Showing posts with label NHS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NHS. Show all posts

Thursday 20 September 2012

CHunt does a U-Turn: Doomed Boomers: Tied in Le Knot: Sawdust planes: There’s an APP for that: and In a galaxy far-far away.


More than a bit of lack of warm, no solar stuff from dawn’s crack and not even a promise of skywater at the Castle this morn.
Had a day orf yesterday, decided to catch up on some sleep and managed to get fourteen hours, his Maj wasn’t very happy and in revenge decided to sit on top of my bladder at two of the am.
 
 
And I discovered that my £145.50 TV viewing ransom to Auntie will not even result in a paper license until 2016.
According to “them” “It would be wasteful to send you a new license and the same payment plan each year, so instead the TV license and payment plan below will cover you until 2016”


 And the expiry date on the License?-30th September 2013....

 Wankers; still at least my £145.50 will permit me to watch the news and Dr Who, and not watch, that stupid dancing thing, Eastenders, Snog, marry avoid and all the other Piss Poor programmes vomited out over the digital airways....

 

 
According to the Independent Jeremy CHunt has ordered a fresh political assessment of controversial plans to shut hospital casualty units as one of his first acts as Health Secretary.
Under the plans for north-west London, the number of casualty departments would be reduced from nine to five.
Ealing Hospital, Chase Farm in Enfield, King George in Ilford, St Helier in Sutton, Hammersmith, Central Middlesex and Charing Cross emergency Depts. are at risk.
His move will raise hopes of a reprieve for a number of accident and emergency departments threatened with closure as NHS Trusts cast around for savings.

Yippee!

But apparently his plans have “alarmed” many doctors and hospital managers who argue that merging A&E units into larger, better staffed departments saves lives and frees up money to improve patient care in other areas.

Boo!

 
So one of the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition finally does something right and the no mates medics and mangers want their A&Es to close because it will save them money, work and will give them more time to get out on the golf course.

 Who is in charge of our Elf service?

 


 

Only one in six ‘baby boomers’ is retiring in good health, with most succumbing to a range of conditions and diseases including high cholesterol, osteoporosis or cancer, a study has found.
Apparently Government Scientists have discovered that the average baby boomer - referring to those born in the years just after the Second World War - has two medical conditions.
Just over half have high blood pressure, a third are obese, and a quarter have high cholesterol.
A quarter have Type 2 diabetes or ‘pre-diabetes’, meaning they are on the cusp of fully developing the condition.
Almost one in five suffer from a mental health problem, while 12 per cent have chronic lung or throat disease.
Eleven per cent have cancer, the same proportion that has osteoporosis. In addition, 11 per cent have suffered from cardiovascular disease such as a heart attack, stroke or heart failure.
One in six have three or more health problems.
The results are from a study of 2,661 people born in 1946, from every walk of life, whose health has been followed from birth. For this, the latest study, they were assessed between 60 and 64 years of age for 15 conditions.
The study found the origins of poor health in one's 60s could usually be traced back to early middle age. 
 

Interesting-ish, so it has bugger all to do with the NHS, or being a Boomer, but life style which applies to everyone else in berated Blighty...

 


Piles of washing and ironing send Pixie Le Knot round the bend – but she couldn’t be happier.
Britain’s most flexible woman has crafted a career out of her ability to contort into eye-watering positions.
She said: ‘I was always the most flexible child in the class and knew I had a gift as soon as I took up dance and gymnastics as a kid. It’s fun being able to do something other people can’t. But I really don’t know where I got the natural ability from – all my relatives are doctors.’
Ms Le Knot, from Leyton, London, spends several hours every day training her body to cope with the physical demands of contortion before performing up to five live shows a week.
 

I’m saying nothing.....

 

French scientists reckon that passenger jets could be chomping on straw or flying on fuel extracted from sawdust in coming years as the search widens for cleaner alternatives to kerosene.
The "ProBio3" project, started in early July and co-financed by a French government economic stimulus program, aims to use traditional horse-bedding materials to develop a new kind of biofuel that can be used in a 50/50 blend alongside kerosene.
"Tomorrow, planes will fly using agricultural and forest waste," said Carole Molina-Jouve, a professor at Toulouse's National Institute of Applied Sciences (Insa), who is coordinating the ProBio3 project.
Europe consumes around 50 million tonnes of kerosene per year.
 

Why not use all the wood to build ships and scrap the noisy polluting silver birds that are killing the atmosphere?
 


 A young schoolboy left his family with a £2000 credit card bill after using an app on his grandfather’s iPad.
Will Smith, six, unwittingly embarked on the spending spree while playing Monster Island, a popular children’s video game.
The youngster had spent the amount on the special app, which involves children "collecting" and "breeding" their own online creatures.

Players then battle their way through the different levels before they reach the “Dark Monster”.

Will had racked up the bill after accessing his grandfather’s password to iTunes, the Apple music store, where bought virtual food and coins at up to £70 a time.

Mr Smith, of Redcar, North Yorks, said, when he explained the situation to Apple, officials agreed to refund the amount.

But while the family was relieved to discover they were not the victims of fraud, Will was upset when told he could not play the game anymore.

 
Buy him a bleedin Meccano set....

 
And finally:
 


The earliest known confirmed galaxy has been discovered with the help of cosmic lenses formed out of the warped fabric of space and time, researchers say.

This distant, ancient galaxy may have once helped clear out the murky fog that once filled the early universe, scientists added.

Astronomers estimate that the universe began about 13.7 billion years ago during the Big Bang. Recent findings suggest the first galaxies formed less than 500 million years after the universe's birth.

One tool researchers can use to peer at these galaxies are so-called gravitational lenses, magnifying glasses resulting from the warped fabric of reality.

Gravity curves space-time; the greater the mass of an object in space, the stronger its gravitational pull. This, in turn, bends light around it, affecting how telescopes on Earth view it.

The age of this galaxy reveals it formed during the so-called "epoch of reionization" that occurred about 150 million to 800 million years after the Big Bang. This critical but still largely mysterious event occurred when intense ultraviolet radiation cleared the fog of atomic hydrogen that once pervaded the cosmos by ionizing it into its constituent protons and electrons.

 
Well; you learn something new every epoch...

 

 
And today’s thought:
Daily diary of a Boomer.
 

Angus

 

Saturday 15 September 2012

Royal cheeks-allegedly: Bin snooping? True lies: Racist Sarnies: Crèche and curses: Breast washing machine: and the Rose Galaxy.


Plenty of solar activity, even more lack of warm, much less atmospheric movement and nary a whimsy of skywater at the Castle this morn.

In response to overwhelming public demand (thanks AK Haart) you are still going to be subjected to my pointless rambles for a while yet (see yestermorn’s post).

And the interweb thingy seems to be going tits up-spotted the theme yet?
 

It seems that the Royal Norks thingy was legit after all, and being a bit of a breast man I still can’t see what all the fuss is about she doesn’t really have much to boast about, her minor Maj didn’t mind cavorting about in nearly nothing whist at Uni, but what really intrigues me is: What the hell is the tall, thin bald bloke doing in this pic? It isn’t about Norks but if this Piss Poor blog disappears overnight you will know that “they” don’t want snaps of the Royal arse bandied about the Blogosphere.

 
Still it seems that the mob at Buck House have pre-empted the problems by sending the pair out to places that are not very happy with non Muslims, a bit like sending dirty Harry out to Afghanistan after his photo session in Vegas-much less suspect than a car crash....

 


Despite the Coalition's promises that councils' powers would be curbed thousands of people are still being fined over their household rubbish.
Ministers have repeatedly promised to stop councils levying fines of up to £1,000 on householders for minor infractions like leaving bins out on the wrong day.
But evidence from a survey using Freedom of Information laws by campaigners suggests that thousands of households are still being fined despite the pledges.
A report by the Manifesto Club, to be published on Monday, found that 88 out of 358 councils across the UK had issued “waste receptacle” fines in 2011/12.
Josie Appleton, director of the Manifesto Club, said: “Bin fines have become a money-making operation, rather than a last resort to deal with real offenders.
Under the current system, councils have the power to issue fixed penalty notices of up to £110, or push for criminal convictions and a fine of up to £1,000.
In one instance, a woman from central London was fined when she threw away one of her company’s bank statements into her household collection.
Sabine Guerry, who lives in Westminster, said she was fined for post relating to her own private company at her home address.
She said: “Westminster Council agents opened and searched my rubbish bag in front of my door, and found one bank statement from my company together with my personal waste.
“They deduced that this was “commercial” waste, took some pictures, and sent me an £80 fine for illegal commercial littering.
“They said I should have used a dedicated commercial bin bag, labelling who was collecting my rubbish. They seem to be suggesting that I employ somebody separately to take away my company’s bank statement.”
Westminster council said that it "would not fine a resident for simply putting rubbish in a bin", adding: "The only reason we would look through waste is if it has been dumped illegally, and to look for evidence of who dumped it.

 
Ah the old fly tipping ruse.....

 

Anna Soubry, a health minister, has said that the Coalition “screwed up” over its controversial reforms of the NHS according to the Torygraph.
Miss Soubry, a junior health minister, made the frank remark in a private discussion with health service managers about reforms that will give GPs control of £80 billion of health spending.
It is the second outspoken statement Miss Soubry has made since her appointment ten days ago.
Last weekend, she angered some Conservative MPs by suggesting that euthanasia laws are “ridiculous” and should be changed to make it easier for the sick to end their own lives.
In a private question-and-answer session, she was asked about the way the Government had dealt with medical professionals and the Royal Colleges representing them over the reforms.
“We screwed up,” she replied, according to sources at the event.
Many of the colleges initially supported the reforms drawn up by Andrew Lansley, the former health secretary, but gradually withdrew their support.
That helped ensure the Health and Social Care Act had a bruising passage through Parliament and attracted significant public protest.
Some Conservatives fear the reform package has cost their party the public trust over health David Cameron tried to win in opposition.
 

And most of the voters...

 

According to Verenice Gutierrez, principal of Harvey Scott K-8 School Portland, Oregon peanut butter and jelly sandwiches carry racist connotations.
“Take the peanut butter sandwich, a seemingly innocent example a teacher used in a lesson last school year,” “What about Somali or Hispanic students, who might not eat sandwiches?” Gutierrez asked.
“Another way would be to say: ‘Americans eat peanut butter and jelly, do you have anything like that?’
The Tribune noted that the school started the New Year with "intensive staff trainings, frequent staff meetings, classroom observations and other initiatives," to help educators understand their own “white privilege,” in order to "change their teaching practices to boost minority students’ performance."
"Last Wednesday, the first day of the school year for staff, for example, the first item of business for teachers at Scott School was to have a Courageous Conversation — to examine a news article and discuss the 'white privilege' it conveys," the Tribune added.
 

Totally bleedin bonkers and this daft mare is in charge of a school!

 

Peter Capaldi and Alastair Campbell were left embarrassed when their sponsored swear-off for charity was accidentally broadcast to a crèche.
The Thick of It star and the former Downing Street press chief were appearing at a charity day at the headquarters of City trader BGC.
They were talked into the ‘swearathon’ in order to raise money for the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research team, and their diatribes were broadcast across the entire building until organisers realised that they were audible in the children’s crèche downstairs from the trading floor.
Mr Campbell apologised to “the kids and their mums and dads, and anyone else who took offence”.
“Our only defence is that the traders looked in need of a laugh after a day spent trying to humour celebs, and we were raising money for our respective charities,” he added.
Campbell won his swear-off against the Glaswegian actor by managing to cram eleven uses of the f-word into a one-minute speech.

 
Only eleven, fucking useless...

 
 

Comes the circa 1930s breast washer, which is apparently a massage device, which claims to prevent sagging, enlarge small breasts, shrink large breasts, and generally meet all your personal breast-care needs.

Wonder if they did one for chaps...

 And finally:
 


Comes an amazing Hubble bubble pic of the Rose Galaxy known as UGC 1810, it has a disk that is distorted into a rose-like shape by the gravitational tidal pull of the companion galaxy below it, known as UGC 1813.

 

Cool....

 


 
And today’s thought:
That’ll teach her to have her nipples pierced
 
 

 

Angus

 

Thursday 13 September 2012

Lamb leads us to slaughter: Terminal NHS: Show me your headlights: You must remember this: Cardboard Bicycle: and Bonktown.


Oodles of sunny stuff, just as much windy stuff, quite a lot of ex skywater and not a lot of lack of cold at the Castle this morn.
Just returned from the stale bread, gruel and his Maj’s food (which has gorn up again from £3 to £3.69 since Monday) run dahn Tesco, on the way out I popped into the go juice pump place and purchased a couple of cupfuls for twenty squids, it hardly registered on the go juice gauge (14.44 litres @ £1.389 pl).

 

Apparently the “new” health minister wants to help along the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition with their plans to privatise our dear old NHS.
Norman Baa Baa has backed greater private sector involvement in the NHS in his first public appearance since taking on the role.
Asked about greater private sector involvement in the NHS, he said: ‘I’m not a great fan of monopolies, in either the public or the private sector. If there’s never any challenge to the structure provided there’s a danger people can become complacent.
‘There is innovation from new insurgents. We need to embrace that.’
Mr Lamb went on to say that he hoped he could provide the ‘oomph’ from the centre of government to embed integrated care. He hoped to get a round table of experts together to advise him on how best it could work.
 

Who does he think he is-King bleedin Arthur?

 
 

Hospitals in England could be on the brink of collapse because of rising demand and the increasing complexity of patients' conditions, doctors warn.
The Royal College of Physicians' report said the number of beds had been cut by a third over the past 25 years.
It said at the same time emergency admissions had started rising and hospitals were seeing older patients with a wider variety of conditions.
And that standards were slipping in hospitals throughout England.
It cited the way older patients were repeatedly moved around wards, the lack of continuity of care while in hospital and tests being done during the night as some of the examples of how care was suffering.
The college also highlighted the results of feedback from its members, which showed concern about discharge arrangements and workload.
 

It’s taken them long enough to notice; standards have been “slipping” for years in hospitals, there are more consultants on the golf course and working in private hospitals than on NHS wards on a daily basis, and when the inevitable cock ups happen the medics, managers and the GMC rush to protect their own, their colleagues and their very well paid jobs.

 


A woman is behind bars after police allege she was stopping motorists in Uniontown and offering to strip for money.
City police Officer John Kauer said Jackie L. Hatter, 35, was charged before Magisterial District Judge Randy S. Abraham with possession of marijuana and disorderly conduct following the incident at 8:40 a.m. Sunday.
Kauer said Hatter was flagging down motorists near the intersection of North Gallatin Avenue and Lenox Street for a report of a woman, later identified as Hatter, stopping drivers and offering to take off her clothing for cash.
 

Never happens to me at a junction...

 

According to new research published in Nature Neuroscience, scientists have invented a method to induce memories in brains for the first time in history.
The study—published by Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine’s Professor of Neurosciences and Physiology/Biophysics Ben Strowbridge, PhD, and MD/PhD student Robert A. Hyde—shows a method to store different types of short-term memories, which they have successfully tested in brain tissue stored in vitro.
Titled “Mnemonic Representations of Transient Stimuli and Temporal Sequences in Rodent Hippocampus In Vitro”, their paper describes how they used a piece of mouse brain tissue to form the necessary circuits to record a short-term declarative memory. This type of memory can be something like names, places and events.
These neural circuits—located in the hippocampus—retained the memory from different stimuli for ten seconds. The researchers were able to observe the recording of these artificial memories by tracing the activity of the brain cells. According to Hyde, “the type of activity we triggered in isolated brain sections was similar to what other researchers have demonstrated in monkeys taught to perform short-term memory tasks. Both types of memory-related activity changes typically lasted for 5-10 seconds.”
 

About as long as my short term memory then....

 
 
A new recycled cardboard bike has been created which can support riders up to 220kg and costs just a tenner.
Over three years designer Izhar Gafni created a number of prototypes of what would eventually turn into the bike that he has named the Alfa using the fundamental principles of origami.
While the average bike weighs around 14kg the Alfa weighs less than 10 and its belt-driven design requires no maintenance. It could even be adapted to house an electric motor to make those hills even easier to tackle.
 

But what do you do when it rains?

 And finally:
 



The Bavarian town of Poppenhausen, translated as 'Bonktown', has decided to turn itself into one of the sexiest sightseeing spots in the country.
It has rebranded itself as a dirty weekend resort after town hall officials voted to start embracing the 'saucy' title.
Officials in Poppenhausen have now decided if you can't beat them, join them.
'We had lots of people coming to the town because of its name, because in German 'Poppen' is a slang word for making love,' explained a town hall spokesman.
'In the end we decided if you can't ban them, at least make them comfortable.'
Day trippers are encouraged to take a stroll through a one mile long love lane situated in the middle of romantic woodland.
Should they get tired; couples can take a rest on one of many heart shaped wooden seats.
Alternatively they can test out the woodland's specially made sloped double benches for couples to do what comes naturally.
Other exhibits to get visitors in the mood include a notice with how to say 'I Love You' in 100 different languages and a giant four leafed clover to bring newlyweds luck.

 
Chance would be a fine thing...

 

 

And today’s thought:
What bicycle?
 

 

Angus

Thursday 23 August 2012

Gobsmacked: War on drivers: Naked squaddy: Tennis legs: Badly stuffed animals: and a Vampire rat.


Much, much less lack of cold at the castle this morn, just returned from the stale bread, gruel and his Maj’s food run dahn Tesco, two weeks ago his fave grub cost £3.00, then last week it went up to £3.68, then this Monday it was £4.00 and today it is £3.00 again...

I was going to post yestermorn after my visit to the tooth puller, but I was so stunned that I couldn’t put finger to keyboard until now.
 
 

The long saga of the front “toof” has now reached epic proportions, as you may know just before last Crimbo I broke a piece orf one of my front “teef”, I went to the tooth puller in Jan, he decided that instead of repairing broken tooth he would grind it dahn to the root and stick a “cap” on it which he ‘printed’ out on his doo-dah.

The “cap” lasted 12 days, so I returned to have it refitted, seven days later it fell out again and I swallowed it. Back to the Dentist, who decided that I would have to have a plate with one toof on it-the plate made me vomit, was loose and eventually broke after a while.

Went back again to the ten miles away dentist, after a very long “consultation” with a junior, and probably the toilet roll he decided that my bite was too strong for anything else than a nice “toof” implant which was going to cost-wait for it-TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED pounds, oh yes £2,5000 for one biter.

After picking me up and reviving my poor old body he reiterated the price and asked if I wanted to “go ahead” with the procedure.

Needles to say my reply was not in the positive, but I did consent to a £50 ransom to have what are left of my pegs “hygienically cleaned”, because apparently they don’t do scale and polishes anymore under the NHS unless it is “clinically necessary”, and it takes too much time.
 

Why are we paying so much money into the NHS when all we get back is private bollocks....?

 


The war on the motorist is a myth and fuel taxes should be raised without delay, Pay as you drive road charging and congestion charging should also be widely implemented to raise funds for public transport, according to the Institute of Public Policy Research, which has close links to Labour.
The IPPR urged the Chancellor to press ahead with future fuel duty rises including 3p scheduled for Jan 1.
“Compared to users of public transport, there is no war on motorists,” said Will Straw, the IPPR’s associate director.
“Rail and bus users have seen fares spiral out of control while the cost of driving has actually fallen over the last decade.
Users of public transport rarely have an alternative, while car drivers can switch to smaller and more fuel-efficient cars and cut out non-essential journeys.
However the report was condemned by the AA. “Far from raising fuel duty the Chancellor should continue to freeze it to help stimulate the economy and lift some of the fuel burden from families and business.
A Government spokesman said: "The Government is embarked on the biggest programme of rail improvements since the Victorian era.
"Rail fares make a vital contribution to delivering these improvements. However, we are determined to bring get the cost of running the railways down to allow us to end the era of above inflation fare rises.
"We have also rightly taken action to support motorists at a time of high international oil prices. Pump prices are 10p a litre cheaper than if we had proceeded with the planned fuel duty escalator."
 

Thanks for sod all-the cost of road fund license is up, insurance is way up, MOTs are up and garages are now charging close to £150 per hour for repairs...
 


It seems that said copper knob has been at it again, the squaddy formally known as Henry has allegedly been displaying his crown jewels to a young lady in a hotel room.
I refuse to show the pictures on the grounds that I don’t want MI5 banging on the portcullis to take me to the tower but if you are in need of a glimpse of copper knob click on the link over the picture, but I warn you that if you are of a sensitive nature-DO NOT click on the link....
 


Allegedly 25 year-old tennis ‘sensation’ Maria Sharapova put her legs on display while visiting the Hamptons.
 

Oh joy, I never knew that tennis players had legs.....

 
 

There is a Facebook page entitled badly stuffed animals.
The collection of bizarre taxidermy pictures has attracted more than 12,500 followers.
It includes stuffed animals in bizarre poses such as camel in a suitcase, a dog leap-frogging a globe and a squirrel in a flasher mac.
The page also features lots of animals stuffed by taxidermists who do not appear to have completely mastered the art. 

Love it.....
 

And finally:
 


An unusual species of rat that cannot gnaw or chew has been discovered, which scientists say is a new step in rodent evolution.
The rodent, called paucidentomys vermidax has fang-like upper incisors that are useless for gnawing and no back teeth.
The rat, which lives exclusively on earthworms, was found in remote rainforest on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
It has a rat's tail, a long, thin nose similar to a shrew's and its only teeth are incisors which are in the upper jaw and end in twin points.
The genus name paucidentomys means "few-toothed mouse" and the species name vermidax means "devourer of worms".

Seems logical...



And today’s thought:
No comment.
 

 

Angus

 

Saturday 11 August 2012

Sport or supermarkets: Useless inept Doctors: Blurry women: It’s OK to steal: Ice cold noodles: and Tanks for the memory.


More than a smidge cooler at the Castle this morn, it is a mere 76f in the kitchen and a nice cool 84f in the master bedroom, no atmospheric movement and not a white fluffy thing in sight which means that I will be staggering about with the watering can to moisten the pots, hanging baskets and wall boxes this pre-noon. 


And U-Turn Cam is vomiting his usual spin doctor sound bites about how much the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition is doing for the not very healthy kiddlies by selling orf oodles of school playing fields he may like to take a look at what is happening up Norf in Leeds.
Where  an area of what is now scrubland, an abandoned swimming pool and sports centre – left to crumble behind a high security fence when fee-paying Leeds Girls' High School upped sticks and joined the middle-class flight to the city's northern fringes to merge with the boys' establishment in 2008.
If developers get their way the site could become the home of a new supermarket-owned convenience store and 25 houses.
The plan has been signalled for approval by Leeds City Council officers next week
But Martin Hamilton, a local councillor, said young people in his ward needed all the help they could get. "It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth when you are having all this success in the Olympics and you are stopping all these kids from less privileged backgrounds from playing sport," he said.
A spokeswoman for Leeds City Council said the development would not give rise to any unacceptable consequences for the environment, community or other public interests.


Yeah right, strange thing is Leeds council has a Labour majority....




Allegedly Doctors are failing to record accurately the cause of up to a quarter of hospital deaths, a study suggests.
A pilot scheme designed to prevent a repeat of the Harold Shipman murders found that one in 10 death certificates did not even have the correct category of disease.
It also means that families are often told the wrong cause of a loved-one’s death.
Dr Alan Fletcher, a consultant at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, was appointed Britain’s first “Medical Examiner” to check the accuracy of death certificates as part of a move to tighten up procedures in the wake of the Shipman case.
He checked 8,000 death certificates from the Sheffield area against detailed medical notes and case histories but found inaccuracies in about 2,000 of them.
Often doctors had listed the immediate trigger for a patient’s death, rather than the root cause.
Examples included patients with terminal cancer who were classed as dying from pneumonia as that was the condition which caused their final deterioration.
In about 40 per cent of those – or a tenth of the overall total – the cause of death given on the certificate was a different category of disease.
For example a patient who was bed-bound with severe dementia which led to pneumonia was classed as dying as a result of respiratory illness rather than a neurological condition.
He said doctors were failing to read the “story” set out in patients’ records.
"I don't believe there is someone of murderous intent patrolling hospital corridors,” he told The Guardian.


Well he would wouldn’t he-being a Doctor.....




The latest prescription for extreme ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who shun contact with the opposite sex: Glasses that blur their vision, so they don't have to see women they consider to be immodestly dressed.
In an effort to maintain their strictly devout lifestyle, the ultra-Orthodox have separated the sexes on buses, sidewalks and other public spaces in their neighbourhoods. Their interpretation of Jewish law forbids contact between men and women who are not married.
Walls in their neighbourhoods feature signs exhorting women to wear closed-necked, long-sleeved blouses and long skirts. Extremists have accosted women they consider to have flouted the code.
The ultra-Orthodox community's unofficial "modesty patrols" are selling glasses with special blur-inducing stickers on their lenses. The glasses provide clear vision for up to a few meters so as not to impede movement, but anything beyond that gets blurry - including women. It's not known how many have been sold.
For men forced to venture outside their insular communities, hoods and shields that block peripheral vision are also being offered.
The glasses are going for the "modest" price of $6.


Obviously didn’t go to Specsavers



Over to the Sub-Continent


Apparently a minister in India's most populous and politically crucial state, Uttar Pradesh, has said bureaucrats can steal a little as long as they work hard - sparking national outcry in a country whose ruling class has long been mired in corruption scandals.
"If you work hard, and put your heart and soul into it ... then you are allowed to steal some," Shivpal Singh Yadav told a gathering of local officials in comments caught on camera. "But don't be a bandit."
Uttar Pradesh, which is bigger than Brazil by population, was earlier governed by 'Dalit Queen' Mayawati. She has been criticized for spending millions of rupees on building statues of herself and buying diamond jewellery despite widespread malnutrition and poverty in her state.


Now why does that sound so familiar?-you got to pick a pocket or two.....



Nissin, famous worldwide for it Cup Noodle products, will be introducing an interesting new product: cold instant noodles.
This new product is prepared by mixing ice into the noodles, giving you a whole new instant noodle experience.
The noodles are a bit chewier and the usual salty flavour is lessened.
The release is supposed to be in response to the summer season and recent electricity problem Japan faces.
Cold instant noodles are an alternative way to cool down. Instead of using air conditioning, one can simply eat and at the same time beat the heat.


Or you could have a cold nice glass of glowing water...


And finally: 



Folks having a summer dip and catching some rays on a beach near Kaliningrad, Russia got a bit more than sunburn when a convoy of military tanks hurtled through the sands.
The reason, it is claimed, is that Russian authorities instruct the military, where possible, to transport their tanks and other heavy-duty vehicles on the sand so not to damage the country’s road network. 

So how do they get them to the beach then?




And today’s thought:
Think I’ll miss this one-Olympics



Angus

Saturday 14 July 2012

Careless NHS: Live high-die younger: Puffin poser: Industrial parrot: Boob clamp: and Carbonaceous chondrites.


The usual at the Castle this morn-wet/dry, sunny/cloudy/ windy/calm, hot/cold, just a normal “summer” day in the central part of Blighty then.

The left elbow is feeling much better, the industrial strength pain killers have worn orf, the nightmares and hallucinations (as proven by yesterday’s post) have stopped and all is calm this Saturday.

A nice bit of music for those who live in more than a bit damp bits of the country.



There is a nice new widget on the left sidebar so that those who believe in it can keep a check on the global warming thingy.

And the interweb thingy is behaving rather badly-again.




Almost 1,000 patients are needlessly dying in NHS hospitals each month as a result of poor patient care, Researchers concluded that blundering medical staff committed basic errors in more than one in 10 cases, in which a patient died.
Apparently mistakes occurred because hospital staff made wrong diagnosis or gave out wrong drugs.
In some cases they failed to adequately monitor patients – such as failing to check a pulse or blood pressure – or react when their condition deteriorated.
The study found that something went wrong with the care of 13 per cent of the patients who died in hospitals.
An error only led to a death in 5.2 per cent of these cases, which was the equivalent to nearly 12,000 preventable deaths in hospitals in England every year.
It found that errors of omission were more frequent than active mistakes.
The study based on analysis of 1,000 deaths at 10 NHS trusts during 2009, found that most of the patients who died were elderly and frail and suffering from multiple conditions although some were aged in their 30s and 40s.


Personally I think they have underestimated the figures by about 200 per cent, is this the “new” way to curtail spending on pensions and care for the old, or is it just consultants and senior consultants who would rather be on the golf course than get their hands dirty on the wards?




Einstein's theory of relativity states that time and space are not as constant as everyday life would suggest. He suggested that the only true constant, the speed of light, meant that time can run faster or slower depending on how high you are, and how fast you are travelling.
Now scientists have demonstrated the true nature of Einstein's theory for the first time with an incredibly accurate atomic clock that is able to keep time to within one second in about 3.7 billion years – roughly the same length of time that life has existed on Earth.
James Chin-Wen Chou and his colleagues from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, found that when they monitored two such clocks positioned just a foot apart in height above sea level, they found that time really does run more quickly the higher you are – just as Einstein predicted.
Marcus Chown reckons that "It's a very small effect, but it brings these esoteric effects into the everyday world. It shows that if you want to live longer, buy a bungalow," he added.






Young puffins have invadeda seaside town, with one bird found waddling along a corridor at a hotel and another turning up at a car showroom.
The fledgling puffins or “pufflings” are normally resident this time of year on islands in the Firth of Forth such as the iconic Bass Rock, but experts say the birds are being attracted by the bright lights of nearby North Berwick.
The coastal East Lothian resort is the base of the Scottish Seabird Centre, where staff have been advising residents on how to deal with the visitors. Recently, a puffling, since named “Buddy” by the team at the centre, was found wandering the Macdonald Marine Hotel & Spa.


I do hear that they are quite nice cooked in milk sauce with bacon....




Police called out to deal with a noisy neighbour complaint in Glasgow were shocked to be confronted by a swearing parrot.

Officers turned up to an address in Govan to find Pepe, a yellow-headed Amazon parrot, who used to live in a taxi office.

The bird was screeching out phrases such as "taxi for Govan Road", as well as more industrial language, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Pepe's embarrassed owner John McAlinden said: "He mainly shouts out bookings, like 'taxi for Govan' and 'taxi for Lidl'. He also says things like 'car one', 'car two' and '10-4'.

"He also uses a fair bit of industrial language, which is a bit near the knuckle. I think he may have become stressed by his move but I'm now giving him some drops to try to calm him down."

He added: "He's a bit of a handful and I'm sorry if he's caused any upset to my neighbours. Hopefully he's learned his lesson and will settle down a bit."

A Strathclyde police spokeswoman said: "We were contacted by a member of the public who had made a complaint about noise.

"Officers attended and it was quickly ascertained that the culprit was indeed a parrot. The owner was given advice and no further action was taken."


I do hear that they are quite nice in a stew...




Comes the boob clamp, otherwise known as the corset.


Num, num, num.....


And finally: 



Asteroids from the inner solar system are the most likely source of the majority of Earth's water, a new study suggests.
Conel Alexander, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington analyzed samples from 86 carbonaceous chondrites. These primitive meteorites are thought to be key sources of the early Earth's volatile elements, such as hydrogen and nitrogen.
The team measured the abundance of different hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon isotopes in the chondrite samples. Isotopes are versions of an element that have different numbers of neutrons in their atomic nuclei. For example, the isotope deuterium — also known as "heavy hydrogen" — contains one neutron, while "normal" hydrogen has none.
The amount of deuterium in celestial bodies' water ice sheds light on where the objects formed in the solar system's early days. In general, bodies that took shape farther from the sun have relatively higher concentrations of deuterium, researchers said.
The 86 chondrite samples' deuterium content — which the team gleaned from clays, the remnants of water ice — suggest the meteorites' parent bodies formed relatively close to the sun, perhaps in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.


Yeah. Right; all I know is that there is far too much of the bleedin stuff....


That’s it: I’m orf to watch Lemurs sliding towards extinction



And today’s thought:
Solo tantric sex Olympics#2





Angus