will be later today (UK time) as I have spent thre last two days knocked out on medication :( sorry

I shall be hosting the next Humanist Symposium from 12th April. There should be a good variety of posts for your reading pleasure :) I look forward to it

So- it's Monday morning and over here where I am it is time for the dreaded assessment clinic- other wise known as 'hell'.

So, I'm sitting in 'hell'- listening to this mother drivel on about this child- who will not talk to me and just sits there peeking out from behind her hair or for variety every now and then squirming in the seat and bringing the collar of her jacket up to her nose - and peeking out from behind that.

'Daddy' has also come (believe me this is a rare enough occurence for it to be mentioned with horns blowing and choirs singing) anyhoo- 'Daddy' is sat there on the other side of the girl alternately looking at the huge desk diary he has brought in with him and trying to speak whenever mum takes a breath- which is not often as far as I can tell.

(This seems to be a gender thing- why is it women can talk without breathing - or using circular breathing- and men can't? - answers on a postcard please)

Anyhoo again- 'Mummy' starts explaing to me that 'we' are not sleeping well, and 'we' are a very unhappy little girl who is refusing to go to school, and 'we' scream and kick 'Mummy' and 'Daddy' whenever they try to get 'her' to school. 'We' are not eating properly and 'we' have been quite ill this past year with horrible tonsillitis but now 'we' have had 'our' tonsils out 'we' are ok.

I have this vision at this point of a whole family being operated on at once in one theatre and it is at this point that I wake up and realise she is not talking about herself *sigh* but actually about the little girl who so obviously doesn't want to be in this room right now.

I haven't heard anyone speak in this manner for years so forgive me for being tardy on the Monday morning realisation.

Anyhoo- I do the assessment and 'Mummy', in response to my usual question of 'what have you tried before' and 'what have you found that works?' comes back with

"Well, we went to a homeopath and we felt a lot better afterwards didn't we?" This said while looking pointedly at little girl now hiding behind a cushion and then looking at 'Daddy' pointedly in a way that said- 'say you agree!'


My answer to this?

"Um"


"We also think maybe being a Scorpio could have an influence on her personality - what do you think?" "WE can be very stubborn you know - can't we?" - again looking at little girl who is now turned around in the chair looking at the wall.

My answer to that?

"Well"

and all the time all I could think was- what the fuck? What. The. Fuck. ??????

They come to me looking for help with mental health problems and give me this crap and woowoo about homecrapathy and astrobollocks?!!!!


Of course- being the ultimate professional that I am I said.

" I don't think I'm the right person to see your daughter- I'm thinking more along the lines of creative work as she finds it so difficult to communicate in words- what do you think? - I can make an appointment with our occupational therapist"

'Mummy' is still talking and 'Daddy' is still trying to talk as I usher them out the door. I still haven't seen what colour the little girl's eyes are- but boy am I thankful for hippy-dippy occupational therapists that don't want to hit people when they hear the words 'homeopathy' or 'star sign'.

Next week- the tale of the JW and Mormon families :)

Just booked to see Tim Minchin in October - coolness!!!!!!

here is a taste



I just realised how long it is since I blogged anything - bit busy these days- studying and whatnot - may get better soon :)

From Geoff Arnold


Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an ‘x’ after those you have read ENTIRELY
2) Add a ‘+’ to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) Tally your total at the bottom.

Here’s my response:

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X+
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X+
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X+
6 The Bible X (including all the books they left out :)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman X++
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X
11 Little Women - Louisa M AlcottX
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy X
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X++
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare X (yes even the Sonnets)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du MaurierX
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X+
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X+
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey NiffeneggerX++
20 Middlemarch - George EliotX
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret MitchellX
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott FitzgeraldX
23 Bleak House - Charles DickensX
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy X+
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X+
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh X+
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor DostoyevskyX
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X+
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X+
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens X
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewisx (some only- they are a bit boring)
34 Emma - Jane AustenX
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen X
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X EH? already in the CON?
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled HosseiniX
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (EEK TRIED- BUT A MORE BORING FATUOUS BOOK i CANNOT IMAGINE)
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur GoldenX+
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X+
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan BrownX (shamefully yes- but with much throwing of the book and swearing at the author)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins X+
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM MontgomeryX
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy X
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood X++
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X+
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan*
51 Life of Pi - Yann MartelX+
52 Dune - Frank Herbert X+
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons X+
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X+
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth*
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X+
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon X+
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez*
61 Of Mice and Men - John SteinbeckX
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov X
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre DumasX
66 On The Road - Jack KerouacX
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy X
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding X (EEK hated it tho)
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville X+
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X
72 Dracula - Bram StokerX
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X+
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson X+
75 Ulysses - James Joyce X+
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia PlathX++
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome X
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace ThackerayX
80 Possession - AS Byattx
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David MitchellX
83 The Color Purple - Alice WalkerX++
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo IshiguroX+
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert X
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Alborn
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph ConradX++
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain BanksX++
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams X
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute X+
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre DumasX
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (again with the repeating- isn't this included in the works? ) X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald DahlX
100 Les Miserables - Victor HugoX

Well 81 isn't bad is it? So I read a lot :) always have, always will.

Some of the books on the list I would never read- I do not like Salman Rushdie's style and his subject matter does not interest me. I have never understood why Thomas Hardy is considered a classic- I hate the books- especially Tess- he did NOT understand women at all. I only read those boks and a few others on the list because I had to at school :)

I tag- anybody that reads this :)

More scaremongering by the media about the MMR vaccine has recently led to Bad Science being threatened by lawyers for LBC and Global radio who are responsible for the airing of a radio show by one Jeni Barnett - a minor celebrity who thinks she can sound off about vaccines with little knowledge or evidence to support her claims.


Ben Goldacre of Bad Science has been told to take down an audio clip from Ms Barnett's show that he was using to illustrate her complete and utter idiocy on the subject - they are obviously embarrassed by her and trying to protect themselves- but then look at her blog and you will see what the result of idiocy is- anger and insults towards people who know more than her- and interestingly- accusations that doctors and nurses would leave her to die in pain were she to refuse the drugs they offered- shame on you Ms Barnett!

Links to audio clips can be found here

I as a nurse treat idiots like you every day-I keep my views to myself about such idiocy because I am there to do a job- not to impose unfounded views but to present idiots like you with scientifically backed evidence so that you can make an informed decision. You are presenting a wide audience with unscientific views and asking them to believe you - and expect the medical profession to mollycoddle and give in to every stupid idea and treat you- regardless of the your beliefs or unfounded unknowledgeable views.

You on the other hand are now probably responsible for a few more children getting measles or mumps, possibly going blind, possibly having fallout from the illness for the rest of their lives- an illness easily avoided by a vaccine that does not cause autism, does not harm the child and actually prevents great suffering- you need to travel to a country where measles and Rubella are pandemic- see the harm they cause.




Calling them 'childhood illnesses' in the way you do is leading people to think- as you obviously do- that it is good for children to suffer through them - well bollocks- do some real reading and then come back to me with some evidence that shows it is good for a child to suffer from these horrendous illnesses- maybe we should all get smallpox again-according to your logic it might make us more robust after all?

Dr Peter Strebel, an immunisation expert at the WHO, stressed that even in countries with good health services, measles could be very serious.

"Parents and doctors need to be reminded that measles is a highly contagious disease," he said. "Even healthy and well-nourished children, if unvaccinated, are at risk of measles and its complications such as pneumonia, encephalitis and, although rare, death."

Contrast this with Jeni's opinion from the broadcast:

“if its viral, and childrens immune systems are strong whats the problem?”


For information about the harm caused by Vaccine denial go here to a wonderful website called 'What's the Harm?'

Mealses

Mealses

Rubella

Mumps

yes- an actual christian who talks sense- they are out there people :)

Stephen Tomkinson in The Guardian's 'Comment is free' column writes

But the atheist bus poster still seems an odd thing to make such a fuss about. For a start it doesn't say anything nasty about God, just that he probably doesn't exist. Many people have said much ruder things about him, and he always seems to take it pretty well.

Makes me think that Stephen's faith is a lot stronger than the bus driver's

And then he goes on to channel me- only in a much more eloquent way :)

It also happens to be a statement of the basic religious beliefs of a lot of British people. Considering the number of religious groups who advertise on public transport, if all drivers took Heather's stance, the result would be pretty chaotic. No Christians, Muslims or other believers could drive an atheist bus. And if a bus had a poster with a verse form the Bible about Jesus dying for our sins, no atheist or Muslim could drive it. If it advertised the Qu'ran – you get the picture.

The best quote? How I wish all religious people would reach this conclusion

In fact, speaking as one myself, I think it shows quite a cheek for Christians to make a fuss about this. We've spent decades covering public places with verses from the Bible, and posters promising that if you let Jesus into your life everything will be all right for ever.

Then as soon as the opposition get the money together to do the same thing we're outraged, and think that God is as cross as we are.

go over there- tell him he is a reasonable human being- I'm sure he is going to get it in the neck from a lot of fundamentalist idiots - so some support from the odd atheist might not come amiss.

Not much of a headline that eh? well this Christian in Southampton decided he didn't like the atheist slogan / advert on the side of his bus and refused to drive it- so what else could the headline say?

Lets have a think and play with this one shall we?

Muslim refuses to drive bus - because the bus has the Alpha Course adverts on it-would he (very rarely she I should imagine) get away with it? probably

Muslim / fundamentalist christian (any religion that hates women really- which is - lets see- oh yeah- all of them!) anyway- refuses to drive bus with adverts containing 'uncovered' women on it - would they get away with that? probably

Atheist refuses to drive bus with Alpha Course, or any religious advert on it- would they get away with it? probably not- what do you think?

This guy has apparently been told by his managers that he will only have to drive the bus if it is the only one available- what next?

Religidiots are holding us to ransom- they are holding governments, companies and individuals to ransom: standing there stamping their foot like a 6 year old who has just been refused the sweets they really really wanted - crowing about their 'rights' and being 'persecuted'.

Lets try this another way?

Man refuses to drive bus because it has adverts containing black people on it - does that sit well? would they get away with it?

Yet this guy is allowed to be bigoted and ignorant towards something that basically just doesn't agree with him - poor thing, his faith is so weak that he cannot stand to have it just mildly questioned.

Every day my eyes and ears are assaulted by images and sounds of religion yet I don't moan (apart from on here), I put up with it unless it impinges on my lifestyle or interteferes with my work or family - sure he is entitled to his beliefs- no matter how half-witted they are- but he is a public servant and he should act like one- imagine if I brought my beliefs (or lack of them) into my consulting room- what a ruckus that would cause?

This guy needs to shut up and go away and just drive his bloody bus.