National kerfuffle

A neighbour’s bullying ginger cat, named Kerfuffle, very closely resembles both Tutto and Bene, Heidi’s cats who I’m looking after. Kerfuffle was loitering outside the windows, watching me work and I almost mistook him for one of ours and let him in before Heidi correctly identified him via a WhatsApp photo.

Gugs is keeping me on the straight and narrow in terms of balance.

Our thrum of work will occasionally be interrupted by questions in my direction: how do you spell faeces? Well, my friend, British or American version?

Gugs will try and force me to stop work at 5.30pm to do an online abs workout.

She will exercise good discipline with diet and meals but will talk about baking cakes, brownies or banana bread every five minutes.

She will ask me whether a sauce is too tangy or a dish requires more salt, when I have the least sophisticated palate in the world.

She will laugh when I contrast my random eating habits with her ultimately more successful ones (I have less baking chat preamble but will run to the shop to furtively purchase dinner of a pot of cookie dough ice cream).

She will encourage me to chill in the evening and watch a series or film.

The news that Boris Johnson is in intensive care as of this evening is fairly hard-hitting. I was discussing it with bananablip who pointed out that if he was to use privatised healthcare it would be political suicide due to negative media coverage. She is correct of course, but the fact he would be forced into such a dilemma is testament to both the judgmental nature and inequality within British society. He may well be in possession of the most comprehensive private healthcare privileges available in the UK but due to the likely backlash is undergoing treatment at a London NHS hospital likely already at breaking point. The irony of funding cuts in which Johnson has played a role is crazy to contemplate at this moment.

I believe we should never move to anything resembling the US system but private facilities will persist and due to the money people are willing to shell out for them, they may offer as good or better care than even a well-funded NHS. Therefore at a time of acute need judgment should be set aside and he should be allowed to access the best care he can, not least because it is destabilising for the nation to have its leader in a perilous situation. Of course overall the system does need to change so that the public system offers comparable care to the private system and that the very best resources are available to anyone. Based on the corona experience which is touching everyone, future political messaging and campaigning are going to be fascinating.