What makes us who we are? Is it Nature or Nurture? Where can we place the blame for our failings? Our parents? Where they lived, their rules for us as we grew up? The schools we attended? Or is it simpler, just Fate, our future written in the stars, dependent on the day and time we were born.
How many people buy a newspaper just to read their horoscopes (and do the crossword, of course)? Both the western and eastern systems of astrology have many followers and both can (and are) debunked as being too general, too vague in their predictions. But is either any more accurate when assessing someone's personality?
Most people have come across the rhyme that starts -
Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is......... etc
A piece of doggerel, sung like a lullaby by a mother to her baby, or an inherited way of assessing character? A piece of nonsense chanted by midwives to new mums down the ages?
The verses were first written down (according to Wikipedia) in 1838 but such fortune-telling rhymes were recorded in Suffolk during the late 16th century. A long time for a piece of nonsense to persist.
Just think of all those job application forms blithely filled in with name, address and date of birth. Could this be a cheap, basic way to assess character and suitability for a situation?
I looked at the days some friends and family were born. What a surprise!
Probably just coincidence.
Then I thought about how much we really know about people. Why we are comfortable in some company and yet inexplicably repulsed by others.
This (almost) inevitably leads to deep thoughts of reincarnation, Purgatory and familiar souls .
The weather has turned gloomy and T.P's Reaper Man is calling to lighten the mood.
Time to put the kettle on - and will there be biscuits?
Friday 25 April 2014
Wednesday 2 April 2014
hissing steam...
Now is the time to sound like an old grump (apologies....)
I remember a time when one (a patient, not a customer) went to the doctors when one was ill. You just turned up and waited, in the Waiting Room and if there were fifteen people already sitting in the faux Chippendale dining chairs, well you found a perch against the wall or went home and either came back next day or recovered. Patient sat opposite doctor, they talked, inspected and then parted, patient faithfully clutching a flimsy script en route to the chemist.
Any kind of socialising was only acceptable if initiated by a doctor who had known ones grandparents.
No receptionists, practise managers, nurses. I don't even remember seeing the secretary, whose main function was, I think, to write letters to various consultants.
Now one is invited for yearly check-ups and is checked-up upon if one fails to make an appointment.
Then the appointment itself. No just turning up at the surgery, one has to follow guidelines as to when one should telephone and then it will be a day - or two- before one sees the doctor (or nurse). After the main reason for going has been dealt with, there will be a quick scan of a computer screen followed by - "Oh, can I just ask you...?" Or "I don't have (this detail) on your record...?" and the unwary will find another ten minutes of Life has just slipped by.
The NHS is a wonderful thing and has always been there and effective whenever me and mine have needed it. But it is forever in the news, lamenting the stress it is under, the cost to the taxpayer, how few doctors/nurses/health professionals there are.
And yet so much time seems to be spent in filling out questionnaires. We are all (mostly) living longer and perhaps ticking all those boxes plays its part in this, but it does irritate me when I am part of a queue waiting to have my blood pressure checked, only to realise the delay is because an enthusiastic white coat is checking through the forms on a computer screen. As my parent would have said, it makes my blood boil!
Now, where did I put those pills?
I remember a time when one (a patient, not a customer) went to the doctors when one was ill. You just turned up and waited, in the Waiting Room and if there were fifteen people already sitting in the faux Chippendale dining chairs, well you found a perch against the wall or went home and either came back next day or recovered. Patient sat opposite doctor, they talked, inspected and then parted, patient faithfully clutching a flimsy script en route to the chemist.
Any kind of socialising was only acceptable if initiated by a doctor who had known ones grandparents.
No receptionists, practise managers, nurses. I don't even remember seeing the secretary, whose main function was, I think, to write letters to various consultants.
Now one is invited for yearly check-ups and is checked-up upon if one fails to make an appointment.
Then the appointment itself. No just turning up at the surgery, one has to follow guidelines as to when one should telephone and then it will be a day - or two- before one sees the doctor (or nurse). After the main reason for going has been dealt with, there will be a quick scan of a computer screen followed by - "Oh, can I just ask you...?" Or "I don't have (this detail) on your record...?" and the unwary will find another ten minutes of Life has just slipped by.
The NHS is a wonderful thing and has always been there and effective whenever me and mine have needed it. But it is forever in the news, lamenting the stress it is under, the cost to the taxpayer, how few doctors/nurses/health professionals there are.
And yet so much time seems to be spent in filling out questionnaires. We are all (mostly) living longer and perhaps ticking all those boxes plays its part in this, but it does irritate me when I am part of a queue waiting to have my blood pressure checked, only to realise the delay is because an enthusiastic white coat is checking through the forms on a computer screen. As my parent would have said, it makes my blood boil!
Now, where did I put those pills?
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