OT; Cwedit Cwunch?

Yes the Oak Ridge National Lab (

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Rod saying something like:

Certainly. But imagine, if you will, a Britain where guns had never been tightly controlled and nearly outlawed. Where guns were just another item to buy, like cameras. I'm utterly sure Harrods (and Tescos, etc) would have a department or counter selling guns to all and sundry. My point being that a resident local to Harrods would simply nip into Harrods for his guns and ammo as needed as Harrods would be his nearest gun shop, for all intents and purposes.

I don't know whether Harrods sell any guns now - ah, I see they do...

So, for now; a resident local to Harrods, etc... subject to certificates and all that... Harrods is indeed his local gun shop, at least for shotguns and cartridges, not sure about any others.

It is when the bloke in the next country tells you to sod off next winter because he wants all his coal for himself

A bird in the hand is worth two in another country

Absolutely - I thought I was agreeing with you! :-)

Jings bloody crivens, a newsgroup full of Dumptys (or is that Numptys?). Anyway, I'm off to the hardware store[1] to buy the week's food shopping. I may stop off at the HiFi shop [2] while I'm at it, then pop in to the record shop [3] then the gent's outfitters[4] and later the video shop.[5] I'll probably have a browse in the garden centre[6] the DIY store[7] the chemists[8] and the cookstore[9].

So just remind me then. Exactly how is Brownism working better ... ?

Arfa

Walmart is a shop where you can buy guns. It's not a gun shop - a shop whose primary businless it to sell guns. Any more than (trying desperately to get back on topic) it's a DIY store, because it sells hardware and tools.

Andy

It's a sad fact that when "guns" are mentioned the British public loses all rationality and sense of proportion. In the USA it's possible to shoot as a hobby and also to DIY. Real gun shops (i.e. not Walmart) sell the tools that make it possible to make one's own ammunition for example. In the UK such an interest is regarded as just one step above paedophilia.

FFS, talk about splitting hairs... So are you telling me that, if Wal-Mart was the only trader in guns for a hundred miles in every direction and someone new to the area asked were the nearest 'Gun Shop' is they would not be told to go into Wal-Mart?...

Wal-Mart in the USA was as much a gun shop as Tesco is a Off Licence in this country.

Well if you asked me for a 'computer store' or a 'tool store' (to use the US phrases) I sure as h*** wouldn't direct them to Walmart without checking that they really needed something trivial. And TBH if a random stranger came up to me and wanted advice on where to buy guns I'd have more things on my mind than whether Walmart counted!

Andy

I notice you cut the part asking for evidece that Moore is lying. Perhaps the fact you are unable to provide such evidence shows the true situation?

I remember when in the 2002 budget Gordon Mac S**te-Features put up the NI contributions by 2% to pay for bringing the NHS up to European standards of service and cleanliness. Tony Blair went on record at that time saying this extra money would only be needed until 2007, by then the upgrade would be complete (He was being economical with the actualite of course because 5 years later the best European health care systems would have moved on) the new hospitals would have been built and everything in the NHS would be tickety - boo. It turns out the new hospitals we have had built have been funded by PFI and the country will be in hock to the providers (at credit card interest rates) for the next 20(+) years.

What did I hear 1 week ago? Rats in hospitals, wasp nests in operating theatres, and cockroaches in hospital kitchens. Standards so low they would get any 2-bit sandwich shop closed down. What is more we have had no new hospital here in Leeds since the Crimean War and the new Childrens Hospital we were promised was cancelled because the trust is bankrupt.

SEE ALSO Hospitals with pest control problems

Now we are facing economic meltdown despite Gordon Mac S-F. touting his econmic "Prudence" for 11 years, so what the country will be like in 5 or 10 years time does not bear thinking about.

Derek

Derek Geldard coughed up some electrons that declared:

And down here in Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone land, the local trust

Not sure how this is money well spent. Still, at least Pembury Hospital is finally being rebuilt.

Cheers

Tim

As I said - Thatcherism and Monetarism is a (now proven) failed ideology, as much as communism is.

You seem to be forgetting that the policies that have cause all this started in 1980 under that witch Thatcher and those "Nu-Labour" leaders Blair and Brown carried on with them, it was Thatcher who brought in the 'internal market', the contract cleaners, and not forgetting the upside-down pyramid of management were accountants more interested in finding more work for accountant that caring for the ill so that they can pay themselves thousands or pounds in bonuses...

My wife's father died of MRSA because when he was admitted with a broken hip the hospital was in a state of shambolic chaos. The ambulance driver/the ward lost FIL's notes and they operated on him whilst he was infected with MRSA and it got into his prosthetic hip which had to be removed so he had *no* hip joint.

Despite this he was allowed to fall out of bed 18 times in 2 1/2 hours one Sunday afternoon. His bed could not be seen from the position of the nurses workstation, none of them could (Who designed that ward?) , that's not nursing.

He suffered for 6 weeks before he died.

"You should see what it's like down there in A&E the ambulance driver said."

Oh, how we laughed.

I know Pembury Hospital very well I serviced the gamma camera together with it's associated computer there for many years prior to Ca. 1988. It wasn't *that* bad in those days the rot seemed to set in in '94.

Richard Ashton {R} used to maintain a website about the shenanigans at Pembury Hospital.

Derek

Thatcher brought in the 'internal market' bollox in order to break down the old systems. Same thing appiled in hospitals & in schools, the system was out dated, things were done 'because we've always done it this way'.

No doubt the systems needed changing, but that could have been done by changing the management ethos.

What actually happened was the contractors took over, used the same staff (because of TUPE) on worse conditions of employment, issued them with inferior equipment, reduced the hours to do the job.

This was because they had to make a margin. Since they couldn't reduce staff numbers they had to cut corners elsewhere.

The 'client' had to appoint a 'monitoring officer' and the DLO couldn't compete because they could only tender for public sector work.

The upshot being that the extra cost of the 'monitoring officer' and the contractors profit margin added extra costs into the equation whilst the suits congratulated themselves on 'greater efficiency'.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Derek Geldard saying something like:

"The Medway Handyman" wrote in message news:JoIpk.43772$ snipped-for-privacy@text.news.virginmedia.com...

As the saying goes, don't try to fix it if it ant broke.... There were many faults with both hospitals and schools in 1979 and the early '80s but hospitals were clean [1] and school kids were feed (or at least offered) 'healthy' food at launch time.

I'd accept all that if it was simply condensed down into the simple statement : "The new contracts were badly managed by the NHS"

There is nothing about private provision which implicitly implies very poor performance in cleaning services ( IGWS There was far more wrong with the NHS than the cleanig sevices). All of the shopping malls in the country are cleaned by private contractors on contract yet Blue Water, Trafford Centre, White Rose centres etc etc don't end up like the revolting, disgusting, s***ty dumps like the hospital where my father-in-law died.

"What greeted them there horrified Mrs Flowers. She found:

• Dirty sheets;
• Vomit and food sprayed down the side of the bedside cabinet;
• The floor covered in dirt and human hair;
• Used syringe covers;
• The dirty slippers;
• Human waste on the floors of the toilets. After arriving at the ward, Mrs Flowers was so outraged she asked for a mop to clean up. Staff refused but promised something would be done. An hour later, with no cleaners in sight, Mrs Flowers asked again and was offered a pack of floor wipes"

USW, USW, USW.

PS What is concerning me now is that the NHS has had it's extra money and got used to spending it, but there are signs standards are slipping bacl again. With the worsening by the day economic crisis The country simply will not have the money available to re-do this exercise from the top over again. IE the NHS will simply have to

Derek