The CD launch is now just a memory

Mike's Pith & Wind - Silly walks
I couldn’t think of a subject for this month’s P&W, and I’m already a few days late, so Ill stop fretting and simply tell you all about my slightly interesting morning.
I’d set the alarm for 6.30 so I could get away by 7.00. I had an appointment (made for me by my cardiologist) for a stress/echo (echo cardiogram) at the Epworth at 8.30, and although it’s only twenty minutes away normally, I didn’t want to be caught in the morning traffic and so erred on the side of ludicrous prudence.
In the event, there was no traffic at all, and I got there at 7.15. There were plenty of parking spaces available, so I parked where I felt like and listened to the van radio (it’s Dutch) till 7.30 before purchasing a two-hour parking ticket – they’d told me at the clinic that the stress/echo should take only about thirty minutes.
I wandered into the Epworth and found the Information desk. I was informed that the Non-Invasive Cardiac Unit on Level 5 didn’t open until 8.00. I found a comfortable chair and wrote a few notes in my diary, (one of them being that I still hadn’t found a topic for this P&W), took myself to the pristine toilet (worth the price of admission), and still had time to read the headlines in some woman’s magazine about Paris Hilton’s fears re’ her imminent incarceration, peruse pictures of gorgeous George Clooney and a host of other Hollywood celebrities great and small, before taking the lift to Level 5.
After another fifteen minutes somebody eventually arrived at the NICU desk and I duly registered my presence. I sat down. I sneezed - read more

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Dick's Toolbox - The Man in the Hathaway Shirt
What shapes our opinions and behaviour? Are we informed and rational beings, incapable of being manipulated by external forces and influences, or are we malleable fodder for the grist of commerce and other random pseudo-religious beliefs; beliefs with philosophies that range from the illogical silliness of religion, to the button-down red collar credulity of thinking that either the Chicago School of Economics or Communism is an answer to the ills and inequalities of the world.
Regrettably all the evidence points to the fact that most of us are all too easily gulled, ripe for the hypnotist’s suggestion to commit ourselves to follies that, at best, may only embarrass ourselves in the short term of family photographs. Most of us believe that we can never be persuaded by some well-oiled Svengali with a swinging fob watch to sing opera read more