Why I am voting Yes (by sarah)

Tomorrow is the referendum about the way we vote - I will be voting for change, voting for Alternative Voting or AV as it is known. Our current system is First Past the Post (FPTP).

Now AV is not the best system it has no proper weightings etc.. but the maths of the more advance systems is beyond a lot of people and if people don't understand they are not going to vote. As it is, lots of people seem to be struggling with this anyway.

The thing is I believe that AV is better than our current voting system because though it is called first past the post it isn't. No, it's not - we vote in constituencies which may not have representatives of all parties and people are voting in mind of which party is going to get one of their members in as Prime Minister. This is where the current system breaks down.

For a start you could have a situation when, say, in Labour seats the Liberal Democrats almost won and in the Conservative seats the Liberal Democrats almost won but though this means over all they or the Green Party or who ever is the thirds/fourth party they will never win. To me this is not first past the post - it's because we are technically only voting for our local MP so it shouldn't matter which party they are in. But it does.

If there were no parties as such this would be ok as the MP's would vote on what they, as individuals, thought was right and there would be no towing party lines even when they grate against the skin. Whether this would lead to a weak government or not is a thorny question.

What this means is that people go out and vote and say they really want to vote for that nice Labour Chap who also does things in that alliance thingy with another party but they won't because the Labour government was sinking and everyone felt it was time for a change and everyone knows that means you have to vote conservative, right?

That's the way it goes in this country; back and forth (of course in the old days it was Lib Dems and the Conservatives until Labour came up trumps).

Now, imagine the winners only had a small majority to get in and then they vote in their Prime Minister - well the result is one of compound error - you are rounding up and forgetting to take that into account before you more onto the next stage of the process. If our political system was a lab report the lecture would be demanding "Where are the error bars!". Of course it's not easy to have a Prime Minister who is only Prime Minister give or take 30%... but you get the idea.

First past the post secures a two party system in this country - something which the powers that be will not want to change (think about it) and I think this is shown most clearly in the leaflets that have found their way through the door.

They have all been "Vote No" ones and, though it says no tax payers money has been used to print them, I wonder who is paying for the time the MP's are spending on this? The objections on the leaflets made me roll my eyes - this like how much it will cost to explain it to people. Well you know most of that's already been done so that money is already spent.

Things like "only three other countries use AV". So something is new/unknown; that doesn't make it bad. Soap was seen as evil when it was first introduced into this country. People believed it washed the protective layer of grime off your hands so you'd get ill.

They say that Australia wants to get rid of it - but where are the studies to back the claim up? The leaflets treat the general public as idiots too - which unfortunately seems to be winning people over. I talk to people and they say they are voting No and just parrot what is on the leaflets. And we're stuck with people not wanting change; they just want tomorrow to be the same as today but with a bit more beer or chocolate please?

I had hoped that the internet and access to free information would alter this but of course we have an aging population so I may be waiting a while. Anyway I'm voting yes to AV because I believe that it is better than the system we've got - it will mean I get to vote more how I feel I should without panicking I'm wasting a vote. They say it will lead to more hung parliaments, but isn't that basically what we've just hand under FPTP anyway?

The Royal Wedding – I didn’t go but… (by sarah)

The Royal Wedding is currently going live on TV's and computers all over the country - I have sent my family off to a street party to celebrate it more due to the fact it is a community thing than anything else. The truth is I can not imagine anything more boring than watching a wedding on telly. If I'd been well enough I may have gone and eaten hot dogs at the pub and watched the kids parade their hats and flags but I'm not so I haven't - they've gone anyway with a slightly perplexed Alaric.

I find all the hype really really annoying and the plates and things for sale everywhere with their faces on but I think meh it doesn't happen often and I know people from other countries etc... are probably flocking to buy the stuff so that's good for our economy (at uni alot of the oriental students would buy everything with a union jack on it!).

So I feel slightly put out by all the fuss but at the same time I see people getting excited and I feel that it is not right to take this away from them. I have friends who have been sewing (and even crocheting) bunting for weeks, others who have been baking cup cakes like deamons and everyone is pulling together to do community events.

I don't have the right to rain on their parade. Which is one of the reasons that I have been saddened to see some people smirking over the fact that this or that street party looks like it might be a flop. It's not nice - people have put in a lot of work and these things can be alot of fun and anything that gets people to talk to their neighbours is a good thing.

The slightly more alarming thing is the protest - now I like protests and think we need the right to be able to protest and people have this right if they really disagree with the wedding - I can see that in a time of cut backs that the amount of money being spent on police and things for the wedding must chaff. But part of the issue I think is that the media have whirled this whole thing up with encouragement from the government in an attempt to reinstate the constitution of mariage. This means that the main point has been missed - this is Their Wedding - it is them saying they love each other as people. What they have been turned into is celebratese - idols and as such people stop thinking of Will and Kate as well... people.

I hope that bombs are not set off even just 'distruptors' as I hope people will think about how they'd feel if someone did that because they were getting marraide or having a I'm moving in with my girlfriend/boyfriend party. If people had died because of mine and Al's wedding we would have been destroyed as people, it would have crushed us utterly.

As for the issue of weather we should have a monachy at all - I think I should save that one for another post.

And what about the police aka tax payer money going on this? Well one solution that presents itself is that maybe the royal family should pay - now I don't actually know what has happened about this but to me that would be the worse thing that could happen - if they pay for the police help then the police are no longer the police - they become a private army with an agenda that is not to protect the citizens of this country but to look after the interests of the rich. As for weather they should be offered the protection at all in that case - well how would you like it if you couldn't do anything in public for fear of being mobbed to death probably by people who adore you?

I would not swap places with Kate or any celeb to be honest - even before I met Alaric I loathed that celebs have no privacy. I have enough issue with the fact that I rarely go anywhere without being recognised by someone. This can be exhusting and everyone expects you to talk to them and remember who they are as well - and that is just by being me - I am not famous I've got maybe 100 people who follow my writing and art as 'fans' and most of those I've known for years. But even I have ended up having to go to the police about stalkers because people like me too much :/

So just thinking about it - I'll not watch the royal wedding I don't know them, I don't care what sort of dress she is wearing or anything like that but I do wish them happiness and I think it is going to be hard for them to have as all those little spats couples have are likely to be plastered all over the news - the strain that puts on relationships is not good.

p.s. I do like talking to people so don't take this as don't talk to me! Just be aware I get tired especially standing up on crutches!

Dear NHS (by sarah)

Dear NHS

I love you, you save my life, keep my children disease free with immunisations and keep my parents going. But sometimes I think you need a big hammer taking to your structure.

The main issue I have today is appointment booking. Getting to the Drs today I booked in and found it was only saying Nurse, I did not worry at first as I had double checked when I made the appointment that I was booking both nurse and Dr. So I finished booking in on your funky touch skin panel and waited for my nurse appointment.

Getting into my appointment I find that the room is double booked and the nurse has to move use into another room she knows is free, then the smear I'm having because I'm still bleeding and loosing gloop 9 weeks after having my baby apparently shouldn't be done whilst I'm still bleeding :/

That all done along with blood tests I've had to starve for I leave - the nurse was lovely but I still felt disorientated which is why when I tried to book in for the Drs appointment I felt I must be doing something wrong and asked at reception - where it turns out I don't have one :/

Now I wasn't thinking so left thinking this was my fault until Alaric reminds me that I double checked and that he hadn't called NHS direct at the weekend when I lost a load of black jelly ribbons as well as blood because I was seeing the Dr this week.

Getting home I check and find that my doctor doesn't actually have a clinic on Tuesdays which I summise is part of where things have gone wrong.

I find this sort of error so frustrating because it shouldn't be able to happen - they printed me out an appointment slip and we noticed it had said just nurse and asked and they said no I was booked for both and they would be one after another which was why there was only one slip of paper. Now I think this was a combination of us not knowing the Dr didn't work Tuesdays and the receptionists not listening and assuming things as I had two things needing doing by the nurse. As a patient I myself made the mistake of assume the two things to be being done in ONE appointment where as they must have been thinking of it as two.

This is not the only time this sort of thing has happened either - I've had cases of letters with dates on them when the hospital clinic doesn't run, or has a day name (Monday, Tuesday) that doesn't correspond to the date given. I've turned up to an appointment at the Drs to be told I'm discharged from a clinic at the hospital I hadn't even known I was supposed to be attending but was supposed to be at a week ago. And so on... some of these things are easy to sort out and some are not. Like whilst at university I waited two years for an MRI scan to sort out my pain and muscle stuff only to find out that in agreeing to go on the pain management course had taken me off the waiting list. To be fair the Dr I had at the time was very angry that I had too wait so long for the diagnostic tests some of which I 'fell' off the waiting lists for three times through clerical error :/

Dr surgeries and hospitals still rely on post to get appointment letters too you - why they can not email, text and post I don't know - they say it's a security risk - and I suppose having neighbours end up with your post and opening it isn't?

The other thing is they are expected sick people to remember stuff which really is not going to work very well.

How they relay information, store it and use it needs an over haul, the amount of money and resources lost due to patients not turning up when they should could be drastically reduced with sending reminders. Plus it would save people having to book so much time off needlessly for appointments that then don't happen.

Plus there have been situations were what I have been prescribed by a locum at the drs surgery never getting into their records - that I find scary - I would prefer all the A&E departments, Drs etc... to be linked up - because I can't remember all the meds I've had and if I'm treated in Essex the Dr in Gloucestershire still needs too know. Obviously there might be need for nominity in say the family planning clinics and SDT treatmets and the whole issue of domestic violence and control can be thorny but there should be a way of exempting people not having it so everyones in a muddle all the time.

I was really pleased when I saw computers appearing in Drs surgeries as I thought this would help but they don't even keep all you files there accessible they still do things like printing out the old stuff and keeping it in boxes in the antic :/ So your entire medical history is not avaliable to them there and then.

This does not make sense to me.

The same as not having the medicines in a searchable data base as to who can and can't take it - rather than have the Drs having to flick through huge books.

You may think this is a mountain out of a mole hill but were the NHS is concerned an error of miss filing can cost lives as we very well know.

The Glass Pelvis (by sarah)

Through my tears and the creation of a dark transient poem I have hit upon the concept of writing a self-help/how to survive book on chronic pain and truma during and pregnancy, child birth and the after math. It would be called the Glass Pelvis. Arrogant? Probably - something that's needed definatly.

I slipped over yesterday which would have been pain full for anyone as pregnant as me but with the seperated pelvis - I could not speak for the tears of pain. This have been quiet bad pain wise as I have had a mini pain flare up with my left arm anyway which sucks as it has ment no proper writing and no guitar practice for about a week now.

Chronic pain has many books on it - but seperated pelvises are relatively new thing in medicine. A great increase has been seen in the last ten years - I have my theories on this involving modern live style and gyms not getting to the right areas that women need strengthened and modern diet with it's additives and loss of various things like sea food.

You see I am on the crutches and it is an issue but I am not anywhere near the state I was in with Jeany and looking at how things like gestational diebetes come about I feel that management of such conditions as the 'broken pelvis' are important. Especially as it can lead to complications and more truma for both mother and child.

Now there was nothing avalible for me when I had Jean and everybody seemed quiet confused over the whole thing. I have been told this time round that even the physios are now giving up with the condition.

So I want to share what I went through, to aliviate some of the isolation that mothers in this sort of position suffer. Of course I also had lots of other things from the miscarriage stuff, to the blood clots to the pre-clampsia and pregnancy induced hyper tension. Even being in the hospital when the bombs went off in London. I think with research and checking with medical people I could produce a good guide to mother who don't have it easy.

Separeted Pelvis is termed symphysis pubis dysfunction or SPD and having seen the result of being not allowed out of bed with Jean's pregnancy (due to blood clots and what not!) I have been desperate to keep my mobility up what ever the pain levels (once I'd checked that there was no danger of baby popping out!). I have interesting comparisions but then this pregnancy has been managed much better - the only issue is that a) the pelvic pain never completely went away from Jeany and b) due to issues I've had I've had a body pumped full of pregnancy hormones on some level for well over a year now meaning that the pelvis has been far more mobile than expected.

The truth is that I didn't now that I would end up on crutches again before the baby was born - becuase I was bed and wheel chair for the last half of Jean's pregnancy the pelvic issues were only found after the birth and was told that it was from the childbirth because of an old back injury and a large baby but they have said this is wrong and it is the hormone levels and stuff. This was a bit of a blow for us but hey I can still walk (with crutches) in the week when my baby is due!

I think the main issue with producing such a book will be that I don't know what a 'normal' pregnancy and labour is like. And even the c-section is going to be interesting on the recovery side of things due to walking with crutches etc...

My mood is fragile at the moment due to the pain I'm in but what is actually concerning me is that after Jean was born I was bunged in a side room at Harold Wood with no one to talk too and depending on shifts was not even given water to drink! (resulting in dehydration and my milk drying up and me then having to suppliment and work hard at getting the milk back again!). People have said it's not like that here but the fear of hospitals is still nagging at me - I am concerned as to what is going to happen to my mood when I get the post birth hormone crash and a hospital stay. I'm hoping that I will just know how to cope with it better this time.

So in some ways I think this is going to be a self help project as well.

A Recipe for Riot (by sarah)

1. Take one apathetic, peaceful, book-loving student body intent on learning

2. Tenderise with cuts and broken promises

3. Optionally add agent provocateur/thug type - this speeds the reaction but is not necessary due to using the kettling technique - guaranteed to bring anyone to a slow violent boil

4. Sprinkle in a portion of police - ill-equipped and vulnerable causing the trigger happy reactions that seem justified - adds flavour

5. Leave to simmer with the odd bit of bait/sacrificial target to get the crowd proving

6. Knead in naive youth quick to follow the flow - after it swells to double the size - bash it down

7. Season with paparazzi to bring out the 'incite to violence for the perfect photo' flavour

8. Add a match and Voila! The Social Flambe - Riot

9. Garnish by only reporting the juciest politically-approved bits to the general public

10. Serve piping hot and full of bias and lies