Happy new year for 2011 folks.

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There are so many things going on in my life right now (not all good sadly), that I was going to post an entry listing all of my hopes and fears for this new year. But to be honest I don't want to start 2011 on a downbeat note so I have decided not too!.

Anyway, lets just hope that this year, with it's threats of job losses,pay cuts, tax increases and cost of living increases, turns out to be not quite as bad as a lot of us are probably fearing.

At least we made it into 2011, sadly,several of my good friends and colleagues did not..........

Happy New Year ! :-)

Doctor Who star makes Christmas dream come true for inspirational Alfe

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A YOUNG boy from Northampton who spent last Christmas in hospital fighting cancer has had his dream of meeting Doctor Who come true, thanks to the Chronicle & Echo and the star of the hit show.

Alfe Game was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma when he was just five and spent Christmas 2009 at Northampton General Hospital.

The seven-year-old, from Duston, went into remission from the illness in July and has since dedicated hours of his time to helping children in a similar position to him, including collecting toys for presents for children spending Christmas at NGH and designing Christmas cards to be sold to fund presents for two friends who have relapsed with leukaemia.

To read this story click HERE to visit the Northampton Chronicle and Echo Website.

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Advanced Trojan Could Zombify Your Android Device!.

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An advanced new Android trojan named Geinimi has been found in the wild, mobile security firm Lookout reports.

The trojan is possibly the most sophisticated piece of Androidmalware so far, with the ability to steal your personal data and send it to a remote computer, as well as take commands from a remote server, which would effectively turn your Android device into a zombie inside of a botnet.

To read the full story click HERE.

And I was just about to bang on about my new Orange San Francisco ANDROID phone.......damn!.

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Kwik Fit and the mystery of the Insurance renewal "error"!

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On Wednesday my Car Insurance renewal arrived from Kwik Fit. I opened the envelope and nearly fell over after reading the quote for this years premium on the Scirocco.....£606!.

Now I realise that to some people a quote of £606 would appear to be not too bad a deal, after all I recently heard of a company quoting £3100 for a 17 year old to insure a 1 litre Nissan Micra!, and admittedly that would have been a shock.

So why then was I not impressed with the renewal quote? Well it's probably due to the fact that although I have now got one more years no claims, still have no convictions,I am another year older (and don't I know it!) and the car has no performance modifications (you can't really class charity graphics and a tow bar as "performance" enhancing!), the cost had gone up by almost £175 from the January 2009 premium.

Intrigued as to the reason for this increase , and the fact that the renewal also did not include several extras (10% discount on purchases at Kwik Fit,Free MOT,Breakdown recovery etc), I decided to log onto the Go Compare website to see if I could get a better deal.

I specified all of the requirements as per the renewal notice, in fact I also included Breakdown cover and legal expenses just for a laugh,then,after the rest of the details had been filled in I hit the return button and waited for my quotes.......

Imagine my surprise then when the third lowest quote came from...Kwik Fit Platinum Insurance!......£402 to be precise, that's £202 less than my renewal, and included more benefits!.

To cut a long story short I then called the Kwik Fit renewal line and explained my findings. The result? Well lets just say that after a rather confusing explanation by the phone sales guy, they have now agreed to insure me for £445 for fully comprehensive cover with Breakdown, excess protection and several other "extras" to boot.

The lesson is of course, never assume that your insurers have your best interests in mind, or indeed that they do anything more than churn out a random figure when your premium is due for renewal.

Remember.Never assume, always check!

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UK Government to encourage charity donations at cashpoints.

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One idea being tabled under the the Governments new "Big Society" drive is the option to allow people to donate to charity via new methods, one of which is via bank cashpoints.

It seems like a very good idea on the face of it,but the question that has not been answered very clearly so far is whether our donations via the cashpoint will still attract the Gift Aid bonus of 25p in the pound that all UK tax payers can claim as an extra bonus for their chosen cause.

Worryingly, it appears that far from gaining more cash for charities by offering this option, the Government may in fact save themselves rather a lot in tax relief by avoiding the tax break which turns a £10 donation into a £12.50 donation!.

Mmmmmm. Perhaps this "gift horse" needs it's mouth checking over a little more closely!

What do you think?

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Ok, now for something a bit more FUN!

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A selection of Real(?) examples of exam question answers that apparently where given by students in REAL exams. Not sure if they are ALL genuine, but some of them are just SO good!

Enjoy.......

LOl :-)

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So..that WAS Christmas!. But I fear we have again missed the point!

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Perhaps it's just me, but I can't help but think that Christmas now days is all about consumerism and cynical pseudo good will to all men ...well those we can be arsed to speak too anyway!.

Many weeks before the day itself the hype starts with the first Christmas decorations in Tesco's from Early October and those bloody awful French perfume adverts that start to appear on our television screens "Eau de bollocks by laboritoire urine Paris" .

Perhaps I am getting old, but it seems to me to be so wrong that on a day to celebrate the Birth of someone very important, the advertisers, retailers and TV companies seem to concentrate very little on that fact, and instead choose to ram a cocktail of celebrity,repeats of films, sales,holidays and those god damn awful "list" programs (Elvis's top 100 Christmas songs).

Imagine if it was your birthday and hardly anyone bothered to say "Happy Birthday" to you, but instead made a ferking fortune selling loads of stuff in your name and for your special day, then ignored the whole point of what the day was actually about!

Hail to the New God of retail......after all, it's what Christmas is all about now,....isn't it?

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105 Marathons in 105 Days.What an astonishing guy you are Neil O'Maonaigh-Lennon!

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105 Marathons in 105 Days would be an astonishing achievement anytime, but to complete it in the weather that we have had for the last few weeks is beyond belief!.What an absolutely gob smackingly amazing thing Neil has done!.

Teacher Neil (30) set off from Brighton on the 10th September....and has run every day since then finishing his "Marathon" effort today. He has embarked upon this wonderful fundraiser to raise money for Cancer Research. Neil says it is a cause very close to his own heart as he lost 2 of his grandparents to the disease whilst he was a child.

If there is any justice in this world then this man will be getting a medal from the Queen in the not too distant future for his super human efforts.

Neil O'Maonaigh-Lennon, you are a superstar in the charity fundraising circles, well done to you sir, and may I just take this opportunity to wish you and your family a very Peaceful and restful Christmas. Now, why don't you put your feet up and congratulate yourself on a truly inspiring achievement....you,of all people,deserve it!. :-)

If you would like to sponsor Neil please click HERE to visit his Justgiving site.

Amazing :-)

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Why do people blog about their illness?

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Hundreds of people blog about their illness or trauma every day. In her article from the Guardian Sue Eckstein explains why......

"If anyone had told me a year ago that I'd be a blogger I would have laughed. I am a cautious Facebook user – by turns amused and horrified at the very public way that friends (and friends of friends of friends) conduct their lives. It feels like happening upon a hidden diary and taking the wrong decision to have a quick read.

In April, I was diagnosed with a malignant giant cell tumour in my leg, and amputation was the proposed "cure". A few days before my admission to hospital, I was trying to explain to a friend how well-wishers' remarks about Heather Mills's fancy footwork on the ice rink were actually little consolation. "You should blog about it," she said. I was sceptical, not least because I didn't know what a blog was. My friend – a poet – showed me hers, and I loved the clean lines, the elegant prose, the haunting photographs. It seemed a million miles from the shouty randomness of Facebook and the cryptic soundbites of Twitter"

Hallelujah to that ! :-)

To read the full article click HERE to visit the Guardian Website..

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Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia is a risk factor for venous thromboembolism

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Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in cancer patients. The literature is sparse on the incidence in the most common lymphoid malignancy, chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL). We calculated the incidence rates for VTE in an unselected UK CLL clinic population at 1.45% per patient year. This represents a tenfold increase over previously published estimates of incidence in the general population and a twofold increase over that of the local hospital inpatient population. In our cohort, the risk of VTE was related to stage C disease. Clinicians should be aware that CLL patients are at risk of VTE.

Link for more details is HERE

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What If the nativity story was set in 2010..............

Dear Aso Mohammed Ibrahim. This post is for you.....

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Just so that you will never ever be able to forget what terrible anguish, anger and despair you caused when you decided to drive an uninsured car, without a licence and ran over poor Amy Houston as she crossed the road. Then you ran away because you are a coward.

Just so you don't think for one minute that you can run away from this with a feeling of victory, and just so that one day when your own children grow up and Google your name ,this post will ensure that they will know what their father did to another family. Immortality by Immorality I call it.

This is your SIN Aso Mohammed Ibrahim. It will NEVER go away.

Whilst the Internet exists your name will be remembered with shame. Enjoy your life because when it ends you will have to answer for your actions to a much higher authority than some idiot judges working within a chaotic law system.

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Burglars ransack home of late Emmerdale chief Gavin Blyth

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I just could not believe this story when I found it today posted on the Click Lancashire Website.

"Callous thieves burgled the home of Emmerdale boss Gavin Blyth while his widow was away attending his funeral, it has emerged.

Suzy Blyth has appealed for the return of of personal effects, including a passport and laptop computer that were taken from the couple's Yorkshire home".

As Gavin was being laid to rest by his family some callous, lowlife waste of skin and bone broke into his family home and stole several items including his wife's laptop which contained some very personal and precious data.

Who in gods name does such a thing to anyone, never mind someone who is,at the time, attending her husbands funeral.

If you know anything about this despicable crime, please,please get in touch with the authorities on 0113 241 4888, and let them know the details.If you don't want to contact the police then just leave an anonymous comment on this blog and I will pass the info on for you.

For the whole story click HERE to visit the Click Lancashire Website.

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Putting leukaemia stem cells into reverse

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Stem cells are ‘starter’ cells that produce all the organs and tissues of the body. As a baby grows in the womb, its stem cells churn out brand new specialised cells that will form an entire body, from lungs, liver and brain to head, shoulders, knees and toes. And as adults, we still have stem cells that replenish our skin, gut and other tissues as they get worn out.

But stem cells have a rogue counterpart – cancer stem cells, which we’ve written about several times on the blog. They’re the ‘immortal’ cells that appear to lie at the heart of many cancers, including some bowel, breast and prostate cancers, and leukaemia.

Cancer stem cells appear to be more resistant to radiotherapy and chemotherapy than the cells making up the ‘bulk’ of the tumour, so understanding how these rogue stem cells originate – and how we can kill them – will be a big step forward.

To read more about this subject on the Cancer Research Website click HERE.

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Leukaemia "Switch" discovery shows promise.

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Scientists have discovered how to “switch off faulty stem cells” that can lead to leukaemia, The Daily Telegraph has reported.

The research found that blocking the action of a protein called beta catenin in mice could make certain types of cancerous leukaemia stem cells revert to a pre-cancerous stage. The stem cells also became more susceptible to certain chemotherapy drug treatments.

When the researchers suppressed beta catenin in human leukaemia cells they found it could slow their division only if they carried an abnormal form of a gene called MLL, which is associated with certain forms of the disease, including one known as acute myeloid leukaemia. This suggests the results may only apply to cases of leukaemia that involve the abnormal MLL gene.

To read the full story click HERE.

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