It's not Hollywood - it's Holyrood

America has Hollywood - a very new place.
Scotland has Holyrood - a very ancient place.
Holyrood is a small area in Edinburgh, where now stands the beautiful Royal Holyrood Palace and  the ruins of Holyrood Abbey.
It is at one end of the Royal Mile. Edinburgh Castle is at the other end.
Sadly Holyrood now also houses the extremely ugly new Scottish Parliament buildings.
But
What does Holyrood mean?
Well - being Scotland there is an old legend.
About 1166  - just 100 years after '1066 and all that'  when William the Conqueror and his Normans invaded England - King David the first ruled in Scotland.
He liked to hunt in the Royal Forest, part of which was the area now called Holyrood and the rest was the area now called The Queens park (Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags)
In Scotland, hunting on The Sabbath is a no-no. The Sabbath is The Lord's day.
But - one Sunday - King David sneaked out after a stag.
He found one, but it turned out to be no ordinary stag. It was white and it had a cross sticking out of it's forehead!
Now I know what I would think if my husband came back from hunting talking about white stags and crosses but things must have been different then.
In Scotland  - a cross used to be called a rood.
King David took it as a holy sign that he should not have been hunting on The Sabbath.
To assuage his guilt he commanded that an abbey be built at the place where he saw the stag  with it's Holy Cross. Hence the name Holy Rood - Holyrood
And - so the legend goes one -
The Rood - the miraculous cross from the stag- was preserved there on the high altar until about 1346 when someone nicked it.
Perhaps Hollywood should make a film about Holyrood

Why old people die after a fall

It is well known that elderly people fall, break a hip, get pneumonia and die.
BUT WHY?
Younger people fall, break a hip and get better.
There is a branch of science that studies ageing  - called gerentology.
They have discovered that when something traumatic happens to you - such as breaking your hip -
it causes 2 chemicals to be produced in your blood.
These nicely balance each other.
When you are over age 60 and you have that same trauma -
it causes lots of 1 chemical (cortisol) to be produced
but
the ageing person can't make enough of the other one (DHEAS)
Without the balance of that second chemical, the first chemical reduced the persons ability to fight infection
So
You get pneumonia or MRSA
and die
The gerentologists are pushing for all hospitals to have the second chemical (DHEAS) available to be given to all trauma patients over the age of 60

DNA - Should the police keep records of us all

I used to think that it would be an excellent idea for everyone to have their DNA tested and for there to be a central DNA record. My thoughts were, that when a crime was committed the police would be able to find the perpetrator straight away.
If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear
BUT
I went to a talk from one of the world authorities on Forensics and
NO
"It would be a very bad idea"  he said
He explained
All of us have 2 parts to our DNA (one from Mum and one from Dad)
Quite often samples of DNA found at crime scenes are not pure, they are mixed with someone else's.
So, at the crime scene, one DNA could be A+B
and the other one, the one it is mixed with,  C+D
They are mixed together and so when tested,  the results might come up with B+C (or A+D)
So
If there was a central register, with the DNA of everyone in the country, they would look up B+C
and
It might be mine - a complete innocent who had never been anywhere near the scene of the crime.
They would claim they had DNA evidence that I had been there
FRIGHTENING

MRI examinations of the brain in a well person

Yesterday I went to a truly excellent lecture at Edinburgh's Science Festival.
It was about MRI investigations of the brain
and
What should happen when it shows something, that is giving no symptoms and is just an incidental finding?
In the trade this is called - an incidentaloma.
also
Should we all be encouraged or discouraged from having such investigations as part of a routine check up?
Many of us have incidentalomas which will be there all our lives and cause us no harm.
In a few very rare cases they may be troublesome, however preventative intervention may cause problems too.
The lecture was given by one of the top scientist/medics in that field
The message I took home was
Doing an MRI on a well person is a waste of time
Private companies charge £2000-£3000 and they are not done or read by experts.
If something is found the person is told to go and talk to their GP about it and he /she is no expert. So a referral then has to be made to an NHS expert who has better things to be doing than trying to allay anxiety in a well person.
If for some reason an MRI has to be done, the patient should be told beforehand that it may show an incidentaloma. They should be asked beforehand whether they want to be told about it.
Years ago when I was a medical student, a friend working in medical physics borrowed me and my brain for an hour to test his new machine.
Something in my brain looked weird, except the machine was so new he wasn't sure if it was his machine or my brain.
I worried about this for a few years.
But I am a here - still alive and a pensioner.
My friend was killed in a climbing accident shortly after he did that test.

We are all doomed

So - the way  I read the present situation is - crisis.
This little episode in Cyprus is going to precipitate terrible things for us all.
It is telling us that no money is safe in any bank in Europe (except Germany).
I have my life savings tucked away in several different UK Banks some mainly owned by us - the public.
BUT.
Nothing is safe
Banks can go bankrupt
Government can overide promises to guarantee deposits as is happening in Cyprus
Governments can go bankrupt
Countries and their banks can go bankrupt.
Pensions get taken away or disappear
The Euro is about to blow-up
The EU is not going to be able to cope with Cyprus, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy all going under.
France and Britain may follow
Britain's debt has doubled in size instead of improving. It will soon be larger than our GDP.
We are all Dooooooooomed

This is how religion should be

I have just heard a wonderful story
A church in Aberdeen stands next door to a very small mosque. The congregation of the mosque had increased so much that the overflow where having to pray outside on the pavement in the cold (Aberdeen is very cold).
So the Minister arranged with the Imam to share his church. They mainly pray on Friday he mainly prays on Sunday. And he says they are all praying and that is what religion is about
The arrangement is working really well with the 2 communities now sharing certain celebrations such as mince pies and pakoras on Christmas Eve and the following September joining together to remember the dead of 9/11 with readings from the Bible and the Koran.
Yes - brilliant

Germany now demands payback

In my recent blog I wondered why it was that Germany seemed not to mind being responsible for and paying for  all of Europe's debts.
I spoke just too soon
Germany obviously does mind and is now saying - no more
Poor old Cyprus. Imagine suddenly being told that your government is going to take part of your precious hard earned savings from your bank account
Especially when the EU had promised to protect bank accounts up to a certain level.
Apparently the only option otherwise would be Cyprus and it's  banks going bust and everyone losing all their money.
England very kindly bailed out our two Scottish banks, otherwise an awful lot of people here would have lost all their money.
The message for us all is that our savings are not safe in any bank  in Europe.
The trouble is where on earth to put them