School science

Nice little article in today's Observer about school science experiments.

Now it's a long time since I was at school (left 6th form in 1981 to be precise) but I remember some mad science teachers fondly.
Our chemistry teacher performed the Thermite reaction for us on more than one occasion. It was impressive. It was scary. There weren't enough safety goggles to go around. But the real danger was not in the classroom.
The reaction makes such an impressive flash, that it was seen by a cook in the school kitchens, whose windows faced the chemistry lab. This particular cook was so startled that she nearly sliced through her hand with a breadknife and had to be wheeled off to hospital.

Bad science. Naughty science.

I read Dr.Ben Goldacre's 'Bad Science' column in the Guardian each week, and of course have to agree with pretty much everything he says, because it's true, and not necessarily because he's a "serious fuck-off academic ninja" (ego check there, Benny boy.) And I know Gillian Mckeith is an annoying pretense at a charlatan, but give the girl a break. Please.

Of course I too could have done a masters in philosophy if I hadn't got sidetracked into saving the lives of complete no-hopers living in the armpit of society, but that's another story. One thing I really, really would like to get from a clinical trial paper some day is a conclusion that says something other than the results, whilst interesting, are far from conclusive. Further studies on a larger scale are probably warranted.
We must be able to do better than than, surely?

Lashings of whipped cream

We're getting a new vending machine in the waiting room. It will dispense a 'Whiplash pack' which consists of a sympathy card saying 'There, there, we're sorry you sprained your neck a bit'; a pack of Neurofen (or generic equivalent); an advice card saying that it will get better in a few days - or as soon as they fill in a compensation form; and some contact info for a no-win no-fee legal firm.
That way people who strain their neck in a car accident (MVI - motor vehicle incident - is the latest jargon) can avoid the lengthy queues to se a doctor, and also STOP WASTING MY SODDING TIME.

The over-papered office

Like a lot of NHS trusts, mine is busy sacking nurses. Funny, isn't it, how one moment everyone can be saying how we really need a couple of extra nurses per shift, then suddenly pretend that we can actually get by quite safely with a couple fewer, and that somehow this might actually be better for the patients.
Still, it's nice to know that we are still able to employ someone to write a 120-page plan for us to cope with pandemic flu. Seriously. 120 sodding pages.
I might ask a punter tomorrow which makes them feel better - knowing that they're going to wait an extra hour because we are a nurse down, or knowing that we have a set of draft guidelines (which, believe me, NO-ONE IS EVER GOING TO READ) on fecking bird flu.

No more room...

So our prisons are nearly full, and may actually fill up overnight.
Here's my take on why prison doesn't work - certainly not in terms of re-offending rates.

You know when you're waiting to pull out at a junction, and there's a constant stream of traffic with no-one letting you out? I bet you say "Come on, will one of you buggers let me OUT" don't you? You treat the stream of cars as a collective, a conspiracy, a group of like-minded individuals who are all sodding rude.
But they're not of course - they are a group of completely disparate individuals with little in common, and certainly not in communication with each other in any way.
So it is with law-breakers. No matter how much we would like to think of them as a homogenous criminal gang, they are just a load of individual people. So thinking that you can somehow appeal to 'them' with the threat of sanctions is simply ridiculous.
Two other reasons why prolonging sentences can never work; many who end up in jail lead totally chaoticl ives, and have difficulty planning from one moment to the next, let alone thinking of long-term outcomes of their actions. If they could think consequentially, they probably wouldn't hit the old lady in the first place. And the last reason? None of them are actually planning on getting caught.