Tuesday 24 November 2009

Reefers Digest Issue 3

Fair Cop? The police just aren't that popular anymore and things can only get worse after a particularly bad day for the Force which saw one Officer and one Ex-officer jailed. The first for murdering a fellow officer after a love triangle went wrong and the second for causing the deaths of a couple in Urmston after ploughing into them at high speed. I know police are people too (technically) but this cannot be good for the image.

Camel RUN!
My husband says they do a great chicken kebab, although I'm not so keen on the veggie burger. Perhaps somebody else took a dislike to the fair on offer in Rusholme's Camel One takeaway on Saturday night.

The place is popular with cabbies but the normally slow-moving chaps but on an uncharacteristic turn of speed, diving for cover when a car hurtled towards them and smashed into the shop front.

You can watch the CCTV footage on YouTube, the silver Audi A4 convertible smashes into the entrance and bounces off head on into a parked black cab, (which incidentally is where I think the £15k damage figure they're claiming came from.), then two men crawl out of the driver's side window and chip off, roughneck style. No body was seriously hurt so feel feel to laugh.

Shock News! Dirt can be good for children, say scientists!
Yes, children of the world rejoice! A new hypothesis says messy play should be encouraged, children should be allowed to get dirty. Scientists have found being too clean can impair the skin's ability to heal, killing off the skins natural bacteria the new hygiene hypothesis" holds that exposure to germs during early childhood primes the body against allergies.
Yes,  I know after all this time it's good to be proven right. The "good" people at Johnson and Johnson et al must be glued to the share prices and kaking themselves, before firing the entire marketing team, What will they do now they can't blackmail us into sterilising every surface? And just when they were about to launch their new range: "Home Hermet", the easy way keep your home and children safe from germs forever  hermetically seal your home in one giant flower-scented sack. (Ok, well maybe not, but we all know they were thinking about it)

Surprise! We're not dead!
I know many of us thought it would be the end of the world when they switched on the Large Hadron Collider and when nothing happened some of us have to admit we were a bit disappointed. Then we were told "ah well, switching it on is the easy part, we might never actually get two of the buggers to crash!" and we sat back to wait.
Well prepare yourselves, because they did it, (LHC) Engineers operating the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have smashed together proton beams in the machine for the very first time describing the step as a "great achievement" for those working on the experiment.
And look, we're not dead, no black hole, nothing, are we calm now?

The Stuff Of Nightmares
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the hospital.

Rom Houben, a Belgian man who doctors thought was in a coma for 23 years was conscious all along.
Rob was injured in a car crash in 1983 and though medical staff he had sunk irretrievably into a coma, Doctor Steven Laureys discovered in 2006 that, although Mr Houben was paralysed, his brain was working. He now communicates by using a special keyboard attached to his wheelchair.
Scarily the Doctor said the case was not unique. he believes that in about 40% of cases in which people are classified as being in a vegetative state, closer inspection reveals signs of consciousness.

It's not just the big injuries you need to worry about either.
An inquiry has been opened after Gordon Ewing, 44 from Glasgow died during a routine operation on his pinkie finger at the Victoria Infirmary in 2006.
A pathologist told the hearing the death was "intrinsically linked" to lung puncture which happened during his operation.
How the hell do you puncture someones lung when you're operating on their pinkie finger??

Football Fiasco
As the only Wigan Athletic supporter I know in Manchester I have suffered some severe ribbing after our humiliating 9-1 defeat at Spurs on Sunday. The captain Mario Melchiot said "we were embarrassed by the way we performed...we badly let down our supporters..." and as "...a gesture...to pay them back for their loyalty" the Wigan players are going to personally refund Latics fans who bought tickets for the match.
Well, barring Paul Scharner who scored our only goal...you should be embarrassed, you did let us down and you owe us more than our money back, you owe us our pride and dignity.
And as for the "unfortunate" Wigan keeper Chris Kirkland scored an own goal, I vote he be taken to Wigan town centre, tied in his shorts the the Giant Wheel outside the college and pelted with rotting produce until he learns his lesson which hopefully will be before we host Sunderland this weekend.
Harsh? Cruel and unusual punishment? Not really, I think he'd be getting off lightly when you consider Goalkeeper Ivan Banovic of Croatian team Medjimurje Cakovec's (pronunciations on a postcard please) he earned himself a yellow card when he picked up a cat that strayed on to the pitch 20 minutes into a match. He placed the meddling moggy safely near a scoreboard and the ref promptly booked him for leaving the pitch without permission.

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