Passing Observations 232
Dr Vernon Coleman
1. I still don’t understand why people accepted the covid-19 vaccine because it was recommended by celebrities such as prince William. Would any of the vaxxed millions have allowed willie to perform brain surgery on them? Actually, that’s a silly question. They probably would.
2. I once frequented a café where many of the patrons read newspapers or books (or telephones) as they sipped but where one customer was a trifle unusual in that he read out loud from the book he was holding. He read in a loud, determined voice, quite oblivious of the others around him. Others in the café ignored him until one day he read from a romantic novel and became rather tremulous and visibly excited as the tension mounted. The rest of the café fell totally silent as he read. It was very strange.
3. Nitrous oxide (a valuable anaesthetic gas) has been banned because a few morons abused it (though if you believe that then you’re pretty naïve). Many doctors now refuse to prescribe adequate pain relief because they claim they are frightened that a patient may become addicted. All this is part of a deliberate plan to make life unbearable for patients. The medical establishment has agreed to diagnose less and treat less. They want patients to suffer so that they will be happier to accept euthanasia. Read Jack King’s astonishing and horrifying book entitled `They want to kill us’. It’s available as a paperback and an eBook on Amazon.
4. An elderly man in his nineties lived alone in an old caravan. The old man was perfectly sane and not demented. The caravan was parked quite legally. The local social services department decided that he needed to be taken into care so, when he refused to listen to them, they arranged for his electricity to be cut off. Then, when neighbours provided him with a car battery so that he had lighting, he still refused to budge. The Authorities simply moved in, dragged him out of his caravan and took him away. His caravan was towed away and crushed. A week later the old man was dead. True story.
5. During World War II numerous rural sign posts were turned round to mislead any Germans who parachuted into England. In parts of the West Country the signposts have never been realigned. Today they just mislead tourists and delivery drivers.
6. Have you noticed that posh people now call a `summerhouse’ a `pavilion’?
7. An elderly friend of mine says he wakes up every day relieved and slightly surprised to find that he is still alive. `Breakfast is a daily celebration,’ he says. Incidentally, he also says that his idea of living dangerously is to watch television with the subtitles switched off. A GP recently said that my friend should go into hospital because it wasn’t `safe’ to leave him at home. `What’s the worst that could happen?’ asked the old man (who is 94-years-old). He added that he would rather die at home, in his own bed, than on a noisy, unfriendly hospital ward.
8. When a visitor to Dublin commented that all the clocks on public display showed different times, he was told that there would be no point in having more than one clock if they all showed the same time.
9. Misophonia is a condition in which one person is extremely annoyed by and intolerant to the everyday sounds (coughing, eating noisily, burping, farting, etc.) made by someone else.
10. King Sardanapalus, the legendary king of Assyria, used to like to dress up as a woman and sit and spin among his numerous wives.
11. A Roman Princess was driving along when her carriage stopped. She was told that her father was dead and had collapsed in the middle of the road. She instructed the driver of her carriage to carry on and to find a way round her father’s dead body.
12. Mithridatism is a condition in which small, regular amounts of poison are given with malicious intentions but which simply lead to the prospective victim acquiring immunity. Both Napoleon and Rasputin are believed to have acquired immunity to arsenic in this way.
13. An old-fashioned male barber tells me that he was taught to shave by being told to lather a balloon and then shave it with a cut throat razor. Every time the balloon burst he had to clear up the mess.
14. Lonely, dissatisfied people sometimes tend to their maladies as gardeners may fuss over their roses or prize melons. Their maladies give them peace and something to live for – as well as something to blame for everything that goes wrong. Such people never want to be told that they can be cured. It is this phenomenon which explains the popularity of the imaginary disease `long covid’ which is now so popular.
15. In 1961, a doctor began a study of the inhabitants of Roseto, Pennsylvania in the United States. The doctor had noticed that the inhabitants were much healthier than the average American and were, for example, much less likely to have a heart attack. Researchers could find no explanation for this until they realised that the Rosetans talked to one another, helped one another and cooked for one another. They all went to church and the community helped anyone who was ill or poor or elderly. The inhabitants had been made healthier by being kinder.
16. What’s a gentleman? In the old days it was a man who dressed for dinner even if he was eating alone and cooking for himself. These days a gentleman is best defined as someone who does not cause pain.
17. On 8th June 1999, three activists boarded a Trident research barge and cleared out its laboratory. They threw computers and other equipment into the Loch where the barge was moored. They then sat down, had a picnic and waited to be arrested. Three months later they were acquitted of all the charges against them on the grounds that their action was justified since Trident was a threat that was illegal under international law. I bet that wouldn’t happen now.
18. In 1988 the people of Denby Dale in West Yorkshire made the world’s largest meat and potato pie. It took three years of planning and the pie fed 50,000 people. Large pies have been made in Denby Dale since 1788 when a huge pie was made to celebrate the news that George III had recovered his senses. (Other pies were made infrequently afterwards. For example, another pie was made in 1815 to celebrate the Duke of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo.) The pie that was made in 1988 was organised to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the first pie. I’ll be interested to see if the health and safety folk allow the citizens of Denby Dale to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the first pie.
19. Fifty or sixty years ago when patients were admitted to hospital they were interviewed and thoroughly examined by the resident house physician. Every patient had a full examination lasting 45 to 60 minutes. This was good for patients and it helped young doctors hone their skills. These days, patients who are admitted to hospital are seen by a junior nurse who invites them to have a Do Not Resuscitate notification put on their medical records. The DNR notice is put on their records whatever they say.
20. There is an erroneous assumption that the use of computers and robots in medicine is new. It isn’t. Here’s an extract from an article I wrote early in 1993 under the headline `Can Computers Take Over from Doctors?’ `Back in 1974 a team of doctors and computer scientists working in Leeds showed that computers are much better than doctors at making diagnoses. Working with a series of 552 patients, a computer had an overall diagnostic accuracy of 91.5% while senior clinicians had an overall diagnostic accuracy of 81.2%. A later trial involving 17,000 patients and 250 doctors confirmed that computers are far better than most doctors at diagnosing patients suffering from severe abdominal pains. Most recently, computers have been employed to perform complex surgical operations. In America robots have been devised by Russ Taylor at IBMs Thomas J Watson Laboratories in New York and Howard Paul of the University of California at Davis that can assist with hip replacement surgery. In France, Stephen of the University of Grenoble is working on robots which can perform brain surgery. In Britain, Brian Davies at Imperial College is working with the Institute of Urology to develop robots that can perform prostate surgery. In Germany, Ralph Mosges of the University of Aachen is planning to use robots in ear, nose and throat work. Computers and robots have a number of advantages. They do not get tired. They are speedy and predictable. They are not subject to prejudice. Most important of all, perhaps, they are far less vulnerable to the blandishments and bribes of the drug industry. ‘
21. In March 2020, in my first video I described the coronavirus panic as a `hoax’. The word `hoax’ was chosen very carefully. I’m pleased to see that it is now generally agreed that the word `hoax’ was an accurate way to describe the fake plague. Those wishing to apologise should form an orderly queue. My first book about the hoax is called `Coming Apocalypse’. It was published in April 2020. You can buy a copy via the bookshop on www.vernoncoleman.com
Copyright Vernon Coleman April 2024
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