Fixing it for Jim

I know we all loathe and despise this man, but I have been driven to write about him today, because of the almost unbearable tension I experience between the image and the reality, both in the dreadful revelations of how devastating that tension was and is physically for so many people, and also because as a child I felt that tension also emanating uncomfortably from the TV as I watched the gold medallion resting and swinging on his hairy chest.

Of course I watched Jimmy Savile as a kid.  I used to sit green-eyed with envy as some lucky kid, unfortunate because of some terrible vulnerability, got their wildest dreams met by this man who seemed able to do absolutely anything, anything at all at the drop of a hat.  The smiles of those children spoke to me... that's what it would be like to really get what you dream of.

Comments for Swansea Council in a Dither

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Comments for "What's the Harm in Statistics?"

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Comments for the "The Guardian's "Responsible Journalism" on Child Welfare" ANM Article

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Comments for the "How not to be Moderate" ANM Article

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Breaking the habit of a lifetime.

Ok so it's nearly Christmas, and that's maybe not the best time to be having an operation, especially on my left foot when the other one isn't all that pain free, but when I was offered two dates one before Christmas and one in January, and after nonchalantly trying to take the "after all the festivities" approach for five minutes I just realised there was no point waiting.  I just couldn't use that foot anymore, because it just wouldn't work.  So I've finally (I hope) been and got it done.  Under the plaster, the middle three bones have been sawn through in two places, shortened by about 4mm and now have titanium plates on.

Humanism Is As Humanists Do.

Many of the people I interact

with on Twitter rightly address issues of accountability and lack of it within institutions and especially within the NHS.

On World Mental Health Day

Last year on World Mental Health Day, nearly a year after my mother's death, I wrote a letter of protest to the Deans at Plymouth University which was also a request for help.