My brother just bought the Cars soundtrack and naturally I nicked it.
There is a beautiful song by Brad Paisley called Find Yourself. Here are the words to begin with:
When you find yourself
In some far off place,
And it causes you
To rethink some things.
You start to sense
That slowly you're becoming someone else
And then you find yourself.
When you make new friends
In a brand new town,
And you start to think
About settling down,
The things that would have been lost on you
Are now clear as a bell.
And you find yourself
That's when you find yourself.
Well you go through life
So sure of where you're heading,
And you wind up lost
And it's the best thing that could happen.
'Cause sometimes when you lose your way
It's really just as well.
'Cause you find yourself;
That when you find yourself.
When you meet the one
You've been waiting for,
And she's everything
That you want and more,
You look at her
And you finally start
To live for someone else.
And then you find yourself;
That's when you find yourself.
We go though life
So sure of where we're heading,
And then we wind up lost
And it's the best thing that could happen.
Sometimes when you lose your way
It's really just as well.
Because you find yourself;
Yeah that's when you find yourself.
That chorus, the bit in italics, I love that. It IS cheesy I know, but think about it. Sometimes it takes something really scary to shake you up and make you realise what's really going on. I was also thinking about what happens when you do get lost, as is really lost not metaphorically lost.
You basically have three choices:
1. Just sit in one place and either cry and complain that you'r lost or wishfully hope that eventually someone will come find you (unlikely btw)
2. Wander randomly around and wishfully hope that you'll eventually find your way to where you should be (again, unlikely)
3. Make and rational plan, ask othere people and set off determined to actually find your way.
Like I said, cheesy and a simplistic analogy. But one that I can't help giving at least some thought to all the same.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Time for another rant...
Right. Seeing as I've gotten on abit of a roll with the rants, here's another one for you. Everything I say here is coming from my own personal experience and opinion and precisely because I'm about to rant, I may say some things that people disagree with. There's no offense meant and if anything I do say does offend then you have two options. Either a)talk to me about it, I like to discuss things and won't have a problem with people who disagree with me or b)get over the fact that other people having opinions has offended you.
Ok. So, the bottom line is that I hate the NHS. I know alot of people hate the NHS for various reasons that I won't go into. I am extremely grateful that our country provides free healthcare. I think it's appaulling that countries like the USA don't and I have seen first hand what it's like in a country with almost no healthcare available for the really poor. So I am grateful.
What I HATE about the NHS is their beaurocratic bollocks and the fact that 'technology' has advanced so much that people aren't being treated as individuals anymore. My Grandad was saying the other day that when he was little and went to the doctors, they would look at you and ask questions and then personally make up your medicine for you based on how you were feeling/looking. Then came the blood tests. Wonderful things, and I'm not being sarcastic because sometimes illnesses can't be picked up without a blood test. No, the problem I have is when one of the top specialists in the country can look at a woman unable to feed herself and in a wheelchair and cheerily claim "good news, your blood tests are normal you can go home now". Something is very wrong there.
Not everyone knows, but my mum was inexplicably ill for about 4 and a half years and no-one could figure out what was wrong. She was the one who had doctor after doctor after doctor tell her that she must be making it all up because the blood tests were normal. Whatever normal is. Then she finally went to a private specialist who took one look at her and said she had a thyroid deficiency. She'd been tested for that already but he said that the blood tests were unhelpful if your activity dropped within the range. Basically it meant that although her tests were normal, because the range they claim to be 'normal' is so big, her thyroid activity had actually dropped loads. Thus making her extremely ill but still within the 'normal' blood test.
That specialist gave her the treatment she needed and now she's completely well again. That specialist is now in court for malpractice and will be struck off.
That is what I hate the NHS. The General Medical Council claims that it is of no relevance at all that thousands of people have got better under this doctor's treatment, the fact remains that he's treated outside of blood tests and that is malpractice. Mum's been summoned as a witness to testify for him but in reality the GMC have already made their decision. He will be struck off and anyone who would have had a hope of recovery by going to him will now have no hope.
I can't stand it when people aren't listened to like that. It's so unjust. People aren't being treated as individuals because there are a set of restrictions outside of which doctors cannot work. And I just can't get my head around how anyone can possibly think that every human being is exactly the same. It just isn't true. We are all different in everything and so logically that would follow for things like thyroid production just as much as sleep needs, vision, eating habits, allergies, energy levels etc etc etc. It's just that the power- happy money-loving monsters that have no idea about real people have just set blanket rules because it's cheaper and easier for them. With wider ranges for blood tests, less people will show up with illnesses so regardless of whether they can even function properly they can be told that they are well because the infallible blood tests say so.
There's a possibility that in the future the GMC will ban the drug that my mum takes. I dread the day when I'll have to go back to seeing her lie in bed unable to do anything for herself. And she must be one in literally thousands who will be in the same situation.
There we go. That's why I hate the NHS.
Ok. So, the bottom line is that I hate the NHS. I know alot of people hate the NHS for various reasons that I won't go into. I am extremely grateful that our country provides free healthcare. I think it's appaulling that countries like the USA don't and I have seen first hand what it's like in a country with almost no healthcare available for the really poor. So I am grateful.
What I HATE about the NHS is their beaurocratic bollocks and the fact that 'technology' has advanced so much that people aren't being treated as individuals anymore. My Grandad was saying the other day that when he was little and went to the doctors, they would look at you and ask questions and then personally make up your medicine for you based on how you were feeling/looking. Then came the blood tests. Wonderful things, and I'm not being sarcastic because sometimes illnesses can't be picked up without a blood test. No, the problem I have is when one of the top specialists in the country can look at a woman unable to feed herself and in a wheelchair and cheerily claim "good news, your blood tests are normal you can go home now". Something is very wrong there.
Not everyone knows, but my mum was inexplicably ill for about 4 and a half years and no-one could figure out what was wrong. She was the one who had doctor after doctor after doctor tell her that she must be making it all up because the blood tests were normal. Whatever normal is. Then she finally went to a private specialist who took one look at her and said she had a thyroid deficiency. She'd been tested for that already but he said that the blood tests were unhelpful if your activity dropped within the range. Basically it meant that although her tests were normal, because the range they claim to be 'normal' is so big, her thyroid activity had actually dropped loads. Thus making her extremely ill but still within the 'normal' blood test.
That specialist gave her the treatment she needed and now she's completely well again. That specialist is now in court for malpractice and will be struck off.
That is what I hate the NHS. The General Medical Council claims that it is of no relevance at all that thousands of people have got better under this doctor's treatment, the fact remains that he's treated outside of blood tests and that is malpractice. Mum's been summoned as a witness to testify for him but in reality the GMC have already made their decision. He will be struck off and anyone who would have had a hope of recovery by going to him will now have no hope.
I can't stand it when people aren't listened to like that. It's so unjust. People aren't being treated as individuals because there are a set of restrictions outside of which doctors cannot work. And I just can't get my head around how anyone can possibly think that every human being is exactly the same. It just isn't true. We are all different in everything and so logically that would follow for things like thyroid production just as much as sleep needs, vision, eating habits, allergies, energy levels etc etc etc. It's just that the power- happy money-loving monsters that have no idea about real people have just set blanket rules because it's cheaper and easier for them. With wider ranges for blood tests, less people will show up with illnesses so regardless of whether they can even function properly they can be told that they are well because the infallible blood tests say so.
There's a possibility that in the future the GMC will ban the drug that my mum takes. I dread the day when I'll have to go back to seeing her lie in bed unable to do anything for herself. And she must be one in literally thousands who will be in the same situation.
There we go. That's why I hate the NHS.
Monday, September 03, 2007
NPOWER ARE USELESS
This is how much I HATE NPower.
They are useless, pathetic, rubbish, incompetent, unhelpful, rubbish and did I mention useless?! Ugh, I am so so so fed up with them that even three months after we've moved out of the house they were suppling to I'm still not rid of their pestering.
They are like a blood-sucking leach that just won't die.
Here's a brief run-down of my/our dealings with NPower this year. October: we move into the house and set up a gas and electric account with NPower. They supplied the previous tennants so it made sense. The 'nice' man I spoke to seemed incapable of comprehending that I might not be the world's leading expert on gas and electricity and so I came off the phone non the wiser as to how much we were going to pay or when etc.
Then we get to December and although I don't remember the details (I tried to block them from my memory) we realised that no money had been taken from the Direct Debit scheme we'd set up (or thought we had at any rate). So in January I rang again and the 'helpful' lady told me that we hadn't actually set up an electricity account and did I want to there and then? I have no idea where we'd been getting electricity from for three months, and when I asked if she was going to back-charge us from October she seemed to say no because we hadn't set up an account. Whatever.
On to Easter and they send us a letter saying that our power usage doesn't match the meter readings they have for us so they're going to come round and get a meter reading themselves. The idea of different tennants year on year seems to create a 'does not compute' message with them where they just go into overdrive and start to panic. Apparantly we couldn't have a statement of usage until we'd lived there a year... having been told that we wouldn't be there a year because we are students they mumbled something incoherent and probably went to sit in a dark corner to recover from the total stress of being asked a question that didn't have an answer that a trained monkey could have figured out.
So then we leave the house and come to the point where we cancel the gas and electricity accounts with NPower to be shut of them forever. In an ideal world anyway. The first sign I had that things had not gone to plan was when they took the direct debit payment from my account after we'd cancelled our contract with them. Then they sent the bill to the Durham address instead of to Heather. A phone call today confirmed that they have no record of the account being cancelled and seeing as I don't have the meter reading here with me they're going to take an estimate and give me a final statement from that. As if. Come hell or high water I'll get them a meter reading. There is no way I'm letting them guess how much we owe them.
I'm sorry, but fucking useless. Everything they've done so far has been wrong. How is it so difficult to do something so simple?!?!?!?!?! So now I'm going to have to spend the next few days on the phone trying to fix their incompetence. The only good thing I can see is that I'll get over my phobia of phones.
So. That's how much I hate NPower. I think I'll train thousands of hamsters to run in wheels and generate my own energy in the future. Or build solar panels, or live next to a river and set up a hydro-electric system.... any one of those seems more appealling than this mess right now.
I did have a lovely holiday, it's just so depressing to have to come back to something so horrible. It's going to take ages to sort out and it'll stay on my mind until it is well and truely sorted. Wonderful.
They are useless, pathetic, rubbish, incompetent, unhelpful, rubbish and did I mention useless?! Ugh, I am so so so fed up with them that even three months after we've moved out of the house they were suppling to I'm still not rid of their pestering.
They are like a blood-sucking leach that just won't die.
Here's a brief run-down of my/our dealings with NPower this year. October: we move into the house and set up a gas and electric account with NPower. They supplied the previous tennants so it made sense. The 'nice' man I spoke to seemed incapable of comprehending that I might not be the world's leading expert on gas and electricity and so I came off the phone non the wiser as to how much we were going to pay or when etc.
Then we get to December and although I don't remember the details (I tried to block them from my memory) we realised that no money had been taken from the Direct Debit scheme we'd set up (or thought we had at any rate). So in January I rang again and the 'helpful' lady told me that we hadn't actually set up an electricity account and did I want to there and then? I have no idea where we'd been getting electricity from for three months, and when I asked if she was going to back-charge us from October she seemed to say no because we hadn't set up an account. Whatever.
On to Easter and they send us a letter saying that our power usage doesn't match the meter readings they have for us so they're going to come round and get a meter reading themselves. The idea of different tennants year on year seems to create a 'does not compute' message with them where they just go into overdrive and start to panic. Apparantly we couldn't have a statement of usage until we'd lived there a year... having been told that we wouldn't be there a year because we are students they mumbled something incoherent and probably went to sit in a dark corner to recover from the total stress of being asked a question that didn't have an answer that a trained monkey could have figured out.
So then we leave the house and come to the point where we cancel the gas and electricity accounts with NPower to be shut of them forever. In an ideal world anyway. The first sign I had that things had not gone to plan was when they took the direct debit payment from my account after we'd cancelled our contract with them. Then they sent the bill to the Durham address instead of to Heather. A phone call today confirmed that they have no record of the account being cancelled and seeing as I don't have the meter reading here with me they're going to take an estimate and give me a final statement from that. As if. Come hell or high water I'll get them a meter reading. There is no way I'm letting them guess how much we owe them.
I'm sorry, but fucking useless. Everything they've done so far has been wrong. How is it so difficult to do something so simple?!?!?!?!?! So now I'm going to have to spend the next few days on the phone trying to fix their incompetence. The only good thing I can see is that I'll get over my phobia of phones.
So. That's how much I hate NPower. I think I'll train thousands of hamsters to run in wheels and generate my own energy in the future. Or build solar panels, or live next to a river and set up a hydro-electric system.... any one of those seems more appealling than this mess right now.
I did have a lovely holiday, it's just so depressing to have to come back to something so horrible. It's going to take ages to sort out and it'll stay on my mind until it is well and truely sorted. Wonderful.
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