The Olympics Cut Crime In London
Figures show that crime fell by five percent during the Olympics. Read all about it, here in the Daily Telegraph.
On a similar vein, the BBC in London has just announced that London Ambulance had a quiet time. Come to think of it, I’ve only seen the Air Ambulance once in the last couple of weeks. It tends to pass over, where I live.
In fact, although I’m not that far from the Olympic Park, I have hardly seen any helicopters at all; police, military, ambulance or otherwise.
Let’s hope it continues. I’m not bothered about the noise, but it just means that crime and serious accidents are a a low level.
Why I Won’t Drive Again!
I now suspect that in a couple of years, my eyesight might be good enough to drive again.
But I’m pretty certain that I won’t!
Given my medical history, suppose I was to hit a child and kill them, when even the impeccable witnesses said it was not my fault, would I really want to have to go through any legal process, from perhaps vindictive parents. Especially, if it came out, I’d had a serious stroke and been stopped from driving for medical reasons.
What worries me, is that there are many out there with worse medical problems than me, who still drive. As it was I could be dead now, if this morning I’d gone by the pedestrian lights near me, as an idiot in a blue Nissan Micra went up the clear inside lane at about sixty with the lights on red to go straight over. What a wanker! His medical problem was in his head. Why I hadn’t stepped out I do not know! But who cares? I just didn’t! I suspect I heard him.
Thinking about it, he must have gone straight over the crossing seventy metres or so before the lights at speed. I just wish I’d got his number.
Why Not A Standard Hospital Chart?
I’ve been presenting information by computer for forty years and before that my father was a printer, who designed forms for companies for probably fifty years. So to say I have a lot of experience both in my brain and having been taught by several masters, I was surprised when I saw this item about hospital charts, I was initially surprised that it wasn’t already happening.
On the other hand though, when was healthcare anywhere in the world logical?
Every hospital chart and report on a world-wide scale should be the same, so let’s say like I did you go to hospital after an attack in Italy, your GP or British doctor can get a hang of what happened and what drugs you got. So in my case it would have been in Italian, but because everything would be in the same place, a doctor could get the gist of it.
But of course, it would remove the independence of a doctor to do what he or she wanted.
Torch Chasing In East London – Royal London Hospital
My granddaughter was born in the Royal London Hospital. So I had to go along and take some pictures.
The hospital now has been almost completely reconstructed and the famous facade is in the process of being refurbished. Note how in the distance in many of these pictures you can see The Gherkin.
Return To The Hippodrome
Yesterday, I went to the newly-reopened Hippodrome Casino to see Kate Dimbleby perform in a musical entertainment written in collaboration with Amy Rosenthal, called Beware of Young Girls: The Dory Previn Story.
I must be one of the few people of my age, who have memories of the old Hippodrome Theatre, that previously stood on the site. I didn’t actually go, but in the early 1950s, I regularly had to go to the Royal Dental Hospital in Leicester Square. My mother, who had been to the theatre before the war, and I used to come up from North London on the Tube and get off at Leicester Square, where we exited the station at Hippodrome Corner. It was then a short walk to the actual square and the dental hospital. One day the builders were in and you could see right through the windows, which told how what was happening was the talk of the town. I can’t remember it actually opening as the nightclub called, The Talk of the Town, as we finished going to the dental hospital. It’s since had a bit of a chequered history, with good and bad times and now it has been turned into a casino.
I think they’ve made a good job of it on the construction and furnishing side. As to the gambling side, I don’t gamble in a casino. I would though, if someone was fool enough to set up Canfield. But after my stroke, I doubt I still have the prowess I used to have. I do bet on horses, but only when the odds are longer than they should be. I once had Terimon at 500/1 each way for the Derby. He came second.
But I do, see shows in a casino and once saw Siegfried and Roy in Las Vegas. I’ve been to Vegas several times and I’ve never gambled on anything there, which must be some sort of record.
So how was last night’s show?
I enjoyed the show and it brought back memories of Dory Previn’s show at the Donmar Warehouse in the last 1980s, where I saw her with C. The set was similar too and I wonder if Amy’s mother, Maureen Lipman, who is thanked on the program, saw that show at the Donmar too!
I don’t think there are any original videos of Dory Previn singing, although there is this video on YouTube. It was taken on a toy camera, when she opened an Arts Centre in Springfield a couple of years ago. The songs are Jesus Had A Baby Sister and Twenty Mile Zone. Her last recording incidentally was Planet Blue, which can be downloaded free from here.
I should also say that I liked the venue too Acoustics were good and from where I sat, I had a good view.
I didn’t actually eat, but the food seemed to be reasonably priced and as a coeliac, some of the snacks were gluten-free.
I’ll probably go again, when an artist I like is appearing. Top class style it definitely has, but the prices aren’t out of the range of a sensible fan.
Where Am I On A Global Fat Scale?
I filled in the calculator on this page on the BBC web site.
As someone who is 1.71 metres tall and weighs 64 kilos, it said.
I have a BMI of 22, I have less body fat than 94 % of males between 60 and 69 in the UK and 73 % of all males between 60 and 69 in the world.
I’m most like someone of between 60 and 69 in Burkino Faso. I’m probably not, because I’m the wrong colour.
A Hospital Trust Goes Bust
It has been reported that an NHS Trust has gone bust.
I have a heart problem and attend The Heart Hospital, which is part of the University College London Hospitals Trust.
It was built as a private hospital and went bust. UCLH then stepped in to clean up the mess and bought a bargain.
I suspect that anything worth saving from the South London Healthcare NHS Trust will be saved, at little inconvenience to patients. Hopefully, the managers, accountants, politicians and bankers who created the mess, will get their proper rewards.
Is It A Case of Hail the Hygienist?
Yesterday, I went to see the dental hygienist to have my teeth polished.
She did her usual good job, but she found a small problem with a tooth, that may well have been causing me the pain in the left hand side of my face, that has been plaguing me the last two years, since I returned home from Hong Kong since the stroke.
Let’s hope so!
We shall see next week, when I go to the dentist.
So perhaps, I was right, when I advocated a walk-in hygienist.
The Canadian Family in Penang
Years ago, C & myself were waiting for the Penang Hill Railway to get on top of Penang Hill. I can’t remember exactly how we got talking, but it could have been a can of Coke in the hot weather and this Canadian family with three children helped clear up the mess. It turned out they were two teachers and had sold up all of their possessions and were going round the world. They were obviously educating their children as they travelled.
They had started in the UK and then crossed Europe by train to take a ferry to North Africa, where they crossed the Sahara in a truck. Gradually, they progressed through Africa to Dar Es Salaam, from where they took a dhow to India. When we met them, they were living in a two dollars a day flophouse in Penang. In a few days, they woukd be off and hoped to get to Darwin.
I asked if they had had any trouble. They said, only really the baboons. But then babons are the hooligans of Africa. Although, their son had broken his humerus, somewhere in Northern Nigeria. The local head man introduced them to the local bonesetter, who felt it all back into place. Later in Lagos, the Canadian High Commission, got them an appointment with the best orthopaedic surgeon in Nigeria. When he looked at the arm, he just gave a knowing look and said that the bonesetter was better than he was at puting broken bones back together. He’d not had any trouble since. I wish that bonesetter had put my gammy arm back together.
I always wonder what happened to that family. I assume all was well, but it would have made the travel book of the decade. I suspect, the authorities would have something to say, if a family tried it now.
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.
The Anonymous Widower 