Cheat!

Ah, Jade Goody. Someone has been telling porkies! After spectacularly failing to finish the London Marathon last year, she's been on a bit of a fitness drive and has lost two stone. As a result of this she's just released a tie-in fitness DVD where she poses looking very svelte on the cover (aside from her comedy plastic boobs, of course). Anyway, I've obviously not got the DVD or anything, but apparently it has now been discovered that the weight loss was achieved not by the methods she promotes in her DVD, but by paying a surgeon £4,500 to vacuum out her adipose tissue. Liposuction, for the uninitiated. I'm not criticising her for being fat or anything (as I'm hardly Kate Moss), but it's rather underhand to rake in even more money from the unsuspecting public who are desperate to lose those Christmas pounds when you yourself have cheated. That goes for you too, Anne Diamond, going on Celebrity Fat Club and going on about how you've conquered your overeating habits, then sheepishly revealing that it was only because you'd had a gastric band fitted making it impossible for you to eat more than a couple of mouthfuls at a time.

Have been to the gym today and clearing out the wardrobe in the spare room which is like a tardis, now got to try and get everything back in apart from the stuff I'm throwing out. Off to have a bath now, but if you want something to do this evening please consider adding your signature to this, which is a petition against MMC which is the new "improved" training scheme for postgraduate medical education in the UK. Basically in the past, you qualified, did a year as a house officer, 2-4 years as an SHO then got onto a training programme depending on which speciality you wanted to work in. Made rough sense, as long as you don't look too closely at the general organisation of the NHS or the working hours in some jobs! Anyway, those who are in charge have decided to mess it all up bandying around mumbo-jumbo-newspeak phrases such as "competancy-based training" and "flexibility" without really being able to convince anyone how it's going to work. The way I understand it, everyone does a 2 year foundation programme where you do a few different jobs (this bit sounds ok), but it's after that where it all goes wrong. Lots of current doctors will be told they are overqualified for the next step on the ladder so will be stuck in jobs with no hope of career progression, and there seem to be a surplus of jobs that aren't recognised for training so the exodus of staff to Australia will continue. I'm lucky that I don't work in a hospital any more so it will not affect me directly, but I am told by friends who are currently negotiating the system, that it is A Very Bad Thing. Not expecting the petition to change anything at all, but it's a way of showing support!