Do you loathe me?

Like Terry Wogan I worked in a bank for 5 years. He was in Dublin; I was in Lancaster and Preston. We both got out, so we can't be blamed for the current crisis.

Still Gordon Brown is putting people before bankers. "In short, we need stronger business banks, mortgage banks and savings banks." And there's nothing wrong with getting rid of more than 100% mortgages.

She is a woman and has to die; after all

Watching someone die

Lenrie Peters

Watching someone die
is a fraudulent experience
The deep significance is felt
the meaning escapes
like a child's first punishment.
The dying ravish your strength
whether by throttle of convulsive gasp
or tideless fading away
like ancient familiar sounds in sea shells
the moment is the same
reinforced brutality to life
a rugged cliff bloodstained
with the agonising rhythm of many heads.
A cold demise; each
successive moment a banishment.
The terror is in leaving behind
the ache is in departing.

Humming fantasies crowd their stings
to seize and record the moment
the hands curl in spasm
to hold it back; this life, this infidel.
It is too late. Everything and nothing
has happened. A huge machine
the earth, grinds to a bolt-knocking halt.

It is the changing of the tide
at the boundary hour
Life like handful of feathers
engulfed by cliff winds
one like yourself swept
Oh so swiftly into the anchorage of history
Tears and sighs; sighs and tears
stamping the leaden feet
the solid agony of years
they all abound.
One life or a million
contrived by nature or by man
greatly obscures the issue.

Face to face with dying
you are none-the-wiser
Yet it seems most ignoble epitaph
'He was a man and had to die; after all.'

Lenrie Peters was born in Bathurst (Banjul), The Gambia, in 1932. He studied medicine at Trinity College Cambridge and later trained as a surgeon. He currently practises in The Gambia. He has been Chairman of the West African Examinations Council. He has published one novel, The Second Round, and four volumes of poetry - Poems (Mbari Press, 1964), Satellites (Heinemann, 1967), Katchikali (Heinemann, 1971) and Selected Poetry (Heinemann, 1981). He is the Officer of the Republic of the Gambia.

I would like to hear David Lammy's mother's experience as a young woman in Guyana

Sad story of death of David Lammy's mother. Glad to see a politician being so willing to talk about their person forming experiences. Another example. Must be taking a leaf out of the new US president's book.

What does Jeremy know about Gordon?

BBC World wide is the commercial arm of the BBC, which makes Top Gear, whose presenter, Jeremy Clarkson has called Gordon Brown a "one-eyed Scottish idiot". How much does the BBC pay for the programme? What nothing from the mole inside the TV show? Not much of a mole.

Clinicians and finance

There is evidence that disengagement can have a detrimental effect on NHS organisations. Statement from Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, Audit Commission, DH, Royal College of Nursing, NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, and the Healthcare Financial Management Association. They say "Clinicians should be encouraged to take financial responsibility for their service with the freedom to make changes and use the funds available to improve services". Are we going full circle to consensus management and medical superintendant?

Summary of a Prescription for Partnership. "Clinical engagement depends on effective communication and good working relationships." As I said in relation to the Ian Kennedy interview "[C]reating a manageralism that fails to provide the organisational infrastructure to support doctors in the exercise of their responsibilities is not the way forward." Eminent bodies seem to be agreeing with me.

BMJ publishes five commentaries on Doctors, patients and the drug industry

Origins of the present mass protest

Good description by Andrew Rawnsley of the fear, resentment and anger.

Fear for your job if you still have one and fear that you may not see work again if you are already unemployed.

Resentment that the agony is not being evenly shared and that some will profit from the miseries of others.

Anger with the unapologetic financiers who made billions from their follies and left less affluent folk to pick up the bill.

If Henry Porter was 20 years younger he would take to the streets.