Monday August 3rd
Davina Thompson was the first person in the world to receive
a triple transplant – heart, lungs, liver, in late 1986. Her face, lovely smile, and extraordinary
character came back to me in an instant when I read of the death of Professor
Roger Williams, the liver specialist, who established the world famous liver
unit at King’s College Hospital, where I worked for many years in the 1970s and
1980s. I don’t know what it is about
extraordinary pioneers, but there are some readily recognisable
characteristics, and Roger Williams had these in spades. Firstly, he was clearly very intelligent and
gifted. Secondly, he had enormous
drive. A twelve-hour day was the
norm. Thirdly, though there are
obviously some fourthly and fifthlies, he did not care much about setbacks or
criticism, and almost always overcame them.
There are some who would say that this characteristic is an ability to
ride roughshod over authority, and Roger was certainly able to do this, and
indeed seemed to derive some pleasure in doing this on occasion. For example, the Professor of Medicine during
Roger’s early years at King’s was a much less gifted individual who nonetheless
had some reputation in bone metabolism.
He had ordered a device for cutting thin sections of bone for
microscopic study, a large and expensive piece of equipment destined for an
underutilised area in the medical school, but he did not follow through on his
plan to supervise this himself. As a
result, some six months after the supposed installation of the bone-cutter, the
Prof was showing some visiting overseas specialists around King’s. ‘And this’, he said, as he swung the door of
the lab open, ‘Is the bone-cutter room…’
The bone-cutter, unused, had been parked in a corner, and everywhere he
looked, white-coated research scientists were at work, pipetting reagents into
test tubes, looking down microscopes, setting up chromatographic columns. Needless to say, this was Roger Williams’
nascent research laboratory under way.
Exit speechless Professor.
Another typical Williams strategy which did not endear him
to other consultants on the staff at King’s was the way in which he always
commandeered a car parking space in pole position at the front of the
hospital. If he had been called away to
see a patient at the Cromwell Hospital, for example, when about to return, he
would send his secretary down to stand outside the building in the car park and
bodily block a space until Roger’s own car steamed in. On one occasion this almost led to injury
when another (nameless) consultant physically pushed the poor secretary out of
the way with his own car.
Mrs Thompson had been admitted to the liver unit for further
investigation in 1986, and a cardiac opinion was requested. She was suffering from an advanced liver
condition, primary biliary cirrhosis, and a liver transplant was being
considered. As the ‘new boy’ in the
cardiac department (only two years into my consultancy) I was deputed to ‘pop
up to Roger’s ward and take a look at this lady.’ Mrs Thompson was breathless as well as
jaundiced and I brought her back to our department for an echocardiogram. I went to report on the findings to Professor
Williams and he asked me for a full workup of her heart which included a right
and left heart catheterisation procedure.
The preliminary findings suggested that she had fibrosing alveolitis, an
associated lung condition that sometimes occurs in PBC. When we undertake catheterisation procedures
the patient is conscious, but we use local anaesthetic so that the study should
be pain free. Patients are understandably
always scared however, and one very underrated skill of a cardiac operator is
to chat to the patient during the procedure, explain what is going on, and put
them at their ease. I always like to
take the opportunity to ask the patients about themselves and give them to
chance to talk freely. In Mrs Thompson’s
case, I was aghast. She came from a
mining area in South Yorkshire, had had to leave her daughter at home when she
came down to London, and her husband, a miner, was effectively out of work due
to the miners’ strikes. I felt
desperately sorry for her. Not only the
domestic issues, but a real life limiting major disease to cope with seemed
just so unfair.
Roger’s clinical presentation rounds were always held in his
liver unit seminar room on a Saturday morning.
Attendance from everyone who worked for or with him was mandatory. In addition, one of the registrars would have
to examine the case blind, formulate a diagnosis, and give a treatment
plan. It was like going into the
courtroom to argue with Judge Jeffreys. Roger’s
style of teaching would not be condoned today, but it was certainly effective. You never forgot an experience in that
cauldron. In view of the fact that I was
both a consultant, albeit a junior one, and also from a different unit, Roger
always treated me courteously and kindly.
The same politeness did not extend to his juniors. Fortunately, the registrar that day was a
very switched on individual, and he was able to detect the signs of pulmonary
hypertension, the prominent right ventricular ‘heave’ as it is called, though
Roger called him to task for failing to hear the loud pulmonary second sound in
the pulmonary area just to the upper left of the sternum. ‘So what are we going to do about it?’ Queried the Prof. ‘Well, sir, we could transplant lungs as
well’, came the reply. ‘What does Dr
McLeod think?’, enquired Williams.
‘Well, sir, as I’m sure you know, in pulmonary hypertension, you have to
transplant both heart and lungs. If you
just transplant a heart, it cannot cope with the high pressure in the
lungs. If you just transplant the lungs,
the damaged heart will fail anyway.’
‘So’, came the reply, ‘We would have to think about a triple
transplant. Lungs, heart, liver.’ ‘Yes, Professor.’ ‘Hmm’, was the response. I’ll talk to Professor Calne and see what he
thinks.’
And that was it. Sadly,
I never met up with Mrs Thompson again, but she survived her pioneering operation
with a good quality of life for a further twelve years. In my brief meetings with her I found her to
be a truly lovely person. Everything I
have written above is true, and because of the wide publicity it is all in the
public domain, so I do not believe I have transgressed any confidentiality.
Tuesday August 4th
Awake from about 0430.
Tried listening to some relaxing music, placed the eye cover on to block
the rather too bright light from my Sony radio alarm clock, which has worked so
well for about 20 years, so I have been loth to replace it. No success.
Remember that I was woken in the middle of explaining what was going on
at a cardiac catheterisation to a junior doctor who could not understand what
he was seeing. The catheter was in the
left coronary artery. A tiny amount of
contrast medium flowed in to a vessel which terminated within half a centimetre
of its origin. A nub of contrast. ‘What’s going on? I don’t understand.’ ‘It’s all right. The left main coronary is blocked. All the supply is from the right side.’ ‘How do you know?’ ‘Simple, the patient is alive, isn’t he? The blood must be getting to his heart from
somewhere.’ Wakefulness put an end to
the clinical scenario, and eventually I got up and started in on the next few
weeks of diary entry.
Saturday August 8th
The weather has been good and getting hotter. Temperatures in the high 30s. Apart from some pleasant golf in midweek I
was privileged to go fishing yesterday, and out on the water it was at least a
little cooler than indoors. We motored
down to Christchurch Ledge and drifted with the tide. On the way, we passed the Aurora and the
Arcadia, the unused P&O cruise liners.
Both of them looked a little tired, with rusty paintwork, and the Aurora
had a substantial dent in the port stern quarter. This was followed by a lovely evening
yesterday in a friend’s garden with champagne, two different Malbecs, one
French, one Argentinian, and the remains of the Hauner Sicilian Malvasia.
The weather remains unpleasantly hot; just okay sitting
outside in the shade, but in our rental house the converted roof space means
our bedroom is at 31deg C. Not good for
sleeping. Almost like North Carolina. I remember when living there and the Fall
arrived, people used to talk about ‘Good Sleepin’ Weather’, and here in Poole
at the moment, it is not good sleepin’ weather.
Sunday August 9th
A five mile walk in the New Forest. Lovely, especially in the shady
inclosures. Some thatched cottages at
Hale, and the beautiful Thomas Archer designed Palladian Hale House. A memorial to him (architect of Chatsworth,
Chettle House, and St John’s, Smith Square) stands in the little church
nearby. A reminder of bygone plagues – his
first wife died within a year of their marriage from smallpox.
Hale House (1715), New Forest
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| Memorial (in Latin) to Thomas Archer. Note 'Variolarum Lue', another plague (Smallpox) |
Monday August 10th
It is just too hot to sit up here in our little office and
type a diary. So this will be resumed
another day. Some may have noted however
that I have lost interest in the coronavirus, having devoted so much space to
it early on. There is a clear cut
upsurge in cases over the last four weeks, but interestingly no uptick (as it’s
now known) in deaths. Perhaps the
congregating young are the cases and their mortality is low? Don’t know.
Our heatwave is echoed on the continent (vague du chaleur, or canicule,
in France), but it is worse.
Friday August 14th
We have now come out of the one-week heatwave. The last three days have been punishingly
hot. At times I have thought I was back
in North Carolina. The Seniors golf tour
to Devon went ahead this week – with numbers reduced from 32 to the ‘Valiant
9’, but social distancing seemed fairly well observed. We stayed in the Best Western Dartmouth Golf
Hotel and Spa, which I would describe as cheap and cheerful, but was good value
for money. The staff were unfailingly
helpful and friendly and one felt sorry for them working and serving behind
visors, especially in the heat. The
River Exe mussels on the menu were excellent, though the plaice came with
cockles (to which I’m possibly allergic) and was only slightly larger than the
plaice we threw back when fishing the other day. But a good time was had by all. Golf at Churston, which is near Paignton was
excellent, but the Dartmouth course was spectacular, with a lot of climbing and
descending those steep little Devon valleys.
Nice to renew acquaintance with that distinctive red Devon soil again,
which now ingrains the sole and grooves of my clubs. Our last day was at Thurlestone, which was
besieged by har on arrival, but which later cleared to give those views which
are so spectacular, particularly on the further parts of the course which
overlook Bantham, the Aune estuary, and the famous Burgh Island with its Art
Deco hotel. The hotel, as is widely
known was the location for the famous Agatha Christie book, ‘And then there
were none’, which is an unusual book in that it has been through three
metamorphoses of name.
 |
| A challenging par 3 at Dartmouth Golf and Country Club |
The weather broke in dramatic fashion in the evening with monsoon-like thundery rain, and this morning is overcast, humid, and a touch gloomy.
Watching the news again this morning, there is a plethora of
what I previously called ‘talking heads’, but which a friend reminded me the
other day are called in the media ‘Vox Pops’.
Vox Populi, Vox Dei is surely
a contradiction in terms. Today the vox
pops are related to the predicted grades for A level students which came out yesterday,
and have caused many to be disgruntled.
The BBC is quick to focus on the suggestion that predicted grades for
posh private schools are thought to be higher than ordinary schools.
Cricket has resumed in the second test match against
Pakistan, in Southampton. There were
rain interruptions yesterday, and a delayed start this morning.
During the last week I received a moving message from a
close friend and former nursing colleague, who has endured multiple surgical
procedures for primary and metastatic bowel cancer (chiefly liver), and for
whom no more can be done. She has always
been something of a ‘wild child’, though I hasten to add, in her career,
absolutely committed and professional.
She told me some time back she was looking forward to some druggy bliss,
and floating away. Subsequently, with
Krukenberg tumours and drains for peritoneal ascites, she has gone through so
much uncomplainingly. Offering to visit,
and/or to supply home-made marmalade which I know she loves, she writes in
reply (direct quote): ‘Very weak at the moment with my two syringe
drivers. Just about able to converse for
20 mins so don’t really see anyone in real-time. Getting weaker every day. Just wish I could hurry up and die. It’s very boring waiting to go!!!!! Love to you both…’ What a person.
In complete contrast to the previous paragraph, and to
lighten the mood, another story surfaced early this week. An approach was made by a White House
official to the governor of South Dakota, with the possible suggestion that the
famous Mount Rushmore carvings of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt,
and Lincoln be extended to include President Trump. The governor thought this was hilarious,
until she realised that the White House emissary was not joking.
Finally, the other day, I saw that BBC4 were to screen a
recording of Mahler 8 (the Symphony of a Thousand) in a performance from the
Royal Albert Hall, conducted by Simon Rattle.
It featured the National Youth Orchestra, and combined total of soloists
and choirs of around 800 people. I
watched with love and awe – the scale of the orchestra was fantastic. The young man with his mandolin, a total of
four harpists, and at the end, a kiss on both cheeks from Rattle for the young
leader of the orchestra – will we ever see scenes like this again? It took me back to the only time I’ve seen it
live, in 1973, at the same venue… wonderful.
Wednesday August 19th
Torrential rain today allows time to catch up on a number of
things, particularly the diary.
Following many months of aches and pains (I won’t bore with detail) I
have an appointment with a rheumatologist later this week. It is the lot of ageing folk to look with envy
on the exploits of the younger. Last
night we were talking about friends who have moved to Lymington and how their
bike excursions take them up and around the Beaulieu river, and I was reminded
of the John Betjeman poem ‘Youth and Age on Beaulieu River, Hants’ (I think
that’s the title), which I first came across, not in my collected edition of
his poems, but on an LP (for younger readers that stands for Long Player, a
vinyl disc 12 inches in diameter which rotates at 33⅓ rpm, the transducer being
a diamond mounted on a piezo electric crystal [stylus]), entitled ‘Betjeman’s
Banana Blush’, a collaboration between Betjeman and the remarkable musician and
arranger, Jim Parker. Parker’s music
perfectly complements the beauty of the spoken word. You could try this link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UsNliZAN_7y
And for the record, I am ‘Mrs Fairclough, sipping tea…’
About three years ago, my daughter and her partner completed
the ‘French Divide’ (qv), a bicycle endurance event, not a race, from Bray-Dunes,
near Dunkirk, to Mendionde in the Pyrenees, mostly off road. And this year’s iteration has been happening,
with the leader completing the course of 2400 Km in 9 days. I would love to do this event – but sadly
there is a time limit of 15 days. I
think I could manage it in a month or two.
It was during the briefing for this event that I learnt that if you need
fresh drinking water in France, the best place to head for is a cemetery. Apparently there is some sort of national
edict requiring local authorities to provide fresh water in cemeteries– the
intent being to maintain flowers on graves.
This week has been notable for the fallout of the
catastrophic attempts to give A level results when there have been no A level
exams (for US friends they are the high school graduation tests which
essentially determine whether you get to University or not). It seems the government have been desperate
to avoid ‘grade inflation’ so some sort of algorithm has been used to give
results, rather than the pupils’ own teachers’ predictions. Much distress all round. This Thursday the lower level GCSE exam
results will appear, based on teacher assessments, and a week later the
algorithmic results, and pupils will be allowed to choose the higher grade from
the two methods. GCSE results are of no
real use to man nor beast, unless you leave school at 16, but no doubt there
will be a lot of anger and aggro. The
vox pops this week have been many – angry students not getting to University
etcetera. When I was their age I used to
think that Universities were only there for really bright people, but now I
realise that the higher education sector is yet another Leviathan, dependent on
getting ‘bums on seats’ to secure its funding, and to a large extent merely
self-perpetuating degree courses to sustain so-called academics who are not
particularly academic at all. I heard an
interview with a teacher who clearly did not know the difference between ‘less’
and ‘fewer’ – she referred to ‘less places at University’ for example. I despair.
Language should always adapt and change, but precision is
also important. Another irritant these
days is the PC attempt to desexualise words – the word ‘actor’ is now used to
describe actor and actress, for example.
Hero is another word and case in point.
Nobody seems to like to use the word ‘heroine’ nowadays, no doubt for PC
reasons too. Should we be describing the
unfortunate South African runner, Caster Semenya, as a ‘heroine’? Interested parties might enjoy ‘The
Conversation’, https://theconversation.com/ten-ethical-flaws-in-the-caster-semenya-decision-on-intersex-in-sport-116448
As I write, it is pouring with rain, so golf today is off.
The US election campaign is hotting up with much malevolence
on the Trump side following the launch of the Democrats’ initial session. A post on Facebook by a friend speaking of
the mess with A level results refers to the malevolence of the present
government, thus revealing herself as a probable Guardian reader, but speaking
as a hawkish Right Wing Socialist (which is probably how I portray myself) I
think the correct word should be ‘incompetence’ rather than malevolence.
So now to something really important, and sad to report, the
death of Julian Bream, one of my heroes (that word again). Not only was he a wonderful guitarist who
pioneered the classical guitar in Britain, before John Williams came along, but
he also did a huge amount of good work rekindling interest in the lute and
Elizabethan consort music. Much of his
consort work was in the 1960s, so I was very lucky to hear a late-night Prom
sometime in the late 1970s where he reconvened many of his friends to play in a
London church. I also heard him a number
of times in recital and was privileged to be introduced to him during a recital
by Martin Best in the church of St James in Kingston, Dorset. The other day I heard the new kid on the
block, Sean Shibe, playing Bach’s first lute suite. The technique was breathtaking. But my old recording of Bream playing the
work, at a much slower tempo, is much nicer.
Musically speaking, I am on guitar what in golf we would
term a ‘handicap player’, so it was always a pleasure to me to see how hard
Bream had to concentrate and to work to produce the music that he did. I remember him playing a transcription of the
6th Bach cello suite. He said
that the cello suites got harder as they went from 1 to 6 (I don’t know if that
is true), and the effort needed to play it was transfixing. I also saw John Williams a number of times
and the feeling with him was one of coldness and detachment, not that he wasn’t
a magnificent player. I mentioned this
one day to a musical friend who observed in a down-to-earth nonsequitur, ‘Yes,
but he bonked Anna Ford, didn’t he?’
There is no answer to that.
My original recording of the Rodrigo guitar concerto was the
10-inch LP by Narciso Yepes, for some years the only one available. When Bream’s recording came out in about 1967
I bought it, but was also entranced by the section on the album where Bream’s
consort played his own arrangements of the ‘Courtly Dances from Gloriana’ by
Benjamin Britten. They are
fantastic. If you don’t believe me, here
is a fascinating piece of trivia: they were selected by Paul McCartney as one
of his Desert Island Discs. It’s true. The sense of astonishment is similar to that
which visited me when I heard that one of David Beckham’s choices was ‘Si Tu
Vois Ma Mère’ by the jazz soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet. Bechet was originally a clarinettist but
discovered the straight soprano saxophone during a visit to London. The piece can be played on either instrument. I accompanied the late John Oliver in a
school concert while he played it on the clarinet and I strummed the guitar
chords that he had written out for me. A
far cry from King Edward’s school concerts is perhaps the most beautiful modern
version - by the French group ‘Avalon Jazz Band’ – check them out on
Youtube. Their version of Charles
Trenet’s ‘Ménilmontant’ is also breathtaking.
Django Reinhart-style guitar playing.
Super.
My diary has wandered far from the Corona days. Nobody seems to know where we are going with
it. There has been a significant upturn
in cases without a commensurate increase in mortality. Wider testing of milder symptoms, some
asymptomatic individuals from track and trace, and the increased spread among
young and therefore healthier subjects is thought to be the cause.
I am due to join a walking group in North Dorset. For most of this summer we have walked in
approach shoes, but following the rain I feel I should wear boots. To be on the safe and secure side I get out
my Leki walking poles – they have cobwebs on them.
A final shoutout for Trump.
Following the recent story of the Mount Rushmore enquiry, some wag has
doctored a photo of the mountain showing the four presidents with stone hands
over their faces.
Sunday August 23rd
My father would have been 102 today. Exactly two years ago I climbed Schiehallion
with a friend. It was a favourite
mountain of my father’s. I had never
climbed it. For at least half the ascent
there are boulders strewn in random fashion and there is no real path. Although the vertical climbed is minimal –
one starts at several hundred metres of elevation, the ground underfoot is
better suited to mountain goats. On the
way down, we stop, and in an unguarded moment, I turn to my friend, miss my
footing, and bang, fall. The rocks are
hard. So concerned about the bash on my
leg which hurts a lot and makes me wonder if it’s broken (it isn’t), I don’t
notice the complete subluxation of my right little finger until I try to grip
my pole. My friend puts it back. There is so much pain from my leg and hip I
don’t notice the pain from the reduction.
So now I am left with a crooked little finger, a memento to remember my
Dad by.
It was with a sense of ennui
d’automne that I drove northwest from Poole, skirting Wimborne, and started
out on the road that leads past Kingston Lacy, with its magnificent avenue of
beech trees, and turned north up the Tarrant valley to join friends for a walk. The wheat fields had been cut and neatly
rolled cylinders of straw dotted the landscape.
No sheaves or stooks as I remember from my childhood but efficiently
machine rolled butts of pale yellow. The
sun shone after rain and fleecy clouds drifted overhead. In the church yard at Tarrant Monkton, beside
which I parked, the beautiful small building of All Saints, built of stone and
flint, stood in silent modesty. Parts of
this date back to 1400 (the chancel), but my eyes were caught by other memento mori, the weathered and
lichen-clad headstones. On the stone
commemorating a woman who died in 1880, there is the following:
This languishing head is at rest
Its thinking and aching are o’er
This quiet immovable breast
Is heaved by affliction no more.
Amen to that. Our
walk takes us East out of the valley up an old drove track, and looking
northwest over towards Cranborne Chase.
Through fields and woodland, purpled with elderberries, where pheasants
cluck and whirr, and martins flutter, to the hamlet of Manston before winding
back by a more southerly route. It’s a
time to chat with walking colleagues not seen since before lockdown, and the
heat of the sun is such to allow me to put the car roof down to meander back
past Badbury Rings and Wimborne.
 |
| All Tarrant Monkton and above the Tarrant Valley |
In such an elegiac mood of Weltschmerz, it would be easy to
dwell on impermanence, put on Strauss’s Four Last songs, and drift away, but
eventually the real world returns (‘Life is real, life is earnest’) and it is
back to the here and now.
A front page headline caught my eye the other day. Some academic doctor in Bristol has stated
that we must not use the term ‘turning blue’ because it is racist. To elaborate, he seems to think that because
Black people cannot turn blue, we should not be using the term. Since he is presumably a modern creature and
may not have done Latin at school I suggest we substitute the term
‘cyanosis’. Anyway, he is wrong. If a black person is cyanotic one can see it
in the mucosae and fingernail beds, the areas where we always teach medical
students to look because ‘central’ cyanosis is usually more important than
‘peripheral’ cyanosis. This political
correctness is really getting me down at times.
Nice ‘phone call from my younger daughter who is off to
Tuscany. Great. Sensible small Air B&B type
accommodation.
Spend ages trying to draw to scale how I would like my
walk-in wardrobe to be constructed. With
a minimalist house and no attic, there is a small room for clothes storage for
each of us, and everything is to be tidied away, a bit like a well-organized
yacht. I might have to change the habits
of a lifetime.
And a visit to a rheumatologist to discover that my hip pain
is not arthritis or myeloma from my IgM paraprotein, that axillary skin tags
are not mycosis fungoides (I had worked that one out), and that my backache is
spinal stenosis which is not severe enough to require operation. Anno
domini seems to be the watchword for this week.
The end of the week has been cheered by England’s
performance in the Test match against Pakistan, where after crumbling to around
100 for 4, a stand of over 300 runs by Crawley and Buttler has allowed England
to declare on 583 for 8, and Pakistan are currently 77 for 5. What is it about sport at the national level
that lifts us, encourages us, and warms the heart?
I must now get back to ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’, the current
choice for the book club. Re-reading and
musing over it, the power of the narrative and the setting of 1935 Alabama,
with the terrible miscarriage of justice, it remains such a powerful book. But there seem to me to be huge problems with
it as a text for schools. The vocabulary
of the Southern USA is completely alien to most UK readers. Who has heard of scuppernongs, kudzu, Hoover
carts, and chinaberry trees, for example?
It is also hard to get the image of Atticus played by Gregory Peck in
the film out of one’s mind. Peck
justifiably won the Oscar in 1963 for best actor. Apparently he was so entranced by the book he
read it in a single night. ‘In the Heat
of the Night’ you might say.
Monday August 23rd
Ennui extends to coronavirus now. After the initial excitement, alarm, anxiety,
and significant lockdown, most people are obviously returning to normal or near
normal activity. Crowds of people flock
to pubs, restaurants, and any other venue they are allowed to. What is different still is the huge reduction
in people going to a place of work rather than ‘working from home’. WFH is a new acronym which everybody
understands. Sports venues, cinemas, and
theatres are also empty. Young people
have moved on, and it is only the older generation like me which is still more
or less housebound. Two corona developments
to report. First is definite evidence of
reinfection in some cases. The second
infection, recorded in Hong Kong, is a clearly genetically different strain of
virus. Then there is a suggestion that
ACE or ARB blood pressure lowering drugs may reduce mortality in Covid-19
infection. You will remember that the
virus competes for the ACE-2 receptor for its ingress to the cell. Perhaps the drugs block ingress?
My daughter seems to have lucked out somewhere in the middle
of Tuscany. Shots of lovely looking
infinity pool… And she’s supposed to be
WFH! Meanwhile my other daughter has
just learned that the planned mountain bike event/race in northern Norway will
not work out for her because all UK visitors to Norway have to quarantine for
14 days after landing. £800 down the
drain apparently. A pity because she has
been training intensively for this including an 80-mile off-road route last
weekend.
But here in the modest surroundings of BH12 one still finds
interest and amusement in the daily news.
I have written before of the remarkable ability to find humour in the
most awful situations, viz. the Nazi concentration camps as exemplified by
collations in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and although one can in
no way compare our current situation with that, it is pleasing to find that we
can still make jokes. My favourite today
is related by the Telegraph correspondent who has been to the (socially
distanced) revival of the musical Camelot.
Now, following the dictum of my closest school friend, MJW, ‘Mac, never
go to a musical’, I have no intention of going to this, but the review is
amusing. King Arthur’s appearance in a
shiny grey business suit is mentioned as perhaps not in keeping with the
general theme, but the reviewer records the famous words of Noel Coward on
attending the premiere which was supposed to last for two hours and forty minutes,
but ended up in excess of four and a half hours. Coward remarked that it was ‘Longer than Götterdämmerung and not nearly as
funny.’ In view of the fact that John F
Kennedy loved it however it has come to define his presidency.
A definite irritant, however, in the news, is a linguist who
has stated that older people should not put punctuation in texts, particularly
full stops (or ‘periods’ to Americans) because young people find them
intimidating. Oh dear. Sorry Dr Lauren Fonteyn, whoever you are. But I don’t expect you will read this.
Tuesday August 25th
Torrential rain and heavy winds hit from Storm Francis. Major flooding in Wales. Seems doubtful that we will get any cricket
today in Southampton, and another limping draw is the likely upshot.
Duke University messages me to let me know that students are
going back this month, with novel approaches to teaching, including spreading
seminars out into the evenings to achieve smaller class sizes. These will be so-called ‘Pyjaminars’. At Cambridge in the 1960s, evening teaching
in seminars was the rule, sometimes accompanied by a civilized sherry from the
tutor, though always finishing in time to allow the dons to get to ‘Hall’ for
their chance to sup at High Table. We
were required to attend these in jackets, ties, and gowns, and the question of
pyjamas never came up. In view of the
modern concerns about university and school lecturers having sexual relations
with their students, nobody seems to have thought about the female
undergraduates appearing before their tutors in skimpy nightwear and the
possible results therefrom. Maybe it
will all be by Zoom meetings?
