Making Life Difficult

One of the apps on my iPhone, Patient Access, has just refreshed. It's an app used for ordering medication from the doctor and suchlike. It's very useful.

This morning I switched my iPhone off because it had altered the order of the of app pages for some inexplicable reason. All was okay when I switched it back on until I went into the Patient Access App. It required me to sign back in. 

Fine. Nothing unusual there. Except that they have introduced two-factor authentication. That should be simple but it wasn't because it suddenly decided that I'm not who I am.  After an hour or more of time I cannot afford to waste on such things, it was sorted.

I'm fortunate enough to be computer savvy having been involved with computers since I did a computing course on my second degree when I was about 22 (l o n g  ago!). I've used and battled with computers ever since.

However, it took me well over an hour to convince the app that I am me get it all back up and running . How on earth anyone with no interest in or ability with computers copes with modern life I have no idea because everything we do these days seems to require some sort of computer input and if my experience is anything to go by it gets harder and harder each day.

Tomatoes

I love tomatoes. I have eaten tomatoes most days for years........until recently.

I bought some (I always buy "The 'Best" salad tomatoes) in a different supermarket (there is a grand choice of 2 in Stornoway) to usual.

The skins were so tough that eating them was a chore. Peeling them (using the usual boiling water method) proved virtually impossible. I put them aside for mixed grill.

Back to my usual supermarket and, lo and behold, they were no better.

Okay, I realise that they are all grown in Spain under greenhouse conditions and that they have been bred to reduce damage. However I am perplexed as to why, all of a sudden, I have become so aware of the hard skins that I may well curtail my eating of tomatoes until all my different varieties grow in my polycarb later in the summer.

I will, of course, keep my eyes open in the Supermarkets and hope for improvements. There is no real substitute for a good ripe tomato in one's salad.

Review, Rethink, and React

I've had a rather unsettled time since my last post.  The world's political situation has been depressing me and my uretic stent has been causing problems which always scares me because of the possibility of sepsis. Over the years I have got to the stage where I can recognise the very early onset of sepsis. However sometime it occurs in the middle of the night and I can wake up in a very confused state. Fortunately the emergency services have so far managed to respond to my confused phone calls and I'm here to tell the tale.

Apart from that I'm okay but enough of health and negativity.

I'm getting to the stage when I find the international political situation beyond coping with. It's obvious that the USA is going to be a loose cannon until Trump relinquishes power which may not be any time soon. It seems entirely possible that he may alter the constitution to declare himself president for life.

I spent my professional career in local government and can say without fear of rational contradiction that the great majority of people working in local government had the best interests of the communities they served at heart. I'm talking about professionals. Politicians were a different kettle of fish. Some - probably the majority - did have the best interest of their constituents at heart. Some, on the other hand, were in politics for what they could get out of it. In the UK when I was working, local government politicians were UNPAID and just received expenses. Now they are professional politicians.

I am, by nature, a very positive person. So THIS WILL BE MY LAST NEGATIVE POST.

I've never been a daily poster like YP and many others of you but my absence from Blogland has been unsettling for me because it's been such a part of my life for so many years.

I'm very fortunate that in my 81st year I'm as busy as I ever was and sometimes busier. Despite so many of my pals having left this mortal coil others have filled the gaps. 

So I'm counting my blessings and hopefully I'll return forthwith to being an active member of the blogging community to which I have belonged for so many years. 

Too Much Thinking

I'm not, by nature, a worrier nor do I usually concern myself with national or international events which I have absolutely no ability to influence. Noone in their right mind would suggest that I, or any other 'ordinary' individual in the UK or probably the world, could influence the potential for an escalation towards another war in Europe arising from the unbelievable actions of one of the most powerful countries in the world. Indeed, many are wondering whether even national and international leaders in Europe have that power either.

What, even a few years ago, seemed unthinkable is now being talked about as a distinct possibility if not quite a probability.

The leader of the US of A keeps telling us that he wants to 'make America great again'. America was already great. I don't know anyone who disputed that.  

However what the current President has done is make the world a very much less safe place. Isolationism and bullying never brings true power. It brings the power of fear and tyranny. That is not TRUE power. It may be the power on which empires were built in the past. Today it simply gives the Putins of this world the go-ahead to do what they like. Today's Europe has been built on the assumption of peace. It would appear that that may have been a mistake. 

Effective world power today is wielded by economic not military might. Today many nations have the physical power and means to control and even to destroy other nations with ease. Any such action would however only produce pyrrhic victories.

In the past nations could become rich and benefit their countries by those means.

The world is too small for that now. The ramifications and the fallout from any nuclear threat or use would simply be too catastrophic to contemplate. Exercise of that power would benefit noone except, possibly and temporarily, some of the world's dictators. And they will be dead by the time the worst of the economic damage manifests itself. 

So will I.