Paris; rediscovered

31 July 2005

I had forgotten how much I enjoy Paris. I will admit that getting here is a shambles; Charles de Gaulle airport is a mess; the train into the city hard to get too, slow and frustrating.

But after that there is little else to complain about; too much smoking; when will they learn? Maybe that is part of the charm. Health, abstinence and rules do not seem to matter so much here.

It is 13 years since I was last in Paris. The city has become far more cosmopolitan; it seems to reflect France's Asian and African colonial past in a way that it never used to. There are also many more visitors here ; many more English; cheap flights help. Americans still come here; they can be spotted with their blackberries!

I am staying in a small apartment hotel on the left bank at Pont Neuf; Sunday lunch did not start until 2.30pm. My little guy was introduced to Andouillettes and decided they were "delectable"!

A glass of wine in cheaper than Perrier! Oh joy !

The buskers are everywhere but they are entertaining ! It is almost a profession here. We have been entertained on the metro and RER by accordion and tuba players. There was a puppet show. A violinist played on the street during our St. Michel lunch.

The waitress at the restaurant last night was from the Ukraine. Three years in Paris she spoke fluent English, French, Ukrainian and Russian and was studying Chinese.

Such a romantic city - all the happy couples strolling along the River Seine or sitting watching the river flow by. France is one hour ahead of the UK. Even at the end of July it is not dark until 10pm.

It is summer time; cafe life is at its best. There are also Canadian, Scottish and Irish pubs within a short walk.

We have been good tourists; the Eiffel tower was busy. We have been to the Musee D'Orsay and to the Beaubourg. And we took a cruise along the Seine. Tomorrow will be EuroDisney. I could not avoid it - their are posters everywhere and my eight-year-old is insistent! But why not; it may be that Paris' new found internationalism is the result of the arrival of Disney. It is Europe's most visited destination.

China's political revaluation in an Indian summer

24 July 2005

Last week's move to remove the US$ peg from the Chinese currency and allow a small revaluation, while economically important, was driven by political motives.

China's government chose to ease trade tensions with the US at this specific moment for good reasons.

The timing was significant. Coming at the end of a week that saw the USA openly courting a new relationship with India.

Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister, was in Washington being treated to a 19-gun salute and the chance to make a speech to Congress. He was the guest of honour at a White House banquet, only the fifth Bush has thrown in more than four years. Bush does not entertain as the Clintons used to !

America stated openly an ambition to help India become a great power in the 21st century. The great win for India was an acceptance that India should enjoy "the same benefits and advantages" as other states with nuclear weapons. India is to be granted “full civil nuclear energy co-operation”—such as fuel supplies and the transfer of technology.

This is hugely important for India. One of the biggest constraints on the continuing success of its fast-growing economy is an electricity shortage. Nuclear energy, which at present accounts for only about 3% of total generation, is, in many eyes, an attractive alternative to coal and expensive imported oil and gas.

The American move is also a great symbolic victory. For decades India has faced sanctions because of its nuclear-weapons programme. Now, America is, in effect, offering to help it to become a respectable bomb-wielding citizen. In return India has promised to adopt the same responsibilities as other nuclear powers, including separating its civilian nuclear facilities from military ones, opening the former to international inspection and maintaining its moratorium on nuclear testing.

All of this cannot be detached from apprehensions about China's looming might. Although India is enjoying something of a second honeymoon with China, its own long-standing suspicions, which date to the war of 1962, have not entirely faded.

On the sidelines Beijing is attempting to buy two American corporations - the oil-producer Unocal and the appliance-maker Maytag. These acquisitions are in the balance.

With Chinese President Hu Jintao due to visit America in September, there was a timely need to appease the hawks in the US congress and to remind the Americans that China is Asia's economic powerhouse.

It is likely that the Chinese will allow the yuan to appreciate further, but only in "baby steps" and only over a long period of time. With  $700 billion in reserves, Beijing is plenty of protection.

The ending of China's dollar "peg" was a key moment. But, to the intense frustration of the White House, the likelihood is it won't translate into a large appreciation of the yuan - and subsequent loss of Chinese competitiveness - any time soon.

The USA may delusionally think that they pressured China into a significant move. Sadly not; the move more reflects China's influence on the global economic stage than it does US influence.

Endangered by over zealous police and delusional politicians.

24 July 2005

Troubling times in London. Live 8 and the Olympic win seem long past after a second round of bombing attempts last week and the murder by British police of a Brazilian man at Stockwell subway.

The Brazilian had left a house that was under surveillance and headed for the subway. Remember London houses have often been converted into multiple small apartments. The man looked suspicious; he was dark skinned and wearing an un-seasonal heavy jacket. He was Brazilian, which explains his darker skin; and used to hotter climates than London. What is not explained is why he did not stop when he was allegedly challenged to do so by the police, who then gave chase and shot him five times around the head from close range?

Tony Blair, Jack Straw and other government ministers meanwhile deny that the attacks on London can be in any way connected to Britain's support of the USA's assault on and occupation of Iraq. Delusional. And foolish. Many people think Blair is at his best in a crisis. But they will not forgive him if he treats them like dunces.

The Royal Institute of International Affairs (aka Chatham House) is hardly a hotbed of radical thought. Last week this thoughtful and conservative organisation said that "riding pillion to the US in order to tackle terrorism is a high-risk policy." Blair and his aides argue that the bombings in London are totally unconnected with the Iraq war. This is as naive as it is dangerous. As soon as Britain joined the invasion of Iraq the country became a front line target for revenge attacks.

Britain and the USA has been telling devout Muslims they must have western-style elections and send their unveiled women out to work. Meanwhile they seek to protect their history and traditions. So why are we surprised when want to blow us up.

Technological and economic superiority do not infallibly confer cultural and moral authority. We have to question whether it is democratic to impose democracy? Britain has the right to control our own society. We do not have an unequivocal right to control other societies.

Beam me up Scotty

21 July 2005

Actor James Doohan, best known as Star Trek's engineer, Scotty, died on Wednesday, co-incidentally the 36th anniversary of the first lunar landing.  His ashes are to be sent into space. Doohan was 85 and died from from Alzheimer's disease and pneumonia.

Doohan will not be the first Star Trek alumnus to find his final resting place in orbit. Creator of the series, Gene Roddenberry, also had his ashes sent to space.

The ashes are slated for launch in September and are expected to take off from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base on a Falcon 1 rocket.

Doohan, who was a Vancouver born Canadian (despite the Scottish accent in the TV show) fought in WW2 before taking to acting and in 1966 joining the Star Trek Cast. Star Trek's impact became apparent when he was awarded an honorary doctorate in Engineering from the Milwaukee School of Engineering, after half the students there said that Scotty had inspired them to take up the subject.

Beam me up Scotty.

Getting the Pattaya Blues

17 July 2005

Pattaya is one of those places that when you tell people you are going there for a weekend they give you a knowing wink or tell you helpfully not to do anything that they would not do; or better still tell you to get some rest when you get home !

Well I must be doing something wrong - since for the second time this year I have spent a weekend in Pattaya and have been back alone in my hotel room getting far more sleep than any other visitor to this most peculiar of towns.

Pattaya is like a frontier town except it is not on the frontier. It still has the feel of an r and r town from its early days in the Vietnam War. But now it is more like r and r from the real world.

The morality police are having an increasing influence on Pattaya with closing time now between 1am and 2am even at the weekend. Given that Pattaya survives because it is a tourism resort this early closing seems incredibly short sighted. Tourists are not rushing to get up for college or work each morning. They are there to spend. So let them spend through the night and get up late the following day and then start spending again.

There are things to do there in the day - lunch at Koh Larn, a day trip or longer to Koh Samet; there is some great golf; Phoenix was in nice condition on Saturday and not very busy. It was hot ! You can sail; you can shop; you can catch a movie. The world's best foot massage is in a small new mall on the south side of Mike's shopping mall next to Beach Road.  But Pattaya is basically an ugly dust bowl of a building site masquerading as a town. It is only at night that the city shows any sign of life.

Tequila Reef on Soi 7 serves large plates of very good Mexican food and excellent margheritas. But the bars on soi 7 and 8 are noisy and rather ropey. There are discotheques and music clubs. Lucifer is packed; hot and sweaty. Tony's has been renovated. Drinks are pricey. As for the other clubs; the girls look so truly bored. Unfortunately there is no equivalent to Bangkok's soi 33.

So advice for anyone about to set off for Pattaya and hoping to have a good time. If you want truly good company by the beach. Take your own. Or stay in Bangkok. Maybe I am getting old.

The strangest list of the world's top five cities?

14 July 2005

Readers of Travel + Leisure magazine, in association with Harris Interactive, have produced their top ten lists for 2005.

Their list of top ten tourist cities is led by Sydney, with some surprises following:

1 Sydney; 2 Bangkok; 3 Rome; 4 Florence; 5 Chiang Mai; 6 New York; 7 Istanbul; 8 Cape Town; 9 Oaxaca, Mexico; 10 San Francisco.

Curiously London did not even make the list of top ten European cities. Cities were rated based upon: sights, culture/arts, restaurants/food, people, shopping, value.

The magazine's readers are predominantly from the USA so I guess we have to be impressed that any of them have found their way outside of their borders; they are at best the strangest of travelers desperately seeking to find Uncle Sam wherever they go.

Chiang Mai is a nice enough place if you don't mind the choking pollution, constant touts, rip-off taxis, or the summer storms. It is worth a visit for a couple of days or as a base to see parts of Northern Thailand. But it is not a Paris, Barcelona, Tokyo or even a Vancouver.

I have bad memories of a visit to Oaxaca. Its an attractive small city but the market can be oppressive and the people quite hostile.

Meanwhile a one person poll of me came up with the following alternative top ten tourist cities:

Hong Kong, Vancouver, Sydney, Tokyo, Paris, London, Rome, Bangkok, Rio de Janeiro, Beijing.

The link to Travel and Leisure magazine is here.

Four-legged Olympic frenzy in Hong Kong

11 July 2005

Sad news indeed; of all the Olympic sports that Hong Kong could have been saddled with it will host the 2008 Olympic and Paralympic Equestrian Events. Events of such exclusivity and pomposity that they really do not fit the Olympic ideals. Indeed the IOC has seen an active campaign to scrap eventing from the Olympics on grounds of elitism and expense. This is hardly a sport for all people in all countries.

As soon as Beijing won the Olympic bid Tung Chee-hwa (remember him??) was pleading for Olympic scraps; his wish has belatedly come true; albeit because the Chinese do not have adequate quarantine measure to safeguard the four legged competitors.

In Hong Kong Secretary for Home Affairs, Dr Patrick Ho, gave a press conference on Friday where he announced this as "an important milestone in Hong Kong's sports history."

Equestrian events he reminded us consist of three disciplines: Dressage, Show Jumping and Cross-country eventing.

No one in Hong Kong is going to be inspired by a bunch of high society types all dolled up for dressage. Worse still (oh such sacrilege) part of the Hong Kong Golf Club (previously better known as the Royal Hong Kong Golf Club) will be converted into the cross country course. The only thing missing will be the fox and the hounds!

Meanwhile the news is especially bad for real sportsmen and women. The Hong Kong Sports Institute will now be vacated temporarily for two years from early 2007 to the end of 2008 so that it can be converted into an arena for equestrian events.

Mr. Ho assured an under whelmed Hong Kong that "the relocation of the 2008 Olympic equestrian events will help arouse the community's interest in sports, enhancing Hong Kong's status as a hub for important sporting events, international equestrian centre and an Asian metropolitan" (sic)

"Hong Kong can also enjoy the economic benefits brought about by horse-lovers who come to Hong Kong for the equestrian events," he continued.

Bizarrely his finishing remarks were that "the 2008 Olympic equestrian events is a once-in-a-life-time opportunity for Hong Kong to showcase the world our charisma." Which will make up for the lack of charisma among the double-barrel named horsey types. Just how do you showcase a charisma?

There is of course one solution; the good people of Hong Kong do enjoy horse racing - and the betting that comes with it. SO allow betting on the Olympic horsey events in Hong Kong and just maybe they will be able to dress up the dressage into something a little less like a bad day at a girl's public school!

The senseless terror attack on London

7 July 2005

Yesterday's attack on London's defenceless and innocent echoed the attacks on Madrid in 2004 and New York in 2001. It is hard to know its purpose short of reminding the world that al-Qaeda is still a force. The Madrid bombings were days before the Spanish election and the impact was such that the Spanish people threw out the pro Iraq war government of Prime Minister Aznar.

The British election is past. Yesterday's bombings will do little more than stiffen British resolve to tough it out until the work is done in Iraq. And it is Britain's open and tolerant society that makes it vulnerable to such attacks. Britain will not withdraw from Iraq. History should make it clear that the British do not back down in the face of terror.

It was London's open, tolerant and multi cultural society that won the Olympic Games bid; it was Hyde Park in London that last Saturday was the joyous center of the Live 8 concerts; a source of hope and a prayer for change in Africa. Scotland meanwhile was hosting the G8 meeting and at last the sense was that the world's most powerful nations would agree how to help Africa and how to address global warming.

Britain was at the centre of the world this week for all the right reasons. The people wanted change for all the right reasons; not for themselves but for those less fortunate and for our future generations.

In a short hour yesterday morning the sense of celebration and expectations of change were literally blown apart. London will not recover Wednesday's confidence and joy in a long time. Who will be at ease on public transport; who will want to visit a city center restaurant, cinema or theatre? And what will it mean for the liberties and freedoms that the Britain has for centuries proudly defended. How much freedom will we be asked to trade for our security?

The security services will do their job. Evidence will be sifted through and it is likely that there we will know who planned and carried out the attack.

The British have long accepted that the depressing fact that the terrorist threat exists and will be with us for a great many years to come. There is very little that we can do about it apart from staying on our guard.

In the face of danger

Leader
Friday July 8, 2005
The Guardian

"As I write, highly civilised human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me," wrote George Orwell at the height of the second world war Blitz. Londoners have lived with the fear of many such waves of unseen enemies over the years. Less than a mile from this newspaper's offices, for example, is the site of the Clerkenwell bombing of 1867, in which Irish Fenians tried to blow their way into a prison to rescue two of their comrades, but instead succeeded in demolishing a row of houses killing 12 local people and injuring 126. A Peabody building immediately across the road was reduced to rubble by the Luftwaffe, killing some of the 43,000 British civilians who died in the Blitz. During the 1970s and 1980s Londoners became hardened to repeated bombs placed by the Provisional IRA. And now yesterday, just a few minutes' walk from this newspaper, Londoners riding to work on the Piccadilly line south of King's Cross and others in a number 30 bus making its way past Russell Square in the rush hour were attacked cruelly and without warning as part of a coordinated assault which was intended to kill - and which did so, murdering and injuring dozens of working Londoners without discrimination.

Yesterday was a dark day, when infamous acts were carried out by dangerous people. The killers, if they are still alive, must be brought to justice and we have no alternative but to keep our guard up against the likelihood that there are others plotting to repeat the assaults. Mr Blair was right to insist that our determination to defend our values and our way of life should be indomitable. That certainly means implacability in the face of the direct threat from the terrorist enemy. It means keen policing and long-term intelligence work. But it also involves trying to understand why people are drawn to commit such infamous and evil deeds, not merely tightening security to prevent them from happening again. And it means sticking resolutely to all the values that make an open society so worth living in, including tolerance and civil liberty. In the end, as Mr Bush and Mr Blair each said, it is the contrast that counts. This is a conflict of values. But it is not just the contrast between the hate of the terrorists and the labours of the world leaders that will turn the tide. It is the contrast between the anger of the terrorists and the decency of ordinary people, as Londoners so powerfully showed yesterday.

The uncordial entente

Sister Joan's Mission - change for good in Bangkok

4 July 2005

The press diet in Bangkok consists largely of the daily scandals of Bangkok's politician's and business tycoons. Meanwhile the foreign press is fixated in portraying Bangkok as the centre of the Asian flesh trade.

But in reality these stories have little to do with the real Bangkok or the real Thailand. They are extremes. At its heart Thailand is a land where the majority of people are hard working, predominantly agricultural people struggling to make ends meet.

Large parts of Bangkok are still terribly poor. It is in the middle of one such area that Sister Joan Evans works, largely unheralded and probably the last person to take credit for what she achieves every day.

Sister Joan works with the children and families of the Klong Toei district; this is the sort of area that would be hidden behind massive billboard's and fences should APEC or its like come to Bangkok. She is convinced that change comes through education. Her primary aim is to encourage, assist and support children and young people from the slums in their efforts to obtain an education. These children and young people need to be helped to the point where they can help themselves.

Her mission lives off the support of donations and helpers. Her web site is at www.sisterjoan.info. There is a much longer article about her courtesy of The Australian-Thai Chamber of Commerce reprinted here.

For Sister Joan's great work to continue, she relies solely on the generous donations of individuals and companies.

Please send donations to:

Thailand address:

Sister Joan Evans
PO Box 28
Kluai Nam Thai PO
Bangkok
Thailand 10115

You can also make donations online at: Paypal.

Sister Joan also welcomes offers of volunteer help.

For more information Email: milkrun44@hotmail.com

Bangkok 8 - the Bangkok visitors imagine but never see

4 July 2005

There are many bad novels about Bangkok that usually involve farangs and bar girls and appear to be written by someone in Detroit. But I am half way through John Burdett's novel, Bangkok 8, and this is the real Bangkok.

In Bangkok 8 Burdett explores crime, Buddhism, crooked cops, western perceptions of Thais, Thai perceptions of westerners, perversions of the flesh, sex-change surgery, the jade industry, muang thai (thai boxing) and the business of love for rent in top drawer murder mystery.

3 July 2005

The question for Unocal's shareholders is whether they have the courage to take Chinese cash that values Unocal's shares at $67 or to accept an agreed offer from US major Chevron on the table worth $60 per share that comes without political complications.

Chinese officials argue that it is Unocal's oil and gas in Asia that the company prizes. However, the deal would also give China a 9 per cent stake in the BP-led consortium building the $6bn Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyan oil pipeline, a project aimed at easing US reliance on the Middle East for oil. In addition Unocal has the technical expertise that will allow CNOOC to compete for giant gas and oil exploration projects.e

Unocal may just be the start of a further Chinese bidding for US assets? The Chinese imperative is most obvious in the quest for resources being led by the mainland's big oil, metal and commodity producers. Baosteel's South American investment, for example, is a joint-venture with CVRD, the world's largest producer of iron ore, vital for steel production. Capturing scarce resources was also behind the still continuing attempt this year by state-owned Minmetals, China's top base-metals producer, to spend $7 billion buying Canada's Noranda, one of the world's largest zinc, nickel and copper producers.

With crude oil over US$60 a barrel and heading towards US$100, the world's two superpowers are on collision course over crude oil.  It also emerged last week that China National Petroleum is poised to bid for Petro-Kazakhstan, the Canadian-based oil producer.

China's spending on oil assets has been accelerating this year with investments into Canada, Peru and Venezuela.

Apart from the Aktobe oilfields in Kazakhstan, China holds some old fields in Azerbaijan, which is otherwise dominated by BP Amoco. There are agreements or investments with a variety of African countries including Egypt, Niger, Gabon, Algeria, Chad and Libya. There are exploration deals in Mozambique, Congo, Syria, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Substantial deals exist with Venezuela, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is anxious to reduce dependence on the US. Plans are underway to build a pipeline from Venezuela to the Pacific coast of Columbia, enabling oil to bypass the Panama Canal and be shipped across the Pacific to East Asian markets, including China.

There is also the oil sands deal in Canada, and also an agreement to build pipelines on the western coast of Canada with Enbridge. There are oilfield investments in Ecuador and Peru, exploration contracts and refinery renovation deals in Iran. There were oilfield deals with Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq, but these were cancelled. Chinese companies are now being invited to take part in the bidding for oil projects by the new Iraqi government.

Most of the promising development areas have already been taken, in Nigeria, the Caspian Sea, and most of the Middle East. China claims, therefore, to have been forced to go to less fashionable places, even - recently - being linked with concessions in the politically troubled Ferghana Valley in Uzbekistan. China has tended to go to regions that few Western companies will touch, and they blame the fact that they are not being allowed to compete on the international market. China claims that it is being squeezed out, usually for political reasons. This plays to the bid for Unocal.

CNOOC's bid will inevitably face delays and shareholders have the option of taking Chevron's money at a vote on 10 August. Chevron may need to improve their offer.

London must be the Olympic choice for 2012

3 July 2005

London appears to be enjoying a last minute surge of support in the five-city race to stage the 2012 Olympics. Members of the 116-strong International Olympic Committee, who will choose the host city on Wednesday in Singapore

The other competing cities are Paris, New York, Moscow and Madrid.

The two favorites are London and Paris; the Paris bid has lost some momentum although it would clearly be a popular choice for many of the future competitors.

After Sydney (2004) and Beijing (2008) a move to Europe or the USA is inevitable. Paris seemingly has one great advantage. The support of the people. Madrid will not win, since Barcelona hosted the 1992 games; New York will not win due to the USA's lack of political popularity and the tarnished commercial memories of the 1996 Atlanta Games.

Paris narrowly lost to Beijing for the 2008 games and there is a sense in the IOC that it is now the turn of Paris after political expediency made the Beijing Games an inevitability.

London's bid is led by the hugely respected Sebastian Coe; he has many admirers in the IOC as both a past athlete and now a sports administrator and leader of the London bid.

President Chirac and Prime Minister Blair now square off again in Singapore; not over European budgets, constitutions or agricultural policy but both batting for their Olympic venues. For one it will be a huge win. For the other it will be another failure to find their legacy.

For London the games would be good news - a chance to complete the regeneration of East London; to give London the facilities that it so badly needs and to massively enhance the city's infrastructure especially its transportation. It would also be good news for Mr. Blair. He at least tries to keep Britain at the modern forefront of world affairs. He has recognised a world that is changing. Chirac is too buried in the past. His is the selfish politics of opportunism; of protecting French interests at the cost of all others.

Like it or not the Olympic vote is political. It is a reward. Chirac does not deserve that reward.

Addressing the indignity of death

1 July 2005

For many reasons I have been thinking about death, what it means, how it must feel, how much I don't want to die, how inevitable it is, and how lacking in dignity it can be.

I want to be remembered for being alive; not for being near dead. I want to spend my last days in comfort, and not pain, and in surroundings of my choice and not a hospital of someone else's choice.

Today's Guardian newspaper hits this issue head on. Times are changing. Lawyers and religion have connived to tell us that we have to die "of natural causes". But increasingly people are beginning to appreciate that there may be a better way to pass on; assisted,in comfort and at the time of our choice. And why not; we have no qualms about putting an animal "to sleep." What is so different about doing it for ourselves or for those we love and wish to remember.

I guess my views on this are clear; this article may make you consider your position as well.

No way to die

We all hope to pass away peacefully, but despite the best efforts of 21st-century medicine, too many of us end our lives in agonising pain and distress. Why are we seemingly incapable of managing death effectively?

Sarah Boseley
Friday July 1, 2005
Guardian

Death can be a shocking experience. Not because we didn't expect mum or granny to die, but because we had no idea that her last hours or days would be so distressing. There is, I am sure, such a thing as "a good death" - a peaceful, emotional but pain-free interlude in which to say farewell - but start to talk about the way we die and you find that when it comes to their own loved ones, a lot of people have experienced something very different.

In my case, I remember my ferociously independent, professional spinster cousin, 50 years older than me. I went to see her in a nursing home, having been told she might not have long to live, but still expecting a political lecture or some sharp comments on my lifestyle. She was raving, didn't appear to recognise me and called constantly for help from a nurse who didn't come. She appeared to be in pain, and we begged medical staff for drugs. She died a few days later. When I related the story to a colleague, he immediately said the same thing happened with his mother. Everybody I have mentioned it to has a similar story.

Part of the problem is our problem - we the living don't know anything about death. It's hidden from us; we don't know what to expect, what to do and how to behave. But that's not all. In spite of the scanners, the drugs and the humming technological advances of 21st-century medicine, some people still suffer a death that is medieval in its pain and distress. And ironically, as the importance of palliative medicine - the alleviating of pain rather than attempting to cure a condition - becomes better recognised, there is growing evidence that many doctors are now reluctant to give large doses of painkilling drugs, even to people who are manifestly in extreme distress.

Frustrated by this situation, more and more of us are asking why it is illegal to hasten death or ask somebody to do it for us. In April, a House of Lords select committee recommended further examination of the assisted dying for the terminally ill bill, which would have allowed a person who is suffering unbearably to ask for and receive assistance to die, within strict safeguards (the bill fell, but will almost certainly be presented again). Yesterday, the British Medical Association, which has for so long said the duty of a doctor is to preserve life as long as possible, dropped its opposition to physician-assisted suicide and to euthanasia. It is now a matter for society and for the law, it said. The BMA will only seek to safeguard the right of those doctors and patients who do not want to be involved.

In spite of the best intentions, 60% of us end up dying in hospital. Yet hospitals are usually not the place we find most comforting, and oddly, when death is inevitable, it does not necessary follow that the best care should come from doctors and nurses whose job is to make us better, not to help us die. Treating the living and treating the dying are two quite different types of medical care and, says Ged Corcoran, Macmillan consultant in palliative medicine at University Hospital, Aintree, Liverpool. It is not easy to take the crucial decision that a patient is not going to recover, so that their care can switch from an attempt to cure to the relief of symptoms and pain. (There is, however, such a thing as an identifiable "dying phase", he says, lasting two to three days, where the person has clearly changed. In many cases there is "an element of clouding of the consciousness" before death shortly follows.)

Alleviating pain requires an understanding of what it actually is. Pain is an alarm system - a warning that the body is in danger. It is caused by the stimulation of certain sensory nerve endings by chemicals that have been released by the damaged cells. But pain is not only a physical discomfort, relievable by a drug. Dame Cicely Saunders, credited as founder of the hospice movement in the UK, talked of "total pain" - physical pain mingled with and even partly caused by emotional and spiritual pain.

At the North London hospice in Finchley, a place of peace and beauty with rooms full of natural light opening on to gardens and a central courtyard full of plants, medical director and palliative care consultant Christopher Baxter says that everybody has an identifiable pain threshold - a point at which a sensation becomes pain - and that this can be altered with appropriate care. "When somebody comes into the hospice, unless they are in agony, I will change nothing for 24 or 48 hours. With quite a lot of people, the pain will disappear. They are in a warm environment, they are comfortable and they are safe."

Because of the large local Jewish community, the hospice has taken quite a number of Holocaust survivors. "Some of them will have buried it in their psyche, but when they are faced with their own death, they are reliving it. Some of their pain may be reliving the camps."

But if pain is more complex than we sometimes understand it to be, drugs remain the principal mechanism by which to manage it. Morphine, still the most useful pain management medication, is a safe drug when used properly with gradual increases in the dose; the biggest problem is the drowsiness it causes. Benzodiazepines and barbiturates may be needed for the symptoms of dying, which can include suspicion, paranoia and hostility (caused by toxins in the body). "Some patients are in such distress that you can virtually only treat them by sedating them," says Baxter.

However, doctors admit that even where they have the required drugs to alleviate a patient's suffering, they are frequently holding back from doing so. This they attribute to the Shipman effect - the fact that the worst ever serial killer in Britain was a doctor who ended the lives of patients with lethal injections of diamorphine, a controlled drug used legitimately to dull pain at the end of life.

"The Shipman case is having and will continue to have enormous impact on everything we do," says Laurence Gerlis, a central London GP. "It has certainly affected me. I'm very uncomfortable about prescribing controlled drugs at all ... If a well-meaning doctor just gives slightly too much and the morphine appears to have ended life, you could be held as the next Shipman. I certainly worry terribly about that."

Post-Shipman reforms include proposals to train coroners to "think dirty" and not assume that what a doctor tells them of the cause of death is always accurate and truthful. A survey of 1,000 doctors by Medix UK found that 74% thought this would make them more nervous of prescribing pain relief to the dying. "I tend to commence lower, and often return to see the patient - still in pain - and hate myself and curse Dr Shipman for my not having the guts to prescribe a decent dose of analgesia," says one. "There is no doubt that many years of the hospice and palliative care world building up confidence to use opiates well has been set back by Shipman," says John Wiles, consultant in palliative medicine in Bromley and medical director of a hospice.

Good quality palliative care is, of course, about more than drugs. The intention is that those who enter hospices feel loved, supported and listened to. "It was like coming into paradise," says Myra Hersh, a 69-year-old former ITV production manager, whose cancer has spread from breast to lungs to bone. She had never realised, she says, that there could be two different forms of nursing - treatment and care. "An extraordinary calmness has descended on me. When I first got here, I was so nervous, thinking to myself, I'm never going to get out of here. I wasn't walking, I had no appetite and no energy. I was in pain. Now the pain is completely under control."

But with only 220 hospices in the country - the vast majority independent charities dependent on donations and volunteers - only a small minority of the dying can expect to receive this kind of treatment. Most hospitals are trying to get closer to the hospice model of care, but it is hard. There are significant shortages of palliative care consultants and specialist nurses in the UK, points out Helen Clayson, medical director of St Mary's Hospice, Ulverston, in Cumbria. "You have junior doctors being the first line of contact and they don't have the experience or the knowledge of the complexities involved in end-of-life issues."

Guidelines for palliative care developed by the Royal Liverpool University Hospitals and the Marie Curie Centre are being rolled out across the UK. They are intended to help all doctors and nurses who come into contact with the dying to change tack and ask the right questions. Do the family know the person is seriously ill? Have any unnecessary drugs, given to try to improve their condition, been stopped? Have all the right drug treatments been started?

But Irene Higginson, professor of palliative care and policy at Guy's, King's and St Thomas' in London, says doctors and nursing staff do not volunteer for the training. "The big problem for palliative care teams is having enough clout in hospitals," she says. There are also too few of them. The House of Commons health select committee last July applauded the "ambitious goal" of the government to double the number of consultants by 2015 and put an extra £50m into palliative care. There is little doubt, meanwhile, that the pressure on doctors and nurses in a big hospital, the focus on getting patients into beds and out of them again to meet targets, the sheer urgency of the place, are unconducive to a pain-free death, even if copious morphine is available.

"I don't think it is about blaming or condemning those who aren't doing well," says David Clark, director of the international observatory on end of life care at Lancaster University. "It is about looking at how we change the culture of dying in a hospital. Are people being routinely screened for their pain? Is it being monitored carefully?"

Families tend to be happier with hospice care, but this is not the answer, because the best care ought to be where most people die - in hospital. And it can be very good. "I say to people, I promise you, when you feel desperate, we will make it so that you are not frightened," says Corcoran, who deals directly with 110 deaths a year in his unit and advises on 350 more. "When the person dies, it is a very gentle thing."

But the suffering that some experience, and the fear of others approaching death that they will experience pain, is distressing for them and swells the ranks of the euthanasia movement. Corcoran is disturbed by the assisted dying bill, which he feels is "almost a counsel of despair". There are a few, he agrees, who cannot be relieved of their pain, "but the vast majority reach a point where they can be cared for satisfactorily".

That, clearly, is how it should be, but not yet how it is for too many people nearing the end of their lives. There is much to do until we can all walk away from the hospital for the last time feeling, through the sadness, that at least mum or granny had a good death.