Victor Meldrew

Thankyou for this. The highlights on Quest will be the first time I've ever seen any coverage of the Giro on Freeview. ITV4 have never been able to get it for some reason even though they cover the other major tours and some of the classics.

I just wish we could have faith in these tests. The lateral flow test is notoriously unreliable and if you'd seen the documentary about the corner-cutting and shoddy non-aseptic procedures in certain PCR test laboratories you'd certainly never trust the results. My sister is a primary school teacher in Hillsboro and has had to put up with constant class closures and isolations for months. When her own teenage son tested 'positive' just before Christmas the whole household had to isolate for a week and put their plans on hold. Their house is tiny and not suitable for individual isolation and yet none of the four occupants had any symptoms either during this period or after.

Indeed. I heard it mentioned on the radio that a key fatty acid component of the Pfizer vaccine is sourced from a company in Yorkshire.

From personal experience of care home staff, most tend to be quite young females. I saw one girl interviewed yesterday saying that she's hoping to start a family soon and she's as yet not convinced the potential effects on fertility & pregnancy have been thoroughly evaluated.

Interesting though that the CEO of AZ is French (Pascal Soriot)

The remains of a cannabis factory was dragged out of the River Porter in the Mayfield Valley by volunteers earlier in the week and later removed by SCC.

It's interesting that the leaflet I was given with my AZ jab says the manufacturer is Medimmune UK Ltd in Liverpool. But then it also says it is "produced in genetically modified human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 cells" so maybe that's the bit that's done in India before final formulation back in Liverpool.

From what I've seen each vial of vaccine is enough for several doses. These are drawn up into syringes in advance and laid out in a tray awaiting each appointment. If some are left over at the end of the day then yes they could be chucked.

Me too. I was one of those students selling the mag. I think it was called 'Twicker' though.

Just to be clear, the hospital in question was Macclesfield District General. I feel sure he'd have received far better treatment if he'd been a Sheffield resident.

Yes Covid in the end I believe.

In the case of Tony my next door neighbour yes. He died a week ago and I still can't quite believe it. He was a very fit 68 year-old who went to the gym every week and out cycling every few days. He suddenly developed a digestive problem that needed treatment just before Xmas. He was admitted to hospital where his problem was misdiagnosed and he received insufficient surgical treatment such that an internal infection took hold. He was tested several times for Covid before & after admission and was negative each time but then all the patients in his GI ward suddenly tested positive after one of the patients who had been discharged tested positive at home. Tony was then sent to Manchester Royal for more appropriate GI treatment (despite his positive test) where they found out his gall bladder had burst. They then sent him home to get his strength back ready for a further operation. His wife (Covid negative) had to go and get him in the car the day before she was due her first vaccination jab. You really couldn't write the script! He lasted 2 weeks at home before being taken back into hospital as an emergency. A week later he was gone.

Yes I meant their R&D operation, although many head office staff from London also went there as it's now the UK HQ. There are now very few AZ employees at Alderley Park. It has become a popular new life-science hub but now populated by several other firms who rent laboratory & office space. Part of the site (which used to be a stately home before ICI bought it) has now been developed into posh housing! Macclesfield is a production site so it wouldn't have made any sense to relocate this to Cambridge.

Amazing how AstraZeneca are on the tip of everyone's tongue nowadays after being virtually unheard of for many years. I worked for them all my working life, although they started out as ICI Pharmaceuticals before divesting from ICI and renaming as Zeneca, and then later merging with Swedish firm Astra. When I worked for them their share price virtually never got over £30 but is currently at £74 - although I try not to take that personally. It even got over £90 late last year! Nobody ever seems to have a good word to say about pharmaceutical companies until they see how utterly reliant we are on their efforts. All people tend to see is just how much they charge for some of their drugs. What they don't see is how much the best scientists cost to employ and retain or how much money is invested in the discovery, development, registration and clinical trial of a product before the relatively tiny window of opportunity opens up to profit from it's sale before the patent runs out and the generic copyists take over. This doesn't of course apply to their current efforts for Covid but it'll do them no harm in the long-run, maybe even re-focus their future portfolio. The irony for employees (and pensioners) of AZ is that they upped sticks from Cheshire and relocated to Cambridge to be part of a 'life-science' hub working closely with Cambridge Uni. And then they end up in partnership with Oxford Uni for the Covid vaccine!

Chick Corea, one of the most influential contemporary jazz pianists, has died aged 79 of a rare cancer. For me his ground-breaking fusion work with the group Return To Forever has shaped my discerning musical tastes since mid teens. I still consider their 1976 album 'Romantic Warrior' as the finest ever made, certainly the most played of my collection.