Hope I Die Before I Get Old

Awesome bass playing, and stuff explodes. What more could ye want?

Still Revising....

If there's a better version of this song, I don't know of it... I can't find live footage, except of the Altamont version, which is slightly disquieting, as we all know some poor bastard is getting stabbed to death in the background...
Anyway, I commend you especially to the guitarwork from about 3 minutes in; let us glory in the fine work of Richards and Taylor.

Cheers.

P.S The second guitar solo, for those who care, is, I think the better , and Mick Taylor.

The Return of The Music Nazi

For your consideration:

Nina Simone The Essential Nina Simone
Fleetwood Mac Rumours (tho shame on you if you don't already own it...)
Richard & Linda Thompson Shoot Out The Lights
Janis Joplin Pearl - Legacy Edition and The Woodstock Experience
David Bowie The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust...

So When We Meet Again, Introduced As Friends...

Work avoidance.

Or, dangerously close to stream of consciousness thinking.

Swine 'flu continues to rumble on in the background, although it seems this wave has broken. Now, we wait for the second wave in the Autumn.

BBC4 has run a few interesting 'docudramas' recently, one on the Penicillin story, and, more recently, one on the 1918 'Spanish 'flu' outbreak. Well timed to help keep hype levels cranked up to 11. Except that, being on BBC4, I expect most people missed it.

Dr Crippen offers his thoughts on swine 'flu here.

As far as I can see, pandemics are a lose-lose situation for any Government. Either you 'over-react' and close shit down, and nothing much happens (quite possibly because you closed shit down), and everyone gets cross; or, you 'under-react' and people die, and then people get cross.

It's an interesting time to be an health care professional. This 'flu doesn't seem any more virulent than regular 'flu, which makes over-reaction all the more likely. Unlike in 1918, young, fit healthy folks are not dying in their droves. There has been no cytokine storm.

Will there be?

Watch this space.

Is it possible that, in fact, in 1918, the virus was much as it is today, but that a world freshly riven by war presented potential carriers more susceptible to its onslaught? I can't help but fell that society today, for all its fat, wheezy kids, is healthier than 90 years ago.

I guess we'll see in the Autumn and Winter.

What the desire to keep people at arms length has provoked is a concern that we'll get it wrong. Dr C touches on this far better than I could, but let's be honest, you don't need to be a genius to figure out that telephone diagnosis is DANGEROUS. Especially when your criteria are so vague.

I can only assume that someone, somewhere has weighed up the options: the flooding of the health service by ?'flu patients, versus the occasional death by misdiagnosis, and decided that this is the lesser of two evils.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?

Housekeeping

Sorry, but I'm getting s boring amount of Oriental spam.

So, as far as I can see, it's either no more Anon comments, or Word Verfication. I'm trying the latter. Suggestions, comments (English language only) welcome.

Slainte dear reader, as ever.

Set Adrift

On leave, so not much medicine. La Bell Fille is away, living it up, demonstrating that, yes teachers get beater holidays than doctors, but that they are also better at managing their money than, at least, this doctor.

If I think I'm underpaid, don't get me started on teachers.

Seriously, how important do you think education is?

The amount people pay for 'private' education answers the question.

It's just a shame, as with pay per service health care, that we (the high earners) don't want to pay for everyone to have the good stuff.

Last shift before leave, a night shift I swapped with Giganticus. It was, with a certain degree of inevitability, awful. Had to call the Boss in - first time in years. Multi vehicle pile up. Nothing we couldn't deal with, but the waiting time was going to go to shit, and in the current climate this is, arguably, more important.

So, the unwelcome early morning call.

Only one really sick. The Surgeon, Snowball's husband, a fella I quite like. Even if he is very surgeon. I call him, give him the dope.

27, high velocity RTC, prolonged extrication, a whiter shade of pale, numbers shocky.

I think he should come down.

Can't you get a scan? The question is born partly of modern surgical practice, which seems to start with CT scan, before even history, and partly of his being asleep.

I'm cautious, at first. I suggest he won't get to the scanner, or if he does, he won't make it back. I suggest this is one he really ought to see before the scan.

God love him, he demurs, and appears in the room. He tasks one look at the poor bugger's colour, and his numbers, resolutely resistant to the fluid we're pouring in.

Straight to theatre for this one.

I thought so.

The rest of the night breaks me, and I can barely see straight at the end. I tell myself this must be age, finally catching up on me. I pass H on the way out, my last shiftchange with her, and I'm sorry for it, for she was good, is good at her job, and I enjoyed working with her. I struggle to find a way to express this that doesn't sound either cheesy, a come-on or both.

I mumbled something, undoubtedly inadequate.

Ships that pass, and all that.

Shock boy made it out of theatre, which, sometimes, is as much as you can ask.

Addendum

I'm a little concerned the previous post might not read as i intended. It is not meant as a criticism, but as an attempt to demonstrate that, no matter how hard you work, no matter how good you are, sometimes fate deals you a shit hand, and then takes half your cards away.

That sometimes shit happens, and then happens a bit more, just to rub your nose in it. That when you think it can't get any worse, sometimes, it does.

Anyway, I'm just saying