photo by Lamerie - manipulation by oddsocks

The photo above (my favourite) comes from a competition on FlickR run by Lamerie who took the original photo at an EBB rehearsal. All contributions are very clever and or very funny and some are utterly degrading (LOL). Thanks Lamerie and all contributors.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/pscomp/discuss/72157600083505276/#comment72157600110054589

“The spirits” traps a deaf woman, of around fifty, outside her kitchen. They won’t allow her to go in. She has no food in the kitchen. A psychiatrist arranges for food to be bought for her. The psychiatrist, who signs, is one of two responsible for the welfare of all deaf mentally ill folk in the UK. A social worker arrives to find the woman cannot access the food. She can eat it if it is prepared for her and she can eat it outside the kitchen. The woman is mentally very unwell. Effectively she has no one else to look after except for when the social worker visits and access to the psychiatrist every two months. There is little or no help for this woman. Resources provided don’t run to adequate support.

More patients will have to pay 'top-up' fees for private care because of budget cuts in the NHS and long waiting times, a group of doctors say in a report. Doctors for Reform says the idea that health care is free across the UK is now a "political mirage".The number of people working in the NHS fell by 11,000 in the last quarter of 2006, official figures reveal. Health unions said the loss across the UK, revealed in Office for National Statistics, would "inevitably have a negative impact on patient care".
James Johnson, head of the British Medical Association said NHS trusts were under pressure to balance their books, leading to posts being cut.
Warren Town, the Radiographer’s society's director of industrial relations, speaking about proposed Government pay awards said: "This is the first time that any government has staged an increase that is below the rate of inflation and is, in real terms, a cut. "A stand must be taken against the government's move to underpay the people that they claim are absolutely key to delivering NHS targets that they have set. "Morale in the NHS was bad before but this penny-pinching has sent it to rock bottom."
A New labour proposal that vulnerable people be tagged so as to be able to ascertain their whereabouts if they go missing will require far more resources than a bag of discarded ASBO tags. But that is nothing new in so far as almost no New Labour proposals ever see the kind of funding necessary to make them workable.

John Smith paid into a compulsory pension Fund all of his working life. It was a condition of employment. He discovered his employer was going broke 1 year before he retired. Gordon Brown promised he would look into it. John Smith may receive up to 50% of his pension but Brown has renagued on his promise. John Smith killed himself with carbon monoxide gas in his garage on an early spring sunny Sunday afternoon.

Millions of Iraqis have been forced to leave their homes because of the continuing violence in the country. Many of them have fled to Damascus where the Syrian government is asking why the Americans and the British are not doing more to ease the refugee problem. In a recent TV documentary it was clear that The American forces of occupation are fighting a losing battle. Soldiers spoke of there being no end in sight. A sergeant spoke of “not being trained for this” while his men sheltered behind an armoured vehicle as dozens of mortar shells rained in on them. Insurgent violence is on the increase and Iraqis who once were happy at the fall of Saddam are now hostile and resentful. The TV program showed helicopters flying wounded soldiers into hospitals every twenty minutes or so. Injuries are horrific. Major towns once held by the Americans have been lost to the insurgents in the past few days. British journalists have been unable to access areas held by the Americans. It seems that the American hold on territory is so fragile that they don’t want to us to know they are losing the battle for hearts and minds. Gone is the gung ho attitude of young American soldiers. A look of fear and bewilderment seems to have replaced the confident attitude of troops every where. A recent news cast telling how the Americans killed 46 insurgents was investigated by a British journalist who went to see for himself. The news report was found to be totally bogus and in fact the Americans lost some troops not the other way around. It seems clear that vested interests are determined to wage this war regardless of cost or outcome. I believe this war will prove to be one of the most costly mistakes the so called coalition has ever made and it will run on for years.

On a more positive note the sun is shining , summer is around the corner and Scottish Water and Thames Water seemed to have stemmed the flow of raw sewage into the Firth of Forth after two and half days. Residents have complained about the smell from the area for a long time. Rob Kirkwood who is a member of Leith Links residents association claims the the plant has an infrastructure that is basically Third World technology.

copyright e d g a r b r o u g h t o n 2007