Day 3

Well, it is actually Day three. I have had quite an interesting couple of days. The recording program is having some difficulty with my speech at the moment as I have had an almost tiny stroke. I have got a slight difficulty with my speech which won't get to go away for a couple more weeks. We have made some progress with the hospital food, and we've talked to the catering manager and the dietician and they are supplying just about okay omelettes.

I do have to have some more investigations next week. I have learnt just how claustrophobic and MR I scanner can be as I had to spend that they had to spend quite a lot of time inside one the day before yesterday.

I have made progress with my walking which is very positive. I have also found that the hospital TV system is a proponent of Chinese water torture, as it allows you to watch quite good films only in part, and then it generally fails to allow you to finish them! It also has no useful fast forward button when you try to restart the film.

New knee day one

Well new knee Day one. About one hours sleep overnight. I guess that was predictable given the pain level, the difficulty of finding anywhere comfortable to position myself and the fact that even small movements still hurt!

I have decided to use this blog for the time being to record how things are progressing rather than send out loads of e-mails. I will get Jean to send a link to those who may be interested. I have just had my dressing changed for the first time, for those are squeamish, you can't look at these things because there was still a lot of blood.

Another interesting thing is how difficult it was to relieve myself after the operation. I think I spent half the night stressing about that, certainly nothing happens until 4 AM! That despite 3 saline drip bags. I am also becoming addicted to pressing the pain relief button on the machine that gives me regular infusions of the magic pain relief.

The food last night was classic rubber chicken in dry over spiced tomato sauce and instant long grain rice. Not surprisingly, I didn't manage to eat very much of it.

They have now got an ice pack on my knee which, surprisingly, I can't actually feel at the moment. I'm not quite sure what that mean as the intentin is, I think, to reduce the swelling.

Later this morning the physiotherapist is going to come to make me get up and start moving around. Although I'm sure it's necessary, I have to say I'm not especially looking forward to it.

More anon.

New knee tomorrow

Strangely enough, I am quite looking forward to going into hospital tomorrow. At least, when I get out in a week or two, I should have a new and hopefully working right knee. With a bit of luck it will also be substantially pain-free.

I don't quite think I shall ever be able to gambol around like a spring lamb but maybe spring mutton would do.

There are all sorts of strange things happening in the world at the moment. Most of them are man-made or human induced in some form but the floods in Queensland seem to be of the order of those that made Noah famous. It is hard to imagine so much rain falling in so short a period of time that an area the size of a large part of Europe is under many metres of water. My worst nightmare consists of having to wade through large large areas of water containing snakes. People in Queensland are being warned about snakes in the water. If i was there, I think even if the water around my house was only a few inches deep I would probably not risk putting my toes into it. I know that that is almost the least of most people's problems in the flood areas but I would find it very hard personally to focus on anything else.

I am following with some interest how Sarah Palin will deal with the massive Morton's Fork on which she finds herself impaled. The dilemma runs as follows, Sarah together with her followers are supporters, vocal and active, of the right of all American citizens to carry firearms, but following the recent shooting of a Congresswoman and a number of people around her by a gunman, it will be very hard for her to continue to argue her position. On the other hand much of her credibility seems to have depended on her credentials as a wielder of significant near military firepower - it is hard to describe some of the pieces with which she has been photographed shooting wildlife as mere guns!

More anon...

Happy 2011

This year I am more determined to make regular posts, even if there is no one actually reading them at the moment. Since my last post a lot has happened and Gordon Brown has finally departed, quite unlamented. We now have a coalition government, which on the face of it seems to be somewhat more stable publicly than the last New Labour government.

I do not have many airport stories at the moment, my knees making it very difficult actually to fly without major problems. I am quite glad of this given the mess Heathrow airport was in during the snow at the end of last year. It just shows that allowing acquisitions of capital hungry companies by highly geared entities which will require all of the cash generated by the target to pay off the debt is not a good idea.

BP has also had a very poor year, the Macondo well disaster being the culmination of a fairly predictable series of corporate behaviours. Although the deaths were clearly quite tragic, I have to say I am interested in the outputs of the various enquiries - these should make a major contribution to the learnings on process safety, in particular the management of very low probability, high impact disasters.

More soon.

My,how time passes

Well, I'm back. I've won the battle with Google over my password, which changed at random, without help from me and I couldn't remember where I had told them to send helpful information such as how to reset it when you can't access the account. Furthermore, they wouldn't tell me. So, I could access gmail on my iphone which remembers the password and which miraculously had it right, but not any other way. I still don't know how that happened. In the end they told mw what to do to reset the password. I've done that and hey presto......

So, no more Gordon Brown

The GB of TB/GB is gone. Well overdue. It's funny how some people fancy themselves as great leaders and don't know that they are actually great number 2s. GB was one of those. They almost never make good leaders. There's a book in that somewhere.....

How much happens in a few months

They say a week is a long time in politics. So it is, but the months since I last posted here have been a near lifetime of changes. We have all got used to the fact that Gordon Brown won't go away of his own accord, almost used to the fact that he is the Western leader with the least legitimate mandate, clinging to power by his fingernails and the inability of the opposition to land a knock out blow.

What a horrible country he and Tony Blair have created. And yes, they have been in power for long enough to be held accountable for what is happening as a result of their policies. Economic disaster, a health service which is a disgrace to the remaining loyal people who work within it - GPs work 9 to 5 Monday to Friday and then whole counties "are looked after" from 5 pm to 9 am by one or two (yes one or two) overworked locums who have no idea about the medical histories of their patients.

One new criminal offence a day since Blair won the first time. 25% of the world's CCTV cameras. Corrupt politicians. Unions resurgent, penal taxes, more in the offing. Spin, spin and more spin. Even the Prime Minister seems to be unable to get his facts right. Two apparently unpopular and unwinnable wars killing our soldiers with tragic regularity, at least one of them having been started illegally.

The education system is now being given overall more resources, ie, cut. It's bad enough already but overall literacy and numeracy levels are bound to fall yet more.

Why then can our loyal opposition not land anything like a conclusive uppercut to this bunch of pious hypocrites and clingers to power? I don't really know but their failure makes me wonder if they are any better.....

Tomorrow back to food, a much nicer subject.

This week in London

Well, it's raining. Drizzle and wind and grey skies. It brings out the worst in the variegated road users and brings a whole new breed of suicidally inclined drivers onto the roads who are only there to avoid the rain.

Behaviour on our great, largely unpoliced highways and byways through London continues to worsen. "The rules don't apply to me I'm a cyclist" infection has spread to scooter riders, motor cyclists and battery car drivers. The rules are of course the Highway Code and the Road Traffic Acts. A modest confection of homilies and laws.

What does the "Look at me I'm a cyclist" infection do to its victims? |Well, they think that they are immortal and unchallengeable by anyone. A red light is an invitation not to slow down, let alone stop. A one-way street is an invitation to ride up the middle the wrong way, a roundabout where one should go round to the left is an invitation to go round to the right. Pavements are convenient shortcuts. Pedestrians need to get out of the way as they are impeding the brave cyclists at work. Do not venture onto a pedestrian crossing if you are nervous - near misses by cyclists abound. Hooting at a cyclist even if he or she is about to become a whole lot thinner involuntarily and messily, inevitably leads to a tirade of abuse, violent gesticulations, various obscene gestures and, increasingly, hammering of fists on the car's bonnet.

What is this all about? I have to confess I am not entirely sure. I know cyclists are vulnerable but they do seem more and more to go out of their way to get themselves seriously injured or killed and I don't really think you can blame the poor motorist for that kind of behaviour.

Even more worryingly, why should one section of society be above the law? That's maybe why so many more road users are trying to find the limits. With the police obsessed with the so-called fight against terrorism, an activity which results in most of them being missing from our roads most of the time, I come back to where I began. No-one polices the highway any longer. Observing the law is optional. It just goes to show that without effective policing, things do deteriorate towards a lowest common denominator.