Have a fag - it'll calm your nerves!

The new UK government anti-smoking campaign is frankly disgusting: a man standing outside a house (top marks to him for not smoking in the house) lights up and straightaway a tumour starts to grow from his cigarette. The voiceover is about how smoking produces mutations in the human body.

I didn't see or hear anything after the first 30 seconds. I turned to another channel, and I suspect a lot of other folk would do the same. Apparently, smokers think government advertising exaggerates the effects of smoking so ads have to be 'hard-hitting.' I have a beef with the government's approach to public health myself. Probably more than one beef, in fact.

It's 30 years since I gave up smoking but I'm still classified as an 'ex-smoker'. I am going for lung function tests in the New Year and, when my GP isn't telling me my wheezing is because I used to smoke, she's telling me it's my 'lifestyle.' I don't think I'm rich enough to have a lifestyle, so could my health problems be because I'm nearly 65? Live in the damp west of Scotland? Was born poor and lived in damp housing from birth to age 27? Worked twice for longish periods in buildings where asbestos was being stripped out?

Women of child-bearing age in my family have been fed the line for years that they must not touch a single drop of alcohol during pregnancy or they'll produce a child with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome - that is, mentally and physically disabled. I've seen this called 'the golden lie' by a spokeman for the British Medical Assocation. In my book, it's a lie - golden or otherwise. I've seen children with FAS and I promise you it takes more than a couple of glasses of wine a few times a week to produce that effect.

We have a pretty well educated population in Scotland. Certainly a population that talks a lot about everything. For example, we have 3 smokers in my close family out of 16 of us. None of us gives them an easy ride. They can't smoke in anyone's house, or anywhere near the kids. The family expresses its disapproval of smoking regularly to them. They also obey the smoking ban, as everyone else does. I reckon the three are addicts and no amount of lecturing or hectoring is going to stop them. They'll stop when they want to.

What I'm looking for from public health is the following:
- no more lies or exaggerations about health issues
- no more 'nanny state' (no, I don't like the phrase either but it's the best there is) - we're educated enough to make up our own minds on health issues
- no more blaming the poor for matters that were beyond their control before most of them were born
- no more wasting the public health budget on TV ads that folk simply turn off.

Sleep, little one, sleep!

Not a hope in hell where I live.

I think it's a fact well known to my pals and those who can be bothered to follow this blog that I don't sleep well. In fact, I'm awake now at 6.49am on 27 December. This isn't a major problem when you're retired like me. It was a much greater challenge when I was still working. And I know I have friends who suffer from insomia much worse then I do.

My big beef for the moment is that the bin men have just been.

What the f*ck is wrong with these people?

Are they on some sort of bonus: the earlier you go out, the more noise you make, the better East Ren pay you? Are they on a double shift? Get the bins emptied by 8am and we'll pay you double to do the recycling - and make twice the noise?

I don't need to tell you the noise is hellish - and will be repeated several times this week, because this morning was just the bottle bank being emptied - there's still the plastics, the paper and the food waste to go.

I'd go back to bed but there doesn't seem any point.

Bring me sunshine!

My sister and I agreed on the way back from Silverburn today that Boxing Day in Scotland is just like a 1960s Sunday. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, nobody on the streets, everybody indoors eating Xmas Day leftovers.

The only thing to do on Boxing Day is shop but Silverburn was pretty quiet. Plenty of parking spaces. Plenty of folk wandering about. Nobody buying much.

And all the TV channels - Sky, BBC, ITV - were talking up the Boxing Day sales.

Can it be true: capitalism feeding itself?

As our American cousins would say: go figure!

Enough with the petitions!

I've counted them: I've had 23 requests from friends in the last 6 days to sign petitions.

I should make it clear I am concerned about what's happening in the Middle East. I also hate what happened in Newtown. And I'm not too impressed with the UK's presence in Afghanistan, or the way the Coalition is victimising the disabled.

But. And this is a big but. (No pun intended). No petition anyone signs up to on Facebook will make the slightest difference to any of these issues.

If you really feel strongly, march on behalf of the people of Palestine and send money to http://www.palestinecampaign.org/. If you want the UK to get out of Afghanistan, lobby your MP, MSP and MEP. If you are alarmed at the way disabled people in the UK are being picked on, join the Labour party, pay your dues and make your views known.

I'm not sure what we can do about US guns laws, since these are outwith UK jurisdiction and frankly none of our business.

But stop annoying me with requests to sign petitions. These achieve nothing, even if they make you feel better.

Poor Neon

First he's born to parents that saddle him with the name Neon.
Then his parents split up.
His mother gets custody of him.
Then he gets sick.
His mother decides she doesn't like the way the doctors plan to treat his brain tumour despite his father being in favour of the treatment proposed.
His mother runs off with Neon and they all have to go to court over the whole business, thus delaying his treatment.

I kind of understand the mother-child bond that would lead Neon's mother to question the treatment the doctors prescribe for him. She wants what's best for her child so she's entitled to ask questions but she has no expertise in this area and, eventually, in a life or death situation - and that's what this is for Neon - you have to depend on the experts.

There's also a bit of me that thinks: this is a person we're dealing with here, not a pet dog or a goldfish. Neon's mother and father don't own him. They can't be allowed to play about with his life chances. He has rights and somebody has to exercise them on his behalf. At least, the doctors looking after him are bound by the Hyppocratic Oath to act in his best interests.

And yes, I have worked with children with life-threatening or life-shortening illnesses: cancer, MS, muscular dystrophy, rheumatoid arthritis, anorexia. Throughout it all, you have to keep telling yourself this is a person in front of you, not a condition. It's awful to be the person standing outside the situation looking in, but sometimes that's the person best placed - like Neon's doctors - to make a rational decision.

Here's to Neon's speedy recovery.

Meanwhile, back at the BBC.....

Not one but two reports today on the BBC's handling of the Savile 'affair'.

The BBC has enemies: the Murdoch press, the Tory party.....Murdoch resents the BBC's access to so much money through the licence fee. The Tory party thinks BBC managers are lefties and unfair to the Tory party. I'm kind of resentful of having to pay for a BBC licence myself when I rarely use most BBC channels or stations and don't think much of some of them. And I suspect the Tories are right about 'left-wing bias' - if by left- wing bias we mean they don't favour the Tory party.

However, I'm convinced of a few things:

- The BBC is too big. The fact that so many senior staff can be 'moved to a new role' at the drop of a hat is a bit of a giveaway: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20786533 And nobody gets the sack? Explain that to me, please!

- Far too much money is being spent on management and not enough on the creative side of the business.

I've just been reading about Hewlett-Packard and how this once huge and innovative US company is about to go down the tubes: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2130977,00.html HP got its reputation for innovation from the engineers who ran it until 2000. Then it felt into the hands of business experts and suddenly innovation was out and managerialism was in. HP then realised it was falling behind other companies and started looking for smaller innovative companies to take over, bought an overpriced UK firm - very unwisely - in 2011 (anyone else thinking of RBS?) and suddenly its share price is through the floor.

BBC employees are rightly proud of the innovative work it does, Its children's TV, the website, Radio 5 - all are excellent - but when was the last time BBC1 produced a Downton Abbey or a Homeland or even a Clocking On? Any challenging documentaries or drama series coming up on BBC2? Any chance of reducing the hours of repeats on Radio 4?

- What I most resent is that the BBC Trust isn't doing its job. The BBC is important to the UK, too important to be left to the managers currently running it. Chris Patten doesn't seem to have an idea what the newly formed BBC Trust should be about, but seems happy to be guided by the Director General, rather than representing us - the people who pay for it.

And the Trust is certainly not representing Scotland: http://www.scottishreview.net/KennethRoy35.shtml?utm_source=Sign-Up.to&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=281919-The+mystery+man+of+the+BBC+in+Scotland

Here's hoping this could be a fresh start for the BBC but I"m not confident.

Plague Ship?

This is the UK cruise ship Oriana, which was described by a passenger disembarking at Southampton as a 'plague ship'. Now, when you know the norovirus is about - and it's about a lot in the UK just recently - and you know that several hundred mainly elderly passengers on a cruise are a sitting target for the norovirus, you can do two things: cancel the cruise (not a good idea if you want to make money) or step up the hygiene on the ship (which is what the crew did). I'd say the Oriana's hands are clean in more ways than one. Though I'd love to know how the passenger recognised it as a plague ship.....