A frozen chicken in the spin drier

I worry that any transgression against modern society's rules demands a fine...we're all used to picking up a parking fine, we get fined for not filling our bins properly, we can get fined for being drunk and disorderly.  Do it wrong and you'll be hit in the wallet.  In many cases this seems appropriate...or perhaps the least inappropriate punishment that can be given.  But I was concerned to read that Brighton Hospital Trust is being fined for data rules breaches.  You can read the full story here.  What worries me most is that, the NHS is permanently short of cash, and all this fine does is make an under-budgeted hospital that little bit poorer.  The only people who will suffer will be patients and staff.  That's not to say it wasn't a breach of the law and a punishment should be meted out, but it feels entirely wrong that a fine is imposed.  Hanging, flogging, quartering may not be the way to go...but perhaps suspending the Chief Executive would send out the right message...I'm open to suggestions.

On Friday we went out with my two friends. They're not my only friends, but they're amongst my longest standing.  By comparison The Cat's Mother has met them only a handful of times.  And it dawned on me that usually it's the other way round...we're often out with her friends, people I've met only a few times.  What it made me realise is how different the dynamic is...when you have known people for ever and a day, you have shared memories and emotions that the 'newbie' cannot be aware of.  So it was good for us to be finding out things new things that evening.

It turns out that when he was a wee lad of 13, young CD had a part in Raul Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected...a Saturday night favourite.  Not only that it was an episode featuring the gorgeous Joan Collins and the god that was John Gielgud.  Not bad for your debut.

On the left is CD, then the great JG, and poor JC with her head stuck in the sculpture



And how did they meet?  At a party he chatted her up with the line "Do you know what happens when you put a frozen chicken in a spin drier." Evidently he and his flatmates had tried it the previous week.  As a chat up line it apparently worked very well.