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To Pray, or Not to Pray….

  I first published this in summer of '22 around the time of the mini-budget and the ensuing financial crisis, when prayer was back in fashion, particularly for those with risky investments...it remains relevant at a time when our uncertainties seem to be increasing by the day, rather than starting to resolve themselves..... Introduction As is often quoted: ‘..there are only two certainties in life – death and taxes…’.   In the UK recently we have all heard quite enough about taxes recently, so I’ll focus on the former in this article, if I may, as a diversion, albeit a brief one, from our economic woes.... As we age, our thoughts naturally turn to the prospect of our own deaths – and what might or might not happen to us afterwards. Although death itself is a certainty for all of us, there is a surprising reluctance on the part of society to discuss its practicalities and consequences, both physical and spiritual.  In my view, this enduring taboo makes the subject m...
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On The Perils of Pill-Boxes...

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Despite the rather arresting title, anyone expecting an exciting cautionary tale about the dangers of World War 2 fortifications faced by over-adventurous offspring from this blog article will, I’m afraid, be disappointed.... The pill-boxes I refer to are those clever little inventions many of us now use to ensure we remember to take our medications as prescribed, i.e. at the right time on the right day . Some younger readers might think this is a task that should be easy enough for anyone of sound mind without external aid; they may even go so far as to scoff at the need for something so pedestrian and 'low tech', given that the only medication they ever need is the occasional paracetamol or ibuprofen for a headache. What we need to remember, though, is that the average age of our UK population is increasing rapidly, and its general health is continuing to decline in the face of a failing health service, (which is now, sadly, forced to ration its care by availability...
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Amazon are withdrawing support from their older Kindles on May 20th - Is my old kindle now defunct ?

  Amazon’s Kindle eReaders were ahead of their time when they first emerged in the late noughties, and were the first of the e-ink readers to hit the mass market. They have amassed a large following of dedicated reader fans since then, and have proven themselves robust and long-lasting devices, and the preferred vehicle for reading eBooks.  Amazon have been steadily deprecating their older devices for the past couple of years, but there has been considerable concern voiced amongst the Kindle fan-base over the recent 'final' announcement   by Amazon that they are withdrawing support from their older devices from May 20th. This means that readers will then no longer be able to use them to buy books from Amazon or access any books they have stored in the Amazon cloud. The range of devices affected is quite significant . To add insult to injury, in a separate measure designed to control access to their books, Amazon also recently confirmed they are no longer allowing books...
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