When I wrote the story of Kerry Robertson, and Mark McDougall,  who went on the run after British social services said she was not clever enough to raise a child, I thought that there was a ray of hope for them bgoth and their baby.

I hadn’t reckoned on the bloody minded tenacity of Social Services at Fife Council, who arranged for the baby to be snatched from the maternity ward he and his mother were in just four days after Ben was born.

Fife had collaborated with Irish social workers who marched into the maternity ward and forced Kerry to hand him over.

I want to add more about this but I would just end up plagerising this article from the Dail Mail. Read more:

Just take a look at the first picture and tell me that it is a picture of a child at risk and a mother likely to do harm.

There’s a Facebook campaign too: Click Here

**The following update was copied from the “Support Kerry Robertson and Mark McDougall to keep their baby!!” page on facebook**
I am working on the assumption that as this is in the public domain, copyright does not exist.
If I’m wrong, then let me know and I will remove it immediately.

Originally attributed to David J. Anderson 28/01/2010
The Moses basket sits beside the bed, its new blankets carefully arranged awaiting its owner’s arrival. Piles of newborn baby clothes – mostly in shades of blue – lie neatly folded on a chair. Like any new mother, Kerry Robertson spent weeks excitedly preparing for he…r first child’s arrival – and yet 13 days after his birth, all the carefully arranged baby paraphernalia remains unused.

Kerry Robertson Loving mother: Kerry Robertson, 17, was told she would not be able to bring up her baby son Ben because she has mild learning difficulties And yet today Kerry and her partner, Mark McDougall, 25, will finally be able to lay their son Ben down to sleep in the basket they bought for him with such hope.

Kerry, who has mild learning difficulties, and Mark went on the run from their home in Fife, Scotland, last November after British social services said she was not clever enough to raise a child. They hoped that by escaping to Ireland they would be left alone to be a family together. But when Ben was four days old, social workers caught up with them, marching into the maternity ward and forcing them to hand him over.

Only after a court hearing last Friday were the parents told they will get their child back – albeit under supervision. Today, Kerry will move into a mother and baby unit where the 17-year-old will be under constant surveillance – but that is undoubtedly the lesser of two evils for the couple, given that they feared they might lose custody of the child they fought so hard to keep.

‘To say it’s been a roller coaster is an understatement,’ says Mark. ‘Witnessing them take Ben from Kerry made me cry. He was sleeping in her arms after his feed and looked so peaceful. ‘I tried to argue with them, but they said no. ‘It’s only after they’ve read medical reports from the hospital, in which the midwives and medical staff said we are loving parents, that it appears they’ve decided we can have Ben back after all.

‘Kerry will be able to care for Ben all day, every day and I’ll be allowed to stay at the unit as often as I like. ‘Needless to say, we can’t wait to be reunited with our beloved son.’

This isn’t the only battle the couple have fought to ensure Kerry leads a normal life. She has been brought up by her grandmother since she was nine months old, with the care overseen by Fife social services. But she says that, as an adult, there were no signs of the problems to come until social services heard she was pregnant and getting married.

Last September, in an unprecedented step, the couple’s white church wedding was halted just 48 hours beforehand, in a row over whether Kerry was intelligent enough to marry. Shortly after, Fife social services told the couple they believed that, because of Kerry’s learning difficulties, her unborn baby would be taken into care. The claim that Kerry is too stupid to get married or have a baby is something she and Mark, an artist, vehemently refute. ‘Social services are ruining my life,’ she says. ‘First, I was stopped from getting married and then they took my baby.’ Kerry and Mark say she has never even had a formal psychological assessment.

And the couple point out that before Kerry became pregnant herself, she worked as a childcare worker with children at a local school – and in fact, with considerable irony, holds a certificate in child care. Kerry says: ‘It’s true I didn’t get many qualifications at school, but I never had very good teaching. ‘I did study for my childcare qualification, I can read and write. I send texts, go on the internet and do everything for myself. ‘I usually cook for us. I chose most of the clothes for our baby and sorted out all the piles of nappies, tubs of baby creams and toys. ‘I wanted everything to be ready for him when we brought him home.’

Indeed, upon first meeting, Kerry strikes you as no different to many other young woman. Slim and quirkily dressed, it’s clear that, like anyone of her age, she loves to experiment with make-up and clothes. ‘Social services are ruining my life. First, I was stopped from getting married and then they took my baby’ Nevertheless, she is painfully shy – it is Mark’s belief that it is this which gives social workers the impression her learning difficulties are worse than they are. But gain her trust and she chats away happily like any other teenager. In fact, I don’t believe anyone meeting her in a group of young people would even identify learning difficulties.

As for Mark, he has an impressive clutch of GCSEs under his belt, as well as two As in his Highers – the Scottish equivalent of A levels – in art and English. He is an accomplished artist who makes a reasonable living selling his sketches and charcoal pictures worldwide – he showed me a picture he drew of newborn Ben, and it is a very accurate likeness. Mark says: ‘Neither Kerry nor me have ever had any conviction for cruelty or violence. I don’t understand why the authorities have treated us like this.’ So what is the truth? Kerry admits she is no Einstein, but she seems like any other teenager.

Seeing her with Mark, hand-in-hand on the sofa at their rented house in Ireland, some would say they seem more mature than many young lovers. Binge-drinking, casual relationships and parties couldn’t be further from their minds. Both say they prefer an evening in with friends. If anything, they could be described as somewhat old-fashioned. Mark says: ‘When we discovered Kerry was pregnant we wanted to get married. It was important to us that our baby was born to married parents.’ That wedding was set to take place in a church, organised by Mark’s father, who had arranged for the congregation to produce a homemade buffet for their reception.

Although Kerry was brought up in the care of her grandmother, she comes from a close-knit community with a large extended family of aunts and uncles. Her younger brother, who’s nine, still lives with her grandmother.

The couple met last January through friends. ‘I certainly didn’t think Kerry had learning difficulties,’ says Mark. ‘At first she just seemed quiet, but I soon discovered a quirky sense of humour, and that’s what attracted me to her.’ By March, they were a couple and the following month Kerry moved into Mark’s one-bedroom flat. It was shortly after this that Kerry became pregnant.

Kerry says: ‘When I told my grandmother I was pregnant, she got a care worker to take me to the GP. ‘It was then that the care worker said to me: “You know you won’t be able to keep this baby don’t you?”‘ Mark adds: ‘It was only at this stage I realised how seriously social services viewed Kerry’s so-called condition. ‘It was a very upsetting time, as the care worker suggested to Kerry it might be better if she had a termination. ‘But neither of us wanted an abortion. Kerry said she could never do that.’ So the couple pressed on with the pregnancy and, as they heard nothing more from social services, put their worries to the back of their minds. Mark says: ‘When Kerry was three months pregnant, we decided to marry. ‘I bought Kerry an engagement ring – a little pink one with a diamond type stone – and we held a party.’

The pair set the date for the wedding in September. Mark recalls: ‘Kerry had bought her dress, the church was booked, a cake made and the reception organised. ‘But two days before, there was a frantic knocking at our front door and we were confronted by two social workers who told us our wedding was illegal. ‘Kerry and I were devastated, but we had no option but to cancel our big day.’ ‘The care worker suggested to Kerry it might be better if she had a termination’

It later transpired Fife social services had made the extraordinary step of writing a letter of objection to the registrar, claiming Kerry was too dim to understand her vows. The couple have since attempted to marry again, but have been told that, as an order is still in place, a wedding is forbidden. But if that weren’t enough, in October, when Kerry was five months pregnant, the couple were called into a meeting with social services and told their baby would be taken into care at birth. Kerry says: ‘I couldn’t stop crying. By then, I’d already found out I was having a little boy and we had decided to name him Ben. ‘I’d felt him kick inside me.’

Mark adds: ‘There was no mention of trying to help Kerry or give her the chance to be a mum. ‘At that time, they said Kerry would be allowed only a few hours with him. It seemed then he would go to foster parents, and there was the fear he would be adopted and we would lose him for ever. ‘It didn’t seem to matter to social services that we loved one another and wanted to get married.’ The worry was so great that Mark began researching on the internet other cases in which parents had faced losing their babies in this way.

He says: ‘I discovered that many couples had been forced to flee the UK and go to other countries where the authorities take a different view and are keen to keep families together. ‘It seemed a huge step to take. ‘Neither Kerry nor myself wanted to leave home, where we had family and support. But in the end we felt we had no choice.’ The couple decided to go to Ireland, where they believed their case would be looked on more sympathetically.

So in November, having held a tearful farewell gathering – and with just £200 in their pockets, a suitcase and a bag of sandwiches made by Kerry – the pair stole out of their house in the dead of night. The couple made it to Belfast, where they stayed for eight weeks. ‘Not having social workers knocking on our doors, wanting meetings all the time, was fantastic,’ says Mark. ‘For the first time in Kerry’s pregnancy, we could enjoy it.’

The pair were financed by friends and family – although Mark continued to sell his artwork. ‘I missed my grandma, my little brother and my family terribly,’ says Kerry. ‘It was hard to be away from them at Christmas. ‘But I consoled myself that it would be worth it. I could hold Ben in my arms and not worry he would be taken.’ Kerry and Mark made the final leg of their journey to Waterford in the Republic of Ireland – which is not governed by UK laws – two weeks after Christmas, with the birth of the baby looming.

There, with the help of a donation from a secret benefactor, they were able to find a safe house. Mark recalls: ‘We rented a beautiful little house. Waterford is a seaside resort and we decided to make a new life there.’ On Friday, January 15 at 8.41pm, their hopes were realised when, after a natural labour, Ben was finally born. The happy couple took photos of their 7lb 3oz bundle. And for three days all appeared to be well. Mark visited the hospital daily, and close friends who knew where they were sent congratulations cards.

Meanwhile, Kerry took to breastfeeding and caring for Ben without any problems. Behind the scenes, however, social workers were gearing up to strike. Through medical records, the Irish authorities had discovered that social workers in Fife had an interest in Kerry. ‘It seems they contacted Fife, who told them they feared because of Kerry’s “disability” our baby could suffer physical or emotional neglect,’ explains Mark.

The following Monday, the couple were told a social worker would visit them the next day, and at that point they were not unduly concerned. ‘We are honest, so we were happy to co-operate fully,’ says Mark. ‘We would have been pleased to be monitored. ‘Even putting Kerry into a home for new mums with babies so she could prove she can be a good mother would have been fine. ‘We understood that the Irish social workers needed to make their own inquiries, and were perfectly happy to do whatever it took to keep Ben.’

So they were totally unprepared when, at the 9.15am meeting on the Tuesday, they were forced to hand over their baby.

Since then he has been looked after by foster carers. They have been allowed two-hourly visits with Ben. But even now, as they’re about to be reunited with their baby, there is no denying that the episode has been highly distressing. Kerry says: ‘I was so upset when I saw him the first time with the social workers because he had a dummy in his mouth. ‘I told them I didn’t want him having a dummy.  And he is being bottle fed, but I wanted to breastfeed him. ‘I’m just so happy that I’ll be with my baby. I don’t know how long I’ll be at the unit. ‘I’ll miss Mark if he’s not allowed to stay over – but Ben comes first.’

There’s no denying that she and Mark sincerely hope today heralds the start of life as a normal, happy family.

When it comes to food, I’ve had a lifetime’s experience of eating the stuff and I’ve managed to whittle down a range of favourites.
So  why is it that when you find something good, some prick has to come along and improve it?
Even when something is near perfect,  it has to be ‘improved’.
Or is ‘Improved’ simply a euphemism for ‘We’ve put cheaper ingredients in it and by telling you it’s improved, we hope you don’t notice’
You can see why someone would want to use the former, because the latter is a bloody great mouthful.
More than can be said about the subsequent improved offering.

After years of searching, I finally settled on Baxters, Cream of Mushroom soup.
It’s got mushrooms in it, you can see them, you can taste them, and the consistency is that of cream.
Indeed, I like most Baxters soups, they seem to do what they say on the tin.
But, guess what?
They’ve ‘improved it’
How? Well for a start they’ve minced the mushrooms up so you can’t see them, and they’ve changed the consistency to that of snot.
You know what I mean, blobby whilst at the same time sticky!
A bit like Heinz Cream of Whatever.
Oh, by the way, they’ve also hiked the price up!

As if that wasn’t enough, my favourite takeaway, Sainsbury’s own brand ‘Butter Chicken Curry’ has mutated into something else.
It has lost half of the chicken it once contained whilst substituting it for meat that originated from something that crawled out of a swamp.
There is a bonus though with this one, because I had a Butter Chicken Curry from Staddlestones last night. (they’re the restaurant that did the great food at my 60th party).
It was awesome, the best ever!
But Sainsbury’s can shove theirs back up the arse of the idiot that improved the recipe.
Oh, by the way, they’ve also hiked the price up!

It makes you wonder why they do it.
The Mushroom Soup was Baxters ‘Best Seller’
The Butter Chicken was their ‘Best Seller’

Coca Cola changed it’s recipe some time ago and immediately lost a BIG chunk of their market share; they soon changed it back!
Best selling ‘Blackthorn Cider’ much beloved by drinkers throughout the West Country for its dry taste, was relaunched in April 2009 with a lower alcohol content and sweeter taste.  It lost most of it’s drinkers.
Why not launch Blackthorne ‘Sweet’ Cider?
It’s one thing to try to improve on something that is not as good as the competition, but for a Best Seller!

Problem is, everybody loses.

I’ve been messing around with my Christmas present, a Line 6 UX2 USB interface for the guitar and Mic.  Effectively, a small recording studio with Cubase 5.

This is my first attempt.

The backing is Santana, the guitar is myself.
(You can probably tell!)

What a dilemma for the media.  On the one hand we have the farcical Copenhagen Climate Conference struggling to establish what to believe, who to believe, who to blame, what to charge, what capital can be made and who should take the credit.

On the other hand we have ‘Extreme’ weather conditions being experienced in the UK at the moment.  Extreme my arse!

Wikipedia defines Extreme weather as: “Extreme weather includes weather phenomena that are at the extremes of the historical distribution, especially severe or unseasonal weather.”  The met office define it as: well nothing really.  It is a term they use when talking about the ‘extreme’ of any weather over a given period.  So, the extreme was 2″ of rainfall in Manchester and 0″ in Cardiff today.  It is not a measure to describe either good or bad weather.  The Met Office use the term ‘Severe’ for that.

The lowest recorded temperature in the UK was  -27.2C in 1895 Braemar (Aberdeenshire);  in England, -26.1C 1982, Newport (Shropshire).

So what have we?  It is 20th December, next week is the shortest day of the year, (does that make it an ‘extreme’ day?), The white stuff falling out of the sky is called ‘snow’ and there’s a severe weather warning which says, “Heavy snow showers may give accumulations of 2 to 5cm and there is a risk of 10 to 15cm over hills.”  For the sake of the BBC, ITV and Sky, that’s NOT extreme.

Classic quote from the ‘outside’ weather girl as I write, “There has been 20cm of snow, that’s 8 inches, and if you look behind me you can see just how deep that is!”  Actually you could. It was just about reaching the top of the kerb on the road.  Big Deal!

How do we react?  We close schools, we close airports, we cancel trains, close the channel tunnel and park up on motorways.

Then again, it did come as a complete surprise didn’t it.  I mean, who ever heard of snow at Christmas, (sorry, Winterfest)?

In the normal course I would not plagiarise anybody else’s work, but given that this is an open letter published in its entirety in the Spectator on 3rd of December, I am sure that it is in the public domain.

Recently the President of the Maldives held a Cabinet meeting underwater.  This was a publicity stunt to bring to the world’s attention that the Maldives are under threat from rising sea levels.  Given the body of scientific evidence that at worst, is a threat that predicts a sea rise of some 20cm by the end of the century and at best, is not under threat at all, inasmuch as the islands are actually higher now than a hundred years ago.

I am happy to reproduce this open letter, taken from a recent climate change supplement of The Spectator, in which Nils-Axel Mörner, a former lead reviewer for the IPCC, and head of Geodynamics at Stockholm University until his retirement in 2005, reassures President Mohamed Nasheed that his country is safe:

Dear Mr President,

You are obviously very concerned about the effect that sea level rises may have on the Maldives. Your Cabinet has been photographed meeting underwater, and you have even declared that ‘we are going to die’ if the climate change summit in Copenhagen fails. I am now writing with what I hope will be some good news. The scientific side of the situation is quite different to that which you imagine. You are, in fact, not going to die.

Before I continue, I should perhaps state my credentials. I have been a sea-level specialist for 40 years. I launched most of its new theories in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. I solved the problem of the gravitational potential surface, the theory that it changes with time; the rotation of the earth, how it affected the redistribution of the oceans’ masses — and so on. Last year, I was awarded a prize from Algarve university for my ‘irreverence and contribution to our understanding of sea level change’.

We both know that the 1,200 islands of the Maldives are all low-lying with the highest point only some 2.5m (8ft) above sea level. Hence, your nation is vulnerable to extreme storms, tsunamis — and, of course, any possible sea level rise.

The IPCC vision is a rise that by the year 2100 may amount to between 30cm and 50cm. This is based on model calculations. Our figure is a 5cm rise, plus or minus 15cm. In a newspaper article, you have suggested that sea levels may rise by between one and eight metres. Those figures, however, do not concur with the physics and known rates of ice melting. So those figures must be dismissed as impossible.

I have been on no fewer than six different field expeditions to the Maldives. We worked in the lagoon, we drilled in the sea, we drilled in lakes, we looked at the shore morphology — many different environments. We have always found the same thing: a total stability for the last 30 years, preceded by a 20cm drop in sea level in the 1970s.

We have presented a detailed documentation of the sea level changes in the Maldives over the past 4,000 years. The record of the last 500 years may be of special interest to the situation of your islanders. It shows:

The people of the Maldives had no problems surviving the 17th century, which was 50cm higher than now. Nor the last century, where it rose by 20cm. This bodes well for their prospects of surviving the next change.

I recently visited Bangladesh, a country cursed by floods. In the Sundarban delta, I documented very strong coastal erosion despite zero changes in sea level. So, even here, there is no global sea level rise going on today — just as in the Maldives, in Tuvalu and in Vanuatu, to mention a few famous sites claimed already to be in the process of becoming flooded.

By the end of this century, sea level may have risen by between 30cm and 50cm according to the various IPCC scenarios. Our records suggest a maximum of 20cm. Neither of those levels would pose any real problem — simply a return to the situation in the 17th and the 19th to early 20th centuries, respectively.

So why the scare-mongering? Could it be because there is money involved? If you inhabit a tiny island and can convince the world that its very existence is under threat because of the polluting policies of the West, the industrialised nations will certainly respond. The money is likely to flow in more quickly than the ocean will rise.

This is the fourth time I have written to you. Unfortunately, I think there is a problem with your email service because so far I have not received an acknowledgement. For this reason, I have decided to write this open letter in the pages of The Spectator.

So, Mr President, you and your ministers in the Maldives really don’t need to worry about a future life beneath the waves. You should pass on this message to the people of the Maldives. It is high time to release them from this terrible psychological burden.

Yours,
Nils-Axel Mörner

I’ve just learned this courtesy of BCS, (British Computer Society).
If you use Facebook, then you WILL be interested in this, their latest potential privacy invasion.
Facebook has agreed to let 3rd party advertisers use your photos in their ads without asking your permission.   If you don’t think that they can do that, then check the small print you signed up to when you joined.

However, all is not lost.
TO OPT OUT of this practice:
Click on ‘Settings’ (in top navigation bar, next to logout).
Drop down to ‘Privacy Settings’
select ‘News Feed and Wall’
select the tab for ‘Facebook Ads’
select ‘No one’ in the drop down.
Save changes.
PASS THIS ON.

On the other hand, you could always do as the BCS suggests, “…bombard Facebook Chief Execs for knowledge of with whom the pictures are being shared, where the potential advert might be placed and demand a fee…”

You can read the full story on the BCS website.

I’d like to wish all the cabin crew at BA a Merry Christmas.

I’d like to; but I won’t, because my personal opinion is that they are a Bunch of Arseholes, (BA).

The only saving grace is that amongst the 1 million disappointed non-travellers this Christmas, there might be a few postal workers!

Bullshit, exaggeration and distortion of the truth seem to go hand in hand with this lot.

YouTube DirektOfficial Copenhagen Conference Video

I’m NOT saying that global warming is not happening.  I only question the real cause.  I totally understand that something needs to be done, but I don’t believe that we are tackling the real problem.  Of coarse tackling CO2 emissions can only be good, but is it tackling the real issue?  This sort of crap does absolutely nothing to answer the questions that need answering.  If we have gone too far, it is in politicising and commercialising a serious scientific problem.  That is  the real tragedy.

How appropriate that they use products of a computer’s fictitious modelling, (CGI), to illustrate the product of a computer’s fictitious modelling, (CO2).

YouTube DirektPlane Stupid...

My mate Richard, Karan and myself went to see Jools Holland at the Centaur, Cheltenham Racecourse last night.
Jools Holland was brilliant, but unfortunately I was mugged in the bar.
It wasn’t by any of the people in the bar, indeed they too were being mugged.
By the BAR!

We all expect to pay premium prices as a captive audience.  But this was different.
The prices were complete extortion, but it was more complex than that, (more of that in a moment).

It was 6.45pm and the show was to start at 7:30pm; the doors had only been open a short while.  I should have got a warning bell when the chap in front of me was looking forlornly at a half full pint plastic [glass].  The barmaid was looking desperately for somebody to take responsibility for charging £3.20 for the orange squash.
She was clearly embarrassed and was apologising profusely.  In the end, and because nobody else was taking responsibility, she charged him £1.

It was my turn.  When I asked for a pint of lager, I was told that the barrel was off.  I said I’d wait.  I ordered a glass of Lime and Soda for Karan, (she was driving).  I then ordered a pint of cider for Richard.  The Cider was off because it was, “too frothy”.  (What? Frothy Cider!).  The barmaid asked if a Magners would do.  Ok, I know it’s a bit pricey but what the hell, we’re having a treat night out.

“Is the lager back on yet?”  “No sorry”, she said, “Do you want a bottle of Beck?”.
It was about this point that Karan asked the barmaid if she could top the glass up.  “Sorry, it comes in cans”.  I looked at the empty can on the back of the bar and realised that it was one of those tiny 150 ml cans you get on aircraft.

I turned my eyes to the Magners in Richards plastic glass and realised it was less than half full.  He hadn’t had a drink.  I looked at the bottle of Becks being offered and it was a tiny 250 ml bottle, the sort you get on offer at Tesco’s in packs of 36.

Bloody Nora!  I saw the prices.  Yes I had seen them before but had just accepted them as being a bit steep, but hadn’t reckoned on the tiny sizes being offered.
The 250 ml bottle of Magners was £3.80, the normal price you expect to pay for the normal 568 ml bottle in an up market wine bar, (£2.80 in our local).  That’s over £8.00 a pint!!!!!

Comparison of 330ml and 150ml cans

The Soda and Lime was £1.80,  £1.40 for the tiny can of soda and 40p for the dash of lime.  Even in top wine bars it’s usually 20-40p for the Lime and the Soda is free out of the Coke pump.  That works out at about £5.40 a pint for soda water!!!  That’s Tap Water with added gas.

I didn’t bother with the £3.40 bottle of Becks, the lager still wasn’t on and remained off as far as I was concerned.

And this is what I meant about more complex.  Let’s be clear that this is not a small venue, it is a racecourse and probably turns over in one day what most pubs turn over in a year.  So how come the Lager was off right at the start of a major concert.  How come the Cider was off at the start of a major concert.  Might I offer the opinion that at £3.40 a pint, it didn’t present the same level of extortion as the alternatives.

There was an article in the local paper about how punters at the recent races had been victims of pickpockets.  Maybe they just forgot that last round they paid for.  I won’t!

For your information:
Mini Mixer can                      150 ml/5 fl oz
Small Euro Bottle                 250 ml/8.8 fl oz
Standard Can (Coke type) 330 ml/11.6 fl oz
European Bottle                   330 ml/11.6 fl oz
Pint                                            563 ml/20 fl oz

Anybody who knows me will acknowledge that I am not a  football fan.
I will watch the occasional game if England are playing a crucial match.  I always look to see what Cheltenham has scored. But nobody could be less interested.

However, I do sympathise with Ireland for being put out of the World Cup because of a cheat.  Of the cheating there is no question.  The player acknowledges that he cheated.  His Manager acknowledges he cheated. The FIA acknowledges he cheated, and God knows how many people around the world know that he cheated.
Crucially, FIFA, football’s governing body know he cheated and they are the only ones that could do anything about it. But they refuse!
What does that tell you about them?  What does it say about football?  What does it tell children about cheating?

Any other sport, if cheating is revealed AFTER the event ends, it is dealt with.
Formula One, you get fined and penalised.
Athletics, you get your medal stripped and penalised.
Cricket, yes even cricket, where cheating was almost written into the rules until the abolition of the ‘Gentlemen-Players distinction’ in 1963.

But not football.
Pathetic!

A drug, Nexavar – also known as Sorafenib, can prolong the lives of patients with advanced liver cancer by up to six months. but has been rejected for use in the NHS in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.  Nexavar is routinely offered to cancer patients elsewhere in the world.

NICE, (The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence), or should that be “National Institute for Cost Effectiveness” because they have more to do with cost effectiveness than clinical excellence!  NICE, said that at about £3,000 a month, the cost of Nexavar was, “simply too high”.

Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician Peter Johnson said the decision was “enormously frustrating” because there was no doubt about the drug’s effectiveness.  Acknowledging that it is expensive, (define expensive),  he said: “There’s no alternative treatment and there are no other places for people to go”.  However, he pointed out that whilst the only issue is cost, the number of patients affected are probably only six or seven hundred patients a year.”

The decision was similarly condemned by Alison Rogers, chief executive of the British Liver Trust,  and Mike Hobday, head of campaigns at Macmillan Cancer Support.  Mike Hobday said, “It is a scandal that the only licensed drug proven to significantly prolong the lives of people with this devastating disease has been rejected, leaving them with no treatment options…”

Andrew Dillon, chief executive of NICE  said, “The price being asked by [the manufacturer] Bayer is simply too high to justify using NHS money which could be spent on better value cancer treatments”.
Like what? Prat! There ARE none!

And the group’s clinical and public health director, Peter Littlejohns, added the drug was considered “just too expensive” by its advisory committees.
Wrong! Look at your own remit.  It has a cap on affordability of £30k per patient for a quality year of life, but given that it only extends life by 6 months, then the cost per patient is half the £35k cost, £17.5k.

Dillon is reported as saying that he loves his job and says, “This is the best job I have ever had.”   Bollocks! You like the £130,000 salary you get!  He has been described as ‘… quiet, calm and understated, with all the apparent passion of a paperclip’.
Well Mr Dillon, you need to get a bit of passion, because you have condemed a few hundred people a year to an earlier grave and a poorer quality of life than possible and necessary.  For £130,000 a year!  You are not worth the blood that runs in your veins.

Here’s a thought; It costs 30,000,000 per year to keep NICE open.  There are about 46 employees.  How the hell does it spend the money?

So, how could you spend the money that extending my life is not worth?
You could pay a top footballer, say, Frank Lampard, to kick a ball of wind around for 35 minutes. (£630,000 per month).  No, let’s not go down that route, it’s too easy a target.
Let’s get real!

You could pay for a years supply of Methadone for just two drug addicts.  After all, there’s only 147,500 of them at £14,924,067 a year in the UK.  Source: Department of Health.
Actually, the effectiveness both medically and financially is questionable, but we have NICE to make those sorts of decisions don’t we?

You could lock up a drug dealer for his crimes for 12 months at a mere £31,106 a year.  Source: Scottish Prison Services (couldn’t find the UK figures).

You could remove 176 unwanted tattoos from people who have been a bit silly.   There were 187,086 in 2006 at a cost to the NHS of between £37,000,000 to £300,000,000 in 2006. (The NHS doesn’t know the exact figure but offers these as a guide). Source: House of Lords debates

You could employ Andrew Dillon, CEO of NICE for 3 months.  He gets £126,000 a year.  Source: Cabinet Office via The Guardian.

I have just seen an article in 5 News, (news?), asking if people can tell which one’s which in ‘JEdward.

Easy!

John is the really annoying little shit whilst Edward is simply his identical twin.

Fife Social Services have told Kerry Robertson, 17, and Mark McDougall, 25, that Kerry is not bright enough to raise their child and that they will have to give him up.
Read the full story…

I have read a couple of reports of this story and the nearest description of this ladies level of intelligence is that she has “mild learning difficulties”.  So what, who is it that has set the level of IQ that is required to be a parent?  Seemingly some prick of a social worker at Fife Social Services.  Will this mean that all pregnant mothers will be required to undergo an IQ test before conceiving?  Of course not.  So why Kerry Robinson?

Well it’s not the first time that Fife Social Services have stepped into her life. They stepped in just 48hours before she was to get married to tell he she couldn’t because she wasn’t intelligent enough to undersatnd what marraige was about.
Read More… (Warning, this link leads to extreme language).

Actually, that’s not the first time either, Fife Social Services placed her in care of her Grandmother just after she was born and has been instrumental in her upbringing throughout her life.

Intelligent or not, she appears to be saying the right things if her reported quotes are anything to go by.
Kerry said, “I have been out of my mind with worry about my unborn baby being taken away…”. “Although Ben isn’t born yet, I already love my baby and know I will be a good mum…”.  “Mark and I talk to him inside me every day and tell him we love him…”.  “We’ve already bought him clothes and my cousin, who recently had a baby, has handed down a beautiful crib for him…”.  “…but social workers aren’t even giving me a chance to be a mum. It’s as if social workers are trying to rule my life and I just couldn’t take the pressure from them any more”.

And about the aborted wedding?
She said: “I am still so upset about everything. I know what marriage is. It is when two folks want to spend the rest of their lives together. I love Mark and I want to get married to him”.

And Mark?
“We are constantly lying awake at night worrying what the next day will bring…”.  “Not only am I extremely angry and upset about the way we’ve been treated, I have become worried for Kerry’s and our unborn baby’s health. I defy anyone to put up with what we’ve had to put up with”.

Look, I don’t know the full story, and the reporting may well be biased, but there’s something nasty in the woodshed, and I think it might be some Fife social worker’s bullshit!

It was simply the world weary, dismissive tone of voice of the news presenter that triggered of my thoughts.  I don’t suppose for one moment that it was intentional, but more likely that he, like all of us, is so used to the regularity of reports of dead or injured military that the news has become dispassionate in its delivery and detached in its appreciation by the listener.

To be very clear, I am not making any case for or against the rights or the wrongs of war, nor for or against any particular campaign.  That is a wholly separate and wider subject.  What I am talking about is that the public perception of the deaths and injuries has become so debased as to be almost dismissive.  The casualties have quite literally become numbers; statistics to be used for the argument for or against a particular viewpoint.

Over many many years, we, the general public have been told of the sadness of the loss of soldiers and the bravery of those who have died.  The casualties too have been equally acknowledged, but never the images of the injuries or the photos of the dead are shown.  And quite right too, we don’t want to see that every day do we?  Sadly however, that and the frequency of its happening has meant that  our perception of the injuries and the deaths is driven by other things.  Films and their dramatisation and glorification have put into minds an unreal perception of what combat is really like.  The way soldiers die, the way they survive despite horrendous injury.  Many of our film heroes are up and fighting before you can say “I’ll be back”.  I’m not even saying that there should not be films of that nature, merely saying that it distorts our acumen.

It’s Remembrance Sunday on the 8th of November, and I think that is a good time to really try to imagine the reality of it all.  The excruciating pain, the panic and terror of the injured; the pain, the horror, the heartbreak of relatives, the loss of a father, a brother, a sister or mother, a cousin an aunt or an uncle.  Think also of those who do return, limbs missing, sight or hearing destroyed, minds damaged forever.  Remember that they are human beings and that they feel pain beyond imagination.  Understand why Grandad’s or Father’s eyes fill with tears at the memory of friends that have died and at the sights they have seen.

I was going to publish these images on the blog, but chose not to.  I do not mind being controversial, but I feel I must not cross my own boundries for the sake of drama.  However, I will link to a page that will truely shock you.

WARNING! THE FOLLOWING LINK LEADS TO VERY GRAPHICAL IMAGES OF WAR INJURIES. IF YOU ARE EASILY UPSET, OR IN ANY WAY MAY BE OFFENDED, THEN DO NOT CLICK THE LINK!

The Reality Page

Sacked for telling the truth by a Government that does not want to hear it.

So home secretary wrote: “I cannot have public confusion between scientific advice and policy and have therefore lost confidence in your ability to advise me as chair of the ACMD…”

The italics say it all.

Scepticism as an attitude is much preferable than gullibility.  Unfortunately, it is the trend these days to condemn those that push scepticism too far.  By ‘too far’ I am referring to actually seeking the facts and potentially thereby, the truth.

Deforestation in the Amazon (Click to enlarge)

A sceptical attitude towards ‘man-made global warming’ is likely to result in the sceptic being banished from any establishment he voices his doubts to and banished from the company to whom those doubt were proffered.  There is a high likelihood that he will be labelled a ‘denialist’, nasty in that it conjures up the image of a fanatic denying the holocaust.  Grossly unfair that the two should be so linked, not least because the holocaust actually happened.  The destruction of the earth by man-made global warming hasn’t happened yet.

So now, at the risk of being accused of heresy, I think it is about time that we (mankind) need to clarify a few points.  Let’s get this out of the way now; I’m not denying that climate change is happening.  Indeed, there would be something seriously wrong if it wasn’t.  It is changing constantly and has done for millions of years, hotter and colder, different atmospheres made up of changing gases and chemicals, at differing rates of change, some very slowly, some very quickly indeed and for a multitude of reasons.  It is this last bit that concerns me most.  Popular thinking has it that this latest change is a direct result of man.  It is specifically the extent of the change that is attributed that I question (note that I say question, not deny).  Furthermore, it is what it is that contributes to the change that needs full clarification.

Paving Paradise...

Before I go on, let’s understand why that is important.  It is important because if we concentrate all effort in resolving a problem that isn’t as big as we think it is, then the real cause persists and we do no good at all.  In very simplistic terms it is generally assumed that CO2 emission is a major contributing factor but we hear little of the one thing that can reverse this entropy, forestation, it ‘eats’ carbon dioxide.  So what do we do?  We produce ‘bio fuel’ to propel our vehicles.   We remove vast swathes of irreplaceable forests.  These vast storehouses of carbon are quite often burned, releasing huge amounts of stored carbon.  The land is then left to rot in preparation for the planting of bio-fuels.   Unfortunately, this rotting process further releases a noxious cocktail of other harmful gases.  We then produce plants that are then processed (more wasted energy), into fuel which is burned (releasing more carbon), to propel our vehicles.   In theory,  if you chopped down the Amazon, turned it into a car park, and burned the wood in a power plant, that would be treated as a carbon-emissions reduction strategy.  Now, who the hell thought that was a good idea?

But I digress; my issue is that we have the eye on the wrong ball.  What’s more is that there is a body that keeps our eye on the wrong ball, the IPCC, (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).  However, I have a lot of  with the IPPC.

Firstly, the stated aims of the IPCC are to assess scientific information relevant to:
1. Human-induced climate change,
2. The impacts of human-induced climate change,
3. Options for adaptation and mitigation.

It is NOT a primary objective of theirs to establish what the causes of Climate Change are and it is NOT their job to apportion responsibility.   Their job is to report with reference to “human-induced change”.  My first criticism therefore is precisely what I keep banging on about.  If everybody is focusing on human-induced change, then it loses focus on the wider picture and misses what I believe is more important.  That change is inevitable and not possible to avoid.  We should therefore be looking at how to deal with that.

My second criticism is as I have said earlier, that focus is always given to the effects of Carbon emission when other factors have greater impact, Water Vapour for example has a far greater impact and we are not looking at any way of offsetting the effects of that.  Furthermore, the myopic attention to man’s CO2 emissions attract far greater attention than the effects of deforestation, much more dangerous.  Read a bit about these guys who I share my scepticism with: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition

My third criticism is the membership makeup of the IPCC. If you look at any list, for example,  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_authors_from_Climate_Change_2007:_The_Physical_Science_Basis), following the links to individuals soon reveals a pattern that suggests that the IPCC membership is largely made up of those who support the theory that man is responsible for sufficient carbon emission to warrant the mainstream of research into climate warming.  They are NOT objective but merely supporting the theory and not challenging it.  Indeed, for many, to challenge and find fault, it would be contrary to their espoused position and would be embarrassing.  For others, it would prove a financial problem.

It’s not a good basis on which to found the largest body of scientists looking at the problem.  They are all pointing in the same direction and not necessarily the right one.  Not necessarily the wrong one either, but I and many others are not convinced that the science is sufficiently robust and it is too dangerous to ignore the other factors.

In my opinion, anyone who quotes someone else out of context, or selectively edits is telling lies.  So what do you make of the criticism on Price Edward?  The BBC headline reads “Death risk alluring, says prince “. Click here for the story

There is no question as to what was said, however, the circumstances are not explained at all.  I heard a longer version of this on Radio 4 and the sentence before it put it into context.  In essence, what he was saying was that ironically, in 1956 a youngster had died on the coarse and the effect was that youngsters of the day then saw the trust as something ‘real’ and not just for kids.  He was NOT referring the death in 2006 of David Iredale as the news article implied.

It does make you wonder why the BBC has chosen to edit the conversation in this way. Also, the question that was asked was not reported, and that could completely alter the meaning of what was said. 

Finally, if you listen to the quality of the recording, you will quickly realise that this is NOT broadcast quality and you could speculate in what circumstances the conversation was conducted.  This to me sounds like a private conversation rather than a ‘formal’ one. Sadly, protocol has it that the Royals may not respond.

To my mind, this was a deliberate attempt to distort truth and the BBC should be ashamed of itself.

I like to think that I am a Christian with all its association with good morals, justice and fairness at the core of my life. It’s a pity that the Church does not practice what it preaches!

A couple are being forced to sell their farm in order to pay for the churches repairs, originally to the windows, but now extended to bulging walls and the roof.

Does the church give a damn?
Not a bit!

Martin Sheppard, spokesman for Coventry Diocese dismissed it with, “The sale in itself does not yet resolve the need to fund repairs to the parish church.”

Just for the record, it’s reassuring that the church’s estimated £4,300,000,000, (£4.3bn), land and property holdings returned them 19.1% on their investments last year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/3023276.stm June 2003

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/6329335.stm February 2007

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/coventry_warwickshire/8316340.stm October 2009

Now look at the Coventry Diocese website to see what they have to say about their social responsibility.
http://www.coventry.anglican.org/socialresponsibility/

Worth a quick look at what’s missing from their News pages.
Pathetic!

I have noticed for some time now that there has been an increase in people who hold their knives and forks in some most peculiar fashion.  From the outset, can we understand that we are referring to the majority of right-handed people.   Without saying that I dismissed it, I didn’t’t pay too much heed, chalking it down to the individual.  However, I can no longer assign this phenomenon to individuals, it is now reaching epidemic proportions, or in media terms, it is now ‘pandemic’.

Eating in a number of restaurants whilst on holiday I can honestly say that 8 out of 10 people were incapable of holding their knife and fork ‘correctly’.  Lets establish now what I consider to be ‘correct’.  Knife to be held in the right hand, handle to rest in the groove between the thumb and index finger, thumb gripping the handle with the index finger resting along the top of the blade (blunt side up).

The fork similarly positioned in the left hand with the index finger just in front of the handle and prongs (prong side down).  It is the way that has been used throughout the western world for many generations.  Two reasons: one, it’s the way that they have been designed to be used.  Two, it is the most logical and comfortable way to use them.

Yeah but...

What we are seeing now is anything but the way they were designed to be used and certainly non logical or comfortable.  The most common ‘misuse’ is to dispense with the knife altogether, using the fork in the right hand, prong side up as you might a spoon.  There is a modification to this which involves the doubling up of the fork to include it being substituted for the knife.  It involves pressing the fork, edge on, with considerable force on the target morsel of food.  Anything tougher than a chip involves the frantic rocking from side to side and sawing backward and forward until the morsel is fatigued sufficiently to part company along the line of stress.  A further variation involves the change of hold on the fork into one that mimics the holding of a dagger.  The fork is then used to stab and transfer to the mouth, achieved by a turning of the wrist and a rising of the elbow into a fully horizontal position.  This latter movement can only be achieved by years of practice and occasionally, luck.  Sadly, it is all too often doomed to failure.

For the record, correct of positioning of peas to the top of the fork is impossible using this technique and before attempting the stabbing of peas, the novice is strongly advised to practice with the plate in the middle of the table as overspill is likely to occur.

Whilst we are into the ‘dagger’ position, we can jump straight into the deployment of the knife.  Great care needs to be taken with the knife in the dagger position, especially if being held in the left hand because the natural instinct is to then use the fork in the fashion of a knife, thereby completely transposing the usage and positioning of both implements.  It also involves a lot of stabbing and ripping of food (as opposed to piercing (that’s what the fork prongs are for), and cutting (that’s what the knife is for)).

"Ethel, pass me the remote!"

So how did this all come about?  My theory is that there was a time before adults took guidance in all things from their children.  That was a time when adults passed down to their offspring correct etiquette in the use of cutlery (amongst so many other things now forgotten in the passing of generations), alongside great pearls of wisdom like “Don’t eat with your mouth full”, and “ask before your leave the table” (that’s the thing we all used to sit around for meals before TV),

During that great age when families used to eat together, the same meal, in the same place, and at the same time.  Mother would decide what meal she would prepare for the family.  It was unheard of for children to insist on something different.  Worse still were separate meals and separate eating places.  How the hell do you teach children the correct use of cutlery when they are sat in front of the TV whilst Mum prepares Dad’s dinner in the kitchen?

It’s also what we eat. For children, so often it’s ‘convenience’ food.  By the way, this instantly converts to ‘inconvenience’ food when it’s prepared separately from the main meal, so shove that in your paradox and eat it!  Spaghetti hoops are a classic example of ‘convenience’ by virtue of to the avoidance of the use of the knife and the facilitation of the use of the right-handed fork, (by the way, who dreamed up alphabet spaghetti (“Don’t play with your food!”)).   Other examples of food that encourage modified utensil usage include,  burgers, KFC, pizza, anything on toast, chicken nuggets; in fact anything you can use your fingers to eat.

How do we get back from this position?  You tell me!  It’s pretty difficult now, given that those children who missed out on the passed down wisdom of parents are now parents themselves, with no memory of a different time, only bad habits to pass on.  Perhaps it’s time the waiter’s offer of “Would Sir like me to demonstrate the use of the cutlery?” was taken up.