I heard today that my old friend Charles died recently, in his 90s. He was a GP. of the old school, who would cheerfully get up in the middle of the night to attend to his patients. He wouldn't need notes because he already knew all their medical details. Few G.P.s seem to offer that service any more, and many don't even offer a Saturday surgery. If you need attention 'out of hours' you must first run the gauntlet of the NHS Helpline where a nurse will eventually tell you either that you need an aspirin or you should go to Casualty with a painful grimace and a good book to while away the hours until relief is at hand.
Charles also once told me that good G.P.s of his generation would routinely help patients with painful terminal cancer by giving them increasing doses of morphine and if that shortened their lives by a day or two, that was regarded as a blessing by the patients and their families. Few GPs in the wake of the Harold Shipman case are brave enough to take that risk nowadays, more's the pity. You can beg to be allowed to die and doctors still won't help you.
When I was a junior doctor, earning pea-nuts, I used to earn extra money in my 'holidays' by doing locums for a G.P. in my home town, who worked as a single-handed practitioner. He was on call for all his patients 24 hours a day, for 50 weeks every year, taking only an annual 2-week breaks. I asked him how on earth he managed to cope with this incessant work-load and he explained that all his patients had learnt not to waste his time. The first time they wasted his time, he educated them with a short lecture about the appropriate use of a doctor's time. Then if they wasted his time for a second time he would simply cross them off his list of patients. The next G.P. was 5 miles away and most time-wasters would not have a car!
Amazing how quickly they learnt what was not appropriate.
Another tip he gave me was always to visit any sick person at their home at about 10 p.m. if you felt they might call you out in the night. This would allow you adjust their painkillers, sleeping-pills etc. and answer any questions they had. If the patient had been sent home from hospital to die (another good idea) you would explain to the spouse that death was a possibility and if the worst should happen they need not ring you until after 8 a.m. when you would attend to sign the death certificate. We rarely had more than one night call each week.
He had been the brightest medical student in his year at Edinburgh University, but his parents couldn't afford to support him for the many years of poorly paid training required to become a hospital consultant and so he had 'gone into practice'. I realized how good he was when I once did a locum for him and saw one of his patients with indigestion who happened coincidentally to have a rare inherited skin condition called incontinentia pigmenti, also known as Bloch-Sulzberger syndrome. I only recognized it because I was specializing in dermatology and I'd recently seen a case presented at the Royal Society of Medicine in London. Eagerly I scanned through the notes to see whether a dermatologist had ever seen the patient and whether they agreed with my erudite diagnosis. There was no record of it.
When I saw the G.P. at the end of my stint as a locum I mentioned that I'd seen Mrs. So-and-so and I'd been fascinated to notice that she had a rare skin disease, but she had never been referred to hospital. "Oh, you mean the woman with Bloch-Sulzberger disease, I noticed that but there's no treatment for it, so what's the point?"
Even he wasn't perfect though. He told me that he'd once been consulted by a middle-aged man complaining of central chest pains, made worse by eating certain foods. He did his usual thorough examination, and detecting no cardiac abnormality he reassured the patient that it was probably indigestion and prescribed the statutory antacid mixture. In those days there was not an ECG machine in every surgery and reassurance is often the best medicine. The patient left, pleased and relieved that it was nothing serious.
Our first-class GP, then noticed through the window that the patient, as he walked from the surgery door and down the path, stopped, clutched his chest, leaned forward and fell forward into the rose-bushes, stone-dead.
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
Sunday, 8 August 2010
Mrs. Malaprop
Speaking of non-PC (see blog of 8th Aug.) ), I have to confess that I have a problem with some of the great '-isms' of our time, and I wonder how history will view them.
Racism for example is clearly a heinous thing, and I speak as one who has lived in the Southern USA in the 1962 during segregation and also in South Africa just after the end of apartheid. Racism born of ignorance was also common in my home town in the UK during the 1950s, even though the only black people in town were the white men who emerged from the coal mine covered in black coal dust. That type of racism, born of prejudice, anger or ignorance, must clearly be eradicated whenever possible by legislation and education.
This type of hostile racism is however, in my opinion, quite different to friendly jokes about foreigners' difficulties with the English language. Indeed this type of language-superiority humour is not confined to the difficulties of foreigners, as shown by Sheridan's Mrs. Malaprop, who consistently amused people by using the inappropriate word....("forget the fellow, - illiterate him from your memory" and "I laid Sir Anthony's preposition before her"). This may be cruel humour (as much humour is) and it may be supercilious, but we know that we are all capable of promulgating and indeed culpable of propitiating Malapropisms which may be amusing or embarrassing depending on the circumstances, but they are not racist. Not nearly as bad as prosopagnosia for example, another of my failings (they all look the same to me). And when I try to speak a foreign language, my every third word is likely to be a Malapropism, though my fault could be something as simple as a properispomenon.
My point is that a lot of 'racist' jokes are not really racist, though I accept that many are the thin end of a very fat wedge (Bernard Manning being at the fat end).
As an example, I quote the Polish man who came to work in England and married an English girl.
("Nah, don't get me wrong, guvnor, some of my best friend are Poles, but I don't see what they're doin' in the middle of them lap-dancin' clubs with half-naked girls twined rahnd 'em".)
Seriously though, Poles are very popular in this many parts of UK. They're mainly hard-working, intelligent, polite and humorous, and many of them are beautiful blondes (oops! more '-ism' problems).
Anyway this Pole had only been married for three weeks when he went to a solicitor and asked for a divorce.
"Are there any grounds?" asked the lawyer.
"Yes, ve hev an acre and a half and a nice little bungalow".
"No, I mean does either of you have a grudge?"
"Vot for do we need grudge? Ve hev carport and plenty street parking".
"Are there any difficulties with the relationship"
"No, no, they all in Poland"
"No, I mean is there any problem with infidelity"
"No, no, ve hev hi-fidelity stereo and DVD"
"Are there any problems with your marriage, does your wife beat you up, for instance?"
"No,no, I start vork early so I always up first"
"Is your wife a nagger?"
"No, no, she white girl"
"So why are you considering divorce"
"Because she trying to kill me"
"That's a very serious allegation. Have you any evidence?".
"She trying to poison me. She went to drug store, bought small bottle and put it on her special shelf in bathroom. I read English pretty good now and it say 'Polish Remover'!
I don't think that's racist, is it? Perhaps we need a new word for language difficulties which cause mirth in others.
Racism for example is clearly a heinous thing, and I speak as one who has lived in the Southern USA in the 1962 during segregation and also in South Africa just after the end of apartheid. Racism born of ignorance was also common in my home town in the UK during the 1950s, even though the only black people in town were the white men who emerged from the coal mine covered in black coal dust. That type of racism, born of prejudice, anger or ignorance, must clearly be eradicated whenever possible by legislation and education.
This type of hostile racism is however, in my opinion, quite different to friendly jokes about foreigners' difficulties with the English language. Indeed this type of language-superiority humour is not confined to the difficulties of foreigners, as shown by Sheridan's Mrs. Malaprop, who consistently amused people by using the inappropriate word....("forget the fellow, - illiterate him from your memory" and "I laid Sir Anthony's preposition before her"). This may be cruel humour (as much humour is) and it may be supercilious, but we know that we are all capable of promulgating and indeed culpable of propitiating Malapropisms which may be amusing or embarrassing depending on the circumstances, but they are not racist. Not nearly as bad as prosopagnosia for example, another of my failings (they all look the same to me). And when I try to speak a foreign language, my every third word is likely to be a Malapropism, though my fault could be something as simple as a properispomenon.
My point is that a lot of 'racist' jokes are not really racist, though I accept that many are the thin end of a very fat wedge (Bernard Manning being at the fat end).
As an example, I quote the Polish man who came to work in England and married an English girl.
("Nah, don't get me wrong, guvnor, some of my best friend are Poles, but I don't see what they're doin' in the middle of them lap-dancin' clubs with half-naked girls twined rahnd 'em".)
Seriously though, Poles are very popular in this many parts of UK. They're mainly hard-working, intelligent, polite and humorous, and many of them are beautiful blondes (oops! more '-ism' problems).
Anyway this Pole had only been married for three weeks when he went to a solicitor and asked for a divorce.
"Are there any grounds?" asked the lawyer.
"Yes, ve hev an acre and a half and a nice little bungalow".
"No, I mean does either of you have a grudge?"
"Vot for do we need grudge? Ve hev carport and plenty street parking".
"Are there any difficulties with the relationship"
"No, no, they all in Poland"
"No, I mean is there any problem with infidelity"
"No, no, ve hev hi-fidelity stereo and DVD"
"Are there any problems with your marriage, does your wife beat you up, for instance?"
"No,no, I start vork early so I always up first"
"Is your wife a nagger?"
"No, no, she white girl"
"So why are you considering divorce"
"Because she trying to kill me"
"That's a very serious allegation. Have you any evidence?".
"She trying to poison me. She went to drug store, bought small bottle and put it on her special shelf in bathroom. I read English pretty good now and it say 'Polish Remover'!
I don't think that's racist, is it? Perhaps we need a new word for language difficulties which cause mirth in others.
What to do if it rains.
Quite coincidentally, after yesterday's blog about conversations overheard in quiet pubs, I was reading 'Down Under' by the inimitable Bill Bryson and I came across this phrase, which he overheard from the people at the next table while he was sitting in a hotel bar in Canberra:
'I tell you, Barry, he was farting sparks!'
Bryson says he believes this was "a colourful Aussie turn of phrase rather than a refence to any actual manifestation of flatulence of an electrical nature". Priceless isn't he!
I suppose most of us hear similar, less colourful but nevertheless intriguing, snippets all the time, often from shop assistants when they're standing chatting to each other instead of serving you. I recently heard a shop assistant say to her colleague "I told her the green ones had more legs but she said that wasn't what she was looking for". I didn't dare ask.
My mother produced a pearl some years ago. My wife and I had taken both our respective mothers to dinner in a boarding-house in Weymouth. Both our mothers were over 90 and both were very deaf, so they had to shout to each other. This being the height of the holiday season, the tables were crowded and close together and it soon became apparent to my wife and me that most of the other guests were following the conversation with fascination. We had a few embarrassing close calls with remarks about other guests as they left the room, such as 'I wouldn't wear that if I were that shape, would you Mary? followed by 'What does she think she looks like!' These caused surreptitious titters but my mother took the prize. The dining-room overlooked the bowling green and as it started to rain heavily the bowlers scurried off the green.
'Oh look, its coming down quite heavily now. They'll have to run'.
'Yes, it is a nuisance for them, George used to play bowls you know and he hated the rain. The first thing he did when he got back in wet weather was get a cloth and rub his balls dry".
Soup on tablecloths everywhere!
'I tell you, Barry, he was farting sparks!'
Bryson says he believes this was "a colourful Aussie turn of phrase rather than a refence to any actual manifestation of flatulence of an electrical nature". Priceless isn't he!
I suppose most of us hear similar, less colourful but nevertheless intriguing, snippets all the time, often from shop assistants when they're standing chatting to each other instead of serving you. I recently heard a shop assistant say to her colleague "I told her the green ones had more legs but she said that wasn't what she was looking for". I didn't dare ask.
My mother produced a pearl some years ago. My wife and I had taken both our respective mothers to dinner in a boarding-house in Weymouth. Both our mothers were over 90 and both were very deaf, so they had to shout to each other. This being the height of the holiday season, the tables were crowded and close together and it soon became apparent to my wife and me that most of the other guests were following the conversation with fascination. We had a few embarrassing close calls with remarks about other guests as they left the room, such as 'I wouldn't wear that if I were that shape, would you Mary? followed by 'What does she think she looks like!' These caused surreptitious titters but my mother took the prize. The dining-room overlooked the bowling green and as it started to rain heavily the bowlers scurried off the green.
'Oh look, its coming down quite heavily now. They'll have to run'.
'Yes, it is a nuisance for them, George used to play bowls you know and he hated the rain. The first thing he did when he got back in wet weather was get a cloth and rub his balls dry".
Soup on tablecloths everywhere!
In cider veritas
You can learn a lot by sitting quietly in the corner of a country pub. Politicans should do it more often, then they'd be in touch with what the voters (rather than the media and their Party chairmen) really think.
The 'facts' you overhear are sometimes inaccurate and the opinions based on these factoids are frightfully non-PC, but we're all entitled to our opinions and some farmers do have a very dry sense of humour.
Three little gems from last night:-
1. Jim. "Is it just me or does anybody else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our Government could track every single cow and calf and tell exactly where it was being transported to, even if you took it in a truck at dead of night, and yet now we've got 150,000 illegal immigrants and the Government has got no idea where they are".
Fred. "Maybe they should give them all a cow as they arrive".
2. Fred. "They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for other countries, why don't they just give them ours, it's worked well for 500 years and now we never use it"
3. Jim. "Did you know that there's a law that says they can't put the Ten Commandments up in the House of Commons, and yet you can teach the Koran in schools".
Fred. "That'll be because you couldn't put up a notice that said 'Thou shalt no steal' and 'Thou shalt not commit adultery' and 'Thou shalt not lie' and 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's ox' in a building full of politicians. It would create a hostile work environment".
The 'facts' you overhear are sometimes inaccurate and the opinions based on these factoids are frightfully non-PC, but we're all entitled to our opinions and some farmers do have a very dry sense of humour.
Three little gems from last night:-
1. Jim. "Is it just me or does anybody else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our Government could track every single cow and calf and tell exactly where it was being transported to, even if you took it in a truck at dead of night, and yet now we've got 150,000 illegal immigrants and the Government has got no idea where they are".
Fred. "Maybe they should give them all a cow as they arrive".
2. Fred. "They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for other countries, why don't they just give them ours, it's worked well for 500 years and now we never use it"
3. Jim. "Did you know that there's a law that says they can't put the Ten Commandments up in the House of Commons, and yet you can teach the Koran in schools".
Fred. "That'll be because you couldn't put up a notice that said 'Thou shalt no steal' and 'Thou shalt not commit adultery' and 'Thou shalt not lie' and 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's ox' in a building full of politicians. It would create a hostile work environment".
Friday, 6 August 2010
The pressure of life at the top.
The headline 'Does Concorde cause skin cancer?' didn't worry me unduly, because we can treat most skin cancers, but I was slightly worried that I might have played a part in extinguishing all mammalian life by encouraging the Americans to allow Concorde to overfly their air-space (see yesterday's blog).
In the end though Boeing had their way and kept Concorde out, and it later transpired that it was freons (used in refrigerators) that were depleting the ozone layer, rather than aircraft exhaust fumes. It is often said that science is too important to be left to the scientists, but that episode and many others like it (smoking and health, global warming, home births, vaccination, stem cell research, genetic engineering, animal cloning etc) make me think that politicians and joournalists shouldn't be allowed to take part in any discussions or decisions involving science until they've had appropriate tuition in the subject from acknowledged scientific experts.
The Concorde experience did however give me three small joys:
1. As a reward for my efforts I was given a free trip on Concorde on one of the earliest proving flights to Gander. My co-passengers were journalists, politicians, and assorted influential business leaders who might be persuaded to use or even purchase Concorde. Naturally we were given free drinks before the flight for an hour or so in the First Class lounge at Heathrow. Naturally we were given unlimited champagne immediately we settled into our seats and then naturally we also took wines, coffee and brandy with the meal. And naturally we all needed the loo long before we reached Canada. The problem was that Concorde is constructed like a cigar, with rows of two seats on either side of a very long central gangway and since the drinks trolley was always moving slowly up and down in the very narrow aisle, it was impossible to squeeze round it. The strained look on the faces of the great and the good (not to mention the journalists) was worth seeing, especially as we neared the end of the two and a half hour flight. The obstacle race when the doors opened and they all raced or fell down the steps and then raced (staggered) towards the distant loo in the terminal building was worthy of description by Tom Sharpe (author of 'Blott on the Landscape').
PS. If you're thinking of taking a holiday in Gander, don't. It has some bungalows and a small air terminal, and is surrounded by miles and miles of conifer forest. You can drive for several hours to St. John's where there is a cinema, or you can drive even further in the opposite direction to Twillingate, where there is a whaling museum. Or you can pick berries. If they're in season.
2. The second joy provided by my Concorde experience was the story that the Minister for Aviation had visited Filton one day to see the work in progress on the Great White Elephant and he'd asked whether bird strikes would be more dangerous in a supersonic aircraft. The engineers had thought of that of course and they knew that the engines could withstand the impact of a large bird such as a seagull. This was demonstrated by firing a chicken from a sort of cannon directly into the roaring engine. The chicken was duly converted into a smear of blood and feathers.
The Minister was so impressed by this that he asked for the demonstration to be repeated, and after a short delay the cannon was fired again. But the first chicken had been fresh, the second chicken was deep-frozen. How expensive a chicken was that!
3. The third little chuckle was when I enquired about the great blast of flame which I once observed shoot out of the rear of Concorde's engine during take-off, which then caused a blaze on the tarmac which the fire engines had to extinguish. Apparently it is not a cause for alarm, it is due to petrol spewing out onto the tarmac and igniting. "It's called a 'wet take-off'" said the stewardess, blushing. The things you learn!
In the end though Boeing had their way and kept Concorde out, and it later transpired that it was freons (used in refrigerators) that were depleting the ozone layer, rather than aircraft exhaust fumes. It is often said that science is too important to be left to the scientists, but that episode and many others like it (smoking and health, global warming, home births, vaccination, stem cell research, genetic engineering, animal cloning etc) make me think that politicians and joournalists shouldn't be allowed to take part in any discussions or decisions involving science until they've had appropriate tuition in the subject from acknowledged scientific experts.
The Concorde experience did however give me three small joys:
1. As a reward for my efforts I was given a free trip on Concorde on one of the earliest proving flights to Gander. My co-passengers were journalists, politicians, and assorted influential business leaders who might be persuaded to use or even purchase Concorde. Naturally we were given free drinks before the flight for an hour or so in the First Class lounge at Heathrow. Naturally we were given unlimited champagne immediately we settled into our seats and then naturally we also took wines, coffee and brandy with the meal. And naturally we all needed the loo long before we reached Canada. The problem was that Concorde is constructed like a cigar, with rows of two seats on either side of a very long central gangway and since the drinks trolley was always moving slowly up and down in the very narrow aisle, it was impossible to squeeze round it. The strained look on the faces of the great and the good (not to mention the journalists) was worth seeing, especially as we neared the end of the two and a half hour flight. The obstacle race when the doors opened and they all raced or fell down the steps and then raced (staggered) towards the distant loo in the terminal building was worthy of description by Tom Sharpe (author of 'Blott on the Landscape').
PS. If you're thinking of taking a holiday in Gander, don't. It has some bungalows and a small air terminal, and is surrounded by miles and miles of conifer forest. You can drive for several hours to St. John's where there is a cinema, or you can drive even further in the opposite direction to Twillingate, where there is a whaling museum. Or you can pick berries. If they're in season.
2. The second joy provided by my Concorde experience was the story that the Minister for Aviation had visited Filton one day to see the work in progress on the Great White Elephant and he'd asked whether bird strikes would be more dangerous in a supersonic aircraft. The engineers had thought of that of course and they knew that the engines could withstand the impact of a large bird such as a seagull. This was demonstrated by firing a chicken from a sort of cannon directly into the roaring engine. The chicken was duly converted into a smear of blood and feathers.
The Minister was so impressed by this that he asked for the demonstration to be repeated, and after a short delay the cannon was fired again. But the first chicken had been fresh, the second chicken was deep-frozen. How expensive a chicken was that!
3. The third little chuckle was when I enquired about the great blast of flame which I once observed shoot out of the rear of Concorde's engine during take-off, which then caused a blaze on the tarmac which the fire engines had to extinguish. Apparently it is not a cause for alarm, it is due to petrol spewing out onto the tarmac and igniting. "It's called a 'wet take-off'" said the stewardess, blushing. The things you learn!
Thursday, 5 August 2010
Decisions, decisions.
We went to the Fleet Air Museum at Yeovilton yesterday, because one of our friends has just written a book about her father's experiences as a pilot in World War II ('Bomber Jack', by Valerie Ashton). As a result she has recently met a number of younger men, handsome, charming, hospitable RAF types in smart uniforms, and so she's now developed an insatiable interest in everything and anything to do with aeroplanes. I managed to summon up a certain amount of interest in rotary air-cooled engines and the difference between aerofoils and flaps, but what really interested me was the Concorde, which had been used in the early tests at Filton.
As a junior doctor I'd once been told by Professor Ken Donald that the Government often took important decisions on the whim of one person who was totally unqualified to reach such a decision. He gave as an example his own experience in World War II when, as a junior medical officer in the Navy with a modicum of research experience with regard to 'the bends' (nitrogen bubbles in the blood stream), he'd been sent from London to Portsmouth to inspect a new type of escape hatch for submarines which had just been invented. The Government was going to install the new system in all our submarines if he approved the design, but if it was installed and did not work well, then many sailors might die from 'the bends' as a result. He was duly met at Portsmouth station, driven to the barracks to meet the senior officers, given a drink or three before, during and after lunch in the officers' mess, and by 4 p.m. when the escape hatch was finally inspected and discussed he was in no state to understand the finer points of a wooden door, let alone novel escape hatches. And he had to catch the last train back to London. Nevertheless he cobbled together some sort of a Report and some faceless Whitehall wonk then advised the Minister who took this momentous decision based entirely on young Ken's befuddled recollections.
Of course I took this story with a pinch of salt. The Government don't take important decision just like that, do they? Surely the Government is full of clever, caring people and they have masses of well-informed advisors. Haven't they?
Shortly after I became a hospital consultant in 1973 I received a telephone call from the part-time medical officer for the British Aerospace factory at Filton, which was hoping to manufacture Concorde and fly it daily from London to California. The doctor had been asked by the management to advise them about skin cancer because the Americans (i.e. their rivals, Boeing) were claiming that the exhaust gases from Concorde would deplete the ozone layer in the statosphere and this would increase the incidence of skin cancer because it would let through more of the damaging UVR wavelengths. He wanted to know if I could advise him how to reply, as it was a very long document, it involved a lot of technical data, and if he didn't produce a satisfactory written reply to the American Senate hearing within 10 days it seemed likely that they wouldn't be allowed to overfly American airspace. All that Anglo-French Concorde development money would be wasted!
In those days our great nation was affluent, but some people thought Concorde would be a great White Elephant, and so we urgently needed to know whether this effluent from the affluent elephant was really damaging or was this just American bull-shit?
So I was presented with this great tome, around 2000 pages, to read, digest and riposte within 10 days. The skin cancer bit was easy, because I understood it. It was written by all the recognized U.S.A. experts on the causation and epidemiology of skin cancer and what they said was perfectly correct. But there was a much more complicated section on the production and chemical composition of aircraft exhaust gases (gulp), another on the formation of stratospheric ozone and all the possible reactions of oxygen and ozone with numerous nitrates and nitrites (blimey), another on the meteorology, real and hypothetical, of the various layers of the atmosphere all round the world (crikey), another on the effects of previous atomic explosions in the stratosphere (heck), another saying Texas farmers would go bankrupt because of cancer of the conjunctiva in their cattle (this is serious!). Also, almost as an after-thought, it seemed that bees would not be able to pollinate plants because of the UVR disturbance, so crops would fail, palnts would die out and so all mammalian life on earth would probably become extinct (Oh dear!). And I have 10 whole days to criticize this Report, which has taken many of the finest scientists in USA more than 2 years to produce! Of course, said the factory doctor, the whole thing was politically motivated. Unfortunately though it might turn out all to be correct.
So what did I do? I discussed it in broad terms with the members of the MRC Environmental Research Committee, but unfortunately it was August and most of them were on holiday.
Then it was time for desperate lateral thinking. I pointed out in my critique that it was far from certain that the statospheric aircraft exhaust gases would deplete the ozone layer, but if they did, perhaps the Americans could say what quantity of exhaust gases their stratospheric military aircraft had been producing for 24 hours every day for many years, ever since the Cold War. And I also pointed out that increasing the UVR at sea-level might also have beneficial effects (e.g. fewer hip fractures) which their Report had neglected to mention.
And did it make a difference? Did it hell.
As a junior doctor I'd once been told by Professor Ken Donald that the Government often took important decisions on the whim of one person who was totally unqualified to reach such a decision. He gave as an example his own experience in World War II when, as a junior medical officer in the Navy with a modicum of research experience with regard to 'the bends' (nitrogen bubbles in the blood stream), he'd been sent from London to Portsmouth to inspect a new type of escape hatch for submarines which had just been invented. The Government was going to install the new system in all our submarines if he approved the design, but if it was installed and did not work well, then many sailors might die from 'the bends' as a result. He was duly met at Portsmouth station, driven to the barracks to meet the senior officers, given a drink or three before, during and after lunch in the officers' mess, and by 4 p.m. when the escape hatch was finally inspected and discussed he was in no state to understand the finer points of a wooden door, let alone novel escape hatches. And he had to catch the last train back to London. Nevertheless he cobbled together some sort of a Report and some faceless Whitehall wonk then advised the Minister who took this momentous decision based entirely on young Ken's befuddled recollections.
Of course I took this story with a pinch of salt. The Government don't take important decision just like that, do they? Surely the Government is full of clever, caring people and they have masses of well-informed advisors. Haven't they?
Shortly after I became a hospital consultant in 1973 I received a telephone call from the part-time medical officer for the British Aerospace factory at Filton, which was hoping to manufacture Concorde and fly it daily from London to California. The doctor had been asked by the management to advise them about skin cancer because the Americans (i.e. their rivals, Boeing) were claiming that the exhaust gases from Concorde would deplete the ozone layer in the statosphere and this would increase the incidence of skin cancer because it would let through more of the damaging UVR wavelengths. He wanted to know if I could advise him how to reply, as it was a very long document, it involved a lot of technical data, and if he didn't produce a satisfactory written reply to the American Senate hearing within 10 days it seemed likely that they wouldn't be allowed to overfly American airspace. All that Anglo-French Concorde development money would be wasted!
In those days our great nation was affluent, but some people thought Concorde would be a great White Elephant, and so we urgently needed to know whether this effluent from the affluent elephant was really damaging or was this just American bull-shit?
So I was presented with this great tome, around 2000 pages, to read, digest and riposte within 10 days. The skin cancer bit was easy, because I understood it. It was written by all the recognized U.S.A. experts on the causation and epidemiology of skin cancer and what they said was perfectly correct. But there was a much more complicated section on the production and chemical composition of aircraft exhaust gases (gulp), another on the formation of stratospheric ozone and all the possible reactions of oxygen and ozone with numerous nitrates and nitrites (blimey), another on the meteorology, real and hypothetical, of the various layers of the atmosphere all round the world (crikey), another on the effects of previous atomic explosions in the stratosphere (heck), another saying Texas farmers would go bankrupt because of cancer of the conjunctiva in their cattle (this is serious!). Also, almost as an after-thought, it seemed that bees would not be able to pollinate plants because of the UVR disturbance, so crops would fail, palnts would die out and so all mammalian life on earth would probably become extinct (Oh dear!). And I have 10 whole days to criticize this Report, which has taken many of the finest scientists in USA more than 2 years to produce! Of course, said the factory doctor, the whole thing was politically motivated. Unfortunately though it might turn out all to be correct.
So what did I do? I discussed it in broad terms with the members of the MRC Environmental Research Committee, but unfortunately it was August and most of them were on holiday.
Then it was time for desperate lateral thinking. I pointed out in my critique that it was far from certain that the statospheric aircraft exhaust gases would deplete the ozone layer, but if they did, perhaps the Americans could say what quantity of exhaust gases their stratospheric military aircraft had been producing for 24 hours every day for many years, ever since the Cold War. And I also pointed out that increasing the UVR at sea-level might also have beneficial effects (e.g. fewer hip fractures) which their Report had neglected to mention.
And did it make a difference? Did it hell.
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
What a relief !
Dr. Samuel Johnson said 'No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money'.
I usually agree with Sam, the Great Cham, but then I remember that the fly-leaf of my first physiology textbook (Bell, Davidson and Scarborough) quoted an Arabic proverb 'More than the calf yearns to suck, doth the cow yearn to suckle' and being a silly old moo, I have to admit that blogs are kinda fun if there's not too much grouting or ironing to be done. If nobody reads it, who cares, so long as it relieves my over-burdened chuckle centre. There, that's off my chest, though its a funny place to keep a chuckle centre....but a perfectly reasonable site for a suckle centre.
I expect you'll be wondering how I filled the aching, langorous hours of ennui since my last blog. Well, a lot of time was spent on monotonously chipping away at my latest stone bas-relief (see picture below) and it was with relief that I finished it.
You might also be wondering 'Does that depict what I think it does?' Well yes actually, that sort of thing happens quite a lot, here and there (though more there than here, ......personally I can never find a supportive broken stone pillar when I want one). It's perhaps surprising, given the public interest in 'that sort of thing' that there aren't more statues of Queen Victoria in a similar pose. Just think what Rodin might have done with Victoria, Albert and the Crown Jewels.
My effort arose because my neighbour looked at my previous stone-carvings which were entitled 'The Kiss', 'The Pregnancy', 'Mother and Child' and 'Teenage Daughter', and pointed out that I'd omitted a crucial step between 'The Kiss' and 'The Pregnancy'. I felt I had to rise to the challenge and fill the hole, so to speak.
My friend Richard saw the finished work and said he could recognize my wife but who was the lucky man? The cheeky devil wondered if I was likely to need any models in future. I've offered to repeat the work with him and his wife as the models but only if he can hold the pose for 3 weeks. I doubt he'll accept the challenge, because his wife told me that a few weeks ago she said "Richard darling, lets race upstairs and make mad passionate love" to which he apparently replied "You can choose one or the other, but I couldn't manage both".
I was quite pleased with the sculpture, but since it is sandstone and not Portland stone I was unable to enter it for the recent sculpture competition organized by the British Limestone Corporation. I hear that the statue of Casanova won by a long chalk.
I usually agree with Sam, the Great Cham, but then I remember that the fly-leaf of my first physiology textbook (Bell, Davidson and Scarborough) quoted an Arabic proverb 'More than the calf yearns to suck, doth the cow yearn to suckle' and being a silly old moo, I have to admit that blogs are kinda fun if there's not too much grouting or ironing to be done. If nobody reads it, who cares, so long as it relieves my over-burdened chuckle centre. There, that's off my chest, though its a funny place to keep a chuckle centre....but a perfectly reasonable site for a suckle centre.
I expect you'll be wondering how I filled the aching, langorous hours of ennui since my last blog. Well, a lot of time was spent on monotonously chipping away at my latest stone bas-relief (see picture below) and it was with relief that I finished it.
You might also be wondering 'Does that depict what I think it does?' Well yes actually, that sort of thing happens quite a lot, here and there (though more there than here, ......personally I can never find a supportive broken stone pillar when I want one). It's perhaps surprising, given the public interest in 'that sort of thing' that there aren't more statues of Queen Victoria in a similar pose. Just think what Rodin might have done with Victoria, Albert and the Crown Jewels.
My effort arose because my neighbour looked at my previous stone-carvings which were entitled 'The Kiss', 'The Pregnancy', 'Mother and Child' and 'Teenage Daughter', and pointed out that I'd omitted a crucial step between 'The Kiss' and 'The Pregnancy'. I felt I had to rise to the challenge and fill the hole, so to speak.
My friend Richard saw the finished work and said he could recognize my wife but who was the lucky man? The cheeky devil wondered if I was likely to need any models in future. I've offered to repeat the work with him and his wife as the models but only if he can hold the pose for 3 weeks. I doubt he'll accept the challenge, because his wife told me that a few weeks ago she said "Richard darling, lets race upstairs and make mad passionate love" to which he apparently replied "You can choose one or the other, but I couldn't manage both".
I was quite pleased with the sculpture, but since it is sandstone and not Portland stone I was unable to enter it for the recent sculpture competition organized by the British Limestone Corporation. I hear that the statue of Casanova won by a long chalk.
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