A Day in the Life

So, my good friend Gary, at his site klahanie , has seen fit to pass on "The Versatile Blogger" award to me. There are various rules attached to accepting this ward, but being a little bit of a non-conformist, I'm not going to adhere to them. Suffice it to say that I thank Gary wholeheartedly for thinking of me (once again). Gary has also passed this award on to a number of other bloggers, all of which blog about the subject of mental ill health. Gary has done this to further raise awareness of the many issues surrounding mental illness, and to attempt to reduce the stigma which continues to problematise the lives of many. But, as this is "The Versatile Blogger" award, perhaps I'll just say that my blog does attempt to cover other subjects as well as mental ill health, the main purpose of this being to show that those with a diagnosis of mental illness are not defined by their experience of such conditions, but are rather so much more than any label can

"A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members". Mahatma Gandhi.  Two recent TV programmes, Chanel 4's "Dispatches - Britain on the Sick", and BBC2's "Panorama - Disabled or Faking It?", revealed just how difficult it is to pass the assessment in order to get disability benefits in this country. As part of a programme to try to get people off incapacity benefit and back into employment, the coalition has contracted the French multinational company, Atos, to carry out such assessments, a contract worth £100 million a year. But, the programmes revealed that people with serious disabilities are being assessed as fit for work. In the "Dispatches" programme, an undercover doctor went to Atos Healthcare's 16-week training programme to see how those who carry out the assessments are trained.What emerged was truly disturbing. The doctor in charge at one point advised the trainees that even if a person had on

OK, I have to admit that I was a little cynical about the London Olympic Games before they started. There was the ever-increasing cost (with some saying that the initial figure of £2.4 billion had ballooned to perhaps ten times that amount), the G4S security fiasco, and the fact that the Games was going to be so totally London-centric. But, when the opening ceremony arrived, I have to say my hardened, turgid little heart began to melt somewhat. Danny Boyle's spectacular extravaganza made me think twice about what the Games is really all about, and when one Tory politician even described it as having a political bias, that it was too left-wing, I began to warm to the whole affair. After all, anything that annoys Conservative MPs can only be a good thing, surely. Perhaps I should point out, though, that the guy who made those remarks is currently, I think, being investigated for attending a party in which Nazi garb was worn and extreme right-wing opinions espoused. Not surprising, th