The West Midlands is the top spot for gun crime in England and Wales.

I heard this on a news bulletin whilst I was on my way home from work.  What surprised me was not the headline itself but people's reactions to it.

As is the way of local news providers, reporters had gone out to get the views of the people on the street.  One person said that she thought that the Police were not doing enough to help families.

Why is up to the Police to raise people's children for them?  Why does everything have to be someone else's fault?  Can people no longer take responsibility for anything?

For the most part, and there will always be exceptions I know, the attitudes of the child come from the attitudes of the parent.

Maybe the courts and prisons need to become tougher, with the threat of a prison service acting as a deterrent instead of the holiday camps they appear to have become with TVs in cells, PlayStations, being able to sue the Prison Service for having a too thin mattress

Why did we spend,  in 2013, up to £275 per day per prisoner when, according to the NHS, the average cost of a hospital bed day is £225?  Are people who have broken the law worth more than a law abiding person who had the misfortune to fall ill?

Take the prisons back to basics, 3 healthy meals a day but no menu choice - you eat what you are given or you go hungry.  Remove the TVs and the PlayStations.  Reduce time the prisoners have for socialising.  Stop supplying extra clothes.  Remove prisoner's Human Rights.  If prisoners riot and damage their cells, then let them carry on living in it.  Dirty Protest?  They sleep in it.

And use all the money saved to buoy up the NHS.

The 2014 52 Week Cash Challenge

This is something that I am going to attempt to do, although I have altered it slightly.

I first came across the 52 Week Cash Challenge via a friend who is on benefits, the reason I mention this will become obvious later in this post.

The idea is that you find an empty jar or pot, and at the start, or end, of week 1, you add £1 to this jar; week 2 you add £2; week 3, £3 and so on until week 52.

Unfortunately, this means that over the last 4 weeks of the challenge you would have to put away £202 (£49 + £50 + £51 + £52), now I work full time and can't afford to put this much money away in just one month, so the fact that someone on benefits can means there is something wrong somewhere.

So, my little tweaks are - I am using a bank account instead of a jar, this is so that I can get a little bit of interest; and my amounts will be - week 1 £1, week 2 £52, week 3 £2, week 4 £51 and so on.  I know I could just put £26.50 per week away, but this makes saving more fun and will make me more likely to carry on with it.

Is anyone else thinking of having a go?