Marmora Man

Current rates: a. ?41,500 annual salary (basic). No idea what the overtime is like. b. Drivers also have a final salary pension scheme, a 35 hour working week and nine weeks? annual leave

Glug! My ashes are to be scattered at sea from a submarine on a bank holiday weekend.

Agree - Sultanahmet is the area to stay. I found a Best Western place with rooftop bar and views of the Sea of Marmora. Easy to walk to all the key sites.

Solutions were offered here on 9 April. Restructuring House of Commons Fewer MPs, better staff and support. Proper control of expenses.

Naa - nurses are best.

An election now but return only 2 MPs for every three constitiuencies - thus reducing the size and cost of the house.

Hardly a scapegoat - the election of Michael Martin and his subsequent performance since 2000 were both disgraceful. The Labour majority voted him in out of tribalism not because, as should be the case for a Speaker, he was the best, most impartial, experienced, knowledgeable and representative member of the house who could ensure all parties and members received a fair hearing in debate. There have been some poor Speakers in the past but Speaker Martin was down there in the 10th decile with the worst. That said it is a symbolic gesture that is far from the only action necessary but it was a necessary preliminary to fuller and more effective action.

And they tell themselves they can get away with this because: In London no-one knows who I am and in the country everyone knows who I am. Copywrite: P G Wodehouse and Lord Emsworth

I'd hate to quote Churchill at you Snorky but what alternative version of governance would you prefer to our current parliamentary system?

On the Speaker - Vince Cable is being touted, Menzies Campbell, despite his ?1400 interior designer claim, is also a good each way bet. It doesn't have to be someone of matching politics to the incoming government - independence of thought and strength of mind are more necessary attributes.

Try Couchsurfing

Just an idle thought - The Telegraph group has been the lead in publishing and embarrassing MPs over their expenses. The Labour government benches are suffering more than the Tories - but all sitting MPs, and their leaders, are tainted. It is therefore somewhat strange that the Tories cheerleader newspaper has been so keen to publish everything and damage Tory prospects so effectively. It has been likened to using an atom bomb in trench warfare! Boris Johnson has repeatedly acknowledged his desire to become a Conservative leader and Prime Minister. Boris Johnson was, and remains, a leading light in the Telegraph stable of journalists. Boris Johnson is the only leading Conservative with a high profile who is totally untainted by this scandal.

I would say this wouldn't I but - I believe the Conservatives offer a better future for the NHS than the current obsession with target setting and centralisation. The Labour government's experiment of vastly increasing the spend without introducing any significant efficiency improvements or culture change has not worked. The inheritance for the next government, of whatever political creed, is one which will require very tight control of government spending for the next decade. Every public sector department will have to improve its act without wodges of extra cash - some may even have to do more with less. Properly focussed this can make a difference if everyone recognises that patient care must be the focus of the efficiency drive. So no "recycling" of old Chief Executives just because they're there, less committees more action, less talk more nurses, less worry about who provides the service(s) more concern about effectiveness of the services. Some proper rules and guidelines might help - for example do away with patient visits at all hours - restrict it to 2 hours afternoon and 2 hours evening, re-introduce proper ward handovers between nurses, get ward sisters out of the office and into the ward, make cleaning staff accountable to ward staff and part of the ward team. Hand responsibility AND authority back to clinical professionals - take the target setting out of A&E. I could go on.

You seem to have a picked out the least interesting line in the article. The effective "terrorising" of the old lady on a Peckham estate and the apparent inability of the noise patrol to achieve anything more positive than a, very, temporary abatement was the most shocking element of the story.

It's a new venture by Pretty Traditional taking over the vacant premises next door. They know their veg but, I think, are still learning about catering / cafes. I hope they'll get there and wish them well.

Franco Manga is brilliant - the closest I've ever found to Neapolitan (Pozzuali) pizzas

Personally I believe the NHS could be a lot better if given far more freedom from centralised control (as echoed in Peckham Rose's post). At least part of the problem is the number (possibly even a majority) of CEO's and senior staff that look "upwards" to the DoH and SHA rather than inwards (to hospital patients & staff) and outwards (to the community) for direction and strategy. From personal experience in and alongside the NHS there is too much emphasis on committee and consensus and not enough on simple leadership and management. I always mentioned these points in my covering letters which may have been a turn off. The radical idea that the patient and local community should be the focus of all efforts is not always welcomed in today's NHS. Some, more enlightened staff, do understand and are able to implement this. Many more would wish to but are thwarted by "the system".

FOPP is selling a boxed set of all 5 series for ?100 and individual series for between ?15 & ?25. Having caught it on BBC2 late night I'm now through series 1,2 & 3 and working on 4, with 5 in reserve for later.

That I've been selling the Socialist Worker on street corners for years.

Michael Caine in Get Carter would get my vote Get Carter

There are a number of healthcare professionals that take part in the EDF. The above question is not rhetorical - it arises from some recent experience. I am in the process of changing jobs - my CV, briefly, includes a military career, 5 years in senior NHS management, 7 years in senior private healthcare (managing 17 hospitals) and 6 years in the provision and management of PPP / PFI healthcare projects. I have been a Managing Director and also a Director of a number of companies. Given the, relatively, buoyant state of the public sector (look in the recruitment pages - 80% of all jobs advertised are for public sector or charities) I applied for some senior roles in the NHS. In every case the response was along the lines of "we are looking for someone with current NHS experience". QUESTION: Can any organisation that only seeks to recruit internally for its senior management ever succeed and generate new ideas, challenge the status quo or move beyond the accepted cultural mores of group think? SUPPLEMENTARY: Can the NHS change and become more fit for purpose without new thinking and fresh ideas? PS: I have now abandoned my search in the public sector for a new role in private healthcare.

Cricket in the sunshine

I'm bowing out of this thread - too much name calling, too little debate.

It's not due to launch fully in UK until Tuesday.

May I summarise as I see it? The following three statements are,l I believe, uncontested? 1. A nurse broke the "rules" to highlight a serious problem that she had tried to resolve using existing formal / appropriate guidelines. 2. Nobody, including the nurse involved, disputes that the rules were broken. 3. Almost every commentator (including the NMC) seems to agrees that the problem was serious and needed to be resolved. Given these three points the question is surely - was the penalty appropriate to the offense? In my view it was not - by removing the lady's PIN number and her opportunity to work as a nurse and earn a livelihood has been seriously affected. This seems excessive - it would be a totally appropriate penalty for those clinical professionals carrying out, or condoning the abuse but not for the whistleblower herself. A disciplinary warning, possibly a temporary suspension and / or some retraining would have been a far more balanced outcome.