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ON Monday I went to Simpson's Cycles in Kentish Town to pick up Betsy. She is gleaming white, is reasonably light and looks quite a head turner with her new panniers. The only problem is that I am quite paranoid about having her stolen which is something I didn't have to worry about with my last bike.On the trip to Liverpool she had to go untended in the guards van so I sat in the adjoining seats keeping a lookout on the movements of 2 guys with trick BMX bikes parked with her.

Liverpool is a city of amazing architecture ..old and new. The three Victorian buildings on the water Front have had the grime scraped off and look really grand. One is the Old Cunard Line building. Behind them are old dock wharehouses converted into hotels, apartments and a branch of the Tate. Then there are the new buildings , glass and concrete at odd angles and with cantilevered floors. Central Liverpool is a mixture of modern shopping mall and preserved quarters but there are lots of shops and offices for let and my guess is that this is a city really feeling the impact of the GFC as it seems that it is reliant on the universities and tourism for revenue. Its also a bit scary in the evening as the old pubs seem to spill out into the street and are populated by loud men yelling at each other.

The conference has been interesting so far with some sessions on the use of Human Rights Legislation to gain resources for psychiatric PDRSS's, somthing I need to think about for our patients and I found out from a Human Rights lawyer who had worked in Australia that Victoria and ACT actually have Human Rights Charters. Another interesting point was the discussion of a public health approach to aggression. The Chief Medical Officer from Scotland described the measures that Scotland has taken to curb alcohol fueled violence which is apparently the worlds worst. Notable the peak area is Glasgow and this correlates with the level of social disadvantage. She also highlighted measures taken to intervene in parenting to reduce the production of antisocial behaviour in adolescents. This is very boring for a travel blog.

The main problem is that the conference stuff is moderately interesting and so the Liverpool things I would like to visit are on durig the day...tommorrow I will play hooky and do a bit of sightseeing.