How Sez Sees It

Cervical Screening Three years ago I wrote about what it is like to have a cervical screening and, as I have just had another test, I thought I should update what it is like. I thought this one would be all serious but, I have just had the funniest fucking screening in the world! Alright, it was funny to me at the time. Background and info First, some background for anyone who missed out on my previous blog (although you can click the link above to read it). Women from the age of 25 are offered a cervical screening every three years and every five years from the age of 50. This is free on the NHS for women in the UK and I think that is the most amazing thing ever! We live in a country where we have access to a free test that saves lives! I know I am really fucking lucky and I will never take this for granted! Anyway, you get a letter through the post offering you a screening and it comes with a really informative leaflet. You don't have to take the test but it is so worth ...

The Tories accused Labour of having a magic money tree for all their plans but they are the ones using it for the Queen and DUP when everyone else is suffering. It has made me so angry that the Tories voted down a motion to remove the freeze on public sector wages. In real terms those wages have actually been a pay cut as prices of everything continues to rise. This means our teachers, firefighters, nurses, doctors, police, local government officers and many more are doing the same job for less. Actually, in some cases they are doing more for less as there has been a huge reduction in job numbers over the last few years. Meanwhile, the Queen, an unelected head of state, gets a pay rise which constitutes multi-millions so that she can refurbish her home. Compare that to one case study (because we have heard a lot about it) Grenfell Tower. This is a place where people were in social housing and it was re-clad with something highly flammable to save a couple of quid for each p...

What is happening in British politics? Who the hell knows? Well this should be a little round up of how I have viewed the last few weeks and in particular the election on 8 June 2017. Actually, let's start at the beginning shall we? Brexit. What is Brexit? A good question. To Theresa May, Brexit means Brexit. So that clears that up.  In reality this is what happened. In 2015, following five years of coalition between the Conservatives (Tories) and the Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems), there was a General Election. The coalition was formed because the Tories didn't get enough votes to win a majority and take power back after 18 years of Labour Governments. They needed to team up with the Lib Dems to make them the most powerful in the House of Commons and so the then leader of the Tories, David Cameron, became Prime Minister and the then leader of the Lib Dems, Nick Clegg, became Deputy Prime Minister. There was an agreement in the House of Commons that elections would n...

Yesterday I had my first ever migraine. I want to start by apologising to anyone who has ever had a migraine. I also thought that it would be 'just a bad headache'...how wrong I was! I don't know what triggered my migraine but fuck me! I never want to have that experience again. It all started when I drove to Basingstoke to see my friend. It is about a 40 minute drive so not too far but the sun was in and out of clouds and in my direct line of vision for the whole journey. Then we went for a picnic and sat in a field with no shade for about an hour or so. The journey home was the same as the journey there, but just going in the opposite direction. By the time I got home I felt wiped out but thought nothing of it and settled down to watch the tennis (total aside here: Rafa Nadal won the French Open for the 10th time in his career and I am so happy for him). As the evening wore on I felt like someone had put a rubber band around my head and was twisting it to make it tigh...

Before I start, read this Huffington Post article. Theresa May is running scared Where is our PM? Have you seen her? Have you seen her without an invitation to see her? That is the real question.  No TV debates May has said she will not be participating in TV debates because she thinks the public want to meet with her and not see the debates. She will be interviewed on the tele though so there is that. The BBC and ITV have already said that they will hold leader debates and the threat is there to 'empty chair' her if she doesn't turn up. Unfortunately Corbyn's team have been hinting that he won't do a debate without May but I think that would be a mistake. I think he should definitely appear and make her seem the scared little wotsit she really is (wanted to say something stronger but I didn't because I am a nice girl). Who is she really meeting? That is the question. If May is so desperate to 'meet the people' on this campaign the...

General Election 2017 Here we go again. On 18 April 2017 Theresa May, PM of this fair land, announced a snap election after promising she would never announce a snap election. Yup, the woman who became PM simply because no one else stood against her a year ago has finally announced an early election. She needed 2/3 of the House of Commons to allow it though because back in 2011 an Act of Parliament was passed to make sure that elections could only happen every five years and any snap elections needed cross party support. Well she got it with 509-13 in favour and the country goes to the polls again on 8 June (belated birthday pressie for my brother there). Election fatigue There is some concern that there is election fatigue as since 2015 we have had a General Election and a referendum on Brexit. Go back another year and we had the referendum on Scottish Independence too. People may be thinking they are trotting off to the polls a little too often and it is going to be interesti...

Things that get my goat this week It could be that my period is due this week but some things have really pissed me off. I have decided, like any decent human, that the best place to air this annoyance is on the internet. Everyone else seems to do it so I am going to give it a go as well. Here we go then... Trump and Syria This week Donald Trump, reality TV star and somehow President of the United States of America (!) has bombed a (not especially strategic) Syrian airbase in retaliation for a chemical attack the Syrian army did on Syrian civilians . The attack itself is disgusting and wrong. It used a combination of chemicals believed to include mustard gas and sarin gas (sarin was the gas used on the Japanese underground by Aum Shinrikyo in the mid-90's which killed around a dozen people and left hundreds more with life-long injuries and health problems).  It was right that Trump spoke out against the attacks and we have to give him the benefit of the doubt that his ...