Brexit - am I stupid or what?

Don't forget that quantities of paper are still measured in reams, quires, bundles and bales! To make it more complicated, you have long reams and short reams which don't refer to the size of the sheets but to the number of sheets.

I'm pleased we still stick to A4 and the various other sizes and I wouldn't like to go into a stationers and ask for paper 210 x 297mm.

 

Never mind word of the week, that is word of the year!!! I love it!

So, they can/are be measured in the decimal system....... bit of irony in there, no?

Now you are talking measurements that really matter!!! I prefer it in pints, but will settle for a litre without an argument - anything for a peaceful life.

See, that is me right there - I was educated in metric, but my dad used feet and inches, and I also grew up thinking in yards and miles. If I am building something, it is usually done in feet and inches, unless it is something very small in which case it will be in centimetres and millimetres. I still measure distances in yards and miles, my beer comes in pints; yet in the kitchen, I will flip between pounds and ounces or grammes without even batting an eyelid.

See, I am a mixed up kid.

 

Now, I never could let myself have the last word.............

I have been thinking about this, and the more I think about it, the more I think that the reason we are where we are is almost definitely multi-faceted.

When I voted leave, I did so because I was fed up of a number of things, those namely being:

• The almost cancerous, creeping invasion of our rules and laws, being replaced or otherwise interfered with by those distant people in Brussels, and often replaced with things that made absolutely no sense, or were merely there to cause red tape.
• The simple erosion of our public services, partly due to financial cuts (more on that in a minute) but mostly due to over subscription
• The amount of money that we were (are) paying into the EU is not coming back to this country, be that in actual hard cash or as some sort of benefit, nor does it seem to be being used to 'redistribute wealth' to those countries who are really in need of it. From where I am sitting, we are pouring money in, and not seeing it go to where it is actually needed, but is being consumed by projects and studies, or is generally a gravy train for those directly involved with running the show
• Whilst free movement within Europe for European citizens does not bother me, the fact that Merkel all but threw open the doors to the whole world (without asking), does; it is no surprise that many of them do not want to settle anywhere but the UK, thanks to the UK's benefits system and health care.
  
• Policies such as those where countries can be fined if their air quality does not meet an arbitrary standard, or their recycling level is not at a required rate, yet the companies that are the cause are never dealt with or fined.
• Arbitrary standards being applied to things without either the science, engineering or impacts being thought about - for example, the EU and their thinking regarding vehicle emissions actually CAUSED the dieselgate scandal.
• Whilst being respectful and accepting of other peoples ways, religious practices and traditions, having to see many of our own curtailed or suppressed.

Now, as I say, I have been watching, listening, and thinking and I then got to wondering just how tolerant I was being, and how tolerant I might have been if things were a little different.

In terms of personal tolerance, I like to think I am very open-minded and welcoming; I really do not care what size, shape, sex, colour, religion, ethnicity, race, creed, age or sexuality anyone is. I have colleagues and friends that originate from all over the world, and as far as I am concerned, where they have came from (in or out of the EU) matters to me not a jot. I will confess that I do struggle to understand some of the stuff surrounding how people 'identify' as to what sex they are, but that is a whole different thread.

I did/do have a problem with sheer numbers of people coming into this country, regardless from where; but then I asked myself why, and the answer is simple. It is not the people themselves, nor indeed is it a fear about them 'taking our jobs' (as is often the thing that gets bandied about) - it was simply that we have ended up with an infrastructure that is already creaking being dangerously over-loaded.

The NHS probably demonstrates this more clearly than any other, and whilst many things such as obesity etc are blamed for the NHS's woes, the simple fact remains that there are a lot of things now NOT being caught at GP level because people cannot get to see a doctor. My own recent experience bears this out - when I initially had the flu, I rang the surgery and a sick line was issued by a receptionist, speaking to me on the phone (a doctor would have to scribble a signature on it, but that would be their only intervention) - now, I am not saying that what happened to me could have been prevented by seeing a GP, but it might have been - the day after speaking to the receptionist, I was in intensive care, so the question has to be asked if a trained medical professional might have spotted something? My disabled mum has had similar, on more than one occasion - - one of which could have been very nasty, she phoned up for a doctors appointment due to a skin problem on her feet, and was diverted to a conversation with a nurse instead as they had no appointments for weeks; a cream was prescribed, signed off by a doctors scribble, and it was sent directly to the pharmacy. After about a week of applying this cream, and things getting steadily worse to the point that my mum could no longer walk further than the toilet (why she soldiered on is beyond me!) she called back and a doctor came to the house. It transpired that not only did she have an infection initially, but that the prescribed cream was entirely the wrong way to handle that infection and in fact the infection itself had allowed the cream further into her skin than it should have been, and that in turn had done considerable damage! Now all of that was completely avoidable.

Schools, the NHS, our roads and transportation, housing, waste and recycling, water and drainage, social care and so on are all completely Donald Ducked and the cry is that we have no money, whilst all of us are paying more and more.

So maybe it is actually privatisation/capitalism that is the problem? There are some things that definitely should be out there and for capital gain, but there are some things (in my view) that should not - - and public services, should not.

If I was not as sick to the back teeth of seeing, hearing and experiencing the problems with all of the above (and more) would I have been more tolerant toward staying in the EU? Almost certainly. And I think, that for the man on the street, anywhere in the world that the sentiment is exactly the same - - that is why so called populist politicians such as Trump are gaining votes, that is why countries (and not just the UK) are fed up with the EU and are looking to leave.

So, what do you think? Over to EU!

 

I hope he's only standing in the corner!

 

'fraid not...........


He's the same in the office after a few mugs of tea and a packet of Hobnobs.

 

They replaced foolscap with A4

Foolscap was 8 ½” x 13 ½”
A4 is 8.27" × 11.69"

 

I still get them to send hard copies of everything. I've planted an extra tree

 

For some reason we don't get much in the way of unsolicited mail. All we've had this week is a letter from the water authority trying to sell us their repair insurance and a local estate agent saying they have people looking for properties like ours. About 75% of the sheets were single sided so we use those for scrap paper (notes, shopping lists etc.) and the envelopes get reused.