Diana Watch

I’m not sure what to do. I have now started doing a podcast which sort of covers the things that I do here and I don’t really want there to be any duplication. So should I stop doing this every Sunday, that is the question? Or should I carry on and possibly bore those who listen to the podcast as well (that is assuming that they weren’t bored already). Oh I don’t know, if you all listened to the podcast instead of reading this (maybe some of you do both) then I could stop doing this.

In the mean time, here are some awards.

The Award for (I’m sorry but there is no other way of putting this) Massive Twat of the Week,

Some time earlier in his smartly dressed life AA Gill managed to piss off a surprisingly large number of people after he, to misquote Johnny Cash, shot a baboon in Tanzania just to watch it die.

Now however he has been rude about someone who is not going to take it. In an article about Clare Balding’s new TV show Britain by Bike, which is on BBC4 if you are interested, he called her “the Dyke on the bike”. What, pray tell, Adrian does her sexuality have to do with a TV program about cycling? The article had several more disparaging references to Ms Balding’s sexuality. She has made a formal complaint to the Press Complaints Commission.

This is not the first time the Adrian Gill has decided to bring up the sexuality of female Television presenters whilst reviewing a program of theirs; he has done it to Sue Perkins as well. He really is a rather unpleasant man.

Before making her complaint to the PCC Clare Balding had written to the editor of the Sunday Times who reacted in a rather unhelpful way, he replied to her approach by saying “In my view some members of the Gay community need to stop regarding themselves as having a special victim status and behave like any other sensible group that is accepted by society.” Umm, which accepting society is that? Is that the society that thinks that it is ok to print reviews of television programs which include unpleasant remakes about the presenters sexuality because they are not heterosexual. I note that the sexuality of hetti presenters is never mentioned. If it isn't a problem for Mr Gill then he wouldn't have felt it necessary to go on about it?

  As Clare herself said in her eloquent response to the knuckle scraping editor John Witherow "When the day comes that people stop resigning from high office, being disowned by their families, getting beaten up and in some instances committing suicide because of their sexuality, you may have a point.

"This is not about me putting up with having the piss taken out of me, something I have been quite able to withstand, it is about you legitimising name calling. 'Dyke' is not shouted out in school playgrounds (or as I've had it at an airport) as a compliment, believe me."

The British press’ attitude to sexuality was exposed again on Saturday when the bloke who won X-factor felt it necessary to give an interview to The Sun saying that he was gay.

As we know there is only one reason for doing this, it is because he got a phone call from The Sun saying that they were going to “out” him so it was his choice how the story came out, the revealing interview or the exposé.

The Award for British Sporting Success of the Week,

Well, we have loads to choose from this week. The European Athletics Championships have done taking place this week and it has been going really rather well for Team GB.

Highlights include the brilliant Jessica Ennis winning gold in the Heptathlon, Mo Farah wins the 5,000m and the 10km and Welsh pair Dai Greene and Rhys Williams secured a one-two finish for the British team in the men's 400m hurdles final. This leaves us 2^nd in the medal table (at the time of writing).

The first cricket test against Pakistan is going very well and looks like England will wrap up a win in under 4 days and finally Shanaze Reade has won her 3^rd BMX World Championship.

Who needs footballers anyway.

Yesterday we went to London again, which was nice. Significant Other went to Knit Nation and I had a day by myself.

We travelled up together on the train which can be fun but it is an experience that is shaped mostly by those with whom you share a carriage.

For most of our journey to the capital I was jealous of the absolute certainty of opinion being expressed by the 2 conversing couples sat across the aisle from us. Every dull subject, why he won’t us BT to dentistry rip offs, was being covered with Daily Express like attention to detail.

  I think that this sort of thing is the reason I like going to places with high numbers of non-English speakers speaking their own language, is that I can’t understand them, a relief in it’s self, and I assume that they are discussing matters of great import and are not telling some slightly racist anecdote.

Anyway, my day was most enjoyable. I went to the Horniman (yes, it is a funny name) Museum which was great. Yes they do have an over stuffed dead Walrus (the story goes that the taxidermist had never seen a Walrus and didn’t realise that they are supposed to have many folds of skin and just kept stuffing) but it is so much more. Had lunch in Chinatown and then to the National Portrait Gallery,

Quickly back to the Museum, it now has an aquarium as well, which contains jelly fish,

I hope you all have a lovely week. I will try and decide what I'm doing about this blog in the week, in the mean time do feel free to listen to the podcast and, maybe, leave a nice review on Itunes (search for DORC in the podcasts bit) or on Podbean, thank you xx

Diana Watch

I love this weather. Seas are rough and trees are blown on to railway lines meaning that I can't get to work for a shift that is not during my usual contracted hours but felt pressured into changing because some else, who my work clearly think is more important than me, if they didn't they wouldn't have asked me to change my contracted shift, for someone who is not contracted, could work. I'm not even sure that makes sense. Ah well.

The beginning of this week was taken up by one story. Gordon Brown's handwriting.
The poor man can't win really can he? He writes a letter to everyone who has lost a loved one in war. That seems to me to be quite a nice gesture (and it is no more that (a gesture I mean) because really there is no more he can do. Well, maybe make sure that the relative is financial secure but you get my point) at this difficult time. A hand written letter from the leader of our country expressing his sorrow at your lose and his thanks for the sacrifice made by the member of you family. It's a good thing.
One woman complains about the letter she received following the death of her son to the Sun newspaper (I use that term loosely) because his hand writing is scruffy. It also looks like he as spelt the name of her son incorrectly and that there are some spelling mistakes in the letter. The paper decides to run with this story as its front page. What their point is no one is really sure but that doesn't stop them.
Gordon Brown then apologises profusely and is said to be mortified. He also phones the lady concerned to apologise for any inadvertent offence caused and she records the conversation and releases it to the Sun again (anyone else think they may have approached her rather than she, them) and continues to complain. He says sorry 14/16 times on the tape and she claims that he didn't apologise.
I did not know, before this story broke, that Gordon Brown wrote to the families of soldiers that have died. This makes him out to be a reasonable bloke in my eyes.
If he did nothing he would be uncaring, just sending “our boys” off to die. If the letters were typed the response would be, “well, this is just the same letter he sends to everyone, he doesn't mean it, he just signs it.” He could never get that right.
No, he takes the time to write each one out in his own, admittedly scruffy, hand. Can I just point out that he does only have one eye and the working one isn't that good. So poor in fact that he has to use a thick tipped pen in order to see it.
The poor woman had recently been bereaved so Gordon was never going to win. It just had to sit and take it. You can't criticise or argue with those who have recently lost someone, it's just not done.
What was the Sun trying to say? Were they saying that Gordon Brown shouldn't be Prime Minister because his hand writing is bad? It seems likely that it wasn't that poorly spelt but, because of poor penmanship, letters were not correctly formed. If that is what they were trying to say then that is a little harsh being as it is his eye sight that is the problem. They seem to be saying that visually impaired people have no place in government. Nice people at the Sun.
You know that your hectoring and bully has gone to fair when even the Daily Mail doesn't agree with what you are doing.
Oh and as a fantastic postscript to the story the Sun spelt the lady's name wrong on their website and had to issue an apology.

One of the things I don't like about my local pub is the fact that they have 2 televisions on all the time. No sound and only some times do we have the joy of live subtitles, which are always funny. They seem to have Sky News on most of the time and so on a Monday, when we go to the quiz, we get to see, but not hear, a lot of this awful channel (for balance News 24 is pretty poor).
This Monday they were covering the commemoration of the Berlin Wall falling. It's been 20 years you know; ha, now you feel old.
Centre piece of this celebration (is that the right word, I think so) was a line of 1000 massive dominoes that had been decorated by artists across the country, falling like, well umm, dominoes. Half an hour of a couple of World Leaders and ex-World Leaders wondering round in the rain, under umbrellas was entertaining according the director of Sky News but when they finally got round to the dominoes, do you know how long they stayed on it? The main point of the day? After all that hanging around? 30 seconds. They showed 30 seconds of the dominoes falling. They didn't even wait until they had all fallen. Nope. It seems that their idea was “we have told you that this thing would happen and there it is, starting to happen. Right, back to the studio.” Very strange indeed.
But for your entertainment here it is (with non-English voice-over.)



Steven Tyler may or may not have left Aerosmith. This isn't the most important story in the world but the reaction of Joe Perry was quite interesting. He said that they were would be looking for a new singer. I'm sorry? You want to replace Steven Tyler? Now, I'm not the world’s biggest Aerosmith fan but even I understand that Tyler is an iconic front man. And this got me thinking, what does it mean to be a band any more.
Aerosmith are the Toxic Twins, I mean, can anyone, apart from hardcore fans, name the other 3 middle aged blokes that stand behind them?
Have you not made enough money Joe Perry? Do you really want to whore out the good name of your band to make a few extra dollars? I mean, Brian May and Roger Taylor wouldn't do that with Queen would they? Oh wait, that is exactly what they did. First of all they played on the awful cover of “We Will Rock You” by 5ive, then there was the musical and then, worst of all, they got a new singer. Paul Rodgers, who used to be in Free, stepped up to the plate and pissed all over the grave of Freddie Mercury. Full respect to John Deacon who wanted nothing to do with it and still doesn’t.
I understand that musicians want to continue playing together but I point you to the Joy Division/New Order model. Singer dies tragically young; you want to continue playing together, so you form a new band. You do not do a reality series on MTV to replace the only member of your band that anyone, including a lot of the fans, has every heard of, like INXS did. I think the Doors did something similar but they are rubbish so I don't care. I assume the remaining band mates do it because they want to show that the band was more then just the ridiculously attractive, charismatic singer. Yes, ok you wrote the songs but they brought them to life. You can replace a bass player (Arctic Monkeys) or a drummer (Guns N Roses) but not the singer. Although Axl Rose has tried the reverse of this by replacing the entire band and leaving just the original singer. That went well then.
You also get the ridiculous situation that the Sugababes find themselves in, the band name is no more than a brand and it doesn't seem to matter who is in the band, or if any of them were in the original line up. The Sugababes aren't the only band to have done this but they are the most recent. I think that the version of the Temptations that is touring at the moment has no original members in it.
A band is more then some musicians and the songs that they used to sing. If three girls get up and singer covers of the Supremes, are they the Supremes? Of course they aren't. They are just three girls singing some songs; see the Sugababes for an example. A band is the collective experience of a group of people. It is the chemistry between people who understand each other.

So what happens if the press constantly vilifies a whole profession over one, very unfortunate, case? Well it seems that the people who do it leave and not many people want to train to do it.
60% of British Councils are reporting problems in retaining staff. That is a 50% rise on the year before.
Following the death of baby P, or to give him his real name as our press refuse to, Peter Connolly, the British press worked itself into a rabid frenzy. They blamed everyone but they mostly went for Social Workers. “Why don't these uncaring Social Workers take more children into care rather than leaving them with their awful, awful parents?” seemed to be the thrust of many of the articles. Well the answer to that is because policy seems to be based, yet again (see education policy and drugs policy), on headlines and not on evidence or best practice.
Many years ago there was an outcry about the number of children being taken into care. It was pretty much the same outcry as we had this time, except it was the other way round. They were doing too much interfering. So the policy changed. They tried to keep more children in their homes with their families.
This went on for a while until, in one household, it all went very horribly wrong. So again we have a press outcry over the very policy that they wanted in the first place. This brings us round to where we are now, with stories about a massive rise in the number of children getting taking into care.


The Award for Most Surprising Headline of the Week,

I'm just going to give you the headline, if you want to read the story then click the link. The headline, form the BBC website, is “New warning on 'perfect vaginas'”. I don't know about you but I missed the old warning. Was there a meeting or an E-mail?
It sounds like the sort of headline you would get on newspaper in a 50's B-Movie about a perfect, yet deadly, fanny. If, of course, they would have used the word vagina and not some sort of amusing euphemism. Go on, send in your favourite lady part euphemism. A long time ago a patient referred to her front bottom as her “Mary”. This amused me an awful lot but I'm not going to tell you why and I'm pretty sure only one reader will know why. Enigmatic hey? Hello Kate xx (I mean no disrespect by that story by the way)

The Award for Most Fantastic Thing I've Seen in Ages,

Yes, it's a pop up book but look at the beauty,



The Award for the Funniest Thing I saw on Friday Evening,

This is a video of some dolphins. Not that funny you might think, but wait. Suddenly they swim slowly past some jellyfish and then hilarity ensues.





Every time I walk past my sleeping cat I have to stop and check that she is still breathing. Poorly sick cat is still holding on. Used to do the same with patients at work. The number of people who look dead when they are sleeping would surprise you.

Have a good week and I hope you survive the storm.

Diana Watch

As you know I hate the Daily Mail but I have, sort of, left them alone for a week or two but not this week.
They have spent the week trying to tell us all how to live our lives and what we can and cannot look at, which is interesting from a paper that complains about the nanny state.
The week started with the unfortunate death of a young girl. She was 14 and had recently had the vaccine against HPV which can go on to course cervical cancer, you know the jab, the one that The Mail is against here but campaigns for in Ireland.
The paper decided, as did most others to be honest, that it was the vaccine that killed her. They had no evidence at all that this was true but that didn't stop them calling for the end of the vaccinations and running polls on the website.
On Tuesday they were still reporting it as if the vaccine had definitely killed her, still no post mortem. In fact on Google news there are 1,592 stories about her death.
On Wednesday the official post mortem was released and it was found that the death of the previously healthy girl had been caused by a massive tumour in her chest that could have killed her at any time. The recent vaccination was merely an unfortunate coincidence. The Mail's website barely mentioned it. 363 articles about the post mortem on Google news. They then published this article, which is a classic having your cake and eating it bit of writing.
“Natalie's death forced experts to stress that the cervical cancer jab is safe. The Mail supports that.” they say but they then go on, “But we also believe that the parents who claim it terribly damaged their daughters have a right to speak.” They then go on to make all sorts of accusations in a very carefully written article which makes it clear that it is not them saying these things but they are up holding the free speech rights of their readers. Isn't that good of them? They are fighting for our rights, well only the ones that they think are useful to them, not your right to protest or anything like that. They actually seem to be against that unless it is their readers protesting.
And just when we were all excepting that the jab was safe, 1.4 million doses delivered with not much to report, they publish this today. They have published no evidence at all; it is just scaremongering of the highest order.

Then they tried to tell me what I could see in an art museum.
A picture of Brooke Shields has been removed from an exhibition at the Tate Modern. In this picture she is naked and made up. She was 10 when the picture was taken with the permission of her mother.
The picture has been seen in many countries around the world with no problems at all. It has even been exhibited in America with few complaints but the Mail didn't like it. Oh no. A picture of a naked child is now always pornography to them. They were so upset by the image that they found it necessary to publish a picture of a topless 14 year old Brooke Shields that was ok for some reason.
Ok, so the picture might not have been your thing but that doesn't mean that you can tell me what I can see. I have to decide for myself what is and isn't offensive to me.
I also think that you project on to art what you want to see. I will see a 10 year old girl but it seems that those at the Mail see a sexual image, strange.

And then we have classic Daily Mail misogyny. The Mail's hatred of woman is sometimes hard to pin down but they made it very easy for me this week so I thank them.
Yet another study has shown that if you live a healthy and fit life you reduce you risk of getting cancer. Not really a new or radical finding but it is added to the pile on sensible advice for a long and healthy life. The paper in question specifically mentioned breast cancer as a disease that is most effected by lifestyle choices. They also defined within the study what they meant by moderate to vigorous exercise. They included things such as running, swimming and housework. Can you guess what the headline was in the working woman hating Mail? “Daily dose of housework could cut risk of breast cancer” Nice. Pick out only the bits that tell woman their place in the Mail-centric world.
Oh and while we are at it I give you “Can snuggling up to your pet give you MRSA?”

So let us now move to hypocrisy.
David Miliband made a speech at the Labour Party Conference in which he mentioned the new right wing voting grouping in the European Parliament (admit it, that is the sexiest sentence you have ever read.) and pointed out that some of the people that the Tories have aligned themselves with are less than pleasant when it comes to such issues as race and homosexuality. He then used a quote from Edmund Burke, “What do they say? All you need for evil to triumph is for good men to remain silent”. It was said originally in reference to those who didn't speak out against the Nazis in the 30's. This was seized upon as comparing the Tories and their “friends” to the Nazis, which is kind of reasonable in a number of these cases, and many in the Tory party and at The Mail (they are very sensitive on matters of National Socialism, what with their support for the black shirts and everything) called for an apology and a retraction of the statement because they didn't like being compared to the murders of Gypsies, Gays, the disabled and Jews. However, in his article on Thursday it was perfectly OK for Richard Littlejohn to call North Wales Traffic Police “North Wales Traffic Taliban”. You know the Taliban, they're those nice blokes who stone woman to death and kill our soldiers in Afghanistan.

The Sun has switched its support from Labour to the Conservative party. Really? They were still supporting The Labour Party? Are you sure? Well now that the Conservatives look let they are going to win the next election (sigh) they have switched their support. Well, they have in England. It seems that in Scotland, were Labour are well ahead of the Tories, they are still undecided. Glad to see that their decision was based on firmly held political beliefs than.

Whilst we are talking about the Tories just one more thing. David “call me Dave” Cameron is going to announce plans to “Get Britain Working”. One of the things that he is going to say is that there should be a deregulation of business to encourage them to employ more people.
Whoa there Dave, wasn't it the lack of regulation in the banking sector that got us to this situation in the first place? And what sort of things are you going to deregulate? Health and safety? The minimum wage? We want specifics.

let's end this bit with some fun news. The BNP are nearly broke! Come on, that is the best news you've heard in a long time. As the not so real @RealnickGriffin said on Twitter a couple of days ago “The BNP freephone number is 08000086191. Every call costs us money so don't abuse it by, say, leaving it off the hook from a payphone.”

How about some awards?

The Award for Surprise Moan of the Week,

On the 30th of September those of us who have Freeview had to retune our boxes so that new channels could be added and the whole thing could be tidied up a bit.
Following the retune lots of people have complained that they have lost channel 5, ITV 3 and 4. I have seen all of these channels and you would have thought that people would be damn grateful not to able to see this repeat-laden crap.

The Award Least Interesting Survey of the Week,

As usual there are quite a number of candidates for this small but perfectly formed trophy but the winner is a survey into the swinging and who is most likely to do it.
It turns out that, rather than bear bellied blokes and bored housewives, it is mid 20's, well educated people. Upsettingly that is another demographic I fall outside of.
They have names as well. Paul and Catherine are the names of these people most likely to enjoy wife swapping. So if you have a dinner invite from your friends Catherine and Paul this evening I would recommend taking a small pack of condoms with you, you never know what might happen.

The Award for not getting an Award of the Week,

This goes to JK Rowling. According to Matt Latimer, a former Bush speech writer (that's President Bush, not the talking, burning one in Bible, she was up for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is given for “individuals who make an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavours” (how this includes writing some books about a boy wizard is beyond me but it's their medal), but someone within the Administration “objected” giving her the award because the books encourage Witchcraft.
Oh dear. Do we have to go through this again? IT'S FICTION! IT'S JUST A STORY!
There was also a list of the books on the Guardian website that have had the most attempts to get them banned.
The reasons are the usual sort of things, a bit gay, a bit anti-religious, that sort of thing. It's just pathetic really. You ban things and you make them more interesting. Children (and me) will want to read them more.
Just reading about something doesn't make me want to do it. I read books with religious characters and I don't, now, believe in God. I've read books with murders, gun-running and drug smuggling and I don't do any of those things Hell, I've even read the Daily Mail and it didn't turn me into an unpleasant twat.
What they seemed to scared of is that people (children) might read something and then think about it. Consider an opinion and then come to their own decision and we really can't have that can we?

I’m working quite a lot this week, which is nice. Hope you have a lovely week.