit Kat. My daughter slept.
Then a GP appeared. She asked my daughter what she'd eaten, how she felt, a few other questions and then said she must have fainted and we should go home. We did.
The next day was Sunday. My daughter was fine all day. Her friend came round and at about 7 pm she asked could she walk her friend to the end of the road. Half an hour later we got a call from her friend saying my daughter was unconscious in an ambulance on the way to hospital.
Now please re-read paras two and three. Assessed efficiently by dozens of paramedics, nurses and administrators, then a three hour wait for any sign of a doctor. This time they admitted her and asked us to wait for a doctor to see her. Two hours later one came. She said they'd do some tests, but she was certain they weren't fits, "just a teenage girl fainting" and to go home and come back in the morning.
I did. Monday now. What a different place hospitals are now. Gleaming shops, flower stalls, restaurants, employing lots and lots of people. Impressive.
I saw a different doctor who said all tests looked OK and it wasn't unusual for teenage girls to faint and she should put her head between her legs if it happened again. I questioned wether being unconscious for 30 minutes and twitching constituted 'fainting', to be told oh yes, quite normal.
I took her home. Tuesday now. Sarah was fine all day. At 6pm... You know don't you? Groundhog day. She was admitted again. My wife went to collect her again and was told NOT TO BRING HER IF IT HAPPENS AGAIN SHE'S JUST FAINTING.
On Wednesday night she had two huge fits in my arms. The first lasted 30 minutes. Her head, body and limbs were twitching uncontrollably. Her eyes were rolled back in her head. I had to put my fingers in her mouth so she bit me instead of her tongue. She came round. 20 minutes later she had another, but more violent and lasting about 40 minutes.
We'd been told not to take her to hospital so we just put her to bed with her mum.
Today it's Thursday. We got her a GP appointment. Within 5 minutes he said it was quite obviously an epileptic episode and she should be on medication. The hospital doctors would have been fine for her to go mountain climbing or open sea swimming.
I'm typing this on Thursday evening at 7.45pm. My daughter has had another fit, has come round now and is at Warrington Hospital waiting for a doctor to appear.
So, why do I think the Health Service is broken beyond repair?
1. It is now a job creation scheme not a health service. It's prime purpose is to massage the unemployment figures. This makes sense in many ways and I certainly don't begrudge many fine people a well-earned job. But be honest about it and don't pretend there's any link between the number of people employed and the standard of patient care.
2. Doctors in this country are simply not very good any more. I'm really not sure why this is, but I intend to find out. I have several doctors as friends. They are great people and I love their company, but I wouldn't have any more faith in them than the doctors whose 'skills' I've recently experienced. Sorry.
3. The NHS cares more about not being sued or suffering bad media coverage than saving lives. Hence the ratio of administration to medics.
I haven't got any easy solutions, but I know the NHS isn't it. It's broken.
Still waiting.
But I think its time is over and should be dismantled. A recent experience has opened my eyes to its core problems.
On Friday evening at 6pm I got a call from a local park that my 16 year old daughter had collapsed and had been unconscious for 30 minutes. Of course I sped there, found her and called an ambulance. While waiting I thought she was having a fit, shoulders twitching uncontrollably. The ambulance was there in 10 minutes, great expertise from the paramedics who took her to A&E at Warrington Hospital.
Loads of administrative and nursing staff there, so she was directed within 10 minutes to the paediatric emergencies. Again they had five nurses and an administrator and was seen very quickly and efficiently and assessed by a nurse who said she needed to see a doctor. From my phone call to here had taken less than 50 minutes, had involved many people. Very good. Two and a half hours later we were still waiting to see a doctor. The three other kids there had been waiting even longer. One toddler was bleeding from multiple facial lacerations. He'd been there for three hours since his assessment. There were no doctors to be seen.
After three hours I talked to the five or six support staff, who were very helpful, did everything they could when it was needed, but mainly had to stand around chatting waiting for a doctor to arrive. They suggested, now it was after midnight, that it might be quicker to go to to the out of hours emergency GP service down the corridor. So we did. Another spacious room with comfy chairs, a dispensary with a pharmacist, a receptionist and a nurse. There were also three security guards, us and one other patient. All ten of us spent the next hour trying to avoid eye contact. The pharmacist and receptionist looked at their PC screens. The security guards messed about with their walkie-talkies and played with their mobiles. I had a Kit Kat. My daughter slept.
Then a GP appeared. She asked my daughter what she'd eaten, how she felt, a few other questions and then said she must have fainted and we should go home. We did.
The next day was Sunday. My daughter was fine all day. Her friend came round and at about 7 pm she asked could she walk her friend to the end of the road. Half an hour later we got a call from her friend saying my daughter was unconscious in an ambulance on the way to hospital.
Now please re-read paras two and three. Assessed efficiently by dozens of paramedics, nurses and administrators, then a three hour wait for any sign of a doctor. This time they admitted her and asked us to wait for a doctor to see her. Two hours later one came. She said they'd do some tests, but she was certain they weren't fits, "just a teenage girl fainting" and to go home and come back in the morning.
I did. Monday now. What a different place hospitals are now. Gleaming shops, flower stalls, restaurants, employing lots and lots of people. Impressive.
I saw a different doctor who said all tests looked OK and it wasn't unusual for teenage girls to faint and she should put her head between her legs if it happened again. I questioned wether being unconscious for 30 minutes and twitching constituted 'fainting', to be told oh yes, quite normal.
I took her home. Tuesday now. Sarah was fine all day. At 6pm... You know don't you? Groundhog day. She was admitted again. My wife went to collect her again and was told NOT TO BRING HER IF IT HAPPENS AGAIN SHE'S JUST FAINTING.
On Wednesday night she had two huge fits in my arms. The first lasted 30 minutes. Her head, body and limbs were twitching uncontrollably. Her eyes were rolled back in her head. I had to put my fingers in her mouth so she bit me instead of her tongue. She came round. 20 minutes later she had another, but more violent and lasting about 40 minutes.
We'd been told not to take her to hospital so we just put her to bed with her mum.
Today it's Thursday. We got her a GP appointment. Within 5 minutes he said it was quite obviously an epileptic episode and she should be on medication. The hospital doctors would have been fine for her to go mountain climbing or open sea swimming.
I'm typing this on Thursday evening at 7.45pm. My daughter has had another fit, has come round now and is at Warrington Hospital waiting for a doctor to appear.
So, why do I think the Health Service is broken beyond repair?
1. It is now a job creation scheme not a health service. It's prime purpose is to massage the unemployment figures. This makes sense in many ways and I certainly don't begrudge many fine people a well-earned job. But be honest about it and don't pretend there's any link between the number of people employed and the standard of patient care.
2. Doctors in this country are simply not very good any more. I'm really not sure why this is, but I intend to find out. I have several doctors as friends. They are great people and I love their company, but I wouldn't have any more faith in them than the doctors whose 'skills' I've recently experienced. Sorry.
3. The NHS cares more about not being sued or suffering bad media coverage than saving lives. Hence the ratio of administration to medics.
I haven't got any easy solutions, but I know the NHS isn't it. It's broken.
Still waiting.
Monday, 14 July 2008
It’s just not cricket…
Tim, I just saw this quote and it’s made me think:
“the big difference between rugby and football is that footballers spend 90 minutes pretending they’re hurt and rugby players spend 80 minutes pretending they’re not”
You know how much I love both these sports. And the great times we’ve had at Deepdale watching the best team in Lancashire.
“the big difference between rugby and football is that footballers spend 90 minutes pretending they’re hurt and rugby players spend 80 minutes pretending they’re not”
You know how much I love both these sports. And the great times we’ve had at Deepdale watching the best team in Lancashire.
But I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s now something rotten at the heart of football. It’s not the huge salaries and foreign owners that bother me, that’s just how the world works – if a lot of people will pay to watch something that very few other people can do they’ll get loads of money.
I’m no angel myself. I’ve had some choice insults for the donkeylashers over the years. And those who’ve had the misfortune to watch me play will tell you I was much more Vinnie Jones than Ronaldo. I’ve seen some bad times for football – the boot boys and Heysel for just two. I’ve seen dirty players (Kenny Burns anyone?), rubbish players (Massimo Taibi), useless managers (Bobby Charlton) barmy chairmen (Vladimir Romanov), blind refs (Uriah Rennie) and divers (Jurgen Klinsmann), But nothing that ever made me despair.
But now it’s the faking injury, the screaming at the ref, the excuses after every defeat, the refusal to stick to contracts anyone signs. And when you start to see these things being practised on our local park by 9 year-olds you know something is awfully wrong.
I’m very sad to say this Tim, because it’s given me a lifetime of pleasure, but I think you should leave football behind. And watch and play a sport which has values by which you can run your life.
Sunday, 13 July 2008
The most important year in the history of pop music was…
1976. No doubt. And the most important band in pop, ever? The Sex Pistols.
Now there’ll be quite a few people who disagree with this. A lot of people bang on about the Beatles (mostly Liverpudlians and Japanese tourists). Then a lot more will go on about a man called Elvis ( Mostly fat people from Wyoming who think they’re Irish and those queuing outside the post office on Thursday morning). And then there’ll be a load of bores who’ll talk about some black man from Louisiana no-one’s ever heard of called Old Blind Fatbelly or something like that (but you probably won’t meet them because they don’t go out much).
But before the revolution that was Punk, music had become totally boring. You won’t believe this but some songs had guitar solos longer than the entire lifetime output of the Pistols (just 5 singles and 1 album).
There were quite a few who were really good before then – Otis Redding and The Who were two of my favourites, but the trouble was Pop in those days was just a spectator sport when all the rest of us had to watch and shout and say how clever they all were.
Now, to give credit to the Americans, they had the bands who showed the first Punk bands the way to go – Velvet Underground, New York Dolls and some others. They just didn’t have the attitude to pull it off.
But what was different about punk was that anyone could have a go and get involved. Before then it was as likely that you could play in a ‘proper’ band as that you would play footy for United on Ronaldo’s wages. But when Punk came along anyone could have a go. You didn’t need to be much good at playing an instrument or singing. And even if you weren’t in a band you could design the record sleeve or do something else. Even your old dad managed a band – well, rang up some pubs to see if they’d let us play actually.
So here’s some recommended listening to get you going:
Sex Pistols – anything
The Clash – ‘White Riot’ and ‘London Calling’
Buzzcocks – ‘Ever Fallen in Love’
The Damned – ‘New Rose’
The Adverts – ‘Gary Gilmore’s eyes’
X-ray Specs – ‘Oh bondage, up yours’
And read this: 'England's Dreaming' Jon Savage
Enjoy kids, but don’t spit.
Now there’ll be quite a few people who disagree with this. A lot of people bang on about the Beatles (mostly Liverpudlians and Japanese tourists). Then a lot more will go on about a man called Elvis ( Mostly fat people from Wyoming who think they’re Irish and those queuing outside the post office on Thursday morning). And then there’ll be a load of bores who’ll talk about some black man from Louisiana no-one’s ever heard of called Old Blind Fatbelly or something like that (but you probably won’t meet them because they don’t go out much).
But before the revolution that was Punk, music had become totally boring. You won’t believe this but some songs had guitar solos longer than the entire lifetime output of the Pistols (just 5 singles and 1 album).
There were quite a few who were really good before then – Otis Redding and The Who were two of my favourites, but the trouble was Pop in those days was just a spectator sport when all the rest of us had to watch and shout and say how clever they all were.
Now, to give credit to the Americans, they had the bands who showed the first Punk bands the way to go – Velvet Underground, New York Dolls and some others. They just didn’t have the attitude to pull it off.
But what was different about punk was that anyone could have a go and get involved. Before then it was as likely that you could play in a ‘proper’ band as that you would play footy for United on Ronaldo’s wages. But when Punk came along anyone could have a go. You didn’t need to be much good at playing an instrument or singing. And even if you weren’t in a band you could design the record sleeve or do something else. Even your old dad managed a band – well, rang up some pubs to see if they’d let us play actually.
So here’s some recommended listening to get you going:
Sex Pistols – anything
The Clash – ‘White Riot’ and ‘London Calling’
Buzzcocks – ‘Ever Fallen in Love’
The Damned – ‘New Rose’
The Adverts – ‘Gary Gilmore’s eyes’
X-ray Specs – ‘Oh bondage, up yours’
And read this: 'England's Dreaming' Jon Savage
Enjoy kids, but don’t spit.
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
How we ended up with Dave and Nick...
Now kids, we’re going to talk about politics today (come back Tim, now). This is the stuff they’re rabbitting on about in the news before the sport and that bit about the Chinese baby with 2 heads.
I know it’s boring, but you’re going to have your teachers banging on about it and you don’t want to just learn about it from the telly (especially not the BBC who think we live in London and discuss serious issues over dinner every night rather than row at tea time).
Ages ago it used to be much more straightforward. The king or queen could do pretty much anything they wanted and if they told you to do something you had to. And they didn’t need to have a reason. Like mum really. The trouble was they kept getting on peoples nerves (also a bit like mum) because they needed money from everyone, usually to go to war with Spain or France (no-one had holiday homes there then). That was usually because some Spanish king’s daughter wouldn’t marry them or sometimes the Pope just told them to (we’ll come back to this some other time). So, to get the money, they sent soldiers round to everyone’s house and charged you for how many windows you had or something (that’s called tax, which is the thing which makes dad grumpy all January).
Anyway, as you can imagine, everyone eventually got fed up with all this, so a guy called Oliver Cromwell (write this down Sarah) got a gang together and (you’ll like this bit Tim) chopped the king’s head off. They then set up this thing up called Parliament which was supposed to mean that everyone could have a say in what the rules were and how much money we had to give. But that was before Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and Rupert Murdoch changed all that. But I’m getting ahead of myself. We still had kings and queens but all they had to do now was wave, go to horse races and have their picture taken.
So everyone had a say now. Well, not exactly everyone at first. For ages you could only have your say (that’s called a vote) if you had a lot of money and definitely not if you were a woman. At first there were just the two political parties The Whigs (who later became the Liberals and just recently have started changing their name every few years by swapping the order of the words social, democrat and liberal for some reason). They were rich, posh people who made up rules to suit other rich, posh people. But they realised that if they weren’t going to get their heads chopped of like the old king (Charles 1st Sarah, write that down), they’d better try and keep all the workers who they got the money off happy. So they gave them houses next to their factories so they could get to work on time and stuff like that. That’s why they changed their name to Liberals.
The other lot were called the Tories. They were also rich, posh people who made rules for other rich posh people. The difference was they didn’t pretend to care less about anyone else and just tried to make sure nothing ever changed (that’s why they eventually changed their name to Conservatives). Now since only rich people could vote then, as you can imagine they were very popular.
Now, that went along quite nicely for a while, but eventually working and poor people got to vote and even women. After a while they realised there were more of them than all the rest put together and they should have their own gang to make rules that they wanted, so they started the Labour party.
So that’s where we were, everyone knew where they stood: vote for the Tories if you want loads of money, pay no tax but have no hospitals, vote for Labour if you want to keep your job, be looked after if you can’t work but give most of your money away to the government. Vote Liberal if… well that’s a bit of a sad story really. Something went wrong somewhere (I think it started with their leader, another bloke called Norman Scott and there was a dog involved somehow but I forget) and everyone forgot why they should vote for them. Now the only people who vote for them are people who are fed up with the other two.
This went on for quite a while. They pretty much had tries and turns at who was in charge. One party promised to do a lot of good things so everyone voted for them. Then they didn’t do the good things so everyone voted for the other party next time because they really promised to do a lot of good things. Then they didn’t…and so on.
Strangely, everyone seemed quite happy with this. Then this person called Margaret Thatcher became in charge and changed everything. She was a very strict lady. You know when mum’s in one of those moods and then she finds out you haven’t tidied your rooms? Well Margaret Thatcher was like that every single day. Which was quite good in some ways because she got everything done she wanted. The problem was they weren’t all good things. She had this big fight with a man with funny hair who was in charge of the miners who dug up all our coal. She got really mad and sacked all of them which is why we have to get all our coal from Poland now. Mind you, it wasn’t all her fault. The man with the funny hair was bonkers and kept making everyone in the country stop working whenever he didn’t get his own way. Then she tried to take money off everyone by counting how many people lived in your house – whether you had any money or not.
Everyone got really angry again, almost as bad as in Oliver Cromwell days. They even had fights in the street like England away matches. Eventually, even her best mates got fed up and sacked her, but it was too late, she’d made everyone get mad with each other.
You see, before she was in charge most people really only pretended not to like each other (like WWF wrestlers Tim). But afterwards it was different. People showed off about how much money they had and everyone started to care about if they had a bigger telly than next door. The odd thing was that even though no-one liked the Conservatives much any more they didn’t like Labour either because they thought they’d make everyone stop working again like the man with the funny hair used to do. So they stayed in charge. But then they started doing stuff like in Eastenders – taking other peoples’ money, going out with their secretaries and things like that. So no-one knew who to vote for. Then a very clever man called Tony Blair got to be in charge of the Labour party. He realised that he was never going to get in charge of the whole country (which he really, really wanted) because not enough people would vote for them. So he got a gang of people together who do what dad does – find ways of getting people to change their minds about things – and asked them how he could win. They told him it was dead simple. First, promise to do the things that people liked about the Conservatives and never do the things people hated about the Labour party. Second, realise it was the telly and newspapers who told people who to vote for so make them like him. Then finally, give your gang a new name so they didn’t think they were voting for the gang that the man with the funny hair was in. So that’s what he did. Now some of his mates weren’t happy about this – they really didn’t like the things he’d made them promise. He just told them it didn’t matter, they weren’t in charge anyway and when they were he’d talk to them about it (he didn’t).
It was a big success – he won! And he kept winning and everyone loved him, even the Spice Girls (well, nearly everyone). He even did some very good things and all of us were having a really good time. But then he did a silly thing. The boss of America wanted to take over the country of a horrible man because he was worried that Americans wouldn’t have any petrol to put in their cars and the horrible man’s country had loads of it. So he bullied Tony Blair into telling us some lies that the horrible man was coming to get us so we would allow him to help the American. So we did and we beat the horrible man’s army and the Americans are in charge of his country now. But someone told on Tony, we found out about his lie and people didn’t like him as much any more. So he decided to get a different job before he got sacked.
So he let his best mate be in charge - Gordon. The trouble with him was that he wasn't as clever at making people like him as Tony Blair. And people weren't having such a good time anymore and having to cancel Sky Movies so they started to get a bit grumpy. Then we lent all our money we were going to spend on hospitals to people who stand outside the late shop drinking cider and they didn't give it back. So we were in even more trouble. Then everybody got so fed up that we decided to pick who was in charge again (write this down Sarah - a General Election)
So the Conservatives knew it would be easy to get a turn at being in charge. Their boss is Dave who loves Tony Blair and is trying to be like him. He seems a nice man and looks a bit like Gray on Emmerdale (remember him Sarah?). He’s rich and posh like they used to be in the old days but he wears jeans and trainers anyway.
But then it got a bit strange. The Liberals had swapped the words around in their name a few times and were now the Liberal Democrats. Their boss is called Nick who looks just like Dave and used to go to school just down the road from him. As usual, nobody was going to vote for Nick, but then they did a kind of X-Factor on Telly and Nick won it, because Gordon had gone completely bonkers by then and had started shouting at old ladies when they were out shopping and Dave kept saying he agreed with everything Nick said.
So, on the day everyone picked their favourite to be in charge, nobody won! Then Gordon and Dave tried to make Nick their best mate so they could gang-up on the other. Everybody knew that Gordon would get left out, so he sulked and wouldn't even go and see the Queen and say sorry like he was supposed to. But in the end I think his wife had a strict word with him,like Mum, and he agreed that Nick and Dave could have their turn,
And so they're in charge now. They're playing nicely together so far, but it is the Summer Holidays.
I know it’s boring, but you’re going to have your teachers banging on about it and you don’t want to just learn about it from the telly (especially not the BBC who think we live in London and discuss serious issues over dinner every night rather than row at tea time).
Ages ago it used to be much more straightforward. The king or queen could do pretty much anything they wanted and if they told you to do something you had to. And they didn’t need to have a reason. Like mum really. The trouble was they kept getting on peoples nerves (also a bit like mum) because they needed money from everyone, usually to go to war with Spain or France (no-one had holiday homes there then). That was usually because some Spanish king’s daughter wouldn’t marry them or sometimes the Pope just told them to (we’ll come back to this some other time). So, to get the money, they sent soldiers round to everyone’s house and charged you for how many windows you had or something (that’s called tax, which is the thing which makes dad grumpy all January).
Anyway, as you can imagine, everyone eventually got fed up with all this, so a guy called Oliver Cromwell (write this down Sarah) got a gang together and (you’ll like this bit Tim) chopped the king’s head off. They then set up this thing up called Parliament which was supposed to mean that everyone could have a say in what the rules were and how much money we had to give. But that was before Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and Rupert Murdoch changed all that. But I’m getting ahead of myself. We still had kings and queens but all they had to do now was wave, go to horse races and have their picture taken.
So everyone had a say now. Well, not exactly everyone at first. For ages you could only have your say (that’s called a vote) if you had a lot of money and definitely not if you were a woman. At first there were just the two political parties The Whigs (who later became the Liberals and just recently have started changing their name every few years by swapping the order of the words social, democrat and liberal for some reason). They were rich, posh people who made up rules to suit other rich, posh people. But they realised that if they weren’t going to get their heads chopped of like the old king (Charles 1st Sarah, write that down), they’d better try and keep all the workers who they got the money off happy. So they gave them houses next to their factories so they could get to work on time and stuff like that. That’s why they changed their name to Liberals.
The other lot were called the Tories. They were also rich, posh people who made rules for other rich posh people. The difference was they didn’t pretend to care less about anyone else and just tried to make sure nothing ever changed (that’s why they eventually changed their name to Conservatives). Now since only rich people could vote then, as you can imagine they were very popular.
Now, that went along quite nicely for a while, but eventually working and poor people got to vote and even women. After a while they realised there were more of them than all the rest put together and they should have their own gang to make rules that they wanted, so they started the Labour party.
So that’s where we were, everyone knew where they stood: vote for the Tories if you want loads of money, pay no tax but have no hospitals, vote for Labour if you want to keep your job, be looked after if you can’t work but give most of your money away to the government. Vote Liberal if… well that’s a bit of a sad story really. Something went wrong somewhere (I think it started with their leader, another bloke called Norman Scott and there was a dog involved somehow but I forget) and everyone forgot why they should vote for them. Now the only people who vote for them are people who are fed up with the other two.
This went on for quite a while. They pretty much had tries and turns at who was in charge. One party promised to do a lot of good things so everyone voted for them. Then they didn’t do the good things so everyone voted for the other party next time because they really promised to do a lot of good things. Then they didn’t…and so on.
Strangely, everyone seemed quite happy with this. Then this person called Margaret Thatcher became in charge and changed everything. She was a very strict lady. You know when mum’s in one of those moods and then she finds out you haven’t tidied your rooms? Well Margaret Thatcher was like that every single day. Which was quite good in some ways because she got everything done she wanted. The problem was they weren’t all good things. She had this big fight with a man with funny hair who was in charge of the miners who dug up all our coal. She got really mad and sacked all of them which is why we have to get all our coal from Poland now. Mind you, it wasn’t all her fault. The man with the funny hair was bonkers and kept making everyone in the country stop working whenever he didn’t get his own way. Then she tried to take money off everyone by counting how many people lived in your house – whether you had any money or not.
Everyone got really angry again, almost as bad as in Oliver Cromwell days. They even had fights in the street like England away matches. Eventually, even her best mates got fed up and sacked her, but it was too late, she’d made everyone get mad with each other.
You see, before she was in charge most people really only pretended not to like each other (like WWF wrestlers Tim). But afterwards it was different. People showed off about how much money they had and everyone started to care about if they had a bigger telly than next door. The odd thing was that even though no-one liked the Conservatives much any more they didn’t like Labour either because they thought they’d make everyone stop working again like the man with the funny hair used to do. So they stayed in charge. But then they started doing stuff like in Eastenders – taking other peoples’ money, going out with their secretaries and things like that. So no-one knew who to vote for. Then a very clever man called Tony Blair got to be in charge of the Labour party. He realised that he was never going to get in charge of the whole country (which he really, really wanted) because not enough people would vote for them. So he got a gang of people together who do what dad does – find ways of getting people to change their minds about things – and asked them how he could win. They told him it was dead simple. First, promise to do the things that people liked about the Conservatives and never do the things people hated about the Labour party. Second, realise it was the telly and newspapers who told people who to vote for so make them like him. Then finally, give your gang a new name so they didn’t think they were voting for the gang that the man with the funny hair was in. So that’s what he did. Now some of his mates weren’t happy about this – they really didn’t like the things he’d made them promise. He just told them it didn’t matter, they weren’t in charge anyway and when they were he’d talk to them about it (he didn’t).
It was a big success – he won! And he kept winning and everyone loved him, even the Spice Girls (well, nearly everyone). He even did some very good things and all of us were having a really good time. But then he did a silly thing. The boss of America wanted to take over the country of a horrible man because he was worried that Americans wouldn’t have any petrol to put in their cars and the horrible man’s country had loads of it. So he bullied Tony Blair into telling us some lies that the horrible man was coming to get us so we would allow him to help the American. So we did and we beat the horrible man’s army and the Americans are in charge of his country now. But someone told on Tony, we found out about his lie and people didn’t like him as much any more. So he decided to get a different job before he got sacked.
So he let his best mate be in charge - Gordon. The trouble with him was that he wasn't as clever at making people like him as Tony Blair. And people weren't having such a good time anymore and having to cancel Sky Movies so they started to get a bit grumpy. Then we lent all our money we were going to spend on hospitals to people who stand outside the late shop drinking cider and they didn't give it back. So we were in even more trouble. Then everybody got so fed up that we decided to pick who was in charge again (write this down Sarah - a General Election)
So the Conservatives knew it would be easy to get a turn at being in charge. Their boss is Dave who loves Tony Blair and is trying to be like him. He seems a nice man and looks a bit like Gray on Emmerdale (remember him Sarah?). He’s rich and posh like they used to be in the old days but he wears jeans and trainers anyway.
But then it got a bit strange. The Liberals had swapped the words around in their name a few times and were now the Liberal Democrats. Their boss is called Nick who looks just like Dave and used to go to school just down the road from him. As usual, nobody was going to vote for Nick, but then they did a kind of X-Factor on Telly and Nick won it, because Gordon had gone completely bonkers by then and had started shouting at old ladies when they were out shopping and Dave kept saying he agreed with everything Nick said.
So, on the day everyone picked their favourite to be in charge, nobody won! Then Gordon and Dave tried to make Nick their best mate so they could gang-up on the other. Everybody knew that Gordon would get left out, so he sulked and wouldn't even go and see the Queen and say sorry like he was supposed to. But in the end I think his wife had a strict word with him,like Mum, and he agreed that Nick and Dave could have their turn,
And so they're in charge now. They're playing nicely together so far, but it is the Summer Holidays.
Monday, 7 July 2008
I wish I was like Hayley...
Sarah, Tim (Tim, Sarah gets to go first because she's older and s comes before t in the alphabet, so stop moaning. And don't hit her).
Everyone wishes they were different. Everyone. Even that girl with perfect skin and no spots who all the boys fancy and the toughest boy in the school (in fact, especially him). There'll be kids at school who wish they were you. Don't laugh, there will. Even David Beckham has said he wishes he was like Michael Jordan the basket ball player!
Here are just a few of the things I wanted to be when I was a teenager (there's more of these to come):
Older
Black
6'2"
George Best
Irresistable to girls
Jimi Hendrix
A great dancer
Now here are just a few of the things I want to be now:
Younger
Tanned
6'2"
Irresistable to women
George Clooney
(I managed the great dancer one, don't listen to your mum)
Everyone wishes they were different. Everyone. Even that girl with perfect skin and no spots who all the boys fancy and the toughest boy in the school (in fact, especially him). There'll be kids at school who wish they were you. Don't laugh, there will. Even David Beckham has said he wishes he was like Michael Jordan the basket ball player!
Here are just a few of the things I wanted to be when I was a teenager (there's more of these to come):
Older
Black
6'2"
George Best
Irresistable to girls
Jimi Hendrix
A great dancer
Now here are just a few of the things I want to be now:
Younger
Tanned
6'2"
Irresistable to women
George Clooney
(I managed the great dancer one, don't listen to your mum)
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