July 20, 2008

Time out

Some good news. They brought forward the date of my op - I'm going in Tuesday and should be out the same day. Then I'm going to take a few weeks out, spend some time in Pembrokeshire with the family and generally go easy on myself.



Have a good summer. I'll be back in September.

Update

Before I go, I just thought I'd let you know about two recent additions to my blogroll. You might want to check them out:

Baroque in Hackney: A blog by poet and writer Katy Evans-Bush. Her Normblog profile can be found here.

Cobb: "Curious, sceptical, analytical" - that's my kind of blogger! Normblog profile here.

Okay, that's it - I'm outa here!

July 18, 2008

Israel versus Iran

Adam LeBor at Harry's Place links to a disturbing op-ed in yesterday's New York Times:-
Benny Morris, the famed Israeli historian, argues in the New York Times that Israel will ‘almost surely’ attack Iran’s nuclear facilities in the next four to seven months. His scenario of the possible consequences is terrifying. Registration is required, so here is the whole article. It’s grim reading.
It is indeed but I can't fault Morris's analysis of the situation - I've been thinking much the same thing for some time.

Blogging issues

David T at Harry's Place:
"I’m not sure about the new direction Pickled Politics has taken, of late."
Oh good. It's not just me then.

July 13, 2008

Poetry corner

(From Robert Frost's "West Running Brook", Holt 1928)

Acquainted with the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

Modern Britain

The latest government initiative to defeat knife crime:-
Young people who carry knives will be made to visit hospitals where stabbing victims are treated, in a bid to shock them into changing their behaviour.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said seeing "gruesome" injuries would be a tougher deterrent than sending all knife carriers in England and Wales to jail.
Regardless of the effect it might have on the future behavior of offenders (which I imagine would be negligible), if you're lying in hospital having recently been stabbed, I would have thought the last thing you'd want is a bunch of young offenders on knife crime charges at your bedside. Still, what do I know, I'm not a politician.

Of course, if this idea works out it could usefully be extended to other categories of offenders. So, instead of sending convicted murderers to prison we could just give them a guided tour of the local morgue. And if that doesn't deter them, send them back for another visit. Maybe they'll get the idea, eventually.

Weekend reading

Dale at Faith in Honest Doubt is hosting Humanist Symposium #22.

Clive Davis reviews John McWhorter's latest book "All About the Beat: Why Hiphop Can’t Save Black America".

Spiked has an extract from Kenan Malik's new book "Strange Fruit: Why Both Sides are Wrong in the Race Debate".

The Spectator: British Muslims don’t want sharia law.

July 11, 2008

It's a cracker

"It's a frackin' cracker!"

Independent reading

Just purchased: "American Scripture: How America Declared its Independence from Britain" by Pauline Maier.

From Richard Ryason's review in the New York Times:-
The most original contribution of "American Scripture" [is] Maier's setting both the congressional decision to break with Britain and the Declaration itself in the context of some 90 other "declarations" of independence issued between April and early July 1776 by Massachusetts towns; New York and Pennsylvania artisan and militia associations; counties in New York, Maryland and Virginia; South Carolina grand juries; and the provincial congresses of nine colonies.
[...]
She is apparently the first historian to accord such attention to these local declarations, and in so doing, she greatly advances her argument that the Declaration of Independence was indeed "an expression of the American mind."

July 07, 2008

Unhealth update

So, I made it the hospital for my pre-op assessment and promptly collapsed. When I came round, I was linked up to an ECG. Thankfully, my heart's okay but my blood pressure is all over the place - it keeps dropping away to abnormally low levels and when that happens I fall over.

Still, if you're going to collapse then a hospital is the best place to do it. They let me out, eventually, after which I walked home (sometimes I do the dumbest things), got in and collapsed again.

Looking on the bright side, my performance at the hospital today seems to have convinced them to try and bump me up the list. I may not have to wait another five weeks for the op.

In the meantime, I've become acutely aware that my well-being is critically dependent on a bunch of pink tubes and squishy internal machinery, some of which ain't working so good, right now.

Anyway, in case you haven't already guessed, I won't be doing much blogging for a while.

July 03, 2008

Thursday roundabout

Iraq today: Bruno Mota in a guest post at Harry's Place reviews the state of play in Iraq.

At Normblog: Eve Garrard's letter of resignation from the UCU.

Myth busting at Savage Minds: "Are there ‘uncontacted tribes’? The short answer: No."

Zoe Brain takes a look at developments in brain mapping using diffusion MRI technology.

And finally,

Riverdale Make-Over: The Changing Face of Big Ethel.

Random quote

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

Abraham Lincoln

Random picture

Fantasy food

Last night, if I wasn't on a low fat diet, we'd have had murghi badami for dinner (it's a richer version of chicken korma cooked in yoghurt and single cream), instead we had plain baked chicken with boiled vegetables.

I miss cooking. Really, I do. I miss it so much I spend time each day thinking about what we'd be having if I was well enough to eat the kind of food I usually cook. I've got a whole week's worth of virtual meals all planned out: fajitas, kofta bhoona, kheema mattar, lamb pasanda, beef madras. And then there's the sides: nachos, pakoras, bhajiyas, assorted fried dumplings etc.

I'm really looking forward to eating real food again. The boys are looking forward to it too - they miss my cooking even more than I do.