Banana Waffles.

I wonder how many people die in Mexico from ordinary flu?
I wonder how many people die in the world from ordinary flu?

I bet that the answer for the first question is more than 7. Because so far the number of confirmed deaths in Mexico from the flu belonging to the pink oinky creatures is only 7.

I know that the answer to the second one is probably in the hundreds of thousands. In the UK alone, old people die every year from the run of the mill varieties of flu - that is why they push the flu vaccine so hard, isn't it?

So how come if you give one variety a special animal name, it can suddenly be described as a Pandemic and have people running around like panicked idiots?

Does anyone in the UK government have 'contacts' in the face-mask industry?
Do they have a financial reason to wish to bolster the coffers of pharmaceutical companies?

Given how, tweety flu was hyped and how it brought a windfall to pharmaceutical companies in the bulk buying of vaccines that were never used/needed and are now useless, this looks remarkably like action replay to me.

Could this be linked to the investigation into UK MPs expenses etc?

Surely not?

But if 7 deaths and around 50 cases of people suffering from symptoms that one couple have described as 'jet laggy' = pandemic and world wide fear - what did we have with Mad Cow Disease (and still have), what did we have with SARS, and Ebola, and measles, mumps,etc etc and all the other usual diseases?

If the oinky cough, sneeze and a bit of a temperature is such a fear inducer - how come people aren't running screaming at the sight of NHS hospitals, where far more confirmed deaths have been caused through incompetence, and in some cases the criminal activities of members of staff?

It isn't porcine illnesses the UK has to fear, it is the zombie-like infection of New Sheep Disease.

Symptoms include: getting hot under the collar.
Cause:Being fed BS for so long that you forget what reality tastes like.
Prognosis: You won't die, but you won't be living either.

Got that 'can't be a*sed about anything' feeling today.
It started with feeling grumpy and tired yesterday.
Today I want to stay in bed and sleep the world away.
It's that bloody time of the month again

My men folk are hiding from me, which is the wisest thing.
I just want to push their buttons and start arguments.
Even my funny bone has got an evil streak

At least we know what is going on. Its just a case of riding out the storm and waiting for the sun to come out again. I'm at the stage where even if I try to count my blessings, it just feels like I'm picking on myself & trying to make myself feel guilty

I dread to think what sort of poetry I will be writing in response to the Poetry a Day Challenge!!

Maybe I'll feel happier tomorrow - I hope so.

I can't remember what it was I came here to write

That's old age creeping up on me. I would like to be alert enough that when I hear it creeping up on me I could leap around like a martial arts sensei and kick the crap out of it. But I don't hear so well any more. That's old age creeping up on me.

I think I'm starting to repeat myself as well.

But here's a joke I made up yesterday:

Q. What's a definition of an air hostess?

A. A plane girl.

I wish I could remember what it was I was going to write about.

I'm sure it was really really funny.

Oh just remembered and it wasn't all that funny at all.

It was just that I tasted some of my son's Red Bull (he drinks it in the morning to wake him up) and it tastes exactly like Calpol. It was horrible!! But I can see why teens like it because it reminds them of the pink sickly sweet medicine they got addicted to as tots. The stuff that made all the owies go away.

I suspect the makers of Red Bull knew what they were doing when they made it taste like that.

Useful things to know.

1.
There are lots of fun radio programs to listen to at BBC Radio 7's Digital Radio Online page - especially useful for people who don't live in the UK.

2.
Oregano is a powerful antibiotic and it works even after it has been cooked or boiled etc. So oregano on your food will help keep the lurgy at bay. Combine it with Turmeric (anti cancer properties), fresh mushrooms (also anti cancer) garlic (antibiotic and anti heart disease) and lemon (vitamin C and also reduces the Gi to improve sugar balance in the blood and avoid diabetes) and artichokes (anti heart disease) and you have a very powerful and delicious meal.

3.
Making a little hole in the end of an egg before boiling it will prevent it cracking.

4.
If you boil white onion skins in water you will produce a bright red dye. You can either boil eggs in this with vinegar (which etches the shell to take up the dye better) - or you can do as I do and use the dye to 'red-cook' pork or other meats in chinese cooking. As long as you use a star anise and a bit of toasted sesame seed oil as well as the usual ginger, soya, garlic and onions you will get a very 'authentic' chinese taste.

5.
Putting a bayleaf in rice pudding before you cook it makes it taste 5 gazillion times better than if you had left it out.

6.
Pouring boiling water on three sage leaves (dry or fresh) and then adding lemon juice and a teaspoon of honey, will clear a blocked nose, soothe a sore throat and help relieve bloating all in one go. (Sage is a powerful diuretic - so very useful if you bloat up before menstruation - but don't put more than a couple of leaves in or drink it more than once or twice a day for a short time because it is very powerful. Be careful if you are on medication or have blood pressure problems)

7.
Everything in moderation.

8.
Early to bed and early to rise makes one healthy, wealthy and wise - my Gran used to say that to us all the time.

Reading about the latest 'headache' that the police in London are dealing with I was struck by an uber-cynical thought.

Here's the reasoning that led me to it.

1) The person complaining about the police keeps going on about how terribly bruised she was and how rough the policeman was and how he hit her in the face and hard on the back of the legs

2)She has Max Clifford representing her.

3)It was prominently mentioned in the first article I read that she has a history of shoplifting charges and not working.

Okay.

1)This incident was not very long ago, but her face is unblemished by any sign of bruising.

2)Max Clifford is supposed to be good at his job - so why is she coming across as a chancer after compo?

3)On watching the video of the incident she appears to be deliberately provoking the policeman, who doesn't appear to have hit her all that hard. She even quotes herself as having said something along the lines of do you realise you are being filmed by tv cameras?

Now it seems to me that one is supposed to reach the conclusion that this person in not responding to the officer's instruction to go back, and who also then went up to him and shoved him, and then swore and shouted into his face, was deliberately goading him and knew full well what would happen and then is milking it for publicity and compensation.

It seems we are first being led to sympathise with her, a woman being hit by the police!! Then as more details emerge we are led to question her version and begin to sympathise with the policeman in a difficult situation. Which although it begins by looking grim for the police - ends with us having the rights and wrongs very blurred.

In the meantime the Ian Tomlinson killing is being pushed to the background.

I wonder if this could have been better for the police if they had orchestrated the entire affair?

I mean there were plenty of people really badly hurt at G20 weren't there? People with really obvious bruises and injuries, given the description of how the police behaved that day and the day that the incident at the memorial for Ian Tomlinson where this new incident took place, there must have been lots of people with clearer cases of damage and bruising etc?

Why is this one being given such prominence? The incident that is so grey and not clear-cut at all.

What happened to Mr Tomlinson has no excuses and cannot be smoothed away by blurring the circumstances.

We heard that many such incidents occurred but that luckily no-one else had died from them. But some of them must have been injured? Either the same day as Ian or on the same day as this well-represented yet somehow PR challenged person. Why aren't they getting coverage? Why aren't they speaking out and getting the PR support etc that this lady is?

What if this second incident had been pre-planned and choreographed by the powers that be? Wouldn't it be just a perfect way to try to draw attention from the really awful consequences and the subsequent ham-fisted attempt to whitewash what happened to Ian Tomlinson?

Whether or not that is the way it happened, it certainly looks as though it is having its effect in that way.

So am I paranoid or what?

I am sitting in my bedroom blogging away happily with the sound of gunfire outside

This is a perfect example of why I am so happy to live here

Because as I hear the guns blasting away I know that the locals are out shooting some nice things to eat.

They aren't hunting for sport, or killing for fun, they are doing what man has done since the beginning of human kind. They are out there making sure their families (and maybe some lucky neighbours fingers crossed) will have food on the table.

When I lived in the UK we had burglar alarms, security cameras and I was always nervous on my own in the house.

Now here I am all alone in a 'foreign' country and feeling completely safe and secure and at home with gunmen just outside

It's a funny old world - and I feel very blessed to live in this part of it.

Quotes below from an article from the Daily Mail

Nina Whear, 38, made it through an emergency Caesarean but then needed open heart surgery.
She was given just a 7 per cent chance of surviving the operation - but amazingly, she pulled through.

'I had quite a difficult pregnancy and I was only getting about 40 minutes sleep a night because every time I lay down I couldn't breathe,' Mrs Whear said. 'But that night it didn't ease at all, and it got worse and worse.

She was rushed to Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital where doctors discovered she had suffered an aortic dissection - a tear in the wall of the aorta, the major artery leaving the heart.

The condition, which affects only two in every 10,000 people, caused major internal bleeding, tearing the walls of the artery apart.

Critically ill, she was transferred to a specialist heart unit at Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, by ambulance, while maternity staff flew by air ambulance to Papworth to perform the Caesarean section.

Her condition is normally caused by high blood pressure and is most often seen in men aged 40 to 70. Pregnancy can bring it on as the mother has higher blood pressure than normal and the tissues around the heart soften and are more susceptible to tearing.

I am glad to hear that this family are doing well.

But I wonder why her high blood pressure was not addressed earlier during the pregnancy?

This seems to have been a developing problem over a period of time, given her description of breathlessness at night.

I thought pre-natal checks were supposed to spot this kind of difficulty BEFORE they led to disaster? I remember having my blood pressure checked frequently when I was pregnant specifically for this kind of reason. Especially given her age which is on the older side for being pregnant let alone having twins, surely? This lady and her babies have been extremely lucky - but this is hardly a glowing vindication of the NHS.

My Gran used to say 'A stitch in time saves nine' and I wonder whether this lady and her babies might have been able to have a better start together if they had been given the option of prevention rather than cure?

According to the article Mrs Whear is by no means entirely out of the woods yet, having been left with blood clots in her lung and neck which are restricting her movement. Blood clots can be serious health problems on their own. I hope this family will be given all the help they need and that Mum makes a full recovery as soon as possible.

I am astonished (or maybe not) by some of the comments under this article in the paper. Apparently in their opinion because this family had a good outcome then all the negative experiences of many people who have suffered from the disastrous mis-organisation of the NHS are negated. One survival story trumps hundreds of thousands of people dead or disabled or traumatised - incredible isn't it?

It seems to me that even if people were left with no health service at all now and then people would survive - it wouldn't mean no health service was a good way to go though would it?

Describing people who dare to complain about the suffering and deaths of their loved ones due to bad treatment as 'whingers' as some commenters have done is unforgivable in my opinion.

Heard about the guy who used bio-drinks to re-animate dead gut bacteria
only to find it went too far & he was possessed by them?

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I've always said it was dangerous to dabble with the Yakult.

A genuine brand new joke I invented to-day -

I'm so proud

"They contaminate the soil with their urine and droppings, so that nothing but weeds can survive"

A quote from an article in the Daily Mail which can only be described as a complete hatchet job against the rabbit population of the UK.

By the time anyone finishes reading the piece they could be forgiven for thinking that rabbits are the single biggest threat to the united kingdom. Terms such as Bunny Plague, Britain Threat are used, goodness and there was me worrying about banks collapsing, corrupt politicians and terrorists - when all the time it was fluffy wabbits I should have been lying awake in terror of.

A long time ago we used to have 2 rabbits as pets. In the summer we put them out on the grass in their 'outside' cages so that they could live on the ground and poop and pee to their hearts content.

Far from 'contaminating' the ground the poop acted as a fertiliser and the urine made no difference whatsoever to the green lushness of the grass. We needed to move the cages around to get an even trim on the grass of course, but we saw no evidence of any detriment to the health of the soil and plants at all.

Did we have unique rabbits with special wee?

But more to the point why isn't this abundant source of cheap protein being exploited?

Given that the country is in the grip of an economic crisis, and everyone is always banging on about carbon footprints etc wouldn't it make sense to harvest the rabbits for food?

Even if they only went into pet food it would be something.

Instead it appears that money and time is being spent on poisoning them and gassing them and nobody is going to convince me that those are methods more beneficial to the health of soil and plants than a bit of rabbit wee.

If farmers etc are going to wage war on rabbits then the least that could be ensured is that some positive outcome other than simply the eradication of the creatures is achieved.

It seems to me that if rabbits want to breed it might make more sense to turn a farm into a rabbit farm and sell the meat and market it as a cheap good healthy alternative to more expensive meat currently available and make a large profit.

Rabbits don't need much husbanding, they breed like, well, rabbits, their fur can be used for all sorts of things and surely even animal rights people could see the common sense in encouraging farmers to humanely harvest their rabbits and make use of them rather than massacre them in ways that will cause suffering?

It seems like common sense to me.

I live on an island in Greece now and wild rabbits here are in short supply, because people eat them here and very nice they are too. If the UK population ate rabbits it wouldn't be long before the problem would be there were too few around rather than too many.