The Wolf Dog
The photographic star of the website
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Wolf today is just chilling and reading his daily crossword and trying on his favourite bandana.
Arcticterntalk.org
The blog of a travelling psychiatrist and football lover. Who happens to be a halfway decent photographer. Takes a cynical view of the world
Archive for the category “Uncategorized”
Mental Health of Footballers. Very little is known. This needs to change
As a football fan and psychiatrist I have more than a passing interest in the Aaron Lennon story this week. Sadly newspapers like Sun and Daily Mail dramatised things appallingly .
The reality in this story is clear . The police have powers under Section 136 of The Mental Health act to take anyone whom they deem in need of psychiatric assessment to a designated place of safety for that assessment . The legal holding lasts for 48 hours during which time it is expected the assesssment is complete. At that point other sections can be applied for with 28 days being common under Section 2 and 6 months for Section 3. Many caveats apply . In general terms Section 2 is likely to be applied if necessary where the patient is unknown previously. At this stage nothing has been reported suggesting that Section 2 has been applied.
Any football fan will recognise certain personality types on the field with players being often impulsive and prone to anger. I have a personal theory that adult ADHD will be far more prevalent in footballers than the general population . ADHD is also strongly linked to alcohol abuse and depression. In addition one suspects that borderline personality disorder would be more common. The Telegraph reports today that Stan Collymore received that diagnosis.
Despite the plethora of stories of depression in sportsmen and suicides, there is no precise knowledge of how common mental health disorders are in footballers. No research to my knowledge has systematically evaluated this. All speculation is thus unproven.
Screening for these disorders is possible through fairly simple screening tools and should detect those who need further evaluation. For example a simple questionnaire for adult ADHD if it comes out negatively means that those people are around 98% likely not to have ADHD.
Football clubs do have a duty for mental health care. They are best placed to flag up needs for assessment . What also needs to be understood is that life stresses often tip people over into illness. Not always but often. There are forms of depression that are not obviously linked to a precipitating cause but many forms are.
Players also would benefit from such assessments. For example impulsivity traits and emotional volatility can be recognised and to some extent the effects ameliorated. Whatever happened in Aaron Lennon’s life to make whatever happened happen, it is unlikely that there was no previous warning. Someone in the club is likely to have seen or heard something that may have been important.
Mental illness is common and there should be no stigma about accepting help nor diagnosis. The onus lies within the clubs to do this . Players will also benefit
The Italian Toilet Job . Have a look at this Italian Toilet
Whether the toilet seat should be up or down is always debated. Whether one should use wire to string it up is another question. Look closely and you will see that the restaurant owners in Rome clearly made their decision. Seat up. The wire is fixed very firmly so no tampering is possible. 
The second fascinating part is the Route 66 photo on the toilet . The road to nowhere it seems. I only spotted this when looking at the photo and not at the time. I am presuming there is a photo on the cistern? A little bizarre but many things in Rome are
In Rome Everyone Smokes. Even the Buildings
A wisp of cloud makes it look like this building has been puffing away. 
Zipcloud for data backup. My experiences . Avoid is my opinion
Over the last 7 years on my IMAC I have accumulated 799 GB of data. Mostly photographs. A couple of years ago I was offered and signed up to Zipcloud paying a quite significant fee for unlimited data stored in some mythical cloud. The settings were straightforward and allowed me to set a large maximum file size and regular data uploads. In short I was confident that my data was happily sitting in its personal cloud. Sadly my optimism was misplaced. The seagate hard drive eventually broke and I looked on zipcloud for my data. Zipcloud confirmed my data was there but when going to restore it magically it vanished.
Cue multiple emails to customer service folks all with cute young sounding names, Hollie , Zara etc. All sent meaningless replies that came with a strong odour of copy and paste. Eventually a fraction of my data appeared in the restore panel, maybe 5%. They were unable it seems or unwilling to find the rest. I received a plethora of meaningless and unhelpful emails but no more data. Apparently their development team would be in contact. Of course that never happened.
In short I received a poor service for quite a lot of money. I would like to warn others into being comfortable with their data sitting in this cloud. External hard drives are cheaper and more reliable .
Luckily the data was all recoverable from the deceased hard drive. And I have cancelled Zipcloud.
Doing a quick search online this problem and others seem common with Zipcloud and my best advice based on my experience is to avoid them. 
Why exactly are dogs banned from so many places? Logic or a random decision?
Since I got my first dog 6 months ago I have been perplexed and sometimes even amused by why dogs are banned from various places. This is in uk. However other countries take different views. Here in Nice in a decent hotel Boscolo Exedra I was firstly greeted this morning by a dog in the lift and then a few moments later found it sitting happily with its owners in the restaurant at breakfast. The dog sat in the same place , looked imploringly at its owners for food but was no trouble and I suspect many never realised he was there. This seems a familiar pattern in France. 
Let’s look at the UK. Traveling on the motorways one finds that dogs are not allowed inside motorway service stations. In the high street dogs are not allowed inside banks. Dogs are not allowed into any hotel restaurant or bar . Dogs are not allowed into restaurants . Some pubs allow dogs in but stipulate where they can go. This blanket ban does not of course apply to service dogs.
To get the obvious out of the way, no one would expect to take an untrained or poorly behaved dog into these situations. My dog Wolf is 7 months and would be fine. 
So what’s the logic and who makes the rules? Why can one country be so at odds with regulations in another?
I put this out there as a discussion point .
Terrorist Attack in Nice July 2016 on Bastille Day
When visiting any city it seems that always sometime somewhere a horrific event has taken place. On a rainy day in Nice walking along the promenade I had totally forgotten about the atrocity on Bastille day less than a year ago. 
The Promenade Des Anglais is almost what might be described as a typical promenade. Walking along by the sea. Palm trees floating around and multiple cafes on the other side of the road. Today it was wet and few ventured onto the beach where they met diggers and other building works. I came across randomly a pile of flowers placed at the edge of the promenade and suddenly remembered why they might be there.
On the evening of July 14 last year 2016 a 19 tonne cargo truck killed 87 people including the perpetrator who would have been out walking happily in the evening. A vile evil expression of terror that has failed to extinguish the light of hope in the French people. I felt for those poor souls but what was enlightening was that the promenade was open and even in the rain many were walking. You see terror attacks will never win and importantly never stop folks going about their daily activities.
The event took place at 22.30 pm and this photo taken nearby but not on the promenade gives some idea of the lighting and atmosphere that might have prevailed.
It felt good to be walking along the promenade unfazed by the previous attack.
Brentford Bow Tie…. well for dogs
As we near season end my daughter has started her dog bow tie and bandana production line … as you do just before her GCSE…. feel free to order one in the Bees colours as below…. they look sensational! Bees Dogs!
How to make a humble slice of cheesecake look interesting
Drizzle some cream…. put on a band of minted chocolate… red currant coulis… redcurrants… blueberries… blackberry…. strawberry chopped up… add a cumquat on top… easy . Delicious too 
24 Hours of eating in Berlin when working. Marriott Midtown Grill
Berlin is mostly a city that given a little time one can walk around. The train station sits centrally 15 minutes walk from Brandenburg gate and Tiergarden. 
Walking really is the best way to see this city especially if travel time is all the time you get to see the city when working. 
The food is interesting and despite a few little quirks, the Marriott Midtown Grill is not a bad little restaurant although not cheap. This time of year is white asparagus season. So a meal of asparagus, salmon and potatoes seems a good choice and it was. Cheesecake is always a good choice . 
Nice touches included free bread. In fact a small loaf really. A pretzel with the beer. And if one wanted toasted marshmallows with the bill!
A few strange aspects of German cuisine include the painted boiled eggs seemingly on offer in most German airport lounges. 
A Great Place
The rants and warblings of an active and some would say disturbed mind. A Brentford Fc supporter and a psychiatrist and photographer. Welcome to my musings and rants.
chris1957
Arcticterntalk.org 