Bank Holiday

Well, at least Walk to School week is over! I managed one more towing of Reuben's bike to school. The amazing thing is, that a couple of the dads that have never really spoken to me chatted to me just because I had cycled. Maybe I should do it a few more times...

The pressure was ramped up when I discovered that Reuben did not just get a sticker, he got 'merit' points from school for doing it. The irritation factor was increased when I discovered that children who lived 2 minutes walk from the school (as opposed to thirty) and walked every day also got these rewards... something about the inherent justice of this life there.

Still, as I was preaching yesterday from Habakkuk chapter 2, we know that justice will be perfect and complete when Jesus returns.

No Doctor Who this week, which gave us the chance to have a highly intelligent dinner party. We chose a Spanish theme, and cooked a chicken and rice dish not too dissimilar to Paella, and some Tapas to begin with. I downloaded some traditional Spanish guitar music to complete the effect, but unfortunately the English weather did not play ball!

Hopefully the weather will be better behaved today, as we were planning to take the boys to Tutbury Castle this morning. I guess we should have realised that good weather and bank holiday Mondays rarely go together!

I am increasingly concerned that the UK economy (indeed the world economy) faces some really tough and difficult circumstances in the next fifty years. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be anyone prepared to take some long term and very unpopular decisions about our future. With more people living longer and needing pensions for longer, healthcare for longer. With medical treatments increasingly expensive. With lifestyle choices leading to further expensive medical intervention, not to treat sickness, but to enable people to have children later in life and without the need for two potent parents in a loving relationship. These costs are soaring, and yet we do not want to pay more tax. The pool of the working population rapidly reducing in relation to the non-working population that needs to be supported by it.

Are we about to see a political party pledging to increase the statutory retirement age, and make early (non tax-paying) retirement illegal? I doubt it.

Are we about to see the reintroduction of charges for expensive fertility treatment? I doubt it.

Are we about to see ever more expensive cancer treatments, with marginal benefits, but with the insistence that they are available for free on the NHS? I should think so.

With costs spiralling and the tax take remaining stable and declining, the sums do not add up.

Expect to see further attempts to legalise euthanasia. The argument will be based on allowing people choice and dignity, even though the most dignified deaths I have observed have been either in a hospice or with 'hospice-at-home care'. However, hospice care is very expensive compared to euthanasia. Euthanasia is cheap. It means it reduces the numbers that need long term care and pensions. It frees up space in our hospitals. This is the argument that people do not dare to put, yet it is the strongest. However, it does not change my view that euthanasia is uncaring to the person and their family, and robs them of dignity and respect. It says that not all life has the same value. That some people are more worth giving care to for others. However, is this not what legislation has said for the past forty years since the introduction of the Abortion Act?

Walk to School Week

Oh what a good idea this is.

Now don't get me wrong, I do believe we need to reduce our carbon footprint and be concerned about the environment and global warming. But there is a seeming injustice about Walk to School Week.

Basically, a child gets a sticker if they have not come to school in a car. It matters not whether they live two minutes from school, or right on the edge of the catchment area as we do.

Reuben was very keen on this, and since one of the 'acceptable' modes of transport was a bicycle, he wanted to cycle to school. What this means is, he wanted Daddy to attach his bike to my bike, and tow him to school. It really is uphill all the way. His bike is not a light carbon frame, but a solid steel construction...

I think I deserve the sticker, as I did it this morning! Don't need to go to the gym today...

The Unicorn and the Wasp

Wow.

That was a really good episode of Doctor Who!

Before it was broadcast, it was trailed as being the first pure comedy since The Romans, a story which was broadcast in January and February 1965.

It was certainly very funny, making a real pastiche of the Whodunnit? genre in general, and Agatha Christie in particular. Whilst it could have descended into farce, it resisted that route, and instead came across as clever, witty, and self-mocking. It was good fun spotting all the Agatha Christie title references, too. I think the only one I didn't spot first time was "N or M?"

There has been some controversy as to whether revealing the Vicar to be the alien Vespiform is a part of the Producer's atheist bias. I must confess as I watched it I thought, "oh no, they're going to make the vicar the killer." I suppose if you had to pick the least likely person to be the Alien/killer in the best Christie tradition, it have to be either Christie herself, or the vicar.

Still, it was all very good fun, and now we have a whole fortnight to wait for the next episode, written by the excellent Steven Moffat, "The Silence in the Library".