tom_widdows

I believe the average prescription cost to the NHS (Scotland at least) is about £4 per item. So when you are prescribed standard paracetamol, ibuprofen or similar which can be picked up from the supermarket for about 50p per pack you happily get them free from your chemist while £3.50 disappears from the NHS budget. Free prescriptions are all fine and well but they are taking the piss in some cases and I cannot help but wonder if there is a direct link with the demise with the standards in certain hospitals or the fact you sometimes find your next available GP appointment is 3 weeks away? I have no objections with Diabetics, Asthmatics, or other long term/ permanent conditions having free or at least reduced costs for their meds but anti-biotics for a sniffle or a bug? There are people in my office who appear to be ill 52 weeks a year and chucking down their free meds from the doctor without getting any better. Dare to suggest they might want to look at their lifestyle for a cure and yer suddenly a monster. Like it or not the Health service is a business and to suddenly remove a large chunk of your funding without finding an alternative source is going to result in cost savings. I will happily pay for my prescriptions if it means there are a few extra nurses/ doctors around and my local A & E or maternity unit stays open. I'll happily pay extra taxes if it results in the same thing but the default position for any politician with serious aspirations for power is to wheel out the 'we'll cut taxes' to the point when everything either shuts down or is privatised.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/tomphillips/the-siege-of-balamory#yairhk

Yon liverpool keeper must be very relieved his Bulgarian opposite number decided to play Fuck up top trumps. Also interesting comment from old Willie on Sportsound. An apparent clear foul on a Caley player by Ian Black from which Sevco nearly scored a second goal in a counter attack. 'I wonder if the ref blanked it because otherwise he would have had to get the old yellow card out and that would have been blacks second?'

This could be interesting http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/29197915

From being the 2nd best defence in the league last season I am awfully concerned that every goal I hear scored on the radio seems to be followed by 'Poor Defending from the Dons!' Least there is plenty of time to comeback......or alternatively plenty of time to get worse

BBC saying they sold about 15660000 (minimum required was 15000000) Daily muppet were speculating that Ashley was planning to sell Newcastle utd so he could invest more money down Ibrox way.

Sir Donald Sindon

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/29164336 I wonder if those 1500 are season ticket holders? If so a boycott pretty much achieves next to fuck all. If they aren't then boycotting one game will achieve next to fuck all. Boycotting for the rest of the season on the other hand..... probably fuck all but would make it a bit more interesting (Average home attendance so far this season apparently just over 27000)

Jaws (Age 74)

Judge has encouraged them to come to a deal with the guy which I would like to think means the appeal is pretty unlikely to succeed. Apparently they have been spending lots of cash on some Malaysian businessman trying to convince him to buy the club by showing him the best Glasgow (and Renfrewshire has to offer).

Interesting. There is something about the name 'Rangers'

Not today but while Scotland were scaring the Germans, Albania were killing Portugal in their own back yard http://youtu.be/kktIrerybqE

Yep Tuesday morning to see if armageddon part 2 kicks off

There may be 10 years of hassle... or it could be the smoothest transition in history. And it is that doubt that the Yes campaign just cannot shake. They just haven't had the time

Unfortunately short term thinking is a hazard of politics. 5 years of a government that folks are unhappy with and the new party comes in to great fanfair. Within 6 months to a year the people are complaining and within 2 years a sizeable chunk of their voters will have turned on them because essentially nothing has changed and they aren't millionaires. 4-5 years later there is talk of the former lot getting back in because they will know what to do and everything will be fantastic. And the cycle continues It would be great if everyone was content with the possibility that things might be hard, inconvenient or perhaps downright miserable for a decade while the new country finds its feet and all those teething issues are worked out but eventually you will never have it better. But 10 years is a long time if you are looking over your shoulder at redundancy and keeping your family fed and in a suitable/ nice house. Is 10 years of hassle worth it if you are a pensioner and will be dead by the time it could be great. The romantic notion of 'doing it for future generations' does not fit with a capitalist 'Me' society where its get what you can quickly and sod the rest. As was mentioned earlier I also feel the whole thing has been rushed. 3 years of talk followed by 18 months campaigning is not enough to decide the future of a 5million+ country. To put it into a a bit of perspective it has taken Tesco more than 6 years of negotiating, campaigning, researching etc to finally obtain outline planning permission for a medium sized supermarket on a former industrial yard in the West End of Glasgow. It will take them another 1-2 years of research, feasibility studies, meetings etc before they can obtain formal planning permission. It will be almost a decade by the time the place finally opens (if indeed it does) and that building will only impact the people in the G11 & G14 Postcodes. Exactly how much research and feasibility has been put into the yes or no campaigns because the closer we get to the date the more I see 'Opinions' being banded about as 'facts'? A skill in debating is being able to anticipate what the other person may be thinking and putting yourself in their place for a short while so you can at least try to understand why they don't agree with you. There is a distinct lack of that in both sides of the campaign and for me it has been even worse than a general election. As an undecided the last thing that will convince me to vote either way is someone using the phrase ' I cant understand how anyone could even think of voting <insert yes or no>. But we are stuck with the date now so we all need to get on with it. I just hope that come September 19th everyone just accepts the decision and gets on with it.

Joan Rivers - 81 not that you could really tell

Good to know another potential source of income has now been blocked for fuck all

Third time lucky?

Harvey Keitel now selling Direct line car Insurance.............

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/29036244 Anything else we can do for you sir? How about next year we let you go on a grand tour of the world and just put down that you beat everyone 3-0? Fuck sake every club had more than 3 months to get themselves sorted!

Jimi Jamison - Lead Singer of Survivor (and the Baywatch Theme Tube)

He's the new Darren Bent

Think you might want to spend some time in the North of England and see how they feel about the way Englandshire is Governed. Think the Midlands/ Birmingham etc will have some choice views too.

out of non drunken interest should a No vote come up where exactly are you going to go?