Compos mentis

2010-04-25T13:36:00.002+01:00

I was feeling a little topsy-turvy after a long day at work recently.

Managed to cheer myself up...by thinking of the moments over the past year that truly made me happy. Those few hours of pure bliss each year at the start of each summer - between finishing exams, rushing back to the flat to pack up and dashing to get a cab down the highway to Heathrow to catch my flight...with the sun shining on my face as I had only one thought on my mind - home. The year was over. The labour had ended (temporarily). All cares were cast aside, all worries forgotten. Those few hours of pure joy - freedom - unbelievable relief and hope. No matter what had happened, soon I would be safe. It was the anticipation of something so abstract, something longed-for for such a long time that brought such happiness for just a short fleeting moment. Alas, it shall probably be a long while before I feel that again. My head and heart are empty and although the sun shines outside, clouds gather within.

So little time...

2010-02-13T22:35:00.004Z

So many things to do...

Amend e-portfolio so I can get a job

ISA investment account

Buy Emerging Market / Asian ETFs

Learn about Eyes

Learn (more) Mandarin, Spanish, etc

Study for Step 2

Negotiate the iPhone / Blackberry simultaneous step-up/step-down

Titrate red wine intake along the J-shaped curve

Get a life

Set up guitar hero evening

Figure out the meaning of life

Read the stack of BMJs and JRSMs and NatGeos that are piling up

Get a haircut

Not necessarily in that order!

Heimweh

2008-12-21T23:31:00.003Z

The past three months have breezed by. Friends have come and gone. New experiences have left their indelible imprints on my life. I am 'home' now, rising early due to jet-lag but still somewhat lost...wondering how the past 7 years have been such a blur. Lacking a sense of direction and purpose. The same scared little boy inside is wondering where all that time went...and more importantly - where home really is. I don't think I could bear to leave a place I've spent nearly a third of my life in for somewhere that feels increasingly foreign each time I visit.
The mood at Christmas is always a little strange and it makes you nostalgic for times past, but I'm currently staring into the abyss of the future wondering what on earth I ought to do. The head must rule the heart...a difficult dictum to live by.
With the looming spectre of finals on the horizon I think I'm going to beat the living daylights out of these frustrations with a good round in the squash court...
I hope the standard of writing in this blog hasn't become too pedestrian...for my own tastes and those who stumble across it and wonder why on earth I'd have an obscure diary-conversation with myself on the internet.

Sollipsism

2008-01-04T01:16:00.000Z

I think I'm slowly beginning to understand a few 'home truths.'
I can no longer blame 'them' for burning away my innocence and altruism into the remains of cynicism. The jot of hindsight I now have has taught me one thing - that there's probably a long way to go and this isn't the end - not by a long-shot. Perhaps, in order to last the course, you need to have a full vat of hope and humanity because it'll slowly evaporate anyway and anything less than a full tank would never let you go the distance. Sometimes you fill your emptying tank with what you find along the way - the quickly-souring fruits of achievement or the bitter tears of disappointment. Perhaps they chose you because they saw in your eyes an untainted longing to give yourself to the service of those who need it most. They saw your clarity of purpose and single-minded dedication. They saw - and they knew - that your youthful visage would harden into steely determination as your brows would furrow into a world-weary grimace. Even as the last shreds of your former being burns to embers of despair you look ahead - is the final product what you had hoped to be? You haven't begun to scratch the tip of the iceberg of sacrifices you'll have to make.
Amidst the clamour of others who see only risk and reward, you suddenly look back and wonder what became of who you once were - the boy who could have become; the man you could have been - the person you hoped to be. Were did space and time and hope and love and justice and fairness and curiosity and all those things that swirled within you - where did they collide within your soul? Suddenly the meaning of the 'future perfect' becomes more intense than any tense could ever conjugate itself from the jumble of mixed persons your life (and this sentence!) have become. The future perfect, the present and the worrisome future are laughing - jeering at the hopes of your past. They know now, that the past is as wildly imperfect as they are. Yet you do not laugh with them. You only nod and smile, for you have begun to learn that although you don't have the full story - neither do they. What matters is not how they stack up relative to each other. You can't measure yourself against yourself - or anyone else. What matters is that you're always writing the story - one day at a time, weaving the hopes of your past and the dreams for your future into the tangled carpet of the present.

Solitaire

2007-09-15T19:31:00.000+01:00

So this is how it ends. Two years of living alone. All those adaptation (and maladaptations) that have enabled a single, simple existence now face a whole assortment of adjustments.
At this dusky hour on a Saturday in the dying weeks of a summer that once held so much promise I begin to reflect on how things are going. Where paths have crossed and doubled over; how the endless longings and earnest yearnings have transmutated into something I can't recognise. Something I would perhaps rather not recognise.

We are told that life is not a race - but we're sprinting ahead. Perspectives are muddled. The finish line gets blurred into the horizon. Angst and anxiety replace suffering. The umbrella of Weltschmerz shades us from the glare of our own sad reflections that threaten to expose us to the reality outside - the reality of those who truly suffer while we coccoon ourselves inside our fragile shells and worry about tomorrow's worries.

My prayer is for humility. In large doses. Enough to ensure that pride and recklessness don't overcome my feeble, fickle mind. Difficult. Very difficult.

Kaleidoscopic remembrance

2007-08-28T21:35:00.000+01:00

Sometimes we feel scared. Sometimes life throws us a curve-ball that smacks us in the forehead without reason or warning. In the few seconds between perception and action we stand - our legs bridging that chasm - spanning deep thought and rapid reflex. What do we do at the crossroads? Which way do we turn?
Each strange experience seems to make me 'level up' - to put on that outer suit of armour and block the blows that would otherwise be my due. The danger is, however, that I'll get so used to the emotional distance and eventually forget how to feel...or even care.
Often, I wonder - why? There are so many reasons - answers, theories, explanations - for the 'ultimate question' - what is it all for? From the religious to the philosophical, the scientific to the whimsical, the utilitarian, nihilistic, spiritual or even the response 'who cares' - the answers just burn more questions in the mind of those who ask.
What is your favourite memory? Memory is a sure reflection of ourselves - our past and our perceptions of that past. The objective and subjective are blended into a foggy mist that settles into the clear picture we insist is the absolute glimmer of perfect remembrance. Memory is a fragile, beautiful thing - a shimmering constellation of sounds, images, smells, tastes and feelings. The image of perfection through the lens of life.

Lies and deception.

2007-08-03T01:16:00.001+01:00

http://www.medical-student.co.uk/issues/current/files/May2006.pdf
Pages 1 and 7.

Nothing left, nothing right.

2007-07-31T20:51:00.000+01:00

I am questioning my calling, waiting and watching, simply wondering what went wrong. Where did all the time go, how did I fall so low, staring at the past while the present fades away? Give me a second chance - just another day so that I can try to find my way home.
Subliminal messages are lost on me; I'm not sure I can 'read' people very well. It's only day two and I'm feeling the strain.
Plug on, plod on, take the strain, bear the yoke, feel the pain. Swallow the bitterness whole and wonder how it came to this. How can any higher purpose justify itself? How did Giancarlo Rastelli do it?

Half empty or half full?

2007-07-19T21:25:00.000+01:00

Do you or don't you? Do I or don't I? I don't know, and neither should you.
The thread of life is thinning and I'm tying myself in knots.
Why can't happiness last? Where is it to be found? More questions than answers.

Unsafe and incompetent, lacking confidence and inappropriately compensating by walling up within a fortified encampment. Yep, a pretty good summary of life so far. Exams loom large, firms are in my face and those endless afternoons of pathology are going to seem like halcyon days once the derailed train of my life rumbles onwards to the dark tunnel of the future. What's at the other end? There is no other end. The train has been derailed and will crash and burn somewhere inside that dark, never-ending tunnel. The world outside will crumble but that won't matter because the passengers within know that their own fate is sealed within this tragic one-way locomotive ride to the far far beyond. Where is the escape? All those sidings and stations - where are they now? They are still there...for the next train...to heed the warnings of this miserable wreck of a human being - get out! Get out while you still can!

What do you do when you cannot get what you want? What do you say when those trivial pursuits of yours avoid the angler's bait and swim out of those carefully laid traps? When you retire to bed and lie in the stillness of the midnight air all you can feel is the cold hand of fate choking the life out of your dreams. You try to localise the sensation and it seems to move up the nape of your neck, up to the right pterion. Gnawing away. The Chinese description of 'eating bitterness' is very apt. You swallow your dose of bitterness and cough up a hairball of cynical, jaded bile.

Sequelae

2007-07-03T19:08:00.000+01:00

So it begins. The terminal decline. Descent into darkness. Loss of innocence. End of days. No, not the events wracking the world around, however momentous they may be. I'm referring to the little world inside this coccoon of self-denial that threatens to unravel a tangled web of deceit. Summer rains are here but they only wash the pavements; the rumbling sound of thunder outside reminds me of the constant grumbling in my addled mind. How did I get myself into all of this?
More to the point - how do I get myself out?
Some problems are a bit like thrombi. They may resolve, embolise to affect other aspects of your life, or extend insidiously. Apart from dwelling on the aetiology of the thrombus it might be wiser to concentrate on managing the situation - although a thorough understanding of how the problem came to be would guide the appropriate course of investigation and treatment. I only hope it's not too late.

Heart of Darkness

2007-06-15T10:48:00.000+01:00

Hit the ground running...every time.
Endless hours on a 'plane, half-wrecked sleep with the drone of an engine and the shrill cries of an unhappy infant in a bassinet ringing in your ears as you turn up the volume on the entertainment system that isn't very entertaining after the 40th replay. Cramped spaces, jostling for elbow-room...the fun never ends. When you fly halfway round the world for 15 minutes before promptly flying back again - the cabin becomes your world of darkness, a portal to the other side...

Live Voice

2007-06-06T08:02:00.000+01:00

Fear makes men tremble.
Hope gives them courage.

Apparently the Javanese aim for perfection in the following order:
1) Build a house
2) Find a wife
3) Have a family
4) Ensure you have transport
5) Acquire a singing bird - to enjoy life.
Ah, the simple life...although given the circumstances it isn't that easy.

A Fool's Paradise

2007-05-29T05:59:00.000+01:00

Meat on a stick. Nutrition in powdered form. Chinese powdered peanut cookies wrapped in foil and bright green boxes. The opium of the masses is not religion but convenience foods. Not that I'm complaining - what tastes good may not always be good for you but it sure beats cooking.

Age is an illusion! Young or old - we're simply people sliding along a time-shift...and the chronological rheostat will dim for everyone...
Time doesn't stand still on holiday. It runs faster so that it can afford to rest longer during term.
I think I've been ageing far more rapidly than I'd hoped. Peering into crystal balls seems to have that effect. Peaks and troughs of enthusiasm and disillusionment zoom faster into focus than I'd expected. The words 'decade,' 'how time flies' and 'it's been a long time' are never far from my lips. Nostalgia is like a pacemaker...people with broken hearts (?!) can't live without them. Oddly enough, I think I'd rather be cardioverted.

Clouded thoughts

2007-05-27T19:40:00.000+01:00

Hope is a star in the darkest night.
When old men stumble and young men fall
If beauty fades or shadows pall
Hope lingers near.

The beaches, landing grounds, fields, streets and hills

2007-05-20T09:52:00.000+01:00

The notion of globalisation is not entirely new to our time. The various ages of hegemonic empires spanning oceans and continents (think: Mongols, Arabs and British) each brought disparate peoples closer - linked by shared subjugation by/allegiance to a greater power. However, the current climate of interdependence is unique in its multipolarity and flux - while technology and travel easily bridge time-zones, our times are marked not by universal feelings of peace and stability under the aegis of an all-commanding power. No - the hallmark of our days will be how we adjust and cope with these unceasingly changing and 'interesting' times. Security is a thing of the past and the very nature of culture is being redefined by the undercurrents of change that shape our world. This is no Babylon - it is a Babel.

I have been re-reading old blog entries - the slips and slides seem hard to believe in my current self-anaesthetised emotional state. Certainly, I'm glad to be home - but the sheer uncertainties in my life are a source of constant frustration.
Over a pancake lunch some of those feelings I've been walling up (yes, the Chinese like walls) for the past two years have been beginning to peek over the parapets. The response last time was to build higher, thicker, stronger walls and double the sentries on duty. Perhaps this time it's time to open the gates. I'm cynical and self-tortured enough - perhaps letting a bit of light into my dark little world will bring some things back into focus. Oddly enough - I seem willing. Eager, almost. However, I'm also aware that this is exactly how it began last time - except this time there appears to be a slightly more rational basis for this change of heart than mere impetuosity. That may be good - I like them 'rational.'

I'm feeling a little 'hyper' at the moment. The post-project buzz hasn't dissipated and the void left in my sad little life after the handover seems to yearn to be filled...

Dimples of Venus

2007-05-11T01:23:00.000+01:00

...the pair of sagittally symmetrical indentations sometimes visible on the human lower back, just superior to the gluteal cleft and directly superficial to the two sacroiliac joints...known more formally by the medical profession as fossae lumbales laterales...

Pater noster...

2007-04-24T18:03:00.000+01:00

This is a timely warning. A warning to the medical profession everywhere else in the world, particularly in Asia. Where I come from, families fight tooth and nail to give their children an opportunity to study medicine - specifically, MEDICINE. The respect and regard for the medical profession surpasses everything but religion and family ties. It is the ultimate goal for many people and while many doctors may not be well-paid, that wasn't their motivation anyway.

The shambles in the NHS, with MTAS and MMC just highlights how completely bankrupt society has become, using billions of pounds to prop up needless bureaucracy and management instead of delivering the actual health services that patients require. Pen-pushing has become a goal in itself to the detriment of jobs and training for the people who actually treat people - the doctors. You can blame the government - you could even blame the electorate - but the responsibility (as always) lies with doctors themselves. The British medical profession (and alas, doctors in most of the Western world) have allowed themselves to be trodden upon. The media is more influential at changing what people believe about health and science than doctors or scientists. We have abdicated our authority to the lowest of the low - politicians and the media. Most of all, we have locked ourselves in our ivory towers trying to keep our intellectual purity, trying our best not to be too 'paternalistic' and theorising that the public is the best judge of healthcare and politicians are the best judges of public needs. We have failed to see that without engaging the public - or at the very least, resisting the onslaught of bureaucratic burdens, we have made ourselves completely powerless. At this dire moment we have become pawns for the politicians while they systematically dismantle everything that made medicine a profession to which only the best could once aspire. We are divided and disunited.

Whether the current situation is saved or the whole thing collapses under itself, there is only one lesson that must be learned from this pitiful tale of woe. The medical profession everywhere else in the world must not allow itself to crumble. We are professionals, not peons. We devote our lives to helping the sick but that does not mean that we are desperate weaklings, 'nice guys' who can be kicked around at will. Most of all, the medical profession must retain its POWER - for power matters when confronted by power. Where I come from, the government would not dare meddle like this - for as long as doctors assert that THEY - and THEY ALONE make the best decisions in the best interests of patients, such trauma will not befall us again.

We have turned paternalism into a dirty word and lost our authority and now we are no longer healers but servants of the state. Doctors everywhere else - don't give an INCH!

The Late Fool

2007-04-13T01:58:00.000+01:00

I still can't figure out if it's an April Fools' thing.
http://meded-portal.ucsd.edu/webportal/announc/taking_up_residence.html
How touchingly perfect. A bit like winning the lottery, I guess.

Strawberries and sunny days are here again.

Words, words, words.

2007-04-04T03:05:00.000+01:00

Words can be beautiful things. Diverse examples (my personal tastes): "mahogany," "Chloe" "halcyon," "azure" and "lariat." Stunning words render me speechless.

Bubbles

2007-03-15T00:55:00.000Z

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/timeshift/raj.shtml
I say, "let them eat cake." We're seeing a repeat of this wall of prejudice today. It's bad enough for 'native' Britons to emigrate to Australia to take up 'cushy' GP posts in the outback. I feel cheated by the slimy mongrel government that dares to call itself the saviours of the NHS. Let the whole rotten system collapse (like the Tube). They probably won't learn their lesson, but a nasty wake-up call to the masters of the universe is long overdue.
Unfortunately, I may depend on them for a job.

Which brings me to the medical bubble. The horrid, reflecting spherical prison that is the world of academic medicine. It's weightless and weird. A world unto itself. A protected place...and yet a trap for everything within it, longing to touch the outside yet afraid to do so, knowing that if those within step outside their boundaries their world and everything they know will burst around them and they will enter a far, far uglier world than anything the bubble held. You see, the medical bubble, for all its unfairness, idealism, caring, bigotry, poverty, wealth, rabid competition, generosity, self-serving stabbing-in-the-back, kindness, slimy sucking-up, pressure, overwork, failure and achievement - is simply a reflection - of the world outside. Leave it and you're no better off because it's just a closed-off continuum of the agony of everything you can experience - just with a different set of rules - in some ways, no better - and no worse...
So I'm scared. Terrified and horrified. Petrified and mortified. My bubble is not bursting - it's imploding.

Splintered

2007-03-05T00:40:00.000Z

It's been 4 years. 4 years and I'm still the loser I was when I began. No progress there.
I have found a convenient dichotomy - the basis for my current 'framework for living.' It scares me. No, not 'multiple personalities' but just the way that a deliberately self-deluded person finds it necessarily to continue deluding himself in order to keep going. Here goes:
1) Happy me - the eternal optimist, appreciates things 'for what they are' (whatever that means).
2) Sad me - can't let go, clings to the past, constantly preparing for the worst, siege mentality, loner, trusts nobody
3) Kind me - would give selflessly in the name of charity, sees all people as worthy of being loved no matter what
4) Cruel me - sheer survival instincts applied even to daily living in blips of paranoia, vengeful and suspicious

The way in which it's possible to skip between the different extremes (usually in response to external stimuli) can be terrifying. You split yourself so much that you lose sight of what "the real you" actually is, so when people want to get to know "the real you" they see only a facetious lump whose attempts to modulate his accent are a symptom merely reflective of the deeper schisms within. Jekyll and Hyde, but not as grand. I don't even try to 'suppress' things; I merely attempt to behave as dispassionately as possible. I am becoming a drone, an automaton as far as emotions go. It's true to some extent - you can numb yourself to the outside world as a defense mechanism - and compared to many other people, I haven't even been as exposed to horrors that would make such a response more legitimate. In that case, it'll be interesting when the puddles of inconvenience become pools of adversity...

The future is bleak

2007-02-27T01:01:00.000Z

The more I think about it, the more unhappy I become. The more desperate, dissatisfied, dejected, dolorous, doleful, downcast, downhearted, desolate, dispirited and depressed I become (kudos to Roget's Thesaurus). Only the future could be worse than the present (by no great leap of logic) and I dread what the next few years may bring.

Hoping desperately that I'm wrong, my little predictions of gloom are as follows:
1) The current 'bullish' economic outlook will collapse within the next two years. Just in time for me to finish medical school...
2) Global poverty and widening income disparities will continue unabated
3) No major environmental disasters will stem from 'global warming' and 'climate change' - yet politicians and the media will somehow find a way to blame these for hurricanes and earthquakes

I have no happy future. The world (on average, on the whole) has no happy future. It's going to be utterly impossible to find employment, whether meaningful or not. How does it feel at 21 to think that the past two decades have been an utter waste? It sucks. It sucks, bigtime. It totally, utterly sucks. There is no need for eloquence when you can't see the wood from the trees because the whole forest is crumbling around you in a hail of sawdust. There is no need - because you can't tell if you're wielding the chainsaw or whether that's simply the sound of your mind shredding the last elements of your sanity.

My first week in a laboratory has not done this to me. No, no - the lab has been good, so far. However, it has slammed home how utterly useless I am. I put in my 9-6 every day (it'll increase, I assure you, as the experiments progress) and yet I know I'll never feel satisfied with the outcome, constantly worrying about the past, present and future in a blur of anxiety. This is what happens when you're a pampered child loth to untie the deadknots of apron strings for fear of falling into the abyss over which you dangle, saved only by those same apron strings.

This is all one big delusion. The power to deceive oneself seems to be the only thing that can keep a person going, sometimes. It's an elaborate game of make-believe, where you cling to the past, veiling the present horror with the images of what you perceived you could have been just so you can live on to fulfill the tainted promise of a tomorrow that would be better off if it never came.

Dead and gone.

2007-01-08T18:29:00.000Z

I have never understood fatalism, but it's starting to become clear that, give or take a bit, everything is truly pointless. No reason to stop striving, but you have to ask yourself why the world is such a depressing place.

Home Alone

2006-12-22T03:19:00.000Z

I am an anti-social recluse. Never mind that - at this time of year when I descend into abject self-pity it is far more fitting to remember those who don't have the luxury to moan. This Christmas I earnestly wish and pray for:
Compassion and relief for the poor, tired, homeless and hungry. Healing for the sick; calm for the dying, comfort for the bereaved. Company for the lonely, abandoned, orphans, widows and the elderly. Safety for travellers, whether stranded or storm-tossed. Courage for those stationed abroad in the service of their country; peace for those torn apart by conflict. Self-reflection for those in power (yes, even them). Love for the brokenhearted. Joy for families. Most of all - hope - for everyone in this weary world - we are so desperately in need of that precious gift. Hope.
Amen.

Sic transit gloria mundi

2006-12-22T01:18:00.000Z

"He renamed the month of January after himself and April after his mother; he banned ballet, gold teeth and recorded music; he ordered the construction of a lake in the midst of the desert and a ski resort on the snowless foothills of the Iranian border...interspersed with the crowd were stony-faced officials ensuring the public enjoyed the event. We heard of people being summoned to police station for not smiling broadly enough at such occasions." - BBC News, reporting the death of Saparmurat Niyazov.

Simple things.

2006-12-01T02:26:00.000Z

It has taken me a long time to realise that turning back and changing direction can mean different things. Perseverance means that you don't stop hammering away; that does not mean you have to keep using the same mallet. A change of tactics (bearing the goal in mind) is a change for the better.
Good heavens, for such a simple truth I sure took my time.

Jenner and Pasteur would be turning in their graves...

2006-11-14T19:31:00.000Z

I try to avoid overtly-'topical' issues; times change faster than catwalk fashions and there really is very little point trying to chase the wind.
Nevertheless, we all have our own little 'passions' and 'pet hates' and idiosyncrasies and it would be remiss of me not to cite my own. Vaccines. More specifically, the profound distaste I harbour towards the anti-vaccine lobby.
Is it not difficult enough for scientists to develop vaccines in the first place, for millions to perish for lack of treatment, for vaccine costs to price out those who really need them - is it not enough, I ask you - that now the vocal few seek to cast doubt over one of the scientific/public health advances that has done most to improve human health? Must the ravages of diseases like measles, polio or rubella once again stalk the West before these (I'm trying to control myself here) incomparable idiots stop their questioning of something that has most probably prevented their own deaths? They claim side effects, pharmaceutical/government conspiracies and more besides. Science panders to skeptics (i.e. the scientific community) and it is this approach to testing hypotheses that underlies the phenomenal work researchers undertake to bring vaccines to fruition. No, vaccines are not 100% perfect (no drugs are). I am driven mad with rage by the disgraceful actions of this idiotic few. This isn't an issue of more or less, it is one of life and death.

Patronising, paternalistic and authoritarian as I am, I would have compulsory vaccination written into law (with obvious exceptions - allergies etc). If you're too selfish that you won't protect yourself or your own child, at least spare a thought for the rest of the world - two words: herd immunity.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

2006-08-31T15:19:00.000+01:00

I don't understand why pavements have to be made of marble or shiny tiles that get wet within the first five seconds of tropical rain and turn into deathtraps of slippery evil for pedestrians.

My mind was wandering as I listened to music (it tends to). The world would be a somewhat kinder place if we all submitted to that naive impulse to give the benefit of the doubt to our fellow human beings. For example - who knows if that irritating frog-like lady on the subway who kept treading on your toes is actually a war widow who spends her Saturday afternoons helping young children at church? No matter - it's incredibly difficult to find the goodness in everyone - tedious and pretentious, some might say - but worth a try nonetheless, as a goal in itself.

I sometimes wonder how much of our destiny is truly ours to shape - so many different faculties could have been developed in different ways if only a mentor, teacher or friend had influenced us in alternative ways. You can look back and wonder whether or why, but hindsight isn't much of a clue to the future.
Teachers are really, really powerful people - but then perhaps I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Iz Lives

2006-08-15T18:51:00.001+01:00

So I sat there, falling into yet another one of my states of self-pity and depression (the non-clinical sort, if one exists). Hurrah - yet another crisis of self-doubt from a 20 year-old who (by his own admission, no less) doesn't deserve to have another bout of weltschmerz. The meaning of it all - pondering, wondering, gazing at the door as my mind turned into a whirlpool of nonsense. I'm naive enough to believe in 'goodness' and yet cynical enough to dismiss the notion, optimistic enough to cherish the prospect of encountering it while the pessimist within has lost all hope of it. Schadenfreude vs Empathy. Worse still would be gluckschmerz - good heavens, I think I'm beginning to see myself for what I truly am - an evil conniving hypocrite who baldly admits his flaws in a bid to dissociate himself emotionally from the cold interior that's melting like the polar ice caps. There we go with the self-pity again. Round and round in circles - a bit like Dante...borrowed that idea from my younger brother's English essay.
What of life? What of death? What of hope? Just get on with it, make your heaven here on earth, forget glory or damnation and just do your best - I don't know the correct descriptive term for this little mantra. I somehow find that innately depressing. There we go with the depression again.
Still I sit here, those thoughts spiralling out of control as I play Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' medley - the haunting power of that voice reaches over and floats into my little reverie. I listen and am unable to cry. Those bundled up thoughts, scrunched up in the brain's backyard just stay there, stubbornly refusing to give way. The music soars and my eyes close as I rock backwards in my chair as I hear those words 'why now oh why can't I?' Little channels of envy swirl around. I'm actually so happy with the simple things - the soft toy blue elephant, the simple songs, the simple food, the simple words and yet - the world around churns these into a curd of dissatisfaction, guilt and misery. O Lord, subtract the selfishness, add the goodness, multiply the friends and divide and flaws. I might be a normal person, then.

Iz Lives

2006-08-15T18:51:00.000+01:00

Prospects

2006-08-06T08:36:00.000+01:00

The future is bleak. I remember muttering to the few who cared to listen (back in 1999) that the world would end in either 2000 or 2006. The millennium came and went and here we are today. A recent reminder from an old friend of the 2006 deadline made me wonder if it still matters. Who cares anymore? What on earth is the point? It might as well be over.

hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia

2006-06-06T07:51:00.000+01:00

Please, please, please - people! See some sense!
Surely 6/6/1666 would have scared the living daylights out of these luddites.

Odd, that.

2006-05-29T10:24:00.000+01:00

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1784869,00.html

It was reported last week that hundreds of junior doctors in Scotland, who have spent up to £100,000 on their medical education and could have taken some of the hard-to-fill consultant posts, may be deported within months.

As for the final two paragraphs:
100,000 ? Nah. Double that.
That's why I'm going to sit the USMLE...

Rigor mortis

2006-05-25T12:12:00.000+01:00

Life is just a long, drawn out process of having all your emotions, hopes, dreams and any goodness you might ever have possessed crushed and blended away with each passing day. It all comes unstuck in the end. More's the pity because I can faintly remember, once, long ago - clinging to hope. What a lie. What a sham. What a shame.

Drawing blanks

2006-04-18T21:37:00.000+01:00

It has taken me twenty years to realise the value of doing nothing. I shall endeavour to spend some quality time this summer ... doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not easy, you know. Not easy at all.

Cute?

2006-04-16T22:55:00.000+01:00

Some kind soul posted a comment on the posting 'Los Angeles to Mosul for 140' - it's been about 10 years since I was last called that and - boy does it feel good... Jason the little munchkin...a stodgy, podgy, inky-dinky plippety-ploppety happy blobby cutey-pie with not a care in the world. Like a jolly pork pie just before he gets eaten!

Saturday Lamentation

2006-04-14T20:06:00.000+01:00

I canter between the posts of buoyant optimism and bleak pessimism at the whim of the wind. It's awful to be pinballed like that, knowing that just as you reach the next marker all you have to look forward to is the fleeting sensation of something you'll forget before you could even wonder what had just happened.

Over the years I have come to realise something terrible. It has turned life into one long, sick, disgusting parody of a prisoner's worst nightmare.

I call it the 'downhill slide.' Each moment is the best moment of the rest of your life. Every passing second is better than the one following it because life is simply a downhill slide into oblivion and impending doom. As each day gets worse and worse, the realisation that each passing moment is better than the one following it becomes stronger and stronger. Nevertheless, a person's outlook on life can follow different patterns. Either:

You dread the next day, knowing that whatever the future holds, it can only get worse.
OR...
Paradoxically, you live each moment gleefully acknowledging that it is the best you're ever going to have.

Perhaps it doesn't make much difference because either way, each night one silently prays to have a really massive subarachnoid haemorrhage and not have to wake up the next morning.

Carpe diem, etc. You begin to die the second you're born, etc. D'oh. Whichever way you picture it, I think it's a cruel joke that a human being has to plumb the depths of despair to find some reason to make the most of each passing second of this moribund existence to which we're sentenced.

A good shot of diazepam would be very welcome right now.

Los Angeles to Mosul for 140

2006-04-10T21:07:00.000+01:00

Well, there you have it. Four rounds and a knockout.
It was fun while it lasted. I hope that's true for other things, too.

78-75 Blindspots

2006-04-09T14:42:00.000+01:00

I saw the cherry blossoms on Thursday and a few green leaves on Saturday. Spring has come.

I have reached the terminal phase of this odd stage of life but the rate at which the days fly past makes it difficult to stop and smell the roses. Before you know what's happened - it's over. A cliched revelation that has to be experienced. You look backwards at your own peril; it's so easy to trip over the stepping stones of tomorrow. Rather like reversing around a bend.

Empty patches demand a faith and persistence to bridge those gaping chasms we face from time to time. Amidst the emptiness we somehow have to stand firm and not be bowled over when the strong winds of uncertainty blow.

On a wing and a prayer

2006-03-22T23:31:00.000Z

I have only myself to blame, I have a million people to thank.
I have a million obligations to fulfill, I have only one chance.
I have to concentrate while multi-tasking, I have to focus without blurring the bigger picture.
I have one life and a million ways to live it.

That is why ignorance is bliss. What about non-existence? Perhaps that's not even a valid question.

Litany

2006-03-13T21:33:00.000Z

All or nothing, almost there.
Pity for the tired wayfarer, shelter for the weary.
Does dawn break over night's dark stillness?
Can the stale air drift away with the angry grey clouds?
The memory of things past falls away with the footsteps, we cling to them fervently until they almost dissolve into thin air.
Hope - remains. Hope for another chance, another day, another way to claw our way back to the happy golden hill on that far and distant shore, the coastline of faded memories.
Is all lost? Where did it perish - in which empty sea? The sea of emptiness can never be drained and its waters are bittersweet.
Bend over the edge and peer into the depths that mirror the hidden recesses of a fractured mind. Search for those lost longings and cling to them.
Once more into the breach, dear friends...

Almost home

2006-02-27T22:07:00.000Z

There are some words whose meaning stretches far beyond the intended definition; such words provoke emotions and touch raw nerves that somehow seemed rather sclerosed on the surface but remained just as tender below. Some words are almost causalgic; they short circuit their regular meanings and take on new ones, opening the floodgates to memories that don't seem to fade with time - each time you polish away the dirt the memory seems to reflect your inner thoughts more vividly than ever before.

'Almost' is one of those words. When you 'almost' made the grade, 'almost' finished the task, 'almost' stopped the bullet. Almost - but not quite. Just not quite there. Never quite enough.

'Home' is another one that weighs on the mind heavily. Life is an adventure but home is where the heart is. Sometimes 'home' and 'the past' seem to get confused with each other, especially with the passage of time. I would give a king's ransom (if I had one to give) just to be able to re-live that once again. To sit cross-legged on a parquet wood floor gazing at the thunderclouds pouring heavy drops of rain as the afternoon wind blows. To smell the smell of home once again. The mere thought sends a tingle of ectopic beats slithering through me. Thing is - airline tickets aside - I don't have to pay for the privilege; somehow I'm paying to stay away. Is five years really such a long time? The clouded mind plays cruel tricks but it is no trick to be almost - but not quite - home.

Bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo

2006-02-17T18:43:00.000Z

I am shocked and appalled. Listening to doctors rant about having to meet ridiculous NHS 'targets' is one thing, reading about government learning targets for five year-olds is quite another. Terms like "foundation stage profile" are now in use.
Statistics claim that
52 per cent had not reached their "early learning goals". The Department for Education said that meant that they had "failed to achieve a good level of development" between the ages of three and five and this raised questions about their "future potential to enjoy and achieve".
Who pays people to come up with, enforce and compile statistics about such ridiculous 'targets' anyway?
Somebody ought to launch a common sense campaign...this is just going too far.

Something to be angry about

2006-02-10T00:34:00.000Z

I'm a medical student.
Call me naive - but our little world would be much better off if governments had fewer lawyers/bureaucrats running them (yes, my long-running antipathy/downright hatred for all forms of 'bureaucracy') and more doctors or scientists calling the shots. What I am referring to, of course, ladies and gents, is TOBACCO smoking. It's sooooo very simple. Ban it. Ban it. Ban it. Blah blah blah freedom of expression blah blah blah. You don't allow people to sell ecstasy on the streets because it is a POISON. Likewise, smoking cigarettes is POISONOUS - to you, to others around you and to the environment. Sure - you could be pedantic and declaim conventional medicines as 'poisons' - what is a poison if not something given in a large enough dose for toxic side effects to overwhelm the body? By the same token, alcohol would thus be a 'poison' - but that's perfectly legal. Don't give me that pathetic excse. Your liver metabolises alcohol and detoxifies the products of metabolism, which you then proceed to excrete. Your lungs, on the other hand, are poisoned from the word 'go' the minute you take that first puff. No detox, not cool. Abuse of anything - medicines, fatty foods, alcohol - will make you sick and probably kill you, but they can all be enjoyed within moderation - even to excess, most of the time. Smoking one cigarette probably won't kill you - but smoke one a day, the same way you eat one caviar blini or drink one pint of beer - and you'll definitely mess something up - even if it's 'just bronchitis'...IT'S COMMON SENSE, PEOPLE!!! Alcohol isn't a PUBLIC HEALTH HAZARD (alright, drunks and cirrhosis aside) - banning alcohol won't make as big a difference as banning smoking.
In fact, there's only one way to stop this - law courts don't work (money talks); governments are in the pockets of big tobacco firms - tax revenue, jobs, etc - and smoking lobbies delude the 'free world' into trying to protect their freedoms. Rubbish. Nonsense. What's lacking here is COMMON SENSE. Burn a little stick of poison and breathe in the toxic fumes - poison yourself and fill your lungs with tar (I think you actually have to be quite STUPID to smoke - that too is a 'choice' - one that reflects a depressingly low level of good sense). Just don't fumigate those around you. So, why do I care so much if I'm just a selfish twit who doesn't like smoke blown in his face? Simple - I'm a medical student... patients who, when questioned reply that they smoked 50 cigarettes a day for 42 years are pretty much shifting the blame to the little sticks of poison. If they don't have the will to protect themselves, somebody has to destroy the incredibly intelligent profiteering murdererous manufacturers who hold the smoking world hostage (1 billion smokers...on earth). So - what are we to do? I'm going to keep it secret until I've finally set my little plan in motion...

I'm not motivated by pure altruism - those who know me can testify to my cold-blooded bile-spewing cerebrospinal-fluid-leaking antagonism of 'the great and the good' - but hear me now - it is just SICK and WRONG to sell people poison. "Here - smoke this - it'll make you feel better but will make you suffer and die!" This has got to stop.

Round 1b

2006-01-13T21:24:00.000Z

BBC TWO, 8.30pm, Monday 16th January 2006.
ICSM vs Trinity Oxford.

Firms. Unpredictable.

Food needed.

Resolve

2006-01-04T16:28:00.000Z

Smile more, be happier.
Be happier, live longer.
Live longer, smile more.

See Ekman.

Drams of mulled thoughts

2005-12-21T00:41:00.000Z

Kisses tell, beauty fades,
All dreams are but passionate charades.
Reason fails, Hope's wells run dry,
Evening's wishes are morning's lie.
Never mind - I love you still.

That dim and distant future

2005-12-18T01:15:00.000Z

Well, the 7-weeks of torture have finally come to a crashing halt. A part of me survived - that die-hard never-say-never bit that shouldn't be left alone for too long.
Anyway - now this sounds awkward - I simply can't wait to get back to firms. Holidays a wonderful, splendid things and seem to be getting fewer and further between; getting to see one's family is a thing to be treasured. They arrived earlier in the evening, just as I was checking on the Mediterranean roast vegetables and Afghan lamb polo. A wonderfully almost-obsessively regimented round of banter didn't quite get to the question of WHERE to go for a short break. I usually return home for Christmas and I'm wonderfully chatty in the car on the way home from Changi airport; somehow that old, familiar element of leaving behind the term is lacking. Then again, the previously 'normal' eventual heartbreak of re-grafting oneself to a semi-independent state of near-self-reliance won't happen in the same way this time. I don't really know what I'm writing about - I'm just still so glad that the awful past is behind me and shan't catch up if I can do anything about it. It's time for mince pies and nothing is going to ruin that.
'The Constant Gardener' is a good film; certainly worth a watch. Don't be too harsh on the drug companies, though...anyway - can't wait for King Kong and Narnia.

Life's this game of inches

2005-12-07T21:05:00.000Z

The inches we need are everywhere around us. They're in every break in the game, every minute, every second....
...We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches that's going to make the fucking difference between winning and losing. Between livin' and dying. I'll tell you this in any fight it's the guy whose willing to die who's gonna win that inch , and I know that if I'm going to have any life anymore it's because I'm still willin to fight and die for that inch!

-Al Pacino, Any Given Sunday. Logan, J & Stone, O.

Nearly there

2005-12-07T13:58:00.000Z

Give me strength - to finish.
To end. To finally bring this whole sorry episode to a close.
To go out with a bang. A big, big, big, big bang.

Dribble

2005-12-06T05:05:00.000Z

It's time to stop when you begin watching Gordon Brown's pre-budget speech online. You should seek help when you find yourself listening to the Conservative rebuttals. However, it's too late when your mouse pointer hovers over the Lib Dem budget comments...

Innominate urge

2005-12-02T18:33:00.000Z

Well, the longing has come rather early this year; I suppose it's because I shan't be returning until the summer. Just to place that order, "Satu kosong, satu telur" and slump into a plastic chair in my sandals watching the world go by as I wait. Like a turtle, returning to its home shores to lay a motherlode of eggs, year after year after year (what a beautiful analogy).
Life is just one long cover-up strategy, acting out a part you try your best to believe in, trying to remember the script before you mess up your lines. It might seem tired and rotten but, just remember the 'happy' things in those times of deep despair. Deep, deep down, somewhere past the hippocampus.
Find that pot of gold, be it full or simply just faintly fulfilling and hug it tightly, so in the moment of desolation when all around seems bleak and your path is blighted by fiery peril - you can set out firm, square up to it and summon that strength to pull yourself through.
Time to turn the corner, round the edge, cross the drawbridge and bring out the heavy artillery. It's them or me...and if I'm going down, at least I'll go out with a bang. A big one. Explosions always cause fireworks.

Eu thanatos

2005-11-30T01:43:00.000Z

Let it all be over. Over. Now. Please.

I don't want to ask why
You had to lie and I had to try
To stop the sighs
Because the lies
Make me want to die.

Set that to music; cello music. Play the dirge and let them sing, toll the bells - let them ring - the knell won't tell, heaven or hell but you and I know - we reapeth what we sow....

Primary end-point

2005-11-27T19:12:00.000Z

'An Inspector Calls' was great fun, as was the party at Purple. Thanks, chaps - great evening and I didn't really know how badly I 'danced' until then...
Chocolate-covered-Sauternes wine-raisins...absolutely delicious.
I didn't realise it until today when I went to collect a few items from the deserted dressing room and I almost can't believe it's over - but, as with all things, one finds oneself moving so fast just to stand still...work rushes on and life drives by in a whirl that you can't stop. A spinning mega-vortex.
Just remember this: Don't cry because it's over; smile because it happened.

Wish

2005-11-23T03:02:00.000Z

Tonight is opening night for 'An Inspector Calls' - looking forward to it very much.

Now, on to the main surtext: What to do if you are miserable, in a rut and can't dig yourself out of it. Speaking from personal experience (no, I'm not dead, but I think it helps to think things through - try to reach a sensible outcome).

Do you ever wish that you could go to bed and die in your sleep - not in a horrible manner - asphyxiation - but rather to just go to bed and have a sudden massive cerebral haemorrhage so that tomorrow morning you don't wake up...? Being able to make that wish means you have to be complacent enough to believe that you'll wake up tomorrow, confident enough that you won't die in any other way and pessimistic enough to feel that it's the only way out. Lying there, with the duvet over you, snug and soundly asleep...then bang - life's over and that's it. No more worries. No more problems. No more. None. Nothing. Sure, you won't have the *happy times* but at least you won't have to deal with the inevitable...the looming... it'll all be over and even though you know that you've selfishly taken the cop-out method and left a nasty mess for somebody else to clear up - it won't matter...because you won't be around...as I said before - it'll all be over. Once and for all. Bingo.

The drawback - you have to say goodbye to those you love.

NB - I do NOT advocate suicide. It's bad for you and shows that you're...well... weak and confused and you need help.

I suppose, though, as I head to bed that right now, that a haemorrhage wouldn't be such a bad thing. At least if a lovely big one came along to finish me off quickly (and, hopefully completely painlessly) I wouldn't even have to think about it...oh bliss. Bliss. Bliss. To not have to wake up to face another dreadful day that drags me closer to my grave anyway - utter bliss.

That's pretty bad. I've even lost confidence in being able to tell when I'm trying not to exaggerate...sheesh.

Nadir

2005-11-22T00:27:00.000Z

1st Man: The wonderful thing about sinking to the lower depths of depression is...that it can't get any worse.
2nd Man: You're forgetting that there are different kinds of inflexion points...remember the curve of y = negative x-cubed? A temporary blip at zero before plummeting even further.
1st Man: Oh. Terrific.
2nd Man: Yeah, I know.
1st Man: Tomorrow's another day, another chance to see the world at play, to play a part and try not to say 'I wish it didn't have to be this way.'
2nd Man: Yesterday was today's regret, the soulless shell you can't forget; just as tonight dies to let another day slip through the net.

Postoperative Mortality

2005-11-17T00:32:00.000Z

I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.
Why put yourself through the intense pressure of something you can't get out of, something you dislike so intensely with your entire being that you want it to emerge in physical form so you can assault it, stab it, murder it in cold blood? Why force yourself to fight a battle you can't win, day after day, night after night - toiling just for the pleasure of others? I've never considered myself a hedonist, but this just goes far beyond anything I could ever have imagined. The worst nightmare - from which you can't awake. I hate it so much, so so so very much that I can't believe how much I want to get out. There is NO way out. None. None. None at all. I can't get out.

Learning to learn

2005-11-12T21:44:00.000Z

What a difference a fortnight makes.

I'm wondering about the direction in which the medical profession will head...besides management overhauls, funding debates and ethical dilemmas, what about the two most important factors (in my opinion, anyway) - patient care and science? Will magic bullet cures eliminate the need for surgery and interventional therapies? What about gene therapy, stem cells and tissue engineering? More questions than answers at the moment...

Teaching is all about inspiration. You do as much good by downloading knowledge to students as you do by imparting an attitude that aspires to learn more. That said, you can't really blame them for being such a cynical lot...

Nunc

2005-10-29T13:24:00.000+01:00

Six fantastic weeks have finally come to an end and I don't really know what to say. Over a lively dinner last night I discussed with five firm-mates what 'having an impact on somebody's life' actually really means and (if you'll pardon my propensity to exaggerate) I came up with quite probably the best thing I've said in a long while. Now, rather grandly, I paraphrase...
No, you won't feel that a few actions and words over a brief period of time will really have changed you. It doesn't seem like a profound paradigm-shift at the moment but the way you've been changed is deeper than that - some day in the future you will be a different person because of this; your behaviour towards others will echo its influence on your life and you will effect the same change on others that this has had on you.

I know that I probably won't understand (for a long time, at least) the true reason that people use the phrase "the good doctor X" but I think I've had my first inkling.
Yeah, I'm getting all bolshy now, but what the heck - we're more than the sum of our parts, aren't we?

I shall really miss that firm.

Today is October 29th, AD 2005. Life is a wonderful thing - one finds a purpose to which one clings, not knowing fully why but believing all the while that it is only in the here and know that it shall be revealed.

JH

Cras...s...tuzumab!

2005-10-24T20:12:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow is another day,
When the sad loneliness of today
Brings bitter smiles and happy tears
To wash away those well-worn fears.

Translate from the Magyar...

2005-10-07T22:39:00.000+01:00

Hear the cold calls catching the wind, grasping at the nothingness that surrounds it. I'm feeling tired of wishing for a new day to begin; every morning drags the night from its bed and scalds the sunrise with a damp dew that doesn't really smell very nice.
Layouts change and people dither, waiting for a lift that might take them higher; to go up you've got to be at the bottom and it just can't get lower than this.
That lovely word - subarachnoid - or what about 'meninges'...they start to lose their meaning as they swirl around in the mind of a confused medical student who can't seem to decide whether he's actually enjoying the 'high' of drowning in the deep end (he's yet to touch the bottom of the pool) or if that same 'high' is the pre-syncopal warning sign that's actually screaming 'last call - last call - the gate is closing'...
Life is like an electrocardiogram. I never thought in any of my fits of fancy that I'd end up writing this, but here goes. P-wave: that first little bump that tells you something's wrong. QRS-complex: the hundred daggers plunging into your back as you writhe in a puddle. T-wave: cadaveric spasm, rigor mortis. Let's not get into the arrhythmias...

We will not go quietly into the night...

2005-09-27T22:22:00.000+01:00

O thou who changest not - grant to him a measure of the grace thou hast given unto me.

I'm beginning to wonder whether self-inflicted stress is worse than exogenous pressure. Either way, one copes.

Two things I've learned so far - nobody knows everything about anything and 58 years old is 'young.'

AVPU nil

2005-09-20T17:18:00.000+01:00

So it begins again. The dance that flings us into the good old rhythm of crash & burn. Hurrah for timing. Hurrah for firms. Hurrah for medicine in all its cannulated gory glory. Sound the bleeps. Man the gurneys. Neat.

Guilty, m'lord!

2005-09-09T03:20:00.000+01:00

Your honour, my client, the little translucent crab scurried nervously across the beach, oblivious to the heavy tread of footsteps pounding on the sand. I have shown, ladies and gentlemen of the jury that the giant black sandal came squelching down nearby, injuring one delicate leg. Ducking for safety, the crab headed for the waves...until the massive wooden stick came crashing down across its back...prodding it into the waves, flicking and tumbling the little crustacean into the surf. Honourable members of the jury - I beg you to restore some of the wounded pride of this poor animal; insufficient was the hurt caused by the initial assault - the giant stick continued to pry at Mr Crab, forcing him in his injured state into the breaking waves. We do not ask for pity. The grace of the court is not our objective. Indeed, no verdict you return can remove the insult from the injuries that have already been grievously sustained but I beseech you, ladies and gentlemen - restore some small measure of honour and dignity to your fellow crab!

Te..Dium

2005-09-04T10:07:00.000+01:00

Horrid. I think Singapore must be one of the few places on earth where's you'll find it faster to walk up/down stairs than use the escalators. These chaps just don't know how to move. No, hot weather doesn't dull the brain - not when you've got sub-zero air-conditioning blasting throughout the underground passageways that quadruple-buttocked people love to block with their wide loads as they stroll along with triple prams at a pace that could barely outrun a chimpanzee in a wheelchair with its brakes locked.
Talk about crowd...the Comex 2005 was quite something...but, as Sartre said - 'Hell is other people'...

Sick, Sick, Sick.

2005-09-02T11:39:00.000+01:00

This guy is utterly sick in the head.
An extremist's view of Hurricane Katrina.

Once again, it isn't about whether America's wanton environmental destruction has brought this disaster on the Gulf Coast states; help a nation in need and it will not forget. Like it or not, the Yanks genuinely try to do 'the right thing' (no, I don't like buying into the right-wing media spin, but here goes anyway)... Senor Bush's incompetence at disaster management is proved once again but look here, people - despite the chaotic scenes in Louisiana Americans have mobilised $100 million already. The Aussies and Swiss have given their share; the Japanese have poured in half a million. You see, people, the Yanks don't NEED your money. They have more than enough of their own, but (and I know cliches suck, but never mind) IT'S THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS! When your back yard or street is utterly destroyed and you're standing on a rooftop begging the rest of the world for help, I won't hold it against the Americans if their memories are longer than yours and they (finally) choose to sit back, shut up and put their wallets away. C'mon, people...do unto others...
No, these guys aren't angels but it's wrong to demonise them because of some political squabbles. It's called 'petty jealousy'. There are plenty of idiots, morons and imbeciles in America (read: G.W.Bush) but, like anywhere else, there are plenty of good people and they deserve some compassion. More than most countries private individuals there are the first to make charitable cash donations and I'd be utterly ashamed if they continued to do so regardless of whether others helped them if we didn't lift a finger at all.

Man, I'm such a nutcase. A virus got into my brain and my cranial interior is now a glazed doughnut (no, Lorenzo, it's scone as in 'gone' not scone as in 'own,'). I think I'll go commit myself right now...

Hurricane Katrina

2005-09-01T10:45:00.000+01:00

My sincere and heartfelt condolences to all those affected by this natural disaster. A pity they gave it such a nice name.

Just a short message of support to those Americans out there...oh yes - I sometimes think of myself as a realist, but let's put that to rest for a moment. These people deserve some respect and hope.

I hope all the Americans out there know that we're with them all the way on this one. People might not agree with the war in Iraq or other US actions but, truth be told the USA deserves the solid support of everybody else when innocent lives are lost. Americans were generous with their time, support and money when the tsunami struck Asia and it's high time a like measure of solidarity was returned to the USA. So, America, know that you are not alone!
I haven't heard many condolences from 'world leaders' (okay, the Queen sent a 'message of shock') but it seems most people care more about the effects on the price of gas than the suffering people of the South-East USA. (S.E.Asia, S.E.USA - what's the difference - besides money - they're people, we're people and you don't refuse a helping hand when your fellow man is down and out).
Many people assume that the world's richest nation can fend for itself but what goes around comes around and you reap what you sow - we should never forget that it is the poor in any country who suffer most from such terrible tragedies - lives are wrecked and families ruined. Just because it's happened to a mighty country doesn't mean a helping hand can't be offered; I truly hope you manage to pull through this one and wish that the rest of the world would sit up for just a moment and wish you good luck and lend a helping hand. Oh yes - don't be too proud to accept it, for a simple token of goodwill and friendship does not merely repay the kindness Americans have offered to others in the past - instead, it says 'brother, when you're in trouble, don't despair, I'll be there, so lean on me.'

JH

Time to kowtow

2005-08-29T11:30:00.000+01:00

Bamber Gascoigne's 'A Brief History of the Dynasties of China' was a good read. Especially in the light of EU vs China trade 'negotiations'...you see, people - it's a dog-eat-dog world out there and 'fair is foul and foul is fair'...so I suppose payback's a rather bitter pill to swallow. The world didn't lift a finger when the Summer Palace was pillaged; as long as Qing dynasty bronze sculptures keep coming up for auction I'm pretty sure we'll just see more of the same. Yes, yes - forgive and forget - let the sins of the past not be visited on those who dwell in the present; but that's not quite the same when you look at the Chinese time frame. EU central bankers think in terms of fiscal quarters; Chinese emperors plan for the next century...so let's do the right thing and allow the engine of laissez-faire economics to hum along nicely.

Heartfelt sympathies to the suffering people of New Orleans...brace yourself for Hurricane Katrina, folks...that looks like one hell of a storm.

Mekong

2005-08-29T11:21:00.001+01:00

Mekong
Originally uploaded by Jason Ho.

Ta Prohm 2

2005-08-29T11:21:00.000+01:00

Ta Prohm 2
Originally uploaded by Jason Ho.

Choeung Ek Memorial Centre

2005-08-27T10:57:00.001+01:00

Choeung Ek Memorial Centre
Originally uploaded by Chicken #001.

Central/New Market

2005-08-27T10:57:00.000+01:00

Central/New Market
Originally uploaded by Chicken #001.

Ta Prohm

2005-08-27T10:56:00.002+01:00

Ta Prohm
Originally uploaded by Chicken #001.

Bayon 2

2005-08-27T10:56:00.001+01:00

Bayon 2
Originally uploaded by Chicken #001.

Bayon 1

2005-08-27T10:56:00.000+01:00

Bayon 1
Originally uploaded by Chicken #001.

Angkor Wat 1

2005-08-27T10:55:00.000+01:00

Angkor Wat 1
Originally uploaded by Chicken #001.

20th August

2005-08-20T05:11:00.000+01:00

On the 20th August...

1908
Following a scandal involving the use of slave labour to amass a personal fortune, Belgian King Leopold II is forced to hand over the running of the Congo Free State (Zaire) to the Belgian Government.

1914
World War I: German troops occupy the Belgian capital, Brussels

1940
World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill rallies the nation with a contratulatory speech for the RAF winning the Battle of Britain. 'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few'.

1989
In London, the pleasure cruiser Marchioness is hit by a dredger, the Bowbelle, on the River Thames - 51 people attending a party on the boat are killed.

1998
229 people are killed when a Swissair plane crashes into the Atlantic near the coast of Nova Scotia en route from New York to Geneva.

2005
I'm twenty, on the twentieth. Hurrah.

Bhindi Indie

2005-08-17T12:02:00.000+01:00

I know what I see; shapeless shadows on the wall
I know what I hear; empty echoes in the hall
Bring them closer, draw them nearer
Ask them to stay, beg for another day
To see them again, to forget the pain.

JH

Drinking too much Chai gets you a little high.

2005-08-12T02:14:00.000+01:00

Okay, long post. Read the third paragraph/section.

As a child I used to take the bus home from primary school; I'd have to cross Holland Avenue each sweltering afternoon to the same ticking noise that would mechanically (now electronically) count down the seconds for the traffic light timer. Tick. Tick. Tick. As the green man signal light began to flash the ticks would begin to speed up, before blurring into a whir and a final trrrrrrrrrtick as the red man took his place on the signal light. I used to think/pretend/deceive myself (for what reason I still don't know) that the strange ticking metallic box next to the traffic light was a bomb - a great incendiary device that would blow if I didn't cross the road before the final whirring signalled the appearance of Mr Red. So I'd scamper across the road with my backpack (which later became a roller-wheel-bag after the odd briefcase/satchel phase before finally returning to the sensible school backpack), fearful lest I should incur the wrath of the ticking timebomb across the road.

That old, irrational childhood fear seems to have been replaced by the current sense of blase defiance/incomprehensible internal paranoia that rumbles through my mind whenever a new act of terrorism is perpetrated against humanity. Strange, that. Old habits die hard.

It was after a good dinner that I sat down to coffee with a few medic chums and, despite the jovial banter I now feel a little uncomfortable with what I observed about myself...and how I seem to fit in with the world around. Well, a little introspection never did anybody much harm...I guess. We're meant to live in a 'meritocratic' 'classless' 'tolerant' society that pays no heed to divisions of race, creed or language; bollocks to that. I'm proud (yeah, pride is such a pain) to say that I'd be the last cynic to give in when everything falls to pieces; I wouldn't spare a second thought about sending in the water cannons and riot police. It's such a harsh and bitter 'every hamster for himself' world out there...and yet - we seem to tread such a fine line between the politically correct (repressed?!) version of rose-tinted bunnyland and the fiery chasm that we know really exists. We (and by we I mean I) put on the blinkers and plant our feet across the gap, pretending and shielding ourselves with the argument that our education and 'englightenment' (I hate hate hate that word) has taught us the fundamental principles of fairness and equality. So we use that as a pathetic excuse to hide behind our rood screens of privilege while we prop up - knowingly and unknowingly - the system that we loathe as it crushes those beneath, supports those above and keeps us safe and dry in the middle as we build our own ladders to the penthouse upstairs.
Verily I say unto thee that it's a pitiful tragedy, because this shameful duality is just a load of tosh. I said earlier that I'd be the last to burn the citadel that shelters me and gives me the platform for this self-righteous and not very coherent ranting proclamation. It's an awful shame because deep down we have that something buried inside that says this is all a big rotten lie and it isn't that we choose not to listen to this still and silent voice, but rather, we put the earplugs in and turn the iPods on full blast. So we bitch and moan about the haves and have-nots but at the end of the day I think it's just an excuse to keep the blinkers on, because we'd much rather not see the misery which we know exists around us when it's so much easier to order another cup of Chai.

Turd Blog

2005-08-09T15:53:00.000+01:00

So...this little cretin thinks he's so smart.
http://r3t4rd.blogspot.com
Check it out.

Tyrian Purple. Thank you, Murex.

2005-08-04T20:06:00.000+01:00

More silly 'poetry.'
Oh yes - I don't think they should expand the UN Security Council. Muahahahaha. Global conspiracy buffs - have a field day!

See her staring at the ceiling; twiddling those thumbs.
Watch her standing by the doorway; desire manifest.
Ask her if she'll stay - but don't expect an answer.
You won't see her again - lay your heart to rest.

Hey man, smile! It isn't that bad!
A nasty bout of weltschmerz won't kill you (unless you've got lots of paracetamol to hand). Remember - don't do it - your liver could benefit somebody far more deserving!

Quid facies?

2005-08-02T21:29:00.000+01:00

Deranged thoughts that beckon you to prowl through the tar-pits of your mind aren't quite what you might wish for at a quarter past four in the morning.
Why is the heart disquieted? To what end is the soul moved to drown itself in self-pitying cocktails of loathing and silent moans? Angst? - On what account?

When you wake up every morning with the word 'dissatisfaction' printed in your mind, embossed on your heart and branded all over your soul you can't help but wonder whether it's all a figment of an overripe imagination. Then you wonder yourself into fits of wondering that really don't get you anywhere - you never should have started in the first place.

Don't you just love cooking shows?

Regret and envy with a good dose of insecurity; bake at low self-esteem for an unstable temperament. Bottle it up and ignore; meanwhile you may prepare the toppings - a liberal dose of conflict and misunderstanding should be kept cold, outside and uncovered. Neglecting the main dish for a while, be sure to beat the toppings thoroughly before mashing the whole thing together. Simmer overnight, being sure to add the finishing touches with a generous helping of spent vigour. Serves 1.

A little bit of BILE

2005-07-29T14:58:00.000+01:00

Nope. As far as my lazy spoilt-brat life is concerned, it just couldn't get any worse. Non-stop queues for one stupid 2-week 'social visit pass' renewal...then they take the passport and tell me to collect it tomorrow. More queueing...lovely.

Joshua (my brother) just acquired an Apple Powerbook G4. Some sort of metallic airbrushed trash. Traitor.

Then - to top it all off - I've just realised something. My laptop is currently being raped by a computer technician reformatting the busted drive...and he's taking his time...over a week now...
So, his 'Powerbook' and my mother's lovely sleek new Vaio laptop are suddenly both working splendidly with the wireless router thing I hooked up. Grrrreat. My own laptop doesn't. To round it all off, Joshua now has a desktop AND a (very good) laptop. Plus plus plus - he's using my name to convince my father to use that $100 discount off an iPod that came with his shiny new piece of fruity junk.
So - I've been stuck here - marooned, rather - on this island (Singapore), sweating until kingdom comes, stranded at home - between two construction sites as the crews rip apart Holland Village for the new Circle Line and the neighbouring condominiums 'redevelop' for the umpteenth time...and I'm just wondering how on earth I am finding myself wishing for the end....but the end of what? The holidays? Surely not - the sheer stress-hell of term-time is infinitely worse.

Did I mention that the third movement of the 'Moonlight' Sonata (C# minor) isn't coming along, no matter how frustrated I get with myself....? I thought it looked okay. The same way I thought Swahili and Biblical Hebrew looked fairly squiggly-easy, eh?

Back to square one.

Free Chilli Crab

2005-07-24T04:00:00.000+01:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4711189.stm
The Great British public has finally woken up. Yesterday's shooting of a completely innocent man is a tragedy; the fact that it had to happen is even more of a tragedy.
Yes, I know it's not a representative sample but anyway - judging from the majority of (fairly understanding) comments on the BBC website, more and more people seem to finally understand the meaning of the word 'sacrifice.' 'Freedom' has fewer letters (yeah, it's easier to spell) but it's not going to buy you safety when some nutcase decides to detonate his homemade explosives next to you on the underground. It'll be too late to wish for a fist of steel in a leather glove (the heavy hand of the law) when PC tolerance permits a frothing psychopath with explosives tied to his waist to hijack your bus and ram it into the Bank of England. Sure, the London Met have been branded 'trigger-happy' but they're just doing their jobs...

Here's something ripped entirely out of context:
"Tolerance is not the same as acceptance. It is actually closer to the opposite: tolerance like this is a clever means of repression."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4700779.stm

So, I'm making all these insensitive, rather right-wing comments... just remember - I hold a passport of a staunchly Muslim country. Blah, blah, blah - no, no, no - that doesn't give me any cred at all, does it? A bit like saying "Oh, I've got lots of Chinese friends" just before you tell a joke about slitty-eyed Chinamen (I'm Chinese too, by the way - but I guess that doesn't count for jack as I'm a disgrace to my own race by being completely incapable of speaking Mandarin properly)... anyway - so I don't have any cred...just like all the customs and immigration nonsense I'm going to have to put up with once Messrs Blair and Bush decide to 'get tougher' on all those 'towelheads' whose passports bear the star and crescent. Grrrrrreat news, Jason.

On a more cheerful note - under the auspices of the Singapore Tourism Board I get to claim a FREE chilli crab (Singapore's self-declared national dish). FREE to all 'visitors' for the month of July. Hurrah.
Oh yes - Richard's getting married. In October. To some girl. In Australia. She's rich. Congrats to him. Dammit dammit dammit - I knew I should have studied dentistry.

Stercus

2005-07-18T14:52:00.000+01:00

How annoyed can you get? I don't know. Guess. Disappoinment breeds anger, hatred and loathing.
You lousy turd. You lousy, stinking, putrid lump of faecal matter. You don't deserve to exist.
I have one little wish for this pathetic planet. It's a giant bowl of over-ripe tomatoes that ought to be tipped into a cesspool because it can't get any more rotten. Damn you. Damn you. Damn you.

Short fart

2005-07-17T03:47:00.000+01:00

CIMG1604
Originally uploaded by Jason Ho.

This is the cushion they make me sit on in order to raise my head to be level with other people...

University Challenge

2005-07-17T03:39:00.000+01:00

University Challenge
Originally uploaded by Jason Ho.

David, Jason, Richard and Kitty...

Almost

2005-07-13T22:44:00.000+01:00

When you go home, tell them of us and say: 'For your tomorrow we gave our today'
- Memorial inscription, Salisbury Cathedral

How very fitting, considering the events of the past week. A crazy blur in the whirlwind of time, but then again - life goes on.
I think the whole thing is just that - a big bloody waste of life. Sick, sick, sick. People shielding themselves behind the barricades of political correctness. I'm not advocating a purge - just a good, long, hard think and some tough love...y'know - a 'wake up call,' as Charles Clarke likes to say...

Bumped into David Crosse and Hugh Eveleigh today, a warm afternoon on a Winchester street corner - a lovely coincidence.
Driving through Hampshire reminds me, strangely enough, of somewhere - not so long ago - where I almost became the person I could be today. The 'almost me' feeling, I call it.

Bastille day in an hour - Vive la liberte, fraternite et egalite...!
Perhaps those three almosts might manage to survive these 'interesting times' we're currently living in. Let's hope.

Drinks

2005-06-26T18:01:00.000+01:00

Goat's milk mango lassi is pretty darn good stuff...yeah...beats milkshakes any day...definitely OK. Luvvit. Fresh coconut juice is just heavenly...slurpy goodness pouring down your gullet...mmm...

Effort

2005-06-25T23:47:00.000+01:00

Read the last four paragraphs; the first two are simply mundane chronicles. The last four are a return to my semi-incoherent-quasi-depressive form...

Ah - it's that time of the year again. The steamy tropical afternoon descends upon you as you rouse yourself from the air-conditioned-induced stasis, willing yourself to holler for yet another cool iced coffee. Thirst sated, you recline once again and doze off into an odd slumber, which hovers between a nightmare where you're being chased by ECG waveforms yelling 'ST elevation!' and a lovely dream involving a thrilling, daringly successful mission to rescue the beautiful daughter of the Vatican ambassador...hang on a second...Vatican men are celibate...okay - his beloved orphaned niece, then.

Went along with my uncle to his farm/plantation today; chose to unleash my 'inner oomph' by firing eight rounds (12 gauge shot) from a shotgun - yes, it's confirmed - I'm a cock-eyed freak who aims consistently to the left of the target and can't hit a can at 15 feet. Pathetic - my nine year old (female) cousin did better. Argh. Rather annoyingly some rotten thieves had stolen quite a few ripe mangosteens from the trees...putrid infidels...double argh. Cool comfort finally came as we hacked away at delicious fresh coconuts, squeezing sweet limes into the succulent interiors before draining out the life-force and plastering our hands, lips, faces and shirts with the sweet sappy juice. Simply divine. A stark contrast to the previous half hour of having to inspect farm goats while wearing my Sunday shoes as I tread daintily on slimy goat-muck. Where are boots when you need them?!

If you could do it all over again - what would you do? Terribly sorry for the poorly phrased question - I mean - what would you change if you could? Life is so very full of regrets, which I know only too well. My little 'motto' for the past year has been 'no regrets' and it's soon going to be time to think up a new one on August 20th when I turn 20 - hey! Turning twenty on the twentieth - just noticed - perhaps I ought to have a bash...). The big two-zero...

Anyway - time for a little pause and reflection. 'No regrets' is a bashful yet boastful, simple yet serene little phrase...as I arrived at my uncle's house on Friday afternoon I sat down in front of the piano in a very gloomy, sombre mood; before placing my copy of Beethoven's piano sonata no. 14 in C# minor (You know, the 'Moonlight' one) on the stand I shifted my cousin's sheets aside but the top page caught my glance - the simple title of 'No Regrets' paralysed me for a second that somehow drew itself out into an instantaneous eternity (yeah, yeah, I know it doesn't make sense but I haven't had the chance to use the word 'oxymoron' in ages - oxymoron oxymoron oxymoron!!!). No Regrets - none at all...? Really? No, no, no. I'd be a fool's fool if I was so presumptuous as to declare myself victorious in this ineffable quest.

If anything I've simply become much more impervious to the stinging pain of failure. It's all too evident in the way the roaring fires of rage are used to overheat the cold, mean problem-solving machine in my efforts at countering disappointment. No more tears - the flames evaporate those before they can even quench the parched emotions; instead, the anger burns within - it growls, groans and gnaws away at the self/non-self-inflicted burdens.

So what of the effort - does it help? Does the vainglorious quest to 'never regret anything' mean anything at all? In a sense it succeeds as far as the 'regret' part is concerned - you just slap the word aside and take every event as an unavoidable fact - 'what's done is done and can't be undone!' - iacta alia est - les jeux sont fait - the die is cast! I'm not speaking of a hopeless headlong rush down a path you don't really want to take - just that one feels compelled not to 'look back' but to keep one's eyes on the target ahead, 'for better - or worse.' Then again, the 'no' part isn't quite a resounding success - one breezes into the pits of the unknown, fearful of the consequences of having not done something. You stumble and bumble along until you realise that perhaps all this self-torture isn't worth all you make it seem to be in the grand overall game of averages. You push and push, not wanting to give up - ever. At the end of the day, whether squeezing a stone yields any water isn't up to you; the cliche's a cliche for a spankingly good reason: our call is simply not to question why but rather, just to do - or die.

Spudling says...

2005-06-22T18:48:00.000+01:00

"huwlo. i yam jaysonassssssssss broter. Ay hayve deeslexyya. I aym meentally reetarded. pleaas harlp. Theyave lockerds me inn chaynes inn thee baysement."

Unfortunately the paragraph above was written by my slightly overweight, (sober) 15 year-old brother. He's less of a misanthrope than I am but is slightly more capable at first-person-shooter computer games. It's 1.48am right now and we've just had a little session playing 'Dawn of War' (a computer game). He ought to be sleeping but is actually rolling on his queen-sized bed moaning 'I'm hungry, I'm hungry!' despite having had four (rather large) meals today.

In two days we head for the sunny (= parched) lands of tropical Malaysia wherein over-enthusiastic relatives (with whom we aren't really on a first name basis due to the complexities of Chinese naming conventions - but that's another story) dwell in their little cosy habitations amidst the palm trees. There we shall embark on 24-hour rotations of watching DVDs, eating six to seven times a day and spending the remaining hours entertaining our (elderly) grandparents by regaling them with half-baked stories about how much fun it is to study, work, eat healthy (=bland) home-cooked food, save money and do homework. Hurrah.

You know, I thought that this holiday I might actually have the chance to do a couple of interesting things - perhaps before I hit the big 2-0. Alas - alas! I shall be over the hill before even seeing the summit. It pains me. No climbing a mountain and river rafting. No hiking in Slovenia. No escapade to the steppes of outer Mongolia. Argh. They were all on the cards and now I shall be sitting alone playing solitaire.

Hang on - my brother's rolling around again moaning - he wants to play 'CS' which I understand to be either 'Counterstrike' (a computer game) or Cowden Syndrome...poor child. He's started having fits now...I think a little shot of diazepam (valium) might help.

Oh well - it's nearly 2am. I think I should sleep.
Cheerio.

What the young man asked of the wise...and his reply

2005-06-19T16:41:00.000+01:00

By Jason Ho
(C) MMV - CMM = CV (hehehe!)

Sir –
Have you a remedy
For this intolerable malady,
An ailment incurable
With symptoms improbable -
Or more likely
Quite, truly, simply,
A sad manifestation
Of morbid infatuation.
It threatens my sanity
With profound depravity
While previous morbidity
Spawns new misery
Which all fecundity
On my part (but not wholly)
Conjures more visions,
Arising not from lesions
But legions of longing
Hoping, trying, yearning,
Yielding naught o’er the years
But tears, jeers and fears.
Is this awful hindrance
A faint passing encumbrance?
Living is dimming
My hopes of winning
The golden prize
That before my eyes
Beckons me nearer
Yet pushes me further
Away from the embrace,
While still seeking the chase.
I am lost and despairing
Of ever fulfilling
This desire so strong
That spurs me to long
For the faintest touch
That would mean so much.

Dear boy –
I know of what you speak,
This inner peace you seem to seek.
Troubled thoughts beguile your heart
Where the ailment seems to start.
Look at the moon tonight –
A calm veneer, bathed in light.
Not from its own!
It shines not alone,
But for the glory of a star
Like those around it but less far
The sun – yes, the sun’s golden gleam
Falls from the night sky’s paler beam
To earth where lunatics pine
With songs of women and wine.
Even a dark night ends, my friend,
As morning’s heralds portend
The chance of a new day
With each golden ray
That shall illumine your mind
For the truth you shall find.
The short answer is this
Doubt not, naught is amiss
For though little Miss
Might not wish to kiss –
You’re better off in solitary
Single, without alimony,
For singlehood’s a pleasure
Unyoked – without a tether!
It’s a foregone conclusion
That, by mutual exclusion,
Bliss and romance
Are best left to chance.
I know that your juvenile,
Hopelessly puerile,
Insatiably febrile love is not facile.
Well, at least you aren’t senile
Like me.

Wireless!

2005-06-18T16:06:00.000+01:00

Hip hip, hurrah!
I'm wireless, at long, long last!
We're all wireless! I'm so incredibly pleased...it took quite a while but in the end the simple solution wasn't quite the 'cold hard reboot' pattern I tend to prefer - no, sir - a nice and easy 'reset' does the trick. Oh goody goody goody! So very happy!

2005-06-16T10:13:00.000+01:00

I've settled into the ol' summer routine rather quickly...
Swim. Library. Piano. Clearing mail/old books/papers. Attempts to learn fairly useless (for my life, anyway) but rather interesting languages (hieroglyphs this time - Aramaic last summer failed before it began, as did Swahili the year before) - oh, I'm such a pretentious twerp.
Awfully hot weather - a forecast of four or perhaps even five showers (I mean the bathroom kind) to cope with today's heat...lovely, I say.

My heat-addled brain struggles to manage the copious volumes of information I'm trying to process in time for July 8th. Oh yes - the month after that just so happens to be August - birthday month. Hurrah! I'll be turning 20 - this year's motto was 'no regrets' - next year's shall be 'effortless maturity.' Popes have mottos, silly third-year (to be) medical students can have them too...

The EU looks set to collapse. Pity, that. I completely disagree with the French CAP handouts - agricultural pests. I do seem to recall that Britain is a much greater net contributor both in absolute (pound for pound) and percentage of GDP terms....

135 Laos!

2005-06-13T18:53:00.000+01:00

I must be the happiest loser alive. Skin of the teeth, as they say. Reprise July 8th...revenge of evil Sith Lord Jason (Darth) Ho as he takes on the goody-two-shoe Jedi foes...
Many thanks to the four lovely supporters who showed up (AJ, Lucy, Linden and Saphira).
Time for Sin City and a fantastic dinner.
I'm so terrifically glad I didn't have the chutzpah to yell out anything stupid like "I love you, Marlene!" in exasperation.

Flying home to Singapore tomorrow - 1830hrs. Somehow, something feels 'unfinished' - I shall find out at the start of next year, I suppose. At least I won't be the only one...it's a two-way thing, this whole business of don't-kiss-don't-tell. You never know when poetic justice decides NOT to slap you in the face and instead of whispering "get lost" chooses instead to tenderly put an arm around your shoulders stooped with desperate loneliness and calmly say "Hey, what's your favourite pancake?" Dream on, you sad shmoe, Jason Ho, dream on!

The sharp end

2005-06-11T10:35:00.000+01:00

I've just completed several hours of packing - the final count is 32 - including flute, microwave oven, printer, several bags, several boxes, etc etc etc.
Was reviewing the Queen's Birthday Honours list - who gets which gongs - noted that they've decided to give knighthoods to Iqbal Sacranie and Jonathan Sacks - the Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Great Britain and the Chief Rabbi. Heh - that's the way, Mr Blair. I do recall an article from long ago the mentioned how Britain would never have lost the 13 American colonies if it had made Benjamin Franklin a Fellow of the Royal Society, Thomas Jefferson a knight, George Washington a Lord, etc. The key is to ASSIMILATE 'em. If you can't beat them, join them. If more gongs were given to people who feel 'underprivileged' and discriminated against, they just might feel less inclined to feel that way. Naive, I know - obviously you shouldn't degrade the honours system more than you absolutely have to...and they should definitely make me Lord Privy Seal and give me diplomatic immunity so I can go and shoot people I don't like - I mean, harrass people I do like - I mean - oh shucks.

The mover arrives in twenty minutes.
Lunch with Rashod - after an entire year - ought to be interesting.

Dreams and comments

2005-06-09T15:24:00.000+01:00

I've had some rather interesting comments lately - to the dear person who wanted my babies - darling, you flatter me - they're available for auction; please send applications for vetting to:

The Rt. Hon. J. Barot
Physics Department
Westminster School
London

Alright - this is weird. I've been having some rather strange dreams lately - one of them involved somebody I know being hanged at a metro station near my home in Singapore; the previous night's mental escapade had me careening down a motorway (I can't drive) with somebody I know quizzically asking me whether I had any driving experience. Enough!

Movers schmovers...yeah - it's that time of year again. One is faced with the endless delight of boxing and bagging all and sundry for a big (final, hopefully, fingers crossed) move.

I'm going to be in a TV studio next Monday. It should be an interesting encounter with Mr Jeremy Paxman, whom I missed once before. Perhaps he'll go easy on me on account of the 'ickle lad's youth and inexperience'. Dream on, Jason.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet. Bitter, cynical Jason (who tries to hard and falls flat on his face) thinks to himself - perhaps if you dance like a lunatic, pray like a man on death row and facilitate the continual transmission of parabiotic 'happiness' to other people (i.e. hugging and kissing) something good (no, I'm not Hindu so I shan't desecrate the concept of karma) will happen to you...of course you shouldn't expect something in return. Life's just not fair, but (I'm sure I've said this before) it's a game of averages, I suppose. Regression to the mean. Regression to the mean. Regression to the mean. Perhaps we should be mean to the regression - I'm not making sense anymore. Given another half-chance I'd go back and do things differently. Oh, so differently.

The little voice inside my head attempts to (smart-arse) pre-empt any attempts by others to correct me: "Quit whining, you little twit - get on with your packing! Oh yes - make sure you do an internet/'phone check-in and perhaps this time you should think a little harder before you choose to a (left) forward aisle seat at the bulkhead next to a screaming baby. The extra legroom you gain is offset by the bassinet and peripheral baby-gear..."

Days until I climb a mountain and check whether I'm prone to altitude sickness: 44

'bye, Nick

2005-06-05T17:04:00.000+01:00

I love pancakes.

Good luck, Sandra.
Yeah, you too.
Nick turned around and saw the red light but decided to cross anyway. 'I fear neither man, nor motorbike,' he thought to himself.
Sandra screamed.
Nick was hit - by a small white van. Kersplatt. Blood-stained pedestrians were aghast at the carnage on the road. 'Ugh' said one.
Sandra fainted.
An ambulance arrived and paramedics loaded him on a stretcher - infusion of fluids was initiated to prevent hypovolaemic shock and organ ischaemia. Upon arrival at the hospital, doctors stabilised Nick's blood pressure - blood loss was approaching 20%.
Serum LFTs were sky-high; Nick would need surgery.
10 days later Nick died from an acute MRSA infection.
No multidisciplinary team was needed. Nobody needed to bother with PEG tubes, NG feeding, haemodialysis for damaged kidneys, physiotherapy for injuries, nutritional supplementation for an acutely ill patient (with occult cancer that would have compounded his little problems).
No, no, no. Nick happened to have TNF-a, IL-1, IL-6, TLR-1,2 and 6 polymorhisms that predisposed to severe septic shock and consequent multiple organ failure. The lovely nurse who greeted him after his operation forgot to wash her hands and plastered Nick's bowel drainage tube with a lovely dose of hand-carried MRSA.
Rest in Peace, Nick.

Now for the comments. "You're sick, Jason." "Shut up." "You need to get a life." "I'm not even going to bother writing- you suck."
RIP, Nick.

IMperfect

2005-06-03T14:35:00.000+01:00

Message to the 'person' who enjoys anonymously and surreptitiously posting blithe comments, e.g. 'shut up jason' and 'you are thick':

Unless you just so happen to be one of the few 'friends' I happen to have in this awful world, PISS OFF. Yeah. PISS OFF.
If you do happen to be one of my 'friends' - I'm sure I'd love to get to know you better over a cup of arsenic.

Alternatively, you could tell me who you are...otherwise, PISS OFF.

Jason tries to iron a cat.

2005-06-02T16:29:00.000+01:00

Nothing to post. Nothing nothing nothing at all.
Food for thought (okay, it's not really food - it's total parenteral nutrition because it's pretty trivial stuff):
Is Y a vowel? If so, why is Y a vowel?
Why do lawyers earn so much money?
What sound do ferrets make?
Why couldn't I just keep my mouth shut for a while?