I have given up being shocked

Among his latest passing observations (N^o 261), Dr. Vernon Coleman gives us a sample of “daft laws.”  In 1712, England imposed a tax on printed wallpaper. In Rumford, Maine, it was illegal for a tenant to bite a landlord. In Youngstown, Ohio, it was illegal to tie a giraffe to a lamppost.

Today’s politicians are no better. In Canada it is illegal to use the words “boy” and “girl” since they are considered right-wing and dangerous and in the UK, it is considered racist to teach or learn mathematics.

By Dr. Vernon Coleman

1. I have given up being shocked at the dumbing down of medicine. It is undoubtedly cheaper to hire non-professionals to do jobs that should be done by nurses, just as it is cheaper to use nurses to do jobs that really ought to be done by doctors. It would not surprise me to find that GPs were using their cleaning staff to perform surgery. “If you can mop a floor, you can take out a liver.” Care assistants are also used to take blood samples. I remember first starting to take blood samples when I was a senior medical student. For two years we had to take at least 10 samples a day, with huge glass syringes. That’s what? A minimum of 6,000 samples. Then as a junior house surgeon and house physician when I had qualified, I must have taken around 20 samples a day. That’s another 6,000 blood extractions. And as a GP I probably took around 500 a year for ten years. That’s another 5,000. Today’s GPs have probably taken a dozen blood samples in their working lives. It used to be called phlebotomy, and the people taking blood samples were called phlebotomists. I fear that these days the people taking the samples are called “whoever is hanging around with nothing else to do.” And now GPs (working 23 hours a week) are going to work to rule (a posh version of going on strike which enables the striker to keep getting paid while doing even less work). Just how will patients know?

2. It is illegal to discriminate against minority groups and to discriminate against people by age and against people by sex. As an elderly, white male I am without a doubt in several minority groups, and so the next time anyone fails to provide me with the service I think I might enjoy being entitled to then I feel it will be incumbent upon me to make a formal complaint to the relevant Government department. What fun lies ahead for all.

3. The world is changing in many ways and logic, common sense and fair play are no longer considered relevant or significant by those who have taken upon themselves the onerous work of shaping the world on our behalf.

4. I thought the various recent Conservative governments were dire but compared to “Free Suits” Starmer and Co they were wonderful. “Free Suits” Starmer is surely presiding over the worst Government in British history. How many more islands does Starmer intend to give away? Maybe, if the Chinese give him another free suit, he’ll give them Gibraltar and the Isle of Wight with the Isle of Man as part of a buy two get one free package. I don’t remember there ever being such a charmless and shameless bunch of politicians in charge of anything. And they nicked my winter fuel allowance so that they could spend billions on asylum seekers (we now have more than anywhere in Europe) and massive public sector pay rises.

5. Car parking has become such a trial that many people are giving up their cars and doing all their shopping via the internet. As the number of car parks shrinks so they become ever more expensive (up to £14 an hour). And the spaces for cars are getting smaller. Many councils and car park operators require drivers to use an app (there are around 30 different ones, so you have to have the correct one on your phone before you can park). The apps come with a variety of extra costs (you can buy special insurance, though you’re probably almost covered with your household or car policy), you may have to pay for getting text messages to confirm your parking and you may be offered licensed mental health counselling along with your car park ticket (I am not kidding).

6. There is a myth (based on the usual pseudo-science) that diversity in business is a “good” thing in the same way that not spending more than you earn and not falling down drunk every night are good things. And so, company boards must now make sure that they include female members, and probably transgender individuals and people of every hue and from every country on every planet. Regulators insist that companies meet diversity targets and quotas. In order to satisfy the quota requirements, companies must scrabble around and appoint candidates because of their sex and skin colour rather than because of their skills or knowledge. To excuse this blatant exhibition of “ism” in full flow the myth makers claim that a diverse board of directors will produce better financial performance. Pause for laughter. Why would that be? Everyone with a couple of neurons to rub together knows that this is a myth and there isn’t a shred of evidence for it. The myth was contrived because it is politically correct. Does anyone have a shred of evidence that having a mixture of races represented on a board of directors will add to the value of the company, the security of the employees or the joy of the consumers? Is there any evidence that having a mixture of sexes will make any difference? But these days evidence is no counter to the prejudices created by the myth-makers. I suspect that a company will be better served by having the best candidates on board, whatever their sex or skin colour. But no one dares share such reactionary thoughts anymore even though as a consumer of goods and services and as a shareholder and investor I would prefer to know that the people making the decisions were there because they were the best people available and not just because they an acceptable mix of chromosomes or melanin distribution. I’m pretty sure that if I were an employee I’d feel the same way too.

7. English seaside towns are dying. It would make sense, and be an enormous help, if local councils abolished car park fees. The councils would recover their money through the increased occupation of shops. This all makes good economic sense so it won’t happen. The Net Zero plan is to destroy all seaside towns. The conspirators don’t want anyone travelling away from their cardboard flat in their twenty-minute city.

8. The plan to ban gardening is proceeding apace in many parts of the world. The bans cover the growing of flowers as well as food. The aim, of course, is to force us all to live in cardboard flats in high-rise buildings where we will live on a diet of food made in laboratories. The conspirators want us to have no gardens, no walks in the country, no trips to the seaside, no foreign travel and an early death if we become disabled or if we grow old. Please read my book `They want your money and your life’ to find out more about the future they have planned for you. To purchase a copy please CLICK HERE.

9. I had a curious conversation with someone from Britain’s healthcare industry about the RSV vaccination. “What’s the risk of my developing Guillain-Barre syndrome?” I asked. “Oh, there is no risk,” came the reply, instantly. “Well, would you please let the FDA and the Ministry of Health have the good news?” I said. “They think there is a risk but they just don’t know how big a risk it is.” I should have also mentioned that the risk is believed to be higher in the over-75s – the very group that the NHS is targeting. If they want to kill all the elderly why not just send the police round to shoot us all?

10. Modern British GPs refuse to do many things that their predecessors used to do regularly. They refuse to syringe wax out of ears. They refuse to take blood samples or give injections. And they seem to delight in making life difficult for their patients. When Antoinette was prescribed tamoxifen for the treatment of her breast cancer, her GP refused to prescribe the stuff until the official letter from the hospital oncologist arrived – even though Antoinette had evidence that the drug had been prescribed for her. The letter from the hospital took weeks to arrive, of course. The GP could have telephoned the hospital straight away but that would have involved using the telephone. Modern GPs seem to do what they are required to do – and no more.

11. My new book `Vernon Coleman’s Commonplace Book’ has just been published. It is a very personal collection of thought-provoking and entertaining anecdotes, quotes and ideas presented in the true Victorian tradition. If you’d like to purchase a copy please CLICK HERE. The book is available as a hardcover (which makes an excellent gift) and a paperback. As usual, I’ve kept my royalties very low. If you enjoy reading it half as much as I enjoyed putting it together, you’ll want to buy copies for everyone you like.

12. For many years now health and safety officials have shown no interest in health or safety but have concentrated their efforts on making life more dangerous and unpleasant for everyone. So, for example, health and safety officials regularly instruct public houses and country house hotels that they must not have open log fires in their public rooms, however much these might add to the enjoyment of residents or visitors. They ban open fires, they say, lest a stray spark finds its way through the obligatory spark guard, lands on an innocent child and singe an item of clothing, or lands on a hearth rug, remains unnoticed and causes a burn mark. And officials encourage panic and hysteria. In early 2024, public health officers in the UK issued an alert after it was discovered that a passenger on an airline flight had measles. This was, allegedly, the third case of measles discovered in Ireland in the first quarter of the year and you’d have thought the plague had returned. This was measles. It wasn’t German measles (rubella) which can be dangerous for pregnant women. It was measles. But the same health and safety officials who work hard at removing every last vestige of fun and delight from our lives will happily allow doctors and nurses to give toxic, potentially lethal injections to healthy children – even when there is sound clinical evidence showing that those injections do more harm than good.

13. Approximately 99.78% of the people who support Working from Home are working from home. How curious. How convenient.

14. NATO appears to be desperately trying to nudge Russia into nuking Ukraine so that NATO forces can nuke Russia. And Israel seems to be desperately trying to force Iran, Lebanon, Syria, etc., into defending themselves so that they (Israel) can nuke the whole of the Middle East – probably destroying everything, including Israel, and putting the price of a gallon of petrol up to $7,000 a gallon. It is difficult to believe that this isn’t part of the depopulation plan so beloved by the globalist conspirators. Why does Israel get away with playing the victim even after the ICC and ICJ seemed to suspect that Israel is guilty of genocide? In my view, Israel is a victim in the same way that “Free Suits” Starmer can be regarded as a man of honour and integrity. (A man of honour and integrity would have surely resigned in shame by now. And so would most of his colleagues. Tony Blair’s first sleaze case took longer and didn’t involve personal freebies.)

15. The idiots who think we should carry on sending illegal weapons (such as depleted uranium) to Ukraine are the same idiots who wore masks, lined up to be vaccinated with a toxic vaccine that didn’t do what it was supposed to do, and believe that global warming is real.

16. I am angered again and again at the fact that the NHS spends so much money dealing with drug addicts, providing cosmetic surgery and dealing with non-life-threatening problems such as infertility. And doctors want the NHS to provide medical treatment for people around the world who want to have their operations done here, to have their babies here, to have their expensive drug treatments here and so on. A doctor says that it would be racist to do otherwise. Meanwhile, UK patients endure the worst cancer treatment service in the world with patients waiting weeks, months and probably years for tests and treatment. (Read my book `What doctors don’t tell you about chemotherapy’ for the stuff doctors don’t tell you about chemotherapy and other cancer treatments. The book is available in the health section of the http://www.vernoncoleman.com webshop. The contents will startle you.

17. Now that the politicians have given themselves the (dangerous) right to put fluoride into our drinking water, they are desperate to add more drugs. There have, for decades now, been plans to add oral contraceptives and benzodiazepine tranquillisers to drinking water – the former to reduce the size of populations and the latter to make citizens more compliant. There are now plans to add seriously heavy psychoactive drugs to tap water to control us. Meanwhile, the evidence shows that the accidental pollution of drinking water with drug residues has caused massive changes to humans. I revealed back in the 1980s that drug residues from sewage were being allowed into drinking water and were liable to cause significant changes to the humans who drink the water. The evidence now supports my warnings. Sperm counts among young men have fallen by half in recent years and you only have to look at a team of professional sportsmen from the 1950s and 1960s and compare the appearances of the players with teams from today to see just how dramatic has been the effect of massive quantities of oral contraceptive residues in our drinking water.

18. The NHS, and particularly the GP service, is forcing patients into using online pharmacies to obtain essential medicines. I suspect, however, that online pharmacies will never be as successful as online bookshops. I suspect that the industry powerhouse, the General Pharmaceutical Council, will clamp down on internet pharmacies (arguing that they are misbehaving) in order to protect the High Street pharmacies. Regulations will be introduced.

19. I am told that YouTube contains fun videos for entertainment. (YouTube actually banned me from watching videos on their channel – at the time when they banned me from ever making videos on their channel.) But I suggest that you don’t ever trust any medical advice you see or hear on YouTube. I suspect that anyone who is still making videos about medical issues for YouTube is there because they are approved by the CIA, GCHQ and all the other bad agencies.

20. I’ve just received my fourth invitation to have the RSV vaccine. This invitation came as an unsigned letter in large print (presumably because they know I’m aged and therefore unable to see, or even think, clearly). As usual, there is no mention of the danger of developing Guillain-Barre syndrome. If the NHS contacts me again, I will complain about them to the police. I believe that harassment is still a crime and with old age comes feistiness. Oh, and would they please stop trying to sell me the flu and covid vaccines.

21. I tend to drive slowly when we are in our 67-year-old Bentley which has no seat belts, padded dashboard or airbags and the windscreen glass isn’t the sort that is fitted these days (we could, I have no doubt, have all these things fitted but it would be like a ballet dancer wearing basketball shoes with a tutu). I usually cruise at between 30 mph and 50 mph where there is no speed limit although the old lady still moves with considerable speed when I put my foot down, and I suspect she’d still get somewhere near to 100 mph if I wanted her to do so. (Not that I would dream of doing so, of course, because that would be illegal.) But the car and I are both past our speeding days, and as someone who has for decades rushed hither and thither, I must admit that pootling along, while settled on a comfortable, soft sofa, seems very pleasant. Seat belts have been compulsory in the UK for some while but were first introduced in the 1960s in the USA when it was compulsory for cars to be fitted with seat belts and padded dashboards. The aim, of course, was to improve road safety and, as intended, there were fewer road deaths per accident. But because cars were safer, people drove more recklessly and had more accidents. The end result was that having seat belts made no damned difference. This isn’t the only instance of a law backfiring, changing behaviour and ending up doing no good. When the window tax was introduced in England, owners of large houses bricked up lots of windows so that they paid less tax. The end result was that the Government was no better off and people lived in the dark. In the 1990s, around a dozen European countries introduced wealth taxes. Most of them gave up when people either left the country or just worked less. In France, the wealth tax brought in only half of the tax that was lost because people were emigrating. Rent controls always have a negative effect too. Rent controls which limit the prices landlords can charge for property result in landlords giving up being landlords. And the result of that is a shortage of properties to rent. And the result of that is that rents go up. Nothing changes and politicians never learn. Once you start looking for daft laws it seems that there is no end of them. In 1712, England imposed a tax on printed wallpaper. Folk got round the tax by putting up plain paper and then painting patterns onto the paper. In 1784, a tax on hats was introduced. Hatmakers got round this by calling their products “headgear.” It took the authorities 20 years to respond by taxing “headgear.” There have been equally potty laws in America. In Rumford, Maine, it was illegal for a tenant to bite a landlord. In Youngstown, Ohio, it was illegal to tie a giraffe to a lamppost. In Nogales, Arizona, men could get into trouble if they wore braces. In San Francisco, it was illegal to shoot jackrabbits from a cable car. In Owensboro, Kentucky, a woman could be arrested for buying a new hat unless her husband had tried it on first. In Carmel, California, it was illegal to take a bath in a business office. In Norton, Virginia, it was illegal for a man to tickle a girl. Quite right too, you might say. We laugh at these crazy laws. But today’s laws are ever pottier. In Canada it is illegal to use the words “boy” and “girl” since they are considered right-wing and dangerous and in the UK, it is considered racist to teach or learn mathematics. (Taken from Vernon Coleman’s book `Old Man in an Old Car’ – CLICK HERE to purchase a copy.)

About the Author

Vernon Coleman MB ChB DSc practised medicine for ten years. He has been a full-time professional author for over 30 years. He is a novelist and campaigning writer and has written many non-fiction books.  He has written over 100 books which have been translated into 22 languages. On his website, HERE, there are hundreds of articles which are free to read.

There are no ads, no fees and no requests for donations on Dr. Coleman’s website or videos. He pays for everything through book sales. If you want to help finance his work, please just buy a book – there are over 100 books by Vernon Coleman in print on Amazon.