Why would i need to preface my comments with notes on my experience of it ? , It’s my opinion, take it or leave it.
…but the issue of Ireland was never mentioned, for example. How was that clear?
Peter J, you make a fair point, and I do of course accept your opinion. I would set more store by it, and it might help to illuminate my/our understanding of your position, if we knew what helped form it. I didn’t put you under any kind of obligation, Peter, just issued an invitation. The forum does, after all, encourage polite discussion amongst its members.
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I don’t…I count myself fortunate…I’m grateful to have a roof over my head and food to eat…but I care about my home country and I care about my home town and I very much care about the people there…all of the people…It’s the people who are the value/energy/currency of the system…right down to the last homeless man freezing in our streets…
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No…meaning those who had worked 40 years and were looking forward to retiring at 60…spending more time with their grandkids…those already looking after elderly parents and looking forwards to the added security of their state pensions…I think they are justified in feeling angry and let down…
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Simon, many ordinary people have grown up in a world that is scary and appropriately so, their fears for the future are real, justified and increasing. I include our grown-up children who feel like that, whereas I seldom if ever had reason to feel like that, until recently (the last twenty or so years) - and not for myself, but for the following generations.
The world is riven with deadly strife, is it possible you haven’t noticed? Whole peoples, men, women and children are being massacred with technologically sophisticated remotely-delivered weapons. Many ordinary people, even in the developed and wealthy Northern hemisphere, have little stake in a secure future with decent places to live, a reliable income, a fulfilling job.
For many, the existing “world order” seems to teetering on the edge of collapse: the monetary system, the political system, law and order, the reliability of the media. Perhaps some of us view the world through a more rationally critical lens than others. I would judge Helen6’s comments to be a fair and passionate appraisal of the current state of things, and an appeal for a different way of seeing, and of being. Evolutionary biology suggests that those creatures who lose sight of the ‘bigger picture’ will not survive its evolution, big and powerful though they may see themselves to be. The swamp will take them.
Don’t feel sorry for us, Simon, your sorrow - however well-intentioned - in misplaced.
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Yes, Helen, many people who will be required, one way or another, to retire will be obliged to try to find part-time work to pay the bills which will still drop on the mat, or pop into the inbox, and for most it will be a vain pursuit. There are countless couple who are elderly and infirm, but struggle to support a dependent adult with profound handicaps or disabilities. Let me tell you, it is very hard at age 79 to provide care for a parent aged 102 who lives in another country, and I am by no means an isolated case. But your comments show that you inhabit the “real world”, and know that this is what it’s like.
Over the last 50 years the world has changed irrevocably and dramatically. People are living longer. Society is much more atomised and people are emotionally and practically less capable of taking charge of their own affairs, not for any fault of their making, but as a result of huge technological and cultural shifts across the shrinking globe.
We need visionaries to help us make sense of what is, and what may be. They are there, but are not yet acknowledged or widely heard. But I sense the tide is changing, more in lesser-known parts of the world than in the complacent North and West. So I stay confident, and affirm your confidence too.
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Wow - you know what Peter? I normally have a lot of respect for your contributions and applaud your eloquence in making your point. However, on this occasion you lost me at -
How dare you - you know very, very little about me - my life, what I’ve been involved in and exposed to. Through it all - I try to remain positive and see the best in people and the situations I’m presented with - however dire and awful they may actually be.
I don’t like being told what to ‘care’ about and I’m not about to take on the problems of the planet. Blue Peter asked me to collect for Africa when I was a kid - and we’re still bloody collecting!
My world is positive and happy (not perfect) and I won’t be pulled down into any ‘swamp’ by negativity. So, if I want to feel sorry for you, and Helen - I will. 
Thanks for the lesson though and enjoy your weekend - wonderful sunshine down my way - hope you have some too 
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I’m not sure that that evolutionary biology suggests that creatures survive by being aware of the bigger picture, the creatures that survive changing environments are the variants, usually mutants, that can cope with the changes when the original mainstream members cannot.
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I’m sorry Simon, my comment was supercilious and you didn’t deserve it. I have great respect for your opinions too. I thought Helen6 was writing from the heart and needed a little bit of backing up, as she seems to be no bleeding heart but gets a bit of uncalled for “calm down dear” patronising at times. But I spoke out of turn to you.
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You are likely to be better informed on evolutionary biology than me, I was overreaching in support of my general argument about the tide of events, which needs better scrutiny than my powers permit.
Thanks for à timely reminder David.
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Thankyou peter you are a true gentle man…I can only imagine how difficult that must be to provide support from a different country…Currently I speak to my mom 3 times a day to check she’s ok…the one time I didn’t hear from her as expected she had fallen and couldn’t get to the phone…a series of phone calls from me got the police there to break down her door and a paramedic to take her to hospital (we now have keyholders in place) The police were brilliant…the paramedics were brilliant…her A&E experience was diabolical…left on a trolley in a corridor for hours without a drink…once on a specialised Ward though with specialised doctors and nurses…having been admitted first to an equally dire admittance Ward…they looked after her well…The Emergency Services do a brilliant job…the frontline boots on the ground doctors and consultants and nurses are dedicated and committed individuals and they personally don’t deserve the inept mishandling of funds allocated to the NHS…(nor the parking tickets) I inwardly shudder at the thought of one of our most treasured assets being sold off post Brexit to the lowest bidder in trumpland…especially when trumpland is in debt to the tune of $21 trillion…(although coincidentally that’s the same amount gone missing from and is unaccountable for by the DOD and the department of housing and development…) We have an unused standing empty gathering dust state of the art fire station in our area…one of nine…when they were built in 2007 the fire service had already said they didn’t want them…the one in our area is costing taxpayers 1.8 million a year and will continue to do so until the 25 year lease is up…call me old fashioned but I kind of feel that is a total waste of “money”…x 
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I hear ya…it is by no means easy to speak the language of the heart whilst simultaneously confined to the superimposed false reality of the matrix…”English” doesn’t seem to have the words to express freedom…neither did the novel 1984 have the words to express “freedom”…we don’t actually know what freedom is…we’ve never experienced it in known history…same as dog Latin…it’s not a language…it’s a false construct legalese superimposed over our in-body-ed source energy that we are led to believe is real…when the very word believe contains the word lie…I listen to the talking heads now and again…current interest is Brexit obviously and I hear them talking about billions and how 45 billion might be better than 90 billion and I see that the billions include 10 billion to cover the pensions of eu staff when the pensions of most of us have been stolen right before our very eyes…and I wonder how it is that Defra made it “illegal” to feed our half a dozen chickens table scraps…and how the police have had to come up with a multi million pound bailout for the bankrupt key forensic service after Carillion went under…and the Randox scandal and the bankruptcy of Trimega and how the domino folding of various private forensic companies has had an effect on the cps and the family courts and child protection services…???
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Of a total eligible voting public some 13 million did not vote at all. What is not known is how many did not bother because they did not think the UK would be so stupid to vote leave, how many did not understand the question & how many just did not care. I wonder what those non voters would do if they had the chance again?
The NHS is indeed in dire straits today & as a supplier to the NHS for some years I agree that mismanagement is certainly a contributing factor.
What I do not understand though is that the few A & E departments I have had reason to visit in France (as a visitor or patient) do not seem to suffer from the pressure of huge numbers of patients despite the population numbers of both the UK & France being fairly similar!
I can ring for a doctor’s appointment & get one if not the same day the certainly the following one & the time spent in the waiting room is usually just a few minutes & very boring as often there is nobody else waiting (& the magazines tend to be old copies of Hello!).
Should the UK be looking at the reason so many more people need to use the hospitals & manage the general health better?
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It’s really bizarre isn’t it…??? I’ve not had cause to visit a gp in France yet and I would struggle to remember the last time I saw one in uk…but I’ve visited loved ones when they’ve been rushed into hospital…As for booking a doctors appointment then sometimes it can be 6 weeks waiting time…If people consult gargoyle nhs then there’s a list of ailments that they don’t consider need immediate attention…on finally getting to see a doctor then there are posters up in waiting rooms outlining all the reasons when it’s not necessary to be sitting in the waiting room looking at the posters…!
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There’s no question that A&E in uk hospitals are swamped…our local hospitals cancelled all non emergency operations for 3 months (including hip replacements…) as they are overwhelmed…My Mom despite her bad experience in A&E after a fall was extremely conscious that she was taking up a bed that might be crucial to someone else…when 3 weeks later she was eventually discharged to a private facility as “care packages” although rightly identified by social services as necessary were just not available…she sat for 8 hours waiting for transport to a privately paid for facility…no one told us as we would have done whatever was necessary to help her…I don’t know…??? A&E in the uk seems to be a bottle neck of chaos misery and torment…once you can get past that then it gets a little better…I’d hate to think that gps were passing the buck to A&E as I don’t think they are…Is it that people go to A&E as they feel they have no other option…??? Are people using A&E when maybe waiting to try and get a gp appointment would be better…??? Is it that if you don’t immediately rush your child to A&E for the slightest bruise and follow all guidelines you previously saw on posters whilst sitting in a waiting room and even though posters in the gp waiting rooms state there’s no need to rush to make an appointment nor rush to A&E that you might later get charged with gbh against a child…???
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No I don’t…
I agree with everything you say, Mark.
My experience of French health services is short (less than 3 years) but - from my conversations with my near neighbours -my overall impression of how older people deal with ill-health suggests that they are much more resilient as individuals and more inclined to solicit advice and support from peers when they are unwell and feel in need of advice. They also seem to me to be better informed generally about health, and have a sound grasp of the importance of a healthy diet and well-regulated eating, and of drinking tap-water, and a little wine.
It should indeed, and the NHS used to place more (but never enough) emphasis on health promotion, and on prevention, rehabilitation and ‘convalescence’. Since coming here I subscribed to Grippe.net (I had an invitation to do so after getting the 'flu jab), and have been amazed at the flow of intelligent easy-to-understand epidemiological information on 'flu across all the regions of France, based on the data fielded by our completing weekly on-line questionnaires, and delivered to our in-boxes.
I also admire French resistance to selling medicaments at any outlets other than registered pharmacies. Such control ensures that professionals are always at hand to advise, can monitor for safety and suitability the use of over-the-counter medicines, and pick up on illnesses that require a medical consultation. The French health service seems to me to more adult, more broadly collaborative in its approach to service provision, and better value for money than its UK counterpart.
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I couldn’t agree more on that point. Both pharmacies in our local town are run by medically qualified people and are well equipped to give appropriate medical advice rather than just follow the big pharma profit margin recommendations.
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