Robert Sharp

On Tuesday I was at the demonstration for Simon Singh outside the Royal Courts of Justice.  He is being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association, and the latest court appearance was an appeal over meaning.

Here’s a slideshow of my photos from outside the court, all with a Creative Commons Licence:

Inside the court, the judges apparently became quite exhasperated with some of the arguments put forward during the hearing. Padraig Reidy from Index on Censorship reported first-hand:

Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge said he was “troubled” by the “artificiality” of the case. “The opportunities to put this right have not been taken,” Lord Judge said.

He continued: “At the end of this someone will pay an enormous amount of money, whether it be from Dr Singh’s funds or the funds of BCA subscribers.”

He went on to criticise the BCA’s reluctance to publish evidence to back up claims that chiropractic treatments could treat childhood asthma and other ailments.

“I’m just baffled. If there is reliable evidence, why hasn’t someone published it?”
…
Rogers conceded that had Singh written that there was “no reliable evidence”, the defamation suit might never have happened.

But Lord Justice Sedley suggested “isn’t the first question as to whether something is evidence that it is reliable?”

After the architectural triumph of St. Pancras, Kings Cross station was in need of an overhaul. The new hallways down into the underground are wide and ergonomic, with few right angles in sight.

A clever new feature on the main concourse is the addition of coloured queue tiles on the floor, leading towards the trains. They are like little yellow-brick-roads for the mass transit system, nudging people into an orderly line, without the need for the proto-fascist barriers that we see at most cinemas, airports and theme parks.

Kings Cross. Photo by yrstrly.

Empty Hospital Ward at Hillingdon Hospital, Uxbridge, UK. Photo by Alex @ Faraway, Creative Commons Licence

Last week, I fell into a long discussion with a group of doctors on the problem of health tourism.  This, they say, is when people visit the UK specifically to take advantage of the NHS for treatment of ailments, major and minor.  In particular, women from Africa who think (or know) that they are HIV-positive will visit the UK in order to give birth.  Their children will therefore receive proper medical care and whatever medicines and retrovirals that the current clinical guidelines recommend.  My interlocutors were of the opinion that this was a major drain on resources, especially in the urban centres where they work.

For the avoidance of doubt, these were not the same medics who held the illiberal opinions of marijuana usage, but I did detect in them a slight note of discontentment.  Not intolerance, yet, but certainly exasperation.

If health tourism is widespread, then such feelings of irritation amongst the medical class are also likely to be common, which is not good.  More to the point, it would mean our health system is being abused, perhaps to the tune of millions of pounds.  Definitely not good.

My hypothesis is that health tourism is actually an extremely localised problem, centred around inner-London.  This is where strong immigrant communities already exist, and where health tourists can stay with British residents while they get their treatment.   If this is the case, then it is clearly a particular challenge for the health service in London, rather than a structural issue for the NHS as a whole.

I have put in a poorly worded Freedom of Information request to the Department of Health to find out what statistics are available.

Why bother, though?  What could we possibly do with this information, when we have it?

Simply put, quantifiable information on such an issue will immediately put it in perspective.  Is it a major abuse of the system that we could correct, or just another example of patient-led inefficiency that we will never eradicate?  My suspicion is that it will turn out to be the latter, something akin to the problem of hypochondriacs, that we know is a waste but nevertheless do not have the heart or the stomach to actually address (turning away pregnant Africans at the automatic doors never feels good).  Either way, it will at least address the mutterings of the doctors who see the issue on the ward floor, but have no sense of whether it is a problem beyond their particular hospital.

Second, it may allow for a rather deft sleight-of-policy at the Department of Health.  If the NHS is indeed providing millions of pounds worth of care to people it does not have to, over and above the call of duty, then they could with some legitimacy put that expenditure into a different accounting column.  They could, perhaps, claim it back from DfID or the FCO as a form of targeted, useful government aid.

Let us not be so naive as to think that my request doesn’t carry some risk.   While I do not believe that such statistics (whatever they may be) will actually inspire xenophobia, it is certainly possible that someone might try to use the figures to further some anti-foreigner agenda.  I’m not sure I know what to do about that, but I don’t see this possibility as a reason not to ask the question.  Better me than someone else, I reckon.

What do you think?

On the Ward in Bbowa, Uganda. Photo by Paul Evans. Creative Commons Licence

A shout-out to MR Systems in Highbury, North London. A pretty much immediate response to my request for a quote. And when I brought my laptop in, they repaired it in 3 hours!

Southwark, London. Photo by yrstrly.

In September I attended a fantastic two-day intensive photography course, run by Derek Linney of Take Better Pictures.  The course took in ideas of composition, framing and subject matter, as well as a wealth of technical tips.  The class size was very small, with plenty of opportunity to ask questions and have each of our experimental photographs critiqued.

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There’s a great little project happening in Regents Park at the moment.  The Treehouse Gallery is an ever growing collective of artists, designers, musicians and educators, who have constructed their own public space in which to hold exhibitions and events.

I’ve been following the development of the events schedule for a few weeks now, which is steadily filling up with workshops and other events, but I don’t see much in the way of debates programmed.  Surely some LibCon readers and writers could get together to argue about something?  Localism is a live debate at the moment, and would seem a perfect topic to discuss in a community-made space.  CSJ?  Fabians? Demos? SMF?

Many landlubbers love the shipping forecast on the radio.  The cryptic figures for wind speed and precipitation are soothing and mantra-like, and provide a comforting and consistent start to the day for thousands of listeners who have no idea what they mean.

Online, I find the tweets of my friend Shawn Micallef fulfil a similar function.  Amid the constant bombardment of political messages, there is Shawn, always Shawn, with his relentless observations of Toronto psychogeography:

3.55 AM: Streetcar east/gerrard India bazarr/who will write the epic novel of the Lahore Tikka House construction saga 7.55 AM East of Coxwell/streetcarsound/run through alleys + lots to meet/discover it is short turn/TTC most untrustworthy of allies/

I know what the individual words mean, but the place he is describing is an utter unknown.  I have never visited Toronto, and without that context, the place names are a mystery.  I conjure up quite literal interpretations of what each street might look like, or what the acronyms might stand for.  And whenever he mentions Spadina, I think of spandex.

How strange, then, to discover that Shawn is in the UK, and tweeting about London.  It is also a city of ridiculous and inappropriate names (Hackney Wick, Angel, India Quays, New Cross Gate, Forest Hill, High Holborn), only now Shawn’s nibble-sized thoughts are suddenly contextualised, and I can visualise exactly where he is walking, almost trace his steps.

And that thought, “I can almost trace his steps”, is what occurred to me on Friday evening.  Alone and listless in South East London, I decided to do something weird.  I decided to use twitter to re-trace Shawn’s steps.  I decided to… Stalk Shawn.  His regular twitter updates would act as electronic breadcrumbs.  Could they lead me, in the dark, through a city of seven-and-a-half million people and 660 square miles, to a specific, bespectacled Canadian flâneur?  My own twitter updates are below: scroll through to relive the chase.

View Stalking Shawn in a larger map

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Two variations on a theme. First, a bizarre missing poster from the streets of Islington

Balboa Jones went missing from Lewisham

This seems so brazen, I have a suspicion its actually some kind of sneaky viral advertising campaign for something. Or Balboa Jones might indeed be missing. Either way, I have no qualms about allowing the telephone number to remain visible.
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The atmosphere in Westminster is oppressive. Hop up the steps from the tube and the cries from the Tamils on Parliament Square bite your ears. I’ve seen plenty of protests on that piece of green over the past few years, but this one crackles like a storm-cloud ready to discharge a bolt of lightning.

The wind seems angry too, sweeping through Victoria Tower Gardens, pulling the hats off tourists and messing up their grey comb-overs. The pigtails on school children billow in syncronicity with the union flag above the tower.

Meanwhile, the press and the suits hurry in and out of the building. They ignore the angry mob and the red flags across the street, and yet they are under attack. They shrug off the violent wind, yet there is a storm brewing inside.

A man of about thirty moves slowly through the crowd. He has a grubby brown jacket and a bad back, both of which accounts for the angry expression on his face. He is hungry and slightly dazed from some painkillers, which accounts for the punch-drunk gait. The protesters, the tourists, the wind, don’t help his mood. Seeds, pollen from the trees, waft down and interfere with his eyes.

And as he approaches Millbank, a tall man in a light grey suit emerges from one of the offices, and turns back towards the Palace. Around his neck hangs a security pass, one with the green and white stripes, the most sought-after there is. He walks with his head bowed, looking at his feet, and doesn’t see the man in the brown jacket lumbering towards him. And the man in the brown jacket has no inclination to move. Only when they are in each other’s personal space, does the man with the green striped security pass feel the presence of the other. He twitches only slightly but is visibly startled. It is as if he is expects to be mugged on the street.

He, the politician, regains his stride and heads towards The Commons. I, the man in the brown jacket, haul myself into the coffee shop on the corner, the better to take refuge from the storm.