John's Blog...

15th July 2010

Having visited the doctor recently for my regular 10 yearly checkup, and been pronounced as fit as a butcher's dog, I took the chance to give hime a free sample of our UTItest5v urine test strips. He was impressed, and noticed right away how useful they were compared to other strips on the market because they have the specific range of tests that are dedicated to testing for urinary tract infections. The other strips on the market either have too many test elements (and that makes them confusing to use) or too few, and are thus not good indicators.

Moving on, I may have failed previously to mention that Herbapharma (our Italian distributor) has managed to get Waterfall D-Mannose approved as a 'medicine' for doctors to prescribe. In the first week they sold over 600 tubs. In the UK, doctors are already free to prescribe it, but they only do it with a private prescription, and that means basically that a patient has to go to a pharmacy who probably won't have it in stock, and have to order it, and it'll cost the customer the same as if they ordered it directly from us. In Italy, the system seems to be different - doctors stock the product themselves and if they think you need it they take it out of their cupboad and hand it to you, though you still have to pay something...

It seems like quite a good system to me.

Moving on again, I had occasion to read one of my favourite poems to a friend recently. It's Elizabeth Barret Browning's 'My Heart and I'.
I couldn't finish it because she started weeping. She has a soul, and I think few people with a soul can read it without feeling incredibly sad by the time one is halfway through.

But it's a pity I didn't get the chance to finish it, because the end of the poem says it all.

MY HEART AND I

Enough! we're tired, my heart and I.
We sit beside the headstone thus,
And wish that name were carved for us.
The moss reprints more tenderly
The hard types of the mason's knife,
As Heaven's sweet life renews earth's life
With which we're tired, my heart and I.

You see we're tired, my heart and I.
We dealt with books, we trusted men,
And in our own blood drenched the pen,
As if such colors could not fly.
We walked too straight for fortune's end,
We loved too true to keep a friend;
At last we're tired, my heart and I.

How tired we feel, my heart and I
We seem of no use in the world;
Our fancies hang gray and uncurled
About men's eyes indifferently;
Our voice which thrilled you so, will let
You sleep; our tears are only wet:
What do we here, my heart and I?

So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
It was not thus in that old time
When Ralph sat with me 'neath the lime
To watch the sunset from the sky.
"Dear love, you're looking tired," he said:
I, smiling at him, shook my head.
'Tis now we're tired, my heart and I.

So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
Though now none takes me on his arm
To fold me close and kiss me warm
Till each quick breath end in a sigh
Of happy languor.  Now, alone,
We lean upon this graveyard stone,
Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I.

Tired out we are, my heart and I.
Suppose the world brought diadems
To tempt us, crusted with loose gems
Of powers and pleasures?  Let it try.
We scarcely care to look at even
A pretty child, or God's blue heaven,
We feel so tired, my heart and I.

Yet who complains?  My heart and I?
In this abundant earth no doubt
Is little room for things worn out:
Disdain them, break them, throw them by!
And if before the days grew rough
We once were loved, used, - well enough,
I think, we've fared, my heart and I.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning [1806-1861]

26th May 2010

I've been reading philosophy lately, and I find that the insights great thinkers give into life in general, and some things in particular, are helpful. For example, it's good to be reminded occasionally that we never really know what is going on inside another person's head. And then they surprise us. Sometimes it's a good surprise. Sometimes not so good. We all live and learn. My own view is that a day is wasted if I don't learn something new.

Exciting news next - have you noticed the release of our new product, Anna and John's Special Probiotic Blend? And with that comes the launch of our new website, complete with our brand new shopping basket... You can also order any of our products there. Anna and John's Special Probiotic Blend

To complement that - we got a mention in Kathryn Marsden's book, Good Gut Bugs. We bought a copy to have a look, and liked the book so much that we decided to add it to our stock, so now you can order the book straight from us.

On this site (I mean the one you are reading right now), we have updated our product order form, to avoid confusion. Now you can specify exactly how much you want of any particular thing, instead of, for mixed orders of powder and tablets for example, having to leave it up to us to choose.) Seems an obvious step that we should have done back in 2003 when we first started doing this.

31st March, 2010

Can I have a rant about something? It's about the state BT is in. We placed an order for a new high speed BT.net line last December. It's still not in.

BT has been broken up into a multitude of separate companies, including BT Openreach, BT.net, BT Retail, BT Broadband, BT Inclusion, BT Wholesale, BT Education, each with its own set of administration. It has thus become a bureaucratic nightmare for anyone trying to get anything done.

You place an order with BT.net. They send you a nice little package telling you what to expect. They then place an order with BT Openreach for an engineer to come and survey the job. The engineer doesn't turn up and knowbody knows what they are supposed to be surveying. Then you realise that the nice little package was a ruse to fool you into thinking that somee kind of plan was in place. Now I realise that if they had a plan and acted on it, the plan must have been for complete chaos.

So somebody from BT Openreach comes eventually to install the lines. They don't work, but BT.net can't check the lines. They have to place an order with Openreach. Openreach turn up but can't get the lines working, because there is something wrong at the exchange, but the order doesn't cover fixing that, so there is more delay whilst a new order is drawn up. Then nobody tells anyone what is happening. Then BTOpenreach turn up again without warning to install new phone lines, but the engineer doesn't know what they are for. Another guy comes from Openreach a few days later to check the installation, but he doesn't actually know how to check it because he's not been told what the job is, and he knows nothing about the new router or how to check any of the equipment. Every BT company has to place orders for anything they want done from another BT company. Openreach installs one router, but they are not allowed to install the other one because that's BT.net's job. They invoice each other. They spend lots of time in meetings. BT.net knows that Openreach still has to make some kind of 'virtual connection' at the exchange, but they can't get them to do it. Then nobody tells anyone what is happening. They don't get the work done because there are multiple levels of bureaucracy in multiple BT companies to deal with. Eventually we are told the work will be completed soon. We've been told that about 20 times now over the last three and a half months.

Meanwhile, we are still waiting, and whilst waiting we keep getting pestered by BT Broadband asking us if we want our Broadband upgraded. They are completely unaware that we have initiated an upgrade to BT.net. They don't even seem to know what BT.net is.

Now is that a good case for reintegrating BT or what?

Anyway, enough of a rant. I have better things to rant about.

Happy Easter everyone.

15th February, 2010

Well, it is almost four months since my last blog, and I have the entirely subjective feeling that time has flown fast.

So much has happened since then that I don't know where to start, so I will just ramble. The world keeps turning, and things keep changing. We have new product options, like the 50 x 1g Waterfall D-Mannose tablets in Tubs. we are in the middle of doing something brilliant - almost a year in the planning, and it will be out soon. Sweet Cures has doubled our staff since this time last year, and we continue to grow as people pass word about the effectiveness of our products from person to person.

An article in a medical journal in France, extolling the benefits of our High Energy D-Ribose by a well known doctor over there, has caused the sales in France to boom. We can hardly keep up with the orders.

But in business as always, there are people who will do underhand things. A UK based-company is advertising Waterfall D-Mannose, basically using our product name, but the people who click on the link get taken to the site of a completey uscrupulous company with whom we have had trouble before. Remember, we don't white box Waterfal D-Mannose. We don't send it to companies to put their own label on it, so if it doesn't say Waterfall D-Mannose on the label, you are not buying Waterfall D-Mannose - you are buying something else.

So much for that.

What excites me? Well, apart from the obvious, I love learning new things, and the massive advances in astronomy over the last couple of years means that we live during an exciting time of discovery. A couple of years ago, the only exoplanets we could see (planets that are around other suns than our own) were gas giants. Now we can see planets that are just four earth masses. Soon we'll be able to see sister planets to our own in other solar systems. That's something worth thinking about.

But life is too short to spend it all writing blogs...

10th November, 2009

At last we have updated our list of local stockists on this website. It's becoming a great list. There's still a way to go for us to be in every town in the country - but we have pretty good coverage now. And more stockists are starting to take more of our product range on board.

Personally, still suffering from the loss of Pusskas, but we've got to the stage where we can say that at least we gave her the best possible life a cat could have dreamed of. We spoiled her rotten. We pandered to her every desire, and we have no regrets.

Last weekend we went to London to see Billy Elliot. It was great! Much better than I thought it would be.

29th September, 2009

Anna and I are devastated at the moment. Our poor little cat Pusskas (see her further down this blog) had to be put to sleep at the weekend. She had cancer, and despite visiting the vet regularly, they didn't notice it until it was inoperable. At the end she went downhill very fast, and it became clear that she was beginning to suffer. We did the kindest thing, and had her gently put to sleep at home.

So she was a little monster, difficult in every possible way. She was a committed thief, and a murderer of birds and mice, but we loved her.

26th August, 2009

How does anyone find the time to blog everyday?

Apologies to anyone who has recently sent us photos etc for forum updates. Just been innundated. A doctor who writes for the Daily Telegraph wrote a piece recommending Waterfall D-Mannose, and it's made things very busy here. Most of the recent phone calls have been from older people who are not online, and they've just heard about the Waterfall D-mannose for the first time, after years of suffering.

We have also started to get good feedback on our new product - the Organic Wild Oregano Oil C80.

It is proving very effective at protecting people from the flu that is doing the rounds - with so far not a single case reported of anyone using it at the rate of just 4 drops, 3 times a day catching swine flu or ordinary flu. It's the way it both boosts the immune system and kills pathogens that makes the difference.

The best way to take it is to float some drops in milk or a little Baileys. Then wash it down with a little more.

Some people have asked us about doing it in capsule form, but that defeats the purpose - most bacteria that get into you go in through your mouth or nose. When you take the Wild oregano Oil C80 as we suggest, it kills pathogens in the mouth, and the aromatic compounds also get into the nasal passages where they provide a lot of protection. If you take capsules instead, you lose that advantage.

It's better to close the gate to germs before they get into you than have to try to get rid of them once they are in your system.

20th July, 2009

As I mentioned back on the 6th April, we've been preparing a new product for the market for some time. For years Anna and I have been telling people with Candida or Thrush problems to take a strong herbal extract known as Wild Oregano Oil. However, pointing customers to somewhere to get a supply has been problematic. They order and it doesn't get delivered. Or the company takes days or even weeks to send it to them. Or what they get is not what it should be... There is one particular company that is as unscrupulous as it is possible for a company to be, run by people with absolutely no conscience... If I tell you that they will recognise themselves from that description, you will realise the truth of the matter.

Anyway, over the years Anna and I have tried every version on the market, (well - every version that was actually delivered after we placed an order...) and only found one version that was really effective. It was organic, and twice as strong as the rest. So we decided we had to produce an equally strong version, and bring our customers the very, purest, freshest product that could be produced. As always, we have achieved a product we can be proud of, and that will be useful to our customers.

By the way - wild oregano has been used by traditional healers against colds, flu, and other infections, for thousands of years, and it has already shown itself to be much more effective than anything the pharmaceutical companies can come up with. Does it strike you as a coincidence that the international spread of swineflu has coincided with big-pharma's readiness to produce swineflu vaccine? I mean, these people are not known for being altruisticm, are they? To make the investment in the vaccine, they had to know the vaccine would be bought. But how could they know the virus was going to spread and not just die out like birdflu...?

So anyway, it was on Friday last week that I put up our website for our new product known as Wild Oregano Oil. It's also known as Oil of Oregano. We hope that eventually a bottle of Sweet Cures organic very strong Wild Oregano Oil will be in every medicine cabinet.

9th July, 2009

Lately I've taken to consulting the weather forecast, and assuming that it will be wrong. This has worked out particularly well recently. Like today, for example, the forcast was for rain in the morning, and sun this afternoon. We had a sunny morning, and it's just rained at 15:30. Tonight rain is forecast, so it's pretty safe to assume that we'll be able to go for a pleasant walk in the sunshine.

I hardly ever listen to the news, or read a newspaper. I don't consider myself ill-informed though - I read masses, but I read about things in which I am interested. The main reason I don't read or watch the stuff they try and fill our heads with every day is that I don't want that stuff in my head. There is too much cruelty, too much suffering, too little kindness, when like the Dalia Lama says, kindness is always possible.

I really believe that a little kindness can have a ripple effect, like the flap of the wing of a butterfly...

23rd June, 2009

Forgive the fact that I haven't written an update here for a month, but it has been a very busy month. I find the time every day to do many things, but I've come to the conclusion that the people who do nothing but blog or twitter all the time, don't have much of a life to blog or twitter about.

So anyway, I came across a joke in a Mensa humour magazine. A man is in for a job interview. He says, "I'd like a position where I can slowly forget the life I originally set out to make for myself..."

That's the whole of it. And it's not really all that funny. Maybe it's funny in a sad way, because so many people drift away from their ideals, their creative goals, and their ambitions.

For example, I remember wanting to learn a musical instrument, totally master another language, travel around Australia on a motorbike... I could go on, but I'm betting everyone has a similar list. Nevertheless there are many things I am proud to have achieved, and I'm betting the same is true for most people.

For me, the thing I am probably most proud of is how much Sweet Cures has helped and is helping people. Anna and I both had very different backgrounds before Sweet Cures. But this is something we have jointly acheived - to give people the power to heal themselves. That is something, I think.

But I've still got a list, and it's getting longer as the years go on. The only way I'm going to acheive everything on my list is to live for ever. I'm with Woody Allen - I don't want to live forever through my writing - I want to life forever by not dying.

Well, maybe not forever. Life could get a bit boring. After all, forever is an infinitly long period of time. Our universe is only about 14 billion years old. Does anyone really want to life forever? Our own sun will last about another 4 billion years until it roasts the earth as it expands to become a red giant. Forever? Until all the stars have died? Until there is nothing but darkness?

Just writing this has made me change my mind. It seems to me that to live forever is the most horrific fate. Can you imagine the cold, dark, silent horror of it...?

Anyway, on a more cheerful subject, at the weekend we went to see Tony Benn in Leeds. He is still as sharp as ever, with a mind full of anecdotes and insights. I got to shake his hand. Anna got a hug. Whether you agree or disagree with him, nobody can ever doubt that he is a man of integrity, and that is a highly unusual thing, in a politician.
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19th May 2009

9th April 2009

We have a refrigerator magnet that always makes me smile. It says, "What if the Hokey Cokey really is what it's all about?"

It always seems to me that you get out of life what you put into it. We speak to many people in the course of each day, and I'm often impressed with the ability of some people to overcome their difficulties and remain cheerful. What is less obvious is that it is often the people with the greatest difficulties who manage best. I do know that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but the legacy of that seems to be a general ability to cope better with the stuff of life.

So an MS sufferer who has gone through hell for years sends us jokes that make us laugh. A young woman who has had many painful operations and is fighting a rare genetic illness inspires us with her cheerful courage. A man in constant pain spends his time helping others.

And that may be the key. Everything we have to go through enables us to help others who have to go through the same thing. Doing so gives meaning to our lives. Lives with meaning are happy lives no matter what the current situation, because at the end of the day, and this seems to be the case with everybody who has a good heart, what makes our lives better is making other people feel better. And the punishment for those people who only exploit and use others is that they will never know that feeling.

6th April 2009

Months of work, complicated negotiations, and investigations are coming to fruition soon. Sweet Cures will soon have two brand new products on the market. One, we have been recommending to people for years, but never sold. The other fulfils a massive gap, and it is going to be of great help to our Waterfall D-Mannose customers.

Until we have the websites completed, I can't say more. But check out this website regularly - I will put up some links that I'm sure you are going to find interesting.

17th March 2009

I overheard Anna (Sweet Cures partner) speaking to someone on the phone today - she was pointing out that the same illness, at the same severity of symptoms can land one person in bed for years, and be a mere inconvenience in another person's life. Anna should know - three times in her life she has been told by a doctor that she had an illness that would get steadily worse until she was totally incapacitated. Athsma was one - so she threw away her inhaler and practiced breathing exercises - and she hasn't needed an inhaler for 20 years. Benign Positional Vertigo was another - she was frequently dizzy to the point of vomiting. Imagine spinning around until you can't stand up straight - and then living like that forever - the doctor told her she would eventually become bedbound and suicidal - between us we found a cure - a simple set of exercises to rearrange the floating hairs in the inner ear - the things that cause the problem - in days it was gone, and it has now been gone for years. And cystitis - the repeat acute symptoms which the doctor said was just something Anna would have to learn to live with, and would get steadily worse. She hasn't had an episode now for over 6 years.

I am reminded of Epictetus's often quoted aphotrism - It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.

11th March 2009

I feel privileged to be able to share my thoughts with you, and that you are reading them. This instant communication that we are having, at this moment, is what I like about 'blogging'. The internet is a wonderful thing, and I feel sorry for the people who don't have access to what is effectively the biggest library in the world.

The word 'blog' means web log - it originated as a way of pointing other people to sites that the blogger found interesting, so I'm going to list a couple of mine:

The Nature of the Pharmaceutical Industry

A funny thing happened on the way to the moon

25th February 2009

Some people may wonder why we do what we do. I know hard headed businessmen who think it should be all about profit. They think Anna and I should spend all our time building the business instead of talking to people on the phone, trying to help them. But if you want to know why we do what we do, it is because of our customers. I spent six years in the army but I never saw courage there like the courage of some people who have suffered for many years through procedure after agonising procedure trying just to ease the pain that until they found us they were living with every day. It is hard for us sometimes to hear what has happened to people - but it is our great privilege to speak with people of such courage that we are sometimes overcome with emotion at the stories they tell.

22nd February 2009

Today there was a warm hearted letter from a woman who, after years of struggling with the allopathic way of treating her bladder health problems - who had been told she had interstitial cystitis that would only gradually get worse, and never get better, has been completely free of symptoms for over a year, using only Waterfall D-Mannose to prevent recurrence.

Now that is what I call success, and at the end of a hard day, that's what makes it worthwhile.

Moving on, as most people will know, this year is the 200th aniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and the 400th anniversary of the year that Galileo first looked through a telescope and discovered the moons of Jupiter.

Both are massively significant to my mind - Darwin, because he showed us our place in nature, and made possible the thinking that eventually led to our knowledge of the evolution of bacteria that has allowed us, amongst many other things, to understand how bacteria develop antibiotic resistance though survival and multiplication of the fittest, and Galileo - because he opened up the universe to us, turned over established beliefs, and showed that we should question what the majority of people think is true.

The truth in any matter, Galileo realised, does not depend even the slightest on the number of people who believe it to be true. In fact, it is often the case, and has often proved to be the case, that our subjective truths are mere beliefs, and are often wrong. Our background, environment, and influences affect our personal interpretations of the events in our lives, both physical and mental. Even if we are self-aware enough to realise the effect of these influences, it is hard to detach ourselves from them. We can hold beliefs that are entirely wrong, no matter how dearly we feel them to be true, because we misinterpret the nature of reality. This is something that every scientist has to take in his or her stride every day. Galileo turned the entire nature of the majority of people's world views inside out. That was a long time ago now.

Even today though, it is is incredibly easy to jump to conclusions about the meaning behind the results of an experiment. It is easy to find statistical anomalies that can be interpreted in ten different ways, but scientists may find themselves pointing at the results they want and need, as the 'correct' interpretation.

And of course there are some who deliberately rather than subconsciously manipulate statistics to their own ends. Fortunately, there are always people who will point out these mistakes.

20th February 2009

The pharmaceutical industry is in violent opposition to anything natural that works as good as or better than their drugs work. They are pulling out all the stops, and spending billions every year buying influence and power, particularly in the USA and the EU. Last year they donated over 8 billion dollars to political parties worldwide. Governments, as a result, are falling over themselves to do whatever the pharmas ask them to do. They just can't risk offending the people who line their pockets.

The tangled web that Pharma weaves implicates everyone it touches in the same sticky mess that allows no escape.

So people are given poisons rather than being told to change their eating habits. They are given beta blockers rather than being told to eat more omega 3 oils; they are given antibiotics rather than natural antimicrobials; they are given massive drugs for gut problems rather than harmless probiotics that would sort them out. They are given drugs to fight the side effects of other drugs that were in the first place unnecessary, and in the second place actively harmful.

It is not strange that the moral responsibility of politicians and the others involved who make the decisions that filter down through government agencies to the doctors who hold the lives of their patients in their hands is put aside when big money calls the shots. People have to live. And they do like to live well. Some people learn to ignore the twinges of the conscience that surely, if they stop occasionally to reflect on those who suffer because of what they do, must have an effect on their peace of mind.

Case in point - you are a pharmaceutical company. You have a huge stockpile of fluoride as a toxic by-product of producing certain fertilisers and other chemical compounds. What do you do with it?

Pharma guy: "Hmm, that's a problem. We can't bury it because it is almost as toxic as arsenic, and people would find out. It would leach into the rivers and kill the fish. Ideally, we could do with dumping it in the sea, where there is more water to dilute it and it would take many years to have a serious impact that would point back to us. By then, we'll all be retired, so it would be someone else's problem. Unfortunately, there are laws against dumping toxins in the sea.

Other Pharma guy. "I've got an idea... Let's put it in people's drinking water. You know how it leaches calcium from the bones, but makes the surface brittle - in other words, hard? Well, my research indicates that it also does that to teeth. We could persuade the dental industry that it's good for the teeth - harder enamel will initially slow decay, even if it makes the teeth more brittle. We can take important people from the dental industry to a seminar - say in the Bahamas - ply them with food and drink in the usual way, and with those beautiful island women, and when they go back home they'll be telling everyone that flouride is a good thing to add to the tapwater. The public will drink our stockpile, and the problem is gone. We can even sell it to local authorities. They'll effectively pay us to take away our toxic waste, so that they can feed it to people, and at the end of the day it accumulates in the people who consume it, so it doesn't harm the environment."

Pharma guys all laugh. Then they stop laughing.

"Pass me a bottle of Evian", one of them says.

Southampton is next...

19th February 2009

Reading the scientific journals, it is becoming very clear that there are planets around a lot of the stars that we get a really good look at within our own vast galaxy, and recently a planet has been detected around a star in another galaxy. So it's pretty clear that the universe is teeming with planets, and there are probably as many planets around most of the stars we see in the sky as around our own sun. And of course a number of the stars we see are actually other distant galaxies, which contain tens of billions of stars and perhaps five times that in planets. It sort of puts our lives into perspective....

A supernova now is more than a bright flash in the sky - it is the death, as likely as not, of an entire solar system, where life may have existed, and civilizations with families, hopes and dreams, belief systems, governmental systems, armies, literature, and art, grew into existence, shone for a few bright million years or so, and faded away as the star that supported that life eventually devoured it.

To my mind, that is not a depressing thought. It's just what happens, and it's the cycle of birth and death that has allowed us to exist.

But when you extrapolate the endless possibilities of life in this universe to the possiblities of 'multiverse', the mind begins to see that this could be amusing. The physics that make such fixed laws in our own universe are not so certain for other universes given the infinite possibilities that exist. There may be universes with entirely different laws of physics, where, for example, Newton's Laws do not apply. I'm not saying life will exist in universes with unpredictable physical laws, but if it did the creatures there might have a tough time surviving. For example if there were a universe where every object does not tend to continue its state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external force, things would change direction unpredictably, or perhaps start moving on their own. You could put down your wallet, and it could zoom straight out of the window, heading off who knows where. Or you might end up in a universe where matter behaves even more unpredictably, instantaneously changing its location or quantum state arbitrarily. Your house might suddenly become a bumble bee, or a washing machine. You could be walking along the road and your clothes turned into water, or your dinner could swap its time/space location with a bicycle, after you'd eaten the meal.

As ridiculous as all that sounds, in infinite multiverse, with infinite possibilities, universes as unpredictable as that are likely to exist. Given an infinity of time, even the most unlikely sets of physical laws will crop up in emerging universes.

So isn't it lucky we are where we are? At least you can trust that your pet cat won't turn into T.Rex, and eat you.

16th February 2009

Old Lady: Do you always play by ear? Street Musician: Yes, lady, 'ere or 'ereabouts.

13th February 2009

You may notice I go back to my blog and edit occasionally. It's like "Oops... I didn't mean to say that..." or "I've just said too much..." or "That rant makes me sound just a little bit off my head..." or "That's going to make me too many enemies..."

You've got to be careful what you say. It's easy to make powerful enemies when you criticise their behaviour.

But then again, I think that all it takes is a little bit of apathy or fear for evil to triumph, so I will continue to rant, on occasion.

I don't like Ciprofloxacin for multiple reasons. I found an interesting URL which shows some of the side effects:

http://www.askapatient.com/viewrating.asp?drug=19537&name=CIPRO

11th February 2009

I want to mention someone... it's a man who was self-catheterising every two hours and had been doing so for the past two years. He has MS. Just two weeks after starting on Waterfall D-Mannose, he is no longer catheterising, his pain has gone, and his wife told me on the phone, that even his face has changed. She feels like she has got her husband back, and his energy levels are getting better all the time. He is also taking the High Energy D-Ribose, and the Xylotene.

We often get fairly miraculous reports from people, but I wanted to share this one with you, because I find these things deeply moving, and a single phone call like that makes the long hours and the struggle to get word out about our products, and the sheer enormous effort that all of us at Sweet Cures make to ensure that everything is working at its optimum level, extremely worthwhile.

And we always share the good news that comes in with everyone. The people who take such care in creating our special products, the people who pack them, and the people who fill the envelopes - they all know that every day, what they do is helping people.

10th February 2009

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who think there are two kinds of people in the world, and those who don't...

On a slightly more serious note, it's alway been of interest to me that although there are many kinds of people in the world, there are endless ways they can be classified into two kinds of people:

Thinkers and non-thinkers is just one example. Especially in this Age of Information, it's strange to me that some people would rather live in ignorance than learn something new; would rather watch Big Brother than read Voltair or Russell; would rather talk about trivia than ideas; would rather believe what they've been told than find out for themselves; would rather listen to the angry rantings of a drugged-up rapper than to Beethoven or Elgar; would rather put the toxic chemicals produced by drug companies in their bodies than find a natural remedy; would rather give their power to someone else to control than use it themselves; would rather hear lies than challenging truths.

Okay, I suppose I am ranting now, so I'd better stop.

Is it that that modern schooling lacks something? There may be something to be said for the education in the days of Cicero, when education was about being taught how to think. I'm not saying that there are not a lot of good thinkers living right now, because there are some extraordinary ones, like Steven Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Albert Hoffman, and Noam Chomsky. What I'm saying is that we could make a lot more of them if we started when people were young. Why do we teach people to be conformists when conformists never achieve anything extraordinary? There are two kinds of people in the world...

10th February 2009

I like this quote from Albert Einstein, who somehow learned to think 'outside the box':

"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

3rd February 2009

She answered charmingly, if somewhat in error, "They are holes in the sky where Heaven shines through."

I was not, even at that age, wholly satisfied with the answer, but it was enough to make me think for a while. She died last year, and I think she died still believing her answer was correct, because it wasn't something she would ever have enquired about. This was a woman who didn't believe that Jesus was a Jew.

She was always an enigma to me. As a firm believer in God, she would beat me for forgetting the words of a prayer; for allowing my pet rabbit to get loose; for talking after lights-out; for saying no to her; for taking a biscuit without permission; for making the wrong noise when I was being beaten, and for all the crimes that children commit when they are, or feel, unloved. What I found enigmatic was the way she could reconcile her religious beliefs with her behaviour. Although, of course, it is sanctioned in the bible... "Spare the rod and spoil the child." Personally, I put that in the same league as "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," or the many passages that condone slavery, rape and murder in the Old Testament.

From the little communication I had with my mother over the years, it's clear that she thought I was a bad child. And I do know I did some things I should not have done. I was a child of my upbringing, as we all are. Nevertheless, I remember rescuing animals. I remember jumping in to help a friend despite knowing I'd be hurt in the process. I remember saving for months to buy her a birthday present. Sometimes the thought has arisen that I was not fundamentally a bad child, I just had a bad mother. My sisters' experience of her was entirely different. They don't remember much about the violence, except that I was a trouble maker.

But I learned a lot from her. I learned never to hit my own children. I learned that self-control is a good and meaningful thing. I learned that children have to be allowed to win some battles. I learned that love is the most important thing in life. And I learned that if I wanted the answers to questions, I had to find them out for myself. And I gained from her some kind of inner strength. Having gone through what I went through, and come out the other side, I don't get upset easily, and it takes a lot to make me angry. I suppose I should thank her.

Later, after a stroke, my mother became more docile, and I'm told that she braved a long and painful illness with fortitude, and was an inspiration to some people.

My own children never really knew her.

For the first forty years of my life I scarcely went a day without re-living some of the beatings she gave me. Then, I met Anna, and she helped me get over things. As any of you who have ever talked to her know, she is a good counsellor. Now, I don't even think about them. Or about my mother. Not very often anyway. Finally, in my late 50s, I think I've become well adjusted. I'll probably delete this post eventually.

So, moving on, my thoughts are on quantum physics.

Have you ever thought that you can make something happen just by the power of thought? It seems to be hocus-pocus, but one of the strangest things about quantum physics is that scientists are now accepting that what we think, by, for example, observing an experiment, actually influences the outcome of the experiment.

It seems to me that this has wide implications, and that some of the implications have not been to any deep extent considered. If we influence the position of photons or subatomic particles just by observing an outcome, then we have to accept that our thoughts are more than just some separate event in the universe - they are an integral part of it. Bishop Berkeley, roll over... We are influencing the reality that we see around us. We are fundamentally connected not only to the subatomic particles of any experiment, but to everyone and everything that is, has been, or will be. If it were not so, the outcome of quantum physics experiments would not depend on the observer.

It's going to take science a while to really catch onto this, but the practical meaning, at least for me, is something that I've mentioned before. If we can influence our reality - our future - just by thinking about it, we should try really hard to make it a good one. Positive thinking now has more meaning than just thinking good things to make yourself feel better - it seems that it may actually make the world a better place.

Don't get me wrong about urine infections and Waterfall D-Mannose. I do believe positive thinking can influence the immune system, but it's not going to be affecting the immune system of the hundreds of cats and dogs who get better every year after being fed Waterfall D-Mannose. Bacteria in the bladder are always going to cause problems, and Waterfall D-Mannose is the best way to get rid of them. I mention this because of a customer who thought that my reference to the power of the mind meant that Waterfall D-Mannose worked in the way that placebos work - we believe they work, so they work. The proof of the pudding for me is that Waterfall D-Mannose works whether or not you have even the capacity to know what is happening to you, and whether you are a woman or a man, a boy or a girl, a cat or a dog, a horse or a mouse.

15th & 21st January 2009

January has been incredibly busy for us. We've have had piles of orders for our High Energy D-Ribose, and we've been sending it all over the world to people who say it has made more of a difference to their muscular problems in a week of use than years of conventional treatment did for them.

This is something I love - when people take control and find their own solutions to the things that are going wrong with them. Personally, I feel that the artificially created poisons that Big Pharma wants us to buy are more to do with them making money than any of them genuinely believing that they have a solution to any health problem. To call Big Pharma and their paid persuaders coldly cynical would be an insult to coldly cynical people.

But I don't want to dwell on that stuff. I think dwelling on things that make us angry often causes more misery than the original thing. You know what I mean... being cheesed off about something can mess up your whole day, so the only happy solution is to take any action necessary as fast as possible, and then let it go.

To be honest, in the past I had a habit of not letting go. Now I think the best revenge against the people who have at one time or another been the cause of unnecessary suffering is not think about them. It's not quite the same as 'turning the other cheek'. I don't believe in being a victim, so taking the necessary action is part of the solution for me. But the necessary action might be forgiving someone, making a call, writing a letter, getting a solicitor to write a letter, or just ranting about them for a week. Or I might squish their head...

5th Jan 2009

Happy New Year to everyone.

I was up in Scotland visiting family at Christmas, but New Year was spent here in York. We had a quiet, relaxing time. We were going to go out for a late walk around the "Minster" but it was too cold, so we cuddled up by the fire and watched the fireworks on telly.

I sincerely hope you all had a great time.

31 Dec. 2008

The last day of 2008. I hope you and yours have a happy and healthy New Year.

in York, things are quiet. The headlines in the local newspaper a day or so ago were "York Woman's Dilemma With Freezer!"

Eager to find out what the dilemma was, I bought the paper, wondering if it was whether to freeze the Christmas leftovers, or not, or whether she should take out the steak pie to defrost on New Years Eve, or not... I was disappointed to discover there was no real dilemma. She had bought a new freezer that couldn't be used in her garage because of the temperature.

Don't editors understand the meaning of the word 'dilemma'? Huh!

Further down in the same paper there was a story about the untimely death of a local man. If I were him I'd be haunting the newspaper offices right now.

Friday 5th December

If you've called us to talk about things, you will be aware that we do what we do because we passionately believe that there is a natural way to treat everything, and that most things given titles as illnesses are just labels for groups of symptoms. One of the best things in our lives is that because we talk to people ourselves, we can often monitor someone's progress, from a point in their lives when they are very ill, to happily recovered. Today when we got to work there was a delightful bouquet of flowers waiting for Anna for the help she has given someone, and there was also a great email waiting for us, about a child who has pretty much recovered from major long-term urinary tract problems that were getting progressively worse before her mother found Waterfall D-Mannose. What in life could be better than that?

So, it's that time of year again... Some people look forward to it, and others hate it. For myself, there are a lot of good memories and I will try to make more this year.

But some people don't have good memories about Christmas. Remember that story about a reporter from (I think) the Washingon Post who rings round Ambassadors from all the different countries, and makes up a Christmas wish list every year?

They all say things like “This Christmas I’d like to see a real drive for peace in the Middle East, and an end to child poverty.”

These wishes are then printed in the Christmas Eve edition of that famous newspaper.

One year, the new British Ambassador  said “I’d like a box of crystallized fruit.”

Thursday 4th December

I don't know what happened to November - it flew by in a mere 30 days. And they were all short days. And they were dark days. Driving down the M62 to go to the dentist, it was so dark it seemed that darkness had descended on the face of the earth. Like something really bad was going to happen. But I always feel that if we think something bad will happen, and talk about bad things, and focus on them, it somehow helps bring them into reality.

It seems to me that the newspapers and TV with all their talk of doom and gloom, are largely responsible for the economy grinding to a halt. So I'm ignoring them from now on, and I don't want to hear about people dying in horrible ways on the news either. I just want the good news, or at least more of a balance.

There are great personal achievements every day by thousands of people. There are exceptional achievements by exeptional individuals, and there there are wonderful, kind people doing good things every day. So let's have less about terrorists and murderers, and more about the achievements of good people. More good things on the news. Not just, after an hour of murder, terror, corruption and destruction, "and finally, a dog from Newcastle has amazed people with its ability to climb up flagpoles..."

Thursday 6th November 2008

You might not have noticed, but there are a couple of new links on our home page. One is to the new page that is up with Special Offers. They are going to change on a regular basis so you will always have some new bargain to find.

The other thing is that Bryan, who has taken over from Shou, has put up a Chinese version of our website. He has created both traditional and simplified Chinese versions. He is a very clever man, currently also doing his Masters at York University.

Tuesday 28th October

Tuesday 14th October, 2008

It seems only days since my last blog. Life is like that - the less time you have left in any task, or in life itself, the faster time flies. The only concusion I can arrive at is that we should cram as much into each day as possible. Why then do I feel like going to bed right now and sleeping for the next 24 hours?

But that aside, the past 6 weeks I've spent in a kind of limbo of wondering. I've been reading about quantum physics, and the part we play in observing and deciding. It seems endlessly strange that some matters are not decided until we look to observe the result. A particle can be in the same sort of limbo of wondering as the mind that is deciding when to look at it. But as soon as you decide, the particle 'makes up its mind' which slot to go through or whether its spin is up or down and what it's entangled twin will do.

Now that is interesting to me, because it shows that in a way we create our own reality as we go along, and I've been watching The Secret, which basically says the same thing, but on the macroscopic scale. Everything is possible, and all options are open until we close a particular door, or travel along a predetermined path, or make a particular decision... This I have found to be true.

Thursday 28th August, 2008

Our office manager, Shou, is off to Japan soon to work for a year teaching English. He is going to be sadly missed, because he was great with customers, had developed a wide knowledge of our products, and was a real asset to us in multiple ways. However, before he left he kindly found us his replacement. Brian Sun is going to be another great asset, we are sure, and customers will get to know him over the coming months.

We have incidentally, built a new website for our High Energy D-Ribose, in case I didn't mention it before. We are beginning to get excellent feedback on the product, showing that our instincts were right, and that as with Waterfall D-Mannose and Xylotene, we have managed to deliver an outstandingly good natural product that can't be surpassed for quality, purity, and effectiveness.

Friday 8th August 2008

Whilst I personally think most doctors are great, and do their best under trying circumstances within the limitations of allopathic medicine, one of our customers happened to mention that during a doctors' strike in Israel, death rates dropped by 50%. I checked up on it, out of curiosity, and discovered that the pattern is not just an Israeli one. The trend has been noticed throughout the world during every doctors strike, on a time-related basis. The longer doctors are on strike, the lower the death rate becomes.

There is an interesting article about the subect in The Annals of Family Medicine.

And in the British Medical Journal, an apologetic article.

According to some of the other articles I found during a Google search, the lower death rate during doctors' strikes can cause hardship amongst funeral directors/morticians, but this is invariably resolved within a week of doctors returning to work.

You might ask yourself why this trend exists, and you might think that if you were a doctor, that's the sort of thing that would make you want to hang up your stethoscope and rubber gloves for good. But the fault is not, to my mind, that of doctors. I think instead it is a result of the sometimes dangerous concoctions that are used as conventional medicine.

This is one of the reasons that we are supporting an ongoing campaign to bring natural products into drug trials, so that new drugs will be tested not only against placebo, but against natural remedies, and lifestyle options. If you think that makes sense, you will see contact details further down in this blog for the Rt Hon Dawn Primarolo MP, who is the Minister of Health and is the one who would need to back the proposal.

Wednesday 16th July 2008

A long day, but a good one. I hope it's been good for you too.

We still have no answer from the Dept of Health to our last letter, here (PDF file).

I really thought this was something that might get going, but it's dificult to change well ingrained establishment habits. Still, I'm a fighter, and if we can't get natural products included in clinical trials by one route, we will try another.

Not unrelated to this, we recently were approached by a Swiss urologist who has plans to trial our Waterfall D-Mannose product for at least 6 months on people with spinal injuries and repeat UTIs. That's great news because the results will be published by him independently, and they will be out there for everybody to see, including NHS direct who currently have a nonsense piece up that says since there are no well conducted clinical trials on dmannose, there is no evidence that it is useful against UTIs. That's like saying that all our tens of thousands of customers are liars. That nothing natural is good for you because it's not had a clinical trial. That pharmaceutical companies are the arbiters of truth. Sigh...

The big question is why the government would not want to know about effective remedies that work better than drugs. Another one might be a question about how much various pharmas contribute to various political parties. Tie both of those questions together.

Wednesday 25th June 2008

Great news. At last we have launched our new site dedicated to High Energy D-Ribose. Well at least it is up there, to be discovered by people. So if you are wondering what it is, and how the product can help you, please take a wander over to the information about dribose. You can also order our very high purity ribose product from there. We are very excited about this.

If you are an existing customer of ours you will know how absolutely dedicated we are to providing the very best products available. We therefore have a small but very focused product range, each one of which has it's own particular benefits and applications.

Thursday 12th June, 2008

I should have mentioned before that we have replied to the Dept. of Health's reply to our proposal regarding drug testing (see 8th May below). Our reply can be seen here (PDF file).

If you want to help our campaign, you could always contact Dawn Primarolo backing our proposal. C'mon... be that one in ten thousand person who does something important today.

Rt Hon Dawn Primarolo MP
PO Box 1002, Bristol, BS99 1WH
PHONE: 0117 909 0063
FAX: 0117 909 0064
TEXT: 07925 374261

Moving on...

Cats are monsters! For days we kept rescuing a young Jackdaw that had prematurely flown the nest. We put it up high on the flat roof of our extension at home, and it was being fed by its mother. It could very nearly fly. But it kept gliding down to the grass. Not really a safe thing to do with our own pet monster on the loose. Cats don't have the least bit of compassion. If something is young and vulnerable, cats just think, "Great, all the easier for me to catch, torture, and kill it."

So yesterday, when we got home from work, it was dead, in the middle of the lawn. Pusskas strikes again. Huh! You rescue a half dead, bald and starving little cat, feed it up and spend a fortune on Vets' bills, and you don't realise that what you are doing is creating a super-fit killing machine.

Friday 30th May 2008

Stepping outside Sweet Cures premises for a moment's break from telephones, emails, orders, and things to organise, I suddenly realised that it sounds as if there is a war on. It might just be really heavy stuff getting loaded onto freight trains - the railway is not so far away from here. But I really should listen to the news more often. We don't get much free time here, and I've got the feeling that we'd miss the event by not noticing it. So if anything important has happened in the world, maybe someone could let me know. And please send an urgent email if you hear the 'three minute warning' going off.

On a more serious note, (yes, this is more serious than war) we have been looking at diversifying our product range for some time. I mean, we are called Sweet Cures, and that's a deliberate plural. So for the past year or so we have been trying to get our new product, High Energy D-Ribose™ (pronounced 'dee rye bos') on the go.

There are many subtle benefits to regular use of ribose. The main one that has gained attention is that the product is great for heart and muscle health. D-Ribose is the basic building block of ATP, which provides cellular energy, and is the source of the power that all cells need to function effectively. The availability of D-Ribose in cells is therefore essential for energy recovery following cellular stress. DRibose is truly an excellent product for heart and muscle health - particularly useful for for fast recovery after muscle trauma, and is being used successfully by people with various muscle-related disorders to alleviate the conditions.

Like Waterfall D-Mannose™ and Xylotene™, we have been unflichingly demanding about quality, and we rejected everything we tested for the past year. But now, finally, we have managed at last to get a natural version of Ribose that is pure enough to deserve the name 'High Energy D-Ribose'. We have had to pay 'through the nose' to get this level of quality, so it's not going to be the cheapest version you could get your hands on. But the effect this product has on people confirms our belief that quality makes a massive difference. Already we have begun receiving glowing and unsolicited testimonials, like this one from Benjamin.

As with Xylotene and Waterfall D-Mannose, we won't be 'white boxing' this fantastic quality product to any other company. You will ony be able to get it from us and our official outlets.

You can instantly order a 160g Tub of High Energy D-Ribose here to try it.

I like it when a plan comes together.

Thursday 8th May 2008

We are delighted to have just released our Xylotene in 100g tubs. I'll be spending some time soon putting the option for them on this website.

Moving on, we got a reply about that fabulous idea I had (see Friday 14th March 2008) from the Rt Hon Dawn Primarolo MP
PO Box 1002, Bristol, BS99 1WH
PHONE: 0117 909 0063
FAX: 0117 909 0064
TEXT: 07925 374261
EMAIL: primarolod@parliament.uk.

Well, she's really too important to answer personal letters, so it was a person in her office who answered. Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly a positive response. But at least he didn't say the idea was going to be buried alive, and If I suggested it again, I would be buried too.

This is not something that could really be argued against, except by someone who was totally corrupt. What's the argument against creating more knowledge, uncovering bad drugs, empowering people, and bringing better health to the whole world as a result? The campaign could do with a name though.

"Drugs should be tested against natural remedies as well as placebo", is not very catchy.

What about the initials: DSBTANRAWAP? If you put in a couple of vowels you can just about say it: DiSBeTANRAWAP. It could catch on... Dis Be Tan Rawap. Quite catchy really.

For someone to take the concept forward and help make it law, it neds someone special. It would need to be someone who is not getting all expenses paid trips to exotic places paid for by the pharmaceutical industry.

It would need to be someone who is not afraid to fight the powerful pharmaceutical lobby, with the massive amounts of money they can throw in every direction to buy influence. It would need to be someone who couldn't be bought for any price. Someone as incorruptible as Tony Benn.

It basically needs to reach the ears of someone in government who actually cares enough about people to bring out a Private Members Bill or otherwise somehow make it happen. It would be better if it were a Cabinet Minister.

To misquote Monty Python, Oooh fishy fishy fishy fish! I wonder where that fish can be?

Sunday 20th April 2008

Friday 11th April 2008

I'm pleased to report that we have another trader in London on board.

Gould Pharmacy
37 North Audley Street
Mayfair
London
W1K 6ZL
02074 956298

As with every trader who sells Waterfall D-Mannose, Gould Pharmacy ordered the product as a result of a customer going into the shop and asking them to stock it. We know that some customers like to give something back after we've spent time helping them. We are always grateful to customers who do this because, you know, the competition can be fairly ruthless. We've been told by more than one customer that a paticular competitor has said they are going to 'Put us out of business'. But I don't think they understand that as with many other aspects of life, you reap what you sow. We're been doing this for over nearly six years now, we have products that actually work; we've seen a lot of others on the market come and go; our customers know that we are here to help them, and we are here to stay.

I mean, we get letters like the below, every day, for a very good reason.(I had to remove a product name for legal reasons).

"Thank you so much. I started at 8:30 tonight and it is 10:47 p.m. and I am already getting relief. It is amazing. I also had a fiery yeast infection and had to treat it also. So today was really bad. The burning was almost unbearable just from the yeast. I think I will sleep good tonight.

What an amazing product. The other product I purchased had no effect at all. The purity of your product is without question.

Mary Ella "

Wednesday 2nd April

I've not yet had a reply from anyone about the idea that I expressed on this blog on 14th March, but I've made an effort to do something that might at least stimulate discussion. It's an expanded version of the comments in the Blog as a press release. You can see that at PR WEB.

Thursday 27th March 2008

Friday 14th March 2008

You know how sometimes, when you've been thinking about a problem for a long time, and it's something you really care about, you can have a sudden clear insight that strikes you like a bright light shining in the darkness? Well, I've had an idea about something that affects every one of us, but I need a bit of help from you, and you, and yes, you too... to implement it, because there will be a lot of official inertia to overcome.

The idea is quite simply, not to put too fine a point upon it, but to get straight to the nub of the problem, as it were, taking the neccessary things into consideration, and... okay I'll stop messing you about - the idea is that all clinical trials on new drugs should be tested against natural remedies as well as placebo.

This would solve at a stroke the ridiculous situation where a drug is accepted and brought into use just by virtue of having been 'trialled' even though its performance was barely better than placebo - or in other words, barely better than nothing at all. However, if it had been tested against one or a number of natural remedies, the trial would almost certainly have shown that the natural solutions worked very many times better than placebo, and better than the drug being tested.

It would also at a stroke, solve the problems of the providers of natural health solutions not being able to afford the huge costs of well-run clinical trials. It would force the very people who are trying to destroy the natural health industry to pay for the trials of natural health products as part of the process of attempting to get a new drug approved.

This could also include, for example, simple foods and healthy eating as part of the trial. So for example, if a new drug to prevent colon cancer is being proposed, wouldn't it be great to know if just taking a plate of porridge in the morning worked better than the proposed new drug which would probably have side effects? So let's find that out. To compare a new drug to placebo is great, but let's use our huge legacy of natural health cures to compare them to.

What can you do? Well, you could do what I'm going to do - write immediately to the Health Minister Dawn Primarolo, and propose the above. It's exacty the right time, because she is currently working on new legislation to make drug companies more accountable, after the disasterous Glaxosmithkline debacle where they 'allegedly' (yes drug companies are litiginous) covered up results for years, that showed that not only did their antidepressant Serotax fail to solve depression - it made people suicidal. (Shouldn't they have caled it Serotoxin?) Suppose that Glaxosmithkline had to compare Serotax against St John's Wort and perhaps high doses of Omega 3 & 6 oils as well as placebo. it would have shown, and we all know this, that both of those remedies for depression actually worked, and worked much better than either placebo or Serotax. And I won't even start about antibiotics compared to dmannose for bladder problems. Because I have a vested interest. But you could...

Please write that letter to:

The Rt Hon Dawn Primarolo MP
PO Box 1002, Bristol, BS99 1WH
PHONE: 0117 909 0063
FAX: 0117 909 0064
TEXT: 07925 374261
EMAIL: primarolod@parliament.uk

Thursday 31st January 2008

We were putting in a new gas fire at home recently, and when the plumber removed the old fire, there was a pigeon, head tucked under a wing, feet clinging to a gas pipe, stone dead. It must have died in its sleep. We never heard a thing. Makes me feel guilty though - you know, if we had been listening more carefully, perhaps...

But I guess that's the thing about guilt - you feel it even if you are not to blame. We are having a cowl put on the chimney to prevent future accidents of that sort. And that's got me thinking about life in general. The things we feel guilty about most of the time, are not the things we do, but the things we don't do. The person you haven't called back. The person who died before you had told them how much you loved them. The time you could have helped, but didn't. The misunderstanding you didn't clear up, out of pride...

Okay - I could go on like this all day, but I won't. I'm going to resolve these things by not thinking about them.

Friday 14th December

Guess what... A speeding camera measured my speed, as I was travelling down the A9, as a good deal faster than I was actually doing. But after a year of fighting the unjust charge, that I knew was wrong, the case was dismissed.

I am not condoning speeding, but if you have to fight an unfair speeding charge, there is nobody better than Graham Walker Solicitors in Glasgow.

And, by the way, the police have to judge your speed by observing your vehicle before deciding to measure its speed if they judge that it is going too fast. They can't just ambush you from a kilometer away, in the dark, as you come round a corner, when they haven't had time to decide what speed you are doing - that is a breach of their guidelines...

Sunday 28th October 2007

You are hardly going to recognise this new version of our website. However, we'd had no option but to implement major changes. We know you will miss being able to read complex stories from our customers that often contained information that has proved useful and vital to many people in multiple ways. And we've unfortunately had to remove a major part of our helpful information on how to use Waterfall D-mannose to gain the best advantage from the product. Under the new EEC rules, as implemented by the MHRA, it's not permitted to go into detail about these things, because Waterfall D-Mannose is a natural health product. Customers must use their own initiative to find out the details.

It seems to us ridiculous that only companies producing registered medicines (the big pharma's) can tell you how to use their products, what conditions they will work against, and how much to take for your particular situation, in detail. Why shouldn't people using natural products be given the same right to detailed information?

One thing - we've been supplying Waterfall D-Mannose for six years now. A lot of people have written a lot of things in a lot of online forums. A quick Google search will bring up a fair bit of advice about how to use d-mannose in general and you will probably find some helpful references about Waterfall D-Mannose in particular, put up by customers, therapists, and other interested parties.

Meanwhile, we will be adding to this site as time goes on, but in a very carefully controlled way. And we know our loyal customers will write online about their own experiences.

What forced al these changes, and the taking down of all our information? Compliance with MHRA requirements, based on a complaint in writing, from a competitor. We think that is a great shame because everyone benefited from our information being available. Nobody really knew about what to do with d-mannose, how much to take, what it worked for, and what it didn't, or anything else about it before we put up the information based on our own and customers experiences, building up the information and expertise over the six years we've been doing this. Now it's gone, and people will suffer as a result.

Still, we are survivors. But I'd think our customers will be almost as angry about this as we are. We think they will have enough anger to complain to the MHRA if they see a competitor putting up an advert or information on a website that gives advice on using a version of d-mannose for any particular ailment, or for example, selling a device that has medical claims. Or both... Once the MHRA get a complaint in writing, they take action, so long as the letter is not anonymous. The MHRA told us that the complaint was by a competitor. In the USA, the authority to complain to would be the FDA.

Thursday 4th October 2007

I mentioned in my last entry that we are going to have to take down some of this website . The MRHA explains that 'You may either promote Waterfall D-Mannose and Xylotene as treaments for adverse medical conditions or sell them, but not both.'

Is that rational? What can you do?

You could write to your MP and ask him/her to create a private members bill to have the 'sell but not promote' law changed, as being unhelpful to trade, and discriminating against health product companies, who basically, according to the law, aren't allowed to tell people what the product they are making can be used for, except in the most broad terms, how to use it, and how to optimise the use of the product.

If you have any influence, please use it. Fight for us. Write to your MP, and ask for a new class of Alternative Health Products to be given the right to publicise customer feedback, advice on how to use the products, and what they are useful against.

If you are our average wonderful customer, please go straight to your local independent health store and ask them to stock Waterfal D-Mannose. It will help us to survive in this now very restricted and censored marketplace.

Did you know that the MHRA are completely funded by the pharmaceutical companies, whose only interest in natural health products is to get rid of them, because if you can fix your health problems without drugs, they lose money?

The MHRA are not interested in the truth - to quote them - 'Our enquiries are not concerned with the truth of any statements that are made..."

We are interested, and that's why we have dedicated the last five + years to the battle against poor bladder health. We have made enemies along the road to truth. But we also know we have made a lot of friends.

Monday 27th August 2007

Moving on, we've been getting calls from people saying that Waterfall D-Mannose has been recommended by their therapist as either an appetite suppressant, or to reduce sugar cravings. We don't know how anyone got that idea, but if it were true, we'd know about it. Unfortunately it's unlikely to work for those purposes. It works in the bladder, kidneys and urinary tract, and is not an appetite supressant. It has very specifically focused areas where it is incredibly useful.

If, on the other hand, it were some kind of panacea, you could use it for anything. So, although you might have heard people referring to Waterfall D-Mannose as their 'magic powder', it can't cure baldness, make you slim, make you irresistably attractive to the opposite sex, or boost your IQ. But it still might be the best thing you have ever found.

Wednesday 22nd August 2007

Sunday 19th August 2007

This is apropos of nothing really, but I've never been able to accept something just because it has become the predominant belief in some area. Millions of people believe what they've been told, but I'm with Socrates that the unexamined life is not worth living. I don't get on with everyone, because people get uncomfortable when you question their 'established' beliefs. And I often question them. I just can't help it. If I hear someone utter an absurdity, I want to hear why they believe that thing. It boils down to the fact that beliefs are not necessarily true.

But what got me going down this rant line was the current 'established' belief that the universe underwent a period of rapid expansion in the first 10^-35 seconds of it's existence. The inflationary period lasted, according to the dogma, about 10^-02 seconds. That's a lot faster than you can blink.
So, faster than a blink, the universe reached almost it's existing size, they say. Then, the universe is supposed to have 'settled down' to the ordinary rate of expansion that can be observed today. But aren't they forgetting something? Aren't they forgetting Newton's First Law: Any object tends to continue its state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless acted upon by an external force. So if the universe expanded at such a rate, why isn't matter still shooting along in a straight line from the 'centre' of the big bang? I don't feel Relativity is going to play much of a part in this since there is no explanation there for anything travelling faster than light, and you can't work out relative space-time curvature or time dilation, or anything relative, at faster than light speeds.

And don't tell me gravity has come into play to stop the sudden expansion. I mean, we, or the particles we are made of, were traveling at an enormously fast rate - around 18 billion times the speed of light. That's faster than 'escape velocity' isn't it? And don't tell me it was the strong nuclear forces between the elementary particles either. That would just have clumped the particles together, but they'd still have been traveling together at tremendous speed away from the centre. There is just no way of stopping that bus they were on to oblivion.

Basically, I'm a non-believer in the Big Bang, and there are a lot of good reasons why the theory should be doubted. I could list some of the reasons, but others have done it better than I could:

You might want to have a look here, as an example :The Top 30 Problems with the Big Bang

Getting rid of the Big Bang solves a lot of cosmological problems. It seems to me to be just something that has grabbed the public and scientific imagination, and has only this in its favour - it can probably be disproved, unlike the multiple, chaotic, and opposing views of organised religions.

Anyway, it's not as if I've got nothing to do...

Sunday 5th August

Wednesday 1st August

Is D-Mannose hard to say? I didn't think so, but I'd better make the pronounciation clear after hearing manitose, demanosing, and manoosy in the same day. Mannose is pronounced like man and nose put together like this 'man-ohss'. I don't think its wrong to say 'ma nose' like a Glaswegian taking about his olfactory organ. But it's not manoosiono or anything like that... :)

Wednesday 18th July 2007

If you've been following this blog, you'll know that it is a great relief for us to at last be operating from our new premises. We are here! We are here! We are here at last! We've still got to sort out the office properly, but we are here at last.

Sunday 15th July 2007

Famous people are getting on board with us. Jan de Vries, for example, (from Jan de Vries Health Care Ltd) is now regularly ordering for his clinics. And the Manchester radio personality and pharmacist, Dennis the Chemist (Dennis Gore Pharmacy Ltd.) is also one of our stockists. We feel we are starting to make some major breakthroughs.

But it's a major day for us in another way too. We have at last got the computers working properly at our new premises, so will be changing our address soon (we will still get the mail to this address...) Plus, I think this is the last Sunday we'll be working. We've done weekends for the last five years, and never missed one. However, we are exhausted with it, and we need to get on a properly controlled regime of working business hours. So in the new premises we'll be working 10am to 6 pm. We think anyway, that what we post after 6pm often doesn't get to our customers the next day. Please order in advance - that way you won't run out and be desperate for a Monday delivery after ordering at the weekend.

Harrison Builders of York Ltd. - We would not recommend them. Read why!

Friday 21st June 2007

Well, nearly there with the new premises now. We've had to do an amazing amount of the work ourselves. I was working until late last night putting in work surfaces. Anna is currently down at the premises painting the toilet.

Who'd guess we already paid two separate lots of people to do the painting...

The carpets are down. Phones are working (currently diverting to the existing numbers). Soon I will upload some photos. Still gathering invoices, evidence, etc. to take action against Harrison.

House falls through... We were going to move to a village called Skirpenbeck, but the house we were after turned out to have a lot of drainage problems, and we're not going to move somewhere where the drains become a dominating factor in our lives. Drains have that in common with teeth - when you have to think about them, you've already got problems.

Tuesday 29th May 2007

We'd love people to send us their photo when they send in letters saying how much Waterfall D-Mannose has helped them. If you've not noticed before, there is a user forum Here.

And by the way men, come on... We have a lot of male customers, but only two men have sent in their photos to the forum...

But blogs are supposed to be personal so I'm probably due to have an insane rant about something. Or to ask some rhetorical questions.

Why do politicians think we are so stupid that we can't see through all their manipulations?

Why is it so hard to get workmen who are competent?

Why can't there be 48 hours in every day?

Where have all the years gone?

Monday 21st May 2007

There are some brave souls in this world, and we are lucky enough to come into contact with quite a few of them. We speak to brave fighters every day - people with the most severe bladder health problems you can imagine, together with an abundance of the other problems that life sometimes throws at us. It brings tears to my eyes sometimes. We do our best to help.

Monday 21st May 2007

Sigh... you learn from your mistakes. I take full responsibility for being an idiot and trusting Harrison Builders of York Ltd. But he's made a mistake too. If you do the right thing, you thrive. If you don't, you don't.

Wednesday 9th May 2007

A customer was having problems trying to 'Maintain a Healthy Bladder', trying to treat her problem in the most effective way. Her doctor sent her urine off to a lab to be tested. It came back, 'Lactose fermenting coliform'.

"So is it E.coli or Klebsiella", she asked her doctor.

"No," he said, "it's a lactose fermenting coliform."

"But those are very common lactose fermenting coliforms," she said.

The doctor went red, blustered a bit, and said, "Well, just take this antibiotic," giving her yet another three days of Trimethoprim.

Thursday 17th April 2007

We are very pleased to welcome another doctor on board as a distributor.

He is in Belgium, and has taken a large stock of our half-gram Waterfall D-mannose tablets.

Dr Mark Elsen
CVBA Prana
kanaalweg 15
3550
Heusden-Zolder
Belgium

tel: 0031 (0) 11 436635

Tuesday 10th April 2007

Did I mention we have new premises? We are still waiting on the builders finishing, so aren't changing our address and phone numbers yet, but we will let you know in plenty of time. And of course, no problems, we will have number forwarding, and will still be picking up the mail at our usual address. We'll keep that going for a long time because some customers only order once a year.

It's going to be good having more space, and with the room to have more people in helping us, it will let Sweet Cures focus more on product development. We are already working on some exciting new products, and have long needed the space.

One thing though - for the past 4 years Anna and I have been 'open for business' from 9 in the morning to 7:30 pm, with rarely a break. That's got to stop, because it's killing us! We are going to adopt new hours from 10am to 6pm in the new premises.

+ Very Sad News +     Tuesday 20th March 2007

I am deeply distressed to report that Paulina Zandstra, our 'Your Own Choice' Netherlands distributor, has passed away after a long illness. She was a very brave woman who suffered for many years with Crohns disease, and cancer. She continued to distribute Waterfall D-Mannose until the end because she wanted to help as many people as possible before she passed away. Her partner is now bravely keeping it all going.

Pauline, you will be sadly missed, and were an inspiration to us and everyone who knew you.

Conspiracy theories

And by the way, you'll think I'm a nut, but all the conspiracy theories - I firmly believe that most of them are true. The 9/11 twin towers were demolished to give George Bush a good excuse for war. See www.thegoodseed.com/911.html The Argentineans were tricked into thinking they could have the Falklands just so Britain could throw them out and Maggie Thatcher could get re-elected. John Kennedy and Marylyn Monroe were killed by the CIA. And don't get me started on Princess Di... Cures have been buried by the pharmaceutical industry because a cure is less profitable than a temporary allopathic treatment - especially if - Hey, wait a minute - that one's not crazy enough to be in this rant - that one's a certainty. I mean, suppose they knew that a certain herbal remedy, or a blend of natural oils, or something else as natural, was a cure for a particular type of cancer or other disease. Do you think they'd make that knowledge public, or would they bury it and try to come up with some derivative that they could patent, but would have serious side effects, and didn't work nearly as well?

Friday 16th March 2007.

People following this occasional blog may be interested to hear of Pusskas' progress. She adopted us late last year - half bald and covered in sores. Now she is as sleek as any well looked after cat, and spoiled to bits.

Update! Aargh, she's a monster - she just brought a dead bird in as a present! And it was one of those cute little yellow and blue finches, with no bigger than about five inch wingspan.

Friday 9th March 2007.

Last week we were fairly innundated by letters telling us how much people's lives have changed because of Waterfall D-Mannose 'Helping to Maintain a Healthy Bladder' for them but one in particular stood out and warmed our hearts - a little girl whose parents started giving her Waterfall D-Mannose in October, (when they were told that if the child's bladder health continued to deteriorate, she would need surgery) has now been told that her bladder is so healthy she doesn't need the operation.

That's what keeps us going here. That's what it's all about. That's what makes us work late.

Sunday 18th Feb 2007.

Can't believe how busy things have got. Apologies to anyone following this occasional blog. Hope you had a good Valentines day, unmarred by bladder health problems...

Well, we've taken a giant leap this month, and applied our discount prices to the main order page. This means that there is no more hunting for our famous 777 order page, which some people don't seem to be able to work out how to get to - you get the discount prices from the start. Also, and a very important step for us, we have put our wonderful new product, Xylotene™ onto the ordering page. It is not a substitute for Waterfall D-Mannose™, but it has its own benefits.

In particular, Xylotene helps to maintain healthy teeth, gums, bones and cartilage. We've also been told that for some people with previously long-term bladder health problems that included a residual urinary frequency problem, adding a little Xylotene to their Waterfall D-Mannose drink helps them maintain a healthy bladder.

Moving on, the past few months have seen some major new developments for us. We've decided not to sell the business after all; we are going to be moving to brand new bigger premises, and we now have new chewable half-gram tablets on board. Sadly, we've had to compromise a bit with them - and include some natural excipients to allow the powder to flow into the compressor, but we will still be supplying 50g of Waterfall D-Mannose in every pack - you'll get 100 of the tablets. They will also only be supplied in tubs - necessary to help us keep costs down.

Finally on this Sunday, a rant - a certain company who shall remain nameless is trying to associate with our product values by putting a picture of a Waterfall just before the advert for their d-mannose. It's just not on! We don't 'white box' supply to anyone.

Added Sunday 28th October
And by the way, you can't extract d-mannose from cranberries - there is no mannose in most cranberries, and although some very ripe cranberries, at certain times of the year do contain a little mannose, you'd have to use a ton of it to get a little mannose, and the cost would be inhibitive, so anybody who claims their mannose is from cranberries is probably telling a terminological inexactitude. That's why we get our mannose and xylose from Sweet Forest Timbers - there is a rich mix of glyconutrients in these timbers, and it is feasable to get it out at a cost that allows us to sel it to you at a reasonable cost.

Tuesday 28th Nov. 2006

We have a lot of Italian customers, and we love them, but 'non parliamo Italiano'. That means that no matter how loud you say it in Italian, we are still not going to know what you are saying. I might also say, prego paga in linea - it's easier all round. When you do it takes away all the hassle, and we get the order through immediately. You don't need to send bank drafts, fax documents, email back and forward and call us to find out how to pay. It's done 'just like that'. You can even get a temporary credit card type of thing called PostePay from the post office if you don't trust our totally secure WorldPay payment system.

Friday 3rd Nov. 2006

We've been let down badly by someone who kept us on a string for six months. But you win some, you lose some, life goes on.

We've been adopted by a stray cat. Poor thing was in a terrible state, with sores all over, and looking like a big, half-bald rat. Now a month later 'Pusskas' is double the weight and has a shiny new coat. She still looks a bit patchy from the rear, but she is coming on a treat. I wouldn't have believed a stray waif could be so fussy - she won't eat microwaved chicken, refuses all fish, and won't eat anything that has been down for more than a few minutes. Not fresh enough for the fierce little madam.

Anyway - another rant due : pets are for life. People who give them away on a whim, mistreat them, abandon them, or carelessly let them suffer ought to be trimmed in height by a foot and banned for life from keeping pets. And I'm being very restrained here.

Sunday Sept 24th 2006

Another rant due: we all need doctors, and most of them are great. However, as in every walk of life you get the occasional unthinking individual who really should be in a less demanding job. This rant is aimed at that type of doctor - the type that actually makes good doctors angry.

How to Create a Lifelong Urology Patient - CENSORED (I hated deleting this because so many people told me they completely identified with it - but at a later stage it's going to be in an article on a separate site that doesn't link back here - John)

Friday Sept. 22nd 2007

Okay - so it's a VERY occasional blog. There's not a lot of free time, with one thing and another... But you know what makes me mad? Lots of things... too many to mention - you'd think I was mad! But here's a few:

• People who don't do what they say they'll do.
• Arrogant self-important loudmouths.
• Cruelty and indifference to suffering.
• Prejudice in all its forms. People who prejudge, by definition, jump to conclusions - usually the wrong ones. Not that I'm blameless in this - sometimes I make the same mistake - but not on the fundamentals. But I tend to cross the road if I see a big bald guy with a tatooed face, carrying a machete.
• Bad food hygiene! I've picked up food poisoning in most of the best restaurants in York. The Tung Hing in Gale Lane is the exception. (Out of business now.)
• People who call us 10 times when we are out or busy, and don't leave a message on the answering machine! We love you - you are our valuable customer, but please don't do this... So all the answering machine is used up with blank messages, and we have to listen to ...

'Message five ....................silence............................beep'

'Message six......................silence.............................beep'

'Message seven................silence.............................beep'

etc. etc.

I could go on, and very likely will some time.

Friday, August 4, 2006

First day of my new blog. Just an opportunity for me to share things.

Middle of the night!

Good news today from a customer called Mrs Munn. Being able to 'Maintain a Healthy Bladder' has enabled her to cancel a scheduled bladder removal operation!

You know, its that kind of thing that keeps us going. Anna and I struggle to keep up with all the phone calls and orders, but it's worth it.

Surgery, quite clearly, is not always the best solution. I mean, you can't maintain a healthy bladder if you don't have one.

Hey, if you are a doctor, no offence, but just stop and think a minute. Just think. Stop and think. C'mon, do it...

Friday, August 4, 2006, 13:37

Some days are funny. This is one such day, but I won't go into detail on why it's funny. That must be irritating, so here's an examination answer from a biology student.

"The body consists of three parts - the brainium, the borax, and the abominable cavity. The brainium contains the brain; the borax, the heart and lungs; and the abominable cavity, the bowls, of which there are five - a, e, i, o, and u."

Wednesday, August 16th

I can't believe 12 days have passed since that first entry. Today, we amended our standard short disclaimer to our email advice to add the words 'if you can find one' to the sentence, 'You know we just give advice based on our experience, and it's no substitute for a thorough investigation by a competent and caring doctor.'

This was after multiple enquiries from customers asking where they could find such a creature. It must be admitted that some of them can be elusive, but unlike the haggis, they can sometimes be found in daylight, although you will have trouble geting any of them to eat from your hand.

Otherwise, a fairly momentous day for us. We may have come to an agreement about selling Sweet Cures. If we do, it will be with great regrets.... but Anna and me are working 12 hour days now. Our last holiday was 4 years ago.

Wednesday, August 23rd

Regrettably, we are finding it harder to keep up with all the phone calls. But we do our best. We still get all orders out the same day, and believe me, that takes some doing. The new postal charges have taken their toll on our time, and we've decided to absorb them rather than passing the additional cost onto customers. But it makes me angry that the post office have started to charge like couriers - based on volume as well as weight. It's not as if they provide anything like the same service. With all their resources they should be able to provide the best service in the world, but when mail goes missing, it's just gone into some black hole and they never find it. I'm in the middle of working on something technical that will help to address that issue for us and other businesses, but it'll be a while in the making. First of all, I'm going to try to get them to disclose some 'secrets'. That is going to be tough.

Thursday, August 24th

We have another therapy centre on board...

George A Petry
Nutri-Balance Health,
Eden Health Centre,
85-87 Commercial Rd,
Bournemouth,
Dorset, BH2 5RT
07831 258 789

They are a nutritional health screening practice.

"We test screen people for all sorts of conditions and try to help them optimise their health through nutritional and lifestyle changes, as well as supplementing where we think this will help."

Monday, Sept. 4th

Another busy Monday for us. Currently, I'm ranting mad about a spammer who is making serious attempts to ruin our forum by posting porn links. I take them off every day, and they are back up again. It might come to the point where I have to just disable the forum, but I don't want to have to do that because people find it a useful way to share with others who have gone through the same experiences.