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

Oh, I've done something a little rash. I am a fan of a podcast called the Pod Delusion and I thought it might be nice to get involved. So I sent in an MP3 and I am on next week’s episode. Now this is a nice thing, someone else thinks that the piece I did was funny, but I've just seen the running order for next week. Oh my, there are some serious topics and some serious people on there and I'm not one of them. Suddenly I'm not so confident. Oh well, what's done is done. It's out on Friday and is available on Itunes. Really, this isn't false modesty; I'm a bit scared now. *SPOILER ALERT* Although if you read this blog regularly you will have already read the piece I submitted, it is the thing about Co-workers with colds.

In a country were being Gay is illegal you would have thought that that countries government couldn't have made it any harder (tee hee) or unpleasant for it's, already scared, homosexual community. But wait, what's coming over the hill, is it a monster? Well yes, kind of. The Ugandan Parliament is debating a private members bill that “prescribes life imprisonment for anyone who “stimulates the sexual organs” of someone of the same sex, with the death penalty for anyone whose same-sex partner is under 18 or disabled. It would allow people to be imprisoned for failing to report an instance of homosexuality.” (quote taken from here) That's life in prison or death. Nice.
I don't think I really need to go on about why this is not the correct course of action, in my opinion, for the Ugandans because if you are reading this then you are probably a nice person. The reason given by many politicians in that country for the introduction of this bill is that they don't want their country to be westernised. That's right, they claim that being Gay is a western problem and didn't exist in their country until we turned up and ruined everything. Now I do feel bad for the way the white man, especially the English white man, used Africa as his own but I don't think that that was our fault. The slaughter of thousands of people on the continent and the rape and pillage of it's resources, yes. Garnering an interest in soft furnishing amongst some of your man folk, umm, no, that wasn't us.
The bill also threatens the sanctity on confession because it states those in authority (A priest hearing confession) who do not disclose to the police knowledge of a homosexual activity with 24 hours of learning of it could face up to 3 years in prison. Now you would have thought that the Catholic Church would be up in arms about this, after all, the Seal of the Confessional is absolute and there are no circumstances (according to Code of Canon Law 1388) were the priest can break this privacy without instant ex-communication from the Church. However it seems that the Ugandan Catholics dislike gays more than they like their own rules as that have yet to make any statement on this issue at all. Also suspiciously quiet on this issue is the Arch-bishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Despite being head of the Anglican Church and, therefore, in charge of those Christians who aren't Catholics, he has, at the time typing this, said nothing on the subject. Members of his church want to put people to death for being gay and he says nothing, which is some great moral leadership right there. And Christians try and paint atheists as moral free.
Oh, and it seems that a lot of the laws count for anal sex between Heterosexuals as well.
The reason that I'm going on about the response of the Church to this is because, well, how can I put it, umm, it was their idea. Uganda is a very religious country. Most of their politicians are religious people. It is also quite poor although doing better then many of their African neighbours. Whilst the Government is spouting anti-Western rhetoric it churches are taking millions of dollars directly from Right-Wing American Churches and Church Groups such as the rather sinister sounding, “The Family” ( I believe that that was the name of a Dr Who baddie). The Family, also known as “The Fellowship”, also seem to have the ear of the President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni. They are said to have cultivated a deep relationship with him. Many members of this group and others attended a conference in Kampala earlier this year were this law and other Gay related issues were discussed. One of the people who spoke at this conference was a man called Scott Lively. He is the author of a book called “The Pink Swastika” and he blames the holocaust on gay people. So as you can see he's a nice bloke and this is the sort of person influencing the Ugandan church and their politicians. Oh dear.

So Ofcom have released the list of the top 10 most complained about television programs and it makes surprising reading. The first thing that surprised me was (despite the Daily Mails best efforts) the lack of BBC programs on the list. Only Question Time made the list and that was the one with Dick, I’m sorry, Nick Griffin on. The rest are from commercial broadcasters, as you can see,

1. The X Factor (ITV 1): 5,975
2. Big Brother (Channel 4): 1,154
3. Britain’s Got Talent (ITV 1): 708
4. Celebrity Big Brother (Channel 4): 428
5. Question Time (BBC1): 364
6. Coronation Street (ITV1): 336
7. I’m A Celebrity…. (ITV1): 217
8. FA Cup 4th Round Replay: Everton v Liverpool (ITV1): 205
9. Jeni Barnett (LBC): 195
10 Boy and Girls Alone (Channel4): 183

The second thing that struck me was how few people actually bother to complain. Yes, nearly 6000 people put in the effort to phone or email Ofcom to moan about The X Factor but after that it drops off pretty quickly. In order to make the top 10 you only need to get 183 complaints. That’s hardly trying.
I think that it is entirely possible that Ofcom may have published this list a little early. I have heard that there are going to be some very offensive programs on over the Christmas period.
The BBC are planning on showing an episode of Antiques Roadshow were Eric Knowles goes mad. He smashes the vase that he is supposed to be valuing, rips off all his clothes and runs round attempting to find tin foil for which he can fashion a protective hat.
Over on ITV they have their own controversial programs. There will be a Christmas special of Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway in which Dec forces his greased up, erect penis into the unwilling arse of Ant (I don’t actually know which one is which) and the public get to vote as to whether he cums inside him or on his face. (Too much?) You will be able to buy the tie-in game for the Wii just in time for the season of giving. And there is an entire episode of The Thick of It where no one swears at all.

David Cameron has announced changes that he would like to see in health and safety legislation. He doesn't like the culture which has grown up which forces children to wear goggles to play conkers and makes trainee hairdressers use fake scissors when practising.
Whilst he has chosen some slightly silly examples (although see how quickly middle class, Mail reading parents would sue their child's school if they got a bit of conker in little Tarquin's eye) I think what this really is is an attack on important laws that protect you and me at work. Tories don't like rules and red tape that restricts the ability of business to make money, especially if they have to spend some of that profit on making sure their workers don't get killed. If you are an 18th or 19th Century Mill owner then the Tories are the party for you.
Some of their true colours are starting to stick out under the hem of the frock of social justice and environment friendly policy that they have donned in order to get themselves elected.
White Collar crime in general, not just corporate manslaughter, is not taken very seriously in this country. May I recommend the excellent Radio 4 program “Thinking Allowed” which did a very good 3 program series on white collar crime. You can download them from Itunes if you can no longer get them from the BBC website. Listen to fraudsters try and convince you that the lose of their reputation is punishment enough for stealing millions of pounds, it is shocking, the arrogance of these people.


The Award for Story I Care Least About of the Week.

Some golfist called Tiger something crashed his car. Other things may have happened. Is this what our news coverage has come too? As Paul Weller once said “The public gets what the public wants”, do you want this?

The Award for A Continuing Very Dull Argument I keep having With People,

This week a work colleague had a meeting at the new Doctors surgery in Dorchester. I passed comment on the good lookingness of the building, “oh no” she said. When I questioned her, because she is wrong, she said “it's in the wrong place, next to those old buildings”. I was going to shout at her for being a historyless doofus but was stopped by another co-worker.
I have said it before and I will say it again, at one time all buildings were new. Once the Taj Mahal was new. Once St Pauls Cathedral was new. They were built next to buildings that had been there for a while and people had got used too. And look at our new surgery anyway, it's lovely,



I know that one of my readers doesn't like it and that might explain why she moved to Canada (We miss you xx)

We're off to a naming ceremony of our friends first born now. We're not really sure what this entails but we are about to find out. My guess was smashing a bottle of champagne over the poor little mite but let's see.

Have a nice week all, I'm off to build some nice new raised beds for my allotment.

Diana Watch

So I had my swine flu vaccination on Tuesday and, unsurprisingly to anyone with a modicum of sense, not much happened. I had a bit of a sore arm and, as the Occupational Health Nurse Kerry said might happen when my body started to produce antibodies, I felt a bit hot and slightly achy during the early hours of Wednesday morning. To be honest I was reassured at the speed at which my body made me feel a little unwell.
I am telling you this because, as a not overly bright person, I had not considered what happens in my body when I had the jab but, because it was explained to me, it all made sense. Oh yes, that would be the standard response of the body to receiving a denatured virus (or part of a virus) or any other potential infection. It's not the infection; it's what the body does. But I wonder if those people who you meet (I met 2 yesterday) and claim that they had their flu jab and a day later they had the flu get this explained to them at the time of stabbing? The NHS can be a little poor at explaining itself sometimes.
Is it the lack of understanding of how our bodies function and how vaccines work that lets in all the anti-vaccine nonsense that is out there? Have you had a look at some of it? OMG! To the rational eye (most of me is rational but my eyes are especially so) it is so badly informed as to be hilarious but to the not so well informed it is spectacularly misleading and dangerous.
My favourite argument that the, umm....... let's for the sake of balance call them, charlatans and liars use is “Big Pharma is lying to you in order to separate you from your money”. Now I'm not here to defend GlaxoSmithKline and friends because they aren't the world’s most moral companies but I will say this, those who use this argument are always trying to sell you something of their own. Whether it be magnetic bracelets or a homeopathic swine flu vaccine(this lady, in the section called “Swine flu treatment and Flu Treatments”, even questions whether this strain of the virus is naturally occurring or created in a lab. She later goes for the complete set of nonsense cards as she claims that all vaccinations cause autism.), they are trying to get your credit card details.
If someone makes a claim on a website please don't just take them at face value, read around them a bit, learn something relevant. Now you are able to make a slightly more informed decision and if you are still open your wallet for snake oil sales men than it is Natural Selection at work. Intelligent design my arse.
If vaccines didn't work then the world would still be revenged by small pox and it's not. This may be simplistic but it makes the point rather clearly I think.
Please don't get me wrong, I am not criticising the people who buy this nonsense (well I am a bit), I understand their desire to be told that their incurable disease can be cured by some herbs and a wand. No, the people that I am having a go at are those who prey upon these desperate people with their many kinds of woo. Theirs is the cynical misinterpretation of science and logic in order to extract money from those who have been told that they have no hope and, in the case of Mediums, the recently bereaved. I mean, what sort of cunt tells the parent of a child who has died that they can talk to them but it will cost you money?

OMG! (sorry to use the expression again) They want to teach 5 year olds about sex and drugs! It can't be allowed to happen! And of course it isn't, despite what the Evening Standard or the Daily Express says.
The Government want to bring in a new plan for sex education in schools but it has annoyed the usual sort of people. This time, however, they are way out of touch. The new government plans, that do not include sex education for 5 year olds, have been discussed, and agreed with, many religious groups such as the Muslim Council for Britain and the Catholic Church.
So why bother complaining about them when the current lessons have worked so well. I mean, it's not as if we have the highest levels of teenage pregnancy in Europe or anything. Oh, now, wait a minute, we do.
The plans are to start teaching children, yes, as young as 5 (but as a vast number of parents have decided not to teach their children anything before they go to school such as how to use the toilet or cutlery it shows that some one should), about relationships in the most basic ways and learn about parts of their bodies. So what's wrong with that? Well, obviously nothing. Fuss for the sake of fuss. And the part about drug lessons for 5 year olds? I have no idea where that has come from. I was told about drugs and their dangers at school, were you?
The argument against seem to be that if we tell children about sex they want to do it. Interesting point. We don't tell children about smoking but they still want to do that and that is because they see others doing it. Our world is all about sex. Sex sells and lots of people want us to buy their stuff. We are surrounded by sexual images all the time so it is no wonder that younger and younger children find it interesting.
Let us have a look at the statistics from a country that teaches abstinence shall we? After years of falling, the teenage birth-ratein the US went up between 2005-2007, it is the highest in the western world. Many blame the “abstinence only” sex education bought in by the Bush Administration for this rise. Young people will have sex, we need to except this as fact, and what we need to do is to make sure that they have the knowledge to do it safely. Proper facts, sensibly discussed. Internet porn and playground chat is not a really that helpful.

We're going to be part of Europe, oh we're going to be part of Europe and if you don't like you won't get to vote on it anyway. Ha Ha Ha Ha.
Czech president Vaclav Klaus has ratified the Lisbon Treaty. This means that it will come in to force on December 1st. As you can imagine this had annoyed our right-wing press quite a lot and has pleased me so much.
One of the purposes of the treaty (apart from the streamlining of decision making stuff) is so that Europe can keep up with China and the USA who look like they could form a G2. The 2 superpowers trading as superpowers and leaving out the rest of the world. I'm not so keen on that as others seems to be. We need to do everything we can to stop this from happening. If we don't, the UK will become some economic backwater with no one taking any notice of us at all.


The Award For Answering a Question that Simply No One Was Asking,

This has to go to the Daily Star that bought us the Headline “Is Maddie a Muslim?” Way to link missing girl and disliked and misunderstood religion there.

The Award For Heart Warming Story of the Week,

The Actress Kate Winslet has won a libel case against the Daily Mail. Is there anything sweeter than a sentence that ends “ has won a libel case against the Daily Mail”? I don't think so.
They had printed an article disputing the amount of exercise that she did, well they didn't dispute it, they said that she lied when she said in an interview with Elle magazine, "I don't go to the gym because I don't have time, but I do Pilates workout DVDs for 20 minutes or more every day at home." How could they possibly know? No, really? How could they? They are quite obviously making stuff up. Why would they bother? Because they are unpleasant people, that's why.
Believe it or not, with every day that passes my views about the Daily Mail harden. With every hate filled, factually incorrect article that they print. I hate everyone that works there. They are responsible for crap that they print. Every single one of them. They cannot us the Nuremberg defence. By that I mean the “I was only following orders” defence rather than the “pawns and a rook” opening set of moves invented by Franz Nuremberg, Chess Grandmaster, in 1923, a chequered board genius and completely fiction character, made up for the propose of this joke. I want to make it clear that I'm not comparing them to actual Nazi's, just mentioning the excuse.
This week they published an article about an Asylum seeker dying in the back of a lorry and later in the day they had to remove most of the comments because, even they had been moderated by the paper, some people found them offensive. Now remember that this was cleared by the paper, one of the comments was, “one down, many more to go”
There is also an article by AN Wilson which described all scientists as arrogant. I'm not going to talk about the article because others have done it more eloquently then I ever could. It then pointed out, for some completely unknown reason, that another person who completely believed in science was Hitler. It also had a nice big picture of the moustachioed socio-path but later in the day the paper removed this picture. There is a very good article on the Poddelusion podcast about AN Wilson and his hypocrisy, I.E. comparing scientists to Hitler whilst he believes in Eugenics, having called for a woman to be forcibly sterilised in an article earlier this year.
One of the things that really annoys me about the paper is their lack of commitment to being offensive. A few complaints and they take stuff down. So do they really believe in the things that their own Journalists and Columnists are writing? I don't know but they are spectacularly inconsistent.

Sorry, I've been a bit ranty again this week. I will try and be concise and funny again next week.
For those who are wondering, the cat is still struggling on. Her kidneys my not be working but no one seems to have told her. She seems to be coping ok.
Hope you all have a nice week.