Dale’s Personal Blog

Just taking a break and tuning into PMQs live from the House of Commons. I have to say I really cannot see how this is helping us run the country better. David Cameron is using selective facts and misinformation to take cheap shots at Brown, just like a child would when trying to get their sibling in trouble with their parents.

The real sad thing about it is that many of us have issues with some of the way the government is handling things, so it should not be that hard to challenge the Prime Minister based on reasoned analysis and argument. Yet Cameron would rather make stuff up and twist things around to drive trivial point scoring than engage on substance.

The truth is that Brown’s performance may leave a lot to be desired, but he is actually having a go at coming up with solutions to some pretty mega problems, and a quite a bit of what he has done has been alright. The only conclusion I can draw is that Cameron either lacks the confidence or insight to have a sensible discussion around such substantial areas that are typically not black and white and require grown-up judgement calls.

It reminds me of those people we come across in the workplace who are continually moaning about the way senior management is running the company, but don’t come up with any informed and balanced alternative options. You know damn well that if they were plonked into the shoes of an exec they are criticising, they wouldn’t even know where to start. Life really ain’t that easy when the buck stops with you on the big stuff.

My big fear at the moment is that Cameron will win the next election for all the wrong reasons. He will enter power with no coherent plan, then start making things up as he goes along, and undo some things that are actually working well simply because he criticised them for points scoring reasons when in opposition and can’t be seen to back-track.

This really is a sad time in British politics.

With this poor state of affairs, it doesn’t surprise me that the BNP is capturing attention. And on that specific note, for those who think that common sense and reasonable values mean the appearance of this right wing extremist party on BBC Question Time will just lead to it being shown up as loony, I urge them to look to the US. Just tune into Fox News or listen to some of local radio station phone in shows on the internet, and you’ll see how totally mad extremist views that would not stand up to five minutes of cross examination from a normal intelligent human being have the ability to gain traction by appealing to hang-ups and prejudices, and exploiting peoples’ tendency to selectively listen.

Rant over. Back to work.

Quick update on the medical front – the surgery went well, but this last interim phase of the whole process is proving to be a bit of a challenge from a lifestyle perspective.

For anyone else out there looking forward to three step J-Pouch surgery, beware that the experience between operations 1 and 2, which for me and others I know has been a relative breeze, can lull you into a false sense of security. I really didn’t imagine that the period between the second and last operations would be so disruptive.

Living with a pretty big part of your digestive system either gone forever or temporarily disconnected (while the clever bits of re-engineering properly heal), makes keeping things together from a nutrition and fluid/electrolyte balance point of view quite ‘interesting’ (and I mean that very much in the Chinese sense of the word). I am suffering the odd ‘crash’ (that feels like a very bad hangover) as a result of this from time to time, and things are not helped by some tactical issues with the ‘equipment’, which is proving quite constraining from a travel perspective. Indeed, I wasn’t able to make it to a conference I was supposed to be attending in Vienna this week, and with that in mind, I am seriously considering ducking out of two more up and coming international work trips.

But enough of the moaning – I am back on the bike and in the gym, so getting some good exercise again. And apart from the abovementioned crashes, the brain is firing on cylinders, so I can function OK with regard to most aspects of my job and generally get on with the personal side of life.

I don’t have a date for the third and final operation yet, but saw the surgeon the other day and the request has gone in to the good old NHS appointments system to get it scheduled. The last procedure is not exactly trivial, but certainly not the major surgery the first two operations represented, so I am hoping they can sneak me onto the slab in early December, which would give me a decent chance of recovery before Christmas.

The finishing line is in sight!