Diana Watch

Today’s opening question is, how many of you met a Minister of State this week? Come on be honest, did you? No, of course you didn’t. I, however, met Andy Burnham, Minister for Health, my ultimate boss. He seemed like quite a nice bloke. Slightly ill-fitting suit though.

 I did ask on twitter if anyone had any questions for him and I received a few suggestions, most of which were appropriate, one was less so. Unfortunately my bosses where quite keen to stop me asking any questions but I did manage to get one in about the proposals to axe GP practices boundaries so that you can register anywhere you like. It’s an ok plan but there are issues i.e. home visits for patients who are really far away form the surgery and, if patient is registered with 2 practises and one prescribes a really expensive drug that the other one doesn’t use, who is going to pay for that drug. He is, at least, now aware of these problems.

 Other questioned were on such topics as NHS Homeopathy (what performance indicator and monitoring arrangements there are for the 4 NHS Homeopathic hospitals) and what will he do to improve dissemination of evidence to healthcare workers and the public? That last one was from Ben Goldacre, he had 2 others as well. Does he type as fast as he speaks because if he does that would be a sight to behold?

 I was impressed by the amount of sucking up my bosses did to the Health Secretary and the local MP who also tagged along.

As this is Diana Watch I feel that it is important to point out that she was on the cover of the Sunday Times last week but I missed it, sorry.

 There was, however, a much funnier story that was sort of about her at all this week.

The Daily Express had found that there is a Twitter account called @dianainheaven, this is an amusing feed that pretends to be from the dearly departed Princess Diana, and it says that people are outraged. Well it says admirers of PD (can we call her that?) are outraged but really they mean them.  

 They have also managed to find someone from something called Diana Appreciation Society. Alan Berry, co-founder of (and I assume half the membership of) DAS, said “It’s sick that some people can pretend to be Diana. What respect is that showing?” He also called for Twitter to ban the page.

 They also found it necessary to point out twice in the article that the account was fake and wasn't really PD. As if Daily Express readers, of all people, would be in any doubt that she is dead.

 After reading the article @dianainheaven simply said “Sick? Cheeky Cunts”

Prof Colin Pritchard of Bournemouth University is to publish a study into violence against children with particular emphasis on deaths. He looked at children from birth to 14. He has come up with some interesting findings. Despite what you may hear and read in the press your children have never been safer.

 This will, of course, come as a crushing disappointment for Chris “it’s like the Wire round here” Grayling, Shadow home secretary, who has been accused for misleading people with has pretty poor use of the statistics regarding crime figures.

 He has sent out some numbers to Tory activists saying that crime figures have risen under Labour. Unfortunately for him he has forgotten to point out that the way the numbers are calculated changed in 2002 and, as Sir Michael Scholar, chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, the pre-2002 and post-2002 are not directly comparable. Well what he actually said in note attached to a letter sent to Mr Grayling "a comparison, without qualification, of police-recorded statistics between the late 1990s and 2008/09 as likely to mislead the public”.

 In the letter it’s self he said "I do not wish to become involved in political controversy, but I must take issue with what you said yesterday about violent crime statistics, which seems to me likely to damage public trust in official statistics."

 Seriously, if you are getting smacked down by a statistician you are in serious trouble.

 That was not the full extent of Conservative voter scaring this week, oh no. Liam Fox, Tory Defence fool, managed to get fear-mongering, Xenophobia and Jesus into his response to the Governments green paper into Defence review. Here are a few selected highlights, (this is a link to the Conservative Party homepage, I wouldn’t recommend it),

 “That our nation’s security should be compromised by Labour’s historic economic incompetence is truly a national tragedy.”(fear-mongering), and “We also agree that France and the United States are likely to be our main strategic partners. For us there are two tests: do they invest in defence? And do they fight?  Sadly too few European allies pass both these tests.” (Euro-Sceptic Xenophobia) and my personal favourite, “And despite all the good words in this Green Paper today, the future defence budget will have to be conducted against the backdrop of Government debt of 799 billion pounds. That is the equivalent of borrowing 1.1 million pounds every day since the birth of Christ.” That is an odd reference point unless that was a call to the elderly Christian usual Tory voters. Taking into account all the old Conservative touchstones mentions, do you think that he was appealing to their base?

How about a few awards to lighten the mood?

The Award for, Again, Proving the Tories Wrong,

Dear David Cameron, if Britain is so broken, if it is the home of an uncaring people, of thugs and yobs, of divorce and broken homes, then why, we when we saw people who we didn't know, suffering in ways that we couldn't possibly understand, then why have we given £70 million to the Haiti appeal so far?

The Award for the Most Horrifying Pictures of the Week,

This goes to an article on MSN about Miley Cryus’ sister Noah starting her own range of  kiddies “lingerie” (to be honest it is probably only children’s underwear and it’s a PR thing ) but the photos that accompany the article are truly awful.

 I feel that the link needs a disclaimer. Whilst the photos are not child porn, I really don’t think that they are suitable for work. Or any other situation for that matter. Click here at you own risk. Scroll up to see as this link takes you to the comments section.

So my week has been pretty good. I met 2 MP’s, neither of whom turned out to be arses (despite what you might have read in the papers) and I had a bit included on the Pod Delusion (A podcast about interesting things.) Because I have finally worked out how to embed MP3’s on the blog (and a few people have said some nice things about it) here is my bit,

or you can listen to the whole thing if you just look to the left of the screen…… No, up a bit, there that’s it, the whole episode is embedded there.

 My advice to you this week is, if you haven’t already (and I can’t imagine you haven’t), you must watch Charlie Brookers Newswipe on BBC4. It is, by far, the funniest show on the television at the moment. It says all the things that you think about News coverage in our lovely country but it says them in a really funny way. Here is British television news deconstructed in 2 minutes, enjoy.

 Some of the things I haven’t had time to talk about this week are,

Obama says that he doesn’t “want to make decisions based on getting re-elected” and does things that are “the right things to do.” I still think he may be a great man.

Pope criticises the Equality act. Does that mean we can criticise him back, the intolerant, sexist, AIDs spreading, paedophile protecting, superstition promoting, Nazi?

 He says the homosexuality is against “Natural Law”. What is natural law? Does he mean that it is unnatural because that is an odd path to go down? Nature is pretty weird.

  Most parasitic wasps lay their eggs inside caterpillars and the Lava eat their way out? Mallard Ducks exhibit behaviour the researchers call “rape flight”. Male lions kill any cubs that they think are not their own. Is this the “Natural Law” that the Pope is referring?

10 Americans arrested for trying to kidnap 33 Haitian children, although it may be a little bit more complicated than it first looked. Still taking children without official permission with possible lying to parents, I think that qualifies you for “Cunt” status.

If you are on Twitter, or even if you aren’t, please check out Soichi Noguchi. He is currently in the International Space Station and is taking pictures of our beautiful plant and posting them on his feed. It is truly fantastic.

BAE Systems admits a lesser charge of bribery and corruption so that is can get bigger and better charges dropped.

Ok, I think I have to except that the Sunday Blog will ramble on a little, hope that’s ok with you lot.

 Hope you all have a lovely week.

Diana Watch

So let me get this straight, did the Nobel Committee give Barack Obama the peace prize for what he wants to do? I want to bring World peace and invent a cure for cancer but no one gives me a prize for that. The closing date for entries (yes even the Nobel Prize has a closing date) is sometime in February, which was about a fortnight after President Obama took office. I'm sure that he is a great man and will achieve great things but come on, a Nobel Peace Prize for 2 weeks work?
The problem is that people, I'm looking at you Fox News and most Republicans, will see this as a reason to bash him. They will see it as proof that he is giving away American power and influence. That he is buddying up (I believe that is the American phrase) to leaders and Countries that are not America. That others from outside of the US have some influence over their President, (some see the prize as the rest of the world saying “well done, carry on like that. We (the rest of the world) like what you are doing”) who they are going to criticise what ever he does. If he bought JFK back from the dead and sat down to dinner with God it would be called a political gimmick.

Ah, political gimmick. A phrase that should haunt Chris “It's like The Wire round here” Grayling, Shadow Home Secretary, to his political grave (see, I'm fair minded, not actual death, just swift political death).
This week, when told that Ex-head of the British Army Sir Richard Danet was joining a political party as an advisor he, for some odd reason given Sir Richard's constant hectoring of Gordon Brown, though that it was the Labour party and said that he hoped it wasn't a “political gimmick”.
The fun thing was that he was, in fact, joining the Conservatives. This was, of course, not a political gimmick or stunt but a very welcome and important appointment.
Later that day he went on to announce another poorly thought through, headline grabbing, short term policy. His “brilliant plan”, increase tax on cheap, high strength alcohol such as beer and cider. You'll note, not spirits.
These plans just won't work though. They don't tackle the problem of why people drink but nobody wants to tackle this problem because it is hard and complicated. It won't be sorted out with just a tax increase or a “crack down on anti-social behaviour”. If he had done some proper research rather than just reaching for his copy of “Tory Knee-jerk Reactions” he wound have found that this sort of scheme was tried in Australia and it didn't work. Spirits sales went up by 50%. Young people got drunk on them instead.

Before I leave the Nobel's completely, let's big up Chinese born British scientist Charles Kao who has won Nobel prize for physics for perfecting Fibre optic cables. He is sharing the prize with 2 others who invented the chip/sensor at the centre of the digital camera that converts light into digital data.

Many companies stand for nothing except making money and we should have no time for them but Apple have done something a little bit interesting. I would like to say that I read this in the Washington Post but I didn't, someone posted a link on Twitter.
Apple have left the US Chamber of Commerce because of it's position on climate change. IE Apple think it's a bad thing and something should be done and the Chamber of Commerce don't.
Now this may not seem like that much but Apple is a massive company and has a lot of money and, therefore, influence and it is standing up for what it believes in and taking it's money with it. This will leave an Apple shaped hole in the finances of the Chambers of Commerce and may make them think about their position a little more carefully.
Another company that has been thinking about it's position is Waitrose, a UK supermarket, which has this week pulled it's advertising from Fox News and related companies after it's customers complained about them using these channels. Their complaints were, of course, about Glenn Beck and Waitrose giving his programme and channel money.
Does anyone not know about Glenn Beck? My God he is horrid. He cries. That's his thing. On air. About pretty much anything. Let's have a look at that shall we,



awful isn't it.
It is not just this that normal people have a problem with; there is also his easily bought opinion. Before he took his current job on Fox he did a series of “bits” on how bad the US health system is. He had an operation and didn't find the whole thing much fun,



However, now that he is on Fox and taking the Murdoch dollar he is perfectly willing to completely switch his position saying that it is the best health care system in the World.



Ok ,vested interests and all that, lying to keep your job is one thing and at least it took about 18 months (and a new employer) to change his mind but he can change his mind much more quickly than that.



President Obama is a racist, I'm not saying he's a racist, he's a racist. All in about 3 minutes. Nice work.
Then gaze upon this incredible amount of squirming when he was asked about it and what he meant by “white culture”.



His show has lost an awful lot of advertising since his “Obama is a Racist” outburst.

Because of the, usual, high levels of cynicism that goes on here I would like to do an “and finally” style story.
I'm not a sentimental person, although I do have a square vase that I won't get rid of despite the fact that it is cracked because it was given to me by a friend, but this warmed my heart. Ed Miliband, Climate Change Secretary, was on a Russian radio phone in show to talk about well umm, climate change. One of the callers claimed to be a Miliband as well. They had a little chat and it turned out that she was, indeed related, albeit distantly, to him.
So what else could he do? After the phone in show he went round to see her. They shared a cup of tea and some photographs. She showed very little interest in what he does for a living.

The Award for Surprising Statistic of the Week,

Paris may be my favourite place in the World. We had our honeymoon there. I wanted to move there and still do. An apartment in Montmartre would be my dream. Close to my favourite restaurant in all the world. The art, the food, the architecture, it is fantastic. Heck, I also love the French. The way they dress. Their disdain for the rest of the world's culture.
So why on earth can you know get a big Mac at the Louvre?
This is a perplexing question but I learnt something this week. Despite the mutual antagonism on both sides of the Atlantic, France seems to have the most McDonald's outside of the US.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! It can't be true! Tell me it's not true! Oh well may have move to Italy. I could write about Silvio Berlusconi every week then, at least he's funny, unlike Gordon Brown. Although it is possible that Berlusconi is beyond satire. Surely he's a cartoon character.

The Award for Hypocrite of the Week,

This goes to one of the directors of the Tax Payers Alliance, Mr Alexander Heath , who, it turns out, pays no tax in this country.
For those who don't know the “Tax Payers Alliance” ( I put them in inverted commas because they claim to represent tax payers but these nasty little Right-Wing reactionary rent-a-quotes certainly don't represent me.) they pop up to criticise any Government spending plans or are always “shocked” when some wastage is found in Central or Local Government.
If you don't pay tax you can't complain about OUR taxes are spent, simple as that. In the way, if you don't vote, you can't complain about the Government, which was a favourite of my Grandma.

The Award for Least Surprising Thing of the Week,

Really GMTV, what did you expect to happen?
A GMTV presenter say “fuck” live on air. Twice. Well it was more like “fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck”, followed by, when the cord snapped tight and pulled him skyward again, “fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck”. This is what happens if you let a man, who has never done it before, bungee jump live on air.
To be honest, having now seen the footage and not just relying on the Daily Mail's website, he only really said “ffffffffffuuuuu” twice but they still apologised for it. There were, of course, calls from the puritanical press for the reporter to be sacked. Oh do please stop it. A mistake was made and an apology was given, no one died, please leave it at that.



The jump is about 4 minutes in.

The Award for Amusing Quote of the Week,

106 year old woman is to be moved from her nursing home to another one. The Council want to close hers because it doesn't come up to standard. Her family went to the high court to try and stop this but failed. After the hearing her son made a statement and said that he was worried that “she would die before her time”. She's 106, “her time” was sometime last century.

Ok, I’m off now, have a good week my friends.

Diana Watch

“I use my leg as a thermometer”

It seems that there isn't a Dignitas clinic in Canadia as my parents have returned. They seem to have had a lovely time and took a lot of pictures of mountains but they did get me a book on sour dough baking which is very cool. There are all sorts of things in the book, biscuits cakes and loaves, oh yes. That's my week sorted out.

I have received some good news this week. It seems that I have come into some money, well that is what has been indicated by this E-mail,

Good Day, (good polite start I think you will agree)

I have register your Bank Draft. but the manager of Africa Bank told me that before the check will get to you that it will expire. So i told him to cash $1.500,000.00 all the necessary arrangement of delivering the $1.500,000.00 in cash was made with United Parcel Service ''UPS''. This is the information they need to delivery your package to you. with ''UPS'', contact them now.

BELOW IS THE ''UPS'' INFORMATION'S.
NAME: United Parcel Service ''UPS'',
ATTANTION: PERSON: MR. EDWARD VAN
POSITION: FOREIGN DELIVERY DEPARTMENT.
E-MAIL: ( ups.accra_1@hotmail.com )

Please, Send them your contacts information to able them locate you immediately they arrived in your country with your BOX .This is what they need from you.

1.YOUR FULL NAME
2.YOUR HOME ADDRESS.
3.YOUR CURRENT HOME TELEPHONE NUMBER.
4.YOUR CURRENT OFFICE TELEPHONE.
5.A COPY OF YOUR PICTURE
6.COMPANY REGISTRATION NO EG58945
7.CODE NUMBER 0140479
8.I have paid for the delivering charges. The only money you have to send to them is $95 for their Security keeping of your consignment, I was try to pay for that and they was says no due to security reason.


Note that this is there E-mail contact ( ups.accra_1@hotmail.com )

Please make sure you send this needed info’s to the Director general of United Parcel Service ACCRA-GHANA, MR. EDWARD VAN with the address given to you.

Note. The UPS don't know the contents of the Box. I registered it as a Box of an family treasure. They don't know it contents money. this is to avoid anything to happen with the box or delaying. don't let them it contain money OK.

Thanks and Remain Blessed.
Secretary, Michael Robert (Esq.)

I can't believe that anyone would try and con me in any way, would they? I think I’ll E-mail my details, what could possibly go wrong?

It seems that the Tory policy for the Election has been revealed this week. Scare people. Whether the “facts” that they choose to use are correct or not, or even represent the point they are trying to make, be sure that they will present them in a way that is guaranteed to try and scare you.
This week they have released figures on unemployment under Labour. They claimed that 5million people had never worked since Labour had been in charge. I am unable to verify these figures because, as usual, figures and surveys are printed without being referenced. What I am able to say is this; the figures were taken from the 2001 census so they are out of date. 8 years out of date at that. And let’s look at quickly at those figures again, 5 years unemployed in 2001. So when did they loose their jobs? 2001 – 5 is...... that's right 1996. And when did Labour come to power? Umm... 1997. So whose fault is it that they lost their jobs?
The other direction indicator was a speech by Chris Grayling, Shadow home secretary, who used the twin weapons of the modern politician, fear and a pop culture reference. He said, after spending ONE evening with Manchester police, that "The Wire used to be just a work of fiction for British viewers. But under this Government, in many parts of British cities, The Wire has become a part of real life in this country too." That is a classic of the genre. Utter nonsense of course but a classic never the less.
Does anyone who reads the Daily Mail (sorry only mention this week I promise) or the Express or even the Telegraph watch The Wire? Do you really think that this is target Tory Demographic typical television? It's got brown people and swearing in it. It's the sort of thing that they hate the BBC showing.

James Murdoch, son of the world's most evil man, Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox news, launched an attack on the BBC at the Edinburgh Television Festival. Well there's a surprise. He didn't like the website, News 24 or, come to think of it, anything about the BBC. Of course he didn't. What precisely did people expect him to say? “I think our main rivals are marvellous”. It's not going to happen.
He did complain about some very specific areas where he could easily be proved wrong, so let’s do that. He said that the strength of the BBC's website was stifling other news outlets on the interweb. Then why Sir has the website for the newspaper that I'm not going to mention again this week had an increase of 500,000 people looking at their awful, and really slow to load, website?
He also complained about Ofcom, the television regulator, because it over regulates the programs shown in this country, especially the news, and called for a system more like Germany's. Now, I know nothing of German television regulation (I know you are surprised by that comment) but I do know how to listen to Radio 4. On yesterdays (Saturday) Today program a media expert said that Sky news would have been taken off the air years ago if they were broadcast there, so what on earth is he talking about?
He wants a television news environment here like the one in the US where you have partisan news channels saying what they like, whether it is true or not. Do we want that? Do we want news that lies to us? Well television news anyway, we have newspapers that lie to us already, several owned by James Murdoch's company by the way.
He also failed to mention, whilst berating the BBC for their dominant position, Sky’s dominant position in the pay TV market. What an odd thing to miss out.
There are several reasons that people use the BBC's website. It's trusted by most people. The content is great. It’s all about content. Oh and no horrid advertising. It has no agenda, well it shouldn't.
Some seem to think that it's too liberal or left wing but I'm not sure what this means. I think that they mean that it broadcasts news that is factually correct and nothing else. Although recently, I think, it has started to be a little right leaning. In order to fill time they have people in to comment/add an extra dimension to a story and these people are rarely experts in the subject, they are merely interested parties with an agenda. They are allowed to make statements with no comeback at all. Very few proper interviews take place. The hard or tough interview seems to be the style that is in vogue at the moment, thanks to Paxman for that, but it rarely proves to be a successful technique. The presenter just shouts or disagrees with the interviewee for no reason. It doesn't inform us in anyway. Stop it.
To defend the BBC I would like to say this, on Friday evening I watched BBC4 and was treated to 2 hours of Tchaikovsky followed by a program about artist who had been on Island Records. Where else would you get that sort of variation? You can't like everything on the channel, it not there just for you.

Shall we do so awards as I have been typing this for a while and we are going to the cinema this afternoon and then to see Art Brut this evening,

The Award for Slightly Pointless Land Speed Record,

Slightly pointless, yes, but now held by a British person so it's the most important on the world. A British car now holds the record for fastest steam powered car. Oh yes, steam powered. Over a measured mile they averaged a speed of 139.84 mph. They have to do 2 runs, the first is that way and the second is the other so that they have no advantage by using wind speed. Their fastest speed was 151.085 mph, which is pretty quick for a kettle. The boiler produces enough steam to make 23 cups of tea per second. Good fact, hey?

The Award for Just Being Brilliant,

This goes to 16-year-old Natalie Carter who has won a place at the incredibly hard to get into Bolshoi Ballet Academy. She is only the 4th British girl to achieve this. The other 3 have only managed 1 year of the course so I think you can imagine how hard it is. I can only wish her good luck.

The Award for British Sport,

We won the Ashes! Now this leaves us with a bit of a quandary. When we won the Ashes in 2005 everyone in the team turned up on the New Years Honours list. A number of OBEs and MBEs were handed out. So what are they going to do this year? A president has been set.
Whilst we are talking about sport Great Britain also won Silver in the men's 4x400m at the World Championships and and Laura Dobriskey got a Silver in the 1500m.

That will do for this week. If it stops raining we will go to a free festival in Dorchester this evening and see Art Brut. Fingers crossed. Have a lovely week and enjoy the bank holiday, if you live in England that is.