Munich and Dachau

Munich, December 2018

I worked on Christmas Eve, and then went north to spend Christmas Day and Boxing Day with friends, and back to work today. I'm a bit behind in relating what's been going on in the lead up to Christmas, but a week or two ago I went to Munich and visited the Christmas Market there with the same friends who went to Dusseldorf with me a year ago. Another friend who lives there was singing in a Christmas concert in a church, so we went to that too. The weather wasn't great - rainy and cold - but we enjoyed the food and drink, including the classic Bavarian specialities of sausage and cabbage. We also tasted Flammlachs, which was salmon hot smoked before our eyes, and which flavoured our clothing with fishy smoke for the rest of the trip.

Gatehouse, Dachau, December 2018

I had a day on my own in which I went to Dachau, the site of the concentration camp. The trains were in a mess after a strike that morning so I didn't get there very early, and the site closed before I'd seen everything. It felt similar to my previous trip to Auschwitz - sanitised, sterile, recounting atrocities but without giving me any emotional connection. But I was feeling chilly wrapped up in my fleece, coat, scarf and hat in a heated building - I can't really imagine what it must have been like in thin clothes in the open air at this time of year.

At work the main activity of note has been the delivery of another of our Carbs 4 1 courses to a group of people who were probably the most unruly of any I've ever had to manage. We coped somehow, but they didn't make it easy for us. To restore my faith, however, one of my patients last week unexpectedly gave me a bottle of wine for Christmas, which was lovely. So let's end on that note rather than the sombre thought of historical atrocities or the clusterfuck of our modern day political situation. Happy Christmas!

Parcelforce

Parcelforce national sorting lines, December 2018

You may remember that a year or more ago I was selling dad's collection of post office-related ephemera. There's still a single box of it left, looking dolefully at me in my office whenever I allow it to enter my conscious field of vision. Most of the time, thankfully, it remains invisible.

Anyway, I received a significant amount of help in the valuation and auctioning from Jeremy, the Secretary of the Postal Mechanisation Study Circle - a group that really does what its title suggests. I had no idea how much interest there is in postal mechanisation until coming into contact with these chaps, although without parcels I can foresee the demise of the group as I can't imagine anyone from the email generation having the slightest interest in the idea of paper being sent physically from one place to another just for the purpose of communicating.

Mum receives the PMSC newsletter (ironically by email) and forwarded me an issue that mentioned a proposed visit to the Parcelforce site in Coventry, which is on my route to and from work. Knowing that the visit would only go ahead if enough interest was shown, I threw my hat in the ring to support the group and try to ensure that it would take place. And because I like going to interesting places, and this certainly looked interesting.

International sorting lines

There were only four of us in the end, so it was a good thing I volunteered. Our hosts had worked as engineers within Parcelforce for decades and were so enthusiastic that they had been the ones to reach out and contact the PMSC, not the other way round. We were given a brief Powerpoint presentation with the history of and introduction to the service and the site - the largest in the country, handling both national and international mail. Although Coventry airport is on the other side of the fence around the site it is no longer used for international parcel distribution, which is taken by road to and from other airports around the country.

We were all kitted out in steel toecapped boots and reflective jackets before going out to the buildings housing the sorting machinery. While the building and the conveyors for the national parcel mail were huge and impressive, the international depot was much more interesting. Both sites use really fast raised conveyors passing through an arch which reads the routing barcode on five out of the six sides of the box, and tips the parcel automatically down the correct chute for its destination.

The other PMSC visitors asked esoteric questions about the machinery and the software and the routing barcodes and labels, while I asked what happens when the machines break down, and what sort of contraband they discover. One of the people showing us round told the story of how much of the machine was destroyed when a parcel was misplaced, and how quickly it had to be repaired and replaced to avoid holding up the mail. He also had a picture on his phone of all the guns which had been discovered in international mail in one week - they filled a large table.

So an interesting trip to a place that I wouldn't have imagined visiting ordinarily, all thanks to dad's interest in Postal Mechanisation. Now I have to deal with that last box...

Not yet Christmas

Adhisthana, June 2018

Lots going on as usual. Here's a rundown of recent activity, not including trips to Parcelforce in Coventry and Christmas markets in Munich. Those will have to wait for another time.

LTRP

The new television is up and working! I had to phone a friend to help me lift it onto the table, and after I'd connected it all up it didn't seem to want to find the Internet or the sound bar. So, ostrich-like, I left it alone to see if it cured itself. I did have a look at the manual and fixed the sound bar by changing where the cables plug in, and miraculously it found the Internet without any further intervention, so all is well at the moment. Let's hope it stays that way.

So with that little project completed I have visited a carpet supplier of national repute and a local shop to have a little look at my auditorium carpet options. I just want a plain dark grey carpet, which I thought would limit the choices a bit, but even so there were seventeen different carpet options in the big shop which seem to be suitable, and no obvious way to choose between them. There is a free sample service so I asked for four samples to be sent, and we'll see how I get on. The local shop suggested just one option, which seems just as unsatisfactory.

Work

I went to an evening meeting about Pancreatic Exocrine Insufficiency, which wasn't very useful but there was a nice dinner and I sat next to a very chatty doctor. Diabetes is a disorder of the pancreatic endocrine system (insulin is an endocrine hormone), but the pancreas also produces enzymes as part of its exocrine activity. These are primarily lipase, amylase and protease to digest fat, starch and protein, and it seems that this function often fails in people with diabetes. Essentially the treatment of PEI is Pancreatic Enzyme Replacement Therapy, i.e. swallowing large capsules of enzymes along with meals and snacks so that they replace the enzymes that the pancreas is no longer producing. The main lecture was about symptoms and diagnosis rather than management, so I now know how prevalent it is in people with diabetes, but no more about what to do about it.

My Team Leader was also there, and she brought me up to speed on what is going on with the DESMOND Type 2 education programme in our region. I mentioned previously that the Clinical Commissioning Group is getting very 'hands-on' with DESMOND, and it seems that courses have a very poor attendance rate and keep getting cancelled in the main area covered by the NHS Trust I work for. Apparently the Trust's Clinical Director for Diabetes (who is also Clinical Director for another couple of specialities) had a very uncomfortable meeting with people from the CCG. I don't have a great deal of time for our Clinical Director because he seems to show no interest whatsoever in directing clinicians, clinics or anything else that is clinical, so this was a very interesting move on the part of the CCG. I don't know whether anything will come of it, but it's testament to my new Team Leader's dogged persistence that this meeting even came about.

Talking of the CCG and education: I had to attend one of the CCG's regular meetings about education for people with diabetes in order to present the results of my evaluation of our short Carbs and Insulin course, which we're calling CANDI (see what we did there?) This was one of the last times I had an idea at work before I became determined to have no more ideas, and it has resulted in a lot of work for me but not much progress. The results show that the people who attended got a lot out of it subjectively, but objective measures don't show much improvement. I then compared the objective measures of CANDI with those from a similar population who attended the longer 4-day carb counting course, and those were no better. What happens next is anyone's guess, but now that we have our tenacious Team Leader I suppose she will have to decide, so I've put it on the agenda for our next team meeting. Which is the day after Boxing Day when I will have even less than my usual motivation to talk about matters at work.

Badminton

Matches and club nights continue twice a week, My duties as Social Secretary led me to try and arrange a 'Not Christmas Social' in November so that we wouldn't get caught up in all the pre-Christmas shenanigans. I offered various dates so we could include the maximum number of people, and Friday 30th November was chosen. Unfortunately in the chosen venue, this night was already designated as a pre-Christmas shenanigan, so the event became the 'Not Not Christmas Social' and fourteen people came along and enjoyed themselves at a local pub. I had the best vegetarian option I think I've ever had in a pub (a pie with mash and veg).

and the rest

I can't remember exactly how it came about, but Lola II was interviewed for a project focussing on views and opinions and thoughts on childlessness from people who have consciously chosen not to have children. She passed the contact on to me, and this week I was also interviewed. It was very interesting and I'm still mulling over some of the things we discussed.

I went to see mum and dad and this time mum had a great job for me to do. Often the jobs I am called upon to perform involve either the computer or a ladder (there were jobs of those varieties on this visit too), but this time it was all about the sewing machine. As well as using the zigzag option to sew hems in shortened sleeves, we took down the kitchen blinds and shortened them by about a foot, cutting off the dirtiest part and revealing fresh fabric. It all went very well and they look great and it felt like we had really achieved something.

There have obviously been other activities at home and at work, but having ended the weight management effort my weight has obviously gone up by a kilogram. I knew it would because I haven't been feeling hungry lately and there have been celebratory meals and food provided during work events (which always leads me to overeat). Now what shall I do?

Retreat

Adhisthana, June 2018

I've been on another Buddhist weekend retreat at the same venue as before: Adhisthana in Herefordshire. There were more of us in the group this time, mainly because the weekend was promoted more widely. It started on Friday evening with supper followed by a gathering and ceremony, on Saturday morning after meditation and breakfast the group got together and then split into two for discussions, lunch, a walk, more meditation, dinner and another ceremony. On Sunday after meditation and breakfast we finished our discussion, had lunch, cleaned up and departed.

This time I ducked out of the ceremonies. The routine is that some passages are recited in Pali and in English, people are invited to make an offering at the shrine (a candle, incense, a flower) and matras are chanted. It doesn't suit me at all - I don't like the recitation or the mantras and I'm not going to make an offering. Last time I thought I'd just observe, but I sat there feeling a bit resentful, so this time I just avoided those bits of the programme.

It is an interesting time within the Triratna Buddhist movement. The movement used to be called the Western Buddhist Order, and was founded just over 50 years ago by an English man who was inspired by Eastern culture, religion and traditions, spent some considerable time learning about Buddhism, mostly in India, then brought his ideas back to the UK. He intended the WBO to provide a westernised version of the Eastern traditions and philosophies of Buddhism, so for example the Order does not discriminate between sexes and did away with the monastic tradition and the hierarchy of seniority. You could decide to become a Friend of the Western Buddhist Order, or if you felt enough commitment you could be ordained and be given a Sanskrit name, but you still live and operate in the world as you did before, albeit according to the ethical principles suggested by the Order.

The founder and leader of the movement was given the name Sangharakshita when he spent some time as a monk in India. He lived at Adhisthana ever since it was acquired as Triratna's headquarters a few years ago, and was buried there just over a month ago when he died at the age of 93. He wrote and published prolifically: poetry as well as learned and philosophical works on the subject of Buddhism, and many of his lectures and talks are recorded and available online. He was clearly a charismatic, visionary and pragmatic leader, and in only 50 years built a sustainable movement that seems robust enough to survive even now that he is gone. Quite an achievement, although some serious mistakes were made in the early days that are still causing a good deal of trouble today.

So visiting the Headquarters of the Order so soon after the death and burial of its founder and leader was interesting. While the end of his life was not unexpected, and leadership arrangements have been in place for some time, it still feels like a turning point - a 'weighty event' as one person put it. One of the leaders of our retreat was part of Sangharakshita's household for many years, and was happy to share his stories of coming into contact with and joining the movement in the early 1980s and his continuing participation up to the present day.

So where do I stand on Buddhism from a personal viewpoint? I went to the introductory course about 2½ years ago, and have carried on attending on Tuesday nights since then (whenever badminton hasn't interfered). We start with meditation, then a tea break, then a discussion on some aspect of Buddhism, which may be utterly esoteric or entirely practical. I sometimes meditate at home and usually enjoy it, and the meetings have prompted me to make some other practical changes to how I live and relate to other people. The group is planning to run another introductory course in January, and I have volunteered to host meetings at my house for those who don't want to attend the course.

There were a couple of reasons why I starting thinking about Buddhism 2½ years ago. With Mr A out of the picture I was determined to expand my social contacts, but going to the pub after badminton really didn't suit me, and the badminton social events that I organise are not very stimulating intellectually. I joined the music group and the Meetup walking group as well as Triratna, but the Meetup walks are no longer taking place and while I love playing in the music group the social contact hasn't extended beyond one afternoon a month. I was considering trying either the Buddhists or the Quakers, but went to the Buddhists because I have a longstanding friend who became a Triratna Order Member about 20 years ago, and I always puzzled over why he did it and what he gets out of it. He recommended the local group as one of a number of options.

To be honest, the social contact with the Buddhists has also been pretty limited: two hours weekly, of which most of one hour is silent meditation. But the discussions in the other hour have been worthwhile, and I feel much more comfortable with the whole ethos and philosophy of Buddhism than I did with Judaism, given that I don't believe there is a God. There are a few of us now who would like to work a bit harder at growing the group and doing a bit more than just holding the weekly meeting. I am finding the retreats to be an opportunity to relax and take some time out alongside like-minded people, and shed some of the cynicism and dissatisfaction with the terrible state of world politics at the moment. The effect wears off pretty quickly as soon as I get back into work, though.

Study day - Diabetes technologies

Adhisthana, June 2018

The study day I recently attended was a good one, including many interesting and relevant presentations. It was organised by the Association of UK Dietitians (BDA) Diabetes Specialist Group, and focussed on diabetes technologies as well as some of the usual business when Diabetes Specialist Dietitians get together - whingeing about nurses and other colleagues, comparing notes on difficult patients, who has been asked the most ridiculous 'what can I eat' question, whining that the lunch provided is a bit carb-heavy while demolishing all the crisps and three puddings etc etc. A bonus for me was that two previous colleagues were also there and it was lovely to catch up with them, and there was also a Dietitian from a nearby Trust whose previous Team Leader is my new Team Leader. So we had a good exchange of views on that situation, too.

After the AGM, the presentations started with someone from Diabetes UK updating us on what they've been up to in the way of nutritional news. This included information and new videos about 'Diabulimia', which is a term often used (but just as often criticised) describing the practice of someone with Type 1 Diabetes withholding insulin in order to lose weight.

Then a doctor ran through all the current technologies available at the moment, including insulin pumps, CGM systems, Flash GM systems, sensor-augmented pumps, closed loop and artificial pancreas systems, and something called Diaport which delivers insulin into the peritoneal cavity. There wasn't really anything new here for me, but it was nice to appreciate that my knowledge is way ahead of many Dietitians who don't come into contact with these technologies in their usual work setting.

Quite a few Diabetes Dietitians are working at national policy level with Diabetes UK and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Diabetes. This year the old evidence-based nutrition guidelines from 2011 were updated with a new document, which has shifted away from nutrients (recommended proportions of protein, fat and carbohydrate in the diet) in favour of real foods. The overarching recommendations haven't changed: the first line treatment of Type 2 Diabetes should be weight loss of 5%, a Mediterranean style of eating, education and exercise. For Type 1 Diabetes it is still about matching insulin to carbohydrate intake to regulate blood glucose levels. The advice about prevention of cardiovascular disease is now aligned with the NICE guideline, and progress has been made on the thorny question of fat - is it in fact irrelevant, or should we still advise restriction? The conclusion is now that the quantity of fat is less important than the type of fat, and whatever level of fat we choose to eat it should be more unsaturated than saturated.

The 'James Lind Alliance Research Priorities' were also new to me - the ten highest priority research topics in various clinical areas, including diabetes. Not that it makes any difference to my workload, but interesting to see what questions are thought to be most important at this time. A couple of the priorities relate to diet, and one is the old chestnut about the role of fat, protein and carbohydrate in the diet for Type 2 Diabetes, and what the evidence tells us we should specifically be advising people to eat. This has been addressed by the finest minds in the UK Dietetic profession, and the answer is that we have no idea. Another question that still remains unanswered is what we would initially advise someone with Type 2 Diabetes who is not overweight.

Those same fine minds have also come up with a policy statement about low carbohydrate diets (defined as between 50g and 130g carbohydrate per day) in the management of Type 2 Diabetes. It was published in the week following the study day, and it's handy to be able to see a summary of the available evidence even if that evidence is scanty. Essentially, we can say that in the time frame of 12 months, adopting a low carbohydrate diet is as good as any other approach to improving blood glucose levels, and it probably works because restricting carb tends to result in a reduction in total energy intake and therefore weight loss. We don't have any evidence beyond 12 months because it seems to be quite a difficult diet to sustain.

The next presentation was all about trying to be more prescriptive about how to manage exercise with Type 1 diabetes. I have written about this before (June 2016), and said at that time that it's one of the most difficult aspects of diabetes. A Dietitian from Birmingham Children's Hospital has worked on this for a while, and come up with a spreadsheet that allows you to enter six parameters: what kind of exercise; what intensity; the duration; how long since your last insulin bolus; whether you want to reduce your insulin or increase your carb intake; and whether you use an insulin pen or a pump. It then comes up with its best guess (based on published evidence) on how to manage blood glucose, food and insulin before, during and after the activity. You can print that recommendation for the patient to try, but it may need adjusting subsequently.

The most interesting presentation was from a Dietitian involved with the DiRECT trial, which has attracted the largest amount of research funding that Diabetes UK has ever awarded. The trial is intended to follow up an earlier 'Proof of Concept' trial that suggested that Type 2 Diabetes could be reversed with rapid weight loss, and this time they want to try and find out how it works, how much weight loss is needed, how long does reversal last, who might benefit the most from this approach and whether it can be achieved in primary care. Weight loss is achieved through Total Diet Replacement for 12 to 20 weeks (the Cambridge Weight Plan meal replacement products) with weekly or fortnightly review, followed by structured food reintroduction with fortnightly review, and there is also support in increasing physical activity. Monthly monitoring and support is provided to stabilise weight and prevent weight regain for two years.

There were relatively few participants (n=157) and the trial is not yet finished, but early results are impressive. Of the cohort who managed to lose 15kg or more, irrespective of their starting weight, 86% achieved remission from their diabetes at 12 months, defined as normalised blood glucose results (there are ongoing discussions about the definition of remission). Results were better for younger participants, lower starting HbA1c results and when the duration of diabetes was shorter. Unfortunately this exactly defines the people I don't see - in secondary care we generally see people who have had Type 2 Diabetes for some time and whose medication regimes are escalating and/or who are starting to get complications.

The last presentation of the day was from the doctor who leads the Diabetes service at the hospital we visited over the summer, talking about interpreting the data that we are starting to see coming from all these technological wonder-gadgets. One key point: we often advise a minimum of 4 blood glucose tests a day, but the evidence suggests this can generally only get people down to an HbA1c of about 69mmol/mol (8.5%). The target is often 53mmol/mol (7%) which would take at least 8 fingerprick tests a day, and for anything lower than this you're looking at micro-management using a CGM and pump or artificial pancreas system.

It was an interesting and informative day, but I continue to remind myself that despite the worth of the ideas being presented, there is in reality a negligible chance of making any changes to the service we offer, given that nothing has changed even after the whole team's visit to London.

What I've been reading

The Iliad
by Homer

"Homer has created a timeless, dramatic tragedy out of a single episode in the Tale of Troy - Achilles' withdrawal from the fighting and his return to kill the Trojan hero Hector. His characters are heroic but their passions and problems are human and universal, and he presents them with compassion, understanding, and humour against the harsh background of war."

All I knew about the siege of Troy was the story of the wooden horse, which isn't even part of the story in the Iliad. My recently acquired knowledge about this Greek heroic epic poem, however, is extensive. Firstly, given that the poem was originally transmitted entirely orally before eventually being written down long after it was first composed, 'Homer' is by no means an identifiable person. More likely, Homer was the name associated with the style of both the Iliad and the Odyssey when they were finally transcribed. Secondly and much more esoterically, the poem is written in iambic hexameter with 95% of feet being dactyls (DUM-diddle) and the remainder spondees (dum-dum).

The book I actually read is a prose translation that makes no attempt to reconstruct the poetic nature of the work, and it's been much more interesting to read than I was expecting. For instance, after describing exactly how each person meets his death in battle (where the spear or arrow or sword hits them and what the damage is), a brief biography is given, usually including where he came from, what his previous employment was, who his parents were and sometimes also details of his wife and children. This certainly slows down the narrative pace of the battle. The gods are portrayed as imperfect beings who operate much like any family in their preferential treatment of their favourites and unfair treatment of mortals they aren't keen on, although their ability to transform into other shapes and pass messages to humans and to skip back and forth between the battlefield and Olympus is decidedly godlike.

The poem actually describes only 51 days in the siege of Troy, a single episode resulting from a spat between the Greek King Agamemnon and his compatriot Achilles. A woman who was given to Achilles following some victory in battle is taken from him by King Agamemnon, and Achilles has an epic tantrum and refuses to fight any more. Eventually his best mate Patroclus borrows Achilles' armour, goes off to fight and gets himself killed, at which point Achilles goes utterly mental, culminating in him killing Hector, the best Trojan warrior and favourite son of Priam, the king of Troy. Achilles not only ties dead Hector's body to his chariot and drags it round the city walls in triumph and revenge against the killing of his best mate, but then drags the body around Patroclus's funeral site every day subsequently (the god Apollo protects Hector's body so it doesn't rot or get damaged). Eventually Achilles gives the body up to Priam in return for a ransom, and the book ends with Hector's funeral. Not entirely what I was expecting, but better than many of the 'classic' books I've been reading.

Becoming a Writer
by Dorothea Brande

"A unique and genuinely inspirational guide to creative writing, constantly in demand with writers and students of writing. She believes that there is such a thing as the writer's magic, that everybody has it in differing degrees and that it can be taught."

This is an old book, written in 1934, but also one of my older books, acquired and first read by me in 1988. It isn't about the technique of writing, plotting, character or any aspect of writing, it's about how a person becomes a writer - how to coax the material out of your conscious and unconscious brain, how to make sure your thoughts are successfully transferred to paper, how to avoid your style being contaminated by other authors - how to write, not what to write. I want to follow its instruction and exercises, but it's one more activity that I have to fit into the scanty 24 hours available to me every day. I'm working towards it, and when I start to see the light at the end of the tunnel I will definitely come back to this small book and its inspirational and practical advice.

The Essex Serpent
by Sarah Perry

narrated by Juanita McMahon

"It is 1893. Cora is a well-to-do London widow who moves to the Essex parish of Aldwinter, and Will is the local vicar. They meet as their village is engulfed by rumours that the mythical Essex Serpent, once said to roam the marshes claiming human lives, has returned."

This is a recently published book which received a good deal of praise and sounded interesting in a Gothic sort of way. It wasn't bad but the narration was odd; sometimes the narrator delivered a sentence that seemed to indicate she wasn't familiar with English idiom. Again, I hoped for too much of the ending. It was fine, but not fully satisfactory in the way I want an ending to be.

The Rose of Tibet
by Lionel Davidson

"A filmmaker is reported dead near Mount Everest. His brother, Charles Houston, is convinced he's alive and is determined to find him. He travels from India to the Yamdring monastery in the forbidden land of Tibet."

This is a bleak tale but told very well. It came from one of those piles of books that someone shows you to give you the option of taking any that you fancy before they are taken to some charity shop. Someone who knows more about China-Tibet situation in the 1950s would perhaps have a head start on feeling at home with part of the plot at least.

The Prestige
by Christopher Priest

narrated by Simon Vance

"In 1878, two young stage magicians clash in the dark during the course of a fraudulent séance. From this moment on, their lives become webs of deceit and revelation as they vie to outwit and expose one another."

It's a confusing mixture of Victorian reality and science fiction, and I must have read it before because I somehow knew what was going on, which helped a great deal to untangle the prose in the first section. I've seen the film too, and I actually think the film is slightly better, which is unusual.

The Three-Body Problem
by Cixin Liu (translated by Ken Liu)

"Beijing police ask nanotech engineer Wang Miao to infiltrate a secretive cabal of scientists after a spate of inexplicable suicides. Wang's investigation will lead him to a mysterious online game and immerse him in a virtual world ruled by the intractable and unpredictable interaction of its three suns."

The first book of an odd science fiction trilogy loaned to me by a friend who has spent some time in China, and who commends this book as conveying a sense of the original language. As someone who has never been to China I don't think I got as much out of it as my friend did, but I will still be going ahead with the next one.

Kitchen Goddess and Mega Marshal

Run Forest Run, November 2018

My last trip to London combined a study day for work, staying with Lola II and Mr M, and a gathering for mum's birthday. I'm writing about the study day separately, and because it's taking ages and I've been rather busy, I'll do a quick round of other news in this post.

Mum's birthday gathering was slightly marred by Lola II losing her handbag, but the story ended happily when it was handed in without loss. The following day I accompanied Lola II and Mr M to a Games Cafe in Richmond where we tried out three new games: Quirkle, Exploding Kittens, and Sushi Go! We liked Quirkle best.

Between then and now I had a busy week with the usual work, a District Council meeting on Monday evening, a car mini-service, chimney sweep visit and meditation on Tuesday, a trip to Birmingham on Wednesday evening, badminton club on Thursday evening and a match on Friday evening (we lost, but it was good fun with friendly opposition, which isn't always the case).

The Council meeting was about the proposed replacement of a decaying car park combined with the relocation of elderly Council offices. Many local businesses are dismayed at the 'parking displacement plan' and feel that shoppers will be put off by a potential reduction in car parking spaces in the town. Residents are also up in arms at the loss of 42 mature trees (although more saplings will be planted in their place) plus the failure of their planning proposal to follow the Council's own guidelines of including 40% affordable housing. By attending the meeting I achieved my aim of understanding what all the fuss is about while being depressed by the poor standard of debate and the attitudes and arrogance of the Council leader and officers.

The trip to Birmingham was much more fun: I went to a meeting of 'Skeptics in the Pub' at which The Angry Chef was speaking. As the name suggests he is a chef, and I have been following and been hugely entertained by his profanity-filled blog for some time. He writes very eloquently and at length about the rubbish that is promoted by celebrities and others aimed at telling people how and what to eat, or 'nutribollocks' as he terms it. I enjoyed the meeting a great deal - he talks a lot of sense backed up by proper levels of evidence, and I bought his book and he signed it for me.

This weekend was the fifth annual 'Run, Forest, Run' event in Surrey, where this year there were more runners than ever. Lola II and Mr M were marshalling out in the forest along with J from Family JJL&J, and another two J's actually did the 10k plus obstacle course. I was again put in charge of the kitchen, and apart from running out of bacon and teabags it all went very well. I was very proud to be awarded the 'Mega Marshal' trophy for services rendered to mass catering.

Weight loss has stalled, but it has remained 4kg below what it started at (rather than the 5kg I was aiming for), so I'm going to take that as a win. Nothing new with the LTRP except that I briefly went into a carpet shop and now I need to decide who to invite to estimate for the job and whether to choose wool or synthetic fibre (any opinions from readers would be very welcome).

The television saga continues - the price of the TV I am after did drop to a level where I was happy to buy, but by the time I got to the website in a secure WiFi zone there were no more in stock. Stock suddenly appeared a week or so later, but the website claimed that delivery was not possible to my postcode, and when I followed that up with the retailer we agreed that there was actually no stock and it was a website error. However, I guessed that the American phenomenon of Black Friday might influence prices, and so it did. The television appeared on the website at an even lower price on Thursday evening, I placed an order successfully, and all being well it will be delivered today.

A poem

Flysch rock formation, Playa de Sakoneta, September 2018 (photo by Mr M)

While the writing of my epic three-part saga of the holiday progressed, life went on in the background with more mundane everyday activities - the usual work, badminton, meditation, films and trips to see people and places. I have travelled to Nottingham, Altrincham, Woodford and Lea (near Ross-on-Wye), played in a couple of matches, supervised another student for an afternoon, met the new Dietitian hired to replace the last one that left, and attended a meeting about a potential diabetes app.

One of my work colleagues (a Diabetes Nurse not a Dietitian) attended some sort of event where she was encouraged to submit an idea for a phone app. She chose to include a half-baked idea about weight management, and then when the company asked to meet up to discuss her idea she came to me. I have no interest in her idea, but this seems to cut no ice. As with everything else at work nowadays, I will try to just sit back and see what happens.

Usually the result is 'nothing happens', but in one department the Clinical Commissioning Group have succeeded in taking a positive step forward. The Structured Education for Type 2 Diabetes, DESMOND, had all but lapsed in our area, mostly due to staff changes. The CCG stepped in, and despite our scepticism they have set up a new procedure which looks like it may work. We have advance notice that they will soon turn their attention to Type 1 education, so we're on our toes now and paying attention.

Home news: the washing machine engineer arrived to diagnose the fault with the washing machine. Despite everything we tried it refused to perform, and consistently and reliably failed to demonstrate any water leak whatsoever. The engineer kindly noted that the reason for the callout was that the packaging had not been correctly removed, otherwise I would have had to pay for his visit. So the good news is that the washing machine is not leaking, and the bad news is that I wasn't hallucinating when I found water on the floor so I fear it will start leaking again at some future time. When it does, I will take pictures.

I went to visit Landrover Man and Bee Lady, and because they actually read this blog I have been instructed to report on the visit. There was cake, dinner, a film, breakfast, a walk, a Sunday roast, plenty of talk and all of it was wonderful. There, that's slightly more than the "I went to see them and it was nice" that I threatened to write. Bee Lady still has bees (it's winter so they don't go out much) but Landrover Man no longer has Landrovers.

BL and LRM in front of Big View West

On my visit to Altrincham, cousin H showed me two poems he has written and gave permission for me to share them. I know as much about Poetry as I do about Art, but here is my favourite of the two:

Alzheimer's

It works like this. Each time he sees a thing
That's just the start. He has to process it
Through several departments of the brain.
To recognise it. Work out what it is.
Give it a name, and know how it fits in.
Responding needs another set of functions -
Making a choice from several office menus,
While holding all the options in a list.
Then he can send a message in reply
Not yet though. First he has to formulate
The answer, and then put it into words
And (in a separate office) make the sounds.
I sometimes think he recognises me.

Spanish holiday part 3: San Sebastian

San Sebastian, September 2018 (photo by Mr M)

So we arrived at our apartment in San Sebastian after descending from Monte Igueldo by funicular and then taking a bus across town. The International Film Festival that provided the motive for the holiday was in full swing, with red carpets and crowd barriers galore. Our apartment was out of town at the end of Zurriola surfing beach, and it was comfortable, despite having windows in only two rooms with a view of a cement wall. That evening we dined on pintxos at three different establishments, in the Spanish fashion.

We established an interesting dietary regime of three meals: Brunch, Cake, and Supper. J put up some resistance to this routine, saying he didn't usually eat much for breakfast and wasn't really a cake person, but by the end of our stay we caught him perusing the patisserie counter in a fashion very reminiscent of any Lola.

We had booked four films for our three-day stay, and I think they were good choices. Two were on the culinary theme - the first was translated as 'A God in Every Lentil' but contained no discernible gods or lentils. It was Spanish and broadly about a chef who went home to his family to help in their restaurant, but the film started very strangely with a sequence that appeared to show the death and burial of a baby, which was never referred to again. The thought of lentils inspired us, however, and the next evening in our apartment we cooked up a wonderful home made lentil and chorizo stew (the rest of the time we simply ate pintxos and cake). The other culinary film was a documentary about female chefs in the US, Canada, France and the UK. I decided that I really wouldn't want to eat a meal where the food had been placed on the plate with tweezers, no matter how good it tasted.

The other two films were more conventional fiction - a Norwegian one called 'Blind Spot' which was filmed as if in one continuous take, always from the point of view of one of the protagonists. So if one person had a ten minute car journey (and they did, twice), you spent ten minutes with them in the car. It shouldn't have worked, but it did. The highlight of our festival, however, was a Lebanese film called 'Capernaum', at which we were also invited to cast a vote between 1 and 10 towards the 'audience choice' award at the festival. The film scored a resounding 10 from all of us - it dramatised the life of a child trying to survive among illegal immigrants without papers. The only criticism I had was that it did so by proposing that the child was suing his parents for bringing him into the world, which seemed to strike a false note within what was otherwise a tremendous film.

When not watching films we were tourists. We took a boat trip out to an island, we climbed the hill to the statue of Jesus overlooking the city and visited the museum up there, we walked along the sea front and watched the surf and the surfers and we had a look inside the cathedral. We popped paracetamol against the lurgy and dosed ourselves with regular cake and cafe descafeinado. We became obsessed with a sign on the beach that we could not interpret among the signs prohibiting various anti-social activities. [Lola II tried to follow this up with the authorities, although if it turns out to be prohibiting something that we were guilty of, I hope that we will not be saddled with any consequences. She tells me that the trail has grown cold - they have not responded.]

On the whole, we didn't interact with many strangers, whether natives or other tourists. A notable exception was one evening when at a pintxos bar we made friends with a couple from Australia at the next table. They were on a European tour culminating in a 100-year memorial of a particular battle in France in World War One during which an ancestor had been killed. Our conversation was interrupted frequently by waiters and food service, but our friendship was sealed by the foie gras pintxos (referred to by our Australian lady friend as 'foy') which was the single best item of food I ate during the week, among many great food items within a great holiday.

Spanish holiday part 2: Pilgrimage

Camino del Norte, September 2018

Deba was the starting point of our actual pilgrimage to San Sebastian along the Camino del Norte. It was a little tricky finding the path to get started, and we were concerned for our onward progress when almost immediately we met a long-haired Jesus lookalike complete with wooden staff who stopped to talk to us at length. We imagined spending most of the route fending off other pilgrims going in the 'right' direction - we were going the 'wrong' way - but in fact he was the only devotee of the true path that we encountered.

A jolly party of Germans formed an arch of walking poles for us to walk through at one point, and there was the French couple who were walking the whole route and onwards home to France and had started about three weeks previously, and then there were the Americans who had rented bikes which they must have had to carry most of the way - hardly any of the path was in a fit state for cycling. Non-human encounters included the cat with a studded collar who complained loudly when we didn't wait for it, and the quizzical cow that I featured in a previous blog post.

We spent three days walking, and they were hard days, particularly the first when it drizzled just enough to make the steep muddy slopes too slippery to climb or descend easily - one such slope provided a rope to hang on to that helped us down. Thanks to J's satellite navigation and sports app, we know that we covered 14.5km including 728m ascent that day. By early afternoon we reached one of the significant geological sites on the route: a beach containing an exposed rock formation known as Flysch. We climbed about and took photos for a bit, but time was pressing and by the time we reached Zumaia we were definitely tired. Unfortunately our accommodation in a 'bungalow' on a campsite was a little way out of town and a long way uphill, but we were consoled by the thought that there would be a cafe on site.

There was a cafe on site, but it was closed. Never mind, they offered to supply us with pizza! And we could buy beer and snacks in the shop! After a lengthy introduction to the site Rules, which strongly emphasised their ecological credentials to the point that they were not going to give us a towel each (think of the damage we might do to the planet with a towel if we were not forced to share), we trudged even further uphill to the 'boongalo'. It was small with two rooms we'd already agreed to share, but to get hot water in the shower required the sink tap to be turned on at the same time and even then it wasn't very reliable. Mr M started to feel very ill at that point, and he generously allowed us to share his streaming nose, sneeze and cough for the rest of the holiday as one by one we succumbed.

Lola II was dispatched to collect the pizzas at the appointed time, and she returned with only three instead of the four we had ordered. She had watched as the four sad, frozen pizzas were put in the oven, and watched again as three had been transferred to the boxes and the fourth slowly slid onto the floor (a replacement was delivered to the door some time later). This was definitely not the best meal of the holiday, but we were tired and hungry (and in Mr M's case, ill) and we retired early.

The next day we were booked for lunch in a fancy fish restaurant in Getaria. The seaside town was rather lovely and had an interesting church, and were it not for the need to make progress I would have liked to spend more time there. The fish was good too. Our next stop was at a cafe on the sea front in Zarautz, and we made good time to arrive at our overnight stop in Orio, looking forward to anything but pizza. The booking had been changed at short notice to a pension on the edge of town which turned out to be lovely, and very luxurious compared with the boongalo. It wasn't as difficult a day as the first - further in distance (18.2km) but much less ascent and descent. We got ourselves clean and tidy and set out to find provisions for the evening.

For some reason, there were no cafes or restaurants open in the whole of Orio on that Tuesday night, and we looked quite hard. Eventually we decided to stage a picnic and bought bread and cheese and meat and olives and fruit and cakes, and prepared to take them back to our room - but the cheese was in a large, hard lump, and due to having brought cabin luggage only on the flight over we had nothing that would serve as a knife. Luckily we had struck up a conversation with the server in the bakery, so we went back there and they kindly lent us a knife to cut up the cheese.

The third day of walking was the shortest (13.35km) but still with significant climbs. We indulged Mr M by agreeing on a detour that would take us to Monte Igueldo for our first sight of the beautiful bay of San Sebastian. Monte Igueldo is the location of San Sebastian's 'amusement park', and thus charged a fee for us to go in even though none of the rides was open. I have never seen a sadder amusement park, except perhaps in Scooby Doo cartoons. The view of the bay and the ice cream we ate there were both very lovely though. We had arrived! Now for the Film Festival...

Photo credits: all except the top one were taken by Mr M.

Spanish holiday part 1: Bilbao

Bilbao balconies, September 2018

At last I've found a minute or two to write something about our holiday in Spain. It was a lovely holiday, and if I'd knuckled down to write straight away I'm sure my account would reflect the vivid colour and atmosphere of the week away. Now that we've all been back for a month it feels as distant as any historical event.

There was Lola II, Mr M, and J from family JJL&J. Another J from that family spent the evening with us at Lola II and Mr M's house the night before we left, but she went home rather than to the airport the following morning. The flight was as uneventful as all the best flights are. We hopped on a bus to Bilbao at the other end, and Mr M led us to the door of the apartment where we waited for the owner to come and let us in. It was located right in the thick of things in the old town, surrounded by shops and bars and cafes. J and I each had a room overlooking the street; Lola II and Mr M had a room further inside the apartment. These details became significant later on.

Because it was lunchtime, the first place we went was the produce market. Half the floor area contained cafes selling all manner of pintxos - delectable mouthfuls of flavourful combinations of meat, cheese, fish, pickles, veg and salad. Although we didn't know it at the time, this was the most delicious meal of the entire holiday - not that other meals weren't good, but this was particularly fine.

It had become clear by this time that Mr M was in need of head protection, so after he'd invested €4 in a fashionable hat we wandered along the river as far as the Guggenheim museum. Saving that treat for the following day, we took advantage of a funicular railway to go up to a viewpoint with magnificent views of the city as well as a bit of sculpture, and stopped at a cafe for refreshment. Later we picked out a restaurant near our apartment that served local Basque cuisine. It tasted fine, but in my opinion both the Basque restaurants we tried could do with offering more vegetable accompaniment (although I suspect that Mr M was perfectly happy with the veg quota).

That Saturday night was memorable. It would have been nice to keep my window open, but below in the street the crowds eating and drinking in the bars and cafes were having too much fun. It would have been nice to keep the window closed, but it was very hot. I settled on keeping it open in the knowledge that the bars would close eventually, which they did, and I managed to doze off... until the stragglers came through, shouting drunkenly and kicking cans and breaking bottles as late night drinkers tend to do. Then came the street cleaners, merrily calling to one another as they dropped cans and bottles on top of other cans and bottles in their bins. Last were the street cleaning lorries, making more noise than all of the rest put together.

Lola II and Mr M woke refreshed from their unbroken night's sleep, wondering why J and I were sleeping so late. I did manage to get a few hours' sleep, and we let J sleep on until he emerged at about 11 o'clock (unused to waking so late he'd looked at his watch upside down and become very confused).

After breakfast we headed off to the Guggenheim museum where we spent the rest of the day. We all found something interesting to look at. I am not very good at Art, but my favourite item was in the very last room we saw - a small helicopter covered with pink ostrich feathers and upholstered in pink and red plush, which I now discover is an artwork entitled Lilicoptère, in an exhibition by Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos. (When I own a pink feathered helicopter it will be called Lolacoptère.)

The second night was much quieter, but we had to get up early to catch a train to our setting-out point for our pilgrimage along part of the Camino del Norte to San Sebastian. Watch out for the next exciting part in the Spanish holiday series!

What I've been reading

The Life and Death of Smallpox
by Ian and Jenifer Glynn

"No other disease has had such a long, dramatic and terrible history as smallpox. Mozart, Voltaire, Elizabeth I and Abraham Lincoln all had it - and survived. Millions did not."

From dad's collection of books, it's a history of smallpox from when it was first recorded in ancient texts to its eradication from the wild in 1979. Interesting. Some of the pictures are gruesome.

Money
by Martin Amis

narrated by Stephen Pacey

"John Self is addicted to life. Porn freak and jetsetter, aficionado of wealth and women, Self is the shameless heir to a fast-food culture where money beats out an insistent invitation to futile self-gratification."

The protagonist is an unlikeable 'rogue', which would normally stop me enjoying a novel. But this one is written in a very interesting way - in the first person, John Self often addresses the reader, Martin Amis is introduced as a character within the fiction, and words are used in fascinating ways. So despite the fact that I had nothing in common with anything described and would have been appalled to have met almost anyone in the book, I went along with it. All the way through I thought I wasn't enjoying myself, but now looking back I don't think it was that bad, even though I didn't actually understand exactly what happened and why. A strange experience.

Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life
by Rosie Cox, Rose George, R. H. Horne, Robin Nagle, Elizabeth Pisani, Brian Ralph, Virginia Smith

"Dirt - obsessively avoided, often misunderstood, but paradoxically also an indicator of 'civilisation' (through production of waste), and a near-magical source of renewable life and medical discovery."

Another from dad's collection, comprising a selection of essays by the various writers. Interesting but unmemorable.

Deathworld
by Harry Harrison

narrated by B. J. Harrison

"The planet was called Pyrrus - a strange place where all the beasts, plants and natural elements were designed for one specific purpose: to destroy man. It was up to Jason dinAlt, interplanetary gambler, to discover why Pyrrus had become so hostile during man's brief habitation."

Not a bad story from the author of the book that would be made into the film 'Soylent Green'. This isn't that book, but it's quite good in the classic science fiction style.

More padding

Adhisthana, June 2018

I still haven't managed to get round to writing about the Spanish holiday, so here are some more odds and ends that aren't all that exciting.

Saturday

Music group was on Saturday, and it rained a lot. When I got back home the kitchen roof light was leaking again, so I was on to Ulf in a flash. Doors and Windows Ulf came round on Tuesday while I was in (and while the sun was obstinately shining in a cloudless sky). I was going to impersonate a rainstorm with the hosepipe but discovered that the adaptor to connect the tap to the hose was missing, so we had to resort to a watering can. DaW Ulf failed to find where the water could be getting in, but agreed with me that I couldn't just resign myself to putting out buckets every time it rains, nor could he drop everything and come on over. I plan to get the hosepipe working and do the rain impersonation thing, then take photos or video if I manage to get it leaking again.

Sunday

I finally managed to gather two out of the three of us who are planning a trip to the Christmas Markets in Munich (you may remember last year we went to Dusseldorf), and we booked flights and hotel. Then we went to a comedy gig from German Comedy Ambassador Henning Wehn. The most notable thing about that day was that I served a vegetarian stew that had such an explosive effect on my gastrointestinal tract that I had to apologise to my friend in case she was suffering the same consequences (she said she'd had worse).

Monday

I had a Dietetics final year student with me all day on Monday, on her third and last placement. I was so traumatised by my placements when I was doing my degree that I'm almost useless as a supervisor, as there is no way I will pass any criticism or test the students at all. Unfortunately there was almost nothing going on in my department that day, but we couldn't find anything better anywhere else so I printed out a diabetes tutorial and she was happy to play around with that until the afternoon clinic, when two out of the four scheduled patients didn't turn up. Thankfully the last one was a corker and I went through the A-Z of diabetes with someone who'd had a very poor experience in a nearby hospital, and was very happy with what she received with us. Anyway, the student said she'd enjoyed the day and that's what I was after.

On Monday I also received my flu jab, which was OK at the time but gave me a very tender upper arm for 24 hours. Then in the evening my doubles partner behind me mis-hit a shuttle with tremendous force right into the middle of my back. That night I had trouble finding a comfortable sleeping position.

Tuesday

Apart from the visit from DaW Ulf the most notable event on Tuesday was that while doing a bit of poking about on the Open University website, I came across a free online module all about Greek heroic epic poetry (which is distinct from ordinary epic poetry) focussing specifically on 'The Iliad'. By coincidence I happen to be reading The Iliad at the moment, so I had a look at the module, and it was extremely interesting. Although I did O level Latin at school I don't know a word of Greek, ancient or modern, and this tiny little insight into the rhythms and construction of the first seven lines of the poem as a representative sample of the whole work was absolutely fascinating.

It reminded me slightly of one of the more memorable jokes from Sunday night, when Henning was telling us how his extensive study of English grammar at school taught him to conjugate the verb 'to be' correctly: "I was, you were, he/she was, we were, you were, they were." Now he feels that perhaps he needn't have bothered as common usage suggests: "I was, you was, he/she was, we was, you was, they was."

Wednesday

I realise I've spent quite a lot of time writing this blog post when I could have been writing about the holiday, and I haven't even shared my photos yet. Oh well, I'll get round to it eventually. Probably.

Filler

Spanish cow, September 2018

Yes, I know it's been ages, but I've been on holiday with Lola II and Mr M and J (from Family J,J,L&J). I am expected to provide a full summary of that trip, which will take me a good deal of time, so here's a filler just to keep you going.

It was a really good holiday. We went to Spain. There was Art, Culture, Food, Film and Physical Activity. We were all ill for some of the time. More detail to follow.

Before I went, the LTRP took a step forward with the completion of the Screening Room decoration as well as repairing the parquet floor in the living room, the attic windows and some other small jobs. Then there was a step backward as the new washing machine started leaking water. I thought the problem would be that I simply hadn't tightened the pipes sufficiently, so Ilf helped me get the machine out from under the counter at which point we discovered that some of the polystyrene packaging material had been left underneath, and this is what has probably done the damage. So I've had to become reacquainted with my old friends at the launderette and as soon as I can retrieve the receipt I'll be back on the retailer's help line.

Back to work is always difficult after a holiday, but I had my usual Tuesday off with an enormous list of stuff to do. I'd also ordered a HelloFresh box, so there was cooking, launderette and attempted blood donation. What with the paracetamol taken on holiday, the lingering cold infection, and ongoing gum disease (have I mentioned the dental appointment? Refractory periodontitis. Look it up) they really weren't interested in having my blood at all. Which is fine by me.

I also did some Culture in the evening - I went to a lecture given by journalist and war reporter Max Hastings on the back of his latest book, which is about the Vietnam War (1945-75 - An Epic Tragedy). He wasn't as dynamic as I expected and read the whole thing from his notes in under an hour, although he answered a few questions at the end and then signed books for those who had bought them. He has clearly got enormous insight into the politics and practicality of warfare, and his conclusion was surprisingly similar to my own uninformed position - there's no point getting involved in someone else's war without 'something to join up to', i.e. a practical local link that, when achieved, allows the war to end. If you're bombing the hell out of somebody to stop them doing something you don't like, you need to be able to hand over the reins to someone if they eventually stop doing it. If there's nobody left to hand the reins to (Libya, Afghanistan) or they don't stop doing what you don't like (Vietnam) then your intervention, and its cost in money and lives, has been pointless. He also spoke from first hand knowledge about the attitude of the US government to the Vietnam War, which was utterly focussed on its effects within the US political system and winning the next election rather than the enormous and obscene slaughter of soldiers and Vietnamese civilians.

Quick update on the weight loss programme - having got within a whisker (200g) of my goal, I now hover at 600g over, but consider that to be a great result considering how much cake I ate on holiday. So I am back on the wagon for one last push to the finish.

Screening Room

Düsseldorf, November 2017

I spent the weekend in London with dad, while mum and Lola II went off to see an interesting museum that involved an overnight stay. One of the jobs I was planning was to surprise Lola II by finishing the dress that is so long overdue. Despite having brought the sewing machine and even doing a quick sewing job for mum before she left, when I sat down to get started on Lola II's dress the machine refused to behave and kept dropping stitches and being generally uncooperative. So I had to pack that in, and instead I spent far too long going through all the films showing at the San Sebastian Film Festival where I shall be in less than two weeks - and there are A LOT OF FILMS. I thought I'd watch a nice movie on Saturday night so I brought my two rented DVDs with me. Unfortunately, I had changed my rental settings back when the old TV died, and the DVDs I'd brought were actually Blu-Ray discs and wouldn't play. On Sunday Sister D visited for lunch, Lola II and mum returned with cake for me, I drove home and that was the end of the weekend.

Ilf has been at Lola Towers on and off for a week or two, working on the Screening Room / Entertainment Room / Auditorium (I haven't decided on the final name). He has taken up the parquet floor in preparation for carpeting, painted the walls, ceiling and woodwork, fixed the blinds and put up curtain tracks. I have bought blackout curtains, and made two cushions - I didn't like the idea of a curtain or blind for the round window, but the recess is quite deep so I had the idea of putting a cushion each side to block out the light when necessary. I bought some cheap cushion fillers on Amazon but they weren't dense or large enough, so I cut up my very old sleeping bag and made some very decent cushions. I am very pleased with the outcome.

Round window from the outside

My large screen woes continue - the company agreed to refund the cost of the unavailable television, but shortly afterwards sent me a message saying that they were in dispute with the company that manages credit card payments and refunds on their behalf. They directed me to instigate 'chargeback' procedures with my credit card company, which I did, and the money was returned successfully.

Meanwhile, I have been keeping an eye on prices at Currys, and it has been most interesting. Currys often advertises 'save £100's' on specific items, and shows the previous history of the price for that item. It is clear that they set a high price for a period of time in order to be able to quote this historical price when they reduce the item to make it into a bargain. When I first looked, the particular television I'd now quite like to get was £200 more than the original one I bought. The price then went up a further £300, and has now dropped by £350. But my £20 secondhand TV is doing just fine for the time being.