Care Giving

Lesley Joseph (right), with her hosts Pat and Malcolm in the BBC’s When I’m 65 season on ageing.

If you’re looking for unsung heroes, look no fourther than care givers.

Though you may find them hard to spot, because as well as unsung – they’re often unappreciated, unsupported, unpaid, unhealthy themselves, quite likely unhappy – and unable to get out much. Such is the burden of responsibility and sheer physical exhaustion involved in looking after someone else.

According to Carers UK, there are an estimated 1.3 million people aged 65 and over who are the primary (perhaps only?) carer for someone else. So as well as the self-sacrificing goodness involved, they’re also saving the state (i.e. the rest of us) a lot of cash.

So it’s good when someone pays attention to them, or even better, lends a hand.

Whether it’s a care worker paid for out of those pesky taxes, a neighbour or – in this case – actress Lesley Joseph, who played Dorien in the TV series Birds of a Feather.

Sure it was for a TV show – part of the BBC’s When I’m 65 season – but that doesn’t mean it can’t be sincere and helpful – nor that she doesn’t personally have her own insight. She has a 100-year-old Mum of her own after all.

Birds of a Feather – back in the day: Linda Robson, Lesley Joseph & Pauline Quirke

I met Lesley when

Advertisement

Bye bye BBC Bush House

After 70-odd years, the BBC has begun to leave Bush House, home of BBC World Service radio. Some buildings have character. BBC Bush House has… had. This gives a flavour of it.

For a while I worked, drank and watched the fish inside Bush House.

I was particularly fond of the Outlook programme – partly because they paid me for stories from Africa. But also because you could climb out a window from their office to a flat roof with satellite dishes. From there a metal ladder led up to another roof level. Then a second set of rungs provided a route to the very top and views over most of the rooftops between Bush House and the Thames.

I sometimes wandered past the rooftop water tanks to the front of the building and out onto the canopy over the grand entrance. In my mind’s eye we sat and contemplated our eyrie above the throng. I lay back and surveyed the clouds. Maybe one of us smoked. I remember the roof as curving – with the slight risk of sliding off to plummet to street level, but it looks more angular in the slide show. Memories can be tricky.

Witch-hunts and The Sun

The former political editor of the now-on-a-Sunday-too Sun, Trevor Kavanagh, has been complaining about how investigations into phone hacking and bribing police officers at the newspaper have turned into a witch-hunt.

You may think that’s a bit rich, considering we’re talking about a news organisation that hasn’t been exactly dainty in how it’s treated other people.

But eloquent gurner Charlie Brooker has leapt to the defence of the Sun.

The script of his epic 10 O’Clock Live show rant is reproduced here, thanks to Sturdyblog. And as Sturdyblog says – Enjoy…

Some say it’s rich of The Sun to complain about witch-hunts, because it’s conducted plenty of them itself. But that’s really not fair. The Sun has never once conducted a witch-hunt against actual witches. I mean, okay, it has picked on one or two other groups, like…

Social workers
Women in burqas
Left-wingers
Suburban swingers
Binge-drinkers
Forward-thinkers
Gypsies, shirkers
Public sector workers.

Underage mums
Overage mums
Spongers who sit around twiddling their thumbs
Anyone who’s had a fight
Anyone with cellulite
Looters
Saggy hooters
Feminists

Starring Colin Firth as Hugh Grant…

Starring Colin Firth as Hugh Grant, and Mr Bean as...

How’s this for super quick reaction? Hackgate: The Movie.

It’s here. Well – the trailer is anyway. And what a star-studded cast. Colin Firth plays Hugh Grant. Hugh Grant plays… someone else. I forget. Watch the trailer to find out.

There’s an inspired (or too obvious?) casting for the role of Rebekah Brooks. But Ed Miliband and David Cameron – perfect casting choices. (No, I’m not telling you. Watch the

Phone hacking scandal: Who knew? Loads of us.

Can there any longer be any doubt that News International is a force of evil in the world? (This wasn’t my scheduled subject, but “events dear boy, events.”)

There are all sorts of pictures of perps and victims I could have used to illustrate this - but here's the Murdoch monkey at the top of the tree - the spider at the centre of the web. Unfortunately the bad smell does not come solely from him. There's a strong whiff very much closer to home.

They’re the reason I receive text messages like this:

Hi, I am unable to answer my phone at the moment but if you leave me a message, the News of the World will email it to me later.

 But the appalling behaviour of some journalists is not the most shocking part. What’s really scary is that the omertà of Britain’s press and politicians on phone-hacking amounts to complicity in crime

Plumb compote? Bring on the lead poisoning *

God help me, it may define me as an old git – as though any more evidence was needed – but I do like a nice piece of

Is this ethical journalism?

The Gabby Cabby in his New York cab.

Is this ethical journalism?

Journalism today – con jobs and hamster wheels

Are journalism courses the biggest con around? Academically and vocationally.

Islamic toilets – a plea

I’m fairly politically correct. But I was almost caught short and caught out at the weekend.

Now look what you’ve done…

Now look what you’ve done. You’re famous. That’s you – readers and commentators. You have only gone and become online exemplars who have made “clear the sort of support you can get from a virtual network in a connected world.”

That’s according to the highly prestigious Trading As WDR blog. (“A blog containing thoughts about change, and how to achieve it…”)

WDR spotted what’s been going on here recently and has drawn attention to it.

After such high achievement, you deserve a special treat.

Spandau Ballet sang:

“Questions questions

Give me no answers

That’s all they ever give me

Questions questions”

But to cut a long story short, this is the moment you start getting answers. Three answers. (Four if you count the last one double.)

First, I’m going to reveal to you the answer to the question that has been bugging you since childhood.