Richard, your diagnosis is correct. That little scare story has been circulating for m-o-n-t-h-s and it's bollards. I've heard of more than a few GPs passing it on to patients though 

Listen to Nurse Mort, martle. That sounds like someone knows what she's talking about to me. And onion and garlic soup sounds yum (or do I mean nom) anyway.

Sorry to hear about your skin problems, Ruby. I went through a period 3 or 4 years ago of what seemed like endless skin-related problems which always involved repeated trips to doctors and trying out medicines which didn't work or took ages to work or were incredibly inconvenient to apply. The first batch of problems was finally diagnosed as scabies - even though the first doctor I saw, who was supposedly my GP practice's skin specialist, thought it was something else and it was several more weeks before someone pointed out that my symptoms were classic symptoms of advanced scabies. Of course when you have something like that you're constantly itching and in pain, and also constantly worrying about what it might be, and until you do know what it is you're also wondering whether it's contagious and worrying about that.

A year or two later I had strange colouration, like moles but more extensive and more on the surface, on my skin, which wasn't painful at all but obviously wasn't about to go away unaided. That turned out to be something called pityriasis versicolor, which is a sort of fungal infection which I was told to treat by applying what is in fact dandruff shampoo overnight then rinsing it off the next morning, which in itself is quite time-consuming and leaves the skin feeling very dry. The fungus comes back often when the weather's hot but I haven't tried to treat it for a while as it seems more trouble than it's worth.

Here endeth today's medical bulletin. Oh dear, I didn't mean to write that much about my skin! Richard's mention of the 'Homoeopathic Hospital' (sic) reminds me of a bit of dialogue I found very funny in a film I saw on TV as a teenager, set around the time of the Profumo scandal, with some Irish Catholic ladies gossiping after church one Sunday morning: 'Did you hear that nasty homeopath Stephen Ward's taken his own life?'

(Dr Stephen Ward was an osteopath but almost certainly not a homosexual.)

t_i_n - those stories make a little bit of itching sound like a positive treat by comparison!  Have they all gone away now?  I certainly hope so!

Do you think you can create a homeopathic hospital by parking your car outside a standard hospital on a regular basis for weeks at a time and then parking it outside a different building so that the essence or imprint of the hospital is retained and transferred? Doesn't seem to have worked on my house.  Maybe I should have been to a more effective hospital...     Sorry... I'll get me coat...

I'm so grateful to PW for posting that. I was wondering how to put it.

I see.  Thanks for clearing that up Mort.

I agree with everything PW says. I'm quite aware that there's no scientific basis for the supposed efficacy of homeopathy, and that's something which as an ex-scientist myself I take seriously. The trouble is that going to the homeopath in Berlin really did make a difference to V2's health, and even at a time when she was too young to "believe" in any treatment or placebo. I think one important reason for this is that the homeopath's appointments could be anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes long and also involved much informed and useful diagnosis and advice regarding diet and all kinds of other stuff (and cost I think 60 euros for an hour). But apparently having five minutes with a rushed, bad-tempered and narrow-minded GP is supposed to be superior to this.

All sounds rather way out to me, but if it works, yeah why not give anything a go, i say.