Posts by Ray Gilbert
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I too am a big fan of bare feet and in my younger unemployed years could go several weeks without wearing shoes. The only down side would be walking from Grey Lynn to the Gluepot for a gig only to be turned away at the door as I had forgotten to put shoes on.
My party trick was stubbing out cigarettes or holding lighter flames to the bottom of my feet. I forgot the basic rules of physics after a while (that heat can conduct) and held a lighter flame for a length of time till I could just feel the heat. I then spent several painful minutes as more heat continued to conduct through my non nerved callous into my sensitive dermis.
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Am I the only one round here who used Internet in the 'eighties? When I went up to Nottingham University in 1983, I met Janet - the Joint Academic Network.
I'd forgotten all about Janet, it was still being used when I started working in the Universities in the early 90s as well. I can't remember though wether it was here or at Leicester Univesity that I used it.
When I was an undergrad student in 1988 we were each allowed a single Medline search for our honours 3rd year biochem paper. You had to choose the words you selected with care as it cost over $100 a search and the librarian entered in your selection before going home for the night. In the morning you got a print out and went to the lbirary with your photocopying card in hand.
It may not sound like much now, but it sure was easier and quicker than pouring through Index Medicus etc with a ruler and a pad and paper.
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1993 I think. With the help of the IT guy at work on our new SG workstation.
I got access to various .alt newsgroups and archives which contained access to all sorts of information in the days before there was any sort of regulation.
Some of the stuff (all non sexual) which we could freely look at would get you fired, and probably arrested these days, but it sure was fun to read.
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A Madison is also the name of a not terribly long lasting piercing in the skin a the top of the chest area, just below the neck. Named after a pron star apparently.
Sounds similar though - relatively short lived and painful
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I found it interesting the 12% of Pasifika internet users had a blog compared to 6% of Pakeha and only 2% of Maori. While there may be an effect of the average age it's still a large amount of "bloggers".
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The danger here is that people taking these drugs will see only the headlines (and Radio New Zealand seems to have been about little else this morning) and just stop taking the tablets
This possibility is similar to the (incorrect) birth control pill/ breast cancer link reported in the UK several years ago, which lead to an increase in pregnancies in the following year.
The problem with media reports of medical and scientific articles is that they often tout them as gospel truths but are either selective in their reporting, or unable (or unwilling) to place a single article in context with other peer reviewed literature also available. There is also a reluctance or to publish stories when a once topical article is refuted or challenged.
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I live just a few houses up the road from the family home in Keystone Ave. I've found it amusing how my "quiet Mt Roskill street" has miraculously moved suburbs and is now in Three Kings according to the Herald today. I've seen real estate agents call it that before but now the media are saying it as well - must be true then.
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I was in Leicester at the time ,and due to it being away from London we often got the early morning editions of the papers rather than the latest ones. I went to the shops on the Sunday morning after the news broke and sitting in the newstand was the Daily Express complete with front page story about DI and Dodi cavorting in a luxury yacht. This edition had obviously been printed before the news (accompanied by outpourings of sycophantic grief). The whole tone of it was pretty much scathing of them both. I wish I'd been awake enough to buy it.
The whole experience of the following weeks just seemed weird to me with flowers appearing in random places even in an industrial Midlands city 100 miles distant from London
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I think you should be able to find them at the English Shop at the bottom of Victoria St, Onehunga. It's stuck on a light industrial lot but is the supplier for most of the supermarket English goods as well as a retail outlet in it's own right. Cheapest supplier of Walkers Crisps, Sarsen's vinegar etc in town that I know of.
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Am I the only person who finds that the same Sue Kedgley who campaigns long and hard to make sure that we know everything that goes into our food products is quite happy to have no safeguards over what we ingest, inhale etc as long as it is an "natural" or "traditional" medicine.
To be honest I'd be more concerned about what is contained by some of these (including real pharmaceutical drugs in some cases) rather than what is contained in my can of soy beans. If we are going to apply strict standards to our foodstuffs for consumer protection and health then surely the same should go for health supplements.
The industry has also been aware that this change was likely for a long time. I went to a SCIANZ course on cGMP and GLP (the procedures used for the manufacture and testing of drugs and medical devices) 6 or 7 years ago, and there were people from health supplement/medicine companies there looking at how to upgrade their facilities to sell to Australia and in preparation for simlilar laws in NZ.
Anyone who thinks the industry will regulate themselves should check out this
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/3/story.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=3503494
and this
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10367996