Watch this space...!
Life in north east England (yes, we've moved!) with an eccentric Welshman and a small white dog that thinks he's a Rottweiler.
It's all in the mind
I have decided, tomorrow, I shall get my frontal cortex and nucleus accumbens into gear and shall cease to have any pain in my sciatic nerve. It's all mind over matter. I shall be able to take the dogs out, see my clients without having to explain why I have a hot water bottle under my leg and all will be back to normal.
Watch this space...!
Watch this space...!
Start the day with a smile
Another little gem from TK. Made me smile anyway. Enjoy!
SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.
COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows
The State takes both and gives you some milk.
FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.
BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other and then throws the milk away.
TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.
VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.
COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows
The State takes both and gives you some milk.
FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.
BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other and then throws the milk away.
TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.
VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your
brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so
that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.
AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.
A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organize a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.
AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.
A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5,000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.
A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.
AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.
A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.
AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
Nobody believes you, so they bomb the crap out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows but at least you are now a Democracy.
AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.
A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.
A GREEK CORPORATION
You have two cows borrowed from French and German banks.
You eat both of them.
The banks call to collect their milk, but you cannot deliver so you call the IMF.
The IMF loans you two cows.
You eat both of them.
The banks and the IMF call to collect their cows/milk.
You are out getting a haircut.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.
AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.
A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organize a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.
AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.
A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5,000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.
A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.
AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.
A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.
AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
Nobody believes you, so they bomb the crap out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows but at least you are now a Democracy.
AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.
A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.
A GREEK CORPORATION
You have two cows borrowed from French and German banks.
You eat both of them.
The banks call to collect their milk, but you cannot deliver so you call the IMF.
The IMF loans you two cows.
You eat both of them.
The banks and the IMF call to collect their cows/milk.
You are out getting a haircut.
Struggling
You can learn a lot about yourself when you are struggling with things that life throws at you. At present, what life has thrown at me is a bad back with the added delight of sciatica. Having struggled with it constantly for a week, I went to the doc's last week and obtained from her prescriptions for paracetamol to take during the day and co-codamol for night time, although night time or any time I am lying down, is the only time I am in anything less than screaming agony. (Yes, I know I have a tendency to exaggerate, but not this time, folks, not this time!)
On Tuesday, I went to the local osteopath for a bit of stretching, creaking, contortioning, the stuff that osteopaths usually do. At the end of the session he told me to make another appointment for this week. "You may feel a little stiff for forty eight hours," he said, "and then it should feel better. Oh, and no hoovering, no pushing shopping trolleys but keep active and use cold packs about five times a day."
Forty eight hours later, to the minute and I was definitely not feeling any better at all. Staying active has become less and less an option and, while a hot water bottle clamped to my derriere/top of left leg provides some ease, cold packs don't.
Yesterday, I tried a Tramadol tablet - just one to see how it was.
It was amazing. The pain decreased about 70%! Oh the joy of no longer feeling like a 900 year old tortoise creeping around the house! The problem was that it also made me feel as if I was on a trip somewhere six inches above ground level, whilst also feeling slightly dizzy and very sick. Soon I had to give in and retire to bed to sleep for the next six hours. Back to the drawing board.on the pain relief then.
Tomorrow I shall be battering on the door of the GP in a desperate quest for SOMETHING!
And what have I learnt?
- That I am a very bad, impatient patient and it's probably best to steer clear of me at the moment.
- That I am much better than I thought I was at swearing.
Well you didn't expect anything deep and philosophical, did you!
The Euro Situation
For anybody who doesn’t fully understand the Euro situation,
it is explained very simply in the picture below........
it is explained very simply in the picture below........
THIS IS BRILLIANT - and loopholes Europe in a "few" words
Pythagoras' theorem - 24 words.
Lord's Prayer - 66 words.
Archimedes' Principle - 67 words.
10 Commandments - 179 words.
Gettysburg address - 286 words.
US Declaration of Independence - 1,300 words.
US Constitution with all 27 Amendments - 7,818 words.
EU regulations on the sale of cabbage - 26,911 words
Lord's Prayer - 66 words.
Archimedes' Principle - 67 words.
10 Commandments - 179 words.
Gettysburg address - 286 words.
US Declaration of Independence - 1,300 words.
US Constitution with all 27 Amendments - 7,818 words.
EU regulations on the sale of cabbage - 26,911 words
(courtesy of T.K.)
Dinner time is resumed
Once upon a time there was a bright nine year old girl in a school in Scotland who decided to keep a daily blog about her school meals. It wasn't meant as a criticism of the meals at her school, more a daily record and comment on what she did and didn't like about them and with the added and very important aim of raising money for a charity called Mary's Meals which sets up school based feeding projects among some of the world's poorest children.
So far, so good but the blog was so successful and popular that it eventually came to the attention of the press and then the local authority, Argyll and Bute, got involved and decided to ban Martha from taking any more photos of her school meals as, they said, some of the catering staff feared losing their jobs as a result of certain critical comments made in the press.
Fortunately, though, by the end of today, good sense had prevailed and the council had decided that to ban Martha from blogging about her daily school dinners was slightly akin to taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut, so they've decided she can continue.
Of course, it's also possible that they realised that they were not exactly showing themselves in a good light by behaving in such a heavy-handed way. Whatever the reason, another blow for democracy and free speech has been struck and Martha and her blog live to fight another day.
(And I hope the dinner ladies at her school are much nicer than the witches who terrorised us at mine, back in prehistoric days!)
So far, so good but the blog was so successful and popular that it eventually came to the attention of the press and then the local authority, Argyll and Bute, got involved and decided to ban Martha from taking any more photos of her school meals as, they said, some of the catering staff feared losing their jobs as a result of certain critical comments made in the press.
Fortunately, though, by the end of today, good sense had prevailed and the council had decided that to ban Martha from blogging about her daily school dinners was slightly akin to taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut, so they've decided she can continue.
Of course, it's also possible that they realised that they were not exactly showing themselves in a good light by behaving in such a heavy-handed way. Whatever the reason, another blow for democracy and free speech has been struck and Martha and her blog live to fight another day.
(And I hope the dinner ladies at her school are much nicer than the witches who terrorised us at mine, back in prehistoric days!)
Corporeal matters
The other week, my Welsh tutor and I shared experiences of bad backs, of which we were both currently suffering. She said, "xxxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxxx xx" which was welsh for something along the lines of "As you get older, things never go wrong singly," but I am not able to reproduce it for you as my welsh is not yet up to that standard. However, I can see her point. Last autumn, after being summoned to my GP for blood pressure and cholesterol checks (I assume because it was my turn and they needed to tick boxes, certainly not because I had anything to complain about), I was then put on Simvastatin and within a few weeks, I was having the first of my gall bladder episodes. Seeing on the internet that, if you have gall bladder problems, a statin other than Simvastatin is to be recommended, I mentioned this at my next GP visit (different doctor) and she changed my prescription to Atorvastatin.
So, assuming all would now be well in the world of cholesterol levels, I sat back to await the call for the removal of said gall bladder, but, during the month that I have been taking Atorvastatin, I have had almost constant backache, joint ache and some breathlessness at times, so off I toddled back to the surgery to see another GP, who laughed indulgently when I told him the story of the change of statins and when I mentioned the breathlessness, told me that had nothing to do with statins and we then segued onto the question of my blood pressure (fairly OK at present) and I was referred for a blood test which I would be willing to guess is to test for under active thyroid. Anyway, at the end of the consultation, I realised I had not had time to mention the joint and back pains but they have not gone away and, this week, my thinking has been, "If I am going to be feeling like this and crawling about like a ninety year old, I would prefer to ditch the statins and take my chances."
This I have done for now until Monday when I get my blood taken and hopefully get to see a doctor to discuss it further.
Years ago, I trusted doctors and the NHS but that was before all the 'improvements' which focus on money rather than patients, however Lansley likes to dress it up, and I do still believe in the integrity of individual doctors but I also think that the top-down pressures on them are perhaps sometimes too heavy to be resisted and, although I know that there are a lot of medical cranks out there on the internet beating their own drums, there is also a lot of literature about quite severe side effects experienced by some people on statins. So what I would really like, and so, I'm sure, would most other patients, is for doctors to have time for a few minutes discussion on relative benefits and drawbacks before prescribing a medication, especially one which is usually for life. No-one told me, for instance about the fact that grapefruit juice is a no-no when on statins and that alcohol should be avoided or that Simvastatin needs to be taken at night whereas Atorvastatin doesn't.
Never going to happen though, so most of us will continue to read up on the internet and struggle to come to our own decisions.
Neighbours
I have mentioned before that there are a lot of new houses being built about half a mile down the road from us. Some of them have been occupied for about eight months now. Today, walking past with Paddy, I noticed a woman in her front garden trimming a plant, when the woman next door came out and although the two were only about four foot apart, neither looked at the other and neither spoke to the other. Unless they have already fallen out and are sworn enemies, which is possible, I don't understand how people living side by side would not at least smile or pass the time of day, but it does support the various studies which have been done which have concluded that, these days, most of us don't have a clue about our neighbours.
Further on, workmen were hard at it on the foundations of the next phase of houses and once again, I was struck by how tiny they looked, especially as these are supposed to be three, four and five bedroomed houses which cost an arm and a leg. We live in a small, modern house ourselves and I am very happy with it. It is just about big enough for our possessions but not quite big enough for Keith to spread his aero-modelling all over the place; win-win as far as I'm concerned! But I certainly wouldn't like to be bringing up a family or even one child in it. Families living in the traditional semis built in the thirties and forties might not have had central heating and other features which we now take for granted but at least they had spacious houses and gardens. Which brings me back to the beginning of this post. Maybe the result of living in such close proximity in modern housing developments is that we 'pretend' that the neighbours are not really there invading our space so we ignore them. Well, it's a thought.
Further on, workmen were hard at it on the foundations of the next phase of houses and once again, I was struck by how tiny they looked, especially as these are supposed to be three, four and five bedroomed houses which cost an arm and a leg. We live in a small, modern house ourselves and I am very happy with it. It is just about big enough for our possessions but not quite big enough for Keith to spread his aero-modelling all over the place; win-win as far as I'm concerned! But I certainly wouldn't like to be bringing up a family or even one child in it. Families living in the traditional semis built in the thirties and forties might not have had central heating and other features which we now take for granted but at least they had spacious houses and gardens. Which brings me back to the beginning of this post. Maybe the result of living in such close proximity in modern housing developments is that we 'pretend' that the neighbours are not really there invading our space so we ignore them. Well, it's a thought.
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