Credit where credit's due.

I've had a busy day today. In the morning I got a man in to fix a broken underground sewer pipe. It was broken when I moved into the house in 1991, but I was quoted £600 to dig up the path and replace the pipe back then. I couldn't afford that, so I rodded the pipe every few years to clear any blockages.

In the spirit of New beginnings, I decided to "get it sorted". So I got a man who knows about these things in. It cost under £100 to do the job, as the whole pipe didn't need to be replaced. That's Karl Gratton, Aldershot, Hants. 07851 894256. Here's an "after" photo after chucking a couple of buckets of water down to clear the cobwebs. I didn't take a "before" photo, but there was a hole in the bottom of the inspection chamber (now cemented) as well as the broken pipe.


After Karl left, I walked to my local Waitrose. By pavement, it's a 20 minute walk, so I took a short-cut through the woods. It was pouring with rain, the path was very muddy and full of puddles. I felt a strange sensation....


My soles had cracked. Oh, wow! What an amazingly heavy bummer!

When I got to Waitrose, I was dismayed to see that they had sold out of Burgen Soya & Linseed bread, as I had a 50p coupon that expired that day. Two assistants (Sally & Barbara) told me that I could get 50p off on a future visit if I showed them the coupon. I bought some nosh as a treat for the soggy walk home. While I was waiting at the checkout, Sally (or maybe Barbara) approached me, holding a loaf of Burgen. Now that's what I call customer service! That's Waitrose, Tresham Crescent, Yateley, Hants, GU46 6FR - 01252 861888.

EDIT: When I'm in Henley, I have lunch at Jay's Kitchen. I phone/text my order in advance and get a freshly-cooked Full English (2 bacon, 2 sausage, 2 egg, baked beans, fried onions, mushrooms & tomatoes) for £3. There's a table & 2 chairs on the pavement. That's Jay's Kitchen, Newtown Rd, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.


EDIT: Today (16th February), I got this:-


EDIT: Just around the corner, also on Newtown Rd is a car wash done by hand. A basic wash is £6 and a full inside & outside clean is £12. I was given a free bottle of water to drink.

And finally...

I want to give credit to....Gary Taubes *sound of people fainting*. His curate's egg Good Calories, Bad Calories is good, in parts. The parts about the Diet-Heart Hypothesis, I completely agree with, as I have read The Great Cholesterol Con by Anthony Colpo, which pretty much ties-up with The Great Cholesterol Con by Dr Malcolm Kendrick, which pretty much ties-up with Ignore the awkward! How the cholesterol myths are kept alive by Uffe Ravnskov. See also The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics.

Here's a picture to warm the cockles of your heart.

When you get the bad parts sorted, we'll stop prodding you with a pointy stick!

The future: I just saw it.

Today is Thursday 19th February 2009. I've just read an article in The New York Review of Books 'Drug Companies & Doctors': An Exchange dated 26th February 2009. I don't even possess a Flux Capacitor!

The above article was linked from Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption which I found on The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (THINCS).

"Because drug companies insist as a condition of providing funding that they be intimately involved in all aspects of the research they sponsor, they can easily introduce bias in order to make their drugs look better and safer than they are. Before the 1980s, they generally gave faculty investigators total responsibility for the conduct of the work, but now company employees or their agents often design the studies, perform the analysis, write the papers, and decide whether and in what form to publish the results. Sometimes the medical faculty who serve as investigators are little more than hired hands, supplying patients and collecting data according to instructions from the company.

In view of this control and the conflicts of interest that permeate the enterprise, it is not surprising that industry-sponsored trials published in medical journals consistently favor sponsors' drugs—largely because negative results are not published, positive results are repeatedly published in slightly different forms, and a positive spin is put on even negative results. A review of seventy-four clinical trials of antidepressants, for example, found that thirty-seven of thirty-eight positive studies were published. But of the thirty-six negative studies, thirty-three were either not published or published in a form that conveyed a positive outcome. It is not unusual for a published paper to shift the focus from the drug's intended effect to a secondary effect that seems more favorable."

Oh dear!