It just goes to show that some people can survive a hell of a lot, being shot, falling 5 floors and nearly being cremated. Value judgments about whether he should have lived or not are welcome.

Once again, from the unsurpassed Boing Boing

A very funny article here commenting on the fire in Leyton that destroyed a load of "art".

I've also added a "Recipric-roll" for people who link to me, but I don't necessarily read every day - If you link to me and I've missed you out then feel free to let me know.

I'm working tonight - Friday night, start of a Bank holiday, plenty of pubs (if only the weather was warmer I'd have nothing to do all night but pick up drunks). Today is a "Stat" day, which means that I earn more money for working tonight - I'm going to guess that there will be a lot of ambulances on the road tonight as everyone grabs for that extra overtime. So I'm hoping it'll be an easy night.

I'll let you know.

Yes, yes I know I keep harping on about the state of psychiatric services in this country, but the fact that this mental health patient murdered and dismembered someone shows you what I worry about. This patient was discharged from Newham General and the investigation is going to look at how he came to be released. I suspect he was diagnosed with "personality disorder" which is untreatable with medication - and so the patient is discharged.

When I was an A+E nurse I had to spend all night trying to get a violent patient Sectioned (detained for psychiatric assessment without the patients consent) The social worker was extremely reluctant to do this, and I only managed to convince her when I explained that at 8 o'clock when security left, the patient would be free to leave the hospital - and it would be her face on the front of the tabloids when he killed someone.

He was sectioned 10 minutes later.

MI5 has been expanded to meet terror threat. This news is being reported as a good thing. For those not in the know MI5 is charged with maintaining security at home.
Pardon my Tin-foil-hat paranoia, but if we were told that the KGB were being expanded would we be so happy? The increase is due to an "increased terrorist threat" which seems to be wheeled out everytime a government does something like this. Anyone would think that Irish bombs had never terrorised us.

A sixteen year old boy was killed in broad daylight. Apparently he was involved in a fight between two gangs of youths; there are a lot of gangs in Newham and as far as I can tell they are fairly nebulous things. Having had my ambulance kicked and punched by a gang (luckily while I wasn't in it) I can easily see how the violence had escalated. Sympathies to the family; how do you keep your teenage sons inside during daylight hours?
When I next work out of Newham, I'll no doubt hear the full story, I suspect the police won't have many witnesses to the murder itself.

Baghdad Burning tells us that the Governing Council of Iraq (you know...the people who are all trying to carve out their own little piece of the country) are to introduce Shari'a (Islamic) law. This wouldn't be so bad if the men who run the religion could agree on the issues. Islam has always been for womens rights, yet it is the interpretation of the Quran, by men, that leads to oppression.
While Iraq had a secular government women had equal rights...now it looks like it's all going to change for the worse. Go read the link, and see how the Americans have "freed" the Iraqi people.

Newham General (the hospital I tend to find myself at most often) is to undergo improvements under a new Private Finance Initiative (PFI). The article says that the A+E has undergone improvement...but in my eyes it is still too small for the number of patients that it sees. The department was designed with 14 cubicles, but they have had to split each cubicle in two by using curtains in order to have enough trolleys to cater for patients. These cubicles are designed for one patient, yet are now holding two, which obviously has a detrimental effect on patient privacy, dignity and confidentiality. It also makes it a bugger to get a patient off my ambo trolley onto a hospital trolley.

Also they are selling St Andrews at Bromley by bow in order to pay for the shiny new Newham hospital. I suspect that there will be a further fall in the services for the mentally ill. No surprise there then...

Bless their little cotton socks - They are changing the Comment system back to something even more reasonable.  You've got to appreciate anyone who notes that their users don't like the new feature - and actually change things for the better.

Do you think Microsoft would do such a thing?

It looks like a cheaper version of the Segway will be making its way to the UK in the next couple of months.
What this means is that there will just be more ways for people to injure themselves - even if it is allowed on the pavement, the streets around here require four-wheel off-road capability. I have visions of people falling off at 10mph wearing no safety equipment.
...Pardon me while I have a little giggle...