Getting to London and getting around quickly, cheaply and safely!

I used to have to travel to London every few months in my last job for exhibitions held at the Olympia in Kensington. You can get a train straight from Stafford to South Kensington, which is only 1 tube stop away from Earl's Court on the District Line....gotta be the easiest way.

I'd try and call up and book with virgin at least 2/3 weeks in advance as you can get cheapo tickets in advance - i used to use the website but in the last 6 months it has always said tickets have sold out, which i reckon is bollocks.

The easiest and cheapest way to get around when there is to get an Oyster card. You can buy a card and plan your journey on this site
https://oyster.tfl.gov.uk/oyster/entry.do

I never used to bother with it until my girlfriend made me go and get one, and im glad i did. You can use tubes and buses whichevers easiest, its loads cheaper and you can top it up either online or at one of the machines with 5,10,15,20 quid etc just enough for your journey, and/or repeat journeys. Believe me, buying tube tickets for every journey is a right ball ache if its busy...with an Oyster card you just zip through. You can get daily travel cards from the kiosk but they work out quite expensive comparitively and you still have to get in a godamn queue.

Book in advance over t'internet and it's about a tenner from Stafford to the smoke.

Did you see the reports in the paper this week about back pain?

Well, apparently, acupuncture is the most effective pain relief of all. Maybe go and have a chat with the Chinese people in the bottom of the ancient high house. It's surely worth a go!

Good luck mate

Scuttlingb said:

Book in advance over t'internet and it's about a tenner from Stafford to the smoke.

Did you see the reports in the paper this week about back pain?

Well, apparently, acupuncture is the most effective pain relief of all. Maybe go and have a chat with the Chinese people in the bottom of the ancient high house. It's surely worth a go!

Good luck mate

Click to expand...

I think the point was that it was significantly better than conventional treatment but only just better than someone randomly sticking pins in not deep enough to do the acupuncture thing. Basiclly you probably get better if you think something is going on and people with back problems distrust trad. treatment after years of it not working.

Tube - if I remember rightly, the Picadilly Line goes straight from Euston to Earl's Court - or I might be thinking of the Victoria Line, in which case it goes to Victoria, which is a few stops along on the District Line. It costs a few quid. Saver return is about £50 and it's valid for a month, although you can only travel off peak. I still have some tube maps knocking around somewhere, or you can go to the TFL website.

Doctor said:

I think the point was that it was significantly better than conventional treatment but only just better than someone randomly sticking pins in not deep enough to do the acupuncture thing. Basiclly you probably get better if you think something is going on and people with back problems distrust trad. treatment after years of it not working.

Click to expand...

I concur!

There is one treatment that has proved to have a benefit, in virtually every, double blind radomised control trial*, of a medicine or therapy. It works in all types of disease, condition, on the old or the young, infact everywhere. It is .........

The placebo! often a simple pill containing no active ingredient. Theory is, that the mind is a very powerful thing, but easily tricked! you think something is going to do you good, and hey presto! it helps you get better. Now the placebo might not have much effect, and it might not out-perform the treatment on trial, but it invariably has a positive effect over no teatment whatsoever.

*Gold standard of medical trials:-
Double blind = neither the person reiceving the treament, nor the person delivering it, knows who is recieving the real treatment or the placebo.
Randomised = people recieving either, the treatment, the placebo, or no treatment at all, are randomly chosen.
Control = there is a group of people who will recieve neither the placebo nor the treatment on trial, they will also be monitored. This latter group, is the group which placebo treated patients almost always do better than.

All the above is done to ensure that medical trials lead us to the best possible medicine and treatment.

Of course the fact that most trials are funded by the fabulously lucrative pharmacutical industry, and that 90%+ of the medicine we use today has never been subjected to any rigorous trials, let alone double blind radomised control trials, may lead you to a healthy scepticism in medical research, I shouldn't possibly comment! It was long ago when I dealt with such weighty questions, now I content myself with putting out fires and rescuing ducklings from drains, and I am a damn sight happier for it!