Sir Charles Walker, the vice chair of the the backbench Conservative 1922 Committee, has escalated his attack on Matt Hancock, the health secretary, over the plan to threaten anyone lying about visiting a “red list” country with up to 10 years in jail. Walker was reasonably robust on the World at One (see 2.11pm), but on Sky New just now he let rip even further. Walker said:
Are we really going to lock people up for 10 years for being dishonest about the fact that they’ve been to Portugal?
By all means give them a fine, give them a hefty fine, a few thousand pounds. Are you really seriously suggesting, secretary of state, that we’ve got enough prison capacity to start locking up 19-year-old silly kids for 10 years?
What a stupid thing to say, I mean a really stupid thing to say, that demeans his office and his position around the cabinet table.
Last August marked the 35th anniversary of my not being able to take a single step without feeling pain. Due to a simple mistake while making an everyday driving manoeuvre I found myself fighting for my life and forever more disabled.
As a young man with what I later found to be a very unhelpfully stoic attitude, I forged ahead in denial of my physical limitations and eaten away with the frustration of those limits and angry inside with the ever present pain. As I now know, being in denial of constant pain is a very bad reality to deal with. From day one I accepted responsibility for my mistake and to this day I may or may not have been in the wrong. That does not matter now of course, but what did matter was my own harsh judgement of myself. By feeling responsible for the accident I was also responsible for the resulting injury, pain & disability.
So I put the lot to one side and got on with life after a 12 month diversion of hospitalisation, treatment, surgery & learning to walk again. Stupidly, I got back onto the path I’d been on prior to the accident, same job (I was 3 years into a 5 year apprenticeship) not stopping to consider whether I was still able to do such work, I soldiered on, stoically like a fool, chastising myself each time I couldn’t do what I could before. My punishment to myself was simply – you did it, your mistake, shut up and get on with it! And I did for years all the while seething inside & stubborn.
When you seriously damage a major part of your skeleton it has knock on effects on other parts of your skeleton. So as the years passed more pain occurred in different places, then more surgery which in turn caused other knock on Neuropathic pain. Then fairly recently the term ‘Chronic Pain’ was being used by the various medical professionals. I had reluctantly returned to, to seek help as my everyday work & life became impossible. So after 18 months of new tests, scans and a ‘Spinal Probe’, nerve function, blood flow tests, the various specialists, surgeons & my GP were turning to me to look me in the eye and say ‘ I cant do anything surgical for you as the risk is too high, what we are looking at is managing your Chronic Pain’. This funnily enough came as a sort of relief. I felt that I had tried, was motivated and persistent in the previous 18 months on seeking specialist advice in the hope that there may be new modern surgical techniques that might help with the pain, enable me to work more and interact physically more with my young family. But, three surgeons and my GP later it is a case of managing chronic pain.
I of course started to research chronic pain and to my surprise there is a lot of info around, This Article made lots of sense to me, I had heard the term ‘Spoonie’, seen people describe themselves that way on their Twitter bio’s, and although I would not put myself in the category of some who describe themselves as ‘spoonies’ I can certainly relate to the ‘Spoon Theory’ You are able to get a certain amount done in a day, that amount varies and once your supply of spoons is exhausted you are done! That can be difficult for others to understand, including close friends and family, even your partner. This diagram is a useful aid to describing the juggling of feelings and emotions. I’ve posted it many times on twitter and entered into some valuable exchanges of information with fellow sufferers.
Chronic pain is hard to live with but for me at least it’s not life threatening, and for that I’m thankful, but the anger, resentment, bitterness & resentment has gone. I feel happier than I have for years. I no longer blame myself. In fact, I am proud of my past achievements despite the ever present pain, but now I actually live within my physical means, I’m comfortable with using sticks & orthopedic splints in public,
My beautiful daughter & ‘Carer’ Lulu
I used to be embarrassed at having to explain when people would ask ‘oh, what have you done?’ but now it’s simple I just reply ‘it’s a long story, I have problems with chronic pain’. Tends to shut most people up and if they are genuinely interested I will explain. Of course there is a vicious circle related to the drugs prescribed to treat chronic pain. That alone could be a whole other subject for discussion! (Watch This Space)
So why am I writing this? Well I hope it may strike a chord with people suffering with or living with someone who is dealing with chronic pain. Acceptance – was the key word for me, a trigger if you like. I accepted the fact that i cannot work as i did before, money is a big problem but in the scheme of things money is absolutely nothing but numbers to me. So Acceptance is the key i believe, for the Chronic Pain sufferer and those close to them. Speak, tell your partner & family why you are grumpy, tired & going to bed early. I personally can only get relief by lying flat. So I do now, whenever I have to, even if it is for 15 – 30 minutes, it helps generate a few more ‘spoons’.
Acceptance is the key. You suffer from Chronic Pain, some will never understand, including doctors, but then many have never (& hopefully will never) have experienced the ‘Split Second‘ that earned you membership to an exclusive club of survivors with incredibly horrible memories.
Saturday 6th February 2021 – 13:17, I Rest my case regarding geriatric local councillors who are FULL of Piss and Importance LOL … Explosive Council Zoom Meeting Goes Viral … A clip from a Handforth Parish Council meeting has recently gone viral, showcasing the zoom call descending into chaos. Michael Walker and Dalia Gebrial from Novara Media discuss the main characters, including the now infamous Jackie Weaver. https://youtu.be/GI7c1k7oTpc
The farce demonstrated at the link above is no doubt repeated in little local governance ‘clique’s’ all over the country.
Sadly Bexhill-on-Sea is about to add yet another layer of bureaucracy consisting of 18 self important over inflated egos, adding unnecessary extra financial burden on many who already struggle to pay their council tax.
… And that’s additional to the 36 we already have!
Thursday 28th January 2021 – 11:00, ‘Triggered’ … by exploring my ‘Spam’ folder and discovering a Green Party email (I know! I used to be a member! WTAF!) … prompted much distracting thought and absence from family banter while I pondered whether to respond or not. I did;
It is disheartening to see such effort and resources focused on the Bexhill Town Council distraction.
I question your statement “it’s what the majority of residents said they wanted“
Actually … In 2020 RDC ran a consultation on the formation of a Town/Parish Council for Bexhill. The response was 2,193 with 78% (1,710) being in favour, out of the 45,000 residents of Bexhill.
Those few who did vote in favour represent the financially comfortable, retired middle class. Try asking the many Bexhill residents who rely on Universal Credit, work minimum wage (or zero hours) if they really want a rise in Council Tax (£10/Month for Band ‘D’) to finance yet another layer of bureaucracy, decided by another gaggle of 18, comfortably off, senior citizens with nothing better to do.
I now focus my efforts on much larger issues. A new Bexhill Town Council is like – ‘rearranging the deckchairs on the sinking Titanic‘ – Not for me thank you. Local party politics is a geriatrics talking shop, such a disappointing bore.
I am lovingly surrounded by my family of young people, the real future, and that is both delightful and terrifying when you consider the looming madness of a new ‘Cold War’ and Nuclear Arms Race – What is the GP doing about the information in the video above, other than box ticking platitudes?
Finally, please remove me from the Rother Green Party mailing list! I have asked previously but these emails do somehow get to me despite having marked them as spam!
When I come across one, it is unfortunately for me a trigger and depressing reminder of a time I invested way too much time and effort into a lost cause. A ‘Green Token’ support act for the Liberal Democrats, the lowest of all political parties!
Shameful and so disrespectful to all those who voted ‘Green’ in 2019, to be contemptuously listed as ‘and the Green Party’ under the ‘Leadership’ of a Liberal Democrat!
The farce demonstrated at the link above is no doubt repeated in little local governance ‘clique’s’ all over the country.
Sadly Bexhill-on-Sea is about to add yet another layer of bureaucracy consisting of 18 self important over inflated egos, adding unnecessary extra financial burden on many who already struggle to pay their council tax.
On 26 September 1983, the computers in the Serpukhov-15 bunker outside Moscow, which housed the command center of the Soviet early warning satellite system, twice reported that U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles were heading toward the Soviet Union. Stanislav Petrov, who was duty officer that night, suspected that the system was malfunctioning and managed to convince his superiors of the same thing. He argued that if the U.S. was going to attack pre-emptively it would do so with more than just five missiles and that it was best to wait for ground radar confirmation before launching a counter-attack.
I bought the @BaffledApe WordPress domain 3 years ago! My plan was to migrate, update and add a lot more to my existing BaffledApe blogger site. But life got in the way as it does.
The time might be right now to do more in here. Basically as a diary/log of my own thoughts and experiences. Maybe some stuff I publish here might be of interest or useful to others.
I have always found that writing stuff down helps me to deal with my own demons, and in this last couple of years I have located, dug up and started to deal with many such demons!
Baffled Ape 