Illnesses of convenience

Hmm. It seems that far from being on death's door, the man jailed for the Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi, has now been told he has made than ten years to live. What a surprise.

Almost as much a coincidence as jailed Guinness fraudster Ernest Saunders miraculous recovery from Alzheimer's disease and Great-train-robber Ronnie Biggs continued respite in a Barnet old people's home.

And we're not talking about untold trips to Lourdes.

The common denominators? Money, infleunce, and politics.


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Life's a drag race

Drug research needs success stories. The recovery of Kaz Aston from the symptoms of multiple sclerosis is a case in point.

Diagnosed in 1995, she was given the drug Tysabri and, recovery in hand, has taken up drag racing to publicise the cause. And to take on new risks to her health.

Biogen Idec Inc., Elan and the MS Trust will be glad of the good publicity and the likely increase in prescription rate of the life-restoring drug.


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Must the show go on?

Pop stars are finding new misfortunes with which to grace the tabloids.

There have been crashes (e.g. Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochrane, Marc Bolan, Sonny Bono), drug meltdowns (e.g. Syd Barrett, Janis Joplin, Michael Jackson), alcoholic binges (e.g. Jim Morrison, Hank Williams Jr, Amy Winehouse), physical injury (e.g. Bono, Keith Richards) and even murders (e.g. John Lennon, Sid Vicious) but Western icons have managed to avoid exotic diseases (except perhaps cancer, e,g, Kylie Minogue, Bob Marley, George Harrison).

Until now. Cheryl Cole has malaria and may be starting a trend. Amir Khan, the boxer, has collapsed with the same mystery disease.

No one famous has recently croaked from tuberculosis, syphilis. polio, cholera or a flu epidemic but with global travel increasing and the losing battle against bug evolution means it may just be a matter of time.


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A modern Aesop fable

The moral of the story: if you leave your back door open on a hot summer's night, and if a fox chooses to enter your house, and if you have babies asleep in their cots, you run the risk that the said foxes will attack the children.

This is what foxes do, nature happens despite the individual trauma within families this kind of incident causes.

The moral derived by the tabloids, however, will be to mount a cull on urban foxes: a campaign designed to placate readers' fears.

We often forget that human beings share the planet with wild animals, and that sometimes their agenda is different to ours.

So, the ultimate lesson to be learned: close the door and open a window, instead; preferably out of fox-jumping range.

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Play nice with Synthia

Dr J Craig Venter is at it again. Ten years ago he was trying the trademark the human genome like the antithesis of Tim Berners-Lee. Now he has 'created' the world's first organism not created by natural selection.

Synthia is a synthetic single-celled creature, a new kind of bug. Like any stride into the scientific future, the good side can be contrasted with the bad: is this a road humankind wishes to rush down, or a dangerous cul-de-sac.

The achievement is startling, but the conversation has just begun.


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Lucy in the sky with the Doctor

Apparently if you remember the sixties you weren't really there.

The latest example of the cliché is that the regeneration of actors playing Doctor Who was based on the scriptwriter's idea of conveying a bad LSD trip.

Even in the laissez-faire teenies, I'm now sure Steven Moffat could get away with such blatant drug references scot free.


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SamCam mam jam

Just when Samantha Cameron was revving up to support her husband on the campaign trail she goes and gets pregnant.

I'm not sure how this will play with voters. Tory types may prefer her not to get out there, claiming that she will need rest, and it will focus attention on Conservative policies for the family.

It's probably politically neutral news, but does add an extra spicy ingredient to the battle of the PM's wives.

Cider House of Commons rules

Cider and perry got the brunt of yesterday's Budget hikes, to the tune of 10 per cent. This was ostensibly to crack down on the problem of binge drinking cheap hooch, witness the ability until recently to buy a pint of cider for 26p in Sainsbury's supermarket.

So what's a poor boozehound to do, now that so many alcohol options are being taxed to the hilt?

Like the recent mephedrone problem in drug culture, where legitimate substances (in this case plant fertiliser) are being abused for cheap yet self-destructive highs, perhaps hard-core drinkers may be tempted to try cheap underground sources of alcohol without the benefits of quality control? Or maybe try to brew moonshine at home? And cheap supermarket loss leaders are not going to disappear overnight, as the British obsession with alcohol is deeply ingrained.

The next phase will be to print warnings on labels, as with cigarette packets, and warn drinkers of the long-term health dangers of over-indulging. While such tactics may be admirable and desirable, the Government earns too much from taxing alcohol to bite the bullet too hard. And too many MPs enjoy a tipple or two, especially in their subsidised bars.

In a few years' time, should social attitudes change, we may see bans on people drinking in public spaces(including outside pubs): the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, made a big play about banning alcohol on the tube. But too many voters enjoy their booze for politicians to get really serious about limiting access to alcohol: accusations of nanny-state policies don't go down well at the ballot box.


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No bad for a Muggle

Boffins have developed a device that renders 3D objects invisible, the first step in the development of a Harry Potter-style invisibility cloak.

So, what other benchmark gadgets might maverick scientists be working on behind the scenes?

• Teleporting beams?
• Telepathy helmets?
• Time machines?
• Superpower ability enablers?
• Perfect photography memory devices?

All of the above ideas have been inspired by fiction, written and visual. Perhaps even more creative work can be achieved where artists have yet to tread? Unless, of course, the artistic visualisation of a gadget has to precede the need to create it.

Which came first: the science or the art?


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Centre-stage fold

There's news in the press that the Royal Opera House wants to stage a musical based on the life and times of Anna Nicole Smith. Possible titles might be:

• Play it again, Hugh;
• Bunny in the money;
• Sex, Drugs and Viagra;
• Show me the dough.

All of which will fuel speculation about the next 'starlet' off the cab rank for such treatment and expansion of the brand. Agents acting for the likes of Paris Hilton, Kerry Katona and Katie Price will be watching the space with interest.

But Gypsy Rose Lee got there years ago, although a 21st-century remake would be unlikely to be so demure.

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Lucy in Disguise with Allen

Here's what Lily Allen gets to do next: give up being a pop star to become a vintage fashion retailer in partnership with her sister.

This sets up an interesting cultural experiment: the degree to which a networked audience of fans will allow someone famous to fade into the background at the peak of her fame. Miss Allen's fashion ideas may well be successful, but it will be hard to escape her singing career.

The scenario contrasts in interesting ways with Sandie Shaw, the sixties singer who gave up the limelight to became a successful psychoanalyst. Given that the tabloid media is a lot more tenacious than 40-odd years ago, it will be a test of how invisible people allow former performers to become.

Good luck to Lily, though. I hope her change of direction makes her happy. Perhaps it's time to take a breather when politicians start referencing you ... but will she give up tweeting once her life gets a bit less 24/7?

You've gotta be in it to win it

To say Nigel Page and Justine Laycocks' bank manager is happier this week than last would be an understatement: the couple scooped £56,008,113.20 in the EuroMillions jackpot lottery. And Mr Page thought his luck was in when he won £55.00 in the National Lottery the previous day.

So, apart from getting married (which the couple announced today), how might the money be spent? Here are twenty ideas:

• Blow the lot on 206 Lamborghi Murceilago cars at top-of-the-range prices;
• Buy 9,460,830 copies of Stanley and Dankos' The Millionaire Next Door;
• Sponsor 1/10th the cost of the 2012 Olympic Stadium;
• Donate 1/250th of the cost of rebuilding Haiti;
• Run the economy of Tivalu for six years;
• Furnish UK hospitals with 13.3 new PET-CT scanners to fight against cancer;
• Play with 80,820 top end Apple iPads;
• Finance five seasons of Doctor Who (but not the Christmas specials);
• Buy three floors and a mezzanine of the most expensive house in London;
• Rehouse 589,559 mutts from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home;
• Wolf down 7,467,749 boxes of a dozen Krispy Kreme Donuts;
• Bid for two copies of Van Gogh's Irises at the 1987 world-record price;
• Re-run the wedding 5,091 times at the cost of the average UK nuptials;
• Give 91 pence to everyone living in Britain in 2008;
• Splash out on 87 per cent of Ronde Island, Grenada in the Caribbean;
• Finance 28.7 minutes of Avatar, the most expensive Hollywood movie ever made;
• Stock up on 3,833,055 Paracetemol tablets from Boots the Chemist;
• Enrol for 280,040 Tandem skydiving courses as a solo jumper;
• Contribute 1/9th the cost of developing and marketing a new drug to the marketplace;
• Sign the legs and torso of Christiano Ronaldo.

The Richard Thingummy Lecture

Sir Terry Pratchett delivered the 2010 Dimbleby lecture via his trusty sidekick, the actor Tony Robinson.

The irony of the speech was that although the content was Alzheimer's disease and assisted death, while Mr Robinson spoke for an hour from memory -- or at least no discernible autocue.

Sir Terry might soon go the whole Warhol/Hirst Factory route and get stunt scribblers to write his Discworld novels?

It's all a long way from Dimbleby senior's spaghetti harvest hoax, but maybe if you have Alzheimer's you would think it was true.

Thalidomide, an apology

Fifty years after the thalidomide disaster, the UK Government apologises for hailing the drug a 'wonder'. Er, thanks.

The cynic in me wonders what proportion of the original number of victims the 466 thalidomider survivors represents? In other words, perhaps it was simply too expensive to admit liability before and £20m is all the economy can afford? There has been an ongoing campaign for compensation since the 1970s. All the compensation so far has come from the private sector.

Maybe there'll be British law suits pinned on the UK Government for being insufficiently clear in warning of the dangers of smoking and drinking alcohol? No wonder politicians get jumpy about the science behind the relative risks of various recreational drugs

Loads for my baby and several for the road

Stop the press, Christmas is nearly over and the pre-holiday-season drink-drive campaign warnings have been finessed by a strange newspaper article claiming a new alcohol subsitute is being developed that mimics the feeling of happy inebriation without causing hangovers. An antidote pill can also be taken that reverses the drunken effects instantly so that people can drive home from pubs, parties and the like.

So, what the downside. This medical breakthrough is based on Valium. Doh! We have just spent nearly fifty years breaking society's addictive dependence on benzodiazepines like Valium. When these drugs first appeared on prescription they were trumpeted as a kind of wonder drug, in the same category as Thalidomide and Prozac. And look where those medicines got us as a nation.

Also, with medical breakthroughs of this type, the human-nature factor is never taken into account:

• People are going to abuse this new drug, witness the UK's binge response to 24-hour drinking culture.
• Can you overdose on the new drug? How would people know the composition of what they were drinking?
• What if the antidote pill doesn't work with large intakes of the new drink?
• Will the new drug make users drowsy?
• What's to stop informal 'designer-drug chemists' playing around with the molecular structure of the new drug to creative something narcotic and potential lethal?
• What's the legal position where car crashes occur after people have been advised it is safe to drive after drinking the new brews, especially where drinks have been spiked as a prank?
• What happens to existing drink-drive campaigns where alcohol continues to be drunk? Would driver reaction times not be affected by people consuming the new drug?

In short, social policy on responsible driving would be a mess. Companies manufacturing alcoholic drinks will lobby hard to strangle the product at birth. MPs who indulge in a tipple won't pass the necessary legislation. And, even if the new drink does exactly what it said on the can, would it be in society's best interest to encourage a product whose sole function was to render its customers drunk, however temporarily. This new drink would be a Trojan horse rather than a gift one.

PS: The Daily Telegraph's scoop is not exactly straight off the press, it's been recycled from the Daily Record story of 16 November 2009. The Torygraph has simply been storing the piece up for consumption during the post-Christmas hangover. Professor David Nutt was been sacked as a Government drug adviser before the article appeared: the alcohol-substitute drug seems to be one of Professor Nutt's day-job projects at Imperial College, London.

The show must go on

My swine flu jab either didn't work or brought on a huge cold in reaction to the vaccine. Although I made it to work, it was touch and go. It got me thinking about how illness is dealt with by people in the public eye.

Sports stars get injuries that are reported, but how often is the reason for someone not playing given as a virus? Blackburn Rovers' finest got swine flu recently and I do remember a food poisoning incident that caused the 2006 Spurs team chasing a Champions League spot to lose out to Arsenal's advantage. Cricketers sometimes get dehydrated in hot weather or eat the occasional dodgy curry.

Pop stars get problems with vocal chords and stress-related illness, guitarists suffer with broken digits. Many entertainers face self-induced difficulties requiring rehab.

Politicians rarely admit to illness as these gets pounced on by the press as signs of weakness (Tony Blair's heart murmur being one case I remember). And when is a monarch or a president ever laid low (this would make front page news and make society feel unsafe, as in Cuba).

There's a 'show must go on' mentality for people in the public eye, whether entertertainers, sports stars, or statesmen and women, but that can't be the entire truth. Even the Queen of England must have been tempted to throw a sickie sometimes, especially during her Annus horribilis in 1992 and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997.

Swine flu fever

Had a preventative jab today, and armed with copious literature I have (so far) not succumbed to any of the reported side effects of the swine flu vaccine: red markings, muscle ache, fever or fatigue. As always, whenever needles are involved there are loads of stories in the press about the downsides.

My view is that the vaccine might help stop variants that we know about so far, but viruses are difficult entities to slow down as life cycles can be rapid and mutations therefore inevitable over time.

The current vaccine deals with the 'known knowns', rather than the 'unknown knowns' and, even less, the 'unknown unknowns', as Donald Rumsfeld once said in another context. We may all soon be back in our doctors' surgeries, being innoculated against the next strain of 'known knowns'.

Homoeo apathy

There's been a bit of a bust up in the media over the last few days about homoeopathy and whether or not it works. This old conundrum never gets resolved, with people who swear blind on both sides of the debate.

Essentially, the active ingredient -- usually a toxin -- is actively diluted by a factor of 100 many times until there is no molecule left of the original ingredient, The solution that is left is said to have a 'water memory' and has potency for treating ailments. Whether or not this alternative medicine works is beyond my knowledge: there's been an argument for over 200 years. But think about other scenarios where the technique could be tried out.

• Politics: diluting policy through committee after committee until the remaining bill only has a 'water memory' of the original idea.
• Sport: Chinese whispers communication of tactics from coaches and manager to a squad only for the players to dilute the message when they get out on to the pitch.
• Media: a minion has an idea that gets stolen progressively up the food-chain hierarchy until the commissioner decides to act on the original, unrecognisable idea convinced it was his or her own Eureka moment.
• Relationships: repeated requests from wives and girlfriends directed towards their men get progressively diluted so that by the time he's slumped in front of the telly watching Match of the Day, the memory of what was said seems in the distant past.

This is human nature, I suppose, but in politics this can have positive outcomes occasionally, say when filibustering an unpopular bill, and at least the media projects get made, albeit with workers at the plankton level of the scale perhaps feeling used.