Why Is A School Using Libel Lawyers?
On BBC London News this evening, there has been a story about a primary school, using well-known libel lawyers to sue their local council for damages over something written in a report. I didn’t get the full story, but I shall be watching later tonight and searching the papers in the morning.
After all, as a taxpayer, I don’t like schools wasting money and hiring libel lawyers definitely comes under that category.
C did her first pupillage as a barrister in libel chambers and it never ceased to amaze her how much money was wasted by clients in cases.
Computer Disasters Inc.
Some years ago, I was discussing, what we might do with someone in Metier, if the whole venture had gone bust. I suggested an idea, which keeps coming back to me called Computer Disasters Inc.
NatWorst now is in need of such a company, which I envisaged as the Red Adair of the computer industry. NatWorst will certainly be paying out fees on a scale Red Adair would have thought reasonable.
Zopa in the Belfast Telegraph
Zopa has a good plug in the Belfast Telegraph today.
It’s probably opportune given the problems at Ulster Bank, which has a high presence in the province. On the other hand, if people haven’t got a working bank account, how are they going to repay their loan?
NatWorst in the Observer
I’ve been trying to see, if I can find any reference to NatWest as NatWorst on the internet. I found this interesting article from the Observer from September 1999. This is the interesting bit and it isn’t about the bank.
Listen, very carefully…is that the sound of a Wall Street crash? The Dow Jones has slithered back like a rattlesnake on a slagheap: not so much irrational exuberance as ungainly correction. It’s how it always starts: a large rise, followed by a stuttering correction followed by a crash. Oh, and it always happens in October. Look at 1987; look at 1929. So then, five days to go until we can kiss our assets goodbye.
I wonder if the journalist who wrote this, realises now what he said. So he was a few years early.
Has Libby Purves Got A Point Here?
In her article on immigration in The Times today, she virtually says, that we got a lot of immigrants from former Soviet republics, as they all spoke good English, because of listening to the BBC World Service for years. So just as Ang Sang Suu Kyi listened to Dave Lee Travis to stay connected, they listened to get educated and also realised, where they wanted to go.
So if we want to stop immigration, we should close the BBC World Service, except to countries like Canada and Australia?
But then the BBC World Service is one of the things that makes Britain what it is.
Access To Medical Records for Research Purposes
The Times today has an article entitled, NHS red tape ‘is strangling life-saving medical research’, which says it all.
If you consider that Richard Doll, proved the link between smoking and lung cancer using medical records, you realise how important this is, especially as the NHS database is the largest medical database in the world.
I don’t care what any researcher does with my medical records, provided what they do is morally acceptable.
Surely what you do is allow researchers to run queries on the database, provided the research has been approved by the NHS.
Hospital Reorganisation
There have been a couple of stories on the news about hospital reorganisation in the last week or so. There was a story last week about the reorganisation of A & E units in North West London. Today, there’s a story about a trust in South East london, that might merge with one in North West Kent.
As when the closure of Barts was mooted some years ago, the locals are against it. For instance someone has said this morning, that those in South East London prefer to travel to the teaching hospitals in Central London.
I lived for a long time in East Anglia and now, the number of big hospitals, is probably down to just two; Cambridge and Norwich, with some local General Hospitals in between. Some like Bury St. Edmunds will disappear fairly soon.
And then of course, there was the retired doctor, who got elected to Parliament over the closure of Kidderminster Hospital, a few years ago.
Modern medicine means we need less hospital beds and more specialist consultants and because paramedics are so much more advanced in what they can do, we need less A & E units.
But try selling this to the locals.
The Good Luck Runs Out
What else is there to say!
England Against Ukraine at Cricket
Radio 5 has announced this morning that an English touring cricket club is in Ukraine. Apparently there are eight cricket clubs in Kiev.
I can’t help being reminded of the very funny Michael Bentine sketch, where he was taking cricket to the natives, in some unnamed country. The last line as he held up a box, was.
And this is 27s. and 6d.
Classic humour from the only Peruvian born in Watford.
Prostitution and the Olympics
Caitlin Moran in The Times, writes a controversial article about prostitution today and especially about how brothels are being closed in East London. In her usual way, it is witty and controversial in equal measure, but it misses one big area about prostitution and the Olympics.
Years ago, I was changing planes in Boston, so as I had a few hours and only a small cabin bag, I decided to take a taxi to the City Centre and have a decent lunch.
I’m not sure how it happened, but I found myself sharing a taxi with a hooker looking for a punter. I declined her offer, as I wanted to be on the connecting flight. But she did say she’d have lunch with me to pass the time, as she had things to do later. I said she was on if we split the tab, expecting her to get lost, as although she was rather good looking, I was quite keen to put temptation well out of my way. She chose a not particularly expensive, but good Italian restaurant in a restored area by the waterfront.
We had a good meal and she did pay her part of the bill. Even the tip! She also showed me how to get the ferry to the Airport, to save the taxi fare.
It turned out, she’d worked as a prostitute for about five years, since she had left University. She had a flat in Boston, but rarely lived there, following the big conferences and high class holiday areas as the year progressed. I remember, she said that she used to go to Aspen for the skiing season, but never got on the piste.
Girls like this will see London as the place to be this summer, but they will not be staying in East London by any means. It will be interesting to see the girls waiting in the popular and very expensive hotels. Some say, it has always been thus, as I remember a friend was propositioned in the bar of a five-star hotel a few years ago by an Arab, whilst waiting for her husband.
The Anonymous Widower 