23 October 2011

A great start to the day with an early morning television broadcast of the final of the World Rugby Championship in New Zealand. The All Blacks were meant to annihilate the opposition, France but the French for the final battle and New Zealand only one by 1.1 with a closing score of 8-7. Surprisingly, this was New Zealand’s first win as world champions for 24 years despite their dominating rugby for the best part of that period.

Immediately after the rugby. I switched the radio onto the cricket, the One-Day International between England and India. England received another real drubbing at the hands of India making it four ODI’s lost in a row. One more to go in the series which will pretty much mark the end of the cricket season in this country. I can already hear the excited noise coming from the spectators from the village football pitch, which is 200/300 yards away as the crow flies So what used to be quite distinct seasons now blend seamlessly one from the other.

Smiler and Kimberly drove down for lunch today. It was lovely seeinthem both even if it was for just a few hours.The weather wasn’t all that bad. In fact it was quite warm in the sunshine, but there was rather a strong wind blowing. We stuck it out side long enough to have a drink and smoke before adjourning for lunch to the breakfast room. We keep thinking that we’ve have had the last of the summer days when we can sit out in the garden but then we get another sunny day, which, although not really hot, is certainly bearable to sit out. After all, it is a very long winter.

Even a short break from sitting in the same chair for 14 hours do seem to make a difference to me and the sunshine tops up my vitamin D. I recall, just after the war, a young friend of mine, who had contracted tuberculosis, which was not uncommon in those days, being sent off to Switzerland, where they spend a great deal of time outside in the fresh air, sometimes with their beds on the verandah, which ran round the hospital buildings, even in the winter. Of course, they were well wrapped up .Apparently it was something to do with the fine clear healthy air. I’m not aware that this is currently practised as I believe that tuberculosis has all but been eradicated.

I also recall as a young man seeing notices in the butchers shop, flagging a piece of meat, which said, For Human Consumption Only and thinking, at the time, how strange that this particular meat should be beneficial to people who suffered from tuberculosis (which was also known as consumption) .It was soon pointed out to me that it meant that the meat should only be consumed by humans ,as it was horse meat and presumably should not given to other animals as the idea of one animal feeding off the flesh of another, seemed abhorrent.

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22 October 2011

Last night in bed was the worst ever. Not only were my knees and hip painful for but my left shoulder was excruciating and, in addition, I had a strange pain in the sole of my heel. It was like a red hot poker being thrust into it or large piece of broken glass. Contrary to what I would have thought most of these pains almost disappeared as soon as I was sitting up on the edge of the bed.

The good Dr Michael, who was still here at the time might have suspected bone cancer. if it were not for the fact that I had a bone scan quite recently to eliminate that cause, .It will be very interesting to see what the pain consultant has to say about it when I go to the Rank Hospice the week after next. The good doctor Michael has left behind a pain patch which he gave to his sister, Jenny, when she was dying recently from cancer – I imagine it is some of slow release morphine.He does not like to use this on me until it has been cleared by my team docter as it may affect my breathing but I shall certainly bring it up at my next consultation.

The flying Dr left just before 9 a.m. but he will be back within a couple of week’s It’s great to have him here. even for short periods, for not only do we get the pleasure of his company, but also the benefit of his extensive medical experience. It’s like having one’s own private physician.

Paul came just after lunch so that Alice could go and do some shopping and we spent a couple of useful hours on the computer. I have still not heard from Ruben at Dragon despite my daily telephone calls and always finding him busy promising ,through an intermediary, to ring me back, but never does. I think this is appallingly discourteous, even if all he had to say is that he is still awaiting a response from the US. The last e-mail I sent to him. I reminded him of the short lifespan of an MND patient and suggested that if they were going to take another six months to answer the latest information I sent to them, then not to bother, as I would probably be dead! I also told him that I had made 53 telephone calls to his number and just discovered that it was at a premium rate, admittedly not a high one, but high enough to have added around £40 to my telephone bill, which I suggested they refunded. I shall inform him next time that I believe that his company could be sued for ‘fraudulent misrepresentation’ as the girl who answered the technical helpline claims that the service they are providing is free. In addition, I believe I would have an action against Dragon on the grounds that this software is not’ fit for purpose’.

You can see how desperate I am becoming to resolve this problem. Even this droll humour and veiled threats did not embarrass insufficiently to return my calls. The problem is there is no alternative for me at this stage. After investing 20 years and several thousand pounds into this voice activation programme, there is no way that I can start again with some other software, so I will just have to persevere.

A new problem has arisen recently, which even perplexes Paul, whereby if I am the dictating to the Dragon pad or tapping out single words with my one splnted finger, after two or three letters, the cursor jumps back several words and puts the balance of the word, which I am trying to write, in the middle of earlier text. This is extremely frustrating and takes a lot of tidying up. Whether this has anything to do with Dragon or some other problem, I have yet to find out.

I take my mind off all this frustration by laughing at some of the many jokes and anecdotes which are sent to me. This one is not entirely politically correct but should only offend illegal immigrants who should not be here in the first place. I wonder whether  the counties from whence they come would be so generous to any of our citizens who illegally entered their country? Chick here.

21 October 2011

The good Dr Michael arrived late afternoon rom Australia (just at the appropriate time to crack open a bottle of champagne! – when the sun sets over the yard arm) en route to Sweden. He’s just stayed the night but will be back in early November. He is very fortunate in that, like me, he never allows himself to worry about jetlag. When I was doing a lot of travelling in my business (three times round the world in two years) whenever time I arrived in a foreign country. I picked myself up as if it was a normal day even if I’d been travelling for 40 or 50 hours. Mick is the same, and in that regard I suppose we are extremely fortunate. I was prompted to think about this when I saw our dear 85-year-old Queen emerging from an aircraft in Australia yesterday having been in the air for 22 hours, looking as though she had left home, just, minutes before. That is, not to mention her husband the 91-year-old, Duke of Edinburgh. This was the Queens 18th.. visit to Australia since since she ascended to the throne. They are pretty amazing coupl

At last the Libyan rebels have finally caught Gaddafi, it smacks of the capture of Saddam Hussein, only this time, instead of hiding in a purpose made manhole under ground, Gaddafi, was found in a ventilation pipe with one of his sons. It seems that they dragged him out alive. shooting him in the leg while he was either in the ventilation pipe or immediately after he came out. Then the lynch mob mentality look over and he was shot several times but this time for real and he was killed. I suppose it’s a blessing in some ways, as it will avoid years of legal argument. had he been kept alive and taken to trial. Now we will see whether the new regime is any better than the old one. How many times in the past have we supported revolutionaries to get rid of a particular tyrant, giving them, a great deal of money, only to find some years later they were just as corrupt and tyronical as the last one. We will see. To my mind, we might well have to lend them some money to set up a proper administration and the economy moving again. But the big difference between Libya and the other countries we have helped in the past, is it’s immense oil wealth and its small population, only 6.4 million. On paper, every Libyan citizen could be relatively well off with free health schooling, etc and other matters that the rest of us have to pay for. All they really need is expertise then, when they are up and running again, they can repay us any money that we lent to them.

Another milestone was reached yesterday with the eviction of the Dale Farm gypsies (or so called travellers) after a 10 year legal battle with Basildon Council. Fortunately there was very little violence in the eviction except for the savage attacks on the police by the so-called supporters. It was interesting to see around 400 ‘travellers’ and their agitator supporters marching out and scarcely a caravan insight. It seems that they had moved most of them onto the legal site next door, presumably to avoid any damage to their property. “Where are you going to sleep tonight.”, asked one reporter, “I’ve no idea.”, was the plaintive reply. I know exactly where they will be sleeping where most of them have been sleeping for the last 10 years, in their own comfortable caravans.

We must not make a mistake or feeling sorry for these people who have cocked a snout at the law for so long. They have been far more fortunate than most other travellers who have been a evicted from illegal sites in the past. According to the television reporter they have been offered a site around 1 mile away, there were also offered housing, both of which were ‘culturally unacceptable’ (whatever that means). Add to that the disclosure on the Panorama television programme which explored a village in Ireland, where 80% of the houses are owned by some of these travellers and sympathy goes out the window.

So it apparently cost the good citizens of Basildon £22 million to get rid of them, not to mention the millions spent over the last 10 years on legal fees, but the travellers themselves were determined not to suffer any losses by removing their caravans temporarily to the legal site next door.

Talking of gypsies reminded me of a little Story.  Click  here and have a groan!

 

 

 

20 October 2011

Tony and Jill (Griggs see yesterday’s the joke!) came to lunch with us today at the Cricketers. As it happens, I had not seen Griggsy for a month as he has not been able to play golf due to a bout of sciatica, so it was particularly nice to see them both. They were quite amused by yesterday’s Tony and Jill joke. Tony, pulled my leg and asked Jill to show. .me her bruise .”What bruise”,. asked Jill .”Why”, said Tony, “the one you got when you fell out of the helicopter 

It was quite warm in the sunshine but .sadly, it was far too cold to eat outside so, after a quick drink and a small cigar, we moved inside.

If you think that the modern car has too many gadgets and switches just think what having to remember what all the switches in the cockpit of the spacecraft Discovery do. Imagine, if during a flight, you suffered from what is politically correctly known as ‘short-term cognitive impairment’ in other words, short-term loss of memory. You know the sort of thing, getting to the top of the stairs and wondering why you’re there, or what it was you came up to do. Well look at the video at the end of this entry. This 360 degree image auto plays but you can move the camera around for yourself. Use the arrow keys to move left, right, up & down, or you can also just click and drag the camera view around it with your mouse.

This incredible spaceship interior sparked off memories of a fascinating programme I saw on television, some time ago, called Edge of the Universe. My regular readers will know that space and the universe hold a great fascination for me. I am not going into a lot of detail about this programme, as I have in the past, in order not to bore those of you whose eyes glaze over at t5he mention of space, except to say that our galaxy, The Milky Way. is said to contain 200,000,000,000,000 (200 billion) stars and bearing in mind that our galaxy is only one of billions of other galaxies that’s a pretty impressive figure.

In  this film we saw the famous Keck telescopes in Hawaii which are so powerful they could detect a candle light on the moon. These telescopes are engaged in seeking out planets where some form of life could exist. To put it in its simplest form, as I understand it,the presence of water, an atmosphere, a reasonable range in temperature and the right combination of gases.

The breakthrough came in 1995, by a young student reading for his Ph.D. in Switzerland, who observed a star called 51Peg, – so called because it’s the brightest star in the Pegasus constellation –which seemed most promising. What was even more amazing about this was that even at the speed of light (186,000 miles./sec). the light from that star had taken over 50 years to reach us. It makes you think doesn’t it?

Readers may remember that I recently mentioned the opening of the 27km long accelerator at Cern, in Switzerland. The object of this accelerator . is to speed particles up to the speed of light. In doing so they recently discovered, that, what they call neutrinos, actually travel faster than the speed of light, which previously was thought impossible. All modern scientific thinking is based on the fact that the speed of light is absolute. In fact, the scientists have now calculated that neutrino travels at one 50 billionth of a second faster than the speed of light (186,000 mi./s – how on earth can they measure that?). If this is indeed true, then it has turned modern scientific thinking on its head and in theory opens up the possibility of time travel. Without boring the reader any more ,in order to show how small the neutrino is, and therefore cannot be seen, in relation to the size of the whole of our galaxy, The Milky Way, a neutrine would be his big as a golf ball. (I knew that, if I tried hard enough I could bring this subject back to golf!)

 Click here to see the amazing cockpit of the spacecraft Discovery and imagine having to know what every switch or dial does Get it wrong and you could be floating around in space forever!

19 October 2011

Paul, appeared for half an hour to babysit me before Jane arrived at 11.00. I was able to take advantage of this brief visit to get him to convert some of my incoming jokes etc to Word documents – they often come in enclosing in a table which makes it difficult to open.

I heard on the wireless this morning some nonsensical idea being put forward by someone in the government that over 60-year-olds should consider selling their bigger houses with unused bedrooms and moving into something smaller, to make way for the young people who need the extra rooms. What a lot of nonsense. This sort of thing smacks of dictatorship, Animal Farm, etc. As much as anything else, an Englishman’s home is his castle and we should not be told by the government or anyone else what to do with it. In any event, the idea makes little sense as the bigger house would probably be beyond the means of the young people anyway. I could probably make a good argument for the complete reverse. In other words, if some elderly people live in a small house, they should consider moving into a bigger house and releasing the small house onto the market, which, no doubt, will be more affordable than a big one

Talking of an Englishman’s home being hiscastle, the Dale Farm eviction of the illegal so called travellers’ at last starting today. This is at the end of 10 years of legal argument and although it is estimated to cost between £18- £20 million and on those figures it would seem to make much more sense to leave them there, I agree with the judges who say it is a matter of the law. Once one exception is made to allow people to build on the green belt. then, no doubt, many others would attempt to follow and we would end up with ribbon development linking all our towns and village.

Basildon Council sent in 150 police in riot gear to clear the way for the bailiffs. Inevitably, there was a certain amount of battling going on between the agitators and the police but it seems that the whole affair was managed without anyone getting seriously hurt. The most vicious and violent response appears to have come from the agitators, many of whom are more interested in a good fight with the police than they are about rights and wrongs of Dale Farm.

When this one is cut and dried a number of the diehard agitators will, no doubt, move onto the next protest. I am not denying that there are not people amongst these agitators who genuinely support the Dale Farm cause but there are many more who don’t. It must be remembered that these ‘travellers have been offered another site about a mile away as well as other land and housing which they have rejected on the ground that they are culturally unacceptable, whatever that means. Also, according to a television programme I saw, a number of them own finevillas in Ireland, so there is no question of anyone being made homeless.

Most of such protests ultimately prove to be pointless. Rather like the 24-hour general strike, which is currently taking place in Greece. Thousands protesting against the austerity plans being implemented by the government in order to try to prevent Greece defaulting on its loans. What is the point of a General Strike and making the situation even worse – it is called ‘cutting off your nose to spite your face.’ The Greeks have got themselves in this financial mess over many years and now must face up to the consequences. Certainly striking will only make matters worse, everyone, rich and poor, will have to make minor sacrifices and then by all pulling together and putting up with things they will drag themselves out of the hole they have made for themselves. It is touch and go whether they will make it or go bankrupt, which is without precedent in the European Union. Unfortunately, if that does happen, although we are not in the Eurozone, we too will be affected and our now economy is fragile enough without having to face the additional strain. A defection such we might see in Greece could well bring down the whole pack of cards and the economic reverberations wound be felt world wide.

How bad is the economy. Click here to find out.

18 October 2011

I did go after all, to the golf club today despite the very strong chilly wind. The temperature was supposed to be 12 or 13 centigrade but I suspect the wind chill factor reduced that to around 7° C. I wore my Swedish padded jacket, a scarf and a woolly hat, so managed to complete the course without getting totally frozen.

Those members present in the bar before we went into lunch had a quick vote and granted me unprecedented permission te smoke small cigar (totally illegal now to smoke indoors), adjacent to an open door. It was very kind of them. Perhaps they would not have been so bold had Scott, the secretary, not been away!

It is that sort of situation which you could call stress. Here are is an amusing example of stress. Click here

17 October 2011

I am glad to say what I woke up feeling no worse for yesterday’s excesses.

I can hardly believe it. I spent half an hour or so the to-day with another MND sufferer extolling the virtues of the Dragon voice activation programme. For those readers who have been following my blog for the last six months or so, they will realise the great frustration. I have endured through Dragon not understanding my commands. However, having said that, I still have no hesitation in recommending this to anyone who has problems with their hands or, indeed, to anyone who cannot touch type. I know that my problem is very much a one-off and that over the past 20 years or so. I had been more than delighted with Dragon – it’s got better and better with each new version.Let us hope that having sent all the information required by the US HQ of Dragont they will shortly come up with an answer

The best advice I can give to any other MND sufferer, or their carers, is to try to anticipate problems that the patient may encounter as he//she gets weaker. We have always managed to look ahead and get things in place before they become absolutely necessary, for example, although adept at voice activation over 20 years, over the years, I have used my hands in combination with my voice to speed up some of the operations. Whereas now, only having the use of one splinted finger. I have had to learn more commands and to rely more heavily on the voice. My objective being to be totally free of any hand, involvement other than asking my dear wife to switch on the laptop-first thing in the morning.

The same lesson can be learned from the wheelchair. Whilst at present I can control it quite skilfully with my right hand, or more correctly, my right arm, I anticipate there will come a time when my arms are too weak and, with this in mind, I have got the wheelchair people to fit a chin control unit to the chair which I hope to receive shortly. I will then alternate between hand and chin until I become skilful enough to operate the chair by chin only and then when I lose the use of my arm, there can be a seamless change from hand to chin.

I spent a quiet day working on my computer as I have some activity or other planned for each of the next 10 days or so, however I am looking forward to my weekly outing to the golf club tomorrow. Having said that, the weather forecast is bleak and snow is forecast later in the week, so I suspect that my Tuesday outings from now on will be fairly limited until next spring. Can I realistcaly look that far forward?

I have no idea why people are so beastly about their wives with whom they must have been madly in love with once. Now, barring jokes about mother’s-in-law. they seem to be the nub of many of the jokes I receive. This one for example, click here.

 

16 October 2011

The second of the World Series Rugby sem-finals the New Zealand All Blacks started with an early try and dominated the first half, going in at the break 14 -6 up In the second half, Australia were stupendous and their forwards was magnificent and they comfortably won their place in the final 20 points to 6

.The gods literally shone on us today. Julian and Lucy came to lunch and knowing Julian’s penchant for a good cigar. I was determined to spend some time in the garden.

As it happened the clouds were swept away and we enjoyed a beautiful clear blue sky and warm sunshine just for the three hours prior to and during lunch. Absolute bliss. Except I made the mistake of smoking two rather flat non-cigars (kindly donated by Julian) and didn’t feel too good in the evening, which’ my lovely’ put down to cigars. I was not convinced but then it really wasn’t worth arguing about it. We had a lovely time with Lucy and Julian as we always do. They are such good company and like all good lunch guests left at 3.00. by which time, quite frankly, I was beginning to get tired and go downhilll. Three hours entertaining and talking to friends is just about stretching my energy to the limit but, in this case, it was worth the subsequent exhaustion. 

As I am convinced that we have had our last sunny day in the garden I’m sending you something which will keep you occupied during those long, wet winter’s evenings. Just click here.

15 October 2011

An exciting start to the weekend watching Wales play France in the semi-finals of the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. Sadly, due to a poor referee decision early on, Wales had to play most of the game with 14 men. They battled very bravely but missed opportunities, one conversion and two possible penalties which resulted in them losing the match by one point. There were by far the better team and would have deserved their place in the final next Saturday, instead it is France against the winner of the other semi-final, New Zealand, All Blacks against Australia. tomorrow. This should be a great match with the All Blacks starting as firm favourites

Fortunately,’ my lovely’ needing to shop for our lunch party tomorrow so she engaged Paul’s services as a babysitter and we were therefore able to get on producing information requested by the Dragon people then the USA. I wonder how long it would take them to respond this time. It is only by using my ingenuity that I am able to keep this blog running otherwise I would have been off the air since last June and no doubt lost most of my readers. 

After Paul had gone. I was pretty worn out, so I decided to watch a film that had been sent to me through the post from someone I could not recall ever having met. It was called Samara and is filmed 15,000 feet above sea level in the Tibetan mountains. Absolutely exquisite photography but I really curious as to why it was sent to me and him is this mysterious man. The envelope had name address sticker on the back so I shall write and hope to find out. I would love to tell my readers to try to find a copy but as it appears to have come from India I think the likelihood of being able to buy a copy in this country, is thin.

I assiduously avoid putting onto my blog anything which is really controversial, raciest, sexist, political etc so with some trepidation I reproduce an e-mail I received concerning old-age pensioners in this country. I reproduce it precisely as sent to me with no comment.

I have no idea whether the figures quoted are correct or not, and would be very interested to hear from any reader who has a view on this. Of course, tfthis is true, and I say IF, then it is an absolute disgrace.

Sad isn’t it? Its about time we put our own people first

14 October 2011

What a shambles. I was supposed to attend the Rank Hospice in Cambridge today for a meeting with Dr Saunders and her pain relief experts. We got ourselves ready for the ambulance,, outside in the electric wheelchair, but when it arrived it seemed to us at it was too small to get the electric wheelchair into it. Despite this, the driver insisted that I drive onto the ramp and see what it looked like when I got to the top. He suggested that I bent my head down in order to get in. It was quite clear to me that had I done so I would have been in the same position as I found myself a couple of weeks ago at Adenbrookes when they thought I could have been taken home in a black cab. Even had I been able to bend my head over and get into the vehicle it woy head would have been hard against a roof and the first pothole I went over would probably have broken my neck.

The driver then suggested we tried the non-electric wheelchair but when I got to the top of the ramp in this one it was no lower than the electric wheelchair, I was faced with the same problem. We rang the Hospice and suggested that we came with Ollie but the receptionist Alice spoke to said that they had no facility for paying for a private ambulance, so we had no choice but to say we would reschedule the appointment.

I spoke to Dr Saunders this afternoon and explained what had happened about the ambulance and she suggested that she came here to the house with one of her colleagues and then if they both decided that it would be worthwhile me attending the Hospice for some treatment with the anaesthetist then she would make the necessary arrangements. Fortunately, I’m not in dire agony so a few days delay would make little difference.

I then returned to my study to deal with the day’s post, only to discover a letter about the contract for the update of my book, which, if not handled properly, could put the whole business back into the melting pot and threaten the up-date, the draft which is due to be delivered to the publishers no later than 30 November. One of the parties involved has left for Australia for three weeks so until he gets back there is little I can do except worry. Not a good day.

Here is a picture you are most unlikely to see any lifetime. Appropriately, like my day yesterday, everything on hold! Click here.