Monthly Archives: June 2017

Career choices

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It sometimes seems like I live at the hospital. I was back at the anti-coagulant clinic again this morning, being stabbed in the fingertips (twice, because the first test didn’t work). They are pleased with the way my blood no longer clots, though I’m not quite so happy with it, as I’ve been bleeding when injecting myself. One morning at the end of last week Julia pointed at my stomach and, horrified,struggled to get some words out. It appeared that the puncture wound from that night’s injection had bled in the night. I had a stain the size of my hand on my pyjamas and one about half the size on the bedding.

I like to think she was worried about me rather than the laundry…

Fortunately I’ve been told to stop injecting. I’ve still got to go back on Friday, but I’m hoping we can do less testing from now on, and do it at the GP. It’s hard even thinking about finding a job when you’re in and out of hospital.

Unfortunately, with the various problems, it’s not likely that I’ll be setting up as a jobbing gardener again and I’ve lost my enthusiasm for antiques. That only leaves taxi driving and pole dancing, the jobs of last resort. Taxi driving requires a clean car and being nice to people, so it clearly isn’t playing to my strengths.  As for pole dancing, I fear there may, like hospital beds, be a weight limit.

I suppose I could always apply to be an NHS “mystery customer”, though there’s a limit to the number of catheters I’m prepared to have fitted in the interests of improving customer service.

If anyone can think of a suitable job for a lugubrious, larger than average, middle-aged man please let me know.

The pictures are from the bed curtains at City Hospital. I thought you would prefer them to the alternatives.

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Who Would You Include?

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I was just answering a comment on a previous post – the review of Famous 1914-18 when a question crept up on me. The question is – who would you include?

The authors included A A Milne, George Mallory, Arnold Ridley, Ralph Vaughan Williams, John Reith, Dennis Wheatley, John Reginald Halliday Christie, C S Lewis, Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Alexander Fleming, R C Sherriff, B L Montgomery, Ned Parfett,Tom Denning, J R R Tolkien, Winston Churchill, Henry Moore, J B Priestley, Harold Macmillan and Peter Llewelyn Davies.

It seems that the over 35s do best when asked if they recognise the names. Teenagers do worst, but it would, to be fair, be a well-informed teenager who recognised more than Tolkien. I recognised all except Ned Parfett and Peter Llewelyn Davies (which was embarrassing as I’d only just read about him in The Final Whistle as the nephew of Guy du Maurier).  But I am over 35, and I do spend too much time reading about the Great War.

The rules of selection are simple – they need to have been involved in the Great War and they need to be reasonably interesting. It would probably help if they survived.

I’ll start with three to consider.

Captain W E Johns – wrote about Biggles though he wasn’t a fighter pilot or a Captain. He landed at Gallipoli in 1915 and saw a variety of active service before being shot down and wounded whilst on a bombing mission in 1918. After the war he was the recruiting officer who signed Lawrence of Arabia up for the RAF.

Percy Toplis – better known as the Monocled Mutineer, though that is probably inaccurate. He was born near Alfreton so is reasonably local, and was once arrested by the ancestor of one of our neighbours for attempting to defraud a jeweller in Hucknall.

Charles Lightoller –  joining the Merchant Navy as a thirteen-year-old apprentice Lightoller endured shipwreck, fire at sea and malaria. His career started to look up when he went to sea again, ending up on the RMS Titanic. He was played by Kenneth More in A Night to Remember.  For those of you wondering who played him in other films, don’t bother – they aren’t worth it.

 

Rather than run on, I’ll let you click the link to read about his exploits in the war, and at Dunkirk in 1940.

 

 

Book Review: Famous 1914-18

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Famous – 1914 – 18

by Richard van Emden and Victor Piuk

Pen & Sword Military (2009)

Paperback 352 pp  £10.99

ISBN-10: 1848841973

ISBN-13: 978-1848841970

Sorry it’s another Great War book, I’ll try something lighter for the next review, I promise.

It’s a slightly misleading title, as the people in the book weren’t really famous between 1914 and 1918. With two exception they were famous after the war, and this is what they did in the years of the war. The exceptions are Ned Parfett (the newspaper boy from the Titanic picture – who was famous in 1912) and Peter Llewelyn Davies, known as the boy who inspired the character of Peter Pan. Davies, after the death of his parents was brought up by four guardians, including J M Barrie and Guy du Maurier (see previous review).

I have to admit I was also thrown by the name Tom Denning, before it clicked that this meant Lord Denning, one time Master of the Rolls. I’m not really sure how famous he is these days, though he was hardly out of the news at one time. That’s the problem with this sort of book, where do you draw the line?

The subjects need to have been reasonably famous after the war, but quite a few people with post-war fame have been left out. That’s because they need to have left information about their wartime exploits – there’s not been a great deal of digging out original material here. So, post-war fame and memoirs seem to be the requirements.

That means Jack Warner has been left out, as has Victor McLaglen and Victor Silvester. I suppose they just aren’t famous enough, despite interesting wartime careers. To be honest, I didn’t realise how much Silvester had packed in until I just checked the reference. I knew he’d participated in a firing squad, which was why I looked him up: the rest was all new to me.

To be fair, I don’t want necessarily want a lot of original research, I’m happy with an entertaining book, and that’s what I got.

It also helped me out with a question hanging over A A Milne, who was criticised for his unsoldierly manner in a book of war poetry I was reading recently.  It left me feeling he’d been a bit of a slacker, but it’s clear from Famous 1914 – 18 that he did his share, and did it well.

It’s not a fault of the book, but if like me you were interested in reading more about John Laurie (who served in the Honourable Artillery Company during the war) you will, like me, be disappointed. He isn’t in, despite the write-up in the Amazon blurb. I wrote to tell them, using the button for reporting inaccurate content but so far it’s still there.

So, as long as you don’t want information on John Laurie, it’s a good read, and, because of the length of the chapters, easy to dip in and out. For the Dad’s Army fans out there, Arnold Ridley and his service in two World Wars is covered.

Amongst others it covers C S Lewis, J R R Tolkein, Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce (next to each other in the book as they were in the post-war Holmes films) and Christie of Rillington Place fame.  I won’t give you a list of all the names, as it will spoil the surprise…

The Promise of Future Fruit

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Here are some pictures of the fruit trees from last week. The Magpies seem quite keen on the big yellow cherries, which are ripe despite being yellow. We are going to have to research the variety. The smaller, more prolific yellow cherries are not yet edible. Even the Magpie, which is happy to eat a dead badger from the gutter, won’t eat them.

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The strawberries are doing well, and this particular punnet was going to the school caretaker, on the grounds that cooperation is a good thing. They are one of the few things Julia is able to sell from the site, and they will be paying for some of the materials needed for shed repairs before winter kicks in.

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There is a good selection of apples, pears and plums around the garden, though Julia has given me (in my capacity as a non-volunteer) responsibility for drawing up a pruning plan for the winter. They are generally in good order but a few are growing water shoots, and most are congested. It’s easily done, as people tend to concentrate on pruning for fruit and neglect to open up the centres of the trees.

There are also several apple trees that were obviously pruned as step-overs but have grown into hedges over the years. Being the owner of a plum tree that started life as a minarette I know all about this sort of thing, and have no moral high ground to take.

There are vines and figs in the polytunnel, a hazel with nuts and, in one corner of the garden,  we havea group of Nottingham medlars. They are a “traditional” tree which means they have no practical use  these days and are grown as a curiosity.  At one time they were handy for late crops but we have imports and chillers to fill thst gap these days. You have to blet the fruit before eating, which means letting it ripen to within moments of it rotting. They dress it up in most articles on medlars, but that is what it means in practical terms.

It will be interesting to see how they go, and to try some recipes with them.

Nottingham Medlar
Nottingham Medlar

Plans include raspberries and gooseberries, because we can get free cuttings, and finding what is known as “the special plum tree”. I think we’ve probably found it, but we just don’t know it’s special yet. We also need Cape Gooseberries, because we’ve always done well with them and visitors like to try them.

Compared to the farm garden, which was lumpy clay and rubble when we got there, this is luxury.

You also have the bonus that people don’t steal your fruit when you aren’t there.

Toilet rolls – blessing, or curse of modern society?

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Every day 27,000 trees are used to meet our need for toilet roll. That’s 9,855,000 a year. I’m not quite sure how many mature trees you get to the acre or how old a tree is when you harvest it, but the total amount of resources consumed must be huge.

About 75% of the world’s population does not use toilet paper.

According to figures from 2007, each person in the UK uses 17.6 kilos of toilet paper per year. The Americans only use 15.7 kilos. Consumption is forecast to rise by 40% by 2017 thanks to innovative marketing techniques. That’s a lot of trees.

I’m not surprised that it hasn’t become a major subject for discussion because the very thought of alternatives makes me shudder. I’ll quite happily discuss, and use, composting toilets (because it’s a massive waste of drinking water to use it in toilets) but I’m not so keen on doing without paper.

Faced with the choice of doing without toilet paper or a car  I’m not sure what I’d decide. It would be inconvenient to do without either but without a car the worst that can happen is that you have to walk. Or possibly share a bus with a drunk, a dozen school kids and a woman with facial piercings. Without toilet paper you undermine the whole basis of my life.

However, when I pause to think I have to admit that I’m in the first generation of my family who has always had access to proper toilet roll and it doesn’t seem to have done my forebears any harm. The Romans were reasonably successful and they only had sponges on sticks. Even the Vikings, though not great house guests, were fairly successful at looting and pillaging, and they, I’m reliably informed, used moss in place of toilet roll. (Yes, those trips to Hadrian’s Wall  and the Jorvik Centre definitely paid off).

Back in the 60s, there was a lot of Izal about. My grandparents had it, public buildings had it and even in the 70s I remember visiting a nurses’ home that had Izal printed with “Property of the National Health Service” in pale blue. If you do remember it, stop shuddering. If you don’t remember it, it made great tracing paper.

It’s a wide-ranging subject, with the Chinese leading the way, first with paper in the 10th Century then with specially made toilet paper in the 14th Century. One British maker, G.W.Atkins & Co, claimed to have royal warrants dating back to 1817. The Americans followed in the mid-19th Century.

 

In the 1930s one manufacturer was advertising that his paper was “now splinter free” . Makes you think, doesn’t it?

I think that’s enough now. There’s only so much thinking you can do about toilet roll.

 

 

 

It’s happened already!

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Do you remember me saying I’ve used a fingerprint as part of the set-up for my phone? And that I’d probably lose the finger now?

Well, I still have all my fingers, but…

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Sorry it’s a bit blurred but I had to frame it to miss out the clutter on my desk and take it with one hand, so focus proved to be a step too far.

It was the result of a blood test rather than accident, and I really ought to have thought about it before letting them use that finger. It bled quite a lot, because they’ve pumped me full of Warfarin and the injections that I can’t remember the name of. (That’s a little inelegant, but “the name of which I cannot remember” seems worse). I had also bled overnight from the site of the injection I gave myself last night.

Annoyingly, despite the bleeding, the numbers indicate that I’ve failed to reach the necessary threshold. They have upped the dose again and booked me in for a test on Wednesday, because I clearly have nothing better to do than go to hospital for tests. No doubt they will want me back on Friday  too.

Having switched the phone off as requested when I entered hospital I had to restart it to call a taxi. This involved jugging stick, phone and bag as I tried to remove the plaster with my teeth.

The result of all that was that I managed to get blood on the sensor which, unsurprisingly, could not be persuaded to open the phone. Application of a handkerchief to both finger and sensor finally enabled me to ring a taxi.

I’m having a rethink on this fingerprint technology.

 

Book Review: The Final Whistle

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The Final Whistle – The Great War in Fifteen Players

by Stephen Cooper

History Press 2012, this edition Spellmount 2013

Paperback 347pp    Paperback £9.99     Oxfam £1.99

ISBN-13: 978 0 7524 9900 0

I’ve always been interested in rugby and the Great War and I did some research on rugby internationals who were killed in the two World Wars, but it came to nothing because (a) I’m lazy and (b) Nigel Mccrery wrote Into Touch.

This book takes a slightly different approach, looking at the lives of fifteen members of Rosslyn Park rugby club who were killed in the Great War. They represent about 20% of the club’s fatalities during the war (72 killed from 350 members or ex-members who served in the war).

I’ve always liked this sort of book, with stories that turn statistics into people, and I’ve always liked rugby, as I’m not fashioned by nature for games of grace and skill. On the quiet I’m also an admirer of Edgar Mobbs, a well known player of the time. However, this isn’t about Mobbs, as he didn’t play for Rosslyn Park.

It is about Charles Bayley, great-nephew of General Gordon, who was one of the first two Royal Flying Corps officers to be killed in action in the Great War, on 22nd August 1914 or Guy du Maurier, regular soldier and playwright (yes, he was one of that du Maurier family), who killed in action in 1915 at the age of 49. It’s about other people too, including international players, an Olympic silver medallist and a VC winner.

Don’t expect a cross section of British casualties though; it’s about officers or people who could have been officers. Rugby was a game for people from good schools, and they were required to name their school when applying for membership. That, as the author admits, was a great help in doing the research James Urquhart is an exception to this, listing Grimsby Municipal College as his school (though he did end up at Cambridge University). In truth he wasn’t even a Rosslyn Park player, he just seems to have given them as his team when he played for the Barbarians (captained by Edgar Mobbs) versus Shoreham Camp. He only gets a couple of lines.

Despite this, it’s an excellent view of the Great War and rugby of the period, including the Western Front, Gallipolli, aircraft, ships, tanks and balloons, and obviously written by a man with a good command of the subject and a great enthusiasm.

 

 

Next Week – Plans and Flowers

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Yes, despite the outwardly chaotic appearence of my life I do have plans. Some of them (such as the Nobel Prize (Peace or Literature – I’m easy) are not likely to come to fruition. The oldest laureate was 90, so I still have time, but I fear that it may no longer be a realistic prospect.

However, assuming that the younger me had planned to become a middle-aged man with a weight problem and unrealistic dreams of winning a Nobel Prize, I think it’s fair to say we can consider that done.

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Cranesbill Geranium

You win some, you lose some.

The plans for the coming day include doing the laundry (I am now well enough to take up my domestic duties again). That’s according to Julia, anyway; I still feel another week of watching daytime TV while she brings me cups of tea is in order. I also have to buy the ingredients for a rhubarb crumble (apart from the rhubarb.)

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Nasturtium – once known as Indian Cress because it tastes like watercress

Apart from that, which I confess, is not an onerous list, I need to make something for tea (which will be a nice, easy salad)  and write a to do list for Julia. We ended up with four pages of notes on Friday morning. They are currently more of an avalanche of words and ideas, rather than a list.

By 4.30 this afternoon they will be a list – sorted by importance, season and financial implication.

Today’s pictures are more flowers, but this time I know the names.

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Yellow Flag

 

 

 

The Mystery Plants

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Can anyone help me identify these plants? They are both growing in the Mencap Garden when I visited on Friday and I can’t place them.

The one in the featured photo is just leaves at the moment and stands about six inches high.

The other, in the three pictures below, looks familiar, but I can’t place it. It is up to eight feet high when supported by the fence, but most of it seems to be lying flat across the bed and path.

 

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Any suggestions are welcome. There’s a lot I don’t know, but in this case I feel I have the readers to dispel my ignorance.

New Phone, Fingers and Flowers

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Last night Julia went on line and arranged an upgrade for me with our airtime provider. Though you do have to pay for it somewhere along the line, it seems like a free phone and is not too bad.

The problem was that they set the ball rolling by sending me a code in a text. It’s tricky receiving a text on a touch screen phone when the screen is in pieces and stabs you in the fingers when you try to use it. Even when you try to use it carefully.

The new one is bigger than the old one, which seems to be the trend. It is also more complicated. I haven’t finished setting it up yet, but I have managed to fit the screen protector and insert it into the protective case.  Yes, definitely a case of locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.

(Did you know screen protectors come with their own screen protector protectors? I didn’t.)

I have also activated the fingerprint security system. Time will tell if this was a good decision.

Call me a pessimist if you will, but all I can think of at the moment is various ways I could lose my finger, and how I would unlock my phone if that happened.

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The photos are from the Mencap garden this morning. There was no group in, and Julia needed someone to hold the other end of the tape measure.