h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3266819.stm

Many years ago I had an uncle who suffered from a blood disorder. His doctor prescribed three pints of Guinness a day for it, and when I say prescribed I mean prescribed. On the NHS. For free (of course, those were the days when you didn't have to pay for prescriptions).

What kind of blood disorder was it, Gosho?
Insufficient alcohol in the blood?

I think I'd rather be ill than drink Guinness...

That's cos you're a lightweight brought up on

It may originally have been that Paul, but it certainly wasn't by the time he died

Interesting

Alcohol is a mild blood thinner, and I believe it may have been often suggested to men who were at high risk for thrombosis or embolisms back in the days before drugs like coumadin (warfarin).

It's a long time since anyone called me a lightweight.

My Mum was prescribed a bottle of stout a day when she was pregnant with my brother - all free and on the NHS. Would that have been for iron?


F/b

I'd guess it was for that same blood-thinning property I mentioned earlier, especially if she'd had previous miscarriages (which are associated in some women with the whole thrombosis/embolism thing).

Oh yes, she'd had a couple of miscarriages. Thank you Mikey


F/b

Mrs Gosho's just been given an early Christmas present - an SLR camera. 'Nothing special about that' you may think, and you'd be right - it's a relatively cheap old Russian thing, a Zenit ET. Doesn't even have through-the-lens metering. You can pick 'em up on eBay or in a second hand camera shop for anything between $25 and $50.

Thing is, about 20 years ago I had a very similar camera - a Zenit EM, and I took some (even though I say so myself) bloody good pictures with it. Everything from sunsets, to snow scenes, to the Natwest Tower, to Docklands, to close-ups of a bee so detailed that you can see individual grains of pollen on it, to blocks of flats being blown up, to candid shots of people on the street, to the River Thames, to the final test match of the 1981 series against the Aussies (yes, *that* series), to... well, let's just say that it's a very versatile and bulletproof camera. I may scan in some of my photos and post them up n the GoshoTowers website if anyone's interested. I heard it said that the Zenit E series cameras are almost the only ones likely to still work after the nuclear holocaust - the lightmeter doesn't need a battery you see Great for taking pictures that prove cockroaches really do survive radioactive fallout

My very first SLR camera was a Zenit EM. At the age of 14, twenty six years ago, I saved my £1.50 pocket money each week and went out and bought a Zenit for about £50. It was nothing special: it weighed a ton, and you could take it to an Irish wedding, get drunk, get into a fight, use it as a club and leave with a still-operational camera, leaving the other guests very non-operational and nursing vee-shaped dents in their skulls.
However, for someone wanting to learn to take photographs, and the basics of photography, it was unbeatable: you had to know how these things worked in order to use it. I took some smashing photos with it. I then graduated to a Praktica, which broke, and a Yashica, which also broke (the computer went). I now have a venerable autofocus Canon EOS-1000, given to us by a friend who had discovered the joys of digital photography.
Our grandparents had trams and gas lamps to get nostalgic about. Now, for us, it's cameras. Nostalgia's not what it used to be....

oooh, gosho, pictures are always a treat! please post some!
what's a SLR camera? sounds wonderful... the canon we've got seems so fragile even if it does take better pictures than the digital. i have to admit liking the instant gratification of digital, however.

You had an EM too Felonious? It's a damn fine camera, and yes, it makes you learn many of the basics which you really need to know in order to take good shots. Point'n'click cameras don't force you to do that.

An SLR camera is a single lens reflex camera broe - it's a camera which lets you see exactly what you're shooting because what you see in the viewfinder comes directly through the lens.

I'll have a word with Mrs Gosho in the next few days about getting some pages of pictures up - she's the wiz when it comes to building web pages.