18 June 2007

on 18 June 2007 at 05:00

Waiting for the wrong decision over hospital beds

Some people believe that the Norfolk Primary Care Trust is in the process of agonising over the closure of community hospitals and community care beds in the county.

Others are pretty sure the Trust has already made up its mind, and the recent public consultation was a cynical waste of time and effort, and an unsuccessful bid to pull the wool over people’s eyes.

Whatever the truth of it, pretty much everyone who is not an accountant or a politician is sure that any closures will be wrong and totally misconceived, rather on a parallel with Dr Beeching’s axing of rail lines in the 60s – only worse.

More than 97 per cent of people polled by a patients’ watchdog organisation were against the closures. Increased home care, advocated by the Trust, is not better for most and will make life unbearable – almost impossible – for an unacceptable number of people.

Hospitals such as Aylsham are full to the brim, and every morning the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital phones in search of non-existent free beds. Cutting the number of beds will be disastrous both there and elsewhere.

At the same time we read that a doctor who introduced an innovative operating regime that cut waiting lists is leaving the NHS – and the country – because no-one was interested in his methods.

It is much easier to cut beds and close hospitals than to do things in a more effective way. One can imagine the Primary Care Trust saying: “If you carry out changes, there are going to be winners and losers, and in the end the winners have outnumbered the losers.”

In fact that was Guy McGregor, Suffolk roads and transport supremo, talking to Lowestoft shop-owners who have been refused compensation for months of disruption resulting from roadworks.

If the PCT – egged on by the Government – can do no better than echo such a self- satisfied and blinkered view, they should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

Up and down approach to road safety

The Norfolk new town of Whynge, which emerged from the sea recently, has decided to reduce speed limits on all its roads to five mph.

Consultant Len “Kissme” Hardy told reporters that many councillors favoured a lower limit, but this was not considered feasible at the moment. However, if anyone died in an accident, two or three mph limits would be “inevitable”.

“This is in line with national road safety practice,” he said. “If accidents go up, speed limits go down. You don’t have to think at all.”

Meanwhile in Portsmouth, south-west of Norfolk, it has been revealed that the 20mph limits planned for all residential roads except major through routes will not be backed up by speed humps – because humps “inconvenience emergency service vehicles and aggravate people”.

Alex Bentley, a real person who is executive member for environment and transportation, added: “When given the chance, the population behaves responsibly.” Mr Hardy said last night that this was not a view the road safety industry wanted to encourage.

Volcano to crack down on chip joints

Regular readers may have been concerned at the lack of reports recently from Richard “Volcano” Meek, the intrepid Norfolk explorer. I am happy to reveal that ever since the Government engaged the services of Jamie Oliver and declared war on beef dripping, he has been operating as what he calls “a sort of undercover Lardy- Czar”.

In the same way that prohibition in the States spawned illegal drinking clubs, the clampdown on chip fat and lard-based products has apparently led to illicit rendering plants up in the Ringland Hills, just outside Norwich.

“My mission,” Mr Meek told me, “has been not only to intercept souped-up dripping runners, but also to crack down on the illegal chew-easys springing up in laybys all over the county.

“With names like Fat Dicko's, The Gutbuster Burger Bar, Betty's Big Baps and Nobby's Nosh, these jelly joints are drip-feeding saturated fat and fortified grease to those desperate souls out of their heads on hot sausage and ketchup.

“Along with my colleagues, Albert Ness and the Inedibles, I hope to report the eradication of these cheap chip joints in the very near future.”

More grease to his elbow.

Poor memory over Norwich road?

The Liberal Democrats, who I like to encourage whenever possible, are concerned about drivers “rat-running” on Rosary Road, Norwich.

Some would say that using Rosary Road to reach Thorpe Road from Riverside Road instead of taking up residence in a queue to the Foundry Bridge traffic lights and turning left – which is not only much further, but adds to congestion – was the intelligent thing to do, and not especially ratlike.

What made the situation so bad was the highways authority’s decision to ban a right turn at the Foundry Bridge traffic lights from Thorpe Road into Riverside Road, and to erect a large sign directing traffic along – you’ve guessed it – Rosary Road instead. So what was always a steady flow in one direction is now met by a similar flow in the other direction.

Let me see now, who was in charge of the city council when that happened?

Signs of a bad driver

Traders in Swaffham who are asking for better signposting for town centre car parks may be out of step with the average motorist, if we are to believe a survey carried out by the Vauxhall car company.

High up on the Vauxhall list of signs wanted by motorists came such vital ones as “urban foxes crossing” and “wi-fi hotspot”. Drivers also wanted updated “children crossing” signs showing more up-to-date clothing and – unbelievably – signs warning them to be green by switching off their engines while waiting to pick up their children from school.

I just hope no-one takes this seriously. If you are stupid enough to need a sign to tell you to turn your engine off while waiting, or too dim to recognise children in slightly outdated clothing, you shouldn’t be driving a car at all.

4 June 2007

on 7 June 2007 at 13:34

Sitting in a factory, surrounded by beauty

I’m writing this in a disused factory. Although it’s the end of May, spring and summer are not words that come to mind. A brisk, chilly and extremely soggy bank holiday wind is rattling the metal roof above the wide open spaces below.

Now and again a couple, a family group or a lone hiker wanders past, pausing perhaps to look at a painting. Occasionally I walk round the factory’s selling floor – a circuit that I can assure you measures almost exactly one thirteenth of a mile. This is my exercise for today and yes, you’ve guessed it, it’s Norfolk Open Studios 2007.

I belong to a group called InPrint, which consists of four poets and five visual artists working in collaboration. And I’ve found that putting on an exhibition is an esoteric experience much removed from what you might guess by the calm, colourful catalogue.

First, you have to move the screens, which have been carefully constructed to make shifting them – or indeed doing anything with them – as difficult as possible. I guess there must have been a competition of some kind.

Then there’s the other heavy work: hanging the pictures. One particularly striking piece in which I have a vested interest consists of three weighty vertical items that have to be hung exactly level. Not easy: how about a step formation? The artist quite rightly, demurs, and gradually it comes together.

The real pleasure of course is seeing visitors come and view the various works of art – but even then it’s not plain sailing. Do you engage them in conversation and feel like a car salesman, or do you leave them to their own devices and appear stand- offish?

Visual art is a curious thing. If you measure the amount of work put in, and add the creative vision, the prices (with the exception of the top-of-the-range models) are tiny – probably less than what you’d pay a management consultant for a day’s work. But of course most of us don’t employ management consultants, and splashing out the cost of a couple of dishwashers – or even a small TV – when you can’t actually do anything with what you’ve bought except put it on display gives pause for thought.

Do we need it? It reminds me of something Stephen Donaldson, the fantasy writer, put in the mouth of a visitor from this world to one where beauty was a vital part of everyday life.

He said: “We have beauty too. We call it scenery... It means that beauty is something extra. It’s nice, but we can live without it.”

Or can we?

www.inprintartsandpoetry.co.uk

Out of step with the unholy brotherhood

I have a soft spot for Professor James Beck, who died last week. He was an authority on the Italian Renaissance who found himself out of step with what he called “the official art establishment, which appears to be composed of an unholy brotherhood of influential critics, powerful galleries, prestigious collectors, leading newspapers and magazines and the major museums”.

Anyone who has questioned the established views on climate change will know exactly how he felt. They will also understand why his views on the restoration of paintings met the reaction they did.

He was a minimalist when it came to touching the old masters, but found himself opposed by those who favoured thorough cleaning and restoration work. He pointed out that modern restoration projects, in the words of his obituary in the Daily Telegraph, “were very often funded by major sponsorship and, as such, under pressure to produce spectacular results”.

Naturally, within the art world, “scientists, conservators, curators and scholars all have a vested interest… a light going-over with a feather duster offered little in the way of employment or kudos for them”.

A lighter touch on climate change would have a similar result for the thousands of people whose future is invested in the dogma of catastrophe, of course – just as admitting the ineffectiveness of speed cameras would have disastrous consequences for those making money out of the road safety industry. Presumably this is why the Government cancelled research into the negative effects of cameras.

In almost any area you look you will find an unholy brotherhood whose livelihood depends on maintaining a particular spin on reality. That is why Albert Einstein said: “Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” It is also why Al Gore is doing very well, thank you.

Europe imposes muntjac quota

Following the rescue of three muntjac deer from the sea off Lowestoft, the European Union has acted swiftly.

A quota has been imposed on the number of deer caught, and the size of the nets used to catch them has been restricted.

Spokesperson Annette Rotwild said yesterday: “If we do not impose these measures, the traditional stock of muntjac in the sea off Lowestoft will simply disappear. It will be an ecological disaster.”

But radical cleric the Rev Nick Repps-cum-Bastwick said the move was distinctly fishy. It could have dire consequences for the thriving deer-catching industry in Lowestoft, and he hoped the Prime Minister, whoever he might be, would intervene to save the town.

Deer and chips was a popular local delicacy, he added.

Hingham democracy lives

Those with long memories will recall the notorious Scout Hut incident in the Autonomous Republic of Hingham towards the end of the last century, in which a new form of local democracy was invented by the council. This involved asking people what they wanted, and then ignoring them.

Readers will be glad to hear that Hingham democracy, taken up enthusiastically by the Government of the day, is thriving. Here are two examples:

A huge majority of ordinary people and 93 per cent of Norwich GPs are against the loss of community beds and cottage hospitals across Norfolk. Under pressure from the Government, the Primary Care Trust is making plans to lose both beds and hospitals.

In Norwich, members of the highways committee have approved changes to residential parking permits which favour smaller cars – after carrying out a consultation revealing that 52 per cent of residents were against and only 35 per cent in favour.

No, it’s not dictatorship. In a dictatorship, I would not be able to write this.