I got to see some of this first hand. I happened to be in Colliers Wood yesterday evening. One shop had been set on fire, and other shops had had windows smashed and were being looted. The police were present, but were not able to intervene in the looting. I saw police in riot gear guarding a petrol station. They had presumably taken the (no doubt very wise) decision that preventing a petrol station being set on fire was the most important use of their limited resources.

As a scientist, I want to be able to explain things. Here, I have to accept that my tools as a statistician are largely useless for doing so. Medical statistics is mostly about trying to draw generalisable conclusions from individual events. I’m pretty sure there are no generalisable conclusions that can be drawn from last night’s events. To explain last night’s events, we need the tools of social sciences.

I am by no means an expert in social sciences, although it is a subject that interests me, and I am currently studying part-time towards a “social sciences with economics” degree with the Open University. One thing I have learned already is that theories in social sciences are usually context-specific. In trying to understand what happened last night, it’s likely to be unwise to try to generalise. Last night’s violence was a collection of different pockets of violence, and even trying to explain what happened in Croydon in the same terms as explaining what happened in Ealing may well be over-generalising.

I don’t pretend to understand why such horrific violence erupted in London last night. Anybody who claims to be able to explain it at this stage is probably massively over-simplifying. But here are the sort of questions I hope social scientists will be able to answer when they have had a chance to reflect properly and gather some data:

• Clearly much of the criminal activity was based purely on personal greed, but were there other reasons as well? How common were those other reasons, and what were they?
• How many of those looting were habitual criminals who saw an opportunity, and how many were previously law-abiding people, drawn into criminality by the psychology of the mob?
• How does mob psychology manage to exert such a powerful influence in such situations?
• What factors in the way society is organised contribute to so many people turning to criminality?
• Were the reasons for the riots broadly similar in all areas of London, or were there important differences between the different areas where violence occurred?
• And most importantly, what societal measures could be taken to reduce the risk of this happening in the future?

This is a worrying time for London. My thoughts are with all the police officers who will have to put themselves in harm’s way this evening. I hope they remain safe.

London riots Dianthus Medical - An innovative company providing outside the box analytical solutions for the pharmaceutical industry and other organisations working in the biomedical sector.

So given that walking tours are usually so much fun, it’s astonishing that after living in London for about 16 years I went on my first walking tour here only yesterday evening. I guess it’s always a danger of living somewhere that you never get round to doing the things that tourists do, even if they are fascinating.

Yesterday, I went on the first of a series of scientific-themed walking tours organised by the Royal Society. It was fascinating. Led by our excellent guide Barabara from Tales of Two Cities, we started at St Bartholemew’s Hospital (which I learned was the oldest hospital in Britain), and wandered around the surrounding area, learning many interesting facts about the history of medicine as we went. The most surprising bit for me was learning about how anatomy classes for medical students in times gone by were heavily dependent on a thriving trade in grave-robbing.

It was also rather a treat to see some hidden gems of the City of London, and find some beautifully tranquil green spaces in places where you really wouldn’t expect to find them. The sort of thing you never do if you live in a city, but to which an expert guide can really open your eyes.

I have decided that I really should spend more time getting to know the city in which I’ve lived for the last 16 years. Luckily, the Royal Society’s series of walks has only just started, so I should be able to go to one or two more of them.

History of medicine walking tour Dianthus Medical - An innovative company providing outside the box analytical solutions for the pharmaceutical industry and other organisations working in the biomedical sector.

I used the cream on my left foot, but not on my right, for about 3 weeks before the race.

At the end of the race, I had one blister on each foot. The blister on my right foot was one that I’d gained during training before I started using the foot cream, which never really healed, so it doesn’t count. So from this small and totally statistically meaningless sample, I have no evidence that the foot cream did any good, and in fact some weak evidence that it may even have been harmful.

My email to the manufacturers asking whether they had any evidence never received a reply, so I guess there simply is no evidence that the product is effective.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I finished the Marathon in 4 h, 36 minutes, and 52 seconds. There is still time to sponsor me, in aid of Cancer Research UK, by clicking here.

Evidence based footcare part 2 Dianthus Medical - An innovative company providing outside the box analytical solutions for the pharmaceutical industry and other organisations working in the biomedical sector.

So I went to see a podiatrist yesterday to try to make sure that the blisters are under control in time for the big day. She put a dressing on which seemed to make my blisters pain free on my run this morning, which is a good start.

However, she also recommended that I use a product called “Trek Bliss” foot cream, which she told me would help to improve the quality of my skin and make me less prone to a recurrence of blisters. When I asked her if that had been demonstrated in any randomised controlled trials, she looked rather surprised, and admitted that she didn’t know. I guess she isn’t used to treating medical statisticians. I then asked how she knew that it worked, to which she replied that many of her other clients come back for more of it. Not very convincing. Most homoeopaths probably also say that their clients come back for more, so that’s really no better than no evidence at all of efficacy.

I’ve just done a fairly careful search on both PubMed and Google Scholar, and couldn’t find any evidence whatsoever that this cream will have the desired effect. I’ve emailed the manufacturer to ask if they have any evidence, but I suspect that the answer will be that they don’t.

So, right now I’m thinking that I should use the cream on one foot only between now and when I run the marathon and see if that foot has any fewer blisters than the other. Could I ever respect myself as a scientist again if I did anything else?

Evidence based footcare Dianthus Medical - An innovative company providing outside the box analytical solutions for the pharmaceutical industry and other organisations working in the biomedical sector.

So I was delighted when I finished in 2 h 3 min 26 sec.

The word “Poppy” in the title, is of course related to the Poppy Appeal, and I was therefore raising money for that charity. If you haven’t yet sponsored me for the race, there is still time to do so by visiting my sponsorship page. When so many of our troops are still dying on active service, the Poppy Appeal is as relevant now as it’s ever been, so please give generously!

Bexhill half marathon Dianthus Medical - An innovative company providing outside the box analytical solutions for the pharmaceutical industry and other organisations working in the biomedical sector.

Almost exactly a year ago, we had some furniture delivered from Ikea. One of the delivery men dropped the furniture on the hearth of our almost brand new and expensive limestone fireplace, and broke it. When we pointed out the damage, the other delivery man then became quite rude and abusive, denying all responsibility and shouting a lot.

We contacted Ikea, thinking that they might be concerned about this. Not a bit of it. They pointed out that the furniture was delivered not by Ikea, but by a separate company. I had always thought it was a bit strange that, if you go to Ikea and buy furniture that you want delivered, you have to queue up again after you’ve paid for the furniture and pay separately for delivery. Now I know why. It is so that your contract for delivery is with the delivery company, and not with Ikea itself, so Ikea can quite legally deny all responsibility when things go wrong.

Of course,  denying responsibility and being legally correct is one thing. You might have thought that they would also care about good customer relations. In my book, having your delivery company cause damage worth a 4-figure sum to your customer’s property and then having nothing further to do with it isn’t a particularly smart way to build customer loyalty.

Well, we contacted the delivery company (Allways Express), and asked them to pay for the damage. They wrote the occasional letter acknowledging receipt of our letters, but nothing that made it look like they were going to pay, and after a couple of months of this we got a solicitor involved. Allways Express continued to make endless excuses, despite threats of legal action, but eventually, almost exactly a year after they broke our fireplace, we finally got a cheque from their insurance company.

You have to ask why it was such a big deal for them to pay up, given that they were insured in the first place.

Anyway, I’m glad that we finally got paid for the damage that was caused (although we have not even remotely been compensated for the huge amount of time it’s taken to pursue this).

Needless to say, I won’t be shopping at Ikea again.

Ikea Dianthus Medical - An innovative company providing outside the box analytical solutions for the pharmaceutical industry and other organisations working in the biomedical sector.

Ikea. I won’t say any more for now about my own recent experience while it’s still with the lawyers, but watch this space for all the details in due course. I’m sure you know what they’re like anyway.

Zanussi. See my recent post about my fridge. Since then, we’ve had 5 visits from Zanussi’s repair man, and the fridge still isn’t working. I sometimes wonder if there is an annual incompetence award that people like that work very hard towards winning, against some stiff competition.

Delivery men. Our office is on the first floor or our building. From the fuss that some delivery men make, you would think that it’s at the top of Mount Everest. We recently had a portable air-conditioner delivered to our office (actually a replacement, to replace the first one which was broken on arrival), and the delivery man (from UPS) refused to bring it in unless I helped him to carry it. Did it never occur to him when he took the job that he might have to carry things? Do UPS really not have any trolleys or similar that they could provide to their drivers? Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. Some companies have refused to deliver to us at all as their drivers are apparently not insured to walk up a flight of stairs.

Merton Council. We are in the London Borough of Merton. We pay them to take our rubbish away every week. And do you think they actually turn up and take it away every week? After a great deal of fuss on our part, we were promised a refund several months ago for all the weeks they hadn’t turned up, but still haven’t had a penny back. I only wish I had the time to take legal action over this one.

Plumbers. One of the toilets in our office has just become blocked. The plumber turned up this morning to fix it, and explained that it would be a fixed price to complete the job, no matter whether it was a simple thing that took him 5 minutes or whether it turned out to be far more complicated and kept him here all day. 2 hours later he came back into my office to say that it was more complicated than he thought so he’d have to charge an extra £120 on top of what had already been agreed. I had to speak to his manager back at his office before I finally managed to explain to them the meaning of “fixed price”.

I even bought a new pair of shoelaces earlier this week, which are already broken, less than 24 hours after I first took them out of their packet.

What really annoys me about all these things and more is the time it takes to deal with them. I shouldn’t have to spend my time endlessly hassling people to do what they should have done in the first place. Seriously, why is everything so crap these days?

Everything is crap Dianthus Medical - An innovative company providing outside the box analytical solutions for the pharmaceutical industry and other organisations working in the biomedical sector.

I’ve just seen another fantastic example of that. 3 years ago, I bought an expensive fridge-freezer from Zanussi-Electrolux. Just 3 years on, that expensive fridge-freezer has broken down. That’s annoying. They really ought to last longer than that.

So, even though it was out of its guarantee, I got in touch with Zanussi-Electrolux to ask if they would pay for the repairs anyway as a gesture of goodwill, as I naively thought that they might also think it’s unreasonable for their fridges to break down after just 3 years. They said no. They also made me laugh by saying “[we] trust you will not be deterred from considering Electrolux products in the future”. Well, at least you have to give them marks for a sense of humour.

One thing that I’ve always thought was desperately important in running a business is looking after our customers. It’s something I’ve put a lot of effort into. We like our customers to be delighted with our work, but if for any reason they are not, then we’ll bend over backwards to put things right.

If I ever start treating Dianthus Medical’s customers the same way Zanussi-Electrolux have treated me, please can someone just shoot me.

How not to do customer service Dianthus Medical - An innovative company providing outside the box analytical solutions for the pharmaceutical industry and other organisations working in the biomedical sector.

However, despite that, the results have made me deeply ashamed to be British. The UK has, for the first time, elected members of the British National Party (and 2 of them at that) to the European Parliament. That is something I find extremely depressing. The BNP will say that they are a legitimate political party. Technically, they are, although I really don’t understand what loophole in the law they have exploited so that they can remain one. They are racist scumbags. This is not just my opinion, it’s written in their constitution. Non-white persons are specifically banned from joining the party. In most walks of life, that would be illegal, and rightly so. Their policies are equally racist and despicable. I simply don’t understand why it’s legal for a political party to be so overtly racist, but it appears that it is, and it is terribly sad that so many British people are willing to vote for them.

I really hope that this will act as a wake-up call to our 3 main political parties that they really need to get their act together and start looking like they’re capable of running the country, before more British voters turn to neo-Nazi extremists.

A sad day for British politics Dianthus Medical - An innovative company providing outside the box analytical solutions for the pharmaceutical industry and other organisations working in the biomedical sector.

Charity run for Cancer Research Dianthus Medical - An innovative company providing outside the box analytical solutions for the pharmaceutical industry and other organisations working in the biomedical sector.