bignumber5

I called it 11 years ago... bignumber5 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Is it just me that is really worried by Boris > Johnson? > > The media focus seems to be stuck on the bumbly > side, the loveable "he's a bit daft but not so > bad" side, and glossing over the fact that he's > hardcore right wing in a way that george dubya > would be proud of. It really concerns me that many > a-poorly considered vote will go his way from > those who want a change from Ken and think Boris > looks like a fairly safe and harmless alternative. > Even today's revelation that a senior transport > bod will quit if Boris takes office is still being > played down, with no news show giving decent > attention to exactly what about him it is that > makes senior officals consider their position: > which is more likely, being ashamed of being > embarassed of working with bumbling boris, or not > wanting to be associated with the administration > of the 21st Century London-only Mrs Thatch? > > Thoughts?

On the off chance that you use the forum, this is to the person that found my ID badges in the park (where the hole in my bike-bag decided I no longer needed them): THANK YOU! Handing them in to the gym, where your friend remembered seeing a gym-goer that matched the photo, was something of a stroke of genius: the gym found my mobile number on file, phoned me this afternoon and I collected them on my way home. Again, THANK YOU!

Wow. Bold typeface. That's put me on the naughty step, hasn't it? Christ, you just don't get it, do you?

Ok, I guess I could do that. The last time I posted on this forum was back in February when your lightening combo of bullying style and banal content had chased off a moderator, and I decided that my life was a better place for not engaging with you anymore. And I don't remember being especially subtle or roundabout in saying so. Yet you have consistently failed to achieve any kind of insight: you ask for feedback, then protest that it is false. And now you appear to have contributed to the departure of another interesting (if occasionally prevocative) forumite. I really thought that posting this would be rather cathartic, but it hasn't been: it's just recreated the sense of deep irritation that you always manage to fill me with. But you asked. For all the good that it will do, I have answered.

Why? How spectacularly patronising to assume that someone can't move a thread about a local event from ED section to what's on section and still have opinions that have nothing to do with that. We've seen here the effects of a moderators identity being widely known - his points have been constantly undermined until he feels the need to throw in the towel just so that he can have the same entitlement to posting freedom that everyone else enjoys. Brum, stop whinging about the smilies and action stetements and this and that and menial other. There are sources of gang mentality and bullying that are far more nasty and insidious, although apparently without insight. (PS: apologies for misunderstanding you, mick mac - i'm not always the quickest to catch on to tone)

Mick Mac Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I found some of those questions quite tricky. Really? I find them all pretty straight forward. That one of the rapidly progressing forum bullies has pushed MP to the point of hanging up his spurs demonstrates to me how bad things have become. Those that seem to think that snide bitchery and ganging up on others is the way to win an arguement, that none of the moderators are allowed an opinion simply because of that dual responsibility, and that anyone who agrees with the same person more than once a day must be some sort of "inner circle" should take a good hard look at the way they conduct themselves (versus those that they are chasing off) and ask themselves whether or not, in fact, they make this forum a better, nicer, more inclusive place. Very sorry to see you leave the team, mockers, though with the daily sniper fire every time you stick your head above the parapet, I can't say I blame you.

This thing claims to do the job, don't know if you class that as a reasonable expense - depends how many you have to do, i guess.

Roll Deep Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Explored any research yourself, big fiver? Not my field ;-)

A widely utilised description that may not be entirely accurate, as the complex relationship between cannabis use and serious mental illness continues to be explored.

Forum ettiquette may be a constantly evolving concept, but i've always been of the impression that outing the moderators was extremely bad form, along with outing people's true identities. No, not against any written rules, but bad form nonetheless.

Point missed, TE: you don't need the freedom of info act to read medical research, you do need training in how to read it meaningfully. This process WAS undertaken, and established opinion was NOT divided. No one is claiming that vaccinations are 100% without problems. But the adverse incidents of the MMR, par example, are significantly less, both for the individual and for overall public health, than the sequelae of just measles. Measles can cause a whole load of things (encephalitis among them, as well as myocarditis, pneumonitis and orchiditis - the latter being classed as quite a common complication of measles; painful inflammation of the testes often leading to infertility) in far greater numbers than the vaccines. Approximately one in ten children with measles will need in-hospital treatment. This information was all available, via GPs, health visitors and paediatricians, throughout the MMR hoax. The only major unexpected variable was how willing parents were to ignore this or write it off as establishment conspiracy. That's not Wakefield's fault, and unless you want your medical decision making taken completely out of your hands, it's not the GMC/DoH/individual GPs fault either.

???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > the problem is there's a scary > amount of people who seem to think their 'opinion' > (which normally means that of someone with an > agenda and a website) is better than the > scientific process/peer group review etc ie proper > science ...and there always will be while population at large are so willing to doubt those who's training, expertise, jugdgement and continued employment their own tax money funds - the regulated, updated, evidence based, NICE guideline following NHS doctor. Snake oil peddlers would have gone the way of the dodo long ago if there were not a group interested in purchasing the stuff, however daft it may seem to the majority. But imprison him, quids? The man made professional errors, and his professional body are dealing with that. But the only reason that he had any impact at all is because, with no obvious indication to do so, masses decided that they would base an enormous decision on his beliefs, despite being pointed in a very different direction by established expertise. Do we jail the journos that broke the story too? They, after all, should have a responsibility for the effects of their publications. Maybe children that go through the trauma of experiencing the diseases that they were not immunised against could sue... Someone. Everyone. Anyone. Their parents? Yeah, why not, let's hold every link in the chain accountable... Oh no, hang on, that's not how medicine works, is it? The role of a clinician is to give you all of the established facts in order that you can make a balanced, informed decision. It's not their fault if you prioritise the Daily Mail, medical journal of the people, as being a better source because you do not understand or respect the process that has to be undertaken to sieve through information in order to give you the best option. Britain: you may demand protection from woo merchants, or even from a lone gunman from within the establishment that publishes some fuckwitted muppetry that the tabloids jump on (protection which you are offered, in the form of ignoring them and listening to your doctor, and professional regulation of those within the profession) OR you may whinge in every other breath about nanny state this and nanny state that, but you may not have both.

as are reckless smiley usage and jumping on any passing bandwagon. nobody's perfect

Well, sort of. A fork with a big official road sign, let's call it "doctors in general", showing the endpoints of each route as we understand it, and one crackpot bumpkin chewing an ear of corn, let's call him "Wakefield", insisting that the sign was wrong, in between yelling the words Squeal Piggy and pointing enthusiastically to one limb of the fork. And each driver ("parent", perhaps?) had a choice to make. The assumption that the roadsign was wrong because one cannot, under such circumstances, trust sign makers, who must be in league with people that financially benefit from the use of the right indicator, shows not only how daft a number of drivers are for believing the loon over the sign, but how little they understand the process of sign writing, and the relationship between sign writers and indicator-makers, perhaps confusing this country with another. I think I've pushed the fork analogy as far as it will go. If, however (as Ben Goldacre suggests) one is simply so arrogant that one feels that one can evaluate the standards and rigour of medical research in a way which doctors cannot (a skill which is not easy, and which is taught to doctors in extreme depth), one cannot then blame doctors for ones choices. In fairness to the individual parents, the purpetrators of this act of extreme arrogance were, in fact, the journalists involved, so caught up in their unwillingness to accept that perhaps their degree in English Lit did not equip them with the ability to critically appraise medical literature that they started a national health scare in the name of headlines rather than recognise their limitations. True reform of the system, in addition to the GMCs recent action, could include some sort of penalty for the science (i use the term loosely) correspondants for failing to adequately appraise the literature prior to starting a national panic based on it. The fact that this will not happen demonstrates clearly that the mainstream media do not, for all their swagger and bullshit, consider themselves to be expert, and certainly not responsible to the healthcare needs of the public. Such is the endpoint of power without responsibility. But the responsibility of the parent is actually to make a simple choice: to take your medical advice from the tabloids, or your GP... is that a hard choice, really? Noone is suggesting that medical opinion should not be challenged. Far from it: new research in an area of medicine sparks debate, evaluation of current practice methods, and even a complete overhaul in practice if the evidence is compelling enough. Such a process takes up the (supposedly) spare time of many, perhaps even most, clinicians. Side projects, additional courses, peer teaching, audit, journal clubs; these things are all going on when you are not in your GPs office. But the first step, the first step, in the process is to critically appraise the source of the discussion. It's not easy. That's why to get from layperson to independently practicing GP takes a decade and a half. So if we can learn one thing from this whole process, if we can be big enough as a nation to treat this as a learning opportunity rather than just protesting how difficult all of our positions were and pointing the finger, perhaps it can be this: the men and women charged with being our source of information on such matters are not, in fact, all in it together for some diabolical, financially motivated reason. Occasionally an extreme point of view will come to light from within the profession; if it has any basis in reality, it will come to light safely, if it's a nonsense then it won't. Maybe, in insisting that our doctors are so well trained, we might admit that what they do is specialised, and that they may even be good at it; that we cannot do it ourselves over newspapers and lattes, and try to trust them to do what they are trained to do.

Dear Admin I would like a fecking good moan because a detail of the way that you run your forum is inconvenient for me/obstructs the smooth progression of my personal agenda. For ease of interpretation I will be willing to break my complaint down into the areas of how come this doesn't exist?, how come such-and-such can but I can't?, and a final miscellaneous category entitled whyyyyy?. Please could you let me know where I can stick my thread?

We've been here before, haven't we? TE44 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > From my understanding of homopathic remedies, the > more they are diluted, the stronger they become. Oh yes, less is more: extrapolated to its logical conclusion, this means that the best thing you can do with homeopathic remedies, even if you believe in them, is to take... well, none of it at all. Something Shakespearian about one's own petard springs eloquently to mind...

The Calcutta cup isn't the same without trademark "16 stones on the hoof" type commentary... RIP Bill.

Agreed, MM - got my dad membership for his 60th and he's taken me to the tasting rooms pretty regularly since as an extended (4 year) thank you.

I don't favour the heavily peaty ones (my regular dram is glenfiddich), so my recommendation would be an offering from highland park - the 12 yr is a lovely, smooth entry into decent single malt; honey and citrus, only a little bit of wood smoke in the finish. Your budget may carry you as far as the 15 yr, but personally I prefer the 12. The 18 yr is stunning, but you pay the extra and it extends a little beyond your stated budget.

look closer, then - right arm round waist at point of contact, and left is only dislodged by big australia jessie falling on his arse... ;-)

Declan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwCbG4I0QyA] > > This is my favourite try I'd have to say joint first place, with this one, despite how much it stung at the time. For less creative interests, a great sporting moment of another kind: Josh Lewsey demonstrates to Matt Rogers the consequences of handbags on the field...

LL up to plough and DKH - buses stopped. "alternative" through road of Crystal Palace Road looking dangerous, sliding all over the place. Just been pushing a strangers car into a safe place near you, horsebox - thanks for not abandoning your pint to help, you'd only have got in the way ;-) Drivers, please find somewhere safe to park and walk, accidents are now waiting to happen.

Have just walked up LL, DKH & denmark hill - buses still running both ways, but slowly...

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I do the same journey - 185. Travel time a bit variable, you can be waiting for one for a while, and the south circular can really slow down some mornings, but generally pretty good.