Well it's day one here in Germany under new lockdown rules and also in many countries as the so-called second wave of the global pandemic begins to see cases rise to unmanageable levels - all people can do now is play a waiting game and essentially avoid others until a vaccine arrives and hope their jobs and the economy survive in the process.
Although, what is really weird today is it's the 2nd of November and I've just been to the shops and the morning temperature at 10am is a staggering 21 degrees! This is not normal and a loud message that the climate is behaving very strangely. Indeed, it has been reported that for the first time on record, the artic sea in Siberia has not yet frozen over by the end of October - plus the ice sheets of Greenland this august were melting at a rate of one million tonnes per minute and a huge ice shelf in Canada also collapsed. Also, it's being reported that frozen methane deposits deep in the artic are also starting to escape into the atmosphere at an alarming rate. It may now in fact be too late to reverse such warming and the potential flooding of coastal areas that are increasingly at risk with rising seas levels.
Meanwhile in America, we're about to witness one of the supposedly biggest democratic processes of the free world as they choose between Trump or Biden - with the president reportedly aiming to declare victory and instruct his lawyers to demand many of the postal votes cast be declared void in the courts before they are counted. Nevertheless, many of the those in the land of the free have been preparing themselves for civil war and automatic guns of all sizes are being sold out as paranoia over what happens next goes into overdrive.
It's almost like we're living in three simultaneous shark-jumping Hollywood disaster movies but unfortunately this is what passes for reality in 2020 - though what's probably more surprising is that there seems far too little outcry as people are apparently just willing to accept the normalisation of such events as they exist in their own private virtual bubbles of trivia. Maybe everyone can just no longer cope with such huge problems as they increasing feel the world around them is beyond their control - maybe it is but unfortunately denial has become a coping strategy even by many of the leaders who were supposedly put in power to exercise it in the interests of the people not themselves!
I’ve just put Sky News on and with all that’s happening in the world they are reporting live from the Law Courts waiting for the judge to deliver his verdict in the Johnny Depp libel case.....
I'm glad we're being kept up to date with the events that people regard as really important - I've been losing sleep over who would win that case!
It must be a really important story as even the Guardian is leading on it...
I’ve really been in lockdown since February and have avoided shops and people in general. Apart from the odd visit to our garden by the family Mrs OFB and myself have been self contained with all shopping being delivered or ordered online.
ive had three trips (unplanned) to the hospital but was pretty relieved to get out of there and when possible have used the car to go over to the Dales and North Yorkshire moors.
After torrential rain it’s sunny in Teesside today and like a spring day so climate change is working here too.
With regard to the future I can’t see myself ever going back to the riverside stadium unless they come up with a vaccine that works!
I was involved before lockdown on a charity heritage project to rejuvenate Middlesbrough Docks but all that is scrapped now due to financial and Covid restrictions.
I think what gets to me is the self importance and righteousness of pumped up television reporters who seem to know all the answers but insist on demanding that the persons interviewed second guess what is going to happen. Whatever happened to the spirit of “we’re all in this together?”
The Boro and Pulis have been like a breath of fresh air and given me some welcome relief from all the doom and gloom in the world at the moment.
Diasboro has also been a welcome relief from the Daily Scaremongering rags which pass for news and I read all the posts avidly which are humorous, thought provoking and welcome as a discussion in the virtual pub with mates.
Roll on 2021 and promotion to the Premiership!
OFB
Strange times indeed.....
“
FORMER Labour foreign secretary David Miliband has come under fire after it emerged he is paid almost £800,000 a year by a taxpayer-funded charity for the poor. He heads a team of 12 highly paid executives at the anti-poverty International Rescue Committee (IRC). Mr Miliband, 55, who was the scourge of "immoral" fatcats when he ran for Labour leader in 2010, is president of the organisation, which gets £50million annually from UK taxpayers.”
And Bob has pulled the trigger and the cannon has fired!!!!
There's the P word and not just the play offs. That's it - the season of hope and optimism has finally arrived.
Strange times indeed.....
FORMER Labour foreign secretary David Miliband has come under fire after it emerged he is paid almost £800,000 a year by a taxpayer-funded charity for the poor. He heads a team of 12 highly paid executives at the anti-poverty International Rescue Committee (IRC). Mr Miliband, 55, who was the scourge of "immoral" fatcats when he ran for Labour leader in 2010, is president of the organisation, which gets £50million annually from UK taxpayers.”
It's certainly a story that's being pushed by the Daily Mail and Express and other right-leaning news providers at the moment - which if I'm being slightly cynical may be because he's been reportedly considering a return to UK frontline politics. International Rescue Committee issued a statement saying he was paid a middle-ranging salary in comparison to other non-profit CEO's in America - which I suppose means the going rate.
Incidentally, I checked a list of the best paid charity CEO's in America and it's certainly a lucratively paid sector in comparison to that of the UK. The best paid picked up over $8.5m in 2019 with the top ten all receiving over $2m per annum - poor David Milliband didn't even make the top 50.
Like many in top positions Milliband appears to be overpaid for his time but the story by the right-wing press is simply designed to whip up public moral outrage by using headlines like 'Fury over fat cat Milliband's £800k charity salary' - which he didn't decide to pay himself but is designed to give the impression he's both ripping off the tax payer and creaming off money meant to go to good causes. Like most large charity organisation they are run like large corporations with remuneration packages that reflect the market.
Whether anyone deserves to receive such packages is another matter but the story is basically an attempted smear of a potential political rival to the party the newspapers running it support.
It's certainly a long and uncertain road at the moment for those like you who need to be shielding on health grounds - we can only hope the vaccine comes sooner rather than later - stay safe and well!
btw Unless I missed something under Pulis, I suspect you meant Warnock 🙂
I’m indifferent as to the political motivation for stories ( I imagine left leaning publications have their own similar agendas for choice of stories) I just find it incongruous that “Charities” have such highly paid executives.
This is why I prefer to donate directly to organisations such as, Zoe’s Place.
I remember being shocked and disgusted a few years ago when I read someone defending their circa £350K package (from memory) for a charity. They robustly pointed out how they were a professional and that was the going rate for someone of their "ability".
I do also seem to recall something along the lines of the same charity taking in around £2m to £3m when they arrived and they had now more than doubled that amount which I suppose did put some balance on it and that they were perhaps genuine value for their money.
Over the last seven or so months I have been putting people and organisations in contact with reputable suppliers of Masks, Gloves, Gowns and Visors etc, and not taking a penny from it. I've probably spent more time weeding out offers that were too good to be true and fake certifications from bogus traders and saved hundreds of thousands being spent on goods that were sub standard. It hasn't helped my bank balance, much the opposite in fact but at least I sleep at night. Something within me just doesn't feel comfortable with making money out of Global suffering.
Occasionally I do mull over whether I'd have been better off being an incompetent CEO with friends in high places simply awarding me contracts for things I had no experience, skill or ability at and continually screwing up while watching the bank account grow at a ridiculous rate. At least I can look at myself in the mirror.
I have no problem if these huge salaried individuals do in fact add true value for their grossly inflated income but I suspect that in most cases it is just selfish indulgence with little charitable value.
@werdermouth I certainly did mean Warnock ! Memory must be going I hated Pulis style of football
@ Original Fat Bob
Sorry to hear you’ve had it tough during lockdown. One advantage for myself is that I now have a urologist visiting me at home to change my catheter tube every 8 weeks and my prostate consultancy team phone me for a chat about my rising PSA level as long as I visit my GP for 12 weekly hormone injections instead of visiting James Cook. Nevertheless it was a shock to see so many casualties in A&E last week following the third of my falls on my head outdoors last week. Although I passed the concussion test I still felt confused as I couldn’t remember driving home from my latest fall and had to ask the paramedics to check that my car was indeed in my garage before they booked a taxi for my visit to A&E. the I’m still trying to piece together the happenings of that day.
This leads me to senile dementia. I don’t think I suffer from it, as I can recall things that happened many moons ago but am now forgetting recent events and am suffering with occasional headaches. Living alone for the past 11 years I’ve got used to self isolation to a point, but no more holidays, going out for drives in the countryside and not being able to drive far at all I do miss, although I still do my own shopping as I do like to see what’s available in the shops.
But the recent death of Nobby Stlles and the revelation that Sir Bobby Charlton like brother Jack is suffering from dementia leads me to believe that heading a football certainly long ago when footballs were heavier than today can lead to dementia. I believe that Alan Shearer investigated this problem a few years ago. So maybe I should shop online in future as my 82 year old cranium is not tough enough for any more falls.
So Bob look after yourself as this coronavirus pandemic looks like being a long ride; too long for me, as I can hardly stand now without the help of a walking stick mostly due to lack of exercise and spending too much time indoors and in bed.
@ken Thanks for those kind words I just hope I can match your stamina and endurance.
During lockdown I worked a lot in the garden and other jobs around the house but all this wet weather has dampened things down and prevented it.
I too remember the Alan Shearer documentary and was always concerned when my sons and now grandsons play football and head the ball. I always remember one game when staring out refereeing and was proud I was keeping up with play and the ball came over to where I was and the big centre half headed the ball and took me clean out with his head as well! I don’t remember the game being stopped but a player had apparently grabbed my whistle and blew to cease play. I was treated by both trainers of the teams and groggily carried on but had headaches for the rest of the week. Those old footballs when I used to play used to weigh a ton and hopefully no damage to young players today as dementia is a dreadful disease.
The Boro and the blog have kept me going and I use Twitter and Facebook to post whilst also having video conferencing with our grandchildren
unfortunately cannot go and see my grandchildren play as it is only one parent that is allowed to go and see a game although a lot of been cancelled due to COVID.
Hope you’re on the mend Ken and those stats of yours are amazing. Do you remember when fantasy football was on tv “they think it’s all over?” There was a guy on there called STATTO so that’s what we’ll have to call you
cheers
OFB
RR
The leading charities are largely the preserve of those very important people who are cashing in their share options and pensions after a lifetime running some global giant into the buffers. Remember, it's who you know not what you know. The best case of charity fat cat I have heard of was a guy who had started a charity with the aim of providing city businessmen who had fallen upon hard times with a complete outfit to get them back on the gravy train. He was the only member of the board and staff, the charity had In excess of two million in the bank, ad no outgoings (except his salary)
This leads me to senile dementia. I don’t think I suffer from it, as I can recall things that happened many moons ago but am now forgetting recent events and am suffering with occasional headaches. Living alone for the past 11 years I’ve got used to self isolation to a point, but no more holidays, going out for drives in the countryside and not being able to drive far at all I do miss, although I still do my own shopping as I do like to see what’s available in the shops.
Ken, I think you have better memory than me. I am just 59 if I remember correctly 😄. UTB!
I'm not saying I agree with the kind of salaries these people are paid but the International Rescue Committee has over 300,000 staff and volunteers worldwide and has an operating budget of £800m so by any measure a huge organisation and I'm sure that's why they pay their CEO a 'market rate' that is comparable to other similar organisations.
Although, I think the culture of the going rate has been inflated by the people who sit on these committees to decide on the going rate being from the same group of people who compare what each other receive. As to whether they make a difference or increase funding by knowing the right people is possibly what these organisations are paying for - I'm sure quite a few of those awarding huge sums to these charities are more likely to take calls from so-called A-list former politicians or high-profile names.
It's just a bit of a club really - though not quite like Diasboro 😉
OFB
Yes I do remember Statto. His real name was Angus Loughran and featured with Frank Skinner (West Brom fan) and David Baddiel (Chelsea fan). But the first memory man was Leslie Welch who often appeared on Kaleidoscope and finished his career on Radio Luxembourg’s ‘Beat the Memory Man’.
A few years back I visited the Doc about a general Men's health check up having reached a certain milestone. After fluids, bloods, pressures and rates etc. were all discussed she asked if there was anything I was concerned about. I explained that sometimes I found myself struggling to recollect the word or name for something and could it possibly be early onset dementia.
After a few question and answers (which apparently I aced) she explained that when we leave school we have a four drawer filing cabinet which has one drawer full after our "O" Levels. By the time we leave Uni we have filled three or even four of those drawers and are considering our second filing cabinet.
By the age of 30 we have filled not only the first filing cabinet but also a second filing cabinet and likewise the third four drawer cabinet by the time we reach 40. As the data, knowledge and information, we read about, work with or research gathers pace through our advancing years we are filling yet another Cabinet. The result is that by the time we advance into another decade (or two) those filing cabinets keep filling up and yet another one already being readied.
The result she explained to me isn't that we are "losing it" but rather that we have so much information in our heads, we know the answer but we just can't quite remember what we filed it under or in what folder let alone which drawer or cabinet. It comes to us eventually but that is only because the brain is very good at deciding what is important information to which we have better recall and things that are perhaps useful to know but less essential therefore less importance being placed upon them which is why it takes us a little longer to think about where we put it in our Brain's filing system.
She also explained that it does also depend a lot upon lifestyle, occupation, hobbies and interests and that some people reach old age not even having filled their first filing cabinet. Based upon Ken's mountain of historical knowledge and data I'm surprised his car fits in the garage for all his filing cabinets!
I guess I'm lucky that Mrs Werder is not in charge of my memory filing cabinet as her fondness for regular decluttering would probably mean I'd be lucky to remember what had happened last month never mind when I was younger!
Before lockdown I could remember every result from the English and Scottish Leagues once I had recorded them in my Nationwide Pocket Football Annual until the next set of fixtures, but now I’m finding it difficult to remember the results the next day. Yet I can recall many matches played back in the 50s although not always the date. I now find that I misspell the simplest of words and have to check on Wikipedia. Dictionaries are no good if you’ve forgotten how to spell, whereas if you misspell it on Wikipedia they ask the question ‘Do you mean, etc’. Also I never used calculators to add or subtract unless the data was on different pages. Now I use a calculator most of the time, and to think that when I was younger I auditioned for an appearance on Hughie Green’s TV show ‘Double Your Money’ and my subject was Mental Arithmetic.
I suppose there’s only so much data and information that a brain can absorb and as sports statistics held my interest above practically anything else, I found it easier to remember. I haven’t a clue about computer technology and needed a neighbour to set me up on my iPad and when I read on this forum about apps, gigobytes, etc I really haven’t a clue what folks are talking about as my brain has probably digested too much sport that there’s no room for anything else. None of my sports knowledge is computerised, but is recorded in ledgers, as are all my holidays since the 70s - towns, cities and countries I’ve visited or stayed at.
I accept that I’m eccentric, but have always had a photographic memory on things that interest me, because once written down they usually remain in my memory for a considerable time, but not recent events. Self isolation and falling down on my head 3 times hasn’t helped, but it’s an age thing really. Like most people I get frustrated at losing things, but probably it’s all down to living alone and not senile dementia, although it’s a long time since I completed a cryptic crossword.
I don't think we should be so ready to follow dominant psychological cliches of mental decline in our older years.
Psychology isn't a politically neutral activity, but reflects a culture's dominant economic model.
Because older people are deemed to be less economically productive, and have less value as economic units, a psychology is wheeled out to justify their treatment as third-rate citizens.
We see the results of this all around us, evidence of how our society regards its older people in terms of their social isolation, frequent lack of care from or connection with their families, a pervasive ageism, and a general shuffling off of the elderly once they have been thrown on the economic scrapheap.
We have seen the tragic consequences of this social neglect in the starkest possible way with the criminal treatment of the elderly in care homes by politicians during the current pandemic, with literally tens of thousands of them dying through political neglect.
It's all too easy to fall into the trap that we get stupider as we get older, and that our brain don't function as well as it should or as it used to.
It's worth remembering that these attitudes have been culturally determined and that it isn't too difficult to flip all of these assumptions, as other cultures have done, and to see the elderly as repositories of accumulated wisdom and experience from which those who lack such maturity have much to learn.
There are lots of things that have happened to me recently or in the past that I can't recall. That's because as we get older we discriminate more ruthlessly between those things which are worth remembering and those which aren't. The older we get the more we are able to tune out most things as mere noise, of no particular interest or concern, and certainly not worth committing to memory.
And because we can't call something to mind it doesn't mean that we don't remember it. It's very common for people of all ages to be unable to recall, when asked, a single item from a news programme they watched the day before. But if any item is repeated the next day everyone remembers having seen it.
As we get older we are too ready to assign to old age or infirmity any memory lapse, or minor accident such as a stumble or breaking a piece of crockery, which can happen to anyone at any time of their lives.
I remember with acute embarrassment once introducing a panel of distinguished speakers at a conference. I knew all of them well and needed no notes. As I proceeded to the last panellist I realised with mounting panic that I was unable to recall his name. This, in front of an audience of a couple of hundred people. I had to "fess up and the poor man had to announce himself.
Had I done that yesterday I would have been carted off by men in white coats for extensive tests and worried myself sick about approaching dementia.
But I was about 30 at the time, and apart from my own red face it was an inconsequential episode.
So let me do what our own culture and society, with its attendant pseudo-scientists and trick-cyclists, deliberately fails to do.
Let me encourage everyone to enjoy and value their own life experiences, to cherish the wisdom that life has brought them, to wonder at the follies of less mature minds, and to continue to discriminate between stuff that is worthy of our attention, and the inconsequential chatter and noise of everyday life which, in the wider scheme of things, we can safely forget.
@lenmasterman my Grandmother always used to say "if only I knew then what I know now" and "youth is wasted on the young".
Its only since age has crept up on me (in the mirror at least) that I understand and appreciate what she meant. The knowledge, but most of all wisdom that comes from having been around the block a few times can only be fully appreciated when you reflect on earlier years when you thought you knew a lot more than you actually did. If only that wisdom could have been imparted somehow to our younger selves what a difference it would have made.
There are of course contra indicators as she also used to say "there's no fool like an old fool" and the current events over the pond illustrate just what an old fool looks like, albeit an egotistical and somewhat dangerous one, age doesn't always bring maturity and wisdom.
Most importantly for us however is that we are seeing the benefits of having experience with Neil Warnock, sometimes there is no substitute for it and you only get it with the advancement of time.
Some good post that was Len.
Each and every one of us has some value and we should never let anyone or anything persuade us otherwise.
An old fool is just a young fool who has learned nothing. His folly, generally, has nothing to do with his age.
Trump may be , as you characterise him, an egoistical fool, but he has always been that way. Age has literally nothing to do with it.
Being older is a natural stage of life. It brings with it its own deep pleasures, rewards and satisfactions. Like every stage of life it should be enjoyed for what it is.
It is not a pathological condition.
What is pathological is the immediate attribution of the kind of universal human frailties, accidents, and misfortunes that beset us throughout our lives to old age.
I agree with what you say about Neil Warnock. He is using the experience he has to good effect.
A very promising young man.
The thing that gets me Len is all those folk passing on who are are younger than I am! Makes you look over your shoulder a bit and be a bit more careful !
I didn’t think I’d ever say it but I love Warnock !
OFB
@redcarred I still feel about 25 years old in my head! It’s only when I get out of bed that things tell me otherwise!
OFB
At least us oldies don’t have to worry about dying young...