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I'm sure salmon'll start the fish puns soon

It's a gorgeous day, we should all be out riding our pikes

Not sure about that, let me mullet over

onelangster

sive attack

Bear this in mind:

http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf

It's the best paper ever written.

Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognising One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments

In 1995, McArthur Wheeler walked into two Pittsburgh banks and robbed them in broad daylight, with no visible attempt at disguise. He was arrested later that night, less than an hour after videotapes of him taken from surveillance cameras were broadcast on the 11 o'clock news. When police later showed him the surveillance tapes, Mr Wheeler stared in incredulity. "But I wore the juice," he mumbled. Apparently, Mr Wheeler was under the impression that rubbing one's face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to videotape cameras. (Fuocco, 1996)

Win.

http://www.break.com/usercontent/2009/6/firework-nutshot-fail-771662.html

While I was in school, a guy in the year below me tried to steal some ammonium dichromate from the chemistry labs. He wrapped it in a tissue and put it in the pocket of his trousers. Then - because he was a feckless stoner - he started playing with a lighter in his pocket. He had to run to the medical room in his boxer shorts, with 3rd degree burns down his right leg.

Fucking doss bastard.

Yep, wanted to post the spirally one. :)

Hope this helps:

1) Fireworks work underwater, including in the bath!

2) Mopping cordite stains off the ceiling when you have to leave your flat is really hard.

I have never, ever, had a puncture within walking distance of a bike shop.

It inevitably happens in Bumfuck Idaho.

.

Look at the "shadow".

Really, check it in Paint or whatever. It's a fucking great illusion.

1 day contact lens and 2 week contact lens are exactly the same.

What is called a "French kiss" in the English speaking world is known as an "English kiss" in France.

Syphilis was "the French disease" on this side of the channel and "the English disease" over there.

My word is my bond.

Cyclists who don't repair inner tubes are worse than car drivers who have their car crushed because the ashtray is full

What about the people who set themselves on fire because they need a poo?

^ All of the above statements, just seem false to me...

That's why they're called "illusions". :)

Fire up Paint / Photoshop whatever and compare squares if you don't believe me....

Squares A and B are the same shade of grey.

The middle tiles in each face are the same colour.

The "green" and "blue" spirals are the same colour.

Who else says to themselves "I'll just buy another tube, I haven't got time to fix this" when what they really mean is "I'm a bed wetter and can't patch tubes"?

I've started to sleep on my inner tubes to find the slow punctures.

"We are still masters of our fate.
We are still captains of our souls."

— [Winston S. Churchill](http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14033.Winston_S_Churchill)

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbow'd.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

**I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.**

Invictus, by William Henley. First published 1875. Timothy McVeigh wrote it out just before he was executed - always thought it was a poem for weirdos, sort of the equivalent of "My Way".

Lots of Churchill on this thread.

"Hitler was a bad man. Winston Churchill was a good man. But if you were in a balloon with Hitler and Churchill, and you were losing altitude..."

• Harry Hill
  

The railways in this country were hopeless long before they were privatised. They are still hopeless now, with a few exceptions.

While I don't remember the bad old days of BR very well (too young) I'd argue that the same systematic problems are still at least as bad as they were (trains slow, old and delayed) only now the service is also much more expensive, overcrowded, impersonally staffed and less well integrated nationally. So, a net fail.

When I was hit by a car in 2000 I was admitted to a disgustingly dirty ward in the Royal London staffed by uppity nurses who thought cleaning up things like the used vomit bowls was beneath them and flat out refused to remove them.

Nursing care is interesting. You now need to be academically qualified to work as a nurse (diploma or degree) and nurses are being given more responsibility for diagnosis and performing medical procedures. The academic qualification is ridiculous - my ex is a nurse, and a good one, but can't write an essay to save her life - and the increased clinical responsibility is entirely due to nurses being cheaper than doctors and nothing to do with standard of care.

I'd speculate that a private system would either be prohibitively expensive (see entire thread) with nurses and doctors in more "traditional" roles, or would go down the same route as the NHS (which, as many have pointed out, is now obsessed with private sector ideas of "cost" and "competitiveness") except more so, with more nurse-led treatments.

Bear in mind that at the moment the private system is integrated with the NHS and reaps all its advantages - all it needs to do is provide a more attentive service to the top whatever-percent of people that are privileged enough to afford the insurance. Population-wide private care would look quite different, particularly to those on average or low income.

I'm not jewish :P

Eh? Racism fail.

In fact, the NHS is moving to separate its commissioning functions from its provider functions completely to encourage "competition" between public providers and private providers.

Fixed, as the "competitive" element is often rigged... :)

Hospitals are a shrewdly run business, with beds at their minimal... so money then becomes a big part of how the system runs.... get more patients in - kick the "outliers" out.... this process means that those discharged too early end up being readmitted for further treatment......

To some extent that's due to several decades of governments trying to move the system towards a more "capitalist" model, with an internal market and public-private partnerships.

Not sure how relevant this is as it is comparing my experience of privatevs public service in England. I broke my leg pretty badly a few years ago and metal got screwed to my leg in thanks to the NHS then taken out a year later courtesy of Bupa. The level of care was almost the same in both (apart from a monumental fuck up on pain control on one instance by the NHS), the people treating me were the same (some working for both the NHS and Bupa), the only big difference between the two services was the waiting around. When being treated by the NHS there was a lot of waiting around and uncertainty when I would be seen by doctors, surgeons etc. Compared to private when if they said they'd be there at 1pm then they would be there bang on 1pm.

But that is private medicine in the UK - they're very good at hand-holding, bedside manner, etc, and they're able to do the simple stuff, but anything reasonably complicated is handed back to be done by the NHS anyway.

The other big issue with the American system, that hasn't been touched on, is the effect it has had on medical research. Speaking as a former employee, the reason that Big Pharma is what it is (venal, corrupt and not very interested in pointing its money in the direction of malaria, AIDS and so on, preferring "lifestyle" diseases) is because it makes its money in the American system, where it can market directly to consumers and charge huge fees to insurance companies. The medical research agenda for the entire world is set by a perverse system of economic incentives in the US, and academia is corrupted along the way. I don't want to derail the thread into a discussion of Big Pharma (well, secretly I do), but if the US went for socialised medicine it would be wonderful to watch their business model collapse a bit further.