| 20/9/2012 I honestly have a good reason for taking so long to write this next entry...sort of. You see, getting a new laptop means having to get an updated, rather new web editor, which is similar to my old one but in other ways...isn't. And yes, that is the reason why the previous page now has blue links instead of white. I can't figure out how to make them white and it frustrates me. Anyway, things have happened. Last Monday I finally went to the dentist for the first time in over a year *insertnervouslaughhere* and I found the dentist to be a kind, gentle and competent one. That's not the only thing I noticed. His surgery is the most advanced, hi-tech dental surgery I've ever been to and I was only charged the equivalent of £1 (better known here as kč30) for the visit. Compared to the ok dental surgery I was going to in the UK which charged me more than £15 a visit. Now it wasn't the dentist's fault I had to pay that, the problem in the UK is that dental health is supremely underfunded. It's a pretty damning indictment when dental healthcare is much better funded and provisioned in a smaller country with a lower GDP than in Britain. Last Friday (nearly a week ago now) my company held a party. No, it was not an office party, an actual party. They got a venue, caterers, decided on a theme (Woodstock of all things, I have no hippie gear so I went as a swinger), brought in a band and had a raffle. It was genuine fun. In relation, no alcoholic beverages with more than 30% alcohol content were provided. There's a reason for that. The big story in the Czech Republic right now is the spate of methanol poisonings caused by methanol-spiked hard liquors. At first, it was an odd but small event. 1 death and 3 sick people (blinded) were announced to have been victims of methanol poisoning, as all 4 had reportedly bought a bootleg vodka (or something) from a street vendor. This story broke on 6th September. Every day the number of deaths and sicknesses have been rising, current death toll being 22 last I heard. So now, all hard liquors with over 20% alcohol content have been banned from sale. Now in Britain, this would cause an insane panic and have people blaming this and that authority. Not to say the finger hasn't been pointed here but it's not been a topic of everyday conversation. When the announcement came that such drinks won't be sold at the party, my friends and colleagues were joking about blindness. I asked them how they could do that and they acknowledged the gravity of the situation, but, they also pointed out that typical drinkers don't buy such shifty-looking products from unregulated vendors. I couldn't help but see their point. But, this was before the latest story broke pointing out many bootleg brewers were using copies of genuine brands and certifications to trick people into thinking they were buying decent products. |