West of Centre

Recent developments in Northern Iraq have been very sobering. For the record, I did not vote for Labour in 1997 and I most certainly did not support the decision of Tony Blair to invade Iraq. Still, in the words of modern jargon, "we are where we are". We can't turn back the clock and we must now reap the consequences of that appalling decision. People being upset I can understand. I'd be pretty upset if a foreign country invaded my country, killed innocent civilians, called the shots for a while and then just left when it suited them. When I heard reports of militant forces issuing ultimatums to captured civilians like "convert to Islam or die", I wondered how far any of us have come since the Middle Ages? Occasionally, I have written about my faith in the context of how it guides me in my everyday life. It is not a subject which I feel very comfortable writing about. Not because I don't profess a faith but because my faith is something very personal

During my time at Medical School, it was often supposed that the NHS was the second biggest employer in the world. Recent data shows us that although it is "only" fifth on the list, it is undeniably a huge employer in global terms. The biggest employer is the US department of defence with 3.2 million followed by the Chinese army with 2.3 million. Third place goes to the US retail giant Walmart which employs 2.1 million and fourth place is the domain of McDonalds with 1.9 million. But the NHS really is the fifth largest employer on the planet with a staggering 1.7 million employees. Thus, 5.5 million people are employed in a military capacity by the US and China in case of war, 4 million people are employed globally supplying us with much of the food we should be seeking to avoid and, here in the UK, 1.7 million people are employed to deal with the health of the nation - or lack of it. Recently, a major study linked obesity to ten cancers. In brief, the study concluded tha

We sat down to eat yesterday evening on a sublime summer's evening the like of which we long for on cold winter nights. My wife had invited a friend for dinner so three adults and our seven year old son sat down al fresco to enjoy a mouth-watering smoked fish chowder with freshly baked wholemeal bread. With barely a breeze around us, we ate and conversed beneath the shade of our hazel tree. These evenings make all the hard work worthwhile. As the course drew to it's close, my mind was already wandering to the delights of Eton mess for dessert. With no strawberries to hand, we were to have stewed rhubarb instead which I'm sure would have been lovely. Would have been. As the dinner plates were taken in to the kitchen a blood curdling squeal emanated from the garden to put paid to our evening of tranquility. I rushed out to the garden to the spectacle of one of the pet rabbits laying prostrate on the floor of the hutch at full stretch. Although I have recently qualified as