An open letter to the medical staff of the DHSS I would like to confirm that the majority of us consider ourselves very fortunate to enjoy the quality of the Health Service we all have. In attending hospitals since I was about one year old, in the 20s, I have had operations, breakages and in recent years, been operated on, stabbed with needles and provided with new bits and pieces to keep me going. In all that time, and ongoing, I have received nothing but courtesy, sympathy, care and professional attention of the highest order. Any time a politician chooses a photo opportunity in a hospital, the patients questioned by the presenter will give glowing reports of the sympathetic care, consideration and the competence of the staff looking after them. The Health Service is unfairly denigrated, not because of the medical professionals working within it, but the politicians, the non-medical managers, and the media short of a story highlighting some individual short coming. This all combines to inhibit and or criticise the excellent work, with pettifogging targets, changes of direction, interference and random criticism. No organisation of the size of the Health Service can be perfect, but on a percentage basis I believe its record would be hard to be surpassed with the number of successful procedures that it handles daily..
The Quantum Computer. I find it interesting that a few days ago I was writing to say that I thought there was a potential for a simple computer, reasonably priced, that needed no updating, and will perform most of the functions that the average home user would need. On the first of July, the Daily Telegraph wrote about a new system so complicated that it would take a highly trained person to manage it, yet they predicted it would be commonplace in the future. They say it operates by harnessing atoms. To me, who lost his hair over a short period through having the wireless transmitter for the computers, too close to his head, I am convinced that here is a source of great health risk. If you read up about it you will realise that it has some potential for scientists requiring highly complicated calculations, but would be a sledgehammer to crack a nut as a home computer.
Why do they do it? They are forever rehashing old films, which were not only masterpieces in their day, but are equally of high-quality now. I have always been a respecter of a high proportion of the films Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart made. They made one together, called Sabrina. It was a simple story beautifully scripted, touching lightly on social and psychological differences, was amusing and clean cut. There were no confusing crowd scenes, no padding, the story was elegant and placed elegantly. Now Harrison Ford has been persuaded mistakenly, to make another version, which is so crass that one wonders why anyone you would have put money into it. Yesterday I came across another horror, it was called Rush-Hour, had a totally unbalanced, Afro-American, presumably star, as the lead, persistently talking rubbish at high speed, and to the total impairment to the story. The mayhem and smashed up vehicles alone will have a cost a fortune – I just wonder why it was ever produced.