BOOKS
THE SCARLET LETTER, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the New England of the early 1700s, an unmarried woman has a baby. In the harsh, unforgiving puritan climate of the day, she is branded an adulteress and forced to wear upon her breast a letter "A", as a lasting indication of her terrible crime against God. She could mitigate her offence by naming the father, but this she refuses to do. And so the other guilty party continues to hide in plain sight in the community which respects and reveres him.
Sometimes thought of as the first "psychological novel", Hawthorne's masterwork is now one of the most famous ever to have come out of America. And with good reason. Its gripping plot development and its intimate dissection of the characters of the protagonists establishes its position as a novel of the highest quality. For me the most telling part is the way the adulterer's guilt, the guilt that dare not speak its name, affects his health to the point of grave illness. Students of psychodynamics today would find much to base their theses upon in these pages.
THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In mid-1800s New England, a wealthy man has built a fine house, but lives elsewhere. Instead it is occupied by two classic agoraphobics: his sister, a woman who is rarely seen outdoors except perhaps when tending to her garden, and her brother, a man clearly deeply traumatised by past events of which we know nothing at first, and is an even more reclusive figure than his sister. Then a pretty young niece comes to stay, and she catches the eye of another important player: a lodger who is something of an amateur photographer. Underneath all this lie deep, dark secrets. Did ancestors of the house's owner preside over the hanging of the photographer's ancestor as a witch? Is there, hidden somewhere in the eternal shadows of this old, dark house, a document which could prove ownership of a vast tract of land and the untold wealth that would imply?
In a tale with as much, or possibly even more, subtlety than The Scarlet Letter, this book has the elements of greatness about it: a dark and compelling plot line, acutely drawn characters and, running through it all, that essential Americanness that marks it as so different from Dickens. On the face of it, it is a tempting comparison to make. After all, they both wrote around the same time in the 19th century, and both use a meticulous, immaculately crafted prose style. Both used long, superbly punctuated sentences (though Hawthorne seems to favour commas rather more than Dickens) and both examined in detail the moral mores of their day. But of course Dickens wrote dozens of novels; Hawthorne just these two. But oh, what a pair to leave to history! Such a shame, then, that Hawthorne never received the plaudits in his lifetime he so richly deserved.
INFERNO, by Dante Alghieri. (Hesperus publishing, 2003; translated by J.G. Nichols) A Florentine man, "midway through his life" (ie he is 35) finds himself in a dark wood, confronted by three beasts: a lion, a leopard and a she-wolf. Terrified, Dante is about to lose hope when a ghostly figure appears and offers to help guide him out of the wood, but that their route must go via hell, purgatory and finally paradise. This is the ghost of Virgil, Dante's greatest literary hero, so Dante accepts the proposition with alacrity. What follows is one of the most extraordinary works of the imagination ever created. Obviously Inferno covers only the first of these three, but is by far the most famous, and indeed, after centuries of neglect (it was written around 1300) is now recognised as one of the greatest poems of all time and continues to exert tremendous influence to this day. As Dante journeys through the inverted cone which is hell, stratified into 9 layers (venial sinners towards the top, the most vile at the bottom), he encounters famous villains from antiquity (Judas Escariot, for example), as well as more recent ones who have either done him or his family down, we inevitably speculate who he might encounter in a more modern version of Inferno. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot would surely be there, along with Ted Bundy and Dr Shipman. And when their time comes, perhaps might we not find Berlusconi, Bernie Madoff, and, dare I suggest it, George Bush Jr and Tony Blair?
Obviously I lack the sophistication to take a work like this at all the multiple levels required to understand it fully; despite this I found it a gripping, horrifying tale, full of terrifying archetypes that have haunted my own dreams since I first opened it. I thoroughly recommend the edition I used, with its extremely helpful footnotes and beautifully written introduction to each canto. Verdict: worthy of its fame.
FILMS
OBLIVION (2013) D- Joseph Kosinski. In a world abandoned by the human race following an alien invasion, Tom Cruise is left behind to mop up the remnants of the attacking force. Got it? Good. That's about all you need to know, other than don't waste useful hours of your life staying with this one to its conclusion. My problems with this lie in its basic premise, namely that the entire human population has been transported, via an enormous space transport craft, to the moon Titan and this in 2077, and not ten thousand years in the future. Now I know atmospheric pressure there is close to that of our home planet, but you can't breathe the air and its temperature is twice as cold as central Antarctica on the coldest day it has ever seen, so the idea of billions of humans living there is pretty ridiculous.
Still, I've enjoyed movies with even crazier notions, but it's a bad start. What was much worse was that at about five minutes in I found myself simply not caring a jot for its hero and what happened to him, or anyone else involved. The public, apparently, agreed. Although it cost upwards of $200 million to make, and featured a star normally thought to be box office gold, it made back less than a third of what it cost to produce. Hollywood hubris, thy name is Oblivion...
TRUE GRIT (2010) P/D- The Coen Brothers. A young girls father is murdered, so she goes in search of the perp with the assistance of a man suitably qualified for the task: a man with true grit. This would be Marshall Rooster Cogburn, admirably played by Jeff Bridges in a highly creditable reprise of John Wayne's famous rendition of the role in the 1969 original, a film which won him his only Oscar.
Normally I despise remakes: they are usually cynical money-making projects (recent examples would include Get Carter and Shaft) and turn out to be completely unnecessary and artless. This, I have to say, is an exception. The Coen brothers have made an excellent job of re-working this western classic, preserving the unique atmosphere of the original while adding a new and original spin. Worthwhile.
PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN (1950) D- Albert Lewin. A beautiful but wilful Ava Gardner (more or less playing herself, if I understand it) falls for a ghostly (not that she knows that) sea captain (James Mason) who, in line with the famous myth, is doomed to wander the seven seas until he finds a woman who loves him enough to die for him. So far so good. But what follows is an appalling load of pseudo-artistic claptrap, devoid in reality of almost any artistic merit. The colour is terrible: everyone seems to be suffering from a serious case of radiation sickness, while the colour generally seems to throb and pulse in a way that almost induces nausea. Lewin was a Hollywood insider of the 30s; he was Irving Thalberg's PA, and eventually persuaded the money men to let him direct. They never should have let him near a camera, is all I can say. Terrible.
THE RED DESERT (1964) D- Michelangelo Antonioni. A beautiful, but disturbed woman (Monica Vitti, Antonioni's long-time muse) wanders about in an almost alien-looking Italian industrial landscape, struggling to find meaning and even a scrap of happiness in her apparently meaningless and deeply unhappy existence. Richard Harris (clearly speaking English but dubbed into Italian) would make her happy in his own way, and she is attracted to him in return. But he's her husband's boss, so it's all a bit tricky...
This was Antonioni's first excursion into colour, and the result is as visually stunning as Lewin's disaster (see above) is awful. Somehow the grim industrial heartland of a northern Italian city (it was filmed near Ravenna) is transformed into a strange, magical place. full of colour: blues, reds and yellows fill the screen in a profusion of strange shapes and swirls. Remarkable.
FREE MEN (2011) D- Ismael Farroukhi. Paris at the time of the Nazi occupation. The Nazi view on Jews is well known, but apparently they adopted a more tolerant attitude towards Muslims. So the imam of a Paris Mosque (played by the admirable Michael Lonsdale) uses their indulgence to harbour Jews in the cellars of his mosque. Eventually the Germans get wind of what's going on and their forbearance comes to a swift end...
This unlikely, but apparently true story challenges our traditional prejudices of how things work between cultures, and Farroukhi puts together a fine little piece which engages throughout.
LADYHAWKE (1985) D- Richard Donner. An evil bishop casts a spell on two lovers: the man (Rutger Hauer) is doomed to be himself by day, but transformed into a wolf each night. Conversely, his paramour (Michelle Pfeiffer) is by day a falcon, only to turn back into a woman as the sun sets. OK. This is as good a premise for a fantasy movie as you could wish for, is it not? Trouble is, this movie is an absolute dog. The players, including a youthful, and highly physically talented Matthew Broderick do their best, but struggle with an awful script and leaden direction. Think a sort of Willow with no Warwick Davies. There are some great locations (they used several real castles in the Italian Alps) and one really good set piece which involves a joust along the aisle of a cathedral with the opponents wielding, not lances but huge broadswords; even so this is a film to forget as quickly as possible...
COLD WEATHER (2010) D- Aaron Katz. In Portland, Oregon, a place with weather much like South Wales, in that it is either grey and not raining, or grey and raining, a young man works in an ice factory but dreams of being a great detective, like his hero Sherlock Holmes. He even buys a pipe to enhance the effect. Then by chance an ex-girlfriend has a briefcase of money she is transporting from a to b stolen and he realises this is his big chance to exercise his skills.
An understated little movie which distinguishes itself with some sensitive direction and competent acting all round. To grip the attention without a lot happening for much of the film is not an easy thing to do, but Katz and his team do a fine job. Well done!
Friday, 28 February 2014
Tuesday, 25 February 2014
Building on flood plains: there's money in it
In the last twelve years, local councils in Wales ignored the advice of the Welsh equivalent of the environment agency no less than 341times and allowed housing and business premises to be built on land prone to flooding. Think about it: 341 times!
On BBC Wales news last night a councillor came on saying words to the effect of, well, there's a housing shortage, right? and besides it's different with businesses because no one lives in them, so...
Now I know councils often have very difficult decisions to make and must consider a wide variety of conflicting interests, but in this bloggers opinion this demonstrates the most astonishing level of short-sightedness perhaps ever witnessed in Wales. Yes, there's a housing shortage here, as in the rest of Britain, but what on earth is the point in putting new houses where they are likely to be ruined within a few years, as indeed has happened on several occasions? And now even the climate change deniers are looking a little foolish and beginning to change their tune in the face of overwhelming evidence, these 341 decisions to ignore advice from people who actually know what they are talking about is beginning to look just plain dumb. I'd like to see some of the people who bought these houses, only to see them flooded sue the councillors who made those idiotic decisions, or force them to pay compensation in other ways. They are to blame, and they should pay.
On BBC Wales news last night a councillor came on saying words to the effect of, well, there's a housing shortage, right? and besides it's different with businesses because no one lives in them, so...
Now I know councils often have very difficult decisions to make and must consider a wide variety of conflicting interests, but in this bloggers opinion this demonstrates the most astonishing level of short-sightedness perhaps ever witnessed in Wales. Yes, there's a housing shortage here, as in the rest of Britain, but what on earth is the point in putting new houses where they are likely to be ruined within a few years, as indeed has happened on several occasions? And now even the climate change deniers are looking a little foolish and beginning to change their tune in the face of overwhelming evidence, these 341 decisions to ignore advice from people who actually know what they are talking about is beginning to look just plain dumb. I'd like to see some of the people who bought these houses, only to see them flooded sue the councillors who made those idiotic decisions, or force them to pay compensation in other ways. They are to blame, and they should pay.
Friday, 21 February 2014
When was the last time you saw a really big movie?
The words spoken by Harrison Ford in his promo for Sky movies. The answer for pretty much everyone who goes to the movies or watches them on TV is that it's pretty hard to avoid them, if by big you mean a lot of money was spent on them. Examples in the Sky commercial included The Great Gatsby, Anna Karenina, After Earth and Oblivion. Put together they probably cost over a $billion to make, but do any of them constitute a truly big movie?
I fear not. A lot of these films, including the ones I have cited above actually lose out as a result of their big productions, saturating the viewer with sights, sounds, colours and a profusion of computer graphics, so that we become almost numbed to any artistic merit they may possess. Perhaps the best contemporary movie I saw last year was Blue Jasmine, and that didn't have to rely on elaborate special effects, rather its strength lay in the traditional fields of tight direction, brilliant screenplay and superlative acting performances. To offer another example, I recently watched the re-screening of the BBC's I Claudius on BBC 4, a series with the budget seemingly cut to the bone, but which, even after more than thirty years since its first outing on television, has retained its magnetic power through a tremendously good script and the utterly compelling acting of a very high quality cast.
So, Harrison Ford and Sky movies: I don't want big movies, I want good ones. Please to oblige?
I fear not. A lot of these films, including the ones I have cited above actually lose out as a result of their big productions, saturating the viewer with sights, sounds, colours and a profusion of computer graphics, so that we become almost numbed to any artistic merit they may possess. Perhaps the best contemporary movie I saw last year was Blue Jasmine, and that didn't have to rely on elaborate special effects, rather its strength lay in the traditional fields of tight direction, brilliant screenplay and superlative acting performances. To offer another example, I recently watched the re-screening of the BBC's I Claudius on BBC 4, a series with the budget seemingly cut to the bone, but which, even after more than thirty years since its first outing on television, has retained its magnetic power through a tremendously good script and the utterly compelling acting of a very high quality cast.
So, Harrison Ford and Sky movies: I don't want big movies, I want good ones. Please to oblige?
Wednesday, 19 February 2014
North Koreans: we never done nuffink!
The North Korean leadership was swift in its denunciation of the latest UN report on its gross abuses of human rights."It's all a US plot to discredit us!" they bleated, but few believe them. The evidence is simply too strong, and comes from too many reliable sources. I for one was particularly affected by the words of its lead author, Michael Kirby, who pointed out that when the atrocities committed in Nazi Germany were revealed, many people said words to the effect of: "if only we'd known". Now, he said, we already know what's going on in North Korea, and it's time for the world community to act. Now.
Quick summary: North Korea: a state more like the ones envisaged by Orwell in 1984 than perhaps anywhere else in the world, a land ruled by terror where everyone lives in fear of the knock on the door. States like these are unstable by their very nature, but don't hold your breath for a glimpse of freedom any time soon. They have a very powerful friend, who will veto even the mildest censure of their methods at the UN. Despite the fact that the diplomatic exchanges revealed by wikileaks show them to be sometimes exasperated by their little neighbour, in practice they won't be in any hurry to condemn it themselves, because a not dissimilar situation obtains in their own country. And its leaders are far too preoccupied amassing billions to promote even a semblance of democratic freedom in their own land.
No, North Korea will remain one of the poorest countries in the world, where the secret police are in total control, lording it over a country isolating itself from the wider world like nowhere else. The people there are too afraid to protest, but we can! Down with the autocrats of North Korea! Long live the people!
Quick summary: North Korea: a state more like the ones envisaged by Orwell in 1984 than perhaps anywhere else in the world, a land ruled by terror where everyone lives in fear of the knock on the door. States like these are unstable by their very nature, but don't hold your breath for a glimpse of freedom any time soon. They have a very powerful friend, who will veto even the mildest censure of their methods at the UN. Despite the fact that the diplomatic exchanges revealed by wikileaks show them to be sometimes exasperated by their little neighbour, in practice they won't be in any hurry to condemn it themselves, because a not dissimilar situation obtains in their own country. And its leaders are far too preoccupied amassing billions to promote even a semblance of democratic freedom in their own land.
No, North Korea will remain one of the poorest countries in the world, where the secret police are in total control, lording it over a country isolating itself from the wider world like nowhere else. The people there are too afraid to protest, but we can! Down with the autocrats of North Korea! Long live the people!
Sunday, 16 February 2014
Are doctors paid too much?
If the Sunday Telegraph is to be believed this morning, the answer may be yes. Their headline blares the "fact" that consultants in A and E are being up to £3000 per shift, which, if true, is a pretty phenomenal sum for eight hours work. As a GP I was well paid for my efforts, which I always considered to be fair enough considering the pressure we work under and the responsibility we have to bear. FYI, the most I have ever been paid was £110 per hour for a six hour shift in an out-of-hours unit on Christmas day, and let me tell you I earned my money, seeing 49 patients over the whole session.
If we take inflation into account, however, I probably got paid a lot more than that for a five day locum at Butlins in Minehead in the long lost era of 1976. I took away £1200 for my services, which consisted largely of treating the guests for diarrhoea and vomiting and the staff for a variety of venereal diseases. But this amount was nothing compared to what the practice who employed me netted. In those days you could submit a form called an "FP 81" for every patient you saw between 11 pm and 8 am, and this attracted a fee of around £80, even at that time. The senior partner explained how it worked: In the early evening, if I was asked to see a patient I was advised to stall them until after 11 pm, then see them and fill in the little goldmine called the FP 81. If I made over £1000 in less than a week, the practice walked away with nearly five times that amount. The reason for my very attractive pay-rate, of course, was that nobody wanted to do it. Strange thing, my memories of that time are that I had a whale of a time, But that's another story...
When the NHS was rolled out in 1948 there was a problem about persuading consultants and GPs to sign up. Aneurin Bevan managed to bring them on board by first, giving GPs a self-employed status so they retained a great measure of autonomy in the way they organised their businesses, and the consultants were finally placated by the introduction of the famous and highly lucrative "merit awards", which ensured consultants could never complain about the money they made. Bevan famously said at the time: "I'll fill their mouths with gold". It worked.
Now a similar scheme seems to have been deployed, as consultant jobs in A and E aren't the most desirable or prestigious appointments- at least until now. I imagine if the claims made by the Telegraph are true (and I'm not certain they are) they are going to get a lot more popular, and soon.
One last thing. Let us put the income of doctors in context. Dentists make more money than doctors. So do lawyers. Footballers and managers make far more. Senior bankers and directors of multinationals make far more than that. And as for oil-rich sheiks and Russian oligarchs (to say nothing of the hidden trillionaires currently shielded from our view in China) well, they're in a league of their own...
If we take inflation into account, however, I probably got paid a lot more than that for a five day locum at Butlins in Minehead in the long lost era of 1976. I took away £1200 for my services, which consisted largely of treating the guests for diarrhoea and vomiting and the staff for a variety of venereal diseases. But this amount was nothing compared to what the practice who employed me netted. In those days you could submit a form called an "FP 81" for every patient you saw between 11 pm and 8 am, and this attracted a fee of around £80, even at that time. The senior partner explained how it worked: In the early evening, if I was asked to see a patient I was advised to stall them until after 11 pm, then see them and fill in the little goldmine called the FP 81. If I made over £1000 in less than a week, the practice walked away with nearly five times that amount. The reason for my very attractive pay-rate, of course, was that nobody wanted to do it. Strange thing, my memories of that time are that I had a whale of a time, But that's another story...
When the NHS was rolled out in 1948 there was a problem about persuading consultants and GPs to sign up. Aneurin Bevan managed to bring them on board by first, giving GPs a self-employed status so they retained a great measure of autonomy in the way they organised their businesses, and the consultants were finally placated by the introduction of the famous and highly lucrative "merit awards", which ensured consultants could never complain about the money they made. Bevan famously said at the time: "I'll fill their mouths with gold". It worked.
Now a similar scheme seems to have been deployed, as consultant jobs in A and E aren't the most desirable or prestigious appointments- at least until now. I imagine if the claims made by the Telegraph are true (and I'm not certain they are) they are going to get a lot more popular, and soon.
One last thing. Let us put the income of doctors in context. Dentists make more money than doctors. So do lawyers. Footballers and managers make far more. Senior bankers and directors of multinationals make far more than that. And as for oil-rich sheiks and Russian oligarchs (to say nothing of the hidden trillionaires currently shielded from our view in China) well, they're in a league of their own...
Thursday, 13 February 2014
What makes me angry?
The other day I was talking to my dear friend Pat Graham about his own blog, which sometimes drips with bile and vitriol on a number of subjects (like me he loathes cant and hypocrisy; in his case he reserves a special level of hostility for the abuses inside the catholic church). I am usually a calm person, but he asked me: what makes you angry, Steve?
Today I want to cover a subject that fills me with an almost murderous rage: the poaching industry and in particular the conscienceless twats in the middle and far east who supply the demand for that hideous trade.
When I was born in 1951, millions of elephants roamed the vast savannahs of Africa, even after the big game hunters from Europe and the US had their fill of pointless slaughter. In Asia, tigers were also hunted, sometimes because they posed a threat to human beings, but thousand upon thousand of these magnificent creatures lived relatively unmolested in the wild. I pick just these two examples out of hundreds of noble creatures that were common in those days. There are many others, like the incredible pangolin of Brazil, one of the worlds most extraordinary creatures, which has been hunted almost to extinction, partly to supply zoos in the west.
Today the tiger is an endangered species, and elephants are fast approaching a similar status. Why?
In the last twenty years, with the amazing expansion of the "Tiger" economies (that's ironic, isn't it?) and especially China, getting on for 100 million people have attained the status of millionaires. Can you imagine? A new country, with the population the size of Germany, all of whom have only recently acquired immense purchasing power. And what do they want to spend their new found wealth on? Well, we know they like to travel. You can't visit a famous place anywhere in the world now, as we found in Norway last year, without rubbing shoulders with hordes of travellers from Japan, China, South Korea and so on. If it were only that, it wouldn't be so bad. But they also want ivory, tiger penises and rhino horn for their own ignorant purposes without, apparently, the slightest care about the devastating effect their desires have on the world's wildlife. It's the old thing of power without responsibility. I wonder no one has told them Viagra works a lot better than these folk medicines.
If we take the case of China, we find there are no laws concerning the protection of animals. So it's hardly likely they're going to give a toss about animals elsewhere, except in so far as how they can exploit them for their own, incredibly stupid and selfish ends.
So yes, I am bitterly opposed to poaching, though not so much to the people on the ground who are probably poor and eking out a living in the only way they know how, but the cynical pigs in the far east who demand the products with which the poachers supply them .
Finally, while at one level I applaud Prince Charles and his son for fronting up the anti-poaching campaign, I do think it a bit of a shame that the organisers couldn't have found someone who didn't have a history of killing animals for fun built into his very genes. Now that's what I call hypocrisy...
Today I want to cover a subject that fills me with an almost murderous rage: the poaching industry and in particular the conscienceless twats in the middle and far east who supply the demand for that hideous trade.
When I was born in 1951, millions of elephants roamed the vast savannahs of Africa, even after the big game hunters from Europe and the US had their fill of pointless slaughter. In Asia, tigers were also hunted, sometimes because they posed a threat to human beings, but thousand upon thousand of these magnificent creatures lived relatively unmolested in the wild. I pick just these two examples out of hundreds of noble creatures that were common in those days. There are many others, like the incredible pangolin of Brazil, one of the worlds most extraordinary creatures, which has been hunted almost to extinction, partly to supply zoos in the west.
Today the tiger is an endangered species, and elephants are fast approaching a similar status. Why?
In the last twenty years, with the amazing expansion of the "Tiger" economies (that's ironic, isn't it?) and especially China, getting on for 100 million people have attained the status of millionaires. Can you imagine? A new country, with the population the size of Germany, all of whom have only recently acquired immense purchasing power. And what do they want to spend their new found wealth on? Well, we know they like to travel. You can't visit a famous place anywhere in the world now, as we found in Norway last year, without rubbing shoulders with hordes of travellers from Japan, China, South Korea and so on. If it were only that, it wouldn't be so bad. But they also want ivory, tiger penises and rhino horn for their own ignorant purposes without, apparently, the slightest care about the devastating effect their desires have on the world's wildlife. It's the old thing of power without responsibility. I wonder no one has told them Viagra works a lot better than these folk medicines.
If we take the case of China, we find there are no laws concerning the protection of animals. So it's hardly likely they're going to give a toss about animals elsewhere, except in so far as how they can exploit them for their own, incredibly stupid and selfish ends.
So yes, I am bitterly opposed to poaching, though not so much to the people on the ground who are probably poor and eking out a living in the only way they know how, but the cynical pigs in the far east who demand the products with which the poachers supply them .
Finally, while at one level I applaud Prince Charles and his son for fronting up the anti-poaching campaign, I do think it a bit of a shame that the organisers couldn't have found someone who didn't have a history of killing animals for fun built into his very genes. Now that's what I call hypocrisy...
Monday, 10 February 2014
Don't give foreign aid: we need it here at home!
Is one of those hoary old chestnuts that gets trotted out, knee-jerk style, every time there's some sort of crisis on the home front. Housing the homeless, funding small business, and now of course the floods.
We have heard this tired old refrain several times in the last few days coming out of the flooded areas. Even one of the fire fighters, prompted none too subtly by his media interviewer, came out with it. So it feels necessary to nail this once and for all.
Interestingly enough, it's something I myself believed, fifty years ago. I was selected by my school to be one of the pupils to talk to Judith Hart, the eminent left wing minister for overseas development in Harold Wilson's government who was visiting our school, and it was she who first explained to me what was wrong with the argument. First the fact that the countries we give aid to are grindingly poor, poor in a way no-one in Britain could even understand, never mind experience, and the fact that the governments of these countries act in a way we might not necessarily approve is neither here nor there.
Second, we owe a number of donor-recipient countries an enormous debt which is often conveniently forgotten in debates of this kind. Haven't you ever looked at a map of the world and wondered how a piddling little off-shore island became one of the wealthiest nations in the history of the world? The answer is simple, if not very palatable to us now. We stole it, and in large part from those countries who are now in receipt of our aid. Which is as it should be. You could call it "giving something back" if you like, and what we give back is but a tiny fraction of what we took in the past.
Which brings me to the final point: this nation is so rich we can give a few billion in aid and scarcely notice it in a general budget which stretches to trillions. In other words, enough of the bleating about "charity begins at home". Sure the flooded areas need help and plenty of it, but we can afford that and foreign aid. Let's face it, we're loaded.
We have heard this tired old refrain several times in the last few days coming out of the flooded areas. Even one of the fire fighters, prompted none too subtly by his media interviewer, came out with it. So it feels necessary to nail this once and for all.
Interestingly enough, it's something I myself believed, fifty years ago. I was selected by my school to be one of the pupils to talk to Judith Hart, the eminent left wing minister for overseas development in Harold Wilson's government who was visiting our school, and it was she who first explained to me what was wrong with the argument. First the fact that the countries we give aid to are grindingly poor, poor in a way no-one in Britain could even understand, never mind experience, and the fact that the governments of these countries act in a way we might not necessarily approve is neither here nor there.
Second, we owe a number of donor-recipient countries an enormous debt which is often conveniently forgotten in debates of this kind. Haven't you ever looked at a map of the world and wondered how a piddling little off-shore island became one of the wealthiest nations in the history of the world? The answer is simple, if not very palatable to us now. We stole it, and in large part from those countries who are now in receipt of our aid. Which is as it should be. You could call it "giving something back" if you like, and what we give back is but a tiny fraction of what we took in the past.
Which brings me to the final point: this nation is so rich we can give a few billion in aid and scarcely notice it in a general budget which stretches to trillions. In other words, enough of the bleating about "charity begins at home". Sure the flooded areas need help and plenty of it, but we can afford that and foreign aid. Let's face it, we're loaded.
Friday, 7 February 2014
Let's hear it for the SSSU!
It stands for Short Stay Surgical Unit, and it is where I spent 24 hours earlier this week following my corneal transplant. The SSSU is a big operation: 30 beds with pretty much 100% occupancy, catering for all manner of things surgical, either booked or emergencies transferred form A and E. The nurses there take on all comers with equal efficiency and equanimity.
Par example, let me list the cases sharing the ward with me last Monday night. On my right was an elderly man whose catheter had blocked with blood following surgery the week before. Down from him was a man who, while protecting his sister from her crazed, knife wielding boyfriend, had punched him in the mouth. He was able to recover the knife, but sustained injuries to his hand from the man's teeth, which had then become horribly infected. He needed surgery to release the huge bag of pus that had accumulated in his hand.
Across from me was a man who had chastised his husky dog (with a stick) for peeing in the house but was then paid back by being badly bitten on his arm. This too had become infected to the point where he too required surgery. Next to him was a young man who had been out on the lash with his best friend, who then unaccountably (according to his story) kicked him, twice, in the face, shattering his nasal bones which required re-setting. As I left the unit on Tuesday morning, a new batch of patients was already being processed, doubtless with a new set of highly diverse issues.
But back to me, obviously my favourite subject. As I have stated above, I was in for a corneal transplant to address my worsening Fuch's syndrome. Followers of this blog may recall my mentioning this hereditary problem, which affects both my eyes, but the left more severely. The defect lies in the back layer of the cornea, the endothelium, a delicate membrane only one cell thick, but which carries out the vital role of removing fluid from the cornea as a whole. When it fails, the cornea becomes waterlogged leading to a fogging of the vision and if untreated, leads to a bursting of the whole cornea which, as we might imagine, results in permanent blindness. By sheer coincidence, my NHS allocated surgeon, Vinod Kumar, just happens to be one of the world leaders in partial thickness corneal grafts, specifically a procedure called a DSEK (Desemet's Stripping Endothelial Keratoplasty, no less).
Corneal transplants have been around for a long time. The first, remarkably, was performed as long ago as 1905, though in the early days, most were full-thickness grafts, performed for scarring as a result of trauma or infection. Only by 1998 were partial thickness grafts attempted, and Kumar's procedure only in the last seven years. At the end of the operation, a small bubble of air is introduced into the front of the eye to press the graft up against the rest of the cornea. It must stay in place for 48 hours until the air is absorbed, because if the bubble should move it can engender acute glaucoma and threaten the eyesight and even sometimes life itself. So I was ordered to lie on my back for 24 hours, staring at the ceiling with just five minutes per hour allowed to get up and go to the loo, though the head must be held back at all times. Have you tried peeing with your head back? I assure you it is a tricky, and rather messy procedure. When I was released back into the wild at 24 hours I had to keep the practice up for a further day, though obviously these things are always easier at home.
Upon my release my vision in the left eye was zero, not total blackness as you might expect, but an all enveloping, milky whiteness. I am delighted to announce, however, that each day has brought a small improvement. What stays with me from the whole experience is the strange torture of being confined to a supine position for two days, meticulously obeying orders for fear of the dire consequences of failing to do so. That and the awed respect I feel for all the professionals who cared for me, from the bloke who made the tea and toast, to the nurses who were so kind and thoughtful, to the doctors who did their job with such a lightness of touch but such a high level of skill. Thanks NHS! You done me proud!
Par example, let me list the cases sharing the ward with me last Monday night. On my right was an elderly man whose catheter had blocked with blood following surgery the week before. Down from him was a man who, while protecting his sister from her crazed, knife wielding boyfriend, had punched him in the mouth. He was able to recover the knife, but sustained injuries to his hand from the man's teeth, which had then become horribly infected. He needed surgery to release the huge bag of pus that had accumulated in his hand.
Across from me was a man who had chastised his husky dog (with a stick) for peeing in the house but was then paid back by being badly bitten on his arm. This too had become infected to the point where he too required surgery. Next to him was a young man who had been out on the lash with his best friend, who then unaccountably (according to his story) kicked him, twice, in the face, shattering his nasal bones which required re-setting. As I left the unit on Tuesday morning, a new batch of patients was already being processed, doubtless with a new set of highly diverse issues.
But back to me, obviously my favourite subject. As I have stated above, I was in for a corneal transplant to address my worsening Fuch's syndrome. Followers of this blog may recall my mentioning this hereditary problem, which affects both my eyes, but the left more severely. The defect lies in the back layer of the cornea, the endothelium, a delicate membrane only one cell thick, but which carries out the vital role of removing fluid from the cornea as a whole. When it fails, the cornea becomes waterlogged leading to a fogging of the vision and if untreated, leads to a bursting of the whole cornea which, as we might imagine, results in permanent blindness. By sheer coincidence, my NHS allocated surgeon, Vinod Kumar, just happens to be one of the world leaders in partial thickness corneal grafts, specifically a procedure called a DSEK (Desemet's Stripping Endothelial Keratoplasty, no less).
Corneal transplants have been around for a long time. The first, remarkably, was performed as long ago as 1905, though in the early days, most were full-thickness grafts, performed for scarring as a result of trauma or infection. Only by 1998 were partial thickness grafts attempted, and Kumar's procedure only in the last seven years. At the end of the operation, a small bubble of air is introduced into the front of the eye to press the graft up against the rest of the cornea. It must stay in place for 48 hours until the air is absorbed, because if the bubble should move it can engender acute glaucoma and threaten the eyesight and even sometimes life itself. So I was ordered to lie on my back for 24 hours, staring at the ceiling with just five minutes per hour allowed to get up and go to the loo, though the head must be held back at all times. Have you tried peeing with your head back? I assure you it is a tricky, and rather messy procedure. When I was released back into the wild at 24 hours I had to keep the practice up for a further day, though obviously these things are always easier at home.
Upon my release my vision in the left eye was zero, not total blackness as you might expect, but an all enveloping, milky whiteness. I am delighted to announce, however, that each day has brought a small improvement. What stays with me from the whole experience is the strange torture of being confined to a supine position for two days, meticulously obeying orders for fear of the dire consequences of failing to do so. That and the awed respect I feel for all the professionals who cared for me, from the bloke who made the tea and toast, to the nurses who were so kind and thoughtful, to the doctors who did their job with such a lightness of touch but such a high level of skill. Thanks NHS! You done me proud!
Saturday, 1 February 2014
Media supplement: Breaking Bad
Having watched the entire five series run of BB in the two months running up to Christmas last year, I have been meaning to write about the immense pleasure it has given me. Then one night I was watching Family Guy when the following scene took place: Peter is watching TV in bed (a favourite activity of mine, hence you can see how much I identify with the obese one) when the opening credits of BB begin to roll. Then the announcer speaks and Peter is plunged into an hypnotic state of enhanced suggestibility:
Announcer: Breaking Bad is the greatest thing on TV ever, except possibly The Wire
Peter: Breaking Bad is the greatest thing on TV ever except possibly The Wire
Announcer: You will recommend Breaking Bad to all your friends
Peter: I will recommend Breaking Bad to all my friends
Announcer: You will never stop talking about Breaking Bad and The Wire
Peter: I will never stop talking about Breaking Bad and The Wire
Then I didn't feel so good. OMG, here was me, lampooned in a popular TV programme! No matter BB and The Wire are probably the best things to come out of American TV. Now I'd seen this I found myself in an embarrassing situation. Thing is, I do think BB is an example of TV drama at its zenith, but now Seth McFarlane has made fun of me and those of like mind, where do we go? The answer, I think, is bugger you Seth. I like it and I'm not afraid to say it. Having got that out of the way, let's talk.
To begin with, for those of you who haven't caught it yet, let me give you a quick synopsis. Walter White is an unassuming chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with lung cancer. He casts around for ideas to secure his family's future after he is gone, and by chance comes across a former student, Jessie Pinkman (brilliantly played by Aaron Paul) who has set up a methamphetamine lab in his RV. Appalled by his slipshod methods, Walter offers to show him how to do it properly. In no time they are producing meth of the highest quality which when it hits the street becomes highly sought after, and highly profitable. Before long the biggest meth distributor in the south-west (the series is set in Albuquerque) is trying to recruit Walter (who has now assumed the moniker of Heisenberg) to his own operation. Everything now begins to move with frightening speed, if you'll forgive the pun. Any more detail would threaten to spoil the plot, which is drawn with a masterful touch by the series' creator, Vince Gilligan. But I will say that there are some truly wonderful moments contained within a totally absorbing scenario. Like the day when everything gets too much for Jessie, who quits the operation and sinks into a serious meth addiction himself. The moment when Walter seeks him out in a flop house to rescue his young friend is like a descent into hell. Yet in the mind of sensitive, caring, middle class Walter there never seems to be a thought that he himself is contributing to this human carnage with the product he manufactures with such loving care. And here, for me, is the essence of the pull of BB. In Walter White we seem to have that rarest of creatures, the psychopath with a conscience, the monster with a heart of gold.
It is these contradictions which make it so compelling to watch. That and the acting. I have already mentioned Aaron Paul, but there is also Anna Gunn, who plays Walter's long-suffering wife, along with Dean Norris, who plays Walter's brother-in-law Hank. Oh, didn't I mention? Hank just happens a high level agent working with the New Mexico DEA, and he has dedicated his life to bringing Heisenberg down. Ironic, huh? And we shouldn't forget Bob Odenkirk, who plays the amoral lawyer Saul Goodman. They even built a spin-off series around him, though I don't know what happened to it. I suspect without the charisma of Heisenberg it died stillborn, but I could be wrong.
Finally, it would be wrong not to mention Bryan Cranston's astounding achievement in bringing Walter White to life. It is said even Anthony Hopkins rang him up at one point and congratulated him on what Hopkins considered to be the finest example of acting he'd ever seen in a TV programme. Now that's what I call a compliment...
Announcer: Breaking Bad is the greatest thing on TV ever, except possibly The Wire
Peter: Breaking Bad is the greatest thing on TV ever except possibly The Wire
Announcer: You will recommend Breaking Bad to all your friends
Peter: I will recommend Breaking Bad to all my friends
Announcer: You will never stop talking about Breaking Bad and The Wire
Peter: I will never stop talking about Breaking Bad and The Wire
Then I didn't feel so good. OMG, here was me, lampooned in a popular TV programme! No matter BB and The Wire are probably the best things to come out of American TV. Now I'd seen this I found myself in an embarrassing situation. Thing is, I do think BB is an example of TV drama at its zenith, but now Seth McFarlane has made fun of me and those of like mind, where do we go? The answer, I think, is bugger you Seth. I like it and I'm not afraid to say it. Having got that out of the way, let's talk.
To begin with, for those of you who haven't caught it yet, let me give you a quick synopsis. Walter White is an unassuming chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with lung cancer. He casts around for ideas to secure his family's future after he is gone, and by chance comes across a former student, Jessie Pinkman (brilliantly played by Aaron Paul) who has set up a methamphetamine lab in his RV. Appalled by his slipshod methods, Walter offers to show him how to do it properly. In no time they are producing meth of the highest quality which when it hits the street becomes highly sought after, and highly profitable. Before long the biggest meth distributor in the south-west (the series is set in Albuquerque) is trying to recruit Walter (who has now assumed the moniker of Heisenberg) to his own operation. Everything now begins to move with frightening speed, if you'll forgive the pun. Any more detail would threaten to spoil the plot, which is drawn with a masterful touch by the series' creator, Vince Gilligan. But I will say that there are some truly wonderful moments contained within a totally absorbing scenario. Like the day when everything gets too much for Jessie, who quits the operation and sinks into a serious meth addiction himself. The moment when Walter seeks him out in a flop house to rescue his young friend is like a descent into hell. Yet in the mind of sensitive, caring, middle class Walter there never seems to be a thought that he himself is contributing to this human carnage with the product he manufactures with such loving care. And here, for me, is the essence of the pull of BB. In Walter White we seem to have that rarest of creatures, the psychopath with a conscience, the monster with a heart of gold.
It is these contradictions which make it so compelling to watch. That and the acting. I have already mentioned Aaron Paul, but there is also Anna Gunn, who plays Walter's long-suffering wife, along with Dean Norris, who plays Walter's brother-in-law Hank. Oh, didn't I mention? Hank just happens a high level agent working with the New Mexico DEA, and he has dedicated his life to bringing Heisenberg down. Ironic, huh? And we shouldn't forget Bob Odenkirk, who plays the amoral lawyer Saul Goodman. They even built a spin-off series around him, though I don't know what happened to it. I suspect without the charisma of Heisenberg it died stillborn, but I could be wrong.
Finally, it would be wrong not to mention Bryan Cranston's astounding achievement in bringing Walter White to life. It is said even Anthony Hopkins rang him up at one point and congratulated him on what Hopkins considered to be the finest example of acting he'd ever seen in a TV programme. Now that's what I call a compliment...
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