Dear Sir/Madam

Yesterday I was faced with a predicament, I chose the option which would harm the environment the least, however events unfolded in a unpredictable manner and unfortunately due to decisions made by Sainsburys it resulted in a disastrous outcome.  Please allow me to elaborate.

I live 1.3miles from my nearest Sainsburys supermarket, I often have to decide whether I should drive or walk, if I drive I can use the reusable carrier bags I keep in the boot of my car, if I walk I do not have this luxury and must utilise the carrier bags at the checkouts.

On this particular day I chose to think laterally about my options, in my 2003 Peugeot 206cc those 1.3miles would have generated 390 grams of carbon emissions.  Now if we take the energy required to make one plastic bag as 1.21 gigawatts, which is the best estimate I could find during my brief research, it would mean that for every 1.3 mile journey I make in my car approximately 100 carrier bags could be produced.

It seemed a no brainer, to save the environment I had to walk to the supermarket and utilise the carrier bags provided at the checkout.  The decision to go on foot also gave me the added benefit of walking my dog and exercising, which in the long run will decrease the risk of cardiovascular medical conditions which would therefore reduce my carbon footprint further as I would not need to utilise energy for electrocardiograms and other such cardiovascular monitoring investigations in the future.

With the decision made I walked to my local Sainsburys, I tied my dog up outside the store and popped inside to purchase the groceries I required.  It was like any other shopping experience at the retail change, with one minor difference.  Upon packing my produce into the carrier bags provided I realised that the plastic seemed thinner than usual.

I understand the pressure placed on supermarkets to decrease the volume of carrier bags they provide but, surely the supermarket didn’t have so little respect for their customers that they would provide them with bags so thin that their groceries were at risk of falling to the ground.

My orange squash, pine nuts and two bags of mixed nuts hurtled to the ground. 

The thickness of the bags passed briefly through my mind and I thought little of it, that was until I was walking home and disaster struck.  I was walking on the pavement along Castle Boulevard when suddenly one of my carrier bags split, my orange squash, pine nuts and two bags of mixed nuts hurtled to the ground.

The split carrier bag and the products I had to pick up which are now covered in mud.

As a supermarket I’m sure you are aware that orange squash is contained within a cylindrical container, this meant upon hitting the pavement my orange squash rolled into the road and into a puddle of muddy liquid, my other items remained on the pavement but were also covered in mud.

You might think this is a pretty terrible situation but imagine dealing with this incident whilst walking a dog, but wait, it gets worse I was also recovering from a severe fracture through the two bones in my forearm which I had recently had surgery on.  Luckily there were no road traffic accidents as a result of the incident, but imagine the carnage if the bottle of orange squash had rolled off the curb and into the path of an oncoming cyclist.

Clearly you will tell me that I must in the future reuse my carrier bags which would give me the additional benefit of gaining nectar points.  However, I am sure you will understand that it can be difficult to continuously carry empty carrier bags just in case one decides to make a spontaneous trip to the supermarket.

I have thought long and hard about how Sainsburys can apologise for this occurrence which I feel is entirely the company’s fault due to the production of flimsy carrier bags.  For the embarrassment of scrambling around for my groceries in the mud with a dog and a broken arm, for the increase in my water bill I will have to pay after I unexpectedly had to clean my groceries and for the stress I faced whilst retrieving my orange squash from the road, which was both dangerous for me and other road users: I would not like vouchers to replace the groceries and I would not like extra carrier bags.  I feel the only way to prevent this situation from happening again and for the company to compensate me well enough to allow me to grant forgivness: I will need to be provided with reusable keyring bags which are compact enough to carry on my person at all times.

Let me negotiate further

You as a company may feel that I am asking for a lot, so let me negotiate further, as a deal breaker I have come up with a number of ways the supermarket chain can be improved, now this advice would cost a fortune if it came from an independent business adviser so I’m sure you can see how much you have benefitted.

1. Stop making flimsy plastic bags, people will only end up double bagging which will cost a greater amount to produce than the original bags.
2. Install a computer and the end of each aisle which enables customers to search for products, this program will then direct the customer to the aisle and section of the aisle the manufactured goods are contained within.  Alternatively produce an iphone app which works in the same manner.
3. Put vegetarian and vegan labels on all products including the bakery items.
4. Stop discontinuing lines without warning such as choices Dairy Free Confectionary Chocolate Caramels 125g, only to restock them months later.
5. Provide small cubicles with pet baskets, water and lockable doors for customers with dogs to place their beloved animal somewhere safe whilst they partake in brief shopping sessions.
6. Provide nectar customers will free reusable key-ring bags, this will encourage valued customers to become nectar card holders, it will also enable the store to advertise the brand on the reusable keyring bags which I am sure they will use for other purposes besides carrying the supermarket’s products.

Thank-you for taking the time to read through this message, I hope you can provide me with the reusable key-ring bags as compensation for the horror I have experienced.

Best Wishes

At Drais with my friend African supermodel, Joyce Mandi

Amongst the star scattered sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevards sits the club that’s nestled into the Hotel W, bouncers guard every edge of the rope separating the streets from the Aladdin’s cave inside.

A guy called Sunny walks up and down ordering doormen to lift the rope when people reach the owners expectations and are approved entry into the club, those who get in are usually beautiful young women or very rich men who have ordered table service.

Once through the sacred rope guests ascend to the club in elevators and pay a $20 cover fee, the clientele are composed of mainly women with a few men with large wallets scattered throughout, they are seated at tables covered in expensive drinks.

Girls flock around them awaiting the men’s approval so they can attempt to climb onto the first rung of the Hollywood ladder giving them a chance to soar high enough in the future to live the American dream.

Fire thrusts around attempting to escape the grasps of its bell jar.

Every time a table orders a bottle of Grey Goose vodka, cocktail waitresses put on a show with the liquid being brought out by two females, one holds the bottle above her head whilst the other has her hand raised in the air holding onto a glass vessels containing lit sparklers, as they walk through the crowd the fire thrusts around attempting to escape the grasps of its bell jar.

The club is composed of a large rectangular room, three females dance on podiums dressed in beautiful white dresses with full bodied skirts and corset tops encrusted with crystals.  The DJ spins R&B and a rapper with dreadlocks occasionally takes to the podium and tells guests to stick their middle finger in the air.

The dance floor is small and centrally located between the DJ booth and some tables, dancing guests can expect to be nudged as people attempt to walk to the bar.  This faux pas on the clubs front has been bypassed by allowing club goers to dance on the tables and podiums.

The music occasional skips outside the realms of social norms as dirty gangster rap slips into the mix, with lyrics composed of words more likely to be heard escaping from a prostitutes mouth than that of the LA in-crowd.

Guests are seated around a bonfire

Outside the main room is a patioed rooftop terrace with a pool in the centre, white outdoor furniture sits perfectly around the edge of the water and a few large beds are dotted around.  Flames are enclosed in black metal cages and a small gas bonfire provides a feature for guests to sit around.

Men approach the clubs women, for me this entailed conversations with a car dealership owner, a Jewish grad student, a Boston based businessman and a group of Kazakhstan millionaires who work in the oil industry.

As the night draws to a close the girls surrounding rich men become more and more intoxicated, a pair give lap dances to their beverage buyers, and another girl makes an epic fail as she falls from the pole whilst trying to seduce her money men.

We take this as our cue to leave, as we descend in the elevator and through the doors we are brought heavily back down to earth by a Mexican man who gave me a sob story in an attempt to steal my phone by asking to make a call, he scurried off when I told him I would make the call for him and not actually hand over the phone.

The dusty car park across the street and the dirty pavement slabs are a million miles away from the sparkling pool, pristine furniture and crystal clad dancers, but sadly until another night the dream is over.

How to get in:
Girls: Wear sexy dresses team with stilettos, flawless makeup and glossy hair.
Guys: Order table service to avoid the line

Chris Jeffries has been sacrificed by the media. Image: mjsonline

Joanna’s partner was so disgusted that he released a statement saying: “Jo’s life was cut short tragically but the finger-pointing and character assassination by social and news media of as yet innocent men has been shameful.”

Allegations in the media about the 65 year old retired teacher Chris Jefferies include questions about his sexuality, a story about him leaving his mother whilst she was dying and the nicknames “Professor Strange” and “The Strange Mr Jefferies”.

Had he been the victim of a murder I’m sure the press would have been quick to acknowledge that this is a gentleman who is an upstanding member of the community, a retired teacher and a Liberal Democrat party activist who runs a neighbourhood watch scheme.

Instead however they are assassinating his character, pulling up people who knew him only as children and describing his behaviour in the classroom.

Now I’m sorry but I think I could pull up a story about every one of my teachers behaving peculiarly, because children tend to have imaginations and what we thought we saw as children could be very different or exaggerated to what we would see as adults.

Why are the press doing this?

In England and Wales the Contempt of Court law prevents reporting of anything that could sway the jury once a case is active, for a case to be active somebody needs to be charged.  As of the time this post is published, Jeffries has not been charged.

Prior to online news this wasn’t a problem, the media could call somebody every name under the sun because if they then went on to be charged by the time the case began and the jury was selected, the reports would be lining the cages of budgies nationwide.

However the Contempt of Court law never made it into the modern age and online news agencies are allowed to archive all previous reports for anybody to see.  Meaning the jury members could be swayed by reports accessible on the internet despite the fact they were written prior to a case becoming active.

The media also have another friend on their side, the law of defamation, defamation is the damaging of a person’s reputation in the eyes of the society.  This means it’s easy to defame somebody seen very highly in society but it’s very difficult to damage the reputation of a criminal.

The only problem is: this man is not a criminal, he has not been charged or convicted of a crime, the only group putting this man on trial is the media.

The coauthor of McNae’s Essential Law for Journalists has written a similar blog post on this subject.

Image: mjsonline

Being slightly over the top I decided to make a huge amount of resolutions and being unable to follow through with spur of the moment decisions, they didn’t go too well.

My first resolution was to give blood … I didn’t do it, no idea why I didn’t, but if it’s any consolation I did join the organ donor register.

Next there was to own a pet lobster, now I did look into this but came up with a few issues, firstly lobsters are quite hard to get hold of, the ones in fish shops die pretty soon after purchase.

Then there are the logistical problems, lobsters require a refrigerated tank, they tend to hide for their first year, live for a ridiculous number of years and since I have issues cleaning out the litter tray I don’t like my chances of cleaning a tank containing a sharp clawed animal.

My third resolution was very optimistic, as I tend to eat mostly crisps and bread, I decided to eat one apple a day, it lasted until mid-January when I found myself on a work placement, I am very fussy about having my apple peeled, cored and sliced before eating them and I didn’t fancy my chances of carrying a knife around central London to do the said apple preparation.

My next choice was to become a Goth for a week, ok now I didn’t manage a week but following the persuation of my friends I did get through one day, but after being followed round the local waitrose by a security guard, I decided it probably wasn’t for me.

I then decided to learn the dance to Michael Jacksons, thriller, no excuses for this, I just didn’t bother, I did attempt at finding a youtube tutorial, but I got no where.

My final resolution was to take a picture of one thing a day and upload it to a “daily diary” now this I actually achieved, every single day, whether I was in uni, at the hospital, on a work placement or in the Big Brother house (thanks go out to my friend Sam who added the pics during that time) I managed it!

And here in video form is: A year in the life of Sunshine!

Steve and I preparing for the ghost hunt by drinking champagme, Mario doing the same, but with a McDonalds fanta

The ghost hunt was for Children in Need, I’d been asked to come along with BB’s: Mario, Steve and Corin alongside Lisa Mafia, Romeo Dunn and Mis-teeq’s, Su Elise Nash.

A limousine picked me up from the station courtsey of Lady Jayne Limousines and took me to two locations in Manchester, one was Foxdenton Hall, Steve told me he had looked the place up and children had been locked in the basement.

I looked it up and found nothing except, apparently, it has a secret tunnel.   Needless to say we didn’t go in the basement or secret tunnel anyway.

The other location was a town hall, which is today used for registering deaths and marriages, the confetti outside the entrance certainly didn’t conjure up feelings of dread in me.

The group was split into four, with Steve staying with his friends that had come up with him, Mario with Corin and Lisa, Romeo and Su Elise together and me, you got it, on my lonesome!

“I’ve done crop circles”

People had paid to come along so every group was given a team of ghost hunters and a pair of celebrities or me.  My group had a man in it who told me he is a paranormal investigator, when I asked him what he’s done before, he replied: “crop circles” I told him: “ah I wondered who was making them!”.

We started out in Foxdenton Hall, now I was open-minded, but sceptical.  Put me alone in my flat at night and I get paranoid of the slightest shadow! But I am now a firm non-believer.  The group I was with wouldn’t stop: “I see a man”, “something pulled my hat off”, “I feel terribly cold here suddenly”.

I shot back a logical explanation for each: “it’s the shadows playing with your eyes”, “your hat probably wasn’t on properly” and “you are standing in front of a window”.  Every time someone said they saw something I moved to that area, and still the people continued to see things, but I however saw nothing.

We then went upstairs into a room where a Ouija board was set up. Someone was freaking out, pointing at a chair and saying: “I can’t sit there, somethings there”, I looked at them and said: “cool, can I sit there then?” surprisingly the mysterious being chose not to bother me.

We all put out fingers on the board and sat for an hour…it never moved.

A mysterious black pillar appearing

We then moved onto the other location to perform a séance,  we held hands and tried to communicate with the spirit world, they must have been shy though because nothing happened.  Except for one girl claiming there was a black pillar in front of her, there was of course an actual  black pillar in the room, directly in front of her.

The group were then going to do a séance elsewhere, I bit the bullet and told one of the organisers I wanted to do a lone séance, to sit on my own in a haunted room and see if I get scared.

A security guard from the Town Hall took me to a room, I whispered to him: “I get the feeling this place isn’t haunted” he replied: “I’ve worked here for two years and I’ve seen nothing but the lady who works in this room always feels like there’s someone watching her.”

He shut me in the room in pitch darkness and absolutely nothing happened at all, no noises, no shadows, no sudden decreases in temperature.

So despite my open-mind and real willingness to experience something paranormal, I felt nothing.  In my opinion when you put a number of people in the dark they will start to “see” things, their minds will play tricks on them and the thrill of being that special person who is touched by a ghost is all encompassing.

So either ghosts do exist, but just not in these locations or the entire spirit world is a figment of the imagination of people who chose to believe, either way everything that happened that night could be explained by logic.

It was a fun evening but I’m going to need some more convincing, so bring it on spooks!

Image: heritagefutures

Oh watch out sir, people might think you're a Guy Fawkes effigy and throw you on the fire. Image: Dominic's pics

The guy, an international student at my medical school had never been told about the tradition and he just couldn’t understand why we have such a morbid holiday.  I guess reminiscing about happy times I spent as a child stuffing my dad’s clothes with leafs to make an effigy before throwing it on the fire were a little too vivid.

So bonfire night has gone down as one of my five top ridiculous UK holidays, so what else made the grade?

The Queen’s Official Birthday

Despite the Queen being born on April 21^st we celebrate her “official” birthday in early June.  Well the weather is usually better in June, pefect for a parade and isn’t it always a good idea to have 2 birthdays?

Royal Variety Performance

Every year the Royal Variety Performance is held for the Royal family to watch, except every other year the Queen doesn’t bother to turn up and sends Prince Charles in her place.  To make it an even more formal affair Simon Cowell runs a tv show which picks one of the acts who will perform.

Pancake day

Traditionally Christians gave up luxury food for Lent so in preparation they used up their ingredients by making and eating pancakes right before.  Now very few people actually give up anything for lent but that won’t stop them from celebrating this holiday and thus most people still gorge on pancakes.

April Fools day

There are a number of theories about the origin of April Fools Day (some say it was invented in the book Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales).  Whatever the origin the unofficial holiday is a chance to play light hearted pranks on your loved ones, after all nothing says I love you like cling film covering the toilet seat.

Image: Dominic’s pics

At the bingo, as you can see I fit in very well with the regulars

Registering was easy all I had to do was fill out a form and have my membership card printed off, understanding the game however was not.

Three employees tried to explain the price structure to me: “£5 for early and mains, then extra if you want sapphire and the national game, if you want to play the table game it’s £1 a go”. With my jaw dropped, I looked at one of the employees and said: “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about”.

Thinking the game was mostly frequented by old ladies for their weekly trip out I decided to attempt to fit in with the formal attire with my faux fur coat, vintage pill box hat and blazing red lipstick. However my friend who had just come from the gym without showering summed it up nicely when she told me, she felt overdressed.

The bingo hall was a mass of plastic tables with fold down chairs, mostly people sat on their own with pairs of elderly mothers and grownup daughters dispersed and the odd pair of love birds.

I had gone for the basic package which involved 14 games, obviously I had come unprepared and not brought a pen so I was using a pencil I found in my car.

The numbers were called out over a tannoy system rivalling those installed at supermarkets, you know the ones where you haven’t got a clue what’s been said.  Not only were the numbers hard to hear but they were read out so quickly that I snapped my pencil lead within seconds and had to invest in a bingo dabber.

People don’t even say “bingo”

Gone are the days when bingo numbers are called out by a youthful dad at the local PTA meeting with comical one-liners and an associated reaction from the crowd: legs 11 anyone?

Instead a monotonous voice read out the numbers in a logical but boring manner, eight and eight, 88, where are the two fat ladies? or is that no longer politically correct? To top it off people don’t even say “bingo”! Instead they shout: “over here” or “oi”.

I have no idea why the adverts portray the place as fun and exciting as most of the guests looked like they were waiting for a funeral to start and as soon as someone wins the whole crowd mumbles in disappointment.

The most confusing aspect of the place is the food ordering system, you can’t go up to the bar and order, you have to sit on your fold away chair and hold your menu in the air, I held mine for about ten minutes before someone came over.

Because the numbers are called so fast people attempt to eat main meals in-between the games, I amusingly watched one person taking a bite of her food only for the next game to start unexpectantly causing her to throw her fork across the table in preparation.

Surprisingly my friend and I didn’t win and left empty handed, I have to admit I am a bit disappointed, I expected a fun filled evening of whimsical excitement. Instead the night resembled a mass of people filling in forms in silence and paying for the pleasure of it.

I started back 2 days before the final of Big Brother and announced I had recommenced live on national television whilst wearing a panel cut-out leotard, layered with a transparent dress adorned with 4000 crystals, not exactly the image you would associate with a doctor, but hey this was my last chance to sparkle!

Before I went on the show the Big Brother psychiatrist told me that I would never be able to be a doctor, that patients wouldn’t trust me, that they would specifically ask me to leave.

In fact, I have experienced the opposite reaction, of the patients who have recognised me they have all said: “good on you” and since I have been working with cancer patients and children, I can’t see the negatives I was warned about happening.

I took every step I could before going on the show, I talked anonymously to the General Medical Council, discussed the pros and cons with as many people as I could and I’m very lucky to have had the support of my medical school before and in the aftermath of the show.

So what’s in store now? Well next year I sit my medical finals and who knows: I think there’s room on tv for a Doctor Sunshine.

Getting ready to race the same yacht that Steve sailed across the Atlantic on

A few weeks ago I bumped into a friend of Big Brother’s, Ben in a newsagents, she happened to know someone who works for Fashion Insider magazine who invited me onto their yacht.

My Dad described the event as a red carpet filled engagement, however he had never been there and although Raffles and Mahiki had both set up temporary bars I didn’t do much celebrity spotting.

My first thought on arriving is that men by far outnumber women and not only are women few and far between but they appear to be the crème de la crème of extraordinary human beings.  One lady I spoke to had sailed around the world solo twice and another had rowed across the Atlantic twice.

And as if feeling notably inadequate wasn’t enough after sleeping on a yacht anchored outside the harbour I soon realised that despite my past trips out at sea, sleeping at the front of a boat in rocking water will make me seasick.  But there was no time to dawn on that, as the PR team at Cowes had arranged for me to race a large yacht.

I was astonished to hear that the boat I would be sailing was the very same one that BB’s Steve had sailed across the Atlantic on, is there anything that man can’t do? I had of course come unprepared and wearing a D&G top with mirrored sunglasses wasn’t exactly the most practical ensemble.  The boats crew rectified this by piling waterproof coats on top of my outfit.

When I arrived back on land eight hours later my host was excited to see how I’d found my day, “It was certainly an experience”, I said through gritted teeth.  After all, my job on the yacht was to have a large wet sail dropped on my head whilst I had to struggle to grab three particular parts.

After a night on dry land I was ready for more and the next day was spent sailing from Southampton to the Isle of Wight, in the evening we took in some night life.  The hi-light was sipping champagne at Raffles surrounded by beautiful yachts moored in the port.

The next day I headed home and I’m glad to say there was no more sea sickness, although I did get ridiculed by my dad who had great delight in labelling me a “landlubber”.

Right before I found out I was leaving the house, showing the bracelets I had made

When I walked into the Big Brother house I instantly adapted to the new environment, I accepted the cameras, the restricted environment and the rules.  But leaving was a completely different story and much harder to adjust to.

In the house we were confined to a small space, we varied our time between the garden, living room and bedroom and had just 13 people to spend time with.

The rules meant everything was dictated:

• We had most of our clothes taken off us a few days in
• Emergency rations left us with chickpeas, brown rice and lentils
• The hot water was turned off
• Alarms sounded to wake us up and if we went to bed too early
• We were often locked in rooms while tasks were set up

I know I was portrayed as a moaner in the house but I never once complained about the lack of hot water, or having my clothes taken away and although I complained about food I just wanted to be treated the same as everybody else by having soya milk, vegan butter and tofu.  And I most certainly didn’t complain the most in there!

Despite the rules I never once felt bored in the house or complained that there was nothing to do, I loved every minute of the experience! Although we had rules we also had amazing times like being given puppets that had been specially made!

Leaving was a huge shock to the system, an announcement is made and you have just 10 seconds to say goodbye to the people who have supported you and cared for you for weeks.

When the doors open the evictee sees hundreds of people waving banners and taking pictures.  They are then interviewed where they must justify their behaviour, regardless of not knowing what has been shown or the public’s perception.

For some the reaction is terrible and a few could even be hated universally by the public.  Others are liked by some but not by others for trivial reasons.  All housemates nap during the day, but some are shown doing so in the highlights all the time and made to look like that’s all they did.  Whilst some are edited to look like they moan a lot and others look like they talk behind peoples backs all the time.

Contrast between being in and out was the hardest

For me the hardest thing was the contrast between being in the house and out of it.  I remember hearing a Northern accent and thinking it was Nathan and seeing a man at a bus stop and thinking it must be Steve.  I was so used to just seeing these people that it was difficult to be surrounded by new ones.

The freedom was also really difficult to accept.  When I was in the house I ate toast and usually pasta with chopped tomatoes.  With the shopping list budget there was just no way we could afford to buy food so I could have a varied diet.  Then suddenly I’m out of the house and I can eat whatever I like, it was too much at once that it was really hard to cope with.

There is support there, welfare teams and psychologists but the biggest support I had was from the evicted housemates.  I needed to talk to people who were in the same position as me and one of the first things I did was get in touch with Dave’s wife.  When you are so close to people in the house then taken away from them it’s really hard, you get so attached as you are with them all the time.

Despite the restrictions in the house I loved it there, I exercised everyday so I could jump in the cold shower water and got ecstatically happy when big brother would surprise me with bread and crisps.  I loved everyone in there especially Mario, Dave, Corin, Ben and John and I’m still gutted that the whole experience is over.