University of the Bleedin' Obvious

I love statistical studies. They are more or less useful according to what they have chosen to study, but they do add to the gaiety of the nations. The latest one hails from the Monash University in Melbourne and the University of Auckland and it concludes that; (drumroll)

Children that run around and play during the day fall asleep faster at night.

Well haud me back, as they say in this part of the country. But it goes on. Children that sit around take longer to fall asleep, but it doesn't matter if it's a book they're reading or tv; it has the same effect. Right, I'll ditch that copy of Winnie the Pooh and switch on CIS Miami instead. Don't have nightmares..

Here's my favourite statistical studies over the years;

One that concluded that people who were small and had tattoos were more likely to be football hooligans. How did they get near them to find out?

Students that drank a lot of coffee and smoked a lot did worse in exams; possibly an effect on the brain. Or possibly the fact that popping off for a coffee or a fag didn't do much for your study time.

More people got killed crossing railways than crossing motorways. Interesting- hang on. How many people actually attempt to cross a motorway?

You gotta love it..

An Outbreak of Common Sense

Was just listening to the Scottish news. Nicola Sturgeon has decided not to have a dedicated swine flu telephone line as there is not enough demand.

See the Scots? See swine flu? See common sense?

Double Trouble - Funding Elderly Care

Twelve years ago in 1997 a new government came to power in Britain under the leadership of Tony Blair. One of the first acts of the chancellor was to apply double taxation to pension funds, that is; taxing both the contributions and the lump sum on maturity. The government gained £5 billion per annum doing this. For pension funds it was a different matter. They suddenly found a huge hole in their funds and when there was a fairly modest downturn in the market in 2003, many of them went to the wall. The pension companies were faulted for this; it was said that they had not put aside enough money during the good times to cover a downturn. The reality was that government rules meant that if they did any such thing, they would be penalised by punitive amounts of tax. People suddenly found themselves with pension funds that were virtually worthless. Clydeside workers found that their pensions had been reduced in value by 80%. Who was responsible for this? Gordon Brown.

That is why I was so bloody angry to see this article today. We have paid and paid and paid for our pension and old age; it's just that the government regards that money as its own to do anything they please with. Who in their right mind believes that if they hand £20 000 over to the government just now, that they're going to get it back? I don't.

There's a simple and elegant solution to this problem of elderly care. Stop charging double taxation on pension funds. That way, the value of people's savings will go up 22%, it will go to the people who are actually planning for their retirement as opposed to those doing nothing, and as it is a targeted saving, it cannot be shifted or spent somewhere else. Simples, as Alexander would say. But we are not, repeat not, handing over any more money for it to disappear down the long alimentary canal that is the Treasury and have no say on where it ends up. You want a discussion on this guys. You're going to get it, I promise you.

Coatbridge North and Glenboig by Election- the Movie

Click to play

Here's the video of the election night. Listen out for the silence when Kilgarth and St Ambrose is mentioned..

Mountain out of a Molehill?

You've got a three day dermatology conference in Glasgow. The world's leading experts in dermatology are attending. They offer free mole checks for the public. So what do you do?

You refuse, of course.

This was the quixotic decision made by Greater Glasgow Health Board yesterday, on the grounds that it would increase referrals to GPs and they would be unable to cope. Fair? Well, the last check that this group did was at the Chelsea Flower Show. They checked 500 people and found 17 cases of skin cancer, three of them serious. They could have probably expected a similar number in Glasgow. Now, would an extra 17 cases of skin cancer, spread across the numerous GP practices in Glasgow, caused a panic? I don't think so.

But where it might have caused a problem is the Beatson. The Beatson is the Cancer Centre for the West of Scotland. Its catchment area is 2.8 million people. It is absolutely overwhelmed just now, to the point that an extra seventeen people with skin cancer might make a difference. Greater Glasgow Health Board have really, really, really got to get to grips with this. This has been ongoing since the new building opened. It is good to have a specialist cancer centre, but if that is the way you plan cancer services, you need to make sure that you have enough capacity to cope with numbers. You cannot turn round to the world's leading dermatologists and tell them to withdraw their services because you can't cope with any possible referrals. It's bad form and if I were them, I would be taking my conference elsewhere next year. This isn't such a molehill as it appears..

Was in Tesco's the other day and saw this sign. Hurray! The Scottish Government is bringing in new legislation that means that supermarkets can only display drink in one area of the supermarket and not beside roller skates,television sets,ice cubes and bacon rashers as illustrated here.

To be fair to Tesco, they have over the past few months increased their non-alcoholic shelves to include ones that don't taste like mouthwash and are placing these drinks on the more prominent eye level shelves. This is the new market in drink and I would guess that in a few years time, we will be taking the same attitude to low alcohol drinks as we do to organic veg; we'll see it as the healthy ethical purchase.

So now that all those bins on the aisles are to be emptied of drink, what is Tesco going to put in its place? My guess is Doritos and mega bars of chocolate..