It is estimated there are 7 Billion people alive on earth, I would like to think there is only one of me. Alas if only that were true. I think we are not unique and whilst we are products of our DNA, it does not make me the only one of me. For all my belief that I have something new and unique to say by blogging, I am not unique and my words are not new......they are just the random words mixed up in my head and then re-arranged into sentences posted on to this blog to make it sound like me.
...to be honest I think we'd need a 56 day week, because for a jingly jangly week there's load of songs I could choose...but still, for this week I choose this one as my last jingly jangly SoD...for this week at least.
......song from a very young Paul Weller.... and the alternative ?
Reflecting on the madness in Keyna..... so today I shall stick my head in the sand, arse in the air and instead reflect on a warm summer like jingly jangly Monday song instead.
When you consider the apparent stupidity of the circumstances of the way the Costa Concordia came to grief with the loss of 32 lives, it's hard to imagine how a ship of that size could have [should have] ended up on her side on the rocks in the first place ....
My whole adult working life, has been dominated by ships and shipping. The first ship I saw close up and dangerous was at the tender age of 16.5 years old and it was the ship that would be my home for the next 4 months.
I had signed up to the Merchant Navy and yet I had never seen a ship, let alone been on one. Up to that point I had not been in possession of a passport. Also at that time I couldn't even swim, but some how I was walking up the gang plank armed with a sea survival certificate....but that is another story.....
So there I was a young boy stood on the deck..... there's a joke somewhere in that....there I stood looking at this mammoth ship thinking I'll be truely safe aboard this ship. When ships are in port they seem immovable objects and you cannot imagine them coming to grief..... This ship was relatively small in the world of ocean going ships Mv Border Shepherd [she was not that rusty when I sailed on her] and one of the biggest ships I sailed on was the British Trident*** at nearly a qtr of a mile long, but the reality is no matter how big the ship is, once you get to sea... then there is no guarantee you will survive the mercy of the weather [or the stupidity of Italian skippers] .... but just look at the recent events for the MoL Comfort.
The cost of £500M is quite eye watering when you think about, a few years ago many might have simply said leave her to rot and waste away, some would still say it now..... but we live in changing times, and so the money was spent and the engineering work done**. They estimated about 12 hours to get her up to the vertical.
So about half way up, and some dickhead of a BBC reporter asks one of the senior salvage engineers a question..... [BBC reporter]You said it was going to take 12 hours but now it seems that it will take much longer what's gone wrong ?...... Now at this point the engineer gave a thoroughly polite answer and said...... nothing is going wrong, all is going to plan...... what he should have done is taken the microphone off the reporter and shoved it up the reporters poop deck ! What a twat that reporter is....... Salvaging a vessel of this size cannot be timed to the minute..... this was a one off, that took over a year to prepare and not forgetting the £500M spent, so I think the salvage team can be given quite a bit of leeway in not worrying about rushing to meet the 12 hour deadline......
Whether the cost was good value for money is a debate for a different forum, but for this week at least, one can only but marvel at the salvage whilst you sip and slurp your very expensive Costa....
As Desert Island Discs is about to return....
As it is Friday.....
if I was on my Desert Island,
this is the song* I would be humming
as my SoD
*[SoD footnote: I had originally planned to use the great EC's version of this, but as I have not yet aired this band and as this version is very commendable, I chose....... Suede]
**[Salvage footnote: I wonder if we will spend this much recovering wind turbines from a watery grave once they have passed their serviceable life ? ]
***[Ships sinking footnote: The British Trident recovered the crew from the supposedly sunken oil tanker the Salem. It turned out the Salem had not sunk. Part of the clue was when the crew of the ship were recovered from their life boats, they all had packed suit cases with them. When your ship is sinking, packing a case would not be a high priority. As it was, the Salem had not sunk and instead the crew were changed, the ship painted with a new name, and her precious and valuable cargo of oil was sold to the South African Oil Company, as at that time there were trade embargoes on South Africa as a result of apartheid.... oh what a tangled web we weave..... and so as a bonus SoD here is a great track......]
...following on from my encounter with Rand E Wriggle..... I have now just read an email written by Throben Kocks.... I shit you not... and he works with someone called Ruedi Kunz.... you can't make this up....
.... what do you say about the plight of Daniel murdered by the fuckwit of a mother and cnut of a boyfriend of hers..... and throughout and beyond this, he was completely invisible it seems.....
How the fook does a tortured boy like that become invisible ?
My wife is a primary school teacher and at less than 24hrs notice, ofsted are due to arrive at her school..... I wonder if the energy Ofsted put in to catching out teachers is the same level of energy they put in to finding invisible boys ?
I have never seen my wife teach, but I know she can teach and teach very well, she don't need ofsted to tell her that..... how do I know....because at the end of each teaching year for more than 25 years, I have seen the notes from the parents...notes from the children..... and gifts of such a personal nature....and no I don't mean flowers and chocolates [although the chocolates are nice] but some gifts, that only a caring teacher could receive....... But it isn't just the gifts and words..... it is also various outstanding attributions to her classes on previous Ofsted inspections.
I am not against Ofsted doing their inspections, I am all in favour of auditing..... but next time ofsted select a school to examine..... I do hope on their check list, they have a box to tick......
.... my daughter asked me as we headed out in the car recently...
She was right, every car I've been in has radio 4 left playing.....much to wife and daughters annoyance.....
*And of course, my daughters reference to great music is relative, in that we have similar tastes in music [despite the 30 year age gap between us.... not sure she is a Matt Monro fan though] and music is only great if you like it....we all have different tastes.... I'm sure some who may have stumbled across this blog and seen the music and thought...shite...I prefer radio 4.
And so it was, listening to Radio 4 on my way into the hamster wheel factory this morning, and fook me sideways.... some lunatic of a Brazilian woman....[ I wonder if Brazil women have an english trimmed mary ?]..any way this nutcase of a woman, had apparently spent 2 weeks in this country under the auspices of the UN and now she was some kind of expert on our housing issues, and that we the tax payers [she didn't say this but she seems to have overlooked it] are being inhumane to those on benefits for making them move from their houses if they have too many bedrooms and blah blah bloody blah !
You can listen to her ramblings here . The BBC quote her as saying.....
Ms Rolnik told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that she had received
"hundreds of testimonies" and said there was a "danger of a
retrogression in the right to adequate housing" in the UK.
She cited examples of disabled people, or grandmothers who were
carers, and said the measure seemed to have been designed "without the
human component in mind".
She said her recommendation was "that it should be suspended"
to allow time to better assess the human rights implications, and so it
could be redesigned
I often wonder about my tax payers rights..... I am sick and tired of people who have no authority what so ever, making outrageous demands on the funds raised by taxation, especially when she is not even a resident of this country and has spent only 2 weeks listening to a minority interest and now she has a prime spot on my personal radio channel.
I have no issue with paying tax, I have no issue with providing for social welfare.... but I do have an issue to paying money for people who think it is their god given right, and any change is an infringement of their human rights.
At the beginning of the year 2000, My wife and I, set up a company which I have continued to run successfully. We started the company with our own money [upon which tax had already been paid]. We had no state handouts, no bank leg ups, nothing, nada but our own cash. In those 13 [almost to be 14] years, we have never had an overdraft, or bailout or tax payers support.
What we do do though is raise taxes, through the wages we pay our staff, the VAT we charge our clients, the monies we pay our suppliers part of which the supplier pays tax on, corporation tax [yes we pay it unlike the global companies who trade on our land], and any other taxable benefits the HMRC see fit to take from us. All these taxes have been paid on time and without fail.
Of all the revenue that is generated by the company, more than half goes to HMRC in tax of one form or another...... and don't think I am a fat cat boss sat on my arse on a golf buggy lording it round the golf course each day. I am a classic owner manager who sits on his arse working to generate revenue just like the staff who work with me....my wife has a full time job outside of the company, and despite her tussle with cancer last year, cannot afford to give up work...... Companies house says there are 2 shareholders of my company...HMRC says who gives a toss about that, they are the biggest paid party between the 3 of us. Remember when Diana famously said there are 3 people in this marriage.....well it seems we are having a ménage à trois with HMRC, and I am well and truely being screwed
So when some stupid arse from Brazil comes over here demanding that my hard earned taxes should just be dished out like it didn't matter I start to feel quite pissy......
I am not a big fan of politicians but I did like the conservatives Grant Shapps reply, also available on the same BBC page but why did they feel the need to edit out his initial commentary that he said her comments were an absolute disgrace..... Personally I think Rolnik is clearly off her head....
Maybe my daughter is right, that I shouldn't listen to radio 4..... if I didn't perhaps I would hear more great music like todays SoD.......
.... I thought I would acknowledge the death last week, of Wing Commander Ken Wallis..... As a kid watching You only live twice, I was somewhat mesmerised by the sight of little nellie.....and no that ain't no euphemism.....
this was/is little nellie
James Bond flew it in you only live twice.... but as a young kid seeing it for the first time.... the reaction was simple...... wow a plane suitable for a kid.
Of course the reality is they are not for kids, and seems they are not really for everyone either, otherwise by now we'd be using them as our standard means of commuting....... Gyrocopters have a straight forward approach to flight, but somehow they have never been harnessed for the man in the street......
The original little nellie, was provided for and flown in You only live twice by non other than Wing Commander Ken Wallis. Little did I realise all those years back, admiring his little nellie [that's not a euphemism either], in my grown up life, I'd be watching it's creator on my local news program. A couple of years back they ran an article on him and his development of gyrocopters.
What a character Ken Wallis appeared to be. You see and interact with a lot of people through your life, many you do not meet and some you do..... and there are some people who leave a mark on your thoughts. Ken Wallis was one of those people. He was just so endearing to listen to.
We live in a modern world of crap and stupidity and yet every now and then something/one shines through. Ken Wallis came across as one of those people. Everyone who has commented on his death, has ascribed to the wonder of his life. His grand daughter on Look East last week, describing his last few years [still flying these Gyrocopters into his 90's !] gosh in her sadness at his death, she must have also been so overwhelmed at the out pouring for the wonder that is her grand father.
My wife is one of the 13,000 women each year who take the drug... because reportedly it will save her life, like the 12,999 other women.... problem is, I wonder if she will be one of the 400 ?
In July.......there was my wife, a 15 month [as I wrote then] cancer survivor, sat at
the computer looking up all the symptoms of why she feels crap [but she
has survived cancer you think,..... oh, not that easy I'm afraid ]
............
look she said..... I have all these symptoms that make me feel crap, all known side effects of taking Tamoxifen.....
so why don't you speak to your doctor, or your Oncologist or your cancer nurse.... tell them.... I react....
she said....why ?......they won't do anything....
oh so you are happy to turn to Dr
Google, but not those who are treating you..... what am I supposed to do
? I am just a ridiculous person........ she looked at me.....
I didn't know what else to say........
And there she was last weekend, a 16 month [as I write now] cancer survivor, sat at
the computer looking up all the symptoms of why she feels crap [but she
has survived cancer you think,..... oh, not that easy I'm afraid ]
............
.....the same conversation..... look she said, I have all these symptoms that make me feel crap, all known side effects of taking Tamoxifen.....
so why don't you speak to your doctor, or your Oncologist or your cancer nurse.... tell them.... I react....
she said....why ?......they won't do anything.... this time I said less...
I didn't know what else to say........ And so out comes today's latest report on Tamoxifen....
Reading the latest commentary as per the Guardian news article, on the one hand it suggests that the women who elect to stop taking the drug are either A) Wrong to do so....... or....... B) Wasting the NHS money [therefore the tax payers money] by doing so.
What did piss me off about this article, was the following comment:
This study is a timely reminder that it's so important that women are
given support to continue taking their tamoxifen so that they have the
best possible chance to outlive breast cancer.
How about giving them support to cope with the actual side effects perhaps ?
So I might like to suggest another option why women stop taking it......... Option C) Perhaps because Tamoxifen is making them feel ill and with terrible aches and pains, and absent any pain from Cancer, by not taking Tamoxifen the pain stops. My wife is a recently turned 50 year old woman, who was seemingly fit and healthy prior to her diagnosis last year.
Never smoked, ate [eats] the "right" foods, drinks in moderation, not even remotely overweight and perhaps the only major stress in her life is her ridiculous husband...... but now after taking Tamoxifen for the past year....when she first stands up after a period of immobility, hobbles around like an 80 year old woman. Now of course it's not the cancer that makes her hobble.... it's Tamoxifen.
What the article did not say is how many of the 13,000 women stop taking it. It suggests that 400 lives could be saved but 400 out of how many who stop taking the drug ? I would guess that it is more than 400 who stop taking the drug..... a lot more.
Statistics in Cancer are a funny beast. Remembering I am not the one who is ill, I am just the ridiculous husband, as a Cancer Husband your right to enquire is stymied by the apparent mis-representations that your enquiries can have, but one enquiry I did have, was post surgery what was the prognosis ?
So leaving aside all the possible mis-representations of my enquiry, here was the statistic....
Doctor: [words from gob] : Well Mr Ridiculous Husband, women with the same profile and outlook as your wife's diagnosis and treatment have very good odds. After 5 years of first treatment, 96 women out of a 100 will survive. That's good isn't it ? Very positive indeed.
Ridiculous Husband: [words in head, as gob felt no need to do anything].... so that means 100 women with the same profile as my wife will have been given this same rosey happy outlook, but 5 years later, 4 of them will have died..... Those 4 women were told that their chances are very good [because they had the same profile as my wife]..... but actually they died within the 5 years..... not that good a odds when you think about it...... because, they do not know precisely which of the 4 women out of the 100 women will die.....so they were all given the same statistic......
Chemotherapy, radiotherapy, tamoxifen..... non of them are guaranteed to stop cancer coming back, but you daren't not take them.....what if you don't take the treatment and the cancer comes ? what then..... but take them and for sure they will make you feel shit..... but this the rub.....take them, any of them.....and the cancer can still come back. It comes back to sucking lemons..... sitting there listening to yet another Doctor explaining just what little is actually known about cancer...... with Cancer there are no good choices, there are just better or worse choices..... Tamoxifen is one of those better or worse choices......
Here is the NHS web site stated known side effects of taking Tamoxifen. Very common: More than 1 in 10 people who take Tamoxifen citrate
hot flushes
vaginal and vulval problems such as vaginal discharge, itching
of the vulvae or vaginal bleeding - seek medical advice if you have
abnormal vaginal bleeding, vaginal discharge, menstrual irregularities,
pelvic pain or have a feeling of pressure in the pelvis
Common: More than 1 in 100 people who take Tamoxifen citrate
bone or tumourpain
eye or eyesight problems
feeling light-headed
fluid retention
hair loss
headaches
high levels of cholesterol or other lipids in the blood which may lead to pancreatitis
leg cramps
nausea
thromboembolism of the veins – seek immediate medical advice
if you have a painful and swollen leg or develop breathing difficulties
or sudden chest pain
Uncommon: More than 1 in 1000 people who take Tamoxifen citrate
metabolic problems
vomiting
Rare: More than 1 in 10,000 people who take Tamoxifen citrate
abnormal laboratory test results
angioedema
blood problems
hypersensitivity reactions
liver problems
skin rash or rashes
Very rare: Fewer than 1 in 10,000 people who take Tamoxifen citrate
bone marrow problems
erythema multiforme
lung problems
skin problems
Stevens-Johnson syndrome
The frequency of these side-effects is unknown
blindness
endometriosis
secondary primary tumours
1 in 10 = 1300 of those women 1 in 100 = 130 of those women 1 in 1000 = 13 of those women
Maybe that explains why so many stop taking it...... how selfish.... thfra !
But the reality is, women are simply told....take this..... take this.... this will save your life......
And so it's official ........
Cancer is shit....
not that the cancer will kill you though......
