More Spanish Practices

This story from the Daily Mail, asks if it is the biggest scandal in doping history. Even Andy Murray is laying into the row, as the first paragraphs say.

Andy Murray last night hit out at a Spanish judge who ordered evidence relating to one of the biggest doping rings in history to be destroyed.

Britain’s No 1 tennis player called the decision to dump more than 200 blood bags from stars in a number of sports as ‘the biggest  cover-up in sports history’ and said it was a ‘joke’.

Sometimes you think that there is one law for Spain and one law for everybody else.

Is This The Next Antibiotic?

Read any paper or web site this morning and the doom-sayers are saying that growing resistance to antibiotics is a big risk to us all. Read about it here on the BBC web site.

The BBC News tonight did talk about a company called Phico. I looked at their web site and although I know little of pharmaceuticals, I do feel that this company may have the look of another success out of Cambridge.

Let’s hope that for everyone’s sake, they’ve got it right!

Note that, because of the backing of the Wellcome Trust, they shouldn’t be lacking in resources.

Paracetamol Deaths Fall

According to this article on the BBC, smaller pack sizes for paracetamol has led to fewer deaths, many of which are suicides..  However the number of suicides on the railways continues to grow to such a level, that special measures had to be taken.

And yesterday, it would appear that someone jumped off the roof of Eastfield. Accident? I doubt it!

The trouble with suicides, is that we try to stop them, by limiting the methods, when it would be better to stop the reasons people feel they might take their own life.

As to pain-killers, I rarely take them! A couple of years ago, I did have some severe pain after the stroke and had to resort to paracetamol, codeine and later amitriptyline. But I haven’t had a pain-killer since late 2010, although I may have had a small glass of the Scottish all-purpose remedy.

The Telegraph Attacks Two Targets In One Article

Toby Young in Her Majesty’s Daily Telegraph has attacked both Lance Armstrong and Alistair Campbell in this article.

It is getting that Lance Armstrong is becoming a non-laurel wreath to hang around anybody you don’t like’s neck.

Manly Library Classifies Armstrong’s Books As Fiction

This story is a classic Australian put-down for sports worst cheat.

So it’s only a hoax, but everybody got the joke.

Hugh McIlvanney Calls Lance Armstrong A Conman

In a well-reasoned piece in The Sunday Times, Hugh McIlvanney  states his view on Armstrong.  Conman came from the title.

I wonder if Armstrong will be suing McIlvanney!

I think he won’t, as The Sunday Times already has a lot of legal issues, it needs to discuss with Armstrong. Probably in a Court of Law!

The Tragic Fallout Of Doping Cheats

After the mega-cheat, Lance Armstrong’s theatrical performance, last night, Nicole Cooke this morning made an impassioned plea for the victims of  those, like the drug-fuelled Texan. She said, that she had lost medals because others cheated by doping when competing against her.

I remember the 1960s, when athletics was ruined by the Soviet Block, who took everything that a chemist could devise. Look at the career of our greatest-ever female sprinter; Kathy Smallwood-Cook, who  would be in a totally different league, if competition had been fair and square. It has always puzzled me, how Mary Peters ever won that pentathlon gold in the 1972 Munich Olympics.  If you look at the women’s athletics results at that games, few medallists are not from the Soviet Block. There are a few West German medals, but then they had home advantage and London 2012 showed how that helps drammatically. I do remember watching that pentathlon, with C on a terrible black and white television,  when Mary Peters, was almost willed over the high jump bar by masses of British troops based in Germany, who somehow had got tickets.

Where would the careers of some retired clean athletes be, if they had competed fair and square?

Cheats like Armstrong have a lot to answer for! He should be prosecuted for fraud and perhaps asked to spend some time in a nice cosy Texas jail.

Rat Poison And Sprouts Don’t Mix

This cautionary tale about mixing brussels sprouts with anti-coagulant drugs, like Warfarin, should be noted.

The trouble is that I like my sprouts, so I’ll go easy on them over Christmas.

I think though, I’ll do a before and after INR test.

I feel a bit of scientific research coming on!

Do All Pill Packets Have A Picture?

It struck me today, that my various pill packets have a picture of the tablet on the outside.

Do All Pill Packets Have A Picture?

Either I’m being unobservant or could it be that I read the words rather than look at the picture.

The Biggest Cannabis Plant In The World

This story just has to be passed on. Here’s the first paragraph.

An elderly couple have unwittingly grown the “biggest cannabis plant” police officers had seen after buying what they thought was an innocuous shrub from a car boot sale.

The question also has to be asked, as to whether the seller in the sale, knew what they were selling.

I don’t think, I’d know what a cannabis plant looked like.