Book, books, books

As I said in the last post, we are trying to de-clutter our life, dumping all that stuff we are never going to use again, just like those programmes you see on TV.

There is an awful agony about throwing away books. In theory, our rule is that if we think we are never going to read the book again then Oxfam is a better place for it; but how does one know?

What should we do with the books that represent the passage of time, my old anatomy book for example? When I went to medical school, I had something to prove. I'd slid through school doing just enough and happy to use a variety of excuses for not doing better. We lived miles away from school and I spent about four hours each day travelling, a good enough excuse for skimping on Latin homework. At medical school, the first thing we did was anatomy, so I set out to be good at it, trying to find out how far I could push it. I bought the best books at the beginning of term; I had to manage on whatever money was left. I've kept those books for almost 50 years, simply because there is so much personal discovery somewhere between those pages, but why keep them? I'm the only person who knows it's there and I never open the book. Who knows what Oxfam will make of it?

Other books have different issues; this week's task is to try to get to the point where all the books are in the library and only the library, which means a lot have to go. Everything on photography goes, mostly because chemical developing and darkroom techniques are no longer relevant.

Winemaking is easier to look up on the web, so there goes another batch, along with a bunch of other how-to-do-it books.

The tough decisions come down to novels I should have read, biographies I have a soft spot for, and, for example, the collected works of Dorothy Parker. Before it goes on the pile, I can't resist reading a few pages and then it's back on the shelf. The trouble is I may not read it again until the next time we decide to have a clear out.

What about signed copies, do we apply the same rules? Signed books have more memories attached but I suppose they might also fetch more money at Oxfam, or where ever they end up; though the actual content is no different, apart from what the author wrote that evening.

Oddly, I have a book where the author wrote something that would help with the current exercise, but I propose to ignore their advice. A few years back I managed to attend book launches by Niel Gaiman and Terry Pratchett in successive months. I bought another copy of Good Omens and got it signed by both of them. Terry wrote 'burn this book'  I think not, that one stays on the shelf.

Why am I not blogging?

Why am I not blogging? This needs a complicated answer, which in turn is significantly influenced by other bloggers. I read about 40 blogs, through various subscriptions and mostly via Google Reader, which I have patched into an app called Flipboard on my iPad. I learn a lot from these other bloggers, and I would like to acknowledge that. Some of that learning has had an effect on how I use my time and that in turn impacts on blogging – that and other things.  

For example, Lexi Revellian (http://lexirevellian.blogspot.com) has several times recommended Autocrit (http://www.autocrit.com) on her blog and I finally took the plunge. One way and another it has made me examine every sentence in a new way, very time consuming in a 95,000-word novel. I’m almost there, and I think it’s down to 90,000.

Second problem Teresa Ashby (http://teresaashby.blogspot.com) posted a comment giving me a stylish Blogger award, great, but it comes with a price – you are supposed to post seven things that no one knows about yourself and also recommend a load of other blogs. One way or another, that threw me into a tailspin. Did I want to accept this award, and if I did, was I prepared to post seven things, if I could think of them and then was I prepared to inflict this particular set of dilemmas on other bloggers.

As I have little idea what other people think of me, finding the seven things is either simplicity itself, or almost impossible, depending on which way you look at it.

The third little problem, or cluster of problems as it happens is that my house is getting rebellious. One of the power ring mains has decided to stop functioning, probably because a mouse has eaten into a cable – or at least that was the cause last time this happened. The fact that this is the ring main that normally powers this computer gives another clue to the blog reduction problem, but it’s worse than that.

When we moved here, a while back, we replaced all the electric circuits and I very cunningly ran all the wires though ducts that would enable me to easily trace faults should they occur. Since then, we have other rather more elegant work done by professional builders who saw fit to cover over my ducts in order to produce a much nicer finished look. I will now have to find some way of tracking the fault without turning the house into a building site. 

I paused for thought and got the computer, printer, WiFi etc. working via extension leads from another circuit. This has obviously upset the house demons who must have some objection to me writing all the time.  The upshot being that a radiator in the bedroom, actually the newest one in the house, sprang a leak and I spent a day yesterday buying a new one and getting it installed.

Clearly, something or someone wants us to move house. Thinking such thoughts is of course a bad idea, because it is hard to un-think them. Suddenly Lois and I find ourselves thinking about life in a modern flat, with no mice, no acres of grass to mow, no fruit to pick, no swimming pool to clean.

Such thoughts are disruptive because we begin to realise just how much clutter we have accumulated in fifteen years, how many hobbies and projects are scattered about the place. With these thoughts a terrible realism is pressed in on us – it would take several lifetimes to finish all the things we’ve started, and even more to deal with the stuff we never began, but which is occupying space in our heads.

One hobby, time wasting activity, pastime, treasured memory maker, is taking pictures. In a previous house, I had a darkroom and as a result, many boxes of old slides and negatives. These ought to be digitised or thrown away, so as I write a scanner is working it’s way through these, using software to remove dust specs and scratches et. Slightly faster than watching paint dry, though similar in many ways.  I include one picture because it shows another hobby, sailing. Add to that boat building, because I actually helped design and build the dinghy in the picture, two of them are sitting out on our back yard waiting to find out what we eventually decide to do with them. I’m getting to old for that sort of thing and too old for the surfboards and windsurfers too.

The end result of all this musing is that I am realising that I prefer writing to most of the other things I do, have done, or dreamed about doing, and I don’t need an old farmhouse with two barns, a pool, garage and workshop, plus four acres of grass, in order to write.

The first drafts of two of my books were written on ski holidays and another in a small flat in London. The possibility of swapping the country pile for a modern flat, ski apartment and a big campervan begins to loom large.

Watch this space.

For a slightly different take on these life changing thoughts see Lois’s blog (TUESDAY, 15 MARCH 2011 Why people with food-intolerances need enormous house - on http://blissglutenfree.blogspot.com).

Does that little diatribe include seven things about me? Close enough I think.

Now to spend a few happy hours trying to decide which other bloggers to suck into this stylish web.

St Ives in Winter

Most years I make a visit to the Hepworth gallery in St Ives. In February, this is not a typical seaside visit, though some of our summer holidays have had just as much rain.

I'm writing this sitting in a cafe looking out over St Ives harbour with the low winter sun shining across the water. Even in this gentle light, the sea still has that amazing turquoise clarity.

There is some magic that draws me to the Hepworth Gallery, whether it is the huge pieces in the garden or the poetic wooden works in the room at the top of the stairs, somehow I get my breath back and get the world in proportion. 

This is in contrast to the main Tate St Ives gallery, where I almost always end up admiring the building and the bay, and scoffing at the art.

In a way, one has to admire the skill of those who select the works for display. Or maybe marvel at their gullibility. How come they are taken in by artists who so clearly have more chutzpah than art?

I think it goes deeper; I suspect the Tate is part of an economic regeneration scheme whose sole purpose is to put on rubbish, so that the art on display at all the little galleries and shops in St Ives looks good. Rubbish is probably the wrong word, and demonstrates my ignorance and prejudice; what they display is often simply beyond comprehension, and therefore cannot be proved to be rubbish, but it has the same effect. To the uninitiated, non-connoisseur, the rest of St Ives looks like art.

In some ways it makes more sense to regard the Tate St Ives as part of a massive confidence trick, designed to encourage you to part with your hard earned cash.

Obviously, such a scheme would have to be kept very secret, so all the local galleries are in on the con and do their best, whenever they can, to be rude about the Tate and complain of their arrogance.

The Tate itself has developed the con with astonishing skill. One would expect, given the artistic reputation of St Ives, that there would be a permanent exhibition of the artists who made St Ives famous. Not on your life. That would be too simple. The ploy is to make you think of that, and then treat you to the fringes of modern art. That has the effect of giving you a good laugh, and thus getting you into a cheery mood and further enhancing your critical faculties, so that now you are convinced that you are a great art critic, if only the right outlet would come along.

Thus fired up, you are ready to delve into every little gallery that you can find in the hope of tracking down a piece of real St Ives art to put on your wall back home to show off to your friends and relatives. You have to admit, this must be one of the most subtle economic regeneration schemes to come out of an old gasworks.

How come, I hear you say, that these same people who commission ‘rubbish’ in the Tate manage also to look after the Hepworth, that is so obviously a national treasure. Surely, this means that they really do know great art when they see it.

Could it be possible that I am wrong, and that the stuff I see at the Tate St Ives, year after year, is in fact great art? I don't think so. I think the Hepworth just proves that the whole Tate con is deliberate. Only people with superb taste and understanding would be able to reliably commission work that made the rest of St Ives look good, and do it year after year. 

Let me make clear at this point that I have been a member of the Tate for many years; I have even driven all the way to St Ives for private views. Lois once exhibited an embroidery piece based on one of those private views. I mention this just to demonstrate that I am not biased against the Tate, I am actually paying good money to be served up this overblown self-indulgent claptrap.

I will admit that it does cross my mind that the real skill is the ambition and self-confidence of the artists who manage to sell this stuff to the Tate. I once heard Howard Hodgkin say in a TV interview, “of course, ambition is so much more important than talent.” A remark I regard as so deep that I am forever trying to work it into pieces like this. I suspect that the commissioners at the Tate already understand the importance of ambition, and what better way to provide encouragement, than to hang rubbish year after year and tell the artist how good they are. It's all part of economic regeneration.

* * * 

In the unlikely event that anyone was wondering why my posting has become almost non existent; back in December, my mum was knocked down by a car, broke several bones and ended up in hospital for almost 8 weeks. Visiting hospitals and trying to do some modifications at her home to prepare for her rehab turned out to be time consuming. To get our energy back immediately prior to mum coming home we took a three day break in St Ives.

We had a restful break and enjoyed seeing the roads dug up and the shops being refurbished ready for the summer influx. In between the rain and the closed cafes, we did manage one really good meal and bought some pottery. I wrote the above on my iPad, sitting in a cafe by the harbour.

See Lois’s blog for the restaurant http://blissglutenfree.blogspot.com/2011/02/st-ives-porthminster-cafe-gluten-free.html

Another Year, another film

We have a local film group; we watch films and talk about them afterwards. The one thing this achieves is that I always watch to the end, but 'Another Year' almost broke the mould. One might think it was the right film to be seeing at this time of year, the right title at least.

It got off to a bad start with a scene showing a GP examining a woman’s chest with the stethoscope applied on top of her blouse. That is such a joke. Breath sounds are quiet and subtle, like a breeze on autumn leaves, the last thing you need is the added sound of cloth rustling as the chest moves. Then she takes the blood pressure, and pumps the Mercury up to 140 and tells the woman that she has high blood pressure. At that value, she does not. Why make such basic mistakes? I should have guessed right then that it was going to be a disaster.

It is difficult to know where to begin or end, because the film has no story. It is just another year in the lives of a few people, who quite honestly have a more boring life than me. It makes ‘Waiting for Godot’ feel like a tense plot driven thriller.

All the acting is good and Lesley Manville is brilliant. Like much good acting it makes you feel as though you were watching real people, the trouble is that they are real people I would not want to watch. In fact peering in at their sad and needy lives feels like an intrusion.

The camera work and cinematography is excellent too, which somehow makes the complete absence of plot or narrative structure even more obvious. Maybe I am missing something; perhaps this is a new art form, reminiscent of those 60's hippie happenings, where only the people doing it knew what was going on, though in the sixties I'm not sure the hippies knew either.

Without a narrative structure, the audience is given no reason to attach any emotional currency to the characters. There are no heroes or villains. At no point in the film did I find myself caring a damn about anyone. I won’t deny there are some amusing scenes; the audience laughed a number of times. Seeing people fall over in the street can make you laugh too, but it’s not comedy, nor is it tragedy, or art. 

There is one merit, though I may be in a minority in thinking this. The characters that smoke and drink too much, come off worst.  Throughout, they look like the failures. Their eating, drinking and smoking habits are used as a means to signal their lack of control over their own lives. This is unusual in films, where smokers are very often shown as cool role models; drinking is often shown as a means to cope with stress, rather than as something that makes it worse; and over eating is often associated with taste and gourmet sensibilities, not obesity and shortness of breath. 

Not so in this film, and as a public health professional I should be grateful for that. Unfortunately, again I think because there is no story, these home truths are not connected in a way that would make those lessons clear. I haven’t found any other reviews that noticed.

I presume that the film did not get any covert subsidies from the drink and tobacco industries. It does acknowledge, in the opening credits, some support from the UK Film Council. Personally I think the Film Council is a good thing, or should I say, was a good thing, but I did keep wondering whether this film was the reason why the government decided to get rid of it. To paraphrase the last line of one of Seigfrieg Sassoon's poems, 'I wish they could have killed you for a decent show.' *

 *(From - To any dead officer, Seigfried Sassoon).

Forensic trousers

The police have seized my mother's trousers. It seems like a pity to use a line like that on a blog, it surely would be good enough to launch a novel
My Mum who is 87, was hit by a car, broke a few bones and ended up in hospital. Once there, her trousers were seized by the cops as forensic evidence.
I should say that mum is in good spirits and seeing the funny side of all this, but I think I might be spending some time helping with rehab. It's not really a good idea to have an accident over a bank holiday, it makes it harder to find anyone who can give some indication of how the next few weeks will unfold, so for the moment, we still have little idea how it will go from here.
No doubt it will all provide useful material one day, but for the moment there is less time for writing.
(Written from my iPad)

Home births

I heard a piece on the Today programme about home births. It was a follow up to a statement from the Royal College of Midwives. According to these various reports, only 2.4% of women in England have home births, because they are being scared out of it.

It made me think back to a period when I used to do night calls for a GP locum agency. At the time I also worked as a GP part time, but I didn't do home births. One night I was called up by the agency and asked to see a woman who needed sutures, having delivered a baby at home. I protested somewhat, on the grounds that I didn't sign up for that sort of thing, but they insisted that no one else was available. In the end, I went to the agency to collect a suture kit.

I found the house OK and was shown into a bedroom upstairs where a woman was lying in a big double bed, with a small baby lying in a little cot. The lighting could best be described as romantic, certainly not bright. There appeared to be no way of getting it to be any brighter. Luckily, I had a big torch. Usually I used it to be able to see house numbers from the car. It is surprising how small some people make their house numbers. No doubt they are discrete and artistic, but damn hard to see from the road.

Any way, there I am staring at this woman lying in a double bed that sags a lot in the middle. If she moved, it sagged wherever she lay.

I'm not going to go into the gory details as to exactly what has to be sewn to what, but it needs both hands to do it, and you can't hold a huge spotlight in your teeth.

With the torch balanced on the bed, I started off by putting in as much local anaesthetic as I had, because the last thing I needed was the poor woman to feel anything as I worked.

Of course, the main effect of the local was to remove any anxiety from the woman and transfer it to me.

Cold beads of sweat really do run down your back.

It all went together very well; maybe it was a good thing that I did more than 80 episiotomies when I was a medical student. I also worked Monday nights in a busy casualty department for five years and learned a few plastic surgery techniques. So, as far as I could see by the light of a powerful torch, it all looked beautiful.

That's when the really scary thing happened. As I was clearing up, and to the accompaniment of a very small gurgling baby the lady said, 'I had my last baby in hospital and it was awful, and really painful being stitched up. This time it's been lovely and I didn't feel a thing when you did the stitches. I'll definitely have my next baby at home.'

That woman was making a rational choice, based on the information that she had; information seriously distorted by all the local anaesthetic that I had available.

She wasn't scared - I was.

I’m not sure whether it is mothers who are scared into hospital delivery or doctors who are scared out of home births.

I am sure there are midwives who will say that doctors are not needed for childbirth, which may be true enough so long as all goes well. The real problem is that a whole system is needed and successive governments seem to be doing their best to break everything up into little pieces that are bought and managed separately.

If we really want to know the right number of home births and give mums and families the choice they should have, then we all need to work together. Any chance of that in 2011?

Bob Dylan 1966 - a piece of nostalgia

Despite my reservations about Rupert Murdoch, there is something wonderful about Sky Arts. This morning I accidentally listened to Mickey Jones, Bob Dylan’s drummer on the 1966 tour talking about that tour and showing bits of his movies taken at the time.

It took me right back. I was at the concert at the Odeon in Birmingham, not the one where someone shouted Judas - that was Manchester.

The first half was Dylan doing an acoustic set, pretty much like the previous tours, except better sound than the old town hall in Birmingham.

When the curtains came back for the second half there was a massed bank of amplifiers and speakers, and I mean a massed bank. From where I was sitting, it looked like a ten-foot high stack, and it may have been bigger than that. The band rolled in with isolated twangs and strums, almost as if they were tuning up.

Gradually the isolated notes begin to pick up, one guitar, then another and then the organ and more instruments coming in and gradually coalescing into a rhythm and then a massive crash on the drums that almost hit you off your seat, with everything else coming in at the same time in a huge wall of sound - probably the loudest that any band had ever played in Britain at that time.

‘Tell me Momma.’

I can still hear that crash now.

Then they just slammed on, weaving complex, intricate and very, very loud, melodic, intoxicating, rhythms around Dylan’s words. I remember being completely blown away from the first note.

The audience fragmented into two groups, or maybe three - if you count the ones who started walking out as a group. Among the rest there were many who boo-ed, some standing on the seats to boo louder. The rest, like me were clapping and cheering. I think maybe the boos won; but I knew was that I was hearing the best music ever. All the wild and rebelliousness of rock and roll woven together with the poetry of Dylan’s words.

By the end of the concert, I was exhausted and flying high at the same time, without the aid of any illegal substances, I might add. Back then I was an impoverished medical student living in a little flat, and the only sound system I had was an ancient portable record player. For days I sat and played my old Dylan records, over and over and over. I only had the acoustic albums, because the electric ones had not come out. Listening to those tracks with the concert still pounding in my head, I could imagine that sound in Dylan’s mind all along. I think it was always there, in the cadence of the words, the strumming and picking on the guitar and the harmonica breaks.

I watch as Mickey Jones talks about how the audience didn’t get it at the time and I’m almost shouting at the TV.

‘I got it.’

I got it from the first note.

A note added afterwards - the programme is actually incredibly boring, as a programme, and Mickey Jones is a somewhat self indulgent commentator, but none of that matters if you were there.