The radio in my car is fairly permanently tuned in to Radio 2 - Chris Evans on the way to work and Simon Mayo on the way home. Sometimes when I am in the car around lunchtime, I am tempted to turn over to something else, as I'm not mad on the Jeremy Vine show, but during my travelling from Guildford to Brighton today, the segment of his show devoted to letters from the front line during World War One was quite something.
As I have mentioned, I am reading a book about letters at the moment, but haven't reached the 20th Century just yet, so it will be interesting to see how much time is spent on WW1 correspondence when I get to it.
A lot of the background to the radio show piece can be found in the BBC website's magazine article here.
There were a few things that just amazed me about the story. Firstly there was the amazing organisation and efficiency, dealing with billions of letters throughout the war period, and being able to get correspondence back and forth from everywhere in the world that soldiers were serving. Then there was the censorship - a massive exercise undertaken to ensure that no sensitive military information got out, but also the censoring of anything that might cause morale to fall. And finally, and most movingly of all was the volume of unopened mail that was returned to the sorting offices because the intended recipient had been killed in action. 30,000 letters every day. The postal service even ensured that the unopened letters were not returned to the senders until the official telegram with the dreadful news had been delivered.
Here's an extract from one of the letters, transcribed using the online "listen again" service:
Private Vic Jones of the Cheshire Regiment to his wife, 21 November 1917:
"Don't worry yourself about me darling, I'm quite alright, but I'm terribly homesick. I'm not staying in Blighty if I get out of this alright. I never want anything more to do with the so-called civilised Christian people. They're not fit to associate with the boys who've so willingly risked their lives in defence of something which they never possessed, only in name. Often since I've been out here if I've heard a fellow say "It isn't worth it", I've thought very seriously over those few words, and have come to the conclusion that it isn't worth it. Heaven, if there is such a place, is not worth the sacrifice of life which has been made this last three and a half years, much less Blighty. Wouldn't it be fine if it would finish before Christmas. My one cherished ambition is to see you and Cliff again, and I hope that ambition will soon be realised."
Friday, 31 January 2014
Thursday, 30 January 2014
Membership Magic
News from DVC today that they are launching something called "Membership Magic". Looks essentially like a way of bundling up some special offers to tempt us with. It's good to see that some member offers on passes have arrived, but sadly they are nothing like as good as the half price deal that was going a couple of years ago. Looks like it's possible to get a premium annual pass for about the same money as the UK 14 day ticket deal. The other ones that have caught our eye so far are member exclusive evenings at Splitsville and at some of the spas. Still work out fairly expensive, but its seems like they throw in some upgrades and/or extra treats along the way.
We'll have to keep investigating and see whether we want to take advantage of any of these offers nearer the time.
In the meantime, we are under 180 days to go now, so may have to start contemplating some restaurant bookings.
We'll have to keep investigating and see whether we want to take advantage of any of these offers nearer the time.
In the meantime, we are under 180 days to go now, so may have to start contemplating some restaurant bookings.
Wednesday, 29 January 2014
Home defeat
So, Horizon tonight concludes with the fact that completely cutting out sugar could be very bad for you and potentially put you at risk of diabetes.
The main conclusion seems to be to avoid processed foods which contain a mixture of both sugar and fat together. They seemed to single out cheesecake for a particularly hard time - which was distressing to see, obviously.
Right, off to watch mid week MOTD now - might be rather painful viewing for Spurs fans!
The main conclusion seems to be to avoid processed foods which contain a mixture of both sugar and fat together. They seemed to single out cheesecake for a particularly hard time - which was distressing to see, obviously.
Right, off to watch mid week MOTD now - might be rather painful viewing for Spurs fans!
Tuesday, 28 January 2014
Messages
Messages:
Mum - great to have you up and running and a new member of the iPad club, even if you did beat me at our first game of chess. Expect lots of requests for rematches!
Dad - my solution in seven steps (if we call the 8 unit jug A, the 5 unit jug B and the 3 unit jug C):
Pour A to B, B to C, C to A, B to C, A to B, B to C and finally C to A!
Mum - great to have you up and running and a new member of the iPad club, even if you did beat me at our first game of chess. Expect lots of requests for rematches!
Dad - my solution in seven steps (if we call the 8 unit jug A, the 5 unit jug B and the 3 unit jug C):
Pour A to B, B to C, C to A, B to C, A to B, B to C and finally C to A!
Monday, 27 January 2014
Weighty issues
Maybe I shouldn't have a weekly weigh in on a Monday morning, it can make the start of a new working week so much more fun!
The news was this morning was that despite losing a few pounds over the last couple of weeks, today I was exactly back to where I started. Hardly surprising really given that in the last week I had put away:
- a GBK takeaway
- a whole box of chocolate fingers
- chocolate cookies
- a fair few lattes
- a praline danish
- a fishfinger sandwich
- omelette and chips from the chinese
- a three course meal out including pecan pie for pudding
- a roast dinner.
In fact, looking at that list it is a wonder I hadn't ended up worse off than when I started!
Back on the straight and narrow (mostly) today - breakfast biccies, green tea, water, small sushi box for lunch, apple, satsuma, half a bag of nuts, and spag bol for tea.
The news was this morning was that despite losing a few pounds over the last couple of weeks, today I was exactly back to where I started. Hardly surprising really given that in the last week I had put away:
- a GBK takeaway
- a whole box of chocolate fingers
- chocolate cookies
- a fair few lattes
- a praline danish
- a fishfinger sandwich
- omelette and chips from the chinese
- a three course meal out including pecan pie for pudding
- a roast dinner.
In fact, looking at that list it is a wonder I hadn't ended up worse off than when I started!
Back on the straight and narrow (mostly) today - breakfast biccies, green tea, water, small sushi box for lunch, apple, satsuma, half a bag of nuts, and spag bol for tea.
Sunday, 26 January 2014
Framed
A productive day at home today, starting with a trip to Thurrock to go to Ikea. It was just as well that we stayed at home for breakfast, otherwise we would have been there before it opened.
Our shopping trolley this time comprised of a new desk for Jake, a large number of picture frames to start the framing marathon that we need to work through to get some of our collection of artwork up on the walls, plus a load of clothes hangers to help with continuing to sort out wardrobes.
As can be seen from the pictures, some good progress was then made this afternoon putting things together / up.
Our shopping trolley this time comprised of a new desk for Jake, a large number of picture frames to start the framing marathon that we need to work through to get some of our collection of artwork up on the walls, plus a load of clothes hangers to help with continuing to sort out wardrobes.
As can be seen from the pictures, some good progress was then made this afternoon putting things together / up.
Saturday, 25 January 2014
Dreaming
I woke up this morning with the remains of a dream floating around in my head. It always seems to be the case with me that when I dream (which I don't think is all that often) I have a vague recollection of the subject matter when I wake up, but that it fairly quickly dissipates followed by occasional snippets of reminders over the following hour or so.
This dream seems to have been fairly jam-packed, as I can definitely recall it featuring family, home, work, colleagues, travel, and even some plot lines inspired by last night's TV! I wonder if it is just a case of my mind trying to process and sort the contents of a busy week. Also, isn't it the case that dreams are more likely to occur in the shallower, pre-waking part of sleep, and so more likely to occur at the weekend when there isn't an alarm call, and more of an opportunity to slumber before getting up to face the day?
I have a theory that those sorts of later-rising days are more risky from a migraine perspective. You know the fuzzy-headed feeling of having stayed in bed a bit too long? Sometimes for me that can feel very similar to the early indications of a potential migraine. As for whether I then worry that my fuzzy feeling feels a bit migraine-ish and I manage to inadvertently induce one, or whether there is an actual connection, who knows. Maybe my next visit to the neurologist will be enlightening.
For it is back to the neurologist I go. The trip to London on Thursday to see the cardiologist was an 'interesting' one. The place we went to was just off Harley Street, and was very unlike any medical facility I have been to before. I think it was going for an ambiance somewhere between upmarket office and boutique hotel, but it all felt very forced. We all knew, even the posh sense-of-entitlement Belgravia types by whom I felt like I was surrounded, that we were there to see the doctor.
And the doctor himself, he said no to doing the operation. Gradually, we are coming around to the fact that, given that it seems like he is one of the leading exponents in the country of PFO closure (including dropping into conversation that he invented one of the techniques) then clearly we have to bow to his superior knowledge, and if he said the likelihood of not improving the migraines whilst at the same time making the AF worse is a real one, then we need to accept that. It's just disappointing that, even accepting the fact that we shouldn't have done so, we'd kind of gotten our hopes up that a PFO closure could be a real step in the right direction. Now we are back to see the neurologist (and Nicky was straight on the phone to his secretary yesterday and I'm booked in to see him the week after next) and we feel like we have come full circle without any meaningful progress. OK, so we know I have a PFO, but then again, as everyone keeps reminding us (including our Harley Street specialist who took great delight in telling us that he has one as well - although on reflection I can't help but wonder - how does he know that he's got one?! If, as he was at pains to point out, lots of people have one but it doesn't cause them any health issues at all, doesn't that also mean that lots of people have one and are also blissfully unaware of the fact? If you know you've got one, doesn't that mean you have had some health issue or symptoms that have caused you to go looking for it?), so do lots of people, but just knowing it is of no benefit at this stage if there are no plans to do anything about it. So it will be interesting to see the neurologist again. A lot of what's happened in the last couple of months stemmed from his question, "Why do you have AF?" to which I didn't have a ready answer. Next time he asks it, I'm not actually sure that I have much of a better answer. I can tell him that I have a PFO, but I don't actually think anyone has suggested that it is the cause of AF in the first place.
A trip to London on Thursday took me away from work for half a day. It didn't mean that I didn't end up still doing a full day's work (I think I knocked off just before midnight) but it did mean that I got to spend a bit of time with Nicky, which was a rare pleasure this week given that I was staying in Brighton from Monday through to Friday, with just a brief return for parents evening along with the trip to London on Thursday. Work seemed to go OK. As always when sending a report to Dallas at this point in proceedings, the word 'Draft' gets bandied about a fair bit. In amongst the Brighton-Dallas work, there were a few other things going on as well - talking to a partner in LA to explain that it's not our fault that our Dutch office sent a file to us very late, meeting a new client (also in Brighton) along with a manager from Chicago, and getting a report sent off to the Austrian firm, to name but a few.
One of the bits of light relief at the end of the work week was that the team in Brighton have been keeping track of the comedy quotes that people have been coming up with whilst working there over the last few months, and sent round a summary of them on Friday. Gave us all a good chuckle at the end of another busy week.
Whilst in Brighton this week, I finished off my Oliver Burkeman 'Happy!' book, which was an excellent read. Actually, it's not entirely accurate to say that I have finished it, as the final chapter contains some of his sources and ideas for additional reading, and I'm taking my time in working through that, as I keep getting distracted and looking up some of the on-line sources. One that was particularly interesting was an article about the idea of living without constantly being under pressure to set, monitor progress against, and achieve, a whole load of objectives and goals. To me, as someone who spends far too long worrying about meeting both professional and personal objectives, this seems like an idea which is equal parts alarming and freeing! Worth a read, it can be found here.
Having finished Happy!, I moved on to the Simon Garfield letters book, as I mentioned in Thursday's blog, and I'm enjoying that one too. We've arrived in the Elizabethan age so far, and the discussion at the moment is about how the postal service worked (or frequently didn't work) in those days. Maybe it's a little ironic to be going on about that particular book in my blog, as one of the main points that the book seeks to make is about the special nature of letters, and how they can teach us so much about how people lived and communicated through the ages. The demise of letter-writing, which has been hastened by the arrival of the internet age, does pose some interesting questions for what resources future historians will have at their disposal to understand the lives of people living in the early twenty-first century. After all, it is in the everyday correspondence from hundreds of years ago that we get to learn the most, and the question is, will the everyday correspondence from our age still be around and available to future generations? It will either be available in abundance, if on-line activity is archived in such a way to still be accessible, or maybe the vast majority will disappear and get forgotten as technology changes and moves forward. I certainly don't feel like I have any particularly direct control over whether this blog will be preserved (not that I am suggesting in any way that it has any content particularly worthy of preservation!), as, if Blogger were to decide to shut up shop tomorrow, it would all disappear from view, and I don't have any backup copies of all my inane ramblings - I'm not even sure whether it is possible to take an offline backup of one of these blogs. Maybe I should ask Ms Shrewsday about the possibilities of getting the whole lot printed out (thereby relying on a centuries old 'backup' method!) as I think that she has managed to get some of her writings printed as a book.
(By the way, thinking internet-related thoughts, Stephen Fry's most recent blog was particularly interesting. I never knew that Tim Berners-Lee and Steve Jobs came so close to meeting without actually managing to do so. Who knows how things might have developed had Sir Tim been able to show the infant internet to the visionary Jobs?)
Interestingly, both of the last two books that I have been reading have made a mention of the same book, and I'm pretty sure that the same book got a mention in one of the books I read last year as well (probably The Art of Fielding). The book in question is Walden, by Thoreau, and given that it keeps popping up, I think that I might have to pick up a copy and give it a go - see whether he made any startling discoveries whilst living by the Pond.
The final book that has been dipped into this week has been Johnny Ball's puzzle book, and opening the book at a random page I found this puzzle:
You have three milk jugs which will hold 8, 5 and 3 units of milk. The largest jug is full of milk. Can you split the milk into two equal 4-unit measures, just using the three jugs and no other measuring devices?
I'd been mulling this problem over in my head for the last few days, and whilst I had a few ideas, didn't have a solution, so I've just committed pencil to paper, and have found an answer. The interesting thing is that it takes me seven pouring steps to get there, and it feels to me like there ought to be a quicker answer than that. (There are answers in the book, but I haven't looked at any of those yet - where would be the fun in that!)
Off out for dinner with friends this evening. We are going to eat at Eight! Who knows, maybe tomorrow's blog will include a bit of a restaurant review.
This dream seems to have been fairly jam-packed, as I can definitely recall it featuring family, home, work, colleagues, travel, and even some plot lines inspired by last night's TV! I wonder if it is just a case of my mind trying to process and sort the contents of a busy week. Also, isn't it the case that dreams are more likely to occur in the shallower, pre-waking part of sleep, and so more likely to occur at the weekend when there isn't an alarm call, and more of an opportunity to slumber before getting up to face the day?
I have a theory that those sorts of later-rising days are more risky from a migraine perspective. You know the fuzzy-headed feeling of having stayed in bed a bit too long? Sometimes for me that can feel very similar to the early indications of a potential migraine. As for whether I then worry that my fuzzy feeling feels a bit migraine-ish and I manage to inadvertently induce one, or whether there is an actual connection, who knows. Maybe my next visit to the neurologist will be enlightening.
For it is back to the neurologist I go. The trip to London on Thursday to see the cardiologist was an 'interesting' one. The place we went to was just off Harley Street, and was very unlike any medical facility I have been to before. I think it was going for an ambiance somewhere between upmarket office and boutique hotel, but it all felt very forced. We all knew, even the posh sense-of-entitlement Belgravia types by whom I felt like I was surrounded, that we were there to see the doctor.
And the doctor himself, he said no to doing the operation. Gradually, we are coming around to the fact that, given that it seems like he is one of the leading exponents in the country of PFO closure (including dropping into conversation that he invented one of the techniques) then clearly we have to bow to his superior knowledge, and if he said the likelihood of not improving the migraines whilst at the same time making the AF worse is a real one, then we need to accept that. It's just disappointing that, even accepting the fact that we shouldn't have done so, we'd kind of gotten our hopes up that a PFO closure could be a real step in the right direction. Now we are back to see the neurologist (and Nicky was straight on the phone to his secretary yesterday and I'm booked in to see him the week after next) and we feel like we have come full circle without any meaningful progress. OK, so we know I have a PFO, but then again, as everyone keeps reminding us (including our Harley Street specialist who took great delight in telling us that he has one as well - although on reflection I can't help but wonder - how does he know that he's got one?! If, as he was at pains to point out, lots of people have one but it doesn't cause them any health issues at all, doesn't that also mean that lots of people have one and are also blissfully unaware of the fact? If you know you've got one, doesn't that mean you have had some health issue or symptoms that have caused you to go looking for it?), so do lots of people, but just knowing it is of no benefit at this stage if there are no plans to do anything about it. So it will be interesting to see the neurologist again. A lot of what's happened in the last couple of months stemmed from his question, "Why do you have AF?" to which I didn't have a ready answer. Next time he asks it, I'm not actually sure that I have much of a better answer. I can tell him that I have a PFO, but I don't actually think anyone has suggested that it is the cause of AF in the first place.
A trip to London on Thursday took me away from work for half a day. It didn't mean that I didn't end up still doing a full day's work (I think I knocked off just before midnight) but it did mean that I got to spend a bit of time with Nicky, which was a rare pleasure this week given that I was staying in Brighton from Monday through to Friday, with just a brief return for parents evening along with the trip to London on Thursday. Work seemed to go OK. As always when sending a report to Dallas at this point in proceedings, the word 'Draft' gets bandied about a fair bit. In amongst the Brighton-Dallas work, there were a few other things going on as well - talking to a partner in LA to explain that it's not our fault that our Dutch office sent a file to us very late, meeting a new client (also in Brighton) along with a manager from Chicago, and getting a report sent off to the Austrian firm, to name but a few.
One of the bits of light relief at the end of the work week was that the team in Brighton have been keeping track of the comedy quotes that people have been coming up with whilst working there over the last few months, and sent round a summary of them on Friday. Gave us all a good chuckle at the end of another busy week.
Whilst in Brighton this week, I finished off my Oliver Burkeman 'Happy!' book, which was an excellent read. Actually, it's not entirely accurate to say that I have finished it, as the final chapter contains some of his sources and ideas for additional reading, and I'm taking my time in working through that, as I keep getting distracted and looking up some of the on-line sources. One that was particularly interesting was an article about the idea of living without constantly being under pressure to set, monitor progress against, and achieve, a whole load of objectives and goals. To me, as someone who spends far too long worrying about meeting both professional and personal objectives, this seems like an idea which is equal parts alarming and freeing! Worth a read, it can be found here.
Having finished Happy!, I moved on to the Simon Garfield letters book, as I mentioned in Thursday's blog, and I'm enjoying that one too. We've arrived in the Elizabethan age so far, and the discussion at the moment is about how the postal service worked (or frequently didn't work) in those days. Maybe it's a little ironic to be going on about that particular book in my blog, as one of the main points that the book seeks to make is about the special nature of letters, and how they can teach us so much about how people lived and communicated through the ages. The demise of letter-writing, which has been hastened by the arrival of the internet age, does pose some interesting questions for what resources future historians will have at their disposal to understand the lives of people living in the early twenty-first century. After all, it is in the everyday correspondence from hundreds of years ago that we get to learn the most, and the question is, will the everyday correspondence from our age still be around and available to future generations? It will either be available in abundance, if on-line activity is archived in such a way to still be accessible, or maybe the vast majority will disappear and get forgotten as technology changes and moves forward. I certainly don't feel like I have any particularly direct control over whether this blog will be preserved (not that I am suggesting in any way that it has any content particularly worthy of preservation!), as, if Blogger were to decide to shut up shop tomorrow, it would all disappear from view, and I don't have any backup copies of all my inane ramblings - I'm not even sure whether it is possible to take an offline backup of one of these blogs. Maybe I should ask Ms Shrewsday about the possibilities of getting the whole lot printed out (thereby relying on a centuries old 'backup' method!) as I think that she has managed to get some of her writings printed as a book.
(By the way, thinking internet-related thoughts, Stephen Fry's most recent blog was particularly interesting. I never knew that Tim Berners-Lee and Steve Jobs came so close to meeting without actually managing to do so. Who knows how things might have developed had Sir Tim been able to show the infant internet to the visionary Jobs?)
Interestingly, both of the last two books that I have been reading have made a mention of the same book, and I'm pretty sure that the same book got a mention in one of the books I read last year as well (probably The Art of Fielding). The book in question is Walden, by Thoreau, and given that it keeps popping up, I think that I might have to pick up a copy and give it a go - see whether he made any startling discoveries whilst living by the Pond.
The final book that has been dipped into this week has been Johnny Ball's puzzle book, and opening the book at a random page I found this puzzle:
You have three milk jugs which will hold 8, 5 and 3 units of milk. The largest jug is full of milk. Can you split the milk into two equal 4-unit measures, just using the three jugs and no other measuring devices?
I'd been mulling this problem over in my head for the last few days, and whilst I had a few ideas, didn't have a solution, so I've just committed pencil to paper, and have found an answer. The interesting thing is that it takes me seven pouring steps to get there, and it feels to me like there ought to be a quicker answer than that. (There are answers in the book, but I haven't looked at any of those yet - where would be the fun in that!)
Off out for dinner with friends this evening. We are going to eat at Eight! Who knows, maybe tomorrow's blog will include a bit of a restaurant review.
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