More Dr Gordon

I have always wondered how I might avoid involuntary involvement in a photo-opportunity if I had the double misfortune to be involved in some newsworthy incident and then visited by a politician not of my choice. In his Notebook in the FT today, John Willman gave me the answer. He was commenting on Gordon Brown’s visit to the Royal Marsden (“all too redolent of Margaret Thatcher’s predeliction for visiting the victims of the disasters that seemed to afflict Britain with great regularity in the 1980s – again with silent spouse in tow”). Apparently, he goes on, “when Mrs Thatcher made a habit of touring the wards, witty leftwingers had little cards printed saying that in the event of an accident or disaster, they did not wish to be visited by the Iron Lady”. Something to tuck into the wallet, along with the Donor Card (and possibly add as a note to my ICE number on the mobile).

The novel life is not enough

An interesting snippet in a report in Legal Week that the newly appointed head of Appleby’s global structured finance department, Jeanne Bartlett, had left private practice with DLA Piper in 2006 “to write a novel”. Clearly she has either completed the novel; or the lure of institutional work (or perhaps just the money) proved too great.

North of Milton Keynes

From The Economist (January 5th 2008): “North of 52 degrees latitude (roughly, beyond Milton Keynes), the winter sun is too weak for vitamin D to be produced.”

Dr Gordon’s prescription

Reports this evening that the Government’s latest initiative (health screening) had not been discussed with doctors’ leaders before it was unveiled. Just as worrying was Gordon Brown’s remark that “many of the [200,000 deaths a year from heart disease and strokes], indeed probably most of them, [are] avoidable if we did the right things.” I feel the clunking fist of Nanny.

Looks tell all

Look at the picture of Hillary Clinton on the front page of today’s Daily Telegraph. The caption reads ‘Barack Obama glances at Hillary Clinton after she lost her temper during the Democratic debate in Manchester at the weekend’. But it is not how Obama looks; instead it’s Hillary: she is smirking. Whatever else she is doing, she is playing a calculated game. All the reports today are running Obama’s way but for a contrarian view, read “Why Neither Obama or Clinton will win’, David Herman’s post in First Drafts, the Prospect magazine blog. If either do, Herman thinks this “would be the greatest shock in US politics since the war.”