We pulled into a supermarket car park today, as you do, and I noticed a very large truck was taking up a good chunk of the space. On closer inspection I saw the truck was festooned with cartoons and the legend, Change For Life and below this it stated this is an NHS jobbie. This would be the NHS that we’re continually told is in a funding crisis.
Thought I to me, this must be the one and only such truck and is just slowly tootling round the country, right? Wot with the NHS being strapped for cash an’ all. This hope was dashed when I searched for an image of the truck and found a bus. How many more are out there, wot with the NHS being strapped for cash an’ all, I shudder to think.
This reminded me of another NHS mystery. Very frequently the news outlets inform us that, owing to the NHS being in another crisis, we should not go to the doctors or A and E departments other than in an emergency. Then, of an evening we’re treated to NHS adverts, and they’re cheap I bet, telling any fellow over the age of fifty, who has a cough, to go and see their doctor right away. This is supplemented with the line, “It’s probably nothing.” Some stuff just don’t get joined up do it and, to me, it looks like the NHS crisis is in their management selection process...
Then, to complete my musings on the NHS, I got to thinking on that change for life thingy.
Cast your minds back... on reflection, you can’t. Try remembering a bit of history. A few hundred years ago our... their diet was herbs, nuts and berries, meat and fish and they sure didn’t have GM modified crops. There was no fast food. No McDonalds or Burger King and chickens were blissfully unaware of the coming of Colonel Sanders and pizza wasn’t even a twinkle in an Eyeties eye. Salt and sugar? Fizzy drinks?
Did they do much loafing on the sofa learning to play the lute? Unlikely. Foraging and hunting? More likely. And they’d walk everywhere in the unsullied air, unless going to the next village when they’d spend half the day chasing their horse round the countryside in the unsullied air. Smoking? Not yet ‘invented’ and alcohol? That would be limited to the occasional mug o’ mead I guess. As healthy and nutritious as you could wish for, right?
Seems they had such a healthy diet and lifestyle some would insist we should aspire to the same now. Spookily, and despite this incredibly healthy lifestyle, they were lucky to live to see year forty. Go figure.
Now? Genetically modified crops, beef, pork and poultry that’s most likely never seen the sun or walked on grass, smokers and drinkers. Walking is from sofa to car and there’s sugar, salt and fat available in abundance, all delivered direct to your sofa via your phone and we’re told the air we breath is a toxic poison yet, despite all these ‘health disasters’, there’s every chance you’ll live to see year ninety. Go figure.
The aging population is, coincidentally, another impending crisis for the ‘cash strapped’, under staffed. ‘if you’re old and cough come and see us right away’, NHS on a bus.
Quote; P. J. O’Rourke.
"A fruit is a vegetable with looks and money. Plus, if you let fruit rot, it turns into wine, something Brussels sprouts never do."
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