It's Christmas Eve. I have the proof of my latest book (Kings Ransom) back from the publishers, and I am about a third of the way through my screen play (Margarita Time). Meanwhile my back has been playing up and giving me@#@# ! Much of the time I have been laying down and playing poker on the pureplay site. Poker is an infuriating yet captivating pasttime. I am glad that I chose to play for free, otherwise I would have whittled away what few pennies I have.
One upside to my bad back I guess is that I have been spared the Christmas shops. I haven't been able to get out and so haven't been battered abd bruised in the rush to buy last minute stuff.

In the process of leaving my full time job of the past 33 years, and I am planning on embarking on a writing career, it remains to see how successful that will be!

Having dropped the doxazosin tablets, my daytime narcolepsy seems cured, thank goodness, it was not much fun dropping off to snooze during the day, and not realising you were doing it. Unfortunately the cause did not garner much support and caused me no little strife.

It looks as if I shall have to return to the water bed, the memory foam has not been a succesful substitute, and my back has deteriorated, and so the search will be on for a suitable water bed to go in our bedroom.

Have a great holiday season, and enjoy Christmas

Paranoid

if you don't know this, then I think you must be extinct

Animals - House of the Rising Sun

classic

Smoke on the water - Deep Purple (LIVE)

for maximum impact start at 3 mins and 03 seconds. I just think Gillan is the only voice for this song.

Having finally been persuaded away from my beloved 5 door hatch for the first time in ages, and having ordered a C4 Grand Picasso in Gold Colour, I was pleased to discover that it has been named the most beautiful people mover in the world by the “Auto più Bella del Mondo 2008” in its 15th annual search to name the most gorgeous cars in the world.

Following its meeting at the Castello Sforzesco in Milan the Grand Jury of the Auto più Bella del Mondo, which consists of artists (Pietro Consagra, Piero Dorazio, Heinz Mack and Joe Tilson), architects (Vico Magistretti and Massimo Vignelli), designers (Roberto Sambonet and Carlo Chiti) lead by author and designer, Bruno Alfieri, chose the Citroën C4 Picasso as the car that has redefined the look of people movers.

“The Citroën C4 Picasso is the perfect blend of car that people by need to own as well as a car that they want to own and this is what has enabled it to win this award,” says Lawrie Malatios, General Manager for Citroën in New Zealand. “On one hand it is designed with all the features, equipment, space, technology and versatility to make it the ideal transport for people and their property in comfort, safety and economy.”

“On the other hand, as the judges in the Auto più Bella del Mondo have recognized, it is strikingly good looking, with a purity of design, form and shape that blends perfectly with its people mover abilities. This excellence in shape and form continues inside, with an interior that is as good to look at as it is easy to live with. With this combination, its no surprise that the Citroën C4 Picasso has exceeded all out sales projections and provided Citroën with another outstandingly successful car,” says Mr Malatios.

Yeah, right! I found this link in What Car that has a load of photo's of the grand C4, decide for yourself.

Merry Christmas and Seasons Greetings

Grand C4 Picasso

Well it looks like its all change on the Reeley front. Health hasn't been too good recently, and so it looks as if I shall be retiring early. Hopefully that will give me a chance to get my health sorted, and perhaps then I can go and find myself a little something to keep myself busy. Lots of trips to doctors and occupational health and all that. 33 years at one company and it all has to end. Sad really.

Just got the proof of my latest book back. it's looking good. Hopefully published early Q1 2008

Just ordered a new car. After exhaustive trials and research, i've gone for the citroen c4 grand picasso. It is the best mix of versatility and economy, and the 2 l diesel is no slouch, and I love the electronic gearbox - no clutch!! It'll be a shame to see the civic go, but needs are such that I need a slighly higher car to get in and out of. Bad back and all that !!

It is another one of those stories that end in type 2 diabetes being most often linked with obesity..... (God it makes me mad)

Anyway it offers great hope especially in perhaps trying to figure out what causes it. Read it here.

I was reminded today of a spooky event. Back in December 2005 I was suffering a severe bout of lower back pain, and having just had yet another pain killer scare (Arcoroc I seem to recall, or it may have been cerebrex), I tried reflexology, you know, the foot manipulation thing. Well, of course, it helped greatly. On the days that I had the reflexology, my pain levels subsided for about 24 hours. The spooky thing is that at this time I had a medical and had normal blood pressure, cholesterol and no diabetes. The reflexologist picked up an indication about my pancreas. I forgot about it until today. 6 months later I was type 2 diabetic. Spooky!

THE poisonous spit of a monster lizard has been turned into a new drug to control diabetes.

Compounds in the saliva of the endangered gila monster, which helps the carnivore digest its meals extremely slowly, have been copied and used to develop an injection to treat type 2 diabetes.

The gila monster is a native of North America and Mexico and its unique saliva and physiology allows it to eat only three or four times a year. The only downside seems to be that it is an injection. The full story is here

Another story I read today said that Actos is a diabetes drug in the same class as Avandia. The researchers found that Actos also raised users' risk for heart failure by 40 percent. But the drug lowered the risk of heart attack, stroke or death from cardiovascular causes by more than 18 percent. The full story is here.

The scary thing comes when you read the datasheet for actos and avandia. I don't thing I want to change from avandamet thank you very much!!

Just found the Google Flight Simulator on Google Earth. Well actually, I found it an hour ago and have been trying to fly along the Bristol Channel and under the bridges ever since. Wow, what away to waste time! Here are the instructions if you need them

A few new diabetes related news items I spotted.

This first one talks about vitamin supplements, look here, and suggest that low levels of vitamin B may be a factor in the complications that can result from diabetes. Apparantly diabetics have alow level of thiamin in their blood. The same thing is also covered here

The second article, here, talks about bones. Professor Karsenty said: "The discovery that our bones are responsible for regulating blood sugar in ways that were not known before completely changes out understanding of the function of the skeleton and uncovers a crucial aspect of energy metabolism. You need to read it.

The road next to my house. Closed as it was under several feet of water. I resisted the urge to go and look, after all, it would have just been horrible muddy sewerage laden water swilling across the road and into peoples houses. I think that those poor house owners have more than enough to contend with, they didn't need a sightseer.


This is Gordon Brown and Parmjit (Our MP) when they visited our bottled water distribution centre. Just after I took this with with my phone (Nokia N95, cracking good camera phone), he stopped to talk with me. I was then interviewed by the ITN news team who seemed primarily interested in whether I blamed the Government. Blamed the Government? For what? Britains worst rain storm and flood in 300 years? Not even with my imagination could I find a way to lay that at their door. I was impressed greatly by Hannah though, she took herself up to the water distribution place yesterday and spent all day from 8am until 6pm giving out water. That is such a cool thing for a teenager (well anyone actually) to do. No seeking recognition, just doing it because it needed to be done. We didn't suggest it, prompt her or even talk about it, she just said 'I want to help' and she did.


This is the bowser near my house being filled for only the second time. A queue was already forming as you can see. Water is so in demand that the bowser was empty again within an hour. Part of the problem is human nature. I can see how parents are trying to turn this disaster into a bit of an adventure for the kids, and I see small troops of youngsters coming to fill bottles of water to take back home. (This is the only bowser for the housing estate, several hundred houses, school, so lots of families).


And the kids have all been laughing and joking, and that is good, most of the parents realise the gravity of the situation and don't laugh too much. (There are jokes circulating but they are are in poor taste, and when you realise that this disaster has greatly affected tens of thousands of people, jokes at peoples expense are NOT going to raise spirits). But lets be honest, the bowser taps are twice the size of the neck of the bottle, kids are not usually the most careful of people, and so the end result is a good deal of spillage. As the photo shows, the wet patch from under the taps.
I have no idea what volume of water is lost, but it is not just a dribble, and I know it does not compare to some of the stories of water abuse that I have heard.

Latest news from Severn Trent is that some 'brown' water may be back in the system on Tuesday, which may mean that it will get to us by Late Wednesday or early Thursday. It takes that long because we are just about 20 odd miles from Mythe and at the end of the route from the Mythe treatment works. A mile or so down the road and people still have running water. Their popularity has increased, as has their generosity (thanks nearby neighbours). The pipes are all empty and will take a day or so to fill up and get to us. And then we will still have no drinking water, as the pipes are so polluted from sewerage. It may be undrinkable for upto four weeks apparently.

Well, we are off to Solihull to my mothers today for a jolly good shower, and a shave (For ME! Not Yvonne!!), and we will bring some good old Brummie water back with us, it will make a change from all the bottled mineral water. I know that mineral water has a higher level of salts in them to what we normally drink, hence it being unsuitable for babies, and I know that psychology comes to bear, but since the floods and having to drink bottled water, I seem so much thirstier than usual. Is this my mind playing tricks, or my diabetes and body chemistry upset by the salts in the mineral water? I don't know.

I will try and see if I can take a still image from the news footage of me talking to Gordon and post it on here. Well, why not?

I have googled my house and taken this image. I have used photoshop to paint in the area locally that were flooded. This is not showing last fridays flash floods that caused so much damage in the area, flooding the roads and businesses and houses. This is showing the very local extent of the river severn floods of this week. Most seriously was the flooding of the sewerage works. That alone caused evacuations. The image is actually quite out of date as a stonking great new road has been built from the green bit to the right of the sewerage works going north. And yes, it flooded and was closed until Thursday. Only opened in May.

AN INTERESTING OBSERVATION
This week my car insurance is up for renewal. Last week I did a lot of online quotes. That was before the floods.

This week I did them again as I had not managed to finalise what I wanted before the floods came and the internet was lost for a few days. Lummy, most of the quotes have gone up, some by £50. Blooming heck, glad I renewed my house insurance last week.
One small consolation in all this, as my house was not flooded in the UKs worst flood for over 300 years, I guess I should be able to get reasonable cost insurance, in comparison to the poor people who have been flooded. Of course everyone will have to pay more, goes with out saying, and with around £25M in road damages alone, our council tax will shoot up next time too.

Well, there I was queuing up at Tesco's car park to get my daily allowance of free water, when GB, Gordon, The PM his very self, turned up and chatted and spoke to us, and lummy, there I was on the evening ITN news talking to him.

Best bit was, we got double water rations today.

Come again Gordon!

We are, I suspect, about to face a trying time. Fortunately, even though we are very close to the river Severn, we are away from streams and we haven't actually been flooded, but we are suffering the inconvenience that many in Gloucester are. No Power for most of today, but eventually we did get it back, although at a lower voltage than usual. No water, and so we have to go and collect water from the bowser, and try and get bottled water when we can. We have no telephone or internet, some neighbours also have no TV if they are on cable, luckily we have sky, so when there is power, we are able to watch TV.

Unfortunately we were due to do our big food shop on Saturday, so we are low on food stuffs, and the supermarkets, understandably, are not open except for some basic emergency provisions. I might have to drive across country and find a normal supermarket and do a big shop. Disinfectant and bleach is essential, and there will be none available locally.

But, having seen the pictures on TV, and having seen the awful conditions just a few hundred yards from my house, we know that we are lucky and so are thoughts are with others, we can cope, we are dry and relatively warm,.

Let's just hope that the river spares the substation and 500000 people, including us, don't lose power big time. We are already trying to come to terms with the likelihood of no water for two weeks or more. No electric for a week or so would make life a tad trying.

I am not posting any pictures. I am not going to go out and photograph other peoples misery and misfortune. Sorry. For that you will have to look at BBC World or Sky News. No picture can do justice to how bad it is for some of my poor unlucky neighbours in Gloucester.

Chin up.

It appears that I have Metabolic Syndrome. it says if you have 2 out of the 5 then you have it, lummy I have 4 out of the 5!
Here is an excerpt:

Drinking milk cuts diabetes risk

Milk consumption has fallen in recent years Drinking a pint of milk a day may protect men against diabetes and heart disease, say UK researchers. Eating dairy products reduces the risk of metabolic syndrome - a cluster of symptoms which increase likelihood of the conditions - the Welsh team found. In the 20-year study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, metabolic syndrome increased the risk of death by 50%. Experts recommended people only eat two or three portions of dairy a day. Dairy products are an important part of a healthy, balanced diet and we would recommend people aim to eat two to three servings of low fat dairy a day Jemma Edwards, Diabetes UK The University of Cardiff study of 2,375 men aged between 45 and 59 classified metabolic syndrome as having two or more out of high blood glucose, insulin, blood fats, body fat, and blood pressure. Here is the whole article on the BBC website And here is an article on the BBC about Metabolic Syndrome itself. I think I might as well give up now. Oh, I wish i knew which of the blood pressure tablets gives me the raging irrits and makes me need to keep scratchin.

Rummaging around the internet, as you do, and I came across this trick, I know it is an old one, and I knew how, but not everyone does. It is called 'How to win a bet at parties' - go on, have a look

Getting on well with the new book, working title is Kings Ransom. A bit of an extract below, a little scene setting perhaps, a history lesson perhaps, or pure fiction? You decide...

“The threats are real, that is why we are here.”

“I thought at first that you were, well, regular spies, you know. I never realised exactly who we were protecting.”

“No, I realise that. By our nature we have to be reclusive.”

“Things I expected you, sorry, us, to be involved in, we aren’t. I am struggling sometimes to understand the defining line. I mean, with that business with Ivan, Edward, Henry, you, all acted exactly like spies would. ”

“If you just sit back and look who is at risk, rather than what, then you will be able to determine if it is something that warrants our attention, and if so, how urgent that attention need be. Like any one, when people we love are put at risk, or in George’s case harmed, we use all our resources to strike back. On that occasion it pleased Her Majesty’s Government to allow us, rather than the usual services, to deal with the matter. If it had gone awry, then there was deniability and we would have just been portrayed as people seeking private revenge.”

“I understand that, but then, I am trying to catch up here, because I am new to all this, looking at what we are supposed to be doing, you know, for our day job, I have been reading the files. It adds to my confusion. Didn’t we fail in Paris?”

“Oh no, any thing but, we succeeded greatly in Paris, and the world also benefited from an outcry against drunk drivers. Three deaths in that underpass saved countless more by keeping many drunk drivers off the road.”

“But Henri Paul wasn’t drunk.”

“No, but crucially the autopsy showed that he was. And the rider of the motorcycle will never be found, despite The Grocer’s money. The white Fiat is also now a dead end following the Andanson’s suicide.”

“But it wasn’t suicide.”

“The coroner thinks that it was. Everything found was consistent with filling the car with petrol and setting light to it by himself.”

“Except the amount of carbon monoxide in his blood exceeded what he could have taken in before death from the conflagration.”

The Colonel dipped his head and closed his eyes and made no comment.

“Teacher will keep quiet?”

“Everyone keeps quiet. There are so few of us actually in the know. The Chamber only take on people that we can trust, and have only been let down once in the last three hundred and thirty seven years. We are not the kind of people to write memoirs or sell stories to newspapers.”

“I can’t believe the reason why we did it though, I mean, converting to Muslim? It goes against everything I believed I knew.”

“You have to understand her position and how the Establishment, as she saw it, was railing against her. She was seeking a safe port in a storm and the opportunity to fight back against her detractors in a way that they could not defend. It would have been catastrophic for the Monarchy and succession.”

“Let me read the files again, I’m still not sure. One other thing though, there seems so few of us.”

“We do not need a large organisation, we have other resources we can call on, as you saw last year in Gibraltar. The other issue is that the right calibre people are actually becoming quite tough to find. It is a vocation almost, and we need people who are exceedingly highly trustworthy.”

“You seemed to take me on very quickly; you couldn’t have possibly vetted me that quickly.”

“As soon as the first flag was raised on you, even before you did your bit on the Post Office floor, we started a file on you and started profiling you, and believe me, our profilers are the best in the world.”

“What do you mean, before the Post Office? I hadn’t even met Edward until then.”

“No, but you had encountered him several times. It was actually quite by chance that we spotted you taking an interest in Edward, but then a small chance is sometimes all it takes.”

“I don’t think I can quite believe you.”

“I am absolutely straight let me tell you.”

“I am sure that you are, but still, checking me out before I had even managed to garner Edward’s interest, probably before I even realised I was interested in Edward is a bit much. Let me see my file, I want to know what attracted you to me, and when, and then what you did.”

“Absolutely not.”

“But I have seen your file, Edward’s file, even Lord Chalford’s, why not mine?”

“Golden rule. We can all see every file, except for our own. Keeps us honest if we don’t know what is in our own file. Absolute rule laid down by George.”

“George, which George? I haven’t seen a file on anyone called George, except for the short one on Anne’s George of course.”

“King George II, son of King George I, father of George III.”

“Right, of course. Silly me, George II, I should have realised.”

“We are who we are. There is only us, we can not, must not, dare not fail.”

“I don’t accept failure, it is not in my makeup.”

“I know, why do you think you are here? You are here on your own merit, not because of whom your boyfriend was or who you are married to. Having caught my attention and interest, I would probably have approached you at some point anyway, even if you and Edward had amounted to nothing. Your profiling was better than Rosemary’s had been, and she had looked after us for many years, so long in fact, that I actually inherited her from my predecessor who also inherited her. She was a bit of a star, but perhaps a little bit ‘old school’. I could read her and knew her better than she knew herself. I could tell that she had begun to wane even before she knew her time was coming to an end. I was already looking for a replacement when you came on my radar. Your position, as my PA, is exceedingly important and I could not risk a long term vacancy necessitated by Rosemary leaving before I had identified a suitable replacement. Timing is everything.”

“Looking back now, I could almost think that you ordered that snow storm to see if I would still deliver my report to the council on time, or if I would just cry ‘Force Majeure’ and crawl back under my duvet.”

“Not even I would engineer weather of that magnitude on cue in order to test a potential recruit, although under the right circumstances, and with the help of the Royal Air Force, we can and do certain things at certain times. We have caused rain, but it can be inexact and that can lead to a deluge when all we wanted was an inconvenient rain storm. We explore that route only with the greatest of caution.”

“It was raining unexpectedly in Paris if I recall.”

“Was it? I don’t remember.”

“I understand. But don’t take me for a fool. If you don’t want to talk about something, then say so, don’t feign amnesia. I may not have been here long, but I do know how good your memory is, especially on major operations like that one. That operation was world changing. I do not believe that you would have forgotten a major detail such as the weather, especially if it was a key part of the operation. Treat me like a fool and I will leave. I shall not stay where I am not respected.”

“I stand by what I have said. Some things are better left unspoken, and I, Geraldine, shall not be interrogated.”

“Perhaps you should be. Who are you accountable to?”

‘You know that. I am absolutely accountable to only one person. There can only ever be one person.”

“What the public needs to know,” Dr. Guallar says, “is that most people in the have adequate selenium in their diet. Moreover, taking selenium supplements on top of an adequate dietary intake may cause diabetes.”

Selenium rich foods include shrimp, crab meat, salmon, halibut, brown rice, light chicken meat, and pork. Brazil nuts from selenium rich soil are one of the foods that contain the highest level of selenium.

A scientist affiliated with foodconsumer.org suggests that just one dose of selenium supplements in the study can not rule out other positive effects associated with other usage levels. He says selenium is an important micronutrient. But like many others, too much of a good thing can be bad. He suggests consumers should follow a nutritionally balanced diet to prevent chronic diseases such as cancer and diabetes.

So concludes a report that shows a group of people taking selenium supplements had an increased take up of Type II Diabetes, compared to those in the control group that tool placebos.

Read the article HERE .

Good news for Diabetic Rats: This from the Times of India

Pumpkin may treat diabetics 10 Jul 2007, 1148 hrs IST,PTI BEIJING: The common vegetable Pumpkin will now be more tastier than ever as Chinese scientists have claimed that it can "drastically" reduce the need for daily insulin injections for millions of diabetic patients worldwide. Scientists have discovered a compound in pumpkin that has been known to promote the regeneration of damaged insulin-producing beta cells in diabetic rats, thereby improving the level of insulin in their blood. Laboratory data showed that diabetic rats that had been fed pumpkin extract had only five per cent less plasma insulin and eight per cent fewer insulin-positive cells than normal healthy rats, according to a research paper published this week in the US-based Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. The researchers fed 12 diabetic rats and 12 normal rats either a normal diet or a diet supplemented with pumpkin extract for 30 days. On average, the rats receiving the pumpkin supplements experienced a 36 per cent increase in plasma insulin compared to the untreated rats, Professor Xia Tao, the paper's lead author and a teacher at Shanghai's East China Normal University said. However, Xia, a professor at the College of Life Science, emphasised that further research was needed to evaluate the effects in human beings. "But I tend to believe pumpkin extract could also promote regeneration of pancreatic beta cells in humans," he was quoted as saying by China Daily .

Now this is what I am talking about. The full article on the BBC is here. Science fiction is becoming science fact. Below is an extract:

Jeremy Smith, who is studying for his A Levels, is one of the volunteers.

The 17-year-old has had several overnight stays at Addenbrookes hospital in Cambridge.

Computerised dose

Each time the diabetes care team fit him with a continuous glucose sensor which sits just under the skin.

The artificial pancreas could dramatically improve quality of life, and life expectancy Karen Addington Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

This beams his blood sugar readings to a monitor.

The idea then is for a computer programme to work out the right dose of insulin, which is delivered via an insulin pump.

The artificial pancreas would automate diabetes care and free people from the repeated need for finger prick blood tests and insulin injections.

But the system has not gone live yet. Instead Jeremy's glucose levels are checked every 15 minutes throughout the night and his insulin dose is altered manually.

It will be another six months before the first automated, hands-free trial is conducted.

Mathematical problem

The main stumbling block in the development of an artificial pancreas has been mathematical: no-one has perfected a computer programme sophisticated enough to work out the right dose of insulin at any moment of the day.

The human body has a very clever way of working out exactly how much insulin the body needs, and we are only just beginning to understand that Dr Roman Hovorka University of Cambridge

That is why the scientist leading the trial is not a medical doctor, but a mathematician.

Today is July 5th 2007 and it is my birthday. Whoopee I am 52.

So, Affluenza is it? I quote:

Diabetes will this year kill as many people around the world as Aids, prompting scientists to call the fast-growing disease the greatest epidemic of current times.
Around 3.8m people are expected to die from diabetes this year. While the type 2 version of the disease has been nicknamed "affluenza" and is mostly associated with obese people in the US and other rich countries, 80pc of sufferers are on low and middle incomes, according to the International Diabetes Federation

The full text article from the Telegraph is here.

So. It's to be a stone age diet is it? See this article or this one. I guess that means a diet of fish and lean meat, nuts, vegetables and fruit, pretty much the scavenger food of a few thousands years ago. Todays scavenger of course lives of fries and burgers and chicken bones from the bins and footpaths outside fast food restaurants. Fast food restaurant? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

I kind of thought that stone age man pretty much lived on a diet of raw bison in terms of protein, is bison meat lean? I guess also that the seas hadn't been over fished or polluted, and so there was probably a lot more fish available than there is today. But then, did people live long enough to develop type ii diabetes in the days of stone age man?

Apple any one? Yes, I guess, unless you live in the Garden of Eden.

Interesting read article here about how the Americans are making slow progress towards lowering their HbA1C levels, and how it gets worse over winter. I expect it is probably similar in the UK, but we don't start the festival of eating until Christmas, some 5 weeks after thanksgiving, so I guess it will probably not be quite so bad, we have 5 less weeks of gorging ourselves on Turkey and trimmings. I am probably being judgmental and jingoistic and nationist, but what the hell does it matter? What we all need to do is just eat less and exercise more and late onset diabetes will be a thing of the past, that is what nearly every article seems to say.
Yeah right. Me? I think that there may be a link to contaminants as well as the usual suspects of obesity and languorous behavior.
Any one ever considered the number of toxins in the food chain? So much food is fed antibiotics or sprayed in pesticides, and the air is so contaminated that eating purely organic is virtually impossible. I have no evidence, but I do worry about the effect of all these unintentionally ingested drugs and chemicals and things on the human body. Link? Maybe.

Also spotted this link about the pregnant women with high blood sugar. Everything just seems to be interlinked. Cause and Effect?

Some good news, it seems as if the trials of an insulin tablet, rather than injections, are coming along nicely. Good news for all those currently injecting, and good news for me. My GP had advised that I shall have to inject eventually, just not yet. Hopefully now, not ever.
See this website fromDiabetology Ltd or this BBC article

Well now the latest map of health shows were we all live in relationship to a map of ill health and the like. Interestingly, where I live shows an above average health profile. Obviously it is just for me that life sucks. Whoopy do for all my healthy neighbours, and long may they stay fit and well.

So the Aussies have the same issues. If you read the following link, and then follow the link to the official report at diabetesepidemic , there is a fantastic map showing the spread in just five years. It is utterly terrifying.

I wonder if people having 'diabetes' controlled by diet alone are actually diabetic, or in pre-diabetic state? I know that no amount of food control or dieting did anything for my blood sugar levels, my cholesterol or my blood pressure. Only avandia and metformin did my blood sugar, 40mg of statin did my cholesterol and 4 different BP tablets (beta blockers, calcium blockers and god knows what else) did my BP - and my GP says it is still too high. Interesting article I found on pre-diabetes.

News-Medical.net item

So. Emily used the N word and then professed her innocence. Ignoring the total over reaction from Charley who milked it and milked it, Big Brother did absolutely the right thing in removing Emily. Emily, to my mind, let loose a Freudian comment. She may not consciously think in racist terms, but subconsciously she does.
Interesting the hear the quiver the Big Brothers voice as he interrogated then punished Emily, he sounded very stressed or nervous.

Totally unrelated, Charley is really beginning to irritate, her over the top reaction to Channelle (spelling?) typifies her nature. Drama Queen.

I don't know where this came from, if you do, then let me know and I will give due credit.

Think of a song title, and then add 'in my pants' after it.

Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Fire, in my pants,
Ring of Fire, in my pants
Vindaloo, in my pants


etc etc.

Once you start, you can't stop.

So here I am living in a democratic country. I have a new leader, a new PM. Did I get any chance to elect him or have a say in his selection? NO. So basically I now appear to live in anything other than a democracy.

Whether I would or would not have voted for Gordon Brown as PM is not the issue. The issue is that he is now the Prime Minister and I have no choice but to accept it. That sucks.

Having had a week stuck in bed with a completely screwed back and painkillers so strong, they make me want to hurl, that I have to have tablets to counter act them, that took my daily total to over 25 tablets. Great Stuff. Rather than feel totally sorry for myself I decided to look through my collection of films and grade my top 100. It proved more difficult than you would think, i struggled to get it below 175. Anyway, much pruning of also good films later, I present my top 100 films. Clicking on each film title should take you to the IMDB page for that film. I am happy to enter into discussion about the films, but I doubt you will change my ranking. It is after all a very subjective thing. You will notice no Roger Moore bond films, I had to cull them early on. Metropolis was an early casualty too, not because its a bad film, just because I don't enjoy it as much as the others.

To look at some of the ones I omitted go to my IMDB page

rank	web
1	Blade Runner (1982)
2	The Fifth Element (1997)
3	Independence Day (1996)
4	North by Northwest
5	2001 - A Space Odyssey
6	Casablanca
7	Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
8	Doctor Strangelove
9	Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
10	Witness (1985)
11	Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
12	Mission: Impossible (1996)
13	Earthquake (1974)
14	Die Another Day (2002)
15	The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
16	The Fugitive
17	Ultimo tango a Parigi (1972)
18	The Godfather
19	The Sting
20	A Fistful Of Dollars
21	Ghost Busters (1984)
22	Citizen Kane
23	Funeral In Berlin
24	Rebel Without A Cause
25	The Graduate
26	The World Is Not Enough (1999)
27	Alien (1979)
28	Leon
29	Enter The Dragon
30	Ronin (1998)
31	Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
32	Deliverance (1972)
33	GoldenEye (1995)
34	Goldfinger (1964)
34	Top Gun (1986)
36	Barbarella (1968)
37	Psycho (1960)
38	Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
39	The Great Escape
40	Die Hard (1988)
41	Get Carter (1971)
42	The Exorcist (1973)
43	The Party (1968)
44	Batman Begins (2005)
45	Stargate (1994)
46	Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)
47	Frantic
48	Reservoir Dogs (1992)
49	Se7en (1995)
50	The Italian Job (1969)
51	The Matrix (1999)
52	Jaws
53	Pulp Fiction (1994)
54	Star Wars (1977)
55	Lucky Number Slevin (2006)
56	The Eagle Has Landed
57	Gladiator (2000)
58	The Jackal (1997)
59	Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
60	Easy Rider
61	Enemy of the State (1998)
62	The Wicker Man (1973)
63	Papillon (1973)
64	Vanishing Point
65	Capricorn One (1978)
66	Straw Dogs (1971)
67	The African Queen
68	The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
69	Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
70	Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
71	Butch Cassidy And... Sundance Kid
72	Cape Fear (1962)
73	Ice Station Zebra (1968)
74	Casino Royale (2006)
75	Fille sur le pont, La (1999)
76	Arthur (1981)
77	Night of the Living Dead (1968)
78	Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
79	The Driver (1978)
80	The Transporter (2002)
81	Layer Cake (2004)
82	The Naked Runner (1967)
83	Gorky Park (1983)
84	A Streetcar Named Desire
85	The Day The Earth Stood Still
86	Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
87	Clockwork Orange
88	Men in Black (1997)
89	The Big Sleep
90	One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
91	The Day of The Jackal
92	Apocalypse Now (1979)
93	The Bone Collector
94	Kes
95	Notting Hill (1999)
96	Snatch. (2000)
97	The Terminator (1984)
98	Monty Python's Life Of Brian
99	Barefoot in the Park (1967)
100	The Blob (1958)

Who would have thought it? The Gila Monster has a feature that helps us diabetics?

The drug is the first incretin memetic to be approved and works by mimicking the action of naturally occurring human incretin hormone, glucagons-like peptide-1 (GLP-1).

Byetta has been shown to stimulate insulin secretion only when blood sugar is high, and can even restore the 'first-phase' insulin response, an activity of the pancreas' insulin-producing cells that is lost in patients with type II diabetes.

Now is that bloody magic or what? Of course now I am worried that they are going to have to trap and kill a load of lizards just to help me.

Well now it is my wigglers that are under attack. Diabetes now seemingly damages the DNA of my sperm. The poor little fellers are under attack from all sides, is there no hope for them?

BBC News Report

So the latest thing seems to be, don't give us drugs to manage diabetes, make us change our lifestyle. Here are a couple of news items I picked up on recently:
CBS News Report
and
BBC News Report

Interestingly, I am NOT overweight, I don't eat unhealthily and haven't for many years, yet I am Type 2 diabetic. I have been told that I HAVE the illness and it won't go away, it cannot be cured. The tablets, and I am on avandamet as it was the one that eventually managed to get my blood sugars down below 7.0 (most of the time), keep me in check, they help regulate my body, they do not provide a cure. My question is, who are these people at the Mayo clinic talking about? For me, these tablets do not prevent Diabetes, they help control what I have. Are they advocating that I stop tabletting and adopt lifestyle changes in order to keep my blood sugar down? But I already have it, so, are doctors prescribing these drugs to patients who haven't got Diabetes, but might get it because they are fat / overweight / inactive ? I don't understand.

Another intersting story on the genes front emerged this week:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2007-04/28/content_862461.htm

I quote "Despite its growing global prevalence, the disease's underlying causes have been only minimally understood, restricting treatment and prevention efforts." from the above source. MINIMALLY UNDERSTOOD. I read that after I was still seething about the Mayo professors and their apparant generalisation that type 2 diabetics are overweight and immobile.

More and more I feel like a leper, perhaps I ought to get some T SHirts printed up with 'It's in my Genes'

Scientists say they have mapped the most important genes that put people at risk of type 2 diabetes, offering hope that a test could be delivered.
The findings could explain up to 70% of the genetics of the disorder which affects over 1.9 million UK people.
Family history is a major risk factor for the condition, along with obesity.
See http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6342855.stm for more

and

More evidence has emerged suggesting a link between pollutants found in oily fish and type two diabetes.
An international team found high levels of persistent organic pesticides (POPs) in the blood correlated to insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes.
see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6544709.stm

Interesting that as a man at under 16stone (ie under 98Kg) and at 6'2 " tall, I am in no definitiion obese, yet nearly everything i read points to obesity being the major contributing factor to beming type 2 diabetic. Indeed when I went to the Diabetics Session run by my local Health Authority, i was the thinnest person there, yet I now feel 'fat'

It is depressing

Dr Who is back, and it now feels like it has never been away. Instead of the interminable wait for the new series (now replaced with the wait for new Torchwood), I have the interminable wait for the next episode and the calculations of when the last episode is on, and if it will clash with annual holiday…..
Vote Saxon. Is that the new Bad Wolf, is that the theme running through this series, and Ror Marsden, I had forgotten what an absolute master actor he is. Memories of DCI Dalgliesh came flooding back. Good to see him on the screen, if only to fall fowl of an ex Dinner Lady with a straw.
Whilst I can confess to having seen every single Doctor Who on it’s first TV airing, and the Peter Cushing movie at the Cinema, one thing bugged me in last nights Doctor Who. All these years and I had thought TARDIS stood for Time And Relative Dimensions in Space. Last night they clearly in both speech and subtitles lost the ‘s’ from Dimension, making it singular. It now doesn’t make any sense to me. Am I just being picky?

Okay so I finally got to see Casino Royale. Bad back and all that means I have to wait for the DVD release, and so I don't tend to get wrapped up in all the usual hype. So I have just sat through the film and been thouroughly entertained, but, is it a great bond movie? No I don't think it is. Let me explain.

Daniel Craig is absolutely first class as Bond. Definately a very good choice, he carries it off to perfection and I think, that for me, is likely to toy with Tim Dalton as my favourite, and is definately close (as was TD) to the way I read Bond in Flemings novels that I devoured as a youth.

But the film. Well, I find my self tutting at the editing. One bit still grates on me, and that is where Bond rejoins the game, Le Chiffre comments about his shirt, and then suddenly bond is back in the bathroom looking after Vesper. It was so odd it actually threw my concentration.

There was a lot that was good about the film, the way bond didn't earn the bond music until right at the end in his encounter with Mr White, I got an embarassing lump in my throat and tear in my eye when the music (THE music) started. The action sequence, especially the 'Madagascar' sequence was superb and the blue screen and wires were well hidden, and I though the stunt doubles were blended very well too. The ending took a bit of a while coming. I like the films to start with a stunning action sequence (Sean Bean opener is probably the best ?), then build the tension throughout the film, and then have another stunning ction climax, (Die another Day?) and than have a quirky end. I liked the Mr White end to Casino Royale, but the gap after Venice and before then was a bit odd, it felt wrong.

Overall, good film, great actor, and I guess I have to wait two years before I get to see the next sequence. God, that is such a long time away.

Now, here is a thought. Bread always falls butter side down when you drop it. Cats always land on their paws when you drop them, so why not store your buttered bread on the back of a cat. Sorted, your bread will always land on it's paws when it falls.

This is my out of focus photo of the eclipse of the full moon at around 2300 on 3rd March 2007 as viewed from Gloucester UK.

Play Station 3 - and how I won't now be buying one.
So Sony have decided to abandon the backward games capability that they promised for those of us in PAL land. So my library of Burnout, Need For Speed etc games which I still enjoy playing on my PS2, I will not be able to play on my PS3. I am not interested in committing to a bluray device, I am not convinced that more Bluray films are selling than HD format and so I am waiting before I go for one or the other as a film playing medium. A PS3 that played all my own games AND gave me next gen HiDef films is one thing, the films are a bonus, not a reason to buy a PS3.
So I have today ordered a Wii, less than £180, and no, it won't play my old games either, but now I will have over £300 spare to spend on new Wii games, so how cool is that? Bloody cool I reckon.
So, I abandoned Nintendo and went to Sonysome years ago, and now, well, the world goes full circle and I have ordered my new Wii games console, which will be just a games console, and soon, when the world has decided what HiDef format it wants, I will buy a drive and shove it in my VISTA PC and connect that to the TV. Perfect. Horses for courses and all that.

Not A Moments Peace

It is now nearly two years since Catherine had passed away, her cross lived at my neck, her memories never far from me, her soul still intertwined with mine. I hide from view my internal anguish, no one sees me shudder when the word Cancer is uttered, and everyone is always pleasant to me. I don't think people show me pity, they just treat me as a single chap who loved and lost. But then I am luckier than they know. Catherine never actually left me, she is with me at all times and her love and laughter fills my life. True her body is gone to corruption and lies rotten in an oak casket in her plot, a beautiful white marble headstone polished weekly by me showing her current home, but that is irrelevant, her soul lives on and it is her soul that is her very essence.

Caroline has been an absolute revelation for me. She moved into the street about ten months ago, and so sadly did not know Catherine. I had helped her do a few things when she first moved in, prompted I remember when a white van pulled up on her drive as I washed my car. I like the independence that Caroline has, it is perfectly judged. She is not one of those silly women who just will not accept help from a man, nor is she so dumb that she cannot do anything on her own. And yes her hair is blond and lives mostly in a pony tail. The van pulled up and reversed on to her drive, and for a while, as I finished the leathering and started the soft cloth polish, she ferried 'stuff' from the van into her house. Then she came across.

'Hi' she said, 'I'm Caroline Deveraux, we haven't met.' Her voice was rich and had a melody to it even in such few words.

'Well hello Caroline Deveraux, I am Henry Baddersley, and I am glad now that I can mentally think Caroline rather than 'newbie' when ever I see you.'

'Well yes Henry, but then you could have always come and said hello, there is no harm in that now is there?' She laughed as she spoke as if to ensure that her words carried no venom or spite. Her finger had raised and pointed at me coinciding with the word 'hello' and all in all the presentation and introduction had been quite a dart through the introspection that I lived in.

'Caroline it is, perhaps, to my shame that I did not, but a widower knocking at the door of the new beautiful neighbour could convey the wrong impression. I knew that we would meet and be introduced, I just did not know when, and that meeting is when the first impressions would be exchanged.'

'Well Henry here we are, and truly it is second impressions for we have both seen each other before and have formed first impressions. How, I wonder, do your second impressions compare with your first?'

She was of course correct, it was a piece of logic that Catherine would have loved to tease me over, and I started to answer but she shook her head and waved her finger.

'No Henry I wasn't being literal, we can talk about that on another day. Today I have come across to ask for some help. I have just been to Ikea and bought some furniture, assembling it will be fun and take up many a happy hour, but meanwhile, some of the cartons are just too heavy for me to lift alone. Can I ask that you spare a few minutes of your time and help me into my house with them? I did see that you were washing your car, and had you gone from washing to waxing, then I would not have asked, but as you seem to have gone straight to a polishing stage I thought that your car may be interruptible and hence it may allow you to help me.' As she spoke her ponytail bobbed and seemed to weave a hypnotic spell, the tail appearing first at one side of her head and then perhaps the other, perhaps reappearing at the same side. Her voice sang as she spoke the breaths she took to power her request caused her chest to rise and fall and me to notice that it did so.

I forced my eyes away and looked her in the ace as I spoke. 'You should have asked me straight away and not waited to see what I would do next. I just fill my time away from work just pottering, I have so little to do, the house needs so little looking after, and I think that I must have the best polished car in Gloucestershire, and so yes. Yes of course I will be delighted to help you carry your cartons in, and, no , not because I am bored, but because I am delighted help, and yes, so that you do not have to ask, I will happily help you assemble your furniture, and no, Caroline Deveraux, I will not be offended if you don't ask me to help assemble.' It was strange. As I look back now and remember that first meeting I realise how much I spoke, probably longer sentences than to anyone else. I was very monosyllabic in those days, saving all my conversation for Catherine. There was no one else I needed to speak with apart from people at work, and that needed to be concise and perfunctory. My friends were all still coupled and I was always the odd one, and it was embarrassing to see my friends try by inviting an unattached female to be company for me at the dinner parties and other occasions that we got together. I always felt sorry for the woman. I could imagine the words that they had used.

'Oh do come, Henry will be there, he is a nice chap, widowed, and just too lonely for his own good. Come along and shake him out of it, you have so much to offer it's bound to work between you.' And of course what all these poor women took from this is that they were themselves sad and lonely, and that their friends were trying to fix them up with a sad and lonely partner. They failed to see that the only effect would be to put two sad and lonely people together and double the unhappiness. But I was not sad or lonely, I had Catherine, only they could not know that. I was comfortable in my loss.

I followed Caroline back to the van and looked inside. My goodness I thought, that'll take some shifting. The van was half full with brown cardboard cartons all of approximately the same size, all with their 'this way up' arrows carefully aimed at the van roof.

'Gosh, she's been busy' said Catherine quietly to me.

'Yes indeed' I said back, forgetting myself.

'Sorry Henry, I missed that' Caroline said, 'what did you say, it's not too much is it?' Concern showing on her face, perhaps that she had misjudged me and that having seen the size of the problem I would back away. 'I mean I can do it my self, I can open each carton and take all the pieces in to the house individually, it's no problem. It is just that if I can get the van back before six I will save a days rental cost, and I don't think I can empty it by myself in time.' She stopped and looked at the pile and then I think thought about what she had said. 'Oh look I am sorry, that came out all wrong, I don't want to pressure, I really did wonder if you could just help me. It would save me a bit of time, there is no worry, honestly.'

'Oh course Henry will help you,' said Catherine.

'Caroline, of course I will help you,' I said, needing no bidding from Catherine, 'all I meant was, yes indeed you have been shopping. Come on, let's get the boxes inside and then you can take the van back. I can follow you if you like and bring you back, save you worrying with buses and things.'