Catch Up

The last few weeks have been a real roller coaster. The sense of anticipation of a new addition to the family in July has been overshadowed by wee Scott having dreadful sleep patterns which were first caused by a bug he had. Since catching the bug, he has got into a routine of waking more frequently and then asking for his mum rather than dad and so the burden of nighttime care has been evenly split. This means that both mum and dad get very interrupted sleep and we are both exhausted in the day times.

Just when I thought my lot was bad, though, I see the terrible scenes in Japan and the ongoing effects of the earthquake and Tsunami and I can see that our hardship is nothing compared to that of those affected by this terrible natural disaster. In fact, put into context, we wake up to see our lovely son, refreshed from 'sleep' and his sunny smile just makes all that tiredness seem very worthwhile.

The fact is, I often think our lot is bad but there is plenty that goes on in the world where people have unbearable suffering for many reasons which makes our little homeward issues absolutely trivial. In fact, we should be thankful we have such things to worry about, and for the most part, we are.

However, here's an interesting thing. The Consultant who delivered our baby and will deliver our second also, has more skill in his little finger than most people will accumulate in a lifetime. If he had applied that incredible skill to pressing buttons on a computer and working in the City, he would have been far better off. In fact, it would have taken his accumulated pay from before the time of the Battle of Hastings to have earned as much as Bob Diamond did just this year. And Diamond is the man who almost bankrupted his company and needed to go to the Middle East and sell shares at knock down prices to keep his bank from going out of business. In most business circles, that would be abject failure given the kind of money he risked for his shareholders by bad business practice but instead his rises again to fill his pockets. If our Consultant had made just a minor slip up or failure, he would never be able to practice his craft again in his lifetime, by comparison. Fred Goodwin did and he walked away with - well you know the story.

That would be the difference between responsibility and accountability.

Today in Sandei, Japan, the likes of our Consultant and his medical colleagues will be the most valuable people in the world and the likes of Bob Diamond will be looking to limit their losses and then make a handsome profit on the plight of the people there.

That's how wrong we have got the whole thing and that's enough to drive people who get expert help, from brilliant people who care, absolutely crackers.


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