Run with Eric + Wales

I may have allowed my fervour towards an opt-out organ donation system to take over the blog this week, so please accept my apologies if it's not as diverse as you have come to expect. It's a fascinating issue, though, and I hope that you will read it and become as passionate about it as I am.

And I've included two quickies after it as well. Generous, that's me.

Hart's in the right place
Commercial breakdown
Who You Gonna Call?

Leave it to Wales to inject some hope into the state of healthcare provision in the UK. Leave it to Wales. And it seems the British Government is quite happy to do just that.

In the interest of fairness, I should say that this isn't always down to Westminster being rubbish – well, sometimes it is – but the Welsh Assembly being brilliant. Thanks to the Assembly, Wales has free prescriptions and free hospital parking. Good, innit? And now it may have an opt-out organ donation system ahead of England as well (not that it's a competition or anything), allowing every dead person's organs to be used for donation unless they specifically request they are not, instead of the current process of getting organs just from registered donors. When it comes to healthcare, the Welsh Assembly pulls out the stops the British Government seems happy to leave in.

Seeing Edwina Hart, Health Minister of the Welsh Assembly, refuse to dismiss the possibility of an opt-out donation system is more than encouraging – it's inspiring. Often, the Welsh Assembly seems braver than its bigger brother; more adaptable to new ideas and readier to make controversial decisions, especially in healthcare. This may be because any outcry in Wales is smaller than in England – the Welsh, as a rule, aren't big on political activity (look at that turnout: a quarter of the Welsh population actively wanted a devolved parliament) – and it may be because the Assembly's jurisdiction is simply smaller, but the fact is that on a political level, healthcare in Wales looks rosy.

And in this case, it has taken some balls – ironic, since Edwina Hart (presumably) doesn't have any. She has essentially overruled the Assembly health committee's decision not to apply for the right to adopt an opt-out system in Wales. Rejecting a committee's recommendation is a statement of intent and then some: the aptly-named Hart has told politicians that a change in organ donation is going to be discussed whether they like it or not.

Personally, I can't wait. Like TV licensing chiefs, I love hearing people's excuses, sad as they are. "We have a right to keep our organs when we die." "It's wrong to take from a dead person even if it might save a life." None as yet have beaten the excuse raised by John Reid, supported by many and picked up by a writer in The Telegraph a while back (sadly, I can't find a link but rest assured it was probably Simon Heffer because the man's an idiot): "I am not giving my organs to the state." No, you're not. You're giving them to a dying person who needs them to live. Listen to yourself: surely you cannot believe what you are saying. Leave 'the state' out of it, you tit, and stop dragging politics into this simple case of life and death.

Chairman of the spurned committee, Conservative health spokesman Jonathan Morgan (boo hiss) accused Hart of ignoring "the hypothetical reasons why presumed consent could prove difficult to introduce". Hmm, not overly specific. That sounds like a pretty poor excuse to me: an excuse for an excuse, even. And the conclusion to this article – "It is possible to make a case for an opt-out system that favours the living over the dead, but it is not consent and let us not pretend that it is" – is absolute nitpicking.

People may be coming around to the obvious benefits of a system that presumes consent to donate your organs after death unless you deliberately opt out. Prospects aren't as bleak as the future for thousands of patients under the current system. Gordon Brown has given the thumbs-up to an opt-out system, and a "UK Government taskforce" – whatever that may be – is due to report on the matter in a few months. If Wales can lead the way, the rest of Britain may follow. We can only hope. Maybe in just a few years, all of Britain will be able to enjoy an opt-out organ donation system, free hospital parking and prescriptions without charge.

Then again, maybe not.

Everybody's talking about it: Lloyds TSB is ready to take over Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS). Halifax is just the first stop on "the journey" Lloyds TSB keeps promising us, and we can all look forward to them picking up Nationwide, Bradford & Bingley and Alliance & Leicester at various stations nationwide (including Bradford and Leicester, presumably) on the way to oblivion.

And all the repercussions of the Halifax-Lloyds merger are being considered: job losses, market shares and even the name of the new merger (I propose Lloyds TSB: Bank of Scotland, Halifax, or LTSB: BOSH for short).

One thing people haven't thought about is the adverts. Merging the incredibly irritating "Hoh hoh hoh hoh, hoh hoh, hoh hoh hoh hoh, hoh hoh, hoh hoh hoh hoh, hoh hoh, hoh hoh hoh hoh HAAAAAH" Lloyds TSB tune with the even more irritating Halifax song-and-dance adverts could be the most damaging symptom of the recession. It's bad enough that Thomas from Leeds singing "Something tells me I'm into something good" has taken on ironic quantities usually reserved for standing ovations at the Liberal Democrat party conference, without badly-drawn women with big noses elbowing him out the way and yodelling melodiously at the tops of their voices.

This Must Be Stopped.

Here's an interesting one: a millionaire being chased out of his 52-room mansion by ghosts.

Obviously my heart goes out to Mr Rashid and his family, but some of the supposed supernatural activity does sound a bit... well... natural. Sounds of tapping on the wall? Voices? Mysterious figures? Ghostly presences taking the forms of their children? Is there not the slightest chance this crazy activity could be less due to Casper and his mates and more attributable to their children?

Rashid doesn't sound like he's the sharpest tool in the box. "The ghosts didn't want us to be there," he said, "and we could not fight them because we couldn't see them." I have this vision of Rashid charging around with an axe swiping at thin air. That might explain the blood stains.

Actually, yes, "unexplained blood stains on bedclothes" was another puzzle. Apparently the house dates back to the Norman period; I reckon the stains date back to a normal period. It's not much fun coming of age when you're a young girl, but I'm sure Rashid's seven-year-old daughter doesn't appreciate a national story being made out of it. I wouldn't be surprised if she'd been the one who told her dad it was a ghost in the first place, rather than her own body. Obviously she's a bit young to be experiencing that rite of passage at the age of seven, but they did call the blood stains "unexplained" and besides, it's never easy to tell your parents about that kind of thing – I should imagine "unexplained" isn't the half of it.

Alternatively, it's a bunch of racist landowners frightening off the rich Rashid family by dressing up as ghosts Scooby Doo-style (I heard the programme's become very politically aware these days). "Paranormal experts were unable to solve the problem." Strange, that.

My money's on an insurance claim. And so is his.