Goodrich Castle

I'm still alive. But I never quite regained the level of well-being I was at prior ro falling ill in May. Perhaps it's exhaustion. Once I have my driver's license here I will save over 4 hours commuting time a day which may be the factor to regain my life.

I'm taking this new medication my doctor suggested I trial and see if it worked for me. So I've been taking it for about 6 weeks now and wondering every day - does it really work, does it really do anything for me? I feel perfectly normal, feel like my usual self, what can it be doing for me if I don't notice anything different?

Well, it certainly must be doing something because yesterday morning I forgot to take my tablet and by mid-morning I could feel the difference. As the day went by I felt worse and worse and it was made very clear to me that this was what my life was like before I started the medication. Amazing how fast one forgets.

Oh yes! First thing this morning when I got up I took today's tablet. Not going to let that repeat again.

What the world needs now is definitely not love sweet love. It needs a no calorie potato chip. Or 10 calorie pizza. Or no calorie cheetoes.

Who told them they could put * SUGAR * in shredded wheat???

I kid you not! I am finally recovering from that nightmare kidney infection. I have lost over 3 stone in less than 6 weeks. So, I am finally tying to start eating modestly but more normally again, keeping to a low calorie but nutritious diet. I go to Tesco and there's a huge long aisle chock full of alien cereals all of which seem to be primarily sugar when I dig thru the distracting and misleading info. We're talking even Cheerios and Special K! They were both too sweet as is from the box. Yuch! I actually threw out the freshly opened boxes.

So, I was just delighted to see good old reliable Quaker Oats Shredded Wheat (bite site). I get it home, measure out a cup and add milk. Taste...

Arrrghh!!!! SUGAR!

What is with these Brits?

Anyway, I'm back. Sorta, kinda. I'm starting to go through all the backed up mail and reply to it. I'm paying bills, filling out forms. All my personal stuff that I deal with not Alan. I'm determined to clear it all out by the end of the weekend.

Stay tuned, same Bat Channel, for my adventures in learning to drive in the UK.

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride,
superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

It seems forever I've been ill but I'm still not completely over this infection. What's more, I am still profoundly weak; too weak to get to work on my own and too weak to survive through a full work day. My Doctor is sending me to a team of specialist haematologists to look into the "peculiar" results she received to my latest, and more thorough, blood tests.

In a more cheerful note - Asti called and made reservations for us to see Fiddler on the Roof at the Savoy on June 22rd. This is incredibly lovely and I really look forward to it.

I presume the infection is basically over. I don't have a thermometer so I can't tell if the fevers have gone. I know, what an idiot I am, but I will pick one up this week.

I call my doctor tomorrow and see if she wants me to come in for another check up and to see if the new antibiotics she prescribed did the trick. I finished the course on Thursday night but Friday she was away for the weekend and her partner is one of those vile arrogant African Moslem's (a man of course) (and did I mention he hates Americans? He was so snotty about it that last time I spoke to him I said, I'm not just an American, I'm a JEWISH American and proud of it!) So, I decided to wait to see my own doctor.

Anyway, I'm putting off starting the Acomplia since I have no appetite for it to control. I'm so food-apathetic I could just sit and look at a dinner plate and just push the bits around till it was time to throw away. That's assuming food is placed in front of me. If I have to get it myself, I eat stuff like an orange or half a banana. I am, sensibly, drinking lots and lots of low cal cranberry juice. But food holds no appeal for me. Partly I think it's the stomach pain I fear. My brain has decided food = pain (or at least serious discomfort.)

Still taking antibiotics and painkillers. Still running night fevers. Still feel like death warmed over. Still no appetite.

Yes, it's true, only death would have prevented me from being at the generator installation on Thursday.

Still direly ill. Have lost 2 stone in 8 days - and that is after allowing for excess water loss. Not exactly what I had in mind as a quick start diet.

I just want the pain and fever to end. I seem to pass in and out of fever cycles. The pain never ends.

Back among the living again!

Yes, last Friday morning at work I sort of collapsed. I managed to be discrete about it, call a cab and get home to bed toute suite. From there it was a descent into hell. Monumental pain and cycles of high fever breaking to drenching sweats only to start over again. The pain? No way to describe it, bad enough that I could not read, think, at times could not stay conscious. But there was no way I would go to an emergency room on a Friday night. Assuming I could make it down the stairs to a taxi, which is a lot to assume since the 12 foot journey to my bathroom was a major effort. There was no way I could sit in a waiting room.

So it went through the weekend, till Monday morning when I phoned my doctor's office and was immediately given an emergency appointment. So - 4 days in absolute agony, no food, only ice water to drink and it turns out I have a raging kidney infection. No nonsense about NHS budget drugs, my doctor prescribed new heavy duty specific fast acting antibiotics.

I called Alan to let him know what was up and ask where I could get the script filled and he offered to come home immediately and get it filled for me so I could go right back to bed. I gratefully accepted - and just that - called a cab, went home and fell into bed. Just as well Alan was on the way home as I had trouble making it up the stairs and it was possible he might have found me on the stairs waiting for him. By 2pm I had taken the first antibiotic tablet. Its 2 a day for 3 days.

So no food for 4 days - I finally had a croissant and some sweet coffee at 6pm. I may have a soft boiled egg later with a slice of toast.

I'm starting to feel somewhat human again and the pain is reducing. The fever is still running but that will break soon.

Spoke to my old friend Bo today. Good to hear that he's surviving. Life's hard; survival is a triumph and a daily struggle for some of us. Bo's still programming and working on projects and occasionally writing. I hassled him to write more because I wanted to know the ending of an unfinished story he'd sent me last year.

I met my doctor after work Monday night - yes, at her office, my first NHS office visit. Not an examination like they'd do in the US. She just wanted to meet me and talk about my blood test results. Apparently everything was normal (in fact she admitted the results were perfect/ideal) except I was severely anemic. What a surprise. I did warn the practice nurse that I was chronically and seriously anemic with episodes of profound anemia. She was seriously worried that my test reult was 7. I was amazed and delighted it was that high. Normal range for female is 12-16. My doctor in NYC was always telling me to aim for 10, 10 would be nice. I would love to have my test results at 10. But 7 is a hell of a lot better than I expected considering how bad I've been feeling lately. And no, nothing really can be done. I'm trying out a new liquid iron supplement. It would be nice if it helped. We shall see.

Work continues. Next week the 400 Kva emergency backup generator for the new Alpha data centre arrives. I will take photos of the crane lifting it into place. I'm all ready for it - got my shiny new safety helmet and my eye cringing green safety jacket.

I just put a rabbit casserole in the oven for dinner. It's freshly caught wild rabbit in red wine with shallots, button chestnut mushrooms, and chantenay carrots. The flavourings are juniper berries, bay leaf, garlic, mustard. I added a glug of good Port, too. In about 90 minutes it will be gorgeous.

Raining all day here - now it's 6:30pm the sky has finally cleared (probably for all of 30 min) to give us a glimpse of blue skies and sunshine to end the weekend. It will then rain all night and gues what, tomorrow as well.

Once the week starts, I have no energy for anything outside of work each day. I need to sort out my drivers license and get a car and put a stop to the craziness.

Like sheep and marmalade

haven't been posting - anemia is very bad lately. Also my new fridge died so I'm not a happy bunny. Damn John Lewis! Their customer service/repair service takes forever. Over 1 week wait for a repairman and they refuse to schedule when he will arrive - just stay home the whole day and lose a day's pay. Bastards.

I made a classic Sunday Roast Dinner today.

Rare roast beef
gravy
Jersey Royal potatoes
Very fine green beans (those tiny French kind)
Yorkshire pudding
horseradish sauce

We also had prawn dim sum for starters
and
Bread and Butter pudding with custard for dessert (I opted out of the dessert but Alan enjoyed it)

Only problem was the dinner didn't like me very much and I ended up crunched on the bed waiting for the pain to end. This hasn't happened to me in several years and I thought it was over. Guess not but then I've been super anemic lately. So anemic that I have to stop after a block or to. I need to get my blood tested again soon.

Why do I know that the 3 meter Cat 5 cable on my desk is a cross-over cable? Worse, why do I know what a cross-over cable is and what it is used for, much less be able to tell that it is one from looking at the terminals. Actually I had a feeling it was one before I even snagged it out of the box of odds and ends in the comms lab.

That's just so sad.

Sent to me by my old AboveNet buddy Aida Salah.

Shangri-La is in you mind, but your Buffalo is not

Spent the morning researching what Google hath wrought and fixes thereof. Got my archives sorted after much misery. Lost my blog's original design tho. No choice about it. I'll create a new design tho since life has moved on, my blog design may as well, too.

You may notice that all my years of archives are missing. Thank you Google. Google forced users to migrate to the new blog version without warning us we'd lose all our archives. I guess that counts as a great big F U from Google to users. If they'd warned me, I would have saved the archives onto some other media or location before I migrated my account.

I thought Google's mantra was "Don't Be Evil". I guess that's for other definitions of evil than I know.

Just arrived back from Oxford. I was up there with Alan for the annual ACCU conference. Alan spoke on Network Programming. I was surprised how he packed the room for his talk since his time slot was in direct competition with Bjarne Stroustrup. Some of them were clearly fans because I see them at every talk Alan gives regardless of topic. Anyway, it was a really good talk despite Alan not creating the slides/slideshow he was supposed to have done. He actually (figuratively) kicked me out of the house for 2 days at Easter so he could supposedly create these slides. Instead, he write code for Federation's new front end and he played Sim II. Gotta lotta 'splain' to do there, Alan. For next year's conference, he's going to have his whole talk ready to be sent in by Xmas so it gets on the conference CD.

Anyway - stay clear of the Oxford Paramount hotel near the Peartree roundabout. It's crap and the food is dire! They have the facade and trappings of a luxury hotel but absolutely no foundation or follow through to make it actual luxury rather than just pretension.

ACCU - shame on you for the ghastly Speakers Dinner. Perhaps it was just as well that the food portions were so shockingly small because the food was so horribly bad, there was no temptation to eat it after the first taste. Many of us went out afterward missing the chip stand in Oxford since we were stuck way outsaide town this year - the hotel is at a park & ride roundabout so no walkable alternatives to the provided food. Even the food at the hotel restaurant, lunch bar and coffee bars was indifferent at best and generally revolting.

On the other hand, the speakers were great, the people attending were a really good bunch.

We're eating dinner at home tonight. I've had enough tough, overcooked, sugered and salted food to last me the rest of the year.

This is Andrew standing in front of the British Museum on Saturday. He wanted to see the Elgin Marbles, which he also photographed. We mostly wandered around the museum looking at the wonderful red & black ancient Greek pots, monumental statuary from the palace at Ninevah, and cuniform tablets - which are absolutely amazing! The BM is wonderful for simply wandering around and looking.

On the way to the museum we stopped at The Lazy Dog cafe for really excellent Hong Kong style dim sum nibbles. It was a whole day of serendipity because after finding the dim sum place, we then walked on to find a graphic books and comics store where Andrew garnered a few very choice items ( ask him what they are and for a peek at them). Then we stopped in at the Games shop and were sorely tempted to buy the (anti) Terrorist game complete with balaclava of Evil.

Andrew got a set of miniature canopic jars at the museum and other assorted lovelies. We then cabbed it over to Asti's flat in Bermondsey. The sun was shining, the day warm with a slight cool breeze. Can this really be London with such magnificent weather?

In a sense, I knew it would come to this - spam has so obscured my legitimate email that it has become too lengthy and demanding a task to filter it out anymore, the noise to signal ratio has gone beyond my limit. I've had my IBgames email address for so many years, probably about 15!At this point spam is 99+% of my total mail.

I've given up on filters, believe me I've tried them all, carefully and patiently training them. Useless. I saw an email fly by as it downloaded - from my friend Gordon, with a photo attached and before I could catch it, the filter had eaten it never to be seen again. Changed filters at that point and the next filter found other ways to mangle my mail. I just do not have a spare hour or more each day to go through my email any more and what's more I don't want that m,iserable task. It's not the US this crap is coming through, either. I did some experimenting and the bulk of the crap is from Japan and cyrillic addresses. Why spammers think I read cyrillic, I don't know.

Anyway, I'm moving most of my personal mail over to my gmail account. I hate the awkward email address on that but at least I do get my email there. I get so little spam there - perhaps 40 pieces a week tops, and Gmail manages to trap it all.

It's snowing. And it's even sticking. Heavy snow, big fat flakes and lumps of it. And it's cold.

Blech!

I just washed the windows - inside and out! and polished them to gleaming streak-free clearness. So of course there's a sudden hailstorm! Yowser!

I decided I had to to - something- about the apartment, so this weekend's project was the balcony. We have a berautiful view of the Duke of Northumberland's River/Silverhall park. But the balcony was dirty and dusty and unused and littered with stubbed out cigarette butts. So I cleaned up the litter, washed the windows, bought a really sturdy and comfy director's chair and bought a large rosemary plant in a terracotta planter. I need to add more planters of herbs and tomatoes and flowers and some hanging baskets and another chair and voila! It will be lovely and inviting very soon.

What's new here? Well, no point mentioning my work since it's still a 2+ hour commute each way which sucks up most of my personal time and leaves me exhausted - although my job and my workmates are still wonderful.

What's new is that Andrew is coming to visit for Easter weekend. He'll leave JFK Thursday night and arrive here Good Friday morning and return home on Tuesday. So a short but hopefully sweet Easter/Passover weekend together. The plan is to keep this visit firmly in the relaxed and leisurely category. Per Andrew's request, one whole day wandering aimlessly around the British Museum- yay! This is a wonderful thing to do. Other plans are for sitting on the terrace at the London Apprentice, overlooking the Thames, and drink and chat. A walk to Syon house, perhaps. Basically leave things relaxed and open to possibilities. No schedules, no rush, just float and relax.

Our friends Ginny & Nigel have sold their house and are about to leave for a new life in Spain. They have a posh new apartment on the beach near Alicante. We're going to a farewell do for them on Saturday. We're also dragging our friend Jude down from Leeds to be at the farewell bash since Ginny is her best friend and she needs to be there to say goodbye or more like aloha - till we meet again. We all plan to visit Ginny & Nigel and guest it in the sun. They're good people.

The chiller unit for the Data Centre build-out at work arrived on Wednesday. Great fun watching the giant crane hoist it into place on the new plinth outside the Alpha data room.

Same words - different food!

To start with, be aware that all your familiar brand name foods are generally made locally to a different, local tastes adjusted recipe. This means familiar comfort foods like Hellman's Mayonaise and Heinz Ketchup have a LOT more vinegar than you're used to in the US. Even old reliable Philadelphia Cream Cheese is not exactly the same. Still the best you can get here but not the same.

Two ubiquitous kitchen standbys to also be wary of are canned Tuna and Cottage Cheese.

They do not sell White (Albacore) tuna here. Period. End of story. Ain't available. The stuff they sell in cans here is more closely related to what we'd give our cats. It's not the lovely, firm, mild, and clean tasting Tuna we know and love. Don't even think of buying it. How I miss Starkist, Chicken of the Sea and BumbleBee's best solid, white, albacore.

The other gotcha is Cottage Cheese. I don't know what you'd call the dairy product sold here as "cottage cheese". It's nothing like Breakstone's", that's for sure.

Yes, yes, yes , of course there's scads of lovely food available here. The point is, it's different. And sometimes you just want the comfort of familiar tastes.

Alan and I are going out shortly to start taking photos of the lunar eclipse. It should reach peak totality about 10:45 pm or so here, so I should be awake enough to go outside and get some good photos then. I'll try to get a cycle of shots through the whole eclipse actually.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention - I bought myself a new camera. I love taking photos and I have not been happy with any of the cameras I've been given or used since my old wonderful Minolta 35mm film camera. This new camera is the first that is entirely my own choice. It's the Sony cyber-shot DSC-T50. In bright cherry red. I'm a happy girl.

I also paid off all the outstanding back bills I had except for 2 personal loans. I'll be starting to pay those off with my next paycheck.

Have I mentioned my husband and his lust//need for a new laptop? (For family members, think "Space shuckle" and you will understand everything.) The campaign for a new laptop began in early Dec 2006 with subtle murmurings about how long code was taking to compile. I'll spare you the remaining details.

The object of desire was a "Copper Toshiba" with a 17" wide screen monitor, full size keyboard with keypad, harmon kardon stereo speakers, blue LED lights along the front edge, and all sorts of cutting edge specs including a 200 GB HD, 2 GB ram, Intel duo core processor, top of the line Nvidea graphic card with 512 MG, etc. The people rejoice, the man is happy with his new laptop. We added in a new USB external HD - a 500GB red (lego) brick. Totally adorable - as cute as the laptop is sleek and sexy.

We staggered into a restaurant for lunch afterwards since we left the house only having coffee this morning. The happiest thing besides getting exactly, precisely what we wanted (and for an excellent low price) was that we paid for it - didn't put it on plastic, not going to have to pay it off. We agreed to wait till we set aside enough to pay cash for what we wanted - and we did.

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

I just got a Samsung 20" widescreen LCD monitor. Can you believe this is my first brand new monitor ever and what's more, the first one I have picked out for myself. I really hate when people give me something technological or push me into buying it (even worse!) but it's not what -I- want. (Yes, my husband in Mr #1 for things like that.)

I really needed a monitor because otherwise I just had the standard little laptop screen as my main monitor and recently a 3rd hand 8 year old cast-off 17" LCD wit5h major brightness issues. (As in dark and murky and belongs in the trash bin which is why the other 2 former owners dumped it.)

So, I survived the install and configuration and adjustment process (You do know that "Plug and Play" is one of the 10 Great Lies, right?). Now I just need to get a new computer or laptop - of my own choice, to my own tastes. I would get one now except my nearest and dearest has been putting on a "Space shuckle" scene daily for the past 3 months and I'm so worn down by it that I'm letting him buy a new laptop tomorrow. His former laptop will go to my son Andrew whose laptop died recently. What I realty wanted to do is get a new laptop for myself and give Andrew my Thinkpad which is less than a year old (no, I'm not happy with it because I did not choose it and it hasn't the features I want, but I got it for free so I've used it) I think it is powerful enough that Andrew would have found it very useful.

But my aim at the moment is to pay off debt not buy optional new equipment.

Anyway, I like the new monitor.

Health report - I'm still feeling exhausted and achey. I wish I had a real idea how long this post-flu whatever will take to go away, recover from. Useless to ask a doctor here since most of them seem to have become idiots following the politically correct line. According to them, I probably had a mild cold and my anemia is negligible and I am focusing too much attention on my high fever, heavy lung congestion, low hemoglobin test results, etc. The NHS has spoken. All hail the NHS.

Back to work, I think.

OK, someone asked for the recipe I used so here it is...

2 cups butter                                
2 cups sugar                                       
2 cups brown sugar
            
4 large eggs                                                     
2 tsp. vanilla
                                    
4 cups flour                                         
5 cups blended oatmeal*(see note below)
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda (also called bicarbonate of soda)

24 oz. chocolate chips (or more, more is good, I used more)
3 cups chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)(yes, I used more of these, too!)

*Note about what blended oatmeal is...Measure oatmeal and blend in a blender or food
processor to a powder.

Also note - most civilized people with a well equipped kitchen will have a sturdy
mixer to cream the butter and sugar and then mix the dough and a blender for the
oatmeal. We still have a basically bachelor kitchen from Alan which I am slowly
upgrading. So I made these cookies using nothing but a food processor to cream the
butter and sugar and a bowl and big spoon to hand mix the rest.

Cream butter and both sugars. Take time to make sure it is light and fluffy.
Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.
Mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder and soda. 
Add chocolate chips, and nuts.
Roll into balls and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet. Lightly flatten balls
with the palm of your hand.

Bake for 10 minutes at 375F. (I baked them for 9 1/2 min at 170C in a fan convection
 oven.)
Makes a LOT of large cookies - like about 100 or so. You can halve the recipe but why?
They will all be quickly eaten and everyone will be very happy and grateful. Nah,
they'll be happy and ungrateful and demand more cookies!

I've been slogging in to work each day, making it barely, clawing my way through the day to get home and collapse from bronchitis or whatever it is I have that the NHS refuses to take seriously. Luckily I survived. There would have been a morbid satisfaction in Alan suing them as - She Told You She Was Sick and Needed Antibiotics- but alas I was strong enough to survive. However, this is NOT how modern medicine should be. This is medicine on the same level as 1 million years ago. Yep, that's about right for the NHS. Bastards!

Anyway, I'm Project Manager on a major data centre buildout for my company. It's to be the showcase model for all our corporate data centres worldwide.

Moving along, Alan's dat took the train down from Leominster to visit London for a few days and see some art exhibitions. We had dinner with him every night. Lovely to see him again but we are now all restaurant'd out and just want to eat home cooked dinners for a while. Which we are doing tonight - shoulder of lamb roasted with applies and shallots and cider and finished off with double cream. Yum!

Alan has 1 week left at his old job and then it's on to his new job - Infrastructure Director for a new Massively Multiplayer Game company. He's really happy to be going back into the Games industry and out of gaming. So to say goodbye he announced he would be bringing into work a huge pile of fabulous American cookies his wife wouldbe making for everyone.

Umm yeah- I'm making them now. The infamous Million Dollar/Neiman Marcus/Urban Legend cookies. I'm in luck because they came out georgous. Perfect. You would die just from the lucious smell. Let alone the taste.

"I have given instructions that I be informed every
time one of our soldiers is killed, even if it is in the
middle of the night. When President Nasser leaves
instructions that he is to be awakened in the middle
of the night if an Egyptian soldier is killed, there will
be peace."
-- Golda Meir

I managed to make it thru today at work - barely. I definitely sounded like I was spreading plague with my awful deep congested cough. I definitely would not have wanted to sit next to me. And I knew it wasn't as bad as it sounded.

The awful strength of addiction (and the morbidly ironic amusement) was brought home to me as I was leaving to go home. I had managed to fairly painlessly reduce a 40+/day cigarette habit down to about 4 (yes, really!) a day. It was working, I was holding at 4 or so a day, month after month. Not even buying any, just using up the American cigarettes my sons brought over before Xmas. Then this -illness- hit me on Friday and I was just too ill to even consider smoking or eating or even drinking coffee. Basically made it through the weekend sipping hot sweet mint tea or spiced black tea.

So I'm back at work today and people are going out for a smoke break and even the thought of it sends shudders of horror through me. And I'm thinking, wow! it's been 4 days since I smoked so maybe I might as well not start back again. The day passed and I was getting my coat on to go upstairs and wait for the cab to take me home (I'm really still too ill to be at work, no way could I make it thru my usual 2+ hour commute each way) - and I find myself thinking - not bad, I have enough time before the cab comes to smoke a cigarette. And a part of my mind was reacting with pleasure looking forward to it! And I thought, am I nuts? With me still hacking away like Typhoid Mary? And why not just give it up anyway since I haven't smoked for 5 days now. And then I thought, yeah but I still have a full pack of Virginia Slims Lights in my pocket! And that mattered to me.

This is nuts. This is addiction. Luckily I am far too ill to seriously consider smoking anything at the moment, no matter my addicted brain's yearnings. My body is digging its heels in saying OUCH! No! HURTS!

Back to sipping Pellegrino water, for me.

I had no idea that ...Land of Hope and Glory was sung to the Pomp and Circumstance tune. Yes, Pomp and Circumstance, known to most of us Americans as "The Graduation March".

1911 performance sung by Clara Butt from www.firstworldwar.com

The tune is much better used for graduations. It was first used at a graduation in 1905 when Yale invited its composer, Elgar to accept an honorary doctorate of music. It quickly spread to become the ubiquitous choice it is today.

I'm working from home today - feeling better than I did this weekend but then, I felt close to death much of the weekend so it doesn't take very much to say "feeling better" than that.

Anyway the fever seems to slowly be drifting down, the congestion is slowly breaking up , and my voice is starting to slowly return although I sound exactly like a croaking frog. I even managed to keep down a cup of coffee and 2 slices of toast this morning. Not bad considering that's the first food I've been able to manage since Friday night.

Of course, in the US, I would have called the doctor Friday to say I was feeling worse and it felt like my cold/flu was slipping over into bronchitis (because by this point in my life, I do know when that happens) and he'd have called in a prescription for antibiotics for me. I'd have started them Friday night so I'd never have gotten as sick as I did and I would have been up and lively by Sunday and back to normal (and back to work) on Monday morning.

But no, this is the UK where a call to the local NHS health practice got me the cold comfort of a suggested stop in to see the nurse - NEXT WEDNESDAY! When I asked for a prescription for antibiotics to halt the rapidly increasing infection, it was pointed out they don't believe antibiotics are necessary. Really! The NHS is psychic and able to tell this over the phone. So despite the NHS taking taxes out of my wages every week they are good for NOTHING. This is soviet socialised medicine at its best. NHS - the 3rd world standard for heath care.

It's not just me, either. The NHS decided modern medicines were too expensive so they would roll back prescriptions to older, cheaper medications. The promise was that if the changed prescription didn't work or had bad side effects they would restore your proper prescription. (Didn't medical experimentation on non-volunteers get addressed at Nuremberg?) So my husband's medication was changed to some vaguely related but totally different chemical. Too bad because it not only didn't work, it had horrendous side effects. When he informed his doctor of this, she switched him back to his original medication - but only for 1 prescription, no renewal. That was just to give the NHS time to come up with some other cheap alternative chemical for him. So he tried the 2nd cheap NHS stuff and again had major bad side effects. Now, in the US, we'd have been sitting in a good lawyer's office by this point and the issue would be settled because harm was knowingly done. But would the NHS accept that their 2 idiotic attempts to save a small amount of money were a failure? No, today we were informed they want to try a 3rd strange chemical. Obviously I told my husband to just say no and get a private prescription. What this country needs is a good major class action lawsuit - no, actually it needs a lot of major class action lawsuits. ::sigh:: No, even that won't help. People get the government they deserve. And it follows they get the institutions they deserve as well.

Readers in the US, no matter how bad you think the US heath care system is, it's heaven compared to the UK.

I am sure I will be able to find a private doctor who is willing and able to give me the quality level of health care I'm used to in the US. But it will cost me and it will be more than it cost in the US. No question about it.

I shall now return to my medieval level medical care - crawling into bed under a pile of quilts.

I spent almost all yesterday in bed, sweating and ill. This cold or flu turned into bronchitis and breathing was painful and difficult. Same through the night and all of today. I'm just drinking clear fluids like mint tea or sparkling cranberry juice.

Thanks, NHS - you run a perfect 3rd world country medical system. They tell me antibiotics are unnecessary. So now I've got a full blown 2ndary infection. No private doctors with weekend hours out this way or I'd pay and get proper medical treatment.

I haven't eaten at all since Friday night so I need to think about that

Blech! I have the most incredibly awful cold or flu or something. So bad I don't want to eat or drink anything except hot mint tea with lots of lemon. Sleep- that's what I want to do. Except I'm so ill I ache too much to sleep very long. An hour or so and then I'm awake and miserable again.

By sheer force I kept going all week and worked through each day, tho I'm definitely paying the price now. Even with the snow on Thursday where it took me 3 hours to get to work in the morning, I did it. Needs must. It's not just the money, tho that is a BIG part of it, it's that I've just been handed a major new task - I've taken over the Alpha Building Data Centre build out. My manager Gordon is off to Houston to repeat his magic with their data centre so this one here in the UK is being left in my delicate hands - must be the dark red nail varnish does the trick.

First project team meeting is Tuesday the 13th. I worked like a madwoman Thursday & Friday to get all the vendors, contractors, and staff committed to the time and date and prepped with the questions I need answered and details they are expected to commit to.

Other than that, it's been all blah!

I really, really wish we had a TV. I could flop out and veg in front of it and relax. As it is, I can use the computer or go to bed and read. This flat is way too small even for 1 adult, let alone 2.

I think that's enough moaning, back to shivering under the duvet.

In the news- before I end this - last Saturday I went with Hilary to The Sanctuary Spa. Woah - total luxury, total pleasure. Full body aromatheraphy massage, pedicure, manicure, foot massages, jacuzzi spa, steam room - way too much to mention it all. Total indulgence. Worth it for 1 day for hard working women.

Next Saturday I'm going with Asti to see a play called Sit & Shiver. Black comedy about a family sitting shiva. Good reviews, I'm looking forward to it.

Andrew built his own white box PC. Clever kid.

Alan starts his new job on March 12th. Game company - multiplayer games - massively multiplayer games.

For real now- back to bed.

Happy New Year 2007!

I see the holidays have come and gone since my last post. Yep, that's about it.

Well yes, all things considered they were reasonably nice holidays. Incredibly lovely to be with Adam and Andrew again. Incredibly frustrating not to have enough time to sit down for a leisurely meal and long chats with them. Next time I will send them tickets to come over, one long weekend each. Then it's the Kew Steam Museum, Syon Park and several long leisurely meals and visits to local traditional pubs.

We did New Years Eve at Ron & Hilary's with Ron, Hilary, Laurie and Pete, Alan and I as usual but this year I did the meal. A sort of Communist/Russian theme - Borsht with blinis and smoked salmon, dim sum (tiny chinese dumplings - yes, of course homemade!) beef stroganov with rice, onion and tomato chutney (with great thanks to Richard for the recipe. It was a complete rave! Everyone snapped it all up.) Dessert was Leningrads - a creme brulee made with kirschwasser and black forest cherries in the creme bit. The brulee bit was perfect and crackled and shattered deliciously. Watched fireworks on the telly - amazing display we want to watch live next year.

So the holidays have come and gone.

We definitely need a house. This flat is impossibly small.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I'm going out with Alan and some friends for a late Sunday lunch.

Pancakes. Must have pancakes. Must. Must.

I cleverly made sure to add Canadian maple syrup to my shopping list and bacon and little sausages. This is the grocery shopping I have Waitrose deliver every other Saturday morning, the heavy stuff I don't want to drag home and up the stairs. Things like tonic water and household cleansers and canned chick peas. The fresh food I mostly pick up on my way home from work.

The only thing I was not clever about was milk. I should have ordered another liter of milk. So now I'm trying to figure out how to make the pancakes with npot enough milk but I do have cream. I do have a container of milk in the freezer but that will never defrost in time.

And yes, I -AM- too lazy to go down to the corner show and pick up more milk now. Especially because it is cold and raining and gray outside.

No sane adult moves to the Bay Area for lifestyle; they move there
because they think they can make money. So, while I think it's nice
people like to ski, hike, bike, climb, surf, and golf, I don't care. I
want people who are greedy, competitive bastards who would move to
Fargo in January to make money, and who don't know any other way to
work than hard. The rest of it is a distraction.

I baked a huge and absolutely gorgeous Christmas cake yesterday. Yes, with booze. Cognac actually. And loads of pecans and cherries and pineapple and other good stuff. And then drizzled it with some more scotch whiskey. Yum, it smells wonderful!

In other news, I still feel totally beat up from my nightmare commute to work every day.

I'm off to bed at a bit past 9:30pm . Getting up at 5am is a real bitch.

Yay! The US election and Yay! the US voters! I'm proud of you but expected no less. And yes, I'm one of you because I absentee balloted.

So, still working, still making my insane 2+ hour commute each way, every day. I'm going to try a bus alternative to the trains tomorrow. I don't expect it will be that much quicker but it's worth a try to see if it is gentler on my body. I feel so beat up and bruised from the enormous amount of travel.

Yes, I still love my job. It's still interesting, exciting, and challenging.

I was able to buy some basic work clothes. That makes a HUGE difference. Oh my god, what a difference that makes. We're only talking about a few bits and a pair of shoes. I hadn't realised how worn out and awful my old clothes had become. I feel actually human once again.

Last night Alan and I went through our clothes and threw out all the old crappy stuff we would never wear again except in desperation. Threw out a full, large shopping bag. There was also actually stuff that didn't fit but was still in good shape, and that is folded neatly into a bag to go to the local church.

I'm off to the supermarket now. I'll be online later. Need some time to hang out online.

See you all soon!

I finished my 2nd week at work yesterday and...ta da! I got paid! Yes, everything managed to go right and a big lump of British Pounds Sterling (paper version sterling) was dumped into Alan and my joint checking account Friday. (They call that a current account here in the UK)

So I dragged myself home from work and we went out to dinner with Ron & Hillary and Pete & Laurie. Very nice evening. Excellent food and really interesting discussions. The only problem was that both Alan and I started fading by 10:30pm and finally Alan called a cab to take us home. We get up at 5am all week and leave for work at 6am so by the time it's night, we just can't stay up that late. We'll have to stick to weekends for social outings.

So- of course with my first paycheck sitting in the bank, I finally was able to get some things I desperately needed - like a small but reasonable selection of smart business wear for work. We also were able to get food and household stocks in this morning. And I picked out Andrew's birthday present and ordered it online.

Next week I get my 2nd paycheck and that will be a full one. I'll use that one to start paying back money I owe family and friends. I ant to get everything clear eventually.

And, Alan was able to order a stack of books he's wanted for while - AND the CCNA textbooks so he can start studying and preparing himself to add a major new set of skills to his professional array.

Yay! Completed my first week at my new job! (Ok, it was only a 3 day week but still...)

I completed my first week at my new job yesterday. I really like the work, like the people I work for and with. The only real negative is the nightmarish commute but once I have a car and a UK drivers license it'll be golden.

Now I'm looking forward to my first paycheck. Yay! Shopping ;)

I completed my first week at my new job yesterday. I really like the work, like the people I work for and with. The only real negative is the nightmarish commute but once I have a car and a UK drivers license it'll be golden.

Now I'm looking forward to my first paycheck. Yay! Shopping ;)

I completed my first week at my new job yesterday. I really like the work, like the people I work for and with. The only real negative is the nightmarish commute but once I have a car and a UK drivers license it'll be golden.

Now I'm looking forward to my first paycheck. Yay! Shopping ;)

I completed my first week at my new job yesterday. I really like the work, like the people I work for and with. The only real negative is the nightmarish commute but once I have a car and a UK drivers license it'll be golden.

Now I'm looking forward to my first paycheck. Yay! Shopping ;)

I start my new job tomorrow. Have to leave the house damn early to catch the 6am train since it's the first day and I'm not sure of the timing.

Stop the presses!

Yes, I have a job! I start on Wednesday. Yay!

You lucky readers of this blog will be relieved to learn there will be no further moaning about the soul destroying horror of job hunting.

It's a very nice job, indeed. (You can email me for details, they don't belong on a public blog.)

Alan woke me this morning before 6am to inform me there was a power outage (read: blackout) but he was sure it was only local and would soon be back on. Umm right thanks, I'll return to my regularly scheduled sleep, thank you very much. I guess he wanted company in the dark as he got ready for work. Fair enough. A couple of candles did the trick since he'd already managed to make coffee before the power went off. Shaving would have to be a writeoff since his razor is electric. His office will survive. Outside there was a faint light as the false dawn began.

As soon as he left I went back to sleep. Twenty minutes later I was woken up again as one of the laptops started beeping and compaining that its batter was failing. I don't touch Alan's kit so I let it beep and just closed the door. Another 20 minutes and the power went back on at about 7:30 am.

My exciting morning ;)

I expect to get either a job offer or a rejection from 2 companies today. It's in the hands of the gods. Meanwhile, I got a call for an interview with MTV; they found me on their own. We'll see how that goes. I keep making it through several rounds of interviews and testing and just not getting the final nod. But sooner or later that will come.

DON'T EAT THAT SALAD!

I'm disgusted at the recent Big Lie campaign targetting crisps as a vile, disgusting food by showing some girl slobbering down a liter of oil and proclaiming that if you eat a small packet of crisps a day for 1 year you would be ingesting 4.something liters of oil a day.

Well, using that same logic - DON'T EAT THAT SALAD, EAT THE CRISPS!

If you eat a small salad with a minimal amount of salad dressing, daily for 1 year, you would be ingesting 5 and 1/2 liters of oil a day!

So using their insane logic, you are better off giving your child or yourself a packet of crisps rather then a fresh salad. That's playing by their rules.

I hate bullshit like this from supposed do-gooder groups. Come the revolution, those helpful groups should go up against the wall even before the lawyers.

As my son Andrew noted in his blog, it was just Yom Kippur. A time of self-reflection and renewal. Time to grieve over the losses of the past year, to forgive hurts, to undertake to be a better person in the coming year. I hope all those who shared in this day had an easy fast and wish everyone a healthy and happy and prosperous new year.

I've started this new year with a fresh start myself. I've finally moved completely out of my former flat and now moved in with my other half. It's a real squash here since the place is so small. It's officially rated for 2 adults and others in this development live in idential flats with 2 adults and a child. But that's them and it's not us. I'm going down to Coop Homes today to talk with them about moving up to a larger place.

Anyway, it's ok so far. Two days and we haven't killed each other yet ;) Nah, only joking. We know we have very different personal lifestyles and that the real solution is just to have enough space to allow us to do what we really need to do and not prevent the other from doing what they need to do. Once I'm working we'll sort things out.

It's been a while since I posted here, mostly because I've been deeply depressed by job hunting.

It's not that I don't get responses to my CV, I do. In fact I get a high response to my CV and I get a large number of interviews. The interviews also go pretty well since a large number of them produce an invitation to return for the "shortlist" 2nd tier interview. But, after all those successful steps, I keep failing to succeed at the final stage where I would get a job offer.

This is soul destroying. To put yourself out on the public stage, the marketplace, day after day and to be rejected time after time. It's a very personal rejection. Because once you make it past the primary interview, they know you have the skills and experience required to do the job. Then it's all a beauty contest. They are just judging you as a person and rejecting you personally. Saying I'd rather work with someone else, I like someone else better.

Think back to grade school where everyone used to line up to be picked for teams and think about always making it to the 2nd or third round and getting left standing there rejected at the end. Then think about if that happened to you day after day for months.

Nightmare, isn't it?

So no wonder I am depressed. Personally rejected by the professional world time after time. And not working means not getting paid which creates a cascade of disasters which further depress me.

And there's no relief because day after day I have to go through the process again and again. Smiling. Smiling and being bright. Smiling and being earnest. Smiling but being dignified. Smiling and being knowledgable.

It's so completely irrational and random and luck of the draw. And the deck is stacked against you. The house always wins.

Very depressing.

Not that anyone cares but I am boycotting Jamie Oliver. Shunning the pretentious, arrogant, condescending, political-correctness overgrupenfeurer.

Fresh criticism of Pope's remarks
Criticism is still pouring in from Muslim religious and political leaders over the Pope's remarks about Islam.
Full story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/1/hi/world/europe/5351324.stm

I'm disgusted but not surprised at the Muslim response. The Muslim attitude for the past 5 years or more has been WE are allowed to insult the West and the Jews and YOU are not allowed to say anything remotely critical of Islam or the Prophet Mohammed. But the West tolerated this outragous hypocrisy. And so it comes to this. I hope the Pope refuses to apologise since he did nothing wrong. I hope the West wakes up and tells the Muslin world that they will just have to deal with it, that the West allows people to speak their opinions.

I hope we ALL remember the following -

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

30 questions to elevate your awareness (and literacy) of the greater place in which you live:

1) Point north.

2) What time is sunset today?

3) Trace the water you drink from rainfall to your tap.

4) When you flush, where do the solids go? What happens to the waste water?

5) How many feet above sea level are you?

6) What spring wildflower is consistently among the first to bloom here?

7) How far do you have to travel before you reach a different watershed? Can you draw the boundaries of yours?

8) Is the soil under your feet, more clay, sand, rock or silt?

9) Before your tribe lived here, what did the previous inhabitants eat and how did they sustain themselves?

10) Name five native edible plants in your neighborhood and the season(s) they are available.

11) From what direction do storms generally come?

12) Where does your garbage go?

13) How many people live in your watershed?

14) Who uses the paper/plastic you recycle from your neighborhood?

15) Point to where the sun sets on the equinox. How about sunrise on the summer solstice?

16) Where is the nearest earthquake fault? When did it last move?

17) Right here, how deep do you have to drill before you reach water?

18) Which (if any) geological features in your watershed are, or were, especially respected by your community, or considered sacred, now or in the past?

19) How many days is the growing season here (from frost to frost)?

20) Name five birds that live here. Which are migratory and which stay put?

21) What was the total rainfall here last year?

22) Where does the pollution in your air come from?

23) If you live near the ocean, when is high tide today?

24) What primary geological processes or events shaped the land here?

25) Name three wild species that were not found here 500 years ago. Name one exotic species that has appeared in the last 5 years.

26) What minerals are found in the ground here that are (or were) economically valuable?

27) Where does your electric power come from and how is it generated?

28) After the rain runs off your roof, where does it go?

29) Where is the nearest wilderness? When was the last time a fire burned through it?

30) How many days till the moon is full?

The Bigger Here Bonus Questions:

31) What species once found here are known to have gone extinct?

32) What other cities or landscape features on the planet share your latitude?

33) What was the dominant land cover plant here 10,000 years ago?

34) Name two places on different continents that have similar sunshine/rainfall/wind and temperature patterns to here.

Have you ever seen a fox? A real fox, live, close up, in the wild so to speak, not behind a fence at a zoo.

They are not cute or cuddly. They are not beautiful, fluffy feline creatures. No. Not a bit.
Foxes up close are cold, creepy, predators. Much more doglike than one imagines after being raised on Disney animations of adorable foxes. Believe me, foxes are not adorable in any way.

They are killing machines and nuisances. They rip open your bagged rubbish, they kill the harmless small wildlife like squirrels. They attack and kill your small pets - kittens are favorite snacks of foxes.

I've seen foxes when I had the farm in Jeffersonville, NY. They are common in the Catskills. But yesterday I looked out my kitchen window at the back garden and there was a fox. Ugh. It had that same cold, predator stare. It would, it's a wild animal. It's not cuddly Disney fantasy.

But it was an interesting reflection on the nature of cities and life and survival to see one in a London back garden.

What's good for the Imams is good for the Pope.

Bravo to Pope Benedict, I say, for his courage in speaking out about Islam and the current conflicts, etc. I'm not surprised at the outraged response of Islamic leaders and communities. They are HYPOCRITES. I can't say that often enough. They want to insult and condemn the West and Israel with the most outragous insults and lies and accusations. But no one is allowed to say anything even mildly critical in response.

Let me repeat myself - Islamic leaders and communities are HYPOCRITES.

Anyone who knows me also knows I have little to no use for the Pope, the Vatican, and Churches in general. Hey, I read history, I know what they've done. But they have evolved and in general they accept that people will express critical views and should not be immediately condemned to death as heretics.

This time the Pope was spot on in his comments about Islam. And as usual, Islamic leaders and pundits and self-appointed spokespeople called out for the death of the West, the death of the infidels, force us all to accept Islam or die and how dare we express an opinion at all critical of Islam.

My message as a woman and an American is - suck it up, Islam. This is called Freedom of Speech. And as we all should know by now, Islam does NOT allow freedom of speech.

Think about that. Think about it very carefully.

9/11 - five years later

Humans are extremely good at getting used to things that were once unbearable. The site of the greatest mass murder of modern times no longer has the power to horrify those closest to it.

I allowed myself an all American treat for supper tonight- corn on the cob. Yum, with butter and salt, it was delicious. One ear of corn.

I know, my fellow New Yorkers are going to be laughing at this. One ear of corn? A treat? The thing costs 10 cents, how can that be a treat? It's cheap summer food.

Umm not here in London. Here it costs $1.20 an ear on sale. And it's not even the sweet and creamy fresh American corn. It's tasty but believe me folks, it's not sweet or creamy. It's more like canned niblets corn but still much nicer.

I can remember pinching pennies in NYC and buying fresh corn in season 10 for $1 because it was so tasty and so cheap.

Still it was a lovely, buttery treat.

Monday is 9/11 - five years since the WTC attack. My stomach churns painfully if I even think about that day but I continue to mentally replay my experience with a compelling morbid fascination. No matter what anyone says, unless you were there in NYC actually watching it happen - live - in front of your eyes, you weren't part of it. You may have lost friends or family or colleagues which is an absolute tragedy and an outragous offense to all decent, peaceful, broadminded people. But if you were watching it on TV, you weren't part of it, it's different for you.

In a typically non-creative media way, since they can't think of anything better, some of the TV channels plan to replay all their news coverage from 9/11 on Monday. They started that last night, in fact.

Nail salons

I was watching the morning show GMTV this morning and they did a special segment on New York City's "nail bars" (they are called nail salons but that's typical of the Brit News, sloppy on the details).

So they reported on the NY "phenomena" of women having frequent manicures and pedicures - often more than once a week. They noted how cheap and convenient the salons were and how strict the NY regulations were with all technicians licensed and strict sanitary requirements. As if this was something extroadinary. Well, yes it is very different from the practice in the UK.

But the choice moment came when the reporter couldn't come up with any juicy NY nail salon related horror story scandal so she trotted out some nonsense about Paula Abdul having a problem with a LA nail salon. Woah! Desperation. That's like a story on London trottting out an incident that occurred in Moscow. You could just see this on the face of the salon manager as this idiot Brit reporter rabbited on.

NY Nail salons and the pampered hands culture of NY are something the Brits just won't get.

84 Charing Cross Road


I'm watching the wonderful film, 84 Charing Cross Road at the moment. Wonderful, wonderful charming film staring Ann Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, Judi Dench. I've seen this film several times and it's always a delight.

I was curious tho, since I've been coming to London for many years and now live there, about the location of the book shop that inspired the film. Alan and I were just on Charing Cross Road last night. So I looked it up on a map and oh my goodness, I know 84 Charing Cross Road. I know it very well, been going there for years. But sadly, it's no longer a book shop. As long as I have known it, it has been Au Bar One, a wine bar. How many afternoons have Alan and I lounged on the huge leather sofas there, sipping vino verde, chatting, and reading books from Blackwell's just a snip down from the street.

If you haven't seen this film - buy or rent a copy and watch it. You'll thank me.

Today's Laugh of the Day -

Headline from today's LA Times:

EU Will Try to Clarify Tehran's Nuclear Stance

My take on this? I think Iran made itself extremely clear in it's response to the UN. They said no.

What part of NO does the EU not understand? What amusement they must be providing Tehran with their request for additional definitions of No.

I can provide a very clear explanation - They are saying, Fuck Off Infidel Crusaders. You will die soon.

Ah well, gatta laugh or else you'd cry.

Slough


Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!

It isn't fit for humans now,

There isn't grass to graze a cow.

Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens

Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,

Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,

Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-

A house for ninety-seven down

And once a week a half a crown

For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin

Who'll always cheat and always win,

Who washes his repulsive skin

In women's tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak

And smash his hands so used to stroke

And stop his boring dirty joke

And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add

The profits of the stinking cad;

It's not their fault that they are mad,

They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know

The birdsong from the radio,

It's not their fault they often go

To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars

In various bogus-Tudor bars

And daren't look up and see the stars

But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care

Their wives frizz out peroxide hair

And dry it in synthetic air

And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough

To get it ready for the plough.

The cabbages are coming now;

The earth exhales.

John Betjeman

Blech! Alan's fridge just died. He was defrosting it this morning because although it's supposed to be a frost-free model, the fridge compartment was developing large icey areas. So he unplugged it and let both parts defrost, then did a good cleaning and restarted it. The freezer turned back on but the fridge is sitting like a silent lump.

Not A Good Thing.

It's raining today, so much for the August Bank Holiday. Chilly and raining.
Yesterday was lovely tho, warm and sunny. Alan and I ended up at the Red Lion again. What a surprise. It's such a nice local pub, quiet clientele, comfy sofas, lovely back garden, good bands in the evening a few times each week. We'll be going there tonight with Ron and Hilary to hear East of Eden again.

Anyway, there we lounged last night, talking about holidays we'd like to take in future when we are both working and can afford such. The trio sitting on the next sofa were having a discussion about grammar and how the English language has dropped many cases compared to other languages such as French. This is things like the pluperfect (for those of you who took French in high school, this will mean something.) and the past perfect subjunctive, etc. It was actually very interesting and sadly I was too polite to interject that American English has retained a lot of grammer that British English dropped about 200 years ago.

So we talked about holidays and our interest in taking some ferry tours which would allow us to take our car (the one we'll buy in future) with us. You can get ferries from England to places like Bilboa, Spain and Tunis in North Africa and Malta and Scandinavia. The prices are reasonable and it makes for a lovely, leisurely holiday. We also want to drive the Wine Route in Alsace and visit Basel. I would really enjoy visiting Basel again. It was a plesant and interesting place to live and would have been much more so if I'd had any money so I could have done more. So revisiting it when I'm working is a real must.

Now listen closely and pay attention. This is very important for you to know and understand.

There is no Great Coffee in England.

That's it and that's a tragedy.

I was out walking early this morning after having had my sacred first cup of the day. It was pretty good. It was arabica beans dark roasted to what they call an Italian roast here. As my grandma used to say, "by them it's Italian roast". I had made the coffee from fresh grounds, I just opened the vaccuum sealed bag from Waitrose. But even so, at its prime it just didn't reach New York City best standards.

I need Zabar's coffee. I need their darkest Italian roast beans, oily and fresh and indescribably fragrant. So fragrant that when you brew a pot of coffee, the scent fills the house and lifts your spirts. Next time I am in NYC, I'll not only buy a few bags of it for immediate use, I'll also buy a bunch of their specially vaccuum packed cans of it so it will remain fresh and keep me supplied for an extended period.

It's a real lack here. I have searched and researched and checked out leads from people who swear they found sources of great coffee but nothing comes close to the exquisite coffee sold so cheaply by Zabar's in NYC.

Damn, I need it.

Asti's birthday was yesterday and she had a get together for drinks at the George. Alan and I went and had a surprisingly good time. (Surprising because Alan was concerned that we'd be out of place with everyone so much younger than us. It turned out fine, programers are programers regardless.)

The George was an interesting pub to visit in any case.

You can read about The George here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_George_Inn,_Southwark

Anyway, we had a nice time chatting with Asti and her friends, a few of whom we knew from ACCU. Tati, Asti's neighbor from Basel flew over for the weekend so it was very nice to see her again.

We lucked out going home. Our leisurely stroll to the London Bridge tube station (only about 1 block really) was perfect timing. The Jubilee line train arrived almost immediately and got us to Waterloo station in a few minutes. Thinking we had a really long wait at Waterloo for the Isleworth train, we took our time making our way to the platform and voila! There was a train waiting there just about to depart. Kismet! We hopped on and 35 pleasant minutes later were getting off for the brief walk home.

Friday night was the start of August Bank Holiday weekend and several of our neighbours were still holding parties in their back gardens. The music wasn't loud enough to prevent our falling asleep so all in all a really pleasant evening.

The job search goes on. Nightmare.
Alan comes home from work and asks why am I sitting in the dark. It's not really dark, I just haven't turned on the lights. I'm still at my computer searching for and applying for jobs and there's enough light for that. I'm at the point where everything is now superfluous except hunting for a job. It's a race against time and money - both are running out. Perhaps have run out.
I have an interview on Wednesday, still applying for jobs, tho.

Job hunting is possibly the loneliest, most depressing thing there is to do. Soul destroying. You are putting yourself on the slave block and doing your best to sell yourself. Hoping someone will pick you. And each time you fail, you have no recourse but to smile, smile, smile, and do it all again.

One of the worst aspects of the ugly process is the sheer insanity of the reasons given for some rejections. I've been told I was too interesting, too bright, too work focused! Because the workplace culture here is more good enough and jobsworth, my Amercian values of hard work and can do, get it done might make co-workers uncomfortable.

Arrrgh! How do you make yourself seem stupider and lazier?

This week's winner of the most frustrating job interview is actually reasonably good but just frustrating. I've made it through the first interview and was called back for the short list, so to speak. Met with them again, including an additional higher up. That seemed to go ok, but there's no real way to know. It's all a guessing game. I'll know how well I impressed them if they call me back to come in for the final meeting they plan for this Friday. It's go-no go at this point. If I get that call back, I'll probably get this job. If not, not. So it's a get through each frustrating day wait now to see. Very, very stressful. This job is really a good match for me, the company is a great match for me. I like the people I've met, like their style and I think we'd work well together.

We'll see if they think so soon.

Stay tuned for more news as it happens. Same bat time, same bat channel.

Why Stereotypes are

So there were the French, you remember the French don't you? Those brave, honest people who condemned Dryfus because he was a Jew, and who volunteered to round up even the babies for the Nazis. Those people who -all- claim to have been in the resistance in WWII. Yes, those French, yes, the ones who actually invented the Inquisition (the Spanish only copied the French invention).

And now those lovely people, the French, led the call for a UN body of international troops to occupy Southern Lebanon and guarantee a ceasefire. The French have always insisted that they were the masters of diplomacy, the diplomats par excellence. They haven't been for over a century but why let facts intrude in nationailistic bombast. So there they were, charging to the fore, trying to regain their position as a real player, one of the big boys - declaring that they, the French, would lead the effort, their glorious French troops would show the way for all of us.

Big Talk. Big, big talk. The number 15,000 troups was mentioned. The number 4000 French troops immediately as the cornerstone was mentoioned, and more to follow.

And what do they do in the end? They send a team of 200 engineers. Huh? Engineers? What happened to the soldiers, mon ami?

From Reuters-
NEW YORK, 19 August (IRIN) - After the disappointing commitment by France of only 200 engineers to the newly tasked United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UN Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown appealed to the rest of Europe to provide troops for a "robust" force.

And -
German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced in a statement on Thursday that Germany was set to send customs officials.

Oh beauty! Is this not right out of Saturday Night Live?

Stereotypes are, they simply are because they are.

Choucroute!

I'm watching a really excellent show on Alsace and at the moment they are showing how to cook the regional specialty Choucroute. We've made this dish in our family for decades but watching the original made in its home stamping grounds is interesting and instructional.

I love Alsace- beautiful, beautiful area. Lovely people, lovely wine, lovely food. I miss it. I need a car so I can drive there with Alan and wander around the vinyards and little villages and sit at a cafe table sipping local wine and ummmmmmmmm

Federation II

Wow - a player created this little video about Alan's game: Federation II.

Plot to blow up aircraft flying from UK was "intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale," police spokesman says.

From CNN - London's Metropolitan Police said a months-long intelligence operation by the anti-terrorist branch and security service resulted in several arrests overnight, according to a Scotland Yard news release.

The aim of the alleged plot was to explode devices carried aboard planes in handheld luggage -- especially on flights from Britain to the United States, according to Scotland Yard.

***Right, and what do we learn from this? What lessons has the West learned from the unending terrorist suicide bombing jihad?

Nothing.

This is a cultural war and there is no compromise in sight nor will there be. In a sense, the Muslim terrorists are correct, the West is decadent - we tolerate them, we tolerate the unending threats and attacks. We tolerate changes to our chosen way of life, we tolerate losses to our fundamental Freedoms. We are being very stupid and I'm very afraid we will pay the price.

Beyond all else, as a woman, there is no acceptable place for me in a fundamentalist Muslim world. Don't tell me there are moderate Muslims. I don't see them crying out against terrorists and suicide bombings and jihad. All I see is them gathering in to support the destruction of Israel and the West. When I see the leaders of Islamic nations stand up in the UN and unilaterally denounce Islamic terrorists without reservation, when I see them break off diplomatic relations with all nations and groups that support this terrorism, then I will begin to believe again.

This truly tears at my heart. I worked for 8 years with Egyptians and other Arabic nationals and it was one of the best experiences of my life. They were good people, kind hearted, generous. We had years of excellent discussions between myself as an Amercian, female, Jew and they as Arab, Muslim men - and deeply religious Muslims at that. And it was always that we, Muslims and Jews were family, shared a common religous point of view of life in contrast to Christians. There was never any hate or intolerance. So where does this insanity spring from?

I think the problem is that Islam never went through a Reformation period, never endured the fires of intellectual enlightenment. So in many or most of Islamic populations, the culture is that which was acceptable 1000 years ago. It's not acceptable now.

Perhaps I was just lucky to work with such a wonderful group of Egyptians. I'm grateful for the many years I worked with them. But I also think it was because they had chosen to come to America, to persue the American Dream for themselves and their children. That was their own personal reformation that gave them a different perspective on life and life's priorities.

It's a sad time and a sad state of things in the world. The West needs to put its collective foot down and say NO to the Islamic bullies. Just say No.

Barbara Byro
and
Alan Lenton
are pleased to announce their wedding
on Saturday, August 5, 2006
at 12 noon
Cloverly House, Hounslow

"There's now a 48-hour cease-fire going on in the Middle East. Israel will stop attacking Hezbollah. But, Hezbollah will not necessarily agree to stop attacking Israel. Hey, we can't even get Mel Gibson to stop attacking Israel."
--Jay Leno

"A Lesson To Be Learned"

When I was in the Navy, I once witnessed a bar fight in downtown Olongapo
(Philippines) that still haunts my dreams.  The fight was between a big
oafish bar bully and a rather soft-spoken, medium sized Latino sailor from
my ship.

All evening the bully had been trying to pick a fight with one of us and
had finally set his sights on this diminutive shipmate of mine... figuring
him for a safe target.  When my friend refused to be goaded into a fight
the moron sucker punched him from behind on the side of the head so hard
that blood instantly started to pour from this poor man's mutilated ear.
Everyone present was horrified and was prepared to absolutely murder this
guy, but my shipmate quickly turned on him and began to single-handed
back him towards a corner with a series of stinging jabs and upper cuts
that gave more than a hint to a youth spent boxing in a small gym in the
Bronx.

Each punch opened a cut on the bully's startled face and by the time he
had been backed completely into the corner he was blubbering for someone
to stop the fight.  He invoked his split lips and chipped teeth as reasons
to stop the fight.  He begged us to stop the fight because he could barely
see through the river of blood that was pouring out of his split and
swollen brows.

Nobody moved.  Not one person.

The only sound in the bar was the sickening staccato sound of this
sailor's lightning fast fists making contact with new areas of the guy's
head.  The only sound I have heard since that was remotely similar was
from the first Rocky film when Sylvester Stallone was punching sides of
beef in the meat locker.

Finally the bully's pleading turned to screams.... a high, almost womanly
shriek.   And still the punches continued relentlessly.

Several people in the bar took a few tentative steps as though they wanted
to try to break it up at that point, but hands reached out from the crowd
and held them tight.  I'm not ashamed to say that mine were two of the
hands that held someone back.

You see, in between each blow the sailor had begun chanting a soft
cadence: "Say [punch] you [punch] give [punch] up [punch]... say [punch]
you [punch] were [punch] wrong [punch]".

He had been repeating it to the bully almost from the start but we only
became aware of it when the typical barroom cheers had died down and we
began to be sickened by the sight and sound of the carnage.

This coward stood there shrieking in the corner of the bar trying futilely
to block the carefully timed punches that were cutting his head to
tatters.. right down to the skull in places. But he refused to say that he
gave up... or that he was wrong.

Even in the delirium of his beating he believed in his heart that someone
would stop the fight before he had to admit defeat.  I'm sure this
strategy had served him well in the past and had allowed him to continue
on his career as a barroom bully.

Finally, in a wail of agony the coward shrieked  "I give up", and we
gently backed the sailor away from him.

I'm sure you can guess why I have shared this story today.
I'm not particularly proud to have been witness to such a bloody
spectacle, and the sound of that bully's woman-like shrieks will haunt me
to my grave.  But I learned something that evening that Israel had better
learn for itself if it is to finally be rid of at least one of its tormentors:

This is one time an Arab aggressor must be allowed to be beaten so badly
that every civilized nation will stand in horror, wanting desperately to
step in and stop the carnage... but knowing that the fight will only truly
be over when one side gives up and finally admits defeat.
Just as every person who had ever rescued that bully from admitting defeat
helped create the cowardly brute I saw that evening in the bar, every
well-intentioned power that has ever stepped in and negotiated a ceasefire
for an Arab aggressor has helped create the monsters we see around us
today.

President Lahoud of Lebanon, a big Hezbollah supporter and a close ally of
Syria, has been shrieking non-stop to the UN Security Council for the past
two days to get them to force Israel into a cease fire.

Clearly he has been reading his autographed copy of 'Military Success for
Dummies Arab Despots' by the late Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt.  Ever since
Nasser accidentally discovered the trick in '56, every subsequent Arab
leader has stuck to his tried and true formula for military success:
Instigate a war.

Once the war is well underway and you are in the process of having your
ass handed to you... get a few world powers to force your western opponent
into a cease fire.

Whatever you do, don't surrender or submit to any terms dictated by your
enemy.  That would ruin everything!  All you have to do is wait it out and
eventually the world will become sickened at what is being done to your
soldiers and civilian population... and will force a truce.

Once a truce has been called you can resume your intransigence (which
probably caused the conflict in the first place), and even declare victory
as your opponent leaves the field of battle.

This tactic has never failed.  Not once.

In fact it worked so will for the Egyptians in 1973, that to this day they
celebrate the Yom Kippur War - a crushing defeat at the hands of Israel -
as a military victory!  No kidding... it's a national holiday over there!

President Lahoud  has already begun to shriek  like a school girl to the
UN Security Council to "Stop the violence and arrange a cease-fire, and
then after that we'll be ready to discuss all matters."

Uh huh.  Forgive me if I find that a tad hard to swallow.  He allowed
Hezbollah to take over his country.  He allowed the regular Lebanese
army to provide radar targeting data for the Hezbollah missile that
struck the Israeli destroyer  He has turned a blind eye while Iranian
and Syrian weapons, advisers and money have poured into his country.

And now that his country is in ruins he wants to call it a draw.

As much as it may sicken the world to stand by and watch it happen,
strong hands need to hold back the weak-hearted and let the fight
continue until one side finally admits unambiguous defeat.

Forwarded by

Dan Sorkin

"The world is a dangerous place to live
not because of the people who are evil,
but because of the people who don't do
anything about it."
-- Albert Einstein

Last night I sent out(emailed) the invites to the wedding and the celebration parties which will be held in NYC and London in Nov. Got a lot of rsvp responses already. The parties should be great fun. We'll have the NYC one at our favorite - Capsuto Freres. I haven't figured out where to have the London party since there's no real equivalent to Capsuto Freres here except in the exhorbitantly and insanely expensive category. We'll see what I find that combines great food with a stylish venue.