...i am not a ho ho ho...

and what d'ya know?
it's that time of year again.
for a brief moment I was determined to not enjoy it as well, I don't have many things to enjoy what with being old, lonely and bogged down with too much work to do.... Even so, I've not been able to completely shut out what can only be called the "Christmas Cheer" and I have already caught myself on several occasions humming or singing christmas songs (not caroles). I guess I am partly to blame because I have also been hunting around for presents as for some odd reason, I've felt like being more generous than my usual self. Alas, as per tradition, I have only got one present bought and wrapped (that thing for lou doesn't count). Looks like Friday is shopping day then....
Lovely...

Now for some news.
As you might've seen on todays' news reports, there is another risk of hospitals falling foul of yet another strain of virus that could potentially result in many deaths. What's the problem? The hospitals STILL aren't clean enough. More to the point, they're STILL not much different to how they were before/during the MRSA outbreak. Just what does that say about the state of the health service? Granted that i know that we have a relatively good service condindering how much strain it is under but how long is it going to be before it clicks in who-ever's in charge's head that something serious needs to be done? I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees a big problem with how the current government is running things but how long are people going to go on blindly accepting things like this happening? Haven't they spotted the problem yet? Out-sourcing these sorts of operations (hospital cleaning, supported housing, traffic/parking enforcement) which by their nature turns it into something based on profit, in turn leads to a massive drop in the actual quality of service. I am sure that I'm not the only one to see the laxing of the parking meter feeding situation as a good step in the right direction but the problem still stands that the parking attendents are, let's just say, overzealous.

The other day I was browsing in Waterstones and remembering a conversaton I had over dinner about the great man himself, Winston Churchill. Why can't we have a party leader like this anymore? A proper stubborn old man who will blindly ram his way into any situation and gladly await the consequences after it's over. Y'know, someone with balls.
There is always talk of "our Tony" wanting a more American style government but then where's the semi-frequent public addresses? You can find fault with Churchill, mainly because he is/was so clearly a man of a different era but one thing you can't fault is his public address and his skill with the english language. In an era of announcements being carefull drafted and surgically worded to avoid any actual content, it is refeshing to browse through the collection of Chirchill's public speeches and knowing that every word was chosen by him in his office by himself. Yes, in today's world, they might be a bit too personal and too emotive to be politically correct but heck, sometimes you got to say screw you to PC and just tell people how it is because otherwise they just won't understand.