Here is a Sun Poll conducted by YouGov which clearly asks in respect to voting reform “Regardless of how you vote do you support the principle of holding a referendum?” To which 69% of people said yes. 69% of people are in favour of a referendum on voting reform. Keep that in mind.

The Sun has made no secret of its support for the Conservative Party, and the Conservative Party have made no secret of its plans to campaign against electoral reform so you can see how that 69% figure might prove a bit of a problem. But why would The Sun let a little thing like popular opinion get in their way? If there is one thing polls are good at it’s asking leading questions to manipulate the public into giving the answer you want. So here is another poll done by YouGov on behalf of The Sun asking a similar question only this time with a slight bias.

46% against a referendum now is hardly a resounding no but at least it’s a bit more in line with the Tory position. Let’s be clear about what it says; 46% of people think it is inappropriate to spend £80million on a referendum now. Presumably some of these people still want a referendum on electoral reform they just accept that maybe now isn’t the best time if it is going to cost £80million. That figure seems a bit of an exaggeration anyway, according to the Electoral Commission you can use the general election as a guide for how much a referendum might cost and that this was in excess of £80million. However they state that “costs would depend on the level of public information activity required, but would likely be in the range of £10-30m.”

So 69% of people want a voting referendum and of these 35% think it should happen now despite being told it would cost £80million. How does The Sun report this?

The Ministry of Truth would be proud.

Thanks to @AdamBienkov on Twitter for the heads up.

My main issue was that if a deluded few want to pay extra for an insurance policy that covers them for magic then that’s fine but I don’t see why I should have to pay for this as well. Pet Plan got back to me and said that this part of the coverage was “not optional” and “they have no plans to change this”. I replied asking how Pet Plan had come to this position and this was their response; 

Within our customer base there is demand for these types of treatments and therefore, to provide a flexible product which suits all the different policyholder requirements we offer cover for these types of treatments. 

The cover for we provide for these types of treatments is limited with a maximum benefit of £750 per year for all injuries/illnesses, when compared to the veterinary fees benefit which provides £4000, £6000 or £12,000 per year for all injuries/illnesses (depending  on the plan chosen). 

The complementary treatment benefit provides cover for acupuncture, homeopathy, herbal medicine, chiropractic manipulation, osteopathy and hydrotherapy and most of these treatment types have been proven scientifically. 

I understand that with homeopathy the basis and scientific evidence to prove effectiveness is continuously under debate; however, as there is a demand for this type of therapy we provide a limited benefit towards these costs.

Thanks again for your feedback.

This will be my final correspondence on the matter.

Kind regards,

I concede that if there is demand for something then as a business it makes complete sense for them to provide this service. But surely those of us that don’t want to pay extra for coverage we will never use should be able to opt out of this? It is irrelevant how limited this coverage is; any money spent on rubbish is too much. I don’t accept this reasoning with the NHS spending money on homeopathy and I don’t accept it here.

I don’t want to get into the evidence for the various treatments listed above but for them to say that most of them being proven scientifically is pushing it quite a bit. 

Maybe I am making a mountain out of a molehill but I think if we just let these sorts of treatments to be supported and funded, regardless of how tacitly, then we are just allowing these dangerous practices to continue. All this does is give more legitimacy to nonsense and unproven madcap theories about how the world works.

It was good of Pet Plan to take the time to respond to my questions, I am not a customer only a potential one, and although they took a while to respond and I didn’t get the answers I wanted I am pleased that they engaged with the issue. Perhaps if more people ask for unproven treatments to be removed from their insurance plans, pet or otherwise, then this will be another victory for science based medicine.

Great news you would think but I couldn’t help but get annoyed with the way it was reported on the BBC news website. I am starting to get a little bit tired of the whole impartiality/tell both sides of the argument stance the BBC seems to take on practically everything. I can understand why in politics a publicly funded media should remain impartial but when it comes to matters of science it isn’t simply a matter of opinion it is a matter of fact.

The way the BBC reported on this matter is illustrated perfectly in these couple of paragraphs in the ‘What is homeopathy?’ section;

Supporters believe homeopathy helps relieve a range of minor ailments from bruising to insomnia

But critics say it is no better than sugar pills and people only get better because they believe the treatment will work – the so-called placebo effect

There we have it, both sides of the argument; one person says this and the other says this. In the article we have the BMA saying homeopathy is a load of old bollocks and The Society of Homeopaths saying there was “evidence the remedies worked” only there isn’t and here lies the problem.

It really pisses me off that the Society of Homeopaths can just say there is evidence when there isn’t any. Especially when the British Medical Association come to their conclusions after looking at the evidence and both views are expressed as equal.

There is no bias in the article to one side; no mention of the fact that systematic reviews show it works no better than placebo and that if it did work “much of physics, chemistry, and pharmacology must be incorrect.” Nope, just a couple of quotes from one side and a couple of quotes from the other.

This sitting on the fence is almost as bad as advocating the quackery; it gives legitimacy to their nonsense and gives the impression that the opinions of those with a vested interest in homeopathic witchcraft is somehow the same as a considered standpoint from the British Medical Association. This isn’t an argument from authority I’m making because the authority has evidence on its side. It is a great shame the BBC doesn’t take the time to represent these differences fairly.

Just a quick note on the Society of Homeopaths argument that homeopathy shouldn’t be banned because “the cost of homeopathy on the NHS is low – just 0.001% of the £11 billion drugs budget.” This small amount has been reported as about £4million per year, that might seem a small amount to spend on water and sugar pills to the Society of Homeopaths but to me it sounds like a hell of a lot. Just because something is relatively cheap in comparison to a huge budget it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care about how that money is spent. You could spend that money on hiring some more doctors or nurses but if the Society of Homeopaths are going to support that kind of attitude I have a great idea; give me just half the £4million the NHS would otherwise throw literally down the drain on homeopathy and I will spend my time sitting in the Caribbean praying for people to get better. I’ll save the NHS £2 million a year, will guarantee that some of the people I pray for will get better and I don’t even believe in God.

This is Penn’s take on Andrew Wakefield being stripped of his credentials. It’s a little more ranty than Bullshit! if you can imagine such a thing.

You can find some background on the Wakefield story here at Dr Steven Novella’s blog Neurologica.

Debenhams Unveils Beauty Untouched

First High Street Retailer to Use Un-airbrushed Images

Debenhams broke ranks with the rest of the high street today by using un-airbrushed photography in a trial window to launch new swimwear lines for the summer.

It believes that over use of some digital photography techniques to create unrealistic body shapes and flawless skin may instead can make women feel more insecure about their natural looks and size.

Debenhams will be canvassing customer feedback on the raw images in a move which highlights the retailer’s long standing commitment to encouraging positive body-image through minimal digital retouching.

Says Mark Woods, Director of Creative & Visual, “As a responsible retailer we want to help customers make the most of their beauty without bombarding them with unattainable body images.

“Our campaign is all about making women feel good about themselves – not eroding their self belief and esteem by using false comparisons.

“Not only does it make sense from a moral point of view, it ticks the economic boxes as well. Millions of pounds a year are spent by organisations retouching perfectly good images.

“As a rule we only airbrush minor things like pigmentation or stray hair and rely on the natural beauty of models to make our product look great.

“We are proud to bring the issue of re-touching into the main stream when the likes of Britney Spears and Madonna are using un-airbrushed but over-lit images as a shock tactic.”

Caryn Franklin, fashion commentator and broadcaster, says, “Retailers do have the power to take a stance on digital manipulation. Fashion and beauty imagery that is honest, is absolutely crucial for all women to see. I’m delighted that Debenhams has taken the lead here and customer feedback will no doubt validate this important step.”

Signage in the window will read: ‘We’ve not messed with natural beauty; this image is un-airbrushed. What do you think?’

It will also show customers an example of just how much the image could have been altered; including all of the following:

• Arms slimmed
• Legs made thinner
• Waist pulled in significantly
• Stray hairs tidied
• Skin tone changed and smoothed
• Creases in garments removed
• Under-eyes smoothed and lightened
• Cleavage enhanced
• Underarms tidied

Jo Swinson, Lib Dem MP and co-founder Campaign for Body Confidence MP said, “Its great news that Debenhams will be using images of real women who have not been digitally manipulated to advertise their new swimwear range.

“More and more people are realising that airbrushing and other trickery are not necessary in order for women to look beautiful.  I am sure that what this will demonstrate is that swimwear modelled by real women who have not been retouched can sell just as well as products advertised with extensive airbrushing, which has become the norm.

“Women can feel good about themselves knowing that beauty is not about achieving the unachievable.”

Other advertisers regularly use digital techniques to slim waists, lengthen legs, perfect teeth, and even change eye colour and skin tone.

This is not the first time Debenhams has shown its commitment to promoting positive body image – in January the store ran a trial with size 16 mannequins in windows. The trial gathered customer feedback on a more representative size having a presence on the high street.

Also in February, Debenhams released images using disabled model Shannon Murray to launch the retailer’s new Principles by Ben de Lisi range.

The window, which celebrates natural beauty, has been unveiled this week at the Debenhams Oxford Street store with staff members will be asking shoppers what they think, before the initiative is later rolled out across the country.

Continues Mark Woods, “We’ve been showing natural beauty for years and will continue to present women in a natural and positive way.”

ENDS

Now there is nothing wrong with reporting on this campaign. It is certainly something news worthy and the campaign is a good one. But given the apparent lack of actual reporting it’s fair to say I approached this campaign with some amount of scepticism. Was this a genuine effort from Debenhams to promote realistic body image or was it a cynical ploy to run a few unairbrushed pictures in their London Oxford Street store while continuing to airbrush everywhere else?  I would be lying if I said I didn’t believe it to be the latter, as I was quick to point out on Twitter.

I contacted Debenhams with my concerns and they were very quick to respond, at first they provided me with the press release but after a couple of emails addressed my main question; were they airbrushing girls slimmer in the rest of their material? They said;

“As a general rule, we don’t airbrush girls slimmer. This is not to say that it has never been done in Debenhams’ history but for economic as well as moral reasons we cast women who we feel represent our brand well as they are.

Previously we would ‘tidy’ pictures; so that’s the stray hairs, blemishes, pigmentation etc but with these images, the ‘before’ image is completely untouched.”

I am happy to admit I was wrong on this. Not only is Debenhams campaign genuine but their commitment not to airbrush girls slimmer is something that should be commended.

Body image is a massive issue in modern society and while this is an something that mainly effects women I have seen more and more images of men of vitruvian proportions and it is a worrying trend. We should all strive to lead healthy lives but the pedestal of unattainable perfection sets unrealistic goals, women who focus on unrealistic body images tend to have lower self-esteem and these images do nothing to celebrate the variety of all our body shapes.

Well done Debenhams.

Except you could or rather they could; on checking the Food Standard Agencies regulations I can find nothing that states cafes are not allowed to reheat cooked chicken for any reason. (I have emailed to ask but they are yet to get back to me at time of posting) In fact there are guidelines that suggest if you are to reheat chicken that you should make sure it is hot enough to ’discourage the growth of bacteria’ – yummy! 

You hear these sorts of stories all the time and if I hadn’t bothered to check then I might walk away tutting thinking this was yet another example of the nanny state oppressing my right to have hot chicken.

I don’t want to single this café, or their misinformed staff, out as acting foolishly, they are only doing what they think is right. But I do wonder how this misinformation spreads, and how many other people harbour health and safety protocols or fears that simply aren’t true? How much of this nanny state, that the government is currently reviewing, is actually down to the general publics’ irrational inflation of health and safety regulations rather than genuine guidance? We all know Cameron likes to touch the tabloids’ hot spots and maybe we should have seen this coming. But rather than towing the old line that there is too much red tape perhaps this government review should ask how these health and safety fears are sown. Maybe just maybe, if our media wasn’t peppered with stories of ‘elf and safety’ gone mad, then we all might be a little less sensitive when it comes to this stuff. But they just report don’t they? Not make shit up.

It is very easy to blame the government for being over protective but in my experience most actual health and safety guidelines seem quite reasonable when you think about it and are there because accidents happen and guidelines are introduced to try and prevent them happening again. Sometimes it maybe just common sense, but what is common sense to you might not be to everyone else; a quick read through some Darwin Awards will confirm that.

Yes there are some people that take health and safety regulations too far and it can seem ridiculous when they do. At this point I am reminded of an exchange I had with the cleaner in my first year at University in the Halls of Residence during a room inspection.

Your bin needs emptying

It isn’t full yet

You still have to empty it

Why?

Health and safety

What do you mean health and safety?

It’s a fire hazard How is it a fire hazard?

It is a half full bin, I don’t smoke and even if I did we aren’t allowed to in out rooms. The bin isn’t even near a plug socket in case you thought some freak spark might set it alight.

There might be food in there, that’s dangerous if you leave it.

There isn’t any food in there. I eat in the canteen like all the other students in halls.

Its still health and safety.

But I don’t understand what is dangerous about a half full bin.

You still have to empty it every day.

Do you empty your bin at home every day?

(At this point she stuttered for a bit said yes and then walked off.)

In hindsight the cleaner probably didn’t deserve some presumptuous eighteen year old pointing out the flaws in her argument. She was just following what she thought the regulations were and they may well have been the regulations, I don’t know. Either way it was a stupid rule and I enjoyed a good debate at the time never mind who it was with.

That exchange happened 10 years ago, these health and safety fears have been part of our everyday life for years and no matter how much the government review it I don’t think that will change. I suspect the media will keep saying ‘elf and safety has gone mad and people will continue to invent regulations so we end up in a kind of perpetual motion health and safety regulation making machine. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go empty the bin.

Update

The Food Standards Agency got back to me, this is what they said;

I am not aware of any restrictions on reheating chicken, as long as it is reheated properly and served straightaway. I have attached a link to the guidance we provide to businesses which you may find useful for your article:
 
http://www.food.gov.uk/foodindustry/regulation/hygleg/hyglegresources/sfbb/sfbbcaterers/
 
I hope this is helpful.

Winners: Brazil

England: Semis

Golden Boot: David Villa

Great Expectations Fail: Ronaldo

Team to Flop: Italy

Best Scoring Average (gpg): Spain

Highest Scoring Team (over whole tournament): Spain

Best Defensive Record (least goals conceded per game): Germany

Player of the Tournament: Rooney

Best disciplinary record (cards per game): South Africa

Worst disciplinary record (cards per game): Argentina

For the record if all these come true I may abandon the sceptical community for the far more lucrative psychic one. I’ve never really got that though, how psychics also seem to be associated with divination, and then how would you tell if something is going to happen to someone or if you are just seeing something that has already happened to them? It all seems very messy; maybe it’s all just a load of old bollocks.

Feel free to add your predictions below.

The British public’s decision to award only six points to Denmark in last month’s Eurovision Song Contest was revenge for the Viking Sacking of Lindisfarne in 793 A.D., some nutter in Suffolk has claimed.

Former BBC Royal Correspondent Michael Cole, 82, said “Most right-minded people would think that it was simply a reaction to the Danes having a quite catchy, but not overly brilliant, song, and that claiming that it was because the Danes came over and wrecked one of our most famous religious buildings over 1,200 years ago would be like, oh, I don’t know, maybe claiming that the wife of the Deputy Prime Minister joining the board of a Spanish company that might build wind turbines in the UK is her revenge for the Armada, but I’m sure the rape and slaughter of those Northumbrians was in the minds of the public when they picked up the phone to vote.”

Cole, who has been nicknamed Patrick Bateman by his fellow villagers after confessing he liked being compared to fictional characters with mental issues, made the claim as he received the award for “Most Blinkered Opinion Piece to be Featured in the Daily Mail This Week, or at least Since Littlejohn’s Last Column” this morning. 

Although my family has had cats for years it is always exciting getting your own pet for the first time. We have been reading up on various insurance policies, cat health websites about worms and fleas and all that stuff. What has dissapointed me is the amounts of woo prevalent in the pet world.

Take this website suggesting homeopathic remedies as worm treatment. People can catch worms from animals you know? This is REALLY bad advice.

But what pissed me off more than someone whistling in the office, (Seriously why are you whistling at all let alone in the office? Why, why would you do that? Stop it, stop it now before I rip your lips off) was insurance policies that covered alternative therapies. Why should I be paying for something that is utter nonsense?

I don’t know how many pet owners out there have insurance, if you don’t you really should, or if your policies cover alternative therapy, if they do they really shouldn’t, but for those of you that do have a policy I advise you to check it and is necessary write to your insurer to complain. Perhaps if enough of us do it then they might take notice.

Here is my letter to Pet Plan with hyperlinks added for your reference.    

Dear Pet Plan,

My partner and I have recently adopted two kittens from the Cats Protection Agency and so have been researching possible insurers. It is clear after shopping around that your policy is one of the better ones however I was very disappointed to see that as part of your plan you cover the cost of alternative treatments such as acupuncture and homeopathy. Since ‘alternative treatment’ is often synonymous with placebo or doesn’t work, as a potential customer I am concerned that the cost of your policies may be more expensive as a result of having to cover what is essentially other peoples’ delusions.

The breadth of evidence against these treatments is now extensive; Professor Edzard Ernst, the world’s first professor of complementary medicine, has critisised these treatments publically and often. In the American Journal of Medicine on homeopathy he said;

 ”Homeopathy is among the worst examples of faith-based medicine… These axioms [of homeopathy] are not only out of line with scientific facts but also directly opposed to them. If homeopathy is correct, much of physics, chemistry, and pharmacology must be incorrect… To have an open mind about homeopathy or similarly implausible forms of alternative medicine (eg, Bach flower remedies, spiritual healing, crystal therapy) is therefore not an option.”

These treatments don’t work, that is why they are called alternative treatments and not medicine. This obviously means that alternative treatment programmes are drawn out, costly as a result and ultimately aren’t really doing anything. Inevitably, if the condition is serious enough, claimants eventually have to resort to real medicine. All of this puts the cost of the claim up and subsequently your premiums up.

While I appreciate that this view may not be taken by all, alternative treatment enthusiasts are evidentially wrong and if they wish to pay extra for an insurance policy that caters to their delusions then that is up to them. I do not think it should be part of your standard policy or at the very least there should be a way of opting out of this cover for those of us that prefer to live in the real world. Can you tell me if this is something you are considering?

I look forward to your response,

I will of course keep you updated should they respond.

On my morning commute to work, I normally pick up a copy of the Metro from the station. Last week two stories caught my eye, neither of which involved the writers at the paper casting much of a critical eye.

The first was one that Ben Goldacre later picked up on on Twitter, and appeared in the paper on May 24^th. The Austrian motorway authority ASFINAG have called in a druid in an attempt to reduce the number of fatal accidents on a stretch of road not far from Salzburg. The druid has installed some standing stones made of quartz in order to combat the “negative radiation” that is issued from a nearby phone mast. According to the article, the amount of crashes on the road has fallen from six a year to none in 2 years. Arch Druid Ilmar Tessmann states “Even critics can’t argue with our success rate”. Well, he’s wrong there, because I’ve got a few problems with this.

Last year I did a short Open University course on statistics, and one of the first principles I came across in the course was the idea of regression to the mean. This is basically the effect that means that when a series of data is showing an abnormal set of results, eventually the data will start to show results that move back towards the average results you would expect. This was discovered by Victorian scientist Francis Galton, who came across this whilst plotting the heights of children compared to their parents. He found that if you were born to parents who were taller than average, you were likely to also be taller than average, but not as tall as your parents. Similarly, if you were born to parents shorter than the average, you would be most likely to be shorter than average yourself, but still taller than your parents. In other words, both children would be nearer average height than their parents. It’s more than likely to be one of the reasons people that take homeopathic remedies are convinced that they work – if someone is ill and takes a homeopathic remedy, as their immune system fights the illness and they go back to their average state, it is accredited to the remedy rather than just a fluctuation of the state of the person.

I’m not claiming to be an expert on statistics after a ten week course, but I’m pretty sure that this could be attributable to regression to the mean. Having only 2 examples of data in the article doesn’t really help the issue, but it’s fair to assume that six fatalities along the road is a fairly high figure, otherwise ASFINAG would not have tried these sort of measures. So having no fatalities in one year would not be unexpected. We’re also not told about non-fatal accidents in the article. They could have increased, decreased or stayed roughly the same. I wonder whether the druids would have taken credit if, for example, the number of crashes that led to paralysis in drivers or passengers had increased.

The next article appeared the next day. A mobile phone number has been suspended by a network in Bulgaria after the 3 people that had owned the number had died – “suddenly”, according to the article I read in the paper, although this word hasn’t appeared in the online version. I’ve read numerous versions of this sort of tale, the most famous modern one being the song Gloomy Sunday, which, if you believe the rumours, has inspired everyone who’s ever heard the song to commit suicide. Indeed, I’ve probably put myself in grave danger even writing the name of the song down (I may be exaggerating slightly here). With a little bit of inspection, these sort of tales fall apart. Especially this one. The first owner died of cancer, but I would wager there are a large number of mobile phone numbers that have had owners of the number die of cancer. Although the next two owners were shot, this might have something to do with the fact that one was a Mafia boss and one was a drug-runner. Both are pretty precarious occupations, I understand. Their career choices are more likely to be the cause of their early deaths than having a fancy phone number. Although if Jim Davidson ever moved to Bulgaria, I’ve got just the mobile number for him.

I’m not averse to stories that tell of coincidences. But it would only take a few minutes to check that these stories are just coincidence, and nothing more. The underlying cause in both these cases has been largely ignored in favour of “the story”. Which has turned out to be a load of rubbish. Although given that the Metro is owned by Associated Newspapers, which just happens to be part of the Daily Mail General Trust, this shouldn’t really come as a surprise.