Thickness of ceiling joists in loft

[Mike Mitchell]

Both Capitol and you seem to think it is a bad thing to get a cold and challenge the immune system. Britain has the highest rate of childhood asthma in the world! We need to stop using crap like antibacterial washing up liquid and eat a peck of dirt a day. (Actually, a peck might be a bit too much, but you know what I mean.)

Not only does public transport strengthen your immune system for later life when, faced with things like cancer or other horrid diseases, we're all going to need a healthy immune system, but also you get to mix with other members of society and have to adapt to their funny little ways, just as they adapt to yours. This is another healthy aspect which Britain is missing more and more. And we all know what huge problems we have in Britain trying to establish a cohesive society, when that daft old bat Thatcher tried to pretend there was no such thing.

Moreover, on public transport, especially trains, you can read a book or the newspaper (and get up to date on current affairs), you can do some work, perhaps write a novel. Cooped up in private cars we are continually faced with danger, it is unhealthy, antisocial, dangerous to kids and the elderly and costs the NHS millions to patch up all the injuries cars cause. Sure, lorries also cause accidents, but most lorry drivers have had to have extra training to drive their lorries and are more responsible drivers by and large (excluding white van man, of course - they should all be dragged to the side of the road and bludgeoned to death with a pickaxe).

MM

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , IMM writes

You must be joking. Try taking those rose-tinted spectacles off sometime.

[Mike Mitchell]

I don't think he can! They're made by WimpeyVision or BarrattSavers...

MM

[RichardS]

True, there are potential public health issues, but they are not unknown and in themselves are not an argument for not using and developing a public transport system. The risks of infectious agents being released on the tube network are certainly known about by the security services, they've been talked about often enough.

Despite the presence of infectious diseases in London (TB, for instance) evidence does not back up the various catestrophic predictions, because the majority of people using transport systems do remain healthy and free from serious infection. If what "might" happen was actually "likely" to happen then surely this would not be the case? (and I know that TB is a serious health issue, and that numbers of sufferers in large cities such as London are growing, but it is not at serious epidemic proportions, and if public transport networks were such high risk places then the numbers would have grown at an unstoppable rate).

A few years ago I remember listening to one of the 5-minute pieces on R4 Today programme (I think). A research paper apparently showed that extroverts were less likely to suffer from common colds and other infectious diseases than introverts. The conclusion of the paper was that the more people you came into contact with then the more your body's immune system was able to deal with potential infections. Isolating yourself from the masses would in that case be a strategy of folly in the long run.

A doctor of my acquaintance a number of years ago was convinced that another winning strategy for avoiding nuisance infections was simply to wash your hands when you first arrive at work each morning and at home in the evening. Reasoning went that a lot of infections are contracted through contact. Person with a cold hurries to the tube station in the morning. Has slight runny nose, gets wiped with hands. They hang onto the straps (handrails now) and a few minutes later you hang onto the same strap. You get to work, pick up your pencil, chew the end of it, or wipe your mouth or another such contact. Cold virus now introduced quite happily into your body. Washing your hands reduces your chances of this (no need for any of this anti-bacterial paranoia handwash stuff - normal soap is fine).

Whether this has any basis in fact or not I couldn't tell you, but it's a reasoned line of thinking, and is after all a similar basis to the practise of surgeons scrubbing up before performing surgery.

-- Richard Sampson

email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

[Neil Jones]

The NHS will recoup the cost from the driver's insurance company.

Neil

[Mal]

TB cases will probably grow. Spitting seems to be a major cause of transmissionm, and it seems to be on the increase.

There are more than 250 variations on the cold virus - you won't become immune to them all in an entire lifetime.

Makes perfect sense, and probaby works too.

[Huge]

[25 lines snipped]

Utter, complete, total and unmitigated hogwash. If you're lucky, you might have room to inhale. You won't be able to read because you can't sit down and you need both hands to hold on, and even if you could, the seats are too small and too close together. Besides, you'll be too busy making phone calls to rearrange your life around the unreliability of the "service".

Sat in a comfy seat, listening to our choice of music, at our choice of temperature and not inhaling the delicate bouquet of the festering armpits of our "fellow" travellers, at a fraction of the cost and far greater convenience than public transport can ever provide.

[Capitol]

I believe in freedom of choice for the individual. I am perfectly happy for you to travel on unreliable, uncomfortable, filthy, unhygienic public transport. Please feel free to get as many colds etc as you wish. I would not deny you this vital opportunity. However, I would ask you to pay the full costs of travelling in this manner and not ask those of us who do not wish to join, to pay for your enjoyment. When you are faced with meeting the true costs, you may wish to pursue gainful employment in another location and discover the joys of reliable, comfortable and clean, personal transport locally.

Regards Capitol

[Mike Mitchell]

One in twenty drivers are uninsured.

MM

[Mike Mitchell]

Of course! Look at the American Indians and many other ethnic communities where Britain sent its colonial "missionaries" - and promptly gave the indigenous population a disease which their immune system had not yet encountered. They dropped like flies. I believe it is vital that we mix as much as possible. Who remembers the dances at the Hammersmith Palais and other venues? They really got the germs a-flyin'! Along with the arms and the legs and the inhibitions.

That's another thing I do, too. Always be aware that the person before you, serving you, giving you change etc may have just returned from Number Twos without washing the hands. I never touch the faceplate or handles on doors in public spaces, such as multistorey car parks, but look for an area to push or pull that is less likely to be contaminated.

How many people wash their hands before eating a sandwich at lunch? That is, they could have just shaken hands with the flash salesman from the London branch, who only a few minutes before was fondling the office bike in the stationery cupboard. Chlamydia with that BLT, anyone...?

MM

[Neil Jones]

Which is why we have the Motor Insurers Bureau.

[IMM]

You are right, modern houses look better.