Can you die of embarrassment?

Apparently so, although cases are rare.

One, published in the British Medical Journal for 1860, concerned a housemaid who was caught red-handed while filching food from a larder, and dropped dead on the spot. Doctors at the time were unable to discover why she had died, although it is likely that one cause would have been a sudden rush of adrenalin - the same rush that we experience in any situation of stress.
A less direct way to die from embarrassment is to fail to report an embarrassing medical condition until it's too late. A survey by BUPA found that embarrassment about bowel cancer could be costing thousands of lives a year. Another, published by Johns Hopkins University, found many young people in the US are dying prematurely of AIDS for a similar reason.

However, after watching the final of Celebrity Big Brother last night, i've come to the conclusion it's impossible to die of embarrassment. Because when a 53 year old drunken lush with serious delusions of grandeur and deep mental health issues wins for nothing more than revealing her breasts during a mental breakdown ........ well, if that didn't kill her, nothing will.

Manipulation.

Rising fuel prices. Over 400 tariffs to choose from. Government ministers looking into it.
Are they? Are they really?
An entire country in a state of confusion as to which is "really" the best option for them. And trust me when I say this, comparison websites are not your friend.

Then we have the anomaly of a petrol refinery in the south east of the country going bankrupt. What are the odds?
Supermarkets falling over themselves to increase the price of petrol and diesel, the national press falling over themselves to add in some fear factor to light the fuse to over consumption at the pumps.

Short term loan companies flooding my email boxes with offers of short term loans, some of which are over 1500%, some ridiculously higher. Who's behind these short term loan companies? Wouldn't be the banks would it? Surely not, but i'm guessing a paper trail leads back to the majority of them somewhere. I find it odd that I have a specific email address that is combined with my online banking activity, in the last 4 months it has been bombarded daily by two short term loan companies. Where did they get my email address? Doesn't take rocket surgery to work it out does it?

The whole of the economy is being manipulated by higher wealth. It's bad enough that the middle classes are constantly bearing the load for the rich and poor. Bailing out the banks, who, let's face it, don't need the money. As soon as we bailed them out, the money was set aside for shareholders who are on a first penny agreement. The banks have made lending almost impossible to small businesses and even more difficult to those in flourishing markets who need money for expansion. The banks are continuing to strangle growth in all markets, restricting the economy from any form of growth. Why? Well, believe it or not, they can then make money out of the situation in the stock markets.

But that's not the whole story is it?

While there is the mere possibility of pay-offs and backhanders, the Government suspiciously continues to back bad practices within the banking community. Odd when you see them arguing a bad practice on television, you can see the discomfort, but sometimes you've just got to take one for the team. Big business uses politicians like puppets and until the Government manages to cut its ties from hard lobbyists we'll continue to pay the price. Vince Cable .... when are you going to get your house in order?

It's not just banking though. It's across the board. Car insurance, energy prices, fuel prices, food prices, pressure on the farming community to produce more for less, the rail system (See Rail Track), mobile communications, broadband costs and the list goes on.......

There's a machine at the top keeping the rich, rich and the poor, poor.

Privately the population now has a lending debt of over one trillion pounds. At some point the bubble is going to burst and the riots we saw last Summer are going to look like a day out at the park in comparison to what's coming next.

At some point, even the dumbest of animals will bite back when it's constantly cornered. Personally, I say fuck the banks, don't pay them. Let them take it out of the bail out money you're paying for their bailout. Because to be brutally honest, why pay twice?