text:
Previous posts and my post 'Lest We Forget' discuss the complete destabilisation of Bangor University by Dafydd's gang and their associates from 2003 onwards, the witch-hunt to which my PhD supervisor and his wife were subjected and the plan to completely shaft the then VC, Merfyn Jones, because I had gained a PhD, was undertaking post-doc work and Brown and I had begun publishing about the excesses of the mental health services. Many paedophiles' friends who were at each other's throats united with a common purpose because the criminality that they had all been involved with for years was just so serious. The leader of the pack was Prof Fergus Lowe of the School of Psychology, who had built his career and his power base on overthrowing Dafydd's influence in the University in the late 1980s and replacing it with his own equally toxic influence (see previous posts eg. 'He's Not The Messiah, He's A Very Naughty Boy' and 'Feet In Chains'.)
As described in 'Lest We Forget', I realised that things were getting very nasty when I received a message from someone who's daughter had died in the care of the mental health services in Powys telling me that a TV journo wanted to make a documentary on the appalling state of mental health care in the UK and they were interested in my story, yet the day before filming was due to begin the journo asked me to smear the VC when I was interviewed. When I refused I was told that filming could go ahead when I changed my mind. I heard no more, but I had previously been asked by an Angel who worked at Bangor University to place damaging untrue stories in the press about Merfyn after this Angel read an interview that I had given to a newspaper regarding the mental health services in Gwynedd…
Other gems were me being told that Professor Dylan Jones-Evans, an adviser to the Tory Party, intended to 'blacken Merfyn's name' but he was going to wait until Merfyn's wife had died before doing so, because it 'will look bad' if he did it while Nerys was terminally ill. Why was Nerys dying?? Just the little matter of the Top Docs at the Walton Centre finding that there was 'nothing that they could do' with regard to Nerys's brain tumour. Of course some people do die from brain tumours, but Nerys died at a most convenient time for all those people who had stated that 'we will get rid of him [Merfyn]' before Nerys ever became ill. Dafydd's gang ran the Walton Centre (see previous posts). Nerys had crossed the path of the gang herself in the early 1990s, which had resulted in fallacious allegations being made in 'The Guardian' about a senior sociologist at Bangor and Nerys was never forgiven (see post 'Badlands'). Years later she married Merfyn and when he was appointed VC it was just too much for those we know and love to cope with.
At about the same time that Nerys died, a social worker who had been a colleague of Dafydd's gang, along with her husband, was singing the praises of the Walton Centre who had successfully treated her for a brain tumour and now she was even back at work!
Ah the doctors they were wonderful!
Nerys and Merfyn were/are not neurosurgeons. How would they have ever known if the Top Docs – Dafydd's associates – had told a few porkies about Nerys's condition? Neither could they have relied on the second opinion of any other Top Docs; as experience has shown with me, Brown and two other witnesses, cross the paths of Dafydd and the gang and you will not get effective treatment no matter how ill you are and no Top Doctor at all will admit the truth, even if they keep a civil tongue in their head, a smile on their face and indulge in their very best 'ooh don't worry, we'll look after you dear'. I have 30 years worth of documentation which demonstrates that.
At the same time that Dylan was waiting for Nerys to die so that he could blacken Merfyn's name, another group of paedophiles' friends were boasting about their plans to frame Merfyn for a crime.
Just before Nerys died, Fungus was telling Bangor University staff that they could forget about Merfyn now, he was finished and Fungus was in control. Dylan however was seriously pissed off because Merfyn 'had been on his last legs but because he's had compassionate leave he's looking a bit better'.
It was widely known in the University that these things were happening, it was openly discussed. I was told that the RAE results were going to be terrible because so many people had co-ordinated to ensure a poor outcome to embarrass Merfyn, because his strategy was to build Bangor into a university with a solid research base. When Merfyn addressed the staff of the School of Education in his capacity as VC, I watched as, at 3-30 pm, the alarms of the watches of nearly everyone in the room went off simultaneously and they all walked out together, leaving Merfyn, my PhD supervisor and one Professor alone in the room with the post-lecture buffet. Many of those who staged the walk-out had previously worked as teachers in Gwynedd when that paedophile gang caused havoc, particularly among SEN kids. Brown and I had a lovely time with that buffet but if I'd been Merfyn I'd have sacked every one of those bastards. The associates of a gang of paedophiles on £40-50k pa who bugger off home at 3-30 pm and make a point of doing so when the VC has arrived to discuss the future of the University…
After the paedophiles' friends walked out, an e mail was circulated to everyone in the School of Education from an ex-PE teacher inviting all to a meeting to discuss the very big threat that Merfyn posed to them what with his dangerous ideas of building up the research base of the University. My PhD supervisor turned up to find out what was going on only to find himself barred from entry. Paedophiles' friends only!!!
Other joys at Bangor University at the time were the Finance Clerks Who Say Ni, who modelled themselves on the Knight Who Say Ni in 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'. None Shall Pass…
When we were writing big research grant bids which needed to be accompanied by spreadsheets detailing projected staff costs, materials, everything down to the last penny – which takes days and was the job of the finance dept – some of the finance clerks (not all, but enough of them to cause chaos) would simply say 'you fill in the spreadsheet' when they were presented with the documentation. They didn't just do this to post-docs, I saw the delightful Gareth Who Said Ni flatly refuse to complete the spreadsheet needed by a senior Professor. The Finance Clerks Who Said Ni however did manage to fill in the spreadsheets required by Fungus and the Psychologists and Fungus didn't even have to chop down a tree with a herring or give the Finance Clerks Who Said Ni a shrubbery. Faced with the Finance Clerks Who Said Ni, I completed my own spreadsheets. The procedure was that the bids had to then be signed off by the Chief Accountant. So I went over to his office, only to find that he was 'in a meeting with the Psychology Dept and will not be available until next week'. By which time the deadline for submitting the bid would have passed. So the Chief Accountant Said Ni as well.
After the Finance Clerks Who Said Ni successfully caused serious problems, the Translators Said Ni. Because Bangor University is bilingual, all public lectures have to be accompanied with Welsh-English translation facilities and I and my colleagues used to do that for our seminars as well. As the paedophiles' friends became angrier and angrier, we noticed that translators who had been booked weeks in advance either didn't turn up to the events or turned up so late that we were unable to hold the lecture or seminar. We couldn't go ahead without the Translators Who Said Ni because it would contravene the bilingual policy.
The Translators didn't just Say Ni to small seminars held by my colleagues and I. The Translators Said Ni to Merfyn as well and they did it in spectacular style. At one major public lecture given by the VC which had been very heavily advertised and was fairly crucial, all the translating equipment was checked at the start of the lecture, as usual. It was working. Merfyn began giving the lecture – in Welsh – so all the English speakers put their headphones on. My headphones failed first. I signalled to the translator; I was ignored. Then other people's headphones failed; they were ignored… Then our headphones came back on again, as Merfyn continued speaking. Then, through everyone's headphones, loud and clear, came the sound of someone having a pee in the bogs next door. There is no way that was an accident, a Translator Who Said Ni took a microphone into the bog with them and ensured that the sound of them piddling was transmitted into everyone's headphones. Merfyn had no idea what was happening but he noticed the expressions on the faces of those in the lecture and knew that something was going on. Everyone was far too polite to tell him what the Translators Who Said Ni had done, so after the lecture I told him: They recorded themselves pissing in the loos and made sure that the whole audience heard.
A mole has told me that the Translators Who Said Ni staged these happenings particularly when I was at the events. As usual, the desire of the paedophiles' friends to cause problems for me screwed things up for a lot of other people as well.
OK Finance Clerks and Translators Who Said Ni, now I'm going to tell my readers where this spiteful campaign against me, my PhD supervisor and Merfyn ended up and I look forward to you trying to justify what you all resorted to.
Towards the end of his term as VC, Merfyn was appointed as a member of the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board. The excesses of the NW Wales NHS Trust, the mortality rate, the litigation and the downright criminality of that Trust (see previous posts) had become so excruciatingly embarrassing that even the Welsh Gov't could take no more and Edwina Hart, the then Health Minister, dissolved the Trust, along with the other two lethal, disastrous Trusts in north Wales and replaced them with the Betsi.
We cracked open the champagne, literally, foolishly believing that the services of the bunch of crooks and conmen – all associates of Dafydd – who had caused such destruction in the NHS in north Wales would now be dispensed with. Sadly not. Edwina's past as a trade unionist and politician who had ignored so much criminality on the part of those we know and love meant that she was deeply compromised and couldn't deal with them. There was a 'no redundancies' agreement with the NHS unions and almost every single one of those lying crooked bastards was recycled into the Betsi Board at their previous salary level, although I had given Edwina Hart enough documentary evidence to have had some of them arrested and charged, particularly Martin Jones, the CEO and Elfed Roberts, the Chairman. See previous posts.
Elfed was the only one who was not recycled into the new Betsi; he was given a seat on the Board of the Welsh Ambulance Trust instead. Martin had a job created for him, as the Director of the Workforce. There were ructions, people in north Wales were outraged at these crooks who had overseen such suffering and chaos just being transferred over to the new organisation. The outcome was that they were surrounding Merfyn, who was a new face in the NHS and the new CEO of the Betsi, Mary Burrows.
I and someone who made a witness statement about the threats and harassment to which he had seen me subjected were told repeatedly that 'they won't win' and 'when they lose, your life won't be worth living'. Mary received death threats and I was told by a charming character that 'we'll take her out'. NHS union reps turned up to Board meetings and discussed threatening tactics outside in the corridor before the meetings got underway. Martin Jones began a blog, 'The Workforce Director's Blog', which was no more than a vehicle for undermining Mary Burrows; every post was full of veiled insults and threats that were understandable to those of us who knew what was happening behind the scenes. Lies were spread about Mary in the locality and there was race hatred whipped up, Mary being American. I sat in meetings and heard racist insults and abuse directed at Mary.
After some months of sitting as a Betsi Board member, Merfyn resigned as VC. This was because he had been appointed as a SPAD to Leighton Andrews, the Welsh Gov'ts Education Minister and it would have been a conflict of interest for Merfyn to have held both positions. A rumour was sent around the University by the paedophiles' friends that Merfyn had been embezzling the University funds and that was why he resigned.
After a year of Mary and the Betsi Board doing their best to reign the paedophiles' friends in, an even bigger mushroom cloud went up when Merfyn was appointed Chairman of the Betsi. What followed was a wonder to behold.
Elfed Roberts began a campaign of terror against Mary and Merfyn when the Menai Deli, a sandwich shop which supplied the WRVS cafe in Ysbyty Gwynedd, lost the contract to Ginsters, a company based in Leicester. Not that is was anything to do with Mary and Merfyn, it was a decision made by WRVS HQ. Elfed's campaign was based on the alleged 'discrimination against a small Welsh business'. The small Welsh business in question being the Menai Deli, which happened to be owned by Elfed's mates. Furthermore, its only contract was with the WRVS cafe in Ysbyty Gwynedd. Elfed's wife was a leading light in the WRVS in north Wales. The Menai Deli was nothing more than a sub-contractor with regard to the cafe and it had bagged the contract through nepotism, it was not a 'small Welsh business', it was a scam. 'Butty Wars' was all over the 'Daily Post' for weeks and got as far as the London-based newspapers. WRVS HQ were subjected to hate mail and threats and the whole business affected their fund raising. See previous posts. Butty Wars succeeded in making north Wales look dreadful, just a bunch of racist, anti-English neanderthals.
The image of Wales was further tarnished at about the same time when Peter Hain's house was surrounded by pro-hunting protesters and them telling journalists that Peter Hain 'isn't even Welsh, he's fucking South African'. (I think that he's Kenyan actually.) By the way liberators, Peter Hain's mates were blown up and killed when he was in South Africa because he and his friends fought a bunch of racist bastards; Peter Hain was a braver man than you wankers. He came to the UK because he would have been killed if he'd stayed in South Africa. Furthermore, because he still insisted upon defending the rights of black people in South Africa when he was in the UK, someone tried to fit him up for a bank robbery and even after he was cleared, the old git of a Presiding judge insulted him. That judge was Sir Alan King-Hamilton, a friend of Sir Ronnie Waterhouse, Sir Ronnie being the man who concealed the VIP paedophile ring run by Dafydd and the gang.
Oh so you're going to protest outside Peter Hain's house because he's not Welsh?? Why don't you take a few corrupt judges who assisted a gang of paedophiles along with you, I'd recommend Huw Daniel myself, Huw's Welsh as well, his dad was one of the founders of Plaid (see post 'Tan yn Llyn'). Huw Daniel has spent his whole life kicking Welsh people who aren't as privileged as him in the teeth. Is that to your liking? After you've invited a few corrupt Welsh judges to join you outside Peter Hain's house in your protest re his racial origins, go and get your DNA analysed. No, it won't show that you are related to the ancient Welsh Princes, no matter what Dafydd Iwan thinks, but you will find that you share over 90% of your DNA with vegetable matter, as does every other human being on the planet. DNA's like that, it's not very helpful to racist idiots.
I remember the dear old NF slogan well: 'Racial purity means national security.' Unfortunately for the NF, the Brits are one of the most mixed 'races' on earth…
After the cause of Butty Wars was sadly lost, there was an attempt at a repeat performance when a lovely little Welsh company owned by Welsh people in the heart of Wales called Blas ar Fwyd lost its contract to supply the patients' snacks trolley in Ysbyty Gwynedd with cakes containing even more sugar than Mr Kripling's cakes. Who owns Blas ar Fwyd?? Dafydd's son, Deiniol ap Dafydd.
Calon Lan!
Elfed and Dafydd only wanted the best for the patients of Ysbyty Gwynedd, which was why they ignored the sky high mortality rates and flogged the patients butties and snacks produced by businesses owned by their friends and relatives.
I knew someone who kept Elfed under observation during Butty Wars, while Elfed was picketing Ysbyty Gwynedd. Not only did Elfed use his time on the picket line to try to find tenants for one of the bungaloids that he owns, but he went in for making a few new friends on Facebook. However the silly old bugger was new to Facebook and he didn't put any privacy settings up, so one could network among Elfed's Facebook friends. Hilarious, there were retired coppers from forces known to have had problems with police corruption and the Chief Accountant of Bangor University was a Facebook friend of one of Elfed's Facebook friends no less…
When Elfed was Chairman of the NW Wales NHS Trust, he had me repeatedly arrested, on one occasion for having pink hair and calling his car a penismobile. On another occasion Elfed had me arrested for 'harassment', the harassment being sending the Trust 'reams and reams of e mails'. Which I did, I was trying to follow up a complaint that I had made after I'd been refused treatment and threatened by Angels and had been subjected to an attempt to frame me for a crime when I tried to access medical help . If somebody had investigated my complaint I would not have needed to have sent reams and reams of e mails. On that occasion, I was interviewed by a DC Steve Power, who admitted in front of the lawyer who accompanied me to the station, that Elfed had ordered my arrest because he was 'fed up' with me. Steve Power then told us that he was retiring in a matter of days anyway and that none of this was to do with him. I was released without charge. See post 'After The Attempt To Frame Me…'.
I recognised DC Steve Power. He was the officer who some years previously had flatly refused to take down my complaint regarding an Angel and three healthcare assistants who had assaulted and injured me. The lawyer who witnessed DC Power's taped confession re Elfed ordering my arrest because he was fed up with me was Frances Jones. I asked her to send me copies of Power's taped confession but I heard no more from her. Frances Jones's name appears on documents that my lawyers only sent me some three years ago. Frances was one of the lawyers involved in one of the attempts to frame and imprison me on the basis of the perjury of Gwynedd Social Services and Tony Francis et al back in the late 1980s/90s. See previous posts.
I saw Frances Jones again a few months after my arrest. She was sitting behind me at the memorial service for Prof Duncan Tanner, the Director of Research for Bangor University. Duncan died suddenly and unexpectedly in the care of Ysbyty Gwynedd, during a routine procedure that is not considered at all risky. Unless you're in the hands of Ysbyty Gwynedd of course. At Duncan's memorial service, a number of people insulted Merfyn. As Frances Jones sat behind me I heard her telling other people that the huge problems in Bangor University were a result of the VC.
No Frances, the problems were the result of the associates of a paedophile gang, who, including you, are a bunch of lying, multifaceted crooked bastards.
One of my friends in north Wales told me that Frances Jones is considered to be an excellent lawyer who is much in favour with 'the villains of Anglesey', 'she gets them off every time'.
Anglesey County Council – located at Llangefni – has been famed for its corruption for many years and children in care on Anglesey were abused. Some Anglesey County Councillors went to prison and returned to their roles as Councillors when they were released.
Regular readers will know that Elfed was previously Acting Deputy Chief Constable of the North Wales Police and was obliged to leave the force under a cloud smelling strongly of corruption (see previous posts). Back in the Good Old Days, Elfed was the Sergeant at Llangefni Police Station on Anglesey. Elfed was one of those coppers at Llangefni who was mates with Dafydd, Dafydd living about four miles away from Llangefni. A veteran of Welsh language protests told me that she and her mates were assaulted by Elfed when they were campaigning.
After Dafydd's charidee CAIS began providing 'substance abuse services' for north Wales, the heroin problem in the region exploded. Particularly in Llangefni. No-one could work out why, Llangefni is a just a small rural market town!
One of the senior managers at Ysbyty Gwynedd who colluded to undermine Mary and Merfyn was Trystan Pritchard. Trystan told someone known to me that he really liked Elfed because Elfed had done so much for the Welsh language. Trystan is a Bangor graduate who, before joining the NHS as a corrupt manager, was a journo. I watched Trystan having a very chummy meetings with a journo days before yet another bad news story about Merfyn hit the local papers. Trystan is a Freemason who is relatively young for the sort of boring corrupt old fart who dresses up in silly gear.
After war was waged with tasty morsels baked by friends and relations of Dafydd, the forces of hell were unleashed upon Mary and Merfyn. Patients were told by Top Doctors to write to their MPs to 'complain about them'; the appointments system was sabotaged which meant that cancer patients only received urgent appointments through the post AFTER the date of their appointment had passed; the pathology lab test results were screwed up, consistently placing patients in danger and resulting in numerous complaints; rumours were spread around Bangor that Mary and Merfyn had mismanaged the Board's finances so badly that they were responsible for the Board's debt (no, the previous Financial Director of the NW Wales NHS Trust stuffed Elfed and Martin over before the Trust was dissolved and the funds disappeared with her); medical records disappeared when Mary tried to investigate serious complaints and staff lied to protect abusive colleagues; and lies were told by the Top Docs, Angels and middle managers about every aspect of patient care and safety, so Mary and Merfyn couldn't take preventative measures because the info needed was actively witheld from them.
When Mary and Merfyn organised a patients' consultation day with regard to the mental health services, Alun Davies the former manager of the Hergest Unit turned up along with a bunch of henchmen and tried to influence the outcome. The North Wales Community Health Council, 'the patients voice', was colonised by Top Doctors and Christine Evans, a retired surgeon, took over as Chair while admitting on her blog that she had taken the position to keep her former surgeon colleagues at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd out of trouble after the Royal College of Surgeons had written a damning report about their misconduct. See previous posts.
The BMA joined in the fun. They mobilised the wider BMA in Wales and also busied themselves locally. A local BMA group specific to North East Wales was formed with a grandiose name; it was actually Philip Banfield and his mates. Philip Banfield is an obstetrician at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd who knows all about Dafydd's gang, Banfield has been in north Wales for years.
On another occasion the BMA held a meeting in one of the north Wales hospitals with regard to an election which contravened all proper procedures in the run-up to an election. Mary and Merfyn told the BMA that they could not hold such a meeting on NHS premises at a time of 'purdah'. The BMA got arsey and decamped to an hotel down the road and held their procedure-breaching meeting there.
Unlike Elfed and Martin at the NW Wales NHS Trust, Mary did investigate patients' complaints. She was up against it because many of the staff of the complaints dept had been inherited from the NW Wales NHS Trust and they continued to insult patients and ignore Mary's instructions to investigate complaints. The NHS unions continued to protect abusive staff.
On Mary and Merfyn's watch, Alan Roberts, a senior Angel at Ysbyty Gwynedd, was prosecuted and convicted when he threw a lady in her 80s across the ward and injured her. Roberts mounted a campaign in his defence which was backed by other Angels as well as union reps and student nurses were bullied into supporting him. He took his case to appeal, backed by his union (which I think was the RCN) and won. Roberts didn't win because he didn't assault the old lady, he won because it could not be proved that her injuries had resulted from him throwing her across the ward. The old lady wasn't there to give evidence because she had died. Roberts had also impersonated a police officer which was never addressed.
Roberts 'the gentle giant' received much press coverage and after he won his appeal, he told the media that he would be returning to work as an Angel. Roberts's wife was an intensive care Angel at Ysbyty Gwynedd and She Stood By Him, as did his son, who was a student Angel.
After one of his court hearings, Alan Roberts shook his fist at me as he left. Why did I attend court? Because when the NW Wales NHS Trust was run by Martin and Elfed, Alan Roberts refused to treat me, threatened me and accused me of 'impersonating a GP'. My subsequent complaint about him was never investigated and Martin told me that it was me who been 'threatening and aggressive' to Roberts. So Martin and Elfed ensured that Roberts remained in his job as an Angel, in a senior role, where he later threw an elderly lady patient across the room and injured her. See post 'Two Dangerous Very Dishonest Nurses'.
After public protests and much ranting in the press over Mary and Merfyn's alleged plans for the NHS in north Wales – no plans had been finalised, but the paedophiles' friends spread panic across the region by telling bare-faced lies – Mary and Merfyn held a public meeting, at which they strove to be as honest and transparent as possible. They were met with a baying mob who threatened them with physical violence, in front of the journos, TV cameras and politicians who also attended the meeting. Not one person called for calm and the threats of violence towards Mary and Merfyn were not reported in any media outlet. What was reported was that the whole of north Wales were livid over that dreadful Mary and Merfyn who Weren't Listening To The People.
I don't know who the baying mob were, but I don't think that they constituted The People. I had arrived for the public meeting early and I saw that baying mob disembark from a series of coaches, only to be greeted by a man with an NHS lanyard around his neck yelling cheerfully that 'this is the day that Mary Burrows gets her P45' and that today will be the day that they get the bitch out.
After threatening Mary and Merfyn, the baying mob walked out waving their fists and the meeting was closed shortly after. As people filed out of the door, the man who had greeted the coaches went absolutely apeshit. He started screaming at Mary that there would be blood and throwing chairs around the room. He was tended to by someone else who had an NHS lanyard around her neck who dispensed kind words in his moment of trauma. If that man had been an Empowered Service User he would have been arrested, charged and probably remanded in custody.
So who was the problem? A bunch of lying thugs who had facilitated a paedophile gang for years? Of course not, it was Mary and Merfyn as any fule kno. They listed to patients, they investigated complaints, they held public consultations, OF COURSE THEY HAD TO GO!!!
In June 2013, Merfyn and Mary hit the headlines of the London-based media as well as the north Wales media when they resigned after the publication of a damning report about patient care and safety at the Betsi. The report was compiled in the wake of a C difficile outbreak in which patients had died. Merfyn gave interviews and some of them are still available on BBC News Wales archive clips. He reflected on the report which had stated that there had been a breakdown between 'ward and Board' at the Betsi and that he and Mary had not been aware of what had been happening at ward level. Merfyn stated that he had to accept that was indeed true, they had not been aware of a number of matters of which they should have been aware. He told the BBC that he had not been able to effect change and he had therefore offered his resignation to the Health Minister Mark Drakeford and Drakeford had accepted it.
Merfyn did not tell the media that there had been a conspiracy to keep crucial information from the Board. He did not tell them that Mary and he had received hate mail and death threats. He did not tell them that I and other people who had complained about the NW Wales NHS Trust had been threatened, assaulted, repeatedly wrongly arrested and unlawfully refused all NHS treatment. Merfyn did not tell them that I had given Drakeford's predecessor Edwina Hart enough evidence to have Elfed, Martin and a number of Top Docs and Angels arrested and that Edwina had simply refused to act. Neither did Merfyn tell the BBC that when he had been VC of Bangor University, a post-doc was asked to smear him in a documentary about the mental health services and two PhD students who were friends with that post-doc had been followed around University premises by off duty police officers and intimidated.
Perhaps Merfyn should have just said 'I'm dealing with the associates of a fucking paedophile gang here who have deliberately let patients die in order to force my resignation', but the BBC probably wouldn't have broadcast that because Jimmy Savile had been a visitor to Bryn Estyn and one boy alleged that he had been gang-raped while Savile looked on.
The report that condemned Merfyn and Mary was compiled by the WAO (Welsh Audit Office) and HIW (Health Inspectorate Wales).
At the time of the report, the Auditor General for Wales was Huw Vaughan Thomas. Huw Vaughan Thomas was Chief Executive of Gwynedd County Council, 1991-96. Huw was Chief Exec of Gwynedd CC while the paedophile gang were active in Gwynedd's children's homes and while employees of Gwynedd Social Services lied about me and other patients to the police and on oath in attempts to secure convictions against us. Huw Vaughan Thomas was Chief Exec of Gwynedd County Council when Patient F was denied access to his own baby on the basis of unproven allegations that he was a 'risk' to the baby. The baby was brought up in the care of a family with two adult male sex offenders in the household. F and other people raised concerns about one of these offenders and Gwynedd Social Services admitted that he had confessed to indecently assaulting two 10 year old boys. No action was taken against him, not even when he and his friend subsequently offered their services as babysitters and yet more complaints were made about them. F was never given access to his own child and the family whom Gwynedd placed F's baby with later left the area. F never saw his child again and did not know where he was. See previous posts.
Huw Vaughan Thomas was appointed as Chief Exec of Gwynedd County Council in the middle of the North Wales Police's investigation into the possibility of a VIP paedophile ring in north Wales/Chester. The investigation was closed in 1992 and the police stated that no evidence of any ring had been found.
The child protection officer who denied F access to his child and who refused to even hold a case conference when F raised concerns that his baby could be at risk from the sex offenders in the household where his baby was being raised was Jo Bott. Jo Bott was a former police officer who was subsequently employed by Gwynedd Social Services.
Jo Bott alleged that F's new wife had been 'harassing' the mother of F's baby and ordered F's wife to 'leave her alone'. F's wife had had no contact with the mother of F's child since the baby was about two weeks old. The contact then was a visit to deliver clothes and a present for the baby. Because as Jo Bott knew damn well, F's new wife had been friends with F and his stepchildren for a number of years and had paid for meals and lent the family money when they needed it. Hadn't she Bott??? In fact the reason that she got to know F was that he found out about the attempts to imprison her on the part of Gwynedd Social Services and the Top Doctors and having been wrongfully imprisoned himself by the same people, F offered advice. F also offered other Empowered Service Users who were being abused and neglected by Jo Bott's colleagues advice, which was why so many people used to congregate at his house in Bethesda…
Then there was the visit that F received from armed men when he put his house up for sale. No of course he didn't tell Bott et al, but all the Empowered Service Users knew about it.
After Bott told F's new wife to leave the mother of F's baby alone, F's new wife received nearly £1000 worth of bills from F's former partner which had been run up in F's name, along with a demand that she pay them. Then a few weeks later came a demand for some baby equipment. Oh then after that F and his new wife were offered baby photos of the baby that F was not allowed to visit – accompanied by a demand for more money of course…
Leave her alone??? F and his new wife wished that the malicious cow had moved to Jupiter but it really was quite difficult to escape her as the baby was wheeled past their house at regular intervals.
Then there was Martin, a young man who had witnessed everything re F's baby, who was found dead in the road near Bethesda, at about the time that Huw Vaughan Thomas took up his job as Auditor General for Wales. Martin had witnessed rather more as well, because he was the father of the baby of F's former partner's daughter's baby. Martin applied for custody when he discovered that the mother of his baby was battering the living daylights out of the baby. Gwynedd Social Services told Martin that they would be awarding custody to his former partner if she turned up to the hearing. Fortunately for Martin and his daughter, Mandy couldn't even be arsed to go to the hearing so Martin was able to bring up his little girl. Until he was found dead that was.
So Huw Vaughan Thomas, who presided over this nightmare, had the final say on Merfyn's performance as Chair of the Betsi Board!!!
For the full background on Huw Vaughan Thomas and his long list of public appointments – Huw has also been Chief Executive of Denbighshire County Council and a member of the Parole Board, among many other things – see post 'I Know Nuzzing…'.
Huw: presided over a murderous paedophile gang:
Why was there was vacancy as the Auditor General for Wales for Huw to step into? The vacancy arose when Jeremy Colman, the former Auditor General for Wales, resigned and was in 2010 jailed for the possession of child porn (see post 'The Reality Is, There Is No Problem').
Huw Vaughan Thomas wasn't the only person who was responsible for those harsh words about Merfyn, I must be fair here. After all, HIW compiled the report in partnership with Huw Vaughan Thomas. The Chief Executive of HIW was Dr Peter Higson. Peter Higson had previously been a clinical psychologist at the North Wales Hospital; the manager of the North Wales Hospital Denbigh and the manager of the mental health services across the whole of north Wales. Peter Higson was a colleague of Dafydd's and a good friend of Fergus Lowe.
Peter Higson had a little break away from his multiple roles in the NHS as a facilitator of Dafydd's gang. In the early years of the millennium, Higson was the interim Chief Executive of ELWa, a Welsh quango responsible for education and training. The Chair of ELWa was Enid Rowlands. Who is married to Huw Vaughan Thomas. Enid is a psychology graduate who comes from north Wales! Just like Peter! There was a bit of a row in 2003 when Enid was Chair of ELWa because £2 million found its way into the pockets of a company called Avanti and no-one could explain where the money had gone after that. Enid refused to resign, even when it was revealed that accounting procedures had not been followed and that conflicts of interest had not been declared when Peter was appointed as interim Chief Exec of ELWa, even though Peter was a Director of the North Wales Health Authority and Enid Chaired that Authority!
Enid has clocked up nearly as many public appointments as her husband has. Among other things, Enid was/is Chair of the Solicitors' Regulation Authority; was a member of the GMC for eight years; was UK Chair of Victim Support; was a member of the North Wales Police Authority; was/is a member of the S4C Authority; was/is a member of BUPA Council. See previous posts, including 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels'.
ELWa eventually disappeared in disgrace although sadly Enid didn't and Peter Higson was appointed as the Chief Executive of the newly created HIW. In that role, Peter Higson refused to investigate all of my very serious complaints about the North West Wales NHS Trust. But then Peter had, years previously, refused to investigate all of my complaints about Dafydd et al and Gwynedd Social Services.
So, after Merfyn was set up and blown out as Chair of the Betsi, a new Chair was appointed. It was Dr Peter Higson. After Higson took up the Chair of the Betsi Board, HIW was declared to be in such a sorry state that it was 'not fit for purpose'. Peter Higson was the only Chief Executive that HIW had ever had and he had been there from its creation.
Do any readers know if the creation of HIW might have been the idea of a man called Peter Higson or one of his friends or relatives?
When Peter Higson was appointed Chair of the Betsi Board, Margaret Hanson was appointed as his Vice-Chair. Margaret had previously worked as a children's and family social work team leader for Cheshire Social Services. Dafydd's gang operated in Cheshire as well as in north Wales, through the social services. Margaret was also a Councillor in Cheshire. Margaret Hanson is married to David Hanson, the Labour MP for Delyn in north east Wales. David was also a Councillor in Cheshire; Davies was appointed as Miranda's PPS in 2001, when all those people were yelling in the aftermath of the publication of the Waterhouse Report that Waterhouse had been a huge cover-up. See previous posts for further info about the Hansons.
When Peter and Margaret took over at the Betsi, Margaret commented to the media that she was appalled at the state of the Betsi and she really didn't know what those previously at the helm had been thinking of.
It is now more than five years since Merfyn and Mary resigned from the Betsi. Mary sadly died of cancer a few years ago, but not before the 'Daily Mail' published an article about her, denouncing 'her shameful legacy'. There has been scandal after scandal after scandal at the Betsi since Mary and Merfyn resigned. There have been allegations of severe staff bullying and an Angel who blew the whistle on the Tawel Fan Scandal, the biggest EMI patient abuse scandal in the history of the UK, received death threats and was sacked by the Board. Not one of the Angels who were filmed undercover swearing at patients who were crawling around naked on floors covered in faeces and urine was disciplined. The Angels gave interviews to the 'Daily Post' stating that there was nothing wrong with the care in Tawel Fan ward and that the relatives who complained were 'troublemakers'. Some of the same Angels were subsequently caught abusing patients in the ward to which they had been transferred after Tawel Fan closed down. None of them have been disciplined.
The obstetric service at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd was found to be so dangerous that a hit squad was sent in from the Welsh Gov't to 'turn it around'. There were accusations that the behaviour of one obstetrician was so crazed and intimidating that it had caused meltdown in the service. Phil Banfield is the senior obstetrician at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd. The Board was placed in special measures and the first goal of the hit squad was to 'achieve normality' in the maternity service. The Board remains in special measures all these years later because normality has still not been achieved.
The abnormality of the obstetric service at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd had obviously been missed by Huw Vaughan Thomas's wife Enid, who was Chair of the North Wales Health Authority long before Mary and Merfyn got near the Betsi. But Peter Higson, being a Director of the North Wales Health Authority had missed the abnormality along with Enid. But then Peter's mate Prof Bob Woods from the School of Psychology at Bangor University has been north Wales's expert in dementia care for decades now, so he must have been something to do with the abnormality at Tawel Fan. Another of Peter's many roles was that of a lecturer on the clinical psychology course at Bangor University. Bob Woods was Director of that course and before the North Wales Hospital was closed down, clin psy students did their 'training' placements under the lecherous eye – and hands – of Dafydd.
Peter Higson is also a member of the Council at Bangor University. After Peter was appointed to the Council, Bangor University awarded Peter's sister, Dr Ruth Hussey, an honorary degree. Ruth was Chief Medical Officer for Wales, 2012-16. Ruth was CMO for Wales when the Betsi was failing to achieve normality, in spite of the best efforts of the hit squad from the Welsh Gov't. See post 'Topsy and Tim' for further details of Peter And Ruth's biographies.
Well after Merfyn and Mary resigned, the Betsi Board effectively went bankrupt and the Welsh Gov't bailed it out. Several times. But still the Board couldn't manage. The Board has a recruitment crisis in every aspect of its work, no-one wants to work for the NHS in north Wales in any capacity. Litigation against the Board is soaring and the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales has spoken out repeatedly about the worrying number of complaints that he is dealing with about the Betsi. The mortality and suicide rates for north Wales are some of the worst in Europe and have got worse since Mary and Merfyn departed.
Since Mary and Merfyn resigned, the Betsi's performance, on every measure, has plummeted and the Board has sunk so deeply into the red that it doesn't make sense for the Welsh Gov't to talk about giving the Betsi a bail out to enable it to balance the books. The Board is bankrupt, has been for quite some time and it is sinking deeper and deeper and deeper.
The Tory AM Mark Isherwood some months ago made a speech in the Senedd in despair at the state of the Betsi and the patient harm and deaths, ending it with 'this cannot be allowed to continue'. Vaughan Gething, the Welsh Gov'ts Minister for Health told Mark to stop talking down the NHS.
As for those politicians who sat in silence in that public meeting some six years ago while an organised mob hurled threats and abuse at Merfyn and Mary, they are still in office. One was Darren Millar, the Tory AM for Clwyd West. To be fair to Darren, he is the only politician who in recent years has called for prosecutions with regard to the abuse of patients at the Betsi.
Another of the politicians was Plaid's Llyr Huws Gruffydd. I had met Llyr before I saw him sit in silence at that meeting. I had previously e mailed him and given him full details of the extended neglect and abuse of a friend of mine at the hands of the mental health services in north Wales. Llyr wrote me a very nice e mail back saying that this sounded shocking. When the mental health services heard that I was writing to politicians, they admitted my, by then, very very ill, suicidal friend to a psych ward in Wrexham Maelor Hospital. Llyr turned up and the Angel in charge told him that there were no problems at all re my friend. Llyr told me that my friend was in safe hands. My friend was discharged the next day and, once more, unlawfully refused NHS care. He became destitute and nearly died some months later. I never heard from Llyr again, although I did e mail him and tell him what was happening to my friend.
The third politician who sat in silence at the public meeting was the Labour AM for the Vale of Clwyd, Ann Jones. Ann Jones regularly comments on her support for the NHS and its wonderful staff. She has never said a word about the escalating horror prevailing at the Betsi since Mary and Merfyn's departure. But then Ann Jones never said a word about the North Wales Child Abuse Scandal despite being on the scene throughout it all. Jones was born and educated in Rhyl, was a Rhyl Town Councillor and a Denbighshire County Councillor. Ann Jones is Deputy Presiding Officer of the Welsh Assembly. I am still on the mailing list for many of the things which I was involved when I was still in Wales and a few days ago I was invited to a Wimmins Event with Ann as a guest speaker. I'll give that one a miss, I don't want to be told that Ann is my role model. Even if I did feel in need of a role model, I would not choose Ann.
A third person resigned along with Merfyn and Mary, that was Dr Lyndon Miles, the Vice-Chair of the Betsi Board. I always found Lyndon very pleasant and approachable and after the threats and abuse at the public meeting, I bumped into him in a cafe and he told me that the Board were getting a very bad time but they were determined to see this through. Two weeks later Lyndon resigned and I think that he resigned before Mary and Merfyn.
Lyndon wasn't crazed and threatening like the other Top Doctors, but he definitely knew what they were doing and had known for years. Lyndon is a GP and arrived in Bangor in about 1984, when the gang called for reinforcements. The reinforcements were all like Lyndon, they weren't obviously mad a la Dafydd et al but they colluded with Dafydd and the gang. Lyndon was a GP in the Student Health Centre in UCNW, he worked with Dr D.G.E. Wood, Liz Stables and Gwynne the lobotomist who were facilitating the trafficking ring. Lyndon was the GP of my housemate Anne Vernon when she was killed by the gang. Lyndon was also the GP of the young female psych patient who was used for sex by the junior gynaecologists of Ysbyty Gwynedd, made pregnant twice by them and then coerced into abortions which they had arranged. She was subsequently refused all NHS treatment and told that if she wanted to access care she'd have to move to England. See post 'Another Case Of Not Knowing?'
Lyndon worked as a GP in north Wales throughout the worst of Dafydd's gang; he was there during the rapes of the kids in care, the unlawful denial of access to NHS abortions anywhere in north Wales thus forcing women into the hands of the dangerous 'private' abortionist in Chester, the framing of victims of the gang, the banging them up in high security hospitals, the constant suspicious deaths and suicides, the forging of records and throughout the Waterhouse Inquiry, Lyndon knew about it all and he has never said a word. He also knew what happened to me. Lyndon also spent years as Vice-Chair of the Gwynedd Local Health Board. Lyndon knows all about the murdering criminal bastards.
Lyndon is now Chair of St David's Hospice, an institution run entirely by Dafydd's gang. Alun Davies became Chief Exec of St David's Hospice when the deaths and suicides of patients and staff at the Hergest Unit meant that even Davies was too embarrassed to remain as the Director of the mental health services for the NW Wales NHS Trust any longer. When Davies retired from St David's Hospice just a few years ago, Trystan Pritchard was appointed Chief Executive. See post 'The CEOs of St David's Hospice'.
It is clear that Dafydd's gang and their associates did indeed precipitate a situation in which patients died at the Betsi in order to cover Merfyn with crap and force him to resign as Chair.
Perhaps someone needs to hold the following people to account:
The Director of the Pathology labs who knew that infection was raging throughout the hospitals managed by the Board but did not control the situation or keep Merfyn and Mary informed. That person is Dr Avril Wayte. Avril is a member of the Board of Dafydd's charidee CAIS.
Avril is married to Dr Donald Wayte, a retired pathologist. For years, Donald Wayte was the senior pathologist for north Wales. Highlights of Don's career included accusing parents, in public, who's children had died of SIDS of having murdered them on the basis of absolutely no evidence at all and taking the 15 yr old son of a friend of his into the hospital to work with him without gaining permission or ethical clearance from anyone. The teenager had a lovely time, he saw the dead bodies, the lot, thanks to dear old Don.
Don played a key role in many a Nasty Case and an 'Orrible Murder, what with ruling the roost over the whole of north Wales for many of the years that Dafydd's gang ran riot, years in which north Wales became famous for its corruption in medico-legal circles, the fitting up of innocent people and the ludicrous explanations for the suspicious deaths of so many victims of and witnesses to the crimes of Dafydd's gang. People were found hanging, found dead from overdoses, they were hit by cars, they fell out of windows, down embankments, out of trains going at speed, they were killed in fires, there was no end to the untimely and unfortunate deaths of so many in north Wales who had encountered Dafydd et al. The coroner or judge presiding over the trial often relied on the evidence of Dafydd's mate Don.
Don was the pathologist who gave evidence at the July 1996 trial of Howard Hughes. Hughes was found guilty of the 1995 rape and murder of a little girl called Sophie Hook, who disappeared from a tent in a garden in Llandudno and who's body was later recovered from the sea. Howard was a wrong 'un, everyone knew that, especially the police. Howard had a chromosome abnormality which caused him to grow very tall, he is getting on for 7 foot high. Howard also has learning disabilities and cannot read and write, so he could not read the statement that he made to the police. Howard has always denied knowing anything at all about Sophie's disappearance. He came under suspicion because he was seen on a footpath near the garden from where Sophie disappeared. But nowhere near the time that Sophie disappeared. Furthermore, the garden where Sophie was camping is in a suburban part of Llandudno, so a lot of people were on that path.
The police seemed to know that they were looking for a big man with learning difficulties because they told the world that they were looking for a big brute. They found one shortly after saying that and arrested Howard. They had to release him again because there was absolutely no evidence linking him with the crime. While Howard was out, the police raided his house and most conveniently found child porn. So he was re-arrested. Howard was remanded in custody and when he was in prison on remand, another prisoner, a convicted child sex offender maintained that Howard had confessed to Sophie's rape and murder. The account that this prisoner gave of Howard's confession sounded rather like the fantasy of a child sex offender. That statement was the only evidence linking Howard to the Sophie's disappearance. Everything else was pure speculation, including the allegation of 'he was seen carrying her dead body'. No he wasn't. Someone said that they thought that they saw someone who might have been Howard carrying a sack with something in it late one night. But there was no evidence that the person was Howard, if indeed such a person was seen and who knows what was in the sack, if there was a sack, which was far from certain. There was absolutely no evidence against Howard except for the confession of a convicted sex offender who also admitted that sometimes he did make things up but he hadn't on this occasion.
Dafydd's mate Don gave an account of the terrible injuries that had been inflicted on Sophie's body, but true to form, Don didn't just confine himself to that. Don explained exactly what Howard had done to Sophie. How Don knew this I don't know, because much of his evidence could not have been extrapolated from the injuries postmortem on a body recovered from the sea, but Don Knew. See previous posts for further details.
When Howard Hughes was sentenced, the world heard the details of his previous, which was terrible, I would be wary of someone with a criminal record like Howard's. Indeed, I nearly was someone with a criminal record like Howard's. If every attempt that Dafydd and the gang had made to fit me up had been successful, I would have a criminal record like Howard Hughes. And it would all be a load of cobblers.
Howard was arrested, convicted and imprisoned at the time that Dafydd's gang repeatedly tried to fit me up for serious offences by planting evidence, committing perjury and I am told, paying people to lie about me. The gang became very busy after 1994, because Brown had sent them yet more evidence of Dafydd trying to bribe me into dropping my complaint about him and I and another patient also had a meeting with two members of the Mental Health Act Commission and told then that serious complaints about Dafydd were not being investigated, including that of him sexually exploiting patients. Our complaints were still not investigated, but we were arrested.
The reason why I am so cautious before screaming for Howard's knackers on a platter, is that from quite a young age, everyone responsible for Howard's diagnoses, care and 'assessments' were associates of Dafydd and the gang. Howard had also been in Bryn Estyn, where he maintained that he was abused. Howard's claim for compensation re Bryn Estyn was rejected on the grounds that he had serious criminal convictions. But then most of the boys from Bryn Estyn did, because if they weren't brutalised and driven mad by being beaten and gang raped, they were fitted up by Dafydd's gang to discredit them. Howard had also spent time in Garth Angharad, the 'hospital for mentally abnormal criminals' near Dolgellau. Except that it wasn't a hospital at all, it was an isolated building hidden away which was owned by a solicitor who was later struck off for stealing his clients' money. Before that occurred, the struck off solicitor had owned and managed children's homes and schools, where the kids had been abused. Even Ronnie Waterhouse didn't have a good word to say about the owner of Garth Angharad, Paul Hett. See previous posts.
I didn't know of the existence of Garth Angharad until a few years ago when I received my own files. In the late 1980s, when I was sitting in a London medical school as a postgrad student, a case conference had been held about me in Garth Angharad, without my knowledge, by a man of whom I had never heard, who took evidence about me from people of whom I had never heard. The conclusion was that I was extremely dangerous, capable of murder and should be banged up in a high security hospital as soon as poss. See post 'The Night Of The (Dr Chris) Hunter'. The reason why the case conference about me was held in Garth Angharad was that the man who held it, Dr Chris Hunter, of whom I had never heard, was visiting Garth Angharad to see one of his patients there. Hunter was a mate of Dafydd's gang which was why Tony Francis and Dafydd had asked him to hold a case conference about me. Chris Hunter also had patients in Ashworth Hospital – where patients were raped and beaten by Angels, one patient being battered to death – in Whitchurch Hospital and in the Caswell Clinic in Bridgend. All of these places were receptacles for the victims of Dafydd's gang who complained about him. They were hospitals in name only.
The Top Doctor who used to sit on the Betsi Board as the Top Docs' representative at the time of Merfyn's resignation has more than a few questions to answer. I can't remember his name, but he was rude, awkward as fuck and highly defensive. He refused to co-operate with anything that Merfyn and Mary suggested re improvements in patient care and he took an entrenched position on absolutely everything.
The Health Minister who so willingly accepted Merfyn's resignation and smugly announced that he would be appointing a replacement, which was Peter Higson was of course this blog's old friend Mark Drakeford. Drakeford worked as a social worker for Dyfed Social Services when a paedophile gang operated in Dyfed Social Services which had links to Dafydd's gang. Drakeford served as Rhodri Morgan's SPAD for years while the slaughter continued apace in north Wales and when serious complaints went uninvestigated. When Drakeford was Health Minister, bombs went off under him constantly, NHS deaths, scandals, corrupt practices, the lot. He refused to accept responsibility for any of it. During that time, I wrote to Drakeford and gave him full details of a medical research fraud that I had witnessed. I did not receive a reply and some three weeks later, Drakeford appeared with members of the team who perpetrated the fraud at a media PR event, promoting the fraud.
Just a few weeks ago, Mark Drakeford's 31 year old son was sentenced to eight years in prison for the prolonged violent rape of a young woman. Drakeford junior was also charged with grooming a child.
Martin Jones, the Director of the Workforce at the Betsi who hated Merfyn and Mary, was one of the leaders of the lynch mob and after all those scandals at the Betsi was appointed Director of Investigations for NHS Wales. Martin is now the ultimate man for investigating complaints in Wales's NHS…
The PM when Merfyn was forced out by a bunch of psychopaths who conspired to allow patients die to make him look bad was Lord Snooty the Third. Health is a devolved responsibility, so the Betsi was nothing to do with Lord Snooty the Third, but as previous posts (eg. Lord Snooty The Third) explained, Lord Snooty had a great deal to do with what was going on in north Wales. As indeed did Cherie, Miranda, Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband (see post 'Lest We Forget').
The Torygraph, the newspaper most supportive of Lord Snooty the Third, some 10 years ago, ran a flattering report about an Angel from Ysbyty Gwynedd, Stephen Gallagher, who was in the TA and while on duty in Afghanistan, had 'saved a boy's life'. The story was substantially untrue, breached confidence and put the lives of the boy and his family at risk. I had made a complaint about Gallagher some months previously, after he had refused to treat me and threatened me. Martin Jones destroyed the CCTV that showed Gallagher doing this. I was told that the senior managers of the NW Wales NHS Trust had given the story about Major Gallagher the War Hero to the Torygraph. I was also told that before he had threatened me, there was already a note on Gallagher's HR file saying that his competence and integrity could not be relied upon, after a Top Doctor made a complaint about him. Some time after Gallagher appeared in the Torygraph, he threatened me again and two witnesses made a statement detailing what they had seen. One of the witnesses worked at Ysbyty Gwynedd and then Gallagher threatened her. She was subsequently accused of conspiring with me to 'get' the Trust Board. There was no investigation into any of the complaints that arose from any of this. See post 'Two Dangerous, Very Dishonest Nurses'.
For crying out loud, get it into your heads everyone, Dafydd's gang don't have and never did have any limits. They fitted complainants up and had them imprisoned for years or banged up in high security hospitals and they murdered witnesses. They have ruled north Wales for decades and what a legacy there is. I thought that they were pretty bloody stupid coming after a young woman with a postgrad degree in medical sciences, but they stop at nothing, nothing at all. They made statements claiming that I had attempted to stab someone. Then admitted that no, I had done no such thing. They made statements saying that I had tried to throttle someone. Then admitted that no, I had done no such thing. They made statements saying that I was known to carry and use weapons. They were not able to show evidence of this. Or of their allegation that I had held an Angel hostage. Or that I have been in prison for attacking someone with a knife. Or that I had sexually assaulted a psychiatrist. Yet no-one would take action against this lot, no-one.
Then in 2013 they let a load of patients die because they wanted to force out a man who had been a VC and Governor of the BBC and who's wife had died at their hands. I recommend that Merfyn hires a lawyer and obtains copies of his medical records. They probably explain that it was really him who raped that young woman, not Mark Drakeford's son at all, but what with his wicked ways, Merfyn blamed it all on Drakeford junior.
Just for the record: Merfyn was my ultimate boss for a number of years when I worked at Bangor University. I never ever witnessed him raise his voice to anyone, swear at anyone, lose his temper or even be rude to someone else. I saw him look really fucking exasperated as the paedophiles' friends insulted him, shouted at him in public and refused to do the jobs for which they were so generously paid while treating staff and students appallingly. He should have broken his code of conduct and fucking well flattened the lot of them.
Now, all the names of those worthless bastards who assisted in the deaths of those patients to force Merfyn to resign please, to me at this blog or via my e mail address and I'll name every one of them…
Here he is in his well-dressed man disguise, you can tell he's a wrong 'un:
Someone else who's attempted a well-dressed man disguise:
'There is no evidence that Dr Jones ever behaved unprofessionally or in any way that was not in the best interests of his patients.'


text:
Craig confident in approach at the plate
PHILADELPHIA -- Cardinals manager Mike Matheny has declared Allen Craig, whose two-run, bases-loaded single on Saturday night helped lift his average to .220, close to breaking out. But Craig says he has never felt that far away.
"Have I felt great up there?" Craig said. "Probably not. But I haven't felt terrible.
"I have been hitting some balls hard, working pretty hard in the batting cage to make some adjustments. But I feel over the last week and a half, two weeks or so, I have just been missing pitches, hit some balls hard and they have been at people."
Craig went 2-for-5 on Sunday night, raising his average on the season to .234.
"I am going to swing at some pitches out of the zone even when I am going good," he said. "I just think it comes down it hitting the good pitches that they give you.
"Maybe I have been rolling over a little but I don't think that's the main problem. I feel like I have hit the ball pretty hard and haven't found holes. The numbers are what they are but that's why they call it a batting average, it goes up and down, and the first month, it can fluctuate rapidly."

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Hollywood ending: Helton exits on winning note
Retiring icon records hit, hears ovations in final big league game
LOS ANGELES -- Todd Helton thought it important to retire before he could no longer contribute, and Sunday was a competitive way to finish a 17-season career.
Helton singled as part of a first-inning rally that netted the Rockies their first run, made a nice grab of a line drive and drew a walk as Colorado ended the 2013 season by scratching out a 2-1 victory over the Dodgers.
It wasn't a dominant day like he had often during the prime of a career that finished with 2,519 hits against 818 different pitchers. And Helton was beyond his best years as the still-productive inspirational leader in 2007 and 2009, his only two postseason trips. So it was fitting Helton left in competitive fashion against a strong opponent, one that is going to the playoffs.
Helton's final hit was a ground-ball single through the right side of the infield against Dodgers starter Hyun-Jin Ryu (14-8) to load the bases for Troy Tulowitzki, who singled in a run. The other run scored on Charlie Blackmon's fourth-inning single with runners at second and third. The day started in style, with Dodgers Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully offering a tribute to Helton that was played on the large video board before the game.
Scully autographed a microphone and had it delivered to Helton.
"That was very kind," Helton said. "They didn't have to do that. But that was pretty cool. I was very honored and humbled from those kind words. The last at-bat, I got a little emotional, but other than that, it's Sept. 29th and I'm ready to go home."
Helton's final at-bat, which began with a standing ovation, a tip of the batting helmet and him receiving a lineup card from plate umpire Bob Davidson, was a swinging strikeout against Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen, which ended with another ovation.
Rockies manager Walt Weiss said Helton addressed the team for about 10 seconds in the clubhouse after the game.
"That's right on cue for Todd," Weiss said, smiling. "It's pretty cool to watch a legend in his last days."
The Dodgers will meet the Braves in the National League Division Series on Thursday, but they head in having lost the last two games to the last-place Rockies, who finished 74-88.
Although Helton's goodbye was the day's biggest story, a couple of other veterans put a nice finish on 2013.
Left-hander Jeff Francis (3-5), who won the home opener back in April but was making his first start since June 18, limited the Dodgers to one run and three hits, striking out six, in five innings. Francis struggled for much of the season and faces an uncertain future, because the Rockies are likely to look elsewhere for starting pitching.
The Dodgers' Mark Ellis drew a walk and Juan Uribe singled to put runners at first and third, and Skip Schumaker singled in a run to open the fifth. Francis worked a grounder from Scott Van Slyke, then walked Yasiel Puig. Weiss visited the mound, then left Francis in to strike out pinch-hitter Alex Castellanos.
"Well, I thought he [Weiss] was coming to get the ball, but I wasn't going to give it to him unless he asked for it," Francis said. "He told me he wanted me to get this guy out. That was a good vote of confidence. I felt good about it.
"The fact that I helped win a game that people won't forget, I think that means a lot. I've enjoyed being [Helton's] teammate and enjoyed being a Rockie. It's pretty special to be able to win that game."
Also, veteran Michael Cuddyer went 1-for-5 to finish his season with a .331 batting average, good for his first NL batting championship. Cuddyer joins Andres Galarraga (1993), Larry Walker (1998-99, 2001), Helton (2000), Matt Holliday (2007) and Carlos Gonzalez (2010) on the list of Rockies to win a batting title. Cuddyer, whose professionalism and hustle have him in line to be one of the team's leaders in Helton's absence next year, earned his single by beating out a fifth-inning infield grounder against Ricky Nolasco.
"I told him I think it's great when the game rewards the good ones, and he's one of the good ones," Weiss said. "He's worked really hard and he pours his heart and soul into it. Todd's the same way."
The Rockies came up short in many areas this year but completed their season 38-38 against the NL West, as well as 10-9 against the Dodgers and 6-4 at Dodger Stadium. The final two victories, including 1-0 on Saturday night, came with the bullpen pitching a combined 7 2/3 scoreless innings. Rex Brothers struck out three in the ninth for his 19th save, although the Dodgers loaded the bases on two walks and a hit. The final two strikeouts, of Tim Federowicz and Schumaker, came with the bases full.


text:
I think there have been some clarifications that lessen the downside of these changes
1st - it just has to be working in 1 driver, so there is no argument that it must be working across gallium, or specifically in the Intel or other classic drivers. The idea is that if it's implemented for any 1 driver, there may still be changes necessary later on but it's good enough to test that the feature is largely working and porting to other drivers should be relatively simple.
2nd - it seems like they are more concerned about this with large new features - UBOs, geometry shaders, etc. It sounds like anything smaller will probably not see much of a change. A lot of the larger features are already in now as part of GL3, so this may not be as big a change as it first seems.
No announcement yet.
Changes To Merging Feature Work In Mesa
new posts
Leave a comment:
I think I'm on the fence on this one (ha ha, no pun intended, silly graphics developers and your fences ). On the one hand, bureaucracy sucks, and slows down innovation (and it also helps to chill down motivation and progress because developers would rather spend time developing rather than writing boring documentation and tests). On the other hand, a more stable master would be pretty nice, and the "same" level of experimental code would probably still be available in branches for the extremely adventurous.
I feel worried that requiring this type of thing to go in "all at once" might hinder multi-driver development, though.
Let's say somebody is implementing XYZ feature (a new libdrm API or something) that will impact all Gallium3d drivers. But they lack the hardware knowledge or motivation to implement it for all G3D drivers, so they just implement it for the one(s) they know best.
Now, if another developer working on another G3D driver actually wants to use this new common code in their driver, they will have to pull from and maintain patches against somebody else's branch, rather than just pulling it from master. Because the common code probably wouldn't be merged because it wouldn't be able to be tested until it was fully implemented and ready in at least one driver.
So if intel or r300g does something neat with the mesa common code, they'd have to completely polish off a workable demo on at least intel hardware to get it merged, and in the meantime, the other g3d developers would have to sit on their laurels and wait for the thing to be ready before they can even START on their work on it.
That would be the least optimal outcome, of course. More likely, in practice, is that the common interfaces could be developed in a branch, and then have the driver-specific code live in yet another branch (forked from the common), so you'd have something like branch "A" being the basis for branches "B" and "C" (where B is for e.g. intel and branch C is for e.g. r600g). I could see this working fairly well, because git is so easy to use.
So I guess I want this post to be kind of a "hesitant +1" in favor of the new rules, but I'd want to make sure that all the core developers know what their alternatives are to continue to develop new features at a rapid pace and release them in a way that the enthusiast/testing community can play with them.
Then again, Jerome's patches for 2d color tiling for r600g went fairly well, and THEY weren't merged to master until they were practically in their final iteration (I think it went through like 8 or 9 iterations in Jerome's directory on people.fdo before it got merged). So it's not impossible to continue to develop/test even in the face of a pickier master branch.
Anyway, I'm rambling, but +1 for stability and all that good stuff...
Leave a comment:
This is what mesa is missing tests.
Good thing that is being addressed.
Leave a comment:
Well, I guess unit testing (through Piglit?) connected to every merge does sound kind-of nice on a code-base that is as important for a system as Mesa is =)
Leave a comment:
And I thought that I understand English very well...
Leave a comment:
Changes To Merging Feature Work In MesaPhoronix: Changes To Merging Feature Work In Mesa
After looking at the merges that went into the major Mesa 8.0 release, Ian Romanick has called for some changes in handling the merging of feature work for future versions of Mesa...
http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTA1ODETags: None


text:
So if you're "The Kids Are All Right" co-screenwriter Stuart Blumberg, do you play it chill on the morning of Academy Awards nominations and wait for the phone to ring with some welcome news?
"My morning was that I tried to sleep through it to act cool and could not," Blumberg told PopcornBiz just two hours after being nominated in the Original Screenplay category with co-writer and director Lisa Cholodenko. "I kept waking up, so I finally admitted that I cared. I got up and I watched it live on IMDB."
"It really was surreal," Blumberg admitted of hearing the film's four Oscar noms announced (Best Picture, Annette Bening for Best Actress, Mark Ruffalo for Best Supporting Actor and his shared writing nod). "Thank God we didn't think about a day like this, because we just spent so many days, so many months in front of that computer screen just trying to make this the best possible script, and then spent years trying to make it the best possible movie. It's crazy that that actually paid off, and I guess that it did."
U.S. & World
The screenwriter said that the film's nominations "mean that people in our profession, our chosen line of work, have watched this movie and have seen something that they believe to be of substance and of merit and of lasting value, and that's an incredibly rewarding thing – to be honored by your peers who know how hard it is to get a movie made, let alone a movie that has something to say."
Blumberg and Cholodenko toiled for years on the project, and he said that once filmed, one scene in particular blew away their expectations beyond what they'd put on the page: "The dinner scene with Annette Bening singing the Joni Mitchell song. We had an amazing time writing that scene, laughing and crying while writing it. And then when we saw it actually realized it was better than we ever hoped it could be. It was truly a fulfilling artistic experience."
And of course, he's already made a momentous decision about Oscar night: to rent or to purchase formal wear. "I splurged and I bought a tux," he admitted.


text:
This Labor Day Weekend, Fort Larned National Historic Site and Quivira National Wildlife Refuge have teamed up to celebrate Smokey the Bear's 70th birthday.
On August 9, 1944 one of America's most beloved wildfire prevention icons was born when the U.S. Forest Service and the Ad Council decided to create a fictional bear to promote their forest fire prevention efforts. Their team effort produced Smokey Bear who has been depicted in print and video over the past 70 years reminding us all that most forest fires are caused by human carelessness with his famous advice that "Only YOU can prevent forest fires."
This Labor Day Weekend, Fort Larned National Historic Site and Quivira National Wildlife Refuge have teamed up to celebrate Smokey's 70th birthday. Prints depicting Smokey Bear from past ad campaigns on loan from Quivera National Wildlife Refuge will be on display in the Fort Larned Visitor Center all of Labor Day Weekend. On Sunday, August 31st the Larned Fire Department will have fire equipment on display at the fort from 1:00 to 2:00 pm. They will also be handing out free Smokey memoriabelia. We'll have a birthday cake for Smokey and card to sign. There is even a rumor that Smokey Bear himself may make an appearance!
Schedule of events for Sunday and Monday of Labor Day weekend:
Sunday August 31
9:00 Blacksmith Program
10:00 Artillery and small arms demonstration
11:00 Fort Construction Demonstration
1:00 Larned Fire Department on site with visit from Smoky
2:00 Artillery Demonstration
3:00 Fort Construction demonstration
4:30 Flag Retreat program
Monday September 1
10:00 Blacksmith program
11:00 Fort Construction demonstration
1:00 Artillery and small arms demonstration
2:00 Ladies on Officers Row
3:00 Life in the Barracks
4:30 Flag Retreat program
Fort Larned National Historic Site is located six miles west of Larned on Kansas Highway 156. Open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., information on visiting is on the internet at www.nps.gov/fols, or by calling 620-285-6911. There is no admission fee. For information on area tourism partners and community services go to www.larnedks.org or call (620) 285-6916.


text:
Judging from his garage, Duane Schaffer likes his vintage vehicles from The Land of the Rising Sun a certain way—slightly odd and extremely low.
We'd say both his Datsun 510 station wagon—equipped with the original vinyl roof—and his airbagged Toyota truck fit this description nicely.
Schaffer and his pair of unique compacts are the subject of "Wagon Heritage", the most recent "Depth of Speed" video. We might not entirely agree with Schaffer's views on automotive aesthetics vs. performance, but it's hard to argue with results like this quirky pair of old imports.
Hat tip to Josh!
[Depth of Speed]


text:
I don't think of myself as a motivational speaker. I try to explain, and hope my commentaries provide helpful explanations. But this time, I want to challenge and motivate everyone to take strong action on the environmental catastrophe facing us.
We know burning gas, oil, coal and wood release carbon and help produce global warming. Some of that carbon acidifies the oceans when it's absorbed. Air and water contamination destroy our food supplies, by destroying habitat and causing draught, among other ways. That destroys us. Global warming and ocean acidification threaten the oxygen we breathe. They threaten to sicken us with new diseases. The science is now well known.
Law generally defines murder as an intentional killing. And we infer that people intend the natural and probable consequences of their actions. And we know. Aren't those of us who stand by guilty of mass murder-suicide, intending the natural and probable consequence of our use of carbon fuels, the death of many, perhaps billions, of human beings. Isn't it reckless indifference to human life to fire global warming into this crowded planet. Read the rest of this entry »


text:
Ever use Google Maps to plan a route to your dinner date, then end up twenty minutes late while your thinking-she's-been-stood-up date sadly twirls a swizzle stick around a vodka rocks because you left during rush hour? Oddly specific example aside, Google Maps was helpful with estimated driving times and directions but still forced us to think every once in a while.
Google Maps now takes current traffic into account.
U.S. & World
News from around the country and around the globe
According to Google's Lat Long blog, which covers Google Maps and Google Earth, "In areas where the information is available, this new and improved feature evaluates current traffic conditions and is constantly being refreshed to provide you with the most accurate, up-to-date estimate possible."
It's extremely helpful, especially if you live in a city where public transit, biking and walking are legitimate options. Figuring out the quickest route is something many of us have long hoped for.
Though the blog doesn't explain exactly how Google performs its new magic-like trick, it does state that turning on the "My Location" feature on your Android will help it gather the information needed to keep your date from swirling her swizzle stick, deciding the best way to tell you she never wants to see you again.
In other words, it's a bit more helpful than Google Maps' foray underwater into the Great Barrier Reef.
Via Google


text: Useful Visual Studio Extension - Web Essentials from Mads Kristensen November 8, '11 Comments [62] Posted in ASP.NET | Tools | VS2010 Sponsored By Visual Studio 2010 is really extensible and that's allowed many folks on the team to try out new features for Web Development without having to rebuild Visual Studio itself. One of those "playground" extensions is called "Web Essentials" by Mads Kristensen. Mads handles HTML5 and CSS3 tools for our team. You might remember Mads from when we released the Web Standards Update a few months back. Web Essentials is Mads' playground and it's pretty awesome. It's so awesome that I think you should check it out and then, *ahem*, leave a comment on this post encouraging Mads and gentle urging his boss(es) to get these features into the next version of Visual Studio. First, it adds a few nice touches to the CSS Editor in Visual Studio. As you can see below, it adds a little glyph next to each color that shows you the actual color. If you hover over the colors, you'll get a preview with more details. You'll also get font previews on mouse hover. These are just nice little touches that make you smile. They also smooth little issues with my daily workflow. After having them, I miss them when they are gone. There's also some more functional features, like embedding tiny images in your CSS files as base64. Sounds nuts, but if your small icons are so small that the HTTP Headers are larger than the image itself this can be an easy way to remove an HTTP request. Here I'm taking the tiny "Ajax Loader" PNG in my app and turning it into an inline image. So those It even has some evil little helpers help you use well-known CSS hacks to control visibility of rules. Like, if you hate yourself and use IE6. ;) You can minify just a selection of text if it makes you happy. You can drag and drop images and automatically get a background-image CSS rule, which is a HUGE time saver. Oy. All this and a bunch more little subtle stuff. The best feature and feature that should cause you to download it NOW is that you can do live CSS editing in Visual Studio with a real-time preview. Fire up a CSS file and hit Ctrl-Alt-Enter. Then click Settings and hit "Live Update CSS." Bam. As you type it'll get updated in the browser. Love this. Do you like these playgrounds? Do you want some or all of these features in Visual Studio? Sound off below. « Back to Basics: Daylight Savings Time bu... | Blog Home | Your users don't care if you use Web Soc... » About Scott Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author. About Newsletter Sponsored By Hosting By Comments [62] Share on: Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or use the Permalink


text:
Latest research
Discover which publications have used Understanding Society data by using this search facility. The research can be filtered by subject, publication type, author and year of publication.
Please let us know about your research
- Remove Housing Market filter Housing Market
- Remove Genetics filter Genetics
- Remove Melissa Smart filter Melissa Smart
- Remove Well Being filter Well Being
Systematic underestimation of the epigenetic clock and age acceleration in older subjects
Louis Y. El Khoury, Tyler Gorrie-Stone, Melissa Smart, Amanda Hughes, Yanchun Bao
Phenome-wide association analysis of LDL-cholesterol lowering genetic variants in PCSK9
Amand F. Schmidt, Michael V. Holmes, David Preiss, Daniel I. Swerdlow, Ghazaleh Fatemifar
Associations of autozygosity with a broad range of human phenotypes
David W. Clark, Yukinori Okada, Kristjan H.S. Moore, Dan Mason, Nicola Pirastu
Assessing the robustness of sisVIVE in a Mendelian randomization study to estimate the causal effect of body mass index on income using multiple SNPs from Understanding Society
Yanchun Bao, Paul Clarke, Melissa Smart, Meena Kumari
Assessing potential shared genetic aetiology between body mass index and sleep duration in 142,209 individuals
Victoria Garfield, Ghazaleh Fatemifar, Caroline Dale, Melissa Smart, Yanchun Bao
Bigmelon: tools for analysing large DNA methylation datasets
Tyler J. Gorrie-Stone, Melissa Smart, Ayden Saffari, Karim Malki, Eilis Hannon
The authors reply
Amanda Hughes, Yanchun Bao, Melissa Smart, Tyler Gorrie-Stone, Eilis Hannon
Multivariate genome-wide analyses of the well-being spectrum
Bart M. L. Baselmans, Rick Jansen, Hill F. Ip, Jenny van Dongen, Abdel Abdellaoui
Genome-wide association analyses of risk tolerance and risky behaviors in over 1 million individuals identify hundreds of loci and shared genetic influences
Richard Karlsson Linnér, Pietro Biroli, Edward Kong, S. Fleur W. Meddens, Robbee Wedow
Socioeconomic position and DNA methylation age acceleration across the lifecourse
Amanda Hughes, Melissa Smart, Tyler Gorrie-Stone, Eilis Hannon, Jonathan Mill
Leveraging DNA-methylation quantitative-trait loci to characterize the relationship between methylomic variation, gene expression, and complex traits
Eilis Hannon, Tyler J. Gorrie-Stone, Melissa Smart, Joe Burrage, Amanda Hughes
Gene discovery and polygenic prediction from a genome-wide association study of educational attainment in 1.1 million individuals
James J. Lee, Robbee Wedow, Aysu Okbay, Edward Kong, Omeed Maghzian
A comparison of robust methods for Mendelian randomization using multiple genetic variants
Yanchun Bao, Paul Clarke, Melissa Smart, Meena Kumari
Leveraging DNA methylation quantitative trait loci to characterize the relationship between methylomic variation, gene expression and complex traits
Eilis Hannon, Tyler J. Gorrie-Stone, Melissa Smart, Joe Burrage, Amanda Hughes
Gene-environment interactions between education and body mass: evidence from the UK and Finland
Vikesh Amin, Petri Böckerman, Jutta Viinikainen, Melissa Smart, Yanchun Bao
Vitamin D and cognitive function: a Mendelian randomisation study
Jane Maddock, Ang Zhou, Alana Cavadino, Elżbieta Kuźma, Yanchun Bao
Biomarker, genetics and epigenetics data
Meena Kumari, Melissa Smart, Michaela Benzeval
Genome-wide analysis of health-related biomarkers in the UK Household Longitudinal Study reveals novel associations
Bram P. Prins, Karoline B. Kuchenbaecker, Yanchun Bao, Melissa Smart, Delilah Zabaneh
Multivariate genome-wide and integrated transcriptome and epigenome-wide analyses of the well-being spectrum
Bart M. L. Baselmans, Rick Jansen, Hill Fung Ip, Jenny van Dongen, Abdel Abdellaoui


text:
Is Romney Going to Defend 'Shipping Jobs Overseas'? No Way
The lead story in today's Washington Post accuses Mitt Romney, while at Bain Capital, of investing in firms "that specialized in relocating" American jobs overseas. This gave cause to Obama political adviser David Axelrod to accuse Romney of "breathtaking hypocrisy," which prompted Roger Pilon to spell out some differences between economics and "Solyndranomics" for the administration. Roger's correct. But Romney—for running away from that record and playing to that same politically fertile economic ignorance that tempts devastating economic policies—is also worthy of his scorn. Romney should have written Roger's words.
President Obama set the tone earlier this year during his SOTU address by demonizing companies that get tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas. By "tax breaks," the president means merely that their un‐patriated profits aren't subject to double taxation. "Shipping jobs overseas" is a metaphor you'll hear more frequently in the coming months, and Romney is more likely to deny any association with it than to defend it. That's just the way he rolls.
Outsourcing has been portrayed as a betrayal of American workers by companies that only care about the bottom‐line. Well, yes, caring about the bottom line is what companies are supposed to do. Corporate officers have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to maximize profits. It is not the responsibility of corporations to tend to the national employment situation. It is, however, the responsibility of Congress and the administration to have policies in place that encourage investing and hiring or that at least don't discourage investing and hiring. But for the specific financial inducements that politicians offer firms to invest and hire in particular chosen industries—Solyndranomics—this administration (and the 110th‐112th Congresses) has produced too many reasons to forgo domestic investment. Let's not blame companies for following the incentives and disincentives created by policy.
There's also the economics. Contrary to the assertions of some anti‐trade, anti‐globalization interests, countries with low wages or lax labor and environmental standards rarely draw U.S. investment. Total production costs—from product conception to consumption—are what matter and locations with low wages or lax standards tend to be less productive and thus less appealing places to produce.
The vast majority of U.S. direct investment abroad (what the president calls "shipping jobs overseas") goes to other rich countries (European countries and Canada), where the rule of law is clear and abided, and where there is a market to serve. The primary reason for U.S. corporations establishing foreign affiliates is to serve demand in those markets—not as a platform for exporting back to the United States. In fact, according to this study by Matt Slaughter, over 93 percent of the sales of U.S. foreign affiliates are made in the host or other foreign countries. Only about 7 percent of the sales are to U.S. customers.
Furthermore, the companies that are investing abroad tend to be the same ones that are doing well and investing and hiring at home. Their operations abroad complement rather than supplant their U.S. operations.
During his unsuccessful 2004 presidential campaign, candidate John Kerry denigrated "Benedict Arnold companies" that outsourced production and service functions to places like India. Earlier this month, Senator Kerry introduced a bill in the Senate that effectively acknowledges that anti‐investment, anti‐business policies may be responsible for deterring foreign investment in the United States and for chasing some U.S. companies away. Maybe he should talk to the president—and Romney.


text:
Horrors! by Richard Osterlind - Trick
|A Stuart Robson classic...reimagined by Richard Osterlind!
One of the effects Richard and Jim chose to feature on the Practical Mental Effects DVD project was Stuart Robson's Horrors! This fine word divination effect utilizes the advantage of shock words for presentational possibilities and a tried and true method that has stood the test of time.
Richard applied his usual groundbreaking thinking to update and streamline Horrors! to make it even more workable and mystifying. The presentation on the DVD completely blew away the spectator!
But, now, there's more! When Richard decided to offer Horrors! to the fraternity, he once again applied his original thinking to both the props and routine. First, the cards are substantially larger than playing cards, approximately 4.5 by 6.5 inches, and made of heavy stock. They look special and yet will easily fit into your coat pocket. And, the envelope they are carried in is also quite special.
Second, Richard outlined his entire system for memorizing the necessary words to make the cue list unnecessary. You will have the entire system down in less than half an hour!
But then he took it even further by coming up with a revolutionary way to eliminate half the memorization! Now it is ridiculously simple! This, combined with the subtle presentation ideas, makes the effect look totally impossible. You really appear to read the mind of the spectator!
Finally, Richard came up with ways to use Horrors! for both close-up and stage. There is an idea using a blindfold and some thoughts on how you can make this so much more than a simple word divination. The innovative performer will use these ideas to create a reputation maker for his professional show!
Best of all, everything you need fits into your pocket for anytime, anywhere miracles! This is outstanding classic mentalism brought up-to-date for the 21st century!
There have been no reviews


text:
What That Mass Email Really Said
Hey everyone! I decided to send you this long, impersonal email because I am self-centered and don't think about the results of my actions! I don't realize that you would rather not hear from me at all than have proof that I don't particularly care about you. I also don't care about the thirty other people I CCed, but they sure care about me. You'll know that because they'll reply-to-all for the next three days. Yay!
I don't have time to send you an individual email, because I have been watching a LOT of VH1 lately, and VH1 is more important to me than our friendship. I say it's because things at work have been busy, but I spend most of my day in the office sending email. The rest of my day is spent complaining about people who send me form letters. Oh, the irony is delicious!
Most importantly, I'm doing way better than you. That's why I'm sending this. Were I out of work and living in my uncle's garage, I would not tell you. I'm emailing you because my job and my car and my kids and my stuff is all nicer than yours, and that you should be so happy for me that I've become better than you. I also went on a long and expensive trip recently, to a place that is better than anywhere you've ever been. Maybe if I hadn't spent two months traveling, I'd have had time to write you a personal note. Though I did manage to watch a lot of VH1 while I was there. Did you know they get VH1 in Europe?
I just got a promotion. I don't know why because (as we already discussed) I am a terrible employee. But my boss thinks I'm working all the time because I stare at my screen a lot. I stay later than him, too. I send a lot of email.
I am also in love. You know how you woke up alone this morning? I didn't! I woke up in the arms of a beautiful person that I am totally in love with. In fact, it's your ex! That's right, now she's in love with me instead of you. Don't feel bad, she never really loved you. She just said she did so she could get half your stuff. By the way, I am making great use of half your stuff. That's how come my stuff is nicer than your stuff – because your best stuff IS my stuff! Thanks!
I'd be very happy if you took the time to reply personally to this. I don't really want to hear about your life, but I do need validation. A personal reply would show me that I am important to you, but mainly that you have less of a full life than I do because you have the time to send personal emails.
P.S. If you don't want to get these letters in the future, please let me know. I'll take you off my mailing list with no questions asked, because it's hard to ask questions to a dead man you self-important jerk who thinks he's too good for me. I can't wait to take the other half of your stuff.