23 February 2011

The misery in New Zealand continues with more bodies being found and hundreds still missing in the rubble. This is probably the worst disaster to strike this small island country of 9 million people in living memory.
Yesterday I mentioned Ethiopia. I had occasion to visit the capital, Addis Ababa, a few times when I was running on the Aden office and we were responsible there are for some building project are other. In fact, whenever I went I used to play polo with a friend of mine from Peat Marwick’s office. On one of these trips I was told that the Emperor’s mother made her income from charging the prostitutes, of which there were a large number in the red light district (or so I was told!) a small sum for each of their nightly clients. I remember that this prompted me to write a short cheeky article in the local Aden Times entitled, something like Queen Mum’s Bob a Knob. I should explain that ‘ a bob’ was another name for a shilling, or in today’s parlance 7 ½.p and ‘a knob’ is another name for… well, you work that out.
As I had not received a copy of the consultants report on my visit to Addenbrooke’s Hospital, over two weeks ago, ago for the x-rays on my painful joints and the bone scan, I gave them a ring to find out what had happened to the report. As a result I was sent a document all about the Information of Freedom Act and an application form. The long and short of it was that I would have to pay a fee of £10 for individual elements of my medical records or if I wanted them complete with x-rays and then the fee was £50. I must say I was pretty shocked at this. All I wanted was the normal consultant’s report on the visit which I will now have to wait for, as I have no intention of paying those sort of fees.
Today was the day of the school half term visit of Chloe, and the three grand children, Fred, Seb and Lara and what a lovely day we all had together. (Karl, was doing his stuff at some County Court or other) The children were on their best behaviour and I did not witness any of the normal squabbling amongst siblings. Maybe, as they are growing up, they are getting more tolerant of each other. Who knows, miracles do happen! We resuscitated the table tennis table and the darts board which occupied them happily for some time. Unfortunately it was raining and they were unable to go down to the local playground but I was able to keep them amused with some of the very wonderful photographs and videos and I’ve accumulated on my laptop. I was very impressed at how adept was Fred on operating the laptop. He can move around it like a veteran and can already almost touch type. Like most of the younger generation, I suppose, this will all become second nature to them leaving us Oldies still struggling with the basics. Such is life.