Working on the report for the Lewisham Hospital Commission of Inquiry, I glance up and see the Guardian headline ‘NHS staff face jail for neglect.’  OK, we do not want neglect in our hospitals, we want the best care there can be.  But there are already sanctions if people commit acts which end in injury or death for people. What we need is more nurses, better training for nurses and doctors, more money to be spent on the front-line.  We don’t want to criminalise our doctors and nurses.  We love them.

And this, for the government, is a problem.

People love the NHS, they are proud of the NHS.  They rely on it and it serves us all well.

So what is going on here?  My view is that this is all part of the attempted destruction of the NHS.  The government wants us to start worrying about neglect, lack of care, low standards.  By revealing all these ‘failings’ they hope we will start to lose faith in the NHS.  They want us to worry about the NHS, to lose our sense of security about it. They do not want us to turn to the NHS.  They want us to use private health care.

But why?  Why do they want us to do that?  Why would they want us to turn away from our beloved NHS?   Who has an interest in the success of private health care?  Is it those who have shares in private health initiatives?  Where do we find those people?  Can we find them in seats of government?   Where are the figures about failures, disasters, neglect in the private sector?

If I were a person who wore badges – and I am someone who rarely wears a brooch – I would wear a badge that said ‘I heart the NHS’.  For now I shall get back to the report of the Lewisham Hospital’s Commission of Inquiry.  It will be launched on 27 November 2013 in the House of Lords.

Today all is talk of the Bechdel rating test for films.  To pass there must be i) two named women characters, ii) talking to each other, and iii) not about men.  It was devised as part of a cartoon strip in 1985.  Mentally I scroll through my list of favourite films ‘Some like it hot’ – pass.  The Apartment – the doctor’s wife talks to Shirley Maclaine, OK.  Klute – Jane Fonda talks to her invisible therapist, and she also talks to one of her ex-colleagues.  Is that good enough?  Cabaret – Lisa Minelli talks to Marisa Berenson – in the wonderful language-class scene, and later about Marisa’s father’s library sofa – although that conversation is basically about a man.  Private Benjamin – Goldie Hawn.  Women have to talk to each other.

Get Shorty – does it have Green Onions?  Yes.  Does it pass the Bechdel test?  No.  Fargo?  Argo?  Hard to say.  Mid-August Lunch – beautiful film.  Four women who come to share an apartment over the summer in Rome while their adult children are away on holiday.  Yes, they talk to each other.  I think.  Miss Congeniality, yes – good old Sandra Bullock.  Shame that her last film which passed the test (the Heat, not Gravity obviously) was so terrible.  She played an up tight police officer, whose partner was the more relaxed Melissa McCarthy.  Terrible script, terrible plot.  Sweetwater, (in France Sherif Jackson) a film with January Jones from Mad Men, where she is the star who goes out to avenge her husband’s murder, has very few women and they don’t talk to each other.

It makes you think.  What are we watching at the cinema?  What are films telling us about women?   Sex in the City, Bridesmaids, Maid in Manhattan.  Do they pass?  Should they pass?

Getting off the tube at Holborn I see a small cart in the middle of the pavement and a couple of young men casually handing out bottles of sludge coloured fruit juice to passers-by.  I pass by and am given a bottle.

Last week, in almost the same place I was given a free bar of chocolate.

The chocolate was nice – bit sweet.  The drink was nice – bit sweet.  But it occurs to me to ask – what is going on?  All this free stuff being handed out?  Could it possibly be a new political movement?  A new form of redistribution of wealth? Is this communism for the 21st century?

Or is it just the first stage in an advertising campaign for a gym?

The challenging task of moving to new chambers is eased by finding a local cafe that not only has abundant seating but also serves good coffee.  On top of that, City Lit is across the road and the bank is around the corner.  This is perfection.

Meanwhile, in Crouch End, there is a poetry evening at the local Oddbins.  It is rumoured that John Hegley will attend. In the interim, fortified by a small glass of red wine, we listen to various poems and pieces of music, one particularly interesting song is called Tax the Dead.

Sadly, pressure of work means that we cannot stay.  Later reports indicate that John Hegley came and was very good.

A close adviser to the Education Secretary Michael Gove, says that genes are more important than teaching.  Rather than the teaching a child receives, performance is due to genetics.  So presumably, he would say, all those struggles for workers’ education were pointless, the fight for women’s education unnecessary.  The man who dictates what happens in our schools is advised by an unelected person who believes this tosh.  What conclusions can we draw from this?

Moving to a new set of chambers is a daunting task.

Writing to the bank, emailing the Information Commissioner’s Office to ensure my data protection registration is correct, ringing the Bar Council to ensure my Practising Certificate reflects my new address. Saying goodbye to well loved colleagues and clerks. Emptying my shelves, throwing out ten year old copies of Counsel Magazine, shredding papers for cases that have an air of never having been paid, dumping old tins of shoe polish carefully purchased for those last minute dashes to the Court of Appeal, where it’s probably true that not much time is wasted on studying advocates’ footwear.  Although once, in Wimbledon Juvenile Court, a colleague was reprimanded by the bench for the ultra-sensibleness of her shoes – smart Doc Marten lace-ups.

And now a short walk to the new set.

What is Mr Grayling really thinking when he makes his decisions about Legal Aid cuts?

It is the Labour Party conference.  I hear Martha Kearney is interviewing Dennis Skinner.  She asks him if he is pleased socialism is back on the agenda.  Is it?  This is wonderful news.  But Dennis said we had to put meat on the bones. It was the most exciting ten seconds of radio I’ve heard for a long time.

When did we stop equating the Labour Party with socialism?  What does the word mean to young activists?  I wonder if they are waiting to be given the nod and they will explode into action and demand re-nationalisation of the railways and gas and electricity and an end to the proposal for privatisation of the Post Office.

On another note, literally, I read in the New York Times (the one that is given away with the Observer) that Ronnie Spector’s show with which she is currently touring is called ‘Beyond the Beehive.’  Aren’t the first eight notes of Be My Baby some of the best?

Nephew and partner safely ensconced in new flat which is just down the road.  This must mean our area is becoming very hip.  If that is the hip word.