When in doubt, throw money at the box

This is about nothing being wasted, of course, because I am going to allude to the environment when I in fact refer to obesity, and one can only assume little of the slab gets left on the slab... well, until the other part of .. & taxes.

This morning, the big thing was our nation's 'kids of greater than desirable girth'. So far, so Billy Bunter (I hoping I'm safe in this from the PC police, as they all seem to have just graduated in the last 10 minutes from the University of Nannyton with a degree in ElfernSafety and a higher in fixingfingswotwasneverbroketilnow, and while there were lots of punters sticking their oars in when not at classes for 2 minutes a week no doubt).

So we had the Blair-babe blue rinse with the scarf and sing-song patronising voice on the couch, and at the other side a young lady of 12 and her Mum. Not at school today then, 'cos what's better than being on the telly to say that it's really hard not to eat all those buns because of the nasty ad men.

Which the blue rinse obviously got inspired by. Because she reckoned that the supermarkets and parents didn't have enough information, and they needed.. an ad campaign.

Now I am a TV addicted couch potato with the best of them, and merely by paying a bit of attention to the bits between Big Bruvva and The Qui... er... gambli... er... rip-off shows, have a pretty good notion that if you feed your face, or that of your child's, with endless burgers and fries, and then don't kick 'em out in the garden every so often, they may end up like the young Princess of Tonga this am. And I'm pretty sure the supermarkets know this too.

So no amount of money frittered, battered or otherwise coated on such an indigestible notion is going to make anyone take a blind bit more notice of such a thing, or make one whit of difference, except denuding apparently pretty low stocks of public service funds.

Physician, Green Thyself

Another forward - NHS gets green support - from Dave of Solarventi, with the comment 'Perhaps I’m becoming overly cynical but I can’t help suspecting that most of this nice tranche of cash will disappear into the NHS whirlpool never to be seen again or it will be wasted on stupid ideas like putting a mini wind turbine on every ward.'

Well, having noted the recent coverage (see previous blog) on the NHS and how it handles health matters, a degree of cynicism on how it will blow £100 million in an area it has not expertise in is warranted I'd say.

What worries me most is: "meet environmental targets ", and how these tie in to the more laudable “Saving energy also means cost savings in the long term that trusts can spend on improving patient care.”

We'll leave it at 'The NHS is aiming to meet two key energy efficiency targets..' ... for now.

Not so full of beans

This is not, on the face of it, anything to do with Junkk's area, but as it does encapsulate a political and management culture in this country that certainly exists with matters environmental, I feel it's worth including.

I watched a very depressing programme, where a biz guru tried to fix the NHS. It was partly depressing that such a flip notion was taken seriously by so many (he managed a few turnarounds... nothing like a full film crew to swing that! Try mano-a-mano to a dude that is gold-plated and unfireable) in the pursuit of ratings, but mainly because in amonst the nonsense and editing a lot was laid bare. And it wasn't pretty.

A guru close to despair

I felt the urge to pitch in:

‘Daily Mail reader would know what to conclude from the programme.’
‘For the Guardian reader, it's harder. ‘

I am in a quandary: how to react? I read both. And the Times. And the Indy. Often the Sun, Mirror, too. Not because I enjoy them particularly, and especially not because I feel I will be informed objectively by any of them.

But there is the slim hope that, as with blogs such as this and the replies they garner, I may acquire enough information to make a reasoned judgement on an issue.

Of course, like most, in this case I also have personal experience to fall back on as well. And I dread taking my Mum to hospital today as a consequence (case in point: two posters in the waiting room. One says 'Help us by asking a friend or relative to bring you'. The other says 'Priority is given to those using hospital transport'). If there was an alternative I'd use it.

I come from the private sector. All I know is that if what you can earn is based on fewer and fewer people who provide a function the 'customer' pays for, the solution is not, at best, piling on a huge % more to 'manage' or ‘administer’ them, or at worst cut them back to fund ever more managers/administrators.

If you lose the bean makers and stop making beans, there is nothing left to count... or report on... or meet targets with.

And then they will stop voting for you as well.'