I like Freecycling*, or Freeworlding or Freegling or whatever the hell it is called now parts of it have broken away from the mainstream freecycling network.

Freecycling* is basically recycling by giving an item away for free via an online community set up to do just that. You first join the group geographically relevant to yourself,  then if you have something to offer you post *Offered item and  Postcode/Area* to the group and people contact you  to ask you  for it, or you can post a wanted in a similar way and if someone can help you out they will email you to say.

Fantastic yes?

I have given away boxes and boxes of things ranging from old toys and clothes, to computer monitors, an excersize bike  (wishful thinking on behalf having it in the first place) and even 2 sofas, and I’ve received my fair share too – a different sofa, some awesome craft items and some draws for in the shed among other things. It’s good for everyone, it stops perfectly good consumer items ending up in the land fill and saves everyone a bit of money in the process….the only bad side to it that I have found is some of the people!

The amount of times I’ve posted an offer and have received a blunt “I’ll have it” or “Call me *random mobile number*” in response, is unbelievable and yeah that sort of response is going to endear me to giving you my things isn’t it! Honestly, a simple “Could you consider me for x?” would do. I understand you might really want what I’m giving away but really – any blunt or worse text speak responses in my inbox just get deleted.

Then there is the other end of the spectrum the replies that are an  essay telling me about their disabled children, yes all 6 of them, their mother with dementia, their sister who has just had to have her dog put to sleep and the nervous breakdown they suffered last year so can you please consider me for your spare bicycle pump for my son, (or whatever other piece I may be offering).  These come in just as regularly as  the blunt rude ones and I find these slightly unnerving  – I don’t NEED that much personal information about you, seriously you may be in a position to REALLY REALLY need whatever it is I’m offering but a simple sentence “My daughter would make good use of x, is it still available?” – Or if you really need to stress how much you need something “My daughter REALLY needs one of these – can you consider me for it please?” would suffice, all your essays make me do is cringe for you and then make me have to fight my guilt complex because I haven’t got one of whatever I’m offering up for every family with 33 children and a father with alzheimer’s, and hence makes me less likely to offer it to you, not because I’m heartless but because I don’t like to be made to feel guilty!

Then there are the people who once you’ve posted an offer, they’ve responded and you follow through and make it available to them, they don’t turn up to collect. No email with an apology, or a text if you’ve exchanged numbers, no response when you email/text them to find out if there is a problem/delay and you end up with whatever you happen to be trying to get rid of sitting in the hallway for a week while you are trying to sort out what to do! – I have fallen foul of this one on a couple of occasions and now I don’t delete any of my responses to offers so that if someone doesn’t turn up and fails to get in touch I have a list of alternative recipients in place!

It drives me wild – freecycling is a brilliant idea, perfect for getting rid of those unwanted but perfectly working items without them ending up in land fill but I do wish the other users would sometime realise that just like the items being offered up manners cost nothing too!

*According to The Freecycle Network, “Freecycle” is properly used only as a brand name to identify the company’s products and services, ie a Freecycle group: but balls to it I’m using here to mean all areas of giving stuff away online using a similar service!

I’ve just upgraded my phone and whilst historically I’ve always gone for the option with the best camera and have usually erred to Sony Ericsson this year the choice wasn’t so cut and dry.

The way in which I use my phone has changed, no longer do I just want it to just make calls and snap the occasional picture whilst on the move.  Now I want/need a PC in my pocket. I want to be connected to Twitter, Facebook and my email whilst also having the capacity to make calls and keep notes to hand, I needed a smartphone – but which one to choose, Blackberry? Android? or, do I wait knowing I like the Sony Ericsson model for them to catch up with the field?

Well after much reading/research, and with the announcement that the iPhone was coming to Orange I decided to ditch my S.E. and whittled the choices down to 2….the aforementioned iPhone or the  Android HTC Hero.

I debated with myself  for a while and still couldn’t decide iPhone vs Hero, iPhone vs Hero so I started asking around– most my friends are iPhone clones, so I had a play with their models (the 3G in one case and the 3Gs in another) and I asked their opinion  and they all came up with the same argument, and it wasn’t quite as you may imagine, the argument was simply – “but it’s the iPhone”.

Not really the answer I was looking for when asking some basic questions about the apps and functions-

..What if I want to have my email running in the back ground whilst also following my friends tweets? ..
“You don’t need to”
..But what if I want to…
“But it’s the iPhone!”

..What about the problem you’ve been having with it losing your contact lists?..
“Oh I reinstalled them”
..but what if it happens again wont you be pissed..
“But it’s the iPhone!”

What about the 24 month contracts?
“But it’s the iPhone!”

You get the picture!

Unfortunately I don’t know anyone *in the real world* who has the  HTC  who I could ask for a quick test run and I couldn’t play with it in the Orange shop  for as long as I’d played with the iPhones but as it turns out I didn’t need to, The man in the shop let me play with whateversettings/functions I wanted and after a short period of time I was hooked, it looked great, felt comfortable in my hand and functioned just how I’d like it to.

I went against the tide of popular opinion I went with the Hero…and I LOVE IT!

I’ve had it just over a week now and I have’t looked back. We (well James, I was at work when it turned up and I wanted it activated for when I got home *impatient*) turned it on the first time it said” ohhh you have WiFi – do you want me to connect, this will be so much quicker if you let me”  and it then asked for my gmail, facebook, flickr and twitter sign in details and just like that everything was synced. It took 2-3 minutes and James said it was the best set up he’d ever completed.

Since then I’ve added a second email account,  played with many apps  for things I knew I wanted my phone to be able to do and a for things I didn’t know I wanted until I found apps for them. I’ve configured and then reconfigured my settings and now have the 7 – yes SEVEN home screens set up for optimum usage for me and that’s before I’ve even looked at the options the multiple scene selections offer!

I’m happy, I’ve overcome the teething problems getting used to the qwerty touch screen / predictive trying and now even some of my iPhone user chums are looking at Android in a different way now I’ve put my handset in front of their blinkers.

For me now it’s Android for the win!

The #welovethenhs twitter hashtag was started  to help defend the National Health Service from  attacks that are being launched on it by some of the opposition in the USA. President Obama has made health care reform a hot topic in the states by trying to approach the subject of re-balancing the inequalities they have there, mainly a  health care system which penalises the most needy and rewards the most privileged.

Personally, I have many reasons to moan about the NHS, but I also have many reasons that make me thankful for them, So when people start debating their own flawed medical systems by jumping all over our established system they have, in all likeliness, no first hand experience of  so cannot put forward a balanced debate, then I feel compelled to defend.

In the US without decent health insurance (and in some cases with  it) if I were in an accident or if I, or TBK fell ill. I would have to choose my/his/our treatment based on what I could afford, not on what would be best for us. At least with the NHS our options are sorted, I wouldn’t have to choose between paying for mine or TBK health care if I couldn’t afford both. I don’t have to worry about any unforeseen accidents or illnesses,  I know that if and when we fall ill or accidents  happen we would be dealt with in a fair, non for profit system.

Now  I know the NHS isn’t perfect, the waiting list  for basic medical care (I’m thinking about my 6 months wait for physiotherapy here) for example is atrocious, I know it has boundaries, we’ve read enough negative headlines about post code lotteries and NICE withholding medicines because of costs to know it’s not perfect but it’s what we have and in my opinion it’s a whole lot better than the alternatives.

For every 2 or 3 horror stories you hear there are 2 – 3 HUNDRED maybe THOUSAND successes. It was NHS surgeons who operated on both my mother and grandmother who without surgery would have both succumbed to different forms of cancer long ago.  When I was younger and had to have operations to correct my sight, it was NHS surgeons who treated me and made sure that I can see well enough to be sitting here writing this blog today and when I was in labour with TBK and he was lying the wrong way around, stuck and going nowhere fast it was the NHS midwives and doctors who helped me deliver him with not a second glance towards my paperwork to check which painkillers my policies covered.

The US is a deeply divided nation on health as in many other policy areas – it is simultaneously home to some of the planet’s best hospitals, the best research in medical advances and the best healthcare practioners – and also home to some of the worst poverty and barriers to healthcare, the worst developed-world child mortality rates.

Alex Foster , LDV

I know people personally who will argue back at me that our system is flawed, and from their experience they think the whole system needs to be altered, but to them I say this;

Fall down the stairs, be hit by a car, suffer a brain hemorrhage, develop cancer, suffer from MS, ME, asthma, eczema, give birth, twist your ankle, be the wealthiest or the neediest person in the UK, it doesn’t matter because when you need it the NHS will be there. You will be treated the same as the next person regardless of your economic standing, and you will be treated for free, So UK doubters and the US critics, give the NHS a break no system is perfect and where ever there is something to be paid for there will be restrictions but if it wasn’t for the NHS and  what they do, I along with countless others wouldn’t be here today.