Economic Crises hits the Public Sector (by sarah)

I'm very happy with Jean's school but yesterday we get a letter say that they do not have enough money to replace the teacher who retired nor to keep all the current stuff on full time. So the teachers have had to take an hours cut and the afternoon will see two classes instead of three.

They do not think there will be an increase in funding and infact there are cuts and expenses will continue to rise. Friends who are teachers are finding they are loosing their jobs as departments in secondary schools are honned down to a minimium. Graduate teachers are being employed as they are cheaper but as soon as they become experienced they to will find there are no jobs.

It would appear that 20 years experience is not needed and everybody will be fine with inexperienced teachers who though maybe good teachers are still very much going to be learning the ropes and now those colleges that could guide them through it are being turffed out of the system. Am I the only one who sees this as dangerous and damaging to our children's education?

More - if class numbers are rising in the village then what of the already stupid class sizes in the towns and cities? Are they going to be doing the same?

Large classes means that children can be lost in the mass and struggling or excelling get lost and not noticed. The children themselves see the school and teachers as a system around them rather than being apart of it - this leads to disruptive behavoiur as they develop the old US and THEM complex. Then we come to the safety issue - more children means more furniture cramped into the rooms and this means that regurdless of the fire door not being obstructed - there are more things to crash into, less room to move about - more territory disputes amongst the kids.

And of course the larger numbers results in a breeding ground for bullying - I am talking about education in general here.

I thought it was telling that the school can't see a change to these circumstances for the next 3 odd years.

I am wondering how Nurses, police and fire departments are fairing? I have already found out that most of the fire fighters are sort of part time hobbyist - ie they do it because they want to save lives on top of their actual job 🙁

Foundary to Close (by sarah)

Basically my favourite bar and art gallery in London is closing - this was where I had my 25th birthday (or was it the 26ths?), it is where Alaric used to take me to meet up with geeky people who knew when transits of space stations where going to happen and were to look even in the built up area. It is where my friends have had their art work displayed and where I was concidering doing an exhibition 🙁

Sucky sucky - and why? Is it not doing well? No! The site its on is being developed into a hotel and yet another main stream gallery - like we need any more of them especially in London :/

Anyway you can read more about it here.

Higgs Boson Anthology (by sarah)

I have a poem published in an Anthology about theoretical particles 🙂

The Higgs Boson Anthology

A Case For the GMC (by sarah)

As some of you know around the time we started this blog my uncle died in horrific circumstances in Hospital and it has only just come before the General Medical Council which will probably produce little result.

There have been arguments over weather it was mansluaghter, murder or gross negligence etc...

I ended up holding Benny down whilst the emergancy physiotherapist attempted to manually pump his lungs out where the feeding tube had been switched on whilst in his lung 🙁

This broke his ribs but was the only hope to save his life by this point plus there were many things wrong like no water reservior in the breathing machine so he was drying out. Benny had Downes' Sydrome and was very scared that night, he was getting better and though it could be argued his quality of life was low - he thought he had a good deal as long as there was enough cake.

Basically even if it was done as a mercy act it was definatly NOT, it was horrible and he was scared and the knock on effect in the family where people have held themselves to blame becuase they trusted doctors to know when to switch the feeding machine on. (Benny when scared could fight over being fed).

Anyway - this is not the only case like this I have been hearing off. Al's grandmother was put on a drip with no Gloucose in it (as was Benny and also a friend of mine and Al's who was in hospital due to forgetting to eat :/ ). The Doctors told family that if they fed the old woman they would no longer get any state help to look after her. A nurse has told me a similar story about her grandfather which was one of the reasons she wont work for certain hospital trusts.

So as far as I can tell there is illigal euthenasia in our hospitals or something very amiss in the way we educate drs and nurses! And worse people who want to die and plead are kept alive and those who can not defend themselves are dying in the most horrific ways such as being what amounts to being starved to death or drowned.

I can only hope that it is ineptitude and they aren't really viscous killers and that an education reform could fix these things. My own experience of hospitals is that they are indeed very broken and need a massive over haul. Including sacking all the foot shufflers who pretend they can't here you're heart monitor alarm go off >:(

Anyway I started this post becuase I've written a poem about that night at the hospital and was intending to post it but thought I should add in some background.

A Case for the GMC

Wizzen broken monkey
Skin grey
Wrinkeled crepe paper
Downey whiskers
Sharpe dowdy white
In striped pajarmers
Convict of the ward
On death row
Drowning in food
A mistake
A cull?
Tortured
by those who save
Broken ribs
From pumping you out
Cracked lips
From resusitation
Now blue
Eyes revolve
As a horse in panic
They can not save you
They can't now
But they did not want to
Did they?

Of Broken Laptops and Technology Fail (by sarah)

Well my laptop basically died and thanks to Alaric, Seth and Andy using their assorted magiks I have something back which I can vaguelly use but it doesn't really work and is unreliable and may die again at any point. This has made my life just that little more interesting as there were many things I needed to be online for which I wasn't and so with asking others to post things for me etc... my phone bill is going to be high this month 🙁

This also leaves me in a quandary as to what to do really :/ I will probably continue to limp along with this broken thing and just hope that a new laptop appears somehow!

Anyway - this is why my email etc... has been a bit erratic :/