Spring is officially here and true to form, the British weather turned warm at the weekend only for it to be wetter than a whale's blowhole today. That, and our recent arctic blast means the climate for our corner of the world remains as schizophrenic as ever, although pan-Europe there has been unusual weather recently (global warming/environmental degradation anyone?).
However, the clocks revert to BST (British Summer Time) this Sunday which allows more daylight and with lengthening days, more time for boys and girls to spend out at play amongst the bars, pubs and parks of Londinium Town - plus it's Easter bank holiday weekend. So the outlook is definitely brighter (whatever the weather decides to do).
22.3.05
16.3.05
State Of Contagion
It seems to be the time of year that various strains of flu and the common cold are circulating amongst the masses. At home and work people are coughing and hacking, plus there are plentiful virus-rich sneezes circulating the public domain (like the one which shot into my airspace courtesy of a woman sitting next to me on the tube last week, and to which I attribute my current sore throat and phlegmy cough). The state of the nation is officially: ILL.
It's almost party-time for viruses with ill people struggling into work dousing others with their abundance of contagion on the transport system and at the workplace. The old Catch-22 situation of knowing you're ill but not feeling so bad that you could take a day off (maybe because you skived one recently following that heavy mid-week drinking session?). So you struggle into work coughing and sneezing whilst Mr and Mrs Virus get to perpetuate their little viral debilitations around train carriages, buses and in offices.
Perhaps we should start wearing those surgical masks which people in Hong Kong and China were wearing during the Sars outbreak over there - it would have saved me from that tube sneeze last week, if not from looking like a commuting extra from ER.
It's almost party-time for viruses with ill people struggling into work dousing others with their abundance of contagion on the transport system and at the workplace. The old Catch-22 situation of knowing you're ill but not feeling so bad that you could take a day off (maybe because you skived one recently following that heavy mid-week drinking session?). So you struggle into work coughing and sneezing whilst Mr and Mrs Virus get to perpetuate their little viral debilitations around train carriages, buses and in offices.
Perhaps we should start wearing those surgical masks which people in Hong Kong and China were wearing during the Sars outbreak over there - it would have saved me from that tube sneeze last week, if not from looking like a commuting extra from ER.
2.3.05
Cold Cold Music
It's so COLD - not an excuse for a lack of productivity (at work, blogging or otherwise) but I'm writing this post one-handed with the other keeping warm under my armpit. I have the feeling that the people who set the air-conditioning in my office building have the heat regulatory systems of penguins because they seem to think it's too hot.
Went to visit my musician friend JM yesterday and his wife and baby daughter to see how they all were. He told me about some of his latest work which involves doing some stuff for Vital Arts, a kind of arts charity set up within the NHS (National Health Service) Trust, whereby he has a 12 week residency at a central London hospital. They're paying him to go in and play music for a few hours each week in various hospital departments including the chemotherapy and the dialysis wards. This makes sense as these patients have to sit still for long periods of time whilst they're being treated for illnesses which they have already acknowledged, so they actually appreciate some kind of diversion.
What isn't so understandable is when he was sent to play in the room for women awaiting the results of their mammograms. Sure, the intention was to soothe them with some relaxing live music, but the reality is that these women were in a small room fretfully waiting to see if those lumps in their breasts were malignant tumours. Probably the last thing they wanted was some musician sitting in the corner playing some tune, no matter how soothing. You'd have thought that some member of the hospital management might have considered this.
These people need at least some privacy in their heads, if forcibly made to wait in a room full of strangers. So it's obvious how well a male sitarist trying to play discreetly in the corner of a small room full of anxious women waiting to see if they had breast cancer went down - one of JM's more thankless gigs and the poor guy was only doing his job. He received a few terse comments but the only way the frosty situation could have got any worse was if he'd played Monty Python's 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' - at least he wouldn't have been too far away from the A&E (Accident & Emergency) department.
Went to visit my musician friend JM yesterday and his wife and baby daughter to see how they all were. He told me about some of his latest work which involves doing some stuff for Vital Arts, a kind of arts charity set up within the NHS (National Health Service) Trust, whereby he has a 12 week residency at a central London hospital. They're paying him to go in and play music for a few hours each week in various hospital departments including the chemotherapy and the dialysis wards. This makes sense as these patients have to sit still for long periods of time whilst they're being treated for illnesses which they have already acknowledged, so they actually appreciate some kind of diversion.
What isn't so understandable is when he was sent to play in the room for women awaiting the results of their mammograms. Sure, the intention was to soothe them with some relaxing live music, but the reality is that these women were in a small room fretfully waiting to see if those lumps in their breasts were malignant tumours. Probably the last thing they wanted was some musician sitting in the corner playing some tune, no matter how soothing. You'd have thought that some member of the hospital management might have considered this.
These people need at least some privacy in their heads, if forcibly made to wait in a room full of strangers. So it's obvious how well a male sitarist trying to play discreetly in the corner of a small room full of anxious women waiting to see if they had breast cancer went down - one of JM's more thankless gigs and the poor guy was only doing his job. He received a few terse comments but the only way the frosty situation could have got any worse was if he'd played Monty Python's 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' - at least he wouldn't have been too far away from the A&E (Accident & Emergency) department.
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