21 Nov 2007
Posted in Work at 5:25 pm by alby
Just home from day 1 of the trust’s “Recruitment and Selection” day. And it was actually quite interesting.
There’s a nice bunch of people on the course, the content is not already known to me like most of the courses I’ve been on in the past and the tutor’s good and engaging.
Tomorrow I’m part of a mock interview panel which is excellent as I’m in a real one in the not too distant future.
And this review is on no way influenced by the fact that I’ve been sat next to the most gorgeous French girl.
Have fun.
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20 Nov 2007
Posted in Rants, Work at 11:28 am by alby
That’s a cut and paste job from work’s in-house classifieds website.
Poor capitalizing aside just what on Earth is going on there?
It might be more interesting if there were some books about the weird and interesting history of some kinds of cars but the writer of this advert drops all pretensions to respect when you discover that she does actually mean “autobiographies”.
But of whom? Who are these interesting figures, personalities and shapers of our lives and times?
Well turns out the books are “by” Frank Bruno, Roy Chubby Brown, Gordon Ramsay and Sharon Osbourne.
Apparently this line-up is “ideal for Christmas”.
I think my family may just break my knee-caps if I fed them any of that crap.
Some people.
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19 Nov 2007
Posted in Comedy at 10:45 pm by alby
Have a look here.
Hurrah! And isn’t it cool that the french for Rabbids is “lapins cretins”?
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18 Nov 2007
Posted in Music, Self-indulgence at 2:48 am by alby
Oh nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.
Here you go. The productivity of insomnia at the weekend.
A list of the number 1’s in the UK singles chart on my birthday through the years as taken from the source of all truth aka Wikipedia.
1971 - Dave and Ansil Collins - Double Barrel
1972 - The Pipes & Drums & Military Band of The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards - Amazing Grace
1973 - Dawn featuring Tony Orlando - Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree
1974 - ABBA - Waterloo
1975 - Mud - Oh Boy
1976 - ABBA - Fernando
1977 - Deniece Williams - Free
1978 - The Bee Gees - Night Fever
1979 - Art Garfunkel - Bright Eyes
1980 - Dexys Midnight Runners - Geno
1981 - Adam and the Ants - Stand and Deliver
1982 - Nicole - A Little Peace
1983 - Spandau Ballet - True
1984 - Duran Duran - The Reflex
1985 - Paul Hardcastle - 19
1986 - Spitting Image - The Chicken Song
1987 - Starship - Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now
1988 - Fairground Attraction - Perfect
1989 - Kylie Minogue - Hand on Your Heart
1990 - Adamski - Killer
1991 - Cher - The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)
1992 - KWS - Please Don’t Go/Game Boy
1993 - George Michael & Queen with Lisa Stansfield - Five Live
1994 - Stiltskin - Inside
1995 - Livin’ Joy - Dreamer
1996 - George Michael - Fastlove
1997 - Olive - You’re Not Alone
1998 - Aqua - Turn Back Time
1999 - The Backstreet Boys - I Want It That Way
2000 - Britney Spears - Oops!…I Did It Again
2001 - Geri Halliwell - It’s Raining Men
2002 - Holly Valance - Kiss Kiss
2003 - R. Kelly - Ignition (Remix)
2004 - Eamon - F**k It (I Don’t Want You Back)
2005 - Akon - Lonely
2006 - Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
2007 - Beyoncé featuring Shakira - Beautiful Liar
So I’ve got the coolest ska track there when I was born, a couple of ABBA songs, a couple of Eurovision winners, one swear word (not counting a 4 letter word beginning with C), the odd novelty song and also a couple of good tracks.
I find it interesting that through the entire 90’s I don’t actually recognise, couldn’t hum, sing or tell you any lyrics of any of the songs EXCEPT the most annoying song on the list. In fact I looked through and can only recognise 18 of them and I only know Double Barrel ‘cos I downloaded it a while ago when I found out it was no 1 when I was born.
If you’re interested here’s the no 1’s for some other folk’s zeroth birthdays (in date in the year order):
K: Rolf Harris - Two Little Boys
Ana: Goombay Dance Band - Seven Tears
Pee: Art Garfunkel - Bright Eyes
Nicky: Bucks Fizz - My Camera Never Lies
Clurb: Irene Cara - Fame
My bro: The Equals - Baby Come Back
Unca D: Art Garfunkel - I Only Have Eyes for You
Rebecca: ABBA - The Name Of The Game
Well good heavens. What fun. Yet again Clurb has the coolest one (except maybe me).
And just ‘cos I can, after the clicky is the same thing but for albums: My I’m bored! Read the rest of this entry »
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17 Nov 2007
Posted in People, Rants at 9:55 am by alby
There are some wonderful things about the world as well as some tedious rubbish. I’m with the people who like the wonderful things. They’re magic.
Now I’ve avoided talking about “complimentary medicine” for a while but a couple of things hacked me off about it yesterday.
First was finding out that these bastard quacks have set up a conference about treating AIDS with homeopathy. Shouldn’t be an issue as surely people aren’t idiotic enough to believe that water can treat the most virulent disease that is wiping out many thousands of Africans particularly (that’s their target audience). I could be cruel and say that they are using Africa as a testing ground because the Africans haven’t the learning to realise they’re being duped by either idiots or crooks.
It’s that sort of conference that allows dangerous imbeciles like the president of South Africa to continue to deny the link between HIV and AIDS, to continue to refuse to allow anti-retrovirals to be supplied by his country’s health system. I sincerely hope that he does it just because he knows that his country can’t afford it. If so then he’s only insincere rather than dangerously deluded.
Second was a person who I quite like at least from his writing. Andrew Collins has written a few times about homeopathy and recently wrote that he’s feeling a bit put upon and miserable. The point was that he saw a bird and it cheered him up; until he read the Guardian and then was brought down again by Ben Goldacre’s rant against the aforementioned AIDS conference.
Now I can understand people being grumpy when people criticize your beliefs. But something gets me about this. Someone commented “but it’s only magic. It doesn’t work”. AC decided he wasn’t going to do the argument and simply stated “I like magic”.
So do I but I wouldn’t like it to be used to try and contain the most dangerous outbreak of disease since 1918. What’s not magical about drugs that have extended the healthy life of HIV sufferers by decades? That is miraculous to me. Far more than believing the urging of shisters and hucksters selling magic potions with no efficacy but good PR. What a twisted way to see the magic of science of the real world. And somehow the scientists are the dry and boring ones.
And what is so wrong about real medicine that works? Is it because it’s “not natural”, just as telly, films, central heating, radio, music etc are “not natural”? Waving water at most medical problems is as useful as trying to change a plug with a hammer. Either nothing will happen or something horrible will happen (unless the problem is so irrelevant that it didn’t need treating anyway).
So AC has written a couple of things I disagree with (and misrepresented my views after apparently deliberately misreading a comment of mine); I still like his writing but I really don’t like this willful ignorance and apparently steadfast refusal to see the wonder of the real world preferring fairy stories sold by charlatans. Real world is definitely more fantastic than any of this tedious and dangerous quackery.
Have fun.
[edit. Just went back to see if any further comments have been posted and the author's a moron. I may have to rethink my linkage to him. Someone apparently treated his (the someone's) daughter with homeopathy for something nasty and the daughter ended up dying, the proper treatment would have cured the problem. Apparently he thought that water would be useful where say antibiotics would be dangerous. Well that backfired on him a tad. A commenter mentioned this and was abusive towards the father. AC has taken this as meaning that the commenter has no sense of humanity and is hereby banned from the blog. What a knob. Yet again he's completely misunderstood the point of a comment. What is more human than anger at an idiot for causing his daughter's death? Apparently being stupid is more human than being rational and is thus not be to be criticized. Yes we can feel sympathy for the loss of the daughter but hell we're going to feel anger that he didn't get his daughter effective treatment because of an idiotic belief. What's next? Are we to feel sympathy for someone who kills their parents on the basis that they're now an orphan?]
[edit 2: seems he's realised that he misread the comment. Well done.]
[edit 3: nope he's just demonstrated that he has no clue re the meaning of the comment. Oh well done. I hereby withdraw edit 2]
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15 Nov 2007
Posted in Work at 12:07 pm by alby
It’s rare for a clinical point to be argued and to have both parties correct. But it happened to me today.
A colleague said to a patient “Don’t worry, you can’t have a frozen shoulder in the same shoulder twice.”
I said later that this is wrong, cue argument.
After looking it up we found an article about it and apparently when that article was written they could only find 3 instances where frozen shoulder had happened to the same person in the same arm.
So effectively she was right ‘cos it’s not really going to happen and I’m right ‘cos it’s possible it could and has been shown before.
Have fun.
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14 Nov 2007
Posted in Comedy at 7:06 pm by alby
For those of you not in the habit of clicking on the links to the right in this blog AND who also like Spaced, you may wish to click on the Andrew Collins link in the next few days.
Seems he hosted the Spaced retrospective at the BFI and he’s got the intro and Q&A on video on his blog there.
Thought I’d make you aware.
Have fun.
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Posted in News at 3:55 pm by alby
There’s been a story about how alcohol is actually quite bad for you. Seems unusual, but the twist was some group or other suggesting a hike in tax on alcohol. Cue a discussion on the beeb about the idea. Reading the entries was rather tedious and depressing. Here’s an example:
Higher taxes will not do a thing. The reason so many people drink is because there is nothing else for them. Too many of us in this country live in a wage slave environment and once we’ve paid our mortgage, council tax, utility bills and petrol costs we’re left with enough money to go and get drunk and forget how pointless it all seems.
Bloody hell! How depressing do people find life at the moment? I’m newly single after a long relationship and work is stressful but by ‘eck it’s never “pointless” and existence certainly doesn’t need to be forgotten. Seems people are expecting everything to be accessible to them whether they put the work in or not. If you’re in the wrong job then bleedin’ change it; or shut up.
Is life really that bad for the majority? Bloody hell, I wonder why there are no more suicides if that’s the case.
Have fun.
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12 Nov 2007
Posted in Self-indulgence at 12:39 pm by alby
Oh yes and I wrote another “page” yesterday. It’s up there on the right with the other pages.
It’s one of those 100 questions thingies. A little dull but I couldn’t think of how else to do a bio.
Have fun.
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