We’re publishing an original piece today by Dr David McGrogan, Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School, in defence of the handshake. As far as Prof. McGrogan is concerned, we cannot hope to return to normal life unless we start shaking each other’s hands again. Here is an extract:
The handshake is alive and well and living in Paris – not to mention London, New York, and Stockton-on-Tees. Prohibition never eliminates a practice, as any fool can tell you; it just drives it into the weeds. And handshaking is no different. People are still doing it. And now it has a subversive edge. When somebody offers you their hand these days, it is no longer just the meaningless ritual of yesteryear – it sends some important messages, which are all the more profound for the fact that they are not consciously sent or received. Human communication is not just verbal, but physical, and one only has to think for a second to realise that our physical ways of communicating – kissing, hugging, shaking hands – are often the most significant. What words are there that can surpass a simple hug from a loved one at a time of crisis? Or a first kiss? Or a handshake on the playground after a fight?
The first unconscious message sent by the post-2020 handshake is simply stated: you and your fellow hand-shaker are simpatico. The mask-wearing, the social distancing, the fear-mongering – maybe you’ll go along with it if you must, but deep down inside, you hate it. And with that furtive handshake, both of you now know that you’re in the same club. The wheat has been separated from the chaff.
Worth reading in full.
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Some people may be going round and round the maypole but I feel like I’m stuck in the spin cycle of a washing machine [a slow one].
I never did.
On another point….I hear they want to ‘force’ Smart Meters on people, that’s my conversation!
One recent claim has baffled me, that is the fantastic number of appointments delivered by the NHS since the election. With little change in the fundamentals of the health service, how has this amazing figure been achieved. Was it perhaps that under the previous Government, there was inefficiency or were doctors’ strikes the reason. Maybe under the new Government the doctors have got off their arses and are now doing what they are paid for. But no, none of these, as my wife and I have recently discovered. She received a text message to say her medication has been reviewed without reference to her and they were happy with what she was taking. Strange we thought, who originated this review? An hour later, she received another text advising her of an appointment to review her medication in ten minutes. We urgently contacted the surgery to say she would not be able to get to the surgery in ten minutes, but that she had already had a text saying the review had taken place. No problem say the surgery, we’ll just check the box that the review took place. So a fake appointment for a fake review. How many more of these have happened to allow the Government to brag about the number of appointments?
The descent into what Guy Debord called the society of spectacle is complete. Real bottom of the barrel crap. A ruling class with that has always had a sociopathic disregard for the comon weal is now no holds barred psychopathically and openly destroying the weak and pretending to be aligned with populist interests. You can perhaps see it best as an end of empire tendency where the tyranny and nastiness that was shown to the natives of the colonies comes home. This tendency has been written about for 2500 years. It is reflected perfectly in the economic system as it stands.
These people really are beneath contempt.
A reasonable analysis. No doubt they will be able to say “something has been done”, but as an experienced patient, I’m sure you will remember that quite a few people of your calibre do a but of work next door, as it were, for other firms. A while back, I had private cover with another firm, paid for by my employer, and it was normal to be able to see the same consultant a lot earlier that way than being on an NHS waiting list, with the private place being within walking distance of the other. I expect that will grow in the medium term.
I like NHS workers in the same way that I like the armed forces. They are like what the English were like fifty years ago before they got all messed up. You feel with an NHS worker that you’re talking to an actual Englishman regardless of where he hails from. The politeness, the urbanity and civility. It is reassuring in the same way that a trip to the countryside is reassuring. The NHS and the army are all that is left of the old beautiful England.
The administrators of the administrators merging back with the administrators to administrate the administrated. What used to be quaintly called clerks, secretaries and adminstrative assistants.
Core task logistics – at the founding of the NHS, used to be overseen by medical staff from the Chief Medical Officer downwards.
Again hold accountable Education, Education, Education. More non-jobs for graduates with non-degrees – Compliance, Care Quality, DIE, etc, etc, etc.
Meanwhile, Sir Two-Tier proclaims AI will be the answer to NHS prayers. Be careful what you wish for.
When I started my hose jobs, my big DGH had ONE administrator and one assistant. Neither was that effective.
Those NHS England staff not needed to cope with the increased workload of the DHS, all too lacking in NHS experience, will be needed as private consultants to the local hospitals and trusts to whom new responsibilities will devolve (as per Starmer’s “back to the frontline, where they belong,” which, being interpreted, means “back to managers who will recruit more to spend any extra resources”).
And of course, as with every money-saving NHS reorganisation since before I qualified and after I retired, new offices with new furniture, new stationary, new IT systems and newly-minted non-jobs will be indispensible.
And they might turn out to be useful as private consultants to do those tasks, off the payroll etc. Ask the Chancellor.
All criticisms of the structure are true but that shouldn’t blind you to the nature of the attack. When I worked in the NHS we had people from overseas working within it and the most striking thing for them was the military structure. Not a bad thing but if you reflect upon it is essentially a military structure, But it got the job done well when it was well-funded. And the NHS is easily the most efficient organisation in the world when it comes to the procurement of drugs because of the arrangement. It is easy to slag it off but in the times we live in it is an easy target. It is certainly the best thing that is left about England. The workers are a cut above.
You had people comng back from Iraq and Afghanistan with their legs blown off and these were obviously very young men and they got well looked after by the NHS and not just fixing them up but also providing a reason for living. The structure itself relies upon a degree of internal cohesion. This is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. Just look at how recruitment for the armed forces has fallen in the last few years. All of these are signs you can’t just pretend that they aren’t happening.
If we grasp that we are now a disability based country and economy then at least there is an honest acknowledgment. We need to move quickly towards a geriatric and disability based economy. Difficult without immigrants though. Just find your local invalid and wheel him out for a walk. The acolytes of Rudolf Steiner asked, how do we attain knowledge of higher worlds? He said visit the local old people’s home and take a few of the residents out for a walk.
Don’t let this slimy little tosser get his grubby paws on anything. I have no ideological commitment to the NHS but can say that it is worth saving and full of the finest people that we have. It tends to be a bit naive when it comes to attacks. Don’t be naive about this nasty little twat.
The theory: politicians, elected by the population, make policy and the bureaucracy execute the policy.
The reality: the bureaucracy make and execute policy and the politicians sell it to the public. So the public elect the politicians who are going to sell them predetermined policies.
The theory: the bureaucracy serves the public. We pay them, they work for us.
The reality: the bureaucracy rules the public. The money they confiscate from us is the source of their power.