Monthly Archives: December 2006

Oona King – again..

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God, why do I have to keep seeing former East End MP Oona King on the TV? You may ask why am I so irritated. And to be frank it’s just plain dumb ego. I’d suggested way back in 1997 or 1998 I think it was to documentary producer Dev Varma (after spotting his name when I was working at Mental Health Media) that we get her to do a piece on the legacy of Dr Martin Luther King to the UK. And we got her interested. And we go the BBC interested. And an independent company Dev showed it to decided to sit on it. And that was it. My glamorous career in TV gone! And then just to rub it in what a fun idea it woudl have been Oona King backed the Iraq war, and then got turfed out iof her seat by George Galloway. And now she’s back on TV membling about the after life, and being an atheist. And Dev goes on to direct Lara Croft – Lethal And Loaded [2001] with Angelina Jolie! What’s going on in this shaggy dog story?!

Fare dodger

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I got finded

Conspiracies and coincidences

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One of the papers had a headline today ‘Conspiracy or coincidence’ on the timing of the various news (Diana report; police quiz Blair; Saudi SFO investigation dropped). As if people have any clue!

As to Diana remember the obscure Brazilian connection (she was friend of the Brazilian ambassador and wife, L

European Complex Systems Society

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It turns out I’m a member of the  European Complex Systems Society and I didn’t even remember joining! So that’s what I was doing at the Health Development Agency!

Good news for NHS PACS

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I caught this intriguing PACS story for Medicexchange this morning:

“The UK’s National Health Service’s Connecting for Health (NHS CFH) announced today that its Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS) has captured more than 100 million x-rays and scans, and has achieved 50% of its planned deployments with 65 systems installed across the NHS during the past 20 months.” Also liked the conclusion, quoting Laurence Sutton, consultant radiologist and national clinical lead for PACS and data migration and retention at NHS CFH, that “the next steps are to enable sharing of these images between other health care organisations across England”.

Great to hear good news about the CFH programme.

Turning the MLK Memorial Dream into Reality

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Well after a pretty uneventful day I came back home and opened my emails and find the groundbreaking ceremony for the MLK National Memorial is tomorrow, 13 December.

Nice to see that GE and FedEx chipped in some cash recently to help it on its way. Not everyone know this, but FedEx are headquarted in Memphis, so that makes sense.

Plan’s still on for 2008 unveiling btw, marking the 40th anniversary of Dr King’s death.

New head of the Federal Drug Administration

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I notice on reading Medicexchange that the US Senate has approved Bush’s choice of a new head of the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach. I trust he’ll prove a better candidate than “Lester Crawford, (who) also faced a tough confirmation battle last year only to abruptly resign. He pleaded guilty last month to charges related to his stock ownership in companies regulated by the FDA.”

Racism in schools report

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I happened to catch sight of the Independent on Sunday’s front page story on the complex problem of racism in schools highlighted in Lord Adonis’s study. One paragraph caught my eye:

” The report recommends a campaign aimed at the entire school community to address the question of how black children are treated. It says the 20 worst-performing local authorities and 100 worst-performing schools for exclusion gaps must be supported to change their attitudes towards black pupils.”

Now not surprisingly having worked on the National Healthy Schools Programme (“to reduce health inequalities, promote social inclusion and raise educational standards”), itself a school-wide approach, my mind was taken back to that as a possible model for such a campaign in schools. Whats-more my former boss and head of healthy schools, Marilyn Toft, left in 2004 to become Director of the Behaviour and Attendance Strand of the KS3 strategy at the DfES. Here surely then is an invaluable source of experience, which will be put to good use?

New free Kaka wallpaper

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New free Kaka wallpaper taken from the fantastic Adidas football boot promotional site.

Download wallpaper here. You may have to play around with it to make it fit your screen size!