All posts by Keith

I’m a controversialist and catalyst, quietly enabling others to develop by providing different ideas and views of the world. Born in London in the early 1950s and initially trained as a research chemist I retired as a senior project manager after 35 years in the IT industry. Retirement is about community give-back and finding some equilibrium. Founder and Honorary Secretary of the Anthony Powell Society. Chairman of my GP's patient group.
books, environment, history, science

Coming up in February

Interesting events and anniversaries in the coming month.
1 February
Start of the last London Frost Fair, 1814 which lasted four days, during which time an elephant was led across the river below Blackfriars Bridge. This was the last frost fair because the climate was growing milder; old London Bridge was demolished in 1831 and replaced with a new bridge with wider arches, allowing the tide to flow more freely; and the river was embanked in stages during the 19th century, all of which made it less likely to freeze.


2 February
Candlemas. This is the Christian festival 40 days after Christmas of the presentation of Jesus at the temple. This day is also celebrated as Imbolc in the Wiccan/Pagan calendar (although some traditions celebrate on 1 February) in honour of Brigid, the goddess of fertility, fire and healing. It is also a time of increasing strength for the sun god and is Groundhog Day in the USA.
2 February
British Yorkshire Pudding Day. What better way to cheer up a miserable winter’s day than with Yorkshire Pudding? Read more here >>>>
10-16 February 2014
Go Green Week. The idea for Go Green Week is to encourage people, especially young people, to think about the environment and climate change. Read more here >>>>

12 February.
Bagpuss. On this day in 1974 BBC TV showed the first ever episode of the children’s animated series Bagpuss, an old, saggy cloth cat, baggy, and a bit loose at the seams. Sadly it was a bit too late for my childhood (I was a research student by then) but it was (and is) still fun and became one of Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate’s iconic series. Read more here >>>>
14-21 February 2014
National Nest Box Week. Run by the British Trust for Ornithology, National Nestbox week is to encourage us to put up nestboxes for the birds. Why? Because so often these birds are declining due to a scarcity of nest sites as mature trees are cut down. This is also a good time to check existing nestboxes and (if they’re not inhabited by anything hibernating — insects, dormice, etc.) to clean them our before the new nesting season begins. Read more here >>>>
15 February.
Galileo Galilei was born this day in 1564. Galileo was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher who played a major role in the scientific revolution. His achievements included improvements to the telescope (and thus astronomical observations) and support for Copernicus’ theory of heliocentrism. For this latter Galileo was arraigned by the Inquisition, made to recant and sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life. Galileo was one of the all time giants of science. Read more here >>>>
17-23 February 2014
Chip Week. It seems that we Brits can’t get enough chips, so let’s admit defeat and celebrate! What? You mean they’re bad for us? I don’t believe it! Read more here >>>>

25 February.
Sir John Tenniel, British illustrator, graphic humourist and political cartoonist, died this day in 1914 just a few days short of his 94th birthday. He is perhaps best known today for his illustrations to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. Read more here >>>>

amusements, people, photography

Weekly Photograph

This week’s photograph was taken last summer while sitting outside a pub in London’s Covent Garden. The guy spend quite some minutes ferreting around his pockets while making mobile phone calls, it appeared all in aid of paying for parking his motorbike. It was street performance at it’s best — completely impromptu!

Click the image for larger views on Flickr
Contortionist
Contortionist
Covent Garden; August 2013

medical, uncategorized

Be Pushy, Get Drugs

So according to all yesterday’s media — see for example the Guardian and the BBC — we patients need to be much more pushy with our GPs to get the best drugs.

prescription

Prof. David Haslam, chairman of the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and himself a former GP, said that patients need to see themselves as “equal partners” with doctors to get the treatment they need.
He went on to say that patients should demand the drugs they need and only be refused NICE-approved drugs if they are actually unsuitable. He says, inter alia:

When products have been approved for use by the NHS by Nice, patients have a legal right to those drugs — as long as they are clinically appropriate. The take-up should be much higher than it currently is.
Patients have a right under the NHS constitution to these therapies, so I really hope we can improve this.
The fundamental point is, it’s your body.
And the more you understand about the drugs you are taking, or what you might be able to have, the better you are able to work with your doctor.

Several things strike me about this.
Firstly, I cannot disagree with Prof. Haslam’s sentiments. There are drugs which people aren’t getting, for all sorts of reasons including the so-called “postcode lottery” of care provision.
And I applaud his stance that we take responsibility for our bodies, understand them and how they work. This has to be good — as regular readers will know I am a vocal advocate of being comfortable with, and talking about your body, as a route to improved medical care.
But there are several things which worry me here.
We have to be realistic and accept that, sadly, many people are not able to understand even the rudiments of how human physiology works and how drugs work. Unfortunately these are mostly the very people who are going to latch onto some drug/treatment they think they should have and be abusive with their GP when they aren’t given it. Doctors are already under enough pressure, and get enough abuse from patients, that they don’t need more.
And then there are the people who really don’t want to think about these things and want to just trust their doctor to give them the best treatment. Not everyone, regardless of intellectual capability, wants to be engaged in the way Prof. Haslam would like. Yes there is still too much of the doctor as demigod who knows best, but there will always be those who treat any professional this way.
Finally I worry about who will pay for all this. I wouldn’t mind betting that many of the drugs we should be demanding are more expensive than the ones we are being prescribed now. So Prof. Haslam’s approach is going to see the NHS drugs bill increase, perhaps dramatically. You watch in a year or so the NHS will be squealing because the drugs budget is out of control.
But perhaps the biggest problem is how we patients actually find out about which drugs are best for us. I reckon I’m pretty good at ferreting out information and have research skills, but even I find it hard to sort the wheat from the chaff when it comes to drugs — especially when so much drug trial data has never been published.

links

Your Interesting Links

Another catch-up on items you may have missed.
Let’s get the most serious one out of the way first. Here’s a collection of snippets and links to all the best, scientifically verified, information on the impacts of the Fukushima disaster. And of course when looked at objectively it isn’t half so bad as most make out.
So what does happen when water freezes in a box so strong it can’t expand? Can you even do this?
Here’s a story about a tube train, some concrete and some sugar. Or how sugar helped remove concrete which had flooded a Victoria Line control room. I never cease to be surprised by the weirdness that is concrete.


We all recognise that birds often fly in a V formation, but we never realise quite how clever they are at doing it.
Shrouded in the mists of time is the story of how London got its name. Surprisingly it seems somewhat clearer how the London Boroughs were named.
We can name colours and things so why do we have so much trouble naming smells?
Archaeologists in Egypt have found another Valley of Kings, and a lost dynasty of Pharaohs.
Two amazing, and interesting, collections of maps from the Washington Post: 40 maps that explain the world and 40 more maps that explain the world.
OK so here’s a little bit of fun: national flags made from the country’s traditional foods. Some look much more edible than others; can anyone really fancy Thailand?
A strange animal as a unit of measure — of everything — in poetry.
Let’s end with a few things medieval …
First up, here’s how medieval people decided whether sex was acceptable or not; and mostly not. Complete with a link to a useful flowchart. Now remember boys and girls: be careful; no fondling; no lewd kisses; no oral sex; no strange positions; only once; and do try not to enjoy it. 🙁
Here’s what the monk thought about the cat that peed on his manuscript. I wonder how much penance the cat had to do?

Is it a deer? Is it a hare? No apparently it’s a kangaroo! Hidden in a Portuguese manuscript in a New York gallery is a 16th century manuscript which could rewrite Australian history. Hmmm … maybe.
And finally some images of an amazing 16th century book which can be read six different ways. My brain hurts just trying to think how you’d bind such a book.
Never say we don’t bring you the best curiosities!

amusements, arts, ramblings

Five Questions, Series 5 #3

So here you go with my answer to question three of the Five Questions in Series 5 that I posed at the beginning of the month.


Question 3: Do stairs go up or down?
Well now there’s a question! It’s a bit like “Is the glass half full or half empty”.
The answer is really either both or neither, depending on one’s philosophical position.
You can look at it as stairs going up to or from something or equally down to or from something.
But do they really?
No, not in my book of logic. Stairs are stationary. It is we who do the going up or down.
mce

So I would submit, m’Lud, that stairs go neither up nor down. They go nowhere. They just are.
Unless of course they’re on the back of a truck (or other conveyance) when they could well be going from place A to place B. But that also may be neither up nor down; or it could be both.
Confused? Yeah, well that’s philosophy and logic, innit!

medical

Oddity of the Week: Faecal Transplant

Faecal transplants (the transfer of beneficial bacteria from the colon of one person into the colon of another) are not an entirely new idea. Their first use in Western medicine dates to 1958, but they have been a part of Chinese medicine since the 4th century. Is there anything the Chinese didn’t invent?
Read more here >>>>

current affairs, sexuality

In Defense of Working Girls

If I believe what I read in (some parts of) the press the authorities seems to be unreasonably waging war on London’s prostitutes, especially in Soho. And no doubt this is going on elsewhere in the UK too.
There was an interesting, and rather worrying, article in yesterday’s Observer under the banner:

Rupert Everett in defence of prostitutes:
‘There is a land grab going on’
The prostitutes of London’s red-light district are being evicted …
Rupert Everett argues … that closing down the brothels
has nothing to do with protecting women

A protest in Soho by sex-workers and representatives from the English Collective of Prostitutes

If what Everett writes is correct, and while I cannot verify it I have no reason to disbelieve it, then there appears to be a conspiracy between the law enforcement authorities and the judiciary (backed by business) to vilify and persecute prostitutes in the name of stamping out “trafficking”.
Yes, trafficking cannot be condoned and needs to be clamped down on. But it seems that many “working girls” have not been trafficked, are not involved in trafficking, and are not being controlled by pimps — all of which would be illegal.
Prostitution in itself is not illegal in the UK, and (unlike in some countries) neither is paying for sex. Everything I read indicates that most (not all, but most) “working girls” are doing so from choice and not coercion. Trafficking is illegal, so is “living off immoral earnings” (ie. pimping) and soliciting on the streets.
In my book everyone, female and male, has the right to sell their body for sex if they so wish. And everyone has the right to buy sex. Arguably prostitutes provide valuable services to those (a) wanting something different, (b) who have strange fetishes they couldn’t otherwise fulfil and (c) who might otherwise be/feel disenfranchised in the sexual marketplace. We are all entitled to our sexuality, whatever form that takes, just so long as it is between consenting adults.
Whether you like it or not prostitution is a fact of life and one which, whatever the law says, will not go away. So like many other things we would be wise to recognise this and bring it out in the open where it can be regulated. (If you make it legal you can then regulate and tax it, which surely also has to be good for the economy. See also marijuana.)
We need to normalise sex, prostitution and sex workers. Criminalising them just forces them underground where there is far more danger because then they can (and will) be exploited by the criminal fraternity. Keeping them in the open is actually safer for everyone: prostitutes and punters.
I’ve never used the services of a prostitute, and I can’t imagine I ever will, but I can see no harm in the activity as long as it is not in the grips of the underworld — but sadly that seems to where the authorises want to shove it. Eeejits!

photography

Photograph of the Week

This week, just a little reminder that Spring is on the way despite the current gloomy wet weather we’re having in the UK. No story, just a nice photo.

Click the image for larger views on Flickr
Reed
Reed
Kew Gardens, June 2008

amusements, photography

Buggered Britain #20

Another instalment in our very occasional series documenting some of the underbelly of Britain. Britain which we wouldn’t like visitors to see and which we wish wasn’t there. The trash, abused, decaying, destitute and otherwise buggered parts of our environment. Those parts which symbolise the current economic malaise; parts which, were the country flourishing, wouldn’t be there, would be better cared for, or made less inconvenient.
This magnificent frontage is not far from where I live; I spotted it earlier this week. What you cannot see is that the “stonework” is actually some very badly finished concrete and that the sides of the mini-porch-let are scrofulous wood in the same style as the tympanum. The door is a disgrace and the whole was just set off by the dying Christmas tree and recycling bags & bins. Seldom have I seen such awful construction.

buggered