Something really nasty has been going around town this February. People are dropping like flies with the flu. Or, as some suggest, it could be a new strain of respiratory infection, possibly a mutant Covid spin-off. Whatever it is, it arrived in the Collins household. I am rarely bedridden – but I was wiped out for three days. Lara got it even worse and has been out of action for eight days now – she even had to go to…
Read more
This is quite shocking… But there are 10 million people in this country who can no longer get free earwax removal from the NHS. This is, according to the RNID, a hearing loss charity. They complain that free earwax removal services have been withdrawn across England since 2019. So now people have to pay… And with the cost of living so high, many of those people can’t go for private treatment. Instead, they are turning to what the RNID called…
Read more
When I was a young man, fresh out of University, I had to look for a proper job. I got one quite quickly… So I bought some smart clothes and turned up at the office on a Monday morning after a heavy weekend of rugby and pints with the lads. By lunchtime I was knackered… By teatime I thought I was going to faint… As I crashed on to the sofa in my cramped little flat that night, totally…
Read more
I have become aware of a strange phenomenon of ageing – I fall asleep readily in front of the TV. Over the last few years it has started to become embarrassing, not least because I used to tell my own parents off for doing the same thing. Just the other night I was avidly watching a Netflix film. …and next thing I know I am waking up, the film has finished and Lara is on her way to bed with…
Read more
This week, arctic weather hit Britain hard. Hopefully it wasn’t too disruptive where you are. I was too far south for snow to settle, so I couldn’t rediscover my childhood joys of throwing snowballs and building snowmen. Instead… It was ME who looked like a snowman. I was in my study at the back of our house, standing at my desk (keen readers will recall that I mostly now STAND to write in order to avoid backpain!) And, as well…
Read more
Are you sitting comfortably as you read this? If so… it might be worth standing up. Because there is some startling new evidence that doing so could quickly improve your heart. Certainly, if you regularly swap out sitting with standing, walking, or even SLEEPING you could enjoy better cardiovascular health. That’s the conclusion of a study published last month in the European Heart Journal. Researchers looked at data from six studies, numbering 15,246 people from five countries, to see how…
Read more