Ray's Blog: October 2008
Grandparents Caring For Grandchildren
Eighty per-cent of children in the UK are regularly cared for by a grandparent, says The Times, with the result that sixty per-cent of all British childcare is undertaken by grandparents. As payment for grandparents is virtually non-existent (92% receive no remuneration) this is at a saving to the economy of £4 billion a year.
PAYMENT...Posted at 18:47pm on 31st October 2008
2 Comments
You Wouldn't Do It To A Dog
A cracked rib is painful at the best of times. A fortnight with an undiagnosed cracked rib still worse. But a fortnight, yelling in pain, being fobbed off with paracetamol and accused of malingering, when you’re 94 years of age is outrageous.
THE WRONG SORT OF BLINDNESSIt began two weeks ago last Sunday. My...
Posted at 17:13pm on 29th October 2008
True British Spirit - Transport Style
It was with a sense of dread that I left home, at the weekend, to travel north to visit my eldest daughter. It was a trip which should have taken eight hours and included three trains journeys, with a car ride either side. As it turned out, it took nine hours, five trains plus...
Posted at 00:00am on 28th October 2008
Bloody Cheek - From A Faint Streak Of Humility!
Reviews of your book are something a writer looks upon with a sort of love-hate relationship. In a sense they’re the life-blood of a book: a good one serves the same purpose as a shot of adrenaline in the arm, or a stiff G&T, a poor one may do what a dose of flu...
Posted at 00:00am on 27th October 2008
Best Evening Gowns For A Fashion Fix?
The Party Season Beginneth. And if you’re after a Fashion Fix, you need look no further than Marks & Spencer. Have you seen the glamorous evening gowns on offer through their Autograph range? One of the most stunning, in my view, was advertised recently in The Daily Telegraph.
GLAMOROUS EVENING GOWNS BEAT RECESSIONIn these days...
Posted at 01:00am on 25th October 2008
Essential Blogging Advice For Beginners
There may be those, as I have already said, who decry blogging as adding to the ‘misinformation and ignorance’ of the ‘digitally addicted’, but without doubt blogging has become the buzz word of the internet. Whether you’re blogging for profit or simply for fun, the aim of the game is always to attract more readers...
Posted at 11:04am on 23rd October 2008
Horsing About - Internet Stupidity On Delusion
On page 6 in the Daily Telegraph, dated 21st October, 2008, there was a short piece titled ‘Internet encourages stupidity’. A serious study of the rise in children’s addiction to ‘an endless digital forest of mediocrity’ and decline in moral boundaries, it called for a government clean-up. It appears, also, that an increase in blogging blurs...
Posted at 12:20pm on 22nd October 2008
The Art Of Forgiveness - Is It Achievable?
My daughter passed on to me her copy of The Times from a couple of weekends ago. She thought I might like to blog about an article to do with modern grannies, but my eye was caught by another – on healing and forgiveness. Time enough for grannies at a later date, I thought!
PERSONAL...Posted at 11:39am on 21st October 2008
A Painful Post Mortem - Compelling
Started your book last night – finding it most compelling.
Celia Bowring of CARE
Mel's Comment:
Posted at 16:24pm on 20th October 2008
Bank Of England Bail Out Versus House Repossessions 2008
Now I’m not an economist, and neither do I read economist reports. But I am a human being! And it seems to me that it’s not difficult to see a great injustice going on in today’s troubled times. What’s even more galling is that wherever you come across it, there’s always someone benefiting from injustice....
Posted at 11:25am on 20th October 2008
Birth Order - Middle Child
According to the Wikipedia website, one of the first people to suggest that birth order has an effect on personality was an Austrian psychiatrist, Alfred Adler. A contemporary of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, he argued that the way in which each of us tackles the major aspects of life – friendship, love and work...
Posted at 01:00am on 17th October 2008
Sex Or Chocolate? Chocolate Or Sex? How Would You Define Happiness?
Revised: NEW YEAR'S EVE, 31st December, 2009
Much has changed since I first wrote this article, so
it seemed to me that it deserved to be revised, amended and added
to, with quotes, suggestions and advice. I hope, that in following
some of the ideas, you might find yourself stumbling on happiness,
without, perhaps, ever...
A Painful Post Mortem - One Critical Comment
I have read A Painful Post Mortem with much interest and I am greatly impressed with the book and, not least, your actual written style. Congratulations!
I have only one critical comment and that is the use of the word ‘ruddy’. Your character Mark would, I suspect, have been far more likely to say ‘bloody’.
It...
Is Taking Risks In The Second Half A Good Game Plan For Life?
OLD AGE? YOU GOTTA LAUGH, BEFORE YOU DIE
Do you ever feel that there are times in your life when your body is trying to convince you that it’s closer to lights out than it is to reveille? You don’t, actually, have to be in your dotage to feel like this. Neither do the...
Posted at 11:00am on 13th October 2008
Competition - Winner Of The Bucket List - 5 Things I'd Like To Do Before I Die
For those of you who may be coming to this Post for the first time, here is the competition I set at the beginning of September, asking you to list the Five Things I’d Like To Do Before I Die.
PETULANCE & PRESSUREIt was obviously something that you all find quite daunting, because it...
Posted at 09:38am on 11th October 2008
Eldest Child Syndrome - Are You One? Or Do You Know Of One?
Have you ever been in a situation where you begin to wonder whether other people’s expectations of you exceed your ability or willingness to deliver? Of course you have! Silly question – unless you’re one of those super-humans who knows how to say ‘No!’ But that’s another issue, for another day.
BIRTH ORDER AND SELFThing is,...
Man Flu? The Female Version's The Killer Strain!
MAN FLU?
I don’t know about Man Flu, but I’ve definitely been suffering with the female version this week. You know the sort of thing? Having hardly slept overnight, you wake up on Monday morning feeling utterly ghastly: stuffed ears feeling as though they’ve been pumped full of the insulating foam that lines the cavity walls...
Posted at 18:18pm on 6th October 2008
Soul Survivor - Uv Readers' Group Meeting
UV READERS’ GROUP
will be meeting in THE LIBRARY atTHE GRAND HOTEL at
7pm on THURSDAY 23rd OCTOBER 2008
Please bring your book with you: Soul Survivor by Philip
Yancey
Refreshments will be available from the bar
Posted at 21:54pm on 4th October 2008
Recipes From A Yorkshire Woman
THE REAL YORKSHIRE PUDDING
Consistently produce the perfect Yorkshire pudding; one that rises majestically into crisp pinnacles on the edges yet retains a moist base. Nick says mine are great, but unlike me, he doesn't come from the north of England where a housewife is judged on the quality of her Yorkshire puddings!
This was one...
Posted at 16:31pm on 4th October 2008
Innovation & Profundity - Competition Short List - 5 Things I'd Like To Do Before I Die
Related Posts:
Final Day
A PROCESS OF ELIMINATION
Wow! I’m glad the response to my competition on the Five Things I’d Like To Do Before I Die wasn’t overwhelmingly large. It’s much more difficult than I realised to judge something like this fairly. I’d hate to be a Booker prize judge! But thank you, again, to...
Protesters Take On The Post Office - And Win!
Other Posts in Life, Faith & Other Stuff:
Recipes From
A Yorkshire Woman
Last month we saved our local Post Office. This week it’s Ban the Mast. Well – you gotta try, haven’t you?
RADICAL ACTIVIST NETWORKSActually, I’ve never been a try-er in the sense of protestors who regularly practice militancy, marching, or sitting-in. I recall the...
Posted at 12:13pm on 2nd October 2008
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