Category: Creativity

Overrated: Midwifery

As one that has delivered a baby in an emergency I feel I have the experience to say that the profession of midwifery is not that hard to do. The midwives are credited with an assist when the breakthrough is done. This is far too much praise as all they do is dampen the expectants brow and fold and unfold towels. If the patient needs pain relief the middies simply pour gas and air down the victim’s throat.

The cutting of the cord is no big deal either. Obstetrics is not exactly the bomb squad disposal unit, is it? There’s not a multitude of wires that need cut in the correct order, there’s just the one long umbilical. The timing of the cut isn’t crucial either. The countdown clock cliché is redundant. There’s a big time frame to play with before the snip.

My participation in a childbirth was vital even if I did find that it was a simple enough job. The young girl next door was heavily pregnant and overdue. Her boyfriend came running in a panic to my house. He shouted at me, her waters have broke, she’s screaming and I don’t know what to do. Relax kid, I said, let me deal with it. I pulled up my sleeves and readied myself for the forthcoming ordeal. Continue reading “Overrated: Midwifery”

Not so immaculate huh?

canterbury

Even a Primate can’t choose his family, it seems.

It turns out that that there was quite a lot of monkey business in Churchill’s corridors of power – and an ocean of alchol (hic) to wash away the detritus. So Justin’s mother, Mary, managed to conceive only days before her marriage but it has taken her 60 years (allegedly) to find out that Justin’s father wasn’t the man she wed. Despite the clear facial resemblance between her paramour and her son. She blames the booze.

I suppose if Justin had stayed in the oil biz nobody would have taken much notice, but you’d think the Lord would have arranged things a bit more decorously, wouldn’t you? Or perhaps it’s another of his little jokes.

Just another Canterbury Tale really.

A different world

As our music editor has opined, the world has changed since the digital revolution.

Remember Kim Philby, who spied for the USSR? Fiendishly clever? Ahead of the technological game? A modern spook whose expertise led his British masters up the garden path?

Well – no. A filmed master class he conducted in the DDR in ’81 shows what an amateur affair it was. He ‘borrowed’ paper files every day, took them home to be copied and returned them the next day! No fancy equipment, no 007 tricks, no subtlety at all.

The Beeb has the story. Fascinating.

I was there

Well, akshully I was in a pub in Bootham, York, when our boys beat Germany 50 years ago. And believe it or not there was a telly, very small, b & w but a telly nevertheless. A group of maybe 20 enthusiasts huddled round it and cheered for England.

Tonite, they meet again. In colour. Without Kenneth Wolstenholme (sp?). Not really a friendly. See you there.

Travelling through different dimensions

If you’re insane, do you know you’re insane?

If you can withstand pain, where is the pain?

If you’re a zombie, what is a zombie?

If you’re ugly, why are you ugly?

If you can work any of these out, you’re a better worker outer than me.

Whatever happened to……

Hollywood? As usual I avoided watching the luvvies’ love-in known as the Academy Awards but couldn’t quite miss the agonised reports by the meeja experts.

This year the LA glitterati seemed to be determined to dress badly, speak badly and in most ways to ape their political contemporaries. No glamour, less charisma and even less talent.

Is this all the result of home screens taking over from cinemas? Do the best actors/actresses make tv series now? Is Hollywood as we know it a fading memory?

A ditty for gaz and FoE

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Continue reading “A ditty for gaz and FoE”