How to get rid of worms

Mr. Rouyer is a French farmer living in the village of Gripperie-Saint-Symphorien. He was burgled a couple of months ago. I don’t know what was stolen but it was obviously enough to warrant him calling the police. As well as cows and sheep, Mr. Rouyer keeps organic ducks, which are in excellent health without the use of duck medicine. They never suffer from worms, which Mr. Rouyer maintains are very common parasites of ducks. If you keep ducks, I expect you’ll want to know his secret. Well, the good news is that his secret is not a secret anymore. One of the eagle-eyed Gendarmes spotted 12 cannabis plants at Mr. Rouyer’s farm, and a further search turned up 5kg of the drug.  (Wouldn’t you think he’d have hidden it all before calling the Police!) In his defence, Mr. Rouyer told the police that he grows the weed to feed to his ducks because it’s an excellent de-wormer. He was also heard to say, “That’s correct Officer, I don’t have worms either.”

Sadly Duck a la Marijuana is now off the menu! 

Political Deceptions?

I’m not interested in politics. Never have been. Though probably should’ve been. Should be. After all it’s the Politicians that direct the flow of our society. Well hey, they’re doing that alright at the moment! Take, for instance, the fact that we’re now being told that what we were told a few months ago, was wrong. Of course I’m talking about the recession. It seems we’re not coming out of it at all and things will get much worse, with inflation threatening to remain six times higher than the Bank of England base rate. What does that mean? It means that we’re all paying more for essential consumables and services, our savings are worth less with every week that passes and our main asset, our home, will continue to depreciate in value. Oh and don’t forget the job losses and the reduced pension funds. How many of us realise that national and global economies are controlled by un-elected shadowy figures who stay in the wings of societies stage. Have you been wondering why the Banks still aren’t giving mortgages unless you’ve got that huge deposit. If you aren’t, you should be. Is the answer that they KNEW that house prices would drop further, despite the temporary apparent recovery? How did they know? I can’t help but see the obvious. What am I talking about? The fact that if you make houses unaffordable by demanding a huge deposit that first time buyers can’t raise; houses don’t sell and prices fall as vendors compete in a shrinking market – supply and demand; it’s not rocket science. So, is it because they predicted that property prices would continue to fall or is it possible that they have engineered the whole thing? Why? So that we lesser mortals, will save and save and save in an effort to raise the deposits they demand, while they use our savings to bring back their big fat profits. And then, when we lose our jobs and are given a paltry redundancy package, we’ll spend our savings on just living from day to day, as we won’t be entitled to any social security benefit until all our savings are spent. That’ll save the Government a fortune AND boost the economy into the bargain. And those poor souls who don’t have any savings, will join the millions of graduates and undergraduates who are so deep in debt that they may never be free of it. People in debt are easily controlled by those who hold the purse strings. Should you be worried? You bet!

And while I’m having a rant about political deceptions, what about the “new” NDM-1 (ESBL) gene that’s being transferred between Gram negative bacteria such as E.coli? This gene codes for an enzyme that confers resistance to most of our antibiotics. We were told yesterday that there are 50 cases in the UK and that the majority of these have come from India. That puzzles me. I was informed two weeks ago that my elderly Mum has a urine infection caused by E.coli carrying this gene. She’s never been to India, hasn’t had any surgery for years BUT was hospitalised after a stroke last summer and has been in residential care ever since. If she’s one of these 50 people, then the other 49 are likely to be the rest of the elderly people in this residential home. Someone, somewhere, is playing this down!

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ARCHETYPES

This weekend I’m spending time thinking about which archetypal patterns are the main drivers for my life. It’s interesting stuff that can illuminate, not only the path we’ve trodden, but also, the path that lies ahead. It looks like it might be a useful way to ensure I make the right choice at the crossroads that have just become visible on the horizon.

Looking at archetypes and their shadows can start to make sense of why you walked out of work in tears after being treated unjustly, why you always run away from the bullying of older siblings instead of standing your ground, why you can turn your back on some relationships so easily, whilst holding onto the memory of others for decades. Why certain people/situations empower you and make you feel good about yourself, while others make you feel demoralised and hurt.  Caroline Myss has written about this in her book “Sacred Contracts”. The book makes interesting reading though I’m not sure I agree with her method of assigning archetypes to the different areas of one’s life. Also her book may need far more time to work through than most people have available. But then this shouldn’t be a quick fix process; after all your life depends on it! However, there has been a lot of research into archetypes and archetypal patterns, including of course by Carl Jung, so a Google search will pull up a wealth of information and may be all you need.  And of course, you can always start recording your dreams. Archetypal patterns are very easy to recognise in what Jung termed “big dreams”. These are the dreams that seem to have a fairytale or mystical quality; dreams that seem to be about spirit rather than everyday life. A close examination of these dreams will reveal the patterns passing through your life in the present. I also recommend that you re-awaken the child within and read again those fairytales that had you enthralled as a child. Fairytales deal with archetypes, that’s why they’re so appealing and have stood the test of time. Which fairytale(s) has scripted your life?

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Aerobic exercise improves brain function

Neuroscientists working on mice showed that even a few days of running stimulates the brain to grow new cells in a part of the brain involved in memory and recall.

The scientists divided the mice into two groups: one group had a running wheel they could use at any time, and the other group didn’t. In subsequent memory tests the scores of mice with access to the running wheel were almost double those of the non-running group.

I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna get my running shoes out tomorrow and start pounding the tarmac again – mind you I’d like to know how they tested mouse memory. Perhaps they let them try the free brain games on Lumosity.com (http://www.lumosity.com/users/me/home ) Try them, they’re really good – kept me amused for hours J

Now where did I put that cheese?#