It rained in the night but today has begun with a bit of blue sky and sunshine. The weather forecast specific to Delph offers me sunny intervals and a gentle breeze for most of the week, with varying percentage chances of rain, anything from 10% to 40%. I suppose it means I need to carry my raincoat around with me. Friday, by way of a contrast, offers me thundery showers and a gentle breeze. We shall see.
I would like the rain to hold off this evening as we are headed to Manchester for a concert by jazz singer Madeleine Peyroux, the first live music we have seen for ages, probably since before the pandemic disrupted all our lives. We will undoubtedly need a taxi back from Oldham to Delph at the end of the evening. Returning to Delph from Manchester is not a problem but the last bus onwards to Delph leaves Oldham at 10.30pm, just about the time the concert is scheduled to finish. So it goes.
A couple of weeks ago I managed to arrange appointments for Phil and me to have booster covid vaccinations. Because the system asks you to do everything on line and because that system does not accommodate two people wanting to book consecutive appointments and because it makes sense for the two of us to do that rather than have two different appointments on different days, I kicked up a fuss and spoke to the receptionist at our local doctors’ surgery. She was extremely helpful (indeed, surprisingly so) and went out of her way to sort it out and call me back with timings. Great stuff!
It was not possible make appointments at our local clinic in Uppermill, even less so at the smart newish branch in Delph itself, so we were booked into Lees, a bus-ride away. Then on Friday we both received text messages saying our appointments had been cancelled - no explanation - just a notification and an instruction to rebook. I tried. To no avail. When I go to see my GP on Tuesday I shall throw myself on the the mercy of the receptionist once again!
As regards the smart newish branch of our clinic in Delph village, it strikes me as a great waste of resources every time I pass it on the way to the sandy park with our small grandson. I suspect that the problem is one of staffing as whenever we need to contact the surgery we are reminded of the high demand for their services, the need to be patient and so on. On one recent occasion they told me that they had only two doctors on duty for the whole of that week. Our new health secretary is going to find it hard to ensure everyone an appointment within two weeks of booking at this rate.
Out in the wider world the pound is plummeting, so say the newspapers. Kwasi Kwarteng is to blame, apparently: Chancellor of the Exchequer without experience. His lack of experience has led, they say, to “schoolboy errors”. How does one get experience of being Chancellor of the Exchequer, I wonder, apart from by actually being Chancellor of the Exchequer? Is it possible to get work experience in such a job? The man has a PhD in economic history, or something of that kind, so you might expect him to have some idea of what the job entails but I suppose knowledge of theory, even at a high level, is trumped by lack of experience. And what a way to gain experience - plunge into the job in the middle of a crisis! Talk about a baptism of fire!
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not standing up for him. By no means! You won’t find me standing up in defence of any of the current bunch. No, I am just amused or bemused at the “lack of experience” stuff. Maybe that’s why the mini-budget (which turned out to be far from mini) was so called; it was perhaps meant to be a practice-run for the real thing.
Thinking of matters relating to economics, here’s an odd little item I found in the Guardian the other day:
“The Foreign Office, under Liz Truss’s leadership, is facing questions about its spending on credit cards including £1,841 at Norwich City football club online, and £10,000 at Fortnum and Mason.
Emily Thornberry, the shadow attorney general, wrote to the Foreign Office questioning why spending was up by 45% on its government procurement cards between September 2021 to July 2022.
Thornberry also queried more than £900 to Calm Over Chaos, which appears to supply adult colouring books, and £1,850 to Soul Sanctuary, which may be a wellness app. There were two payments of more than £4,000 in total to a barber company called Finishing Touches, although it is understood this relates to general maintenance rather than beauty.”
Not very careful money management as far as I can see.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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