Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Sick of Lansley: Tata Nano: Great Tits for twitchers: Wahroonga blast: Four faces of time: Can’t believe me Mince Pies: Snoring Dormouse: and adopt a Swan.


Still misty, murky and miserable at the Castle this morn, the elbow still hurts, the study is overflowing with dodgy do-dahs and I have finally collected my new glasses. 

Apparently “bedside entertainment systems” are now installed at about half the NHS hospitals across the country.
And patients have to pay up to £5 per day to access phone, TV and email, but the worst thing about it is that the face of Andrew Lansley the Health Secretary appears on a loop on the in-house televisions in which he says “your care really matters to me”.
Mr Lansley’s message starts: “Hello, I’m Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary. I just want to take a few moments to say that your care while you’re here in hospital really matters to me.”
Until individuals register, the television plays the message, which repeats every three or four minutes and comes complete with subtitles.


Just what you need when you have tubes inserted into every orifice-another arsehole....


And the world's cheapest motor car, India's Tata Nano, has been given a makeover, after disappointing sales since it was launched in 2009.
The 2012 Nano will be available in more colours and have more luxurious interiors, as part of an effort to rejuvenate its appeal.
The manufacturers also say the car will be more fuel-efficient.
Tata motors, which makes the Nano, also manufactures British luxury cars Jaguar and Land Rover.
The car's makers say they hope the new model will help to increase sales. The price of the car will remain the same.
It was launched in 2009, amid great fanfare as a car costing just 100,000 rupees ($1,979; £1,366). Tata owner Ratan Tata has described it as a "milestone" at the time.


At that price it will be more like a millstone....




Twitchers from around the country descended on deserted headland near Redcar, Cleveland, after receiving a sighting of a rare Hume’s leaf warbler.
They set up cameras and telescopic lenses along the town’s South Gare hoping to catch sight of the Asian green and yellow bird as it hopped around bushes and rocks.

Then the Great Tits arrived-a blonde model in a thong sat astride a motorbike, posing for a shoot.

Two models also stripped off on the beach and the birdwatchers were left buzzing as they took advantage of the unexpected photo opportunity.

Bet there was a fair amount of “twitching” going on in the bushes for a while...




A gas explosion inside a car has injured a woman and blown debris to all ends of a suburban street in Sydney's north.
The 47-year-old female driver was parked on Clissold Road, Wahroonga when a can of butane caused a massive explosion about 1.20am this morning.
Monique Wells, 41, and her partner were woken by the blast that sent parts of the Toyota Prius all over the road and into their front yard.
"We were asleep and then we heard an explosion," Mrs Wells said. "I came running out, bare foot, and there was a lady in the car and her hair was all frazzled."
"She was trapped, she couldn't move in the car."
"I pulled my T-shirt off to put over her face because of all the smoke. I didn't know where all the smoke was coming from."
Mrs Wells discovered the back seat was on fire and her husband raced to put out the flames.


It’s a bloody Prius-let it burn...



Visitors to the Moor Shopping Centre in Brierley Hill, West Midlands, are being left baffled by a clock which shows four times - all of them wrong.
The Millennium Clock was built to celebrate the arrival of the ‘noughties’ but has not shown the right time for 11 years, it has been claimed.

Last week, one face was 31min slow, a second was 33min slow, the third was 1hr 46min fast and the fourth was 2hr fast.



Tock tick, tick tock.



The world's most valuable mince pie is to go on show at a shopping centre in London.
The £3,000 mince pie was made using traditional ingredients from recipes dating back to the 17th century.
They include the highest-grade platinum leaf, holy water from Lourdes to bind the pastry, vanilla beans and cinnamon from eastern spice markets, and ambergris sugar which is derived from sperm whale secretions.
It also contains a solid platinum coin in keeping with the British tradition of placing a silver coin in a Christmas cake or pudding.
It took ten days for Andrew Stellitano, who runs food design company Astarism, to make the exclusive mince pie.
The pie will be on display for a month at the Marvellous Mince Pie Manufactory in The Exchange shopping centre in Ilford.
It's said to be worth £3,000 but will go to the winner of a prize draw on December 19.

 
Wonder if they do a sugar free version......



Footage of a snoring Surrey dormouse curled up in the palm of man's hand has been viewed more than 146,000 times on YouTube.
The 31-second clip shows the rodent gently rocking as with his eyes closed and little paws tucked in he takes deep breaths, while being cradled in the hand of a nature officer, who gently strokes the top of his head with his thumb.
The dormouse was in a deep sleep when he was discovered by the Surrey Wildlife Trust during a survey of nesting boxes in woods near Leatherhead.
He did not wake up when he was taken out to be weighed - and carried on snoring while ecologists recorded this video.
However the camera failed to capture the sound of the snore, described by SWT mammal project officer Dave Williams as "a loud whistle."


Glad about that, I thought I had gone deaf....


And finally:



The latest thing for Crimbo is to adopt a swan, click on the link above and give a loved one a bleedin great white bird that is bad tempered, anti social and belongs to her Maj.


Now if it was to adopt one of the Great Tits....... 

That’s it: I’m orf to get some near-infrared emitting substance


And today’s thought: What's the difference between an oral thermometer and a rectal thermometer?


The taste.



Angus 

Sunday 13 December 2009

The Sunday Section

Salesman wanted; Sick and nicked; Crispy cracker; BBC bother; and the Elf and safety of carol singing.



Still not sleeping, about six days. Or rather nights now, I manage to grab an hour here and there. I don’t know why, must be all the excitement.

Looks like we are in for a “cold snap”, yet another time when the country will grind to a halt because of a half an inch of snow, which reminds me I must wax the sledge runners.










The Gov in all its wisdom has decided to Catch them Young, specially trained officers in one area have already begun visiting nurseries in order to identify youngsters who could be vulnerable to radicalisation.

In the West Midlands on officer with the counter terrorism unit wrote to community groups warning: "I do hope that you will tell me about persons of whatever age, you think may have been radicalised or be vulnerable to radicalisation ... Evidence suggests that radicalisation can take place from the age of four."

Arun Kundnani, of the Institute of Race Relations, who contacted the officer, said he explained how members of his unit had visited a number of nursery schools.

Mr Kundani told the Times: "He said the indicators were they [children] might draw pictures of bombs and say things like 'all Christians are bad' or that they believed in an Islamic state. It seems nursery teachers in the West Midlands are being asked to look out for radicalisation."


Nice.



And:










It also seems that Ed Balls (love that name) has caught ‘Browns disease’ and has decided that Laws requiring 11 million adults who work with children and vulnerable people to undergo criminal records checks are to be watered down following a massive public outcry.

Children's Secretary Ed Balls confirmed he had accepted all the recommendations of an independent review into the way the Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) was operating.

Crucially, adults will only have to be vetted if they come into contact with the same group of children once a week or more, rather than once a month as under the present arrangements.

It’s a start I suppose.




First up:







Inuit communities need funds to adapt to climate change in the Arctic, including measures to build communal deep freezers to store game because warming is reducing their hunting season, an Inuit leader said on Friday.

The Inuit, the indigenous people of Greenland, Canada, Alaska and Russia, have traditionally hunted for Arctic species from seal to polar bear, whale to caribou.

"In Canada we see climate changes on a day to day basis," said Violet Ford, a Canadian official of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC).

Ford, who was born and raised in the Inuit community of Makkovik, Labrador, said more funds are needed for adaptation and response to climate change in the Arctic and in developing countries.

Have a word in Gord’s ear he seems might be able to give some of the £1.5 billion he has found for climate change.









From Aceh to Bali, Indonesians have donated a truckload of coins in support of a woman jailed for criticising health care provision in an email to friends.

In a nationwide cause, the money has been gathered to help Prita Mulyasari, 32, pay a fine of 204 million rupiah ($21,400) after she was convicted of defamation by a local court on the outskirts of Jakarta.

Indonesians were so touched that volunteers began collecting money on the streets, in offices and in kindergartens and publishing details on the social networking site Facebook.

"This is the first time Indonesians acted to help someone by giving their coins," volunteer Esti Gunawan said.

"We feel sorry for her. As a mother, I feel that I would also need tremendous help if I were in her position."

The ongoing saga of Mulyasari began last year when the bank employee and mother-of-two sent an informal email to 20 friends and colleagues informing them of her poor treatment at Omni International Hospital outside Jakarta.

Mulyasari, who had been misdiagnosed with dengue fever at the hospital, found after being moved to another institution that she in fact had mumps.

Her email was transferred without her knowledge from one mailing list to another in cyberspace before being tracked by the Omni hospital, which filed a complaint.

Mulyasari, who was still breastfeeding her second child, was sent to jail in May and charged by prosecutors with defamation, which can carry a jail term of up to six years.

She was freed after 21 days, having promised not to abscond or destroy evidence, amid a huge outcry from the media, bloggers, and politicians including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

You have a lot to answer for George Orwell.









Joel Bradley was caught allegedly selling a packet of Discos at a marked-up price of 50 pence.

The student at the Cardinal Heenan High School was given a day's suspension because it was the second time he had been caught.

His father, Joe, told the Liverpool Echo the youngster was being ''victimised'' for the enterprise, which could earn him as much as £15 a day.

Mr Bradley, from Norris Green, admitted he too had once been caught selling canned drinks, chocolate bars and crisps from a van outside the school.

He said: ''I think the school has made a beeline for him because of what I've done.''

Cardinal Heenan's head teacher Dave Forshaw said: ''We are a healthy school and proud of it.

''If parents are not happy then they are perfectly free to take their children to a school that allows pupils to sell these things and allows a father to sell them outside on the pavement.''

The head teacher said pupils were caught around ''three or four times a week'' selling snacks at the school.

''We have six to seven regular sellers we pinpoint'', he said.


What next, mind control?








BBC personalities have criticised the production of a 'Top Talent' league table revealing what the Corporation really thinks about its best-known presenters.

Dozens of big names have been ranked in four 'divisions' according to how much audience appeal they are deemed to possess.

Many BBC presenters have expressed their surprise at the rankings, which see Alan Yentob, the BBC's creative director, heading the "Top Tier – Highly Valued" category, alongside Stephen Fry, Nigella Lawson, Jeremy Paxman and Jeremy Clarkson.

Lesser known presenters, such as Kate Humble, the wildlife presenter, Jimmy Doherty, the TV farmer, and Charlie Brooker, the host of BBC4's Screenwipe, also appear in the top division.

Meanwhile, household names including Delia Smith, Professor Robert Winston and Michael Palin are consigned to the bottom category, entitled "Occasional sparkle but limited appeal".

Other hugely popular personalities including Paul Merton, Ian Hislop, Alan Titchmarsh, Ben Fogle, Monty Don and Melvyn Bragg are deemed to have only "average appeal".

The rankings were compiled by senior managers at BBC Knowledge, the corporation's factual arm, and set out in an internal document entitled "Knowledge Commissioning Graded Talent List".

Ben Fogle, a former Countryfile presenter, expressed his surprise at the league table, saying: "I've got quite a thick skin from over ten years working in television so I'm not totally offended by being called average.

"I'm more surprised at some of the other people's ranking in the charts. I was very surprised to see Michael Palin down at the bottom.

A BBC spokeswoman said: "These artists are highly valued presenters and viewers will recognise that they appear regularly across our channels. Our current schedules and our forthcoming seasons make it abundantly clear how important these presenters are to the BBC."


Luverly.








A safety leaflet has been produced to help singers avoid the pitfalls of performing Silent Night or Once in Royal David's City in a suburban street or local shopping centre.

the Ecclesiastical Insurance Carol Singing Guide warns: "Never sing in the road."
Naked flames can also be dangerous, it reminds festive souls, telling them: "Don't carry candles if they're not protected by a lantern."

And for those thinking of sending their young sons and daughters out at night to do some carol singing for them (and after all, who could resist the rattle of the collecting tin from the little angels?) Ecclesiastical has these stern words: "Ensure children are always accompanied by an adult."

These are some of the words of advice from its well intentioned guide, which runs to four pages.

Writing in its introduction - titled "How to ensure you're safe and welcome this Christmas" - Michael Tripp, the company's chief executive, explains: "This guide gives you some handy hints and tips which will help you hit the streets in full voice with confidence."

Other "essential safety advice" includes the top tips "always go with a group and stick together" and "don't carry large amounts of cash - if your donations are stacking up make provision to drop it off, or have someone collect it from you".

John Coates from Ecclesiastical, who helped put the leaflet together, admitted it was "basic".

However, he explained: "There are so many people who have got out of going carol singing that we felt we should start from the ground up.

"And with health and safety around the corner, we thought there was nothing we could leave out."

Ecclesiastical, which is the largest insurer of Anglican churches in the country, has also gone to the trouble of producing a downloadable window poster for those who want to welcome carol singers.

Earlier this year it carried out a survey that found nearly half of respondents did not like carol singers.

Almost a third (29 per cent) said they didn't want singers at the front door (29 per cent) and almost a fifth (19 per cent) said they simply would not open the door to them.

And 100 percent said that they didn’t need Elf and safety advice on carol singing.



Angus

AnglishLit

Angus Dei-NHS-THE OTHER SIDE

Angus Dei politico