“Cat: Where are you going? Alice: Which way should I go? Cat: That depends on where you are going. Alice: I don’t know. Cat: Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.” Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland #BeautySpeaks

Reading about the maternity inquiry in The Times this morning and it reminded me of the one time I complained to the NHS. My wife was in hospital 10 years ago and a very senior nurse got purple face angry and started shouting at my wife who was in severe pain and largely incapable of reply. 1/3

🚨 NEW: The hospital trust at the centre of Britain’s largest maternity disaster covered-up baby deaths and subjected women to cruel and racist treatment, a damning inquiry will reveal this week www.thetimes.com/article/95f9...

Ethnic minority women giving birth at Nottingham were denied interpreters, laughed at by staff and even had accents mimicked. Just some examples of the cruel treatment to be exposed by Ockenden on Wednesday.

Need a vibe check? Find out how our spectrum approach could help you build safer AI-assisted software: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blogs/the-vibe-coding-spectrum-approach-to-ai-assisted-software-development

The Scotland game last night had one interesting feature. The referee’s attitude to play. He had zero tolerance for players falling over for their hair getting mussed, and expected players to get on with it. I’d watch more football with that style of play!

Scotland will feel most unhappy that they didn’t take advantage of a referee straight out of 1980s Scotland who expected players to not fall over if their hair got mussed. I think I’d watch more football if refs managed games to that standard.

Well, that’s not how the game should have started…

Two trains have collided near Bedford. Bedford hospital is expecting at least 50 casualties to arrive with a message of "all hands on deck" sent to staff: www.thetimes.com/uk/transport...

I'm just not a fan of Meloni's politics, but damn she's not shy about telling the orange one blunt words. Not convinced Trump understood her though. "Why is this woman talking to me? Who is she? Is she my daughter? Mmmm..."

Our house is fantastically well insulated. Seriously well done, the insulation/ventilation mix is also just right, keeping it warm but also enough ventilation to stop damp problems. But... it's summer, and our house is built for keeping us warm. Ah well.

GP appt today: 34KG lost in 8 months. 3KG to go to target. Bloods review: HDL: 1.0 LDL: 0.7 HbA1c: 22mmol/mol I fit easily in size 34 shorts for the first time this millennium.

Local post box topper. Not all of this area has gone into Reform knuckle dragging then.

Seeing all the pics of the manky reflecting pool in the US made me remember the magnificent Taj Mahal view we had last winter in India.

Sold. Get it signed before they change their minds if there’s something serious here.

I talked to a couple of folk yesterday on this and so much of it comes down to NHS "corporate" folk just not understanding cash and cash flow in general practice. Zero obvious impact analysis on the cash impact on practices who already get penalised for inactive patients via Carr-Hill.

Future history tends to heavily judge those who do not understand past history. Versailles…

People are too nice to prominent anti-vaxxers, especially those with professional clinical registrations. I just don’t get why they’re not treated like drunk drivers. They have no valid opinion and have caused immeasurable harm. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

They may not feel stupid but the wearers look like nonces to anyone who knows what they are.

I don’t follow much football beyond the World Cup, but even I know enough to be happy that Portugal aren’t doing anywhere near as well as they’d have hoped.

There's a really good thread by @guitarmoog.bsky.social on mining and its consequences. I grew up in a mining village in Fife. Adult men in their 50s were OLD, and there were almost old age male pensioners. Mining is a trade that I'm glad is gone as it brutalises lives. 1/3

I was born and grew up in South Shields in the ‘80s and ‘90s. My paternal grandfather was a miner. I never met him though. He died when my dad was 12 from Black Lung, unable to breathe from hardened, blackened lungs filled with coal dust. My grandma got £12 life insurance. 1/

I don't get why NHSE are so intent on aggressively removing patients. Young patients with few issues are actually priced into the Carr-Hill formula that funds practices. It doesn't need NHSE doubling the penalty by removing them from the practice's list altogether.

A bit different to the usual beastie I’m expected to evict from the house!

My move from Google Health (formerly Fitbit) to Garmin had me import my Fitbit data to Garmin. The export size from Google was 3.5GB. This is why I don't want to use Google Health or their quite unwanted AI "health coach". Once that data gets into their system, it's there permanently.

The UK social media ban for under 16s reminds me of the US jaywalking laws. Only there because the government doesn't want big companies being held accountable for their own problems. If a tech company promotes an algorithm that is harmful and toxic then that's their problem.

Parents: is YOUR child staying up late at night arguing about the costs of HS2?

There’s not much as comfortable as a cat snuggled up to his fluffy bunny toys.

I remember watching his show and wondering after some episodes about his longer-term life expectancy.

There is far more scope to improve NHS productivity than the NHS thinks there is because it confuses useful activity with failure activity and wasted activity: www.hsj.co.uk/daily-insigh...

Imagine being so scared of the tech bros as a government that you penalise the children instead of actually enforcing anti-nonce and anti-extremism behaviour on the social media sites themselves.

Well, that's particularly useful Nespresso.

Starmer was born wearing office wear. Him not wearing office wear when he's doing his day job as PM is immediately wrong to the eye and I unconsciously think he's out to deceive me on whatever he's saying. If this is his "special advisor" giving sartorial advice then that's another failure.

A headline that is so stereotypically English that it practically signs "two world cups" at you.

My feed today seems a bit empty of NHS stuff. It’s actually quite empty of much but unhappy stuff. Either unhappy stuff or people complaining about unhappy stuff. And, yes, I do know this is one of the latter. I think remedy would be a nice brew and one of those fancy scones we got yesterday.

The Scotland World Cup game highlighted my problem with the tournament. I’m not a football fan. I couldn’t tell you who the players are, or their clubs. But the World Cup is a four yearly bit of fun escapism that I enjoy. For it to be so damaged for political opportunism is unforgivable. 1/2

Are Scotland going to win the World Cup? No. Unfortunately the sun may be too much for the poor Scottish players’ chances. Needs some good Scottish rain. Are Scotland going to have the best fans in the tournament? Undoubtedly. And it’s definitely a matter of pride for me.

A live action NFT

Until the state pension can reliably pay at least the core living expenses of rent, core domestic bills, and food, the triple lock must stay in place. Right now it can’t, and anyone who thinks it can is just delusional. And living in a poor area is a multiplying factor for this effect.

You can't vibe code your way out of an NHS staffing crisis

Imagine that even the DAILY MAIL is now saying "recent data suggests that human–caused climate change could be driving this system to a tipping point that could trigger its total collapse." and STILL senior government folk are terrified to mention climate change due to populist scumbaggery.

Step back and look at long term trends (which politicians don’t do) and our society is collapsing. Older people in rented accommodation with no pensions are increasing, so problems occur the minute they can’t work. All politicians see is a welfare bill caused by “laziness”, ignoring the causes.

I was reflecting on this exact point yesterday when talking to folk about how young folk are being left behind. When I was growing up in my mining village in the 70s and 80s, kids had effectively five ways to secure employment, and there were quite reliable routes to them all. 1/

This is outrageous. When I hire KPMG to validate my priors I expect to receive the wildly overconfident lies of a 23 year old MBA, not those of some stinking robot.

I was reflecting on this exact point yesterday when talking to folk about how young folk are being left behind. When I was growing up in my mining village in the 70s and 80s, kids had effectively five ways to secure employment, and there were quite reliable routes to them all. 1/

“If we remove the need for some patients to get hospital treatment, we’ll have so much money to fix other things!” Well, no, you’ve forgotten the cash. If you remove a patient appt, where’s the cash you saved? Did you stop paying the staff? Decide the estates didn’t need to be paid for?

To be fair, quite a few US folk did spend decades funding for Northern Ireland to be Irish. Albeit with different Northern Irish folk to these ones.

If you have any take on the Belfast violence but this one, you’re probably wrong.