Monday, 17 September 2012
Thursday, 23 August 2012
Tuesday, 12 June 2012
URGENT APPEAL
Urgent appeal. MISSING!!
Last seen in the South Buckinghamshire area over two weeks ago we are asking everyone to please
keep a look out for the Sun. It is Yellow and spherical in shape and usually accompanied by feelings of warmth and the smell of cooking burgers. If you see the sun or any signs it has recently visited (peeling skin and an influx of garden furniture receipts) please let someone know. We are all very worried so please copy and paste this post to raise awareness.....
Oh and if it does return and you hear cries of "its too hot" please feel free to tell that person to stfu. Thank you for your cooperation!
Friday, 18 May 2012
Baking Cakes
A Fairy Castle for Ellierose
A Pirate Cake for Archie
As you can see above I have been rather busy making birthday cakes for 2 of my Grandbabies aged 3 & 5
Wednesday, 2 May 2012
Friday, 2 March 2012
Monday, 27 February 2012
What If.... URGENT ACTION NEEDED! Spread this video!, Hollie Greig, Robe...
Please share to all your contacts
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
Sunday, 1 January 2012
Wednesday, 21 December 2011
Sunday, 18 December 2011
Saturday, 10 December 2011
Facts on a plate: our population is at least 77 million
It is the statistic that dare not speak its name, though eventually it must. It has huge ramifications for the civil and political life of this country, the health of the equity markets and, most immediately, the residential property market. So don't forget you read it here first: the population of the UK is presently somewhere between 77 and 80 million.
The 2001 census, already hopelessly out of date and easy to avoid for those who find filling in forms a trifle inelegant, numbered us at a little under 59 million. But as statistics go, that one's most definitely a damned lie.
My sources for the above statement are good, but scared of admitting the truth for fear of incurring the wrath of Whitehall. It's like the best way of monitoring illegal drug consumption: forget the pious statements from ministers – the foolproof method is to sample our water and the effluent in it. That's easily the best way of monitoring what the nation has been consuming.
Consumption – that's the thing. Based on what we eat, one big supermarket chain reckons there are 80 million people living in the UK. The demand for food is a reliable indicator; as Sir Richard Branson says, you can have all the money in the world but you can only eat onelunch and one dinner.
The supermarket in question was privately lobbying the Competition Commission to let it grow its market share. The argu- ment, reasonably enough, was that the market was far bigger than the regulator realised, so expanding the network was fair.
I have a second, respectable, source. A major, non-commercial agricultural institution reckons there are 77 million of us in the UK. Again, its reckoning is based on what we eat.
That faint background noise you're hearing as you read this is the sound of everyone slithering off the record. Why? In political terms, standing behind these figures would be to toss a hand grenade into a vat of gasoline. People would be hounded out of a job for scaremongering.
The Office for National Statistics' figures, published last week, predict a population of 75 million by 2051. It's an honest estimate but horribly wide of the mark because number counting doesn't work effectively. If you want to know how many there are of us, ask a food firm.
If the true numbers were revealed, the Little Englanders and xenophobes would come out in force about the evils of immigration. But that's what made America great in the 19th century, and it's a driving force of our economy right now. It's also anti-inflationary.
David Buik, a money manager with broker BGC Partners, was talking of "one million Eastern Europeans unaccounted for in London" on television last week. I suspect he's right if somewhat conservative in his estimate. How many do you see working in the construction industry and waiting at tables?
And when I say "anti-inflationary", I mean they are getting rotten wages. Dignified by the term "cheap labour", the hidden hordes will do well for the services sector, among others. People are assets – to maintain and to be maintained – so we are wealthier as a nation.
All of which is reflected in strong economic demand and markets see-sawing between optimism over what we all see on the streets (that 77 million figure feels right to me) and the possibility of something nasty if the Bank of England credit-crunch prognosis is correct (to echo last week, I think next spring will be unpleasant).
As for housing, property magnates and chief executives of housing associations alike say the expanding population means serious demand for the foreseeable future, credit crunch or no.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/city-eye-facts-on-a-plate-our-population-is-at-least-77-million-395428.html
The 2001 census, already hopelessly out of date and easy to avoid for those who find filling in forms a trifle inelegant, numbered us at a little under 59 million. But as statistics go, that one's most definitely a damned lie.
My sources for the above statement are good, but scared of admitting the truth for fear of incurring the wrath of Whitehall. It's like the best way of monitoring illegal drug consumption: forget the pious statements from ministers – the foolproof method is to sample our water and the effluent in it. That's easily the best way of monitoring what the nation has been consuming.
Consumption – that's the thing. Based on what we eat, one big supermarket chain reckons there are 80 million people living in the UK. The demand for food is a reliable indicator; as Sir Richard Branson says, you can have all the money in the world but you can only eat onelunch and one dinner.
The supermarket in question was privately lobbying the Competition Commission to let it grow its market share. The argu- ment, reasonably enough, was that the market was far bigger than the regulator realised, so expanding the network was fair.
I have a second, respectable, source. A major, non-commercial agricultural institution reckons there are 77 million of us in the UK. Again, its reckoning is based on what we eat.
That faint background noise you're hearing as you read this is the sound of everyone slithering off the record. Why? In political terms, standing behind these figures would be to toss a hand grenade into a vat of gasoline. People would be hounded out of a job for scaremongering.
The Office for National Statistics' figures, published last week, predict a population of 75 million by 2051. It's an honest estimate but horribly wide of the mark because number counting doesn't work effectively. If you want to know how many there are of us, ask a food firm.
If the true numbers were revealed, the Little Englanders and xenophobes would come out in force about the evils of immigration. But that's what made America great in the 19th century, and it's a driving force of our economy right now. It's also anti-inflationary.
David Buik, a money manager with broker BGC Partners, was talking of "one million Eastern Europeans unaccounted for in London" on television last week. I suspect he's right if somewhat conservative in his estimate. How many do you see working in the construction industry and waiting at tables?
And when I say "anti-inflationary", I mean they are getting rotten wages. Dignified by the term "cheap labour", the hidden hordes will do well for the services sector, among others. People are assets – to maintain and to be maintained – so we are wealthier as a nation.
All of which is reflected in strong economic demand and markets see-sawing between optimism over what we all see on the streets (that 77 million figure feels right to me) and the possibility of something nasty if the Bank of England credit-crunch prognosis is correct (to echo last week, I think next spring will be unpleasant).
As for housing, property magnates and chief executives of housing associations alike say the expanding population means serious demand for the foreseeable future, credit crunch or no.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/city-eye-facts-on-a-plate-our-population-is-at-least-77-million-395428.html
Friday, 9 December 2011
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
Sunday, 16 October 2011
Occupy Together World Street protests fight big banksters
Please take a look at www.thebritishresistance.co.uk
Sunday, 2 October 2011
Wednesday, 31 August 2011
Sentenced to death on the NHS
Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors have warned.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death.
Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.
But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn.
As a result the scheme is causing a “national crisis” in patient care, the letter states. It has been signed palliative care experts including Professor Peter Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, University of London, Dr Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Luke’s cancer centre in Guildford, and four others.
“Forecasting death is an inexact science,”they say. Patients are being diagnosed as being close to death “without regard to the fact that the diagnosis could be wrong.
“As a result a national wave of discontent is building up, as family and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients."
The warning comes just a week after a report by the Patients Association estimated that up to one million patients had received poor or cruel care on the NHS.
The scheme, called the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), was designed to reduce patient suffering in their final hours.
Developed by Marie Curie, the cancer charity, in a Liverpool hospice it was initially developed for cancer patients but now includes other life threatening conditions.
It was recommended as a model by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice = NASTY), the Government’s health scrutiny body, in 2004.
It has been gradually adopted nationwide and more than 300 hospitals, 130 hospices and 560 care homes in England currently use the system.
Under the guidelines the decision to diagnose that a patient is close to death is made by the entire medical team treating them, including a senior doctor.
They look for signs that a patient is approaching their final hours, which can include if patients have lost consciousness or whether they are having difficulty swallowing medication.
However, doctors warn that these signs can point to other medical problems.
Patients can become semi-conscious and confused as a side effect of pain-killing drugs such as morphine if they are also dehydrated, for instance.
When a decision has been made to place a patient on the pathway doctors are then recommended to consider removing medication or invasive procedures, such as intravenous drips, which are no longer of benefit.
If a patient is judged to still be able to eat or drink food and water will still be offered to them, as this is considered nursing care rather than medical intervention.
Dr Hargreaves said that this depended, however, on constant assessment of a patient’s condition.
He added that some patients were being “wrongly” put on the pathway, which created a “self-fulfilling prophecy” that they would die.
He said: “I have been practising palliative medicine for more than 20 years and I am getting more concerned about this “death pathway” that is coming in.
“It is supposed to let people die with dignity but it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“Patients who are allowed to become dehydrated and then become confused can be wrongly put on this pathway.”
He added: “What they are trying to do is stop people being overtreated as they are dying.
“It is a very laudable idea. But the concern is that it is tick box medicine that stops people thinking.”
He said that he had personally taken patients off the pathway who went on to live for “significant” amounts of time and warned that many doctors were not checking the progress of patients enough to notice improvement in their condition.
Prof Millard said that it was “worrying” that patients were being “terminally” sedated, using syringe drivers, which continually empty their contents into a patient over the course of 24 hours.
In 2007-08 16.5 per cent of deaths in Britain came about after continuous deep sedation, according to researchers at the Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, twice as many as in Belgium and the Netherlands.
“If they are sedated it is much harder to see that a patient is getting better,” Prof Millard said.
Katherine Murphy, director of the Patients Association, said: “Even the tiniest things that happen towards the end of a patient’s life can have a huge and lasting affect on patients and their families feelings about their care.
“Guidelines like the LCP can be very helpful but healthcare professionals always need to keep in mind the individual needs of patients.
“There is no one size fits all approach.”
A spokesman for Marie Curie said: “The letter highlights some complex issues related to care of the dying.
“The Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient was developed in response to a societal need to transfer best practice of care of the dying from the hospice to other care settings.
“The LCP is not the answer to all the complex elements of this area of health care but we believe it is a step in the right direction.”
The pathway also includes advice on the spiritual care of the patient and their family both before and after the death.
It has also been used in 800 instances outside care homes, hospices and hospitals, including for people who have died in their own homes.
The letter has also been signed by Dr Anthony Cole, the chairman of the Medical Ethics Alliance, Dr David Hill, an anaesthetist, Dowager Lady Salisbury, chairman of the Choose Life campaign and Dr Elizabeth Negus a lecturer in English at Barking University.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: “People coming to the end of their lives should have a right to high quality, compassionate and dignified care.
"The Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) is an established and recommended tool that provides clinicians with an evidence-based framework to help delivery of high quality care for people at the end of their lives.
"Many people receive excellent care at the end of their lives. We are investing £286 million over the two years to 2011 to support implementation of the End of Life Care Strategy to help improve end of life care for all adults, regardless of where they live.”
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death.
Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.
But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn.
As a result the scheme is causing a “national crisis” in patient care, the letter states. It has been signed palliative care experts including Professor Peter Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, University of London, Dr Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Luke’s cancer centre in Guildford, and four others.
“Forecasting death is an inexact science,”they say. Patients are being diagnosed as being close to death “without regard to the fact that the diagnosis could be wrong.
“As a result a national wave of discontent is building up, as family and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients."
The warning comes just a week after a report by the Patients Association estimated that up to one million patients had received poor or cruel care on the NHS.
The scheme, called the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), was designed to reduce patient suffering in their final hours.
Developed by Marie Curie, the cancer charity, in a Liverpool hospice it was initially developed for cancer patients but now includes other life threatening conditions.
It was recommended as a model by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice = NASTY), the Government’s health scrutiny body, in 2004.
It has been gradually adopted nationwide and more than 300 hospitals, 130 hospices and 560 care homes in England currently use the system.
Under the guidelines the decision to diagnose that a patient is close to death is made by the entire medical team treating them, including a senior doctor.
They look for signs that a patient is approaching their final hours, which can include if patients have lost consciousness or whether they are having difficulty swallowing medication.
However, doctors warn that these signs can point to other medical problems.
Patients can become semi-conscious and confused as a side effect of pain-killing drugs such as morphine if they are also dehydrated, for instance.
When a decision has been made to place a patient on the pathway doctors are then recommended to consider removing medication or invasive procedures, such as intravenous drips, which are no longer of benefit.
If a patient is judged to still be able to eat or drink food and water will still be offered to them, as this is considered nursing care rather than medical intervention.
Dr Hargreaves said that this depended, however, on constant assessment of a patient’s condition.
He added that some patients were being “wrongly” put on the pathway, which created a “self-fulfilling prophecy” that they would die.
He said: “I have been practising palliative medicine for more than 20 years and I am getting more concerned about this “death pathway” that is coming in.
“It is supposed to let people die with dignity but it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“Patients who are allowed to become dehydrated and then become confused can be wrongly put on this pathway.”
He added: “What they are trying to do is stop people being overtreated as they are dying.
“It is a very laudable idea. But the concern is that it is tick box medicine that stops people thinking.”
He said that he had personally taken patients off the pathway who went on to live for “significant” amounts of time and warned that many doctors were not checking the progress of patients enough to notice improvement in their condition.
Prof Millard said that it was “worrying” that patients were being “terminally” sedated, using syringe drivers, which continually empty their contents into a patient over the course of 24 hours.
In 2007-08 16.5 per cent of deaths in Britain came about after continuous deep sedation, according to researchers at the Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, twice as many as in Belgium and the Netherlands.
“If they are sedated it is much harder to see that a patient is getting better,” Prof Millard said.
Katherine Murphy, director of the Patients Association, said: “Even the tiniest things that happen towards the end of a patient’s life can have a huge and lasting affect on patients and their families feelings about their care.
“Guidelines like the LCP can be very helpful but healthcare professionals always need to keep in mind the individual needs of patients.
“There is no one size fits all approach.”
A spokesman for Marie Curie said: “The letter highlights some complex issues related to care of the dying.
“The Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient was developed in response to a societal need to transfer best practice of care of the dying from the hospice to other care settings.
“The LCP is not the answer to all the complex elements of this area of health care but we believe it is a step in the right direction.”
The pathway also includes advice on the spiritual care of the patient and their family both before and after the death.
It has also been used in 800 instances outside care homes, hospices and hospitals, including for people who have died in their own homes.
The letter has also been signed by Dr Anthony Cole, the chairman of the Medical Ethics Alliance, Dr David Hill, an anaesthetist, Dowager Lady Salisbury, chairman of the Choose Life campaign and Dr Elizabeth Negus a lecturer in English at Barking University.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: “People coming to the end of their lives should have a right to high quality, compassionate and dignified care.
"The Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) is an established and recommended tool that provides clinicians with an evidence-based framework to help delivery of high quality care for people at the end of their lives.
"Many people receive excellent care at the end of their lives. We are investing £286 million over the two years to 2011 to support implementation of the End of Life Care Strategy to help improve end of life care for all adults, regardless of where they live.”
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
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