Friday 17 October 2008

Today's Times

I am sometimes accused of not reading the paper, or not reading a book. Just to prove the contrary, these are two items that appear on the "Daily Universal Register" page of today's Times.


The last word
"A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop a speech when words become superfluous" Ingrid Bergman

Saint's Day
St Ignatius of Antioch, 1st Century, is patron saint of throat disease. He longed to shed his blood for Christ and got his chance in AD107. He was brought before the emperor, confessed Christ and was then devoured by lions.

Rather more serious is the letter supporting change to abortion law here in the UK - which peddles the idea that patients agree to their treatment on an "on request" basis, and so should be allowed to "request" abortion without hindrance from medical professionals. I posted on this misconception of the nature of medicine a little while ago, and it is misleading to suggest that examples of patients declining their consent to what would be the normally accepted treatment offered by the medical profession can be equated to patients having a freedom simply to request what treatment they like. That the lettered signatories of this letter should fall for it leaves me a little agog.

PS. I have updated the wording of this last paragraph from what I earlier posted - to use the word "request", which better expresses the point I was trying to make.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm all behind with your blog as i am with the Times- i'm wading through several copies and have done today's, Tuesdays and all the Times 2 since Tuesday. I wonder whether you spotted the recipe for Parkin and Lancashire hot pot and Carole Midgely's interesting comments on the HPV vaccine i may have torn them out....

Joe said...

There is a letter in todays Times which insists that Parkin is "dark up north", being made with treacle.

My favourite, though, is "light parkin", but perhaps that is proper to Lancashire rather than Yorkshire.

Anonymous said...

the parkin in the recipe looked light which i suppose prompted the letter