Hello Cruel World

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Fade away or gradually die …

Some more sad news Edward Woodward's BBC Obituary

I mentioned Breaker Morant just recently elsewhere. Callan seems to have branded itself into a generation, too. Glad now DVD releases are available. The Wicker Man has left quite an impact as well. Saw him only a couple of weeks ago, doing a good job in a recent Britcrime TV drama. Only one I can see in IMDB list is Jonnie Johnson in The Bill – which I virtually never watch, maybe it was spotting him sucked me in?

It sounds like a pretty good life overall: family together, not too much financial or physical struggle, doing good work in profession he enjoyed. Always sad to lose his like, tho'.

Labels: BBC, memorials, mortality, UK

[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 11/18/2009 02:59:00 pm

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Universal Postal Union
Hadn't heard of this before, tho' you'd think there must be something like it. Well, here's the official site. Some useful info and links.

Established in 1874, the Universal Postal Union (UPU) with its Headquarters in Berne (Switzerland), is the primary forum for cooperation between postal-sector players.
It now has 191 member countries, and is a specialised agency of the United Nations, fulfilling an advisory, mediating and liaison role, and rendering technical assistance where needed. It sets the rules for international mail exchanges.
It does not interfere in the domestic domain, such as setting postage rates, deciding which and how many postage stamps to issue, and managing postal operations and staff

Postcodes
These are unique, universal identifiers which unambiguously identify the addressee's locality. At present, 117 UPU member countries use postcodes as part of their addressing systems.

A set of PDF files listing Postcodes (or giving other postcode information) for the different countries: www.upu.int/post_code/en/countries/
Each is identified with a three-letter code for the country, e.g., AUS.pdf

Postal addressing systems
www.upu.int/post_code/en/postal_addressing_systems_member_countries.shtml

Royal Mail site
www.royalmail.com/portal/rm
Looking for a UK Address or Postcode
I had not realised that their system is so unlike the Australian one (which is closer to the USA version). Each code covers quite a small area, and they are reasonably often changed, added or deleted. A large-enough mail recipient, such as a company or government body, can have their own code. Our system is much more fixed, with smaller geographic zones covering a suburb or so in the urban areas and larger ones in 'regional' and rural areas which might cover several small towns as well as the country between. Each State starts with a separate integer, 2 in NSW, 3 in Victoria, etc. (which reflect their phone codes too, eg (07) 4567 8901 will be in Queensland, 7001 is Brisbane GPO), tho' Territories are messier, and the numbering starts near the centre of the State capital and works out. "Sydney 2000" is the Central Business District, as well as the Olympic Games. Just in recent years the '1xxx' series was added, which seems to identify specific Post Offices and mail sorting centres.

Validating UK Postcode formats
www.ml-consult.co.uk/foxst-39.htm
The official UK (Great Britain) Postcode Address File (PAF) contains around 27 million codes, and is subject to strict copyright and licensing controls. The only practical way to access it is by purchasing expensive, specialised address management software.

However, UK postcodes follow strict formatting rules. This article offers a Visual FoxPro function that checks if a given one follows the rules.
It's called the CheckPostcode function, returning .T. if the code passes the test, .F. otherwise.

A Map of London Postcodes: www.milesfaster.co.uk/postcodes/post-map.htm

Labels: mail, post, postcodes, UK

[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 2/10/2007 01:20:00 pm

Monday, February 20, 2006

Health Care Horror — cont: Current UK Experience in Privatizing Public Health Services

The Joys of Privatization: Public Health (Current UK Experience)

Second patient dies following oxygen switch
by Celia Hall
(Filed: 18/02/2006)
www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/main.jhtml?xml=/ news/2006/02/18/ noxy18.xml&sSheet=/news/ 2006/02/18/ixhome.html

A second woman has died after chaos in the system to supply oxygen at home, which was switched to private companies at the beginning of the month ...
Mr Brady, 74, a retired engineer, said that his wife had needed three bottles of oxygen a week and that he had been unable to get through by telephone to the supplying company, Air Products, ...
The day after she died he received a call about a delivery the following day

GPs told to abandon private suppliers of oxygen
by Sam Lister, Health Correspondent

www.timesonline.co.uk/article/ 0,,2-2046106,00.html

FAMILY doctors unable to obtain oxygen for their patients were advised last night to abandon the newly privatised supply service and revert to an old system to ensure that more lives were not put at risk.
As the private companies responsible for the new service continued to struggle with demand, pharmacies throughout England and Wales were asked to restart their service ...

Pharmacy leaders described the situation as shambolic and said that many chemists were now out of stock after the Government’s decision to end their £18 million contract. They said that the Government had ignored numerous warnings of the chaos that would ensue if the supply systems were suddenly switched, but had carried on regardless ...

thousands of patients have been unable to get mobile oxygen cylinders, which cost about £7.50. Some have been given £1,500 “concentrator” units instead, which they described as wholly impractical and an alarming waste of money and resources.

Blunder left trail of lethal radiation
The Times
February 18, 2006
by Andrew Norfolk

www.timesonline.co.uk/article/ 0,,2-2046104,00.html
Safety cap left off toxic cargo as it travelled 130 miles across Britain

A LETHAL beam of radiation was emitted from a casket containing highly radioactive waste on a three-and-a-half-hour road journey across England, it was disclosed yesterday.

Thousands of people were put at risk by the “cavalier” attitude of workers for the privatised company in charge of transporting the hospital waste.

Only by “pure chance” was no one directly exposed to the high concentration of cobalt-60 gamma rays that streamed from the container because of the failure to install a lead safety plug.

Radiation levels up to 1,000 times higher than a high dose rate were found ... Fortunately, the narrowly focused beam was directed downwards. Had the rays escaped horizontally, they would have contaminated anyone within 330 yards of the vehicle ...
AEA Technology (AEAT) was guilty of a series of failings: the company used
the wrong safety packaging, and had not noticed the missing safety plug.

It failed to take up an offer of training in the use of the packaging and important safety documents were signed by a member of staff who had no formal training in radiation protection, he said.

The prosecutor said “The risk created . . . was foreseeable and the degree of that risk was significant. There is no “safe” dose of ionising radiation. If no one was directly exposed to the beam, that was a matter of pure chance.”

Labels: health, health insurance, medical, privatisation, privatization, UK