Monday 3 November

Amidst the fuss over Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand’s antics recently, it has emerged that BBC executives seem to also be paid obscene amounts of money. I find myself pondering what an unfair and unjust society we live in, with such huge disparities between the wealthy and the poor and the rather bizarre anomaly that the BBC licence fee doesn’t come out of taxation, but instead every household has to pay. One of the few blessings about being blind is that I pay a reduced licence fee, but it’s still irksome that I have to pay up yet have little say in how that money is spent!

Also on the news agenda is a campaign by MacMillan Cancer Care. Highlighting the fact that only pensioners over a certain age get the winter fuel allowance, MacMillan Cancer Care argues that people affected by cancer who are unable to work should also receive this allowance. I am inclined to agree. Lots of us who are affected by disability are also at home a lot and also feel the cold! Let’s hope that this campaign gathers force because the last few days in London have been bitterly cold! I constantly face the dilemma of whether to have the heating on and watch my heating bill rise or keep it off and shiver! It’s all very well for the Government to say that there is help available for insulation and keeping the heat in – it’s help with fuel bills that is needed, given the huge hike in costs recently, costs that are not matched by any increase in benefits!!

November always seems a rather sad month: winter seems to have arrived, it gets dark really early, and there are all the connotations of the dead. I’m writing this on All Souls Day, so my mind turns to family and friends who have died, as well as people that I have loved or who have made a mark on my life in some way. It’s easy to become melancholic, but fortunately I am propelled back into fits of mirth by coverage on the radio of the latest antics of Sarah Palin and her desire to be next US Vice-President!


All the joys of the US elections are shortly to come. Anyone would think we were the 51st State of the Union, given the blanket coverage here of the US elections! At least we have a British Formula 1championship winner to celebrate!!