Life After Widowhood
This tale from the Daily Mail proves that widows should not be left to their grandchildren, knitting, country dancing and endless coffee mornings.
The widow in the story was younger than I was when she was widowed, but stories of previous partners being part of the relationship is very common. Unfortunately, just as in this tale, children can resent the new husband or wife. But here, it all turned out well in the end.
But then your relationship to the new spouse is not a blood relationship, whereas your children have that to you and your previous partner. So in some strange way, it may be easier for you, than them!
So be careful.
Medical Misdiagnosis
According to Professor Graham Neale at Imperial College, about 15% of conditions are misdiagnosed by the NHS. 15% is not one in six as the Times states. It’s actually nearer one in seven!
I heard him on Radio 5 last night and he was saying that this is one of the biggest problems facing health systems around the world.
Too right it is!
Let’s assume that we can cut this level by ten percent. On a straight economic case, it should cut the health care bill by at least one percent. So getting to grips with this is a major challenge that will bring enormous benefits.
The Times talks of one possible IT-based solution.
The NHS in Scotland has launched a pilot project where computer software with a diagnosis checklist is installed in GP surgeries to prevent errors. The programme, involving 25 GP surgeries, uses a commercial company called Bluebay, that gives doctors access to written information on how best to treat certain conditions.
I must admit, that I do have a special interest and knowledge of misdiagnosis. As I am a coeliac, and moderate a group on the Internet about it, I’ve come across quite a few who have been misdiagnosed for years.
But then you can see the problem, if like me you have bad skin, joint pains, severe dandruff, gallstones, mild depression and migraines, would you have thought that the problem was a gluten-intolerance?
The other problem is that there is no record of diagnosis. To me as someone who analyses data for a living, it is a goldmine, that could give a rich vein of results. Doctors always state reasons why this should not happen. But then pilots have had an anonymous reporting system for years. No-one ever complains about that!
We do not need major changes to get a decent increase in efficiency. We just need doctors and other health professionals to make the best use of the information that could be readily available.
And judging what I said earlier on saying sorry, they could learn from that too!
Saying Sorry is Good for Your Business
I first heard this story on Radio 5 and it’s here in full in the Daily Mail.
Nottingham University does a lot of excellent research and this detailed study shows how a simple apology can be better than offering unsatisfied customers a cash payout. The experiment was interesting too, in that it was carried out using a company that made sales on eBay. I wonder how much other good research can be performed in this manner?
The levels of satisfaction were actually 42% with an apology and 23% when a cash payout was offered. So it wasn’t just a small difference!
A couple of months ago, I wrote a post talking about the service I got with a freezer from John Lewis.
So perhaps things are getting a lot better.
They may be in commercial companies, but we will really only have completed the customer-relations revolution, when the various Agencies of the Government get their customer focus perfect. There are ones that are good, but there are others that are terrible.
Get it right and it could help the next government govern for a long time.
An interesting aside to saying sorry, is that an old friend used to run a large hospital department. They implimented an immediate sorry-policy and it cut the level of complaints drammatically.
Live Longer in Bury St. Edmunds
Or in fact one particular area, Moreton Hall. This is according to statistics from the Care Quality Commission, published in the Daily Mail. That’s twenty-six years more than in a deprived area of Middlesborough.
Now, I don’t live in Moreton Hall, but I do live in St. Edmundsbury, which is the local authority including the town. Strangely Bury is not a city, despite having a cathedral, which was part of one of the largest abbeys in England.
So why is the health better round here?
The hospital in the town is not particularly eminent, but most people don’t have too many complaints about it. My GP service is very good and I’ve not heard many complaints of others either. I can remember years ago, that it was a common topic, when we lived in North London, but it’s seldom heard here.
But that is only about the service you get when things go wrong.
Bury is an affluent town and that obviously helps, but it is also a town which has had virtually full employment for many years. I can remember an article in the 1980s, where it had the highest employment levels in the country, despite all the problems elsewhere.
It is also a town, where you tend to walk around the compact mediaeval centre, as parking is difficult. But everything you need is there and it is a thriving centre, with lots of shops, a market and interestingly many new houses and flats crammed into every old yard and space. I know of few towns of 50,000 people, which are so busy with such a good atmosphere. Perhaps it all helps.
You also tend not to see as many obese people in Bury, as you do in other places. As obesity is linked so closely to cancer and heart disease, this must have an affect on life expectancy.
And then there is the weather. We have one of the mildest, calmest and driest climates in the UK, in West Suffolk. Rarely do we get snow and we get a lot of fine days in the winter, where in a nice walk or a bit of gardening, you can get your daily dose of sunlight and it’s life-enhancing vitamin D. You don’t get too many cold, depressing days.
But Suffolk as well, is unique amongst English counties in that, it is the home of real ale, with two of the major brewers, Greene King and Adnams, within its borders. Greene King is one of the largest employers in Bury. So whereas most of the UK has been seduced by gassy, over-advertised, chemical lagers, in Suffolk, the long drink of choice of many is a proper pint of real beer. It used to taste good, when I could drink it!
So is this a factor? Note sure. But there is nothing better than winding down with a good pint and perhaps that is very good for you.
But why is Moreton Hall at the top of the list?
It is an unusual estate in that most of the two thousand or so houses there are quite large. So there must be a high proportion of the affluent and we know that there is a relation between lack of wealth and lack of health. I would also suspect that if you surveyed Moreton Hall, you’d find very few smokers and heavy drinkers. It’s just that sort of place.
But it also has a unique factor that may or may not affect health.
It lies to the east of the sugar beet factory and for a large part of the year, you know of the factory’s presence by its not-unpleasant smell. So does it bathe the area with a health-giving elixir?
Probably not!
Japan Suspends Death Penalty
It may surprise some people that Japan still uses the death penalty. They also apply it in a particularly inhumane way in that the convicted is not told until the last minute. His relatives aren’t told either and they don’t get his body back.
But this is now effectively suspended, as all executions are signed off by the Justice Minister. And the new Prime Minister has appointed Keiko Chiba, who is a fierce opponent of capital punishment. So she won’t sign! Good!
Let’s hope that she gets rid of the law for ever.
Updating the Web Libel Laws
I try to be pretty careful about what I put on this blog. After all my late wife was a barrister, who had done her first pupilage in defamation chambers, so she knew a bit. And she warned me about what I put on the web.
But some of the laws on libel such as the “multiple publication rule” date from the 1850s or so and the government has launched a consultation on updating them. After all they were created before radio and television, let alone the Internet.
Among its suggestions are that the law could be replaced with a “single publication rule”, which would allow just a single court action against defamatory material, to prevent “open-ended liability”.
It discusses changing the limitation period for claims, such as extending it to three years after an article is published.
Publishers of online archives and blogs might also be given a defence of qualified privilege – that a piece is fair and accurate and published without malice – against an offending article after a year time limit has expired.
This is all to be welcomed. After all the libel laws were created to right wrong and bring justice. Now, it sometimes seems that some powerful individuals and companies are using the laws as a means to gag critics. That was not their original intention. Look at some of the scandals recently reported in the news and twin the name with libel and search Google. It is interesting research.
My late wife had two important points on defamation.
I’ve indicated one in that she said be very careful about what you publish.
But also she said that you should never sue for it. Often you may feel that something nasty is being said about you in the papers. If you as a small individual challenge a large newspaper or company, you will rarely get redress. If say like one of her divorce clients, who wrongly featured on the front page of a tabloid, the best you can expect is an apology at the bottom of page eleven.
So be brave and turn the other cheek!
St Therese of Lisieux
When I heard of this story I thought it was a joke. Some of the Saint’s bones will be paraded around the UK. For what purpose? To promote healing and reconciliation? Perhaps a worthy aim, but there are better ways of doing it, than using old relics. But then you don’t get the publicity you get with this stunt.
They didn’t really work when they went to Iraq, did they?
I always read Matthew Parris in the Times, as he puts a humorous slant onto things I think deeply about. He is in good form today, calling for atheists to come out and fight.
What? And we’re reporting this deadpan — and not in the Wacky World pages of light magazines? “Organisers said that the arrival of the casket, containing pieces of her thigh and foot bones, was likely to attract hundreds of thousands of pilgrims.” I’m sorry: “pilgrims”? Isn’t the word “dupes”? Does balanced reporting require neutrality even towards the self-evidently preposterous? Would a conference of the Flat Earth Society get giggle-free treatment on the news?
There is a lot more in the same vein. Great!
Three Men who Gave Pleasure
I always read the obituary columns of the Times. Yesterday’s was interesting in that the three featured, although different, had all gave us a lot of pleasure.
Keith Floyd had been a very unusual celebrity chef and had perhaps departed in a way that fitted his persona to a tee, with a heart attack after a very good lunch. We need more people like him on television. Brilliant, but flawed!
Brilliant, but flawed and from the obituary, it would appear he shared Floyd’s financial acumen, could also be applied to Troy Kennedy Martin. But he did give us the iconic Z-Cars and wrote the script for that thoroughly British film, The Italian Job. It is a pity that a lot of his other and possibly better work never made the screen, small or large.
And then there was an obituary for Patrick Swayze. I have never seen his two most famous films, Dirty Dancing and Ghost, but I do remember him in that excellent film, City of Joy. From his obituary he seems to have had his flaws, but he will be someone, who will be missed by many. My thoughts go out to his widow, who was his wife of nearly forty years.
I know how she feels.
Is There Racist Opposition To President Obama?
I’ve always respected Jimmy Carter. He drew a lot of short straws as President, but I think since leaving office he has shown himself to be a proper statesman. Often this is the test of a good politician, as when they are removed from the ties and responsibilities of office, they show their true colours and dreams. Sometimes they lose all respect and rightly so.
So when Jimmy Carter says that opposition to President Obama is racially based, we should all listen.
Well Done Eddie!
Eddie Izzard has now completed his feat of running forty-three marathons in fifty one days for Comic Relief.
In finishing he proved what many thought was an impossible task: that a 47-year-old cross-dresser with no sporting inclination could complete an endeavour usually reserved for a small band of endurance athletes and masochists.
So well done, Eddie!
I have given a small amount to Comic Relief and I hope that others will do so. This link does it and it’s very painless.
I have a confession to make though about Eddie. Much as I like him as a person and find him very funny, when he appears in interviews on the radio and television. But my late wife and I went to see him at the Corn Exchange in Cambridge and walked out at halfway. It could have been that I am going a little deaf or the bad acoustics of the theatre, but we just didn’t get it!
But, it’s still well done to Eddie!
I also have a rather tenuous connection to Eddie.
I have said in previous posts like Letterpress Rules OK, that my father was a printer. One of his employees was a lovely Scot called Frank Black. He actually taught me to drive in the Triumph Herald Estate that the company used for deliveries. But his main job was actually to cut paper on the modern Grieg guillotine. Hence the reason my father always referred to him as “Mac the Knife”.
In a previous job, Frank had run a company in partnership with an Izzard called Angel Electric. I think that they used to provide all sorts of pumps, heaters and other accessories for tropical fish tanks. Hence the name!
The Izzard family were fairly well-known in North London and another was a television producer who used to do a very respected program called Travellers Tales. In one, they were in Iran and they needed to get access to some caves where people had lived many centuries ago. It was thought that no-one had been there since the Middle Ages. So they called up Joe Brown, who at that time was one of the best rock-climbers in the world. (Checking his Wikipedia entry says that Joe is still with us and will be 79 in ten days time!)
Joe just walked up the wall and they were in!
It was fascinating television.
Whenever I read of Eddie and his achievements, I just think of the connections and remember Frank Black, who was a really good bloke.
The Anonymous Widower 