Missionary position

This one's for Ragamuffin. In the comments to a previous post she expressed concern that my atheism was based on a superficial and erroneous interpretation of the bible. I feel a response deserves a post to itself rather than a continuation in the comments. So here goes.
I am an atheist. I consider the universe and all within it to be wholly natural, adhering to fundamental laws, some of which may be as yet undiscovered. I see no place in this universe for the supernatural.
Being British, I grew up in the religion of my family. I was baptised in a Methodist church, and when we moved to Scotland, attended a congregationalist church in Leith. I attended Sunday School from the ages of four to fourteen, and I enjoyed it. But when I was too old for Sunday School, I wasn't that interested in sitting through a whole service, so I just stopped going.
I knew from an early age that Genesis was a creation myth. There wasn't really a Garden of Eden or a Great Flood, and later I found out that the Tower of Babel was a ziggurat. I found out when I was nine that the earth was four and a half billion years old, and dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. I found that no-one was really bothered about this, and my concept of God was similar to most people round me, which was a nebulous something that was behind everything, but didn't interfere much in the world.
Of course, when I was in my teens and early twenties, I read everything - books on Astrology, the Tarot, Ceremonial Magic, and Celtic Ritual. But I also read books by Isaac Asimov, Patrick Moore, Stephen Gould and Richard Dawkins. I watched Carl Sagan's Cosmos, Horizon, Connections, and I slowly moved from mild agnosticism towards atheism.
Once I got on the internet a couple of years back, and discovered blogs such as Pharyngula, God is for Suckers, and JanieBelle's favourite - the Bad Astronomer, then I finally felt I was coming home.
Now although I am an atheist, it is my philosophy that all people should make their own spiritual journey, just as I have. I am happy to debate religion on this blog, but I'm not looking to convert anybody.

Happy Birthdays

The other Saturday I managed to attend four birthday parties in one day. If that seems a little excessive, I will mention that three of the birthdays were at the same address. It was my nephew's and his aunt's and uncle's birthday, so my brother was having a barbecue. Plenty of sausage in buns there.
By an amazing coincidence, my friend Howard's party was only ten minutes drive away, so as the first party was winding down, I was able to nip over to the beginning of his party, where I stayed until one o' clock.
Boy was I full.

Barry Shopper and the Deathly Discounts

I bought the book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows yesterday. I was in Tescos, shopping for bread and teacakes and... there they were! A pile of HP&DHs, £10 each. So I did an impulse purchase, and put one in my trolley. What the heck, I was planning to get it anyway. Thence to the checkout, where all my shopping was duly scanned and rung up. And then the fun started.
The girl at the checkout looked at me and said, "You know that the Harry Potter's only £5 if you've spent more than £50?"
"No." I replied, "That's great."
The bill was £54.
But the girl had problems.
"I can't get it to subtract the £5. I'll need to get someone..." She pressed the help button and waited. And we waited. And the lady behind us in the queue was placing her shopping on the conveyor.
The supervisor soon worked out what the problem was.
"It's got to be £50 without the book."
Ah, all was clear. When the £5 discount was taken off, the total dropped below £50 which meant that the price rose to £10 again which pushed it back to £54... and so on in a recursive manifestation of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle applied to quantum economics.
"So how much are we short?"
"£6."
"I could get some more teacakes." My wife had been swithering earlier about getting an extra packet, and this pushed the decision firmly into the extra packet camp. She went off to the bakery section, while I wondered desperately how to shop for a fivers worth of stuff in as many seconds. The confectionery shelves were nearest. I rushed over and grabbed a couple of packs of Kit-Kats and a box of chocolates, and returned to the checkout.
"There's teacakes coming." I told the girl as she checked my new purchases through. Then we waited. And waited. The lady behind us in the queue had by now placed all her shopping on the conveyor, and she was waiting. I bet she was thinking how Sod's Law always places you in a checkout line that gets held up by nutters.
Sod this, I thought, and headed for the bakery section, checking each aisle as I went along to make sure my wife wasn't heading down. Fortunately she was on her way back. I grabbed the teacakes from her and ran back to the checkout and slammed them down triumphantly. The girl checked them, brought up the total and tried to subtract the discount.
Then she tried again to subtract the discount.
Then she pressed her help button.
By this time, I was beginning to think I had House Elf problems. The little buggers had obviously put a hex on the till.
The lady behind us in the queue would be thinking the same thing I reckoned.
The supervisor came and tried to subtract the discount.
She stared at the screen. She must have been giving it a silent retailer's Expecto Patronum, because the second time she tried, she succeeded!
Relief all round. Soon, all was paid for, and we were out of the store.

The book's good.

"Vengeance is mine!" sayeth the Demon Landlord

My friend the Demon Landlord is back in the news. The Sunday Mail has yapped at him with an article lambasting his new website http://www.eviltenants.com/ which he has set up as a service to other landlords and letting agencies warning them about two (ex) tenants who up-sticksed owing him unpaid rent, and trashed the property before leaving. His blog has the full story, with a link to the offending article.
What gets the journalist's tighty-whiteys in a tizzy is the matter-of-fact way the Demon Landlord refers to this website as revenge. It's as if there's some sort of taboo in today's polite society about admitting to humanity's more visceral emotions. ("I mean... revenge! ... it's just not the done thing!")
Listen, The Demon Landlord is one of the last of the red hot capitalists. He does have a tendency to be brutally blunt, but he is running a successful business, and likely to become one of Scotland's wealthiest people. So what if he upsets the sensibilities of Sunday Mail journalists? He's providing a much needed service in a time of housing shortages and rising prices.
What's wrong with revenge anyway? It can be very satisfying, and good for one's peace of mind, especially when it's a dish served cold.

Cheerleader saved. World saved.

So farewell then (for a time at least) to Heroes, that fab series on the Sci Fi channel. Mondays are going to drag until it comes back on. It's a perfect example of how far television has come over the past decade. Watching the last twenty three episodes, has just been like reading a novel. How much different to the SF shows of the seventies, where there was no story arc, and there would be a display of superpowers three times during the show. The villains would be defeated just when they thought nothing could go wrong. The Heroes would have some sort of illogical transformation scene (and I'm thinking here of Wonder Woman's twirl and the Hulk's trousers) into lycra costumes - though come to think of it Indestructable Cheerleader's costume might have been interesting - and the episode would end with one of them summing up the preceding 43 minutes with a pithy comment.
Heroes has so many good things in it - Christopher Eccleston, Malcolm McDowall, and George Takei for starters, and of course Mr Bennett! The guy who's set off a whole new trend in glasses wearing. Ultra ruthless, but loves his family. My favourite character of the series.
They're doing a second series, so until then, remember:
Save the cheerleader - save the world!

Another can of memes

Martyne's just tagged me with a meme that I've actually participated in before, but I don't mind, as there was a different book within reach. Da roolz r: go to page 123 of the book closest to hand. Go to the fifth sentence and write down the next four sentences. People then have to guess which book you chose. Guess what? I was spot on with Martyne's choice!

Try this:

And the brotherhood of nations

Aboot the love of a woman

And the gifts of creation

He'd soon be a star - 'The Ayrshire Sensation'

You're so not going to guess this one.

Here we go and here we go...

I've just finished The God Delusion, and now I feel fully armed against anything the fundamentalists can throw at me. A lot of it I knew already, but some things stood out.
F'rinstance.
Did you know there won't be any women in heaven? According to Revelation, only 144,000 people will be saved, none of whom will have defiled themselves with women. That means they're all male - and virgins! I wonder if they're the ones promised to islamist suicide bombers?
So if you're a girl, you're not going to heaven. The bible says so.
Just imagine what heaven would be like. A large crowd in a celestial Wembley, all clean cut young men in white suits worshipping the band on stage - Father on bass, Jesus on lead guitar and vocals, and Holy Ghost on drums, rocking out Kum-by-yah all over the new heaven and new earth for all eternity. Who wouldn't want to be a part of it?
Me? I've got better things to do.

Cuiken: the books

There's a new library opened in Penicuik, so yesterday, we went to have a look. It's in the new leisure centre, along with the gym and swimming pool, so that after exercising your body, you can exercise your mind.
It was like walking into a branch of Waterstones, or Borders. It's got plenty of seats for reading. And straight away, I came across Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion! What a find! I'm now on the last chapter. I'm more determined than ever to try and prevent what's happening in the USA from happening here.

The real McCoy

It's a shocking indictment on the training of doctors. These are intelligent men, highly skilled, one of them a neurologist even. And yet they can't build a working bomb between them! I mean ... it's not rocket science! (Uh ... well actually, given the amount of explosive materials it probably is.)
Never mind, they can at least fall back on the "Bones" defence :
"I'm a doctor, dammit, not an explosives engineer!"

Pish Bish

As you know, according to the Bishop of Carlisle, the recent flooding in parts of England are not due to the natural effects of geography and meteorology, but due instead to the immorality and permissiveness of our society in allowing gay people to marry. Thus he posits a causal relationship between human behaviour and bad weather. So now we have the means to alleviate the extremes in weather. All we have to do is behave in a manner pleasing to his Grace, and we can expect pleasant summers and mild winters for ever more.
It is quite obvious, that Sheffield and Doncaster are sinkholes of vice and depravity, and fully deserved to be submerged, as opposed to those worthy centres of gay culture, Brighton and Manchester which were not affected.

Sibling rivalry?

I've just watched the last episode of Doctor Who. Wow! I must admit, I've got questions. Are the Doctor and the Master siblings? We've had hints. I bet they're setting up the plot lines for the next season. I wonder if we'll get a bit more of their early life. It would be nice to find out the significance of the Doctor's name. He chose it after all. And what's his real name? I bet it's something obvious, like Hu Jann Smyt. The Master once called himself James Stoker. James and John? Hmm.

Fiver for a tenor

In the spirit of Wimbledon, JanieBelle has lobbed me another meme, well this is a clusterlob of memes. I ain't doing them all at once, I'm going to spin them out over a few posts. And I'm going to return the serve with a counter meme of my own.
Her first one is Five songs you know the words to. Oh come on! This is Deacon Barry - Tenor Extraordinaire! I know the words to loads of songs. So in lobbing this one back, I'm going to mutate it into Your Five Karaoke Classics. Or, in other words, the songs you can be sure of getting a good reaction when singing them at the karaoke. Here's mine.

1.King of the Road: I use this one to test the waters in an unfamiliar venue. Call me Mr Lounge Lizard.
2.Chantilly Lace: This is my wife's favourite (oh you sweet thang)
3.High Hopes: Frankie goes to Holyrood.
4.Whispering Grass: Put the Windsor Davies/Don Estelle version out your mind. This is a great karaoke song.
5.Bohemian Rhapsody: Only to be used sparingly. I won a competition with this.

OK, that's mine. You tell me yours.

Eight little secrets

It's meme time. JanieBelle has tagged me (the cheeky minx) so now I've got to inflict you with Eight Dirty Little Secrets.
1.I'm not Scottish - well not completely, Dad is English, and I was born near Banbury Cross (yup, the 'ride a cock horse' one.)
2.I didn't learn to read at school.
3.I'm crap at swimming.
4.I have curly hair. It's self-perming.
5.I was in the school orchestra, playing the cello.
6.I have never flown in a plane.
7.I have flown in a helicopter.
8.David Cameron and Lord Byron are both my fourth cousins.

Nursing Voices

Nursing Voices is a new forum for nurses all over the world, although at the moment it's just the USA, Australia and the one from Scotland (me). It looks like it's going to be a good place for nurses to hang out and chat about their work, and maybe let off a bit of steam. Certainly, you'll be able to find out how other nurses get through their shifts.

The Founding of Gremandir

“Father. Listen to thy son,
and mark this well.
What my brother, Gremus hath done
Is turn to treason. He incites
The common people to rebel,
against you, their sovereign overlord
You must not heed their talk of rights
They seek to put you to the sword!”
Thus, good name by evil twin defiled,
Was Gremus, Prince of Taere exiled.

“Oh my brother! Gromul beware!
I will return.
By mighty Mabegon I swear
I’ll leave no place for you to hide;
You and yours will surely burn.
Know how I yearn to see you dead
For your attempted fratricide!”
Thus saying, Gremus eastward sped
To mighty Castelmar, wherein he sought
The shelter of the Llindaan court.

King Merkh listened to his plight
With passions strong.
“I cannot aid you in your fight.
No troops have I, please understand,
To help you right your grievous wrong.
The Borphyr press us from the north
And soon we must, to save our land,
Leave our defence and sally forth
And fight no matter what the cost.
For if we fall, Llindaan is lost.

“My proposition, if you’ll agree
Perhaps you should.
I offer you a captaincy.
I need new men to lead the ranks.
Though dangerous, the pay is good.
It needs to be, to fast replace
Those fallen by the Sibher’s banks.
What’s your reply? Time moves at pace.
I want your help, I will confess.
All I need - a simple yes.”

By battle’s blaze his glory flamed,
This warrior prince.
Throughout the land his deeds acclaimed,
From mountains sharp to rocky coast.
Llindaan morale was flourishing, since
His assumption of command.
Within a year the Llindaan host
Drove the Borphyr from their land.
Morale increased with each attack,
To Akhna-Vaer they forced them back.

The Borphyr mourned their loss, aggrieved
At this humiliation
This turn of fate was scarce believed
That they, proud warriors faced defeat
From the arms of a backward nation
They plotted, planned. It was agreed
This time revenge would be complete,
Llindaan would fall… But who would lead?
Then into the hall a leader came -
Godwulf Squinteye was his name.

“Give me men! In sixmonth time,
Or maybe four,
I will crush this Llindaan slime!
I’ll bring you Gremus’ head!
We will hold the south once more.
We’ll sack the towns and raze the spires,
Then hack and stack the Llindaan dead,
And light the darkness with their pyres!”
From Akhna-Vaer the Borphyr swarmed,
And down towards the south they stormed.

Now Gremus knew the Borphyr’s plan
He had his spies
He knew their number, to a man
And knew he could not win the fight
And so, to both sides great surprise
He ran. The Borphyr gave pursuit
Jeered and mocked with great delight
But reckoned not the Llindaan’s route
The Borphyr plan was thus perverted
Their thrust against Llindaan diverted.

He led them through the Eastern plain
To far Barrani-Sarq.
And nightly raids left Borphyr slain.
A handful at a time, though few,
They came to fear the coming dark.
In wakeful torment, sleep deprived
It tore their minds, and tempers flew,
When food and arms had not arrived.
For Gremus was a bold tactician
Who fought a battle of attrition.

He brought them through that hellish gash
The Manakh rift.
He planned their numbers there to slash
In fetid swamps he’d bring them down,
The spirits of his troops to lift.
But Gremus, still, was full of doubt.
Many Borphyr didn’t drown,
And options now were running out.
The time for battle was at hand.
Somewhere, he must make a stand.

On Sibher’s banks there is a mound,
An ancient barrow.
Bow-shaped, eighty rods around
From where an archer, shoulders broad
Near half a girdh, can fire an arrow.
Here did Gremus kneel and pray
“Great Mabegon! Oh mighty Lord!
Grant us victory on this day!
I swear that if we win this fight
I’ll build your temple on this site.”

At morning’s break, with fearsome roar,
The armies clashed.
The ground was soon awash with gore.
Formations fell to disarray,
As soldiers hammered, clawed and slashed.
Gremus watched them cruelly die
As, battling grimly through the fray,
Blood streaming from a shattered eye,
He finally stood face to face
With the bestial marshal of the Borphyr race.

“Does your head hurt, little man?”
Godwulf drawled,
The cure for it is in my hand.”
He swung his sword at Gremus’ head,
Who parried - fell - in red mud sprawled.
Twas then the Borphyr saw his chance,
He lunged to kill, but slipped instead
And was impaled on Gremus’ lance.
He watched his blood flow, horrified.
A final laugh and then he died.

Gremus lay there, bruised and battered,
Limbs awry.
His eye was gone, his leg was shattered,
But knew the prize was his to snatch,
So Godwulf's sword he lifted high
And like a wave the murmer spread,
Like fire through a burning thatch,
Became a shouting, “Godwulf’s dead!”
The Borphyr army now broke ranks
And lost the battle of the Sibher’s banks.

This barrow, marking fair Llindaan’s
Most northern point,
For countering the Borphyr’s plans
King Merkh, from here to Manakh mouth
Did Gremus, governor anoint.
He built a sepulchre as vowed
And fortress to defend the south.
With what name would it be endowed?
They asked. Gremus replied with candour,
“After myself, tis called Gremandir.”

A clean sheet

Here's a tip. To wipe down surfaces in your kitchen and bathroom, use baby wipes. Unlike kitchen cloths, they're disposable, so they're more hygienic. Really messy spills on tables or work surfaces can be easily cleared up, without leaving a badly stained rag to deal with.

Dinos at dawn

It's Celebrity Death Match time. The two contenders I want you to consider are Barney (Cute Purple Dinosaur) versus HR Pufenstuf.
I consider this to be an evenly matched pairing. Both are seven foot tall raptors - OK one's a dinosaur and the other is a dragon, but it's close enough.
My initial assessment is that Pufenstuf has the advantage. He's an experienced politician, forward planner - his rescue service rehearse their procedures often, and his environment can be hostile, due to the attacks of Witchypoo.
Barney, on the other hand starts out looking like the under-raptor in this contest. He's the much younger challenger, lacking Pufenstuf's emotional maturity. His environment is very non-threatening, so his lack of combat experience could hold him back.
But.
He's a T-Rex, for Tinky-Winky's sake! OK, one that's fallen a really, really long way from the tree, but he's got the equipment - a large jaw with developed musculature due to years of singing. It's possible that if he's really pushed, his reptilian brain and raptor heritage could kick in and give him the edge.
So, Barney or Pufenstuf? You decide!

Let's make it a threesome

I've won again! Another of JanieBelle's poetry competitions. This time the seed phrase was 'Quietly naked in the pouring rain'. You can see what I did with it here.
And the best bit, as well as getting a guest post, is that my poem is the new starting point for the next competition. If you want to have a go, read the poem, and then write about the same event from a different point of view. The closing date is 30th June at midnight in the States, or in the wee small hours over here.
That's three poems now that wouldn't have existed were it not for these competitions. The second one didn't win, so I don't get it all my own way. It's important when writing to have something to focus on, such as a seed phrase, or picture, just to get you started.
So have a go! It's fun!

Change of Shift : One year in.

Change of Shift is a year old today. It's over at Nurse Ratched's Place, so go over and get your fix of good nursing blogginess.

Birth of a blog

My friend Martyne has started a blog.
Here's the URL
www.martynemartynesogoodtheymamedmetwice.blogspot.com
It started today, so now's your chance to get a comment in the very first post.

WWS-MT : What would Spider-man think?

This can apply to any fictional character, but it's easier to have an example, so I choose Spider-man (notice the hyphen) given that the film is on release, and he is well known to be given to soliloquising.
Now are Spider-man's thoughts real? Obviously they originate in the minds of Marvel scriptwriters, but they come about as a response to the situation he is in. When you are writing a character, you get inside that person, so you imagine what the character is feeling and thinking. Now the thoughts of Spider-man are contained within the meta-thoughts of the writer. And a person is what he thinks - cogitet ergo est. And to use an analogy, software can run on any compatible computer, so Spider-man's thoughts are being run in the writers' brains. If all these thoughts are gathered together, you have an admittedly rudimentary simulacrum of a human personality.
Does this mean that Spider-man lives? Or if not, is there a level of cognition that could be reached which could be defined as life?
I hope you've got the gist of what I'm trying to get at. I'm sure that some philosopher out there has been over all this, and there's a standard response to this. It's just I've been thinking about this off and on for the last few days, and I'm interested in others' responses to this.

See who I work with!

Dorothy, whose party I was at on Friday, is a celebrity. Don't believe me? Here's the article in this week's Evening News.
When she told me of the adventures she's had, after picking my jaw off the carpet, I told her she had to write it down. So now she's writing her autobiography. I'll let you know when it comes out.

In which Deacon Barry is surrounded by a bevy of beauties

Last night I was at a friend's birthday party. She was crowned Miss Edinburgh twice, back in the seventies when they used to have beauty pageants. In honour of this, we held a beauty contest at the party, and I was the compere. I wore my bow tie and dinner jacket specially for the occasion, and affected my cheesiest mid-atlantic twang as I introduced the girls.
We had fourteen contestants, including a Lola from Brazil, a Debbie from Dallas, and a Paris from LA. I can't be sure, but I don't think they were giving me their right names.
The winner, judged on looks, poise and personality was Debbie from Dallas.

Qualified to blog?

Are bloggers born rather than made? It's a common theme among writers that their favourite subject at school was English (or whatever their first language is) specifically, the creative writing part of the subject. Is it the same for bloggers?
It was definitely my favourite part of the school week. It was no chore. My regret was that it didn't give me enough time to finish any of the stories I started. I'd be just getting onto page two of my science-fiction epic (hey! I said I enjoyed writing, I never said I had any taste!) when the bell would ring, and it would be on to the next lesson.
The question for today is, should prospective bloggers be people who enjoyed writing at school?

Hard to beat

It's amazing how far a meme can travel in a day. The Independent today mentioned that the Olympic logo resembled Lisa Simpson doing something comically pornographic.
How long before the logo disappears under a deluge of derision?
To be fair, for sheer priapic artistry, the Olympic logo pales into insignificance when compared to the tumescent magnificence of the logo for the Brazilian Institute for Oriental Studies. Now that is what I call a cock up!

Blown

Oh dear. The logo for the 2012 London Olympics has been unveiled. Oh dear. It cost £400,000. Oh dear.
Now it's meant to be a stylised representation of 2012, and it's all very trendy, but unfortunately, to a growing number of people, it's putting them in mind of Lisa Simpson giving - how can I say this delicately - sexual favours of the Monica Lewinsky variety.
Now remember, this cost £400K, and for the next five years, people are going to be looking at this and sniggering.
I don't blame Tessa Jowell and Wolff-Olins (the designers) for not seeing this interpretation before the unveiling. It's just an unfortunate placing of the elements that is suggestive to the filthy-minded out here. It could happen to anyone. But if only Wolff-Olin could have come up with a selection of logos for public perusal. This could then have been rejected in favour of something a little less suggestive.
Politicians are not the best people to make artistic judgements.
If you want to know what people think about the logo, click here.

(Via Mr Eugenides.)

And the score was...?

We came last.
But with our dignity intact.
We had the smallest team. And if you thought 'Popmaster' on the Ken Bruce show was hard, this was downright diabolical.
I did well on the 'answering questions before they're even asked,' though. Pity there weren't any points for it. One of the rounds was naming record and artist and the record and artist sampled. I tried to explain it to one of my teammates : "You know that Madonna song where she includes a bit from that Abba song?"
Guess what was question number one in that round?
In the 'guess the relationships between two artists,' once I heard Judy Garland's voice, I was writing down Liza Minelli in the second column straightaway.
Controversy of the night - Dionne Warwick and Whitney Houston : Aunt and niece or cousins? Discuss.

Give me your answer, doh!

Tonight, I'm going to the annual Eye Pavilion Pop Quiz.
What you've got to know about me is that I am very good at quizzes - very good! I'm a demon at Trivial Pursuit, and I have at my fingertips an obscene wealth of fascinating facts. Just so's you know.
But.
My encyclopaedic knowledge doesn't cover all areas. If I ain't interested in a subject, it's not worth knowing.
This gives me lacunae in two areas.
Sport. I am so not into sport.
And.
Pop music.
I never got into pop music when I was young. I never watched Top of the Pops much - except when I was seventeen, which is for everyone the best year evuh for music. Since then I've missed out on the all important connection between name of group, name of song, and year it made the charts. You can't pick these things up afterwards. My general knowledge as regards music is limited to the most popular songs of the last few decades.
Still, I'm hoping for a few questions that I'll be able to answer. Hopefully involving the Fast Food Rockers, S Club 7, or the Spice Girls.

Out of the doldrums

Bloggers have been mentioning that they've recently been through a hiatus or dry spell with their blogging. I've felt that way too, certainly two weeks ago. And now I'm back to regular output. There's been something about mid May that has acted like a miasma on the surface of the Blogosphere. Could this emerging cyberworld be developing a climate? Will we see warm fronts and anticyclones in lower Blogistan? Will we start needing weather reports before we can post?
Am I taking this extended metaphor too far...?
The thing with metaphor is that it can lead you by a chain of association to strange places. I'm thinking of this recent slump as a cyber analogue of the Doldrums - a part of the Atlantic Ocean outwith the trade winds where ships used to be stranded. That, of course, makes me think of pirates who have risen in the public consciousness at the same time as blogging, and how the mainstream media view us. And of course, you can't mention pirates without thinking of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. This, I feel is the ultimate symbol and embodiment of the Blogosphere. If you think of how the Blogosphere would look physically, you'd see it as a spherical mass of interconnected wiring, like a ball of spaghetti...
Ramen to you all.

The grapes of wrath - much whining

Edinburgh University are adding insult onto injury by rubbing salt into the wounds of the Christian Union. How are they doing this? Well by giving permission for the Pagan Society to hold its annual conference on campus. The CU are furious because a few months back, they were denied permission to hold their PURE course on University premises (see previous posts here and here.)
Basically, this is a case of sour grapes, and a complete non-issue. It is Edinburgh Uni's policy to not host events which are discriminatory. The PURE course was: the pagan conference isn't. End of story.
What bugs me is that of all the events held on campus, the CU is singling out this conference as being evidence of the university's religious persecution of christianity. Why pick on the pagans? What did they ever do to the Christian Union? It's this attitude that shows just how discriminatory they are being, and why their course was barred. They just don't seem to have any insight into how bigoted and asshatted they are.
I guess it's because they're young and immature. Hopefully they'll grow out of it.

You need never run out of milk again

Here's a tip about storing milk for your coffee and wheatybangs. You can freeze milk! Yes you can! What we do is buy a couple of 2-litre bottles and put them in the freezer. When we're down to a third full of the opened bottle, we retrieve one of the frozen ones, and stand it in a small saucepan overnight to thaw. The pan is important, if you don't want a wet worktop.
Before you open the thawed bottle, give it a good shake, to mix up any separation.
Doing this saves having to rush down to Scotmid at the last minute in the pouring rain.

Or, you could get a cow.

Happy Blogiversary!

I've done it! I have blogged for one year. I wasn't even sure when I started if I would last one week. But here I am, with a blog that's a year old today.
I am so glad I started this blog. I have made so many friends in this community that I would never have encountered otherwise. I wouldn't have been a contributor to Change of Shift or the Scottish Blogging Round-up. I wouldn't have been published in Shaggy Blog Stories. I wouldn't have won Janie's poetry competition. All these things I would have missed out on if I hadn't started this blog.
And I have you to thank. You who have read my words, and left comments, and who have linked to me. Without your support and encouragement, I would have found it hard to carry on. Here's to my second year of blogging. Let's hope it brings new exciting things, new directions and challenges.

The first postcard

Here's my first postcard from Second Life. It's from a new place called the Diversionarium. You can find out all about it here. Unfortunately, it runs on Silicon Valley time, which is eight hours behind us, so when I visited, and took this picture, it was early morning for the management and punters. Sure, Second Life and the Blogosphere are bringing the cybercitizens of the world closer together, but you can never get away from the inconvenience of different time zones. The Internet just shoves it in your face.
Anyway, consider the picture above as an experiment. I did it just to see how to do it. I'll delve back into SL and bring you some more exciting pictures in future posts.
It's the big day tomorrow. Check back in about twenty four hours for a doozy of a post.

De-mat. Re-mat. Re-run.

The brush disappeared again this morning! I managed to locate it much quicker this time. It reappeared in the cats' cupboard, on top of the tools, when I went to get the stuff for the wallpapering. My wife denies all knowledge of how it got there, and I know I certainly didn't put it there. I think this brush doesn't have a firm grip on reality.

By his fruits ye shall know him

You'll have heard of the Horse Whisperer, who can charm horses merely by whispering the secret Horses' Word. And now there's all sorts of whisperers - cat, dog, whatever pet you've got. Well gather round, and let me tell you of a chap I knew in my youth, who was a Fruit Machine Whisperer!
Many years ago when I was at college (this was the first time, way before I ever considered nursing) there was a guy on the course who, more often than not, was my lab partner. Naturally, we used to frequent the Students' Union in Edinburgh (Ah those far off happy hours when you could get three pints of lager for £1-50!) It was there that he demonstrated his uncanny ability of charming money out of the fruit machines. These were your bog standard electronic machines, with lots of lights, electronic diddly-diddlies, and three tumblers bearing different fruits - blackcurrants, plums and strawberries, as well as bars and bells. Get three in a row : get various amounts of prize money.
It was there, one night when he told us how to win on these machines - and blow me, if he didn't put into practice what he had preached, and came away with a small profit, enough for a round of drinks!
Convinced that I was now in possession of some arcane secret of the universe, I had a go.
I lost everything.
I don't do fruit machines now.

RCN Def Con 2

So the RCN are to ballot on industrial action, following the staged pay award in England and Wales. How could the government balls things up so badly, so that this unprecedented turn of events could come to pass?
What the RCN are looking for in their indicative poll is whether there is support for the idea of industrial action, and what form that action ought to take. The answer to the first part ought to be obvious, going by the reception Patricia Hewitt famously got at that conference. And things have gone downhill from there.
But what sort of action should we be contemplating?
The important thing is to hold onto the moral high ground, and to retain the support of the public. If we lose that, we're sunk.
Keep in mind the one objective of this, which is to reverse the staging of the pay award, and have it paid in full. Get that, and the industrial action must be immediately abandoned. The 2.5% is achievable. Anything above that has to wait until the next pay round.
Industrial action should hurt the government, not the patients. Keep the emergency service going, but attack the government's targets and initiatives.
By awarding the pay rise in full to us Scottish nurses, somebody in the Scottish Labour party has committed a tactical error of legendary proportions - not that I'm complaining about it, you understand - it's an error that benefits our case. It weakens the government's justification for staging the award down south. Gordon Brown must be spitting bile. Good. Remember, we owe him nothing. He's behind the staging. Let's force him into a U-turn, then keep the pressure on him so he doesn't shaft us again.

Rematrixulated

The brush has reappeared! So has another one. But just because they reappeared when I pulled the freezer out to clean behind it, doesn't mean my hypothesis below isn't true. It just makes it more difficult to get folk to believe it.
Spocko , in the comments to the previous post, says that he read somewhere that when you get to heaven you get back all the things you lost in your life. If that's so, what in tarnation am I going to do with several dozen odd socks?

A brush with dematrixulation

The brush has gone missing.
I haven't touched it. My wife hasn't moved it. The cats... well what would they want with a brush anyway?
So in order to sweep up after the cats, my wife has brought down the dustpan and brush from upstairs. Yes, we are a two dustpan and brush household (three if you include the old set in the shed which is used for leaves and garden debris).
All this, of course, is evidence that the Matrix is true and we are living in an elaborate computer simulation.
See, what happens is this, the computer only rezzes stuff that you're actually looking at. If it's not in your field of vision, it merely becomes stored information. Now, obviously, at certain times, depending on what arcane factors influence the running of the program, we're getting glitches. And when they happen, stuff fail to get rezzed. Stuff like the brush, the socks, the glasses, the fish from the fridge... (don't ask. It's still a mystery.*)
Sometimes, after a day or two in limbo, the objects mysteriously reappear. I'm kinda hoping that's what'll happen to the brush. Sometimes they don't.

*The fish was one of those things that did reappear. That's the mystery!

My first event in Second Life

Strangest party I've ever been at.
Second Scotland in Second Life were having an open day. Our country is well represented in this brave new cyberworld. There are two Scotland sims, and number two was throwing a shindig. It's run by the University of Paisley, and looks to me to be an arts project. There were three avatars there in kilts (four if you include myself), and an interactive map of Scotland with ear trumpets bearing the names of eminent scots such as Burns, Carnegie and Billy Connolly. Not forgetting the capercaillies that wander about the sim. It's all very surreal and dreamlike.
Conversation can be a bit random. You hear the people within earshot, but if they're talking to someone a bit further away, you end up with half a conversation. And when that is interweaved with another half-dialogue, and you factor in the delay between typing and display, the script starts to resemble an Ionescu play.
Still, with all its limitations, it's science fiction become science fact. It's the cyberworld predicted all those tears ago where you can interact with others in a virtual reality. And it's only coming up for its fourth birthday! Imagine what another four years will bring!

Leaping into action

I'm starting to come round to the idea of reforming the House of Lords. Up until now I've been of the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' persuasion. I see no point in constitutional change just for the sake of it. I'm also against an upper house whose only purpose is to rubber stamp acts passed by the government in power. You get a situation where bad laws go through unchallenged.
Saying that, the current set up is a bit casual. Lords get appointed, but they may have other commitments, that keep them away from the chamber. The upper house is an important check on the runaway aspirations of a party in power, and shouldn't be left in the hands of people who might or might not turn up to vote depending on their schedule.
I would be in favour of a senate made up of one or two senators representing each county, or major city, elected democratically. That way, bills passed upwards from the House of Commons would get the scrutiny required to prevent bad law blighting our land.
But I wouldn't rush it. constitutional change has to be well discussed and examined before implementation, otherwise you end up with a situation worse than the one you tried to fix.

Guess what day it is?

Happy Nurses' day! Yes, it's that time of the year when we celebrate the contribution that nurses make to society. This year I remembered! I went onto the ward this morning and wished everybody "Happy Nurses' Day!"
"Oh is it? So it is."
So what did I do today?
Well, I put drops in patients' eyes, gave out medicines, took some blood, put more drops in eyes, helped pat slide a patient, gave out meals, gave advice on the helpline, wrote up the care plans, bathed eyes, gave out more medications and put even more drops in patients' eyes.
What sort of a day did you have?

Dancing in the datastream

Second Life is an interesting place to visit. It's a virtual world where you exist as an avatar, and you can interact with other human-controlled avatars. It's only been in existence for three years, and it recently signed up its six-millionth inhabitant.
It's still a work in progress. It has teething troubles. But it has potential. And it is science fiction become fact.
Remember Tron? Disney's venture into computer animation? A world existing inside a computer system? It's here.
But a better description of what Second Life is like from an SF perspective is Michael Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time trilogy. In it, the world is a playground for its population of aesthetes, who throw parties and create marvels out of the world's energy field. The most eminent citizens if that world are the ones who produce the most fantastic creations, just as they are in Second Life.

Holy craps at Holyrood

The Lib Dems have just turned down a deal with the SNP. It's the referendum. They're playing hard-ball on this issue. Fair enough. That's what coalition politics is about. The SNP are going to have to jettison some of their manifesto promises if they want to rule Scotland. So it looks like goodbye to the referendum and the local income tax then. I wouldn't take anyone's refusal at the moment to be the last word. It's merely the opening round of the game, entitled 64 vote pickup.
Here are the rules as far as I can work them out.
In this particular match there are six players - for the purposes of clarity, lets call them Mr Yellow, Mr Red, Mrs Blue, Mr Orange, Mr Green and Mrs White.
Each player has a set number of votes given to them by the electorate (those of them smart enough to read the ballot paper anyway).
There are 129 of these votes.
The object of the game is to get half of them, which is 64.
The remaining vote left over belongs to the referee or Presiding Officer, and is put to one side, but you don't want it put on your side.
Mr Yellow and Mr Red have to persuade all the other four players to play on their team.
Mrs Blue, Mr Orange, Mr Green and Mrs White all say they're not going to play on anybody's team, anytime soon, no-siree-bob.
(Actually Mr Green has still to say this, but I guess he's still a bit unsure of the rules)
Mr Yellow and Mr Red then have to carefully and strategically start discarding policies until the other players agree to join their team.
Whoever gets 64 votes after offloading the Presiding Officer card where it'll do the least damage is the winner!

Where do we go from here?

I guess this weekend, the SNP leadership are busy making phonecalls trying to forge some sort of coalition to run Scotland. Everybody's talking about an SNP/Lib/Green alliance as if it's a done thing. That's probably the most likely outcome, but maybe the SNP should be thinking outside the box. What about an alliance with the Conservatives? A marriage made in hell to be sure, but it would put the Lib Dem's gas at a peep, that's for sure. After a disastrous election, what could be worse than to even be denied involvement in a power-sharing government, and see the Tories take their place!
Admittedly, there are two big obstacles to a Tory/SNP coalition. Annabel Goldie said "no" prior to the election, and there is the even more obvious problem of Independence, and the Referendum for.
It's a poor weapon that doesn't cut both ways (Salvor Hardin). A referendum could settle the question of Independence once and for all, and it could quite easily be in favour of the union. Support for a referendum does not equate with support for independence. The Tories could go along with the referendum, on the clear understanding that they would be campaigning against independence in 2010.
The Greens hold the balance of power though. Margo McDonald intends to stay staunchly independent, though even after being dropped by the party, she must surely be in sympathy with their policies.
There's always Labour/Lib/Green plus Tories? The grand unionist rainbow alliance against the SNP? Yeah... like that's going to happen.
We'll see what happens next week after the Monday bank holiday. A second election isn't off the cards yet!

Clearing up the mess after the night before

What a pig's arse of an election! The phrases "brewery", "piss-up" and "couldn't organise" come to mind. It's been over nineteen hours since the polls closed, and we still don't know who's won - apart from the spoiled ballot party, who unfortunately don't have any candidates.
For readers in America, we're trying this novel concept called democracy in Scotland. Unfortunately the organisers underestimated the inherent numptiness endemic in the general populace. It's now official, there are people who are too stupid to vote. We just never had a way of screening them out before. Obviously holding two elections at the same time with completely different voting systems is the way to go about it.
So far, Labour and the SNP seem to be neck and neck. It'll be interesting to see what combinations of parties will eventually make up Government.

Guess who I saw walking along the road?

Today I saw Death. Yes, him. The fourth horseman. The grim reaper. Best friend of Billy and Mandy... okay okay, enough with the hyperbole. I know it probably wasn't that particular mythological archetype - just some flesh and blood human who looked like him.
So what did he look like? Well, I was in the car, caught in the start of the rush hour, so I overtook him at a leisurely pace. My initial view of him was from behind, and I was aware of his long black Matrix-style coat. Now this afternoon was T-shirt weather, and I was thinking that this coat would be way too hot in this blazing sunshine. Now if it had been the middle of winter, I probably wouldn't have given him a second glance, but today? "Looks like Death warmed up," I thought.
I looked for a scythe, but all he had was a black briefcase, or it might have been a toolkit, it had that sort of plasticky look about it.
By this time, the traffic was moving slowly forward and I was now passing him. I must admit to curiosity as to what this long-haired, black-clad, toolkit wielding apparition looked like, so as I pulled ahead, I took a quick look in my wing mirror.
He had no face!
The long dark hair I had seen from behind continued round to the front. Like Cousin Itt from the Addams Family.
"Well!" I thought, "You don't see that every day."
I just hope it wasn't an omen.

Busy week?

I'm on holiday this week. Supposedly a time for doing nothing but sit in front of the computer, checking up on all my favourite blogs. I should be so lucky! It's perfect gardening weather - in Scotland that usually means it's not raining, but actually, the sun is out. Later this week, it's the double birthday. My niece and nephew conveniently decided to have their birthdays on consecutive days. She's going to be five and he'll be eight. So today I was out shopping for birthday stuff.
I've also been down at Mum's teaching her how to use Photoshop. That's the thing, you have a bit of computer savvy, and you're a guru. I was showing her how to use the lighting effects that I just discovered the day before. It always helps to be one step ahead.

After school

I delivered my wee seminar on the complications of retinal surgery today. It seemed to go okay. Mary, the course tutor, told me she and her husband have been reading this blog, and the picture in the preceding post was yucky. I'm glad it's getting such a good reaction.
Well that's my teaching done for the ophthalmic course. Now I've got to cobble together a teaching programme on tonometry for my Knowledge and Skills Framework. That's partly why I wrote that previous post about the different types of tonometers. See, the way they want it to work is that every year you set a target of learning objectives you want to achieve in the year ahead, to justify to the NHS that you're worth paying extra for. This year I had planned the seminar on the retina (done) and the tonometry project (still to do). But Mary asked me to do another seminar, so I've been concentrating on that (one thing at a time is a good philosophy to live by). Now, I've got until the summer to get the tonometry thing up and running.
Oh the joys of educational nursing!

A sight for sore eyes

It's good to get pictures from readers, so here's one sent in by Angela the pharmacist. She was telling me about a book she had (Eyes by Michael Glasspool) with a picture that she found difficult to look at - so she sent me it, and now I can share it with you.

The condition above is probably as bad as it gets for someone with an overactive thyroid. The eyeballs are protruding (exophthalmos). Because of this, movement is restricted (ophthalmoplegia), and there is a lot of fluid retention in the tissues (oedema). This poor chap will be unable to close his eyelids, so his cornea will be permanently exposed to the elements. The tear film will dry and his corneas will be at high risk of abrasion and ulceration. He will require constant lubrication, and reduction of his thyroid production - possibly by thyroidectomy.

Once the thyroid has been dealt with, he will probably require corneal transplants if there is too much damage to his corneas.

A 5000 year old operation?

I've just read that there is an Egyptian papyrus in Berlin that's five thousand years old, which has a description of cataract surgery. At present, I have no way of knowing whether this is true or not, but if true, it would put the origins of ophthalmic surgery four thousand years further back than was first believed.
I would so love to see this papyrus. I'm sure, given enough time and a facsimile copy, I could translate the appropriate passage to see whether they used an extracapsular approach, or the subluxation technique described in an earlier post.
How's that for a project? Combining two of my favourite subjects : hieroglyphics and ophthalmology!

Two new links

Two blogs have just linked to me. I've just added them to my blogroll. Don't call me Joe is a new blog - a very new blog. He only started a couple of weeks ago. And I was the very first person to comment! He seems to have got into the blogging way, so he could be around for some time.
The other is code blog : tales of a nurse. She hosted Change of Shift a few weeks ago, and came up with a limerick for each post! Pure genius! And just have a look at her blogroll! An icon for each link! Pure dead posh, so it is!
I love my one. It makes me want to keep visiting her blog, just to press it.

A touch of the Blobbies

Does anyone remember the Blobbies? It was a children's show from the late seventies with characters called Melody Gwen and Mr Centigrade. That's all I can find out about it on Google. I had this vague memory of a show with a Melody Gwen in it, so I googled her name and found the Blobbies who were some sort of pop group. The page didn't have any pictures to jog my memory. I have a feeling it was a cartoon though.
Although a lot of programmes from my childhood have achieved cult status, many more have fallen off the cultural radar, and this, I fear, is one of them.
BTW the programme had nothing to do with Mr Blobby, that I am sure of. He is one cultural icon I could do with forgetting.

MAARTH : CHAPTER IV

1. At first they knew not what had happened. They had no understanding of His sacrifice.
2. Some rejoiced in His passing. But others grew fearful.
3. And caution prevailed in the councils of the First ones. And likewise the Secondcomers and Thirdcomers too were cautious. And an uneasy truce was between them.
4. The winter came. And with it the sickness. Death claimed the sick in their thousands. First ones, Secondcomers and Thirdcomers alike. For the sickness knew no difference between them.
5. For death had entered the world with His death.
6. After the sickness came strife. And after the strife came more sickness.
7. Those that succumbed neither to strife nor sickness began to know what it is to grow old.
8.But also in the years after His sacrifice, children were born for the first time in the world. And the sound of their laughter was a comfort to ease the sadness of those who yet remained.
9. One by one, as the years passed, each First one, Secondcomer and Thirdcomer died.
10. And then there was not one left who had entered through the Doors of the World.

MAARTH : CHAPTER III

1. And now among the rebels were ones with great knowledge and power, to rival any among the First ones. Their craftsmen created great engines of war. They used blood secrets to breed fell beasts of battle.
2. And He fought with the rebels. He gave them His leadership. His power. His knowledge. And they prevailed against the First ones.
3. One by one the First ones were taken. And the roots of Mount Abnakhos rumbled with their groans.
4. Their palaces were taken. Their chariots were destroyed. And their devices burned.
5. But the last of the First ones, seeing that all was lost, resolved to take action. They gathered all the sources of power into one Source.
6. None could stand against them now. And the war turned in their favour.
7. He knew what they had done. They had used His discoveries. Continued the work He had forsaken. And now they were all powerful. There would never be another rebellion.
8. But even they did not know how far His knowledge now extended.
9. He surrendered Himself to their judgement. As they demanded. And they condemned Him to a thousand years of torment.
10. But before they took Him away He spoke unto them, saying that their immortality was a barrier to being fully of the world. Without death, there was no true life : only endurance. No birth. No renewal. No change. Only stagnation.
11. And He reached into the Source and pulled the power into Himself, Immolating Himself in an instant.
12. And He died.
13. His was the first death.
14. And by His death the veil was torn. First ones, Secondcomers and Thirdcomers became truly part of the world.
15. And the Doors of the World slammed shut.

MAARTH : CHAPTER II

1. There was one in the world of great knowledge. Who understood the energies and workings of the world. And through whose means the First ones obtained the Source of their power.
2. He it was who led the First ones in their struggle against the rebellion. But the victory tasted to Him of bitter gall.
3. He could understand the right of the rebels. And He could see the corruption of the First ones.
4. And He slowly withdrew from their councils. And dwelt apart in His dwelling place on the northern continent. Where He immersed Himself in His studies into the workings of the world.
5. And the Doors of the World remained open. And more people entered the world to serve and worship the First ones.
6. And also through the Doors of the World came other creatures. And they were strange of form. And some malevolent and dark of breeding.
7. The Thirdcomers also wearied of their servitude. And they joined with the remnants of the Secondcomers in rebellion.
8.This time He refused to lead the First ones against the rebellion. And though their power was great, they could not completely subdue the rebels.
9. When peace was obtained, the rebels agreed to serve. But never more were the First ones worshipped in the world.
10. But He remained apart from the conflict. And His standing with the First ones worsened.
11. And when the Thirdcomers, and the remnants of the Secondcomers tired again of their servitude, He joined them in their rebellion.
12. And there was war upon the face of the world.

THE FIRST BOOK OF FOUR GODS

CALLED
MAARTH

CHAPTER I
1. Into the world came the First ones. And they were first because the world had no inhabitants.
2. The First ones named the lands and the oceans. And they named the plants and the animals therein.
3. The First ones took delight in their world. But they had no-one to rule over, for they were all equal.
4. They said: “Let us open the Doors of the World so that we may have people to serve us and worship us.”
5. And so the Doors of the World were opened. And people found their way from their worlds to this world.
6. But the First ones captured all who came through the Doors of the World. And made them serve them and worship them.
7. And in those times there was no death. And no-one grew old or sick. Even those that came through the Doors of the World to serve and worship the First ones. And their time of servitude was unending.
8. It came to pass that the number of Secondcomers surpassed the number of First ones. And they resented their servitude. And there was rebellion in the world against the First ones.
9. But the First ones were all powerful. And they crushed the rebellion. But there was no death in the world so they could not kill the rebels.
10. They chained the rebels. And bound them beneath the roots of Mount Abnakhos. But there were others who evaded capture. And they hid in the secret places of the world.

A real ophthalmological nurse

Mother Jones at Nurse Ratched's Place has tagged me with a meme. It's 'what makes a real nurse?' I'm going to refine it to my specialty, so here's my take on the meme.

What makes a real ophthalmic nurse?

1. You automatically remember to spell ophthalmology with an 'h' after the 'p' and an 'l' before the 'm'.
2. You can hold eyelids open with your ring finger while your thumb and forefinger are squeezing a drop bottle.
3. Your 'yuck' reflex evaporated ten minutes after starting work in an eye ward.
4. You loathe and detest iridologists.
5. You're not too fond of people offering laser corrective surgery either.

Okay, that's it. You only need five statements. I tag Dead Nurse Walking and Intelinurse. Have fun guys.

Mystery of the missing pods

The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh has a pneumatic tube system for the transportation of laboratory samples and pharmacy orders. These are encased in cylindrical pods which shuttle back and forth through the fabric of the building. Lately, staff have been noticing that the supply of these pods have dwindled. Where once there were a couple of spare pods on the rack, now they need to be borrowed from nearby wards, or failing that, requested from the labs or estates.
Recently, a number of pods were discovered on the roof of the hospital. No-one knows how they got there!
I have a theory.
Considering the number of cock-ups in the building of the hospital, I find it more than credible that a misreading of the architect's blueprints may have resulted in an egress of the tube system opening onto the roof. The missing pods being shunted down this false exit by a miskeying of the destination code, would result in them popping out the pipe and travelling in a parabolic arc over the hospital before landing where they were found. The opening might be some distance away, and thus remains undiscovered and purely conjectural at this stage. Any other theories would be appreciated.

Rock n' Roll n' Resus

Pack your trunk Nelly! Step gaily away Marie! There's a new entry at the top of the CPR charts.
Up until now, practitioners performing resuscitation had a choice of songs to pump people's chests to. They were Nelly the Elephant, and Marie's Wedding. Today, I was informed by our friendly neighbourhood consultant anaesthetist that the tune of choice is now Status Quo's Rockin' all over the World. Apparently it's a bit faster than the other two.
So now, when you are trying to revive someone who's suffered a cardiac arrest, you're going to be in a whole new world of cool as you perform compressions, going, "Here we go and here we go and here we go..." At this point the words subside into a hum because you don't actually know the words to the next bit. And so it continues until you finish with "... Rockin' all over the world!"

Stand and deliver

What's the most expensive postage in Britain? I believe I have a candidate. The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh portering services are run by Haden. The other day, a colleague sent a prescription to pharmacy. She was told it would cost £36 for it to be delivered to the ward! That's from one end of the building to the other. You could get the same package delivered to the other end of the country for under a pound.
What I don't understand is how Haden calculate that £36 is a fair and equitable rate to charge for one person to carry a small package weighing not much more than a packet of crisps for the ten minutes maximum it takes to walk from one end of the hospital to the other. That works out at a rate of £216 per hour. Nice work if you can get it. I must be in the wrong profession.

Placido out of retirement

In my previous post, On Tonometry, I referred to a black and white disc only found in a cupboard with other obsolete equipment. I must now amend that description. My colleague Debbie, a reader of this blog has informed me that this disc, known as a Placido Disc (no, it's not a CD by one of the three tenors!) is very much still in use. It was required by one of our Ophthalmologists in the clinic the other day, so this fragile, rickety museum piece was carefully removed from its resting place and pressed into service. In appearance, it resembles one of those big cartoon lollipops, with concentric black and white rings (probably liquorice flavoured) It's purpose is to help visualise the curvature of the cornea, by examining the reflection of the white rings. Any astigmatism will show up as a distortion of the rings. The reason the Placido Disc is rarely used now is because we have a tomography machine which will give you a printed map of the cornea, showing you the distortions in a colour-coded diagram.
Still, it's nice to know the old equipment is being used as back-up.

Change of Shift : Key of the Door

Change of Shift is now up at Emergiblog. It's volume one, number twenty-one, so hop over and wish it a happy coming-of-age. Here's the link:
http://www.emergiblog.com/2007/04/change-of-shift-vol-one-number-21.html

Blogger reconnected

I'm back online! I managed to get to B&Q today and got a telephone line extension to replace the one that mysteriously stopped working, cutting me off from the blogosphere. Not a pleasant experience I can assure you. You miss not being able to check things up on the internet when you want to. For the past three days, I've been forced to sit and watch television, then go to bed before midnight! My normal bedtime is round about 1am, with 2am sessions not unheard of. So being in bed at 11:30 was a bit of a culture shock. Mind you, I have been working the last two days, which means getting up at 5:30. I'll be a bit later tonight. I'm definitely an owl. Late nights are no problem at all. My wife, on the other hand is a lark. She has no trouble getting up at the crack of dawn, whereas I refuse to emerge until after 9:00. (on my days off that is - it compensates for the early starts on my days on.)

Blogger interrupted

Disaster! The line connecting my computer to the telephone socket has mysteriously stopped working. Normal service will be disrupted until I can reconnect the machine. I'm using another machine to post this. This is such a pain. And I'm getting withdrawal symptoms. I'll have to do some shopping on Saturday. Hopefully I'll be back with you after that.

Song of the Foolish Ones

BEHOLD.
The world is a plaything.
And the doors of the world are open.
O foolish ones.
You play unheeding of the gathering evil.

They create such marvels.
Great palaces. Golden chariots. Devices wondrous to behold.
O foolish ones.
Your playthings will bring you no comfort.

There is one who seeks knowledge.
And He sets Himself in authority.
O foolish ones.
Beware the one who sets Himself in authority.

He says:
We must know the measure of this world.
Its width. Its height. Its depth.
He sets Himself apart to watch and learn
O foolish ones.
Do not scorn He who has set Himself apart.

He returns to them saying.
I will bind you to this land.
I have its measure.
I have its width. Its height. Its depth.
Its beginning. Its end.
His death tears the veil that separates them from this world.
O foolish ones.
You can never leave this world.

You are bound to it by His death.
And like Him you must also die.
For His is the first death.
By His death all who dwell in this world must die.
And He has dominion over them.
O foolish ones.
See how you have fallen.

Your palaces are hollow shells.
Your chariots are broken.
Your devices are ashes.
O foolish ones
You are dust.

Shaggy Blog 2K

The 451st copy of Shaggy Blog Stories has been sold, bringing the total amount raised for Comic Relief to £2000! Go team!

Needle. Haystack. Go figure.

Back in October, Intelinurse at It's a nursing thing, posted about weird interview questions. The first bit is the quote from her blog. It's followed by my response which I posted in the comments.

Weirdest Questions

They asked me to tell them about myself. Then as each took turns asking me questions, things got strange. One guy asked me to
name 10 ways to find a needle in a haystack. Another wanted to know how many gallons of water it took to put out an average house fire. What almost put me over the edge was when one of them asked me how many things I could do with a marshmallow. I couldn't tell her what I was actually thinking!

10 ways to find a needle in a haystack

1. Move every stalk individually and build a new haystack exactly six feet from the original. At some point, you'll encounter the needle.
2. Throw the haystack into a swimming pool. Add detergent to break surface tension. Straw floats, needle sinks.
3. Take haystack to scrapyard. Use industrial strength electromagnet to retrieve needle.
4. Bribe your children with a reward for the needle. Remuneration should reflect how badly you want the damned thing.
5. If you know who was injected with the needle, genetically splice their DNA with a glowworm's DNA and Staphylococcus Aureus. Grow in culture. Spray on haystack. Genetically modified bacteria will latch onto remnants of human biological material and glow in the dark, or in UV light.
6. Send haystack to the X-ray department for an X-ray,
7. Ultrasound,
8. MRI scan. If you hear a 'tink', that's the needle hitting the magnets (see 3.)
9. Bleep the Hospital chaplain. E-mail Bill Gates asking for his assistance. Borrow camel from zoo.Have chaplain preach to Bill Gates. It should then be easy for the camel to locate the eye of the needle for the purposes of walking through it.
10. Set haystack on fire. Toast marshmallows. Use calculated gallons of water for house fire to put out haystack fire. Poke through the ashes and find small metal lump. That's your needle.

A spleen unvented

You remember my friend, the Demon Landlord (aka The Beast of the Borders)? It seems he's been having a bit of legal trouble with an employment agency who were wanting to charge him several thousand pounds for someone who he never employed! Fortunately, the case was thrown out of court. They then objected to his blog post on the case, (Here's the link to his blog, but you'll have to scroll down to March 19th - I can't get a link to the actual post for some reason) and following advice from his solicitors he's had to remove the offending references. He's done it, not because he thought what he posted was wrong, in fact he was willing to stand by his words, but he does have a business to run, and he's self-censored his blog for the greater good of the company.
There is a freedom of speech issue here. He should be able to tell people not to use the services of this particular company and also get in some insults, without being threatened with legal action. It may not be big or clever, but what's the point in having a blog if you can't vent your spleen occasionally?

Little brothers

Tell me if you've heard this one. There were three brothers... and the youngest, contrary to the normal rules of inheritance and primogeniture, gets the kingdom. Sound familiar? It's the basic plot of many folk tales. But where does it come from? Why the reversal of the established order of things? How far back does it go?
Zeus was King of Heaven. He was also the youngest of Cronus and Rhea's brood of godlings, and the youngest brother of Hades and Poseidon. But in deposing his father, he was following the pattern set by Cronus who was himself the youngest Titan, of six brothers and six sisters. Now gods tend to come in trinities. The male Titans divide nicely into two threesomes : Hyperion, Oceanos and Iapetus; and the alliterative Coeos, Crius and Cronus. It is possible that this was an amalgamation of two separate pantheons - the same trio of gods under different names.
Iapetus has been identified with the biblical Japhet, son of Noah, who is himself a third brother of Ham and Shem, and it is he who is the ancestor of every Greek hero you've ever heard of.
It is not hard, therefore to conceive the possibility that the folktales of the middle ages refer back to the mythology of two millenia previously, giving hope to younger sons everywhere that there may be a kingdom waiting for them.
Goddesses, and women in general, in this misogynistic history, don't get a look in at all.

On tonometers

Tonometry is the measurement of the internal pressure of the eyeball. It's an important diagnostic tool. High Intraocular pressures (IOP) are damaging to someone's sight.
Here is an overview of the different tonometers used to measure IOP:

1. Thumbs : (Don't panic, we're not going down that road again!) By gently palpating the orbs (ooh missus!) the experienced Ophthalmologist can detect differing IOPs between the two eyes.
2. Schiötz : A purely mechanical device, now consigned to history with the sextant, the astrolabe and Windows 95. It doesn't require electricity, so it might be useful if you're holding a clinic in a tent, miles from civilisation. Normal location is in an eye hospital cupboard with other arcane items of long unused pieces of equipment (such as the big disc with concentric black and white rings on it.)
3. Pneumatonometer : Only ever found at the opticians. It uses a small measured blast of air to obtain the reading, thus there is no contact with the cornea, and no risk of infection or abrasion. Of course, it means that patients who visit us screw their eyes up in anticipation of that puff of air!
4. Goldmann : Applanation tonometer attached to a slit lamp. Uses a disposable plastic split prism, that, when pushed against a flourescein-stained eye, under a blue light, displays two offset green semi-circles. You turn the dial to move them into position, then read the pressure reading off the dial.
5. Perkins : Like the Goldmann, only portable. Now superseded by :-
6. Tonopen : It's new. It's totally portable - you can use it on all those patients who you can't get to the slit lamp. You hold it in your hand like a dart, and gently tap the patients eyeball, each time getting a little feedback click until it goes beep, and there's the reading. To prevent cross-infection, it comes with a supply of little rubber sheaths which you unroll over the tip of your magic wand ... okay okay, if they look like condoms, and they feel like condoms, then they are condoms - if you're a hobbit!

Change of Shift

Change of Shift is up over at Codeblog : Tales of a Nurse. It's a good one, all the introductions are limericks, even my post, which is the one about ... "No no no!" I hear you scream with your hands over your eyes, "not the one about early cataract surgery? The images - they hurt!"
And I've just opened up the hurt to a whole new audience.

SBS review

My copy of Shaggy Blog Stories was waiting for me when I got home from work yesterday. It was worth the wait. I'm dipping into it slowly to get the maximum laughter value from each of the 100 posts. It's a very funny book. Personal highlights so far - and I've only just started - are Up my Street, Hospital (for obvious reasons) and The Night the Goats Got Loose.
Being one of the first run of copies printed, mine has the all important typos which will make it incredibly valuable in years to come. We've now sold 400 copies, making it the publisher's third most popular title! If you click on the banner at the side, you can order a copy for yourself.

Happy Anniversary

Today is our wedding anniversary. We've just been to our favourite mexican restaurant. I had the usual Chicken Caesar Salad - gorgeous!
It's our fifteenth anniversary, but we were together for about three years before that, and we met nearly twenty four years ago, so we know each other pretty well.
We met at a writers' workshop in Leith. I'd joined it a few weeks previously, but I had done so because I had seen the notice in the community centre when I had gone along to join the art group. The art group clashed with something else, so I ended up going to the writers' workshop. If the art group hadn't clashed, my life would have gone in a completely different direction entirely. That was a real Sliding Doors moment.

Blogtweaks

I quite like this Blogger upgrade. I've just discovered how to place a banner in my sidebar - see? Yeah yeah, of course it's for the blook. The only thing that bugs me is having to sign in to my Google account with e-mail and password every time I want to post or tweak the template. Before the changeover - forced if you recall - I could get right into the posting page without having to sign in. Now, it's a pain in the gluteii. If it would only remember the e-mail - that's the one that's such a fingerful (note: I was looking for a synomym for mouthful as applied to typing. Digitful? Dactyllous? {Hey that's a good word! I must remember to use it in a future post.})
If any of you technophiles out there know how I can get Blogger to do that, or failing that, if I could construct a macro to type my e-mail when I press a certain key combination (eg. CTRL E, or ALT C, or something similar), I would be grateful.

How was your weekend?

I've never known a weekend like it. First I win the Green, Green hills of Earth poetry contest. My guest post is now up at UDreamof Janie - go read it! Second I find I'm a Shaggy Blogger, and I'm helping to raise money for Comic Relief. At the moment, we've sold 307 copies of Shaggy Blog Stories, making over £1400 for the charity - and that's just in the first 40 hours!
I want to appeal to all my readers across the ocean. Lulu, the publishers, are quoting the price in dollars, which suggests that the book may be obtainable in the USA. Be the first on your block to possess this work of literature. I know it's British humour, but so is Monty Python and Benny Hill. But I ask you, please blog about it. There will be other charity blooks (blog books) in the future. But this is the first - it's special! We'll never get an opportunity quite like this again to show the world that bloggers can make things happen. We are the only truly international medium of communication - even more so than television or radio, and if all of us act together, we can do a lot of good.
All you have to do is press a few keys on your computer. If you can afford to give $16, even better. Half of it will go to help people in Africa, and you will get a book that will put a smile on your face. Just don't be drinking soda at your computer when you do read it.

Turn up for the book

Press Release

Bloggers publish book for Comic Relief.100 bloggers have published a book to raise funds of the BBC's Comic Relief appeal on Friday 16th March.'Shaggy Blog Stories' features hilarious contributions from Richard Herring of 'Fist of Fun' fame, BBC 6Music presenter Andrew Collins, comedian Emma Kennedy, and James Henry, scriptwriter from Channel Four's 'The Green Wing'.Authors Abby Lee, David Belbin, Catherine Sanderson and The Guardian's Anna Pickard have also contributed pieces to the book.The vast majority of contributions, however, are the work of many of the lesser known and unfamiliar heroes of British blogging; going under pen names such as Diamond Geezer, Scaryduck, Pandemian and Unreliable Witness. Also contributing to 'Shaggy Blog Stories', and hoping to raise funds for the Comic Relief Appeal is Deacon Barry! The book is the idea of blogger Mike Atkinson who writes the 'Troubled Diva' weblog. 'Shaggy Blog Stories' features comic writing from not only the cream of British blogging, but also the best up-and-coming and undiscovered writers publishing their work on their own websites.Giving himself a "ridiculously short" seven days from idea to finished product, Atkinson admitted that he was overwhelmed with the response, which gleaned over 300 submissions for publication.With a pool of talented writers, and the latest publishing-on-demand technology, Shaggy Blog Stories bypasses the usual snail-paced publishing industry, and offers a mail order service to customers who will receive their finished copy within days of placing their order, and only a couple of weeks after the original idea."Blogging creates complex, worldwide networks of friendship and contacts on the internet", says journalist Alistair Coleman, one of Shaggy Blog Stories' contributors. "By creating a buzz about this book, we can reach out to hundreds, thousands of readers who'd be willing to part with a few quid for this very good cause. Mike's got some excellent writers on board here whose work deserves a wider audience. Everybody wins."For details of how to order the book, visit www.shaggyblogstories.co.uk For the background story on the creation of Shaggy Blog Stories, take a look at http://troubled-diva.com/.

Yes, I've got a post included in the book. If you want to know which one, you'll have to buy it. Go on! It's for a good cause. And you get a hundred of the funniest blog posts in the British blogosphere. I've ordered my copy. It should arrive next week. I'll post a review once I've read it.

The prize is right

I've won first prize in a poetry competition. It was over at UDreamOfJanie. The challenge was to write a poem ending with the lines "Oh how I long to long for the green, green hills of Earth. The prize is a guest post on the blog, so now I've got to come up with a suitable topic. Anyway, here's the winning poem.


When Man first felled and burned the trees, I began my rise.
Then coal was king, and chimneys belched
More carbon to the skies.
Along came petrol engines,
And how emissions grew.
(Solar power was in the dark,
And windmills spoiled the view.)

The polar ice-caps melted in a great freshwater dump,
The Gulf Stream slowed and halted as it stopped the saline pump.
The rise in temperature was paused
And people thought they’d freeze,
Then tons of melting methane pushed it up by ten degrees.

And now, with agriculture gone,
And arid deserts burning,
My happiness is incomplete,
I still can feel a yearning.
Though I sit triumphant
As the world regrets my birth
Oh how I long to long
For the green, green hills of Earth.

Boiling Point

It has been confirmed. Us Scottish nurses are getting the full 2.5% pay award up front, on the dot, in April. English nurses will have to wait until November for the second part of their staged award. I bet Gordon Brown is fizzing. This really puts the pressure on him to do the same down south. I would expect the RCN and Unison to seriously turn up the heat in their campaign for a fair wage. The message to the Government should be clear : If you can't pay the staff, you can't have your targets met!
It would make our life simpler. We could concentrate on patient care without having to bother about ticking the Government's boxes. Target the targets, not the patients!

Have you seen this pay award?

Am I imagining things? I was in a book shop in Princes Street this afternoon when I heard over the radio that the Government are going to give us nurses the full 2.5% pay raise in April, and not stage it as they said they were going to.
You can imagine how pleased I was, and I was looking forward to seeing the reaction on the news. Only trouble is, there's nothing I can find about it. Nothing on BBC news, Sky news, Google news, Yahoo news and even AOL news. Come on, this is major! This is Government climbdown in the face of possible militant action by nurses. But apart from that radio bulletin - silence. Not even a denial. It feels so weird. Does anyone out there know what's going on? Anyone?

Sound stuff

I once worked for American television. (Say what?) That sounds a whole lot more impressive than the reality.
It was in the summer of 1987. I was working for a video project at the East of Scotland Society for the Deaf. This was long before I became a nurse. And yes, I did pick up the basics in sign language while I was there. We were at the Royal Highland Show, videoing it for the project, when my boss met up with some of her friends, one of whom had been asked by Channel 5 Philadelphia to also film the Royal Highland Show. Or maybe he had pitched the idea to Channel 5? He had a broadcast quality camera and a large sound box, and he asked me if I wanted to give them a hand. So I ended up as the sound man on a very small, all Scottish, camera crew, filming the sights and sounds of Scotland's biggest agricultural show. We interviewed a chap selling tractor equipment. We filmed cows. Best of all, we got to enter the press lounge for a cup of tea.
I have no idea to this day if the stuff we shot ever appeared in Philadelphia, and I've never been involved with television production since then, but it was a fun day while it happened.

Clocking all over the world

This weekend, America is starting summer time three weeks early. The idea is to save on fuel bills by making it lighter in the evening. (I think that's right. Let me see, Spring forward, Fall Back. I'm sure that puts the extra daylight at the end of the day.)
There are no worries about the change affecting computers. Not like the panic over Y2K. I don't think we're likely to see planes falling out of the sky.
It'll be interesting to see what happens in the Blogosphere. It is truly international. Even my small blogroll covers Australia to California (via Scotland - natch!) For three weeks then, American bloggers will be one hour closer in time. Then our summer time kicks in, and we're back to the status quo (cf blog title).
Now summer time is a much bigger issue in Scotland than it is in the US. We're further away from the equator, so in winter the sun rises appreciatively later than it does in London, whereas the difference between Texas and Dakota is probably not so noticeable. This means that once again, somebody is proposing to make it summertime all year round. This would mean that it would still be dark in Aberdeen at ten o' clock in the morning in December! Bad idea!
By the way, I wonder what Alaskans think of this?

Blog against Sexism Day

Today is blog against sexism day. It's a day for stopping and thinking about how one half of humanity treats the other half. It's a day for sweeping out the stale stereotypes that impede communication between a woman and a man. If you make a judgement about someone of the opposite sex today, stop and think if you are relying on a hackneyed piece of received wisdom such as ' men only think about football and sex' or 'women don't do maps'. Remove the filter of sexism and try and see your friend or workmate in an objective light, untainted by whether they are female or male. Judge a person by their actions, and not by the characteristics they were born with. If you get to know them better, they might surprise you.
Hat tip to JanieBelle.

Bringing light to the Dark Ages

How old is cataract surgery? Twenty years? Thirty years? Actually, a form of cataract surgery was being performed over a thousand years ago!
[Warning! This post is not for the faint-hearted!]
It was in India during the eighth and ninth centuries, that special practitioners of the art of cataract removal wandered the highways of the subcontinent. The only thing that differentiated them from all the other indigent travellers was their extra long thumbnails. When they came to a town, they would advertise the fact that they could cure blindness. In those days, the major cause of blindness would be cataracts. Very very mature cataracts.
The healer would settle his vict...er...patient down, probably say something like, " Now this might sting a bit," before plunging his sharp thumbnails through the patient's corneas, and pushing the hardened, opaque lenses through the posterior capsule and into the vitreous, where they would fall to the bottom of the eye, out of the line of sight.
Once the screaming had subsided, the patient would eventually open his eyes, and for the first time in years, be able to see again. The vision would be blurred of course, but it would still be a definite improvement. The healer would receive his fee and then depart as quickly as he could without causing suspicion.
Now thumbnails are not the most hygienic of surgical instruments. Introducing them to the inside of the eyeball is never a good idea. It wouldn't take long for a raging infection to set in to the eyes, and the darkness would return permanently. By this time, the healer would be long gone with his money, and out of the reach of retribution.

Professor Deacon Barry II - preview trailer

Remember my stint as a one-off lecturer? Well there's going to be a sequel. Part two of the Ophthalmic Nursing Course starts in April, and I've been asked to follow on from my scintillating lecture on retinal detachment with a lecture on the complications of retinal detachment. Which means it's back to the books to read up all I can find on the subject. Fortunately, Mary, the course tutor, has sent me a power-point presentation made by one of our ophthalmic registrars. It's pretty basic, not much more than subject headings. So I'll have to expand a bit.
In part two, students are expected to do a group presentation. (Ours was on diabetic retinopathy.) I so have to go along and see theirs. I don't know why people get so worked up about standing up in front of a room of other people (most of whom they already know) and delivering a pre-planned and written down speech for five minutes. In April, I'll be doing an hour, off-the-cuff, with only notes for back-up.
Sympathetic? Moi?

Spocko's letter

Spocko's got this letter to President Bush posted. He's asking all bloggers to post it as well. As he puts it:
"BTW, even if you are a 5th tier blogger with 2 readers still post this. Why? Because the main stream press look at stuff in aggregate. As in "200,000 blogs wrote about New Orleans rebuking the President." It's a simple step. Do it. Don't cost ya nuthing."

Mr. President: Katrina Survivors Do Not Welcome You, We Rebuke You!
We live in a devastated city and you are a big part of the reason why it sill sits in ruins. Your administration has abandoned our children by savaging their public schools. Your administration has tortured our working class people by refusing to reopen the city’s public housing developments. And your administration is fully complicit in placing our uninsured in harms way by ruthlessly pursuing the privatization of local public healthcare in the aftermath of Katrina. And, finally your administration is guilty of sending our sons and daughters of to war for oil and empire just when we need them most to help us rebuild our community.
Mr. President, we, Katrina Survivors all, do not welcome you to our city, we rebuke you!
Sponsored by Survivors Village, United Front For Affordable Housing.
(504) 587-0080

If you have a blog please consider posting this today.

Station vistas

I thought I'd let you see where I work. This is our Nurses' Station, the hub of our operations (pun not intended). The top picture is a view of the desk from the chair of command. The switches control the ward lighting. You can see the ward diary under a report sheet, and one of our telephones. The second picture shows the same desk from the other side. The computer terminal is behind the partition. You can see the chair we sit in. Through the door, you can see the front door of the ward and the stairwell beyond. I took the pictures during the Christmas period, which explains the presence of a decoration on the wall. The poster beside it is a cross-section of the eye - well it is an ophthalmic ward!