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 University Doctor Smellie
The GP at Liverpool University in C’s and my time there was a Doctor Smellie. He was one of the better GPs I’ve had and I’ve been lucky to have at least two good ones.
When C became pregnant with our first child, she went to see him and he suggested she have a home birth. Not something that she was thinking of and she wnt to Oxford Street Maternity Hospital instead.
If you research the name Smellie amongst doctors you’ll find an interesting history, including a William Smellie, who is sometimes called the father of British midwifery. So perhaps the good Dr. Smellie was just wanting to follow the family tradition.
Doctors Catch Bob Crow Syndrome
I like this use of words in a leader in The Times today.
I would define Bob Crow syndrome, as being unwilling to give up salaries and pensions, that are way above what similar groups of employees are getting.
The leader does praise British Airways pilots, who graciously took a pay cut rather than see their jobs disappear.
American Celebrity Chef Gets Diabetes
American celebrity city, Paula Deen, has just announced she has diabetes, like 26,000,000 other Americans. Apparently, her signature dish is a hamburger in between a doughnut. Enough said! And very gluten-rich too!
But she has got a deal to endorse a diabetes drug.
The United States is eating itself to being a has-been power. And helped by her recipes! She should be kept away from the media for ever, as she is probably doing as much damage to the population of the United States as your average terrorist.
In a few years time, they won’t be able to find enough fit people to play any serious sport or join the army.
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!
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?
It’s All James Bond’s Fault
According to this article on the BBC’s web site, the general distrust of nuclear power is all down to James Bond. Here’s the first two paragraphs.
The evil villains in James Bond movies are being blamed for casting a long-lasting shadow over the image of nuclear power, says the president of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Prof David Phillips says that Dr No, with his personal nuclear reactor, helped to create a “remorselessly grim” reputation for atomic energy.
I won’t argue with the President of the Royal Society of CHemistry, but I will add a little story of my own.
In the 1960s, I worked on NMR spectroscopy or to give it its full name nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The technique is summed up as.
Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, most commonly known as NMR spectroscopy, is a research technique that exploits the magnetic properties of certain atomic nuclei to determine physical and chemical properties of atoms or the molecules in which they are contained. It relies on the phenomenon of nuclear magnetic resonance and can provide detailed information about the structure, dynamics, reaction state, and chemical environment of molecules.
One of the guys I worked with at the time, Eddie Clayton, predicted that the technique would be used instead of X-rays in the future. We didn’t think he was right, but now of course nuclear magnetic resonance imaging is commonplace, with most hospitals having a scanner.
However because of peoples’ fears of anything nuclear, the nuclear has been dropped and it is referred to as MRi.
The Anonymous Widower 