En andlig guide, en spöktiger, och en skrämmande mamma!
av
Owen Jones
Översatt av
Charlotta Zaar Böll
Berättat av
Ida Berglöw Kenneway
“Villfarelsen” är den första delen i en serie av tjugotre noveller om den andliga utvecklingen hos en ung flicka som heter Megan. Hon har latenta övernaturliga krafter och hon är nyfiken på att utveckla dem, men ingen annan som hon känner verkar ha någon aning vad hon pratar om.
Eller gör dom det? Både hennes mormor och hennes mamma gör allt de kan för att stoppa Megan från att ta reda på mer. Historien visar Megans frustration med de levande, så när hjälp kommer från den andra sidan, tar hon emot den med öppna armar och utvecklar långsamt men säkert sina övernaturliga krafter.
Detta är berättelsen om Megans uppvaknande.
“Villfarelsen” handlar om de paranormala krafter som finns inom oss alla, vilket borde göra dem helt normala istället för paranormala, om människor inte var så rädda för det övernaturliga, vilket i sig självt också är helt naturligt.
Det här är en bok för alla som någonsin har funderat över det övernaturliga, paranormala eller metafysiska- Det handlar om den normala andliga utvecklingen som alla högre själar måste gå igenom för att nå sitt ultimata, oundvikliga öde, hur lång tid det än kan ta. Dessa berättelser bygger på faktum på flera sätt än en.
The previous one was seven years old and the designers had stopped keeping it up to date several years ago. Therefore, as WordPress developed, certain key features had ceased to work.
The result was that it was becoming tedious to update.
I, and my colleagues and friends chose the new blog theme that you see before you at this moment. The designers have produced it especially for authors and publishers just like me 🙂
We set our new blog theme up quite quickly, although that is not to say that this new theme is without its problems, not the least of which is the slow response from the support desk and the lack of a clear, easily referenceable manual.
Blog Support
In these days of Covid-19, support must be difficult, since call centres are all closed, or should be, I imagine. Either that or they are running at one-third to a quarter capacity. Anyway, the support team does answer eventually, but it can take days, which seems like years, if you are anxious to get a new blog theme up and running!
If they had a comprehensive or even just a decent manual for the theme, I am sure that my friends and I could have sorted it out for ourselves much more quickly. However, the guide, such that it is, is on line and nothing more than a bunch of hyperlinks. After clicking on a few of them, I don’t know where I am any more.
My biggest mistake with the new blog theme was to impose it directly on top of the old one. I advise you to open a fresh instance of WordPress somewhere, and practise there until perfect. That way, you won’t lose your blog for a couple of days, like I did.
What a panic that was, I can tell you!
The new theme is huge though. My blog is quite large anyway for a one-man band, Owen Jones, the former owner, had created nearly three thousand entries. Two thousand of them were posts and pages! Still, I was stunned to find that the blog had swollen to 4.4 GB after applying the new theme!
Theme Features
To be honest, I have only set up the barest blog from the resources available in this theme. I am aware of what else it can do, but time has so far prevented me from learning how to implement more. Features, such as the direct sale of books (without paying Amazon, Apple or anyone else); the rental of blog space to advertisers such as authors, publishers or just about anyone; and so much more.
In fact, I have just decided that the next feature I want to implement is ‘the shop’. I am going to call it ‘Megan’s Market’, where I intend to sell readers’ and writers’ paraphernalia. It will also be able to handle the sale of ebooks, my own and those of others.
I hope that you will support me in these ventures, especially the direct sale of ebooks. If you are a regular visitor, you will notice me adding these extra features to our new blog theme over the coming month(s) 🙂
On the other hand, if you would like to purchase your own copy of this theme, called ‘Publisher’, or one like it but geared in a different direction, the owners are currently, as I write, offering a discount of 45%!
When Frank, a staid, middle-aged, confirmed bachelor takes his new, diplomat Thai bride to a friend’s apartment on the Costa del Sol for their dream honeymoon, they are in Nirvana… until the ghouls of a secret Scandinavian society torment the superstitious young woman to the point of seeking death to end her suffering. Frank is way out of his depth… What is he to do to save the first love of his life?
The Ghouls of Calle Goya is the perplexing story of how Evil can result from the happiest of circumstances and good intentions, and how madness can be the result.
It is based on a true story and is set in Norway, the UK, Spain and Thailand.
The Ghouls of Calle Goya is available in several languages in several ebook formats (Barnes & Noble, GooglePlay, iTunes, Kindle, Kobo), paperback and possibly even audiobook (Amazon/Audible) too.
The cover is an original in crayon by Aliya.
Click a link below to learn more about the availability of the book in the language of your choice:
We had only been back in Barry, my home town for six months, but it didn’t take that long to realise that there were street problems that were unusual. At least, I wasn’t used to them, but then of the previous fifteen years, I had spent thirteen in Thailand and two in Spain. One of the first things that my wife and I noticed was the lack of a police presence on the streets. The second was the deserted streets after dark – a sign that suggested to us that the unsavoury ruled the streets during that period.
One afternoon, a friend, who seems to know a lot, told me that the night before, there had been only two police cars on duty in Barry – a town of 60,000 inhabitants. The lack of a visible police presence was beginning to make sense.
A few days later, a man, whom I also know well, told me that he had spent the last hour with an elderly lady, who had fallen over and cracked her head. My friend had phoned the emergency services, but it still took an hour for them to arrive.
And then, just before Christmas, I was sitting in a pub opposite a local supermarket, when a woman started to beat a young boy. He was six, seven, eight years of age. One of the men in the pub sprinted out, but the mother had already disappeared inside to do her shopping, leaving the boy crying in a huddle in a corner.
He phoned the police, comforted the boy and came back inside. When the boy ran off, the caller got cold feet and left, but the police never arrived, and the woman emerged from the shop and called a taxi. The police did not show up at all.
That is my experience of modern Barry – it has changed so much since I last lived here.
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More details coming soon – he has promised me an interview at noon on Monday 30th September in the Butterfly Bar, Barry, but in the meantime, here are a couple of his poems.
There is good news for avid readers of Welsh writer from Barry, Owen Jones, that are also audiobook fans who prefer to use the ubiquitous service of Apple’s iTunes!
iTunes – Apple – now stocks not only the ebook novels of Owen Jones, but also the audiobook versions, AND, they are all on one page, which makes it easier to identify series and stand-alones.
Owen Jones now has more than three hundred ebooks on iTunes, a hundred and fifty of which are in languages other than English, and about seventy of them have been narrated by professionals to create audiobooks of excellent quality.
ACX – an arm of Amazon and Audible – has overseen production and Quality Control throughout, so you know that you are getting a great product.
Many Locations
Owen Jones writes in the general genre of Fiction>Psychological, often including references from Spiritualism, Buddhism, or even just ‘traditional religions’ – references such as intuition, dreams, Auras, Astral Travelling and the like. His books are also set in many locations, including Wales, naturally, Thailand, various countries in Europe, Russia and the USA. One series, Dead Centre visits seven countries in just one of the two volumes!
When asked about the new collection of his audiobooks on Apple iTunes, Owen said:
“I am very proud to have my audiobooks for sale on such a prestigious platform as Apple’s iTunes. So many hundreds of millions of people around the world use an iPhone, iPad or Mac several times a day, and now they all have direct access to my audiobooks as well as my ebooks. I don’t have one myself, but I checked some trivia just for my own information, and I was surprised to see that Apple uses 131 different URL’s to allow direct access to its products. That probably means 131 different countries! Not bad for a local Barry boy, eh?”
You can find Owen Jones’ audiobooks by following this link:
Everyone should listen to this short YouTube video about the real reason why the Tories want Brexit or to leave the European Union. The biggest question, though, is: Why haven’t the Remainers made anything of it? Please SHARE it with Remainers and Brexiteers alike.
I am giving away four of my most popular audiobooks in Spanish completely free of charge on a first come, first served basis.
All I ask is that you leave a short review in Spanish when you have finished.
and then enter the free code for the book you would like to listen to. If it has already gone, please try another. Please note, the books for the UK market are marked with ‘UK’, but that is NOT part of the code, so please don’t enter it into the box.
and enter the free code for the book you would like to listen to. If it has already gone, please try another:
46UQLW5B3SKKY (Una noche en Annwn) UK
7KWPYN8247QW4 (Una noche en Annwn) US
32WP8DU26P5HH (El malentendido) UK
3GE5MNXWAC7YR (El malentendido) US
7AMZUQG3YZ3F4 (Cambiar el Destino) UK
42GNF3GL48PM3 (Cambiar el Destino) US
2CYZD2XPC7365 (Autoria) UK
2GM8U3CSDFHZF (Autoria) US
2Y6GTP488WPC9 (Cómo Dar a tu Perro una Verdadera Vida de Perros) UK
2KLFKFE7B6L6B (Cómo Dar a tu Perro una Verdadera Vida de Perros) US
I am a Remainer. My main reason for not wanting Brexit is that I don’t trust our politicians. I don’t trust any politicians, not only British ones, but it seems to me that we have more chance of justice, if we have a couple of layers of them. Yes, that is more expensive, but at least we ordinary folk might get a fairer crack of the whip.
Just look at the things our British politicians have been caught doing over the last decade, and they have been getting away with it forever! I should imagine that the continental politicians are corrupt too – I can’t see why they shouldn’t be, but then the whole shebang should be reformed. Calling Brexit and retreating into our caves won’t help.
Anyway, another reason for being anti-Brexit crossed my mind the other day. I have always popped over to the Continent for a few days on the spur of the moment every now and then, time and money permitting. This will no longer be possible, will it, if we will require visas to go over there?
I used to fly to Cork – thirty minutes away, but that might not be possible either, because they will be EU and we will be… what? British? Just British… stuck on our own little island with almost all our boats and bridges burned, unless we plan our once-a-year fortnight’s holiday abroad.
How pathetic, how limiting, is that? Everyone else in Europe can just get on a plane or a ferry, and Brits have to queue for a visa!
No wonder rich people are buying EU citizenship in Malta so they don’t get left behind the rest of the world like we will be!
Brexit is a step back into the Dark Ages… voted for in haste and fuelled by liars who only want more power as British politicians – but you can bet your life that they will still have the right to spur-of-the-moment travel – it’s always the bloody same:
One rule for them and another for the rest of us!
Vote for a second referendum! How can it be undemocratic to ask a more informed people what they want? It is the only way that we will move forward.
Use #FBPE (Follow Back, Pro EU) in your social media messages to show you support remain or a second referendum!
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Londoner Frank marries Joy, a beautiful young Thai, who works in town. She has always dreamed of going to the Costa del Sol, so they head to an apartment in Fuengirola on Calle Goya loaned by Frank’s boss for their dream honeymoon.
Things start to go wrong when Joy fears that the apartment is haunted. Fear leads to depression and deepens into terror. Frank has no idea what to do, except take her back to her family in Thailand, but that brings its own misfortune.
Life finally looks brighter because of the intervention of a secret Scandinavian society.
This is the story of how Evil can result from good intentions.
When I was young, there was a period of my life when I couldn’t wait to open a Post Office Savings Account and also buy Premium Bonds. I can’t remember how old one had to be, but let’s say fourteen for the savings account and sixteen for the Premium Bonds, the top prize for playing which every month was a million pounds.
At roughly the same time, I started buying coins for my collection from around the country and selling my duplicates too, which usually involved transferring money using Postal Orders. It made me feel independent and that made me feel ever so grown up.
At eighteen years of age, I abandoned the Post Office in favour of the bank, and postal orders for the more convenient cheque.
Well, now, forty-five years later, we seem to have come full-circle, since my bank no longer issues cheques. I had to send £65 to the Home Office last week, and I had to pay the Post Office £8.50 for the expensive privilege!
£8.50 to send £65 within the country!
Daylight Robbery
That is not only 13%, it is daylight robbery and a kick in the teeth to all the people who use this crappy ‘service’. They get my money for three or four days, and I give them 13% for the privilege! Is the dreaded and very expensive, Western Union cheaper?
It really wouldn’t surprise me.
However, the nightmare doesn’t end there. I had to send irreplaceable documents, which the counter staff cheerfully told me are not covered by their normal insurance, and so had to pay £11.50 postage and insurance.
At least this was a reduction. The first time I sent exactly the same package, they charged me £18.50!
You couldn’t make it up, could you, but I think the Post Office is… as they go along!
There has to be a better way, and, for me at least, the Post Office will be my last option next time, not the first port of call.
Stuff ’em – they don’t care about us!
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I was given a copy of The Eyes of Death by Donald L. Vasicek in return for an honest review.
The Eyes of Death is a difficult story to classify because it concerns psychic powers, which, probably, most people in the world believe to be real, although most people in the West think of as imaginary. Therefore, it could be classed as either Non-Fiction>Body Mind and spirit or Fiction>Fantasy. However, The Eyes of Death is a novella written in the third-person singular, the main character of which is Hannah Powers, who lives in the ‘preppy-type’ city of Evanstown north of Chicago.
The general atmosphere of the novel is tense, as if something is always just about to happen. And it does too, the an early example of which is an armed robbery on a small shop and the tragic consequences of it. Hannah also becomes aware of her psychic powers, but is to some extent confused and disappointed by them, because she cannot help the people who are the subject of her Second Sight.
In fact, she begins to think that she must be mentally ill, or at least, mentally damaged, but there is no medical evidence for this. Hannah seems to find her new life with psychic powers both frightening, lonely and very sad, because she can do nothing to help the people, whose future she has foreseen.
Psychic Abilities
The Eyes of Death is an interesting novel to me, because I believe in psychic ability and have some personal experience since most of my relatives are Spiritualists – mainly psychics and Healers. I grew up with these beliefs from being a small child, and I have never found anything, anyone or any argument to persuade me that humans are not psychic. I also understand the loneliness that is concomitant with those beliefs. It would be much worse for someone who had their psychic abilities ‘switched on’ suddenly one day.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Eyes of Death. and recommend it to anyone who likes ‘psychic dramas’. The sometimes ‘experimental’ style of writing and the cover both compliment the subject matter.
I give The Eyes of Death by Donald L. Vasicek five out of five stars.
You can read our exclusive interview with Donald L. Vasicek on this blog Megan Publishing Services here:
Today, we are going to meet Donald L. Vasicek, the award-winning American author and screenwriter. Over to you, Don, please tell us something about yourself and your work.
5 Have you always written and what got you started professionally?
I was inspired to write after I lost my family 40+ years ago. It was like a part of the hidden me emerged. The pain of loss was so immense, my brain switched to pushing me to express my feelings through writing. I got started writing professionally by having a poem titled, “Dad”, I wrote that was published by “Success Unlimited”.
6 How many books have you published?
One. A second one, “The Real Ghost”, which won 1st place in the Waldorf Publishing Book Competition, is now being published by Waldorf.
7 Which one would you like to tell us about?
“The Real Ghost”.
8 Why did you write this book and what is it about?
I originally wrote “The Real Ghost” as a screenplay, after another screenplay I wrote, “Born to Win”, a story about a boy who sets out to win a muscle car race to win the prize money to pay for his Gramps’s life-saving surgery, was produced by Incline Productions, Inc. I converted “The Real Ghost” screenplay into a novel. “The Real Ghost” is a story about a boy who sets out to prove he saw Babe Ruth after no one in town will believe him. Known for telling “tall tales” to get attention, the boy wants to prove he is telling the truth this time. It is a light-hearted, suspenseful thriller that walks on the edge of the paranormal genre.
9 Book cover and ISBN/ASIN
Waldorf Publishing is in the process of publishing the book, so there is no book cover, or ISBN/ASIN at this writing.
10 What would you like your next book to be on?
My next book is titled “The Caller.” It is a suspense/thriller about a successful woman who sets out to find her soul mate only to experience that each time she dates someone, they are murdered. I am also presently writing my autobiography for my grandkids.
11 If you could go anywhere in the universe, where would you go and why?
I’ve been here before, but I would like to return to Stratford Upon Avon, the hometown of William Shakespeare. The community possesses positive energy for me. It is quiet there. The people are friendly, but not to the point of being pushy or anything like that. The fields surrounding the town are lush in green foliage. A small river runs through the town and there is a large oak tree right in the middle of a main thoroughfare in town. This particular road swerves around the tree to preserve the tree, which is about a block from Shakespeare’s grave. There is simply a certain kind of peace and safety there that is relaxing and nice.
12 Is there anything you can share about yourself or your work that not many people know?
I love to work out 6 days a week lifting weights, stretching, rowing & walking on a treadmill (knees from running for several years have limited me to walking on a treadmill). I am a Twitter freak. I love doing puzzles. I love to read. I love animals. I love my wife and traveling with her. We’ve been to numerous countries even marveling at the Berlin wall, crushed and being used for streets and walkways in Berlin, not to mention the Masai Mara Game Preserve in Kenya, where our wildest dreams of seeing wildlife closeup, became a reality.
13 What is your favourite foreign food?
Since I’ve been to numerous countries, it is difficult for me to single out one favorite foreign food. The Vietnamese Pho Ga stands out for me as one of my favorites.
14 Are you, or have you ever been a terrorist?
Being a terrorist, as far as I’m concerned, is one of the most cowardly ways to make a point. I use my brain to express myself, not guns, explosives, knives, beheadings, torture, murder, etc. So, no, I’m not or never have been a terrorist.
15 Have you ever accidentally called your spouse/partner by the name of a character in your latest book and if so what was his or her reaction?
No, I never have.
Thank you for telling us about yourself, Don. Best of luck with your new book. I hope that you will come back and give us a cover shoy and purchase details when it is available.
Boots Pharmacy has been in the centre of Barry, my home town, forever, or at least as long as I can remember. In fact, my first girlfriend got her first Saturday job there as an assistant on the drugs counter. The experience inspired her to go to university and become a pharmacist.
They were the good old days apparently, because it is a sad, old-looking place now, although I don’t know what opportunities they offer young people these days. I don’t know, but my guess is none.
Anyway, that is not what this article is about.
I have been suffering from a severe case of gout for the last week, and yesterday, a friend – a fellow traveller, suggested a remedy. Today, dosed up on an unsustainable amount of Ibuprofen and codeine, I limped up to the prescription counter in Boots.
‘Hi’, I opened, I’m having a problem with gout. What can you recommend, please?’ She started to look at her computer. ‘I have heard of Napraxis’, I said.
‘No, that is prescription only’.
‘OK, Altar? I used to buy that OTC in Spain…’
‘No, but, I could order something in for you’.
‘OK, yes, please, but I need something now. I’ve been told that Feminax contains the same drug, and relieves gout’.
She looked up from her screen and studied my face. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Research. Can I have a box of Feminax, please?’
‘No, I can only sell that to females between the ages of fifteen and fifty’.
‘OK’, I countered, ‘my wife here wants a box’.
‘No’, she replied, ‘not now that I know what you want it for’.
Crazy
So, to cut a long story short, I pointed out that Boots’ policy on this matter was prompting me to go to another pharmacy and not be perfectly honest. The woman shrugged apologetically. ‘Well, it’s either that, or I stand outside your shop here and ask a young woman to buy my drugs for me’.
She looked surprised when I said that. It reminded me of teenagers stopping adults outside a corner shop to ask them to buy cigarettes or alcohol for them.
It is a stupid policy that encourages people to lie, and we wonder what is wrong with society? Government and shopping policies are forcing me to either cheat, lie or wait four days to go to the doctor’s.
If I could have bought what I needed, I would be limping around for four days less, AND, the doctor’s time would have been saved for a more important case.
It reminds me of five years ago, when I tried to buy ten boxes of paracetamol from Boots to take abroad with me – a years’ supply – and the assistant refused me.
‘Thirty-two tablets maximum’, the girl had said. ‘Suicide risk’, she had said knowingly, but she also advised that I could buy thirty-two in all the pharmacies and corner shops in town.
And people wonder about why we are where we are?!
As a nation, we have all gone bloody mad!
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The saga of my bus pass begins in the now sleepy seaside town of Barry in South Wales. I happens to be my home town, and I returned to live there with my Thai wife of fifteen years in June 2018. I am now sixty-four years of age, so I have been qualified for a bus pass for four years.
However, I have lived in Thailand and Spain for most of the last fifteen years, so I didn’t bother to apply for one. I was soon to wish that I had started the application process earlier. From my first few days home, friends were extolling the virtues of the bus pass – one even called it ‘his best friend’.
A bus pass removes the restrictions on mobility that are imposed by a shortage of money, which a lot of older people experience despite what the media would have the youth believe about wealthy, greedy pensioners propping up the price of houses. Who are these pensioners going to leave their houses to, for God’s sake?!
Anyway, my bus pass… so, I went down to the local council offices and asked at the Information Desk.
A very large, but young woman, asked me what I wanted as she dabbed at the perspiration apparent on every inch of bare skin. I told her and she slid a form towards me, which I took, filled in and handed back.
“I cannot accept that without proof of eligibility”, she said with a strange look of satisfaction. “Proof of date of birth, a utilities bill, and a signature from your doctor”.
“I don’t have a doctor, and since I’m renting a room and have only been here for three days, I don’t have a utility bill either… I will probably never get one either”.
“That’s your problem”, she said and proceeded to ignore me.
I walked to the nearest doctor’s surgery, registered, and then took the council form to the ‘Buccaneer’ pub to think about it. An hour later, I phoned the surgery for an appointment for a check up.
“August 14th., 8:15? Does that suit you?” I was asked by a cheerful receptionist.
“Well, it’s six weeks away, on my birthday, and a bit earlier than I was hoping to have to get up”, I said light-heatedly.
“September…” he started. I interrupted him and agreed to the August appointment.
When the day came, the check-up fell way below my expectations, but that is another story, to continue my bus pass saga, the doctor refused to sign it.
“I am not here to validate your age or place of residence”, he retorted rather angrily.
“But the local council said…”
“Hearsay”, he cut me off. “If the local council want me to sign anything, they can write to me here!”
My birthday had not started well, and it set the tone for the day.
A week later, I went back to the local council, where the grumpy fat lady had been replaced by a friendly young man. I handed him the form.
“Confirmation, please, sir”.
I passed him the letter from the doctor confirming my appointment and my passport. They were sufficient, so he scrutinised the form.
“You need to get your doctor to sign this where the box has been marked with a cross”.
“He won’t do it, unless you ask him officially. Perhaps, he’s looking for a fee…” I quipped.
“All doctors sign these firms, take it back to him and tell him…”
“No”, I interjected. “I will not be the shuttlecock between you both. Here is my application for a bus pass”.
He took it. “This will be rejected”, he said glumly. “My advice is to change your doctor… it really is common practice for them to sign these forms…”
I received a rejection letter from the council today, which stated that I should return the form to my doctor for his signature. I’ll send that off tomorrow and let you know how I get on later.
And if you’re wondering why I don’t just take it to the doctor, I don’t want another six-week wait.
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My wife woke up three days ago feeling a little out of sorts, but when she actually got up to start the day, she complained of dizziness. Neither of of thought much about it, although that soon changed when she was physically sick before she could get to the bathroom. The dizzy spells continued, so I had to help her to the bathroom.
She could neither stand nor walk with any confidence, but she kept on being sick, so she spent the rest of that day in bed… and all of the following one. My wife tried eating again, but it came straight back up. Yesterday, she tried to eat again, but the result was the same, so she asked me to take her to our family doctor’s. It is not far, but I had to support her all the way, and we had to stop for a rest and vomit.
When we arrived, the receptionist told us that we didn’t have an appointment, which we already knew, and further informed us that no-one was available to see us.
Our Doctor’s Surgery
“So, what do want me to do?” I asked.
“Go home”, she advised. “I’ll put you on phone watch, if you like”.
I didn’t know what that was, but it means that if a doctor anywhere in town has a few minutes, they would try to fit her in.
“Do what you like”, I replied, “but we’re not leaving here. If she collapses anywhere, I want it to be here, not while we’re crossing the road”.
“What are her symptoms?” I was asked, so I told her.
“We really do advise that you go home, we don’t want sick people in here… we have a lot of very old and very young patients in and out…”
I was flabbergasted, but I had one more request.
“Here is a letter from the council asking my doctor to sign my application for a free bus pass”.
“There is a £10 fee for leaving it with us, or a £15 doctor’s fee for the signature”.
I refused to leave, and so took a seat while my wife went outside to be sick – I felt like joining her.
Some thirty-odd minutes later, a man walked in. He explained that he didn’t have an appointment, but wanted to see a doctor. My ears pricked up.
“Take a seat, we’ll see what we can do” chirped the receptionist.
I went to have a word. “Why couldn’t you have done that for us?” I asked.
“You’re on phone watch”, she explained.
The top nearly came off my head. “Only because you put us on it! That wasn’t our idea”.
“Your wife has gone home anyway, sir. My supervisor had a word with her and she left”.
I couldn’t believe it, but she was nowhere to be seen, so, I set off in the direction of her best friend’s shop nearby to look for her. A few doors from the shop, I called into a pub. I hadn’t taken two sips when our landlady and friend rushed in saying that my wife needed me at home. We were there in twenty minutes.
“She needs the paramedics”, warned our landlady, who is a carer.
My wife was a quivering wreck, by the time they arrived, which was not long. Anyway, after several tests, they diagnosed ‘vertigo’ – something my wife has never been diagnosed with. They also phoned our doctor to get a prescription, which I had to collect.
Bad Practice
Naturally, I wanted to know what the supervisor had told my wife to make her go home alone.
“I told her to go home and wait for a call…”
“And?”
“…and when she asked where her husband was, I said: ‘I have no idea. I don’t even know your husband”.
“And did she understand you?”
“I don’t know, she was looking at me…”
“My wife is dizzy, confused and Asian, but you didn’t check whether she had understood you or not?”
Today, after four tablets, my wife is sitting up in bed. She has eaten three bowls of rice soup – typical Thai breakfast food – and has not been sick.
The National Health Service is in dire straits due to the Tory cutbacks, we all know that, but we don’t need heartless people within the system making it even worse. On the other hand, the paramedics were wonderful. My hat is off to them, but we will be changing our General Practitioner ASAP, which is what other people, including the local council, had advised us on other occasions, articles about which can be found elsewhere on this blog.
Why did the receptionist and her supervisor treat my wife differently from the old man? I don’t know, but the only differences that I could see for this bad practice were age, sex and race.
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Conclusion
The experience of the United Kingdom, especially since 2010, underscores the conclusion that poverty is a political choice. Austerity could easily have spared the poor, if the political will had existed to do so. Resources were available to the Treasury at the last budget that could have transformed the situation of millions of people living in poverty, but the political choice was made to fund tax cuts for the wealthy instead.
It was a British philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, who memorably claimed that without a social contract, life outside society would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” The risk is that if current policies do not change, this is the direction in which low-income earners and the poor are headed. Loneliness rates have soared in recent years and life expectancy rates have stalled in the United Kingdom, with the latest statistics showing a sharp drop in the annual improvement that has been experienced every year since the records began, and an actual drop for certain groups.
The compassion and mutual concern that has long been part of the British tradition has been outsourced. At the same time many of the public places and institutions that previously brought communities together, such as libraries, community and recreation centers, and public parks, have been steadily dismantled or undermined. In its fiscal analyses, the Treasury and the Government constantly repeat the refrain that fiscal policy must “avoid burdening the next generation.” The message is that the debt burden must be paid off now. The problem is that the next generation’s prospects are already being grievously undermined by the systematic dismantling of social protection policies since 2010.
The negotiations surrounding Brexit present an opportunity to take stock of the current situation and reimagine what this country should represent and how it protects its people. The legislative recognition of social rights should be a central part of that reimagining. And social inclusion, rather than increasing marginalization of the working poor and those unable to work, should be the guiding principle of social policy.
The UK should introduce a single measure of poverty and measure food security.
The government should initiate an expert assessment of the cumulative impact of tax and spending decisions since 2010 and prioritize the reversal of particularly regressive measures, including the benefit freeze, the two-child limit, the benefit cap, and the reduction of the housing benefit for under-occupied social rented housing.
It should ensure local governments have the funds needed to tackle poverty at the community level, and take varying needs and tax bases into account in the ongoing Fair Funding Review.
The Department of Work and Pensions should conduct an independent review of the effectiveness of reforms to welfare conditionality and sanctions introduced since 2012, and should immediately instruct its staff to explore more constructive and less punitive approaches to encouraging compliance.
The five week delay in receiving benefits under Universal Credit should be eliminated, separate payments should be made to different household members, and weekly or fortnightly payments should be facilitated.
Transport, especially in rural areas, should be considered an essential service, equivalent to water and electricity, and the government should regulate the sector to the extent necessary to ensure that people living in rural areas are adequately served. Abandoning people to the private market in relation to a service that affects every dimension of their basic well-being is incompatible with human rights requirements.
As the country moves toward Brexit, the Government should adopt policies designed to ensure that the brunt of the resulting economic burden is not borne by its most vulnerable citizens.
Many people rely on the Internet these days for their daily communication and entertainment. Television is dire, and people don’t talk much anymore… at least, they don’t tend to talk to the ones around them. People sit in groups, but talk to people miles away via the Internet. I am one of the worst, I wouldn’t use a pub that didn’t offer WI-Fi Internet. Most pubs, clubs and restaurants do offer Internet access, but some of them offer it via an Internet Service Provider called The Cloud.
I am not sure how extensive The Cloud network is, but several pubs in our area (Barry, South Wales) are connected to it.
Most establishments use ISP’s that are available to the public like Virgin, BT, Sky or whatever and they seem to function well no matter how busy the places are. On the other hand, many pubs and restaurants are quite small, and so, Internet access is unlikely to be overloaded often.
However, some of the largest pubs now use an ISP called The Cloud. I’m talking about places like Whetherspoon’s and similar sized businesses. I don’t know what The Cloud costs to install, but in my experience, the results are dreadful.
You have to register to able to use it, and once you have created an ‘identity’, it is supposedly your calling card anywhere that uses The Cloud. It sounds all right, but pubs with private accounts don’t require my personal details in order to use them. This data can be sold, so, in effect, you are paying for your Internet access.
Why do larger bars need to do this when smaller ones don’t? Not only that, but Internet access via The Cloud is far inferior to that of normal ISP’s. Surely, the traffic in larger pubs should allow them to provide superior access, not the opposite?
If micro bars can afford to pay for decent Internet access for their customers, why can’t larger ones? It doesn’t make sense to me…
Contempt is the only word that springs to mind… and they make us pay for it…
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All the best,
Owen
Podcast: The Cloud – An ‘Internet Service Provider’
