Aworkia

Note to self: it's a bad idea to look at old holiday photos when you should be studying.

I came back to my desk, looked over some past exams, did a bit of this, a bit of that, then thought (foolishly), I might just spend 5 minutes checking out those pictures I took in Spain in January.

Almost 45 minutes later - still checking out pictures. Looking at them has instilled me with a sense of what the hell am I doing sitting at this desk? And while that's a valid question, now is probably not the time to be asking it.

It makes me long for the time when we would wake up every few days in a new place, not really knowing what the day had in store. We travelled from town to town on bus or train. We never knew where we would be staying, since once we arrived we just wandered around with our packs until we found something that seemed okay.

We often didn't have a clue what we were really ordering when we ate. We were often too hot or too cold or lost or hungry. We squabbled about trivia. We marvelled together at the world.

But you know what? Soon enough we're doing it all over again - but different.

By Tuesday lunchtime I'll be finished first year medicine (fingers crossed). By Saturday we'll be in Hanoi. And you know what we'll do there? Neither do I.

That's what I'm looking forward to.

In a nutshell

Again, a content-free day. I'm just not up to the effort of formulating thoughts at the moment - there's too much other stuff bouncing around inside my noggin'.

So instead, here's a reformulation of everything I've posted so far this month, courtesy of http://www.wordle.net/

Insert Title

Not much to report, except that I'm starting to question my laissez-faire approach to study in the last few weeks. Things are getting a bit out of hand perhaps...

Surprising things

Two surprising things happened to me today.

1. I learned that the balance between selection pressure against alleles and new mutation of alleles (which I might need to understand for Monday's exam) was first enumerated by my favourite Marxist children's book writer, JBS Haldane. Wow.

2. My Smaller Half said to me, "I love quantum mechanics!" - and she wasn't joking. Maybe the body snatchers are upon us.

We object to this subject

I discovered a great way to have people look at you like you're a madman: expound enthusiastically about grammar in the middle of a tutorial about psychiatry.

It really was relevant though. We were discussing a thing called a Mental State Examination used to assess a patient's state of mind. There are a bunch of different things to assess, and some tests are labelled "subjective" and some are labelled "objective".

My tute group got into a discussion about how some of the so-called "objective" measures really weren't objective at all - they were just the doctor's opinion, and so were actually subjective. I could see where they were coming from, since science usually uses the word "objective" to mean independent of the observer, so the measurement would be quantifiable and repeatable. In contrast, having a doctor write on a form that he thinks the patient is dressed like a scruffy bum seems much more subjective than objective.

At this stage, I interjected, explaining that it seemed to me that the labels "subjective" and "objective" were being used in their grammatical sense. So a subjective measure was something that the patient tells you about themselves (so the patient "does it"), and an objective measure is one that the doctor assesses (so the patient is having it "done to them"), just like the subject and object of a sentence.

I was about to enthusiastically begin illustrating the difference using the example of who vs whom when I realized that the room was very quiet and everyone else had leaned back from the table with raised eyebrows. They all clearly thought I was a lunatic, so stopped talking. The discussion moved on to another topic in that "So, how 'bout them Broncos?" way that happens when someone has just said something very awkward or bizarre.

Honestly, what do they teach them at schools these days?

Creeping doom

Argh - what a night! Trying desperately to motivate myself to study for my exams, which are next week! I'm finding it hard to get going for a number of reasons.

1. I always find it hard to start working intensely. This is because I am lazy. I know this because my PBL tutor told me so after I expressed a desire to have fewer Learning Issues. (I told her I wasn't lazy, I was efficient.)
2. The two exams are both horrid beasts from Greek mythology. For example, the first exam will have the head of an embryologist, the body of a geneticist, and the tail of ... I'm not sure what the tail is made of. Some kind of psychiatrist, I suspect. As you read these words you tremble with fear, I can tell. The significance of this is that it encourages broad, shallow learning, which means I really don't have to bother starting study until Friday. Ha ha ha.
   
3. I'm kind of fed up with sitting at this desk. It's been a tiring year, and we have an awesome holiday waiting for us.

As a result, I've been engrossed tonight in the ABC's The Howard Years. It's fascinating. A reviewer in the Sydney Morning Herald described it as like seeing the kebab you drunkenly ate half the previous night in the cold light of day and shuddering, wondering what on earth you were thinking. This made me laugh, but sadly I suspect that it's not true. Those Australian who supported Howard's actions at the time probably still believe they were right. And those Australians (like me) who could hardly believe it was really happening just sit there shaking their heads all over again.

I won't attempt to summarize the program. If you're interested, you can watch it on the ABC website I think. Or, if you want the four and a half minute version of John Howard's historic contribution, and don't mind some very harsh language - watch The Herd on youtube.

Tribute

Goodbye my friend. You were one among many, all so close to me, so how could I pick favourites? Yet now your absence commands my attention and I am left with nothing but memories of our time together.

We were a perfect fit for each other. I turned to you for warmth and support so many times, over so many years, that I started to think you would always be there for me. It was not to be - how could it? The bonds that held you to me were destined to stretch, fated to break.

I'd noticed recently that you'd been looking worn, threadbare. You didn't seem your old self. I thought that maybe it was me, maybe I'd changed. But I came to realize that it was you.

When the time came, I didn't shirk my duty. I made sure you were clean and dry and folded with dignity, and I took you to the garbage bin. Old purple undies, you served me well.

Incommunicado

Well how about that? I guess they weren't bluffing after all.

It turns out that if you don't pay your telephone bill, and don't pay the reminder bill, and then don't pay the overdue notice, and then don't pay the termination notice, the phone company will disconnect your phone.

"Valued customer" my arse!

comfort + pain

We just had a class on how to give injections. I had always been under the impression that giving injections was pretty much like playing darts: stand back, loosen up the wrist, let fly, and if it bounces off the target you lose your turn.

But it turns out it's more complex than that. You have to use different types of needles and different techniques depending on whether you want to inject into the skin, the fat or the muscle, which in turn depends on what kind of stuff you're injecting and how much of it.

We were injecting water into little latex and sponge models rather than on ourselves or each other, although one of my Esteemed Colleagues did manage to stab himself in the thumb.

When you're doing an intramuscular injection the needle is bigger, longer, and you plunge straight in rather than mincing around at an angle like you might for an intradermal injection. Apparently you also have to inject the fluid pretty slowly because it is "more comfortable" for the patient. I was struck by this phrase because I think what it really means is "less painful" for the patient. I can't imagine too many people getting honking big injections and saying, "Mmm, that was pleasingly comfortable".

I suppose that if you conceive of the world in terms of dynamic opposition of absolutes then "more comfortable" is the same thing as "less painful" - they are both talking about moving away from the "agony" end of the line. But "less painful" has a bit of the same quality as "I've stopped beating my wife". It is objectively better but still not much chop.

I wonder which phrase is better for the patient? If I tell you that some treatment will make you more comfortable, will you value that treatment more or less than if I told you it would reduce your pain? Someone must have done some research on this. I know that economists and psychologist have looked at the question of how people respond to potential rewards or losses and have found that people respond very differently depending on the way it is described to them. People seem to prefer certainty of outcome when considering losses but prefer the magnitude of the benefit when considering rewards. This is why lotteries are so popular.

Something similar should hold for medical treatment and the choices that patients make. It's very possible that doctors are unwittingly influencing their patients' decision by the frame of reference they use.

If only someone would set up a hugely unethical study to discover the truth!

Meaningless nonsense

Well I wasn't expecting that. I was the only person out of twelve voters who thought that children's books should contain less political allegory. Admittedly I was mostly thinking of John Marsden's book The Rabbits when I voted, so it's probably not representative of my views in general.

Nevertheless, I can't help but wonder what kind nincompoops voted for fewer talking mice. Can you imagine a childhood without Reepicheep? No, neither can I, yet that's the kind of madness you are contemplating with your careless voting.

Explain yourselves.

Tattoos

While waiting to update my driver's license to one from South Australia (now that I've been living here for almost two years) I found myself sitting next to a sweet little old lady in the holding pen. She and I passed the time by discussing the other people who were coming into the waiting room, mostly by making catty remarks about them. For example:

[enter trollop, stage left]

Little Old Lady
Coh!

PTR
Nice shoes...

Little Old Lady
It was the diamante anklet that caught my eye.

This was a great way to pass the time. But I got a bit worried when two enormously burly tattooed gentlemen entered.

Little Old Lady
Do you have a tattoo?

PTR
Me? No.

Little Old Lady
My old dad used to say that if they was born looking like that you'd expect compensation.

I suppose it's possible that they didn't hear her since they were, ooh, about 3 feet away. Or maybe they decided that punching out a little old lady wasn't that macho. Either way, it was a great line. I can't wait until I'm old and defenceless enough to be able to insult anyone I like.

Japanese manhole covers

Ever been to Japan? The manhole covers are fascinating. Everywhere you go, the designs on them are different. Some are geometrical, some have cartoon characters on them, some have elegant floral designs. When my Smaller Half and I were in Japan on our honeymoon, we walked around looking at the ground all time, afraid we'd miss a manhole cover.

Anyway, for some time I've had a small collection of pictures of them in an album on facebook. My Award-Winning Illustrious Tutor was looking at them and sent a message to me and an Observant Friend of his, letting us know that we were both devotees of Japanese manhole covers.

And his Observant Friend noticed that we both have pictures of the same manhole cover. Not the same design. The same cover. If you look at the paving around the manhole covers in the two pictures below you can see that it is the same in both of them.

My picture:

Her picture:

Isn't that a bizarre coincidence?

Monster teeth

Saw this lying on the grass beside the road while walking around the neighborhood several months ago. I kept meaning to post it here but forgot until now.


In case you can't read the writing on the cardboard it says:
"The monster teeth 4 sale! Only, 50c - $1.00 Awesome!"

I truly regret not buying the monster teeth myself.

Exotic visitors

Hello to whoever it was that viewed this page from the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Russian Federation, Sweden and Brazil (presumably not the same person from all five countries).

No views yet from Africa (note to Sarah Palin: it's a continent). If you're reading this and have a friend in Africa, why not get them to come and have a look?

Rights

This evening my Smaller Half and I went to a public lecture given by Julian Burnside QC on the topic of why Australia needs a bill of rights. I was very impressed by him. He is a terrific public speaker. He managed to teach us all an awful lot about history, legal theory and politics, and did it all by telling us stories.

Telling stories is a great way to keep people listening, but it's not that easy. One of my lecturers at my Fine University at the moment is fond of telling stories too, but his are meandering diversions away from the topic at hand rather than illustrative vignettes, so I usually leave his lectures wondering what they were about.

Mr Burnside's lecture was basically about what the main objections are to having a bill of rights, and why he feels they aren't valid.

Anyway, afterwards I approached him and asked him to sign a copy of one his books for a friend, which he did very cheerily. I then complimented him on his talk, saying that beforehand I was a skeptic regarding the need for a bill of rights, but he had converted me. He responded (to my surprise) that he had also previously been skeptical, but had had to rethink things over the last 10 years and had changed his mind.

The thing that changed his mind (and the thing he discussed in detail in his talk that convinced me too) was that the idea that the existing law is sufficient protection was clearly shown to be false by the actions of the Howard government against refugees. He described how 2004 was a bad year for human rights in Australia.

In that year there were three separate cases that went to the High Court regarding the operation and conduct of the detention centres that refugees were kept in while their status was assessed. The first case affirmed the right of the Australian Government to keep people in detention indefinitely even though they had done nothing wrong. The second case affirmed that the Government had no obligation to provide any standard of accommodation or care to refugees. The third case affirmed that the above cases applied equally well to children as to adults. In all three cases those points of view were the positions actively argued by the Government.

If Australia had had a bill of rights, like the rest of the western world, the outcome might have been a little different.

I've come to the point of view that those who oppose a bill of rights are either insufficiently well informed or too concerned with the "power" that this would give to underprivileged groups, which is really a way of saying that they think that only "sensible" people like themselves should be in charge.

A transcript of the talk will be available tomorrow (Friday). When it goes online I'll post a link here. Have a read of it. I'd like to know what you think. Here it is!

PS Here is a link to the transcript of Fiona Stanley's speech from last week on Indigenous Health that I discussed previously.

Full disclosure

For the past two months I have had a lot of trouble spelling the word "abdomen". It always wants to be spelled "adbomen". This happens whether I am typing or writing. I know perfectly well how to spell it, but my fingers seem incapable of getting it right.

I just thought you should know that. Before we get any closer.

Get it right!

Here's another shot in the War On Innumeracy. I was reading an otherwise respectable textbook called Genetics At A Glance by Dorian J. Pritchard and Bruce R. Korf when I came across this doltish statement on page 27:

"Reassortment of paternal and maternal alleles within chromosomes creates an infinite potential for genetic variation between gametes."

This is just hogwash. The potential variation is not even close to being infinite - whatever that might mean...

I sat down with my pen and paper and made some basic simplifying assumptions such as there are about 30,000 genes in the human genome, and that the average gamete (ie: sperm or egg) has about 40 paternal/maternal crossovers, and concluded that the average person could conceivably (ho ho - pun intended) produce about 10 to the power of 160 different gametes. You should have seen how excited my tute group was when I told them!

Is that number really really large? Yes.

Is it infinite? No.

Shame shame shame.

How to buy a car

One of the questions I got asked in my medical school admissions interview was to do with how I might go about buying a car. I realized that this was obviously a question to do with how I go about applying myself to achieving a task, including information gathering, testing, weighing alternatives, and taking action. The theory is, I suppose, that such a rational decision-making process could equally well be used in formulating a research program or treating a patient or striking for more pay.

So I talked in my best reasonable-man's-voice about things like reading car reviews, examining resale values, setting budgets, deciding on what measures of a car such a fuel economy or power or style were important to me, and so on and so on. I even threw in a joke about not ever buying a Renault again, because there's nothing Australians love like a good anti-French joke. Presumably I sounded reasonably coherent because a little more than a year later, here I am in medical school.

In that time I've bought one car and I'm now looking at buying another one, and (astonishingly) neither time have I followed anything like the procedure that I so carefully explained to my interviewers. The actual procedure I follow consists of these steps:

• Choose a make and model of car based on what looks good, mostly defined by the shape of the bonnet and headlights, and the wheel arches.
• Test drive a dodgy version of the car of the moment and be disappointed. Become entranced by an adjacent car of a completely different make and model. This is the new car of the moment.
• Discover that the car of the moment is well beyond my means and start all over again.
• Become enraged with a salesman and swear to never look at the poor innocent car ever again. Start again.
• Ask some friends what they drive.
• Imagine what I would buy if I had triple the budget.
• Get tired of the whole thing and impulsively go the nearest dealership that has copious and colourful bunting and buy the first car that I can get a good price on.

I can heartily recommend this process to you. Not only is it a great way to buy a car, it can also be used to formulate a research program, treat a patient, or strike for more pay.

Good luck!

Handcrafted Artisan Cereal

As is our custom, we went to the Farmer's Markets (a.k.a the Farmers' Markets) this morning for our cheese and tomato toastie with coffee. Once more it was deluxe.

After eating we strolled around the various stalls, where I saw a someone selling bags of fancy-pants organic dairy-free wheat-free sugar-free 100% natural whole-grain breakfast cereal for extortionate prices. There was a big sign next to the stall which said:

It's not muesli!
Handcrafted Artisan Cereal

I am so happy that the ancient craft of cereal making has not died and that there are still master craftsmen willing to pass on this noble trade to eager young journeymen. They must lovingly hand-roll every single oat.

A great idea

Thanks for your feedback in the recent poll. The two things that most of you thought should appear more often in children's books were tropical fruit and vitamin K. How dietary. It's unfortunate that tropical fruit is not rich in vitamin K, or we'd be able to kill two bird with one stone.

Nevertheless, based on these results, I have formulated a great idea for a children's book. It's called, "Marky the Mango takes Warfarin." Perhaps I will suggest this to my sister, who is in my opinion an excellent writer and also a veterinarian and hence has all the skills necessary to write such a book.

Available in all good book stores.

Balloons

My Smaller Half and I were discussing balloons this morning, with the following points being mutually agreed upon:

1. Balloons are fun.
2. Balloon-fun always ends anti-climactically and disappointingly. The balloon either pops when bitten by a small dog, shrivels up over several days in a neglected dusty corner (hence Paul Simon's lyric, "sad as a lonely little wrinkled balloon"), or at best is accidentally set free by a clumsy child and escapes to the stars and beyond.
3. Balloons would be more fun if they had in-built detonators to pop them at a secret pre-determined time, without the intervention of small dogs. This would keep everybody on their toes.

Discuss.

Oratory

Today was odd. We had some lectures from some crusty old lefties, a.k.a. my kind of people. I was expecting to sit there and think, "Right on!" but instead I sat there and thought, "huh??"

It's not that I disagreed with them. I just couldn't figure out what they were trying to say. The first guy's lecture was pretty much incomprehensible to me. As far as I could tell, he was trying to say to us, "If you're trying to convince someone of something then it's good to have some kind of reasoning behind it." Gosh.

The second guy's lecture was about how health is a human right. I don't think anyone in the class would disagree with that. But he talked about it for an hour, and kind of shouted at us the whole time. Perhaps I shouldn't have worn my brown shirt. Anyway, at the end I felt kind of guilty and conflicted about myself despite agreeing with everything he said. I think.

In contrast, after school my Smaller Half and I went to a lecture in town by Prof. Fiona Stanley about the failure of Australian governments to improve Aboriginal health. When we got there it transpired that we were supposed to make reservations so we snuck in - it's the Australian Way. She was really smart and really passionate, and at the end of her talk she even got us all shouting out "Yes we can!" in a conscious Obama tribute. I got quite choked up by the whole thing.

And then Bob Hawke, who was there because the institute named after him was running the show, got up and thundered away about how we need to get off our bums and do something about it. He was an electrifying speaker too. Looks like his blood pressure is about 240/180 though, or else he was incredibly sunburnt.

I suppose it's a bit much to expect our university lectures to be delivered by ex-Prime Ministers and Companions of the Order of Australia. But I was really disappointed in today's stuff. It was just such a mish-mash of tired bureaucratese and meaningless phrases.

Not like this blog eh?

Three good things - Part III

I had a great day today because three good things happened. I'll cover them in chronological order. This is the third one.

The US election result came in. Woo! Hoo!

I'm excited that Obama won. I'm a lefty through and through so the idea that the US may start veering that way really pleases me.

But even if he hadn't won, I'd still be happy, because there were long queues to vote all across America. People actually cared about who won! This is a good thing. I think that compulsory voting (like Australia has) is the way to go. Even if it doesn't force people to think about politics and the future, what it does achieve is to modulate the influence of the lunatic fringe(s) who seem to have a disproportionately large influence on US politics with their single-issue lobby groups. It's sad to see election turnouts down in the 40% range. Especially when the people who don't vote tend to be the disenfranchised people who most need the government's help.

But Obama did win. Isn't it great that Barbra Streisand won't have to move to Canada now?

Three good things - Part II

I had a great day today because three good things happened. I'll cover them in chronological order. This is the second one.

At the moment we're learning stuff about inheritance and chromosomes and such things. It's been a bit wild and woolly for me so far since I have absolutely zero background in biology. I've never studied it at all, not even in high school. I am of course aware that we have chromosomes, and that they are kind of X-shaped, and that they are somehow related to DNA. But that's about it.

So it was a pleasant change of pace today to spend the entire afternoon, including a free sausage sizzle at lunch time, talking to families from the Down Syndrome Society of South Australia. We were plonked in groups of 6 into rooms with the families and given two hours plus to talk about anything we liked. No tutors, no guidance, no oversight, no agenda. It was great!

I was expecting it to be a bit awkward, but (in our room at least) it all went really well. The mother and grandmother of this little boy with Down syndrome and his little brother were there and they were really open and friendly and happy to answer all of our foolish questions.

I really admired the way they weren't fragile or defensive about Down syndrome and its consequences for the little boy and for them. She told us that if she'd known her baby had Down syndrome before he was born she would probably have chosen to terminate the pregnancy, but now in hindsight she's really glad that she didn't have to make that choice because she loves her son so much.

It takes a strong person to be able to sit down with strangers and bare your soul like that. But as she said, she's had to do a lot of growing up very quickly since he's been born. She'd been through an awful lot in the past few years but her attitude was incredibly positive and optimistic. Inspirational stuff.

This medical course is only four years long and we're constantly hearing about practical classes that are no longer done or lectures that they had to cut out because there simply isn't time or funding for them any more. So I'm really pleased that the medical school thinks that this kind of touchy-feely stuff is worth doing and that they are willing to put in the effort to organize it and also have a bit of faith in me and my Esteemed Colleagues to make the most of it.

This course is tops.

Three good things - Part I

I had a great day today because three good things happened. I'll cover them in chronological order. This is the first one.

My class had the final embryology lecture today in a series of 5 over the last week. Doing embryology in 5 hours is a bit like being shot out of a cannon. The launch velocity smooths the wrinkles out of your forehead but you have to keep your mouth shut or your cheeks will get ripped off.

Fortunately, the classes were run by one of my favouritest lecturers. I really enjoy his classes because he manages to organize his lectures very well so you learn a lot without really having to try hard. He concentrates on the big picture (which in embryology is about 1/10th of a millimetre across) and tries to get us to understand key concepts rather than obsess over detail. All good in my book.

The thing that makes his classes enjoyable though is that he clearly enjoys teaching them and has a great passion for his subject matter. Today after giving us a 55-minute lecture, he told us that the remaining 5 minutes was optional and we didn't have to stick around for it.

I thought he was going to talk to us about recent research, or about the exam. But instead, he talked about how interested he is in the history of anatomy and biological science, and told us about a famous case of conjoined twins born in Florence several hundred years ago, and the resulting paranoia, damnation, and curiosity which swept the city.

Then, even more extraordinarily, he read to us a poem in seven parts that he had written about the case. Each part was told from a different point of view, for example the mother, the clergy, the citizens, the philosophers. It was very eloquent and intriguing to listen to.

What really impressed me about my fellow students is that nobody walked out, everyone listened quietly, and at the end we all gave him a big round of applause. To be honest I wouldn't have expected this response from a bunch of gunner med students. He looked almost sheepish at this reception, which was quite endearing to see.

How lucky I am to be able to attend this Fine University amongst such fine people!

Steve: a tribute

My Smaller Half and I went to check out used cars on Saturday. It was an extraordinarily painful experience because the used car salesman we got seemed to have been sent direct from central casting with instructions to be sure to not under-act.

He was an enormously tall and fat ruddy-faced English bloke called Steve. All fine so far. But then he opened his mouth. Steve talked non-stop. And whatever came out of his mouth was either idiocy or lies.

For example, first he was trying to push on us a car with 200,000 km on the clock. His argument was something like this:

Mate, if a car is running this good after 200, it'll run forever. That's a bargain that.

But then, when trying to push on us one with only 75,000 km on it, his argument was:

This is a real find. Only 75 on it. Just like a brand new one.

So apparently the total mileage (kilometrage?) is of no relevance in the worth of a car. And apparently if you never say the word "thousand", people won't notice that the car has been driven to the moon and back.

Another classy thing Steve did was whenever I leaned down to inspect any of the various dings and scratches on the cars was to lick his thumb, rub it vigorously over the blemish, and announce:

Nah mate, that'll buff right out, won't even show. I'd have done it already but I'm that busy. Still, must have been a woman driver eh? Eh? Oh 'allo, the missus not listening to me? I been married thirty years. And you only get fifteen for murder! How's that fair?

He had a whole host of jokes like that that he showered us with all morning, like the contents of a chamber-pot gently falling from an upper-storey window.

Then we started talking money. He'd been telling us all about what a great deal we could get because it was the end of the month and this and that. So when he tells us the listed price for this car we were interested in, we offer him two grand less, as a starting point for negotiation. So he has to go and call his boss, in another room, to "spin him a bit of a yarn and get a good price" for us. Of course - because he's our best friend!

He comes back in, shaking his head. Unfortunately there's been a terrible mixup and the boss is furious! The car has been listed at the WRONG PRICE! Gasp! So not only can they not consider our lower offer, but after today they'll have to increase the price so it's going to be $2000 more expensive than it is today. We are just so lucky!

After this egregious insult to our intelligence, we simply stood up and walked out. Steve looked a bit surprised, but I could hear him still talking behind us as we left, trying to ham it up with various bystanders, exclaiming about how this fantastic car that was just like a new one was accidentally priced too cheaply and my goodness what a bargain it was and he'd buy it himself if he was allowed and they don't even make them like this anymore, these days they're all plastic and Korean and you can purchase a warranty at a great price but why would you want to since it'll run forever especially since it was just like a new one.

Sigh. As you can see, my scars run deep. But not as deeply, I suspect, as his lobotomy scars.

Free cheese

I went to a function tonight where awards were handed out for the tutors who were voted the best by the medical students at my Fine University. I went because I had voted for my Illustrious Tutor from last semester and was hoping he might win. He did win, but unfortunately didn't go to the function so wasn't able to accept his award in person.

There was an ulterior motive for me to go though. There was free cheese. There was a lot of free cheese. And even better, a lot of people there seemed to think that some of the cheese was too strongly flavoured.

Ha! I laugh in the face of such a concept! Cheese that is too strongly flavoured? Impossible! That just sounds like the kind of excuse peddled by those who think that cheese should come pre-sliced into squares rather than heaved around in wheels the size of your head.

The upshot of all this is that I got to spend a good 2 hours eating cheese. Yummo.

Anyway, there was a reason that I started talking about all this, but now I can't remember what the relevance was. I should write my ideas down.