Fingers crossed

The slow motion car smash of the Great Plague of 2009 continues to glide at the speed of melting toffee. I hope everyone is being a bit alarmist, because if not we are in big trouble. Over the last two days I went to the three pharmacies in my local area to see if they had any anti-septic hand-sprays and all were sold out. Only one of the sales assistants even had the presence of mind to say that they had re-ordered, and even she didn't think to say when the next delivery would be. It doesnt look good for salesmanship or customer service. Most of these places are in dispute with the government about the massive hand-outs they get for giving out the social welfare drugs. If they spent less time moaning about the unjust cutting of their shamefully over-inflated fees and more time checking demand and stock-levels maybe they would actually make money from the business they are supposed to be in instead of scabbing off the tax payer. Even the lowliest dunder-head in the local book-shop will ask "Will I order it for you" or "it will be back in stock in two weeks and we can phone you if you want" or even "the other bookshop might have one in stock if you cant wait"

things that make you go hmmm

Still not thrilled at what awaits us all in the Autumn (northern hemisphere)
Its the winter in the southern hemisphere, so you would have to wonder about swine flu and how quickly it could develop. With luck it wont be any big deal, but we are relying on luck. I still think the reaction from governments and health professionals in the area has been pathetic -- and has been for many years when you look at the record for an instant. There are drug-resistent strains of all sorts of lovely long-forgotten plagues out there, such as Typhoid, Typhus and Tuberculosis --
diseases that used to cut people down like flies and still do when there are earth-quakes and other disasters which cause crowding and bad sanitation. We have become very complacent, and diseases our grand-parents no longer worried about are coming back to teach us a lesson

Its been months...years actually

between the second last and the last post. No excuse for it.
I will be forty four this year. I feel a chill of dismay even writing the words.
I seem to have lost about fifteen years along the way, by rights I should be only about thirty, the amount I have achieved so far only amounts to what a sleepy thirty year old would have got done. Must try harder

Football is evil

I think I said this before and no doubt I will say it again -- ever since I was a lad I have had an instinctive aversion to team sports. The essence of team sports is, we are all told, character building and all about getting along with people and working as a group. But to me, it seemed and still seems to be about Winners and Losers. And there are lots and lots of Losers. The guys who lose the match. The guys who only get to be substitutes. The guys who were'nt good enough to even be substitutes. The guys who the gym teacher didnt think were good enough to not even be enough not-good-enough to not be considered not good enough to be substitutes. You get the idea. It sort of sets up the pattern for being a loser. Sure, you can be a Winner, or you can be a bad loser such that the next time you become one of the winners, but the Life Lesson lurking in here in all the loserness is that life is like sport and life is about losing and you might as well get used to it bub.
Of course, if we want to project the World as it Really is that would be fine.
But, last time I checked, there was still a lot of guff about Opportunity and the Equality thereof and how we were all in it together and were supposed to be helping each other ... so where are all the heart-warming cooperative games where no child is left behind and everyone's contribution is valued?