London update

The atmosphere in London is pretty eerie at the moment. The eyes of the world seemed to be on London a month ago. What with the Wimbledon tennis championships, the G8 summit, Live8 and then winning the honour of hosting the 2012 Olympics, there was a feeling of euphoria, mixed in with some cynicism (most of my lab colleagues aren’t students and so have to pay council tax, which will be raised to pay for the Olympics). The next day, however, there were a series of fatal bombings on parts of the London public transport system, and since then there have been further failed bomb attempts. There are now almost daily security alerts and evacuations in North London. Over the past month I’ve been cycling around the city and my daily life hasn’t been too disrupted, but on the way to work (Hammersmith Hospital) today I passed a street that had been cordoned off my police. I didn’t stop to wait, but I’ve just heard that it seems armed forces have cornered one of the suspected bombers there. It’s only five minutes away from work and ten minutes from home. Initially it was thought that the 7/7 attacks were the work of a small cell within the UK working independently, but now it seems they were part of a much larger network, with arrests already being made as far away as Egypt and Pakistan. Strange times.

Check out the BBC News site for more details.

Batten down the hatches

News just in of a tornado in south Birmingham. Hang on, a tornado? In the Midlands? Admittedly, before I visited Birmingham last year I though nothing exciting ever happened on the ‘dark side’, but apparently this was quite major. Not as strong as the twisters we regularly hear about in the Caribbean and the southern United States, but still the biggest to hit the region for a quarter of a century.

Another cool pic

And what do you think this is? It's another picture I found on the BBC News wesbite, and was taken by Spike Walker.






Answer: They are tiny kidney stones! Each of them was formed by concentric layers of crystallised calcium oxalate. Calcium oxalate are the commonest type of kidney stones, at least within the UK.


Remember the advice given to people suffering from calcium oxalate stones?

• Drink plenty of water (avoid dehydration)
• Avoid foods high in oxalate (chocolate, tea, beer, baked beans, rhubarb...)
• Restrict sodium and protein in the diet

Man down

A man was shot killed by armed police yesterday at Stockwell tube station. It was thought that he was involved in the bombings on Thursday, but it’s since turned out he was innocent. The guy (a Brazilian national) was followed from his home by plain clothes officers to the station. He was asked to stop but apparently panicked and fled to a train, where he was shot eight times. I don’t exactly know what happened at the station but I’m pretty scared about the shoot-to-kill policy adopted by the police, especially if more innocent people are killed. That said, you could argue that policies like this need to be implemented to prevent further innocent people dying at the hands of the terrorists.

Live8

This massive concert was held on July 2nd in London and in nine other cities throughout the world to campaign for fair trade and debt relief for some of Africa's poorest nations. I was there.

More violence

Four more bombs on the Underground today. It seems to be a repeat of the events of a fortnight ago. Again there was chaos, and most of the public transport networks within the city were closed for a while. Thankfully the devices only partially exploded, and nobody was hurt.

Look, I'll call you. Ok?

The Psychiatric Hotline:
If you are obsessive compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.
If you are dependent, please ask someone to press 2.
If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5, and 6.
If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want. Just stay on the line so we can trace the call.
If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.
If you are depressed, it doesn't matter which number you press. No one will answer.
If you are anxious, just start pressing numbers at random.
If you are phobic, don't press anything.
If you are anally retentive, please hold.