Poisoned

Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent living in exile in London, died in hospital last night, three weeks after apparently ingesting a mysterious poison which has baffled doctors.

In a statement at 11pm, a spokesman for University College hospital, Jim Down, said: "We are sorry to announce that Alexander Litvinenko died at 9.21pm." He said "every avenue" had been explored in the hospital's attempt to save him. "He was seriously ill when he was admitted on November 17 and the medical team at the hospital did everything possible to save his life."

Mr Litvinenko, 43, a fierce critic of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, suffered a heart attack on Wednesday night and his condition had been deteriorating rapidly.

Hours before losing consciousness, as medical staff struggled to discover what had caused the critical illness, the former intelligence officer told a friend, the film-maker Andrei Nekrasov, how much he wanted to live. "I want to survive, just to show them," he told Mr Nekrasov, who spoke to the Times. "The bastards got me, but they won't get everybody."


Ian Cobain, Jeevan Vasagar and Lee Glendinning
November 24, 2006
Guardian

Phêdre

HOW vain and dull this common world must seem
To such a One as thou, who should’st have talked
At Florence with Mirandola, or walked
Through the cool olives of the Academe:
Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green stream
For Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have played
With the white girls in that Phæacian glade
Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream.

Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay
Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again
Back to this common world so dull and vain,
For thou wert weary of the sunless day,
The heavy fields of scentless asphodel,
The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell.

Oscar Wilde

In this kind of poems, I understand barely 41% of it.

Warning to male mobile phone users: chatting too long may cut sperm count

Researchers found sperm quality fell with increased mobile phone usage.

Men who use mobile phones for long periods at a time may be at risk of damaging their sperm, according to research by American scientists. Samples taken from men attending a fertility clinic revealed that their sperm declined steadily in number, quality and ability to swim as mobile phone usage increased. Where men used their mobiles for more than four hours a day, researchers found a 30% drop in sperm motility or movement and viability when compared with men who did not use a mobile phone.

Ian Sample
The Guardian

Scrabble III

YO YO YO!!

Talking about Scrabble, do you guys (M&J) remember how much fun was that dinner with those 3 hot Australian doctors? I mean, that evening was at least as fun as playing Scrabble, no??

Scrabble II

830 points! That's amazing! 365 points on ONE TURN! Holy crap! I've been playing Scrabble against the computer quite a bit and my highest score is 440. I've only scored over 400 points three times against the computer. I'd say the computer wins 95% of the time, but it's great practice! And humbling.