A new low for the Daily Mail…

If anyone still thinks the Daily Mail has any moral compass at all, this headline should disabuse them of the idea:- ‘We just thought it was jet lag’, say newlyweds who caught swine flu and brought it to UK The mail must employ some deeply despicable, conscience-free, hacks, not to mention editors, to publish so [...]

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COPD and the Flu Pandemic…

Based on the information available and on my past experience of flu with COPD, if the pandemic does materialise (and it seems inevitable), the risks seem little worse than ordinary flu. No-one outside Mexico has so far died (and the deaths there are curious – men in their thirties, mostly, rather than the vulnerable groups, [...]

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COPD and antibiotics…

I found this stating-the-bleeding-obvious gem in today’s Search Medica newsletter:- Dramatic benefits for early antibiotics in at-risk patients with LRTI** Prescribing antibiotics on the day of diagnosis of a lower respiratory tract infection, ‘dramatically’ reduces admissions and mortality related to respiratory infection, UK research reports. Antibiotic prescribing on the day of diagnosis lowered the rate [...]

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Swine flu…

The more retarded members of the UK’s media are pondering the question of why this is called swine flu, when no pigs have been found to be infected. So, for the hard of thinking, this is a mutated version of the H1N1 type A flu virus that normally causes flu in humans. The mutated version [...]

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Spare me from eco-zealotry…

In yesterday’s Observer magazine, their eco-hack suggested that USB-rechargeable AA batteries are a green alternative to normal ones. Sorry, but they certainly are not. The greenest way to use AAs is to buy the highest capacity you can find – that way you need fewer batteries. Fewer batteries = smaller carbon footprint – a child [...]

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Flu pandemic – are we screwed?

The long-anticipated flu pandemic may be here at last, rolling out of Mexico across the world. A strain of swine flu has jumped the species barrier and is now transmissible person-to-person. And what re the Mexicans doing? Telling people not to kiss or shake hands! Unfuckingbelievable. And the Americans are as bad. Here, at home, [...]

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ESA – a few thoughts…

Just checking out Employment and Support Allowance. As I’ll become a pensioner in October, I’ll be extremely unlucky to get sucked into it, changing from Incapacity Benefit to ESA, but it’s not impossible. Interestingly, unlike the IB50 form, the ESA form has no questions relating to disability at all. You may, apparently, be sent a [...]

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Firefox 3.0.9

What new fuck-uppery is this from Mozilla? At start-up this morning, Firefox was very slow putting in an appearance. Then up popped a message telling me it’s updating itself. Now the normal routine is that FF will flag the availability of a new version and ask if I want it. Then I download the new [...]

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Online pharmacies…

I came across this in my search engine slush-pile:-  ”Inhouse Pharmacy dodgy”. For those of you unfamiliar with my blog, my blog stats record searches that bring people here which, in turn, provides me with subjects for posts. Anyway, back to Inhouse Pharmacy.

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20mph speed limit now – a man with a red flag next?

The government is about to announce its intention to reduce speed limits to 20mph in urban areas, especially (but not, it seems, exclusively), near schools.Can the return of the man with a red flag be far away? In my experience, when driving near schools where I live, the biggest hazard is

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