Passing Observations 176
Dr Vernon Coleman
1. Inflation in the UK has halved and has fallen to 17% (it was heading for 40% and will probably go back in that direction). The figure of 17% may seem higher than the official figure but that’s because the official figure doesn’t include inessentials such as food, fuel, heating and housing costs. Anyone (like me) not receiving a pay rise of at least 17% will be poorer and feeling the strain well before Christmas.
2. A huge industry has grown up around Alzheimer’s Disease. Charities, encouraged no doubt by drug companies (who often have enormous influence), frequently seem to suggest that Alzheimer’s is a synonym for dementia and there is no doubt that as far as many doctors are concerned Alzheimer’s is the immediate and default diagnosis when a patient begins to appear forgetful or confused. The truth is that Alzheimer’s is just one cause of dementia – and many patients who are diagnosed as having dementia could be cured very simply and very quickly – in some cases by simply stopping unnecessary medication. For the truth about dementia and Alzheimer’s please read my book `The Dementia Myth’ (it is available via the bookshops on www.vernoncoleman.com and www.vernoncoleman.org ).
3. The BBC reported last week that an actor hadn’t watched a particular television programme. This opens up a whole range of new programme ideas for the BBC. They could make programmes about people who haven’t eaten chips for a week, people who never wear tartan socks and people who never watch BBC programmes. A programme about people who don’t pay the TV licence fee would be popular. And there could be a programme about countries not subjected to Western sanctions and another programme about countries which haven’t been, are not being and are not about to be bombed by America and its satellite NATO partners (though that would probably be a short programme and it would need constant updating).
4. `In my new novel, which took many months to write and which is called `The Awakening of Dr Amelia Leighton’, the heroine, called Amelia Leighton, is a young doctor working as a GP in a modern city practice. She hates her job and her colleagues. The practice is rule bound and bureaucratic. After she breaks the rules by visiting a patient at home, Amelia is given an official warning about her future employment. She resigns and takes a job in a small, old-fashioned country practice where there is no mobile phone coverage and no appointments system. `The Awakening of Dr Amelia Leighton’ is a story about how a young GP comes face to face with the past. But will the past prove to be her future?`The Awakening of Dr Amelia Leighton’, probably or at least possibly my last novel, is now available as an eBook as well as a paperback via the bookshops on www.vernoncoleman.com and www.vernoncoleman.org
5. A woke person says that only Scottish actors should play Scottish roles in plays and films. What a good idea. And only English actors can play English roles. And only Russian submarine captains can play Russian submarine captains. Sadly, there aren’t going to be a great many opportunities for Scottish actors in future. So then they’ll be broke as well as woke.
6. It is curious, is it not, just how enthusiastic the Western media is about supporting the neo-Nazi Ukrainian army as it drives its German leopard tanks into battle with our World War II allies.
7. An astonishing 92% of Americans do not believe anything they see, hear or read on or in their mainstream media. And who can blame them.
8. I used to be a fan of charities and pressure groups providing help and advice about specific diseases. Back in the 1970s, I produced the first directory listing the available societies and Nursing Times serialised it. Sadly, these days many such charities are controlled by and run for pharmaceutical industries. The cancer charities are in my view the worst.
9. Have you noticed that net zero is being exclusively promoted by people who won’t have to pay for it – or pay the price of the chaos, poverty and hardship that will ensue?
10. `It is known that the newspapers are habitually untruthful, but it is also known that they cannot tell lies of more than a certain magnitude.’ – George Orwell, writing in 1940. I think he would change that view today.
11. In England, it has been alleged that black people are being let down by the NHS. And it has been stated that women are being let down by the NHS. So you might think that just leaves white men who appear to be well looked after or, more likely, that no one gives a damn about whether white men are or are not getting a good deal from the NHS. In reality, it is the elderly (black and white, male and female) who are most let down by the NHS – after all it is the elderly who are being legally murdered in their thousands by NHS staff, without anyone apparently giving a damn.
12. In a junk shop (one of the few remaining in England) I found an old Dandy comic from 1986. One of the strips contained a character called Mustapha Screwloose. Can you imagine the fuss if anyone created a character with such a name today? There would be rioting in the North of England and questions in the South.
13. `Every thinking person nowadays is stiff with fright.’ – George Orwell
14. A friend has a Victorian sword stick with which he says he can skewer three climate change psychopaths or two fat ones. (He’s actually a pacifist and wouldn’t say boo to a hissing goose. But it’s a nice line.)
15. The woke reviewers are becoming increasingly aggressive. Readers of my book `100 Greatest Englishmen and Englishwomen’ have attacked me for having mentioned Lord Byron (`he did not treat women well’), Shakespeare (`characters such as Shylock were anti-semitic’) Charles Dickens (`anti-Semitism in Oliver Twist’) and Winston Churchill (presumably because he helped England defeat the Germans and smoked cigars). And some readers complained because I hadn’t included any Scots or Welsh in my list of the 100 Greatest Englishmen and Englishwomen.
16. The biofuel industry seems to have woken up again. Burning food as an alternative to oil has become popular and is undoubtedly very woke but it will add to the vast number of people in the world who are starving to death. At the last count around 140 million people are starving at the moment. The woke, climate change psychos want to kill billions and reduce the global population because this will please their masters, the conspirators.
17. It took the hospital 13 days and 14 days to tell Antoinette that her latest mammogram was clear. Thank you, Lord. But both the letters giving the same good news were posted second class. I wouldn’t dream of telling the NHS administrators how to improve their service (ahem) but wouldn’t it be better for everyone if they sent one letter by first class mail instead of two more or less identical letters by second class mail. If doctors and nurses went on strike to force hospitals to use first class mail when sending out such mail I would stand on the picket line alongside them. But they won’t of course.
18. We have a couple of bird baths in our garden. They are emptied daily by the squirrels, foxes and badgers as well as the birds. But here’s a strange thing: every time I fill one of the baths it is full of wasps. They actually go into the water and then fly out. I assume to collect fluid to help them turn wood into nest building material. The wooden benches in the garden are being eaten away by wasps. I hope they don’t build their nest in a chimney again. We have fake wasps’ nests hanging in all the places where I really don’t want them building a nest – except the chimney.
19. Would it not be a good idea for Wikipedia to change its name to Wikilies to reflect more accurately the nature of the site’s content?
20. European bison have been released in Kent as part of a bizarre re-wilding programme. Four bridges will need to be built so that the free roaming bison have more freedom to wander round the countryside and startle the natives. Meanwhile, climate change nutters want to eradicate cows from the English countryside.
Copyright Vernon Coleman June 2023
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