You've Never Walked Alone

There's not really much going on just now but I thought I'd talk about the BBC programme Horizon from Monday night. It's almost always a great show and this was no different. It was on the topic of what are referred to in the popular press as 'superbugs'. I've never liked that title as they're just normal bacteria, evolving in a perfectly normal way to survive certain conditions imposed on them. That's just me being pedantic though. The reason I bring this up is that they are the things that really terrify me. They are bacterial infections that don't respond to commonly used antibiotics and so can kill people easily in an outbreak. Of course everyone can catch these infections but what usually happens is that people catch these resistant infections when they are in hospital for something else. I've got a greater chance of getting an infection that would require a stay in hospital so I, theoretically at least, have a greater chance of exposure to a drug resistant strain. Now I haven't been hospitalised for an infection for three years now so it's not that big a deal but this Horizon programme brought it into sharp focus just what a reality it is that we have misused the antibiotics we do have at our disposal. People demanding them from GP's, or in some countries just being able to buy them over the counter, for things that they have no efficacy for is a big issue but the widespread use of them in the food industry to allow animals to live in very close quarters to each other without infection spreading is also a massive issue.

The only other thing that's going on just now is that I've become a neurotic mess. Where I told you previously being put on to the active transplant list had given me a solace after years of fretting as to whether I would even be allowed on the list, I have now graduated to jumping every single time either the house phone or my mobile phone rings, wondering whether that's the call that will send me down for the transplant. I'm sure I will calm down over these next few weeks and that it will be when I am least expecting it that the call actually comes.

I've been deeply affected today by the news of the independent panel's findings on Hillsborough. I watched it all pan out on live television at the time and went to the tribute game that Celtic played against Liverpool a few weeks after it and stood with my family, arms interlocked with fans who had travelled up to Glasgow for the day all crying our eyes out. I was living in Liverpool when the 20th anniversary of the event came around and because I lived just round the corner from Anfield I walked up to the stadium and found myself amongst a massive number of fans of many clubs (and none) and found myself chatting to strangers from all over the country who felt they 'just had to be there'. Again there were streams of tears. The scenes in the front of St George's Hall in Liverpool today just set me going again. Now these people who have waited for 23 years for justice have a little consolation that their truth has finally come out. I have a tattoo on my wrist that says Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, which roughly translates as Who Watches the Watchmen? It is entirely appropriate to consider that very question today when our police force will fabricate stories to cover their own backs and nearly get away with it. The answer to that age old question is that it is up to us to keep the 'Watchmen' honest and if it weren't for the tenacity of the families of the deceased they might well have got away with it too. Now that the independent panel has ruled that the police and emergency services not only failed in their jobs but tried to cover up their failings, the findings of the previous inquest have to be readdressed. It is the very least the people deserve.