Tin Helmet at the Ready

IVF is a wonderful thing.  It gives hope to many people who want a child and although the success rate isn't the best, especially the older you get,  I can see why people want to use it.

IVF is also very expensive.  It is a choice.  Not a necessity.  You can, if you can afford it that is, pay for it yourself.  In the current climes not many people can afford the treatment and as such, they turn to the NHS to pay for it.

Whilst I support the right of people to have free IVF under the NHS, I do have a question.  Recent new stories have suggested that woman over the age of 40 are now to be given the option of having IVF.  The chances of success over the age of 40 are less than 5%.  Is this not a bad allocation of funds?

Currently cervical cancer checks are offered to women only over the age of 25.  Cancer can affect someone at any age.

I would think that than lowering the screening age for cervical cancer would be better, and would be infinitely more beneficial than funding IVF for woman over 40 which gives only a very small chance of success. Saving lives is what we should be aiming for.

Black Clouds

Sometimes, a few times a year actually, I get what I tend to call my black cloud.

Contrary to what you see on Twitter with my regular ranting, stroppy self, off Twitter I’m quite a sunny person.  Different aspects of your personality and all that.

Depression hits me a few times a year.  I’m not going to deny it.  It’s the price you pay for compartmentalisation.   If you shove everything that hurts/you don’t like in a drawer, now and again it’s going to escape and bite you in the ass.

Right now, I’m in a crappy place.  I’ve been there before and it’s not a nice vacation.  But it’s normally a short stay as opposed to the long haul.  If it ever becomes long haul then feel free to send in the men with the white coats.

I’m not saying any of this in an attempt to garner sympathy or whatever. But saying “I’m disappearing for a few days because I have issues” normally needs a least a short explanation.  Before people think that you are mental.  Which I probably am.  But you knew that already

Typical fucking me for entering black cloud stage right before the Monaco Grand Prix.   Although if the quali/race doesn’t pull me back, nothing will lol

See you in a few.  xx

We All Deserve Respect

I'm an atheist.  I believe that we are in charge of our own destiny and that there is no all powerful creator up there running the show.  That's my choice to believe that.

I fully believe in freedom of choice and if that means that you have religion in your life, be it Christianity, Hindusim, Buddism, whatever your particular choice may be, then you are free to have it.  We each have the choice to decide who we are, what we do and whether we choose to believe in a particular religion or not.

I have in the past, I admit, occasionally made jokes about Easter on a social media site which at the time I thought was funny.  It was, quite rightly, pointed out to me that the platform I was using had both non believers and believers there and perhaps my joke was out of taste.  In hindsight it was out of taste, and wrong for me to say, and I'm sorry for it.

We need to respect other people's choices and not make fun of, or judge them.  I wouldn't expect a Christian to come up to me and tell me I was going to burn in hell for being an atheist any more than I would expect an atheist to go up to a Buddist and start making jokes about them, and their religion.  It's called mutual respect.

Recently though Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor crossed that line.  He was quoted in saying that 

"Secular values were behind the violence carried out in totalitarian states and some of the 20th century conflicts that have killed millions".

What I could say now is "People in glass houses should not throw sounds".  I could then start naming various dictators and leaders who have themselves and through their actions killed millions, but I won't.

That sort of thing turns into a game of "Well he did that so I did this".

I suspect that the Cardinal is really actually angry because he doesn't have as much power and sway over people as he, and indeed the Church, once had. 

No religion belongs in politics, healthcare and the way people can lead their lives.  It may have been the ways things were done in the past, and indeed in some countries it still is, but in Great Britain you have people from many religions with different beliefs and you cannot have one rule for one, one rule for another.