Your attitude to whether life is worth living will always depend on what you believe about the value of life and what happens at the end of it.
I find Nick Vujicic quite inspiring.
Hold on, if you are going to comment letâs get it right. A quad or para? Do you actually know what you are talking about? I was a paraplegic but luckily incomplete.
Yes but what you or I might think is irrelevant, his life his choice.
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Precisely.
Sorry, youâre right, writing too quickly, he was a quadriplegic.
I
I did say in my post that I do believe people have the right to decide.
But I felt at the time that he hadnât been given enough support or information or time to reach an informed decision.
My friend in the UK is quadriplegic after a head on collision on his bike when he was 18. He is now 35 and married with children. He works for a cycling charity now and lives a full life.
He regained some movement in his hands after much rehabilitation.
He also thought about ending it all shortly after his accident when life looked very bleak, but he was put in touch with other people in the same position as him, though much further down the line and he got the support he needed to make that informed decision.
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Building high speed rail is far more difficult and expensive in the UK than it is on mainland Europe.
- The UK is a far more densely populated country so building any railway line requires more disruption and demolition (and more local opposition and public inquiries) and far greater expense than in Europe.
- High speed lines require more land and must follow a straighter path than conventional railways (see also point 1)
- The railway network in the UK was not bombed to bits in the 1940s so there hasnât been the opportunity for it to be replaced and âstraightened outâ.
- The UK loading gauge is smaller than the continental one so UK trains have to be smaller to fit through existing tunnels and stations
- Distances in the UK are shorter than in continental Europe so the economic case for a full high-speed rail network is far less compelling.
Other than all that itâs a great idea John. 
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Just looking back at your comment.
I feel perhaps you might have worded it better. Perhaps:
" Can you clarify if he was a paraplegic or a quadriplegic, you used both terms in your post.".
Much more in keeping with a face-to- face dinner party conversation.
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I do occasionally wonder when I read some replies what people must be like in-person. Whether they have manners and decorum or whether they just bellow and sneer their way around life in the same manner they do online. You would like to think itâs just when they get behind a keyboard they get like that, but somehow I doubt it. A general thought expanding on this sentence of course, not targeting anyone in particular.
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I agree. It may be the weather.
At the moment, we seem quick to take offence where none was intended, rather than to ask the clarifying question(s) which would prevent our assuming we know what the other person âreally thinks/meansâ.
I understand Arcadia, I hach such a devastating experience and outcome, it does hit a bit of a nerve 16 years later.
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"I am cautiously optimistic about our new leader. For one thing, the fact that Mr Burnham went to Cambridge not Oxford, did not study PPE, is not a lawyer and did not grow up in Surrey makes him something of a diversity hire among our more recent UK prime ministers.
âThis gives us hope. It is a near-universal law of problem-solving that you cannot think your way out of problems using the same mindset that created them in the first place.â
â Rory Sutherland, in the Spectator
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. No problem .
And AB is now facing his first big challenge, the outcry against the early release of two of those convicted of the manslaughter of Pc Harper.
I hope he holds his nerve. Whoever is Justice Secretary didnât.
Youâre too tolerant Chris. I took my first TGV trip in 1983. There can be no excuses for the UK not having at least one north/south line forty-three years later. If they could do it for Eurostar through Kent then they could have done it anywhere. Itâs political will that was lacking.
I see that Andy Burnham is going to travel the country to listen to what people want from their government.
The Conservatives response is to say that he has run out of ideas. Presumably then, they will tell us what we want.
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I think it depends on what Burnham means by listening.
If itâs learning about problems he wasnât previously aware of, then the question is why he wasnât aware, given the network of local councillors who should be telling his office.
If itâs asking for direction and vision, thatâs his job as leader, but Labour has lost its bearings at the moment.
If itâs merely performative, and Iâm afraid it looks like that to me, then itâs more of the same emptiness.
Yes, I agree. Listening (properly) is one of the most difficult tasks any of us are asked to perform.
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Probably 80% with 10% going to each of your other two suggestions.
As I said before, the main difference between Burnham and Starmer is that Burnham has a better grasp on the idea that âlooking goodâ is part of the job.
Starmer was effective but did not court the media well. Iâm hoping that Burnham doesnât turn out to be the complete opposite (ineffective but with a good media image).
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Exactly, unfortunately.