Six months to two years

So it was an exciting and close game but the Lions lost. Still have to learn to play together. Lots of mistakes but the abuse on twitter against one of the players in particular is horrible. Their first proper game in Australia is next Saturday. Because it's on sky we can only watch it on S4C, the Welsh channel that has come to some agreement with somebody. I only hope, by next Saturday, they get some better commentators. I couldn't follow the Welsh being spoken but the English subtitles showed such a bias towards the two Welsh players and against some of the others, it was painful.

Also yesterday, and much more importantly, the government voted with a majority of 23 to pass the Assisted Dying bill. As I said before, while not being opposed in principle to assisted dying, I follow the lead of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Physicians, and numerous organisations representing the disabled, who all stated their concerns that the bill as it stands is dangerous and has been rushed through. Palliative care and hospices in this country are largely funded by charities rather than government and there aren't enough of them to provide good care for the dying. It would be nice to think that the money the government saves by allowing people to die would be spent on improving end of life care. But I doubt it.

The bill wasn't in the Labour manifesto and seems to have been the result of a hasty promise by the Prime Minister to Esther Rantzen, television personality, who had been given six months to live. Two years later she's still alive.

Got to go now and start preparing the hall for the barn dance.