ADs crave hotel breakfasts garnished with phallic strawberries

[BogRollBOGOF]

Oh for the good old days of a breakfast buffet.

Back when you could make plans and reasonably expect them to happen. When you could turn up spontaneously and browse or linger at your leisure. When you could meet whoever you like and give them a hug

But until those days return, here's some more AD chat about life, the universe and phallic fruits...

@Taswama I worked for a PCT briefly. In the patch that Shipman operated so perhaps views slightly skewed! The primary care onerous beast is something called QOF (quality outcome framework) and is clearly not aimed at catching rogue killer GP's (!) but his presence was constant in so much of what we were doing during a QOF visit.

Obviously the teaching one is OFSTED and I presume there are loads of others.

I'm not arguing against standards, levelling up, best practice etc etc. But we do have a tendency in this country to be a bit sledgehammer to crack a walnut and go at these frameworks full throttle so that eg when we were doing the QOF visits at my PCT the energy and time involved was massive and that takes away from other areas of focus but if you questioned anything were met with 'well we can't risk another Shipman'. It's true, we don't want another Shipman but he was notorious because he was unusual and if as a result of that you don't go ahead with the child obesity programme you had planned or the teenage sexual health clinics or the joint community Alzheimer's drop in centres because you haven't got enough staff or resources to cover it all then ultimately you're doing more harm than Shipman ever did.

We find something; be it a killer GP or a school with woefully low standards and we swing the pendulum too far in the other direction so that 'this terrible thing never happens again'. We overreact and put extreme measures in place time and time again. Which is fine if you have a bottomless pit of resources and can genuinely stop it happening. It's not fine if you take resources from elsewhere in order to achieve it.

@Taswama I don't know so much about Shipman (only what I've seen in that programme, which was good), but the Yorkshire Ripper murders caused major changes in intelligence gathering because there had been so many cock ups during it. I believe Peter Sutcliffe had been interviewed by police at least 4 times, before they finally arrested him, because of suspicious behaviour. The changes were massive and far reaching. I was a police officer at the time and it was one of my jobs to set up the new investigation/recording system and the incident room in our area. The systems you now see on telly were simply not in place prior to around 1983. In fact it was very much like 'Life on Mars' before that. The newly introduced system was all based on cross referencing card indexes, which was all we had at the time. Seems a bit prehistoric now.

I have no experience in this sector so may be talking rubbish, but I think the media reaction to high profile child abuse cases sometimes illustrates what's being talked about. The media reaction often is, "Why wasn't something done?" (and of course that's a fair question) without taking into account that unnecessarily removing a child into care is also a bad outcome for the child. So understandably there's a fairly high threshold for doing it.

@Reedwarbler

My fil is in hospital. Not only did he have a fall and break his femur within 24 hours of admittance, they have also lost his clothes and hearing aid. His slippers, pj's underpants all vanished. They don't give a shit either. My h will be complaining to pals. Our local hospital is filthy and seems to be run by people who really don't give a shiny shit about an elderly demented man in their care. I'm glad I never clapped for the nhs. How are they allowed to get away with such atrocious care?

The reason I can't wear a face mask and even going into shops with masses of masked people these days triggers massive panic attacks in me (and this is career threatening since my course is a NHS course that normally wouldn't have required PPE but these days does) is because of how appallingly I was treated by sections in the NHS - I was appallingly treated during DD1's birth (Bank Holiday - skeleton staff, near the end of their shift so they all wanted to get home) and ended up on an operating table, reacting to the spinal block and shaking uncontrollably so I thought I was dying, things beeping and all these masked faces ignoring me completely like I was a piece of meat. It was utterly utterly awful and it's why I react so badly to masks these days - to the point I can't get in to uni and I'm praying if they get placements going again this year they can get me one in telehealth (our placement person is likely to give me one requiring me to don a full body condom in response to me having any issues at all though).

Did a placement in a care home last year - and the number of residents who were upset because they couldn't find their hearing aids and the staff shrugging it off that "it'll be in her handbag and everything's in there" and not bothering to help them was pretty terrible. Also one poor lady whose aid was acting up so badly I could hear the feedback squeals sitting about 1m away from her and the staff just weren't interested. I pray I keel over and die of something quick when my time comes rather than get old, frail and demented. I want to go out as cantankerous, eccentric, pin sharp wits and sharp tongued and rapidly! (Basically the way my nan went!)

And the reality is that when you look at photos of the times when it goes seriously wrong and you're looking at pictures of Victoria Climbie and Baby P, you would have to be some sort of psychopath to not be appalled and glad that a serious case review has been launched. But when you've made a social workers workload more desk based than field based precisely because of the outcomes of those case reviews then might more children ultimately suffer harm?

Disclaimer - I genuinely know nothing about child protection so forgive me if I'm talking out of my arse! I just think that there should be simpler systems in place to capture data and maybe use AI to make the connections and spot patterns but leave the teachers, police, nurses, social workers etc etc etc to just do their jobs. Jobs they're good at and where their instincts and experience count hugely. They should not have to spend hours filling in forms.

FB this morning - local comp has a few cases across various year groups and are following the advice and sending close contacts home... local Macdonalds has a case - again doing the same thing.

One barely literate fuckwit is demanding that everything is closed on every single fucking post. She could have done with a few more sessions in school if her typing is anything to go with but she is on three bloody local social media groups and doing the same shit on all of them. I'm sure you get the type - profile photo of her with the puppy dog nose and ears filter on, with stars on top of that and a million changes of profile photo frame for whatever the cause of the day is and a million "share this lucky Irish leprechaun/penny of truth and you'll get good karma" type shite going on.

And there were two primary school fires in the semi local area in the last few days (after the school burnt to the ground over the summer) - horrendous time for the kids around here getting an education really. I used to teach in one of them (just did a temp short term contract) and looking at the photos of the extent of the damage - I know the layout and that's a horrendous number of year groups knocked out of the school even if the rest is still useable and I doubt it.

Dark dark days ahead - and I have a morning of strokes, brain injury and everything else to lift the spirits!

@DominaShantotto your treatment, too, sounds, appalling. I am so sorry.
Of course, the trouble with lost hearing aids is that he actually CAN'T HEAR, and, having dementia, questions need to be framed very carefully so they are understood. He really doesn't know what is going on at all. It sounds horrible to say, but he has got a chest infection too, so I hope it is an 'old man's friend' to him ultimately.
We are in our mid 60s and he is the last parent alive. After sitting through 3 other rather prolonged and terminal parental stays in hospital, it doesn't get any easier.(Although at least we could visit them when we wanted to.)

@DominaShantotto never has a descriptor of a person so quickly and easily brought them to life in my imagination

One of my baby friend families is caught up with one of the school fires. She's doing a lot of social media stuff for support. It's truely awful for those school communities after the loss of the last school year. At least they probably are better prepared in terms of home learning... but it's already a well flogged dead dog and all the inconvenience that incurs.

It does seem far too co-incidental that two primaries go up in flames in the night over the same weekend.

People put in unwieldy and time consuming systems because it seems easier than actually recruiting the right people for the role, dealing with all the messy aspects of managing them, ensuring they're properly trained and supported and letting them get on with it, prioritising human relationships rather than checkboxes. Hilary Cottam has a book and a TED Talk about how people complain about families costing the tax payer money, but in fact servicing the system is what costs money, families often don't get anything tangible out of it https://www.ted.com/talks/hilarycottammsocialservicessarebrokennhowweecanfixx_them/up-next?language=en

@DominaShantotto - have you looked at getting any therapy to deal with your experience? EMDR is supposed to be very effective in helping your brain process traumatic experiences so that it is no longer stressful.

Re processes, some of them are undoubtedly unwieldy and OTT. Although relying wholly on recruiting the right people can't be enough. Dr Shipman was very plausible and well liked and when a fellow GP did flag concerns they were not properly investigated by the police.

Jaw dropping moment on BBC because Trump was bullish and said you should fight back against covid a psychologist said it was because he was on steroids not because he felt better. Steroids make you psychotic. wtf. my premmies were on steroids were they psychotic. Are asthma sufferers psychotic?

Grasping at straws much.

Well, I am still around despite being initially ignored by the NHS last week when I was very unwell with my asthma. The lovely nurse from the surgery prescribed me some antibiotics even though I didn’t feel as though I had a chest infection. My sats were a concern and she felt I should have a COVID test, which I duly went for even though I hadn’t been anywhere. That meant I couldn’t even take the dogs out from Saturday till yesterday when I got the inevitable negative result. The appointment for the test was changed twice to different places by text before we got there.

Having got my result, today’s treat was to go for a chest X Ray. Clutching my form I headed for the lift to be accosted by a COVID marshal in a visor shouting “Stop, you can’t go there!” I had neglected to notice that you have to do a complete circuit of the building and use a lift that I had never used before 🙄. I had a really long wait as the radiographer was doing everything herself with no help. Hoping very much that it doesn’t show anything that requires any further appointments.

That sounds awful Evenstar.

I’ve just seen the news about Scotland. Ugh.

@CruCru

That sounds awful Evenstar.

I’ve just seen the news about Scotland. Ugh.

I thought the kranky was not announcing scotland measures till tomorrow

@Evenstar
The lovely nurse from the surgery prescribed me some antibiotics even though I didn’t feel as though I had a chest infection. My sats were a concern and she felt I should have a COVID test,

NHS we prescribe too many antibiotics because patients demand them.
The government - too many people are having tests that don't meet the criteria that's why there aren't enough for those that do.

Evenstar speaks to nurse about her asthma. Nurse prescribes antibiotics and sends Evenstar for Covid test. Both completely unnecessary.

Not Evenstar's fault

Evenstar
That's terrible. How do they think people can just chop and chsnge venues at a moment's notice?
No need to be a bully in hospitals, people have things on thier minds and looking at stupid arrows isn't one of them!
Fingers crossed x-ray is clear and you just need something to kick your asthma into touch. (Watch you don't turn psycho if they give you steroids!)

justasking11
Yes she is dropping hints first about what she isn't going to do which can be interpreted any old way so that her fans can say "See its not so bad after all." As the businesses all get closed down again or more restrictions put in place. Hopefully all the campaigning has had an effect and she won't go postal again.
The making us wait is just another power trip.

The constant announcing something is coming then making people wait, or making half an announcement and then making people wait for the details to know if it affects them (see Leicester and people not being told what the boundaries were etc) is fucking abusive.

We're now having local lockdown floated - it's the city that's the issue but I'm betting we'll get hit by it as well when it happens.

I've given up hope now - the nutjobs are NEVER going to concede it's safe enough to be allowed out and to hug again.

@DominaShantotto

The constant announcing something is coming then making people wait, or making half an announcement and then making people wait for the details to know if it affects them (see Leicester and people not being told what the boundaries were etc) is fucking abusive.

We're now having local lockdown floated - it's the city that's the issue but I'm betting we'll get hit by it as well when it happens.

I've given up hope now - the nutjobs are NEVER going to concede it's safe enough to be allowed out and to hug again.

I hope it doesn't stretch beyond the city as the majority of cases are within the city council area, although Ken Clarke has quite a few students on his patch. So much of the suburbs are within the borough councils. It is so clearly concentrated on the classic student areas. That does not translate to a wider public health hazard.

OK, I do have a vested interest here as we head to your council for swimming.
I'm still waiting for the DCs to be able to move up, over 8 months in DS1's case... I know but lockdown, but he's long ready to keep developing his skills and move on.

It reminds me of those awful long pauses they do on shows like BGT when they announce winners. "And the next lockdown will be......"
I tried a new butchers this morning, recommended to me and I spent quite a bit. However, on the counter was a qr code thing, inviting you to check in. I don't have a smart phone, but why have they put one in a shop? I didn't think that was the idea at all. Pointless anyway because the staff are behind the display cabinets, so well away from you, and it's a large place anyway (I was the only person in there). Bonkers.
Did you see the story about the funeral where the son was comforting his mother and they were told off for being too close together? Why are people so meek? I would have made a very loud and embarrassing fuss if that was me. I have taken to saying (loudly) 'oh for fucks sake' everytime I come up against covid signs and directions in shops, and I don't give a toss if people think I am rude or mad.

@Reedwarbler IMHO 'oh for fucks sake' is quite possibly the finest expression ever invented.

Yes, when making those long pauses, is it Davina McCall in a different wig?

"The votes have been counted and verified... and I can now reveal that the city to be locked down next is.... ..... ...."

Davina once said in an interview that she was terrified of saying the wrong name, revealing that she was only told it in her earpiece just before.

It is abusive all this "big press conference tomorrow"; we get ourselves all keyed up for a massive upheaval, which turns out to be a silly wacky idea from Saint Boris, or his pretending to be Churchill. He doesn't quite go as as far pretending to be God, like Blair and Thatcher used to.

Just as an aside, Davina McCall was doing some ADing the other day 😃

There's talk of having the covid app scanning thingy whatsit on the door of the supermarket where I work- why? Customers have asked about it, again- why? Shops don't have to have it.
Our demographic includes a lot of elderly people who might not have a phone or don't want to download the bloody app. My dh has a phone that is steam- driven, and I'm not downloading it on mine.
As I said to the manager, if someone tests positive and they've been in our shop, does it get shut down/ deep cleaned/ staff all isolated?
Someone COULD be in close contact with a customer for the magic 15 minutes but as we're not supposed to have our phones turned on on the shop floor, how's that gonna work? If track and trace can't give out the name of the person who came in, how are we going to know if we've been in contact? Makes me so bloody cross, just in case you've not realised!