Thoughts of a carer

  My mum enjoyed her 90th birthday last December. She’s led what many would consider a good life; worked hard, saved a bit here and there, and brought up me and my sister. A few months ago it became apparent that she couldn’t manage any more in her shared-equity ‘retired person’s’  bungalow, and moved into a care home. My sister and I have Power of Attorney, and we’ve been helping her manage her affairs. The sale of her old bungalow back to the local council went through in February, so we looked around for ideas on what to do with the proceeds - a small six figure sum.  Mum had an ISA at her bank which had built up to a good five figure sum, but otherwise no savings accounts. This included National Savings, which surprised me, for I thought everyone had one or two Premium Bonds, but I didn’t worry: my thoughts were that we should use her ISA allowance every year, and buy her the maximum amount of Premium Bonds (£50K), where her interest, or prizes, would be tax free....

In my previous blog entry , I described my experiences of the effect that certain medication - in that case, antidepressants - can have on someone’s judgement and character, and the effect on their relationships and even those around them. I also referred to an NHS report from 2016 that contained some startling facts, including: ‘ 48%, of adults had taken at least one prescribed medicine in the last week, and almost a quarter, 24%, had taken three or more’   ‘...commonly  used  prescribed  medicines were antihypertensives (by  15%  of  adults) and  lipid-lowering  medicines (14%);  followed  by  proton-pump  inhibitors  for reducing  acid  in the  stomach  (11%); analgesics and  non-steroidal anti-inflammatory  drugs (11%); and antidepressants  (10%)’ The idea that ten percent of the population could be taking something to cause them to behave in the way my ex wife did should shock...

I've been thinking about my post on 21st June, and I've come to the conclusion that there are many fields other than IT where we, mankind, are failing to take note of our past errors. The consequences of this are all around us: things are more difficult than they should be, as customers we don't get the service we should, our health is worse than it should be, and sometimes our leaders look really, really stupid. One contact I had in my scientific days - that is, the 1980s - reckoned that mankind had reached its technological zenith around 1970 - the moon landings, supersonic flight, and IT systems were all developed during the sixties. By the mid-eighties we hadn't really moved on. And we still haven't: we may have satellite TV, and mobile phones that fit in your pocket and have (lots) more computing power than an IBM 360/158 (which filled  a room), but we haven't really advanced technologically. This has continued for the last forty or so years. Why?   My con...