No comics links today,, as such, as every comic blogger in the world is talking about Geek Glastonbury San Diego “Comic” Con (which seems more of a film/media event from the descriptions, but heigh ho). I’ll hopefully be posting reviews of some of today’s comics tonight.

Chris Bird sums up rather well why I won’t go to cons.

Mark Steel talks about a rare case of justice being done.

And The Independent’s leading article is right, but doesn’t go far enough. I worked until very recently at the Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust (and my wife still does), and as this Guardian article says it’s one of the worst in the country, but mental health provision in this country is a disgrace. Since this Labour government came into power (a government that’s supposed to help those in need), we’ve had an average two beds per day cut in mental health in the UK. Wards are permanently understaffed, and the staff are dedicated enough that they continue to work on understaffed wards ‘until we can get new staff’. That level then becomes the norm, and then they lose another staff member…
In each trust, these cuts will continue until someone (either staff, patient or member of the public) dies through lack of supervision, then they’ll quickly staff up, while blaming the staff who were there for the death. When someone like Karen Reissmann (a good, dedicated nurse) speaks up about this, she gets the sack.
It’s an absolute disgrace, and I got out of it because I can’t bear to see patients I care about suffering through inadequate staffing, and colleagues I respect put under more pressure than they can bear.