Hi Everyone
When we were young we would now be eagerly looking forward to the six week school holidays. Those who were very lucky might get a week at the seaside but all of us would have gone on expeditions with our bottle of water and a jam sandwich with our friends. As young teenagers, we would have moved on to our bicycles to play tennis or cricket in the local parks. These were lovely memories coloured by the fact that every day was sunny and warm with not a cloud in sight. Like all lovely memories, we forget that on some days, but not many, we had clouds and rain. What is certain however is all those exciting summer holidays had better weather than the dreadful summer we are having this year. We all know that climate change is the most serious situation that we face in the coming years but as we experience this cold wet summer it is obvious that climate change comes in many forms. It is obviously not all drought, extreme heat, forest fires and hurricanes but also this dull dismal and cold summer. The good news is that we might just be wearing shorts in December although probably not in this country. Now I just have to remember to turn the heating off.
With our new government starting its work, tho topics that have done the rounds a number of times before have surfaced. The first was the idea of a four day working week. Back in the days of the Fruit, Vegetable, Flower, Lolly and Game shop and my early working years, most workers worked a five and a half days working week, with some working even longer for fifty weeks of the year. With most shops closing by seven in the evening and with no shops open on Sundays, working people had little time to spend their money apart from perhaps the pub, the licenced beer shops, the cinema, the local chippie, the Saturday afternoon football game, and of course the Fruit, Vegetable...........shop . The Junior Partner was fairly moderate in his views but one thing he said was that teachers and vicars would never have enough money as they had too much time to spend it in, not that the vicar would ever be seen in the pub, cinema or the Senior Partners shop. Come to think of it I cannot recall our local vicar with a newspaper full of fish and chips hurrying back to the vicarage either. Whilst those days are long gone, never to return, there is a serious point to all this Rubbish as now we have opportunities to spend money almost 24/7 so the need for money is out of proportion to those days with much of it being spent on goods and food without even getting up out of your chair. Sorry, the front door bell has just rung, it must be the Amazon or Deliveroo man.
The second major talking point this week was that our prisons are nearly at full capacity with almost 90,000 prisoners. There are two alternatives, either release some prisoners early, which our government has chosen to do in the shlort term or build new prisons. Given that some of our prisons are from the Victorian era that would appear to make sense. The cost of building a single cell for two prisoners in a modern prison complex is a staggering £600,000. That equates to £300,000 per prisoner plus the enormous cost of keeping them there. I know that some prisoners are rightly there for a very long time but there surely must be many who would benefit if the money was used for rehabilitation and support rather than the alternative.
Just a Thought :
What do you call two weeks of rainy weather in the UK? A typical summer.
The delivery driver at our local Indian restaurant works naan stop.
When one door closes and another one opens, you are probably in prison.
Brian
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