I've had my moments in the past where I've doubted Michael Moore's methods. One sided arguments, hysterical ranting, and distortion of facts have all featured in his documentaries, but when I was watching this, an examination of healthcare in the US, I came to a realisation.
Most socially concious left-wing documentaries (can they even be described as left-wing, really?) don't have the broadest of fanbases. Naomi Klein, as much as I like what she does, can't be described as a household name. Sales of Joel Bakan's book The Corporation aren't exactly up there with the Holy Bible. It's to be expected, but that kind of notoriety is what's needed if the kind of change propounded by them is to take place. People will read these people's books -myself included - and think 'Gosh, don't we really need to do something about all of this?', try and convert a few people, change our voting habits and our shopping habits, and then leave it at that. Hardly the basis for a mass revolution.
The thing about Michael Moore is this. He is the megaphone for all this activism, and he genuinely does have an effect on how politicians and CEOs operate: Witness how the Bush administration tried to have Fahrenheit 9/11 banned just before the presidential election, and - in this film - how one insurance company decided, after exposure on this documentary, to pay for the medical treatment of a small child, having previously refused.
In this, Moore basically examines healthcare in the US - or lack thereof - and compares it to that in other countries. It all comes down to health insurance. If you don't have it, you're fucked. If you have it, but contract a fatal illness that the company can somehow weasel its way out of covering, you're fucked. The latter is what happened in more than one case here, and in the film, the presentation of footage of a person alive and well who would subsequently go on to die, because the emergency life-saving surgery he needed wasn't covered by his insurance company, isn't just sad, it's chilling. The one thing I loved was the naming and outright shaming of the companies involved, lawsuits and libel cases be damned.
After that, it's trips to Guantanamo bay for free healthcare for 9/11 workers and comparisons to Canadian and European healthcare. The NHS is portrayed as being a flawless model of socialist medicine, which was ...erm...something of a creative leap on Moore's part, but then again, it's by way of comparison. The price comparisons betweeen the cost of medicines in America and in other, supposedly lesser developed countries was something of an eye-opener though.
The one thing I was surprised by was that at one point in the documentary it looked as if there was going to be a shift in focus onto the pharmaceutical companies, but the opportunity was allowed to pass. Time constraints, maybe? Who knows...
Anyway, there you have it. Go see. I personally found it to be more stimulating than Fahrenheit 9/11 in some ways. The one thing I was surprised by was that on its opening night over here, my flatmates and I had no problems in getting tickets to see it. It seems that people weren't exactly beating the doors down to see it. Maybe I've overestimated Moore's box office appeal. I hope not...
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Facebook.
I joined Facebook a while back. I didn't feel under pressure to do so at the time, as only a few people I knew had mentioned it, and I didn't realise that upon joining it I would find just about everyone I ever knew in life has a profile on it. Which it seems they do, not least most of the people in my pharmacy class.
For some reason, this site has mushroomed way beyond Bebo, Hi5 and other networking sites in popularity. I'm kind of liking it, though still getting used to the friend requests from people I have never met in real life (Though some of them, such as Oscar Soria, have interesting profiles about political activism and meeting Naomi Klein, which is cool).
Of course, where there are mass gatherings, there will be bears.
Such as this throbbing vortex of hotness
And this one
For some reason, this site has mushroomed way beyond Bebo, Hi5 and other networking sites in popularity. I'm kind of liking it, though still getting used to the friend requests from people I have never met in real life (Though some of them, such as Oscar Soria, have interesting profiles about political activism and meeting Naomi Klein, which is cool).
Of course, where there are mass gatherings, there will be bears.
Such as this throbbing vortex of hotness
And this one
And this one
And... Oh, you get the picture.
There are also groups you can join, such as ...erm... Facebook Bears, and Bears Cubs And Their Admirers, and...
...
Other groups, such as ones for appreciation of cinema. I've joined that too!
Still, the whole concept on online networking is looking interesting for once, might stay with it for a while. All people have to do is stop getting me to install all the crap extra applications...
Update: Jesus, just how much shit can come out of this website? Werewolves, vampires, zombies? Constantly being poked by people? Survey questionnaires? Give it a rest!
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Control
Anyone who's into moody alternative rock knows the story about Ian Curtis. He was the singer for a band called Warsaw, who later changed their name to Joy Division. They released one album called Unknown Pleasures to critical acclaim, started to become popular, and were poised to go on a tour of America. Things were scuppered, however, when Curtis was unable to cope with personal problems, and killed himself. The band had accumulated enough recorded material, however, to release 'Closer' posthumously, which makes everyone concerned with it regard it as Curtis' personal suicide note. It was after that that the band decided to carry on, renaming themselves as New Order. Sound familiar?
A few things about this film:
a) The actors in this film looked almost exactly like their real life counterparts. You think Val Kilmer looked like Jim Morrison in The Doors? That likeness has nothing on how much Sam Riley resembles Ian Curtis.
b) The film didn't deify Curtis in the way that many journalists and artists are irritatingly prone to doing. It presented him as flawed, struggling to deal with the circumstances imposed on him in a less than ideal way.
c) In spite of the fact that the film makes Manchester (and Macclesfield in particular) look as grim as shit, it still comes across as interesting, and somewhere I wouldn't mind visiting.
The film was based on the book written by Curtis's widow Deborah, Touching from a distance. I never bought it, but read through most of it when it was on sale in a bookshop near where I lived, years ago in Dublin.
I didn't have much sympathy for Ian Curtis after reading the book. He came across like an egotistical prima donna, and an unstable father figure to boot. The latter is where I draw the line: Once you have children, your live is no longer your own and you have a duty to other people (the main reason why I will probably never opt for parenthood). He didn't really seem to care about his wife either.
But of course flicking through a book doesn't give you the proper picture, and the film helped put his life into perspective a bit more. I didn't know about the extra-marital affair, and I didn't know about how his epilepsy only started to figure in his life at the same time as his band were starting to take off. His appointment with a neurologist was interesting. Standard guidelines on prescribing didn't really exist back then, so Ian simply had a bucket of anti-seizure medication thrown at him, and told to get on with it. I've seen people struggle with an ongoing course of Carbemazapine, one anti-seizure medication. Curtis (if I remember rightly) had three to deal with, as the doctor adopted a sledghammer-to-kill-a-fly approach. This was where he started to get my sympathy.
All things considered, I can now kind of appreciate where it all came from. He had problems imposed on him - some of his own making, some not - and finds it too much to bear. He gets married at an age that would now be considered ridiculously young, and then decides to have a child almost on a whim. I get the feeling if he waited and got his head together, he would have made a better fist of his life, but instead he goes ahead and takes all this responsibility at a time when he should be cutting down on his stress levels. He has an affair with a woman, and then falls in love with her, and finds himself unable to finish it, in spite of his wife issuing him with ultimatums. Top this all off with the fact that he's not exactly swimming in money, and you have some idea of what he's going through. And so he decides not to hang around.
Other than that, you get a good insight into how the machinations of a local music scene works. Their manager was desperate for someone with talent to look after, because nothing was going to happen for him of his own accord. I remember when I was growing up, my brother was a roadie for a popular local band. Their songs were good enough, but egos and in-fighting fucked it all up before they could even get a record deal, and they've all since moved onto sensible jobs, though not without having a laugh along the way. One thing I remember was the older musos hanging around them, people who had never made it themselves and looked just too plain grown-up to be involved with that kind of thing, but didn't really have any other options open to them. There were a few people in this film like that.
One other thing I knew nothing of was how Curtis used to work at employment exchange, and seeing him having to deal with people on their terms rather than his own was funny.
Lastly, I was always a bit dubious about some of Joy Division's music. I felt that they walked a fine line between atmospheric and turgid, and only really started to get things fully right in their incarnation as New Order. It was only in the last while that I realised that there were some undeniably good songs in the back catalogue of the beleagured former though, I can't take that away from them, and they certainly offered a blueprint from which just about every 90's miserablist claims to work these days.
A few things about this film:
a) The actors in this film looked almost exactly like their real life counterparts. You think Val Kilmer looked like Jim Morrison in The Doors? That likeness has nothing on how much Sam Riley resembles Ian Curtis.
b) The film didn't deify Curtis in the way that many journalists and artists are irritatingly prone to doing. It presented him as flawed, struggling to deal with the circumstances imposed on him in a less than ideal way.
c) In spite of the fact that the film makes Manchester (and Macclesfield in particular) look as grim as shit, it still comes across as interesting, and somewhere I wouldn't mind visiting.
The film was based on the book written by Curtis's widow Deborah, Touching from a distance. I never bought it, but read through most of it when it was on sale in a bookshop near where I lived, years ago in Dublin.
I didn't have much sympathy for Ian Curtis after reading the book. He came across like an egotistical prima donna, and an unstable father figure to boot. The latter is where I draw the line: Once you have children, your live is no longer your own and you have a duty to other people (the main reason why I will probably never opt for parenthood). He didn't really seem to care about his wife either.
But of course flicking through a book doesn't give you the proper picture, and the film helped put his life into perspective a bit more. I didn't know about the extra-marital affair, and I didn't know about how his epilepsy only started to figure in his life at the same time as his band were starting to take off. His appointment with a neurologist was interesting. Standard guidelines on prescribing didn't really exist back then, so Ian simply had a bucket of anti-seizure medication thrown at him, and told to get on with it. I've seen people struggle with an ongoing course of Carbemazapine, one anti-seizure medication. Curtis (if I remember rightly) had three to deal with, as the doctor adopted a sledghammer-to-kill-a-fly approach. This was where he started to get my sympathy.
All things considered, I can now kind of appreciate where it all came from. He had problems imposed on him - some of his own making, some not - and finds it too much to bear. He gets married at an age that would now be considered ridiculously young, and then decides to have a child almost on a whim. I get the feeling if he waited and got his head together, he would have made a better fist of his life, but instead he goes ahead and takes all this responsibility at a time when he should be cutting down on his stress levels. He has an affair with a woman, and then falls in love with her, and finds himself unable to finish it, in spite of his wife issuing him with ultimatums. Top this all off with the fact that he's not exactly swimming in money, and you have some idea of what he's going through. And so he decides not to hang around.
Other than that, you get a good insight into how the machinations of a local music scene works. Their manager was desperate for someone with talent to look after, because nothing was going to happen for him of his own accord. I remember when I was growing up, my brother was a roadie for a popular local band. Their songs were good enough, but egos and in-fighting fucked it all up before they could even get a record deal, and they've all since moved onto sensible jobs, though not without having a laugh along the way. One thing I remember was the older musos hanging around them, people who had never made it themselves and looked just too plain grown-up to be involved with that kind of thing, but didn't really have any other options open to them. There were a few people in this film like that.
One other thing I knew nothing of was how Curtis used to work at employment exchange, and seeing him having to deal with people on their terms rather than his own was funny.
Lastly, I was always a bit dubious about some of Joy Division's music. I felt that they walked a fine line between atmospheric and turgid, and only really started to get things fully right in their incarnation as New Order. It was only in the last while that I realised that there were some undeniably good songs in the back catalogue of the beleagured former though, I can't take that away from them, and they certainly offered a blueprint from which just about every 90's miserablist claims to work these days.
The rugby is over
...it wasn't as good as last saturday, for the following reasons.
1) I had been out the night before, and had a stinking hangover on saturday as a result.
2) I organised it badly, trying to get into a pub in town 10 minutes after the game had started. Not surprisingly, I was turned away, as the pub had reached capacity. I ended up watching it at home, which of course wasn't the same.
3) England lost, so the prevailing atmosphere of good cheer was dispelled soon enough.
4) There weren't half enough close-ups of Lawrence D'Allaglio, reason enough to suggest he should have been substituted into the game earlier. If he had been, perhaps the result would have been different?
1) I had been out the night before, and had a stinking hangover on saturday as a result.
2) I organised it badly, trying to get into a pub in town 10 minutes after the game had started. Not surprisingly, I was turned away, as the pub had reached capacity. I ended up watching it at home, which of course wasn't the same.
3) England lost, so the prevailing atmosphere of good cheer was dispelled soon enough.
4) There weren't half enough close-ups of Lawrence D'Allaglio, reason enough to suggest he should have been substituted into the game earlier. If he had been, perhaps the result would have been different?
Oh well, at least I managed to locate the guy with the beard to some extent. He's one of these two here, George Chuter I think?
So that's it for a while. Setting my sights back on the bears again...
Monday, October 15, 2007
Jumping on the bandwagon
Saturday saw me sit (or stand, rather, in a pub into which we were all squashed like sweating sardines) through my first competitive team sport match in quite some time, England versus France in the Rugby World cup semi-final. Yes, dear readers, I was more preoccupied with the players than the playing, but hey, Lawrence looks as good as ever and I've noticed another player on the team sporting a hot beard, but whose name escapes me, in spite of a careful search over the internet.
I was kind of going for France, although Sebastien Chabal looks like an untamed gorilla. At the end, I got quite the land when England pulled ahead, and cheered loud and long when Lawrence appeared on camera, and the pub I was in erupted. An Irish pub, though there still wasn't any mean-spirited Anglophobia, and now I'm looking forward to England playing against South Africa next weekend. Beer, good cheer, and hot men on screen. What more could you want?
After that, I went to a 21st and got hammered, along with everyone else, and got to bed at 4am.
Roll on England versus South Africa...
I was kind of going for France, although Sebastien Chabal looks like an untamed gorilla. At the end, I got quite the land when England pulled ahead, and cheered loud and long when Lawrence appeared on camera, and the pub I was in erupted. An Irish pub, though there still wasn't any mean-spirited Anglophobia, and now I'm looking forward to England playing against South Africa next weekend. Beer, good cheer, and hot men on screen. What more could you want?
After that, I went to a 21st and got hammered, along with everyone else, and got to bed at 4am.
Roll on England versus South Africa...
Thursday, October 04, 2007
John David Lake. RIP.
This entry was going to be a rant about what a dreadful shower of cunts Boots Alliance are (again), but then I came across something on the net that put things into perspective.
A chap in Kansas City who went by the name of John David Lake passed away on Wednesday evening. He was 50 years old. He is survived by his partner Tony and his dog Spud.
I never met him in real life. I happened across his online journal one day via a comment he left on someone else's, and was hooked. As a writer he was funny, and from the stories he told, he came across as a person who was funny in real life too. His blog was studded with gems about:
- Weirdoes he had to deal with at work
- Having crushes on his co-workers
- Feigning heterosexuality during NASCAR season
- Bluetooth device users
- Ogling hot men
- Video games
- Bad spelling and grammar (we very much shared the same opinion on this)
- Having to suffer a zit on his nose
- His dog Spud, and the conversations he had with him.
and my personal favourite,
An ode to toast
So with that, I direct you to go over to the blog entitled A Spasmodic Attachment and read. You will like it. Hopefully it will be left up there and not deleted. It would make for a nice epitaph for him, I think.
It made me think about other related things in general. No one in Mallow has any idea about my blog that I'm aware of thus far, and in common with a lot of gay men who grew up in provincial areas, most of the life that I've built for myself since I left is separate and distinct from my life in my home town. If, God forbid, I were to die, most of the people who would turn up for the funeral would be unknown to my parents, especially all the people I've come to know in Brighton. Is building a life for yourself so separate from your parents and where you grew up a good thing? I imagine it's par for the course for a lot of people.
When I was at Joop's funeral, I remember thinking about whether or not it would be a good idea to have the address of my blog given out to people at my funeral as a way of remembering me. It would probably cause a little bit of discomfort to some of my family, but in the long-term, I think it's a good way of remembering someone for ever. Like a mark that someone made while they were here, whatever it amounts to.
I've often planned a road trip across America, going from place to place, living in different cities, meeting different people. I thought to myself more than once that I would like to meet John, Tony, and their dog Spud in real life, to put a personality on their internet story. Now that story has taken a sad twist, and lost one of its leading players.
Oh, the power of the internet.
Farewell John. You were funny, you were a good writer, and you were hot. You died too young. Rest In Peace.
A chap in Kansas City who went by the name of John David Lake passed away on Wednesday evening. He was 50 years old. He is survived by his partner Tony and his dog Spud.
I never met him in real life. I happened across his online journal one day via a comment he left on someone else's, and was hooked. As a writer he was funny, and from the stories he told, he came across as a person who was funny in real life too. His blog was studded with gems about:
- Weirdoes he had to deal with at work
- Having crushes on his co-workers
- Feigning heterosexuality during NASCAR season
- Bluetooth device users
- Ogling hot men
- Video games
- Bad spelling and grammar (we very much shared the same opinion on this)
- Having to suffer a zit on his nose
- His dog Spud, and the conversations he had with him.
and my personal favourite,
An ode to toast
So with that, I direct you to go over to the blog entitled A Spasmodic Attachment and read. You will like it. Hopefully it will be left up there and not deleted. It would make for a nice epitaph for him, I think.
It made me think about other related things in general. No one in Mallow has any idea about my blog that I'm aware of thus far, and in common with a lot of gay men who grew up in provincial areas, most of the life that I've built for myself since I left is separate and distinct from my life in my home town. If, God forbid, I were to die, most of the people who would turn up for the funeral would be unknown to my parents, especially all the people I've come to know in Brighton. Is building a life for yourself so separate from your parents and where you grew up a good thing? I imagine it's par for the course for a lot of people.
When I was at Joop's funeral, I remember thinking about whether or not it would be a good idea to have the address of my blog given out to people at my funeral as a way of remembering me. It would probably cause a little bit of discomfort to some of my family, but in the long-term, I think it's a good way of remembering someone for ever. Like a mark that someone made while they were here, whatever it amounts to.
I've often planned a road trip across America, going from place to place, living in different cities, meeting different people. I thought to myself more than once that I would like to meet John, Tony, and their dog Spud in real life, to put a personality on their internet story. Now that story has taken a sad twist, and lost one of its leading players.
Oh, the power of the internet.
Farewell John. You were funny, you were a good writer, and you were hot. You died too young. Rest In Peace.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Friday night
The two hospital interviews have come and gone, and I can summarize them as shit (Brighton) and OK (West Middlesex). Then again, I haven't heard back from either of them yet, so maybe that's indicative of shit (Brighton) and shit (West Middlesex). Kings have spurned me without even an interview. Fuckers don't know what they're missing. I'm still waiting to hear from Central Middlesex, but I'm not holding out much hope.
On Friday, after humming and hawing, I decided that since I couldn't make the wedding in Ireland I was originally supposed to go to, I would go out somewhere else. I'd had my eye on a bear night in Vauxhall, in the Area club, as a certain DJ called Kevin Rolfe was playing, and his boyfriend was with him. Their stage name as a couple is The Beards.
I first happened across the online profiles of these two a while back, here and here, and was intrigued by the list of bands they listed on their web pages. I've always felt a bit put off by the music that gets played in standard gay clubs - too much mainstream fluff - and hadn't at that time met any other blokes, gay or straight, that had the same musical leanings as mine in quite some time. So I went digging around a bit.
These two organise a club night called homoelectric (be sure to click the link 'Why we bother' for a good read), and seem to be two pretty talented artists. This is another one of their sites, which features a rather funky electronic tune which has got very firmly stuck in my head (and in the head of the people I work with in college, as I keep playing it on my computer at work ha ha). On another of their sites, is a poem written by one about the other called 'You saved me'. To find it, click on the 'Word' button and then select the poem from the left-hand pane. It's worth the effort. There's also another piece 'Neil's Perspective' which features a turn of phrase that resonates with me, 'We are on loan to each other', which kind of describes the last guy I was with, as he had a boyfriend, and sums up how meaningless that kind of encounter can sometimes be, but that's for another time.
Anyway, the bear night was based around the launch of a book Bearflavoured, which as far as I could tell, was a collection of various artistic pieces seemingly - for the most part - by bears for bears. I found out afterwards that the aforementioned poem was included in the book as well.
So on Friday morning I rang Sarah Al, my drinking partner in crime, to find that she had just arrived back from a holiday in Egypt, and a rendez-vous was organised. After a few drinks we agreed that Sarah would come to the club with me (anytime the poor girl has been out with me lately, I've always dragged her to cruisy gay bars in the name of getting pissed, but she didn't seem to mind this time).
By the time we got out of the cab at the club, we were already pissed, but never ones to be bothered by a trifling detail like that, we went straight to the bar and continued on our bender. We eventually met The Beards (nice chaps) and chatted a while, and after that I checked out some men (the eye candy at London bear events always beats the Brighton ones hands down). Then I got talking to this guy, who is much wider in life than he looks in his photos. I've become acquainted with the american term 'fireplug', used to describe broad guys, and I like 'em.
After that, insanity flowered. Sarah and I danced on the stage, and when I went to dive off, I landed on a wet patch of floor and my legs went out from under me. I didn't so much land on my arse as bounced on it. Of course, in my drunkeness I felt nothing, and he who dances and jumps away, comes back to dance another day.
What is it about alcohol that makes you think you're a scolarship-winning candidate for a performing arts school?
After a while, the lack of sleep got to Sarah, and she decided to nod off in the club, for an hour or so, amidst all the noise. At least she was in a place where she probably couldn't be safer.
At the end of the night we got a taxi home, driven by this slightly..erm...politically opinionated guy, who ranted about The System all the way home. Thankfully the drive only took us about 10-15 minutes.
This morning I rose, cringed as the flashbacks of the night before hit me, and went home. Halfway back to Brighton, a family of screaming children settled in my carriage. I wanted to produce a machine gun and kill them all.
Now I sit here with a delayed-onset headache. Staying in tonight, methinks. 'Creep' on Channel 4 tonight, House of Flying Daggers tomorrow night...
On Friday, after humming and hawing, I decided that since I couldn't make the wedding in Ireland I was originally supposed to go to, I would go out somewhere else. I'd had my eye on a bear night in Vauxhall, in the Area club, as a certain DJ called Kevin Rolfe was playing, and his boyfriend was with him. Their stage name as a couple is The Beards.
I first happened across the online profiles of these two a while back, here and here, and was intrigued by the list of bands they listed on their web pages. I've always felt a bit put off by the music that gets played in standard gay clubs - too much mainstream fluff - and hadn't at that time met any other blokes, gay or straight, that had the same musical leanings as mine in quite some time. So I went digging around a bit.
These two organise a club night called homoelectric (be sure to click the link 'Why we bother' for a good read), and seem to be two pretty talented artists. This is another one of their sites, which features a rather funky electronic tune which has got very firmly stuck in my head (and in the head of the people I work with in college, as I keep playing it on my computer at work ha ha). On another of their sites, is a poem written by one about the other called 'You saved me'. To find it, click on the 'Word' button and then select the poem from the left-hand pane. It's worth the effort. There's also another piece 'Neil's Perspective' which features a turn of phrase that resonates with me, 'We are on loan to each other', which kind of describes the last guy I was with, as he had a boyfriend, and sums up how meaningless that kind of encounter can sometimes be, but that's for another time.
Anyway, the bear night was based around the launch of a book Bearflavoured, which as far as I could tell, was a collection of various artistic pieces seemingly - for the most part - by bears for bears. I found out afterwards that the aforementioned poem was included in the book as well.
So on Friday morning I rang Sarah Al, my drinking partner in crime, to find that she had just arrived back from a holiday in Egypt, and a rendez-vous was organised. After a few drinks we agreed that Sarah would come to the club with me (anytime the poor girl has been out with me lately, I've always dragged her to cruisy gay bars in the name of getting pissed, but she didn't seem to mind this time).
By the time we got out of the cab at the club, we were already pissed, but never ones to be bothered by a trifling detail like that, we went straight to the bar and continued on our bender. We eventually met The Beards (nice chaps) and chatted a while, and after that I checked out some men (the eye candy at London bear events always beats the Brighton ones hands down). Then I got talking to this guy, who is much wider in life than he looks in his photos. I've become acquainted with the american term 'fireplug', used to describe broad guys, and I like 'em.
After that, insanity flowered. Sarah and I danced on the stage, and when I went to dive off, I landed on a wet patch of floor and my legs went out from under me. I didn't so much land on my arse as bounced on it. Of course, in my drunkeness I felt nothing, and he who dances and jumps away, comes back to dance another day.
What is it about alcohol that makes you think you're a scolarship-winning candidate for a performing arts school?
After a while, the lack of sleep got to Sarah, and she decided to nod off in the club, for an hour or so, amidst all the noise. At least she was in a place where she probably couldn't be safer.
At the end of the night we got a taxi home, driven by this slightly..erm...politically opinionated guy, who ranted about The System all the way home. Thankfully the drive only took us about 10-15 minutes.
This morning I rose, cringed as the flashbacks of the night before hit me, and went home. Halfway back to Brighton, a family of screaming children settled in my carriage. I wanted to produce a machine gun and kill them all.
Now I sit here with a delayed-onset headache. Staying in tonight, methinks. 'Creep' on Channel 4 tonight, House of Flying Daggers tomorrow night...
Friday, September 21, 2007
BOLLOCKS!
The long weekend I was looking forward to next week in Galway and Dublin is not happening!
As mentioned previously, I was supposed to fly to Dublin next week, meet a few friends, and then head out to Galway for J's sister's wedding. One thing I was afraid of was that the hospitals I had applied to for my pre-reg would get back to me requesting my attendance for interview during the time I was supposed to be in Ireland.
They have done exactly that.
(What the hell is going on here? I'm sitting here waiting for the progression lists to go up on university website, and they keep putting up the ones for the first and second year classes first)
The first e-mail came through last Saturday (I hope these people don't make a habit of working at weekends, or expecting me to), calling me for an interview with the Brighton Sussex group of hospitals, for Wednesday 26th of September. On Monday, another e-mail came through, requesting my attendance for another interview on Thursday 27th of September...
(THANK GOD! The progression lists have just gone up for the third years and I've passed. But anyway, where was I...)
I contacted the hospitals and requested a reschedule. They politely refused. So now everything has gone pear tarte-tatin. Instead of going to Ireland for a good aul' knees-up and meeting up with my friends, I'm staying here and doing job interviews. I've done well to get to the interview stage, but getting into hospital pharmacy is a competitive business and for the interview I have on Wednesday, there are 21 applicants (whittled down from 50-odd) competing for 7 places. No pressure. None whatsoever.
Some people on the course have taken the time to fill out their preferences for their four hospitals on the online application site, only to have been turned down for all four without an interview (not to mention any notification, save for a small note on their online application). I can see how my application got me an interview, but I don't really see how I can make an interview get me a job. Fingers crossed it works out. I'll DIE if I have to spend a year in a community pharmacy.
So there goes my long weekend, and I'm back in College on the first of October. Oh the joys...
As mentioned previously, I was supposed to fly to Dublin next week, meet a few friends, and then head out to Galway for J's sister's wedding. One thing I was afraid of was that the hospitals I had applied to for my pre-reg would get back to me requesting my attendance for interview during the time I was supposed to be in Ireland.
They have done exactly that.
(What the hell is going on here? I'm sitting here waiting for the progression lists to go up on university website, and they keep putting up the ones for the first and second year classes first)
The first e-mail came through last Saturday (I hope these people don't make a habit of working at weekends, or expecting me to), calling me for an interview with the Brighton Sussex group of hospitals, for Wednesday 26th of September. On Monday, another e-mail came through, requesting my attendance for another interview on Thursday 27th of September...
(THANK GOD! The progression lists have just gone up for the third years and I've passed. But anyway, where was I...)
I contacted the hospitals and requested a reschedule. They politely refused. So now everything has gone pear tarte-tatin. Instead of going to Ireland for a good aul' knees-up and meeting up with my friends, I'm staying here and doing job interviews. I've done well to get to the interview stage, but getting into hospital pharmacy is a competitive business and for the interview I have on Wednesday, there are 21 applicants (whittled down from 50-odd) competing for 7 places. No pressure. None whatsoever.
Some people on the course have taken the time to fill out their preferences for their four hospitals on the online application site, only to have been turned down for all four without an interview (not to mention any notification, save for a small note on their online application). I can see how my application got me an interview, but I don't really see how I can make an interview get me a job. Fingers crossed it works out. I'll DIE if I have to spend a year in a community pharmacy.
So there goes my long weekend, and I'm back in College on the first of October. Oh the joys...
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Joop Wopereis. 1952-2007
It has been a mental two weeks. The stress started to pile on the weekend before my pharmacy repeat exam. By the morning of Monday the 3rd, as I was walking down towards the college to sit the actual paper in college, my stomach was tying itself up in knots.
Luckily it seemed to go well, though I won't find out for sure until this coming Wednesday.
Monday night, I moved house, which was the usual nightmare. The longer I stay in Brighton, the more superfluous clutter I seem to accumulate, and now it's got to the point where relocation of any kind is fast becoming a monumental pain in the arse. I managed it, and so far the new place is going well, though I'm still not completely unpacked and organised yet, at the time of writing this.
On Tuesday morning, I got up to go to work, as I still had a couple of days to work to make up the time for my pharmacy placement. I left my new house roundabout the same time as I normally leave the old one, except my new house is much closer to town, so when I found I was running about 15 minutes early, I decided to pop into Costa for a quick cappucino and bask in my newfound proximity to Brighton's city centre. It was then my phone went off, telling me I had a text message from my mother, at that time visiting her family in Holland. It related to my uncle:
'Joop very sick. Pray for him. Mam.'
Joop was married to my mother's sister, which technically made him my uncle-in-law. A funnier nuttier man you could not hope to meet. My memories of him consist mainly of him having a beer in one hand and a rolled up cigarette in another. When my brother and I first hit adolescence and started getting into things that would have made our parents frown, we were in awe of his ability to casually hold a converstation while rolling a cigarette with one hand. In about one minute. He probably could have done it blindfolded.
When I went over to Holland to celebrate a different aunt's 25th wedding anniversary, a group of us went on an ill-decided excursion to the pub the night before. I woke up with a day of celebrations ahead of me, not feeling the Mae West, and as soon as Joop ascertained what was wrong with me, he had the solution. "Denis, you must have more beer, it will make you feel better. Is good, Ja?" I eventually relented, and of course his suggestion of the hair of the dog turned out to be just what I needed that day.
When my brother and his wife got married at the start of this year, Joop and his wife dithered over whether to come over for the wedding. Money had always been a bit tight for them, and Joop operated on a contract that was renewed on a yearly basis. They had no guarantee that he would be working in the new year on their return home. They went anyway, as was always the case, and the day was made all the better by them being there. I didn't see much of him that day, as I was running around like a blithering idiot, drunk as a lord. If I'd known what was to come, I would have made more time for him. I replied by text to my mother, and then headed into work. I left my phone in the cloakroom and did my usual thing in the dispensary. At lunchtime, I checked my phone again.
'Joop dying. Matter of hours. Mam.'
I got lunch and then started to text everyone I knew connected with him, to find out more, but nobody really knew anything. Like me, they were just flabbergasted.
I went back to work and kept my phone with me. Towards the end of my time at work, I got the text I was dreading:
'Joop RIP. 4:45. Mam'
It was then that the phone calls began. My sister told me that it was suspected that he had cancer of the throat, as for the last while he could hardly eat, and had lost loads of weight. The real problem lay in the fact that he had a bowel obstruction and died most likely from the resulting perforations. The obstruction itself most likely was caused at least in part by the opiates he was continuously prescribed. An official report on the whole thing is expected in due course.
In conversation with my sister, I tried to point out that at least his life, while he enjoyed it, was lived to the full. She replied with the fact that with three children, he still had a lot of living to do.
I dithered over going - I was hardly flush with money - but then came to the decision that I had to be there. I booked my flights and headed over on Saturday. I stayed with Mark and Marjon, the cousins I had stayed with before. It was nice to see everyone, but to do it under the current circumstances took some of the joy out of it. The widow and her children were remarkably brave about it though.
Monday was the cremation, and while it was heartbreaking, I was struck by how great a send-off he got. He was presented in the coffin in his normal clothes, how we always remembered him, instead of in some stuffy suit which he would never wear except under extreme duress anyway. In the background was a choir, singing adaptations of some of his favourite songs, including Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven. Different people got up and read out little pieces about him they had prepared, which was much nicer than hearing the standard religious readings that mean nothing to anyone about anything, least of all the person whose death they are mourning.
In the crematorium, there were more readings, the main one drawing a few laughs, which made me regret not having learned dutch years ago, as I couldn't understand much of it. Then there was more music, and from now until the day I die, I will always be reminded of Joop when I hear U2's You don't have to make it on your own. One thing that struck me, and nearly made me cry, was how one of Joop's brothers tapped on the coffin as he walked past it, in the same way that a lot of Irish people knock on the roof of a carful of friends when they are seeing them off into the night, after getting together. It was brought home to me how tragic this death was, as the previous passing of other relatives was different. They were reaching the end of their life anyway, and I didn't really know them that well. This was different on both counts.
On the way out, little cards were given out summarizing Joop's life. When he was born, his marriage, when he died, how everything was done to try and save him, and how he had been a loving father and husband. It was signed by his widow, and his three children.
Now his family have to look to the future, and I don't envy them. Joop was the main breadwinner in the family, and his wife Ineke only did occasional work as a home help to supplement the family income. Now she has to try and manage the family on her own, with a fifteen year old son and two ten year old twins. Matters are complicated even more by the fact that one of the ten year olds has a rare heart condition, where she has to constantly take antibiotics and must make regular visits to the doctor. She already has some lasting heart damage, and will most likely need to have surgery in the next year. Now Ineke has to face into all this on her own. My heart goes out to her.
I arrived back here on Wednesday evening, and since then things have been pretty sedate. I (hopefully!) start back in college at the start of October. In two weeks time I head over to the wedding of the sister of J, and to see a few friends in Dublin. I'm looking forward to it.
So. Farewell Joop. Like many people who lose someone they like, I wish I had known you better, or seen more of you. Good luck to you and yours. I thought you'd be around for a lot longer. It is not a mistake I will make with my relatives again.
Luckily it seemed to go well, though I won't find out for sure until this coming Wednesday.
Monday night, I moved house, which was the usual nightmare. The longer I stay in Brighton, the more superfluous clutter I seem to accumulate, and now it's got to the point where relocation of any kind is fast becoming a monumental pain in the arse. I managed it, and so far the new place is going well, though I'm still not completely unpacked and organised yet, at the time of writing this.
On Tuesday morning, I got up to go to work, as I still had a couple of days to work to make up the time for my pharmacy placement. I left my new house roundabout the same time as I normally leave the old one, except my new house is much closer to town, so when I found I was running about 15 minutes early, I decided to pop into Costa for a quick cappucino and bask in my newfound proximity to Brighton's city centre. It was then my phone went off, telling me I had a text message from my mother, at that time visiting her family in Holland. It related to my uncle:
'Joop very sick. Pray for him. Mam.'
Joop was married to my mother's sister, which technically made him my uncle-in-law. A funnier nuttier man you could not hope to meet. My memories of him consist mainly of him having a beer in one hand and a rolled up cigarette in another. When my brother and I first hit adolescence and started getting into things that would have made our parents frown, we were in awe of his ability to casually hold a converstation while rolling a cigarette with one hand. In about one minute. He probably could have done it blindfolded.
When I went over to Holland to celebrate a different aunt's 25th wedding anniversary, a group of us went on an ill-decided excursion to the pub the night before. I woke up with a day of celebrations ahead of me, not feeling the Mae West, and as soon as Joop ascertained what was wrong with me, he had the solution. "Denis, you must have more beer, it will make you feel better. Is good, Ja?" I eventually relented, and of course his suggestion of the hair of the dog turned out to be just what I needed that day.
When my brother and his wife got married at the start of this year, Joop and his wife dithered over whether to come over for the wedding. Money had always been a bit tight for them, and Joop operated on a contract that was renewed on a yearly basis. They had no guarantee that he would be working in the new year on their return home. They went anyway, as was always the case, and the day was made all the better by them being there. I didn't see much of him that day, as I was running around like a blithering idiot, drunk as a lord. If I'd known what was to come, I would have made more time for him. I replied by text to my mother, and then headed into work. I left my phone in the cloakroom and did my usual thing in the dispensary. At lunchtime, I checked my phone again.
'Joop dying. Matter of hours. Mam.'
I got lunch and then started to text everyone I knew connected with him, to find out more, but nobody really knew anything. Like me, they were just flabbergasted.
I went back to work and kept my phone with me. Towards the end of my time at work, I got the text I was dreading:
'Joop RIP. 4:45. Mam'
It was then that the phone calls began. My sister told me that it was suspected that he had cancer of the throat, as for the last while he could hardly eat, and had lost loads of weight. The real problem lay in the fact that he had a bowel obstruction and died most likely from the resulting perforations. The obstruction itself most likely was caused at least in part by the opiates he was continuously prescribed. An official report on the whole thing is expected in due course.
In conversation with my sister, I tried to point out that at least his life, while he enjoyed it, was lived to the full. She replied with the fact that with three children, he still had a lot of living to do.
I dithered over going - I was hardly flush with money - but then came to the decision that I had to be there. I booked my flights and headed over on Saturday. I stayed with Mark and Marjon, the cousins I had stayed with before. It was nice to see everyone, but to do it under the current circumstances took some of the joy out of it. The widow and her children were remarkably brave about it though.
Monday was the cremation, and while it was heartbreaking, I was struck by how great a send-off he got. He was presented in the coffin in his normal clothes, how we always remembered him, instead of in some stuffy suit which he would never wear except under extreme duress anyway. In the background was a choir, singing adaptations of some of his favourite songs, including Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven. Different people got up and read out little pieces about him they had prepared, which was much nicer than hearing the standard religious readings that mean nothing to anyone about anything, least of all the person whose death they are mourning.
In the crematorium, there were more readings, the main one drawing a few laughs, which made me regret not having learned dutch years ago, as I couldn't understand much of it. Then there was more music, and from now until the day I die, I will always be reminded of Joop when I hear U2's You don't have to make it on your own. One thing that struck me, and nearly made me cry, was how one of Joop's brothers tapped on the coffin as he walked past it, in the same way that a lot of Irish people knock on the roof of a carful of friends when they are seeing them off into the night, after getting together. It was brought home to me how tragic this death was, as the previous passing of other relatives was different. They were reaching the end of their life anyway, and I didn't really know them that well. This was different on both counts.
On the way out, little cards were given out summarizing Joop's life. When he was born, his marriage, when he died, how everything was done to try and save him, and how he had been a loving father and husband. It was signed by his widow, and his three children.
Now his family have to look to the future, and I don't envy them. Joop was the main breadwinner in the family, and his wife Ineke only did occasional work as a home help to supplement the family income. Now she has to try and manage the family on her own, with a fifteen year old son and two ten year old twins. Matters are complicated even more by the fact that one of the ten year olds has a rare heart condition, where she has to constantly take antibiotics and must make regular visits to the doctor. She already has some lasting heart damage, and will most likely need to have surgery in the next year. Now Ineke has to face into all this on her own. My heart goes out to her.
I arrived back here on Wednesday evening, and since then things have been pretty sedate. I (hopefully!) start back in college at the start of October. In two weeks time I head over to the wedding of the sister of J, and to see a few friends in Dublin. I'm looking forward to it.
So. Farewell Joop. Like many people who lose someone they like, I wish I had known you better, or seen more of you. Good luck to you and yours. I thought you'd be around for a lot longer. It is not a mistake I will make with my relatives again.
Monday, August 27, 2007
A question
How in the name of God does someone hold down a full-time job and find time for anything else? I've started a new job, and in that time, it's taken me TWO weeks to churn out two posts about Pride.
It's been three weeks since my pharmacy placement began, the monday after Pride weekend. It would be no small exaggeration to say that I was nervous. Last summer's placement, the one I walked out of after only three weeks, would have been considered a disaster by any one's standards, and as it was my first proper job working in a dispensary, more than a little disheartening. What if this one also went pear-tarte-tatin?
Luckily it hasn't. The first two days I was in there, it was a locum, and not the pharmacist I had been assigned to for the four weeks. This gave me a chance to get a feel for the place without the obligation of making a first impression, or at least making one that wouldn't stay with me for the rest of my time there. By the time the main pharmacist arrived on Wednesday, I was reasonably confident about what I was doing (and, it has to be said, had learned more in those two days than I had in the three weeks I was in Lloyds last summer). This buoyed me up a bit, especially since the pharmacist said on more than one occasion that I was doing very well.
The placement is coming to and end this week, and it's gone reasonably well. I don't want to work in community pharmacy really, but hopefully this will give me an edge when I'm applying to hospitals. I've pretty much nailed dispensing, can do some basic recommendations for over-the-counter stuff, and also have been involved in the needle exchange scheme we're running, along with methadone dispensing. Methadone users are supposed to be high maintenance, but I haven't really seen much evidence of that yet, and it adds a bit of variety to the customer base.
This day week is my repeat exam in college, and I also have to move into a new place for the coming year. Thankfully, it's in a reasonably interesting area of Brighton this time, and is pretty convenient to the city centre and college. Combining the two events is of course going to be a barrel of laughs. I'm trying to get someone to take my current room for the month of September, the last month of the lease. It looks pretty promising. I've lined up someone who definitely seems like they're going to take it. I'll be glad to get out of this place. It has been quite a trial living here during the year at times.
News about my fellow classmates is starting to filter down to me through the grapevine. A bucketload of students, a lot of whom I would consider academically solid, have failed at least one exam this year, and one exam in particular is starting to stand out: Medicinal Chemistry. It seems that quite a lot of people have to repeat this, and as usual, the faculty have blamed us. A few stats have been tossed out by the people who teach this course:
a) Two-thirds of the class scored below 50%
b) The average mark was 44%
c) The short answer questions were poorly attempted
d) Out of the five long-answer/essay questions, where you had to answer three, a lot of people went for the same three questions, thus highlighting that the class is excluding some material when revising.
Here's what I think:
a) This is a difficult subject, and only having one day a week devoted to lectures, without any tutorials, isn't enough to help people pass this course.
b) Ditto
c) My knowledge of the course was fairly comprehensive, yet out of the ten short answer questions, I only recognised the factual material required for three of them, and even then, they were phrased awkwardly, and what was asked of the student was at times as clear as mud.
d) One of the areas in this course is devoted to the area of pharmaceutics, which is basically dosage forms (i.e. tablets, capsules, suppositories, creams, etc.). I don't think I have ever come across an area that is so univerally disliked by pharmacy students, and when that particular lecturer used to make her appearance on Thursday mornings during this last year, there was a mass exodus to the coffee shop. Exclusion of parts of a module is frowned upon in healthcare courses, but the university has to realise that it would take the equivalent of John Keating in Dead Poet's Society to make this stuff anyway engaging, and students are always going to have their preferred areas, no matter what course they're doing.
This is more than a little irritating, as the feedback implies that the class are a bunch of dossers, when in fact most of them are pretty diligent. Myself, I came out of the exam thinking I had comfortably passed, only to find out when the results came out, that I had passed only by the skin of my teeth. Methinks if they are going to have exacting standards, they need to have exacting methods of teaching this stuff. The equivalent module in the fourth and final year was failed by over 80% of the class because the faculty thought they'd be smart and devote most of the paper to material that comprised only 20% of the areas presented in lectures. It backfired, and they had to hold a special resit, so that people could still be awarded their degrees in time before they were due to start their jobs.
Hopefully, now that I'll be staying in a house that looks nice and is reasonably central, I won't feel the need to leave it every day, and that this will translate into a more productive and efficient final year. Fingers crossed...
It's been three weeks since my pharmacy placement began, the monday after Pride weekend. It would be no small exaggeration to say that I was nervous. Last summer's placement, the one I walked out of after only three weeks, would have been considered a disaster by any one's standards, and as it was my first proper job working in a dispensary, more than a little disheartening. What if this one also went pear-tarte-tatin?
Luckily it hasn't. The first two days I was in there, it was a locum, and not the pharmacist I had been assigned to for the four weeks. This gave me a chance to get a feel for the place without the obligation of making a first impression, or at least making one that wouldn't stay with me for the rest of my time there. By the time the main pharmacist arrived on Wednesday, I was reasonably confident about what I was doing (and, it has to be said, had learned more in those two days than I had in the three weeks I was in Lloyds last summer). This buoyed me up a bit, especially since the pharmacist said on more than one occasion that I was doing very well.
The placement is coming to and end this week, and it's gone reasonably well. I don't want to work in community pharmacy really, but hopefully this will give me an edge when I'm applying to hospitals. I've pretty much nailed dispensing, can do some basic recommendations for over-the-counter stuff, and also have been involved in the needle exchange scheme we're running, along with methadone dispensing. Methadone users are supposed to be high maintenance, but I haven't really seen much evidence of that yet, and it adds a bit of variety to the customer base.
This day week is my repeat exam in college, and I also have to move into a new place for the coming year. Thankfully, it's in a reasonably interesting area of Brighton this time, and is pretty convenient to the city centre and college. Combining the two events is of course going to be a barrel of laughs. I'm trying to get someone to take my current room for the month of September, the last month of the lease. It looks pretty promising. I've lined up someone who definitely seems like they're going to take it. I'll be glad to get out of this place. It has been quite a trial living here during the year at times.
News about my fellow classmates is starting to filter down to me through the grapevine. A bucketload of students, a lot of whom I would consider academically solid, have failed at least one exam this year, and one exam in particular is starting to stand out: Medicinal Chemistry. It seems that quite a lot of people have to repeat this, and as usual, the faculty have blamed us. A few stats have been tossed out by the people who teach this course:
a) Two-thirds of the class scored below 50%
b) The average mark was 44%
c) The short answer questions were poorly attempted
d) Out of the five long-answer/essay questions, where you had to answer three, a lot of people went for the same three questions, thus highlighting that the class is excluding some material when revising.
Here's what I think:
a) This is a difficult subject, and only having one day a week devoted to lectures, without any tutorials, isn't enough to help people pass this course.
b) Ditto
c) My knowledge of the course was fairly comprehensive, yet out of the ten short answer questions, I only recognised the factual material required for three of them, and even then, they were phrased awkwardly, and what was asked of the student was at times as clear as mud.
d) One of the areas in this course is devoted to the area of pharmaceutics, which is basically dosage forms (i.e. tablets, capsules, suppositories, creams, etc.). I don't think I have ever come across an area that is so univerally disliked by pharmacy students, and when that particular lecturer used to make her appearance on Thursday mornings during this last year, there was a mass exodus to the coffee shop. Exclusion of parts of a module is frowned upon in healthcare courses, but the university has to realise that it would take the equivalent of John Keating in Dead Poet's Society to make this stuff anyway engaging, and students are always going to have their preferred areas, no matter what course they're doing.
This is more than a little irritating, as the feedback implies that the class are a bunch of dossers, when in fact most of them are pretty diligent. Myself, I came out of the exam thinking I had comfortably passed, only to find out when the results came out, that I had passed only by the skin of my teeth. Methinks if they are going to have exacting standards, they need to have exacting methods of teaching this stuff. The equivalent module in the fourth and final year was failed by over 80% of the class because the faculty thought they'd be smart and devote most of the paper to material that comprised only 20% of the areas presented in lectures. It backfired, and they had to hold a special resit, so that people could still be awarded their degrees in time before they were due to start their jobs.
Hopefully, now that I'll be staying in a house that looks nice and is reasonably central, I won't feel the need to leave it every day, and that this will translate into a more productive and efficient final year. Fingers crossed...
Another Pride picture
Me. At Pride. Shitfaced.
Courtesy of Jonathan, my Kung Fu sparring partner, to my immediate left.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Brighton Pride II
Upon hitting St. James' street, I found the party in full swing.
First I was treated to dinner at a Chinese by Jim, Phil's significant other, and then headed out to take in the gay atmosphere. I'd executed it better than last year, where I was wasted and tired by early evening. This year I'd paced myself and was ready for it all. I floated around the Star Inn and the BUlldog, throwing myself at various hot bears. Then I met a few girls from my pharmacy class, who, like a lot of girls at Pride, were bemoaning the lack of straight men. I chatted for a whie, went off on my own, and then...I came across the hot bloke. After making small talk, we locked lips passionately, and groped each other twenty different ways. He wanted to go off and meet some friends, so I got his phone number, saying I'd be in touch later.
Then I rejoined the pharmacy girls and dragged them to the Star Inn. I was pretty mashed at this stage, and wasn't doing a very good job of chatting to the bar staff ("It must be AWFUL being a gay man in a gay bar and having to work at Pride") and if I didn't know better, I'd think that they were giving me a wide berth.
Then, I tried ringing hot guy, but no answer.
At this stage I was WRECKED, but I'd heard there was a beach party happening later, and I wanted to hang on and see where it was. I downed two vodkas in the company of the pharmacy girls, got my second wind, and we headed on down to the beach. There I boogied, but the atmosphere lacked a certain je ne sais quoi after St. James' Street, so eventually I headed home, and got to bed at 6am. I plugged in my phone to charge it (it had died earlier) and I got a message from hot guy saying he was sorry to have missed my call and we would have to hook up again soon.
The next day I rose, went into town and wandered around a bit. I walked around and eventually settled on the Bulldog for the evening, where I actually met a second year gay pharmacy student (For a while, it appeared that I was the only one) and we various discussions about kinky things.
I eventually went home, as I had to start a placement in a pharmacy the next day.
Overall, it was a better Pride than last year, as last year I didn't even go into Preston Park, and had to go home early because I was too tired, This year I got it mostly right. Hopefully next year I'll get it even better. It's unfortunate in one sense: As my favourite time of the year, I almost feel under pressure to enjoy it. But it never disappoints...
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Brighon Pride I
Well it's been a week to the day since last Pride, and I loved it.
Friday 3rd saw me get out of bed at my usual time (lunch) and head downstairs to discover that my Got Woof top had arrived. It wasn't very flattering as a long-sleeved top, so I headed into town to get it altered to make it into a t-shirt, which the tailor did for me while I waited.
So with that particular preparation taken care of, I headed to Vision Express to stock up on contact lenses. No self-respecting man-on-the-pull can be seen wearing glasses at Pride, so that was next on my to-do list. However, when I went into Vision Express, the woman told me that I couldn't buy any more contact lenses from them until I had an aftercare check up, and the soonest I could have one would be in a week's time. "But I can't wear glasses over Pride weekend!" I howled. She hastily found me a single pair to tide me over until the appointment. Which was yesterday. Which I completely forgot about. Oops.
After that, I went to get my beard trimmed. I opted for a sort of Chow-Yun Fat effort like from Curse of the Golden Flower. It looked Ok, but I don't think I have the face for it, so while I went with it on Pride weekend, I'm reverting back to normal beardiness now.
After that, I went to Lidl to stock up on food, and Sainsbury's to stock up on alcohol. Pride is always cheaper if you bring your own stuff to the park, and that's what I organised myself enough to do this year. Lastly, as I passed the Bully, I saw all the Bears who arrived early in preparation for the next day. I had an uncontrollable itch to join them, but I knew that if I got into a session, Saturday would be spoiled by a hangover. So I went home.
Of course, with all the excitement I didn't get to sleep untl about 4am anyway, but oh well...
Saturday I rose. Running late at 11:30, I had to order a cab, but I got to see the parade right from the start, which was pretty impressive as usual (and damn if some of the men in Brighton gay men's chorus aren't half bad looking).
Once that was over, I headed to Preston Park for the main event and took in the atmosphere, along with the the big hairy beasts at the Chunk tent. Yum! Then I met some people from Kung Fu and we sat around drinking for ages. At our end of the park, there were no toilets, so certain bushes were designated as Female, and one tree in particular was designated as the magic tree for men. Sample conversations overheard:
When a man tries to use the 'woman-only' bush:
Woman: "Excuse me! This is a woman-only bush!"
When I went to use the magic tree and found a man sitting right next to it:
Me (drunkenly) "Excuse me. Would it be alright if you moved so that I can take a leak against this tree?"
Shortly after that, I went off on my own, and shook my booty in the Wildfruit tent. On my way out, with about half an hour till the park was emptied and closed off, I bumped into a bloke. Bulging of muscle, this guy had a profile on gaydar I'd seen for the first time over a year ago, and I'd lusted over him ever since. We exchanged pleasantries, and then went our separate ways, but not before I found out that he would be in town later...
To be continued...
Friday 3rd saw me get out of bed at my usual time (lunch) and head downstairs to discover that my Got Woof top had arrived. It wasn't very flattering as a long-sleeved top, so I headed into town to get it altered to make it into a t-shirt, which the tailor did for me while I waited.
So with that particular preparation taken care of, I headed to Vision Express to stock up on contact lenses. No self-respecting man-on-the-pull can be seen wearing glasses at Pride, so that was next on my to-do list. However, when I went into Vision Express, the woman told me that I couldn't buy any more contact lenses from them until I had an aftercare check up, and the soonest I could have one would be in a week's time. "But I can't wear glasses over Pride weekend!" I howled. She hastily found me a single pair to tide me over until the appointment. Which was yesterday. Which I completely forgot about. Oops.
After that, I went to get my beard trimmed. I opted for a sort of Chow-Yun Fat effort like from Curse of the Golden Flower. It looked Ok, but I don't think I have the face for it, so while I went with it on Pride weekend, I'm reverting back to normal beardiness now.
After that, I went to Lidl to stock up on food, and Sainsbury's to stock up on alcohol. Pride is always cheaper if you bring your own stuff to the park, and that's what I organised myself enough to do this year. Lastly, as I passed the Bully, I saw all the Bears who arrived early in preparation for the next day. I had an uncontrollable itch to join them, but I knew that if I got into a session, Saturday would be spoiled by a hangover. So I went home.
Of course, with all the excitement I didn't get to sleep untl about 4am anyway, but oh well...
Saturday I rose. Running late at 11:30, I had to order a cab, but I got to see the parade right from the start, which was pretty impressive as usual (and damn if some of the men in Brighton gay men's chorus aren't half bad looking).
Once that was over, I headed to Preston Park for the main event and took in the atmosphere, along with the the big hairy beasts at the Chunk tent. Yum! Then I met some people from Kung Fu and we sat around drinking for ages. At our end of the park, there were no toilets, so certain bushes were designated as Female, and one tree in particular was designated as the magic tree for men. Sample conversations overheard:
When a man tries to use the 'woman-only' bush:
Woman: "Excuse me! This is a woman-only bush!"
When I went to use the magic tree and found a man sitting right next to it:
Me (drunkenly) "Excuse me. Would it be alright if you moved so that I can take a leak against this tree?"
Shortly after that, I went off on my own, and shook my booty in the Wildfruit tent. On my way out, with about half an hour till the park was emptied and closed off, I bumped into a bloke. Bulging of muscle, this guy had a profile on gaydar I'd seen for the first time over a year ago, and I'd lusted over him ever since. We exchanged pleasantries, and then went our separate ways, but not before I found out that he would be in town later...
To be continued...
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Brighton Pride!
It rocked, but now that I have a job for the first time in ages, I'm finding time management a bit of a problem.
All the gossip will follow shortly.
All the gossip will follow shortly.
Friday, August 03, 2007
The big smoke
Yesterday saw me go on a junket to London to visit two hospitals that I'm thinking of applying to for when I graduate.
Thursday morning I rose, went to the bank to discuss some current account matters, and then got on the train. At 11:11am, the train pulled into London Victoria, and I felt relaxed, congratulating myself on having done everything on schedule.
The first hospital I needed to go to was in West Middlesex, so I went to the information desk to find out which tube train to get there:
So, back I went to Clapham Junction (thank God for the British rail system. If that had happened in Ireland, I'd have been fucked), got another train out to Hounslow, and then another train to Isleworth. I arrived half an hour behind schedule.
The chief pharmacist didn't mind, thank God, and another pharmacist showed me around the place. It was a bit of an eye opener. Not much time is spent on the wards during your first year, in fact about 80% of a first year's time is spent in the department itself. This hospital in particular was not exactly within easy reach of London, and a rotation in mental health no longer forms part of the year, so the place won't be my first choice, but the pre-reg tutor and chief pharmacist seemed nice people whom I could work with.
Once I'd left, I headed off to Central Middlesex hospital. I had to get a tube (which was JAMMED with people), change at two stops, and then get a bus. I arrived for my next appointment, a short talk on what it was like to do the pre-reg year there, fifteen minutes late. Luckily they had only just started.
This one was more of a bit of an eye-opener. The surgical pharmacist chatted with us for about forty minutes about all the different rotations we would go through during the year, rotations which did include mental health this time, and we saw all the fancy instruments, which included a dispensing robot. This was one hospital I could definitely see myself working in, with it's proximity to central London, and I asked her about the competition for pre-reg places:
And this was one of the hospitals that didn't have an asterisk next to it on the online application website, meaning it's one of the less oversubscribed ones! Bloody hell, if I ever manage to get into a hospital, I can see it being in the remotest region of Wales or Scotland, at the rate this is going!
So after all that, I went back to London Victoria, toyed with the idea of going to (you guessed it!) Soho, dismissed it, and went home.
London Victoria is a sight to behold, though. I though Brighton was pretty multi-cultural, but the amount of different races I saw up there takes the biscuit. There was a definite buzz to the place, though, and I could definitely see myself living there in time to come.
All I have to do is get a first class honours degree. I can so see that happening.
Thursday morning I rose, went to the bank to discuss some current account matters, and then got on the train. At 11:11am, the train pulled into London Victoria, and I felt relaxed, congratulating myself on having done everything on schedule.
The first hospital I needed to go to was in West Middlesex, so I went to the information desk to find out which tube train to get there:
| Me: | "Excuse me. Can you tell me how to get to West Middlesex University Hospital? Which train is best?" |
| Woman: | "You can't get there from here." |
| Me: | "What?" |
| Woman: | "You should have changed at Clapham Junction. You need to go back there, and get another train out to Isleworth." |
| Me: | "Nnnnnngggghh!" |
So, back I went to Clapham Junction (thank God for the British rail system. If that had happened in Ireland, I'd have been fucked), got another train out to Hounslow, and then another train to Isleworth. I arrived half an hour behind schedule.
The chief pharmacist didn't mind, thank God, and another pharmacist showed me around the place. It was a bit of an eye opener. Not much time is spent on the wards during your first year, in fact about 80% of a first year's time is spent in the department itself. This hospital in particular was not exactly within easy reach of London, and a rotation in mental health no longer forms part of the year, so the place won't be my first choice, but the pre-reg tutor and chief pharmacist seemed nice people whom I could work with.
Once I'd left, I headed off to Central Middlesex hospital. I had to get a tube (which was JAMMED with people), change at two stops, and then get a bus. I arrived for my next appointment, a short talk on what it was like to do the pre-reg year there, fifteen minutes late. Luckily they had only just started.
This one was more of a bit of an eye-opener. The surgical pharmacist chatted with us for about forty minutes about all the different rotations we would go through during the year, rotations which did include mental health this time, and we saw all the fancy instruments, which included a dispensing robot. This was one hospital I could definitely see myself working in, with it's proximity to central London, and I asked her about the competition for pre-reg places:
| Me: | "Excuse me. Do you get many applicants for the places that are available?" |
| Her: | "Yes, it's quite competitive. Last year we got about 70 applicants for 3 places. This year, we expect to get 50 applicants." |
| Me: | "What?" |
And this was one of the hospitals that didn't have an asterisk next to it on the online application website, meaning it's one of the less oversubscribed ones! Bloody hell, if I ever manage to get into a hospital, I can see it being in the remotest region of Wales or Scotland, at the rate this is going!
So after all that, I went back to London Victoria, toyed with the idea of going to (you guessed it!) Soho, dismissed it, and went home.
London Victoria is a sight to behold, though. I though Brighton was pretty multi-cultural, but the amount of different races I saw up there takes the biscuit. There was a definite buzz to the place, though, and I could definitely see myself living there in time to come.
All I have to do is get a first class honours degree. I can so see that happening.
Friday, July 27, 2007
De Job for next year...
I've begun applying to prospective hospitals for work after I (finger's crossed!) get my degree. The deadline is the 31st of August of this year, almost a full year before I am due to start work as a pre-reg.
So where to apply? The strategy is simple:
1. Identify on a map of London where Soho is.
Unfortunately the most centrally located hospitals have half the country trying to get into them. A summer placement would have increased my chances of getting in with a particular hospital, but most of them are now unpaid, which puts them out of bounds for me. Central Middlesex is looking like a distinct possibility, but the programme looks interesting and it's only fifteen minutes by tube from Soho.
3. Try and get a house not too far from either Soho or the hospital, preferably such that all three are connected by tube lines in such a way as to minimize walks between stations and any of the above three locations.
Not sure how this is going to pan out. West London is expensive generally, so I think my house is going to have to be west of the hospital itself, rather than the ideal situation of being halfway between the hospital and ... Soho. Is there a pattern emerging? Oh shut up...
4. Party time!
Head on down to the Kings Arms and let the good times roll...
So where to apply? The strategy is simple:
1. Identify on a map of London where Soho is.
I was thinking about Earls Court originally, for a more understated gay feel, but there's no way I can afford to live anywhere near Kensington on a pharmacist's starting salary.
2. Try and get into a hospital near Soho.
2. Try and get into a hospital near Soho.
Unfortunately the most centrally located hospitals have half the country trying to get into them. A summer placement would have increased my chances of getting in with a particular hospital, but most of them are now unpaid, which puts them out of bounds for me. Central Middlesex is looking like a distinct possibility, but the programme looks interesting and it's only fifteen minutes by tube from Soho.
3. Try and get a house not too far from either Soho or the hospital, preferably such that all three are connected by tube lines in such a way as to minimize walks between stations and any of the above three locations.
Not sure how this is going to pan out. West London is expensive generally, so I think my house is going to have to be west of the hospital itself, rather than the ideal situation of being halfway between the hospital and ... Soho. Is there a pattern emerging? Oh shut up...
4. Party time!
Head on down to the Kings Arms and let the good times roll...
Monday, July 23, 2007
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Here come the brides...
Saturday saw the wedding of the year...
I rose at 1pm, a little tired and delicate thanks to an ill-advised excursion the night before (but one which netted me a hot scottish bear), and got on with the business of shaving my head and ironing my clothes for Flee and Bear's civil partnership. It was a great day, and the Royal Pavilion is a nice place to have a civil partnership. You also get to pick your own readings (Our resident South African picked an excerpt from Mapp and Lucia, and the supervisor recognised his thespian credentials straight away. You go girl!). Then we got a tour of the Pavilion, which was once occupied by George IV - if I have the number right - a great sinner in his day.
Finally we ate and drank. And drank. Whilst the meal was in progress, there were slides of a photographic history of Bear and Flee being played on an overhead projector, which was a nice idea, and one that I shall nick for myself if I ever have one of these ceremonies. MizzFlee, if you're feeling generous, do send me a few of those, and of the night as well, so I can post them up here. Rather fetching you two did look in those top hats.
One of the waiters who served our table was rather doable, and I'm almost certain he played for my team. In spite of my repeated eyeballing of him, however, he failed to respond. Damn these men who play hard to get!
After that, we repared to the Dragon, and met ourselves some Irish travellers, who seemed to be quite nice once I'd let my guard drop a bit, though some people who were there have gone to great pains to point out that they were acting suspiciously. After everyone had gone home, I went to the Bully for one, met an old trick, tried to get into this guy's pants, failed, and went home. My head touched the pillow at about 7am. I rose quite a few hours later, so now my body clock is shot to shit.
I've just finished watching Jet Li's Hero. I rather liked. I'll be practising my own moves tomorrow...
That's it for a while. Taking it easy for a couple of weeks. In other news, I got my exam results and I have to retake one. That's the best case scenario as far as I'm concerned: It could easily have been two or three.
Roll on Pride!
I rose at 1pm, a little tired and delicate thanks to an ill-advised excursion the night before (but one which netted me a hot scottish bear), and got on with the business of shaving my head and ironing my clothes for Flee and Bear's civil partnership. It was a great day, and the Royal Pavilion is a nice place to have a civil partnership. You also get to pick your own readings (Our resident South African picked an excerpt from Mapp and Lucia, and the supervisor recognised his thespian credentials straight away. You go girl!). Then we got a tour of the Pavilion, which was once occupied by George IV - if I have the number right - a great sinner in his day.
Finally we ate and drank. And drank. Whilst the meal was in progress, there were slides of a photographic history of Bear and Flee being played on an overhead projector, which was a nice idea, and one that I shall nick for myself if I ever have one of these ceremonies. MizzFlee, if you're feeling generous, do send me a few of those, and of the night as well, so I can post them up here. Rather fetching you two did look in those top hats.
One of the waiters who served our table was rather doable, and I'm almost certain he played for my team. In spite of my repeated eyeballing of him, however, he failed to respond. Damn these men who play hard to get!
After that, we repared to the Dragon, and met ourselves some Irish travellers, who seemed to be quite nice once I'd let my guard drop a bit, though some people who were there have gone to great pains to point out that they were acting suspiciously. After everyone had gone home, I went to the Bully for one, met an old trick, tried to get into this guy's pants, failed, and went home. My head touched the pillow at about 7am. I rose quite a few hours later, so now my body clock is shot to shit.
I've just finished watching Jet Li's Hero. I rather liked. I'll be practising my own moves tomorrow...
That's it for a while. Taking it easy for a couple of weeks. In other news, I got my exam results and I have to retake one. That's the best case scenario as far as I'm concerned: It could easily have been two or three.
Roll on Pride!
Monday, July 09, 2007
Rugby players
Rugby doesn't rub me up the wrong way, in the way that football/soccer does. The one criticism that is often levelled at it, that it is a socially elitist sport, is in my opinion the saving grace of it. Also, because of the way rugby was organised in school, it was strictly extra-curricular, so I never had it inflicted on me in the way that I had to suffer other ball sports, and never really had the chance to grow to hate it.
And then there are the players. Phwooaar.
My first proper object of lust when I was in school was my applied maths teacher. Who happened to be a rugby player on the local team and coached rugby. He wasn't the tallest - even at the age of 16 I remember looking down at him - but he had an arse to die for. I wasn't the only one who thought so either: When he started teaching applied maths to the girls school up the road from us, one of the girls I knew told me that she kept getting him to go upto the board to do problems so that she could look at how his pants showed off his rear.
Since then I've always had players from various different teams in my crosshairs. The old faithful has been Lawrence Dallaglio, though it has to be said there are a fair few contenders on the English rugby team for my attention in general. Keith Wood is someone I wouldn't mind rattling the duvet with. Also, when there was some rugby match on the last time I was home, I noticed that the team playing against our side were dressed in pink tops. I since found out that they were French, and some of them were serious candidates for getting an ass-pounding from me.
When my father's birthday came to pass last week, I noticed my brother giving him a present of a dvd called 'Reaching For Glory', a documentary about the Irish rugby team filmed over the last year. My interest was piqued, and when my parents had gone to bed, I put it on.
After they had gone to bed, as if they had seen me watching it, and knowing my disinterest in ball sports in general, they would almost certainly have put two and two together, and that might have been a litle embarassing.
Her are a few that jumped out at me. They are choices that would normally be considered bizare, as only one of them have beards, and all of them are around the same age as me (some are, in a first, actually younger than me).
And then there are the players. Phwooaar.
My first proper object of lust when I was in school was my applied maths teacher. Who happened to be a rugby player on the local team and coached rugby. He wasn't the tallest - even at the age of 16 I remember looking down at him - but he had an arse to die for. I wasn't the only one who thought so either: When he started teaching applied maths to the girls school up the road from us, one of the girls I knew told me that she kept getting him to go upto the board to do problems so that she could look at how his pants showed off his rear.
Since then I've always had players from various different teams in my crosshairs. The old faithful has been Lawrence Dallaglio, though it has to be said there are a fair few contenders on the English rugby team for my attention in general. Keith Wood is someone I wouldn't mind rattling the duvet with. Also, when there was some rugby match on the last time I was home, I noticed that the team playing against our side were dressed in pink tops. I since found out that they were French, and some of them were serious candidates for getting an ass-pounding from me.
When my father's birthday came to pass last week, I noticed my brother giving him a present of a dvd called 'Reaching For Glory', a documentary about the Irish rugby team filmed over the last year. My interest was piqued, and when my parents had gone to bed, I put it on.
After they had gone to bed, as if they had seen me watching it, and knowing my disinterest in ball sports in general, they would almost certainly have put two and two together, and that might have been a litle embarassing.
Her are a few that jumped out at me. They are choices that would normally be considered bizare, as only one of them have beards, and all of them are around the same age as me (some are, in a first, actually younger than me).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
