we’re all (probably) doomed
This Swine flu thing seems to have gone very quiet. I’m upgrading my assessment to ‘we’re all probably doomed’, though not in a scottish accent as i’m not very good at one. Let’s set the scene with my blog post from blog version 1 on 30th april this year shall we and I will update:
The world is awash with news articles about swine flu. Who’d have thought it? For the past many years we have been vigilantly watching the chickens just incase one of them sneezes in a malicious manner and we now see the fruition of the pigs’ grand scheme. Get them worried about the chickens and we’ll catch them off guard. corner the market. “all new formulation swine flu – now comes with cravings for fajitas”
I must admit I had been wondering where the annual flu scare had gone to over the winter period, I guess it was put on a back burner till we all started to get fed up with all the banks going into meltdown.
But life goes on, and if the rest of the world seems to have a weaker strain of the flu then thats probably all the better if it sweeps this country in its weaker state. Then, if it mutates again, as it surely will, probably in time for the next cold and flu season to give us a second wave at the tail end of the year, at least we’ll be partially resistant to a potentially worse variation on the theme, and we’ll have the annual vaccines ready for it. We’ve apparently got a stockpile of drugs for half the country, it would be a shame to see it all go out of date, tamiflu is pretty expensive, and it probably goes quite well with a sour cream and tortilla side serving.
As the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy says on its front cover in large friendly letters – Don’t Panic.
and here we are four weeks later and it’s all gone quiet. The press has decided it’s more fun to regail us with stories of duck houses and mortgage payments, and witter on about the trials and tribulations of the latest contestants on whatever reality tv show happens to be on when deadline approaches. And yet every now and again there will be this little piece about another confirmed case of H1N1, which sounds more like a game of battleships than this years cause of armageddon.
This had led me to the conclusion that we find ourselves playing out the plotline of a movie. It’s like the opening portion of a film, where everyone is merrily going about their daily lives paying little attention to the tiny stories in the middle of the newspaper telling of the dead suddenly climbing out of their graves and wandering around saying “braaaains…” just before all hell lets loose and the world is taken over by a zombie army led by one of the characters from Thunderbirds.
I’m going to predict October, just after the papers have finished their global warming season of saying “oooh, summer is going on too long, the world will be turned to sand by next tuesday.” It’s going to coincide with Economy Crash 2: Japan Falls because news on the recession has gone suspiciously quiet as well.
To sum up if you couldn’t be bothered to read all that: Swine Flu 2. It’s coming. Duck and cover.
Caravans and Drugs.
It’s a bank holiday weekend. I could tell, there was a marked increase in caravans on the road yesterday (friday) even as I set off to work at 7am. Must get the best plot etc etc. I used to play a game when passenger in a car on a long journey, imagining that I had a bazooka or some other giant explosive projectile flinging device and making the caravans that were in front of us explode into tiny pieces. It was quite fun to do with the chemical lorries as well, wondering what was in them and would that create a bigger bang.
I don’t know if that was healthy or not… but it passed the time.
The bank holiday rush does mystify me somewhat, eveyone rushing off somewhere, knowing that they will be stuck in traffic and it will probably rain when they get there only to have to get stuck in traffic again on the way home, and generally creating surges in demand and making other peoples lives less enjoyable as a result.
One of the ways this impacts, and it is something I don’t miss now I spend less time dealing with the public in a pharmacy, is the sudden rush of demand for prescriptions in the week leading upto a bank holiday. Christmas and Easter are the worst by far, but any weekday that is a holiday is attended the week before by increased demand, with the feeling by the end of the week that the bank holiday is needed to recover from the week before. It is like the public decide collectively that the world is going to end over the bank holiday so they had better get their medication early just in case. One thing I would say about this mentality is that if the world does end, then you are probably not going to need your medication. My current checking record is about 1200 prescription items along with a second pharmacist to help in the morning over the course of a 10 hour day.
I shouldn’t complain about people getting their medication early, it is the people who fail to order their medication and then come in to your shop demanding you give them their tablets straight away. This annoys me at times on more than one level. Fair enough people occasionally genuinely forget and this is only human, but I think that if you have an illness that requires medication you should take some responsibility yourself for your wellbeing and not expect others to look after you with no effort on your part. Not many people realise that supplying a prescription only medication (the stuff that stays in the dispensary) without a valid prescription is illegal. I guess it shows that people are more than happy to tell other people to break the law when it brings them percieved personal benefit.
That is not to say that in an emergency a pharmacist will stand by and laugh while you expire on the shop floor. For starters they’d probably not want the mess of your expired form on the shop floor as someone (one of the long suffering assistants) would have to clean it up. Secondly, it would discourage customers to have a dead body to step round on the way to the toiletries. Finally we are obliged to ensure we act in the patients best interests, though what the patient thinks is in their best interests and what the pharmacist sees as the best interests of the patient do not always sync. Emergency supplies are something that pharmacists are allowed to provide, to supply a prescribed medication to cover an immediate need. The NHS doesn’t cover these and so people are often suprised to find they have to pay to cover the cost of the medication, a lot of which is quite expensive. Experience shows that as soon as you mention the money aspect the emergency quickly evaporates away.
Bit of a rant there. Didn’t mean it to be. Guess it shows how one thought leads to another. One last thing to say – my thoughts are my own, and may or may not coincide with the company I work for, for those of you who know which one it is.
To soothe the brain after the above, how about a nice picture. I can’t find anything with a nice relaxing blue theme, so how about green. Just stare at the screen and let your brain slowly switch off.
Clouds 2
Yes it’s cloud time again. Mainly because yesterday evening the sun managed to catch a pleasingly lit bank of cumulus cloud off in the distance. This was probably the decaying remains of one of the series of clouds that conspired yesterday to dump rain everywhere at random intervals leaving people confused as to whether to mow the lawn and do the garden as it traditional on a sunday.
Increasingly the world is getting busier on sundays, it used to be a day of rest. Now it is a day to run around manically to get things done that there isn’t time for in the rest of the week. The main roads round here are often as busy on a sunday as rush hour is during the week. This should never be so. If we don’t have a chance to stop and breathe every once in a while we will quickly suffocate ourselves. Perhaps you can tell I subscribe to the view that sunday is a day to take time out, to do things slowly and just enjoy a bit of space in life.
But then i’m one to talk. What did my sunday consist of this week? I spent most of the day writing, or rather typing. I got so focused on it I looked up at the clock and realised I had forgotten about lunch. It’s not even brought me back on track, I’m still a chapter behind where I wanted to be right now. However, the day I spent yesterday writing about took longer that I thought it would. It’s difficult to know where to stop with something like this and I am hoping I strike the right balence with it. I have put enough effort into the writing now that I am wanting people to be interested and have a read and enjoy what I have written, even though this project started off as me recording my memories of the trip for my own personal enjoyment, and as a record that won’t be destroyed by a computer hard drive crash or an over zealous tidying spree. Its hard to accidentally bin a hardback book.
So to finish off this post, a quick, unedited, uncleaned sentence or two from chapter four ‘Hike on a Volcano’
Very slowly we make our way down to the cobble beach to the zodiac and the little pile of red life jackets. In our absence it seems the penguins have found these things an interesting diversion as there is now penguin guano all over them. Trying to pick a fairly clean one I resolve to make sure I get a different one on the way back from our next trip to shore.
Cloudy
The day is grey, one of those flat lifeless skies that carries on for ever. The thunder last night just added to the rain that had fallen for most of the day. Summer storms freshen, spring storms only make the world feel damp.
Thunderstorms always have an impact though. They act as tie to a memory in their noise and showiness. I remember rehearsing my lines for the 8th year musical with the rain pounding the window and the thunder rolling around. It was one of those storms that passes right over and we got that exhilarating lightning flash with immediate thunderclap that lets you hear the air being ripped apart by the electricity.
I remember being distracted from the finale of a show called Murder One. I wouldn’t remember the show if it wasn’t for the storm. Because my room was being decorated at the time following a slight problem with a water leak the room was down to the floorboards and without the curtains so it was hard not to be distracted.
But its all I can do if theres a storm about to run to the window and watch the unfolding spectacle of nature. The best thing that is thrown at us in this small part of the UK. There doesn’t seem to be as many spectacular storms as there used to be, but thats probably selective memory. 
And in the course of writing this post the sky has started to clear. Patches of blue have appeared alongside the ragged grey and white clouds. I don’t like a completely blue sky, I prefer mine with clouds in, it makes the sky more interesting.
The Cloud Appreciation Society knows what I mean. Here’s to clouds.
A Bedtime Story
Once upon a time there was a little rabbit called Ernie. Ernie was a happy soul who like nothing more that hopping around in flower filled meadows where happy little birds sang their little hearts out from the branches of the big old oak tree. The oak tree was very old and very large and the birds happily flocked to it to sing their songs. “Tweet tweet” went the birds all day long while little Ernie frollicked and hopped about in the meadow.
Sometimes, Ernie would play a game hopping from molehill to molehill and seeing how far he could go before running out of the little hills. Ernie hadn’t been able to do that much recently. Ever since Farmer Cornbottom from the nearly farm had accidentally spilt a large quantity of strychnine there weren’t many molehills anymore. What a shame thought Ernie, I did like playing that game.
One day Ernie was happily hopping along and near the fence to the farmers field he found something big and round and red that was stuck on the fence. Ernie didn’t know what it was and being a curious and happy and carefree soul he took hold of the string that was attached to it and he hopped away, hippety hop, hippety hop, with the strange red object bumping along merrily behind.
When he got to the big old oak tree Ernie shouted out to Sandford the wise owl that lived right at the top of the tree. “Sandford” shouted Ernie merrily “I’ve found this strange red object and I don’t know what it is”
Sandford appeared at the top of the tree. “I’m trying to sleep” said Sandford “Don’t you remember me telling you what nocturnal meant yesterday”
“I know” Said Ernie excitedly “But I wasn’t listening yesterday and I’m so happy and carefree and if you use words longer than two syllables I get bored and go back to frolicking happily in the meadow”
“all right” said Sandford wearily “I shall tell you and then I shall go and find some breakfast. What you have there young rabbit is a balloon, but whatever you do don’t let go of it or it will fly away from you”
“I won’t” said Ernie.
Just then all the little birds came out to look at what Ernie had found. “Hello everyone” said Ernie happily, and Ernie waved at all the birds in the tree. As Ernie waved at the birds he let go of the balloon. “Oh no!” said Ernie as the balloon sailed upwards.
“The balloon is coming to get us” cried the birds “quick fly away” and all the birds flew out of the tree. With all the birds suddenly gone the tree became unbalenced because it was so old and rotten.
CRASH! went the tree as it fell to the ground.
SPLAT! went Ernie under the tree.
And the little red balloon floated happily away, its work was done.
“Rabbit for breakfast then” said Sandford the Owl and he flew off to find another tree for a nice long post breakfast nap.
the end.
The Lack of Inspiration Tree
A shiny new Blog and the inspiration runs out. Easy to predict I guess but should try and keep things going to make sure it doesn’t stall. The blog isn’t the only thing thats on a go slow at the moment, so is the journal. Need to devote some serious time to it if I want to get it done, and done well. It should be very nice and book like when it is done. I have found myself doing the classic anything else but that ploy, so the layout is already set up as is the front and back cover. I have also sorted out the various charging plugs in the study and found 2 from ex mobile phones and one that I’m not sure what its for.
Which is all very boring for you the reader. I wish I had something interesting or exciting to mention but its just exam marking and meetings at the moment.
So how about a nice picture to tide you over…
Look.. a tree.. how nice. It can be called The Lack of Inspiration Tree.
The Lack of Inspiration Tree is an evergreen tree that spreads by an unusual method. It feeds on Human inspiration by draining it from people standing nearby via its root system. It stores this inspiration in its leaves and once its has built up a sufficient reserve will produce fluffy seeds that disperse on the wind. These seeds can travel a long way before finding a suitable place for germination. They are mostly found in the most scenic places as this provides them with a large supply of human inspiration from passing walkers admiring the view. Some people believe that chewing the leaves of the tree will provide them with an easy source of inspiration and it is the leaves lower in the tree that contain the greatest concentrations of this as they are the oldest leaves. However, in the quantities that the tree stores, inspiration acts as a mild poison causing headaches and nausea in small doses and in larger doses incoherence and delusions.
of ships and flowers…
Well inspiration has failed to strike, it’s just too nice outside so I’ve been wandering around in the garden, which is currently a riot of different shades of green. The other colours seem strangely absent, there’s a splash here and there but I though spring meant that the garden becomes colourful and nice. Maybe i’ve planted the wrong stuff. So focused on getting the late colour i’ve forgotten about the early stuff.
There’s a couple of nice examples though…
Thought i’d post a very short excerpt from my journal so far. I am writing it up so I can put it into book form with the aim of having it done and dusted by late july. I am currently about 9000 words in to my Antarctic trip and have only just landed on the south shetland islands. Hopefully there will be two version, one version for me that will contain a lot more pictures and some that I have from other people and the other version which I will make available to purchace that will have the journal in it along with slightly fewer photos, all of which will bemine. This may cause me some problems with the final part of the adventure as I stopped taking 
photos when the ship grounded. So I have very few photos of the rescue, though it is still in my head in vivid detail (as is all of the trip).
Anyway, to introduce the excerpt: this comes from day three of the expedition. I refuse to call it a holiday, a holiday is where you lay around for a week or two achieving nothing. An expedition is where you go and find yourself somewhere new and exciting. This is taken from the middle of the Drake Passage:
“The morning comes with the growing awareness that I am sliding from one end of the bed to the other. Up and down, up and down, it’s quite fun. The cabin is creaking away, there are various clangs, and thuds as either the coat hangers in the cupboard slide with the ship or the bin that is attached to the wall at the top only slaps back against the wall. I get up and immediately slide across the cabin unable to gain a hold on the cabin carpet”
and so it begins… again
Hello there,
and so this blog appears, not that it’s the first but I thought using a specific blog site would be better than the blog that my webpage offers me. After all it’s free and I can link between them.
Who knows what the blog will comtain over time, if experience shows it will be a mix of anything and everything. Work, home and ramdom bits of madness that occasionally appear. If a particular blogpost makes you go “eh?” stick with it because the next one will probably be completely different.
I’m going to leave my original blog at www.mostlylost.com in situ because I don’t believe I can port it straight over.
With that and until i’m suitably inspired (or not) to write again, enjoy…
