Representative Expression

I tell you what. If your doctor ever prescribes you tramadol for pain relief, then make sure you take it for no longer than a week. If you need it for longer, then insist you get the problem fixed that you are taking it for.
I am have recently stopped taking Tramadol after taking it on and off (more on than off), for almost 2 years and boy am I suffering from it.

I am probably going through the same withdrawal symptoms that you expect with more street drugs than a prescription drug.
I haven't slept for the past 60 hours or so, and I am about to climb the walls.

One thing from this though is that I will never ever take another painkiller stronger than the stuff you can get over the counter ever again. I don't think I could face coming off the stuff if this is what it is going to be like.
Second to that is the fact that they are looking very closely at the side effects of some of the modern drugs right now, one of which is Tramadol.
So my advice to you is NOT to take it in the first place. Take milder painkillers and get the problem sorted. If you are not going to get the problem sorted, then be prepaired to take tramadol for a very very long time.

I happened to see that there was a programme about Madonna on Channel 4 and flicked over just in time to catch the start of it. I didn't know it was a full blown documentary on Madonna, I thought it was going to be a short programme.
I've been a Madonna fan since her very first hit in the UK back in the 'huh hmms' when I was DJ'ing at a local youth club. I only have to hear Holiday and it takes me back to my 'yoof'.

I don't usually watch programmes of this sort, but was soon hooked. I think Madonna is one of the most astute business women in the Musical industry and she always knows to press the right buttons. She's not affraid to speak her mind, or admit her wrongs.
I was totally blown away by some of the dancing in the documentary. After watching it, I compared it to the recent (ish) Moulin Rouge but with all the songs from Madonna. The editing of the documentary was great and I will certainly think about getting the DVD in the near future.

There is more information on the IMDb site

The documentary follows a complete tour from start to finish and includes footage of her family, the dancers and band members. The music is Madonna at her best. And before you say I am tone deaf, look at the crouds, look at their reactions. It was one heck of a stage production. The choreography was amazing as was the stanard of the various dancers.
You don't just get to hear an artist singing on that tour, you got hit with a stunning audio and visual stage production. I would loved to have gone to see one of the concerts, and I won't make the mistake of not going the next time.

I flicked BBC1 on tonight when the "Real Story" was being broadcast and there was Gee Walker sat with her husband being interviewed by Fiona Bruce.
The strength that Gee Walker must have makes me ashamed at my own weaknesses. I would hope that I could act with the same dignity, compassion and understanding that Gee (and her family) have shown towards the killers and to the parents of at least one of them.

Update: 05/12/2005
I should have posted an update here rather than in the comments (but I wanted to test the comments out again anyway). The update process was fairly simple. I had made some changes to the code for 3.15 and I forgot about those when I upgraded to 3.20. Apart from that, it was simple as transferring all of the new files to my webserver and going to the main page and running the upgrade tool. No interaction from me required at all (once I remembered what changes I had made).
Some great work by the MT crew to produce such an easy update.

I'm finally getting round to upgrading my MT installation which I am intendning to start in about 5mins.
Point being, if you see this post in a few days, you know I've screwed up and I've not fixed it yet.
Now the instructions say it is easy... We'll see.

Car paints changing with temperature by ZDNet's Roland Piquepaille -- German researchers have used ion bombardment and gold metallisation to produce new particles whose bonding behavior can be chemically tailored. This could lead to new shimmering car finishes which can change with temperature or humidity or new cosmetics.

Now when I first saw this, I thought "Wow....", but then I went outside to drop the kids off at school and remembered how frigging cold it is and thought, "Hmmm, the car will always be covered blue in this country", since it is so damn cold and wet most of the time...

Likewise, when I was living in Fort Worth, TX, it would probably have been bright red all the time, which isn't quite the case since the temperature variations over the year was easliy 50 degrees if not more...

So Harry Rednapp is coming back to Portsmouth. Personally, I didn't think it would take him long to realise where the smell was coming from. You see he left Portsmouth just over a year ago because he said things were beginning to stink. Now that he has worked out that the Scummers were only a few miles down the road, he also knows where the smell was really coming from.

But in all seriousness, its not Southampton FC that stinks so much, more the way that Rupert Lowe the chairman doesn't seem to have a concern about the football club. You'd think that the chairman of a football club from an area responsible for the departure of so many cruise liners would know a thing or two about stability and maybe apply some of the same logic to his football team, (ah, think Titanic).

Rednapps first task after moving back to Pompey will be to pay a visit to the dockyard to see what a Victory looks like. (Hasn't seen one of them at Southampton for a long time).

But really seriously... As I've stated before, I only followed Pompey because it was my home base for 9 years whilst in the Royal Navy. So I shouldn't really knock them since if I had been based in Southampton, I would probably have followed them. (I won't mention that my house was closer to Southampton FC than Pompey FC). Who ever they get to be the next manager, the chairman should be prepared to back them for a long term future and not crap himself every time they go through a losing streak. Southampton are a premiership team and need to return back there as soon as possible. They have a great history in the top flight, and although in recent years it has resulted in a struggle for survival, they have the support, the ground and usually the players to more than justify their existence in the Premiership. All that has been lacking of late is the support of the Chairman. Just because he holds the cheque book doesn't mean he can throw his toys out of the pram as and when he chooses. It makes the life of the manager very difficult when he doesn't feel like he has the support of the boardroom.

And just to even out my knocking of Lowe, I actually think its a great decision to bring in Clive Woodward to the team. That is one area that could pay dividends in the future. Football has a lot to learn from Rugby and let us hope this helps to bring success back to Southampton, (but not at the expense of Pompey please!!).

Harry, all you need to do now is get Jim Smith back and everything will be complete.

When I got up early this morning I walked out back with my cup of coffee and my ciggerette and wondered why there was a weird cloud forming over the back field. It wasn't until I went back in and switched on BBC1 to see that there had been an explosion at the Buncefield fuel depot near Hemel Hempstead.
By road its 60miles from my house to the fire, so as the crow files it is probably half of that. By 8.30am it was obvious that the clouds were in fact the smoke from the fire and to the east of us the sky was covered.
I am amazed that there has not been a massive loss of life and so far I have not heard of any fatalities.
Again, the UK News channels are playing it up as a major incident whilst being careful to mention that no terrorist activity has thought to have taken place, they still had to mention it. The coverage on all of the channels has been rather dramatic to say the least. The buggers even delayed MOTD to show coverage of a cloud of smoke rising into the air.

The above were taken from the BBC News Website

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4517962.stm
All Things blog - challenging thought...
http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/news/story.aspx?brand=EDPOnline&category=News&tBrand=edponline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED11%20Dec%202005%2011%3A04%3A04%3A347
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2005-12-11T152140Z_01_MOL155202_RTRUKOC_0_UK-TRANSPORT-BRITAIN-EXPLOSION.xml
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/12/11/uhemel.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/12/11/ixportaltop.html
Google News

It seems that they have made a good start on fighting the fire this morning at 8am. The smoke was still drifting over the back of the fields this morning, but whether it is due to the wind or the sucess of the firefighting, it seems to have diminished somewhat in the last 4 hours.
One thing that is piddling me off is the angle the press are taking once again. They seem to be scare mongering yet again and trying to whip people up into a frenzy so that they can maintain their viewing numbers. Now they are waffling on about "what if it had been a nuclear power station". Well erm, excuse me for pointing out the obvious, but #1 you wouldn't build a nuclear power station on an industrial estate in the middle of a populated area. #2, Nuclear power stations don't happen to go 'whooooompf' when it leaks and forms a vapour cloud.
Let us keep it in perspective and treat it as the incident it was. Whether or not it was an accident, eqiupment failure or even terrorism, it has nothing to do with a Nuclear Power station accident.

As hard as it is to believe looking at the devastation caused by the explosions no one was killed it appears. Congratulations to the fire departments for the way they are tackling the blaze. It looks to be very proffessional and competent attack of the fire. So long as no one gets injured in the process, it must be a fire fighters dream to work on a fire like this (providing they get it out in the next few days). It's only the press that seem to be blowing it up more than the 30million gallons of gas/petrol in the tanks did themselves.

Portsmouth boss Harry Redknapp was furious with referee Uriah Rennie's decision to award Tottenham a penalty in his side's 3-1 defeat.

I only had the match on the radio last night and John Motson was even saying that it was in no way a penalty. It turned the game and probably cost Pompey vital points at a time when they need all they can get. But I suppose when things are going bad for you, these things add up. I'd like to think that Pompey will get the good luck towards the end of the season when they will probably really need it.

How the referee could award a penalty for hand ball when the shot was blasted at him I can not understand. Even when I viewed the incident on TV it looked like ball to hand if anything, despite the fact that it appeared to hit the top of his arm, let alone his hand.
Calling a TV Referee for important decisions needs to be investigated as soon as possible. It happens in a lot of modern games these days and I think it adds to the excitement whilst ensuring that results are not affected by bad decisions. I understand that referees can make mistakes and it is not their fault. But when we have the technology to reduce the impact of thost mistakes, it seems daft not to use it.

Former gang leader Stanley "Tookie" Williams has been executed by lethal injection, 24 years after he was convicted of killing four people

Regardless of whether Williams was guilty or not, I still don't believe it is right to take another life as a punishment for any crime. It makes us no better than the criminal. This has nothing to do with religion, it is just a belief of mine.

There was some doubt about the conviction in this case, and couple that with the steps that Williams had taken in recent years, including being nominated for a Nobel Peace prize sheds some doubt on the original conviction. I always thought that someone had to be convicted 'beyond reasonable doubt'. I can't believe that there wasn't any doubt in this case and after all it was 24 years ago that he was originally convicted.

You see, I know nothing about the case other than I have read in the press. I know nothing about his crime, nor anything about the victims of the crime. I don't know what he said at the orginal trial, or what he has been saying lately.
What I can say, is that I have seen on the news that some person (a fellow human) was put to death by another human, intentionally, by lethal injection this morning around 8am GMT. That is the part I cannot understand. There is no place for the 'eye for an eye' punishment. Lock them in a room, throw away the key, put them in a bricked up room with a hatch for the rest of their life, but it doesn't give us the right to take another life. We can make mistakes too, then what do we do? If we condone someone else to death only to find that we got it wrong, do we then send the judge and jury to the chamber? I don't think so.
Again, were it any of my children whose lives where taken, then would I still feel the same way? I would hope so.

I heard on the news yesterday that long haul flights are having to make un-scheduled stops to top up their fuel tanks. Having heard that they had more than enough fuel, I think that it is more likely that the short fill the tanks in the UK and are topping up in countries where the fuel is cheaper. They can then blame it on the depot fire and hope that the passengers will understand. Fuel being one of their highest costs on a flight, they stand to save quite a lot of money by fueling overseas.

Well the kids are off school, the wife doesn't go back to work until Thursday/Friday and then she is off until just after Christmas.
Just the last few items of Christmas shopping to go and then we are done. I even managed to post ALL of the Christmas cards before the last post deadline this year (although I am bound to have forgotten someone !!).
It still doesn't feel like its Christmas yet, the lights are up, the log fire is burning away since it definetly feels like it is cold enough to be Christmas.
I'd say 90% of my Christmas shopping was done online this year with no problems other than Argos getting things completely wrong. They have a really bad checkout system online that doesn't have an ounce of common sense. I ordered 4 items one of which was an extended warranty. Having checked that all of them were available for delivery I completed the purchase only to be billed for £19.99 rather than the £99.99 that I expected. It transpired that they were out of stock of all the items, so just charged me for the warranty. So I ended up with a warranty for the items I wasn't going to get. Not only that, but after I phoned them up to cancel the order, they charged me twice, and then charged me for the items that they first told me they were out of stock. So despite the checkout process telling me I had only been charged £19.99, I was actually charged that twice, and then the £80.00 for the out of stock items. It took a week for them to back charge my credit card, all the time them earning interest on my own money.
Needless to say, I won't be using Argos online again, as this is the second bad experience with them in the past year.

Many moons ago (I'll dig out the trackback later), I posted about the state of the local NHS hospital where my wife worked and one of the suggestions I made was that hospitals should be run as is they were a private hospital. Well on today's local South Today news (Meridian region) they've reported that a new hospital being built in the New Forest (Lymington) will be something along those lines. Obviously I am not taking any credit for this, or anything remotely like it, but it does appear that common sense has prevailed.

Unfortunately the only way that the NHS will be sorted out is if the whole infrastructure is torn down and it started again from scratch. What I gather is happening in the New Forest is that a new 36Million UKP hospital is being built but instead of being run and staffed by the local NHS trust, it will be completely managed by an external private company. It won't mean any job losses, it won't mean preferential treatment for those with private health insurance.

My criticism of the NHS is not entirely done without understanding of the problems that they face. For example, your local private hospital knows beforehand what type of patients it will receive and has a rough estimate of the number expected over any given period. The fact that most private hospitals will have a specialisation helps out. NHS hospitals cover a large catchments area and therefore know that they may receive patients with various conditions, but they don't know in what numbers and most often when. Obviously budgeting for this type of care management is fraught with danger. It is that part of the process that the current NHS structure is ill equipped to deal with and leads to a draining of resources.

A local hospital recently had to spend over £12,000 to cover a single night shift because it had to employ an agency worker. The agency supplying the worker was able to charge extortionate rates because of the situation. Now despite the fact that the hospital has said it won't use the agency again, this practice is widespread throughout the NHS if not at such extortionate and resource draining levels.

Over the past few years much has been made of the shortage of nursing staff in the UK. To that extent the government started a campaign of luring overseas nursing staff to help fill our voids. Some recent press has made light of the drain that this is putting on foreign nursing levels when it could be said that there need is greater than ours. Well if there was a shortage three or four years ago, there is going to be an even bigger shortage in another two or three years. The number of student nurses has not increased to cover any of the shortfall being taken up by the foreign workers. NHS trusts have realised that they can pay overseas workers the basic wage and they don't have to increase their pay over time as much. They see this as saving.
One of the main reasons that many of the foreign nurses come to the UK is the lure of coming to work in the UK for the NHS, the medical and health system that the rest of the world aspires to be. Even in the US where the medical coverage is nearly all private and of an excellent standard (but you do pay for it), they still claim to aim for the standards that the NHS pertains to have. One reason being free medical coverage. They don't believe me when I tell them the state of the NHS and how fast it is spiraling to new depths.
Well after being lured over with UK pay scales, the chance of working for the NHS, most of these new staff are shocked at the state of the NHS. Nurses from India, Africa and the Philippines are shocked at the state of the hospitals, management and actually think they have made a backward step. They even consider that their standard of living has dropped below that to which they were accustomed to in their own country. Many of them are trapped inside two, three or four year contracts and would leave tomorrow if they legally could.
Many indian nurses for example are shocked that they need to "muck out" for example and perform duties that would normally be done by lower casts. Even on their local wages most nurses would have maids, cooks, cleaners etc etc and still have a good standard of living. They are shocked to find that they can just about afford rent and the food to eat let alone having the money to bring their families over as first they thought.
Worse still is that many of the foreign nurses are better qualified and have superior training yet are held back in promotions and even on their everyday work duty because of the fact that they are foreign, and here only to help out. It appears that the image of the NHS that they aspired to based their own standards on, was the NHS of 25-50 years ago when it still functioned somewhat.

But then another drain on the NHS that we should also consider is that treatments today are so much more expensive. Not only are we living for longer, we are requiring more drugs to keep us doing so, more hip replacements, more cancer treatments etc etc. These are all costs that were not around many years ago. And let us consider pharmaceutical company A who invests millions in creating a treatment for Cancer Type A and finds that it is somewhat effective even if limited trials exist to prove its safety or real effectiveness. In order to recoup its investment, it must charge large amounts for its usage. Now imagine that a close member of your family has Cancer type A or B or X etc and there is a change that this new wonder drug might improve their chance of survival. Quite rightly, you would want that drug to be made available at whatever cost. Unfortunately, it is the NHS that has to pay for these high cost drugs. High cost drugs that again many years ago did not exist. It is these drugs that place such a high drain on its budgets.

So why would a private medical company make a better job of running a local hospital than the NHS? Well the main reason being a medical company usually has investors, and in order to survive it must make a profit, or at very best, not make a loss. If the NHS were any other company it would have been shut down years ago. But instead of cutting back on standards, or levels or service, cleaning, food etc etc, they reach their savings by simply being efficacies. As a business they rely upon getting new customers, or keep old customers returning. They are a business and as such must focus themselves on keeping the customer happy and making a profit.

For an average decent private medical insurance you can expect to pay £70 a month. And despite the cost of almost all simply operations costing more than would be paid by a policy holder in their lifetime, they still make a profit.
When you draw comparisons to the amount of money that the government chargers each NHS patient a year for providing medical coverage, it is hard to see why there is not enough funding available. (But to be honest simply throwing more money at the NHS is NOT the way to go). And in all honesty, most Governments (and not just the current Labour Party) probably charge us £x.xx and the NHS see about n% of that with the rest going to fund 'other' projects. But the point is, the NHS is not structured or currently able to support returning a first rate service and ultimately a profit back to the government. Because of earlier statements made above (the inability to plan for cases for example), it is probably never going to be possible to provide a profit in terms of cash, but that should not stop the level of service being sacrificed and it should be the general public or NHS customer that receives the profit back in terms of excellent healthcare coverage.

Update: I just caught the 22.20 local news and I caught the earlier details slightly wrong. So far it is only being proposed that a private medical company will run the hospital, since the local NHS trust is pretty much bankrupt. The new hospital is not due to open until the end of 2007.

Google Press Center: Zeitgeist It turns out that looking at the aggregation of billions of search queries people type into Google reveals something about our curiosity, our thirst for news, and perhaps even our desires. Considering all that has occurred in 2005, we thought it would be interesting to study just a few of the significant events, and names that make this a memorable year. (We’ll leave it to the historians to determine which ones are lasting and which ephemeral.) We hope you enjoy this selective view of our collective year

Take a trip to the Google zeitgeist 2005 site and check out the history of searches over the year. They have some neat graphs if you are nerdy enough to appreciate them.

NORAD Tracks Santa 2005 This is the 50th Anniversary that NORAD and its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) have tracked Santa. The tradition began after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. store advertisement for children to call Santa on a special "hotline" included an inadvertently misprinted telephone number. Instead of Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief's operations "hotline." The Director of Operations, Colonel Harry Shoup, received the first "Santa" call on Christmas Eve 1955. Realizing what had happened, Colonel Shoup had his staff check radar data to see if there was any indication of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Indeed there were signs of Santa and children who called were given an update on Santa's position. Thus, the tradition was born. In 1958, the governments of Canada and the United States decided to create a bi-national air defense command for the North American continent called the North American Air Defense Command. Canada and the U.S. believed they could better defend North America together as a team instead of separately.

A bit of festive fun with the people at Norad who are celebrating their 50th year of providing the Santa tracking service.
Check here for their download counter and a host of other goodies...
http://www.noradsanta.org/en/downloads.php

And from me to you all, have a happy Christmas and best wishes for the new year.