So George Best is dead. While he was apparently a good footballer (having no interest in football, I can only go on what other people say), I can't understand the huge amount of mourning that is going on.

Lets face it, the man was an alcoholic, a drunk driver and slapped people around.

But it's alright, because when he was sober he was a 'great guy'.

Which indirectly must mean that hitting people and driving while drunk is acceptable if you are one of these 'great guys'. So I suppose that the family wiped out by a drunk driver that I dealt with a couple of years ago this Christmas, were just a speed bump if the killer was a 'great guy'?

Lets not speak ill of the dead, and there are a lot of dead due to drink. He is one of 6,400 people who will die this year directly because of alcohol. That's not counting the 40,000+ who die due to causes 'related' to alcohol. I don't think there will be any national mourning for the 16 other people who died of similar causes on the same day as him. Or the 109 who died in relation to drink.

Interesting that he died in the same week as the government making alcohol available around the clock. Increasing the access to alcohol is apparently going to cut these deaths?

I'm sorry, but I find the death of Richard Burns, far more tragic. A young man, dead at the age of 34 of a brain tumour.

I think I'll keep these comments between you and me though, as Manchester United are playing West Ham later today, and I don't fancy being dragged out my car and stoned to death for daring to suggest that Best brought his illness on himself.

I see a lot of alcoholics, and it's the pure waste that makes me angry, not only of their life, but the damage that they cause the lives of their family and friends.

Talking to my station mates, my opinion isn't uncommon which is probably as an effect of dealing with alcoholics day in, day out I suppose...

Well, extended licensing laws are in, which I’m afraid will mean more disorder on the streets, couple that with the seasonal increase in illness, and the ice on the roads that means I can’t drive as fast as I normally can and what you get is an increasing failure to reach our government’s benchmark time.

Remember the Great and Powerful God ORCON?  Where we have to reach most high priority calls within 8 minutes?

We aren’t on target for it this year, and unlike other years I don’t think that “extra effort”, as our management call it, will save us.  There is a shortage of ‘flu vaccinations, so more at risk people will get ill, we’ll be going to more alcohol fueled violence because of the new licensing laws.  It is thought that there will be a colder than average winter, so, because of ice, our vehicles won’t be able to drive as quickly and as safely as normal.  And Agenda for Change has hit morale hard especially given the uncertainty of payment for overtime shifts (which are needed to cover staff shortfalls).  Oh and more people are calling us for more crap reasons every day.

We are doomed.

But worry not, patients won’t be doomed, remember, this eight minute ORCON time has absolutely no basis in health, or prevention of death.  If your heart stops then you have, at best, five minutes to get it going again, after eight minutes, I’m afraid you are more than likely dead, and are going to stay that way.  Most calls clinically either need a “faster than five minutes”, “faster than half an hour” or “Sometime in the next couple of hours” response.  Eight minutes is some figure plucked out the air.

So don’t worry, all it means is that the best Chief Executive the LAS has ever had will lose his job, and we won’t get given as much money to fund the service.  After all you wouldn’t want to fund a failing service would you?

Stupid $&%*£^&*!!! government.

All I can do?  Get there as quickly and safely as possible, and make sure the patient doesn’t get any worse.  I can only do what I can do…

While Sony seem intent on being evil, Microsoft do the right thing (although I don’t think that this will help their ambitions on being media providers/resellers).