chat and stuff

What A Wormful World

2015-02-10T07:32:00.002-08:00

What a President! Not Obama, or Clinton, but good old Jimmy Carter. He's got the job done, accomplished what he said he would. He's helped eradicate Guinea worm and that really is a Big Deal.
Not impressed? What's one little worm, after all? What if I tell you that this worm is ingested in dirty drinking water, It grows to a metre in length and then makes it's way out through the skin, often the foot, which gets so painful that people soak it in water to ease it. Out comes the monster and lays again.
Jimmy first saw it many years ago when he went over to a handsome African woman nursing a baby to say friendly hello to her child - and realised it was not a baby at all but a disgusting worm emerging from her nipple. Her nipple! She went on to have another 25 worms.
Jimmy decided to get rid of Guinea worm once and for all. He helped dig wells so that the water became clean. Now there were only 126 cases at last count, down from thousands each year.
Well done Jimmy - but thumbs down to God for creating such a creature in the first place. He sure has a warped sense of humour

Save Our Surgeons

2015-02-03T01:01:00.001-08:00

What does it feel like to squeeze a teenager's heart in your bloodied hands, focused, determined, willing it to beat and then watching the life slip away?

Surgeon Ton Konig did just that in a speeding ambulance, ripping open a chest while trying to save a 17-year-old stab victim. He failed - and that failure will live with him forever. He will never, ever be able to forget it.

What do we ask of our medics? A nurse on last night's Panorama told of the moment he almost walked out into the night during a hectic shift, physically and emotionally unable to take any more. These are human beings, pushed to the edge of endurance by what we ask of them.

Time to take control. Stop asking for miracles and start taking much better care of ourselves. Stop wasting their time with silly, trivial stuff that could be sorted with a paracetemol and a plaster.

Above all, put the knives down. leave all that cutting to the people who do it best - those brilliant, but badly-treated surgeons.

British Kids Abandoned

2015-02-01T03:26:00.002-08:00

We care for kids abroad and abandon those on our doorstep. It is a tragedy that we allow Welsh schoolchildren to be so badly treated. No pupils - that's right, none at all - are getting an A* in English in a quarter of Welsh schools.

How has it come to this? A whole generation getting a crap edcucation, ranked among the worst in the world. I blame the teachers. We have two in this house, so I'm well aware of the poressures, but the teaching in Wales is abysmal.

They are failing so badly and nobody does anything. One reason is the Welsh language. A good English teacher wanting to work in Wales has to be able to speak Welsh. Who could be bothered?

So the brightest and best of a nation are missing out. Doomed to a life of failure and lack of opportunity. Labour is in charge in Wales. Ed should get his stupid head around what his useless party has done and then hang it in shame.

Tainted Bishop

2015-01-22T03:28:00.000-08:00

Utterly repellent! The Church should be deeply ashamed and disgusted with itself! Why? Because they still see women as "tainted." Unbelievable!

It comes as Archbishop Sentamu prepares to appoint the first woman bishop next week. so far, so good, if so very, very late. But then, the week after, he will not "lay hands" on another bishop, the Rev Philip North, because somehow his hands would still carry a stain and traditionalists would not accept him.

How appalling is that! It is jaw-dropping in its utter contempt for the right of the Rev Libby Lane to become the first woman bishop. A reminder - this has been voted for and finally agreed. The Church said yes.

To still see women as somehow unclean and in their words, " tainted," harks back to the middle ages and reflects the skewed thinking of much of the Arab world today. It's an outrage.

Party Prats

2015-01-20T02:51:00.003-08:00

A kid fails to show at his friend's party - and gets an invoice for non-attendance! How much is Julie Lawrence regretting that now? Miffed that her five-year-old was slighted, she goes well overboard and wants her money back.

Every playground is a pratfall waiting to happen. So easy to get it wrong and have the whole shebang blow up in your face. Best advice I ever got was: "You'll have more rows over your kids than anything else. Leave well alone!"

Did I listen? Of course not. Waded in more than once. The kids made up instantly, but the mums? Well that took longer.

So Alex didn't fancy the Ski Slope, wanted to go to his gran's instead. Lots of lads of his age would. Save that exciting stuff for the eight-year-olds, I'd say and keep your cash, because the parties only get more expensive. Julie could've done with that advice, but would she have listened? No way.

Suffer the Children for Islam

2015-01-12T04:49:00.002-08:00

It's jail for the young lad, "in contempt of Islam." Three years banged up in Egypt. Hell's bells their cells must be bursting at the seams! Is there room for one more?

Plenty of contempt for Islam about right now and we all know why. They are sending ten-year-old girls off to be suicide bombers. Not enough devout young men then? All those celestial virgins no longer the catch they once seemed?

What do little girls get - a chance to swing upon a shiney star? Just suppose all religion is a lie, as I believe it to be. What have these morons got left in their lives?

No one has any proof of an after-life, but brain-dead fundamentalists are all too willing to cut short this one, using terrified little girls. Jesus would have wept.

Whose God Demands This ?

2015-01-07T07:52:00.002-08:00

So sad for the journalists mown down by madmen in Paris. These are my people, I've worked with many like them and trust me, they are the most generous, kind and, even more than anything, fun folk that you could wish to meet.

They were courageous too. Police stood outside to protect them and were murdered for their pains. These were workers who turned up at the office every day knowing it could well be their last.

Their last moments were horrific. They paid in blood for so-called insults. What God demands that? It took a while to shoot 12 people in cold blood. More may well die of their injuries.

God knows what is the answer to this carnage and he's not saying, but then, he never does, does he?

Prince, a Paedo and a Pup

2015-01-07T00:30:00.003-08:00

Randy Andy - did he do it? I think so, yes. The toe sucking is a dead give-away. Fergie was well into it and what suited the wife...

Bumptious, braying Andrew is a total fool. Not "the best man in the world" as she claims. That good eh? Why leave him? Fact is, he knows no better. He would think 17 is fine for sex. It is here. He sticks like shit on a shoe to a known paedophile because that pile of crap is rich. Of course he would.

Money is what this is all about. Fergie took a present of £15,000 from the jailbird. Who gives their mates £15,000 and expects nothing back? Will he get away with it? Yes again.

And talking of animals a woman ringing for an ambulance was asked if she had a dog. Furious, she put the phone down. Standard question. No paramedic wants to barge into a house and face an angry, defensive dog. They tell you put it behind doors. Only sensible after all.

Axe? Pass the Bolly.

2015-01-02T02:06:00.000-08:00

How to spoil the party. Get this: " New Year's Eve celebrations in a quiet Devon village were ruined after a 27-year-old local man was killed and two others injured in a knife and axe attack." Well that would do it. No coming back from that is there, with blood and bits all over the place.
Might as well go home and try again another night.
Such a party pooper! The front page of The Times really seems to feel the pain of the folk who got all dressed up only to have a mad axe man in their midst. Who invited him?
Never mind the carnage, it's all about the ruined celebrations. Has the paper gone mad? This is on the front page. It tells the full story on page 8, but really, is this the right tone ? Call me old fashioned but I think not Mr Editor, I think not.

Top Dog Rules

2015-01-01T03:09:00.000-08:00

Just done a deal with the dog. Bit of barter. He likes the dregs from my tea cup - ok, yes, it is disgusting, but there's always the dishwasher. Deal with it. Anyway, sometimes I say no. The noise puts me off and since today is New Year's Day, I'm quite sensitive.
So the Staffie uses his large head and brings his much-prized Christmas toy. Shoves it at me. And waits.
The message is clear. It's a fair swap. So into the cup goes the snout. Now, how clever is that? This dog is a rescue after all. He was REJECTED! Brain that big, he could do stuff, invent things, change the course of history, anything! This dog is a canine genius!
Go on, tell me I'm wrong! Prove me a fool for giving in to a higher intellect. I'll laugh in your face because one day, one day soon, me and that dog are going to conquer the world. Only a matter of getting the kettle on.

Putin The Sex Spy

2014-12-28T05:02:00.002-08:00

Someone had a dig at Putin. Nothing major, just a minor poke, but next thing he knows his sex life is on the ten o'clock news. Putin didn't like Viktor Shenderovitch likening his Sochi fandango with the 1936 Nazi Olympics.

So he dug out a secret sex tape he had handy - as they do in Russia - and aired it on prime time TV.

Well that'll teach him. Sure to be plenty of satirists over there keeping schtuum right now. Who knows who's been planting cameras in their nooks and crannies? Bet Putin's got a stock of films, ready for the next brave soul who fancies having a go.

Back here though it would liven up the telly no end for us, wouldn't it? Worth stopping up for, I would say. Still, when you've got to have the secret police planting surveillance kit in your critics' bedrooms, chances are you are running a bit scared, wouldn't you say?

Bin Me Up Scottie!

2014-12-22T04:49:00.002-08:00

Bung me in the bin. I'll write it in my will. Composting a corpse is the new way to go.

The idea is the brainchild of Katrina Spade of the Urban Death Project who says: "The deceased are folded back into the communities where they have lived as the great potential of our bodies to grow new life is celebrated." Nicely put.

What she means is that the dead are wrapped in linen and dropped into a three-storey high concrete box then topped off with sawdust and woodchips to keep the smell down. After a few weeks relatives can claim a cubic yard of compost, or give it to farms.

It's a great idea. In this age of recycling it's incredible no one has thought of it before. It frees up our land for the living and helps the grass grow while saving 4 million acres of trees we cut down to make coffins. Count me in.

Slim with Hot Chocolate - Fatty Fantasy

2014-12-21T05:13:00.001-08:00

Fatties love a bit of fantasy - imagine waking up slim, no diet necessary. Today the Sunday Times is pedalling such a dream. You go to a posh clinic, drink hot chocolate standing up while a doctor "sculpts" your body to the perfect shape. No pain. You dress and walk away a new woman.

Fabulous. Worth it at any price. Does it sound too good to be true? Maybe. Let's face it, the lipo Brits are used to involves a huge wodge being mined by a brawny surgeon, the business end working away under increasingly bloodied skin as yellow gunk drains out. God it's horrible.

And dangerous. People have died trying this. So hot chocolate and straight back to work? No bruising? It may be happening in New York, where everyone is stick thin and anything bigger than a pimple has them rushing for the knife.

Don't reckon it will catch on here. Our problem is too massive to be managed in a lunch hour.

Greedy Penny Market Grab

2014-12-15T12:00:00.002-08:00

How happy are those guys who got games for a penny? So thrilled with their bargains they went on Twitter to say Amazon was "broken." Pricing errors left small companies picking up the costs, which runs to thousands.

How do these people sleep at night? What made them think this was the right thing to do? Just because the system has a glitch allowing you to rip off someone else, doesn't mean you should.

Everybody who bought their 1p items on Friday evening knew that it was a mistake. If a cash point goes wrong and people take free money, they are thieves. I see this in exactly the same way.

They should send the stuff back and then, if they still want it, buy it at the right price. One woman bought an incense burner she had no use for, just because it cost her 1p.

Many more bought games that should have cost them at least £18. They know what these things are worth and they know it is only possible to produce them if there is a profit there. Just play by the rules, that's all, if you don't want your games supplier to go out of business.

Torture or Death on a Train?

2014-12-13T02:22:00.002-08:00

Torture - for or against? Waterboarding or 28 dead on a tube train. Which is it to be? People held for 11 years without trial, interrogated by the Americans and the Israelis - both no slouches at the job - and nothing gained except worldwide revulsion.

An SAS expert says the only useful information will be garnered in the first 48 hours. After that all plans will be changed, locations re-arranged, so your man in the cells is no longer in the loop.

Yet he may still have massive influence and be a huge danger to innocents.What to do? How about admitting that some people need to be made to talk if lives are to be saved? Some techniques can be seen to work.

But there is a time limit. Hardened souls may not break. You can't let them go. You can't bring them to court if that means revealing information that only a spy still in the camp could have given you. You can't risk them either.

But you can stop the horror. You can keep this person away from the world. He, and increasingly she, will no longer be useful to the bad guys. It's a terrible choice, but to carry on torturing regardless of benefit shames us all.

Jihadis Find New Use For Teenage Girls

2014-12-03T04:04:00.002-08:00

No fan of the burkha me, but even less so now that they are using teenage girls wearing their own shrouds to blow up ordinary people. Old men, little kids, other women, anyone who could make a difference, all are victims when a female fundamentalist gets God into her head.

Nobody is spared. Now 52 women are waiting in the wings, bombs strapped to their bodies, for the order to go out and cause carnage in Nigeria.

They are the hand-maidens of Boko Haram, that terrorising bunch of scumbags who kidnap girls for going to school. They marry them off to their mates, because no one would have them otherwise.

Why waste a wild-eyed jihadi when you can get a girl to do your dirty work? Women are worth less than nothing after all. Just send them out into the crowded streets and there will be fewer mouths to feed. It's beyond tragic.

Time To Shut Up About The Scots?

2014-11-28T02:44:00.002-08:00

Not getting the Scots. They seem to want to have their haggis and eat it. There was a vote, they took the right decision by a large, ten per cent majority. All hunky dory. Promised more powers to decide Scots business, they can now raise income tax and pay their own bills.

Sounds good to me. If it also means that Scottish MPs have no say on matters that are strictly English, that's as it should be too, particularly since down here we have no say over stuff North of the border.

But all this doing the right thing is upsetting the Scottish MPs. They like to shout and bang on about Scottish rights, but when they get some they're not happy, maybe because they think they might soon be out of a job. It's all a bit bonkers to me. Shall we just shut up about the whole lot of them for a bit?

Calpol Cruelty Family Not Alone

2014-11-23T01:50:00.002-08:00

Nipping out to the chemist to get Calpol almost cost a Dad his kids. His two-year-old was in the car outside the chemist when the police pounced. She was probably the one with the ear-ache, but no matter, she was put on the child protection register and the family went through a year of hell.

Sounds unlikely doesn't it? I left a baby in the car outside a nursery while I dropped off my three year old and came back seconds later to be confronted by two constables.

I told them I could see the car from the nursery. The baby was asleep. They still said they would call in the social workers if I dared to defend myself further. Cue grovelling on a grand scale.

I've seen kids left in cars outside shops. I would certainly call the police if they were left for too long, or if the day was hot and the windows shut. It happens, as I discovered in July.

But those cases are rare. Meanwhile a toddler is abused and dies in this country every week. We just don't hear about them. Time to get our priorities right and our police and social workers getting tough on the real abusers.

Put A Bond In Their Stocking

2014-11-22T06:10:00.002-08:00

Christmas has got weird, really weird and that's official. Want the proof? Parents should get their kids investments, not pressies, say the money gurus

Something in gilts not glits that will mature in time for a university education or a deposit on a house. Well that will go down well. Top marks for whoever thought of that, Jessie Hewitson in the Times.

They've calculated that between buying a gift and giving it the value drops by 20% - add on the inevitable breakage by Boxing Day and it's money down the drain. Put it in shares instead, that's the way to keep it safe. Or Premium Bonds. Maybe an ISA will float little Izzy's boat.

Hand over the envelope on Christmas morning with a bright smile and trill," Look what I got you !" No tat, no plastic, no remote controls or stuff without batteries, just a safety net for the future.

Well thanks mum, I can hear them say. Great. No. Christmas is for fun. get them the ISAs, bonds, everything else if you can afford it, but not at Christmas, because that's all about joy, family fun and giving rubbish just for the sake of it. Forget that and you might as well give up on Cristmas altogether.

Worst Doctor Ever

2014-11-17T01:01:00.002-08:00

Ever met a doctor who knows it all? No, me neither but yesterday I met the one convinced she does.

I expect to see her up before the General Medical Council any day soon. It won't be my son she's hurt, but someone else at the sharp end. My lad refused her care yesterday, even though he was two days out of a major op and she was the only doctor on duty. That bad.

He'd been told to expect a tough time and needed more morphine. She decided to tap hard on his wound to see if he really had pain. Percussive techniques have their place, but on new stitches holding a drain? Does that sound sensible to you? Anyway, he definitely had pain.

So did the guy in the next bed, the one with new staples she wanted to remove to see if he had pus. He said no. The guy opposite wasn't so fortunate. She messed with his wound, determined to get rid of apparent infection until he made it very clear he wantetd no part of it.

We have nothing but the highest regard for everyone else in that hospital which is a centre of excellence. This woman, who calls herself "Bubby" is a menance and it really is only a matter of time. The whistle has been blown.

Space Age Bake Off

2014-11-13T01:00:00.002-08:00

All those millions of miles away from home and little Philae is planning a bit of cooking. There's a sample to be collected and baked in her onboard oven, to see what gases come off a comet.

How homely is that? This amazing machine the size of a fridge is settling in nicely. We hope. We'd like her to stay put, but by the time we realise she's off to party among the stars instead it will be half an hour after it happens and we can do nothing about it.

But - what a wow moment that was! How brilliant are we to send something into space and after ten long years link up with a comet travelling at 34,000 miles an hour? Awesome ! Those nerdy scientists lost it when the moment arrived. Academics were wetting themselves with excitement and really who could blame them?

Pity the poor soul who built the harpoons though. They didn't work. While everyone else was dancing and celebrating, chances are he slipped off early for a silent weep under the duvet. His stuff may yet all come good and Philae will still get her gases done to a turn. If not, it was a hell of a ride!

London Earning, London Earning !

2014-11-08T13:48:00.000-08:00

There are binmen living in London. Hospital porters, cleaners, nurses and teachers. How? How do they afford it? People living on £15,000 a year - how do they find a place to sleep?

This genuinely puzzles me. Do we all make up their wages so that they can afford a bed, a room somewhere? My son is a student in London. He's looking at £600 a month for a room in a crummy, converted, council flat. If he can get it. Rooms this cheap are snapped up within hours.

I used to have a bedsit in Knightsbridge. It was one room in Beaufort Gardens and it cost me £45 a week. I bought my loo rolls in Harrods. Long time ago. These days Knightsbridge is dark at night, streets of expensive properties stand cold and silent, earning money for their owners abroad. Empty shells.

Nobody lives there, they just accumulate wealth for investors. I want people to invest in Britain. We need their cash. Do we really have to sell them our cities, our souls, just to keep the coffers full? Can we keep some of this for us, so we can look our kids in the eye and say, yes, if you work hard, you too could have some of this.

Not now they can't.

Crappy Way To Go

2014-11-05T02:27:00.001-08:00

On fireworks night a few years ago a young guy thought it might be fun to stick a rocket in his anus and light it. He paid a heavy price. He's probably still paying it.

Frankly trouble with the pipework is no joke. We should all be massively grateful when it all works like clockwork. When it all goes too fast or too slow we don't laugh much.

Lovely Linda Bellingham died of colon cancer last month. She was brave and smiling to the end, cheering up the friends who found it hard to hold back their tears.

Why, when it is a universal part of the human condition, do we still find our waste so embarrassing? So much so that we ignore signs that things are not well and refuse the tests that could save our lives?

Sticking a piece of cardboard into a poo and smearing it on a card to be scanned for cancer is a step too far for many of us. That's what all over 60s are asked to do. Almost half refuse.

Bonfire night turned into a tragedy for one young man. He was probably drunk. Too many of us don't have that excuse.

Bride Wanted Dead Or Alive

2014-10-31T04:20:00.001-07:00

China has come a long way - but maybe not far enough. Want the proof?They dig up corpses to marry them to their dead relatives - ensuring them a partner in the afterlife. The fresher the corpse, the more attractive they are. Skeletons need not apply.

It's Match.com gone mad. Offer up the recently deceased and you could be looking at £2,000.

We all knew women were in short supply in China after their disastrous one child policy lead to too many boys, unwanted girls being dumped in the gutter.

Men are dying without ever knowing a woman, so gangs prepared to do the dirty deed are raking in big money, so that the rotting pair can be buried together, problem solved. It's not legal and eleven grave robbers in Shandong province are looking at three years in jail. Who said romance is dead!

Roll A Newspaper To Fight Ebola

2014-10-26T04:58:00.000-07:00

There's no underestimating the imbecility of the British public is there? Sometimes it's jaw-dropping how stupid people can be. Take the pensioner who came into the cafe my daughter works in on Saturdays.

Seeing the odd fly, this daft bat said: "You should stop those flies coming in with all that ebola about."

What! She knows there is this terrible, devastating disease called ebola - and absolutely nothing else about it.

Brave journalists walk the line in Sierra Leone and Liberia, telling us via our screens every night of the horrific toll this is taking on poor Africans living in appalling conditions. Their streets run with sewage. There will be a few flies about.

Who could possibly see their courage and not realise that contact with the ill, and especially the dead, is what causes the contagion to spread?The heroic grave diggers in their plastic suits running with sweat do their job, often unpaid. Flies are the least of their problems.

Despair at the ignorance of the rest of us must surely come next.