Carry on ticking!, Stop - it's for the Best

Now then, Dr Stephen Holmberg, cardiologist of this parish. I know you're looking after my dodgy ticker, but do not write me off or I'll come back and carve Do Not Resuscitate in big letters across your brass nameplate.

As if he would. I'm sure the good doctor would go back to medical school for seven years rather than fail any of his patients. It's some of the others who worry me.

How shocking to learn at my age that doctors regularly put "do not resuscitate" on the notes of patients likely to have strokes or heart attacks.

Cancer patient Jill Baker, 67, brought the practice to light when she found the instruction written in her notes at St. Mary's Hospital, Portsmouth.

Health Secretary Alan Milburn has ordered an inquiry.

Age Concern and others involved in care for the elderly said it was one of several measures chosen by doctors to ensure the premature death of elderly patients who require costly treatment.

Others include withdrawal of food and lethal doses of painkillers.

Some say thousands of people are killed off in this way every year without their relatives being consulted.

Dr Michael White, chairman of the BMA ethics committee, admitted: "It is right to raise the issue of ageism within the NHS because we recognise that it exists and there is an imbalance of resources going into care for the elderly."

More evidence that the elderly in Britain are regarded as second class citizens and not treated with the loving care they receive in other countries.

Just to add to the confusion, the experts have now put vitamin pills in the doghouse. Like most people creaking at the joints, I take them in the belief they help me climb those cursed stairs and keep me mentally alert.

The irascible Michael Winner takes 46 pills a day and he's no fool.

Me, I just want to get to the top of the stairs and perhaps even remember when I get there why I went up them.

The US Academy of Sciences has issued a report saying high doses of vitamins and nutritional supplements may do more harm than good.

An estimated ten million people in this country spend more than £360 million a year on dietary supplements, but now we are told over-consumption can cause diarrhoea, toxicity and hair loss.

A parallel study being carried by our own Ministry of Agriculture is expected to endorse the American findings.

Oddly enough, my chosen dietary supplements, ginseng and ginkgo biloba, have just been praised as a powerful aid to memory and concentration.

I've been on them for years without noticing any improvement either in my memory or energy. But I keep taking the pills just in case.

I mean, you have to play safe these days in case someone decides it's time you stopped breathing.

Stop - It's for the Best

Booze all but killed him, but George Best refuses to utter the words that will save his life: "I'll never drink again."

He skates round the subject in interviews since his return home after five weeks in hospital. Gaunt and ravaged by liver failure - he's lost nearly three stone - the great soccer star of yesteryear says: "I feel 100." He is 53.

It is eight weeks since he had a drink. "I don't miss it yet," he says, "but somewhere down the line I might."

Frightening words. Unless George stops justifying years of boozing and recognises one more drink is one too many, he must be in grave danger of falling off the wagon.

But then you can't tell him anything. That's the problem. All of us who know George have tried over and over again.

This time his lovely wife Alex is standing by him and Mohamed Al Fayed has offered to meet his £50,000 medical bill after his insurers refused to pay for a self-inflicted illness.

Luck is with him yet again, but it's running out fast.

His next bender could be his last.

Make the money work to end the poverty trap

At last the money is rolling in. A whopping £47.2 million to regenerate Whitehawk and Moulsecoomb in Brighton.

Bearing in mind planning mistakes of the past, the money must be seen to work so the community thrives and prospers.

At the same time, the business community locally will receive financial aid now that Brighton and Hove has been granted European assisted area status, though Moulsecoomb and Stanmer have been left out due to some bureaucratic bungle.

What worries me is that Whitehall and Brussels will gum up the works by wanting to know how every last penny is being spent, thus slowing down the process to the point where the benefits are hardly noticed.

In theory, the Government's New Deal for Communities scheme wants urban renewal to be left in the hands of the people and already it's obvious there's no quick fix in sight for Whitehawk and Moulsecoomb.

Alison Ghani, chairman of the East Brighton NDC Committee, says it will take a long time for the benefits to be seen.

What is needed is action here and now. All those millions should be put to work to end the poverty trap.

Come on, work together

Ever the idealist, methinks there are times when rival politicians should work together for the good of all instead of constantly trying to seize each other by the throat.

I have in mind the battle looming between Jenny Langston, outgoing Tory Mayor of Brighton and Hove, and Ivor Caplin MP, who won Hove for Labour in the general election and is now one of the rising stars at Westminster.

Jenny was booed and heckled at the council last week when she broke with tradition by announcing she would not stand as deputy mayor at the end of her term next month.

As Conservative candidate for Hove, she will concentrate on her

parliamentary

campaign to overturn Ivor's slender majority of 3,959.

Surely it would make good sense for the popular Jenny to stand as first elected Mayor of Brighton and Hove, leaving Ivor with a far better chance of being re-

elected.

Don't hold your breath, though. Too many on the Labour benches are out to sink Jenny's political ambitions. She was shouted down in the council by those who say she used her term as Mayor to boost her bid for Westminster, a charge she fiercely denies.

An admirer of both, I have yet to decide where to place my X.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.