Over on twitter, I received a tweet suggesting that "File-Sharing Tools Could Put Personal Health Data at Risk"- a reasonable statement of fact, possibly, although not exactly an earth-shattering one. File-sharing tools could put any kind of data "at risk" if by at risk you mean available for sharing with other people, since that's kind of the point of them. You might equally write "postage stamps could put personal health data at risk" because if you inadvertently put a postage stamp or two on a repeat prescription form you could, you know, post it to someone. By mistake.

For the last couple of months I've been discovering twitter, more so especially since starting a new job in the world of health research informatics. As well as encountering some rather odd yet friendly individuals (Hi Becky), and getting into political debates with some of my favourite actors (Hi Adam), I have found it incredibly useful.

As an almost random sample, here are ten of the twitter feeds I've been following, from which I've gained ideas, learned news or generally found out stuff I wouldn't otherwise have had access to, and which have therefore made me a much better value employee for the UHL and the Leicester Cardiovascular BRU.

Quite what any self-respecting newspaper thinks they're doing presenting advice from chiropractors I have no idea, but maybe all the real journalists were unable to get in to work at the Sheffield telegraph this week. I know the weather's been bad up there. Not quite "on par with the Arctic" as the article claims, but certainly cold and a bit snowy.

Anyway, whatever the rationale, the paper did indeed publish an article presenting the "top tips on staying safe in icy weather" from the British Chiropractic Association. The BCA, of course, are famous for not taking criticism very well. So I will be careful to only use the words of the actual article in this summary.

Today, I got two emails from Dell, who I bought two computers from on the 2nd December. The emails read...

Dear Customer, Your Dell order [25022564] has been cancelled because { Speaker} is no longer available. If you paid using a credit card any authorization will expire within 28 days. For other payment methods we will arrange a refund within 2 days - however please be aware it may take a few days for your bank to clear the payment. To place a new order, please go to www.dell.co.uk , or call Sales on 0870 906 0010. Thanks, Dell

I can't even remember if we ordered speakers on the two systems we bought from them. I do know that they've taken the money from our credit card, a month ago, meaning that even if they do give us a full discount, the money will go to giving us a credit balance on our card, and not into the bank, where we need it.

You'd have to have been living under a rock to not know that there's a bit of fuss over who should be the Christmas number one, with even Paul McCartney backing RATM to stop the Cowell child from taking top spot this week. I suspect amazon.co.uk don't agree for some reason: searching for Killing in the Name Of... this morning on their site, the second 'featured' search result I was offered was "The Climb - Joe McElderry". Yeah, amazon, that's the one I wanted, I just typed "killing in the name of" into your search bar by mistake.

I've missed most of the furore about Professor David Nutt being sacked, as I've been concentrating on (a) getting and (b) understanding my new job, and also on our attempts to move house, but let me see if I've got this right...

A scientist who is engaged by the Government to advise them on drugs policy does so, whilst at the same time continuing to do what he's previously done - indeed the things which led the Government to appoint him as an advisor in the first place - namely give lectures and write articles on the science related to drugs and drug policy. The Government, having refused to take his advice, then sacks him on the spurious grounds that he has undermined their policy, presumably by not changing his evidence-based policy proposals to bring them into line with the opinion-poll-based ones being put forward by the Government, and when he and his colleagues (actually mostly his colleagues, so far as I can tell, Prof Nutt has mostly maintained a dignified silence on this issue, except when being pressed by journalists, unlike the Home Secretary) object to such treatment, the tabloid newspapers, with the Sun in the front rank, break off from celebrating and fantasising over famous drug-abusing celebrities of all kinds to hunt out some pictures and text suggesting that Professor Nutt's own children are somehow drug-fuelled lunatics, and use those to suggest that Professor Nutt isn't an appropriate person to be advising the Government on drugs.

Having finally caught up with the threat to 'Digital Britain' represented by the twin evils of Mandelson's three strikes approach to file sharing, and the Government's refusal to protect our online privacy from Phorm, I've followed the Open Rights Group's request to write to my MP... well, you know, email him. I'm not going to actually send him a letter about online rights, am I?

As reported elswhere, I got a new job yesterday, as Senior Database Officer for the new BRICCS (Biomedical Research Informatics Centre for Cardiovascular Science - being able to remember that formed the central part of the job interview) project at Glenfield. While I will be staying with the UHL (sorry, Malcolm) this is a job which is going to require 100% of my time and concentration, at least for the next year or so. I therefore announced at last night's branch meeting, once the discussion on the private contractors' Agenda for Change campaign had come to an end, that I would be stepping down forthwith as a representative within the branch and concentrating solely on my work responsibilities for a while.

Yesterday afternoon, UNISON members working for Medirest at Glenfield hospital accepted an offer from their employer in settlement of our dispute over the introduction of Agenda for Change. As a result, UNISON members working for contractors within the UHL will, henceforth, receive full Agenda for Change pay, terms and conditions as set out in the national framework agreement, and they will also receive back-dated terms and conditions (AfC pay rates have already been introduced in line with the framework agreement). For the period from April 2008 to date, the staff will receive full backpay funded by the UHL. For the period between October 2006 and March 2007, Medirest and Serco staff will receive 50% of the backpay specified by the framework agreement, funded by their direct employer.

The HSJ reported last week that the consortium designated as 'preferred bidder for the UHL PFI project has decided to sue the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust over the scrapping of the £921m scheme.

The UHL obviously are being cautious about saying anything. I hope UNISON shows no such qualms.

This decision should announce the death knell of PFI. The building firms' case essentially amounts to saying that once they were designated as preferred bidder the hospital was contractually obliged to proceed with the plans, even though the builders could put the costs up as much as they liked, and the plans had already been slashed to make them (ahem) affordable by the NHS in Leicestershire. The DH and the UHL finally realised the project was "no longer value for money" and pulled the plug in July 2007. Had the project gone ahead, the local NHS would have been desperately overstretched and the consortium would have been quids-in. Because the builders raised their prices just once too often, they now want compensation for their missed chance at the gravy train. Arrogance, ignorance and greed indeed. That's capitalism for you, and further demonstration, should one be needed, of why finance capitalism is a very poor tool for building healthcare systems.