It's the new Bogeyman, being mistreated in the care home which is costing you your life's savings. You worked all those years, just to be tortured to death by a poorly-paid, body-pierced, Polish lesbian working for a firm of healthcare cunts and
probably owned, from a safe distance, by a Tory MP and his wife.
Government doesn't give a fuck, they'd prefer you dead; the cops don't give a fuck, they don't give a fuck about anything, worthless, lazy bastards; the CPS doesn't give a fuck, they don't want to prosecute corporations, they want to work for them; your relations don't give a fuck, you bred vile, selfish, money-grubbing consumeristas, they want you dead while you've still got some money to leave them; how dare you have had a house, how dare you have had some savings, you are the fucking enemy within, you fucking old bastard, it's people like you that's been keeping bright young people down. You don't deserve a drink of water. What? Clean you up, you dirty old git? I'm a graduate, I don't do shit.
The Filth-O-Graph, today, reveals, as if it needed revealing, that a thousand people have been thirsted to death in so-called care homes. You have to laugh. Don't you?
I wonder how many of them, bleating, now, like sheep in the abbatoir, voted for Whisky Maggie's orgy of privatisation, maybe copped a few grand for themselves; how many of them voted for the Tony&Cherie Blair Retirement Fund wars?
Now they, themselves, their clamouring memories; their quivering frailties and multiple vulnerabilities; their bright shiny loves and their dark, dirty lusts; their withering stalks and their dusty blooms; their entire beings, the precious distillation of their three-score and ten years; all the matters and opinions and experiences to which they amount are no more than irritating figures on a corporate balance sheet; their lives' gold transmuted to base metal by the spiv alchemy of the pinstripe Market;
where have all the flowers gone?
Mrs ishmael's daughter stays now and again and one of the first things she does is refresh the dogblokes' water bowls, she just does it, in passing, automatically; she was never asked to do it, it was never her duty, it's just something she does.
Makes you weep with rage that employees paid to care for old people cannot or do not even manage to ensure them a glass of water; they and their employers should have all their property confiscated and be set to hard labour, they're good for fuck all else.
16 comments:
Examples such as this demonstrate the corrosive nature of over-dependence on the collective. Of shrugging off responsibility and assuming that 'the state' will pick up the pieces. After all them up the road have put their mum in a home and the state is paying for it and none of them have ever worked a day in their lives so why should I pay in all my life and have to look after the dribbling old loon on my own buck? Fuck it. She can go in a home too. Time I got something back.
It's okay when one or two people do it. When the whole fucking country is at it the system and the means to pay for it falls apart. Which is where we find ourselves.
It doesn't help that these 'carers' are poorly paid Eastern European immigrants but in truth it wouldn't matter how much you paid them or whether they were home-grown. As the Imbecile Brown proved, when he handed out a 40% pay-rise overnight to the doctors, giving 'em more money just means they'll work less hours. Or less hard. One thing it definitely doesn't buy is better doctors.
The same bluff that the bankers give 'We have to pay such huge bonuses to retain such talent' applies just as well to doctors, nurses and 'carers'. Thanks for the money suckers, service as usual.
Did NHS care improve after Brown tripled spending in a decade? Well some statistics and NHS head-count 'improved' for sure but the suspicion is that these were merely rigged to the detriment of other statistics or indeed reality. The extra cash just went into various people's pockets, extra nurses, doctors, extra management consultants, shiny new hospital buildings with shiny new machines that go 'ping' Monday - Friday 9AM - 4:30PM etc and the whole gravy train rattled along as normal.
In the meantime Death Camp cover-ups continued as normal. The nurses unions and the BMA closed ranks, the civil service closed ranks, Ministers closed ranks, lessons will be learned, no individual to blame, isolated case, 100bn a year sir? That'll do nicely.
Anybody who questioned what the fuck was happening and where had all the cash gone were cut short with 'We've tripled spending on the NHS!' as if it was an end in itself. That cunt McConnell up in Fucking Scotland giving it 'I make no apologies for spending umpty billion extra in the NHS'. That's it case closed. Argument over.
'Nurses' with degrees who won't clean up puke or shit or answer a bell but sit around and wait for some Sri-Lankan or Nigerian skivvy to go and do it for them. Got a degree, see. Don't do puke.
The French with their collectiviste care for the elderly pioneered this approach. Wasn't it a decade or more ago that the great 'Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité' crowd came back from their summer hols to find that mum, who they'd dumped in a care home, had expired in their (tens of?) thousands in a heat wave?
'Actuellement, it ees ze faut of ze state zat I 'ave dunped ma maman in ze care-ome. She aze paid 'er stamp all 'her life n'est-pas? Cest pas mon fucking problem'.
Same fucking problem here. Folk convinced that by paying what, 8%, 10% of their average-wage pay in NI, will fund an all-expenses paid baby-sitting service for the last 15 years of their life? Don't worry dear, the house will come to you. I've paid my stamp.
And that cunt Salmond up in Fucking Scotland telling the voters, aye, we can afford this. Encouraging all and sundry who are cynical enough (and I am) to consider retiring to Fucking Scotland and throwing myself on the expense of Fucking Scotland just to have my revenge while my kids can spend the inheritance on themselves.
Extending the logic of your previous post, the proximal problem is having nursing homes at all. In a civilised world the old would be cared for by their own young, not by strangers. And in a truly civilised world the old would not hang around past the time they could not tell a joke, seduce someone, beat a man up, say something neither obvious nor wrong, charm a crowd, etc.
Mr tdg 'In a civilised world the old would be cared for by their own young'.
Indeed they would. And in a civilised world the occasional elderly person who, through no fault of their own, had failed to produce children to look after them or whose children had died young, could rely on the charity of those around them to provide a home and care. After all, the poor darlings, they have nobody.
And some government, to demonstrate to the voters what a caring, sharing bunch they are will have pledged that nobody will fall through the gaps. That everybody will be cared for from cradle to grave. From each according to his means to each according to how fucking bare-faced he can claim are his needs.
But at some point between that ideal and now somebody, somewhere, took the piss and was allowed to get away with it. They ditched mum down at the geriatric hospital with a Gallic 'There you go, I've had enough, you can look after her, she's paid her stamp..' And puff wheel-spin, plume of blue exhaust smoke and off back home.
And as Ben Elton said 'Well, if he's going to do it, I'm going to do it. Before you know it half the country is getting knocked up for their 16th birthday and then kicking back in their free house and free money until their youngest kid is 18 at which point they move seamlessly onto incapacity benefit before retiring, exhausted, to a nursing home or sheltered accommodation provided by a grateful nation in recognition of their contribution. As if anybody who makes it to 60 is some kind of a fucking hero. The same way anybody who joins the army or the police force or the fire brigade or puts on a nurses uniform is somehow, automatically, a fucking hero.
There's some statistic that well over half the country are net parasites on the state over the course of their life. Now, if more than half the people are net beneficiaries (and, deep down they will know who they are) then there is zero, nil, none-at-all motivation for them to reduce the costs because, guess what, they'll not be the ones who benefit. Quite the opposite. More free stuff!!!
Which is why you end up with some governments who will promise the fucking earth knowing most of the voters won't be paying for it and, increasingly, 'rich' people who go 'fuck off', stop buying votes with my fucking money. Stop digging a bigger and bigger hole of dependency and expectation that cannot be met by any reasonable divvying up of the pot. If you took fucking 100% off 'the rich' you still couldn't afford the lifestyle and expectations you promised.
52% tax was the straw that broke the camels back for me. Targetted spitefully by Brown to detract from his utter incompetence and ignite a class war. Fine. You got one. You can fuck off. I quit. I'll do the bare minimum to keep myself from going cold or hungry but you can just fuck off if you think I'm going to be handing 52% of my earnings over to cover up for your fucking incompetence. And the cunts who voted for you, they can all fuck off too.
My dear mr narcolept's dad, 96 not out, still helps with our massive scrap metal collection and makes brilliant omelettes. We couldn't bear to think of him being anywhere but here with us.
I remember listening to one of Alan Bennett's monologues describing the dismal conditions in his own mother's care home. For heaven's sake, I was screeching at the radio, you are not short of a bob or two, why can't you take her home with you?
Don't get me started on the NHS and the elderly. It's euthanasia by neglect all the way* until they have a massive stroke that doesn't quite kill them, then they pull out all the stops to keep the poor buggers alive when the kindest thing would be to let them have the next one that finishes them off.
*"Got a chest infection love? Hmm yes you had it when you were in six months ago, 3 months ago, two months ago and last week. Didn't I give you some penecillin? Oh I see that I did. Several times. Have some more now. It will be ineffective against the bacteria in your chest but it gets you out of my hair. Gives you diarrhoea and thrush you say? Never mind. Sputum test? No we only do those for TB. Which we don't have in this country. Hmm, your blood pressure is a bit high, probably because you have pneumonia, but have these beta blockers, statins, ace inhibitors or I won't get my bonus. They make you dizzy? Breathless? Pee all night? Unsteady on your feet? Mess with your memory? Now now, I am just trying to make you comfortable until you go."
"I am just trying to make you comfortable until you go" was what the doc said to my Mum.
"You're alive, aren't you?" is what the consultant responded to an "elderly" friend of 70 with rheumatoid arthritis who complained of terrible pain.
It is the both-endedness of your propsition, mr tdg, which chills me - you know, me, unreformed sentimentalist - the collective assumption that Yeah, OK, you can hang around with us as long as you know when you've worn out your welcome; contrarians like you and I would soon find ourselves at the head of the C'mon, old man, do the decent thing, don't mess us about queue.
I do agree that families and neighbourhoods - maybe an elders' kibbutzim - should enfold, whilst learning from their old, it's the voluntary euthanasia whic troubles me.
I have no remedy for this escalating problem, save to suggest that maybe it is time we reviewed the sacro- sanct status of mr jgm2's inherited wealth shibboleth -and everything wicked which stems from it. There is no logical place for it in the state which he so eloquently and persuasively damns, is there?
An examination of how we so haphazardly order our affairs in favour of a tiny minority, to which none here belong, is. surely long overdue.
The nation is awash, ms lilith, with such tales, I could write a book, myself. thirty years I've been down on their killing floor. There's a book on the shelf, next to me - How To Protect Your Heart From Your Doctor, written by another doctor, that's the way it is, it's a war out there. You can hit lucky with a GP, but only if you're lucky, most of them, I'm afraid, are the kind of people I went to school with, mr jgm2 excepted, of course. It is a long time since I had any parents, so I have been spared the choices and tribulations of you and mrs n and countless others and for situations such as these, as they might effect me, I recognise no next of kin wise enough to decide for me whether to go into one of these shitholes or, finally and joyously, run amok.
Mr I, I have no inherited wealth. I have only what I managed to accumulate by playing the game in my own lifetime.
However, by playing the game, ie studying assiduously at the schools laid on for me by the collective, choosing subjects that were likely to result in a well-paid job and generally playing the white-man,(and my wife - because in all honesty it's her who really landed the big bucks) we find ourselves with more than enough in our mid-forties to kick back.
I remember a decade before we got to this point doing the calculations. How much would we need to really and I mean REALLY make a material difference to our lifestyle. I don't mean the difference between Economy and First Class. I mean the difference between First Class and a LearJet. The cunts in First Class are still on the same fucking plane. They're still on some other fuckers schedule.
I took the executive decision that it ain't worth it. I had the big fuck-off house and, d'ya know what, it ain't fucking worth it either. Maintaining some Grade II monstrosity at your expense so that the locals can admire your fucking house. Fuck 'em. They can maintain the fucking place themselves. Give me some place that ain't listed.
Same with the First Class travel and the Gulfstreams. I've been fortunate with my chosen profession that I've had the opportunity to do that shit but, do you know what, when you arrive at the airport you're still just another gimp who has to go through customs. Same as the rest of them.
Don't get me wrong, it's fucking amazing sitting in a Gulfstream, in your white leather swivelling chair as the thing takes off like a fucking missile. And they do. None of this gentle ascent nonsense, they go up like a fucking missile. You don't look out the window to see the ground - you look behind you to see the ground. It's fucking amazing. Would I pay my own money to do it?
Not a fucking chance.
Do I resent folk who decide to keep at it? To pay for their own First Class flight. Their own private planes? No, I don't. It ain't for me. Life is too short to go after marginal gains. I ain't hungry. I ain't cold and I ain't getting any younger. I don't hang out with folk who will judge me because I didn't spend another 20 years working 24/7 just so I could travel First Class without worrying about the expense. In my sixties. Fuck that. I can travel right now for 10% of the price in my forties.
Where I'm going with this is that I, who have no inherited wealth, am still de-motivated by the thought that there is literally no point in me flogging my guts because there is the non-zero risk that some fucker will declare all my hard work, all my 'playing-the-fucking-game', all in my own life-time, as somehow 'unfair', a resource to be fucking well tapped.
They can fuck off. I quit. Let somebody else do the job. Or not. There you go. I created a job vacancy. Greater love hath no man than he would give some other fucker the opportunity to pay 52% tax.
MrI, You can hit lucky with a GP, but only if you're lucky, most of them, I'm afraid, are the kind of people I went to school with, mr jgm2 excepted, of course.
You are too kind. I'd have made a shit doctor. I'd have wanted to do a good job but I'd have been only too aware that I didn't have the first clue what was wrong. For the same reason we have a financial crisis we have an NHS crisis. The problem is that in the banks, those at the top know that the plankton on the front line, the mortgage advisors, the tellers, have only a rudimentary understanding of maths and must therefore be given a pre-populated spreadsheet with automated multipliers and a big decision tree in which to enter [SALARY], [AGE], [DURATION OF LOAN] so they cam hit a key and give it 'I'm very happy Mr jgm2 that we're prepared to advance you 600,000 pounds...' So it is with the medical profession.
'Hello doctor, I've got a cough. Had the fucking thing for months. No, I don't smoke. No, nobody in the house smokes. No, I've never smoked. Nasal spray you say? Right-ho, thank you doctor..'
'Hello Doctor, took that nasal spray you prescribed. Still got that persistent cough...'
'Hello doctor, look through the fucking notes. I haven't been to a doctor in 20 years. I don't fucking well come in here unless there's something wrong...'
Fucking useless. As my mate says - doctors are trained, not educated.
As you say, you can get lucky. But that's not the way to bet. I had one of 'em, when my missus was pregnant, trying to tell me there were 2.2 pints to a litre. 'No', I explained, 'There's 2.2 pounds to a kilogram but 1.76 pints to a litre. It's written on the side of the fucking milk carton. '
You could see the wheels turning, trying to decide how to let this interloping imbecile understand that, as a medical professional, he would be the ultimate arbitor on weights and measures and that I, some poorly dressed gimp who had rocked up in the street, couldn't possibly understand the amount of effort and training that had gone into his education.
My brother is a nurse. Back from when they had to clean up puke and shit. He's also a damn sight cleverer than I am but sniffed just a little too much glue when he should have been studying for his 'O' Levels. What this means is that he is a damn sight smarter than the doctors he has to deal with. And they both know it but he, as I'm sure your book is telling you, will tell you that they (doctors) are 90% incompetent and you should start from the premise that, while they're not actively trying to kill you, they are no more attuned to your medical needs than the dopey blonde at RBS is to your financial need.
It was't a personal thing, mr jgm2, how dare I? It's just that I know so many utterly revolting forty-year olds who are on what we sickeningly call the property ladder and are there only because of inheritances - either post or ante mortem from parents and grandparents, even, in one large Mick Irish family to whom I am close, from fairly distant aunts and uncles, nuns and priests. These prats, whom I knew as infants, who worked for me as youths now sit, up their own smug arses, in big houses in Moseley, insisting that they got there by their own efforts, As well as their fatuous imbecile conceit, there is the fact that they have raised house prices for those without comfortable relatives to sponge off. Writ large, this is the story of Cameron and Osborne, which Mick Irish Labour families, all over the countrty, have aped. I would love to see them taxed onto the street.
I am all for keepsakes, heirlooms, a bit of cash, a family property being handed down, but the transfer of massive sums of cash and influence is what has us where we are, fawning to royal scum, stupefied by celebrity, obediently eating our three square shitmeals a day.
NHS killed my mother in law, which was a shame as she was much preferable to my actual mother.
She was, at least, in her own home until the last 2 days though. I said to my wife at the time that 'If she goes in, she'll not come out'. My wife is the youngest of 11 and was out-voted, not in small part due to the fact she is married to me and I detest the most 'influential' of the brothers and let him know every time I see him, which isn't often, because I detest him.
She choked to death during an unnecessary gastroscopy. My wife had spoken to her, sitting up in bed, smiling, just 40 minutes before her death. The unseemly charge to her flat was led by, you guessed it, big brother. My wife wanted photos. She didn't get any, because she was not part of the mad stampede. He wanted the fridge, tele, the big bottle with 5p's in it. He got it all, and her trinket box, replete with 24ct trinkets, no less. Everything else, and I do mean everything,
was skipped or flogged or pilfered by the vultures.
The NHS is shit, and NHS care homes are shit. The stench of piss is near overwhelming. You must be out of your mind or callous to the nth degree to put a relative in one of those shitholes.
I'll not go, not if I have anything, anything to do with it. A bottle of Scotch and a Winter stroll for me, should I cause my children to despise my so much they would dump me in one of those hideous places.
Vincent.
You never read, obviously, mr jgm2, my treatise on How Your Doctor Is The Person Most Likely To Kill You.
I have no remedy for that, either, other than to try your very best to avoid them.
Eat well, exercise, don't smoke, drink in moderation, small moderation; keep busy, be thoughtful, learn stuff, do stuff, make stuff, read stuff, write stuff.
I used to write in a context where people would say How dare you say that, you make me so angry, to which I would reply, You should thank me, hetting angry is good for you, people pay good money down the gym for a buzz that you get just from reading me, you ungrateful slut.
Being angry, now and again, I guess, should be part of everyone's survival strategy. But I don't think I need to tell you that.
Amen to that, mr vincent, I had a similar familial experience when my father died; drink and poverty, I fear, had turned my sister and brother into hawk-like, speedy scavengers; they didn't even tell me he was dead until they had carved up his possessions, such as they were; mementoes have I none. I took, however, a bitter revenge which put the one of them, at least, back in her box, I suspect, for good.
RE Your advice to Mr jmg2 on moderation, that infamous arse-bandit, Oscar Wilde, once mused that all things are to be enjoyed in moderation, including moderation.
Silly old poof.
Vincent.
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