Truth & Falsehood

I went to see a seminar at Bath University today, I left Cardiff early especially. It was given by Prof David Colquhoun, he's a walking stereotype and a bit of a personal hero of mine. He is a very well respected scientist and has particular interest in receptor pharmacology and ion channel mechanisms, which is also what I work on. But for the purposes of this blog and your sanity I promise to never delve further into my scientific specialty than that.

Anyway, not only is DC (for that is how he is known) a great scientist (he's an FRS, but I'd imagine he would prefer it if I didn't point that out), a champion of goodscience and a challenger of bad science, quackery and out-and-out bullshit. All of this he writes about on his blog; DC's improbable science, which I discovered about 6 months ago via Ben Goldacre's bad science blog/Guardian column.

Anyway, DC's talk today (Science Fact & Science Fiction - how to read the news critically) introduced the uninitiated to many of his usual pet-hates which he has been challenging for many months/years on his blog. These include the marketing of Homeopathy as medicine (despite a lack of evidence), the teaching of Homeopathy and other "alternative" medical practices (i.e. those that have been shown to be ineffective), such as Acupuncture, Nutritional Therapy, Reflexology and Herbal Medicine in British Universities dressed up as science degrees (B.Sc.) despite the complete lack of science.

That is not to say that real scientists don't also come in for some flack from David, he attacks labs who spinning their research in press-releases in order to boost exposure of their labs. For example the "Honey is better than cough medicine" headlines from last December all hailed from a study that had said "Comparison of honey with DM [cough medicine] revealed no significant differences."

These though were all things I'd previously read about in his fine blog. However he finally talked about something I'd not come across before; Brain Gym. Brain Gym is now being taught in British Schools. It encourages them to be more active (good), drink more water (still good), also that any learning challenges can be overcome by finding the right movements, to subsequently create new pathways in the brain. It claims that the repetition of certain movements "activates the brain for optimal storage and retrieval of information" (Hmmmm).

Ben Goldacre has already written about the scientific-inaccuracies of Brain Gym, but I'll just point out my favourite line, quoted by Ben in his column, and by DC in his talk today.

“Processed foods,” says the Brain Gym manual, “do not contain water.” So there's not, for example, any water in soup? Apparently not.

Forget scientific inaccuracies, this is bullshit, and taxpayers money is being used to teach it in our schools.

Spring Clean

What do you think of the new style? I've had a little bit of a Spring Clean to go with my new, renewed enthusiasm for putting thoughts to HTML. I'm going for the stripped down, minimalist look.

I've also ditched the Stress Relief part of the title. It was generating quite a bit of traffic from Google (which was probably the reason for the original juvenile euphemism!), but I want to avoid being the ranty type. I might blog on some nice things. Though I'll still vent my spleen from time to time.

If you like your blogs ranty, in a semi-amusing way you should try here, Mr Angry is much better at it than I am.

P.S. Does anyone know if I'm stuck with my URL?

The Fugger's Nuts

I have no idea what day Private Eye actually goes to press. I suspect, given that the next issue is due to hit the news-stands on Friday that it will hit the rollers tomorrow or Thursday. So hopefully plenty of time for much derision of the hilarious testimony of Mohamed Al Fayed at the inquest of Princess Diana to make it to the pages of the satirical magazine.

Firstly, let's be clear, I do feel for Al Fayed, it must be terrible to lose a son, especially is such tragic and public circumstances. However his ramblings are frankly those of a total madman. I half expected Lord Justice Scott Baker to sum-up and ask for a straight-jacket for Mr Al Fayed and a team of white-coated men to be standing by.

If you missed it, and it was a shame that the Northern Rock re-nationalization was taking up a significant proportion of press-coverage, then you missed one of the classic mentalist rants of all time.

The Fugger suggested all of the following had a hand in the "murder" of Diana; Prince Charles, The CIA, MI5, MI6, Tony Blair, The French Emergency Services, The French Secret Service, Henri Paul, Lady Sarah McCorquodale (Diana's sister) and the Paparazzi amongst others.

However he reserved his most insane rambling for a man more usually associated with being on the distribution end of embarrassing gaffs; Prince Phillip. He said the prince was a racist (which is possibly true, to a certain extent), a Nazi and had the original last name Frankenstein (It was actually Battenberg). Al Fayed also continued to claim that Diana had coincidently phoned him in the hours before the accident to tell him that she was pregnant.

When asked if he could provide any evidence for any of his claims, he said that he was unable to provide any because of "a steel wall" at the security services. So basically - the total lack of evidence was proof of a cover-up! As if all those people could actually organize themselves in such a complex plan. Civil servants just aren't that good. They can't even make sure that CDs full of data reach their intended destination. Organise a most ridiculously complicated plot without a sniff of evidence reaching the public. Not a chance.

Al Fayed proved his loony status after his day of giving evidence by going outside and accusing a BBC reporter of being "part of the establishment" and "working for MI5".

My favorite statement of the day however was read out on Radio 4's PM programme. They had asked the office of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, if he would like to make a statement on the allegations made by Mr Al Fayed. The reply. No.

No doubt the Harrods owner will take Tony's silence as a sign of guilt! Taxi for Mohamed.

Silicon Heaven and Body Odour

Well I made a piss-poor attempt at NaBloPoMo. If you were waiting with baited breath for my uninteresting ramblings then I can only apologise.

I’m gonna have another crack at writing more often on here. My life has settled down into something resembling normality following the hectic-ness of organising a wedding (more about that in a moment) followed by Christmas and a well-deserved break on Honeymoon in a remote cottage in Devon.

And then a couple of weeks ago, I also finally got a fully functioning internet connection at home. After months of intermittent service and intermittent complaining to Tiscali, it turned out not to be my ISP’s fault. Rather it was my own fault. After years of being kicked from the socket and knocked from it’s desk the many times, my modem had finally gone to meet it’s maker in silicon heaven (it’s where all the calculators go). So armed with a replacement I was forced to phone Tiscali and ask them to ramp up my speed again (they’d slowed it to snail’s pace in order to try and identify the problem on the line), and voilà! I’m on line again.

So the wedding, I suppose I should say something about that, it is after all, a pretty unique day. I probably could have dedicated an entire blog to the stress and shenanigans involved in organising a wedding. Everything went pretty well though, the only thing we had to complain about was the incredibly bad B.O. of our driver. It really was bloody disgusting.

Al Bangura

I've not got time to explain.

Go here.

Now for a convincing wound

So I’m off on my stag weekend tomorrow, so despite my good intentions to post often during NaBloPoMo I doubt I’ll feel the urge to post over the weekend.

NaBloPoMo would be so much better as three syllables don’t you think? The Na is so irrelevant given the global nature of the web. Shall I start a campaign to drop the Na? Na, can’t be arsed.

Anyway, I digress, I’m massively looking forward to my Stag weekend. I don’t know for sure where we’re going, it’s supposed to be a surprise, but I’ve done some detective work (because I hate surprises) and I think we’re going to Madrid.

I hope this trip has all the good elements from the stereotypical British stag weekend abroad, but none of the bad stuff. I should come back with enough stories to at least fill a couple of days worth of posting once I get back.

The title of this post refers to the themed dressing up night of the stag do (joy!). My best man has decreed that Friday night is "Injury Night" and everyone of the 14 members of my stag group will go out for a night of foreign beer with convincing fake wounds.

I love the word wound. Just makes me think of Stephen Fry in Blackadder goes fourth, as does the word Job



So, what do you think? Is Injury night a piece of comic genius on the part of my best man, or will it all go down like a fart in a lift? I'll let you know what happened on Monday.

Work or Procrastinate?

Well, it’s been quite a little while since I last posted on here or on Yellow Fever. If you were perturbed then I can only apologize, but I suspect you’ve not noticed I’d gone.

I’m back though – inspired by the upcoming National Blog Posting Month or NaBloPoMo as it is otherwise known. Pointed out to me by Mr Coldbrain, it provides an excuse for everyone to post more shite on the web that usual. Or for lapsed bloggers like myself to waste more time at work than the have been lately. So I might try and post a bit more during November, though I am on my stag weekend for the first three days of it, so I’m starting NaBloPoMo early.

I have been pretty busy at work recently, that is not to say that work has been especially busy, just that I have worked a bit harder than I usually do. I work in an area that pretty much ticks along at a steady pace, where the job satisfaction is improved by staying busy and putting in some effort. Likewise the rewards and most importantly career prospects are also enhanced by a bit of effort now and again. I was getting a bit bored and worried about my future, so effort has been forthcoming.

The newly found enthusiasm for work has been helped along nicely by the addition of new members to the team at work. All the new recruits are very friendly and their enthusiasm has rubbed off on me. I’ve also had to show the newbies the ropes which has kept me busy and given me a certain amount of job satisfaction.

Away from work, the wedding plans are coming along nicely and despite less that two months to go, there is little in the way of panicking in the billyo household – even from the wife to be! I have also fixed my Powerbook after some seriously annoying Narcolepsy problems, the solution was drastic (opening it up and cutting out a malfunctioning chip) but so far it seems to have worked, so I can write blog posts and play football manager on the train again, rather than buying the Times everyday just for the Sudoku.

My current new (ish) favourite band are The Prescillas, and my favourite old album that I almost can’t stop listening to on my way to work is The Wall. Between them there's not been much else playing on the mp3 player, though Radiohead's In Rainbows is getting occasional plays.

When I do find time to procrastinate, my new favourite site is ONN, the Onion News Network. For those not familiar, The Onion has been an on-line satirical newspaper for the last 10 years or so. I’ve never been a committed reader, but have dipped in now and again. My travelling hippy friends Nick and Wendy tell me that there is also a free monthly newspaper that can be picked up in cities around the world, including in London, though I’ve never seen it. Anyway the Onion has gone 21^st century and now has a video output for those of us too lazy to read in order to get a satirical fix. As way of an introduction my I suggest the following stories about Nascar Statagy, Help For Schizophrenics and Celebrities in Trouble. Probably best not to watch that last one if you’re the sensitive type.

There's also this great one about Stab Research.

Study: Multiple Stab Wounds May Be Harmful To Monkeys