Saturday, October 30, 2010

This week's compendium

Here’s this week’s compendium. This week…

1. tennis player Lleyton Hewitt and his wife charged fans A$2 for the wondrous privilege of finding out the name of their newborn child [1a]. Is there no limit to the greed and bad taste of so-called celebrities. Anyway it’s Ava [1b]. Big whoopee.

2. the Corruption Perceptions Index 2010 was announced [2a]. Canada’s 6th best, Australia 8th, UK 20th, USA 22nd. [2b]. Israel’s 30th and Iran 146th. Ho hum.

3. consumer magazine Choice announced its 2010 Shonky Awards – for the shonkiest products and services [3a, 3b]. Ho hum again.

4. Mohammed (spelt various ways) was the most popular name for newborn boys in England and Wales in 2009 [4]. This ended Jack’s 14 years as number one.

5. austerity measures were announced for the 2011 Australian F1 Grand Prix [5]. The best one of all would be to cancel the bloody thing.

6. low-dose aspirin was confirmed to help prevent bowel cancer [6a]. Lifestyle choices are effective too [6b].

7. and heavy smoking was shown to double the risk of various types of dementia [7]. Is there no limit to the downsides of smoking.

8. Sweetheart Vivienne participated in the Melbourne Jewish Book Festival [8a, 8b]. Apparently she aced it. I wish I was there.

Finally, I wish you, dear Farmdoc’s Blog readers, a wonderful week.

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