09.personal

I have an obvious problem with making critical comments on living people and commenting on the dealings that I have had with them. There are the risks of libel and defamation.
So I shall not give any historical background or explanations. Suffice it to say, that I detest Della Carr and Maurice Michaels.
And when commenting about relatives, I have similar problems to identify someone who has insulted me, and to explain the background. It might upset other family members, whom I like. So my comments about relatives will have to be confined to occasional oral conversations. With one relative, I have severed communications; and this is not likely to change.

Judith's policy of watering pot plants is digital. No, not the computer, but her finger, poked into the soil to judge the moisture. I did not fancy this custom, so I tended to over-water. As a result, if the opposite of 'green fingers' is 'red fingers', then that is what I have. Plants just perished in my care. But there is one exception - a cyclamen in a pot in our porch.
We got it as a present from a neighbour, whom Judith has helped while she was temporarily disabled after a fall. It had very healthy variegated leaves [the cyclamen, not the neighbour], and abundant large flowers. For some obscure reason, I offered to become responsible for its hydrological needs. So every evening, as I lock up the porch door, I lift the pot and judge its weight. If it is light, I add water to its saucer. Cyclamen must not be watered from above - so it is said - although in the wild, the rain does not know this.
For some months now, the flowers have continued. As one flower wilts, a new one rises and unfolds to replace it. Unlike Prince Charles, I have never spoken to it. So its mauve blush is entirely due to natural causes.

My next 'activity' is my slide talk, on medical aspects of art, to Heather's music group and sundry other privileged people next weekend. One portrait that I have found seems to have a Dupuytren's deformity of one hand. There is no information about the subject. But Google tells me that le docteur Dupuytren performed operations on ladies under a peculiar method of anaesthesia. He whispered such lewd things to them, that they fainted and he could operate.

An exciting story relates to another of my slides. A paper in the BMJ careers section featured a painting of a 16. - 17.c. anatomy lesson - right suitable for my lecture. But, unusually for the BMJ, the painting was not identified. I emailed the author, Dr Claire Hilton, to ask. Alas, she did not know - the editors had inserted it. Several inquiries to the BMA over 3 weeks bore no fruit. They are not organized for this sort of inquiry - even by a BMA member... The web site pictures.com, whence the image was taken by the BMJ, did not reply at all. So finally I decided to trouble my friend Patrick Horne in Toronto. Over the weekend, he had the full and complete answer. The painting shows the 16.c. anatomist John Bannister and it is in Scotland.

In her initial reply, Claire Hilton asks, whether I was perhaps Daphne's father. It turns out that both attended Woodford County High school. They have now established contact again - and Daphne and her family have visited them. It's serendipity.