two-tier health...

This summer, the NHS will be celebrating its 75^th birthday.
I was one of the first individuals who benefitted from the service and it’s something I’ve treasured throughout my life.
Increasingly, there’s talk that the Tories are wanting to introduce a privatised version of the NHS (and they’ve been pushing such policies over the past 10 years or more)… making people pay for doctors’ appointments; encouraging people to ‘go private’ in order to jump the lengthy waiting times for operations; making things so bad that they maintain that introducing a privatised system is the only solution to health service needs.
Frankly, I’ve long argued that higher taxation is the only appropriate (and essential) way to ensure that our public services are maintained and developed. By contrast, the Tories constantly talk about cutting taxes.
 
I am hugely fearful that we’re becoming a two-tier society… the haves and the have-nots. The rich who can afford to pay and the poor who can’t. Those families who don’t have sufficient resources to maintain a decent standard of living and who, in these days of cost-of-living and energy crises, are being forced into making desperately difficult decisions (eg. heat or eat). By the same token, if people are forced into making decisions about their (or their family’s) health based on whether or not they can afford to do so, I genuinely fear for the society we would have become.
It doesn’t take much to imagine a situation where a family member is in need of health treatment, but is forced to opt out for reasons of cost… parents who understandably focus on their children (or perhaps elderly relatives) because they feel unable to justify being treated themselves. People with special needs or disabilities struggling because the appropriate services have been ‘run down’ due to lack of finance/political decisions. What are they expected to do if they can’t afford to pay for a replacement?
 
I genuinely fear for what lies ahead if the current political mindset doesn’t change. Yes, of course, our NHS is far from perfect but, frankly, from what I’ve heard of several people’s experiences, neither is the privatised version.
I think that the time has come when we have to take a stand for certain important principles… but time is running out. 

empire of light…

Moira and I went to the Watershed yesterday to see Sam Mendes’ film “Empire of Light”.
Set in 1981, the Empire is a fictional Margate cinema. The key characters are Hilary (Olivia Colman) - depressed, middle-aged and lonely - and Stephen (Micheal Ward) - a young black man facing the daily trauma of a racist England. They both work at the cinema.
Mendes both directed the film and wrote the screenplay. He’s apparently described it as a tribute to his own mother (but I’m not sure if this relates to her mental health or her love of cinema?). The Empire cinema is one of those beautiful Art Deco buildings that has seen better days. Cinema attendance had declined markedly; the Empire used to have four screens, but now uses only two.
It’s a wonderfully acted drama about love, life and films. Colman and Ward are excellent (Colman is outstandingly good) – as is Toby Jones as the dedicated projectionist Norman.
I found it a hugely impressive, heartfelt film (and beautifully shot by Roger Deakins) and yet I came away feeling that there had been just too many storylines (Hilary’s mental health; Stephen’s racist experiences; the sexual demands of the self-important, pompous cinema manager (Colin Firth); the Empire as the venue hosting the regional premier of ‘Chariots of Fire’; England’s widespread racism; the uplifting cinema-going experience; the romance of films; the UK’s struggling film industry).
Nevertheless, I think you should see it – if only for the cinematography and Colman’s wonderful performance. 

january 2023 books…

Small Things Like These (Claire Keegan): Moira gave me a batch of books shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022 and this is the first one I’ve read. The novel is a mere 114 pages long but is simply stunning… haunting and yet hopeful. It’s set in 1985, just before Christmas, in an Irish town in County Wexford. The story’s main character is Bill Furlong, a coal merchant with a wife and five daughters. As an infant, Furlong and his mother were taken in by a wealthy Protestant woman living just beyond the town. I’m loathe to say too much, but there is a convent at the edge of town and, attached to it, a training school and laundry where young women live and work. There are all kinds of rumours about those in attendance. It’s a beautiful, breath-taking and tender book that will remain with me for a long time. You need to read it.
Treacle Walker (Alan Garner): Another from the Booker Prize 2022 shortlist. I read Garner’s memoir “Where Shall We Run To?” a couple of years ago, but can also recall reading (or at least starting to read) his novel ‘The Moon of Gomrath’ to our daughters when they were young (a long time ago!)… but I don’t think I was ever captivated by his world of myth and magic. ‘Treacle Walker’ is a strange, mystifying, clever book (of just 150 pages). Joe is a child living a somewhat strange existence; his parents are not in evidence. He wears a patch to correct a lazy eye. One day a rag-and-bone man, named Treacle Walker, appears and offers Joe a cup and a stone in exchange for an old pair of pyjamas and a lamb’s shoulder bone. The cup has Joe’s name written upon it. Joe later comes across Thin Amren, a naked, ‘bog-man’ who informs him that his lazy eye is the result of “the glamourie” – a gift that enables him to see time collapsed, to perceive the eternal in the now – and is drawn into the mirror-world of a comic book battles (aided by the visits of the genial Treacle Walker). For me, it felt like a cross between Max Porter’s book ‘Lanny’, Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and Roald Dahl’s ‘The BFG’! I subsequently read a review by Alex Preston (in The Guardian) in which he described the novel as “seeking to ask how we would experience the world if we were able to step out of the straitjacket of time” and that it was “about quantum physics as well as ancient lore” – which might explain why, at times, I struggled to make sense of it all! Fascinating nevertheless.
The Bullet That Missed (Richard Osman): Osman is one those highly intelligent people who are capable of being simply brilliant at anything they choose to do. This is the third of his ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ mysteries - set in a peaceful retirement village, where “four unlikely friends investigate unsolved murders”. The plot is very clever (even if I did find myself saying “oh, really!” a couple of times out loud) and Osman just has a knack for writing – completely engaging, humorous and with characters who you genuinely get to love (each one of them!)… and the book is ridiculously readable (400 pages, but easily finished within 3 days). Can’t wait for the next one… you just hope the elderly characters can go on living for a fair few more years yet!
Plainsong (Kent Haruf): I’ve selected this as our next Blokes’ Books book. It’s a bit of a cheat really because it’s only 3 months ago that I first read it… but I just felt it would be an excellent book for us to discuss (we’ll see!). It’s set in a small town, Holt in Colarado, and recounts the lives of individuals who share little else than belonging to fractured families – including a schoolteacher struggling to bring up his 8+10 year-old sons alone; a pregnant, homeless schoolgirl and two old bachelor rancher brothers who take her in. Colarado life can be cruel at times. Some people’s actions are appalling but, at the same time, there are some wonderfully gentle, decent individuals. The writing is magical - graceful and almost poetic – with a quiet, understated way I found absolutely captivating. I loved it… and loved re-reading it.
Oh William! (Elizabeth Strout): This novel is another book shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022 and features successful writer Lucy Barton (apparently Strout has written two previous novels about Lucy Barton) and her relationship with her ex-husband, William. They are both at a late-life crossroads (Lucy is 63 when the book opens). Lucy’s beloved second husband has died a few weeks earlier, and William’s third wife has left him. William asks Lucy to join him on a trip to Maine in search of a long lost half-sister. The book isn’t so much a tale of this search, but about the nature of Lucy and William’s relationship. Indeed, it’s a novel about relationships but also about class; about memories; about feelings and emotions; about ageing; about tolerance and intolerance; and, sometimes, about the quiet forces that hold families together. I very much enjoyed Strout’s writing – intimate, wise… and managing to capture empathy without sentimentality.