Friday, May 18, 2007
Eureka moment (2)
More aptly named this one. Learnt more or less by chance that cloud cookoo land was invented rather a long time ago by some classical Greek. In-house reference material failed to confirm this factlet - it knew about cloud berries but not about cloud cookoos - so reduced to Google who referred me to Wikipedia. Presumably the use of this particular phrase is proportional to the use of classics lessons in schools, that is to say declining fast.
A moment of a rather differant sort first thing this morning. Looked out of the window at the large weeping willow tree in the back of the next door garden, that is to say the one with the absentee landlord. Most of one side of it was a sort of lemon yellow. It looked most odd. This turned out to be a very transient light trick which takes place just as the sun is rising.
Further irritation from yesterday's DT. Talk of some awful bureaucratic decision about health not having been taken on clinical grounds. It is about time we all grew up and recognised that lots of decisions about health are quite properly taken on money grounds. Someone has to deal with the unpleasant choice between treating 5,000 kidney stones and 30,000 hip replacements or 10,000 kidney stones and 15,000 hip replacements. OK so the actual choice is not about money, but the fact that we have to make such a choice certainly is and having some if not most of our newspapers whining on as if money was not a constraint is irresponsible. If a clinical decision is deciding to apply the best conceivable treatment (at least best given the prevailing state of the art, depressingly subject to national and other fashions, as transient as fashions in other fields of endeavour) without regard to availability or opportunity cost, then such decisions have no place in a centrally funded health service. Irritation moves to depression when one thinks that the growing wealth gap will soon be translated into a growing health gap: I can't see anyone stopping rich people from buying the best treatment they can afford. This was not an issue when only the state could afford the fancy machinery needed for fancy treatments, but this is changing. Not least because of the anticipated wave of hugely expensive cancer drugs. Thus the healthily egalitarian vision of the NHS collapses.
At close yesterday, the slugs had had 1.5 of the 5 pumpkin plants planted the day before. Several years ago I had slug problems with young cucumbers, but more recently I have not been bothered. Maybe I planted them out when it was a bit hotter and drier; this year I am trying to get the plants in early to give them the longest possible growing season, being some hundreds of pounds off the UK record.
Have never yet gone in for slug pellets. Perhaps foolishly, soldiered on and planted the second and last five. Exterminating the dozen or so slugs that I came across on the way.
A moment of a rather differant sort first thing this morning. Looked out of the window at the large weeping willow tree in the back of the next door garden, that is to say the one with the absentee landlord. Most of one side of it was a sort of lemon yellow. It looked most odd. This turned out to be a very transient light trick which takes place just as the sun is rising.
Further irritation from yesterday's DT. Talk of some awful bureaucratic decision about health not having been taken on clinical grounds. It is about time we all grew up and recognised that lots of decisions about health are quite properly taken on money grounds. Someone has to deal with the unpleasant choice between treating 5,000 kidney stones and 30,000 hip replacements or 10,000 kidney stones and 15,000 hip replacements. OK so the actual choice is not about money, but the fact that we have to make such a choice certainly is and having some if not most of our newspapers whining on as if money was not a constraint is irresponsible. If a clinical decision is deciding to apply the best conceivable treatment (at least best given the prevailing state of the art, depressingly subject to national and other fashions, as transient as fashions in other fields of endeavour) without regard to availability or opportunity cost, then such decisions have no place in a centrally funded health service. Irritation moves to depression when one thinks that the growing wealth gap will soon be translated into a growing health gap: I can't see anyone stopping rich people from buying the best treatment they can afford. This was not an issue when only the state could afford the fancy machinery needed for fancy treatments, but this is changing. Not least because of the anticipated wave of hugely expensive cancer drugs. Thus the healthily egalitarian vision of the NHS collapses.
At close yesterday, the slugs had had 1.5 of the 5 pumpkin plants planted the day before. Several years ago I had slug problems with young cucumbers, but more recently I have not been bothered. Maybe I planted them out when it was a bit hotter and drier; this year I am trying to get the plants in early to give them the longest possible growing season, being some hundreds of pounds off the UK record.
Have never yet gone in for slug pellets. Perhaps foolishly, soldiered on and planted the second and last five. Exterminating the dozen or so slugs that I came across on the way.
# posted by Jim @ 1:17 AM 
