I’ve been pondering the rash of new regulations over the week-end in the US, a country the UK grows more alike every week.

First the cinema chain AMC banned ‘Joker’ costumes, and fake fire arms being carried into cinemas. This apparently is to prevent a rash of copy cat killings in the wake of the Aurora shootings. You can still legally purchase an AK 47, and go dressed as the Priest in The Thorn Birds…but you will not ‘copy cat’ the Aurora shooting. That’s a relief then.

Then the US boy Scouts Association voted to ‘ban gays’ from membership. This will have the desired effect of preventing openly gay campaigners from making a political statement joining the movement, but do absolutely nothing to protect young boys from unwelcome attention.

We did much the same thing in the UK with our CRB checks; great, it stopped those already with a conviction for child abuse from re-entering vulnerable occupations, but it made children even more vulnerable as the world turned its back, satisfied that a piece of legislation was going to take the place of watchful caring.

Somehow my mind wandered from there to the caring issue, and how that is the real class divide in Britain. The sound bites say that class is merely a matter of how much money you have, and that by gaining more money you somehow acquire more class (lottery anyone? It could be you!) – which is very much the class divide in the US. In Britain, if you are a ‘carer’ in myriad forms, you are automatically lower class. The upper class are ‘cared for’ – and have the money to pay for it. Ipso this turns anyone who is receiving money to perform that ‘duty’ into a lesser social being.

It is a psychological distinction which doesn’t exist in France, and it makes a heck of a difference to day to day life. Perhaps believing that they  guillotined all their aristocracy in the revolution has made all the difference – for there are certainly still aristocrats in France; there are many exceptionally wealthy people, the political elite lead a rarefied life that must be the envy of British politicians – yet there is not the same resentment towards those who have more than you, and definitely not the same sullen resistance to performing any task that smacks of ‘servitude’. Nor is there the same deep need to deck oneself out with the accoutrements that define your social position – the right car, the designer clothes, the house in the right street. (I exclude Paris from this comment, since that is another country as far as the rest of France is concerned. Different rules apply).

Watch an Englishman walk into a bar in France. He marches straight up to the counter to demand service. He shows them the colour of his money. He places his ‘order’ – he may then turn to his wife and find out what she would like! But the deed is done, he has defined his place in the pecking order of who serves who. He has, of course, monumentally offended the bar tender. Denied him the chance to ‘care’ by noticing this new arrival in his establishment and walking across to his table to find out how he can best satisfy his needs. For being a bar tender here is no ‘menial job’, it is a profession, a respected profession. One that they take pride in. Ditto the waiter in a restaurant.

Even though I was aware of the social faux pas of walking straight up to the bar, I hadn’t really twigged the difference between the two nations in ‘caring’ until I landed up in hospital. I was surprised at the number of male nurses. I was even more surprised at their familiarity with especially a woman. A bed bath from a man? I struggled with that one. A man lifting you onto a bed pan, and then staying with you, gently supporting your back so you didn’t fall off, patting your leg with easy familiarity? Whoa! A man lifting your breast into that infernal mammogram machine, a lone man in an otherwise empty building? I had to rethink my own prejudices. Why did it feel so strange? So awkward?

It took time to sink in that every aspect of caring was seen as something you could and should take pride in – not a menial job reserved for the lowest form of human life, a working class woman. As a restaurant diner, no matter how dressed; as a client seeking coffee, no matter only spending one euro; as a patient, no matter how awkward, you have become someone with needs to be met, and meeting those needs is an honourable profession. As, I might add, is prostitution in France! Or being a Mistress.

The cleaner who cleans your hospital room, does a superb job. He’s not an immigrant happy to take any job – he’s a consummate professional. Lunch arrives, and it is a series of tasty little ‘tempters’, delivered by someone who hangs around to ensure that you can get the top off this, that you don’t require more salt, perhaps you would prefer the pear flavour rather than the apple? It’s not thrown at you with an air of ‘there you go, love’. And those are some of the most menial jobs in the UK.

Garden centres here are the perennial haunt, as they are in England, of an army of the mentally disabled in wheelchairs with accompanying carers. Yet there is a difference; the carers don’t wear that expression of bored indifference – ‘I’m actually a Nuclear Science PhD student and I’m only doing this part time I’ll have you know’. They are engaged with their charges, laughing, joking, touching, encouraging. Taking a pride in their job again.

There is still a class system here, but it is not divided by money. Try refusing to take a job you have been unwittingly voted into by your community (you can add names to the voting list if you don’t think any of the proffered candidates are suitable for a particular job!) and you will soon find out which class you are in. Too proud to serve your community? That is the lowest of the low. Try being an immigrant who doesn’t want to work. Try not looking after your elderly parents.

Perhaps if Britain could drop this American notion that class is all about money, the country would be better for it. We wouldn’t need a regulation which says that carers must proffer a bed pan every 16 hours. You can’t make people care by regulation. You can’t stop mass murder by banning the costume the last mass murderer appeared in. You can’t stop child abuse by banning groups of people who may or may not have transgressed in the past. We need to stop seeing work as an imposition imposed on us by our misfortune in life not to have been born as an aristocrat.

I’m not sure how we do that – is there a kinder way than chopping the heads off the entire House of Lords? Suggestions please!

Oscar July 25, 2012 at 06:28

This will have the desired effect of preventing openly gay campaigners
from making a political statement joining the movement, but do absolutely
nothing to protect young boys from unwelcome attention.[…] it made children
even more vulnerable as the world turned its back, satisfied that a piece of
legislation was going to take the place of watchful caring
Very wrong.
It protects boys from an unwelcome attention exactly by intoducing the
watchful caring, instead of the stating that it’s a hate crime to keep a
watchful eyes on gays. A piece of legislation does not exclude control, but
rather gives a frame to the possibility of using your rights to protect your
own.

Anna
Raccoon July 25, 2012 at 06:52

You think all the paedophiles are Gay?

gladiolys
July 25, 2012 at 07:49

No anna. I bet, however, he thinks all gays are paedophiles.

Oscar July 25, 2012 at 08:24

Not all men are paedophiles, but all the same it will be reasonable to
keep a watchfull eye on adult men, applying to a job which includes
putting to bed 7-12 year old girls, not all women are paedophiles but all
the same it will be reasonable to keep a watchfull eye on adult women
applying to a job which includes taking shower together with 7-12 year old
boys. Or is it a crime to want your kids be so protected?

Robert Edwards
July 24, 2012 at 09:37

Agree with Brian, Elena. More!

It has been both my pleasure and my pain to have had extensive dealings
with the French and, by and large I like and admire them a lot. Given that
London is now the seventh largest French City (Quebec doesn’t count) it is
inevitable that more and more Brits come across them. Generally speaking, to
meet the French, to do business with them, to be friends with them is an
improving experience. I find the attitudes of French women to men particularly
refreshing.

And if the French encounter the proper sort of Brit, then the knife cuts
both ways. I visit the North coast from time to time and I am always enchanted
by the good manners, the well-behaved kids, the well-groomed dogs, the
exemplary service and overall sense of politesse.And then I espy some fellow
Brits. Drunk, loudmouthed, tattoo’d and totally incurious about their
surroundings. And I despair.

But to have dealings with a Pepsi (French Canadian) is to sample a little
tiny piece of hell, particularly if you are a Brit. So, Gallic charm, like
very old claret, does not always travel well.

Crikey ! July 24, 2012 at 07:06

You paint a caring, sharing picture of your chosen home-nation, Anna, and
one can praise your sensibilities and your cognitive dissonance. The
rationales for the different behaviours and ‘staffing’ issues seem to be just
a little lacking in scope, however.

Perhaps Francophile and Anglophile differences have more to do with
modernity than the Revolution, ‘class’ or Catholicism. The presence of caring,
considerate men in the hospital is ‘telling’ as is your response to their
assistance. In the UK, as in all Anglophile countries that I have observed,
Feminism has won the war and all men are automatically considered potential
(if not actual, daily) rapists and child molesters. There is absolutely no way
a ‘Man !!!(tm) would be allowed near a woman’s bed-bath experience let alone
be present as she lowered her garments for the loo. Horreur! Someone would
‘report it’. Police would be called. Sackings would occur.

As Doris Lessing said, back in 2003 ““I find myself increasingly shocked at
the unthinking and automatic rubbishing of men which is now so part of our
culture that it is hardly even noticed. The most stupid, ill-educated and
nasty woman can rubbish the nicest, kindest and most intelligent man and no
one protests”. No-one took any notice, of course.

Perhaps you are right about the demeanour of the French being preferable. I
can remember when English men were trusted and relied upon too. Quite a long
time ago.

Ted Treen July 23, 2012 at 23:27

I have long held that real class – or lack of it – has little to do with
wealth or the circumstances of one’s birth. Class is summed up (and not just
by me) as an amalgam of one’s character and actions.

I know some people I would describe as very low class – yet they have far
more wealth, and come from a wealthier lineage than I. I know others who I
would describe of a much higher class than I am – yet their income, lifestyle
and circumstances are much more modest than those which I enjoy.

And on the whole, those upper-class (by my criteria) people are nicer and
happier than the merely wealthy.

Not always, but generally.

GildasTheMonk
July 23, 2012 at 22:38

Erm, come to think of it, I often dress as the priest off The Thorn
Birds….just sayin’!

JuliaM July 23,
2012 at 16:21

“Somehow my mind wandered from there to the caring issue, and how that
is the real class divide in Britain. The sound bites say that class is merely
a matter of how much money you have, and that by gaining more money you
somehow acquire more class (lottery anyone? It could be you!)”

Oh, no! That’s never been the case here. What matters is how you earned
your money, or – for the aristocracy – how your great-great-grandfather earned
your money!

Elena ‘andcart
July 23, 2012 at 15:31

I have lived here for nearly twenty years now, and I am still amazed by the
incredible good manners and the kindness, although I don’t suppose that this
says much for my life before I came here. I am a very ordinary woman with very
ordinary, albeit nice children, but I have never been able to explain to them
what grabs me about this place. You have to live it to know it.
Catholicism
in rural France isn’t the same as it is perceived to be in Britain because it
encompasses everyone no matter who they are. And it is still quite glorious,
if you like that sort of thing, which I do. Absolutely everyone goes to a
local funeral, and after it is done you really feel as though that person has
been well sent on their way with love.
All Saints is lovely, and we all
take Chrysanthemums to the graves of people that we cared about, so very few
people are actually forgotten.
No, I don’t believe in a life hereafter, or
even a God as most would like Him to be. But I do believe in The Universe.
Ashes to Ashes and Dust to Dust, and you can bury me here when the time comes.
The French know about continuity you see. And I know without doubt that The
Community will be at my funeral. And I expect that this will be of some
comfort to my sons. This is what it is all about. This is the planting and the
harvest. Britain has lost this.

binao July 24, 2012 at 00:02

My sister did the usual with her husband of buy and restore a ruin in
rural France.

Sadly,having achieved their dream, at 60 she died, about 7 years
ago.
Not only did her neighbour from their tiny hamlet sit with her body
prior to the funeral; when we arrived from England for the funeral service
in the nearby village church it seemed that everybody local was waiting
outside the church until we entered. The church then filled for a very
moving service in which we all had a part to play. Thankfully, my French was
better then.

I try to visit my sister’s grave most years. Last year I took another
sister with me. We had lunch in the one local restaurant. After lunch, I
explained to the waitress why we were visiting. Ah, she said, ‘le grand
homme avec les lunettes’, my beau frere, now moved away, had been in only
two weeks ago.

I feel for these communities.
When my sister was first hospitalised in
France I spent some time visiting. One evening in the only local village
bar, despite my poor French, we got into conversation with some locals. They
weren’t hostile, but it was obvious that the sound of English had been
unwelcome. When they understood that I wasn’t yet another English working on
the black, expecting Heinz ketchup on the table and not paying taxes, the
mood changed completely. I was even thanked for learning their language,
‘when I didn’t need to’.

colin lovelace
July 23, 2012 at 14:46

I forgot to mention in my original reply that I think your reference to the
typical English man stomping to the bar to order rather than sit down and wait
to be served is a bit misleading. I often go to bars here in france and NEVER
sit down and wait to be served but simply stand and order alongside the other
generally grumpy sods standing alongside me. I meet people this way and in
particular the barmen AND its cheaper! Admittedly with my family I will always
sit down and wait to be served.
One habit here that touches on your point
that in France there is hightened sense of shared humanity is illustrated by
the way that a French person on entering any public place will genenerally
greet the assembled throng wherever it be with “Bonjour,Mesdames,Messieurs”
and Au revoir” when they leave which has always touched me.

philip walling
July 23, 2012 at 14:15

Anna, has it anything to do with their catholic background?

There is a genuine attempt in France to include everybody, whatever they
look like or do, or have, whereas in protestant Britain, and particularly
america, there is the ever-present instinct to exclude if an excuse to do so
should present itself.

When you walk into a French bar (not in big cities, now but it used to
happen) everybody greets you, even if it’s just with a cursory nod, your
presence is acknowledged and by doing that you are included. Shaking hands and
kissing everybody in sight comes from the same instinct.
Something similar
happens in shops; you are going into the proprietor’s private space and he
greets you, as you ought to greet him when you enter, and when you
leave.
In Britain the shop is a de facto public place which you are
entitled to enter unless you are told to leave, therefore you do not need to
acknowledge the proprietor or the assistant.

I venture to suggest that a sense of shared humanity is the difference
between Britain, the US and France. In the last you are part of society, even
when you do something that would get you excluded in the US, whereas in the
first two you are only part of society on condition that you obey certain
rules that seem designed to find an excuse to shun you.
One example from
the US is their monstrous penal system. Transgress the rules (three strikes
and you’re out!) and you are expelled from humanity for ever (viz 150 year
sentences). No rehabilitation, no forgiveness, no compassion. You become
sub-human and you are cast into hell for all eternity.

The French seem to act as if they believed what Francis Jammes said in
Priere pour Aller au Paradis avec les Anes, “…for there is no hell in the land
of the loving God…”.

Ed P July 23, 2012 at 14:12

One reason the UK class/money attitudes are so different is surely the
expectation of house prices increasing forever. I believe the French are not
obsessed with “making money” like this.
It’s hard to understand why ageing
and decaying houses increase in price as their values diminish, unlike most
other objects (e.g., cars), but for many people this is their main hope of
social & financial advancement.

Elena ‘andcart
July 23, 2012 at 16:54

French houses, generally speaking, don’t decay because the older houses
were too well built. But The French have cottoned on to this now, which I
have to say pleases me. Some of them now renovate and live in their old
stone houses.
But certain French people did realise that Barmy Brits
would buy any old heap of stones, and the prices did go up some what.
But
you are right in effect because houses should never cost more to buy than
they would cost to build. Other than the price of Land of course. But that
won’t be a problem in France for quite some time. I don’t know about Britain
because I wouldn’t want to live in a box on an Estate, but that’s just me.
There is still much room to be had in France, and you can build a really
half decent house for about £50,000, and with a big garden. But those of us
who were lucky enough to pick up the old ones while they were still very
cheap are not too keen on parting with.
We all did have to bucket and
chuck it while we installed working lavatories and something resembling a
kitchen, but it was a lot of fun.

There is a flaw in my argument because it would cost a fortune to rebuild
my house as it is, but hopefully my Insurance Company have got that in hand.
But that’s the other joke. My House Insurance is peanuts by comparison to
Angleterre.

gladiolys July 23, 2012 at 12:39

Following your post Anna, and Gildas’ comment above, I will make myself
unpopular here by saying this is one reason why I believe it’s important that
UK remains in the EU. If we leave, I believe it’s a short while before we
become incorporated into a Greater United States (Airstrip One?). I have lived
in USA and it can be a wonderful place with great people – but it can be
brutal too. I believe the EU helps to curb the worse of the drifts to
Americanisms in UK culture. Every little helps.

On another note, did you see the Odeon in Leicester Square London was now
searching people’s bags as the go into the cinema to watch The Dark Knight
Rises in case there are copycat attacks in London?

Anna
Raccoon July 23, 2012 at 13:01

Airstrp One? I think that is the perceptive comment of the week. A wholly
believable fate for the UK.

Frontline in the US battle against terrorism, anyone?

Woodsy42 (Mr) July 23, 2012 at 21:01

We are the frontline in intellectual property rights, worth more than
anti-terrorism!

JuliaM July 23,
2012 at 16:23

How are we supposed to have copycat attacks here when the only guns are
in the hands of gangs? They’ll be too busy out on the streets holding up
drug dealers and shooting rivals with them to bother about shooting up a
cinema!

drsolly July
24, 2012 at 17:25

The theory I’ve heard from USians, is that in the absence of guns,
people will do mass killings in other ways. So instead of using a
semi-automatic rifle, they’d commit mass murder with a walking stick.

I heard that in some cinemas, they’ve banned people from taking in
replica guns. I don’t suppose it occurred to them to ban real guns.

cascadian
July 24, 2012 at 21:06

Ah yes, the mad USian argument, too bad it exposes the fact that
Europeans are if anything crazier.

http://www.thecrimsonpirate.com/blog/?p=1871, seems
that the Europeans who wet their panties every time a gun is mentioned
are just as liable to go on mad gun rampages, even though guns are
banned throughout most of Europe. And yes real guns ARE banned from
Colorado cinemas. Notably the study was completed before the
Breivik/Utoya mass murder.

Perhaps there ought to be a law against Europeans jumping to
conclusions, nah! that would never work.

JimS July 23, 2012 at 18:10

The UK is being changed from being a ‘club’, which is of us and we are of
it and anyone is free to join, to a ‘hotel’, where we are all ‘customers’ of
all nationalities and of none, to be served as the ‘management’ sees fit as
long as we pay the ‘bill’.

The EU is a direct driver of this process, the USA merely an indirect
driver. We should divorce ourselves of the marxists on both sides of the
Atlantic, with their closed, developed, protectionist markets and look to
complimentary trade with the Commonwealth and the non-aligned world.

The only way the ‘EU’ can save the UK is if the ‘rural’ French revolt and
break the system. Sadly they are just pawns in the game and are no more the
‘EU’ than we are. You only have to listen to the likes of ‘Uriah’ Mandelson
to see how little the EU Elite cares about us.

GildasTheMonk
July 23, 2012 at 12:30

Thoughtful and thought provoking stuff. I remember very well you
observations on how professional the (often male) nurses and the whole staff
were when you were so ill, with a rather different attitude. On the whole, I
find the French style of life and manners more attractive than the American.
Indeed from my own dear friend’s recent experiences of the American health
care “system” I think the place sounds apalling!

New Jerusalem
July 23, 2012 at 11:21

Allthough Saxon at heart,my travels all over France have left me with
visions of splendour ,character and tranquility,my only misgiving was
the
French.Are they worthy of such a Gallic legacy made noble from the Decline of
the Roman Empire to the absurd French Revolution.
Our Anglo Saxon ancestors
had the choice ,settle in the dust or take longboat to Britain,obviously they
made the right choice

We few ,we band of brothers

colin lovelace
July 23, 2012 at 10:32

This is a bit rosy- tinted – Jacobin traditions of egalité within the
French education system still result in harsh treatment for those who struggle
to learn- two of my children have had to repeat whole school years after
receiving little help to cope with rigid teaching methods but I agree about
class- society here is generally free of the insidious judgement of people
based on how they speak or on what if any university they attended.
If you
want to change all this in Britain, abolish the monarchy and the public
schools as a starter.A fine example of all that was yesterday at the awards
ceremony on the Champs Elysée for the Tour de France- the American ambassador
in shorts and teeshirt, the British representative absurdly wrapped in a Union
Jack singing ‘God save the Queen.’

Anna
Raccoon July 23, 2012 at 10:36

“A fine example of all that was yesterday at the awards ceremony on the
Champs Elysée for the Tour de France- the American ambassador in shorts and
teeshirt, the British representative absurdly wrapped in a Union Jack
singing ‘God save the Queen.’”

Hmmn, and Francois Hollande in suit, shirt and tie…..upholding the
dignity of the presidency no doubt – I did say Parisians were different!

Brentfordian
July 23, 2012 at 10:12

Sort of agree, but your Englishman at the bar example admits of no other
explanation.

When we’re in France my wife insists on walking straight up to the bar –
she’ll also return any used cups when she leaves. Not through arrogance but
through politeness – where she comes from that’s how politeness manifests
itself: she’s anxious that the waiter doesn’t feel she’s taking advantage of
him to clear away her dirty cutlery.

Of course, if she were resident she’d have cottoned on, but yes, she’s got
it wrong (and I’ve told her numerous times – you try!).

Point is that if one is unfamiliar with the local mores one is always going
to be misinterpretted.

And is it really true that to offer a Frenchman a bowl of powdered sugar
with his coffee, rather than a bowl of sugar lumps is to insult him, as the
Telegraphs Englishman in France would have it? (Sorry, forget his name.) I
mean, how on earth (in the absence of a manual) would you twig that?

binao July 23, 2012 at 10:11

Funny thing is, volunteers, at least in my community, do show care and
courtesy, and a will to ‘do it right’.
My own view is that the volunteer
gets as much out of the exchange as the recipient.
So why can’t people
being paid to provide a service get the same satisfaction?

gladiolys July 23, 2012 at 11:05

As a long-term volunteer, I would say I do it because I want to, because
I feel it is the right thing to do. There are many other volunteers I have
met who are amazing and there are numerous acts of kindness and caring I
have seen that go unremarked.

If you are getting paid to do it, and you see it as just another job,
like emptying bins, that you have to do to earn money to pay the rent –
well, I’d refer you to Mike’s earlier comment about “calling”. Who would
admit to that these days?

Brian July 23,
2012 at 11:32

I blame the Minimum Wage: who would do or care more than the minimum in
return for being paid the minimum? If money isn’t a motivator then why do
bankers and chief execs need bonuses, especially as they have status and
autonomy?

gladiolys
July 23, 2012 at 12:34

That’s an argument I’ve been making since this “crisis” begun – we
worry more about money than we do about people. To be blunt, it’s the
people who do the shitty jobs, whether that is wiping an elderly person’s
backside, cleaning toilets or maintaining sewers, who deserve the bonuses,
not the people who manipulate money to make more money.

Brian July
24, 2012 at 14:49

Our society treats the people doing the crap jobs like the Ancient
Greeks treated the helots, ie it ignored them and took their
contributions for granted. Because their financial cost was minimal then
ergo their financial importance was minimal and their social value
compared to the idle thinkers who parasitised them was minimal. Who
knows the names of anyone who pressed the olive oil or worked in the
fields in Ancient Greece? Yet without them creating a surplus of
production Archimedes would have been putting in 18 hour days on his
smallholding – or he might have invented the tractor two millenia
earlier…
What would happen if everyone doing crap jobs (ie jobs that
the workers consider crap as I know street cleaners and bin men who take
a justified pride in their work) decided to have a parliamentary recess
for a fortnight all together? The scumocracy wet themselves when it
looked like 4,000 too few £8/hr security guards would turn up for 6
weeks work at the Lembit Opiks. Are we going to experience a combination
of The Machine Stops and Brave New World?
Finally, why are people in
the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland the
happiest in the UK?

Dave July 23, 2012 at 09:26

You can pay someone to care for you, but money won’t make people care about
you

Elena ‘andcart
July 23, 2012 at 09:23

I think it might be a bit too late. It permeates the whole of British
Society. Here The Brit Pack despise me for working while The French never
have, and The French don’t think I am too old either. That was an eye opener,
once I had recovered from the shock of perpetual good manners. May be that’s
the answer. Teach Good Manners in Schools, and then no one will know what
people think of them. No point in suggesting that Parents teach Good Manners
since a large proportion of them have no idea what that means.

Anna
Raccoon July 23, 2012 at 09:28

Elena,
I have endless admiration for you; I am aware of your, shall we
say, advanced years, and the fact that you do such a hard job, some would
say a man’s job, day after day, is a credit to you. The fact that you have
to, to make your pension stretch to food and
essentials, is a disgrace to the UK.
You are an inspiration.

Elena
‘andcart July 23, 2012 at 09:50

Thank you, Anna. But I do have to say that I’ve had a lot of fun in the
process. And it’s done wonders for my Colloquial French, if not the formal
kind. But every French person that I have ever met can speak formal French
when they want to, and it isn’t exactly a hive of Intellectuals around
here.

Brian July
23, 2012 at 11:24

Elena,

Please excuse my forwardness as I’m not aware of your circumstances,
but have you had a word with the Mairie about claiming ASPA?

Elena
‘andcart July 23, 2012 at 11:57

Thank you, Brian, for thinking of ways to help. Anna sent me some
details about this some time ago, but while I can still work without
any distress, I am reluctant to claim anything from a State which has
been very good to me, and just in passing. I pay no Television
Licence, no Tax d’Habitation, and I get a great chunk off my Tax
Fonciere. But I have this in mind should I ever really need it. This
is a possibility at some point because I intend to live for a very
long time, even if only to screw UK for my Pension. And long life is
much more likely in France.
Also UK Pensions have increased
somewhat of late due to The Exchange Rate not having a lot of faith in
Francois Hollande. Although in my opinion it is the faith or lack of
in The Pound that needs to be addressed. The Euro is doing fine from
where I’m sitting.

Brian July
23, 2012 at 12:23

Elena,
I’m glad you’ve combined a stiff upper lip with joie de
vivre. Floreat Elena! Should the euro collapse the RAF has a plan to
repatriate expats back to Blighty. However, the plan relies on using a
fleet of Airbus A400Ms half the size originally ordered at twice the
price, which are already six years late and with engine problems. So,
HMG would be grateful if you could buy a rowing boat just in case.

Elena
‘andcart July 23, 2012 at
12:38

I was an Air Mechanic in another life, Brian, so I never fly. And
I can’t swim, so I think I’ll stick it out here. And The Care Homes
and Health Service are better anyway.
And I wouldn’t trust HMG to
rescue my dog let alone me.

Brian July 23, 2012 at 23:48

Elena,
Would you please consider writing a piece for the
Raccoon Arms about your time as an Air Mechanic as I’m a fan of
everything aeronautical.

Mike July 23, 2012 at 09:15

Anna
As usual a thought provoking post. I can only really talk about the
medical side. When I started as a medical student in the 60s nursing was a
calling (sounds silly even to write that now). Girls (and they were all girls)
went into nursing because they wanted to nurse. They came from all social
classes, but, I have to admit, some hospitals were seen as being socially
better than others. I went out with a student nurse, the daughter of a bishop,
who had far better A levels than mine, she wanted to nurse. At the end of it
she got an SRN and had to work as a staff nurse for a year if she wanted to
keep her hospital buckle (solid silver). Project 2000 (it was a lot earlier,
it was aiming for year 2000) as it was called started the move to nursing as a
degree course and getting rid of State Enrolled Nurses, who did nursing for
nursing’s sake. Now people go into it as a route to getting a degree while (I
believe) being paid. In the old days student nurses were paid because they
worked (bloody hard) for about 32 weeks a year on the wards (the rest was
holiday and time in block – nursing school). Now they spend very little time
on the ward. The drop out rate is high, and they aren’t in it, in the words of
one recent prize winner to ‘mop the fevered brow’. My point, it isn’t a matter
of class, its a matter of calling, and structure. If you make the structure so
its a way to get a degree and become a manager, that’s what you get. Such
people aren’t going into a caring profession.

Mike

Thor2Hammer July 23, 2012 at 08:47

**YES**