Meanderings of a Monkey Juggler

I'm in a really snappy mood today and I reckon it's entirely down to the patients I'm seeing today. 

Almost without exception they're whingy, whiny types who feel the world owes them everything 'cos they've got some pain.

Almost without exception they've been humourless drones with no sense of levity.  It's one of the redeeming features of even the chavviest Brit that there is humour in adversity.  Today I've had people looking like the world has ended and all because their foot aches a bit (after 2 hours standing at the tills yesterday) or their back hurts because they're stressed (and so am I now you've come to see me). Oh shut up!  I don't like the phrase "get a life" but please get a life.  These people seem to think that life is perfect and the slightest thing means the end of all that is good and holy. 

Without exception I've been short with them at best.  I must get a grip on it or I'll get disciplined if this carries on.

Have fun.

[edit]

I've just had a lovely patient but she told me a story that seriously hacks me off.  She was in a car crash and had a basic whiplash issue.  I assessed her but instead of the standard muscular problems she has a top rib problem.  A bit unusual but was probably pre-existing and hadn't given her trouble pre-RTA.  I checked all the usual suspects as well and concluded that it's definitely the top rib.  Apart from anything the thing gives her exact pain when you poke it; usually a good sign of accurate diagnosis.  So she goes to see a doctor after being asked by her solicitors.  "What? The physio thinks it's top rib?  Idiot.  It's your neck" says the doc.  So the poor patient doesn't know what to think.  One clearly says it's "this"; the other fundamentally disagrees.  I'm the one less likely to be believed 'cos I'm no doctor.  But I do know about necks and shoulders and ribs.  Luckily for me (and her) the patient believes me as I actually did an assessment of the problem rather than a terse attempt at convincing the patient that what I say is right without bothering to look properly. [growl]

I wasn't going to write this up on this site.  It was more an exercise for me to get some thoughts down whilst watching a TV show.  But now, having seen the news re potential terrorist threats against the UK I thought it would be worth rehearsing publicly.  What follows are the thoughts I wrote down when watching a TV show called "What Muslims Want".  It was a thoughtful show hosted by a very respected news presenter (Jon Snow) and attempted to make some sense of the results of a research questionnaire about "What Muslims Want".  They asked 1000 muslims in the UK from a variety of occupations and ages a few questions. 

Here's what I wrote:

The thesis: Integration has stopped.

Muslims seem to think 9/11 was set up by USA and Israel. (50% of respondants)
Princess Di was killed because she was dating a muslim. (40%)
It could be argued that it's likely that people that believe any of the religious bollocks are soft-minded enough to believe this sort of crap.

82% feel British.  That's nice.

The younger ones are more radical and more conservative.  They all witter about the Iraq war.  Not one mentions that it's muslims killing muslims more than westerners killing muslims.  It's the US's fault that some muslims blow up mosques in Baghdad?  Yeah right.

23% felt 7/7 bombings were justified.  Scum.
The bombings were the fault of the UKs foreign policy?  No the cause was 4 poor deluded fools with a mis-directed grudge (with no basis) and no intelligence.

Adulterers should be stoned to death (a 20-something UK citizen).  And what about witches?
At this point another muslim man intervened and argued against him.  This was good to see but I fear the interloper is a quieter voice.

66% said women should not be forced to wear the hijab themselves.  This means 34% think they should be forced.  Hardly an overwhelming argument for the lack of oppression of the muslim woman.

Over half feel gay people should be banned from teaching! Surely your child's faith that gayness is obscene would protect their virtue from such deviates? Or do you feel that the lure of being gay is stronger than the pull of your religious education you've forced on sorry gifted to your children?

40% are offended by the UK's "bad moral behaviour".
67% think UK parents give children too much freedom.  I'd agree with them on that one.

"56%" of muslims think that they are "under attack". Well duh?  I know they're stupid enough to believe all sorts of bollocks but I can't believe that they're so stupid that they're surprised that when muslims blow up bombs in the UK then other muslims in the UK will be under suspicion.

Freedom of speech:
No-one should be allowed to insult their religion.  Bollocks!
The cartoon embarrassment was mentioned - "behead the artists and publishers" - oh sweet.
"everyone should be sensitive to other faiths" - right.  And you can offend me can you? You stupid stupid wanker? I hold sacred the ideal of free speech.  How the hell would you uphold that if I can't disrespect your prophet? I have no wish to disrespect your prophet but if it pisses the likes of you off then that's a perfectly good enough reason for me to start. 

It seems that Muslims want us to give them stuff they want and they're willing to bully us to get it.  Doesn't seem very peaceful to me.

In all of this it all seems that they (incidentally if you're wondering why I'm using terms like "they" here, it's because the participants kept referring to "us and them" - so I'll carry on the mode) are actively on their way to ensuring they are seperate and this, through history has never lead to any benefits. Does Islam teach you to ignore the lessons of history?  It also seems that all this seperatism isn't based on religion but the politics of the tribe (back to us and them).  It's always good to feel part of a tribe I suppose and never leads to inter-tribe strife [sarcasm].  I thought we could have grown out of that sort of imbecility this millennium.

And all us native WASPs are all depraved and drunk and licentious.  No.  That's chavs and you may be surprised to know that many of us really don't like that aspect of our country either.  The difference is that I'm disciplined enough to make my own choices rather than having them made for me by some people interpreting a book.  We have laws to prevent this sort of thing.  The fact that they are not enforced to the standard that many want is NOT an argument for Sharia.  It's an argument for decent policing.

In summary: If you're offended by me then screw you.  I'm not harming you or your religion (unless it really is pathetically weak).  You can't believe how angry your views have made me.  I'm shaking with anger as I write this.  And you had no idea did you? I'm a positive person generally.  I like immigrants, I want friends of different faiths and races.  I want to learn a new language.  I'm against the Iraq war and generally have been against Israel and their treatment of Palestine and you have made ME this angry.  Just what do you think you've done for the average white Brit?  You are going to end up suffering so much if you feel that seperation, bullying and violence will get you what you want.  Live and let live eh? You're not special.  You deal with us the way you want us to deal with you ok?  It's called basic civility.  No more bullying, no more childish whinging about offence and no more wanting special treatment.  I repeat, you are not special.  You're just another person.  Shut up and leave us alone.  Sort your own problems out and don't expect us to pander to your (repeat: "your") beliefs. 

 

That was not exactly what I wrote down on the night.  What I actually wrote was far more sweary and offensive than that.  But my point I think is valid.

Let's start on the "us and them" business.  We hear that muslims feel that they are discriminated against.  That may be and it's a sadness to me.  But what you don't hear so much is that there are 1.5 million muslims in the country which in the main has allowed them to slot into the towns and cities with not too much grief.  Most white brits I know aren't fussed who lives near them as long as people are nice and friendly and don't give them grief.  What hacks people off is those wanting special treatment or being told to pander to peoples' beliefs (that are their own restrictions they imposed on themselves).

I deal with plenty of muslim people at work.  The vast majority are lovely and friendly and I have no problems with.  Occasionally you find one who is clearly horrified either that I'm a man (some women do this) or that I'm white.  Screw you! 

Think of it like having guests (or even neighbours).  If I invite a guest in and he spends the time criticising my record collection then I'm not too disturbed.  If he decides that my record collection is so offensive he's going to plant a bomb in the bedroom so he can kill the idiot with the stupid record collection then I might be narked enough to kick him out should I discover the plot.  I can live (as indeed the vast, overwhelming lot of white Brits can) with people who have different ideas.  I'll go further; I welcome people with different ideas.  But hospitality does start to wane somewhat given the sort of grief that some morons want to kick out.  The problem is also that we don't know who amongst the group are the idiots with the bombs.

Who are the terrorists harming?  No-one but their own community.  There may be a few people killed in an attack (even up to a couple of thousand at worst) but how many normal muslims are going to get grief from dickheads of the white community.  I repeat something I mentioned earlier: if I feel angry with how some muslims are dealing with the fact they don't live in a muslim country then there are a hell of a lot more people out there who aren't as thoughtful as me and will take it out on their community (and the poor hindus, sikhs and asian christians who'll get lumped in to the same "brown" group by the idiots).  It seems that the thought "I don't like this country therefore I'll leave" is too big a mental leap for these mentalists.

"Ah but that's not the point is it?" you cry.  They don't like the fact that our country is interfering in their homeland's affairs therefore they'll interfere with ours.  True but then they handily skip over the fact that we had the largest ever demonstration in this country a while back.  What was it for?  Oh yes, supporting that view. Oh and it's not the west blowing up huge numbers of civilians in Iraq (now) it's other muslims but this rarely gets raised and never discussed. Never mind we'll just kill some people anyway and get to shag some virgins as part of the deal; cool. 

And to make matters worse the extremists will look at the security response and think; "They're stopping muslims.  Look, look, they're stopping muslims!" at the airport for example.  It's therefore clear that the whole of the UK white community is utterly Islamophobic therefore they are our enemies.  And some idiots will believe them.  Since white people have no talents except as oppressors.

Oh I don't know and I'm bored now.

Have fun.  (Please?)

Now then here's a thing.  When a really nasty event happens should the papers continually re-refer to it and dissect it?  Perhaps.  What if the event was the brutal murder of 2 young girls?  What could be gained from knowing more detail about the events then?  Perhaps a modus operandum or a hint of what can be used to stop future similar events.  That might be useful to some I suppose.

I saw the front page of the News of the Gits yesterday.  Splash! Scream!  Huntley tells all!  It's a long and in-depth discussion of what Ian Huntley has told his mum about the sequence of events when he murdered 2 young girls in Soham.  Without exception NONE of it is necessary to further any understanding of Huntley or his actions.  What the story does do (in spades) is bring up old wounds for the girls' families.  The story has loads of hideous and dreadful detail - it reads more like a horror novel rather than a news story.  What the hell did the NotW expect this story to do?  There isn't a single positive aspect to the story; not one.  How can they live with themselves?

I don't know.

Have fun.

I link from this site to Andrew Collins' blog and he recently wrote a story (here) about some imbecile contractor who wanted to move abroad because of the usual idiotic reasons.  You know the sort of thing (too many speed cameras, too many immigrants etc)

Apparently there's been a study asking people if they want to move and the beeb (bless her) has put a "Have Your Say" wotsit up about this.  The usual variety of loons has responded.  Here are some of the more choice idiot ramblings.

What is there left for a decent hard working family in this country?

Higher taxes (that amount to legalised theft) to pay for the growing benefit queue, outsourcing of jobs to places like India, ridiculous house prices, rising crime and reduced sentences for serious convicted criminals, growing tensions between immigrants and native Britons, a government in turmoil with no leadership or direction, the list goes on and on.

• Higher taxes?  Yes higher than they were before but then our services were run into the ground because of tax starvation.  The countries that everyone is mentioning are great have higher taxes (except the US which just doesn't have the services). 
• Outsourcing of jobs to India?  Same in the US, same in Europe, it's called capitalism and the opposite of what you would no doubt call "the nanny state". 
• Rising crime - actually no.  The papers want you to think that but crime by all objective measures is down.
• Growing tensions - probably but that's hardly unique to the UK; spot the riots in Paris earlier this year - and the struggles in the US about whether Spanish should be used at all officially. 
• Government in turmoil - maybe but are any not?  The US is as split as it's ever been.  Germany is split too.  Canada seems stable enough but then what do we know about their internal politics?  And they've just had a big anti-terrorist deal going on so there are clearly problems there too. 

On to the next one:

We'd move from London to LA tomorrow if we could. Our part of the world is so overcrowded now, and getting worse all the time - houses on top of each other, parking, you name it. And the political correctness that controls so many aspects of our lives drives us absolutely mad!

• London is over-crowded but LA isn't?  Hmmm.. So parking is now a reason to move.  Has this person not realised that LA is full of cars?  They have worse roads and infinitely bigger jams than the UK has too.  It's also about the most polluted city in the US. 
• Political Correctness!  Don't get them started on that good heavens.  So LA isn't politically correct is it?  You smoke and you're a pariah.  You have a glass of wine with your meal and you're an alcoholic.  The PC police are far more powerful (and vocal) in the US than they are here.  At least in the UK we just scoff and ignore them; I doubt that'll work in the US. 

And finally 

I am planning to emigrate to Florida as soon as possible! The attraction? Better quality of life, better schools and education system for my children, lower cost of living, better health care, and better weather. You don't really live in Britain, you exist. In the US it's catered for families, friendly service, great value, cheap entertainment. Over here, businesses are just profit hungry and we are ripped off and over taxed at every turn. Talking of which, there is no income tax in Florida because the revenue from the Sales Tax/Tourism is so high - so automatically my income would be 50% greater a month with things being 50% cheaper! - a win/win by all accounts.

• Better schools?  I remember an American stand-up talking about his high-school diploma:  "To graduate you must be this tall" [making a hand gesture about 3 feet off the ground].  I doubt the US school system is much better than ours.  And in ours you don't need to dodge the loner who brings a gun to school on the last day of term instead of Buckaroo. 
• Better health care?  Well that's a new one.  The US has never had better health care than the UK since the NHS was set up.  Sure if you can pay for insurance it's ok but don't get any pesky chronic conditions like asthma, diabetes or cancer.  No doubt these splitters will be back to the UK for work on these should they ever get properly ill. 
• Better weather?  This guy's going to Florida - in the centre of Hurricane Alley (hit by dozens of tropical storms and stronger every year).  When it's not like that they bake - didn't we just have a thing where we were all told that the temperatures here were life-threatening?  I'm sure it's hotter there. 
• Friendly service - read "very good at fobbing you off for crap service" at least that's what I found.  "Businesses are profit hungry" huh?  And the US is a socialist haven based on fairness of prices is it? 
• "No income tax"?  That's bollocks for a start.  There may be no local income tax for all I know but general income tax is national not state run. 

There seems to be a vast amount of delusion over these people's eyes.  It's easy to get into an "everything's shit" frame of mind.  I had an on-line chat with a guy moving to Bg because there were too many speed-cameras and he didn't like the congestion charge in London.  Honestly they were the things he whinged most about.  It's true that Bg has neither of those things but then they have corruption in their political system, police corruption, the Mafia, really cash starved health services, really bad service ethic, freezing weather in the winter, high crime, poverty and they triple their prices when they figure out you're not local.  Hmm, not a bad trade-off for not being told not to speed habitually.

Thankfully one person has some sense on the beeb's board:

I find it interesting that no-one is talking about the 'other side', those of is that left and came back. I moved to California 12 years and came back, for a lot of reasons. The U.S. (and especially CA) has become every bit expensive to live in as the U.K., you have NO guarantee of health care and people DO lose everything when they cant afford to pay. Britain is not perfect but also a lot of people suffer from 'grass is greener' syndrome. I know quite a few people who have moved away that would love to come back.

Also isn't it the ultimate irony that those complaining about immigration here now want to become immigrants themselves...

I have some faith in humankind.

Have fun.

Well we're doomed for many reasons but the latest to come to my attention was the marvels of food packaging!  I have just bought a packet of salted peanuts to scoff at work between patients and writing irate whinges on this site.  The peanuts are not only advertised on the label as "peanuts" and the packet is see-through so you can see there are peanuts inside.  No that's not enough.  There's a small warning on the back.  You can guess what it says.  Alongside the normal warning about children may choke on nuts there's a completely seperate warning that reads "Allergy Warning: This product contains peanuts".  No really? You ask.  Yes really I reply.  Who really needs that warning?

Having said that, this isn't the best comment I've ever read on a food packet.  Once I bought a pack of 2 sausage rolls from Safeway.  I know that there were 2 sausage rolls because the packet read "2 sausage rolls" and it was see-through as well so you could see 2 sausage rolls inside.  On the back a label read "This pack contains approximately 2 servings".  Approximately?

Sigh.  What have we become?

Have fun.

I just put on HBO.bg and they're showing the 2004 King Arthur tonight.  I thought I'd see on IMDB if it's any good or not (it's not by the way) and i found the wording of the US raters to be hysterical:

 Rated PG-13 for intense battle sequences, a scene of sensuality and some language.

 

Fantastic wording.  "This film contains some language."  Marvellous. 

Have fun.

PS to the Americans (and increasingly annoyingly to UK journalists). The verbs "to protest" and "to appeal" need prepositions (or is it adverbs?).  The sentence "He appealed the judgement" is not a complete sentence; nor is "They protested it".

Now for those of you who think that grammar isn't really that important I have 2 examples taken from my work's in-house classified ads.

Number 1: "full size dishwasher - excellent condition in need of new home. White Buyer to collect please"

How racist is that?  You see it really does matter.

 

Number 2: Corsa 1.2 93k. Taxed. 1 Lady owner. Serviced yearly.

The poor woman even gives her name in the contact details.  Perhaps she should of put in a personals ad as well.

Have fun.

This morning on the news:

We're in a "heatwave" and old and young should watch out!  For god's sake it's not a bloody heatwave.  It's summer and happens every year.

Honestly.

Have fun.

I just watched the fag end of the most poorly researched op-ed show the BBC has shown in recent months.  The programme was about one woman's quest to get to the bottom of her father's death in hospital. And more particularly to find out why the death certificae only stated "pneumonia" and didn't mention c.diff (a "superbug" her dad contracted whilst in hospital). He'd gone into hospital for a basic hip operation.  He was 87 and had other health problems too.  He came out dead.

So let's just start there for a mo.  He's 87 and has severe hip arthritis.  This is likely to lead to immobility and therefore lack of fitness.  One line from the presenter also suggested he was mentally incompetent.  Namely:


"If I knew that when you go into hospital you don't know what risk you take I'd never have let him go in."




So you'd let him suffer crippling pain and immobility instead would you?  If so then you're heartless as well as stupid.
A hip replacement op is NOT routine; it's major surgery with the patient being under a general anasthetic for up to 2 hours (sometimes longer).  People should get it into their heads that any surgery (and the side effects afterwards) is potentially lethal.  If you are unfit to start with then that risk is magnified.  Sometimes the risks are so bad that surgery is not contemplated because the risks outweigh the potential benefits.

Fairplay to the Dr who looked after her dad and who wrote the death certificate which stated "pneumonia".  He was interviewed (on a hidden camera) and said: "Things went wrong generally. He had heart failure, kidney failure, pneumonia, c.diff, MRSA and other problems.  I wrote pneumonia on the death certificate but this doesn't really describe what happened to him."  This was interpreted by the presenter to mean "It was c.diff but I wasn't going to put that."  It clearly didn't mean that but that was the meaning inferred.

Later on he got the chance to say what I initially thought he meant.  "The reason it doesn't say what happened is that what happened was very complicated and difficult to condense onto the form."  And fair play to him he continued; "I feel that I have written the death certificate properly and to the best of my ability and to re-write it based on a huge amount of outside pressure would not be appropriate."  Well done that man.  Kudos to him for sticking to his guns;  because he's right.  He showed the patient's notes file and it was huge.  How the hell can a simple death certificate show exactly what has happened when the road to the death was long and complex?  It can't.  And why is it in the slightest bit important? [edit: ahah! I know why it's important.  If it's a bug and a hospital acquired one at that the daughter could claim against the hospital and get some cash off 'em.] The stupid woman knows that the care episode was complex and her father was badly ill with a number of problems post-op.  Why is it important that an A5 sized piece of paper states what she feels it should when the doctors don't agree?  It's their job to write the certificates not hers.

They then played the heart strings ploy and went to visit the mother of a young disabled girl who'd died of "pneumonia" after being hospitalised.  She'd been reasonably fit considering but had clearly got ill enough to have gone into hospital.  She was disabled so not mobile.  Problem number one with this is pressure sores.  If you lie in one position for a long time the flesh between you and the bed dies and then you have an open wound.  A route for infection.  She got MRSA.  She died of pneumonia. MRSA may or may not have been a factor.  "BUT IT'S NOT ON THE DEATH CERTIFICATE!!" they cry.  Well no.  She probably died of pneumonia and whatever else she'd gone into hospital for.  I doubt the MRSA helped but a fit(ish) young person would not likely be killed by MRSA.

The presenter was extremely biased and clearly has no understanding of medical care.  It isn't a case of one thing goes wrong therefore someone dies (in the vast majority of cases).  Nor is it the case that if someone gets MRSA or c.diff then it's all because the hospital is dirty (this was the hidden agenda of the show).

At the end of the show the woman was wittering on about how her dad's death certificate was "wrong".  It wasn't.  It just didn't agree with her prejudices and belief that her dad was killed by a hospital acquired infection.  He may have been but to suggest that the doctors didn't write it because "they don't want to hurt the hospital's statistics" is just slander on them.

A disgraceful piece of programming.

Have fun.

And my troubles with my ISP continue.  I can't post anything to here from my home connection because as soon as I try the bloody connection decides that the blogspirit site is impossible to find!  I'm getting seriously pissed off with this.

I spent some time watching the overnight phone in games last night.

The show that did the "count the pounds" question had another one on that took ages again.  In fact this one didn't get answered.  I watched and wrote down the question down so I could figure out how they work the things out.  I still can't do it.  This week they didn't get the right answer so they just took down the question and then asked ""what's the film?" and showed an "anagram" which went something along the lines of "Chralies Angles".  Come on you lot, get those thinking caps on!

The one on the other channel made me realise just how exploitative and dodgy the whole thing was.  One guy won £10000 but when he was on the line he stated that he'd spent about £100 that night calling the quizline.  That's fine for him as he got the payout, but how many more people have spent the same amount for no benefit?  The way they sell it sells expectation; people won't really get through but they are led to believe they will; so they phone again and again.  And then the host had the balls to ask people to natter - not only that but to natter about just whether they liked the show.  I'd have loved it had someone said "No the show's exploitative and  tawdry and you're a rubbish host."

Have fun.