Ertblog

I love my Garmin Edge 800

I had a wonderful Christmas surprise: a Garmin Edge 800 GPS device for my bike. Karen has always been very generous! It's been a revelation. 

Years ago, I couldn't see the point of satnav for cyclists. But I realised I was wrong late last year. The Garmin is so much more than a navigation device. It captures an enormous amount of information about your ride, from the usual bike info (speed, average speed, time spent), to heart rate info (heart rate, average heart rate, time in various heart zones) and plots all this and more online so you can share your ride - and download details of other people's routes. Even more fun, you can race against your earlier rides - and your target performance. 

This screenshot shows details of my ride today, uploaded to Garmin Connect. You'll gather that I set no speed records, although I knocked a modest four minutes of the time I took to ride the route on 28 December - my first Garmin ride. (Not as impressive as the four hours I cut from my Bucks century time in summer 2005!) I wish I'd had this remarkable gadget on my Land's End to John O'Groats ride in 2002...

The Garmin has given a real spur to my new year resolution to get back to cycling. And to lose a few pounds!

Owen: an NHS birthday baby

Sorry for being so slow in following up on my post about Owen's arrival. As you'd expect, we've had a hectic - but wonderful - time over the past 27 days!

By coincidence, Owen was born on the day Britain marked the 60th birthday of the National Health Service, in an NHS hospital. The NHS doesn't always get the credit it deserves - the media and opportunist opposition politicians are all too quick to condemn. Yet our experience during Karen's pregnancy and Owen's birth made us very grateful for the service - and rather proud of it. I wrote in praise of our doctor's surgery on this blog in January; our experience in Wexham Park hospital when Owen arrived was equally praiseworthy. (As the new dad, I was very grateful to the midwifes who brought us several helpings of tea and toast for free!)

What makes the NHS so admirable is that we'd have had the same marvellous care regardless of how much or how little we earned. True, there are still variations in the standard of NHS care across the UK, but the spirit of Aneurin Bevan's creation lives on after 60 years.

Wales abolishes rip off hospital parking charges

I wrote briefly in January about the scandal of hospital car park charges. (I had been insensed to discover that Wexham Park hospital in Berkshire charges £1 an hour, even in the middle of the night.) An absolute rip off.So I was pleased to hear that the Welsh Assembly Government is to abolish car parking charges at Welsh hospitals by 2011.

The BBC reports that the UK health minister, Ben Bradshaw, has criticised the Welsh government's move, adding that the UK Department of Transport argued the decision went against the British government's climate change strategy. What arrogant nonsense! They'll be insisting that pregnant women walk to hospital next...

There's an argument to be made that Wales's free parking initiative will use money that could have been spent on patient care. But the UK government's heavy handed response showed that ministers in London don't understand the anger prompted by rip off hospital parking charges. Something they should remember next time they criticise gas and electricity companies for their prices.

In praise of the National Health Service

Britain's National Health Service is an easy target for critics.

The sheer scale of the service - a universal health service for a country of 60 million - invites sharp opinions.

So it was no surprise when the BBC's online Have Your Say column was deluged by a seas of ranters condemning the NHS as incompetent, inefficient and uncaring. Ironically, the column was prompted by Gill Morgan, chair of the NHS Confederation, who suggested that devolution has meant Britain now has four separate national health services. Having worked for the Confederation in Wales, I know that few organisations have a greater empathy for the service.

Karen and I have experienced the NHS at its best over the last few months. We're expecting our first baby in July and Karen hasn't had the easiest of pregnancies. Our GP, Dr Taylor in Chalfont St Giles surgery, is my idea of a perfect GP: caring and sensitive. We've been able to get appointments at a couple of hours' notice, which has made our lives so much easier On New Year's Day, Karen's morning sickness was getting dramatically worse and we got an appointment with the out of hours GP in Amersham.

He recommended that we go to our local hospital at Wexham Park, near Slough. The triage nurse saw Karen quickly and was lovely. (Despite suffering a very busy 24 hours caring for people who had drunk far too much on New Year's Eve.)

Karen spent two nights at Wexham, and was full of praise for the care she had received. That care was given regardless of income or health history. Yes, we had funded the service through our taxes. But we would have received the same care even if we'd paid little in tax had we been on low incomes. The NHS isn't perfect, but it's nice to know that fellow Welshman Aneurin Bevan's creation is still doing good 60 years on.

PS: just one loud complaint. The cost of car parking at NHS hospitals is a scandal: £1 an hour regardless of the time of day or night.

Can childhood be risk-free? Tim Gill provides the voice of reason

There's a terrific article in The Guardian's family section today. It's an interview with Tim Gill, who "wants to free children from a zero-risk culture that overprotects and infantalises them at just the time they should be tasting freedom and taking responsibility".

Gill has written a book, No fear: Growing up in a risk-averse society, published by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

He argues convincingly that children growing up today are no more at risk from adults than his - my - generation was in the Sixties and Seventies. The chances of a child being abducted remain vanishingly small. Yet the media hysteria over tragic cases like Madeleine McCann encourages parents to treat their offspring with extreme care - which can actually do more harm than good. He cites the case of Abigail Rae, a toddler who wandered out of her nursery and drowned in a nearby pond. A male passer-by told the inquest that he had seen her and been concerned. But he did nothing, because he was afraid of looking as if he was abducting her.

Gill is a member of CTC, the UK's national cyclists' organisation. CTC has long campaigned against a classic example of misguided risk prevention: the attempt to make it compulsory for cyclists, especially children, to wear helmets. Despite soaring levels of child obesity, recent years have seen a number of MPs launching private members' bills attempting to force children or adults to wear helmets for cycling. The latest example was by Conservative MP Peter Bone. (So much for the idea that the Tory party opposes the Nanny state.) Can you imagine toddlers being arrested for leaving their helmets on the front lawn? That's the level of stupidity involved in this attempt to banish risk from young lives. And who has any evidence that cycling is more dangerous than climbing a tree or running downstairs? Surely we should all be forced to dress in full body armour at all times for fear of ... life.

Tim Gill is right. There's no such thing as a risk-free life. (Even if there were, it would be too miserable to contemplate.) Forcing every child to wear a helmet simply sends the message that cycling is dangerous. It isn't. Yes, there are risks, but they are far fewer than allowing youngsters to balloon in weight. CTC's website suggests that children are more likely to suffer a head injury on foot than while cycling. So why isn't Peter Bone MP calling for children to be forced to wear helmets while out walking? Just as alarming, cycle usage has fallen dramatically (between 25% and 40%) in countries that have introduced compulsion. Exactly the wrong thing to do if we're to tackle obesity and reliance on cars for personal transport.

All this simply shows that we've lost the ability to judge risk. Campaigners for cycle helmets always cite cases where a helmet has prevented serious injury. Similarly, parents will point to cases such as Madeleine McCann as justification for never letting their children out of their sight. It's understandable: fear is a powerful force, and can easily overcome rational judgement. When I was 11, I regularly cycled around Cardiff, visiting my aunt and uncle or escaping into the countryside. (Alone or with a friend - no helmets in sight!) Small chance of that happening now. Instead, we'd get a lift in a car. Ah, but there are far more cars around than in 1974, cry the risk-warriors. True, but a car is a car, and if you're afraid of 100 cars you'll be afraid of one. I had learned to watch out for careless drivers. Best of all, I discovered the pleasure of getting exercise in fresh air - helping shed the excess pounds I was starting to put on.

Tim Gill is unlikely to reverse false fears overnight. But he is a voice of sanity in a world where reason is in short supply.

Out of the Psychiatrist's Chair: farewell to Anthony Clare

Professor Anthony Clare, who has died at 64, was one of the great voices of modern British radio. (See The Times' obituary.) His series, In the Psychiatrist's chair, which ran for nine years from 1982 was an unexpected hit. Its success owed everything to Clare's sensitive questioning of figures as diverse as Tony Benn, Bob Monkhouse and Tom Sharpe. Clare's peers mocked Clare as the pop psychiatrist, but lay listeners found the series surprisingly compelling.

He gently asked Raynor about her unhappy childhood, asking whether she had reflected and analysed its impact on her adult life. Similarly, Spike Milligan spoke movingly about the depression that blighted his life, while Peter Hall explained how insecurity drove him to work all hours - with the inevitable unhappy impact on his personal life. In many ways, In the Psychiatrist's Chair blazed a trail for Britain's celebrity culture, with Clare's pursuit of the inner demons of the rich and famous. But his insights were far more sophisticated than anything resulting from Big Brother Britain.

I've written before on this blog about the power of radio. In the Psychiatrist's Chair worked brilliantly as a radio programme: the intimacy of the medium was part of its appeal. It was no surprise that an attempt at a television version, Motives, fell flat.

I still have the BBC audio tape of Clare's interviews with Raynor, Benn, Milligan and Hall. (Benn was the least revealing; small wonder that Clare avoided politicians as subjects.) I often wondered why the corporation didn't make more of the series available. With luck, they'll do so now to mark the passing of a radio legend.

The doctor will see you now...

The Times' columnist Dr Copperfield today provides an insight into why the Government's trumpeted drive to extend GP surgery weekday opening hours and by-pass surgery reception staff is misconceived.

The Essex GP explains how the pressure to cut waiting times has led to the bizarre side-effect that it's hard to book a GP appointment more than two days in advance, as this would look as if the patient was being kept waiting too long. He sings the praise of surgery receptionists, who get round the system and add the human touch vital to any service, such as making sure a nervous 16 year old whose period is late isn't sent to see the doctor who's a lay preacher.

My mother would approve: she was a receptionist at Llanedeyrn health centre in Cardiff for many years.

Dr Copperfield brands NHS Direct TV as a kind of Rutland Weekend Television run by nurses. For anyone under 40, RWT was Eric Idle's first creation after the demise of Monty Python's Flying Circus.   

It's official: Chester is now in Wales

Chester has long had a close relationship with Wales. But it now appears to be part of Wales, not England.

Wales introduced a ban on smoking in public places last Monday. And it is in force at Chester railway station, months before England's ban comes in, as signs in English and Welsh explain. Looks as if we Welsh are getting revenge for Edward I...

Beat the Blue Monday blues

Feeling a bit down this morning? You're not alone. According to The Samaritans today is Blue Monday: the most depressing day of the year. Festive fun is just a distant memory and spring seems an age away. No wonder it's such a struggle keeping smiling through January.

This website gives some practical advice about how to beat the blues. Worth taking a look.

Smoking: the European disease?

The news that Wales is to ban smoking in enclosed public places from 2 April 2007 came in stark contrast to our experience on holiday in Belgium, Germany and the Czech Republic last week. Smoking seems almost universal on the continent, even in restaurants.

We checked out of the charming Clarenhof hotel in Nieuwpoort, Belgium, in a cloud of tobacco smoke as the young receptionist had a lit  cigarette next to her. Even more of a shock, we found boxes of fags towering over the checkouts at the Penny Markt supermarket in Germany.

The experience brought home how much Irish and British attitudes to smoking have changed. Smokers here may complain about being persecuted, but the wave of smoking bans across Ireland and Britain have been relatively uncontroversial, certainly compared with the debate about fox hunting.