Diary Of An ADI

I fell asleep last night and when I woke up around 4pm, I was surprised to see the same Jacksons documentary on most of the MTV/VH1 channels. I guessed something was up.

Obviously, this was confirmed this morning when I heard the news. It seems it was a heart attack. It’s a shame – no matter what you thought of him, he was a talented (if latterly, very confused) individual.

There’s a good write up in The Times. The one in The Sun isn’t too bad, either. All the other papers are covering it, of course. Best if you read those instead of me quoting anything.

I’m sure this will upset some people, but in many ways it is as significant as Elvis’ death. Not just the fact that Jacko was a superstar and supremely talented person (more so than Elvis, in my opinion), but due to the way the public is behaving already. The media has gone crazy.

Right now on breakfast TV they’re at Glastonbury interviewing people about what it means. And they’ve got a Jacko impersonator in the studio. And I took the car to the Ford dealer this morning to get it looked at (EMS fault), and on the radio they have got people phoning in with their opinions: mainly middle-aged women, clearly contemplating suicide over his death. The news channels have covered little else, though it is tiresome listening to Z-list celebrities stuttering and stammering (why is it they can’t talk properly off-screen?) for 5 minutes just to say ‘I’m shocked’.

I was never into Jacko’s kind of music, but I didn’t specifically hate what he did. I just recognised him for what he was: musically gifted.

Edit: 26/06/2009 #1 – Daytime TV is driving me nuts. Phone-in after phone-in with such gems as:

I’m just [pause]… really [pause]… really sad! He was very [pause]… very [pause]… good!

People really are idiots.

Edit: 26/06/2009 #2 – And now they have Uri Geller on the phone. I don’t think I need to say any more on that: you know what he was like at the best of times.

Saw this article in yesterday’s press.

I won’t duplicate it here, but the section titles are listed below:

• The sun is behind global warming
• The Maldives aren’t sinking (nor is Tuvalu)
• CO2 levels are not at unprecendented highs
• Polar Bears are not dying out
• And neither are Penguins
• The Gulf Stream is not under threat
• Global warming could be good for us
• There are few ‘bad’ foods
• Organic food is not better for you
• There’s no need to cut back on salt
• Turkey Twizzlers are fine
• We don’t know what causes heart disease
• Eggs rarely contain salmonella
• Cholesterol in the diet doesn’t cause fatty deposits in arteries
• There is probably little difference in the effect of saturated and unsaturated fats
• Salt doesn’t cause high blood pressure in normal people
• Mercury fillings are probably harmless

I’ve said before that taking salt out of food is making it taste like crap!

Mini Cheddars have been screwed up by taking it out, most Chinese takeaways have been screwed up (especially the rice, which they now cook in plain water instead of salted), Cornish Pasties usually taste like cardboard because the salt is gone, Pot Noodles the same… the list goes on. Indian restaurants appear to have used a little more common sense (except the ones who offer ‘healthy’ options – what the hell is a curry without oil and salt in it?)

The article was apparently extracted from a forthcoming book: Global Warming And Other Bollocks: The Truth About All Those Science Scare Stories by Professor Stanley Feldman and Professor Vincent Marks. I fancy a look at that to see what the evidence for these claims is.

Sometime, you just couldn’t make it up!

In one news story today, two young girls were treated in hospital for burns they sustained to their bare feet after walking on to freshly-laid tarmac.

Fair enough: it’s obviously not something you want to happen – but it happens. It’s what they call ‘an accident’. Well, they used to. But not nowadays. You see, the girls’ parents are going to sue the backsides off whoever they can.

Their parents Robert and Hazel Woodley are now planning to sue for damages, claiming there were no proper signs or barriers to warn holidaymakers of the newly laid surface.

There were cones. And if memory serves me correctly, the rising (and often visible) fumes tend to be a bit of a giveaway. And just what kind of parent allows kids to walk barefoot on what is obviously new (and therefore sticky) tarmac? Burns or not, you just don’t walk barefoot on something which is sticky and dirty.

The father, Robert Woodley, laid it on thick – no doubt in preparation for the millions he is going to try and claim:

“The girls were just screaming in pain. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone in such pain. It was awful for us to see the kids in such agony.”

Mr Woodley said one side of the path was lined with a few traffic cones but there was nothing to stop people walking across the hot surface.

Of course, seeing as a local council is involved, Mr Woodley can probably expect to receive at least a six-figure settlement:

Clive Smith, head of Poole council’s leisure services, said they planned to carry out a full investigation into the incident.

He added: “Leisure services staff were on site immediately after this incident occurred.

“We are taking this incident very seriously.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the same coin, another story details the sorts of things being banned in schools because they are dangerous.

• pupils have to wear goggles when using Blu-tack
• spray foam banned in case pupils ‘drown in it’
• 3-legged race on Sports Day banned for being ‘too dangerous’
• Pritt Stick covered by a 5-page warning guide
• No sending bad kids into the corridor, because it’s a ‘fire hazard’
• Climbing frame removed (bark chippings underneath not of ‘required depth’)
• Wet grass causes PE lessons to be cancelled
• Sweets banned because of choking risk
• Egg cartons banned because of salmonella fears
• Empty roilet roll tubes banned (presumably for similar reasons)
• Footballs banned in playground
• Children only allowed outside if wearing a hat and sunscreen

Those last ones are from the Daily Mail’s version of the story.

It’s no wonder evolution throws up people like Mr Woodley, when society readily provides such an environment for his kind to grow up in.

When I was a kid, we had egg-and-spoon races, three-legged races, played football with anything even remotely spherical, ran, chased, laughed… rain or shine. We climbed trees, fell out of trees, rode bikes to places more than 100 metres away from home, played with hot tar (and got into trouble for ruining our clothes with it)… And we survived.

You fear for the bunch of dependent weaklings being bred today, don’t you?

And one more thing. ‘Back when I were a lad’ if you stood on something hot (or sharp, or wet and clammy) you danced around a bit and got off it… QUICKLY! From the way the tarmac story is worded these two girls must have been standing on it for several minutes… what great parents they must have, eh?

Well done DH for passing this afternoon with just 6 driver faults. He was as nervous as anything, but he pulled it together and got a good result out of it.

Good for me, too. That’s six out of my last seven tests which have been passes, with the ‘worst’ ones being two with 7 driver faults. Also good for the whole year, so far, when I tot them up!

Normal flu kills about 4,000 every year in the UK, and between 500,000 and 1 million worldwide ( source).

In my last post on this topic on June 11, I pointed out that worldwide there had been around 30,000 cases of Swine Flu and only 141 deaths.

The British Press has gone nuts today because someone has died from Swine Flu in Scotland. This is the first fatality outside the American continent, and comes after nearly 1,300 confirmed cases in the UK.

The woman who died had underlying health problems. She had been seriously ill for weeks, and had recently given birth prematurely to a baby (unfortuantely, the baby has also died from other complications). Even without the other problems, she was in a high-risk group for flu.

Obviously, its tragic. But it is just one death involving someone who was already ill and at-risk.

The press is urging us ‘Not To Panic’.