Between a Rock And A Hard Place
Over this winter I have severely dehydrated myself, due to the bad design of this house. I regularly have lukewarm baths to try to get more water back into my body. My GP’s colleague thinks this is a good idea. I’ve also had air-conditioning fitted, so that my house is usually at about 25 °C with upwards of 40% humidity. I also drink quite a bit to try to raise the moisture levels in my body.
However my cardiologist says that I must not drink more than 1.5 litres a day. I don’t think I do!
But my skin is still as dry as a bone and I itch like crazy. The guy who cuts my hair, says my scalp is very dry and I scratch everywhere like mad. Especially, the backs of my legs, my back, my scalp and my throat.
The problem did clear up last year, but only when we got some sun. Fat chance of that this year. Why did the Queen have to have a ruddy jubilee to guarantee bad weather this summer?
Has anybody any serious ideas, other than moving to Australia?
Why If Something Goes Wrong, Does It Always Happen To Me?
I avoided the NatWorst problem, as I’ve never banked with them, and over the last few years I’ve been very happy with Nationwide.
So today I got my comeuppance.
I have been trying to get a forecast for my pension, which will be paid on my 65th birthday in a few weeks time.
Today the DWP has informed me that they can’t find my National Insurance contributions from the Department of Revenue and Customs.
So now, I will have to navigate myself round what is reputed to be the worst Government system in the UK.
Why am I the one, whose records have got lost?
The Return of NatWorst
Some years ago, I used to do the programming and processing for a company called PressWatch, that rated the coverage of major companies in the UK printed media.
Some time before I programmed the system, NatWest had a string of bottom places and were labelled NatWorst by some financial journalists.
It would appear from its current computer problems, that along with other banks in the RBS Group, it is attempting to claim the bottom place again. Read about it here.
The article says it is a computer glitch. I would describe it as a computer disaster.
A computer glitch is what I’ve just suffered from Nationwide. They said my credit card statement would be ready online on Wednesday. It didn’t arrive until today. But at least, it didn’t cost me any money, although I did worry, that there might have been some illegal transactions, they were sorting out. Especially, as it’s the VISA card, I use for Olympic tickets. But all is now fine.
Exhibition Road
Exhibition Road, where the Science and Natural History Museums are is now a shared space between all users.
It seems to work, although I suspect some will object. Here‘s the view of the Daily Mail.
Codebreaker At The Science Museum
This morning, I went to see the exhibition about Alan Turing called Codebreaker at the Science Museum.
Posters for Codebreaker
it is actually only a small exhibition, but with good quality and some unusual exhibits, including a differential analyser built out of Meccano.
There was also some exhibits and documents on Turing’s personal life, including the Coroner’s report on his suicide.
The exhibition says that his mother thought his death may not have been suicide and in his Wikipedia entry, this is said.
Turing’s mother argued strenuously that the ingestion was accidental, caused by her son’s careless storage of laboratory chemicals. Biographer Andrew Hodges suggests that Turing may have killed himself in an ambiguous way quite deliberately, to give his mother some plausible deniability. Hodges and David Leavitt have suggested that Turing was re-enacting a scene from the 1937 film Snow White, his favourite fairy tale, both noting that (in Leavitt’s words) he took “an especially keen pleasure in the scene where the Wicked Queen immerses her apple in the poisonous brew.”
If you look at others like Turing, such as Newton, you find characters very much on the edge. I used to work with a programmer, who always sang and made strange noises as he coded. He argued that programming was such a logical business, you had to do something mad to balance the mind. Turing wasn’t a programmer in the sense we think now, but he was someone steeped in logic and I suspect the same applied to him.
Sadly, in today’s world, Turing would probably be treasured in much the way Stephen Hawking is.
At least now, hopefully his sexuality would not have been the problem it was in the 1960s.
I Am A Man Who Is Approaching His Terminus
Not me, I hasten to add!
But the very brave Clive James has said this about himself, as he battles against cancer.
He is obviously determined to go with dignity and humour.
Is there any other way? Not in my book there isn’t!
Hit By a Strike
London’s buses are on strike today.
I can’t remember the last time, I was personally hit by a strike, but I suspect it was the odd Underground strike in the 1970s, when we lived in London.
It doesn’t really affect me much, as I can walk to the end of the road to get the Overground. But I know someone, who is having radiotherapy and the only way they can get to hospital is on a bus.
What annoys me about this strike, is that it appears to have been totally avoidable. Olympic bonuses should have been settled months ago, but I suspect UNITE were waiting to see if Ken got to be London Mayor. And where are Ed Milliband’s statements on this strike. Nowhere! But who funds the Labour Party? UNITE!
On fairness grounds, the bus staff should be getting something. But there is more to this row, than has appeared in the media.
Dinner From The Microwave
The Times today is having a go at microwave cookers. It didn’t stop me from eating one of Marks & Spencer’s Fuller Longer meals tonight. It was called Chicken in a Smoky Tomato Sauce.
It was surprisingly, quite well-endowed on the chicken front, although the sauce didn’t appear very smoky. But I could do without that! The only allergen was a small amount of cow’s milk. Here’s a picture.
Chicken in a Smoky Tomato Sauce
Note the Estrella Damm Daura beer.
I will have one of these again.
Hopping On And Off Buses and The Underground
I often don’t do all my trip around London in the obvious and direct way.
Today for instance, I went from The Angel at Islington to Oxford Circus. I could have taken a tube changing at Kings Cross, but in the end I took a 30 bus to Kings Cross and then the Victoria line. So sometimes you inevitably have to choose where you get off from deep underground. Wouldn’t information on the weather be useful? Especially as the weather changed dramatically, whilst I was underground. But I’ve heard complaints of information overload already.
The other thing that irks me is that the Underground is a right-handed world. You stand on the right of the escalators, most staircases are easy to go up and down on the right side and the gates are always set-up to be right-handed. Why can’t at least the wide gates have a touch pad on both sides to speed-up those dragging mobile wardrobes? I always try to be left-handed to give my gammy hand something to do.
A French Blue Plaque?
I saw this blue plaque on the wall of the old Dickins and Jones building in Argyll Street today.
Blue Plaque for Germaine de Staël
The lady refered to, is better known as Germaine de Staël and there is more information about the plaque here.
The Anonymous Widower 