Norman Ralph

Below is the press release regarding the national anti-homeopathy campaign organised by The 10:23 Campaign:

Consumers in Leeds to take part in nationwide homeopathic ‘overdose’ protest against Boots’ continued endorsement and sale of homeopathic products, despite the company admitting they have no evidence the ‘treatments’ work.

Leeds-based Consumer rights activists will be taking part in the protests on January 30th, culminating in a mass homeopathic ‘overdose’ taking place in towns across Britain. The intention is to demonstrate to the public that the homeopathic remedies sold by Boots are nothing but sugar pills, and put pressure on Britain’s leading pharmacist to live up to its responsibilities and ensure that the products it sells to customers are genuine.

The protest, organized by Leeds Skeptics as part of the 10:23 Campaign, comes after a Boots representative, Paul Bennett, attracted ridicule from the national press after admitting to a parliamentary select committee last November that Boots sells homeopathic remedies to the public even though they have no evidence the ‘treatments’ work. The Science and Technology Select Committee are due to release their report on homeopathy around the time of the protest, at the end of January.

The 10:23 Campaign is a national movement headed by the Merseyside Skeptics Society, which aims to raise awareness of homeopathy, a multi-million pound industry based on a long-discredited 18th century ritual, selling remedies to the public which have no scientific basis and no credible evidence for their efficacy beyond the placebo effect. While dispensing sugar pills may seem harmless, in reality the endorsement of homeopathic potions by leading health providers can have grave consequences. As well as potentially undermining trust in medicine and medical advice, customers may be misled into believing that they are treating their illness – for example a 2006 Newsnight investigation revealed that homeopaths were advising customers to take ineffective ‘preparations’ in place of antimalarial drugs. In extreme cases, such as the ‘healing therapist’ Russell Jenkins, deaths have occurred.

The Boots brand is synonymous with health care in the United Kingdom, and they speak proudly their role as a health care provider and their commitment to deliver exceptional patient care. Michael Marshall, a spokesman for the 10:23 Campaign, said the following:

“We do not expect the nation’s leading pharmacist to sell us remedies that do not work. The sale of homeopathic remedies is defended on the basis of allowing customer choice, but choice relies on clear information, and misleading customers by endorsing homeopathic brands restricts their ability to make good health choices.”

Ahead of the protests, an open letter to Boots has been published online and signed by thousands of unhappy customers from across the UK and beyond.

I am coming to the end of my O2 training, hence the lack of posts over the past few weeks, and we are focussing on the more difficult aspects of the job this week. Namely, IP Stream – or home access – broadband. This is the slowest of our packages and is offered to customers more than 9km from their local exchange. It is the hardest package to deal with due to the fact that BT still control their lines and not us which means a lot of faffing about. Our regular trainers can’t teach us this as they haven’t done the course themselves so we had to get a specialist in.

Her opening line was “I don’t really know anything about broadband and I am not an IP Stream expert…” and that was the start of the end!

By the end of four hours of ridiculous training, that had no logical progression, little relevance to our role and and incompetent trainer we had questioned and debated her to tears.

Now whilst I feel bad about that, it wasn’t entirely her fault – a lot of the the problems we highlighted to her had started in the previous weeks, but I didn’t feel bad about letting her know what I thought about the training and her delivery.

Yesterday, was supposed to be the second day of this two day course but she didn’t come back and we were informed that we were not going to receive any further IP Stream training before going live next week and we would have to learn on the job!

That’s right, there are now just twelve days until Chris, George, Michelle and I head over to Manchester to see Avril lavigne’s latest tour hit town. I can’t wait, not just because it is a well earned chance to let my hair down but alse as it signifies my last exam – it being the day after the gig (I’ll worry about that later). Exams have been going okay this time round, although I am getting less adept at judging my own performance. I am putting the work in for these too, which is something of a divergence from past exam periods. I am even letting my revision disturb and interrupt my social life too! Although, that is less of a worry as the group’s end of exams/graduation celebtrations are going to make any event held now seema trifle in comparison! Check out the events at thecircle.chrisworfolk.com and take a loof for yourselves!

I have two exams this week, which are the two hardest of the ones I’m taking, so not much opportunity for relaxing. However, our main houseparty is on Friday so that should be good. Just need to learn all the Avril lyrics now so that I am not outdone by the ten year olds at the gig!!

It has been a while since my last post and usually I would offer some flimsy excuse, blaming work or revision or illness. This time, however, I don’t really have an excuse except a slight apathy towards blogging recently. I cannot explain why that would be except maybe that with the last few weeks the idea of sitting down and writing a few paragraphs more than I need to has turned me off somewhat. Anyway, here I am, blogging again!

First things first, I am now the president of A-Soc, which means you can rest assured that there will be a plethora of A-Soc related psots appearing here and I will be linking to far more over at our offical website (shameless plugging for the win) and the new national site currently based at SecularPortal.com. The A-Soc AGM went really well, we now have a good sized committee with hopefully enough enthusiastic members that we can really grow up this year and develop into the society that we should be. Our aim is to be the third biggest, by numbers and attendence, faith and cultiral society by the end of 2009/2010 which is quite ambitious, but achievable I think if we work hard and putt the effort in.

Next on the list is moving house. After three very good years here, we are looking to move onwards and upwards – mainly down to the fact that Chris, Sarann and Michelle are graduating and want a better house with more space and generally something more resembling a real life house. We have got as far as generating a shortlist and narrowing down our search criteria, but I think the bulk of the work will be carried out after this round of exams (the last round of exams for our graduates). Watch this space!

Talking of exams, I have a few this time round. I managed a lot of revision whilst at home this week, but I’m still only 80% confidant. It seems the older I get the less good at winging exams I get. This is a little bit of a worry as I have always relied on my adaptability and ability to get to the answer without necessarily knowing the answer. I suppose it just means that I will have to really knuckle down this time round.

The first day back to school or work, or in my case university, after a holiday or time-off is always an experience, Today was no different. My first day back to uni after the Christmas vacation went relatively smoothly. Three lectures (well two down one to go) soread out over eight hours, always a nightmare, and a theme throughout this semester’s timetable. I have few consecutive lectures which means that I am stuck in uni all day every day!

Started a new course in philosophy of religion and resumed courses in programming and economics. Same old same old mainly. Philosophy of religion looks like it might be interesting but I think I might get annoyed with the rather large Christian contingent that makes up my tutor group!

Got some feedback on my CR11 mock today, which looks promising. Got an ok 2:1, not as high as I had hoped but pretty good seeing as I struggled with one of the large questions on the paper. Marks for the coursework will be out soon too. It is always exciting to get marks back, unless you know you have done badly!

It was a close fought contest, but I have eventually risen triumphant over my CR11 coursework!

I tarred and g-zipped my directory and am in the process of electronically submitting it as we speak! It is such a relief to have it behind me.

It wasn’t a particularly difficult task to complete , but it did pose some quite interesting problems and allowed me to develop a relatively complex python program from scratch that incorporated everything we have covered so far in CR11 as well as introducing databases and SQL.

My project solution involved writing a program that allowed a user to upload their own music collection and then perform a variety of tasks including searches, sorting and editing the data. As I say, nothing too fancy but a worthwhile exercise nonetheless. It also managed to inspire the hidden software developer inside me and I think I will be looking to run some further development in the near future.

Well as of today I have no more exams until June! From Monday I will be back into the swing of everyday university life, something I am surprisingly looking forward to. Examination periods, although a necessary evil, do tend to ensure that I get well behind on other projects – such as CompSoc and A-Soc stuff I have to do, coursework that is due and personal relationships that are starved somewhat of attention.

I think the exams went well enough and I am confident of good passes ina ll the exams with hopefully a few fists dotted in for good measure. They will, of course, be meaningless as this year is entirely formative but I think they are a good indicater of progress and allow for some positive feedback and constructive criticism from the teaching staff.

Speaking of results, best wishes to all those who are waiting on significantly more important results with regards to their degree courses and ultimately their career choices! I hope that you all get what you need to make sure you get where you want to be!

On several occasions today I have been very close to picking up my linux machine and throwing it out the window, quite literally!

I have been trying to install and run MySQL and Apache so I can put together my CR11 database coursework. MySQL was no real effort, just sudo apt-get it and wa-hey away you go – pretty self explanatory and a rather robust piece of software, not that I am overly qualified to make that sort of statement, lol.

Apache on the other hand has really done my nut in. Firstly, it took all day to install and run properly after hours of fiddling with apr’s. Secondly, I don’t seem to be able to link Apache with the files I am using to write the program, either tells me I don’t have permission or that it can’t find the files! Any help on this apsect much appreciated. At the moment I am tempted to give up and head into DEC-10 to do my coursework, but after shelling out on a machine that’s supposed to do it at home I don’t really want to take that step.

Well, my first exam of this year starts in a little under seven hours and I am still awake. Don’t get me wrong, I am as prepared as I ever have been for an exam. I actually am convinced that I will get a very high mark regardless of the question that come up even bearing in mind I have not taken an essay based exam paper since my GCSEs in 2001! I am just suffering from pre-exam nerves, or possibly over stimulation from the fact that I have been feeding my brain philosophy and logic for a week solid now…. Who knows?

On a slightly different note, A-Soc had a screening of The Da Vinci Code which was a welcome break from the seemingly endless reading, writing and watching CSI! There was a modest turnout, we managed three, which is not too surprising as it is the first week of exam week and the first real week back to work for most of our adult members. Even though, I was hoping for more – watching a video is not exactly taxing and even at nearly two and half hours long, it doesn’t fill up too much of an evening. We did a new face turning up so not a total watse of time. It’s not a bad film either in all honesty. it doesn’t get the reviews it deserves and most people I know slate it due to the variation from the book. To be totally frank though, the film is good. It is well acted, benefits from the screenplay differences and is a genuinely enthralling conspiracy thriller. Slate it if you dare. Plus Dan Brown is a twit, a profit mongering, semi-talented, sell-out of an author; for whom I have infinite respect. I wish I could churn out that kind of material with little effort or quality and make the kind of money he does!

The Christmas festivities are over, the New Year hangovers have subsided and 2008 is nearly a week old. This seems like the perfect opportunity to take a look back at 2007 and the people, events and ideas that made it.

Christmas and New Year are always a time for reflection and nostalgia and this year was no different. My family was all together for the first time in a while, including some of the new additions. I had an enjoyable time with several highlights – firstly, I caught up with some old friends and relived some of those moments from my youth that I miss. I also had a good time Christmas Day as I actually felt part of the family for the first time in many years. The end of December was also a good time for me, I spent it with Liz and her family and really felt accepted.

Anyway, back to my review of the year.

January
January was an interesting month, fisrt it saw the blossoming of a new friendship, one that would lead to something quite special – although i didn’t know that at the time of course. This month saw the final plans for the new academic year’s housing plans and all the arguments that surrounded that decision. This is probably the time that I cemented my friendship with a number of people whom I now consider my closest allies.

January’s exam period was hard for me, not just for the obvious reasons, but because it saw the dawning in my mind that I had lost my passion in Materials Engineering, that the course was no longer the inspiration I required. I began to toy with the idea of leaving university, or at least changing course.

February
I don’t remember much of February apart from starting at McDonald’s and buying a new car. I also went to Langdale in the Lake District with my mum.

March
March was an interesting month, I saw Barenaked Ladies in concert in Leeds which was amazing, visited Sarann in the Lakes and most importantly I started this blog.

April
Now here is the definition of a rollercoaster ride. I reached some of the lowest points of my life but also touched some of the highest highs. I ran Rationalist Week, spent a week in a self-destructive spiral of drinking, partying and depression, I met a girl and fell in love.

May
May was a busy month. Liz and my relationship went from strength to strength, went to see Soweto Kinch and The Who live in concert and Blackpool won in the League One play-offs and got themselves promoted to the Championship.

June
Festivals were the order of the day/month for June. I went to Sunrise and Farmyard Party to work in a chip van with Sarann. I had a great time but it meant not seeing Liz for a lot of the month – the first real test for our relationship. I think we ended up stronger than ever! Chris ended up in hospital with a serious bout of appendicitis and I spent a lot of time helping Matt sort out his car.

July
July was quite boring compared to the surrounding months.I went to Workhouse in Wales, had minor computing issues and moved in with my new housemates – Sarann, Michelle, B and Chris.

August
Always a quiet month, with uni still a month away and the excitement of breaking up long since faded away. I spent most of the month taking stock and seeing what was what in my life. I did go to Solfest, however, which was definitely a personal highlight of the year!

September
I made only seven blog posts in September, which gives a good indication of how little I did. I did start a new course at university though and turned twenty-three – which also explains the lack of blogging! The combination of Fresher’s week and birthday celebrations will do that to a man.

October
A difficult month for me. A lot of things happened in my private life that left me somewhat adrift. I did get a new computer though, which is always nice!

November
November saw things pick up a bit with the A-Soc London trip, Atheist Week and the discovery of the Lancashire Hotpots! London was worth all the effort that I put into it, it turned out better than anyone had predicted and nothing really bad happened. Liz and I went from strength to strength and I even managed to find time to do some uni work!

December
A month of WoW and family. Not a lot to report on really, except what is already included at the top of this post. It was a good festive period all in all. I think it set me up for 2008 quite nicely.