Good health

I am learning about the Health Service. The organisation is chaotic. The people who work in it are brilliant.
The people who have seen me at Bermondsey Spa, my GP, at Guys and St Thomas' Hospitals and at University College London have all been very good at the medical stuff and very good with a patient.
The organisation behind them is less good. 
It is not a normal business. Unlimited demand for a free service which divides political opinion is not the ideal model for an efficient, cost-effective business.
But it must be possible to have one businesslike bunch dealing with the allocation of beds, the booking and managing of appointments, the peaks and troughs, leaving the brilliant medical bunch to do what they are good at.
And they must have the means to raise the money it takes to meet this unlimited demand. If the government won't pay the bill, the Health Service needs to be able to raise it some other way.
I would invest in NHS bonds, or NHS crowdfunding.

The Milo de Venus and the sky blue Jaguar

The first LP I ever bought was Chuck Berry On Stage. I still have it. It still sounds great.
I love Chuck Berry. I love his words, his jangling intros. 
While callow pop stars sang of love, Chuck sang about school, cars and Nadine:

As I was motorvatin' over the hill, I saw Maybelline in a Coupe de Ville . . . 

Ten mile stretch on an Indiana road, t'was a sky blue Jaguar and a Thunderbird Ford, Jaguar setting on 99, trying to beat the Bird to the county line . . .

I saw her from the corner when she turned and doubled back, started walkin' towards a coffee-coloured Cadillac, I was pushing through the crowd to get to where she's at, campaign shouting like a southern diplomat . . .

They had a hifi phono, boy did they let it blast, 700 little records, all rock and rhythm and jazz, but when the sun went down the rapid tempo of the music fell, c'est la vie said the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell . . .

Milo de Venus was a beautiful lass, had the world in the palm of her hand, lost both her arms in a wrestling match, to win a brown-eyed handsome man . . .

Everything is wrong since me and my baby parted, all day long I'm walking 'cause I couldn't get my car started, laid off from my job and I can't afford to check it, wish someone'd come along and run into it and wreck it . . .

Looked at my watch and it was 10:05, I didn't know if I was dead or alive . . .

I earned my living doing words. I never did anything as clever, as memorable as that.
Chuck suffered as all black artists did in the South in the early 1960s. Jailed several times, cheated by concert promoters. He got even by insisting on payment, in dollars, in cash, before he went on stage and by using the cheapest local players to back him.
So many of the big British bands of the Sixties started off playing Chuck Berry songs.
We all have a lot to thank him for.

Sell-out

So now it is official. We are not just a backward island off the coast of Europe, we are a go-getting sales team looking to do business with anyone in the world no matter how nutty or how dangerous they are. Deals with Trump - bring 'em on. Arms sales to Erdogan - yes please.
But don't try to send your salesmen here. They will be stopped by the border police.
We want to sell them stuff, not welcome them.

True, false, or hidden?

The Observer, which is celebrating its 225th birthday, has a long article today criticising Google and Facebook for publishing fake news.
The Observer, of course, publishes only true news. Its editor, who is not elected, decides what goes in and how it is presented. Some of this true news is opinion. The Observer follows a left of centre course, so maybe those of a right of centre persuasion may not agree that it is all true news.
Google does not follow a left or right course. Its unique selling proposition is that it give you everything there is. You have to decide which of it you believe as true and which you reject as false.
The Observer's view is that Google and Facebook should be controlled in some way so they show only the news which is acceptable to Observer readers.
Russia and China follow this line of thinking. They allow their people to see only the stuff their ruling party thinks acceptable.
The European Commission also thinks there should be controls on what Google and Facebook show. They have ordered that past misdeeds should be excluded from search results.
I prefer to live in a world in which I can see everything there is and make my own mind up about it. And I am happy that the loonies, on whichever left, right or religious extreme they dwell, also have this right.
We as a society and the politicians we elect will be stronger if we face up to these issues and debate them, rather than pretending they do not exist.

Confused signals

This blog is usually concerned with putting the world to rights. Journalists always think they know how to run the world better than those who actually do.
Today, it is about me. I have been diagnosed with a form of motor neurone disease. The nerves which take signals from my brain to my muscles are failing.
The only symptom so far is my voice. The muscles which control it are getting confused signals. They do the best they can, but the sound is not as mellifluous as it was.
Everything else works fine. It will not always be so.
My mother died of motor neurone disease. It took two years from diagnosis to death in the 1980s. Since then, cancer outcomes are much better. Motor neurone outcomes are not.
The world will have to work out how to get along without my advice.

Unsafe, unsound

I am always cynical when unions say they are striking over safety.
Train workers usually do it. Junior doctors are now doing it.
Funny how safety always requires more staff to be hired, or wages to be increased.
I have no time for train strikers who want to keep jobs which are no longer needed.
I have little time for either side in the NHS dispute. We do need a 7-day service. We do need negotiators who can negotiate, not take fixed positions. 
The government put a 7-day service in its manifesto. It is obliged to bring it in.
It is ludicrous that the Health Secretary has allowed himself to be drawn into the dispute and become the great Satan. It is ludicrous that the doctors have allowed their union to negotiate a settlement and have then rejected that settlement.
The only solution now is for an independent arbitrator to be set up with the authority to impose a solution on all parties.  

In: These rules. Out: those rules

Negotiations over our future relationship with the European Union are expected to be long and difficult.
Negotiations between Canada and the EU have been long and are still not completed.
The EU has a complex arrangement with Norway, another with Switzerland and a third with Greenland.
The World Trade Organisation has similar problems in getting agreement. The deals America is trying to do with others are likewise fraught.

Why doesn't the EU draw up a single contract which any country or company which wants to trade with it has to sign? 
This contract could specify the rules you have to follow, the tariffs and taxes you have to pay and so on. 
Countries which wanted to leave the EU or trade with the EU would then have certainty over what they had to do.
Membership inside the EU, with all the benefits that brings; one contract for those outside, without those benefits. 
This contract could be a model for other trading groups to follow.
I'm sure such a contract could be drawn up inside two years, sooner if lawyers are not involved.
It must be simpler than trying to negotiate with every country indvidually.

And if that is possible, why not draw up a single contract for citizens? Agree to these principles, pay this fee and you can be an individual mamber of the EU. If you don't you will have to jump through these hoops if you want to visit or live in the EU.
Having individuals living under another county's rules but following your principles could be a great way of promoting your values.