Posts Tagged news
Freak Weather Conditions Bring Internet to a Standstill
Posted by Simon in Mere Fakery on December 18th, 2009
The UK Internet was brought to a standstill last night by a heavy snowfall.
A spokesman for the Internet said “we have contigency plans for these situations, and our web gritters were out in force on all the major internet trunk routes, but when you have 5 million people tweeting that it’s snowing, all within the space of a few minutes, there’s very little we can do”.
Problems also spread to the most popular web destinations. The BBC email server is being dug out from under a huge drift of snow pictures and videos being sent in by members of the public with nothing better to do. The major cables in and out of London were blocked, and several TCP-IP packets were forced to sleep in their cars overnight.
Police were advising people to stay off the internet apart from essential surfing. The Chief Constable of the Internet Police said “you have to ask yourself: is posting your opinion about whether we’re going to have a white Christmas or not on ‘Have Your Say’ worth the danger to yourself and your family?”
Has your internet connection been affected by the snow? Send your telegrams, etchings and watercolours to “Brr It’s Chilly Isn’t It”, Mere Bagatelle House, Norfolk, NR1 FFS.
Pro or Ante-natal?
Posted by Simon in Mere Fatherhood, Mere Opinion on May 27th, 2009
There was news this morning of a study that showed that prospective parents who attended antenatal classes that promote breathing techniques have no better experience during labour than parents who are just taught the basic “nuts and bolts” of what pregnancy entails. Women that had been attended classes and were taught “natural birth” methods (supposed to reduce the amount of medical intervention required in the birth) ended up asking for the same amount of conventional pain relief as women who’d not taken the classes.
The NCT (not NCP, they’re something quite different) are disputing the claims. This is unsurprising, as most of the extended antenatal classes in this country are run by them.
Jane and I decided early on that we’d not bother with NCT classes and instead take the free NHS route. This entailed a slightly cursory programme of three visits to a community centre to learn about stuff like how plastic babies fit through plastic pelvic bones, and how much change you need for the hospital car park (which isn’t NCP or NCT). I think it was enough information for us.
One of the things they covered was pain relief, and I remember in particular the discussion we had about TENS machines. For the uninitiated (as I was), a TENS machine is a bit like those muscle stimulation gadgets they sell on the shopping channels to get rid of flabby tummies. Placed on the skin, they stimulate the nerves and are supposed to reduce pain during labour.
There’s not much evidence that TENS machines actually work, and the midwife at our antenatal class that covered pain relief more or less admitted that she thought twiddling with the knobs on the machine distracted mums from the pain by “giving them something to do”.
I think that’s probably the main benefit of extended antenatal classes. The nine months of a first pregnancy is an awful long time to fill, and the gaps between decorating and buying baby stuff are mainly filled with worrying about something you don’t really have any control over: the birth. NCT classes and their ilk give parents “something to do”, and maybe give them back a sense of control.
It doesn’t matter so much, then, that what they’re learning is a little common sense midwifery wrapped up in a lot of (literal) puff which won’t actually benefit them on the day. The important thing is that up until that day, they felt more able to deal with it.
But I’m still happy of being to be ignorant of how to breathe. When the day comes, I’ve been taught by existing fathers the two facts that will get me through the worst of the delivery. One: take the blame for everything. Two: if they’re biting down on their hand, don’t offer to replace it with yours.