New research - or the same old story? - Telegraph "New research," or, as it used to be known, "research shows," continues to rear its panic-stricken head with the almost hourly frequency of similarly unsolicited and unwelcome PPI phone calls. I have reported here previously on the late Michael Crichton's theory that the powers that be encourage rumours of imminent disaster in order to keep us groundlings on our toes and in a permanent state of apprehension, lest it occur to us that things might be better and, blood rushing to our heads, we storm the corridors of power, seeking revolution. The latest "new research" indicates that brewing tea in a cup can kill you. The other week, it was made abundantly clear that a glass of wine could lead to mouth cancer, high blood pressure and all manner of death-dealing afflictions. And if I were you, I'd take a shower in future (in what house-hunting television programmes insist on calling your "en suite," as if it was a Blackpool b&b). "New research" shows that if your bath temperature goes above 68F (20C), you could be in for a visit, tout de suite, from the Grim Reaper. Mind you, with the oncoming Great Drought, you may not be washing yourself for some time. Every cloud has a silver lining, if not the required amount of rain. What we, the great unwashed, want to know, is, what happened to the "old research"? Those of us on our last legs know that anything or anyone "old" is worse than useless nowadays, particularly if you're looking for a decent care home, or you happen to be a female seeking employment with BBC Television. (Incidentally, how many elderly ladies do you see on ITV or Sky? But I digress.) On all sides, "new, improved" oven cleaners, vacuum cleaners, indigestion tablets, computers and supermarket offers assail the consumer with their superior virtues. So, the stuff we bought last year, or last week, in good faith and on the assurance that it was the best that money could buy, is now inferior? And we know all too well that we'll be hardly out of the door of the store with the "new, improved" product, before they'll have a "super, miles better" version on offer. It's all part of the "best before," "use by" schemes, as they try to prise the very moths from your purse, while at the same time the Revenue proposes to reduce tax relief on your pension contributions. The same pension that you saved from your taxable income, and will be taxed on again, if there's anything left of it, by the time they've finished with "quantitative easing." Don't bother complaining about "double taxation," either. They'll tell you that's perfectly fine, because they've been doing that for ages with VAT. Oh, well, that's all right then, as long as they've been doing it to us for years, like with our houses and the few bob we were hoping to leave to our children. Sorry. Was I shouting?