Leatherhead Matters

It’s a double whammy for Gordon Brown’s well being. In the last few weeks he has had to endure a torrent of personal abuse and also his media advisors have asked him to smile more.

A German scientist has proved that this combination of psychological stressors is very bad for your health!

Read the article HERE

I’m almost beginning to feel sorry for him…well almost!

Clearly some of them don’t! Tangled Web reports:

Isn’t it shocking to read about the multiple sclerosis sufferer who has been FORCED by the NHS to sleep in a chair for six years?

Lorraine Wolstenholme has not been able to get into bed since her local NHS trust banned nurses from lifting her out of her chair in case they were injured.  Mrs Wolstenholme, who is 5ft 3in and weighs less than nine stone, has been forced to sleep in a reclining chair her family bought for her. The case was revealed at the High Court yesterday, where Mrs Wolstenholme has lodged a judicial review against the local primary care trust and the council.  Mrs Wolstenholme, 51, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1995 and had been provided with nurses to lift her. But in June 2002 the Milton Keynes NHS Primary Care Trust withdrew the service because of health and safety legislation, saying three of its staff had been injured trying to lift the patient. (Bet they put in big claims) The trust said Mrs Wolstenholme’s MS caused spasms which made her “hazardous” to its staff. 

This is lunacy. The NHS should shut its doors on this logic, all patients represent some form of risk. The poor woman has enough to deal with without the pc brigade ensuring that nurses will not lift her into bed where she can get proper rest. I say shame on the National Health Service Trust concerned.  Is THIS service really “the envy of the world”?

Did our government really understand the increasingly bizarre consequences of their “elf & safety” legislation?

Gordon Brown has consistently labelled his increasingly extraordinary taxes on cars as green taxes. All designed to convert citizens to greener modes of transport and/or, lower CO2 emitting vehicles.

He knows, like we do, that most of us have no choice but to simply pay up because, there are no realistic alternatives to car travel for the modern family except perhaps in urban London.

His latest wheeze is to further increase the annual vehicle excise duty (VED).

If you own a car which emits 161-165 grams of carbon per km  VED will go up from £145 to £175, an increase of more than 20%.

If you own a car with emissions of 201-225 grams, VED will go up from £210 to £300, an increase of more than 40% more.

If your car emits out more than 255 grams, the rise will be 10%, from £400 to £440.

The government have justified these whopping increases as a “green” tax, on the assumption it will persuade us to buy greener cars.

But, as we now know with this government, what they say & what they think are often opposites. The government’s own figures say that, these tax changes will result in UK vehicle emissions of carbon falling by just one seventh of one percent….a figure so small it’s impossible to measure.

The more interesting statistic is that the government forecast a whopping 130% increase in car tax revenue from this change

So now we know. This is all just about filling Gordon’s boots for an election giveaway later in 2009 and not saving the planet!

 First it was Caroline Flint, Minister for Housing, “inadvertently” revealing her grim forecast when she was photographed walking into Downing Street with her briefing papers visible. Close inspection revealed that her document read: “We can’t tell how bad it will get.”  and that “house prices could decline by 5-10%”. The briefing paper, which was visible to photographers through a plastic folder, also revealed that she intends to announce extra help for first time buyers today, mainly by extending shared equity schemes. The “unintended disclosure” was supposed to be deeply embarrassing for the government since the government, as opposed to the Bank of England, does not normally make forecasts on house prices.

But, in just a week we have had a second “accidental” leak. This time it’s Hazel Blears coming out of Downing Street with papers suggesting Gordon Brown may be thinking of appearing in a version of the Apprentice for budding politicians.

This government doesn’t get it! It’s silly stunts like this which have contributed to a national sense that you can’t trust this Government. They seem not to recognise that we have had 11 years of this sort of cynical spin as a substitute for effective policy development & implementation. In the beginning it worked as we gave them the benefit of the doubt. But they now have a long track record of spin and increasingly less substance

Their past has caught up with them. Why do they continue to do it? Perhaps they have come to believe in their own fantasies or, this tired government just can’t think of anything better to do!

Further to THIS popular post, research suggests that morbid obesity is not just a phenomenon of current times.

The attributes the people in the following list have in common are their extreme level of obesity & the fact they are all deceased. The only British contender is a Mr G.Hopkins (at no.19) of Wales who lived in the 18th Century. He is said to have been brought to a London fair in a sturdy cart pulled by four teams of oxen, where an enterprising promoter displayed him in a stall alongside some prize hogs that were too fat to stand up.

The still living contender for the world’s most obese person is Manuel Uribe,  a Mexican. Although since then he claims to have lost 990 lbs or, around half a ton.

In times past, their condition would have been described as gluttony, particularly in Christian societies where it was one of the 7 Deadly Sins.

Nowadays, morbid obesity, also known as clinically severe obesity, is an abnormal obesity defined as the condition of having body weight over 100 lbs over an ideal body weight or having a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or higher. The causes of morbid obesity are not well understood though, it usually comes about as the result of several factors, including diet, environment, genetics, metabolism and mental health.

The list below was complied by Dimensions Magazine: 

1. 

Carol Yager (1960 - 1994) of Flint, MI; 5 ft 7 in, estimated to have weighed more than 1600 lbs at her peak. She had been fat since childhood. In 1993, she was measured at 1189 lbs when admitted to Hurley Medical Center, suffering from cellulitis. She lost nearly 500 lbs on a 1200-calorie diet, but most of that weight was thought to be fluid, and she regained all of it and more soon after being discharged. Her teenage daughter, a boyfriend, and a group of volunteers helped take care of her. Despite extravagant promises by diet maven Richard Simmons and talk-show host Jerry Springer, Yager received little practical assistance in return for her media exposure (though Springer continues to profit from her appearance on his show, having rebroadcast that episode at least four times). She was refused further hospitalization on the grounds that her condition was not critical, despite massive water retention and signs of incipient kidney failure, and these problems led to her death a few weeks later.

Jon Brower Minnoch (1941 - 1983) of Bainbridge Island, WA; 6 ft 1 in, estimated as weighing “probably more than” 1400 lbs in 1979, at which point it took 13 people just to roll him over in bed. Minnoch, like many of the heaviest people, suffered from massive edema: his weight was augmented by at least 900 lbs of fluid at its peak. The former taxi driver had always been unusually heavy, reaching 400 lbs in 1963, 700 lbs in 1966, and 975 lbs in 1976, but he claimed to have been in no way handicapped by his size until a 500-calorie diet sapped his muscle strength and left him at the brink of death. Subsequent hospitalization brought him down to 476 lbs in 1981, mostly through the loss of 12 to 14 pounds of fluid per week. He was readmitted later that year after regaining 200 lbs in seven days. Although physicians at University Hospital in Seattle persisted in treating him with a 1,200-calorie diet, he weighed about 800 lbs at the time of his death. Other details of his physical condition were withheld from the press. Minnoch was the father of two children by his 110-lb wife, Jeannette.

Roselie Bradford (b. 1944) of Sellersville, PA; 5 ft 6 in, measured at 1053 lbs, but estimates that she weighed more than 1200 lbs at her peak two years earlier, a claim accepted by Guinness. Already over 300 lbs when she dropped out of college, Bradford became an exercise instructor, running seven miles three times a week, but continued her steady gain in weight. At 374 lbs she underwent an intestinal bypass operation, which caused serious complications. She was back to 350 lbs when she married her husband Bob in 1973, reached 500 lbs after the birth of her son, and as her body grew, so did her appetite. After contracting septicemia in the early 1980s, she spent most of the next decade in bed, eating - as much as 15,000 calories per day. It wasn’t unusual for her to put away three large pizzas in 40 minutes (washing them down with diet soda), then ask for dessert. At her peak, she measured eight feet wide, and took up two reinforced king-size beds. Her bustline measured over 100 inches, and her hips carried 200-lb “saddlebags” that hung down her thighs as far as her knees. “People would visit me and sit on the bed, not realizing they were sitting on part of me,” she recalled. When she fell out of bed, rescue workers used an inflatable cushion designed to right overturned cars to get her back into place. After being treated for symptoms of heart failure, she was eventually persuaded by Richard Simmons to embark on a five year diet, an experience she described as hellish. Tortured by hunger, by fast-food commercials, and by dreams in which she ate without limit, she nevertheless got down to under 300 pounds, setting a world’s record for weight loss. She later sued the Star tabloid for suggesting that she couldn’t have intimate relations with her husband at over half a ton.

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4. 

Michael Edelman (1964 - 1992) of Pomona, NY; Guinness listed him at 994 lbs, but his mother estimates that he weighed some 1200 lbs at his heaviest. He had already reached 154 lbs at age seven, and left school at ten because he could no longer fit into the desks. After that he spent most of his time in bed, or sharing massive meals with his 700-pound mom. Michael liked to start the day with four bowls of cereal, toast, waffles, cake, and a quart of soda, and end it with a whole pizza with the works for a bedtime snack. Mother and son tried every new diet that came along, “but after a few days, we’d reward ourselves with a chocolate cake. Then we’d call for a pizza and that would be it.” When the two were evicted from their Wesley Hills home in 1988, Michael had to be moved by forklift. After his exposure in the press, dozens of hospitals and diet promoters vied to get him in a weight-loss program, but Michael was determined to get thin on his own. He appeared in three different tabloids in one week when he publicly vowed to lose enough weight to consummate his relationship with 420-lb Brenda Burdle, but the couple grew apart when they both gained weight instead of losing it. After the sudden death of Walter Hudson (below), with whom he had formed a long-distance friendship, Michael developed a pathological fear of eating. He rapidly lost several hundred pounds, taking nourishment only when spoon fed. At about 600 lbs, he literally starved to death.

Walter Hudson (1944? - 1991) of Hempstead, NY (born in Brooklyn, NY); 5 ft 10 in, measured at 1197 lbs (though the industrial scale broke in the process of weighing him). His chest was measured at 106 inches, his waist at 110. Hudson was discovered by the press in 1987, when he became wedged in the door of his bedroom and had to be cut free by rescue workers. An agoraphobic, he’d spent most of the past 27 years in bed. Hudson lived with his family, where his appetite was always indulged, and gave every indication that he was content with both his weight and his situation. “I just ate and enjoyed it,” he said. Despite his massive size, Newsday reported that he was extraordinarily healthy: his heart, lungs, and kidneys all functioned normally, while astonished doctors noted that his cholesterol and blood-sugar levels “showed the chemistry of a healthy 21-year-old.” Even so, activist-turned-nutritionist Dick Gregory managed to convince Hudson that losing weight was necessary to save his life. Gregory used Hudson to promote his Bahamian Diet, and claimed that his protegé lost at least 200 lbs (sometimes claiming as much as 800 lbs) under his care, but when Hudson refused to perform for the cameras on cue, Gregory summarily abandoned him. Other celebrities and diet promoters also claimed to have helped him lose massive amounts of weight, though Newsday noted that Hudson never seemed to look any thinner. (Gregory threatened to sue his rivals for $50 million.) Hudson himself gave conflicting stories, sometimes claiming to weigh as little as 480 lbs or as much as 1400. He only allowed himself to be weighed once. Hudson died in his sleep after years of intermittent starvation dieting, a few weeks after announcing wedding plans. His body was found to weigh 1125 lbs, and his massive coffin required twelve pallbearers.

Francis John Lang, aka Michael Walker (b. 1934) of Gibsonton, FL (born in Clinton, IA); 6 ft 2 in, believed to have reached a maximum weight of 1187 lbs. Lang had weighed only 150 lbs as a soldier in Korea. He blamed his masssive weight gain on prescription drug abuse, claiming that his narcotic of choice had the side effect of giving him an uncontrollable appetite. Though unable to walk (a handicap that kept more than one fat lady out of the side show), Lang found a unique way of capitalizing on his situation: he had a mobile home built with observation windows, and traveled the country putting himself on display at carnivals and fairs. Lying nearly nude on an oversize circular bed, he preached to the curious about the evils of drugs, using his own body as the moral lesson. His peak weight, claimed for him by Christian Farms of Killeen, TX, in the summer of 1971, was unverified, but Guiness Superlatives found photographic evidence to be reasonably conclusive. In early 1972 Lang was hospitalized in Houston for a suspected heart attack, at which time he was estimated to weigh between 900 and 1000 lbs. His symptoms proved to be caused by an inflamed gallbladder, probably aggravated by his weight loss, and the examining physician declared his heart to be “unusually normal.” By 1980, Lang had reportedly reduced to 369 lbs.

Johnny Alee (1853 - 1887) of Carbon (now Carbonton) NC; said to have reached a maximum weight of 1132 lbs. Alee developed a ravenous appetite at the age of ten, and put on pounds so rapidly that by age 15 he could barely support his own weight. Grown men couldn’t get their arms around one of Alee’s thighs, and he could no longer squeeze through his own front door. Getting from his armchair to the dinner table, with plenty of help, was all the mobility he could manage. He was said to have died after falling through his cabin floor, and his postmortem weight was determined on the coal company scales. Guinness was never able to verify this story.

Robert Earl Hughes (1926 - 195 of Monticello, MO (buried in Mt. Sterling, IL), 6 ft 1/2 in, weighed 1069 lbs in February, 1958. Hughes began life at a healthy 11 1/2 lbs, and progressed to 203 lbs at 6 years, 378 lbs at 10, 546 lbs at 13, 693 lbs at 18, and 947 at 27. His weight made him a national celebrity: even his custom-made blue jeans made news. At his peak, he claimed a chest girth of 124 inches and a 122-inch waistline. His untimely death was due to kidney failure following a bout with measles: unable to fit through the door of a hospital room, he’d been treated in a truck trailer parked outside. The story that he was buried in a packing case made for a grand piano is untrue. His coffin was built to order, and he was eulogized as a man whose heart was as big as his body. Life magazine called him a relatively light eater.

Mohamed Naaman (b. 1946) of Kenya; 6 ft, a tabloid story says he attained a maximum weight of 1055 lbs, though he managed to reduce to a mere 770 lbs, with an 87 1/2 inch waistline. “I’ve had to learn to drink tea without milk,” he says. Naaman is the father of 21 children by five wives.

Man, name withheld (ca. 1939 - ca. 1986), of New York State; just under 5 ft 7 in, 1050 lbs. His death was due to complications following a massive panniculectomy (”tummy tuck”) to remove fat tissue, performed at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, New Hyde Park, NY. His peak weight was determined by adding the weight of the tissue removed by the operation (104 lbs) to the patient’s postmortem weight of 946 lbs. According to his physicians, he was healthy when he checked in, and his “past [medical] history was unremarkable except for extraordinary weight all his life.”

Carol Haffner (1936 - 1995) of Hollywood, FL; 1023 lbs. Haffner had been a regular at the Seminole Tribe Bingo parlor, where the operators bought a special chair to accomodate her girth. But after the death of her husband, depression and advancing weight kept her bedridden, and she spent her last five years in her trailer - leaving only once, with the assistance of a crew of firefighters, during a hurricane evacuation. Friends said she had been on the phone with talk shows and diet promoters, trying to finance a trip to a Boston- based obesity program, but she’d resisted hospitalization for her breathing difficulties, and died of heart failure two weeks after her 59th birthday.

12. 

Mike Parteleno (b. 195 of Struthers, OH; 6 ft (some sources say 6 ft 3 in), claimed a maximum of 1022 (or 1023) lbs while a spokesman for Dick Gregory’s Bahamian Diet. Prior to his association with Gregory, Parteleno claimed to weigh a mere 645 lbs, and was a popular favorite in belly-flop contests.

Mills Darden (1798 - 1857) of North Carolina; 7 ft 6 in, 1020 lbs. Darden was an acromegalic giant. His wife, who bore him three (some sources say five) children before her death in 1837, weighed only 98 lbs.

John Finnerty (b. 1952) of Amity Harbor, NY; 1012 lbs. He surfaced in the media only once, when firemen were called to take him to Brunswisk Hospital Center for treatment of bronchitis. “He was laying on a queen-size mattress, and rolls of fat just hung off both sides,” said the local fire chief. “He moved like a big bowl of Jello.” Finnerty was taken to the hospital on a flatbed truck, and was said to be responding well to treatment. His subsequent history is unreported.

Jerry Currant (b. 193 of Los Angeles, CA; 6 ft 2 in, “more than” 1000 lbs. According to the tabloids, Currant was a gourmet chef who kept his weight under 600 lbs until 1983, but then began gaining steadily. Weighed on a meat scale in 1987, he topped 976 lbs, but remained mobile until September of 1988. In 1989 he was diagnosed with colon cancer by a visiting doctor, and transferred to a hospital through a hole cut in his apartment wall. He claimed to have no interest in losing weight.

Sylvanus “Hambone” Smith (1941 - 1997?) of Tifton, GA; 6 ft 2 1/2 in, aprox. 1000 lbs. Smith claimed to have weighed almost 16 lbs at birth, and 275 lbs by age 11. At his peak, he had a 103-in hip girth and 70-in thighs. He worked as a chef until his increasing weight left him confined to bed, then ran a pawnshop out of his home. Smith underwent a stomach-stapling operation in 1981 (at 602 lbs), served as a spokesman for Dick Gregory’s Bahamian Diet in 1987 (at 730 lbs), and was attempting yet another drastic weight loss program, sponsored by Geraldo Rivera, at the time of his death. He had also recently married 20-year-old Tammy Humphries, who weighed only 125 lbs. Smith was the father of one son and four daughters by a previous marriage. His children ranged in weight from 312 to 587 lbs at ages 22 to 30.

David Ron High (1953 - 1996) of Brooklyn, NY; 5 ft 10 in, aprox. 1000 lbs. High was touted as Dick Gregory’s biggest success story in 1986, when he reduced from 823 lbs to 427 lbs on a year-long fast supplemented by fruits and vegetables. (He lost three inches in height as well, shrinking from a peak of 6 ft 1 in.) High had been fat since childhood, and claimed he used to eat just one meal a day - all day. “The pizza shop loved me,” he recalled. “I was a great customer - and they even named a pizza after me. It was the only pizza in the world with spaghetti on it!” A decade after his graduation from Gregory’s International Health Institute, a team of city firemen needed a hydraulic lift remove the ailing High from the Brooklyn apartment where he’d spent the last five years. He was taken to the obesity center at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, where he died after less than a month on another weight-loss program.

Michael Hebranko (b. 1954) of Brooklyn, NY; 6 ft, “nearly” 1000 lbs. Hebranko weighed an average 8 1/2 lbs at birth, but weighed 350 lbs by the time he was 16. Hebranko says his appetite kept pace with his expanding size: “I had a dozen eggs, a loaf of fried bread and syrup for breakfast - then I really started eating.” He first came to public view as a spokesman for diet promoter Richard Simmons in 1989, claiming in infomercials and talk-show appearances that Simmons had helped him to go from 907 lbs to less than 200 lbs. In fact, Hebranko actually lost at least 50 lbs to a panniculectomy, and had additional fat tissue surgically removed from his arms, chest, and legs; he also suffered from severe edema, and had lost a great deal of water weight. In 1996, Hebranko made news again when he was taken to a hospital for treatment of a gangrenous infection. Rescue workers had to remove a bay window to make an opening big enough for his 110- inch waistline, and carried him in a stretcher designed for transporting killer whales. He had been unable to move from a loveseat in his home for the previous ten weeks, during which time he had added as much as 150 pounds to his already 850-pound physique, most of it fluid. Simmons tearfully vowed to slim him down again.

G. Hopkins (late 18th century?) of Wales; 980 lbs. Hopkins was said to have been brought to a London fair in a sturdy cart pulled by four teams of oxen, where an enterprizing promoter displayed him in a stall alongside some prize hogs that were too fat to stand up. The enormous Welshman astonished the paying crowds as much by his appetite as by his unparalleled bulk. After one stupendous meal, though nearly stuffed to bursting, Hopkins tried to grab a tasty morsel that was just out of reach and toppled off his bench. He landed on a nursing sow, killing the poor animal, and flattening her piglets beneath him “like salted herrings.” It took fifteen sturdy men to hoist him back onto his seat, and then only with great difficulty, for his stomach was packed so full of food that the skin around his middle was stretched tighter than a drumhead, and no one could get a grip on it. Hopkins’ weight (measured on a steelyard built for weighing fully-loaded wagons) is variously reported: this presumably authoritative figure is taken from a 19th-century medical encyclopedia.

Denny Welch (b. 1960) of Hamilton, OH, 980 lbs. Welch achieved notoriety as a frequent guest on the Jerry Springer Show, first in his role as a female impersonator, and later (as his weight climbed to more than 800 lbs) as the fat man in Springer’s TV sideshow. In 1996, after Welch had been unable to leave his bed for four weeks, Springer paid to have a contractor remove a wall of Welch’s home and transport him to a Cincinnati hospital for weight reduction, recording the entire spectacle for broadcast. Welch lost about 200 pounds, but by the fall of 1997 he had regained it all and had developed heart and respiratory problems along the way, possibly as a result of his treatment with diet pills. In April 1998 he was back in the hospital, suffering from severe edema and congestive heart failure. His mother told the press that he now weighed 980 lbs., and “his body was so swollen, it looked like it was ready to burst.”

Prisons are to allow inmates, who practice paganism, to keep “magic sticks” under their prison beds. Apparently this protects prisoner’s “human rights”  to practice their chosen religious faith. An oak or, hazel twig or, stick is often used by pagans as a magic wand .

Instructions on how to make your magic wand can be found HERE. Apparently the first step is to go for a walk in the woods or a natural place (how do you do this if you are in prison??)

Perhaps, in these modern times, prisoners do all their shopping on line and can purchase their magic wand at the Magic Wand Shop.

Personally I like the Classic, Handcrafted 14″ wand (shown below). It looks as if it could be useful, not only to cast spells over the prison officers but, also it could double as a gentle “persuader”. To do this you need to hold the thin end of the wand, mutter a pagan oath & strike the wand sharply downwards over the officers head.

“Sorry guv, just practicing my religion”!

Still on the subject of climate change, you may remember one of the abiding images Al Gore used in his theatrical presentation was of a polar bear stranded on an ice flow which had broken off from the melting ice pack. It turns out the picture was taken in the summer when the ice pack recedes naturally and ice bergs are a plenty.

Now it seems there is evidence of a booming polar bear population:

 Click on the picture to see the original article in Gateway Pundit

Want to read more about polar bears and the impact THEY have on the environment? More here at Maggie’s Farm

Professor Bob Carter, James Cook University, Australia gives a science based view (without jargon & lots of numbers) of global warming & climate change.

He’s erudite and frank about what scientists do know & don’t know on these issues of the day (in contrast to the politicians & pressure groups who of course know everything!)

Well worth 5 minutes of your time!

It used to be that local councils delivered local services. However, their role has changed significantly over the last decade as central government have piled statutory obligations on them and incentivised them to meet national targets. The latter is usually tied to the levels of central government funding a council receives.

We are now beginning to witness the perverse effects of local councils changed relationship with central government. Local councils are increasingly taking on the role of “enforcer” which sits uncomfortably alongside their “service delivery” role.

Take for example the issue of increasing the amount of household rubbish which is recycled rather than tipped into landfill. Local councils have to meet central government targets on recycling. There are huge sums of council funding at stake if councils fail to meet these targets. How do you explain to local voters that council tax is shooting up because recycling targets have been missed? Councillors of course would be foolish to put themselves in this position.

Consequence?

1. Councils rigorously enforce household recycling

2. Central Government are able to crow about meeting environmental targets.

3. Common sense goes out the window In this “stasi-like” environment. So we get an increasing number of cases like that of Norwich City Council, which refused to collect rubbish from a 95-year-old war veteran who is nearly blind - because he put a ketchup bottle in the wrong bin!

This government is obsessed with targets. It’s understandable….targets when accompanied by incentive (or penalty - for failure) work! But, our society is beginning to pay a price for this heavy handed approach. Councils & other institutions targeted by this government are not funded to apply common sense…they are funded to meet targets!

There must be a more civilised approach than this. But, that’s probably for a new government to implement!

HM Revenue & Customs Call Centre: “Sir, the late penalty charges still apply because the tax due has not yet been paid”

Family Member (in exasperation): “Would you like her new mailing address?”

HM Revenue & Customs Call Centre: “Thank you sir that might help.”

Family Member: “Plot 69, Leatherhead Cemetery, Randalls Road, Leatherhead, Surrey,

HM Revenue & Customs Call Centre: “Sir, that’s a cemetery!”

Family Member: “What do you do with dead people on your planet?”