alexist

Yesterday I had to go into town. I needed to go to Tottenham Court Road. At 10:40 I headed to the station. All trains via Bank, so I got the first one.

At Finchley Central, I saw a Charing X train on the board, so I got off. I waited. And waited. And waited.

Announcement: "There's just been a northbound signal failure at Finchley Central. The southbound train is waiting outside the station; we'll let you know when we get the all-clear."

Wait, wait, message is repeated several times.

Announcement: "Due to a signal failure at Finchley Central, Northern Line service has been suspended from High Barnet to Archway."

I, and everyone else, head out of the station towards the bus stop. We all cram onto the next 82 bus. I get a seat. Muwahahaha.

Get to Golders Green, just miss a Charing X train because of the queue at the ticket barrier. Next train Bank. Wait. Ah, Charing X. Get on. Read book. Hear Euston being called. Next thing--Kings Cross St Pancras. Eh?! Get off. Debate Piccadilly Line, decide I don't want to walk up from Leicester Square, get 10 bus, once again forget that the best stop is the one AFTER crossing TCR. Final time, 12:25.

On the way home, it took 3 trains: all Northern Line. Had to change at Camden AND Finchley Central--if I'd known I would've waited 12 mins for the High Barnet train at TCR since it's what I got anyway! (I assumed that the trains were coming up via Bank and changed at Camden. Board at Camden was Mill Hill East, Archway, Mill Hill East.)

Missed dinner. Poor Neil....

yesterday's Indy had a horrible article by Joanna Moorehead entitled "Drugs are for wimps". ("Epidurals are for wimps" on the website). It's not enough for her to be pro-natural birth; she has to look down on everyone who doesn't choose to do it. Why isn't it enough to say "yes, you can do this and this is how" rather than mocking women who felt they were unable to do it without drugs? (By the way, I wonder if the third-world women some campaigners hold up view childbirth as an enriching experience, or if they just view it as something to be got through. In the West, we're cushioned by the knowledge that we don't have to suffer the same risks, and that in an emergency we can spurn natural childbirth.)

There was also a rather frustrating article on the risk of Caesareans. Frustrating because it didn't address the issue of how much of the risk was due to the Caesarean itself. Many women undergoing Caesarian birth are higher risk patients to begin with. For that matter, a hospital's Caesarean rate is meaningless in and of itself--it has to be tracked to the patient intake. A hospital with a high Caesarean rate may not be doing anything different; it might just get more high risk cases.

Sleeping may help keep you slim

If only it were true for me... (I've always been a 9 hours a night girl and I sleep like a log).

(DOH! I just realised I consistently mis-spelt "Caesarean" in that last post... Bad girl. Worse, Apple spell check allowed it, so I didn't spot it. Would "Caesarian" be the correct adjective for "relating to Caesar" in non-medical contexts?)

I thought I had celery, so I didn't buy any at the supermarket.

Turned out that while I did have celery, it's gone rather limp because I didn't wrap it properly. I don't feel like going back to the supermarket, but my tuna tomorrow won't taste right without it.

Order of letters from Virgin Money:

1) Letter containing PIN.
2) Our new cards, a week later.
3) A letter saying "We have approved your application for a Virgin Visa card; your cards should arrive within the next 10 days".

(The final letter arrived last week, after we'd been happily using our cards for a few weeks.)

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article570929.ece

"Complementary therapists rejected demands that their treatments be subject to the same rigorous scrutiny as orthodox medicine and insisted patients should have the right to choose."

Why should there be a double standard? If complementary medicine works, it should stand up to scrutiny. And why should patients have the right to demand that the NHS pay for treatment which hasn't been proven to do anything? We don't have the money to pay for things simply because patients want them.

I appreciate that the BMA isn't exactly neutral here, but I have to agree (broadly--I wouldn't lump all 'complementary medicine' together). If we had an unlimited supply of money, patients could choose whatever they liked. We don't. The NHS has a very finite budget, and it has to set priorities. When one of my local hospitals (the Royal Free Hampstead) has had to cut 480 jobs and 100 beds, I don't want to see the NHS wasting money on homeopathy.

From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/5008774.stm

The government is setting different repayment thresholds for people from different countries, in recognition of different living costs and earnings.

The thresholds are:

* £6,000 - Czech Rep, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey
* £9,000 - Estonia, Hungary, Malta, Slovenia, Croatia
* £12,000 - Cyprus, Greece, Portugal, Spain, USA
* £15,000 - (UK level): Austria, Belgium. Finland, France, Germany. Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden, Japan
* £18,000 - Denmark, Norway, Switzerland

The US is in the same income class as Greece and Portugal?!

(And how does this work with overseas students anyway? We have to pay full fees up front.)

(Boris Johnson made some pointless comments about it being ludicrous--it's EU law, not the government's fault. They have to treat EU students the same as British ones, so if British students get their fees deferred, other EU ones have to too.)