yonmei

05:13 pm: Am HOME!
Priority Actions:
1. Hug Bob, because she's acting awfully unloved.
2. Open windows! 'cause the place smells awfully stuffy
3. Feed cats.
4. Pet Wolf's nose, because it's the longest I've ever been away in his LIFE and he had his 2nd birthday while I was gone and he's acting like he's not sure who I am any more
5. Change litter in litter trays, light incense and oilburner in bathroom
6. ...check e-mail! E-mail solo to tell her I'd love to go bungee jumping with her and another slash fan in a couple of weeks.
7. Also, need to e-mail catsitter to tell her I'm home and catsitter's employer to ask her to bill me.
8. While hoping it will stop raining before I walk over to Tattie Shaw's, get involved with the retweet game on #welovetheNHS.
9. Realise it is Scotland, after all, and the rain is not going to stop, so go out anyway to buy fresh fruit and milk

Tags: bob, everybody lies, evil american politics, evil americans advertising against nhs, health, lists, weather, wolf

11:06 am: HSA ad? Also, YouGov!
I've been repeatedly seeing an ad for "HSA" with the annoying "Hey! Just say!" whisper, which I keep not understanding.

It's about a woman who's married with two children. I think she's supposed to live in the UK. They appear to be a fairly comfortably-off middle-class couple.

But the woman keeps panicking about the children's dental checkups. Both children are under 18, and so entitled to free dental treatment. (Admittedly I'm told it can be tough these days finding an NHS dentist/an NHS dentist who is taking child patients, but the issue is not whether a parent can afford to pay, it's where the dentist is. I go to an NHS dentist who is a long bus ride across Edinburgh because he's the one I'm registered with and attempts to find one nearer to home all kind of fell over.)

The woman also seems to be worrying about getting new glasses. But she's over 40 (I guess - she could be late thirties) and so entitled to free eye tests. Even if she weren't, there are so many opticians these days that will offer free eye tests, the main problem is getting out afterwards without getting pressured into buying expensive frames. (I go to the same optician I've been going to for 34 years, give or take, and they have a nice range of frames including the basic NHS plastic, but if you haven't got a good family optician who want to keep you as a long-term customer, I recommend Boots). Granted the cost of lenses is going up to a scary degree, but it's not unmanageable - if you have the kind of eyes that require complex (ie, expensive!) lenses, you get a voucher to help pay for them. Getting proper frames is a bigger issue, but you can get decent ones for not too horribly much.

And the woman is worrying about her partner's back treatments - what if they get too expensive? Is there a significant problem? Well, if there is, he should be talking to his GP about it and getting his GP to recommend him to a consultant. Again, the issue is not cost, it's time and energy, if the GP is reluctant to admit there's a problem or if there's a significant waiting list to see the consultant.

Why is the woman only concerned about the cost, which is the least significant issue in all three areas? And why in particular is she concerned about her children's dental checkups, when they have a car and they don't therefore need to consider public transport accessibility?

Is this advert intended to scare people out of using the NHS? (You can watch it here if you've missed it on TV.)

Anyway.

If you live in the UK and like answering silly questions, you might be interested in joining YouGov - you sign up and they send you surveys and pay you 50p (or sometimes more) for every one you complete. They won't send you a cheque till you've earned at least £50, so it's not a very efficient way of earning money, but the questions are sometimes interesting: government agencies and NGOs (including Stonewall) and private companies pay to have questions asked via YouGov, and YouGov uses the info you give them to confirm they've asked the questions of a certain number of people from each age group and income range and parents and non-parents and etc etc.

You don't actually need to join by clicking on the link - google YouGov and you're there - but if you do, I get money for everyone who joins via the link, at least if you stick around for three months and complete some surveys.

I need to:

go swimming
write to-do list for coming week
write other stuff
make lunch

Probably not in that order, though.

I added a lot of new photos to Redbubble yesterday.

Tags: evil americans advertising against nhs, health, lists, nhs, swimming, yougov