Tendring Topics…….on Line
Pope Benedict’s Visit
I thought that it was probably wise to withhold comment on the Pope’s official visit to Britain until he had safely returned to Rome. Had I dared to do so while he was still here, fate would probably have arranged some unexpected triumph or disaster!
I am very glad that his visit proved to be a great success and was marked neither by the apathy that had been prophesied by much of the press, nor by the widespread protest and outrage that had been joyfully anticipated by some of our proselytising enemies of religion. There were protestors it is true, but fewer than had been anticipated and with very diverse causes. Peter Tatchell and his disciples haven’t really all that much in common with Rev. Ian Paisley and his, nor have campaigners for women priests, abortion-on-demand enthusiasts, and victims of the appalling child abuse scandal, a great deal of common ground.
I wasn’t impressed with the argument that none of the cost of the Pope’s visit should have been met out of taxation. Remember the much greater cost of the State Visit of the King of Saudi Arabia with his enormous entourage. He is arguably the ruler of the least liberal country in the world and the one with the least respect or regard for human rights? I did resent having to help pay for his luxurious welcome.
Pope Benedict’s Visit
I thought that it was probably wise to withhold comment on the Pope’s official visit to Britain until he had safely returned to Rome. Had I dared to do so while he was still here, fate would probably have arranged some unexpected triumph or disaster!
I am very glad that his visit proved to be a great success and was marked neither by the apathy that had been prophesied by much of the press, nor by the widespread protest and outrage that had been joyfully anticipated by some of our proselytising enemies of religion. There were protestors it is true, but fewer than had been anticipated and with very diverse causes. Peter Tatchell and his disciples haven’t really all that much in common with Rev. Ian Paisley and his, nor have campaigners for women priests, abortion-on-demand enthusiasts, and victims of the appalling child abuse scandal, a great deal of common ground.
I wasn’t impressed with the argument that none of the cost of the Pope’s visit should have been met out of taxation. Remember the much greater cost of the State Visit of the King of Saudi Arabia with his enormous entourage. He is arguably the ruler of the least liberal country in the world and the one with the least respect or regard for human rights? I did resent having to help pay for his luxurious welcome.
At a meeting of ‘the big three’ during World War II when Churchill, or possibly Roosevelt, spoke of the importance of keeping the Pope ‘on side’, Stalin is said to have asked sarcastically, ‘And how many army divisions does the Pope command?’ Today, I suppose the equivalent question would be, ‘How many oil wells does the Pope control – and how many jet fighters is he prepared to buy?’
The child abuse scandal did cast a shadow over the visit. I wouldn’t wish to enter into historical or theological controversy but I do feel that the Roman Catholic rule of clerical celibacy has a lot to answer for, and not a great deal to justify its continuation. The Gospels tell us that St. Peter, the ‘rock’ on which the Universal Church of Christ was built, was a married man. A celibate priesthood was not insisted upon during the first thousand years of the Church’s history, and it is known that that some of Pope Benedict’s late-medieval predecessors, although unmarried, were hardly role models of celibacy.
Much was heard from commentators about the fact that the Pope was welcomed in Westminster Hall, where Sir Thomas More (St. Thomas More to Roman Catholics) had been condemned to be beheaded for obeying his conscience in defiance of King Henry VIII. Thomas More was by no means the only victim of 16th century intolerance. It would have been a nice gesture of reconciliation had Pope Benedict made a short pilgrimage to Oxford to spend a few minutes in silence before the Martyrs Memorial. There he could have remembered Archbishop Cranmer, Bishops Latimer and Ridley and many others who were burnt to death (a far more agonising death than beheading) for obeying their consciences in defiance of King Henry’s daughter, the staunchly Roman Catholic Queen Mary.
It would have been a salutary reminder to us all that while a conviction that God is on our side can inspire us to great heights of heroism and self-sacrifice, it can also lead us to inflict unspeakable cruelties on our fellow men and women, unless we give primacy to Jesus Christ’s golden rule ‘Treat other people exactly as you would wish them to treat you!’ Those who kill, mutilate or torture their fellow men and women never have God on their side. ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it (good or bad) unto even the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me!’ said Jesus and, in teaching us to pray to ‘Our Father in Heaven….’, he acknowledged all of us to be his brethren.
Two views on ‘the deficit'
I welcomed Nick Clegg’s recent affirmation of the Coalition Government’s determination to end income tax evasion (which is illegal) and curb income tax avoidance (which sadly isn’t). These activities result in an annual loss to the exchequer of millions of pounds. They are, said Mr Clegg, as bad as benefit fraud. It could be argued that they are much worse, because serious income tax avoiders certainly don’t need the money that they avoid paying. Many are very wealthy individuals who imagine that, because of their wealth, they should be immune from nuisances like the tax demands that burden lesser folk.
Why should they help to pay for the NHS? They can have the pick of the very best surgeons if they need one. Education? They send their kids to posh private (probably called ‘public’!) schools. Police? They have their own security, and their hired guards aren’t hampered by the pettifogging rules that obstruct official police forces.
Anyway, they hire the very best lawyers and accountants to make sure that their tax avoidance is both effective and absolutely legal. Nick Clegg claimed, and I have no doubt he is right, that making sure that multi-millionaires pay minimal, if any, tax has become a lucrative industry. It certainly gives a new slant on the concept of living on immoral earnings!
I wish the government all success with its endeavours, but I’m not holding my breath. The tax avoiders can hire the very best lawyers and accountants. Can a government determined to cut public services afford to hire even better ones?
Needless to say the views of the Confederation of British Industry (“the bosses’ TUC”) are very different from Nick Clegg’s. They have their eyes on ‘benefits’. Not, of course, that they want to abolish them. Perish the thought! They do feel though that some benefits, Child Allowances and the pensioners’ Winter Fuel Allowance for instance, should be means tested so that funds can be diverted to the really needy. I hadn’t heard really needy enunciated quite so unctuously since the departure of Mrs Thatcher from the political scene!
What the CBI and the top politicians, of all parties, overlook is that there is already in force a Means Testing mechanism that assesses everybody’s income and extracts contributions in accordance with ability to pay. It is called Income Tax. It needs only to be progressively and properly graded to ensure that it demands a fair proportion of everyone’s wealth, and tightened up so as to eliminate both tax evasion and tax avoidance. Then it would claw-back unneeded universal benefit, eliminate the need for any other means testing, and ensure that we all shared fairly the burden of closing the deficit.
Beach alert as Sunshine Coast is named skin cancer hotspot
Now there’s a headline calculated to create panic in hundreds of homes! Families who spent a happy holiday here this year will be searching their backs and arms for unaccustomed moles or warts. Those who were thinking of spending a holiday in Clacton (or Brightlingsea, Walton, Frinton or Dovercourt) next year will be having second thoughts. As for us natives, we’ll be seeking urgent appointments with our doctors!
The headline was in the Coastal Daily Gazette on Monday of last week (20th Sept.) and it could hardly have given a more inaccurate impression. Mind you, another accompanying scare headline AREA IN WORST 20 FOR MALIGNANT MELANOMA (yes, it was in black capital letters!) if carefully read, suggested that the situation might not be quite as desperate as had been suggested.
‘In the worst 20?' Well, since Malignant Melanoma is usually caused by over-exposure of unprotected skin to sunshine, it would have been astonishing if East Anglia’s seaside areas had not been more prone to the condition than, for instance, London, Birmingham or Manchester – though almost certainly less prone than Spain’s Costa del Sol or the south of France, where so many Brits. head for their holidays.
In fact we are 18th – only just within the worst 20, wherein are also to be found such famous holiday towns and areas as Bournemouth, the South Devon coast and the Isle of Wight. This means that there are seventeen British holiday areas more dangerous than we are. They must surely include almost every other holiday resort in southern and eastern England.
Our incidence of malignant melanoma is higher than the national average but remember that that average is brought down by inland towns in the Midlands and North-West, better known for their high rainfall than their hours of sunshine. It is also true, and is included in the small print of the Gazette’s news story, that mortality from Melanoma in our area is below the national average thanks to early detection and good treatment.
I reckon that that Gazette headline would have been at least as accurate had it read, Essex Sunshine Coast is well down danger list for skin cancer – and local victims have better than average chance of recovery! But there, good news doesn’t make good headlines!
The child abuse scandal did cast a shadow over the visit. I wouldn’t wish to enter into historical or theological controversy but I do feel that the Roman Catholic rule of clerical celibacy has a lot to answer for, and not a great deal to justify its continuation. The Gospels tell us that St. Peter, the ‘rock’ on which the Universal Church of Christ was built, was a married man. A celibate priesthood was not insisted upon during the first thousand years of the Church’s history, and it is known that that some of Pope Benedict’s late-medieval predecessors, although unmarried, were hardly role models of celibacy.
Much was heard from commentators about the fact that the Pope was welcomed in Westminster Hall, where Sir Thomas More (St. Thomas More to Roman Catholics) had been condemned to be beheaded for obeying his conscience in defiance of King Henry VIII. Thomas More was by no means the only victim of 16th century intolerance. It would have been a nice gesture of reconciliation had Pope Benedict made a short pilgrimage to Oxford to spend a few minutes in silence before the Martyrs Memorial. There he could have remembered Archbishop Cranmer, Bishops Latimer and Ridley and many others who were burnt to death (a far more agonising death than beheading) for obeying their consciences in defiance of King Henry’s daughter, the staunchly Roman Catholic Queen Mary.
It would have been a salutary reminder to us all that while a conviction that God is on our side can inspire us to great heights of heroism and self-sacrifice, it can also lead us to inflict unspeakable cruelties on our fellow men and women, unless we give primacy to Jesus Christ’s golden rule ‘Treat other people exactly as you would wish them to treat you!’ Those who kill, mutilate or torture their fellow men and women never have God on their side. ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it (good or bad) unto even the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me!’ said Jesus and, in teaching us to pray to ‘Our Father in Heaven….’, he acknowledged all of us to be his brethren.
Two views on ‘the deficit'
I welcomed Nick Clegg’s recent affirmation of the Coalition Government’s determination to end income tax evasion (which is illegal) and curb income tax avoidance (which sadly isn’t). These activities result in an annual loss to the exchequer of millions of pounds. They are, said Mr Clegg, as bad as benefit fraud. It could be argued that they are much worse, because serious income tax avoiders certainly don’t need the money that they avoid paying. Many are very wealthy individuals who imagine that, because of their wealth, they should be immune from nuisances like the tax demands that burden lesser folk.
Why should they help to pay for the NHS? They can have the pick of the very best surgeons if they need one. Education? They send their kids to posh private (probably called ‘public’!) schools. Police? They have their own security, and their hired guards aren’t hampered by the pettifogging rules that obstruct official police forces.
Anyway, they hire the very best lawyers and accountants to make sure that their tax avoidance is both effective and absolutely legal. Nick Clegg claimed, and I have no doubt he is right, that making sure that multi-millionaires pay minimal, if any, tax has become a lucrative industry. It certainly gives a new slant on the concept of living on immoral earnings!
I wish the government all success with its endeavours, but I’m not holding my breath. The tax avoiders can hire the very best lawyers and accountants. Can a government determined to cut public services afford to hire even better ones?
Needless to say the views of the Confederation of British Industry (“the bosses’ TUC”) are very different from Nick Clegg’s. They have their eyes on ‘benefits’. Not, of course, that they want to abolish them. Perish the thought! They do feel though that some benefits, Child Allowances and the pensioners’ Winter Fuel Allowance for instance, should be means tested so that funds can be diverted to the really needy. I hadn’t heard really needy enunciated quite so unctuously since the departure of Mrs Thatcher from the political scene!
What the CBI and the top politicians, of all parties, overlook is that there is already in force a Means Testing mechanism that assesses everybody’s income and extracts contributions in accordance with ability to pay. It is called Income Tax. It needs only to be progressively and properly graded to ensure that it demands a fair proportion of everyone’s wealth, and tightened up so as to eliminate both tax evasion and tax avoidance. Then it would claw-back unneeded universal benefit, eliminate the need for any other means testing, and ensure that we all shared fairly the burden of closing the deficit.
Beach alert as Sunshine Coast is named skin cancer hotspot
Now there’s a headline calculated to create panic in hundreds of homes! Families who spent a happy holiday here this year will be searching their backs and arms for unaccustomed moles or warts. Those who were thinking of spending a holiday in Clacton (or Brightlingsea, Walton, Frinton or Dovercourt) next year will be having second thoughts. As for us natives, we’ll be seeking urgent appointments with our doctors!
The headline was in the Coastal Daily Gazette on Monday of last week (20th Sept.) and it could hardly have given a more inaccurate impression. Mind you, another accompanying scare headline AREA IN WORST 20 FOR MALIGNANT MELANOMA (yes, it was in black capital letters!) if carefully read, suggested that the situation might not be quite as desperate as had been suggested.
‘In the worst 20?' Well, since Malignant Melanoma is usually caused by over-exposure of unprotected skin to sunshine, it would have been astonishing if East Anglia’s seaside areas had not been more prone to the condition than, for instance, London, Birmingham or Manchester – though almost certainly less prone than Spain’s Costa del Sol or the south of France, where so many Brits. head for their holidays.
In fact we are 18th – only just within the worst 20, wherein are also to be found such famous holiday towns and areas as Bournemouth, the South Devon coast and the Isle of Wight. This means that there are seventeen British holiday areas more dangerous than we are. They must surely include almost every other holiday resort in southern and eastern England.
Our incidence of malignant melanoma is higher than the national average but remember that that average is brought down by inland towns in the Midlands and North-West, better known for their high rainfall than their hours of sunshine. It is also true, and is included in the small print of the Gazette’s news story, that mortality from Melanoma in our area is below the national average thanks to early detection and good treatment.
I reckon that that Gazette headline would have been at least as accurate had it read, Essex Sunshine Coast is well down danger list for skin cancer – and local victims have better than average chance of recovery! But there, good news doesn’t make good headlines!
Tendring Careline speaks for itself on www.tendringcareline.co.uk !
It is now nine months since I signed on as one of the many clients of Tendring Careline, the telephone SOS service available throughout our district, principally to enable old and/or disabled folk like me to get instant help in an emergency. At that time I had recently had a fall. It had been out of doors and my son and daughter-in-law were with me at the time. Consequently I suffered nothing worse than a black eye and broken glasses.
It made me realize though how much worse the situation could have been had I been alone and at home. I might very well have been unable to get onto my feet again without help – and no help would have been available. I am very fortunate in having concerned and caring neighbours, but it would have been many hours before they, or anyone else, realized that anything was amiss.
At about that time Essex County Council (never backward when it comes to self-congratulation!) were publicising what they claimed was their telephonic home-care alarm system, with a ‘special offer’ of a free service for twelve months for new clients over eighty. They could have had me in mind! I contacted County Hall Chelmsford and was a little surprised when a very friendly and helpful lady turned up in a Tendring Council van. It appeared that this ‘new’ County Council service was the tried-and-tested Tendring Careline run by the district council. I remembered having written about it in Tendring Topics ‘in print’ in the Coastal Express when it was first launched in the 1980s. It was now vastly expanded and with thousands, rather than just a few hundred, clients.
The last nine months have been fairly uneventful for me. I haven’t needed the Careline service. I have though, as requested when the system was installed, remembered to press the red button on that gadget round my neck (had I preferred it could have been on a bracelet round my wrist) once a month, to hear a cheery voice asking if I am OK – and to know that the system is working properly. Meanwhile, as I approach my ninetieth birthday, I am conscious of becoming frailer, less steady on my feet and more and more grateful for the Careline safety net. When my ‘get one free’ period ends in the New Year, I shall gladly pay my £16.80 a month (I think I’ll be VAT exempt) for continued protection and reassurance.
Now Tendring Careline has its own web site ( www.tendringcareline.co.uk ). On it you’ll find everything you need to know about the local careline service, including the answer to questions that it might not even have occurred to you to ask! I was very pleased to note that under ‘Testimonials’ there is a very long extract from the blog that I posted onto this website when I first had the Careline installed. Today, I wouldn’t change a word of it!
If either you, or friends or relatives, are old, living alone and vulnerable, do click on that website and find out what Tendring Careline has to offer. Sign on with Tendring Careline and you’ll sleep more easily for knowing that, whatever happens, there’s a friendly voice on hand offering practical help and reassurance.
It is now nine months since I signed on as one of the many clients of Tendring Careline, the telephone SOS service available throughout our district, principally to enable old and/or disabled folk like me to get instant help in an emergency. At that time I had recently had a fall. It had been out of doors and my son and daughter-in-law were with me at the time. Consequently I suffered nothing worse than a black eye and broken glasses.
It made me realize though how much worse the situation could have been had I been alone and at home. I might very well have been unable to get onto my feet again without help – and no help would have been available. I am very fortunate in having concerned and caring neighbours, but it would have been many hours before they, or anyone else, realized that anything was amiss.
At about that time Essex County Council (never backward when it comes to self-congratulation!) were publicising what they claimed was their telephonic home-care alarm system, with a ‘special offer’ of a free service for twelve months for new clients over eighty. They could have had me in mind! I contacted County Hall Chelmsford and was a little surprised when a very friendly and helpful lady turned up in a Tendring Council van. It appeared that this ‘new’ County Council service was the tried-and-tested Tendring Careline run by the district council. I remembered having written about it in Tendring Topics ‘in print’ in the Coastal Express when it was first launched in the 1980s. It was now vastly expanded and with thousands, rather than just a few hundred, clients.
The last nine months have been fairly uneventful for me. I haven’t needed the Careline service. I have though, as requested when the system was installed, remembered to press the red button on that gadget round my neck (had I preferred it could have been on a bracelet round my wrist) once a month, to hear a cheery voice asking if I am OK – and to know that the system is working properly. Meanwhile, as I approach my ninetieth birthday, I am conscious of becoming frailer, less steady on my feet and more and more grateful for the Careline safety net. When my ‘get one free’ period ends in the New Year, I shall gladly pay my £16.80 a month (I think I’ll be VAT exempt) for continued protection and reassurance.
Now Tendring Careline has its own web site ( www.tendringcareline.co.uk ). On it you’ll find everything you need to know about the local careline service, including the answer to questions that it might not even have occurred to you to ask! I was very pleased to note that under ‘Testimonials’ there is a very long extract from the blog that I posted onto this website when I first had the Careline installed. Today, I wouldn’t change a word of it!
If either you, or friends or relatives, are old, living alone and vulnerable, do click on that website and find out what Tendring Careline has to offer. Sign on with Tendring Careline and you’ll sleep more easily for knowing that, whatever happens, there’s a friendly voice on hand offering practical help and reassurance.
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