A cocktail that’s too much of a good thing | Letters
Regarding the Brompton cocktail, a mixture of heroin and cocaine that was used for severe pain in terminally ill patients (Letters, 6 May), the Glasgow recipe was heroin, cocaine, gin, Largactil and honey.It could be alarmingly effective.Many years ago, my late partner, faced with a patient in intractable pain, issued a prescription for the cocktail.In the middle of evening surgery, my partner was called to an emergency at the local pub.The patient had felt so much better, he decided to go for a drink, and the combination of the Brompton plus the traditional “hauf an’ a hauf” (whisky and ale), had proved too much.
He was carried home and told to stick to soft drinks,Peter WatersonGlasgow As an excise officer in the 1970s, I used to visit Huddersfield Royal Infirmary to authorise spirit repayment claims on excise duty on spirits used in the preparation of Brompton cocktails,I doubt very much if similar visits are made nowadays, but it made the work of excise officers interesting,John GarforthIlkley, West Yorkshire I too was an apprentice pharmacist working in a pit village in the Yorkshire coalfield in the early 1960s when we received a prescription for a Brompton cocktail with varied strengths of morphine and cocaine, together with whisky and chloroform water, for a man who we knew to be terminally ill with lung disease,The prescription was presented by his wife with the message: “And he says can he have Johnnie Walker.
” We complied of course!Brian SandallWhitstable, Kent Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it,A selection will be published in our Readers’ best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays,
‘No one’s buying anything now’: how tariffs are striking a blow to historic Chinatowns
On a balmy afternoon last month, Amy Tran unboxed a delivery at Yue Wa Market, a small grocery and herbal medicine shop in Los Angeles’s Chinatown that she opened 17 years ago.The package contained two dozen units of Shou Wu Chih, a Chinese herbal concoction known to rebuild kidney function and promote hair health. The shipment arrived two weeks after the US implemented new tariffs on Chinese imports, so her distributor charged her $115, a $35 markup from her previous order.Tran said she had no choice but to increase the retail price from $6 to $7. It’s a steep up-charge for her customers, who are primarily Chinese seniors living off food stamps, some barely able to afford to buy a piece of fresh fruit or vegetable
Japan-owned car battery maker secures £1bn to build second Sunderland gigafactory
The owner of the UK’s only operating gigafactory has secured £1bn in funding for a new electric car battery plant in Sunderland, in a government-backed deal that secures the future of a key project for the struggling British car industry.The funding will allow Japan’s AESC to install tooling and start production of batteries at the site, which is being built to serve Nissan’s car factory down the road. More than 1,000 people are expected to be employed there.The National Wealth Fund and UK Export Finance, both state bodies, will provide financial guarantees that unlock £680m in financing for the battery maker. A further £320m in debt funding will come from private financing as well as new equity from the business
Donald Trump suggests tariffs on China should be 80%, as investors hope for thaw in trade war – as it happened
Newsflash: Donald Trump has suggested that the US tariffs on Chinese goods should be 80%.Posting on his Truth Social site, the US president says:80% Tariff on China seems right! Up to Scott B.Scott B is presumably Treasury secretary Bessent, who is due to meet with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Switzerland this weekend to discuss the trade war.An 80% tariff would be a notable reduction on the 145% which Trump imposed last month, but would still make it significantly more expensive for US companies to import goods from China than before the trade war began.Trump has also urged Beijing to open up its markets, posting:CHINA SHOULD OPEN UP ITS MARKET TO USA — WOULD BE SO GOOD FOR THEM!!! CLOSED MARKETS DON’T WORK ANYMORE!!!Reminder: trade data from China earlier today showed a drop in shipments to, and from, the US
Ten UK energy firms to pay £7m in compensation after overcharging error
Ten UK energy suppliers including EDF, E.ON and Octopus are to pay £7m in compensation and refunds after overcharging customers, after a review by the energy regulator for Great Britain.Ofgem said the suppliers had agreed to pay more than 34,000 customers compensation and refunds because of erroneously billing them more for standing charges than is allowed under the regulator’s price cap. Standing charges are daily fees added regardless of how much energy is used.The affected customers all had restricted meter infrastructure, meaning more than one electricity meter point recording usage at their property, and were erroneously overcharged between January 2019 and September 2024
US-UK trade deal has saved jobs at Jaguar Land Rover, says Mandelson
The UK’s limited trade deal with the US has immediately prevented job losses at Jaguar Land Rover’s plant in the West Midlands, Britain’s ambassador to the US has said.“This deal has saved those jobs,” Peter Mandelson said in an interview on CNN. “That’s a pretty big achievement, in my view, and I’m very pleased that the president has signed it.”Government sources said JLR had plans for imminent cuts among its 30,000 staff in the UK but had not informed unions in the hope that a deal with the US could be struck to eliminate the 25% tariffs on exports of cars to the US.Donald Trump’s import taxes had threatened to cripple British high-end carmakers before they were reduced from 27
British Airways took £40m hit from power outage that closed Heathrow
The power outage that closed Heathrow airport for a day in March cost British Airways £40m, the national carrier has revealed.The airline said it was “assessing options” but said it had no recourse to compensation from Heathrow.Airlines were infuriated by the response and recovery time from the power outage, which came about after a substation caught fire overnight. A report from the National Energy System Operator on Thursday confirmed that Heathrow took seven hours to reopen after its power was restored, allowing only a handful of flights to operate.The BA chief executive, Sean Doyle, said there was no automatic form of recovery for the airline, either from insurers or in compensation from Heathrow, for the lost revenue, refunds and costs of looking after delayed passengers
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