What's going on with the world today?

Really.

I watch TV or read the news and am often left aghast.  Whilst I don't think POTUS Trump should be martyred, he does need to be removed from office. Asap.  He is an idiot.  I cannot believe most of the drivel that comes out of his mouth, and my expectations are pretty low, based on my experience of UK politics.  The latest pile of shite about the CNN reporter attacking the intern, when it's as clear as fuck that, if anything, she attacked him (though to be generous, she was under scrutiny from her boss [Trump] so was a bit overzealous attempting to retrieve the mike).  I don't know if there's any truth to the rumour that the video has been edited so that a different version (which makes it look like the reported did lay hands on the woman) is being shown in the US, but every day what would once have been called conspiracies is approaching real life.

In the UK we have the Brexit nonsense, with PM Theresa May continuing to flog the dead horse, that none of us public want.  Even most of those who thought they did want it, have since come to their senses.  Whilst I find it incredulous that people did believe the Brexit Bus that £350M was going to the NHS, I have friends who voted leave for that exact reason who now wish they didn't.  The funding of the Leave campaign is being investigated for criminality, and a load of politicians are resigning or being asked to resign based on their stance that Brexit should not go ahead, without at least another referendum now we know the full facts.  Of course, the plan for hard/soft Brexit still hasn't been finalised, so even though we know many of the promises were untruths, there still is nothing concrete on the Pro-Brexit side.

Iceland, the supermarket, have had their Christmas Advert banned from UK TV because it is "too political".  The advert in question is a cartoon of a girl whose bedroom gets vandalised by an orangutan because the orangutan's home was first vandalised by humans for palm oil.  Admittedly the cartoon was made by Greenpeace originally, but there's nothing political about the advert itself.  It simply states facts.  Or maybe I've just missed the memo that truth isn't allowed in adverts anymore.  Probably some harebrained scheme to prevent Fake News, by ensuring that all adverts are fake or so wishy-washy/soppy, and anything with any facts in them gets automatically banned, in case the general public gets confused between an advert and something real.  Now I think about it, that's probably why so many beauty products have all that "science" in the adverts - to remind people that it's not real and just and advert.  I just did a quick google, in an attempt to find an example of cosmetic pseudoscience, and found this article from 2005 which coherently explains what I was thinking.

Even on a local level, the world has gone mad.  My doctor's surgery, and 4 others in town, have been taken over by "the hub".  So, rather than phoning the surgery on the morning when you need a GP appointment, your call goes through to a central hub - a call-centre that handles calls for all the GP surgeries.  They have implemented this without the public's knowledge, have implemented it badly, and because they've signed the contract are unable to go back to the previous system.  What's so bad about having a central hub? you may ask. Surely it'll save money overall if everything is streamlined? That is the theory.  The practice, however, are extremely long waits for being on hold, or waiting on a call-back (an hour seems about average).  More often than not, there are no GP appointments left for that day, and because you still cannot book in advance, you are told to phone back again the following morning to repeat the cycle.  And if you are lucky enough to get an appointment, it may not be at your local surgery, but the other side of town.  I'm lucky, in that I don't have chronic medical conditions that require repeated appointments, I don't work during the day and I have a car, but most people are not in that position. 
To get a nurse's appointment, you need to phone the same number.  Nurse's appointments are able to be booked in advance, but they are still mostly fully booked.  To get an asthma review for myself and the two girls, we have to wait 4 weeks and go to a different surgery to usual.  Locally, we're campaigning for things to improve, but the company running the show, IMH Group, has mucked up services in other towns, so personally I don't hold out too much hope.