Category Archives: memes

medical, memes, personal, science

Thing-a-Day – FAIL!

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Well to misquote Robert Burns, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

I started with every intention of completing this year’s Thing-a-Day. Then everything went “castors up”!

Last Thursday I had a relatively routine medical procedure (trust me – you really don’t want to know the details!) as a day-care patient at our local private hospital. Everything appeared to go OK and I was discharged early that evening feeling surprisingly good despite the sedation.

By Friday morning I was in quite some abdominal discomfort and had a raging fever. To cut a long and tedious story short I got back to see the consultant at 2pm on Friday and he immediately re-admitted me to hospital with instructions to get a CT scan on the way. The scan showed that I had one of those 1 in 1000 complications: peritonitis. Major Gerry Bummer!

The upshot was that I spent the weekend connected up to drips (IV fluids, antibiotics and insulin), on a diet of “clear fluids” only and being disturbed every 1 hour 27 minutes (well it certainly wasn’t regular) round the clock to have everything measured. By Monday I was well on the way to recovery and was discharged, without a demob suit but with a box more antibiotics and an instruction to “take it easy for a few days”. So I am. And I’m still getting better; the discomfort has almost entirely gone; and I go back to see the surgeon on Friday for a check-up.

With a couple of notable exceptions I have to say the care I received was brilliant. My GP was on the ball, helpful and sympathetic. So was my consultant who actually came in to see me at 0830 on Sunday morning! The nursing staff were great and mostly friendly and chatty and had time for you. I did like the way when I was with him the consultant picked up his phone, asked when the Imaging Department would scan me and then told them that no, he wanted a scan now and not in 3 hours time! No-one was in any doubt who was in charge.

What wasn’t I impressed with? One of the night nurses didn’t inspire a lot of confidence, but she was the only one of the many nurses I saw who didn’t. But worse was the reception from the Endoscopy Department when I called them on the Friday morning, clearly unwell: the best they could do was “go to your GP”. My GP nearly blew a gasket and I suspect someone got an Exocet suppository when I wasn’t there.

Let’s just hope things keep rolling downhill and there are no nasty surprises in the biopsy results.

Meanwhile having missed some days of Thing-a-Day I don’t have it in me to start over. This was not the intention. MAJOR FAIL.

Time to go and take the antibiotics!

memes, personal, photography

[2/28] Calendar Photo-Mosaic

Thing-a-Day Day 2.  Today I started making a photo-mosaic calendar using appropriate photos form Flickr.  I don’t intend to post this every day, although I will keep it up to date.  The intention is for it to provide a quick fallback for Thing-a-Day contribution on days when something more original is difficult (like maybe tomorrow when I’ll be at the hospital a lot of the day).

memes, personal, photography

[1/28] Stupidest Self Portrait in the History of Ever

OK, so here’s my first contribution for this year’s Thing-a-Day challenge.  Being day one I thought I should start with a photo self-portrait – actually I’ve not done a self-portrait in ages.  So I’ve made the Stupidest Self-Portrait in the History of Ever.

If this works correctly this should get posted to my Posterous, the TaD Posterous feed, my Zen Mischief weblog, my Flickr photostream and my Facebook stream.

Most of what I contribute to Thing-a-Day over the next month will be photographic, but hopefully I’ll manage a few other things as well.

current affairs, history, memes, personal, photography

4/52 Katyn Memorial

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4/52 Katyn Memorial, originally uploaded by kcm76.

Week 4 of the 52 week challenge of a photo a week.

This is the memorial in Gunnersbury Cemetery, west London to the thousands of Poles murdered by the Russians at Katyn in 1940. I’ve inset the inscriptions as otherwise they are unreadable. Click on the picture to get a larger version.

The cemetery itself is rather interesting, if not a little OTT with competing acreages of black, white and brown polished marble. It is owned by the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, although it is actually in the LB of Ealing. Consequently it is the final resting place of many from the Polish and Armenian emigré communities. Many of the Armenian graves are written in Armenian script; and not all have a simultaneous translation. You will also find members of the Chinese community, at least one member of the French nobility and the expected English including architect Aston Webb. There is also a grave commemoration a number of members of the 24th Polish Lancers and a small group of twenty WWII war graves.

It is immaculately maintained and well worth a visit, even on a cold January day; it’ll look really pretty in the Spring when all the cherry blossom is out.

memes, music, personal, photography, topographical

3/52 Horns


3/52 Horns, originally uploaded by kcm76.

Week 3 of the 52 weeks photographic challenge and I almost didn’t get a decent picture this week. But then I saw this window display in Selfridge’s Department Store in London’s Oxford Street. All these brass instruments looked absolutely stunning – but impossible to photograph well because of all the reflections.

memes, personal

Thing-a-Day Preparation

Ready … Steady … Wait for it!

Again this year the Thing-a-Day challenge is running for the whole of February, and I intend to take part.

Join artists and creators of all types and backgrounds in a collective creative sprint to beat the February blues. Thing-a-Day invites you to join in a daily creative endeavour where everyone who signs up commits to making one “thing” (project, sketch, exercise, photograph, recipe) per day and shares it online on Thing-a-Day @ Posterous.com.


Participation is simple … 

Starting on February 1st, spend about 30 minutes making one thing a day. Knit, sew, cook, draw, paint, tape, solder, write, destroy, invent, document – or whatever you decide!  (Last year I posted a mix of photographs, recipes and haiku.  Who knows what this year will bring!)

In whatever way works for you, document what you’ve done and make that available on the Thing-a-Day Blog. 

The usual rules apply: no old/recycled work and no stealing the work of others – just something you did, new every day.

You have to register (so you can post to the Thing-a-Day Blog).  Registration opens on Friday 21 January and closes at midnight on 1 February.  You will need a Posterous account, but having set everything up you can post your daily contribution via email to Thing-a-Day and to your blog, Flickr, Facebook, etc.  This is in fact a test post to make sure I have all this set up correctly.  Last year’s registration instructions are here, but of course this years may be different when we get there.

OK, so now let’s see if this works properly. If it does then this post, with the photograph of my new dodo friends, should appear on my Posterous, the TaD Posterous feed, my Zen Mischief weblog, my Flickr photostream and my Facebook stream.

memes, personal

Ten Things – January

This is the first of a monthly series “Ten Things” which I plan will run all year. Each month I’m going to list one thing from each of ten categories which will remain the same each month. So at the end of the year you have ten lists of twelve things.

  1. Something I Like: Sex
  2. Something I Won’t Do: Play Golf
  3. Something I Want To Do: Visit Japan
  4. A Blog I Like: Katyboo
  5. A Book I Like: Anthony Powell; A Dance to the Music of Time (Well you knew I’d say that,didn’t you? And anyway it’s 12 books really!)
  6. Some Music I Like: Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here
  7. A Food I Like: Curry
  8. A Food or Drink I Dislike: Egg Custard
  9. A Word I Like: Cunt
  10. A Quote I Like: If you don’t concern yourself with your wife’s cat, you will lose something irretrievable between you. [Haruki Murakami]
memes, personal, photography, science, topographical

1/52 Solar Eclipse, London Style


Solar Eclipse, London Style [2011 week 1], originally uploaded by kcm76.

This is the view of the solar eclipse just after sunrise yesterday (Tuesday 04/01/2011) from my study window. Like what eclipse? Typical of the UK to cock it up; can’t this country get anything right? Bah Humbug!

This is also my first photo for the “52 weeks” (ie. a photo a week) I’m doing this year. I hope I can keep up the standard of getting something off-beat each week. Watch this space.