Goodbye Cruel World, A Really Cruel World

Blimey, get me home quick.  I need to return home to New Zealand at my earliest.  This morning’s paper has just informed me that time is running out.  For all of us.

According to the paper there is a meteorite in space right now, at this very minute, powering its way directly toward Earth.  Such is the speed, force and size of this meteorite that when it hits planet Earth we will be totally demolished, blown to smithereens.  Kapow!  Gone. All of us. A planet that once was will be no more.

I must get home a.s.a.p. to tell those I love that I love them, in case they don’t already know, or have forgotten.  Before the smashing impact.  I must tell everyone I love them; literally everyone, even the postman, the binman, or bin girl, the grotty shop assistants and doctor’s receptionist, everyone, in case there is an after world after all and Saint Peter qualifies our entry through the Pearly Gates on human love and compassion.  Or be banished to that other place. I love you, all of you out there.  

Phew, that’s taken the pressure off just a little, for the meantime.  

I figure that reasoning says if I am panicking about this definite end to this planet of ours, then most others who read the same article must be panicking too.  Perhaps there is a positive in that, maybe there are a lot of people here in the UK who read the article and are now spreading love today, all day. That makes for interesting imagery. 

I did wonder why that particular article, which has such a catastrophic message, was tucked in on page 8, right at the bottom right hand corner, in between big and bold advertising for mobility scooters?  Does not seem right that if the world is ending, as this journalists were very definite about, the article should be front page headlines? And plastered all over the media - newspapers, television, radio, internet?  Were they attempting to break the news gently? You think?

And was there any significance in the placement of the advertisement for mobility scooters?  After all, why bother?

Ah, truly, the papers here in the UK are so factually informative; column after column of fascinating previously unknown and amazing ‘stuff’ which we never read or hear about in our few New Zealand daily publications.  The New Zealand Herald, or Dominion Post, or Otago Daily Times could learn from these British papers and journalists. Learn the skill of delving into the really vitally important and unknown areas the general public have been kept from.  Not only do they give us much required information about the likes of Simon Powell’s (or other aging screen stars) morbid sex life … to learning that 500 sperm donors here have fathered over 6,000 babies ... but I even read one journalist telling us they know how to solve the world outbreak of Ebola.  Gosh, he should tell the medical fraternity, now.

Indeed, the politicians and scientists of this world should utilise the papers as an updating source of everything important that relates anything - most particularly for facts and new knowledge specifically written about health and medical sciences. I pick up a paper each day and wonder what wonder they have uncovered this time.  

Hence the meteorite news today.

      

I really only realised what an encyclopaedic resource these papers are when I picked up and read a paper one of my train trips last week. By the time I had read the paper from front to back I felt the strongest urge to jumped off the train to throw myself under the engine to finish it all, then and there.  If it wasn’t for the fact that I want to hug my loved ones just one more time before I depart, I would have been mincemeat on British rail lines.  And that was before I read about the meteorite this morning.

That paper on the train, the Daily Mirror, had pages and pages of need to know information for us all.

  

Firstly, it had a double page article stating we should question whether Paracetamol is safe.  Apparently, according to the article, if we take Paracetamol we are at risk of disease, PLUS that little tablet will increase our risk of heart attacks, strokes, heart failure (isn’t heart failure a heart attack? Or a heart attack heart failure?), gastrointestinal bleeding and kidney problems.  Ergh.

 

This will all be made worse if one is pregnant  (must check to see that I am not pregnant as I took a Paracetamol while in Shropshire last week) as the child could become asthmatic, or be ADHD.   

Just one little tablet taken while pregnant can cause poor physical co-ordination as well as communication skills.  Well that explains why we have difficulty with some people – their mothers took Paracetamol sometime in their first few womb months.

It may also explain about those who can never co-ordinate well when trying to learn to swim, I shall just tell them it’s their mother’s fault; she must have taken a Paracetemol. 

That will make them feel better. But it won't make their swimming any better.

The good news, the same newspaper informed us on the next page was that negative effects from those little pills could perhaps be all fixed by eating the humble almond.

According to that article, almonds boost fertility, so you don’t have to worry that if you took a Paracetamol while pregnant and now have a resultant asthmatic or ADHD child, all will be well as if you feed your man almonds and not take Paracetamol you can have plenty more well co-ordinated children sired by the almond eating man.  

It’s as simple as that.  

Phew, that will have been helpful for many women to know.  And am sure the men are pleased to.  If they like almonds that is.  Except, if the woman happens to have restless leg syndrome.   

If she does have restless leg syndrome she can excuse her way out of practising the act of copulation by declaring she has a headache.  A genuine migraine headache.  Seems that those who have restless leg syndrome are more likely to have a migraine than those who do not have restless leg syndrome.  The same newspaper had an article telling everyone that fact.  Although it did make me wonder that if one has a migraine whether the migraine could cause the restless leg syndrome?  And, if you do have a migraine should you take a Paracetamol?  And what about if you are pregnant with restless leg syndrome?

Speaking of headaches, the paper says scientists have discovered a new hangover cure – melon juice.  Which is now selling in supermarkets.  The article did not mention what sort of melon, just melon. 

 

Actually, going back to being pregnant,  if you do happen to be pregnant, you must not clean the house during pregnancy.  

The same newspaper says that anti-bacterial products, such as hand soaps, toothpastes, cosmetics, detergents, carpets, paints, school supplies and toys will be bad for your baby and cause unending amounts of problems for the child.  How school supplies got into that mix (and toys), it did not explain.  Nor did the article define 'school supplies', or for that matter, 'toys'. We shall forever be wondering exactly what.   

The article states that scientists tested the urine samples of "some pregnant women" - clearly must have been those who wash their hands, clean their teeth, put make up on and maybe wash dishes, carpets or play with toys– and the scientists detected compounds from these products in their urine, which means it could transfer to foetuses.  It didn’t actually say what exactly the compounds were, or what exact problems compounds in the urine will create for the foetuses and the eventual child produced, but there was certainly strong inference that should one have tainted urine … beware. You must be a naughty, make up wearing and clean mother.

What about the compound produced in urine after eating asparagus?  Will that create an acidic smelling baby instead of a sweet smelling one?  Another thing to ponder on.

Oh, and to add to that, there was a sub-note – that germ killers in soap could stunt the growth of the unborn child.

Quite frankly ladies, go wash your hands, teeth, carpets, toys, dishes – who wants big babies anyway!? Speaking from one who knows, big babies play havoc with your future figure.  Keep the babies small.

Later in the paper there was a call to ban Nurofen medicine that is especially produced and provided for suffering children from 3 month to 12 years old.  Why? Because they showed a photo of one little girl who had an allergic reaction to Nurofen which nearly killed her.  This reaction was so unusual the experts guestimate that maybe one in 800,000 children could have this reaction happen to them.  Thus the call to ban Nurofen for any children who have toothache, pain or any form of suffering and it is better to have 799,999 children have to suffer pain than give them a Nurofen in case the 800,000th one has an allergic reaction.  Best to let the kids suffer I guess.

I know lots of children who have a possibly deadly peanut allergy.  Why are peanuts not banned?

Maybe we should ban summer too as there was an article about what a warm summer the UK had been having this year, but …  according to the article, health problems are worse when it is warm. Warm summers can worsen breathing problems, allergies and make asthma worse.  That's the end of anyone enjoying a nice warm summer in future years!

Phew. 

Oh, and while on allergies, if you have bookshelves at home that are the normal, open bookshelves and not ones closed off with doors, then may I suggest you rush out and purchase doors for your bookshelves?  Why?  Because the newspaper said that open bookshelves play havoc for those with allergies due to all the dust that they collect on top of the books and shelves.  That could possibly be due to pregnant mothers not wanting to use cloths and cleaners for fear of foetal downsizing.  

 

And more on allergies – in the same paper.  Ditch your pillow  - after six months your pillow is filled with dirt, oil, dust mites and dead skin and can trigger allergies and acne.  Another ergh, ergh ..  all those mites I’ve been sleeping on all my life. Running all over my face all night, every night. Yuk. That's put paid to any future deep sleeps.  

It is recommend one washes your pillows regularly. Ha! Had to be a nerd to give this recommendation – hands up everyone who washes their pillows every six months.  I have this comic picture of people trying to stuff their pillows into their washing machines - fine for the UK front loaders but us Kiwis have top loaders, the foaming pillows will be floating above the soapy waterline, bobbing around like ping pong balls.  And what guarantee dust mites wouldn't survive the swim?

By now you possibly doubt my credibility regarding this one newspaper.  Don’t.  This is absolutely for real.

The article that did really amuse me rather than scare the bejesus out of me was the one that informed us that should we not change our socks every day we are giving ourselves more chances of contracting the dreaded tinea on our toes.  Really? 

Apparently more men than women contract tinea; but they were not able to determine whether that was because men wear socks every day and women generally don’t – thus men create more opportunity for the fungus to grow, particularly in hot weather.  Or if perhaps men are more lax at daily changes of sock wear yet don’t admit to it.  We will have to forever wonder which it is.

Again, as one who knows, sandal wearing women are just as prone to finding the little fungi growing under their toe nails as men, if they are regular uses of public swimming pools or gymnasiums. Another ghastly reality of trying to be healthy.  Why bother.

They did not mention how a sufferer of tinea should rid oneself of the growing molecules, but they did ask the question - could bleach fight off common cold?  Apparently there is some chemical element in bleach that could possible cure the cold.  Think we all could work that one out.  Drink bleach and you die, thus curing the cold.  Or sniff bleach and you’ll be in laa-laa-land and won’t notice a cold.  If neither of these work keep doing it and within three days your cold will be gone – proof, that bleach can indeed cure the common cold.

But would not worry about curing the common cold at this point in time because the big news is:  Sugar is the new tobacco!  At least say some health experts as they have found that it’s linked to obesity and Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.  Sugar that is.  Not tobacco. Really? Wow, isn’t that amazing news.  I tell you, these journalistic scientists and newspaper articles are sensationally up with modern science and research …. Not.

They also warned that the new tobacco, which is sugar, is detrimental to your dental health.To your teeth and gums health.  If you have too much sugar you will end up having to have teeth extracted and false ones to be worn instead.  But then, another warning.  False teeth can wreck  your gums.  To me, having false teeth means your gums are already wrecked as they once had teeth in them and now don’t.  Still figuring that one out.   
Whilst I was trying to figure that out I read that you can drop your risk of heart attack by 24% merely by having your teeth cleaned by a dentist at least twice a year.  I was somewhat dubious on this 24% fact – and how they got to the 24 bit, and not 25 – after all, if you are going to make a statement about 24%, wouldn’t it be better to square the percentage point up to a nice 25%?  And was also suspicious the local dental fraternity may have submitted this article.

Well, by this point I was truly fretting about life, living and survival in this world with all these facts thrown at me in one paper.  I felt the pressure of health concern for everyone weighing heavier and heavier as I turned each page.  The next couple were the ones that finally had me contemplating throwing myself off the train to end it all now.

Firstly, ‘they’ say that people who are in the sixty-plus age bracket should perform any mental tasks early in the morning.  ‘Old people’ – the newspaper term for 60+ year olds - have less activity in their brains attention and control in afternoons than they do in the morning. 

          

Firstly, when did I suddenly become an ‘old people’?  I smite at that.

All this time I thought my mental capacity was less in the afternoon due to having been up at 5 am, in the pool at 6 am, doing physical work until 11 am, going for a run at 12 pm, mowing the lawns at 2 pm.  By then my brain is no good for mental arithmetic – but neither was it when I was 22 and got up at 7 am, at work at my office desk by 8.30 am, had a lunch break at 12 pm, back sitting at the desk at 1 pm then nodding off at my desk by 2pm and totally unable to mental factor anything much from 3 pm until finish at 5 pm.  So after being paid for doing little from 3 to 5 pm would get home at 6 pm, dinner at 7 pm, in front of telly at 8 pm, nodding off on the couch by 9 pm, bed at 10 pm – to begin it all again the next day at 7 am.   As per the greater number of corporate workers in this world today between the ages of 18 to 60.

Why pick on the 60 plus year olds! 

And then  …. Research has shown that nearly half the women who have urinary incontinence will have a poor sex life.  Really!?  Researchers have discovered this as medical breakthrough?

       

Do they really think that women who have incontinence are going to be rampantly ‘up for it’ to a grand degree in the bedroom?  How long did that research take for them to work out that the poor ladies who have such an embarrassing and personally debilitating and private problem are not going to be sexual sirens and cougars?  Who on earth are these plonker ‘researchers’?  And how many decades did it take them to figure that half the incontinent women did not have nymphomaniac tendencies?  Clearly they are men.

       

And no, I am not incontinent.  Yet.

And that ends the amazing lists of journo and newspaper tips, hints and discoveries of scientific health researching from the pages of the Daily Mirror.  But it was the Daily Express that had the meteorite warning.  

So, rather than tossing it all in under the wheels of the trains on that day, I decided that I would wait until my return to New Zealand to hug my family and then re-look and ponder at where to in this world of health problems and gloom and inevitable meteorite ending.  Besides, according to that article, the meteorite is not due here until approximately the year 2880, which gives me ample time to ponder.