Farmers Weakly

Farmers WeaklyThere’s an old joke about a group of procrastinators on a demonstration march. The cry goes up:“Whaddawe want?”“Procrastination…”“When do we want it?”“Er….later?” I was reminded of this as several thousand angry farmers descended on London last week, ostensibly to protest at the government’s change of policy on inheritance tax. Where previously, agricultural land was exempt from…

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A Tale of Two Secretaries

Lest anyone think our new-ish Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, is turning out to be a bit confrontational, spare a thought for the people of America, as Robert Kennedy Junior is appointed their new Secretary of US Health and Human Services (HHS). Following his announcements about shaking up the NHS with his Ten Year Plan, this week, Streeting chose the NHS Providers’…

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Acts of Asininity

I walked into our shared workspace yesterday and proudly informed Senior Management that I had completed some task or other – and that I had sent her an email about it. Instead of even a cursory acknowledgement, I was somewhat taken aback to be told that I was just like so-and-so who “sends send me…

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Men behaving badly

Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman….so sang Tammy Wynette in the 1968 hit, Stand by your Man. While the lyrics will no doubt sound hollow to many women, for the past week, it’s been quite hard to be a man – at least to live with the shame of being one. Men – for…

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Jaw-jaw vs war-war?

Many of the “soldiers” that make up the band of mercenaries collectively known as the Wagner Group, are convicts. Faced with the unpalatable choice of doing stir in a Russian gaol, or being used as cannon fodder in Ukraine, many have opted to take their chances with the latter. Russia has a history of deploying penal battalions…

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Never complain, never explain

In these troubled times, surely what the nation is crying out for is a bit of cognitive dissonance. We could all do with a bit of diversion from the fear of falling in the shower, or having a stroke while ambulance crews, nurses and shortly, junior doctors, withdraw their services in protest at (in part), the…

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Shire madness

It’s been a bit of a week one way and another.  Starting with the good news: Coffee is officially good for you. A couple of cups a day will keep the cardiovascular surgeon away, apparently. Coffey on the other hand, is proving to be quite bad for one’s health. The last blog referred to the Health…

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Bearing prevention in mind

The start of this week brought us the sobering news that a record 420,000 children and young people in England are receiving treatment for mental health problems. It’s a crisis that we know has been complicated and exacerbated by Covid, and adults haven’t been immune either: research carried out by the charity Mind last year…

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