I read in our local paper today that the police have been carrying out a campaign to catch vehicle owners with over-tinted windows, windows in cars that don't let in the requisite amount of light.
It looked suspiciously to me as if the local police authority has been sold some equipment and they are determined to use it. The piece contained a quote about the percentage of accidents which occurred where drivers could just not see. What it didn't contain is a statement giving the percentage of accidents caused by drivers who could not see because their windows were tinted beyond the permissable level. Let's face it, that's what is really important.
Don't get me wrong. I do not have an argument with the police doing their job. But I do have an argument when the local constabulary pleads - as it does on an annual basis - to having not enough resources even to communicate with the local Neighbourhood Watch coordinator.
I don't know about you but I would prefer my scarce resources, my contribution to the police authority budget, to be spent on the reduction of crime in the community and therefore the fear of crime, not the reduction of tint and the fear of over-tinted windows.
Thursday, 17 April 2008
Wednesday, 26 March 2008
Statin side effects
One evening my husband explained that he had been having slight pains in his chest when he walked up hills. He'd been to see the GP and had been sent to have tests at the hospital. The diagnosis was mild angina. He was prescribed three drugs, one to thin his blood, a beta blocker and statins.
After a few months - it's hard to say how many - my husband started to become anxious. He began to have periods of feeling nauseous. It came and went, but gradually it got worse. He wan't doing as much, he sat around. He wasn't himself. He worried, he fretted about his health He was becoming very quickly an old man, one who didn't want to do things but sit, read and sleep.
We were on holiday - an activity holiday. He'd reached a stage where he felt sick most of the time. We were grasping at anything - could it be a virus, could it be food poisoning? He almost stopped eating, taking just a little nourishment each day, but still he felt bad. He was miserable and I was miserable because I couldn't help feeling that this time it was for real. There was something terribly wrong with him and it was getting worse and I feared it was terminal.
At that point I took all the leaflets out of the pill boxes and checked them - could his problem be a side effect of something he was taking? But I didn't find any conclusive evidence there to suggest that his gradual malaise was drug-induced.
When we got home the GP was of course sympathetic and - yes, you've guessed - offered him further medication for his stomach problems. This was the GP who had prescribed the statins and who seemed unware of potential side effects.
Things came to a head when one evening my husband said he had a chest pain. A call to the NHS help line, intended to conjure reassurance, turned instead into a emergency. Two vehicles raced to our door; a cardiac paramedic and a full ambulance crew. After reassuring themselves that it was not a cardiac emergency my husband was admitted to the local hospital.
My daughter said to me, when she joined us in Accident & Emergency, "he looks yellow". I suppose in all the build up to this I hadn't really noticed the change but she was right - my husband was a strange colour, jaundiced it appeared. Not only did he feel ill, he looked ill too.
An overnight stay, various blood tests, tests in the cardiology department and some time later an endoscopy, must have resulted in a large bill for the National Health Service. The exact cause of his pain was never completely diagnosed but it seems it was probably due to more than one cause and the asprin - which he's been taking at completely the wrong time, on an empty stomach in the evening - cannot have helped.
I wasn't idle. I put "statins" together with "side effects" into Google and was horrified at what I found. We were not alone, far from it. There were other wives and partners talking about the state that their loved ones had found themselves in as a result of statins. There were testimonies from patients who had suffered as the results of statins. The more I delved the more I realised that my husband was suffering from statin poisoning - simple as that. An induced illness that was causing goodness knows what damage to his liver, his muscles and maybe even his heart too.
He's fine now, well as far as I can tell. I can only assume that no lasting physical damage has occurred as a result of the episode. It took about nine months for the effects to wear off, in much the same way that it was about nine months that led to the build up. I bought the book "The Great Cholesterol Con" - and I keep an eye on the growing list of International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics.
Of course friends who were as concerned as I was about my husband have heard the story, and they have warned their friends. Already I know of two other people who became ill because they were prescribed statins, and who made miraculous and sudden recoveries when the drug was ceased.
What concerns me - and that's the reason for my blog on the subject - is that I see no evidence that the tide is turning. We are still labouring under the illusion that statins are wonder drugs that should be given to everyone.
In my opinion they are not necessarily safe and in some cases positively dangerous. The idea that they should be given to people who are perfectly well is very worrying indeed.
After a few months - it's hard to say how many - my husband started to become anxious. He began to have periods of feeling nauseous. It came and went, but gradually it got worse. He wan't doing as much, he sat around. He wasn't himself. He worried, he fretted about his health He was becoming very quickly an old man, one who didn't want to do things but sit, read and sleep.
We were on holiday - an activity holiday. He'd reached a stage where he felt sick most of the time. We were grasping at anything - could it be a virus, could it be food poisoning? He almost stopped eating, taking just a little nourishment each day, but still he felt bad. He was miserable and I was miserable because I couldn't help feeling that this time it was for real. There was something terribly wrong with him and it was getting worse and I feared it was terminal.
At that point I took all the leaflets out of the pill boxes and checked them - could his problem be a side effect of something he was taking? But I didn't find any conclusive evidence there to suggest that his gradual malaise was drug-induced.
When we got home the GP was of course sympathetic and - yes, you've guessed - offered him further medication for his stomach problems. This was the GP who had prescribed the statins and who seemed unware of potential side effects.
Things came to a head when one evening my husband said he had a chest pain. A call to the NHS help line, intended to conjure reassurance, turned instead into a emergency. Two vehicles raced to our door; a cardiac paramedic and a full ambulance crew. After reassuring themselves that it was not a cardiac emergency my husband was admitted to the local hospital.
My daughter said to me, when she joined us in Accident & Emergency, "he looks yellow". I suppose in all the build up to this I hadn't really noticed the change but she was right - my husband was a strange colour, jaundiced it appeared. Not only did he feel ill, he looked ill too.
An overnight stay, various blood tests, tests in the cardiology department and some time later an endoscopy, must have resulted in a large bill for the National Health Service. The exact cause of his pain was never completely diagnosed but it seems it was probably due to more than one cause and the asprin - which he's been taking at completely the wrong time, on an empty stomach in the evening - cannot have helped.
I wasn't idle. I put "statins" together with "side effects" into Google and was horrified at what I found. We were not alone, far from it. There were other wives and partners talking about the state that their loved ones had found themselves in as a result of statins. There were testimonies from patients who had suffered as the results of statins. The more I delved the more I realised that my husband was suffering from statin poisoning - simple as that. An induced illness that was causing goodness knows what damage to his liver, his muscles and maybe even his heart too.
He's fine now, well as far as I can tell. I can only assume that no lasting physical damage has occurred as a result of the episode. It took about nine months for the effects to wear off, in much the same way that it was about nine months that led to the build up. I bought the book "The Great Cholesterol Con" - and I keep an eye on the growing list of International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics.
Of course friends who were as concerned as I was about my husband have heard the story, and they have warned their friends. Already I know of two other people who became ill because they were prescribed statins, and who made miraculous and sudden recoveries when the drug was ceased.
What concerns me - and that's the reason for my blog on the subject - is that I see no evidence that the tide is turning. We are still labouring under the illusion that statins are wonder drugs that should be given to everyone.
In my opinion they are not necessarily safe and in some cases positively dangerous. The idea that they should be given to people who are perfectly well is very worrying indeed.
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Two words: Information Commissioner
How often has a friend or relative told you of some battle with officialdom where they have repeatedly provided personal information yet have been unable to get the service they require? “I rang them up and they said they couldn’t find my file,” or “they’d apparently not received the application form” or “I have personally delivered the information to their office on several occasions but they are still claiming not to have received it”... and so on.
It occurred to me that other day, as we suffered yet another shower of news about lost laptops, computer disks - and ergo lost data - that it’s nothing new. In fact it's happening every day but most of the time we don't make quite the same fuss about it.
The only difference between computerised and paper-based systems is that when a laptop goes missing it could contain a million personal details, whereas a piece of paper is a piece of paper. The mislaying of the piece of paper is still a loss of data. If you can’t find the CD it’s lost, if you cannot say where someone's file is, it's effectively lost and could be in the wrong hands.
Maybe the next time someone says they cannot do their job because they cannot find information which has clearly been given to them, the solution is to mention two words “Information Commissioner".
It occurred to me that other day, as we suffered yet another shower of news about lost laptops, computer disks - and ergo lost data - that it’s nothing new. In fact it's happening every day but most of the time we don't make quite the same fuss about it.
The only difference between computerised and paper-based systems is that when a laptop goes missing it could contain a million personal details, whereas a piece of paper is a piece of paper. The mislaying of the piece of paper is still a loss of data. If you can’t find the CD it’s lost, if you cannot say where someone's file is, it's effectively lost and could be in the wrong hands.
Maybe the next time someone says they cannot do their job because they cannot find information which has clearly been given to them, the solution is to mention two words “Information Commissioner".
Monday, 14 January 2008
Everlasting cheque clearance
I had the misfortune recently to take an action in the small claims court against someone who owed me a significant amount of money. By a chance of fate – into which I won’t go here – the action is already complicated, having been lodged in one court, then transferred to one halfway across the country, and now probably residing halfway between that court and yet another.
My delight at having received a cheque for the full amount owing, was tinged with caution. I didn’t want to call off the case too early in case the cheque were to bounce. I waited the four working day period after paying it into the NatWest. Because of the Christmas break I was advised to give it a little longer “in case of postal delays”. So I have given it 10 working days – but still the bank refuses to give me a guarantee that the money is irrefutably mine. In other words, at any time in the future, should the debtor’s cheque be returned unpaid, my account could be debited the amount.
What about all those lost letters, the ones that people said they've sent and never arrive, the tales of correspondence that turns up weeks, months - sometimes even years - later? Mistakes happen (we've heard a great deal things getting lost recently). What happens I wonder when returned cheques from ages of yore manifest themselves in rediscovered banking postal bags?
There appears to be no specific time after which a cheque is “safe”. I should have paid it in as a “special”. What’s a “special” I hear you ask? Well a “special” clearance is a service that would have cost me £15, paid to my bank the NatWest, but which would have guaranteed that the cheque had been “cleared”.
We live and learn. What I’ve learnt from this episode is that the cheque clearance system appears still to be dependent upon the banking postal service. Here’s to the digital age – may it not be too long in arriving at UK banks.
My delight at having received a cheque for the full amount owing, was tinged with caution. I didn’t want to call off the case too early in case the cheque were to bounce. I waited the four working day period after paying it into the NatWest. Because of the Christmas break I was advised to give it a little longer “in case of postal delays”. So I have given it 10 working days – but still the bank refuses to give me a guarantee that the money is irrefutably mine. In other words, at any time in the future, should the debtor’s cheque be returned unpaid, my account could be debited the amount.
What about all those lost letters, the ones that people said they've sent and never arrive, the tales of correspondence that turns up weeks, months - sometimes even years - later? Mistakes happen (we've heard a great deal things getting lost recently). What happens I wonder when returned cheques from ages of yore manifest themselves in rediscovered banking postal bags?
There appears to be no specific time after which a cheque is “safe”. I should have paid it in as a “special”. What’s a “special” I hear you ask? Well a “special” clearance is a service that would have cost me £15, paid to my bank the NatWest, but which would have guaranteed that the cheque had been “cleared”.
We live and learn. What I’ve learnt from this episode is that the cheque clearance system appears still to be dependent upon the banking postal service. Here’s to the digital age – may it not be too long in arriving at UK banks.
Friday, 11 January 2008
Rejoice! Do we see the beginning of the end of stuff?
I couldn't help feeling pleasure at the news that Marks & Spencer's not done too well over Christmas. It's not that I wish the store any harm, it's just that I cannot see how we can go on acquiring 'stuff', and retail businesses can go on expanding, in perpetuity - growing profits, selling more stuff to consumers (who already have too much stuff anyway) - without completely trashing the planet.
Eventually this greed has to end. I would rather it ended in a slow and sustained retrenchment. I would prefer an understanding that sustainability means keeping what you have, mending it, re-using it, recycling it and also entails eating less, throwing less away and growing more. I'd prefer that to what I fear might be a big bang of economic disaster with all the deprivation and poverty it will bring.
Clone street Britain will eventually reach a point at which expanding business and increased profits, the greed of consumers, shareholders and private equity investors has to stop. It's logical. It simply cannot go on the way it is.
Do all those people who rush out to save £399 by buying a new three piece suite really need one? No, very few of them do. As soon as they get home they're wondering what they are going to do with the old one, which isn't worn out, isn't unusable but just a bit saggy and needs a good clean.
Does Tesco really need to pull down the store it already has in order to build something which is even bigger, with even more stuff in it? Are people queuing to get in, queuing at the shelves to get the stuff that's there because it's got to be shared out fairly? No, of course not. Go into that supermarket and you're spoilt for choice. There's so much stuff, so many varieties of the same stuff, that it's difficult to find the stuff you really want.
We are running out of room to put stuff and money with which to buy stuff, and we've already run out of holes in the ground into which to dump the stuff which we've discarded in favour of new stuff. Could this be the beginning of the end of excess stuff? I do hope so.
Eventually this greed has to end. I would rather it ended in a slow and sustained retrenchment. I would prefer an understanding that sustainability means keeping what you have, mending it, re-using it, recycling it and also entails eating less, throwing less away and growing more. I'd prefer that to what I fear might be a big bang of economic disaster with all the deprivation and poverty it will bring.
Clone street Britain will eventually reach a point at which expanding business and increased profits, the greed of consumers, shareholders and private equity investors has to stop. It's logical. It simply cannot go on the way it is.
Do all those people who rush out to save £399 by buying a new three piece suite really need one? No, very few of them do. As soon as they get home they're wondering what they are going to do with the old one, which isn't worn out, isn't unusable but just a bit saggy and needs a good clean.
Does Tesco really need to pull down the store it already has in order to build something which is even bigger, with even more stuff in it? Are people queuing to get in, queuing at the shelves to get the stuff that's there because it's got to be shared out fairly? No, of course not. Go into that supermarket and you're spoilt for choice. There's so much stuff, so many varieties of the same stuff, that it's difficult to find the stuff you really want.
We are running out of room to put stuff and money with which to buy stuff, and we've already run out of holes in the ground into which to dump the stuff which we've discarded in favour of new stuff. Could this be the beginning of the end of excess stuff? I do hope so.
Wednesday, 9 January 2008
Disposable clothing - I think, girls, that it's our fault
I braved the centre of our town on Sunday although it still goes against the grain to shop on that particular day of the week. I guess you could call me old-fashioned. The object of my quest was boots. A pair of large – my feet are very large – low boots with a small heel; you know, the ones that you can tuck your jeans into.
What I discovered in every shop in town – bar one which had absolutely nothing in the style – was plastic shoes. Hardly a hint of leather anywhere. No, it was plastic shoes and boots with ridiculously thin soles and looking unlikely to last a week, let alone a month or 36. I normally keep my shoes for years – well I have to with my feet, because large shoes are so hard to come by.
This plastic disposable footwear lark got me thinking. It's us, the women of the western world, who are responsible in the main for the current trend of disposable possessions. We are culpable. We are probably most to blame for for the landfill, for the carbon emissions, for the Kamikazi nature of the modern world. Think about it. Disposable fashion clothes. What a terrible terrible waste. And the worst thing of all is that our eastern cousins think our way of life is something to be desired.
Yes, we’re back into buying small lumps of nylon or polyester which, if you put a match to them, would immediately sizzle into a small plastic lump. Do you remember those heady days of synthetic fibres – the early days that is? It was so exciting. Crimplene in all its glory served us well. But we advanced beyond that. But now it’s back with a vengeance. Cheap nasty clingy stuff, thin, no warmth at all, without an ounce of style, pulled tight and stretched in furrows of tension past mounds of over-ample bosoms. It’s not even very attractive.
It’s not men that shop this way is it? OK, men might follow fashion to a certain extent but it’s not men who undertake retail therapy. (I would also hazard a guess that it’s generally not men who pick most holiday venues in far flung corners of the globe, necessitating air travel, but that’s another topic.)
So there we have it, China, labouring under its pall of pollution is churning out millions of these pieces of tat – clothes and shoes. We women wear them a couple of times and then consign them to the charity shop or Freecycle them with a smug feeling of satisfaction that we’re doing the planet a favour, whereas in fact we are doing quite the opposite.
When the history of the 2000s comes to be written what will they say of us girls?
What I discovered in every shop in town – bar one which had absolutely nothing in the style – was plastic shoes. Hardly a hint of leather anywhere. No, it was plastic shoes and boots with ridiculously thin soles and looking unlikely to last a week, let alone a month or 36. I normally keep my shoes for years – well I have to with my feet, because large shoes are so hard to come by.
This plastic disposable footwear lark got me thinking. It's us, the women of the western world, who are responsible in the main for the current trend of disposable possessions. We are culpable. We are probably most to blame for for the landfill, for the carbon emissions, for the Kamikazi nature of the modern world. Think about it. Disposable fashion clothes. What a terrible terrible waste. And the worst thing of all is that our eastern cousins think our way of life is something to be desired.
Yes, we’re back into buying small lumps of nylon or polyester which, if you put a match to them, would immediately sizzle into a small plastic lump. Do you remember those heady days of synthetic fibres – the early days that is? It was so exciting. Crimplene in all its glory served us well. But we advanced beyond that. But now it’s back with a vengeance. Cheap nasty clingy stuff, thin, no warmth at all, without an ounce of style, pulled tight and stretched in furrows of tension past mounds of over-ample bosoms. It’s not even very attractive.
It’s not men that shop this way is it? OK, men might follow fashion to a certain extent but it’s not men who undertake retail therapy. (I would also hazard a guess that it’s generally not men who pick most holiday venues in far flung corners of the globe, necessitating air travel, but that’s another topic.)
So there we have it, China, labouring under its pall of pollution is churning out millions of these pieces of tat – clothes and shoes. We women wear them a couple of times and then consign them to the charity shop or Freecycle them with a smug feeling of satisfaction that we’re doing the planet a favour, whereas in fact we are doing quite the opposite.
When the history of the 2000s comes to be written what will they say of us girls?
Friday, 28 December 2007
Family poisoned by cannabis
I have a close friend who lives with her husband and small children in an end of terrace house. Next door live cannabis smoking - and probably cannabis growing - neighbours. For a whole year now my friend - let's call her Sally for the sake of argument - and her family have been poisoned by cannabis.
Environmental health officers have been called, police have been called. The offenders have been arrested, fined, had equipment confiscated, cautioned and warned. But still the pollution continues.
As Sally says, it would be illegal for her children to be poisoned by cigarette smoke in a public place, yet the authorities seem to be impotent to act to stop them being poisoned by something far worse in their own home.
Sally and her husband have filled in every hole and crack that they can find in the fabric of their house. Their children have a tendancy to asthma but it is made far worse by the effects of the cannabis. The GP confirms this and on many occasions the children have been taken for treatment and received medication.
Frayed tempers, hunger and feeling sick, extreme lethargy - Sally and family all suffer from these side effect of the cannabis poisoning. They notice how well they all feel once they have left their own house and gone out to friends or for a walk in the fresh air. Goodness knows what long-term effect the pollution is having on the small brains of the children.
About six months ago the dog was 'put down' after becoming very ill because it had caught a chill. The dog of course was so much more susceptible to the cannabis fumes. It used to raid the fridge - something it had never done prior to the cannabis problem. It exhibited unusual behaviour which the vet confirmed as being a likely effect of cannabis poisoning. Because it became so distressed when the fumes occurred that Sally put it out in the garden once too often and it got too cold. It's sad they have no dog now, because with their acute sense of smell a dog was the early-warning that the fumes were coming through.
Sally's father came to stay the other day. He got up feeling extremely ill and of course he's been sleeping in the bedroom nearest the neighbours. Sally actually wonders now if she and the family are actually so accustomed to inhaling cannabis that they're becoming desensitised to its presence. That idea in itself is very worrying because if that's so, then they aren't likely to detect low levels of the pollution so well.
There is law that exists in this country to stop people polluting but the environmental health officers don't seem to want to use it. The police don't appear to be able to do much to stop things either. Smoking dope in your own house is apparently not something they can stop.
I'm blogging about this because I'm wondering if Sally is alone. Are there out there hundreds of other families suffering in a similar way? This has been going on for over a year now - simply because there's a large hole into which such anti-social behaviour falls and which means that neither police nor environmental health officers can act effectively. I wonder.
Environmental health officers have been called, police have been called. The offenders have been arrested, fined, had equipment confiscated, cautioned and warned. But still the pollution continues.
As Sally says, it would be illegal for her children to be poisoned by cigarette smoke in a public place, yet the authorities seem to be impotent to act to stop them being poisoned by something far worse in their own home.
Sally and her husband have filled in every hole and crack that they can find in the fabric of their house. Their children have a tendancy to asthma but it is made far worse by the effects of the cannabis. The GP confirms this and on many occasions the children have been taken for treatment and received medication.
Frayed tempers, hunger and feeling sick, extreme lethargy - Sally and family all suffer from these side effect of the cannabis poisoning. They notice how well they all feel once they have left their own house and gone out to friends or for a walk in the fresh air. Goodness knows what long-term effect the pollution is having on the small brains of the children.
About six months ago the dog was 'put down' after becoming very ill because it had caught a chill. The dog of course was so much more susceptible to the cannabis fumes. It used to raid the fridge - something it had never done prior to the cannabis problem. It exhibited unusual behaviour which the vet confirmed as being a likely effect of cannabis poisoning. Because it became so distressed when the fumes occurred that Sally put it out in the garden once too often and it got too cold. It's sad they have no dog now, because with their acute sense of smell a dog was the early-warning that the fumes were coming through.
Sally's father came to stay the other day. He got up feeling extremely ill and of course he's been sleeping in the bedroom nearest the neighbours. Sally actually wonders now if she and the family are actually so accustomed to inhaling cannabis that they're becoming desensitised to its presence. That idea in itself is very worrying because if that's so, then they aren't likely to detect low levels of the pollution so well.
There is law that exists in this country to stop people polluting but the environmental health officers don't seem to want to use it. The police don't appear to be able to do much to stop things either. Smoking dope in your own house is apparently not something they can stop.
I'm blogging about this because I'm wondering if Sally is alone. Are there out there hundreds of other families suffering in a similar way? This has been going on for over a year now - simply because there's a large hole into which such anti-social behaviour falls and which means that neither police nor environmental health officers can act effectively. I wonder.
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