West Middlesex University Hospital

I had surgery today at West Middlesex University Hospital in Isleworth, London, UK. This is an NHS hospital and for American readers, let me disclose that it is not a "University Hospital" in any sense we know of in the USA.
The hospital has fairly murky Victorian roots; it was opened in 1894 as the Brentford Workhouse Infirmary (shades of Charles Dickens!), but was partly refurbished/partly new rebuild about 10 years ago. While the current hospital now looks reasonably modern if hideously ugly at a glance, many departments and facilities remain shambolicly designed and run with a laundry list of serious issues. I remain convinced that the entire facility was designed by an airport architect specializing in making access between any 2 locations as distant and difficult to transit as possible; even the disabled parking was placed at a significant distance from the main entrance and at the bottom of a steep incline. Paid parking, of course.

Many of the "Consultants", "Registrars", and registered nurses are excellent, caring, dedicated physicians, surgeons, and speciality nurses. But they are a small drop in a large bucket. The Admin staff is almost unfailingly Kafkaesque in their arrogant, condescending, mean-spirited work practices, often startlingly ignorant and contemptuous of the professional staff, dismissive of patients.

I'll shortly add a post mortem review of serious issues observed at WMUH and a Lessons Learned guide which is probably applicable to any contact with a NHS hospital.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2

Just watched the final Harry Potter film tonight. Wow! A worthy end to the tale.
Very satisfying, very engrossing.
A good way to end.

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other peoples' gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickles for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

by Jenny Joseph

Mothers Day - US style

Astrid and I went out for Mothers Day brunch last Sunday - observing the real ie US Mothers Day. Asti picked a real winner, the Village East on Bermondsey Street. Lovely Eggs Benedict, lovely pancakes with real maple syrup and gorgeous bacon...and the best Bloody Marys I've had in recent memory or possibly ever. 

If restaurants in London still allowed smoking, I could see that place becoming a family favourite/regular hangout and whiling away lazy Sundays there with newspapers and good conversation to round out the great food.

But, having to walk outside and smoke in the street is a real bummer. So my regular Sunday brunch venue will remain at home - especially if we get approved for the flat in Chiswick we're hoping for. The flat has a back garden as well as sufficient space indoors for genuine entertaining and civilized dining so with a bit of luck, BBQs and dinner parties will be in my future once again.

Osama Bin Laden is dead. Good riddance!

It's almost 10 years since the terrorist attack on the US that was ordered by Bin Laden.
I stood at my office windows and watched that day as the WTC towers burned, saw the 2nd plane crash into them, watched the fiery holocaust consume the towers and, finally and in a state of shock and disbelief watched their collapse.
It's been almost 10 years that I've lived with those images in my mind. Still fresh, and clear, and shocking.
I remember it all. All the details of desperately trying to reach my son Andrew on his cell phone. Getting calls and emails from colleagues all over the globe asking me to try to get through to their family and friends to confirm they were safely out of the towers.
I remember scavenging my office for face masks and de-con suits and gloves and flashlights to send down to Ground Zero with the emergency engineer team AboveNet sent.

We had colleagues there, knew network engineers working in the towers' data rooms and PA project managers.

I remember calling Alan and telling him a plane crashed into the WTC just as I arrived at work. And him checking CNN on his computer because at that point there was nothing on the BBC news yet.

I remember standing at our huge office window wall with Allen our Security Director and staring at the flames and boiling black clouds of smoke.
And time - minutes and hours - passing but feeling like it was standing still, frozen.

And I remember the incredible feeling of relief, and release, when I answered my cell phone and heard my son Andrew say "Mom, I'm ok, I'm safe."
But it's been almost 10 years remembering those who never got to make their "Mom, I'm ok, I'm safe" phone call. Remembering that ordinary, decent, innocent people were slaughtered in cold blood by merciless terrorists on orders from Osama Bin Laden.

So now finally Osama Bin Laden is dead. A small measure of Justice for us all.

Next Friday we'll be joining with our neighbours and holding an all day street party to celebrate the Royal Wedding. Doing a BBQ and everyone will bring food. Should be interesting as we are a very mixed ethnic/national group. I'll take photos for our housing association newsletter.

After reading an interesting article in the NY Times about sugar research and a bit of digging about in the associated studies, I decided to give up sugar. Not entirely, that would be too tiresome and fanatic. But in line with what I understood from those studies, to simply stop adding sugar to my coffee which I calculate is the major source of sugar for me. Thank goodness Asti secured a supply of Zucrinet for me. With enough of that my morning coffee is still quite acceptably sweet and tasty.
Since we don't eat much processed or packaged food I think we have very little hidden sugar in our diet. The shift away from processed food was a response to my dislike of the UK formulations - everything was too sweet or too vinegary or had a weird texture.

Coincidently, last week I had some extensive blood tests done so in a month I shall ask my doctor to repeat them and we'll see if there's any change. Again, according to the studies, the response to removing fructose from the diet is surprisingly rapid.

A harmless experiment and an interesting one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

A good day at Oxford ACCU AGM.  Lovely drive there and back; sunshine and light traffic felt as if we were in some other country. ;)

The meeting was classic. Just goes to show what happens when you piss off old politicians. I, of course, always enjoy theatre and this was a very worthy production, long in the making. Among other excitement, Alan was elected secretary, taking the position over from a retiring colleague who had taken over from Alan over 10 years ago.

He who controls the minutes, controls the world.
This will be an interesting year.

My only regret was that we decided to go directly home to avoid what looked like horrendous traffic heading farther into Oxford. I'd originally wanted to detour through Oxford centre to stop in at the ONLY decent noodle house in the UK and buy some chow fun - several orders of it in fact - to put in the freezer. This is soul food for NY Jews.

Up at Oxford today for the ACCU 2011 conference - specifically for the annual meeting/bloodbath where presumably they will be choosing a new Conference chair and committee members. This should prove interesting as the old boys are finally putting their collective foot down with the conference committee and imposing some sorely needed democracy and transparency as well as fiscal responsibility into the process.
We shall see. One lives in hope.

Three curses of increasing severity

May you live in interesting times
May you come to the attention of those in authority (May the government be aware of you).
May you find what you are looking for. (May your wishes be granted).

Have you seen Sfogliatelle in London??

For reasons unknown it is impossible to find this Italian pastry, called Sfogliatelle, in London.


WHY?????


I've searched all over Greater London, talked with shop-owners, people I meet, restaurants, farmers markets. searched the web, everything. Nada.
How can London not have these sublime pastries?


I've seen some vaguely similar pastries here but they are filled with greasy sugar "creme". The real pastries are baked with a ricotta cheese and candied citron filling.
The photo above is of a classic sfogliatelle served at Ferrara's in New York City. A San Francisco restaurant owner was recently quoted as saying...
"The sfogliatelle from Ferrara's in New York City. They are a textural party in my mouth. Crispy, creamy, moist, powdery joy and not too sweet. All I need is one of them and a double espresso."

Loved the teacher's comments on this.

Sadly the site I found this on now seems to be dead or down.

A Jew was studying Hebrew in Old Soviet Union
and a guard came to him and said: 'Stop wasting
your time. We're not allowing you to go to Israel.
Why would you study Hebrew?'

The Jew answered: 'If I go to Heaven, I'd like to
speak G~d's language and be understood.'

The guard replied: 'Well, what if you go to Hell?'

The Jew finally said: 'Don't worry, I know Russian
rather well.'

Happy New Year 2011

It was a pretty decent Christmas and New Years Eve. We even managed to fit in a visit to Asti over on the other side of London. We had dinner at Ron & Hillary's along with Pete & Laurie on New Years Eve and all watched the midnight fireworks. Amazingly, TPTB in London finally got the fireworks right; this year's display was fabulous, impressive, and beautiful. I made profiteroles for our dessert - the recipe is on my recipe blog Tales from the Kitchen Table.
It was actually a well needed rest for Alan and me.

If it's not one thing, it's another

I ventured out of the house on Monday in sub-zero temps to clear the snow off the car and drive to the local Tesco for milk and bread. The car was covered in 4 inches of snow and a layer of ice beneath that. But I did manage to get the door open and the engine started right up - what a relief. But after I'd carefully and thoroughly cleaned all the snow and ice off the car and was ready to leave for the store, I decided to just give my wipers a little flick to check that the washer fluid was working ok. I worried that it might have frozen, even though I filled it with winter -20 C type washer fluid. So I turned on the switch and - nada. No washer fluid, no wiper movement,  and no wiper motor sound; just silence. Checked that the bit where the wiper arm mechanism attaches was ice free - but still no joy. Thought I was give it a chance to warm up from the fierce car heater blowing air onto the windshield.  Nada. No front wipers, no rear wiper.

The car just passed its MOT perfectly last week. This is out of the blue and frustrating. Because of the chaos from snow and freezing temps and Christmas holidays almost on top of us, all the local Honda dealers are over-booked for repairs. Same for the couple of local garages I trust. My neighbour who usually does my car repairs can't really work outside in sub-zero temps. And electrical repairs are expensive. So this will all have to wait until next week or just after New Years. It's just not safe to drive without windshield wipers. Even if it's not raining or snowing, a car or truck could splash filth or water onto my car when I'm driving and I would be blinded without wipers. Arrgh! Frustrating.

When Wedding Photographers Get Photoshop Insanity

Can you spot the insanity in this photo?

After Death Wishes

A Catholic priest, a Protestant minister, and a Rabbi
are discussing what they would like people to say
after they die and their bodies are on display in
open caskets.

Priest: I would like someone to say "He was a righteous
man, an honest man, and very generous."

Minister: I would like someone to say "He was very kind
and fair, and he was very good to his parishioners."

Rabbi: I would want someone to say, "Oh look! He's
moving!"

Someday your prince charming will come; unless he took a wrong turn, got lost, and is too stubborn to ask for directions.

Early Birthday Surprise

Tonight, when Alan arrived home from work, he handed me a very prettily wrapped box with a card wishing me a Happy Birthday. Ten days early but I couldn't resist opening it immediately. Yes! It was the 1TB Samsung portable usb hard drive I've been drooling over and wishing for. The perfect birthday present. I'm so pleased he got exactly what I wanted rather than taking me out to dinner or buying me some jewellery. I have piles of jewellery already and going out to dinner at a restaurant is nice but nothing extraordinary. But a 1TB portable HD? Ooooooooh, drool!

I know, I know, but I'm so pleased, so happy.

And it's still snowing. Day 3 now. Everything covered with an increasing layer of white. The road are impossible a third world nightmare. I just hope the Tesco delivery truck is able to bring the grocery order tomorrow. The whole country is in a transportation crisis, near paralysed by the bad weather. We're only taking  few centimeters here, mind you, but it's panic time in Great Britain.