Toadfish in the UK/Europe

[beagle]

That's proper presenting. Are you old enough to remember when Blue Peter made John Noakes keep writing his name and talk from inside a decompression chamber while they sucked the air out?
He did quite well until he exploded (or did I dream that bit?).

Maybe there's something in this modern art after all. They get quite pissed off if you try and slide down the banisters at the Courtauld Institute.

[goat starer]

and I'm sure you will remember when Blue Peter made peter duncan stick his hand into that old tree stump in the Forest Realm of Arboria and he failed the Trial by Treebeast and had to be put out of his misery by Timothy Dalton. Or am I getting horribly confused.

still you should see what happened the last time I tried to slide down something at a museum....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/4662424.stm

But then I am just a man.....

Just a man...

With a man's courage...

He knows nothing but a man
But he can never fail
No one but the pure in heart
May find the golden grail
Oh oh - oh oh
Flash


Flash - a-ah - saviour of the universe
Flash - a-ah - he'll save everyone of us
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Flash - a-ah - he's a miracle
Flash - a-ah - king of the impossible

[beagle]

Did they mention the random drugs tests when you joined the monastery? Only asking...

[goat starer]

I tell you it is all true. I have the photos!

http://www.moviedeaths.com/flash_gordon/young_treeman/

watch it or I will set Brian Blessed on you 

[Griffin NoName]

Whoaaa!! NOT Brian Blessed. When I was a child I lived near the bottom of a hill. He came to film and they set a car off at the top of the hill with no driver. At the bottom of the hill the car crashed. It was scary scary. But all the time there was Brian Blessed crouched down out of sight steering the car. Apparently.... Well all us children believed that cos that's what the film crew told us. We got through many cider-apple ice-lollies waiting to see him and we never did. But golly gosh it was exciting.

Welcome Goat Starer.

There are no slides in the Monastery (yet). Perhaps a water shute would keep you happy?

[goat starer]

Water chutes would be fine. The bit I like best in the description of the slides the BBC put up reads...

"Holler, 44, has constructed slides before, including one at the Prada headquarters in Milan connecting boss Miuccia Prada's office and the car park."

am I in the wrong job or what! imagine having the power to turn your office into some kind of Tracey Island.

[beagle]

Hmmm.  Not sure if I'm scared of Brian Blessed or not. He was fairly intimidating as Exeter in Henry V, but quite warm and cuddly in I, Claudius (at least compared to Sian Phillips as Livia).

Definitely not intimidated by anyone or anything from Flash Gordon. I've lived through Glam Rock, and work in computing, so high camp and apalling clothes sense hold no terrors for me.

The should have one of those slides from the Cabinet Room to the backbenches. Take some of the sting out of demotion.

[The Black Spot]

ye gods! I can remember Brian Blessed in "Z-Cars"

[beagle]

Arrrrghh, they had proper television in those days. Then they stopped it for the duration of the war...

[The Black Spot]

Gah, yer blaggard. Next you'll say that you don't remember Mr Pastry.

[Griffin NoName]

Evenin All.

What this country needs is Dixon of Dock Green.

Chilled to the bone by tonight's This World BB2 in which an Israeli (minister, ex-minister, army chief or whatever, I instantly forgot who) said "if we bomb Iran we will have to take care of all the Jews worldwide." I'm fairly sure he said if.

Couldn't we just send Sargeant Dixon to the UN? He knew how to sort everything out. Or Ros Pritchard.

Never mind, cheering sight of a bonobo cooking pot noodle earlier.

[Griffin NoName]

Gaaaaarr!!  Flu Jab Crisis.

Government plot to kill off health care users and reduce costs.

They are rationing the October flu jabs. Only people who are going to peg it get it. All the peole who are only likely to peg it but may not aren't.

my opinion !!!

I've just been downgraded from the Must have in October to the "everyone else" batch in November. I've been in the Must have in October group since I was on chemo and have been ill ever since. My GP said it was REALLY important I don't get flu. And my condition has got worse over the summer. So there's no medical justification for downgrading - quite the reverse.

I am told it's due to government targets. But there's also reports that it's because of manufacturing delays/deliveries/ordering.

When I spoke to the GP and pointed out by the time I get the jab I will almost certainly have been exposed to flu, they said I could pay for the vaccine and pay for the injection and have it this coming week. I think I am even going to have to pay for the syringe. Excuse me, but if I can pay for it, it cannot be due to manufacturers not producing enough. Or am I thick?

Free at Point of Service??

Apparently not. Or do I misunderstand what this service is?

[Sibling Chatty]

Wish I could send you the one I can't have because it's an egg based serum. Or Dan's, because he's had Guillian-Barre. WE have to make sure we're not accosted with them every time we go to the cancerdoc. Not fair that you can't have the one you need NOW. (Yell on them. Loud.)

[beagle]

There are some press releases about it here:

http://www.uvig.org/

Something about low yield of the h3n2 strain. I suspect the NHS won't pay the open market rate to fill the deficit (and there might not be enough for it to buy in that quantity).


As for "Free at Point of Service??" ask someone old and in need of permanent care what happened to their house and other assets. In most parts of the country they'll take everything down to the last few thousand quid. It's been in the Torygraph repeatedly and it nearly happened to an elderly neighbour of mine. "Fortunately" the woman's husband died before the cost of the permanent residential care he needed was extracted from her.

[Griffin NoName]

I suspect the NHS won't pay the open market rate to fill the deficit (and there might not be enough for it to buy in that quantity).

I suspect so too. And that there's not enough to buy in bulk. But also that if some people can buy it then someone is accountable for deciding where the cut off point is for pinpointing the size of the bulk that can be bought at bulk rate and the amount that is to be for sale at the open market rate. Accountabilty, accountability, accountability.

As for "Free at Point of Service??" ask someone old and in need of permanent care what happened to their house and other assets.

I've been following this one closely. The BBC did a program on it months ago and the repsonse was so huge they did another one recently. It was totally shocking. The key point it seems is the ability of the NHS to define the condition as social need not medical. Once it is designated social, care has to be paid for. There have been legal cases (Coughlan 1999 and Grogan) which have been won that show the NHS is at fault in the social designations, that the care required is clearly medical. But they are still getting away with it. It's clear the NHS is at fault here.

I have also had friends going through this too. The definitions that the NHS use which put people into the medical or social need group are gobbledigook and the majority of people do not understand what the difference is and what they mean. (they seem to mean if the condition is chronic it will cost us too much so it's not medical). One particular friend did not even realise when waiting for the decision that it had anything to do with cost or whether it was medical or social - he was merely told it was to decide which care home his mother should go to. He sold her house under the impression that he would have had to sell it whichever one she went to.

I also personally believe that social care should not be paid for in all the circumstances it is at present, but that's another argument.

DD sorry to hear yet another difficulty in your life. Do I remember correctly that there are efforts going on to produce vaccines without the egg factor?