We Were Here by Turin Brakes Review

We Were Here – Turin Brakes

(cooking vinyl records)

 Since 1999 Turin Brakes have been stalking through the undergrowth of the music jungle. They burst into view with the Mercury nominated ‘The Optimist LP’, but have steadily receded into the deep woods ever since; establishing a loyal cult following along the way. ‘We Were Here’ might just create the clearing the 4-piece need to achieve wider recognition once more.

In many respects this is a return to their roots; re-establishing ethereal harmonies with dark, forbidding lyrics. At times the ripping lead guitar of Gale Paridjanian bursts through the melodic rivers flowing with Ollie Knight’s vocals.

There is an organised chaos to the excellent ‘Blindsided Again’, which is entwined with David Gilmour's influence. It builds to a raucous crescendo that could leave you breathless. In complete contrast ‘Erase Everything’ yearns with an aching sadness. Turin Brakes have managed to develop a sympathetic  eco-structure within ‘We Were Here’ creating a perfectly balanced environment. The Kings of the jungle are ‘Goodbye’ and ‘Guess You Heard’ that weave Eddy Myer’s lilting bass through devilishly addictive choruses. The songs grow and flower constantly creating new landscapes on every listen.

It remains to be seen whether Turin Brakes’ 6^th album creates the same splash as the 1^st, but for the great music hunters ‘We Were Here’ is most definitely a trophy worth having.

Mmm...Biscuit

I think I mentioned that I've been obsessing about biscuits!

Mmm...BISCUIT

Mmm...a chocolate chip cookie
Custard Cream and Garibaldi,
Nice or nice! I never did know.
Dessicated coconut snow
for Christmas munchies,
Choc and nut crunchies,
Plain or milk digestives,
Fruit jestives and festives.
Hob-nobbing with hob nobs,
Stick 'em in your gobs,
Mum pigs out when no-one is in.
Dad always raids the tin.
And the kids just drop it out:
"I wanna biscuit!" they shout.
Malted milk and happy cows,
Broken bits cause the rows.
Rich tea slim, plain oblong,
Last one left, best one's gone.
Ooh, tartan-packed shortbread
Or ginger snaps instead,
Bourbons and crunch creams
Lemon puffs for sugary dreams.
Smiley, creamy, happy faces,
Munching through the Wacky Races.
Jammy Dodgers, yicky, yucky,
Gooey fingers, sticky, stucky.
Kids in bed, watching telly.
Chomp away, crumbs on belly.
Dunk them in my cup of tea
Or alternatively...my coffee.

Biscuit Boy

I've been thinking a lot about biscuits lately!
This is about a boy I used to see walking to school every morning. He was known by the kids and I as...

BISCUIT BOY

The languid stride runs loose and fallow
His banana skin hangs sick and sallow
then from his pocket - it's time to risk it.
Custard Creams - a packet of biscuits.

He stuffs them in one after t'other
and offers one to his brother.
A Peak Frean Teen - he likes a McVities
investing in Type 2 Diabetes.

He pours the crumbs from the packet
stuffing the debris in his jacket
Wipes his mouth, licks his lips
Now he's off to buy some chips.

The Tin Sack - I'm glad I'm not an onion

I’m glad I’m not an Onion

 

I’m glad I’m not an Onion

Wearing an onion sack

Like an orange string vest

In a multi-buy pack

With a label saying Paraguay

Or somewhere like that.

 

I’m glad I’m not an onion

Making people cry

Spitting out caustic acid

And getting in your eye.

Cut me, cook me, peel me,

Steam, sautée or fry.

 

More rattlings from The Tin Sack - A life less complete

A life less complete

Solitary souls
weaving their single lives
like cats cradles
on the fingers of a child.
Dipping and dancing
with simple minds
into worlds they share
with nobody.
Lines on a platform;
faces on a train
numbing the incessant pain
with medicine made
from the same
homogenised,
pasteurised grain.
Paths crossing,
but never collide,
heads turning,
mentally deride
the castaways
stood outside
the narrow social parameters
of our blind alley times.
So many sad faces,
bearing the lines
of stresses and strains,
worried about nothing
in the grand scheme of things.
And the fragile
bubble burst
of our petty,
pointless lives;
becoming a mist of a memory
when the eyes have dried.
The friends that miss us
will rot as compost and peat
leaving nothing but
a name on a family tree.
A photograph;
some words,
a story misheard,
wisps of a memory
for a life less complete.

Kid again

I want to scuff my knees

And climb up trees.

I want to eat cherry lips

And sherbet pips

From a white paper bag

Tied on a piece of string

From the end of thing

That has the black jacks

Fruit salads

and flying saucers in.

I want to watch TV

When there was only three

Channels.

I want to spend hours

Watching silverfish scuttle

On the hearth.

I want to be Chief Brody

Chasing Jaws in the bath.

I want to read Scoop

And struggle to tie the loop

And the knot in my laces.

I want Christmas

To be a wait forever

And when it comes

It goes

 like it never happened.

I want to not have the words

When I’m trying to describe

The thing that I’ve never felt

Or seen or heard.

I want to be innocent

I want to be ever so naughty

I want to be a kid

I don’t really want to be forty.

From Tooting to Tulse Hill

From Tooting to Tulse Hill

She hung a DIY forget-me-not
around her turkey gobble neck,
scrap ends of string tied together
in a knot of careless abandon.
Stained years of sallow pain
were etched into her Marlboro face;
tracing paper thin skin,
pock-marked and aching
whilst she remembered him.
She still travelled to Tulse Hill
every Friday in sun, snow and rain
to sit on the park bench
where he never returned again.
Wallowing in her lonely life
with tears welling in her eyes.
Before that day,
she used to say
she could see verdant green leaves
waving from the trees
and the glass blue sky
with scarred jet smears
carrying far flung lives.

Now she only sees grey.

Broken-hearted surgery

 

Broken-hearted surgery

Caught in confusion,

sinuous contusions,

this was never going to be

a fusion

made in heaven.

Broken-hearted surgery

brings reminiscent misery.

An elasto-plaster

on an open wound;

a drifting love

remains marooned.

A shattered heart

in crystalline shards

and a shrivelled soul

down a dank, dark hole.

Broken-hearted surgery

cannot mend

it simply tends to

ooze and seep

bleeding your memories

to an agonised sleep.

The Shadows of Skegby Hall

The Shadows of Skegby Hall

Retracing steps from the past. Things change but everything fundamentally stays the same. Skegby Hall stands grand with it's black history. Now things of memory and infamous legend. Most of the sprawling grounds had been invaded by a faceless, but nevertheless, affluent housing estate. Even the grand old house of the Approve School Headmaster - Mr Lincoln had been razed to the ground and replaced by another substantial dwelling presumably free from the acidic, acerbic and nefarious ghosts of ill meant evils. The matchbox semi that cocooned my mother's depression had thankfully fallen to land development. The grounds that witnessed fights, football, cricket and things no one ever mentioned again were transformed into a woodland nature trail suitably peaceful for the souls that still lay there.
I walked part of my old paper round that was done singing Dexys; freewheeling my bike. Somehow I remembered how to find my junior school at the back of an old mining estate. Danewood School. I only went there for a matter of weeks. How small and insubstantial it seemed. I swear it had shrunk. I walked away, fearful of being branded a paedophile, singing 'Baggy Trousers' by Madness. That being my overriding memory of the place and being allowed to watch the McEnroe/Connors Wimbledon Semi-Final. We assumed the teachers were being nice. I wondered whether the small grey horse in the field next to the school was the same one that used to be there. I think it was grey. I'd forgotten that the field had existed, but the sight of it made me realise what we all take for granted.
I really wanted to find the coal shed of the terraced house I used to deliver the People's Friend and Daily Express to every day. The shed that was home to an owl that used to dive bomb me every morning at 6.30am, surely trying to dissuade me from delivering such right wing trash.
The clad houses on Stanton Hill still stuck out like office workers knocking off at Silverdale Colliery. The road was, always has been and always will be a dull, flat-lining grey of an image in my mind.  It still was on that wet, misty mid-winter day. The remnants of snow spluttering the pavements infused with a carbon monoxide hue. It was quite satisfying to know.
That desultory High School had not changed either, not one iota save from a new astro-turf and flashy school sign. The lego block classrooms still housed stickle brick brained teenagers with an eye on their lashes and MILFs on their minds. The smoker's safe zone was still sacrosanct and a fledging fumble were sharing a fag as I wandered past.

Off to the chip shop that served my school dinners for 3 years.

  

 

                                 

The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Hunt by Botox Potter

THE TALE OF MR. JEREMY HUNT

 by Botox Potter

[For the average Joe.]

 Once upon a time there was an MP called Mr. Jeremy Hunt; he lived in a little, damp common house on the Millbank at the edge of a big river.

 The water was all slippy-sloppy in the lobby, the chambers and in the back passage.

 But Mr. Jeremy liked getting his feet wet; nobody ever scolded him, and he never caught a cold!

 He was quite pleased when he looked out and saw Wapping drops of rain, splashing in the river whilst the Sun shone ever so brightly--

 "I will get some maggots and go fishing and catch a Liberal dish of minnows for my dinner," said Mr. Jeremy Hunt. "If I catch more than five sprats, I will invite my friends Mr. Cameron Ptolemy Tortoise and Sir Osborne Algernon Otter. Mr Cameron, however, eats only greens. Sir Osborne is very greedy and will always take more than enough of his fair share."

 Mr. Jeremy put on a Barbour wax jacket, and a pair of shiny galoshes; he took his rod and basket, and set off with enormous hops to the place where he kept his boat.

 The boat was bland and grey, and very like the other lily-livered leaves in the Westminster waters. It was tied to a cheap publicity stunt on the extreme right of the river.

 Mr. Jeremy took an opinion poll, and pushed the boat out into open water. "I know a good place for lying about and catching minnows," said Mr. Jeremy Hunt.

 Mr. Jeremy stuck his pole into the tabloid sludge and fastened the boat to it.

 Then he settled himself cross- legged and arranged his tackle. He had the dearest little blue float. His rod was made of smug schtick, his line was a long auburn horse-hair, and he tied a little wriggling worm  of a civil servant to the end.

 The rain trickled down his back, and for nearly an hour he stared at the float.

 "This is getting tiresome, I think I should like some lunch," said Mr. Jeremy Hunt.

 He punted back again amongst the water-plants, and took some lunch out of his basket.

 "I will eat a butterfly sandwich, and wait till the shower is over," said Mr. Jeremy Hunt.

 A great big left winged water-beetle came up underneath the lily leaf and tweaked the toe of one of his galoshes.

 Mr. Jeremy crossed his legs up shorter, out of reach, and went on eating his sandwich.

 Once or twice something moved about with a rustle and a splash amongst the rushes at the side of the river.

 "I trust that is not Rupert and Rebekah the Rats, " said Mr. Jeremy Hunt; "I think I had better get away from here."

 Mr. Jeremy shoved the boat out again a little way, and dropped in the bait. There was a bite almost directly; the float gave a tremendous bobbit!

 "A minnow! a minnow! I have him by the nose!" cried Mr. Jeremy Hunt, jerking up his rod.

 But what a horrible surprise! Instead of a smooth fat minnow, Mr. Jeremy landed little Leveson Lurch, the stickleback, covered with spines!

 The stickleback floundered about the boat, pricking and snapping until he was quite out of breath. Then he jumped back into the water never to be seen again.

 And a shoal of other little public fishes put their heads out, and laughed at Mr. Jeremy Hunt.

 And while Mr. Jeremy sat disconsolately on the edge of his boat--sucking his sore fingers and peering down into the water--a MUCH worse thing happened; a really FRIGHTFUL thing it would have been, if Mr. Jeremy had not been wearing a Barbour wax jacket!

 A great big enormous Dilnot Dogfish came up--ker-pflop-p-p-p! with a splash-- and it seized Mr. Jeremy with a snap, "Ow! Ow! Ow!"--and then it turned and dived down to the bottom of the river!

 But the dogfish was so displeased with the taste of the Barbour wax jacket, that in less than half a minute it spat him out again; and the only thing it swallowed was Mr. Jeremy's galoshes and a little pride.

 Mr. Jeremy bounced up to the surface of the water, like a champagne cork and the bubbles from a crystal flute; and he swam with all his might to the edge of the river.

 He scrambled out onto the Millbank and he hopped home across the meadow with his Barbour wax jacket and reputation all in tatters.

 "What a mercy that was not a Nurse Shark!" said Mr. Jeremy Hunt. "I have lost my rod and basket; but it does not much matter, for I am sure I should never have dared to go fishing again!"

 He put some sticking plaster on his fingers, and his friends both came to dinner.

 Sir Osborne Algernon Otter wore his black and gold thread waistcoat.  And Mr. Cameron Ptolemy Tortoise brought a salad with him in a Fortnum and Mason bag.

 He could not offer them fish, but he had something else in his larder. And instead of a nice dish of minnows, they had raw baby artichoke hearts with sweet lady-bird sauce, which slimy Conservative politicians consider a beautiful treat; but I think it must have been nasty!

...probably to be continued...

Joe Public's guide to Social Care Funding

18 months or so after Andrew Dilnot produced his groundbreaking report on how to pay for the cost of care, the coalition government have announced their plans to create ‘a new era of support’.

Jeremy Hunt’s announcement stopped short of following all of the Dilnot recommendations, but he has taken heed of some of the core principles and applied them as loosely as possible.

Unfortunately, the outcome for the vast majority of people is going to be negligible. And the scandal that people must sell their homes to pay for their care will continue inexorably.

I was mightily impressed with the way Mr Hunt MP managed to drop in the ‘caring’ and ‘fair’ references during his keynote speech. Clearly the party think-tank has managed to find enough strands to send this policy announcement spinning into fanciful coalition rebranding. However, there is very little that is either ‘fair’ or ‘caring’ in the depth of these proposals. Approximately 10% of people in care may benefit and, in truth, many more may end up paying into bespoke insurance and pension plans, but will never come close to recouping their ‘investments’.

To the government’s credit they have, at most, made everyone turn and look in the direction of our social care funding crisis, but have fallen short of taking a significant step in the right direction.

The basic numbers are summarised below:

To be implemented in April 2017	Current	Dilnot	Actual
Cap on care costs	-	£35,000	£75,000
Cap on food and accommodation costs	-	£7-10,000 pa	£12,000pa
Upper Capital Limit (means tested)	£23,250	£100,000	£123,000

To illustrate how the figures released on Monday will affect the average person we will look at Mr Joe Public who is average in every respect.

How long does it take for Mr Public to reach the £75,000 cap?

87 year old Mr Public is admitted into a residential care home in April 2017 (just after the reforms take effect).

He has total assets of £250,000 (including the value of his home) and has a pension and benefits income of £250 per week.

He is charged £650 per week for his place at the Wishful Thinking Care Home (an average amount for an average care home). Therefore, after his benefits income he has to pay £400 per week from his assets.

However, the local authority have a ‘benchmark’ cost (the amount that they are prepared to pay for the weekly cost of residential care) of £550 per week.  That means in the eyes of the local authority Mr Public only pays £300 towards his care every week, not the £400 he actually stumps up. In this ‘metered’ system Joe will tick over at £300 per week for his care costs until he reaches the cap of £75,000. This works out at 250 weeks in total, close to 5 years.

On his 92^nd birthday Mr Public has a party because he no longer has to pay all of his care costs.

Now the local authority begins to pay £300 per week as a contribution towards his care, £250 is still paid from his income. Unfortunately that leaves a shortfall of £100 per week still to be paid from his assets.  Poor Joe will have to continue to pay £5,200 per year for the rest of the time he lives at Wishful Thinking Care Home.

Don’t forget he also has to contribute up to £12,000 per year for his food and accommodation costs. This could work out at a further £230 per week.

Care costs if you live in your own home are also covered under the proposals, but don't hold your breath waiting for the cap to kick in.

If Mrs Josephine Public receives 1 hour of care at home a day for 7 days a week at the cost of £20 per hour it will take about 10 years for her to reach the £75000 cap. The cost of her care is £7280 per annum. It is very rare for an older person to receive home care services for that length of time. 

So what about the means- testing (the Upper Capital Limit)?

Let us say that Mr Joe Public has total assets, including the sale of his home, of £100,000. He still has his £250 income, but is below the £123,000 threshold.

His local authority is able to charge £1 for every £250 of assets that Mr Public has. That works out at £400 plus his income of £250 making a total of £650 per week. That is the amount of money Mr Public pays for his place at Wishful Thinking Care Home. Therefore the local authority does not need to make any contribution to his care.

Consequently, our friend, Joe Public will not benefit from Mr Hunt’s proposals and I’m afraid to say many other people will be in the same boat. The figures will be wildly different for every person, but in essence, the principle is flawed.

Average length of stay

All research conducted by organisations such as BUPA and Age UK state that the average length of stay in a care home is 1-2 years. Sadly, it is highly likely that Joe or Josephine will have passed away long before they get anywhere close to cap and upper capital limits. If they had had the foresight to take out one of the new insurance policies created in response to the social care funding proposals then they may well have passed away before the policy comes to fruition. 

When are the proposals due to take effect?

If you are receiving care now, or are in a position to be considering impending care options, these proposals will not affect you. Not until 2017 anyway.

Mr Hunt did announce that people will be able to defer payments in 2015, but it is not fully clear how this will work.

What should I do now?

At the present time there are some very limited insurance products on the market to help pay for care costs, but the uptake of these is very low. Over the coming 6 months-1 year more insurance and pension alternatives are bound to be launched, but paying for social care has low rewards for the insurance industry. In other words there is not a lot of scope for them to make a lot of money. It is likely that the new products, wistfully alluded to by Mr Hunt and Mr Cameron, will be relatively expensive. Also, bearing in mind the low likelihood that the insurance policy will ever kick in then it is not looking like the most attractive option, unless, of course you have a very good salary and can afford to pay for peace of mind.

Conclusion

The Dilnot Report had the potential to hail a revolution in the way we fund care and in the way health and social services work together for the good of the individual. Jeremy Hunt’s proposals announced on Monday fell pitifully short of both objectives.

I’m afraid the government has managed to pay enough lip service to Dilnot’s recommendations to garner a few positive headlines in Wednesday’s fish and chip paper. The plain fact is that unless you are part of a small percentage of the ageing population it will have absolutely no effect on you. The most likely beneficiaries may well be those in the insurance and pension industries.

Today we have witnessed a casual doff of the Conservative cap to dealing with social care costs. I am quite certain that before we get close to 2017 we will have had to take real action for our age-related crisis and Mr Hunt’s proposals will be long forgotten.

No one said that this was going to be easy!

Who should carry the can for neglect?

Paul Burstow MP, the former care services minister in the Brown government, is calling for company directors, chief executives and senior managers to be held to account for poor and failing care homes in their organisations.

There is an increasing spotlight on abuse in health and social care. The Care Quality Commission are under-pressure to show their teeth; the media are constantly on the hunt for a new salacious story. The government need to show that they are doing something about it.

The difference this time is that there is a semblance of cross-party support for this move. Last week Norman Lamb MP, the current incumbent of the Care Services office made similar overtures towards increasing accountability for those at the top.

I have personal experience of life under the stewardship of a venture capitalist-owned care company as a compliance manager. My job took me around over 60 care homes on a regular basis across the south-east. I can tell you that a frighteningly high proportion of those services were not fit for purpose with poor care and were poorly/understaffed. I witnessed abusive practices in homes and attitudes from senior managers citing that if the contract price was right then the placement was right. Home managers earned bonuses for saving money rather than quality outcomes for service users. In one instance I visited a recently purchased, large supported living group, without doubt one of the poorest services I have ever been to. I tore the service to shreds in the internal quality and compliance report and put together a clear action plan for improvement.
I was threatened by a senior manager with disciplinary action, the report findings were ignored despite a show of concerned hand rubbing. Worryingly, CQC visited not a month later and gave the service a completely clean bill of health. Nothing was done. I returned to the service 6 months later and literally nothing had been done. The service had worsened if anything. CQC visited again a matter of days after my inspection and this time placed warning notices on the service.For at least 6 months, but probably a lot longer, vulnerable adults with learning disabilities were subject to abusive practices.The service had been subject to a local social services embargo on admissions and safeguarding alerts for over a year, but again nothing had been done. It seemed that there was a absolute lack of will from the company and social care professionals to make the changes the service users needed.

This is one example of a clear case where there was corporate neglect. True, some of the staff should never have been working in care in the first place, but staff were poorly paid, working up to 70 hours a week with highly challenging clients in a service without any effective day-to-day management. The problems were not just localised to that service, but there were significant systemic failings. My reports were shared with the service manager, the regional manager, the operations director, the head of the specialist services division and the board of one of Europe's largest health and social care provider. Nothing was done.

So who should be held to account? The staff who are abusive and should be frog-marched out of care. Yes. The senior managers who knew exactly what was going on, wrung their hands and then sat on them. Yes. The local authority who were complicit and colluding with neglect. Yes. The board that institutes a culture of penny pinching and blatant disregard for the care of vulnerable people. Most definitely yes.

We have to press for a co-ordinated cross-party plan. There is far too much money being made out the frail, ill and vulnerable, which is highlighted by the fact that big business and money-makers are invading the care sector. The one thing they do know how to do is butter their own bread.

http://www.harriscareconsultancy.com

Ode to the Ronseal Deal

These are my toes
these are my feet
these are my ankles
and my knees.
These are my calves
these are my thighs
they are my hips
the pelvis is mine.
I've got my ribs
and vital organs
these are my shoulders
...up holders.
This is my face
and my neck,
this is my nose
...that grows.
My eyes, my ears
my mind, my fears
my shortfalls
my lack of balls,
my courage
my fate
my all-in-all
my state
of being.
This what you get
this is what you see
take it or leave it.
This is me!

Lance the boil

I hate Lance Armstrong. I used to love Lance Armstrong. I don't hate him so much for the whole drugs thing; it was an age when every single, sodding one of them pumped some shit into their veins whether they knew it or not.

No. What I really hate about Lance Armstrong is that he fooled me. Completely bamboozled. I cannot for the life of me believe how I watched him year after year. High cadence peddling to the top of every Col and me thinking he was really clean, despite what the detractors said.

The cancer charity philanthropist blazed across my screen like a meteorite entering the atmosphere. I watched his competitors trailing in his wake. Ulrich, Landis, Hamilton. My suspicious eye looking them up and down thinking 'surely a drugs cheat'.  But my Lance? Not a chance Lance.

The boil turns up on Opera Wonfrey this week. The man is a consummate actor having graduated from the  PD school of drama and psychopathy. He will wear his face full of regret mask and talk about how he was pressured; it was out of his control; he was depressed, bi-polar and schizophrenic with a sex, alcohol, gambling and caring addiction. How he was just a pawn in the game.

The audience will be shocked, they will shed a tear, applaud his honesty and think to themselves, 'but he has done so much good'.

And the boil will rise from his seat. Wonfrey will stroke his arm and thank him oh so sincerely. He will turn and walk, chastened from the stage. As he gives a last humble wave of acknowledgement he will hold his gaze firmly on the wings. The applause will begin to subside and he will look at his agent with the subtlest wink.

Lance will feel clean.

Volcareno Warning

The heat on the world of health and social care is turning up. Don't underestimate the tacit reference to a cap on social care costs in the lacquered mid-term review. I can feel the earth rumbling under our feet. There is a volcareno brewing.
The Health Select Committee today released a report on the Care Quality Commission (CQC) that will be missed by many because of the Con/Dems audit. They have been backed into a corner and need to change now or face extinction. I'm amazed that they have lasted this long under DC to be honest.
Amidst a catalogue of criticism is the odd sliver of acknowledgment, but really, very little for the new CQC Chair to hang on to.
So, like a trapped animal, CQC must come out bearing their teeth. They have recruited over 100 locum inspectors in an effort to meet inspection targets. Don't be fooled by the spin that this is to promote better quality. It is driven merely by spreadsheets.
An actual positive is the widening of the Specialist Advisor role. Compliance Inspectors are jacks of all trades. The breadth of caseloads cover 2-bed care homes to NHS Trusts. It is impossible for one person to have knowledge that spreads that widely.
Dilnot is also looming large giving every social care provider kittens. Unlike CQC, care homes generally just have to roll over and play dead when they are faced with a mortal threat. Care home providers and services work in their own little bubbles and there is no sense of organisation to carry any sort of fight to the regulators. DC, Jeremy the Hunt and Normal Lamb have yet to reveal what watered down version of the Dilnot report they plan to follow, but for the people it is potentially an election issue. The big care home providers are still making a pretty penny out of care, but I fear the consequences will have the effect that big business has had on the high street. Soon you will only be able to choose from Tesco or Sainsbury's care homes and all the little independents will be boarded up.