My Dalliance With Joan Collins
Joan Collins was on BBC Breakfast this morning plugging a book.
I actually met her once in the queue for Immigration at Heathrow, after we’d both flown in from the United States. All I can say, is that she looked a lot better this morning, as I suspect she’d had time to do her make-up properly.
She did ask me a favour in the queue at Heathrow, which I declined. but then I never light anybody else’s ciggie. Or even one for myself, for that matter! Even if it belongs to Joan Collins!
The Land of the Free – Sorry Oppressed!
This story with a title of Limbaugh slut slur student Sandra Fluke gets Obama call, on the BBC web site sums up a lot of what I find objectionable in the United States. The first paragraph says it all.
US President Barack Obama has called to offer support to a US law student attacked by radio host Rush Limbaugh for her views on contraception.
Just think what would happen if a talk-show host on a UK radio station, had said similar things to a student in the UK. Limbaugh called the student a slut and a prostitute. They would probably be fired instantly.
What seems to be missing here, is that your health is firstly your own responsibility and if that means you need contraception, then you should be able to get it. No institution has the right to tell you what you can’t do in this area. I always thought, the United States was supposed to be the Land of the Free. Not the Land of the Oppressed!
The New Royal London Hospital
The new Royal London Hospital opened today.
I wonder if the Labour Ward is still named after Marie Celeste?
The Priory
The Priory Clinic is well-thought of for sorting addiction and other mental problems.
However, I was surprised to see that it was advertising in a local glossy magazine at my dentist’s in Notting Hill yesterday.
Perhaps they’ve found it’s an area, where many of their past clients live.
The Man who got Saddam Hussein to Give Up Smoking
Dr. William Frankland was yesterday appearing in a case as an expert witness, a day before his 100th birthday.
The case is reported in The Times today, that also says that in 1986 he was flown to Iraq to treat Saddam Hussein. Saddam listened to the good doctor’s advice and gave up his 60-a-day cigarette habit.
In some ways he feels guilty about it, as he believes without his advice, Saddam would have died naturally years ago.
Perhaps, Blair and Bush missed a trick here, by not reminding Saddam that he owed his life to a very good British doctor.
After all, all dictators are paranoid about their health.
Food Labelling
They are talking about healthy eating and food labelling on BBC Breakfast this morning.
For many though, it doesn’t matter what you put on tins and packets, as it seems lot of people just eat take-aways like kebabs, burgers and enormous American sandwiches. Are they labelled?
Alistair Campbell on Alcoholism
Alistair Campbell has written a Panorama program on alcoholism, which is shown tonight.
As he was responsible for framing a lot of Nulabor policy, is there any connection to the financial mess that the Blair and Brown governments left us is.
Just looking at various cabinet ministers of the last fifty years or so, you can tell that some don’t have the healthiest of lifestyles.
Blackpool is the Smoking and Pregnancy Capital of England
Apparently according to this report from GPs, 30.3 % of pregnant women in the NHS Blackpool area continue to smoke, as against 20% for the north as a whole. By contrast in NHS Brent in London, the figure is just 2.8 %.
I would suspect that Blackpool doesn’t need a mayor, but a real Norland Nanny, to sort them all out. Preferably with an AK-47!
Richard Pitman’s Good Deed
Richard Pitman was a good jump jockey, but more famous for losing the Grand National on Crisp in the last few strides to Red Rum. He was also a reliable BBC commentator and presenter.
He was reported yesterday as having donated a kidney to a complete stranger, after seeing his friend deteriorate whilst waiting for a transplant. He was on BBC Breakfast and the story is also related here.
On a day when Baroness Warsi was complaining that we are turning from religion, isn’t what Pitman did a much more altruistic act, than most of the worthless words we get from those with so-called religion. Name a religious leader, who did what Pitman did for a start!
Incidentally, a kidney transplant expert, told me that one in a hundred of us only have one kidney.
I do think that Pitman upset a few people in what he did, as it wasn’t covered very deeply in the media.
London Hospitals Write Off Millions
According to this report from the BBC, the NHS in London is owed £26m by those who because they are not British or EU citizens, don’t get free healthcare. Of this a large proportion has been written off.
This is not a new phenomenon.
When my mother-in-law had her new heart valve fitted in Barts in the early 1970s, some of the patients there could be be described as health tourists from the USA. They needed a new heart valve and had come to the UK, where they then got admitted to the hospital through A & E.
I guess the system is still the same.
The Anonymous Widower 