Quiet day and cereal

It’s been a quiet day chez Lyle today, hence not many updates. I’m sure that’ll change as the evening progresses, and my head’s no longer blocked up by stuff involving SQL and databases. Mind you, no guarantees on that score.

In fact, other than databases, the main thought that’s so far occupied me today is this : What is it that makes the “cereal dust” at the bottom of a packet of cereal always taste 1000% better than the rest of it? And why can’t Kelloggs or whoever just market packets of the dust?

I need to get out more.

Badger Frenzy

I know that Meg has already commented about this story but the entire story of the man in Worcester who was “suddenly” attacked by a badger stinks worse than my week old socks.

I don’t know what was really happening – but I simply don’t believe that “the badger slowly approached, then attacked him, latching on to his arm and tearing his flesh away” – there must have been some kind of provocation. Badgers are grouchy bastards for sure, but they still don’t “suddenly attack” unless they’re trapped or threatened. So – what the hell was this dickhead doing to bait the badger, and I wonder whether the story will ever be honestly told?

Fking Tw@s

Unbelievably, there is now a course teaching adults how to send text messages, and generally use a mobile phone – two hours on how 2 txt. I honestly didn’t realise it was a difficult concept – hell, even my parents can send text messages without any problem.

“The Day Britain Stopped”
BBC2, yesterday

I didn’t see this programme last night, but did manage to record it. I’ve watched it this afternoon – and all I can say is “Wow”. Almost worth the entire licence fee in itself – it was the kind of drama/documentary that the BBC should make more of. Last year they did one on Smallpox and chemical weapons, and this one was just as good.

Basically using a set of supposedly unrelated events – a train disaster leading to a national rail strike, a friendly international football match in Manchester, being the last Friday before Christmas, and a road accident on the M25 – it showed how the current traffic status could lead to the entire of London being gridlocked. As things progressed, one road accident led to two, leading to the M25 being solid, which then leads to every other motorway being jammed. Because replacements couldn’t come in to work, the air traffic controllers for Heathrow and Gatwick were overworked, stressed, and inevitably a mistake is made, resulting in two planes colliding.

Truly a shocking story – and one that was all too believable. Obviously a lot of the footage was taken from standard footage of jammed motorways and so on, which helped make it more believable. It struck me that if you’d flicked over halfway through and managed to get into one of the news broadcasts, it would be all too easy to believe that it had happened that day. And I suppose that’s the lithmus test of a documentary – if you come in halfway through, do you believe it could be real? In this case, yes, you could.

If you missed it, you can catch it through the BBC website here.

Currency

So, supposedly the UK public fully expects the government to stop using the pound despite the fact that the Euro is increasingly unpopular. 75% of the people surveyed think that the pound will be history within a decade.

However, there’s one question that wasn’t asked – or at least, the results weren’t published. I wonder what the response would have been to the query “Which currency would you see replacing the pound? The Euro or the Dollar?“

Hill carvings

Today the BBC has a story about the EC is saying that a carving on the Kent countryside (don’t spoonerise that, kids) is illegal. The carving was done on a site of Special Scientific Interest, and authorised by the local council despite the protests from Friends of the Earth and other organisations. And now the EC has issued a “formal notice” to the UK Government in protest.

Now, if only we could get them to do the same about the Big Brother logo by the White Horse of Uffington.

Seroxat

Peter has already commented about this, but I wanted to add in my own ten pence too. (don’t you love inflation? *grin*) Basically, Seroxat (or Paxil, as it’s also known) is being revealed to be rather nastier than initially thought, the so-called “side-effect free” drug turns out to have rather a larger potential mortality rate than expected and there are calls for massive levels of re-testing of the drug.

I’m in two minds about this entire thing – being a long-term sufferer of depression myself, I’ve been on antidepressants, and three years ago was even prescribed Seroxat/Paxil. I can’t say what effects it had, because I didn’t end up taking the stuff – in the end I’m too independent and bloody-minded to to want to have my thoughts and moods governed or ameliorated by a drug. For me (and I stress that more than I can imagine, as with every mental illness, no two people are alike, and depression is a hugely personal issue) the drug method simply doesn’t work – but in that way, I’m in the minority. For many other people, it works, and the SSSI/SSRI families of anti-depressants work exceptionally well. For another minority of people, these anti-depressants work in a way that makes suicide seem almost appealing.

My own experience nine years ago on Prozac shows that it’s quite probable that if I’d started taking Seroxat, I’d have been one of the minority. I found Prozac numbed all of my responses to a level where nothing actually mattered – it was easier to contemplate suicide and plan it while on Prozac, because there was just an emotional flatline to the entire process. I could look at it, and not be involved. The decisions were easy, because I didn’t care one way or the other.

But should Seroxat be pulled from the shelves because there is this minority group who react badly to it? Personally, regardless of my own experiences, I don’t think so. More testing should be done, and more training of so-called medical “professionals” should be undertaken. But there are so many positive examples of these drugs doing what they’re supposed to that no, I don’t think they should be removed from supply. It’s more of an education issue than one of human safety.

The real thing that needs changing is the attitudes of the doctors, who at present seem content to dole out happy pills to all and sundry, often on a quite minimal inspection. Unless someone is right on the brink of breakdown, you can’t look at them and say “you’re depressed”, it takes time to address the issues and evaluate the patient. Depression has become de rigeur in the 90s and 00s (whatever the hell we decide to call them) and it’s now almost a sign of growing up to be in receipt of your first anti-depressant prescription. Want some time off work? Claim you’re depressed. Want to avoid going to work, and just stick with incapacity benefit? Claim you’re depressed and suffering from stress. Most of the quacks will just dole out the pills and the sick notes with hardly a glance at the patient history, or a look at deeper issues. True depression is hard – in fact almost impossible – to fake. It’s a soul deep darkness, a pit where the most light that can be seen is the size of a 5p piece at the top of an insurmountable shaft. It’s not something that can be shrugged off with a three month supply of pills and a sick note so you can be off work for a fortnight. And that’s how it should be perceived – not as some cheap easy excuse for a holiday. As with dyslexia, hyperactivity, and many others, the more cliched and “in vogue” it is to have a complaint along those lines, the more harm will be done to the true sufferers, the people who really do need the help, the drug, the advice: these are the people who will be drowned out in the clamour of demand for a quick fix.

When they were launched in the 80s, these two families of drugs, the Prozacs and the Paxils were regarded as the new wonder drug. They were cure-alls, everything from anxieties to phobias, with supposedly no side-effects, no addiction problems in the way that the Valiums and Libriums of the 60s and 70s had – they were going to be the magic bullet against depression and all it’s nasty little buddies. But medical science never learns – Forty years ago, Thalidomide was the same kind of magic bullet only this time it was to cure morning sickness. Of course, it’s now coming back as a potential magic bullet against certain cancers. Before that, back in the 30s and 40s, LSD was being used as a wonder drug to help with schizophrenia, and to aid in it’s study. With hindsight, we know that these ideas were flawed, to say the least. When it comes to 2050, will we look back on Seroxat and Prozac in the same light?