The grey areas of life

“I have another exciting day ahead. I’m going to a land where the people are of many colours, they worship in exotic temples and they speak many tongues… Yes, I’m going to Walsall!”, that was my Facebook status update for Thursday.

The Black Country

In the Black Country we have a tradition of joking about things. That’s how we cope with the harsh realities of life and Tory governments. If we like you, we make fun of you; if we don’t like you, we either ignore you or cause you pain. This can be difficult for some newcomers to understand. We are used to people coming here. The Black Country used  to be small villages before the coal drove the Industrial Revolution and changed the world. People came from far and wide to share in the wealth and they still do, but there is far less wealth now.

A student in China once asked me what I did for a living. I told her no one worked in the UK, we all sat around watching television and leave all the work to the Chinese. She is probably used to my humour now. It’s her second year studying in Wolverhampton and will return to China with a bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree in International business from a Black Country University. I mention this so you won’t think I’m racist.

There are lots of grey areas in life, we can’t just see things in black and white. We can’t say that immigration is right or wrong, but when I came out of the hospital on Thursday there was a long queue of traffic outside.

Is immigration causing the traffic jams, the housing shortage, the waiting times to see a doctor, the crisis in the health service and the overcrowding in our schools? It’s a grey area, I don’t have all the answers. Perhaps in some parts of the country they have empty roads, hospitals and homes? I doubt it though. I think in 20 years we could look back and think we made a big mistake. We could look back at all the austerity and think that was a big mistake too.

People are looking back to the days when Jimmy Saville’s behaviour was seen as acceptable. When there was a PIE (Paedophile Information Exchange) and calls for the age of consent to be lowered to 14 or even 10. This seems outrageous now. It was probably outrageous to people with common sense in the 60’s and 70’s. What are people with common sense saying now? They are not too keen on further immigration and many other things. The people with common sense see grey areas. They don’t see everything in black and white like the politicians. They talk about problems, not issues, they talk about the affect of problems; not the impact. In 20 years time all this talk of leverage in business and outsourcing and robust responses will all sound like politically correct clap trap. Just like the lowering of the age of consent was 30 years ago.

Casualty

Still on a hospital theme. I watched Casualty last night. Lily Chou sees everything in black and white, while the rest of the staff are caring, sharing, bleeding heart liberals who see every grey area. Lily can’t just stand by and do nothing. At Stafford hospital many people just stood by and did nothing while patients were abused and starved. So before we condemn cold hearted Lily, we need people like that to see what’s wrong, find it unacceptable and do something. Now the trust that ran Stafford hospital has been closed down and the patients will be travelling to Wolverhampton New Cross and the Manor Hospital in Walsall. People with common sense will be asking how they will get through all that traffic. The Manor Hospital is situated between junction 9 and junction 10 of the M6. Are they going to do a ring and ride helicopter service? The politically correct set with their issues, think this will have an impact on the hospital and have asked for extra funding. They should look out of the bloody window at the traffic and offer to send a couple of administrators and doctors to Stafford to provide leadership.

Maybe they can find someone like Lily from Casualty, but with someone more liberal to keep her out of trouble?

That’s all for today. I’m sure you have view on today’s post. What do you think? If you’re outside the UK, I’m sorry to burden you with our problems, but maybe you have similar problems? Please share your thoughts in the comments box.

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