Van der Graaf Generator sang about Gog (and Magog)
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Many of the BBC pre-news 5 minuters from 70’s and 80’s were quite far out, unique even. And terrific in their own right.
Roobarb, Clangers, Wombles, Roundabout, Ivor, Bagpuss, Pugwash and Paddington all had and deserved repeat viewing many times over.
Funnily enough most the people I know who watched and remember these with equal fondness are invariably very eloquent, sensible people with broad imaginations, seemingly prepared for and capable of dealing with most of what life throws at them. Not sure which is cause and effect!
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Dougal, Dylan, Florence and Zebedee.
One roundabout to rule them all. 
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Ermintrude! Part of the Rebel Alliance?
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Zebedee sold Ermintrude to McDonalds whilst under the influence of Dylan’s magic mushrooms
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Roobarb of course!
If you don’t mind wasting £12-15 on ebay for a copy, you can have a really great laugh. However, ladies tend to think that it is puerile and that us men can only laugh at fart, poo and snot jokes.
If you have grandchildren, you could really annoy your kids. As parents they would be horrofied, but my son had a birthday party at twelve and I put it on to use time, and they were nearly wetting themselves. I got kudos, but only with the kids.
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In recent years I have been shocked and horrified at the size of vet bills with which some people I know with pets have been faced. Today’s article on BBC News online says it all: Vets say they are under pressure to bring in more money per pet
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I’ll have to have a look at the website for the Competition & Markets Authority as, if memory serves, they had launched an investigation in to this sector**, partly for the reason you mention. It’s got very similar traits to the issues which were revealed in the funeral industry e.g. consolidation of businesses via acquisition leading to pricing increases (sometimes local monopoly), feeding off emotional purchasing decisions (not always fully informed), and several others, one being the involvement of PE funding.
edit - **which is ongoing.
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Saw that earlier. How on earth did all these companies spring up replacing the local vets?
Money in them there hills AC, with often mature owners/partners wanting exits, in a highly fragmented industry (at the time).
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They bought the private practices. It is that simple.
Medivet did that to a practice we had used for 20 years. Over the following six months all the staff we knew left and it proved impossible for them to recruit a replacement senior vet, and then any vet, at the advertised salary. We had to move our cats to another local vet and luckily we found one that is still independent. The only downside of it is that the parking is much more difficult there.
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Surely it can’t bode well for the veterinary profession in the UK - who would want to become a vet being treated like someone working on sales commission?
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One of the benefits to the vets within the consolidator (acquisition) model, is that they have far more time to be a vet, than having to apply time to admin, and things like HR, compliance et al. But, as @davidhendon highlights, these models have encountered severe operational issues, as being a (non-partner) salaried vet doesn’t always provide the role-enrichment many seek, the rewards are pancaked, and where’s the on-the-job training & experience which comes from working with a senior person? Many vet posts within the consolidator models were taken-up by overseas qualified parties, esp. Eastern Europeans (obviously pre the B-word). I believe that attraction has faded/even reversed?
As you say, with the corporatisation of vet practices (that is generally the ‘small animal’ end), tend to comes sales/income targets (them acquisition debts have to be serviced & repaid!). From what I’ve read of the CMA review, it’s quite widely scoped, and they’ve not released/stated any preliminary findings yet. If the CMA review of the funeral industry is anything to go by (which has strong parallels), the outcome & the CMAs reco’s could be quite biting. From talking to local dog owners, there are clearly some restrictive practices in play around subs for meds and the lack of choice owners are given in procuring them.
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I have heard similar in recent years with a couple of horse/country vets as clients, one still at an independent and one working on a ‘franchised’ basis not so far away. The income stream of each is rather different, as is their daily work expectations. One is also significantly happier in her work than the other!
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With your financial hat on, there are positives from the various consolidations, in that there’s been much enhanced demand and liquidity introduced in to the sector, which has enabled many practice-owning vets a way to realise their asset/provide a suitable exit route, recognising that new(er) vets would probably struggle to raise financing of magnitude to buy them out.
However, for pet owners, the picture has, in the main, been somewhat different…
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‘It’s not life as we know it Jim…’
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If we got there we’d soon desecrate it. Anything that couldn’t be eaten or exploited would rapidly become extinct.
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I think it was Carl Sagan who said “when aliens arrive on Earth it will be like Columbus discovering America, only this time we get to be the indians”….
ATB, J
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