Victor Meldrew

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.

There are currently similar 'wild' fires on several islands in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. The Scottish Fire & Rescue Service said: "The fires had broken out in vegetation that had died off since last year and then been dried out by frost and low temperatures. The fire service said the smallest spark could start a major blaze and that places across coastal and island areas of western Scotland were at risk of similar blazes. The "extreme" warning remains in place until Friday and covers the Highlands, Western Isles, Argyll and Bute, Ayrshire and Dumfries and Galloway."

As far as I can see they don't publish an email address anymore. But there are online forms such as the complaint one I'm using and the ones within your tax account.

PAYE. I have several complaints actually but the most unbelievable one is the amount they said I owed them back in 2018. I paid said amount over the phone with a debit card and printed off the receipt. They then chased me for this same amount 3 months later. I spent ages getting through on the phone and then getting the assistant to trace my payment, which she did. Now 3 years later they're after it again!

Has anyone here ever used the HMRC complaints procedure, and if so how was it handled? I'm about to start one but I won't bother if everyone says it's not worth it. Thanks.

Hopefully in future years there'll be less need for biopsies as there are more multi-parametric MRI (mpMRI) facilities available. Often the images available from this technique make a biopsy unnecessary. Also there's a new drug on the way, called Olaparib, for treating advanced prostate cancer. I recently read an interesting article about the Chinese chef Ken Hom (now 71). He was diagnosed with prostate cancer several years ago but avoided surgery by having several sessions of proton beam therapy. He's now cured of the cancer. Doubt if this is available through the NHS though but it might be available if you go private. Read all this stuff in the magazine issued by Prostate Cancer UK. They send me a copy every few months cos' I've named them in my will. My dad had this cancer for years, although not the aggressive kind, before Alzheimers eventually took him. His was kept in check using Zoladex - made by AstraZeneca who he used to work for (and so did I).

Sowed mine yesterday. Bit early maybe but I just couldn't wait to get something growing. Bottom heat usually works so I stand the tray on the lid of my tropical fish tank.

Sorry, it was on BBC2 at 9pm and was titled "54 Days: America And The Pandemic"

Just watched a documentary showing the timeline of events for the initial outbreak in the US. It focussed on (often emotional) testimony by various scientists in the Centres for Disease Control & Prevention and health commissioners in the various states & cities, some of whom are no longer in office. What it illustrated was just how slow the political leaders were to act, in the face of overwhelming evidence. Much of it with the benefit of hindsight of course. But most would agree that the big tipping point in the US was the Mardi Gras celebration which was allowed to go ahead. Quite riveting and very well produced. Well worth watching if you can get it on catch-up. Hopefully there'll be a similar documentary covering the UK story someday.

Wouldn't it be rather dangerous giving someone a placebo and then exposing them to Covid unless you had a fool-proof treatment for it?