The BBC Four documentary Heavy Metal Britannia this evening was quite entertaining, as this whole series of programmes has been.  Possibly too long for a casual non-metal fan but too short to do more than scratch the surface it was still a good way to pass 90 minutes. I am wondering where they will go next.  We have had Folk Britannia, Prog Rock Britannia, Synth Britannia, and probably a few others I can’t remember.  Then there was the branching out into Latin music which required four parts and a change from Britannia to USA.  What next? I don’t think they have done punk, but that has been done so often it is hardly worth it. Post-punk/new wave could be a more fruitful choice.  Even better would be Pub Rock Britannia – 90 minutes of Dr Feelgood, Brinsley Schwarz,...

TARDIS Scanner - Who Tube has Doctor Who Podshock Spring 2010.BBC iPlayer (UK only) has Dalek, I Love You, Doctor Who obsessive Nigel meets a curious girl at a convention. Colin Sharpe's drama. The Vervoid has posted "the final episode of The Medusa Strain... Rocket Man becomes Rocket Men... Survival on DVD... the tenth Doctor Who stories do battle... the podcast returns for the season finale... and Spaceball, Port and Cheese Night..."Gareth David-Lloyd Site has Cult Hero!, Gareth - or should that be Ianto Jones - has been dubbed SFX Cult Hero in the SFX magazine awards 2010.nicolabryant.net has Dimensions 2010, Nicola will be appearing at the 'Dimensions' convention. The event is being held at The Holiday Inn, Great North Road, Seaton Burn, Newcastle Upon Tyne on November 12th, 13th and...

• James Cameron's epic takes best director and best drama• The Hangover named best comedy• Meryl Streep's acting win makes history• Blog: Avatar's self-congratulatory win tarnishes the Golden GlobesIt's already swept all before it at the box office, but last night James Cameron's 3D tale of life on another planet established its popularity with the critics, too, winning the Golden Globe awards for best picture drama and best director at the 67th annual ceremony, voted for by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.Cameron expressed surprise when picking up his best director award. "Frankly, I thought Kathryn was gonna get this," he said, referring to his ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow, hotly tipped for her work behind the camera on Iraq bomb disposal drama The Hurt Locker. "But make...

We seek them out so you don't have to. This is our weekly non-exhaustive round up of upcoming LGBT programmes on the radio and television. Inclusion of a programme is not a recommendation.Some of the programmes listed below will be available online on the respective network's websites.Enjoy!Owt on’t’telly?A round up of LGBT progs and personalities on British TV.TVNewBoo hiss to ITV last week for That’s What I Call Television: the repeated show about our TV past. It featured the remaining bits and pieces of the cast of the original Crossroads and said loads about Noele Gordon without once mentioning that she was a lesbian. This Saturday we have a basinful of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No 1 in B Flat minor in The Proms at 7pm on BBC2. The same channel broadcasts The Culture Show,...

My ageing Greek friend advises me that doctors in the USA are asking patients to sign gagging orders, preventing them from using the various "rate your doctor" websites that are proliferating over there. We have the dreadful Neil Bacon to thank for these sites in this country and, much as I detest the man, may I once again stress that he has never to my knowledge had a relationship with a motor vehicle, and I do wish people would stop clicking on that dreadful composite photograph on Google images. How would you feel if you put your name into Google images and something like that came up at the top?I hate these sites but I would never attempt to gag a patient. If they want to complain about a named doctor, they should do so. But through the normal channels, not on a scurrilous website...

Yesterday, Bernard Madoff - Diet Coke drinker, Neil Diamond fan and $65bn fraudster - was given a life sentence for orchestrating the giant Ponzi scheme that left Kevin Bacon without any life savings. The farcical nature of American sentencing means that actually he got nearly two life sentences, 150 years, presumably insuring against spectacular advances in science over the next few years that would allow Madoff to live to 221 years old. One wonders why the judge didn’t go the whole hog and sentence him to “like, a squillion years”. Still, it sends the message that this was a Very Bad Thing that Madoff did, and there were cheers in the courtroom from wronged investors. They were given the opportunity before the sentencing to testify, and did so rather luridly....

Click refresh for the latest updates. Send your predictions for the summer and anything else you'd like to get off your chest to andy.bull@guardian.co.ukMorning everyone. A little giddy with excitement? Ever so slightly sticky with sweaty anticipation? Revelling in sweet thoughts of the summer ahead that always accompany the first morning of the first Test? Not yet resigned yourself to the pervading cynicism and depression that invariably accompanies and England summer?And why not? After a dismal winter without a win, England have a new coach (sorry Team Director) promoted from within. Michael Vaughan is missing so Andrew Strauss is captain, Andrew Flintoff is out injured meaning a young Turk has a chance to make a name for themselves with ball and a new batsman in at no3.Ahhh, actually I...

Well, nothing, that’s what Last Friday, a staggering majority of those present (89 to 2) voted to proceed with the bill but parliamentary procedure requires 100 MPs to be present for the bill to proceed to a full vote. As the Times put it with admirable clarity: The Fuel Poverty Bill has been thrown out of parliament because not enough MPs could be bothered to vote. I am one of those still picking their jaws off the floor about this. Surely to goodness if there was ever a bill it was worth catching a slightly later train on Friday for it was this one. The cause is unimpeachable. It was plainly chosen to be unimpeachable. Yes, various Members might have disagreed on the ways and means, but that’s what debate is for. As one attendee put it: Mr. Andrew Dismore (Hendon) (Lab): I...

Neil Bacon, just back from his skiing holiday it seems, hires a hospital room to promote his website. There is no evidence that Bacon is currently working as a doctor. He likes to style himself as some sort of kidney specialist, but he did not finish the training. He was involved in setting up DNUK but then left that organisation in circumstances which remain unclear. Since then he has been trying to make a living with his new internet venture. It is entirely characteristic of his hypocrisy and duplicity that this promo video is on YouTube with comments disabled. Please feel free to make comments about it here.Bacon was on Radio 4 at lunchtime today, (soon to be available here) He was once again trying to flog his cynical, disreputable website. Oddly, Hamish Meldrum was cosying up to him,...

Photo: Sleeping piglets Our new organic butcher buys his beef from farmers whose steers graze the fields in the local studs around our village. Something like ox kidney has to be ordered in advance. Last week I invested in organic shin of beef, just £8.00 for 2 kilos. And a large oxtail that was quite a bit more expensive. Some shin and oxtail went into a beef and vegetable soup and the rest was frozen until an organic ox kidney was available to make our favourite Steak and Kidney Pie. So this morning I motored over to Fordham to collect the kidney and buy an organic free range happy chicken for Sunday. Free range from your local butcher (if you are lucky enough to have one) is much cheaper than from the supermarket and is probably locally sourced too. “I’m afraid we only have...

Created in Birmingham has been officially announced as the winner of the Best UK Blog in the 2008 Weblog Awards. A HUGE thanks I’d first like to congratulate the other finalists who took part (list here) and say thanks to the organisers for making things run surprisingly smoothly. I’d like to thank everyone who supported us and made this happen - ‘us’ being Pete Ashton, Julia Gilbert, Danny Smith, Frankie Ward, Stef Lewandowski, Kate Spragg and myself, Chris Unitt. There are so many of you but I’ve tried to keep track of everyone who spread the word for us (especially online, which is easy enough to track if you know how) and have listed as many as I could find below. However, I know there are many who I’ll have missed - feel free to take a bow in the...

TUCKING into my Gloucestershire sirloin steak, bordelaise sauce and homemade chips, I knew my diet was doomed. I grinned from ear to ear at the unadulterated pleasure after pretty much two solid weeks of Ryvita and reduced fat houmous and told myself an extra hour or six at the gym would be worth it. And as my partner Neil savoured his slow-cooked Wiltshire pork belly and our daughters their freshly baked pizzas they’d designed themselves, I knew this memory would last a lot longer than my willpower had managed so far. This was an award-winning ‘gastro-inn’ after all – not something we’d sampled before. And possibly not the most obvious port of call for a family with young children. Emily was still talking about the ghost story she’d heard an hour earlier. Tanya...

We seek them out so you don't have to. This is our weekly non-exhaustive round up of upcoming LGBT programmes on the radio and television. Inclusion of a programme is not a recommendation.Enjoy!Some of the radio programmes listed below can be listened to again via the Listen Again facility of the BBC's website while some of the television programmes will remain available also for a week on the BBC's iplayer. Please also note that Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour contains a lot of relevant content and is generally LGBT friendly, but a lot of its output is not available to us before we put this on the site. For the latest Woman’s Hour stuff, subscribe to the programme's newsletter here.RadioSaturday 3rd BBC Radio 2 - 5pm: Paul Gambaccini. US hitsBBC Radio 3 - 6pm: La Fanciulla del WestBBC...

Dr Grumble, the Jobbing Doctor & Dr CrippenThe year reaches its end with the news that Ben Bradshaw, that embodiment of over-promoted political mediocrity, is to nationalise Neil Bacon. Bacon, you will recall, is the egregious little shit who has been trying to make a fast buck by setting up a website that allows people to make critical remarks about doctors. Bacon poses as some sort of kidney “specialist” but is nothing of the sort. He is not on the GMC hospital specialist register. He is not on the family doctor register. He does not have a sense of humour either. He had a major sulk when the gloriously vulgar origami maestro and doctor, Fishgoth, posted a clearly “doctored” composite photograph on a Doctors.net.uk forum purporting to depict Bacon, dressed in a basque,...

In the interest of lists, I found this one and couldn’t resist posting it: Peter Alliss, golfer and commentator (declined OBE in 2002) Frank Auerbach, artist (declined a knighthood in 2003) Charles Babbage, scientist. (declined an unknown honour) Francis Bacon, artist (declined CBE, in 1960 and CH in 1977) J.G.Ballard, author (declined CBE in 2003) Nancy Banks-Smith, television critic (declined CBE in 1970) Leonard Barden, British Chess Champion in 1954 (declined an MBE) Peter Benenson, founder of Amnesty international (declined knighthood) Alan Bennett, playwright (declined knighthood in 1996 and CBE in 1988) Isaiah Berlin[sir] OM, philosopher (declined life peerage in 1980) Honor Blackman, actress (declined CBE in 2002) David Bowie, musician (declined CBE in 2000;...

BaconThe last thing I did before my summer break was write an article on the appalling Neil Bacon and his even more appalling website on which he attempts to categorise doctors in the way one might categorise washing powder. Rita has not taken a summer break. Armed with the Freedom of Information Act she has been extracting information from the GMC about their relationship with Bacon and in particular has accessed and published some fascinating correspondence and emails. Full details hereUncharacteristically for Rita, she has made one factual error, an error she will I know be only to happy to put right. She has referred to him as a “nephrologist”. The man on the street might take that to mean that Bacon is some sort of medical specialist. In fact, despite having qualified as a...

Comprehensive list of blog sites for UK member of parliament from the 3 major political parties. Conservative MP’s Blog Sites John Redwood MP David Cameron MP Nadine Dorries MP David Davies MP David Jones MP James Duddridge MP Richard Spring MP Stephen Crabb MP Theresa May MP Ed Vaizey MP Jeremy Hunt MP Douglas Carswell MP David Mundell MP Boris Johnson (Mayor of London) Richard Bacon MP Angela Watkinson MP Crispen Blunt MP Tony Baldry MP David Burrowes MP   Liberal Democrat MP’s Blog Sites Lynne Featherstone MP Sandra Gidley MP John Hemming MP John Pugh MP Adrian Sanders MP Steve Webb MP Tom Brake MP   Labour MP’s Blog Sites Adrian Bailey MP Alan Campbell MP Alan Johnson MP Alan Keen MP Alan Meale MP...

I looked at the front page of Dr Neil Bacon's "I want great care" website and this is what I found. Note the attention grabbing remark by the red cross. Totally lacking in interpersonal skills...Click on that remark, and you are taken here, to a named doctor, and you find the full remark, anonymous, but allegedly from a patient:Added by: Patient 2008-07-16Trust: 3%Listening: 0% "Totally lacking in interpersonal skills. No standing up or handshake on my arrival. Didnt appear to listen. Totally lacking in kindness, manners, imaginations or sensitivity. He stopped a course of medication which was working well after 1 month, the day before I went on holiday, spoilt my holiday completely and thoroughly upset me. I had been warned about him but the doctor I wanted to see was unavailable all...

If you go onto Dr Neil Bacon's website (as of 12.20, Friday 18 July) you will find in the top right hand corner a remark saying:David Brent on a ward. Shocking.  Click on it, and see where you goWhat has this got to do with an eminent and well respected paediatrician? Perhaps Dr Bacon will...

Dr Neil Bacon is misrepresenting his qualifications, training, and status as a doctor.He has been misrepresenting his qualifications, training and status as a doctor for several years.Dr Neil Bacon , founder of award-winning medical network doctors.net.uk and practising NHS specialist in nephrology…29th November 2004Science EnterpriseHe is not a specialist.Dr Neil Bacon talks about the site [doctors.net.uk] with the enthusiasm of a proud father - he still remembers the moment when the first member joined in September 1998. Bacon set up the site after working as a kidney specialist in the US in the mid-1990s…1st Febraury 2007GoliathHe is not a specialist.Dr Neil Bacon, a renal specialist at the Churchill Hospital…July 15 2008Oxford MailThe idea for iWantGreatCare came from Dr Neil...

click to enlargeThe above represents the gratuitous abuse of the unfortunate Dr Jayantilal Popat by Dr Neil Bacon. I stored it on FURL. The first comment to appear, unmoderated, and apparantly unchecked by Bacon, was the one at the bottom by the "carer, relative."Next, the three supportive comments above appeared.Then, the three supportive comments were removed, leaving just the derogatory one at the bottom. Unfortunately, I did not store that image. Today, on checking Bacon's website, we find this:I have stored this away here on jkn.com and so Bacon cannot alter it again. Thus, for two days, Baconshit was responsible for publishing apallingly defamatory remarks about a family doctor without offering him a right of reply.  We assume that the remarks could not be verified, and so they...

It is not just life long readers of Private Eye, (see recurring "in-jokes" in Private Eye) like Dr Crippen who have heard of Peter Carter Ruck. They are the most pre-eminent libel lawyers in London. Today PULSE reports:Carter-Ruck solicitors, acting on behalf of a group of 37 doctors, has written to Dr Neil Bacon, the founder of www.iwantgreatcare.org, expressing ‘grave concerns about the potential for inaccurate, irresponsible and defamatory allegations being published on the website.’The letter details a number of concerns relating to the site’s comment-moderation policy and warns: ‘We put you on formal notice that if one of our clients is defamed on your website and instructs us to take action, a copy of this letter will be made available to the court at the appropriate stage...

Shame on the Oxford Mail. It used to be a good local paper when I lived there. Mind you, in those days, so did the Times. It was a long time ago. They have just given Neil Bacon an advertorial for his new website. Disgraceful! Don't they have any news to report? Spot all the (as Winston used to say) "terminological inexactitudes"."The majority of doctors (have been) very supportive"Neil Bacon It's all here, with some...

Dr Julia Webster is one of the senior partners at the Sleaford Medical Group. She and I overlapped at medical school, though I don’t recognise her name. Julia has just been “named and shamed” by Baconshit. It seems that she was a bit “short” with a patient who wanted to be treated by a homeopathist, or some such wibble merchant. For that “offence” she is castigated on “I want great care” Has she been consulted in advance before this defamatory material was published? I think not. Has she been given the chance to put her side of the story? I think not. One patient was upset because Julia was not prepared to discuss medical wibble, ergo Julia is not a very good doctor. What about the other 2000 patients she sees?click to enlargeOn that basis, Ben Goldacre is the worst...

Dr Neil Bacon should be ashamed of himself. Earlier today I wrote at length, with some circumlocutions, about Bacon. It is no longer necessary to mince words. The site he has set up is a disgrace. If Bacon is making money out of it, he deserves to be driven out of the medical profession. Take a look at how, in the course of one short day, he has attempted to destroy the professional reputation of a doctor, without explanation, and without giving that doctor the right to respond.This is what I said earlier:Look at what is already happening on the site, with this utterly disgraceful ad hominen attack on a doctor who is not able to defend himself. There are always two sides to a story, never more so than when there is a psychiatric problem. This poor doctor cannot defend himself without...

RaptorsI have always been uneasy about Doctors.net.uk. I do not visit it often and I rarely read the forums. NHS BLOG DOCTOR articles are sometimes mentioned in the chat rooms and whilst, like any blogger, I am grateful for the increased traffic, I don't usually follow up any comments. It’s a bit ostrich-like, I know. And it means that sometimes I miss the start of important medical stories.There is nothing like a good bitch over a good pint about matters medical and that is what goes on in the Doctors.net.uk forums. Trouble is, the forums are not as private as members think. I know a lot of medical journalists and, believe me, it is not difficult to get into Doctors.net.uk despite the apparent professional security.Bitching over a pint is one thing. But some of the serious issues that...

A new British web site opens today which enables all citizens to rate their doctors and comment on the treatment received. The site is called "I want great care". As this article explains, the initiative is controversial with doctors who fear unfair or even libellous comments. In principle, I'm in favour of any scheme which empowers consumers or users of services, but I hope that those who post comments will be measured and that any unfair comments are quickly removed. I trust that the doctor behind the project - Dr Neil Bacon - has some good insurance in the event of legal...

To Celebrate St George's Day, Over 65 entries from all over the world insist that English Food is Not A Joke Because... Fish & Chips 'Samanda'-style: Malt vinegar marinated local sardines, modern mushy peas and hand-cooked potato chips. Photographed by T.Shane Gilman ...there are so many other things we can pick on [the English] for: Food's not one of them! Bacon Press in San Francisco declares "Rule Baltannia" and guides us through Balti Cuisine: "Originating in the 1970s, Balti cuisine is an Anglo-Asian culinary phenomenon relatively unknown in America and on the Indian Subcontinent. It's birthplace centers in what now is referred to as the Balti Triangle of Birmingham, England; a one-mile area comprising over 50 restaurants, or balti houses." Read more... ...[English] regional produce...

This is very hard to write. My friend, Sara Morgan, died on Thursday 5 April just before the Easter weekend. I found out yesterday. It's very strange turning the radio and TV on and discovering that everything else is carrying on as normal because nothing is at all normal now. Sara was always there for me, a very important part of my life. All my love, warmth and sympathies go out to her family at this time and anyone else who knew and loved her. She was a powerhouse of wit and intelligence with great talent and passion. You may have known her at Bridgend School, Chorley Wood or Worcester College (Now New College, Worcester). More recently you may have come across her professionally through Blazie though you may remember her as an irritant to the Braille Authority (BAUK) through her...