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TV psychic Sally Morgan is demanding damages of £150,000 from Associated Newspapers over a Daily Mail story accusing her of scamming a vulnerable audience.

The article, published on 22 September, was headlined: “What a load of crystal balls!”

It alleged Morgan pretended to have psychic powers when she was in fact simply repeating instructions from members of her team via a microphone and hidden earpiece, according to a writ lodge at the High Court.

Morgan, who was Princess Diana’s former psychic, claims the story caused substantial damage to her reputation, as well as hurt, distress and embarrassment.

The story was widely reported in the national press at the time but Associated Newspapers is the only publisher named on the writ. The story in question was an opinion piece by the magician and former psychic Paul Zenon.

The Daily Mail published another article on the same day – headlined “Only the lonely believe in ghoulish psychics” – which repeated the substance of the allegations, according to a High Court writ.

Morgan, who is also suing over an online version of the story, claims the paper has failed to provide a full and unequivocal apology or admit the article was defamatory.

She is asking for an injunction banning repetition of the allegations about her.

She is also seeking aggravated damages, citing the serious and offensive nature of the allegations which effectively accused her of perpetrating a deliberate fraud on the public, which struck at the heart of her professional and personal reputation, integrity and honesty – the writ states.

In her High Court writ Morgan describes herself as a professional psychic and claims to have privately helped numerous people overcome traumatic or emotional situations.

Morgan is represented by Graham Atkins of Atkins Thomson.”

Oh this is going to be epic. What tests do you think they courts will run on that tedious deluded gasbag? How will she explain it when she makes a cock-up of them?  How will she shift the blame? Let’s all make our predictions.

I predict she will be ‘effected by stress, thus unable to ‘read’ as she normally would.’

Smoking, as CG informed me the other day, has definitely lost it’s ‘cool’ factor and is increasingly seen as a bit of a social faux pas. You’re not allowed smoke in pubs or restaurants or work places so you must remove yourself from friends and colleagues to indulge. Watching people shivering outside doorways while sucking desperately on their fags has reduced smoking to what it really is, a sort of sad addiction that robs your wallet as well as your health. CH is correct, there is nowt sexy or attractive about it.

Interestingly, chasing the smoker out doors is no longer enough.  The HSE is to ban smoking from the grounds of its hospitals. This is a major decision. No longer will staff OR patient be able to indulge without leaving the grounds proper.

“The HSE’s director of public health policy, Dr Fenton Howell, who is a former chairman of Ash, the anti-smoking lobby group, said the policy had “gone without a hitch” in the hospitals already implementing it.

He added: “We need to recognise that there is almost a sense that cigarettes are not as dangerous as they are. Five and a half thousand people die from tobacco every year, and there are thousands admitted to hospital beds because of their addiction.

“The one thing that makes chronic bronchial problems worse is to continue smoking. Likewise surgical wounds heal better if you are not smoking.

“We have a responsibility to help patients manage their addiction and the illness caused by their addiction. If you don’t manage their addiction, you can’t manage their illness.

“We can’t manage patients by letting them continue the thing that brought them into hospital in the first place.”

(Remember the old smoking rooms of old in hospitals? Yellow grimy stained hell holes, reeking of fags and nicotine?)

Naturally this ban has opposition.

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However, it has been the subject of fierce criticism by retired hospital doctor Dr John Nolan who described it in a letter to The Irish Times as an act of “primitive savagery”.

He explained: “The habitual smoker is an addict who in hospital needs the comfort of smoking to cope with an already gruelling experience. Its deliberate deprivation is an act of wanton, indeed wicked cruelty at a time when he or she is most in need of cherishing and comforting.”

It was also criticised by the smokers’ lobby group, Forest Éireann. Spokesman John Mallon said the smoking ban was introduced to protect non-smokers, yet those who smoked in the grounds of hospitals were a threat to nobody else.

“It is an attack on a minority based on the personal preferences of those in authority,” he said.

The outcome will be interesting. What will the seasoned smoker do when faced with such measures? Trot out onto the road? As much as I dislike smoking, are people harming anyone if they step OUTSIDE for a craft fag? Hard to know really, I’m against smoking of course, but it’s not illegal- yet! So can this be implicated without challenge? I guess we wait and see.

In the meantime, bravo CG and also to anyone who gave up in the New Year, best of luck to you all.

Yoga, while beneficial, is not really for me though, it’s too…passive or something. It can – don’t tell her this – bore me rigid on occasions. It has also put me to sleep mid class, something unheard of in a kickboxing or crossfit class.

When you do CF or KB you sort of expect the cuerpo is going to hurt. A kick to the ribs makes coughing unbearable, squats and pull ups put strains and aches all over the place. But it goes with the territory. What people often forget is that yoga can also hurt, and so with that in mind it was refreshing to read an article saying just so in the Guardian.

Naturally I have sent this to my friend, I predict she will read it, possible upside down, and tut-tut over it. We’ve discussed our particular brands of physical torture before and have never reached anything other than an amicable disagreement on what constitutes injuries. But still, it’s kind of nice to know that yoga is not without its questionable side.

You have no doubt heard of Jessica Ahlquist, the young pupil from Cranston who won a battle to have her school remove an unconstiutional prayer from its walls.  If not a good reading of this should suffice.

Initially I thought this was an American thing, as religion seems to be deeply ingrained that side of the pond.
But alas no, this week skeptical and also youthful blogger Rhys Morgan too came under fire for posting a picture of the Jesus and Mo cartoon on his personal Facebook page. Such was the vitriol leveled at Morgan, his school hauled him in and threatened expulsion if he did not remove the ‘offending’ photo, which he actually had done.

Frankly it’s a sad fucking day on planet earth when two bright kids are abused with such mindless brainless hatred for expressing an opinion ( Rhys’ case) or up holding the god damn law ( Jessica’s case) by what can only be described as idiots. I get a mild version of it here too whenever I question claptrap such as ‘psychics’ or god bothering healers like that snake Joe Coleman and Christine Gallagher. People so hate to have their sacred cows laughed at or questioned that their ONLY resort is to lash out, dovetailing into rambling screeds that become tedious in the extreme and devoid of a scintilla of reason.
I’m delighted that there are young people out there willing and able to put forth an argument and uphold their logical conclusions DESPITE the slings and arrows of idiocy flung their way. It’s also an eye opener to see how disgustingly low some of these so-called religious types will descend when their nonsense is challenged.
Bravo Rhys and Jessica, bravo and well done. Long may we all continue to call out claptrap where ever it sprouts.

“The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources has said a new broadcasting charge, if introduced, would not be an additional tax.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Pat Rabbitte said almost every household, with few exemptions, would be liable for the new charge.

He said many people were now accessing public service content through other than traditional means and it had to be paid for.

The method of collection has not yet been decided on.

The Minister said the charge was not an additional tax, and the fee could be less than the current TV licence.”

The indo has another take on it to be found here

Now forgive me if I am mistaken here,but let me see if I can break this down.  They, the government, want everyone in the country to pay for RTE, a state sponsored body, who also through advertising make money. They want people who DON”T have a television to pay for this state sponsored heavily advertised doo-hickey. We must pay this entertainment tax regardless or not if we watch this states sponsored heavily advertised yokeamebob. I just want to be clear here that this is what’s happening, and not, as I had initially thought, that the fuckers were trying to grab more of our hard-earned cash from our dwindling resources.

I’ve got it right, no?

Except-

“The concept of a TV licence fee is within a few years going to be an outdated concept,” the spokesman said.

He said details on exemptions for the charge have not yet been thrashed out, but he stressed it would simply be a replacement for the current licence fee and was not an extra revenue-raising exercise.”

Doesn’t really tally with-

“Mr Rabbitte said that those paying the current €160 annual television licence fee would not be affected as the new levy will simply replace it.

However, he conceded that if the new fee managed to address the €25m currently being lost in evasion, there was a chance the new charge could be lower.”

Someone earlier mentioned it should be called the Tubridy Tax, and lo, I think this is exactly what I will call it.

It’s bad enough that we are being hit with stealth taxes left, right and centre, now  Drugs Minister Rosin Shorthall is amping up the call to eliminate cheap hooch too??

So what if alcohol is sold ‘dirt-cheap’ in supermarkets, so what if people can buy it with ‘pocket-money’? Are we all to suffer because SOME people can’t control their drinking habits? Alcohol is sold cheaply all over the continent of Europe, and people don’t go nuts ( well Belgiums might). Price is not the Irish problem, it’s our mentality about drink and it’s not going to make the blindest bit of difference to people’s behaviours if we don’t address that.

No, this is about money to coffers, and I’m dead set against it.  If Superquinn want to sell excellent wine for less than a tenner, it doesn’t mean people are suddenly going to quaff wine all hours of the day and night, it might mean they can afford a bloody bottle or two for the weekend. I hate that the knee jerk response to everything in this country is to either ban something or price it to the sky. Rosin Shortall, I am against you. Keep your paws out of my pocket, confound you!

Article here.

A few points jumped out at me-

““The way we handle obesity, by putting a shameful stigma on very intelligent people makes it even more difficult. It’s about more than just losing weight,” she notes. “Anyone can lose weight, but to keep it off is more difficult.”

I think this is true, it can be hard to maintain weight loss once a target is achieved. I know a number of folk who lost weight only to put the bulk of it back on, and more in some cases. Heartbreaking for them too, as the Herculean effort seems all for naught and in some cases they cannot face doing it again. Which of course is self-defeating. I blames diets mostly for this kind of thing. Diets ( especially food replacement diets like Celebrity Slim and that other junk, Lipotrim) are almost next to impossible to adhere to in the long run as human don’t cope well with denial of things.

In the book  ‘How to be Good At Everything, ‘ the authors suggest – ‘Saying ‘no’ to a temptation very quickly invokes the limits of our conscious will and discipline.’  ‘Deprivation, Kessler concluded, is our real enemy. “When you use all your emotional energy to void a behaviour, you can become anxious and tense. We can’t sustain a change in behaviour if it leaves us hungry, unhappy, angry, or resentful.”(section, The deprivation Trap, page 103)

Campion has little time for initiatives such as RTÉ’s weight-loss programme, Operation Transformation, arguing that the people who sign up for the show are “used by television”.

The recent Safefood “Stop the Spread” initiative to get people to measure their waists is another source of frustration for Campion. It focused on getting people to stay within the boundaries of a 32-inch waist for women, and 37-inch for men.”

Apropos the television show, I’ve watched a few episodes and I agree with Campion to an extent, I do think it’s exploitive, most ‘reality’ TV is about ratings in my view. But I also think the adults who sign up to it do so with their mental faculties intact, so who are we to judge their decision?

I was vehemently against the Safefood campaign, mostly because they resolutely – despite all evidence to the contrary– promote the food pyramid as the model to follow. “Plenty of bread, rice potatoes, pasta and other starchy foods � choose wholegrain varieties wherever you can“  No really, that’s what they say, despite overwhelming and growing evidence that grains and carbs are major contributors to weight gain and notice good fats are still portrayed as the ‘scary enemy’. To Safefood I say ‘phooey.’ Avoid.

And this last section really struck  me –  “Campion runs cookery classes without weighing scales in order to encourage people to view food differently. In doing so, she has encountered people who have never actually handled a chicken breast themselves, as they instead opt for pre-prepared processed food.”

Actually I found that last line really sad and an indictment of how far removed people are from their food. How can we expect people to make balanced choices if they rely on junk food to sustain them on a regular, or in some cases, daily basis? Isn’t it shocking that the frozen food sections in our supermarkets are so vast?

If weight is rising in Ireland, and everyone claims it is, we need to look at more than just what we eat, but why we eat what we do and what genuine changes we can make to combat this. I think the tide of weight gain can turn, but it will take more than an outdated model and a television show to so so. I’d like to read more articles like this in our papers, at least they open the conversation without causing defence lines to be drawn.

It’s bad enough that this stupid country has a restricted breed list, where by entirely blameless animals must be muzzled and permanently leashed in public, but now the DLR ( Dun Laoghaire Rathdown) Council want to make sure all dogs are leashed at all times and indeed banned in toto from pubic beaches during certain times of the years.

Dogs Unleashed are holding a meeting/debate about it on the 22nd of January in Killiney Castle, hosted by David McWilliams, who is aghast at the fines imposed and the stupidly regressive nature of councils against sensible dog ownership.
Dogs are social creatures with social habits, they have a language all of their own, a way of meeting and greeting their own kind that being on the end of a leash restricts. If you have a dog who tires himself out chasing a ball how are you to do this on a leash? Do owners now need to swim with their  dogs – all leashed up too? It’s stupid and unworkable.
I’m not saying dog owners ought to have the run of the show either, but more and more dog owners are having to concede to unreasonable demands by increasing authoritarian rules and laws made on whims and knee jerk reactions without any real logic behind them. This debate on the 22nd ought to be interesting.

Opinions?

And speaking of weird, what the heck happened with Antony Worrall? Not since Winona went on a drugged up spree has a shoplifter confused me more. Why? Why would he take such a stupid gamble and shop lift repeatedly from Tesco. He’s a television personality! How did he think this was going to turn out? Why take such a gamble on something so pointless. His reasons for stealing are bizarre: he gave up smoking, he had attend two funerals, he had been abused as a child, he drives a lot. What?

I mentioned I saw two women nabbed over the holidays, one at M&S, and one near hysterical lady outside Fallon and Byrne, the latter I felt sorry for because it was pretty clear she was in self-inforced hell at that moment. It’s not worth it, whatever thrill or kick of moment of frisson you might feel at that moment, it’s not worth the embarrassment of being caught. Or hell, being charged. Worrall’s lucky Tesco let him go with a caution.

Anyway, my rambling point, there’s nowt as odd as folk. To that end, I feel to cleanse the mind we ought to gaze upon that symbol of humanity that can lift us all to higher ambitions. To wit I give you –