Simmal Blog
November 2006
15/11/2006
Spotlight on Pete Derry
Pete has been with us now approaching 18 years and has worked about 9 of them. He gave up a lucrative £100k a year income as a plumber (fleecing pensioners with blocked toilets) to work with us and has never regretted it for a single moment…for 18 years maybe, but never for single a moment.
Pete is married to Elaine, and has two children, Grace 9 and Jack 11; needless to say this places him firmly at 4th in the pecking order.
Pete is an outdoors man, last year completing the Manchester to Blackpool cycle ride for Christies Hospital with his son, this year he is doing it with Grace on pillion.
Pete’s musical taste is definitely boy band, and he can often be heard singing along to Take That in the Warehouse.
Worst thing about working at Simmal? nothing (is the correct answer)
Best thing; the people
What would he do if he won the lottery? Move house, and look after the family. Interestingly I did note, he didn’t actually say move house WITH the family!
Qualities he likes in people? Ones who muck in and have a laugh
Qualities he dislikes in people? Moody and depressing people, though he doesn’t let this stop him getting on with us. Favourite TV show, Strictly Come Dancing, favourite film any chic flick, loves reality shows and is hoping to get the Jade Goody calendar 2007 for Christmas
10/11/2006
Keep taking the tablets
I mentioned to Neil Hamilton pictured left, that I had a headache, possibly caused by being on the mobile for 11 hours in one 24 hour period...this was the response..
"I was concerned earlier to hear that you have been suffering from headaches. Hopefully it’s nothing to do with being on the phone for eleven hours a day. Scientific experiments have been conducted on the health risks of mobile phones, especially as around 90% of adults have them, 75% of which have two or more. I’m no expert on the subject; however I have looked into this a few weeks ago for my father in law who has just had a pacemaker fitted. If you were considering buying a new phone or Blackberry you would be wise to first carry out a little research yourself. Mobile phones are small, low power transmitters that send out radio waves and the amount of radio wave energy absorbed into the body is known as the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR). The International Commission of Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) sets the SAR safety limit for the general public at 2 watts per kilogram (W/kg). All mobile phone handsets on sale in the UK should in theory fall below this limit. When your phone is switched on and in use, it sends and receives harmful radio waves. The radio waves carry your voice or data signal to a base station that is connected to the telephone network. The network controls the power at which your phone transmits. Depending on your network, your phone transmits/receives radio waves in the GSM frequency 900/1800/1900 MHz. The GSM network controls transmission power (0.01 to 2 watts). I recommend you buy a new phone with the lowest levels of SAR available. You could find out the SAR level of your existing phone, weigh yourself, and then complete a quick calculation using your kg weight, the eleven hours on the phone, multiplied by x number of days. You should in theory be able to calculate an indicative figure suggesting a possible level of health risk, if any? As you know, body weights vary considerably and we are not really concerned with your whole body anyway. The brain is the critical organ here as this is where your headache is originating from. A more useful calculation would be to try and find out the average weight of an adult human brain, and substitute that value into the previous calculation. I don’t wish to alarm you, but just recently science graduates from a well known University have discovered it is possible to cook an egg by using low energy (low wattage) light bulbs. The relative density (ratio of mass to volume) of a hard-boiled egg is comparable to that of the human brain. If your existing phone has a sufficiently high SAR, there might be a genuine link between your long phone calls and your headaches?"
I now consider myself educated....
Send Page