The Brave New World of Respect for the Aged

I often think that we dont have respect for the aged. Only this week someone of 98 years of age has been evicted from her property in Southampton because she was deemed to be a nuisance by the local authority, which is a craven mass of political correctness and cringe-making obfuscation. Not one of the neighbours had the guts to find out what had driven this woman to her actions, or to make friends with her, preferring instead the path of demonisation. I attach in this blog (one of my increasingly infrequent blogs) an eloquent piece written by one of my clients for advocacy; it illustrates well the way we treat our aged and ageing population.

Ageing is not a disease. People over 60 are not unwell; they are simply alive and living, the same as everyone else. But they need to be included in the social structure and not alienated, or evicted from their accommodation at the whim of nasty neighbours.

Here is the piece to which I allude:-






To Whom It May Concern
January 2010 Hampshire UK

Sir/Madam

My general comments are guided by the Green Paper; Keen & Bell 2009 and JRF, 2009; National Development Team for Inclusion 2009.

I live in an on site warden conbtrolled council run accommodation collectively for both elderly and younger aged residents both male and female. I do not enjoy a high expectation of a future better life even though my support needs are not considered excessive.

During the past six months the place where I live has experienced two incidents of serious fire hazard - the first incident caused by a flat dweller who had a kitchen fire and the second incident caused by a fire in the rubbish disposal bins which are housed within the accommodation block - both fire hazards were sounded by alarms - the first fire alarm incident occured on a Sunday morning and involved the fire service with emergency warden call-out and the second alarm incidenbt occured on a weekday morning at 02.45 hours and also involved the fire service with emergency warden call-out.

Directly as a result of the above explained incidents the quality of my life has now verey seriously diminished and I dont think I qualify as having a high expectation of a better life - at least not while I live in fear of becoming a victim of fire hazard and experience wardens who are in denial



I write this communication without identifying myself because I know that Wardens and Housing Officials collectively liase with each other and they have a tendency to single out complaining Tenants as ‘wingers’ and 'arrogant'. Wardens tend to complain to Housing Officials that a complaining Tenant is also a‘nuisance’ and the Tenant should be made to feel so uncomfortable such that the complaining Tenant might loose heart and voluntarily move elsewhere (if such be possible), or worse be so tramatised as to consider suicide as an only option. (Godfrey et al, 2004; Horton, 2009)’

My reason for remaining anonymous is to prevent this happening to me and believe it or not Wardens are very, very, very skilled at compiling ‘Reports’ about Tenants whom they perceive as ‘difficult’ or in my case to even quote as “arrogant” (Keen & Bell, 2009).

I will never feel Included while I suffer at the hands of professional younger
women who bully old retired tenants (JRF, 2009; National Development Team for Inclusion 2009).

Lastly, the fact that I withhold my identity is alienating for me, but what other
options do I have. Trust is gone - for me my back is against the wall and the
‘horror’ is I know that Ageism will live-on through this new decade.

Yours sincerely

Name and address withheld
(for fear of retribution)

School League Tables

Previously on this blog, I had said what I thought about what could be on a child's curriculum vitae at the age of 18 or 19 to differentiate them from going to Oxford or Cambridge over another child. That difference is pretty obvious to me; it is the fact that one child may have gone to a private school, whilst the other may have gone to a State school. Now another development had occured whereby school league tables are in question. People have realised that a school offering Needlework, Basket-weaving and Country Dancing at A Levels are now getting the same places within the league tables as those offering harder edged subjects. I could have told them that ten or more years ago.

I would relate a little story about teaching Business Studies at HND Level at a London College; so flustered were they at having to do this that they let go their one business studies lecturer. Therefore I had to finish the whole class off for their HND Level 2 and give them their final gradings. The thanks I got from that particular college was that they were never going to do Business Studies again because it was not their "thing".

Thats one of the reasons why these bankers are getting away with blue murder; because no-one does hard edged subjects. We all want to do pretty subjects that have no relevance to the real world. I mean, why do Law, Accounts, Physics, Medicine, etc when you can do Media Studies?

The net result of all this absolute nonsense is that you have a country which is financially illiterate and a Chancellor of the Exchequer who employs an accountant to fill in his tax returns.

Dont think so somehow.

Milburn on Class Division within Higher Education

Class division within education; a killing joke, possibly. Yet Alan Milburn, whom we understand has the ear of Lord Mandelson has decreed that when it comes to admissions policy, the leading universities will choose public school candidates over state school ones. The reasoning? Public school candidates apparently have more rounded curriculum vitae and have done a range of stuff outside the classroom including having been in the school cadet force, etc, etc. Although what any child is supposed to have achieved at the age of 18 or 19, heaven alone knows. What could any child put on their cvs at that age:-

A Levels?
Dont know?

And the fact that we are even thinking of dividing up pupils by their curriculum vitae at the age of 19 or 18 beggars belief. No child of that age will have done anything, so how they can say that public school pupils are better than state school pupils on that basis, I will never know.

Unless the little chaps and chapesses have been some sort of Mozart character, a prodigy at the age of 6, I guess we can pretty much forget about it; a more specious argument for barring decent state school pupils from the top universities has yet to be seen but I daresay that there is such an argument around, even if it dare not so far speak its name.

The most spied on people on the world?

I thought of having two titles for this particular entry in my blog. The first is "Them and Us?" and secondly "The most spied on people in the world?" The first title I thought of because it is true. This is the age of 1984. Everything Orwell though of for that novel is becoming true. We are becoming the most spied on people in the world. I will give an example. I have a friend who lives in town whom I visit to give welfare rights. This entails visiting during the day. If I visit first thing in the morning, the wardens in the block will wait until I come out from the lift and will keep on saying "Hello?" "How are you?" I will be pursued like this whether I want to speak or not. Generally I will say "Hmmm...." and pass on without making any sort of comment. One wonders whether thet write it in a book which then goes to Council headquarters, entitled "People who have visited these prenises". Also, there is a closed circuit television camera in the lift. I dont quite know what kind of criminal offences this particular council think will be committed up and down between the floors.

There have also been tales of other councils employing private detectives to see what people are up to in various flats, as part of the process of evicting them from their properties. Thats all very well if people are committing anti-social behaviour but my point is that most ordinary people are also be spied on and "shaken down". And it does not matter how old they are; this process seems to be virtually universal in this country. We are becoming extremely paranoid. Is it not enough that pensioners have mostly given their whole lives to the service of the United Kingdom without being spied on. We have paid our taxes, our VAT, our National Insurance Contributions; most of us have clean criminal records all our lives and have done nothing wrong. So I would say, as a matter of politeness to these local authorities, stop spying on us and stop getting your staff to spy on us.

Them and us - whilst all of this is going on, the most corrupt government and House of Commons carries on virtually unscathed from the expenses scandal and the leading light in the affair, speaker Michael Martin has been given a Peerage. Whereas the rest of us would have been locked up. One law for them and one for us. The major reason why they dont look at their own glasshouse is because they are too busy deferring the madness and badness on to us. I think they should all be looking in their own direction and if at all possible, booking in for mental health assessments very quickly.

Donalds got a brand new blog

Hello folks. I have got a brand new blog and in the fullness of five minutes from writing this, I hope to make it available to the general public with a tiny url. I have migrated from Yahoo because Yahoo Profiles would not seem to let me upload any of my favourite pictures of buses and trains. Yaboo.

Hope that most of you will make your way to my Brand new blog.