… is what will replace the communiques from the Supreme Leader in Private Eye?
My guess: A weekly bulletin from Dave and Nick, a nice professional gay couple living in a civil partnership.
Time to renew my subscription, methinks. Rich pickings for satirists lie ahead.
I went to see my GP on Monday. Upon arrival, I noticed that there was a touchscreen monitor on the reception desk. “Touch here to arrive for your appointment” it said. “Arrive???” Resisting the temptation to point out the grammatical absurdity of the invitation to the receptionist, I duly ‘touched’ the screen and was invited to enter my date of birth, after which a welcome message flashed up.
Sitting in the waiting room, I fell to reflecting on this. During the swine-flu panic, we were constantly exhorted to avoid touching strange doorknobs etc. And yet here we are in a GP’s surgery merrily placing our various germs on a common screen. Hmmm…
Later, in one of those lovely serendipitous coincidences, this message from a long-term correspondent popped into my inbox:
My local surgery is very progressive. On the information side, their mail/email handling of repeat prescriptions is first class.
Recently however they have introduced, as an alternative, a touch screen check in system…. (an NHS standard ?).
You may check in for a scheduled appointment by using by the touch screen. First, however you need to wipe your hands with antiseptic gel. There is a large notice telling you do so. Standing next door to this facility whilest collecting my repeat prescription, I noted that out of 7 users, 3 omitted to clean their hands…
I still use the ‘person to person confrontational’ check in. As a regular, the receptionists know me and greet me and we exchange pleasantries in a friendly fashion. As far as I know we don’t infect each other. She often gives me additional information unknown to the automated system. e.g. which end of the reception area to sit for my blood test call.
From the BBC web site. Suggests that the so-called “Rainbow coalition” is implausible. The Scots and Welsh Nats have explicitly stated that they would not support public-sector cuts in their territories. And of course many Labour MPs cannot abide the SNP.
Photo by Tim Montgomerie. Click on the image to see the grisly detail.
Flickr version here.
The strangest thing about this clip is how old it is. It comes from the 1980s. To think that we’re still arguing about this stuff — and that there is no guarantee that, even now, we’ll get any reform of our electoral system. Bah!
A huge fall in the Dow appears to have been caused after a trader inputting details hit the button for billion not million.
The Dow’s overall rate fell by nearly a thousand points in an anomalous pattern that had the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange announcing they would cancel all trades more than 60 percent above or below market that occurred between 2:40 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. New York time.
According to CNBC the problem came when a deal involving Proctor and Gamble shares was incorrectly entered.
“We, along with the rest of the financial industry, are investigating to find the source of today’s market volatility,” Citigroup said in a statement.
“At this point we have no evidence that Citi was involved in any erroneous transaction.”
Proctor and Gamble shares fell by over a third on the day’s trading.
“We don’t know what caused it,” said Procter & Gamble spokeswoman Jennifer Chelune.
“We know that that was an electronic trade…and we’re looking into it with Nasdaq and the other major electronic exchanges.”
[Source]
Moscow by night — seen from space.
“Children just aren’t interested in Witches and Wizards anymore.” – Anonymous publishing executive to J.K. Rowling, 1996. “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” – H. M. Warner, co-founder of Warner Bros. 1927. “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” – Ken Olson, Founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977. “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” – Decca Records executives rejecting the Beatles, 1962. “You better get secretarial work or get married.” – Emmeline Snively, Director, Blue Book Modelling Modelling Agency, to Marilyn Monroe in 1944. “The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty, a fad.” – The President of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903. “I would say that this does not belong to the art which I am in the habit of considering: music.” – Alexandre Oulibicheff, reviewing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.” – The San Francisco Examiner, rejecting a submission by Rudyard Kipling in 1889. “The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” – Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878. “A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make.” – Response to Debbi Fields’ idea of starting Mrs. Fields’ Cookies. The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most.” – IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959.
[Source]
Nice Guardian piece by Jonathan Freedland.
As for personal ambition, the virus that brought down Macbeth, those looking kindly on Brown said he was cured of it. "I'm past caring," he mused privately on Friday, when asked about his own position. They point to his statement accepting that Clegg talk to Cameron first, all statesmanlike and above the fray, as if he had made the emotional shift from combatant to referee.
Others see the weekend’s events rather differently. The less charitable version pictures Brown in the No 10 bunker, scheming to cling on. It cites the late-night calls to Clegg – although those who heard them insist they were calm and businesslike – imagining a fevered Brown stabbing jotting pads with his thick pen, totting up the assorted minor parties to see if he could somehow reach the magic number that spelled power.
That the PM saw Clegg again today, in a clandestine meeting at the Foreign Office, confirmed Brown was far from ready to surrender. Instead, this man of uncanny resilience was clearly planning one more resurrection.
Which version is true? Is Brown now the becalmed statesman, planning his exit, or the bloodied survivor, determined to fight on? The likelihood is that, when it comes to Brown – the most psychologically complex figure to inhabit Downing Street since Winston Churchill – the answer is both.
It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.
