Baby born with heart on the outside !!!

https://news.sky.com/story/mum-of-baby-vanellope-born-with-heart-on-outside-ive-been-on-rollercoaster-11168888




The above link will take you to a news article from today where a baby has been born with her heart outside of her body and survived. This is fantastic news!!! a big well done to the teams involved in this and all the best wishes for the future of this little girl and her family. Miracles do happen.


I have written before about the stress and anxiety of expecting a baby, its a really worrying time for all involved and finding out at the 9 week scan means there's months and months or worry ahead before you can even see and hold the baby, then years of worry ahead. those who know me or have read my blog will be aware I have not experienced some of the worst case scenarios but I do try to empathise, and that's what I am trying to do here so please indulge me for the next paragraph as its all about me then I'll talk about others.


It was 2003 when my wife and I went for a scan at Good hope hospital, during this scan the mood changed a little as the scenographer spotted something. With the scan finished we met a consultant and had a very quick and blunt discussion about what was found, talk about worst case scenario, the scan had should some cysts on the baby's brain which can be associated with a number of syndromes including ultimately baby loss, of course the last part was the bit that we picked up on. every 2 weeks we were at Good Hope hospital for scans as our babies brain developed these cysts dissolved as part of normal development (I'm not a medic). The fear and stress at the time was horrendous but fortunately for us the baby was born healthy and well. So in trying to apply my experience in understanding the position of the family of the baby in the news all I can say is its incomprehensible and well done to them.


As time goes by we often lose contact with friends and relatives but every now an then paths will cross and it was only in the last 2 years that I was back in touch with someone who I had not spoken to for decades. I am only raising this because I'd like to use the above news story to raise a little awareness. This person has grown up (as we all have) and started a family, one of their children was also born with a heart problem, I understand part of the heart didn't develop and so its only partly working. I am not aware of all the details so please forgive my ignorance. Again I will say the stress and fears involved in this must be horrific and I admire their emotional resolve. Stories like this in the news and effecting people you know really brings it home and puts perspective on some of the issue we worry about daily. I'd never considered heart development in any of my children's development or any other part of my life before this, its just something that we all lock away and hope doesn't effect us.


So what can we do? Praise the teams who are making a difference and support them, families and charities who are involved in or affected by with this type of issue on a daily basis. one of which is www.chuf.org.uk who have raised tens of millions of pounds to support families and children affected by heart development issues.


The big thing is talking about these things and being aware. They a problem shared is a problem halved, emotionally it maybe or a conversation may just open a door to someone that they didn't know existed.  I suppose what I'm saying is whilst this is a special case as the baby girl is the first in the UK to survive there are many others effected by embryonic development issues and we don't know or discuss them.


Once again Well done to the team involved in the case above and well done to the families staying strong facing life's challenges.

How Do You Pick Yours ? Elections & Voting

Every year in Tamworth we have elections whether that be Borough/District, County, General or in recent times referendums and this means for me delivering leaflets and knocking doors. This year during April I walked 100.1 miles on the 'campaign trail', and as in every year on polling day I spoke to a voter who told me they had not had a leaflet of anyone (I delivered that street myself so I know they did). This and seeing many variations of signage on doors stating 'No cold callers', 'we do not need...', 'No junk Mail', 'posted mail only' etc made me think more and more about how people in 2017 decide who to vote for?
(This is not a politically motivated way of improving my campaigning its a genuine thing I've pondered.)

The picture has changed so much in a relatively short time, I remember electrons when some areas always returned councillors from a particular party and some parties even stopped producing leaflets for these areas. Now I feel society seems to be engaging again in politics and as a result campaigning has changed. It's not only society becoming more engaged there have also been some significant changes, the onset of 24 hour news and of course social media.
24 hour news is a great thing, well I say that. Recently I had a job where I worked nights and slept very little this exposed me to many hours of BBC and Sky news, the repetition was mind numbing and then in a way to stretch the news further there's the whole raft of opinion or editorial pieces thrown in often without clear identification. So no we have opinion and discussion drip feeding into the news and of course discussion and opinion is to an extent reliant on speculation.

Let's not forget the influence of social media!!!! Social media can be a great tool to get a message out to a large number of people. What social media doesn't do is discriminate, anyone can post anything they like via a variety of platforms and once that has been shared a couple of times it's difficult to control and becomes perpetuating, we saw so much incorrect information during the with referrendum and the US presidential election the messages of the conpaigns were often lost but this still influences people's vote.

Just 2 more points I'd like to share before finishing for now.
It is said that parents influence the vote of their offspring until on average the age of 24 where the offspring will decide for themselves.
I saw a news stand/box containing The Sun newspaper last year, on this was printed "The Sun, for Entertainment,gossip,sport". It never mention news anywhere!

I don't want to go into solution mode as I would like to know what other people's thoughts are on voting influence. What makes you vote a particular way?
Leaflets ?
A knock at the door ?
Ever read a manifesto ?
National papers ?
Radio & TV ?
Friends?
Family?
Social media?

Squirrels on pills

 This week The Times newspaper reported an alternative way of controlling grey squirrel populations in a hope to protect the native red squirrel and also native trees for future generations, Read it here.

Its estimated there are 3 million grey squirrels in the UK compared to around 200,000 reds, oh and there might be around 25,000 black squirrels. since greys arrived reds have been squeezed out of the uk by these immigrants (I suspect as they came from the usa Brexit ain't going to bother them). i didn't realise that aside from the impact on the red squirrel greys also strip bark from native trees leaving them exposed to disease. Oh and Greys also carry Squirrel Pox !

Photo borrowed from BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7573535.stm

So why have I decided to write about this ?

I suppose it links to my "End of Conkers" entry in October, The British countryside is changing !!!

The first thing that springs to mind is "oh Red Squirrels are cute with their hairy ears". Then I thought, I wonder when i last saw a squirrel, well it was the other day on the way to the school run and yes it was grey squirrel, I don't think I have ever seen a black squirrel. And this made me ask the question  is it better to see a red squirrel or no squirrel at all ?

Living in Tamworth Squirrels are not uncommon and its always fun to spot them when out with my children. 

So the suggestion supported by Prince Charles is not to cull but to put contraceptives in Nutella in specialised traps that will only feed grey squirrels and stop them breeding, this will reduce the population from 3 million to 300 thousand in 5 years. What the article doesn't tell us is how fast the red squirrel population will grow with the absents of greys. I'm no expert in this field either but surely greys have now to a large extent become a part of the british eco system and so I would suggest that any action must be carefully measured. The last think we need is a Myxomatosis crisis but in squirrels. 

I don't know what the answer is to be honest but what i do know is human intervention brought them here and I always worry about human intervention to try to reduce any human created issue, I have way to many questions to get to a conclusion including Is there actually a problem to be solved here or a change to our country. I'm sure we have done more damage to the country side through industry than we care to measure.

I've sort of ran out of steam with this as I'm not sure of my conclusion. 

There is something that doesn't feel right about this but I'm not sure what, for now I am going to enjoy looking out for squirrels (like the one below outside St. Edithas church Tamworth) and leave the debate for those who have actual knowledge and not based solely on emotion. 

Fake News, Read all about it!

Since Donald Trump was announced President Elect the media and pollsters have been running round trying to work out how it happened and whilst I do not necessarily agree that one of their conclusions was correct I do think there's something to this story. The election was affected by fake news particularly fake news shared on facebook.

  I don't think it had much of an impact but every vote counts as it did with brexit. The difference was that either side were creating the brexit fake news whereas here we see something more sinister. The allegation is that due to the business model of facebook it is profitable to create and have fake news shared. Therefore anything can be said just for the sake of profit and we all know where this is going... the more sensational the story the less it relates to reality the more it will be shared and the more profit is made.

    STOP RIGHT THERE!!! What about the poor gullible teenagers and young people who believe this crap.  I have a daughter who often walks into a room and starts a conversation with -
     "oh my god have you heard about...."
to which my reply is either
     "Where have you been?"   or
     "Really! Where did you read that" or
      "That is complete......"
And then get "it's true I read it on facebook!"

This gets me thinking again does everyone know you can't believe everything you read.

I stopped writing the blog as I was drawn into a conversation with a blogger (like proper blogger, she has 16000 comments on her blog I have 16, www.simplybeingmum.com) a barrister and a university medical lecturer. We were talking about Trump ,brexit and this story.

Can't we believe all we read, the conversation I had assumed everyone knew we shouldn't, and whilst we noted that the printed press is regulated both they and the virtual press or social media have the chance to produce some far fetched stuff. Then there's the situation of a true story but the facts are presented after many would have stop reading. The medical lecturer explained he had recently read a story that he thought simply didn't make sense (here's a link) it wasn't until he got to the last few sentences that his thoughts were confirmed as an expert stated is story was unlikely. But this was a story on the BBC so it must be real, just like the famous War of the Worlds reading or BBC program Ghostwatch.

  I think this reinforces how we should  be careful I do think many believe believe without question something they have read, I've heard people say it's true I read it in the paper on the letters page. Why we are persuaded by text more so than spoken word, I wonder if it's a historical trait from the great philosophers. 

This blog has really gone off at a tangent!!

I think we should all reflect and consider what we read especially in the day and age of social media. And when it comes to politics elections and referendum the best hope you have is the leaflets the candidates produce. Good luck

The 'fake' news that really annoys me is the sort that is repeated so many times the masses believe it, the one in particular is the American view of the ethnic make up of the UK.
throughout the us election we heard it repeated as a fact and I have seen many videos on Youtube stating as a fact that the uk population is 50% muslim ? Firstly so what if it was. Secondly this is simply not correct and woe betide anyone who comments on a youtube video to state its not true as they will get a torrent of abuse.

I think the 2 parts that annoy me with this fake news is the fact that its spread with dark undertones of racism and has no basis, but when senior US campaigners are spreading this what chance has the average american got. The UK is a great place which has been built on diversity and acceptance a place where we have been able to walk shoulder to shoulder with people from different cultures, religions and backgrounds, It annoys me the this can be damaged by scaremongering by the ignorant and the perpetuation allows those who try to use religion as a reason for terrorism to win, Muslims are not terrorist, in the same way Catholics became alienated by the Terrorism of Guy Fawkes.  Terrorist are nothing more than terrorist.

Ok getting excited there, but I will share the figures of the UK's religious breakdown just for any ill informed readers.

Detailed 2015 BSA survey on religion in the UK Affiliation % of U.K. population
Christian 42 %

Church of England 17%

Other Christian 17%

Roman Catholic 8%

Unaffiliated 49 %

Non-Christian faiths 8 %

Muslim 5%

Other Non-Christian faiths 3%

Don't know/refused answer 1%

Total
100 %