The Anonymous Widower

Has Anybody Looked at the Harlery Medical Group Website?

You wouldn’t think this was the website of a ompany with a bit of a problem and especially as the site is still advertising for new punters.

One interesting thing is that typing Harley Medical Group into Google, the first entry you find is a firm of solicitors.

I also found this article on the Daily Mail’s website. So was the head of the firm advising how to smarten up NuLabor’s image? Probably not, but it just shows how high-profile Harley Medical Group was.

But not in the same way as now!

January 15, 2012 Posted by | Health | , | Leave a comment

Confusion Over Whether Captain Was Last To Leave

There seems to be some confusion as to whether the captain of the Costa Concordia was the last to leave his stricken ship. This Australian web site says he wasn’t, but others like Sky say he was.

It does seem to me though, that there was a lot of panic and that the charts may not have been up to the standard that the Admiralty would certify.

But to return to the Captain.  It wasn’t obvious he was last to leave as Captain Knut Carlsen on the SS Flying Enterprise and Captain Chesley Sullenberger on US Airways Flight 1549 were.

It may seem strange that I can remember the Flying Enterprise incident so well, but it was an amazing piece of heroism and probably one of the first to be covered by the television news after we bought a set.  But it is sixties years ago now.  I know that we definitely had a television for the Coronation and that happened only a few months later.  But it was also one of a long list of disasters that have happened over Christmas.

January 15, 2012 Posted by | News, Transport/Travel | , , | Leave a comment

Why The Queen Doesn’t Wear a Hard Hat when Riding

The Sunday Times discloses today ewhy the Queen doesn’t wear a hard hat when she rides a horse, despite the fact that various organisations are always telling her to set an example.

She was once took to task by the racehorse trainer, Ian Balding, when he was  hacking with her in Windsor Home. ‘I really think it is ridiculous that you above all others, do not wear a crash helmet.’ She never does, as this piece shows

The Queen replied: ‘I never have and you don’t have to have your hair done like I do’ As it says in the article in The Sunday Times, this is an expression less of vanity than of the practical need to be ready for her appointments.

January 15, 2012 Posted by | News | , | Leave a comment

Cherie Blair Moves Into Private Health Care

According to The Sunday Times and the Daily Mail, Cherie Blair is part of an attempt to setup a chain of private one-stop health clinics called Mee Healthcae.  Read about it in the Daily Mail here.

The domain, meehealthcare.com, seems to have been registered, but the website hasn’t been setup yet.

The registrant appears to be Gail Lese, a business partner of Cherie’s mentioned in both articles.

What would Mark Serwotka and Bob Crow think?

January 15, 2012 Posted by | Finance, News | , | Leave a comment

Our New Aircraft Carriers Won’t Have Any Aircraft!

The Sunday Times today says that the two follies of Gordon Brown’s tenure as Prime Minister won’t have any aircraft, as the new F35C, that have been chosen by the Coalition, can’t land on a carrier. There’s more about the F35C’s problems here. To be fair to the Coalition, they had little choice but to go for the C variant, after the B variant, which had a limited vertical take-off  and landing capability, was not performing well in test flying.

Perhaps though we’ll come up with a better solution, given that the British public won’t support another Iraq or Afghanistan.  We’ve also proven that for operations near home, such as Libya, that we don’t need carrier-based aircraft. In addition, we’ve also proven that attack helicopters can work very well off ships like HMS Ocean. Perhaps we need another ship like this one, which was built at a small fraction of the propsed cost of one of the new aircrsft csrriers.

January 15, 2012 Posted by | News | , | Leave a comment

Some Horse

An old horse-coper in Suffolk, once told me that if you think you’ve got a good horse, you should ask if it could charge guns and tanks.

Brough Scott in today’s Telegraph, tells the story of Warrior, his grandfather, General Jack Seely‘s horse. Warrior led one of the last cavalry charges in the First World War at Moreuil Wood, was painted by Sir Alfred Munnings and took part in the victory parade in 1918.  For an encore he won a race at the Isle of Wight point-to-point in 1921.  In the end he lived until he was 33 and was only put down in 1941, because of a shortage of feed.

With all the hype going on about War Horse, let us not forget that others played their part. But perhaps not as bravely as Warrior.

January 15, 2012 Posted by | Sport | , | Leave a comment

It Isn’t Just the PIP Implants To Blame

The third leader in The Times yesterday was a reasoned one on the scandal of the PIP implants.

It started by saying that those hospitals and clinics that fitted them should rectify the problem. It also said that the NHS and eight cosmetic surgery groups would replace the implants without charge.

The leader then said this.

But even in this mire, one private clinic stands out for the audacity with which it is abdicating its responsibility to its patients. The Harley Medical Group, which was responsible for fitting PIP implants to almost 14,000 of the 40,000 British women who received them, is refusing to replace the now banned implants without further charge. Doing so, it says, would put it out of business.

But what is Harley doing?  Absolutely nothing except protesting it wasn’t their fault, but one of the regulatory authorities.  I should say, that I’ve heard of the Harley Medical Group, as has everybody who uses escalators on the London Underground. I should say, that their adverts haven’t been there for some months.

It would be interesting to see a report on finances of the Harley Medical Group, by a reputable forensic accountant.

As an aside here, according to a doctor on BBC Breakfast, a proper breast implant costs £16,000.  So if Harley fitted implants to 14,000 women, that works out at  £448 million pounds to sort out the problem. The Times has a lesser figure of £40 million, bt also states that Harley only made a small profit last year.

So why should the NHS and ultimately the taxpayer pay for the patient’s vanity? And stupidity for going to Harley?

January 15, 2012 Posted by | Health, News | , , | Leave a comment