Health warning

There are large areas of the internet that should come with a warning: "believing this tosh can seriously damage your health."

At the weekend I saw an ad on the website of a usually respectable UK newspaper claiming there are three questions you can ask 'to find out if you have cancer.' Fancy that: forget the centuries of diagnostics - you can have the answer in just three questions. And your doctor will love it when you march into the surgery with your three questions and answers off t'internet. Or if you ignore real indicators there's something wrong because your answers to the three questions were okay.

Yesterday Facebook carried an ad claiming there is a herbal cure for diabetes. There isn't, of course. If there was a cure, herbal or otherwise, for diabetes, we'd all know about it, as would the half-dozen people each of us knows personally who suffer from this serious - and dangerous - condition. I hate the idea of anyone so desperate they'll swallow the herbal remedy and give up the meds and the diet recommended by the medical profession.

Today, it's this:

Yep, it's upside down yoga, as practised in Australia. It's not a fad, says a man who runs - and presumably makes money from - upside down yoga 'clinics' in Sydney. O yes, a fad is exactly what it is and a dangerous one too. As my yoga teacher used to tell us when doing any upside down posture: don't do this if you have a history of heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure or migraine. 

And above all, remember there are people on the internet who really believe there's one born every minute. Don't be that one!

128 days to go?

I'm sure Eddie Mair just said on Radio 4 it was 128 days till the next general election. I shouted obscenities at the radio, the least offensive of them being 'bollocks!', and I then listened to a few minutes of lies and denial from various politicians before I switched off.

The trouble is I know the Tories are lying in their teeth not just in what they claim they are doing but in what they claim Labour are planning to do if they win the next election. So the Tories have not reduced the UK deficit 'by half'. They have somehow rounded up the correct figure (as stated by the Treasury) of about 35% to 50% so blatantly that even their pal Fraser Nelson on the Economist has noticed it and cried foul. And I know what they are trying to do with Labour is keep on talking about the economy because their spin doctors think Labour are weak in that area and will go on the defensive, as they did tonight on Radio 4.

The clever thing the Tories are doing is ignoring what people express worry about in the polls: jobs (job insecurity especially), the NHS and immigration (although immigration is only a problem because the Tories and UKIP say so). And these subjects are not getting much of an airing - and won't be heard of much before May if the Tories have anything to do with it.

However, my problem is this: I am very interested in politics and I think we have shown in Scotland that politics can get people passionate. I think politics in Scotland has changed for the better since the referendum. But the shake-up politicians got in Scotland hasn't reached the rest of the UK. The UK election is a complete turn-off: the Tories, Labour and UKIP are still 'fighting' - and man, I wish we could stop using battlefield terms in politics - as they would have done 40 years ago. It's like politics exists mainly for politicians and journalists. The public are only needed to cast their votes and only some of the public, like old people, need bother turning up at the polling station. We're not going to try to involve young people - well, we don't actually know how.

Some of my Labour friends still talk about 'the proletariat', heaven help us. Others are still banging on about New Labour. There are electors now who don't remember Tony Blair.

Some of the Tory Party obviously still think the electors will believe anything. I hear stories about the Tories wanting to turn the clock back to 1945 and do away with the Welfare State. In fact, I suspect there are quite a lot of them who would like to go back to the Victorian era and do away with legal aid (nearly there!), health and safety (access to industrial tribunals is already limited to those that can afford to pay upfront), social security, pensions (keep raising the retirement age and watch the lifespan of working people go down). In fact, as a taxpayer for 50 years (and still paying tax on my pension, remember) I'm starting to think maybe the Tories have forgotten that people who pay out expect to get something in return.

And there's 128 days of this stuff still to go...

It was the loom bands that did it.

Right through 2014 we've been bombarded in the newspapers, on TV and radio and on the internet with reports that tell us - well, basically, whatever we do is wrong and the state we're in is all our own fault.

So 4 out of 10 cases of cancer could be avoided if we had a good diet, avoided alcohol/sex/the sun, took exercise and, as far as I can see, had no fun at all. (This is the opposite of the ideal life a friend of mine recommends: live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse. I know which I find more attractive.)

It seems we're only safe if we drink two glasses of red wine a few times a week. No, according to another researcher, a bottle a day will do us no harm.

Smoking is very bad for us, but now it seems the electronic fags, which I thought were a great way to help people struggling to quit smoking, may also be dangerous.

We need to exercise 3 or 4 times a week. But some other expert says just imagining ourselves exercising will help us keep fit and stave off the dreaded obesity (A much misused word which is only attractive to newsreaders because of the disapproving hiss they can get into saying it.)

But it was the loom bands that finished me off. They are dangerous apparently. A wee pastime enjoyed by many boys and girls and some adults and it's bad for you. I didn't read beyond the headline so I don't know why. I do know what my reaction was.

First I thought: Must be a slow news day. And then: did somebody get a research grant for that?

And finally I said out loud: Opissoff!

And I've decided Opissoff is going to be my reaction to every scare and rumour from now on. I urge you to join me, especially women, who are constantly bombarded with every kind of nonsense. So much so that many women now go through life in a cloud of guilt, constantly on a diet,  hair so fiercely straightened it'll probably fall out by the time they're 40, and tanked up on botox. (I watched Eve Pollard on the Sky News Review last night. Do you know her face never moved once in 30 minutes.)

The kind of health news I want in 2015 is more about how attaching a wee machine to the vagus nerve can control diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. Now there's news worth having.

Tesco - not helping, not even a little bit!

I like Giraffe. There's one of their restaurants in Heathrow Airport and it always strikes me as a haven of sanity and decent food at reasonable prices. They do good fresh salads, quality coffee and smoothies. The service is efficient and it is always busy.

Tesco bought the Giraffe chain last year and have opened a Giraffe in Silverburn, attached to their store. It was reviewed in Saturday's Herald and a terrible review it is too. Nothing - service, food, atmosphere - got good marks. The food earned 2 points out of 5. The dishes ordered didn't contain the fancy ingredients the posh menu said they would. One dish even contained what looked like tomato ketchup. 

The Silverburn Giraffe is close to a Nando's. On the day the reviewer visited, Nando's was full and Giraffe mostly empty. It's just along from Wagamama and I'll bet that was quite lively too. There's also a 'handmade burger' place in that group of restaurants. These are all chains. They operate the same menu in every branch. Their food and service are quality-controlled. They all charge the same prices almost to within a pound of each other.

The Giraffe prices are higher than any of these. 

I know little about the restaurant business - or the supermarket business, come to that, except as a customer. But I've got a few questions:

Why did Tesco decide to get into the restaurant business? And why now? For decades, those of us who work in the public sector have been urged to look at how things are done in the private sector because the private sector does things so much better. But even I can see the flaws in Tesco's decision to diversify by buying a restaurant chain, an area they have no experience in, when they are already struggling to hold their own in the supermarket business - which they do or should know about - against Lidl, Aldi and Home Bargains. The old adage 'stick to what you know' comes to mind. 

And who did the market research before the restaurant opened in Silverburn? A quick swatch (as we say in Glasgow) at the menus of nearby restaurants would give you an idea of (1) how much competition you're going to have; (2) what you can charge if you're going to compete with them; and (3) the blindingly bleedin obvious fact that you need a unique selling point. 

Nando's is Thai/Chinese fusion and offers mainly chicken dishes. Not to my taste, since I reckon peri-peri sauce is mostly used to disguise the fact that chicken these days has no taste. Wagamama is Japanese/Chinese fusion and has the added excitement of chopsticks, which I've never got the hang of myself but I can see young people love them. My sister and I love the Wagmama spicy noodles and chicken but I doubt if any of the men in my family would eat there more than once. They'd be next door wrapping their gnashers round a handmade burger. 

I'm not sure what the unique selling-point of Giraffe at Silverburn is meant to be. I hope Tesco either get these restaurants right or get them sold to people who know what they're doing. 

Here's to Eòrpa

Eòrpa

If it wasn't for Eòrpa (Alba and BBC2), I would have no idea what's happening in the rest of Europe. 

For example, did you know that Germany gets 25% of its electricity by burning 'brown coal' - that is, lignite? This is the most polluting of the fossil fuels. Not content with being filthy and dangerous to human health and the environment, burning lignite pours arsenic into the atmosphere and shares it with Germany's neighbours - and that includes us, just across the North Sea. And the Germans have loads of it. As they turn away from nuclear power, Germans need a fuel supply that will be cheap to produce (lignite comes from open cast mines rather than deep mines so that ticks that box) and cheap to burn (keeping consumers' bills down - another box ticked with lignite). And they're willing to do a lot to get it. 

Most of Germany's brown coal is in the former East Germany and the German government is prepared to dump the health and well-being of local residents to keep the lights on in the west and, to quote one official from a local town hall, to 'keep industry running.' 

Perhaps the most alarming part of Germany's brown coal story is the way mining companies have dismantled whole villages to get at it, moving populations to new locations and effectively destroying their way of life. A lot of the people caught up in this are Sorbs. They are Germans but from a Slav background. They have their own language and culture and are, like many minority groups across Europe, under threat. When their villages are moved, some Sorbish inhabitants decide to go elsewhere. Then there aren't enough children to keep the village school open, the local shop closes, and in a short time what was a healthy wee community falls apart. The Sorbs are used to being at worst badly treated and at best ignored but now, having tried keeping quiet in the hope no one would bother them, they've summoned up their courage and are challenging both the mining companies and the German government. 

I wish the Sorbs good luck. They have everything on their side: the European Convention on Human Rights, the World Health Organisation, Greenpeace - and surely every right-minded  person in every community in the EU. But I wouldn't count on their local politicians backing them up: the local mayors want funding from the Land and from the federal German government, so they're playing the collaboration game. 

I saw all this in - I think - programme 3 or 4 of this season's Eòrpa. Eòrpa has the luxury of being able to devote 15 minutes to a story and really drill down to get the facts. It's worth a look on BBC iPlayer. 

Rock but nae roll

Anybody else noticed how hard it is in Glasgow to get a roll n sausage these days? I'm serious. I don't often go looking for comfort food but when I do I expect it to have pork meat on the inside and the two halves of a roll on the outside. And it's getting to be very elusive, the roll n sausage.

You want a 'panini'? Yes, we can do that - even if we canny spell it. Baguette? No problem. A club sandwich even? Fine. And all filled with tuna mayo, chicken salad (more mayo) and egg mayo. If you go to our local deli, you can have your baguette or 'panini' (yeah, the inverted commas are sarcastic now) toasted and filled with jalapenos, onion, tomato, cucumber, grated cheese, egg mayo, gammon, turkey and piri piri chicken. Yuk.

Not a square sausage to be seen. No fried egg. No chance of scrambled egg. Or a potato scone. Or black pudding. Or all of these in one roll. That would mean cooking and modern catering is all about scooping pre-prepared grub out of catering sized tubs onto very poor quality bread, not cooking. Sainsbury's in Darnley do a bacon roll all day but don't rush - it's boggin: claggy roll that sticks to the roof of your mouth and undercooked fatty bacon.

I like a greasy spoon cafe. The one we used to go to in Mosspark Boulevard went over to panini and posh nosh but there's still the Cherry Tree in Cardonald and there are are quite a few in Govan of which Gaynor's is the best.

You may be thinking: but these old style foods are bad for you - high in fat and low in veg. And that's true, but first of all does anybody really think large amounts of bread with large amounts of mayo are better for you? Even with a wee bit of salad on the side of the plate. And second of all, how many times a week are people scoffing the awful processed food above in their baguettes and panini? At least, in the greasy spoon, an egg is an egg. You know where it came from and what's in it. And if you ask for black pudding with your roll, you'll be told it comes from the butcher's next door. A fine recommendation as far as I'm concerned.

Is it us?

What's the difference between Sawney Bean, Robert Black, Peter Tobin and Angus Sinclair?

They are all Scottish. But Sawney Bean is a myth, and not exactly urban, since this story may date from the 15th century. He was dreamed up to make the good folk of Scotland glad they lived in nice cosy villages and towns, rather than out in the wild countryside.

The other three are serial killers. And they definitely exist.

Black killed at least 4 children, but probably many more, and his killing years extended from the late 60s on and his area covered Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and probably parts of the European mainland too. No one is sure how many women Tobin killed but he too predated all across the British Isles over a long period. He may have been 'Bible John', the notorious killer of women who haunted the streets of Glasgow in the 60s. Sinclair's is the most amazing case, since everyone involved with him recognised he was a psychopath and a danger to women and children from the age of 15 but our society had no way to deal with him and he was released from prison after murdering a child. He then murdered - it's believed - 7 women in 7 months.

I used to think serial killers were a uniquely American phenomenon, probably because US thriller writers seized on the idea of the serial killer very early on and wrote probably thousands of schlock horror stories of (usually) women being terrorised. It was years before I realised serial killers were also to be found in Russia, France and England, But finding three who have lived in Scotland in my lifetime has come as a bit of a shock.

Three murderous psychopaths in a population of 5 and a half million - well, make that 4 if you want to include Peter Manuel - is that a lot? I have no way of judging. I also know nothing about psychopathy or any other kind of 'abnormal psychology' so I'm not sure what treatment can be provided for people like this, if any.

When I was a teacher I occasionally came up against kids whose behaviour was extreme. I remember one boy of about 13 who had been adopted and showed signs of sexualised behaviour very early on in puberty. His adoptive mother, faced with the worries of the school staff, shrugged and said: 'That's what happens when you adopt - you don't know what you're getting.' I think her attitude was more chilling than anything the boy had ever done but then I don't know what she had been through since adopting him.

Do we in Scotland produce more disturbed individuals than other countries? Do we do enough for them? And do we start treatment early enough? I ask because only last week I saw an item in a newspaper that suggested referrals for children and adolescents to get psychiatric help now take up to 18 months. When I stopped work 6 years ago it was 9 months and we thought that was outrageous. What misery do young people and their families go through when they're waiting for help? How many suicides, attempted suicides, acts of aggression and self-harming, exclusions from school, family breakdowns occur during the waiting period? But, of course, mental health is still the forgotten bit of the health service.