All posts by Keith

I’m a controversialist and catalyst, quietly enabling others to develop by providing different ideas and views of the world. Born in London in the early 1950s and initially trained as a research chemist I retired as a senior project manager after 35 years in the IT industry. Retirement is about community give-back and finding some equilibrium. Founder and Honorary Secretary of the Anthony Powell Society. Chairman of my GP's patient group.
uncategorized

Oddity of the Week: Derailed How?

kcm029

This image is from a painting by George Heiron reproduced in an article on “The Engines that Won the War” in The Railway Magazine, July 2014. The caption reads:
A surviving British war hero: WD No. 307 was built by North British in 1940 and was intended for mainland Europe. However, the fall of France that year saw it kept in the UK and used as LMS No. 8233. The WD reclaimed it in 1941 and shipped it to Persia, where it … worked supply trains into Russia. After service there (during which time it was derailed by a camel!) it returned to the UK … It survived until the end of BR steam in August 1968 and was then saved for preservation on the Severn Valley Railway.
Derailed by a camel indeed! And we aren’t even told the fate of the camel.

photography, pleasures

Weekly Photograph

This week another from the archives. This is a montage of individual shots of the ten Queen’s Beasts statues outside the Palm House at Kew Gardens. They’re magnificent statues some 6 feet tall.
In fact these are replicas in Portland stone (commissioned in 1958 by Sir Henry Ross, then Chairman of the Distillers Company) of the original plaster versions. The originals were commissioned by the British Ministry of Works from sculptor James Woodford to stand in front of the temporary western annexe to Westminster Abbey for the Queen’s coronation in 1953. The originals are now in Canada.

Click the image for larger versions on Flickr
Queens Beasts at Kew
Queen’s Beasts at Kew
May 2010; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

The ten heraldic beasts represent the genealogy of Queen Elizabeth II. They are (from L to R):

  • White Greyhound of Richmond
  • Yale of Beaufort
  • Red Dragon of Wales
  • White Horse of Hanover
  • Lion of England
  • White Lion of Mortimer
  • Unicorn of Scotland
  • Griffin of Edward III
  • Black Bull of Clarence
  • Falcon of the Plantagenet
personal

Five Questions, Series 6

1 Comment

Many moons ago I said I would do another round of “Five Questions”. Just to keep us all on our toes. And well, we all need a snigger from time to time.
So here, in series 6, is another selection of difficult and stupid questions, all of which can be interpreted with whatever degree of seriousness and erudition you like — or not.


The five questions for series 6 are:

  1. To what degree have you actually controlled the course your life has taken?
  2. If anything is possible, then is it possible that nothing is possible?
  3. If you had to wear a warning label, what would it say?
  4. If all the nations in the world are in debt, who’s got the money?
  5. What gets you out of bed in the morning?

Again, like the previous series if you take them seriously I think they’re going to be deceptively tricky. I certainly don’t know exactly how I’m going to answer them all; it will depend very much on how I feel at the time.
Anyway I’ll answer them one at a time over the coming weeks, I hope starting next week with question one. If you want to follow along then post your own interpretations in the comments to each answer, or post it on our own blog and put a link in the comments.
And as I’ve said before, if anyone has any more good questions, then please send them to me. I’d like to continue to do this a couple of times a year so good, but potentially fun, questions are needed.

words

Word: Thixotropic

Thixotropic
Of fluids and gels, having the property of viscosity that decreases when stressed (by stirring or shaking) and returning to the semi-solid state upon standing.
Hence thixotropic paints, which are essentially non-drip because they return to the more solid state quickly following the cessation of stress stirring, brushing).
Some clays are thixotropic, which is important in structural and geotechnical engineering. Landslides, such as those common in the cliffs around Lyme Regis, Dorset and in the Aberfan spoil tip disaster in Wales are evidence of this phenomenon.
Some thixotropic fluids, for example ketchup, return to a gel state almost instantly while others such as yoghurt take much longer.
The word is derived from the Greek thixis, touch + -tropy. The OED gives the first usage in 1927.

amusements

Oddity of the Week: Earworms

The Earworm (Halicocephalus strepitus) is a microscopic parasite most commonly found in the inner ear of human beings. These creatures have long been assumed benign due to their symbiotic relationship with nearly all human people and a lack of evidence pointing to their presence as a source of harm. Several scientists attempted to narrow down exactly what earworms subsist on and why our humble ear canals provide such a hospitable environment. Their now-classified research went largely unfinished as the full 8 person team vanished after a few months of experimentation; this wasn’t uncommon for scientists in the 19th century. Though there are few discernible benefits to being an earworm host, there are no demonstrable negative effects either. To keep it that way, make sure you nourish your earworm with high quality repetition. Childhood commercial jingles and any music to which you can recall fewer than 5 consecutive words of lyrics are ideal, but playground songs and modern electronic pop are great alternatives. Odd words and nonsense phrases (eg. tuberous phalange, cantankerous, spoon plumage, serving Council of Nicaea realness) are a sign that your earworms are healthy but restless. Don’t let them become restless.
From: Figueroa’s Findings on the Habits of Everyday Monsters at

current affairs, medical

NHS Funding

So. According to all the media reports, and the scaremongering from professional bodies, the NHS is in crisis and falling apart because it is significantly under-funded and a political football. It is barely “muddling by” [1,2,3].
Well maybe.
It cannot be denied that the NHS is in crisis. It is badly organised and badly managed. And yes it is a political football.
I’ve written about this before [4,5] and I make no apology for doing so again.
It cannot be denied that some sectors of the NHS are woefully under-funded. This is especially true of GP services where funding has fallen from a high of 11% of NHS budget in 2006 to around 8.3% today against a background of significant increases in the number of consultations and demands from politicians [6].
However overall I cannot believe that the NHS is under-funded. It seems to me the NHS has shed-loads of money to do everything you and I could reasonably want it to do. But that money is badly used, in large part because of the appalling level of wastage.


The NHS employs way more managers and administrators than it needs. That in itself is a huge waste of resources. Just take a look next time you visit a hospital at how many staff are wandering about apparently aimlessly. What do they do? Is it useful? How many are doing nothing but moving pieces of paper from A to B? In this day and age moving pieces of paper around by hand is an inexcusable waste. Do it electronically! Use email, or on-line documents, or database systems.
Yes, to get the NHS using pervasive electronic communication is going to take time, and will need an up-front investment. It will also need the Civil Service and government not to cut corners on cost by being constrained to choose the cheapest bidder, to understand how to manage a big IT project (like don’t keep changing the project scope) and to listen to advice from their trusted suppliers.
The NHS also has far too many managers. Their lives seem to be predicated on bullying staff and chasing meaningless government targets. If we could get rid of the pointless targets and teach the managers how to manage people the NHS would need far fewer of them. In doing this it will take the NHS quite a long way towards trusting and empowering its employees. Trust them to do their job. Trust them with the empowerment to do it efficiently. Empower them to change things sensibly if they can see a better way. In other words, act like a good private company.
Somewhere else the NHS wastes money is in the sheer waste of supplies. One hears stories of hospitals where Ward A needs supply Y but can’t buy it because there’s no money; yet Ward B has a cupboard full of the same supply but has to throw it away because it has gone out of date. In one instance I know of where this happened, and it was pointed out to the top brass by a junior nurse, just changing the procurement policy saved the hospital several million pounds in the first year. Practices like this are not uncommon.
And let’s not talk about hospital food. If patients were fed properly, not only would there be a lot less food waste but the patients might actually get better quicker so they could be discharged sooner.
This is all well and good but I fear it will never happen. For a start politicians, almost by definition, have to keep meddling. Not only is it ideological but it is the only thing they can do to try to show they are doing something.
The other reason it will never happen is that there is no-one at the top of the NHS who has the ability to grasp the whole organisation and energise it. That is not the Civil Service way. But without this there will be no change. The NHS needs someone highly skilled, robust, no-nonsense and bloody-minded to head it up. Someone who will energise the employees, from top to bottom. Who will empower from the top and support empowerment from below. Who will give his or her henchmen a job to do and expect them to get it done — or get out. And most importantly someone who will tell the politicians to butt-out and stay out.
Names like Richard Branson, Alan Sugar and Digby Jones come to mind. You may not like them, but they are the type of people who are needed. Badly needed.
Without someone like this, and without government getting a proper, business-like grip, the NHS is indeed going to go nowhere except, as predicted, down the tubes. And that is something the country cannot afford!
——————————
References:
[1] Observer; 28 June 2014
[2] Daily Telegraph; 18 June 2014
[3] Independent; 29 June 2014
[4] https://zenmischief.com/2014/02/transforming-the-nhs/
[5] https://zenmischief.com/2012/08/reforming-the-nhs/
[6] Royal College of General Practitioners; 27 June 2014

amusements

More Auction Oddities

Another selection of oddities and amusements from the catalogue of our local auction house. Nothing especially outrageous in this selection, just the variety of old toot and the assemblages to make lots which strain the mental equilibrium.
A mixed lot including military badges, penknives, rulers, thimbles, old tine, hip flasks, pill boxes, pocket watch, a collection of old pipes, fossil stones, etc.
A Concorde pendant with articulated nose, stamped silver, on a fine chain …
And there’s nothing quite like having an articulated nose!
A collection of polished agates for fob seals, Dik Dik horns, the claw of a bird of prey, old ivory pieces, etc.
A cased set of silver Dickensian character cherry sticks, Birmingham 1973 …
Souvenir ware — a cruet in the shape of a plane, Barry Islands gardens, a pair of bisque figurines of a girl and a boy playing crochet [sic], a figure of a gentleman playing the bagpipes, and a smaller figure of an 18th century gent.
A model of a hand-painted gypsy caravan pulled by a shire horse, Carmen England, a further model carriage decanter set with five shot glasses and decanter, again pulled by a shire horse, two further shire horses and two model drays, brassware including iron on trivet, two model dolphins, a pair of vases, copper and brass bugle, three football trophies and a cased brass cruet on tray.
All in the best possible taste!
A good quantity of ceramic piggy banks and figurines of pigs including a very large floral decorated piggy, and a similar smaller, treacle glazed, white glazed, black glazed, Masons, etc., plus floral decorated piggy figurines.
Two oriental inlaid three-legged tables and a tooled leather pouffe decorated with Egyptian scenes
Why do I find the idea of a tooled leather pouffe quite disturbing?
‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with they might’, a 19th century sampler dated 1848 by Catherine Davies, and a 1930s embroidery in an oval frame of a lady in a crinoline
Clearly the Victorians hadn’t thought about that verse!
An oak-framed striking mantel clock, 4 cameras incl. Halena Anastigmat 3.5, a Minolta Beirette Junior 2, and a Coronet, also 17 teapots, incl. Wade antique shop, Sadler Carousel, and Coronation Street’s ‘Rover’s Return’
The teapots, my dear. The teapots!
A brass bugle and a pair of large brass ducks
A Continental Art Nouveau porcelain fish dish, a French black silk opera hat and a wig with two card boxes
Someone please explain to me the significance of attaching cardboard boxes to one’s wig.
And next everything one needs to be murder mystery writer …
A Mercedes portable typewriter in lime green plastic, two tennis racquets and two ladies hats
A large Oriental horn intricately carved and pierced with pine and other motifs
The mind boggles a bit over this one too!
The cured hide of a buffalo, from Pakistan, c.1864
A brass Tibetan prayer bowl on wooden stand, a grass skirt and an African carved wood game.
Talk about mixing ones ethnicities!

history, ramblings, topographical

Lines on Maps

Yesterday I came across this map on Twitter …

africa

It shows Africa with its national boundaries (black lines) as they were in 1959 and (shaded) the continent’s division into ethnic/linguistic areas — ie. basically tribal areas.
Note just how many of the national boundaries are (a) straight lines and/or (b) cut straight across tribal areas. Every country contains multiple tribal/ethnic/linguistic areas.
Yet, we expect these peoples to be able to get on with each other as nations and embrace our democratic traditions. And we’re surprised when they can’t!
Is it any wonder they can’t get on, there is continual civil war and countries wanting to break themselves asunder. It is basically all the result of us, white man, drawing “arbitrary” lines on maps.