The word today is Gigil
I have added this to our list of "Words Of The Day" because it is literally a word newly accepted into "official" English usage as, for example the German word, SCHADENFREUDE. This is an import into the English language from the Philippines. Here is what it means.
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| Giggle is not new but gigil is |
YOU ARE TOO LATE - TRUMP WON AND WAS ALLOWED TO DO SO BY A JUDICIAL SYSTEM THAT IS NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE AND AN AMERICAN VOTING POPULATION THAT DEFIES (my) UNDERSTANDING. GOOD LUCK USA! TRUMP LOVES TRUMP and his ego knows no bounds - he and his coterie will ruin America, your reputation, your economy and your former friends' desire to care about you. Why did you do this to yourselves America?
Just weeks in the job and the despotic bullying began.
Trump is open about his nation (America) comes first policy and his nationalistic desires are well documented.
Trump's desire is to interfere in the make-up and social rights (and wrongs) he perceives in American society and those of other countries.
Trump is open about protecting American jobs thereby portraying his party as a party for "legal" workers as "illegals" are identified and arrested or camped.
Trump is using populist actions to thereby build-up his party and his base of avid supporters who swear by him. Their allegiance seems absolute.
To any reader with an understanding of recent (1930s) history you may be aware of what I am alluding to. Trump's party trust their leader implicitly to make their nation great again and the rest of the world must just hope things don't get out of hand, again. Trump will make America great again in their eyes, in their terms, but will undermine global goodwill toward them. The bias Trump exhibits toward the Russians gives rise to a question: Is Trump a soviet agent?
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Attention USA! Wake up for God's sake and get your leaders in order, or better still retire some of them, especially Trump AND Biden, who have had their time. Why not even elect a woman because what you are offered is seriously flawed?
We Europeans, for the most part, regard Donald Trump to be a dangerously narcissistic idiot criminal (along with others!), who rather than "make America great again" (as it was up to the 70's), will probably precipitate some sort of social implosion there; you have enough explosive factions, such as Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, Illegals and of course, good old Whitey: all chomping at their bits to aggravate each other, but "you", sane electorate, must sort out this mess.
Start by retiring Biden (just about dead) and dump Trump because he's a chump. Of those two, Trump will screw you because Trump loves Trump alone, so pleaseUSA , US ,, Donald Trump , Trump , Biden , Biden and Trump , Trump and Biden
Dump Trump 'cos he's a chump
(Pass it on!)
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| Here's a thought about old leaders |
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| Politics like hair - one hell of a comb-over old boy |
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Trump has around him his "yes men" (and women) who gain empowerment solely by his patronage, without which many would be socially and politically irrelevant and truly respected by few. Their decisions and actions, however bizarre or spiteful, go unquestioned only because of Trump but to start firing members of their military, merely because of a feeling of being undermined is bullying of the highest order. A good example of this came as fall-out following Vice-President JD Vance's visit to Greenland. He and Trump want Greenland! - an independent sovereign state who do not want, nor need them.
The word today is Maelstrom
Maelstrom is a noun and means the following:
- A situation of great turbulence, confusion, destruction or upheaval
- A violent and powerfully destructive whirlpool of water
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| Original 1919 illustration by Harry Clarke |
Dubliner John Hemingway's peaceful death on Monday 17th March 2025, aged 105, formally closed a very important chapter of UK history (perhaps also the world). He was the last surviving RAF fighter pilot who fought throughout the entire Battle Of Britain, a battle for supremacy in the skies over England in the first year of WW2. His death reminds us of Europe's collective debt of thanks to all allied combatants of the brief but very intense Battle Of Britain.
Despite being injured and shot down 4 times, he and relatively few fighter pilots (100s) and their support personnel, prevented the expected invasion of England by the NAZI forces of Germany. The significance of this battle will never be underestimated, for had the NAZIs endured, the subsequent history of Europe (certainly) and then the world would have promised misery, subjugation and "elimination" for millions of people.
"Paddy" served the RAF from 1938 to 1969 and rightfully will hold the honour of being "one of the few", now the last of the few; though John said he was most proud to be the last surviving Irishman of that battle .
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| John at the start of his RAF service |
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| RIP Group Captain John "Paddy" Hemingway DFC (17/07/1919 - 16/03/2025) |
Yahoo! have written the best obituary to John, the the BBC did OK.
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| The NHS is nearly dead! |
For years the British National Health Service (NHS) has been touted as the best public healthcare organisation in the world. IT IS NOT, nor has it been so for decades. It is no longer able to fulfil its intended responsibilities (set out in post-war years) and is no longer fit for purpose. Whether by intent, ignorance, inefficiency, political meddling, poor financial and resource planning, waste and loss of control over critical supporting components, including loss of doctors to other countries, it is no longer fit for purpose. Public confidence is at is lowest level, with over 7.5 million diagnosed treatment requirements listed that remain outstanding, with some lists over a year long. It is currently so dysfunctional that even overseas newscasters report it and millions of pounds are "lost" as they insidiously outsource problems of their own creation, thereby accelerating the breakdown (break-up?) of the NHS in to a two-tier system of patient care: For those able to shop-around within the offered services and those that are not. Duplicity is also prevalent in the overseers of the NHS.
We, the people, have allowed numerous governments to stealthily wind back the spirit of the NHS and its peripheral infrastructures for decades now. It is our fault that the NHS is failing, because we allow fuckwit politicians and "apparatchiks" to do as they desire under cover of "our" ignorance, indifference or apathy; that is not to say medical professionals within the NHS are blameless, for they have kept their timid heads down for years with few publicised whistle-blowers, perhaps because their money would keep coming anyway, or because an acknowledged and growing "toxic and bullying" culture intimidates them as parts rot from the inside, whilst the care quality commission has been reviewed as not fit for purpose. To paraphrase a comment by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, "too many (in the NHS) have become very comfy in the tepid bath of managed decline". Ouch!
Labour clearly want to shake-up the NHS following the sudden departure of the head of NHS England, so they abolished NHS England (and its 10000 employees), with the hope of successfully drilling down into issues that are long-standing and all too apparent. The former administrative body's work will be taken up by the Department of Health and Social Care who will look to changing how the NHS is run. It looks like the new broom in town is going to give the NHS a good scrubbing, though I understand few will mourn its passing. I had no understanding of what NHS England did, nor NHS Scotland and NHS Wales, but this article helped.
The NHS no-longer delivers a service. It delivers a fractured and failing amalgamation of ever loosely bonded "facilities" designed to take the heat/demand out of core NHS services, either now or in the future; "drop-in centres" exemplify this in that you drop in, they look at you without actual treatment, and refer you back into a service no-longer working as it should.
Everyone paying tax in the UK is statutorily contributing to the largest single employer in Europe and they are getting bugger-all back in many areas of the NHS once deemed important: free prescriptions - gone, free dentistry and eyecare - gone, the availability of many local and social caring systems - gone, effective GP services - gone. (GP now stands for generally poor as "super practices" are being formed throughout the land, giving service that at best is perfunctory) Everything we should value has been costed and wherever possible outsourced to organisations unknown and hidden in plain sight under NHS headed notepapers, in order to gain "efficiencies" and cost savings that have not made the NHS "better". Money that is being spent seems to be going on new estate, cutting edge medicines that benefit few, and all manner of frippery that doesn't really cure anyone; here I am thinking of the following: Political correctness and wokery, help with being fat (eat less), smoking (just get on and die), drug addiction by self abuse (ditto), chronic self-harming (ditto), childlessness (adopt and thereby save a poor soul). Most noticeable is the erection of new "estate" that increases facility but not effectiveness.
It seems to me that there are now too many risk-averse, secretive, hostile administrators; too many non-medical centric people beavering away in ways that no-longer directly facilitate the treatment of patients, but sometimes actually undermine their care. Senior administrators do not exhibit interest in patients anymore; they talk money, risk, excuse, expediency, secrets and unpublished intent, often over-riding concerned parties and whistle blowers. My personal interaction with the NHS, by being in hospital a few times, suggests that staff on the ground floor of the patient interface are dedicated, effective and friendly, yet a bit fearful for their future. They know things are bad.
NHS whistle-blowers are not often heard of in the press, but in the case of convicted killer nurse Lucy Letby it was seen how they are often ignored by "those above", who deny problems and refuse to act.
LUCY LETBY - though not really within the context of this article was a nurse who was convicted of killing many children in her charge and her post sentencing review revealed examples of corporate denial and obfuscation, symptomatic of the NHS? Hospital bosses said they were mislead and yet her hospital administrators ignored complaints about her (for fear of bad publicity) and children died during their procrastination; though some are still unsure about her conviction and others thinking she killed more, though some think less. What is obvious is how opaque the upper working of the NHS is and the disquiet about her convictions.
Getting back to the NHS, from my hospital bed I observed some people getting the briefest of interactions with staff and subsequently discovered they were "bed-blockers" - people fit enough to leave hospital but not "allowed" to do so because of social care commitments not being fulfilled by other parts of the NHS, or indeed by familial responsibilities/expectations. Bed-blockers cost the NHS millions and are acknowledged by government to be one reason beds are in shortened supply, putting fresh patients at risk by blocking their free flow through the NHS. If places can be found almost immediately for illegal immigrants, then maybe bed-blockers could be catered for as quickly? The Government are considering state financed care home beds again, (Taking back a role outsourced by councils in the 90's to "save money"). To put this particular problem into perspective, in the Royal Free Hospital in London between 15-30% of patients are medically fit to be discharged but are unable to leave, for a myriad of reasons; predicting that of 141,000 beds available to the NHS nationally, up to 42,000 cannot be used.
The Nuffield Trust has reported bed-blocking numbers to Government for years yet the situation persists for tens of thousands of people; these two bed-blocking cases are particularly striking. A classic case of "bed blocking" and a woman who became like a prisoner in hospital, both caused by supposedly integrated social services failing. The NHS hospitals are doing their job, but social services are happy to renege on their paid responsibilities. (Though I do wonder if parents or family are dragging their feet).
Here's a wild though, with so many shopping malls and large department stores becoming unused, why not have them converted into residential care homes, thus freeing hospital beds?
ENOUGH!
Finally, if don't like your NHS job then leave or move on, as your wages are fair and for some very good indeed, so stop disrupting or "robbing" from this already ailing service.
This is clickbait: an image (or text) intended to deceive you into supposing a specific story or topic is behind it, when in reality it turns out not to be so. In the most banal pieces the content is rubbish, deceiving or insulting (to you) and should be called out as such if you are invited to comment.
Clickbait is becoming a scourge of social media and I am fed up of it, especially so on Racebook where opportunistic click-chasers will post up very contentious statements (Rage-baiting) or open ended questions, then sit back as people argue about it, or comment endlessly about its stupidity; whether it be bootube, racebook, blugger, ticcock, smelegraph, shyspace, pastagram, breaditt, bumsnet, or any other dumping ground for some duckwitt's ego (such as mine in this I imagine you saying), I am sick of wasting my life being enticed and then shafted by the greed for click payments by people not deserving of their algorithm-driven (supposed) popularity. If you agree pass this crap on.
Rant over; now enlarge the picture to reveal this persons breasts. Told you - clickbait!
More learned pieces on clickbait below. Click on each of them - you know you want to ......
Final thought: Online newspapers are surely becoming the worst global perpetrators of clickbait and even the BBC is not immune from a desperate desire to have their output read. This item from them is NOT about the hottest (single) day ever recorded.
See subtle BBC clickbait here ... and the BBC being not so subtle.
Another BBC clickbait conspiring to publicise a new film, on the back of a baby birth.
Sometimes it is good to remember that "little" people(s) of the world often achieve or survive many things, only to slip down the cracks of history, back into obscurity. Here is a French-born woman, Gisèle Pelicot, who bravely gave up anonymity in order to facilitate her unswerving determination to have her horrific abuse, by her husband and the men of a whole village, made known to the public (now world-wide). She has dignity and determination for justice that many should admire.
To start to understand her and her story start here.
Gisèle's is an extraordinary female abuse case, with the twist being that for decades her husband had regularly drugged her in order to film village residents raping and defiling her unconscious self, luckily without recollection by her. It was only the chance discovery of over 22,000 videos on her husband's computer that initiated the trial of a whole village.
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| Gisèle Pelicot (An dignified and inspirational survivor) |
