What I've been reading

Schindler's Ark
by Thomas Keneally

"In the shadow of Auschwitz, a flamboyant German industrialist grew into a living legend to the Jews of Cracow. He was a womaniser, a heavy drinker and a bon viveur, but to them he became a saviour."

This was a tough read. I think I am becoming more sensitive as I get older, but maybe I haven't read accounts of the atrocities of the Holocaust like this one. I still find the character of Oskar Schindler himself fascinating - a successful industrialist before the war, a passionate activist during the time described in the book, and then managed nothing very successful afterwards. This one act that he carried out with considerable risk and cost to himself stands out not only because of its utterly heroic nature, but also because he shows no similar character or action before or after the war. No matter - he deserves no less recognition because of that.

Ratking
by Michael Dibdin

narrated by Michael Kitchen

"Italian Police Commissioner Aurelio Zen is dispatched to investigate the kidnapping of Ruggiero Miletti, a powerful Perugian industrialist. But nobody much wants Zen to succeed: not the local authorities, who view him as an interloper, and certainly not Miletti's children, who seem content to let the head of the family languish in the hands of his abductors."

This only confirms my existing conclusion that I can't follow this kind of 'police procedural' novel in the audio form - I forget who is who, and it wasn't helped this time by leaving fairly long periods between listens. But despite this it's quite good, although I won't be seeking out any more books in the series.

Psmith in the City
by P. G. Wodehouse

narrated by B. J. Harrison

"Mike Jackson, cricketer and scion of a cricketing clan, finds his dreams of studying and playing at Cambridge upset by news of his father's financial troubles, and must instead take a job with the New Asiatic Bank. On arrival there, Mike finds his friend Psmith is also a new employee, and together they strive to make the best of their position, and perhaps squeeze in a little cricket from time to time."

Not one of his best, perhaps, because he's put upper-class Psmith to work in a bank in order to create the dramatic scenario, and the caricatures of other employees are barely recognisable. So the story is a bit far-fetched, and there's nothing particularly to recommend it.

The Count of Monte Cristo
by Alexandre Dumas

"Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantes is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration."

A humongous read - the paperback is about four inches thick, which is what put me off the audio version and made me go to the library to borrow a copy. Great move, I thought, until someone else reserved it, so I had to give it back when I'd got just a third of the way through and wait for three weeks before I could borrow it again. But despite the intermission it's good, very good, and the story rolls along at the right pace and with the right amount of detail and action, and the whole cast of characters is introduced so that you don't forget who they are. A cracking story.

The Mighty Micro
by Christopher Evans

"A computer in your wrist watch, a car that refuses to start if the driver is drunk, a micro-chip book instead of a paperback... Science fiction? No, by the year 2000, all these and much more will be part of our everyday lives."

This book was written in 1979, and contains the author's predictions for how computing would progress in the short, medium and long term, reaching all the way to 2000. He foresaw many of today's uses of microchips - electronic books (although he wrongly predicted the demise of paper), flat-screen TVs, ubiquitous computing, a network of computers, and the addictive properties of computer games. He got some things spectacularly wrong - a twenty-hour working week, personalised education and Ultra Intelligent Machines, and he anticipated the influence of computers in medicine, but thought they would be replacing diagnostic physicians rather than assisting surgeons. 

He also got some things right but in the wrong context: he thought interactive voting would allow us to influence our elected politicians; he didn't foresee pointless celebrity shows. He had high ideals, and while he acknowledged the stupidity, shortsightedness and greed of humanity he thought it would be kept in check by scientific sense. So did I, until it became clear in the last decade that political domination is more important to our ruling classes than facts, truth and integrity (and not just in the USA).

I'll give you a few extracts that particularly entertained me. 

One was in the section where he describes a portable device that contained all the books you could wish for, including an encyclopedia. "One of the winners of a 'Brain of Britain' contest attributed his great knowledge to the fact that he had a set of encyclopaedias in every room in his house so that whenever he wanted information he could get it immediately." He then imagines the future scenario where he could carry his encyclopaedia with him, but doesn't come up with the idea that the portable encyclopaedia is anything more than a digitally formatted book.

Another missed target was crime. He anticipated the demise of cash and cheques in favour of digital transactions, but thought that this would mean theft and robbery of physical money would decline and digital security would prevent any other form of financial crime. "The solution is to create more secure computer systems, and while nothing in this world is absolutely inviolate, computers can, in the long run, be made far more secure than any bank vault." With hindsight, how naive. 

He anticipated a shift in working patterns that only happened in the face of a global pandemic. "The cities will empty and expensive office blocks will gather dust. For centuries Man has been accustomed to the notion that he must travel to find his work; from the 1980s into the 1990s the work - such as there is to do - will travel to meet Man."

Last of my examples is in a section where he is comparing the need for 'biological computers' (i.e. humans) to carry huge software packages (brains) in order to survive. "[Computers] do not, and I am sure never will, have to devote any software to supporting a complex reproductive system ... nor does any software have to be given over to maintenance and repair functions, or to providing immunological defences against bacterial or viral assaults." Good thing you didn't bet on that last one, Dr Evans.

I bought the third impression of the book in 1983, my first year at university, by which time Dr Christopher Evans was already dead - of cancer, in the same year that his book came out. He never found out whether even his short-term predictions came true.

As I Lay Dying
by William Faulkner

narrated by Marc Cashman, Robertson Dean, Lina Patel, Lorna Raver

"The death and burial of Addie Bundren is told by members of her family, as they cart the coffin to Jefferson, Mississippi, to bury her among her people."

I knew that I enjoyed the way that Faulkner wrote 'The Sound and The Fury' (looking back at my review, I enjoyed it even more than I remember), which is why I chose to read this one. Which I also enjoyed, even though it's completely nuts. Not quite as confusing in its time line and character names as the other, but still crazy, and written in a voice (voices) like no other author's in my experience. Taking the seriously decomposing body in July heat to its resting place involves falling in a river, drowning the mules pulling the cart, breaking a leg which is then given a cast made of builders' cement, burning down a barn and getting sent to the asylum, failing to get an abortion, and getting new teeth, a gramophone, and a new wife. What a ride.

Foundation
by Isaac Asimov

"To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Hari Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire - both scientists and scholars - and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for a future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation."

Now, this is peculiar. The first time I read this book, which could have been in the 1990's or even earlier, I liked it enough to want to buy the next two in the trilogy. This time round it doesn't have that effect at all; I found it lacked cohesion, spread over too long a time period, no character development... But I still have the subsequent books so I'll read them and see if it gets better.

Tantalising

Adhisthana, July 2019

Flf the plumber did offer to continue work on the wet room during the week that I was away helping Lola II, but I'm not comfortable with that, not because I don't trust him with my house but because I don't trust him with my wet room. He has a tendency (as I have noticed with most of the tradesmen) to make decisions on my behalf without properly consulting me. So far I have put things right, but who knows what I would come home to if I were not constantly popping my head round the door offering tea and checking on progress.

Then he stopped responding. I sent a text at the weekend, then left a voicemail message, then another text, and a little bit of me wondered if he'd decided to cut his losses and not come back. At last I did get a message, and he was there with another Flf on Thursday, and he was spectacularly grumpy. I ignored the scowl and cheerily engaged in chit-chat and offered the usual tea, and I could see in his face the competing desires for tea but also to turn me down because of how cross he was. He accepted in the end and relaxed a bit, and I discovered that he's had a bad back, and sympathised.

So together the two Flfs installed the new towel rail, and put back the sink with new taps and the toilet with new innards and put the shower up on the wall and connected it to the water supply, and left me tantalisingly close to being able to shower standing up for the first time since July. But not quite, because he'd forgotten to arrange for the electrician to be there.

So now I have to wait again for what I hope will be the last visit for all of the wet room bits to be completed. And in the meantime Lola Towers is continuing to have small tantrums when it rains particularly hard and lets water drip into the new kitchen. Ulf would rather I didn't get an independent person in so I have invited him to come and view the scene of the crime himself. We are both being very reasonable at the moment and I hope it stays that way. 

And to add to the stress of the LTRP there are the three bank accounts that I'm switching (with one more to come) - not all mine, but each is going to a different place and they all have different requirements for activating cards and online banking and mobile apps and how much has to be paid in per month to get the full benefits on offer. And Mr MXF has been tied up with other matters for a while but is now back, and I had another hour of mind-stretching conversation which has left me limp yet enthused. Until I tried to put into practice what we had discussed, and it was mighty difficult. So I'm off for a cup of tea and a sit down, and maybe have another look soon.

Water, water, everywhere

Riverhill Himalayan Gardens, September 2020

I've done another three days volunteering for Lola II's Community Mediation Skills course, and it's exhausting. Mostly for her, but a little bit for me too. I'd do it again - which surprised Lola II - but it's not difficult and they couldn't do it without a tech support person. And there were cakes for tea this afternoon.

For my usual work I've attended two online meetings, one talking about the language that we as health professionals use when talking to and about patients (clients? service users? people with diabetes?) and the other about delivering our structured education. The latter evoked the familiar feeling in me where I yearn to be part of an innovative and creative team instead of people who are 2 years from retirement and just want an easy life. One of them has been in contact with a confirmed Covid case and has to isolate at home for two weeks, and I made the mistake of suggesting that the others might have to make their lunch break shorter than the current 90 minutes. It didn't go down well.

So I came home again on Saturday night, and it was good to be back. However, the rain has been pretty heavy, and lo and behold, water has appeared inside the kitchen again.

I'm very tired of this. Doors and Windows Ulf came back twice and it seems unlikely that the leak is through the sealed unit. Son of Ulf has been back and sealed everything he could find to try and stop it last time. My suspicion is that the rain only appears inside in the wettest weather, but is still finding its way into the roof space at other times. I have written to Ulf about it, but he doesn't believe it has anything to do with him, or maybe it has been caused by the ladder on the roof when the gable was painted. He's willing to come back and seal things up again, but I don't think that will solve it - I feel that it's time to look inside the roof space to see where the water is coming from.

Water, water, everywhere. I spoke to the new manager of Pub Next Door about all the stuff they'd left leaning against my wall, and how this needs to stop, and how I will get access to the garden now that there's a padlock on the gate. He helped me move all the stuff away from the wall and gave me his phone number. Today I noticed that more stuff had been left leaning against my wall, so I sent him a text asking for it to be moved (or the combination for the padlock so I could move it myself). We'll see what happens.

Tech support

The wet room, July 2020

One of the things that I thought I would do more of when I reduced my Diabetes working hours was volunteering, alongside all the volunteer work involved in the LTRP and the Buddhist group. And it remained no more than a thought until last week, when I supported Lola II and her co-trainer as they delivered their Community Mediation Skills course.

Lola II puts a lot of work into these courses, and I'd heard a lot about them over the years, so I had suggested that I could help a while ago. I imagined running around getting people drinks, moving them between rooms, ordering lunches, that sort of thing. What with one thing and another it turned into quite a different role, which was mainly tech support. And a bit of making drinks and getting lunch, but only for the three of us.

The challenges began for Lola II before the course started, not counting all the work she put into the migration from a face-to-face to an online course. The main reason she had chosen to deliver from a venue rather than from home was to make sure that the WiFi was reliable - there's nothing worse than dropping out in the middle of assessing someone's mediation for a qualification. A few days before the course was due to start the venue got in touch to say that their WiFi had been hacked and had therefore been taken down completely, but they had some sort of solution that involved dongles. They tried it out, and thought that it would work.

It very nearly did work except for some difficulty with passwords, but thankfully all was in place at the point where it was needed. The first three days of the course ran last week, and I got a lot of practice in some of the more arcane aspects of the Zoom program - while I'm familiar with the basics of Interactive White Boards and Breakout Rooms, I found out some of the more advanced features by means of ticking various checkboxes and seeing if it worked.

We were just starting to relax into Day 1, with technology that seemed to be working for the participants and for us, when the fire alarm went off. Thankfully it was a test and it stopped quite quickly, but that was certainly something I hadn't anticipated. By the end of Day 3 all was running smoothly, and the best part was that the participants seemed to be fully engaged and enjoying themselves. I'd learned a bit about mediation as well. 

October 2020

Then the second lockdown happened. Thankfully, the team at the venue are still prepared for us to continue with the second three days of the course, and I'm hoping it will go even more smoothly. There will be a fourth person in the room which may create a problem of noise leakage from one computer to another, but we've been promised screens and we'll have to hope that it works.

My abiding memory is sitting with Lola II and her co-trainer in the room with each of them talking to participants in a separate online Breakout Room, and feeling like I was in the Matrix - I could unplug either of them and they would fall limply to the floor.

Flfs 3 and 4

Lots of other things have also happened, including Flfs 3 and 4 coming to tile the wet room at long last. It looks great. Despite having known about my availability for months, Flf 1 is unable to come back and finish the job this week and I am back with Lola II next week. I am not happy with the delay, but it will make it all the better when I can finally stand up to shower.

At work I acquired a telephone headset and also a telephone compatible with it, which has made my telephone clinics much more comfortable. We have continued to collaborate on the Diabetes Structured Education courses intended for delivery within our NHS Trust and also the adjacent one, and it has become clear that an online option has to be created since this Covid thing isn't going away any time soon. I'm very glad to say that I'm not involved in the education side of the diabetes service any more but I have to remain on call in case of non-availability of other members of staff, so I will have to find out more about all this.

And I attended some online training in the use of the Libre Flash Glucose Monitoring System which was arranged so long ago that it has had to be postponed twice. It was finally delivered via Zoom, and was surprisingly good - I learned quite a lot about the Ambulatory Glucose Profile, which is a longwinded and misleading name for a diagram that shows glucose results for the last two weeks in an easily interpreted graphical format that has been standardised between all the different devices on offer. I might write more about this if I have the strength, but I've had just one day off in the last nine days so I might save that for another time.

November 2020