tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9899061177717407562024-02-20T00:16:04.277-08:00On and Off the PageHome and away thoughts from a Brit broad.Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.comBlogger70125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-65799374664898882482015-05-04T03:25:00.001-07:002015-05-04T13:03:29.011-07:00Politics politics politics<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">An open letter to Jess Asato and Adrian
Holmes,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-US">A
few weeks ago I signed an online letter about protecting the NHS from
privatization through a website which helpfully forwarded the letter to all the
parliamentary candidates standing in my area, Norwich North. The one candidate
who bothered to reply to me was you, Adrian, even though it was at the time
when your party, Jess - the party which founded the NHS - was supposedly making
it the forefront of its election campaigning. Well, horses for courses, and you
are no doubt busy with all those doorstep conversations, Jess, but forgive me
if I see that as yet another nail in the coffin of my confidence in the Labour
party’s fitness to govern this country for the benefit of its inhabitants.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-US">All
the same - and I can’t fully express the rage and grief with which I write this
– I’m strongly tempted to vote for Jess on Thursday. It is absolutely no
reflection on you, Adrian: I’ve known about and admired your work in Norwich
for years, especially your campaigns for Train Wood and against unnecessary
road expansion. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-US">Nor
is it a rejection of your party. I support the Green Party because it stands
for all the things I want my government and my country to stand for: a just
society with opportunities for all to live better; a serious programme of
investment in skilled jobs working to improve the world rather than to profit
from its decline; a proper understanding of the urgency of climate change; a
genuine commitment to disarmament, starting with canceling Trident; a desire to
return railways to public ownership for public benefit; a commitment to keep
private profit out of the NHS and to put more resources in. Also, the Green
Party appears to be genuinely democratic in its working, with every member
entitled to submit and vote on policies for the manifesto. I do not expect to
see Green MPs dragged by the party whips into the lobbies to vote against their
convictions. I do not expect Green MPs to vote in favour of wars of choice. I </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic";"><i>do</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> expect Green MPs to regulate big businesses rather than be bought
by them. How I wish I could say the same about the Labour Party.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-US">But
we live under a stupid and wasteful electoral system. Where I live, Norwich
North, Labour lost the seat - virtually gave it away, in order to punish the
sitting MP for rebelling against the Iraq War and NHS privatization – in 2009
to Chloe Smith, the Deloitte appointee to the Conservative Party’s PR
department who was so spectacularly useless at the Treasury that her interview
with Jeremy Paxman has become a byword for car-crash television. All the same,
polling data suggests that the seat is the 7<sup>th</sup> or 8<sup>th</sup>
most marginal between Tory and Labour. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-US">And
there’s my dilemma. If we wake up on Friday morning to find that Chloe Smith
has got a single vote more than Jess, she will continue to sit in Parliament,
supposedly representing the people of this constituency even though most of us
will have voted for someone else. This time there is a real possibility that no
party will get an overall majority in the House of Commons, so this one seat
could make the difference of who gets to head the government (worst case
scenario, and say goodbye to equality under the law, Tory-UKIP-DUP. Best case,
Labour-Green-SNP – but Milliband claims he won’t hear of a deal with the SNP.
Possibly because the LibDems have been busy signaling that they might be open
to offers from Labour). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-US">Such
arrangements will require maturity and compromise from our political class,
which I’m not convinced they have. Also, the arrangements are likely to be unstable.
I suspect there will be another election within a couple of years, however I
vote this time. But I am 55 years old and a cancer patient. I have seen enough
of the damage that Tory governments have done within my lifetime, and I fear
more of the same. But I also fear the damage Labour may do, with its Tory-lite
policies, acceptance of the failed and discredited policies of austerity,
refusal to stand against TTIP and to decommission Trident, and blithe ignoring
of the environmental consequences of our present way of life. Although Ed
Miliband has done some half-decent things in opposition - refusing to support
another open-ended war, against Syria this time, stands out -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I detest the thought that voting for
Labour on Thursday will be seen as endorsing the cowardly and misguided
policies which make up much of the manifesto. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-US">So
I want you to know, Jess, that if I did vote for you it will be entirely in the
spirit of the Alternative Vote, which your party campaigned to deny to us
voters. Your party would currently be my third or fourth choice, after the
Green Party, after the NHA Party, perhaps after the SNP if I could vote for
them. Nothing against you personally: you are young enough to be untainted by
the Blair years, you have run a decent campaign and you seem like a pretty nice
person. If you do get into parliament I hope you will set an example of
integrity and courage and work to push your party in a better direction. In
which case, best of luck. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-US">But
this is not good enough. Why do we tolerate a system which erases our political
wishes? Why do we allow the nose-holding, least-worst, grudging vote to be
indistinguishable from that of the true believer. Especially, such votes are
indistinguishable to those who get elected, who can preen themselves on a
majority even if most of it was in fact delivered through gritted teeth, which
means tactical voting is invisible to the elected. It also depends on a million
things out of the voter’s control: I have no idea, for instance, how many
people in my constituency are feeling exactly the same as me at this moment,
and making the same bitter calculations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-US">If
I had happened to move to the other side of the city instead of where I live
now, I would have a real chance of being represented by a Green MP, Lesley Grahame,
who actually does stand for what I believe in, (I’ve met her several times,
too, and have the greatest respect and admiration for her: I hope she wins).
Accidents of geography are already much too significant in our unequal life
chances, with postcode lotteries affecting education, health and wealth. Why do
we allow this to also be true in our politics? And, as long as the major
parties remain major, there is no incentive for them to change it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-US">So
what to do, in the actually existing Britain of our time? Which vote will make
real change – long term change – for the better more likely? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-US">Thinking
forward to Friday morning when the count is in, I dread the overall result for the next few years of this country. But I can’t control that, only my own part in it. I
would like, at this late stage, to feel proud of my vote, to feel that it did
actually stand for something better than the desperate norm we have grown used
to. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-US">So,
I know which vote will make me feel better about my choices and about the
country I live in. I know which policies I want to become mainstream and which
ones I want to see marginalized. I know which vote will move the country in a
better direction, even if the candidate I vote for does not win this time. It’s
a long game. So, Jess, I’m sorry, but the Labour Party isn’t ready yet for my
vote. The Green Party is. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-US">Best
wishes</span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-56959661754519279182014-04-04T03:18:00.002-07:002014-04-04T05:24:45.821-07:00The Labour Party would like me to be the first to know...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I got a chummy email from Angela Eagle MP, beginning "Hi Sarah"! </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">We're not on first-name terms, actually, as we've never met, but I signed a petition about ending the Gagging Bill a while ago so now apparently we're buddies. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anyway, Angela (I think I can call her that now, even though she's Shadow Leader of the House of Commons) tells me that the Labour Party have promised to do just that, apparently cos I expressed my opinion that gagging charities from speaking about policies which have something to do with their remit (like food banks talking about food poverty) is profoundly undemocratic. Or possibly because they were always against it: maybe that's it.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">So using my new-found power, influence and friendliness with the Labour Party - even the Shadow Leader of the House of Commons! - I made a few more suggestions.
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here's her email: </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">----- Original Message -----
From: Angela Eagle
Sent: 04/03/14 06:04 PM
To: Sarah
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Subject: Telling you first:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hi Sarah,
Earlier this year, the Tories passed the so-called gagging law: an act that limits your right to campaign on the issues you care about, and curbs charities' and campaigners' ability to speak out against government policy.
I believe strongly that this law is bad for our democracy, and restricts freedom of speech in our country.
So I want you to be the first to know this: a Labour government will repeal David Cameron's gagging law.
We have been clear from the start that we oppose this gag on charities and campaigners, which was introduced with little consultation. If Labour wins the next election, we will remove it from the statute book.
In its place we will legislate for real reform of lobbying, and we will consult with charities and campaigners on the reforms we need to both ensure transparency and protect freedom of speech.
Our right to campaign on issues we care about must be protected, and this gagging law needs to be repealed.
Best wishes,
Angela
Angela Eagle
Shadow Leader of the House of Commons</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here's mine.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">-----------</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hi Angela! [Golly! But she started it!]
Good! Well done.
Could you also please re-nationalise the railways and the power companies for the benefit of the people? And end private prisons, which are a wicked disgrace to this country.
And end the creeping privatisation of the NHS, even though some of your big names (like Lord Warner) stand to make lots of money out of it?
Instead please could you concentrate NHS resources into medical work, not layers of bureuacracy and an 'internal market' - we know how that worked out for the BBC, after all.
And pledge never again to use Capita again in any capacity?
Also cancel Trident?
And fund education decently?
And agree to have some of your policies based on actual evidence of what works, not on prejudices and profit?
And take climate change seriously as the biggest threat to our country currently existing or likely to happen in the coming 100 years?
Because while this is a good start, it's only a start, and a small one at that.
Best wishes
Sarah Walker
voter
</span>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-42371193306373587032014-03-27T07:22:00.000-07:002014-03-27T07:26:10.461-07:00Cycle One Day OneYesterday was day one of the first cycle of chemotherapy. I had been dreading it. Silly, really, because it spoiled the two days beforehand (an effect exacerbated by having finished a piece of work and not having got my act together to resume another) and would not have made the experience any better.<br />
<br />
As it happened, the experience was not too bad.<br />
<br />
I soaked my arm in warm water to bring up the veins and was attached to a drip by a nice woman called Amanda who sat with us and added in various drugs - 3 in all - explaining to me what each one was and what to watch out for. This was sitting in a comfy armchair and after having swallowed an anti-nausea pill.<br />
<br />
Essentially, chemo is poison that stops cells replicating. This includes the cells which renew my hair follicles, which maintain mucus membranes, which produce white blood cells to fight off infection, and which reproduce like mad things and turn into tumours.<br />
<br />
Obviously, only one of those effects is desirable: it's a poison that likes the cancer cells even less than it likes the rest of me. The other effects are unfortunate, but can be got over: they will recover. The cancer cells, at the stage I'm at, may well not recover, though it is likely to take six rounds of chemo - six whacks at the rat with a chemical sledge hammer - to get the point across.<br />
<br />
One of the effects is risky - white blood cells, which are the cunning little chaps that see off infection. Without them, my immune system is up for grabs. I've got to monitor my temperature every day, and every time I feel bad, because in the absence of white blood cells I can easily get infections which normally I'd knock out in a couple of days - and which can kill me! So the magic number is 37.5 - any higher, and I call the emergency phone line. They recover, though - by week 3 they should be back up and running, thanks to the superb powers of my bone marrow. Just in time to get whacked again in round 2: hey ho.<br />
<br />
I sat in the chair chatting with B and Amanda, and felt, basically, fine - a little light-headed, but I hadn't slept much. A heat pad wrapped around my arm to keep the veins wide was very comforting. The only odd thing it was having my right arm immobilised - I'm right handed, but the lumpectomy and lymph removal was on my left side, and it's better to put the chemo in on the opposite side.<br />
<br />
One good thing was to be warned that one of the drugs gives you red pee - like beetroot does - and a terrible shock when you see it for the first time. Lucky she warned me.<br />
<br />
Then pills to take at home - anti nausea. Some to take at fixed times of the day, some to take at will. Oh, and laxatives - the anti nausea pills freeze the peristaltic waves, so stop other things than vomiting. (I've always thought that Perry Staltic and the Waves should have been a 50s surf band. Unfortunately unlikely to have played on the same imaginary bill as Death Metal band Synapse Collapse).<br />
<br />
By 11 we were all done. Next to me a lady in an elegant black and white turban was completing her 6th and last round of chemo with her daughter by her side.<br />
<br />
B and I got the bus back to town and went for lunch at a fave cafe, Olives, which does root hash with scrambled eggs, and spiced apple warmer. Yum, yum. I was feeling fine. Then we wobbled up the road to cruise some charity shops for headscarves and hats and books. I bought two hand made pillowcases in thick linen with lace edging and handmade buttons for £6.<br />
<br />
Slight sensation that my mouth does not taste the normal way.<br />
<br />
Home, take temperature (35.7) drink ginger tea, check Facebook. I've been getting so much love and support and good wishes from my FB friends. Update that I'm feeling fine. And I kind of am.<br />
<br />
And then - oooops! Sudden extreme vomiting. Not enough warning to get to the loo. Damn. There goes lunch.<br />
<br />
Strip bed, change clothes, wash floor, shower, brush teeth, swill mouthwash.<br />
<br />
Bleeaaah.<br />
<br />
Take an anti-nausea tablet. Get bucket and retire to bed. Both cats come and cuddle me. B does too.<br />
<br />
More ginger tea. Hmmm. How am I? Not sure. I nap and read, and listen to Keith Jarrett.<br />
<br />
B starts cooking spicy soup for supper... smells wonderful.<br />
<br />
Take some pills with a sip of orange juice and water.<br />
<br />
Sudden vomiting... though I managed to get it in the bucket.<br />
<br />
Bleaaah!!! <br />
<br />
It was mostly ginger tea this time - but a distinct sensation of the pill I had only just swallowed coming up too. Hmmm.<br />
<br />
Read the information leaflet. If you take more than the recommended dose you can have all kind of horrible effects, including disrupted vision and distressingly irregular heart beat. However, I decide I can't really have taken the pill first time around, as it wasn't in long enough to digest. Decide to risk it and take another one.<br />
<br />
Went to sleep without supper... no problem.<br />
<br />
Dreamt Nigel Farage and Nick Clegg were debating, but both wearing extremely thick-framed, square, totally black dark glasses. Convinced that neither of them had eyes... Bleaahhh!!<br />
<br />
So, for nausea read vomiting.<br />
<br />
But, like in Michael Rosen's "We're Going On a Bear Hunt" - "Can't go round it. Can't go over it. Got to go through it."<br />
<br />
This is one down, five to go, and I can cope.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-24524497005532640202014-03-13T12:40:00.001-07:002014-03-13T17:50:29.094-07:00Talking about cancer.I have lovely friends and relations. I knew that already, but it's been brought home to me in lots of ways lately.<br />
<br />
Early on in the process of discovering I have cancer, finding out what kind (breast), what stage (2) and what can be done about it (lots), I decided I was going to be upfront about telling people what it was. This is partly because there is still fear and stigma about cancer, and the fear certainly can work to prevent people getting diagnosis and treatment in a timely fashion.<br />
<br />
I'm not surprised there is fear about cancer. It is a common cause of death, it is not always treatable, the treatment can be horribly debilitating and scary even when successful, and death from cancer can painful and wearying in a way that many other illnesses are not. I lost both my parents to causes which, while terrible - heart attack, stroke - were enviably quick (enviable for the person dying, that is, though shocking and traumatising for the bereaved). On the other hand, in the last couple of years I have seen good friends fight long losing battles against cancer which were incredibly wearing and painful to themselves and to their loved ones, as well as being bound to end one way only, as the cancers had reached stage 4 before they were even diagnosed.<br />
<br />
So fear is pretty natural, and I have it myself. Stigma I don't understand at all, but that's another thing.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I have cancer, but it doesn't have me, and I'm lucky. There is a lot that can be done for it, there is a tremendous amount of ingenuity, skill and support which goes into helping people with it, and the doctors are using the word 'curable' to me at every turn. Also I live in the UK and the NHS is underfunded and overburdened and under paid, but it's still world class and paid for from taxation rather than at the point of need. So why not tell everyone? After all, I'm going to have to explain to people why I've suddenly, for the first time since 1985, changed my hairstyle, why I might not be available for some of the things I do, why I might need to arrange cover for the classes I teach.<br />
<br />
Telling folk does mean the people I tell are going to react to the information in their own ways. Everyone has their own take on it and that's fine. Some express fear for me - which is OK: it is scary - and some express bafflement (one dear person said "I don't know how to react to this" - to which the reply has to be "That's OK. I don't know how to react either") but all express concern and love. Someone sent jonquils, bless them, which make the whole house smell fantastic.<br />
<br />
My friends and my family are great!<br />
<br />
And... then there are also the odd responses.<br />
<br />
A friend messages me with a link to a natural "cure for cancer": mistletoe. They ask me whether I've considered this as a treatment.<br />
<br />
I reply with thanks, but at the moment (what with the doctors saying how it's curable and all) I'm going with the treatments the specialists tell me can cure my cancer, which is after all an extremely common and very thoroughly researched one. Friend replies saying "no doubt you have researched it and drawn your own conclusions."<br />
<br />
Well, actually, do you know, I haven't researched it, very much.<br />
<br />
Indeed, in the initial stages of my diagnosis (when I knew that I had breast cancer, but before I had seen the specialist to know whether it was operable or treatable or what kind of prognosis I might have) I was proud of not googling anything, because I knew that: -<br />
<br />
a) what I found might not help me, and certainly wouldn't help me as much as the specialists would<br />
b) what I found might quite likely be the worst case scenarios, which my imagination would no doubt fasten on<br />
and mainly...<br />
c) there would be a hell of a lot of dodgy and unsubstantiated claims popping up, from the silly-but-mild claims that something which kills cancer cells in a test tube will also kill them in your actual living body, to the frankly mad, bad and dangerous. Many of them - and mistletoe certainly falls into this category - are basically advertising by people who would like to sell you something.<br />
<br />
"Research" is a curious word under the circumstances. Googling something may be the start of research (finding out what others have written, though only if it's online) but what comes up on the University of Google is ungraded for nonsense, charlatanry and source validity.<br />
<br />
Research in the medical sense is rather more difficult. I don't have medical training, and I'm not, at 53, going to retrain as a scientific researcher all of a sudden, even now that I have a serious interest in an ailment and a first-hand experience of it that many researchers won't have. Also, we have a scientific profession (largely trained and funded at public expense), universities, hospitals and doctors by the hundreds all beavering away precisely so that when we are ill we do not have to chuck everything and become our own medical specialists.<br />
<br />
While I generally agree with the idea that we take responsibility for things like keeping healthy (by for example not smoking, not drinking to excess, and trying to keep the weight down and to get out and about every day), I'm not about to reinvent medicine or come up with my own cures any time soon. I wouldn't be much good at it. I have other skills.<br />
<br />
But among those skills are these. I can read, I can understand some serious scientific articles, and I have learnt from various sources (Ben Goldacre's wonderful Bad Science blog and books stand out) to have a certain degree of caution in interpreting evidence. I also have (and teach) approaches to assessing the reliability of sources, and a little bit about research project design validity.<br />
<br />
It doesn't mean something from a respected source can't be flawed - the Lancet published the totally discredited and fraudulent article that started the MMR panic, for example, though they publicly withdrew it later - but at least the requirements of reputation encourage good sources to take validity seriously.<br />
<br />
So, just for kicks, in the spirit of "research" (for a given value of research) I googled "mistletoe treatment for cancer". Millions of hits. The first one that comes from a reputable source is the BMJ - oh goody! Even better, it's a meta-analysis: a study of all the studies done that have been published. And it's by Edzard Ernst, a highly respected and very interesting man, who having been trained in homeopathy as well as conventional medicine has done more than most to test and to point out the nonsense that many 'alternative' treatments claim.<br />
<br />
It's here:<br />
<br />
http://www.bmj.com/content/333/7582/1282<br />
<br />
Short summary - lots of proprietary mistletoe treatments available commercially in Europe and hundreds of thousands of websites promoting them. It's big business, worth millions of pounds, and in some countries insurance will pay for it.<br />
<br />
And it doesn't work. The study is a meta-analysis, looking at the results and the set-up of all the different research that has been published. It rates them on findings (negative effect, no effect, positive effect), strength of result, and also on the experimental design. Bad design includes things like not double blinding, or poorly defined outcomes, or very small sample sizes which increases the chances that any changes are just random.<br />
<br />
Here's what Ernst found about mistletoe as a cure for cancer: Where the research was badly designed, it got better results. When the research was better designed they got slight, no or negative results. This is to be read in conjunction with the fact that it is anyway harder to publish research which has slight or no or negative results: a lot of studies are started and just disappear from view, essentially because negative results make dull reading, and for worse reasons, like companies that sponsor the research deciding to only publish studies that make their products look good. (Amazingly, there is no central register that tracks what research is being done so people can catch companies dropping studies which disappoint them). So the chances are that there have been more studies which the meta-analysis did not find because the results were too disappointing to publish.<br />
<br />
And it isn't safe. Mistletoe treatments have resulted in a large number of serious adverse reactions, including ulceration and kidney failure. In the lab, mistletoe actually enhances the growth of some cancer cells (at least turmeric seems to kill them in the test tube, if not in real bodies! Besides which, turmeric is delicious in curries).<br />
<br />
So, 20 seconds' "research" (googling) and 5 minutes reading the results gives me a strong sense that mistletoe, in spite of the hundreds of thousands of websites promoting it, will not be any use for what ails me, and might well be bad. I have cancer already: why would I want to risk kidney failure on something that does not work? (Not that there aren't adverse effects for the treatment I'll be getting. Unlike the commercial websites, though, the doctors have been entirely upfront about these, almost to the point of putting me off, and are doing tests to understand how far I'm likely to be susceptible to some of them so the effects can be mitigated).<br />
<br />
I sent my friend the link to the BMJ, with thanks.<br />
<br />
Oh, but I do so understand where this friend (like me a storyteller) is coming from!<br />
<br />
It would be wonderful to imagine I could go into nature, out into the woods, to discover for myself the secret oak grove, where the healer (with a golden sickle, perhaps?) dispenses mysterious and magical mistletoe that will cure me. In imagination the white berries glow in the darkness of the sacred grove like little full moons. The healer will pluck one berry and give it to me, a little kiss of health from the wild wood.<br />
<br />
It becomes a pilgrimage, a ritual journey that is a far cry from getting the 11 bus to the hospital (which is how I get to my healers), and also a long, long way from the actually existing version of "mistletoe as a cure for cancer", which would be a case of me sitting at home at the computer buying some expensive pills off the internet.<br />
<br />
Even better, with "research" I could kid myself that I had become that healer.<br />
<br />
It would be lovely if it were true. It would be just like a story.<br />
<br />
It isn't.<br />
<br />
<br />Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-7868720623630064042014-02-12T02:34:00.000-08:002014-02-16T05:55:28.265-08:00Water, water everywhere...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't afford education. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't afford to manage our energy supply. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't afford the Arts. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't afford health care free at the point of need. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't afford training or skills for young people. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't afford the elderly. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't afford unions. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't afford "Green crap". </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We certainly can't afford the sick or disabled. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't afford to help people who can't find a job - but that'</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">s OK, because we don't want to help people like them anyway. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't afford libraries. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't afford Health and Safety. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't afford soldiers' pensions, so we're sacking them weeks before they qualify. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't afford woodlands. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't afford Human Rights. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't afford food safety inspections and anyway, why shouldn't people eat slurry? </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't afford the North, quite frankly, and why would we want to? </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We certainly can't afford to invest in renewables, or to put any money into mitigating the effects of climate change, or to build resilience into our infrastructure - but that is absolutely fine because there's really no such thing as climate change, honest, and we must frack the hell out of the country because there's money to be made and once again we are promising energy too cheap to meter. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We must have permanent Austerity or else we'll become like Greece - and we wouldn't want to become like Greece, would we? </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And then - Surrey floods! Berkshire floods! Some carpets in millionaires' riverside homes get spoiled! The Queen could see flood water from the battlements of Windsor Castle, were she not staying in one of her other homes at the moment. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And... guess what? "We are a wealthy country," says Cameron. "Money is no object."</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Updated to add: apparently the unlimited cheque of our money that Cameron wrote yesterday to bail out some Tory safe seats is going to come out of "underspend" in government departments. In other words, from cuts to social security, health, education, defence...</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-3470206985508851382014-02-06T01:45:00.001-08:002014-02-06T01:54:14.588-08:00The New News: Hair today and bald tomorrow<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Thirteen days ago some highly skilled people injected me with a
combination of drugs that made me unconscious and kept me like that while other
highly skilled people cut me open in two places, put their hands inside the cuts, and took pieces out of my body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of the bits they took out were
located by earlier injecting me with radioactive material, and then using a
small geiger counter, ticking away like an insane watch, to trace what they
were looking for: the sentinel lymph gland in my armpit. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Then, while the
surgeon was rummaging in my breast for the original lump, some other highly skilled people with
astonishingly advanced equipment studied the gland to see whether this cancer I’ve got had
spread. It had, and so they concluded the operation by removing all thirteen
lymph glands from my armpit. Then they sewed up both the cuts they had made, and I was awake and back home by 8 that same evening.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">“I am fearfully and wonderfully made” says the psalmist. Yes, the fearfulness
quotient is increased when one has cancer, and knowing that it had spread as
far as my lymph glands ratchets up the fearfulness considerably. The lymph
appears to be a kind of distribution network for the body, with the lymph
glands as the central sorting office from which unpleasant parcels of tumour
cells can be dispatched to all locations. If it has reached there, where else
has it got to? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">So, two days ago, more radioactive material was pumped into my arm and a
few hours later (I made a flying visit to the Norfolk Community History Club in the meantime) I lay fully clothed but with empty pockets on a gurney
while a flat screen in a box hanging from a gantry clanked and crunkled its way
very very slowly from my head to my toes. It started off about a centimetre above my
nose, so close that the cross-hairs on the black screen blurred out of focus,
and made adjustments (clunk) and shifts (crunkle) as it edged along to keep the
same distance throughout. The point of this was to scan my bones, which the
radioactive material would show up, in order to find out whether any cancer
cells had set up shop there.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Now, bone cancer is easily the most frightening possibility I’ve had to
contemplate so far, in this little vortex of “how bad can it get?” that we have
been living in since December. Bone cancer is pretty fucking bad. So it’s
extremely pleasing to report that the scan shows I don’t have it. (It shows
I’ve got arthritic knees, but that I knew already).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hurrah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(Amazing how one’s perspective changes: in October 2013 I’d have been
horrified to be told I had cancer: by February 2014 I’m delighted not to have a
worse one).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">This pleasing news was delivered to me yesterday by Mr Pain, the wonderfully-named
surgeon who did the lymph and breast cancer removal. He’s wrongly named, too,
because not only are the scars extremely neat and unobtrusive, I’ve had
surprisingly little pain and my arm is fine (there’s sometimes loss of movement
after lymph removal, but not for me).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Since then he’s been looking at the bits he cut out, or talking to the people who
have, and the news is not so bad. 3 out of 13 lymph glands had cancer cells, and I
still have to have a CT scan to check that those busy little distribution centres
haven’t distributed them anywhere else. The cancer itself was about the size of the
top joint of my thumb: it was medium aggressive, and responsive to oestrogen,
which means, as I’d already been told, I’ll have to take an oestrogen blocker - but that it should help.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">First though I’m going to have to have chemotherapy, starting quite soon.
It’s going to make me feel like crap, I’m probably going to lose my hair, and we can’t go to New York in March as we planned, dammit. But
it has a good chance of killing off the remaining cancer cells lurking about
the place. After that I’ll have radiation on my breasts, and an oestrogen blocker
to take for the rest of my days. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">But - and this is important - we’re still in the territory signposted “curable”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">So quite soon, probably before the end of this month, I’m going to cut all my hair off and shave my head. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">My hair is, at this present moment, waist length, last cut by someone other than myself in September 1985, when Sarah Peters trimmed my fringe for me before a job interview, and it will be strange to be without it. I was last bald in 1960, when I was a few months old, and I suspect my nut on my shoulders will look like a pea balanced on a drum, but there it is. It may regrow some day, though it will quite likely come through white this time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Oddly enough, shaving my head has been a fantasy of mine
for some years. I intend to keep my hair, plait it, and sew it into hats and
things. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">I may also get a tattoo on my scalp, just for kicks. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;">Gotta do
something.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->
Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-24277993878052529032014-01-13T13:36:00.000-08:002014-01-13T13:36:02.059-08:00BetterA better day today.<br />
<br />
Still no sleep - haven't had a proper night's sleep since last Tuesday, and last night had no sleep at all. This hasn't been anything directly connected with this cancer thang, but to other stuff going on. A crisis, to which I reacted badly.<br />
<br />
OK, so I went to the allotment and saw - not what I had feared I'd see, which was a disaster area - but quite a lot needs doing.<br />
<br />
Some of it looked kind of fun.<br />
<br />
There were also some rewards: treats. Picked sprouts, and pulled some gorgeous fat carrots. Then came home with booty after chatting to the old chap with the blue blue eyes (I can't remember his name).<br />
<br />
I like the allotment when it's just a big larder, essentially, the weeds are not growing much, and all we have to do is walk up and get stuff. I'm more a forager than a grower.<br />
<br />
But we stocked the larder: hard work last spring and summer got us this.<br />
<br />
Then... something else I'd been dreading, easing back into the novel. And I quite enjoyed it.<br />
<br />
I tend to beat myself up a bit with writing as duty, especially at the moment when it's my job. BUT oh Lord when it's pleasurable it's really really pleasure. Lots of ideas, suddenly. Too many, of course, to pursue, but the last 4 days I've had none except dark ones unrelated to writing or researching.<br />
<br />
It's said that Iris Murdoch and another writer whose name escapes me once got into a conversation about how much they enjoyed writing. Murdoch said 'Oh yes - but you must never tell anyone.'<br />
<br />
Perhaps I should think of it as my guilty secret hedonistic pleasure, rather than my guilty undischarged responsibility...Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-87638065622091109392014-01-10T03:26:00.004-08:002014-01-10T03:27:31.062-08:00Choices, choicesI have a life-threatening illness.<br />
<br />
It is currently curable, they think. With an operation, maybe with more than one. With radiotherapy. Maybe, if needed, chemotherapy. Curable. It may not even affect my life expectancy.<br />
<br />
But if it went untreated it would certainly kill me, in time.<br />
<br />
So at times when life does not seem worth living, instead of knowing what I would have to do in order to cease, I know that all I have to do is refrain from doing things.<br />
<br />
Don't go to hospital. Don't let them operate. Wait. Do what I'm good at: lie low, give no trouble, wait.<br />
<br />
And things will happen, of their own accord, and I will not need to trouble myself - before long, will need to trouble nobody.Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-56557128963067569912014-01-01T02:51:00.001-08:002014-02-06T01:45:37.223-08:00My news in 2013So, the news with which I ended 2013 is that I have breast cancer. It is operable, and both the consultant and the support worker made great stress of the word curable.<br />
<br />
In a couple of weeks the surgeon will remove a small chunk of me - a cancer and some surrounding tissue - and also a bit of lymph gland from my armpit. I imagine they grab the lymph first, as this gets whisked away to the laboratory while I'm still unconscious. If they find anything dodgy there they can then take all the lymph glands away in the same operation, which is convenient all round. They may later come back and take the lymph away in a later operation, after they've had time to have a really good look.<br />
<br />
The next thing is to give me some radiation - locally applied - to make sure any spare cancer cells that may be lurking get knocked out.<br />
<br />
If that doesn't work, there is chemotherapy, which will make me feel considerably crappier, but still a good deal better than cancer would, in the long run. <br />
<br />
As the cancer is what is described as 'oestrogen fed', I then have to take an oestrogen blocker for probably the rest of my life. This will be a novelty, as I've taken very little medicine in my 53 years, and nothing day after day since my 20s when I was briefly on the pill. I daresay I can get used to it, and (having spent since November when I first noticed the lump wondering about different possible futures) am relieved that I may have time to.<br />
<br />
Before Christmas, I went in for some samples of tissue to be taken from the lump which I had become aware of, and from the other lump I hadn't known about which the screening had identified, and the slightly suspicious lymph glands showing up, like knots in wood grain, on the ultrasound.<br />
<br />
The sampling is done with a small spring-loaded gun type device which shoots into you, snatches a little core of flesh, and withdraws it through a shaft not much larger than a needle. It's like being punched hard by an incredibly dense and tiny fist, but means all you're left with is a small puncture wound and a bit of bruising. The consultant clicked it a few times first to get me used to the sound so I wouldn't flinch when it was actually being used - obviously, if you flinch, you're going to have worse bruising. I didn't and had only very tiny bruises.<br />
<br />
This is all a part with the extraordinary amount of inventiveness and ingenuity that has gone into trying to stop people dying of cancer. About 250 years of treating breast cancer and finding out what works and what doesn't, from Fanny Burney walking alone to her mastectomy with no anaesthetic and hearing the surgeon's saw grate on her own ribs, to this.<br />
<br />
In amongst the ingenuity, the language used is interesting. The support worker, Valerie, talking about possible effects, referred throughout to "ladies" - "some ladies find that this or that". Not being a lady myself, makes me wonder what I'm doing there. Conscious efforts are made to include one's partner, and B had the pleasure of hearing himself referred to as "hubby". <br />
<br />
Certain phrases recur I suppose as formulae for getting us all through the social transactions involved. The surgeon read me a form in which he explains what he's going to do, and what he might have to do (for instance, if he needs to take all the lymph instead of a bit), and what effects it might have, and then hands it to me to take away, read and sign, with the words "My gift to you". About 15 minutes later, the support worker, piling information into a big file in case I fancy a bit of light reading, said the same thing.<br />
<br />
Both concluded by saying "Well done" to us both several times. Buoyed on this wave of congratulation we made our way to our bus before I wondered what exactly it was we'd done well - possibly, well done for not breaking down? Or refusing to countenance treatment? Or refrained from punching the surgeon?<br />
<br />
Or perhaps it was just a signal that the interviews were over and we had leave to depart, without using words such as 'goodbye' or 'that's your lot', which might, under the circumstances, make people nervous.<br />
<br />
So 2013 ends as it began, with a visit to hospital. Last January it was B who had a scare, which turned out to be nothing. Come to think, the last few Januaries have involved visits to hospitals, though always for other people.<br />
<br />
This time it's for me, and I'm glad and grateful we have such good hospitals, and the NHS in general - there for us when we need it... still.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-54752906494350514082013-09-26T04:12:00.001-07:002014-01-01T07:55:02.823-08:0026th September or How They Met My Mother<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">My mother, Marian, was born on this day in 1921. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">She was born at home, during the day, in an upstairs bedroom in Army Road, Clapham, according to Uncle Eddie, who took me for a walk around Clapham in about the year 2000. I think the road has been renamed but the house is still there. Later on they moved around the corner to the house my Mum remembered.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Auntie Mary is still alive and fabulous in South Africa. In 2001 she told me about how she met my mother. This is the story:</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">The midwife came in and turned the dining table upside down on the carpet. She put Mary (who was three and a half) and Eddie (who was about 18 months old) on the table top with some slices of bread and butter and told them "This carpet is the sea and this table is a boat. If you get off the boat you'll fall into the sea and drown, so stay where you are." Then she went upstairs. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">It worked. Mary and Eddie stayed on their boat floating in their imaginary sea, eating their bread and butter rations, while upstairs the baby was coming into the world. Later on, their big sister Gladys, aged 8, came home from school and looked after them until they were allowed upstairs to see their new sister.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">My family has always been susceptible to the power of stories.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-83097155303558305412013-08-18T10:28:00.001-07:002013-08-18T10:44:36.307-07:00Random Thoughts about Nick: Cars, Vans, WOMBATS<!--StartFragment-->
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Bold";"><b>Cars, Planes, WOMBATS<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">I once thought of writing the story of a relationship
in terms of the vehicles in which and by which it is conducted, over several
years. This seemed plausible to me even though I can't drive and have little idea what goes on under a car bonnet. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Clearly it was Nick I had in mind. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">In 1985 he was still in his young executive slimline
briefcase phase, although, in his own words, had just fucked his career at
American Express. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">He had gone to his bosses and demanded they remove
him from a jetsetting job running training for Amex agents all over
French-speaking Africa, to doing any available work in the massive Brighton
offices that could be dropped like a hot brick at 3 each afternoon in order for
him to pick Jess up from nursery. He then spent the next hours playing with her and
getting her tea before dropping her back at her Mum’s at seven pm.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">I think there had been some additional deal about him
returning to the AmEx office for another few hours work after that, or at
weekends, but I’m pretty sure it seldom occurred. But pick up and spend time
with Jessica he did, every weekday. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">The car was a Cavalier: a model much loved by
advertising execs and sales fleet procurers. It was metallic looking – very
popular in the 80s – and the very first car I’d ever been in where the music
system played CDs instead of battered cassettes that got stuck and spewed loops
of tape. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">CDs! The very cherry on the Black Forest Gateau of
80s sophistication! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">The sound quality was very good indeed: in fact there
was a James Last CD in which Nick could make out a metallic little clink. After careful listening he concluded it was the
sound of the flute knocking against the music stand. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">In-car listening was not quite what you’d associate
with Nick of later years: Eurythmics, Level 42, Simply Red, and bloody Dire
bloody Straits, who were everywhere at the time. But also Dr Hook, whose surprisingly rude songs may
well have influenced subsequent donkey-based humour, the delightful Roche
sisters, for the Plum to sing along to from the Plumseat in the back, and Frank
Zappa, Joe’s Garage, as soon as Nick knew I had been a Roman Catholic. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Blasting along between Birmingham and Leamington Spa, or from Brighton to Drusilla's, or through Southern England on the way to Glastonbury, we sang The Freaker's Ball, Ireland Soon, and many another. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Later came Vanessa, a VW camper van. I think there
were at least two Vanessas, one with a popup top in which there was a little
den for Jessica to sleep in at festivals. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">The final Vanessa, in the mid 1990s, became a bit of
a nuisance, which Nick decided to solve by arranging for it to be “stolen” and
disposed of while he was away visiting me in Thailand. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">He was outraged on his return to find the thing still
gently rotting where he had left it. ‘Where can you find a thief you can trust
these days?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Finally there came a succession of vans and trucks, in various states of
repair, many of them fitted out with ingenuity, often full of musical
paraphernalia, old t-shirts, and even worse, musicians. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">In one WOMBAT - Waste Of Money, Brains And Time - covered in rust and patches, he
drove up to Norwich for August Bank Holiday 2003. We had both just returned to
England from elsewhere – he from France, me from the United Arab Emirates. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">The van pootled along fairly reliably once it got going, but starting
was complicated. It involved pulling out the cover behind the steering wheel –
revealing a spaghetti of different coloured wires - and Nick diving down into
the footwell with a large pair of pliers while at the same time keeping a hand,
or occasionally a foot, on the wheel. He could not see where he was going and
get going at the same time, and the tangle of wires became ominously longer
each time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">At one point as we potttered along the Norfolk lanes we passed a convoy
of rather splendid glittering vintage cars coming the other way, out for what
was probably their ‘once a year if the weather is right’ excursion away from
the deep oil, bubble-wrap, and temperature-controlled garages in which they
were usually preserved. The drivers were vintage too – some of them dressed
appropriately in deerstalkers, capes, big hats and so on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Nick fixed his eyes on the drivers, took both hands off the wheel and
applauded wildly, nearly causing the leading driver to swallow his meerschaum
pipe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">‘It’s nice of them to make all that effort just to entertain us,’ Nick
said. "Think of all the trouble they’ve gone to so we can look at them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">And </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Italic";"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">they </span></i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Italic";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">have to
look at </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Italic";"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">us</span>!</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"> "</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
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Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-20634625173621938582013-08-12T13:49:00.004-07:002013-08-12T13:50:50.453-07:00April Fool: Random Thoughts about Nick<!--StartFragment-->
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Bold";"><b>April Fool<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Nick always claimed he was an April Fools’ Day prank.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">The story was that after his big sister Lesley was
born his father said, “One’s enough”. So Nick’s Mum sabotaged the marital
condoms. Before noon on April 1<sup>st</sup> she was able to say “April
Fool!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Sure enough, Nick was born on Boxing Day 1950. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">I have no idea whether that was true or not, but
remembering Romee, Nick’s tank driving, Nazi-escaping, Japanese-Prisoner-of-War-camp-surviving,
multi-lingual German-Dutch-Jewish matriarch mother, I wouldn’t be at all
surprised.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>(There’s a memorable
vignette of Romee in </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Italic";">A
Liars Autobiography</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">, by
Graham Chapman, the deceased Monty Python member. Chapman and other Pythons used
to drink at The Monarch in Chalk Farm Road, the pub that Nick’s parents ran,
and attended Nick’s wedding some time in the 70s).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-32503029128558617472013-08-11T02:40:00.001-07:002013-08-11T02:49:33.960-07:00Tales for Weddings<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A couple of storytellers have asked about tales suitable for weddings or engagement parties. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are millions of stories on a theme of marriage, some more, some less appropriate for weddings, though weddings are traditionally places where inappropriate things can be said too. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, I'm not sure many newly weds would want Dave Tonge, the Yarnsmith of Norwich, to tell his startling tale of the husband, the wife, the angel and the magic ring just in the middle of their celebrations... (Not that it isn't a great story: you must hear Dave tell it some time! Just not exactly wedding fare, no matter how rude the best man's speech).</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, here's a tale which appears in Jewish (Ashkenazim) tradition but also in India and North Africa (Mahgrebi) tales. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">* * *</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back in the days when young men and young women did not mix much socially, people still used a matchmaker to help them find a husband or wife. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The matchmaker was called to a family where the son was thinking about getting married. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Did he have any specific woman in mind? asked the matchmaker. No, said, the young man, but she has to be a kind-hearted girl - I couldn't live with a wife who was unkind.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The matchmaker thought about it and suggested some suitable, kind hearted girls, and the young man thought about it and said 'Fine, but what do they look like? I want a beautiful wife, obviously.' </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So the matchmaker thought again, and came up with a list of kind girls who were also beautiful. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the young man said, Yes, but are they intelligent and well-educated? I couldn't possibly marry someone who wasn't.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The matchmaker gave it some thought and brought a list of girls who were kind and beautiful and intelligent and well educated. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the young man said, You know what? It would be ideal to have a wife with a bit of money put by. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So the list got re-jigged again. And this time the young man said, I forgot to mention cooking. A woman who can cook well - that's so important for me.' </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So... finally the matchmaker brought a list of suitable girls who were kind and beautiful, and intelligent and educated and had some savings and were good cooks. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the matchmaker and the young man went through the list, and this one had a brother the young man disliked and that one, well, the young man had once heard her use a swearword in public, which of course put her out of the question for him, and this one sometimes wore a dress the young man felt did not suit her ... and so the list got shorter and shorter, until there was just one woman left on it. Surprising there was anyone, really. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And try as he might - and he did try hard - the young man could not find anything to object to. She was, by his standards, the perfect woman, and he thought she would make him the perfect wife. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So... great excitement, the matchmaker set up a meeting between the two.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">The young man went off to the meeting looking very pleased but he came back looking like a wet weekend.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">What's the matter? said the matchmaker. Wasn't she as perfect as we thought?</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">No, said the young man. As far as I can tell, she's the perfect woman.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">The problem is, she's looking for the perfect man.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">Ah, you didn't think of that, said the matchmaker, and walked away.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">* * *</span></span>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-48167680430646519292013-08-09T07:18:00.001-07:002013-08-11T02:42:17.917-07:00Practice seminars today.<br />
<br />
Students discuss rival candidates to become visiting lecturers and try to agree who to choose.<br />
<br />
One student's vote went to <em>Semen Cowell.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
Surprisingly apt.<br />
<br />
Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-54617522069268044882013-08-08T05:38:00.003-07:002013-08-08T09:02:39.854-07:00The Language of DisagreementPreparing students for a seminar exam, recommended language for expressing disagreement includes: <br />
<br />
<em>- I'm afraid I'm not convinced...</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>- Well, you may have a point, but...</em><br />
<br />
and<br />
<br />
<em>- I'm sorry but I really don't go along with that.</em><br />
<br />
No mention at all of the most commonly used expressions in my household:<br />
<br />
<em>- Bollocks!</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>- Tummy rubbish!</em><br />
<br />
and the diplomatic, not to say literary<br />
<br />
<em>- Up to a point, Lord Copper.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
It seems a shame that students do not tend to get exposed to the actual English expressions used by people like me (by which I mean habitually foul-mouthed people, of course).<br />
<br />
Which reminds me I have totally failed to introduce the expression 'bolleme' into everyday English. Based on <em>lexeme, </em>meaning a unit of lexis (or as we say in English, a <em>word</em>) <em>bolleme </em>means a unit of bollocks. <br />
<br />
Examples: <br />
<br />
<em>Phew, that management meeting had a particularly high bolleme count, didn't it?</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Looks like 'synergy' is bolleme of the day.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>I thought that article was pretty good except for the bolleme on page 4</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Adam Smith supposed that all participants in the market are rational actors and have all the information they need to choose rationally at all times based on their own best interests - which is a bit of a bolleme, when you come to look at the evidence.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
There is clearly a need for this handy expression, but so far, alas, no takers.<br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-17225816236030214422013-08-07T23:43:00.001-07:002013-08-11T02:50:44.191-07:00Random thoughts about Nick: Shooting stars<!--StartFragment-->
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Bold";"><b>One August and another.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Early August, and the Perseid meteor shower swings
past the planet again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Nick and I crept out to one of the Downs, to a wheat
field, nearly due the cutting, well over the brow of the hill from the city
glare. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Gradually our eyes began to get used to the night
sky, and then flickers at the edge of vision, fugitive glitters which seemed
sure to be – nothing, just eyes playing tricks – intensified, brightened, and
resolved themselves into long striations of light passing over us, here, then
there. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Finally a speck of light appeared, grew brighter,
bigger, closer, hurtling towards us, and instantly winked out. We both jumped,
blinked, shook our heads. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">I swear we could feel the star grit in our eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Later, as we got up to go, collecting the rugs, Nick
looked at the imprint we’d left in the field, which I’ve no doubt has been
extra fertile ever since. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">“Ahah! A crop oblong!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">‘Shooting stars,’ became a code between us – a secret
password.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Now the Perseids are passing<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>by us once again, on their ineffable
journey, as I head south to see him off<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>on his. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Shooting stars.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
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Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-80849791516196800582013-08-06T04:26:00.001-07:002013-08-08T05:42:18.787-07:00Random Thoughts About Nick: I dreamt about my DadIn Sussex staying with friends and preparing to commemorate one of my oldest friends, Nick Clyne, who died on July 25th. I've been jotting down some random thoughts and memories about him and thought I'd post one or two as they occur.<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Bold";"><b>I dreamt of my Dad</b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">I’ll explain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Meeting Nick for the first time, in December 1985,
the initial impression was strongly, and rather alarmingly, reminiscent of my
father, who had at that point been dead for 11 years. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">There were resemblances. Both were witty,
affectionate, highly intelligent, fat men with - as I discovered the next day,
when Nick invited me round to tea with him and Jessica, then known as the Plum
- a much-loved daughter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Physically, apart from the fat, they were not in the
least alike, but their emotional and intellectual signatures were remarkably
similar. So much so that, when Nick and I were beginning to make a leisurely
progress towards the inside of each other – a journey which began almost immediately<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- I found the resemblance off-putting,
and told him so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I’ve since made
peace with the liking for witty, affectionate, highly intelligent fat men – men
with curly ginger hair - that seems to have been imprinted on my psyche ever
since. I’m married to one, but back then it had not occurred to me that I had a
type.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">On Wednesday afternoon, 24<sup>th</sup> July 2013, I
started to feel ill at work – dizzy and nauseated. I went home early, and the
next day stayed off work and off line, feeling the room spin round. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Early on Friday morning I dreamt my Dad was sitting
beside me. In Nick’s voice, he told me, ‘I’ve been alive again for a few years,
but I’m going to have to be dead for a bit now. Sorry.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">I told Barrie what I’d dreamt, went to work and
logged onto a computer to check messages. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">And there was the announcement of Nick’s death. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Bold';"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<br />Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-74584337453282870122013-02-21T02:10:00.001-08:002013-03-20T08:22:41.046-07:00What kind of job is Pope?<!--StartFragment-->
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<span lang="EN-US">Last week’s most unexpected story was the
resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, head of the Roman Catholic Church. When I say
unexpected, I mean it. A number of sources - mostly traceable to the Ur-source, Wikipedia - reported that it’s the first time a
pope has resigned in 600 years, but it’s actually rarer than that. In 1415
three popes (or "popes") resigned simultaneously, because none of them could convince the
rest of Christendom of his legitimacy. The RCC seems to have decided in
retrospect, I don’t know on what basis, that one of these three, Gregory XII, was the proper
pope and shouldn’t have needed to resign after all, in spite of his having been elected by a mere handful of cardinals, but at the time it was one
of those historical deadlocks like the Schleswig-Holstein question to which
nobody knew the answer. (The history of Anti-Popes, from the same University of Wiki, is most entertaining, by the way).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">But Papa Josef Ratzinger has no rivals to the
title. There are about five popes currently heading small denominations (two papacies became vacant in 2011), but there is not currently
an Anti-Pope in the running for top Catholic. The last undisputed pope to
resign was poor old Celestine V, in 1294, and Dante put him, or someone who looks
a lot like him, into the ‘limbo of the futile’ for his pains. Celestine’s
immediate successor as pope showed his gratitude by imprisoning the old man and then
not feeding him, but he was canonized almost as soon as he was cold, which was
probably not as much consolation as a few buns might have been. Celestine’s
only other Papal act was to proclaim the principle that popes can resign. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Anyway, we are witnessing a one-in-800-year
event. The Italians have a saying <i>ogni morte del’ Papa</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> (every time a Pope dies) meaning <i>once in a blue moon</i></span><span lang="EN-US">, but compared with resignations, popes’ deaths are as common as
mayflies’ and blue moons as mundane as midday. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">There are a lot of strange things about
this story. One of the strangest is how quickly it has been normalized, as
it dawned on everyone how apparently sane and sensible this astonishing decision
actually is. The Pope is 85, in fragile health, and has reportedly been advised
not to travel. In any other line of work, retirement at this juncture would be
remarkable only for the fact that the soon-to-be-retiree had gone on for so
very long already. Pope makes sensible announcement, shock, horror.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">But it’s also curious to consider the line
of work he is in. The Pope is not simply a priest and a religious leader, but
also a head of state. An absolute head of state, for all that he’s elected, and
you don’t get many of those any more. Vatican State is the last absolute
monarchy left in Europe, and the only theocracy.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Citizenship in this micro-state is
determined by religious affiliation, which is true of a few other states in the
world. But simply being a Catholic does not in itself get you a Vatican City
passport. You have to be a high-ranking member of the clerical hierarchy – and
therefore, male. Vatican City is a state which has no native-born citizens, and
citizenship rights are granted purely on the basis of occupation. It seems to
have few female citizens, as far as I can tell: the language of the Vatican
website, which notes that in certain circumstances, citizenship may be extended
to employees’ spouses, is carefully gender neutral, but one somehow doubts the
Vatican is an equal-opportunity employer. Of its 800-odd citizens,
three-quarters are celibate male clerics and most of the rest are members of
the in-house mercenary army, the Swiss Guards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lose your job, and you are quite likely to lose your
passport with it. If you find yourself stateless as well as unemployed after a
particularly hard day at the Holy Office, the Italian state is treaty-bound to
take up the slack. Citizenship does not enfranchise you to vote for your
absolute monarch, either: that’s done by Cardinals (so long as they’re under
80) who for the most part are not actually citizens of the state whose ruler
they are electing. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">By far the oddest thing of all is that this
bizarre theocratic uni-gender statelet sits on numerous international bodies
and commissions, and has voting rights on many of them (not the UN, though, in
a rare example of someone being sensible). It uses its position to affect international agreements on
laws which govern all of us – notably those which affect women’s lives - and to
avoid jurisdiction in matters, such as banking transparency, which most normal
states are supposed to abide by. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">This is as strange as if Barclays Bank or Tescos
had managed to get a few acres of land to hoist their flag over and managed to
persuade everyone to agree they were states. But citizenship in BarclayCity or
Tescopolis would not be available to the employees, not for shelf-stackers or
counter staff or even for the regional managers, and certainly not for the
depositors or the customers, even those with loyalty cards - but reserved for
just a very few top members of the board, holders of some kind of super Clubcard. Then imagine that this ersatz statehood gave the
bank or the supermarket a seat on the international organizations who make
decisions about, lets say, tax laws, or town planning. </span></div>
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In the meantime, a million Pope jokes have succeeded and combined with those about horsemeat in burgers, Chris Huhne and his marriage, and so on. My personal favourite is that when Ratzinger ceases to be Pope he will return to being known as Cardinal Josef Ratzinger: and Ex Benedict, in fact.</div>
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NB 'A Hard Day At The Holy Office' is the title of a novel which was published, I think, in the 1970s. I've never read it, or seen a copy, but based on the title alone I'd love to. </div>
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Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-88982882287336281422012-12-10T10:31:00.001-08:002012-12-10T10:31:01.933-08:00Signs of lifeHmm, well it's been a thin year on the posting front. For various reasons, good, bad and indifferent. What's to say? <br />
<br />
It's winter. Cold and most impressive (I'm still not used to it) dark. This is something I do find difficult after years under brighter skies. I mean, it isn't JUST the fact that between 4 pm and 8 am it is actually too dark to see without lights on - though it is certainly that - but even when it's light, it's dark. If you see what I mean. East Anglia is one of the sunnier parts of these Isles, and one of the less rainy locations, too, but most days have been dingy to say the least. On the other hand, you do get some good effects: a red sunrise the other morning and today, the thin sliver of bright gold moon low down in the eastern sky just before dawn. <br />
<br />
So, today - not working at the moment - I made chocolate nut bon-bons with beech nuts and brandy, went to the allotment (I just went, I didn't do anything very useful there!), sketched out the story I'm going to tell tomorrow and did several other errands. At one point I was attached to a machine to have my heart monitored, just in case the chest pains and numb left arm I've been having were something nastier that just muscle problems. They aren't. I just seem to have a slightly dodgy neck bone which is making bits of me hurt elsewhere. It still hurts, but it's good to know it's no worse than that. <br />
<br />
Tomorrow I take delivery of a pear tree, a cherry, two vines and 8 raspberry canes for the allotment. Yippee yiy yay! <br />
<br />
I'm also doing a turn (singing and a story) tomorrow at a Victorian Christmas Evening, wearing a replica costume made for the 2012 Olympics. It is obviously based on the illustrations for Jane Eyre. So, to get an appropriate look for the night, I have for the first time ever bought myself a hair net and some hair pins. <br />
<br />
Is there no end to the excitement in my life?<br />
<br />
Watch this space...Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-52638104084383975212012-04-30T10:36:00.001-07:002012-04-30T10:38:27.743-07:00Proof At Last!Just a line to say that I finished the final proofs of Ghosts International: Troll and Other Stories today. Phewwee. Hurrah! It's expected to be out 20th July, barring conniptions.<br />
<br />
The mountain quivered and brought forth a flea (half-remembered misquote from somewhere), meaning a lot of effort for a small (but perfectly formed) result.<br />
<br />
In other news: B and I are working on a show in which I spin a web of tales connected with the sea, and B and I will sing some songs and shanties to explicate and illustrate the same. Tradition with a twist, something of that kind.<br />
<br />
Taking a massive flight into imaginative brand development, we've come up with a name for the show which we think expresses something unique and marvellous about it.<br />
<br />
Here it is: Stories and Songs of the Sea.<br />
<br />
D'you like it?<br />
<br />
We did consider Songs and Stories of the Sea, but the focus group decided it could be confusing.<br />
<br />
All we've got to do now is come up with a name for ourselves. It's a bit of a short change to say Sarah Walker (with Barrie de Lara), as if he were a mere adjunct. So... maybe <i>de La</i><i>ra and Walker</i>? With an ampersand: <i>de Lara & Walke</i>r? Or <i>de Lara/Walker? </i><br />
<br />
Now we know why I never went into marketing.<br />
<br />Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-36561880823943348152012-01-31T07:50:00.000-08:002012-01-31T08:03:39.417-08:00Gawain and the Green KnightTo Cambridge bouncing around in a very snug van (four in the back, no seats, some cushions, creaky bones) to the Cambridge Storytellers last week.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.cambridgestorytellers.com/">http://www.cambridgestorytellers.com/</a><br /><br />And what did we do there?<br /><br />We saw the fabulous Sarah Rundle there<br /><br /><a href="http://www.sarahrundle.co.uk/">http://www.sarahrundle.co.uk/</a><br /><br />performing Gawain and the Green Knight: a medieval tale of fantasy, treachery, wild animals, noble deeds, beautiful ladies, indestructable monsters, a magic axe, complicated family relationships and much much more.<br /><br />It was very good.<br /><br />It was, as someone commented in the van on the way back, a performance. Elements of standup in it for example: when Gawain is faced with a decision, it appeared as a powerpoint presentation (bubble/diamond) across the stage.<br /><br />When I say 'appeared', I mean, of course, 'didn't appear at all'.<br /><br />Sarah told us about it and acted it out and made us imagine it in glorious technicolour. Well, largely green: there really was some glowing vivid green as a backdrop, but... we were also imagining all the other colours. Especially white (teeth) and red (blood), thanks to a terrifying sung passage about Mr Fox.<br /><br />And this is the power of the spoken (sung, acted) word.<br /><br />The pictures are better.Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-45874560814162595502011-12-30T07:34:00.000-08:002011-12-30T09:08:53.254-08:00All About Me-veThere isn't much I want to write about just now, for reasons I may return to. Now, normally when I've got nothing to write about I don't write - years can pass this way - but I thought I might finish the year with some sort of trivia thing. All the papers do it, don't they?<br /><br /><br />I borrowed these questions from an auto-interview by/with the wonderful Efler blogger 'Lathophobic Aphasia', written by someone with a better turn of phrase and more of a gift for creative grumbling than most of the people you meet in the staffroom. No apologies for borrowing, though, as Mr Aphasia himself borrowed the questions from an interview that EFL demi-god Jeremy Harmer did with Professor Deborah Cameron, another bright light of the ELT industry. And jolly good questions they are too. Borrow them yourself. Maybe we can make it into a meme.<br /><br /><br /><strong>What three adjectives would you use to describe yourself?</strong><br /><br />Creative, disorganised, passionate.<br /><br /><strong>What is your greatest achievement?</strong><br /><br />You ain't seen nothing yet.<br /><br /><strong>What’s your favourite smell?</strong><br /><br />The sea, windfall apples lying on winter mud (smelt that on Moushold Heath this morning), cut grass, a clean cat, rain in the desert, burning seasoned oak, mangoes, coffee.<br /><br /><strong>What is your favourite taste?</strong><br /><br />Liquorice, mint, pineapple.<br /><br /><strong>What’s your favourite piece of music?</strong><br /><br />Umm, don't know. I'm ignorant about music. I'm most comfortable with baroque type things - they have a pattern that I can just about manage to get my head around, and they resolve. Bach and Handel kinda thang: I haven't evolved as far as Romanticism. At one time in my life I went a fair bit to opera with someone who knew a lot about them (that was in Italy) and I remember the first one I went to which I enjoyed all the way through without a minute's boredom or inattention. It was <em>Cosi Fan Tutte</em> - nothing but the best, eh?<br /><br /><strong>What book would you like everyone to read?</strong><br /><br />Just one? Impossible.<br /><br />Books I tend to recommend to people I like: Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall ditto, Mary Renault's historical fiction, The Once and Future King (TH White), Middlemarch<br /><br /><strong>What website would you like everyone to visit?</strong><br /><br />Not a clue.<br /><br /><strong>What is your favourite sound?</strong><br /><br />Cat purring. Wood fire crackling. Rain outside. The sea.<br /><br /><strong>If you were an animal, what animal do you think you would be?</strong><br /><br />Cat in a comfortable home, or small wild cat in a well-protected jungle. But then, I love to swim, so maybe otter or seal or one of the catlike prehistoric critters that went back into the water and became seals or whales or something. Or a Lake Van cat - they swim.<br /><br /><strong>What do you like to do in your spare time?</strong><br /><br />'Spare' is a bit of an odd concept for me... as indeed is 'time' - perhaps that's why I have trouble getting things done. I don't have a telly, but when I watch dvds (or, rarely, when I watch TV away from home) I feel a need to fidget. In the last few years I've started to deploy this in making things - beads or jewellery, and lately, patchwork. If I watch enough films this year I will finish a patchwork quilt bedspread.<br /><br /><strong>How many languages do you speak and why?</strong><br /><br />Well, I'm still struggling with English after 51 years. I learnt Italian quite well - I lived there for 6 years, though after 4 I no longer felt I was improving - after the age of 28 and with a history as a 'failed language learner'. It remains the only foreign language I ever got really confident and contented in, although I doubt I ever spoke it perfectly at my best. I'm fairly rusty now, though I still read it with pleasure, and recently have dreamt in it. I can read French and Spanish, but can't claim to speak either. French feels like a failure as I spent years being taught it without actually learning it, and now my 'default language', if I'm not speaking English, is Italian. I learned Anglo Saxon (or Old English if you prefer) per force at University for a year and was frustrated that I could not translate the poems well enough to do them justice: I felt they were wonderful but was not good enough - or indeed keen enough and hard-working enough - to make my versions adequate. I lived in Thailand three years without really getting to grips with Thai, but last week I watched a Thai film, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Remember His Past Lives, and was surprised how much I could catch - but it's at the level of words rather than sentences and meanings. Same with Arabic.<br /><br /><strong>What do you like most/least about your job?</strong><br /><br />I like the students who make this enormous courageous leap to living and studying in a different language and culture, and who make many small leaps of courage in order to communicate and approach each other and me. I like feeling that they are becoming ever more able to express more of their own meanings. I like getting to know people who do or will do such amazing and interesting things in life and who come from such varied and interesting countries: in what other profession would I meet Kurdish agriculturalists and Laotian ministers (who went to school in a cave and speaks Russian as a second language) and lawyers from the Ivory Coast. I like the strange and varied people who work in EFL too.<br /><br />I dislike the insecurity of zero hours contracts, the tedium of meetings, and the odium of the occasional embittered colleague one meets who seems to dislike students on principle.<br /><br /><strong>What would heaven be like if you were in charge?</strong><br /><br />Bliss. Warm sea, flying, music. Everyone I love around.<br /><br /><strong>When and where are you happiest? </strong><br /><br />Lathophobic A's answer is pretty good: 'in a warm bed on a cold morning when I needn’t get up'. But also sitting in a tree, or on a hillside in summer. Riding a motorbike alone in Thai mountains. Sitting on the bottom stair in my nightie to listen to The Hobbit on my Dad's radio when I was 8. Writing something yesterday that seemed like it was working.<br /><br /><strong>Something you are never without.</strong><br /><br />Something to read or to write on/with.<br /><br /><strong>What is your most appealing habit?</strong><br /><br />Not sure I have any appealing habits.<br /><br /><strong>And your least appealing habit?</strong><br /><br />Gloom.<br /><br /><strong>What is the trait you most dislike in others?</strong><br /><br />Dropping litter and crap in beautiful places. Seriously. You go somewhere lovely - or even somewhere just passably pleasant - and defile it?<br /><br /><strong>What is your most treasured possession? </strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Hmmm. My brain, I suppose. I would struggle to save the laptop and my mum's ring, and her diaries.<br /><br /><strong>If you could have a supernatural power, what would it be?</strong><br /><br />Three, please, and they need not be supernatural at all - just very good technology indeed. I want<br /><br />a time machine<br />a cloak of invisibility<br />and<br />a Babel fish.<br /><br />This last was Douglas Adams' invention - a fish that swims in your ear enabling you to understand all languages in the universe and be understood. It would make my job obsolete, of course. But think of the evesdropping! Think of the history! You could settle all arguments about when people first started using language, for a start... and so much more.<br /><br /><strong>What words or phrases do you overuse?</strong><br /><br />Like most Brits I swear a lot.<br /><br /><strong>What single thing would improve the quality of your life?</strong><br /><br />An income I could rely on.<br /><br /><strong>How would you like to be remembered?</strong><br /><br />I don't expect to be remembered by anyone, unless I write and publish something really good.<br /><br /><strong>What music do you enjoy listening to/playing most?</strong><br /><br />Can't play anything. I've enjoyed singing in choirs and want to do more of it, and better. Most perhaps was a piece of music Barrie wrote (and I wrote some of the words for) and Stephen arranged for the Al Ain Choral Society, in which we both sang: Blue Carol. Listening... see above.<br /><br /><strong>What did you dream of being when you were younger?</strong><br /><br />Writer. Trying to stop dreaming and work on it instead.<br /><br /><strong>What were you like as a student at school?</strong><br /><br />Space case, then later on enveloped in impenetrable gloom enlivened with sarcasm. I stuttered, could not choose between two words of apparently equal meaning (would say 'tan' or 'kin' instead of tin or can) and could not concentrate on anything.<br /><br /><strong>How do you cheer yourself up when you are feeling down?</strong><br /><br />I was very influenced by TH White's book 'The Once and Future King'. There's a point in which Merlin says that the one thing that never fails is to learn something - and then goes off into a long speech about the different things there are to learn and how many lifetimes it would take you to learn them all.<br /><br />But learning is quite difficult to do, so a lot of the time I just read. Which feels similar, but is not quite the same.<br /><br /><strong>If I hadn’t been a teacher, I would probably have been a...</strong><br /><br />writer sooner.<br /><br /><strong>Who has been the best teacher you have ever had?</strong><br /><br />Richard Holmes, the biographer. You could sit in his seminars and feel your brain expanding gently under his influence.<br /><br /><strong>Something that few people know about you.</strong><br /><br />I can't drive a car - never have learned - but I can ride a motorbike.<br /><br /><strong>If you could travel back in time where would you go and why?</strong><br /><br />All over the place! Specially if I get my cloak of invisibility and my babel fish too.<br /><br /><strong>What’s your best learning memory from school?</strong><br /><br />Walking in the park after midnight thinking that I understood 'Middlemarch'.<br /><br /><strong>Are you a tidy desk or a messy desk person?</strong><br /><br />Exceeding messy. It hampers me.<br /><br /><strong>What’s your favourite thing to do when it rains?</strong><br /><br />Sit by the fire with a warm cat and a good book.<br /><br /><strong>A poem you know by heart.</strong><br /><br />Afterwards, by Thomas Hardy. This Be The Verse by Philip Larkin. Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carroll<br /><br /><strong>What would you like to learn to do next?</strong><br /><br />Write!<br /><br /><strong>What question would you have liked me to ask you?</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>‘</strong>Can I publish your next book for a large sum of money? And can you do a sequel, please? And, how about film rights...’<br /><br /><strong>What would have been your answer?</strong><br /><br />Yikes! But yes, by all means.Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-22206396436487475752011-11-17T07:08:00.000-08:002011-11-17T07:32:20.127-08:00Things autumnalAh November, season of damps cramps colds and most of the birthdays in my family. It was B's yesterday, and - apart from having to go to work to pay for it all - we had a pretty nice day and some great pizza and wine at Pizza Express - still our favourite place to eat in spite of my not winning their invent-a-pizza competition (I came second. To be fair, the winning one was delicious, but I could have done with the prize money).<br />It hasn't been very cold but it has been quite damp: not raining, but foggy and condensation-y all over. And most days have been dark, too, overcast and foggy all day, with a few stunningly beautiful exceptions.<br />We put our clocks back two weeks ago, making the mornings lighter - although that did not last for long - and the evenings set in an hour earlier. As I type, at ten past three in the afternoon, it is too dull indoors not to have the lights on and it feels the dark is closing in. On some days now, we go out in the morning twilight and come home in darkness. It feels very Northern (though I suppose it could equally feel Southern, only in 6 months time). It also feels as though we should be spending much more time asleep than we actually do. The instinct to hibernate has always been strong in me (I may be closer to our burrowing ancestors than most people you'll meet), but I notice that the cats are sleeping much more (even) than usual.<br />The other things this time of year brings include colds and coughs. It's our second autumn back in England and only the first cold for both of us, so we've done pretty well, but it was a goodie. I blame the students. <br />Seriously, I do. In every class there is at least one student, and often three or four out of 16, with a massive cold but no hanky or tissues, and no idea that a rhythmic snuffling every 5 seconds gets tiresome after the first few hours. I'm considering inventing swine flu/bird flu/elephant flu/cat flu rumours to encourage everyone to wear those hygienic masks popular in Japan. I've read that the masks are not actually that useful but I don't care - it gives something to catch the.. ahem.. effluvia.<br />Richard II was said to be a pretty useless king of England. Shakespeare portrays him as vacillating, self-pitying and feeble in the play of the same name. Richard's cousin Bolingbroke certainly thought so, and decided he would make a much better king himself. He got the crown and sent Richard off to Pontefract, where he may have been stabbed or may have been starved, but in any case rapidly became unfit for consideration due to being dead.<br />But Richard is supposed to have brought the handkerchief into use in England and for that alone he deserves a statue... possibly one placed in every language school in the country, where students can observe, mark and follow his example.<br />If they won't, I wonder whether Pontefract castle still has dungeons? Just a thought.Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-53232555926908446932011-11-09T02:12:00.000-08:002011-11-09T02:22:36.276-08:00Singing in the ForumSaturday was the 10th Birthday of the forum, a large glass-topped building from which you can look out on a much finer one; St Peter Mancroft's. The Forum houses Pizza Express, a cafe, the local BBC studios and even a library - see what you need to do to get people into a library? Offer them pizza and beer.<br />It's a good building and a really great library - three libraries in one, the kids library, the American USAF library, and the Central. (Norfolk Council seems determined not to close any libraries, which is to be applauded).<br />Anyway, the celebrations involved much fun - Guardspersons on stilts, two Gentlemen of the Press in 1930s trench coats, storytelling (not by me), kids painting a specially erected painting wall, barbershop singing, and in the midst of it, a Flash Mob.<br />Do you Flash much? I never have before. Suddenly a portly gentleman burst into song in the library. He was homed in upon by people from all quarters of the place - not angry hushing librarians (a dying breed it seems to me) but singers. Men, then altos, then sopranos, lead by the lovely Meg Turpin. Oh... I see... it's a choir then. Yes indeed, for it was Norwich Community Choir. We sang and then, still singing, processed onto the glass balcony over the painting and crafting below. People looked up startled and delighted. We sang an African song - no idea what it meant, but the feeling and the harmonies were lovely. Some people were in tears (and NOT because they were saddened music lovers). Then we processed singing down the stairs and dispersed. We had been instructed to 'recruit men' - a perennial shortage in choirs. I'd brought my own along, but he already sings with the UEA choir. Heyho.<br />It was fun. We didn't sing happy birthday dear forum... maybe we should have.Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989906117771740756.post-23345159170006539402011-11-02T07:39:00.000-07:002011-11-02T07:52:41.586-07:00well.. erm...yess - still here.Yes I'm still here. Well, not here as in <em>here, </em>obviously - there'd have been a good few more posts if I'd been <em>here </em>more often. But here as in <em>still on this planet, in the land of the living. </em><br />Appropriately, it's the Day of the Dead (aka All Souls Day) as I write this.<br />November is kind of a funny, life/death month in my family. Half my family have birthdays around now, from my nephew at Halloween through my sister-in-law, two of my bros 4 days apart, my Beloved, and another nephew on the 19th November (he was supposed to have been a Saggitarius but dropped in early, thus joining his mum, dad, big brother and uncle in the same sign and turning their home into a nest of Scorpios). Then - tomorrow in fact - is the anniversary of my dad's sudden death - 37 years ago and still a shock. Widen the scope a bit into October and you get my third brother's birthday and my mum's anniversary. So, when it comes to remembering the living and the dead, November is it.<br />As part of the general Halloweeniness, I did my first storytelling gig in England since about... ooh, 1987, perhaps at the Waterman's Art Centre in Brentford? It was a kids' party and the theme of course was Halloween. It turned out to be a rather small audience, but very enjoyable (one tot who I know is only four sat their with his eyes getting rounder and rounder... I hope he got to sleep). Anyway, a good time was had, and I met some interesting people at the party, including a medieval historian in proper 15th century costume. So tonight we're off to the Norwich Storytellers gettogether (a new experience for us both) - theme of course spooky - and I might tell a tale or two, given half a chance.Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16288917377032021803noreply@blogger.com2