Sad news

*sob* I didn't get the Poet job. But I was up against people who've done this sort of thing before, so I'm not too downheartened. At least I tried for it. I now await with interest the arrival of the successful candidate through the doors of the Eye Pavilion (with a fully loaded, semi automatic sonnet!)

Poet wanted

Gasp! The Eye Pavilion is looking for a poet, and they didn't ask me!
Midlothian Council regularly send me information about writing events. As I cast my eye over their latest missive, the words 'Eye Hospital' leapt out at me. Here's the letter.
Art in Healthcare - Poet for Eye Hospital Project
Area: Edinburgh
Deadline: Wednesday 6 February 2008
Art in Healthcare - a leading charity organisation that provides arts services to the healthcare community - requires a poet to create new poems for the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion in Edinburgh. Poems will be presented in Braille/text and will explore or engage with the issues surrounding visual impairment.
As well as a good portfolio of work and creative talent, it is desirable that poet has one of the following:
Direct experience of working on creative projects in a community, public or healthcare environment:
Awareness of all the issues facing individuals who have gone through, or are experiencing visual impairment.
The project is due to be completed by May 2008. For more information e-mail: rstrang@artinhealthcare.org.uk or tel: 0131 555 7638
I reckon that I qualify for this. I think I'll check it out.

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.