D.N.A.C.P.R.

The acronym above stands for Do Not Attempt Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation

It is indeed strange how circumstances so remote as to virtually be impossible come together in life. I commenced watching ‘Everwood’ on Netflix, and posted upon X (twitter) about being gripped by a gentle drama. And then, the one thing which had impacted my life so appallingly, came on in that drama without any warning whatsoever.

If I can explain. Readers may remember that I wrote of my wife’s hospital treatment and death. My wife of some 53 years of marriage was stricken with schizophrenia many years ago. You don’t “get over” a mental illness, you treat it with medication, with love and with understanding. I had to have my beloved committed to a Mental Hospital in Cape Town, and then had to figure out how to look after two very small boys and a six-month old daughter. It wasn’t easy, but we got through it together, and after a time in hospital, my love was returned to my care.

For many years, she was almost back to normal, but about fifteen years ago, she commenced a slow decline, ending up Bed- or Wheelchair-bound, and quite frail. She fell from her bedside, fracturing her hip, and, after a stay in the hospital’s A&E for X-rays and diagnosis, I was told that she had fractured her hip and needed an operation the next day. I was contacted by the hospital, and told that my wife had come through the operation successfully, had a drink of tea, and was resting. I was called in the evening, and bluntly told that my wife had suffered a heart attack, and was dead.

I was literally grief-stricken at the loss of my Jacqueline, but I ploughed on with all the digital ephemera which surrounds a family death, concentrating to clear everything away, inclusive of arranging a cremation, and after about four-odd weeks, I was almost back to normal. The Coroner had to be involved, because Jacqueline’s death was unexpected, and, during the conversation with the Coroner’s Clerk, I was offered a full copy of the hospital’s documentation concerning my wife’s treatment and death.

It was then I discovered that a Committee of Vultures, masquerading as Hospital Consultants, had reviewed my wife’s file, physical and mental states, and decided that, in the event of a heart attack, she was to be denied resuscitation: and so a DNACPR note was laid upon my wife’s bedside notes. To say that I, with all that grief suddenly resurrected, was almost beside myself with anger is, perhaps, an understatement. I tried all avenues to get some form of contrition from the hospital; but after many weeks, I had to be satisfied with making a video on the hospital’s channel, and letters of condolence which were VERY carefully worded. 

So, as I stated at the beginning of this polemic, I was binge-watching Everwood on Netflix, and, in this episode; the storyline was discussing how cast members were greeting the news of the sudden death of a young man who had been revived after a catastrophic accident. The doctor/surgeon who had treated the young man was reviewing his own notes, and suddenly, a page appeared which was a signed DNACPR document: but signed by the patient himself. He stated that he did not wish to live the half-life which he had inherited after the accident.

I accept that just about all television is scripted, laced with propaganda of one sort or another, and carefully directed, including most news channels, but I do believe that the wider public should be aware that, certainly in GB&NI, those Consultants who are supposed to carefully review the files of all patients who are to undergo surgical intervention have, indeed, the very power of LIFE AND/OR DEATH within that carefully worded documentation. The patient, and any family members, are not normally advised when the DNAR is signed.

Doesn't Sound As If It's Working

...you seem pretty loony still.

I need retail therapy, because Veganuary has become quite muted and that’s part of a wider inflection point in vegan eating that I’m sad about. “Where have all the vegans gone?” Dazed asked in November (Ed: Admit it Reader, you sang that in your head, didn't you?), and now New York Magazine has investigated, with the tagline: “Plant-based eating was supposed to be the future. Then meat came roaring back.” It details a wave of vegan restaurant closures (plus the high-profile reverse ferret performed by formerly vegan Michelin-three-starred Eleven Madison Park to serving “animal products for certain dishes”), declining sales of meat substitutes and a stubbornly static percentage of people identifying as vegan (around 1%). It’s not new (rumours of veganism’s demise have been swirling around since at least 2024) and it’s not just a US phenomenon; many UK vegan restaurants have closed this year, including my lovely local.

The world is healing! What could possibly account for this? It can't just be people coming to their senses and rejecting a fad, can it?

What’s going on? For a start, the Trump 2.0 “roaring” meat revival. As the New York Times reported last year, meat sales are up and fewer Americans are interested in curbing their intake. That movement feels partly provocative – an in-your-face rejection of woke orthodoxies around cutting your carbon footprint, consuming mindfully, or, generally, caring.

Yes,  Emma, Chad and Martha from Stallion's Tackle, Arkansas aren't chowing down on a juicy steak at their local diner because they want to, they are doing it purely to stick a thumb in the eye of progressive loons like you. They'd rather be having a mushroom cassarolr instead.

Is there some pychiatric term for people who think this way? 

Oh, yes - narcissists.

I wonder, though, if other things are happening. I’m concerned that we have reached the “shrug and give up” stage of trying to combat climate breakdown and that’s also why fewer people are vegan. People are starting to think it’s too late, so why bother – they might as well be hung for a lamb chop. Plus, on climate, there’s a good argument that what individuals can achieve is exceptionally limited and that making us feel responsible is a cynical trick. Why am I diligently washing out coconut kefir bottles to recycle, when half the world’s climate-heating emissions come from the products of 36 fossil fuel companies?

And that big glowing ball in the sky? You don't think that might have a bigger effect on our planet's temperature and climate? 

More broadly, I don’t think I’ll surprise anyone by venturing that the world feels tremendously, terrifyingly bad right now. People need the odd little treat to face – and keep facing – the horrors. Is it so wrong, relatively speaking, to carpe diem and butter yourself a crumpet now and then? Of course not. All I can say to that, really, is if you’re interested in feeling good – and who isn’t? – it feels good to actually do something. My veganism is basically self-interest, by which I mean, I do it for my health: not physical, but mental.

It doesn't seem to be working, so maybe you should try a beefburger, Emma. 

What are UK supermarkets like now to visit?

It was either the current Reform v Advance war today or this piece on supermarkets. I'm a bit out of it myself, getting deliveries these days rather than hitting the aisles at these barns ... yet I assume the stock is the same, only at hyperinflated prices for delivery.

So really, it's in your hands as to the veracity of what he says, remembering he's a dour Yorkshireman.

Thoughts on the Digital ID approved on Thursday in the Lords

In the light of the Lords' approval of this egregious bill:

... I added this below the birthday wishes to our fair lady:

"Fri 06:18: Housekeeping note: Julia has a post up here at 9 a.m. today.  We also need to make a statement on the Lords' passing of the Digital ID bill yesterday.  Tricky timing as Julia won't be around. I plan to make a statement tomorrow morning, Saturday, for readers, say at 7 a.m. and if I put it in scheduled today, say by our 7 a.m. or so, she'll be able to read it from our dashboard and either DM me or else go direct to my post and alter what needs altering. So that's coming up, readers."

The issue as far as any online adult in Britain goes:

Virtually every pundit who is onto the issue has come out against it ... not because we don't care about children but because it's been directly shackled to policing US adults ... that's its main purpose, its main goal being to shut down dissent, to police what we speak out on.

Or going further ... the idea is also to sow division, dissonance and rancour between partners, allies, fellow onliners ... here's an example:

There's a lady on X, Sandy Tregent, we mutually follow, she and I mutually repost, e.g. on this:

We're onside on most issues.  However, she's super-keen on Farage and Reform and right down on Rupert and Ben. I'm for Reform rank and file but right down on Farage and the gang of three.

And there's the dilemma. We can be onside on 8 out of 10 issues but disagree on the last two.  Which do our foes direct all their energy to? Of course ... anything to split us and get this rancour going.

At her site, Lady Julia makes plain she does not police Anon comments but does have another method. At Unherdables, there's a quite workable system of at least adding a moniker to your comment.  Your own invented moniker.

That works fine in both cases. However, at a site such as Orphans, you can see the issue.

We here also allow Anon but I add that you need to call yourself something somewhere in the text.  There's a reason ... I'm the one getting the threatening letters from the platform and one of the stipulations is no anonymity. Fine ... if you self-identify with something you invent, we've complied.

However:

Following the Lords' vote, that is no longer enough at ANY site. They will push for govt issued "licencing" of our right to speak online.  I can't speak for Julia but I flatly refuse to comply.  That might lead to banning from any online commenting. So be it.

Remember, I'm only speaking for myself there.  And of course, there are ways around it, whilst still technically complying.  All that is future days at this stage.

At the same stage, we've been threatened with removal at Orphans. Julia at her place hasn't, I at Unherdables haven't but "we" at Orphans have. They do NOT like voices combining.

And that, readers, is where we are this Saturday morning.

And Paying Customers Are Saying 'No Thanks', I'll Go See Avatar3 Instead!'

Now that the political scene in the contemporary United States looks like an unending string of military PR coups for the Trumpian right at home and abroad, it’s appropriate that Paul Thomas Anderson’s spectacular, mysterious counterculture epic One Battle After Another – with Leonardo DiCaprio as a clueless, dishevelled ex-revolutionary – should consolidate its current position as one of the leading movies of this awards season: winning four Globes including best musical or comedy and best director for Paul Thomas Anderson – whose fluency, productivity and pure technique and ambition are arguably making him America’s pre-eminent film-maker. 

And all those accolades mean nothing, if the potential audience says 'Yawn! Not another progressive wish-fulfillment snoozefest!'  and goes to see something more worthy instead.

Who has a birthday Friday then?

Tomorrow last year, I ran this on behalf of Grandpa and our readers for our Lady Julia:

And so she will be in a few days ... I looked at the "card", thought we weren't going to better those wishes this year and so, happy birthday to young Julia.

......

Fri 06:18: Housekeeping note: Julia has a post up here at 9 a.m. today.  We also need to make a statement on the Lords' passing of the Digital ID bill yesterday.  Tricky timing as Julia won't be around. I plan to make a statement tomorrow morning, Saturday, for readers, say at 7 a.m. and if I put it in scheduled today, say by our 7 a.m. or so, she'll be able to read it from our dashboard and either DM me or else go direct to my post and alter what needs altering. So that's coming up, readers.

The state of Britain ... update

We only need to string together five or so news items and the picture becomes clear ... and that's only in this country ... in the other former developed members of the Commonwealth, a similar situation has arisen.  Here are a few items as of Thursday morning at 03:10.

The Death Sentence which also costs you Cash

I used to smoke cigarettes. I used to smoke a great many cigarettes. But I had to stop. Not for health reasons, although there was more than enough warnings to go around about how truly dangerous smoking actually was. So, I smoked.

The reader may well ask ‘Why’? The answer is of course, truly simple: I was an addict. Some fifty-odd years ago, I was the Engineering Manager for an electrical construction company. A very successful company, but the word ‘successful’ meant long hours either in an office, or traveling sometimes thousands of miles to sort and supervise projects across Southern Africa.

The work was stressful, and, like any addict does, I told myself that the smoking helped me get my work done, helped me get back sometimes really late, where I’d miss my growing family times because the kids were already in bed by the time I got back: and my wife brought me my dinner after reheating it, because I was so late.

But times and nations change, and I foresaw that the South Africa I had lived in for sixteen years was going to change, and the black man’s vote was coming, because the Afrikaner Government was the target of Liberal Western pressure.

So, I made my plans, with my wife and young family, and came back to England. But before I had even made plans to sell our house, I knew I had to stop smoking. Why? Pure economics. I smoked 70 cigarettes a day, and spent the equivalent, in British money, of £7.50 for 500 smokes, but you must recall that that was 45 years ago. But to buy 500 smokes in England would then have cost £62.50: which I knew was, for me, out of reach, even with the salaries I was expecting,

The tax segment of the price which British smokers pay is important for a couple of reasons. The first is, as always, important because it funds a fair chunk of the Government’s spending plans. It is always a slightly alarming amount because the cash comes from a tax grab paid by an alarming number of people who seemingly either do not care, or actually ignore, what their addiction WILL do to them.

The second is that they don’t seem to understand that smoking DOES directly produce cancer in their lungs. True, not everybody who smokes gets cancer, but the vast majority of smokers are living on borrowed time. It is not an easy death: it is a painful, lingering, obscene death. Smoking in GB&NI costs, on average, around £16.45 for 20 cigarettes, with some brands cheaper, but some, so-called Premium brands charging as much as £20.00 for 20 smokes.

I accept that I stopped smoking for purely financial reasons, and once I had stopped by simply saying “NO MORE SMOKES”, after around three weeks I recovered my senses of smell and of taste; I’ve never looked back. You might think that when the average smoker realises that they are paying the Government somewhere around 85-90% in taxes of the £16.45 per 20 smokes they might just pause, and reflect that they could be doing something better than ensuring an early, painful death, as well as paying the Government the cash which will, unfortunately, help to pay for their final pain-ridden time on this Earth in an NHS hospital.

Have you, dear reader, ever stepped back from the service counter of the average Chemist’s premises, and taken a look at the INDUSTRY which purports to help you stop smoking? The ranks of pills, filters, patches, gum, lozenges, inhalers, or sprays, often combined with nicotine-free prescription medicines (varenicline, bupropion) for best results, plus vaping as a safer alternative to smoke, alongside distraction items like gum, water, or activities to manage cravings. They are probably not going to help you stop, but they are certainly making someone very rich.

Take it from one who stopped, in the ONLY way which really works. All it takes is will power; all it takes is a small but vital dose of that secret additive known, to the wise as COMMON SENSE.

They're Mad, But Not That Mad...

A transgender man was raped within an hour of being admitted to an all-male ward of a secure psychiatric NHS hospital, a court heard. The biological female was earmarked immediately by other patients, with one alleged attacker shouting 'no Adam's apple, no Adam's apple,' prosecutors said.

The attacks allegedly took place on the Eden Ward secure psychiatric unit of Lambeth Hospital in south London on April 12, 2022.

The ward is for men with severe mental health problems, some of whom have been brought in by police having been sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

And yet, they still aren't as mad & incompetent as the people running the place! Or the prosecuting team, still referring to her as a male.

'The fact that (the complainant) is biologically female with female anatomy, if it was appropriate to transfer him to a male ward at all, the hospital ought to have provided one-to-one monitoring, but this did not happen as a result of staff shortages,' Ms Bex told the jury. 

'He was therefore left unattended and without appropriate supervision.

And just in case the jury want to indulge in a little nullification on the basis the wrong people are on trial here:

'Whilst this may no doubt be of concern to you, or indeed anyone listening, the hospital is not on trial here; whether it has questions to answer is for a different type of enquiry.'

Yes, we've all seen how much use they are. 

Just Convert To Islam, Mark...

...they won't touch you then:

A former police officer who moved to Russia has had his citizenship revoked by the Home Office over 'national security'. Mark Bullen, originally from Bracknell in Berkshire, spent 11 years working for Hertfordshire Police, where he wrote a training handbook on Russian crime. Having been interested in the country's culture since he was a child, he moved there permanently in 2014.

British ex-pats all round the world, so what's wrong with this?  

Mark later started working for the media team for Russian football club Zenit St Petersburg and lives with his four children in the city. However, ten years after leaving the UK, he was detained by police at Luton Airport on a visit home to see family. He was questioned for four hours under the Terrorism Act before being released without charge. Then, in October last year, Mr Bullen received a letter from the Home Office telling him his UK citizenship was being revoked on the grounds of national security. Mark said: 'For them to do this, without any evidence, is ridiculous.'

Rememmer this case when some squinty-eyed, thin-lipped  rapidly blinking Prime Minister tells you he can do nothing about the monsters in our midst because of their 'human rights' to live here...

Under section 40 of the British Nationality Act 1981, the Home Secretary has the power to take away a person’s British citizenship if they consider it conducive to the public good. 

The Home Office declined to comment.

It's pretty telling that they choose this man as a suitable target, isn't it?