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.
ramblings

Five Questions, Series 3

OK, so … we’re going to do the “Five Questions” routine again, just like we did a couple of times last year. Just to keep us all on our mental toes, you understand.

However series three is going to be a bit different. It is more in the vein of those daft “back page” interviews with Z-list slebs you see in magazines — only hopefully a bit more interesting; maybe more like those really good off-the-cuff job interview questions.

No, don’t panic! You can take this as seriously or not as you like (well you can all of them, but this one especially so) although the questions should still make you think!


The five questions are:

  1. Please describe yourself in 25 words or less.
  2. What are three things about you that most people either don’t know or wouldn’t expect?
  3. Of the things you’ve done in your life so far, what are you proudest of?
  4. What’s an as yet non-existent thing about which you’ve thought “why hasn’t someone created that yet?”
  5. If you could get everyone who reads this to do one thing, just once, what would you get them to do?


Again, like series one and two, I think they’re going to be deceptively tricky. I certainly don’t know in advance exactly how I’m going to answer them all, though I have a few ideas. (It’s called preparation!)

Anyway I’ll answer them one at a time over the coming weeks. The first in about a week’s time. (Well thinking doesn’t come cheap or easy, you know!)

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 two or three times a year so good, but potentially fun, questions are needed.

Watch this space!

photography

Weekly Photo

This is the first in what I hope will be a weekly series of my photographs. Some may be new ones, some may be old ones; some may be stunning, others will be ordinary; some may have a story attached; some may even be ones you’ve seen before (although hopefully not in this series). All the photos will have been posted on my Flickr Photostream so you’ll be able to click the image for larger views.

Frost with Berry
Frost with Berry
Frost and ice on the hedge outside my doctor’s surgery
17 January 2013

links

You May Have Missed …

Our regular-ish look at things which have interested or amused me, but which you may have missed.

Let’s deal with the medical and scientific items first …

Tamiflu — the wonder drug that kills off ‘flu. Except it doesn’t. Here are five things you should know about it.

Can’t think why anyone would want to make tea from coffee leaves. Until someone decides it has health benefits. Maybe — it seems the jury is still out on the importance of antioxidants.

So what really does happen if you drop a steak from an altitude of 100km without a parachute?

There’s this cunning Japanese way of multiplying big numbers quickly. Mind-bogglingly strange to us westerners, but it does seem to work.

Well who would have guessed? Apparently cats take on their owners’ habits — both good and bad.

So now let’s degenerate into the more secular …

So just why is it that we British are revolted by the idea of eating horse? It doesn’t seem very logical.

There’s been a bit of a kerfuffle this week — at least there would have been if anyone had understood it. The Health Minister, Jeremy Hunt, has decreed that all health records will be shareable throughout the NHS within a year. And about bloody time too! This is the sort of JFDI leadership the NHS needs, especially as it will save a shedload of money. But I spy a large squadron of pigs taking off from Heathrow Airport. The intention may be good, but it won’t happen; neither the government nor the NHS have the first clue about running the massive IT projects this will need; they won’t take advice from industry experts and they won’t pay for quality suppliers. And then there are the wallahs that worry about privacy — how is it more important that no-one knows anything than we get quality healthcare?

Meanwhile Will Self has been staring at The Shard and wondering why we do this to ourselves.

Le Mont Saint Michel (Manche-FR)
Aerial views of another sort … here are some stunning photographs taken from kites.

Hopefully this may be one up for women’s liberation in sport. Apparently Women’s Cricket wicket-keeper (Sarah Taylor) could be playing for Sussex (men’s) 2nd XI next season. About bloody time too! This should have happened years ago. There is nothing in the laws of cricket which says anything about gender restriction. I threatened to do this at club 3rd XI level some 35 years ago (the wife of one of our players was a good cricketer in her own right) and I got roundly condemned for the very idea. Couldn’t see what the fuss was about then and I still can’t, especially as there have always been mixed hockey games.

Finally, following up on a previous post, last Sunday (13 Jan) saw the annual “No Pants on the Subway” events — not just in London but around the world. The Telegraph has the pictures.

quotes

Quotes …

Another in our series of quotes I’m come across recently when have interested or amused me. In no special order …

Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.
[Tom Robbins]

[A] thrombosis of traffic, wherein the veiny and arterial roads of the metropolis are blocked by the embolism of roadworks and by clots that have broken down.
[Mark Forsyth, The Horologicon]

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
[F Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up]

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
[Voltaire]

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.
[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]

Tomorrow (noun). A mystical land where 99% of all human productivity, motivation and achievement is stored.
[Unknown]

People died for my right to offend you … we need both love and anger to be free. And you may continue to hate me … Free-thinking is always problematic. But if you take away my freedom … ask yourself who really wins?
[Suzanne Moore]

A catless house is a soulless house.
[Patrick Moore]

Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.
[Bertolt Brecht]

personal, ramblings

What Does Your Personal Hell Look Like?

I was prompted a few days ago to think about what really would constitute a living Hell for me. No forget all this fire and brimstone stuff of the (supposed) afterlife. We are quite good enough at creating Hell here in this life.

But on the basis that one man’s meat is another man’s poison, how much would we actually agree on what would constitute Hell here on Earth? Brave New World and 1984 would be a damn good start!

Well this is the start, at least, on what mine would look like.

There is no wine, beer or gin. The only liquids available would be Pernod, absinthe, pastis and … errr … water.

The only foods available are jellied eels, tripe, sweet potato, pumpkin and egg custard.

Everyone is perpetually rude, selfish and unable to speak English. (Nothing new there, then.)

All officials are little Hitler control freaks and over-officious bullies. And then there are the managers!

Basically nothing is allowed; everything is banned, so whatever you do you’re breaking some law or another.

Cigarette smoke clings everywhere.

There are no antibiotics, analgesics or deodorants.

It is cold. So cold I have to wear clothes all the time — because there is no central heating and no sunshine. And all the clothes I have to wear are made of plastic, rubber or nylon.

There are no cats, no birds, no gardens, no trees and no seaside. The sky is never blue. Maggots abound.

I have to travel everywhere by underground or by bus.

All women look like low-class tarts and wear a thick plastic skin of make-up.
All men are shaven headed thugs or greasy oiks — which is about how they behave.
There are children everywhere, screaming. Their batteries cannot be removed and they never run out of charge. They all have lice.

There is no internet nor any cameras — except for CCTV everywhere.

All TV is an endless cycle of inane soap operas and game shows interspersed every 5 minutes with ever more inane adverts.

There are no books and the only music is Mozart.

I’m forced to be homosexual, religious, play golf and put in the army.

I’m sure there’s more … Aarrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!

Why is it much of this sounds so horribly familiar?

ramblings

Make up Your Mind!

Have you ever noticed how we always get, even through “official” sources, lots of variation in the stories covered by the media?

Yesterday’s horrific helicopter crash in Vauxhall was a case in point.

Everyone agrees that the chopper hit the crane on a tall building under construction. But no-one could (initially) agree where the wreckage landed:

  • In the road below the crane
  • In Wandsworth Road, 150m away
  • From an aerial view (via I suspect Google Maps) that site looked more like 300m even in a straight line
  • But the crash site was indeed in Wandsworth Road, not where first shown but more like 4-500m away from the crane

And then there was the workman (or was it two men?) who should have been in the crane at the time of the crash. Because he wasn’t in the crane he had a lucky escape. But why was he not in the crane?

  • He was late to work because of being held up taking his daughter to school
  • He wasn’t allowed into the crane because of the fog (aka low cloud) obscuring visibility so there could be no crane activity
  • And this morning apparently it was two men who both overslept

FFS guys, get it right. If you don’t know, don’t make it up! — say you don’t know.

But of course Joe Public thinks admitting to not knowing is a sign of weakness, so they guess. Whereas in fact admitting not knowing is a sign of strength and maturity.

Let’s just hope none of these people have to be witnesses in court!

ramblings

At Last!

1 Comment

This morning sees an unusual juxtaposition …

It is January.

There is snow remaining on the ground (just).

It is cold; the mercury is below freezing.

There is a really hard frost on everything.

There are even roses with frost on them.

The air is still and there is steam rising vertically from everyone’s boiler vents.

I shall be wearing a sweater.

No, it isn’t Siberia … it’s WINTER. In England. At last!

And this is how it should be.

words

Word: Comminuted

Comminuted

1. Reduced to minute particles.
2. (Surgical). Of a bone: broken or crushed into several pieces. Hence a “comminuted fracture”.
3. Smashed up, as in “comminuted orange” (used to make fruit juice) which is often just whole oranges smashed to a pulp.