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18 Nisan 2017 Salı

Poppy Jaman: ‘I think there’s a wave of change coming in mental health’

Poppy Jaman, chief executive of the not-for-profit Mental Health First Aid England (MHFAE), believes Theresa May meant business when she pledged in January to make mental health a priority. Despite ministers being accused of breaking their promises after £800m in cash earmarked for mental health was last month redirected to offsetting wider NHS budget problems, Jaman argues that the government will come good.


“I think this government has already set a precedent for change, with two consecutive prime ministers making commitments to improve the outlook for those with mental health issues and attending to the prevention agenda,” says Jaman, referring to NHS England’s Mental Health Taskforce national strategy published in 2016. “I think it’s massively a great step that the current PM has made a public commitment to mental health.”


MHFAE runs training courses in how to identify the warning signs of mental ill health in others and help steer them towards appropriate support. Jaman has headed the social enterprise for almost 10 years, since it evolved from a government initiative within the Department of Health. She says she’s “feeling confident” the Conservatives recognise the significant toll mental health problems can take on individuals and wider society. By way of illustration she points to the imminent roll-out for secondary school staff of a government-funded schools training course delivered by MHFAE to address mental health issues among young people. The goal is to have “mental health first aiders” in place who can help to identify pupils with mental health challenges, ideally before they reach a crisis point. The programme aims to train staff in more than 1,000 schools by 2020.


Evidence over the past decade from MHFAE’s training to more than 150,000 individuals – such as NHS staff, charity workers and employees at large corporations including Unilever and WH Smith – shows it can contribute to the broader “public health prevention” and wellbeing agenda, says Jaman, by “giving people the tools” to recognise signs of mental difficulty.




The jobcentre service needs staff who understand mental health so people get the right support


Poppy Jaman


The mental heath first aid approach is ostensibly an adjunct to standard first aid and Jaman has been campaigning to put the two on a par. This includes supporting a push to amend regulations around first aid within the Health and Work Act, so that all organisations are required to have mental health first aiders in place, and an obligation to deliver mental as well as physical first aid. An early day motion last year calling for such a transformation was backed by about 500 MPs, including Norman Lamb and Frank Field. Implementing it would be “a big leap for equality” and parity of esteem between mental and physical health, Jaman argues.


“I truly believe that making this legislative change would have a big positive impact because it would shift the dial on how employers have to think about the mental and physical health needs of their workforce.”


A third-generation British Bangladeshi, Jaman, 40, says her early grassroots professional work, coupled with having experience of depression as a young woman, helped her to develop an understanding of the challenges facing people with mental health problems, especially among diverse groups. And having grown up in a deprived ward in Portsmouth and left school at 16 (she later got an MBA), she says she is cognisant of how poverty and racial inequalities affect mental wellbeing and access to care. “There is a plethora of data on health outcomes, job outcomes and opportunities for the black and minority ethnic community and when you overlay that with the prevalence of mental ill health and outcomes, the odds are stacked against them.”


Prince William and Lady Gaga discuss mental health for Heads Together – video

So it’s no surprise that Jaman does not underestimate the significant impact of current government policies such as sanctions and fitness-for-work tests for people living with mental health problems. One area in which she is anxious to see improvements is help for people who are unemployed, many of whom have a mental health diagnosis.


She refers to a recent public call by an alliance of mental health professional organisations including the British Psychological Society for a suspension of the government’s sanctions programme because of its negative impact on mental wellbeing and for statutory support for creating psychologically healthy workplaces.


The same group also recommended increased mental health awareness training for jobcentre staff, which Jaman agrees is necessary. “It [the jobcentre] service needs people who understand mental health so that people are getting the right support,” she says. Asked how this is conceivable in a jobseekers system that advocates have repeatedly argued is hostile to mentally vulnerable people, she responds that change needs to come from “the leadership” at the Department for Work and Pensions. “I think there is a wave of change coming around this,” she insists.


When it comes to nudging the government in the right direction, Jaman is clearly a pragmatist. It is important to challenge government policies “where we don’t think things are right”, she argues, but ultimately, “for me it’s about ‘let’s work with whoever we need to work with’.”



Poppy Jaman: ‘I think there’s a wave of change coming in mental health’

19 Aralık 2016 Pazartesi

Texas measure requiring burial of fetal remains may herald wave of similar laws

A controversial new rule requiring Texas abortion clinics to bury or cremate fetal tissue won’t go into effect Monday as planned, after a judge temporarily blocked the rule Thursday.


But abortion advocates warn the lawsuit has teed up a battle that could open up a brand-new front in the abortion wars.


“This is Texas once again trying to decrease women’s access to abortion care,” said Vicki Saporta, the president of the National Abortion Federation, a member organization for independent abortion clinics. “And Texas, in recent memory, has been leading the way on anti-abortion restrictions.” She predicted that a wave of states with anti-abortion legislatures would soon follow suit. “They don’t do anything one at a time.”


The rules, which Texas’ health department quietly introduced this summer, require healthcare facilities to dispose of fetal remains from abortions and miscarriages through burial or cremation, with the only exceptions for miscarriages and abortions that take place in the home.


Whole Woman’s Health, a group of abortion clinics with several locations in Texas, filed suit, claiming the logistics of following the new rules could force clinics to close or drive up the cost of the procedure.


“It imposes a funeral ritual on women,” the suit claims. “It also forces healthcare providers to work with an extremely limited number of third-party vendors for burial or scattering ashes, threatening abortion clinics’ provision of care and their long-term ability to remain open.”


The rule was slated to take effect on 19 December. But on Thursday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the rule until a hearing on the Whole Woman’s Health lawsuit could be held in January.


Texas is not the first state to pass requirements for how abortion clinics deal with fetal remains. But because the state often sets the agenda for others seeking to curtail abortion rights, its court fight could signal that a wave of similar laws is coming.


Louisiana passed a similar measure which has been blocked pending the outcome of a lawsuit. And in March of this year, Indiana governor Mike Pence, the vice-president elect, signed a bill requiring individual women to seek funerary services for fetal tissue – regardless of whether they have had a miscarriage or an abortion. A federal judge blocked that law from taking effect.


Clinics typically dispose of the contents of a pregnancy through medical waste companies. The new rules, say Texas abortion providers, would force clinics to do business with funeral homes and pass on steep costs to abortion patients. According to one estimate, the rules would double the cost of the procedure.


“For women who are already struggling to pay, it could be a barrier and a burden that they can’t overcome,” said Saporta.


Saporta also pointed out that funeral homes would have the power to prevent abortion clinics from offering the procedure by refusing to handle their fetal tissue.


Anti-abortion protesters have been known to harass companies that do business with clinics as a way to interrupt the clinics’ operations. As a consequence, many companies are reluctant to work with abortion clinics.


The recent wave of proposals to regulate clinics’ medical waste may have been touched off by Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion group that provides lawmakers around the country with legal advice and model legislation.


In 2015, it introduced a new model bill called the Unborn Infants Protection Act, requiring all fetal tissue from abortions to be buried or cremated. Under the bill, either the woman must make the arrangements herself, or she or an “authorized representative” must decide which method the clinics use. It prohibits the donation of the tissue to medical research – an endeavor that has produced vaccines for deadly viruses such as polio.


“The momentum for creating a culture that respects life in the law increases each year,” Charmaine Yoest, the group’s president, said in a statement accompanying the draft legislation. The bill, she said, “ensures that mothers are given the opportunity to ensure that their deceased infants receive respectful treatment, and that the bodies of aborted infants are not exploited”.


AUL circulated the draft bill to state legislators late last year. At the time, many anti-abortion lawmakers were seeking to build on the outrage over a series of sting videos that falsely accused Planned Parenthood officials of illegally selling fetal tissue from abortions for profit.


One state where legislators seem to have embraced the model is Ohio. Following on the heels of the sting videos, the state’s attorney general accused Planned Parenthood of disposing of fetal remains in a general landfill – a charge Planned Parenthood denied.


Lawmakers responded by introducing a bill that


requires women who have had an abortion or a miscarriage to decide whether the clinic or hospital uses cremation or burial to dispose of the remains. “The idea of respectfully treating the remains of an infant who has been aborted, I think, is critical,” said one of the bill’s sponsors. So far, it has failed to pass the legislature.


Bills such as these may be an attempt to exploit uneasy feelings about fetal tissue. Even Planned Parenthood, in the wake of the sting videos, acknowledged that the topic was an emotional one. While denying that Planned Parenthood broke the law, Cecile Richards, the group’s president, apologized for the clinical tone used by Planned Parenthood officials when discussing fetal remains.


Saporta acknowledged that some women might find it helpful to have the remains buried or cremated. But forcing a woman to deal with funerary options, she said, is cruel. “This doesn’t take into account women’s preferences, their wishes, their religious beliefs – it tramples on all of that,” she said.


Speaking to the Guardian earlier this year, other skeptics of the model legislation warned of its potential adverse impact.


“They intend to demean and shame a woman needing abortion,” said Kelly Baden, the policy director of the the Center for Reproductive Rights.


Elizabeth Nash, who tracks state restrictions on abortion for the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights thinktank, said: “The language being used is all about trying to elevate the status of the fetus while questioning the women’s decision-making. It seems to me that the purpose of this legislation is to make accessing services as unpleasant as possible.”


What stands out to critics about Texas’ rule is its timing. The Texas health commission proposed the rule on 1 July, just days after the US supreme court struck down a health restriction that would have shuttered half of the state’s abortion clinics.


“They didn’t like the fact that they lost, and now they’re looking for new ways to limit women’s access to abortion care,” said Saporta.


In a fundraising email, Greg Abbott, Texas’ Republican governor, said the rules would “help make Texas the strongest pro-life state in the nation”.


Texas says its critics are blowing the impact of the rules out of proportion. The annual cost to each clinic probably won’t exceed $ 500, the state claims, because it will be offset by a reduction in medical waste disposal costs.


But a spokesperson for the Texas Funeral Directors Association said each burial could cost clinics and hospitals more than $ 1,000. (The way the rule is written, some believe that even remains that are cremated would have to then be interred.) He also worried that the rules could prove burdensome to funeral homes, which usually offer their services for free to parents who are grieving for a miscarriage and want to hold a funeral. If every miscarriage in the state were subject to these rules, he said, that practice could become unsustainable.


Saporta said she was confident that Whole Woman’s Health would prevail in court. The June supreme court ruling that struck down several Texas restrictions held that states regulating abortion for health reasons had to show evidence that its regulations were medically necessary.


“There’s no health reason whatsoever for these requirements,” she said. “All the state health department wants to do is increase costs for women and make abortion care less accessible. It’s not even disguised as anything else.


“I think the courts will strike these laws down,” she continued. “But that doesn’t preclude other states from passing the same legislation, and wasting a lot of money and effort.”



Texas measure requiring burial of fetal remains may herald wave of similar laws

5 Haziran 2014 Perşembe

New wave of drug-resistant malaria threatens hundreds of thousands

When an extreme fever overcame 50-12 months-previous Daw Cho Cho final spring, she took the identical measures as when she final had malaria.


Wary of village medication and mindful of the properly-funded clinic across the border, she crossed into Thailand from her Burma village and came to the malaria centre for therapy. 7 years in the past, her malaria was cured inside of a day. This time, it took much longer.


Inside of three days, medication had killed the parasites in her blood and Daw Cho Cho felt regular, her symptoms gone. But a month later, the malaria came back. The medicines have been unable to kill all the parasites in her blood, and they multiplied.


François Nosten has studied malaria on the Thai-Burma border for 30 years. Dr François Nosten has studied malaria on the Thai-Burma border for 30 many years. Photograph: Kathleen E McLaughlin for the Guardian


She is amid the 1000′s who have been contaminated with an insidiously evolving drug-resistant parasite that might account for 80% of the malaria on this segment of the Thai-Burma border. The mosquito-borne illness is becoming resistant to the final anti-malaria drug standing – artemisinin – largely simply because of counterfeit medicines and incorrect usage.


A top researcher at the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU), a investigation centre based mostly on the border and funded primarily by the Wellcome Trust, is taking radical measures to stop the spread of the new strain just before it gets uncontrollable. Dr François Nosten, SMRU’s director, has studied malaria in this border area, close to in which the disease very first grew to become drug resistant, for three decades. He believes that in purchase to stop it spreading to India, then Africa, the place the vast vast majority of the world’s malaria situations happen, it’s important to chase the parasite into Burma’s forests and pre-emptively treat even people who might not be ill.


“If we do not do anything at all, we think that we know what is going to come about,” said Nosten, explaining that as malaria charges decline, the strongest and most resistant strains of the parasite survive and spread. “It has constantly happened like this in the previous, there is no cause to believe this time will be any diverse.”


The degree of alarm Nosten and other scientists express more than drug-resistant malaria contrasts with how it manifests in people, in these early phases. It acts just the very same as any malaria, but is more hard to remedy. The variety of cases creeps up slowly, spreads, then explodes.


“The point about resistance to something – medicines, antibacterials – is that it rises exponentially,” said Nick White, a professor with the Oxford Tropical Medication Analysis Programme who functions with Nosten on this problem. “There’s a long time period in which it doesn’t appear to be rising – and then it really is growing.”


Folks who have had the new strain of malaria report that it feels no distinct to the ailment cured in a day by artemisinin combination therapy just a couple of years ago. That might alter, but for now, the malaria itself does not cause new signs or a lot more complications – it’s just turning out to be a lot more challenging to ruin.


Daw Cho Cho malaria feature Daw Cho Cho, 50, was taken care of for malaria but the parasites returned a month later Photograph: Kathleen E McLaughlin for the Guardian


My Yee Thaung, whose 9-year-previous son not too long ago had malaria thought to be drug-resistant, explained he recovered, gradually, “but he’s even now not consuming extremely effectively.”


These individuals are between 1000′s participating in a 9-week review of their blood. The clinic, one of 5 malaria centres for Burmese refugees in Thailand run by SMRU, pays their transportation charges and a nominal amount to cover lost wages, and the individuals return to give blood samples after a week.


The amount of malaria instances has shrunk in this region dramatically in the previous thirty many years, given that Nosten and his team started to incorporate and eradicate it. When Nosten commenced the very first border clinic, the parasite was a major killer, infecting tens of thousands of people each and every rainy season. Today, there are a number of thousand cases each and every yr. But individuals that remain are a lot more probably to include a wilier parasite, 1 that is evolving to evade what was very first touted as a miracle drug.


The global implications of artemisinin dropping its edge on malaria are alarming. Worldwide, the WHO estimates there were 207 million malaria situations in 2012 and a lot more than 600,000 deaths, and says malaria charges dropped 25% throughout the world in the course of 2000-2012. The Institute for Well being Metrics and Evaluation employs a various methodology for tallying malaria deaths and says the worldwide death toll could be double what the WHO reports.


In both case, malaria numbers have dropped dramatically in the past decade. But what stays is even far more unsafe, and Nosten warns of a potential complacency that could permit drug-resistant malaria to erupt.


Mae Sot malaria clinic Scientists in Mae Sot’s border clinics study malaria parasites and new drugs that might be utilized to destroy them. Photograph: Kathleen E McLaughlin for the Guardian


“It is an emergency. Everybody is investing their time in meetings, providing advice, not acting speedily ample,” he stated. “It looks like this time we are going to get rid of.”


The march of drug-resistant malaria westward has begun. Circumstances are cropping up additional west in Burma, and could have entered Bangladesh. If which is the case, and background repeats itself, this unsafe and possibly deadly parasite could move additional west into India, then drop south to Africa. It has occurred twice before with the world’s very best malaria medicines and researchers such as Nosten worry a third wave is beneath way, negating a frontline treatment method for a killer of millions, with practically nothing new on the shelf to get its area.


Starting up this summer season and backed by the Global Fund and others, Nosten’s staff is going on the offensive against malaria in Burma. His teams will set up 800 village well being stations inside Burma, treating individuals who have the illness and pre-emptively providing medication to entire villages where a higher percentage of folks carry the malaria parasite. He believes containment – the strategy of decision thus far – has been as well limited, however malaria costs have dropped significantly. Elimination is now necessary.


Artemisinin-primarily based malaria drugs have couple of side-results and most folks call for only a 3-day program to get rid of the parasites. Nosten faced early opposition to his prepare, but says time and options have run out, and the downsides are minimum.


“It is already spread from the border into Myanmar [Burma],” he mentioned. “We should have carried out this three or 4 years ago. Now I am afraid it could be a bit also late.”


Malaria is forever outrunning its attackers, shifting its shape to survive the medication invented to eradicate the parasite.


Chloroquine was widely powerful all around the world, but started to get rid of its grip on malaria following mass dosing in endemic locations. Malaria grew resistant to the drug by the 1950s. Sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, frequently offered as Fansidar, came following and proved efficient until finally the finish of the final century, when resistance proved widespread.


Artemisinin, derived from sweet wormwood, followed. China’s People’s Liberation Army at the behest of the Communist get together leader, Mao Zedong, developed the drug as portion of a secretive venture in the course of the Vietnam war. The hugely effective drug was stored out of the international marketplace by China but also since of international pharmaceutical spats. In 2006, it grew to become the world’s frontline malaria treatment.


These days, artemisinin nonetheless performs inside a combination drug. Since of a worldwide abundance of fake medicines (a lot of produced in China) and undesirable dosing, even so, its days are numbered.



New wave of drug-resistant malaria threatens hundreds of thousands

2 Mayıs 2014 Cuma

Is Sustainable Winemaking The Wave Of The Long term?

This is the final installment in my 3-element series on organic, biodynamic and sustainable winemaking. Natural and biodynamic farming, as described in my prior columns, are two methods that eschew guy-created chemical inputs. Sustainable farming doesn’t preclude the use of man-created chemical substances, but as an alternative urges their use in moderation and in the context of the winery as a total. However, sustainability is one of these terms that has been browbeaten into meaninglessness. Absolutely everyone calls out sustainability in their advertising and marketing materials but nailing down a firm definition is hard.


I not too long ago obtained an whole guide committed to the matter, Down to Earth, by Janet Fletcher. Billed as a seasonal tour of sustainable winemaking, it profiles a number of California wineries pursuing sustainable practices. The prologue characteristics a really helpful glossary of terms, but most importantly Fletcher defines sustainability in relation to organic and biodynamic processes. Get comfy since it is a mouthful: “The ideas that define sustainability are a comprehensive set of environmentally sound, socially responsible, and economically viable ideal practices that encompass every aspect of the vineyard, winery, surrounding habitat and ecosystem, staff and local community.”


Phew. So, in essence, sustainable wine farming is not just about the grapes it is about almost everything that touches the winemaking, from lighter bottles and composting to guarding air quality and offering back to the neighborhood. There are definitely wineries that are performing far more than


Vineyards at Hilliard-Bruce Winery

Vineyards at Hilliard-Bruce Winery



others in the sustainable arena—some are carrying out the bare minimum although other people, this kind of as Honig, are ardently pursuing sustainability from cork to compost.


John Hilliard, winemaker and proprietor, along with his wife Karen, of Hilliard-Bruce winery, draws a dramatic contrast amongst sustainable and natural practices. In the course of a latest email exchange he stated, “Organics does not imply pesticide cost-free. Natural approaches typically prohibit synthetic pesticides, whilst sustainability prohibits higher-danger pesticides. Synthetic pesticides are no much more or significantly less toxic than natural pesticides. In reality, numerous organic materials are possibly more dangerous than sustainably synthetic materials.” He went on to describe that natural supplies are usually much less efficient and consequently have to be utilized in huge doses to function properly. In making use of quite modest quantities of synthetic resources winemakers are really doing significantly less harm. Karl Wente, of Wente Wines, affirms Hilliard’s remarks as he is quoted in Down to Earth, “Spraying [synthetic materials] could seem to be to be the antithesis of sustainability, but you have to stability it against employing much more water or operating tractors. Are you going to spray after or multiple occasions? It’s all about trade-offs.”


Obviously, winemakers are presently engaged, realizing the value of retaining their land healthful for generations to come. For now, most wine drinkers are not asking how their wine was created they just want to know what it tastes like. Yet, I consider the conversation has begun. Beneath are some wineries that are foremost the way, but please note, they are but a few of the many wineries pursuing sustainability.


Honig, Napa Valley, CA. Honig is 1 of the wineries leading the pack in sustainable winemaking. They use lighter bodyweight bottles and lately sacrificed worthwhile winery land to restore the Napa River’s riparian edges. Owl boxes invite welcome predators to deal with rodents and a single acre of solar panels runs the winery. They even carry in “sniffer” canines to detect the pheromones of the female mealybug—a pest that can wreak havoc on a vineyard but is easily dealt with if detected early. They preserve items simple making Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon.


Hilliard-Bruce, Santa Rita Hills, CA. This Santa Rita Hills primarily based winery runs on solar power and uses water collected from their 6 acre reservoir. On-internet site composting and judicious use of synthetic components hold soil disruption to a minimal. They specialize in Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The 2011 Santa Rita Hills Chardonnay is 1 of the very best I have tasted this 12 months. Mouthwatering with lemony creaminess on the palate, a springy pop of peach and a subtle vanilla tone from soft use of oak. Just stunning to sip alone and utterly rock star with fried chicken and grits. Only 19 barrels made…so acquire it up if you see it.


Bodega Garzon, Uruguay. As far-flung as Uruguay may sound, Bodega Garzon is truly one of the more progressive wineries outside of the United States. When their new sustainably crafted winery is total it will be the 1st LEED certified winery outdoors of North America.  The winery’s flat roofs are planted with grass to offset emissions and provide insulation. Solar and wind power meet the winery’s vitality wants. Only eleven miles from the Atlantic, the winery generates vibrant vivid whites (Albarino and Sauvignon Blanc) as effectively as a silky Tannat.


Wente, Livermore, CA. As 1 of California’s oldest winemaking household operations and with 3,000 acres beneath vine, the Wente’s have ample possibility to make an effect. The scraps from the Wente restaurant are composted and, mixed with a slow-acting fish oil, utilised to feed the vines. Based on solar power and getting rid of the extended cold-soak approach in winemaking have resulted substantial reductions in power use. Wente produces a selection of varietals, but they are very best recognized for their critically-acclaimed, sophisticated Chardonnays.


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Is Sustainable Winemaking The Wave Of The Long term?

21 Mart 2014 Cuma

It truly is a wonderful time to trip the silver wave, says Nicholas Parsons

And what of that University of London report? Are we happier in our seventies and eighties than we’ve ever been? It certainly chimes with something I have observed. I have extended believed that my generation that grew up during the Second Planet War, when existence was quite, very hard, learnt values of tough function and application that left us much more stoical than those who have come since.


All the rigours we went by way of have put a little stiffness into our spines. We have been hardened up compared with people who grew up in the Fifties, when, as Macmillan remarked, “You’ve never ever had it so good”. The softer lifestyle does not issue you for longevity.


Dame Angela Lansbury is back on stage in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, aged 88


So it is no accident that my personal wartime generation has created two stalwarts, hitting the headlines this week. Dame Vera Lynn, “the Forces’ sweetheart”, is releasing a new album at 97, and Dame Angela Lansbury, a mere 88, is back on the West End stage as Madame Arcati in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit and winning rave critiques. I initial met Angela when she was 14 and at school with my sister. She was presently quite sophisticated back then, certainly ample to avoid me, as a shy sixteen-12 months-previous from an all-boys school, from engaging her in conversation.


I’m not positive if I could take on a prolonged theatrical run now, though I nevertheless get pleasure from carrying out my own one particular-man comedy show all around the country, and, on occasion, my cultural present devoted to the lifestyle and perform of Edward Lear.


I concern, as well, that my dancing days are more than. I utilised to do a indicate Charleston and nonetheless dream of the call coming in for Strictly Come Dancing, but I’d have to decline with regret. In spite of all the compensations in expanding outdated right now, there is still sadness about reaching these late landmarks. I have often been a keen sports activities player, but I’ve had to give it all up. Initial I gave away my water skis, next I hung up my squash racket, then my cricket bat was pensioned off, and soon it will be my golf clubs.


I even now do a small physical exercise to maintain my entire body lively: the occasional session on a bike in the fitness center, and stretching in the morning. And I’m a fantastic believer that the more you use your brain, the younger you will continue to be. So my newest undertaking is a commission to compose a background of Just a Minute, which I have been chairing now for 47 years.


I know other folks will disagree, but I would argue that older people are now handled with far more respect than previously. That, at least, has been my encounter – just this week I was presented with a Churchill Award for a lifetime’s work in radio and television. The other day, I was struggling a bit to get out of a taxi, when a young girl offered me a hand. Admittedly, it made me feel old, but if you accept it in the spirit in which it is offered, it is wonderful.


Yes, typical listeners to Just a Minute could be forgiven for concluding that we oldies encounter a barrage of abuse about age, but it is all element of the enjoyable of the display. You have to laugh at yourself – in my case, at the running joke that casts me as a dinosaur. The panellists – particularly Paul Merton and Gyles Brandreth – are just pulling my leg.


Soon after all, I’ve invested a lot of my operating existence being the straight man. It is portion of the good results of Just A Minute, but, a lot more widely, I find, it aids get rid of tension.


And, if we are going to embrace this golden age for growing previous, stress is the extremely final factor we need.



It truly is a wonderful time to trip the silver wave, says Nicholas Parsons