HAVING spent more time than I would have wished during the past year in NHS hospitals, I suspect that the our “monolithic monster” is neither terrible nor the envy of the world. If it were the latter it would surely have been replicated by one of the Eastern European nations after the Berlin Wall came down.

However, given the money we are prepared to spend in comparison to other leading economies, it’s not a bad bargain. Half of all Scots say they are satisfied with our NHS – about the same as my extended family in France and, astoundingly, well above the 30 per cent of my wife’s Swedish relatives.

Our ageing population is a problem, as is the faux sentimentality of our political class. Of course, there are good ideas abroad about structure and funding but whether my fellow chauvinists, as firmly tied to “free at the point of use” as Americans are to their gun laws, would wear it is another matter.

Rev Dr John Cameron, St Andrews.

Take responsibility for our own rubbish

I REFER to the letter (December 13) regarding waste management from Messrs Clark, Cunningham and Ewing. Presumably these correspondents are employed in the waste management sector. Their letter does not take into account the fact that the general public does not know what happens to the waste produced by their household, and in addition, does not really care.

In our consumer society we are encouraged by the advertising industry to continue to collect stuff that we don't need, probably don't really want and can't really afford. Then the packaging goes to a hole in the ground called a landfill site. Each school pupil should be taken to a landfill site and shown exactly how much garbage our society produces. Until each one of us takes responsibility for our own waste instead of blaming it on the municipal authorities, we run the risk of being buried under our own rubbish

We can't keep on saying "a bad boy did it and ran away", it's our rubbish and we should take responsibility for it.

Margaret Forbes, Kilmacolm.

Not so tender

HOW ironic. I used the Channel Tunnel for the first time ever on Thursday on my way from Glasgow to Paris. Back in the toon last night (December 13) I got on the last bus to Balfron on Hope Street and paid with an English fiver. That's the wrong tender, says the bus driver – what a comment on Brex(sh)it day.

Manfred Weidmann, Balfron.

Decadent...

IT is happening again. Last week I watched the UK Snooker Championship, won well by Ding Jung Wei, though it was good to see Stephen McGuire back in a final.

During the break in the evening session Hazel Irvine said that this was the last UK Championship of the decade and compounded it a second time. She then said that the draw was about to be made for the first Masters tournament of the new decade.

When will we understand that periods of time do not start in years ending in zero? The last century had significant dates. 1901, death of Queen Victoria; 1914-1918, first World War, 1939-945, second World War, 1952, succession of the present Queen, 1966 England win FIFA World Cup, etc and all were defined as being in the 20th century, ergo the century and millennium which ended on December 31, 2000.

What happened? The world celebrated the new millennium on January 1, 2000 instead of January 1, 2001.

A simple way to get it right is to ask people to count to 10. Everyone will count 1 2 3 and end 8 9 10. If these are taken as years, then year 10 is the last year of a decade finishing on December 31st, ...10.

I will not be around for the end of this century, and certainly not for the end of the third millennium. I hope in the meantime newscasters, press, radio, TV and the web have got their thinking right.

Richard A McKenzie, Giffnock.