Train or Plane

 

I always take a train if possible.

Sometimes though it is not despite the fact that the train is half-empty. There is just nowhere to park at many stations, whereas you can always park at an airport.

Chemicals in Food

 

There are a lot less toxins in food now than there was fifty years ago. Remember DDT.

There is no increase in human cancers if you read the statistics correctly. We're just getting older and more likely to get cancer.

This is just scaremongering on the part of the WWF to get funding.

Get Bjorn Lomborg on the case.

River Cafe

 

Before we went on holiday, we went to the River Cafe in Hammersmith.

It was one of the best meals we've ever had and although it was expensive, it wasn't that so.

But what marked it out was their attitude to me as a coeliac. I said I was when I booked and this was picked up immediately by the waiter, when we sat down. The menu was then gone through by the head waiter, who marked it so there would be no mistakes. Interestingly, only the four pasta dishes were completely off limits, with three other dishes being simply modified.

So if you are in West London and want a really special lunch or dinner, I can really recommend the River Cafe.

Cyclists on Pavements

 

I was walking round a blind corner in Cambridge and a guy on a bike came straight across on the pavement at about thirty miles an hour. If I hadn't been so agile, he might even have killed me.

I shouted at him to behave and slow down and all I got was two fingers.

Marcus Trescothick

 

Marcus seems to have had a series of problems over the last few years. It was first reported as migraine and now it's stress and other mental problems.

I am a coeliac, which means I'm allergic to gluten. I also moderate a UK forum on the disease. Marcus' tale seems that it could be down to this disease that affects about 1-in-100 of us. I had a lot of those symptoms before I was diagnosed. It often shows as a neurological problem, when really it is down to the gut not taking in the vitamins needed for the brain to function correctly.

Best of luck to him, whatever the problem is.

Telepathy

 

This is a true story that happened to me.

I shall always remember where I was on the 11th September 2001, just as I always remember Michael Aspel reading the news on the BBC, the evening President Kennedy was shot.

At the time of the attack, I was delivering a thousand Al Stewart CDs to his manager at Waterloo Station. I was early and parked on a meter and proceeded to make a few phone calls. All the numbers in my head had disappeared. I couldn’t even remember the number of my wife's mobile phone, a number I regularly use.

To put it bluntly, I felt I was having some sort of fit, stroke or I was going mad.

Only after I’d delivered the CDs and heard the news on the radio about the attacks on the World Trade Centre did my mind return to normal.

As an aside, this fits very much with Rupert Sheldrake's view of knowledge fields. As a scientist I just can't explain what happened.

One-Eyed Birko

 

As someone who spent three wonderful years at Liverpool University and met his wife there, there is quite nothing like being drunk on a Mersey ferry in a serious gale for awfulness.

Birkenhead as the new Manhattan. Ask Anne Robinson as I think her mother used to sell chickens in Birkenhead Market.

Naseem Hamed

 

The problem with the Naseem Hamed case is not that his sentence was reduced, is that why after two driving bans was he was allowed to drive such a fast and flashy car.

Perhaps the banning limit on tot-up should be raised to say 15 or 18 points, but if you get say 9 then you are put on a restricted licence for say three years. This would only allow you to drive low powered cars of say less than 1.2 litres. To make them more embarrassing they should perhaps be Jeremy Clarkson's favourite colour of pink.

You would only get an unrestricted licence back if in that three years period you had accumulated less than 3 points.

This punishment would not cost people their job because they couldn't drive, but they would also be doing their part to save carbon emissions.

Epilepsy

 

I was at a barbecue today with a reasonably famous sportsman, who has been told he can't compete as he suffered what looked like an epilepsy attack. On talking to him, I found out that his mother is a coeliac.

Is there a connection?

Quackery

 

Rheumatoid arthritis is an interesting one.

I am a coeliac who was diagnosed at 57. Prior to going on a gluten free diet, I suffered from joint pains, which some would say were a mild arthritis. They disappeared immediately the diet kicked in.

I am not alone. I have found lots of coeliacs, who have been on arthritis drugs for years. They go on a GF diet and the symptoms disappear.

Homoeopathy is a complete fraud on the public, but getting your diet right is something that can improve the health of a large proportion of the population.

Plastic Bags

 

We shop at Waitrose and use their QuickCheck system, which means you have special very long life bags and you also only have to pack goods once. Other supermarkets are using this system and many customers find it is much more efficient.

Only if you replace plastic bags with something more efficient will the customers accept it. Most will just get angry about being charged for the bags.

I seem to remember about thirty years ago, supermarkets did charge for plastic bags.