Ranting checks

There's nothing more gratifying (well not for me at this moment), than doing a post.  In the firm knowledge I have thoroughly relieved my chronic-over active constipated mind, from another stray bit of arrant nonsense clogging up its ability to accurately: co-ordinate, move, breathe and effectively harmonise all areas of discordant chi's.

Until of course, that submit button's been pressed. 

But on a good note, my less than insightful insights(sic), haven't yet removed me from the list of "socially acceptables".

So it is, that friends make polite points about the odd few spelling errors and even greater glaring grammatical inconsistencies.

What did Douglas Adams id say.... "with a brain the size of a planet!"

GP Patient Survey...

When the above popped through the letter box, I thought I'd died and gone heaven.

Perhaps it is me and I have been labouring under a misconception that booking an appointment to see ones GP had been, or is in the process of been, reduced to a week! Perhaps even, at a push two!

So I bite my tongue when I am told the earliest appointment is four weeks away. And bite it even harder when that four weeks have been and gone and I go to find I shall be seeing a locum and not my own regular GP! A Locum in today's parlance, is a professional temp!

They (the government - perhaps more under the previous than current incumbent) have been happy bleating on about the number of billions been pumped into the NHS (National Health Service). But all those billions appear to have been soaked up by the heightened upper echelons remuneration, way before reaching the bottom, in the form of meager scraps.

Would this be a time to mention Consultants, Area Managers, Managers, Secretaries, whose increasing use of days off 'due to stress', must make opening a travel agency within hospital grounds an accountants financial dream. Doctors (not the private - full or partial), Receptionists, Nurses, Security, are more or less front line targets and deserve way more money than they're getting. And of course the humble Cleaners for whom English may be a 2nd or 3rd tongue, a course in English along with a 'how not skimp on the cleaning solution' and report your bosses if forced to' one, would be in order.

On the bottom line - apologises - front-line, it is a shame all those billions spent on the service have proved incapable of ensuring that when your four week wait is over, and you have made it over the threshold (so proving, however tenuous, your claim to be in the land of the living); that the look of disappointment palpably rippling outwards from the front desk - like some bodily emanation as another body hasn't pegged it and manages to stumble through - increases in tedium each dreaded passing visit.

Then the wait to finally see your GP begins. Book an appointment for 10am and if you are lucky, you will be seen two hours later by about 12pm. If anything, you are far better pretending that your body is about to gasp its last and you will be zipped in under an emergency booking. At least then you are guaranteed to walk out in a couple of hours with a printed prescription pre-laden for the next round of pills; praying to which ever god you believe in that you don't have to pay the place a visit, ever again!

If you miss your appointment by 10 minutes or more, you are politely told that you can't be seen. As the Doctor is now busy. And you will have to re-book, for another time! Which is, naturally, another 4 weeks down the line.

How can it be improved? Hard to say. The current economic downturn negates the ability to increase funding. But even then just throwing money at it isn't the right idea; despite the strain it is experiencing, people living longer and having more ailments with increasing age and new forms of expensive treatment coming on-stream.

But what is needed is a root and branch structural review with no sacred cows or white elephants in the closed wing. A review that every citizen is involved with and not just once in a blue moon at election time. The NHS used to work! We just have to find a way of making it work and work effectively (for us all in the UK), over the next few decades!

Are we been well served by the NHS? Only if you're an estate agent, travel company and, with increasing cases of MRSA, MRSi and other yet to be championed unknown bugs around the corner, I have to vouch a no!

One possible view of MRSA infection.

Noisy neighbours from the hellish side?

One of the many problems with London; which scores so highly on the many 'things you hate most about your city' surveys is, that hardy annual: Neighbouritis. Yes a made up nonce word of Neighbour (British spelling) and courtesy of old Grecian – a time when men were men and up for doing it - 'itis', but better than saying Neighbour-from-hell- who-drives-your- grandmother-to-an-early-grave!

Unless you live in a nice secluded area, i.e. wealthy and rich, then it's more than likely you will have come up against the perennial problem of Neighbour-noise-ism! Yes how many times have you felt like killing your fellow neighbour or at least hoping they get run over by the number 36 bus as it hurtles its way down the High Street, just because the bass sound on their latest purchased - although nowadays downloaded or streamed - techno track, or they have somehow taken with a strange but firm grasp some twisted bit of logic that they should be the ones on X-Factor and not the current crop of munters, is driving you insane.

All those greedy sods who turned old houses into nasty noise traps, that governments really didn't bother doing anything about to legally ensure people didn't get on each others nerves, are now long gone and dead. But, hopefully, their off-spring are living under the same tortuous circumstances as the rest of us.

Most of the old properties had wall-to-wall carpet covered flooring, which when based on a family of six plus, living over three floors was fine. But then the prospectors moved in and converted said three storey houses into at least six small poky flats, sometimes, even more. If living in London and on, or below the poverty line, there is a 90% probability during your moving life, that you will be subject – especially if living below someone else – to unacceptable noise levels and at logger-heads over the best courses of action to take.

Sometimes this will be nothing more than the pair of you just turning up the noise. Sadly it will be to such levels, that neither of you will be able to think properly, let alone properly hear what you're listening to or what the other is listening to.

But that feeling of satisfaction will be wonderful, if short lived. Both of you will feel wonderful thinking that you've pissed the other off, not realising that it's only really your hearing that's been damaged. But you exchange pleasantries when briefly meeting, saying all's well with the world, secretly wondering why the other doesn't have a life threatening allergy to peanuts, so you can offer a peanut tainted cup at the next village jamboree.

And life goes on, for days on end it's nice and quiet – as they have gone away on holiday without telling you! Sometimes you just have to sit there spending the hours idly, playing with the volume button. On other occasions you just decide to go out for a walk or just to meet friends, eventually returning home slightly the worse for alcohol, put the stereo on and wake up in the morning with music blasting out and a sour note pushed through the letter box expressing extreme displeasure, bordering contempt.

Looking into the anti-social noise laws, including that of leases, most have some provision with regard for this, yet hardly anything seems to be done about it. Environmental health will only do something after 22:30hrs! Leases say noise – likely to disrupt fellow neighbours - should cease after 23:00hrs, and before then, that people should have consideration for their fellow flat dwellers.

Sadly even when letters are sent out reminding inhabitants of their contractual obligations, scant notice is given to them and things go on as usual.

So what recourse is there available to those under noise-siege? At this moment in time, it's a long hard slog through, ineffective management companies, useless housing associations, non-caring councils, solicitors, lawyers, courts etc. Which if you want a really quick result isn't much in the way of comfort, but will be of benefit once you've reached the end of the tunnel; well until the next person moves in.

The following is an excerpt from an environmental services website, and do take note of the last paragraph...

What is noise nuisance?

Our service aims to tackle unreasonable noise disturbance and reduce its impact on the quality of people's lives in the borough...

The general consensus – as unsatisfactory as it is - seems to be... just whack your own noise levels up; so you can hear what it is you're listening to. Either that or suffer the stress and frustration of living with an inconsiderate, arsehole, of a neighbour... on the otherhand, where's that bus!