2010 — 5 August: Thursday

It being rather a cool1 morning, I thought I'd see if I could prod the new central heating system into life. Up to a point, Lord Copper. I set the room thermostat to 20C and, sure enough, the boiler and pump started up. Within a couple of minutes all the downstairs radiators were nice and toasty, but not one of those upstairs. Out with the bleeding key, and round I trot. No air in any of them. What next, Sherlock?

Obvious: a cuppa. [Pause] After 10 minutes I reduced the thermostat setting to stop it calling for heat and waited for things to settle down. Now (at 07:55) the downstairs rads are still warmer than warm, as am I, but not so much as a therm seems to have worked its way upstairs. Add it to the list. Next task: breakfast.

48mm of rain in Haywards Heath? Crikey.

Winston on UFOs — again

Since mentioning this in February, the story has re-emerged2 for another spin cycle, it seems. (Source.)

Having spent time browsing...

... some of the 56,000,000 pages in the nhs.uk domain yesterday evening looking into the topic of "continuing care assessment" I'm now not surprised to read the conclusions in the leaked internal report summarised here. There was much mention of initiatives, and frameworks, and standards, and charters, and complaints procedures, and Primary Care Trusts, and processes, and multi-disciplinary teams, but I could find surprisingly little useful information. I hope it's in there somewhere.

Meanwhile, I see Christopher Hitchens has written a typically feisty "Topic of Cancer" piece for Vanity Fair.

Right! Having emailed my plumber, it's time to make a supplies run, and then head over to the care-home to see what further curveballs Life3 has selected to throw at me. It's 09:45 and I can feel the tension headache just waiting to pounce :-)

Still, Claire tells me she and Michelle had a great meal (cooked by Peter's g/f) and a nice evening with her and Peter. Good!

One less stressor

Returning with a bulging man bag of supplies, I found an email from my patient plumber gently reminding me of the much-improved local-control aspects of my new heating system, and pointing out that asking for 20C when the upstairs ambient was already above that (and each radiator valve up there was set at minimum) is hardly likely to work. Doh! I have readily conceded his genius. Recall I've not had an ambient-sensitive efficient system with individual room control for the last 29 years. Isn't technology nice?

Next destination: dear Mama in the care-home. Then some much-needed "feet-up" downtime, methinks. It's 10:50... only 10:50, good grief.

A new TLA: EMI

After my interview with the care-home matron — and sitting with dear Mama for over two hours — it's apparent this home indeed cannot cope with her. They are not equipped for the demented, unless (to be brutal) they stay quietly in their rooms, 24x7. However, she told me about EMI (elderly mentally infirm) care homes where people can (for example) wander freely but safely.

Returning to yesterday's "black humour" theme, we finished each circular conversation today by her concluding: "Well, you'd better put me in a home, then." I am relatively (excuse the pun) detached. But it's still a loathsome disease. And (like Christa's cancer) not something I'd wish on my worst enemy. "Intelligent Design"? Not in my book!

It's now 17:58. I broke my journey home by calling in on Mike for a cuppa, a quick audio demo of his spiffy latest 7.1 surround system, and some (I hope) rational conversation. It was a very welcome respite. And tomorrow I should get the new vinyl floor covering in what was my study (henceforth to be called the "book warehouse"). I seem to be exhausted again without having done much at all. Maybe I should check myself into a care-home?

Later

Given the quotation I already host here from Charles Mees (the one-time Research Director at Kodak), this snippet in the new issue of "Private Eye" took my fancy:

Research

That's the "Royal" Society, in case you were wondering. There's a bit of a squabble going on as engineers try to grab some particle physics research money. It's 22:33 and I'm confidently predicting an innovative cuppa any minute now.

  

Footnotes

1  19C in the downstairs hallway at about 07:15 when I passed the thermostat / controller / thermometer gubbins there.
2  If you were a space-trotting alien, would you visit this crazy planet?
3  What is this Life if, full of care, etc etc