Can't See the Wood...

A lunchtime spin to Colinton Dell which brought about a Dipper and a Mouse for the Edinburgh Wildlife website.

Saw Inception last night, which was really rather good - though it did leave a lot of questions open. It's easy to get trained into the Hollywood 'closed-loop' style of storytelling; though conversely we often accept the utterly ridiculous with a permanent suspension of disbelief. Anyway, I enjoyed it, the cast was great, and it looked superb. The BBC should give me Wossy's FILM slot...

Been reading lots about David Cameron's 'Big Society' idea, but no matter what I read it all seems to boil down to one little phrase. "You do it. We don't want to." Basically the government can get local conglomerations of ordinary folk to be the ones who make the necessary cuts, and so we don't blame the government. Now I'm all for a reduction in unnecessary management and so on, but I want my doctor to be a doctor, not someone concerned with the tiles on the roof; I want my teachers to be teachers, without their destinies decided by untrained parental intervention; I want people to do the job they educated themselves to do because that tends to be what people are good at. Not in all cases, certainly, and there may be plenty doctors out there with wonderful business heads. But while they're doing all of the business stuff when comes the doctoring?

The whole idea predicates itself on 'society' giving enough of a damn to want to do these jobs that are being offered to them as well, but unfortunately apathy is a fairly considered state of mind in much of the populace. They know that 'something must be done' because the Daily Wail tells them so, and they're only too willing to tell people that 'something must be done', without ever being able to tell you the waht. Or the how. Or the for how much.

We're damned good at shouting from the sidelines - a population of touchline beraters waving arms to show that we want something to happen, but always at a distance that lacks specificity. The lack of financial stability of councils and so on is a great excuse that those in power now have to give reasons for public services struggling and 'broken windows' appearing in communities. But the simple fact of the matter is many complained about these self-same things before the economic collapse - they were in that state because of the apathy, the lack of will to do anything. And now the government is telling us to sort out the mess, but with less money and for less reward.

Nice idea (Call Me) Dave, but 'Big Society'? You need people to care first (and by 'care' I mean more than doctors seeing pound signs, or parents being able to get kids into the school because they run it).

Mind you, why am I getting bothered by it at all? All of these issues are only going to affect England and Wales, being devolved matters in Scotland. I'm not sure Salmond is that bothered about 'Big Society', more just his 'Big Heid'.