Family Conditioned Book Club

Hay has joined a book club - the name alone is anathema to me. I could no more read a book because I had to than jump 6 feet. They are a bunch of ladies who visit each others houses in turn on a Thursday evening once a month to discuss their latest enforced read. The men of the households concerned normally hide themselves away in another room, but living in an open planned house, there's no way I can escape. Dreading it.

Overheard while discussion the Book Club:

Chairman: "I wouldn't have the slightest interest in someone else's opinion of a book I had just read, especially if I liked it."

Hay: "You're not interested in other people's opinions, period!"

I hear France has approved a law to ban fashion houses using excessively thin models. Surely that's discriminatory? Surely it's also discriminatory to not use fat models.

Overheard when discussing this:

Chairman: "Why do they use thin models?"

Hay: "They want to show off the clothes, so the model has to be almost invisible, and thin, androgynous models show off the clothes best."

Chairman: "So they wouldn't use me?"

Hay: "The only company who would use you as a model is ScrewFix!"

I see Nigel Farage's TV debate statement about HIV health tourism has caused faux outrage among the PC brigade, but he said what every rational taxpayer thinks and most politicians dare not say. Are taxpayers being asked to support and fund an International Health Service, or a National Health Service? There has to be a limit, and it does not stigmatize people with HIV, as one of the contenders posited - just the ones who come to the UK for free treatment, any treatment. Using Farage's figures as a maximum and an independent analysis conducted by the BBC as the lower level, that means between £45m and £105m being spent on HIV health tourism - enough, using the conservative limit, to fund over 500 doctors or three times as many nurses.

I still can't support UKIP, but the man has the courage to say what today is considered unsayable and must be said. I find that quite refreshing a political environment where politicians are afraid of being seen as rational in case it offends someone. In an attempt to offend no-one, they offend everyone.

The BBC reports a poll which says 61% would support a tax rise to adequately fund the NHS. I would guess there's a rider on this - so long as it's not them who have to suffer the tax rise. I do not believe any modern party that campaigns for tax rises will ever be elected to power.

I was listening to Julia Neuberger on the radio yesterday - she was talking about the relevance of the Lord's Prayer to her Jewish faith. It struck me that the only reason she's a Jew is because her parents were Jews - pretty evident in most people's religion, but that made be consider the massive impact of family conditioning on people, a power we should not underestimate. If you want to discover the reason why people do the things they do, or are the way they are, you need look no further than their family.