Blogger Bill

I last posted on December 6th, 2009, and here it is, about 7 weeks later, and nary a blog post. You could hardly say that I’ve been suffering from Ennui, but I’m a bit sick of the internet, even though I gravitate to it multiple times a day and spend some hours in here. Not in my blog, but on my web site.

“What web site?”, I hear you ask, and in reply I say here. Notice the pretty image icons at left, as links to my varied webbish endeavours. And note especially the second link, with the bright yellow toadstools, leading to my famous fungi pages. These are the results of my project, from early in 2009, to make sense of the hundreds of pictures of fungi that I’ve photographed in various places from around 2003 onwards. I got involved with a botany group that go out and locate fungi in the forest. We aim to identify them, not eat them - most Australian fungi are not edible, anyway, and they’re too precious to waste in that way. No! We find them, photograph them, perhaps collect representative samples, and document them, in cooperation with the Melbourne Herbarium.

And so later last year I got down and designed display code, wrote it up, and started the onerous task of entering in all of the data I could find on my images. The results can be seen as above, and you can examine my photos in a series of 21 pages of thumbnail images, with multiple pictures of many species of fungi, with my attempt at a concise description of each species, with links to them on the internet.

List of thumbnail pages here - also via the navigation links at the top and bottom of the pages.

List of Latin names of species here. Of course, you need to know what you’re looking for, but the thumbnail pages are suitable for visual inspection of images - there are about 30 images per page.

Finally, over the years I’ve collected hundreds of pertinent links to various web sites to do with fungi, and for the sake of simplicity I’ve catalogued these per world region, and my list of useful fungi links can be seen here, as a separate web page. I’ve had to go into all of those links and weed out any dead links - the ones that no longer work. I’m still collating more of these, as time allows.

But I’m pretty sick of it all at this stage and just want to sit back and see if it’s all of any value to people out there in internet country. I think it will, and I think the web site works well. I’m certainly getting Googled and picked up by other search engines, because I can track that through my web site admin software - that’s one advantage of having my own registered web site.

Anyway, here’s a couple of my better pictures of attractive-looking fungi to finish up with.

The blue one is Mycena interrupta, common name Pixie’s Parasol, and the violet one is Hygrocybe lewellinae, or by the current name Humidicutis lewellinae, common name Mauve Splitting Waxgill.

Most Australian fungi are different from those in Europe and North America, and most don’t have “common names”; also the names get changed as DNA work get’s done on the fungi, so it’s a fluid sort of situation regarding nomenclature.

If you’re interested, you might like to read my concise introductory remarks to the world of fungi. Over to you!

It’s been almost a month since I posted. I find it hard to think of something I’m going to think is interesting to people, and that’s because most of my thought processes I do not consider would be of interest to anyone else, even though they are to me. The other reason is that I make too many mistakes while typing, and I get anxious about that. It irritates the buggery out of me, because I think that after all these decades I ought to be able to type properly, but I can’t do it to my satisfaction. I transpose letetrs insdie words (just like that), and don’t hold down the shift key strongly enough, so capitals get missed out.

I have an underlying anxiety that I handle by doing only what I want to do in my life, as far as I can manage and try to be philosophical about the rest. And by pills, mainly analgesics for chronic back pain. the pain is pretty bad, and constant. I wake up to, and go to sleep over it. Last night I slept 9½ hours!

Today I breakfasted, read The Age, got on the computer, where I read the ABC news, Facebook (where I have a presence and a bunch of 43 ‘friends’), checked out some simple editing of my Fungi Home Page , where I correctly capitalized all of the 200 or so names of species in my species index list and uploaded the corrected page to my web page.

Then I got on the piano and played some carols, as I’m doing a paid gig at a retirement village in a week or so - just a bit of practice to get me up to speed.

For lunch I had a pork and salad sandwich and nibbled some celery and lettuce, plus a cup of strong coffee. Then I read more of my current book called “The Next Hundred Years”, in which the writer analyzes the world and tries to guess what might happen. It’s a field called geopolitics, and I find it quite interesting. Apparently America will stay dominant, Russia will disintegrate, France and Germany will weaken, Poland and Turkey will become very strong and expansive, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe and the Middle East will become turbulent and weakened, China will disintegrate a bit, and Japan will become very powerful in the Pacific, to the extent that Japan and the USA might be in conflict. Israel will stay strong. Space technology will expand, and become important militarily.

He doesn’t have a lot to say so far about militant Islam, which I think will become problematical to everyone. nor does he discuss nuclear proliferation and the effects of any use of nuclear weapons by smaller states such as Iran or Pakistan. Nor does he discuss the consequences of the effects of a further major terrorist attack on American politics, which I think could be telling.

And to my amazement, so far he hasn’t tackled the problem of anthropogenic climate change or even just global warming. I think that’s because he’s a conservative American academic and probably not a “believer” in these things. I think he’s wrong, and the geopolitical results of of those events will be tremendous, with changes in agriculture leading to mass migrations, water and food wars and huge suffering and turmoil.

I’m glad I won’t be around to see it all happen, in a way - not that I have any choice. But I view my death with equanimity. The way I feel most days is such that I don’t want it to have to go on for too many more decades!

Anyway, after a bit of a read I went for a walk around the “duckpond”. which as about a 2 km walk to a nearby park with a lake with ducks. It was quite hot and sunny, and I kept of getting waves of pain and faintness that comes upon when I walk a bit too fast. I’ve had it checked out several times by and “exercise test”, where I walk on a treadmill wired up to and ECG and so on, then immediately on stopping have a Doppler ultrasound. I came up with no disorders showing, which is a relief. The thing is, that I only get faint and painful in the head and chest when I do a brisk walk along the street or even just a quick putting out the bins!! It doesn’t happen when I do the exercise stress test!!

I came back from the walk, and lay on the bed in the dark, listening to the ABC on the radio, whereby I slept on and off for a couple of hours. Now I’ve come and typed this stuff in, for what it’s worth.

Now it’s getting on to teatime, so will have some cheese and biscuits, with a glass of sherry. Tea will be the second portion of a meal I cooked last night, namely beef in oyster sauce, with rice, which was a great success. I’m looking forward to it. Then it will be an evening of TV viewing, restricted to the ABC and SBS. It would have to be a bloody good film for me to view it on commercial TV, which I hate, mainly because of the ads, but also for the whole moronic mentality, with an emphasis on the trivial, the celebrities, the sport, and contrived “scares”, “crises” and such like.

We enjoy our TV so much more since we got a fairly large digital set, where everything is so much clearer and brighter. It’s something we can do together, whereas otherwise for me it’s books and the computer, and for her it’s gardening, housework, cooking and knitting - more or less, although we do overlap quite a bit - except that I don’t do knitting and she loves it!

I suppose that about eleven I’ll get back on the computer and she’ll go to bed. On the computer I’ll do some work with my graphics program, Paint Shop Pro 8. I need to create some headers for my fungi pages with images of fungi in them. For that I need to learn more about manipulating ‘layers’ for images editing. It’s not as easy as it looks. This morning I did some searching on the net for images of fungal hyphae/mycelium that I can overlay onto my graphics header panels. I’ll get there.

So that’s my day so far. They say that as you age you need to keep your mind active and engaged. I think I’m doing OK on that, as well as getting a bit of exercise.

Roll on the week!

Three weeks ago my wife Glenyce underwent a total knee replacement operation which appears to have been successful. I marvel at the wonderful technology of modern science and medicine that allowed this to occur. The alternative would have been years of crippling arthritic pain, and I am grateful that I live in such a modern age.

She came home from a rehab hospital six days ago, and just three days after that she accompanied me in a 600 km round trip, staying overnight with me as I played a piano gig at the Mountain Grand Hotel, a delightful boutique guest house in Halls Gap. She coped well, albeit with judicious use of a pair of elbow crutches, but she did negotiate some steep stairs along the way.

So now we’re back together, and I’m playing nursemaid, the worst part of which is putting a pair of pressure stockings on every day. They sure are tight, and it’s a struggle, but worth it, because this helps to prevent the formation of blood clots in the veins of the leg.

Actually there was a little drama when an ultrasound detected a leg clot, but apparently it’s an old one, and no problem. But she was under a rehab doctor for that and she was prescribed injections of Clexane, which dissolve the clot - she was scheduled to to do that for weeks! And she had to learn to do it herself!! But we saw the orthopaedic surgeon today, and he took her off it, as it can cause bleeding. So that’s a relief.

All that remains is weeks of recovery, with physiotherapy a couple of times a week, and plenty of exercises to do, and application of cold packs. Meanwhile I’m doing the newly-revised skills of housekeeping, cooking, washing and so on. But you can’t keep a good gal down and she wants to take over from me again!! Heheh!

Anyway, all of this saga has been yet another medical experience in this year of a succession of minor to moderately serious experiences.

Let’s hope it’s plain sailing until the New Year!

My wife, Glenyce, has just come through a reasonably serious operation, namely, a total knee replacement. This is her 6th night in hospital, and my 6th alone at home, which is in interesting and not altogether unpleasant experience. I can spread out in the double bed, read with the bed-lamp on brightly, and listen to the radio during the night. I’m OK with meals, washing and so on. But it has been and still is disturbing to see the one I love so helpless and in pain, not that the care she’s getting isn’t any good. She’s in an excellent private hospital, and under a well-respected surgeon. She had a blood transfusion today and is looking better. I think tomorrow she will start physiotherapy in earnest, and this will be start of a long recovery - 6 weeks, they say.

Anyway, I’m surprised that I’ve coped so well, because I am aware that just underneath my surface lurks endogenous depression of long standing. Experience has taught me not to underestimate its evil power, and I really do have to watch the number of things that I have to cope with at once, or it all falls into a heap. By “it”, I mean my personal integration and means of coping.

Courtesy of a friend, I had a free ticket to a concert this afternoon in the wonderful Robert Blackwood Hall at nearby Monash University, so dressed up and went. It was a concert band (no strings - just brass, woodwind, percussion) recital, being a combined local concert band and a professional army band. Programmed as a “London Proms” sort of thing, it had an eclectic program, including Waltzing Matilda and Land of Hope and Glory. We were given little Australian flags to wave as we bought our programs, and the words for the latter were included.

The thing is, in recent years some music has had a disturbing effect on me in that my emotions well up and I feel like crying. That would never do, so I struggle to suppress it. I spent the afternoon suppressing it! It doesn’t make sense, but in the tunes with the most powerful effect, there’s a sense of nostalgia, and that does it every time. A Vera Lynn medley really got to me, and Land of Hope and Glory did, too, as did several other beautiful classical numbers.

In my struggles to suppress it, I analyzed the structure of the music, I watched how the the six percussionists juggled position from one piece to the other, I looked at all of the microphone arrangements, examined the walls, the lights and baffles in the ceiling, studied the structure of the pipe organ, watched the conductor’s technique. I even fantasized about having sex with the singer and various members of the orchestra!

Anyway, I succeeded in not giving way to the flood. But there were times when the flood of moisture to the eyes was brimming bright, the involuntary sob or two had to be choked back, and my watery nose threatened to give me away. But I held my nerve and won through.

Until next time!

In the early 1980s my father developed Parkinson’s disease and eventually became bed-ridden, unable to speak. I was never sure of what he understood of what was happening around him, or of what was spoken to him. My own doctor tried to assure me that he was probably unable to comprehend anything, and was eventually in a world of his own. But I was never sure of that. He eventually contracted pneumonia and died of that.

In my 30s and 40s I observed his experience, and also took note of what I could see of others’ exeriences of older age, by which I meant over about 75 and later. The onset of frailty and pain appalled me when I saw it in others, and for some reason or other decided that about 75 years of age would be enough for me, and that after that I just wanted to expire, like a candle burnt down low.

In December I turn 71. The 75 deadline approaches and I’m wondering what will happen. My father died at 83, as I said earlier, and my mother died at age 101. She hated being old and in pain and wanted to die for years before she did. She railed against God for her suffering and infirmity; some times she threatened to go on a hunger strike.

Finally her intestines ruptured and she died of peritonitis. She took 4 days to die, in a hospital with reasonable levels of palliation and pain control. We were grateful for the attendance of the palliative care team, and she died in heavily sedated peace. But she suffered far too much in the latter years of her life.

I do not want to live that long if it’s going to be like that. I suffer chronic pain, and flinch at the thought of too many more years of it. I do not believe that my pain will be controlled properly as the years roll by. I believe that the doctors are more concerned with avoiding drug addiction than relieving pain. It’s a trade off, isn’t it? They don’t want to be accused of “over-prescribing” and getting patients “addicted” to analgesics. The lower level analgesics are pretty ineffective, in my experience, and the docs don’t want to use the more addictive ones.

The result for me is that I face increasing pain and the alterations in mood and thinking ability that come with that. Chronic pain strips me of my personality and my mental functioning goes to pieces. The situation will inevitably become beyond me, and then I will wish to die.

When I reach the point of too much pain I want my existence to be terminated. I suspect that that will be around 2013. I hope it happens naturally, but if not, than I will ensure that it will happen. The family will just have to cope, one way or another. It’s my life and my suffering. Why should I have to put up with years of disgusting pain and frailty to spare the feelings of others upon my demise?

Time will tell.

Because I was sick of almost unpredictable, intermittent and agonizing back and leg pain, and strange feeling in my chest and head on exertion, I recently prevailed upon my GP to get some tests done.

So I had an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) done of the lumbar spine, and a stress test echo cardiogram (treadmill and heart ultrasound). To do the MRI I needed a sedative because last time I got claustrophobia, so I did it full of prescribed Valium.

The results showed that spinal stenosis hasn’t got much worse than it was 5 years ago, but that two of my vertebra (L5-S1) now have got no disc material between them. no wonder it hurts! i elected to take it no further. I had thought that I might get to a pain clinic or something, but after talking with GP Wendy Barton, decided to stay with the pain control system of medications that I’m doing already.

The treadmill buggered me, and at 136 beats per minute I ran out of breath and lay down so they could image my heart. The results were good. I have no problems shown up by this method of examination. But I’m left wondering what causes my chest tightness and dull ache and sense of impending unconsciousness that never eventuates.

It could be psychosomatic, but I don’t think so. I’m pretty savvy in psychology, and don’t think that’s the reason. I could be a hypochondriac, but again, don’t think that’s the case. I don’t want to be sick. It annoys me to have such symptoms, and part of me wants to have an explanation. and that might never be forth-coming, so I’ll just have to live with it.

On with the puzzles of existence!

Well, this is a medical saga so far this year. Skin cancer removals for both of us, and an MRI and stress echo cardiogram to come for me next week.

Following on from the melanoma I had a basal cell carcinoma removed from my chest a month ago, and here is the requisite picture of the stitches involved:-

That has healed up very nicely since then. The next medical episode was the treatment of Glenyce solar keratoses on her face, which are precancerous lesions too numerous to excise easily. The dermatologist, Jeremy Banky, of Masada Hospital, suggested the use of an anticancer treatment called Efudix. Containing the agent 5-fluoruracil, it attacks cells depending on their rate of cell division, namely the cancer cells, but also effects normal skin.

After 3 weeks nightly application it leaves the face reddened, blotchy, burning and sore, after which there is a 3-week period of recovery. Glenyce has almost recovered by now, but at its peak it looked like this:-

We hope that’s all the end of the skin cancers. But I’m following up the extensive back and leg pain that’s making my life hell. To this end I’m having a Magnetic Resonance Imagery (MRI) scan next Tuesday to see exactly what’s going on with my lower back and sciatic nerves so I can get into the hands of a pain specialist. Because the last time I suffered a claustrophibic anxiety attack when I was in the close confines of the device, I need sedation and will take double Valium beforehand next Tuesday.

The next day I do an echo-cardiogram while undergoing a stress test on a treadmill, to find out what’s causing chest pain and faintness upon exertion. I find it worrying to have these free-floating disorders making my life unpleasant, and see no reason why I can’t use my expensive private health insurance to address the problems.

I’ll keep this blog posted!

Musings in Bethesda Hospital, 1990.

Introduction:

By Melbourne Cup Day 1990 I was suffering a lot of pain from headache and the onset of severe depression, which took the form of feelings of alienation from the family, irritation of their being dependent on me, feelings of being cut off from Glenyce, my wife, and a developing sense of paranoia. I was unable to ask for the very thing I needed - love and understanding from my wife. Becoming desperate to be out of the situation, I needed to act before I became suicidal, which had happened before, with almost fatal results.

The following day I got an appointment with my psychiatrist and turned up with a packed bag for hospital. He agreed and admitted me to Bethesda Hospital, Richmond. I simply needed time out. I got relaxation, antidepressants, physiotherapy and hydrotherapy, which all helped! I wrote these rambling musings while in there.

Bethesda Hospital, Yooralbyn 5B, Sunday November 11th, 1990

I couldn’t remember the name of this hospital, for the life of me! … had to look at the foot of the bed. Wonder why? It didn’t seem to matter, as I am “just here”, staring southward through the window glass.

I feel well, but I wonder what’s really happening. Oh, I’ll write down some analyses and musings, but will I ever really know? What does “really know” mean? How will I know when I really know? What does “really know” really mean? How will I know when I really know, without it turning out to be just an illusion of knowing.

It’s as if I break through a veil to see a wall labelled “reality”, only this wall turns out to be just another veil, an illusion of reality. And behind each veil labelled “reality is another wall labelled “reality”, which as really a veil masquerading as reality. And so on, like mirrors facing one another to give an infinite series of reflections.

NOTE: I must remember that everything which is labelled reality is an illusion.

Beyond the glass lies the hill of South Yarra. It is night. Serrated rows of lights twinkle out of the velvety blackness. This row is Punt Road, that one is along Yarra Park. Yellows and whites, the odd green or bluish pinpoint of illusive reality.

In the centre is a dull green cylinder, a flour mill (?) of the past. Incongruously, this is surmounted by a gaudy red sign which screams NYLEX. (Do we conclude that Nylex hoses are made from flour?) Well, why not? Strange, isn’t it, that the luxurious apartments of South Yarra are upstaged by a flour silo shouting about plastic hoses. What would a Martian think?

The image of Bill Leithhead stares thought fully back at me from the glass pane. there he is, seated comfortably over half of South Yarra!

I am an illusion, an image.

A closer reality bisects the scene, severing Bill’s reflection’s right arm, which is my own left. The image appears to feel no pain (”pane”?). It is the blind’s drawstring which severs the reality of Bill over South Yarra.

I can walk over and touch the drawstring. It seems quite real. It slithers snakily, dryly, through my fingers, exciting billions of nerve cells. Is it the nerve cell excitement which is the reality? Does the seat of this reality lie in my hands or in my brain?

What is it that is “perceiving” the South Yarra Bill Leithhead drawstring reality?

if I walk out of the room does it all cease to exist? As I look down to write these words does it cease to exist? But when I look up again, it is still there! Did it go away again, or stay there, ready for me? How do I know it is the same as before I looked down at these words?

For I have only my memory of what it was before, to compare with the present instant with. So where exists my perception of what it was before? In my brain. How? As intricately structured molecular arrangements? How? How?

Will these perceptions of “reality” persist when the molecular arrangements disintegrate with death? Is there a “holistic imprint” of the electronic vibrations which we call the molecules, or which can be associated with the molecules? “Are” them?

Is the sum total of all the “past” a soul or spirit or soul-spirit which will persist? Does this change with time after death? How? By electrical decay or fading? or by the additions of new, succeeding perceptions from the future after death?

Through which sensory organs will my soul-spirit add to or change this holistic imprint of “vibrations” I am calling my soul-spirit?

The concepts of “add to” or “change”, and the verb “will”, imply the concept of time. And is this “time” concept also part of the illusion?

If so, then these musings become rather meaningless.

So, how can I think about all these ideas, and how can I tell when any of it has any “meaning”?

I always liked the philosophical joke which goes … “It all depends on what you mean by ‘mean by’”!!

But the only other person it ever seems to make sense to is Don Treacher, (a psychologist I met doing human Relations courses). Why is this? To me, “mean by ‘mean by’” is quite an important idea. That is, I want to examine the actual significance of the idea of “meaning” in thinking and discussions. This is a core matter in philosophy, yet my friends apparently accord it no significance; they are oblivous to its importance in human thought.

There are various important ideas in my mind that do not seem to be shared by other people, so I rarely bother - it’s too frustrating for me!

Postscript:

I was discharged a week later in a much better frame of mind. Most certainly both my family and myself had benefitted from the time out.

Well, here’s another slightly gruesome picture for the blog. It’s been one of those years, with more to come! Two days ago I had a melanoma removed from my back by a dermatologist, Dr Jeremy Banky. He told me that it is a Stage 1 lesion, meaning that it had not become invasive, which is very good news. Here’s the nicely-stitched up wound; it’s not too uncomfortable.

I’m glad I went to the trouble to get an appointment to let him give me the once-over. I have another skin cancer of some sort to be cut out of my chest in a fortnight’s time. That’s not a melanoma, but still a damned cancer after all.

This sort of thing focusses my mind on ageing and mortality. I’m 70, and quite often feeling my age. That involves reduced strength, and a myriad of aches and pains, mostly arthritic. The spinal stenosis in my back has a major effect on the way that I move, twist, bend, lift and just walk around. It won’t go away. It is inoperable, so I just have to cope with the dysfunction. Which I do pretty well most of the time.

But the melanoma could have killed me. They inevitably spread and invade the lymphatic system, so I’m glad I got in the hands of an expert in good time.

Contemplation of my distantly approaching but inevitable death is nothing new for me. Since the late 1970s I’ve suffered depression, which when untreated, lead to powerful suicidal imagery. I thought it was better not to exist than to burden others with my toxic presence. I had various methods mapped out.

Fortunately, I fell into the hands of a good psychiatrist who was able to turn me around with medication and psychotherapy. I still see a psych and take antidepressants, and it’s pretty well under control. I know my weak points, faults, toxic thinking and ugly buttons, and can avoid them most of the time. But seeing the psych saved my life, or at least my marriage. I was lucky, in a way, just as I am with this little melanoma.

My advice is, if you think you’re feeling the effects of depression, get a referral to a psychiatrist. And if you’ve had sun-damage in earlier years, get a referral to a dermatologist. Don’t hesitate!

Late in June this year we drove up to Marysville (100 km from Melbourne) to see for ourselves the damage caused by the fires on Black Saturday (7/02/09). I do remember listening to Radio National in the small hours of the following morning, hearing the unforgettable words “It is reported that there are only about 5 buildings left standing in Marysville.” It shocked and stunned me to the core, and I remember turning to Glenyce, fighting back the tears as I told her what I had heard. It turned out to be true; what’s more, 34 people were burnt to death that night, part of the total of 173 who lost their lives that day!

My heart still turns cold as I remember the horror of that day in this beautiful state of Victoria. Out of consideration for the people who had lost their homes, their friends and families, together with their dreams of life amongst the beautiful forests, we had fought the urge to see it for ourselves. Rebuilding is slowly starting, and the blackened trees greening up, so we drove NE to formerly beautiful Marysville. It’s a place we’ve visited many, many times in our lives, not least some wonderful times at scientific conferences, and at human relations weekends at Marylands guest-house, now in ashes. In the latter I had swum in the pool, naked at midnight! But now it’s all gone, all those lovely building destroyed.

The damage became obvious as we left Healesville. Burnt forest appeared as we drove past Maroondah Dam, part of Melbourne’s water supply. At beautiful Fernshaw the park full of exoitic trees was spared, but the bush was blackened and singed. But even here, the Australian miracle was happening; the tree ferns had responded with splashes of emerald growth shining like a beacon of hope throughout the bush!

Up towards Dom Dom Saddle the marvellously iconic stretches of Mountain Ash were forlorn but not beaten, with minimal damage. I had feared that they were burnt to a crisp, but that was not so. In fact, the fire had paused at the very edge of Dom Dom Saddle, scene of many a fungi foray in past years - but not this year. (Several of our fungi foray sites have been burnt out.)

Driving past Narbethong we encounter extensive damage to the forest and that goes all the way to Marysville, which shocks us. The bakery escaped the fire, and is the centre of town, crowded with any locals, construction workers and travellers like us.

There is little else except portable houses as temporary buildings, although there is the amazing presence of a little cottage here and there that escaped the blaze, for no good reason. The streets are empty of the once charming shops and businesses. But the grass is greening up here and there, and the verdant glow of tree ferns is common, offset against their blackened trunks. Here is the view from the bakery towards the bridge:

A lovingly created garden of sculptures existed along the road a bit, but it’s all destroyed, although there are early signs of rebuilding. Here’s a forlorn sight:

We have enjoyed many walks and drives to Steavensons Falls, just out of town, but the falls are closed to visitors, as all the signage, bridges and facilities were completely destroyed. There are signs of rebuilding just starting to happen along that road, but it’s basically a mudscape starkly puntuated by blackened trees, some of which show tentative signs of greens shoots.

We sadly wend our way home to safely suburban Glen Waverley, shocked and silent, finding this catastrophe difficult to explain to ourselves, let alone anyone else. Given the nature of the Australian bush, it is impossible to say that it must not happen again, as there will be fires again. But surely, somehow, it ought not to be beyond our civilisation to organise things so that the losses are not so devastatingly tragic!

One thing is for sure - our day’s visit to Marysville has changed Glenyce and myself irreversibly - our spirits will never be the same.

When I was a kid in Kalgoorlie, WA, and then in the Melbourne bay side suburb of Carrum I often went to the movies. Like everyone else, I was overwhelmed by films from Hollywood or England. All films seems to have a thread of romance. We boys just wanted everyone to just get on with the comedy routines, or gun fights, fist fights, car chases, plane crashes and what have you.

But there was always a woman involved, and the hero usually had this romantic entanglement. There’d be the physical contact - a squeeze, a hug, a hesitant kiss, often with appropriately syrupy music in the background. All the girls like that stuff, and most of the boys just started getting restless - rolling Jaffas along the lino floor, and so on - they wanted to see the action!

A very common scenario depicted in many of these films involved the hero smoodging up to the love interest, and then after a harmless kiss, she’d look shocked, dismayed, disgusted, and give him a slap on the face, or go off in a huff!

I really took on board that a girl would reject me if I approached her with romantic intent - not sex - just the cuddle and kiss bit. But I always assumed that girls, and later, women, would treat me the same as the Hollywood women on the big screen. ‘That’s what they all do!’, I thought. ‘Faced with the realities of the nefarious plans of men and boys, they all react with horror’. And that’s all because a kid wanted a girl to give him a harmless kiss and a hug. ‘there are things going on here that I just do not comprehend.’ (Even as a small boy I tended to use sophisticated language…)

That’s affected me all my life.

This fear complex didn’t even involve sex per se, although I certainly extrapolated it to the idea of sex. Anyway, in 1965 I got married and in due course we had 3 children, so something was working in my favour. But throughout my marriage, which is still happy and solid, at the age of seventy, the fear of rejection is still very potent.

That is because over those long years I did suffer a good deal of rejection, in bed and otherwise, and from my observations it’s a common thing in marriages - particularly as the years roll by. And even though I’m functionally impotent after a radical prostatectomy for cancer, it still hurts like hell. It’s dogged me all my life, and although I’d like to be tough and not let it matter, it still does!

A major source of this feeling has to be attributed to my mother’s attitude to sex and romance. My mother (and her sisters) always did two things.

Firstly, they evinced a very worldly-wise attitude, as though they’d been around and knew everything. but as the years rolled by and I learned more, it was clear that they were in fact quite ignorant of many aspects of sex and romance. An only child, I copped all that stuff by the bucket load, so I finished up pretty screwed up. Not really their fault, because they were children of their time, born in the early 1900s. Their stance was pretty well the norm in the 1950s. My dad didn’t do much at all either way - he just stayed neutral, but was certainly no help to me.

Secondly, my mother kept an eagle eye open for any sign of sexuality on my part. For example, sitting in the bath tub one night, I had an erection, which was pretty common for a fourteen-year old boy. At that age, the thing usually has a mind of its own. It (the erection) simply occurred spontaneously without any help from me. Mum, espying the offending phenomenon, said: ‘what’s that doing up?!’

I can’t for the life of me remember what I said, but I distinctly remember the wave of shame and embarrassment that rolled over me. If I could have crawled down the plug-hole I would have done so!

Today I remember that with a great sense of anger that she did that to me, tinged with compassion that she knew no better. For whatever reason, she simply had a jaundiced view of male sexual functioning. What was I supposed to do, hit it with a cold wet face washer saying ‘Oh my God! Where did that come from? Down, down, you monster!!’?

A year or so later, with the collusion of a school pal, I discovered how to masturbate to climax. ‘Wow! This is pretty good!’, I thought. So I did it, simply because I could. That resulted in yellowish stains in my pajamas that were hard to wash out! At the same time, I became enmeshed in the serpentine coils of a Pentecostal church, which, like all evangelical churches, was heavy on the sinfulness and guilt associated with sex.

And so I’d have a lovely old masturbate in bed, then fervently pray to God to be forgiven for what I’d just done (and basically intended to do again and again!) And then on wash-day, my mother would peg out the pajamas with the steadily expanding indelibly yellowish zone around the fly for all to see up on the clothes line for the world to see, like a banner that read: ‘This dirty, filthy, depraved, hypocritical little born-again Christian pulls himself off every night and will go to Hell!!’

About 13 years later I did get out from under the baleful spell of churches and all their guilt-laden crap, and moved out of home as soon as I was married. But, would you believe, when we got married we were still both virgins! Even though we had plenty of opportunities, we ’stayed pure’, regardless of all the lascivious thoughts going on with us both. That was due to the guilt and ignorance induced in us both by our parents and by the churches. Neither of us ever got rid of the psychologically crippling effect of those powerful forces in our lives.

Consequently, the erotic side of our marriage remained very problematical up to this very day. Whose fault is that? Probably no-one’s: it’s just the way it turned out - Sigh!

In view of the planned withdrawal of US and other troops from Iraq, we will see the way in which a typical Arab country engages in nation-building. I myself, rightly or wrongly, supported the invasion by the USA and allied forces to overturn a brutal dictator. Regardless of whether Saddam Hussein finally possessed chemical and biological weapons, or nuclear weapons, it is certain that he possessed and used the former, and was certainly known to be working toward the latter.

The invasion was a pushover, as expected, but from then on the situation went about as pear-shaped as anything could be. The US thought that the Iraqis would rise to the occasion, embrace freedom, and start to build a civil and democratic society. But they basically trashed the joint, fouled their own nest, and squandered a golden opportunity to build and prosper. A panoply of militant and terrorist groups took over and made sure that the state would remain defunct. (This is what the Palestinians have always done, by the way.)

The situation was not helped by the Americans apparently having no Plan B. They never used enough troops to control the situation properly to the point where utilities were repaired and commerce and industry could recover. Instead the terrorists started to control the situation almost immediately after that famous statue tumbled down, and they concentrated on keeping essential utilities unrepaired. The Americans perpetrated in Iraq one of the biggest fuck-ups in modern history. President Bush and his idiotic, bumbling, lying, pig-headed cronies will go down in history as a phenomenal failure in Iraq. But it may well be that the failure of the Iraqi nation to build from the ruins will be a comparable failure. Time will tell, but I fear for the worst

It always amazes me that some “insult” or other to Muslims, or some excess bloodshed or errors by Western forces toward Muslims brings hundreds of thousands of rent-a-Muslim demonstrators out into the streets of the world. But when the statistics are done, the Muslims for years now have been slaughtering each other in Baghdad and beyond in extraordinary numbers. And it’s indiscriminate. Even now, bombings of markets, mosques, offices, police stations, pilgrims and funeral processions continues daily. There have been thousands of summary shootings and be-headings. They seem to revel in the gore of cut throats, and bodies torn asunder by courtesy of modern explosives. Not just opposing militants, but bystanders, shop-keepers, women, children and the elderly, all helpless in the face of ruthless savagery in the name of Allah. Islam seems to be a death cult.

And now it’s increasing as the time draws near when all that will be there will be the Iraqi police and armed forces- oh! - and their Western trainers. Now is the time when we will see the furious crescendo of bloodshed as the Shiite and the Sunni Muslims fight each-other, the both of them turn against the Kurds, and the Muslims turn on any remaining minority religions. I think that the Shiites will split and migrate to the south and east, next to Shiite Iran, the Sunnis will take the west and part of the north, and the Kurds (who are not Arabs) will try to split off the north. The latter will be especially contentious, because that’s where a lot of the oil wealth is found. There will possibly tens of thousands of deaths, and

After the blood shed there will be mass movements of these two different sects of Islam, who have always hated each-other from the very time of the death of Mohommed. Ever since then They’ve been fighting over the question of succession to the leadership of Islam. Although both sects are found together in all Muslim countries, one or the other is usually predominant. Iran is the centre for Shia Islam, and seeking to dominate the Middle East, with its work on the nuclear bomb. Nearby Saudi Arabia is mainly Sunni Islam, and so are most other Muslim countries, which are very worried by Iran’s search for dominance. The struggle is political, economic, spiritual and also has weird mystical overtones to it when you read up on various aspects of Islamic history.

I am pretty certain that most Iraqis just want to live a peaceful and prosperous life, following the main tenets of Islam in a reasonably civilized manner. They can do that, as do Christians and Jews, by consciously choosing to ignore the various unfortunately cruel, unjust and bloody-minded sections of the scriptures of their religion. In the latter two, at least in modern times, believers can choose whether or not to adhere to particular features of the chosen religous practice, or to choose a different religion, or in fact to have no religion at all.

Not so in Islam. If your parents are Muslim, you’re a Muslim for life. The Koran teaches that the penalty for apostasy (converting to another religion ) is death. It is mandatory, and what’s more, it is carried out in various Muslim countries this very day - especially in Saudi Arabia, where executions are publicly carried out regularly in a sports stadium. So you, see, Iraqis have no choice but to remain Muslims, whether they like it or not. They can’t even change from Shia to Sunni, or vice versa.

Some Muslims regard President Obama as a Muslim, because his father was Muslim and his early education was in an Indonesian Muslim school. He’s now apparently a Christian. For millions of Muslims that means that he’s an apostate and shoud be put to death.

So, regardless of there having been reasonably free and proper elections in Iraq, and the establishment of the essential elements of a democratic state, I am afraid that shortly this will all fall apart. Arab societies are very tribal, and this dynamic runs counter to democracy as we understand it. It is already a kleptocracy, as are all Muslim countries, and I foresee the disintegration of whatever elements of civil society exist. No doubt, from the time of the next election (if we get that far), there will be increading clashes between armed groups, private militias, and the emergent use of advanced weaponry which is already flowing in from Iran.

The Sunnis will be aided by Wahabis, Al-Qaeda and so on from Saudi Arabia and Syria (next door, to the west), and the Shias will be supported by arms and personnel from Iran (to the east). I think the Americans will not have the stomach for further intervention, and they antagonists will be left to fight it out however they will. Pity the poor average Iraqi, mentioned earlier, who just wants a peaceful and prosperous life, who will be mercilessly sandwiched.

The crunch for the West will be if there is any serious disruption in the flow of crude oil from Iraq. That is critical for us all, even for Australians, and it is in fact equally important for even the most rabidly anti-American Iraqi, because Iraq depends upon the export earnings from the oil-fields.

It’s a serious situation, and a very complex one, but I do fear that much blood will flow, mostly innocent blood.

It’s being a hard year for my darling wife Glenyce. She’s had a couple of skin cancers cut out of her face, and that’s needed a total of 30 stitches (see below).

She’s soon (late July) going to have to rub some anticancer ointment (Efudex) on her face for 3 weeks, during which time her skin will become red and blotchy. It preferentially destroys solar keratoses (incipient skin cancers), but partially damages the normal skin at the same time. Then there’s a period of another 3 weeks where it heals up again, giving new, cancer-free skin.

OK, now the next bit. We saw an orthopaedic surgeon today, and the upshot of it is that she needs a total knee replacement on her left leg. And so it will come to pass that on October 14th, Glenyce will have a 90-minute operation in which her left knee will be replaced by a cunning contraption of titanium, chromium-cobalt, and specialized plastics, all glued in place, aligned with the aid of a computer.

She will have a considerable period of convalescence at home afterward, during which time I will rise to the occasion vis-a-vis domestic tasks (which I have so cunningly hitherto avoided). I am sure there will be frustration and problems in all sorts of ways. But the good news is that she will have many years of trouble-free living in the years to come. We both come from long-lived families, and need to make it all count as much as possible, albeit with the application of modern medical technology.

Here’s to a long life!

Well, we’ve been to Merimbula and come back, and it was very good. I’ll blog on this again soon, but first - an update!

In second-last topic before this I showed pictures of my wife Glenyce’s adventures with surgery to remove a couple of skin cancers on her cheeks. One picture showed a wound with 20 stitches in it after a basal cell carcinoma was removed from her upper left cheek. While we were away in the caravan I was dressing the wound daily, and since we came back she’s had the stitches removed. The results are shown in the following picture:-

Now, Glenyce is pretty sensitive to the way she looks and is somewhat mortified that she’ll have this scar and the other one on her right cheek to contend with in her self-image in coming months and years. But it is part of life for many of us who have had skin damage from sun exposure in earlier years. I assure her that these will fade with time, and, anyway, cosmetics will work wonders.

What’s more, I still love her just as she is!

Today we’re off to Merimbula Jazz Festival where I’m playing with two bands. I love the south coast of NSW, and the Victorian countryside is now beautifully green and lush. Not sure that I can blog while on the road, so I’ll be back in 10 days.

Looking forwards to playing, and confident of my playing. Health tolerable (with pills). Ciao.

Looking at the last several posts, it might seem as though I have a possibly unhealthy fixation upon mutilation or disfigurement. However, quite to the contrary, I am very interested in the healthy functioning of this wonderful mechanism in which we all appear to be encased for the duration of our lives.

The mysterious rash from several months ago has vanished completely, courtesy of my trust-worthy immune system. Glenyce’s right cheek featured recently, after the removal of a skin cancer, but I am glad to report that after a fortnight the stitches are now out and she is healing up quite well, as the following picture shows:

After he’d removed the above stitches, the dermatologist tackled a basal cell carcinoma high up on her left cheek, close to her eye. Using Moh’s surgery, he removed the extensive lesion, leaving an L-shaped wound with 20 stitches in it:

After he’d removed the offending tissue, there is a wait for the pathologist to do a microscopic study of the removed cancer cells, before the incision was stitched up. As it happens, based on those results, he needed to go in again and remove more tissue to get the carcinoma all out properly before closing the wound.

Now I have the task for the next fortnight of dressing the wound daily, with hydrogen peroxide, followed by vaseline, the latter minimizing scarring. I’m getting pretty good at using the dressing materials and the Micropore tape. My poor darling Glenyce is not all thrilled by this damage to her face, and concerned about her future appearance. But on the other hand we’re glad to have been under treatment by a surgeon who appears to be very good at his profession, and pleased to have been able to get rid of Glenyce’s nasty skin cancers.

Perhaps I should get him to give me the once-over, just in case!

Saudi Arabian authorities have beheaded and crucified a man convicted of killing an 11-year-old boy and his father.

The Saudis claim to stick to the letter of the Koran for the administration of their pure Islamic state. This is what Islamic jihadis all around the world are fighting to attain. It is a tenet of Islam to try and dominate any society (including ours if they can manage it.) In Islam there is no distinction between religious matters and socio-political matters. Muslims claim that the Koran offers a complete blueprint for any society, including the criminal justice code.

I must say that the prospect disgusts me. Such a process must be fought against tooth and nail.

What an repulsive society is Saudi Arabia! What a religion!

On the other hand it must be said that, for example, the USA has many people still on death row, and many states will have capital punishment on the books. There are some parts of the Bible that are pretty vindictive and bloody

What about the doctrine that the biblical God is a God of love, but also requires the shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sins? Hence the crucifixion of Jesus. Something not quite right about this distasteful idea, methinks.

But beheading followed by crucifixion sounds so primitive and vindictive, doesn’t it? It kind of doesn’t figure - if you really wanted someone to suffer, why not crucify them first, for maximum agony, followed by beheading if you must.

Uuuurrgh!

God, it’s so long since I blogged that all my hundreds of fans must have dissipated! Well, I am resolving to blog frequently to maintain interest, and for my own discipline. God knows I need it because I can be so dissolute, wasting day after day on internet-surfing, reading books and playing the piano.

I’m not getting enough exercise and my back really hurts - day and night - non-stop. Aaargh! I do have a major arthritic problem of non-operative spinal stenosis causing chronic pain, and I’m supposed to get out and walk. But that hurts more than just sitting around, so it’s a bit of a bind, and this suburb is so boring!

Anyway, I have been rehearsing with several musicians each Saturday at my place, and that’s quite good fun - hard work a lot of the time, but good fun. Tomorrow’s the final rehearsal before we go off next weekend to play at the Merimbula Jazz Festival. It’s called the Jazz Travellers (a name I coined in 2000). We have piano (me), drums, bass, tenor sax/clarinet and a singer.

I’m also in a nice little trio called Jazz Therapy, so-called because it makes us feel good. Come to think of it, I once played with a trad band called Major Fieldgood (”made-ya feel good” - gettit?) and that was fun too. My mate Des Shaw from that has given it all way because he now has emphysema, and you can’t play the trumpet with that!

So next Tuesday Glenyce and I pile into the car and push off (actually - pull off) with the caravan for the NSW South Coast - always beautiful up there - staying at Orbost overnight on the way. We’ll do our jazz playing, listening and socializing and then come back in a week’s time.

In the last blog item I blogged on my rash, which has now vanished completely. But Glenyce (my wife) recently saw the GP and got a referral to the same dermatologist who looked at a couple of almost invisible things on her face. She has a squamous cell carcinoma on one cheek and a basal cell carcinoma on the other, and they need to be removed surgically.

A fortnight ago she had the first one cut out of her right cheek and I’ve had the task of daily dressing of the wound with hydrogen peroxide and then vaseline. After the first 48 hours she removed the wound dressing for the first time and I took a photo of the nice, neat 8 or 9 stitches:-

And now she has a bigger cut in her left cheek, up near the eye, which is slowly turning a sort of reddish-purple. We trust that that won’t become too bad, because she assiduously applied an ice-pack regularly after she came from the surgery. When she first takes the wraps off that one on Sunday I’ll take another photo to continue this little saga of the wounded wife.

Stay tuned!

Well, the day after I saw the dermatologist, the rash broke out all over me, mainly all over my thighs, down to the ankles, around the bum, up the back, around my sides up to my armpits, and all along my arms to the wrists. The only areas free of wheals were my chest, the top of my back, and, mercifully, my face! It’s a pity the doc didn’t get to see this in all of its glory. I was so impressed that I took a photo.

Three days later the dermatologist rang me to say that the pathology showed that there was no vasculitis (that is, capillary damage underlying the rash), and that there was no need to obtain a swag of blood tests that he’d arranged for me to get in the event that there was vasculitis. This was a bit of a relief, as it removed the possibility of something sinister associated with the rash.

This left me with plain ordinary urticaria (hives), for which there was nothing to do except take anti-histamines morning and night, to use Celestone-M cream on it, and to shower using body lotion instead of soap. So I’ve continued to do all of that.

The rash has continued for several weeks more, coming and going, but gradually dwindling. And now I’ve gone a week with no evidence of the morning rash. The dermatologist thinks it’s pretty well played itself out, and we’ll never know exactly what caused it. “Idiopathic”, is the term used for that.

Next thing is for him to cut out an enlarged and infected sweat gland in my back, in a week or so, when the antibiotics he prescribed have had a chance to work.

Now I’ve got a whole container of QV body wash for the shower, so I guess I’ll just use all that up instead of soap for a while. God knows what I’ll do with two large tubes of Celestone-M and a whole tube of Hydrazole (for non-existent thrush), but if I get that annoying fungus rash around my crutch (that’s another story of “jock itch”) next summer I’ll be well-prepared!.

I’m due to have the GP arrange for me to have the annual influenza vaccination, and a scheduled pneumonia vaccination, but she’s told me to hold off, as apparently that sort of thing can stir up the recent rash.

I wonder what my body will do next? Who knows what sort of alien protein is lurking around in my intra-corporal nooks and crannies?

Just so long as it’s not Swine Flu!!

The dermatologist today suggested that my mysterious rash is urticaria - hives. But probably not the usual short-lived (24-hours) hives associated with allergies. Rather, because I have chronic urtucaria, it might be urticarial vasculitis. We’ll know soon because he took a biopsy - a plug of skin and underlying tissues, which will be studied and stained and so on, looked at by a pathologist who will determine the nature of any deep-seated changes in the structure of the capillaries lying underneath the hive lesions.

The news might simply be that nothing major is going on, that there is no known cause of the urticaria, and that it will simply go away in its own good time, whic can be months or years. Meanwhile, I take antihistamine tablest and use the Celestone-M cream to minimize the rash.

From my sleuthing on the internet, the bad news is that the rash might be associated with the early stages of an autoimmune disease such as lupus erythematosus or rheumatoid arthritis, in the extreme case. Depending upon the results of today’s biopsy, then the specialist might order blood tests, which may well pick up anything sinister that may be happening.

I await with interest! I never know what by fascinating old body is going to do next. The process of watching the years roll by is just like turning the pages of a novel