Random Chairs in a Darkened Room V

Spain, November 2016

Lola II and Mr M staged the fifth annual Gulloebl film festival (subtitled 'Random Chairs in a Darkened Room) last weekend. Invited guests had the opportunity to watch up to eight films over the weekend, and this time there was a theme: all of the films featured Alan Rickman, who died last year. I watched seven of the eight films, and it reaffirmed for me what a talented actor and a delight to watch he was.

Due to the number of visitors like myself travelling to attend the festival and needing accommodation, I was allocated to sleep in the annexe. This took the form of a tent in the garden, which was pretty snug with duvet, blanket, hot water bottle and socks. I like camping but this was probably the first time I have camped in February.

My favourite of the seven films I watched was Dogma (1999), the most mainstream of director Kevin Smith's films. I've seen most of this director's previous work, starting with Clerks, and enjoyed most of them. Dogma features Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as well as Alan Rickman, and the Catholic Church is the cast member referenced by the title. I was expecting this to be my favourite film of the weekend, and it didn't disappoint.

Second best was Snow Cake (2006) which starred Sigourney Weaver and Carrie-Anne Moss. I'd seen it before and I knew I'd liked it, although I couldn't remember any details. A man gives a lift to a young woman who is killed in a terrible road accident. The man (played by Alan Rickman) feels compelled to make his way to the young woman's mother, who turns out to have autism, and the story covers just the few days he spends with her. It's touching, poignant, thought-provoking and occasionally funny.

Galaxy Quest (1999) has appeared in a previous film festival, but I could watch it every year. At the end my cheeks hurt from grinning, and the rich source of quotations from the film is a boon in many situations (Never give up, never surrender!) Sigourney Weaver is in this one too, along with Tim Allen, (You are our laaaast hooope). And, of course, Alan Rickman (Give him a hand, he's British!)

My next favourite was Truly Madly Deeply (1990). I hadn't realised that it was written and directed by Anthony Minghella with Juliet Stevenson in mind (if IMDb is to be believed). The writing was beautiful, sad and funny in turn, even though Alan's moustache and Juliet's wardrobe were dreadful. Tissues were available at the screening, and there were plenty of muffled sniffles at the end.

I also love Sense and Sensibility (1995), not only for the wonderful Alan but also for the other quality performances from Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. Hugh Grant was there too, but he was just playing himself as usual. Terrific writing, which won Oscars for Emma Thompson as the writer as well as Best Actress. Hugh Laurie deserves a notable mention for his delivery of some wonderful lines. Mrs Palmer: "No, I cannot believe it is that far, for you can see the place from the top of our hill. Is it really five and a half? No. I cannot believe it." Mr Palmer: "Try."

So five of the seven films receive my full approval; the remaining two that I watched were Die Hard (1988) with Bruce Willis, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) with every British actor ever. I hadn't seen Die Hard before but it is said to be a classic - I can see that it's quite good, but it's just not my kind of thing. I've read all the Harry Potter books and seen all the films, but the books are better and this first film spends a lot of its time setting up the series. The film I didn't watch in the festival line-up was Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves (1991) - I actually started watching it on DVD a few years ago, but stopped after about half an hour. So I wasn't keen to try again.

If it had been up to me to choose films featuring Alan Rickman I would have included A Little Chaos (2014) - Kate Winslet again, but also the incomparable Matthias Schoenaerts as well as the always reliable Stanley Tucci. Love Actually (2003) is another obvious choice with Emma and Hugh again, and I thought the recent Eye in the Sky (2015) with Helen Mirren was also very good indeed. But there are so many choices.

My ultimate plan is to be awarded the first Gulloebl Film Festival franchise and to stage my own version when my house is ready. Of course I'm already thinking of what I might include, and the selection this year has sparked many ideas - Matthias Schoenaerts leads me to Rust and Bone and Suite Francaise as well as A Little Chaos, there's Kevin Smith's Clerks, and perhaps more of Ben Affleck (maybe Argo?) and Matt Damon (maybe Invictus?) Favourite female actors who might feature include Toni Collette (Muriel's Wedding and I would say Little Miss Sunshine but that's been shown at the Gulloebl Film Festival before, then there are The Sixth Sense and About A Boy which are a bit too mainstream). I love watching Melissa McCarthy as well, who was lovely in The Heat with Sandra Bullock, Spy with Jude Law and St Vincent with Bill Murray. Lastly for the women, I'd watch anything with Alison Janney (Juno and American Beauty spring to mind). There are so many wonderful films in the world. I don't know how Lola II and Mr M manage to whittle their choices down to just eight a year.

As a form of apprenticeship in preparation for the franchise, I undertook several roles backstage including making popcorn and ice cream vendor, I received full and frank feedback when I neglected the popcorn due to being distracted by guests, and I was given short shrift and sent off to buy some proper cream when I tried to substitute Elmlea on the basis that Waitrose was closed and this was all the newsagent stocked. But I think with a bit more effort I might be trusted with the valued Gulloebl brand in a year or two.

The Gulloebl Chinema management team carried out my appraisal a week later, and I received the following feedback. Luckily for me they seem to have overlooked the popcorn and cream issues.

Year One Probation Appraisal

Trainee: Lola I
Role: Canine Corpus
Employment Status: Hopeful
Supervision Date: 23 rd February 2017

Duties and Comments

Popcorn making: Corn popped as required
Dishwasher loading: Dishwasher loaded
Ice cream vending: Needed supervision at first, but threw herself (and the ice creams) into delivery. However, forgot to collect any money. Losses to be taken from her wages. We are not Robin Hood (which Lola would know if she had watched the film)
Height: Adequate but not quite up to Lola II
Dietary knowledge: Generally excellent though struggles to identify portions of fruit if they are in jars
Prospects: Lola showed real potential and in a few years’ time, we fully expect her to be allowed to sleep in the house. We also envisage her being welcomed into heaven, when her time comes.

PDR, VLC group and DUK PC

Peckover House, August 2014

I haven't written much about work for a while, so here goes.

I had my annual Personal Development Review (PDR), I hosted our monthly Very Low Carbohydrate group, I went to the Diabetes UK Professional Conference in London, and of course there were the usual clinics.

It's going quite well, although I'm having rather too many good ideas. When I have good ideas I tend to get a bit obsessive, the ideas blossom and grow, they expand beyond the available space and instead of a tidy achievable project designed to meet defined goals I end up imagining the biggest, best, most complete and perfect solution to put an end to all conflict in the world. Then I realise it's totally unachievable and start to doubt whether I can do anything at all. I have a good deal of respect for people who can come up with a sensible and successful idea, put together a plan and then see it through into practice.

I'll give a small example - Carbs and Cals. This is a book, and much more. The author is a Diabetes Dietitian who got together with a photographer friend and took photographs of different portion sizes of various foods, then put them in a book with labels showing the amount of carbohydrate in grammes and the calories in each portion. It was the perfect solution to a problem faced by every person with Type 1 Diabetes and a lot of those with Type 2 - how much carbohydrate is in that portion? Carbs and Cals will show you.

The book was so successful that it has expanded to show Carbs, Cals, Protein, Fat and Fibre; there is a website, a phone app, flash cards, teaching resources and much more. One manufacturer in the diabetes world includes a copy of Carbs and Cals in the box with one of its blood glucose meters. Diabetes UK has lent its logo to the cover and sells the book via its online shop. I met the author at the conference last week. He is the nearest thing to an A-List celebrity in the diabetes world - every single person of the thousands in that conference centre would have heard of him and his book, but he seemed pretty modest and unassuming.

The point is, he came up with an idea and saw it through. He probably spent an immense amount of time and money on it, presumably found his own publisher, designer, editor, set up sales channels - and I can't tell you how much I admire and envy the talent and commitment he shows, because I think it is unlikely that he was given much time to do it at work - I don't know for certain, but I'm guessing he did it all in his spare time.

I want to create an online resource to support our patients who have taken on the very low carb lifestyle, and I am in the wild imagining stage. My idea has exploded to include more than a website: I am imagining a discussion forum, recipes, pictures, an app, published research papers, a blog, a secure section where people can record their blood results, live interaction with Dietitians, links to SMS text messages, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, anything and everything. I need to scale back my ambition and make it achievable. At the moment I cannot access any of these elements from work, due to restrictions imposed by the IT department. Almost everything is blocked and my browser is so old that many ordinary websites can't be used properly.

This project is one of my PDR objectives, so at least I should be supported to do it in work time, although I expect I will have to put in a bit of extra effort if I want it to succeed. My other main PDR objective is to get more involved in pump clinics. Up to now I've concentrated on acquiring the basic knowledge that applies to the majority, but for a number of reasons, this is a good time to focus down on the minority who use CSII - continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion, or insulin pumps.

The number of pump users is increasing as more adults acquire them, and as those who were started on pumps as children transfer into the adult service. Every adult on a pump should be equipped with the skills to use the pump effectively, but it is not so clear cut with children. Anyway, because the general level of diabetes knowledge and skill in the adult population with pumps, I have rather left them alone and concentrated on less able people coming to clinics. But our pump service is set to expand, and there is quite a lot I could be doing to help and support pump users. More on this at a later date, I expect.

The conference. It turned out to be pretty difficult getting funding to attend the conference. I approached the dietetic and diabetes departments and every industry manufacturer and rep that came within two feet of me, which was bordering on humiliating and completely fruitless. In the end, a colleague managed to get a company to pay our attendance fee, but nobody would stump up for accommodation. We eventually had to apply for funding to the hospital's charitable funds, and I got an email 15 minutes before the end of my last working day before the conference letting me know the accommodation cost had been approved. I won't get any reimbursement for travel.

Apart from this, the conference experience was excellent. Being fairly new to diabetes I hadn't been to this event before, but in my old life I had staged a conference with my team and have been to many in this country and in the USA. This one had a lot more money spent on it by the Pharma companies exhibiting and sponsoring the talks than in the world of disability and visual impairment, which shouldn't really have been a surprise.

I saw too much to write about here, but the highlights included:

• a heated 'debate' between one maverick Dietitian who is promoting a diet high in saturated fat, and the rest of the dietetic community who don't believe that the evidence is strong enough to support this approach
• a session on exercise and Type 1 Diabetes (this is one of the most complicated areas I've encountered yet)
• a very useful summary of pump usage given that I'm going to be focusing on this area, and 
• links with various people who talked to me about whether and how their NHS employer allows them to use state of the art technologies.

So lastly, my low carbers. I started to worry that the group would fizzle out - a few people have left, either because they are successful or because they can't manage it any longer, which is why I'm so keen to create something online to help them. For this month's meeting I bought a cookbook of Low Carb Gluten Free Vegetarian recipes which source their protein mainly from eggs, cheese and tofu, and I reckoned the group probably hadn't cooked with tofu before. So I cooked one of the recipes (teriyaki tofu with broccoli), bought a few different types of tofu (firm, silken, marinated) for the group to taste, and printed a selection of tofu recipes. It was one of the most successful meetings so far. And they are all doing well, still losing weight and maintaining great blood glucose control.