An early blog this week since two of us are off on a cruise, but there should be plenty of material on our return. Experience tells us we shall meet a lot of pensioners on the ship, and unlike us, they have lots of moans! However, like General Douglas MacArthur, we shall return.

    Statins are in the news again this week.  About 7 million folk in the UK are currently receiving them but the NHS would like to up the numbers.  As normal, the medical experts are at odds about benefits versus side effects, leaving us, the potential recipients, sitting uncomfortably on the fence worrying we'll get piles.  We’re fifty-fifty in our group, with three on, three off, none of the user group feeling any different.  Sam had his first statin changed because of side effects but is OK on the new one.  If offered the statins, the three non-users are 2 to 1 against at present. Rightly or wrongly, we like to feel a benefit from anything we take.  Adrian has just been offered and signed up for an MOT from his GP.  We await the results with interest, free medical advice noisily available from the lads anyway, generally involving another pint.  Paddy had something similar and hasn’t stopped complaining about the size of the tube for the ‘pooh’ test.  The way he talks, he needed a Tupperware container!

    Boris Johnson has bought three second hand water cannons from the German police and we can’t wait to see them in action.  It will be the first time some of the protesters and water have been in contact for many a day.  It might be an idea to add shower gel to the water tanks to improve air quality in the vicinity of the protesters. Boris could use the idea to reinforce his green credentials.

    As Iraq implodes George W and Tony Blair should hang their heads in shame. Instead, Blair has hit any media that will give him air time or space to try to justify his position.  Whatever he achieved as Prime Minister, he’ll only be remembered for one thing, Iraq. Saddam Hussain was a monster, but what eventually replaces him could be infinitely worse.  Trying to introduce our form of democracy to Iraq was always ill thought.  Sunni and Shia mix about as well as oil and water, providing a perfect growth medium for Islamic fundamentalists.  Sadly, both Bush and Blair couldn’t wait to puff out their chests when the shooting war was won; never in doubt with the resources they had available. When Bush said “mission accomplished” he couldn’t have been further from the truth.  There are no short-term solutions in the Middle East but our leaders continue to cheer lead the Arab Spring then wring their hands at the chaos that results. 

    Adrian raised an interesting letter exchange from The Telegraph about speed awareness courses.  One gentleman complained that he’d learned nothing from his course, a respondent disagreeing, saying he’d learned from all three he’d attended.  We weren’t sure what the respondent learned, but attending three times suggests he missed the basic point about speed limits.  Our group have form, four of us having completed the said course.  We all took something from the course but generally agreed it didn’t need a half day to complete; a couple of hours could comfortably cover the material.  Maybe the snail speed instruction is part of the lesson!     

    We’re not sure who advises Ed Miliband but he ought to take a hard look at them.  His stunt with Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper was an accident looking for a home, though none of his advisors seem to forecast the implications. After Hillsborough, Liverpool folk have no time for The Sun, but they do vote Labour; it runs head to toe through them like the word in a stick of rock.  How Miliband and his merry band missed that is astonishing.  And we thought the tits only appeared on Page 3!    

    Star of the week for Jez is Amy Spilsbury-Butler, a social worker who performs burlesque in her personal time.  She has been disciplined by her council employer for performing her ‘lewd’ act dressed as a pensioner called Old Molly; making fun of the vulnerable people she helps in her employer's opinion.  She has had to change her stage name to Alabama Breeze and her new internet video, the one Jez now dribbles about, shows her shaking her breasts and bottom at the audience.  Jez, living in hope, plans to contact social services to arrange for care visits.  He'll go blind if she turns up. 

    Our guru tip for the week:  Don’t just complain about poor service – tell them what you want as a result of their failure, turn the call into a negotiation!  We’re available as soon as we get the call from Oprah.