Longest Day and a Variety

 On the election result at Makerfield the country remains divided of course. 

The pound fell and the bond market fell meaning borrowing becomes more expensive as the markets see Britian as more of a risk if Burnham takes the helm. 

If I see one more time what a good man to Manchester he was I will scream.  I wonder how Sir Richard Leese feels at rarely, if ever,  getting a mention for putting Manchester back together again with Burnham forever taking all the credit.  

Manchester remains heavily in debt to billions and has given Burnham a false sense of security with money as local authority money is totally different to central government borrowing.  The bond market should have told him that on Friday if he took a moment to look which I expect he didn't.

Turning to the Dr Louise Newson book I mentioned yesterday it arrived at 4pm and I started reading a little in the evening.  It is a medical book and not an easy read for the layman like me.  I am having to look up words and the Chambers dictionary is not quite enough so some I have to put through Google.  

The message I have seen early on is the importance of cholesterol to the production of hormones.  I have long been against statins and I feel more sure than ever that my decision is the right one.  Although Dr Newson does not mention statins in the book because it is, as I said, more of a medical students or GPs text book than a book of criticism, she tells me that the cholesterol is made in the liver and is vital for all production of oestrogen, progresterone and testosterone and all are made from cholesterol; they enter the bloodstream and they have an effect on every cell in the body.  They improve thousands of cellular actions.   Cholesterol is not so evil as people are led to believe assuming you have a reasonably healthy diet and addressing diet is the important factor.  (I put that in because that is what I try to do).

As I sit here, not on any medication, I feel ok about the statin decisions I have made over the years - I was first told I would take them by a doctor in about 2008 who didn't look me in the eye, just looked down as his prescription pad at the time and said he was giving me the prescription and I said no thank you.  I am still here in 2026 as I write.  That would have been 18 years of putting a pills in my mouth to stop one enzyme in my liver.  Is my body meant for that?  Did my mother's body and grandparents miss out by not having statins?  They all lived into their 80s.   

I was next left a prescription for statins four years ago  in a doctors reception when,  not even seen by a doctor, I had given a high blood pressure reading in a nurses room one afternoon.   I left the prescription refusing to pick it up until I was plagued by phone calls that I needed to pick it up which I eventually did to keep them off my back. I threw the pills in my garage.   I am still here.

(On the subject of Dr Newson and the BBC which I mentioned yesterday.  I see from the blurb on the book that her clinic which was featured on Panorama is a private clinic, not NHS.  I wonder if this is why the BBC of the left portrayed her as a charlatan and were so intent upon closing her down.)  

So that is it for the boring part this morning.  I will continue with the book and Andy Burnham observations. 

I watched the Netherlands beat Sweden last night, a good match and then went to bed at 8pm.  (All the goals in the 5-1 scoreline coming from players who play in the English Premier league). The recipe for a good life is to go to bed when your body is ready.  I listened to one half of the Germany v Ivory Coast on the radio because I like the Radio 5 Live banter.   The only tv commentator who has pleasant banter is Lee Dixon, but Lee cannot do all the games.  All the rest I mute the sound.  They sound like old records playing over and over again.   I can always listen to 5 Live commentators with the tv on. 

It is dull here this morning.   The cats are happy I am up at last.  Today is the longest day.  

I met my friend for Waitrose coffee yesterday;  That was nice and she treated me because I am not well and she understands the life of the elderly woman without children, at home alone with illness because she is one herself. Widowed three months ago and picking up the pieces she is a good person, funny, likes a good Tory as she is one herself, grew up in Dagenham with her father,  a Smithfield butcher.  She is a tonic to know and to not be on the side of the left ruining this country.  I met her on a course during Covid and we became close friends in July 2024 when I stood in Waitrose having bumped into her in the vegetable aisle and I said out loud that Britain had gone down the drain because of the Labour victory. (At the time I had no idea of her political leanings).   She hugged me that day and said she didn't know anybody who would dare to say it out loud.  (She then told me she goes to a book club where she has to keep quiet because they are all lefties.)  We have been close friends ever since.  Her husband was alive at the time and he read my political poems and was a fan. I never met him but at my friend's request I would send him poems via Whats App because she said he would appreciate them whilst in the nursing home and later the hospice.  He did. 

Right, I promise to stop now.