The Good
 
The number of people dying of strokes has halved in the last ten years. Improved drugs and lifestyle have all contributed together with less smoking. But, it’s not all good news; in the under 55s the rate has increased by two per cent in that time. 100,000 people a year have strokes in the UK, it is the main cause of disability and the fourth largest killer, so the dramatic fall is good news, but tempered by the opposite trend in the young.
 
I heard the other day there is concern at the increased number of people over 75 dying of a heart attack. But it’s all about absolute numbers; there are more people living to over 75 so there are bound to be more people dying of all sorts of things! They are living longer and that is great. Long enough to then die of a heart attack later!
 
Another good…
 
I have written several times about vaccination and the risk to children’s lives of parents not having their kids vaccinated, particularly from measles. So, it’s good that the Health Secretary is considering compulsory inoculation. He’s also accused those opposing vaccination of “having blood on their hands”. I’d agree. 40,000 parents from the UK have signed a petition against immunisation… not just against measles but everything, even tetanus. I’ve been involved over the years with helping Rotary International raise money to fight polio (Bill Gates trebles what Rotary International raises around the world) and that has meant meeting victims who never had the chance to be inoculated including British Paralympic wheelchair racer and polio survivor, Anne Wafula Strike. She’s a winner with such a refreshing positive attitude, but one of the lucky ones to have survived. She was born in a mud hut in Nigeria and when she was two her mother died of polio. Ask her about the value of immunisation - that’s why she is now a Rotary Purple4Polio Ambassador.
 
I don’t believe in the State taking responsibility for our lives but when parents potentially put their children’s lives at risk, it is good that it will do so.

The Bad
 
Should we spare a moment’s thought for tired parents who are past being able to read a story to their kids at night? I remember doing it and we were always tired, so nothing has changed. But we didn’t have the cavalry at hand in the form of Alexa! Yes, tired mums and dads are getting Alexa to read the bedtime stories! They are missing the point, it’s not really about the story, though kids learn from them, it is about one-to-one time with mum or dad. The stories last probably no more than five to ten minutes, but are precious nonetheless. Although, I was banned from reading bedtime stories to the kids and now have to get permission to do it to the grandchildren! Why? Well, I tend to do everything with energy and enthusiasm but part of the purpose of the story is to calm the kids down for sleep... not my style! I’m more voices and passion, so I got sent across the road to the pub until they were asleep!
 
Another bad…

There was a time when a new product of any sort was thoroughly tested before being sold. Those days passed long ago. The motor industry has had a spate of problems with vehicles having to be recalled, but almost three million of them have not been taken back – of which 2.4 million are cars. They’re all potential weapons of death, not just for the owners or drivers but for the rest of us as well. It also turns out that a vehicle which has been the subject of an unanswered recall can pass a MOT! Should this be in the mad section? No, because mad includes some humour, this isn’t funny, it is dangerously bad. Ministers are considering changing the MOT rules. Well, I don’t know how quickly and easily it could be done, but let’s do it! But, as is so often the case, I can’t get inside the head of the idiot…  and there is no other word for them. Who drives around in a car that has been recalled? If failure to act results in a death, that should be murder.
 
The Mad
 
A man in China went to buy a Volkswagen Passat for the equivalent of £22,000 and asked if the dealer accepted coins. He was told yes, so tended 131,492 coins worth over £15,000 as part of the purchase price. It took 16 people three days to count the one-yuan coins, worth about 11p each. The buyer had vending machines, but the banks wouldn’t take the coins and other car dealers refused him. I wonder if he paid tax on the money… I’m sure there’s more to this, there must be, but what a lovely eccentric tale!
 
And finally…
 
Imagine Elisabet Sado Garriga’s excitement when she won a squash competition in her native Spain. She’s been a professional for 15 years but also works with victims of domestic violence and has won other competitions. But in addition to her trophy, she was given a vibrator! The Women’s Institute is investigating sexism and Spain’s socialist government are going to legislate that both genders must receive the same prize in competitions. One has to ask if size will matter, or what the men winning the vibrators will do with them?!

​The Good
 
Now, this is seriously good and also heart-warming! An 81-year-old woman has spent over 60 years searching for her mother and you wouldn’t reasonably expect her to have found her if she hadn’t already done so. But she has! Alive and well at 104!
 
Eileen Macken from Dublin had all but given up hope when RTE, an Irish broadcaster, took up the case and found her mother, Elizabeth, in Scotland. They are both over the moon. I suspect the internet helped in the search, so it isn’t all bad! Indeed, it isn’t, but as you’ll read below, it is how we use the internet that matters.
 
Another good…
 
Staying on the wonderful theme of being reunited, Amar Kanim, who was brought to Britain by Emma Nicholson, then an MP, in 1991 having survived, although badly scarred, a Saddam Hussein napalm attack, has been reunited with his mother Zahra who he thought was dead, and she him. The BBC tracked his mother down and she still had a pre-atrocity picture of Amar, but DNA proved beyond doubt that they were mother and son. Panorama flew Amar to Karbala to meet not only his mother but also his younger brother and they visited his father’s grave. Amar underwent 27 operations and was given a home by Emma Nicholson and her late husband, the businessman Sir Michael Cane.
 
The Bad
 
YouTube, along with other social media platforms, is apparently doing everything possible to clean up its act and keep stuff offline that shouldn’t be there. Between July and December last year, 14,994,703 videos uploaded to the video sharing service were identified as hateful or abusive. How many were taken down? 25,145 - 0.17%. MPs are now accusing YouTube of taking the matter “less seriously” than other online platforms. I suspect there may have been another form of words used in the one of the many King’s Heads over the weekend!
 
But do YouTube really care? Of course not. But is that reflective of the selfish society in which we spend so much time these days? I’ve heard it said that if 11% of a community support a view or an attitude then you can’t beat it. We have some of the greatest, kindest people in the world in this country and I’m meeting all sorts on our Land’s End to John o’ Groats adventure to raise money for the UK Sepsis Trust, but I’m in no doubt that more than 11% of our nation is shallow and selfish. What a tragedy.
 
Another bad…
 
Bowel cancer rates for the under fifties are rising at almost 2% per annum which is alarming, but it is a trend not just in the UK, but the western world generally. In the over fifties, rates have been falling in the UK albeit just over 1% per annum. Research by the International Agency for Research on Cancer believes this is in part due to obesity and physical inactiveness in the younger generations. The view is that screening will now be needed for the under fifties to reverse this trend. Another self-inflicted drain on NHS resources.
 
The Mad
 
We all know that the state sector is having to be efficient with its use of money, our money, and rightly so. We have to do that and more in the private sector. At times, it means having to make impossible choices on what to do and what not to do.
 
Well, folk in Rotherham might just feel aggrieved. They used to have a bus twice a day in Tickhill Road, but it hasn’t run since March. A few weeks ago, the contractors working for the council came and removed the rusty old pole that had passed for a bus stop for years. Hardly surprising really… but then they put up a new bus stop, with a roof, costing £6,000! And the council have fixed a notice to the new bus stop saying, “Please note that this bus stop is no longer in use”! Now, that is sheer madness and of course technically the notice is wrong because to “no longer” be in use, it needed to have previously been in use, but let’s not make a fuss or we might find that the council spend more money correcting the sign!
 
Can’t help but wonder what will happen to the bus stop now… will anybody be sacked? Of course not!
 
And finally…
 
87-year-old Lillian Jackson has been brightening up the balcony outside her maisonette in York for over a quarter of a century with her prize-winning display of flowers and scrubs. However, the council have now decided that they are a health and safety hazard! The pots weren’t blocking anything, and neighbours loved them, but the council have said they all have to go! In addition, the council have said they are going to charge her almost £850 to remove a metal gate and post… well, in fairness, maybe that does restrict escape in the event of a fire, but flowers… come on! And it includes hanging baskets, and not just great granny Lillian’s hanging baskets, all the neighbours are having to take down their hanging baskets. Lillian has won York in Bloom awards and been invited to the Guildhall to meet the Mayor and be pictured with him.
 
So why is this happening? Grenfell Tower. It has resulted in a review of all buildings in the country, we’re told, and the flowers are seen as a risk. Now, of course I’ve not seen the building but looking at the pictures it is built of good old-fashioned brick and the pots were of Cotswold stone, although described as rubbish by the council! Now, I thought the terrible event at Grenfell Tower was the result of cladding not flower pots in a brick-built building. Next, we’ll be hearing that Watford lost the FA Cup final because of Brexit. Time to remake that old song, ‘Where Have All The Flowers Gone’. Where has all the common sense gone!

​A prelude to this week’s Good, Bad and Mad!
 
Seen on the revolving adverts on the escalators at Baker Street tube station urging people to vote in the Euro Elections:
 
“Choose your future, or somebody else will”
 
Well, I voted remain, but the British people chose a different future and I accept that. Unfortunately, others don’t, and having already chosen our future we now see over half the MPs trying to choose something else for us!
 
The Good
 
MP Rachel Maclean is trying to get the Government to have Amazon remove books that are pro-anorexia from sale. There is a petition at Change.org which has 11,000 signatures already, but we need at least two more zeros on that so sign up! It’s good that someone is trying to do something about it but maybe it should be included in ‘Mad’ due to it even happening!
 
Another good…
 
Picked up on this one a bit late but Hayley Carruthers crawled over the finishing line of the London Marathon on all fours, but in 2 hours 33 minutes and 59 seconds! Within hours she was back at work as a research radiographer. She trains at 5am and 5pm, having worked a 9-hour shift in between - star lady!
 
The Bad
 
Now I remember the London smogs of the 1950s – real ‘pea soupers’! They were responsible for the first clean air act and to changes to what we could burn on our open fires by the late fifties. But I hear that 50 London “blackspots” which includes the outer London area as well as the City, Covent Garden and Oxford Street, will break EU limits this year. Jeremy Corbyn wants an emergency environment and climate change meeting… maybe Vince Cable’s comments on Jeremy Corbyn, which can be found at www.thelondongrilclub.co.uk, on the politics of convenience apply! But it is time to take this more seriously. It won’t be as quick or as easy as the fix in the fifties, but we need to start now!
 
Another bad…
 
I have more to say on coffee under madness, but apparently middle-class coffee drinking cocaine users are more concerned about the origin of their coffee than their “Charlie”! It’s not just the quality they are oblivious too, as according to David Lloyd, Police and Crime Commissioner for Hertfordshire, they are also unaware of the role of organised crime in the supply chain and the use of violence to sustain their illegal business. Wake up and as so many say, smell the coffee!
 
The Mad
 
In Indonesia, 272 people have died and a further 1,878 have fallen sick while at work from stress-related overworking. What were they doing? Working overnight counting ballot papers in the election! But how many staff were on hand during the election? Six million! No idea how many votes were counted, but there are 900 million electors in India eligible to vote in the current General Election, but I haven’t heard of any deaths yet.
 
And finally…
 
Now, when I was kid a cup of tea or a cup of coffee was just that, now you get a menu and it costs more! But there’s a new coffee shop at King’s Cross charging £15 a cup! The owners say they use hard-to-get coffee beans and it’s very good, for me it would have to be better than very good!

​The Good
 
Congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex on their birth of their son, good luck to them!
 
Of course, there are some who are frothing at the mouth about not having had a minute-by-minute build up, almost in the style of a big football match, and then outrage that we had to wait nine hours to be told the lad had been born. Well, good for the Duke and Duchess I say. It’s a magic and special moment that should be theirs and handled as they think fit, and whilst I’m sure I won’t agree with all their views on parenthood, and again it is up to them, he is their son, so I for one applaud the way they are handling the situation and the future!
 
And while I’m on good and the Royal family, what great, not just good, ambassadors they are, all are, for this country. The jobs they bring to this country are legion and the most popular thing to do amongst the 39 million who visit this country every year is to see Buckingham Palace… more jobs!
 
Another good…
 
Mark Carney will be leaving his role as Governor of the Bank of England next year and the search for his successor has begun. Head-hunters have been appointed and applications have to be in by 5th June. The successful applicant will start in February.
 
So why have I put this in good? Carney has done a difficult job in difficult times and although he might have had better speech writers who spoke the “lingo of life” rather than pure language, he’s done a good job. But the good I’m really talking about is that women will be considered as the 121st head of our central bank. That’s great, as long as it is on merit and not a PC appointment of having a woman for the sake of a woman. There are some great women out there, as well as men, capable of doing the job and if the next Governor is to a woman then in fairness to her she needs to know that she got the job on merit.
 
The Bad
 
I suppose most of my generation, whilst agreeing that some of the old ways were wrong, put greater emphasis on discipline than some of what I will call more ‘modern thinkers’! But now we hear that teachers are leaving the profession because parents are hitting the social media platforms complaining about their children being “told off” at school. Now, when I was a kid I didn’t want my parents to know I’d been in trouble at school because I’d be in trouble again at home! I never told them I was caned, which did me good, but the headmaster wrote and told them! Society can only exist on a common set of values and reasonable behaviour with the right to appeal. Without that we become anarchy and some communities and schools have. OK, only a minority, but that’s how things start, good or bad, with the minority. Power to the teachers who are trying to hold things together and impose discipline and shame on the cowardly parents taking to social media to criticise the teachers. If you have a problem, go and thrash it out. Working with people has always been the best way and it’s no different with kids at school. It also teaches the kids something that will be useful in later life. Let’s back the teachers when they are right!
 
Another bad…
 
I have written before and recently about the failure to vaccinate children and the risk it poses to their health.
 
I don’t deny that some homeopathic treatments have a value, though I think the power of the mind probably has a greater value, but there are folk out there making a fortune out of selling what are to say the least ineffective treatments and substitutes, for what they wrongly and dangerously describe as toxic vaccines. OK, promoting homeopathy is no crime but peddling nonsense ideas that threaten kids’ lives and well-being is utterly irresponsible. I’m not in favour of licencing everything, which also means taxing, and nor am I a member of the protectionist society who thinks “they” (whoever they are) should be taking responsibility for us all, but the truth is that this unfettered peddling of unproven theories is a potential threat to life.
 
The Mad
 
While is this mad, it is also certainly deja vu, but I suppose I’ll be seeing more and more of that as the years roll by! The recent local council elections were a disaster for the Tories and dire for the socialists. It is part of a normal pattern for governments to suffer mid-term, usually to the benefit of the opposition. But this is no ordinary Government, no ordinary Parliament and no ordinary opposition! Traditionally, when hacked off with both main parties, folk vote for the Liberals in mid-term elections, especially in by-elections. And indeed, so it was with the Lib Dems gaining most from the Brexit anger, but it wasn’t only them and for Sir Vince to claim they are “back in the game” is madness! How many, how very many times have we been here before. Remember Eric Lubbock in Orpington, Vince?
 
Now we may be at a point in politics where we will witness a total realignment of parties, it is almost 100 years since the Labour Party emerged to eclipse the Liberal Party, but the gang of four failed, and they were all high-profile. The gang of 11 or however many will also fail and the Lib Dems will not be ‘back in the game!’ Maybe they will be lost into a new slightly leftist party…
 
And finally…
 
Let’s stay with politics for madness, with vanity bolted on! President Tokayev of Kazakhstan is having his official pictures, well, I was going to say touched up, but remade would be more accurate! And he’s only 65! It was spotted by Amos Chapple, a photographer who put them up on social media, but there has been no official comment! In the official pictures at events, gone is the double chin and creased cheeks, his lips are different and skin smoother, but his hair, now slightly shorter, looks greyer to me. Madness!