The Road to Ruin

I am on a roll with my political rants as I am about to have another one. And then I will lighten the mood with " a funny thing happened after my jog". It'll be great, trust me!

There is a lot of doom and gloom and despondency on the telly at the moment. There a couple of programs on the 'beeb that got my ire up. Now, quite rightly they are suggesting we are in somewhat of a pickle economically. Yeah, all right I had noticed. I feel I must object to some of the basic tenets that the broadcaster was asking me to hold as being "The Truth" or "the way it is" which made me develop a monumental chip on my shoulder.

The Chinese were constantly being held up as the way we should be doing things. Not a sentiment I totally disagree with but the man from the beeb kept telling me that they Chinese earn a third less than me for the same job and yet save twice as much as i do. Some claimed to save up to 50% of their wages. Even if you took away all the crippling debts I have I still could not save anywhere near that level. Well i suppose i could let the kids go hungry a bit more but that is a bit Dickensian. Isn't it?

The show claimed they (the Chinese) had more money than ever but it also claimed they were saving rather than spending. If they are also being paid less the only way that can be possible is that their cost of living is a fraction of what mine is.

The other possibility is that the vox pop candidates were lying through their teeth about saving!

The other fact the show didn't mention was that the Chinese government historically manipulated their currency to make their exports cheaper than anyone else's but hey can't have it all. Unless you are Chinese!

So now we are being told we must manufacture. I think that the answer is more subtle. IT is just impossible for some UK industries to compete with the ultra cheap far east.

Even as far back as the sixties British Shipbuilders noticed they couldn't buy the materials for their ships for the price the Japanese and Koreans were charging for the finished articles. On a pile it high and sell it cheap basis we are too expensive.

On my itinerant bike rides one summer I happened upon a man looking down from a hilltop near my house. From this hill top you can see all the way to Scotland on a good day but mostly the old ship building areas of the Lower Tyne are visible. This guy for some reason then treated me to a short lecture as to how they (the far east) had been so successful. However, he claimed they could weld sheet metal like it was going out of fashion but they struggled to design ships that did stuff. They could knock up an oil tanker of bulk carrier at the click of a finger but they had no idea about how to build say a cable laying ship or oil support vessel. Ships that had to do very specific jobs. I couldn't comment on the truth of his remarks but I agree that the only way forward for manufacturing in this country is to make high value/high technology products. Rolls Royce is a perfect example. Trains should be too considering we invented the bleeding things.

I worry though that as Napoleon once said we are " A nation of shop keepers" Too interested in profit and loss to understand quality.

Time will tell.

I never thought I would ever say this. I feel a twinge of sympathy for David Cameron over this EU treaty reform thing. The politicians are too far up the backsides of the money men for my liking and it grates that he is so protective of the financial markets and yet so cavalier toward other sectors of the economy eg Bombardier trains, the government just shrugged their shoulders and said that it was a problem created by the last Government (true) and there was nothing they could do (B***ocks!).

Where was I? Oh yes Europe. My sympathy lies in the historical fact that since we joined the EU in 1973 we have, I believe, the best record in enacting EU legislation bar none. We have not missed out a single bit apart from stuff we deliberately didn't sign up for. I would also be reticent about signing a new treaty giving me more budgetary constraints as I know that certain countries could not be trusted to act as honestly. There have been plenty of occasions where other countries have defied EU regulations as it suited them, whilst we, the plucky Brits have just got stuck in. Sorry just getting a jingoistic. But my point is that despite the threat of fines I am betting a pound that no matter who signs up to this new treaty there will be those that breach it and do the continental version of two fingers to Brussels when the time comes.

OK enough seriousness. I have started to do some light jogging. Stop laughing out there! NO really I have. IT hasn't been one of my best decisions. The weather has taken a turn for the worst up here and jogging through Arctic winds is not recommended. On Sunday I developed a condition I never thought I would ever have to worry about. Jogger's nipple. I used new running shirt on Sunday and it rubbed ever so slightly but to the point where my nips felt like they were on fire.

So tonight I experimented with a little piece of scotch tape over each vestigial organ. I think you can see where this is going. The tape worked a dream whilst running. On reflection I shall wait until i get into my bath after the run to remove the tape however.

In the course of my profession I spend many happy hours ripping electrodes and tape of patients whilst informing them that faster is better. Taking my own advice i ripped the sticky tape off each nipple whilst screeching at the top of my voice. The noise of my emasculation made my son come running down the stairs to find his father in heap on the kitchen floor rubbing his chest whilst growling in a wholly disturbing manner. I looked at my tape and found that my moobs are hairier than i had previously supposed and that I had pulled a layer of skin of each nipple.

More thought needed there for a solution!