Answering an emergency call, a fireman in Cambridgeshire took a roundabout too fast and his engine toppled over, killing a pedestrian. Unbelievably, he told the court he would drive the same way again if he had to do it again. No, Mr Fireman! If you had to do it again, I hope you would have learnt to approach the roundabout a little slower, and not topple your machine and kill someone.
The new Air Boeing 737 is fitted with a new "safety device" that causes the plane to dive if it detects a stall condition. Unfortunately, it cannot be over-ridden by the pilot even when they're flying the plane manually. Last month, a malfunctioning sensor on an Indonesian Boeing 737 caused the plane to dive into the ground killing all 189 people on board. Surprisingly, Boeing neglected to tell pilots about this new system, or how to switch it off. Please Boeing, teach your pilots how to take over manual control again if there is a system problem; I actually trust them to cope better than a failing robot.
In Britain, we have our own madness of King Brexit. Theresa May, having squandered her majority, is floundering under the weight of a situation of her own making, and impossible to resolve. In Brussels, the ambassadors of 27 nations assembled to read the new Brexit agreement, only to be told it hadn't been agreed by the British Cabinet yet, let alone Parliament, so they all went home again. Once, as in so much else, we led the world in diplomacy. Now we lead the world in dopelunacy. May is like the Grand Old Duke of York - she keeps leading everyone up the hill, then down again, until no one knows which way they're going. Never in the field of human affairs have so many owed so much trouble to so few.
Wednesday 14 November 2018
Tuesday 13 November 2018
Ring Tones and radiotherapy
Many years ago, as soon as such things became possible, I composed my own ring tone called JohN. It was a simple MIDI file, no masterpiece certainly, but a distinctive and compelling tune that I owned and could identify as my phone ringing. It has followed me all my mobile life, being converted to MP3 or other formats for transfer to each new phone.
Then I got the iphone. Apple insist on their own format for music, so I had to convert all my libraries to suit them. Ring tones require yet another format, m4r, so this I did. But I could not move it into the ringtone folder. Despite all the advice I could find on YouTube or in blogs, it would not load. I was stuck with a hideous alien tune for months. Finally I read that Apple had removed the RingTone folder from view! Last night, I finally managed to hack into the folders and save it there. I whooped round the house, getting everyone to keep ringing me to show off my tune, though Ann said, "it's a horrible tune, anyway." I disagreed - it is a catchy number, and "a small thing but mine own".
Today, I went for radiotherapy planning. I had a scan to find my bladder, before being marked with three permanent tattoo spots so they can set the machine up exactly the same each time. The treatments will be intensive, but won't start for two to three weeks, so will run right across Christmas and into New Year. I asked if they stop for the holidays, but unlike outpatients and routine admissions, they don't. They have to carry on regardless, otherwise they would lose too many treatment slots. Dr Martin promised to write a letter for the insurance company, but our holiday to the Holy Land is definitely lost.
Then I got the iphone. Apple insist on their own format for music, so I had to convert all my libraries to suit them. Ring tones require yet another format, m4r, so this I did. But I could not move it into the ringtone folder. Despite all the advice I could find on YouTube or in blogs, it would not load. I was stuck with a hideous alien tune for months. Finally I read that Apple had removed the RingTone folder from view! Last night, I finally managed to hack into the folders and save it there. I whooped round the house, getting everyone to keep ringing me to show off my tune, though Ann said, "it's a horrible tune, anyway." I disagreed - it is a catchy number, and "a small thing but mine own".
Today, I went for radiotherapy planning. I had a scan to find my bladder, before being marked with three permanent tattoo spots so they can set the machine up exactly the same each time. The treatments will be intensive, but won't start for two to three weeks, so will run right across Christmas and into New Year. I asked if they stop for the holidays, but unlike outpatients and routine admissions, they don't. They have to carry on regardless, otherwise they would lose too many treatment slots. Dr Martin promised to write a letter for the insurance company, but our holiday to the Holy Land is definitely lost.
Monday 12 November 2018
Don't retire - and have plenty of sex!
Due to rising costs and unmeetable needs, the government's new goal is to prevent illness rather than treating it. Like the old Soviet Union and its targets for wheat and steel, they always insist on targets rather than aims or aspirations, and their target for healthcare is now five more healthy years of life, rather than a reduction in waiting times, or improvement in cancer mortality. This might be depressing, except for the wonderful way in which they hope to achieve this.
Besides the obvious ones of a balanced diet, exercising regularly and drinking only moderately that we all know about, it appears that our emotional state and how much sex we have plays a more vital role in a longer life span than our genes! But analysing the government recommendations, I find a hidden agenda. We are encouraged to:
1) Avoid early retirement and continue working. Clearly a way to reduce pension costs and benefits. I'm OK on this one - I'm still working more than 10 years after retirement age.
2) Don't act your age. This ties in with furthering liberal attitudes. People may already identify as whatever gender they wish, irrespective of what their anatomy is telling them and the distress it causes others, or what anybody else thinks. A 65 year old man in the Netherlands is insisting he is inside a 45 year old body, and wants his birth certificate altered to reflect this so he can legally lie to young women. Several columnists have argued that they wish to be considered Muslim, or Jewish as may suit them for their columns. In the USA, a 'white' woman has identified as black and claimed black arts grants. Ancestry analysis of my genetic pool shows 1-2% Polynesian. Does this mean I have the right to declare I am really from Maori stock and have a right to live in New Zealand?
3) Become a parent. Clearly a hidden agenda here, to overcome the falling birthrates in Europe (see my blog Birth-rates and coffee mornings), but I'm OK on this one too.
4) Have an active love life. Well, I used to once, and I it is true I was then very healthy. Now I don't have much sex, and I'm very unhealthy. But which came first – ill health or a declining love life? Clearly there is an area here for further research.
Besides the obvious ones of a balanced diet, exercising regularly and drinking only moderately that we all know about, it appears that our emotional state and how much sex we have plays a more vital role in a longer life span than our genes! But analysing the government recommendations, I find a hidden agenda. We are encouraged to:
1) Avoid early retirement and continue working. Clearly a way to reduce pension costs and benefits. I'm OK on this one - I'm still working more than 10 years after retirement age.
2) Don't act your age. This ties in with furthering liberal attitudes. People may already identify as whatever gender they wish, irrespective of what their anatomy is telling them and the distress it causes others, or what anybody else thinks. A 65 year old man in the Netherlands is insisting he is inside a 45 year old body, and wants his birth certificate altered to reflect this so he can legally lie to young women. Several columnists have argued that they wish to be considered Muslim, or Jewish as may suit them for their columns. In the USA, a 'white' woman has identified as black and claimed black arts grants. Ancestry analysis of my genetic pool shows 1-2% Polynesian. Does this mean I have the right to declare I am really from Maori stock and have a right to live in New Zealand?
3) Become a parent. Clearly a hidden agenda here, to overcome the falling birthrates in Europe (see my blog Birth-rates and coffee mornings), but I'm OK on this one too.
4) Have an active love life. Well, I used to once, and I it is true I was then very healthy. Now I don't have much sex, and I'm very unhealthy. But which came first – ill health or a declining love life? Clearly there is an area here for further research.
Sunday 11 November 2018
Ann's Great Uncle Remembered on Armistice Day
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| Percy Miller Spice. Died on 11 November 1918, Etaples, France |
On this day, Ann's Great Uncle Percy Miller Spice died, a victim of the Great War.
Sapper 68178 Percy Miller SPICE. 119th Heavy Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA). Died
11th November 1918 aged 24 years. Born Herne Bay, Kent. Enlisted Herne Bay.
After three years of fighting, he died in 4 General Hospital, Camiers, France
from mustard gas poisoning during the last Flanders Offensive at Ypres
in the Western European Theatre, on the last day of the war.
After three years of fighting, he died in 4 General Hospital, Camiers, France
from mustard gas poisoning during the last Flanders Offensive at Ypres
in the Western European Theatre, on the last day of the war.
He is buried in the Étaples Military Cemetery,
France.
In homage, we visited the cemetery in 2009 to leave a coin of remembrance at the grave.
In homage, we visited the cemetery in 2009 to leave a coin of remembrance at the grave.
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| Étaples by Iso Rae, 1917 |
One hundred years later, we have no concept of conditions on those fronts. We may only turn to witnesses who where there, and their descriptions. Étaples and the field hospital at Camiers are described in the work of Iso Rae, a remarkable Australian woman artist who stayed in Étaples throughout the First World War, and who gave a unique insight into the life of the vast British army camp there:
Étaples is a very old fishing town and port, which lies at the mouth of the River Canche in the region of Pas de Calais in Picardy. The Étaples Army Base Camp, the largest of its kind ever established overseas by the British, was built along the railway adjacent to the town. It was served by a network of railways, canals, and roads connecting the camp to the southern and eastern fields of battle in France and to ships carrying troops, supplies, guns, equipment, and thousands of men and women across the English Channel. It was a base for British, Canadian, Scottish and Australian forces.
The camp was a training base, a depot for supplies, a detention centre for prisoners, and a centre for the treatment of the sick and wounded, with almost twenty general hospitals. At its peak, the camp housed over 100,000 people; altogether, its hospitals could treat 22,000 patients. With its vast conglomeration of the wounded, of prisoners, of soldiers training for battle, and of those simply waiting to return to the front, Étaples could appear a dark place.
Wilfred Owen [Collected Letters. Oxford University Press] described it as,
A vast, dreadful encampment. It seemed neither France nor England, but a kind of paddock where the beasts are kept a few days before the shambles … Chiefly I thought of the very strange look on all the faces in that camp; an incomprehensible look, which a man will never see in England; nor can it be seen in any battle, but only in Étaples. It was not despair, or terror, it was more terrible than terror, for it was a blindfold look, and without expression, like a dead rabbit’s.
Saturday 10 November 2018
Autumn Leaves - living with bladder cancer
Rather than taking whatever is thrown at me from the specialists, I decided to do some of my own research into modern biological treatments. This led me to a recent research paper about urothelial bladder cancer (UC)†.
I noted that muscle-invasive cancer of the bladder accounts for 20%–40% of cases. The standard of care is radical cystectomy (removal of the bladder) with or without chemotherapy, or else concurrent chemoradiation as a bladder-sparing option. However, even after treatment, up to 50% patients develop recurrence and most patients die of metastatic disease within 3 years of diagnosis. Patients with metastatic disease are incurable, and 5-year relative survival remains dismal. Gee, thanks! And it goes on:
Systemic chemotherapy with cisplatin-based regimens is the standard of care, leading to median survival of around 1 year. For patients unable to tolerate platinum-based therapy, the median survival is only 6–9 months. Furthermore, up to 30%–50% of patients with metastatic UC are ineligible to receive cisplatin due to comorbidities, limiting treatment options. Until recently carboplatin-based regimes were the only treatment options, with no substantial improvement in clinical outcomes†.
However, after forty years, some progress has been made with the approval of several biological inhibitors in metastatic UC. The only problem is the cost: £75,000 – £150,000 per patient. I asked my oncologist if any were available, even privately, but he said not. It is approved in this country for malignant melanoma but not for UC.
Walking the dogs in Clare country park, it is late autumn. Many trees lie bare now against a clear blue sky, while others carpet the ground with bright colours of red and gold. I am determined to cling to hope, and it's hard sometimes to remember that cancer rages within me, but tiredness catches me earlier each day to jog the memory. With so much foliage dying, autumn is an unfortunate season for hope. I must await the spring, and see how my treatments progress.
†DD Stenehjem, D Tran, MA Nkrumah, S Gupta. PD1/PDL1 inhibitors for the treatment of advanced urothelial bladder cancer. OncoTargets and Therapy 2018:11 5973–5989
I noted that muscle-invasive cancer of the bladder accounts for 20%–40% of cases. The standard of care is radical cystectomy (removal of the bladder) with or without chemotherapy, or else concurrent chemoradiation as a bladder-sparing option. However, even after treatment, up to 50% patients develop recurrence and most patients die of metastatic disease within 3 years of diagnosis. Patients with metastatic disease are incurable, and 5-year relative survival remains dismal. Gee, thanks! And it goes on:
Systemic chemotherapy with cisplatin-based regimens is the standard of care, leading to median survival of around 1 year. For patients unable to tolerate platinum-based therapy, the median survival is only 6–9 months. Furthermore, up to 30%–50% of patients with metastatic UC are ineligible to receive cisplatin due to comorbidities, limiting treatment options. Until recently carboplatin-based regimes were the only treatment options, with no substantial improvement in clinical outcomes†.
However, after forty years, some progress has been made with the approval of several biological inhibitors in metastatic UC. The only problem is the cost: £75,000 – £150,000 per patient. I asked my oncologist if any were available, even privately, but he said not. It is approved in this country for malignant melanoma but not for UC.
Walking the dogs in Clare country park, it is late autumn. Many trees lie bare now against a clear blue sky, while others carpet the ground with bright colours of red and gold. I am determined to cling to hope, and it's hard sometimes to remember that cancer rages within me, but tiredness catches me earlier each day to jog the memory. With so much foliage dying, autumn is an unfortunate season for hope. I must await the spring, and see how my treatments progress.
†DD Stenehjem, D Tran, MA Nkrumah, S Gupta. PD1/PDL1 inhibitors for the treatment of advanced urothelial bladder cancer. OncoTargets and Therapy 2018:11 5973–5989
Friday 9 November 2018
Birth Rates and Coffee Mornings
The news this morning was filled with pessimism about falling birth rates. It seems to be a world-wide trend, though disguised in England by increased immigration. Hitherto, the great complaint has been that over-population is destroying the planet. The analogy is a change from a historical pyramid to an icecream cone, where the aged are the blob of icecream on the top.
The sequitur surely must be that the population of the world should be reduced, and if not by the four horsemen, then by what better means than a natural decline in fertility? Governments rail against this. They are concerned by the loss of young people to sustain the pensions and lifestyles of the old. They worry about the economic consequences of falling consumer numbers, with its effect on tax receipts and economic growth, or that less workers means higher wages and inflation. Many military countries worry about the number of fit people in the population to fight wars, or defend themselves from hostile invaders. This is all piffle.
The young should not be supporting the old. The young should be working for their own futures. We have worked all our lives, and should be looking after ourselves, not relying on ever fewer young folk to keep alive increasing numbers of the living dead. As we grow older, we should be encouraged to keep fitter, and work longer. Why should retirement be a right? We should work until we hit the immovable wall of infirmity.
If there is a falling population, the infrastructure will not need to be expanded; we will need fewer new motorways, fewer trains, and fewer planes. Falling tax receipts should be balanced by reduced expenditure. HS-2 must certainly be scrapped, right now, and perhaps overcrowding on commuter services will improve. In the cause of nuclear disarmament and promoting the NNPT, Trident should be pulled. Stagnant economic growth from less consumption will be balanced against the smaller work force, naturally curtailing inflation.
Military spending and numbers have been falling for years anyway. Although we elderly could not complete hard route marches and would be of little use in hand-to-hand combat, we could certainly work with the forces in a service capacity: monitoring, supplying, driving, and a myriad of office/desk jobs. Much fighting is now done remotely, through drones, missiles, or remote artillery, and training and experience will do these things as well as youth. In desperate times, conscription would be reintroduced. Of course, another way to decrease the burden of we oldies is to increase the death rate. Perhaps we should be sent to fight on the front line after all.
My appointment for the radiotherapy clinic at Addenbrookes has come through, to be scanned and tattooed ready for the great burn, and this morning we went to friends for coffee!
Over the years, we have had many people round for coffee or an evening, and so many of them have said, "You must come round for dinner," or "we'll get together over a coffee," followed by silence. None of these friends followed through with an invite. We used to keep a book, but gave it up as the list grew longer. So this outing to Rae and Malcolm was exceptionally valuable and noteworthy as a first. They even offered to help with driving me for the many hospital visits to come. Suddenly old friends are coming through for us!
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| 'Normal' birth rate pyramid and Inverted pyramid |
The young should not be supporting the old. The young should be working for their own futures. We have worked all our lives, and should be looking after ourselves, not relying on ever fewer young folk to keep alive increasing numbers of the living dead. As we grow older, we should be encouraged to keep fitter, and work longer. Why should retirement be a right? We should work until we hit the immovable wall of infirmity.
If there is a falling population, the infrastructure will not need to be expanded; we will need fewer new motorways, fewer trains, and fewer planes. Falling tax receipts should be balanced by reduced expenditure. HS-2 must certainly be scrapped, right now, and perhaps overcrowding on commuter services will improve. In the cause of nuclear disarmament and promoting the NNPT, Trident should be pulled. Stagnant economic growth from less consumption will be balanced against the smaller work force, naturally curtailing inflation.
Military spending and numbers have been falling for years anyway. Although we elderly could not complete hard route marches and would be of little use in hand-to-hand combat, we could certainly work with the forces in a service capacity: monitoring, supplying, driving, and a myriad of office/desk jobs. Much fighting is now done remotely, through drones, missiles, or remote artillery, and training and experience will do these things as well as youth. In desperate times, conscription would be reintroduced. Of course, another way to decrease the burden of we oldies is to increase the death rate. Perhaps we should be sent to fight on the front line after all.
Invitation
So many times
I've been invited
to take coffee, lunch or tea,
but nothing usually comes of it,
although today it happened to me.
If I relied on friends to feed me
I would be skinny as a rake,
but today I was invited for coffee
with a huge, big slice of cake!
I've been invited
to take coffee, lunch or tea,
but nothing usually comes of it,
although today it happened to me.
If I relied on friends to feed me
I would be skinny as a rake,
but today I was invited for coffee
with a huge, big slice of cake!
Over the years, we have had many people round for coffee or an evening, and so many of them have said, "You must come round for dinner," or "we'll get together over a coffee," followed by silence. None of these friends followed through with an invite. We used to keep a book, but gave it up as the list grew longer. So this outing to Rae and Malcolm was exceptionally valuable and noteworthy as a first. They even offered to help with driving me for the many hospital visits to come. Suddenly old friends are coming through for us!
Thursday 8 November 2018
I'm no deid yet
Being Scottish, Ann's father took her there often. In Edinburgh aged 14, she saw a memorial on the Royal Mile where, in the early hours of November 1861, an ancient overcrowded tenement block on the Royal Mile had collapsed without warning, killing most of its sleeping occupants. Several hours later, as the debris was being cleared and bodies removed, Joseph McIvor, a young lad of twelve, was heard to shout from beneath the rubble, "Heave awa' lads, I'm no deid yet". This left a deep impression on Ann, and it has become our rallying cry when things look bleak.
 |
| Ann in Polaroid Print |
Poetry drew us together, for Ann's great love is literature. My only photo of her from that time is an old fading Polaroid print, but she is beautiful as ever and alluring as a longed for dream. Her skin is smooth as warm, soft silk; her breast still as firm as her youthful vigour; her curves shapely as any model's; her smile the oblivion to care; and her delicious humour and good sense the bedrock of my being.
I am wearing my faint Mona Lisa smile after a night of relaxing exercise. Where once we romped
wildly, now we move with leisured pace to sooth and comfort gently. I ask if she remembers reading Kama Sutra by Vātsyāyana, but she replies those moves are for the lithe and young who are still flexible in joint and sound
of lung. I suggest she write a new version: Kama Sutra for the Over-Sixties. She could call it, Sex past Sixty, or Romping for Rheumatics; it would be
so popular she'd make her fortune. In a few weeks I may be impotent, but "I'm no deid yet".
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