Coming home to roost

10/01/2012 by Ted.

From today’s Telegraph.

Millions of people who take a daily dose of aspirin in the hope of preventing a heart attack or stroke are at risk doing themselves more harm than good, researchers have warned.

Nicotine patches no better than will power to quit smoking
Nicotine patches may not help smokers to stub out the habit, according to a new study.

The above are todays latest examples of the partly formulated and prematurely published crackpot, and potentially harmful, ideas referred to in my last blog.

Giving people nicotine patches to help them quit the nicotine addiction always did seem crazy to me.  Like saying to a heroin user trying to give up  - “You want to quit? Well instead of sniffing the stuff inject it instead”.  A crazy idea.

The appalling thing is that both of these partly formulated and prematurely published and now discredited crackpot ideas are officially approved and have been launched at vast public expense and will no doubt continue to be put into practice despite the latest findings and the potential risk to, and disillusionment of, their victims.

To change the subject, and on a lighter note, the first signs of Spring are now evident here in Cumbria.  I saw my first wild snowdrop of the year yesterday, the gorse bushes are radiant with their yellow flowers, the early flowering bushes are well budded, the birds are beginning to sing and pair up again and strings of geese are migrating North. Also, believe it or not, the days are getting longer - by just a minute or two each day at present - although it is still pitch black at 0700 hrs up here at present. Everything is looking good!

And I had a lovely experience yesterday.  As I walked on the beach a man and his dog appeared about five hundred metres or so ahead, walking towards me. The man was throwing a ball for his dog. When the dog spotted me it bounced along the beach as if to greet an old friend and on reaching me dropped the ball at my feet and looked up expectantly as if to say, “Do you want to play?” So I picked it up and threw it as far as I could whereupon the dog ran and retrieved it and brought it back and once again dropped it at my feet to be thrown.  I repeated the throwing again and again until the man himself arrived when the dog left me once more and continued his walk with his owner. It fair made my day.

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