Anyone who has followed the blog for a while will know what I think about amateur weather forecasters. Last year, their long-range winter “forecast” was about as accurate as betting on black at a roulette table and it coming up red. It was billed as “the worst winter on record” – and they were absolutely and totally incorrect.
Imagine my surprise when I noticed someone find the blog on the search term “exacta weather charging for long range forecast”. It grabbed my interest, and a quick check revealed that it’s absolutely true! They are charging £11 for a three-page long-range report on the forthcoming winter.
It’s good to see these not-for-profit groups – especially ones who simply make wild guesses – staying true to their cause.
I find it hard to believe that anyone could be so stupid as to pay £11 for a stab in the dark. Mind you, people DO go to fortune tellers, so stupidity is clearly just as common as bad weather forecasts.
For anyone who is interested, the forecast for this winter is as follows:
It will be generally colder than the summer, and there will be periods of rain. Some places will see snow, and this could be quite heavy (or it might not be). My records, which go back over 50 years, suggest that winter will be followed by summer again.
I’ve written before about amateur weather forecasters predicting a new ice age – and one that is much colder than all the others, of course.
They were spectacularly wrong about last winter – so wrong, in fact, it would be like guessing “heads” on a coin toss and it coming up “tails”. I mean absolutely wrong. So I wonder if the absence of any such rubbish in the press this year has got anything to do with their overall embarrassment at that (or if it’s just that the Olympics has given the papers something else to talk about).
I’ve been getting hits over the last week which suggest people are looking for a current winter weather forecast again. They never learn. This excerpt is from Exacta (as it stands at the moment – some of these websites (though not specifically Exacta) have a habit of altering their forecasts as the future turns into the present):
I expect large parts of this winter to be very cold and exceptionally snowy in comparison to last year (forecasting confidence is quite high). I also expect these conditions to arrive earlier, rather than later this winter. There may even be the potential for some of the coldest/snowiest conditions in at least a century at times within the upcoming winter.
The problem with this is – and I have to repeat myself, so forgive me – is that they said similar about last year and got it totally and utterly wrong. TOTALLY AND UTTERLY WRONG! They weren’t even partly right.
Last year’s “forecast” amounted to a guess, so how can that possibly give anyone any confidence or faith in this year’s effort? What it comes down to is that even if THIS winter WAS the worst on record, it wouldn’t have been forecasted – it would have just been randomly guessed at.
EDIT 25/11/2012: I’d just like to point out that they haven’t said anything about the floods due to torrential rain that we’ve experienced recently. You’d expect any half-decent forecaster to catch something like extended periods of rain and flooding, wouldn’t you?
Just before I went out this morning I saw an item on the local news which said that Bradley Wiggins was in Nottingham. The reporter was outside the Castle, so I made a mental note not to go anywhere near there on today’s lessons.
I picked up my first pupil at 10am from her house just off the ring road – miles away from the castle. Then we got stuck at traffic lights for nearly 15 minutes because the bloody convoy of about a hundred professional cyclists (plus a few dozen straggling Bradley-wannabes) were making for Wollaton Park. We got there exactly the same time they did, to the second. Someone up there has got it in for me, I know they have!
I’m not exaggerating when I say there must have been 40-50 police motorbikes, and at least half as many other police vehicles in attendance (any Nottingham criminals today who did their homework would have known to hit the other side of Nottingham, because there’d have been no police to worry about).
It was funny to see a group of women clap four cyclists who went by several minutes before the main cluster – I reckon they were just clapping nobodies!
When the lights changed, the jackass in front of us had just decided at that very instant to open his door and start fumbling with some papers on his passenger seat. I pipped him to remind him the lights had gone green, and just him and us got through – which would have no doubt endeared US (in a learner car, of course) to all those who had to wait again.
God knows what the police were doing directing traffic into the estate we were coming out of. It’s a dead end. And at one point there was no police bike blocking the crossroads, and yet the lights our side were on green – but about a dozen more motorcycle and support vehicles (police and non-police) sped through the red lights on the main road.
Then we had to wait at another road block for a further 5 minutes or so because the bloody cyclists had only ridden through the Park and were now off somewhere else.
As we waited, we admired the motley collection of middle-aged people carrying SLR cameras with telephoto lenses, but fiddling with small snapshot cameras and iPhones. Oh, and one or two were swathed in Union Jacks and wearing those silly felt hats you see at the FA Cup Final.
Then, for the whole lesson, everywhere was peppered with Bradley-wannabes riding very badly, with no regard for their – or anyone else’s – safety. That’s cyclists for you.
I’ve got a horrible feeling about all this. It’s taken 46 years – since the 1966 World Cup – for us to shut the hell up about the past. Now we’ve got the bloody 2012 Olympics to rattle on about until we get the next big event (and do well at it).
I really don’t know why the same people over and over again on forum after forum keep on getting out the “Driving School Franchises Are Evil” drum and start banging it.
We get the point – you don’t like the driving school franchise model. However, whether you like it or not, it IS a franchise no matter how you choose to twist the definition to fuel your personal bitterness. In it’s simplest definition, a franchise is the right to trade exclusively or non exclusively in an area using a “brand” owned by someone other than yourself with various rights, entitlements and exclusions via an individual agreement between the franchisee and the franchisor. There is nothing sinister about that concept at all.
We know you’d love it if someone waved a magic wand and suddenly ADIs were employees with contracts of employment and employee rights and all that stuff, but that’s not going to happen for numerous reasons. I think I read ages ago that commercial organisations (I think Tesco and Stelios the EasyJet bloke were two of them) had investigated whether running BIG driving schools on a profit making commercial basis was viable. The answer was obviously “no”.
So here in Realityville where the rest of us dwell, the driver training industry looks set to carry on as it has done with a mixture of:
* independent ADIs
* co-operative groups of independent ADIs
* national or semi-national franchises
* locally based franchises
As for the ridiculous, finger pointing and assumption making “many have gone to the wall” comment, here’s a few points that should be bourne in mind:
1) I doubt whether any franchisor has ever MADE an ADI sign a franchise agreement.
2) I doubt any franchisor has abducted any ADI off the street and held them prisoner until they agreed to join their franchise.
3) On that basis, we must assume that any ADI who joins a franchise does so of their own free will and if they have any sense, they will have done some research about the franchise, read any agreement thoroughly and considered it’s implications before they put pen to paper.
4) A franchise agreement is NOT a guaranteed passport to success or riches beyond the wildest dreams of Joe Bloggs ADI. If good old Joe hasn’t got what it takes to make a go of his business because he’s a grumpy sod, or he turns up late for lessons or any of the million and one things that might make Joe’s pupils find another ADI instead of Joe, then that’s not the fault of Joe’s franchisor.
Stop making ADIs out to be helpless fluffy little lambs being conveyed to the slaughterhouse of The Evil Franchisors who sit around doing zilch apart from counting franchise fee payments whilst cackling manically with glee and opening jars of mint sauce.
Let me tell you a little personal story…as readers may know, my husband (who is an ADI) and myself (not an ADI) run a driving school. We’ve done this since 2004. Business went well, so in 2006 we took on another ADI as a franchisee and we kept on doing this when we had more work than we could handle if we felt that we could sustain that level. We only have four franchisees and while we could take on more, we choose carefully and we only take on more franchisees if we feel we can generate sufficient work for them, or if they offer something “unique” i.e. services or skills for a different demographic that will not dilute the work available for existing franchisees. All bar one of the franchisees we have taken on since 2006 are still with us.
The person who started this thread and his comrade in arms have sneered at me more than once for referring to them as “our franchisees”, entirely missing the point that in every sense that matters they are “ours” and we are “theirs”. We are inter-dependant, each side fulfilling a need, in their case a consistent and reliable supply of work and ours for income…but there’s more to it than that. Over the years they have become not “just” franchisees or even colleagues, but friends.
A terrible thing happened 10 weeks ago. My husband and I were on holiday driving around Europe. We were in Livigno, a very beautiful, but isolated ski resort high up in the Italian Alps when, one morning, totally out of the blue, my husband at the age of 39 had 3 strokes in quick succession. He was admitted to hospital 70km away, leaving me terrified and alone. Without me asking, two of “our franchisees” put their affairs in order, got on a plane and then drove 5 hours from Zurich airport to Livigno to help us. My husband remained in hospital in Italy for over a week before flying back to the UK with an accompanying doctor, so “our franchisees” drove our car all the way across Europe and back home as our insurance company turned out to be scum.
What’s the moral of this story and why am I telling it to you? Simply that you get out of people and life in general what you put in…and the same goes for being an ADI. Indie is right for some, a franchise is right for others…and for a few, neither is right as quite simply, they’re in the wrong job and no amount of “blaming” someone else for something YOU have control over makes that fact any different.
I don’t think I need to add anything. This says it all.
In that article I was making the point that coaching is not a magic pill to cure all society’s ills, and especially not those that afflict young drivers, who as a group exhibit the worst driving behaviour and experience the most fatal accidents on our roads. I used an analogy where I referred to pasty white boys pretending to be black.
The entire paragraph was as follows – and you have to read it in context with the suggestion I was refuting, which said that “introducing coaching” to driving instruction would reduce accidents involving young people by changing how they think and behave:
As an example, if you have someone who spent their entire time at school pretending to be black in spite of being a pasty white colour (i.e. wearing a stupid baseball cap), plus a shell suit or Burberry clobber, cheap bling, BMX bike, no taste in music, their whole evenings hanging around outside the chip shop smoking, spitting, and swearing at people who walk past, and who was known to the police from about 10 minutes after he was born because of who his parents were, well, that person just might be tempted to drive in an inappropriate manner when he passes his test and buys a Corsa with 4-inch exhaust pipe and blacked out windows. His whole life to that point has conditioned him.
To begin with, the important thing is what I meant, not what some namby-pamby politically correct dipstick can contrive to read into it.
But let’s over-analyse the concept of “pasty white boys pretending to be black” for a moment.
Many years ago, I used to tippy-toe around the issue of people being black until a black friend told me that he found the term “coloured” offensive. I had been using it in an attempt to be respectful, but it taught me a valued lesson. However, one (of many) of the reasons I believed what I did was that another friend’s wife had a high-up position working for the local council, and one day she had been almost sacked for asking a black woman if she wanted her coffee “black or white”. In the 80s and early 90s you really had to be careful.
Even today, I believe I am correct in saying that the word “blackboard” is still taboo in some establishments, and “chalkboard” is used instead. Some people claim this is an urban myth, but there are plenty of nutters out there who would gladly take issue (via the contact form, no doubt) if you dared to use the taboo words.
Now, what I said about pasty white boys pretending they’re black was an allusion to gangsta rap music.
What Is Gangsta Rap?
Gangsta rap is a genre of hip-hop that reflects the violent lifestyles of inner-city youth. The genre was pioneered around 1983 by Ice T with songs like “Cold Winter Madness” and “Body Rock/Killers.” Gangsta rap was popularized by illustrious rap groups like NWA and Boogie Down Productions in the late 80s…
Gangsta rap revolves around aggressive lyrics and trunk-heavy beats. Despite its huge acceptance in the early 90s, gangsta rap has been condemned for its violent themes. Rappers often defend themselves by saying that they’re only depicting actual inner-city struggles, not promoting it…
Like it or not, the genre is predominantly covered by black rappers. It originated with black rappers. And in all honesty, only black rappers can carry off the image successfully. You don’t have to be black to be a rapper, but it definitely helps the image. Wikipedia explains:
The subject matter inherent in gangsta rap has caused a great deal of controversy. Criticism has come from both left wing and right wing commentators, and religious leaders, who have accused the genre of promoting crime, violence, profanity, sex, homophobia, racism, promiscuity, misogyny, rape, street gangs, drive-by shootings, vandalism, thievery, drug dealing, alcohol abuse, substance abuse and materialism.
This is what I was alluding to with my comment about pasty white boys pretending to be black. With hindsight, I might have said “pasty white boys pretending to be gangsta rappers”, but I’m sure the net-nanny who wrote to me would have found fault with that too. In any case, the point I was making would have been identical. And I preferred the allusory rather than the literal approach, because I’m not afraid of the “black” word. Skinny white juveniles cannot pass themselves of convincingly as rappers, but that is only an external feature that hits me every time I see it. What goes on inside is another matter entirely.
I see them every day. Spindly little white kids with over-sized baseball caps, often with one trouser leg rolled up (signifying gang membership – I saw a fat, tattooed 20-something like that last week). In a year or two’s time, I’ll be teaching them to drive, and nothing I can say or do for the three months they’re with me (for a maximum of two hours a week) will alter what they’ve been conditioned to behave like up until then. It is the image they are trying to adopt – and all that it implies, as explained in the Wikipedia quote – which is the problem.
Most rappers might be black (which is why my allusion works). But not all black people are rappers (which is why the use of the word “black” is not racist).
The crazy person from Manchester should really get a life.
Someone at the test centre was telling me about an episode of Fake Britain, which looked at franchises for companies like McDonalds. I didn’t see it myself, and I can’t find it on BBC iPlayer, so I can only take her word for what was said. She said that they should have included driving school franchises because they’re “a rip-off”.
Just for the record, if you wanted to buy into a McDonalds franchise then you’d have to stump up at least 25% of the value of the restaurant – which can be anywhere between £125,000 and £325,000 – and cover the rest with a bank loan. You’d also have to pay a one-off franchise fee of £30,000. And there are ongoing costs and fees.
All this is clearly explained on McDonald’s website – along with typical annual takings of between £95,000 and £200,000 per annum – and anyone who doesn’t know what they’re getting themselves into and screws it up only has themselves to blame. McDonalds sets it out clearly and makes no guarantees.
A typical McDonalds franchisee will therefore have to find at least £60,000 as well as take out a bank loan for the remaining 75% of the restaurant’s value. McDonalds will take 5% of any sales turnover.
A driving school franchise, on the other hand, costs virtually nothing up front. You might have to place a deposit of £500 for the car (often refundable, at least in part), and there might be a notice period if you decide to leave. If you read the small print – which anyone with any sense would – you’d know this.
The problem as I see it – and this is probably why the woman I spoke with was complaining – is that many people who become ADIs are very immature (at least in the business sense). They get all excited by qualifying, sign their names to everything without thinking, and then when they decide to jump ship for whatever reason (usually greed) they start whining about the terms of the contract they signed of their own free will.
A driving school franchise is only a rip-off if it reneges on something it promised. Admittedly, you hear tales of some smaller schools promising an infinite supply of pupils (which never seems to be written down anywhere), but most of the large national schools don’t do that. However, if a school states clearly that is costs, say, £200 a week for the car, it is definitely not a rip-off just on that detail – it’s just what IT charges, and you can either take it or leave it.
I don’t know what the BSM franchise costs per week these days now that they’re part of the AA. But once upon a time it was the most expensive one going, costing well over £300 a week. Everyone who signed up with them knew this in absolutely crystal-clear terms. It was bloody expensive, but it wasn’t a rip-off because you knew everything up front.
Keeping a new car on the road as an independent ADI costs around £80 (approximately) a week minimum, and that’s before you start driving it or trying to get work. Obviously it depends on the model, but a decent car on lease will set you back by at least that amount. People often claim that it’s much less, but it isn’t – not unless you permanently drive an old car. If you’re bad at (or very selective with) business maths you can perhaps argue that in a given (and carefully chosen, if you’re an agitator with an agenda) year it has cost you less than £20, but over a number of years it will average out at much more than that (as I said, unless you drive a banger all the time – and a few do).
An independent ADI has also got to market himself. So paying a franchise another £100 on top of the basic car cost for the additional benefits a franchise brings (they do the advertising for you – often on a national scale) is a clear and sensible option some will want to take up. A newly-qualified ADI would be stupid to try and go it alone in the current climate (most fail miserably if they do).
The ignorant ones will argue that £200 a week is “too much” when you could be paying “only” £80 as in independent (or “only” £20 if you’re bad at business matters). Well, firstly it is none of their business if someone chooses to go down the franchise route – it’s a freely available option which can be taken or left as the buyer sees fit. These agitators are often just fuelling their own prejudices with their misleading and totally inaccurate “advice”. There’s no benefit to paying even £20 a week for a car if you have no work.
And more importantly, although people who buy into McDonalds franchises might go bankrupt because they can’t pay off their huge bank loans in spite of turning over hundreds of thousands of pounds a year – which is really nothing to do with McDonalds itself – a driving instructor goes bankrupt because they can’t get enough work. That can happen whether they’re independent or with a franchise – although these days it is more likely with an independent, many of whom are now joining franchises to try and survive.
With reference to the sale of Alcopal – an internet “medicine” which claims to reduce the apparent amount of alcohol drunk when tested by breathalyser, and which I covered in this story, and updated in this one – I got to thinking about the mechanisms involved.
There is a lot of confusion about what it does, how it does it, and whether or not it works. Even its current salesman can’t make his mind up whether it actually stops alcohol entering the bloodstream or if it just stops the breathalyser from measuring alcohol on the breath accurately.
There is also confusion about what it contains. The words “natural ingredients” and “carbon” have been mentioned, along with Simethicone – again, by the current salesman.
I did a bit of searching to see if there was any evidence that orally ingested materials could actually adsorb alcohol from the gut before it could get into the bloodstream. In the case of activated carbon, there was one article – a patent claim – which reckoned that carbon tablets could reduce blood alcohol by about two-thirds.
Just out of interest, that would mean five pints of beer would be measured as though the drinker had ingested less than two pints. This is remarkably similar to the claims being made by Kibble – the current salesman hawking these tablets.
The patent claim doesn’t ring true, because in the two examples it gives it says that blood alcohol levels actually decreased with time following treatment with activated carbon – the patent claim was based solidly on this. The problem is that activated carbon would have to adsorb the alcohol BEFORE it got into the blood stream, and it couldn’t have that effect AFTER it was already there except by other biological mechanisms, and carbon is virtually inert in this respect. In any case, only two subjects appear to have been tested.
More reliable papers, however, confirmed that alcohol concentrations in the blood are virtually unaffected by the use of activated charcoal. And this was a proper medical study:
…demonstrated in dogs that charcoal given at the same time as alcohol can reduce the blood alcohol concentration significantly. To study whether charcoal is of value in a clinical situation, a randomized cross-over study in two phases was conducted. Each person drank 88 g of alcohol and 30 min after either 20 g of activated charcoal was taken or the same volume of water was drunk. There were no significant differences in plasma alcohol concentrations with or without charcoal.
That’s fairly conclusive, and other papers report similar findings:
We compared the pharmacokinetic profile of ethanol with and without activated charcoal treatment. The fraction of ethanol absorbed was similar on both protocols. The mean peak ethanol concentration after pretreatment with activated charcoal was 8% greater than ethanol alone (p = 0.08). Thus oral activated charcoal does not significantly impair ethanol absorption and can be used in patients requiring oral ethanol.
And others make it clear that activated charcoal does not bind well with alcohols. And on top of that, side-effects from regular use include:
…constipation and black stools. More serious, but rare, side effects are a slowing or blockage of the intestinal tract, regurgitation into the lungs, and dehydration.
It is also not advised for use during pregnancy or for those with intestinal issues already. Unfortunately, some silly sites state categorically that it does remove alcohol from the gut in spite of the factual medical trials proving otherwise.
OK. So if Alcopal contains activated carbon, the activated carbon part definitely doesn’t work – not unless you’re a dog, or an idiot who believes every website contains only facts, anyway! And it is likely to be dangerous for a significant proportion of the population if used regularly.
As for the “natural ingredients” – assuming that these do not refer to carbon – anything “natural” (as in “plant extract” or “herbal”) is not going to do what Kibble is claiming.
As for Simethicone, I suspect that it’s anti-foaming properties are intended to reduce the amount of alcohol in direct contact with the stomach lining. I don’t think it has any power to adsorb/absorb alcohol. And it has a maximum daily dose of 500mg.
This came through on the newsfeeds, and I’m sure a lot of people have read about it in the newspapers today (and as of Christmas 2015, the story has become – perhaps not surprisingly – very popular again).
The story deals with Alcopal tablets, an internet “medicine” which can allegedly make a breathalyser reading read 9 times lower than it should do. In typical fashion, the Mail’s hacks demonstrate a total lack of any academic skills and write:
The pills, which are taken before and after a drinking session, are said to prevent alcohol being absorbed through the stomach and into the bloodstream.
[Kibble said]… “Because it prevents the uptake of alcohol and gives some protection to your liver and kidneys you’re more in control.”
When I read this, my first thoughts were:
how does it work?
what’s the active ingredient?
so, does it really work?
None of this occurred to the Mail’s amateur staff, though. So when I looked up the same story in The Mirror, I got a bit more information:
The pill, called Alcopal costs £20 for a pack of 20, is said to neutralise alcohol in breath samples.
Birmingham businessman Mr Kibble, who admitted he had been caught drink-driving in 2002, bragged on his website about Alcopal “making all the difference” if a motorist is breathalysed…
“And I must stress that these tablets do nothing to improve the performance of a driver who has been drinking.”
I’m not sure where the Mail got its own information from, but it sure ain’t the same as what the Mirror said – and both purport to be quoting the comedian who sells the tablets (and who looks like (and admits to) he knocks a few back anyway). Neither source seems the least bit interested in whether it really does work, and are happy to go on what the seller says.
While we’re on the Mirror story, note the moron, Karel Reil, in the comments. He thinks it’s a good idea. I wonder why?
In the Mail story, Kibble is quoted as saying his lawyers have checked the tablets and they’re not illegal. Well, it’s not illegal to harvest Unicorn horns, either – but I’m pretty certain it would become so if Unicorns actually existed. Kibble is just on borrowed time, since he will be directly responsible for the death of the first person killed by any piss artist who uses these things and then drives.
The active ingredient is called Simethicone. It is an antifoaming agent used to suppress gas in the stomach. It’s an ingredient in Alka-Seltzer and other antacid products. It also comes in some hair conditioners as a glossing agent.
It’s worth bearing in mind that anything which prevents absorption of substances through the stomach or intestinal walls can also do the same thing with other medicines. Some antibiotics specifically advise against taking any antacid product during treatment as absorption is affected.
At £1 per tablet, and supplied in a tiny plastic container, I suspect that you’d need a hell of a lot of these to absorb the alcohol in a keg of beer, because that “nine times lower” line suggests that you can drink 10 pints and give a breath reading that looks like you only drank one! So it’s highly likely that the effect is just a masking one to fool the breath testing machine (the effect on other medicines, of course, could still be significant).
Let’s face facts here. If you really could drink a vat of beer, take a tablet, and come up stone cold sober, someone much bigger than Kibble would have jumped on it a long time ago. I mean, it isn’t as if this hasn’t been looked into for all kinds of reasons.
In any case, the average piss head is hardly going to be happy necking beer without getting drunk – which would have been his primary objective when he went to the pub in the first place. That’s why alcohol-free beer doesn’t sell. So something about what the tablets do doesn’t quite fit in, does it?
Still, Kibble has got a load of free advertising to help him on his way…
Disclaimer: The term “dickhead” is a valid description for anyone who seeks to bypass the law in some way, especially when they haven’t made sure it is safe to do so. So in this case, someone selling a product which fools the breathalyser whilst leaving the drinker pissed in order to drive a car without being pulled can legitimately be labelled a “dickhead”. Similarly, anyone who buys such products in order to bypass the law (i.e. to fool the breathalyser) whilst knowing full well that they’re pissed can also legitimately be labelled a “dickhead”.
EDIT: The hits on the blog have gone through the roof since I first posted. I think most people are just interested in bypassing the law (only two out of hundreds have asked about the ingredients). If I’d have linked to Kibble’s website (which I deliberately didn’t), I’m sure it would have been clicked to death.
This Sun story today won’t be of interest to all the chavs out there who think they’ve found a miracle pill, and who wouldn’t care who they killed as a result of being off their heads, but some people just might find it educational.
The Sun story has a photo of the pills. I’m prepared to stick my neck out as a chemist here and say to anyone reading this that there is no way on earth something that small can physically stop all the alcohol in umpteen pints of beer or shots from getting into the blood stream. Knowing what the composition of Simethicone is, I can also assure people that there is no way it can prevent the body from absorbing that all of that alcohol, either. Simethicone is pretty inert pharmacologically, and it can only have any meaningful action on the actual contents of the stomach and gut. Its usual mode of action is to reduce the painful pressure formed by small gas bubbles by making them join together into bigger bubbles – resulting in burps or farts!
All Alcopal is likely to do is confuse the breath tester, which is what one of the original stories said it did when quoting the salesman behind it. If you drink 10 pints, you’ll still be pissed – even if the breath machine says you’ve only had one.
EDIT: This ITN story has a screenshot of the website. It appears that Kibble is claiming that it DOES stop alcohol being absorbed from the stomach and intestines. That’s not what he said to the Mirror – although reading it again, he might have been trying to be funny.
Trust me when I say that you’d need a shovel full of the stuff to absorb the alcohol in several pints of beer or to line the stomach – and that’s assuming that it even does either of those things. And I say again that the typical piss head won’t want to spend money if he can’t get drunk. He could buy alcohol-free beer for that.
EDIT: It would appear that the tablets being sold are made in India. The only relevance of that is that they are probably costing fractions of a penny to make. And even though there is no clinical trial research to bankroll, Kibble is selling them for £1 a pop, or £20 for a small tub. He’s also hawking them as “herbal” or “natural”, which is not correct – Simethicone doesn’t come under that heading.
EDIT: So far, I’ve not been able to locate any American information regarding the “ban”. Every news source in the entire world is just quoting exactly what is said in the tabloids over here without adding anything new.
However, Simethicone is identified as a teratogen – it can potentially cause birth defects – according to one article, though others say it is safe. Another article identifies side-effects such as hypotension, fever, weakness, nausea, and vomiting.
This could explain why it was banned in America, and why drug companies dropped it. There’s no way they would take risks like that, and the dosage levels for the purpose intended may well have had some effect on the conflicting reports on teratogenicity. The product being sold over here could cause birth defects according to at least one source. These include heart defects, extra fingers and toes, and problems with the urinary tract (hypospadias) according to the same source.
It’s available in most stores. Go to the confectionery section and look for Smarties or M&Ms. They work just as well. An added bonus is that they’re cheaper than the branded alternative.
If you are seriously thinking of using this stuff, get professional help fast.
It starts off by saying that research at Plymouth University has shown that elderly drivers are no more likely to die in road accidents than 20-year olds. Without saying so outright, there is obviously an implication about older drivers being no worse than younger ones.
But the “study” also found that older people are five times more likely to die as pedestrians (being hit by cars). I’m not sure what this implies.
The leader of the “study” said:
You shouldn’t assume that your granddad should avoid getting behind the wheel because he won’t necessarily be safer walking down the street.
Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? This “research” shows clearly that old people have lived longer than younger ones! Oooh. And that winter is coming.
Seriously, I haven’t got a clue what either the Australian source or the amateur nerds at Plymouth University are trying to say. All I know is that there is a worrying trend towards bad statistics these days. Too many A* GCSEs a few years ago, I think.
I love some of the job titles held by those involved:
Department for International Development
Training and Development Agency (responsible for improving teaching skills)
UK Hydrographic Office
The Ordnance Survey – they make maps
The Debt Management Office (there’s an oxymoron in there somewhere)
The Asset Protection Agency (they were set up to handle bank bailouts)
Ofcom – the media regulator
The National Offender Management Service’s (NOMS) human relations officer
The NOMS’ “director of change”
They’re all household names, aren’t they?
It should be pointed out that:
While some Government departments and agencies have felt ready to pay bonuses again, others have continued a self-imposed moratorium on such payments. No senior staff at the Electoral Commission, the Driving Standards Agency, the Office of Rail Regulation or the Independent Police Commission received bonuses in 2011/12.
Anyone who has followed the blog for a while will know what I think about amateur weather forecasters. Last year, their long-range winter “forecast” was about as accurate as betting on black at a roulette table and it coming up red. It was billed as “the worst winter on record” – and they were absolutely and totally incorrect.
I’ve written before about 
radley Wiggins was in Nottingham. The reporter was outside the Castle, so I made a mental note not to go anywhere near there on today’s lessons.
