What a golden Daily Mail Thursday this is…

Zoinks!

Social networking sites such as Facebook could raise your risk of serious health problems by reducing levels of face-to-face contact, a doctor claims. Emailing people rather than meeting up with them may have wide-ranging biological effects, said psychologist Dr Aric Sigman.

Hang on. Apart from being balls why is this psychologist going down the “I reckon” path about biological effects?

Increased isolation could alter the way genes work and upset immune responses, hormone levels and the function of arteries. It could also impair mental performance. This could increase the risk of problems as serious as cancer, strokes, heart disease and dementia, Dr Sigman says in Biologist, the journal of the Institute of Biology.

Dr Sigman thinks that it’s Facebook or go outside, sit at a computer or move around, black or white. He may not be right. He thrn reckoned things about physical interraction being on the decrease, which is the fault of those evil interwebs.

“In less than two decades, the number of people saying there is no one with whom they discuss important matters nearly tripled. Parents spend less time with their children than they did only a decade ago. Britain has the lowest proportion of children in all of Europe who eat with their parents at the table. The proportion of people who work at home alone continues to rise. I am worried about where this is all leading.”

I have a table but no children. I am bloody well doomed.

Meanwhile, it was more doom and gloom to go with my Facebook Cancer…

No wine for me then. Mail readers were not amused:

I give up. I might as well stop eating or drinking anything as all the medical researchers have said at one time or another they are all unhealthy. Over the past decade or so it seems that every week there’s another U turn on life style choices to the point that people might as well ignore these so called professionals. Would the medical profession please go away to a remote island somewhere and do some serious research for a change. When you’re absolutely certain just what we can or can’t eat or drink to remain healthy, come out of hiding, publish your results and leave it at that. Thanks !
Click to rate Rating +85 Mike, Alicante, Spain, 18/2/2009 11:14

Rather than go on a hunger strike like Mike I’ll just take the Express’ advice:

Two coffees a day cut the risk of a stroke. I call that a fair deal!

Also: Diana is back! Secret letters are never going to be shown to anyone! Because we made it up!

When is He Is A Fanatic Now Get Him Out Of Here coming to ITV?

Duffy! Lady! Blonde! Reasonably Attractive! Awards! Yawn!

Back to the Mail:

LOLz all round for the headline there.

You couldn’t tell he was gay by his photos. He could be the Marlboro man with all his ruggedness. I hope his wife can stand by him as no fool would marry such a flamboyant man without having some suspicions. Hopefully they can make it work.
Rating +1 Jess, Arizona, US, 18/2/2009 17:56

That’s that sorted then.

This is a bit embarrassing as the readers all seem to be raving BNPers who thumb down any nice people:

Oh the irony. Songs we associate with a war to defeat an unspeakable evil being used to promote a party who would crush Britain beneath their own jackboot. This is not what the WW2 generation fought and died for.
Rating -303
Rich Edwards, Leeds, UK, 18/2/2009 12:48

303 red thumbs down?

I’m surprised at Dame Vera. I thought she of all people would be above this sort of politically correct nonsence. Besides, the song was written to rally the hearts of the British….is that now so terribly wrong?
Rating +263 Kathy Gilbert, Yorkshire., 18/2/2009 13:12

Are we still allowed to refer to them as the WHITE cliffs of Dover, then?
Rating +318 Pierre de Rochefort, La Rochelle, France, 18/2/2009 13:26

Bonus LOLz for the excellent pseudonym there. Mr Cheese from the place in the Tricolore textbooks. I know it’s a real place too (a friend comes from there) but what wit!

And finally, Mad Melanie Phillips decides that the police were never institutionaly racist because she is white and knows so:

It is nothing other than institutional intimidation, a kind of McCarthyism which, because it is based on a fundamental lie, can produce an Orwellian state of affairs where truth and lies, right and wrong are turned on their heads and injustice, far from being stamped out, actually increases. So it has proved.

She’s going gaga for the big words again.

To protect themselves from the dread taint of racism the police turned themselves inside out to become the coercive arm of the culture of political correctness – which meant downplaying crime by minorities on the grounds that they were the victims of racism and targeting instead white people on the grounds that they were institutionally guilty of racial hatred.

Is this remotely true? As usual Mel does not show her workings.

Commenters went a bit doo-lally over this:

The Police are no more institutionally racist than any other organisation in the UK. Which is not to say that they are not. This country, like so many others (France and Italy in particular) has a problem with race. It’s an ingrained way of thinking that is not going to go away in 10, 15 years. Give it a hundred and see where we stand. The latest twist in it is the nonsensical claim by people who say that now white people are the only ones to suffer racism at the hands of institutions. People feel disenfranchised, and so they lash out at others they perceive to be receiving a better deal. They have not walked in the shoes of a young black male who is stopped weekly by the police, or an asian female who can never make it through customs without being body searched.
Rating -134 Kelly, London, 18/2/2009 13:00

134 red thumbs down. Well done.
All our public services are institutionally racist – they hate white people born of English parents.
Rating +145 Steve Jacks, London, 18/2/2009 14:05

145 green thumbs up. I am so angry about all the horrid racism I face every day for being white so I can sympathise.

If the Police are racist then surely it has the Black Police Association to thank, after all there is not a White Police Association.
Rating +126 Pickles, Lincolnshire, 18/2/2009 14:25

My favourite old “I’m not racist but…” argument! 10 points for originality and brains.

Tomorrow: Those records that came through the letter box – Any good?