Mobility scooters for newbies…

After the Pride Quantum 6000 powerchair fiasco, I have no desire to get involved with Route2Mobility ever again – the operation is a disgrace on so many levels. See the I bought a lemon… series of posts for the reasons why. I do, though, desperately need a mobility scooter.

I have, after months of hassle, secured a pension lump sum, out of which I’m buying a scooter, so I thought it might be a good time to share a few thoughts on the subject with my faithful readers and with anybody who has just bought, or is about to buy, their first scooter. This isn’t about which scooter to buy – I’ve no idea what’s best for you – just a few tips about what to look for, and how to get the best out of it once you have it.

The first thing I discovered is

Pages: 1 2 3

Ebook ramblings…

I like gadgets, and I like the idea of an ebook reader, but only from a gadgety standpoint, not as a means of reading books.

I’ve built two collections of books in my time. Currently I have around 2,000 – worth upwards of £15,000.

I’ve also, over the years, lost, given away or left behind an unknown quantity – let’s say another 1,500. I’ve also read an unknown number of library books – I had my first library card at 5, and an adult library card at 11 – I’ve no idea how many books that represents over the past 60 years, but it must run into several thousand more.

So, as a possibly conservative estimate, let’s say I’ve read

The past is the future – oh, joy!

I have zero interest in fashion (my preferred look being “backpacker” – the Sierra Club kind, not the Oz-inspired, gap-year variety, which swiped the name), and as long as my clothes keep me covered, warm and dry, I’m happy.

My eye, though, was drawn to

Lynn Gildersdale…

Kay Gilderdale has walked free from court, at the conclusion of her trial for assisting in the suicide of her daughter, ME sufferer Lynn, which saw the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, personally lambasted by High Court Judge Richard Brown for pursuing a case utterly without merit.

And so he should – getting a conviction is the CPS’s primary consideration – the validity of a case, and plain, old-fashioned common sense, come a long way behind.

Note: ME is CFS in the US.

Writing as someone who

Free prescription cock-up is political suicide…

Well, if Gordon Brown ever thought he had a chance in the next general election, he’s just committed political suicide by pissing off 15,000,000 chronically sick people.

Why? Because he promised to extend the range of conditions which qualify for free prescriptions – itself a deeply flawed idea – and he has now reneged on that offer.

I say deeply flawed because

David Cameron – a disgrace to humanity?

Yes, absolutely, the man really is a disgrace to humanity – yesterday he was the only person trying to make political capital on the back of the horror that was the Edlington trial. People just don’t come any more despicable.

“Broken Britain**” my arse – the fault lies with

COPD and ESA…

Another search-engine quickie “can I claim DLA and ESA at the same time?

I’ve covered this in other posts, but

Can COPD be stopped?

Search-engine slush-pile question. “How can you stop COPD when you’ve never smoked?”

Bottom line – whether you’ve smoked or not, COPD

The end of the book shop?

In a comment to this Times article about the failure of bookstores in general, and Waterstone’s in particular, one person said:-

It is the failure of literacy and the death of imagination that underlies the problem.

And, you know, I couldn’t agree more – I worked as an adult literacy tutor in the mid 80s, and  the situation was appalling; it’s certainly not got any better since then.

Indeed, as a reasonably successful blogger I’m horrified at the inability of so many of my fellow-bloggers to

Carrots and chaos…

This article, in the Guardian, discussing the problems of keeping Britain supplied with carrots and other veg during the recent, relatively brief, cold snap, contains this gem “There’s not as much slack in the system as there used to be, especially from Scotland, because the distances things have to travel are so big.”

My italics.

This, bear in mind, is on a relatively small island, where the extremes – Land’s End and John O’Groats – have been shown to be within walking distance of each other many times. It is not, for example, France or Spain, the continental USA or, perhaps Russia – countries where distances are truly “big” – it’s an island that is just 800 and some miles long at the extremes.

The distances, then, are