We're doomed.

They're saying that Prince Charles pissed Tony Blair off with his interfering. I like Charles for having pissed of architects who make ugly buildings, and even more now that I've learned that he got up Blair's nose. Yay Charles!

In other political news in a leaked memo Eric Pickles has warned the current Prime Minister that welfare reforms could make 40,000 people homeless, and ultimately cost more money than they save. Some sense slipping through the blitzkrieg of propaganda from IDS's DWP.

One wag on the Guardian website has suggested the homeless move into vacated Habitat and Thortons. Habitat is already furnished as another commenter points out, though they doubt the homeless folk would appreciate the class of furniture in that now insolvent business. Both commentators seem to have forgotten that the government has just decided to make squatting illegal, so moving into unoccupied building is not on the cards. Besides have you seen the red tape involved in housing here? Hundred's of years of unscrupulous landlords have left the housing market massively over-regulated and hostile to most of their tenants. I was aghast to learn that you almost never get your bond back in this country if you're renting. In NZ you almost always get it back.

They just don't have a clue, do they? If ever there was an example of a university graduate being full of themselves, filled with theories and ideologies, but no practical understanding of how anything works it's David Cameron. He just has no idea what he's doing, no idea how to run the country or the economy. And, lord save us, the opposition are no better.

We're doomed! We really are doomed. Unless maybe Charles get's stuck into IDS and the ConDem coalition: "I say! Leave one's fucking people alone, you monstrous carbuncle!" (in my dreams, eh).

Chuggers

I think I've written before about how and why I hate chuggers. The (southern) English norm is not to talk to strangers, not even to make eye contact. Walk around a typical urban mall (pronounced to rhyme with 'well') and you see a lot of people milling around like they're the only person there, carefully avoiding the human shaped objects in their path - and if you do happen to come to another persons attention, by being tripped over or run into, then the thing to do is apologise. I've started doing this! In shops the people behind the tills are like this as well - they'd rather not be talking to you most of the time. England is the ideal place for self-service checkouts. I've had conversations with strangers here, but not with English people, only with Kiwis, Aussies, Yanks, and more recently a Thai student.

What's more I'm 45 and chronically ill, so I don't look very attractive to a 20-something, and the young women especially just don't see me any more. It's one of the things about getting older, and I can see why men my age sometimes go wild and have a crisis! For myself I'm heading towards conscious celibacy, but that's another story.

Chuggers break these rules. They approach strangers in the street. Not only do they break the rules, but they employ very clumsy and obvious ruses. The men are suddenly a long lost friend, very pleased to see you. The women are similar except some of them flirt at the same time.

You see English people caught in this trap. Politeness dictates that when someone approaches you with this kind of ruse that you stop and make contact - they may need directions, or they may want to know the time. There's a tension because they may be a drug addict wanting "a pound for a cup of tea" (yeah, right!), but the chuggers are well dressed and smiling. Then they realise they've made a mistake and they can't be rude and just walk away, they have to explain why. It's not that English people are ungenerous. No. English people are incredibly generous and give huge amounts to charities, and the govt. has just committed to increase overseas aid at a time when it is slashing local spending. Often you'll hear the victim explaining that they support a number of charities already and I believe them.

Now a couple of days ago I was wandering home - tired, depressed, minding my own business (fitting in) - when a chugger approached me from behind. Normally I see them coming, make eye contact - I'm better than most English people at this game - firmly shake my head, and mouth the syllable "no". It works about 80% of the time. The more persistent chugger keeps on going like it's the most natural thing to talk to strangers, and that I seem like just the kind of person they want to talk to. But I give my initial response and just keep walking. Because under normal circumstances these scumbags wouldn't give me the time of day, let alone engage me in a pleasant conversation! But being approached from behind is something new. I had this young women tagging along behind me trying to get my attention. I'd seen her out of the corner of my eye as I'd left the shop, so I knew she was a chugger - fortunately they wear uniforms of a sort. So I just kept walking. I didn't want to talk to anyone, let along a chugger. And she kept it up, chasing me down the street for about 10 or 15 seconds. This is quite a long time if you think about it. If someone didn't answer their phone in this time, you'd think they weren't in and hang up. Then I didn't quite catch the parting comment, but the tone of voice was incredibly sarcastic. Like I was being an arsehole for not responding.

Chuggers: you guys are the arseholes. I hate been approached under false pretences, whether you be a junky, a politician or a charity worker. You don't want a chat, you don't think I'm interesting, you don't think I'm attractive, I'm not your mate. So please, cut the crap. Don't bullshit me. You approach me because you've done a calculation in your head that you might be able to get money out of me, and this is how you make your living. You are parasites on the generosity of other people. So just fuck off. If I was to give to charity it would be directly, bypassing the need for your salary to eat into my donation.

Marsha Linehan

Expert on Mental Illness Reveals Her Own Fight - New York Times.

Long interview with some video of the pioneer of Dialectical Behavioural Therapy - which I know from experience is very helpful. She reveals her own struggles with mental illness, her hospitalisation and treatment (including drugs and ECT):

Any real treatment would have to be based not on some theory, she later concluded, but on facts: which precise emotion led to which thought led to the latest gruesome act. It would have to break that chain — and teach a new behavior.

"I was in hell," she said. "And I made a vow: when I get out, I'm going to come back and get others out of here."

Tobacco pushers to sue government

Philip Morris to sue if Australia puts all cigarettes in plain green wrappers

Tobacco firm claims Canberra's ban on logos and other packaging restrictions will lose it billions

Guardian.

Note that the UK govt is talking about doing this as well! As I said earlier.

"The Office for National Statistics doesn't publish tobacco death rates on it's website but theNHS reckons the deaths attributable to tobacco in England in 2008 was 84,000. That's about 236 a day, or 10 per hour! So 25 in 2.5 hours. Assuming the same smoking patterns in the rest of the UK that's about 98,000 for the UK, giving 268 per day, 11 per hour, and 25 in 136 minutes."

Tobacco is a killer. Just ban it. Just make it illegal and fuck the greedy bastards who supply it. Drug pushers.

Fibromyalgia Drugs

Drug Class Review: Drugs for Fibromyalgia: Final Original Report [Internet].

Smith B, Peterson K, Fu R, McDonagh M, Thakurta S.

Portland (OR): Oregon Health & Science University; 2011 Apr.
Drug Class Reviews.

"We compared the effectiveness and harms of tricyclic antidepressants, serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, selective serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, noradrenergic and specific serotonergic reuptake inhibitor, norepinephrine and dopamine reuptake inhibitor, serotonin receptor antagonist, antiepileptic drugs, and skeletal muscle relaxants in adults with fibromyalgia."

Abstract and conclusions online via PubMed.

Good article on so-called Chemical Imbalances

The Brain Is Not Made Of Soup - Neuroskeptic

"Neither – in relation to the fastest rising [mental health] diagnoses – is there any evidence of chemical imbalances in the brains of patients. In other words, the problem the [psychiatric] drugs are supposed to solve is an illusion."

"No-one has ever measured the chemical composition of a living human brain."

Neuroskeptic compares the Brain to soup, and treating mental illness as tweaking the ingredients. He doesn't do this to belittle or trivialise, he does it to show what a blunt instrument psychiatry is, and how dosing people with chemicals that affect brain chemistry can be a very doubtful way to get results.

Cameron is a Fucking HYPOCRITE

David Cameron intervenes over BBC plan to axe his local news service

Guardian.