Talking Drums

The West African News Magazine

A Stranger's London

Lesbian's 'marriage' plea fails

A legal attempt to claim "married" status for male and female homosexual couples living together failed in the House of Lords.

The law lords refused to hear an appeal by Mary Simpson, a lesbian, against her eviction by Harrogate Council from the council house in Kennion Road, Harrogate, she shared with her lover, Mrs Nicki Rodrigo, who died a year ago.

Last December, the Court of Appeal ruled that, in spite of a softening of public opinion, homosexual couples living together could not remotely be regarded as "man and wife" giving them security of tenure under the Housing Act 1980.

Drinking to good health

One of the popular myths about taking a course of antibiotics is that you should not drink alcohol at the same time. Only one antibiotic metronidazole, marketed as Flagyl will make you ill if mixed with alcohol. You will come to no harm if you drink a little while taking any other sort.

Doctors who suggest you should abstain are either erring on the side of caution or exaggerating possible problems. If you are ill, it is sensible to cut down your alcoholic consumption: alcohol will slow you down, perhaps reduce the absorption of the antibiotic, and delay your recovery.

If, however, you are prescribed antibiotics from the tetracycline group you will be advised not to take them with milk. The calcium in the milk will combine with the antibiotic, make the drug inactive and prevent it being absorbed effectively.

The most common side effects from antibiotics involve the stomach. Stomach upsets can be of two kinds: nausea and diarrhoea. The nausea and stalls. sicky feeling is usually an immediate reaction to the drug. Antibiotics are sealed in capsules for a sound reason: they would taste vile in the mouth and quite often your stomach reacts in a comparable way once the capsule has dissolved.

The reason diarrhoea develops is quite different. Let's assume you take an antibiotic for a throat infection. If it's a "broad spectrum" antibiotic it can attack a wide range of bacteria, knocking out those causing the infection but also killing off some of the bacteria in the lower bowel.

A number of different bacteria live in the bowel, all having a particular niche and co-existing quite happily. But as soon as one group is destroyed the balance tips, another crew takes over and you suffer the reaction and consequence - diarrhoea.

Real life dangers

AIDS panic is building up nicely. A group of cleaning ladies at a Swansea theatre refusing to work with gay actors.

Firemen reluctant to give the kiss of life.

Funeral parlours turning away homosexuals.

And I simply wonder how many of these people who feel so strongly about preserving life, smoke, carry small children in the back of cars without seat belts, drive when drunk, are overweight and unfit, live in homes with faulty wiring or in any other way happily ignore dangers that are statistically far more likely to lead to an early death.

Town fights back to bar bully sheep

Hundreds of cunning sheep are bullying a town and making life a misery for its inhabitants.

They flock into the streets, wreck gardens, sleep in shop doorways and steal food from fruit and vegetable

Some of the bolder ones even snatch ice cream from children. Now the people of Blanau Festinlo have decided enough is enough.

They want a six-mile fence built round the North Wales town to keep the animals out.

Conventional obstacles have proved useless. The sheep have learned to roll over cattle grids to avoid trapping their hooves. They tip-toe across railway lines and break fencing to reach Blaenau.

The town is surrounded by slate mountains which provide its livelihood. But they are also the source of the sheep which slip down to the streets to find food.

Local councillor Owen Edwards, who is leading the campaign to fence off Bleanau, said: "They mess all over the local cemetery, munch mourners' flowers, and doss down at the entrance to the local hospital and health centre so that the doorways have to be brushed clean daily."

And Mrs Delyth Putnam, of Pentgelli Terrace, said: "They have often strolled into my kitchen looking for food. Dogs have no effect on them. They know no fear."

You're sacked dad!

Bricklayer Joe Foggett signed on the dole after being sacked by his son, Chris. Mr Chris Foggett told his father aged 58 and one of his longest-serving workers that he could no longer afford to employ him.

His joinery business was booming, but the building side was suffering. So brickie Joe and eight other employees were made redundant.

Chris Foggett, 24, said: "No-one wants to sack his own father. I felt awful doing it, but I was forced to close the building side of my operation completely".

Despite this he still lives with his father and mother in St Thomas's Road, Trowbridge, Wiltshire.

He said: "I still get my tea at home although, naturally, it has hit the atmosphere between me and my parents".






talking drums 1985-03-11 rawlings brutalities at Gondar Barracks